Wolf was galvanized into movement work after surviving the devastating mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. On a warm summer night in June 2016, Wolf met his best friends for a drink at Pulse, “our safe space, our local bar.” What began as an ordinary evening in Orlando turned into one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history: a gunman killed 49 people, including Wolf’s best friends, and injured 53 other people.

As Wolf sees it, his job as a political communications professional at a progressive advocacy organization is to share information, or a story, that motivates people to take action that effects positive, long-lasting change. The implementation of this strategy requires Wolf to determine which communications tools to use and the right people to make the right case, in the right voice, at the right moment.

More than that, he explains, “I let my work be guided by centering people whose lived experiences are most squarely aligned with what we’re talking about.” For example, when he’s writing about a legislative bill that would deny access to health care for transgender people, Wolf first wants to speak with trans folks trying to access that care. In this sense, he aims to bring people at the margins into the center.

Wolf’s service at HRC has come at a perilous moment for the movement. Last summer, HRC declared a national State of Emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States, following the worst state legislative season in our history. We continue to face a national epidemic of fatal violence against transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming people. And this February, the community mourned the tragic death of 16-year-old non-binary student Nex Benedict while witnessing the abject failure of Oklahoma Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters to protect LGBTQ+ students from harassment, discrimination and violence.

In this broader context, Wolf identifies two main challenges for the current LGBTQ+ civil rights movement. “They are not insurmountable,” he declares, “but they do require us to pause and fi gure out how to fi nd balance and resilience.”

The first one is the sheer volume of attacks that our opponents are levying against the community, from multiple directions, all at the same time. According to Wolf, our opponents are determined to make things feel loud and chaotic for our movement; they work tremendously hard to set a million different fi res across the country, he says, so it becomes more difficult for us to pool our resources, identify the arsonists, put out the blazes and find a way to get through the traumas together.

The second challenge is related to the first: How do we find balance and joy in the fight? As our opponents try to run us down with their strategy to overwhelm — trying to divide and conquer and make their backward-looking vision of the country feel pre-determined and inevitable — they sap our strength and hope.

Wolf argues that there is no point in fighting for full liberation if people don’t get to experience moments of liberation along the way; there is no point in fighting for joy without exception if we don’t also find ways to experience joy along the way. Liberation and joy are the whole point of our fight for a better future.

Wolf’s approach is to give 110% in his areas of expertise and then trust others on his team and within HRC and the larger civil rights movement to do their best in their fields as well. And that trust in colleagues and in coalition partners is a key component to finding balance by stepping away from the work to enjoy moments of levity and fun.

He believes that the march toward liberation for all without exception will inevitably succeed if we choose to work together: “It’s not a question of ‘if’ for me — it’s a question of ‘when’ and just what kind of world do we want to build with each other.”

Wolf reflects on the progress that LGBTQ+ people have made over the years — how, at every point similar to the one we’re in now, where things feel extraordinarily challenging and the currents against us seem impossible to overcome — LGBTQ+ people and allies enacted change and found something on the other side that was better and more free than they could have imagined.

And now is such a moment for Wolf — and for HRC. “When we aim for freedom, liberation and joy without exception,” Wolf says, “it’s because we know that these things are waiting for us on the other side: We just have to build the path to get there together — and that includes members of all marginalized communities.”