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We Show Up The Path to Decisive Victories in the 2024 Election
Spring 2024 • Carolyn Simon She/Her
Our LGBTQ+ community possesses tremendous political power. From Stonewall to the Supreme Court, from the streets to the voting booth, from workplaces to the White House, we are unrelenting in our pursuit of equality, justice and freedom for all. The common denominator in all of these spaces — and in any space where we find ourselves fighting for our rights — is that when we show up, equality wins.
For that very reason, the Human Rights Campaign launched our WE SHOW UP campaign this spring in the leadup to the 2024 election. It’s a rallying cry that represents the strength of our movement. With so much on the line, it’s time to choose love over hate. Freedom over extremism. Acceptance over intolerance. It’s time to harness the power of our community and make our voices heard, up and down the ballot.
The tide is turning at the state level. Across the country, the anti-LGBTQ+ agenda is facing headwinds. States like West Virginia and Wisconsin are successfully fending off new attacks. Georgia right-wing extremists failed to advance over 20 anti-LGBTQ+ bills during this legislative session. In neighboring Florida, more than 20 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were defeated in this year’s legislative session. In West Virginia, a similar story unfolded. And in Arizona, an effort to put an anti-LGBTQ+ measure on the ballot this November failed after transgender Arizonans met with a GOP senator, moving him to oppose the bill.
The anti-LGBTQ+ agenda is a political loser — and continues to collapse in states that MAGA has identified as fertile ground. And now we must build on this momentum as the most consequential election of our lifetimes looms large.
Out for Biden-Harris
It’s time to re-elect the most pro-equality administration we’ve ever seen in President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Since taking office, Biden has lifted the blanket ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood, began enforcing non-discrimination laws to protect LGBTQ+ people, signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law, and finalized a Title IX rule that clarifies the scope of nondiscrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity throughout educational activities. The administration has also introduced protections for LGBTQ+ youth in foster care and brought attention to the need for increased protections for transgender youth. Most of the pro-LGBTQ+ achievements of the Biden-Harris administration were among the more than 80 policy recommendations listed in HRC’s “Blueprint for Positive Change,” a groundbreaking document released in November 2020 that offered a roadmap toward equality for the then-incoming Biden administration.
We must do everything possible to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. A second Trump term would erode LGBTQ+ rights and undermine our existence. Some of his most notable attacks against LGBTQ+ rights include rescinding Title IX regulations protecting transgender students; banning trans military members from actively serving; permitting discrimination against LGBTQ+ couples in adoption; opposing basic non-discrimination protections, including the Equality Act; and nominating three anti-equality justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Our LGBTQ+ community cannot afford another Trump presidency.
Flipping the House Majority
Beyond the White House, we are just four seats from fl ipping control of the U.S. House and delivering a full repudiation of what has been a disastrous MAGA majority. Crucial to fl ipping the House will be electing trailblazing LGBTQ+ candidates like Julie Johnson of Texas, Mondaire Jones of New York, and Will Rollins of California, in addition to the historic campaign of Delaware’s Sarah McBride to become the fi rst transgender member of Congress. Achieving these goals, which also includes re-electing Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin to the U.S. Senate, will not only dramatically increase LGBTQ+ representation in Washington but put champions for equality on the path to winning majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Join Us
HRC is unleashing a relentless, multipronged effort to leverage the power of our LGBTQ+ community and our allies to secure crucial victories at the ballot box this fall. We will mobilize millions of HRC members, supporters, volunteers, and activists nationwide in support of equality and pro-equality candidates in key races. We will train thousands of activists nationwide, and particularly in battleground states and congressional districts, to build our movement’s organizing capacity. We will hire dozens of full-time organizing staff in key states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — decisive presidential battlegrounds with a combined 77 electoral votes. We will deploy dozens of additional field and headquarters staff to competitive congressional districts nationwide to help flip the U.S. House and secure a pro-equality majority.
Our strength is in numbers. We are the majority. We are 75 million Equality Voters — LGBTQ+ folks and our allies — strong. Our voting bloc is growing by the day. Because our values are American values. And the vast majority of Americans are with us.
Our strength is in our LGBTQ+ youth. Approximately 2,200 LGTBQ+ people turn 18, the age of voter eligibility, every single day. By 2040, LGBTQ+ people will account for 18% of the American electorate, fundamentally shifting the electoral landscape at the local, state and federal levels.
Our strength is in our HRC family — 3.1 million members, including a vast network of tens of thousands of volunteers who have a wealth of electoral and organizing expertise, uniquely positioning us to mobilize the voters who will determine election outcomes up and down the ballot.
Our strength is in you. We need everything you are able to do to protect our democracy and position us to mobilize your friends, family and community to organize, show up and vote.
This November, we show up to defend our democracy for future generations. We show up to reject extreme government control over our lives, personal decisions and how we raise families. we show up to protect best practice healthcare for kids. We show up to protect our rights to love who we love and live our most authentic lives unapologetically. We show up until every last one of us is fully free and liberated – without exception and with no one left behind.
It bears repeating: When WE SHOW UP, equality wins.
Here’s how you can show up today and the months ahead to help secure decisive victories for LGBTQ+ equality in November:
★ Show up with HRC for the election at hrc.org/weshowup
★ Register to vote: hrc.org/vote
★ Read about the Biden-Harris record on LGBTQ+ equality: hrc.im/BidenLGBTQTimeline
★ Help re-elect President Biden and Vice President Harris: hrc.im/pledgetovote
