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Up Front, Winter 2025
10 Years of Reading, Resisting & Rising Together
“Every person has a story to tell, and every story deserves to be heard,” Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson told a group that gathered for a National Day of Reading celebration at HRC headquarters in Washington, D.C.
"Sometimes people try to take books off library shelves, because they're scared of stories that are different from what they know,” said Robinson. “But we know that the best libraries and the best classrooms have all kinds of books about all kinds of people."
The National Day of Reading is a day for thousands of students, educators, parents, caregivers and allies to join in solidarity with transgender and non-binary students. Nearly 25,000 parents, teachers and youth participated in 2025, and since the event’s inception in 2016, over 1,500 readings have taken place on National Day of Reading across the globe, from the United States to Canada, Uganda and Dubai, with over 96,000 people participating.
The Welcoming Schools National Day of Reading is sponsored by the HRC Foundation as well as the National Education Association and the American Association of School Librarians.
Learn more about the National Day of Reading at hrc.im/NationalDayofReading.
275K+ Actions in 100 Days
Now is a moment to show up on the right side of history. Donald Trump, JD Vance and their MAGA extremists wasted no time — starting on day one, they rolled back LGBTQ+ rights. But we're not choosing defeat, we're choosing defiance.
The Human Rights Campaign challenged our community to reach 100,000 actions for LGBTQ+ equality during Trump's first 100 days. By the time the 100th day of the Trump-Vance administration rolled around, our community and allies took more than 275,000 actions!
You helped ensure our champions and opponents alike heard from us, whether through private meetings or public actions. Our movement rose up to say that we oppose every attack on equality. Together, we sent a clear message: Our country is better than this — every person deserves to live with dignity, respect and fairness.
The Profound Impact of Sharing LGBTQ+ Stories
Just two weeks after the Trump administration took office for its second term, with LGBTQ+ equality in the crosshairs, more than 1,000 LGBTQ+ advocates and supporters from across the country gathered in New York City for the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Greater New York Dinner.
The evening featured powerful speeches from special guests such as U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride, The Gilded Age actress Louisa Jacobson and social media star RaeShanda Lias.
LGBTQ+ actor Joe Locke, who shot to fame after his breakthrough performance in Netflix’s chart topping and Emmy Award-nominated LGBTQ+ teen drama series Heartstopper in 2022, talked about how his life has changed since starring in the show — and how it has changed the lives of countless LGBTQ+ people across the world, both young and old.
“I’ve had so many conversations with people about how a show like Heartstopper would have positively impacted their life had it been made when they were younger,” said Locke. “We can’t fix the mistakes of society’s past, but I’m so proud that a show as outwardly queer as Heartstopper can be made today. And I hope with every fiber of my being that we never return to a world where young, queer people can’t see themselves in the media that they consume.”
United Resilience
To commemorate Two-Spirit and Indigenous LGBTQIA Celebration and Awareness Day in March, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation released both a report and video amplifying the voices of Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ Indigenous people in Rapid City, South Dakota. The HRC Foundation documented the experiences of Native individuals, revealing a disturbing pattern of violence, discrimination, and missing persons cases within Native communities. The report highlights these stories, serving as an effort to raise awareness about their struggles and the ongoing need to work in allyship.
“If we don’t tell our stories, then things won’t change,” said Eltina Three Stars, a 38-year-old Oglala Lakota.
Created with the support of Uniting Resilience, an organization dedicated to restoring and celebrating the integral role of Two-Spirit people within the Native community, the report and video touch on issues of marriage equality, increased rates of violence, housing instability and homelessness. The report also offers recommendations to improve the lives and well-being of Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ Indigenous people in South Dakota
Watch the video below and read the report here.
New Report Reveals Growing Gap Between States on LGBTQ+ Equality
In collaboration with Equality Federation Institute, the HRC Foundation recently released the 2024 State Equality Index, a comprehensive state-by-state report that provides a review of statewide laws and policies that affect LGBTQ+ people and their families. The SEI rates all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., in six areas of law and assigns the states to one of four distinct categories.
The 2024 SEI shows many challenges ahead: During just the most recent state legislative session, lawmakers introduced almost 500 bills targeting LGBTQ+ people, with many targeting transgender people specifically. The legislative attacks covered a broad array of topics like blocking parents from accessing best-practice medically-necessary health care for their transgender child, barring young trans people from playing sports, and removing books from school libraries that acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people.
This legislative wave has had far-reaching impacts. Accompanying the SEI, the HRC Foundation released new research that shows that the legislative attacks are taking a significant toll on the LGBTQ+ community with more than seven in ten (71.5%) LGBTQ+ adults reporting that these laws have negatively impacted their mental health or well-being.
Learn more at hrc.org/sei.
