Unite. Resist. Enlist: How We Fought for Equality in Trump's America in 2017

by HRC Staff

In 2017, HRC united, resisted and enlisted against the injustices happening to LGBTQ people on the federal, state and local levels.

Post submitted by Brian McBride, former HRC Digital Strategist

In 2017, HRC united, resisted and enlisted against the injustices happening to LGBTQ people on the federal, state and local levels. Despite the hateful and bigoted policies pushed by the Trump-Pence administration, we mobilized against their discriminatory agenda to ensure full equality and justice is achieved for everyone, everywhere.

Here’s how HRC, along with our more than three million members and supporters, stood up and fought back in Trump’s America.

We launched HRC Rising -- our largest grassroots expansion in our organization’s history to combat Trump-Pence’s discriminatory policies, mobilizing voters to elect pro-equality majorities in races in 2018 and beyond. 

We joined a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Trump-Pence administration’s ban on military service by transgender service members. And in a major milestone and blow to Trump’s cruel order, the Pentagon will accept transgender recruits on January 1, 2018. 

We mobilized to pull off historic wins to elect pro-equality Senator-elect Doug Jones to represent Alabama in the U.S. Senate and Delegate-elect Danica Roem in Virginia’s House of Delegates.   

We resisted and helped save the Affordable Care Act thanks to the more than 50,000 HRC members and supporters who worked tirelessly to log calls and emails to congressional offices on both sides of the aisle.

We urged the U.S. Senate to reject a slew of anti-LGBTQ extremists from being confirmed in Trump’s cabinet and to federal benches -- resulting in the rejections of Jeff Mateer, Mark Green, and Scott Garrett.

We joined forces for a “Digital Day of Action” to highlight how catastrophic repealing the Affordable Care Act would be for the LGBTQ community and the women’s rights movement.

We turned HRC headquarters in Washington D.C. into the Action and Resource center” during Pride Month to give our supporters concrete ways to take action and resist in their own communities.

We knocked on doors, made calls and mobilized historic voter turnout to deliver remarkable pro-equality wins in elections across the country on Election Day.

We addressed the growing attacks against the LGBTQ community around the world and called on Trump and Tillerson to speak out We  against the anti-LGBTQ human rights abuses occurring in Egypt, Chechnya, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Georgia, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan.

We joined Equality Texas, the ACLU of Texas, the Texas Freedom Network and the Transgender Education Network of Texas to rally at the Texas statehouse to protect transgender youth to defeat anti-transgender legislation during the state’s special session. 

We rallied and marched across the country on behalf of the LGBTQ community, women, Muslims, immigrants, Dreamers and other marginalized groups who have been shamelessly and consistently attacked by the Trump-Pence administration.  

Each and every day, HRC and our grassroots supporters will harness the full power of our democracy to protect our progress and resist at every turn against Trump and Pence’s politics of hate and division.