HRC Hits the Road to Reclaim the American Dream for LGBTQ+ Communities
“For half a century, our movement has changed hearts and minds with our stories — Harvey Milk in the Castro, Pedro Zamora in The Real World, trans youth and parents coming forward in statehouses across the country. When people know who we really are, everything changes. [The American Dreams Tour] is about reclaiming that legacy. We’re traveling to the places where harm is happening — and where hope is rising. We’re showing up for communities who’ve been told they don’t belong and reminding them, and the country, that they are the American dream.” -HRC President Kelley Robinson
The Human Rights Campaign launches the American Dreams Tour: Equality Across America — a bold, nationwide initiative to spotlight LGBTQ+ resilience, resistance and joy at a time of rising political attacks and cultural erasure. Beginning in Columbus, Ohio, and running through November 2025, the tour will travel to cities and towns across the country to celebrate the communities pushing back against hate and fighting for a future of equality for all.
In response to the sharp increase in anti-LGBTQ+ attacks at both a state and federal level, the Human Rights Campaign launched its American Dreams Tour: Equality Across America —a bold, nationwide initiative to spotlight LGBTQ+ resilience, resistance and joy. HRC President Kelley Robinson will be collaborating with local LGBTQ+ leadership and advocates to amplify awareness of LGBTQ+ issues and raise the alarms for much needed organization and policy change in a wider effort to bring equality to every corner of the country.
The American dream has never belonged to just one kind of person. It's been built by people who dared to demand more — by women who marched, by workers who organized, by Black folks who bled for freedom and by LGBTQ+ people who refused to disappear. And every time this country tried to erase us, we rebuilt something stronger — with our stories, our truth and our refusal to be silent.
Through coordinated initiatives, the American Dreams Tour seeks to push back against the unprecedented wave of attacks against LGBTQ+ people — from bans on gender-affirming care and curriculum censorship to anti-trans legislation and HIV funding cuts. The tour will make stops predominantly in red-state cities where LGBTQ+ people are facing the most hostility — but where hope shines through. This includes Columbus, Ohio, where the tour made its first stop in late July.
The Columbus visit featured many powerful events that lifted up the voices of local LGBTQ+ leadership and advocates. The stop kicked off with an intimate kitchen table conversation on the shifting landscape of LGBTQ+ activism in Ohio over the past four decades. From there, we held a community event spotlighting queer joy and power, featuring rousing remarks from longtime champion U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty. The stop also included a city hall event where HRC President Kelley Robinson, alongside Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin and longtime LGBTQ+ advocate Steve Shellabarger, discussed the path forward for equality in Columbus and across the state. The City Council also declared it “Equality Across Ohio Day” to mark the momentous visit.
The tour also coincides with the launch of HRC’s “One Million Voices for Equality” — a nationwide campaign to engage one million LGBTQ+ people and allies and put a renewed focus on one of the most powerful tools we have for changing hearts, minds and policies: our personal stories. Among the many initiatives planned, each stop will feature training by HRC Foundation’s “Voices for Equality” storytelling program to help people harness their personal experiences as tools for change — the first program took place in Columbus and was a huge success. Additionally, HRC will be creating a new YouTube series, “Our American Dreams,” that captures stories from the tour and around the country rooted in LGBTQ+ joy and resilience from people from all walks of life. The series will help relaunch HRC’s YouTube channel as a space with more fresh, conversational and curated content.
As the fight for equality marches forward, the American Dreams Tour aims to uplift the important message that there is not just one American dream, there are many. Alongside its coordinated initiatives, it seeks to make the freedom to learn and love, the freedom to work and worship, the freedom to own a home, build a business and live a long, healthy and authentic life a reality for everyone in America. Paving the way for enhanced grassroots efforts, the tour will build invaluable pathways to crucial freedoms and strengthen the foundational promise of equal opportunity for all.
Learn more at americandreamshrc.org.
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