Focus groups will take place on the following dates:

Tuesday, February 7th
Thursday, February 9th
Thursday, February 16th

Focus groups will be hosted from 6:30-8:00pm at the GMHC office building, 446 West 33rd Street, New York, NY, 10001. Light refreshments and beverages will be served, but no other incentive will be provided.

If you are available to participate in a focus group, or have any questions about this opportunity, please contact Andrew Silapaswan at policy2@gmhc.org. For more information on GMHC’s efforts to reform U.S. blood donation guidelines, please visit http://gmhc.org/advocate/msm-blood-ban.

Viola Johnson receives the Leather Leadership Award.

At this year’s Creating Change conference in Baltimore, Md., Viola Johnson received the Leather Leadership Award for serving as an activist, educator, writer, motivational speaker and author in the Leather community for nearly four decades. Vi is passionately involved with preserving the history of the SM/Leather/Fetish communities serving as the Director and Senior Griot for the Carter/Johnson Library and Collection. Johnson delivered a powerful acceptance speech in which she talked about the importance of preserving our history.

Watch the video:

UPDATE: The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has reversed its decision and will continue to fund Planned Parenthood for breast cancer prevention, screenings and education. They apologized to the American people for casting doubt on their “commitment to save women’s lives.”

Earlier this week, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a leading breast-cancer charity, announced it would cut off funding to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer prevention, screenings and education. According to Planned Parenthood, the Komen-funded programs have helped thousands of women in rural and underserved communities get breast health education, screenings and referrals for mammograms, including low-income women for whom a Planned Parenthood doctor can be their only medical provider. Also, according to Planned Parenthood, 75 percent of their clients have incomes at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

Planned Parenthood officials have stated that anti-choice groups have repeatedly threatened Komen for its partnership with them. These officials also said that news articles suggest that the Komen Foundation ultimately succumbed to these pressures. Read Planned Parenthood’s statement here.

Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey said:

The decision by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation to cut off funding for breast cancer exams at Planned Parenthood health centers is sad, disappointing and puts women’s lives at risk, especially the lives of low-income and poor women. Planned Parenthood helps thousands of women across the country to identify breast cancer early, providing them with the chance of successful treatment. Komen should do the right thing and protect the lives of low-income families by retracting this damaging decision. Women who need access to this critical, lifesaving care are the real victims in this compassion-free game of politics.

It’s time for us to step up and ask the Komen Foundation to restore its funding to Planned Parenthood, so they can continue saving lives. Please sign this petition and forward it to your friends and family.

Ernesto Dominguez receives the Youth Leadership Award.

At this year’s Creating Change conference in Baltimore, Md., Ernesto Dominguez received the Paul A. Anderson Youth Leadership Award for his activism in Portland, Ore., with CHATpdx and with Advocates for Youth. Dominguez delivered a heartfelt acceptance speech in which he talked about the trials of being out both as a gay man and undocumented.

You can watch video of the speech on Youtube:

You can also read the full text here:

I would first of all like to thank you for the honor of accepting this award. I stand here today with the distinct privilege that many others do not have. I say privilege because I am aware of how many queer undocumented folks are not able to attend Creating Change. Had this award been given to me just a few months sooner, I would have not have been able to receive it. Had this award been offered to me just a few months sooner I would have had to decline accepting it because I am not a U.S. citizen and was not documented. I ask that we be more aware of the people not at the table. The voices that are silent, not by their own choosing, but by that of immigration law. This is why I do the work I do, because it is increasingly important for me to be aware of the empty space these community does not take up in our movement.

I remember first coming to the 2008 conference in Detroit. While many of my peers were struggling with what to pack, what to wear and what to make their status update on Facebook, I was busy practicing what I would say to TSA if I was questioned or how to explain the fact that I could not vote for president. I spent weeks making a plan in case I was arrested at the airport or if I lost my identification. I was worried about fitting in enough so I wouldn’t be searched or questioned. I was worried about losing my ID and not being able to board a flight home.

Coming out as gay has always been easier than the process of explaining what it means for me to not have the privilege of citizenship. Not being a U.S. citizen means that although I was born in Mexico, I cannot leave the U.S. to visit my mom and little brother or be at the funeral for my grandparents. It means that although I have a brother and sister only a couple states away they cannot travel to see me because they lack identification to board a plane or drive a car. As a result my mom and my brother have never been able to meet my partner of three years. My brother is unable to see my home or my life and as a result until last month he thought that my being gay meant that I was living my life as a woman and was moving towards a sex change. Because he had never met my boyfriend he only understood my sexual identity as what he has seen on weekend telenovelas. The social isolation, fear and distrust associated with being undocumented makes it difficult for me to assimilate my queer identity with my Chicano culture and my Latino family.

My activism career has created even more difficult situations than my identity has. As a non-citizen I have been consulted by my immigration lawyer to not sign petitions, vote, contribute to political campaigns or write my congress people. Any of these things can be seen as treason as defined in immigration documents and even things like protesting can jeopardize the conditional visa I was finally granted. A visa that was only granted because a U.S. born citizen committed a heinous crime against me. How then can I work on the social justice issues impacting my community while also balancing the reality that I may lose my ability to just live in the U.S. How can anyone in my position fight for marriage equality or reproductive rights when my protest can be a cause for my deportation from this country.

I am not the only one facing these issues and for our families that can’t attend this conference because they are undocumented or their identification doesn’t match birth records. So I challenge each and every one of you to ask yourselves: Who are the people who can’t be here? What are the stories and experiences that we are missing? Which groups are not represented? What are we missing?

We have a responsibility, and I hope I can ask that each and every one of you here can take on the challenge of figuring out how to make the information and resources here accessible to queer folks of color who unfortunately do not have the privilege to attend Creating Change. With a record number of folks being deported each year (even under the Obama administration) I ask that we work even more diligently to support and broaden the voices of our immigrant communities. Provide alternatives to travel so we don’t have to risk flying.  Being aware of immigration laws in your state and educating young activists about their rights if detained. Acknowledge that not every activist can vote or sign petitions. Share our stories and asking how you can help and when you do ask, follow through with those asks. Be our voice in rooms that we can’t be in. Change how you speak about immigration like deleting the words “illegal immigrant” from your vocabulary. Interrupt your peers when they say the same, because although it may not seem like it, calling us “illegal” and criminalizing our basic existence does not do this movement justice. No human being is illegal.

I look forward to continuing to work on the intersectionalities of our identities because I believe that that is truly where the most amazing work happens. LGBT rights are immigrant rights and immigrant rights are LGBT rights and together we can achieve a more just and supportive society. As we move forward we must also engage young people in these processes. The Task Force understands the value of mentoring LGBTQ youth. The number of opportunities at this conference for youth is important to them. Personally the staff at the task force has always been available to me when I was in need of resources or positive role modeling.

Finally, I would like to plug two amazing organizations, Cascade AIDS Project and Advocates for Youth who both understand how important and valuable the role of young people in any social justice movement. Y’all make amazing things happen and have created spaces for me to gain the skills I needed to move my communities forward. Maybe this kind of change is the “end” that the Mayans prophesized for 2012.

I’d like to leave you with the words of Marianne Williamson from her book, “a return to love” in regards to our power-

“It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.”

Thank you.

He received numerous rounds of applause during his remarks to activists from around the nation who have been meeting this week in Baltimore to strategize and mobilize in this critical election year. He told the crowd:

“We have just begun our 2012 legislative session, and if there is a common thread running through the issues that we are addressing, it is the thread of human dignity — the dignity of every individual and every family in our state. The dignity which says that discrimination based on gender identity is wrong — and that passing a law to protect transgender Marylanders from employment, credit and housing discrimination is the right thing to do. The dignity of a free and diverse people who at the end of the day, all want the same thing for their children: to live in a loving and caring and stable home that is protected equally under the law.”

O’Malley then talked about the effort to secure marriage equality in Maryland. He mentioned the broad coalition working on the issue, including faith, labor, family and civil rights groups. He said:

“Other states have found a way to protect religious liberty, religious freedom and to protect rights equally, and it is time for Maryland to do the same – and that’s why this week we proposed a civil marriage law in the General Assembly of Maryland and we seek to get it done this year. Our bill balances equal protection of individual rights with the important protection of religious liberty and religious freedom. Maryland was the seventh state admitted to the union. We believe with your help and a lot of hard work, we will be the seventh state to pass a civil marriage equality law.”

You can read the full text of O’Malley’s remarks here.

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley addresses Creating Change.

The Task Force’s 2012 Leather Leadership Award was presented to Viola Johnson, who has been an activist, educator, writer, motivational speaker and author in and for the leather community for nearly four decades. Viola thanked Creating Change participants for “understanding that yours is the next generation of voices that will not be silenced.”

Viola Johnson receives the Leather Leadership Award.

The Corporate Leadership Award was presented to Showtime by Task Force Director of Institutional Gifts David Alexander to honor the company’s historic support for the LGBT community from the airing of the film As Is in 1986, one of the first films ever to address the AIDS crisis, to groundbreaking programs Queer as Folk and The L Word, to direct philanthropic support for many years to the Task Force and other LGBT organizations. The network shared a video montage, and George Debolt accepted the award on behalf of the network.

George Debolt accepts the Corporate Leadership Award for Showtime.

Task Force Deputy Executive Director of External Relations Russell Roybal presented Ernesto Dominguez with the Paul A. Anderson Youth Leadership Award for his activism in Portland, Ore., with CHATpdx and with Advocates for Youth. He spoke passionately about the trials of being out both as a gay man and undocumented. “LGBT rights are immigrant rights, and immigrant rights are LGBT rights,” he said.

Task Force Deputy Executive Director of External Relations Russell Roybal presents Ernesto Dominguez with the Youth Leadership Award.

Wilson Cruz, known for his role as Rickie in My So-Called Life and Angel in Rent performed ‘”Love, Child” to close out the conference.

Wilson Cruz performs 'Love, Child.'

In addition to the closing plenary, early in the morning, pro-LGBT faith people convened one last time for Engaging the Spirit, an interfaith gathering to close Practice Spirit, Do Justice. It included rituals, readings and music from diverse spiritual traditions to symbolize the coming together of these particular faiths and as a call to continue to do justice.

Practice Spirit, Do Justice is an important component of the Creating Change convening. This gathering brought together faith leaders and laypeople from numerous denominations and spiritual practices. They strategized on how to bring more faith allies into the LGBT movement and how best to counter religious-based bigotry. The workshops touched upon a diverse array of issues from how to make the religious case for LGBT equality to discussing the process of coming out as an LGBT minister. As part of Practice Spirit, Do Justice, a selection of stoles from the Shower of Stoles Project is put on display. The project is an extraordinary collection of more than 1,000 liturgical stoles and other sacred items representing the lives of LGBT people of faith.

The Shower of Stoles on display at Creating Change.

Thanks to & from the staff of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force for another successful Creating Change! We can’t wait to see you in Atlanta, Ga., Jan. 23-27, 2013, for our 25th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change!

The staff of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan addresses the Creating Change audience.

First up, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a new HUD policy to fight discrimination against LGBT people in federally supported housing programs. The new rules, to be published next week, will help LGBT people and their families across the country stay in their homes, get the loans they need to buy homes, and access life-saving federal assistance programs to help get low-income people and families back on their feet. You can read more about the new policy and Donovan’s full remarks here.

Update: You can watch video of Secretary Donovan’s remarks here:

Donovan is the first sitting Cabinet secretary in history to speak at the National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, the country’s largest annual gathering of LGBT rights advocates.

The plenary ended with an extraordinary panel focusing on international issues. Cary Alan Johnson, executive director of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, moderated the discussion featuring LGBT organizers from around the world, including Nisha Ayub, programme manager of the Transgender Programme of the Pink Triangle Foundation of Malaysia; Joel Simpson, founder and co-chairperson of the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) in Guyana; and Val Kalende, a noted Ugandan LGBT activist and co-founder of Freedom and Roam Uganda.

Mira Patel, special advisor on LGBT and women’s rights at the U.S. State Department, joined the discussion to reiterate the Obama administration’s support of international LGBT human rights. This follows a Presidential Memorandum from President Obama and a historic speech from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supporting LGBT human rights earlier this year.

Each of the organizers told stories of discrimination in their home countries, including appallingly discriminatory laws against homosexuality and transgender people. Yet, all of the organizers expressed hope for positive change and are building political power within their countries to enact that change.

At the end of the panel, there was a call to take action to promote international LGBT human rights. You can join the action by visiting iglhrc.org/action to send letters to the U.S. ambassadors to Guyana, Malaysia and Uganda to promote and support LGBT human rights.

International panel with IGLHRC at Creating Change.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announces the new rule.

Today, while addressing nearly 3,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s 24th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a new HUD policy to fight discrimination against LGBT people in federally supported housing programs.

The new rules, to be published next week, will help LGBT people and their families across the country stay in their homes, get the loans they need to buy homes, and access life-saving federal assistance programs to help get low-income people and families back on their feet.

Donovan is the first sitting Cabinet secretary in history to speak at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, the country’s largest annual gathering of LGBT rights advocates. They have been meeting this week in Baltimore to strategize and mobilize in this critical election year.

“I’m here this afternoon because our president and his administration believe the LGBT community deserves a place at the table — and also a place to call home. Each of us here knows that rights most folks take for granted are routinely violated against LGBT people,” Donovan said. “That’s why I’m proud to stand before you this afternoon and say HUD has been a leader in the fight — your fight and my fight — for equality. Over the last three years, we have worked to ensure that our housing programs are open. Not to some. Not to most. But open to all.”

Donovan spotlighted steps HUD has already taken to help protect LGBT people from housing-related discrimination. This work includes protecting LGBT people from discrimination under the Fair Housing Act and collecting data to better understand how same-sex couples suffer housing discrimination.

Donovan then unveiled the latest step.

“Today, I am proud to announce a new Equal Access to Housing Rule that says clearly and unequivocally that LGBT individuals and couples have the right to live where they choose. This is an idea whose time has come,” he said.

Donovan outlined the scope of the new rule.

“First and foremost, this rule includes a new equal access provision that prohibits owners and operators of HUD-funded housing, or housing whose financing we insure, from inquiring about an applicant’s sexual orientation or gender identity or denying housing on that basis. If you are denying HUD housing to people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity — actual or perceived — you’re discriminating, you’re breaking the law — and you will be held accountable. That’s what equal access means, and that’s what this rule is going to do.”

He continued, “Secondly, this rule makes clear that LGBT families … are eligible for HUD’s public housing and Housing Choice Voucher programs that collectively serve 5.5 million people. Third, the rule also makes clear that sexual orientation and gender identity should not and cannot be part of any lending decision when it comes to getting a mortgage insured by the FHA — part of HUD.”

This announcement marks another victory for the New Beginning Initiative, a coalition of more than two dozen organizations convened by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, working to change how the federal government treats LGBT people and their families. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force applauds the work of its coalition partners to secure this win for LGBT people and their families.

“Thanks to your leadership in convening the New Beginning Initiative, together we have made extraordinary progress, creating changes throughout the administration that have improved the day-to-day lives of LGBT people across the country,” Donovan said.

Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, praised today’s announcement and spoke of its vital importance to the lives of LGBT people.

“This policy announced today by Secretary Donovan will literally save lives. LGBT people and their families all across the country depend on HUD programs to have a roof over their head. Unfortunately, there are landlords out there who would choose to discriminate, putting families in peril,” Carey said. “These housing protections will reduce homelessness and increase economic security for LGBT people, which helps break the cycle of poverty that many families experience due to discrimination.”

She added, “This announcement could not have been made to a more appropriate crowd — the thousands of LGBT activists working on the ground in all of the states across the country who see the impacts of housing discrimination every day. We thank President Obama and Secretary Donovan for their recognition of the importance of housing security and their continued commitment to ending discrimination against LGBT people.”

Read Secretary Shaun Donovan’s full remarks at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change here:

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/press/speeches_remarks_statements/2012/Speech_01282012

Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey delivered the ‘State of the LGBT Movement’ address at the 24th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change on Friday, Jan. 27. You can read the full text of the speech here.

Obama administration officials take questions from the LGBT community at Creating Change.

At the end of the plenary, Michael Adams, executive director of Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE), gave the SAGE Advocacy Award for Excellence in Leadership in Aging Issues to Kathy Greenlee, assistant secretary of Aging at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As a federal appointee by President Obama, she played a leading role in the Administration on Aging’s decision to fund the creation of the country’s first and only National Resource Center on LGBT Aging.

Assistant Secretary of Aging at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Kathy Greenlee accepts the SAGE Award.

Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey Delivers the "State of the LGBT Movement" at Creating Change.

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey presented the annual “State of the LGBT Movement” address today at the 24th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, in Baltimore, Md., where nearly 3,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates have gathered to strategize and mobilize to advance LGBT equality and social justice in this critical election year.

Read the full text of Carey’s speech after the jump:

This has already been an awesome conference and we’re just getting warmed up!

How about Ben Jealous’ speech last night! We will stand with Ben Jealous and the NAACP.

And Joan Biren’s reminder of the power of images, of art in social change.

Welcome to Creating Change 2012! A special welcome to my family and friends from D.C. who are here today.

As I was preparing for Creating Change this year, my daughter and I were singing along to the brilliant musical, Wicked — specifically, the song, Defying Gravity, and it gave me some inspiration — not my singing, but the song.

Yes, I know, a particularly gay move on my part; a Broadway show as inspiration for my remarks… thus revealing my gender queerness as a gay man.

And, yes, we do have a conference session for that.

We also have one for Newt Gingrich and his open marriage, (score one on your Kate Clinton bingo card). But I digress.

As the song Defying Gravity starts in the musical, the people of Oz shout that Elphaba — known eventually as the Wicked Witch — is evil, wicked, to be feared and driven away.

In her questioning the status quo, what those in Oz hold to be true, in standing up for others, Elphaba gives voice to challenging limitations, to not playing the game, to doing something extraordinary… and she flies.

The feeling of defying gravity is one that I suspect is, in some ways, familiar to many of us here.

To work against the forces that drag us down as human beings, that pull us down and limit us as a movement, that portray us as something that we are not.

Yes, LGBT people have been called a repulsion, a harm to society. We have been called wicked.

The fact that we have made it this far, surviving childhood taunts, the neglect of churches and schools, the laws and policies of a country that have treated us as criminals… This is already a testament to our ability to defy gravity.

Individually — and more often together — we’ve worked for and achieved what many couldn’t even envision.

We have done what some thought impossible, but we know is inevitable.

So, here we are together again at Creating Change, sharing strategies on overcoming the challenges that face us, learning from each other how to defy gravity.

I know you sacrificed to be here.

You had to save up, take a bus, or squeeze a bunch of people into a van to get here.

It says everything that during one of our nation’s most challenging economic times, we have our biggest Creating Change conference ever.

Thank you for doing what you had to do to get here.

Creating Change would not be the same — and would not be possible — without you.

Some days it feels like we aren’t making progress, but we have come a long way since the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969. In fact, the pace of our progress and our pursuit of justice has accelerated in the last few years.

And not just because the last of my high school crushes, Kristy McNichol finally came out after being with her partner for 20 years.

I’m just waiting for Velma of Scooby-Doo to come out and my list will be complete.

2012 will be an important year because of us and of what we will achieve together…
Because we in this room and those who can’t be with us but share our vision, will work for a transformed society in which no one feels they must hide who they are or who they love, not for 20 years, not for even one day.

In this past year alone, with our work together…

• We passed statewide, transgender nondiscrimination laws in Connecticut, Nevada, Hawaii and Massachusetts.

• We passed birth certificate laws eliminating surgical standards for transgender people in California and Vermont.

• We defeated the anti-trans bill in Maine that would have allowed discrimination against transgender people in sex-segregated spaces.

• Bullying-prevention policies that specifically protect LGBT youth are now in some unexpected places, including Dallas, Texas; Jackson, Miss.; Oklahoma City; and the entire state of Arkansas.

• We finally brought an end to DADT.

And remarkably, despite the right-wing heebie jeebies about having gay, lesbian and bisexual people serve in the military, when Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta gave her partner a much-publicized kiss, it didn’t sink her ship or the marriages of the crew!

And remember, her ship docked in Virginia!

This year:

• Our Task Force organizers helped raise seed money and taught activists how to build a bigger team for an LGBT nondiscrimination law that will be on the ballot this spring in Anchorage, Alaska.

• We trained activists and mobilized voters to fend off a threat to Traverse City, Michigan’s existing LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination law.

• Here in Maryland, a gender identity anti-discrimination bill was introduced, and this Monday Governor Martin O’Malley formally introduced the Civil Marriage Protection Act, which would extend marriage to same-sex couples.

• And, just 24 hours ago, after two years of public education, field organizing, signature-gathering, and just plain old knocking on more than one hundred thousand doors, Equality Maine; Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders; and the Why Marriage Matters Maine Coalition delivered over 105,000 signatures to the statehouse, announcing that they will make Maine the first state to go to the ballot box with a proactive measure to pursue marriage equality.

And then, they hopped on planes to get here for Creating Change!

We at the Task Force are honored to have helped in many of these efforts and to have worked with our colleagues in the statewide equality organizations.

And, speaking of relationships, Hawaii, Illinois, Rhode Island and Delaware now have civil unions in place and, it is now legal to get married in the state of New York!

Congratulations to the activists in all these states and others that made gains this year.

We also made progress in many states where Task Force staff engaged in the broad range of issues affecting LGBT people and their families:

• In Mississippi, we joined our women’s health and reproductive justice allies to defeat the anti-choice personhood measure.

• In California, we partnered with the ACLU of Southern California to gather signatures for a future campaign to abolish the state’s death penalty, disproportionately affecting people of color.

• And in Maine, we helped beat back one of the many recent attacks on the very right to vote in this country. If we had lost that vote, we wouldn’t be seeing marriage or other progressive advances anytime soon in Maine.

And federal progress has been made as well. Despite a Congress that has proven resistant to any LGBT-specific legislation, our work to build alliances, our strategic thinking and our mobilization has led to progress.

Like getting LGBT people explicitly included in the Health Equity and Accountability Act; in the HOME bill — Housing Opportunities Made Equal — and in the Violence Against Women Act.

These are all bills that are not LGBT-specific but with our hard work are becoming LGBT inclusive and have the potential to affect the economic security and quality of life for hundreds of thousands of LGBT people and their families.

I know 300 of you participated in our first-ever Creating Change Lobby Day yesterday and I thank you for sharing your lives to change minds in Congress. You were amazing!

And we are not stopping with inclusion in bills. We are after concrete changes that make our lives better.

The Task Force’s New Beginning Initiative, a coalition of 26 organizations, has been working diligently to improve the lives of LGBT people and our families in tangible, meaningful ways by changing federal policies.

And together, as a community, with the Obama administration, we have improved lives.

When the executive branch issues guidelines to assist LGBT refugees and asylum seekers and the Department of Justice states for the first time, “We consider LGBT families to be families” — we made life better.

When the Department of Veterans Affairs issues a national directive to all of its health facilities regarding the appropriate and respectful care of transgender veterans, we made life better.

When LGBT families can no longer be turned away from public housing or a home loan, we made life better.

When we get to say who our families are so we can be by each others’ side when we are sick or hurt in a hospital, we made life better.

And this past year, because of your advocacy and the Obama administration’s actions, that became the case in over 90 percent of hospitals, like Rolling Hills Hospital in Tennessee, and Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Md.

In both these hospitals, when they turned away partners at the door, and they were reminded of the federal rules, they had to apologize to the families and train their staff. This rule has teeth and hospitals are being held accountable.

When we hear these words from a White House cabinet member:

“Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights.”

“To LGBT men and women worldwide: Wherever you live and whatever your circumstances…please know that you are not alone.”

We most definitely made life better.

Thank you, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama for the presidential memorandum that went with it.

The truth is — we can both appreciate our progress yet feel frustrated by the incomplete and sometimes slow pace of change. There is still much work ahead.

We know the truth in the old adage that when the people lead, the leaders will follow. Creating Change family, we will be called upon to lead in this coming year.

We will have to play both offense and defense this year with marriage in play here in Maryland and in Washington, New Jersey, Maine, Minnesota and North Carolina… and we will be called to lead.

In states across the country, we must press forward on securing protections for people who experience discrimination because of their gender identity, including Michigan, New York and right here in Maryland. And we will be called to lead.

In some states, like Oregon, hard but strategic and disciplined decisions have been made, to not push for marriage until the time is right to use our movement’s resources well — and to win. They have expressed leadership in doing so.

Many of you will be called to lead in your communities on immigration reform, making schools safe, fighting anti-affirmative action measures, and on economic justice and transgender rights.

But what’s important to remember is that leading doesn’t have to mean winning. I know we won’t win in all of these places but what I do know is that we are strong and determined and that with perseverance like ours, we cannot be denied for long.

We cannot stop until the abuses of transgender immigrant detainees stop.

We cannot stop until our brothers and sisters who can now openly serve in the military can share their benefits with their spouses and until transgender people can choose to serve.

We can’t be fully free if after 30 years of AIDS, we know more about prevention and treatment than ever before but infection rates for gay and bisexual men — especially for men of color — are actually rising while funding and services are decreasing.

Progress for some is not progress for all and we will not stop until we are all fully free.

There are some challenges in our pursuit of freedom that are just beginning for us — challenges other movements before us have seen.

One challenge is that we’ve already won! Oh, you didn’t get the memo?

Ninety percent of voters already believe we have federal employment protections — and this includes LGBT people who end up surprised when they are fired from their jobs and they have no recourse.

Over the last 20 years, we have been so successful at winning employment protections in cities and states — that now over 52 percent of people live in a jurisdiction with sexual orientation discrimination protections, and 44 percent with gender identity protections. And many more have protections through labor contracts or corporate employment policies. But what about LGBT people who live in the states without employment protections or work for companies that don’t include us in their policies?

Ninety percent of voters think there is already a federal employment protections law, which makes it a bit of a challenge to mobilize them to fight for one.

And why would they, when we already have a law?

Except we don’t!

In order to defy gravity, to not stall out, we must make clear to decision-makers, our friends and family, that many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people go to work each day, terrified that someone will find out who they are or who they love.

And we need a federal law to protect them.

And our second challenge… well, marriage.

Marriage puts us between the rock of limited, hard won and celebrated successes — and the hard place of positive yet almost singular media attention.

Specifically, now that we’ve overturned “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” many now believe that our movement is about one thing and one thing only — marriage.

So let’s talk about marriage.

The richness of our families and how we create them — whether we choose to get married or not — when our families are ignored or denied, the very institution of marriage is weakened, not strengthened.

And we won’t stop fighting until the choice to get married is the law of the land everywhere, for everyone who wants it.

But that’s not all we’re fighting for. The LGBT movement is not a movement for marriage only. It is a movement for the full dignity of our lives, for a transformed society.

The challenge is, when the LGBT movement is framed by the media and seen by others as a single-issue, marriage-only movement, it limits what we can achieve.

The spotlight on wins, losses and steps toward marriage creates a lot of excitement and energy and directs much-needed funding toward our movement for our work on marriage.

Marriage has motivated our allies and captured the attention of people who weren’t paying attention before.

But someday, someday when we succeed in nationwide recognition of our marriages, and even along the way, we will likely see that the engagement in our movement will drop off. Severely.

Where we have achieved marriage already, there has been a significant drop in donations, attention and engagement for our movement’s organizations. Some have had to lay off staff even while struggling to get attention for other very pressing issues.

We have learned that with a win, we usually have to turn right around and defend that win.

We also know that people who aren’t included in that win remain vulnerable to discrimination.

We’ve seen this dynamic before in other movements.

Consider the women’s movement and Roe v. Wade.

Almost 40 years after the Supreme Court decision declaring a woman’s reproductive decisions are hers to make, women and men still must fight everyday to stop the erosion of reproductive health services for women.

The lesson here is that we must continue to build public support for our gains, whether court decisions or legislative victories.

The Roe decision did something else, too. It added to the women’s movement being seen as a single-issue movement — abortion.

So, over the last 40 years, it has been a challenge to get equal pay for equal work; to create appropriate and affordable childcare in this country; to get full equality for women.

Think about it.

If we could all choose to get married anywhere if we wanted to, without limitation, if a marriage in one state was recognized as a marriage in all states — would all our aspirations be fulfilled?

Would society be transformed such that all of us, every one of us, live in dignity and with full respect, from cradle to grave?

Of course not.

At the Task Force, we say we’re more. At the Task Force, we say we want more than marriage — there is no singular solution to the many ways we experience discrimination, violence and bigotry.

At the Task Force we insist that immigration, and housing, and health care and fair wages and Social Security and ending systemic racism and sexism are all LGBT issues.

Now don’t hear me wrong. I will fight like hell for marriage equality. And I am proud to be married to Margaret.

And, within the existing structure of how benefits are provided in this country, if we don’t overturn the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” and secure marriage across the country, we will hit a brick wall in the changes we seek for LGBT people and our families in immigration policies, in Social Security benefits, in the very economic underpinnings that give us security.

So, in this political moment, while our movement is experiencing intensely focused attention because of marriage, we must take advantage of this moment by pushing to make visible the fullest scope of the social change we seek.

We in the LGBT movement must defy the gravitational pull that frames ours as a single-issue movement.

I know we can overcome these challenges, with work, we’ve done it before.

We’ve been at this a long time at the Task Force, and we know from experience that a win remains a win only if we sustain it and build on it and stay fully engaged.

And 2012 will require a lot of political engagement. The sheer number of pieces of state legislation and ballot measures that will affect the lives of LGBT people this year are staggering. And our collective work on all of those will be important.

But there is one issue that we all must pay attention to this year.

Our opposition — those who do not believe in our full humanity or equality are on the attack. But, mobilizing the right-wing base to come out and vote on marriage isn’t actually their trump card anymore — it’s much deeper than that.

It’s the very ability to cast a vote.

They could derail our progress for years by focusing on something that our movement could easily mistake as not “our” issue. Believe me, it is our issue when we or our allies find ourselves without easy access to the polls.

2012 promises to be a harder playing field than 2011 because the political playing field itself is under threat.

There is a systematic effort in states across the country to take the vote away from people of color, students, the working poor and unemployed, people who’ve lost their homes, young voters, people with disabilities and the elderly.

A plan to cut out the base of progressive voters from the process. This massive voter suppression effort is also having a devastating effect on the ability of transgender people to vote.

We’re talking about executive orders in 14 states and 20 new laws that make it harder for 5 million people to vote this year. Ben shared stories last night.

It’s one of the last desperate ploys by those who can no longer compete with the power of their ideas.

Voter suppression laws — some taken right out of the Jim Crow playbook — are part of a series of strategies to take away the voting rights of millions and keep this nation’s decision-making power in the hands of a few.

Having lost ground on LGBT and racial justice and equality over the last 40 years, and not having enough respect for our democracy to accept it, the right is now doing all it can to complicate the rules to register, get a ballot, vote early — you name it, they’ll do it, if it disenfranchises certain types of voters.

And so we are called to lead and to protect access to voting. This is in our self-interest and in the interest of our allies! We are people of color, we are students, we are transgender.

And if that weren’t enough, let’s look at where these voter-suppression laws are being put to a vote.

Of course, many of these laws have been implemented or are on the ballot in the South. Don’t get me started.

And, over two dozen bills or ballot measures will be in play in the next two years, including in Michigan, New Jersey, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina…ring a bell?

Michigan, New Jersey, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina.

If we do not protect the right to vote, we will not win on immigration, we will not win on nondiscrimination, we will not protect affirmative action and we will not win on marriage.

We must register the voters the right doesn’t want registered. We must get the voters to the polls the right is trying to keep from the polls.

In this coming election, we stand for ourselves by also standing for and with others. We stand for ourselves by occupying the voting booth.

Yes, we have come to this again — to vote is an act of resistance. But it is also an act of insistence. We insist that all potential voters have a voice.

As people who know more than our share about mistreatment, inequality and unfairness, this is our fight.

So in this room full of the best grassroots activists I know, I say, occupy the vote! Vote. Take others to the polls if you can’t vote yet. Speak out against voter suppression.

And if you get to the ballot box and you are turned away for any reason, I want you cast a provisional ballot, to document your story, post it on Facebook, tweet it, and contact the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, let people know this is happening.

And to help you in this act of insistence, we have set up a voter registration table in the exhibit hall. And, you can text “Vote2012″ to 69866 to pledge to vote and to get more information about voter registration.

Next year, the Task Force will turn 40.

Since 1973, the Task Force has been building power, taking action and creating change. We have been defying gravity. We were the first national LGBT advocacy organization and turning 40 makes you think.

Just as when we opened our doors, we must be fearless and driven by innovation and the power to envision what some think impossible.

That’s what Creating Change has always been all about: learning, innovation, developing strategies to win, the next big ideas, bringing people together to push the boundaries of what is possible and move us all forward.

What does defying gravity look like?

Defying gravity means creating space or breaking ground for others.

It looks like a gay man volunteering on a pro-choice campaign.

It looks like an immigrant who is HIV-positive, telling his story of detention mistreatment despite risking deportation, because people held in immigration custody deserve dignity, respect and access to medication.

It looks like Girl Scouts in Colorado standing up for a trans girl joining their troop, and launching a national “buycott” of Thin Mints, Samoas, Do-Si-Dos.

It looks like a trans high school student holding her head high as she walks through the hallways with pride and confidence in herself, no matter what others think or say.

Defying gravity means we do something despite fear, criticism or negative consequences. It is digging deep to tap our own strength to resist that which attempts to hold us down.

It looks like the ideas, innovation and passion in this room.

This is our time to defy gravity and to Create Change.

Thank you and enjoy the conference!