Our Tomorrow: LGBTQ Americans seek a more inclusive movement that joins forces with others
By Nicholle Manners
To many Americans, the LGBTQ movement has recently been defined by a single goal: marriage equality. Yet a myriad of issues impact LGBTQ people — and their families, friends and loved ones — that influence their everyday lives at home, at work and in the community.
Participants in Our Tomorrow, a national conversation among LGBTQ people across the country, raised more than 50 issues affecting their lives, from aging and bullying to personal finances, parenting and politics. Led by a coalition of 140 organizations, the campaign was aimed at engaging LGBTQ people from all walks of life in a conversation to shape the future of the movement.
People from all 50 states shared nearly 15,000 hopes, fears and ideas about the future of the LGBTQ community, either at grassroots events in more than 40 cities or online at ShareOurTomorrow.org. These results represent one of the largest and broadest data sets ever created about the concerns of LGBTQ people and, according to The Advocate, “[presents] a clearer picture than ever before of the U.S. LGBT community.”
The final report, available now, explores issues and insights arising from the conversation. First among those findings is the sheer diversity of issues highlighted by LGBTQ people across the country. To address the full range of issues, many participants called for greater inclusion in the movement, which they perceived to be dominated by affluent, gay, white men. They called for people from all demographic groups, backgrounds and interests to come together to demand change.
Describing the victory for marriage equality as an opportunity to pivot to new issues, participants shared hopes that the movement might begin to grapple with issues not traditionally found on the movement’s agenda — and address racial and ethnic justice, immigration, policing, housing, financial security and more.
An agenda addressing these concerns would truly acknowledge the needs and interests of all of the community’s members. Some drew a sharp contrast between an inclusive agenda and business-as-usual, which they argued, serves to reinforce perceptions that the LGBTQ movement is concerned with only the interests of affluent men.
To bring about this shift, many participants called for solidarity with other social movements. They advocated for LGBTQ leaders to join forces with causes such as reproductive justice, organized labor, Black Lives Matter and the Dreamers.
This approach, they argued, would facilitate new solutions that address the multiple challenges facing diverse members of the LGBTQ community. “Our issues and experienced are interconnected, and so the solutions must be collaborative,” participant Jonah from Pennsylvania explained.
By joining forces with other movements, LGBTQ leaders can draw on the unique strengths of their allies for powerful and lasting change. In the words of one participant from New York, “I dream of a movement that centers the voices and dreams of our most marginalized community members, that does not profit off of anyone else’s oppression, but works with — and when that’s not immediately possible — thinks and works toward liberation of allies in other movements, and that openly acknowledges our limitations and seeks to learn from mistakes.”
Participants in the Our Tomorrow campaign made clear that collaborating with the leaders of other movements is one promising path to the ultimate goal of equal justice for all.
Nicholle Manners served as the lead analyst for the Our Tomorrow campaign.
