University of Chicago (UChicago) Alumni PRIDE network and the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality (CSGS) hosted a talk, “The State of the LGBTQ Movement: What is at Stake, and How We are Going to Win,” with National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) Executive Director Imani Rupert-Gordonas a part of its OUTstanding Speaker Series Oct. 10 at UChicago’s Centers for Gender/Race Studies community room.
Rupert-Gordon, now based in San Francisco, previously served as Affinity Community Services’s (Affinity) executive director and Howard Brown Health’s Broadway Youth Center director. She recalled going to Affinity for the first time, shortly after moving to Chicago, a city she now holds dear, since it is where she and her wife got married and built a home and she found friends who became family.
Though Rupert-Gordon heads up a prominent legal advocacy, she strives to bring a layman’s perspective to her job.
“I have to read and listen a lot so someone can explain something to me, because it is hard to understand legal concepts when you haven’t been to law school,” she said. “It is worth doing. I tell my team all the time that I am a regular smart person and I am a part of our community, so if I don’t understand what we are doing, then no one does.”
Rupert-Gordon’s remarks focused on NCLR, its work, the national LGBTQ+-rights movement and the many attacks against those rights.
“It is the responsibility of everyone who considers themselves as part of a civil rights and social justice movement to create a pipeline of folks who come next [in the movement] … and to make those pipelines accessible to you,” said Rupert-Gordon.
NCLR, founded 47 years ago, was created to address the needs of queer women and nonbinary people who were ignored by the larger women’s rights and gay rights movements that were active at the time. Its early work focused on protecting the rights of women who left their husbands to begin relationships with women and still be able to keep custody of their children.
Rupert-Gordon spoke at length on the rapid increase in anti-LGBTQ bills and laws (over 600 in 2024 alone) each year. She zeroed in on medical bans, sports bans and Don’t Say Gay or Trans bills.
She noted that the Supreme Court will hear a case this winter, United States v. Skremetti, about medical bans. The question ultimately before the court is, Do medical bans unfairly target transgender people? Rupert-Gordon’s answer is yes. She noted that cisgender youth get puberty blockers if they go into puberty at an extremely young age, and that hormone replacement therapy is given to cisgender men with low testosterone levels and cisgender women who are in perimenopause and menopause, all with no societal objection.
Rupert-Gordon said that sports-ban bills and laws are particularly targeted at transgender girls who want to play on girls’ teams at every age level. She added that this affects an extremely small percentage of the overall population since there aren’t that many transgender girls who want to play sports nationwide.
Rupert-Gordon said Don’t Say Gay or Trans bills/laws that erase queer/trans people and their stories from educational institutions are harmful to both LGBTQ+ students and students with LGBTQ+ parents/guardians, in that they create “an intentional way to alienate these students. One of the reasons these laws are so dangerous is they are intentionally vague,” which creates fear and censorship in schools where anti-LGBTQ+ laws are in effect.
“When we don’t hear about the history and contributions of some groups, it’s not neutral,” said Rupert-Gordon. “We don’t just learn about them later without an enormous cost. Many times people never learn about them. Then these students feel alienated, and it teaches students that LGBTQ+ people don’t exist, or that LGBTQ+ people haven’t done anything worthwhile. And that is damaging and dangerous.”
Rupert-Gordon urged the audience to speak out about LGBTQ+ issues, so more people may be inspired to join the equality movement. She also touched on how to be a better leader and show up for the community, with a focus on “how to be the first, not the last.”
“I’m excited to see what the next group of leaders bring to the table, and who you bring with you,” said Rupert-Gordon. “We must demand that our leaders not just come from our communities, but bring communities with them as they enter those halls of power. Remember, there are a lot of ways to be part of movement work. And we need you now, more than ever.”
Pietro Juvara, a University of Chicago student who is co-founder and co-president of UChicago’s Organization of LGBTQ+ Students (OLS), introduced Rupert-Gordon. He spoke about his journey as a queer person once he arrived on campus and his interactions with fellow queer/trans UChicago students over the years.
Juvara discovered a need for a social group for LGBTQ+ students, so he helped co-found OLS in 2022, and it is now one of many queer/trans organizations at UChicago. He also highlighted his role in co-writing legislation with an advocacy team as a Howard Brown Health fellow to protect the 340B Federal Drug Pricing Program. He was introduced by UChicago CSGS Faculty Director Daisy Delogu .
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