Our Stories Are Important

family loves me. I enjoy spending time with them. I am well into, you know, very very adult age, and I have enjoyed the maturation of my relationship with my parents. And I just like when I have the opportunity to go home and visit, which is probably more so than most people unless you live in the same town. I'm just able to refocus on what's important and what matters. Like sure, I will sit and I'll you know, talk like a little bit of politics, but honestly not really.

The focus is on joy and spending good times together and creating memories. And I think that it is really important to remind ourselves that there is only so much that we can do right. You can post you can share, you can donate, you can educate, you can try and

push this country your representatives to be better. But in that pushing, I also want folks to recognize when it's time to just relax, when it's like, you don't have to show how woke and conscious you are by making every single waking moment about injustice, oppression, trauma and all of these things. I think that the way to also show solidarity is through joy and through gratitude, right like

living in gratitude. I thought about how many fathers have been stripped from their families, from their communities, whether it be through genocide that is happening in Gaza and Congo and Sudan, whether it is you know, the jail system, the money making scheme of a system in the United States that is locked up and stripped more Black men and Latino men from their families and their communities, you know.

And so it is a point of gratitude to have a loving, intact family and intact I just mean that, like we're all still living healthy and I'm grateful for that, and I'm just you know, I'm reminded as I start, you know, this week, to even when things are grim as they are, even when we know that the Supreme Court has one final ruling that will maybe the death

blow to this country. Hold the people that you love closer, you know, really be present in moments of joy, like truly present, because it's what keeps us going and it is what fuels us. Coming up next, my conversation with the Communications director to the LGBTQ Task Force on the responsibility of media, Kathy Renner joins WOKF to continue our Pride Month coverage. That conversation is coming up next, Folks.

I am very excited to welcome to WOKF Daily. No stranger to WOKF Daily, actually Kathy Renner, who is a Communications director at the National LGBTQ Task Force. You all know this organization as I have had the pleasure to interview some of your incredible people in the field, your incredible executive director, and so I'm excited to talk to you today, Kathy, about you know, it's Pride, right and you know Pride Month is a busy month. It's usually

a very celebratory month for the queer community. But I want to know how you and the Task Force are kind of walking in to this Pride Month where where your thoughts and kind of feelings are at this moment.

And it's not like they've changed very much right in the past several years, but I think for the task Force this year in particular with the election coming up, as are most folks who are thinking about Pride frankly, whether it's organizations or Pride organizers or just the individuals that we're talking to out in the world, they're very focused on the election like that is looming. And you know, as you know, I think I've heard this phrase, I don't know a thousand times in the last few weeks.

Everyone says this is the most important election of my life, that this is like the sixth of the most right. So it just keeps happening over and over and the reality is that we need to be out there. And you know, I've also worked on Big Prides so well, fifty Washington, d C. Pride, Prides. You know, prides different

things to different people. But what I always say at the end of the day is it is our opportunity to show our power, to show our strength, to show our diversity, and to show as a community that we may, even if we don't agree on all things, that we are unified in wanting to move forward as a people. And so we were doing a lot of more virtual online stuff in terms of organizing related to the election and our career the vote campaign, but that's on hold. It's time to get out there. It's time to be

with the people. And so we have already started dispatching our staff. We've had folks at Pittsburgh Pride and Kissie Pride, in Miami Beach Pride, and you know, we have an office in Miami. We do a tremendous spot of work in Florida. Florida is obviously an incredibly important state for so many reasons, not just for our queer community. I mean, our work in Florida is also you know, engaged around the ballot initiatives, whether the abortunate right extension or the

marijuana legalization. So you know, we're at DC trans Pride, right, we're working to We're going to Harlan Pride in New York City. You know, we have well over a dozen that we're dispatching folks to and they're signing up hundreds of people. I mean, even in the last weekend, folks can home super energized because there really is I think a higher level of engagement than we've seen before. And look at what we have at stake.

esteem of the community. It's about showing I think young people and old people that like there are people who look like you, love like you that are here for you, right, that we're not going anywhere, But at the same time, safety is a real issue. So how do you reconcile with the reality of that while not dampering this celebration.

mean New York City. Pride takes precautions that are they're absolutely necessary for the safety of everyone, folks who are dissipating, the folks who are doing the organizing, the folks who are marching, and you know, we take our own precautions, like we had our staff they were at Pope County Pride in Central Florida last year. One of the issues that we have to grapple with depending on again, like you said, these some of these places which are particularly hostile.

You know, law enforcement may be more supportive of the folks who are protesting us than us, right, So we also have to as one of our colleagues chanted at creating change. You know, who keeps us safe? We keep us safe, right, So we have to have our own systems in place as well, and that's as an organization, like our teams that go out or super connected. We put locations on our you know, location on our phones. We have text chains, we do check ins, they're on slack.

Even for those of us who are not physically there, they need to let their supervisors or department heads know when they're coming and going. And you know, we have to do all those things. And it's not just physical safety. There's also health issues right right, kinds of things. So those are things that we don't actually talk about a lot.

So I actually appreciate you bringing it up because a lot of folks just show up at Pride and don't realize how much work has gone into both on the organizing side, but also for those of us who are doing the work and participating and wanting to engage folks. What has to happen to really be able to not just be productive and be able to enjoy and participate, but to actually feel safe doing it.

It was never truly safe, but now when you see the target and you see the lies being sped groom and these things in these are states where you know, they love their guns. And so I wanted you to be able to lay that out for people so that they can understand that while you know, we love our rainbows and BoA's and you know, and the dancing and the celebration, what happens behind the scenes in order to make that actually happen, you know, is really serious.

that we've got folks who are literally moving. They're leaving. Yeah, they're leaving where they live, where they have community, where they have family, where they have their jobs because their trans kid can't get firming healthcare, because they're afraid because of the views that they've expressed, or they've been even targeted by the Proud Boys and other you know, anti LGBTQ, racist, sexist, you know hate groups that they are are quite literally leave.

I have a friend who moved from Tennessee to upstate New York and like lives in a safe house. Now that's a reality. It's painful and hard to talk about, but we we have to talk about that stuff, and we have to talk about it when every may in my position, I get a thousand calls from the media what are the big issues, what are the stories? And they always want to talk about progress. And I'm happy to talk about progress we've made because we're also making progress.

But progress isn't linear, and we are also dealing with some of the most villil backlash that I've seen. And I've been doing this for thirty years. Yeah, you know, there were we had some times. You and I know we were in d C right when Obama was president and he's felt bad.

challenge a bit. And so, like I said, I mean, I've been talking to media now for several weeks as we've moved into June, and when I talk about what the big issues are, it's to me, it's really important that they start not just talking about issues, but talking about people and telling our stories because there are a lot more stories to tell and why those stories are important. You know, there are so many trans youths that we have worked with now for years. They are being targeted

in an unprecedented way. And what I keep saying to journalist is we have to stop talking about trans youth and we have to start talking to trans youth. And they're but at the same time, being the overprotective media person and parents that I am, like, we're very mindful about how to do that safely with folks and families and what the impact can be. So all of these

things have come into play. So it's made for a pretty challenging pride But you know, at the same time, it's more important than ever that we actually make that, like you said, like that political statement. I mean, I don't care if your show up at Pride with a Cosmopolitan in one hand or a picket sign show up, Yeah,

it's just the visibility of the representation does. What I always say is one of the most important things Pride can do is that for the folks that may not be there or it's their first time there, they realize that they're part of something a whole lot bigger, and that is what's life changing.

uber necessary blah blah blah. And now recognizing one that that was coming from a place of privilege, and two that there are so many you know, young people who this time that one march that one dance, that one thing may be their entire experience to carry them through the next three hundred and sixty four days of the year where they're invisibilized well.

There's a pride. Literally I will step out of my building and within a block be at Pride on Saturday with I don't know, fifteen twenty thousand people, which you know, those are prides where it's really interesting to also see and I we've noticed this more and more over the years, and it's so heartening. It's allies coming out, it's families with their kids, like we were in because it was

the Task Force's fifteenth anniversary. Last year, we actually participated in a lot of the big marches and stuff, and you know, we were in the New York City Pride March and I can never stay still. I'm running around talking to people saying hi. And I saw a kid, he was about thirteen, trans boy with a big sign that said, this is my first Pride. That makes all the work of the hundreds of volunteers and the staff

and the folks who do this right. And I said, make sure you go to Youth Pride, make sure you go to trans Pride. And he was with his mom and she had a sign that said my first Pride too. You know that's the kind of stuff right that that is super powerful. And it's interesting because I do experience to this with colleagues, not just the dasports but everywhere. They get a little jaded. Yeah, Ill stated, you know,

and we get comfortable, and I think you're right. It can come from a place of privilege or from a place of just not wanting to participate in that kind of pride. There's so many options now. That house part is if they don't want to go to a big event. Some people don't like crowds.

like float that they have is all young people. It's usually volunteers and whatever politicians. It's all young people this year front and center, like last year when Robie Wade was overturned on the Friday before the march and by Sunday the front of the march was planned Parenthood, Maya Wiley, all of these other reproductive rights groups, to show the solidarity that we have at to show that this is

actually not simply for LGBTQ people. Yeah, and that's something that you know, I just you go to any of these, any of these events, doesn't matter which one it is. You're going to see Mama Bear T shirts you're going to see I love my trans cut T shirts. Allies are coming out, you know, in lots of different ways, and that you know, there aren't enough of us to well maybe there are for something so some elections, but we need our allies to put us over the open there.

I really do finish line right exactly.

or progress. So I wonder do you prepare two paths if Biden continues with the second term, if Donald Trump is elected, Like, what does it look like to be inside of the Task Force right now as we make the countdown to November.

And I think, you know, it's fair that there are a lot of progressive issues that the Task Force works on that we are constructively critical towards the Biden administration about that with our allies, whether it's you know, around

immigration or other things. And again it's it's like what we talked about at our Korean Change conference, you know, earlier this year, is how do we find ways to have these conversations and be in principal struggle and not cancel each other out right and try and continue to move forward because I think at the end of the day, the vast majority of folks have the same goal, right in terms of where we want to end up as people from a civil rights perspective, you know, just from

a cultural perspective, from a safety and having you know, lives where we don't just survive but thrive. Right. So for us, it's about, you know, given the resources that we have, just being all in, you know, so whether it's being at these prides where we can really I mean, those are the places where you can access thousands of people at once in person in ways that is they're

impossible otherwise. Right, So it's a it's an organizing tool that we're going to use not just through June, through the fall, because the reality is is that prides don't just happen in June. Again, it's something that you know, we'll be We'll be at price through October. I mean, we have our CREA Change conferences in Las Vegas next January. We're at Las Vegas Pride October twelfth, you know, and so we're going to be right up to the election.

And then the other part we do is the sort of the digital level organizing is, you know, is reaching out to folks across the country, working particularly with partners like our media partners are queer media especially, who are all in to try and get folks. You know, the basics. Are you registered to vote if you're not, this is

how you do it. If you are, get ten of your friends and family and people in your community to do it too, and if you need information about candidates, about ballot initiatives, because I think what happens often in this country is people, especially the media you want to talk about media, spend so much time on the national election that what gets forgotten are the local level thing. Yeah, and that's in your in our day to day lives for most of us, that's where the the pain points are. Right.

We worked on school board elections in Polk County in central Florida last election cycle. We didn't win, but we did everything we could to try and just keep things moving forward because we're in it for the long game. We may not have success on some of these balid initiatives or local you know, quarter bed campaigns or primary this election cycle, but we're not going anywhere. We've been around fifty years, We're going to be around another fifty And the reality is that we have to build the

power locally because it can't be everywhere. And you know, we partner with local folks. That's the key. We know, national organization could just walk in and say we're going to you know, we're gonna help you. That's I mean, maybe some of them do, but we don't because we set what do you need? How can we be helpful?

Like for the Summerlee primary, in Pennsylvania. We dispatched one of our staff and you know, they basically didn't want to send him home because he did such a great job literally going door to door and reaching over thousand people. That makes a big difference.

They are things we're supposed to get better and they seem to be getting worse.

Taking it out of the abstract of these little like echo chambers that we're all living in on social media is absolutely critical because I think that's where a lot of the hopelessness can come from. You know, if you're just seeing negative stuff on television, or you're just seeing negative stuff on Facebook, or you're seeing even worse as you well know, misinformation, disinformation, hostility and attacks like that can wear you down and people will either you know,

they'll turn it off, they'll disconnect, they'll feel hopeless. And I think there are ways that you can connect, and you know, in person is the best, but if you if not, you know, one of the things I love about a lot of a lot of the Prides, but I know best here in New York City is that our local ABC affiliate streams yeah the first two hours of the March. Yeah, so it's online and you can it is just it's so powerful to see this amazing, you know, diverse array of folks who are being honored

for work they've done in the community. You know, young people who are just starting out in are an inspiration leadership, and then organizations. You know, if you're a person of faith, you'll feel less alone when you see you know, a church and a synagogue and a you know, ten different faith denominations go by that are in the march and affirming the fact that that's who they are, that they're

er and they're people of faith. I mean, that's that's a huge issue I think for folks who are who are isolating our community and have been rejected by you know, their own faith community.

folks join us for again. The great Change Conference can be a life changing experience. It's like basically like it's like an activist pride for a week, you know. I mean, it's true.