By Tyrone Hanley–
In these times of fear and division, we have many reasons to be doubtful about the future. And, yet I feel incredibly hopeful. As NCLR’s (National Center for Lesbian Rights) Director of Racial and Economic Justice Initiatives, I am often inspired by organizers, service providers, artists, and others around the country who are cultivating a beautiful new world for everyone.
This past June, NCLR and The Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research (CLEAR), a San Francisco-based LGBTQ financial inclusion organization, led efforts to mobilize the LGBTQ+ community for the Poor People’s Campaign’s national gathering in Washington, D.C. The event brought together diverse communities and issues to call attention to the struggles of poor people and to build a unified movement around economic justice.
As someone who once was more ashamed of being poor than being queer, I was honored to have the opportunity to speak before thousands of attendees to express how queer and trans liberation means economic justice for all.
Being a part of the event was particularly restorative after the passing of queer icon Urvashi Vaid. Urvashi was a colleague, mentor, and friend who supported my life’s work to make ending poverty a central issue of the LGBTQ+ movement. As a co-founder of the LGBTQ Poverty Collaborative and The National LGBTQ Anti-Poverty Action Network, she understood and organized based on the principle that our destinies our bound together. She believed in me and my purpose when so many did not—and I will be forever grateful for her life.
I started working with Urvashi on poverty issues when NCLR joined the LGBTQ Poverty Collaborative, which was an un-funded and self-organized coalition to develop the first national LGBTQ poverty agenda. The agenda calls for universal healthcare, living wages, and the decriminalization of poverty, among many other solutions to address LGBTQ+ poverty. After its release on May Day 2018, I reached out to Urvashi because I wanted to start a group to advocate for the agenda. In October of the same year, we founded The National LGBTQ Anti-Poverty Action Network to advocate, educate the public, and organize research around LGBTQ+ poverty issues.
Both projects were founded on the principle that LGBTQ+ liberation means we must not only focus on the unique ways LGBTQ+ folks experience poverty but ultimately take on the very economic system that creates and thrives off of the existence of poverty. In essence, we were united in the belief that queer and trans liberation is not possible as long poverty exists. While Urvashi is not with us in physical form, her spirit lives on in me and the many lives she touched.
As I said at the June march and rally, in the end there is only one liberation movement and that’s the one to liberate all humans and the planet from violent oppressive systems that tear us down and apart. Being part of this movement brings me hope, because together anything is possible. We only have to believe in it first then do the work to make it a reality.
Tyrone Hanley is the Director of Racial and Economic Justice Initiatives at the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
Published on November 3, 2022
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