Ron DeSantis Won’t Stop Imani Rupert Gordon 58:34

On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org.com.

On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org slash bots. It's on!

Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Rudy Giuliani, also known as Rico. Just kidding. He's just a showgirl. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Naeem Araza. And Rudy Giuliani just trekking over to Mar-a-Lago, begging Trump to pay his legal bill.

You know, the irony is the RICO charge, which is something he used quite a bit against all the mobsters that he prosecuted quite successfully. And it was his big weapon. And now it's being used on him by Fannie Willis in Georgia in these new series indictments. And he and many others are being, you know, treated like mobsters, really, with Trump as the capo de tutti capo, as they say.

I don't think Trump's going to bail him out. No, I don't think he's going to. Maybe he can have a new career as a drag queen, which he used to dress up, as people don't realize that. There's many pictures of Rudy Giuliani when he was mayor. He was a friend to gay people very early, sort of shifted rather dramatically. I was just in Provincetown. There were a lot of really fantastic looking drag queens. Was Rudy there? Yeah.

I don't know. I couldn't tell. I don't judge. I don't judge. If he wants to do that, I'm all for it. He needs to make some money. So I'm sure he'd make a fortune in Provincetown. One of the things that's surprising is these new polls that had just come out, the new GOP polls that show that people's willingness to vote for Trump and their

Republican Party has actually gone up with these indictments from, I think it was around 55% to 63%. Yeah, but it's still showing signs of weakness that people do think he's guilty. When you get to the general election, there's a lot more weakness all around if you look at a lot of the polls. So I think people are sort of catching on to maybe there's some problems with this fella.

It seems like the nation overall, but the Republican Party seems to be digging in their heels a little bit on this. I guess. I don't know. There's a lot of hunger for someone else in general, also in the Democratic Party, but that's not happening. Well, I mean, one of the things that's interesting is how Trump is playing these indictments in his narrative. And that's what he's able to do. He's spinning up these narratives. And that's something that we're going to talk to our guests today about. Yes. How someone who's kind of on the forefront of

battling some of these GOP narratives. Our guest today is Imani Rupert Gordon. She's the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, known as the NCLR. It's a legal organization. I've supported it over the years because what they do is they do marriage cases, they do all kinds of sports cases, adoption cases. It's a legally focused organization that takes on cases. And

often in conjunction with other organizations together. Like an ACLU, but focused on a specific avenue of lesbian rights. Although they've gone broader. They've delved into trans issues, et cetera, because it's all connected, right? And they're fighting it in that nexus. Yeah.

She's not a lawyer. They've chosen a non-lawyer to run a legal organization, which might be a smart move because we talked about this on Thursday in our episodes with Assistant Attorney General John Cantor and Doha Mekhi. We were speaking about narrative, their legroom argument, right? And

She is someone who's come up from social work, someone who's come up from strategy and knows how to tell a story. So much is happening in the legal area with the Supreme Court making decisions, whether it's Roe v. Wade, whether there's trans issues. Every day there's a different topic. A lot of it centering around gay and lesbian rights, LGBTQ plus rights.

Because a lot of states are attacking and then other people attack back at those laws. And there's a lot of legal activity going on here. And it's really important to talk about the issues and where it is. Where do you think this momentum for a kind of anti-LGBTQ plus bills...

Anti, yeah. Movements, jokes. Is that anti? Where is the anti coming from? Trans, the trans issues. The trans issues. So it's bleeding in. It's becoming like- Well, it started, they tried with bathroom bills and that didn't work. It didn't really get people going as much. They sort of petered out, so to speak, and there was a lot of pushback on different things. It started when they gave gays the right to adopt and marry, and they've been angry about that ever since. And very similar to what was happening with Roe, they've been working to roll back some of the rights.

And so trans people are a very easy attack landscape for these people because a lot of people don't understand it. They're unfamiliar for the most part, some ignorant, some just terrible, just terrible people. You know, there's been a big push by a lot of young people for gender nonconforming issues. So it's confusing to a lot of people. I'm going to give people a broad spectrum.

sympathetic, empathetic thing. I find this terrible and ignorant, but nonetheless, so when sports is where it hit, when these sports bills went, it's trans women competing against cisgender women. And a lot of people have different opinions. It's a very complex topic, as we've talked about before in this show, but it's a very easy narrative, speaking of narratives, to push through. Mm-hmm.

oh, you don't want your daughter who's worked all this time to compete against a dude, that kind of thing. You know, I'm in this age group where people are starting to have kids. And I've heard from parents, including, by the way, from gay parents, that the earliness of this conversation around gender and what gender and the questions that children are asking and asked, especially in cities like New York City, right? Sure. Not just here. I think it's across. But yeah, but it's all across

the country, but there seems to be this kind of cultural conversation that's happening with children. And what's your advice to parents who are nervous about their children's future?

Well, oddly enough, I had this discussion last night with, I was in Provincetown with a lot of gay people. There's a lot of gay people there. There's a carnival going on. And everybody was talking about their gender non-conforming kids. I happen to have completely cisgendered kids for some reason, but so far. But it's really, it's something people discuss. When I was gay, you could not talk about it. Now they can talk about it. And so they entertain it and they try different ideas on and

just the way they might try on anything. And some people are quite serious about it, and some people are just having a moment. And I think that makes a lot of people uncomfortable if you're parents, because you don't understand it, and including very liberal parents. Like, what does this mean? Is this too early? And I think, again, another narrative is that young people are being forced into becoming another gender, which is not true. That is the worst one of all, which does not happen. And

There's a lot of disinformation and misinformation. Yeah, it's like saying nine-month abortions, just not happening, just not happening. And so it's- It's fear-mongering about a slippery slope of this. That's correct. It touches on a real fear that affects parents. I think what parents are saying, well, I kind of want my kid to have the easiest life possible. Yes, well, when I came out, now my mom didn't say that, she wasn't very nice, but a lot of parents, I don't want you to be gay because it's so hard. That was the thing. And I think the same thing is around trans.

I do think as people get more educated, as they did with people who are gay, and there's more information, over time, the ignorance makes way to comfort, right? Like, I get it. I get it. But initially, the right wing, especially the really virulently homophobic right wing, is going to make hay of it. And 21 states have passed bans of some sort on gender-affirming care. And even this week,

North Carolina's legislature overrode the Democratic governor's veto in order to pass anti-trans laws. It illuminates, just as abortion does, this group on the right who feel like everything's over, like that the trans people are taking their heels and stomping all over the Constitution, when in fact they're the ones doing book banning and moving away from freedom. Do you think that part of this is also...

Like, it's all tied into the conversation about free expression and, you know, wokeism. I don't. I think it's just that everybody's louder, including everyone gets more information. Everyone's louder and you can see them. They were all... Trust me when I tell you, they were... The amount of anti-gay stuff I used to hear when I was younger, when I couldn't say anything, was massive. Just the things they would say. We were just recalling that in... There was a scene... It was a play I saw where they...

Lesi is the word they used when I was young. And it brought me right back to when I was a young kid when someone said, les be friends. Another girl was hugging another girl and they said... And I was very careful not to hug. You know what I mean? Because I knew what I was... Oh, because you were scared. I was scared and I would go the opposite direction. But it brought me right back. There's also...

There's something about... This is in the culture now. And I think a lot of these states think they're going to stop something that's happening that children are already kind of contemplating. I don't think that these... The culture is moving in whatever way the culture is moving. I don't think these bills are going to stop anything. No, it's opening up. You know, no matter what they do, they can't push back. It's a tide and...

But they're trying to. They're still angry about gay people doing it. I've always thought these bills were about that, these gender-affirming carriers. It makes me more nervous. It makes me more nervous about my kid's adoption. My second kid I had to adopt, and he's now old enough, so it doesn't matter. But it's still a concern. And so that's why the National Center for Lesbian Rights is an important organization among many.

And they are at the forefront of so many of these cases. They're representing plaintiffs in two major lawsuits that are challenging Trump's ban on transgender people serving in the military. They're also suing the Florida State Board of Education over the House Bill 1557, which is commonly called the "Don't Say Gay" bill.

Although they say it's not the don't say gay bill, but... Whatever. It is. Because they went off, they went and did it. They went and did it till 12th grade because they're liars. They're persistent, persistent liars. And there's also, of course, the Supreme Court ruling in the 303 Creative case, which is the case about the website designer who did not want to make a website for a gay couple. We actually spoke about that back in the fall. We had an episode on that. So, so many of these lawsuits are happening, but also...

We think it's an important topic to cover when there isn't just a ruling coming. A lot of the media attention happens when the ruling comes down or a new ban is introduced, but it's the narrative seeds are sown for this every day, and we wanted to take the time to have this conversation right now. Yes, of course. Nicole Hannah-Jones always used to say something, which is that every time there's a revolution, there's a retraction. Sure. You can't stop it, though. You can't stop the—what's that song from Hairspray? You can't stop the beat. ♪

Sorry. Sorry, Ron DeSantis. You can't stop the beat. All right. Well, we'll get the beat back going when we're back in a minute with Imani Rupert Gordon. OK, thank you, everybody. Thanks for coming out tonight. I'm thrilled to be in San Francisco. I'm here for many days this visit and I'm thrilled to be here to talk about Barbie. So what do you think of Barbie? Do you like Barbie?

You know, I didn't play with Barbies growing up. I know neither did I. I hated them, but I love the movie. It's weird. Anyway, I'll stop talking about Barbie. I am obsessed. So let's talk about the topics because it's a much more serious topic about what's been going on for the LGBTQ plus community. I have been a longtime supporter of NCLR, despite the fact that I don't like the name.

I think she'd have a hipper name, but that's not my business. Why don't you talk a little bit about you and why you came? Because you replaced a very legendary head of it, Kate Kendall. Why don't you talk a little bit about how you got there? Absolutely. It's so happy to be here. So great to see you, Kara. And always do love hearing about, even if you don't love the name, I do love hearing about why you don't. Because it's terrible. Yeah.

You know, we are one of very few organizations left with lesbian in the title. And I think that's something to be proud of, you know?

But, you know, I came, so I started right at the start of the pandemic. And, you know, I got to say, I was definitely nervous about stepping into the executive director role because I remember Kate Kendall is an icon. But I've always been a fan of NCLR's work. I think a lot of people know right now, my sister used to run our policy office. And so from 2010 to 2015, and that's really when I started to understand the work that NCLR was doing and how...

in depth and how thoughtful and how intersectional the work was. And so when they called, you know, at first I wasn't looking for a job. - Explain what you were doing. - Oh, so I ran a nonprofit in Chicago. It's called Affinity Community Services and it serves black LGBTQ women in Chicago. And I loved it there. It was, you know, I found a home there.

really doing really great work. And then when they reached out and said they were looking for an executive director at NCLR, I thought, well, don't you want a lawyer for that? And they said, you know what, actually, let's try something else. And so I came and they said, you know, just...

Just write what you think the movement needs and then we'll go and talk to there. And that's how they get you because when you are thinking about what NCLR can do in the movement, it's hard not to want to do that work. So what was your, when you came in the pandemic, there'd been, you know, a decade of victories really moving forward in a lot of ways, whatever marriage was the big one, but there was lots and lots of victories and a sort of an awareness by the country that was positive. Yeah.

Towards gays and lesbians and then the pandemic and then this last couple of years. Talk a little bit about what you thought you were getting into because now everything seems retrograde or going backwards. So talk about sort of what did you think you were going to do when you got there and what have you had to do?

Oh, that's a great question. So I didn't know what to expect, you know, because we are also right during an election year. You know, I started at the start of 2020. So I didn't know what the election year would hold for us. And what we did end up seeing is, you know, in the beginning of 2021, that we saw a lot of executive orders really supporting LGBTQ people.

In some of the work that we were doing, just, you know, we'd been working on it for years, like the trans military ban, and then all of a sudden an executive order, and now we have some time freed up. So, you know, in some ways, it was a pleasant surprise. But, you know, in other ways, it was also really disconcerting. You know, you can't talk about what's happening in the LGBTQ community right now without talking about the anti-LGBTQ bills. Mm-hmm.

And, you know, right now we're at 650 anti-LGBTQ bills. Where? In states across the country? In states across the country. And that's just Florida. Go ahead. It just might be. But if you think about this. That guy is such a charmless douche. But go ahead. It's.

I love that the rest of the country, someone was like, his polls go down as people meet him. That's something. I know. That is something. Makes Ted Cruz look friendly.

But in 2015, just to give a little bit of context, in 2015, we had just over 100 anti-LGBTQ bills. That number went and increased. And then last year around this time, we had over 350 bills. And at the time, that was a record. We had never seen that before. And now we're seeing 650. And I've said this before, it's not a

particularly sophisticated strategy, but it can be an effective one because what they're trying to do is really just put as many bills out as possible so that we can't respond to all of them. - So flood the zone, which is a big tactic among the right. - Absolutely, absolutely. - Sort of the Steve Bannon tactic.

And it's something we're seeing now because we, you know, it is difficult. We're not able to respond to every bill that's out there. And also, you know, there's a lot of disinformation, too. You know, we're under the impression that these bills are coming from specific states. But we also know that a lot of these bills are just being recycled from a handful of anti-LGBTQ organizations. Yeah.

We know this because, yeah, exactly. It's a playbook. And we know this because the bills look identical. They've done analysis of the same bills that are coming out. And so it's definitely a scary time right now. You know, the part that we don't always hear is that we've also been quite successful in being able to follow up with some of these bills. So when we challenge them, a lot of times we're actually able to be very successful.

successful, especially around the trans sports bills and the trans healthcare bills. We don't talk about that all the time, but telling our stories is very, very powerful. And that's powerful when we're in front of judges as well. So let's first talk about, let's break down those 650 bills. Talk about how they break down and what the focus is. Because I know the Don't Say Gay Bill in Florida was just copied into Texas, for example, and copied into other states.

Yeah, so there's a number of them. So categorize them. Absolutely. So we're seeing the trans healthcare bills. Explain those for what they typically are. So these are the bills that are typically keeping trans kids and in some cases trans adults from getting the healthcare they need. Some people call that gender affirming care. But it's healthcare that trans people need that is every major medical association says that trans folks need. So it's not something that's made up.

So the trans health care bills. There's also the misinformation related to that is that there is gender reassignment for children, which does not happen. Which does not happen. Right. Which does not happen. Right. Okay, go ahead. And so there's that. There are the sports bans that are keeping trans kids from playing sports.

which is honestly just cruel. We're not even talking about a lot of kids in these situations. Yeah, and these are in states, West Virginia, for example. Yep. We heard there was a report, these governors are signing bills into laws when they can't name a time it's happened in their state. And so it's just...

I mean, you can just see how cruel this is. We're also still seeing bathroom bills. You know, we're not talking about those as much, but we're seeing those. I think that a lot of people thought that that was something that was, you know, back in 2015. It didn't really work the first time. Yeah, but we're still seeing the bathroom bills. We're seeing bills that are requiring or encouraging teachers to out their students.

to parents. Sometimes these parents wouldn't be supportive of their identity. I mean, there's a bunch of these bills that don't say gay or trans bills. Those are still popping up. We talk about the ones that happen in Florida, but there are nine other don't say gay or trans bills across the country. Okay. So how do you then form...

legal strategy around doing that because they're all same but different, right? And you have to work with other groups. Let's first talk about how do you apply your resources? You're a smaller group. What's your budget right now? Yeah, so we are just under $6 million. Right. So it's a small budget, but you have to work with many others. Talk about the strategy around the legal strategy here because it seems a constant legal battle that goes on.

Absolutely. So we want to make sure, you know, the work that we do is impact litigation. So we want to make sure that we are making the biggest amount of change that we can. And so for us, we want to make sure that we are prioritizing the health care bans. And the reason is because those are the bans that save lives.

We know that kids die without the health care they need. So we really do prioritize those. We're a small national organization, but we really do have an enormous footprint. We work very closely with other national legal organizations. And that matters because when we're talking about all of these LGBTQ bills, these are being challenged primarily by...

by LGBTQ organizations. So, and there's just a handful of us. So, you know, like we're working with, you know, places like Lambda Legal, ACLU, HRC, and then also, you know, non-legal organizations, Family Equality, the task force. We work with a lot of different organizations. But, you know, when we, for, you'd be proud of the ways that we're doing our work because we,

Our budgets are so much smaller than our opponents. You know, there's so much research that shows it's just a drop in the bucket. But we make sure that we are all handling different cases and that we're in different parts of the country. The other thing is that we want to make sure that we have relationships in those states. And that's something that's really important. You don't just want to, especially as a national group, you don't just want to pop into a state and say, these are the things that matter. But you want to work with it

people at the state groups that know the communities, know what works with them. And then we also are working in coalition with other national partners so that we're able to really share expert witnesses so that when we're able to develop a strategy that is getting wins, that we're able to effectively communicate that to each other so that we're able to get those same wins. Give me an example of that. What would be a strategy, something that works somewhere? Yeah. So how we're winning the...

the medical challenges right now is because a lot of times these bans, I mean, they're unconstitutional. They're just so incredibly broad, like having a complete ban on healthcare, having a complete ban on sports and figuring out what this process is. You know, something to understand is that our wins are built on other wins.

And so a lot of times when we come up with legal strategies, these really are looking at previous cases and one case really does build on another and it starts to make sense that way. But this can take a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort. So having someone do that and then being able to share that with someone else is incredibly helpful.

Give me an example of a case where you work together with someone or how you decide which one is the most important one because there's got to be dozens in all these various places. Absolutely. So like I said before, you know, we really want to work in places that we have relationship. And so NCLR is one of the organizations that is working on the Don't Say Gay or Trans bill, the one in Florida.

And we are working on that. Walk us through that. What do you do? This happens, it passes. Yeah, it passes. And then so Equality Florida said, we need a legal group to help us sue. And we trust you all. We like you all. We want you to come out here. And so we go and sue. And in a situation like this,

these don't say gay or trans bills and this is why these bills are so insidious is because it's really not um it's not really clear these are intentionally vague laws and so even though we're challenging them it's hard to prove that you know uh that these are unconstitutional even though you know it's really clear that they are they are discriminating against lgbtq people and so we just keep doing this until we're able to um to make inroads there so when you think about the don't say yay bill um

They make the argument that it's not a don't say gay bill. It's a don't teach kids sex before a certain age. How do you push back? Obviously, that...

There's the most cynical people on earth, but that's what they're aiming at. And it freezes teachers, for example, from doing anything. Absolutely. And that's the thing that's hard, too. One of the things that is helpful about litigation is that you have to tell the truth. You have to prove something. And a lot of times when we're talking about things, you kind of just say something's true. But that's just because you say like, oh, we're not...

You shouldn't be teaching third-grader sex ed. Well, no one's teaching third-grader sex ed. That's not part of the curriculum, and it never was. But what is part of the curriculum is that a third-grader might go and draw a picture of their family. They might talk or tell a story about what they did that weekend and who their parents are and who the people are that love them.

And those things are very much part of the curriculum. And because these laws are so intentionally vague, we're not really sure if you can talk about your LGBTQ identity or your parents. And we know for teachers, we know that immediately when these bills started, just when they were introduced, that people started taking down posters of...

prominent LGBTQ people, they started taking down their own pictures of people in their lives. You know, they stopped sponsoring gender and sexuality alliances. And, you know, in Florida, they extended this to, you know, through 12th grade. And that's something that you have to pay attention to because, you know,

Which they said they weren't going to do. These were things they said absolutely not. They said absolutely not. And then went right to jail. Again, again, you know, just because they say something doesn't make it true. And sometimes people are a bit dishonest. Yeah. You can call them a weasel. It's just like...

Trying to be nice here. Don't be nice. Absolutely. So they did. And this is what they've done. And this is something that we really want to pay attention to because it matters when we grow up. Think about it. When we're in school, we think that when something is presented to us, that this is not only true, but that it's the full history.

And so if we don't think that we can talk about an LGBTQ identity, and even if LGBTQ people or non-LGBTQ people stop hearing about LGBTQ folks, then it makes it easier to discriminate against LGBTQ folks if you don't see any of the positive representation.

And we're at a time where this is happening. There's this attack on education right during the time that we're also seeing trans people be marginalized. And this is part of the same playbook because we've also seen this done with racism. When you don't tell the true and accurate history of slavery and the impact of racism in this country, then it makes it easier for this type of discrimination to happen.

And that matters because, you know, there's also an attack on critical race theory. And we don't ever really break down what critical race theory is, but it really talks about structural and institutional discrimination, which actually are the exact same tools that we would need to see pretty clearly that they're doing exactly that and doing it for sexual orientation, gender identity, racism, and other things. So talk about the linkages in a bill like that, because you're referring to the Florida curriculum about racism.

African Americans benefited from slavery, essentially. I hate to say it like that. It's just insane when you hear it. And most people are like, what? But, you know, over on Fox News, Jesse Waters and Greg Gutford is trying to make a good argument about it. Well, they got to be blacksmiths. I was like, what if they wanted to not be a blacksmith? It was just like, I don't even know what to say. Or, you know, not be slaves. Yeah, exactly. Like, it's just like, it's astonishing. Yeah.

That that's happening, but talk about the linkages between them, because it is the same thing, right? That we're teaching, one, we're teaching third graders sexual orientation stuff. They're not doing it. Two, African Americans benefited from slavery. Three, you know, it's just they keep repeating and repeating and repeating, and they're all linked in the same way.

sort of daisy chain of hate, essentially. Yeah, I mean, this is a disinformation campaign and putting it in all of our schools at the very earliest levels. And that's what we're seeing. So,

And really it has been the playbook of many of our opponents is just saying things that aren't true and pretending like they are. And that's something we're seeing. If you're saying that, you know, we're talking about third graders having sex education. Third graders are not having sex education. These second graders are not having sex education. That does not make it true. That's not what's happening there. And this is an attack on our education system when we're saying that,

You can't tell the history of slavery because it makes some people feel bad. Who are you making feel bad when this happens? And then following this, like with saying that we don't really want to talk about slavery, but in the ways that we do want to talk about slavery, we want to say that slaves benefited, that black people benefited from slavery. And that is, I mean, that's just brainwashing. It's just, that is not, that is,

that is not true at all. - Yeah, I had a relative who said, you know, I wasn't there. I said, well, you'd be 200 years old if you were, you fucking idiot. Like it was, I was like, that's not the point. Like it was, and then I just walked away. Just gonna walk away. But when you think about that, how do you fight that from a legal point of view? This is, that's the hearts and minds kind of thing, which is not a legal fight. And when you do get into courts, whether it was about election lies with Trump, he keeps losing. Like they lose, lose, lose, lose, lose in a court.

How do you link the legal with the misinformation? Because you can't do anything about the first, even if you win in court case after court case, like as an election fraud. It doesn't matter. They still believe it. Yeah, I mean, and that is the, I mean, and that's why our opponents do it, you know, because there are two different things. One is that our stories are very, very important. I think so often when people say, well, what can we do? And we say, well, tell your stories. And I don't think we really go into why that is so important. But when you

hear about how someone experiences something and really get to experience their humanity, it's hard not to see. And we see that even in our legal landscape as well, because when you're in front of judges, and we see this a lot of time at the trial court, so that's the first court, that when you have a plaintiff there who is explaining their experience to and in front of a judge,

that the judge that may have been previously an anti-LGBTQ judge, when hearing this, it's hard for them to rule against these plaintiffs. And that's how we're getting a lot of support. When we actually see that we lose, it's when it'll often be at the appellate level when there's not someone right in front of you. And so it does matter that we're able to tell our stories there. That's something that's really, really powerful.

And there's no denying that public opinion is something that's important. And that's why our opponents want to control that, even if it's not true. And we have to think about in the history of our civil rights movement, we've never really owned that narrative. Part of working to achieve and advance civil rights means that we're on the defensive.

And if we're on the defensive, the other side of that, we don't get to control the narrative, but we do get to control how people come to understand us. And that is something that really helps in our storytelling. So I'd like to see us do more with this narrative shift, you know, because the vast majority of people in this country do support LGBTQ people.

people. And when we, you know, if we think about these anti-LGBTQ bills, this is really, it's just a lot of bills made by a small number of groups. It's not that the majority of people in this country think that way. And that's the part that we need to remember. We'll be back in a minute. When you think about these cases, healthcare, education, bathroom, I can't believe bathroom bills, are any marriage bills around? Are you seeing them trying to push that back?

So we're not seeing marriage bills right now, but we do, you know, obviously we need to pay attention to this. You know, last year in the Dobbs decision, Clarence Thomas in his concurrence said that we really need to reconsider bills that would include Obergefell and Lawrence and Griswold, which are all around the cases that build to make marriage quality possible. So this is something that we actively want to see. You know, with the recent 303 Creative case, we know that this Supreme Court really is

really chipping away at LGBTQ equality. And I think that while that's not something we have to think about right now in this moment, it is something that- Let's take apart that case first, because I do think they're coming for, I mean, in countries, other countries, adoptions in Italy are under-

attack. There's some advances in certain countries, surprising countries, but they're trying to take away the things that were there before, adoption and then marriage and then et cetera. It just goes one to the next. Talk a little bit about the case in the Supreme Court and what it meant.

Sure. So in the 303 Creative case, there was a woman, a woman that is a graphic designer, and she wanted to start building wedding websites. But she knew that she wanted to start doing this, but she only wanted to serve straight couples, didn't want to serve LGBTQ couples.

And so this case went to the Supreme Court in sort of an odd way because typically when cases start, you have to prove that you've had some sort of harm. And that didn't come until later. And that was just wild how that happened. But the Supreme Court held that she wouldn't have to serve LGBTQ people. Now,

What's important here, so one, this is something that is chipping away at LGBTQ equality, and we actively should be paying attention to this. But we shouldn't be ceding any more ground than what actually happened, because they gave them a very narrow rule, and they did that intentionally. And so we need to hold them to that. And they said that this is not a

about everything that's like this. This is very specific for this particular case. - On free speech, correct? - On free speech, I mean, and to be-- - Artistic expression. - Yeah, so it said, because this is creative, and what she says is, "I meet with each client, "and we work together and build this, "so I can't put something out "because I don't believe in it, and that is--

And so part of free speech is also a right to silence there. Now, the part that's a little complicated is that that actually wasn't the question. The question was about non-discrimination because it violated Colorado's non-discrimination class. So that's not actually a thing, but that's just, again, the Supreme Court is wild and kind of doing whatever they want there.

But we really need to hold them to this being a very narrow, narrow decision that this would only be in very rare circumstances. Because really what this reminds us of is, you know, what a public accommodation is, you know, a legal term for basically a business that serves people. And that term really comes from civil rights. From lunch counters. Exactly. So when we're talking about, you know, restaurants, we're talking about motels, when we're talking about movie theaters, you know, things...

we don't, people shouldn't have to worry if they go somewhere, if they're going to be served. And so that is something that we want to start paying attention to. Now, in this particular thing, if she's explaining this the way that she's doing it, this isn't actually a public accommodation that, you know, that she just takes a certain number because there are some creative spaces where they're just not a public accommodation. You're only going to have a certain number. You're not going to see everyone. You are going to work online.

Sure. And wedding sites are so creative. Here's a link to Pottery Barn. I thought about it extensively. I mean, but I see your point. And also, there's ways that you can poke holes in this because it's ridiculous. I picked Arial font and not...

It's Comic Sans still a thing? Comic Sans. I thought, should it be fun with Comic Sans? Silly or just more serious with Gothic? No, it's ridiculous. She's not creative in any way. In fact, she's a shitty web designer. But anyway...

I mean, that's another thing there, too. You know, I mean, really, this is wild. You know, later she did say, like, actually, a gay man did contact me. So we do have someone. Except they didn't. And what we found out is that the person that contacted her is straight and been married for 10 years, which is just weird. I don't think it mattered in the case itself. It doesn't. It just was irritating. Yeah.

Yeah. And he's also a website designer himself. I'm just saying just how ridiculous this is. But it doesn't even matter that that was untrue because they were going to take it anyway. But the worry is that it would jump to public accommodation. I don't want to do – my restaurant's very creative in its lasagna serving, and therefore we don't want to have gay couples here. Right.

I mean, that would most certainly be the concern. And the Kate case was the one before this. It was. And both the Kate case and this one. It's about creativity. It was the same. It was Alliance Defending Freedom that represented both people in that. Right. Presumably to advance the...

discrimination. Right, that they didn't want to design this cake. I always thought we don't want your shitty cake anyway. We have much better cakes by gay bakers. But when you think about these, are you worried about that leap to public accommodation or that it could, everything is creative or everything is free speech? I don't want to serve this person. I don't want to have to do business. Religious, obviously religious questions come up here rather frequently.

Yeah, you know, I am afraid. You know, I grew up very differently than my parents. And there's ways that they looked at the world. And as a young person, I was just like, I just don't see it the same way. But, you know, I'm not someone that had to think about if there's a space I can walk into. But I was raised by people that had to think about that, had to think about that.

every single day and so um even though it's not something i felt it's something that i am aware of and so i am terrified of that and i think a lot of people are um and i'm hoping that we that we can't and won't go back there you know um i think the supreme court has um

I don't know. There's not a lot precious about it anymore. So what cases are coming that you're worried about in states or the Supreme Court? What are you looking at that's problematic in the next year or so?

- You know, honestly, what I'm concerned about is the, I'm concerned about the Supreme Court. And because it's any of the cases that we've talked about, but I am concerned about the Supreme Court because, you know, last year in the Dobbs decision, that was the first time that we lost a fundamental right and nothing had changed there. You know, it had been 49 years of legal precedent and the only thing that had changed was the makeup of the Supreme Court. And they alluded to wanting to see something else. You know, this 303 creative case,

you know, it started that they didn't have standing and they were going to take the case anyway, you know, in the ways that we just said. And they took that case anyway. You know, there are a lot of ways that I'm just really concerned about it. The court's illegitimate. It's making, you know, very, you know,

Obama had a constitutional responsibility to put someone on the court and when that was taken away, that was taken away from him. It really, there's nothing special about the Supreme Court now. And I do think that something actively needs to go to correct that. And it's not just because things aren't going the way that I want to. It's because this is legitimately not how the court is supposed to work.

This isn't okay. And, you know, what we've been talking about is just people saying, no, no, no, you know, it doesn't matter. We'll just, the next president will choose this and it's fine. And if this happens again, you just hold me to this. And when it happens again, nothing. You know, there's just so much dishonesty. We really need to think about this differently. That's what I'm concerned about. Yeah.

Because we're fighting for something and we're taking for granted that there's something that is consistent. There's something that this court isn't political. And I don't think that that's true anymore. So what cases right now are you seeing that are different? Is it the same like march towards the don't say gay bills in schools? Is it that...

that or anything else that's come up from your perspective? 'Cause one of the things I've paid a lot of attention to is these various right-wing message boards and everything else, and it's 100% anti-trans. That's all they talk about.

It's nuts. I'm sort of like, isn't there another group you want to attack? Could you find? It's really fascinating to watch the numbers, how much that's what they talk about incessantly. And I'm not sure why it's caught on that way. Why do you think that is? I think it's an in because bathroom bills didn't work very well. It didn't get a lot of traction.

Yeah, I agree. And that is what I'm most concerned about because I think it's because, um, it, it's polarizing. I think it's because it divides our community. And if it divides our community, then we are fighting with each other, uh, and not with our actual enemies. Um,

And I'm actually... And I'm scared. I'm worried because, you know, all of these things, these don't say gay or trans bills that we're seeing, you know, keeping trans kids out of sports, the conversation that trans people shouldn't be able to play sports. Those things are... I don't think that it's... I don't think that this is about... I don't think it's about protecting women's sports. I don't think that it's about that. In fact, I think that it hurts women's sports by, you know, keeping trans people out. But I think that...

This is I don't think that it's about that at all. I think it's about trying to take trans people out of public life in every way that we can, because otherwise there are so many ways to look at taking care of women's sports. You know, there are long, you know, decades long of document history about, you know, trigger warning about sexual assault in women's athletics, you know, about just not having equal

pay about not having equal facilities. There's so many ways they can take care of women's sports. And this has been an actual, this has been a non-issue. You know, you were talking about, you know, there being no one here and, you know,

We're just looking, it was in our annual report in Utah, Governor Cox was saying that, you know, there are 75,000 students and of those 75,000 students, four of them are trans and one person wanted to play on a girl's team. You know, this isn't about protecting anyone. This is about hurting trans people.

and hurting trans people hurt to all of us. But it works. It works. I mean, it's interesting, you're talking about fighting with each other. I'm going to be interviewing Martina Navratilova soon, and we're going to be discussing this, which I think is hard, because she's been, I would say, anti-trans or something. I'm not really sure. I would like her to explain herself. As great a sports figure as she is, and groundbreaking for gays and lesbians, it's sort of

And I get I want to hear from her on this, but it does it does. It's something that's caught on in a way that is unusual, I think. And I think it's because of it goes to issues of fairness, I guess. I don't even I want I don't even get it myself, but it's because it's it doesn't happen very much. You know, that's hard from a legal case, because if you are telling stories that.

You also can tell the stories of someone who's worked really hard. Like that can be very effective. Are you worried about that because some of those stories are effective? Absolutely. You know, I mean, we're worried because there are issues that are complicated and complex. And it's okay to have conversation about them. That's okay. And we don't want to lose sight. We want to make sure we're asking the right questions. And I'm not sure that we're always doing that. You know, are we really trying to protect people? Is that what...

It's what's really happening, you know? And I just haven't been convinced that that's exactly what's happening, you know? But absolutely, everything should be able to be on the table. We should be able to ask questions about fairness, that we should be asking questions about access. Absolutely, we can. But this does seem disingenuous. It doesn't seem like it's about fairness at all. It actually seems like cruelty more than anything.

When you think about focusing on where to put your resources, how are you deciding this now and working with the other LGBTQ-focused groups? How do you pick? Do you say we must deal with the trans issues now or we must deal with the accommodations issues or the education? How do you move your resources around? Yeah.

As a group, we are, you know, as a movement, we really are trying to follow up with specifically with trans bills because they are experiencing the highest levels of marginalization. And that's what we say all the time. When people say we have to be inclusive, we have to be intersectional. It does mean that we have to meet folks that are experiencing the highest levels of marginalization. Now, I know that that gets complicated. You get pushback for that. I mean, yeah.

I think there's pushback out there. You know, I think people understand our group understands the reason we do the work, but there is pushback out there from, from time to time, you know, but I think there's also not always the best understanding of how, of, of why we, of, of, of,

what it looks like when you are part of an underrepresented identity and in that identity you have privilege and you're also have oppression in within that same identity. We don't have we we haven't always had the best analysis of that and so I think some people are grappling through that and it's some and it's painful and I think that as people are grappling through that I think that's where some of this is really

coming up and coming up as hatred, you know? You do hear it in the gay community, the arguments going on. I was at a party and I left. I was like, you've got to be kidding. Like, we shouldn't help. These people are noisy. This is, you know, I literally left. I was like, I got to go, you awful people. But I can imagine that when there's funding and you get affected by that, if there's fights within the group.

Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, honestly, there are some days where you're just like, you know, I want to leave the party. But often, you know, when I think about what my work is, when I do the very best work that I can do, it's not actually like walking away. It's actually doing what I can to change hearts and minds. You know, on a day like that, sometimes it's the hardest work, but...

It remains some of the most important work that I have done in this role, but also in my life, because I know that that stays with folks. And we have to remember, we're changing the world. We want to make the world better, and we want to make it safer. And we want to do that. We want to make the world better and safer, even for our opponents. We're trying to create something that we have never seen before, but it's

beautiful out there, y'all. Like, it's going to be amazing. And I think that's what we're... So that's a hopeful point of view. When you're going into this political year,

What are you most concerned about moving into the 2024 elections? Is it state houses? Is it where a lot of the damage is being done, state and local areas? Or is it the presidential election itself? Because you noted, you know, some executive orders, everything changed back because of just one president. But that's not how to govern, right? That's not...

Yeah. You know, I always say that the ways that we can make a great deal of change is in local elections. You know, think about the difference that, you know, we've talked a lot about the don't say gay or trans bills, like what school boards can do, like the effect that folks can have in their individual communities. That's something that's going to be amazing. But I also...

You know, I'm worried about how LGBTQ people will be weaponized. And when I say that, too, you know, we were just talking about the DeSantis video. You know, you can't just say that you've been supporting LGBTQ people if you haven't supported LGBTQ people.

people. We've just gotten to a place where just this disinformation or and dishonesty has become just so commonplace. But we have to hold folks to this. It doesn't make something true because someone says that it's true. And we have to make sure that we're holding people to that because we're seeing this in a way. We're seeing...

dishonesty come up in ways that I never would have imagined. I never would have imagined. In that particular case, the video backfired because as it turned out, it was a terrible video, just bad. And he got a lot of Republican pushback for it. And then it turned out that they actually lied about who made it. He made it, his team made it, and then gave it to someone who put it up. And then his team pointed to it, which is such a clod.

honestly, you kind of feel sorry for him a tiny bit, not much. But that's the kind of thing that you're seeing. It just didn't work. In that case, it didn't work. Right. But I think, you know, and they feel fine about that. And I think that's like folks feel emboldened to just go and throw something. It won't be like, well, let's see what's next, you know, like, because I don't think that what came out of this is like, you know what?

Let's turn things around. Let's be really honest. Let's see how we really can support LGBTQ people. That is not what we're going to see come out of this. But that'd be pretty awesome if we did, you know? Yeah. What is your best case scenario? One of the things is for Congress to pass, say, a marriage bill for gay. So we don't have to worry about the Supreme Court, correct? Is that is legislation? Is that something is that the way it's going to have to happen if we have to rely on the Supreme Court or courts to?

that means Congress has to pass, put these things into law. So they're, they're law. Yeah. So legislation is, I mean, absolutely a wonderful tool right now. You know, it, um,

We'd be hard pressed to have something like that happen. But absolutely, if we could, that would be incredible. We'd love to see that. You know, I talked earlier about narrative shifts in culture change work. That does have an impact, too. What we have to realize is that, you know, even in the Supreme Court, that folks have, you know, folks have a lot of experience.

Folks live in the world and are influenced and impacted. And so if there's a culture shift here, I think that that could have some real changes as well. You know, and our own sort of public education, you know, finding getting our own talking points out there. You know, a lot of the things that we hear a lot of are from our opponents. And I think a reason that a lot of the things change.

that they put forward work is because they have talking points because they are all over. And I think for a lot of people, they don't have another side of something. So, yeah, exactly. Imani, you're recording. Thank you. Carry your gem. Thank you.

So that last point she made was all about local politics, which is what we've been hearing. And, you know, we pay so much attention every time it's a presidential cycle. And yet everything is happening at these local legislatures. Yeah, I would agree. I think she's right. And that's why it's harder to fight because these things can pass with a very few amount of people. There's, you know, it's not just...

Negative for Democrats or people who have more liberal or progressive minded. In Michigan, the whole Republican Party is falling apart because the really right wing Trumpers took over and the regular Republicans lost power. At the same time, the new owners of the car are crashing it into walls. So it happened. And then Gretchen Whitmer owns everything. She's doing great.

It just happens everywhere, and I think local is critically important. GOP has been really good at this, like getting people onto school boards, state legislatures. I think that's basically what she's saying. It's like, if you care, pay attention to school boards, pay attention to state legislatures. Who knows? Maybe run for some of these things, you know? But she's a very strategic mind. That was clear when she was talking about the ACLU and how they kind of do, I guess, man-to-zone defense. I don't know if that's the right sports term. I don't know. Don't ask me.

You're a bad lesbian because you know nothing about sports. Zero. But a lot of what she was talking about was disinformation. Yeah, we talked about that. And I think that's what happens is people don't know how many or what the real problem is or the real things. And things can rocket around the internet and among these groups.

very quickly. I spent a lot of time pushing back on a lot of stuff with people like, no, that's not how we're, no, it's not this. And you do that a lot, you know, and then they'll throw up words like groomer or pedo or whatever, you know, and not care. And all the way to someone like Elon Musk who put up that thing about Paul Pelosi. That's so dangerous. Yeah.

And then they yell, yeah, or, you know, yeah, but, you know, and then what happens is it, it just metastasizes and you can't do any about it. And then what do you do? There's nothing to do.

She said something that civil rights, being in the business of civil rights means you're always on the defensive. You don't control the narrative, but you control how people see it. She said something to that effect. Do you think that's true? You're always have to be on the defensive or do you think, because you also said to her at some point, you're like, you're too nice. No, I didn't. I wouldn't be that nice. So do you think that there needs to be more offensive strategy? I think you can't, no, I think you can't make people become more tolerant. I think you have to work with them over time. I think one of the mistakes is,

the left makes quite a bit, progressives make quite a bit, is to pillory people who are just, I think, more ignorant than anything else and probably don't mind gay parents. You know what I mean? Like, I do believe there's more kindness out there and the very noisy people get a hold of the narrative. And I think, you know, that happened. The opinions about gay families changed rather dramatically. I think they'll have a very hard time

taking away marriage rights, adoption rights. I think then people sort of were like, what? Why? I have my nice neighbors. And so I think I do try to educate, even though secretly inside, I cannot stand when I have to do it and that I have to be nice about it.

But you have to be, I think that the conversation we had at the top of this, like if you're able to catch people's fear and fear monger, that means that people have a vulnerability, something they're afraid of and being empathetic to what they're afraid of actually matters in order to have a conversation. And that's kind of what she's, that's why she does what she does and you do what you do. That's it. You're not nice enough. Yeah. I sometimes really want to just really smack people around, but I'm not going to. I'm just going to live my life. You

You're just smacking around wedding websites. That's right. I wouldn't want, by the way, let me tell you, along with the cake guy and the wedding site, we don't want your shitty, crappy, badly fonted wedding websites. And we do not want your shitty cakes. Gay people have great cakes without you. And there's great gay bakers. So we do better cakes. We do better parties. We do better songs. Hello, Barbie is really gay. Like, come on, like the whole movie, Taylor Swift, progressive.

Beyonce, progressive. That's what's making money this year. Are you saying that the best things in the world are gay? No, not gay. No, but progressive. This is the summer of really progressive people making a ton of money. And that is catnip to most people. I'm sorry. People are voting with their feet. Except for Target. Their sales are down because they went on the

pride campaign. No, partially. Come on. They're using it to cover up a really bad retail environment and they're bad at what they do. I'm sorry. Brian Connell, who runs it, who I know very well, should be ashamed of himself on that. I like that, by the way, on websites that since Brexit, the Tories have kind of made Comic Sans this right-wing font. I never knew that was... I used to love Comic Sans when I was a kid. Okay.

Not on your wedding. When you get married, do not use comic songs. I will not have a wedding website. I don't even think I want to have a wedding. I want a surprise wedding where no one asks me about anything like what color are the flowers or something stupid. I'm getting married for all of us. So I've gotten married for several times. You're done. Well, I might have another ceremony, but no. Oh, you just want to wear that powder blue suit. No, I do not. No, I do not. I'll have something else.

Anyways, read us out. Okay. Today's show was produced by Naima Raza, Christian Castro Rossell, Megan Cunane, and Megan Burney. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher. Aaliyah Jackson engineered this episode. Our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get a wedding website designed by Naima.

If not, you get Wedding Site Designed by Me and it will probably have Comic Sans font. No, it won't. I hate Comic Sans font. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more. We don't want a wedding website designed by us. I know, either of us.