Victory in Maryland reflects a victory for the work of volunteers and organizers everywhere

Even though we won a huge victory today for transgender rights in Maryland — with the court throwing out the effort to repeal transgender rights on the ballot — we were preparing to defeat this attack on gender identity protections in November.

We have to fight back when our community is under attack. By working together and doing grassroots organizing we could keep transgender protections in Montgomery County.

Volunteer for Equality, a project of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, with over 300 volunteers took over the N.Y. office this summer. We started off by organizing ‘friends and family’ fundraising phone banks in both N.Y. and D.C. Using our personal grassroots power we saw our first donation of $150 turn into over $12,000 in start-up funds for Basic Rights Montgomery. Making calls into D.C. Volunteer for Equality helped Basic Rights Montgomery build a volunteer base for voter identification calls.

“Have you heard about the vote to prohibit discrimination against transgender people?” An hour before our phone bank we realized that we were making history by calling voters about a transgender specific issue. With ten volunteers that first night we talked to 123 Montgomery County voters and found that 103 supported transgender rights! Our team was energized and hopeful that New Yorkers could make the difference between winning and losing transgender rights in Montgomery County.

We knew that in order to win in November we needed to talk directly to voters to dispel the anti-transgender myths and misinformation. Eight phone banks later Volunteer for Equality identified over 850 supportive voters in Silver Spring and Takoma Park in Maryland. To find 853 supporters out of 1127 conversations is not something that I thought could happen. I am amazed at the Montgomery County voter response to transgender rights.

Today I learned that we had won our appeal while I was preparing materials for tonight’s voter identification phone bank. I appreciate the response that we’ve got from the community and the New York volunteers who’ve come back week after week to help us build our movement. It’s great that we won’t have to face a vote on transgender rights at the ballot box in Maryland in November and the work we’ve done has assured me that when transgender people are under attack our community can and will respond.

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