The authoritarian playbook includes convincing people to look “suspiciously at your trans neighbor instead of looking depressingly at your bank account” and point to groups of marginalized people and “tell you to blame them for your problems” but “Americans are beginning to see through it,” said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
Pritzker told this to the sold-out PFLAG National Learning with Love- themed national convention (which has taken place every two years since 1981) attendees during his opening keynote address Oct. 10 at Loews Chicago O’Hare Hotel in Rosemont, Illinois.
Pritzker also reminded everyone that the Trump Administration, whom he calls “retrograde bigots” and “cowards,” are ramping up their attacks with the ICE agents and troops he is using to target blue cities and states “all in an effort to normalize the idea of having the military on American streets” because they “don’t respect the Constitution or the rule of law.”
Their goal, said Pritzker, is make everyone compliant but the opposite is happening because people aren’t backing down. Pritzker called on everyone to continue to publicly love the people close to them as well as their neighbors and community, take the “haters to court” and be loud “because this is the whole ball game. Peaceful protests, mobilization and righteous disruption. And then go to the polls and vote them the hell out.”
Pritzker also pointed to PFLAG’s “incredible, life-changing and truly life-saving work.” He said, “It’s a damn shame that representatives in Washington, D.C., people who should know better, are spending our hard-earned tax dollars cooking up new ways to attack this community. To strip away freedoms and rights” and make LGBTQ+ people’s lives harder. Pritzker added that as a Constitutional officer who “actually believes in freedom, if they want to attack you they are going to have to come through me.” He said they are doing this because they are “insecure as hell” about their own selves.
“PFLAG isn’t just opening [many new] chapters,” said Pritzker. “You are taking the fight to court and becoming the lead plaintiff in, and I love the name of the case, PFLAG v. Donald Trump. As you take on the fight to protect gender affirming care for transgender young people. That’s courage, and that’s love in action.”
PFLAG Great Lakes Volunteer Regional Director (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio chapters) and National Board of Directors Member Amy Orwig spoke about how she didn’t know anything about PFLAG until 2017, when her youngest child came out as bisexual. Orwig said she accepted her child right away and warned everyone to never to turn to Google and ask this question, “What should a Christian parent do when their child comes out?” She said the results were “pages of hatred” toward the LGBTQ+ community and the family members who accepted them.
Orwig said the “most prevalent piece of advice was ‘kick your child out’”—but there were also other supportive voices that led her to PFLAG. She added that when that same youngest child told her and her husband that she was a transgender young woman on her 18th birthday, they were better equipped with the correct information due to organizations like PFLAG.
Pritzker said it is not right that Orwig has to even fight for her own child’s human rights.
After Pritzker and Orwig’s remarks, a “Crafting Intentional Partnerships to Build Community” discussion took place. It focused on cross-movement solidarity moderated by LGBTQ+ rights advocate Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen (the first out transgender child of a sitting member of congress Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; she served from 1989-2019). Panelists included UnidosUS Director of Political Campaigns Rafael Collazo, New Disabled South Co-Founder and CEO Dom Kelly, political strategist Howard Ou and Equality Illinois CEO Channyn Lynne Parker.
Heng-Lehtinen asked about how each of them develop successful partnerships and best practices for people to meet each other where they are.
Parker said for her it’s about building trust and transparency. She also spoke about her success when Howard Brown Health (where she previously worked) partnered with churches to do COVID-19 testing and vaccination outreach.
Kelly spoke requiring accessible spaces so the disabled community can participate in this work. He said his work in the south has required him to have conversations with people who do not agree with him. He spoke about his cerebral palsy and how, when he met his now-wife he recognized that she was neurodivergent. She didn’t want to address it yet since, as a Black woman, she already had barriers to break through. Kelly said this made him think about how he showed up in the world and understand people’s own journeys and now his wife accepts her identity as a disabled Black woman.
Collazo spoke about how PFLAG’s work became personal for him in the past decade as close relatives of his have come out. He said it is important to start from “within” to truly be LGBTQ+ inclusive and that is what UnidosUS has done in recent years to address the needs of Hispanic LGBTQ+ people.
Ou remarked that he wished his parents knew about PFLAG when he came out. He also spoke about a pilgrimage he did with a Catholic group where he encountered a woman and told his coming out story. Ou said this prompted the woman to say she has a gay son with whom she is estranged with because she is a Republican voter.
As a result of that conversation, that woman was ultimately more willing to meet her son “in the middle.” Ou suggested she reach out to PFLAG and the he and the woman are now good friends.
In terms of what each panelist needs from PFLAG, Kelly said that disabled people must be a part of every conversation around accessibility, while Collazo said he wants a commitment that they will work with UnidosUS and “speak up in this moment as people are getting kidnapped by our [federal] government” since every marginalized community is under attack.
Ou said people should reach out to Congresspeople because they are an important resource, while Parker said everyone in the room needs to be accurate information sources for the people in their lives so as to stop misinformation. Parker also called on everyone to be brave.
PFLAG National CEO Brian Bond said in an email statement to this publication on the first day of the convention, “The Trump Administration is demonizing trans people and their parents, immigrants and Black people—all marginalized people—to distract from their failing policies, from cutting costs to providing healthcare to chipping away at the very foundation of our democracy.
“PFLAG parents, families, queer folks, community leaders and allies are working in their communities every day, pushing back and showing up. They are proving that our love is louder and that we are resilient people on the right side of history. Our hundreds of chapters and over half-million members and supporters will never back down from fighting for our pride—because liberty and love are inseparable.”
Convention speeches and panels are available to view on PFLAG’s YouTube livestream channel.