Panelists from multiple on-campus and community LGBT organizations met at the LSU Women’s Center Tuesday evening for the LGBT State of the Union, which included discussion of recent developments and plans for the future of Louisiana.
“If you are someone who is driven to try to make a difference, there’s a lot of room for you to do that here,” said Equality Louisiana research and policy coordinator Corinne Green.
Converting one of the vacant offices next to the Women’s Center into a dedicated LGBT center, removing the requirement for Tiger Cards to use student’s birth names and properly labeling gender-neutral restrooms were among the reforms suggested.
Attendees also spoke of a lack of communication and difficulties in holding entities like the University and Student Government accountable for implementing promised changes.
“Student Government … will preach acceptance and [say] ‘We’re here for LGBT students,’ but then you hear from them once a year,” Spectrum president Courtney Murr said. “It’s incredibly frustrating that people only have time to talk to us when they want to get elected.”
Only one of the 59 student senators has made significant efforts to work with the LGBT community, said Qroma copresident Megan Gilliam.
At the state level, successes by LGBT activists include monitoring the legislature to organize responses to new bills early the legislative process.
A bill proposed by Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Denham Springs, HB-542, was quickly withdrawn after voters made hundreds of phone calls to her office protesting it as encouraging discrimination against trans people, Green said.
The original text of the bill allowed employers to “provide for the regulation of dress code and sex-specific titles and names; to provide that restrooms be segregated based on the sex designated at birth.”
“The national organizations … said it was the worst anti-trans bill they’d ever seen,” Green said. “We killed it in less than sixteen hours.”
Despite the issues with HB-542, the state is still in some ways ahead of many of its Southern counterparts, Green said.
“We haven’t had the problems you’ve seen in North Carolina or in Mississippi,” Green said.
Green attributed this to strong activism by LGBT groups, the election of Gov. John Bel Edwards and the local culture being a little more accepting than those of other southern states.
Attendees lauded an executive order by Edwards protecting state workers against being fired over their gender and sexual identity as a major improvement.
However, acts of violence against trans people continue to be an issue, Green said, with two recent homicides having occurred in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
“I constantly feel like I’m going to be mauled or attacked just because I’m walking in the street presenting how I want to present [my identity],” community activist Joseph Coco said.