At the TIME100 Summit in New York on April 24th, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President and 2024 TIME100 honoree Kelley Robinson took part in a panel entitled The Art of Advocacy moderated by CNN anchor Abby Phillip. “In no short order, she has ignited innovative campaigns that uplift the most marginalized in our community including queer people of color and transgender people”, wrote GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis in her TIME100 profile of Robinson.
Speaking alongside 2022 TIME Woman of the Year, activist and astronaut Amanda Nguyen, whose activism ignited the Stop Asian Hate movement and helped to pass the 2016 Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act, Robinson spoke about her approach to HRC’s advocacy work to end discrimination and advance equality for LGBTQ+ people in the United States and internationally.
Robinson agreed with Nguygen about joy being a shared factor in their efforts. “Joy is the most radical form of rebellion”, suggested Nguyen. “That totally resonates with me, especially when you’re talking about the context of the art of advocacy…figuring out how you get to change in the midst of the context that you find yourself living within”, Robinson concurred.
Going on to invoke Beyoncé as an inspiration behind her strategy, Robinson added, “When I think about Beyoncé, from country music to house music, she shows us range and genre-busting. I think that we have to figure out at every step of our advocacy work, how do we bring that type of creativity into the space that meets people where they are, meets people in the spaces and places where they find joy, and then uses that as a core point to build the sort of revolution that we need? At the end of the day, I feel like what my work is all about is making sure that every lesbian, gay, bi, queer, and trans person in this country can feel the same joy that they do at a Beyoncé concert in every space in their lives. So how do we do that? We have to have an imagination for what change and structural reform looks like to get there.”
Having served as Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Robinson shared that her experience with that organization had taught her that the fights for abortion and LGBTQ+ rights “are not controversial issues”. Adding, “When we talk about bodily autonomy, when we talk about getting to love the person that you choose, those are not things that are actually agitational in our environment. What’s happening is that we’ve got a political landscape that’s trying to draw wedges between us.”
“One of the most transformative things about the LGBTQ+ movement is how far we’ve been able to move where most people believe that gay, trans, and queer people should be in this country”, commented Robinson, striking a positive tone. “If you look back 25 years ago, you had the Defense of Marriage Act being the law of the land that basically banned same sex marriage. Now you’ve got the Respect for Marriage Act that codifies it into law. You also have a President in office, Joe Biden, who voted for both the Defense of Marriage Act and signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law. So when I think about the power of this movement, it’s a power to actually shift hearts and minds but also laws and policies in a relatively short timeframe.”
“When I come to the fight that we’re in right now”, Robinson continued, “particularly what it means to advocate and centre trans and nonbinary folks and folks of color in this fight, it’s about understanding that what’s happening to us is not new. The same things they’re saying about trans people today, they said about gay and lesbian people 20 years ago, and now the laws have changed. The same things they’re saying about trans people today, they said about people living with HIV and AIDS, and now we’re within arm’s reach of ending the epidemic.”
Considering how advances in technology have impacted advocacy, Robinson observed that “it has allowed us to make our movements bigger, more expansive, and also more intersectional than we could have ever imagined before.” However, although technology might enhance advocacy work, it cannot replace the power of an individual sharing their own experiences in-person, Robinson emphasized. “There is nothing more powerful than someone telling their personal story about why they care about this issue, or why they are just as human as someone else. So we still have to do that work, and often, especially in a world where there’s misinformation and disinformation abounding, and it’s got to be done face-to-face.”
Robinson summed things up by looking towards the future. “The LGBTQ+ community is in a state of crisis, a state of emergency right now, and the one thing that gives me hope is that it’s often been in these moments of crisis where movements are actually able to take leaps forward that previously seemed impossible…There is something that’s coming on the other side of the crisis.”
Watch the full discussion from the TIME100 Summit below:
The annual TIME100 Summit convenes leaders from the global TIME100 community to spotlight solutions and encourage action toward a better world. For more stories about the 2024 TIME100 Summit and Gala head to TIME.com.
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