Progress, Backlash and What Comes Next: Lessons from the US LGBTQ+ Movement

A special event with Philanthropy NZ, Rule Foundation, Rainbow Funders Ropū, and Rainbow Giving Australia

You’re invited to a special online conversation with Kevin Jennings, CEO of Lambda Legal, exploring the state of LGBTQ+ rights in the United States - where the movement has come from, the backlash now underway, and what may lie ahead.

While grounded in the experience of rainbow communities, this conversation has relevance well beyond them. In the United States, challenges to LGBTQ+ rights are closely intertwined with wider culture wars, political polarisation and debates about diversity, inclusion, rights and democratic institutions. These are dynamics of increasing relevance to philanthropy and the wider community sector here in Aotearoa too.

Kevin will reflect on the arc from significant legal victories and social progress to the rapid rise of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in recent years, and consider what it will take to protect those gains and keep moving forward.

The US political environment is markedly different from Aotearoa New Zealand, but it is not entirely distant from our own experience. In recent years we have seen echoes here of US-style culture wars, growing political polarisation and organised opposition to rainbow communities. The scale and intensity are different, but the US experience offers a useful window into how these dynamics can develop — and raises questions about how prepared our communities, funders and institutions are if similar pressures continue to grow here.

About Kevin Jennings

Kevin Jennings has spent more than three decades working for LGBTQ+ equality. He founded GLSEN, the first national US organisation focused on combating anti-LGBTQ+ bias in schools, and later served in the Obama Administration as Assistant Secretary of Education for Safe & Drug-Free Schools. He subsequently led the Arcus Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropic funders of LGBTQ+ rights, before becoming CEO of Lambda Legal in 2019.

A former teacher, foundation leader, author and advocate, Kevin brings perspectives from across activism, government, philanthropy and the law.