It had been 20 years since New Mexico’s LGBTQ+ community met for a statewide summit to discuss political strategy, advocacy work and to forge relationships. That changed this past weekend.
About 150 people attended a sold-out summit Aug. 1 to Aug. 3 at the Ramada Plaza, which was organized by Equality New Mexico (EQNM), Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico. On the agenda for organizers: Reinvigorate the community and strategize for what they see as a series of political and social fights on the horizon.
“This is a critical time in the LGBTQ movement for equality and justice,” Marshall Martinez said. “For five years in a row, there has been a new record set for the most anti-LGBTQ bills introduced across the country.”
Martinez, the executive director of EQNM, said the queer and transgender community “face unprecedented attacks that are being felt emotionally and physically.” States have restricted gender-affirming care protections and access to reproductive health care, especially abortion, he said.
“Bodily autonomy is an LGBTQ issue, and queer and trans people need access to birth control and abortion care just as much as everybody else,” Martinez said.
In addition to reproductive rights, Martinez said attacks on the LGBTQ+ community include libraries banning books with LGBTQ+ characters or themes and attempts to restrict or ban drag queen performances.
“Let’s be really clear, those proposals are attacking our trans and non-binary siblings across the country,” Martinez said. “Queer and trans people see our right to merely exist under attack daily in the news.”
Amid the backdrop of an upcoming presidential election, summit organizers raised the alarm on states removing people from voter rolls, restricting the hours polls are open and other barriers.
“We have seen consistent attacks on our democracy, especially in the last four years,” Martinez said. “But queer and trans people have always organized to get people to the polls in order to elect the government that will protect us.”
Happily, Martinez said, New Mexico’s legal protections for its citizens at large and the LGBTQ+ community in particular are stronger than in many other states.
“That is because our community is organized,” he said.
New Mexico’s Human Rights Act contains protections for LGBTQ+ people and reproductive and gender-affirming health care. Conversion therapy for minors is prohibited and marriage equality is protected at the state level.
Martinez is concerned, however, about what he said is an effort among some New Mexico politicians to criminalize those experiencing homelessness.
“They want to criminalize people who need access to mental and behavioral health care, and they want to criminalize people who are experiencing addiction. Many are queer and trans people,” he said.
Martinez, who is from Alamogordo, said his career as a community organizer was sparked after a high school suspension for handing out condoms. As a peer educator for safer sex practices, he would carry around a brown paper bag full of condoms in his backpack.
“One day in class, I was giving some to one of my classmates and the teacher saw me and sent me to the principal’s office,” he said. “I was suspended for three days for possession of contraceptives with the intent to distribute.”
Martinez said his mother motivated him to take action, so later in the school year he led students to the superintendent’s office to voice their frustrations.
“There were a number of things we talked about — one of them was that students will have sex and they should have access to condoms,” he said. “I’m very proud to say that students no longer get suspended from school in Alamogordo for having condoms on campus.”
‘Make sure that you’re prepared’
Over the weekend, participants learned strategies for how to effectively engage with state legislators and city and county officials.
“Make sure that you’re prepared for what lies ahead,” Martinez told attendees. “It’s going to get really hard, but we have always come out of it on the other side — stronger, more powerful and more successful.”
The statewide summit was an annual fixture in the 1990s, led by the Coalition of Equality in NM, now EQNM, and was key to the passage of the state’s original LGBTQ+ non-discrimination law in 2003. Martinez said a lack of funding was the main reason the summit ended until now.