Two of the nation's biggest trans advocacy organizations are set to merge later this year. In early summer, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) will officially become Advocates for Trans Equality, shortened to A4TE. Its soon-to-be executive director, Rodrigo Heng-Lehinthen, said the coming consolidation will allow A4TE to have "twice the funds, twice the staff, and twice the power."
"We're in a really fortunate position that everyone who currently works at either NCTE or TLDEF is able to keep their jobs," said Heng-Lehinthen, who currently serves as NCTE's executive director. "When you hear 'merger,' it's easy to assume that that means some kind of crisis and, therefore, layoffs. Thankfully, that's not the case here at all. The whole idea is to grow. We're only getting bigger."
Following a difficult few years for the LGBTQ+ equality movement, Heng-Lehinthen believes the time is right for a trans advocacy supergroup. At least 484 bills have been introduced this year targeting basic rights and protections for LGBTQ+ people, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The majority of those proposals are aimed at the trans community, particularly trans youth. Earlier this month, Idaho passed a law preventing teachers who refuse to use the correct names and pronouns of trans students from being disciplined, while Mississippi is on the verge of enacting a bathroom ban that some have compared to 19th century "Jim Crow" laws.
Despite these myriad setbacks, Heng-Lehtinen insisted that the trans movement is in a "weirdly beneficial position."
A commonly cited principle of political opinion research, he explained, is that the longer people hold a particular view, the harder it is to change their minds. Heng-Lehtinen suggested the vast majority of the American public is still learning about what it means to be transgender, because they've only started hearing about concepts relating to gender identity or within the past decade, due to increased media visibility.
"This is the very first generation in America that is even reckoning with the concept of transgender rights in the public domain," he said. "What that means is that, even if people have a negative opinion, they've only had it for the equivalent of, like, 30 seconds. Therefore, they are more persuadable today than they ever will be. The ground is fertile for us to change their minds."
If Heng-Lehtinen holds that now is a "golden hour" for trans rights, he nevertheless said the window is closing. He estimates that advocates have "five to 10 years" to win the fight for equality, which he said begins with educating the public on who trans people actually are.
Anti-trans misinformation has flourished, Heng-Lehtinen said, because gatekeepers have allowed it to proliferate virtually unchecked. The New York Times didn't quote a single trans person in 66% of its articles on anti-trans legislation between February 2023 and February 2024, according to a report from GLAAD and the progressive watchdog group Media Matters.
With few trans voices allowed at the table, Heng-Lehtinen said that right-wing lobbyists have been able to wield outsize power. Conservative groups, he noted, also tend to have more money. Alliance Defending Freedom, the law firm that defended Christian baker Jack Phillips' right to refuse catering for gay weddings, had an annual budget of $104 million in 2022. The Human Rights Campaign, currently the nation's largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group, only had a budget of $38 million that same year.
"Their message is penetrating the American consciousness not because their message is better," Heng-Lehtinen said. "It's because it's out there more. It is louder because they have the money to reach more people. When our side is able to access those kinds of platforms, we do persuade people. Our message is quite powerful. People just don't get the chance to hear it very often."
Polling indicates that the prevalence of right-wing propaganda has led to decreases in support for LGBTQ+ equality for the first time: A 2023 survey from the non-partisan research firm PRRI shows a slight downturn in the number of Americans who support nondiscrimination protections and even marriage equality. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of respondents who said that LGBTQ+ people deserve civil rights protections in areas like housing, employment, education, and health care dropped from 80% to 76%. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who support the freedom to marry for all couples fell from 69% to 67%.
But Heng-Lehtinen maintains that the broad swath of Americans remain reachable on the topic of trans equality because he has seen, in his own life, that hearts and minds can be changed. Although his mother, former Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida), was on record as supporting LGBTQ+ equality long before he ever came out to her as trans, the news that his conservative parents had a son at first shocked them both, he recalls.
"They were totally taken aback at first," he said. "My mom and my dad both really struggled to understand and were really concerned about me being trans, because they thought that it would be dangerous."
It wasn't until Heng-Lehtinen was outed in a Miami Herald story around 2009 that his parents became "super supportive," he said. Although he had been out professionally and socially for a number of years, Heng-Lehtinen had never discussed his trans identity with the public. After people began saying "nasty things" about him following the article's publication, he said that his mother "went into Mama Bear mode" and became the "champion for trans equality" that she is today. She just needed the time and the opportunity to educate herself, so she could understand that so many of her initial fears were unfounded, he added.
As he looks ahead to A4TE's future, Heng-Lehtinen knows that America will have its own breakthrough, so long as advocates persist in telling the stories of trans people honestly and authentically. "Social change is not a straight line," he said. "It's up and down, peaks and valleys. Unfortunately, now we are in a valley, but it's not forever. There is hope. If we fight hard enough, we will get through this."
PIC: Rodrigo Heng-Lehinthen. Photo courtesy of National Center for Transgender Equality.
