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➡️ Trans Youth Emergency Project
➡️ Healing and Resilience Program
Legal and lived equality means being able to come out in your hometown. It means being able to be who you are and love who you love. It means finding a local doctor or service provider who will treat you with dignity and respect. It means going to a school where you can participate fully, regardless of your sexual orientation or gender identity. A South where all of us can thrive – that’s our dream. It’s what we work for each day.
For years, the Campaign for Southern Equality has remained focused on lifting up the voices and experiences of LGBTQ+ Southerners who are on the frontlines of the work to secure lived and legal equality for LGBTQ+ people at the local, state, and federal levels. Creating change in the South takes a team effort working on many fronts.
As we move toward a more equal South for all, our work to protect LGBTQ+ Southerners is carried out through the following core programs.
Trans Youth Emergency Project
Cruel laws banning best-practice gender-affirming care have passed in 25 states across the country – and as a result, thousands of transgender youth and their families are being forced to travel extreme distances and take on significant expenses just to get the care they need. The Trans Youth Emergency Project is here to help families navigate this complex and exhausting maze, offering logistical and financial support. Our team provides 1-on-1 custom patient navigation services and supports families of transgender youth with emergency grants to help them travel out of state for care.
Legal Equality Program
Through our Legal Equality Program, the Campaign for Southern Equality works across the South to strike down anti-LGBTQ+ laws, promote pro-LGBTQ+ policies, and promote policies that support racial equity, economic justice and immigration reform. In our current political climate, we’re part of rapid response organizing coalitions working on these issues. We’re working to build political power over the long term. We use tactics including litigation, organizing, and voter registration.
Community Health Program
Through our Community Health Program, we respond to the widespread need for accessible, affirming healthcare among LGBTQ+ Southerners. Current programs include: the Trans in the South Resource Guide, which lists trans-friendly medical providers, counselors, HIV/AIDS services, attorneys and other services across the South and the Trans Youth Emergency Project, which provides families of transgender youth impacted by bans on gender-affirming care with patient navigation services and emergency grants to help them identify and travel to out of state healthcare providers. We also provide clinics, resources, and trainings to help healthcare providers be more affirming of LGBTQ+ patients.
Healing and Resilience
Undergirding every area of our work at the Campaign for Southern Equality is a recognition that pushing forward on lived and legal equality for LGBTQ+ Southerners has an impact on activists’ fundamental health and wellness. Through our Healing & Resilience program, we focus on equipping the CSE community – including staff, partners, and advocates – with the necessary tools to care for ourselves and one another, while doing the work to secure justice and equality for LGBTQ+ Southerners.
Legal Equality Program
This program focuses on achieving legal equality by striking down anti-LGBTQ+ laws, passing pro-LGBTQ+ policies across the South, and building political voice and power for every community on the margins in the South. CSE does this work through litigation, public education, voter registration, community organizing and direct action.
Southern Equality Fund
Through the Southern Equality Fund (SEF), CSE empowers local LGBTQ leaders across the South to promote equality in their hometowns. We believe that the organizers on the front lines of the Southern LGBTQ+ movement can transform our region – but they need the funding and support to do so. Through the SEF, we provide grants, trainings and support.
Southern Equality Research and Policy Center
More than thirty percent of all LGBTQ+ people in the United States call the American South home. Yet, less than ten percent of the social research on this population highlights the experiences of those in the region. The Southern Equality Research and Policy Center (SERPC) conducts independent research and develops interventions to promote the legal and lived equality of LGBTQ+ Southerners. Through our community-based research, we promote an increased understanding of LGBTQ+ life in the South that is fact-based and can inform policies and strategies to promote the health, equity, and well-being of LGBTQ people in the region.
Southern Equality Studios
We’ve seen the power that storytelling has had on changing hearts and minds here in the South and nationwide, and it’s a vital tool as we continue our work to build a South where all are free and affirmed to live as their authentic selves. Art and storytelling have long played a powerful and central role in movements for social justice, and we’re honored to be a part of that long legacy in our region. Southern Equality Studios is a project that explores how the arts can be a catalyst and force in achieving lived and legal LGBTQ+ equality across the South.
Supportive Schools
Every school, every home, and every community should give every child the message that they are safe, respected and loved for exactly who they are. The Supportive Schools Program provides training, policy guidance, and assessment services to assist schools in becoming more inclusive and welcoming for students of every sexual and gender identity. Through the program, CSE also advises and advocates on other LGBTQ+ youth-related issues and policies, and supports the formation and networking of school GSA’s and other youth organizations.
