Our Work

MassEquality has a legendary history of securing enormous achievements for the LGBTQ community. Our extensive education program helped us secure the historic right to equal marriage in 2007. Since that victory, we have continued to make history by winning civil rights protections for transgender people both in 2011 and again in 2016. In 2018, with a repeal of a repeal of transgender equal rights on the November ballot, we used our extensive education program to ensure that voters knew that transgender people must have the same right to use public accommodations without fear of discrimination that the rest of the state enjoys.

We have also used education and outreach campaigns to help secure an extensive anti-bullying campaign in schools and helped establish the first in the nation LGBTQ Youth Commission. We continue to support LGBTQ young people by educating the public about the need for an evidence-based sex education program in public schools; by pressing for a ban on conversion therapy for minors; by expanding youth access to confidential medical care; and by educating about the need for steady support for organizations that serve LGBTQ youth such as BAGLY. We also serve as members of the Special Commission on LGBTQ Aging Commission and recently used our education campaigns to secure a first-in-the-nation LGBTQ elder cultural competency training bill for all elder care providers.

We continue to educate the community about the need to ensure that all LGBTQ prisoners are housed in safe and secure locations consistent with their gender identity. We continue to work on adding a third gender marker to state issued IDs and birth certificates, and to educate on the need for increased data collection on LGBTQ health outcomes.

We frequently offer testimony before special legislative committees in support of our Champions Agenda. We offered testimony on the Transgender Equal Access Bill before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. We also offered testimony on An Act Providing Housing and Support Services for Unaccompanied Homeless Youth before the Committee on Children, Families, and Persons With Disabilities and testimony on An Act Relative To Abusive Practices To Change Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity in Minors before the Committee on Children, Families, and Persons With Disabilities.

Over the past sixteen years, MassEquallity has grown into one of the most well-respected social justice organizations in the region with deep relationships in the State House and the broader community.