Latino LGBTQ activists lobby Congress for federal protections
On July 9, after most members of Congress had left the Capitol, a small group began setting up a celebration. The halls were nearly silent, aside from the occasional tap of heels on the marble floor, as people slowly streamed into Emancipation Hall and down a corridor.
Closer to Senate Meeting Room 212, the intertwining murmur of voices in Spanish and English began to grow. Then one man stepped to the front of the room and a hush overcame the crowd. “Today was a great opportunity to meet different members in the House and the Senate,” Frankie Miranda said. “It was an eye-opening experience in many different opportunities, seeing how our message was being welcomed.
And in other cases, really not resonating at all, with some of them.” Miranda, who is the president of the Hispanic Federation, a nonprofit membership and advocacy organization with a mission to “empower and advance the Hispanic community” with a particular focus to low-income, marginalized, and immigrant Latinos, assured that the advocacy for expanding protections for LGBTQ people would not end on Capitol Hill. “We are going to continue our push to make sure that the intersectionality in our communities — that our LGBTQ Latinx and that female voices are heard,” Miranda continued, conviction clear in his voice. “We’re going to continue pushing because we know that after pride, the work continues.
We cannot just allow ourselves to just be recognized just one month out of the year.” Miranda, who became the Hispanic Federation’s first gay president in 2019, has vowed to use his platform to help uplift Latino LGBTQ voices.
