Taking Action: Blocking Trump’s Agenda, Two-Spirit & LGBTQIA+ Highlights, Honoring Jimmy Carter’s Legacy
Musings of the Month
Taking Action: Blocking Trump’s Agenda, Two-Spirit & LGBTQIA+ Highlights, Honoring Jimmy Carter’s Legacy
Rest In Power President Jimmy Carter
In light of the recent passing of President Jimmy Carter we want to share two of his quotes. We applaud him for his allyship with women and girls, sharing his acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community, and his lifetime of work to liberate all people.
MUSINGS…
Gateway to Pride is an Amazing Exhibit
Over the holidays we visited Saint Louis, Missouri and the Missouri History Museum, located in Forest Park, a wonderful respite and free resource, which is twice the size of New York’s Central Park.
LGBTQIA+ people have been part of St. Louis from the beginning. But until recently, their lives, struggles, and contributions have often been overlooked. In Gateway to Pride, the Missouri History Museum presents the first-ever full-scale exhibit on St. Louis’s fascinating and powerfully relevant LGBTQIA+ history. The result of a community-driven, nearly decade-long collecting initiative, Gateway to Pride showcases meaningful artifacts, striking images, and insightful oral histories. Through the exhibit, visitors will discover a surprising and revealing new perspective on the region’s past, and LGBTQIA+ St. Louisans will see themselves as central figures in their region’s history like never before.
Data2insight team member Frieda Smith (right) and Veronica Smith’s wife, Natalie Hamrick, at the Missouri History Museum’s Gateway to Pride exhibit showing through July 7, 2025.
We were blown away by the depth and diversity we discovered in that exhibit. And the exhibit design and delivery were top notch - graphic designs that gave us loads of information, the use of technology to deliver first person experiences told by the locals who lived through so many challenges, and display cases filled with memorabilia from various sources throughout the community.
We saw a section that discussed the “Iowa Wedding Buses” which took LGBTQIA+ couples from Saint Louis to Iowa City to get married after the Iowa state supreme court granted the right for same-sex couples to marry in 2009, before the national law for marriage equality was passed. One floor to ceiling display case held the wedding dresses of a lesbian couple and the tuxes of a gay couple who got married in Iowa, along with descriptions and photos.
We saw visitors engrossed in taking in everything they had time to see. There was also a photo of our team member, Frieda Smith, and her wife, Susan Block, featured as one of many LGBTQIA+ families.
The exhibit is open through July 7, 2025. Check it out if you can!
Resource Highlight
Hopefully you have had some time to rest and recover from the presidential election. The upcoming inauguration is an unprecedented moment in history. Resistance to this authoritarianism requires moral courage, discipline, and focus that, for many of us, has not been required in our lifetime. Now is the time to take action because people’s lives and the soul of our democracy are at stake. We must now stiffen our spines for this fight, because there is no time to waste, and this is a fight we must not lose.
House of Representatives member and Judiciary Committee member Jerry Nadler (D), outlines in his open letter some concrete actions you and your trusted circle of friends and family can take in the coming days, weeks, and months to resist the extreme agenda of the Trump administration and those in the national House and Senate, as well as state legislators who support those efforts.
These actions include, but are not limited to:
Refusing to allow the normalization of Trump is the first key step to long-term eroding of Trump’s support.
Write letters to media editors every time you see an article or broadcast that utilizes a normalizing tone or doesn’t make note of the extreme nature of Trump, his behavior and rhetoric, or his Administration’s actions.
Use the hashtag #NotNormal or #DontNormalize on your social media platforms.
Contact your elected officials via petitions, letters, calls and social media to urge them to resist any action that would normalize the Administration and demand that they loudly condemn any Trump actions that are unbefitting our democracy.
Reach out to your friends and family and encourage them to do the same.
Support rhetorically and financially those organizations that are stepping up to fight normalization
Advocacy groups and everyday citizens must become a unified blocking force for Congressional Democrats who are fighting against Trump’s extreme agenda.
Creation of broader-than-normal coalitions: Concerned national organizations and individuals must band together immediately and work collaboratively, in unprecedented and streamlined ways, putting aside slight ideological differences and competitions, and become committed to sharing resources in the interest of building an all-in force.
People residing in safe Democratic districts can adopt a couple of key marginal Democratic districts to help organize within.
Become as invested in the Midterm Elections as you were in the Presidential election, as if your life depended on it.
The main goal is to return control of one of the chambers—either the House or the Senate—to Democratic control.
The main organizational entities for the Democrats in Congress are the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC.org) and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC.org). Sign up for their list-serves and get involved with the campaigns of your choosing as soon as possible.
Book Spotlight
Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter
Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (2005) is a book written by former president Jimmy Carter. On January 15, 2006 it was #1 on The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller list. Carter won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for the spoken version of this book. He offers a compelling argument for the separation of church and state, as well as his takes on contemporary issues such as women's rights, abortion, terrorism, and the death penalty. Sustained by his lifelong faith, Jimmy Carter assesses these issues in a balanced and courageous way.
This book can be found by searching independent bookstore aggregator AbeBooks. And, you can find a 'peek inside' on the Thriftbooks website.
NOTE: Let’s support our local independent bookstores! You can order from independent bookstores across the country and around the world here. In St. Louis, check with Left Bank Books. And in Seattle, check out Third Place Books.
#SelfCareCorner
Three Words for 2025
At the beginning of each year, our team enjoys setting guideposts for our new year. These are different from new year’s resolutions. They are words that you can refer to throughout the year and inform you daily as you make decisions about how you want to show up in the world, engage in activities, and connect with others. We often place our three words on a desktop sticky note.
One of our team member’s words for 2025 and what they mean are:
1. Embrace –There is much going on in the world that is not what I had hoped for. It is important to embrace what is happening in the world today in order to be able to navigate to a future that is better than the present.
2. Space – I need to make space in my life to contemplate and reflect on where I have been, where I am, and where I want to go personally and professionally
3. Connect – Staying connected with trusted family and friends is vital to my self-care, taking action regularly to resist the incoming administration’s authoritarian efforts, and finding fun and joy in my life.
It’s never too late in the year for you and your team/group to discuss and discover your own three words for 2025!
We would love to hear your three words and what they mean to you. Share your thoughts at info@data2insight.com.
What’s new @data2insight?
While it is not new, it is important to once again highlight the Washington LGBTQ+ Survey because the survey will be closed to responses on January 31.
While it is not new, it is important to once again highlight the Washington LGBTQ+ Survey as the survey will close to responses on January 31.
This is the last chance for Two-spirt and LGBTQIA+ people living in Washington to complete the survey! We have heard from nearly 6,000 folx and want to add your voice to that count.
HURRY, there's not much time left! If you have not already done so, please take the survey and share with your Two-spirit and LGBTQIA+ friends and family in Washington.
Also, please share these recent articles in the Seattle Gay News and The International Examiner with your network. They include more information about this historic survey sponsored by the Washington LGBTQ Commission in order to build better relations between the Two-spirt and LGBTQIA+ community and our state government.
