NEAT News Blog: LGBTQ+ Advocacy & Community Updates

NEAT Blog: Organizing, Advocacy and Community

Keep up with the newest news from Theneat as we advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, bring you stories from the field, and organize together with partners nationwide.

NEAT Launches Idaho Campaign to Halt Attacks on Trans Youth

Posted 3/20/2020 · by Jeff B White

If you grew up playing sports or taking part in group activities, you know how much belonging to a team mattered. Now imagine a child being told they cannot join that team simply because of who they are — that is the harm at the core of Idaho’s House Bill 500 (HB500). That is why NEAT has launched an emergency phone banking campaign with Moving Towards Freedom to press Idaho Governor Little to veto this bill and other anti-transgender legislation. Learn more or get involved at www.theNEAT.org/Idaho.

HB500 would not only keep transgender youth out of sports; it would also force girls who present as masculine to undergo invasive physical testing. It erodes basic privacy rights by requiring educators and coaches to single out and separate transgender youth, potentially “outing” them to peers and parents. The bill attempts to solve a problem that does not exist, writing discrimination into school policy and stripping away fundamental privacy protections.

Separately, HB509 would stop transgender people from updating the gender marker on their birth certificate. That would leave transgender people unable to accurately identify themselves and defeats the whole purpose of identifying documentation. It is yet another basic human right Idaho lawmakers are trying to take from transgender people, causing irreparable harm. According to the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and others, the right to privacy and identity is essential during the gender transition process.

“We believe in the privacy and dignity of transgender people — especially transgender young people — and that the right to identify oneself is vital to a safe existence,” said NEAT Founder and Executive Director Brian Silva. “That is why we are proud to fight for these basic rights for transgender Idahoans.”

Idaho action campaign graphic for transgender rights — Idaho action campaign

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Pride Is a Protest. But Pride Is Also Joy!!

Posted 3/12/2025 · by Jeff B. White

Last month in San Diego, at the annual gathering of Pride and LGBTQ+ serving organizations from across the western United States and Mexico, NEAT Founder and Executive Director Brian Silva spoke about the clear connection between Pride and advocacy:

“Pride is a protest. But Pride is also joy. We cannot have that joy without protesting for our rights. But we cannot protest for our rights without having that joy in our hearts.”

Brian gave the closing address to the CAPI conference at the invitation of host San Diego Pride, speaking about NEAT’s approach to collaborative action for LGBTQ+ justice and how Pride organizations can use NEAT to deliver year-round programming. He discussed how, in the current landscape, collaboration can be a powerful tool for Pride groups to stay engaged throughout the year.

“San Diego Pride is an organization that proudly utilizes our staff, resources, and grassroots models of organizing to engage in education and advocacy work all year round. It is a model of Pride we are hoping to instill in Pride organizations around the world. NEAT’s ability to make that work accessible to organizations of every size meant we knew that having Brian Silva speak at our closing plenary was going to be a perfect fit,” said Fernando Lopez, San Diego Pride Executive Director.

Brian offered an overview of the current community landscape, including the three Title VII employment cases before the Supreme Court and anti-trans legislation that would impose fines and even jail time for parents and doctors who provide medically appropriate care for transgender kids — something the Alabama Senate had just done. In other states, laws were being proposed that would ban trans athletes from playing sports on teams matching their gender. He noted that with 26 transgender and gender nonconforming people murdered last year, fatal violence against transgender people, especially against trans people of color, has been on the rise.

“I was extremely grateful when I was asked to speak to my fellow advocates about how we can engage and work together towards a common goal of equality and justice for all Americans,” said Brian.

During his talk, Brian pointed out that the model created by NEAT makes a year-round push for education, advocacy and outreach possible, instead of only during the month of June. He also said that NEAT’s proven tactics and simple training make it possible for Prides and LGBTQ+ organizations nationwide to adopt our model rather than rebuilding what already works.

CAPI conference audience in San Diego — CAPI conference

Brian Silva speaking at the CAPI conference closing plenary — Closing plenary

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Intersections: Gee v. June Medical Services — Rally and Arguments

Posted 3/10/2026

In December, Intersections discussed the Gee v. June Medical Services case pending before the Supreme Court of the United States, and how reproductive rights and related healthcare needs disproportionately affect the LGBTQ community. On Wednesday, March 4, 2020, oral arguments were heard in this case before the nation’s highest court.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought the case challenging the Louisiana abortion law, organized a large rally in front of the Supreme Court. NEAT was there and captured a few photos of the rally in the slideshow below.

As a refresher, the case centers on a Louisiana law requiring doctors who work out of healthcare centers providing abortions to also have admitting privileges at a local hospital within 30 miles. That may sound generally reasonable, but in reality it is an indirect way of closing healthcare facilities where abortions are available and skirting the legal principles established by the historical Roe v. Wade decision. Notably, the Supreme Court overturned an identical law by the State of Texas three years earlier. Gee is a way for anti-abortion interests to test the new membership of the Supreme Court in an attempt to limit or overturn that recent decision.

The facts supporting the Louisiana case differ slightly from the Texas case, but the outcome of enacting the law would be largely the same: nearly all of the medical facilities where abortions are available as an option to patients would be required to close. The legislature and respondents claim the law protects patients who have complications that need emergency care, but there is little evidence that is a problem needing to be addressed. Louisiana already has a low number of medical treatment facilities for its population and, in 2019, it was ranked one of the lowest states in the union for healthcare. Closing all of these clinics — which generally provide more than only access to abortions — would be a disaster. The Louisiana legislature would do well to focus on adding healthcare options for its citizenry instead of removing them.

People who watch the Supreme Court closely generally feel that the oral arguments held no surprises. The justices largely had questions based on their expected ideological viewpoints. Petitioner focused on the highest court’s long-standing practice of deferring to its previous decisions or “settled” law. The Trump Administration argued in support of the Louisiana law. Justice Alito focused on a technical aspect of the case — whether the clinic who challenged the law had a right to file the case — attempting to follow a constructed and misguided path that only women affected by the law could bring the legal challenge; other justices did not appear to engage in that discussion heavily. Most of the questions from the bench focused on what facts in these scenarios create an “undue burden,” a key component of the analysis of the Texas law that was overturned by the court more than three years ago. A decision regarding this Louisiana law is expected near the conclusion of the court’s term at the end of June.

Rally outside the Supreme Court for Gee v. June Medical Services — Rally at the Supreme Court

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From emergency phone banks to Pride partnerships, every post here shows how NEAT turns advocacy into action. Whether you want to follow the latest legislative fights or learn how our organizing model works, the blog is the place to start — and you can always jump in through our phone banks, town halls, or contact page.