women have -- and people who are making decisions about reproduction, a process that occurs in their body, that it is within their agency as human beings to make those >> for more of this weekend schedule go to booktv.org. next, members of the lgbt community discuss their personal experiences in the fight for marriage equality and transgender rights. participants include a couple who became colitigants in a case that led to the legalization of same sex marriage in the state of california. the two-hour event was hosted by george washington university in washington d.c. earlier this month. >> welcome to our fifth annual lgbt health forum. this is actually a very, very special one for us, and we're doing a number of wonderful things celebrating our fifth year of our program, and i will

tell you a little bit about the program in a moment, not the least of which is this incredible power house panel we put together on a topic that is fairly urgent right now. if you're not familiar with our forum, this is our public outreach mechanism. we do this every year with the start of our annual -- our annual summer residency which begins our program during residency week, so all of our students who are in the new cohort are here in town from all over the country and many times all over the world. this is our way of sort of reaching out to the public, letting you know who we are and what we do. we are -- our program is a graduate certificated program, and our mission is to train medical and mental health professionals, health professionals in the broader sense to improve equality of care for lgbt people. that's our mission. we started this around 2011.

we thought, hey, there might be something -- something to do here. a number of key things happened and we started the wheels moving. here we are five years later. if you know anything about academia and what it takes to get a program launched and to keep it going, five years is pretty special so we're really proud of it. i'm also proud of our new class and our alumni. i'm going to embarrass you for a moment. our new class members of the class of 2018, stand up. there we go. yes. [ applause ] >> i'm not going to exaggerate by saying this is one of the best -- best group of students we've had yet, and it is not just blowing hot air. we also have some alumni in the house today, too, who are graduates of the program who are wonderful. can i ask you guys to stand up

for a second, too? colleen, adam. yes. [ applause ] >> so for those of who have come to the forum before, you know we usually do it down the street at jack morgan auditorium. because this is a special year we added on another event this year. we moved this one here, and instead of this being sort of a fundraising event, we have a very special performance by margaret cho. if you didn't know, she is in the lobby out there. she has graciously agreed to do a benefit concert, a com median a concert? i don't know. a performance thursday night in our auditorium which is two blocks away. you can certainly get your tickets here. there are a handful of vip tickets left, and those include a meet and greet after the show with madam cho herself and some other guests. one of our good friends, good

friend of many people and our panel and group, frank will be here and he will greet the crowd. he will be there at the event as well. as your lawyer -- as your lawyer i think you should remind people that margaret cho's work is not safe for work but it is great. >> all right. as my lawyer, walter, tell me what you think about her. we asked her about her cunning performance in washington, d.c. she said, my performance in d.c. will be my sickest show to date. i love this. taking on addiction abuse, activism and awareness. it is about the politics of disgust and what is disgusting about politics. there you have it. should be good. so it is thursday, the 13th. our wonderful folks outside the door can help you get tickets here or you can just go to gwtickets.com to pick them up, and the vip tickets are there. so the topic for tonight's forum

is really in direct response to the events of last fall, november of 2016, or at least that's, you know, what made me think this was really salient. we find ourselves in a social and political environment that's not only what we didn't expect to see, but in a very -- some very real ways potentially threatening to the progress we have made and to the very health of our population. so tonight we're going to revisit many of the successes of the lgbt community, and specifically in the domain of marriage where we clearly had the most success in terms of advancing rights. you know, we need to acknowledge that these successes are not enough though. we have a lot more work to do, and that we could learn from things such as lawrence v. texas or the civil marriage protection act in maryland or collins versus perry, windsor versus united states, and obergefell/hodges. these are all cases that resulted in wins for what we would call for our side, and

perhaps are informative to what we have to face moving forward. what we face moving forward are things like state laws, hb 2 in north carolina. i know there will be a lot to be said about that. there are other types of transgender people over the country. we have the masterpiece cake shop versus colorado which will be heard by the supreme court in the next session. it is something to pay attention to. we need to think about not only advancing rights into public accommodation and employment and housing, but make sure to protect what we have already done. anyway, it is my pleasure to introduce very briefly each of the panelists you see here on the stage today. i'm going to just name them quickly, and then they will spend about three minutes each talking about, you know, what their relevance to the conversation, their particular experiences, the cases they were involved in or the legislation they were involved in. then we will -- i will direct a few questions and we will leave

plenty of time for q & a. we really want to do that. there will be a microphone right there, we will ask at the given time to line up in front of that microphone and we can do questions. first of all, to my left is water dillinger, a partner with milton, myers and former acting solicitor general under the clinton administration and an assistant attorney general and author of many, many things that i'm sure he will tell you about in the process. lou clippingers, who is with the maryland house of delegates and was a cosponsor of the american civil protection act that brought marriage by referendum, not by case, to the state of maryland. sandy sere and chris perry were colitigants in a case. they have a book out about their experience called "love on trial." i'm sure they would be glad to tell you all about it. right next to them, jim -- excuse me, there's candace, i'm

sorry. candace is from north carolina, transgender educator and activist in north carolina and had the pleasure of meeting the former north carolina governor and having a conversation about hb2. of course, you know raphael, the lead plaintiff obviously in obergefell versus hodges, which was the -- really the culminating case that made marriage the law of the land in the united states. he too has a book called "love wins," and i believe there's a film they're working on. terrific. last but certainly not least is margie rouse at the very end. in addition to his current role as national field director at human rights campaign, he was involved in the efforts that got the very first state that had marriage up in massachusetts. so this is our panel today. i want to welcome then. [ applause ]

>> all right. so let's start. we will go back to the very end here. i will have each of you spend about three minutes tops, just tell us a little bit more about your case and then we will sort of launch into more of a discussion. >> thank you. it is really wonderful to be here. it is really hard to imagine that while we have marriage equality in the entire country, it is only 13 years ago when we didn't have marriage anywhere. so when we think about the success of the lgbt civil rights movement, when we think about the struggles we're facing now at the federal level and the states, we have to remember how far we really have come in a relatively short amount of time for civil rights movements in our country. i had the fortune of working in massachusetts after the state supreme court, sjc and massachusetts ruled in favor of marriage equality and gave the legislature six months to do what it needed to do in order to

enact marriage equality, or possibly not in massachusetts in 2004. the court ruling came down in 2003 and they gave the legislature six months. i was brought on board as the first person hired in massachusetts to help prepare that state to defend that decision, because the legislature was going to do everything it could to have a conversation and perhaps amend their state constitution to stop marriages from going forward. so we had six months in massachusetts to defend that decision and ultimately another two years, because in order to amend the constitution in massachusetts you have to do it twice, once and then an intervening general election and do it again before you can ultimately amend the constitution. we really had 2 1/2 years to defend marriage equality in the first state. to think about back then what it was like, it was really a really tremendous battle for our movement. most americans weren't paying attention. most lgbt people weren't paying attention. but that was where ground zero was, in massachusetts. that was a battle.

what we learned there, the lessons learned and our successes and some of our failures there really led down the path for how we were going to proceed, focusing on winning in the courts, focusing on passing legislation in the state legislatures or fighting against something in the state legislatures and getting involved in legislative elections to make sure we elect our friends and oppose our enemies, building the political muscle of the lgbt community, and then also winning in the court of public opinion, bringing public stories and personal stories front and center to really change the hearts and minds of americans. so it really was in massachusetts where we really led the fight to begin with, where our first success was, but where we didn't really know if we would hold massachusetts or not. miraculously, look how quickly it spread, through state legislative elections, through some court victories and also some ballot questions where we actually ultimately won on the ballot, especially in 2012 where

four states won marriage at the ballot, maryland, minnesota, maine and washington state, miraculously. who would have thought it would happen in one election year? we have come so far and learned a lot of lessons. i was fortunate to be on the ground in massachusetts, in vermont and new york, in many of the states where we had the battle, and i look forward to have a discussion on how we moved the ball forward and some of the lessons learned. >> thank you. >> i was never an activist. neither was my late husband john. for almost the entire 21 years we were together, we never thought we would marry. it didn't seem like a possibility because we lived in ohio which was one of the states that passed doma preventing same sex marriage. things started to change for us really for a reason, and that was when john was diagnosed with als in june of 2011. you know, when the person you love is diagnosed with a terminal disease, there's only one way this is going, it makes

you start thinking about things a little biltmot more seriouslyn maybe you did previously. we talked about marriage over the years, but for us getting married and having it be only symbolic wasn't something we were going to do. we wanted it to mean something and it to be legal and have our government say, yeah, you exist. so he was diagnosed with als in 2011, and by april of 2013 he was completely bed ridden and i was his full-time caregiver. we had at home hospice care about five hours a week, but i took care of him. that's what you do when you love someone, no matter what. on june 26 of 2013 not only did chris and sandy's case come out, but that was also the supreme court decision on the winter case which struck down part of the defense of marriage act. and then come to a moment i leaned over, hugged and kissed john and said, let's get

married. we figured out how to get this dying man to another state, and we eventually settled on maryland because they did not require both people to appear in person to apply for a marriage license. by virtue of chartering a medical jet and flying there, we got married on the tar pack. that's what we wanted to do, simply get married. five days after we got married we were introduced to a civil rights attorney who said, you guys understand when john dies there will be an official record, ohio will say he is unmarried and, jim, your name won't be there since you're not a spouse. we didn't think about that. we knew -- it was an abstract concept. that start our case. our case was based on the argument that in ohio, ohio would not listen marriage licenses to first cousins, but

if they got married in another state or they got married legally in another state and moved to ohio, ohio would immediately recognize that marriage. that was the heart of our argument and we won in federal court 11 days after we got married. then we ended up in the sixth circuit court of appeals with five other cases from kentucky, tennessee and michigan, and you know how that turned out. that's my story. [ applause ] >> okay. wow. okay. oh. there we go. okay. wow. tough to follow. so first i just want to say like hi, marty. we go way back, like heart to heart. an also similar to you, i never had thought of myself as an

activist or an advocate or an educator or any of the other things that are stated in my bio and included on my website. i did not write that. i just thought i was someone who was trying to be like the best that they could be, that i was going to make a difference in this world for women, for women of color and for transgender women by assimilating, by blending in, by being successful in my corporate endeavors and getting an education and doing all of the things that people think we just can't do. that to me was how i was making an impact. and then all of that kind of got thrown in my face and a tornado came through. its name was house bill 2 in

north carolina, and marty rouse, who went from someone i didn't know to being someone who i thought of as one of my, like, guru, like i texted him more than i texted my husband, and equality in north carolina, which right now i have the pleasure of sitting on the board of, they all contacted me and said, "candace, you know, your story is really amazing, and we also think you would be a great person to come down here and tell your story." i said, "oh, sure, of course, i don't mind doing that." i did, and jack griffin -- i don't know if you know, he said, "let's go for a walk." i'm not making this stuff up. i said, "okay, where are we walking to?" the governor's office. oh, okay, why? and i blinked my eyes and the next thing i know i'm walking into his office with about 5,000

news cameras at our backs as we step over the threshold. we spent about 30 minutes talking to him and telling him i am a north carolina citizen, i am transgender, how this bill affects me and how it affects my life. i walk out of there and everyone is asking questions, and i'm like, "why is this such a big deal?" and then i saw on like cnn, like my picture. i was like, hey. they were like, "the only transgender person to have met with the governor." i'm like, "wait, i'm the only one?" with hrc's help and coming into our state and taking over our state, you know, think marty feels like he was a north carolina resident. they were there so much, really helping us and coordinating and working with constituents all over the state and helping to educate people and show people

ways in which they could help and, you know, inform with hrc and with a lot of people's help, and to pat myself on the back, we were able to unelect the worst north carolina governor in history. [ applause ] >> depending on if you live in virginia or north carolina, that's a big deal since we were the first state. virginia colony, all of that stuff. so from that moment on my life -- i got a lot of attention and a lot of people started noticing me, and i said let's take advantage of this and be visible. i think that america needs to actually just have someone in front of them in uncomfortable moments and say, hi, i'm transgender, what do you want to know? i took advantage of every

opportunity. i've been given so many blessings and exciting things, getting to, you know, go and be with jones and hart on their tour. i was like, what am i doing? you know, getting to work with kate blanchett -- i'm name dropping right now intentionally. i pinch myself every single morning and i go like, "this is my life now?" and i get to travel all over the world and i get to talk to people about my life, which i thought was basic because i was blending in. and through doing that i realized that people within the lgbtq community and outside of the lgbtq community have a lot of misconceptions, a lot of false notions of what transgender looks like, what it means to be, what we go through.

one thing it has done for me, which is what made me feel passionate -- and i will shut up, i'm long-winded -- about coming to do this is i have same sex parents. i know, people are like, oh. i'm like, not exciting. but i remember going to connecticut with them so that they could get legally married after having been my parents for 25 years and being amazing, amazing moms. now that marriage is recognized. but i remember how much that hurt, that i was able to marry my husband five years before my parents' marriage and mine was legally recognized at a county courthouse in raleigh, north carolina, and that hurts because these people had paid for my transition, they supported me, they raised me, they loved me. what do i deserve to have the government recognize within me

that my parents don't? and then something i have now learned is that we can't be too congratulatory with ourselves when we are talking about marriage equality. legally we have it. socially we still don't have marriage equality, because when people talk about marriage equality they talk about gender. when people talk about gender, they still try to think of gender in its very narrow, you know, male and female, male, male, female, female, and they prove how little we actually understand about humanity and about gender and about sexuality. so when we are talking about marriage equality, they sometimes lump transgender in and then sometimes they remove us from it, and we have to really make sure that people understand that we've got the legal stuff but we still have the social work to do. that is educating our population on who we are and what we look like and what our needs are. i'll shut up now.

[ applause ] >> hi. i grew up in california and when i came out when i was a freshman in college, i was 18 years old. i was really happy to know that about myself, but i also knew i lived in a state where i would never be married and i would never have children. that's what it seemed like to me at that time. i'm a lot older now and i was really fortunate many years later to fall in love with sandy, almost 18 years ago as a matter of fact, at work where we spent a lot of time. when we fell in love we also recognized that there was a same limitation in california there had been when i was a freshman in college, but we wanted to pursue marriage anyway. we were really in love. we each had two sons. we were blending our family, we were building a home and a life and we wanted what everybody in our neighborhood and everybody in our family had, the right to choose, to make the most important choice you make as an adult, the person you will spend

your life with. so even though we didn't think it would be legally recognized, we were going to go down that path. i proposed to sandy and she said, great, how do we do that? and we start figuring that out, but it was the very same year that gavin newsome through the doors open at city hall and told c couples they could come and be married. we couldn't miss a great chance to be married, at least it seemed there was a possibility of being married. we ran to the school and got our kids -- one is sitting in the audience tonight. we ran to city hall and we were married on the steps of city hall in san francisco. a few months later, in fact a few days after we were married with our friends and family we received a letter saying, that's been rescinded, those aren't legal, you're not married, here is your $30 check back for the marriage license, it is over, it

is done, but it wasn't over. because states were fighting really hard for marriage equality prior to that and since then. you heard about maryland and ohio and all of the other states, but california hadn't really taken on the fight yet. what happened instead of a grassroots effort was more of a sort of legal effort. lawyers got together, the city and county of san francisco and other lawyers started a fight with the state of california about its constitution, and eventually the lawyers prevailed. they got to the california supreme court. there was a ruling that basically made marriage equality legal in california right before the 2008 election. there were a number of people in california who were very unhappy about that, so a group of political people, right leaning political people decided to run a campaign called prop 8. they wanted it to be yes on 8. yes, in other words take away the right to marry, which seems an odd thing but it was

confusing on purpose. they won by a couple of percentage points the same day the 43rd president was elected. that was a tough day. what follows is the next legal fight, our fight, the one we didn't know we ever would be in because all we tried to do was raise our boys, be a family and be married. but the voters in california took that away from us, and it was the fact that they took a right away that had just been given to us that attracted ted olson and david boise to our state, to our case and led us through a pretty historic trial. sandy, you want to talk about the second half of that? >> yes. thank you. hi, everybody. i'm getting to see folks i got to see earlier today when i was with the panel, talking about advancing lgbt issues and i worked with the federal government right now. it is really interesting to do. so once we got involved in the case, the proposition 8 case in california, we went on an

amazing adventure truly. some people here actually participated in that with us. we sued the state of california in federal court, so we sued the governor of california. now, the governor of california was chris's boss she was an appointee, a director of a state agency in california that worked on early education and health issues for young children. so when she sued schwarzenegger, she sued her boss. it wasn't the worst thing. the crazy thing was we went to the courts and we expected to have a series of court dates where we would have a ruling based upon briefs being submitted, and we expected to have a passive role in that process. in fact, what the judge so brilliantly did -- especially looking back -- judge walker of the ninth district decided to ask for a trial. he said to the court, i want a full presentation of the facts. that was a really -- that was a major turning point. that had not been done before. there hadn't been a trial in federal court on the issue of

marriage equality, and we indeed became involved in this trial. now, the trial, of course, involved a lot of participation of different people including us. so we went through depositions and became very much embroiled in presenting our case as the individuals that we were, working closely with ted olson, david boise and a slough of lawyers. it was a completely amazing strategy that they employed because they -- they had the four plaintiffs, chris and i and two gentlemen from southern california. but they took every issue that we brought to the table, every instance of discrimination and how discrimination impacts us, whether it is our children, our family, our health, our financial well-being, our emotional well-being, how we feel or don't feel politically empowered. they brought other expert witnesses into that courtroom to provide the data and the research that backs up every single thing that we said. as chris talked about what it was like to grow up in

bakersfield and know she was guy and be worried about being discriminated against by a teacher in high school, they brought in an expert witness to talk about that very thing from a research perspective. was a great opportunity for many individuals in the research and academic community to bring forth their work which typically doesn't this kind of audience and be impactful in a court setting. in fact, we had an overwhelming number of expert witnesses and the other side had a hard time finding expert witnesses willing to come into court and present their evidence because, as we all found out along the way, there really isn't a lot of evidence that supports discrimination. there just isn't. as david boise said, the court is a lonely place to lie. when you walk in front of court and sit in front of me you better be prepared to tell the truth. he, in fact, was able to eke the truth out of the other side -- we called them "the other side" like "star wars" -- by his

amazing cross-examination of those witnesses. in fact, on a couple of occasions, bringing those witnesses to our side with his incredibly expert questioning. so somebody who had walked into that courtroom and intended to talk about why they felt like discrimination was best for children, that it was best for children to have same sex parents, that was one of the fundamental constructs, he was able to bring that witness to say, actually, the most important thing for children is to have parents who love them and parent who are parenting -- people who are parenting children are able to do so more effectively with the support of government for their relationship. you put those things together and next thing you know you have a witness saying, actually, we will truly be more american the day we have marriage equality. that actually happened in a courtroom that we had a witness. it was amazing. chris and i participated in a

three-week trike in san francisco. in january we got a ruling in favor of us. it was finding the facts were a brilliant strategy and, in fact, that -- those findings of fact in that ruling became incredibly instrumental moving forward with many other states. we had a number of appeals going through, getting california in federal court and a couple of odd details with the california supreme court, ended up at the united states supreme court in 2013, and had a hearing there in front of the judges. in fact, we did win the same day that doma won, we won on standing. it is a great thing to win the case, winning on standing wasn't -- didn't give us the big national win we hoped for, but it gave us an important win in california. of course, it set the stage to move forward.

thank you. [ applause ] >> my name is lee clifford and i'm proud to represent the people of southeast baltimore city in the maryland house of delegates in the 45th legislative district, the fighting 46th. it goes from butchers field to brooklyn, from can ton to bookers bay. if you haven't visited, you should. you should visit baltimore. they will be happy with me now. this is my second term as a member of the house of delegates. in my day job i'm a state's attorney in arundel county, which is the city of annapolis, an area north and south of there, where i prosecute domestic violence cases and serious and felony property crimes. again, i got elected in 2010, which was a pretty incredible time in maryland on this issue. we had actually at that point

suffered some setbacks, but we could start to see the way forward. in 2006 two incredible people who i consider great friend and have been incredible advocates in the state of maryland, kita dean and lisa poliak were courageous, some of the courageous people who stepped forward in maryland to try and have our ban on same sex marriage overturned through the courts. they were not successful. the court of appeals in maryland turned them down 4-3. in 2009 the attorney general, doug gansett, issued an opinion that started to move the ball forward for us, moved it forward just a pinch, by saying that it is a non-binding opinion, but that in his opinion the state of

maryland could recognize out-of-state marriages. started to move forward a little bit. then in 2010 the lgbt caucus doubled in size in maryland from three to six. we elected more -- more lgbt members of the house of delegates. we had a new member of the house of delegates who actually came out on the floor in 2011, who took that very courageous step and very important step. with seven of us, we began to share our stories. we began to share who we were. because of that, again, we kept moving forward. in 2011 we had the bill that would allow for same sex marriage in maryland and we fell a little bit short, and it was painful. we had a debate on the floor of

the house after the bill had passed the senate. nobody thought it would pass the senate in 2011 and all of a sudden here we were and we were short. we were short about five or six votes. we got together and we said, all right, we're not going to take this vote today. we're going to ask the speaker to hold it back, and we're going to redouble our efforts for next year. because of the support of organizations like hrc -- i want to recognize marty rouse for everything he has done -- he did in the state of maryland to help us all the way through this process -- we were able then to come back in 2012. it wasn't easy in 2012 either. we made this pretty exciting vote. we weren't quite sure what was going to happen on the day of the vote. we knew we had a solid 70 and we needed 71. the story -- and if mr. speaker,

if speaker is upset with me for telling this story, i'm sorry, but we managed to get a 71st vote, and that was great. we were moving it forward. we didn't know we actually had a 71st vote, we ended up with 72 because the speaker was not as familiar with the text messaging function on his phone as he might have been. but we were able to get the 72 votes because a group of legislators from across the state who were in districts that were marginal stood up and said, we're going to vote for this. they were given a pretty common out. look, we're not quite sure we're going to have the votes. it is okay if you've got to vote red or vote no for your district, it is okay. they went into the speaker's office and they had the courage

to say, no, we're going to do the right thing and we're going to vote so that everyone has the opportunity to get married in maryland. so we passed it, and we passed it in 2012. the governor signed it. again, i shouldn't understate the support of the governor's office that year. i got to be the house leader in 2012, working on the bill morning, noon and night, being in the meeting right before that meeting with legislators from marginal seats where the question was asked, do we really want to put this vote up on the board again, do we want to sink people's feet in concrete where if they vote no now it will be harder to flip 'em, and we decided that we wanted to see it forward and we wanted to get a vote. i think it was no small part because of the relationships that we had and that we bit in the legislature that we brought

the vote over the line. our opponents weren't done. they took the legislation to referendum, and so we had to fight a referendum campaign in 2012. i got to be on the steering committee for that. i knocked on doors than i thought was ever possible, and we won. we won with even some people who were advocates on this issue said we shouldn't put it on the ballot, we shouldn't do it, we shouldn't go out there. they were concerned that we weren't going to do well with people who were catholic, with people who were african american. they had a different concern depending on the day of the week. but with the support of the governor, with the support of legislators across the state -- and i should say -- i should have mentioned delegate ben barnes who was there from the beginning. senator matalino who is now running for governor, just tireless advocates on this issue

all the way across chambers. we were able to get 52 1/2% of the vote in 2012. with that we were able to kind of break through on that issue and make a huge difference for so many people. in some ways that was an important step as we then took another step in 2014 when we passed legislation that added gender identity and expression to our anti-discrimination law in 2017. that was legislation that, again, senator natalino worked hard on. i was the house leader on, but there were leaders all over the chamber on that legislation, includi including one of the floor leaders on the bill, delegate over in college park. we've been able to accomplish a lot in maryland and we've been

able to secure those rights, but we do look around the country and look at what is going on in the federal government, and it gives me pause and it makes me wonder. so we have to continue the work and we have to continue electing people who are lgbt. we have to continue to push these issues forward, and we have to do it every single day. so i forgot to mention that -- that i am the sole member of the bear caucus. and it is that way -- thank you very much for that. i think we're the only bear caucus, when i say "we're," it is truly just me. i became chair of the caucus, and it -- it was a tough

election. we pulled it out. but it's building relationships. it is getting to know people. it is letting people know what's important to you, what's important to your families and what's important to our communities. by doing that we continue, and we continue to make this a more just country. that has to be our goal. thank you. [ applause ] >> what does it take to bring about profound social change? that is the question that was debated throughout the decades of the battle of guy marriage. a gay marriage. are you going too fast, are you go too slow, should you proceed by litigation, should you wait

and run candidates for public office, should you attempt referendum. stepping back from it i think the answer is all of the above. i think that's what we really learned. when marty rouse and his colleagues began the litigation over marriage equality in the state of massachusetts, i think there was an enormous chorus of "it's too early." if you brought that as the first case today in 2017, it would be the same chorus, "it's too early." someone always has to be too early. someone always has to be too early. i think what we saw unfold in the litigation in california is that the litigation itself had its own effect on the courts and the judges. it created a national dialogue, and whether votes would have been there the day before the

suit was filed, by the time it unfolded it generated its own momentum. you know, i think a major turning point was two decades ago when the supreme court struck down criminal laws that made it a felony to engage in homosexual acts. what the court did in that is that it rejected the state of texas's justification that we in the state of texas believe that this is immoral. the court said, that's not a public interest of a kind a government can assert. they took that off the table so that by the time that chris and sandy and their great lawyers brought their suit, that's off the table. that's what it is really all about. so the defenders of the restrictive marriage laws were in the position of those french

academics who try to write novels without using the letter "e." they couldn't say, "simply because we say-so, that's why it is bad." they had to show concrete evidence that was harmful rather than helpful to children to have their parents married. that is why i think the fact that there was a criminal trial, it was an enormously successful venture. judge vaughn walker, the trial judge in california wrote this mag any sent opinion, sweeping across the board, and the state of california with jerry brown as attorney general and arnold schwarzenegger as governor, decided not to appeal judge walker's decision. 30 days after the decision came down i wrote a piece for slate saying that the great california gay marriage case is over and gay marriage won, because no one else has standing.

no one has standing to interfere with anybody else's happiness. it was the fact that they won that victory and the fact that the court accepted the standing argument in the supreme court that you secured marriage equality in one of the largest countries in the world, california. that led to, along with the doma decision, as a result of that clear victory lower courts across the country started striking down marriage laws and marriage started happening, and one of the most powerful forces known to man took effect, the normative power of the actual. the normative power of the actual. when people saw it actually being done, then it began to have this enormous effect on the judges, and by the time jim obergefell and his case went to the supreme court, the court was fully ready then. but every step in the process

was essential. i think we have two -- they are also cheerful and positive, jim and chris and sandy, it is really hard to be a plaintiff in a case of worldwide publicity, hard on them and har d on their families. i want to thank you all for the courage. [ applause ] >> we have some amazing experiences, and these stories are just amazing. the normative power of the actual, that is -- you told me that before and it got in my head and i was thinking about it a lot. i remember right after -- right after jim's case was handed down and we won and, you know, as your colleagues announced a little earlier, we thought it would be announced on a friday

which was the anniversary of i think of windsor rather than on the following monday when we thought it was going to be. people kind of went nuts and i got a media call and i ran down to the television station, and they asked the question, why did this happen, why did it happen so quickly? someone has to do it too early. what's sort of resonating from here is that with marriage there was this very, very dramatic turn. ten years previously something in the area of 65 or 75% of the american population was against same sex marriage, and we did a flip in a very, very short period of time. my feeling was that everybody knew somebody who was gay, who wanted to be married and should have been married. the personal stories, just like the ones you hear here, came out, and that gives us, you know, enormous power of the actual. so thinking moving forward --

marty, i will go back to you and have you start on this -- what similarities do you see -- starting in massachusetts, and you have working on moving forward, what similarities do you see in all of these cases regarding marriage? you know, will this give us some sort of purchase in making progress moving forward? marriage is something that, you know, everyone can, you know, sort of agree it is, for lambckf a better term, a sexier topic than employment or health or housing or things like that. do you see something we can really pull from these cases moving forward, like public accommodation, housing and job accommodation and gender? >> it is a great question. i would say what was so evidence from the beginning -- actually we talk about massachusetts but we have to go before then, vermont and even hawaii, but it was the power of personal

stories and bringing -- not just talking about the rights and benefits and protections needed and the discrimination, which is very, very important as you heard in legal cases, but just the personal stories of individuals and the power of love. it really is that simple. everyone understood that. so going forward in state after state, making sure that we were to bring forward couples. when you talked about the power of the actual, i couldn't help but think about may 17th, 2004, the first day of marriage equality in our country in massachusetts, how every moment of that first wedding of hillary and julie goodrich was choreographed, from what they wore, what the hair looked like, what their sons were wearing, where they walk, what car they were driving in, what food was served, what type of material is going to be thrown in the church, who was going to speak. everything was choreographed because we knew that television sets and newspapers and photographs all over the country and all over the world were

going to see for the first time the power of the actual. we knew that governor romney did not want that day to happen because he knew that once people saw what it was that it wasn't scary and it was something that everybody understood and everyone had an immediate connection to. that was an amazingly historic day, and it was so planned and so choreographed for a reason. as we move forward the lessons are there. every single thing we do as a movement and other movements do, you have to make sure it is about the personal stories. if we cannot connect ourselves -- if there is no kansas cop talking to governor mccrory in north carolina and being on television programs across north carolina and newspaper stories going forward, north carolina resident would not be supportive today. that's our future. making sure we are visible, making sure we tell our stories and how we tell our stories,

because we just want to live our lives freely and openly. in some ways it is so simple, and sometimes we think about this too hard, but it is the power of telling your own story to your family, which for lgbt people sometimes is really difficult, but telling your story then to your legislator, which is important to do, telling your story in court, and just telling your story to everybody. once we can do that, that's how we will win. so that's the path forward, is going forward in congress now, trying to pass federal protections and trying to pass equality acts in congress, we need to show the real harms that exist in states across the country because there are no protections, and we need to show the future, and that if we do have these protections that people in america will be safer and more secure. so that's what we're doing now, is finding those stories from wyoming, florida, to alaska and maine, and that's the power that we have and the power that makes sure that we bring it all together. and if we can do that

successfully, eventually the politicians, they know that we're right, their politics played in all of this, too. the marriage equality fight was about elections as well. we need to make sure we flex our political muscle, and we are doing that as well. i think it is the power of the personal and making sure we flex our political muscle. >> speaking of choreography, when the district judge in north carolina following the victories in hollingsworth refused the state's order and decreed we could have marriage equality in north carolina, the front page of the raleigh news and observer had a picture of two north carolina deputy sheriffs were the first to be married. that made an enormous impact. >> candace talk -- i mean i'm

interested the hear your firsthand experience because you are on that edge right now of, you know, turning opinions and making people understand your personal story. how are you being received by, you know, not only people you know who are friendly, but, you know, when you go into not-so-friendly environments do you feel like you're getting anywhere with having them understand your story and, you know, what you're up against? do they feel any sort of empathy? >> i mean i always like to tell everybody, i wish i could give you dramatics and say that where i go is awful, that people shout things. they don't. what i find myself having a lot of struggles with is that my -- my story, my work, unlike some of the other cases here, hinges a lot on the aesthetics.

the way i physically look, that is when we are talking about my issues, it is not people's concept, it is not god's law, it is really what we look like. i have a lot of acceptance, and that's really not fair because people look at me and say, i represent transgender much in the way they look at candace keen, janet mock, saying we represent transgender. we are representatives of, but we are not a model. we're not what transgender should be.