LGBTQ Nation

Fearful Philadelphians began contacting Angela Giampolo immediately following Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory. Though many queer locals knew about her LGBTQ+-focused law firm (which she established in 2008), she began wondering about people in rural areas and red states: Who would they contact to help protect their legal rights?

That’s when she dreamt up Caravan of Hope, a way to offer mobile legal services to LGBTQ+ people in underserved areas. Using mostly her own money, she purchased an RV trailer, renovated it into a mobile office and planned a 30-day trip to 14 cities across the nation — an over 5,000 mile drive — where she offereda day’s worth of queer-related legal services like gender marker and name changes, basic estate planning, uncontested divorces, and general legal guidance.

The trip, which first occurred in June 2023 and is scheduled to recur next October, will visit cities like Lincoln, Nebraska; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Laramie, Wyoming (the death place of Matthew Shepard, whose lethal 1998 gaybashing first inspired her to pursue law). 

Queer people who live in rural areas around these larger cities are sometimes closeted for their own safety, don’t have access to LGBTQ+-centered legal services, or have prejudiced family members who obstruct their legal rights.

“Our approach is discreet yet accessible,” Caravan of Hope’s website reads. “The RV, strategically located 30-45 minutes from the towns we serve, ensures confidentiality and safety for all clients.”

Her romantic partner helps secure food and gear before the trip, a dedicated driver navigates the path across nearly 20 states, and a social media manager helps promote upcoming stops and the caravan’s work as it stops by each city.

Giampolo is only licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania, and her RV isn’t licensed to do business anywhere it parks, she tells LGBTQ Nation. So, to prepare for her trip, she had to find lawyers in each state willing to lend their license to the caravan’s work and LGBTQ+-friendly bars, restaurants, and community centers who would let her conduct business during her visits.

She’s happy to report that the lawyers and businesses who aided her in 2023 have offered to help again this year. Because not every person in need can make it to the caravan’s one-day stops, this year, she and a small group of volunteer lawyers will also offer two weeks of virtual legal services online as part of her autumn tour.

“Recognizing the complexity of legal issues, we don’t just stop at the initial consultation,” the caravan’s website continues. “We commit to ongoing support through online follow-ups, phone calls, and emails, aiming to conclude each case satisfactorily.”

Additionally, the caravan brings a documentarian to help record its work and the first-person testimonies of others in need. Sometimes, people will come to the caravan seeking food, clothing, or shelter—non-legal needs that the caravan can’t provide—or just to share stories of hardship that can’t be litigated. The documentarian captures these stories, too. Giampolo says it can make an emotionally powerful difference.

“Typically, lawyers, if there’s no legal help that can be provided, they either don’t reply, they don’t take the time to listen,” Giampolo tells LGBTQ Nation. “So feeling this for years on, to then having a lawyer sit and listen to someone in particular… feeling seen… feeling normalized and legitimized… holding their hand, letting them cry, hugging them [it helps].”

While Caravan of Hope has received hostile comments online and once had the waste lines on its vehicle cut during one of its overnight stays in an RV park, Giampolo says that most people have been supportive. Even curious neighbors in the RV parks where the caravan stays overnight will sometimes approach with questions and defensiveness, she says, but will then end up sitting and talking.

“I know those people will remember the things that we talked about forever,” Giampolo says.

Even more importantly, the caravan creates a sense of community that lasts long after the RV leaves town. The lawyers, community organizers, and business owners who collaborate to host the caravan all stay in touch afterward. Some have even formed relationships to throw recurring queer events or to continue offering community support of different kinds.

“I just really want as much as possible for folks right now, but the footprint of who we can help is so small,” Giampolo admits. That’s why she’s working with the American Bar Association to help provide Pride Month trainings on LGBTQ+ legal issues, so that more lawyers can begin competently providing the kinds of services she and the caravan provide. She also hopes to establish a nationwide law firm geared predominantly towards the LGBTQ+ community.

In the meantime, whenever an LGBTQ+ person or ally contacts her, asking for help, and they’re unable to meet with the caravan and don’t know who to turn to, “my next goal is to refer them to someone that I know loves and trust and then go from there,” she says.

Numerous colleges nationwide have shuttered their LGBTQ+ centers under political pressure to end all diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) programs, but not at Utah’s Salt Lake Community College (SLCC).

Peter Moosman was hired at SLCC in 2019 to help open up its Gender and Sexuality Student Resource Center, an office supportive of LGBTQ+ and female students. The center is open to all students: It has a drop-in lounge, offers connections to community groups and resources, and hosts events, programs, and trainings for affinity months like LGBTQ+ History Month or Women’s Heritage Month.

Moosman, who currently serves as the center’s manager and as SLCC’s assistant director of cultural programming, oversaw the center exclusively until October 2024, when the Utah state legislature passed H.B. 261, a law that prohibits state-funded colleges from “discriminatory practices that favored certain identity populations over others.” Then, last February, the U.S. Department of Education sent out a letter pledging to end federal funding to any schools with DEI programs.

“By having programming or spaces or things that were exclusive to a certain identity group, it was considered discriminatory,” said Moosman, who spoke to LGBTQ Nation as a private individual and not as a representative of the college. Nevertheless, SLCC has shifted the center’s role, he explained, and its marketing now makes it explicitly clear that the center serves all students, just through a lens of gender and sexuality.

“Our center never excluded anyone from any programming, any services, any resources,” Moosman said. “We were not checking IDs at the door. We had a lot of straight students coming in and getting resources. We had a lot of cisgender students coming in and getting resources. So we were never engaged in the discriminatory practices that were outlined in H.B. 261.”

However, the law prohibits any activities that teach that any “individual’s personal identity characteristics, [are] inherently privileged, oppressed … [or] oppressive” or that “socio-political structures are inherently a series of power relationships.” These restrictions could potentially make it difficult for any college professional to discuss the role of political oppression against LGBTQ+ and women, especially when observing any affinity month like LGBTQ+ History Month.

Despite this, the Department of Education noted that schools can hold programs centered around “educational, cultural, or historical observances — such as Black History Month … — that celebrate or recognize historical events and contributions, and promote awareness, so long as they do not engage in racial exclusion or discrimination.”

To comply with these directives, Moosman says the center now highlights contributions from women or LGBTQ+ historical figures rather than the specific oppressions they faced.

“We can talk about how these communities are thriving. We can celebrate achievements. We just can’t say something like, ‘Queer people are oppressed and need to be recognized,’” Moosman said. “A lot of what these bills and these laws and these mandates are forcing us into are semantics games, and it’s challenging, it’s frustrating.”

“A lot of what these bills and these laws and these mandates are forcing us into are semantics games, and it’s challenging, it’s frustrating.”– Peter Moosman, Assistant Director of cultural programming and manager of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at Salt Lake Community College

Despite the frustration, Moosman has also seen some opportunities to engage people on gender and sexuality issues in a different and possibly more accessible way. 

The center used to provide LGBTQ+ awareness training that trained different campus departments on things like pronouns and the history and culture of the queer community. Now, the center offers a “Gender and Sexuality 101” presentation that looks at how gender and sexuality have been expressed in nature, history, culture, and biological differences. Moosman said presenters make it three-fourths through the presentation before they even mention any queer terminology.

“I’ve been teaching these courses for a very long time, and when we start the conversation like talking about ‘power’ and ‘privilege,’ which are kind of like these political buzzwords, I see people in the audience kind of like turn off, they shut off, or they get angry and defensive, and it derails our conversation,” Moosman said. “But when I have been able to change the language and use more neutral terms — instead of saying ‘privilege,’ talk about ‘accessibility’ or ‘opportunity’ — they stay engaged longer.”

While he’s not speaking as an SLCC representative, Moosman thinks it’s important to share the ways his school has been navigating these policies, both as a form of educational solidarity and also as a potential roadmap for institutions navigating similar political challenges.

“As I’m watching these LGBT centers shut down, it makes me sad, of course, because these centers are saving lives. These centers are serving students in a way that they’re not getting at home or elsewhere… but even more, I think we see nationally how quickly and how easily people are bending and breaking under this pressure, instead of trying to find new ways and pivot to continue to serve students through creative measures,” he said.

“How do we find creative ways to still engage, to still serve our communities, still show up and exist, especially when we are representing government entities… and being restricted through laws?” Moosman asked rhetorically.

Citing philosopher Cornel West, Moosman said that people need to develop the ability to be “protean,” which Moosman defines as “the ability to be flexible, to change without losing the core of our purpose and our passions.”

“We can continue to do what we need to do, while matching the energy of the situation, of the environment right,” Moosman said. “So institutions that are funded by federal dollars, institutions that are funded by state dollars, that are being forced to bend with these new laws and these new mandates, it’s going to require us, through many creative ways, to be protean.”

The municipal government of Naples, Florida has refused to grant Naples Pride an event permit, citing increased security costs due to a probable rise in anti-transgender protests. The city also asked event organizers not to allow admittance to anyone under 18 years of age — so, Naples Pride is now suing the city government. The all-ages event is scheduled for June 7.

The city told event organizers that they’d need to pay $36,000 for security, much more than what’s required for similarly sized events or what had been charged annually since the event began in 2017, Advocate reported. The city based its cost on the number of anti-trans commenters who spoke at a two-day city hearing in opposition to an event permit.

Callie Soldavini, an attorney for Naples Pride, noted that the city tried to charge event organizers $44,000 last year if the event featured drag performers. Florida passed a drag ban in 2023, though federal courts overturned it as an unconstitutional violation of free speech. (The U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the case.) To avoid the fee, last year’s Pride event held its drag performances indoors, which limited the number of attendees.

Soldavini added that only about a dozen protesters showed up at last year’s Pride events; the protesters were “mostly non-violent, holding public prayers and quietly protesting the event,” the aforementioned publication reported.

“Forcing the show indoors — as if it were something shameful — undermined the performance’s intended message of acceptance and living as an LGBTQ+ person openly and without fear,” the organizers’ lawsuit stated. “Moreover, the reduced ticket sales caused a serious blow to Naples Pride’s fundraising and its ability to attract top-tier performing talent.”

This year, event organizers plan on holding its main performances in an outdoor stage in a local park. However, the city has requested that no one under the age of 18 be allowed to see the performances. Organizers have refused, stating that all the performances will be family-friendly.

“We’re only asking for [our constitutional rights] to be respected and enforced.”Callie Soldavini, an attorney for Naples Pride

“A lot of times we feel that City Council and the Naples Police Department are looking at us with annoyance,” Soldavani said, pointing out that the event makes some community members uncomfortable and attracts “members of registered hate groups” and “Christian nationalists” who “stir up all of these things that don’t represent what our community is.”

“All we’re doing is asking to celebrate our celebration as we have done since 2017 in a manner that we have the constitutional right,” Soldavani said. “We’re only asking for those to be respected and enforced.”

Event organizers have already raised $50,000 to hold the event. Their lawsuit is being represented in court by members of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).