Uniting Pride of Champaign County and Equality Illinois hosted an Equality Town Hall at the Champaign Public Library on Wednesday evening. The event brought together leaders from Champaign and Urbana to speak on LGBTQ+ topics.
Among the panelists were Champaign Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen, Urbana Mayor Diane Wolfe Marlin, Urbana Mayor-elect DeShawn Williams and Equality Illinois’ Director of Civic Engagement Jose Wilson.
The event opened with remarks by Joshua Gavel, interim executive director for Uniting Pride — a local LGBTQ+ advocacy group and resource center.
The panelists first explained their roles and the work they’ve done to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. Then, Gavel and community members posed questions for the lineup. Topics centered around a range of issues currently affecting the LGBTQ+ community, including accessibility to health care, housing and education.
The forum also discussed the lack of resources for underprivileged LGBTQ+ and young people of color, as well as the importance of city codes aligning with correct terminologies related to orientation and gender identity.
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Gavel asked the panel whether they would consider changing Champaign or Urbana’s statuses to sanctuary cities for LGBTQ+ individuals. Sanctuary city status would reaffirm support for the LGBTQ+ community through a policy framework.
Wilson then offered advice for community members feeling uneasy by the recent flurry of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump.
“Executive orders are not laws,” Wilson said. “Congress is the only body that can make laws. So if there’s an executive order issued, chances are that it’s going to be challenged in court. So I ask people to not pre-comply.”
Wilson revisited the concept of pre-compliance multiple times throughout the night, stressing the importance of understanding whether a policy is officially in effect before prematurely surrendering one’s rights.
“What we know so far is that undocumented communities and LGBTQ people, specifically trans people, are on the receiving end of the attacks from this administration,” Wilson said. “And so I think about the friends and family that I have who are both trans and undocumented, right, and how theyʼre getting attacked from both sides, all angles.”
Despite Illinois being under a “trifecta” of Democratic leadership — with Democrats holding control of the state’s executive, judicial and legislative branches — Gavel said it’s still important for community members to attend forums like these, even when those events are seemingly less “fun” than Pride Fest.
“As it was pointed out, we live in a really beautiful blue bubble of support, but we can only do as much as people know,” Gavel said. “So often our organization gets reduced down to Pride Fest, which of course we’re immensely proud of, but we’re a year-round organization that has the potential to do so much more.”
Uniting Pride offers services including support groups, cultural competency training and a food pantry at the University YMCA. In February, the group co-organized a trans-rights protest.
“Showing up to these protests matters, showing up also means showing up with concrete asks and concrete goals,” Gavel said. “Showing up can look like making those phone calls to your legislators.”
Gavel said organizers invited other public figures to attend Wednesday’s panel, including Illinois Rep. Carol Ammons, Illinois Sen. Paul Faraci and U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski.
“We reached out to them, their teams, unfortunately today is a legislative session day so they weren’t able to get back,” Gavel said. “I think it’s a bummer to not see them at an event like this here in the community, but they are allies, and I think we should celebrate the fact that they do show up for us constantly.”
Wilson pointed out that in December, Budzinski voted in support of the National Defense Authorization Act. The bill excluded coverage of gender-affirming care for transgender dependents of service members in the year’s allocated military funding.
Gavel expanded by clarifying that Budzinski was invited to the town hall to address constituent concerns but had not received a response from her team.
“(Elected officials) need to do what’s best to protect the people in Illinois, and I think that’s going to be very vital in the upcoming weeks, months and years,” Wilson said. “That’s what we’re seeing from this administration, they’re doing whatever they can to make sure that this unity that we have gets disbanded and thrown apart.”
The event concluded with remarks from Gavel, who encouraged audience members to attend upcoming events including LGBTQ+ Advocacy Day in Springfield on May 8 and Queer Prom in Champaign on May 9.
“If you have questions or you’re in doubt, come and ask us,” Gavel said. “I may not be an attorney, I may not be a Ph.D., I may not have every single answer, but we know where to find them.”
