Friend–

As we come nearer to the end of another year in this fight together, we have yet to take our foot off the gas pedal. Our staff and volunteers have been educating and informing voters of upcoming elections for what seems like the entire year – and we won’t stop until after the December 6th runoff for US Senator from Georgia.

While you’ll be seeing plenty of messages from us on that front in the coming weeks, I want to pause today to say THANK YOU – because of you, your continued commitment to this work, and our amazing staff and volunteers, we’ve seen unprecedented successes this year!

 

Here are just a few of those accomplishments:

-After more than five years of work by the Georgia HIV Justice Coalition, Georgia Equality, and advocates living with HIV, the state legislature modernized Georgia’s HIV disclosure law with the passage and signing of SB 164. The new law reflects the significant advances in HIV science and will bolster the efforts to end the HIV epidemic in Georgia. Under the previous law, a person living with HIV could have faced a felony and up to 10 years in prison for not disclosing their HIV status prior to any type of sexual act – including circumstances where there was no HIV transmission, nor even any risk of HIV transmission.

-In a year when Georgia Equality was able to support the largest group of candidates ever in our history, supporters turned out to elect pro-equality candidates in over 70% of our endorsed legislative and municipal races.

-Openly LGBTQ State Representatives Karla Drenner, Park Cannon, Sam Park, Marvin Lim, State Senator Kim Jackson, and Gwinnett Commissioner Ben Ku all won re-election and will welcome newly elected Representative Imani Barnes in House District 86 to their ranks in January.

-After consultation with Georgia Equality, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to add sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression as protected categories in public accommodation, and added gender identity and gender expression as protected classes in county hiring. (Sexual orientation was already covered.)

 

In 2023, we will continue to fight for LGBTQ people in cities and counties across the state and at the state capitol to ensure that no one has to be afraid of losing their job, their home, or their access to education simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Your support has made all of this possible, and inspires all of us to continue this important work. 

Thank you,

Jeff Graham, and all of us at Georgia Equality