Elijah Nichols (he/him) said that when he heard about the recent Supreme Court decision that employees could not be fired because of their sexual orientation, “it made me tear up.”
Nichols said he was one of more than 100 protesters who staged a sit-in and were arrested in October in front of the Supreme Court building the day arguments were heard about the landmark case.
But Nichols, a rising junior majoring in government and international politics at George Mason University, said his happiness was tempered by the work that still needs to take place to secure all rights for the LGBTQ+ community.
“I understand the fight is not over,” he said. “We still have income inequality. We don’t have equal access to treatment within the health care system. We don’t have guaranteed housing because of discriminatory policies and landlords. So there is a long fight ahead of us, but I’m also hopeful, knowing what happened [at the Supreme Court].”
As president of the Pride Alliance at Mason, Nichols knows there’s work to be done within his organization as well, particularly when it comes to building bridges to the Black community.
“We’ve primarily been a white organization,” he said. “Luckily, this year we have one of the most diverse boards we’ve ever had. But we still have a long way to go in mending the relationship between Pride Alliance, queer organizations on campus and black queer individuals specifically.”
Steps include reaching out to the campus chapter of NAACP, which joined Pride Alliance in an event that honored transgender individuals who have had their lives taken due to transphobic acts of violence, as well as to discussed how queer liberation intersects with Black identity.
“It was powerful,” Nichols said. “At the end of the day, queer people have to fix our queer spaces. We see a lot of coalitions beginning to be built between Black allies and Black queer students and at-large queer organizations, which is amazing. That’s part of the way you bridge that divide and realize that no one is free until we are all free.”
Join Mason’s Lambda Alumni chapter for a Pride Trivia Night, June 30, 5-6:30 p.m., via Zoom. Register here.