WASHINGTON — The National Youth Advocacy Coalition joined the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and a collaboration of expert organizations today to announce the “New Beginning Initiative” designed to push for concrete federal administration policy and regulatory changes directly benefiting the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and eliminating discrimination from federal policies. 

The Initiative, which is an outcome of the National Policy Roundtable with organizations opting in to the initiative, began over a year ago in preparation for a more LGBT-favorable administration. The 80 initial policies identified and recommended for changes span the authority of the White House and more than 30 federal agencies. The recommendations focus on pro-LGBT public policy changes the Obama administration can implement without legislative action. The New Beginning Initiative is the first time such a coalition of LGBT and allied organizations has come together in this way to affect administration policy.

“We are thrilled to be a part of this new initiative and I’ll look for every opportunity to make sure the needs and concerns of LGBTQ youth are addressed,” said Gregory Varnum, executive director for NYAC. “LGBTQ youth continue to suffer adverse health issues, from sexual to mental. Now is the time to fully address these issues on the national level. We are also alarmed that the number of homeless LGBTQ youth continues to rise.”

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to implement policy changes that will directly impact the quality of life for LGBT individuals and families. By advocating for and creating change through federal agencies, we can remove several areas of long-standing government supported discrimination and get federal dollars and attention flowing to vital community services and support for LGBT people. By leveraging the expertise and resources of so many organizations in collaborative ways, progress will be made for our community.” says Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

The initiative, funded through the generous support of the Open Society Institute, includes concrete policy changes written by the respective participating organizations. Each participating organization will identify the strategies for accomplishing the respective policy changes they are working on in the coming months and years.  The 80 policies represent an initial view of the opportunities for federal funding and programmatic attention and additional policy changes will be identified over time.

Examples of the recommended policy changes are:
•    Amending the nondiscrimination guidelines for the federal civilian workforce to include gender identity and expression.
•    Changing the Census Bureau’s current policy to manually un-marry same-sex married couples on the 2010 census.
•    Funding to reduce violence in schools including preventing bullying and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
•    Including sexual orientation and gender identity categories as a designated and mandated component of federally funded aging research and data collection.
•    Ensuring LGBT people are recognized as a population marked by heath disparities for appropriate inclusion in federally funded studies.
•    Requiring the office of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to recognize unaccompanied homeless youth as a special needs population requiring the development of targeted youth housing models.
•    Encouraging U.S. diplomatic engagement on international LGBT issues as legitimate human rights concerns.

Copies of the initial policies identified and recommended for changes were provided to the Obama transition team in November 2008 for inclusion in agency memos for the incoming administration personnel. Copies have also been provided to key White House staff in the process of identifying administration and agency staff with authority to change policies and to educate White House staff on the issues facing LGBT people and families.

Participating organizations have already begun meeting with administrative officials to pursue some of the policy changes. A meeting of the participating organizations will be held over the summer to map out plans for each recommended policy. As the collaborating organizations succeed in changing policies, press releases will be sent out notifying the LGBT community and broader public about progress made.  Additionally, the New Beginning Initiative will host a Web page with an electronic scorecard to track progress as policy changes are achieved. 

For more information about the New Beginning Initiative and the initial policies identified for changes, visit http://www.thetaskforce.org/newadmin/newbeginning_intro.html.

Organizations participating in the project launch (listed alphabetically): Council for Global Equality, Family Equality Council, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Immigration Equality, Lambda Legal, Mautner Project, National Alliance to End Homelessness, National Black Justice Coalition, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Coalition for LGBT Health, National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Youth Advocacy Coalition, Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE), Service Members Legal Defense Network, Trevor Project. Disclaimer:  Each policy proposal should be considered the proposal of the organization(s) responsible for drafting the proposal. There should be no assumption that all organizations adopt, agree with, or will be working on all of the recommendations.

The National Policy Roundtable, convened by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, has been meeting since 1997 and is a forum of more than 35 institutional leaders of the national LGBT public policy focused organizations created to discuss and coordinate public policy strategy and responses.

The National Youth Advocacy Coalition (NYAC) is a social justice organization that advocates for and with young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning in an effort to end discrimination against these youth and to ensure their physical and emotional well being. For more information, please visit www.nyacyouth.org.