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Hi John,

It's Christen, the interim vice president of digital here at EMILYs List — and a queer person who has spent years working to elect pro-choice women because I know what it costs when we don't.

Pride started as a protest. And more than 50 years after the first bricks were thrown at Stonewall, LGBTQ+ people are still under attack from a Republican Party that would rather legislate us out of existence than let us live our lives.

I'll say it plainly: This moment is terrifying. LGBTQ+ people are under siege in this country. In the last year alone, Republicans have introduced over 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in state legislatures — more than 100 of them specifically targeting transgender people. This isn't a culture war. It's a strategy to erase us. 

To put a finer point on it, the GOP has made cruelty its platform. They're banning books, criminalizing gender-affirming care, gutting abortion rights, and pushing queer families out of public life. It's all connected — a carefully coordinated strategy to control our bodies, restrict our freedoms, and erase anyone who doesn't fit their narrow vision of America. The same people coming for queer rights are the ones coming for abortion access. It's the same playbook, repackaged to target our communities, one by one.

So EMILYs List is doing what we've always done: fighting back like our rights — and our lives — depend on it. Because they do. That means electing LGBTQ+ pro-choice candidates who understand what's at stake. And after years at EMILYs List, I’ve seen just how urgently we need to elect leaders who get it. Women who understand the stakes not as talking points, but as a present, urgent reality that affects us all.

If you're looking for a way to join the fight this Pride Month, don't just read this email — help us push back. For $15/month, you can join Friends of the List and get access to the EMILYs List Substack, where our staff and candidates pull back the curtain and share what's really happening on the ground. It's a space for strategy, storytelling, and solidarity — and it's powered by people like you who refuse to give up this fight.

In solidarity,
Christen

Christen Sparago (they/them/theirs, she/her/hers)
Interim Vice President, Digital