This Pride Month marks ten years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges brought the freedom to marry to same-sex couples nationwide. The front pages that summer were filled with jubilant scenes of couples taking their vows and banners waving in celebration on courthouse steps.
On June 26, 2015—decision day—the White House’s columns were lit up with the colors of the rainbow. The gleaming display symbolized how a dedicated group of activists, policymakers, and ordinary citizens could unlock a vast reserve of power to make change.
Today, with a new administration in Washington launching hostile attacks on the LGBTQ community at an unprecedented pace, everyone deserves to take a breath, look back, and celebrate what we’ve accomplished.
Support for the freedom to marry has never been greater. According to Gallup, more than two-thirds of Americans support same-sex couples’ freedom to marry, a figure that has remained stable for nearly a decade. For ten years now, same-sex couples in every corner of every state, from Alabama to Wyoming, have been able to walk into their county clerk’s office, get a marriage license, and celebrate their wedding day just like everyone else.
Today, seeing same-sex couples get married seems so ordinary and familiar, it’s easy to forget that winning was far from guaranteed.
In the early 2000s, as the movement for marriage began to pick up steam, public support was the reverse of what we see today. At that time, opposition was so great that right-wing politicians viewed it as a wedge issue that could divide voters. In the 2004 and 2008 elections, they scrambled to put anti-marriage initiatives on the ballot in state after state in the hopes of driving voter turnout.
And those initiatives generally passed. Even in progressive California, voters passed Proposition 8 and ended a brief window of marriage equality in the state. (Prop 8 has been a dead letter since the U.S. Supreme Court’s freedom to marry decisions, but wasn’t until 2024 that California voters finally reversed the stain and repealed it.)
So how did the freedom-to-marry movement manage to turn the tide?
By focusing on what unites us. And by “us,” I mean everyone. Not just LGBTQ people, but all people.
In the early days of the movement for marriage, a lot of the language used by activists was highly legalistic. The focus was on rights and benefits, things like inheritance, health insurance, and Social Security. The idea was to persuade people that it was unfair for same-sex couples not to have equal access to those things. All of that was true, but it didn’t move the needle with the public.
It was only when the freedom-to-marry movement changed its language and started to focus on what marriage really means in people’s lives that things began to shift. Instead of talking about the unfairness of being denied equal benefits, we talked about how marriage is an irreplaceable expression of a couple’s commitment to one another, a mark of their bond and a recognition of their decision to be united as a family. It resonated with people. More people started to see that same-sex couples want and need all of the same things as everyone else. Just like everyone else, LGBTQ want to protect their families and give them the security and stability they need.
This change in the way we talked about marriage combined with another powerful force: the courage of millions of everyday LGBTQ people who came out to their families and friends. Together, they created the momentum that was needed to change people’s minds. It worked.
Today, we’re witnessing a new effort to divide people that’s not all that different from what we were facing with marriage in 2004. This time the right sees transgender people as the wedge issue. In executive order after executive order, laden with dehumanizing and hostile rhetoric, the Trump Administration is trying to create a false portrait of transgender people.
The fact that transgender people are a tiny minority of the population only adds fuel to these carefully engineered efforts to stoke hostility. In polls, many people report that they don’t personally know a transgender person. The right is trying to capitalize on people’s lack of familiarity to advance anti-LGBTQ policies whenever and wherever they can.
To push back against these renewed efforts to divide us, we can take some important lessons from the freedom-to-marry movement. We need to speak about these issues in a way that helps people understand that transgender people are just people. They have the same human needs, aspirations, and goals as everyone else. Just like everyone else, they need safe schools, a fair opportunity to get a job and make a living, and access to high-quality healthcare – the same things that help all people flourish.
As we celebrate 10 years of the freedom to marry, we need to use the knowledge we gained from that fight to understand what we need to do now. We win when people understand that LGBTQ folks are just like everyone else in every way that matters. We are their family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. When people understand that simple yet powerful idea, the false narratives disappear, and lasting progress happens.