DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest and largest Hispanic rights organization in the U.S., has created a permanent leadership position in its national structure to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights.
This milestone event happened on June 20 at LULAC’s national convention held in Fort Worth, according to Mandi Delossantos, president of LULAC 4871, the Dallas Rainbow Council. She said affiliates from other cities including San Antonio, Lubbock and Washington, D.C. collaborated to present an amendment to create the position.
The amendment passed almost unanimously.
Rainbow Council
When the Dallas Rainbow Council was formed in 2006, it was the first LGBTQ+ LULAC chapter. Two years later, the chapter was named Texas Council of the Year. When founder Jesse Garcia moved to D.C., he created a Washington rainbow council and LGBTQ+ chapters opened in San Antonio, Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley.
Delossantos said the addition of the board position is not unprecedented. The new LGBTQ+ advocate will join other advocacy representatives for women, high school students, college students and veterans in addition to advocating for specific issues such as immigration and voting rights.
“This is the most significant structural and governance change in this organization” made in years, said LULAC spokesman David Cruz. “Thanks to this committee that championed it. It was thrilling to be in that room and witness the vote.”
He called the creation of the position a milestone.
Delossantos said the person appointed to this leadership position will “bridge the conversation between LGBTQ+ members and Latinx by providing programming, education on how to create safe spaces and how to advocate for those within your familia.”
She said supporting LGBTQ+ issues is nothing new for LULAC. They supported marriage equality and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. She hoped to see more attention to immigration and asylum issues and how they affect LGBTQ+ people.
“This government has been very lax in acknowledging LGBTQ+ members,” Cruz said.
“Those sent to CECOT, there’s no telling what will happen to them.” CECOT is the maximum-security prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration is sending some deportees.
Gay people and the transgender community, he said, “go to the back of the line.”
“Transgender rights are at the forefront of our priorities,” Delossantos said.
That’s because transgender rights are under attack. She said the Dallas Rainbow Council is partnering with the DFW Transgender Alliance as it gears up for the upcoming legislative session in January.
LULAC was an early supporter of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a policy that we thought was dead and buried; the current administration has replaced it with a new policy forbidding transgender people from serving in the armed forces.
And while legislatures are passing laws to restrict transgender youth from receiving healthcare and regulate bathroom use, more than 70 percent of transgender people who are murdered are people of color.
Civil rights we thought had been won are being taken away. Having another ally fighting to preserve those rights that have been won benefits everyone in the LGBTQ+ community.
No one has been chosen to fill the new leadership position but, “We’re joining together this week to nominate someone to fill the roll until the next election,” Delossantos said.
“Imagine being the first person on the board,” Cruz said, suggesting Delossantos might be the perfect person to fill that role — the president of the chapter that’s been at it the longest and has been the loudest calling for equal representation for the LGBTQ+ community.