Last Updated on April 1, 2026 by Chicago Policy Review Staff
This interview has been approved by Kris Hayashi and ACLU Communications.
Across continents and institutions, the premise of queer equality is being tested anew. From legislative chambers to military ranks to public squares across the globe, LGBTQ+ people are confronting an unsettling pattern: rights once thought secure are again under siege. What connects these struggles is not only the backlash itself, but the systems — legal, cultural, and institutional — that allow regression to masquerade as debate.
This series, Rights in Retreat, explores that global tension through three distinct but resonant lenses. One lens examines how colonial legal inheritances continue to shape the criminalization and regulation of queer identity in parts of South Asia. Another considers the ways military institutions negotiate inclusion, often framing questions of equality as threats to discipline or readiness. A third interrogates the shifting political landscape in the United States, where the conversation about good policy has increasingly become a battleground for defining gender, identity, and belonging.
Together, these stories trace the shifting boundaries of belonging, how law, power, and national identity determine who is recognized as fully human. As global democracy wavers and rights recede, these conversations ask a single urgent question: What does the retreat of queer rights reveal about the health of democracy itself?
Rights in Retreat: Advocacy, Organizing, and Justice
National Campaigns Director, ACLU Transgender Justice with the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project – A Conversation with Kris Hayashi
As the Rights in Retreat series concludes, Elliot Certain of OUTPolitik sat down with Kris Hayashi to reflect on organizing through cycles of backlash, the current wave of anti-trans legislation, and what it means to build durable movements in moments of democratic strain. Hayashi brings more than three decades of experience in racial and social justice movements, including over 20 years focused on trans justice
Elliot Certain: Hi Kris! Welcome to the Rights in Retreat Interview Series. Let’s start at the beginning. Can you introduce yourself and your work?
Kris Hayashi: I’m Kris Hayashi and I use he/him pronouns. I’m currently the National Campaign Director for Trans Justice at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). I’ve been involved in racial and social justice movements for over 30 years now, and specifically in queer and trans organizing for about 20 to 25 years. Most of my work has focused on trans justice, particularly centering Black and Brown trans communities. Over time, that’s meant different things: grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, or campaign strategy. Despite looking very different through the years, the through line of my work has been fighting for conditions where trans people can not only survive, but thrive.
Elliot: What first pulled you into organizing?
Hayashi: As a trans person who was gender nonconforming from a very young age, I grew up understanding that the world wasn’t set up for me. There was always a sense of injustice and of knowing something about the way things were structured wasn’t right. When I got to college, I connected with other queer and trans folks of color who were organizing. At the time, people were mobilizing around ethnic studies on campus and around statewide ballot measures like California Proposition 187, which targeted immigrant communities. Those were some of my first experiences with collective action…seeing people come together to resist something harmful and to articulate a different vision. That’s really what drew me in: realizing that change happens in relationships, in community, and over time.
Elliot: We’re clearly in a moment of rights regression. Does this feel new to you, or part of a familiar pattern?
Hayashi: It’s both. For trans communities (especially Black and Brown trans people, immigrants, disabled folks, people living outside major urban centers) violence, harassment, and lack of access to basic needs are not new. Those conditions have existed for a very long time. What’s different is visibility and targeting.
Over the last decade or so, trans people became much more visible in popular culture. When Laverne Cox was on the cover of Time and Janet Mock hit the bestseller list, there was a noticeable shift. We had visibility in a way we hadn’t before.
At the same time, conservative political actors made a strategic decision to center trans people, alongside attacks on other communities such as Black and brown communities, women, immigrants, as a way to mobilize their base and consolidate power. The attacks we’re seeing now, from state-level legislation to ballot measures to administrative actions, are highly coordinated.
So while the underlying vulnerability isn’t new, the scale and national coordination of the backlash does feel different.
Elliot: You mentioned vulnerability being longstanding for Black and Brown trans communities. How are these current attacks landing differently for them?
Hayashi: For many Black and Brown trans communities, particularly in the South, what others are newly experiencing has been ongoing. Loss of healthcare access, for example. That’s not new in many states.
Now, with federal rollbacks and intensified state-level attacks layered on top, the harm compounds.
Take trans immigrants for another example. The conditions in immigration detention have long been horrific. Trans people have faced denial of medication, violence, and abuse. That’s not new. But in the context of intensified enforcement and anti-immigrant policy, trans immigrants are particularly vulnerable, especially those seeking asylum from countries where they face extreme violence.
There’s also the funding landscape. Black and Brown trans-led organizations historically have had limited access to foundation or federal dollars. As philanthropic giving contracts and grants shrink, the impact is disproportionate. Losing limited resources is devastating for these communities.
And then there’s narrative. The dominant public story about trans people right now often centers those making difficult decisions to relocate to states with more protections in place. No one should have to face these decisions and many of the folks relocating have more access to resources and are often white and middle-class. That narrative can erase the reality of people who cannot leave and are staying and having to fight in hostile environments. That is why it is so important that we continue to center Black and brown trans people, so we continue to fight for a future that is better for them.
Elliot: For policymakers and institutions that claim to support inclusion, where do you see common pitfalls or mistakes?
Hayashi: The most basic one is making decisions about trans communities without trans people in the room. It’s still incredibly common for policies that directly affect trans lives to be developed without meaningful engagement from local trans-led organizations. If you’re a policymaker, the starting point should be working with organizations that are rooted in and accountable to the communities you’re trying to serve.
Another pitfall is performative inclusion. We saw a period where corporations and large nonprofits were very publicly supportive of trans rights. But when the attacks intensified, much of that support didn’t translate into sustained resourcing or prioritization.
Elliot: Within the LGBTQ+ community, what does meaningful allyship look like, especially for those not as impacted by multi-marginalization?
Hayashi: Oppression plays out inside our communities, too. Some trans people, often white, middle-class, or those who conform more closely to gender norms, have greater access to certain spaces. Allyship means using that opportunity to uplift those who don’t have that same access. For me, as an East Asian trans guy who passes, I’m very aware of the rooms I’m able to enter. Meaningful inclusion can mean bringing others into decision-making spaces. It can mean declining a speaking opportunity, so someone else can take the mic. It can mean redirecting media attention. It’s also about doing the internal work within institutions to address racism, transphobia, and classism so that when you do bring people in, the space is actually ready to receive them.
Elliot: Looking back, is there a campaign, movement, or moment in the trans movement that reshaped how you think about wins and losses?
Hayashi: When I was at the Transgender Law Center around 2013, we were organizing around the conditions trans immigrants faced in detention. We were calling to end trans immigrant detention and ultimately to abolish ICE. At the time, those demands were seen as too radical. Even reaching out to national immigrant rights and LGBTQ organizations, we couldn’t get traction. In one sense, that felt like a loss.
But we stuck to the demands and our principles. And by 2020 – and most certainly by 2026 – “abolish ICE” had become a widely recognized rallying cry. That experience reinforced the importance of articulating what our communities actually need, even if it’s not immediately popular.
Elliot: What about a moment that felt like a clear win?
Hayashi: When I was at the Audrey Lorde Project in New York City, we ran a campaign, led entirely by Black and brown trans people, pushing the city’s Human Resources Administration to adopt policies to better serve trans people seeking public benefits. We organized rallies, fax blasts (keep in mind this was the early 2000s) and sustained conversations with the agency. Eventually, we won policy changes. The change itself was incremental. But what mattered most was that it was trans-led, grassroots, and effective. It built organizing muscle and showed what was possible.
Elliot: For younger activists entering this work in a moment of fear and exhaustion, what would you say?
Hayashi: First: be in the community. I can’t overstate how important that is. Being in community with other trans and nonbinary people, with allies, with people who understand your experience, that’s what gets us through.
Second: it’s okay to step back. Sustainable movements require distributed leadership. You can’t run at full speed forever.
And third: while this moment is terrifying and there is real loss, there’s also opportunity. Many of the institutions currently unraveling never truly served trans communities, or Black and Brown communities, or immigrants. As they fall away, it’s okay to see this as an opportunity to advocate for the rebuilding of institutions that serve everyone rather than just some.
As we’re forced to create new systems — whether around healthcare, education, or mutual aid — we have the opportunity to build them differently. That’s not minimizing the harm. It’s recognizing that generative work is possible even in crisis.
Elliot: What gives you hope right now?
Hayashi: Local organizing. Mutual aid networks. Trans-led projects. People figuring out how to sustain each other as conditions worsen.
And allies. I’ve been in rooms full of non-trans people who are eager to organize for trans rights. Despite narratives suggesting trans issues are politically toxic, I believe far more people are with us than against us. Sometimes they just don’t always know how to engage.
And increasingly, I’m reminded of the importance of joy. We’ve hosted women’s basketball watch parties as spaces for political education around trans athletes. People show up because it’s accessible and joyful. They leave informed and energized. That kind of joy is easy and essential.
Elliot: Last question: What does this moment reveal about the health of American democracy?
Hayashi: I don’t believe we were ever living in a fully healthy democracy. The system has long been rooted in colonization, anti-Blackness, racism, sexism, and so much more. What this moment reveals is the depth of those fractures.
At the same time, we have to resist authoritarian efforts to further undermine democratic structures. And we can do that while also being honest about the need to build something better: a representative democracy that truly serves the people. Black and Brown trans people included.
This moment of regression isn’t permanent. We will get beyond it. The question is how we use it to shape what comes next.
Elliot: Thank you so much for your time and perspective, Kris.
Hayashi: Happy to contribute!