EMILYs List Celebrates Pride Month and Calls for Greater Representation of LGBTQ+ People in Elected

For Immediate Release 

June 1, 2021

EMILYs List Celebrates Pride Month and Calls for Greater Representation of LGBTQ+ People in Elected Office 

Today, Emily Cain, executive director of EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, released the following statement celebrating Pride Month:

“During one of the worst years on record for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being introduced and passed in state legislatures across the country, EMILYs List stands with the LGBTQ+ community as the fight to advocate for equality across the country continues. We are grateful for the EMILYs List LGBTQ+ leaders who have broken ground and made history, including our 2021 Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award nominee Georgia state Rep. Park Cannon (GA-HD58), North Carolina state Rep. Vernetta Alston (NC-HD29), Oklahoma state Rep. Mauree Turner (OK-HD88), Sen. Tammy Baldwin (WI), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Gov. Kate Brown (OR), Rep. Sharice Davids (KS-03), and Rep. Angie Craig (MN-02), to name just a few. We are excited to support these candidates and the many who will come after them.”

“With more than 250 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced since the beginning of the year, EMILYs List recognizes the power our candidates in office have – alongside the activism of LGBTQ+ advocates – to stop these bills from becoming law. While there has been an increase in LGBTQ+ leaders in elected office in recent years, we still have more work to do to elect a government that reflects the diversity of the society it serves, and EMILYs List is proud to be part of that process.”

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 157 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40 percent of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.