The exhibition honors half a century of landmark civil rights cases argued by Lambda Legal, the oldest nonprofit legal advocate for members of the LGBTQ community and people living with HIV in the country.
“Almost all of the civil rights that LGBTQ people have right now are a result of the work we’ve done over the past 50 years,” Shelly Skeen, the south central regional director for Lambda Legal, tells the Observer. “Stopping bullying in schools, making sure that gay-straight alliances can meet in schools, making sure that people who are living with HIV can get housing, marriage equality, making sure that LGBTQ people are no longer criminals. All of that is Lambda cases.”
Queer Justice brings this legal history to life with colorful displays that tell the stories of the people behind these cases. It contains powerful photos of activists during the early days of AIDS lying on the ground with cardboard tombstones above their heads and of couples and families who had to go to court for their right to exist. These are accompanied by thoroughly written histories, making the space a compact walk-through of decades of perseverance.
Shelly Skeen, the south central regional director for Lambda Legal, addressed attendees at Queer Justice's Dallas debut.
Carly May Gravley
Lambda’s history underscores how furthering LGBTQ causes has a positive ripple effect on the civil rights of all groups.
“Our work around gay-straight alliances in classrooms has made it so that any extracurricular group can meet on campus, such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes,” says Skeen. “It made it so that those schools were open to broader ideas. When you know people who are different from you and when you interact with them, it fosters acceptance.”
The same goes when courts decide to strip away rights. Skeen uses Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, as a timely example of this.
“That goes hand in hand with the work we do,” she says. “It has to do with the right to make decisions about your own body and how you’re going to live your life.”
The decision to hold the exhibition inside the Resource Center is far from random. It’s one of the largest LGBTQ community centers in the country and has provided a safe haven for Dallas’ gay and trans community and people living with HIV for over 40 years. It’s a local beacon for the kind of advocacy and values for which Lambda has fought.
“Even though we’re a big city that’s more progressive than some parts of Texas, [LGBTQ+ people] are still struggling,” says Cece Cox, the Resource Center’s CEO (and Skeen’s wife). “For a queer person to find competent primary medical care where they feel welcome and understood and the practitioner actually has knowledge about various health issues, that’s pretty rare.”
Trans health issues in particular are at the center of the next chapter of Lambda’s history. In October, the Supreme Court will rule on United States v. Skrmetti, which will decide whether a Tennessee bill that aims to prohibit transgender minors from accessing gender-affirming care is constitutional.
Like all civil rights cases, the impact of this decision will extend far beyond one law.
“The doctors want to provide that care. The kids want that care. The parents want that care,” Skeen says. “You have all three of these folks saying, ‘I consent to this.’ [...] You have all three of those rights together and that’s when those rights are the strongest, not the government coming into our homes and telling us how to raise our kids and what control we can have over our bodies.”
Queer Justice: 50 Years of Lambda Legal and LGBTQ+ Rights will be on display at the Resource Center at 5750 Cedar Springs Road until Oct. 7. More information can be found on the exhibition website.
