Web site Evaluation - Part IV

The LGBT movement has pushed forward in a steady manner over the past 35 years. Starting with the Stonewall Riots in June 1969, all the way to the fight for marriage equality of today. We are a community of diversity and strength, yet even in our progress we sometimes stand divided. We celebrate our accomplishments, yet we fail to recognize that we struggle as a community with issues of racism, classism, sexism, gender identity, ageism and perceived HIV/AIDS status. The fact that some of our leading national LGBT organizations compete with each other further proves that, until we can come together in harmony, we will never find true equality as a community.

The Good, but Good Enough?

The Human Rights Campaign is the largest and perhaps the most well-known of the national LGBT organizations in the United States. HRC works hard in the fight for LGBT equality and has been instrumental in gaining support from major celebrities and orchestrating national events that, in turn, draw a lot of attention from the mainstream media.

My biggest complaint about the HRC is that the organization has turned into somewhat of a brand name, but only offers hidden visibility. Nowhere in the name does it indicate that the organization works specifically on LGBT issues. If you were unfamiliar with what the HRC does, you might support it simply because you agree with human rights. As well, the famous HRC logo of a blue square with a yellow equal sign in the middle does not send the same message as that of a rainbow triangle: the global symbol of LGBT pride. Regardless of this fact, a wide variety of merchandise containing the official logo can be purchased off the HRC Web site. If this "symbol of equality" is only recognizable to people in the LGBT community or to LGBT allies, is this the type of visibility we really need?

The Good, but why'd you have to do that?

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is the oldest national LGBT organization in the United States. Its main focus is on political grassroots activism at the local, state, regional and national level. NGLTF is very successful at training other organizations on how to defeat anti-LGBT legislation. The Policy Institute is part of NGLTF and conducts extensive research, while serving as the "think tank" of current and upcoming social issues that will directly effect the LGBT community. As well, the organization hosts the largest skills-building conference each year called "Creating Change."

NGLTF has gone through some significant changes recently to "update" the organization's image, and I believe it has done so in order to keep up with organizations that tend to get most of the credit. NGLTF now refers to itself mostly as "The Task Force," which is an interesting move away from using "lesbian" and "gay" in it's name. I can understand why, though, because the name is not inclusive of the entire LGBT community (The original name was The National Gay Task Force. Lesbian was added on later). The Task Force has also adopted a new logo that incorporates a pink 3-D triangle and a purple "greater than" sign (notice the use of stereotypically "gay" colors). This feels too much like the HRC and, quite frankly, is a sell-out for this hard working organization. My fear is that the organization is trying to be too much like the HRC and will get buried in the shuffle.