Those at a Human Rights Campaign (HRC) awards dinner and fundraiser Feb. 7 in New York City resolutely pushed back against a hostile nationwide current of anti-LGBTQ laws, executive orders and rhetoric from conservatives trying to invalidate queer marriages, families and relationships, the rights of trans people, and the general rule of law.
The HRC, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, honored actress Jane Krakowski, fashion designer Daniella Kallmeyer and advocate Juli Grey-Owens and delivered a clear message of hope, courage and resilience through powerful speeches by supporters that included journalist Don Lemon and Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and the Garden State’s own Cory Booker.
Lemon, formerly of CNN and now an independent journalist, told those inside a packed banquet room at the Marriott Marquis in Midtown: “We need to be careful because the very little that’s left of our democracy could be gone in a second if it’s not too late already.”
Lemon is a member of the LGBTQ community. He was arrested by federal authorities in late January in connection with his coverage of an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest on Jan. 18 inside Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn. Lemon said the country is “watching leaders who speak of law and order while trampling on the very laws that restrain power, picking up people on the street without due process.”
“We are watching the Bill of Rights praised in speeches and ignored in practice. The First Amendment especially has become a target to this administration. Reporters are attacked as enemies, enemies of the people. How long have you been hearing that?” Lemon said, adding that facts are being dismissed as disloyalty.
HRC President Kelly Robinson said in her speech that Lemon should never have been arrested. Robinson offered a message of hope. Referencing actions by those on the political right including Nicki Minaj’s homophobic social media post against Lemon and the racist depiction of the Obamas on President Donald Trump’s social media, Robinson said cowardice has become contagious. But, she added that courage is contagious, too.
Robinson said these are not ordinary times, pointing to Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department, ICE “murdering” citizens in the streets, the cutting of HIV prevention funds to build an ICE detention center nearby, Trump wanting his name on Penn Station, and the ICE detention of a five-year-old boy as just some examples. She also said that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has got to go.
Robinson remarked that on a tour she made throughout the country recently, she met people facing adversity who were still able to find the positive. One of those people was a teacher with HIV who had to choose between medication and food but still spoke with hope for the future.
Another was a trans veteran who served this nation for 17 years with honor and was denied the dignity of retiring in uniform, but her love of her country remained strong. And a third was an 80-year-old woman who was part of the Stonewall Uprising and who held Robinson’s hand so tightly Robinson could feel the woman’s bones shaking as she whispered that the only thing keeping her alive was knowing she wouldn’t have to live through much more of this. Yet, that woman still signed up to march for the community’s rights one more time.
“These, my friends, are serious times, and serious times require serious leadership, right? And if that leadership isn’t going to come from Washington, D.C., it sure as hell is going to come from people like us in rooms like this that are willing to fight for change,” Robinson said.
Leadership and change coming from the people, not from politicians, was a theme in Booker’s speech as well. The senior senator from New Jersey said it was the people, not the men on the Senate floor, who won suffrage for women. It was the people who demanded civil rights, who forced Reagan to pay attention to the AIDS crisis, who ended “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, and who created marriage equality.
“Every gain in our country’s history has — sorry, I’m a United States Senator, but this is true — never come from Washington. It’s always come to Washington by a determined people who demanded it,” he said.
Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, during his remarks thanked the HRC for making it possible for his daughter and her wife to lead a life of happiness in marriage, saying he had just come from having dinner with them and their two beautiful children. “You did it. You made my life better, and my family’s life better, so thank you for that,” Schumer said. The senator also thanked Lemon for his work and spoke about the Trump-ordered ICE enforcement actions in Minnesota, characterizing what’s going on as being more reminiscent of a fascist country than America. He said police cannot arrest people without warrants and need to take off their masks.
“We are fighting a president who is a bully, and like all bullies, he has much thinner skin than his victims. He relies on a culture of fear to cow his opponents into passivity, inaction. We saw his attacks on higher education, on law firms, on the press, on nonprofits in every sector of our vibrant civil society,” Schumer said.
He acknowledged there have been some dark days this past year and many, like him, have felt isolated, alienated and “deeply anxious.” However, he said the polling is clear that Trump is unpopular and all signs point to the fact that Democrats are going to win back the House and Senate “with your help in November.”
In her speech, Krakowski, who won the HRC’s Ally for Equality Award for her work as a performer and as an ally in the fight for LGBTQ rights, also acknowledged the dark days the queer community has been facing. “Here we are in 2026, and the government has again turned its back on this community,” said the Emmy-nominated and Tony award-winning actress who was born in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey.
“Even worse, they’re actively attacking it. Trans kids are being targeted by legislation designed to erase them. Books are being ripped off of library shelves. Hate speech is being amplified by those in power fueling rising hate crimes. “And once again, I am watching this community respond with the same defiance, with the same solidarity and the same insistence on being seen that I first witnessed all those years ago,” Krakowski said.
She spoke of how the LGBTQ community refused to be silent when the government turned its back to it in the past and how it refused to hide when the world said it should be ashamed. “You refused to stop making art, making history and making your lives full and loud,” she said. Receiving the HRC’s Visibility award for her impact as a queer woman in the fashion industry was Kallmeyer. “Thank you to those who kicked doors open — to the communities that have nurtured me, challenged me and held me accountable,” Kallmeyer told the audience. “I carry that with me every day in how I design, how I lead, and how I show up.”
A misinformed public fuels fear, fear forces people underground, and that invisibility prevents understanding.
Juli Grey-Owens, a New York state transgender activist and founder and executive director of Gender Equality New York Inc., was honored with HRC’s Community Impact award for her fight for transgender visibility and rights. “Even before this current wave of attacks, many transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people felt forced to hide who they are to avoid violence, rejection, or the loss of housing, employment, and basic services,” said Grey-Owens, who grew up in northwestern New Jersey.
“And for those who dared to be visible, mistreatment was often the cost of that courage. When people are pushed into hiding, normalization becomes impossible. A misinformed public fuels fear, fear forces people underground, and that invisibility prevents understanding. The cycle repeats unless we interrupt it. That is why recognition like this matters. It tells my community that we are seen, that our lives are worth protecting, and that growth and accountability within our movement are possible.”
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