LGBTQ rights group Human Rights Campaign launches tour through mostly red states

Source: NBC News

uly 28, 2025, 11:40 AM EDT


The Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights organization, is taking its LGBTQ equality message on the road with a multicity tour focused on changing more hearts and minds, particularly in red states.

The “American Dreams Tour” will kick off Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, and travel to cities in predominantly Republican-led states through November. The tour’s goal, according to HRC, is to amplify LGBTQ people’s stories “at a time of rising political attacks and cultural erasure” and “celebrate the communities pushing back against hate and fighting for a future of equality for all.”

“For half a century, our movement has changed hearts and minds with our stories — Harvey Milk in the Castro, Pedro Zamora on the Real World, trans youth and parents coming forward in statehouses across the country. When people know who we really are, everything changes. This tour is about reclaiming that legacy,” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. “We’re traveling to the places where harm is happening—and where hope is rising. We’re showing up for communities who’ve been told they don’t belong and reminding them, and the country, that they are the American dream.”

The tour will “anchor” in six major cities — Columbus; Las Vegas; Washington, D.C.; Dallas; Atlanta; and Nashville, Tennessee — with other stops to be announced in the coming weeks, according to HRC. Each stop will be tailored to the issues queer people are facing in those particular locales. The Columbus stop, for example, will be centered on “Ohio’s legacy of LGBTQ+ activism while confronting today’s political backslide and barriers to HIV care,” according to HRC, while Atlanta’s stop will be in partnership with Atlanta Pride and will zero in on “Black LGBTQ+ leadership and community-led care models.”

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/lgbtq-rights-group-human-rights-campaign-launches-tour-mostly-red-stat-rcna221481