Former Texas Senator Wendy Davis on the importance of joining forces between the LGBT and women’s rights communities

ORLANDO – When former Texas State Senator Wendy Davis stood strong against a state and a Republican Party that maligned her until the witching hour, she actually stood strong, on her feet, for 11 hours on June 25, 2013. She filibustered. At issue were the rights of women, the closing of Planned Parenthood clinics in her state, human rights at large. It would lead to a national media storm and failed campaign for governor.

“I definitely feel like I came out stronger from that, but much more important than that, I feel like people who support reproductive freedoms came out stronger,” Davis told Watermark just before a Sept. 9 Hillary Clinton campaign appearance at the University of Central Florida with congressional hopeful Stephanie Murphy.

Watermark: intersectionality of women’s rights and LGBT rights. Can you speak to that and where it falls in your heart?

Wendy Davis: In its broadest terms, at the base of those rights is the idea that centers around equality and the belief that we will not be the country we need to be until we fully embrace the quality of every individual regardless of sexual orientation, gender, race or immigrant status. Of course, Secretary Clinton has been talking a great deal about that and it’s important to know that you can’t really have the strength in any one of those areas unless, or until, you have the strength in all of them – because they do cross lines.

These aren’t neat and compact categories of people. Some people fit into all of the categories I just spoke about, so they do impact each other. I certainly know that the LGBT community has shown itself to be strongly behind fighting for women’s rights and immigrants’ rights and vice versa. It all comes around and overlaps in a very important way.

Do you think we’re changing the definition of liberals, and humanizing it? Maybe building bridges?

Yeah, that’s a really good way to say it. I hadn’t thought about it in exactly those terms, but I think one of the things of my generation – I’m in my early 50s – what we tended to do is be on autopilot, where we were concentrated and focused solely and uniquely on an issue that felt like it was most impactful to us. And what I see in this new, young, vibrant generation of millennials is a much deeper understanding about the overlap and that we can’t fight for the one and leave the other behind.

In the wake of Pulse, what are your feelings about that incident?

You certainly cannot come to this community without an overwhelming sense of what happened there, and how it is that we turned that tragedy into a force for good, and recognizing that each of us plays a role in making sure that that happens. Of course, for Secretary Clinton, she has used that experience as an opportunity to not only to continue her conversation about the importance of full equality for the LGBTQ community, but also to talk about the nation’s responsibility in making sure we provide a safe climate here in this country.

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