Matthew Solomon /
OutRight Action International /
New York, NY /
The mission behind OutRight is to serve as a hub for Queer civil society organizations around the world so that they can share resources, knowledge, and receive valuable donor funding. To this end, the organization is one of a kind in the sense that it places as much agency as possible in the hands of the local civil society organizations that it works with.
OutRight has fulfilled this function for the past thirty years and has been monumental for including an inclusive understanding of Queer issues such as the organization of Queer activists at the original Beijing Platform for Action. Their work stands in direct contrast to the tactics of the Vatican and other supporters of the Anti-Gender Movement, which has evolved to combat Queer issues at the Gender Equality Forum (the modern re-conceptualization of the BPfA).
But what could be improved about how they communicate the work they do? A common occurrence in the realm of human rights work is the moral thought experiment of the “lesser evil.” Through this way of thinking, we convince ourselves that we do not need to adhere to all aspects of morality if we are at least doing some “good” in our work.
From what I can see so far, OutRight does not have an aversion to pondering the problems behind the work they do (from what I can tell). In the op-eds, articles, press releases, blog posts, and press briefings I have drafted, I was never told to exclude the most essential terms and concepts for this particular work. That is, that OutRight is not an expert on all Queer issues everywhere, that agency and platforms need to be given to local civil society organizations, that Western nations continue colonial platforms with the politicization of Queerness, and that redistribution of resources is the most important way to achieve equity for any population.
It is important to note that my work concerns itself primarily with message building. I am not an expert on the inner machinations of the organization. The bark may be more ethical than the bite, to put it one way. However, from what I can tell, OutRight’s rhetoric is decolonial and their work is intersectional.