Trump orders spur Long Island LGBT Network to train potential candidates

The Long Island LGBT Network on Tuesday announced plans to train more than a dozen candidates to run for school board and library seats in what the network said was an effort to defend LGBTQ values and protections.

Network founder and president David Kilmnick said the Hauppauge center was launching four-week and six-week academies to train candidates in time to seek election in the fall.

The endeavor, Kilmnick said, is in response to executive orders by President Donald Trump seeking to strip protections for transgender people and other members of the LGBTQ community. The training academy is free to the public and privately funded, Kilmnick said.

"We're in dark times now, but it will be light at the end of the tunnel. I don't want to minimize the work that we need to do. This is going to be hard work. It's going to be extremely hard work," Kilmnick said.

Organizers said they are also working with a team of 10 faculty members in the academy, including State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

“New York has long been a beacon of hope for the LGBTQ community," DiNapoli said in a statement emailed from his press office. "The LGBT Network, has been supporting and empowering the queer and trans community for 30 years and, plays a critical role in the fight for justice and equality. Many people hear the call to action but lack the tools to get their voices heard. I applaud the Network’s efforts to prepare more LGBTQ New Yorkers to run for office and participate at every level of government.”

The training will include instruction on voter engagement and outreach and campaign planning and strategy. The academy is expected to meet Feb. 26 for the first time on Zoom.

Kilmnick said they have 14 candidates lined up to run for school board seats in Amityville, Connetquot, Copiague, East Rockaway, Farmingdale, Hewlett, Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson, Sayville, Shirley, Shoreham-Wading River, Smithtown and Westbury.

"This is for LGBTQ and allied folks who all share the same values, who think that we should have safe schools, who think that we should have safe communities, that there should be LGBTQ literature, symbols … in all of our institutions" Kilmnick said before a filled auditorium at the nonprofit's Hauppauge headquarters for a town hall Tuesday evening.

Trump's executive orders have included banning transgender members from the military, banning transgender females from competing in women’s sports, banning people from changing their designated sex on government documentation such as passports, and banning gender-affirming care for young people. The White House has framed many of the decisions as being geared toward "protecting women."

"It's already hard enough for trans people to be employed and then if you don't have your documentation on top of it, what are you going to do?" said Sol Jerman, one of around 150 LGBTQ Long Islanders and allies who attended Tuesday's town hall. The town hall also allowed concerned residents the chance to ask a pair of attorneys questions regarding the legality of Trump's actions, as well as the concerns of federal funding being withheld from local schools that welcome the LGBT Network for assemblies or local hospitals that provide gender affirming care.

While these executive orders are "scary," Jerman, 24, of Bay Shore, said anti-LGBTQ policies have always been a concern and are now "just more publicized." He added that attending LGBTQ-focused events like Tuesday's town hall "puts a huge target on us all right now."

Previous plans for the LGBT Network to establish citizen academies never materialized because of a lack of resources and organization, Kilmnick said, but also a "false sense of complacency."

This academy will be funded by the Long Island Unitarian Universalist Fund, LGBT Network CEO Robert Vitelli said Tuesday evening.

Organizers said they plan to follow successes in the Smithtown Library Board election in 2022, when the LGBT Network backed three winning candidates who ran for seats on the board in response to LGBTQ books and Pride displays being briefly removed from the library’s children’s section.

The candidate training program is one aspect of a six-part plan to build "an army" of community members and allies, Kilmnick told the town hall crowd. The network also hopes to recruit "pride patrol" members who can mobilize at public meetings in opposition to anti-LGBTQ efforts and help community members tell their own stories in their own voices.

As a collective, Kilmnick said community members and allies must learn "how to talk about these nuanced issues and complex issues … amongst our neighbors, our families."

With Nicholas Grasso

By John Asbury

john.asbury@newsday.comJohnAsbury

John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.