LBGTQIA+ Equality

At Fandom Forward, we’ve long fought for LGBTQIA+ equality! Below, find actions and tools you can use today as well as some of our past campaigns:

Actions and toolkits

The fight for trans equality is vital and ongoing! Here are resources you can use today to help support and protect trans people in your community:

Our flag means queer rights (2023) & protect the water, protect the mermaids (2023)

In 2023, we launched a new campaign on Earth Day called Protect Ariel’s Home. Communities all over the world lack clean and safe drinking water and because of systemic racism, BIPOC communities are most impacted by the climate crisis. Inspired by the importance of water in tons of Disney stories and the release of the live action The Little Mermaid movie, we mobilized Disney fans to take direct action to protect clean water access. You can read more about the climate campaign here.

As a special Pride Month offshoot of Protect Ariel’s Home, we launched a fundraiser to support real-life Mermaids by partnering with Mermaids UK, an organization that supports transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse youth. With fun perks like baby kraken’s available for adoption, a sparkly enamel pin, and sea-themed art, we raised over $3,500 to be split between Fandom Forward & Mermaids! The amount we raised for Mermaids will pay for a full time helpline services officer for almost a month, ensuring there is always someone at the end of the phone when young gender diverse people need to speak to someone safe or when a parent needs help to support their gender diverse child. 

Lastly, for the second year, we hosted Our Flag Means Queer Rights! On Flag Day, we were joined by Our Flag Means Death fans to take piratical action and speak out against the anti-LGBTQ+ bills sweeping the US and UK. We were joined by writers, podcasters, AND two members of the Revenge itself! Actors Nathan Foad and Kristian Nairn stopped by to share why the LGBTQ+ community needs our enthusiastic support.

Our flag means queer rights (2022)

On June 22, Fandom Forward hosted an evening of piratical action with Our Flag Means Death fans to fight back against anti-LGBTQ+ bills sweeping the US. The evening featured fan artists, writers, podcasters, cosplayers, and even a special guest from the crew of the Revenge itself. Nearly 400 fans took action in real time to support of the queer community. And with another 800+ folks having watched the recording of the livestream, we collectively took more than 1,200 actions for LGBTQ+ rights! Together, we contacted our senators encouraging them to support the Equality Act, educated ourselves and our friends about different LGBTQ+ protections in different states, spoke out against rainbow-washing, donated to the Our Flag Means Death Fan Crew fundraiser for SAGE, and pledged to support trans youth across the country. And along the way, fan activists were awarded places on our pirate crew by our savvy Twitter wrangler, and it was amazing! 

Featured guests on the livestream included Vico Ortiz, (Jim Jimenez, actor on the Our Flag Means Death), Jackson Bird (YouTuber, author, podcaster, general gay pirates enthusiast), Jazmynne Cruz (The Equality Federation), The Gay Pirate Podcast (Hashtag Ruthless Productions), Sarah Cummins (Fan creator), TJ Hurt (Fan creator), Our Flag Means Death Fan Crew (OFMD Fan Organizers), and the event was moderated by Katie Bowers (Fandom Forward).


We stand with trans people (2020)

Fandom Forward is a trans-inclusive and trans-affirming organization, from our 2016 Protego campaign to our consistent trans-affirming policies throughout our programs. We have a very clear stance: trans women are women, trans men are men, non-binary people are non-binary, and affirming and respecting people’s gender is kind, loving, and literally saves lives. 

Fan activists recognize that there is almost no media produced without problematic creators or owners, given that so many of our favorite stories are ultimately distributed by corporations and publishers who are not perfect (and sometimes far from it). What matters to Fandom Forward is how fans choose to embody, share, and re-imagine the stories that meant something to them, and how fans can use our incredible, creative, imaginative communities to build a better, more just and loving world for all. Read more here.

Many of Harry Potter fandom’s most beloved spaces and fan works were created and cultivated by queer and trans people - including Fandom Forward! Fandom Forward’s Harry Potter-themed materials and campaigns are intended to honor the decades-long legacy of activism by Harry Potter fandom and the labor of the countless queer and trans people who created the Harry Potter fandom community we know and love today. We support each trans person’s right to decide for themselves whether continuing to engage in Harry Potter-related media is right for them. 

Fandom Forward has been created and led by fans since its inception. It has no relationship, financial or otherwise, to JK Rowling or Warner Bros. Entertainment.


#PrideIsMagic (2019)

In 2019, Fandom Forward celebrated Pride month by promoting actions aligned with the Hogwarts Houses all month long. We all have a little bit of each Hogwarts House inside of us, so focusing on one House per week gave wizard activists a chance to stretch their activist muscles and advocate for LGBTQIA+ equality. For Gryffindor week, we asked Fandom Forward members to share their favorite queer characters and stories with us on social media as way to bring awareness to the importance of these stories. During Hufflepuff week, we hosted a “self care sprint” on social media as a way to prioritize self care and practice community care.

For Slytherin week, we used all of our ambition. As a community we 1) submitted comments against the Trump administration’s proposal to strip trans people’s access to non-discriminatory healthcare, 2) protested the injustice of embassies around the world not being able to fly the rainbow flag in honor of Pride Month, 3) called our legislators in support of the Equality Act of 2019, 4) became Community Co-Sponsors of the Equality Act of 2019 by signing this petition created by the Human Rights Campaign!

Finally, for Ravenclaw week we highlighted leaders of the Pride movement on our social media.


Protego (2016)

In the Harry Potter series, Protego is a powerful shield spell, used throughout the magical world to make a space safer. In our world, Protego was a powerful campaign dedicated to helping transgender people become empowered, educating cisgender people on how to be effective allies, and providing resources for everyone to create safe spaces for transgender people at the individual, community, and policy level.

We saw wizard activists complete 1,225 actions to support the trans community, from letter writing campaigns to education events to lobbying their schools and libraries for gender neutral bathrooms! We also partnered with the NationalCenter forTransgender Equality to support legislative advocacy campaigns in six U.S. states and Canada - including collecting and sending 1,000 signed postcards to the Governor of North Carolina calling for the reversal of H.B. 2, a state law preventing trans people from using public restrooms that align with their gender identity.

We supported these actions with a library of new resources for trans activists and allies to use at the local and national level, in their schools and dorms, and in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, FL. We also launched our #Protego Medium series highlighting trans authors and their stories and ideas about how to make the world safer.

To end the campaign, we launched Restroom Revelio, a worldwide scavenger hunt to create a Marauders Map of gender neutral bathrooms. Over one hundred wizard activists downloaded and updated the app Refuge Restroom, cataloging safe, clean restrooms of requirement in their communities!

Overall, the success of Protego went above and beyond what we expected. Wizard activists spoke up to get gender neutral bathrooms and language established in their favorite public spaces. They attended marches and protests and signed and circulated petitions, and held their leaders - from school boards to state houses - accountable for casting protection spells, too. Overall, their support and enthusiasm for creating loving, inclusive, magical spaces blew us away!


Vote 2012

The 2012 election season brought on a whole lot of social change, and (as usual) Fandom Forward was at the center of the action! In keeping with the goals and message of our Equality FTW fundraiser, we teamed up with our members to phone bank 3,000 calls in support of marriage equality in Maine and 900 calls in support the DREAM Act in Maryland.

Spoiler Alert: WE WON ON BOTH COUNTS! And while we can’t take FULL credit for all the equality victories achieved in 2012, we certainly feel proud of our contributions to the process.

Our effort received a huge boost from our DFTVA House Cup. This friendly competition put wizards and nerds to the task of phone banking 900 calls in support of Maine marriage equality and earning points for their chosen house with every call made. We also encouraged people to share Hogwarts house-themed banners on Facebook, in order to spread this simple message: Don’t Forget To Vote, America! Ravenclaw ran away with the title, amassing 5,939 points and lording their superiority over everyone else in the name of equality!


Wrock for Equality 2 (2011)

In February of 2011, Fandom Forward hosted Wrock 4 Equality 2, an all day wizard rock livestream which inspired members and fans to make over 6,200 phone calls to Rhode Islanders and process 246 digital postcards urging Rhode Island legislators to pass a marriage equality bill. We teamed up with  Marriage Equality Rhode Island and the Gay-Straight Alliance, and together we created our Fans for Equality Facebook page. 


Bullying Horcrux: Deathly Hallows Campaign (2011)

On February 2, 2011, Fandom Forward launched its fight against the “Bullying Horcrux”. This is the fourth Horcrux in the Deathly Hallows Campaign (DHC) and tackled bullying in the LGBTQ community. As children, those who identify as LGBTQ are often bullied first by their classmates and then later by a government that often prevents them from essential rights. Fandom Forward wanted to help make this better and work toward a more peaceful, accepting world. Throughout February, Fandom Forward discussed what everyone can do to make this better. This was done using our blog, by uniting with Make it Better videos, and taking action in Rhode Island for Wrock 4 Equality 2.


Wrock for Equality (2009)

Fandom Forward first launched Wrock 4 Equality in 2009 to stop the passage of a Maine proposition that would have repealed equal marriage. Fandom Forward members canvassed in rain or shine, knocking on almost 700 doors to remind people to vote no on Proposition One and collecting absentee ballots. In addition to these efforts, members nationwide spent hours phone-banking, calling more than 3,500 Maine residents in just one day - a 1200% increase over MassEquality's previous record.

On February 26, Fandom Forward hosted its second Wrock for Equality event on livestream. Drawing inspiration from previous efforts in Maine, Fandom Forward partnered with MassEquality and Marriage Equality Rhode Island to encourage vocal support of marriage equality bills across the U.S. HPA members made 6,200 phone calls and sent 214 digital postcards, breaking previous MassEquality phone banking records.