It is through a close study of this campaign, using Gladwell’s principles, that we can draw lessons about transgender community organizing and social transformation. First, as Gladwell suggests, consistent with the Law of the Few, a small number of people can engage real and meaningful social change. While organizations representing thousands of people supported the transgender rights bill, the day-to-day work of the campaign was carried on by only a handful of people. Second, per the Stickiness Factor, the way in which a message is communicated can make the difference between acceptance and rejection. The campaign’s ability to craft a simple message of basic human rights to remedy pervasive discrimination proved critical in successfully communicating with key audiences. And third, the Power of Context, as Gladwell argues, is indeed crucial. The campaign was able to make transgender inclusion part of the dominant discourse in the LGBT community and was successful in persuading the city’s political elite to make transgender discrimination its own issue. But it was ultimately an entirely unrelated issue – namely, term limits – that helped reshape the political context in which the transgender rights bill was being considered, and when term limits forced out the incumbent mayor and Council Speaker, that gave the new Council leadership the opportunity to move the bill to passage.

I would like to conclude by quoting from a historic speech given in 1994. "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?" This is a quote from Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech as he took the oath of office as president of the Republic of South Africa. As Mandela said at his inaugural, "As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

In an era overtaken by cheap and easy cynicism, it is too easy to give into the temptation to throw up our hands and say that we can’t do anything about it, whatever ‘it’ is. But the truth is that each of us has it in our power to make social change. We simply have to believe that we can and then find the best way to do it. I invite you tonight to join me in the gender revolution. We all have a stake in it – men and women, conventionally gendered and gender-variant, transgendered and non-transgendered. As I see it, the goal of this movement is not simply to help a few people fit more comfortably into pre-existing boxes, but to break out of the boxes all together. The objective must be nothing less than to transform society’s understanding of gender in order to gain freedom of gender identity and expression for all.

The ultimate lesson from the campaign for Intro 24 is that a small but dedicated group of individuals can make real social change. Together, we can change the world; we must simply have the imagination to envision it and the courage to pursue that vision. Thank you.