06/05/2026
For pride month, I'm going to talk about Jewish advocates for the LGBTQ community. Most people don't realize this but a good majority of the LGBTQ organizations out there, were funded by Jewish organizations And the legal pathways for equality were written by Jewish lawyers.
Brianna Wu has said that her support for the Jewish community comes partly from her own experience at the University of Mississippi. When she became the first student there to transition, she was isolated, under pressure, and without the kind of family support most people rely on. At the Voices for Truth Summit, Wu spoke about being disowned by her parents and not having enough money for basic needs, including glasses. A Jewish professor helped her in a direct and personal way by giving Wu a pair of the professor’s own glasses so she could see.
But the support she received from Jewish people on campus was not only emotional. According to Wu, Jewish students, professors, and administrators helped her survive that period financially, socially, and legally. They stood beside her when it would have been easier to stay quiet. They helped her navigate the university system when she needed protection. Wu has said publicly that “the administrator that went to bat for me at Ole Miss … was Jewish,” and she has described her later advocacy for Jewish people as a matter of returning that same courage and decency.
At a conservative Southern university, Jewish people were among the ones willing to defend a trans student who needed allies. That did not happen in a vacuum. The Jewish community has a long history of standing with LGBTQ people, often before it was socially safe or politically popular. Jewish lawyers, donors, clergy, activists, and organizations helped build parts of the legal, cultural, and communal infrastructure that LGBTQ Americans still rely on today. That history includes Lambda Legal, The Trevor Project, Keshet, Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, Eshel, JQ International, and many Jewish federations, synagogues, rabbis, and donors who supported LGBTQ dignity when much of the country still looked away.
Lambda Legal is a good example of how early this work began. Founded in 1973, at a time when most of American culture still treated gay people as dangerous, shameful, or invisible, Lambda Legal had to fight just for the right to exist as a legal organization. New York initially rejected its incorporation, saying there was no need for such a group and that its purpose was not “benevolent” or “charitable.” Lambda Legal fought back and won, becoming one of the first legal organizations in the country dedicated to defending gay and le***an civil rights. Long before LGBTQ acceptance became mainstream, lawyers and activists were already building the legal foundation that later generations would stand on.
So when Wu later stood up for the right of Jews to have self-determination, it did not come out of nowhere. It came from lived gratitude toward people who had shown up for her first. That advocacy has come at a real cost. Because of her support for Jewish people, Wu has been canceled, ostracized, and harassed by people who once claimed to stand for tolerance and minority rights. Yet she has held firm, even when it would have been easier and safer to stay quiet.
The LGBTQ community, more than most, should understand how dangerous hatred becomes when a group is treated as if it has no right to exist. The people who hate Jews and the people who hate LGBTQ people often come from the same sickness: they believe we do not have a right to exist on this Earth.
Wu’s position may make some people uncomfortable, but it is rooted in something very human: remembering who stood beside you when you were the one under pressure.
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