Some New Mexico-based reproductive justice and LGBTQ groups express mixed reactions to Vice President Kamala Harris as Democrat’s presumptive nominee for president.  Marshall Martinez, executive director of Equality New Mexico, said he was “very excited” about a woman of color campaign for president. But Indigenous Women Rising founder and Executive Director Rachel Lorenzo, a Mescalero […]

Some New Mexico-based reproductive justice and LGBTQ groups express mixed reactions to Vice President Kamala Harris as Democrat’s presumptive nominee for president. 

Marshall Martinez, executive director of Equality New Mexico, said he was “very excited” about a woman of color campaign for president. But Indigenous Women Rising founder and Executive Director Rachel Lorenzo, a Mescalero Apache/Laguna Pueblo/Xicana, said they are neutral right now about Harris being the likely candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Martinez said Harris has some history as both a prosecutor when she was the California Attorney General and when she was senator for the state of California that “we don’t love,” but he said every candidate will likely be “problematic for us in some kind of way.” He said that he is excited because given the community Harris comes from as a woman of color from California,“ she comes with an innate understanding of our struggle.” 

Lorenzo, who uses they/them pronouns, said IWR’s primary concerns are tribal sovereignty and reproductive rights. While some have spoken of Harris as an advocate for reproductive justice because she has raised the issue of Black women’s high rates of maternal mortality, Lorenzo said they respectfully do not agree with that interpretation of Harris as a candidate.

“We always talk about our movement being intersectional. Reproductive justice isn’t just about abortion access, it’s about safe communities, access to good education, clean environments to raise our families in and it also includes sex worker rights,” Lorenzo said.

Lorenzo said they are concerned about Harris’ record during her time in California on sex workers and that “actions speak louder than words.” During her time as a prosecutor and a senator, Harris worked to shut down internet sites that allowed sex workers to advertise services more safely.

“That’s why we’re more concerned about what she does versus what she says and especially since this country was founded on racism and taking Indigenous lands, it’s hard to validate a system founded on so much violence, even if a woman of color is at the top of the ticket,” Lorenzo said. 

Martinez said that President Joe Biden was “really good on most LGBTQ issues” and both by virtue of experience and the community she comes from as a woman of color, “Harris is likely a little bit better.”

Martinez also said that Harris as the presumptive nominee for the Democratic presidential ticket has given voters who care about LGBTQ issues a “reason to be positive about showing up to vote in November.”

Martinez said he thought that Harris’ age, at 59, was also a plus for LGBTQ voters. She was more likely to have known individuals who are out as LGTBQ individuals than the previous generation.  

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Health and Human Services established new rules for Title IX that expands protections for students who are LGBTQ, as well as other expansions. Some advocates have said that Biden intended to establish another rule that would have expanded protections for transgender students in a second administration.

Biden administration rolls back Title IX restrictions put in place by Trump

Martinez said that EQNM is relying on the idea that Harris will at least have the same position on LGBTQ protections under Title IX that Biden had as well and “the same drive to get it done.”

“I think the nature of her being a vice president, there’s some stuff we don’t know yet. But I’m hopeful she would go even further,” Martinez said. 

One of the reasons he has hope is because Harris did a series of town halls on reproductive rights and she mentioned the intersection of LGBTQ issues and reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. 

“What we know is, we don’t have to teach her what those intersections are, she already gets it. From there, when she was in the senate and when she was running for president [in 2019], she spoke a lot about LGBTQ issues and she attended many Pride festivals,” Martinez said. 

He said he was impressed because Harris didn’t just ride in a car in the parade in order to be seen, but that she did an onstage rally and a question-and-answer session at the Pride festival she attended. He said she really engaged with the community and “to me, that’s how you show up for the community.”

“Harris was never the person who shows up to walk in a parade of one,” Martinez said. 

Martinez said he is also hopeful that Harris can beat former Pres. Donald Trump in November. He said that when Biden endorsed Harris, “the excitement really changed.”

“In that last few days, we’ve seen a lot more affirmative ‘I’m with her’…we talk about the enthusiasm gap. The best indicator of that gap, early on, is whether or not the base communities are motivated to volunteer and give money to do the work. We saw that motivation drastically increase,” Martinez said. 

Lorenzo, however, said they want to know what Harris’ plans are specifically for reproductive health in Indian country. They said the Biden administration would address the Hyde Amendment and it didn’t. 

The Hyde Amendment is a decades-old measure that prohibits federal funding to be used for abortion services. This means that for decades, Indigenous individuals cannot access abortion through Indian Health Services. 

Lorenzo also said they would like to have seen Harris spend more time engaging with abortion funds, midwives and doulas. Lorenzo said that while IWR has been invited to various meetings and listening sessions with Harris in the past, the meetings were not always accessible due to a lack of internet platform participation and because the meetings were held only in major cities. 

Lorenzo said they want to see action from Harris, not words. “We heard great words from Biden on the campaign about protecting abortion access. One of the most basic things he could have done was recodify Roe v. Wade. While I don’t agree with recodifying Roe, we haven’t seen much action. We haven’t seen action on Hyde but he talked about it,” Lorenzo said.