The 2024 Oklahoma legislative session saw , and one Oklahoma City-based activist was on the frontlines fighting against them all. Nicole McAfee is the founder and executive director of , the state's only LGBTQ+ advocacy group. The organization was founded in 2012 amid marriage equality fights and legislative pushes to ban marriage access for queer Oklahomans.
Since then, it's grown into a mouthpiece for LGBTQ+ Oklahomans at the Capitol and informs the state's queer population of policies that affect them. Here's how McAfee perceives the political atmosphere around LGBTQ+ Oklahomans, the chances of the state Legislature shifting its attitude toward the community and the pressure of being Oklahoma's only LGBTQ+ advocacy group. It can feel really heavy.
Something folks don't always recognize, too, is that we are a team of three people. ..
. It's a lot to have to figure out how we plug in and build community across the state, especially in areas where folks have the least access to that. Since I started at the organization, one of my efforts has really been, 'How do we dig into those places outside of metro areas?' We've tried to focus on building community joy and intentional community spaces where we can.
We started doing ' ' as a project every March. Collecting and sharing those is something that really helps support and sustain us as a team. We started turning those into zines, too, that we share during Trans Day of Remembrance in November, which is a nice way to revisit some .