L'Taken Anonymous

What is the ENDA Act? The act that would end living, employment, and service discrimination against those who don’t strictly identify as heterosexual or cisgender (those whose sex matches their gender identity). The bill that would jump-start my interest in politics, marking my shift from childhood to young adulthood.

In December 2014, a group of teens in grades 10-12 from my synagogue traveled to Washington D.C. to advocate for LGBT rights, campaign fund reform, and alternate energy sources. On that brisk Monday morning, my fellow peers and I presented to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s secretary and Congresswoman Nita Lowey asking for LGBT rights to remain in their minds during the next Congress. Since then, gay marriage has been legalized on a federal level. I’d like to think that my lobbying, and the lobbying of many other groups and individuals played a role in the Supreme Court’s decision in June 2015.

This experience, known in the Jewish community as L’Taken, is a weekend spent in Washington D.C. in order to expose Jewish teens to a wide variety of public policy issues that run rampant on a national level. Being at the time and perhaps currently the “awkward straight friend” in the majority of my friend groups, I had thought myself...