BOYSTOWN — Day by day, Jane Merrill is gathering ranks in the fight for equal rights and acceptance for lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and queer people.
Merrill, 24, is Center on Halsted's advocacy and community engagement manager.
On Thursday, Merrill is hosting Center on Halsted's #BornPerfect rally, joining in a national movement to outlaw therapy practices designed to convert a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. The therapies can be as extreme as inducing nausea or vomiting while showing a "patient" homoerotic images, the American Psychological Association says.
The rally comes one day after the White House announced its support of banning conversion therapy, reacting to a petition that has received more than 120,000 signatures since Jan. 3. The petition was launched after the death of 17-year-old transgender youth Leelah Alcorn, whose death by suicide outside Cincinnati garnered national attention and calls to end the conversion therapy Alcorn reportedly attended.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights has been campaigning for the ban since it launched #BornPerfect in June 2014. From 6-9 p.m. Thursday, the free event at the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St., will feature remarks by experts and survivors, as well as informing about a bill to ban conversion therapy in Illinois.
The issue is one Merrill has taken to heart, who finds it "crazy that something we know is really harmful is still legal in 48 states." And while cornerstone issues like marriage equality now receive nationwide attention, the next wave of issues — transgender discrimination, gender identity, homelessness — is just starting to get noticed.
"Homelessness is actually one of the most pressing LGBT issues today, and that just hadn't really occurred to me" before working at the center, Merrill said. "I don't think I was atypical — I think that's a very standard understanding of LGBT issues, that it's this narrow range of issues, when it's really so expansive. I think that's a challenge."
That's part of Merrill's job at the center, where she's been working since her 2012 placement through Northwestern University. She was kept on after a one-year fellowship ended, and now juggles advocacy, training and legal programs.
"She is a department of one, and while we do have a young staff, to be a manager of a department is pretty rare," said Julie Walther, Center on Halsted's chief program officer. "Jane is an incredibly smart, talented, engaged employee. She looks at a situation and says, 'What systems do we have to adjust to make it work?'"
Merrill helped develop the center's advocacy as it continued to grow from a social gathering place into a service center. Center on Halsted now provides legal clinics, professional training and an LGBTQ violence resource line. Merrill also strives to empower members of the community so they can tell their own stories and advocate for themselves.
Merrill does not have a personal stake in the battle for LGBTQ rights, and at first, she felt hesitant to raise her voice.
"The people whose voice should be heard are the people this affects. That is so core to my understanding of how change happens. But if you sit out because you have a lot of privilege, that's not really an effective use of privilege either," Merrill said.
And now, as Merrill puts it, the flood gates have been opened. She highlights violence against transgender people and a disproportionate number of homeless LGBTQ youth as key issues she hopes to address.
"I don't know how to do work that doesn't have meaning, that only benefits me. I can't imagine being happy if I weren't trying to make the world better," Merrill said.
Merrill studied social policy at Northwestern, and as a graduate during the Great Recession, she counts herself lucky to be doing what she always wanted to do.
"The other piece of it, especially when I speak to people in our youth program — I see the damage that family rejection does to people who are really, in no substantive way, different than I am," Merrill said. "They're brilliant and sweet and passionate and just full of creativity. And in some ways I feel like it's just a big fluke that it's me and not them. I feel so fortunate that life has turned out so far in this way."
Last fall, the New York native was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, but she refused to slow down her work.
"For me — and this is only my experience — to not have to think about myself and my body and my health and all these things I can't control like being submitted to exams and studies and blood tests, it was actually really nice to come here and just do my job," Merrill said.
Walther helped Merrill adjust her schedule around treatments, and Merrill said without her supervisor's support, "I think I would have thrown in the towel."
Instead, she pushed forward and is just excited to continue helping others.
"Public interest work has always been where I wanted to be," she said. "I think there's lots of ways to channel it — you can do social work, law, medicine — but I do have a tremendous amount of privilege, and I do feel the responsibility to use it for good."
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