Exposing Discrimination Against The LGBTQ+ Community. Steve Williamson and Karen McClelland welcome Jake Hylton, Founding Executive Director of Lookout Publications, the only nonprofit newsroom dedicated to LGBTQ+ issues. Beginning as a small monthly newsletter, Lookout has grown into an entire nonprofit organization that now covers the AZ legislature, school boards and city councils.
Hylton handles the business side of the organization while his founding partner Joseph Darius Jaafari, who has an extensive background in investigative journalism, is editor-in-chief.
Hylton says, “For us, it is covering LGBTQ+ communities across the state of Arizona, and making sure that we are focusing on hyperlocal, that we are community-driven, and that we are holding those in power to account whether they are in or outside of the community. And to make sure that we are doing service, solutions-based journalism, ultimately finding people who are making life better and giving hope to others. You know, ways to activate them. Ways to get them involved to make change.”
Asked if attempts to limit political participation by the LGBTQ+ community still exists, Hylton responds, “It still does exist and I think there is such a strong hold on identity, and there is a lot of shame around identity that doesn’t fit the mold. Right? It actually goes back to the reason why I am here up in Sedona. I am here in Sedona…convening with some really great people talking about how to combat political and identity-based violence. And one of the biggest things we’ve talked about over the last few days is identities are constantly being scapegoated.”
He goes on to point out that the current attack on sexual and gender identity is essentially the same as that in pre-war Nazi Germany when the Institute of Sexology was destroyed, and its libraries burned.