Kelly Clarkson said it’s “getting a little scary” for queer people in America when she hosted trans icon Laverne Cox on an episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show, alongside Carla Smith, CEO of the LGBT Community Centre in New York.
Clarkson, Cox and Smith spoke about the centre’s important work serving the LGBTQ+ community in an era under Donald Trump.
“I’m actually the first CEO of colour at the centre, the first Black CEO,” Smith said to applause. “The centre really has been designed and set up to provide empowering services to the LGBTQ+ community, making sure that people have access to safe spaces.”
Smith detailed the centre’s beginnings in 1983, when it was primarily “working to address issues related to the AIDS epidemic” by “making sure that we could create safe spaces.” Smith noted that safe spaces for the LGBTQ+ community “didn’t exist back then,” prompting Clarkson to interject, “It’s getting a little scary now too.”
Since taking office, Trump has signed executive orders denying the existence of trans people, banning federal funding for gender-affirming care for those under 19, banning trans athletes from women’s sports, and revoking 1960s civil rights protections. Cox noted that “when the state is so vehemently, overtly against you, community feels like the thing that we have to really lean into.” She then turned to ask Smith, “How are you finding that at the centre and your role in that?”
“We have 100 staff, really dynamic staff members who are also community members and allies to the community,” Smith answered. “So we are holding space for people who are struggling and working through that, and making sure that we’re taking care of ourselves in the process.”
