As Alicia Menendez pointed out during her interview with Geena Rocero, founder of Gender Proud, and Chase Strangio, staff attorney at the ACLU LGBT & AIDS Project, the trans community is living through an extreme moment of visibility right now. Accompanying blatant acts of marginalization, like North Carolina’s anti-trans “bathroom bill,” are often public messages of support, such as the one delivered by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, when she announced the DOJ’s lawsuit against the state of North Carolina. But, as Menendez asks, if the trans community is constantly having to defend itself, when and how will true progress be made?

Rocero, a trans supermodel who famously “came out” during a 2014 Ted Talk, says that the Equality Act will be what tips the scales. She says once the trans community is fully protected under the Equality Act, “we could go from this conversation of always trying to defend or always trying to prove our existence to the world and maybe we would have a conversation about thriving.”