KC Counts:
This Pride month, let me start by asking you about what the landscape is like in New Mexico compared to other places, say neighboring Texas.
Emma Roddy:
Well, funny you should mention Texas. I'm from Texas originally, and I am a transplant. I would say that New Mexico is consistently at the top of the game for LGBTQ plus protections, as far as legally, and I think societally as well. I come from Central Texas, Austin, San Antonio area, which gets a good reputation in Austin for being a little bit more tolerant and a little bit more liberal, but where I'm from, there's a huge conservative population. The church is very much a big part of everyday life, and it's a little bit different here in New Mexico.
KC Counts:
Do you take part in the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Foundation podcast, New Mexico Legal Low Down?
Emma Roddy:
I have not been on the podcast yet, but I am very familiar with it, and I'm really proud of Felice Real for spearheading that.
KC Counts:
So, on the podcast, they'll be talking about some of the things that are apropos for Pride Month, including the New Mexico Human Rights Act. Can you address some of these topics and how specifically they benefit the queer community?
Emma Roddy:
Absolutely, so the Human Rights Act is something that impacts queer people every day, whether they know it or not. And Chris Papaleo does a great job talking about it on the podcast episode. I've been able to listen to a sneak preview of it, and you know, the New Mexico Human Rights Act specifically prohibits gender discrimination, sex discrimination, and sexual orientation, and gender identity discrimination in areas like housing, employment, public accommodations, credit, and it even goes as far as making sure that foster agencies have to support prospective parents on how to care for kids that might grow up and be queer. It also protects the parents that are same-sex prospective parents able to go through the foster system and adopt without discrimination.
KC Counts:
There have been some rumblings recently about big settlements being paid out, which obviously someone like yourself might profit from. Can you talk about how those big settlements might be impacting the state in a negative way, and if you see a middle ground, or you think we're on the right track.
Emma Roddy:
So, the thing about trial lawyers is that we think that justice matters, and our job is to fight for it. So, when I go to trial, and when I take a case knowing that it might settle, or it might go to trial, I don't know what the payout is going to be at the end of the day, sometimes we take on a client who has gone through a really significant wrong or injury. We don't even know if there's insurance on the other end, but we know that we're going to put in the work to make sure that they get as much justice as they can. Sometimes those settlements are large, and they're not always against the state. I think you may be referring to specifically human rights and civil rights act settlements.
KC Counts:
Yes,
Emma Roddy:
you know, our policy, though, is that the Human Rights Act and the New Mexico Civil Rights Act are so important because what New Mexico has done, especially with the Civil Rights Act, indicates to the country New Mexico is one of the very first states to have its own constitutional protections under the Civil Rights Act, New Mexico is showing the country by passing this law that it does not tolerate governmental injustices or civil rights violations, and sometimes those injustices can only be remedied with money.
KC Counts:
Let's talk a little bit about the ban on conversion therapy that was passed in 2017 Recently, the Supreme Court ruled on the Colorado case that Colorado's law was unconstitutional. Is New Mexico's law safe?
Emma Roddy:
I think it's a little bit soon to tell with that. It hasn't been challenged in the courts as being unconstitutional, you know. I think that that's something that we need to be aware of, certainly in track, but I think that the New Mexico ban on conversion therapy ultimately is good for queer children, and in protecting children in general, not just because we're not just concerned with parental rights here in New Mexico, we're concerned with children and how they grow up, because we know statistically that queer, and especially trans youth are statistically more likely to die by suicide than other populations, and so conversion therapy directly plays a role in that, and banning conversion therapy is ultimately a net positive for the state overall, and so we'll definitely track that as it passes through the courts, as I'm sure it will at some point, based on the Colorado ruling, but it's something to be aware of, for sure.
KC Counts:
And I want to talk a little bit about the anti-panic defense ban in 2021 That was a new one for me. Can you explain
Emma Roddy:
it? Yeah, so the anti-panic defense, that is traditionally there was a defense to violent crimes, and it's part. A rule of evidence, there was a defense to violent crimes, and you know, traditional, I think we saw it in the cis male on male violence, where if the person who committed the crime, say it's a murder, say it's an assault, something like that, if they can claim that they were under the impression that the other person was coming on to them or hitting on them, that that would be a defense to a crime, which is absurd. We're living in 2026 you know, gay people have had the right to marry since 2015 certainly have been out in the community since the 80s and 90s, and you know it's always a struggle, but we've made a lot of progress, and it doesn't make sense in 2026 for a gay panic defense to be any sort of criminal defense, when we expect that people operating in society should be able to control their emotions, control their reactions, and not be inflammatory and react in a way that that is a defense to a heinous crime.
KC Counts:
There are any number of laws that I'm sure you're keeping your eye on and might be concerned about, including marriage equality, but let's talk a little bit about gender affirming care and the reproductive and gender affirming health care freedom act and shield law, and you know that's a big one, and there's a lot under that umbrella. What specifically do you think about it applies to queer people, or does it all?
Emma Roddy:
I think it all does. Ultimately, gender affirming care is not just for trans people, which is a common misconception. You know, gender affirming care can also be things like prescribing Viagra to affirm someone's, you know, cis male's masculinity, hair transplants, for again, for a cis males, masculinity, estrogen. When a woman reaches a certain age and is going through hormonal changes, so all that law is doing is protecting New Mexicans' right to pursue gender-affirming care, regardless of what their gender gender identity is.
KC Counts:
What would you say about reproductive care and the queer community.
Emma Roddy:
I think that's a big area that we need to move forward on. I think that we don't go far enough, quite frankly, because you know, I not only am I a queer woman, I'm married to a woman, I'm also a cancer survivor, and I, we don't have children yet, and if we were to have children in the future, it's going to require some sort of fertility care and reproductive treatment. Now, a lot of people think of reproductive care as only about abortion, and it's not. Abortion is certainly a part of it, and abortion is certainly something that we need to protect the right to, especially in the, in the face of what the current administration has done with Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade with Dobbs a few years ago, and some of those protections that we're seeing with oppressed stone being challenged in the courts currently. At the state level, we have the ability to protect the rights of New Mexicans when it comes to reproductive care, that means not just abortion care, but also reproductive care for people that need help with fertility, and that's not just queer people, that's not just people like me with medical complications, it's all types of couples in every situation, and so when you look at it from that lens, it does not make any sense to restrict someone's access to reproductive care based on who they're married to, who they're in a relationship with, or what gender they identify with.
KC Counts:
We just marked the 10th anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, that took so many lives. And in 2003 New Mexico passed a Hate Crimes Act. How has that made a difference? Would you say?
Emma Roddy:
Well, the Pulse nightclub shooting, I think, is a reference event that we can all relate to. The Hate Crimes Act, what New Mexico has done is codify what constitutes a hate crime. What is a hate crime to mean things that are motivated by actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, and that or perceived is really, really important, because honestly, going out into the world, you don't know someone's sexual orientation by looking at them, by how they act, or how they dress, you don't know someone's gender identity by those things either, and so it's very important that New Mexico has said, you know, hate crimes, we recognize that hate crimes can be motivated by things like sex and gender and gender identity and sexual orientation, we also recognize that when crimes are motivated by those things, those carry an elevated risk for our society. It's something we can't tolerate, and it's something that we need to punish more heavily. A
KC Counts:
lot of Pride celebrations have been scaled back recently due to the withdrawal of sponsorship from local, say, governmental organizations or or corporations, businesses in general. Has that been happening in New Mexico to your knowledge, and how do you feel about. Moving forward, how the pendulum is swinging and what you expect to happen in the next three to five years.
Emma Roddy:
That's a loaded question. So, you know, it's important to recognize, and I think that something that we're seeing a lot more on social media, in the general conversation, not just in New Mexico, but nationwide, are really worldwide right now in the current political climate is a reminder that pride is a protest. Pride started as a protest with Stonewall in New York City, and that was a time when it was a crime to gather in queer spaces and celebrate the queer community, and the people that started the pride protests were doing so because they were fighting for their community, they were fighting for the rights of not only themselves, but their, their friends and their neighbors, and their family members, and their chosen family members. I think that we, as a country and as a society, have gotten a little bit complacent, and I think that's where the corporations play into this, you know, in the past 20 years or so, Pride has been a celebration and it should be as well as a protest, but it's been a celebration first and foremost. It's something that corporations during the Obama administration, during the Biden administration, really capitalized on because it was seen as the popular thing to do, and corporations are always going to do what's best for their bottom line. So, when we're seeing now in 2026 corporations pulling away from Pride, governments pulling away from supporting Pride parades and celebrations, that's reflective of what's going on in the overall political climate. And so, now more than ever, and especially, and I really want to mention just my own privilege, as you know, a queer woman, but a cis woman who's also married to a cis woman. Our rights are not the ones being targeted at the moment, and right now, in 2026 I think it's really, really important for us to remember that pride is a protest, and right now it's a protest that we need to stand up for our trans siblings and making sure that their rights are preserved as much as possible, which I think New Mexico has done a great job with, but also that they are accepted in the community the way that gay and lesbian people have been accepted over the past 2030 years, you know, I see that Pride celebrations in New Mexico, you know, Albuquerque, Santa Fe.. I'm not as familiar with Cruces, but have big celebrations that are well attended, but you know, we don't see the corporate Pride merchandise in stores like Target, for example, like we used to, but there are also, you know, community organizations that are coming up, and having not only just Pride parades, but you know, tomorrow I'm participating in a fundraiser for the Transit Gender Resource Center that's put on by my wife, Jim. So, there's, you know, more community and grassroots organizing, I think, right now, and that reflects the character of Pride as a protest.
KC Counts:
What does it mean to you to be an ally, and what is your message for straight people?
Emma Roddy:
Well, so my message for straight people is, you know, continue to show up, continue to be an ally, and don't become complacent and thinking that everything's okay now, and that, you know, we have all of our rights now, that's not the case, and it's they're not permanent. You mentioned, you know, concerns about the laws changing. We talked about Dobbs changing Roe v Wade with respect to reproductive care. We've talked about the Colorado case that went to the Supreme Court, where conversion therapy bans were overruled on the First Amendment basis. The same can happen with things like Obergefell v. Hodges, which affords us marriage equality. The same thing can happen with things like Lawrence v. Texas, which affords us the right to privacy in our own homes. And those things don't just impact queer people, they don't just impact, you know, marriage equality or the ability for queer people to cohabitate with their same-sex partners. Those are, you know those are based on Supreme Court cases that's interpreting constitutional law, and the next time somebody challenges a lot, a new Supreme Court might decide differently, and so those are not, you know, permanent rights that we have in place at the moment, and under this current Supreme Court, in particular, I'm honestly concerned about marriage equality, and I'm concerned about Lawrence v Texas. I will say to the straight community in New Mexico, you know, thank you for being welcoming, because I'm not as concerned living here as I would be if my wife and I had settled down in Texas. Is
KC Counts:
there anything I haven't asked you about that you wanted to share today?
Emma Roddy:
I just want to say that, you know, we talked about pride being a protest. We talked about trial lawyers fighting on the side of justice, and that's the message that I want to get out today. There's immense support within the trial lawyer community for LGBTQ individuals, and there will continue to be, and under the New Mexico Human Rights. Act under the Civil Rights Act, and under other laws that affect the queer community. You know, we'll continue to fight, because justice matters.
KC Counts:
All right. Thank you very much. For the time, and happy Pride month.
Emma Roddy:
You too. Thank you very much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
