Introducing The Great Policy Challenge: How Many Policies Can Ani Pass Before Pride?

by Scout, Ph.D.

You Like Passing Policies?

Like so many of us, Ani* was working in a tobacco control/wellness project but felt like they* could never get on top of the workload, too much to do each day. As we talked about re-prioritizing the efforts I realized — wait, you like getting organizations to pass tobacco control policies and you think you’d be good at it? Then let’s sweep some of your duties aside and make time to focus on that super powerful product!

The Great Policy Challenge

Thus the Great Policy Challenge was started a month ago. I threw down the gauntlet and asked Ani how many tobacco control or wellness policies they could get Minneapolis LGBT organizations to pass before Pride (at the end of June). Their eyes lit up, “A lot”. We talked about strategies of how to clear enough time to really make this happen. They promised to try their best to clear one day a week just to do policy change work.

Let’s Cheer Ani On

We’re going to post a little intro from Ani so you can get to know them next. Please do join me in watching and cheering on this intrepid single person in Minnesota who’s changing their community forever with policies. Please comment below or feel free to pass on tips but let’s make sure they knows we’re cheering him on. We’ll put up a post with tips every time they gets a policy passed. And now *rubs hands* lets see how many they can do!

* Ani’s preferred pronoun is the genderqueerimpishly** “they” or “them”.

** Genderqueerimpishly isn’t a word yet, but really should be, don’t you think?