Death, Sex & Money | The Patient and Cunning Work of Defending LGBTQ Rights with a Republican Supermajority

In West Virginia, Republicans hold one of the largest
supermajorities in the country, and it’s growing. Just 11 Democrats
— down from 14 last year — are in the 134-member Legislature. It's
a political reality that isn't necessarily conducive to advancing
LGBTQ rights. But that's Andrew Schneider's job. As head of
Fairness West Virginia, Andrew has spent a decade as the only
full-time lobbyist at the state capitol working on LGBTQ issues.
His approach? Winning people over through listening rather than
confrontation, a strategy he developed in college when he purposely
chose a conservative campus to practice changing minds. "I quickly
realized that if I sat back and let someone talk to me and did not
jump in and judge, they would trust me and we could actually have a
meaningful conversation where ultimately I could inject my views,"
Andrew said. In this episode we talk to Andrew, and political
leaders in West Virginia whom he’s lobbied, about his relational
approach to getting through issues that matter to him, and how that
strategy is being tested in Donald Trump’s second
term.    This episode is part of a series we’re
calling Living At Odds, you can hear the rest of the series in the
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