Jordan Dashow: Executive director, Congressional Equality Caucus

Jordan Dashow, the executive director of the Congressional Equality Caucus, is something of a jack of all trades.

“I like to think my job is to make our members’ job as easy as possible when it comes to supporting LGBTQI equality,” he said in an interview.

Nine openly LGBTQ members of the House help lead the 190-member Equality Caucus — one of the largest in the House — on its mission to promote LGBTQ equality in Congress.

Coordinating with nearly every House Democratic office can make Dashow’s days chaotic — and his multiple cell phones necessary — but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“What makes this job easy in that regard is that they’re all here for the right reasons,” Dashow, 32, said of the caucus’s members. “Like, we’re talking about equality. Our opponents try to make it this tricky, complex issue, but at the end of the day, it’s an easy one.”

Prior to joining the Equality Caucus in 2022, Dashow spent several years as a staffer for the House Judiciary Committee under then-Chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), a longtime advocate for LGBTQ rights and the first person to say the word “transgender” on the House floor in 1998. Dashow worked closely with Nadler on the successful committee consideration of the Equality Act in 2019 and 2021.

The following year, Dashow and the Equality Caucus helped drum up support for the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights that Nadler first introduced in 2009. President Biden signed the bill in December 2022.

“It really was just such an honor to play a role in helping move that bill through the House — not once, but twice — and to the president’s desk,” Dashow said.

The caucus’s work is far from over, and its members, guided by Dashow, have big plans for the next Congress.

“So much of the progress we’ve made as a community is because people have heard our stories,” Dashow said. “They’ve met us. They realize that queer folks are their neighbors, their children, their cousins and their colleagues.”

“Hopefully, if we have a pro-equality majority next Congress, we can return to pushing a proactive pro-LGBTQI legislative agenda through the House,” he said.