Meghan Maury is a LBGT rights activist and operative who serves as the Policy Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force (formerly the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, also known simply as The Task Force). Maury’s policy work for the task force promotes a wide array of left-leaning policy priorities outside of traditional LGBT issues including left-leaning economic policies, criminal justice policies, immigration, and data collection.

Maury has been active in a variety of left-leaning political organizations and campaigns including the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Citizens for Tax Justice and is an appointed member of the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations of the United States Census Bureau. ¹

Background

Maury attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for an undergraduate degree and held a variety of other roles before attending Georgetown Law. In between attending UMass Amherst and Law School, Maury spent time working on a variety of political causes as well as working as a tax professional and completing volunteer work in Guatemala. Organizations Maury has been involved with include the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Citizens for Tax Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, and the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic. ²

Census-Related Activism

In 2014, Maury was appointed to the United States Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations, commonly referred to as simply the National Advisory Committee. The committee advises the U.S. Census Bureau. Maury’s selection to the committee in 2014 was a victory for the task force’s “QueerTheCensus” campaign, which was launched in 2012 as a coordinated effort to lobby the federal government to include questions about sexual orientation in the 2020 Census and other federal surveys. Maury also pushed the Census Bureau to integrate such questions “into all data collection instruments put forward by the government.” ³

After the Trump administration declined to include the National LGBTQ Task Force’s desired language on sexual orientation and gender identity, the campaign has turned into a grass tops effort to encourage LGBT individuals and couples to complete the census. Maury stated that while those questions are not asked, the LGBT community still needs to answer the census “so that our community can access the things it needs most — dollars, democracy and justice.” ⁴

1. “Meghan Maury”. National LGBTQ Task Force. Accessed April 24, 2020. https://www.thetaskforce.org/staff-bio-meghan-maury/
2. “Contributor: Meghan Maury” Huffington Post. Accessed April 24, 2020.  https://www.huffpost.com/author/meghan-maury
3. “Census Bureau Appoints Task Force’s Policy Counsel to The National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, And Other Populations”. National LGBTQ Task Force. October 3, 2014. Accessed April 24, 2020. https://www.thetaskforce.org/census-bureau-appoints-task-forces-policy-counsel/
4. Chibbaro Jr, Lou. “LGBTQ people urged to ‘get counted’ in Census”. Washington Blade. March 29, 2020. Accessed April 24, 2020. https://www.washingtonblade.com/2020/03/29/lgbtq-people-urged-to-get-counted-in-census/