NBC Out has grown exponentially over the last year thanks to Sopelsa, expanding from two full-time people to four. She’s now assigning and editing an average of 60 LGBTQ+ news stories a month. “This investment, along with NBC’s amazing LGBTQ employee resource groups (yes, we have multiple) and the other investments in LGBTQ storytelling across our company, sends a loud and clear message to both our employees and those outside of our company that this is an organization where people can bring their true selves to work,” she says. Sopelsa is always trying to bring more LGBTQ+ individuals into the spotlight, aiding in the launch of NBCU Academy’s diversity news fellowship. She also put together a transgender coverage guide that’s viewed as a vital resource across the news organization.
How does your company encourage employees to bring their true selves to work? NBC News invests in LGBTQ journalists and LGBTQ journalism, and this speaks volumes as to where NBC stands when it comes to the queer community. Other companies can make big, splashy displays of support during Pride Month, but NBC is doing the work year-round. NBC Out, the LGBTQ section of NBCNews.com, is proof of this. We launched in 2016 with one full-time person (yours truly), and we’ve grown nearly every year. We now have an editor, two reporters and a news fellow focused on LGBTQ storytelling 52 weeks a year. This investment, along with NBC’s amazing LGBTQ employee resource groups (yes, we have multiple) and the other investments in LGBTQ storytelling across our company, sends a loud and clear message to both our employees and those outside of our company that this is an organization where people can bring their true selves to work.
Favorite media milestone moment in LGBTQ+ history? This is a bit of an obscure example — and I don’t know if it quite counts as a milestone — but one of my favorite TV segments dates back to 2011, when MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow paid a beautiful tribute to Frank Kameny, widely considered the father of the gay rights movement, following Kameny’s death that year. When I first watched that segment, I couldn’t help wonder what Kameny would have thought back in 1957, when he was fired from his U.S. government job due to his sexuality, or in 1965, when he was picketing for basic human rights for gays and lesbian, if he could look into the future and see an out lesbian with her own primetime cable news program eulogizing his contributions toward LGBTQ equality for a nationwide audience to see. While we still have further to go, that segment really made me reflect on how far we’ve come as a country on LGBTQ rights in just a half century.