‘You’re Either Going to Be on the Right Side of History, or on the Sidelines Watching Us Make History’: ERA Champion Pat Spearman Is Ready for the Feminist Future

Spearman reignited and redefined the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment when she successfully led efforts to ratify the federal ERA in Nevada—and add a radically inclusive ERA to the state constitution as well.

Nevada state Sen. Pat Spearman speaks onstage during No Time Limits on Equality at NeueHouse Hollywood on March 25, 2022, in Hollywood. (Vivien Killilea / Getty Images for Fund for Women’s Equality)

Pat Spearman had a habit of making history during her three terms in the Nevada Senate.

Spearman became the first openly lesbian member of the Nevada Legislature when she was first elected in 2012. In her second term, she was the chief sponsor of legislation ratifying the ERA in the Silver State in 2017—35 years after the deadline imposed by Congress on ERA ratification had expired—reigniting the movement for constitutional equality and leading a three-state wave that pushed the ERA over the finish line for addition to the U.S. Constitution. And in her third term, Spearman also drove the successful effort to add the most inclusive and expansive ERA on record to Nevada’s own state constitution in 2022, “guaranteeing rights regardless of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, ancestry or national origin.”

Spearman, who is also a cleric and veteran, was regarded as one of the most progressive members of the state Senate—and ERAs were just one part of her feminist agenda in office. She also led fights in the Legislature to reform criminal justice practices, expand equal pay protections and address gender-based violence and human trafficking.

As part of the fifth and final episode of the Ms. Studios podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward, I talked to Spearman about navigating this new chapter in the movement for constitutional equality, what the ERA means to the modern feminist movement—and what fights she’s looking forward to waging next, when the ERA is in its rightful place in the U.S. Constitution.