Tell Us Your Story
Have a great story? We'd like to share it with others in the LGBT community.
Tell UsGrants in Action
Puget Sound Anti-Bullying Workshop
Pride Foundation is proud to support the Rainbow Families of Puget Sound in presenting two sessions aimed at addressing bullying on March 26 at the Center for Spiritual Living in Seattle, WA.
Session leader Paul Gigueroa will lead both sessions: part one for adults and kids from 10:00am-12:00pm and part two for adults only from 12:30-2:30pm.
The Center for Spiritual Living is located at 2801 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA. Check out the flyer for the event.
Cost is $25 per person or $50 for a family (childcare provided). RSVP to [email protected].
Addressing LGBTQ domestic violence in Oregon
Lupita Mendez facilitates the Bradley Angle LGBTQ Healthy Relationship classes
During the 2010 granting cycle Pride Foundation awarded a grant to Bradley Angle, a domestic violence prevention organization located in Portland, Oregon, for its one-of-a-kind LGBTQ Healthy Relationship classes.
As Board Chair at Bradley Angle, prior to joining Pride Foundation, I experienced for myself how a specific program, personally significant to me, benefited from a Pride Foundation grant – just like so many other grants have benefited important work all over Oregon. As I travel the state and meet donors, volunteers, scholars and grantees, I look forward to learning more about the impacts all of our grants, because I am sure each story will be as meaningful as the grant to Bradley Angle has been.
The classes that are funded through this grant are open to anyone who self-identifies as LGBTQ, teach participants how to recognize, prevent and interrupt domestic violence, and focuses on learning one’s own values, boundaries and expectations, and how to communicate those to a partner.
Lupita Mendez, winner of the Mariposa Award from Portland Latino Gay Pride for her work facilitating these classes tells me:
“I think that the LGBTQ community sometimes struggles with how to build healthy relationships. Dominant cultural messages have consistently told LGBTQ folks that their relationships are inherently unhealthy and wrong, and healthy LGBTQ relationship role models can be very hard to find. As a facilitator, it has been so exciting to see so many people graduating the class feeling empowered to be in charge of their own choices, and I can only hope that it will have a ripple effect on others in their communities.”
While domestic violence services can tend to be female-centric, over one-third of the participants in the last two 8-session series of classes were male and/or trans- identified. I’m particularly proud of the fact that, in comparison with other Bradley Angle services, this program is reaching an incredibly high number of those of the male gender. It’s amazing see such an interest among all sexes and genders in creating healthy, communication-filled, loving relationships.
I’m also delighted that participant feedback from the LGBTQ Healthy Relationship classes has been overwhelmingly positive. One participant shared: “Finding a safe space to interact with other queer survivors who can relate to my story has been very helpful in knowing that I am not alone in my struggle.”
Nineteen total graduates couldn’t agree more, and all of us at Bradley Angle will be working diligently to offer more Healthy Relationship classes to both the LGBTQ and straight communities in the future.
Scholar: “Pride Foundation saves lives”
Pride Foundation scholar Mike Pham
Guest blogger Mike Pham is a Pride Foundation scholar studying in Seattle. In the last year, there have been a series of suicides by LGBTQ high school students in one school board district near Mike’s hometown in Minnesota. Most recently a 15-year-old, Justin Aaberg, took his own life in July after being repeatedly bullied for being gay. As Pride Foundation scholars are often working to build healthier communities, Mike reflects on this ongoing tragedy.
I don’t know if you are aware of this story, but I wanted to bring this to your attention as it hits close to home for me, as I grew up in the same area as these kids. I went to a nearby school district, and Anoka is about 10 minutes away from my hometown. There is a suicide epidemic currently happening there and I am unsurprised at the situation, as I barely survived myself. It’s a complex story, but a common one. I wish I could write more, but time does not allow.
I mean it when I say that Pride Foundation saves lives. It is organizations, like Pride Foundation, that continue to provide opportunities, motivation, and money to LGBTQ people to go to school, get an education, to become self-sufficient and get themselves out of situations that are seemingly beyond their control, giving them a chance, to be rewarded and recognized for who they are, with no conditions.
For me, as a young gay person, I felt like there was no way out – no way out of the perpetual torment from the isolation that comes from constant bullying by peers and consistent denial and rejection from parents, friends, church, and community. I know what that’s like, I am from there. I was one of those kids. And I survived. I am thankful I found a way out. And I am thankful to Pride Foundation and its amazing donors and volunteers for helping me. I am amazed everyday.
Thank you.
Please share this. More people need to know about this story – even though this is happening in Minnesota, this is an epidemic that needs attention and LGBTQ youth need to know the resources that are available to them.
To read more details about the story see:
Article about student Justin Aaberg from the Stranger, “Read it and weep”
“Do you think my son Justin deserved to die because there are other kids who feel superior by picking on him and no staff member will stop them?” - Tammy Aaberg questions the Anoka-Hennepin District School Board (From the Minnesota Independent)
Donor: Inspired by Matthew Shepard
Guest blogger Lindsey Gregerson is a Pride Foundation donor that was inspired to share her story after attending the Seattle Children’s Theatre’s production of The Laramie Project (a project supported by Pride Foundation).
I started donating to Pride Foundation because I wanted to make sure that our community’s projects continued to flourish and connect with younger generations of LGBT people and allies. Last night, at the opening of The Laramie Project I got to see first hand the impact of my support.
In case you don’t know, The Laramie Project is the story of Matthew Shepard, a gay twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming who was kidnapped, beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. The play focuses on the townspeople of Laramie and how the death of Matthew and the surrounding media attention affected their community. The dialogue is taken from real interviews and recording with a wide range of townsfolk including the doctor who cared for both Matthew and one of his murderers, Matthew’s friends, the officer that first responded at the fence that he was bound to and other everyday people. A powerful scene included a statement by Matthew’s father at the sentencing hearing of one of the accused.
Though Matthew was murdered more than decade ago, the story still resonates today as we know we have not eliminated homophobia, nor do I believe that we can ever rest on the laurels that our community activists have helped to secure to date. It’s a powerful reminder of how we must continue to share this story with each other and to young people.
One of set pieces in the play was a fence placed in the background of the stage. That fence represented the place where a young man, preparing for a career in activism, was beaten and left for 18 hours in the Wyoming cold to die. It was an image I will not soon forget.
The first responder was quoted as saying, “…the only part of his face that was not covered in blood was where tears had fallen.”
Thank you to everyone at SCT for their brave and mature performances. Thank you to Pride Foundation for keeping us alive, awake and aware with your support of important projects like this one.
The Laramie Project runs through to July 31st at the Charlotte Martin Theatre in Seattle. Visit www.sct.org for more info.
What’s your story? Help us celebrate 25 years!
Pride Foundation’s history is a collection of stories – your stories. They are stories about challenge, isolation and struggle. And they are stories of community, resilience and triumph.
Visit our special anniversary website at IamPrideFoundation.org and share your story today! What does Pride Foundation mean to you and your local community? Where would you like to see us 25 years from now?
After 25 years of giving together and building community there are literally thousands of stories that show the remarkable progress made in our push for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality. We will continue adding stories throughout the year and we hope you will include yours. While there be sure to check out our timeline and the listing of special anniversary events happening around the region throughout the year.
25 Years of Stories
The Idaho Women’s Network has received numerous Pride Foundation grants, including one in the Spring of 2008 for their work to ensure equality for Idaho’s LGBT community. Executive Director, Donna Wade, related this story from their work.“The Idaho Women’s Network is one of the oldest women-led social justice organizations in Idaho and we are proud to work at the connection of traditional women’s rights movement and the gay rights movement. A key step in this movement is to provide basic security in employment,
Taryn from IWN organizing
housing, and accommodation by passing an amendment to the Idaho Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. During the 2008 legislative session, Idaho Women’s Network took the lead on organizing a rally to pressure legislators into giving the Human Rights Act a public hearing, after it had been denied. In response, we organized a rally at the Capital, which drew a crowd of 60 to 70 supporters who held signs and got attention from significant media sources. Most of all, it provided an entire community- silenced by their legislature- an opportunity to demonstrate and have their voices heard.
We will continue our work with an eye to the future, hoping that in five years, the movement to amend the Idaho Human Rights Act will be strong and visible. We will have established supporters, leaders, and allies in every part of the state and will have been working to pass city non-discrimination policies in several Idaho cities. We will have built a long list of supporters from small and large businesses, to faith-based organizations and religious groups, to individuals and families- all ready to mobilize and put needed pressure on legislators.”
Western States Center of Portland, OR received funding from Pride Foundation in 2009 for their Uniting Communities program, which is building a stronger voice for LGBTQ people of color and stronger alliances between LGBTQ organizations and those organizing communities of color.
In the past 20 years Oregon has faced more than 33 anti-gay ballot measures at the state and local levels. While most of the previous statewide measures were defeated, in 2004 voters approved Measure 36, which banned marriage between same-sex couples. It was a difficult campaign in which the religious Right was able to use race as a wedge. From hiring a person of color as the spokesperson for the campaign to ads that specifically targeted communities of color, the opposition exploited the voices and faces of people of color to project their homophobia. In response The Western States Center’s developed the Family, Community and Sexuality Project to engage communities of color around LGBTQ equality and support organizations in our region fighting attacks on LGBTQ families.
Latinos Unidos Siempre (LUS) is one of the participants of the Family, Community and Sexuality Project. The LUS chapter leaders at McKay High School in Salem reached out to the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) after attending several workshops run by Western States Center and Seattle Young People’s Project. LUS and the GSA then decided to hold a joint leadership retreat where LUS student member Gustavo Ayon shared his journal entries on how he become an ally to LGBTQ students. By creating a safe space, a young Latino man felt comfortable coming out to his peers. This profound story deepened the commitment of the organization and convinced other LUS chapters to collaborate with GSAs in their schools.
It is very difficult to get foundation funds for our LGBTQ work so it was very helpful to get a Pride Foundation grant. It allowed us to develop tools for organizations to assess their LGBTQ inclusivity, and provide trainings on how to integrate LGBTQ members and issues into their programs, culture, personnel, and policies.
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