The Thurston County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday proclaimed the month of June as LGBTQ+ Pride Month, with representatives from four support groups speaking to the board about their respective organizations.
PFLAG Olympia, the New BoyZ Club, Pizza Klatch and Capital City Pride were represented at the podium in front of the commissioners. Olympia Mayor Dontae Payne also spoke to the board and the crowd before Commissioner Emily Clouse read the proclamation.
Each representative described their organization and delved into the current climate and attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community.
Lucas Miller of PFLAG Olympia said a great deal of progress had been made since the 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day in New York City, when a protest to demonstrate against the treatment of gay men and lesbians by the city authorities and the federal government was held. Miller said that over the last five to 10 years, much of that progress has been “pulled back significantly.”
“It is all the more important on occasions like this that public bodies such as this one stand up in allyship with the LGBTQ+ community who are, at this point … many of us are fighting for our very existence,” Miller said. “No oppressed group ever won its freedom without significant help from people outside that group.”
PFLAG is a family-based organization committed to the civil rights of gays, lesbians and bisexual and transgender persons. The Olympia chapter meets on the second Sunday of each month at First United Methodist Church.
Miller thanked the commissioners and Payne for creating a welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ people, noting that people are fleeing other states to move to Washington to feel safe.
“They’re seeking a place where they can exist publicly without harassment, without violence, without having their identities and their healthcare taken away,” Miller said.
Quinn Snow, a co-administrator for the New BoyZ Club, said that, while “things are pretty rough right now” for the LGBTQ+ community, it’s important to focus on the positives.
“It’s really important to remember the good. Pride Month is a time when we get to celebrate ourselves and see the beauty in what makes our community what it is. There’s a lot of love that goes into it and a lot of coming together and supporting each other,” Snow said.
The New BoyZ Club is a peer-led group that is available for adults that are assigned female at birth and identify as transgender and non-binary and provides peer support, discussion and activities.
El Sánchez, the executive director of Pizza Klatch, said the group, which provides school lunchtime support groups for LGBTQ+ youth and their allies, started in 2007 after a rash of suicides by queer-identified youth in high schools.
“We provide free pizza because it’s lunchtime. We don’t want the students to miss lunch by coming to the group, but we also call it Klatch because it’s a term for a get together, to sit around and chat,” Sánchez said. “We want to give it a name for students who are maybe closeted or questioning and they don’t maybe want to tell their friends they’re going to the queer and trans support group at lunchtime.”
Sánchez said the group has helped students feel more safe at school, has prevented self-harm, and has even improved grades in school, according to anonymous surveys of students.
“It’s always over 60% of the students that say that, because of attending Pizza Klatch, they self-harm less, they think of suicide less. We’ve had students tell us directly every year that Pizza Klatch is why they go to school,” Sánchez said. “It’s so other young people can see that they are not the only non-binary person at school, they are not the only gay person in school, they are not the only Black queer person in school, and they can see other people and that breaks isolation.”
Clouse said she attended Pizza Klatch meetings when she was in high school and benefited from them.
“I can say that I know firsthand that the experiences are exactly what were stated today, and it was an opportunity that really helped me throughout high school,” she said.
Natalie Copeland, president of Capital City Pride, said the nonprofit’s three-day annual festival serves as a time for healing and for artists to express themselves. At this year’s festival, scheduled for June 27 through June 29, will include the Olympia Symphony, the Bridge Music Project, and the opportunity for a gay marriage.
“We are so happy to be here, and everyone has grown together. We have peer-on-peer contact so that we can gain youth to be our volunteers,” Copeland, who also goes by “Wild,” said. “We’re totally volunteer run and led. Our event is for everyone.”
Payne, the first African-American and openly gay mayor in Olympia’s history, said what’s happening at the national level is “making the case for why it’s important to recognize Pride Month.”
“The fact that we see all sorts of attacks on the LGBTQ+ community at this particular time that’s being spearheaded from the top down, frankly, and you can’t legislate us out of existence,” Payne said. “It’s so important that we live in a community that we have our county affirming who we are and celebrating us. The City of Olympia will be doing the same.”
Payne expressed that there’s nothing wrong with people asking questions with the intent of learning more about the LGBTQ+ community.
“If you have questions about who we are, please come up to us and ask. It’s hard to hate up close, and it’s so important that we have people who see us as our neighbors, as human beings, and as people who want to make Thurston County even better for the generations that come after us,” he said.
Clouse read a statement after the proclamation that stated that pride is more than a month.
“It is a commitment, one that demands we back up our values with action, policies and care that truly reflect the dignity of all people,” she said. “We deserve safety, power and a sense of belonging. Pride is not just about being seen. It’s about being celebrated, feeling free and feeling safe. It’s about ensuring that our LGBTQ+ neighbors, especially our transgender youth and queer people of color, know they belong here in our schools, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, and yes, in our government.”
