Pride Month: Getting Involved

All of June, LBGTQ+ communities come together all over the world to proudly celebrate their identities and experiences in what is known as Pride Month. While there has been significant progress toward equality for the LGBTQIA+ community in more recent years, the collective community continues to face various forms of exclusion and discrimination.

 

A simple Google search to find your local LGBTQ+ Center is a great way to get involved, not just during the month of June, but throughout the year. These local centers are often overlooked, especially in rural areas, and can be life changing for youth. If you are interested in getting involved outside of your local community, below are just a few of the national nonprofits working tirelessly to advocate for equality, provide access to health care and support, protect basic rights for the LGBTQIA+ community, and eliminate discrimination, that you can get involved with.

 

Advocacy

  • Out & Equal Workplace Advocates - Out & Equal is the global convener, thought leader and catalyst actively working to achieve workplaces of equality and belonging - supporting LGBTQ+ employees and leaders who thrive in their careers and lives and achieve greater impact on the world.

  • GLAAD Inc. - GLAAD rewrites the script for LGBTQ acceptance. As a dynamic media force, GLAAD tackles tough issues to shape the narrative and provoke dialogue that leads to cultural change. GLAAD protects all that has been accomplished and creates a world where everyone can live the life they love.

  • Pride Foundation - Pride Foundation fuels transformational movements to advance equity and justice for LGBTQ+ people in all communities across the Northwest.

  • SAGE - A national advocacy and services organization that’s been looking out for LGBT elders since 1978. We build welcoming communities and keep our issues in the national conversation to ensure a fulfilling future for all LGBT people.

 

Health Care

  • AIDS United - AIDS United’s mission is to end the HIV epidemic in the United States. AIDS United envisions a time when all people, governments, and organizations commit to ending the epidemic and strengthening the health, well-being, and human rights of everyone impacted by HIV.

  • Resource Center - Resource Center is a trusted leader that empowers the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) communities and all people affected by HIV through improving health and wellness, strengthening families and communities and providing transformative education and advocacy.

 

Legal Services

  • Transgender Law Center - Transgender Law Center (TLC) is the largest national trans-led organization advocating for a world in which all people are free to define themselves and their futures. Grounded in legal expertise and committed to racial justice, TLC employs a variety of community-driven strategies to keep transgender and gender nonconforming people alive, thriving, and fighting for liberation.

  • GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) - Through strategic litigation, public policy advocacy, and education, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) works in New England and nationally to create a just society free of discrimination based on gender identity and expression, HIV status, and sexual orientation. GLAD is committed to fulfilling this mission with urgency and perseverance. To succeed, we will lead boldly and be guided by the following aspirational values.

  • American Civil Liberties Union Foundation - For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has been our nation’s guardian of liberty, working in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. Whether it’s achieving full equality for LGBT people, establishing new privacy protections for our digital age of widespread government surveillance, ending mass incarceration, or preserving the right to vote or the right to have an abortion, the ACLU takes up the toughest civil liberties cases and issues to defend all people from government abuse and overreach.

 

Social Support

  • The Trevor Project - The Trevor Project is the leading and only accredited national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young people under the age of 25. The Trevor Project offers a suite of crisis intervention and suicide prevention programs, including TrevorLifeline, TrevorText, and TrevorChat as well as a peer-to-peer social network support for LGBTQ young people under the age of 25, TrevorSpace. Trevor also offers an education program with resources for youth-serving adults and organizations, a legislative advocacy department fighting for pro-LGBTQ legislation and against anti-LGBTQ rhetoric/policy positions, and conducts research to discover the most effective means to help young LGBTQ people in crisis and end suicide.

  • Point Foundation - Point Foundation empowers promising lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) students to achieve their full academic and leadership potential - despite the obstacles often put before them - to make a significant impact on society. Point is the nation's largest scholarship provider to LGBTQ students of merit; granting more than 400 scholarships since 2002. Point promotes change through scholarship funding, mentorship, leadership development, and community service training. Upon completing their tenure as scholars, Point Alumni have access to the Point community, resources, and leadership programming. Point continues to explore ways to support LGBTQ students, such as a Community College Scholarship Program (initial funding thanks to Wells Fargo), assisting LGBTQ students in their final year at a community college who are planning to transfer to a four-year college or university. For 2018-2019, Point is providing financial and programmatic support to 98 students.

 

Hireforce is committed to advocating for equality and work towards eliminating discrimination in the workplace, with the individuals and corporations we partner with, and in our everyday lives.