As part of its education and advocacy programs across the country GLAAD Media InstituteGLAAD’s Training, Research and Consulting Division, convened a meeting with local leaders and community stakeholders in Grand Rapids, Michigan, hosted and organized by Equality Michigan and the Grand Rapids Pride Center.
Participants who complete a program or session at the GLAAD Media Institute are immediately considered GLAAD Media Institute alumni, empowering them to maximize their impact on the community by using their own story to create culture change.
“We’re actually the oldest LGBT center in Michigan. We just turned 36 years old,” Jazz McKinney, executive director of the Grand Rapids Pride Center, told GLAAD after a press conference in June. McKinney is a father, leader and mentor in her local community.
McKinney says the Grand Rapids Pride Center has provided a sense of stability to the LGBTQ community the center serves over the decades. McKinney served as executive director for nearly four years, and during those four years he demonstrated leadership on the importance of continuous learning, getting to know “your story” and LGBTQ stories.
In West Michigan, LGBTQ stories are essential.
And the same is true of the Grand Rapids Pride Center, McKinney says. For McKinney and others, knowing the center’s history means knowing how it grew and how it is accountable to the diverse communities it is a part of, seeks to serve and serves.
“We really want to embody our mission when we say we want to all LGBTQ+ people,” McKinney said.
The 1987 March on Washington sparked the creation of the Grand Rapids Pride Center, according to the center’s website. The date was October 11, and a small group of lesbian and gay West Michigan residents traveled to Washington to fight for equal rights.
After many meetings in their homes, the center was born. Since then, the organization has expanded to meet the needs of the bisexual, transgender, nonbinary, gender diverse and Two-Spirit communities. Several members of the Grand Rapids Pride Center community told GLAAD that the ability to adapt and rise to the occasion was crucial.
By 2024, there will be 373,000 LGBTQ people in the state of Michigan, according to the Project to further develop the movement (MAP). This number does not necessarily represent the number of members of the Two-Spirit (2S or 2-S) community in Michigan, and not all indigenous people necessarily identify as Two-Spirit.
“The intersectional needs of the 2-SLGBTQ+ community in Grand Rapids today are unfortunately very similar to those in 1988 when the Grand Rapids Pride Center was founded, and they are very similar to the intersectional needs that exist elsewhere in the country today,” Aaminah Shakur, the Grand Rapids Pride Center’s accessibility/health care coordinator, wrote in an email to GLAAD.
Even today, the Pride Center continues to meet this challenge.
“As I write this, we sit here witnessing the tenth month of genocide in Palestine, the 15th month of genocide in Sudan, and at least eight months of renewed genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Shakur wrote.
To this day, unaffiliated Democratic delegates are fighting to get Palestinian Americans on the main stage of the Democratic National Convention (DNC). However, party activists were given space at the DNC “for the first time” to hold a forum to discuss Gaza, according to AP News.
The Pride Center in Grand Rapids has taken a public stance against all forms of genocide and pinkwashing. As people drive into the Pride Center’s parking lot, a painting of a Palestinian flag protrudes from a window. Many people today hear the call to fight against genocide in Palestine, but they should not forget it, Shakur said. The reason for this stance is “quite simple,” Shakur said, “that all liberation is connected to the liberation of others.”
They reminded readers that genocide is also taking place outside Palestine, not only under the eyes of the current president but also “with the active support and encouragement” of the country’s current Congress.
In the same breath, Shakur adds: ACLU reports that 527 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced by anti-LGBTQ politicians this year. Each bill, including at least 10 in Michigan, works its way through state legislatures across the country, changing public perceptions through misinformation and legal attacks, even if the bills do not pass.
“The (current) government announced at the beginning of last month made a statement “The organization supported banning surgical procedures on trans youth and instead limited trans health care support to access to mental health care, which can be both stigmatizing and inadequate,” Shakur said, pointing out how widely misinformation has spread.
LGBTQ voters made make the difference in the 2020 election and are ready to do so again in 2024. More than 1 in 5 Americans of Generation Z (18-26 years) are out as LGBTQ, the most out generation in history. Almost 30% of Women of Generation Z are LGBTQ, according to GLAADs Profile for journalists covering the DNC.
Others, like Laurel Walker, a self-identified transgender woman, mother and board member of the Grand Rapids Transgender Foundation (affiliated with the Grand Rapids Pride Center), believe that while the challenges facing transgender youth in Michigan are still present, they are not as they were when they were growing up.
In fact, she moved to Grand Rapids over 30 years ago to find the community she has today. Walker says that while the youth don’t have it any easier, they are safer than she does. Walker is 54 years old.
“If I had admitted as a teenager that I was transgender, it would have been socially horrible, but worse,” Walker said. “Today, at least in our anti-discrimination law in this state, there are active and legal protections. In my day, there would have been no protection for me.”
LGBTQ protections were enshrined in law last year after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled (5-2) that sexual orientation is covered by the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
“There are legislatures in this country that are committed to legalizing discrimination,” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said at the same time. to AP News“In Michigan, we will continue to expand freedoms and do things that make a real difference in people’s lives.”
Walker concluded with a message to the candidates in the 2024 election campaign.
“I just want them (transgender people) to understand. We have one of the two main candidates who would be a horrific event – I’ll let you figure out who that is – but the other candidates are not taking advantage of that or considering that, they’re just avoiding the issue,” Walker said.
McKinney elaborates on Walker’s words.
“Proper representation at the political level certainly wouldn’t hurt,” McKinney said. But: “No matter who holds those seats, if they’re not willing to stand up for what’s right, then it won’t matter.”
For McKinney and his employees, being part of the community and doing what is right for the community is important, and they want leaders to represent that difference in the public eye.
Visit GLAAD.org/VOTE to learn more about GLAAD Media Institute’s role in convening community meetings and what’s at stake for the LGBTQ community at large this election year.
