I was born and raised here in Helena, Montana. I grew up playing sports, spending time with friends, running up the big hill behind our house, and enjoying everything Montana has to offer with my family. We went camping, hiking, and I tried fishing with my dad (and quickly learned it wasn’t my thing). Like many of my chosen family in the LGBTQ community, I knew something about myself long before I came to terms with it.
This International Women’s Day, we hope you will join us in lifting up the voices and stories of the incredible women who have made such significant impacts on our communities.
In June 2017, we were thrilled to announce that Pride Foundation would be partnering with filmmaker Jesse Ayala Jr. of Fovrth Studio on creating a Virtual Reality (VR) film as part of Oculus’s VR for Good Creators Lab. This recently established project pairs filmmakers and nonprofits to make great VR in the name of social good.
Throughout 2017 and into this year, this Administration has rolled out anti-immigrant measures that threaten the lives and livelihoods of so many within our communities. While many of these actions have been and are continuing to be actively challenged in courts, legislation, and through direct action, the impact on the communities targeted has been dire.
As we have been honoring Black History Month throughout February at Pride Foundation, I have been reflecting on this moment we are in—and what “this moment” actually signifies. For some of us, especially those of us who are white, this moment has been an awakening to the realities of racism across the United States—a heightened awareness that white supremacist beliefs and actions are thriving, and that they permeate our structures, institutions, and interpersonal relationships.
As I write this, Alaska Family Council President Jim Minnery is leading an effort to repeal portions of Anchorage’s Non-Discrimination Ordinance. This is a highly discriminatory, anti-trans measure that will effectively strip transgender and gender diverse people of their rights and protections to live free from discrimination.
I grew up in rural North Carolina, where my closest neighbors were chicken houses and school was a 40-minute bus ride away. It was the 1980s, and not an easy time or place to be a gay kid. At the age of 14, my mother left me behind to fend for myself. In that instant, everything changed.
The Idaho Legislature is currently considering an “American and Idaho Laws for Idaho Courts” bill, which its sponsor, Rep. Eric Redman (R-Athol) claims to be necessary to regulate Idaho courts’ use and recognition of foreign law. This is the third consecutive year Redman has introduced this bill in Idaho, which is rooted in the unfounded idea that Muslims seek to impose Islamic Sharia law on U.S. courts. Even though the bill avoids direct reference to Sharia law, its intent is widely seen as an effort to target only one religious group—people of the Muslim faith. On February 15th, 2018, Steve Martin, Pride Foundation Regional Philanthropy Officer in Idaho, gave testimony against this bill.
This scholarship was established by Brian M. Day in 1993 to support Puget Sound area gay men of color who have significant financial need and demonstrate activism in the LGBTQ community and in communities of color. Words about the Creator: Brian M. Day was born in Seattle on May 6, 1960. He was raised in