LGBT Pride Month – Five ideas for your organization to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Stonewall

With lots of useful links!

50 years ago on a weekend in late June in the Greenwich Village in New York City, a revolt took place that changed the course of history for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) people all over the world. Patrons of the Stonewall Tavern, led by several transgender women and drag queens stood up to unfair police brutality and stated that they would no longer let their human rights be unfairly trampled. Since that fateful night, most LGBT pride celebrations are held in late June.

This blog contains five suggestions for engaging your corporation or organization during June Pride Month, followed by a short history of major LGBT milestones in the US, starting with Stonewall 1969!

    Five ideas to recognize and celebrate LGBT Pride Month:

1) Bring me in to speak and train. I continue to offer myself as a nationally recognized LGBT diversity speaker and trainer for your employees, management training, or employee resource groups, with a broad range of 9 LGBT diversity workshops from the business oriented to the more lighthearted (including culture and history of LGBT in the US) to the more personal. In fact, why not invite me in for a day and I can do various meetings with HR leaders, managers, employees and your employee resource groups? Use this link to download my speaking packages that include topics and bio, or Email me at [email protected] to request the info.

2) Start a productive group dialogue around transgender people. Check out my recent blog, “Explore transgender diversity through a cool one-woman show,” about how JJ Marie Gufreda uses her edgy thought provoking show, including original music, to share experiences and to create open dialogue about transgender people.

3) Financially support the Pride in the Triangle’s LGBTQ+ Workplace Equity Toolkit, which we hope to launch this summer if we can raise the rest of the funds soon. Even if you are not in the Triangle region of North Carolina, you can still support this project and send participants to our 2-day “Training of Trainers” to be held in our area.

4) Take an online crash course. Whether you just want to be a better ally to LGBTQ people, or want to create a better workplace, home, or organization for everyone, consider this online LGBTQ Diversity Training Crash Course (link) from one of my business associates, Sean Kofosky. This inexpensive yet valuable offering covers basic LGBTQ terminology / definitions,the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, ways anti-LGBTQ attitudes and behavior reach into many corners of society, and simple actions you can take to be an ALLY!

5) Make a contribution to your local LGBT Center. Google “LGBT Center” and find one in your city or town or nearby, and make a corporate contribution in honor of the Stonewall 50th anniversity. Or consider a similar contribution to your state’s LGBT Equality group.

The Stonewall Tavern, Circa 1969

    Very Short List of Selected Major Milestones

June 28 – 29, 1969: Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village, New York City

June, 1970: Christopher Street Liberation Day on June 28, 1970 marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots with an assembly on Christopher Street; with simultaneous Gay Pride marches in Los Angeles and Chicago.

December, 1973: The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

1993: Minnesota became the first state to ban employment discrimination based on both sexual orientation and gender identity when it passed its Human Rights Act.

October, 2002: The Human Rights Campaign introduces its Corporate Equality Index to measure corporate support of LGBT equality.

2009: Sexual orientation and gender identity added to US hate crime legislation.

June, 2015: The US Supreme Court rules for recognition of same-gender marriage in all 50 states.

June, 2016: President Obama announced the establishment of the Stonewall National Monument, a 7.7-acre site in Greenwich Village to be administered by the National Park Service.

Carolina House – Addressing Eating Disorders with a Special Outreach to the LGBTQ Community

Blog author Stan Kimer (at right) with Beth Howard (left) and Rachel Porter (middle) on the grounds of “The Estate.”

For my 2018 LGBT Pride Month blog this year, I want to focus on an enterprise that has a wonderful outreach to the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning) community. Our community is now moving from tolerance and acceptance to now having organizations that understand and focus specifically on our needs.

One such organization located in North Carolina (but serving clients up and down the east coast) is Carolina House. Recently I visited and toured their six-bed facility (called “The Estate” ) with Rachel Porter, Clinical Care Advocate and Lead Therapist at the Estate, and Beth Howard, Director of Clinical Outreach. I also interviewed Rachel over lunch.


Stan: What is Carolina House?

Rachel: Carolina House is an eating disorder program, which provides two residential houses in Durham, NC and partial and intensive outpatient programming in Raleigh. We provide a safe and inclusive space for individuals to engage in the work of healing from an eating disorder and associated struggles. We provide an experiential approach to prepare people to return to their full lives. Our original 16-bed facility is called “The Homestead” and exclusively serves women, and our newer 6-bed you are visiting today is called “The Estate.”


Stan: What makes “The Estate” unique?

Rachel: The Estate is Carolina House’s first all gender inclusive residence that opened in September 2017 in Durham, NC. Our clinical and medical team is dedicated to competently and compassionately serving the LGBTQ population who are facing challenges with eating disorders. The Estate is a six bed colonial home that allows for tranquil healing situated on more than 10 acres.


Stan: So are there particular unique challenges that LGBTQ individuals with eating disorders may face?
Rachel: Because the LGBTQ community are so often dramatically underserved and poorly served, very often by the time they get to Carolina House, they have heightened difficulty and are sometimes in a more severe state. Sometimes incompetent and callus care has caused them to not reach out for help. And the gender dysphoria that the transgender community faces may make it even more difficult for trans folks to find peace for their bodies – something that the vast majority of people with an eating disorder can relate to.


Stan: There certainly has been much more focus and discussion lately about the transgender community and many more transgender individuals feel safer with coming about who they are undergoing gender transition. Can you elaborate more on the impact being transgender may have on eating disorders?

Rachel: For many transgender people, they only way they found for their body to match their gender was to starve, binge on food, and use other disordered eating behaviors. Sometimes it is more deeply engrained, further compounding these issues. Getting to a point of recovery can be difficult as they find acceptance for their bodies. The fear of fatness that so much of our society fears is heighten in those with eating disorders and is sometimes even more heightened in the trans and gender fluid community. The gender fluid individuals I have worked with want their bodies to appear in a more ambiguous way, and they don’t have many role models of larger bodied individuals.


Stan: Is there anything else you would like to share, including your own personal philosophy about your work?

Rachel: My philosophy is to believe people for who they say they are, to accept people as they are, and to believe in their lived experience.

Stan: Rachel, thank you so much for your outstanding work with our often underserved and misunderstood community.


For more information about the Carolina House, check out their website, https://www.carolinaeatingdisorders.com/ or call (919) 864-1004.