LGBTQ

Pride Center Opens Doors To New Home

by | Jan 18, 2024 3:38 pm | Comments (7)

Laura Glesby Photo

Ribbon snipped at new LGBTQ+ hub.

Elaine Kolb held back tears as she took in the crowd celebrating the New Haven Pride Center’s new home – and absorbed the fact that she could roll through the whole place in her wheelchair.

This is the first time in my 74 years that I feel like I finally have come home,” she said.

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Students Spotlight Need For LGBTQ Progress

by | Nov 30, 2023 5:34 pm | Comments (46)

Laura Glesby photo

Baz Holmes Poynter, proudly trans and gay, after she told alders “how it is to be me.”

Kids will sometimes make mean comments when fifth-grader Wesley Bianchine uses the teacher’s restroom at school. But all the other bathrooms are designated for either boys or girls, leaving non-binary kids like Wesley without another place to go.

The world is not organized for transgender children,” Wesley said to a panel of alders and an audience of over 50 people. 

And as a stream of students, parents, and educators insisted, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) should help change that.

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Pride Center Moves Aboveground

by | Nov 14, 2023 12:17 pm | Comments (5)

Laura Glesby Photo

The view from inside the Pride Center's future headquarters, formerly Artspace.

For a decade, the New Haven Pride Center has operated out of a buzz-to-enter, windowless basement, unmarked and invisible to pedestrians in the Ninth Square.

Now, the community center is coming out — into a much larger, glass-walled, ground-floor home, where a pride flag is already brightening the front window.

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Orange Street Beams With Pride

by | Oct 23, 2023 9:45 am | Comments (3)

Laura Glesby Photos

Drag performer Judah brings outer space to Orange Street at Sunday's Pride fest.

Luis Rios and Bubbles: “You’re a legend.”

In a flurry of Pride flags, handmade crafts, and pedestrians-turned-dancers that filled the end of Orange Street in the Ninth Square, Luis Rios caught a glimpse of Tia Waters and had to say hello.

Excuse me, is your name Bubbles?” he asked. You’re a legend.”

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Bomb Threat Targets Pride Center During Pride Week

by | Sep 23, 2023 4:03 pm | Comments (9)

Thomas Breen photo

New Haven Pride Center's Hope Chávez, Juancarlos Soto, and Laura Boccadoro, after Saturday's bomb threat: "We're not going anywhere."

An emailed bomb threat sent to city police and a New Haven Pride Center employee Saturday afternoon temporarily shuttered a Ninth Square block that was supposed to be hosting a Pride Week-closing celebration — but which had been canceled the day before because of expected inclement weather.

Police searched the LGBTQ+ services nonprofit’s headquarters, found no explosives, and cleared the building, and are now investigating the email threat as a potential hate crime.

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Petitioning Brennan Hears Pride Center Pitch

by | Jul 28, 2023 3:28 pm | Comments (10)

Laura Glesby photo

Liam Brennan and Juancarlos Soto in the Pride Center.

A ballot petition in hand, Liam Brennan waited for the buzzer outside 84 Orange St., walked through the lobby of an architecture firm, and descended the elevator to the basement home of the New Haven Pride Center.

He emerged three hours later one signature closer to his goal of getting onto September’s Democratic mayoral primary ballot — and a clearer picture of the community center’s efforts to move above ground at a time marked by rampant transphobic legislation across the country.

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A Parent's Path To Pride

by | Jul 21, 2023 2:26 pm | Comments (0)

Laura Glesby Photo

Laura and Karen Boccadoro at the Pride Center.

Before she became a regular volunteer at the New Haven Pride Center — before she started teaching her friends about non-binary pronouns or exposing her preschool students to the many different forms a family can take — Karen Boccadoro learned that her 19-year-old kid was gay. And she didn’t know what to think.

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Artists, Alder Hopeful Spell Out "PRIDE"

by | Jun 26, 2023 9:14 am | Comments (1)

Mia Cortés Castro Photos

At Saturday's "PRIDE"-making party ...

Mia Cortés Castro Photo

... the finished art-project letters, and contributors.

East Rock neighbors decorated rainbow-colored cardstock letters spelling out the word PRIDE” — and spoke about how that word means love, acceptance, authenticity, and support — at a LGBTQ+ community-celebrating event that doubled as a campaign stop for an aspiring first-time alder.

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State Treasurer Helps Career Get Proud

by | Jun 2, 2023 10:07 am | Comments (4)

Contributed

Josh Burgess, Alex Alvarado, Erick Russell, and Leila Ayers at Career pride celebration.

Career High School sophomore Alex Alvarado struggled to hold back tears as he listened to the country’s first openly gay Black statewide elected official — and a fellow New Havener — advocate on behalf of transgender students like himself.

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LGBTQ Sound Students Find A Safe Space

by | Mar 9, 2023 11:35 am | Comments (1)

Maya McFadden photo

SAGA's Shane Emery, Drake Ortiz, Colton, Jacob Smith, and Pete Solomon.

Amid the sometimes rocky waves” of work and class and a tough time at home, Drake Ortiz has found a refuge in Sound School’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA) — where they and their high-school peers can be themselves and talk about everything from their favorite movies to queer-friendly field trips to how best to prevent bullying of younger students.

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Album Club Goes Back To Black

by | Feb 21, 2023 8:41 am | Comments (0)

Album Club flyer for February

Nearly everyone is familiar with the set up of a book club: a group agrees on a book to read and then gathers a month later to discuss that book after reading it. Apply that same dynamic to a classic record and you have Album Club, one of many monthly programs at Volume Two, the State Street linchpin of both literary and lyrical offerings. 

Since August 2022 the queer and feminist-centric group has been gathering once a month to discuss a classic album chosen by the participants. This Monday evening, the platter being served up was Amy Winehouse’s already-classic Back to Black.

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PROUD Academy Comes Out For New School

by | Jan 27, 2023 11:00 am | Comments (5)

Allan Appel photo

State Treasurer Erick Russell with PROUD Academy board member and former city Corporation Counsel John Rose at SCSU event on Thursday.

The nation’s first Black openly gay state official met the organizers of what hopes to become the first LGBTQ-centered private school in Connecticut — and one of only a handful in the country. 

Their message about being firsts” in an era of anti-gay backlash was identical and impassioned: Don’t just be your authentic self. Celebrate that self, too.

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Middle-School GSA Finds Its Way

by | Jan 20, 2023 5:24 pm | Comments (3)

Maya McFadden Photo

Elm City Montessori's GSA students and staff, with local artist Kwadwo Adae, at a recent Friday meetup.

Contributed photo

Finishing up Elm City Montessori's new GSA-backed school mural.

Gender-neutral bathrooms. Thoughtful and caring educators. A Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) for middle schoolers. And a school mission statement that loudly and proudly supports LGBTQ students.

Those were just a handful of ideas that came to mind for the members of Elm City Montessori’s GSA when asked to dream up their ideal school.

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Pride Flies High Over Green

by | Sep 12, 2022 4:23 pm | Comments (1)

Laura Glesby Photo

The flag marks PRIDE New Haven, eight days of LGBTQIA+ events.

A rainbow burst through the Monday afternoon fog in the form of a Pride flag newly raised over the New Haven Green, marking the start of a week of LGBTQIA+ celebrations amid growing resistance towards transgender rights in the state and across the country.

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Courtney Barnett Confesses

by | Jul 27, 2022 12:34 pm | Comments (0)

Matthew Esposito Photos

Put me on a pedestal, and I’ll only disappoint you!” 

The College Street Music Hall crowd scream-sang along with Courtney Barnett.

Tell me I’m exceptional; I promise to exploit you!” 

In the pit, a teenage girl with winged eyeliner looked around to make sure she wasn’t the only one letting loose. Near her, a white-haired man in a ponytail thrashed his arms to the beat. Toward the center, rowdy 20-somethings tossed their bodies against one another; if there were ever a time to mosh, it was now. 

I think you’re a joke, but I don’t find you very fu-u-u-u-u-nny!” the Aussie rocker continued from the state, as two middle-aged women crooned the line to two middle-aged men.

In fact, at that moment, there wasn’t a single person in the hall who didn’t sing along. 

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Spring Glen Marks 25 "Open & Affirming" Years

by | May 9, 2022 8:41 am | Comments (3)

Allan Appel Photo

Pastor Jack Perkins Davidson in the tree in front of Spring Glen Church.

With kids in colorful masks and skirts, praise of God as the womb of life and source of being,” and a pastor high up in a sugar maple helping to secure a long gauzy rainbow banner, Spring Glen Church marked both Mother’s Day and the 25th anniversary of becoming an open and affirming” congregation within the United Church of Christ (UCC) denomination.


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