Friday, October 10, 2025

Pride Centers

The big squeeze by Trump & Company is spelling the death of Pride Centers! The latest,
WCAX
By Laura Ullman
Oct. 9, 2025


The Pride Center of Vermont says it’s shutting its doors. Sources tell WCAX it’s a “pause,” but staff are being let go, a significant blow to Vermont’s LGBTQ community.

In a letter obtained by WCAX, the Pride Center says it will pause operations effective Friday. That’s when sources say most staff will be laid off. They were given just one day’s notice. But a couple of administrators will stay on a little longer.

The pause, as it’s being called, includes the Transgender Program, Safe Space Anti-Violence hotline, Health and Wellness HIV testing, and Harm Reduction Services. The Pride Center says in the letter that they’re exploring every opportunity to support participants of those programs.

Like many LGBTQ organizations across the country, officials say they’ve been hit hard by a wave of funding losses and shifting priorities at the state and federal levels. “These changes have made it increasingly difficult for community-based nonprofits like ours to keep doing the work we love, even as more people than ever are turning to us for support,” They said.
Thanks to Trump's transphobia and homophobia!

This has been happening all around the country since Trump took office... LGBTQ+ center are scrambling for funding as sources dry up.


An LGBTQ+ bookstore and resource center in American Fork is closing its doors for good.

The Mosaics Bookstore and Resource Center says they’ve been forced to close their physical location in Utah County after a loss in federal funding. They’ve also faced increased challenges such as repeated bomb threats and continued harassment.

Despite the closing of their physical location, they are still planning to support other LGBTQ+ events in the state, attend pride celebrations and participate in other outreach efforts in the community.
Somehow I don't think that it is what Trump calls the Radical-left who are making the bomb threats.
Federal funds, corporate donations, and individual giving all down, says LGBT Center of Central Pa. leader.
JORDAN WILKIE | Regional Democracy Reporter 
Oct 7, 2025


After opening what it called a permanent location on Harrisburg’s Front Street in spring 2024, the LGBT Center of Central PA is struggling to stay afloat. Amber Barnes, the center’s executive director, said it has been a close call to make payroll in recent months. 

The center and partner organization GLO Harrisburg are heavily reliant on federal grants, Barnes said, something she’s been trying to pivot away from since she took the job last year. But at the same time, corporate and individual donors are also pulling back, she said, both due to general economic uncertainty and to fear of political blowback for supporting organizations that serve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. 

Resources offered by Barnes’ center include a food bank, sexual health education and resources, and an array of social programs for similarly aged participants, from teen groups to an “aging with pride” group for older adults. While she tries to find more money, Barnes and her board of directors put the center’s housing program on hold for the rest of the year.
Trump is cutting the purse strings the LGBTQ+ centers which they have become dependent upon...
Trump’s impact on funding
The day Donald Trump was sworn in as president a second time, he signed 26 executive orders. One of those was “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” in which he directed the executive branch to no longer fund organizations that “promote gender ideology.” 

The next day, he signed another executive order directed at stripping federal funding from “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, again with language targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and especially transgender people and the organizations that serve them.
What Trump is focused on destroying anything LGBTQ+ and doesn't care about any collateral damage.
Citing President Donald Trump’s executive orders, Barnes said her center was preparing to lose another federal grant through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

But last week, Barnes learned SAMHSA renewed a $250,000 per year program to reduce substance misuse along with HIV and viral hepatitis transmission. It is part of a years-long grant scheduled to end in 2027.

As part of the annual grant renewal request, grantwriters asked Barnes to remove all references to LGBTQ+ people or services, she said. The programs are now described as serving "individuals," without ever mentioning their sexual or gender identity. The funding was secured as a “passthrough” grant, which first goes to UPMC and then is redistributed to local partners like GLO.

“Our doors are open to everyone, but the fact that we couldn’t say that we were specifically here to serve the most vulnerable and marginalized under the LGBTQ rainbow feels really, really gross,” Barnes said. 
It is community health. Not just LGBTQ+ people.

When I volunteers at the local LGBTQ+ center we had everyone walk through their doors for medical and dental treatment. They did not discriminate unlike Trump.

Some may blame businesses for the cuts but they are afraid they know Trump is crazy enough to go after them with all types of legal problems and cuts to contracts  

1 comment:

  1. Richard Nelson10/10/25, 4:44 PM

    Whatever happened to Our Bodies, Our Selves! or LGBTQI+ Health in our hands! Being a group of people long despised by the government to rely on them even when we think the sun is shining is a big mistake. So now we have come to everyone running in all sorts of directions because of the threat of the heavy hand of fascism coming down on heads everywhere. Yes, as Harry Hay warned us, this is the time when everyone will be anything but "gay." Allies, how about those liberal allies, you know the ones with yachts and 10 houses and more and more that LGBT folks love so much. So it's community health? Another push for us into back there. I suppose 1/2 a mask is better than a full one. I had to laugh when the Gay and Lesbian Health Collective changed its name to plain old Health Collective. Perhaps they think that is one way to hide from a fascist. But honey, they know who we all are. One last question/thought--what happened to the days when we all volunteered to do the job? No one was paid; we just did what needed to be done. More unraveling of a community wanting to be just like mommy and daddy, except for what they do in bed. HOGWASH!!! Community is dead, long live community!

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