by | Feb 5, 2025 7:17 pm | Comments (19)
Attorney General William Tong has made it clear: Connecticut commits to protecting access to gender-affirming care for young people, even as President Donald Trump has signed an executive order restricting federal support for that “life-saving care.”
by | Jan 24, 2025 4:50 pm | Comments (12)
Laura Glesby Photo
Erycka (with Alyssa-Marie, both of the Children of Marsha P. Johnson): "Our fear and anger deserves a healthy place to be felt."
Queer rights advocates and city officials gathered at the New Haven Pride Center Friday to send a resounding message: that no presidential executive order can erase the reality of transgender people — or dim New Haveners’ commitment to protecting queer rights and safety.
by | Jan 20, 2025 10:15 pm | Comments (21)
Laura Glesby Photos
Protesters declare support for trans, immigrant, Palestinian rights and more on the Green...
Laura Glesby file photo
...and outside City Hall, on Trump Inauguration Day.
A Statue of Liberty drawn on fire, free toiletries for any who needed, and collective shouts of immigrant, transgender, and Palestinian resistance rang through the frigid cold at two parallel protests downtown.
Their message resounded on Monday afternoon as Donald Trump once again took an oath of office — with a flurry of executive orders cracking down on immigration and cementing anti-trans policies awaiting his signature.
by | Nov 21, 2024 8:35 am | Comments (4)
Laura Glesby photos
No empty seats at the table, at Trans Day of Remembrance.
Simon: "I'm not inherently political."
There were no empty chairs around the New Haven Pride Center’s communal dinner table, though there were missing people.
Continue reading ‘Trans Lives Remembered; "I Just Want To Live"’
by | Nov 15, 2024 10:00 am | Comments (18)
Paul Bass Photo
Cabrera and Winfield at WNHH: Where would it end?
Gary Winfield and Jorge Cabrera are determined not to blink.
Continue reading ‘Winfield & Cabrera: Don’t Bend To Trump Blackmail’
by | Nov 8, 2024 4:31 pm | Comments (2)
Laura Glesby Photo
Sterling Valentine dances out his stress.
Xiomarie LaBeija reminds the crowd: In case nobody told you today, you're special.
Legal rights may be fragile, but community isn’t.
That message resounded through a post-election gathering at the New Haven Pride Center on Thursday evening, where attendees reeling from Donald Trump’s presidential victory found a salve in art, dance, drag, mindfulness, and mutual support.
by | Jun 13, 2024 2:32 pm | Comments (12)
Jabez Choi photo
Alexandr Lavranchuk and Nike Desis: Trying to get a better handle of what queer students experience at school.
Old Lyme teen librarian Nike Desis was on a mission: to figure out how to be a better ally for queer and trans young people.
So, on Wednesday night, they made the 30-mile trek to New Haven’s Ninth Square to take a deep dive into LGBTQ+ students’ rights, at a workshop hosted by the New Haven Pride Center.
Continue reading ‘Pride Message: LGBTQ+ Students Have Rights’
by | Jun 3, 2024 8:16 am | Comments (2)
Eleanor Polak photo
Aly Maderson Quinlog and Ty/Tyasha Pace at Pride Center's Zine Fair.
The New Haven Pride Center at 50 Orange St. was decked out this Saturday with colorful flags and even more colorful artwork.
Magik Press, a micro-press and arts studio run by Aly Maderson Quinlog and Ty/Tyasha Pace, was hosting its first-ever zine party and punk show. It was an event, the two stressed, about community, and the community was out in full force, from the vendors showcasing their creativity to the buyers eager to share in it.
by | Apr 22, 2024 6:02 pm | Comments (3)
Mel Defilippo, a prevention services manager with A Place to Nourish Your Health (APNH), explains healthcare offerings to event attendees.
“I’ve never, ever gone to a place like this before,” said Darnell Ray, taking in the flurry of queer-affirming healthcare and self-care opportunities that filled the New Haven Pride Center.
Continue reading ‘Pride Center Offers Queer Health Check-Up’
by | Apr 3, 2024 3:00 pm | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden photos
Cross GSA: Zulaikha Khan, Alejandro Zacatelco, Levi, Jaime Soares, Gema, and Mikey.
Pins made by Cross GSA for teachers to wear and put up in classrooms.
More “You Are Safe With Me” pins and “This Is A Safe Place” stickers are popping up around Wilbur Cross High School hallways thanks to the efforts of the school’s recently revived Gender & Sexuality Alliance (GSA).
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.
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.
Continue reading ‘Students Spotlight Need For LGBTQ Progress’
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.
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.”
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.
Continue reading ‘Bomb Threat Targets Pride Center During Pride Week’
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.
Continue reading ‘Petitioning Brennan Hears Pride Center Pitch’
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.
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.
by | Jun 8, 2023 4:28 pm | Comments (19)
Laura Glesby photos
Pride flies high over the Green.
T'Mo Lawson-Dickerson: "How safe are we when our kids are still getting bullied?"
A Pride flag soared into an ashy sky over the New Haven Green. To organizers, its message of safety is critical — but not enough.
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.
by | Jun 1, 2023 5:13 pm | Comments (3)
Laura Glesby Photos
Laura Boccadoro hangs up symbols of pride and "peace."
Paper cranes await a place hanging along Olmo's walls.
A flock of hand-folded, rainbow-colored paper cranes took flight inside Olmo Bagelry on Thursday morning, carrying a message of queer pride and affirmation.
by | May 5, 2023 2:05 pm | Comments (25)
Maya McFadden photo
Elm City Montessori students lead a tour of Elm City Montessori's newest murals.
James Baldwin, Sylvia Rivera, and Harvey Milk are now watching over the halls of Elm City Montessori School — in newly unveiled mural portraits that fit in well with the Blake Street charter school’s anti-bias and anti-racist values.
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.
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.
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.