Pride Center Pivots Towards Virtual Support

The New Haven Pride Center has turned to these and other efforts over the past month in order to make sure that LGBTQ+ New Haveners receive the support they need during the Covid-19 pandemic, and to fight for the creation of a more equal and less homophobic society on the other side of this present public health crisis.

New Haven Pride Center Executive Director Patrick Dunn, Director of Case Management and Support Services Juancarlos Soto, and Latinx Program Officer Max Cisneros spoke about those manifold advocacy and support service initiatives on a recent episode of WNHH Radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

“We’ve really tried to prioritize community and live by our motto [during this pandemic], which is: Creating community when we can’t share space,” Dunn said. ​“Everything we’ve been doing over the past four weeks has come out of that.”

Dunn (pictured) also participated in a virtual town hall hosted by Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz Monday, in which he threw his and his local nonprofit’s support behind a 20-state effort to try to get the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to drop a policy that forbids a man from donating blood if he has had sex with another man sometime in the past three months.

The FDA recently reduced that mandatory waiting period from a year to three months in response to nationwide shortages in blood donations during the Covid-19 crisis.

“I urge the FDA to grant this request immediately and make sure that this is permanent, not just temporary,” Dunn said during the town hall. ​“This law was passed before I was born. For my entire life, I have been denied the ability to donate blood and save lives.”

Discriminatory policies like the three-month ban only stigmatize testing and safe sex in the LGBTQ+ community, Dunn said, let alone the broader social discrimination they encourage against gay men by presenting them as a public health hazard. 

“It’s unjustified,” Bysiewicz said about the FDA rule. ​“It’s discriminatory. It’s antiquated. And it’s not based on scientific evidence.”

Click here to watch the full virtual town hall.

During the WNHH interview, Dunn, Soto, and Cisneros walked through some of the many other pivots that the Ninth Square nonprofit has made to continue serving local LGBTQ+ people at a time when social and physical distancing mandates make previous in-person support groups, art gallery openings, drag shows, and protest marches impossible.

Dunn said that the Pride Center has commissioned 12 local and regional drag artists to record a series of biweekly story hour videos, in which they read LGBTQ+-friendly children’s books while dressed in their full drag persona outfits. Click on the video above to watch one such recording, and here for a complete schedule of readings.

The center also paid 15 LGBTQ+ artists to create a queer-themed coloring book, which is also available online for free download.

And the center hosted a virtual tour of an art show that never got to be seen in person by the public before state executive orders resulted in the Pride Center’s Orange Street office closing its doors.

Soto said that, on the case management and supportive services side, the Pride Center runs a ​“warm line” that anyone can text or call at 203 – 951-9662 between noon and 5 p.m. on weekdays.

Initially, he said, that line was dedicated to providing help for LGBTQ+ New Haveners struggling to navigate the complex bureaucracies, application forms, and steady succession of executive orders necessary to receive unemployment, federal small business relief, individual direct cash assistance, and understand which businesses must remain closed and which can stay open.

Soto soon realized that people were calling not just for practical help during the crisis, but also just to talk.

“People just wanted to hear a voice on the other line, to have someone they can tell their stories to,” he said.

So in addition to referring people to LGBTQ+-supportive mental and physical health care providers, and helping people fill out forms to receive unemployment, Pride Center ​“warm line” staff also just listen to people who suddenly find themselves alone, physically removed from their social circles of support.

And Cisneros spoke of the importance of providing safe online spaces for queer Latinx youth to talk with one another about their experiences at home during the pandemic, whether it be helping parents file for state benefits or transitioning to an all-online classroom or dealing with a family member who may not support, or even know, about their gender or sexual identity.

“Just creating a space where people can feel included and authentic is huge,” he said.

“There’s nothing like face-to-face meetings. You do feel like something’s missing.” But the online support groups do allow the Pride Center to reach and support people who may not have known about or visited the Pride Center’s brick-and-mortar office in the Ninth Square.

“Whether we want to or not, our identity is often politicized,” Soto said about being queer in America.

He said the Pride Center’s approach to case management, supportive services, and political advocacy during the Covid-19 pandemic are all geared towards achieving a larger, structural change — one that hopefully will result in a more equitable present and future.

“For me, it’s really about making sure that our community is thriving, not just surviving.”

Check out the New Haven Pride Center’s website here and its Facebook page here for a complete list of programs and services available online and over the phone.

Previous articles about political organizing during the pandemic. Series logo by Amanda Valaitis.

• Can Covid Spawn Public Health ​“New Deal”?
• One Year Later, Protesters Pack Zoom
• Pandemic Prison Protests Pioneered
• ​“Food Garage” Feeds Families During Covid
• Pro-Immigrant Crew Tackles Covid Crisis
• Mutual Aid Teams Tackle Covid-19 Challenge