Hampton Roads LGBTQ Community Center

I attended the second organizational meeting for the establishment of a LGBTQ community Center to serve the Hampton Roads area - i.e, cities of Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Newport News and Hampton. The meeting was well attended and there appears to be some real momentum. I will be drafting and filing articles of incorporation to set up a Virginia non-stock, non-profit corporation tomorrow and once more information is assembled the organization will be filing for non-profit status with the IRS. Obviously, there will be a great deal of work to be done and the goal will be to have a location and programs both on the south side of Hampton Roads and on the Peninsula.

I believe that this area has a significant LGBT population. Unfortunately, for MANY years it has not been organized or seen itself as a community. Too many people have remainded invisible either due to being in the military, afraid of losing their jobs, or because the Pride events were not their cup of tea. With the growth of Equality Virginia as a broad based state wide organization and the advent of HRBOR and its success to date, things appear to be changing. Establishing a community center is another positive step.

The irony in the growing sense of an LGBT community in the area and the sense of a need to be more unified is that much of the motivation traces back to the anti-gay legisation that Virginia has enacted over the last four or five years. While causing legal issues for members of the LGBT community, it has galvanized people and caused them to get angry and be more forceful than in the past. In short, it is having the reverse effect of what the Christianists want. If they thought they would be able to cause gays to quietly slink away, their plan has backfired.