ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Nonprofit organizations catering to LGBTQ+ people in the Lehigh Valley are facing serious new threats to their operations and the people they support, their leaders say.
As recent moves singling out transgender people jeopardize organizations set up to serve LGBTQ+ communities, the groups are working to support their members and fight for their survival as organizations, they say.
“They feel like they're under attack — and they're feeling that way because they are, at every level of government.”Corinne Goodwin, board chair of Eastern Pa. Transgender Equity Project, a Lehigh Valley-based nonprofit
“They feel like they're under attack — and they're feeling that way because they are, at every level of government,” said Corinne Goodwin, board chair of Eastern Pa. Transgender Equity Project, a Lehigh Valley-based nonprofit.
Leaders of several of the region’s LGBTQ+ support organizations met at the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center on March 13 to educate the communities they serve about recent government action and how they can push back.
Goodwin told attendees that the most visible examples of attacks have been executive orders from President Donald Trump’s administration.
Over the past two months, Trump has issued orders excluding transgender people from the military, barring trans women and girls from women’s sports teams at schools and colleges, ending the ability to change the sex marker on U.S. passports, and declaring that for the government’s purposes, gender is defined by someone’s sex assigned at birth.
'Begin to think twice'
The wave of new action is not confined to the federal government. Bills with similar aims are working their way through the Pennsylvania legislature.
One measure, introduced as Senate Bill 213, closely mirrors the federal executive orders.
The bill would block state funding for organizations that “promote gender ideology,” require drivers licenses and state forms reflect sex assigned at birth, and declare that sex assigned at birth, not gender identity, determines whether someone is a man or woman in the eyes of state law.
“The number one thing that politicians are afraid of is losing an election. If they know that queer people are watching and voting and reaching out to them and sending them emails and phone calls, they will begin to think twice before they introduce or sign on to anti-LGBTQ legislation.”Corinne Goodwin, board chair of Eastern Pa. Transgender Equity Project
Other proposals would bar transgender women and girls from school sports teams, ban gender-affirming healthcare for minors and designate drag performances as “adult oriented businesses” unsuitable for children and subject to the same regulations as strip clubs.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed in Commonwealth Court this month seeks to overturn state regulations that bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
The attacks are a chiefly political maneuver, Goodwin said.
They're calculated to win elections by drawing socially conservative members of the Republican Party’s base to the polls, she said.
As such, she said, they require a political response.
“The number one thing that politicians are afraid of is losing an election,” Goodwin said.
“If they know that queer people are watching and voting and reaching out to them and sending them emails and phone calls, they will begin to think twice before they introduce or sign on to anti-LGBTQ legislation.”
'Hearing from people that they are afraid'
After representatives of the nonprofits finished speaking at the center Thursday, organizers invited the few dozen attendees to a smaller room off a corner of the Bradbury-Sullivan Center.
Awaiting them, spread across a handful of folding tables were lists of contact information for local legislators and scripts of suggested talking points for calls and emails.
Downstairs, visitors could sign a petition urging Allentown and Bethlehem city councils to protect access to trans health care. Nearby, they could fill out forms to register to vote.
“‘How am I going to navigate work, how am I going to navigate school, how am I going to navigate church when I don't know if I'm even safe to walk outside anymore?’”Corinne Goodwin, board chair of Eastern Pa. Transgender Equity Project
Of course, for both the leaders and beneficiaries of the valley’s LGBTQ+ organizations, the political attacks also are deeply personal.
“I think our number one priority ending last year and moving into this year is that we have been hearing from people that they are afraid,” said Krista Brown-Ly, interim executive director of the Bradbury-Sullivan Center.
That fear has manifested as a surge in calls to the Eastern Pa. Trans Equity Project’s support hotline from five to 10 per day on average to about 20 per day, officials said.
Over the same period, the Bradbury-Sullivan center said it saw demand for its support groups explode.
Discussions in EPTEP’s 18 support groups have been dominated by alarm at recent events, Goodwin said.
“Since the election, the number one topic that is discussed is, ‘I am afraid to leave my house, I am feeling suicidal, the world is against me,’” she said.
“‘How am I going to navigate work, how am I going to navigate school, how am I going to navigate church when I don't know if I'm even safe to walk outside anymore?’”
'Create that space for folks'
Assuaging the fear is at least as important as political advocacy to the mission of the Lehigh Valley’s LGBTQ+ groups, if not more important, leaders said.
“Our job is to be a community center and to be a community. You have to create that space for folks,” Brown-Ly said.
“They want to make sure that when they walk into a building, they're safe, they're secure, and they're with people who love and care about them.”
For the Bradbury-Sullivan center, that means focusing on hosting community groups three or four days per week. EPTEP’s strategy looks similar.
“Fifty thousand dollars — in our world, that's a person and a half, right? It's a lot of money to make up locally.”Krista Brown-Ly, interim executive director of the Bradbury-Sullivan Center
“We know what we need to do,” Goodwin said. “You gather around in community, you take care of each other, and then you move forward to advocate for yourself and for others.”
However, the LGBTQ+ organizations themselves also say they are at risk in the face of funding cuts and potential legal action.
Nonprofits across the United States have been rocked by a recent Trump administration executive order requiring that federal funds not be used to “promote gender ideology.”
Groups such as the Bradbury-Sullivan Center get a large part of their funding from the federal government, either directly or as pass-through grants.
Only $50,000 of the center’s roughly $1.7 million budget comes directly from the federal government, Brown-Ly said.
Because the money, used to fund anti-smoking efforts, comes from a settlement with tobacco companies, Brown-Ly is “feeling pretty secure that those funds will remain,” she said.
Though the money represents a small fraction of the center’s annual income, it still would be destabilizing to lose.
“Fifty thousand dollars — in our world, that's a person and a half, right?” Brown-Ly said. “It's a lot of money to make up locally.”
Already having an impact
The potential loss of indirect federal funding routed through state and local agencies, which makes up more than 60% of the center’s budget, poses a far more serious threat, officials said.
For example, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allocates money to the state Health Department.
In turn, the department contracts with Bradbury-Sullivan Center to provide public health services tailored to LGBTQ+ populations.
Losing such a large part of its funding would be catastrophic for the center, which is already on shaky financial footing, officials said.
“The loss of the 501(c)(3) status, and the work that we do, and losing that funding — it would mean shuttering,”Krista Brown-Ly, interim executive director of the Bradbury-Sullivan Center
The group announced in November it would suspend some programming because of falling income.
Eastern Pennsylvania Transgender Equity project, on the other hand, gets no federal money. Despite its insulation from recent executive orders, EPTEP said it still has seen funding drop in recent weeks.
Companies doing business with the federal government have stopped donations to EPTEP rather than putting their own federal contracts at risk, Goodwin said.
The pullback already is having an impact.
EPTEP scaled back plans to hire its first full-time employee this year, and brought on a part-time employee instead. Efforts to expand the organization's service area similarly were scaled back.
For the Bradbury-Sullivan Center, one potential threat looms especially large, Brown-Ly said: the possibility that the Trump administration soon will order the IRS to revoke the nonprofit status of organizations catering to LGBTQ+ people.
“The loss of the 501(c)(3) status, and the work that we do, and losing that funding — it would mean shuttering,” she said.
Though no such move has been announced, Brown-Ly said she expects such an executive order soon.
She and other leaders at the center already are exploring possible workarounds to avoid being targeted, such as dropping “LGBT” from the center’s name.
'You know what? We're still here'
There is little the organizations can do to protect themselves other than try to anticipate what’s coming, game out possible responses and prepare to challenge anything that threatens the groups’ survival in court, leaders said.
“Ninety percent of success is being prepared and having the research,” Brown-Ly said. “And so is having an attorney on speed dial.”
"We worked our way through it. We found community and chosen family, people that would stand up for us, people that would be there when we needed to be picked up because we fell.”Corinne Goodwin, board chair of Eastern Pa. Transgender Equity Project
The Bradbury-Sullivan Center already is suing the Trump administration.
This month, the center joined a federal lawsuit, San Francisco AIDS Foundation v. Trump, challenging an executive order which seeks to block federal funding for organizations that “promote gender ideology.”
Despite the challenges of recent months, both Goodwin and Brown-Ly said they have been around long enough to remember trying times in the past — and how their community endured.
“I remember what the '80s were like, and the '90s were like, and the 2000s were like," Goodwin said. "And they were difficult.
“But we worked our way through it. We found community and chosen family, people that would stand up for us, people that would be there when we needed to be picked up because we fell.”
Remembering how LGBTQ+ people made it through past tribulations reminds both Brown-Ly and Goodwin that they will continue to help each other through the latest challenges, they said.
“Yes, I’m a lesbian," Brown-Ly said. "Yes, I've been through a lot. Yes, I lost people in the AIDS crisis. Yes, it has sucked.
"But you know what? We're still here.”
