#OurCenterOurCommunity #CenterIntervention

An Open Letter to the Board of Directors of the Pride Center of the Capital
Region, from Concerned Members of the local LGBTQ Community and our
allies.

The mission of the Pride Center of the Capital Region is to promote the well-being of all
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-identified people and those affected by
discrimination based on gender identity and expression. This is an aspirational statement,
but one that in the past decade the Pride Center made considerable progress towards. The
Center worked on addressing historic inequalities and began to expand services, ensure
greater inclusiveness in programming, hire more representative staff, and worked in
collaboration with organizations that had been formed specifically because the Pride Center
was not meeting the needs of the entire community, most notably women, people of color,
and transgender people. Unfortunately, it has become apparent that much of this hard won
progress has been lost, and we fear the Center itself is in risk of total collapse if it is unable to
meaningfully connect to the community it is supposed to serve.

We write this public statement as concerned members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community of the Capital Region, and ask our straight and
cisgender allies to stand with us as we address the Board of Directors of the Pride Center of
the Capital Region in declaring the following:

Transgender people of all genders are integral to our community. Trans women are
women. Trans men are men. Nonbinary trans people of all genders are valid. These
are bedrock facts for any organization representing or serving LGBTQ individuals and
communities, and are not up for debate.

Black, Brown, Latinx, Asian, and other LGBTQ people of color are integral to our

community. Queer and transgender people of color have been at the forefront of
organizing for political and social progress for the entire LGBTQ community in the
Capital Region. Transgender people of color in particular have rarely been afforded
the same access to professional and leadership opportunities in the local LGBTQ
 advocacy world, including the Pride Center, despite taking on disproportionate
amounts of unpaid labor.

The Pride Center must center the needs of the most marginalized in order to best

serve everyone in our diverse community. This means programming and collaborative
projects must prioritize addressing the needs of transgender people, people of color,
disabled people, youth, those who are living with poverty, formerly incarcerated
people, immigrants, and other queer and transgender people who are marginalized by
our society which rewards those who are white, cisgender, straight, able-bodied, and
wealthy.

The Pride Center must use its position to elevate the most marginalized people in our

community, creating opportunities not only for us to survive, but for us to thrive, grow,
and attain positions of leadership and success in both the LGBTQ community and in
our wider society.

Our community has observed with concern rapid turnover of staff and leadership at the Pride
Center, and the recent hiring of an Executive Director and CEO, Martha Harvey, who has
exhibited that she does not have the relevant experience, knowledge of the community that
the Center is supposed to serve, nor the judgement required to serve as the face of the
Center. We have observed with concern the severe downsizing of Pride Center staff, and
greater reliance on unpaid volunteer labor, often carried out by transgender and gender
nonconforming community members. We have observed with concern that all people of color
on staff have left or been let go. We have observed with concern a prevailing attitude that
there is too much focus on trans stuff from leadership, including the Board. This attitude
does not align with a Pride Center produced report the 2015 Impact Report (a fundraising as
well as informational tool) that highlights the high demand for transgender specific training,
education, and programming in the Capital Region.

Our community has now been forced to speak out in both pain and protest as the current
Executive Director and members of the Board set off weeks of transphobic and menacing
actions, beginning when the Executive Director used the Pride Centers official Facebook
page to post an incendiary and transmisogynistic article that not only claimed that trans
women are not women, but that their identities are an attack on cisgender lesbians and that
the existence of transgender lesbians is an engagement in sexual assault against so-called
real women. When members of the community, both cis and trans, protested it set off a
series of offensive Facebook posts and comments, in which local transgender women who
use the Centers services were targeted for abuse much of it from people from out of state
or even from abroad who do not use the Centers services and are not part of the local
community. The Executive Director and at least one Board member, Vice-President Cynthia
Bott, were active in these online conversations and did nothing to shut down the attacks on
community members or on trans women in general. This neglect and indifference is
unacceptable.

When the local community came together to show support for trans staff members by leaving
supportive notes and drawings on the front steps of the Center, the response was to install a
security camera pointed at the front steps. It should be noted that staff and leadership in the
past had considered the installation of security cameras following LGBTQ hate crimes, such
as the Orlando Pulse massacre, local flag burnings, hateful graffiti, and death threats to
staff/volunteers, but it was always decided that the privacy of the people who are served by
the Center (especially youth and folks who attend 12 step recovery meetings at the Pride
Center) was paramount. Staff members were not consulted or informed about the recent
camera installation, nor was the community at large.

This hostile environment has led to a further, severe reduction in staff, as one transgender
staff member was let go, and another subsequently resigned. A number of volunteers, whom
the Center heavily relies upon in order to keep many programs operating, have also resigned
from their positions, either in protest or because the space no longer feels safe and
welcoming for them. This has lead to the indefinite suspension of multiple programs. Most
concerning has been the suspension of programs serving LGBTQ youth, most of whom have
few, if any, other options for community support.

These actions, on top of existing concerns, have gravely eroded trust that the Pride Center is
able to offer adequate services to the community, protect the privacy of vulnerable
community members, or stand up for community members in need.

While the Pride Center leadership neglected their responsibilities to the community
immediately following the public outcry after the posting of the transmisogynist article, other
organizations such as In Our Own Voices, Holding Our Own, and Black Lives Matter: Upstate
New York, (and more recently, alumni of the Center Youth Action Team, a group of LGBTQ
and ally peer leaders, ages 13-18, which was originally created by the Pride Center to train
youth to advocate for positive change within their schools) stepped up to offer support and
affirmation to transgender women and released statements condemning the Pride Centers
recent actions. After nearly two weeks the Pride Center finally released a short statement of
its own that ceded that the original posting of the article caused pain for a number of trans
women in our community, and reiterated that its mission is to ensure the well-being of all
members of the LGBTQ community. However, this statement fails to address the issues of
the enablement of abuse against community members by Pride Center leadership, nor does
it address privacy concerns raised by members of the community, nor does it evidence an
understanding of how or why these actions caused pain or concern in the first place. The
statement also fails to lay out any concrete next steps to address these underlying issues and
prevent their reoccurrence in future, besides a nebulous commitment for Board and staff to
develop a plan of action that affirms our core values and brings more voices to the table
over the next several months. We declare that these assurances are not sufficient.

As members of the LGBTQ community of the Capital Region, we have three concrete next
steps which we are calling upon the Pride Center to implement:

We call for a Board of Directors that is representative of the community the Pride
Center serves.
There is a sharp disconnect between the people who turn to the Pride Center for services
and the membership of the Board. Board membership has historically consisted
overwhelmingly of white, middle class, cisgender people. Current Board membership is
entirely white, and, with minimal exception, cisgender. This does not reflect the reality of the
folks who turn to the Center for services, who are also overwhelmingly poor, transgender,
youth, elders, people of color, and disabled people.

The Board is responsible for the overall direction of the Center, and is therefore responsible
for the growing concerns the community has expressed in this letter regarding the high
turnover of staff, cutting of programs and services, hiring of an inexperienced and unqualified
Executive Director, deterioration of the Centers financial stability, and the growing disconnect
between the community and the Centers leadership.

We call for the resignation of Martha Harvey as Executive Director and CEO.
For the community to regain trust in the Center, there must be both accountability and
competency in its leadership. We understand Ms. Harvey sees these recent events as an
opportunity for personal growth, but we do not believe that one individuals personal journey
should come at the expense of the community they are paid to serve.

The Executive Director of the Pride Center must be someone with basic levels of competency
in working with all members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community.
Martha Harvey has failed to meet these basic standards, and we do not have confidence that
she has the ability to steer the Center into a place of long-term stability. She must resign to
make room for someone with these skills.

We call on the Pride Center to implement structural change to its bylaws to guarantee
a representative Board, community-driven programming, and the centering of the
needs of the most marginalized members of the community.
We realize the replacing the Executive Director and reshaping the Board will not in and of
itself result in long-lasting, structural change the type of change we believe is necessary to
secure both the financial and communal future of the Center. We call on the Pride Center to
engage in a community-driven process to update its bylaws to ensure the work being done to
stabilize and improve the Center at this time is preserved, and can become a foundation for
greater positive change throughout the Capital Region in the coming years.

New York State is already the unfortunate home to one of the most glaring examples of an
LGBTQ institution that was unable to address the gulf between leadership and community
with the abrupt closure in 2016 of the Empire State Pride Agenda, which, rather than adapt to
the current political climate and needs of the LGBTQ community of NYS, instead shut its
doors forever, leaving its mission unfulfilled and a huge void in statewide political advocacy.
This is not the future we want for our Pride Center.

We strongly believe these three steps new, representative Board membership; a new
Executive Director and CEO; and updating of bylaws to ensure long-lasting structural
change are necessary in order to secure the Pride Centers future.

Finally, we write this letter because we love the Pride Center. We are called to action
because the Center has touched all of us in irreplaceable ways. Because it has given us
community. Because it has been a safe haven from abusive parents or family. Because is
has helped transform our school, workplace, or doctors office into a more accepting place.
Because it has connected us to political and community action for the first time. Because it
has shown us we were not alone when we thought we were. Because the Center has saved
our lives.

We want a Center that is committed to everyone in our vibrant, diverse LGBTQ community.
We know that that type of commitment goes both ways. An organization that is connected to
and supportive of its community will be supported by its community. An organization that is
not committed to its community cannot survive.

Sincerely,

Rev. A. Reilly
Aaron Bogert
Adam van Buren
AJ Rio-Glick
Alex Mercey
Alexander Brodie
Alexander Hauptman
Alexandra Sophia Eleazar
Allen Bjorkman
Alyssa Hackett
Andrew Nelson
Angela Beallor
Dr. Angela D. Ledford, former Pride Center Board Member
Ariela Perez-Wallach, MSW
Audrie MacDuff
Bailey Van Deest
Barbara Smith, Co-Founder Combahee River Collective
Bryce Miller
Bryce Steller
Caitlin Walsh, RN
Caragh Lenox
Carmen Rau
Carolyn Riccardi
Cavanaugh Quick
Chase Waters
Chealsea Rose Miller
Chole Neill
Christin Guilder, LMSW
Corey Jamison, President and CEO, Corey Jamison Consulting, LLC
Corinne Carey-Chaiken
Cory Nardin
Courtney D'Allaird
Curran Streett
Daniel T. Hulbert
Darren Cosgrove, LMSW
David Carey-Chaiken
David Jacobson
Eirik Bjorkman
Ejay Eisen
Eliza Henneberry
Elizabeth Press
Emily Pain
Emma LoGiudice
Eghann Renfroe
Erika Lewis
Erin Alexander
Gaetano Vaccaro
Graham Bastian
Jahnay Carr
Janet Tanguay
Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick
Jonah Moberg
Jonathan Richardson, MSW, MPA
Jonathan Sullivan
Julia Handy
Kamryn Wolf
Kelsey Veeder
Lauren Ford, LMSW
Lauren Simone Schauer
Lee Cattarin
Lisa Suarez
Lucas Lavera
Lukas Grandis
Lyndon Cudlitz
M. Lettie Dickerson, Esq.
Maira Della Pia
Marjorie Atkinson
Mary Lou Carpenter Bjorkman
Maureen Burns, CHES
Maxwell Antonio Zanda
Melissa Loson, MSW
Michelle Marie Carroll
Michelle Sanders
Rev. Moonhawk River Stone, MS, LMHC, Riverstone Consulting
Morgan Hoag
Dr. Nickie Michaud Wild
Nicole Armstrong
Nikki Reilly, RN
Nora Yates
Oona Edmands, LCSW-R
Pamela Chris Howard
Paola Jazmin Gonzalez
Penny Smith-Bogert
Pilar Arthur-Snead
Preston Carter, D.O.
Quinn Austin-Small
Raven Stein
Reese C. Kelly, Ph.D., former Pride Center Board Member
Renee Piazza
Richard K. Howard, MD, FACS
Robyn Hayes
Roderick D. Perry
Rosemary Leicht
Rosy Galvn
Ryka Sweeny
Sadie DelaCruz
Scout Silverstein
Sheilah R. Sable, former Pride Center Board Member
Skyler Eurich
Sophia Lafergola
Steven Handy
Susan Ungerman, President Ungerman Electric
Taina Asili
Tella Wild
Teri Wilhelm
Troy Keith
Vickie Smith
Wes Bennett
Wren DiDomenick
Zianna Schmidt