Pride Community Services Organization

The Pride Community Service Organization(PCSO) in Lexington, Kentucky would like to take this opportunity to condemn in the strongest terms possible, President Donald Trump’s decision today to not allow transgender individuals to join or serve in the U.S. military. This decision is most certainly about bigotry and discrimination and not military readiness. Our larger LGBTQ+ community can no longer sit idly by and watch as this administration destroys human lives while making wrong-headed and most certainly political decisions like the one today.

Many transgender people are serving and many have served our nation’s military defending our freedoms with honor and bravery and we at the PCSO thank them and strongly support them now and in the future. Right now, there are an estimated 15,000 transgender individuals serving in the military and we want them to know that our thoughts are with you and your families right now. We vow to not stop speaking out about this terrible injustice and others that are happening at this time in our history.

We at the PCSO believe that this action against the transgender community, taken today on July 26, 2017 by the President of the United States, will certainly go down as one of the most shameful actions by the Trump Administration.

The Pride Community Services Organization (formerly the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization) is disheartened to hear about the ruling of the Kentucky Court of Appeals that upheld the lower court’s ruling in support of Hands On Original’s discriminatory actions against our community. In this age of “alternative facts” and renewed efforts to roll back the protections that the LGBTQ+ community has fought so hard to secure, this is just another reminder that our community, along with many other marginalized communities across the nation, do not enjoy the freedoms that members of the mainstream culture take for granted every day.

Hands On Original’s position relies on the absurd argument that printing a T-Shirt with the number “5” on it with multi-colored circles and the words “Lexington Pride Festival” somehow promotes “homosexual activity” and that it is their right to censor that “speech.” However, this ruling is not about free speech, it is about how LGBTQ+ persons are treated in their communities every day, as second class citizens. This ruling is about the LGBTQ+ community’s right to exist openly and not be shoved back in to the closet by any means necessary.  Today it is about a T-shirt, tomorrow it may be your, your child’s, your friend’s, or your neighbor’s ability to enjoy a night out to dinner with their same-sex partner.

This ruling sets a dangerous precedent for our community, and chips away at those ordinances that are in place to protect against such blatant discrimination. Over the next several days, the boards of the Pride Community Services Organization and the Lexington Human Rights Commission will have to make a decision about whether this ruling should be appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

On behalf of the Pride Community Services Organization, we thank you for your continued support on this long journey and trust that you will follow us wherever it may lead. We will not be deterred by this ruling! In our 40th year, we are more determined than ever to advance the visibility of the LGBTQ+ community.