by Lavender Rights Project

Dearest community,

After a month of settling in, Lavender Rights Project is excited to announce that we have strategically relocated our headquarters from Tacoma into the heart of Capitol Hill—the queer “capitol” of Seattle, Washington. It is a bittersweet move in some ways, but also a return to form given the deep, rich history that marginalized communities share here—and especially Black queer community.

While a lot of people associate Capitol Hill (and next to all of Seattle) with YT Gay™ with a capital G, its roots are much more complicated than that. Not that long ago, it was a much more economically diverse and safe space for queer and working class communities of color to build power and families together. There was so much life-saving work happening then, too—Black organizers and the larger YT gay community alike were fighting together to build a safer world through grassroots organizing such as The Union of Sexual Minorities, Men of All Colors and Cultures Together, and the beloved Seattle Urban League. But like many other queer neighborhoods across the US, anti-Black racism and white flight quietly steamrolled its residents out of Capitol Hill. Once housing more than 3/4 of Seattle's Black population, the residency rate of Capitol Hill and the Central District now hovers under 18%. Steep increases in property taxes and rising costs of living have not helped either. In short, Black queer communities were, and still are, intentionally pushed out of Capitol Hill, and our move to 911 East Pike Street is a step towards reclamation, reparations, and healing.

As a Black trans-led organization, Lavender Rights Project is picking up where our Capitol Hill ancestors left off in the 1970s and 1980s by creating sanctuary that is by-and-for our community. We are 100% committed to creating a safe space for Black and queer people to get the support and advocacy they need to survive and, ideally, thrive. While we will miss our Tacoma office, there is so much work to be done right here in Seattle.

The work starts at home, so to speak, and we are home once more.