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Queerness and Being Alone as an Executive Director

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Queerness and Being Alone as an Executive Director

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Queerness and Being Alone as an Executive Director

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As we approach the end of pride month, I’ve been thinking about the challenges and opportunities for change around supporting queerness at a leadership level. To me, queer is not just an identity, but a way of being. A way to be different and exist with embodying a different path in the world. The following are my reflections on being an out and visible queer Executive Director and the importance of how we can better support those in leadership roles. Nonprofits need people with all different identities in positions of leadership if we are going to save the planet and have justice and liberation for all people. So I share these reflections from a place of love and healing, knowing that we can’t change the past, but we can take learnings and apply them to the future.

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Building a Vermont where all LGBTQ+ youth 

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Building a Vermont where all LGBTQ+ youth 

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have hope, equity, and power!

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Our Mission:

Building a Vermont where all LGBTQ+ youth

have hope, equity, and power!

We aim high

A world where LGBTQ+ youth have boundless possibilities for joy, and all people know liberation.

Queer Ethic and Guiding Principles

We live them consciously

Our queer ethic and guiding principles are the living roots of everything we do. We constantly and consistently touch back to them as a reminder of what's important. They inform our decisions, direct our actions, and level-set our expectations.

We inspire audacious change

We're (mostly) queer, we're smart and we dream big. We know how to keep joy at the forefront, taking time to get creative and laugh together! That's what keeps us fueled when the gravity of the work sets in.

We take pride in our expertise because we understand that LGBTQ+ youth need our best. We know our worth. We believe our community strengthens the world. And our commitment to delivering high-quality programs and accurate information while forging strong and strategic partnerships elevates our purpose daily.

When we show up at Outright, we're ready to roll because we have the support we need. Taking care of ourselves, our families, and our people is paramount. Despite the constant sense of urgency around us, we are humans first, employees second. Period.

Our team is eager to share knowledge transparently through both informal connections and formal systems. We know that multiple layers of change have to act together to be sustainable, and we show up accordingly. Each one of us can see how our daily contributions tie to the vision, mission and strategy of this good, hard work.

We listen intently, speak clearly and are mindful of how we take up space - physically and energetically. We have our lanes and make sure to use the off and on ramps of rest and reactivation to sustain the collective energy of our talented team, LGBTQ+ youth, and supporters.

What people see externally is what they get internally. There is a synchronicity that is felt and experienced regardless of how someone is connected to the organization because we live our values through action.

We follow their lead

We buck adultist norms that devalue youth and lean into the wisdom and expertise of LGBTQ+ youth. The dream of LGBTQ+ youths' full integration into our organizational structure is flourishing as they continue to weave into every aspect of our mission. Their roles are formalized, so they have the support they need to create their own path forward as leaders.

Youth inform organizational strategies, partner with staff to evaluate programs, host regional gatherings and act as thought partners, mentors, facilitators, and trainers.

We have a loyal fan base that spurs social innovation

Our network of devoted and passionate individuals who donate their time, money, or influence to make sure LGBTQ+ youth have hope, equity, and power is vast. Joining that network sparks the joy of shared purpose because together, we create an impact that reverberates - and will last for generations to come.

We queer it up and get it done, together

We are a dynamic team of smart and ambitious people with loads of queer pride. Our staff is fun, friendly, creative, and laser-focused on our mission. Our collective belief is to challenge binary norms and queer up systems. In that belief, we will not back down.

We work to create an organization where youth and adults see themselves reflected. Collaboration and principled struggle are made possible through a felt sense of safety. We think the stage sparkles best when everyone gets a chance to shine!

We anticipate and act

Statewide & beyond

As an established statewide organization, we are moving beyond the bounds of our namesake to scale up our resistance to the coordinated hate spreading nationally. We broadcast a beacon of hope to LGBTQ+ youth everywhere. Being grounded in Vermont gives us the range to act in solidarity with youth everywhere. There is no place out of bounds for our reach and impact.

Here, there, everywhere

LGBTQ+ youth, staff and supporters view our permanent office space as a safe haven where they can always find a home. Tucked in Burlington's incredible Old North End neighborhood, we are part of the fabric of one of the most diverse communities in the state, where intergenerational community connections abound through art, activism, food, and events.

Our home base acts as a hub to every Vermont city, town, and beyond. Our queer existence elevates the city's vibrancy, and the community values our partnership and allyship as we work collectively to create a place where we are all more free.

Retreat & learn

Outright Outdoors is nationally recognized as a "must experience" opportunity where magic happens! It's a permanent place where youth and adults from all over Vermont and the country travel for a soulful retreat of uninterrupted time, where possibilities become unlocked and alive. It's a place where innovation and creativity are seeded through healing, discovery, community connection, and the power of queer joy.

Home to Camp Outright, we now serve LGBTQ+ youth throughout the summer, and our Winter Camp Reunion has become a marquee event for alum campers. Our programs for youth under 12 and their families are so robust that they are a pillar strategy to achieve our mission.

The Outright Outdoors training center offers a suite of opportunities that revolutionize our belief in possibility and develops leaders to change the world. From deep-dive institutes to hosting movement organizers in solidarity, we build cohorts of practitioners, networked with each other and are poised to respond to community needs across the state and country.

Transform

Leaders in Vermont's education system have come to understand that change is needed, and they are prepared to do the deep work. When they call on us to help, they know they're in good hands. Outright's education work is certifiably badass, making CEUs available for learners, as well as building practices and education models that are known and admired statewide and beyond.

Youth-serving adults can no longer be in an Outright training without being asked to do their own reflection, an invitation to see through the lens of new frameworks. We offer learning that interrogates how race and gender have been created and sustained to enforce domination and power over. And we help bridge connections to liberation in all its forms, inviting stakeholders to a radical reimagining of the systems that have caused deep historical and current harm.

Vermont's vibrant and robust GSA Network is the bedrock to challenging toxic norms in schools by creating support networks, catching youth in crisis, and seeding proactive cultural change. Our youth trainings, conferences, and digital organizing nurture generations of skilled and confident youth that rally in solidarity with other movements, demanding change and action in their schools and communities.

Self & family

More and more LGBTQ+ youth discover their inner strength, celebrate their authenticity, and find their people at one of our groups. We continue to create safe, brave spaces where LGBTQ+ youth shine. When they break through isolation to find connection, their lives are changed for the better.

And for parents and adults who want to know how to support their child or are seeking answers to tough questions, they find connection, community, and resources with us. One youth at a time. One family at a time.

Essential alchemy

Philanthropists, foundations, and donors looking to make a sound investment with a big impact know that Outright is a smart and ambitious choice. In a world where LGBTQ+ youth are targeted constantly, local, regional, and national funders and companies want our brand to support their social mission. Individual donors have increased exponentially because the word is out that the need is great, and with our powers combined, change is not just possible, it's inevitable.

Communications

LGBTQ+ youth have Outright in their social media feed every single day reminding them that they're amazing just as they are! At Studio Outright, we no longer see communications as a means to simply promote programs; communications is programming, meeting youth where they are: Online! Just as we are in communities throughout the state, we are in online communities fighting against hate and reaching LGBTQ+ youth with messages of love and support and all the tools to organize. Heck Yeah!

We listen deeply and show up with integrity

Relationships are our foremost priority to seed new realities and trust our greatest asset. We create and maintain authentic partnerships with strategically aligned collaborators who are essential in our collective social change efforts.

Our holistic approach to liberation means our partners are diverse; some are within the systems we aim to transform, and others are radical community leaders who work outside the margins. Their varied interests, approaches, and values are necessary to accelerate change. Together, there is reciprocity. We help each other evolve and engage with integrity; always reliable, and always listening.

We know what we do works

Outright youth alums are national and state movers and shakers, leaders distributed throughout the country seeding change. They are thought leaders, doers, and revolutionizers who are sought after by government administrations, foundations, universities, campaigns, communication networks, up-and-coming activists, and more.

We are invited to national and state conferences to share strategies, approaches, and program designs for working alongside LGBTQ+ youth. Our presence pushes thought forward and reframes the norms to open pathways for all.

We don't do things just because it feels good (although that's important!) We must know that we are changing lives and always moving the dial closer to a more just and liberated world. Through evaluation, participant and partner feedback, and accountability relationships with stakeholders throughout our scope of work, we check and recheck for alignment in all we do.

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Our mission is to create a world where queer youth have boundless possibilities for joy, and all people to know liberation.

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What Philanthropy Elites Can Learn From Appalachia

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What Philanthropy Elites Can Learn From Appalachia

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Queer Outdoor & Environmental Job Board

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Queer Outdoor & Environmental Job Board

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Welcome!

Are you Queer and looking to work in the outdoor and environmental fields? Are you seeking amazing Queer applicants? This is the place for you! Share your profile or your job posting by signing up for this always free grassroots platform

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Welcome! Are you Queer and looking to work in the outdoor and environmental fields? Are you seeking amazing Queer applicants? This is the place for you! Share your profile or your job posting by signing up for this always free grassroots platform

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Listen actively

Take care of you; take care of us

Consent to learn in public

Step up, step back

Assume positive intent; seek clarity when needed

Own your impact

Bring joy and curiosity to the group

Make the best use of our time

What is said here stays here; what is learned here leaves here.

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(2012) A Symbiotic View Of Life: We Have Never Been Individuals

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(2012) A Symbiotic View Of Life: We Have Never Been Individuals

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Hello! Our next meeting will be on Friday, June 27th 2025, at 2 pm ET. 

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Hello! Our next meeting will be on Friday, June 27th 2025, at 2 pm ET. 

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Please use this link to join the Zoom Meeting.

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done. Zoom is a publicly traded company headquartered in San Jose, CA.

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Goals & objectives established in a way that everyone shares the same notion of "the big picture"

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Respectful language when sharing ideas, feelings, concerns.

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Respectful language when sharing ideas, feelings, concerns.

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Respecting others opinions

Making others feel welcome

Ready to learn/ get new ideas

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Knowing that those of us in this group have a level of shared value around respecting each other's full self/identity

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Acknowledging that everyone is always changing (and should have the opportunity to change), and that every time we meet is an opportunity to meet anew.

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Share joy and vulnerability

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In the last few years states have advanced a record number of bills that attack LGBTQ rights, especially transgender youth. The ACLU is tracking these attacks and working with our national network of affiliates to support LGBTQ people everywhere.

While more states every year work to pass laws to protect LGBTQ people, state legislatures are advancing bills that target transgender people, limit local protections, and allow the use of religion to discriminate. The ACLU will not stop speaking out against these cruel attacks nationwide. LGBTQ people have a right to live in safety, to thrive, and to be treated with dignity.
How the ACLU Tracks Anti-LGBTQ Legislation:
Our legal and advocacy team works with ACLU affiliates and local organizations across the country to monitor state legislatures for bills targeting the rights of LGBTQ people. Each bill is reviewed by legal staff at the ACLU's LGBTQ & HIV Project before being categorized on this site. The process by which bills become law or not differ in each state depending on state law and constitutions.

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Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures in 2023

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In the last few years states have advanced a record number of bills that attack LGBTQ rights, especially transgender youth. The ACLU is tracking these attacks and working with our national network of affiliates to support LGBTQ people everywhere.

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The original piece and therefore this website builds on the work of many people, including (but not limited to) Andrea Ayvazian, Bree Carlson, Beverly Daniel Tatum, Eli Dueker, Nancy Emond, Kenneth Jones, Jonn Lunsford, Joan Olsson, David Rogers, James Williams, Sally Yee, as well as the work of Grassroots Leadership, Equity Institute Inc, the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, the Challenging White Supremacy workshop, the Lillie Allen Institute, the Western States Center, and the contributions of hundreds of participants in the DR process. As noted elsewhere, any wisdom you find here is credit to all those who informed and influenced

Sharon Martinas, who at the time was facilitating the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop, suggested I add the antidotes. The characteristics marked with an asterisk* indicate those that Daniel Buford, who at the time was a lead trainer with the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, ​asked I credit to him when the original article was written.

​the original article and this website. Any fault or shortcoming is mine.

The original article offered this Partial Bibliography:
Notes from People's Institute for Survival and Beyond Workshop, Oakland, CA, spring 1999. Notes from Challenging White Supremacy Workshop, San Francisco, CA, spring 1999. Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? NY: HarperCollins, 1997. Derrick Jensen, A Language Older Than Words. NY: Context Books, 2000. Paul Kivel, Uprooting Racism. PA: New Society Publishers, 1996. Anne Wilson Schaef, Living in Process. NY: Ballantine, 1998. For complete bibliography, see complete workbook for dRwork's Dismantling Racism process (2016).

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Sometime in the late 1990s, I arrived home after a particularly frustrating consultation with an organization I was working with at the time. In a flurry of exasperation, I sat down at my computer...

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Quercus + the corkscrew feather on a duck identifying their male gender.....

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"For Feldman, there was a big gap that people weren't aware of in risk management. She found that there were shining DEI statements and risk management plans, but they weren't talking to each other. Feldman noticed that risks are not limited to environmental uncertainties, but social ones too... Feldman wanted a guide that reflected the dynamic world of language.

Perhaps the most important feature of this guide is its ability to help us educate ourselves on potentially lesser known histories of phrases or words that are regularly used outdoors. As writers, the last thing we want to do is unintentionally offend our subjects or readers. Feldman explains, "if you're going to use [the guide], use it intentionally. Know that you're making a choice in your language and you're not just being passive." "

- Emma Mares, Outdoor Writer's Association of America

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Inclusive Language Guide - Taylor Feldman

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Mixing the history of the phrase "friend of Dorothy" with Rachel Carson

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Could we choose an animal we feel represents the queer world well? Such as The Penguin Pack. There are so many choices there, and perhaps some are more obvious and therefore less in keeping with anonymity than others. Throwing it out there! :D 

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Could we choose an animal we feel represents the queer world well? Such as The Penguin Pack. There are so many choices there, and perhaps some are more obvious and therefore less in keeping with anonymity than others. Throwing it out there! :D 

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How to talk to children about traumatic current events and media exposure
Update: In response to the outbreak of violence in Israel and Gaza, Starr Commonwealth has chosen to re-publish this article from January of 2021, previously updated February 25, 2022. Please note that this conflict and region have deep historic,... Continue reading.

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Trauma Informed Care Training - Starr Commonwealth

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We heal trauma and build resilience in children, families, and communities through direct services and trauma informed care training.