The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative
Despite legislative progress and numerous court victories realizing rights for LGBTQ+ members of our communities, there remains countless towns and cities across the country where discrimination against the queer community reigns. Safe spaces for community gathering, empowerment, and celebration—like the historic Stonewall Inn in New York City—are far more often found in large city centers than smaller cities and rural areas.
The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative (SIGBI) is developing its own SIGBI Safe Spaces certification to identify entertainment venues, food and beverage locations, stores, businesses and other public venues as safe spaces for LGBTQ+ members of the community. The standards and certification process will be established by the community in some of the most difficult areas in the country to be LGBTQ and by some of the most marginalized individuals in our community.
Through a series of nationwide conversations convening national and local LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, thought leaders, and community leaders, SIGBI is developing a series of metrics by which each entity would abide in order to be designated a SIGBI Safe Space. Via this network of SIGBI Safe Spaces, the spirit and values of The Stonewall Inn will become present in far-reaching corners of the country, uplifting LGBTQ+ persons, fostering education for their neighbors, and providing space to celebrate, thrive, work, shop, and live freely.
With the advice of and input from LGBTQ+ leaders and some of the most marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community, and under the facilitation of the anti-bias trainer, SIGBI will develop its certification program and invite national corporations and local business to participate in the process.
The initial conversations with communities across the country will begin in spring of 2021.
This quarter we are proud to release our “Love is Love – History of Pride” Collection celebrating the LGBTQ+ communities and its allies. We will be donating $10 from every 3-pack “Love is Love” Collection sold to The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative.
The Stonewall Uprising happened on June 28, 1969, when police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village in New York City. This led to a riot and 6 days of protests that served as a catalyst for the LGBTQ+ movement around the world. The Stonewall Inn is now a national monument, and The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative continues to fund programs that eliminate the social intolerance that is profoundly impacting the lives of the LGBTQ+ community.
