‘We're not going anywhere': WV LGBTQ+ community fights for visibility amid political backlash

Yahoo

4 hours ago

A Progress Pride flag flies outside of Huntington City Hall on June 18, 2022. This year, the city opted not to fly a Pride flag. (Ryan Fischer | The Herald-Dispatch file photo)
June marks Pride month, a time for the LGBTQ+ community in West Virginia and beyond to come together and celebrate their identity while commemorating the individuals who made such a celebration possible.
But in 2025 — following a contentious election year where Republicans locally and nationwide made attacks against that community central fodder for their campaigns and when current lawmakers continue to attempt to strip away rights from LGBTQ+ people — the stakes of celebrating feel higher than usual for some residents in West Virginia.
In Huntington specifically, Pride month now looks a bit different. For the first time in several years, an LGBTQ+ Pride flag is not flying over city hall in June.
The City of Huntington, in a Facebook post on June 2, said the decision not to hang a Pride flag came from 'an effort to serve every resident equitably and align with federal and state guidelines.' The guidelines that would disallow the hanging of a Pride flag, however, were not specified.
'Huntington is, and will continue to be, a city where every person is valued, protected, and treated fairly,' the post continued. 'By focusing on the symbols that connect us, we reaffirm our dedication to unity, inclusion, and the common good.'
For Ally Layman, the first openly gay member of Huntington City Council, the decision not to fly a Pride flag represents the opposite of what the city — under Mayor Patrick Ferrell's leadership — is claiming.
'To me, the feeling that you are supported by your local government — especially in this time and in a state and in a country that are trying to pass laws against your community — is so important,' Layman said. 'The flag is a simple but powerful gesture that says LGBTQ+ residents matter and that they belong here. To have it stopped this year without a real explanation, well it felt like that was being taken away from us.'
During a council meeting on May 27, Layman verbally requested that the Pride flag be flown, continuing a tradition that started years ago under former Huntington Mayor Steve Williams. She also asked for a proclamation from the city to 'reaffirm' its commitment to LGBTQ+ residents in an effort to show that 'everybody is welcome, everybody safe.'
She didn't receive a response on either request and learned from Facebook along with the public June 2 what the city's position was regarding the issue..
'I don't think it's too much to expect transparency on this, especially for a city councilmember,' Layman said. 'I'm making those requests on behalf of my constituents — not just myself.'
Without answers, Layman — who sits on the city's LGBTQIA+ Advisory Committee and is a representative on its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee — got to work.
She put out a call for individuals throughout Huntington to fly their own Pride flags. The response was overwhelming, she said.
Businesses throughout Huntington started to sell Pride flags to meet the demands of community members. In days, the rainbow flags abounded — in windows on Third Avenue and beyond, outside of homes, on car antennas and more.
'This is so important to the community and it shows that this kind of allyship truly matters … I know it's cheesy to say, but you can't have community without unity,' Layman said. 'It means so much to me for folks to fly the flag and to show — especially to young people in our area that have been targeted by the Legislature — that it's not just one person's voice saying we matter. It's so, so many people that are standing beside them to show them that they are seen, that they are loved, and that they belong here.'
Moves against West Virginia's LGBTQ+ community have been growing in recent years at the state level and are largely targeted towards the state's transgender population. This legislative session, bills to limit the kinds of medical interventions trans kids can receive, police the facilities any trans person can use and ban the instruction of sexual identity or orientation in schools while requiring educators to report to parents if a student is using a name or pronouns different from their 'biological sex' passed the state Legislature and now are law.
The efforts to chip away resources and rights for trans individuals in West Virginia came after Republicans in the state spent the 2024 election cycle making trans issues — specifically the inclusion of trans girls in school sports — central to their campaigns.
'It's like they're not worried about anything else in the state but this very small group of people who are already living very vulnerable lives,' said Chris Gosses, the president of Rainbow Pride West Virginia, the state's oldest and largest LGBTQ+ Pride organization.
According to a 2024 survey by the LGBTQ+ advocacy nonprofit The Trevor Project, 51% of trans and non-binary children in West Virginia considered suicide in the previous year while 16% of them attempted suicide.
Nationwide, states that have implemented bans on gender-affirming care for children similar to West Virginia's law have seen a significant increase in suicide attempts by transgender and gender nonconforming teenagers in the years following those bans taking effect.
'The only group of people that don't reach out to us and try to learn about our community, try to learn about our lives, or try to welcome us into the community openly are that [Republican] super majority that we have in the state house,' Gosses said. 'Those elected politicians are out of touch with the vast majority of everyday West Virginians.'
Ted Brightwell, a Charleston-based drag performer who has been out as gay since the 1970s, said the threats occurring against trans people today — in both severity and scale — are distinct from attacks the LGBTQ+ community has faced historically in West Virginia.
There's always been discrimination — sometimes violent — against LGBTQ+ individuals in West Virginia, Brightwell said, but never has it felt so central to the people in power in the state.
'These are people — a lot of them children — who are already struggling with discovering and exploring who they are,' Brightwell said. 'Now they're having to struggle with the fact that somebody in power is going to come along and say, you don't belong here, you can't get medical attention that we know will help you, you can't be who you are.'
Because of where these threats are coming from, Brightwell said Pride month has become more important than ever for providing visibility and community for individuals who may feel ostracized, isolated and potentially in danger because of their identities.
'We need to have celebrations, to come together so society can see we're just people. That who we love and who we are doesn't change that we're human,' Brightwell said. 'We're here and we're not going away. And I think that's the most important thing — we're not going anywhere. We're going to be here, together, and we're going to make sure we're keeping each other safe, educating each other and supporting each other in every way we can.'
In the state's Eastern Panhandle, 70-year-old Joanie Moossy took it upon herself this year to organize Shepherdstown's first ever Pride parade. The artist, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, said that in times like the current ones, it's become more important than ever to find joy with other members of the community.
'We are in a fight right now, and it's a hard fight — for some, it's literally for their lives — and it's a fight we've got to win, so to just have a moment of celebration [is important],' Moossy said. 'I just wanted everyone to have a really good time and to celebrate their place in the LGBTQ+ community and not feel alone or frightened or that we can't win when we're up against everything we are.'
Moossy spent most of her life in New York. When the pandemic hit, she decided to relocate to West Virginia, where her parents had previously lived for decades. In her first few years in the state, she helped organize an educational workshop with support from the national Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for members of the community on trans issues after some friends had a young family member who was dating someone who was trans. They needed help understanding and educating other family members on how to support the teenager and their partner in what could be a difficult time.
'It was amazing, like a transformational experience for a lot of people. We had other trans teens there, their family members, other community members who were really set on learning more and helping each other,' Moossy said. 'People were free to ask questions and that helped them understand something that a lot of them had never really encountered before.'
Now, years later, Moossy said she wanted a Pride parade for the town to come together and celebrate its LGBTQ+ members. That celebration, she said, wasn't just for the LGBTQ+ people, but for anyone who wanted to join. It quite literally, she said, was held in the spirit of everyone being welcome.
'It's not just the LGBTQ+ community coming, it's everyone,' Moossy said. 'It's representing the diversity of people in the community as well as those who support the community so everyone can see how many of us there are and remember what we all stand together for.'
In Charleston, Gosses said the city's large and month-long Pride events are held in the same vein.
He said Rainbow Pride keeps the event family-focused on purpose; it's important for him to ensure parents can bring their children — queer or not — to either educate them on the community or show them that there is a large, thriving group of people just like them in Charleston.
'We all remember what it was like when we were kids and we were struggling. We were looking for a place, and we didn't know what was going on. We were looking for identity. We were looking for community,' Gosses said. 'It happens every year and it's always so uplifting when a parent comes up to me and gives me a hug and says, 'Thank you for creating a safe space for my kid.''
Gosses said that the Pride flag — during June or not — is a ubiquitous symbol that shows everyone, adult or child, that they are welcome in the place flying it.
'The Pride flag is something that says we don't exclude people. We actually include people,' Gosses said. 'That symbolism is impactful and that's what I find all over the state: Everyday folks, even conservative-leaning folks, are embracing the LGBTQ+ community. It's just the extremes and then the extremes that are looking for political gain that like to villainize our community and beat up on trans folks.'
Recent years have sparked challenges for those within the LGBTQ+ community, but Gosses said they've also made it more important than ever to organize and stand up, loud and proud. And people — LGBTQ+ and not — are doing so.
Before President Donald Trump's first election in 2016, Gosses said there were fewer than five Pride groups active in West Virginia. Now, he said, there's 14.
And this year — as the state and federal government have made anti-LGBTQ+ issues central to several policies — Rainbow Pride has gotten more sponsors for its annual Pride Festival than in any other year.
'There are folks from all corners of the state just reaching out about getting involved, and we have so many volunteers that have stepped up to participate,' Gosses said.
Gosses said he was upset about the news in Huntington about the decision not to fly the Pride flag. It was worse, he said, than if the flag had never flown.
But because it had, it was like something was being taken away from the community.
Layman, in Huntington, echoed Gosses's thoughts. She said she hopes that everyone in Huntington can see that just because the city is opting out of flying a symbol of clear support for her community, that support is still there.
'Folks in the LGBTQ community, we're here 365 days a year, we're a part of the community. We're your neighbors, your doctors, your teachers, your friends,' Layman said. 'We are going to keep fighting for equality, and just because we're doing that doesn't mean we're trying to take anything away from anybody else. We're just trying to be as equal as our other neighbors, not more.'
As part of her celebration, Moossy said businesses throughout Shepherdstown are hanging Pride flags in their windows and others are flying them outside their home as a form of support and allyship.
In her younger days in New York, Moossy was friends with Gilbert Baker through the city's art community. Baker, a gay man, was the artist behind the original Pride flag.
Moossy was present for the first raising of that flag. She remembers the hope it spurred and saw the decades after, as it became the clear symbol it is today for love, acceptance and, obviously, LGBTQ+ pride.
'[Baker] is deceased now, but he worked very hard throughout his life to make this a ubiquitous symbol worldwide, and he succeeded. Knowing him was an inspiration to me that you can change the world,' Moossy said. 'It may not be an easy thing to make a cultural change, but it has been done, and it can be done, and the rainbow flag is a perfect example of that. We aren't going anywhere and we're going to keep fighting for everything this flag represents, wherever we are.'