South Carolina LGBTQ+ rights nonprofit Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA) is hosting a celebration at 6 p.m. Thursday at The View at Morrison Yard in Charleston to commemorate its 25-year anniversary. The event will also include the group’s vision for 2024 to highlight what comes next.
Eight people founded AFFA in 1998.
“At that time, the focus was the rights of lesbian and gay folks,” said current AFFA Executive Director Chase Glenn. “This was a community that felt, I think, invisible in a lot of ways. And the only time they were visible was when they were attacked.”
Warren Redman-Gress, one of four founding board members who also served for almost 15 years as AFFA executive director, said the group’s initial goal was to put itself out of business — to get to a point where this advocacy wasn’t needed.
AFFA’s future
Glenn said conversations the group is having now involve more inclusivity and acceptance of those whose rights are the most at risk, such as transgender and non-binary individuals. One case in point, he said, is the “very limited options for members of our trans community of any age to receive gender-affirming and medically necessary hormone therapy.” .
There’s a lot of work that still has to be done within the LGBTQ+ community, too, he added.
Co-founder and president Linda Ketner said the nonprofit was, at one point, resistant to including transgender – and even bisexual folks – under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. And Glenn said even now, AFFA must continue to ask itself, “How do we include the varied experiences and identities within the community?” He added, “I think we’re still, you know, figuring that out.”
When externally focused, AFFA is an education and advocacy organization, Glenn said, and it conducts different training sessions for governmental agencies and businesses on best practices when engaging with LGBTQ+ people. One recent strategy, for example, was a billboard campaign with slogans like “God loves trans kids.” Glenn said the goal was to take back the narrative on religious beliefs often used against the community.
Much to remember
Glenn said at the Oct. 12 event, there will be a specific ask to fund AFFA’s media campaign and Statehouse lobbying — and a commemoration of those who worked with AFFA when the climate was much less friendly to queer identities. He said it’ll be a place for “celebrating our accomplishments, but also holding space for the fact that we still have a long way to go.”
And there is much to celebrate.
“[The founders] never thought…in our wildest dreams,” Ketner said, that they might see “marriage equality in our lifetime.” But she advised lesbian, bisexual, and gay individuals not to get “too complacent” because of privileges they’ve been afforded, especially given the current political landscape of anti-trans and queer legislation filed by the S.C. Freedom Caucus.
Redman-Gress emphasized the ongoing nature of this fight. Though he said he is proud of all AFFA has done, “I’m gonna say that 25 years after we started, I was kind of hoping that the world would be in a better place for the LGBTQ community,” he told the Charleston City Paper.
Added Ketner, “We’ve won a lot, which means we stand to lose a lot.”
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.
