LA LGBTQ+ Arts & Culture Coalition

CALLING ALL LGBTQ+ ARTISTS AND ARTS & CULTURE ORGANIZATIONS!

On July 15, 2025 join the LA LGBTQ+ Arts & Culture Coalition for its first convening to address the multiple crises impacting our sector including:

• Discriminatory executive orders targeting queer and trans communities
• Reckless dismantling of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
• Local and state budget cuts impacting arts and humanities funding

The convening will include:

• Presentation on the State of LGBTQ+ Arts in destructive times
• World Cafe roundtables to share stories and gather data about our communities’ critical needs at this time
• Networking
• Celebratory queer and trans arts performance!
• LUNCH PROVIDED

Registration required to attend. Open to LGBTQ+ arts and culture workers and organizations, allied organizations that produce LGBTQ+ arts programming, and individual artists.

Panelists:

• When: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
• Where: Los Angeles LGBT Center/The Village at Ed Gould Plaza
  1125 N McCadden Place, Los Angeles, CA 90038
• Agenda: Programs from 10 AM to 3 PM
  Optional networking hour 3 to 4 PM

Organizational Membership
To join this growing coalition, please reach out to Tony Valenzuela at [email protected]

18th Street Arts Center
Agua Dulce Productions
Arts for LA
California LGBT Arts Alliance
Celebration Theatre
Craft Contemporary
Drag Arts Lab
Drag King History
Feminist Center for Creative Work
The Goddess Mercado
HIV Writers Workshop
Junior High Los Angeles
JQ International
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE)
The Lavender Effect®
Los Angeles LGBT Center
Los Angeles Performance Practice
Los Angeles Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
One Institute
Out In the Streets Project
Outfest
The Outwords Archive
Pelvic Sanctuary
Pride Poets
Queer Biennial
The Queer Mercado
Rainbow Advocacy
The Social Impact Center
Society for Education & the Arts
Stripper Worker Center
Stripper Co-Op
Tom of Finland Foundation

Individual Membership

Dante Alecastre (he/him/el), Filmmaker
Jerri Allyn (she/he/shimmher), Artist
Badly Licked Bear (she/they)
Lynn Ballen
Ryan Ashley Caldwell, MA, PhD
N Daphne
Marsian De Lellis (they/them), Artist
Mo B. Dick (he/him), Drag King
Chiedu Egbuniwe (he/him)
Samantha Eisenberg (she/her)
Ruben Esparza, Artist/Curator
Kenneth Foster
Umi Hsu PhD (they/them)
Lane Igoudin, Ph.D. (he/him), Author
Tom Jacobson
Amelia Jones
William Kaiser
Ray Lopez-Chang
Amitis Motevalli (she/they)
Rasheed Newson (he/him)
John O’Brien, Gay Activist
OutlawPlay (Paul Outlaw) (he/him), Artist
Pickle (she/her/he/him)
Eric Pruitt (he/him)
Reagan, Actor
Steven Reigns
Cheryl Revkin (she/her)
Bennett Schnieder, Artist, Theater Artist, Activist
Amy Scholder, Producer
Brian Sonia-Wallace (he/they), poet
Kayla Tange, Artist
Don Tinling (he/him), Artist
Jaime Zavala

Mission

The LA LGBTQ+ Arts & Culture Coalition is a network of artists, organizers, and cultural institutions committed to uplifting LGBTQ+ voices and countering political, cultural, and institutional attacks on our communities.  We advance coordinated advocacy, resource sharing, and collective power building across the cultural sector.

Vision

We envision a world where Queer and Trans people live and create without fear—where full self-expression is met not with erasure, discrimination, and violence, but with recognition, celebration, and material support from the broader cultural landscape.

History

In 2025, following a wave of local and national rollbacks targeting LGBTQ+ rights—including arts institutions preemptively withdrawing support under political pressure—One Institute convened a group of LGBTQ+ artists, arts workers, organizations, and culture makers to respond. This cross-disciplinary gathering laid the groundwork for a lasting regional alliance dedicated to collective defense,  public visibility, creative resistance, and building power as a sector.

Goals + Objectives

• Build regional solidarity among LGBTQ+ artists, organizations, and allies.
• Protect queer and trans nonprofit organizations, artists, and creative workers by advocating for increased visibility, protections, and public investment in LGBTQ+ people and projects.
• Quantify and articulate the collective economic, social, and cultural impact of LGBTQ+ artists and institutions.
• Build public will and cultivate donor engagement for queer-led cultural work.