BISMARCK, – Pride Month is coming to North Dakota's capital city next weekend.

The state's LGBTQ community has events planned June 14 through 16 in Bismarck, including a riverboat cruise, drag show and multi-faith service and potluck. The community also is taking the celebration to the State Capitol lawn for the first time.

Matt Liedholm is treasurer with the group Dakota OutRight, which hosts Capital Pride. He says Pride used to take place outside of town, and having it in front of the Capitol is important because it shows the community feels comfortable there.

"Let's go to the most visible symbol of our community and have it there,” says Liedholm. “So that went into our thinking. So much of our fight is in that state Capitol here in North Dakota and so, let's bring our celebration there as well."

Pride on the Capitol lawn is June 15 at 11 a.m.. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot in New York City – often recognized as the beginning of the modern-day LGBTQ movement.

New York's police commissioner recently apologized for the department's treatment of gay, lesbian and transgender patrons of the Stonewall Inn, who became fed up with harassment and pushed back against police in June 1969. Liedholm says the community in North Dakota no longer deals with harassment like that, but often faces other indignities.

"Incorrect marriage certificates, struggles with adoption, struggles with employers and landlords, things like that,” says Liedholm. “We see this as a continuation of that struggle, which was formally started 50 years ago and absolutely continues today."

Liedholm also believes state legislators have ramped up anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in recent years, which he doesn't think matches North Dakotans' welcoming spirit. For the fifth session in a row, lawmakers voted down a measure that would have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation in areas like employment and housing.


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As Pride Month comes to a close and Disability Pride Month begins, advocates are raising awareness about the intersection of being LGBTQ+ and having a disability.

For many LGBTQ+ Americans, marriage equality came in 2015 when the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges. But for people with disabilities, marriage can impact eligibility for certain Social Security benefits.

Chris Fagan is a self-advocate and president of People First St. Joseph. He said that's an obstacle for people who rely on those benefits.

"I have a boyfriend that is not only my boyfriend, but he is my best friend too," said Fagan. "We have needs also, and we also should be able to marry each other if we want to."

Author Sean Gold, an advocate for the disability community who is nonverbal, echoes the need for fully inclusive marriage equality.

He noted, "We fight for so much change, but with every big issue, even with Roe v. Wade, until we connect with how these issues connect with the disability community, nothing will change."

A bill has been introduced in Congress to eliminate a requirement that adults with disabilities remain single to receive Social Security benefits from a parent's earnings record.

Jessie Eikmann, a grocery store worker and poet from St. Louis, said among people without disabilities, there's often a lot of sexual gatekeeping of those with disabilities and false assumptions.

"They just assume that people like me with disabilities," said Eikmann, "that they really can't decide whether they're queer first of all, which is just silly to me, or that they just don't have sex."

Studies estimate 3 to 5 million LGBTQ+ Americans have a disability, and can face unique challenges - from limited access to fully inclusive health care and community services, to added barriers to employment and disproportionate incarceration.

For instance, 40% of incarcerated women identify as LGBTQ+, and nearly half of women in jail reported a disability.

June is Pride Month, and businesses are showing their support for the LGBTQ community in a number of ways. But some corporations are being called out for also supporting anti-LGBTQ candidates for office.

Ian Morton is the executive director of the Q Center in Portland. He said his community has come a long way from the days when participants in Pride parades couldn't show their faces for fear of retaliation from their employers.

But he added that the hypocrisy of some companies' support this month is disappointing.

"Seeing organizations who are willing to stand against the community that they would purport to serve or to celebrate," said Morton, "makes the LGBTQ+ community very wary of where they put their support, and whether that rainbow flag that goes up for the 30 days - if that's actually meaningful, or if it's just performative."

A report from last year found 25 major corporations that showed support during pride had also given a total of $10 million in donations to support members of Congress who earned a 'zero' rating on the Human Rights Campaign scorecard.

Craig Hill is the client and treasury manager with Beneficial State Bank, which works with the Q Center. He said his bank strives to work in service of social equity and environmental sustainability.

Hill said he thinks it's misleading for companies to hoist rainbow flags and, at the same time, support discriminatory policies at the legislative level.

"Some of the nation's biggest banks, for example, fund anti-LGBTQ+ policies with their political donations," said Hill, "despite publicly supporting those agendas and sponsoring Pride Month events. It's really a form of 'rainbow washing,' if we're being honest."

Hill said people can use websites like Mighty Deposit to find out how their financial institutions are using their money.

Morton said it's helpful to know he's working with companies that align with his own values.

"Having those moments whenever you recognize that the folks you're doing business with actually have concern about your community's wellbeing and want to show up in meaningful ways," said Morton, "that helps folks, especially in the nonprofit sector and in the advocacy sector, to give them the energy to soldier on."

Oral arguments were held this week on an appeal blocking an Arkansas law from going into effect. The law would prevent young people from getting gender-affirming health care.

Act 626 of 2021 banned health care professionals from providing or referring transgender youth for medical care.

The ACLU of Arkansas filed suit against the state, and a federal judge in the Eastern District of Arkansas granted a preliminary injunction last July.

Now, the state is appealing the decision, saying gender-affirming care is experimental and potentially harmful to youth.

Sarah Everett, policy director for the ACLU of Arkansas, said the clients they represent in the case believe this kind of care has been lifesaving.

"Gender dysphoria is a difficult problem to live with as a young person, especially when you add the kind of bullying and discrimination they face on top of that," Everett observed. "Gender-affirming care helps to bring their physical appearance into alignment with their gender identity."

The Arkansas Legislature overrode a veto of the act last year by Gov. Asa Hutchinson. The act would also permit private insurers to refuse to cover gender-affirming care for transgender people of any age.

Arkansas was the first state to pass a ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. Since then, an Alabama law has gone into effect and lawmakers in other states have introduced similar legislation. Everett sees the case as a possible litmus test for health care access for transgender youth on a national level.

"We hope that our District Court decision would deter other states from doing the same," Everett stressed. "And we hope that a good decision from the Eighth Circuit will cement the fact that kids have a right to receive this care, not to be discriminated against simply because they're transgender."

U.S. District Court Judge James M. Moody, Jr., who temporarily blocked Act 626 from going into effect, is scheduled to hear the case, Brandt v. Rutledge, this October.