Women’s Center conducts social media campaign to raise awareness of LGBTQIA+ issues for Pride Month

MARQUETTE COUNTY — In recognition of Pride Month, the Women’s Center is conducting a social media campaign to raise awareness about issues faced by the LGBTQIA+ community.

Throughout the month of June, the Women’s Center is posting about each letter of the acronym. They detail the meaning behind it, as well as statistics about abuse people within that community endure.

Sexual Assault Advocate Hosanna Olah says awareness of these statistics is especially important because this community experiences higher rates of abuse than most.

“Statistically the queer community is at more risk of being assaulted or having a history of being assaulted, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking,” said Olah. “For intimate partner violence it’s something along the lines of 50% of gay men have experienced it and 75% of lesbian women have, so it’s a really common problem. We’ve been going through each letter and talking about it, and on every single post we have, ‘we are allies.’ We want everybody who’s in the queer community to know that we are inclusive to everyone.”

Earlier today, the Supreme Court voted in favor of workplace protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This landmark decision is a major step for the LGBT+ community, but there’s still a long way to go.

Olah says that’s why the Women’s Center has been making efforts toward being as inclusive and safe as possible for everyone.

“We’ve done a couple things over the last year,” said Olah. “We’ve been trying to update our resources and the way that we conduct our intakes. And for the intakes themselves the language has changed so that we can be more inclusive, just changing things with gender and stuff so that people feel comfortable. I think in every single one of our offices we have some form of ‘this is a safe space’ and the flag. We’re just trying to increase our visibility and really any way that we can.”

For more on what the Women’s Center is doing for Pride Month as well as resources they have available, visit their Facebook page.