Blog Post
Organizations Serving the Black LGBTQ+ Community
To Black Queer Youth — you are loved. Be strong and know that there are people and organizations fighting tooth and nail every single day to support your right to exist. The It Gets Better Project will be by your side until justice prevails and will continue to fight for a world where all LGBTQ+ people are free to live equally and know their worthiness and power as individuals.
Below is list of organizations specifically serving Black queer communities throughout the United States. Please reach out to these organizations and use their services if you’re in need. You are not alone. Thank you to Raquel Willis and others who are using social media to inform our community of these resources. Also, please check out our Moments of Power blog, featuring stories from leaders in the Black LGBTQ+ community.
Last Updated: July 29, 2020
A social justice organization serving the needs of the Black LGBTQ+ community with a particular focus on Black women.
African American Office of Gay Concerns
The AAOGC provides HIV/AIDS prevention services that has been designed to target and appeal to queer men, their friends, and their partners. They promote leadership, community service, and accountability in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change (AALUSC)
ALLUSC is a member-led community group focused on the needs and concerns of lesbians of color.
Celebrates and nurtures vibrant queer people of color communities in Texas and beyond. They use cultural arts, wellness, and social justice programming to: support artists and artistic expression, promote health within a wellness model, and mobilize coalitions among groups marginalized by race, gender, and sexuality in order to enact change.
Offers bilingual programs that focus on ending violence for those who identify as LGBTQ+ and/or are living with HIV/AIDS.
An LGBTQ+, Two-Spirit, and Gender-Nonconforming People of Color community organizing center focusing on the New York City area.
Working to end the Black HIV epidemic through policy, advocacy, and high-quality direct HIV services.
Black And Latino LGBTQ Coalition
This group aims to: advocate for equity in city and state funding for their membership, establish a community pride center in Harlem, secure senior housing, and secure protections for immigrants in the community. Furthermore, they advocate for equity in housing, employment and overall treatment for Transgender community members and organizations.
Dedicated to eradicating the prison-industrial complex. Connects with LGBTQ+ prisoners and offers various outreach programs, including a network of penpals. Chapters located all across the United States
Black Queer & Intersectional Collective
This collective uses grassroots organizing and community outreach to promote the well being of all Black LGBTQ+ people in central Ohio.
Aims for social and political equality for all Black transmen.
BTWI has committed to empowerment, providing the trans-feminine community with programs and resources to help inspire individual growth and contributions to the greater good of society.
Black Trans Advocacy Coalition
The BTAC consists of a national advocacy center and affiliate state chapters. They work daily to end poverty, health inequity, and racist housing and employment systems to improve the lived experience of transgender people. Our work is based in peace building, community education, public policy initiatives, empowerment programs and direct services.
Trans women of color often face extreme danger while traveling. This fund provides alternative methods of travel that are deemed safer for this community.
In Minnesota, the Black Visions Collective aims to dismantle unjust systems. Its goal is to create safe communities that support their Black and queer residents.
BSA provides a variety of programs to uplift queer and trans voices, especially those of color. It also provides workshops and trainings to the greater Chicago area.
Invests in QTPoC and their communities to provide social gatherings and a support network.
Works to rewrite the conversations around gender among people of color.
Provides AIDS services to African-Americans in Indiana.
A coalition of Black gay pride organizers formed to promote a multinational network of LGBTQ+ Prides and community-based organizations.
Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus
Identifies social-structural forces that impact the community’s health, supports transformation of these forces at the policy level, and activates community members as public health leaders. The organization’s goals include eliminating HIV within their community.
Promotes equality and inclusion for Dallas’s LGBTQ+ community, specifically its Black members. Hosts events for Pride and Juneteenth.
NYC prisons have extremely high rates of COVID-19. This fund aims to post bail for LGBTQ+ people awaiting trial who are unable to post bail.
Increases power and leadership opportunities for young QTPoC in the NYC area.
Approaching the health and rights crises faced by transgender sex workers holistically using harm reduction, human rights principles, economic and social justice, along with a commitment to empowerment and pride in finding solutions from our own community.
Gay Professional Men of Color (GPMC)
An organization that aims to provide respectful and positive spaces, where gay, bisexual, trans men, and questioning (“GBTQ”) professional men of color can come together with like-minded individuals.
Creating safe and transformative spaces for community to heal, and nurturing them into tomorrow’s leaders, focusing on trans women of color in the South.
Provides direct services for LGBTQ+ immigrants in the United States. Their work consists of legal support, political advocacy, and the promotion of litigation that supports justice and equality.
Focusing on Abolition Feminism, these activists of color aim to end community and state-sanctioned violence.
Hosts regular meetings, events, and festivals to promote pride for Kentucky’s Black and Queer population. Provides LGBTQ+ counseling, mental health evaluations, HIV/AIDS awareness, family assistance, back to school support, and a feed the hungry program.
Although the group encompasses many ethnic and spiritual backgrounds, the choir provides a special ministry to black lesbians and gays. They produce two full concerts a year and frequently appear as guests at community functions from church services to Gay Pride rallies.
Aims to protect the legal rights of the LGBTQ+ community. It invests in community support and one-on-one advocacy.
Posts bail for LGBTQ people held in jail or immigrant detention and raises awareness of the epidemic of LGBTQ overincarceration.
Named after a Stonewall icon, the Institute aims to support Black, trans people through collective power.
NBP brings together LGBTQ+ and African-American people in a social, empowering setting to uplift a healthy community. This is done through various forums, events, workshops, couples’ recognition, HIV and STI testing, and a Black LGBT Film and Cultural Festival.
National AIDS Education and Services for Minorities
The mission of NAESM is to provide national and local leadership to address the myriad of health and wellness issues confronted by Black gay men through advocacy, services, and education.
National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC)
A civil rights organization dedicated to the empowerment of Black LGBTQ and same-gender loving (SGL) people, including people living with HIV/AIDS. As America’s leading national Black LGBTQ/SGL civil rights organization focused on federal public policy, NBJC has accepted the charge to lead Black families in strengthening the bonds and bridging the gaps between the movements for racial justice and LGBTQ/SGL equality.
National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network
Provides mental health services for QTPoC. Hopes to increase healing justice resources on a national scale.
Collective that seeks to address the global crisis faced by Black Trans people by bringing home-cooked meals and resources to the community.
A Pride organization working to transform the living and social environments of people of color by creating multicultural opportunities that educate, inspire, improve and celebrate the experiences of LGBTQ individuals through programs, policy, advocacy, partnerships and relationship building.
Offers leadership opportunities and training programs for QTPoC. Its programs help increase the racial diversity within the gay rights movement. This includes DEI outreach to LGBTQ+ organizations and nonprofits.
Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project
Inspires queer women of color to promote social justice through filmmaking and artistic endeavors. Provides support for those interested in promoting equity within these fields.
An organization working to engage and empower young LGBTQ people of color and their communities.
RedBone Press publishes work celebrating the cultures of black lesbians and gay men, and work that further promotes understanding between black gays and lesbians and the black mainstream.
Builds power of Black trans and queer people to force systemic divestment from the prison industrial complex and invest in community support.
Unifying and celebrating the diversity, creativity, and beauty of South Carolina’s LGBTQ+ communities of color and their supporters in order to empower and promote the human rights of all families and communities.
Southerners on New Ground (SONG)
An organization working to build, sustain, and connect a southern regional base of LBGTQ people in order to transform the region through strategic projects and campaigns developed in response to the current conditions in our communities.
A collective organization that protects the gender spectrum and those who fall on it. This is done by providing outreach and legal services to low-income and POC who do not identify as cisgender.
The world’s first-ever legally recognized trans district, which aims to stabilize and economically empowers the trans community.
Using legal expertise, this organization aims to protect the lives of trans, gender non-conforming, and gender non-binary people. This is accomplished through racial justice and community support.
Community-led funding initiative to support grassroots trans justice groups run by and for trans people.
Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC)
Advancing justice for all trans people of color. We amplify our stories, support our leadership, and challenge issues of racism, transphobia, and transmisogyny. TPOCC envisions a world where trans people of color can live and work in safety, where health and economic equity are basic rights, and we are celebrated for our visibility and leadership in our workplaces, homes, and communities.
Trans Women of Color Collective
Uses art, healing, and thorough support to protect and lift up trans women of color who have been disenfranchised or victimized by violence.
Works to end the criminalization of LGBTQ youth in New Orleans to build a safer and more just community.
A national advocacy organization for Black lesbians that was created to address the needs of Black lesbians in the areas of health, public policy, economic development, and education.
If any of the information we’ve provided here is incorrect, or if there are organizations that we have failed to include, please notify our staff at info@itgetsbetter.org. To search for organizations serving LGBTQ+ youth in general, please visit itgetsbetter.org/GetHelp.