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“Let’s Get Better Together in Quarantine”: Side By Side’s LGBTQ Challenge

Jamie McEachin | October 23, 2020

Topics: Capital One, coronavirus, COVID-19, LGBTQ Challenge, quarantine, Side By Side, Ted Lewis

Why not make use of this time in quarantine? That’s the question Side by Side, a LGBTQ youth non-profit, is posing to their community. The organization is challenging Richmond to engage in self-improvement, and to raise $30,000 in the process. 

The challenge began Oct. 11, on National Coming Out Day, and will continue until Friday, Nov. 13. “Let’s Get Better Together in Quarantine” is sponsored by Capital One and is a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign for Side by Side and LGBTQ youth in Virginia. 

“We’re excited to create an engaging, socially-distant event that builds community,” Side by Side executive director Ted Lewis told RVAHub. “All the money raised will go to support LGBTQ+ youth living in Virginia.” 

The challenge is calling for participants to raise money while committing to self-betterment goals, beginning with an entry fee of $25. Side by Side is encouraging challengers to set goals for physical fitness, intellectual growth, home improvement, civic engagement, and artistic endeavors. 

Some examples of goals, provided by Side by Side on their website, include running or walking every day of the challenge, learning more about racial inequity and social justice, organizing closets, signing up to be a poll worker or to canvass voters, and learning 30 TikTok dances. 

Side by Side wants participants to share their goals and get their friends and families involved in the challenge, either by participating themselves or donating to their campaigns. 

During the 30 days of the challenge, Side by Side will be hosting virtual events on social media with local businesses or entertainment figures that have worked with the non-profit in the past. For the event’s participants, a local business will donate a prize to be won with a raffle. At the end of the challenge, Side by Side will give a “grand prize” to the individual or team that raised the most money for the cause. 

The funds raised by the challenge will go to LGBTQ youth in Virginia.

This project is a continuation of the mission of Side by Side, which “is dedicated to creating supportive communities where Virginia’s LGBTQ+ youth can define themselves, belong, and flourish.”

To donate or register for Side By Side’s LGBTQ Challenge, go to secure.frontstream.com/lgbtqchallenge.

Image via Side By Side/Facebook

Socially Distanced, But Still Side By Side

Marilyn Drew Necci | July 23, 2020

Topics: Catalyst Awards, Dr. Archana Pathak, Ginter Park Baptist Church, Mosaic, Natasha Carrington, Side By Side, Springtime In The Summer, Stonewall Sports, Ted Lewis

Side By Side’s Springtime In The Summer fundraiser, originally scheduled to take place in May, will now take place August 1, with a combination of online events and socially distanced catering.

You can’t keep a good support group down, and Side By Side is proving that by finding ingenious ways to hold their annual springtime fundraiser regardless of what 2020 throws at us. Now known as Springtime In The Summer, the fundraiser, originally scheduled for May, will be taking place online on Saturday, August 1.

“We know the last few months have been extremely tough for people as the pandemic continues and the region and nation grapples with violence against Black people and systemic racism,” said Side by Side executive director Ted Lewis in a statement. “We hope Springtime gives people a chance to come together virtually to find community during this time. We also know nonprofits are not immune to the virus’ impact on the economy. Side by Side needs the community’s help more than ever to continue our mission to support LGBTQ+ youth living in Virginia.”

That community will have the opportunity to come together online starting on Monday, July 27, when Side By Side launches an online auction featuring some impressive items, including everything from a vacation home in Costa Rica to a basket of handblown ornaments designed by Patricia Breen, as well as “a collection of 30 fabulously fancy socks.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see that last one. The auction will close on August 1 at 11 PM.

Also on August 1, starting at 7 PM, Side By Side will take to Facebook live for a ceremony honoring 2020’s Catalyst Award recipients. Those honorees include:

  • Dr. Archana Pathak, who helped launch VCU’s LGBTQ+ Studies minor in 2019, and is the Interim Director for Q Collective, VCU’s LGBTQ resource and scholarship center.
  • Stonewall Sports Richmond, a nonprofit sports league for LGBTQ individuals and allies, who works toward creating a supportive and inclusive environment for sports and activities, and has also raised over $50,000 for other LGBTQ nonprofits.
  • Ginter Park Baptist Church, an LGBTQ-affirming congregation located in Northside Richmond, which regularly contributes to Side By Side’s meal program, offering a healthy meal to youth attending support groups at Side By Side.

Thankfully, despite the fact that the event will take place online, Side By Side has managed to ensure that all attendees can receive a catered dinner from Mosaic as part of their Catalyst Awards online experience. For $100, attendees can order a take-home dinner for two package that will include starters, entrees, sides, dessert, and either a bottle of wine, a six-pack of Hardywood beer, or Perrier. Orders can be placed by going to sidebysideva.org/springtime-2020-menu, and must be placed by Tuesday, July 28.

Order pickups will be available between 10 AM and 2 PM on the day of the ceremony, Saturday August 1, at Mosaic’s location at 3001 Cutshaw Ave in the Museum District. Local drag performer Natasha Carrington will be in attendance handing out orders, thereby ensuring that your meal experience is not only socially distanced but as fabulous as possible.

This fundraiser, which is presented by Altria, will help ensure that Side By Side can continue their work supporting and advocating for the LGBTQ youth of Central Virginia, an especially important task in this time of pandemic and protest against police violence. Be sure to show them your support, as their work will help ensure that the next generation of the LGBTQ community grows up as happy and healthy as possible.

Photo via Side By Side/Facebook

Pride Of Place

Noah Daboul | July 6, 2020

Topics: Claiborne Mason Warner, LGBTQ homelessness, LGBTQ youth, Pride Place, Side By Side, Ted Lewis, Virginia Home For Boys And Girls

Virginia nonprofits Side By Side and Virginia Home for Boys and Girls team up to tackle LGBTQ youth homelessness with Pride Place.

Virginia nonprofit organizations Side By Side and the Virginia Home for Boys and Girls have teamed up to create new housing spaces for LGBTQ youth facing homelessness. These new spaces are called Pride Place; they are two homes on the VHBG campus that will house up to four LGBTQ youth between the ages of 18 and 25. 

“We were seeing time and time again LGBTQ young folks sort of left out of the system,” said Ted Lewis, the Executive Director of Side By Side.

In a press release, Lewis and Claiborne Mason Warner, the president of VHBG, said that homelessness disproportionately affects LGBTQ youth, as 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ despite only making up 9 percent of the total population.

“In 2019, Side By Side launched the Host Home program, which places a young person who is experiencing homelessness in a person’s home until they reached a place of stability. Think of it as ‘AirBnB without a fee,’” said Lewis, “We realized pretty quickly that we needed more diverse options, and we were fortunate enough to be connected with VHBG, who had homes on their campus that they were looking to better utilize. So we formed the partnership for Pride Place.”

Ted Lewis and Claiborne Mason Warner mount a rainbow flag at Pride Place

Side By Side is a Virginian nonprofit organization that focuses on supporting LGBTQ youth through resources like counseling, support groups, therapy, and parent/guardian relations. The Virginia Home for Boys and Girls is a nonprofit that focuses on tackling traumatic and abusive home situations young people may face.

“The plight of youth who have suffered from trauma and abuse is really the common thread among the children and young adults we serve,” said Mason Warner. Youth homelessness is not the main issue that VHBG tackles, but is part of their mission to help youth. 

“We have a 30 acre campus that provides kids a place to live, learn, and receive the therapeutic support they need,” said Mason Warner. “Children who turn 18 can opt into a program like ours and continue to receive some support. Their part of the bargain is that they either continue their education or get a job, and we provide support services, therapy, or just teaching the everyday basics of living independently — how to get on the bus system and access public transportation, how to make a grocery list, how to make a budget, that type of thing.”

Similarly, Side By Side offers resources for LGBTQ youth facing similar situations.

“We work to create supportive spaces for youth,” said Lewis. “That could be in our support groups, counseling services, the Host Home program, etc.”

Like VHBG, homelessness is not the main issue that Side By Side tackles, but it is still part of their mission with LGBTQ youth, said Lewis. 

“Our support groups have always been a preventative effort. If we can give young people space to come out in an affirming and safe way, and we can also provide support to their parents and caregivers, they’re less likely to be disowned and disconnected to family. We are still seeing folks who are disconnected from their family for any number of reasons, often because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity,” they said. “We kept seeing young adults — over 18 but under 25 — who would come to our center seeking support and looking for a place to stay, and while the Homelessness Services System in Richmond is there, it’s not really affirming for LGBTQ+ people and young people.”

Ted Lewis, Pride Place Director Karen Swansey, and Claiborne Mason Warner practice social distancing at Pride Place

Similar to Side By Side’s Host Home program, Pride Place at VHBG will offer transitional housing for youth facing homelessness. At no cost to the participant, they will be able to receive the support they may need and learn the lessons and skills they will need to start a new chapter of their life and thrive in the adult world.

“I’m a member of the LGBTQ community myself, and I wanted to ensure that the young people in our community were able to not just survive but thrive,” said Lewis.

All Photos courtesy Virginia Home For Boys & Girls and Side By Side

How Richmond’s LGBTQ Nonprofits Prep For Pandemic Life

Zoe Hall | May 21, 2020

Topics: Bill Harrison, coronavirus, covid 19, Diversity Richmond, Diversity Thrift, Ebony Kirkland, LGBTQ nonprofits, Nationz Foundation, Side By Side, Ted Lewis, Virginia Anti-Violence Project, Zakia McKensey

Nonprofits dedicated to helping Richmond’s LGBTQ community contemplate reopening, having taken serious financial losses, all while developing new ways to reach those in need. 

On May 5, Diversity Thrift posted a photo to Facebook of employees Ivan and Darren, beaming behind face masks, holding up one of the store’s new plexiglass partitions. “We can’t wait to see you!” the post reads.

But as counties across Virginia tiptoe into Phase One of Gov. Northam’s plan for reopening, Richmonders will have to wait a bit before they go thrifting. “We aren’t going to reopen until we feel completely safe in doing that,” said Bill Harrison, Executive Director of Diversity Richmond.

Photo via Diversity Thrift/Facebook

Employees at Diversity Thrift are doing everything they can to prepare, from setting up hand sanitizer stations to developing a system that will ensure the store never goes above 50 percent capacity. “[We’ll] have someone at the entrance counting the number of people coming in, and then when people leave we can let more in,” Harrison explained. 

If all goes as planned, Diversity Thrift will reopen in mid-June. This will mean renewed funding for Diversity Richmond, which relies on the thrift store as their main source of income. “We’ve lost significant revenue in the last five weeks, but I feel confident we’ll make that up,” said Harrison.

Without the ability to sell vintage sofas or host events like Drag Bingo, Diversity Richmond welcomes new ways to engage with the community. People can book appointments to raid Diversity Thrift’s fabric stash for face mask material, which Harrison is adamant about giving away for free. Recently, they got a different sort of request.

“One of our volunteers actually works with the Virginia Department of Health and he called and said, ‘Can the health department use the event hall for news conferences?’ And we were delighted to do that,” said Harrison. Soon after, the Richmond City and Henrico County Health Districts scheduled a free COVID-19 testing event at Diversity Richmond’s event hall on Sherwood Ave, which occurred on May 19.

Many nonprofits are seeing an increase in clients and a decrease in donations as unemployment rises in the country. Those who identify as LGBTQ are facing unique challenges and need the help of local organizations like Diversity Richmond, PFLAG, or He She Ze and We Richmond, which are working harder than ever to provide services.

Photo via Side By Side/Facebook

Side by Side, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting LGBTQ youth in Virginia, hosts seven support groups for youth of all ages and identities, four of which meet at their brightly-painted building just past Scott’s Addition. Since COVID-19, these groups shifted to meeting virtually on Zoom, which comes with its own set of challenges.

While Zoom is easy to use and doesn’t cost participants anything, not all youth have internet access or private space to participate. “We also recognize that a lot of our youth are on their computer all day for school, and Zoom fatigue is real,” said Ted Lewis, Executive Director at Side by Side.

To combat Zoom fatigue, Side by Side incorporates fun activities into the weekly support groups in addition to the usual curriculum. Activities include charades, Netflix Watch Party, and even a “virtual pet talent show,” which is mostly a chance for students to show off their pets.

They initially saw a decrease in participation among those without internet access or private space, but numbers have been steadily rising. “The ability to potentially hide who you are is easier when you’re not together all the time,” Lewis explained. “And so we’ve had families who have been supportive of their child coming out and have reached out to us… and then we’ve had youths who have reached out and said, ‘I came out to my family, and I’m looking for some help.’”

For safety reasons, Side by Side is in no rush to return to face-to-face support groups. Their Host Home Program, aimed at helping homeless LGTBQ youth, will likely be handled differently. “If there’s clear guidance that it’s okay to add someone to a household, we would potentially explore those options,” Lewis said. “Because that’s one person joining one household, vs. 40 young people coming to a youth center.”

“We’re already seeing an increase in young adults reaching out for support who are experiencing homelessness or housing instability,” they continued. If Virginia’s eviction ban lifts at the end of this month, that number will likely increase exponentially. Side by Side is in desperate need of host homes or volunteers with a spare room who can take in a young adult when this happens.

Photo via Nationz Foundation/Facebook

Side by Side partners with Nationz Foundation and the Virginia Anti-Violence Project to provide housing for youth. In addition, Nationz has an emergency housing program called the Aim to Inspire Project, which provides housing for the LGBTQ community at large along with transportation to medical appointments. 

Back in March, Nationz Executive Director Zakia McKensey was getting ready to open the newest addition to Nationz’s services: a three-bedroom house in the North Side, equipped with bunk beds for those who need them. 

“By the time contractors had started doing what they needed to do and we were beginning to furnish the house, that’s when COVID-19 hit,” she said. “We had to halt on what we were doing with the house to make sure that I kept the doors of my business open.”

You may have seen McKensey’s business in action, rolling through Richmond RV-style. Nationz’s mobile testing units can provide free HIV tests and food pantry services for up to 60 people a week. 

“The main reason for us having those is to keep people where they are, who may not have access to transportation, or who may be in areas where they need testing but it’s not really a priority,” McKensey said.

With social distancing in place, they now serve only 10-15 in-office customers a week. “That’s the biggest hit that we’re taking,” she said. Luckily, Nationz did not have to lay anybody off, and has permission to redirect grant money however they see fit. They are the only non-profit in Central Virginia who continues to provide free HIV testing services through COVID-19. 

Patients who book an appointment will have the office to themselves. They will be provided a mask if they don’t have one, stand on a freshly cleaned floor, and get their forehead scanned by an infrared thermometer. Within 45 minutes, they’re good to go.

“When everything first happened, like everyone else, we were really up in arms trying to figure out what programming was going to look like,” McKensey said. Despite taking big losses, Nationz hasn’t skipped a beat. “I think it just gave us a way to think about how we provide services to people.”

Photo via Virginia Anti-Violence Project/Facebook

Richmond LGBTQ nonprofits keep in close contact. “We’re all partners!” said Ebony Kirkland, Program Director of the Virginia Anti-Violence Project, who is used to working with partner organizations to provide services like emergency housing and accompaniment. “Now, it’s more of a prep, ‘what can you expect while you’re there,’ and let’s follow up afterwards,” she said.

While the VAVP has a great variety of virtual support options (like Queer Healthy Love, their healthy relationship skills course), Kirkland reassured those in need. “You don’t have to be in an unsafe situation just because of the stay at home order,” she said. “We can book a hotel room for you and call a Lyft.”

She emphasized the importance of supporting organizations run by and dedicated to people of color, who often have access to fewer resources. “It’s a lot of times a challenge for smaller nonprofit organizations, especially those that are led by black people [and] brown people, to receive adequate funding and visibility within the communities that they’re working so hard within,” she said.

“We’re working with what we have, we could certainly stand to have more,” Kirkland added. She does, however, find hope in the transformative opportunity of pandemic life. “What do we want? Let’s make it happen! This is the time!” she said. “Let’s break it, and make it into what we know that it’s supposed to be.”

Without the ability to host regular fundraising events, Diversity Richmond, Side by Side, Nationz, and the VAVP all mentioned donations as one of their biggest needs. Donations keep the lights on, pay salaries, and provide employees with personal protective equipment. Consider donating in June, Pride Month, to help our friends and allies.

You can reach Side by Side’s youth support line at 888-644-4390. 
Apply for the Host Home Program on their website, sidebysideva.org. 
Make a donation by visiting their website or Facebook page.

Donate to the Nationz Foundation by visiting their website, nationzfoundationrva.org, or on their Facebook page. 

Donate to Diversity Richmond on their website, diversityrichmond.org, or on Facebook.

Donate to the Virginia Anti-Violence Project on their website, virginiaavp.org, where you can also request a training.

Top Image by Zoe Hall

TIES Summit Provides Resources, Highlights Needs of Trans People of Color

VCU CNS | October 28, 2019

Topics: Equality Virginia, James Parrish, Justina Hall, Nationz Foundation, Ted Lewis, TIES, Transgender Information and Empowerment Summit, transgender people of color, University of Richmond, Xemi Tapepechul

Equality Virginia’s sixth Transgender Information and Empowerment Summit put significant focus on the needs of transgender people of color, who are at significantly higher risk for violence and discrimination.

Hundreds of transgender people and their allies recently gathered in Richmond for a trans conference focused on providing resources to the LGBTQ community. 

Equality Virginia held its sixth Transgender Information and Empowerment Summit on Saturday, October 19, for the first time at the University of Richmond. Organizers said the summit is held annually to give Virginia’s transgender community a safe space where they can learn and gain resources. 

Attendees had access to free legal resources, such as name or gender change guidance, as well as free medical and mental health consultations. There were around 40 workshops that focused on housing issues in the transgender community, LGBTQ suicide prevention, advocacy, and other relevant topics.

This year’s summit introduced a couple of events designed with transgender people of color in mind. First, the summit held a panel that included prominent transgender people of color to speak on issues that affect them. The panel also focused on educating the public about how to include transgender persons of color into LGBTQ conversation and events.

“As we know, but the story is not often told, much of the groundbreaking LGBTQ grassroots has been by trans and non-binary people of color, ” said James Parrish, executive director of Equality Virginia. “Yet rarely are their contributions recognized.”

Left to right: Panelists Xemi Tapepechul, Justina Hall, and Nathaniel Preston talked about how important to include trans, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary people of color into LGBTQ spaces. Moderated by Olive Gallmeyer. (Photo by Christopher Brown)

Panelists answered questions from the moderator and audience, including inquiries about medical assistance for transgender patients and helping transgender youth. 

“We just need more inclusive groups and counselors who go through LGBTQ-affirming training,” said panelist Justina Hall, youth peer navigator for Virginia-based Nationz Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides health and wellness for the LGBTQ community. “Understand that sometimes people don’t have the language to place what they’re experiencing and going through.”

According to the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group working to protect the LGBTQ community’s civil rights, transgender women of color are more likely to be victims of murder compared to non-transgender women of color. The organization said the “intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and unchecked access to guns,” also makes it harder for transgender people of color to gain employment, housing and health care.

“I think a big reason that the murder rate is very high for trans women of color, in particular, is that we often don’t see transgender women as women,” said Ted Lewis, the executive director of Side By Side, which provides support to LGBTQ youth. “I think as you lay on multiple underrepresented repressed identities — being a woman, being transgender, being a person of color, being black within that sort of umbrella — it gets hard, real fast.”

The summit included a People of Color lounge, which allowed trans and non-trans people of color to gather, and workshops geared toward trans people of color.

“Respectful United: Allyship without Tokenism” addressed what non-people of color can do to make an environment inclusive. The workshop discussed hows to avoid tokenism — a symbolic effort, which is more about appearance than actual inclusion — when including trans, gender-nonconforming and non-binary people of color. Another session was geared toward the Spanish-speaking transgender community, while another highlighted how LGBTQ organizations can better maintain “anti-racism” spaces.

“Two main things that I feel like [are] missed a lot in these types of conferences are the inclusion of transgender women of color, and the inclusion of non-English speakers,” said Xemi Tapepechul, D.C. performing artist.

James Parrish. Photo Courtesy Equality Virginia

Other sessions included “Trans Voting Rights 101” and “Power to the People: Advocating for Trans Equality,” which highlighted the importance of the transgender community to get out the vote and show up at polls. The American Civil Liberties Union said transgender voters should have an equal opportunity to choose candidates who fight for their rights, and that having an ID that doesn’t match your gender identity should not affect your right to cast a ballot. 

“We don’t even want people hesitating about it, because then they might not vote,” said Parrish. “And we need everybody to vote.”

According to Parrish, Equality Virginia has been working to make sure that Virginians have registered to vote in their communities, along with letting voters know which candidates are pro-LGBTQ, so Virginia can have “a more supportive General Assembly.” The organization recently formed the Virginia Values Coalition, which is calling on state lawmakers to establish legal protections for the LGBTQ community, from employment and housing to public spaces like stores or restaurants. 

“We hope to arrive at the General Assembly with thousands of people behind us,” Parrish previously told Capital News Service. 

Written by Christopher Brown, Capital News Service. Top Photo: Christopher Brown, via CNS

Children Are The Future: VA Pride Firework Award Honoree Ted Lewis Provides Crucial Support For VA’s LGBTQ Youth

Marilyn Drew Necci | October 7, 2019

Topics: Fall 2019 Pride Guide, Firework Award, intersectionality, Side By Side, Ted Lewis, University of Richmond, va pride, VA PrideFest

Our 2019 Fall Pride Guide, in collaboration with VA Pride, is out now! In this article from the magazine, we learn more about this year’s VA Pride Firework honoree, Side By Side Executive Director Ted Lewis.

You might know this year’s VA Pride Firework Award honoree, Ted Lewis, from their work as Executive Director for Side By Side: Richmond’s long-running center for Virginia’s LGBTQ youth. You might know them from their work establishing the LGBTQ Campus Life program at the University of Richmond, or for their locally-focused activism on a variety of issues at the intersection of race, gender, and identity.

But for Lewis, their connection to advocacy goes back much further than that, all the way to their childhood. “I grew up in a family where we talked about identity, politics, race, and difference on a daily basis at the dinner table,” they said. “It definitely informed my activism and my understanding of the world.”

Coming from a multiracial family — Lewis’s stepfather, who raised them, is African-American — made a huge difference in how they grew up. But their discovery of the field of women’s and gender studies in college was just as important.

“I identify as non-binary and genderqueer, and didn’t really learn about those terms until I started studying feminist and womanist scholars,” said Lewis, who uses they/them pronouns. “I finally felt like there was language to define what I was, that I had never known existed until I was in college.”

Lewis arrived in Richmond in 2012, when they accepted a position as University of Richmond’s Associate Director for LGBTQ Campus Life — a position they were the first person to hold. But this wasn’t their first time inaugurating an LGBTQ-specific role at a university. “I came to UR from UNC-Charlotte, where I was the first Assistant Director For Sexual/Gender Diversity,” they said. “So I had experience being the first person to hold a position.”

And fortunately, they found a strong LGBTQ community waiting for them when they arrived. “At UR, there was a large number of students, alumni, faculty, staff, and administrators who had already been doing LGBTQ work,” they said. “So really, it was stepping in to help coordinate those efforts and give them a little more support and direction. To be quite honest, at UR it didn’t feel like I was the first, because there had been so much work done over the years prior to me ever stepping foot on campus. While I was in a leadership position, none of the progress that I’ve ever been a part of has been solely because of me. There were tons of people working on this.”

Lewis during their time at University Of Richmond (via Richmond.edu)

This is the sort of fact that many Richmond residents might be surprised to learn about University of Richmond, which has a long history of holding itself somewhat separate from the city around it. “It has a rather conservative history as an institution,” Lewis agreed. “It was Catholic-affiliated for a long time, and still has a chaplain on campus. So that made it sometimes difficult to push the university to change. On the flipside of that, it was a private institution, so change could move significantly quicker; it’s not as if I had to get approval from the General Assembly or the Governors’ office.”

Lewis is proud of the progress UR has made as an LGBTQ-inclusive campus over the past seven years, both under their own leadership and under that of Lee Dyer, who succeeded Lewis in the position in 2017. “What I was most excited about was, in particular, the way the institution has shifted, and continues to shift,” they said. “Particularly for transgender and non-binary students. UR has a coordinate college system, which means they have a men’s college and a women’s college under the University of Richmond banner. I was there when the first student who started in the women’s college graduated in the men’s college, was able to transition on campus, be accepted, and get a diploma with his chosen name, before it had been legally changed — things that I think a lot of times cisgender students don’t think about, because they never have to navigate.”

They pointed out that, even years after they left, UR still continues to make positive changes, the roots of which trace back to their time at the campus. “The institution as a whole is still trying to get out of the UR bubble, and be more invested and involved in the city,” they said. “So it’s really powerful for me to see that this year, UR is hosting Equality Virginia’s Transgender Information and Empowerment Summit (TIES). Even though that hosting is happening long after I left, it’s astounding to think about how, when I [arrived] in 2012, that [might not] have been able to happen.”

After four years at UR, Lewis accepted the position of Executive Director for Side By Side in 2016 — at a time when the LGBTQ youth support and advocacy organization was still known by its original name, ROSMY. However, the name change was already in the works when Lewis arrived. “My first meeting with board is when they told me they had already selected the new identity, and were asking me to shepherd the change,” Lewis said.

Side By Side has grown in many ways since Lewis’s arrival three years ago. “We have doubled our operating budget; we have more than doubled the staff,” they said. “Last fiscal year, we served nearly 450 unique youth with support groups, so we’re seeing a really tremendous growth.”

However, growth alone was not Lewis’s goal when they arrived at Side By Side; they wanted to make sure that the group’s efforts were as effective as possible. “One of my hopes when I came into the role was to evaluate how we serve LGBTQ youth in our community that are in the most need,” they said. “In order to do that, we needed to start looking intersectionally.”

Under Lewis’s direction, Intersectionality — an approach to social justice that evaluates the ways in which various types of discrimination overlap, and can contribute to greater oppression in certain groups — became a core aspect of Side By Side’s work. “When I started at Side by Side, there was only one staff member who was a person of color,” Lewis said. “Not that the organization had never engaged in race conversations, but I don’t think there was an intention around looking at the needs of youth of color, and specifically black LGBTQ youth.”

This realization led Side By Side to seek out partnerships not only with LGBTQ organizations led by people of color, such as Nationz Foundation, Virginia Anti-Violence Project, and Black Pride, but also with organizations that focused on work in minority communities, but weren’t specifically LGBTQ, including Art 180 and RISE For Youth. “We’ve been intentional about trying to be more intersectional, specifically around race,” said Lewis. “This is Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy. This is the South. You can’t, in my opinion, do intersectional work without centering race in that conversation. While other identities are certainly important, race trumps a lot of that in the South.”

Ted Lewis. Photo by Colorful Richmond

Side By Side has also focused on diversity training for various organizations and businesses that work with LGBTQ youth. Beginning the program with local public school districts, they have taken it in a variety of directions, both geographically and demographically. “We’ve been working primarily in schools, not just in Central Virginia — we’re in Stafford County, training their leadership as they’ve been in the news, in particular, with some issues with transgender students,” said Lewis.

They explain that Side By Side has also worked with over 400 mental and behavioral health providers around the state, and have given diversity training programs for corporations like Capital One and Altria, as well as local restaurants and a variety of businesses in the hospitality industry. The training programs are in high demand, said Lewis. “We continue to get more and more requests, everyone from local roller derby teams to the hospital to the county government, on how they can be more inclusive of the community.” 

The next step for Side By Side, according to Lewis, is a move toward advocacy for change in policies on local and state levels. Their work was instrumental in getting Richmond Public Schools to adopt an LGBTQ-inclusive student code of responsibility earlier this year, and they hope to leverage that progress into more LGBTQ inclusiveness in schools throughout the state. “Our hope is to work with RPS this school year to develop inclusive policies that can get passed by the school board, that we can take across Virginia to other districts and other counties,” said Lewis, “and try to make schools more accepting.” 

At this point, Lewis just hopes they can keep up with the progress they’ve been making. “We’ve been very busy,” they said. “My hope, for both myself and Side by Side, is that we can continue to keep pace with our tremendous growth. We are trying to take some bigger swings, if you will, to affect the lives of more young people, not just the ones that are able to make it into the doors of Side By Side.” 

In light of all this, it’s no surprise that VA Pride selected Lewis for this year’s Firework Award. “The award is given to people who are catalysts for change in this community, and we could think of no other person that has done more to change the community for the better, especially for LGBTQ youth,” said VA Pride President James Millner. “Ted is a tremendous role model for so many youths in this community, and we couldn’t be happier that we have the opportunity to recognize them for what they do.” 

“I’m really honored by this recognition, and the fellow Firework Award winners are folks that I really admire, so I’m grateful,” said Lewis. “[I] view the award as a recognition of the work that I’ve done, but I also view it as a recognition of the work of Side By Side, and the whole team that we have. So I’m grateful for the community that is willing to step up and work together, in really beautiful ways.”

Top Photo courtesy Ted Lewis

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