OUR VALUES

Dedicated Bakersfield LGBTQ members and volunteers embrace the following values and will:

• Value diversity by accepting each person’s uniqueness.
• Show respect and dignity for others by welcoming and accepting all individuals.
• Demonstrate integrity through excellence in service, honest communication and responsiveness to our Community.
• Be resourceful and enthusiastic in order to support the growth of the organization to meet Community needs.

This group is the center of LGBTQ social and political organizing in Bakersfield and Kern County, California. We support issues and plan the grand event of the year, Bakersfield’s Gay Pride Festival. We welcome all supportive folks, regardless of orientation.

HISTORY

Bakersfield LGBTQ was born in 2004, as a result of a small group of concerned community members who wanted to see more community activities and advocacy. Originally, we were allied with Marriage Equality California, but when we decided to put on a Pride festival in the Fall of 2004, we went out on a limb and formed our own group, Bakersfield LGBTQ.

We were recognized by the IRS as a 501c3 non-profit in 2006. We strive to serve our community with educational, advocacy and social opportunities and to date, we have held over 400 successful events of all kinds. We are a member of the Consolidated Alliance of Pride, Inc (CAPI), and this brings us into a very strong relationship with Pride committees all over the Western United States and Mexico. We are also a member of the Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce.

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Life

“All of us who are openly gay are living and writing the history of our movement. We are no more – and no less – heroic than the suffragists and abolitionists of the 19th century; and the labor organizers, Freedom Riders, Stonewall demonstrators, and environmentalists of the 20th century. We are ordinary people, living our lives, and trying as civil-rights activist Dorothy Cotton said, to ‘fix what ain’t right’ in our society.”

–Senator Tammy Baldwin