Diversity Richmond has designed a license plate that allows Virginia drivers to celebrate and raise the visibility of LGBTQ diversity. The Virginia-based LGBTQ nonprofit needs 450 applications by January for the plate to become an official state option. 

The license plate design features a group of hands stacked on top of each other in the far left corner, and the Progress Pride flag runs horizontally across the bottom of the plate. The words “Celebrate Diversity” are prominently displayed over the flag. 

Rev. Dr. Lacette Cross, executive director of Diversity Richmond, said the design celebrates the diversity of the LGBTQ community.

“[The design] reflects the diversity of the intersecting identities of our community,” she said.  

Applications are available on Diversity Richmond’s website, and the license plate costs $25. Once completed, applicants should email the form to Diversity Richmond, not to the Virginia DMV, as Diversity Richmond will submit both the applications and fees to the DMV on their behalf.

If the organization gathers 450 applications and payments by the start of the 2025 Virginia General Assembly session in January, Del. Betsy B. Carr (D-Richmond) will sponsor the plate through the approval process to make it an official option. 

The initiative also serves as a fundraiser for Diversity Richmond, which will receive a portion of the proceeds from the license plate registration fees. 

“The ultimate benefit,” Cross said, “is the continual visibility of LGBTQ persons, our allies, and our supporters that are driving around the Commonwealth of Virginia, spreading the message of acceptance and of allyship.”

She described Diversity Richmond as the hub of the LGBTQ community in Greater Richmond, noting the organization’s “really dynamic” work within the community. The nonprofit runs the popular thrift store Diversity Thrift, hosts the annual Virginia Pridefest in September, and exhibits the work of LGBTQ artists in its art gallery.

Diversity Richmond is planning to celebrate its 25th anniversary with a public party at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture on Wednesday, Nov. 13. 

The LGBTQ student group called OutLaw at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School in Arlington, Va., is inviting LGBTQ students at other law schools across the D.C. metropolitan area and the LGBTQ community and its allies to an Oct. 25 event on the school’s campus called Pride on the Plaza.

A statement released by OutLaw says the event will be held from 6-10 p.m. on Mason Square Plaza, which serves as a campus-like plaza in front of the law school building at 3301 Fairfax Dr. in Arlington.

“Coinciding with LGBT Pride Month, Pride on the Plaza is a gathering of the D.C. Metro area’s LGBTQIA+ law student organizations and the community at large,” the statement says. “It’s more than just a party; it’s a chance to stand together, to celebrate who we are, and to show our pride.”

The statement says organizers have invited lawyers and legal professionals as well as undergraduate and graduate students at the university to participate in the event. It says there will be food and beverages and live entertainment, including a “first ever” drag show at the Scalia Law School.

Mackenzie Freilich, the OutLaw president, said the event will also include a raffle for items such as concert tickets and autographed sports memorabilia, a free sexual health screening clinic, and information stations provided by several LGBTQ organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign.

According to the group’s statement, the event will be limited to people 18 years of age and older and there will be an admission fee of $8 to help support the cost of putting on the event and the work of OutLaw. It says tickets can be purchased online in advance of the event or at the event itself

“We are rewriting the narrative from hateful rhetoric to impactful, long-lasting change for good,” Freilich told the Washington Blade. “We must not let hate win, we must rise up and unite the community, not divide.”

Morgan Menzies, another student at the Scalia Law School who is organizing the Pride on the Plaza event, said Freilich was referring to the anti-LGBTQ laws that several states have passed recently or are considering passing. 

She said organizers are also concerned about the anti-LGBTQ proposals in a document called Project 2025 that conservative advocates want Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to put in place if elected president.

Menzies said another concern organizers of the event have is the statement made by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at the time the high court overturned Roe v. Wade. She noted that Thomas said the court should reconsider its ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. 

The Scalia Law School is named after another conservative former Supreme Court justice, the late Antonin Scalia, who served on the court from 1986 to the time of his death in 2016.

Menzies said school officials approved the LGBTQ group’s plans to hold the event on the school’s campus plaza and some of the school’s law professors have expressed support for the event.

“We wanted to host this event to create visibility on our campus because we are a minority at our school and also provide a networking opportunity with the other progressive law students in the region so that we can strengthen those bonds,” Menzies told the Blade.

Additional information and ticket availability for Pride on the Plaza can be accessed here.

Edafe Okporo, an author and immigrant rights activist, on Sept. 26 headlined the 25th anniversary celebration of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, a nonprofit providing legal services to immigrants facing detention and deportation, at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Before taking the stage to read from his book “Asylum: A Memoir and Manifesto,” Okporo spoke to the Washington Blade about his experiences as an asylum seeker and the challenges faced by LGBTQ refugees in the U.S.

“Immigration detention centers are jails, but special jails for migrants,” Okporo, who is running for New York City Council, said. 

In 2016, he was detained in an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., for more than five months. He had fled to the U.S. from his home country of Nigeria — which in 2014 criminalized same-sex relationships with penalties of up to 14 years in prison — after being beaten unconscious by a group of people who broke into his apartment and dragged him out onto the street. They had targeted him for helping found an LGBTQ rights organization. 

He had imagined the U.S. as a place of safety and refuge, but after informing immigration officers he was seeking asylum, he was detained in a cell with 44 other inmates while officials evaluated his asylum plea.

He eventually won asylum with the help of immigration attorneys, but once he was released from detention, he initially experienced homelessness and a deep sense of isolation. 

“In detention centers,” Okporo explained, “it’s hard for you to be able to have a sense of connection to American society.”

Today, he is the executive director of Refuge America, a nonprofit that aims to limit the time LGBTQ refugees like himself spend in detention centers by organizing Americans sponsors to secure housing and other needs before their arrival. Prior to founding the organization, he was the director of the RDJ shelter, New York City’s only full-time refuge for asylum-seekers and refugees. 

Okporo noted that integrating into life in America can be especially challenging for LGBTQ refugees, many of whom come from countries where they had to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity. This often makes it difficult for them to open up and seek the services they need.

“They are thinking within the hierarchy of needs. ‘Can I tell the service provider that I’m gay?’ Then, ‘Can I tell them I’m HIV positive?’ Then, ‘Can I tell them that I need testosterone hormones?’” Okporo said.

He explained that the immigrant communities refugees might seek out for support might not be accepting of LGBTQ people. At the same time, however, the LGBTQ community in the U.S. “is very white-centric, especially in the coastal areas,” he said, contributing to a broader sense of isolation for some LGBTQ immigrants.

Through his work at the RDJ shelter and Refuge America, Okporo has been helping LGBTQ immigrants integrate into U.S. society. However, he noted that the scale of these organizations’ efforts is limited due to the fact that the “political narrative in America frowns upon immigration.”

“The narrative on immigrants is very toxic,” he said. “We have a presidential candidate who is anti-immigrant, and even the mayor of New York City is using ‘migrants versus New Yorkers.’”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted on federal corruption charges last week, called for the rollback of some of the city’s “sanctuary” policies that protect migrants accused of crimes from being turned over to federal authorities, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, in February. 

Okporo is running to represent District 7, which includes the Manhattan neighborhoods of Washington Heights and West Harlem — where the RDJ shelter is located — in the 2025 New York City Council elections. He aims to make housing more affordable and address the needs of New York City’s significant immigrant population in the council.

“They say representation is one of the best ways to lift up issues. We don’t have anyone in city hall right now who has an understanding of what it is to come to America and build a life in New York City. I hope to bring that diversity and perspective to city council,” he said. 

In the section of the book he read from at the Amica Center’s celebration, he reflects on feeling “utterly alone in America,” when he first arrived. 

But eight years later, following protests by advocacy groups against the detention center where Okporo was held, the facility is poised to close. And Okporo has found his community in New York City, sharing dinner with fellow gay immigrants and playing soccer with others on Sunday mornings. 

“As a foreigner who came to America, I was able to build a life here, and people see me, people support me — people want me to succeed. That gives me a sense of like, there is a reason to continually go on,” he said. “And that is what I try to do with my work, to show others that they too, should go on.”