PRIDE 2020: Out on the Frontline

“Every dollar goes back to the most vulnerable of our LGBTQ community,” Moore said of their fundraising efforts. “It was just a no brainer to step into action, and try to organize what I can for my community.”

"I imagined this project to be a seed planting in itself for future connections and community once this is over," the Boston-based photographer said of their "Queerantine" project.

Confined to his home amid the pandemic, Marion realized he had everything he needed to make masks for friends and neighbors: two industrial sewing machines, an eclectic selection of tropical-themed fabrics and a dozen drag queens who knew how to sew.

"Fundamentally, we're concerned about their health and making sure they don't get infected with COVID-19," Jackson said of her homeless congregants. "We're making sure they live through this pandemic."

Under Brown's leadership, the coalition launched a program in April that delivers small grants to black trans people who need emergency funds for food, utilities, rent assistance, health care, transportation and other necessities during the pandemic.

Unlike neighboring New York and New Jersey, where governors have taken a central role in delivering pandemic updates, Pennsylvania has largely left the job to Levine, the state’s health secretary — and the most prominent transgender public official in the United States.

“He confidently served as an openly gay deputy and used his platform to help bridge the gap between the LGBTQ community and law enforcement,” the Broward County Sheriff said of Bennett.

Instead of her planned post-retirement trip to Wyoming with her partner and son, Bedell signed up for the New York City Medical Reserve Corps, so she could be drafted right back into the coming public health battle.

"Helping people gets me high," Conner said. "The euphoria feeling that I get when I see people — the reaction of helping them — it's really cool, and I just think it's amazing when I can cheer somebody up."

As his back-to-back shifts stacked up amid the pandemic, Kelly continued to bring the same care and empathy to the job that had inspired one man to write the hospital system earlier this year to praise Kelly as an "angel" who “went above and beyond” to show "empathy and compassion."

Reyes is dedicated to ensuring LGBTQ people feeling vulnerable amid this public health crisis know they are not alone. “Know that someone out there, even if it's hard to believe, loves you,” she said.

“I had this idea to start these Instagram dance parties that would allow people from all over the world to join in and dance with me,” Kanemura said. “I wanted it to be accessible for everyone and anyone, because I've always believed that anyone can dance."