Equality Arlington, an LGBTQ+ advocacy nonprofit, applauds Arlington County Manager, Mark Schwartz, for forming an LGBTQ+ Advisory Committee to provide information and guidance to county leadership on the needs of the LGBTQ+ community. Equality Arlington has been working with the County Manager’s office for months to shape the structure of the committee and ensure that it represents the diversity of the county’s LGBTQ+ residents and workers.

Equality Arlington, an LGBTQ+ advocacy nonprofit, applauds the Arlington County Board for adding marketing funding for Public Health programs, including the Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Clinic and AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), as we advocated for in our March 21st letter. The $25,000 funding allocation creates a new marketing budget for the Public Health Division.

Equality Arlington applauds VHC Health for including the needs of LGBTQ+ residents in its 2023 Community Health Needs Assessment. For the first time since VHC Health began publishing Community Health Needs Assessments in 2014, they have acknowledged the gaps in healthcare services for LGBTQ+ residents and are committing to work to address them.

The Virginia Department of Education’s “Model Policies On Ensuring Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for all Students and Parents in Virginia’s Public Schools'' released this week are an illegal and dangerous attack on LGBTQ+ students. The adoption of these model policies by local school boards will make students less safe, less supported, and continue the Youngkin Administration’s attempts to make our schools and our commonwealth a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ residents.