Founded in 1988, Portland Outright has supported generations of LGBTQ+ leaders to find each other, build connections, and improve their communities.
Our Mission
Portland Outright is a youth-led, membership organization building the power of LGBTQ+ young people in Maine (aged 14-25) through intersectional organizing for LGBTQ+, racial, and economic justice. Our work is led by young, queer, trans, people/of color, and their allies from low-income communities in Maine who address homelessness, criminalization, racism, and health issues from the seat of personal experience. Our mission is to provide resources to alleviate the day-to-day struggles of our young participants while actively seeking long-lasting systemic change within our communities.
Our History
Portland Outright was birthed more than thirty years ago in 1988, making it one of the oldest youth organizing groups in Maine. Although we are now known for our bold political actions and activism, Outright actually started out as more of a place for community care than direct action. In Outright’s early years, simply holding space for queer and trans people was a political act. Queer and trans survival was an act of resistance. Many members were not safe in their homes or in the streets, and Outright provided solace. It was (and is) a place where queer and trans people can just be, can just exist how they are.
If you’re an alumni, we’d love to connect with you! Check out our Solidarity Member program for adult allies to youth organizing or email us info@portlandoutright.org.
As the world slowly changed, so did Outright. We continued to care for one another, but we also began to unite to fight for queer and trans liberation. Some of the earlier actions were to fight for queer tolerance and acceptance in Maine schools. Several of the mentors throughout the years were a part of HIV/AIDS organizing and ACT UP.
More recently, Portland Outright has done actions around abolishing youth prisons, local district attorney elections, and ending the policing of queer and trans people. We continuously take action and transform ourselves, each other, and our communities. We fight for the liberation of all queer and trans people every single day. At the core, Outright is still a space for queer and trans young people to care for themselves and for each other. We love each other fiercely, and we know that none of our work would be possible without our rich history of care and support.
Our Work
At Outright, we use a grassroots organizing approach to achieve equity and justice because we know it connects people across struggle. The young people who make up the core of Portland Outright are embodying the kind of radical love and creative organizing that our movements need to win. We believe deeply that organizing is about relationships, about believing in and loving our people so much that we’ll do anything to ensure their safety and dignity. We also believe that organizing saves lives—in the long term vision that we must believe is possible—but that it also saves the lives of young people, queer and trans young people especially; by naming the work they do every day to help each other survive as power. We draw power from and model our programs on generations of queer and trans people living in the margins who created deep abundance and rich networks of support from very little. It is in this tradition that we understand youth organizing and anti-oppression work as an act of love.
We see the work of Portland Outright as tying together the queer and trans liberation movement in Maine with movements fighting for economic and racial justice, as well as for an end to mass incarceration, police brutality and criminalization. We locate ourselves at the junction of several social justice efforts, such as labor justice, anti-racist action, and prison abolition. Using the queer tradition of visual arts-based activism and community organizing, Portland Outright cultivates the leadership of LGBTQ+ young people across our multi-issue platform. We create spaces where young people are designing, steering, and participating in actions, campaigns, and community projects — which can lead to lifelong participation in movements for justice and liberation.
“Everyday we aim to cultivate the queer & trans joy and abundance our members deserve while we build the futures we know are possible – where the whole world reflects what we have created for each other at Portland Outright.”