05/28/2026
Hey Folx!
I’m the new social media person for Dakota Outright. I attended the board meeting last night as a previous board member years ago and as a disgruntled community member from recent events. I had a lot of questions like many of you do. Moving forward, I will do my best to respond to comments and questions. I’m not sure if I will be able to get back to all the previous comments.
I reached out to Janessa before writing this post to at least give some kind of response, crappy as it was. I let her know we still need to make a proper response, we severely screwed up, and we support all her endeavors moving forward. There are no excuses for what happened. We still don’t have the words. It was wrong.
I thought it might be helpful to give a timeline of what’s happened with the board these past 6 months. The board’s president stepped down in December 2025. With only three board members left, one board member stepped in as president but did not have any meetings or organization through the months of January to April. The remaining board members later discovered that the president had moved out of state. The two remaining members met with two new members in April. In May, three of four members attended a meeting, after which two board members decided to leave the board. Dakota OutRight now only had two remaining board members who attended the meeting Tuesday night. Tuesday’s meeting was also attended by some past board members, experienced community members and fresh faces. Our complaints were heard and questions were answered. We all decided to join the board to find solutions. We want to make sure what happened does not happen again, that there is inclusion, diversity, accountability, and community. We know we have a long way to go to get there and we’re committed.
We know this post is lacking of all the repairs that need to be done. We hope we can make a start.
Prior to the Tuesday board meeting, having only two board members means we represent a tiny fraction of our community. Based on an estimated LGBTQ+ population of about 5,000 people in Bismarck, two board members represent just 0.04% of our local community. We need far more representation than that, and we need your voices on the board! We have gone from 2 members to now 6-7 (you see what I did there?). The board has room for 12 members.
For transparency regarding the concern of the use of AI: while AI was not used for some of the written responses, it was used to create some of the graphics on the Dakota OutRight page as far back as January. We want to clarify and acknowledge that, yes, AI has been used in the past and we recognize that this is something our community would like to move away from. Going forward, we commit to delivering better, entirely human communication and design.
Right now, with the limited time and volunteers we have, we are trying to make sure there is a Pride event this year. We currently have entertainment and activities for children planned, as well as over 50 vendors! You can still sign up for a vendor spot at our website www.dakotaoutright.org.
Quick breakdown of events with more posts to come that look better than this as a Pride weekend presentation.
June 12
Friday at
6:00-9:00 pm—Mocktails with propagation (bring one, take one) bingo
7:30-8:00pm—Northern Plains Ballet hosts an East Coast swing dance class
June 13
Saturday at the Capitol grounds (top area of street oval)
10am-4pm—Capitol Pride vendor show
Featuring performance art, women’s chorus, and a DJ.
June 14
Sunday at the Kennedy Center
1-4-Interfaith service and potluck
There is a pre-event not organized by DOR on May 31st at the Kennedy Center from 1-3
Raising the Pride Flag!
~Q
