By Sarah Ladd, Kentucky Lantern · July 13, 2026

In Corbin, Kentucky, which famously has a history as a “sundown town,” organizing a Pride event is anything but easy. 

Rebecca Chastain, the lead organizer with Corbin Pride, said where there’s racism, there’s bigotry of all sorts. 

And: “When you live in an area like this, you can throw a rock and hit a racist,” they said. In 2023, during a rally for transgender rights in Corbin, people with Ku Klux Klan membership cards showed up, LEX18 reported at the time.  

More recently, Chastain said, she heard from concerned community members this year that “KKK members were expressing … the fact that they don’t want us here, and they wanted to show up and remind us who Corbin belongs to.” 

At 2026 Kentucky Fairness Rally: Political speeches, voting advocacy and ‘joy’

Chastain (who uses both ‘she’ and ‘they’ pronouns) took that to mean both Corbin Pride and “LGBTQ people” in general. Being visible despite pushback like that is scary, she said, but community and organizing gives her hope. After posting about the concerns online, people signed up to volunteer and help organize a safe and secure pride event. 

“It’s scary,” they said, “but it’s much less scary if you realize that you’re not alone.” 

On the heels of Pride Month, held in June, LGBTQ advocates from around the state say they need better protections from the state and federal government — and more understanding from their communities. They expressed disillusionment with the Trump administration and with elected officials. Some said Kentucky needs to pass a statewide fairness ordinance, though they don’t feel optimistic about it happening soon. Still, in the face of these issues, they say their community brings them joy. 

Fairness 

The Kentucky General Assembly didn’t pass any laws this year recognized as anti-LGBTQ by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. There were eight bills filed that fit that definition, though, according to the organization’s tracker, which identified 530 anti-LGBTQ bills across the country this year. 

In Kentucky, those bills included a proposal to give medical providers “the right not to participate in services that violate their conscience,” which LGBTQ advocates said was a door to discrimination against the community. 

The Commonwealth has also yet to pass a statewide fairness ordinance. And while 24 Kentucky communities and counting have enacted Fairness Ordinances to outlaw discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations, there hasn’t been a new ordinance passed since 2022. 

Josh Wells-Hardy, a member of the Glasgow Pride board of directors, said having a statewide ordinance is one of the biggest policy needs for rural LGBTQ Kentuckians. 

Chadwick Shockley, the chairperson of Glasgow Pride, said that while a statewide ordinance “would be wonderful,” he doesn’t see it happening “anytime soon.” 

“There are communities much smaller than ours that have already passed Fairness Ordinances. They’re much more rural than ours…but fortunately they have directors and leaders….people (who) know them and respect them, and even though they may be Republican or they may be right leaning, they do have respect for these people in these communities, and feel like they deserve fairness,” Shockley said. “And I feel like Glasgow’s vote on that won’t be too far off now.” 

In Cynthiana, which has a partial ordinance, the mother of a transgender child must drive six hours out of state to pay out of pocket for the gender-affirming care blocked by Kentucky. She pays around $2,000 each year out of pocket for these doctor’s visits. 

She doesn’t feel she has full parental control over her family because of these barriers, she said. The Lantern is not using her name because of safety concerns for her child. 

“It can be kind of scary to allow your child to be themselves in Kentucky,” she said.

Her daughter, who is 13, is “very passing,” and therefore they “don’t have immediate concerns when we go out in public,” but “definitely, there are people here that are not safe if they actually knew.” 

There are also supportive people and businesses in the town, which gives her hope for her daughter.  

“I just want her to have a beautiful adult life,” she said. But, she’s resigned that such a future is “probably not in Kentucky.”  

Living out

For Shockley, in Glasgow, living openly and interacting with anti-LGBTQ politicians “not just in a protest fashion” is a key way to build more empathy over time. 

“Hopefully some of them are able to meet these people and say, ‘look, I’m just like your brother-in-law, I’m just like your grandson,’” he said. “These politicians, I know they have family members who are LGBTQPIA+. They are going to change, and some of them are going to eventually flip because they love their family member too much to keep pushing these laws and policies that hurt them and take away their freedom and their rights to the pursuit of happiness.” 

He hopes this openness will change hearts over time. 

“Hopefully in this generation and the generation to come … there will be a lot more equality, and those who are opposed to it will be those who live in the shadows rather than us having to feel like we’re in the shadows now wanting equity,” he said. 

Serenity Johnson, who lives in Radcliff and is running for a seat on city council, said that quiet visibility is often what resistance to oppression looks like in 2026.  

“What resistance looks like right now changes almost from day to day — things happen so quickly these days. Some of it is kind of this very visible, very loud protests and things like that, being a little bit more confrontational,” she said. “Other times, it’s more subdued, it’s more diplomatic, if you will, and other times it’s just queer joy and trans joy, and just making sure that we’re taking the time for ourselves and our friends and checking on each other, that element of support… is so important to resistance and staying alive, if you will, and it’s so overlooked.” 

Radcliff is not far from Fort Knox, Kentucky, and the Trump administration’s limitations on transgender servicemembers hit close to home. 

Johnson, who first moved to the area 15 years ago because her father got a full-time reserve post there, said such moves by the administration are “really disheartening.” 

“We do have at least a few transgender military members who, the ban on their service has affected them, especially the attacks on even their benefits and stuff like that, that definitely affects them,” she said. 

‘We do exist here.’ 

Pride isn’t reserved for urban areas. Johnson, for one, found the LGBTQ visibility in rural Kentucky surprising. 

“When I was coming out and transitioning, you thought of pride as kind of a big city thing, but no. Here in Kentucky, at the very least, that’s something that we celebrate, and we’re visible out in the rural areas,” Johnson said. “Pride in rural areas looks different a lot of times than the cities, but it’s still there. It is something that I find heartening in…the darker times, if you will.” 

Chastain, in Corbin, sees resistance to her community as a bigotry “groan of death,” she said. 

For many, she said, it’s “uncomfortable” to realize that “whether you like it or not, this area is more diverse than you think.” 

“People around here, they seem to think that LGBTQ people, pride, all of this so-called ‘progressive’ stuff is not welcome in these towns, but what they fail to realize is that queer people have always existed here,” they said. “You don’t get to just say that we don’t have the right to exist here. We do exist here, and we will continue to exist here.”