Marlene Pray (she/her) is a queer activist, sexuality educator, and community organizer whose work spans over three decades of LGBTQ+ advocacy, anti-racism, and social justice movement-building. She founded and directs the Rainbow Room, Bucks County’s LGBTQ+ youth center at Planned Parenthood Keystone, which has been a lifeline for queer youth in the region for 24 years.

A PhD candidate in Human Sexuality Education, Marlene has trained educators, organizations, and communities across the country on LGBTQ+ inclusion, racial equity, and youth empowerment. Her public service includes serving on Doylestown Borough Council, where she championed the borough’s LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination ordinance, and she continues to lead through board roles with the NAACP and NAMI Bucks County. Marlene lives in Doylestown and brings her whole self to the work — as an organizer, mother, homicide survivor, and earth-based celebrant committed to collective liberation.

She joins me today to kick off Pride Month, to talk about its history as a riot, as protest, and as a demand, and what the fight for LGBTQ+ rights looks like today.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, and iheart

ALSO LISTEN TO:

• How Local Journalism and Pro-Democracy Reporting Can Protect Main Street from Hate and Political Extremism, with Phil Williams
• Journalist Jordan Green on Why the Neo-Nazi Movement Is an Escalating Threat to US Democracy
• The History of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in America, with Bill Mullen and Christopher Vials

Music by Maf é Tulà and Cartas a Felice, "La Loca." Panela Music.

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