Pride in Numbers project seeks stories of LGBTQIA2S+ Oregonians

Local organizers are teaming up to produce an accurate, comprehensive picture of queer and gender non-conforming life in Oregon, offering Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ people an opportunity to reclaim and tell their own stories. The method: consensual data collection, storytelling sessions and a statewide art project. 

“We just feel like if they’re gonna be making policies that reflect our lives, then they definitely should be hearing from us,” said Bianca “Fox” Ballara, project guide for Pride in Numbers, and an integral part of the organization basically since its beginning in 2023. 

Pride in Numbers, a research project funded by the Pride Foundation, is getting the word out about its statewide survey, which is currently underway. Organizers are urging people over the age of 18 who live in Oregon and identify as Two-Spirit and/or LGBTQIA+ to participate. The survey’s deadline was extended until the end of May.

Amid alarmingly oppressive policies advanced by the federal government and by numerous states, Pride in Numbers is working to strengthen the case for policies that instead protect and affirm members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community. 

“This data can really help our communities advocate for what we need, from our legislators, our senators, from our county representatives, from the organizations that purport to advocate for us,” Ballara said.

Survey participants are kept anonymous, and all questions are optional. The survey is designed to be open to those who don’t share their orientation publicly or are questioning their sexuality. Questions cover demographics, housing, health care access and wellbeing, people’s sense of community and belonging, feelings of safety, and more. 

“We really feel like that care and that consent matters right now more than ever,” Ballara said. “Because we know what’s at stake for our people, we built this project to be as safe as possible for all of us. So that means we’ve been really centering consent, we’ve been centering transparency, and we’ve been centering choice. Everybody who engages with Pride in Numbers gets to decide what they share and whether they participate at all.” 

Pride in Numbers is also collecting artwork for its statewide art project, which is open to all ages and levels of artists. Work can be submitted on the organization’s website. 

“Even with your artwork,” Ballara said. “You don’t have to share a citation and also you can share exactly how your art wants to be shared, specifically whether it’s recirculated at all or if it’s only on the website.” 

This part of the project allows for more expansive representations of Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ life experiences, beyond numbers and data. 

“Our hope is to create a powerful portrait of Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ folks, what our lives are like across the state of Oregon in a way that has never really been told before,” Ballara said. 

Ballara said some of the things she’s most proud of are the project’s statewide scope, inclusion of rural areas and centering of marginalized identities. Pride in Numbers is not a corporate-sponsored project, she emphasized, nor is it merely a Portland-centered project.   

“I am a rural QTBIPOC person, right?” Ballara said. “And I’ve gotten to be a part of the creation of this project from phase one. I can’t say that about a lot of other statewide projects. And it’s not just me. Our whole team has been intentionally intersectional from the get-go. I’ve actually gotten to be a part of the recruitment of making sure we have some folks who are representing the Oregon tribal reservations, making sure we have folks from Eastern Oregon. Making sure we have folks who are over 60 years old. Making sure we have folks who have had experiences with addiction. So, from the beginning, Pride in Numbers has moved with care. We have intentionally not just moved into collecting data but actually gathering our beautiful, diverse intersectional community and then listening to each other to envision what it is that we wanted to do.”

One related reality highlighted by the project is the ongoing migration of queer and trans people to Oregon from other states. 

“It is a friendlier state in terms of policy,” Ballara said. “However, just because we tend to be friendlier doesn’t mean that we’re doing the best that we can with regards to policy that actually protects and upholds and empowers people’s lives.”

“Oregon is seen so widely as LGBTQIA+-friendly and -affirming compared to other parts of the country, and the truth is our experiences here are quite varied,” said Nimisha Jain, who helps facilitate and oversee outreach all across the Pride in Numbers project.

“I identify as an Indian queer woman and my experience here looks really different from some of my other LGBTQIA+ counterparts,” said Jain, whose background includes formerly running the support group program at an anti-sexual violence agency. She’s also the volunteer director of Creative Queer Collective, a nonprofit in Eugene. 

“Having a project that’s really led and represented by a wide range of lived experiences and identities, we’re able to see and truly know how to connect with the people in our communities in a way that feels respectful, engaging, mutually beneficial, and not extractive,” Jain said. “Because we know oftentimes folks who are directly impacted by these conversations, and by policy and by services and things like that are so often not included in the conversation in the first place.”

President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign sailed in part on bigotry against the queer and trans communities and called for stripping legal protections from transgender people. Now, in early 2026, some of those efforts have started to play out. Last month, transgender people in Kansas received letters informing them that their driver’s licenses are invalid, based on a recently passed law that invalidates birth certificates and driver’s licenses that do not align with the bearer’s sex assigned at birth. The law, among the most severe bans in the United States, also prohibits trans people from using restrooms and facilities inconsistent with their sex assigned at birth in all public buildings. 

The long-term goal of the project is “to support transformative change,” Jain said, and “ensure that Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ voices are at the center of the decisions getting made about us, funding services, policies and things like that in Oregon. Especially for those people who have typically been pushed to the margins.

“Our hope is to gather and analyze and provide information that can then be used with the community organizations that we’re partnering with — by advocates, by organizers — to build better programs, services, mutual aid networks, policies that we all deserve and dream of,” Jain said. “So it’s kind of about shifting that power, and building communities where our needs and our lives are no longer overlooked and are centered.” 

The dire reality imposed by the Trump administration and state lawmakers in Kansas and elsewhere shows the need for a project like Pride in Numbers, organizers say.

“Because it’s such a chaotic political administration it could be really easy for us to wanna lay down and hide and just tremble with fear,” Ballara said. “However, it’s exactly because of what’s going on that it’s so important that we show up, in power, in numbers and keep this project going.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the accurate deadline to participate in the Pride in Numbers survey: May 31.

This article appears in March 18, 2026.