From Secrecy to Solidarity: Today, Queer Communities Are Nurtured in Greenville

At The People's Day protest in Falls Park on Feb 16, 2026, Bex Miller reflects on the shift from fear and survival to community action, mutual care, and an enduring fight for liberty and justice.

by Bex Miller

My name is Bex Miller. I am an artist, a small business owner, and a member of the LGBTQ+ community. My pronouns are they and them.

I walked around a little before I came up here, and took some photos. I was the one with the man beard and the lady voice, if you remember? If we talked, I probably told you I was grateful that you’re here. And now I want to say it to all of you again—I’m grateful for you! Thank you for being here today. It’s good work we’re doing, together.

I was born and raised here in the Upstate. A little history: I came out in 1993 at the age of 17. The world was so different then. It wasn’t safe to be open about your sexual orientation. My girlfriend and I were afraid to hold hands or show each other any affection in public. We talked in code to each other—when we saw someone who we thought might be gay, we’d ask a friend, “is he family?” We felt forced to lie about our relationship to people we didn’t know well. We couldn’t be ourselves at work, either. In the summer of 1996, I was fired from my job when my manager found out I was dating a woman.

Greenville has changed so much—into a place where the queer community has more support than young Bex could have imagined. Support like the Queer Wellness Center, Uplift Outreach, The Ladies’ Room, the Queer Arts Initiative, and the LGBT Chamber of Commerce. These organizations are determinedly changing history, one day at a time.

I’m talking about history because LGBTQ history is American History. The first Pride was a riot, started by a trans woman of color. Marsha P. Johnson. The “Saint of Christopher Street” as she was known would be proud of the work we are doing together today, and our resistance to the oppression we experience daily.

Our community is a garden, and today we are working in it together, so we can flourish. We are weeding out feelings of doubt and isolation. Watering with kindness and joy. Feeding our soil with trust. Tending to our roots, together.

This community is resistance.
This community is revolution.

I want to thank you for your hard work in our garden. Growing something takes persistence and patience. We have returned to this field again and again, weeding, watering, tending. It has been fruitful labor. I look at all of you and see the faces of my neighbors, and as a trans person, I am comforted and inspired by your determination to help us maintain our agency, dignity, and equity. I am deeply grateful for each and every person standing up for what’s right in the face of so much wrong.

Resistance has many forms: demonstrations, mutual aid, community care. It requires focus, dedication, and an insistence on claiming personal agency. Agency that we can carry into the world, to strengthen our society. We are organic beings—messy, imperfect, and uniquely beautiful. Each of us has something of ourselves to bring to the garden. All of us have seeds to plant, and tend, for the future.

I’m proud of you. Of us. We are doing big, important work every day by refusing to give up on a dream that’s been growing and changing for 250 years. We are standing up as the People, to…

“...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”

That, my friends, is from the preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America. And we ARE America. Right here, now, today. That can never be taken from us.

We will not give up on these ideals, on this dream. We tend it and keep it together, as neighbors, as community. I love you for being here in this garden with me today. And I am so grateful for our shared commitment to do what is right…

“...with Liberty and Justice for All.”

Photos courtesy of Brian Knox