ST. LOUIS — As St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones sat down at the start of Pride Month Wednesday, she signed an executive order to start the City's first LGBTQIA+ advisory board with nine members to guide her through issues still affecting the community.
"As mayor, I am proud to stand with those who carry the court torch today," she said. "I believe that those closest to the problems are closest to the solutions."
Some say it's another small move forward, decades in the making.
"One thing I think is, 'yay.' You know this is a really good thing," Washington University professor Andrea Friedman said.
A professor of history and of women, gender, and sexuality studies, Friedman spent time researching St. Louis' gay culture for the Mapping LGBTQ St. Louis project and said so many of the city's advancements were championed by advocates closest to the cause.
"We have gotten to this point because folks have been organizing for decades," she said, specifically referencing the City's 1991 non-discrimination law covering sexual orientation.
"There are moments that activists and city officials have been able to work together to create protections, so I see this as part of that longer history," she said.
But this move comes as other measures, particularly trans-exclusionary legislation, are being debated.
"Across the country, we are seeing gay and trans kids under attack," St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said in his own Pride Month remarks Wednesday morning.
Friedman said change is not always forward, but she said considering that the city's first pride parade was called A Walk for Charity to "make it more palatable," it is easy to see how much more acceptance there is today.
"If we look at where we are now compared to where we were in the 50s or the 60s or in St. Louis in the 1970s, we can see how much things really have changed," she said.
For more information on the city's new advisory board, visit the city's boards and commissions website.