According to National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) founders Chance Mitchell (right) and Justin Nelson (left), LGBTQ businesses contribute about $1.7 trillion annually to the U.S. economy. “To put that number in perspective,” Mitchell says, “that would make the U.S. LGBTQ business community the 10th largest economy in the world.” Sounds like a fiscal power fit for taking on the current administration’s homophobic agenda. As part of its 15th-anniversary celebration this year, NGLCC, the world’s largest LGBTQ economic-advocacy and business development organization, executed a historic study to highlight the commercial clout of America’s 1.4 million LGBTQ-owned businesses. The numbers are not only staggering, but stirring. “Giving queer people increased economic agency may not solve all of our issues overnight,” Nelson says, “but it will allow our community, particularly our youth, to thrive mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially.”
Photography: Roger Erickson
Groomer: Angela DiCarlo
Photographed at the W Hotel Times Square, New York on October 6, 2017
Photographed at the W Hotel Times Square, New York on October 6, 2017
