On November 6, 2025, hunger was in the news and on the streets. SNAP benefits had just expired during the government shutdown, and millions of Americans had their cupboards emptied. That evening, Ginger’s, Brooklyn’s oldest lesbian bar, hosted an event hosted by NYC Queers 4 Food Justice to distribute food, Covid-19 tests, Narcan, tampons and more.
With Ginger’s usual Thursday karaoke night as the backdrop, about seventy bar patrons browsed the back room of the venue.
Some came out with a donation from Lululemon carrier bags filled with cans of soup, loaves of bread, jars of peanut butter, packages of sanitary pads sponsored by sexual wellness company LOLA, and bushels of apples, potatoes or vegetables from a local Hudson Valley farm.
Paper proof of hunger was not required. Ginger’s bouncer didn’t check SNAP benefits or EBT cards at the door; as usual, IDs were scanned to ensure participants were at least 21 years old.
It has since reopened, but is government-driven food insecurity And economic unrest persists for many, especially with food-focused gatherings like Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Christmas on the horizon. These holidays seem to be LGBTQ+ groups NYC Queers 4 Food Justice in New York, Peach City Sapphics in Atlanta, the Brave Space Alliance in Chicago, and the Okra project, operating nationwide, providing their communities with much-needed essentials.
An ‘inspiring’ turnout
NYC Queers 4 Food Justice was founded by two community-minded New Yorkers, Kadie Radics, 29, and London Dejarnette, 24, in October 2025. In anticipation of federal SNAP cuts, Radics — the director of supportive housing at the mental health nonprofit Fountain House — sought help from gay groups to get a food distribution event off the ground, including the lesbian social club Butch Monthly.
Dejarnette, a program coordinator at a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending food insecurity among college students, answered Radics’ call. They had never met, but within a month they had planned and scheduled the first NYC Queers 4 Food Justice event: November 6 at Ginger’s.
“When I walked into that room on Thursday, every butch or masc was there ready to work and just wanted to know what they could do,” Dejarnette recalls.
“The turnout we had, and also the turnout of people going to the food bank for the first time, I think, was significant,” she added. Dejarnette found it “very inspiring to see that these people, who have needed food aid for a long time, need help [but] felt uncomfortable” with getting help from a trusted source.
NYC Queers 4 Food Justice’s inaugural event at Ginger’s fed dozens of people and raised more than $5,000 in donations, Radics said. On November 19, the group raised more than $1,000 at Cubbyhole, a lesbian bar in Manhattan’s West Village.
“We want our food to reach the people who need it most, because the people who need it most are the ones who have been left in the dust by the federal government,” Dejarnette said. “What we ultimately want to do is tap into this organizing power that queer people have had for generations.”
On the verge of hunger
The need for food is increasing across the US
For a year affordability crisis has become acute. The longest federal shutdown in American history exacerbated chronic food insecurity.
About 42 million Americans rely on monthly SNAP benefits, and the average recipient receives $187 per month, or about $6 per day. Stopping these electronic payments created a ripple effect that harmed children’s nutrition and student learning, wreaked havoc on family budgets and undermined shoppers’ grocery stores.
SNAP “was just supposed to be an additional resource, but because we are so deep in a food emergency, it has become a lifeline for so many Americans,” said Dejarnette, who has led food pantry and redistribution programs since college.
The government reopened on November 13But some SNAP recipients may need to reapply the program to restore its benefits, further delaying access to food.
Queer communities may feel that pressure more acutely. Research shows that queer adults are more likely than others to experience food insecurity. Rural, 1 in 4 queer adults ages 18 to 44 rely on SNAP benefits to access food.
Socioeconomic disparities are greatest in the Midwest, where 35 percent of homosexuals earn less than $24,000 a year. according to the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles which studies legislation and policy regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. For non-LGBT people in the region, that figure is 24 percent. The income gap between LGBT and non-LGBT residents of the Rocky Mountain states is similar.
Queer people in the South, yes home to the largest LGBTQ+ population of any U.S. regionsight higher rates of discrimination, poverty and homelessness. In Georgia for example 26 percent of LGBT people are food insecure compared to 17 percent of people who don’t identify as queer.
In Atlanta, a group called Peach City Sapphics is trying to highlight the special food needs of gay people in some of Georgia’s largest cities, who are struggling to pay their bills, find housing and transportation.
“Queer people are the quickest to be pushed to the edge because the safety net is already thin,” Peach City Sapphics organizer Ciara Peebles said in a written statement to Newsgroup rewiring.
Many members of the southern LGBTQ+ community do not have “supportive families,” she explained, so “if benefits are withdrawn, the consequences are immediate.”
Peach City Sapphics — which hosts not only mutual aid events, but also community book swaps, reality TV viewing parties and craft nights — saw the government shutdown hit the community hard in Atlanta and Athens.
“Food supplies were already overloaded, but now the demand is constant. People are showing up earlier, the lines are longer and we are seeing people who have never had to ask for help before,” Peebles wrote. “Going into the holidays without these benefits has made things a lot more difficult, with people literally choosing between groceries, bills and gas. There’s just no buffer anymore.”
Households across the country are making difficult decisions like this. And queer organizations in cities across the country are stepping in to help.
In Chicago, the Brave Space Alliance works with a network of local organizations as part of a Community Resources Daywith free clothing, baby supplies, social services and more. And nationally, the Okra Project has launched a number of them mutual aid funds to help Black transgender people meet their basic needs.
‘It felt safe’
According to NYC Queers 4 Food Justice, many people who need help may feel uncomfortable asking for or receiving help, including people in the queer community.
That’s why having queer-run food programs with few restrictions (such as not asking for ID or pre-registering online) is so important, says Dejarnette, who said they grew up with food benefit programs, including SNAP.
“I was aware there were food banks and options like that, but I didn’t think they were for me,” says Pierce Bartman, 24, who juggles multiple jobs, from social media and photography to restaurant work.
“I think part of it is ego. Part of it is worrying that someone else needs it more than me.”
But when Bartman went to Ginger’s in early November, seeing so many familiar faces put them at ease.
“My friends were the ones who handed me the rice, and my friends were the ones who organized the event, and it was at my favorite bar,” Bartman said. “It felt safe.”
Bartman left with enough food for the rest of the month.
“We will always look out for each other,” said Radics of the LGBTQ+ community. “There’s just something about that inherent oppression as a queer person, where we just have this shared understanding of love and attention.”
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