We Give Back Wednesdays: Prism Health

Welcome to the new year! Throughout the month of January, shop with us on any Wednesday and 10% of your purchase will go to Prism Health, a nonprofit health center in southeast Portland that offers safe, welcoming, and knowledgeable primary and mental healthcare for the LGBTQ+ community and beyond.

LGBTQ+ people experience many health problems at a disproportionately high rate. At the same time, queer people are less likely than straight people to have a regular healthcare provider. Prism responds to these injustices by providing LGBTQ+ people with a space where they can show up, be seen, and experience healing as their whole self. Patients are treated on a sliding fee scale, and no one is turned away for inability to pay.

Prism opened in 2017 as the only LGBTQ+ health center providing comprehensive primary care in Oregon (and, in fact, in the entire Pacific Northwest). Since then, over 1,200 people have become patients — 92% of whom identify with a sexual identity other than straight, and more than a third of whom identify with a gender identity other than cisgender man or woman.

One of Prism’s first patients was a 52-year-old woman who lived in Albany, Oregon. She had driven 70 miles — one way — to be seen at the health center in southeast Portland. From paperwork to provider, every aspect of her experience at Prism honored her whole identity. By the end of her visit, she was crying joyful tears, because for the first time in her life, she was out to her doctor and could be completely honest about who she was. Stories like this perfectly express what Prism Health is all about: giving the LGBTQ+ community, at last, the healthcare home it needs and deserves.

Shop with us on any Wednesday in January to help out this vital organization. Prism Health can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.