Patrice Ford Lyn, founder and CEO of Catapult Change. (Photo courtesy Woke Media)
As we celebrate Pride month, Patrice Ford Lyn, a Black bisexual executive coach based in Fort Lauderdale, reminds the LGBTQ+ community to take care of themselves and each other while fighting for visibility.
Immigrating from Jamaica at age five, Ford Lyn would later graduate from both Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Harvard University with a Masters in Nonprofit Management. She also has an advanced certification in coaching from the International Coaching Federation.
With over 25 years of executive coaching and consulting experience, Ford Lyn has become a successful self-made entrepreneur, launching the executive coaching business Catapult Change in 2010.
Ford Lyn moved to South Florida from Washington, D.C. in the midst of the pandemic after seeing the insurrection on Jan. 6. She said she wanted to move somewhere where she and her wife could breathe a little easier. Not long after moving to Tamarac, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It would take her a few years to really see her new community.
“We have felt absolutely cared for and held by this community, but in the more recent months, we have seen what feels like an absolute assault on the LGBTQ population, an assault on women with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it has become really scary,” Ford Lyn says.
She refers to the recent stream of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation passed in Florida and around the country, targeting queer and trans individuals and their visibility, right to healthcare, book bans and “saying gay” in schools. Ford Lyn says these new laws and legislations are affecting people right now, that they aren’t hypothetical situations, adding that the lawmakers are trying to take away knowledge to keep people disempowered.
“I find myself with feelings of emotional dysregulation, especially as a Black queer woman in Florida,” she says. “It felt like we were moving in the direction of freedom and possibility. It felt like all the things we fought so hard for, our rights and especially the rights of transgender individuals and families, were being scaled back. It is hard to be here in many ways… As a Black, queer, immigrant woman, these things take a toll. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the point of some of these rollbacks, to tire us out so that we have no fight, no advocacy.”
Ford Lyn says she uses the power and privilege she has to maintain her own queer visibility.
“Whenever I talk to somebody, usually one of the first things they will hear about is my absolutely brilliant wife as a way of normalizing same-sex marriage,” she says. “It’s about making it really hard for people to make me invisible, so when other people are talking about the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community, they know somebody that they respect, they like, who is affected by what is going on.”
She understands that not everywhere is safe. While she would love to suggest that people go out and protest and be very visible, she says that they may put people in danger. Ford Lyn is calling on allies to be coconspirators to help advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and to be very intentional in that advocacy.
“It’s much harder to advocate when that is your life that’s on the line. For folks that want to be visible, I think about what it means to be strategic, every fight is not worth fighting,” Ford Lyn says. “Take care of yourselves so you have the bandwidth, the ability to show up when it matters.”
As we are celebrating Pride month this June, Ford Lyn says that this month serves as a reminder of how far we’ve come as a community, not just acknowledging LGBTQIA+ people, but what they bring to all parts of society. She said that the fight for rights is not sustainable without joy, so she encourages everyone to do what they need to keep themselves sane.
“May we take the time to manage our energy, to take care of ourselves, to be in community where we are loved, where we are heard, where we are held safe.”
