Mid-Michigan LGBTQ group celebrates 20 years of connections and visibility

At UrbanBeat in Lansing, the atmosphere is full of chatter and laughter, glasses clinking and plates clattering as guests enjoy drinks and appetizers as Suits and the City celebrates its 20th anniversary. The room is already full, and more people are arriving to celebrate.

Cole Pauley and his friends sit on couches in the corner, enjoying the surroundings. Pauley recently moved here from a small town in Northern Michigan and is attending a Suits and the City event for the first time. He says he appreciates the opportunity to connect with other queer professionals.

“I think everyone was super nice. I think the opportunity to network is really great and I think that’s super important,” Pauley said.

All evening long, a photographer weaves his way between tables and groups of people, taking photos. But when Kent Love-Ramirez co-founded Suits and the City in 2004, this type of documentation was still against the rules.

“People should know that they can come without their employer finding out that they are gay and attending an event like this and risking losing their job,” Love-Ramirez said.

Love-Ramirez said Lansing has always welcomed him as a gay man, but he never felt truly represented in the business world. That was the impetus for the organization’s creation.

As a tribute to the HBO series Sex and the CitySuits and the City would be a classy event with a business twist, hosting monthly events for queer professionals in Central Michigan. Love-Ramirez says the desire for community was strong at the inaugural event.

“We set everything up not knowing how many people would come, whether no one would come or 50 people,” Love-Ramirez explained. “We were pleasantly surprised that 68 people showed up at the first event.”

Melik Brown

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Courtesy of Suits and the City

Over the next two decades, the group managed to maintain a steady following while increasingly focusing on education and advocacy.

Jeffrey Venn, a regular attendee, says he has watched the organization evolve, becoming less formal and more diverse, but the focus on awareness and inclusion has remained the same.

“This may be their first exposure to a group of people that they may have classified and stereotyped in their own minds. And then this group comes in and they realize, ‘Oh my God, these are just normal, everyday average people,'” Venn said.

Melik Brown

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Courtesy lawsuits and the city

Linda Sarnelli, current chair of Suits and the City, says the events are open to everyone and that this openness allows the LGBTQ community to be integrated into the broader Central Michigan community.

“We get a lot of non-LGBTQ people coming to our events. And the reason they come is to make good friends and have a good time,” Sarnelli said.

Sarnelli said the board does a lot to make sure everyone is comfortable, and that is the reason the organization continues to exist.

Back at UrbanBeat, it seems as though Pauley is feeling exactly what the creators intended.

“It’s easier to fit in, find more like-minded people and not feel as nervous when you’re just going about your everyday dating life. It’s safer, I think,” he said.

As Suits and the City enters a new decade, the organization plans to become more committed to its advocacy work.

The group already offers sensitivity training to improve how others interact with the LGBTQ community. Most recently, the group worked with the Lansing Police Department.