Keeping Our Community Safe: Queer Kentucky Installs Harm Reduction Lockers in Local Businesses
This story is part of a digital issue of Queer Kentucky surrounding Harm Reduction and its intersection with the LGBTQ+ community. Check out the full digital issue here.
In the Queer community especially, you are more likely to know someone struggling with substance use than not. Maybe it’s a friend or family member. Maybe it’s yourself. The thread of substance use, like it or not, is one that runs through our community. Substance use remains a significant challenge for our people, leading to shame, loneliness, isolation, and a proliferation of unsafe practices. For this reason, Queer Kentucky is partnering with the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky to launch our Harm Reduction Locker Initiative.
Last year, we held several Community Conversations on Substance Use across the state. We heard firsthand how the stigma against substance use and lack of real support can negatively affect members of our community, leading to far worse mental and physical health outcomes than our cisgender and heterosexual counterparts. We heard the call loud and clear: Queer Kentuckians are in need of resources for keeping themselves and each other safe.
At the core of this initiative is a desire to meet people where they are. We recognize that sobriety is the safest form of harm reduction, but how can we support the people who aren’t there yet or aren’t interested in total abstinence? How can we provide resources and show love in a way that makes them feel less alone? In a way that lets them know they are welcome in our spaces? hat they have a community no matter where they are on their journey? Enter our locker initiative.
These aren’t your high school lockers. Our harm reduction lockers are cute. They are brightly colored, the size of a small end table, and are purposefully designed to lower the stigma often associated with substance use. To make them even more appealing, each locker will be decked out with a custom design and text by Kentucky artist Levi River House. Each locker is stocked with essential harm reduction supplies, including OD prevention tools such as fentanyl test strips, safe sex supplies, HIV self-test kits, pregnancy tests, and other resources critical for community members currently experiencing substance use. But these lockers go beyond their functional purpose; they illustrate a message of respect and solidarity.
Our lockers are being placed in bathrooms around the state thanks to over a dozen of our small business and organizational partners, including Roebling Books & Coffee locations in NKY and the Louisville Pride Foundation. By placing harm reduction supplies in accessible yet private locations, these lockers play a crucial role in protecting vulnerable populations, helping to reduce harm and prevent avoidable health crises. Harm reduction is not about judgment; it’s about compassion, understanding, and keeping people alive.
Thanks to our incredible partners, the lockers will be accessible in community-oriented settings where people already feel safe and welcome. Whether they’re a local coffee shop, an LGBTQ+ community center, neighborhood bar, or cute retailer, our partners are diverse in both what they offer and where they’re located. This allows us to reach, assist, and educate a large segment of the population One of the biggest barriers around help is stigma, and these lockers will help facilitate conversations and inspire other forms of grassroots advocacy to create long-lasting systemic change.
Together, we can reshape the narrative around harm reduction and ensure that every member of our community has the opportunity to access resources and support.
For more information about partnering with Queer Kentucky’s harm reduction locker initiative, please email [email protected].
To view Queer Kentucky’s digital magazine covering harm reduction in the LGBTQ community, visit (insert link here).