Sharon Grigsby: As anti-LGBTQ themes rattle school board races, Frisco and new nonprofit show how to do things right

Frisco knows how to win. This boomtown is determined to be the best at everything, to land the biggest economic prizes and the most coveted quality of life accolades. If you don’t believe that it knows how to get stuff right, you haven’t visited in a while. Even as Frisco’s school board races threaten to deteriorate into garbage can fires fueled in part by anti-LGBTQ themes, city hall is making clear how it will keep winning: By being decent, humane and welcoming to everyone. At the June 7 City Council meeting, Mayor Jeff Cheney is scheduled to designate June 28 as Pride Day in Frisco and present a proclamation “of understanding and respect” to the brand-new nonprofit Pride Frisco, founded to support local LGBTQ individuals and their allies. “This proclamation from the city is a very big deal,” said Shannon Hammond, a 27-year resident of Frisco and part of the nonprofit’s leadership. “In the past, getting even an LGBTQ event into a listing wasn’t easy.”

The group’s long-term goal is to create a community center offering youth and adult programming and resources for Frisco and a dozen nearby cities in Collin and Denton counties. Shannon, who has raised three children in Frisco, grew up as an evangelical Christian. She told me that the church’s treatment of those who identified as LGBTQ had never “felt quite right inside my heart.” During the isolation of COVID, she thought a lot about the harm the church had inflicted. She felt called “to be part of the good,” to help the conversation change from, in her words, “I love you, but” to “I love you, hard-stop.” Soon after that epiphany, Shannon met Jon and Justin Culpepper, who married in 2015 and moved three years later from Dallas to Frisco when Jon’s job relocated to Legacy West. Shannon’s religious background resonated with Jon, who also grew up in a family that was extremely religious. “There was school and church. That’s all I knew,” he recalled. The trio also bonded over their strong call to service — the desire to create a safe space for LGBTQ individuals with a nonprofit designed to be true and authentic to Frisco.