Affirmations

Affirmations Affirmations is Metro Detroit's LGBTQ + Community Center. Here and queer for you since 1989. 🌈
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We’re bringing back q***r self-defense!Beginner-friendly. People-centered. Meant to feel empowering, not overwhelming.Q*...
09/05/2026

We’re bringing back q***r self-defense!

Beginner-friendly. People-centered. Meant to feel empowering, not overwhelming.

Q***r Self-Defense Class
Saturday, March 7 • 12-2 PM
Affirmations, Ferndale
Free to attend (donations welcome)
Drop-in
All bodies welcome • No experience needed

This class is about learning skills, building confidence, and practicing awareness in community. You move at your own comfort level.

Strength looks different on everybody.

Confidence builds differently for everybody.

Part of our Move! series in partnership with Gilda's Club Metro Detroit. Led by Rae's Karate.

Come learn something new. Bring yourself. That’s enough.

Dolly is forever. 🦋Come to the Orchid Theatre patio this Saturday to celebrate the music, life & legacy of Dolly Parton ...
08/28/2026

Dolly is forever. 🦋

Come to the Orchid Theatre patio this Saturday to celebrate the music, life & legacy of Dolly Parton with a little afternoon tea dance.

Saturday, August 29 • 4–8 PM
Orchid Theatre Patio
Music by DJ Samuel K.O.
Free entry + drink specials

Proceeds from drink sales will go to support Affirmations LGBTQ+ programming.

We’ve been waiting to share this one.Starting in September, we’re launching the Affirmations Q***r Film Series! Once a m...
08/26/2026

We’ve been waiting to share this one.

Starting in September, we’re launching the Affirmations Q***r Film Series! Once a month, we’re turning Aff into a little q***r repertory cinema.

First: Basquiat.

Thursday, September 10, we’re screening Julian Schnabel’s 1996 film in its 2024 black-and-white 4K restoration, starring Jeffrey Wright in his first-ever lead film role and David Bowie in a memorable turn as Andy Warhol.

It’s a messy, seductive portrait of the downtown Manhattan art world of the ’80s — all beauty, ego, money, ambition, and excess — and of a young Black q***r artist navigating its racism and class divides.

The film isn’t especially interested in behaving like a tidy biopic. It’s moody, impressionistic, sometimes strange, and much more interested in what it felt like to be Jean-Michel Basquiat as art-world fame closed in around him.

We’ll have popcorn and refreshments, plus some space to actually talk about the film together.

We’re trying to make a good room for people who like watching something worth talking about.

Come alone or bring the person you always text after the credits.

BASQUIAT
Thursday, September 10
Doors 6 PM · Film 6:30 PM
Affirmations · 290 W Nine Mile · Ferndale
Eventbrite: https://bit.ly/45MmmfV

RSVP on Eventbrite so we know you’re coming or just join us at the door. Seating is first come, first served. Donations are encouraged, but not required.

In partnership with the U-M Institute for the Humanities.

Friday. Two hours. Art, politics, q***r people with opinions. 🗳️🎨Dream Pop-Up is taking over the Center this week with a...
08/24/2026

Friday. Two hours. Art, politics, q***r people with opinions. 🗳️🎨

Dream Pop-Up is taking over the Center this week with art supplies, q***r young people and a conversation about voting rights — who gets a voice, who has had to fight for one, what’s happening right now, and what kind of future we’re trying to build from here.

The art you make won’t just live on a table at Aff. It’ll become part of a larger community art project headed to ArtPrize in Grand Rapids.

Tracy has been looking forward to this one! Affirmations Executive Director Tracy Hall will be talking with everyone while we work about voting rights history, current fights over access to the ballot, political power, and whatever questions or opinions the room brings with them.

If elections, organizing, protest, policy, or the general state of democracy are already taking up space in your brain, good. Bring all of that Friday. You’ll be in good company.

🗓 THIS FRIDAY, August 28
⏰ 5–7 PM
📍 Affirmations, 290 W Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale
🎨 Ages 16–24

Dream Pop-Up: Voting Rights Art Project is presented in collaboration with Indivisible Metro Detroit.

Mija saw something missing. So she built it. 💜This month’s Volunteer of the Month is Mija Lee!Mija looked around Aff, sa...
08/24/2026

Mija saw something missing. So she built it. 💜

This month’s Volunteer of the Month is Mija Lee!

Mija looked around Aff, saw something she wanted more of, and helped make it happen. That’s how we got BOLD, our support and social group created by and for Black LGBTQ+ folks — and, lucky for us, how we keep getting Mija around here, too.

That’s one of our favorite things about volunteers. You bring your ideas, your specific talents, the things you care about, the things you wish existed, and sometimes an entire community grows around them.

Thank you, Mija, for continuing to show up and make space. We’re very glad you’re here. 💜

And if reading this has you thinking, “Maybe I could do something here, too?” Yes. Yes, you could.

Learn more: bit.ly/AffVolunteer.

They did it. 💜Five days and 400 miles after leaving Traverse City, our Pedal for Pride riders made it all the way home t...
08/22/2026

They did it. 💜

Five days and 400 miles after leaving Traverse City, our Pedal for Pride riders made it all the way home to Affirmations.

And somehow that’s not even the only thing worth celebrating: together, you helped them raise $20,465 for q***r + trans people and community here at Aff.

We spent the week cheering from our phones, watching the miles add up, and waiting for everybody to make it back to Ferndale.

They’re home. We hit the goal and kept going. We’re very proud!!

Swipe to see how it went. 🚲

Next Wednesday could be worse. You could be somewhere without free pizza. 🍕We’re taking over a few tables at COMO's Rest...
08/20/2026

Next Wednesday could be worse. You could be somewhere without free pizza. 🍕

We’re taking over a few tables at COMO's Restaurant for another very serious and important evening of eating pizza and hanging out with q***r people.

Come catch up, meet somebody new, say hi to some of our volunteers, play a game if the spirit moves you, or simply sit there eating your slice.

🍕 Wednesday, August 26
⏰ 6–8 PM
📍 Como’s Ferndale
💜 Pizza is on us

No agenda. No need to know anybody. Come hang out.

Bring your opinions. We have the art supplies. Dream Pop-Up is our art + craft series for q***r young people ages 16–24:...
08/18/2026

Bring your opinions. We have the art supplies.

Dream Pop-Up is our art + craft series for q***r young people ages 16–24: space to make things, hang out, meet each other, and dream about the future you actually want to live in.

For our next one, we’re turning that dreaming toward a night all about voting rights, political power, and what it takes to have a say in what that future looks like.

The art we make together will become part of a larger community art project headed to ArtPrize in Grand Rapids.

And Affirmations Executive Director Tracy Hall is joining us too — and she is VERY excited to talk voting rights with a room full of young people while everybody makes things. We’ll get into some of the history, what’s happening right now, who gets access to the ballot, and why any of this matters when you’re trying to change the world around you.

Basically: come make something. Have opinions. Ask questions. Meet some people who also care a perhaps unreasonable amount about democracy.

🗓 Friday, August 28
⏰ 5–7 PM
📍 Affirmations, 290 W Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale
🎨 Ages 16–24

If this sounds like your kind of Friday night, that means it probably is. Pull up.

Dream Pop-Up: Voting Rights Art Project is presented in collaboration with Indivisible Metro Detroit.

08/16/2026

Affirmations’ Pedal for Pride is this weekend! Trans and q***r athletes (and allies) are biking from Traverse City to right our front door in Ferndale to raise $20k for our trans and q***r programs and services. Follow their journey and donate at our link in bio!

08/15/2026

Pedal for Pride starts this weekend in Traverse City! We are so proud of the trans and q***r athletes (and allies!) using their dedication and strength to give back to Affirmations. Learn more and support them @ our link in bio!

Address

290 W 9 Mile Road
Ferndale, MI
48220

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 9pm
Tuesday 10am - 9pm
Wednesday 10am - 9pm
Thursday 10am - 9pm
Friday 10am - 9pm
Saturday 10am - 9pm

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