Two of the co-founders of Brothers of the Desert, Tim Vincent and Michael Taylor, appear at their wedding in April 2022. “There’s a lot of LGBTQ presence, but not LGBTQ people of color, so it was important for us to just connect and support each other,” Vincent explains.

They often found themselves being the only Black people in the room - something Vincent says was a lonely experience. Vincent, his now-husband Michael Taylor and their friends didn’t first set out to create a group focused on empowerment, advocacy, education, mentorship and social networking.īoth Vincent and Taylor moved to Palm Springs from places with larger Black gay communities - Oakland and Los Angeles. “People felt isolated, people felt disconnected, and people did not feel really a part of the larger community as Black gay men in the Coachella Valley,” says Tim Vincent, president and co-founder of Brothers of the Desert.

A growing group called Brothers of the Desert is working to address that issue by empowering Black gay men in Palm Springs and beyond the city’s borders in the Coachella Valley. Some call Palm Springs the “ gayest town in America,” but many LGBTQ residents of color say there is still a long way to go to uplift diverse communities and remedy the city’s racist past.