By Aaron Boot-Haury –
As we move into this season of gratitude, I find myself reflecting on what it truly means to give thanks as part of the LGBTQ+ business community here in the Bay Area.
Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday. For many of us, it brings up a mix of emotions: joy and connection, but also memories of exclusion, loss, or family dynamics that do not always honor who we are. It also sits on land with a deep and painful history for Indigenous communities. Holding all of that truth at once is part of what makes our community so powerful. We know how to live in complexity and still move forward with intention, care, and courage.
At the Golden Gate Business Association (GGBA), gratitude is not just a feeling. It is a practice.
We are grateful for our LGBTQ+ and allied business owners and professionals who show up every day to build companies, create jobs, solve problems, and serve this region with creativity and heart. You are the backbone of our local economy and an essential part of what makes the Bay Area a global beacon for innovation and inclusion.
We are grateful for our corporate and nonprofit partners who invest in supplier diversity, inclusive workplaces, and community impact. Your choices about whom you hire, promote, sponsor, and contract with have a direct impact on whether LGBTQ+ people, and especially queer and trans people of color, can thrive economically.
We are grateful for our members and volunteers who give their time, talent, and energy to strengthen this chamber. Whether you are welcoming a new face at a mixer, serving on a committee, mentoring a fellow business owner, or simply making space at your table for someone who needs a sense of belonging, you are the living definition of chosen family.
And we are especially grateful for our small businesses. The last few years have demanded a level of resilience that few could have imagined. Entrepreneurs have had to navigate a pandemic, rising costs, shifting customer behavior, commercial vacancies, and the very real emotional toll of uncertainty. Yet time and again, LGBTQ+ business owners and allies have found ways to adapt, to reinvent, and to keep their doors and their hearts open.
As you plan your holiday season, I invite you to turn your gratitude into action:
• Support LGBTQ+ and allied small businesses when you shop, dine, or book services. These dollars stay in our communities and help sustain the places where we gather, celebrate, and organize.
• Consider how you can use your influence, personally or professionally, to open doors for LGBTQ+ owned businesses in your company’s supply chain, events, or vendor lists.
• Reach out to someone in your network who may be feeling isolated this season such as a young entrepreneur, a trans or nonbinary colleague navigating a difficult family environment, or a business owner quietly carrying the weight of keeping their team employed. A simple check-in can be more impactful than you know.
Thanksgiving is often framed as a day to be thankful for what we have. For our community, it is also a moment to look ahead to what we are building together: a regional economy where LGBTQ+ people and our businesses are not only visible but also valued and not only tolerated but also included at every level of decision-making. That vision takes all of us.
As you gather with family, whether biological, chosen, or something in between, I hope you can carve out a moment to honor your own journey. Think about the risks you have taken, the barriers you have overcome, and the people who pulled up a chair for you when you needed it most. Then consider whose chair you can pull up next.
On behalf of the GGBA Board of Directors and our entire leadership team, thank you. Thank you for your perseverance. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for continuing to believe in this community, in this city, and in one another.
From our GGBA family to yours, I wish you a safe, restorative, and meaningful Thanksgiving.
Aaron Boot-Haury is the President & CEO of the Golden Gate Business Association.
GGBA Message from Leadership
Published on November 20, 2025
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