Our Founder

Meet our Founder, Clayton Gibson.

Clayton Gibson (he/him) is an American LGBTQIA+ activist, social artist, and author. He founded and leads QWELL Community Foundation, based in Greater Austin, Texas, which has the nation's third largest openly LGBTQIA+ population, per capita.

Clayton Gibson, Founder of QWELL Community Foundation

Gibson is the author of the 1990's "Fire in the Lake" newspaper column (published in White Crane Journal and other print and online publications) and numerous articles for his "Gay Spirituality" online magazine on TypePad, which was the #1 search result for "gay spirituality" for many years and featured content by Toby Johnson, Andrew Harvey, Joe Perez, and many others. Gibson also wrote the 2003 book, Shirt of Flame: The Secret Gay Art of War, under the name Ko Imani ("revolutionary faith").

Shirt of Flame applies the nonviolent theories of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi to the struggle for LGBTQIA+ equity. A central proposition in Shirt of Flame is the concept of "Voluntary Redemptive Service," an alternate tactic to traditional "Voluntary Redemptive Suffering." The book was endorsed by Arun Gandhi and other luminaries.

After recognizing a need to popularize the work of LGBTQIA+ affirming spiritual leaders at the Gay Spirit Culture Summit in 2004, Gibson went on to own and operate the social networking and directory website MyOutSpirit.com (2007–2018), for which he invented the customizable profile cover photo later adopted by Facebook. A single issue of MyOutSpirit Magazine was released in 2010 with a special address in the Texas State Capitol Rotunda by Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Bishop in any Christian denomination.

MyOutSpirit was later given responsibility for the "Bring Your LGBT Teen to Church Day" event created by Austin Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Joanna Fontaine Crawford and grew the annual event into a nationwide campaign reaching more than 1MM people.

While working with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) from 2001–2004, Gibson co-created the first national conference for spiritual LGBTQIA+ activists, "Together in Faith" (2004) in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which featured speakers including Rev. Dr. Mel White of Soulforce, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Dr. Sylvia Rhue, Durga Das, Kay Whitlock, John Corvino, Rabbi Deb Kolodny, and Faisal Alam, among others. Gibson also conceived and supported AFSC's development of the first statewide network of LGBTQIA+ affirming clergy, the "Faith Action Network."

After moving to Austin and 7 years as a core organizer of Queerbomb, Gibson began the work that would become QWELL Community Foundation in December 2015.

With QWELL, Gibson conceived a number of unique programs that continue to this day:

The annual anonymous "Queer Wellbeing Survey" that measures local LGBTQIA+ wellbeing in six dimensions (a collaboration with university researchers), providing the only consistent measure of the success of programs to improve LGBTQIA+ physical and mental health, relationships and community connectedness, cultural and living environment, learning opportunities, and economic condition.

The Colors of Pride Gathering, a large annual Pride event celebrating QTBIPOC people of all backgrounds and origins (now a separate nonprofit organization).

The Queer Health Equity Program, through which Gibson drove the assembly of the world's first cohort of large health systems to pursue Human Rights Campaign's "Healthcare Equality Index" certification together, certifying more than 75 clinics and 300 providers in Greater Austin in the first cohort.

FreePrideFlag.com, which has distributed more than 5,000 free rainbow flags in Central Texas since launching in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Texan Courage — with volunteer-organized dinners in neighborhoods across Texas to build community, improve the Drivers of Health, register and mobilize voters, and make Texas safer for and friendlier to LGBTQIA+ people — is now "Courage Gatherings" in the Virtual LGBTQIA+ Community Center App.

The annual National Pride Interfaith Broadcast for television, a live event, broadcast, and program to engage and mobilize all LGBTQIA+ affirming faith communities to support LGBTQIA+ people.

A life of organizing