Two months ago, as I waited for my drink at the bar, I turned to take in the unusual scene around me: dozens of LGBTQ+ women chatting, laughing, and mingling. Many enthusiastically sported Halloween costumes inspired by queer icons: Chappell Roan, or characters from the Showtime drama The L Word. When I came out as queer at the age of 31, just four months earlier, the idea of participating in such an inclusive and freeing environment felt like pure fantasy.
But thanks to For the Girls of Raleigh, an organization formed to build female LGBTQ+ community in the Triangle, that fantasy turned out to be a thrilling reality.
The Halloween party, which saw over 100 queer women (as well as nonbinary and trans individuals) unite to celebrate the holiday at Glenwood Avenue’s Dogwood Bar and Eatery, also marked a year since the group launched in October 2024. The goal, the group’s three founders told the INDY, is to help women like me feel less alone.
“There aren’t a lot of places where you can just be your authentic gay self and feel safe in that sense, especially for sapphic women,” said Paige King, 25, who cofounded For the Girls alongside Samantha Kublin, 27, and Annie Rasheva, 29.
Larger cities like San Francisco and New York tend to have “massive” queer communities and frequent social events, King said, but in Raleigh—a city in which 3.3% of its population identifies as queer, per a 2021 study—she was struck by how few opportunities there were for LGBTQ+ women to connect. While organizations like the LGBT Center of Raleigh, Stonewall Sports, and a handful of nightlife spaces uplift the broader LGBTQ+ community, King was pining for a space specifically for queer women.
In 2023, she befriended Kublin, and the two women spent the next year brainstorming ways to create such a community. They decided to start with a Halloween party, spreading the word on social media—and even on their dating app profiles. To the women’s happy surprise, they sold nearly 45 tickets.
“The demand was really high. People were like, ‘We want more events!’” recalled Kublin. “We realized it could actually be something.”
One of those enthusiastic attendees was Rasheva, who had bonded with Kublin at a Pride event that year. She, too, hoped to find a community outside of annual celebrations.
“People would go all out for Pride events in June, and then there was nothing throughout the year past that,” Rasheva explained. “The community gathering was so dispersed.”
After the Halloween party, Rasheva, Kublin, and King joined forces and the trio officially formed For the Girls; soon after, they got to work planning their second event, a well-attended December holiday mixer at Dogwood.
But it was a Galentine’s Day party hosted at the now-closed Ruby Deluxe this past February—with a high turnout of nearly 200 attendees that stunned both the founders and the bar’s staff—that proved the organization was on solid ground.
The group has since grown, with over 3,500 followers on Instagram. Most events sell out quickly. Over the past year, For the Girls has offered an increasingly wide range of events, including vendor fairs, self-defense classes, networking mixers, and even two speed-dating nights (which, the founders noted proudly, have led to several serious relationships). Tickets average between $10 and $15, with a percentage of proceeds often going to local nonprofits like Layers of Dignity and the Raleigh United Mutual Aid Hub.
“Giving back was always embedded in what we wanted to do,” said Rasheva. “[For the Girls] is for the queer community, but it’s also about having a real impact.”
Participants seem to appreciate both of the group’s arms.
Upon graduating from college last December, Madelyne Comley, 22, found herself missing the “strong queer network” of her university days and the opportunities to support LGBTQ+ charities that such a network offered.
“I was looking for a community where I could help give back and meet new people,” Comley recalled. On a friend’s recommendation, she attended a For the Girls-hosted picnic at the North Carolina Museum of Art this summer, where she instantly felt at home.
“I hadn’t encountered a space like For the Girls before, but it’s so necessary,” Comley said. “I met so many amazing people through it.”
Leading a large organization with multiple monthly offerings that all require securing venues, selling tickets, and partnering with local groups is time-consuming work.
“It’s not a nine-to-five; it’s an in-between, where we each just fill in the gaps whenever we have time and then buckle down when events are coming up,” said Rasheva, who, along with the other two founders, also has a full-time job. Recently, the trio formed a volunteer committee, with the hope that increased bandwidth will allow the group to hold events more broadly across the Triangle.
For Comley, joining the committee was a no-brainer. “I wanted to help an organization that made me feel unbelievably welcome in a time when I was feeling alone,” she explained.
“People will show up to an event alone and then come to the next one with someone they met at the one before,” said King. “It’s so cool that they’re genuinely finding those connections within the community.”
For Kublin, who was closeted for years, befriending other queer women has helped her accept and gain confidence in her identity.
“People will show up to an event alone and then come to the next one with someone they met at the one before.”
for the girls co-founder paige king
“I’ve always wanted to find my core people, but that required being true to myself and acknowledging that I was gay,” she explained. Thanks to For the Girls, she continued, “I really feel like my most authentic, genuine self.”
In the year since the group began, there’s been a noted rise in other local opportunities for queer female community, from Sapphic Trails Hiking Club to the monthly Sapphic Night at the downtown Raleigh bar Le Dive. Kublin said that the founders also now frequently field requests to bring For the Girls nationwide, and they’re working on building resources that would help LGBTQ+ women start chapters of the organization (which is in the process of becoming an LLC) in other cities.
They likely won’t have trouble spreading the word.
“I stop [queer] couples in public now just to invite them to For the Girls events because it’s so amazing,” said Mac Ferland, 30, who discovered the group after moving to Durham with her partner last year.
“To have a group of chosen individuals who make you feel as special as you deserve to feel,” she continued, “is truly unmatched.”
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