Before Brandy ever imagined creating The PrideXchange Co., she knew exactly what it felt like to belong.

Growing up in Detroit, that feeling was as familiar as the red-and-white house off Joy Road, where her mother had a remarkable gift for connecting people. “One phone call, and everybody’s phone rings,” Brandy recalls. People knew they were coming into a place where they could feel welcome and safe, where acceptance, dignity, and respect mattered.

Raised by two mothers and surrounded by Detroit’s Black gay community during the AIDS epidemic, Brandy didn't see anything extraordinary about her childhood. “It was normal,” she says. Only when she encountered the outside world did she begin to understand how unusual that experience was.

As she grew older, Brandy noticed that Black LGBTQIA+ communities still existed in cities across the country, but the connections she remembered didn't seem nearly as visible. And when she looked at mainstream Pride, she saw plenty of rainbows, unicorns, and merchandise every June, but very little that reflected the people and experiences she knew.

Where were the designs and stories that felt like them? And why should anybody's Pride have an expiration date?

The creative spark arrived in 2018, when a Girl Scout event with her daughter introduced her to screen printing. She was hooked. And what began with YouTube tutorials, online crafting forums, and custom apparel grew into a much bigger idea.

By 2021, Brandy was imagining a brand of her own, one centered on LGBTQIA+ people of color and the ways Pride shows up in everyday life. The name took forever to find. But during that process, a dream brought the science behind the X chromosome to mind. To Brandy, something nearly all human beings share became a symbol of connection across our differences. The PrideXchange Co. was never about everyone being the same. It was about making room for all of us.

She officially formed the LLC in 2023. Then came the building process: hundreds of original designs, unfamiliar challenges, and more than two years of long days, often 12 to 18 hours at her laptop, while balancing motherhood, caregiving, and work.

“I was never concerned about seeing the whole staircase,” she recalls. “I just kept believing the next step would appear.”

The vision wasn't what she questioned. It was whether she could bring something so ambitious to life. But even when she couldn't see the next move, she kept making one.

In July 2026, the story came full circle. Visiting Detroit during the 31st anniversary of Hotter Than July, the city's Black Gay Pride celebration, Brandy wore her own apparel, shared her brand with people there, and announced that the website was finally and officially live. After years behind the scenes, The PrideXchange Co. had come into the world, on the same ground, where her story began.

But selling apparel is only the beginning. Brandy wants PXC to become the go-to place for LGBTQIA+ people of color and their allies, whether they're looking for a Black Pride event in another city, a business to support, or a way to connect.

She's also developing The PrideXchange Foundation, a separate nonprofit initiative planned for February 2027. It's the next expression of a vision that has always reached beyond products.

“I want people to feel like, where has this been at all this time?” she says.

Brandy isn't trying to create a community that doesn't exist. She's working to connect and celebrate people who have been here all along, and to make sure more of them feel seen, heard, and valued.

The apparel may bring people to The PrideXchange Co. It's the connection she hopes will keep them coming back.