Chad Michaels Hosts Stepping Stone’s Pink Gala Honoring 50 Years of Impact

By Cesar A Reyes

For Chad Michaels, celebrating 50 years of Stepping Stone is about honoring a lifeline that has consistently held up the LGBTQ+ community in San Diego for decades. “When you’ve been in this community as long as I have, you learn which organizations are really doing the work,” Chad says. “Stepping Stone has always been one of those names.” That kind of reputation isn’t built overnight. It’s built over years of showing up—through crisis, through change, through moments when people had nowhere else to turn. And that’s exactly what Stepping Stone has done for half a century. Chad has seen that impact up close, not just as a performer, but as someone deeply rooted in the community the organization serves. San Diego is where Chad built a career and a chosen family, and along the way, Chad has watched Stepping Stone become a place people rely on when life starts to unravel. “Because our community needs more than slogans. We need actual care,” Chad says, cutting straight to the heart of it. That care looks like addiction recovery services, therapy, housing support—real tools for healing—but it also looks like something less tangible and just as vital: belonging.

That’s part of what makes Stepping Stone’s 50-year milestone feel so powerful to Chad. Stepping stone has intentionally stayed rooted in queer identity and culture in a way that feels genuine. “It’s not just an organization serving LGBTQ+ people from a distance,” Chad explains. “It embraces queer culture, queer joy, and queer community.” That spirit is something Chad connects with deeply, especially as someone who has spent a lifetime creating spaces where people can feel seen. At the long-running Dreamgirls show, Chad jokes about offering “drag therapy,” a mix of humor, glamour, and release that gives audiences a moment to breathe. But Chad is quick to draw the distinction: “I do think drag heals something… but Stepping Stone provides the real thing.” It’s a line that lands with both honesty and respect—for the work that happens beyond the stage, in counseling rooms, recovery programs, and everyday moments of rebuilding.

Now, as Stepping Stone marks 50 years, Chad is channeling that respect into action, stepping into the role as host of the Pink Gala with the same energy and heart brought to every performance. For Chad, it’s a chance to shine a spotlight on an organization that has spent decades doing life-saving work, often without enough recognition. Chad talks about bringing “visibility, love, humor, and whatever sparkle I can,” but underneath the sparkle is something steady and sincere: a desire to make sure people understand what Stepping Stone really represents. Especially now, when so many in the LGBTQ+ community—particularly drag and trans communities—are facing renewed waves of hostility, the need for spaces like this feels even more urgent. “A lot of people are carrying pain that the world does not always see,” Chad says. “Stepping Stone is a place that says, ‘Come in, you belong here, and we will help hold you up.’”

That sense of being held—without judgment, without explanation—is what Chad hopes carries forward into the next 50 years. Chad wants Stepping Stone to keep growing, keep reaching people who may be struggling quietly, unsure if help exists for them. Chad wants it to remain a place where queer people don’t have to shrink themselves to receive care, where healing and identity can exist side by side. And maybe most of all, Chad wants it to keep embodying something that feels increasingly rare: a space that understands not just the pain within the community, but its joy, humor, and resilience too. When asked to sum it all up with one WORD, Chad doesn’t hesitate. “The word is FABULOUS,” Chad says it with a smile, but meant in a way that goes deeper than sequins and stage lights. Fifty years of saving lives, building community, and honoring people exactly as they are? “That’s not just important,” Chad says. “That is fabulous.”