This ethnographic research is an inquiry into the obstacles that LGBTQ people face in their unpaid organizing work in Charlotte, NC. Field work included participant observation from 2014 to 2018, and 26 semi-structured and unstructured interviews with community members of diverse genders and ethnicities. The goal of this research was to produce actionable recommendations for community members in order to help them better handle the obstacles that the research identified. Those things that were found to have the most influence over the quality of organizing work were: the insidious presence of neoliberal thought, over-reliance on identities as sources of political authority, and the exploitation/reproduction of emotional trauma by some organizers to enforce conformity from others. This report argues that in Charlotte these three things work in tandem to create an atmosphere that struggles to sustain transformative grassroots organizing. To demonstrate the role these play in shaping organizing work in the community, the report explores the connection between these three influences and obstacles that are commonly identified by participants. The report concludes with the recommendation that the community collectively create mechanisms through which they can openly engage in political and ideological struggle while minimizing the undermining influence of neoliberal thought.