Paul’s background in LGBTQ advocacy goes back almost 30 years. In high school he helped form an underground suicide prevention network for queer teens. In 2000, he was awarded the Mathew Shepard scholarship after coming out in his rural Iowa high school – which divided his hometown against him. 

In the 2000s Paul served as communications director for Iowa’s largest LGBT advocacy organization as same-sex marriage being was being legalized, and then as a program manager for a community-based AIDS project, where he helped build a novel sex-positive CDC-funded outreach program for queer men. 

After moving around the country, and finding the resources to get sober, Paul found himself in Little Rock, oddly disconnected from his own community. Late nights in bars and clubs no longer seemed relevant, but there was no other space. So in 2024, he started making plans that would become the Social Club.