Friends and Families of LGBT Individuals

Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) states, “Your first reaction to learning that your loved one is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning can range anywhere from anger to sadness, fear to hurt, confusion to grief, and anywhere and everything in between. These emotions and the thousands of others that parents, families, and friends experience as they navigate their loved ones coming out process are normal.

We can tell you with absolute certainty that you’re not alone. According to statistics, one in every ten people in this country and around the world is lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). Approximately one in four families has an immediate family member who is LGBT, and most people have at least one LGBT individual in their extended circle of friends and family”….Click here to visit the PFLAG National Website.

According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP),

“Children of lesbian, gay, or transgender parents:

- Are NOT more likely to be gay than children with heterosexual parents.

- Are NOT more likely to be sexually abused.

- Do NOT show differences in whether they think of themselves as male or female (gender identity).

- Do NOT show differences in their male and female behaviors (gender role behavior)”….Download AACAP – Facts for Families – Children with LGBT Parents.pdf

RESOURCES FOR PARENTS WHO HAVE AN LGBT CHILD:

LEAD with Love Documentary for Parents of LGB Youth

“What do I do if my child is gay?” Lead With Love is a 35-minute documentary created to help answer that question. Our goal is to provide comfort, information, and guidance for parents who have recently learned that their son or daughter is lesbian, gay, or bisexual. The film follows four families as they share their honest reactions to hearing that their child is gay, including the intense emotions, fears, and questions that it raised. Interviews with psychologists, teachers, and clergy provide factual answers to parents’ most commonly asked questions, as well as concrete guidance to help parents keep their children healthy and safe during this challenging time. If you are a parent of a gay, lesbian, or bisexual child, we applaud your courage in looking for resources to help support your family. This film was made for you. If you are someone else who cares about these issues, we hope that you will enjoy this entertaining and informational film, and share it with others. Thank you for your interest.

Family Acceptance Project

The Family Acceptance Project™ is the only community research, intervention, education and policy initiative that works to decrease major health and related risks for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth, such as suicide, substance abuse, HIV and homelessness – in the context of their families. We use a research-based, culturally grounded approach to help ethnically, socially and religiously diverse families decrease rejection and increase support for their LGBT children.

PFLAG Transgender Network (TNET)

While PFLAG provides support, education, and advocacy for the whole LGBT community, PFLAG’s Transgender Network – or TNET – specifically focuses on support for transgender people and their parents, families, and friends. It provides education on some issues unique to the transgender community, and focuses on issue advocacy to ensure equal rights for the transgender community at local and national levels. PFLAG is proud of its status as the first national LGBT organization to officially adopt a transgender-inclusion policy for our work, and through TNET we continue to honor this important commitment.

TransYouth Family Allies, Inc.

TYFA empowers children and families by partnering with educators, service providers and communities, to develop supportive environments in which gender may be expressed and respected. We envision a society free of suicide and violence in which ALL children are respected and celebrated.

Gay Parent Magazine

Gay Parent magazine (GPM) is a newsprint magazine featuring personal stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) parents from across the country and around the world. Parents speak candidly about their experiences with international and domestic adoption, foster care, donor insemination, using a surrogate and what it is like to raise their children in their part of the world.

Family Pride Coalition

We envision a future where all families, regardless of creation or composition, will be able to live in communities that recognize, respect, protect, and celebrate them. We envision a country that celebrates a diversity of family constellations and respects individuals for supporting one another and sustaining loving families.

Latter Day Saints (LDS) Family Fellowship

Family Fellowship is a volunteer service organization, a diverse collection of Mormon families engaged in the cause of strengthening families with homosexual members. We share our witness that gay and lesbian Mormons can be great blessings in the lives of their families, and that families can be great blessings in the lives of their gay and lesbian members. We strive to become more understanding and appreciative of each other while staying out of society’s debate over homosexuality. We seek to put behind us all attitudes which are anti-family, which threaten loving relationships, and which drive family members apart.

Parents of Gay Children

If you are a parent that has just found out your son or daughter is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender and are now feeling shocked, unsure, isolated or many of the other emotions we parents feel when we first discover our childs sexual orientation or gender identity, (that is different to ours) then this site will be invaluable to you.

Atticus Circle

Atticus Circle educates and mobilizes straight people to advance equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) partners, parents, and their children. Atticus Circle provides information about the rights of parents and partners denied on the basis of sexual orientation. We seek to create cultural and attitudinal change by helping people understand the unique challenges and discrimination same gender couples and their families face, and by encouraging acceptance of all families and partnerships.

Fortunate Families

Fortunate Families ministers primarily with Catholic parents of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) daughters and sons. We believe when parents explore and value their stories, they are empowered to share that story with their family circle, their faith community and the larger community.

Transfamily

TransFamily is a transgender support group in the Cleveland, Ohio metropolitan area. We hold regular support group meetings in Cleveland and Akron that are open to everyone. This in inclusive of all transgendered subcategories, e.g.  FTM, MTF, cross dresser, gender bender, questioning one’s gender or orientation, etc. Family members, friends, parents and spouse are welcome at the meetings. Please see regular meetings for the meeting schedule. Our web site has two primary functions. First, it is to provide basic information about the Transfamily support group and information about our meetings so that you may attend. The second function of this site is to maintain a list of resources, primarily medical, in the Northeast Ohio area relevant to transgendered people.

Transparentcy

TransParentcy’s mission is to support the Transgender Parent, and their advocates (lawyers, mental health professionals, friends, family) by providing information and resources to diffuse and/or disspell the myths about any adverse impact being transgendered/transsexual might have on one’s children. We feel very strongly about the preciousness of the relationship between child and parent, as we do that one’s gender identity has little to do with one’s parenting skills. TransParentcy was founded March 2001 to fill the void of information and resources for transgender parents and their children. We offer a comprehensive list of resources – information, organizations and providers – addressing the issues a Transgender Parent faces. TransParentcy is based in Portland, OR, United States. Locally, we have been involved with several organizations facilitating and participating in educational panels and workshops.

Impact Program

The IMPACT Program was founded and is directed by Dr. Brian Mustanski.  We conduct translational research on LGBT Health and Development.  By “translational,” we mean that we seek to identify health issues, understand factors that put people at risk or protect them, and turn that knowledge into programs that advance the health of LGBT people and communities. “Translate” also means that we try to explain some of the fascinating but complicate language of science into lessons that everyone can benefit from.  The study of LGBT development is also part of our mission. We seek to understand how sexual orientation and gender identity develop because we believe they are core parts of human identity and worthy of understanding. The IMPACT program actively collaborates with community based organizations.  We feel privileged to have been awarded over $7 million in research funding from the National Institutes of Health and major foundations such as the William T Grant Foundation and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

RESOURCES FOR FAMILY MEMBERS WITH AN LGBT INDIVIDUAL:

COLAGE – For Children With One or More LGBTQ Parents

COLAGE is a national movement of children, youth, and adults with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer (LGBTQ) parent/s. We build community and work toward social justice through youth empowerment, leadership development, education, and advocacy.

Straight Spouse Network – Spouses in Mixed-Orientation Relationships

The Straight Spouse Network (SSN) is an international organization that provides personal, confidential support and information to heterosexual spouses/partners, current or former, of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender mates and mixed-orientation couples for constructively resolving coming-out problems. SSN also offers research-based information about spouse, couple, and family issues and resources to other family members, professionals, community organizations, and the public. SSN is the only support network of its kind in the world.

We are Wild Flowers

Wildflowers is a blog that exists to support and celebrate the beauty, strength, courage and rebirth of women who have been, or who are currently, married to homosexual men.

Families Like Mine – People Who have LGBT Parents

Welcome to FamiliesLikeMine.com, a website created by Abigail Garner, author of the Lambda Literary finalist, Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is. This site launched in 1999 with the mission to decrease isolation for people who have parents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), and bring voice to their experiences. Although Abigail has stepped back from her involvement, this site now serves as a partial archive of her work as a spokesperson and educator for more than a decade.

PFLAG – National Resource Page

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays of Kansas City (PFLAG-KC) is a group of parents, siblings, friends, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered  (LGBT) people who: Provide a support system for the families and friends of LGBT people to enable them to understand, accept and support their children with love and pride; Provide education for individuals and the community at large on the nature of homosexuality; and Support the full human and civil rights of LGBT people.

1028 S. Jefferson

Farmington, MO 63640

ADDITIONAL FAMILY RESOURCES:

Stop Family Violence

National Domestic Violence Hotline