Pride and Affirmation: A Call to Protect and Care for LGBTQIA+ Children and Families

Truly caring for children and youth means embracing the full diversity of their identities. As one young person shared with CSSP, “if you cannot see all sides of me – my race, my gender, my sexuality – you don’t see me.” Without seeing young people, we cannot do right by them. Studies have consistently shown, and young people have affirmed, that youth need supportive communities and safe spaces where they can explore their whole identity and develop strategies for coping and thriving; services and resources that promote healthy development and self-esteem; and systems that promote accessibility to resources and inclusive environments, where the inherent worth and dignity of every young person is respected.

As we reflect on the ending of Pride Month, we know at CSSP that if we want all young people to live happy, healthy, and fulfilled lives, we must push for policies that create a safe environment for LGBTQIA+ youth every day of the year. Our work to care for all youth means eliminating and prohibiting discriminatory policies against people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression (SOGIE). It also means promoting healing through advancing community-based services that are SOGIE-affirming and culturally-responsive, helping youth, especially Black, Indigenous, Latine, and other youth of color, both to celebrate the richness of their communities while also navigating the stress caused by homophobia, racism, colonialism and other forms of oppression and exclusion. Policymakers and systems leaders must develop and evaluate these services in partnership with young people to move systems beyond simply “providing” services to ensuring services support youths’ existing strengths and actual needs, as they define them.

While we contend with renewed transphobic and homophobic attacks that weaponize policy to harm queer youth, particularly those who are transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse, we must stand firm in the legacy of Pride. Pride reminds us of the LGBTQIA+ community’s history of resistance against oppression and of their advocacy for a just society where all people can live freely and safely in their community and are recognized and affirmed for who they are. The anti-LGBTQIA+ movement, in contrast, tries to use the levers of government to create a world in which our worth is tied to restrictive and extreme ideas about gender identity and sexual orientation. If we want our children and young people to be healthy and happy, we have to reject efforts that we know will harm them, and instead continue to advance solutions that center caring for one another all the time, in all spaces, and in all ways.

Ensuring young people are healthy and cared for requires an intentional approach to policy and system transformation that centers the voices of diverse youth and families and provides supportive services that are dignified and respectful of who they are. This is our collective responsibility to our youth. To live up to this responsibility, young people need policymakers to pass protections for LGBTQIA+ people at the federal level and in states without protections and eliminate discriminatory measures where they exist. They need leaders of youth-serving systems, particularly those who have custody of young people, to not shy away from raising their voices against harmful legislation or from advocating on behalf of robust protections for the youth entrusted to their care. Finally, young people need systems leaders that will support community advocates and service providers in their efforts to continue to serve and care for youth and families in ways that are aligned with what youth and families say they need.

Put simply, our youth need us to actively make our communities into safe havens that have the resources needed to ensure all young people can live freely and safely, secure in all aspects of their identity. The end of Pride Month does not mean an end to the values of Pride; LGBTQIA+ children and youth need our committed action every month of the year. They deserve no less.