When Latino LinQ first set out in its mission to educate the Hispanic LGBTQ community, one of its primary goals was to strengthen relationships between parents and children.
Now, the organization is one step closer to achieving its objective, thanks to a new program in which mothers and fathers of LGBTQ youth will teach other parents how to accept and support their own children.
“We know that in our community there is still work to be done with the relationships between parents and children who have a different sexual orientation or gender identity,” explained Leonardo Martínez, president of Latino LinQ’s board of directors.
“We decided to create a program where we are going to prepare people to go out into the community and speak with parents about how to be better parents if they have LBGTQ children or how they can be better allies if they have a friend or relative [who is LBGTQ],” he added.
Critical acceptance
According to Martínez, not accepting one’s child who has a different sexual orientation or gender identity puts these youth at risk.
“We know that there are many people who, when their family doesn’t accept them, there is a higher rate of mental health problems, alcoholism and drugs. If we get to the root of working with families so that they can accept their children, maybe we will be able to avoid those problems in the future,” said Martínez.
For Martínez, who identifies as gay, the support and acceptance that his own family showed him when he came out was key to his acceptance of himself. In many cases, he explained, people hide their true sexual preference from their parents for years out of fear of rejection.
“The effect is tremendous, because accepting yourself is very difficult. It takes time for us to accept ourselves, because the message we get from society is that it’s something bad. When parents create an environment of acceptance it’s easier,” said Martínez.
Latino LinQ will soon hold workshops in which the organization will spend time educating the community and recruiting parents to serve as educators in the community, all with the end goal of strengthening relationships between families and friends and improving the quality of life for LGBTQ individuals.
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