Resiliency is often worn like a badge of honor. But what if the LGBTQIA+ community didn’t need to be so resilient? What if the queer community didn’t need to be strong or hardened to discrimination and harassment received? What if queer folks felt loved, or at least safe, and not just tolerated? Mx. Amber Leventry will ask these questions to help people reframe what needs to be done to provide inclusive spaces throughout homes, schools, businesses, and health care centers.

Leventry will provide personal stories from their own experiences while highlighting statistics from national and local surveys that confirm the LGBTQIA+ community suffers a disproportionately higher rate of self-harm, suicide ideation, and suicide compared to straight, cisgender peers. This is a direct result of bullying, rejection, and abuse. Yet, studies also show that those risks decrease when a LGBTQIA+ person has at least one loving and accepting person in their life.  

The LGBTQIA+ community doesn’t need to be fixed; queer folks should not be expected to be patient for people and systems to catch up. LGBTQIA+ folks need resilient allies now.