Importance of Family Support for LGBTQ Youth

Support for LGBTQ youth is imperative for kids to grow up accepting themselves and creating a positive self-image of their sexual orientation or gender identity. While great progress has been made over the past few decades, many LGBTQ youth still report that their family doesn’t support who they are in the way they would like.

According to a 2018 joint survey from the Human Rights Campaign and the University of Connecticut, just 24 percent of LGBTQ youth respondents said they felt they could be themselves while at home. Another 25 percent said their family shows support by being actively involved in the LGTBQ community.

Two-thirds of LGTBQ youth respondents also reported their family continues to make negative comments about the LGTBQ community. Overall, 48 percent of youth respondents reported that their family made them feel negative about being LGBTQ.

The survey goes on to show how the classroom for LGBTQ youth isn’t much better than at home, where 26 percent say they feel safe in school classrooms and just 5 percent say they believe all their teachers and administrators are supportive of LGBTQ people.