We write this letter to LGBTQIA2S+ children and youth to precise deep gratitude that you simply exist, as a result of our world could be incomplete with out you. We honor the richness of your authenticity and overtly proclaim that you’re excellent precisely as you’re. Ralph Waldo Emerson as soon as mentioned, “To be your self in a world that’s consistently making an attempt to make you one thing else is the best accomplishment.”
This biggest accomplishment is commonly born, nonetheless, from a spot of battle. It might be a battle to really feel understood, to really feel protected, to really feel hopeful, and to even think about a future through which the liberty to be your self is feasible.
Throughout this Pride Month, we need to let you know that you simply need to really feel pleasure, to breathe, and to be unequivocally and undeniably who you’re. You need to do the atypical issues in life like going to highschool, carrying garments that make you are feeling blissful, and taking part in sports activities. You deserve the important issues like being seen and having the story of your life validated as a treasured and irrefutable fact.
We need to let you know that it’s okay to hope that it gets better. As you develop up, and you’ll develop up, the folks round you’ll be taught issues from you – classes that you simply collected out of your journey of working in opposition to the present. As you develop up, and you’ll develop up, folks will be capable of be extra open to their very own truths since you modeled unwavering dedication to being your self.
Throughout this Pleasure Month, we write to you on behalf of an expansive group of social employees that you haven’t even met. We see you, we have fun you, and we is not going to surrender on making the world higher for you.
NASW Assets
Help Starts Here Resources for LGBTQIA2S+ people
NASW Social Work Talks Podcast – Supporting LGBTQ Youth
Further Assets
LGBTQIA2S+ Terminology
PFLAG National Glossary of Terms
Help for Children and Youth
The Historical past of Pleasure Month
