Posted on 04/29/2020 2:02:26 PM PDT by MountainWalker
Alyx Irving, 18, first started spending time at Affirmations, an LGBTQ community center in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale, Mich., three years ago, when his gay older brother brought him along. It soon became his second home.
“I’m usually there all the time,” Irving tells Yahoo Life. “It’s a joke between everyone that I actually live there.” It was at the community center and through its support groups that the teen, who identifies as genderqueer, found the acceptance he does not have at home.
“There are a lot of really warmhearted, supportive people, and it’s a place where you can be your authentic self, which is something I don’t have a lot outside of Affirmations,” he says.
But the center closed in March, just like hundreds of others across the country, as part of the coronavirus pandemic. And now, says Irving, a deep loneliness has set in.
“It’s been really hard on me,” he says. “My mental health has kind of been depleting and I don’t have a lot of contact info for the other youth because we hadn’t gotten that close yet. So, it’s been pretty depressing.”
As if the direct fallout of the coronavirus crisis has not been enough — more than 50,000 dead, over 26 million and rising have filed for unemployment as of Tuesday — the collateral damage, too, has been staggering, leaving just about every thread in the fabric of American society, from restaurants and shops to arts and social service nonprofits, at risk of unraveling.
That includes LGBTQ community centers, which provide a wide range of services, not the least of which is a powerful human connection to a population that’s prone to feelings of isolation.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
It’s been really hard.
Ew.
Perfect headline!
Taxpayer funded...
That headline is... unfortunate
If it’s been hard for longer than 4 hours, see your doctor.
imagine having not one gay son, but two.....
No, this queer's mental health has been depleted for a long time.
It’s all about the queers. Everything, 24/7/365. So GD sick of these people and their neverending whining.
“My mental health has kind of been depleting”
This is EVERYONE. You aren’t so special or precious.
We have all be isolated from anyone we know or don’t know.
We have all had our plans and amusements taken from us like punished toddlers.
Blame the Left. They’ve brought you here.
Which one came onto the other one first?
homos have to stop the gay shucking and jiving bit....
I noticed that too. What a nightmare. My therapy bills would be through the roof.
Gay newsrooms are like that. They take niche alternative lifestyles and assume everyone is like they are. Self-absorbed.
It misses the double wide restroom stalls.
Poor babies. As if the isolated Normals don’t suffer isolation and loneliness, too.
But, hey, you are so SPECIAL that is to be extra hard on you.
Does anybody have any spare batteries for a Give-a-Sh!t 9000? I used the last ones for my Roku remote.
Don't worry...Once the LGBTQWERTY community complains about social distancing and no groups larger than five, everything will bust wide open again.
-PJ
Not Answered: Is Alyx a biological female, who is now calling herself by a male name? Many Trans folks will take a common name and spell it in a unique way to make it sound or look vaguely androgynous. This was seen years ago with the word “Womyn”. That was more for women’s Lib purposes at the time.
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