Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Shuttered LGBTQ community centers feel shutdown fallout: 'It's been really hard'
Yahoo News ^ | 4/28/2020 | Beth Greenfield

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: grooming; homofascism; lgbt; manboylove; sexualizingchildren
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-39 last
To: MountainWalker

What a change from the AIDS virus where LGBTs demanded they NOT be quarantined and had a gay old time infecting each other and causing a strain on health care systems.

How long did it take before there was a HIV/AIDS vaccine? Trick question - there is no HIV/AIDS vaccine still after 40 years.


21 posted on 04/29/2020 2:22:22 PM PDT by OrangeHoof (The Democrats - Unafraid to burn in Hell.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker
“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.”

Suicide on aisle 4, please clean up!

22 posted on 04/29/2020 2:22:42 PM PDT by hattend
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker

It’s just no fun playing “Dress Up” at home, alone.

There is just no one to “impress” with their braveness.


23 posted on 04/29/2020 2:23:36 PM PDT by Hodar (A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.- Burroughs)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker

Can no longer hookup with ease 3-4 times per week. It’s cramping their style.


24 posted on 04/29/2020 2:24:24 PM PDT by setter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker
LGBTQ community center

Is what? A gay bathhouse? An orgy center?

25 posted on 04/29/2020 2:24:54 PM PDT by backwoods-engineer (Politics is the continuation of war by other means. --Clausewitz)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cherry

Reminds me of a joke I remember. The punchline is:

“Jeez, don’t any of your kids like women?”
“Yeah. My daughter does.”


26 posted on 04/29/2020 2:28:51 PM PDT by ZirconEncrustedTweezers (Posting from deep within enemy territory - San Jose, CA)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

ENOUGH
These ‘people’ need to be both ridiculed and shunned.


27 posted on 04/29/2020 2:29:19 PM PDT by Jakarta ex-pat (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker
That's what he said.
28 posted on 04/29/2020 2:31:18 PM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie (All I know is The I read in the papers.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: a fool in paradise

Amen.


29 posted on 04/29/2020 2:34:06 PM PDT by matt04
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker

Professional victim-status withdrawal syndrome.


30 posted on 04/29/2020 2:45:54 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Who could have guessed the Communist Revolution would arrive disguised as the common cold?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker

Genderqueer? I don’t get the need for special labels. You’re a guy, a girl, or undecided. You like guys, girls, both, or neither. I can cover all that ground with three labels: men (normal males only), women (normal females only), and perverts (everyone else). Science tells me that humans have XX, XY, and science deniers (plus less than one in a thousand with a congenital or chromosomal abnormality such as XXY).


31 posted on 04/29/2020 2:55:44 PM PDT by Pollster1 ("Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker
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.

What is that?

Poor little baby....

32 posted on 04/29/2020 2:55:59 PM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker

Look at me,I am a VICTIM TOO!!!!!!!


33 posted on 04/29/2020 2:57:58 PM PDT by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cherry
imagine having not one gay son, but two.....

Imagine having so much time for navel gazing and support groups and apparently thinking that being so emotional and fragile is a good thing. I would be embarrassed to put myself out there as that idle and, frankly, weak.

34 posted on 04/29/2020 2:58:09 PM PDT by Lizavetta
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: jdsteel

Yup I bet it’s hard for the most promiscuous sexual group


35 posted on 04/29/2020 3:15:19 PM PDT by Sam Gamgee
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker

Reap what you sow.


36 posted on 04/29/2020 3:18:51 PM PDT by mulligan ( En bbnnEeThe tC)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker

My kids , two males, say that it’s “Luigi’s got big titties. (LGBT)


37 posted on 04/29/2020 3:18:54 PM PDT by Truthoverpower (The guv mint you get is the Trump winning express !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: OrangeHoof

Fauci’s still working on one in his basement, while watching Fags ‘R Us.


38 posted on 04/29/2020 3:31:46 PM PDT by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: MountainWalker

Its been really hard I guess that was the reply from the men


39 posted on 04/29/2020 4:03:30 PM PDT by ronnie raygun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-39 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson