LGBT Youth talk about connecting to family and community

The program I direct seeks to use the research we conduct to improve the lives of people in the LGBT community. Our research has shown that LGBT young people want to hear more positive messages about their strengths, connection to family and community, and to hear stories of healthy relationships. When we started to search the Internet to find videos that tell these positive stories we found there were not enough of them, so we took it upon ourselves to help tell these stories. We set up a video camera at the Chicago Pride Festival and asked people why they were proud of their community and to tell us about their relationships. We were overwhelmed by the positive response and the number of interviews we were able to conduct. We partnered with BeyondMedia Education, an award winning video production non-profit, to edit the videos.

This is the first video, with stories about connecting to family and community. Please help us share these positive messages by posting them to facebook, “liking” them on youtube, or by emailing them to your friends. Using the buttons below you can email to a friend or share on a variety of social media websites. You can view the rest of the videos here: http://www.impactprogram.org/?page_id=153

Dr. Mustanski is the Director of the IMPACT LGBT Health and Development Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. You can follow the Sexual Continuum blog by becoming a fan on Facebook.