Search Results: suicide
Affirmation Dominican leaders and other members have volunteered and joined forces to rent an office for The Rainbow Ark and have started program coordination, international affiliations, coordinating hosting and arranging visa process operations for incoming participants. For young adults 18+ and older The Organization will assist in work placement and provide help with accommodation, visas and relocation assistance.
This year, a new approach is being taken to how workshops have been organized. There will be eight different “workshop tracks,” each representing a specific area of interest or a specific need.
We strongly encourage fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, relatives and leaders to protect their loved ones, especially LGBT youth who are exposed to ridicule which has caused suicides. We advocate avoidance of public discourse that undermines human dignity, instead promoting fruits of the Spirit such as love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, temperance, and meekness.
For many years I have struggled, first to have the love of someone who despised me. Then I fought to be someone I was not, then I struggled to accept who I really am… I may have been abandoned in this life by earthly parents, but my heavenly Father has never left me.
We desperately need an Affirmation that is united across the Church/faith divide, but just saying that we need it is not enough. If we really want it, we need to work at it. The tensions between folks on the opposite sides of that divide are very real.
Jorge Valencia, former President of The Trevor Project (the LGBTQ youth suicide prevention organization) and current Executive Director and CEO of the Point Foundation (LGBTQ scholarship program), shares from his two decades of experience serving LGBTQ young people, how to support and empower them to living strong and meaningful lives.
In order for us to have a healthy relationship with the Church, we have to have a strong relationship with God…. If it is difficult for us to believe in God, at the very least we need to trust ourselves.
Social media response to an article published on Affirmation.org on January 20, 2016 has resulted, in recent weeks, in heightened mainstream media interest in the potential impact, in terms of mental health and well-being of LGBT Mormons, of the LDS Church’s new policy on gay families.
Rather than attempting to discredit anecdotal reports of recent suicides, the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune and KUER each ran stories that acknowledged the seriousness and the complexity of the issue. The Deseret News led the story by publishing, on Thursday, January 28, 2016, two articles addressing the issue of suicide among LGBT Mormons. Other online and visual media outlets followed. Find the links to these articles and videos in the full article.
Our LGBT elders must not end their lives fading into loneliness. They deserve to be surrounded and buoyed up by family and friends and community. Our LGBT youth must not see only a future they feel too weak to face. Those of us in between youth and old age must not live our lives paralyzed with uncertainty, unable to believe in our ability to discern the right path, to choose the good.