The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach has launched the first support group in Southern California geared towards members of the LGBTQ community with special needs.
Following an interaction with someone with special needs, Kyle Bullock—The Center’s Youth Program Director—decided to have a meeting in September to cater to LGBTQ people with cognitive or physical disabilities. After all, being LGBTQ and having a disability makes you a minority times two.
In fact, Anna Quon, in her groundbreaking article in Abilities magazine in 2008, which addressed those with special needs within the LGBTQ community, noted that these members of our community not only experience the common discrimination one receives for having a different sexuality from the norm, but even experience discrimination within the LGBTQ community for having a disability.
The meeting, a collaboration with the LA Gay & Lesbian Center’s Family Services Program and The Center Orange County, and was not only well-attended but deeply appreciated by those who gathered to discuss the needs within this marginalized sector of the LGBTQ population.
“We had planned to meet quarterly but once I announced this to the group, I saw their faces drop,” says Bullock. “With such an overwhelming demand for this group I am thrilled to announce we will be meeting monthly to better meet the needs of our LGBTQ special needs community.”
Those monthly meetings have now been scheduled through 2014, catering to anyone with a cognitive or physical limitation over the age of 18. Attendees are asked to provide their own transportation and bring a caretaker with them if one is needed. There is no charge to attend.
The LGBTQ Special Needs Support Group meets Saturdays once a month from 11AM-1PM in the Darryl Fine Room. Meeting dates in 2013 on 10/26, 11/23, & 12/21 and in 2014 on 1/25, 2/22, 3/22, 4/26, and 5/24. For more information contact Kyle at (562) 434-4455 ext. 228.
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