By Liz Welch | Executive Director
I want to thank you for your support, which facilitated a huge step toward Mama Dragons' safety, security, and longevity.
In December, our work of building a community space that empowers Mothers of LGBTQ+ children was nationally recognized with a GOLD Anthem award for Community Spaces and Community Engagement. This award reminded us yet again of how important it is to provide the opportunity for mothers to be supported, gain education, and be empowered to do the work that creates affirming homes and affirming spaces.
Mama Dragons began as a small group of very committed mothers of LGBTQ+ children who chose to support their children over everything else. They would meet face to face and support each other along the path to understanding what that meant to their families.
Their labor of love grew into a vast network of over 13,000 mothers on a path to creating affirming homes for their children. That network spans over 50 private Facebook Groups that represents the shared experiences across faith, geography, political affiliation, gender, and race/ethnicity. Mama Dragons are represented in every US state, The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada, the EU/UK, and Australia / South Pacific.
But our capacity was limited by Facebook. We couldn't share all of the resources we have in an efficient manner. People didnt know all of the programs that were available to them. Without a central link, people didn't know some groups existed. We had already begun to create the space that would hold our network off of Facebook when Facebook announced they would no longer moderate anti-LGBTQ speech on the platform. We were ready to move.
On January 1, 2025, we opened a new virtual community center for our 13,000+ Mama Dragons members that is a safe, secure place for Mama Dragons to share their experiences, their joys and their concerns for their LGBTQ+ children. With the increased capacity, we are able to offer more parenting classes that include suicide prevention, advocacy and communication skills. We are offering therapeutic sessions for Mamas with kids in crisis. And we are offering more intentional opportunities for mothers to engage in advocating for their children - whether that is across the kitchen table, in their community, at the doctors office or even on the steps of U S Supreme Court.
Our work in 2025 continues as we grow our classes that include education from some of the most dynamic national organizations about everything from how to communicate effectively across the aisle to Citizenship 101 classes to teach how to advocate in all the spaces decisions are made. We are expanding our online learning platform of Understanding LGBTQ+ classes to include these sessions as well.
We are also beginning a national outreach project to find mothers who are isolated or in spaces that are not affirming and connect them with a network of Mama Dragons who can support, educate and empower them to create their own affirming home.
Your donations have helped us build our capacity - now we are ready to welcome more Mama Dragons to our community. We need your support to move that forward. The need has never been greater for this work in the hard spaces. We are ready for it.
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