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LGBTQ+ Health and Rights

Advocates for Youth works with young people and adult allies to ensure that LGBTQ+ rights are protected and ALL youth are safe and celebrated in their communities and classrooms. Queer young people’s rights are under attack across the country – but young people won’t stand for homophobia and transphobia.

Hope in a Box

All young people deserve to see themselves reflected in their school curriculum. Hope in a Box works to equip K-12 educators with LGBTQ-themed book guides, LGBTQ-inclusive curricula, training, and mentorship to meet this need. Together, we use literature to cultivate empathy and ensure every LGBTQ student feels safe, welcome, and included at school.

Visit Hope in a Box

Featured Campaigns

Act Out

My Story Out Loud

“Advocacy is, at its core, meant to serve and help people, and I try to embody that ideal in the work that I do. Being able to improve the experiences of my fellow queer students makes me unbelievably satisfied and proud of my efforts.”

Amaka

Transgender Rights

Learn about Advocates’ work with transgender young people and adult allies

Transgender Youth Health and Rights

Support and Solidarity for LGBTQ+ Youth

Policy Priorities

Advocates is working toward protecting LGBTQ+ youth through nondiscrimination protections, safe schools, and inclusive healthcare. This includes:

  • Federal legislation like the Equality Act which would amend the Civil Rights Act to include nondiscrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
  • Nondiscrimination protections in the Affordable Care Act’s Section 1557.
  • The Safe Schools Improvement Act and Stop Bullying Act which seek to enhance bullying protections in public schools.
Learn more

For Adult Allies

Creating Safer Spaces for LGBTQ+ Youth

Creating Safer Spaces for LGBTQ Youth: A Toolkit for Education,  Healthcare, and Community-Based Organizations toolkit was developed to assist individuals, community-based organizations, providers, healthcare staff, educators, and others that see the value of incorporating key safer space components into their organizations so that young people survive and thrive. Recommendations serve as a guide and should be tailored to each individual young person and organizational setting.

Download

Get Your Life

This evidence-informed HIV prevention intervention is designed for community based organizations to implement on weekends or afterschool hours for Black and Latino Young Men Who Have Sex with Men, ages 16-19. Adapted from Many Men, Many Voices the curriculum is trauma informed and culturally responsive. Evaluation showed statistically significant improvements in participants’ HIV knowledge and intention to reduce risk from pre to post test.

Learn More About Get Your Life

Queer and Gender Equity Project (QGEP)

The Queer and Gender Equity Project (QGEP) provides education, healthcare, and community-based organizations with education, research, professional training, and technical assistance to increase their support for LGBTQ youth of color and youth living with HIV.  For more information contact Armonte Butler at [email protected].

Hope in a Box

Hope in a Box works to equip K-12 educators with LGBTQ-themed book guides, LGBTQ-inclusive curricula, training, and mentorship. Together, we use literature to cultivate empathy and ensure every LGBTQ student feels safe, welcome, and included at school.

Visit Hope in a Box

TASP

The Trans Affirming Schools Project (TASP) Resource Guide and the four-part TASP training series entitled Finally Enough Love: Building Affirming Schools for Transgender, Non-binary, and Gender-expansive Students provide school districts with resources, training, and tailored technical assistance to implement safe and affirming policies and programs for trans, non-binary, and gender-expansive youth – with a particular emphasis on meeting the needs of TNGE youth of color – and to help educators and administrators counter conservative attacks on their schools’ programming for TNGE students.

Learn More About TASP

Featured Resources

Help advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and join youth activists and youth allies working to create a world that is just, safe, and healthy for all.

Rights, Respect, Responsibility, a K-12th Grade Comprehensive Sexuality Education Curriculum.

This K-12 comprehensive sex education curriculum is fully mapped to the National Sexuality Education Standards, covers all 16 topics deemed essential by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is LGBTQ-inclusive, trauma informed and culturally responsive. Over 13,000 educators have downloaded 3Rs. 3Rs has been adapted for use in 13 states and more than 500 school districts across the country, reaching millions of young people with sex education that meets the National Sexuality Education Standards.

Learn More & Download
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Virtual PD

Virtual PD is a simulated environment (classroom, health care exam room and office) where professionals can practice with youth avatars using short scenarios and support from an instructional coach, so they can quickly learn and master the skills they need to be effective.

Learn About Virtual PD
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AMAZE

Advocates for Youth is the lead partner on AMAZE, a YouTube channel and educational website filled with short, animated videos and other resources designed to provide adolescents around the globe with medically accurate, age-appropriate, affirming, and honest sex education they can access directly online—regardless of where they live or what school they attend. AMAZE has 300+ videos on topics such as contraception, menstruation, deciding when/if to have sex, building healthy relationships, mental health and anxiety, and more common topics around puberty.

Visit AMAZE
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Our Campaigns

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