On the morning of November 6th, I reached out to a QPOC internet friend who lived outside the United States. We’d been Internet friends for a decade, staying in touch via various social media and bonding over video games and LGBTQ+ anime and manga.
As a result, I felt like I could confide in them about my despair about Trump winning the election. They responded with empathy, encouraging me to take the rest of the week off when I said I needed a mental health day. “Being non-white and queer shouldn’t mean we have to keep fighting nonstop,” they told me.
I also reached out to my other sources of peer support, a Black transmasc internet friend who lives in a different state, as well as a diverse Slack group for a comic book criticism website I write for. Both the one-on-one peer support and the peer support Slack group allowed me to check in, grieve, and give and receive encouragement about how to move forward.
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While I’ve had LGBTQ+ peer support groups long before the 2024 election, it took me a while to find them. Before I had them, I didn’t have any peer support at all, because I’m a freelance writer and caregiver with invisible disabilities and few opportunities to socialize offline.
In the coming years, it will be even more crucial to support local and virtual sources of LGBTQ+ peer support. All too often, there’s too much labor being done by marginalized genders and races, resulting in the loss of a community or individual people. According to the Trevor Project, one-third of the people who contacted their crisis services post-election were BIPOC LGBTQ+ youth.
As vital as The Trevor Project is, there are many more peer support organizations that we should know about and support. One example is For The Gworls, a New York-based Black trans collective founded by Assani Armon. It helps organize parties to raise money for Black trans people to pay rent, gender-affirming surgeries, medical copays, and travel assistance.
A similar non-profit that is based in Atlanta, GA is Snap Co., aka Solutions Not Punishment. This Black queer and trans lead organization supporting Black LGBTQ+ people through non-carceral solutions, with an emphasis on Black trans sex workers. If you are like me and work remotely, there is also Black Remote She. As space for Black LGBTQI+ folks to network and find remote work, Black Remote She also includes virtual, free gender affirming support groups for various Black queer people, such as trans folks, sex workers, and elders.
In addition to nonprofits focused on basic needs, work, and radical change, there are also several spaces focused on providing peer support through different personal interests. Geeks Out is a nonprofit that provides safe spaces for queer geeks by hosting events such as Flame Con and coordinating queer spaces. Queerty Gamers is a non-profit that platforms LGBTQ+ gamers and game developers.
In order to make sure that LGBTQ+ peer support continues to exist, these organizations must have financial support from allies and other LGBTQ+ folks. Some of the aforementioned spaces are run by a single person who might be struggling to survive, while others are volunteer-run. People cannot take care of others if they cannot take care of themselves.
In addition to financial support, it is important that we in the LGBTQ+ community continue to do the work of unpacking any discriminatory biases we have inside us so that everyone who identifies as LGBTQ+ can receive support. Ableism, racism, biphobia, transphobia, whorephobia, and acephobia are problems that exist inside and outside the LGBTQ+ community. In order to reduce this discrimination, we must be aware of how LGBTQ+ identities intersect with other identities so we can speak up and stand with each other.
Without the group and individual peer support that I have, I wouldn’t be here today. LGBTQ+ peer support shows that it is possible for LGBTQ+ people to survive and thrive fully with each other’s help.
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