WTG: If you’re part of the LGBTQ+ how can you get involved or if you’re an ally how can you help? Our physical location is key to all our programs and expanding will make a big difference.
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We do have more tools in our toolbox- people, programs and space, health and safety, building our community, clinical services, behavioral and mental health, and funding and peer led programs, and jobs and skills training. Kurtlan: We recently signed a letter of intent to go from a 5,000 square foot youth community center to a 10,000 square foot location. Over 80% of the community we serve is from families at or below the poverty line. We intervene at very vulnerable moments in their lives, they get the support they need then shortly thereafter get that confidence, a job, and housing. Anecdotally, when a youth comes to BAGLY for the first time and is looking for employment, the organization is almost always able to support them successfully in a short amount of time. Our newest program, Host Homes, is an intervention to disrupt and eliminate chronic LGBTQ+ homelessness, to set them up to be viable job candidates and maintain a stable housing environment and life. We find compensating them has many benefits, not the least of which is, it makes them more credible as they enter the workforce, so many companies say you need experience. Kurtlan: We strive to provide opportunities for youth to be compensated for their expertise and lived experience. WTG: How does BAGLY work within the community? Our network assists with applying pressure on the state legislature and has provided over a quarter of a million dollars of funding to our programs and community. Our program, The BAGLY Network, includes 14 independent LGBTQ+ youth groups across Massachusetts. We’re not just Boston, we’re all of Massachusetts. Our core tenets are youth leadership, building community, promoting health & wellness, and shaping policy and practice through social justice.
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Our closely held belief in youth leadership has helped keep us relevant, innovative, and creative through times that had no social or legal protections, the AIDS epidemic, and the challenges and successes of the 90s and 2000s. Kurtlan: We’re celebrating our 42nd year later in July as one of the oldest and longest LGBTQ+ serving in the country, and definitely the oldest youth-led. We were honored to have the opportunity to chat with Kurtlan Massarsky, Director of Development & Marketing, and Michael Frasano-McCarron, Development & Marketing Manager, from the Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth (BAGLY). In celebration of Pride Month, we want to bring awareness to an amazing youth-led organization helping to create a safe space for LGBTQ+ youth across Massachusetts. These protests quickly became known as the Stonewall Uprising and kick-started Gay Pride Week, which would eventually turn into Pride Month every June across the world. The week that followed was filled with protests and fighting at and around Stonewall. The movement was far from over when the crowd dispersed around 4 AM. Outside a riot was brewing as the crowd protested through the night. They spent hours interrogating the patrons and employees and were ordered to detain all the crossdressers. The New York Police Department arrived at the Stonewall Inn with a search warrant in hand.
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June 28, 1969, was a turning point for LGBTQ+ activism in the United States. What do 1924, 1958, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1977, 1980, 1982, 1987, 2000, 2004, 2010, and 2015 all have in common? All these years and many more mark significant milestones for the LGBTQ+ community- the first Society for Human Rights, Supreme Court rulings, Stonewall Uprising, America’s first Gay Pride Parade, numerous laws passed to protect the LGBTQ+ community and marriage equality.