June 19, 2020 Let's Talk About Pride How we can best serve our LGBTQ+ youth. By Aidan, Friend This past Tuesday, the Friends of the Children–Portland community viewed the film State of Pride and held a discussion focused on how we can best serve our LGBTQ+ youth. State of Pride is a look at where pride sits now at the 50-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The Stonewall riots were the start of the modern LGBTQ+ fight for rights that continues to this day. The film explores perspectives from people living in Tuscaloosa, Salt Lake City and San Francisco. We chose this film because it features a diverse group of folks talking about their personal experiences, and it also features multiple generations of LGBTQ+ people with different perspectives on activism, the current state of LGBTQ+ issues and the upcoming generation. After the film, we broke into small discussion groups and focused on sharing ideas, resources and hope. We shared moments of success and moments of growth. We talked through ways our organization has supported LGBTQ+ youth, and where we can do better. Much of what we talked about was the multitudes of identities that our LGBTQ+ youth hold, including race, ability, gender, religion and socio-economic status. I felt a lot of pride seeing how much of our community showed up engaged, excited and ready to have tough conversations. I look forward to watching Friends of the Children–Portland continues to grow in our collective understanding of the LGBTQ+ community! State of Pride is available on YouTube for free.