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PFLAG San Francisco

@pflagsf

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Helping families understand, support, and advocate for their #LGBTQ+ loved ones.
🫶 Support group every 2nd Tuesday of the month.

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You are not alone. We’re here for you.

Looking for a safe, welcoming space to connect, learn, and find support? PFLAG San Francisco’s Monthly Support Group is open to LGBTQ+ people, families, and friends.

💬 Topics range from parenting trans and nonbinary children to questions about correct language to supporting each other through tough times and so much more.

📅 Every 2nd Tuesday of the month

⏰ 7–9 PM

📍 Virtual

Sign up at the link in our bio or visit:
http://pflagsf.org/support-group taken in San Francisco, California by @pflagsf

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a year ago

Happy National Coming Out Day!! 📣🏳️‍🌈

Coming out is such a personal process, it can be a huge life changing moment or incredibly mundane; no two journeys look the same.

National Coming Out Day was started in 1988 by activists Robert Eichberg (he/him) and Jean O’Leary (she/her) on October 11, the anniversary of the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. They believed that once people realize they already know and love someone LGBTQ+, fear has a harder time taking hold.

38 years later, coming out is easier for some of our community but not the entire community. For trans and nonbinary people, it can be just as risky as it was in 1988 - sometimes riskier!

As we celebrate today, we’d love to hear from you 👋
Whether you came out, someone came out to you, or you’re still in the closet, we’d love to hear your story.
You can share using the link in our bio.

You can stay anonymous, and with your permission, we’ll gather the stories and share them with our community to help others feel recognized and seen. taken in San Francisco, California by @pflagsf

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7 hours ago

When someone comes out to you, start by listening. 🏳️‍🌈

Our board president Rob Costic (he/him) and volunteer Devin Caliboso (he/him) joined ABC7 ahead of National Coming Out Day to talk about what support looks like.

Rob’s advice: skip the judgment, ask what support the person needs, and save the big questions for later.

Send this to someone who might be the first person a loved one tells.

If you need a space to process, consider coming to one of our support groups. Parents and families who’ve been there meet on the first Tuesday of the month from 7 to 9 PM PT. It’s free and virtual, and the link is in our bio. taken in San Francisco, California by @pflagsf

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2 days ago

Sally Ride (she/her) went to space twice. Most of the world learned about Tam O’Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years, from her obituary.

Happy International Lesbian Day. ❤️🧡🤍🩷💜
The five women in this carousel had very different amounts of freedom to say who they loved.

→ Audre Lorde (she/her) said it plainly and often, describing herself as a Black lesbian mother, warrior, and poet.
→ Lorraine Hansberry (she/her) wrote letters in 1957 to The Ladder, the lesbian magazine published here in San Francisco by the Daughters of Bilitis. She signed them with her initials, two years before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway.
→ Chavela Vargas (she/her) sang love songs to women for decades and refused to change the pronouns. She came out publicly at 81.
→ Fran Lebowitz (she/her) is 75 and still saying exactly what she thinks.

Some of them said it out loud and some waited a lifetime. If your daughter has told you, she chose not to wait.

Send this to a parent whose daughter just came out. If that parent is you and you’re still finding your footing, we have a Support Group that meets every 2nd Tuesday (more info in our bio).

#PFLAGProud #PFLAGSF taken in San Francisco, California by @pflagsf

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3 days ago

This Saturday, October 10th, PFLAG families and allies from across the Mid-Pacific region meet at Skyline College in San Bruno for Love Out Loud, our regional summit. 🏳️‍🌈 We are thrilled our dear friend, @rkenanarun, ED @lgbtasylumproject will be speaking on standing up for LGBT Asylum seekers!

Here’s the session lineup:

→ Advancing PFLAG’s Mission Through Mental Health Partnership, with the Yale LGBTQ Mental Health Initiative
→ How to Grow a Diverse Chapter: Stories from the Asian-American Ethnoburbs
→ Standing Up for LGBTQ+ Asylum Seekers, with The LGBT Asylum Project
→ Safety First: Exploring Chapter Safety Planning
→ State Legislative Advocacy, 2026 Advocacy Activities, and Ideas for Improvement
→ Loving Our Inner Children Out Loud, a guided meditation workshop
→ Speaking Truth to Power and Building Bridges Within Local School Districts

We also have some incredible sessions from leaders in the community across partner organizations. A lot of our sessions are led by PFLAG chapter leaders who have done this work in their own communities, from school board meetings to reaching families outside their usual circles.

Send this to someone from your chapter you want in the room with you. Learn more about the summit at the link in @pflagsf’s bio. taken in Skyline College by @pflagsf

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4 days ago

This Saturday, October 10th, PFLAG families and allies from across the Mid-Pacific region meet at Skyline College in San Bruno for Love Out Loud, our regional summit. 🏳️‍🌈

Here’s the session lineup:

→ Advancing PFLAG’s Mission Through Mental Health Partnership, with the Yale LGBTQ Mental Health Initiative
→ How to Grow a Diverse Chapter: Stories from the Asian-American Ethnoburbs
→ Standing Up for LGBTQ+ Asylum Seekers, with The LGBT Asylum Project
→ Safety First: Exploring Chapter Safety Planning
→ State Legislative Advocacy, 2026 Advocacy Activities, and Ideas for Improvement
→ Loving Our Inner Children Out Loud, a guided meditation workshop
→ Speaking Truth to Power and Building Bridges Within Local School Districts

We also have some incredible sessions from leaders in the community across partner organizations. A lot of our sessions are led by PFLAG chapter leaders who have done this work in their own communities, from school board meetings to reaching families outside their usual circles.

Send this to someone from your chapter you want in the room with you. Learn more about the summit at the link in our bio. taken in Skyline College by @pflagsf

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4 days ago

“Are bisexuals even real?!” Carrie Bradshaw didn’t seem to think so, and she wasn’t alone…

In 2000, Yale law professor Kenji Yoshino took that question seriously in his essay “The Epistemic Contract of Bisexual Erasure.” He went through the major sexuality studies and found bisexual people in numbers equal to or greater than gay people, and yet bisexuality still barely came up in politics or law.

Yoshino’s main argument was that both straight and gay people have a stake in keeping bi people out of view because bisexuality breaks the gay/straight binary that both groups lean on for stability and identity. He called that unspoken agreement an “epistemic contract.”

However, Yoshino proposes that this breaking down of the gay/straight binary is a transformative thing rather than a destructive one, that although bi people are often called “fence-sitters”, it is the fence itself that is the problem.

Send this to a bi person in your life to let them know they’re seen 💜 taken in San Francisco, California by @pflagsf

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9 days ago

Happy International Podcast Day! 🎙️

We picked five shows for your queue:

→ Making Gay History: LGBTQ+ history, told by the people who lived it
→ LGBTQ&A: Jeffrey Masters (he/him) interviews LGBTQ+ people about their lives, well past the coming-out story
→ This Way Out: the long-running international LGBTQ radio magazine, with news, culture, and music
→ Queery: Cameron Esposito (she/they) talks identity and belonging with LGBTQ+ artists and activists. The show has wrapped, and the full archive is still up.
→ Gender Reveal: Tuck Woodstock (they/them) in conversation with trans, nonbinary, and Two-Spirit guests

If you love someone who’s LGBTQ+ and aren’t sure where to start, pick one and press play on your next walk or commute. 🏳️‍🌈

Send this to someone who needs a new podcast, and tell us what we missed in the comments 👇 taken in San Francisco, California by @pflagsf

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11 days ago

For Bisexual Visibility Day we wanted to make visible four bisexuals who have made and are making great works of art!

Bisexuality isn’t usually at the forefront of LGBTQ+ representation, so we wanted to take a moment to celebrate contemporary artists who proudly align with the identity, alongside a few figures whose lives and relationships reflected a bisexual experience before the term was widely used.

From the 20th-century author Violette Leduc’s feverish autobiographical novels to the Filipino-British musician Beabadoobee’s modern indie pop, these artists remind us that bisexual people have always been and always will be contributing to culture.

Drop a comment below to shout out your favorite bisexual! taken in San Francisco, California by @pflagsf

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18 days ago

Josephine Baker (she/her) married four times. Most of her biographies leave out the women she loved. 💗💜💙

Her son Jean-Claude Baker’s 1993 biography names several, including blues singer Clara Smith and the French novelist Colette. The word bisexual wasn’t common in her day. Today, it’s the word most often used to describe her.

Her own memoirs left that part out. Bi people know that edit well. Date a man and people call you straight. Date a woman and they call you gay.

This Bi Visibility Week, send this to a bi friend who’s tired of explaining themselves, or to a parent still learning what bisexual means. taken in San Francisco, California by @pflagsf

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24 days ago

In 1931 a German doctor came through San Francisco. Two years later the Nazis burned his life’s work in the street.

Magnus Hirschfeld (he/him) was a gay Jewish physician in Berlin. In 1897 he co-founded the first gay rights organization in recorded history. In 1919 he opened the world’s first institute of sexual science, which treated trans patients and performed the first gender-affirming surgeries on record.

On May 6, 1933, Nazi students looted the Institute. Days later they burned its library in the street. Hirschfeld was abroad at the time and watched it happen in a newsreel at a Paris cinema. He died in exile in Nice two years after that, on his 67th birthday.

Most people have never heard his name. That is what the burning was for.

Save this one. Send it to someone who has been told that trans people are new. 🏳️‍⚧️

We go deep on all of this in Sex, Science & Fascism, a full talk on our YouTube channel. Link in our bio. taken in San Francisco, California by @pflagsf

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a month ago

Sixteen PFLAG chapters will be in one room on October 10th. 🏳️‍🌈

The Mid-Pacific Regional Summit is a full day at Skyline College in San Bruno about turning the love we hold for our people into the action our region needs. Chapter leaders and partner organizations are running sessions on:

→ Chapter safety planning
→ Speaking up in local school districts
→ Growing a chapter that reflects its community
→ State legislative advocacy and what’s working in 2026
→ LGBTQ+ mental health, with the Yale LGBTQ Mental Health Initiative
→ Standing up for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, with the LGBT Asylum Project

Send this to someone in your chapter who has been running on empty this year. Let’s come together!

🗓️ Saturday, October 10th, from 8AM – 4PM
📍 Skyline College in San Bruno
🌐 Register at midpacific.pflag.org

There is a virtual option if you can’t get to San Bruno. taken in San Francisco, California by @pflagsf

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a month ago