It happens more often than we like to admit. A young person, barely 16, comes out to their family, and by nightfall, they’re standing on the sidewalk with nothing but a backpack and a phone at 3% battery. Their home becomes a stranger’s house. Their parents stop speaking their name. The people who were supposed to protect them have them turned away.
There is a particular kind of pain that comes from being rejected not by strangers, but by the people who raised you, the ones whose voices once soothed you to sleep, whose hands once held yours crossing the street. When your family turns away because of who you are, it doesn’t just break your heart, it breaks your sense of self. It’s as if the ground beneath you gives way, and suddenly there’s no safe place to land. The home that once smelled like dinner and laughter now feels colder than the street. The silence becomes deafening. You question everything: your worth, your identity, even your right to exist. Rejection from your community compounds it, your school, your church and your neighborhood all echo the same message: you are not welcome here. It’s not just lonely. It’s soul-crushing. It’s being alive in a world that keeps insisting you don’t belong, while still expecting you to get up every day and keep going, even when you don’t know how.
As the director of the NYC Unity Project, and the first Latin person to lead the office, I know this pain is not hypothetical. For too many LGBTQ+ youth, rejection is not just emotional, it’s life-altering. It means sleeping on trains. It means dropping out of school. It means silence, shame, and sometimes, not surviving.
That’s why the NYC Unity Project, housed within the NYC Mayor’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice (MOERJ), in partnership with New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) launched the NYC Unity Project Family Acceptance of LGBTQ+ Youth Initiative. At its heart is a truth we hold sacred: family acceptance saves lives.
The Family Acceptance of LGBTQ+ Youth Initiative, implemented by CAMBA as the LGBTQ+ Education and Acceptance Project (LEAP), isn’t just a program. It’s a sacred and deeply human effort to bring families back to the table. It creates room for apology, for listening, for acceptance. Through education, counseling, support groups, and storytelling, LEAP helps caregivers understand who their children are — not who they fear they might be.
I’ve seen parents sit across from their children with tears in their eyes, realizing that love doesn’t have to come with conditions. I’ve heard grandmothers say, “I don’t understand all the words, but I know I love my grandbaby.” That’s the power of programs like this. It doesn’t lecture. It invites. It builds bridges out of compassion.
We know the data: LGBTQ+ youth who are supported by their families have dramatically lower rates of depression, self-harm, and suicide. They thrive in school. They build healthier relationships. They live.
At the NYC Unity Project, we’re working toward a New York City where every LGBTQ+ person feels safe, supported, and seen. But we can’t do it alone. That’s why partnerships like the one we have with CAMBA matter so deeply. Together, we are reshaping what family can look like — messy, imperfect, but ultimately loving.
To every caregiver, teacher, faith leader, or neighbor reading this: You can be the reason a child makes it through the night. You don’t have to know all the right words. You just have to show up, again and again, with love.
Let’s build a city where no young person has to question whether they are worthy of a home. Let’s choose acceptance, every time.
Ronald Porcelli is the director of the NYC Unity Project, leading New York City’s interagency efforts to empower and uplift LGBTQ+ communities.
