What We Do
Home | What We DoPFLAG is the nation's largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and those who love them.
PFLAG Fresno is a local chapter of a nationwide organization of LGBTQ+ people, parents, families, and allies who work together to create an equitable and inclusive world. Nationally, we are hundreds of thousands of people and hundreds of chapters from coast to coast who are leading with love to support families, educate allies, and advocate for just, equitable, and inclusive legislation and policies. Since our national founding in 1973, PFLAG works every day to ensure LGBTQ+ people everywhere are safe, celebrated, empowered and loved.
Our Mission and Purpose
Locally, PFLAG Fresno has supported the LGBTQ+ community and our loved ones since 1993. We began by hosting monthly support meetings, where families could learn how to better support their LGBTQ+ loved ones, and we continue these educational and support meetings today., every 2nd Sunday of the month from 2-4PM at Wesley United Methodist Church.
As the need for more active advocacy has arisen in recent years, we have stepped into the challenge. You may have seen us working in the following ways to make Fresno better for our community:
Organizing the community to attend city council meetings, school board meetings, and County Board of Supervisors meetings in order to speak out for the rights of our LGBTQ+ loved ones and families.
Building a Little Queer Library, which acts as a safe haven where stories written by, for, and about LGBTQ+ people are available to our community, even in the face of the threat of censorship from politically-motivated anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. (Visit the Library by stopping in to the Fresno EOC LGBTQ+ Resource Center at 1252 Fulton St M-F 10-5 during drop-in hours!)
Working to launch a Queer Book Club beginning in February 2024, which will provide social engagement as well as a forum to read and learn from LGBTQ+ fiction and stories.
Knowing how difficult it can be to find LGBTQ+ affirming medical providers locally, we have launched an initiative to break the barriers to care by seeking out competent providers and ensuring that those resources are shared with the community via our Resources page as well as hosting Meet & Greets outside of the clinical office with individual providers, where community members can meet and chat with potential physicians in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.
We also continue to maintain a visible community presence via resource tabling at events, networking with other local LGBTQ+-affirming organizations, and providing resources through our Warm Line and individual case referrals.
PFLAG Fresno is a fully volunteer-led organization
All of our work is run by volunteers, from our Board of Directors to our tabling staff, from running our monthly meetings to staffing our Warm Line, from our community organizing outreach to maintaining our Library. It’s because of people like you stepping up that we’re able to help so many other folks. Want to learn more and get involved?
What We Do Best: Sharing Our Stories
Our stories have the power to connect us, to build community, to heal us. When we truly listen to someone, we lend them our strength. When we are truly heard, we are given a chance to grow. Our monthly support meeting brings together parents, family members, friends, allies, and people in the LGBTQ+ community. We learn together, we share our stories, and we give each other the deep support that community brings.
We also provide resources in the form of introductory, informational booklets in both English and Spanish published by our national parent organization on topics around understanding and supporting our LGBTQ+ loved ones. We can also provide speakers to share our personal stories of loving and supporting our LGBTQ+ loved ones, as well as on topics such as transgender awareness and understanding.
In addition, we work to build and maintain person-to-person connections within our community, and often can help people who come to us seeking vital local resources such as affirming healthcare providers, mental health professionals, and more.
About Our Monthly Support Group
We welcome all who are seeking to learn about our LGBTQ+ loved ones, or are looking to get and give support, to our meetings. We meet on the second Sunday of each month from 2 to 4PM the Wesley United Methodist Church at 1343 E. Barstow Avenue in Fresno, as well as running a concurrent Zoom session for the educational hour portion. The first hour is generally a speaker or educational panel, and the second hour is reserved as a safe and welcoming space to listen to each other, ask questions, and share our stories. There is no cost, and you do not need to be a member to attend. Please contact us for the Zoom link if you choose to attend that way.
“Someday you’ll tell the story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else’s survival guide.”
— Brené Brown
Ready to join us? Sign up for our email list, join our membership rolls, and take action here!