LGBTQ youth: Aunts and othermothers offer support when parents don't

[Devlyn]

LGBTQ youth: Aunts and othermothers offer support when parents don't

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/31/lgbtq-youth-aunts-support-parents-family/72352607007/


MARC RAMIREZ   USA TODAY

Some LGBTQ youth look to aunts for emotional support, companionship and housing stability

Few members of Alexa Rodriguez's family offered support when she came out as transgender. Not until years later, she said, did some warm to the idea given her rising profile as a trans community activist.

Rodriguez was born in El Salvador and directs a transgender advocacy agency in the Maryland, Virginia and Washington area. She said her openness about her identity has incurred puzzlement and scorn within the family. Her aunts, she said, "are very old-fashioned. There's one who doesn't respect me at all, and we get into fights every time we're in the same room."

But for others, it's been a gift – especially for two young relatives she said have questioned their identity or struggled with coming out, both of whom Rodriguez said see her as "a second mom," or auntie.