# PFLAG Founded by **Jeanne Manford** in New York City — initially as the informal "Parents of Gays" support meeting in **March 1973**, following her public march alongside her openly gay son Morty Manford in the 1972 NYC Pride parade. The first formal meeting was held on **March 26, 1973** at the Metropolitan-Duane [[Methodist Church]] in Greenwich Village. The organization is now PFLAG National, with roughly 400 chapters across the United States. ## What PFLAG Does PFLAG occupies a distinctive niche in the LGBTQ ecosystem: it is the **largest LGBTQ-ally organization** in the United States, organized around **parents, families, and friends** of LGBTQ people rather than LGBTQ people themselves. Its core functions: - **Peer support groups** for parents and family members processing a loved one's coming out - **Public-witness organizing** — PFLAG's signature visibility tactic is parents publicly affirming their LGBTQ children in school-board meetings, state-legislative testimony, and media coverage - **Educational publications** — *Our Trans Loved Ones*, *Be Yourself*, and similar guidebooks have been distributed in millions of copies - **Political advocacy** focused on family-affecting LGBTQ legislation (anti-conversion-therapy laws, parental rights for same-sex couples, school-inclusion policies) ## Why It Matters PFLAG's strategic significance is that **the public face of LGBTQ rights becomes parental love** — a frame that is much harder for the religious right to attack than direct LGBTQ-rights claims. PFLAG parents have testified at hundreds of state-legislative hearings on anti-LGBTQ bills, often functioning as the most persuasive single category of witness against the legislation. The contemporary anti-trans movement's targeting of parental support for trans youth — including criminalizing supportive parents in states like Texas — is in part a recognition of how effective the PFLAG-style affirming-parent witness is. ## Trump 2.0 Posture PFLAG has become a primary defensive organization for parents of trans youth facing state-level criminalization and gender-affirming-care bans, and one of the lead plaintiffs in litigation against Texas's 2022–2025 prosecution of supportive parents. --- ## See Also - [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]] - [[Queer Liberation Timeline]] - [[Resistance Hub]]