[music playing] ANNOUNCER: The following program is a production of Ozarks Public Television.

Welcome to "Sense of Community."

I'm Gregory Holman.

2023 has seen extraordinary tensions surrounding LGBT communities in the Ozarks and around the country.

Joining us tonight is Aaron Schekorra, the leader of PFLAG of Springfield and Southwest Missouri, a local nonprofit group for LGBT families.

Please stay tuned.

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to "Sense of Community."

"Sense of Community" is a public affairs presentation of Ozarks Public Television.

As 2023 Pride season wraps up, it's been a period of extraordinary tensions and newfound curiosity about LGBT communities across the country, including here in the Ozarks.

Aaron Schekorra is board president of PFLAG of Springfield in Southwest Missouri.

PFLAG is a nationwide group with at least 200,000 members and supporters.

Until 2014, it was known as Parents and Families of Lesbians and Gays.

PFLAG was started in 1973 by Jeanne Manford and her family out of Queens, New York.

Jeanne was a schoolteacher who wanted to support her son who was a gay liberation activist.

PFLAG celebrates its 50th year this summer.

Welcome to "Sense of Community," Aaron.

Thanks for having me, Greg.

So, Aaron, let's start with a really broad question.

What does LGBT family look like in the Ozarks in 2023?

Yeah, so I think that for many people, that question's doesn't have one answer.

It doesn't have a simple answer.

I think that for me, my LGBTQ+ family would be my husband and myself, our foster son, my in-laws, and the friends that we've made that we call family.

For others, it could be themselves and individuals that make up what they might call a chosen family because they don't have blood relatives that are still close to them in their lives.

It could be mixed families of stepchildren, half children, adopted children.

It really could look like really anything these days.

And I think that that's one of the beautiful things about our community.

So we just introduced the history of PFLAG a little bit, but I'd like to expand on that.

And I think in the minds of a lot of people, PFLAG sort of originated with this idea that there needed to be a group for allies of LGBT people and maybe headed by parents, thinking oh my, I have a gay kid.

What do I do now?

But I think the group has probably evolved over time.

And I wonder if you can kind of talk a little bit about that history and that evolution.

Absolutely.

So spot on.

I think that at our core, PFLAG still serves that role of providing that space for allies and for particularly parents.

And while that effort was started by and led by parents, a lot of people like myself, people who are part of the queer community, have gotten involved in the organization, both nationally and here at the chapter level and here in Springfield.

And so we still exist to provide that space for parents, caregivers, allies to ask the right questions maybe in the wrong way and provide that first line of education in how can they educate themselves and become an ally to the loved ones in their lives who are LGBTQ?

And so we definitely still exist to do that.

But beyond that, as needs have changed and as the world has changed in the last 50 years and where people get information and information becoming more accessible and people being aware that queer, gay, lesbian, transgender people exist and what that really means, we've been able to expand to really look to serve everyone, both allies and the community of queer people in the Ozarks, and provide services and just overall try to build a better community for ourselves.

So you talked a lot about education there, but for clarity for people, we're talking about a nonprofit community group, right?

This is not the government.

This is not a corporation.

No.

We're 501(c)(3), chapter of a national organization, as you mentioned.

The PFLAG Springfield and Southwest Missouri, we just changed our name this year to encompass the whole of the Ozarks because we do serve people as far away as the Joplin and even into Central Missouri, where there's not a PFLAG chapter.

And we're completely funded by donations and grants.

And we work to just provide some awareness and education and advocacy to the community.

So can you talk about the specific activities that PFLAG Springfield in Southwest Missouri does?

I hear there's three main buckets of things that you all do.

Yeah, so we like to talk about our pillars being support, education, and advocacy.

So that support piece is really what we call kind of our-- what I call kind of our bread and butter, our founding, our core.

So we provide support both to allies, parents, caregivers, and the community as a whole.

So a part of that, we have our peer-to-peer support, so our parent support group that meets once a month that's run by parents of LGBTQ+ children.

And then we also have a therapeutic support group for LGBTQ+ adults.

And then beyond that, if there are folks that that peer-to-peer support is not enough or if they need more individualized assistance and support, we have a mental health support fund that was funded originally by the Musgrove Foundation and Community Foundation of the Ozarks that will actually pay for or mental health care, therapy, counseling for people who fall into any of those groups, who need that more individualized or even family therapy, to talk through maybe some of the barriers, traumas, or values that have been instilled in them that are preventing them from crossing that line to becoming a supporting, affirming ally, or something that that queer person is dealing with.

And then in the education bucket, we try to raise awareness about the issues and the unique parts of our community that people may not be exposed to as often the way that they're exposed to misinformation about the LGBTQ+ community that's potentially harmful.

So raising awareness about the fact that we exist, that being queer, being part of the LGBTQ+ community is not a choice.

It's not something that we have really a say in.

But it is something that is innate and is part of many people's identities and really trying to get around a lot of the harmful stereotypes and misinformation that's put out there that sometimes instills negative attitudes toward the community, also raising awareness of the resources that exist for the community.

And then the last piece being that advocacy piece, so that exists both on the individual level all the way up to the federal level, so providing advocacy to individuals who are experiencing issues or discrimination based on their identity.

So a lot of times it will be parents calling us, talking about how their child is having issues maybe in school, maybe in some kind of youth program.

And they're hoping that we can help bridge that gap between that institution and the information that they need to understand why a parent is requesting that their child be able to participate in something the same way that every other student is.

But it also exists on the school board level, the city level, state level, really trying to push for affirming policies and against discrimination.

So that is a wide range of things for a local nonprofit group to be doing.

You talked a little bit about the educational component there.

And earlier you said something to the effect like people will come, and they will be asking questions, and they're maybe not phrasing it the right way from the perspective of mainstream LGBT voices.

But I'm really curious, when people in the community, say parents of an LGBT teenager trying to come out, approach PFLAG, what are they looking for?

And I'm curious what kind of questions they ask and what their needs are from their perspective, how the organization views them?

There seems like a lot, when people are maybe looking into how do I become supportive of this community, that they might be looking toward PFLAG for.

Talk about that.

Yeah.

And, as I mentioned at the beginning, things have changed in the last 50 years.

So 50 years ago, where people may not even have really known what it means to be gay, there's a lot of representation now.

And so a lot of those questions that PFLAG probably got during its founding have really evolved and are not really the things that people are coming to us for anymore.

But that can't be said as much for the transgender community.

So most of the parents that reach out to us, they're unsure.

Their child has told them that they're trans, that they don't identify as the gender that they were assigned at birth.

And the parent isn't really sure what that means.

And they maybe don't feel equipped to even have that conversation with their child because they're maybe afraid that they're not going to ask the right questions or that they're going to ask the wrong questions.

And so we exist as an organization where they can ask those questions.

They can ask us things that-- and ask other parents things that might actually be construed as offensive, but they don't-- their intention behind them is not to offend.

Their intention is to try and learn.

So as long as those parents come to us with those good intentions, that they want to learn, that they want to provide that affirming relationship to their child, we're there to support them.

And so a lot of those questions are very basic.

What does it mean to be transgender?

What is the importance of gender identity?

And why does my child at this moment feel that they need to express outwardly who they are in this way?

And why is that important?

Because a lot of parents and a lot of people who have not encountered, who don't have relationships, personal relationships with people who are transgender may not understand the importance.

It's not that this person wants to-- it's not some flippant thing that they want to start presenting differently.

They want to use a different name.

They want to use different pronouns.

They want to dress differently, whatever it might be, whatever type of expression they're trying to change, just because they want to, that it's actually important for them and their identity and for their mental health and to really be who they are and not have to hide it because all of those things-- having to hide it, having to lie about who you are, having to face all of those different forms of discrimination-- can severely impact people's mental health.

Not being affirmed and accepted by your family can have devastating consequences.

And so we want to be able to provide that support and answer those sometimes very basic questions.

But then there's also a level of support that we need to provide to that parent.

A lot of our parents of queer youth and sometimes even queer adults, if people are coming out once they're over the age of 18, sometimes even in their 20s or 30s.

We're having parents reach out to us saying-- The child is in their 30s.

AARON SCHEKORA: Their child, the child is in the 30s.

The parents then maybe in their 50s and 60s.

Exactly.

And they're just now finding out that their child is queer.

And they're not sure.

They know it's not going to affect their day-to-day life at this moment, but part of them almost grieves for the child that they raised for that long, whether or not that was 15 years or 30 years.

It's because they thought they knew their child.

And they feel like they didn't.

And we provide a space where they can almost grieve and have that moment to really look back on that time and get to know, so that way they can move forward and get to know their child as they actually are.

Now, I am not a parent, but it would seem to me that if I was a parent in one of these kind of situations and thought to myself, OK, I'm trying to be supportive, a lot of what would get me there might be talking to other parents who've gone through these types of experiences.

Is that the case with PFLAG?

Yeah, absolutely.

So most of the people that reach out to us, we offer our group support.

We offer a lot of programs and services.

Most of the people that reach out to us, they want to have coffee with someone.

They want to have a phone call with someone, maybe a couple of phone calls.

And then they want to move on.

We get some folks who will engage.

And they'll keep coming back because they want to continue doing the work toward becoming a really strong ally for the community.

But a lot of the people, they need that basic level of understanding.

So that way they can care for their child.

They can be that affirming relationship for their child.

And then they just would like to move on with their lives.

And that's perfectly fine.

And so then they're not as involved with PFLAG at that point?

AARON SCHEKORA: Exactly.

They kind of got their information, and then they move back to ordinary time.

Exactly.

And we consider that a success, that they're able to just go back into their lives as they were before, a new source of support for their child, and then life goes on.

And so we think that's fantastic.

But yeah, a lot of people just want to have a couple of conversations, get a little bit of information, figure out what they should do, learn about other milestones that may come for their child, and then move on.

I hear you.

So PFLAG, continuing on the family theme here, PFLAG has a lot of group outings and family-friendly, all-ages activities.

And you do your own holiday programming, right?

I wonder if you can talk about just some of those activities and how they connect into this larger system of needs we've been talking about.

Yeah, absolutely.

In addition to providing support, a big part of support is community.

So we try to build community.

And a lot of that looks like some social programming, looks like providing spaces that people can exist in with their families and be themselves and be their whole selves and not have any fear of any sort of discrimination and things like that.

And so we provide those outlets.

Those families who are not ready to be that full-out queer family with their normal social group can do that with PFLAG, can do that with an affirming group of people who are experiencing the same things as they are, who know the same things that they do and understand that.

And then for some people, they have, unfortunately, been cast out of their previous social circles.

Whether or not that's extended family or immediate family, whether or not that's their religious home, their church family-- if their child has come out as queer or if they themselves have come out as queer, that may not be a social circle that's available to them anymore.

And that impacts both day-to-day life and large events, like holidays.

So we try, as often as we can for a volunteer-run organization, to provide those spaces, to provide things for families, to help fill that gap while they build maybe build a new social circle or get comfortable enough to reintegrate themselves into their existing social circles.

Now, I feel like I should ask, has that ever resulted in pushback from people in the community who might be extremely uncomfortable with LGBT as a reality?

Yeah, it has, to some extent.

Obviously, we saw it here in the Ozarks with Springfield Pride Fest.

And so any time any of the LGBTQ+ organizations in the community host events that are family centered, there are some folks that have some issues with it.

The first year that we, which was in 2019, that we had an egg hunt around Easter time, we had some folks that saw that we were having the Greater Ozarks Egg Hunt with very rainbow themed advertising.

But nothing on it said gay, transgender, queer, LGBTQ+ because PFLAG, that's what PFLAG is.

And so we did have some folks that showed up, not realizing that they were bringing to their children to a space that was primarily LGBTQ families.

And they were uncomfortable at that fact and were a little displeased.

They felt like we were somehow misleading them, that we were trying to bring their children into this Easter egg hunt.

I don't know what they thought our intentions were.

And they left, and they moved on with their day and their lives.

And it wasn't overall a positive interaction.

But it showed us that there are some people in the community that just don't understand why we exist and what we're there for and who we're there to support and the value of what that brings to some families.

So you felt a lot of it was just not being familiar with the organization.

I think it varies.

In that case, I think that is what it was.

Obviously, there are cases where people know exactly what we're there for, exactly who we're there to support, exactly why we're there to support them.

And they still disagree with what we're doing.

And for those individuals, I don't know that there's really anything we can do to change their minds, whereas if it's just a lack of awareness, I think there's some education that can be done.

I think there's some knowledge that we can impart on the community about what it really means to be queer and what it means for these families to have this kind of support.

But I think, unfortunately, there will always be those folks that use that unknowing to their advantage, to push back against the work that we're trying to do.

I hear you.

Some things can be just divisive.

I'm curious about the supportive activities that PFLAG does.

There's a mental wellness component.

And then also dovetailing off education, there's a component where PFLAG helps people get their high school degree.

Can you talk about those two different instances just in terms of really concrete support services?

Yeah, of course.

So as things have evolved and as we've gotten more opportunities and resources, PFLAG has wanted to do more.

And for one of those things, an unfortunate reality for queer youth is that they are not often able to take advantage of some opportunities that other youth are able to, and one of those being education.

That might be because they ended up in a home environment in their teens that was not conducive to them having academic success.

Whether or not that was because of just the living environment that they were in, their own mental health struggles with dealing with their identity and coming to terms with it, or outright discrimination from their parents, sometimes resulting in youth becoming homeless-- and we know that a significant number, a disproportionate number of homeless youth are a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

And so as a result, we want to try and make those things more accessible to those youth that did not have those opportunities.

So we worked with the GLO Center here in town to start the HiSET Fund, the Jim House Memorial HiSET Fund.

So we will actually pay for queer individuals who did not graduate from high school to get their HiSET, which is Missouri's form of what's commonly referred to as the GED.

And then we also have a scholarship for any form of higher education.

So if there are queer individuals-- they don't have to be young.

You can be a nontraditional student wanting to reseek an opportunity for education.

We have a scholarship available for that.

It can be for trade school, just taking a few classes, associate's, getting a bachelor's degree, a graduate degree.

We really just want to make those kinds of opportunities more accessible.

So I want to get a little bit personal by asking about your own journey as a foster parent in the few minutes we have left.

You and your husband, Daniel, service foster parents.

You're only 31 years old.

Stereotypically not a ton of younger gay men, even married ones, are fostering kids.

I think that's fair to say.

But you are.

Why did you get involved with that kind of action?

Yeah, so a lot of it goes to my past.

But on a broader level before I get into those reasons why I think I got there, I really have this belief that if we all exist for a purpose that many queer people exist to step in into some of these roles where maybe others have not been able to provide for the children that they brought into this world.

And so I've always wanted to be a parent.

It's something that I, like many, many people, queer or not, I've always wanted to be a parent.

And so when I was looking at how I was going to make that happen for myself, since I have a same-sex partner and we can't have biological children that are both ours, it was immediately clear to me that I wanted to adopt.

And then when I was 16, I was faced with the unfortunate situation of having to move out of my home.

And, thankfully, a lot of things could have happened.

And the thing, fortunately, that did is another family took me in.

And I stayed there for the rest of the time that I was in high school.

And they supported me through my first few years of college and really are a big part of the reason-- that family, the Willies-- are a really big part of the reason why I'm sitting here today and able to do many of the things that I have done with my life and be a foster parent.

And so when I was looking at that, and when I met my husband, when we were dating at the time, and we were looking at becoming serious and getting engaged and eventually getting married, I had that conversation where I wanted to be a foster parent.

Thankfully he was on board with that.

And then the more that we talked about it, we wanted to fill a gap.

And that gap for foster care across the nation is teenagers.

A lot of people-- It's harder to get teenagers place in general.

Yes, it is.

It is very difficult.

I got a phone call yesterday, and we're actually not even on the openings list.

We get calls a lot.

It's hard to place teenagers.

And so that's what we wanted to do.

And so we thought it'd be a little bit more of a revolving door.

We just passed two years with our first placement.

He's now 19.

In Missouri, you can be in foster care until you're 21.

And so we've been able to provide a home for this whole time for them to finish high school and start college at OTC.

And so it's been very rewarding for us.

And we know that we've been able to provide a safe home for them.

And we hope to continue doing that for years to come.

We have about a minute left.

Can you just kind of give me a summary?

What's around the corner for PFLAG?

What are the aspirations and hopes in the coming times?

Yeah.

I may have mentioned that we're an all volunteer-run organization.

So, as the president of the board, the board is running this organization.

And we're trying to do a lot more things.

We have lots of ideas, and we've been able to execute some of those.

But there's a lot more that we want to do.

And so, thankfully, one of the things that we're going to do, and we're going to make that possible, is we're going to be hiring someone.

And that'll be the first time in our almost 28 years that our chapter has existed that will have a staff member.

And we're hoping that person can kind of serve as a liaison to the community, carry out and expand on the work that we've been able to do, that this organization in its history, well before myself and well after me, will continue to do, but also look at what other needs exist and how we can better serve the community and fill those needs.

If you're just joining us on "Sense of Community," our guest has been Aaron Schekorra, president of PFLAG of Springfield and Southwest Missouri.

Aaron, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having us.

For more information on PFLAG of Springfield and Southwest Missouri, you'll see a website on your screen.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of "Sense of Community."

I'm Gregory Holman.

ANNOUNCER: Here is where you can find more information about the topics covered in this program.

[music playing]