Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
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| Founded | 1972, New York City, New York, United States |
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| Founder | Jeanne Manford |
| Focus | LGBT activism |
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Area served
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Global |
| Method | Campaigning, Advocacy, Support groups, Public speaking, education |
| Website | www.PFLAG.org |
PFLAG, formerly known as Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, is the United States' largest organization for parents, families, friends, and allies united with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ).
PFLAG has more than 500 chapters across the United States, with more than 200,000 members and supporters.
The acronym PFLAG, pronounced "P-FLAG" /ˈpiːflæɡ/, originally stood for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (later broadened to Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Until removal of the hyphen in 1993 the name was officially styled as P-FLAG. In 2014 the membership of the organization voted to officially change the name to PFLAG to reflect the decades of fully inclusive work it had been doing in the LGBTQ community.
In April 1972, Jeanne Manford, an elementary school teacher, and her husband were at home in Flushing, Queens, when they learned from a hospital's telephone call that her son Morty, a gay activist, had been beaten while distributing flyers inside the fiftieth annual Inner Circle dinner, a political gathering in New York City. In response, she wrote a letter of protest to the New York Post that identified herself as the mother of a gay protester and complained of police inaction. She gave interviews to radio and television shows in several cities in the weeks that followed, sometimes accompanied by her husband or son. On June 25, she participated with her son in the New York Pride March, carrying a hand-lettered sign that read "Parents of Gays Unite in Support for Our Children". Prompted by their enthusiastic reception, they developed an idea for an organization of the parents of gays and lesbians that could be, she later said, "a bridge between the gay community and the heterosexual community". They were soon holding meetings for such parents, with her husband participating as well. She called him "a very articulate person ... a much better speaker than I. He was right along with me on everything."
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