In this week’s episode of In the Den, Jen sits down with Point Foundation Executive Director and CEO Jorge Valencia to discuss everything from his experiences growing up closeted and gay in a conservative religion in the South in the 80’s, to his time as president and executive director of the Trevor Project, to his current position as executive director and CEO of the Point Foundation, which offers both need and merit based scholarships to the LGBTQ community. Jorge’s passion to help LGBTQ youth comes through in this lively conversation about overcoming the barriers that queer youth face in today’s world.
Special Guest: Jorge Valencia
Jorge Valencia has served as the Point Foundation’s Executive Director and CEO since 2007. Point provides financial support, leadership training, and mentorship to queer US college students from around the world. Before that, Jorge served as President and Executive Director of The Trevor Project from 2001 — 2006. Jorge earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Brigham Young University in 1989. As an openly gay man who grew up in a Mormon Latino family in Texas, Jorge has a keen personal awareness of many of the issues of rejection and marginalization faced by many LGBTQ youth. Jorge is fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese and is an accomplished public speaker. Jorge has a passion for helping LGBT youth and has an ability to communicate effectively with both the LGBTQ community and the general public.
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Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at www.mamadragons.org.
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In this week’s episode of In the Den, Jen sits down with Point Foundation Executive Director and CEO Jorge Valencia to discuss everything from his experiences growing up closeted and gay in a conservative religion in the South in the 80’s, to his time as president and executive director of the Trevor Project, to his current position as executive director and CEO of the Point Foundation, which offers both need and merit based scholarships to the LGBTQ community. Jorge’s passion to help LGBTQ youth comes through in this lively conversation about overcoming the barriers that queer youth face in today’s world.
Special Guest: Jorge Valencia
Jorge Valencia has served as the Point Foundation’s Executive Director and CEO since 2007. Point provides financial support, leadership training, and mentorship to queer US college students from around the world. Before that, Jorge served as President and Executive Director of The Trevor Project from 2001 — 2006. Jorge earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Brigham Young University in 1989. As an openly gay man who grew up in a Mormon Latino family in Texas, Jorge has a keen personal awareness of many of the issues of rejection and marginalization faced by many LGBTQ youth. Jorge is fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese and is an accomplished public speaker. Jorge has a passion for helping LGBT youth and has an ability to communicate effectively with both the LGBTQ community and the general public.
Links from the Show:
In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you.
Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at www.mamadragons.org.
Connect with Mama Dragons:
Website
Instagram
Facebook
Donate to this podcast
JEN: Hello and welcome. You are listening to In the Den with Mama Dragons. I’m your host, Jen. This podcast was created out of our desire to walk and talk with you through this journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBTQ humans. We are so happy that you’re here with us.
Statistically, and tragically, we know that LGBTQ+ people face hurdles that are not impeding cisgender and heterosexual people in similar ways. Some of these hurdles come from inside but many are placed intentionally by the community and culture at large. Over the past several decades amazing organizations have popped up that dive into the heart of supporting the LGBTQ community and particularly the youth in tearing these hurdles down and helping people to jump over them. Today we are going to talk about two of those organizations with a man who has had amazing influence in both!
Jorge Valencia has served as the Point Foundation’s Executive Director and CEO since 2007. Point provides financial support, leadership training, and mentorship to queer US college students from around the world. Before that, Jorge served as President and Executive Director of The Trevor Project from 2001 — 2006. As an openly gay man who grew up in a Mormon Latino family in Texas, Jorge has a keen personal awareness of many of the issues of rejection and marginalization faced by many LGBTQ youth. Jorge has a passion for helping LGBT youth and has an ability to communicate effectively with both the LGBTQ community and the general public. Thank you, Jorge, for coming to meet with us today.
JORGE: It’s my honor. Thank you for asking me.
JEN: You are an amazingly busy individual doing great things and I’m so glad that we were able to coordinate a time that we could talk about these things. Much of your adult life has been spent actively promoting the wellbeing of LGBTQ people, particularly youth. But I think your personal story adds a lot of insight with that. So can we start there?
JORGE: Absolutely.
JEN: Talk to us about your childhood, your upbringing, maybe up to the point that you started to consider that maybe you weren’t cisgender and heterosexual.
JORGE: Gosh, where to start? I am first generation in the US. My parents are both from Mexico. And I was born in Los Angeles, but raised in Texas. And there’s a brief period where we went back to Mexico. And just so you’re aware, Spanish in my native tongue. So we would speak Spanish with my mom and English with my Dad and that’s how we separated the languages, very grateful for that, I have to tell you. However, with that also comes challenges in communicating in general with a community – or I should say probably with a culture – that back when I was growing up certainly wasn’t embracing the LGBTQ community in any way. When you talk about Machismo and what that looks like, Machismo is often looked at in the negative way. There are other aspects of Machismo that are very protective and embracing and loyal. But the one that I’m going to talk about is the one that really scares young people like myself into the closet.
So growing up, my best friend was my sister, Sandra, who’s 11 months older than I am. I was clearly a mistake. Nobody plans it like that. I mean, come on. Even in a Mormon family, I have to tell you. And by the way, both my parents were converts. And so I just grew up in the Mormon religion. That was kind of it. But she was my best friend. And my younger brother wasn’t born until four years after I was. And so for a period there, it was just my sister and I. And we just hung out, played all the time, so she was my friend. So, of course, played with dolls, did dress up. That did not go over well with my dad, with his family, and certainly with my mom’s family – the majority who were still living in Mexico. So I don’t know that at that time, when you’re that young, you really identify. I didn’t have any feelings, I should say, towards one gender or another. I just enjoyed playing with dolls rather than a truck and with my sister. And that was kind of it.
So I do recall having to hide – if I happened to have one of my sister’s dolls in hands or was in my mom’s heels, anything like that, when I heard my dad’s car pulling into the driveway, because I knew that after that, came the spankings and the reprimands and the fact that boys don’t act and play with dolls or act in a certain way. So, at a very young age, I learned to hide. I learned to hide not only who I later came out to find out who I was as a person and who I was going to love. But to hide my feelings and my emotions. And it’s one thing I think in the Mormon faith we often are aiming for perfection. And not being there, we find ways in which we have to hide certain parts of ourselves. And so that was most of my childhood. I have to tell you, even my junior high, high school, even going to Brigham Young University my first year.
To answer your question about when I started to possibly think that I may not be like other boys, you know, or heterosexual individuals, it was probably in college. My first year in college. BYU, there’s kids from all over the world. And some of them came from much more liberal places like California rather than Texas. And so it was interesting to see them embrace these other aspects of themselves that in my Latino and Texas communities one wouldn’t even think of. I mean, as simple as one’s hair style. I mean, the spiky hair back then in the 80’s and stuff, you know, my dad would have hit me if I did that. So that’s when I finally started to realize that maybe I was different. And I was relating more to some of the individuals that were much more open about who they were as individuals.
JEN: So did you not have any crushes or anything all through high school? Did you date at all?
JORGE: I dated women. I dated a lot of women. And it’s interesting because, looking back now, I look at my friends – and I have to tell you that my closest friends in high school have both come out as gay. So, Shock, right? And then, even in college, many of my close friends who went on to get married and have families and such, came out later in life. But, at the time, I didn’t even know that that was a possibility, Jen. In my head, the idea of liking someone of my gender wasn’t even possible in my head. I’m like, “What, that’s not supposed to happen.” So I never even thought about it. But I do recall that a number of my friends were very attractive men. And so now I have to wonder why I was drawn to them, I guess.
JEN: So when you would date girls and stuff, were you like, “I’m just really spiritual and that’s why I’m not feeling these lusty feelings that we sometimes hear about in purity cultures?” Or were you like, “I’m just too young.” How were you explaining to yourself why those lessons about pornography or whatever didn’t seem to be a challenge for you?
JORGE: I have to say that it was a very good excuse and it is a very good excuse for individuals who really are not attracted to the opposite sex to grow up in a religious environment because you can always refer to the law of chastity. You can refer to “saving yourself for marriage,” right? And that was my thing. And so, of course, I’d like to think that probably those young women thought, “Oh, he’s so good. He’s such a good catch!” Where the truth is that even in kissing my girlfriends, which wasn’t that often, I was like, “I don’t know why my friends get so excited about this. This is not really sparking anything in me.” When I kissed a guy, all the sudden, I knew what everyone back in junior high had been feeling that I hadn’t until I was in my mid-20s.
JEN: So you’re kind of coming to terms with this in college. That’s a hard time to be learning about these things. What was your process of figuring out friends that you could talk to, or if your family was safe, or did you just hold it all in?
JORGE: I held it all in. I didn’t not reveal any feelings that I thought I might have. I did identify personally as different than my colleagues and some of my friends. I just didn’t know how to pinpoint that. Now, look, I went to BYU in the mid ‘80’s and AIDS was happening everywhere.
JEN: Oh, that’s scary.
JORGE: Yeah. and so one opens a magazine and sees people dying of AIDS and I remember on BYU campus, when someone was thought to possibly be gay, I remember somebody taking a sip from the same soda that they had. And then someone said, “Oh, you might want to be careful. They might have AIDS.” And I’d never heard of that, you know. And so you grew up in these bubbles, you know, and not really clear of the outside world. So I just never opened up to anyone.
Plus, look, I was like every probably Mormon mom and dad’s dream. I went to school. I didn’t really mess around in any way. I didn’t get a girl pregnant that they needed to worry about. I went on a mission to Brazil so I learned a third language. I was student body vice president at Brigham Young University and I was in a performance group. All of these things that I kept busy, but everything was internalized.
And it all came to a boil probably my junior year when I got elected as the student body vice president, thinking that that might fill a hole of emptiness that I felt. And only to find out that it wasn’t. And I, on one very, very desperate, selfish night, decided to take a lot of pills and put an end to it. Thankfully, it didn’t work for me. and I believe that there was a reason. And I think that’s what took me towards the path that I eventually went to in terms of helping other young people.
JEN: So, at some point, you came out. Talk about that. How did it go? Who did you come out to? Was it like a fast thing? Was it really slow, long drawn out process?
JORGE: I told my sister first. She was at BYU. I figured, if anybody’s going to be accepting or love me for this “Mistake” of kissing a boy . . .
JEN: So you kissed somebody and you were like, “Oh, it’s real.”
JORGE: . . . Yeah. I figure it’s going to be my sister. And she encouraged me to talk to my bishop and I did. I talked to my bishop. I still hadn’t told my parents. I told my bishop. They didn’t tell the school so I wasn’t put on probation or anything like that.
JEN: That’s good.
JORGE: But I was checking in with the bishop and everything along the way. And it didn’t happen again. I went on a mission. And, believing that going on a mission, it was all going to resolve itself. And then that wasn’t the case. That’s not how it works when it is who you are as an individual. But I didn’t tell my parents and didn’t come out publicly and to myself until probably age 28.
JEN: Okay. So you were home from your mission and you were graduated from college by then.
JORGE: Yep. First job in Washington D.C.
JEN: Did it feel kind of safe to be like, “I’m far away from everybody. If they hate me, at least I don't have to be there?”
JORGE: Absolutely. It did. And, you know, I was still relying on my parents for some things. Not only the emotional support, but the fact that they were still helping me make ends meet at times. And so there is a very large Mormon community in Washington D.C. and so a number of my friends from BYU were there. And it was literally living two lives. And I would hang out with my Mormon friends, and go to church on Sundays and hang out with them. And, on other days and weekends, I would hang out with my gay friends.
JEN: That sounds so exhausting.
JORGE: It is. It is so exhausting. And it gets to a place where you think, “One day these worlds of mine are going to cross and intersect and I’m going to get in trouble. I’m not going to know how to lie anymore,” if you would.
JEN: You can’t lie if they’re both there.
JORGE: Yeah. Yeah. It was very exhausting. The whole thing was just really exhausting. So I didn’t come out to my parents until I was about 28. And it didn’t go very well.
JEN: Dang it.
JORGE: Yeah. They cried a lot. I will say, selfishly, I told them and they were visiting my sister who lived in Maryland. So I went to have dinner with them. I told my parents and then I got in my car and I left.
JEN: Bye. You guys deal with that.
JORGE: Yeah. Let that sink in a little bit and how that was for. It’s hard. It’s hard because you feel that you’re letting everybody around you down. I remember my mom saying, “What about the fact that I want to be a grandma and that I want kids.” And I’m just like, “Well, that’s really about you, isn’t it?” But you don’t think about that at the time. You really think about how you’re letting a lot of people around you down. That’s what you think of.
JEN: It is interesting as we watch families go through these transitional periods that the parents do kind of wake up somewhere along the line to, “Oh, it’s not about me. It’s not about my dreams or expectations. This is actually their life.” Have your parents come around?
JORGE: They did. It took a while. I’ll just share one quick story because as a child if there's one thing that you want that you feel you need is that love and acceptance from your parents and your family. And one is willing to go to great lengths to ensure that that stays in place. So my dad suggested I go see a therapist. Possibly somebody that can help me work through this. Come to find out now, it was a conversion therapist. I didn’t know at the time. And so I agreed.
JEN: Did you know what conversation therapy even was at that point?
JORGE: No. No. But I didn’t even know the stories that had happened with LGBTQ kids going through conversion therapy at Brigham Young University years before, you know. So all I knew is that this person is going to help “FIX” me. Right?
JEN: Did you want to be fixed?
JORGE: Well, I wanted my parents to love me. That’s what I wanted.
JEN: Okay.
JORGE: I wanted my life to be easier, not have to feel as though I was different. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to have “A Normal Life”. This is in the ‘80’s again, and so that’s kind of what I looked for and I hoped for. And, again, when you grow up hearing how it’s a sin and you’re going to go to Hell, and now you’re not going to be a part of your family for eternity because you’ve chosen this lifestyle or path. I (I can’t speak for others) was going to go to all lengths to see if I could “Fix” myself.
So, I made the appointment, got in my car, this place was also near Maryland, this therapist. Get in my car, go over there, I got there early, probably 10, 15 minutes early. I’m sitting in my car before I went into the building and I saw the clock, 7 minutes, 5 minutes, the time’s getting closer and closer, right? And I even got out of my car. I go inside in the lobby. I sit down, 5 minutes go by, and then something inside of me said, “Why are you here? There’s nothing wrong with you, Jorge. Nothing wrong with you.” And I made the best decision of my life. I got up, got in my car, and went back home.
JEN: Yay. That makes me want to cheer for little Jorge. You weren’t even a child.
JORGE: It makes me – probably emotionally I was – but I have to say that I went back and I told my parents that if they wanted a relationship with me, it was now in their hands.
JEN: Good for you.
JORGE: This was who I was. and for about a year, a year and a half, I didn’t go home. We didn’t really talk until they came to realize that they wanted their son, thankfully, in their lives more than not.
JEN: Sometimes that’s the only choice. We tell parents that a lot. You have two choices here. You can have a relationship with your kid that’s healthy, or you can not have a healthy relationship with your kid. But any of these other weird desires that you have, you don't get to be in charge of.
JORGE: It’s not easy when you grow up with an image of what perfection is and what the eternities have in store for individuals and families.
JEN: Yeah. and your family is working so hard as a unit to get there. And there’s all these little stepping stones towards perfection and there’s all the sudden a little mountain in the way you kind of figure out. But, really, your parents were lucky that you were able to articulate that so well for them. We can have a relationship or we can not have a relationship. But I can’t be someone else. I can’t change this.
So you’re well into adulthood by this time, and this is hard stuff. I’ve decided I’m 50 and when my parents are mad at me, it still hurts. I don’t think you ever outgrow it. Which I wish you did. But tell me how it started your career. You’ve done some amazing things. And I want to focus on Trevor Project and Point Foundation, but you didn’t just turn 28 and then start the Trevor Project. So what was the transition to get you to that point?
JORGE: Look. I agree. I’ve got a crazy background. I went to Washington D.C. or moved there after graduating from BYU because some friends of mine from BYU were working for a music company that produced music for the fitness industry. Aerobics was a thing then. It was like years, you know. But this particular individual hired a lot of BYU students because he grew up Mormon also. So it was the core group of us that were on the ground, for the most part, or early on in the days of this music company.
And, from there, I was asked to go work for an administration, the Clinton administration at the time. Now, I grew up conservative. Even my leanings were conservative at that time. So anything with a liberal administration to me was like, “Are you kidding me?” But I felt like an opportunity to work in government and to have this exposure in something that I really knew very little about was going to be a good experience because of my background in marketing and communications, because I was fluent in three languages. And they found that attractive. And so I went and worked for the administration and was there for the first term.
And then I moved to Los Angeles and worked with the youth organization named Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership or HOBY for short. It’s a leadership program for sophomores in high school and I was a recipient when I was a sophomore in high school so I had a connection to it. And this is for all kids, sexuality and gender identity, orientation, doesn’t even come into play. It’s just a leadership organization.
JEN: Does it still exist?
JORGE: Yeah. It still exists, believe it or not. And so it’s been around for forever. And so I did that and then just bounced around, worked for a company that was marketing for the Latino population, an Affinity Marketing Group. And it was while I was in that role that I attended a fundraiser for the Trevor Project. They were just in their third year of existence. One of the founders was the executive director of the organization at the time. they’d never hired anybody outside of their group, really, to take it on. But I was sitting in this auditorium, listening to the statistics of suicide, recognizing that I could’ve been one of those numbers. And it moved me. And I had heard that they were going to be looking for an executive director. And, go figure, I thought, “What the heck. I’m just going to . . . “
JEN: “How about me?”
JORGE: Yeah. “I’m going to submit my resume. Maybe they’ll take a chance on me.” They did. And it was a wonderful experience.
JEN: I have nothing but good things to say about the Trevor Project. And all that they do to help protect our kids. But, let’s talk about the Trevor Project because we might have listeners, that are like, “The what? What are you even talking about?” So tell us, what is the Trevor Project?
JORGE: The Trevor Project is the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ students. And, at the time that I came on, they were still really small. They had an $80,000 budget. They were in the hole $100,000. And the first offices for me was my dining room. I sketched out our first logo. It was kind of funny. It was really just the name. And it was just an experience of love with people who really, really cared. But, at that time, the main focus was the helpline. So there was this crisis helpline for LGBTQ youth.
JEN: Because it’s going to be different motivations, different things that are inspirational to kind of dig you out of those black holes if it’s tied directly to your orientation. And if you’re young. A veteran’s hotline, fantastic for the population demographic that it serves. But there wasn’t anything before Trevor specifically for LGBTQ youth, was there?
JORGE: That is correct. There wasn’t. I mean it’s an interesting story because even the name Trevor Project got started from a short film called Trevor.
JEN: I was just going to ask about the name.
JORGE: But, prior to this short film, it was a one-man show that an individual by the name of Celeste Lecesne created. And based on their own experience growing up. So it was a play off broadway. And two of the other two founders, Randy Stone and Peggy Rajski, went and watched the one-man show. And were so moved that they approached Celeste afterwards and said, “Hey, we’d love to turn this into a short film.” And they did. It won an Oscar in ’94.
JEN: That’s awesome.
JORGE: Yeah. It was amazing. But it wasn’t until ’98 when HBO said they wanted to air the short film that the founders thought, “You know what, it would probably be important to include a number, a referral for young people that may be relating to the feelings of this character named Trevor in this short film. They started looking around and found out there wasn’t a helpline or crisis line that was dedicated to just addressing LGBTQ needs. And so they launched it so that on the night that this short film aired that the helpline was ready to start taking its first calls.
JEN: That’s a super awesome story. I had never heard that before. So the Trevor Project has, obviously, been wildly successful in its goals. Its goals are pretty specific. Can you talk to us about what those goals are and why and how you think the Trevor Project has been successful in reaching those goals.
JORGE: Look. It’s been a while since I was there, 16 and a half years. But I will say that the mission is very clear. The mission of the Trevor Project is “End Suicide Among LGBTQ Young People.” Plain and simple. I’d like to believe that when you can articulate a mission statement like that and as clearly as that, there’s no question in anybody’s mind what you’re there to do and who you’re there to serve. And I think that’s a part of what makes the organization so successful and continues to make it impactful.
You know, its history hasn’t always been easy. I mean, I remember when I was there, nobody wanted to talk to me because they felt that we were so small that we should be part of a larger organization. But to the credit of the founders and the board and our joint efforts, we really believed that the Trevor Project had a very specific mission and had its own space. And so while I was there and had the privilege of working there, we started to launch a few things, an educational kit that we would send out to high school counselors so that they could educate young people on identifying suicidal signs among LGBTQ young people and how to talk to someone about that. and then there was this whole thing online, the Trevor Space that we started to look into and create. And since then, it’s evolved to really offer a number of resources for young people to get help and support when needed.
JEN: I love the mission. It’s perfect. So, if somebody wants to access the support offered by the Trevor Project, or for anyone listening who wants to support the Trevor Project, what’s the best way for them to do that?
JORGE: There are at least four ways in which individuals can get support from the Trevor Project. One is the crisis line. You can go to their website at, you know, the trevorproject.org. The number is, I’ll say it but hopefully you’ll include it after this. It’s 1-866-488-7386. There are counselors 24/7 that are there to help and support individuals. There’s also, if you’re on your computer, they have a chat feature now, so you can chat with someone. That did not exist when I was there, neither did the text part.
And so now you can even text from your phone to get some support as well. and then to create community, they have this area that we call Trevor Space, it was called then, and so that individuals can find community because, even today, Jen, it’s interesting for me because I live, now, in a different kind of a bubble. But you like to think that the internet wasn’t even around when I was growing up and trying to figure out who I was. But now, young people at least can do that. Even so, individuals can feel very alone. And so the Trevor Space does allow for some community.
JEN: That sense of community is so necessary for helping to reduce those feelings of hopelessness and abandonment. So you’re still actually involved with Trevor in some ways.
JORGE: I’m not. I still stay in touch with some of the folks there. Peggy is the acting executive director again at this moment. And so I certainly know Peggy and I still stay in touch with Celeste. Randy, unfortunately, passed away a number of years ago. But those two founders are still around. And I know some of the board members. But it’s been a while, but it’s still very dear to my heart.
JEN: So let’s flop over to the Point Foundation. And I want to spend a big chunk of time here because I don’t know very much about it which makes me think that some of our listeners might not either. And it seems like this wonderful opportunity that’s existing out there that might benefit so many of our kids if we’re just aware of it. So you’re currently leading the Point Foundation. What’s the Point Foundation?
JORGE: The Point Foundation is the nation's largest scholarship granting organization for LGBTQ individuals at any age. And I’ll start with that to begin with. And let me just say again, that leaving the Trevor Project at a point was not an easy thing for me. In fact, I said, “No,” four times because I love the work of the Trevor Project. Not only was it personal, but I started to see its growth. We went from going into a dining room, to office space, to five full-time employees, to a million-dollar budget. It started to really grow and it was amazing.
I will say this, though, when you are dealing with such a serious subject matter as suicide prevention and such, it can get very dark at times. I would go out with my friends on a weekend just to hang out and as individuals begin to identify your association with an organization like that, the natural tendency is to share their own stories. And it was very difficult to escape someone’s story of that dark period in their life. And while I will always be grateful and continue to be grateful to be there for those individuals, I finally came to a place that the more I thought about the needs of the young people that were calling the Trevor helpline, and what the Point Foundation did, and to me, there was a gap. The gap was you have young people that see no light at the end of the tunnel.
But now, with Point Foundation I’m seeing young people that got through that dark place and can now serve as that light at the end of the tunnel for those young kids that can’t see it because they’ve been there. And the more I saw the connection there, I thought, “You know what, I’m going to do it.” And I said yes to the job. I’ve been here 16 and a half years. And continue to see how the young people, and the people that we support through our Point Scholarships serve as role models for not only those individuals that may not see a positive light to their existence. But to us as adults for a much brighter future.
JEN: So can we talk for a minute, at the Point Foundation over the last 20 years has been widely successful and particularly the last 5 years. So I was looking at the numbers. And it’s like this little slope and then it kind of spikes towards amazing potential. So talk to us about those numbers. Help us understand what it is that the Point Foundation is able to accomplish at this period.
JORGE: I’m so, so proud. They are crazy numbers in a great way, I have to tell you. When people think of higher education or post-secondary education, I don’t think they see it as something that is in crisis. There are other things that they believe that probably require more attention. And at different times in society, that is absolutely true. But the cost of an education is so crazy. I mean, I think about your listeners and if they have children trying to figure out how they’re going to get them through school for the cost.
And if they’ve got more than one child, go figure, way different than when I went to school. And it was a lot cheaper. That’s not the case now. And what we do know is that education past high school, is not only beneficial to the individual themselves of higher earning potential. But it is beneficial to society as a whole. They tend to give more in terms of their time and volunteerism. They just contribute more. And so the numbers were ones that we plug away and raise money year after year. And you have those people that really believe in an education. The big jump happened really during COVID.
JEN: Oh, really.
JORGE: Yes. Which is really weird and crazy because many organizations unfortunately saw a different story than what we did. They found it much more difficult. For us, go figure, we had a story to tell. All of a sudden, the kids that we’d been supporting, who did not have support from their families, they have nowhere to go when their campus is shut down. Where are they going to go? Their jobs, because they rely on jobs to put the food in their mouths and their health insurance. That is gone now. How’s going to pay for that? So, with the help from some wonderful ward members and some partners, we launched an emergency fund. And then, right after that, the George Floyd killing happened and we have to, as a nation, come to grips with that. And go figure, Katy Perry, God bless her, came to us and said, “Can I establish a scholarship or scholarships for individuals that are black, indigenous, people of color, BIPOC?” And we said, “Let’s do it. Absolutely.”
JEN: Yes, you can. Thank you for asking.
JORGE: That alone went from supporting 24 individuals in one year to over 224 this year.
JEN: Go Katy Perry.
JORGE: Yeah. and so we have seen this gravitation towards the importance of education, the importance of community, the importance of us placing leaders in industries across all sectors so that we start seeing a more accepting environment than what we’re seeing right now across this country.
JEN: And it’s super interesting because every time there seems to be a big push, there’s a big push back. And so you’re talking about everybody wants to support education. And I’m like, “Huh.” Because I see also book bans and entire states who are working towards banning public education all together to create their public funding for private schools, and those sorts of things, lots of disrespect for people who have degrees or training. And you’re articulating the other people who are seeing that saying, “Oh, uh-huh. We’re going to do something about it.” And I love it when people get involved.
JORGE: I think that what we’ve seen in terms of officials being put into office most recently is kind of sharing that. That maybe it’s what we see in the news so much are these book bans. My goodness. A book was banned that had nothing to do with sexual orientation or gender identity simply because the author’s last name was Gay.
JEN: I saw that.
JORGE: Come on. Go figure. Where does that happen? And so I believe that, as much as what we see with some very loud people, there are other individuals out there that say, “You know what, our students need, or again, people need to be able to be aware of what life is like around them. What it’s going to be like when they go out into the workplace, that being educated on the diversity around us is important.” And so, quietly maybe, but they are supporting those efforts.
JEN: Yeah. I love that big pushback. So, Point Foundation, when I think of Point Foundation, I think of scholarships. I was perusing your website and you guys have some other things that you do that support students that are pretty cool. Do you want to talk to us about those things?
JORGE: Sure. One of the things that has always struck me is that even the most accepting of families, heterosexual parents all right, -- we’ll just put it that way – that even as accepting as they may be, they probably don’t know how to guide their child through an LGBTQ space. And that is something that Point Foundation figured out very early on because of its founders who knew that they all the sudden had no role models. They had nobody to look to, nobody to help them navigate what it’s like. What’s it like to date someone of the same sex? Is that different? Is it not? What’s expected of me? What isn’t?
And so we always believe that having role models, that having mentorship in their careers was going to be very helpful. And that having individuals, including straight allies as mentors was going to be very important for our scholars. So we provide mentorship. We provide leadership training. Again, getting back to a place where you need to be able to understand those around you. And look, LGBTQ young people are surrounded by conservative individuals, by liberal individuals, they’re going to be surrounded by racist individuals, all types of individuals. Learning how to be a leader and navigating those spaces and bridging those differences is what’s going to make individuals stand out. And so, for us, that leadership training is really important to ensure that those in our community are best positioned to lead.
And then lastly, we provide a community. We’re talking, when you get over 3,000 applications a year – and even today at the height of us going from supporting 80 individuals to 100 to 400 to now 575, we get over 3,000 people applying for scholarships. So, even with all of that, there is a great need. It is important that these individuals form community. And we’re very, very proud of the community that they’re able to share.
JEN: So do you have to be a scholarship recipient to participate in the community?
JORGE: Wow, what a great question! We’ve been toying around with creating a community outside of just our Point Scholar Community. And what I can tell you is that we believe that leadership training of LGBTQ individuals is and should be outside of just those that get selected for a Point Scholarship. So, as we look for more funds, as we look for more supporters, as we look to engage in a new three-year strategic plan that will begin next year, this is one of the subjects that we are actually discussing. So, thank you for asking. It makes me believe that there’s probably an appetite for it.
JEN: You can tell your board, “This crazy lady in a podcast. . .” So, if your listeners are thinking, “What a minute. I know somebody who could maybe qualify for one of these scholarships?” First of all, talk about the characteristics that the scholarship foundation is looking for. Who are they looking to help?
JORGE: Let me start with the scholarships that we have. One we have scholarships for individuals that are seeking an undergraduate degree, a graduate degree, and a postgraduate degree.
JEN: Awesome.
JORGE: All right. So you can apply. That’s called our flagship scholarship. And I encourage people to go to our website at pointfoundation.org and they can see it all there. But our flagship scholarship is for individuals at any point in their career. So we have individuals that are 17 that got accepted early into school, that are up in their 50’s that are going back to school because we understand the difficulty of securing the funding to get an education and understand that people come out at different times in their life and can lose the support that might’ve taken them through a post-secondary education. So, that’s one of the scholarship programs. For undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate, that’s called our flagship scholarship program.
We have a community college scholarship. So that’s individuals that are going either for one year or two years at any point during their community college experience as well.
And then, speaking of Katy Perry earlier, we have our BIPOC scholarship program. And that is for individuals in community college, undergraduate, graduate, or postgraduate that are people of color. And the unique thing about this particular scholarship, Jen, is that it is open to part-time as well as full-time students.
JEN: Oh, that’s awesome.
JORGE: So, yeah, so the community college, the flagship, people have to be in school full-time. The BIPOC one, they do not have to be in it full-time. Here’s the other thing, racism in education has been around for a long time. Systemic Racism exists in education and has forever. It starts as early as kindergarten. That’s a different story. But what I will say is that we wanted to lift some of those barriers. One of them was a GPA requirement which is often required for scholarships including our other scholarships, require a GPA of 3.3 or higher.
The BIPOC scholarship program, not a GPA because we understand that some individuals, based on the communities that they grew up in, don’t even have access to second year of an algebra class. So, with that in mind, we just ask for proof of enrollment and a desire to get an education. And that scholarship is offered twice a year because going to school in your typical fall term is also a privilege that not everybody has. So, I encourage people to go online. We look for individuals with a desire for a better way of life for themselves and their community, their post-secondary education. We’re even piloting a vocational school scholarship program right now.
JEN: That’s great.
JORGE: And so really, when people think of supporting LGBTQ individuals, I hope they think of Point.
JEN: So, are these primarily need-based scholarships? Are they more merit-based scholarships?
JORGE: You know, we look at both. We always look at both. We want to support individuals, of course, that have a need because there are many individuals that fall out of whatever parameters have been set. There are some parents that are still putting their children in their tax-return forms and then they can’t, even though they’ve disowned them, and then those young people can’t get any loans or can’t get any grants, I should say, Pell grants for school.
And so we look at a need and then we look at what they’re doing in their communities. Are they really in service to others? Are they involved in community service in some way? Are they perhaps helping family members because their own parents have to work and so they’re able to go home, take care of their siblings, help them tutor their siblings. There are many ways in which individuals can make a difference and make life better for those around them. And that is a piece that we look at as well. And, more importantly Jen, we look for potential, potential and promise.
JEN: That seems so hard to measure.
JORGE: It is very hard to measure. You’re right. But I’ll tell you what, if somebody came up and said, “You know what, I have parents that work, both of them, to put food on the table for me and my siblings. I’ve got three other siblings. And we live in a two-bedroom apartment. And nobody can take care of them. So I come home and I help them with their education. And their grades went from failing to now passing.” How do you measure that, right? That’s potential. That is great. That can be just as important as somebody that sayd, “You know what? I’m the president of my GSA group.” Both require sacrifice. Both require support. And that is why we need more and more support because there’s so many people in need.
JEN: So, if people want to donate?
JORGE: Go to the website. Shoot me an email. Find me on the website as well. If you want to establish a scholarship for LGBTQ students, we want to work with you. If something is close and dear to your heart about what makes life easier or more equitable for somebody that is LGBTQ, talk to us. We want to work with you.
JEN: I think that you are someone that we could all learn a ton from because you have this vast experience with queer youth, really across the entire nation. Do you have any parting wisdom or advice for parents who are listening?
JORGE: Wow. Open your hearts, open your minds, and listen. I think if they knew they had a parent that was just willing to listen, things would be different. It’s so easy for all of us to be so quick out the gate with what we think is going to be a less painful life for an individual. But let me tell you, the darkness of a closet, the darkness of not seeing yourself or a future for yourself because you’re living a lie, is not the way. And I think if young people knew that their parents would listen to them and that they were able to live their lives honestly, that life would be just better for everyone. I really do.
JEN: Could we hear that advice in Spanish for our speakers who speak English as a second language?
JORGE: Me van a tener que disculparme y mi español un poco porque a veces confundo con mi portuguese. Pero si tuviera que dar o avisar a los parientes de los jóvenes que se identifican como miembros de la comunidad gay yo diría que es importante oír lo que ellos tienen que decir. No juzgar pero abrir nuestros corazones para que ellos puedan compartir con cada uno de ustedes con cada padre lo que ellos están sintiendo. Yo siento que si todos nosotros abrimos nuestros corazones y tomamos el tiempo para oírnos unos a otros que nuestras vidas serían mucho mejor.
JEN: Gracias.
JORGE: De Nada.
JEN: That’s my whole Spanish right there. What’s next for you in your quest to change the world?
JORGE: Oh, gosh. You know, I feel so blessed to have found my way into causes in which I honestly feel like I never go to work. It does not feel like I’m going to work.
JEN: That’s awesome.
JORGE: Every day for me feels like a total privilege. So, depending on what they’ll have me around longer or not, who knows. But what I will say is that I hope that the rest of my life continues to be involved in anything that is of service to others in whatever capacity that may be.
JEN: That’s really beautiful. Thank you, literally, from the depths of my soul, for your work and effort that you have dedicated your life to help lift our kids over these hurdles that might still be in their way. Especially when, as parents, we’re still trying to figure out what the hurdles even are. I love that there’s people out there like you that are changing the world and making these safe spaces. So, thank you.
JORGE: My pleasure. Thank you for what you all are doing. It’s like we need more parents who are willing to just listen, right? And we’re all learning. So it’s a human journey. So thank you for having me.
JEN: You’re awesome. Thanks Jorge.
JORGE: Take care.
JEN: Thanks so much for joining us here in the den. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends. We’d also love it if you could take a minute to leave us a positive rating and review on whatever platform you’re listening to us on. Good reviews make us more visible and help us reach more folks who could benefit from listening. But, review or not, we’re glad you’re here. For more information on Mama Dragons and the podcast, you can visit our website at mamdragons.org or follow us on Instagram or Facebook. And if you’d like to help Mama Dragons in our mission to support, educate, and empower the parents of LGBTQ children, donate at mamadragons.org or click the donate link in the show notes.