When home isn’t supportive, virtual school has added challenges for LGBTQ kids.

When the coronavirus closed campuses and other in-person meeting places in the spring, advocates say LGBTQ students, especially those not supported at home, lost an important source of community. Some may have been forced back into unhealthy living situations.

“LGBTQ youth represent as much as 40 percent of the homeless youth population, according to the Trevor Project, which offers free crisis counselors to LGBTQ youth by phone. “Being on campus is really important,” Hanson said, “and things like COVID-19 exacerbate that.’ 

Tampa Bay-based Metro Inclusive Health and the LGBT National Help Center have both reported an increase in young people seeking their help since the pandemic started. … [METRO] has tried to combat COVID-19 isolation by taking its four weekly LGBTQ youth groups online. On Tuesday and Thursday nights it’s a peer support group, and on Fridays and Saturdays it’s more about just being social.”