ABOUT US
Mama Dragons is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that provides peer-led support groups, educational resources, and parenting classes, in a supportive community of over 9,500 mothers of LGBTQ children. Mama Dragons' provides programs to support healthy families by helping mothers learn to accept, affirm, and celebrate their LGBTQ children.
MISSION
We support, educate, and empower mothers of LGBTQ children.
VISION
We envision a world in which all mothers fiercely love, affirm, and advocate for their LGBTQ children.
OUR HISTORY
Mama Dragons began at the end of 2013 after Gina Crivello sought advice from a group of LDS mothers across the US. Gina had started a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at a local high school in Utah and found she needed advice for one of her students. She knew few mothers with LGBTQ children locally so she sought support from a group of LDS (Mormon) moms who had LGBTQ kids across the United States. This message thread quickly turned to mothers finding connections and seeking parenting advice from each other. Quickly more and more moms, who were navigating supporting their kids while being part of a non-affirming religion, joined their message group. At the start of 2014, Gina moved this message thread to a Facebook group creating the first Mama Dragons support group, as conversations were becoming harder to track. In August 2014, Gina Crivello stepped away from Facebook moving leadership over to group member Neca Allgood. In 2015, Jen Blair created Mama Dragons closed Facebook group (now renamed Mama Dragons Main Group, Private).
The name “Mama Dragons” came from a 2012 blog post that Meg Abhau (Meg Drix) wrote shortly after their 13-year-old son came out as gay. Individuals from the original message thread identified with Meg's blog and contacted her, telling her that they also identified in the same way. This blog post prompted the name of the Facebook group.
Meg wrote, “I have always been a mother bear. Once I found out about Jon, that didn’t seem a fierce enough title. There is a whole new level of protection that has come over me. I now call myself a Mama Dragon. I could literally breathe fire if someone hurt my son. Dragons have talons, scales, claws, fangs and they can fly. I will use all of these resources if someone were to hurt Jon."
In June 2018, Mama Dragons shorted its mission statement to, “We support, educate, and empower mothers of LGBTQ children”. The shortened mission redirected Mama Dragons' focus to providing an educational and loving space for mothers, so mothers could learn to accept, affirm, and celebrate their LGBTQ children and support their family's unique journey. Mama Dragons opened their support group to those outside of the LDS faith in 2017 and in 2019 they shifted their focus to all mothers of LGBTQ children while maintaining specialized support for mothers from all non-affirming religions and cultures including those from the LDS and Christian faiths.
In 2018 Mama Dragons became a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization of mothers from all backgrounds with one common purpose – to support, educate, and empower one another in raising happy and healthy LGBTQ kids. In June of 2021, Mama Dragons updated their membership policy to expand on our understanding of gender and mothering and removed female requirements and related language for community support group admittance. Instead, language focuses on active mothering roles and members’ self-identification of being a mother for admission.
TODAY
Currently, Mama Dragons' provides education and support to mothers new to the journey of parenting an LGBTQ child and seasoned mothers and parents support much of Mama Dragons' work. We do this in 6 specific programs.
1. Parachute eLearning program, focuses on providing LGBTQ-affirming parent education to all parents and community leaders.
2. Peer-led support groups, with over 9,500 mothers, and 7 affinity groups that focus on navigating race, religion, and mental health
3. Suicide prevention training, these remote trainings are provided by QPR-trained trainers and focus on LGBTQ suicide prevention.
4. Paper Hugs, a card-sending program that lifts up Mama Dragons members and their children in crisis.
5. Wrapped in Hugs, a blanket-making program that sends hand-made blankets to lift up Mama Dragon members in crisis.
6. Embracelets, a bracelet-making program that makes friendship-style bracelets that are given out to the LGBTQ community and allies reminding them that they are loved.
While our roots are in the LDS faith (Mormonism), our membership has grown to include a diverse population of mothers, regardless of their faith traditions, from all over the United States and beyond. Our support communities' intersectionality goes beyond faith to include many cultural, political, and geographic differences.
We’ve come a long way since that initial conversation among a handful of moms ten-plus years ago.
