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 10,000 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 DRAGON
The origami dragon holds a profound symbolic meaning, signifying strength, resilience, and transformation. As a delicate and intricate art form, origami requires precision and patience to fold paper into a majestic creature. This process mirrors the journey of Mama Dragons, an organization born from the deep love and protection that we mothers have for our LGBTQ+ children. Like the origami dragon, Mama Dragons exhibit unwavering strength as we navigate the challenges and discrimination faced by our children, and we do so with grace and perseverance. In our support and advocacy, we strive to foster a sense of unity and understanding within families and society at large. Just as the origami dragon represents the transformative power of creation, Mama Dragons symbolizes the power of unconditional love, acceptance, and change, breaking down barriers and fostering a world where all individuals can flourish freely and authentically.
OUR HISTORY
Mama Dragons began in 2013 after Gina Crivello had started a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at a Utah high school and needed advice for one of her students. She reached out to a group of LDS (Mormon) moms who had LGBTQ kids across the United States. This message thread quickly turned into a lifeline for these mothers to connect with each other over having LGBTQ kids. Quickly more and more moms joined. In 2014 this message thread moved to a Facebook group becoming the first Mama Dragons support group. In August 2014, Gina Crivello stepped away from Facebook and leadership was handed to Neca Allgood. In 2015, Jen Blair created Mama Dragons closed Facebook group (currently Mama Dragons Main Group, Private).
The name “Mama Dragons” came from a 2012 blog post that Meg Abhau (Meg Drix) wrote shortly after her 13-year-old son came out as gay.
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 changed our mission to, “We support, educate, and empower mothers of LGBTQ children” focusing on providing an educational and loving space for mothers to learn to accept, affirm, and celebrate their LGBTQ children. Mama Dragons included those outside of the LDS faith in 2017 and in 2019 we shifted our focus to all mothers of LGBTQ children while maintaining support for mothers from all non-affirming religions and cultures.
In 2018 we became a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization 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 our membership policy to expand on our understanding of gender and mothering and removed female requirements and related language for 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. We do this through our programs.
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 more than ten years ago.
