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Happy Lunar New Year from the API Project of PFLAG NYC!

Today is Lunar New Year, a holiday observed through many countries in East Asia and marked with many festive celebrations in Asian-American communities. In New York City, Lunar New Year will be celebrated with big parade on Saturday in Flushing, Queens, and on Sunday in Chinatown, Manhattan.

Once again, the API Project of PFLAG NYC is coming together with allies in the New York City LGBTQ Asian Pacific Islander community to show our love for our friends, neighbors, families, and communities. Join PFLAG NYC's API Project, GAPIMNY, Q-WAVE, and others in rallying for love, acceptance, and understanding in our families of all backgrounds by marching in the Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade and helping to carry our banner proudly:

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Exclusive NYC Advance Screening with Director Eric Schaeffer

PFLAG NYC and the JCC Manhattan are proud to host the NYC premiere of Eric Schaeffer’s new internationally multi-award winning film, Boy Meets Girl. A ground-breaking coming-of-age romantic comedy, the film explores how falling in love transcends gender and how important it is to live a courageous life without fear standing in the way of your dreams.

Please join us for a special sneak screening and Q&A with the director, Eric Schaeffer, on January 22, 2015, at 7:30 p.m. The event is free, but tickets are required. The film opens at The Village East on February 6 to the general public.

Eric Schaeffer tells PFLAG NYC:

I’m passionate about breaking the mold of sexual and emotional convention in the pursuit of creating more unity in our increasingly fractured world. Being a ‘straight man,’ albeit one who admits to many things most straight men don’t, and living my life with a colorful spectrum of sexual and emotional tastes, desires and behaviors that don’t always seem to be accepted, I feel a duty to portray characters in my films who, like myself, admit to and accept without condition the parts of themselves and others that can be best described and must start being labeled as one thing and one thing only: human. That is why I make any film. That is why I was inspired to make this romantic dramedy. I hope it’s meaningful to you. Read more »

Acclaimed Play Returns to NYC for Two Performances Only, Benefitting PFLAG on November 25

Exclusive Teaser to be Performed at Midtown Meeeting on November 9!

The Santa Closet tells the story of Gary, a little boy who writes to Santa Claus for a doll, receives a truck instead, and pens a heart-rending letter to the North Pole that stirs the great Holiday Icon’s soul, pushing him out of the closet and into the culture wars.

The play’s Off-Broadway run was heralded as “Hilarious” and “Brilliant” by Broadway World and OUT Magazine. The New York Times raved:

“A Delightful Surprise! … This isn’t a clumsy parody, but a sensitive, imaginative tale that really is about a boy’s realization that he is different. Mr. Solomon portrays an amazing range of characters, all of them beautifully.”

A theatrical documentarian in the mold of Anna Deveare Smith and the Laramie Project, Mr. Solomon purports to have interviewed, and portrays, all of the key players in the “Santa-gate” scandal, including little gay Gary, his confused mom and angry dad, Santa’s fake-actress wife, his Agent, his one true love, Giovanni Geppetto (a descendent of Pinocchio) and Mary Ellen Banfield, a conservative activist who is fighting to institute a Santa NO FLY ZONE. Read more »

Students at I.S. 289 have one question after another for PFLAG mom, Johanna Antar

The 2013-2014 school year in New York City wraps up on June 26, and this year PFLAG NYC was busy bringing the Safe Schools Program into schools right up to the end. Our last school engagement of the year was to the 7th Grade at I.S. 289 in Manhattan. Talk about going out with a bang: we had our biggest single team for the year at that one event — 13 people. And the event capped off the most successful year yet for the Safe Schools Program: we made 30 school visits and reached over 4,600 students.

The Safe Schools Program is now PFLAG NYC’s most far-reaching activity, sending teams of speakers into classrooms all around the city to teach respect and create safe learning environments for all students, including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ).

The Safe Schools speakers are all volunteers — either parents, other relatives or straight allies, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people of all ages. These volunteers share with students their personal stories about learning to accept themselves or their child for who they are. The school visits create a safe space for students to ask questions, and hear a perspective many of them were never introduced to. Read more »