This website empowers all kinds of adults who want to help queer and trans young people. They include parents, foster parents, guardians, other relatives, mentors, teachers and other educators, friends and their parents, other community leaders, neighbors, coworkers, and healthcare professionals.
It's for adults who are straight, cisgender (a word you'll find defined in the glossary), and LGBTQA+/SGL (another word you'll find defined in the glossary).
And R2T2 is for those who want to help in any of a number of ways: by listening, by seeing, by speaking up, by spending money and/or time, and by working to mitigate a crisis situation.
In short, if you want to help out, there are ideas here for you.
Resources included in this site…
- Are almost entirely published in 2018 or later because the LGBTQA+/SGL world is changing so quickly.
- Are, with a few exceptions, not academic since those can be so inaccessible.
The two major exceptions for that second bullet are the sections for doctors and therapists. These folx are generally highly educated. And, if they're affiliated with a university or research center, they likely have access to scholarly journals.
For the rest of you, i did include the occasional academic source. But they're few and far between.
Also, resources included in this site…
- Are not news articles since those are so quickly outdated.
- Come from a variety of sources: blogs, Instagram accounts, TikToks, Facebook groups, advocacy websites, best practice documents, books, movies, and a host of others.
- Rely heavily, but not exclusively, on websites that do not require paid subscriptions.
- Were, in the resource section for adults and, especially, resource section for youth, often recommended by those who took my survey.
- Include lots and lots of pictures. They're on most pages of R2T2 and in this slideshow. Aren't we absolutely adorable??
- You'll find more information about R2T2's pictures on that page.
Reflecting Rainbow Tweens & Teens makes no attempts to be comprehensive. There are innumerable resources out there on queer and trans tweens' and teens' lives. These resources come in many forms, including websites, books, movies, interviews, zines, and local and state archives. Offering an exhaustive list of resources here is well beyond my capacity. Yes, there's a lot of information on R2T2. But it's not even close to everything!
In each section of this site, i've offered anywhere from a couple suggested resources to dozens of them. Please branch out to find ones that better suit your politics, geographic location, family, and any other factor that makes your situation specific to you.
Keep in mind that no one can do everything that's described here. Explore the sections that are most interesting and relevant. Then commit to doing 1-2 things that speak you.
Most importantly, if you've found this site to be useful, please pass it on to others.
Send me feedback, ideas, and additional resources!
I haven't read the entirety of 99% of the resources linked here. If i tried, i would literally never finish this site.
Did you follow a link and discover that it is not, in fact, queer- or trans-friendly? Or is it adultist (a word you'll find defined in the glossary), racist, xenophobic, misogynist, ableist, transmisogynist, or somesuch?
Please put the link in my contact form to give me a heads-up. I'll remove it ASAP.
Similarly, if you know of a fantastic resource that i don't have listed below, please let me know. Again, i'm generally not including news articles. But anything else is welcome.
A huge shout-out to all the people who helped get R2T2 off the ground:
- The young folx (a word you'll find defined in the glossary) who tested my survey and gave me fantastic suggestions that helped make it so much stronger.
- The tweens, teens, and younger adults who took the survey and, through it, gave me huge insight and many ideas for what to include here.
- The folx who helped spread the word of that very same survey through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (as it was still known), and various listservs.
- The adults whom i asked to look over various sections of R2T2 and who helped flesh out areas that i didn't know needed it.
- My therapist, for their constant support, encouragement, and enthusiasm about R2T2, as well as their critical insights on several sections.
- Page of the Common Goodness Project, whose knowledge and insights affirmed my own and, in many places, added critical content.
- My friends and family of origin, who were uniformly excited when they learned i was taking this project on.
- My partner for her unflagging help, support, and encouragement from the inception of this site in the fall of 2022 to now.
- And most importantly, thanks to you for visiting R2T2, picking one or two things to do, and spreading the love for queer and trans tweens and teens.
