Welcome!

We hope you are finding this site useful, encouraging and informative. We invite you to offer your feedback if there are things you would like to see at this space.

We welcome you to visit us at one of our groups. On Fridays we hold our support groups. It can be intimidating to walk into a Seacoast Outright meeting for the first time. Sexual orientation and gender identity can be tough subjects for people to talk about. We have experience talking about sexual orientation and gender identity in a sensitive and respectful way – we’ve been doing it for fifteen years!

What happens at Seacoast Outright support group meetings?

At Seacoast Outright, we create a safe, welcoming, relaxed atmosphere. New young people attend group almost every week, so we’re comfortable meeting new people. More than likely, you will be greeted individually by one of the four adult facilitators soon after you enter the meeting space. Your parents or guardians are welcome to come in and say a brief hello and meet the facilitators before group starts. Your friends under 22 years of age are welcome to join you and stay for the meeting.

Guidelines & Intros

Once group starts, the first order of business is to go over the guidelines of the meeting. After that, there’s a brief introduction time where people can share some basic facts about themselves with the group: their name, where they’re from, age, and their sexual orientation and gender identity. People are free to share as much or as little as they want, and it’s always ok to pass if they’re not comfortable talking in a group. After guidelines and intros, we usually break up into two smaller groups. A typical Friday night group will have anywhere from 20 to 40 youth in attendance. Breaking into smaller groups allow people to talk more easily. Each small group will have two adult facilitators there to keep the conversation safe and moving.

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Small Group Discussions

During the small group, the youth choose the subjects to talk about. Since it’s a support group meeting, the facilitators try to keep the topics geared toward issues that participants are struggling with. These can range from coming out (to friends, family, at work, at school) to relationship issues, to dealing with homophobia in different areas of their lives. In addition to their struggles, people also talk about their triumphs.

Resources

Facilitators also have information about lots of local resources, from glbt-friendly therapists and psychologists to health-care agencies and crisis support lines. We keep a wide range of accurate information on hand to provide to youth. We also have an on-site lending library. All of the books relate to gender identity and sexual orientation in some way. We’ve got novels (including young-adult novels), reference materials as well as history books.

Break and Announcements

After our small group sessions, we have a brief break where youth can chat with each other, plan for fun after group, or have a short conversation with facilitators. After break, we get back together for announcements of what’s going on locally and we usually wrap everything up right at 9:00 pm.