Our History
By offering services and programming that support the St. Louis LGBTQIA+ community, we aim to create spaces where queer St. Louisans can thrive and step up to leadership.
We founded SQSH to address the disparities caused by gender- and sexuality-based oppression, which limits our human potential and unfairly targets LGBTQIA+ communities for harm. Gender- and sexuality-based oppression affects all humans, but especially LGBTQIA+ people in under-resourced regions facing hostile socio-political climates.
Why was SQSH founded?
One in seven LGBT Missourians experience workplace discrimination (Missouri Foundation for Health, 2012), and 61.6% of LGBT St. Louisans have experienced homophobic violence/victimization over their lifetime (Greater St. Louis LGBT Health and Human Services Needs Assessment, 2010). As a result, queer St. Louisans:
Disproportionately face negative mental health outcomes, including higher risks for depression, anxiety disorders, and suicidal thoughts/attempts. At least two-thirds of trans St. Louisans don’t have their mental health needs fully met (Trans Education Service, 2018).
Lack access to identity-affirming healthcare and risk medical providers’ harassment/ignorance. In Missouri, queer-affirming healthcare services are limited and medical staff are barely trained in LGBTQIA+ health issues.
Are disproportionately poor, unemployed/underemployed, and unhoused. Queer adolescents in St. Louis face higher risks of homelessness, sexual victimization, and substance abuse. Yet many St. Louis shelters are unequipped to work with queer youth, operating with cis-/hetero-normative policies.
SQSH’s work addresses these disparities by empowering queer St. Louisans to:
Offer peers a caring, identity-affirming outlet to process our daily barriers to wellbeing, heal from everyday injustices, and improve our mental health. Unlike traditional hotlines, SQSH offers a range of support services outside of crisis intervention.
Strengthen our community’s connection to vetted resources trusted by local queer-led groups, to improve LGBTQIA+ St. Louisans’ access to health and well-being. Unlike national hotlines, our local network is intimately familiar with culturally competent, St. Louis-specific services.
Amplify our voice in local social and political systems – by using data and stories to identify community needs and advocate for changes in culture, policies, and services that would improve the lives of queer St. Louisans.
How was SQSH founded?
Before SQSH, no queer-focused helpline, peer support network, or healing justice organization had existed in St. Louis since the 1980s. We – a group of dedicated queer St. Louisans – founded SQSH on June 1, 2019, after a community needs assessment demonstrated that the St. Louis LGBTQIA+ community faces heightened rates of violence, discrimination, substance use, and insecurity in employment and housing; disparities in medical, mental, and sexual health; and barriers to accessing the identity-affirming resources needed to meet those needs.
SQSH Launch Party
August 2019
Drawing on identity-based peer support models, we developed a 50-hour peer counseling training curriculum using our experience running a sexual assault hotline and applying an LGBTQIA-focused lens. We recruited volunteers from all over St. Louis and graduated our first training class in August 2019. We held a Launch Party to celebrate with our community – over 100 people attended.
On September 20, 2019, we started operating a peer support helpline that offers free, confidential, and identity-affirming emotional support and resource referrals, by and for the St. Louis LGBTQIA+ community. We received a call the first hour our Helpline opened.
Since then, SQSH has grown our local presence and built deep relationships with the local community. Our peer counselors have supported community members in many ways, including de-escalating shelter residents experiencing panic attacks, providing space for queer activists to feel heard, facilitating healing for victims of sexual abuse, and more.
In 2020, we filmed a Community Video to highlight queer St. Louisans’ daily struggles. Amidst the pandemic, we expanded our hours and offered peer counseling appointments. In partnership with STL Mutual Aid, we started the Mutual Aid hotline, providing assistance to St. Louisans hard-hit by COVID-19. In our 2020 Winter Campaign, we raised $9,760.59 – an 840% increase from our previous fundraiser in 2019.
In 2021, we partnered with the St. Louis Civil Rights Enforcement Agency to advocate for LGBTQIA+ needs among local shelters using data from our housing-related calls.
Since founding, SQSH has taken 330+ calls, offered 200+ hours of support, trained 65 peer counselors, and provided 90+ hours of training on topics that impact the St. Louis LGBTQIA+ community.