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 heal.

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.

Our Founding History

In May 2019, a group of dedicated queer St. Louisans founded SQSH, the first queer-focused community helpline in the area since the 1980s. The organization was founded in response to a community needs assessment, to be a nexus for connecting, supporting, and healing the queer community of St. Louis.

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Drawing on identity-based peer support models, we developed a 50-hour peer counseling training curriculum and graduated our first training class in August 2019. SQSH’s free, confidential Peer Support Helpline opened later in September that year and fielded its first call within an hour of opening.

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.

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Why was SQSH founded?

Historically, 61.6% of LGBT St. Louisans have reported experiencing homophobic violence or victimization over their lifetime. More recently, according to the 2024 Missouri LGBTQ Political Climate Survey, 64% of LGBTQIA+ adults in the state reported that their mental health has been negatively impacted by Missouri’s political climate regarding LGBTQ issues. 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 and normalizes 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.