Trevor Project launches crisis services for LGBTQ youth in Mexico
washingtonblade.comMateo seems to be an average adolescent guy, at least in outward appearances and love of football as soccer is known here. But he keeps a deeply personal part of himself, “mi verdadero yo” (my real self) away from even his closest friends and family instead only divesting himself of his protective cloak on his weekend forays into the Zona Rosa of Mexico City, a neighborhood that is center of LGBTQ life in the Mexican capital city about an hour and a half away from Tizayuca.
Mateo is gay and his family is homophobic as are many of his local friends and acquaintances in Tizayuca where he lives. The stress and strain of being gay at times can be overwhelming he says although he can escape surreptitiously when he’s at home by binge watching LGBTQ content on Netflix and other platforms.
Still Mateo says, there are those moments when he felt nothing but despair, helpless, and no one to talk to. It was his journeys into the Zona Rosa neighborhood and his online LGBTQ friends on Instagram that saved him more than once in those bleak intervals.
Still he says a way to connect with counselors is badly needed especially in places in his country that don’t have access for LGBTQ youth to a gayborhood and a support system of community.
