Parents Offer Free Hugs at LGBTQ+ Pride Month Events

Have you ever had a bad day and felt like you just needed a hug? Socially and scientifically, this makes sense! On top of being a sweet way to express love and provide comfort, hugging also helps lower blood pressure levels and reduce stress. 

And while a good hug can’t solve everything, that doesn’t stop the Free Mom Hugs movement from using them to make a positive difference.

The idea is simple but seemingly very effective. Volunteers with the organization will wear t-shirts that say “Free Mom Hugs” at Pride events and offer just what the shirts suggest: free hugs from a mom. 

Many LGBTQ+ people are rejected or even cut off when they come out to their families. Although one of these hugs can’t replace the genuine role of a family member in someone’s life, it can provide a brief but often-needed moment of support to people who may not have the acceptance of their own families.

The movement began with mothers, but has since expanded, and now includes fathers, parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and grandparents who all give out free hugs. 

Free Mom Hugs is a nonprofit that organizes chapters through Facebook groups across all 50 states. However, the popularity of viral videos showing these hugs has inspired people to buy or make their own shirts and signs that offer free hugs, even without a connection to the organization.

Some people have even adopted the movement virtually. While wearing a rainbow Free Mom Hugs shirt, one mom and TikTok user, Donna Lynn (@donnalynn92522), posted a video where she offers support and virtual hugs to her viewers.

“It is June 1, and it’s the beginning of Pride Month and I just wanted to say to the LGBTQIA+ community that I see you and I love you and I am sending you a huge mom hug from the Jersey Shore. Good luck with your journey,” Lynne says in the TikTok.

Lynne’s supportive TikTok was met with hundreds of equally supportive comments from people offering additional hugs or thankful messages. Many commenters even opened up about their own situations. 

“I really needed to hear this,” reads one comment. ”(I) had to distance myself from my mother, thanks for standing in.”

The Danger of Rejecting LGBTQ+ Family Members

The current leader of the original Free Mom Hugs chapter in Oklahoma, Cammeron Kaiser, says she sends members to four to five different Pride events across the state where the organization first began some weekends and has personally attended hundreds of Pride events since joining Free Mom Hugs. 

The number of hugs she’s given is uncountable.

Kaiser told Parents that living in Oklahoma, she has personally seen people in her community be rejected by their families because of their sexuality or gender identity. Some are even subjected to conversion therapy.

“There are so many people whose parents don’t speak to (them) anymore or who have to go back into the closet when they’re home because their parents said ‘No, you’re not (part of the LGBTQIA community),’ or who haven’t been hugged by a family member in a ridiculous number of years,” she explains.

This is a problem that spans the country. According to The Human Rights Campaign’s 2023 LGBTQ+ Youth Report, 57.4% of LGBTQ+ Youth experience one or more forms of parental rejection after coming out.

And on top of that already staggering statistic, LGBTQ+ youth are at higher risk of experiencing homelessness than their straight or cis-gendered peers, often as a result of being kicked out.

According to The Trevor Project, 28% of LGBTQ youth reported dealing with housing instability or homelessness at some point in their lives. Those in the 28% were also two to four times more likely to report struggling with mental health or experiencing suicidal thoughts than youth that had stable housing.

The Impact of Free Hugs

For those who have been rejected by their family, Kaiser says any type of support–even the type that comes from a stranger in a t-shirt–can be extremely meaningful.

Many people she meets break down in tears when offered a hug. Kaiser always waits for them to let go first—making sure she never cuts off a needed hug early.

“The feeling of arms around you, it can be really healing,” Kaiser shares. “We find a lot of people who desperately need someone to love them, even if we’re there just for a moment at Pride.

In the hundreds of Pride events she’s attended, Kaiser says she’s offered hugs to people of all ages—some of whom she guesses could be the same age as her parents or grandparents. But despite her sometimes being younger than them, she says these older members of the LGBTQ+ community need a reassuring hug from a stand-in family member just as much.

And for the people who just aren’t huggers, Free Mom Hugs’ volunteers are always happy to offer a fist bump, high five, or just some kind words.

To People Struggling with Accepting Their LGBTQ+ Family

While the main focus of the Free Mom Hugs movement is to support members of the LGBTQ+ community, they also provide resources to help people understand their family members’ identities.

She says many parents specifically come to her with questions about how to support their LGBTQ+ kids. For these parents, she tries to provide a space where no question is off the table because the first step to understanding is open-mindedness.

“It’s really hard on some of the parents because of what they were taught, especially in Oklahoma,” Kaiser says. But if those parents are all willing to unlearn the ideas they have, the impact it can have on LGBTQ+ kids is huge. Because support does not always look like attending Pride parades. Oftentimes it is just celebrating queer joy in everyday life, using someone’s pronouns, or loving unconditionally.

To parents who may be struggling with the news of a child coming out, Kaiser explains it is important to disconnect your expectations of your child from who they actually are and allow yourself to grieve the ideas you had of them while accepting this new truth. 

“You have to reach a place in your mind where you realize ‘Well, I wasn’t making the plans, so I need to figure out within myself that this is how they are and this is who they are, and I’m going to support them and forget what I thought was happening,’” she says.