The chorus of the song was inspired by a quote from an interview in which an LGBTQ+ youth said: “To love us is everything. It’s so simple. It’s not that hard.”

Lynn and Allison encourage parents and family members of LGBTQ+ folx to examine their need to understand the “lifestyle” vs. just showing up with love and support. Do we have to understand everything in order to be loving? How we are getting in our own way? How are we using queerness as an excuse for doing the work we need to do on ourselves?

The LGBTQ+ youth in your life are so easy to love. It’s so simple. It’s not that hard.

You have a mission and it’s clear. You must do what it takes to listen, understand, support, and advocate for the queer and trans youth you love.

Here’s your assignment:

1. Subscribe to Queer Futures Now on Substack. When you do, you become part of the Queer Futures Now Network, a virtual support community facilitated by our partners at HEAL Plus New Mexico. The Queer Futures Now Network is for parents, families, educators and the rest of us who are ready to show up on behalf of queer and trans youth…now.

2. Each week, you will receive an email with new information and tools to add to your ally toolbox.

3. Over the next month—between now and next podcast episode—we will focus on information and tools to help you better understand, support, and advocate for loving your LGBTQ+ young people even when you don’t fully understand them.

PODCAST CREDITS:

The Queer Futures Now Podcast

• Produced and Edited by: Lynn Johnson

• Hosted by: Lynn Johnson and Allison Kenny

• Original Music by: Jessie Lane

• Performers Featured In This Episode: Jessie Lane and Noe Field-Perkins

• Sponsored by: HEAL Plus New Mexico, a grassroots organization that uses community art to co-create communities where all people can thrive and queer and trans people are cherished.
  
  Queer Futures Now was originally made possible under the leadership of Alex Ross-Reed. Since December 2025, HEAL Plus New Mexico has been led by Gracielx Sedillo-Lopez.

QueerFuturesNow.substack.com

HEAL Plus NM collaborated with the New Mexico Genders and Sexuality Alliance Network (NNMGSA Network) and youth volunteers to create a digital curriculum called “SQUINCH” — Sharing Queer Understanding, Inclusion, Nonviolent Communication, and Health.

SQUINCH is a series of videos and supplementary materials designed for young LGBTQ+ folx to practice healthy relationship skills and understanding about queer and trans identities.

In Lesson 5 of the Queer Futures Now Network Curriculum, you are invited to:

1. Make a date with a young person or small group of young folx you care about. Make sure you all have about 45 minutes of uninterrupted time to hang out.

2. Pick a place that is safe and comfortable for all of you.

3. Take approx. 12 minutes to watch the Nonbinary People and Respecting Them video (below) together.
   

4. Allow the lessons from this video to make space for an honest conversation about gender and identity. Open up the conversation by asking each other:
   
   What has your gender and sexuality journey been like?

Pro Tip

Be sure to reflect on this question yourself too. If you identify as binary or cis or straight, you may not have had to think that much about the role gender and sexuality play in your life. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t had a big impact on who you are and how you move through the world. Think about:

• Where has your gender and sexual identity been spotlighted?

• Where has it been erased?

• What elements of your identity changed over time?

As you listen deeply and empathetically to the young person you love, allow yourself to find those places in your own experiences where you might relate even more than you thought.

Let us know know how it goes in the Comments below!

Make sure to subscribe to Queer Futures Now here on Substack. When you do, you become part of the Queer Futures Now Network, a virtual support community facilitated by our partners at HEAL Plus New Mexico. The Queer Futures Now Network is for parents, families, educators and the rest of us who are ready to show up on behalf of queer and trans youth…now.

Each week, you will receive an email with new lessons like this one with tools and resources to add to your ally toolbox.

Subscribe now

Many adult allies—no matter how we identify—grew up believing that “gay people are just born this way.” We embraced this narrative as a way to build empathy and tolerance; to better advocate for fairness and equality.

At the same time, the “born this way” narrative limits our ability to “keep up” when folks (including ourselves) experience any changes in sexuality, gender, or expression. We are confused, judgmental, and maybe even deny the experience all together.

In Lesson 4 of the Queer Futures Now Network curriculum, you are invited to:

1. Listen to Episode 2 of The Queer Futures Now Podcast: So Many Beautiful Things if you haven’t already
   

2. Watch Karen Gee’s TEDx Talk, A More Fluid Understanding of Gender and Sexual Orientation (~17 mins).
   
   Prof. Gee, a self-described “straight and narrow,” cisgender woman, and professor of Psychology and Human Sexuality at Mission College in Santa Clara, CA, explains how and why the science no longer supports a “born this way” hypothesis. She also encourages us to embrace the concept of fluidity when it comes to understanding sexuality and gender.

3. After watching the video, ask youself:

   1. Which part(s) of her talk stood out most to you and why?

   2. How does this explanation of gender and sexuality help you better understand the journey our youth are on?

   3. How might this understanding impact your relationship with the youth you love?

Make sure to subscribe to Queer Futures Now here on Substack. When you do, you become part of the Queer Futures Now Network, a virtual support community facilitated by our partners at HEAL Plus New Mexico. The Queer Futures Now Network is for parents, families, educators and the rest of us who are ready to show up on behalf of LGBTQ+ youth…now.

Each week, you will receive an email with new lessons like this one with tools and resources to add to your ally toolbox.

Subscribe now

Together, they explore how concepts and language around gender and sexuality has evolved across generations, why today’s youth claim their identities with nuance and fluidity, and what adults can learn from listening more closely.

Through clips and moments from the play, including metaphors of rivers, bodies of water, and questions of being “queer enough,” this episode centers a simple truth: young people are the experts on their own experience. Their identities are allowed to shift, deepen, and expand over time.

Trust them. Believe them. Cheer them on as they evolve.

The LGBTQ+ youth in your life are so many beautiful things.

You have a mission and it’s clear. You must do what it takes to listen, understand, support, and advocate for the queer and trans youth you love.

Here’s your assignment:

1. Subscribe to Queer Futures Now on Substack. When you do, you become part of the Queer Futures Now Network, a virtual support community facilitated by our partners at HEAL Plus New Mexico. The Queer Futures Now Network is for parents, families, educators and the rest of us who are ready to show up on behalf of queer and trans youth…now.

2. Each week, you will receive an email with new information and tools to add to your ally toolbox.

3. Over the next month—between now and next podcast episode—we will focus on information and tools to help you better understand, support, and advocate for identity formation in LGBTQ+ youth.

Subscribe now

PODCAST CREDITS:

The Queer Futures Now Podcast

• Produced and Edited by: Lynn Johnson

• Hosted by: Lynn Johnson and Allison Kenny

• Original Music by: Jessie Lane

• Actors Featured In This Episode: Lasha Helena Kirker, Danielle Simone, John Olesen, and Allison Kenny

• Sponsored by: HEAL Plus New Mexico, a grassroots organization that uses community art to co-create communities where all people can thrive and queer and trans people are cherished.
  
  Queer Futures Now was originally made possible under the leadership of Alex Ross-Reed. Since December 2025, HEAL Plus New Mexico has been led by Gracielx Sedillo-Lopez.

QueerFuturesNow.substack.com

Dr. Bettina Love wrote a book in 2019 called We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom. In it she writes about how important it is to move from allyship to co-conspiratorship.

In short, being an ally means you are coming from a place of “I know and care a lot about this.” Being a co-conspirator means you are coming from a place of “I am taking a risk to do something about this.” Being an ally costs you nothing. Being a co-conspirator can cost you access, comfort, money, time, and even safety.

Check out the video below where Dr. Love describes being a co-conspirator as being willing to use your privilege to “put something on the line for somebody.”

It’s going to take a willingness from all of us to graduate from our comfortable ally phase to becoming full co-conspirators, putting it all on the line for our LGBTQ+ youth.

In this lesson, take 10-15 minutes to complete this quiz. It is designed to help you reflect on your current ally practices with LGBTQ+ youth and give you suggestions for how you might push your practice forward, no matter where you are starting from.

Take the Quiz

Make sure to subscribe to Queer Futures Now here on Substack. When you do, you become part of the Queer Futures Now Network, a virtual support community facilitated by our partners at HEAL Plus New Mexico. The Queer Futures Now Network is for parents, families, educators and the rest of us who are ready to show up on behalf of queer and trans youth…now.

Each week, you will receive an email with new lessons like this one with tools and resources to add to your ally toolbox.

Subscribe now

HEAL Plus NM collaborated with the New Mexico Genders and Sexuality Alliance Network (NNMGSA Network) and youth volunteers to create a digital curriculum called “SQUINCH” — Sharing Queer Understanding, Inclusion, Nonviolent Communication, and Health.

SQUINCH is a series of videos and supplementary materials designed for young LGBTQ+ folx to practice healthy relationship skills and understanding about queer and trans identities.

In Lesson 2 of the Queer Futures Now Network Curriculum, you are invited to:

1. Make a date with a young person or small group of young folx you care about. Make sure you all have about 60-90 minutes of uninterrupted time to hang out.

2. Pick a place that is safe and comfortable for all of you.

3. Gather whatever art supplies are accessible and make you happy.

4. Watch the SQUINCH Mental Health Pocket Zine video (below) together and follow along as you each make your own zine.
   

5. Reflect on what you learned from having spent this time together. Here are some reflection questions to consider:
   

• How did it feel to spend that time together?

• What did you notice?

• What do you know now about your young person that you didn’t know before?

• What are you still curious about?

• What might the next steps be?

Pro Tip

As you spend this precious time together with the LGBTQ+ youth you love, do your best to listen more than you talk. This isn’t the time for a lecture. This is when you show up authentically, listen compassionately, and build trust.

When you do talk, share truthfully and vulnerably—human to human—without taking up too much time and space. Share your story without burdening them with your challenges. You never want to put them in a position where they need to be the one taking care of you.

Instead, you want to show up with empathy by relating to their feelings, even if you don’t fully understand their experience. This happens when you listen without judgement, take what they say seriously, and reflect back what you heard.

Let us know know how it goes in the Comments below!

Make sure to subscribe to Queer Futures Now here on Substack. When you do, you become part of the Queer Futures Now Network, a virtual support community facilitated by our partners at HEAL Plus New Mexico. The Queer Futures Now Network is for parents, families, educators and the rest of us who are ready to show up on behalf of queer and trans youth…now.

Each week, you will receive an email with new lessons like this one with tools and resources to add to your ally toolbox.

Subscribe now

Since 2024 when we started this project, US state legislatures have introduced more than 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, a record-breaking number. A substantial percentage of these bills specifically target transgender youth. In fact, experts in a January 5th post from the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security name what is happening to trans folx in the United States as a “genocide”.

Our government is literally working to eliminate all trans people. This is the environment we are navigating and our young people are coming of age in.

Obviously, this environment is taking its toll on LGBTQ+ youth mental health. Here are just a few things we have learned from The Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people:

We know that this is a lot to digest. Take notice of how your brain and body are doing after taking in this information. As adult allies, we deserve our own resourcing and care to settle our nervous systems and ground before we can connect to and show up for our young people.

In Lesson 1 of the Queer Futures Now Network curriculum, you are invited to:

1. Listen to Episode 1 of The Queer Futures Now Podcast: We Are Not Aliens if you haven’t already

2. Take a look at the Trevor Project’s 2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People.

3. List 3 supports you have in place for yourself (for example: spiritual practice; trusted friends/family; therapy; body work; arts practice; good food/movement, etc.)

Make sure to subscribe to Queer Futures Now here on Substack. When you do, you become part of the Queer Futures Now Network, a virtual support community facilitated by our partners at HEAL Plus New Mexico. The Queer Futures Now Network is for parents, families, educators and the rest of us who are ready to show up on behalf of queer and trans youth…now.

Each week, you will receive an email with new lessons like this one with tools and resources to add to your ally toolbox.

Subscribe now

We introduce you to Queer Futures Now: An Alien Play, our original play written from the real life stories of 25 queer and trans youth from across New Mexico. Their stories revealed to us what gives them joy, where they feel the most safe, and what they need their parents, families, and adult allies to know.

Queer and trans youth need you…now.

They need you to know that they are not aliens. They are human beings who are proud and afraid and suffering and celebrating.

They need you to know that they are different from you and just like you. They understand that you will make mistakes, and they need you to keep trying anyway. They need you to get over yourself and get what you need to be able to show up.

You have a mission and it’s clear. You must do what it takes to listen, understand, support, and advocate for the queer and trans youth you love.

Here’s your first assignment:

1. Subscribe to Queer Futures Now on Substack. When you do, you become part of the Queer Futures Now Network, a virtual support community facilitated by our partners at HEAL Plus New Mexico. The Queer Futures Now Network is for parents, families, educators and the rest of us who are ready to show up on behalf of queer and trans youth…now.

2. Each week, you will receive an email with new information and tools to add to your ally toolbox.

3. Over the next month—between now and next podcast episode—we will focus on information and tools to help you better understand, support, and advocate for the mental and physical health of queer and trans youth.

Subscribe now

PODCAST CREDITS:

The Queer Futures Now Podcast

• Produced and Edited by: Lynn Johnson

• Hosted by: Lynn Johnson and Allison Kenny

• Original Music by: Jessie Lane

• Actors Featured In This Episode: Dalilah Naranjo, Danielle Simone, Jessie Lane, Lynn Johnson and Allison Kenny

• Sponsored by: HEAL Plus New Mexico, a grassroots organization that uses community art to co-create communities where all people can thrive and queer and trans people are cherished.
  
  Queer Futures Now was originally made possible under the leadership of Alex Ross-Reed. Since December 2025, HEAL Plus New Mexico has been led by Gracielx Sedillo-Lopez.

QueerFuturesNow.substack.com

In the Spring of 2024, Health Equity Alliance of LGBTQ+ New Mexicans (HEAL Plus NM) and High Desert Playback outreached to LGBTQ+ youth ages 16-24 throughout rural and urban areas of New Mexico to hear their stories and learn what they wished their parents and caregivers knew about their experience.

What resulted was Queer Futures Now: An Alien Play, a 90-minute play that blends sci-fi, thriller, adventure, and dance party. Set on the banks of the Rio Chama in Northern New Mexico, the play follows four queer and trans youths on their journey to safety and shows the path to paradise is closer than we think.

Original cast of Queer Futures Now: An Alien Play in Farmington, NM. Top row (left to right): Lynn Johnson as Scratch the Alien, Jessie Lane as Disco the Alien, and Allison Kenny as Scritch the Alien. Bottom row (left to right): Dalilah Naranjo as Brooke, Bryan Fuentes as Rio, Danielle Simone as Star, and Noe Field-Perkins as Jay. Not pictured: Johnny Olesen as Harmonica Human.

The Queer Futures Now Podcast takes you behind the scenes of the play to hear what queer + trans youth need from us; their parents, families, and adult allies. Each episode will provide you with tools and resources to listen, understand, support, and advocate for the young people in our lives.

Listeners of The Queer Futures Now Podcast are encouraged to SUBSCRIBE NOW to join the Queer Futures Now Network, a virtual support community for parents, families and allies of LGBTQ+ individuals. When you subscribe, you will get an email as soon as each podcast episode launches. You will also receive invitations to virtual group meetings and information about connecting with other allies in your local community.

Subscribe now

Questions about the Queer Futures Now Network? Send an email to qfnnetwork@healplusnm.org

PODCAST CREDITS:

The Queer Futures Now Podcast

• Produced and Edited by: Lynn Johnson

• Hosted by: Lynn Johnson and Allison Kenny

• Original Music by: Jessie Lane

• Sponsored by: HEAL Plus NM, a grassroots organization that uses community art to co-create communities where all people can thrive and queer and trans people are cherished.

Queer Futures Now: An Alien Play was commissioned and made possible by HEAL Plus NM under the leadership of Alex Ross-Reed.

• Written by: Allison Kenny and Danielle Simone

• Directed by: Lynn Johnson

• Produced by: Lynn Johnson, Alex Ross-Reed and Lyisa Jimenez

• Original Cast:

  • Allison Kenny

  • Bryan Avila-Fuentes

  • Dalilah Naranjo

  • Danielle Simone

  • Jessie Lane

  • Johnny Olesen

  • Lynn Johnson

  • Noe Field-Perkins

• Original Creative Team:

  • Assistant Director: Tatiana Isabel Gil

  • Sound + Music: Jessie Lane

  • Scenic Design: sheri crider + Haley Greenfeather

  • Costume Design: Allison Saint

  • Stage Manager: Lasha Kirker