Who we are

Our Mission:

We are dedicated to helping lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Upstate NY achieve their goals of building and sustaining happy and healthy families.

We understand that the term "family" means something different to different people within the queer community. At Pride and Joy Families, we do our best to provide resources to support ALL family structures. This includes:

• LGBTQ+ adults, both coupled and single, who are parents or would like to become parents
• Interdependent LGBTQ+ individuals who have or are building a chosen family, which may or may not include children, or who have no plans to become parents
• LGBTQ+ youth looking to connect with their peers, and parents of LGBTQ+ youth looking for resources to affirm their queer child

We offer educational programs, social events, information and referral services, a directory of LGBTQ-inclusive services, and support for LGBTQ families and prospective parents. Our networkof Pride and Joy Families provides social and educational opportunities, and a sense of community to LGBTQ+ people in Central New York.

In addition to directly working with the community, we also offer trainings to service providers who regularly interact with the queer community, such as health and human service providers, schools, and businesses. Please check out or training tab for more information. 

Brief History:

The Project was founded in April 2000 with a $43,000 competitive grant award for LGBT Health and Human Services from the NYS Dept. of Health to the Ferre Institute Inc. in Binghamton. Since then, we have reapplied for and received these funds in lesser and greater amounts and for shorter and longer periods of time.

The Project joined forces with the Binghamton University Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program in 2013 was awarded a 5-year, $625,000 grant through the Research Foundation at SUNY Binghamton. That funding was recently extended. The move to campus gave the Project a very happy and supportive home base, plus access to resources such as University facilities for conferences and trainings, graduate and undergraduate student assistance in carrying out our programs, and a multidisciplinary scholarly advisory committee (MSAC) composed of BU faculty in clinical psychology, social work, human development, nursing, and women, gender and sexuality studies.

Pride and Joy Families was on a brief hiatus between 2018-2023. We are in the process of rebuilding our programming and establishing our network. We are thrilled to be back and look forward to being a positive resource in the community!

Our Co-Principal Investigators

Our Staff

Emily R. Gold
Project Lead
egold@binghamton.edu

Our Advisory Boards

Multidisciplinary Scholarly Advisory Board

(coming soon)

Please join us! Contact us to learn more about our programs and services.