San Gabriel Valley PFLAG Chapter celebrates 10 years of API community

SAN GABRIEL VALLEY, Calif. (KABC) -- PFLAG is the first and largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and their families.

Their San Gabriel Valley Chapter, specific to the Asian Pacific Islander community, has provided 10 years of LGBTQ+ allyship.

"We often hear that when an Asian child comes out the closet, the Asian parents go into the closet because they don't know where they could talk about these things," stated chapter president Stacia Kato-Takayesu.

The chapter's vision is to promote inter-generational and inter-ethnic dialogue among Asian, Asian-American, Pacific-Islander, Southeast Asian, and South Asian parents, families, and their LGBTQ+ children, family members, and friends.

"Typically, we sit in a circle, and we all vocalize our particular struggle, so it feels a little safer to do so when you see people who look like you."

Kato-Takayesu's daughter is a transgender female. "When my child was around 11 or 12 years old, they started to go really silent. And I thought at first is this a junior high thing. They were suffering severe anxiety and depression and it led to suicidal ideation. When they got to high school, the gender question came out, my child researched and everything started to fall into place for them."

When her daughter came out, Kato-Takayesu reached out to this chapter.

"I went through a whole learning journey. I always say that I'm the blessed one because she opened my eyes up to a whole new world - a whole new community of love and acceptance that I never knew possible."

To learn more, watch "PFLAG Parent Day" wherever you stream: Fire TV, Google TV, Apple TV and Roku, Sunday, July 23 at 2pm ET / 11am PT.