Indiana Youth Group

The Indiana Youth Group is a LGBTQ advocacy organization that provides basic needs social programming, and safe social spaces for queer youth.

In late 1987, Chris Gonzalez and his partner Jeff Werner noticed a need for queer youth support in Indianapolis and began hosting youth meetings in their home. As the group expanded, Gonzales and friend Pat Jordan incorporated the Indianapolis Youth Group in 1989 and moved the upstart to the Damien Center. There they expanded their services to educational and social meetings, skating parties, an annual prom, “Sunday Socials,” and chaperoned trips to national LGBTQ+ health conferences.

IYG began creating programs to assist homeless and at-risk LGBTQ youth as early as 1991 when the organization founded its Street Outreach program. Because of the disproportionate number of LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness, Executive Director Rob Connolly led a revitalization of the program in 2001. The initiative was funded by a grant from the Administration of Children and Families and focused on connecting youth experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity to needed resources, like food, transportation, and housing Additionally, IYG presented the first Indianapolis LGBTQ+ Film Festival and the first IYG Art Auction in 2001; both of these events continue to be successful fundraisers.

In 2005, IYG formed the first-ever Indiana Gender and Sexuality Alliance (formerly Gay-Straight Alliance) Network. The group both supported existing area GSAs and helped students create GSAs in their schools. Around this time Frank Ross of IUPUI organized the IYG Student Leadership Academy (2006, 2007), offing workshops for LGBTQ high school students to develop the skills necessary to succeed in their futures.

Renamed in 2007, the Indianapolis Youth Group became the Indiana Youth Group, marking a recommitment to queer youth across the state, not just Indianapolis. The next year, IYG faced an important legal battle for representation in the state of Indiana. After submitting an application to the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles for a specialty license plate, IYG was turned down twice with no stated reason. 

Believing that homophobia played a part in their denial, IYG and the Indiana ACLU legally challenged the BMV over a lack of transparency, requesting that all requirements for the plate be made public. The BMV requested that the suit be settled, admitted no wrongdoing, but conveyed to IYG that if an application was again received with all paperwork, it would be “highly likely” to be approved. Upon approval, the 2012 IYG specialty plate became the first specialty license plate for an LGBTQ organization in the state.

IYG has received such awards as the Lamda Legal Leadership Award for advancing the civil rights of members of the LGBTQ community (2004), the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention (CHIP) William A. Crawford Public Services Award for leadership and advocacy for ending youth homeless in Indianapolis (2019), and the Indianapolis Urban League World AIDS Day Youth Services Champion Award (2019). IYG also has been the recipient of numerous grants and state or national funding.

In 2017, IYG moved into a newly renovated building on N. Meridian Street in the Mapleton-Fall Creek neighborhood. The new facility’s space and central location allow for continued expansion of youth services as needs are identified. One such need spurred IYG and nearby Trinity Episcopal Church to act as a founding partner of Trinity Haven, the first transitional LGBTQ living facility in Indiana, which opened in 2020.