Aaron Kitchens is the executive director of the Glo Center — an LGBTQ+ resource and community center in Springfield that serves the southwest part of the state.
He spoke about the “urgent health crisis” that is the isolation of queer people in rural areas and about how finding and building community can help combat the problem.
For the month of June, we are focusing on the stories of LGBTQ+ Missourians
Aaron Kitchens: We get folks from everywhere nearly weekly, if not at some points of the year, daily — folks just reaching out to everybody that they could think of, looking for support.
We get folks that reach out to us from Webb City, the Joplin area, West Plains, Ava, Mansfield, Monet.
We have parents that drive their youth to the Glo Center on a weekly basis, so that way their kid is experiencing an affirming environment at least once a week because they're not getting that at school, and the only other place they're getting it is at home.
And so, I mean, I think the fact that they're reaching out to Glo and they're driving to Springfield, if they're able, you know, shows that in many of these communities there is not support directly for them to engage with.
That is changing.
There's many communities, like, Mansfield just celebrated their second pride. It was a bit tumultuous with some things that happened with that, but it happened, and that proves that there is queer community in Mansfield for those local residents who didn't know it was there before.
There is now a monthly Sunday coffee that's happening with that group that planned that Pride Fest, and so, that is now a source of community.
And just showing folks that there is support, there is community, goes so far to just relieving that anxiety and getting people the resources that they need.
So, for the folks that do exist in places that aren't like Mansfield, that don't have those groups that are already working — be that person, reach out to the Glo Center and let us know where you are and what you would like to start for your community, and we have support that we're eager and excited to offer.
But, in the meantime, we exist to connect folks with the resources that are in their communities. So, whenever we can, we will share what exists in Webb City, in Nevada, in, you know, Mount Vernon, so that way folks can exist in their own communities without having to always come to Springfield to find that support.
We know that isolation, you know, leads to these mental health impacts that lead to depression, lead to anxiety, lead to suicidal ideation, and lead to suicide.
I know, the Trevor Project being, you know, our go-to for data about LGBTQ+ youth, I believe it was more than 60% of LGBTQ+ young people in rural communities experience anxiety, and more than 50% experience symptoms of depression, and 13% of LGBTQ+ youth, according to the Trevor Project in 2025, have attempted suicide in the last year.
So, this is an urgent health issue that our community is facing, and the solution, we know the solution — the solution is for folks to get connected, the solution is for folks to have support, to have affirmation, to have community, and just be able to exist as their authentic selves at some point in their home, and we can do that by bringing the folks that are already in these communities together.
