The following op-ed appeared in today's edition of the Charleston Gazette-Mail: 

This summer, I was proud to help host the Appalachian Queer Youth Summit, the first-ever summer camp just for LGBTQ+ West Virginia high schoolers.

The camp was born of necessity. It’s not always easy being a kid, and it’s never easy being a queer kid. But being a queer kid in West Virginia, which a recent UCLA report found is tied for dead-last in LGBTQ+ acceptance? That’s its own kind of not-easy.

Read the full piece here.