Leading with love in Tampa Bay since 2011♥
PFLAG Tampa is a community of LGBTQ+ people, families, friends and allies who believe support changes lives, education changes minds, and showing up can change a city.
Educate.
Advocate.
since 2011
Local people doing the work locally.
PFLAG Tampa is where support, community, education and advocacy meet.
We are part of the national PFLAG movement and rooted right here in Tampa Bay. For 15 years, chapter leaders, volunteers, LGBTQ+ people, families and partners have created places to find support, learn from one another and stand together.
Sometimes that happens around a support-meeting table. Sometimes it happens at County Hall, at the Capitol, inside a workplace, at Pride, at a vigil, or through a community gathering in Ybor City.
Love is something we do.
Support people. Help people understand. Use our voices when the community needs them.
Support
We create spaces for LGBTQ+ people and the people who love them to ask questions, listen, share and find people who understand.
Educate
We bring LGBTQ+ education, lived experience, history and allyship conversations into companies, schools, universities, healthcare settings, faith communities and other organizations.
Advocate
When policy, public conversations or moments of crisis affect LGBTQ+ people, PFLAG families and allies have repeatedly shown up and spoken up.
Progress is not something PFLAG Tampa watched happen.
Our community helped make it happen, usually alongside advocates, partner organizations, elected leaders, businesses, families and LGBTQ+ people who decided Tampa could be more affirming than it was yesterday.
Tampa’s LGBTQ+ story is part of our story.
This isn’t every meeting, Pride table, testimony, vigil, fundraiser or conversation. It’s a look at some of the moments that show what showing up has looked like here.
PFLAG Tampa takes root.
A local chapter begins building a place for LGBTQ+ people, families, friends and allies to find support, understanding and a shared voice in Tampa Bay.
We brought our voices to Tallahassee.
PFLAG Tampa joined Equality Florida and other advocates in taking family and ally voices to Tallahassee as lawmakers considered the Competitive Workforce Act.
The proposal sought to expand Florida civil-rights protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity or expression in areas including employment, housing and public accommodations.
Human Rights Ordinance
Helping restore LGBTQ+ protections in Hillsborough County.
PFLAG Tampa joined advocates, families and community leaders in the effort to restore protections for LGBTQ+ people under Hillsborough County’s Human Rights Ordinance.
Commissioner Kevin Beckner, Hillsborough County’s first openly gay county commissioner, led the effort from the County Commission. PFLAG Tampa members were among the community voices who repeatedly showed up in support.
In 2014, the Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved protections prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
Three years in, Pride put PFLAG Tampa at the front.
PFLAG Tampa was selected as an Organizational Grand Marshal of St. Pete Pride, notable recognition for a chapter only a few years into its life.
The float carried a message that would come to define a landmark period for LGBTQ+ equality: Love Wins.
Returns
to Tampa.
Parade returns • 2015
Helping bring Pride back to Tampa.
PFLAG Tampa leaders helped in the formation of Tampa Pride, Inc., joining other community organizers in building the organization that would return a major Pride celebration to Tampa.
Tampa Pride, Inc. formed in 2014. The following March, Pride returned to the streets of Ybor City.
Years of advocacy became wedding bells.
When marriage equality became reality in Florida, Tampa’s LGBTQ+ community gathered publicly to celebrate.
PFLAG Tampa joined rallies, celebrations and the courthouse-square moments marking a new chapter for LGBTQ+ couples and families.
Jenny was part of the community surrounding PFLAG Tampa and PFLAG Tampa Hispano before her death in 2021.
Expanding support for Spanish-speaking families.
PFLAG Tampa expanded its support model with PFLAG Tampa Hispano, creating a dedicated space for Spanish-speaking LGBTQ+ people and families.
Its first support meeting was held September 9, 2015. The program remained part of the PFLAG Tampa chapter while creating a culturally and linguistically relevant space for Hispanic families to talk about identity, acceptance, family and support.
with love.
gay son.
Tampa
Meeting hostility with visible affirmation.
PFLAG Tampa joined the community’s Wall of Love counterpresence in Ybor City, responding to anti-LGBTQ+ messages with visible support and affirmation.
One of the chapter’s most recognizable messages was also one of its simplest: I Love My Gay Son.
Taking LGBTQ+ education into workplaces and community institutions.
PFLAG Tampa has presented to businesses, schools, universities, healthcare organizations, museums, churches and other community institutions across Tampa Bay.
LGBTQ+ Roundtable work focused on improving policies, training and affirming support for survivors.
Helping community institutions become more affirming.
Through an LGBTQ+ Roundtable at The Spring, PFLAG Tampa participated in work around policies, training and more affirming services for LGBTQ+ survivors.
The work included particular attention to transgender survivors and how institutional practices could better reflect their needs and dignity.
Tampa gathered in grief and solidarity.
After 49 people were murdered at Pulse nightclub, Tampa’s LGBTQ+ community gathered in grief, remembrance and solidarity.
PFLAG Tampa joined the community in holding space for those lost, their families and everyone whose sense of safety changed that night.
Helping expand PFLAG support across the region.
As demand for LGBTQ+ family support grew across the region, PFLAG Tampa helped strengthen the PFLAG network beyond Tampa.
The chapter helped in the formation of PFLAG Wesley Chapel/Pasco, which formed in 2017, and helped support advocates who later formed PFLAG Riverview.
PFLAG Riverview incorporated in late 2019 and welcomed 25 people to its first meeting in March 2020.
2024
Pride remains part of our community life.
From helping build Tampa Pride to marching, tabling, celebrating and connecting with families year after year, Pride has remained part of PFLAG Tampa’s work.
In 2024, PFLAG Tampa was again present with LGBTQ+ people, families, friends and allies celebrating together.
Every year, Tampa gathers to remember.
PFLAG Tampa has helped convene Tampa’s annual Transgender Day of Remembrance gathering in a visible downtown public space.
We gather to honor transgender people lost to violence, say their names and stand visibly with Tampa Bay’s trans community.
Jenny was part of our community.
Jenny DeLeon came to PFLAG Tampa during her transition and was known and loved by members of the chapter. Her murder in 2021 was deeply personal to our community.
When concerns arose around the initial investigation and the limited information available about her death, PFLAG Tampa pushed for greater attention, answers and accountability.
Celebrating a decade of leading with love.
PFLAG Tampa gathered to celebrate a decade of support, advocacy, education and the people who carried the chapter forward.
The anniversary recognized both the chapter’s history and the community relationships that made the work possible.
Showing up for LGBTQ+ students and families.
PFLAG Tampa joined regional PFLAG chapters, Equality Florida, GLSEN Tampa Bay, the ACLU and other community partners at Tampa’s Say Gay Rally at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park during a major statewide debate over LGBTQ+ issues in schools.
Forty-plus bonnets and a joyful Ybor fundraiser.
As her induction community-service project, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s newest sister chose PFLAG Tampa as the beneficiary of Sinfully Sweet, an Easter Bonnet Bar Crawl through participating Ybor City businesses.
More than 40 people joined the event in creative bonnets, moving from business to business while raising support for PFLAG Tampa.
Investing directly in LGBTQ+ futures.
PFLAG Tampa created a scholarship program focused on LGBTQ+ people and allies whose service, goals, integrity and perseverance reflected the values of our chapter. The program made three awards.
Pride belongs to the community.
After Tampa Pride announced a hiatus, PFLAG Tampa joined local LGBTQ+ leaders in convening organizations, advocates and cultural leaders to talk openly about what Pride in Tampa should become.
The conversation centered collaboration, accountability, shared values and a sustainable future for Pride that reflects the broader community it exists to serve.
More than a decade after helping form Tampa Pride, PFLAG Tampa was again helping create space for the community to consider what should come next.
7th Avenue.
Advocating for safer streets after tragedy in Ybor.
In November 2025, a speeding driver fleeing law enforcement crashed into the patio at Bradley’s on 7th, a longtime LGBTQ+ institution in Ybor City. Four people were killed and 13 were injured.
PFLAG Tampa helped lead calls for greater pedestrian safety and accountability in Ybor. The effort helped keep the issue in public conversation and contributed to a city town hall focused on safety along Seventh Avenue.
City officials subsequently advanced measures including lower speeds, protective bollards, roadway narrowing, additional parking and continued rebricking intended to slow traffic.
belongs
in public.
Tampa LGBTQ+ History Mural
Preserving Tampa’s LGBTQ+ history in public.
PFLAG Tampa and local artist Cam Parker are developing a public LGBTQ+ history mural at The Corner Club in Seminole Heights.
The project invites the community to help identify people, places and moments that belong in Tampa’s queer story, creating a visible celebration of local LGBTQ+ history.
And we’re still writing it.
PFLAG Tampa continues monthly support while creating new ways to gather, rebuilding community partnerships, offering education and training, preserving local LGBTQ+ history and creating easier ways for people to enter the work.
Some conversations are better when we have them together.
PFLAG Tampa works with companies, schools, universities, healthcare organizations, faith communities and other groups to host LGBTQ+ education, allyship conversations, employee sessions and customized presentations.
Our sessions combine practical education with lived experience so the conversation feels human and relevant to the people actually sitting in the room.
Invite PFLAG to Your Organization →Tampa is part of something much bigger.
PFLAG Tampa is part of PFLAG’s nationwide network of chapters, members and supporters working toward an equitable, inclusive world where every LGBTQ+ person is safe, celebrated, empowered and loved.
Visit PFLAG National ↗Tampa Bay community.
Our national connection gives PFLAG Tampa access to broader resources, education and a nationwide movement while the relationships and work here remain distinctly local.
keeps going
We’re building what comes next.
Our history matters because it gives us something to build from, not something to live in.
Today we’re strengthening support, creating new reasons to gather, expanding education, rebuilding partnerships, preserving local LGBTQ+ history and making it easier for people to find a place in the work.
Find your place in the next chapter♥
Come to a meeting. Join us at a community event. Volunteer. Learn. Speak up. Bring someone with you. That’s how the next chapter gets written.