Note: During Pride Month, SIS is highlighting the work of several alumni whose professional roles feature advocacy for policies that protect and advance goals of the LGTBQ+ community.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide is the second-leading cause of death for youth ages 10-24, and youth in this particular age group account for 15% of all suicides. Research has shown that LGBTQ+ youth are at a higher suicide risk—not because of their own feelings about their sexual orientation or gender identity, but because of how they are mistreated in society, according to the Trevor Project.

The Trevor Project is one of the organizations leading the charge to prevent and end suicide among LGBTQ+ youth, offering 24/7 access to counselors and an array of resources for youth in the LGBTQ+ community. The organization also engages in advocacy surrounding access to gender-affirming care and conducts research on mental health trends among LGBTQ+ youth.

We talked with Lauren Reese, SIS/MA ’16, about her role as a senior strategy manager at the Trevor Project, how SIS prepared her for this work, and the importance of protecting LGBTQ+ youth every day of the year.

Reese’s SIS Journey

Reese came to SIS to complete a master’s program in Global Governance, Politics, and Security after finishing her undergraduate degree at Georgetown University and working as a defense contractor for a few years. Reese was searching for a graduate program that would enable her to develop a multidisciplinary lens that could be applied to issues she cared about—namely, keeping communities and vulnerable populations secure in times of political instability and conflict. She was drawn to SIS’s reputation of producing graduates who not only shape and inform policy, but also work on the ground in communities.

“I've always had a focus on understanding how different structures and systems and policies impact vulnerable and historically marginalized communities uniquely and making sure that the impacts of any policy work is inclusive of those most vulnerable communities,” Reese said. “Oftentimes, LGBTQ communities are uniquely impacted by a whole variety of different policy changes or conflict dynamics. That was always a lens that I brought to any sort of work that I did.”

This focus informed Reese’s work immediately after graduating from SIS; she spent a few years working on various projects for DAI, an international development company. At one point during her time at DAI, Reese was a leader on a USAID democracy and governance project in Myanmar. One of the biggest areas of her portfolio was a mental health and suicide prevention program that trained community members to serve as counselors for people living in internally displaced persons camps, people living with HIV, and other populations in conflict-affected areas in Myanmar.

“Through my conflict work and working on programs that serve vulnerable populations, I found myself working more with LGBTQ communities,” Reese said.

Applying International Experience

Following her experience at USAID, Reese joined the Trevor Project as the senior manager of localization for the international strategy team, where she applied her international experience to steward the organization’s expansion to Mexico.

“For the first time in the organization’s 25-year history, crisis services were made available outside the United States,” said Reese. “In collaboration with colleagues in Mexico, I advised on inclusive programming approaches and operations strategies to enable the launch of the Trevor Project in Mexico, where we now provide crisis intervention services.”

Now that the Trevor Project is up and running in Mexico, Reese serves as the senior strategy manager, where she oversees cross-functional strategy development, monitoring, and management to support the organization’s progress toward its mission to end LGBTQ+ youth suicide.

Combining Personal and Professional

As a queer person, Reese said LGBTQ+ advocacy has always been close to her heart, but it wasn’t something she had always pictured as part of her career. This was primarily because she didn’t see many examples of members of the LGBTQ+ community—especially queer people of color—working in international development.

“Even despite the work that, for example, USAID or international organizations do around LGBTQ rights globally…I didn’t always have role models for how I could fully live authentically as myself and work in the international affairs space, especially as a Black woman,” Reese said.

After gaining more skills and becoming more comfortable in her identity, Reese began to pursue a career path that better aligned her personal and professional commitments to supporting historically marginalized communities with more of a focus on LGBTQ+ rights.

“I got to a point where I was like ‘wow, maybe I am able to take something that’s personal to me of the LGBTQ community as well as something I care about professionally and apply my skills to LGBTQ rights and inclusion’,” said Reese. “So, it’s not something I always thought there was a way for me to work in, but I’m grateful that I have the skills and some role models around me who really helped me see what was possible.”

Meeting Needs After Pride Month

While individuals and organizations may pay more attention to issues surrounding LGBTQ+ rights during the month of June, the Trevor Project is among an array of organizations focusing on these rights every day of the year. Outside of Pride Month, Reese said she believes continued investment in organizations dedicated to meeting the immediate needs of the LGBTQ+ community—including housing and access to mental health care services—and support for locally-led social movements countering anti-LGBTQ+ policies, practices, and systems are essential.

“I feel really honored to be working at the Trevor Project during this moment in which we're seeing unprecedented attacks against LGBTQ communities and identities,” said Reese. “Even though Pride is often the time where people are paying a lot more attention to LGBTQ issues, I feel like many people forget that Pride started as a riot and as a social movement for change, and that kind of gets a little bit overshadowed with the kind of the corporatization of a holiday or the celebration this month.”