Federal Government To Drop Over $1.5 Million Funding LGBT Youth Mentorship And Campus Activism

The United States government is set to spend over $1.5 million in taxpayer money bankrolling a far-left group’s LGBT mentorship program for children as young as 12 years old in Los Angeles and on-campus activism for K-12 students.

The Lifeworks Mentorship program is one of the initiatives from the Los Angeles LGBT Center that’s benefiting from the financial backing of the federal government, with the Department of Health and Human Services agreeing to put up nearly a million dollars in support of it.

“The LifeWorks one-on-one mentoring program gives LGBTQ+ youth ages 24 and under the opportunity to be matched with an adult in the community,” a description from the Los Angeles LGBT Center states, with their site specifying that children as young as 12 years old can be involved. “Each mentorship is unique, and consists of everything from short- and long-term goal setting, to building their understanding of the LGBTQ+ community.”

The program is framed as a way to give young people role models when families are “not accepting” of “queer youth,” with one mentor saying that “a lot of us have gone through a period of self-parenting.”

“There’s kind of an orphaned quality to LGBTQ youth, because you very rarely have someone to model after,” one mentor said in a video from the organization, with a mentee adding that “there’s just such high rates of family not accepting queer youth.”

The federal government granted  $910,000 in support of the program, with the funds coming from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, a subagency of the HHS. Most of the grant, $574,000, has already been disbursed, with another $336,000 set to be given to the organization before the conclusion of the grant term in August 2025.

The program isn’t the only effort from the Los Angeles LGBT Center that is backed by the American taxpayer. The organization is set to receive two more grants in the amounts of $250,000 and $375,000 from the HHS, both of which will fund the Lifeworks Community Action Network.

Though the grant site doesn’t detail the program or its operations, the Los Angeles LGBT Center explains that the Community Action Network bolsters LGBT activism at middle and high school campuses.

“CAN works with GSA and LGBTQ clubs on school campuses supporting middle and high school students, helping students and advisors strengthen their school clubs by providing tools on sustainability and recruitment, meeting formats and agendas, and club connectivity, among other things,” the group states, adding that LGBT activists are “trained in facilitation skills to build community and create social change, thereby supporting students on their campuses.”

The training topics range from “LGBTQ competency and awareness,” substance abuse prevention, and “safe spaces and inclusivity.” Both of the two grant terms end in 2027, with funding yet to be disbursed.

The Los Angeles LGBT Center did not respond to a request for comment.

The organization has raked in taxpayer dollars despite being flush with cash, the entity’s IRS 990 forms indicate. The organization enjoyed a revenue of $162 million in 2023 and paid its previous CEO a salary of $780k, while its chief of staff pulled in $544k. Eleven employees made over $215k each.

The leftwing, taxpayer-funded organization engages in ideologically-driven activism that directly opposes the policies of the current administration. The group claims that President Donald Trump “has pushed for policies that will target LGBTQ+ immigrants” and “threaten the safety and rights of LGBTQ+ immigrants” and also advocates for children to undergo irreversible medical interventions that seek to change their sex despite the risk of sterilization.