Founded in 1972, Persad is the nation’s second oldest licensed counseling center serving the LGBTQ+ community and people living with HIV/AIDS. Persad was founded at a time when the mental health community response to an LGBTQ+ person was to try to change them and correct them as if their identity were the problem. Persad was created as an affirming counseling center to help LGBTQ+ people cope with the social discrimination they experienced and to receive professional counseling services without prejudice about their identity. In the early 1980’s Persad added serving the HIV/AIDS communities to our mission because of the devastating impact that HIV had on the gay population of that time. Persad continues to serve the HIV+ individual regardless of their sexual or gender orientation.
