LGBTQ youth in Cape Breton have a new place to go for support, information and camaraderie.

The Cape Breton Youth Project has officially opened its doors at 440 George St. in Sydney.

"[It] is a non-profit that's existed for 25 years in Halifax," said community educator Madonna Doucette, who has long worked with LGBTQ youth.

"They've been providing services and safe space for young people in the province, but really, it's been Halifax-centred. This is the expansion into Cape Breton, which after 25 years, I think it's due time."

Doucette said the Youth Project — with its permanent office and services — provides her with the opportunity to continue her work.

"But now I have the sort of mothership behind me, with their resources and their support and their experience of doing this for so long," she said. "So it's been sort of a new breath of life for the work that I do in the community and it's just going to make everything much better and bigger for LGBTQ youth in Cape Breton."

Grade 11 student Sefin Stefura is looking forward to accessing everything the Youth Project offers.

"I am transgender and gay and I find that in Cape Breton, there's not a whole lot for us," he said. "There aren't that many [events] and most of them are usually centred toward adults."

Stefura said there's more LGBTQ youth in Nova Scotia than people often think, and he believes many young people are going to benefit from the project's services.

Those services will include support groups, including one specifically for transgender youth. There will be a new support group for families, available by request, said Doucette.

"Parents are always feeling sort of blindsided when their child comes out," she said. "And a lot of parents want to take the initiative to learn so that they can understand and support their child better.

"We sort of assume everyone's going to be straight when they're born, and so when the news comes out that their kid isn't what they thought they were going to be, it's not necessarily that they're disappointed, but they're shocked and they don't know necessarily how to speak about it."

Doucette said she's heard from parents who believe it is their role — and not that of a stranger — to provide their gay or trans children with information and support.

But she said she believes everyone, including youth, have a personal right to their own identity.

"If the parents don't want the support, that's fine. But — and this is perhaps a kind of controversial thing to say — the young person still deserves to access these resources even if the parents don't approve of it," she said.

"If a child were to come into my office and say 'I'm trans-identified, you know my mom, please don't tell her.' I would never tell that mom. That's that child's personal right to have that identity until they feel comfortable to share it with someone.

"So we're there whether or not the parents are willing to support their child."

Stefura relates to that position on a personal level.

"Oh, buddy!," he said. "My own parents actually are not the most supportive. They don't use my name, my pronouns, and I've actually tried on several different occasions to get them to talk to Madonna, but there's always been excuses and hold-offs and then it never happens.

"I think it's because they just don't want to accept it, but eventually they're going to have to, you know. It's not going away. It's never going to go away. I'm not going to change myself to fit their standards just because they don't approve."

The Cape Breton Youth Project welcomes LGBTQ youth under the age of 25, along with their allies, families or guardians.