Queer flourishing takes practice and requires community! Join in an hour of timely reflection, connection, and experimentation to support you in moving further into a life of flourishing, even with all that’s happening in the world around us.
Whether you’re part of the LGBTQ+ community or a supportive ally, join us to explore enriching content that celebrates flourishing for all.
“Queer Flourishing” is a field guide for personal growth that extends far beyond “coming out,” offering a resource for readers who yearn to realize their full potential and truly flourish in every aspect of life. Traditional self-help resources often overlook queer lives, assuming a heteronormative perspective that fails to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ readers. This pioneering book delivers personalized guidance that empowers contemporary LGBTQ+ people to live more fully and lead with greater effectiveness.
The author brings queer perspectives to the research on adult development and its map of developmental stages. He highlights ten specific patterns common in queer lives, calling them “queer superpowers.” These superpowers represent adaptive postures and capabilities developed in response to the adversities LGBTQ+ individuals face, such as bullying, shaming, and moral condemnation. Exploring these adaptive postures and patterns helps queer individuals understand their own path of development, gain insights about leading and living well, and avoid pitfalls along the way.
“Queer Flourishing” contends that to grow into highly effective leaders and to live lives of flourishing, queer adults must attend to the woundedness of the most tender and powerful parts of themselves. Therefore, the book emphasizes the importance of a trauma-informed approach to personal growth and leadership development for LGBTQ+ individuals in particular. The author includes for readers many powerful questions to prompt personal reflection and introspection. He also shares the story of his own developmental journey. This approach aims to foster holistic growth, helping readers revive neglected parts of themselves and discover new facets of their identities.
“Queer Flourishing” fills a void in personal development literature by offering a groundbreaking guide to growth and self-mastery specifically for LGBTQ+ adults.
This groundbreaking guide to personal growth and development which centers LGBTQ+ adults is the first of its kind. It fills a void in personal development literature by offering a groundbreaking guide to growth and self-mastery specifically for LGBTQ+ adults.
Do you have a LGBTQ+ friend or family member who may be looking for some personal growth and greater aliveness? Queer Flourishing makes a thoughtful, empowering gift. Buy a copy for yourself and one to give away.
Advance readers of all genders and sexual orientations, including straight readers, have found great benefit from looking at their own development through queer eyes. Gain new perspective on the weird and wonderful twists and turns of your own personal development.
I connected deeply with the Queer Superpowers section of Queer Flourishing. It was empowering to think of my queerness as a great asset, especially when many of us have been subjected to negative depictions of “fussiness” or “flamboyance”. I also appreciate the concept of using different superpowers/different selves at different times in our lives. Often inner work equates personal growth with leaving our past selves behind. In Queer Flourishing, we see the value in embracing and relying upon all aspects our personalities.
Chiedu Egbuniwe
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategist
In the modern world, there are millions of technologically-enhanced maps for you to get from here to there, but there are fewer and fewer maps that help us arrive at our full potential, or find our way to wisdom. Longo’s book charts a profound and powerful map for Queer Flourishing. Showing that the journey is both deeply personal and also has patterns that enable others to find their way to their Queer Superpowers, Longo’s book itself will be a friend and mentor to those who read it. As a cis-gendered, straight developmentalist, I loved learning deeply from Longo’s theories and experiences and putting some of them in practice in my own life. A book that will change your life!
Dr. Jennifer Garvey Berger
CEO, Cultivating Leadership
“Thanks to Flourishing Gays, I’ve grown a great deal as a person and a leader, as a gay diplomat, author, and journalist. I am now more confident, resilient, and assertive, with a larger capacity for making a positive difference in such a convoluted world as the one we are living in these days. Queer Flourishing is a book that transcends cultural, ethnic, social, and economic barriers and talks to the queerness in every single one of us.”
Ambassador Diego Gómez Pickering
Journalist and Diplomat
“As a DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] practitioner for nearly two decades, and especially as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I’ve noticed a conversation missing. We should be talking about our own leadership development, and the untapped potential of queer leaders to set a new course for leaders of ALL identities, creating a new, more inclusive paradigm. Dominic’s work beautifully lays out the case for this investment. He explains why it can and should be made by individuals and organizations, and elegantly differentiates between being “out”, and flourishing. As we shift the workplace conversation to a focus on unleashing human performance through belonging, we shouldn’t stop there–but pursue actual flourishing, implying that being “out” isn’t the only destination, or destiny, of so many leaders. His frameworks, like the ten Queer Superpowers, celebrate the talents and resilience of the LGBTQ+ community, and provide a roadmap to inspire big shifts and openings for new kinds of leaders to rise.”
Jennifer Brown
CEO, Jennifer Brown Consulting
“I have been reflecting on the Queer Superpowers since participating in Dominic’s Heroes Journey program and revisited them while reading this book. His work brings communities together, through bonding over growing up feeling othered and sharing how that has shaped us as queer adults. It gave me the tools to recognize the obstacles I create for myself and find ways to begin breaking them down. If you are looking to improve how you manifest and execute the life you are living, also known as flourishing, I highly recommend reading this book reflectively and signing up to become a part of the Heroes Journey program.”
Jason Mitchell Kahn
Entrepreneur
As I grow in my own leadership journey, I found Queer Flourishing to be a clear articulation of the transformations of leadership presented in a relatable, gay man’s context. It is the first book I have seen that is focused on the queer journey from assimilation to independence and offers interesting personal examples of fitting in, finding one’s tribe, and coming of age.
Dan Chen
Product Strategy, Google
“Dominic is someone who brings a strong commitment to fostering queer community and a deep knowledge of adult development, marrying the two to create a unique message about how queer folks can grow and thrive. Queer Flourishing is a guide to making your queer way through an often confusing, sometimes hostile world.”
Sasha Aickin
Software Engineer and Tech Founder, Former Chief Technology Officer, Redfin
“At the heart of Longo’s beautifully written book is the human need for love and personal growth. From the experience of having to live outside the conventional mindset of what it means to be a sexual being, Longo shows how marginalized individuals and communities can develop unique ways towards wholesome self-affirmation.
I especially appreciated Longo’s understanding of human development that follows predictable phases in identity formation. He outlines how LGBTQ people can become skilled at navigating the often hostile territory they live in and develop increasing self-acceptance and well-being. While it is a developmental task for all of us to find a balance between belonging (connection) and separateness (autonomy), Longo chronicles this journey towards flourishing for his community.
This insightful and hopeful book about queer flourishing should be required reading for all struggling to find meaning in their otherness and for those who grapple with how best to support LGBTQ people in their quest for wholeness, connection and love and their capacity to powerfully contribute to society.”
Dr. Susanne Cook-Greuter
Independent scholar
Dominic Longo brings queer perspectives to leadership development and coaching. He founded Flourishing Gays as a social enterprise to create learning experiences that help clients grow into fuller versions of themselves, through special attention to the particularities of queer developmental journeys.
He believes that flourishing is what we are all made for, yet sees how myriad obstacles keep the weird and wonderful potential of every person pushed down in various ways. Dominic understands leadership development as the process of unlocking this potential within all of us to become more fully human and more fully alive.
On his own journey into greater wholeness and flourishing, Dominic’s path has traversed scholarly and professional work across the United States, Middle East, and Europe.
Previously, as director of a university center for interreligious dialogue, Dominic supported students, faculty, and staff to bridge differences of culture and worldview. As a management consultant at McKinsey serving clients in the Middle East and the United States, Dominic designed and directed large-scale programs transforming organizational cultures and building capabilities. There he also founded an Employee Resource Group for allies of LGBTQ+ colleagues.
He is a Professional Certified Coach and holds a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Harvard University. A citizen of the United States and Italy, Dominic grew up in Nebraska and now lives with his partner in New York City.
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