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Legacies of MenLegacies of Men — Remembered for Good

Meetings are free. Permanently.

In these seats, men's lives get better.

Legacies of Men is a free men's mental wellness movement — no cost, no religion, no politics. Two structured twelve-week programmes, run in person, built to keep men alive and make them the kind of man the world will never want to lose.

Find a meetingTalk to someone tonight
Cost
Free
Weekly
2+
Programmes
2 × 12wk
Advisors
6 PhD/MA

Introducing the creator

Two minutes with Joe.

Men die by suicide at nearly four times the rate of women. In two minutes, meet the man trying to move that number, and hear why he thinks it can be moved.

Read it instead

Joe Truax founded Legacies of Men — a 100% forever-free, non-profit, non-religious, non-political men's mental wellness movement, built to be the only support system a good man will ever need.

The goals: prevent male suicide; help men — and women by proxy — find and keep non-toxic relationships; unite communities worldwide.

The meetings: at least two every week. Unburdened helps you notice and put down the things in your life that do not benefit you. Growth helps you become the kind of man the world will never want to lose.

The slogan: “Remembered For Good” means two things — remembered for the good you have done, and remembered permanently.

Come to a meeting and meet others like yourself. You come to one, you're probably going to be at all the rest.

Meet Joe Truax

As seen from

Why this exists

Men are dying at nearly four times the rate of women, and almost nobody is building for them.

These are not abstract numbers. Each one was somebody's son, and most of them never told a single person how bad it had got.

  • 1.7M

    suicide attempts in the US in 2021

    An estimated 1.7 million people attempted suicide in a single year in the United States alone.

    CDC / AFSP

  • 48,183

    people died by suicide that year

    The CDC recorded 48,183 deaths by suicide in the United States in 2021 — roughly one every eleven minutes.

    CDC

  • ~39,000

    of them were men

    Around four in five of those deaths were men. Male suicide is not a subset of the problem — it is most of it.

    CDC

  • 3.9×

    the rate for men versus women

    Men die by suicide at nearly four times the rate of women, while being far less likely to ever seek help.

    AFSP

94%

of people believe suicide is preventable

They are right. That is the entire premise of this organisation.

The mission

Three things, and we do not get distracted.

Everything Legacies of Men builds answers to one of these. If it does not, we do not build it.

Read the full story

  • Prevent male suicide

    Men die by suicide at close to four times the rate of women. That number is not fixed. It is the product of isolation, shame, and a script men were handed and told not to question.

  • Build non-toxic relationships

    When a man gets better at being honest, everyone around him benefits — his partner, his kids, his friends. We teach the skills directly rather than hoping they arrive on their own.

  • Unite communities worldwide

    A room of men who know each other’s names is a form of infrastructure. We want one in every town that will have us.

The meetings

Two twelve-week programmes. One clears the ground, the other builds on it.

Structured, not open-ended. You always know what the session is about before you walk in, and you are never put on the spot.

12 weeks

Unburdened

Put down what you were never supposed to be carrying.

Most men are hauling around a set of rules nobody ever asked them if they agreed with. Never complain. Never need anything. Never let it show. Unburdened is twelve weeks of naming those rules one at a time and deciding, out loud and in company, which of them you are actually keeping.

  • Identify the inherited beliefs costing you the most
  • Learn what shame does to the body and how to interrupt it
  • Practise saying the true thing in a room where it is safe to
  • Leave with a plan for the week you cannot see coming
12 weeks

Growth

Become the kind of man the world will never want to lose.

Unburdened clears the ground. Growth is what you build on it. Twelve weeks on the practical craft of being a good man — how to listen, how to repair a relationship you damaged, how to be useful to people, how to be someone whose absence would genuinely be felt.

  • Communication and conflict repair you can use the same night
  • Fatherhood, partnership and friendship as learnable skills
  • Purpose and contribution beyond what you earn
  • A standing group of men who notice when you go quiet
See how a meeting runsStart one in my town

How it fits together

One movement, three doors in.

Legacies of Men is not only the meetings. It is an online community that never closes, rooms you can physically walk into, and a body of writing and books that carry the work further than either.

  1. Live

    r/GuyCry

    The online front door.

    A ~200,000-member community where men talk honestly, at any hour, from anywhere. It works as triage: a place to be heard immediately, and a place that points toward real help when it is needed.

    Join r/GuyCry
  2. Rolling out

    Legacies of Men

    The room you walk into.

    Free weekly in-person meetings running two twelve-week curricula, built on eight evidence-based techniques and backed by a six-member advisory board of PhD and Master’s-level practitioners.

    See how meetings work
  3. Ongoing

    Everywhere else

    The work that travels.

    Writing, podcasts, speaking in schools, and free books — including the Kindest Kids series, written to teach empathy early enough that it takes.

    Browse the library

The founder

“Masculinity has never been done right. It’s time the world does masculinity right.”

Joe Truax · Founder, Legacies of Men · creator of r/GuyCry

Joe Truax never set out to build a movement. In November 2022 he watched a video on Reddit, cried, and left a comment about it. The response told him something he had not expected: an enormous number of men had nowhere to put that feeling.

So he made a place. r/GuyCry started as a corner of the internet where men could watch something that moved them and admit that it moved them. Within sixty days it had thirty-five thousand members, and it had already stopped being about videos. Men were showing up to talk about their marriages, their fathers, their debt, their sobriety, and how close they had come to not being here.

More about Joe and the movement

Get in the room

The first meetings are 25 seats.

Pilot sessions are deliberately small, with public sessions following shortly after. Use the first link if you want to know when your city starts, and the second if you want one of the pilot seats.

Get updates for my cityNo spam. You will hear from us when a room opens near you, and not otherwise.Apply for a pilot seatThe first meetings are limited to 25 seats. Public sessions follow shortly after.

Cry once a week

Crying relieves stress for about a week. Most men manage it once a decade.

So here is a shortcut. 25 short films, scenes and moments that reliably get through — chosen because they work, not because they are sad. Watch one. Let it land. Come back next week.

cryonceaweek.com

Wonder

2:47

A scene from the movie Wonder (2017). A mother comforts her son after he has a bad day.

Videos hosted on Vimeo by Cry Once a Week. Nothing loads until you press play.

Ground rules

What you can count on.

  • Forever free

    No fee, no tier, no upsell. Not now, not later.

  • Non-religious

    No faith requirement, no prayer, no doctrine.

  • Non-political

    No party, no platform, no litmus test at the door.

  • Anti-misogynist

    Building men up has never required putting women down.

  • Not therapy

    We are peer support and triage — a bridge to care, not a substitute for it.

  • Open to all men

    Every race, ethnicity, orientation, age, and male-identified person.

In their own words

Start here.

The interviews, essays and episodes that explain this movement better than a homepage can.

The full library
InterviewAuthority Magazine

Social Impact Heroes: Why & How Joe Truax of Legacies of Men Is Helping To Change Our World

The long-form origin story: how a Reddit comment became a movement, what the two curricula are for, and why Joe names traditional masculinity as a leading cause of the male suicide rate.

Read
EssayMedium

The True Acts of Truax

Joe’s own accounting of every project under the banner — the subreddit, the meetings, the books, the free classes — and the reasoning behind each.

Read
EssayMedium

“As Men” — the 41 burdens

The piece that travelled furthest: a full catalogue of the valueless burdens men are handed, and the basis for what the Unburdened curriculum takes apart one session at a time.

Read

Straight answers

The questions men actually ask before they come.

How much does it cost?

Nothing, ever. There is no fee, no membership tier, and no upsell. The meetings are funded by donations so that a man’s ability to pay is never part of the conversation.

Is this therapy?

No. Legacies of Men is structured peer support — men working through a curriculum together. It works alongside professional care and often helps men take the first step toward it, but it is not a substitute for treatment.

Is it religious or political?

Neither. There is no prayer, no doctrine, no party and no litmus test. Men from every belief and background sit in the same room.

Who can attend?

All men and male-identified people, regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age.

What actually happens at a meeting?

Meetings are structured rather than open-ended. Each session follows a set part of one of the two twelve-week curricula, so you always know what you are walking into and you are never put on the spot.

There is no meeting near me. What now?

Two things you can do tonight: join r/GuyCry, which is active around the clock, and tell us where you are so your town goes on the map. Local organisers are how new rooms open.

You come to one, you're probably going to be at all the rest.

Come and sit in the back if you want. Say nothing. Nobody will make you talk, and nobody will ask you for money.

Find a meetingFund a room

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