Local trans assistance fund deserves mention, too
Dear Editor,
This letter is in direct response to the column Trans Progressive Thursday, May 30 by Ms. Autumn Sandeen (Funding LGBT nonprofits: LGBTweekly.com). While noteworthy to point out an assistance fund to aid trans people has been started by Jacob Rostovsky in Los Angeles, I’m wondering why the trans assistance fund in our backyard here in San Diego has never been mentioned or covered by Ms. Sandeen. It would seem that helping to make folks aware of the resources here would be worth mentioning especially in a local column about trans issues. This Assistance fund has been ongoing through the Imperial Court de San Diego for almost two years now, and has helped several local individuals receive their hormones when they couldn’t afford them; helped an elderly trans woman keep her electricity on; and helped trans individuals with clothes they couldn’t afford. I think it is remiss not to acknowledge the help and resources available here in our own town, while highlighting those in another. We express love toward our self-identified community here as well Ms. Sandeen, and some recognition for the work done here locally deserves a shout out as well.
CELTIC WOLF PRINCE ROYALE BLUE MONTANA
San Diego
Planned Parenthood: health care provider for the LGBT community?
Dear Editor,
Like most responsible single adults, I get tested routinely for sexually transmitted infections (STI). Recently, when I mentioned to a friend that I receive this service at Planned Parenthood, he raised an eyebrow and reminded me that I am a gay man. “Doesn’t Planned Parenthood just do birth control?” he asked. I realized that so many people in our community have no idea about the full range of services offered by America’s oldest and largest provider of reproductive and sexual health care.
Before I started working at Planned Parenthood, I was a patient and turned to a local health care center for my HIV and STI testing. I had been to several places where I felt the level of care was not what I had hoped. Providers were judgmental; visits were rushed. This is a common experience, which is why members of the LGBT community experience greater obstacles to obtaining and benefiting from sexual and reproductive health services. We need and deserve care just as much as our straight counterparts.
My experience at Planned Parenthood was a different story. The staff offered compassionate, confidential services for me at no cost. I was so grateful that I started volunteering. The more I learned about Planned Parenthood, the more committed I became. When a position at the health center opened, I was thrilled at the chance to work at Planned Parenthood, where I have now been for three years.
As our community celebrates Pride month in June and hosts the LGBT Pride parade in July, I want to reach out to my community and share why I choose Planned Parenthood as my provider. When you – or someone you know – need care, I hope you will give one of our 14 San Diego health centers a chance to serve your needs. Planned Parenthood believes that all people deserve high-quality, affordable health care, no matter who they are and no matter where they live. We believe that when people are truly cared for, they make their lives, their families, and their communities better and healthier.
HECTOR SEVILLA
San Diego
In regard to the availability of local resources in San Diego, those resources have always been kept quiet, if you are on the inside you don’t know about them. The groups involved in the past the Gay Center, Trans Family and the other groups who pushed for those resources have done so in order to forward their own selfish interests. Programs like the mental health program at the Gay Center and the Tuesday Night Clinic at North Park Family Health Center are there to serve just a few, who are in the know.
These programs were never met for general use by the San Diego trans community at large.
Attempts by this person, a past trans community leader were thwarted by others in the SD trans leadership and by the service providers themselves.
When this person expressed concern over the lack of awareness of the services available at NP Family Health center I was denied access to endocrinological services at said location and given a false medical reason for ceasing HRT at that clinic in mid 2005.
A former trans community leader and activist.