How does one meet the needs of the local trans community? During holiday seasons I often think about my community peers. I’d say my community peers like me, but many of my peers aren’t like me.
I’m white; I transitioned in middle-age; I had a long military career; I’m invisibly disabled and can’t hold down a day job, but that long military career provided me a big safety net to fall into.
My trans peers these days are slewing younger – they’re transitioning younger than my generation did. They’re not all white. If they have disabilities, most don’t have my big safety net.
A national 2011 survey of over 6,000 trans and gender nonconforming people by the National Center for Transgender Rights and the LGBTQ Task Force, as well as a 2009 survey of trans and gender nonconforming Californians by the Transgender Law Center, both showed that whatever the national average for unemployment is, the rate for trans people is double that. If one is black or brown skinned, that unemployment number is exponentially higher – black or brown skinned trans and gender nonconforming people are four times more likely to be unemployed than the national unemployment average.
Needs assessments of trans and gender non-conforming people in San Francisco and San Diego showed what the national and California surveys showed –a third of our trans population is living in extreme poverty.
In San Diego, we haven’t had a needs assessment of trans and gender nonconforming people since 2004. Are the needs then the same as in 2014?
A lot of trans people are living in stealth out of view, or are living closeted. A significant number of trans people are making their living in the underground economy, such as by selling illegal drugs or by sex work; a significant number of trans people don’t speak English as their primary language; a significant number of trans people are undocumented. Many of these folk are going to be hard to find, in the sense of finding folk with those experiences and asking them to take a needs assessment survey.
So before one can ask, “How does one meet the needs of the broad trans community?” one first has to ask, “What are the needs of the local trans community?”
At this point, we really don’t know what the needs of the local trans community are, so the “how” question seems premature.
So we know there are those who want or need support in the trans community, but it’s a guess as to what the most pressing needs of our local community are, and therefore it’s currently a guess as to how to meet those pressing needs.
So what do we do first?
It appears that the first thing that needs doing is gauging if the San Diego trans community is ready to galvanize behind an effort to discover what the needs of the local trans community are, and then determine how much fire and determination is in the belly of the trans community toward creating a trans specific space to achieve those goals.
And then there’s the issue of how one funds a needs assessment, and who’s going to lead the effort toward achieving the effort of creating community space. And, once space is created –such as in a storefront or a stand-alone building, how is the space paid for into the future?
So, how does one really meet the needs of the local trans community?
This is all much more complex than one might guess it would be at first brush. The local trans community is quite a ways away from someone being able to cut a check to a local trans organization with the knowledge that the money will go to meeting the needs of the local trans community; quite a ways away from having a trans or a gender nonconforming person able to volunteer time at the front desk of a stand-alone trans resource center.
But, I’m confident that such days will come to San Diego.
Autumn, meeting the needs of our trans* community is a complex issue. But we do know, in a general way, what the needs of our community are. So what do we do? We will need to prioritize our needs. The process of advocating for a physical space – a Trans* Resource/Community Center – will help us identify and coalesce around issues that are most important and most needed by our local community.
The San Diego County Transgender Assessment Report, (http://www.calendow.org/uploadedfiles/san_diego_transgender_assessment.pdf) funded by The California Endowment in 2006, looked at this issue and made numerous recommendations in areas of employment, education, mental health. The assessment concluded that “Community advocacy for civil rights related to transgender issues should be a priority. Advocacy should focus on some of the following issues: employment discrimination, workplace discrimination, housing discrimination,hate crime violence, increased insurance coverage for transgender-related medical issues, legal consultation for transgender related issues and transgender representation in public policy.”
The report also stated that “LGBT community-based organizations that deliver services to culturally diverse groups should increase participation of transgender clients in their general programs and community events. This may require that organizations develop ways to increase access to transgender clients and create programming that is culturally sensitive to unique needs of the transgender community.”
Since this report, some progress has been made. San Diego’s LGBT Community Center has expanded services with programs such as Project Trans. However, it is the Trans* community that must advocate on our own behalf, and moving forward with creating a physical space will lay the foundation for advocacy, funding, and programs.
I see a physical space as the glue that will hold everything together. A physical space – a center of our own – will inspire new people to take up the cause. Much like what the LGBT Center does for lesbian and gay people, a center of our own – a home of our own – will also give us dignity, where we will finally feel that we are taking the lead in our own liberation. I hope that Trans* folk and our allies will join those of us who have taken up this cause. We are meeting regularly, and can be found on facebook at Trans* Resource/Commmunity Center San Diego.