Hi there, this is Nicholas Hatton with the Central Valley Gender Health and Wellness, and welcome to our podcast, Elevating Resilience. This is our little virtual home away from home, where we hope to bring you conversations that will inspire you into action. We only have one world, and we need your advocacy on a local and national level on behalf of our most vulnerable populations. Our chats aren't all serious, and yet we take the issue of equality extremely serious. This is episode two for us. For those watching the video version of our podcast, apologies for the odd camera angle. In episode two, our executive director, Simone Reyes, and I share how we parted ways with the Soundworking Pride Center. We hope you enjoy our second episode, and we look forward to engaging with you throughout our social media spaces. Enjoy. We're on now. Welcome to Elevating Resilience. Welcome to the Resistance. And it's time for some good trouble. Always good time for switch. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Simone. How are you, Joe? I'm doing fabulous. I woke up a little energized. I've taken the last few days to kind of just reboot and reset. So I've had a lot of energy. And I had coffee. Good morning. Oh, I'm good. That was a lot. Hey, I had coffee. I feel like I want one. Awesome excellent so what's been going on in your world this little past week or two well it's been a little hectic work is always um keeping me busy keeping us busy i should say um as we start to prepare for the the spring and summer seasons just getting ready for team on events um preparing for uh partners events that are coming up so just really busy honestly um but good can't go playing So the PrEP graph that we're working on, do you want to describe the public with that? Sure. So we were recently awarded a PrEP and PET navigation plan through the California Department of Public Health, Austin Aide, and what that allows us to do is to provide access to PrEP and PET, which is a, how do I put this? It is a medication or endopill that if an individual, okay, so let's say we're sexually active individuals, right? And so for those of us that have been around since the 90s, HIV and AIDS has been kind of at the forefront. And so it's always been kind of in the back of our minds as we decide to go out and be human, right? We go and engage and interact in relations. And there are times where we tend to not be careful, right? And to guard from those times, they now have medication that can help you prevent from becoming HIV. And then PEP, which is post-exposure, which is something that you take that if you think you've been exposed in 72 hours, you can then get medication to help circumvent any HNE that you may have been exposed. So the goal is to bring the accessibility to PrEP and PEP within the county. And not necessarily just a queer culture, right? Because we always think HNE is a gay disease. But currently, the upspike, especially in our area, is, excuse my phone, I didn't silence it, is... Cisgendered women, women of color, and trans men who have sex with men. So those are kind of our key target areas right now. Oh, wow. So historically, where has Salah King County kind of fit when it comes to age awareness and HIV? So historically, we've always been kind of behind the times, right? That's actually where I got my start in the 90s. that I think I mentioned in the last episode. And so we've... We, as far as education and prevention, have been stuck behind most other counties. But interestingly enough, and I'm only speaking from back in the 90s. I'm just not getting back into the year now, so I'm still working. But back in the 90s, we had one of the best ID oncology clinics in Northern California, outside of San Francisco, right? So at one point, we were kind of the premier area for Northern California for immunogenic medication. And we knew, I knew personally, a lot of people that were coming from Fresno, Sacramento, Reddy, Chico, even now to see the doctor coming out. And that time period parallels with when we had a gay work supervisor. From Lodi, he wasn't out, but he still must have made a difference in that respect. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Because at that point, anything that we tried to do, I mentioned this a few times to you outside of this conversation, but in the 90s, the 8th Foundation tried to get an actual pride center going and the city said, no, no, we're not doing it. So I think the fact that we were able to get county funding the gay supervisor played a big hand. But behind closed doors. Yeah, obviously behind closed doors. There was no open, even just open discussion that they needed at that level. I think it was very rare. Yeah, I forget sometimes in my own past, I remember we would go to EOP, and that was like the only out activity for queer folks was the University of the Pacific. The Rainbow Group. The Rainbow Group, yeah, which was started by our friend Riley Donnell. Wow. Riley is the one that actually bought the, or not bought, he made the Pride Center's very first logo. Did he really? Yeah. Now, do you know that that logo is still up on their building? Yeah. A field building? Yeah. Yes. I think it says a lot about that organization, that there is still a sign there. And then that they changed the logo from one that was made by an authentic queer local bureau. And they went with the generic template that is found on the Tree of Life. That comes on every single app as a free logo. that he didn't use, you know, and it's unfortunate that that sign is not taken down. It's crazy. So one of the things that we unfortunately share is the loss of a lot of friends to HIV AIDS. And, you know, I don't, is that normal? What does that say about our community, our social service, that we're still losing friends to this epidemic. I think it's a couple of things, right? I think society as a whole has become complacent with HIV and AIDS. I mean, they see individuals like Magic Johnson who's had it since early 90s, I would say, early 90s, and seems to lead a life where he's UU, right, undetectable. And all of that comes to from crap and pet medication. But I think society as a whole seems to think there's a cure. So they're starting to lose that education aspect of it where we have to remain vigilant and be safe for ourselves. Again, we're in a phase where we now can offer medication, whether it's monthly, every six months or, you know, once a year to help circumvent and prevent that. But I think a lot of that is really two layers, right? We're losing funding rapidly for HIV prevention education. That's because of Trump, right? Correct. Currently, that is because of Trump. And as we go, as the year progresses, we'll start losing. I was just reading that his goal is to, by this time next year, to cut like 70% of HIV and AIDS funding. So we live in a community where, and it's brown and black boys, brown and black men who are still dying for mates. And what people need to understand is that, um, While there is medication that prevents a lot of people from dying from it, you usually have a dual diagnosis. And so you have an individual who may be not taking care of their diabetes. And when you're HIV positive, when your T-cells help drop, you know, then that is been out. Yeah. And then you have more, you're more open to opportunities. Yeah, or the mental health illness. And I know that that was one of our friend's cases where he just wasn't taking care of, taking his medicine for his mental health needs. And when you're not in a healthy mode, you're not thinking, oh, my prescriptions are lifesavers. I need to take them because you're in such a manic state. You're not taking care of anything. You're not showering. You're not combing your hair. You're not brushing your teeth. Not because you're a bad person or because you're doing it to. Harm yourself you just that's you're in survival mode and those things just are second are second correct you know your your main goal in that in that in that frame of mind is generally one moment is next right, you're even going to get up out of bed to do your daily do's right, yeah it's interesting and then you add in the layers, then let's take it a step further, right? Individuals that are suffering with substance use disorder, mental health issues. Now let's add in housing and security. If you don't have a house nor food, the last thing you're going to worry about is taking your medication or making sure that anything else, anything beyond that is taken care of. Yeah. So, yeah, we have to, we here as an organization, that's kind of most of the ladies we try to deal with when we're dealing with our clients. I like that. And we say that we're meeting people. Where they are. Where they are. Most definitely. You know, I've worked for nonprofits since 1990. And one of the things that always bothered me were the barriers. If we're truly here for the community, I believe in low to no grace. And that's why I always push you guys. I don't necessarily care if they have insurance. Let's get them what they need and try to get them where they need. Meet them where they're at and provide them with the service that they need. Once they're ready to move forward, they'll come to us. It's building that trust. So um what's been going on in my world i wanted to share a real interesting conversation that i had with uh pat one of our colleagues um where she was sharing a little bit about her her family's history and i saw the one to share and i shared with her um the time that i visited my grandma virginia foster um at the only time i ever wanted to go visit her as an adult uh and she made me lunch and she talked about um the fact that her grandmother told her stories about being a slave, and i think that for far too many people in our community um they feel that racism is something that happened in our country and happened in our city in the past but the first episode we talked about francis um quivers and how she had to fight t
