Transgender support: healthcare, education, and community

Recently, Rep. Jimmy Panetta reached out to PFLAG to suggest a listening session about issues faced by transgender people, their families, and their communities. The meeting took place in the back yard of the Diversity Center with representatives from PFLAG Santa Cruz County and the TransFamilies of Santa Cruz County,. We were graced with the fun sounds of a live band at the regular Friday midtown street party in the parking lot next door.

The goal of the meeting was not necessarily to solve any problems, but at least to gain a sympathetic ear and educate a politician about transgender concerns. Concerns that were discussed at length included three broad areas: healthcare policy, educational outreach, and continuing issues with access to support.

Healthcare policy

Andrea Damon of the TransFamilies of Santa Cruz County cited a statistic from the Kaiser Family Foundation that in 2020: 67% of workers who got their health coverage through their private employer were in self-funded plans. What this means is that instead of contracting with a health insurance company to provide insurance to employees, the business creates its own healthcare group. These groups are not necessarily covered by federal or state law governing health insurance.

If you’re thinking ahead, you already know what comes next: many of these plans do not follow mandates written to regulate health insurance, including health coverage for transgender care mandated under the ACA. Often, business owners don’t realize there is an exclusion, and willingly add trans care when confronted. However, other owners can legally refuse to cover trans care through their self-funded plan.

Most workers have no idea that their “health insurance” isn’t legally required to cover transgender care, and it’s only when they are in crisis with a transgender child that they face barriers to getting appropriate, timely care for their children.

“TransFamilies has worked with several families over the last year who were faced with coverage being denied through their self-funded plans,” Damon says. Results have been mixed; some employers willingly added coverage, while in others, TransFamilies had to “apply pressure” to the board of directors, ultimately convincing two such employers to add coverage.

Rep. Panetta made an enthusiastic request to know more about when self-funded insurance isn’t required to follow insurance laws/requirements, since this is an area under federal jurisdiction.

Educational outreach

Santa Cruz County boasts a robust LGBTQ+ educational program supported by the Diversity Center. This program, Triangle Speakers, will send a trained panel of speakers into any school for any event for free. A similar speakers program in Monterey County is provided by Rainbow Speakers and Friends.

However, access to these programs is spotty, to say the least. Rachel Morales-Warne, a parent advocate whose children attend SLV schools, said that the Triangle Speakers hasn’t been invited to the district in at least the last ten years.

All of the advocates agreed that even when intentions are good, the lack of teeth in the FAIR Education Act (CA Senate Bill 48, 2011) means that it’s up to individual teachers, schools, and districts to decide how inclusive and supportive they will be.

“As an educator, 50 years now, I find it so frustrating that schools are not following what the law says, what we expected them to be doing,” said Lynn J. Walton, retired math teacher and PFLAG SCC Executive Board member. “There are no teeth in it. A lot of teachers have good intentions, but they don’t have the tools to go to the next step. We need to train our teachers so there’s harder conversations.”

Even in “liberal Santa Cruz County,” the treatment of LGBTQ+ students, including bullying, intimidation, misgendering/naming, and shaming, is common. The County Office of Education’s focus on equity in the coming school year, advocates say, is unlikely to make a substantive difference in the everyday experiences of queer kids in our schools if the training and support is not applied more consistently.

Access to support

Michelle Brandt and Andrea Damon (TransFamilies) offered the statistics that underpin everything that advocates do: Kids who grow up in families that support and affirm their gender have wildly better outcomes than kids who don’t.

“Having an affirming, accepting family is the number one indicator for a young person’s mental health, so that’s a big part of what we all do,” Andrea Damon explained. “PFLAG, TransFamiies, and the Diversity Center: for the kids—through the parents but for the kids.”

But support is applied unequally and sometimes it feels like parents have to keep refighting battles that had already been fought by a previous parent.

“You get tired and think, I can’t do this anymore,” Michelle Brandt says.

Rachel Morales-Warne responded more colorfully. “In our house, pardon my language, but I’m like, We’re fuckin’ still doing this?”

Neal Savage, also a PFLAG Santa Cruz board member, pointed out that the way to reach parents in the past doesn’t suit today’s parent population. “When you start expanding the population into Latinx and any kids who are in foster care, those families and those kids aren’t getting help. The number of families that can afford to go someplace on a Tuesday night for a meeting has gotten very small, given geography, money, two jobs. The PFLAG model from 30 years ago is in some ways a middle-class luxury.”

Morales-Warne agrees. “I talk to a cousin’s friend of a cousin because I have a child, because they can’t afford to go to these meetings or they don’t feel comfortable. It’s not necessarily a safe space to live in. I think some of the biggest obstacles are education and language. Not just language as in bilingual language, but the language around what it means to be nonbinary or trans or queer or gay or pan.”

Some takeaways

Rep. Panetta’s job is federal, which informs the areas where he is able to exert influence. Listening to the advocates at the meeting, he responded, “You see the continued need for the resources that are so necessary.” He shared his memories of a powerful meeting the week before about LGBTQ+ experiences moderated by our local State Senator John Laird and hosted by the Diversity Center.

It’s clear that transgender children and adults will benefit from a more focused, united push for understanding, inclusion, and legal protection.

Resources

The Day the Music Paused

I am part of a community that most people don’t even know exists.

Jazz, voted the least popular genre of music in a poll done in Santa Cruz (really, we came in after polka!), is alive and well in our little edge of the universe. I am on the board of our local Jazz Society, which has a weekly newsletter, puts on jams, and offers a well-attended monthly lecture series.

Until this month.

This coming weekend brings the regular jam date, but the brewery where our jam takes place will be silent. We have entered The Great Pause.

There are so many ways that this is going to hurt our fragile little enterprise. First, our large group brought in a good amount of money to support a locally owned business. Second, we paid professional musicians to come in and provide a solid backing band for musicians from beginner to professional. Third, we exchanged information and ideas in a thriving corner of a musical discipline that is threatened with extinction.

It occurs to me that this pause is harming community on all sorts of levels. It’s financial, it’s musical, it’s emotional.

But let me take a moment to describe our jam as it was rather than focusing on what might or might not be:

The band arrives early and sets up. Our drummer, bass player, and pianist are professionals who have had long careers. It’s such a thrill that our Jazz Society members can pay them for their hard work.

Next, our fearless jam coordinator arrives with the all-important clipboard. Already several avid players who want to get the first slots are there, poised to sign up. Other players and audience members arrive as the music starts. This is a tight community: The band members wave and sometimes pause their playing to give hugs.

The bar and nearby restaurant do an unusually good amount of business on these Sunday afternoons. Participants buy beer brewed on site, soft drinks, and barbecue from next door.

We have all the instruments you’d expect…and more. We regularly have singers, from beginners to pros, horn players of all varieties, woodwinds, guitarists, and an occasional violinist, harmonica player, and once we even got a recorder player from Sweden. We also get lots of pianists, drummers, and bass players who spell the band and take their turn.

Each musician gets to call two tunes and invite other soloists up with them. Sometimes we get full horn sections playing well-known standards. Sometimes we get songwriters sharing their own tunes. The mood ranges from maudlin to magic, and it’s all in good fun.

Perhaps what I’m describing doesn’t seem that amazing until you consider the fact that we are an isolated county of 250,000, hemmed in on side by the Monterey Bay and the other by mountains. We don’t seem like a likely place for a thriving jazz community.

Yet it thrives. In part it thrives because of the hard work for over 20 years of a group of dedicated board members. In part it thrives because Santa Cruz has a long tradition of art for art’s sake, with pros and amateurs finding a comfortable home here. But mostly it thrives because we all value the camaraderie and learning that happens on those Sunday afternoons.

For now, we have gone silent. Until we meet again, you can check out our rather new Youtube channel, which has some moments from our jams and a few of our lectures available. If you’re a player who wants to be part of our community, you can subscribe to our newsletter and join our Facebook Group.

Like everyone during this Great Pause, the Jazz Society board is in wait-and-see mode. There will be a lot of work that will have to be done to pick up the pieces when life gets back to normal.

But the music will go on!

Another local shop closes

Support Santa Cruz’s quirky businesses!

I suppose it’s inevitable that as real estate prices rise, a town becomes less funky and quirky. I saw it happen in Palo Alto in the 80s and 90s. When I arrived, the town boasted a diner with ancient (working) telephones on the tables and a dim sum place where the only thing on the extensive menu that you could actually buy were the potstickers.

Things have changed.

Rebecka in her element. Yes, she’s got lots of Santa hats on sale!

I happened in to Closet Capers (next to the Rio Theater) the other day, having heard that it was closing and they were selling off their merchandise.

I ended up chatting with the owner of the 37-year-old Santa Cruz landmark, Rebecka Hawkins.

“I’m only crying once a day at this point,” she said in describing her feelings about closing what she describes as her “obsession.”

Hawkins has outfitted many of us locals as we attended theme parties, needed an extra prop for a production, or had a last-minute freakout about Halloween. She says one school group has been coming to her for many years to supply costumes for an annual outing and production in Yosemite.

Hawkins says that the store survived so many years through the loving support of her husband and the understanding of her longtime landlord.

Some of the quirkiest residents of Santa Cruz reside on Rebecka’s shelves.

But it was her landlord who suggested, gently, that it was time to retire.

The tiny shop with its cavernous ceiling and winding aisles is crammed full of goodies. I went in to do some quirky holiday shopping, and was tantalized by jester hats, beaded dresses, and medieval capes.

Please support Rebecka’s retirement by purchasing one of her lovingly collected items. As I discussed last week on KSQD with the founders of Sellhound.com, a reused item is the greenest of gifts!

If you are an experienced eBay seller and would like to help her sell some of the pricier items, please contact her at 831-251-8700.

Happy Holidays, everyone. Let’s try our best to keep what’s quirky and wonderful alive in Santa Cruz.

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