LGBTQ teens react to Rainbow Alliance downsizing
Young and openly gay, they face additional challenges with their sexual identities as nonprofit scales back due to slashed funding
By Paul Sisolak 10/01/2009
The walls and floors of the Ventura County Rainbow Alliance are bare, bereft of the furnishings that once filled up the nonprofit’s spacious offices.
And on this Friday evening in late September, some teens have begun gathering together outside the building, awaiting the start of their final youth group meeting before the Alliance, the region’s leading resource for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) community, shuts the doors of its long-time Ventura headquarters.
“It’s taking away our personality to express ourselves,” says Nicolas, 17, of Santa Paula. “It takes away from the youth.”
“If they’re not ‘out’ yet, they need to go somewhere they’re comfortable,” adds 19-year-old Destiny Martinez, also of Santa Paula. “There’re a lot of kids who need someone to talk to.”
At the conclusion of the group’s regular meeting, Alliance administrators poise themselves for the difficult transition to smaller, more modest accommodations at an as-of-yet undisclosed location somewhere on the cusp of Downtown and Midtown Ventura. The transition is scheduled for this week, by Thursday, Oct. 1.
The reason: hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funding cutbacks. One saving grace: a last-minute, $5,000 private donation that allowed the Rainbow Alliance some leverage in avoiding closure outright, finding new accommodations and retaining its crucial HIV testing program. The drawback: no more gathering space for an organization that has done nothing but grow in exponential proportions since it started up 16 years ago.
“We won’t be able to hold meetings there,” says Jay Smith, the Alliance’s executive director. “It’ll be a place to keep records … and do health testing and mental health counseling.”
More good news for the nonprofit is that the Center for Spiritual Living in Ventura has since come forward to volunteer meeting space, according to Lynn Dorgan, a marriage and family therapy intern for the Alliance, and the head facilitator for its youth group. Dorgan said she had recently presented this possibility to members of her youth and transgender support groups.
“We asked that two weeks ago, ‘How would you feel about meeting in a church?’ And the sentiment was captured by someone who said, ‘We don’t care where we meet, we just want to be together,’ ” recalls Dorgan. “They’re such a big group, they’re just grateful.”
The change in meeting place goes hand in hand with the Alliance’s new emphasis on developing a stronger Internet presence. To compensate for the lack of a drop-in facility, Smith said, the Alliance is working on revamping its Web site, including the addition of a Facebook page.
“Our sense,” he said, “is that the LGBT community at large, as well as our youth community, are very Internet-savvy and will take advantage of the Web site. We’re going to make a one-year commitment to the new space and see how the community reacts to the cyber approach.”
But logistics and location aside, the situation is still tenuous for many Rainbow Alliance youth. From the allegedly hate-fueled murder last year of openly gay Larry King in Oxnard, to the bleak future of gay marriage characterized by Proposition 8, and the added introduction of the “questioning” element to LGBTQ in the mainstream lexicon, the downsizing of such an important resource may prove difficult for local gay teens already thrust into a very transitional phase in both their lives and sexual identities.
According to Dorgan, at least three new members of the Rainbow Alliance arrived at youth group meetings because their parents kicked them out of their homes for being gay.
Cuts to the Rainbow Alliance’s budget, much like those recently handed down to county battered women’s shelters, act directly against the need for the services they provide, says Christine Paul, an adviser for the Gay/Straight Alliance of Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.
“I think it’s unfortunate, especially with budget cuts, that things people are passionate about are being cut. It’s hard to hear that,” she said. “It’s difficult because there are younger high school students in need of some services they provide.
Sometimes it saves their lives because they’re thinking about committing suicide.”
According to 15-year-old Bryant, a Camarillo teen, the Rainbow Alliance’s youth group has attracted as many as 40 people at a time caught in the same distressing situations.
“It brought a lot of awareness to people and the things that can happen to people because of it,” he said.
Angelina Macias, 20, of Santa Paula, says that she hopes the changes to the youth group won’t deter others from showing up to its new meeting place or discourage new members from continuing.
“It’s sad because some people have just started coming here,” she said.
Dorgan acknowledged that the number of resources available to gay teens in Ventura County through the Rainbow Alliance doesn’t necessarily make facing their sexual identities an easy thing.
“Easier? Maybe a little. For us adults, we’re glad we offer it because we wish we had this as kids,” she says.
“ ‘Easy’ isn’t a word I would apply to being gay.”
For more information, go to lgbtventura.org.
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