BLAQUE/OUT MAGAZINE
Does A “Safe Haven State” Really Exist? "By asserting the problem is so much worse elsewhere, by creating an illusion of equity and inclusion somewhere where there is so much work to do, we do a disservice to everyone. Where problems are acknowledged, resources to correct them typically flow. By this same logic, creating narratives around what resources, protections, services and level of acceptance exists in the North vs the South for Trans and LGBTQ+ community members is potentially a dangerous narrative to promote. This isn’t a regional problem, it's an American one."
BY TAMARA LEIGH, EDITOR JANUARY 1 2023 8:00 AM EST ***updated 1/4/24 1PM EST
As a native New Yorker living in Florida and a full-time activist up North and a full-time educator down South, I think it puts me in a unique position to dissect the blue and red, rainbow and Black state of our country as we step into 2024. It’s my job to know what is happening in the world, especially when it comes to Black and Brown Intersectional Queer identities. We are walking bullseyes in most cases, in a country that has labeled us as less than or felonious for being Black and Queer. Legislation hits us differently because we typically fall into the groups most vulnerable to it. Although we are already in those categories, additionally, we are most likely to fit in all the other risk categories: poor, undereducated, under-resourced, unhoused, worst medical care and access, least opportunities, least family support, highest incidences of illness and poor mental health care. I find the rhetoric between the North being a safe-haven and the South being a danger zone most interesting. The legislation being passed in the states of Florida and Texas, for example, are certainly devastating to families and LGBTQ+ individuals, but the truth is my friends who are activists in New York and those who are fighting in the South are fighting very similar battles. Recently, The Guardian published
an article, “Trans people are finding safe haven in an unexpected place: upstate New York” about how upstate cities like my hometown of Rochester, New York, have become a destination for weary Southerners escaping persecution and to gain access to life saving gender-affirming surgery and pharmaceutical intervention. The story that article didn’t tell is that according to the US Census, Rochester has a 29.3% poverty rate compared to the 12.4% national average. In 2021, there were 85 recorded homicides and in 2022, 75 in a population of less than 210,000. That is equivalent to a murder every 8.8 days in 2023 ***. There are few shelters that will accommodate any unhoused folks. There are tent cities set-up in open fields as well as under bridges and overpasses that are regularly destroyed by city government, only one youth shelter with a handful of beds to accommodate LGBTQIA+ youth, and none that I’m aware of for adults. I consulted several agencies and organizers in Rochester and no one could provide me with an exact number of medical providers offering gender-affirming care, but I know from the difficulty of my peers in finding care in Upstate New York, let alone quality and culturally-
competent care, is increasingly challenging. Braden Reese, the founder of a Rochesterbased grassroots mutual aid and LGBTQIA+focused community group, Rochester LGBTQ+ Together, started in the wake of the pandemic to serve a severely underserved local LGBTQ+ population and distributed nearly $20,000 to community members in the form of cash asks, grocery shops, and community giving between 2021 and 2022. The need continues to grow, thus he continues to seek funding (which has become more and more difficult), that typically comes from individual LGBTQ community members. People in the community looking to help each other through difficult times and mutual aid, not major nonprofits or corporate sponsors because if those resources are being given, it is rarely to these types of groups. Organizations like Reese’s and small independent Trans-led orgs like WAVE Women, Inc. and Next Generation Men of Transition who serve the Black and Brown Trans community, specifically, are inundated with requests for help with housing, complaints about equity and mistreatment by medical providers and larger agencies, a need for food, employment and transportation. When asked about the available resources and access to care for Rochestarians and residents of New York, the President/Founder of WAVE Women, Inc.,
