The TFA Board will be meeting this month and one of the things the Board will discuss is the short-term and long-term future for a transgender center in Houston.
Before going further with this post, I want to address a criticism of the very idea of a TG Center in Houston. The criticism goes something like this, "Why spend all that money on a center when it could go to help pay for hormones,
rent and utility assistance programs? A TG Center is a waste of money."
Here's my response:
Programs that help people with rent, medical, legal, life expenses are
incredibly expensive - way more expensive than a center. In order to fund
the programs the TG community needs, we need access to very deep pockets -
the kind of million dollar funding that comes from government grants. For
instance, the TG Housing program costs around 1 million a year for 52
households. Getting that kind of funding without a public face is difficult.
When we got that money through HACS, HACS had a "TG Center" at the old HACS
Center.
For those of you who don't remember, here's a video
of the HACS "TG Center" from 2007.
Here's a picture of the grand opening ribbon cutting press event for the
HACS "TG Center:
In short: Having a TG Center + TG services = access to more TG funding
for more TG Services.
Having a TG Center speaks to one's ability to deliver
services in a culturally competent manner, provides a professional face to
TG service needs and proves that an organization has easy access to the TG
Community - a community that is notoriously difficult to document, service
and impact (in the context of service provider circles).
Within the last few months, TFA has raised close to $100,000 in grants
for TG services and this was largely contingent upon to our status as having
had a TG Center. In other words, without a center, it becomes next to
impossible to access the type of funding the community needs.
To make it even more clear:
Before TG Centers in Houston, TG community funding = ~ $50,000
After TG Centers in Houston, TG community funding = > $3,000,000
Houston has lead the country in pulling down TG Community funding over
the past 3 years.
So, knowing that this is the reality of the way things work, what I want to know is...
How do you feel about not having a TG Center?
How do you feel about not having our own TG Center, but instead moving TFA activities into the GLBT Center?
How do you feel about renting another house for a TG Center?
I'll be posting this on transhouston, facebook and to the lists so that written community opinions can become part of the community record in the decision making process concerning the future of a TG Center in Houston.
Thanks for your response!
Cristan
As I said in my last blog, I can feel the anticipation building as I move
closer to next month and dealing with the 3 separate grants + moving +
programmatic setup(s). I decided that I would get out of Houston and go camping
for a couple of days. You know, I think it's been more than 20 years since I've
been camping : /
On my way to the campgrounds, I ran across some creepy places... so you know
I had to stop and take pictures!
First, I found a cool abandoned motor lodge:
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And, I had to peek inside...
I was amazed to find that one closet was full of
1960s/70s era clothes:
Here's the Motel sign. I wish I could make out the name,
Then I found an abandoned house. This one looked too
rickety to risk going in though:
So, here's some pics of the campground:
Here's me at the campfire:
Warming up my feet:
Oh yah, almost I forgot. I ran across what seemed to be
an old family graveyard while I was out. So, you know I had to check that out:
I liked this name: Hudson Oliphint.
I love when I run across folksy epitaphs: "No pains, no
griets, no anxious fear, can reach our loved one sleeping here."
So, it was really, really nice to run way for a couple of days. My first
day kinda sucked because the people next to me were incapable of shutting the
hell up! They brought a baby (who wouldn't shut up crying), a dog (that wouldn't
shut up barking), 3 teens (who played music and wouldn't shut up) and to top it
off, their parents were kinda pathetic. The father would ask the kids to do
something and when they wouldn't, the mother would screech and scream at them -
at which point they would screech and scream and the mother and the mother would
loudly bemoan the fact that she didn't have 3 abortions and then the teens would
go back to what they were (loudly) doing. They didn't shut up until 11.
When it got dark, I took my telescope and drove down to the edge of the water
to do some stargazing. The sky was kinda hazy, so I wasn't able to get a good
look at Jupiter. However, since the moon wasn't full, I was able to take a
really close look at the surface of the moon (I didn't have a moon filter). I
could sit looking at the moon for hours and hours!
Anyway, my neighbors packed up Monday and I was left with nothing but peace
and quite. Ah... it was so nice! I hiked for several miles and basically did a
lot of communing with nature. My tent roof is mesh without the rain covering, so
I was able to lay in my bed and gaze up at the trees and stars. It was all so
beautiful, I started to weep. It's been so long since I've been able to spend
this much time with nature; I feel as if my batteries were recharged!
I had to take off earlier than I wanted to since I had a 3 PM appointment
with a Havens Center representative at the Path of Tea. I had lunch from the Field
of Greens and before my appointment, Rudy What's-His-Name (I think he's a coach
of something in Houston) came in for a business meeting. I
thought I'd get a pic cus' I thought that it would be funny to have the big bad
coach of a pro sports team getting a pic (even if it is a horrid post-camping
photo) with a tranny :)
I've noticed a couple of stupid signs this week that I thought I'd share...
"Save Money, Live Better, Stop Sinning, Live 4 Jesus"
- Because you too can find yourself spending your afternoons standing in the middle a busy Houston road, waving incoherent signs at people.
Religion tuned this poor man into a walking bumper sticker, unable to understand that his time would be better spent with his family, volunteering at a shelter, hospice or hospital.
"Houston Center for Photography Center" - The
Center for Redundancy Center
The Calm Before the Storm
I've now had a little over a month to (for the most part) relax and pull
myself together after a - lets face it - traumatic event. This is the first time
I've somewhat unplugged from the needs of the community in years and I
feel that it is just about time to jump back into the fire. When the City grant
comes in, planning will start and my world will become a nonstop blur for the
next year and I'm not looking forward to that chaos at all. I am,
however, looking forward
to getting things done.
Within the next few weeks, we will know what our budget is and then
begin making plans for the new TG HIV program - entirely conceived of and run by
the TG community... That will be a first in the for Texas. We will need the
community to come together and figure out where the new TG Center will be at
(move, set up the archives, meeting rooms, etc). We will need to start planning
for the future ASAP... and it all will need to begin all of this as early as next month.
I was talking with one of our grant partners recently and he asked me if I would
have any help. I smiled because I immediately thought of a number of people that
I can count on to help me pull this together. I reflected on how grateful I am for our Board and CAB. I know
that this incarnation of the TG Center will be a true community effort and I'm
really excited about it!
This week Carolyn and I met with someone who was homeless after being
incarcerated. So many of the folks I've worked with seem to get slammed by the
system when others - say white heteronormative males - might get probation. She
and I spent the afternoon talking about the need for an intensive jails program.
I basically have a grant proposal already made up and I think this is something
that we need to pursue.
You Know You Want One!
These are the kids of the TG Center cat and they are soooo cute!
They have just started eating real food and will be ready to adopt out very
soon. Three of them look like a shot-hair Himalayan - their markings are a good
match, but they have short hair and they don't have brown socks on every foot.
One is black with darker black stripes it's coat and white socks and the other
is 100% black with what looks like might be green eyes (it still has the kitten
blue eye tint).
Let me know if you are interested!
The Miracle is That There Are No Miracles
This is a little piece of an actual photo taken by Hubble and
released to the public by NASA on Jan. 5th.
Yah, that's all "whatever" you say? What is SO COOL about
this photo is that this is a photo of the dark part of the sky. If you look at
your fingernail and take 1/10th of its size and use that measurement when you
look at the darkest part of the night sky - the dark part that looks like there
is absolutly nothing there - this is what you'd find: 7,500 galaxies:
When you look this deep into space, we are viewing the past...
Some of the galaxies in that photo (the red ones) are from just after the "Big
Bang". What you see in the photo is the actual creation of the universe as we
know it. It is like looking at the mind of god (in a completely pantheistic way,
of course).
<rant> When I hear people say that a god used magic to poof
everything into existence so that human life could only exist on this one little
planet so that he could reveal himself to a remote, primitive and illiterate
desert dwelling people (instead of an advance civilianization like China or
Greece) - I want to pull out my hair. That attitude seems to miss that beauty,
magnificence and sacred (again meant in a completely pantheistic way) truth of
the fleeting immensity of it all. When I look at this stuff, I feel... well, I
almost feel rapture. As Douglas Adams said: "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"</rant>
Anyway, this is a land breaking photo - kinda like the photo we
took of the creation of the universe a few years ago by the COBE and WMAP
satellites. It gives us a better understanding of the process of assembling
galaxies.
All about my life as: The designer of TransHouston; The program manager of Houston's only TG program; A post-op transsexual vegetarian Theravada Buddhist; and, recovering drug addict with an obsessive-compulsive disorder - Cristan Williams' Blog : )
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