Tag Archives: PRIDE Initiative

6/10 – SMC Pride Parade and Pride Celebration

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San Mateo County PRIDE Parade and Pride Celebration is 11 days away!

We hope you can join us on Saturday June 10th for the San Mateo County (SMC) Pride Parade, and after the parade come over to the SMC Pride celebration and celebrate Pride with us!! 

Friendly Reminder, if you are interested in having a contingent at the 1st Annual SMC Pride Parade, registration is currently open!! The SMC Pride Parade registration deadline is Friday June 2nd. Don’t miss out on this wonderful opportunity to be a part of history and participate in the San Mateo County 1st Annual Pride Parade!

The 1st Annual SMC Pride Parade will be Saturday June 10th from 10am-11am, starting on 2nd B street and ending at San Mateo Central Park! The SMC Pride Celebration will be Saturday June 10th from 11am-5pm at San Mateo Central Park.

Registration to the Pride Parade is currently OPEN but will close at the end of the day on June 2nd.
Register Your contingent today using the link below.

https://forms.gle/Nfe8wghLqn5LcRbJ7

Let’s show up and show support in the first San Mateo County Pride Parade!!

For more info visit www.smcpridecelebration.com

PLEASE SHARE WITH YOUR NETWORKS!

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June 6- June 12 | 9th Annual San Mateo County PRIDE Celebration

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Please join the PRIDE Initiative, our sponsors, Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, the BHRS, Office of Diversity and Equity, the SMC PRIDE Center, the SMC LGBTQ+ Commission and our Community Partners for the 9th Annual San Mateo County PRIDE Celebration June 6th-June 12th. This will be our second mostly virtual event. The Purpose of the Annual PRIDE Celebration is to promote health and wellness among the LGBTQ+ Community. To Build a sense of community. To provide info about behavioral health services. Help individuals in marginalized communities seeking services. To provide a free LGBTQ+ positive, sober environment for San Mateo County.

This year’s event will consist of a week-long series of Workshops centered on issues important to the LGBTQ Community and ending on Saturday with a Grand Finale filled with entertainers from our Local Community from 11-2pm, streamed live from the PRIDE Center Facebook page in partnership with PENN TV. So far some of the workshops include a return of the Queer Author’s series which is a collaboration of the SMC LGBTQ+ Commission and SMC Public Libraries. This year the Queer Author’s Series is featuring author George M Johnson with their book All Boys Aren’t Blue: A memoir manifesto on June 9th at 6pm. The SMC PRIDE Center is offering a workshop A Road Map, Tips and Tools for people who identify as Transgender or Gender Non-Binary on June 10th 6-7:30 pm.

The PRIDE Center is offering a SOGIE Training for Community Members on June 7th 6-8 pm. Kaiser is offering a workshop with an Expression Specialist from their Gender Clinic to offer people who identify as Transgender and Gender Non-binary tips on everything from how-to put-on makeup, how to dress and how to walk etc. on June 10th 6-7:30 pm. The Office of Diversity and Equity Health Equity Initiatives will be holding an informative outreach workshop on June 8th 7-8 pm.

On Saturday we will be having our Grand Celebration filmed live at SMC PRIDE Center and streamed on the PRIDE Initiative Facebook page featuring MC Jesus U Betta Work, the return of favorites like local rap artist Aima the Dreamer and the Youth Drag Group from Cappuccino High School the Rebel Kings and much more. To link to our full schedule of events, to register and to stream our Grand Finale go to www.SMCPRIDECelebration.com.

Written by Zachary Comtois, PRIDE Initiative Co-Chair

2/25 – Black History Month Intergenerational Dinner

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On February 25th from 6-7:30 pm, join the San Mateo County Pride Center for a virtual Black History Month Intergenerational Dinner. In partnership with the African American Community Initiative, the Pride Initiative, and the LGBT Commission, we encourage members of the San Mateo Black and African Diaspora to celebrate a night of Afro-LGBTQ history. Mark your calendars, bring your food, and share community as we engage in an interactive presentation and group dialogue about the dinner theme, “We Are Because They Do”. For more information, please contact Azisa Todd at azisa.todd@sanmateopride.org

Please use this link to register to attend: https://tinyurl.com/BlackHistoryDinner  This is a free space open to all community members.

11/20 – Transgender Day of Remembrance

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Please join the PRIDE Initiative, the  Office of Diversity and Equity, the San Mateo County LGBTQ+ Commission  and Community Partners on November 20th 4 pm to 5:30 pm for Transgender day of Remembrance.  Registration through https://tinyurl.com/TDOR2020smc.

Innovative Pride Center to Remain Open

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The one stop shop support and services center is the first of its kind in San Mateo County and thanks to an Innovation funding extension, it will continue serving the local LGBTQ+ community.

Services offered by the Center include:

  • Psycho-educational and social/community activities
  • Mental health clinical services
  • Resources for local, county and national LGBTQ+ services.

California’s Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) approved the extension to keep the center operating in March.

The Pride center has provided services, training and events for over 3,000 participants since opening in 2017. Read the full article here.

To see more stories, read past and current issues, or subscribe to our Wellness Matters newsletter, click here.

What’s Happening in SMC’s LGBTQ+ Community?

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PRIDE Center on Spirit Day 2017

Annette photographed second from the right on Spirit Day 10/19/17

As a queer person living in San Mateo County, the monthly Pride Initiative meetings are a haven for me to feel connected to local LGBTQ+ community members. Nothing beats being around a table of beautifully unique and bold community members to talk about the numerous efforts we’re working on to strengthen the sense of LGBTQ+ community in San Mateo County.

 

Pride Initiative Mixer 6-19-11 001

PRIDE Initiative, 2011

Founded in 2007, the Pride Initiative is a health equity initiative that was created by the Office of Diversity and Equity in recognition that LGBTQ+ folks are often met with culturally inappropriate care and a lack of knowledge by service providers in health settings. Since 2007, the Pride Initiative has met on a monthly basis to organize community-based events, create trainings for service providers and advocate as a community for more LGBTQ+ services within county and community settings.

One such example is sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data collection that will be rolled out this year across BHRS as well as the whole health system; collecting this data will help reduce health disparities experienced by LGBTQ+ folks by normalizing conversations about these aspects of our identities that have a direct impact on our health. Pride Initiative members participated in not only advocating for this, they also contributed to the curriculum that was created to train BHRS staff on how to appropriately serve LGBTQ+ clients and ask SOGI questions with cultural humility.

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Overcoming Violence against Trans Community

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Transgender Day of Remembrance was founded in 1999 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a transgender activist and columnist for the Bay Area Reporter, to recognize the murder of transgender woman Rita Hester on November 28, 1998 in Allston, Massachusetts. For many in the LGBTQ+ community, Rita’s murder exposed the lack of media coverage and particularly, culturally sensitive and respectful media coverage that takes place when transgender members of our community lose their lives to violent hate crimes. The communal anger and grief that was experienced led to a candlelight vigil that was attended by 250 participants.  Eighteen years later, Transgender Day of Remembrance events occur on a national and international basis on November 20th each year, and often include a candlelight procession or vigil within the program.

On November 16th, 2017, San Mateo County Pride Center held San Mateo County’s second annual Transgender Day of Remembrance event. Transgender Day of Remembrance serves multiple purposes– this is a day for folks to come together and publicly mourn the lives of transgender siblings whose lives have been taken from us in brutal acts of violence and hatred, and a day for us to find strength within each other to mobilize and combat the violence our transgender community disproportionally faces. Transgender Day of Remembrance in San Mateo County included community speakers Alyss Swanson, Lexi Shimmers and Dr. Jei Africa, along with altars commemorating the lives of transgender siblings lost in 2016 and 2017, followed by a silent candlelight procession down El Camino Real to Central Park in San Mateo. During the procession, 25 participants traded their candles for signs that were each hand-painted by community members the afternoon prior with the names and ages of the lives we’ve lost in 2017. You can view the memorial we created for 2017 in the slideshow on this blog.

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Transgender Day of Remembrance: Join Us In Commemorating Trans Lives Lost To Violence

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You are invited to join us for Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual event that aims to commemorate our transgender community members that have lost their lives due to brutal and unconscionable anti-transgender violence.TransgenderDayRememberance2017_DF-1

This event aims to raise public awareness of violence that transgender people face that often goes underreported or incorrectly reported in the news media, with those who are mentioned often misgendered or “deadnamed,” a term used to describe when a transgender person is referred to the name they were given at birth and no longer use. Transgender Day of Remembrance allows us to come together and publicly mourn our transgender siblings as well as find strength within each other as we mobilize to combat anti-transgender violence.

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