Tri-county Diversity to open LGBTQ+ center
June marks Pride Month to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and toward the end of the month, a local LGBTQ+ nonprofit serving Yuba, Sutter and Colusa counties will be celebrating the opening of their own center in Marysville.
Ameya Scanlon, youth program coordinator for Tri-county Diversity, said the organization started in 2011 and was recognized as a nonprofit in 2013 – it was also originally known as “Got Bliss Inc.”
Scanlon said the founding members were looking for resources specifically for LGBTQ+ people and noticed that it was difficult so they put a call out and started the organization out of one of their living rooms and grew from there.
“Our services have changed through the
years and we change depending on the needs of the community, and as we grow we are able to offer more,” Scanlon said.
The organization has hotlines that people can call for resources and support – one for everybody and one specifically for youth. For example, Scanlon said people can call if they are looking for a doctor that will be accepting or a place where they can get their “hair cut in a style they prefer and not be gendered.”
“All these details of life we have to navigate,” Scanlon said.
Scanlon said the organization also typically has social events throughout the year, however, things have been different due to COVID-19.
Employers can also have the organization do presentations so people know what’s available and “how to be a good ally and how to be supportive of the LGBTQ community.”
Scanlon said, through the youth program, they typically host two meetings per month and offer peer support and leadership skills.
They do one social event a month that’s meant to be fun for the participants, and they have the youth plan the logistics of the event so they can develop the skills that go into organizing it.
Scanlon said they would also sometimes bring people in to do things like safe sex classes and healthy relationship classes to teach those in the group about different aspects of life.
“During COVID, we’ve been doing kind of that online, we do our youth group peer support, we have been having online meetings and we’ve been posting pretty much at least four or five times a week some kind of prompt or activity on Facebook or Instagram to keep them engaged,” Scanlon said.
The plan, Scanlon said, is to go back to in-person meetings in July.
They also plan to start doing other in-person events soon – such as their Diversity Movie Series.
Scanlon said Tri-county Diversity partners with Yuba Sutter Arts & Culture to host the movie series where once a month they bring in an Lgbtq-related film. The plan is to resume that series in August.
Scanlon said it can be difficult living in a rural area and being part of the LGBTQ+ community.
“There’s a specific set of ideals or set of beliefs
that go against who you are as a human being
(and that) can be really difficult,” Scanlon said. “I get people who feel really alone and just (are) looking for that connection at this organization or you see them outside of the organization and they come in and they just blossom when they come into the organization. They feel more comfortable in just being who they are as people … I think just being able to provide that resource or that safe space and know that they aren’t alone definitely makes a difference and creates change.”
Scanlon said it’s becoming more common to see a Pride flag in places or seeing someone at a place, like a medical facility, wearing a rainbow button and that can show that it’s a “supportive, safe space.”
“Everybody has their own level of acceptance but a lot of times they will see growth in people where they weren’t maybe as understanding (at first) and overtime they learn and accept that we’re just people who are trying to live our lives and have freedom and equality just like everybody else,” Scanlon said.
Tri-county Diversity will host a Pride Celebration
Open House to mark the opening of its new LGBTQ+ center on June 26 from 1-6 p.m.
The center will be open for people to tour the space and celebrate Pride with music, prizes, appetizers, resources, information on future programs and events and more.
The center is located at 201 D St., Suite L, Marysville.
“We’re in a rural and sometimes harsh community, it can be a bit rough and you can feel alone, you can feel like the only one in our area,” said Shaun Adams, president of Tri-county Diversity. “...To be able to have an organization like us and have a physical space that the youth, young adults or anyone in our community could go to is a huge benefit.”
Scallon said people can call the Tri-county Diversity general hotline at 763-2116 to get information about support, resources, future events and more – the youth hotline can be reached at 763-2413.
People can also get more information about the nonprofit and getting involved at www. tricountydiversity.org.
Pride Month
During a recent Yuba
City Council meeting, a proclamation was presented to Tri-county Diversity proclaiming June as LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Pride Month is celebrated all over the country with events, parades and more.
In the past, Tri-county Diversity has hosted Pride events and Scanlon said they hope to host more in the future.
Scanlon said the Stonewall Riots took place in June 1969 and started as people standing up and fighting against some laws that resulted in discrimination of LGBTQ+ people.
“Police would come in and shut down
Lgbtq-frequented bars and organizations and people could be arrested for wearing the wrong clothing or having the wrong presentation and (there) was a law in the books where you had to have two items of your correct gender,” Scanlon said. “... They stood up against the discrimination of being arrested for those reasons and created a large riot and (were) fighting against the police and what stemmed from that was a massive movement of people coming out and saying ‘we are here, we’re LGBTQ, we exist, we’re people and we deserve our equal rights and equality.’”
The following year, Scanlon said, LGBTQ+ people got together, continuing to march in the streets. The marches turned into Pride parades.
“(Pride Month is) an opportunity for all of us in the (LGBTQ+) community to take stock in our community and ourselves and our families,” Adams said. “I believe that it brings to the forefront the opportunity for society to take a moment and reflect and think about our community and that we have a presence and that we need the love and support of as many people as possible.”