LGBTQ Breaking News Service

While serving as executive director at a local social justice organization, Chase Glenn performed a needs assessment for the region’s LGBTQ community. Part of that report focused on health care and concluded that the needs of the 1,400 people surveyed were not being met at the most basic level, such as doctors not knowing individuals’ sexual orientation.

That realization sent Glenn down an advocacy path that has led him to Medical University of South Carolina where he recently began serving as the hospital’s first-ever director of LGBTQ Health Services and Enterprise Resources. His position is nested under MUSC’s Department of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion.

In his new role, Glenn, a transgender man, is focused on closing the gap of disparity and making access and care more equitable, particularly to the LGBTQ community.

“I’m trans, so it’s personal for me,” Glenn said. “I have always sort of found myself in advocacy type roles. Even as a kid, I always had this sort of sense of right and wrong and what is just or not just in the world.”

The Illinois-native who has lived in Charleston since 2006 will engage internally with MUSC staff and students who identify as LGBTQ, and work to create a safe and welcoming work place for them. Externally, Glenn is challenged with improving health care for the region’s LGBTQ community and expanding education on what the hospital offers.

“LGBTQ folks are experiencing discrimination and hardship in every city and state across the country to some extent… What I found here is that the community is really resilient and strong, I think because they have to be,” he said.

Two jobs prior, Glenn worked as a customer success manager at Blackbaud, where he openly transitioned. He said he couldn’t be more thankful for the support he received from his colleagues, but felt a higher calling in 2017. That summer, he left to become executive director of Alliance for Full Acceptance, an organization in North Charleston that works to achieve equality and acceptance of LGBTQ people. While working there, Glenn joined MUSC’s Safe Zone Advisory Council and began a relationship with the hospital, specifically the DEI office. The partnership has been incredible since, he said.

That advocacy was how Glenn first met Dr. Willette Burnham-Willis, MUSC’s first-ever chief equity officer. MUSC has supported AFFA’s work for years, following along with Glenn’s successes. His LGBTQ needs assessment is one of the many reasons he was hired, Burnham-Willis said.

“His study on LGBTQ health in our regional communities is going to be pivotal in helping us identify where we want to begin to close those gaps,” she said.

Glenn’s new role is part of MUSC’s five-year strategic plan. Back in 2015, the medical system launched an initial focus on care disparity, building a foundation that has helped to launch this next series of work. In addition to eliminating health care disparities in the area, the hospital has a long-range plan of creating a center for LGBTQ care, with a focus on transgender care in particular.

Until recently, transition-related medical care was considered cosmetic by private insurance companies. In 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a ruling stating that under the Affordable Care Act of 2010, individuals were protected from discrimination based on gender equality and sex stereotyping in health care facilities receiving federal money.

Still, for the 1.4 million transgender people in the U.S., according to UCLA’s Williams Institute, finding a health care provider who is knowledgeable about transgender health care is challenging.

“It all goes back to education and laying that ground work of success,” Glenn said. “It’s not about checking a box and saying we’ve done the training; we’ve had the conversation; we’ve updated that form or our mission statement. That isn’t the real change that needs to happen. It’s a continuous process, and it has to go from the bottom up to the top.”

Burnham-Willis thinks MUSC is in a position to take a leading role in academic health centers in terms of modeling what that looks like and being up front about their initiatives.

“We know that there are so many high-risk communities, LGBTQ+ being one of them, where we just have not distributed and given access to health care in the kinds of ways we should to those at-risk and underrepresented communities,” Burnham-Willis said.

Glenn has watched health care equality progress for gay and lesbian individuals, but admitted the needle hasn’t moved along at the same rate for transgender individuals. Burnham-Willis hopes that MUSC will become the hospital the LGBTQ+ community members see as the hospital of choice.

“We want to be their first choice, and we want to be their first choice because we are caring and inclusive and very attentive partner in their health care outcomes,” Burnham-Willis said.

It wasn’t me who drove the plan forward to move to Manchester. It was my boyfriend. He wanted to live in a place where we could live more openly. We’d met in our hometown, a small Yorkshire town called Doncaster. We wanted to live without judgment and Manchester was the closest place to do it. We didn’t do it exactly together, but we moved at roughly the same time. I packed my bags for liberation just shy of my eighteenth birthday.

Oh my gosh, Manchester. It was absolutely eye-opening. I’d been going there for years anyway, because we have family close by, without ever discovering the city center. I only really knew the suburbs. South Manchester, and Chorlton in particular, was full of students and ex- students, which automatically meant that it was the most liberal place I’d ever lived in. We’d go out to the Gay Village around Canal Street and socialize among people who were not only openly gay but openly comfortable with their gayness. It was something I’d just never seen in my hometown, where being gay was still the subject of ridicule, gossip, and scorn. So, the majority of my experiences as a gay man I learned in Manchester.

For me, these were the places where I learned not to hide any of my femininity, at all. On the most basic level, it was about not needing to hide those things that were natural to me that I had felt the need to keep covert before. If I had a limp wrist, I had a limp wrist. A high voice? That’s fine, too. If I wanted to talk about Britney Spears, I could. It made me feel like I was safe to be the person I wanted to be and to no longer have to suppress the things inside of me that had previously been locked away. Because nobody, quite frankly, gave a fuck. I love Manchester for that.

The TV climate of the time was funny. Weird, not haha. It was the start of the millennium. Change felt imminent but not yet fully realized.

Courtesy of Dey Street Books

The Queer Bible: Essays

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The first gay people I saw on TV were the cast of Will & Grace. I’d known there were gay characters in the seventies and eighties, but not many, and I didn’t watch those shows anyway. But I would watch and be fascinated by the world of Will & Grace. What I found so fascinating was how clear it was to me that these people were not a version of me. They were either hyper-stereotyped versions of gayness, like the Jack character, or someone who was obviously played by a straight guy, like Will. Will would try to camp it up slightly but never quite enough to make a gay audience feel absolutely seen. These two extremes seemed to be on TV to make straight people feel comfortable about the idea of watching gay characters. And that was great, truly. They represented the possibilities of what a gay person might look like to that audience. But to a gay man watching the show it wasn’t entirely clear that they took in the multitudes of gayness. What about the men who didn’t have to try to camp it up?

Like I say, that was OK. Will & Grace was a scripted show with a clear intention. But then Queer Eye happened, and my mind was blown. It was the first show I’d watched gripped, where it was very clear that these people were gay, or queer—however they wanted to identify—24/7, around the clock, off camera as well as on. It was an important distinction for me. They talked in their own voices and said what they wanted to say, as identifiably real-life gay men. This was a first for me. The first time I felt like, what? We’re allowed to be ourselves on TV? That is insane.

Even though Queer Eye was—and still is—a makeover show, the presenters said what they wanted to say in their honest voices. They were true queer men. They reimagined what the word “queer” meant to me. Back in the day, when I was growing up, the word was only associated with shame. There was a long time when hearing the word at school sent a shudder through me. I wouldn’t hear it directed at myself because I was stupid enough or clever enough to pretend not to be queer. I can be angry for allowing myself to live that pretense at the time, but I forgive myself now because there was no option to behave any differently and remain unscathed. This is one of the reasons why I get it when people act from a place of shame and deny their true selves. Why did I have to convince these idiots that I was straight? Because the world is not set up for queer people. It’s built around a “straight” model, whatever that is. So sometimes living an imaginary or modified life is a question of survival in small towns. It certainly was then.

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For me, being gay wasn’t a problem, but for other kids it was. “He’s a queer,” “he’s a poof.” That was a language I grew up with as routine. I heard it a lot, even if it wasn’t directed at me, and the whole idea of being gay was equated, in those little moments of casual cruelty, with feeling ashamed of something at your core. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I understood the word to mean something positive. Queer Eye must have triggered that. We’re not something straight; we are something different from that and that’s OK, that’s beautiful. We are queer, and for me, that started to mean different or unique. The word started to shed some of its negativity. Queer Eye had a lot to do with that. Now it fills me with pride to think that I am one of those Queer Eye boys. I’m not dancing to the same beat as everybody else, and that is fine. That makes me feel strong. It’s a source of great power, not having to conform to what people expect of you. I hate the word “normal” anyway, a word that now sounds like more of an insult than queer used to. Who, in all honesty, wants to be that bore?

I’ll be honest. When I got the Queer Eye job I only watched half an episode of the first American series, because I didn’t want to be inspired by the US original Fab Five and become a cheap knock-off of Carson. I didn’t want to subconsciously channel him in any way. But the British version had changed something in me back then in Chorlton when it ended up popping on my TV one night. It chimed with my new life.

I can remember it coming on the TV as if it was yesterday. I was sitting with my boyfriend and was immediately struck by how fab these guys really were, in the best and worst possible way for the early 2000s. It was so weird that they referenced their life outside of the show, something actors on scripted drama or comedy could never do. They were naturally funny and charismatic and, most importantly, naturally queer. That felt so different to a script. It was so nice to imagine what their life might look like outside of the show—these men who didn’t take off the costume of a gay man and disappear back to the arms of their girlfriends.

Its appeal wasn’t that it was a makeover show and that I couldn’t wait to see the next episode. That it was nice, it was entertaining. What was truly revolutionary for me was that I was able to talk about it with my boyfriend and my friends, knowing that they were going back to their boyfriends or partners or however they articulated their queerness in a real way. That impacted me in the most positive way. It was something I simply hadn’t seen before. Somebody on TV allowed to talk about what their life was like outside the show was something I had never experienced before. It brought a 360-degree gay experience right into the home. Not something that someone turned off and on for the camera. These men were working together—who knows what their relationships were like off screen, but on screen they were helping somebody improve their lives by bringing their own, rounded, fully gay experience to bear on the most important aspects of their lives. Gay men were useful, at last! Gay men weren’t the butt of the joke anymore or wheeled on as a joke for comedic relief. Their opinions and expertise were respected, and their “gayness,” that point of difference, was central. That they were introducing their experiences to other people in an affirmative, positive way made the show somehow holistic. “Queer” suddenly felt like the opposite of shame.

Adapted from THE QUEER BIBLE by Jack Guinness, published by Dey Street Books. Copyright © 2021 by Tan France. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollinsPublishers

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This story was originally published by North Carolina Health News.

When the Wake County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and the LGBT Center of Raleigh created mental health support groups for LGBTQ people struggling with mental illness, they didn’t expect to garner membership from across the country.

Those virtual spaces not only hosted youth from rural areas normally out of their reach in North Carolina, but also young people from Florida, California and even Canada.

“It was interesting to see how many people were finding this group as something that they wanted,” said Annie Schmidt, executive director of NAMI of Wake County.

Since the dawn of the internet, members of the LGBTQ community have created and used virtual spaces to find community and support. Because the COVID-19 pandemic forced many aspects of life online, digital mental health “safe spaces” have made their mark as a crucial resource.

Like other marginalized groups, the LGBTQ community has been disproportionately affected by the mental toll of the pandemic.

More than 80% of LGBTQ youth ages 13-24 surveyed by the Trevor Project, an organization that provides crisis and suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, said the pandemic made their living situation more stressful. Some 70% of those surveyed said they had “poor” mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Schmidt said she reached out to the LGBT Center of Raleigh to see what resources they could provide to help. The LGBT Center identified a gap when it came to LGBTQ youth.

“Our goal is to be supporting the mental health needs of everyone in all communities,” Schmidt said. “And we know that there are a lot of disparities within the LGBT community. A lot of it’s due to trauma and discrimination.”

The result was a virtual mental health peer support group that has met twice a month on Zoom since September 2020. The group is open to people of all ages, but it skews young, said facilitator Peg Morrison, who is also the director of programs at the state chapter of NAMI.

Because the group is peer support, that means that everyone attending, including both of the two facilitators, can raise their hands and say they both struggle with a mental health problem and are a member of the LGBTQ community.

Continuing Legacy Of Virtual LGBTQ Spaces

LGBTQ youth have persevered through the pandemic to make spaces where they have community, said Lora Pilcher, youth and family initiative coordinator at the LGBT Center of Raleigh.

Some of the youngest members of the center have created virtual spaces on Discord, a platform that had previously been used predominantly by gamers. There, they can chat, watch movies and even play video games together on a private server that is safe and moderated by the center, Pilcher said.

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“Throughout the pandemic they kind of supported each other in everything from socially transitioning, trouble with parents, trouble of coming out or being back in the closet because they’re stuck at home and not an affirming space, to just helping each other with homework,” Pilcher said. “It’s just been a really supportive and affirming space.”

Ash Hiser, a transgender man who founded TransGens, a discussion group for parents and their transgender or gender non-conforming children co-sponsored by the center, when he was in high school, said platforms like Discord helped fill the gap of in-person meet-ups.

“It’s a nice way to make connections outside of the official group setting where you may only see someone once a week or once a month, depending on what events you go to or whatever,” Hiser said.

But since the internet’s inception, LGBTQ people have found community on the internet, said JP Przewoznik, clinical assistant professor of social work at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work.

“In a lot of ways, despite mainstream society, we have found ways to connect with each other to mitigate loneliness,” Przewoznik said.

“My site to mitigate loneliness was not a virtual space,” Przewoznik said. “It was a physical space. It was a brick-and-mortar location known as the gay bar, a place that kind of is going out of existence. But these sort of chat rooms serve similar purposes.”

A Hybrid Model

“Virtual spaces have been and continue to be incredibly important for LGBTQ+ people in general,” Przewoznik said. “They are spaces where we are able to find comrades who are sharing our lived experiences to some degree. So I see that continuing and growing.”

But the LGBTQ community is not a monolith, they said, and so the pandemic affected different parts of the community in nuanced ways.

Many of the conversations the TransGens group has had are the same as before the pandemic, Hiser said. Virtual living gave some transgender youth who were newly out the opportunity to adjust to living as their authentic selves.

“If someone is newly out,” Hiser said, “they’re able to get more comfortable with their families and with themselves at home without having to also deal with the kids at school and stuff like that. There’s challenges as well, like with some of the learning systems that they use online, it’s hard for people to maybe change their names on there.”

Some support group regulars before the pandemic dropped off when programs transitioned online, Pilcher and Schmidt said, while new members who would not have been able to join the in-person groups due to geographic or transportation reasons have flocked to the programming.

To make the groups more inclusive, NAMI Wake County also provides digital safe spaces for those who may not be able to access their programming at home, so people can access reliable WiFi from inside their cars at various points throughout the county.

Originally, the goal was to transition the NAMI LGBT support groups to in-person at the LGBT Center of Raleigh once the pandemic eased. But because virtual programs have become such a vital resource to people outside of the geographic area, a hybrid model has become the goal.

“We decided to have it virtual with the pandemic,” Schmidt said. “And once we’re both operating programs more in person, our goal is to be able to offer it in person as well but still have a virtual component.”

For some people, K-12 schools are a safe space, Przewoznik said, depending on whether there are supportive adults and also whether students have unsupportive or violent home environments. For others, schools are not a safe space. A 2018 survey by the Human Rights Campaign found only a quarter of LGBTQ youth say they feel safe at school.

In that same vein, while virtual spaces have been revolutionary for some members of the community, others without access to broadband and other resources that would allow them to go on the internet could be excluded.

“We really have to have to invest in centering the most marginalized among us as LGBTQ+ people,” Przewoznik said, “to ensure that folks who do not have access to the sort of level of resources that, let’s say, people like myself have are getting what they need to thrive, and are able to feel in community and are able to feel like they are getting their psychological needs met.”

North Carolina Health News is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina. Visit NCHN at northcarolinahealthnews.org.