Rainbow Cafe held its 24th anniversary gala on Oct. 5 at 6:00 p.m. at the Carbondale Civic Center. Members and community came together for a night of fun educational information and rekindling with old members and friends.
The night included a drag show from two queens, Ceduixion Carrington and Jayden Licious, and live music from Curt Wilson. Speakers of the night included the cafe’s Executive Director Carrie Vine, Rainbow Cafe staff Alex Waller, and keynote speaker of the night Planned Parenthood of Illinois CEO Jennifer Welch.
Advertisement
According to the brochure for the event, the Rainbow Cafe was fully established on Sept. 15, 2000 after organizing since the spring.
Former member Tim Rice had the idea to start the group as a safe space and collaborated with the Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship and the Church of Good Shepherd to get the organization off the ground.
“It’s a good way for us to talk about what goals we have achieved this year, what we’re looking forward to in the future,” said Rainbow Cafe employee Cy Chamberlain. “People mingle and get connected and, you know, just try to come together and work on the same mission.”
Advertisement*
This is Chamberlain’s third gala and second one as an employee. She works as a community health worker(CHW) at the cafe and is taking SIU School of Medicine’s certified recovery support specialist.
“So Rainbow Cafe also has something called RCHW, which is Rainbow Cafe Health and Wellness and we are very close to getting certified to be able to bill people’s Medicaid,” Chamberlain said.
As a CHW Chamberlain said they help people navigate resources, working with unhoused people to get government benefits like Link and health insurance.
“What our objective is is to help people get the resources they need, to help pull them from a lifestyle that may be really destructive and self-harming and show them that there’s a better way,” said Chamberlain.
Founding member Mary Campbell was in attendance and said the biggest challenge for establishing the organization was finding the locations and finding adults to get involved.
“We couldn’t have the teens there by themselves, they had to have supervision, you know, but it was just a matter of the word getting out and finding people to be able to do that supervision,” Campbell said. “Part of it because we really didn’t need a lot of money at first, because we were using spaces that were nonprofits.”
Campbell said one of the spaces they used to use was the Church of the Good Sheperd, but felt it was an awkward environment and fidning their own space was important.
“I don’t even remember where we where they finally ended up, because they went through so many different places to meet,” Campbell said. “I went to Minnesota for a while, and when I came back, they were meeting out on giant city road in the area.”
Campbell said one of the main things was to keep their faith up and it was slowly built to what it is today. She never expected it to get as big as it is today.
“Finally coming up with a permanent place, people believing in the Rainbow Cafe enough to financially support that,” Campbell said. “Our reputation has grown outside of Carbondale so that we get support from other people.”
One thing to know about the cafe is the outreach outside of Carbondale, Campbell said. The Rainbow Cafe is in contact with other southern Illinois towns working with mental health departments offering high school students sometimes coming to the cafe for support and services.
The Rainbow Cafe has grown into so much more than just a safe space. It’s become a community resource not just for health services, but various group bonding and community events.
“The best thing is we have this wonderful building right down on the strip, and it’s permanent,” Campbell said. “People can find us, and we have wonderful employees. I love our employees.”
Vine invited Welch, the Planned Parenthood of Illinois CEO, to be the keynote speaker for the event because of the current state of reproductive choice and gender affirming care, she said.
“Supporting bodily autonomy and making sure that that is something that we’re working towards as a community. I was just like, ‘Hey, Jennifer, could you speak?’” Vine said.
One of the cafe’s newest services is its Behavioral Health Center and the health center being able to write letters for patients who are seeking gender-affirming care, Vine said.
“A lot of insurance providers require that, and so we’ve been working with Planned Parenthood as far as, like, making sure that our letters are sufficient for them to receive care,” Vine said. “I’m also a big believer in reproductive justice as well. You know, reproductive justice is LGBTQ justice. It’s all the same.”
Welch said when Planned Parenthood of Illinois heard the cafe was building the health center she reached out to Vine to connect with people in Carbondale that focus on sexual and reproductive health.
“What we know right now is that the issues that are most important to us, bodily autonomy, access to care, gender identity and just the ability to be who you really are,” Welch said. “That has become so polarized in our country, and it’s important that people recognize that.”
It’s important to be in rooms speaking about the reality of the state of our world and how everything doesn’t need to be political and polarized, Welch said.
Welch said a typical day at the health center will see patients from seven different states looking for services not available in their states.
“80% of the abortion patients at that health center come from another state,” Welch said. “80% there are like health care refugees, who are forced to travel for the most simple care that they need and deserve, and their states have made it impossible to get.”
The main reason people travel to Illinois is abortion services with the second being gender-affirming care, Welch said.
“Which is what makes our partnership with Rainbow Cafe so important, because people are being forced to travel for their care,” Welch said. “We refer patients and clients to Rainbow Cafe, probably every day.”
During her speech Welch opened up by thanking all the supporters of Rainbow Cafe and supporters of their collaboration because nonprofits can’t thrive without their supporters, donors, volunteers and others who give their time.
“We’re serving patients all the way from Waukegan, which is right near the Wisconsin border, to places like Flossmoor and Champaign near the Indiana border,” Welch said. “Most importantly, here in Carbondale.”
The focus of Illinois’ borders and bordering states is because of the limited care that is still provided in Illinois, Welch said.
“We are surrounded by states that are hostile to bodily autonomy that do not believe, like we all do, that people have the right to make their choices about when and whether to have a family,” Welch said.
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Welch said they have seen patients travel from 40 different states come to Illinois
“We are amazingly fortunate that when they get here, if they get here, we are able to provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care every day at all of our health centers and via telehealth,” Welch said “We provide a full spectrum of care.”
Welch said along with having gender-affirming care in Carbondale it’s provided in 16 other health centers around the state.
“We’re also really proud of our pre and post exposure, HIV work and all of our prevention education that we are offering lightly,” Welch said. “We received a five-year grant from the federal government to investigate HIV prevention amongst black women, who are the single largest group that is gaining most likely to have a new HIV diagnosis. So we are really focused on that community right now.”
Welch touched on the Peoria Health Center that reopened in the summer after being firebombed last year by Tyler Massengill, who’s serving 10 years in federal prison for his crimes. It took over a year and more than $1 million dollars to even get it back open, she said.
“For that year, people in the central Illinois community of Peoria didn’t have the STI testing and treatment that they were used to getting at Planned Parenthood,” Welch said. “They didn’t have the HIV prevention and the gender affirming care and access to family planning and well patient checks.”
The opposition claims to help patients, but the experience Planned Parenthood has seen is they’re actually harming people, Welch said.
“They’re scaring patients, they’re misinforming patients, and that’s just people trying to get the health care that they need and deserve,” Welch said. “They have to come through a bunch of protesters who are threatening them and challenging them about the health care choices that patients are making that day.”
Welch said now is the time more than ever for women to keep in mind the politicians in the U.S. that demonstrate their disdain for the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized groups.
“And if you care about a person’s right to decide when they start a family, if you care about the LGBTQ+ community, if you care about health equity, if you care about reproductive justice, if you care about bodily autonomy, that you care about this election,” Welch said. “I want you to vote about those concerns.”
Mary Campbell
- well, there were members of the Carbondale Unitarian fellowship and members of the Church of the Good Shepherd and some the leadership in both of those, Bill Sasso and Kim McGuire, have talked about needing a group for teens that were somewhere on the spectrum of their sexuality and it was would be a safe place to meet. And so we just got together and brainstormed and talked about how we could do that and where we could do that, and where we could do it turned out to be the hardest thing, because there wasn’t, there wasn’t any really good space for the group to meet that we felt was private enough, even at the churches. You know it was, and they finally did start meeting at church of the Good Shepherd. But it was awkward trying to have our stuff with their stuff, because one of the things we had was condoms, and so trying to find a space. And I don’t even remember where we where they finally ended up, because they went through so many through so many different places to meet. And then they finally, they finally went, because I went to Minnesota for a while, and when I came back, they were meeting out on giant city road in the area there. But it was the other thing that was really difficult, was trying to get adults who would want to work. And because we couldn’t have the teens there by themselves, they had to have supervision, you know, but it was just a matter of the word getting out and finding people to be able to do that supervision, part of it because we really didn’t need a lot of money at first, because we were using spaces that were nonprofits. And we could, we could do that, but, you know, and it was, it took a while, and it took a while for us to get enough kids. That was the other thing was trying it just slowly did by word of mouth. So that’s why it took one of the other things was one of the members of the founding board. I don’t remember which of the two ministers she talked to, but she had a son who was gay and she and he, because he would come to the he was sometimes the board means to felt he needed a social place to go that was safe, you know, which makes sense, yeah, that kind of thing. But it was, it was just a matter of keeping the faith as was slowly built. And, like I said, and then, and I don’t know, because, like I said, that the place out of giant city road took place while I was in Minnesota, but it was finally getting enough community people seeing the thing it is now. I mean, never in a million years, when you started this, did I realize how big we would get, yeah, yeah, because, and I think in some ways it shows the difference between then,
- and the attitude of the communities because, and, oh my god, Carrie’s just finding stuff, you know, but actually, finally coming up with a permanent place, people believing in the rainbow Cafe enough to support financially support that, and so that they it is still going, and we just keep adding programs in that kind of stuff. And we’ve actually kind of been our reputation has grown outside of Carbondale so that we get support from other people. People ask us to do stuff. People ask our staff to go and do trainings and things like that. But you know, it really and it’s like I said, Now that they have the space they have, it makes it possible to do not just the Friday night gathering. Programs have slowly been added, both for medical reasons, and and then having programs like reading groups and movies and discussion groups, and, I mean, whatever you know, whatever they want to do, they now have the space to do all that kind of work. So it was, it’s just been amazing to watch it grow and keep expanding the need to the expanding needs of the community, because they do HIV testing, you know, they whatever. Now. They do all kinds of things for people with health issues so they can come in. They’ve always had free contacts during covid. They had free covid tests. You know, yeah. And so they try to keep things that the community might need. The community members maybe don’t have the money or scared to, you know, and condoms have always been available. I started that at when I was working at Good Sam and would get them to the health department. But that kind of stuff, they’ve always testing what’s available to meet the health needs of the different individuals who walk through the front door. They don’t ask ages, you know, you can, you can be anonymous, you know, that kind of stuff. It’s and then, of course, I had nothing to do with that, but Billy did. Now, there’s a group for the elders, you know, called Chris. So, yeah, yeah. So
- I have absolutely no idea what day our first meeting was. I remember it was a Unitarian fellowship, but what the date was go, I had bill might remember, but I sure don’t. And
- financially, I’m in my 70s. Now, staying up late at night is not one of my things, But yeah, I do. I do support it, you know, and like things during the daytime, or when their community activities, when people need to be out, and the tables and stuff like that. So yeah,
- I don’t know whether I’ve attended every single one or not, because I don’t,
- well, if I’m here and I know about it, so that’s why I’m trying to remember. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t remember how many pound the galas have been going, but it’s too much fun not to come, because you get to see all your friends. You get to meet new friends. There’s all kinds of things that like the like, we’re having the silent on auction. So that’s one of our big besides the gala, that’s one of our big fundraisers. And you give it gives our, our members, a way to get their their stuff out. you know, get it exposed so people can see what our members can do.
- I can’t remember her name with the Speaker
- but, but, you know it, I feel that we’ve gotten a lot of good support from different groups. But then, then choices, treats, trans people and that is very, very important. In the very, very beginning, they’ve always known that they could go there, yeah, for healthcare. And that sometimes is very difficult for some of our members to get to, you know, and, but that’s, that’s one of the reasons why, why I feel they’re really, really good partners, is that our members, no matter what their age, are able to get medical care and not have to go to St Louis or someplace else to get some of the, some of the care they might need. So, yeah, so I think that’s really lucky.
- Rainbow Cafe does a lot of outreach, and I really, I mean, and it really have all different kind of types. So if people like, we have picnics and things like that, you know, community activities, so that if people feel awkward about walking into the cafe center, but I wish more people felt comfortable doing that, you know. But the best thing is we have this wonderful building right down on the strip, and it’s permanent, we don’t, I mean that that’s that’s another thing is that we have permanent facilities now so that people can Find us, and we have wonderful employees. I love our employees. They are so good. They’re so helpful and so welcoming. You know that? Yeah? So I think, yeah. So anyway, it’s just,
- I think we’re really, I don’t whether the community realizes it or not, but one of the things is too is that communities in this southern Illinois area who do not have the welcoming vibe that Carbondale does, our staff has been able to reach out to a couple of those, and those that can’t come here, they try to make opportunities. They work with, usually the mental health departments in other counties, so that high school students can come in there and get support there. So we, I mean, we just, it isn’t just Carbondale. There’s a couple of towns that we work in. So, yeah,
Cy Chamberlain
- I’m coming up on two years. So as an employee, I did a little volunteer work before that.
- Well, I think community is incredibly important, especially as a queer person and a trans woman, every everyone needs to feel like they belong somewhere, and that place that they feel like they need to belong needs to be safe and validating and acceptance. And I didn’t have that for a long time growing up, and so I know what it feels like to feel like you don’t like have anyone, and you’re just weird and no one supports you. So yeah, and as a community health worker, I use my experiences with, you know, struggles with mental illness and addiction and suffering from homelessness, and I’ve been able to pull myself up from that, and I want to show other people that it’s possible.
- So right now I’m a CHW, which is community health worker. I’m currently enrolled in Siu School of Medicine’s CRSS class, which is certified recovery support specialist, that is a class for people who have lived experiences with mental illness and addiction. And basically what our objective is is to help people get the resources they need, to help pull them from a lifestyle that may be really destructive and self harming and show them that there’s a better way.
- we so one of the things I do a lot is just to help people navigate the system to be connected with resources they need. I’ve worked with a lot of homeless people who need, you know, like Link, like, they need to be on food stamps, they need health insurance. They need all these different services for them to live a better life. And so as a community health worker for Rainbow cafe, that’s my job to help them navigate that system that is so over complex to deter people from navigating it.
- I think personally, it’s just part of trying to help people heal and like, it’s a community. It’s a resource center for people to come in that feel like they don’t have anyone, and we help them get established into the community. You know, we it is a place where, how do I put this? It’s a place basically where, like an outsider can come in and feel like they have a community. Yeah? I mean, I am saying the same thing over but yeah, it’s rainbow cafe for me. Is a family, honestly, yeah, yeah.
- so I’m a huge nerd. I like building computers. I like technology. I have a creative knack for writing. I mean, I write a lot of poetry. I’m currently working on a short story. So I have some hobbies that help me regulate my emotions in a more positive way than just, like, trying to escape from
- So this is my, I think my third one, but my second one as an employee,
- pretty much similar? It’s a good way for us to talk about what goals we have achieved this year and what we’re looking forward to in the future. And it’s, you know, people mingle and get connected and, you know, just try to come together and work on the same mission.
- So we, we have a health clinic now. So rainbow Cafe also has something called RCHW, which is Rainbow Cafe health and wellness. And we are very close to getting certified to be able to build people’s Medicaid. So we’re, yeah, we are currently accepting patients on a cash basis, but once we get that certification completed, we can take people who are on, you know, Medicaid, and go from there. So yeah, all right, well, I
- just that I’m really grateful that it exists. This is something I wish I would have had when I was younger, and it’s, it’s important, especially for youth, to feel like they belong to a family and that accepts them. you know. So, yeah, I just, I have a lot of respect for what we do.
- I’ve lived in Carbondale for about coming up on six years now. I moved from Marion, so I have a lot of experience with what it feels like to not be in a more progressive college town. Marion is very much the opposite of what it is here. So but yeah, I’ve been here about six years.
Jennifer Welch-Interview
- About a year ago, Planned Parenthood knew that we were going to open a new Health Center here in Carbondale and Carrie was one of the first people that I reached out to for advice about the Carbondale Community, and to meet other folks who were progressive and concerned about sexual and reproductive health. So I think that we were trying to remember, I think it might have been the folks from equality Illinois who introduced us, because I was there the year you guys got the award. Actually presented the award to you through equality Illinois.
- You know, it’s a lot of what Carrie said, what we know right now is that the issues that are most important to us, bodily autonomy, access to care, gender identity and just the ability to be who you really are, that is become so polarized in your country, and it’s important that people recognize that. What I’ve been saying all day today, because we’ve had a lot of political events today, is there’s way more of us than there are the opposition. Most people get it most people support access to healthcare. Most people support anybody taking the gender identity that is appropriate for themselves, but the opposition is so vocal that people think there’s more opposition than there really is. So for me, it’s just about being in rooms and being affirming of the reality of our world, that it doesn’t have to be politicized. It doesn’t have to be polarized. Most folks support people having access to care. Most folks support bodily autonomy.
- It is working out really well. Yesterday was a pretty typical day at the health center, and we saw people from seven different states, and that’s kind of average. 80% of the abortion patients at that health center come from another state. 80% there are like health care refugees, who are forced to travel for the most simple care that they need and deserve, and their states have made it impossible to get. And the number one reason why they travel to us is abortion. And the number two reason why they travel is gender affirming care, which is what makes our partnership with rainbow Cafe so important, because people are being forced to travel for their care, which is so necessary for their health and well being and their identity and their affirmation, and
- And we refer patients and clients to Rainbow cafe, probably every day,
- Well, I think the sad news is the Supreme Court is locked in for a generation right like the people that the former president put on the Supreme Court are the youngest, the most ideological, the most conservative, and we’re going to be stuck with them for a freaking generation. So it’s not just us who are going to be impacted. It’s Carrie’s kids who are impacted by it. This is going to go on for a really long time, and honestly, I’m going to talk about my in remarks. The Dobbs decision, which overturned 50 years of access to abortion, is a freaking roadmap for elimination of some of the care that is most important to us. It lays out the way to to take away gay marriage. It lays out the way to eliminate lethal access to birth control. And I feel like our country is really at risk no matter what happens in the election, because the Supreme Court is ruined for a generation.
- I hope that it’ll just be easier for our patients. Part of the reason why we picked Carbondale is it’s the direct train line from not only Nashville, but from New Orleans, and we have patients from Louisiana coming to us now, and so it’s part of the reason why we chose it. And we want it to be easy to get patients here, push on the train. Person, I’ll be on the train first thing tomorrow morning,
- I don’t think anything right now. I feel like right now, we’re all just trying to survive.
Carrie Vine
- just because I believe right now it’s such it’s so important to have reproductive choice, to have gender affirming choice, and those kinds of things, and those are all things that Planned Parenthood totally supports, and so supporting bodily autonomy and making sure that that is something that we’re working towards as a community. I was just like, hey, Jennifer, could you speak? She’s like, of course, you know, sounds like,
- we are we just now, recently opened a behavioral health center so we are able to actually write letters for gender affirming care. A lot of insurance providers require that, and so we’ve been working with Planned Parenthood as far as, like, making sure that our letters are sufficient for them to receive care, for the patients to receive care. And so we’ve been collaborating with that. We’re, I’m also a big believer in reproductive justice as well. You know, reproductive justice is LGBTQ justice. It’s all the same. You know, you talk about bodily autonomy. So we’ve been working with that and providing rides and as much support as we can. Very grateful.
- They’re supportive, just supportive services. We have a lot of support groups too, and case management services and those kinds of things cool.
Jennifer Welch- Gala Speech
- I should just leave now. That was amazing. And Carrie was talking about the height difference between her and Alex, and I was like, Wait till I get up there, six feet in these shoes. So there’s a big height difference now, all right, so hello, everyone. My name is Jennifer. My pronouns are she her, and I am so proud to be the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Illinois,
- I’m also really grateful to be with you here tonight, as Carrie said, it’s a great opportunity to talk with new and old friends. We are very fortunate at Planned Parenthood to partner with the rainbow cafe. Carrie was one of the first people that I turned to, and we were introduced by our good friends at equality Illinois. And when Planned Parenthood started thinking about building a Health Center in southern Illinois, Carrie was one of the first people that I spoke with, and we have really involved, become more involved in each other’s organizations since then, and we’re really fortunate to have partners like rainbow cafe and partners like every one of you in this room, because Carrie and I run complicated and very necessary nonprofits, and we know that we cannot function without you, our supporters, our donors, our friends, our volunteers, our family members who get roped into working for us no matter what nonprofit we’re currently serving. I know I’m sitting with Carrie’s family over there, and I know there’s a lot of unpaid work in nonprofit work when you’re a family member. So tonight, I want to tell you a little bit about Planned Parenthood of Illinois, because I do think that a lot of folks don’t understand the full range of what we provide to our patients and our communities. We now have 17 health centers across the state of Illinois.
- We’re serving patients all the way from Waukegan, which is right near the Wisconsin border, to places like Flossmoor and Champaign near the Indiana border, and most importantly, here in Carbondale, and we’ve been open a little less than A year here in Carbondale,
- I focus on those border locations when I talk because we have become the state of Illinois a haven for both abortion and gender affirming care. We are surrounded by states that are hostile to bodily autonomy that do not believe, like we all do, that people have the right to make their choices about when and whether to have a family, that people have the ability and deserve the right to choose what medications They need to affirm their identity. Those are the things that our neighbor states don’t share those values with us here in Illinois, and so Carbondale has become this haven for care since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, it’s been over two years now, and in that time, Planned Parenthood of Illinois has served patients from 40 different states.
- I’m starting to think of these people as health care refugees. They’re forced by their hostile home safe to travel to care here in Illinois. Now, we are amazingly fortunate that when they get here, if they get here, we are able to provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care every day at all of our health centers and via telehealth, we provide a full spectrum of care. The matter of fact is the number one service that we provide across the state, and Planned Parenthood is STI testing and treatment. The second most common service is birth control and every form of family planning. Here in Carbondale, we also are providing all of the other services like gender affirming care HIV prevention and testing. And, of course, abortion, and I want you to help me give a shout out to the amazing carbondale. team, many of whom are here today.
- Those are the people working every day to serve those healthcare refugees that are forced by their hostile states to come to travel. We were just talking yesterday. Yesterday was a pretty average day at the Carbondale Health Center, and they served patients from seven other states every freaking day people are forced to travel here for care, and thank the Goddess that when they get here, they need this incredible team.
- And that’s why I’m especially proud of the care that we’re providing here in Carbondale, but across the state, we are providing care. We provide gender affirming care at all 17 of our health centers, and that’s more than any other provider in the state of Illinois. We’re very proud of that work. we’re also really proud of our pre and post exposure, HIV work and all of our prevention education that we are offering lightly. Most recently, it’s just been a couple of months. Now, we’re still getting used to this. We received a five year grant from the federal government to investigate HIV prevention amongst black women, who are the single largest group that is gaining most likely to have a new HIV diagnosis. So we are really focused on that community right now.
- I just wanted to give the full background of what we are doing in the state, because I think that what the services that groups like Planned Parenthood and the rainbow Cafe are offering right now have become both politicized and polarizing right like what we are doing is providing the care that patients want and need and deserve. We are providing life saving and life changing services to clients from many places in our state and outside of our state, and it’s our opposition that is mischaracterizing and and using the vital services that we provide to further divide people in our country and and I just, I always like to give the baseline of what we’re really doing, so that when you hear the mythology about what’s happening, you can help correct it. You know what’s really happening? You know that we reopened our Peoria health center earlier this year. The health center was firebombed. That’s right, right here in the relative safety of Illinois, our Peoria Health Center was firebombed and completely destroyed by the opposition. It took us more than a year and more than a million dollars to rebuild that site, and for that year, people in the central Illinois Community of Peoria didn’t have the STI testing and treatment that they were used to getting at Planned Parenthood, they didn’t have the HIV prevention and the gender affirming care and the access to family planning and well patient checks, those are all of the things that the opposition takes away from the community and threatens from the community, from Having and I know a lot of you drive by our Health Center here in Carbondale, you drive by Alamo, you drive by choices, and you see the opposition that’s out there every day. They are claiming to be helping patients or trying to help patients, but what we experience is that they’re harming patients, they’re scaring patients, they’re misinforming patients, and that’s just people trying to get the health care that they need and deserve, and they have to come through a bunch of protesters who are threatening them and challenging them about the health care choices that patients are making that day. All of that is to say that now more than ever, we need to speak up for organizations like the rainbow cafe and Planned Parenthood, because we know that sexual and reproductive health care is under attack like never before in our country. I was talking with the reporter earlier today, and what we saw in the Dobbs decision, and that’s the decision that overturned 50 years of legal precedent and eliminated access, legal access to abortion in our country. What we saw in the Dobbs decision is a roadmap to the end of marriage equality, what we saw in the Dobbs decision is a roadmap to the end of legal contraception. They have laid out their plans, and the Supreme Court is increasingly dangerous, and we’re going to have them for a long time, because it’s a very young and very conservative Supreme Court. So we really need to know what’s at stake in our communities right now. This is not a political event. I get that we’re running nonprofits. We’re not going to talk about politics, but one month from now, there’s an election, and I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m just going to ask, please vote. Vote your values, because we have so much at risk at this time right now, I was furious that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, but I wasn’t surprised, because they told us what they were going to do, and then they did it. And so I encourage every woman to keep in mind that there are politicians out there right now who, every day demonstrate their disdain for the lgtp, lgt, pq, plus all of our communities. That’s the challenge that we’re facing right now. They tell us what they think about us all day. They tell us what they think about people who can get pregnant, and what they think we should be doing with our lives. We know better. And if you care about a person’s right to decide when they start a family, if you care about the LGBTQ plus community, if you care about health equity, if you care about reproductive justice, if you care about bodily autonomy, that you care about this election, and I want you to vote about those concerns. It’s a tough place
- to end, but I know that we are a community that cares for people, and you’re demonstrating it by being here, by supporting amazing organizations like the rainbow cafe and Planned Parenthood. And I just want you to know how grateful I am for this community that you have built in Carbondale, and for how welcoming you have been to those of us at Planned Parenthood. Thank you.
Advertisement