BIPOC community – Queer Silicon Valley

Angelica Cortez

October 30, 2024October 23, 2024 by queer silicon valley team

Dr. Angelica Cortez, community activist, social entrepreneur, and founder and executive director of LEAD Filipino, brings almost two decades of experience in public policy, advocacy, and community development work to the nonprofit. The organization is dedicated to grassroots leadership, culturally responsive education, health equity, and civic literacy in the FilAm community. LEAD stands for Leadership, Education, Activism and Dialogue.

While working with the California Immigrant Policy Center and State Assemblymember Rich Gordon, Cortez focused on health and human services issues statewide. She fought for state legislation on corporate board diversity while serving as vice president of Racial Justice and Equity for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Cortez is the first senior vice president of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for Pacific Clinics, a mental and behavioral health service provider. She also advocates for LGBTQ+ leadership, health equity, social justice, and Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) political engagement.

“I’m a product of my people and will spend my days working toward community advancement,” she said.

Cortez grew up in an immigrant, working class community in Pittsburg, an East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Her father spent his early years in the Philippines and immigrated to San Francisco with his family to the United States. Her mother came from a blended family of Guamanian, Japanese, Filipino, Dutch, and Irish heritage. Cortez was raised with rich Filipino and Guamanian customs and traditions emblematic of her culture, including strong family values around service, unity, and collective stewardship.

“I’m very driven by my cultural heritage, my identity, social groups, and causes but also the intersections of being a member of the LGBTQ+ community,” she said, adding in second grade she had a crush on a girl. “I had this attraction but didn’t really understand what it meant.”

Cortez kept her feelings to herself, as they were at odds with her religious Catholic upbringing. Her family attended church on Sundays, where Cortez sang in the choir and read the mass to the congregation. She and her sisters also helped their mother, a Eucharistic minister, bring communion to the sick and homebound.

Although her sisters teased her for being the family’s golden child, lacking gay role models, Cortez felt confused and alone.

“I knew it wasn’t right in the eyes of a devout Catholic family,” she said. “I hid who I was for a long time. I didn’t come out until I was 25.”

In college, Cortez realized she had overcompensated during high school. She was a high achiever academically and athletically and involved with extracurricular activities.

Joining in student activism and a Filipino American student organization Akbayan, at San Jose State University brought her a sense of connection and cultural pride. But through the years, she faced stereotyping.

“I have a million stories of people making lazy assumptions about my sexuality and my husband and my kids at home,” she said. “When they look at me, they see an Asian woman. Because of that, folks would ask me if my favorite Disney princess was Mulan? I’d say that’s a different Asian. I’m Filipina.”

People would also ask if she was into Hello Kitty. “I didn’t mean any disrespect to Hello Kitty,” Cortez laughed, “but just because I’m Asian doesn’t mean I have an affinity for Hello Kitty.”

While at SJSU, having studied political science, grassroots movements, power building, and civil rights strategies, Cortez became aware of social injustice and the importance of public service and representation. As Community and Political Affairs Chair of a Filipino American organization, she helped bring over 200 Eastside Union High School District students to SJSU to attend workshops on college applications and financial aid.

“For a lot of these kids, they were the first in their family to go to college,” she said. “Being able to make a small imprint in their trajectory filled my heart. A lot of them went on to pursue their own journeys in advocacy, activism, civil rights work, running campaigns, working as legislative staffers, and working in the public sector. It’s gratifying to know that I had a piece in that.”

About 16 years later, Cortez was among many community leaders to help launch Delano Manongs Park in East San Jose, the first park in San Jose and among one of the few in the country named in honor of the Manongs, the Filipino American labor leaders that fought for farmworker rights and protections throughout the 1960s.

Although she was initially slow to reveal to friends that she was queer, starting a romantic relationship emboldened her. Being young and in love with a woman at college helped her live her truth, she said, and find the courage to fully come out to herself.

“For me, it was standing in the mirror and saying to myself, ‘You love women. You are lesbian.’ And being okay with that and smiling back at myself,” she said, “and walking with my head held high.”

She was determined to live fully and openly, sharing who she was, regardless of the consequences.

“If my people rock with me and love me, then they’ll walk toward me,” she told herself. “And those that don’t will walk away.”

Today, when working with young students, she urges them to come out to themselves first. Through LEAD Filipino, she partners with other queer organizers to create emotionally and psychologically safe spaces. They provide culturally responsive programs that share stories and celebrate queerness in FilAm and AAPI communities.

Cortez said she was privileged to have her family’s love and support when she came out and appreciates being able to be her true self. She and a close cousin both came out to each other’s surprise and delight.

Cortez was motivated to create LEAD Filipino around issues impacting the Filipino American community, such as system gaps, economic hardship, food insecurity, cultural education, housing, and social justice.

Her career took off after finishing an internship at City Hall and joining the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits, where CEO Patricia Gardner became her mentor as well as a second mom.

Through participating in the Filipino Memorial Project from 2008 to 2012, she learned lessons in advocacy, fundraising and building neighborhood buy-in while working to have a mural commissioned at the Milpitas Library depicting the Delano Manongs. The project included outreach to student organizations, letter writing, and testifying at city commission meetings.

Cortez also worked as a legislative staffer with state Assembly member Rich Gordon, who was openly gay and chair of the LGBTQ caucus. She helped staff his portfolio on Health and Human Services and oversaw the internship program in the district office. A bill to include LGBTQ+ history in school books was passed but not yet implemented, she said.

These early professional experiences would influence her decision to one day start her own community organization.

Not seeing a FilAm voice among lobbyists advocating for policy and civic issues, along with attending the Asian Pacific American Leadership Institute APALI), crystallized her desire for coalition building.

Cortez wanted to start an organization to increase FilAm civic literacy and civic representation. In 2015, the organization offered a workshop with the Filipino Youth Coalition in East San Jose. In 2016, LEAD Filipino took off, receiving its first grant to motivate Filipinos in Santa Clara County to vote. The first campaign was called Iboto Pilipino (Vote Filipino).

Leading by example and through open discussion, LEAD Filipino’s leaders help youth come out to their families while providing resources and support. The organization partners with service providers like Santa Clara County’s Q Corner, providing services and education on how to have constructive conversations safely, such as bringing a family member along and talking in a place of comfort.

LEAD Filipino plans to acquire a community center where youth, student, and senior organizations can lead Filipino civic programs, arts, and cultural groups and serve the broader community.

In addition to its transformational programming, Cortez would like to see the organization work toward social justice and the defense of LGBTQ+ communities. She’d like LEAD Filipino to dedicate its resources and advocate for the creation of an LGBTQ+ California policy commission focused on social safety nets that is being spearheaded by South Bay/Silicon Valley Assembly member Alex Lee.

Cortez has dedicated her life around justice, equity, and systems that don’t just reflect FilAm values and experiences, but strengthens how FilAm, AAPI, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ communities interact with systems of power to create the change they want to see. Her contributions are visible across civics and organizing, social impact, and health equity.

“The answer is not to shrink away and think someone else will do it,” she said, “because you’re the person we need to do it. We need to hear what you have to say. We need that diversity of perspective, opinion and experiences. This is the time to lead in your own way, to stick to your convictions and know that you’re not ever alone in this.”

Arturo Magaña

December 7, 2024October 23, 2024 by queer silicon valley team

For Arturo Magaña, folclórico dance is an expression of their Mexican and LGBTQ+ cultures.

Magaña has a deep understanding of who they are and what matters to them, including being their authentic self; a gift they received at an early age from their mother.

“This is who I am. I need to represent myself,” they declared to Susan Cashion, co-founder of the Los Lupenos Dance Company, asserting their right to dance with men and perform wearing a skirt.

Today, Ensamble Folclórico Colibri, which Magaña directs and co-founded, strives to brings a sense of acceptance to LGBTQ+ people.

“I’ve seen the faces of young people and their parents when we are performing,” they said. “They see themselves and they see the representation and the pride of our heritage as queer men, or as a lesbian or as a nonbinary person

Colibri includes members both in and outside the LGBTQ+ community. The dance company accepts straight members to show solidarity with its allies. But not everyone is a supporter.

In 2018, the organization experienced pushback by a Folclorico group in Mexico which threatened to request the Mexican government stop them from performing. But Magaña would not be cowed.

“We put our foot down and we said, ‘we’re not going anywhere. You can do whatever you want. We have a freedom of expression,’” they said.

As a result, within a month, Colibri’s likes on Facebook rose from less than a thousand to about 9,000. Unfortunately, the group still faces some backlash from those who feel it goes against tradition.

“It’s more of this fear and repression,” Magaña said. “When we put on our show, I added a tagline that said, ‘We’re not here to change tradition. We’re here to add our stories because they matter.’”

Sharing its community stories through dance is everything to Magaña, and sometimes has the power to change perspective. In 2018, Colibri performed a traditional piece called Quadro with the addition of a lesbian wedding and a dance portraying two men falling in love.

“People saw us in a different light,” Magaña said. “It wasn’t just about dancing men to men or women to women. It was for us to convey our day-to-day story because that’s what folclórico does.”

While performing in an event with the California School for the Deaf, a seven-year-old trans dancer who was so moved, she started crying and hugging them and asked to wear one of their skirts. Her mother said it was life changing for her daughter and made her feel seen.

“That to me, was probably the best acknowledgement that we have received,” Magaña said.

Looking back

In 1992, at age 18, Magaña witnessed men dancing together for the first time during a ProLatino folclórico performance. Intrigued, they joined the dance troupe, which was invited to Washington, D.C. to dance for the Peace March, in addition to performing during San Jose Pride and San Francisco Pride festivals.

After ProLatino dissolved around 1995, Magaña joined the elite dance company Los Lupenos de San Jose as a lead dancer. They stayed with them for about 15 years, performing in ethnic dance festivals and touring with renown artists such as Linda Ronstadt and Lila Downs.

To bring folclórico to the LGBTQ community, they joined Colectivo ALA, Colibri, which eventually became its own entity. The troupe marched in the San Francisco Pride Parade I 2016, receiving an award for the most vibrant and colorful group and honorable mention from the city and county of San Francisco. It annually participates in Silicon Valley Pride. Colibri also headlined Latino Pride in Seattle. They were honored to be invited by Somos Seattle, a queer organization focused on representation of the Latino community.

Colibri was adopted by the School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza in 2017 as a cultural partner. In 2018, it performed a stage production boasting 40 dancers, including performers from Mexico’s Grupo Folclórico Teocalli. Colibri is also cultural partners with Mosaic America and was featured in 2024 at the World Arts West Festival.

Getting personal

Magaña, a native of Juarez, Mexico was born in 1974. They immigrated to the U.S. in 1988 with their family. Not knowing English and feeling alienated, they experienced culture shock. At school, they were taught all their lessons in an ESL classroom with other people Spanish speakers.

But they felt blessed their mother accepted them as they were and gave them the freedom to pursue their passions.

“I always knew who I was as a queer person,” Magaña said. “I didn’t really have the name, of being queer or gay but I knew I was different.”

Magaña started dance at ten years old at the Casa de Cultura in Mexico. Seeing Folklorico ProLatino in connected them to Mexico, introduced the possibility of two men dancing together and helped define who Magaña was.

To be their authentic self and have self-express as a queer artist, Magaña parted ways with Los Lupenos in 2015.

“There was an opportunity where we got invited to dance and dance men to men,” they said. “I asked permission… and I was denied. I was pouring all my heart and soul into dance, and to represent Los Lupenos and my culture and I was being poured into a cage.”

At the School of Arts and Culture, performing in 2015 with the male co-director was a personal turning point.

“We got on stage… holding hands and holding partners, and we didn’t even want to touch ourselves because we were in front of an audience,” Magaña said. “We didn’t know how they were going to react, so we were very timid. Through the middle of the song, we heard the kids start clapping and cheering. At that moment, something sparked. We were afraid of our own identity, how we were going to be received by other people. But other people are enamored with what we’re doing. It was the right time for Colibri to be part of the community.”

Magaña found strength in RuPaul’s advice.

“I learned you don’t have to pay attention to anyone. You do something that you love because you love it,” they said. “And if other people cannot accept it, (it) is their fear, not the fact that you’re doing something wrong.”

They enjoy performing with Colibri in festivals.

“When people see us dance, they appreciate the color, they appreciate the dance. They appreciate the beauty of the art and it’s beautiful,” Magaña said, adding the troupe performed with the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Opera and was featured on the mainstage at the San Francisco Pride celebration.

LGBTQ+ folklorico groups in Mexico emulating Colibri’s mission feels like a seal of approval to Magaña that what Colibri is doing and has done is the right thing.

“It’s representing ourselves as who we are, doing a cultural art, performing a cultural piece as we are,” they said, adding their piece include activism. “We have beautiful pieces that depict a gay wedding, lesbian wedding. We have a beautiful piece from Michoacan that actually depicts the violence that is perpetrated on our trans community. Not all of our stories are happy stories. The main character does not survive. But it’s the reality of what happens to our community. Colibri being a social justice group… and we represent our community… it’s important for us to represent every aspect of our community.”

As Program Manager for Avenida’s Rainbow Collective, which provides services and enrichment for the LGBTQ+ older community, Magaña feels he in the right place at the right time.

“The fact that they are celebrating the community, that they’re doing research to improve the health of our community, is important to me,” Magaña said. “Now that I’m about to be 50… I think that I was placed in this position to also look at myself and look at the services that I need as an aging queer artist. Sadly, our elder community goes back into a closet because of the generation that they grew up in. So having the ability to offer this type of service is very important.”

Magaña said they want to be able to lend a hand, advocate for somebody, provide support and represent their community.

“I think that one of the biggest compliments I have received when I perform,” Magaña said, “is from an audience member that says,’ I see myself in you. You are representing myself and my culture.’”

Nicole Altamirano

July 31, 2024July 22, 2024 by queer silicon valley team

As the driving force behind Silicon Valley Pride, Nicole Altamirano is a beacon of hope for the LGBTQ+ community, tirelessly advocating for their rights. Her name, Nicole, meaning ‘victory of the people’ in Greek, is a testament to her unwavering strength, leadership, and resilience.

How she came to be one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent queer spokespeople and in charge of the valley’s largest LGBTQ+ event is a tale of her yearning to make a difference and being mentored by a hero whom she met one rainy night. Along the way, she had to part with the Jehovah’s Witnesses when she came out as a lesbian as a teenager.

Altamirano was born in San Jose in 1981. Her father is a San Jose native, and her mother, Dr. Eleana Hernandez, relocated with her family from Corpus Christi, Texas, when she was a child.

Altamirano’s mother came from humble beginnings, working in the fields in Texas with her extended family. She instilled in her daughter the drive to be a community advocate. She worked alongside Cesar Chavez and the Black Panthers in their quest for equality and was an organizer of the Chicano movement.

Altamirano admires her mother for continuing her education while raising her children. She was the first in her family to attend college, eventually earning two master’s and a doctorate degree.

“She was an advocate for the minority and the marginalized,” Altamirano said. “So, I had a desire to protest and to speak my mind when it came to anything that was inequitable. She’s the one who gave me the drive to do what I do for the community.”

Altamirano’s parents were divorced when she was four but her father remained involved in their lives. She has four siblings, including her gay brother and identical lesbian twin sister Athena.

Although her family was lower to middle class, Altamirano’s mother wanted her daughters to be well educated, enrolling them in a private Christian school in Morgan Hill.

“My sister and I were the only brown ones,” Altamirano said, adding their friend Flora was the only Black student. “I remember growing up and thinking that I wish my skin were lighter; I would scrub my skin and hope my skin would turn lighter.”

Altamirano recalls interacting with girls differently as a child and kissing girls at age 6 or 10.
“My first kiss was with a girl, not a boy,” she said, “but I never thought anything different of it.”

It was in high school that the “light bulb went off,” and she realized she was a lesbian. At 17, she had her first girlfriend. “I knew that I was very much interested in her as something more than a friend,” Altamirano said. “There was never a moment when I said, oh, wait a second, this is wrong. I shouldn’t be a lesbian, but it made perfect sense. I want to be with women.”

While Altamirano’s family was not Jehovah’s Witnesses, she had learned about the religion from a boyfriend. She enjoyed studying the Bible and studied it in Greek and Hebrew. Her new 21-year-old girlfriend was her Bible student.

Altamirano knew she needed to come out in order to live her truth. She didn’t want to leave the Jehovah’s Witnesses but felt being honest with her church leaders was the right thing to do.

“If you’re telling me I can’t get into eternity in heaven because I sleep with women, you might as well kick me out,” she said.

They told her being gay was wrong and asked her to leave. Despite this, she never felt any shame about her sexual orientation. Her parents were more understanding. “I really felt the love from them,” she said.

After she and her girlfriend broke up, she was in another relationship for almost 20 years. She is now happily engaged to Stepanie Denson. They live in the Bay Area with her 4-year-old son. They are looking forward to being married in the spring of 2025.

Altamirano held many jobs through the years, from working at a café and being a bank teller. In 2010, she started working for the City of San José as an Office Specialist in the Membership Department at Happy Hollow Park and Zoo. Her numerous skills became evident to City Hall managers as she climbed the career ladder as a senior office specialist, then secured a job as an administrative assistant for Jennifer McGuire, then the budget director and now the city manager. This allowed to know other top administrators and politicians in the city, including then-mayor Sam Liccardo.

Next, Altamirano worked as an analyst in the budget office, managing accounts for the San Jose Fire Department, Human Resources, Finance Department, and City Attorney’s office. “I was in charge of a budget portfolio of about $550 million, and when I tell you there was no work-life balance, I mean it,” she laughed. Today, she is the budget analyst for the San Jose Fire Department.

Although she could have never foreseen it, her City Hall jobs and connections were just what Silicon Valley Pride needed to expand at a critical time. In return, Pride fulfilled her desire to give back to the community in a more substantial way.

Involvement in Silicon Valley Pride

Her involvement with Pride came about when she attended the first Women’s March in 2016. “I remember showing up thinking it was going to be another little tiny rally in San Jose, but there were 20,000 people there.”

After listening to the keynote speaker, Shay Franco-Clausen, Altamirano felt compelled to get more involved but didn’t know how. “It was an amazing experience,” she said. “I knew I needed to do something. It was burning a hole in my spirit.”

Fate intervened one rainy night later that year when she met Thaddeus Campbell in front of the Billy DeFrank LGBTQ+ Community Center and her life was forever changed. Altamirano’s brother Timothy Marshall, who was active in the gay community, was friends with Campbell and connected them when he learned the organization was looking for new board members.

Altamirano told Campbell of her desire to be involved and make a difference.

After an in-depth conversation, Campbell suggested Altamirano take on the role of chief operations officer for Silicon Valley Pride. “I remember thinking that I didn’t know what I was doing and was flying by the seat of my pants.”

In addition to Altamirano and Campbell, the two other board members were CFO Robert Peabody and Chief Marketing Officer Saldy Suriban. They worked well as a team, taking Pride’s finances from $40,000 in debt in 2017 to an operating budget of $500,000.

Following Campbell’s death in 2019, Altamirano became interim CEO and, in 2021, CEO. “Thaddeus is an irreplaceable leader, and I miss him dearly,” Altamirano said.

To preserve his memory, she established the Thaddeus Orlando Campbell Scholarship Fund for queer students ages 18+. In addition, Altamirano is determined to have a Ferris wheel dedicated in his name at Pride next year, something that Campbell always wanted.

“I’m just proud to keep his legacy going and his dream alive,” she said.

To learn more about the Thaddeus Orlando Campbell scholarship, go to www.svpride.com/scholarship

This year’s theme

The first gay rights rally in San Jose was in 1975. In 1976, the community celebrated its first San Jose Pride Festival and in 1977, its first Pride parade. In 2014, San Jose Pride became Silicon Valley to include neighboring cities and encourage unity. Next year, 2025, will be a milestone as Silicon Valley celebrates its 50th anniversary.

This year’s Pride theme is “Get Loud.”

“Get loud and protest,” Altamirano said with a big smile. “Get loud and speak up. If you see somebody being mistreated, speak up. If you see bigotry, homophobia, or transphobia, speak up and get loud. We still have a long way to go. We can’t tire.”

“It’s dismantling those bigoted roots,” she said. “It’s building a new future where we are all equal, and we all have the same rights.”

The festival will be held on August 24 and 25 at Cesar Chavez Park with a parade down Market Street on August 25.
To learn more about where all the festivals and parades have been held in San Jose, go to QueerSiliconValley.org/pride.

Jaria Jaug

July 16, 2023January 26, 2023 by queer silicon valley team

At 23, San Jose State University alumna Jaria (rhymes with Mariah) Jaug (pronounced “Haug”) is the youngest person on the Berryessa school board. She is also the first openly bisexual board member.

For the newly elected official, things still feel “surreal.” “I never thought I’d do politics this early in my life.”

With her election, she became only the fifth out LGBTQ person currently serving on a K – 8 or K – 12 school board in Santa Clara County.

The daughter of Filipino immigrants, Jaria grew up going to schools in the district she now represents. Equity is her top priority.

Jaria aims to ensure student success across all income levels with after-school programs and additional resources. She is also looking to expand mental health services, an issue that is close to her heart.

As a child in the Berryessa school district, Jaria relied on resources like on-campus social workers for support for her anxiety. “My parents grew up in the Phillippines and mental health wasn’t a thing,” she explained. “I know other children of immigrants might have similar experiences.”

After coming out as bisexual at age 15, Jaria got her start in community by involvement volunteering for the Billy DeFrank LGBTQ Community Center. “My identity led me to this work and showed me that queer people can do great things for the community.”

At SJSU, Jaria majored in business with the intent to go into marketing, but her first marketing class changed her mind. “I knew I wanted to help my community, not market products for the rest of my life.”

It was Dr. Ken Yeager’s local government class that first sparked her interest in politics. “[His] class changed my world and opened so many doors,” she said. “I realized politics was the way I could create the most change.”

Friends, family, and colleagues encouraged Jaria to run for the school board. “It was my sister that really put the nail in the coffin,” she said. “She convinced me. She said ‘If you want to run you should, because all of these people think you would do a good job.’”

Three of the five seats on the Berryessa board were up for election in November. Incumbents were running for two of those seats. The third seat was vacant due to one of the trustees resigning earlier. This presented a great opportunity for Jaria to be one of the three top vote-getters.

When she did decide to file, it was a bit last minute, but as soon as she did, Jaria was met with overwhelming support from the Filipino community and candidates in other local elections.

Fortunately, campaigning was nothing new for her. Before she was elected to the board, Jaria worked as a field representative for Assembly District 25 and campaign coordinator for Alex Lee’s re-election campaign.

She raised a total of $10,000 for her campaign through events, call time, and joint walks with political clubs and other candidates. The funds allowed her to print lawn signs, publish a website, and pay the exorbitant candidate statement fee. Her weekends were spent door-knocking with members of the Young Democrats and other candidates, such as Aisha Wahab who was running for state senate and whose district overlapped with Jaria’s.

As an openly queer board member, Jaria has been dedicated to centering the needs of the LGBTQ+ community since day one. She has done this by bringing questions to the superintendent such as, “How are we teaching kids about what’s going on in the LGBTQ+ community?” “How are we supporting trans children?” and “How are we creating inclusive classrooms?”

She has been warmly received by her board colleagues, especially Thelma Boac, who is Filipina as well.

In addition to serving on the school board, Jaria is the policy/legislative director for San Jose City Council member David Cohen.

Jaria hopes her presence on the school board encourages other young, queer people of color to run. “I know young people might not think they look like a typical board member, but they’re part of the community, so why not?”

On June 14, Juria proposed a resolution to the Berryessa Union School Board to have all the district’s 10 elementary and three middle schools raise the Progress Pride flag during the first week of June to celebrate Pride month. It also stated that all schools will include LGBTQ+ literature in their libraries and will have at least one all-gender bathroom for students. Her resolution passed on a 4-0 with one abstention.

Dani Castro

April 4, 2022March 31, 2022 by queer silicon valley team

Dani Castro, MA, MFT started doing drag in San Jose and throughout the greater Bay Area at the age of thirteen with her father’s support. He snuck her into bars, where she realized she could “not only perform and empower herself” but also feel seen and accepted for the first time. “I wanted everyone to have that experience, but everyone around me was dropping dead from AIDS complications.”

Dani’s own father is an AIDS survivor. She poured every tip she made from her local performances into saving his life and the lives of others around her. She later joined the Imperial Royal Lion Monarchy and was Lady in Waiting for the Absolute Empress Patrice 23 and Absolute Emperor 23 Eddie Tavares of The Court of Glitz and Glamor.

As a trans adolescent, drag was all Dani had because the word “transgender” did not exist at the time. She had to turn to medical journals to try to piece together what she was experiencing. When Dani called the Billy DeFrank Center for help, they told her they didn’t have any resources for “transsexuals” but would write down her information. When activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy came to speak at the Center, the staff passed Dani’s number onto her. Dani received a life-changing call from Miss Major when she was sixteen. Miss Major told her, “Honey, you’re not alone,” and recommended a book called My Story, a memoir by trailblazing trans model Caroline Cossey.

At the time, the psychology field recommended that transgender women like Dani live as cisgender women and “erase their pasts.”

“We burned pictures of us as children and we had ceremonies where we would do the strangest things in the name of transitioning.”

Dani’s own therapist walked her through a metaphorical “burial” for her penis. “It was so demeaning,” Dani recalled. “Honestly the system hasn’t progressed much, and we are still forced to jump through hoops to prove our identities to medical professionals. In my opinion that’s transphobia that’s infiltrated the medical industrial complex.”

“It was very complicated to make my way into blossoming into being myself. The struggle to exist was and still is very real.”

Dani, like many trans people in Santa Clara County, survived by engaging in the community whether or not she felt welcome. She volunteered on top of working full-time and set up the now-defunct TransPowerment program, primarily for transgender women of color and their partners. The 2002 murder of trans teen Gwen Araujo in Newark, California served as a wakeup call for much of her activism. Araujo was brutally killed at age 17 after men she had been intimate with discovered she was transgender. In one trial, a defendant used the “trans panic defense,” which was later banned along with other panic defenses in California courts in 2014. Dani recounted to her father David Castro Sr. as she watched the news horrified, “That could have and should have been me so many times. I have to do something to stop people from murdering and hurting us.”

Dani credits her work and survival to her “transcestors,” including the women of the Stonewall and Compton Cafeteria riots, and the Bay Area women she calls her “‘moms” like JoAnne Keatley originally a social worker for the Health Trust and Absolute Sovereign Dowager Empress Tiffany Woods of the TransVision healthcare clinic in Fremont. Of Woods, Dani said, “She looked out for me when the drag queens didn’t accept me.” Her father’s unconditional love and support were paramount as she navigated a transphobic world that didn’t want her alive – much less, empowered.

Dani noted that the DeFrank center didn’t recognize Transgender Day of Remembrance as part of their regular programming and her friend Shelly Prevost paid out of her own pocket to host the event. “It wouldn’t exist without her, but they made us pay in our own center!” The center later gave in to demands following a protest outside the DeFrank center lead by Dani. From that point forward the DeFrank center commemorates and honors all the lives lost to transphobic hate on November 20th as was intended by its founder Gwen Smith.

Today, Dani feels progress for transgender visibility, rights, and resources in Santa Clara County are not proportionate to the amount of advocacy trans people have initiated including the amount of trauma they have survived. “We laid the path for all of the queer community with literally our lives, blood, sweat, and tears, not just us, and for us to be at the bottom of the barrel today…we deserve far better.”

Most recently, Dani has been conducting a transgender needs assessment for the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs. Through her surveys, she discovered many trans people are leaving Santa Clara County to get services in San Francisco, Fremont, and other parts of Alameda County because of the lack of resources and the transphobia experienced within existing organizations. There is currently only one clinic serving the trans population in Santa Clara County. “It’s a shame. We can and should do better here!”

Her hope is that the local LGBTQ+ youth will continue to recognize the work of their trans ancestors like Felicia Flames Elizondo, Therese Wannocott, Noriel Tejero, Claudia Medina, Jennifer Rodriguez and countless others to continue working for trans equality and parity here in Santa Clara County.

“I want transgender, nonbinary, intersex, and gender-expansive youth to know we are gifted, we are powerful, and we are here in this universe to spread love and understanding because we literally exist on a different level of consciousness from other people. We exist beyond the gender binary. That’s a gift that comes with a great responsibility, and all you have to do is live your life authentically.”

She hopes her pioneering legacy will help the Santa Clara County LGBTQ+ community move forward, together.

“Don’t ever, ever forget Dani Castro was here and Like Grandma Major said, ‘I’m still fucking here’. Even when I am gone, I’ll be here and you have my power and spirit to use in the work that you do.”

Fred Ferrer

January 13, 2022January 13, 2022 by Steven Peck

Fred Ferrer – former CEO of The Health Trust and now CEO of Child Advocates of Silicon Valley – talks about how he dealt with homophobia with his family, Santa Clara University and his career.

Frederick Ferrer grew up in Marin County, just twenty minutes outside of San Francisco, but to him the gay world felt “millions of miles away.” He knew he was gay as early as kindergarten, but it was the era of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t even think about it.’

Although Ferrer was unable to fully be himself growing up, he felt surrounded by love. “I learned to love from my family, from my church and from my government, but I also learned how to hate from those three places as well. I experienced this notion that it wasn’t even okay to think you were going to be gay.”

In 1976, Ferrer left his Catholic Mexican family home life for a Catholic institution to pursue an undergraduate degree at Santa Clara University. He partied hard and studied harder to fit in, but noticed other queer men were missing from the social gatherings he frequented. They spent their days off making secret trips to San Francisco; their classmates oblivious as to what they were doing. Ferrer remained in the closet.

He went on to grad school at San Jose State to study to be a therapist. There, he worked with students who were coming out. But Ferrer felt emotionally unequipped to guide others on the journey he himself had not yet taken, and ultimately switched career paths. “I didn’t stay as a therapist because there was just too much internal pain, and I really wasn’t going to be a good therapist to somebody else if I couldn’t deal with this stuff myself.”

Instead, he entered the nonprofit world and began working with low-income Latino families in the early childhood care system, drawing on his education in child development. Though he was still not out at the time, colleagues often assumed Ferrer was gay, but he did not confirm it. Still, the support from those around him, which included out gay executives, made him feel welcome in the valley as an advocate and leader who served on nonprofit boards.

While he was growing more comfortable with this identity in his professional life, it wasn’t until tragedy struck in his early thirties that Ferrer began to reckon with his struggle to come out to his family. When his mother died of cancer at age 54, he knew it was time to come out, and he entered therapy to help him do so. “It really helped me come to grips with who I was, what I wanted to do, and what I was doing that wasn’t helpful to my personal and spiritual growth as a gay man.”

Ferrer’s father’s reaction to his being gay was as he always expected: He immediately began seeing his son through the lens of demonizing stereotypes. With his family situation rocky, Ferrer missed a few years of family events and tried to make up for lost time by socializing in the bars of San Francisco and San Jose. “It was like I was celebrating my twenties all over again.”

Coming out in the nineties brought its own challenge. Ferrer lost many high school and college friends to HIV. “I was going through all kinds of turmoil with dealing with the death of my mom, the aftermath of dealing with my father, and then dealing with this incredibly sad pain of losing high school and college gay friends to HIV and not having anyone to share that with.”

Despite that trauma and isolation, after he came out, he began advocating for LGBTQ-inclusion in early childhood settings. He taught a curriculum called: Makng Room in the Circle to help involve LGBTQ+ parents. Ferrer pushed on with his LGBTQ advocacy. As vice chair of the Santa Clara County United Way board in 1992, he led efforts to defund the Boy Scouts because the local chapter would not sign a non-discrimination policy that included sexual orientation. This debate led to conducting a needs assessment of the LGBTQ community and the ultimate funding of programs like the Billy DeFrank Center.

His work with the United Way showed him the power of putting money where your mouth is and walking the talk when it comes to fighting discrimination.

When Ferrer entered his new role of CEO of The Health Trust 1987, he was upfront about being gay from the start. He ensured HIV services were a top priority, and transformed and expanded the programs based on the best practices and highest standards of care. He upgraded the food baskets that HIV-positive clients were given, allowing them to choose products themselves from stores like they would if they ahopped at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. “I was able to have Michelin star chefs come in and do cooking projects with us. It was great.” Later he would co-chair a county-wide LGBTQ+ Health Assessment that would also lead to funding LGBTQ programs.

Ferrer’s identity remains deeply intertwined with his work in the nonprofit sector, being it was the first safe community he found after experiencing a homophobic culture in college.

In 1995, Santa Clara University graduates wanted to form an LGBTQ alumni group, but the school prohibited it, thinking it would somehow be approving of homosexuality. It brought back memories of the pit Ferrer had in his stomach during his four years of undergraduate enrollment. “It brought back all of the homophobia that existed when I was a student and why it wouldn’t have made sense for me to come out. It also inspired me to make a difference and to work in the world of nonprofits.”

In 2014, then president Father Michael Engh invited Ferrer to chair a Presidential Blue Ribbon Task force on Diversity and Inclusion at the school. “To have a gay latino man come back as the chair of the presidential commission, I think it showed how far the university has come.”

In 2010, the university established the Rainbow Resource Center. Ferrer now serves as a mentor at the Rainbow Center, working with young gay undergrads who share similar backgrounds. “I see the power of mentorship and the power of having the university recognizing you, and giving you a place to fit in and find like-minded people so that you can continue to develop in ways that may not be normative but in ways that you become more authentic.”

Today, in his role as CEO of Child Advocates of Silicon Valley, Ferrer advocates for the LGBTQ+ children in the foster care system, who make up a disproportionate part of the population. He is grateful for the opportunities he has had to work with children, given that one of the biggest arguments against gay marriage concerned children and their development.

Over his lifetime, Ferrer has seen Santa Clara University grow from a place where he had to remain closeted to an institution that seeks out his queer leadership. In 2014, Ferrer was granted an honorary degree from Santa Clara University for Public Service, the first gay man to ever receive this prestigous award. He saw HIV begin as a death sentence that ostracized the gay community further, and later become a chronic health condition that has lost much of the heavy stigma it used to carry.

“I keep thinking what are the ways that we, as a community, can come together to end the kind of discrimination, homophobia, and now transphobia that exists and then work to change it. I know we will have a better community when those things no longer exist it.”

Judge Jessica Delgado

January 16, 2023January 3, 2022 by queer silicon valley team

In the third of a series, read about Santa Clara County’s newest LGBTQ member of the bench, Judge Jessica Delgado.

One of six LGBTQ+ judges in Santa Clara County, Jessica Delgado draws from her experience of being on her own at a young age and her intersectional identity as a queer Latina to handle cases with a nuanced and empathetic perspective.

Outed in high school in central Texas in the mid-eighties and rendered homeless, Delgado said she came into her queerness the only way that existed back then: through bars and soccer teams. In 1991, she and her girlfriend at the time decided they wanted to move to a place where they could be safe and out. They chose Santa Cruz.

With the encouragement of teacher and mentor Sam Marian, Delgado eventually went to Berkeley to study law after completing her bachelor’s degree through Cabrillo College and UC Santa Cruz.
Although Delgado swore she would never be in criminal defense, she became a public defender in Monterey County. In 2001, she joined Santa Clara County, where she worked as a deputy public defender for twenty years.

Former Santa Clara County Public Defender and now State Appellate Court Justice Mary Greenwood had told her that it is always important to re-examine your career, so in 2019 she thought it was time to think about a new thing. “I was deeply invested in public service, so being a judge seemed like another way in which I could continue to serve the community,” Delgado said.

As fate would have it, it was Governor Gavin Newsom who appointed her a judge in April 2021. Though they have never met, Delgado and Newsom have a connection that made his appointment of her that much more meaningful. When Newsom was mayor of San Francisco, he defiantly allowed gay marriages on February 12, 2004. It happened to be a court holiday, so she and her partner, along with other lesbian couples, rushed around and drove up to San Francisco to get married.

“Newsom’s action had a tremendous impact on us personally,” she said, “because we felt a sense of hope that our family finally might be recognized.”

Delgado’s marriage, along with all the others, was ruled invalid by the California Supreme Court, but Newsom’s bold move had given her hope. She and Diana, a public defender, have remained domestic partners and have a 16-year-old son.

Delgado felt it was very rewarding to have Newsom evaluate her as a judicial candidate. “To be fully out from the very beginning of the application process all the way through the interview—I felt like a whole person in the process,” she said. “I felt like all of the parts of me and all of the work that I had done over the years was all valued in a way I don’t think any official process had ever felt before. It was special for me to have someone appoint me who had given my family dignity.”
In her work as an out Latina judge, Delgado witnesses the impact of representation on a daily basis. “Just my being up there and who I am means something to the people who are in front of me. I see it all of the time. I see it in the Latinx community when I pronounce someone’s name correctly.”

Despite the neutrality required of judges, joining the bench has been an extremely personal process for Delgado.

“It’s a sacred relationship you have with the public. You should really be asked challenging questions about who you are and who you will be in that position. It’s like an autopsy of the soul, while you’re still awake and alive.”
The experiences of her youth-built resilience and a strong work ethic, and at the same time, gave her high expectations for herself and everyone around her. Delgado has had to learn to manage those expectations when sentencing young people in her courtroom.

“I remember what it was like to be that age and be completely on your own, and there’s a way in which bringing that perspective and that empathy is very powerful from now sitting in this position of deciding what is your sentence going to be, what discretion might I exercise? How can I include this context?”
Delgado brings that same understanding when it comes to racial equity and LGBTQ issues in the system, but she wasn’t always out at work. During her first ten years as a public defender, she worried her identity might harm a client’s case.

Although it has been over a decade since then, the landscape is still far from ideal. “It’s still a very heteronormative criminal justice system and justice system at large.”
Delgado also said she sees students of color struggle with the same challenges she faced as a law student almost thirty years ago.

Delgado works to foster inclusivity by using her intersectional identity to bridge worlds. “I like to bring a little queerness to the table when I’m in the Latinx world. And I like to bring a little bit of a discussion of race and equity when I’m in the LGBTQ world. I try to remind both of those groups that trans women of color should be our priority. They are the most vulnerable in our community and I believe that to be true in Santa Clara County as well.”

In the courtroom, Delgado announces her pronouns and uses gender-neutral phrasing in standard scripts. Outside of court, she has a special focus on mentoring transgender applicants. Currently, there is only one trans judge on the bench in California, and Delgado wants that to change.

“I have my own work to do around being affirming to my trans brothers and sisters. We have to have the capacity to have empathy and compassion for people who are different to be a good ally.”

Song That Radio

October 16, 2020September 16, 2020 by Emily N Cannon

A haven for Vietnamese members of the LGBTQ+ community could be found every Sunday night on Song That Radio, the nation’s first Vietnamese gay and lesbian radio show broadcast out of KSJX in San Jose. Translated as “live truthfully,” the hour-long program was founded in March 1999 by Vuong Nguyen. She was known as the “Eldest Sister” of the ST family, who also founded one of the country’s first Vietnamese gay and lesbian groups in San Jose in the late 1980s.

This wasn’t Nguyen’s first radio gig, previously working as a news writer and reader for American military radio while living in Saigon. Born in 1943, she advocated against Communist Hanoi while a college student early in the Vietnam War. She brought a Vietnamese-style broadcasting mix of news, contemporary music, poetry and letters from readers to Song That Radio, focusing on messages of anti-homophobia and equality in the community and society.

A slogan of the program has been documented online as, “Live true to your biological nature, and live well together, with everyone around and proud of your own. Your natural nature, that of a homosexual, is useful in society.”

The mission of Song That Radio included advocating for acceptance in the Vietnamese community, bridging gaps between heterosexual family members and educating about HIV and AIDS. These goals proved especially vital for closeted LGBTQ folks who weren’t fluent English speakers.

The most recent programs still accessible online date back to August 2013, when discussion topics ranged from a French woman providing breastfeeding services to homosexual parents and Amsterdam’s Gay Pride festival, to Pope Francis’ “Who am I to judge?” stance on gay people and ABC Family airing a lesbian wedding on TV – the first after the Supreme Court struck down the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act. In addition to radio programming, they hosted in-person shows, where packed audiences would watch nights filled with song, dance, comedy and fashion, sometimes with standing room only. Song That Radio’s location in San Jose wasn’t happenstance.

According to a 2011 report on the Status of Vietnamese Health, Santa Clara County’s Vietnamese population grew from 11,717 in 1980 to 134,525 in 2010 – the second largest of any county in the country. The City of San Jose had the largest Vietnamese population of any U.S. city. At the time, there were no Vietnamese words to clearly, respectfully talk about the LGBTQ+ community. The idea was that by building understanding, that would lead to love, openness and freedom by building a bridge between Vietnamese roots and queer life. This work blended into politics, including marching against Prop 8, which temporarily halted legal same-sex marriages in California. On May 15, 2012, Song That Radio received a commendation from the San Jose City Council.

Visit their website songthat.com in Vietnamese or read their mission in English.

Song That Radio

Song That 2009 Gay Pride Parade

Song That Night of Real Life

Members of Song That in a parade

Song That with members of the San Jose City Council

Randy Presuhn, Voung Nguyen, and Ken Yeager at a Song That Radio event at the Jade Leaf Eatery

Song That Radio camping trip, 2013

South Bay Leather and Uniform Group

April 30, 2021September 15, 2020 by queer silicon valley team

South Bay Leather and Uniform Group (SLUG) had their founders meeting in September of 1988. Don Queen, David Carranza, John Esqueda and his partner Todd, Rafael Montejo and his partner Stan, and Jill and her partner, were the founders. SLUG was started as a social club for the leather community.

Graylin Thornton was new to the leather community in 1993. Graylin was about 26 years old when he, along with others, hosted the first Leather Pride Festival in San Jose. Shortly after this, Graylin became the first African American man to win the title of International Mr. Drummer in San Francisco.

The Drummer contest, now known as International Leather Sir/Boy, spanned a diverse range of fetish communities and included rubber, leather, and cowboys.

Since that early win, Thornton went on to receive the Leather Leadership Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, as well as a Pantheon Award from the Leather Journal.

“We don’t do these things for ourselves as leaders, we do them for the community itself,” he said. “And I think that the younger people who are coming up … need to understand that you don’t just go to a beer bust and do one event. You keep going because you’ll always be a part of that community.”

But due to the toll of HIV/AIDS on the leather community over the years, Thornton said, “many younger members aren’t able to look up to as many role models as previous generations have. When I was 25 and 30, I had people there steering me the whole way,” he said. “Unfortunately, they don’t really have that. So those of us who are 50, 55, have to mentor our younger people.”

Mentorship was a key component of Thornton’s entrance to the community, and it still plays an important role.

SLUG disbanded in the mid-1990s, but the group Santa Clara County Leather Association(SCCLA) took its place. SCCLA still hosts leather nights at Renegades.

Read more about Graylin and the Leather Community here: https://www.ebar.com/news/pride//248569

Leatherman participating in SLUG events. Photograph from the Ted Sahl Archives at SJSU.

Flyer reading “Southbay Leather and Uniform Group Presents Southbay in Gear”

The South Bay Leather and Uniform Group spending time together at a picnic

Photograph of the winner of Mr San Jose Leather of 1982, Eric Staal

Image of mother and son together, son in leather, and mother carrying sign saying, “I love my gay son the leatherman”

Image of Leather Men at the Gregg’s Ballroom Anniversary. Photograph from the Ted Sahl Archives at SJSU.

Leather Men carrying Pride flags at the Pride parade together

Contestants in the Mr. San Jose Leather contest, 1982. Photograph from the Ted Sahl Archives at SJSU

Winners of Mr. San Jose Leather with their awards. Photograph from the Ted Sahl Archives at SJSU.

Leather Men marching in Pride. Photograph from the Ted Sahl Archives at SJSU.

Rachel Aguilar participating in the first San Jose Leather contest. Photograph from the Ted Sahl Archives at SJSU.

South Bay Leather and Uniform Group Leather Daddy and Daddy’s Boy winners. Photograph from the Ted Sahl Archives at SJSU.

A coin from the SLUG group to be worn on clothes

Teatro Alebrijes

March 5, 2021September 11, 2020 by queer silicon valley team

A one-of-a-kind LGBTQ Latinx Theater ensemble located in San Jose. The plays produced are inspired by the queer Latinx experience. Rodrigo García and Ugho Badú direct the ensemble in addition to writing the plays that the ensemble performs. Every year the ensemble performs an originally written Christmas play that performs at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, Billy Defrank Center, and in Watsonville. In 2016, they produced a four-episode web series titled “SiemPrE Por Ti” funded by the Health Trust as part of the Getting to Zero strategy. Another project funded by Getting to Zero is “Canción de Cuna para Un Niño Herido/Lullaby for a Wounded Boy” which was met with great success. For three consecutive years, Teatro Alebrijes produced “Carlota” an original play by members of the ensemble, which performed to sold-out audiences that included English-speaking folks who attended despite the fact that the play was spoken in Spanish, but had subtitles projected on a screen in English. In 2019, Teatro Alebrijes was invited to perform at the historic El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista for its Day of the Dead celebration. The ensemble used to rehearse 2-4 days a week at the School of Arts & Culture, and it’s now holding virtual rehearsals through the Zoom platform.