Community leaders gathered in downtown San Rafael recently to celebrate that Marin County again has an LGBTQ center. The new facility, which is currently being run entirely by volunteers, comes following last year’s closure of the Spahr Center after it ran out of money.
There is no executive director, and “we have a lot more work before that can happen,” Bill Otton, a gay man who is president of the new center’s board, told the Bay Area Reporter, adding, “at the moment I don’t think anyone has identified a potential leader, but we will keep our eyes open to cultivating a person as we begin to grow.”
Otton added, “Fortunately, we have an incredible team of volunteers helping in the meantime.”
For now, the Marin LGBTQ+ Center is focusing on a program for transgender youth and their families. Other programs are expected to follow, officials said.
“We’re not here to duplicate,” the Reverend Jane Adams Spahr, a lesbian and retired Presbyterian minister, said at the May 16 kick-off event at its new offices at the Marin Multi-Cultural Center. “We’re here to empower our community. If you are doing something better than we are, we say, bless your heart. … We say we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going away.”
The Marin LGBTQ+ Center is leasing space from the Marin Multi-Cultural Center, located at 709 Fifth Avenue. Spahr had been the namesake of the Spahr Center, which functioned as the North Bay County’s LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS center until its closure in February 2024.
The Spahr Center itself was created in 2015 from the merger of the Spectrum LGBT Center and the Marin AIDS Project. Spahr had started those organizations in the 1980s, an article in the Pacific Sun noted last year. https://pacificsun.com/marin-nonprofit-serving-lgbtq-and-hiv-communities-suspends-all-programs/
Bobby Moske, a gay man who had been on the Spahr Center’s board of directors in the past, said that after the center’s closure, “I called Jane Spahr and I said ‘Jane, what are we going to do?’”
“This woman is 82 years old,” he said of Spahr. “She didn’t miss a beat. She just looked at me and said, ‘We’re going to do it all over again.’ Within eight months, they had a 501(c)3 [nonprofit status], they had a website, they had a mailing address, they had a board of directors, they had a location, and they really, really worked hard to get the word out.
“They weren’t privy to any of the email lists or anything else the old Spahr Center had,” Moske said. “This had to be grassroots, and had to be bottom up, and all the people involved in the original Spahr Center came back to put it together again.”
Moske is a community relations keyholder with the new center, he said.
Multiple sources confirmed the Spahr Center had spread itself too thin financially by quickly setting up programs during the COVID pandemic that weren’t sustainable.
“It was so sad because they had 17 staff that were multiracial, transgender, nonbinary. It was just phenomenal,” Spahr told the B.A.R. “My heart breaks for them. It breaks for the community, and the organization, because it was serving in many different capacities people with terrific gifts.
“I think that’s probably true – that it was just too much.,” she said of the old center overextending itself. “… So on we go. We have a lot to do to make up for that loss.”
The new center has raised $50,000 thus far, Spahr said.
The center’s rent is $1,200 a month, Otton confirmed. The top expenses are rent, insurance, and program costs, Spahr stated.
“We too have basic operational expenses and will use some for community building events,” Spahr stated. “As you know, we are all volunteers and we hope to raise enough money to be able to employ staff one day. It is a community effort.”
The new center’s board is asking other community members to also step up and assist in ensuring it is a viable endeavor.
“We’re inviting people to come and give their gifts,” Spahr said. “We invite people to come with us to build the organization, and we want to build it from a place of love and justice and inclusiveness across the board.”
HIV resources and care in Marin County are handled by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation under a contract with the county, and so the new center won’t be replicating these services. Otton explained during the kick-off what led to the new center’s modest initial programming, including some recent focus groups.
“In spring, we had meetings with stakeholders to talk about what [the] Spahr [Center] was and what do we want the new center to be,” he said.
These discussions, which included 37 people, led to 95 suggestions, Otton said.
When they realized they had to pare those ideas down, the new center decided to prioritize people who they said were bearing the most burden in the community from the second Trump administration: transgender youth and their families.
Trump signed an executive order that, but for an injunction, would stop federal funding for providers of gender-affirming care. He also issued executive orders stating there are only two genders; ending diversity, equity, and inclusion policies; and banning trans troops from serving in the armed forces.
One of the new Marin center’s first initiatives is QNest, a space for LGBTQ youth ages 13 to 25. Mila Eliaschev, who is queer, and Iara Valencia, a lesbian, are the co-leaders. Valencia said it will be youth-led.
“It is a space for queer youth to come together and make decisions collectively about how to operate as a community,” Anais Valencia said.
The center’s website states that QNest is, “a new program where youth can come together to work on creative projects, develop new skills, and find support in a welcoming environment.” The program is open-ended. Gatherings might be focused on advocating for trans rights, while other sessions might be dancing, the co-founders said.
People who are interested in becoming more involved can find the center participating in the Fairfax festival Saturday, June 7, at 9:15 a.m., Mill Valley Pride June 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the Pride celebration at the Marin Multicultural Center Sunday, June 8, from 1 to 4 p.m.
