SANTA CRUZ >> On an otherwise ordinary Wednesday, four teenagers opened the door of the Diversity Center of Santa Cruz County and began hurling homophobic slurs and other hostile comments at whoever may have been within shouting distance. This particular encounter did not happen back in the days before LGBTQ people were able to marry and when “the closet” was standing-room-only.
This happened last week.
When Sharon Papo first took the job as the executive director of the Diversity Center in 2013 — Santa Cruz’s 28-year-old community center dedicated to advocating, protecting and serving the local LGBTQ community — socially acceptable discrimination on the basis on sexuality was beating a fast retreat in the face of landmark legal advances and, for the first time ever, the overt support of a sitting president.
“Some even questioned whether we would still need a Diversity Center because things were go so swimmingly,” said Papo in the sunshine on the small back patio of the Soquel Avenue center.
Fast forward four years and things are not so sunny for those who support gay rights. “Now there’s a backlash,” said Papo. “And that’s historical. It’s two steps forward and one step back.”
In recent months, Papo has heard “story after story of folks having things said to them in line at the supermarket, yelled at in their cars.” Papo herself recently was subject to an unprovoked encounter in downtown Santa Cruz that, she said, almost came to violence.
Perhaps this is not the sort of environment that Papo, 38, anticipated when she took on the leadership of the Diversity Center. But, she said, she’s not about to go into a defensive crouch. “Folks are waking up now, that this is not OK in our community and ready to take action. No one’s saying, ‘Oh, we’re moving in the right direction, so I can just go watch Netflix now.”
Papo’s history with the Diversity Center goes back 20 years when she first stepped into the Diversity Center as an 18-year-old looking for support after her coming out. “I was comfortable with who I was, but I learned that there could be very big consequences with coming out. So, I really valued having a safe place and a welcoming place to meet people and be accepted for who I am.”
She came to the executive director’s position after eight years in San Francisco, leading a teen health center in the Bay View/Hunters Point area. “When I first heard about this opportunity,” she said of her current job, “I said there is nothing I would rather do. I am so fortunate to have this incredible honor.”
The Diversity Center is a hive of activity. Papo’s staff numbers 10 full- and part-time workers, with a volunteer force that numbers around 300, operating on a budget of about $430,000 a year. A schedule for group meetings at the center, posted in the front window, features about two dozen meetings per week at the center and other venues across the county.
The organization focuses on four core programs, tailored to different segments of the LGBTQ community: young people, seniors over 60, people of color, and trans people. The center also sponsors and manages the Triangle Speakers bureau, an outreach program that spoke to almost 2,500 people last year. A major effort at the Diversity Center in recent years has been a program that trains and informs county doctors, nurses and other health-care providers about the unique issues relating to transgender patients.
“I was told again and again that (trans) folks are not accessing health care because of bad experiences, or fear of bad experiences,” she said, adding that health-care providers have been eager to take part in the training program, as opposed to just a few years ago when “I did a lot of knocking on doors and folks weren’t so interested. Now, they understand, they are ready, and they want to do the right thing.”
Papo draws a distinct line between legal equality — anti-discrimination efforts encoded into law — and “lived equality,” an ideal in which LGBTQ people can go through their daily lives without expectation of discrimination and bigotry.
“We feel grateful to be living here in California with a lot of legal protections. But that doesn’t mean, on the lived-equality front, that our community is not vulnerable. Every day, I get to put my energy and effort together with this incredible, dedicated team of staff, volunteers and board members to create a safe and supportive community.”
