MTUG Fundraiser: We’re Not Going Anywhere

Ebonie Crush – photo by John Hancock

There aren’t many times where I have been to an event where, during and after the event, I’ve contemplated what our shared human experience looks like. What the myriad expressions of our mutual existence are and how they present themselves, and how the ability to live openly as yourself is dependent on the support and respect of people around you. In fact, I think last week’s Metro Trans Umbrella Group (MTUG) event may have been the only time that’s happened to me.

In a kind of variety show setting, hosted by drag entertainers Mars and Gloria Goode, the show consisted of musical acts sandwiched between gender-spectrum destroying burlesque performances. Kicked off by solo singer-songwriter Luke City FM, the other musical acts were the delightful Americana/rock band Effie and the Little Deaths and aggressive alt-rock quartet Girlfist, all hailing from south city. Between musical sets, drag performers Gloria Goode, Mystic C. Majesty, Ebonie Crush, Tyson Cameron, and Mr. Drag Missouri (and MTUG Executive) Mars fed fire to the energy of the room, with the collaboration of the evening’s DJ Dizzy Punch.

For someone who is not a member of the community, it was a bit shocking to share the room. No shows I’ve ever been to, even as a long time participant in the city’s underground music scenes, has had the same almost palpable air of mutual support and acceptance. I mean this sincerely, and not as a hey-look-at-me-I’m-such-a-good-ally liberal’s instagram post way. I saw a glimpse of what a genuinely supportive community looks like, one that was grown out of the necessity for survival.

Through all this joyful expression, I couldn’t help but hold on to a little bit of melancholy in the core of the experience, which is the recognition of why an organization like MTUG has to exist. There is a completely unnecessary marginalization and dehumanization of trans people in our society. I don’t want to tread on any of the material covered in my discussion below with MTUG director June Choate, but the demonization of trans people by the reactionary right, as well as the mouth-foaming conservative demand that people conform to standards that make them personally feel comfortable, is literally killing people.

I was contemplating this exact thing as I was confronted with a social circle that I was not a part of. There were things that made me feel a little off-center, gender expressions that made me ask myself questions. A rare experience for a straight, white man. The entire rest of the world, almost, has been broken and bent around people like myself’s need to feel comfortable and superior. As if this were the “right” way to exist and other ways were “wrong” and need to be snuffed out or hampered. For me, an extremely small glimpse into what it might feel like to live in a world not completely catered to my own comfort.

This is, after all what the conservatives fear. All that dehumanization, all the trans-panic fabrication is simply a projection, a deep rooted fear that in time they might be treated the way they treat the people they commit reprehensible acts of legislation and economic violence on. Luckily for them, there is a simple cure for all that baseless vitriol. Just spend some time watching a room full of transgender people collectively respect, love, and support one another, and feel just a small part of their joy. I promise you’ll remember that feeling forever.

INTERVIEW: June Choate, Executive, Metro Trans Umbrella Group

Author’s Note: This interview was conducted via phone, and was transcribed via a free web application so there may be grammatical or spelling errors. I went back and tried to correct all the transcription errors manually to the best of my ability, I hate AI and think it’s terrible at even the tasks it should be actually useful for.

MCM: Hello. Hello. How are you doing?

MTUG: Hi, is this John?

MCM: This is John.

MTUG: Hi, John. How are you?

MCM: Doing well. Just to let you know I’m recording this call just because I’m terrible at taking notes.

MTUG: That’s OK. That’s totally OK.

MCM: All right. Let’s go ahead and get started. So my name is John. I’m an unprofessional journalist for Mound City Messenger.

MTUG: My name is June Choate and I’m the executive director over at the Metro Trans Umbrella group, which is a 501c3 nonprofit.

MCM: Right on. Can you give us ignorant pigs a synopsis of the group that you are executive of please?

MTUG: Absolutely. So we are a transgender focused nonprofit. Our slogan is by trans for trans, so we’re trans led. So we have a community center in Benton Park South City, St. Louis that has a small food pantry and toiletry pantry. We have Alex’s gender-affirming clothing closet so people can come and get clothes that will be more affirming to them or if they need clothes for an interview, they can come and get that as well. We have a washer and dryer for folks to wash clothes here. We also have a shower, if folks ever need to take a shower. We provide peer support to understand like you know how to get name change paperwork and we also do Trans101 training for businesses and other organizations to kind of learn how to treat their trans employees and trans clients a little bit better and understand their experiences. We have a quarterly magazine titled Faces, which is basically just a magazine that features folks within the Trans and Queer community, whether that be like articles or poems or any sort of art pieces they want to show. We all feature all of that as well as goings on that are happening in the spaces we inhabit. We also have the Trans Memorial Garden, which is just two blocks from our community center right off of Wyoming and California, right next to Brick City Yoga, where we will host vigils for folks that we’ve lost. We just had our Trans Day of Remembrance vigil there. And we have like volunteer opportunities to help out with the garden, as well as help out with the food pantry to do our monthly pantry delivery day where we send out food to folks in the St. Louis Metropolitan area that might not be able to have access to drive to our community center. We also hosted a lot of different community events. We just had a trans prom back in August and we just had some emergency name change clinics too to help folks with their name changes and other matters. Oh we also have over eight different support groups or seven different support groups that are all identity based. So there’s support groups for like trans feminine folks, trans masculine folks, non-binary folks, and there are some that are location based. One featured in Alton and one featured in St. Charles that’s kind of like full umbrella anybody of any identity within that trans umbrella can attend.

MCM: Beautiful, right on. That sounds like a host of really important services for people who otherwise wouldn’t have, sadly, access to those type of things without you guys.

MTUG: Yeah, we try to cultivate a community for folks. A lot of trans folks, you know, one thing, you know, when they first come out, have a lot of questions. And for another thing, we go through a lot of issues of maybe not having respecting parents and family members that might even disown us at times. And so being able to find friends and family that are like minded is really important because it can be very isolating for a lot of trans folks.

MCM: Yeah, understandably. What are your, like would you say, within the last year, um, what are MTG’s biggest accomplishments, do you think?

SPEAKER_01: Well I’m very happy that we were able to get a full umbrella online support group called Ginger Cloud up and running so that’s like to kind of help folks who might not have transportation to meet in person at some of the other support groups but also for the those folks who might live outside of St. Louis, like within rural areas of Missouri and Illinois, to be able to at least find some sort of community online in some way, shape, or form. So I’m very happy with that. Also, with the help of the Bar Association of St. Louis and the Sisters of, this is always a long name, the Sisters of St. Joseph’s of Carondelet, out with providing financial assistance for name change filings for folks so we were able to help out a lot of folks who are continuing that right now especially as trans folks worry about their access to be able to change certain documentation, like name, gender, passport information. So very happy that we were able to do that. Also, we’ve had one of our biggest problems, I think ever, that we’ve ever had. We had over, like, 270 people show up to our prom this year, and the venue was beautiful, so I’m happy I was able to get that kind of joy. But I think it’s always hard to gauge the goals, because I feel as though, especially with how things are politically, the state of things is always ever changing. We’re always having to be as proactive as we can, but no matter what, there always is a certain amount of reacting that happens. But I am happy with how few staff that we have here, how effective and quick we are at being able to address some of these things could always definitely be better. It’s far from perfect but at least you know everybody here is dedicated and believes in this community and loves this community so I’m very happy about all that

MCM: Yeah it’s hard to stand on shifting sands. You guys have been around, uhhhh, for over 10 years now yeah?

MTUG: Yeah, since about 2013. Thefounders, Sayer Johnson, along with Ray Larson and Alex Jomar, they started a trans masc support group, which eventually grew into more support groups, which eventually grew into us having this community center starting in 2018, which grew into all this other programming. And, you know, there’s been new leadership and kind of a new lot of new faces here at MTUG since then, but I’m happy that we’ve been able to kind of carry that toward and keep things going, and just bring a lot of light and love to the folks that really need it.

MCM: Yeah, right on. So kind of in the vein of what you were talking about, I know that the state of Missouri just made it more difficult to change gender markers on official documents. How do you think that’s going to impact people and your organization going forward?

MTUG: I mean, it’s a direct negative change for our community. It creates a lot of emotional distress and despair with folks. It used to be that you could have a form and basically fill it out, take it to your therapist and as long as your therapist and your healthcare provider who was involved with your gender affirming care was comfortable, they would sign that off. You could take that straight to the DMV and it was easier for folks to sort of, especially for binary trans folks to assimilate into a gender that they are and are trying to represent and be. But now it’s made it much more difficult, especially with forcing folks to have to go through the court system to get things changed on a birth certificate to get a court order. It makes it tremendously hard. There’s like financial access that like definitely you know blocks a lot of folks from getting that ability as well as like typically a lot of trans folks have to show proof of gender affirming surgery, which a lot of folks don’t want or need. Sometimes it’s very fluid, sometimes people just need their hormone treatments and things like that. And that is also one of those things where the picket or the line for that seems to be ever-changing and moving and difficult, especially depending on what kind of judge you find yourself with. And also just finding a attorney to represent you in these cases, which you absolutely need. There’s just a lot of barriers, and it makes it extraordinarily difficult.

MCM: Just for, you know, my own curiosity, what would you attribute this kind of directly antagonistic legislature to? Is it just plain ignorance, or are they using trans people as just some kind of political football?

MTUG: Oh, I think absolutely trans people get used as a political football. I think they are inflating problems which are not really actually there, at least not even to some sort of serious degree. In fact, I wouldn’t even say they’re [indecipherable]. I think what we see is mostly a culture war. And, you know, a lot of politicians pick their pawns to kind of, you know, establish some sort of narrative, create some sort of boogeyman. Transpeople are recipients of that as well as, like, immigrants as well, you know, it’s not, you know. It’s not this straightforward issue. It’s these people that are different from you that are causing all these issues for you. And that’s a lot of the messaging that we’re seeing. And it’s very disingenuous. It’s a lot of making a mountain out of a molehill. There’s a lot I could say about it, but it’s definitely.

MCM: Yeah. Manufacturing enemies so you don’t have to confront the fact that you’re not going to do anything to really improve people’s lives.

MTUG: Exactly.

MCM: Right on. What other kinds of legal challenges do you foresee coming up in the future with the current, obviously, reactionary administration of the state, but the federal regime change that’s coming?

MTUG: Well, it’s…I will say the entire community is pretty terrified of this new coming administration, just because there’s a lot of rights protections that could be easily stripped away with just a few moves that could really put trans folks and non-conforming folks at a huge disadvantage. Even just today, they’re having a support group hearing to basically decide if trans people would even be, I’m forgetting the wording exactly. I’m gonna look this up. Is this gonna be like a podcast?

MCM: No, there is a podcast that the publication has, but I might just release this as a recorded audio, but if you don’t want us to do that, we won’t do it.

MTUG: Will there be editing? Sorry, I’m looking this up.

MCM: I have the ability to edit it, yeah. Just for time, I guess. You can drop in a couple of swears here. I’ll edit those out. That’s fine.

MTUG: Come on. Edit this out. [Redacted]. OK.

MCM: OK. [Laughter]

MTUG: But yeah, I mean, it’s horribly concerning.

MCM: Yeah.

MTUG: I mean, there’s a huge laundry list we could go down and get into the weeds of it, but it’s just… there’s a lot of protections that could be stripped away, I mean, in general, care being debated even just today for trans youth, which could definitely travel into the access for adults as well. I mean, there’s possibilities where like, you know, a bill could be put through and, you know, with the state of like how the House and the Senate and the presidency and the, and the Supreme Court are… I mean, a lot of things could just be stripped away so, so quickly. And a lot of people think that like, you know, gender-affirming care is just associated with trans people when it’s really not, you know, it’s ingrained people with all different sorts of gender identities, you know, cis folks have received gender-affirming care all of the time and it can make it more and more difficult for people just to get their basic needs.

MCM: Yeah, absolutely. I’m just a regular boring straight guy and I get ads all the time for like low testosterone, you know what I mean? Like, that all falls under the kind of general umbrella of gender affirming care.

MTUG: It’s all interconnected. People have different needs. And sometimes it’s not transition related. There’s folks that need hormones to stay within the gender they were born in and to feel more affirmed than that.

MCM: Yeah, I remember when I was a kid, my mom had to, she had ovarian cancer and for her entire life she had to wear estrogen patches.

MTUG: Right. And trans women do that as well. It’s crazy. You know, there’s this idea of like, oh, there’s this natural form of how humans are man and woman. And you know, every person who’s born this way is always born either man or woman and we can’t, You know, God is always going to make sure that that is the case, but it’s not always the case. There’s plenty of intersex people. There’s plenty of people with different, like, varying, like, you know, hormone levels, or maybe not even the ability to produce the hormone that, like, you know, is associated with the gender affair. There’s just much more nuance and much more of a spectrum with gender, whether we like it or not. It’s just a fact.

MCM: Absolutely. So yeah, that’s a very broad topic. I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t get us too off track here. So let’s talk about, well, I don’t want to talk too much about the event on Friday, although I am excited. I’m going to go to it and bring some friends. But this is going to be released after, with a kind of like, we’re going to have a photographer there and stuff. So let’s talk about what are your suggested donation items like outside of like, I’m sure money, I think you guys have on your website you have a donate page there but outside of just you know cash donations what are some items that people could donate?

MTUG: Food and toiletries is always very much needed. POC, people of color, like, hair products and cleaning products and things like that is always something that we get and goes very very quickly, but any sort of like shelf-stable food definitely things like almond milk and protein any sort of protein like canned chicken or anything else along those lines is very very helpful but we always need that food and it’s always goes very quickly, there’s clothing, winter is coming. I’m sorry, I’ve been watching Game of Thrones again, I don’t know why. But it is coming. And we are going to be needing a lot of ways to keep people warm. So folks who want to bring in hand warmers, big jackets, blankets, sleeping bags, if you have a tent, we get it to some unhoused folks that need it. Socks, clean underwear. If it’s underwear, please bring a brand new one.

MCM: Right.

MTUG: But that stuff goes really, really far, especially wool socks. It’s going to be a cold winter. We’ve already had our first snow. People need to stay warm. And as much resource as we have, especially for these next couple of months, to help folks with that, that’s going to be amazing. Other ways to contribute that’s not even just with like something physical or tangible I mean if there’s any trans or queer people that want to like submit to our magazine Faces like we’re always looking for people who have an interesting stories to tell or interesting art to share, you know that’s that’s extraordinarily valuable and art that’s not always like, that reaches across like this queer and trans spectrum you know we want to feature lots of different variety of folks in our community

MCM: Okay, great. Okay, what if say there was a budding, like, kind of young trans person or just somebody who needed some assistance? Would they just, do you just encourage them to show up on the doorstep or is there a phone number? Do you make an appointment through the website?

MTUG: So I would encourage them, our open hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays 12 to 6 p.m. pop on in [3133 Oregon Ave, St. Louis, MO 63118] and if you like have questions if you’re like I don’t know I just kind of want to talk to somebody you can just come in talk, we can talk resources and like see what you want see what you need see what’s the best for you, you know. I always try to like keep this community center is hopefully a one-stop shop for a lot of folks who might be starting out to kind of get the answers they need and a lot of folks really just need you know they don’t have a lot of experience with other trans folks they have you know, are isolated in these feelings and to find other folks and have them say hey it’s, it’s okay to feel how you feel and here are ways you can like explore that that’s what we try to do, you know connect you with those resources, connect you with people, connect you with peer-to-peer support. I think that’s really the biggest thing so for those folks if you’re just starting off, feel free to drop by just say hi. There’s no expectations here.

MCM: Right on. OK. And in podcast style, we’re going to finish up with, do you have any upcoming events or plugs outside of the obvious this Friday?

MTUG: Yes. We have one more event that we are going to do before I take a couple of weeks off for the end of the year. We are having a huge art show performance called We Are Not Going Anywhere. Which is going to feature tons of trans and queer artists, folks like Girl Fist, which is kind of more of a punk style rock band, tons of drag entertainers, hosted by one of MTUGs board members, Mars. And we also have Joss Barton doing some poetry. And we also will be featuring a raffle of different prints and paintings of various trans artists and things like that. And I also threw my own guitar to the mix with some music lessons provided from a studio led by a trans person who could teach people how to play guitar. among other things as well. So it’s a huge fundraiser, but mainly I just wanted to put this together to kind of show the huge variety of like artists and performers that we have in this community, you know, anywhere between people who pick up a guitar and people that like, you know, put like amazing makeup on their faces and go out and pursue a persona, you know. I just wanted to show like that whole spectrum of possibilities that the trans and gender nonconforming community has to offer. So that is going to be at the Golden Record on Friday, December 6. Doors at 6, show at 7. We’ll go until about midnight. So we’ll have some bands, some drag entertainment, and they’ll end up with a DJ set. So please come out and support. You know if you’re an ally like this is a really great way to like kind of get back um all this money will be going back to the MTUG so we can continue to help the twins to be here in Saint Louis the best that we can

MCM: Yeah, right on. Yeah, it’s undeniable, historically, the contributions of trans people to the arts in general. So that’s a beautiful thing. And on a personal level, my very own band played our first show in October with Girl Fist. So I met those folks.

MTUG: They’re lovely.

MCM: Yeah, very cool. Okay, and speaking for myself personally, and I would take liberty to say on behalf of Mound City Messenger, we’re all very impressed and humbled by the scope of MTUG’s operation in the city and looking forward to seeing you guys succeed and do well in the future.

MTUG: We try to do what we can.

MCM: Right on. Thanks for talking to me, June.

INTERVIEW: Effie and the Little Deaths (audio only)