Queer Voices
Queer Voices
March 19th 2025 QV: Catastrophic Theater's New World Premiere and Montrose Center CEOs First Year Journey
A powerful convergence of art and advocacy unfolds in this episode of Queer Voices as two transformative leaders share their visions for Houston's LGBTQ+ community.
Pulitzer Prize finalist Lisa D'Amour invites listeners into her boundary-defying theatrical world, where traditional storytelling meets immersive art installations. Her fourth collaboration with Catastrophic Theater, "The Frozen Section," imagines a surreal post-apocalyptic grocery store where survivors maintain humanity through collective cosplay performance of working and being in a grocery. "We meet the people who are the workers and the people who are the shoppers," D'Amour explains, revealing how this strange microcosm explores community resilience when societal structures collapse. The playwright's description of her previous work—including a six-hour installation where audiences witnessed a fabric forest appear over 7 hours and vanish in forty minutes—showcases her unique approach to creating theater that functions as both poetry and social commentary. She's amazing, and also from New Orleans!
Meanwhile, Montrose Center CEO Avery Belyeu reflects on her first year leading Houston's largest LGBTQ+ resource hub during increasingly challenging political times. With previous leadership roles at Lambda Legal and The Trevor Project, Bellew brings both professional expertise and personal perspective as a transgender woman navigating the current landscape. Her vision for the Center emphasizes community connection as the ultimate solution to political scapegoating and potential funding threats. "I think that's where it's so important for all of us to make sure we're taking care of ourselves," Bellew advises, highlighting the Center's comprehensive services for 55,000 annual clients across all age groups—from youth programming to senior housing.
The conversation weaves between artistic expression and practical advocacy as both guests demonstrate how Houston's queer community creates resilience through creativity, connection, and care. Whether through D'Amour's surreal theatrical worlds or the Montrose Center's tangible support services, this episode reveals how LGBTQ+ Houstonians continue building futures despite uncertainty.
Don't miss "The Frozen Section," running March 28-April 19 at The Match, and mark your calendars for the Montrose Center's circus-themed "Empowering Our Future" gala on April 26, where you can directly support vital youth services while celebrating community joy.
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Hello everybody, this is Queer Voices, a podcast version of a broadcast radio show that's been on the air in Houston, texas, for several decades. This week, brett Cullum has a conversation with Lisa DeMoore. Lisa has been nominated for a Pulitzer for her work on a piece called Detroit. She is collaborating with the Catastrophic Theater to produce her latest play, the Frozen Section, which runs starting later this month at the Match.
Speaker 2:My collaborator, director Katie Pearl, and I have accompanied together for like the last 25 years and we really like to shake up the theatrical form. We often start with either a topic or sometimes a place and we kind of make the show for the place.
Speaker 1:Then Debra Moncrief-Bell has a conversation with Avery Bellew, the CEO of the Montrose Center. They will be reflecting on Avery's first year leading the center.
Speaker 3:We have such a rich landscape of LGBTQ organizations, some of them social, many of them focused on our well-being and our care. We've got a really rich tapestry of LGBTQ life here, and so that has really delighted me.
Speaker 1:Queer Voices starts now.
Speaker 4:Lisa DeMore is a playwright, she's a performer and she is also a former carnival queen from New Orleans. Demore is an alumna of New Dramatists. Her play Detroit was actually a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She is a University of Texas graduate who was awarded a master's in playwriting. Lisa has collected tons of accol. Who was awarded a master's in playwriting. Lisa has collected tons of accolades like a drone on and on about, but she is in town to do a world premiere of the Frozen section with Catastrophic Theater. If you like numerology, this will be her fourth collaboration with this company and also their fourth show this season with this company and also their fourth show this season. We're running at the match from 28th until April 19th.
Speaker 2:Lisa DeMoor welcome to Queer Voices. Hello, so happy to be here.
Speaker 4:Jason Nodler has been talking about you forever and this is one of the shows that I've been looking forward to Now. When I did some research on you, some places describe you as an interdisciplinary artist, which means that you kind of collage many things and mediums. You mix visual art with acting. Tell me a little bit about your approach to that first.
Speaker 2:I often say that I have two branches of my career. One is as a playwright that sits at my desk and writes a play that I then try and get a theater to produce, and then the other branch is this more collaborative work that I usually do with my company, pearl Damore. So my collaborator, director Katie Pearl, and I have a company together for like the last 25 years and we really like to shake up the theatrical form. We often start with either a topic or sometimes a place, and we kind of make the show for the place. And almost every time we make a new piece, we begin the process by working closely with either a dancer or a composer or a visual artist to kind of create something that is hybrid, that is more than theater.
Speaker 2:A good example of the kind of work we do is a piece called how to Build a Forest, which toured for a while, from like 2011 until around 2017.
Speaker 2:And it was a piece of art that we created with visual artist Sean Hall, in which we designed a fabric forest that we could assemble in front of an audience's eyes over the course of about six and a half hours entirely fake forest. You as an audience member could come into the forest and kind of watch what we were doing and look at us close up and maybe take away little pieces of the forest, and then the forest lived for about half an hour and then we took the whole thing down in 45 minutes back to a bare stage. It was like seeing this ecosystem appear and rapidly disappear before your eyes and people could come for 20 minutes, for two hours, for the whole eight hours if they wanted to. But it was very much a meditation on how long it takes certain natural forms to be built up and how quickly humans can cut them down and also how we as humans are intimately connected to these ecosystems. So not quite theater, not quite visual art, an immersive process that came out of this deep collaboration with a visual artist.
Speaker 4:You know, and what's kind of wild is catastrophic. I seem to feel like we get a lot of these interdisciplinary artists coming through. So when I had read about your company, I thought, oh, this sounds amazing to do kind of like an art installation and a theater piece together, because it does feel like you just hit all of it. But okay, so from what I can suss out online, it looks like Infernal Bridegroom Productions here in Houston. They produced one of your early works called Hightown in 2006. So how did that happen initially? How did you first hook up with this group of artists?
Speaker 2:We were introduced by a mutual friend named Shiloh Dewan, who was on Infernal Bridegroom's board at the time, and I sent them some plays it was a long time ago, so I remember like putting them in the envelope and snail mailing them to Jason and then we applied for an NEA grant together, which was a commissioning grant that would allow me to write something new for them, and we decided that we wanted to write a show that was going to be inspired by our visits to Texas ghost towns. Some of the actors in Tamarie kind of took these trips out into the middle of nowhere. I mean, sometimes we'd get there and there'd be like nothing there. We researched some of these towns. We kind of like hung out in all of these ruins and then I imagined this kind of new world called Hightown, which was a completely new play and it's interesting. It feels like a distant cousin of Frozen Section because it's set in this, like it's almost like future Texas in the middle of another ice age.
Speaker 2:Set in this, like it's almost like future Texas in the middle of another ice age. Set in this bar in the middle of this town called Hightown, and it's about the people who are kind of trying to survive there. It's like community and apocalypse with a little bit of reality TV show mixed in. It was a wild and wonderful piece. I really loved their production of it and that was my first time kind of writing something for the ensemble. Since then the other two plays of mine that Catastrophic produced were pre-existing. They had been done a couple of times before and so this is a real return because I've now written this new play very much for their ensemble.
Speaker 4:Tell me about Frozen Section. What is it about?
Speaker 2:Frozen Section is set we call it in a grocery store at the edge of the world. It is about a community of people who are living in a world in which there are far fewer people and a much harder way of living Not exactly living off the grid, but maybe places that are powered by generators and this particular community of people are like. Our reality is this store and we are going to band together, basically by cosplaying grocery store, and so we meet the people who are the workers and the people who are the shoppers. In the early parts of the play it may seem like this is a normal grocery store, but very quickly you realize something is off.
Speaker 2:I would say it's definitely more of a surreal work of art, perhaps in the tradition of, say, ionesco and Samuel Beckett Beckett. And the way to enjoy the play is both getting to know these idiosyncratic characters but also trying to experience what the play is thinking about, the poetics of the play and how you're moving through almost the poem of the play. And Catastrophic is very good at this kind of work. I think they really embrace plays that are strange and filled with metaphor and are really kind of reaching into your psyche is what I feel when I come to a catastrophic play, so I was really trying to deliver that for them.
Speaker 4:Well, they are definitely the company that challenges you to go beyond just the narrative. But what inspired you to come up with the Frozen section? Because I've been thinking about the grocery store and apocalypse here for like the last couple of weeks, but that's just because of what's happening. I just think of the grocery store as this kind of like symbol of almost doom in a weird way. But what inspired you initially? How long have you been doing this?
Speaker 2:I started writing this for them early last year, non-linearly, so I guess, yeah, a little more than a year, but I would like I I had this image of this store. I didn't really know exactly. I rarely know what I'm writing about when I begin, and so I started assembling these different scenes with these different characters. I wrote the play very out of order. I do think that a grocery store, first of all, it's so many things. So I was thinking about things like how we stock up on supplies before hurricanes. Right, I live in New Orleans, you live in Houston, so there's always this kind of rush on supplies and is there going to be enough? And then, during a crisis, there's also like looting of grocery stores.
Speaker 2:In normal times, though, in everyday times, the grocery store can be a very calming place. You're often there by yourself, you're in your head, you're following your list, maybe you're familiar with where things are. I actually kind of enjoy being in the grocery store by myself. So I was thinking about all of these different, the very public place, all of the different personalities that a grocery store can take on. I also feel like I am in the pocket.
Speaker 2:Gen X. I grew up before the internet. I grew up like many Gen Xers, having a bunch of part-time jobs and donut shops and grocery stores like with somebody's dad's tiny lawyer office where I was filing. I was doing a lot of these jobs and I think that I was thinking about how working in community, when each person has their assigned job, can just be a very comforting and secure place. Like you know your job, you do your job, everyone knows what your job is, and so I think I was thinking about how that kind of structure or ecosystem in a grocery store could sort of lead to a kind of comfort within a community.
Speaker 4:It's always interesting to me when we have a world premiere, because you're coming in and you're working with this company. Are they influencing? Are you rewriting bits and pieces as you go through the rehearsal process? Are they helping you develop further this whole idea of the Frozen section?
Speaker 2:Oh goodness, so much, so much at every phase. So even before we cast the play, we did a reading of an early draft and had lots of discussions with the people who did the reading, with Tamarie and Jason, to further develop the play. And Catastrophic's such a great company because there was a lot that I didn't understand about the play early on and they really just encouraged me to keep going. They were like your instincts are telling you something, lisa, just keep going. And there's not many theaters that will tell you that Theaters like to give you like really specific notes. So there's that phase. So then we cast the play and then we've been in rehearsal about almost three weeks After the first week.
Speaker 2:I had a lot of conversations. I asked all the actors the questions that they had about their characters. I took that into consideration, like going through the play to make sure that everything lined up, because I was like, oh wait, this doesn't I say this in scene one that doesn't match with what's happening at the end of the play. So it's sort of like a whole cleanup of the draft and we printed an entirely new draft and kind of kept going. But it's very much been informed by feedback from the cast and also I would say I've seen a lot of catastrophic shows over the years, so I know the quality of their shows and I know the quality of their wonderful intergenerational, many-gendered, many-races ensemble and I was really leaning into the richness of that particular catastrophic diversity and it's created a really interesting world, I think, for this play well, I think it's wildly so, because you touched on that they have three basically world premieres when I saw their season I was like wow, oh right, theater is dying.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like what are you talking about? Like catastrophic can do, like they're not doing Agatha Christie, they're doing these like really rigorous, challenging, I would also argue, like very queer world premieres last year I argued they did Sarah Kane's Cleansed.
Speaker 4:They did a couple of things that I thought just paralleled the transgender community's struggle in Texas specifically into that production. That just blew my mind and I thought was Sarah Kane channeling the future somehow? I mean, I was just like what is happening here and certainly the last production they did with Candace DeMesa queer. Are you inserting a little bit of gender nonconformity?
Speaker 2:If there is a main character, they are a non-binary character named sage, who has decided it's time to leave, even though there's a lot of uncertainty as to where they may be going and the community is both afraid for them but ultimately supportive of them going, as sage says, like onto the other side of the horizon. But at the same time, the whole cast, the actor playing Sage is not the only gender non-conforming human in the cast either, and again, I feel like there's a big range of ages in the cast as well. When I watch rehearsals I'm like this is so queer and this is so punk rock are the two things that I think. I watch it, and also there also is a little bit of a feeling of burlesque in the play as well. It moves in a very strange way. It's really funny. There's spectacle in it. I would say it almost feels like a dream, although I wouldn't say that the play is like it's not about gender identity. Sage's gender identity is mentioned once, maybe, but you feel it. You feel the fluidity of identity throughout the play.
Speaker 4:Well, let's switch gears a little bit. You currently hold the Lyndale Finley-Wortham Chair in the Performing Arts at the McGovern College of the Arts, which is part of the University of Houston, but you live in New Orleans.
Speaker 2:So that position was created specifically for a playwright who is working nationally, come in several times a year to teach, to mentor, to give talks and in general like sort of use their position as a playwright out in the world to both bring new experiences and opportunities to students but also, I think, to raise the profile of the BFA playwriting program at UH around the country. It's intended to be a fluid position for someone who's coming in and out. The playwright who held it before me was named Teresa Rebeck, whose work is produced here in Houston a lot. I am, as far as I know, the first Southern playwright to hold this chair and I love that because I feel like I love the South. I love writing in the South. I do a lot of work in New Orleans. I know what it's like to grow up in a city where you might not have quite as many models or mentors in the world of theater. Like that's kind of what happened to me. So I'm hoping that my experiences as a Southern artist can really help the playwrights at UH.
Speaker 2:I love the UH theater department. The students are incredible. They come from so many walks of life. It's a very exciting time to be in that department and particularly in that playwriting program right now Really amazing and I'm determined to really help it thrive because it's unique. It also there's a dramaturgy program that's part of the playwriting program and in terms of playwriting dramaturgy, bfa programs, there's only two in the country and UH is one of them, so it's very special and UH has produced some of my work in the past. I've gotten to in the country and UH is one of them, so it's very special and UH has produced some of my work in the past. I've gotten to know the Alley, I'm working on some projects with them now, and so I'm in Houston all the time.
Speaker 4:You were up for a Pulitzer for your play Detroit. It almost made it to Broadway. It ended up being put on by New Horizons Playhouse in 2012.
Speaker 2:Yeah, playwrights Horizons yes.
Speaker 4:Playwrights, horizons, sorry, oh, and just to name drop a little further, steppenwolf in Chicago two years earlier they did it and also the National Theater in London, which was interesting.
Speaker 2:There's a million reasons why a play might not make the leap to Broadway, but one of the reasons the night of Detroit in New York City was Hurricane Sandy, which kind of wiped out a lot of people's energy and money. And I always think it's so ironic because I come from New Orleans. I lived through Katrina. I'm just like wow, hurricanes are just going to come and bite me in my butt for the rest of my life. Also, detroit had an amazing life. It's been produced all across the country and the world and so it was really good for me to. I mean really and truly like going to Broadway is one thing, but allowing your play can have a life in many other ways.
Speaker 4:And you write. I've noticed that some of your plays are very short. They're almost like one acts, they're like 25 minute kind of things, and some of them are even named at high school or so I would think. I saw one kind of suggested. The cast was mainly teenagers.
Speaker 2:That's probably Frostbite, which I wrote, and it was actually the Guthrie Theater commissioned a bunch of writers to write short plays for high school students and that's how that got written. But then, like my other children's musical Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl, it is also a one act and maybe runs about 80 minutes. So there's, yes, a few things that are a lot, of, a lot of different lengths.
Speaker 4:Okay, so what are we in store for for the frozen section? How long does this one gonna run?
Speaker 2:between 90 minutes and an hour, 40 like somewhere in there. So it's a one act. So I we don't really know the running time now because we're in the middle of rehearsals.
Speaker 4:My guess is it's gonna be like 135, 140, something like that and it's going to be at the match from march 28th until april 19th, called the frozen section by lisa demore, an amazing playwright, and I'm so flattered to even get to talk to you. I've heard so much about you and especially all the hype around detroit, and we're so glad to have you back with the catastrophic. Because shoot fourth time gotta be, it's gotta be something right that you like about them.
Speaker 2:I love them and I really think they are a Houston treasure. I believe that for so many reasons.
Speaker 4:I absolutely agree with you and I will be there opening night did you know that KPFT is completely listener-funded.
Speaker 1:There are no underwriters, so it's up to all of us to pay for the freedom to say what you hear here on Queer Voices and on this station in general. That means you participate in our programming just by listening and also by pledging your support. Please do that now by going to the KPFT website and clicking on the red Donate Now button, and please mention Queer Voices when you do. Thank you, this is KPFT 90.1 FM Houston, 89.5 FM Galveston, 91.9 FM Huntsville, and worldwide on the internet at kpftorg.
Speaker 4:Look to the sky for one place.
Speaker 1:That one will come. This is Queer Voices.
Speaker 6:This is Deborah Moncrief-Bell here talking with Avery Ballou. Avery is the CEO of the Mantra Center and she just finished her first year in that position. First of all, you got your Master's of Science degree at Appalachia University. What was your discipline?
Speaker 3:Nothing connected to the work I do now. So my science degree was in communication disorders, which is the preparatory degree to become a speech therapist, a speech language pathologist, which I did for some time. And I had a minor in psychology which I suppose does connect to a lot of what I do now.
Speaker 6:I think actually both those things do, because it has to do with linguistics, in part with the speech pathology and then with the psychology of course. That's kind of a basis for a lot of things. And then you went on to get a Master's of Divinity degree at Texas Christian.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yeah, Bright Divinity School, which is on the campus of TCU, and the reason why I did that I'm a wanderer and I'm a person who's constantly curious and wanting to learn, but I went back to get that degree at 30. I had been working in public health for all of my 20s and in my 20s I had the opportunity to work actually during the last Trump administration for SAMHSA and in a federally funded agency that was funded through SAMHSA, and one of my projects was to work with the Office of Faith and Neighborhood-Based Partnerships, which had been established by President Bush and was continued through Presidents Obama and early in Trump, and my focus was thinking about how to leverage faith communities to partner on public health issues, particularly mental health promotion and suicide prevention. And so, as I was kind of swimming through those intersections of public health and thinking about community life and where we build community and how that led me to get an MDiv, to think about those intersections in a more focused way.
Speaker 6:Then you continued your work in nonprofits. You've worked with Lambda Legal and with the Trevor Project. What are some of the accomplishments from those times that you have strong feelings about?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I'll say just, first of all, really just the honor to get to work at two organizations that are national LGBTQ organizations and do so much for us. Of course, trevor is kind of a new kid on the block as far as national LGBTQ nonprofits go, but now they've grown so much and they're doing so much and I created the first education department for the organization and that's something that continues to this day and that's something I'm really proud of. I got to be there at a point when the Trevor Project was growing quite a bit from being a very small nonprofit to, I'd say, a midsize nonprofit. So I got to be there at an interesting growth moment and got to be one of the people who got to create a lot of cool things that continue on as a foundation for the work they do today. So I'm very proud of that. Um, and and I think during that time too, I was there for for almost four years what we did was really raise the profile nationally of the conversation about the mental health and well-being of lgbtq young people, and it was just starting to be looked at as being something that was really something that we should all pay attention to. It was around the time that there was a lot of conversation about bullying in our public schools, and so I got to be a part of that national dialogue and shaping the conversation on how we talk about taking care of our young people. So I'm really proud of that.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, atlanta Legal. I mean, my goodness, they do such good work. And look at them now, right. I mean they've already filed several lawsuits against this current administration. So such a wonderful organization and I think they're the privilege to get to work somewhere that has been doing so much for so long. They're such an important part of our movement overall, having given us wins like Obergefell, which is marriage, lawrence v Texas, which overturned the sodomy laws, and so many more. So I think just to get to be a part of the fabric and the history of that organization was really a privilege.
Speaker 6:How exactly did you come to Houston? Were you headhunted or were you looking for a new position?
Speaker 3:When I was working for Lambda, I was leading what is a regional office for them, so they have an office in Dallas, but it serves a region of eight states, and so I had the good fortune to come in and get to hang out with some LGBTQ folks here in Houston and do work around fundraising for Lambda Legal primarily, as well as some education and awareness work.
Speaker 3:During that time in Dallas, I got to come here and get a sense for the flavor of Houston's LGBTQ community, and I really loved my experience of being here, and so I was, in fact, headhunted. The board at the Montrose Center did hire a search firm to try to find the best talent, so I was one of a few really qualified and amazing folks who threw their name in the ring there to be considered, and I was really lucky that they chose me, and one year in, I can say that it definitely was the right choice for me. It's such a perfect place for the intersections of the things that I've done in my career and that I care about, and so it's really just an honor to get to lead the Mantra Center.
Speaker 6:Your first commitment was to listen and to learn. So what have you learned about the Mantra Center and about the Houston queer community?
Speaker 3:One thing I'll offer is that I certainly hope that that stated commitment I made when I first got here. It's a posture, not just a one-time event, because I think that as I'm heading into year two, I'm realizing I'm going to need to keep listening, and that's an iterative process. So I'm going to keep doing that and keep my listening ears on, as my mother and grandmother would have said, and keep listening because I think that's so important. A few things I learned through my really focused listening in year one. One thing is just how amazing the community is here in Houston at finding creative ways to take care of our own. We have such a rich landscape of LGBTQ organizations, some of them social, many of them focused on our well-being and our care. We've got a really rich tapestry of LGBTQ life here, and so that has really delighted me.
Speaker 3:The other thing I will say that I've learned is that and I've said this many times the Montrose Center is such an important resource for many thousands of people. You know we serve about 55,000 people a year in one way or another, and what I heard is that the community would like for us to do even more and to partner in ways that are different than how we've shown up in the past, and so we've started to do some of that work in response to some of what I've heard, and I think this year and hopefully in the past. And so we've started to do some of that work in response to some of what I've heard, and I think this year and hopefully in the year following, we'll do even more of that so that we're truly an LGBTQ center, not just a place to come to get social services, but really, hopefully, the heartbeat of LGBTQ Houston.
Speaker 6:The center has been around since 1978, so it has a pretty rich history and certainly the AIDS epidemic was part of the work that took place at the center. Was there anything that you learned about from that time that stuck with you?
Speaker 3:work that was done in the late 70s and then in the 80s and then, of course, when the first signs of that epidemic started to show, and how, what was Montrose Counseling Center rallied around the community to care for the community.
Speaker 3:And, of course, now providing for folks who are currently living with HIV and helping to prevent HIV continue to be two of the very important things that we do.
Speaker 3:That history really, I would say, is just woven into our DNA in so many ways.
Speaker 3:One of the things I would say that's really stood out to me is that you know, for some of us I think our younger kind of queer generations the conversation around HIV sometimes feels like a distant past or a distant memory. But one of the things that has really been something I've enjoyed doing is listening to our older LGBTQ folks who are still very much with us, who lived through the crisis and are living with HIV, and to remember that the impact of all that those folks suffered, especially through kind of neglect through our government and much of the social services sector at the time the impacts of that are still very much with us. It's not just a distant memory, but those folks are still around and they're still here with their stories and with the impacts that they felt from that time stories and with the impacts that they felt from that time. And the Montrose Center continues to be a place that cares for those people who are older folks, our elders, who are living with HIV.
Speaker 6:One of the programs that I think is to be really expounded upon I don't know if it is even the right word is the Hatch Program, because there didn't used to be anything If you were a young person and you were questioning your sexuality or realized that you were, in fact, where there was no place to go, there was no place to learn, there was no place to find support. So tell me a little bit what you've learned about.
Speaker 3:Hatch. One of the things I'm going to highlight is the journey we're taking here together. I was just talking about seniors, right, and now we're going to talk about youth, and I think that's one thing I would highlight that makes the Montrose Center really unique, particularly here in Houston. As I said, we have a lot of different organizations. We are the organization that works across the entire lifespan, from youth to seniors, and I think that's really meaningful and, of course, everyone in between. So Hatch is such an amazing program. It started as a program outside of the Montrose Center and then became a program of the Montrose Center, and it itself is a program that's been around for a long time I think about 30 years. Youth work is also something that's really at the heart of who we are. Hatch described just one program within our entire youth services suite. We have a whole youth services suite that does many different things for and with youth, and Hatch is just one of those programs.
Speaker 3:I think, now more than ever, it's so important for LGBTQ young people to have a place to go to, where they know they're going to um be met with no judgment, with complete and total acceptance and with respect, because we're living in a moment where we're seeing our national rhetoric, our state rhetoric and, of course, within our school district surrounding Houston, rhetoric that really does not demonstrate respect and does not honor the dignity of our LGBTQ young people.
Speaker 3:So, especially in a climate like that, to have a place to come to, where you can hang out with other folks like you in a safe and supportive environment, is so important, more so than ever, and so that's why Hatch exists. There's about 350 folks at any given time that we're serving through our youth services suite, and more folks are joining all the time. Right because that need is certainly there. And what makes it special is we're not just working with youth, we're working with their parents as well, and so, because of the fact that we work across the continuity of care, you know, a young person might come initially for Hatch, but they also might decide that they need help with a therapist, and so that's something else that we do. Their parents might need to talk to a therapist, and that's something that we do, and so there's lots of different ways. When they come into the center primarily, maybe, as a place for peer support and social connection, they end up finding a whole network of support for them on their journey.
Speaker 6:I remember when the Hatch program first started, it struck me to realize that there are people that are now adults who grew up in that program and I believe you've had a chance to talk to some of them who grew up in that program, and I believe you've had a chance to talk to some of them.
Speaker 3:We actually have staff. We have several staff at the center who grew up as Hatch Youth. One of them, in fact, is now working in Hatch Youth, and so I think that is one of the coolest things about Hatch that it's been around long enough. The success of Hatch is breathing and living amongst us as LGBTQ adults who are living rich and fulfilling and healthy lives, which is exactly the goal of having a program like Hatch. You know, I think when, when focusing on the Montrose Center, our youth programming isn't necessarily always the first thing that comes to mind, but I would say it's one of the most robust things we do, and we've been here doing it for such a very long time, and it's something that we'll keep doing, no matter what the climate may be.
Speaker 6:What have you considered to be your biggest accomplishments in this first year?
Speaker 3:As I've listened to the community, and I've done that listening along with my staff.
Speaker 3:I've listened to my staff, of course, too, because that was the most important place to start, because there are almost 100 folks who work at the Montrose Center and they all have their own stories and things to share and say, and so they all have their own ideas for how we can be improving on our services always, and so that's been rich and useful.
Speaker 3:One of the things I heard from the staff was the desire to find ways to collaborate more intensely. I think the thing I'm proudest of is our pivot to be on this community advisory board that meet on a regular basis and their charge is to constantly be in conversation with us about opportunities for us to be thinking about our work in new and different ways, and so that's so exciting to me that launched recently, and they've had a couple meetings. Secondly, I would give as an example the community summit which happened earlier this year, right, where 17 organizations were convened together to host a summit, and that, I think, hopefully demonstrates where the center is headed as a convener of all of our organizations, of our communities, getting us together to figure out how to work together to take care of one another.
Speaker 6:Is the center getting a?
Speaker 3:facelift. Oh, yes, on social media. Yes, it was something to the effect of a little bit of a facelift. Yeah, the center has been serving us really well for quite some time, but there haven't been any significant updates since we moved into this building, and so it's time for there to be some updates. And so we did put out a request for proposal for architecture and design firms to help us create a long-term vision for the building, and so we're not going to do everything all at once, but we do want to have a big picture vision. We can work back from partially to inspire us, right To say, look at those great pictures of what this place can be and can look like. And so we're going to work on that big picture vision, and then we're going to work back from there on projects that we think are going to benefit the community most.
Speaker 3:I will tell you one thing that I'm hoping we select to do first is, if you've come to our building, it's exactly clear how to get inside, and I've heard that from almost everybody. Like, I get to the building and I'm like do I go up those stairs? Do I go to the elevator? Where do I go? Right, we want to fix that. We understand that we need to have an entrance that is different, that is actually welcoming to the community. The first thing that you should face if you've found your courage to come to the Montrose Center as a young person or a person who's questioning about your sexual orientation or gender identity the last thing you should have to worry about is how to get inside the building, and so we need to make that easier for the community, and so I'm hoping that's one of the first projects that we take on. But stay tuned we're just early in the process and I'm excited to see where we go.
Speaker 6:Do you think that that building is being outgrown?
Speaker 3:Well, that's a good question. You know, that's when we ask constantly. I will say we got a lot of square footage. I don't think it's used very wisely. So I think that it's a good building for our next stage of who we are and who we're to become. But we'll always keep asking that question Is this, you know, is this the right space? Is this enough space? But I think for now, now we've got the space we need. We just need to organize it a bit differently.
Speaker 6:I remember the original incarnation of Montrose Counseling Center and then when it moved over on to 701 Richmond and that was a two-story building, it was mostly offices. There was some conference rooms but there wasn't really space for community meetings. So with this larger building where it is now allowed for that and and there's been so many different kinds of things take place there, not only the summit, but there's different groups that meet there or have their offices there. There's the lesbians over age 50 groups that meet there or have their offices there. There's the lesbians over age 50. They meet there and they have events there and it is available for people to rent space for various things. So that's been rather exciting for me to see that, those reincarnations through the years, for me to see that those reincarnations through the years. What services does the center provide that we haven't talked about? That you think people need to know or they might be surprised to know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh goodness, you know we do so many things. I would say our mission statement really is a great summary right that our mission is to help our community, to empower our community, to live healthier, more fulfilling lives. And so there are so many things that fall underneath that bucket. And the reason why that model is actually really important of doing many different things is that when you found the courage to come and get care for whatever that may be, you should experience as few barriers as possible to accessing the care you need. So our model is that, if you can come to us and we are, as much as possible, a place that gives you the opportunity to have what's called, in public health speak, continuity of care right and an integrated care model where you can get many different things in the same place that's going to empower you to live a healthier life. And so at the center, you know, we offer everything from behavioral health care from mental health therapy with very skilled therapists. We do, as I said, so much around HIV, so we do case management for folks living with HIV. We provide support and resources to those folks in a variety of ways. Something we've done almost since our beginning is that we have been someone who's provided care for those who are struggling with substance use disorder. So we provide an intensive outpatient program for folks living with substance use disorder, a less intense outpatient program, and we have recovery coaching. So folks who need a peer to come alongside them and be there and as an encourager and a support. Again, all of this work that I'm describing. It happens all the way from youth, all the way to seniors, all the way across the lifespan.
Speaker 3:Um, so I could talk you're off for an hour about everything that we're doing.
Speaker 3:I think that the thing I would hope the community knows is that if you need help, if you need support, if you're looking for resources, I hope that we're the first place you think of and we do so much, but if we're for some reason, not the place that has the resource, what we are really skilled at doing is being a connector and helping folks to realize other places that they might go to get support. One thing I would just say. My last thing is you know we are a United Way agency and one of the things I'm really proud about with our being a United Way agency is that we play this role of helping folks who are on a journey of health and wellness and economic security to connect to resources, and so that's part of our role as United Way agency is helping folks navigate the system of how to get resources that they need. So we really are that place to come. That's full of wonderful helping, nonjudgmental folks who will help you on your way.
Speaker 6:I'm talking with Avery Bellew, the CEO of the Montrose Center. Let's talk about things today, because things today are pretty darn scary, particularly for the trans community. I'm sure you, as being a trans woman yourself, have a lot to express about that.
Speaker 3:I do. Oh, my goodness, what a what a moment we're in. Huh yeah, um. You know I did not have this administration on my bingo card for my second year as CEO of the Montrose Center, and here we are when to start. We are in certainly challenging times.
Speaker 3:I think the thing that that I'm trying to focus on is that community is the solution.
Speaker 3:One thing that I think is clear, even in the way you introduce this topic right, is our collective anxiety right now, our fear, because there's a lot of unknowns, there's a lot to be concerned about, and so I think that part of the solve for that anxiety, for that fear, which is very justified and very normal, is to be together in community, because in community and the public health research actually shows this in community you find joy, you find resources, you find friendship and all of those things can help offset the challenges that we're experiencing right now. And so to your point earlier about the Montrose Center being a community center and having a true community center function. You know, I don't think it's just a nice add-on. I think it's critical to our mission, because I think for folks to live healthy and fulfilling lives, one of the things we need most is community, and so the fact that we create space for that in our center is part of our approach, part of our missional statement, and I think, now more than ever, we need that.
Speaker 6:The summit was very much an example of that, because we felt united, we were inspired, we made connections, people found resources. It was a really positive thing and I understand it kind of came together pretty short notice. So the fact that you were able to partner with 17 different organizations and present such a wonderful span of information and of course, we featured some clips from the summit. On queer voices, what particularly has been done for the trans community?
Speaker 3:I believe you help people get passports after the inauguration um and as a preface to the summit um, I convened a group of of leaders together who ended up representing these 17 organizations fewer than that initially, but we sat around a table just to say, okay, now what? So let's talk to each other about what we need to do. What do we think, collectively, our community needs right now? And two things emerged One, the community needs to get together and make sure that they are feeling resourced heading into these next four years. And secondly, there was an urgent need directly after the election to think about, before the inauguration, before these anti-trans policies were going to start coming, because we knew they were to help trans folks as swiftly as possible get accurate documentation. And so we worked with TLACT, the Transgender Legal Aid Clinic of Texas, to partner on helping about 500 trans folks from across the state, not just here in Houston, to do that process of getting accurate documentation so they would at least have some accurate ID doc one way or another headed into these four years. And that was really an emergency effort. We knew it needed to happen swiftly and so we moved as quickly as we possibly could to do that. And I think that's one of the great things we come together and talk to each other right in a room full of folks, it becomes clear you know, all of us hold some piece of the puzzle and when we put our pieces together we can do really good work. And I think that was an example of that. We two organizations came together and we made something really important happen.
Speaker 3:Um, but certainly the trans community is up against it. I think right now, my the way I would describe this is that we're a scapegoat. Um, when there is anxiety, when there is fear as many amer Americans across the border feeling right now, partially due, I think, to income inequality it is convenient to have a group where we place all that fear and shame and anger and to create the feeling well, if only we would solve for those folks, everything will be okay. And trans folks are unfortunately the victim of that. We're the scapegoat, we're the place where it's a convenient place because many people don't know who we are and therefore that makes us relatively socially unprotected for folks to place all of that fear and anger with the belief that if we solve for this trans problem, we're suddenly going to somehow be a better america.
Speaker 3:And of course we know that when trans folks have been come for in the past. This is not the first government that's done that. It's never been the solve. Um, in fact, it's a warning sign right, it's a warning sign of other problems that may be to come. This is not the first time this has happened to the trans community, both here in in the US and in other countries. So I think that's what's going on right now, and so it is a worrisome moment. And again, I think the solve lives in us being together in community and making sure we're all resourced.
Speaker 6:And the irony of that is that the trans people are not the problem. It seems like the Texas legislature, which is in session right now, seems like every day they say, okay, what fresh hell can we create for the trans community? What upsets me the most is the targeting of the children and all the things they're doing there. Does the Montrose Center have an advocacy component?
Speaker 3:That's a really interesting question. Advocacy has not been a large part of the Montrose Center's work. I think that there are different types of advocacy, and so you know one is thinking about being in Austin advocating for good bills and against bad bills. Right Advocacy can also look like advocating for funding streams, right, advocating for other policies, both in city government, within the county level, that support our community. So I think the Montrose Center is in a place of trying to evaluate our role in advocacy. I think, first and foremost, our advocacy voice is here in the city of Houston and in Harris County and the surrounding counties to make sure that we're creating a quality of life for LGBTQ people that aligns with our missional goals. What I will say is I'm really grateful for the ways that we partner. Again, it's all about partnership, right, and so we partner really closely with Equality Texas and folks who work at the Transgender Education Network of Texas, tent and at ACLU and Atlanta. We're partners with them in making sure that they, who are doing the heavy lifting, have the support and resources they need. I'll give you a great example of what that looks like for us.
Speaker 3:One of the things that Equality Texas has realized is true is that this work is really grueling.
Speaker 3:It's hard work and one of the things they ask people to do every year as these bad bills come is to come and testify. Oftentimes that's young people young people with their families and it's really stressful. They have to hear folks say really terrible things about our community. So we're partnering with Equality Texas to think about how do our therapists at the Montrose Center work with Equality Texas to provide places for care for folks who've testified, to provide a debriefing space after their advocacy day, to provide debriefing spaces after folks testify so that those folks are cared for. And I think that's a great example of kind of who the Montrose Center is and how we show up. In this moment we can't be all things, we don't do all things, but we do partner with our entire community to make sure that our community is cared for. So while Quality Texas is doing what they do best, we can show up and partner with them to do what we do best, which is make sure that folks' mental health and wellness are taken care of during the fight.
Speaker 6:Thank you for the work that you're doing. I myself have a 40-year history over 40 years of the Montrose Center being part of my life, including now being a resident at Law Harrington, which I think is something people need to know more about, because I've heard people say I didn't even know there was such a thing and it's like yes, it's an lgbtqia plus affirming community and it was built by the montrose center. There's seniors 62 and over that get to live in a a nice complex and services provided, so I'm very thankful for it. As we continue, the big concern also has to do with funding, because the Montrose Center does rely on grants and I guess there's some fears about grants being cut or eliminated.
Speaker 3:Certainly, I think the entire social services sector of the United States right now is really nervous about what's going to come. One of the things that this administration did quickly was to signal that they were going to evaluate how federal funds were being used to address behavioral health and public health issues. They've made it clear that they want to take a different strategy than every other administration, whether Republican or Democratic. So we don't know yet what the impact of that will be. We've seen some indications, right. We've heard statements around anti-DEI. We've seen a desire just to cut funding overall. We've seen some impacts of that, primarily at this moment through the NIH and research. Right, that's not something that impacts the center, but I do know folks who are impacted. So the center, like a lot of our organizations, other nonprofits here. It's a wait and see to see how we will be impacted, but I am pretty confident that there will be impacts of some type. What that means for us is, uh, preparing, preparing for what that impact might look like and how we're going to make sure that we're resourced to care for our community no matter what may come.
Speaker 3:And there and again, I think the solve is going to be in collaboration, right, because none of us can do it all.
Speaker 3:So when we we look at our social services ecology, as I like to call it here in Houston, if all of us start to face the challenge of a reduction in funds to care for our community, we're going to have to get real smart about how we collaborate.
Speaker 3:We're going to have to really be very sharply focused on how we work together across organizations, maybe ones that haven't worked together typically to put people first and to care for people. And so what I'm doing to prepare is I'm already starting those conversations with other CEOs in the city, including, and maybe especially, organizations that are not LGBTQ focused but have a role to play about. If and when this happens, how do we make sure we're coming together to take care of each other? And what I'm feeling really confident about is that this city will rise to the occasion and we will make sure that, no matter what may come in in funding cuts, that we'll find a way to take care of people it seems like their idea is to have bad health, both mental and physical bad health, because that's all I'm seeing coming from them.
Speaker 6:And of course, one of the tactics is to threaten things but not necessarily implement them. But that just is, in this constant state of uncertainty.
Speaker 3:And I think that's partially the point. One of the things I would stress for folks who are anxious and worried is to remember executive orders are not the law, and, if you'll note what's been happening, lambda Legal, aclu and other organizations have been swiftly filing lawsuits to challenge executive orders and thus far, they're having amazing success. So I think that part of the goal is overwhelm, part of the goal is stress and anxiety, and so I think that's where it's is overwhelm. Part of the goal is stress and anxiety, and so I think that's where it's so important for all of us to make sure that we're taking care of ourselves right, we're getting enough sleep, we're eating healthily, we're getting outside and letting the sunshine hit our face and taking a deep breath and remembering to ground ourselves, because part of the goal seems to be to overwhelm us, and a lot of times there's strategies and tactics that are going to make sure that a lot of what we're hearing about is not implemented.
Speaker 6:To close things off, Avery Ballou, CEO of the Montrose Center, coming up April 28th is an event the Empowering Our Future Gala, which is a theme this year under the big top. Can you tell me about that, Because this seems like a fun thing to do?
Speaker 3:It's April 26th. This is our event that is focused on our youth services. As I said, we, at any given time in our youth services suite, are serving about over 300, 350, almost 400 youth every year. It's a huge part of what we do and how we are is to make sure that our youth are safe and they're supported, and now more than ever, they need to know that we care about them and that we're here to support them. And so this event it's a really fun event. It's program light for folks who go to galas, and the program can sometimes be really, you know, lengthy. It's an entertainment heavy event.
Speaker 3:So the goal is for folks to come to get to be playful and to be joyful. You know, a lot of what we do in our youth programming is to provide a place for folks to experience joy. And so, folks, if you come with us to Empowering Our Future, you're going to get a flavor of that. So, folks, if you come with us to Empowering Our Future, you're going to get a flavor of that, even as an adult. We're going to create an environment where you get to escape from the world for just a moment, feel the beauty of being in queer community with other folks like you experience some joy, and this year get to do it with a circus theme. So that's under the big top. So we'll have circus-themed entertainment. Folks will be encouraged, you're encouraged. Folks who come to dress up in a circus-themed outfit if that's something you want to do, or just cocktail attire if that's not your thing. But it certainly will be a night to remember. So I'm super excited.
Speaker 6:Can you tell me some of the performers that will be there?
Speaker 3:If you go to our website right now, on the main part of our website is a feature slide with a lot of those folks and if you scroll through you'll get to see their names, the things they do. So I know there'll be some aerialists there who will be doing some fun acrobatics. There's talk of all sorts of again, circus-themed entertainment, so be lots of things to delight.
Speaker 6:I misspoke in saying that it was the 28th, so it is April 26th. And MontroseCenterorg for all kinds of information about the programs and services at the Montrose Center and Avery. Thank you so much for joining us today on Queer Voices. This is Deborah Moncrief Bell.
Speaker 1:This has been Queer Voices, heard on KPFT Houston and as a podcast available from several podcasting sources. Check our webpage queVoicesorg for more information. Queer Voices executive producer is Brian Levinka. Deborah Moncrief-Bell is co-producer, brett Cullum and David Mendoza-Druzman are contributors. The News Wrap segment is part of another podcast called this Way Out, which is produced in Los Angeles.
Speaker 5:Some of the material in this program has been edited to improve clarity and runtime. This program does not endorse any political views or animal species. Views, opinions and endorsements are those of the participants and the organizations they represent. In case of death, please discontinue use and discard remaining products.
Speaker 1:For Queer Voices. I'm Glenn Holt.
