Queer Voices
Queer Voices
September 10 2025 Queer Voices ACLU of Texas Attorney Brian Klosterboer, The Last Yiddish Speaker Director Rhett Martinez, Alzheimer’s Association of Southeast Texas CEO Richard Elbein
On this episode of Queer Voices, we spotlight the fight for civil rights, the power of theater, and the challenges of aging in our community. First, the ACLU of Texas’ Brian Klosterboer breaks down the latest wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in Austin, including the bathroom ban and Senate Bill 12, and shares how lawsuits and grassroots action are pushing back. Then, director Rhett Martinez discusses The Last Yiddish Speaker, a dystopian play co-produced by Houston’s Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company and the Jewish Community Center. Finally, Richard Elbein from the Alzheimer’s Association of Southeast Texas explains a groundbreaking $3 billion state initiative to fund dementia research and what it means for LGBTQ elders and caregivers.
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Speaker 2:Hello everybody and thank you for listening to Queer Voices, one of the longest-running LGBTQ plus radio shows in the entire United States. Whether you're joining us on KPFT or wherever you get your podcasts, we're glad you're joining us today, excited to bring you today's episode, where we're spotlighting the fight for civil rights, the power of theater and the challenges of aging in our community. First, the ACLU of Texas' Brian Klosterbor breaks down the latest wave of anti-LGBTQ plus legislation in Austin, including the Bathroom Bill and Senate Bill 12, and shares how lawsuits and grassroots actions are pushing back. Then it's Brett to the future, with contributor Brett Cullen speaking with director Brett Martinez as he discusses the Last Yiddish Speaker, a dystopian new play co-produced by Houston's Milrids Umbrella Theater Company and the Jewish Community Center. Finally, queer Voices executive producer Brian Levinka speaks with Richard Alban from the Alzheimer's Association of Southeast Texas, who explains a groundbreaking $3 billion state initiative to fund dementia research and what it means for LGBTQ elders and caregivers. Queer Voices starts now.
Speaker 3:This is Brian Leminka, and today I have the honor of interviewing Brian Cluster-Moore from the ACLU of Texas. Welcome, brian, thanks for having me. So tell me what's going on in Austin and what are we doing to fight it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's been an incredibly rough year at the Texas legislature, especially for trans Texans and young trans people here in Texas. As we know, the last few years Texas legislators have been relentless in targeting trans youth, especially now they've also been going after trans adults and really their goal is to go after the entire LGBTQ plus community, and some of the laws passed this year have been especially devastating.
Speaker 3:Why are they so hateful? Why do they hate us so much?
Speaker 4:I know. For a long time I thought it was, you know, a short term callous political gain. Unfortunately so much money was spent on anti-trans and anti-LGBT. Adds that last election cycle that some lawmakers at least think it's a successful strategy. I'm very hopeful in the long run that the pendulum is going to swing back, that these attacks will backfire on them and kind of show their bigotry and hatred. But it does feel like we're at a low point right now where lawmakers, at least in one political party, have been relentless in kind of rolling back hard fought victories and viciously targeting trans Texans.
Speaker 3:Can you be specific about the legislature that's passed and all the hate that's coming out of Austin?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think the two worst bills this year. One was Senate Bill 12 that passed during the regular legislative session this spring. The other is Senate Bill 8, which is the bathroom ban. The bathroom ban. As many of your listeners will know, in Texas we've been fighting that off since 2015. 2017 was when there were multiple special sessions. Dan Patrick was pushing the bathroom ban. You know we saw a huge response from the business community, from many conservatives, republicans, libertarians. You know people who just thought that. You know, let people use the bathroom in peace, go into a private stall, lock the door, use what's best for them.
Speaker 4:This version of the bathroom ban actually even goes beyond just restrooms. It prohibits or it applies to any state agency or any building owned, controlled or operated by a local government entity. So unfortunately, that would include all of the venues we have in Houston, things like NRG Stadium and the Houston Rodeo, the Toyota Center, these airport, george Bush International Airport. You know these are all buildings that are somewhat controlled or operated by government entities. So in any of those facilities, the only possible good thing about this awful bathroom ban is it's written in a very vague way.
Speaker 4:It says that the local governments must take every reasonable step to ensure that people are using facilities, bathrooms, locker rooms, etc. Based on their quote biological sex as determined at birth. But, as we know, you know there are many intersex people in Texas. Biological sex is not just a binary thing. There are many people who are transgender, who are non-binary, who are intersex, and so it's not actually clear how this new law will be enforced. We have 90 days until it goes into effect and it's only enforced against the cities, the local governments or state agencies. So no trans person can be arrested under this law, no one can be sued under this law, but it will lead to a very hostile, even more hostile environment here in Texas, where, you know, our local governments and state agencies are no longer allowed to just let people use the facilities that work best for them.
Speaker 3:So what is the ACLU doing to fight this?
Speaker 4:So on the bathroom ban, we're still currently assessing what possible options we may have. It just passed last week. We have 90 days till it goes into effect.
Speaker 4:Senate Bill 12 is the other just horrendous law that is now in effect. It was passed and signed into law by Governor Abbott in June. It is a very sprawling law that does a number of things. We just filed a lawsuit last week challenging four unconstitutional aspects of Senate Bill 12. So Senate Bill 12 bans all clubs in all K-12 schools that are based on gender, identity or sexual orientation.
Speaker 4:So that is specifically targeting what used to be called gay-straight alliances.
Speaker 4:Now they're called mainly gender and sexualities alliances, but any kind of pride club or LGBTQ club in K-12 schools is now prohibited. Sb 12 also prevents any school employee or third party from providing any instruction, guidance, programming or activities about race, gender identity or sexual orientation, and it prohibits any school employee from quote assisting a student's social transition, and that part of the law is so vague. Unfortunately, we're seeing it have a devastating impact in Texas schools, where many teachers and school employees now feel like they have to misgender or deadname trans and non-binary students, even those who have maybe transitioned years ago and have long been using their affirming name and pronouns. They're now actively being discriminated against and harassed in our Texas schools. So we, along with the Transgender Law Center and the law firm Baker McKenzie, filed a lawsuit challenging four key aspects of Senate Bill 12. We filed that in federal court here in Houston but we are now awaiting to have a hearing and it'll take a few weeks, if not months, for us to get a decision from the court.
Speaker 3:Can we talk about the bills that didn't pass? That could have been worse than we received.
Speaker 4:Yes, so, yeah. So this really was the worst year I recall at the Texas legislature. 2023 was also a horrendous year, but so far, the last few years, almost every legislative session, the number of anti-LGBTQ plus bills that are filed has essentially doubled. In 2023, it was over 100. This time it was over 200. 90% plus of those were defeated, with many thanks to Equality Texas, transgender Education Network of Texas, tent, hrc, texas Freedom Network, aclu and others. A bunch of groups and a bunch of people went to Austin repeatedly.
Speaker 4:Begged lawmakers do not focus on these issues. Provide us other. You know, we need to fix our power grid, we need flood relief, we need other things to focus on. But, yeah, some lawmakers have just fixated on targeting LGBTQ plus Texans. Like I said, they're really expanding. For several years, they were targeting trans youth in particular, and it was really a cruel tactic because many trans youth were not necessarily in the position to go to Austin to lobby for their rights and to fight back. But now they've expanded their targeting to trans adults, essentially trying to erase transgender Texans and also intersex Texans from existing. So I think some of the worst bills that were defeated.
Speaker 4:Thankfully, there was a bill that sought to essentially criminalize all trans people, creating a criminal offense called gender identity fraud. That essentially would take us back decades to a time where there were cross-dressing bans here in Houston and Texas. People like Phyllis Frye in our city, you know, fought back in the 70s and 80s against these cross-dressing ordinances. That essentially allowed the police to arrest any trans person who was dressed differently than their sex assigned at birth. So it's sad to see some Texas lawmakers trying to drag us back 50 years to a time when trans people could be arrested simply for existing. We believe laws like that would be egregiously unconstitutional, even amidst our current hostile US Supreme Court. The courts right now are really not friendly to trans Texans or LGBTQ people in general. But we do still have options, we do still have rights and I think a law like that hopefully will never pass. But it's sad that even any elected official thinks they could even file that bill and not immediately lose their political career.
Speaker 3:Besides getting out to vote, what else can people do to help the ACLU?
Speaker 4:Yeah, they can go to our website at ACLU, txorg. It can be helpful to plug in to make sure you're getting our emails and updates, and we also run a website with Equality Texas and other groups called txtranskidsorg. There we have a student's rights toolkit and on the ACLU website we have a student's rights hub with a lot of information about Senate Bill 12. We'll be updating our website with more information about the bathroom ban as well as other laws that passed recently. And, yeah, people can always reach out to our legal intake as well if they need legal assistance or if they see discrimination in our community. And it's more important than ever for us to have allies, for us to keep supporting our local organization. We're lucky that I at least live in Houston and benefit from the Montrose Center and the LGBTQ Plus Political Caucus and other groups in Houston, that we still have a strong and vibrant community here, but it is a very dark and difficult time in our state more broadly for our rights right now.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Now. Do you have any stories of where the ACLU has helped people in our community?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think some of the most successful things do come from our litigation the drag ban, for example. Our lawsuit against that is still pending before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but we have successfully blocked the Texas drag ban for the past two years. So thankfully drag is still fully legal and happening and vibrant in our community. But we do a lot of non-litigation work as well. We've attended a bunch of local pride events, providing resources. We provide Know your Rights trainings, both on LGBT rights issues as well as immigration. A lot of my colleagues especially have been hard at work trying to counter just the awful targeting of migrants in our communities here in Texas and providing resources and support to different community organizations. So those are a couple of things that stick out.
Speaker 3:So how did you get into this line of work? I mean, this must be very tough to deal with from day to day.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I am grateful to be working there. It unfortunately feels a little bit like deja vu this time, because I first joined the ACLU eight years ago or seven years ago during the first Trump administration. I was always, during law school, most focused on international human rights. I actually lived in Uganda for a year before law school and worked a little bit with the LGBTQ plus community in Uganda, which faces incredibly hostile and difficult circumstances in an authoritarian regime where they are very actively targeted and arrested by police and very actively suppressed and arrested by police and very actively suppressed. So I kind of went to law school and then kept going back to Uganda working in that environment and thought I would focus on international human rights.
Speaker 4:And then Trump was elected the first time and I thought, wow, you know, here I was working for a federal judge here in Texas doing a clerkship and I thought, wow, human rights abuses are now really rampant here in Texas, unfortunately. So then I applied to work at the ACLU. That was the first Trump administration. The ACLU of Texas was in the process of growing quite significantly just to respond to all of the civil rights and human rights violations of that first administration. All of the civil rights and human rights violations of that first administration. So it is sad to have that happening again and just seeing such broad trampling of human rights and civil rights here in Texas and across our country and our own government doing a lot of the same things as many of the authoritarian regimes I saw and encountered abroad.
Speaker 3:So can you speak to the issues for LGBTQ plus immigrants that are coming to our country and what kind of challenges they face?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I don't specifically work as much on immigration so some of my colleagues would know more, but it's just been a really tough time, I think, for any person trying to find a safety coming to our country, to find a safety coming to our country. And yeah, it's really sad to see such a rollback, especially from I think you know we hadn't even done a lot for LGBTQ plus immigrants in previous administrations, but now just seeing the hostility and the hatred and kind of the ramping up of deportations, it's devastating to see. I've had close friends from Uganda who have sought and won asylum here in our country and it was something I was proud of, that we could provide a safe and welcoming community for people who have to flee their homes. And now is something that I think many of us are not proud of that our country is becoming more insular, less accepting and just more cruel and hostile to people all over the world.
Speaker 3:It's a very sad day. Can you give some advice to young LGBTQ community members that are kind of facing all of this for the first time in their life, and what is the ACLU doing to kind of help the situation? What advice would you give them?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think people should hang in there. Easier said than done, but it's so important right now Find community to find resilience. I find resilience looking at some of our elders in the LGBTQ plus community and especially in the trans community. You know, thinking back to people like Phyllis Fry who built, you know, a vibrant trans community here in Houston. People like Monica Roberts, andrea Molina, like just people who have helped us grow and start organizations and push back.
Speaker 4:Things are really bad right now, but if you think back to the AIDS epidemic, I mean things were worse in many ways to having our loved ones dying and being really targeted by hostile politicians, and then, before that too, the trans community with the cross-dressing ordinances being outwardly criminalized and arrested.
Speaker 4:So things are really in a rough place right now in terms of our rights and government officials not respecting who we are as a community and what we need. But our community has been in these tough spots before. We will survive, we will endure. Now we have to even prioritize teaching each other about this history. So I'm glad that you have this podcast, because now even this conversation can no longer happen in K-12 schools. Our identities are now prohibited from being discussed both in the classroom and in activities after school at clubs. So it's more important than ever that we let young people know about the history of the LGBTQ community, the hard-fought struggles and victories that have been gained. And then we have to stop the pendulum from swinging against us and need to push it back. I hope these anti-LGBTQ politicized attacks will backfire on many of the politicians who are pushing them.
Speaker 3:We can hope Now. Do you have any upcoming events or ways people can find out more about the ACLU?
Speaker 4:We regularly have webinars and Know your Rights training, so I think following us on social media and Instagram, as well as going to our website, aclu TXorg, is the best way to get plugged in.
Speaker 3:Okay, I've been speaking with Brian Clusterbore from the ACLU of Texas. Thank you for coming on, brian. Thank you, this is Queer Voices.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Brian and Brian. Now it's on to Brett and Brett, with contributor Brett Cullum speaking with director Brett Martinez of the Last Yiddish Speaker. Take it away, Bretts.
Speaker 5:Hi, I'm Brett Cullum, and today I am talking with Brett Martinez, who is the director of the Last Yiddish Speaker, a play that is running at the Jewish Community Center. It is a co-production with the JCC and Houston's celebrated theater company Mildred's Umbrella. It is playing through September 21st at the JCC. So thank you, Rhett, for taking the time out talking with me. Absolutely Glad to be here. Yeah, Well, first up, tell me what this show is about, because I think it's an interesting premise Give it to me.
Speaker 6:In a nutshell, it is about a family living through a dystopian future that's only a few years into our future, the year 2029, in which try to follow me on this see if you can imagine America in this way. It's an America run by right-wing conservative Christians who oppress anyone who isn't like them, to the point of deporting them to other countries, maybe like El Salvador, and trying to oppress any kind of thought outside of the mainstream that they agree with. This Jewish family is trying to survive in that world by passing themselves off as Christians, and at the beginning of the play, the inciting event is that someone drops a woman off who is a Jewish woman at their house and says you must hide her from the neo-Nazis who rule the country. It's your turn, you have to take care of her. And they have to decide what to do to put themselves at risk to help save this woman and fight against the system that they're living under.
Speaker 5:Wow, yeah. No, this sounds like science fiction to me. I can't see this happening.
Speaker 6:Impossible to imagine that ever happening. Ironically, the origin of the play was that it was written after and in response to somewhat in response to the terrorist attack at the nation's capital on January 6th what they sometimes call the insurrection. It imagines if those people had taken over through violent force that day and had succeeded in the stated mission of those people, had taken over through violent force that day and had succeeded in the stated mission of those people, which was to interrupt the lawful election of that president. The play was written after that, but before the next presidential election, in that spot in between, when it seemed like there would be no possible way the world would turn in that direction. It's an interesting irony that's created because those people did take over, but they took over at the ballot box.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they did. Well, I noticed it's written by Deborah Zoe Laufer, if I'm saying that right. I think so, yeah, so, and Mildred's Umbrella often produces plays by women. That is a mission directive of the company. So obviously she wrote this and obviously dealing with some themes that would appeal to the JCC audience as well, and just everybody that's in a current political state. But how did you come about? I mean, how did you pick this one as a company? I mean, was it something that you just found lying on the floor of the JCC? There's?
Speaker 6:a competition, that this playwright won this playwriting competition. The play that was immediately before the Wanderers was the one before this. I believe that the play I'm thinking of actually is Memoriam, the other play Memoriam which was done at Main Street Theater. If I'm remembering my facts which I might not be, but I think I am both the Last Yiddish Speaker and the play Memoriam, which Main Street did, were in the play competition. If I'm remembering correctly, the Last Yiddish Speaker won that competition.
Speaker 6:Not that art is ever really a competition, right, I mean, there are no such thing as winners in art, but nonetheless it helped put those voices forward. So that's how it came up on Jennifer Decker's radar. One of the great things and you said a celebrated theater company for many years is that Jennifer Decker, just man, she knows how to pick great plays. She really does. That's just an amazing strength of the company, and so that's where this play originally came from. The partnership with the Jewish Community Center was something that we had done for two productions, and this was the second production of that cycle. So it came from that source and it just it just. So.
Speaker 6:It came to me through Jennifer Decker and it was not a play I found, and I honestly don't know that this is a play I ever would have sought out, which is something I probably need to be more aware of because it would have fallen outside of my normal radar. And yet it makes perfect sense with our company and what we do. Of course it's women-centered, of course it's featuring women's voices, and the main characters that drive this play are women characters, and it even has the magical realism in it which is something you often see at Mildred's, not just your contemporary modern realism plays Nothing wrong with that but there's certainly a lot more adventurous style and adventurous forms that you see at Mildred's. So it's kind of something I need to be more aware of. Like, why would this have slipped through my radar, when it absolutely fits in all ways for our company?
Speaker 5:Well, I might be able to shed a little bit of light, because I worked a lot with Naga Fleishon and Memoriam or at least I interviewed her a lot and this playwriting competition I believe that Jennifer and someone at Main Street Theater are on the judging panel, right, that's right. So they get to see a lot of these scripts, and Naga's production of Memoriam was amazing. I count it as one of the best world fairs that Houston has had in a long time, and what's fascinating about that work and this one is they're both kind of this future vision of where this is going and and you've seen kind of a big tradition of like afro futurism and and different cultural futurism, things like that, and this is almost like, for lack of a better thing, yiddish futurism yudayo futurism, something like that you're right.
Speaker 5:yes, exactly, and it's interesting that you've got both of those elements running through these plays, that both came from the same source. All right, so tell me a little bit about who is in the cast.
Speaker 6:Well, at the center of our cast is, of course, the woman playing Chava, a Houston star named Deborah Hope, and I think everybody probably listening to this podcast would certainly know who Deborah Hope is. But if not, go look her up immediately and she's just absolutely wonderful. And so it was a bit of a stretch for Deborah, because she's certainly not as old as the character and she certainly doesn't have the physical attributes we had to do a lot of hair and makeup stuff to get her into the zone, but she is 100 percent the actor we needed. And so it starts with her at the center of it. And I'm really happy to have my good friend Jason Duga back working with me again at Mildred's and again with Jennifer Decker and again at the JCC, because he's just. If I started to name people who I consider to be core members, he absolutely would be on that list. He's just wonderful to work with.
Speaker 6:I had never worked with Olivia Knight, who was playing Sarah, but of course knew who she was, and we were just really lucky that we were able to get her.
Speaker 6:She and Jason worked together perfectly as father and daughter on stage, and Olivia Knight is just an absolute force to be reckoned with. And then a brand new guy I never met before, austin Brady, who has come in and just been an absolute delight, somebody I did not know before this and I'm so glad I get to know him now. It's really rare. I think you and probably everybody listening knows it's pretty rare to make a play, to do a production and honestly, sincerely think that every person on the stage is absolutely stellar. It does happen Oftentimes. I get involved in productions as an actor, director or playwright where most people involved are absolutely stellar and that's considered a huge victory. But the rare times when you have all four cylinders firing on the same tempo, the same pace, the same scale, the same caliber, something happens. That is just different. It really is different, and I just appreciate those and I'm old enough now to know that doesn't happen all the time, so you really got to be grateful for them when they happen.
Speaker 5:It does look like a top-notch cast. And, of course, debra Hope, you are guaranteed at least one episode of Car Takes with Joel, and I believe that was taped last night.
Speaker 6:I believe it's going to be out there soon, if not already. It's already out there. Oh good, I assumed it was. I just got home from here's another fun thing having a day job and then going and doing theater at night. I just got home from a day of teaching school, so I hadn't actually seen it yet whether they'd done it.
Speaker 5:Yes, I life. But they actually dragged jennifer into the car so she makes a cameo on their car takes for the last unit speaker.
Speaker 6:So definitely go out and seek that out with the car takes with they're always fun, are just always fun, and that one's got probably got a little more silliness than the average oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:That's what we love about them. Come on, how can you not love that? Well, let me ask you this, because I see you all the time at mildred's. You've kind of become a staple there, directing shows and being in shows and doing all these other things. How did you get involved with Mildred's Umbrella? What was your first?
Speaker 6:thing. That is such a good question. I'm so glad you asked. I hope I don't get emotional, okay, so when my wife Sammy my wife Sammy Sosinski, very successful Houston actress, who, a little quick sidebar, was a finalist for Best Supporting Actress this year from Houston Press for our Mildred's Umbrella production of Cry it Out, she was also in the Main Street production of Memoriam.
Speaker 6:Yes, it's a small, small little town. Everybody knows everybody, good and bad. We didn't used to know everybody when we came back. We were from Houston, we were born and raised here, but then we left and moved to New York City, spent a number of years there, did some theater and then decided you know, what would be really great is if we could buy one of those things I think they're called a house and people live in them and you can own them. That's an impossibility in New York City. So we came back home to Houston and tried to settle down here and we didn't know a lot of the theater community people here in town.
Speaker 6:So we would go to plays at Mildred's Umbrella and other companies and we were just fans. We just were big fans of the company. We would go and watch the shows and love the shows and then leave, not having any way of you know, knowing these people. It's kind of hard to imagine leaving a play now and not talking to everybody at the stage door. I really appreciate that. That's where I am in my life now, that I do know a lot of people.
Speaker 6:But back when we didn't know people, we were fans of Mildred's because we went to see the plays, because we never heard of these plays outside of Mildred's umbrella, because Decker is so good at finding them, we would go to see the material and then eventually, by auditioning, we got our foot in the door at the company and then, over a course of a number of years, we got our foot in the door at the company and then, over a course of a number of years, I find myself being invited to become the associate artistic director of this company that I admired as a fan from a distance, and I see myself making that journey and it's pretty incredible, it's pretty great.
Speaker 5:It's really incredible. And now all of these little combinations are lining up with you and Sammy. And I'm like okay, this is why. And you're both teachers on top of that aren't you?
Speaker 6:We're both teachers. Yes, and it's Friday after a long week.
Speaker 5:And you've got to go to the Jewish Community Center and get ready for the last Jewish speaker. But yeah, tell me a little bit about the run, because I know that their run is a little bit different than the other houses. I think you do. Thursday, friday, sunday, thursday.
Speaker 6:Saturday, sunday, because Friday night is a Jewish holiday. Every week, that's their Sabbath Shabbos. Oh, how did I get this wrong? Okay, so not tonight. So from Friday night at sundown to Saturday night at sundown. So the Jewish Community Center is actually closed on Friday evenings. It is open for business on Saturday because there are a lot of people who attend and visit the Jewish Community Center who are not Jewish. They go there for the amazing facilities, which has all kinds of incredible stuff, including a swimming pool and an amazing gymnasium. There's just a lot of great stuff going on there. So the people that are there on Saturday are the people that are not observing that holiday. But we only have performances Thursday night, saturday night, sunday matinee, and the Sunday matinee is kind of early it is 11 to one, which is an earlier matinee than I'm used to.
Speaker 6:But as I get older and older, I got to tell you, man, I love a matinee.
Speaker 5:Especially when it starts at 11 too. That's not bad.
Speaker 6:I like getting home before dark and laying on the sofa with the dogs.
Speaker 6:It's a pretty good thing, but that is so. That is part of the reason that the schedule looks a little different. We are therefore going to lose that Friday night show for the three weeks that we run. So it's only nine performances as opposed to our usual 12. We did have an invited dress rehearsal. Because of the nature of the way the facility works in the building, it's just not possible to realistically do like a Monday night industry night. So it's only nine performances, one down, which means there's only eight left. So actually no.
Speaker 6:I'm not going to the theater tonight. It's Saturday and Sunday, lucky you guess where?
Speaker 5:I'm going, but okay, I have to go to the theater, so the Joe Frank theater is what you're in. I think that a lot of people don't know this. I mean, I really didn't know this until Jennifer started doing plays there. I was like the JCC has a theater. And it's actually a really cool black box kind of theater, very intimate. How many people do you seat?
Speaker 6:I think we have about 51, 53 seats, depending on if we added a couple, and it's had the big theater there for a long time. I don't know if the big theater has a name or if it does what it is, but it's just the big theater at the JCC, which is a full proscenium stage, auditorium style. Can't even imagine how many seats they have in there. It looks like a high school auditorium. They put on productions there all the time. My wife, sammy Sosinski, back in the day in her youth performed Grease there and she was Rizzo, so we have a lot of fond memories of that building. I didn't know her back then. But at any rate, the real hidden gem for me is that small black box theater that was really underused. Jennifer went in and just did something there years ago. Two, three years ago it was a reading.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and then came back, I think, a year later and found that the place had not been touched, like the room had basically been vacant that entire time because things were left where they left them. And she asked have you guys not used this space since we were in here last a year or almost a year ago? And they said, no, this space is almost never used. And I was like, really, a black box theater in Houston that is just sitting there that nobody knew about. So yeah, pretty interesting find.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and it's looking at a 5601 South Braeswood Boulevard for people that don't know.
Speaker 6:Amazing facility, lots of parking, very safe. It's like a dream, it's super easy yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's amazing, so definitely worth it, and I've seen the productions there and definitely planning to see the last of the speakers, so I look forward to cramming in with 50 of my closest friends and experiencing Denver Hope.
Speaker 6:People saw the opening last night. I know I'm not, you know I'm I'm pretty biased, but I sat in the back quietly and waited for the curtain call and people leapt to their feet to give them a standing ovation. It is just a knockout of a play. People are going to love it. It is hilariously funny. It is incredibly moving. It's a very serious subject. Deborah Hope, as Chava, is so delightfully charming and hilarious that the play just works on both those levels pretty much throughout the whole thing. It's just. It's just. It's gonna be a big hit and we're already sold out on a couple of nights. So if you're planning to go, you better, you better get them quick right, we'll grab them all.
Speaker 5:Right, you can definitely get them at the mildred's umbrella website, mildred's umbrellacom, so that's easy. So just go ahead and head over there. But thank you so much. Right, it's so awesome to talk with you about this and your connections with Sammy and Mildred's umbrella.
Speaker 6:Thank you so much. It's good to do this. Yeah, man, I'll look forward to seeing or hearing this.
Speaker 2:Thank you, brett and Brett, to close out our show, we have queer voices. Executive Producer Brian Levinka back speaking with Richard Alban from the Alzheimer's Association of Southeast Texas, who explains a groundbreaking $3 billion state initiative to fund dementia research and what it means for LGBTQ elders and caregivers.
Speaker 3:This is Brian Levinka, and today I'm joined by Richard Alban, the Executive Director of the Alzheimer's Association of Southeast Texas, joined by Richard Elbin, the executive director of the Alzheimer's Association of Southeast Texas. Welcome to the show, richard, thank you.
Speaker 8:Good to be here. Why are you here? What's going on? Why am I here? Well, I mean, I think one reason I'm here is because Alzheimer's disease and other dementias affect so many people. I mean, we're talking about 7 million or more Americans living with Alzheimer's across the country and almost half a million just in Texas. So it's a big issue that we're all struggling with.
Speaker 8:And I'm here, I think, first and foremost to talk about what the state of Texas is proposing to do about Alzheimer's and dementia, which is pretty exciting. And what is that? Well, so the legislature this session passed a Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas bill. So they are proposing that we fund a $3 billion program which is a lot of money over 10 years, which would fund the Dementia Prevention and Research Fund from the state's general revenue, and that money would spin off every year $300 million to fund dementia research, to find better treatments and ultimately, a cure, which is, just to put it in context, the amount of money per capita that comes to the state of Texas currently from the National Institutes of Health to fund dementia research. This fund would double that amount. So the amount per capita for research funding of Alzheimer's and dementia would double in the state of Texas. If this fund is passed really mind-blowing and the impact that it could have on moving the field forward and finding better treatments and a cure faster would significantly accelerate. So that's very exciting.
Speaker 3:And this would be the first of its kind in the country Is that right? That is correct.
Speaker 8:So right now there's nothing like this across the country. There is actually in the state of Texas. This is modeled after something that was passed gosh, I want to say it's probably been 15 would attract people from across the country to come to Texas. And also cancer research. And if you look at Texas on the map, texas is seen as the leading place, certainly in the United States, if not in the world, around cancer research. And that's because CPRIT was passed all those years ago and has been spinning $300 million a year to attract researchers to come to Texas and attract startup companies that are interested in research. So this is this. Dprit, the Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, is modeled exactly after that.
Speaker 8:So and I see the question about Alzheimer's research so right now, alzheimer's research well, primarily Alzheimer's research is conducted at academic institutions, heavily at medical centers, medical schools, but some at institutes of higher learning. So, for example, in the Houston and Southeast Texas area, there's massive amounts of Alzheimer's and dementia research being conducted at Baylor College of Medicine, at Houston Methodist, at University of Texas Health Science Center Houston, at the University of Houston, at UTMB in Galveston, there's some at Rice University. So all of those, oh, I guess I should throw in Texas A&M, which is considered part of the Texas Medical Center. There's a lot of research being done also at Texas A&M, and that would be true if we looked across the rest of the state. That's true. So UT Austin has research, ut Health Science Center in San Antonio, ut Rio Grande Valley, ut El Paso, texas Tech all of those institutions, ut Southwestern they're all conducting a lot of research. Most of it is funded through the National Institutes of Health and the National Institutes on Aging. They also get some funding through the Veterans Administration. So the VA has an interest in dementia research because so many veterans are aging and are dependent on their health system, so they're interested in finding better treatments and ultimately a cure.
Speaker 8:So then the Alzheimer's Association.
Speaker 8:So we're the largest private funder of Alzheimer's research in the world, and so, for example, in the Houston area, we fund around $10 million in Alzheimer's research currently.
Speaker 8:But still that would all be dwarfed if and when I mean we hope that it's a when this deep-read ballot initiative is passed on November 4th, so that $3 billion package would fund $300 million additional dollars every year. The interesting thing that it does that may be a little different is that whoever is funded has to be in Texas. So that means that if there are startups or innovative individuals or companies that think that they're developing some great treatment or some great diagnostic tool, there's every reason for them to move to Texas to make sure that they have access and can apply for those deep-root funds. And so, in addition to the fact that it's going to drive innovation and research, it's also going to potentially drive, it's going to create jobs in Texas and it's going to really impact the state's economy because these people will move to Texas and bring their wisdom and hire employees to work in their companies. So it will create jobs as well as attract top researchers from around the world to come here to be part of this really exciting initiative exciting initiative Now.
Speaker 3:Is the thinking that DPRIT will kind of follow the path of CPRIT and kind of create this like hub of intellectual kind of energy, like the MD Anderson for Alzheimer's? Is that the thinking, Exactly?
Speaker 8:I think the goal is for DPRIT to create enough funding opportunity that institutions will invest more than they currently invest in Alzheimer's research and treatment. So both you know the research part is great. What's equally needed is more robust treatments for people with Alzheimer's and places to go to get those treatments. So we need institutions to invest on the clinical side also. This really creates that opportunity Because as clinicians move to Texas with the interest in conducting research, they not only have to have participants in their research but they also need to provide care for people so that they keep their connection to the community. So the impact on families currently dealing with Alzheimer's means that they will have more clinicians and more clinicians with real expertise in the field. So all the way around the field of dementia benefits in Texas by having this kind of fund available.
Speaker 3:So we're an LGBTQ show. Can you talk about Alzheimer's in the LGBTQ community, dr HANSON?
Speaker 8:Sure. So the Alzheimer's Association actually the LGBT community is one of our priority communities, because what we see is that the concern about finding a clinician who's going to be receptive to our lifestyle as compared with other people's and be sensitive to the fact that we have a same-sex partner, and that our circle of friends often is our closest family and wants to help and support us so all of those reasons make just even finding a clinical home challenging. And often there has been a lack of access to health care throughout the lifespan. So when someone gets to the point of being an older adult, they may not have had the same support for their health over their lifespan, which means that their risk factors may be greater. And then, of course, all the challenges related to caregiving, which is that there probably are not, there may not be a spouse and there probably are not children.
Speaker 8:So mobilizing the caregiver network that's needed for a person with dementia is also more challenging for our community than it may be for people from other communities. So we, the Alzheimer's Association, is very interested in that and trying to address those barriers to care and also those gaps in potentially receiving the kinds of support services that are needed. I'm not sure that directly will benefit that other than if there are more services and if those services are more broadly available. It makes it more likely that people will access diagnostics sooner, and the sooner someone is diagnosed, the more likely they are to get aggressive treatments and also to be able to participate in the planning. That's needed to figure out, and if you have the time to think about it and you're able to make decisions about your own care, then it's easier to think about how am I going to mobilize the care when I need it in the future, where, if it becomes a crisis, then everyone is scrambling to try and make sure that a person with dementia is fully supported and cared for.
Speaker 3:So is dementia and Alzheimer's interchangeable? Are they the same thing or is there differences? That's a great question.
Speaker 8:Brian Often. We use them interchangeably, but the way to think about it is dementia is an umbrella term and it describes a set of symptoms. So when we observe someone and I think all of us have friends or family or know people who are functioning in a way that is not the way they used to function, so we notice that maybe their memory is slipping, or they repeat themselves, or their handling of finances is not quite as responsible as it used to be, or they have some significant changes in behavior, all of those things may suggest that there's some cognitive issue, and when those cognitive issues start to affect daily life, we generally refer to that as dementia. The question we would ask is what's causing the dementia? And so that gets us to thinking about different diseases that could cause dementia, and the most common disease that causes dementia is Alzheimer's disease. So somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of all dementias are caused by Alzheimer's disease, which starts in a certain part of the brain and spreads throughout the brain. So the reason we think about when we say the word Alzheimer's, almost everyone thinks about memory changes is because where the disease Alzheimer's disease starts, the part of the brain that it affects first is the memory center. So people's short-term memory starts to be affected and so they repeat themselves or they can't remember that they ate breakfast or you know what restaurant they're going to, so they get lost halfway going somewhere, driving. So those are all related to memory changes because that's the first place that's affected.
Speaker 8:But there are other forms of dementia, other causes of dementia which we hear about. For example, I think there's been a lot of discussion recently about Bruce Willis who has frontotemporal dementia. Starts in the frontotemporal lobe, which is why it's referred to as frontotemporal dementia. It manifests differently. Memory is not the first thing that's affected. So you know it's a different process but over time it affects other parts of the brain.
Speaker 8:Just like Alzheimer's, parkinson's starts as a mobility issue, so there's mobility changes first. But over time Parkinson's disease can affect, can have cognitive changes and affect memory. So as it spreads through the brain and starts to kill brain cells at some point, it also can have, can cause dementia. So Parkinson's does not start as a dementia, but it can. It can become a dementia, which is in fact why this Proposition 14, which is the ballot initiative for DEPRIT, the Dementia Prevention and Research Institute, it includes Parkinson's as well as Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, and so that's why, when I talk about Alzheimer's and then I mention dementia, it's to make sure that it's inclusive of all the different dementias that someone may suffer from, but Alzheimer's is the most common and the one that people hear about most often.
Speaker 3:I've heard mention of the Poynter study. Can you talk about that I?
Speaker 8:am absolutely delighted to talk about Poynter, so that's really exciting. So the Poynter study is a five-year study that just concluded in the United States. It's a study that looked at a lifestyle intervention to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's in people who are at risk of dementia. So people at risk of dementia just to kind of give you an idea about what we're talking about anyone who has a first-degree relative with Alzheimer's is at a higher risk, so, in other words, a parent, a sibling, a child. So if someone in that first degree has Alzheimer's, our risk is a little higher. I have my mother, her sister, so my aunt, my grandmother on one side, my grandfather on the other side, so I have an elevated risk. Just because they had Alzheimer's, my risk is elevated, so I would be a person at risk. Also, though, if I had hypertension, so if my blood pressure were elevated, that would put me at risk. If I had diabetes, that would put me at risk. If I had heart disease, that would put me at risk. Hypertension, taking cholesterol medications, all those things are risk factors, and, of course, being older puts us at risk because of those factors that I mentioned. And then we studied, so we put them on an exercise program, a modified diet. They engaged in some brain stimulation so doing brain games or brain challenges. They were engaged in social activities games or brain challenges. They were engaged in social activities. So more than just the normal, they specifically it was targeted active social type engagement and then managing all of those conditions that I just mentioned, so managing diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol levels, so making sure that the other diseases or other risk factors were modified. So they did this for two years.
Speaker 8:The study had 2,100 people across five sites in the United States. Houston was one of the five sites and that's why I'm really excited because our chapter, the Alzheimer's Association, was part of the study, along with our principal investigators who were at Baylor College of Medicine, and we had clinical partners at Kelsey Sebold. So in Houston we had over 450 people in the study. And so this two-year study, which is not a long time what we found at the end of that two years is that people who made those lifestyle interventions or those lifestyle modifications, reduced their risk of developing dementia and significantly reduced their risk, and people who followed a structured program had a better outcome than people who did a kind of self-guided. You know, they learned about what healthy choices were and they made the choices and they did the intervention as they saw fit versus folks who were more actively coached. So the folks who were actively coached did the best. But even the folks who made the decisions on their own after they were educated did better, significantly better, than people who just lived the way they normally live and went to Chick-fil-A or did whatever.
Speaker 8:And the impact is one to two years. It postponed any development of dementia by one to two years. So this is they did a two-year study and they essentially gained one to two years from the program. So we don't know what the long-term implications are if they end of the study. We learned that in white people we know that certain interventions will have an impact, but we don't know in African-American communities, latino communities, asian communities. So when the Alzheimer's Association funded this study, we said there have to be at least a third of the participants need to come from diverse communities and in Houston our cohort of those 450 plus people, 46% came from diverse communities. So we're going to walk away knowing that these lifestyle interventions work with every community that exists in the country and that the benefit will have the same impact, that we can feel confident that it's worth people's time to make these lifestyle interventions.
Speaker 3:So what is your advice for people, for friends or family members trying to support someone with dementia and Alzheimer's? What can they do?
Speaker 8:Well, first and foremost, I would say a person who's a caregiver. They definitely should reach out to the Alzheimer's Association and make sure that they are accessing all of the resources that are available in the community. That would be true whether they're in Houston or Amarillo or Timbuktu. So we have a 800 number 800-272-3900, which is answered by Alzheimer's. They're master's level social workers. They can talk to them about their specific situation and give them a plan of action or connect them with whatever resources are in the community, whether it's here in Houston or somewhere else. They can go to our website at alzorg If they want to go to the chapter website so to access really what's happening here in the Houston and Southeast Texas area, it's alzorg slash Texas and find whatever resources. We offer education programs both in person and online. We run support groups in person and online. We have an app that can help support families that are dealing with dementia.
Speaker 8:I would also say it's important to make sure that you've gotten an accurate diagnosis. So sometimes the garden variety physician can only go so far in assuring someone that what they're dealing with is Alzheimer's and if it's Alzheimer's, there's one treatment. If it's frontotemoral dementia, it's a different treatment. My mother, actually, and her sister. So both of them not only had Alzheimer's, they had normal pressure hydrocephalus, which was another cause of dementia which was treatable to an academic medical center. For them to diagnose that correctly and perform the surgery to deal with that part of the dementia issue Just making sure that they get an accurate diagnosis they can contact us to get some of the names and contact information for the academic medical centers that really are centers of excellence in the field of Alzheimer's and dementia.
Speaker 3:Richard, is there anything that I didn't ask you, that you'd like to let our listeners know about Alzheimer's and dementia, and the pointer study and the proposition?
Speaker 8:Well, I guess what I would say is that the election is on November 4th and so it is Proposition 14. So please just pay attention to Proposition 14 in the ballot. Make sure you read that far down, don't just skip. And then the other thing I'll say about lifestyle is that the same kinds of lifestyle interventions that will help reduce the risk of Alzheimer's many of them also will reduce the risk of cancer. They'll reduce the risk of heart disease. So it's really worth thinking about incorporating some exercise, daily activity.
Speaker 8:Thinking about the diet that we used for this study was called the MIND diet. It's a combination of Mediterranean diet, which I think most people are familiar with, with a diet that specifically is for hypertension, called the DASH diet, and so basically it's eating a lot more things that grow. So it's much more leafy greens and berries and nuts and grains and beans and a lot less meat. So I will just say that Chick-fil-A would really not be on the list, or McDonald's hamburgers, but some really, you know, a lot more fresh produce. And what we know is that when you make those choices, you will improve your health. And you know, it's so exciting to think we can do something ourselves. We don't have to wait to go to a doctor and have them give us a pill, and in fact there's not a pill that will have as much impact as a lifestyle intervention. So we are all more powerful than we know.
Speaker 3:If you're joining us. We've been speaking with Richard Elbein, the executive director of the Alzheimer's Association of Southeast Texas, and full disclosure. I'm on the board of the Alzheimer's Association so I do have an interest in this topic, so I appreciate you coming on, Richard, Absolutely.
Speaker 8:Thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:This has been Queer Voices, heard on KPFT Houston and as a podcast available from several podcasting sources. Check our webpage QueerVoicesorg for more information. Queer Voices executive producer is Brian Levinka. Deborah Moncrief-Bell is co-producer Brett Cullum Davis Mendoza-Druzman Ethan Michelle Gans. Mel Peterson and Joel Tatum are contributors.
Speaker 7: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.
