 Welcome to this special edition of Out and About, a show where we explore people, events, organizations, doing good in our community, city, state, local, and world. And we just share with you these special folks, and today we have a really special guy on. His name is Michael Goloyu Jr. He is the co-chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaii Membership Committee for the LGBT Caucus, and he is a representative to the SCC. And he is the director of the labor caucus. So very involved politically and also in the community. And it's our delight to have you here today, Michael. So thanks for being our guest. Thanks for having me. So I think probably some people don't even realize that there is something for LGBTQIA folks. What is the LGBT Caucus of the Democratic Party? What's its purpose and submission? We are Hawaii's only LGBTQIA-plus-focused policy legislative and our political organization left in the state. We focus primarily on legislation as well as working on policy for within the Democratic Party and outside the greater community on ensuring that we have justice equality for the entire LGBTQIA-plus community. And so you're the only ones left in this. And I think one thing that probably people don't realize, a lot of people think, oh, gay people shouldn't have special rights, or you're already equal to other citizens. But it's interesting because you've got something on your website that says 52% of, well, all Americans, including LGBT Americans, live in a state with zero protections from workplace discrimination. So half of Americans who might identify as queer or intersex or gay could be fired in this day and age, and it is perfectly legal according to the law of the land right now. Is that essentially correct? Yeah. Yeah, you could get, without their marriage equality, you could get married on Sunday. Your boss find out on Monday and get fired. You could lose your place to live on Wednesday, get beaten on Thursday, and have no protections in 52% of the state, 52% of Americans live in states that allow that to happen. Luckily here in Hawaii, we have some of the best protections. So we don't have those problems, but we are there still so much left to be done. Marriage equality was just the beginning, was just part of the fight towards full equality for our community. Yeah, just part of the fight towards full equality. So this is just a basic stepping stone to get there. And obviously, there's a lot of priority issues for this caucus. So tell us a little bit, how do caucuses work inside of the Democratic Party, and how many are there? There are, currently there are seven caucuses. We are semi-independent, which means that we can act to our own right to further the mission and goals of each individual caucus. They all differentiate on the goals. We have the Kupuna Caucus, the Women Affairs, Hawaiian Labor. They all have different missions and goals. And so we act semi-independently of the Democratic Party to push forward the goals and aspirations of those caucuses. So we can't go against anything that's in the platform or our bylaws or constitution, but stay within those confinements. We can basically do what we need to do to push our agenda forward. And for that agenda, let's say that the caucus adopts a position that says we should, a basic one, of which we have in Hawaii, but you can't be fired from your job for being gay, for example. Do all then Democratic candidates have to agree to that if they're a member of the party, or do they have flexibility to be all a cart and say, oh, no, I don't want to do that? If it's within the caucus, no, the candidates do not. Even if it's in our platform, they're not supposed to work against the goals of our platform. So I encourage everybody to take a chance, read the Hawaii Democrats platform. It's at hawaidemocrats.org. And that's the platform that all Democrats are supposed to be either working towards or at least not working against. And unfortunately, we do have a few Democrats still out there that don't necessarily agree with justice and equality for our community, don't support labor rights. And so it's be a little bit of on the caucuses to forward their mission and get the message out there and educate people about those that are running for office. OK, and are there any differences between the state caucus and the national caucus as far as these goals go with issues concerning the LGBTQIA community? They tend to run parallel. In some cases, the national one takes on the thing like the states that they focus on the states that we're having problems with, mainly our red states. We're statewide, the state caucuses focus on the local issues, on things that they move forward. So we move forward the needle here. And hopefully it will be an impetus for other people in other states to follow our lead. Leader, I'm sure compared to the rainbow state, although that has a lot of connotations. But it's a lovely meeting. You got a nice rainbow lay on there. I see that's made out of ribbon. So it's fitting that it's both a lot of different meanings here in Hawaii. Right now, obviously, we're in COVID lockdown here in Hawaii. From today in about an hour, we're all supposed to be at home. And we are sheltering in place until April 30th is the current deadline right now. Anyone coming to the state is going to be quarantined for two weeks, whether they're visitors or locals, in order to try and contain the spread of COVID right now. So if you're looking at this in the future, this is where we are. We've got about 75 cases here as of today, another 12 more. It's a concern to everybody who's a human, obviously. And I think it may be that LGBTQIA people are maybe slightly more affected by this from what I've read in the news. But the COVID aside, and now that the legislature is actually shut down because we had a Senator test positive. And so they shut down the Senate. Bills are shut down. Where does this put things? And before things were shut down, what are some of the bills that are moving through the caucus right now or through the legislature that are a priority to the caucus? Prior to the shutdown, we were having a really great session. One of our priority bills was a commission on the status of the LGBTQ plus community. It would mirror the commission on the status of women and be able to a clearinghouse or as well as making sure that our needs of our community are forefront, not only at the legislature, but within state government itself. So well, the funding for that mechanism for that commission is in jeopardy because of the status. We're hopeful that when they come back into session, they will at least establish the commission and then we can look at funding it in the next year. The other things we were looking at is anti-bullying mechanisms. Most youth go to a school where homophobia and transphobia are too well-accepted as part of the social norms. And what we were looking at, we had bills moving forward to address that. We also had a bill addressing homeless youth. And the reason that's a priority for the caucus is that 40% of the homeless unaccompanied minors out there identify as part of the LGBTQ community, where we make up around 10% of the general population. That's a great disparity. And so we made a priority for the caucus to address that need shelters. There are no shelters in the state of Hawaii for anybody under the age of 18. If you're over the age of 18, there's one shelter and it's on the Windward side of Oahu called Rise. And so there was a bill calling upon DHS to make sure that they did more to address the needs of the homeless unaccompanied minors. The other bill that was of one of the priorities was making sure that minors had access to mental health, as well as minors had access to PrEP and other medical needs that they may not want to go to without letting their guardian for parents know about when we sought medical attention. And so they were all moving forward. We were scheduled to have a really great session and then everybody's world collapsed. And so we are hopeful that when they pick the session back up that we can get most of these bills moving along to the finish line. So is it just the idea that perhaps the government here will kick into action again, the Senate and the House, maybe in August or September even, or some late sort of session like this? The last thing I heard, they were looking at eight weeks given with the lockdown of April 30th. That would take us to almost the eight-week point that then they would restart up in May. But that's all. Every day the ground is shifting under us and we've got to see how it works out. So we're hoping that everybody uses this time that they're sheltering in place to learn about the legislative process. And there's a lot of great resources out there. We include them on our Facebook page and we will put some more links up on our website to make sure people can understand the legislative process and they can become more involved. And especially for those that can't make it down to the legislature because their job does not allow them to take time off during the day to come and testify in person, they still can have their voices heard by having submitting testimony online. It's rather simple. It takes a few minutes to have a lasting impact that could help change the lives of so many of our local citizens. And so tell us what is your Facebook page and your website just so people have that and they can follow along? Sure, our website is lgbtcaucashawaii.org and our Facebook page is glbtcaucashawaiidem. If I remember that correctly. Okay, just Google GLBT Hawaii Democrats on the Facebook and it'll come up. And lgbtcaucas, because our URL is different than our name, because when we started, we were the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender caucus. We switched to GLBT and when I became chair, it was my first priority to switch just to lgbtcaucas to go along with what was the norm at the time, which was going on eight years ago, 10 years ago. And now we have the Q and the plus. Yes, the Q, the I, the A and the plus. The Q, the I, the A and the plus. Yeah, so I would say just Google lgbtcaucas, Hawaii or Democrats in any combination of that and you'll get us there. So you mentioned, and so when we come back from COVID, assuming we're coming back sometime soon, how long will the rest of the session be approximately? They were, they still had a good six weeks left to the session. Her, the state constitution, they have 60 days and 60 working days would have taken us to the first week of May, if they had stayed in session. So we're still looking at, they still have to continue with the timeline to my understanding. We'll have better guidance once the, it becomes clear that they've been able to, they can reopen the capital and start getting back to business of the people. Okay, and you said there's basically, you've got at least five priority bills there, but the main one that you came out with was, I think it's HB2037, which establishes the Hawaii State, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus lgbtq plus commission and the Hawaii State, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer plus commission trust fund. So it might be at this time that they do establish commission first and fund it later. And can people still weigh in on that or can they still submit testimony on that? Yeah, it's gone through all the Harry's except for one. It has one last Harry and that's in WAM, which is ways it means in the Senate. And then it looks like it will go to conference. And that's where I think that we're gonna cut, money's gonna be really tight here as we move forward with the complete downturn in our tourism economy, which is one of our number one money courses here in the state. So we're gonna be seeing belts being tightened across the board. And so like I said, I hopefully they'll establish the commission and then so we can get the ball rolling and get the commissioners at least put in there and that the commission can then be funded at next session. Okay, if not this session, and we can hope for the best, but yeah, the entire economy is collapsing as we speak, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't look out for everybody, especially the most marginalized people in the community. In fact, we need to get an extra concerted effort for that right now, because as you said, 40% of homeless youths identify as LGBTQIA. Is that what you said and that there's no currently available homeless shelters available for kids that have maybe run away or been kicked out of their house? If you're under the age of 18, there's nothing available for you. So as we talk about COVID-19, we've got to keep in mind that they're the most vulnerable as our homeless youth population. There are services available for adults. There is that one shelter for 18 to 24 on a Wahoo only and it's on the windward side. And they're at capacity. They only have 30 beds. Here on a Wahoo average 125 youth sleep on the street tonight without, and these numbers very go up and down a little bit here and there, but those are considered unfortunately standard numbers to look at without any support from the government, without any support from nonprofits. Unless they're in the Waikiki area and then there's Yo, which is a youth drop-in center and they're only open four days a week, three hours a day. And it's a place where they can get a hot meal sometimes, be able to wash their clothes, take a shower, work on their schooling, but again, it's only three hours a day, four days a week. And so when the time comes, they have to kick everybody out because they're not a licensed worker. That's crazy. So we have a bill up to establish our tech to look at this and fund shelters at least. I mean, the fact that there's no shelters, it'd be bad enough if they were housed in shelters because of the being kicked out of houses or forced to leave. But the fact that there's none obviously needs to be addressed. Like you said, homeless youth, they're so marginalized, we absolutely have to keep that as a priority. You mentioned a couple of them was getting PrEP and mental health care. Mental health care is a given. Everybody needs to have access to mental health care and we have very good mental health care that's paid for if you have insurance in this state. We can have unlimited mental health care, which is critical, but you gotta have insurance to get that. As far as PrEP, what is PrEP and why should people under 18 have access to that without the parents maybe permission or knowing about it? PrEP, it's an inhibitor. It basically blocks, if you're not HIV or HIV positive, it will block you from getting the virus if you take it as prescribed. And if youth are not to have the conversation about coming out to their parents, they shouldn't actually have to go, they shouldn't have to come out to get health coverage. The same thing with mental health care. It was something that came out of when we banned conversion therapy, the FastForce came forward saying that we definitely need more access to mental health care and that youth should be able to access it without their guardians or parents knowing because like you said, we have 40% of them, like I said, 40% of these youth are on the streets and in the most cases when it comes to our community, they've been kicked out or they've been chased out of their homes. And it's coming out as a very personal decision for people and youth should not be forced to come out of the closet to seek mental health care or seek any kind of health care. And so is there an age limit for that? It's just like a 15 to 18 or 13 to 18 or and who would pay for that if that were the case? If they currently under one version of the bill, it would be, it's 13 and over and it would be the youth would be responsible for the co-pay if they're guardian, has health insurance. There's another version of the bill, which is, I don't, it's not my favorite, so I don't have all the details memorized, but so again, it would be in one, and then the same, there's two different versions of the health care bill, mental health care bill and not only does it, it would be that the youth would have to pay the co-pay and then another version of the bill, they'd have to pay for everything, but they just would, the health insurance would not notify the guardian. That's my least favorite version of the bill. I believe that if a youth is covered under the parent or guardian's health care, that they should be able to gain access and they just have to pay the co-pay because if you, the co-pay shows up on the guardian or parent's bill, they're gonna, someone's gonna have to explain it and why they're, so. Yeah, yeah, I can see some issues with that one. And I also can understand some people would say, oh, well, I would wanna know if my darling were having sex or if my darling sir wouldn't be having sex before my darling is married and 28 and half. Well, we know that doesn't happen. I mean, folks, let's face it, how old are you? And not only that, but if you're, even if you're one of these vulnerable kids, I think a lot of them are actually forced to unfortunately sell their bodies for money and they need to be protected from all kinds of STDs. And if they don't have access to these protections, it's really, I mean, it's a bad situation all the way around. So we've gotta do everything that we can to make it better for these kids and just for kids that are in their own parents' homes, but they're terrified of coming out and they wanna protect themselves in advance because they know they're gonna do it just like all their friends are. So it seems like really some important bills that are going through there. So now as we're coming, hopefully as this comes back, we can go to your website, we can testify, we can learn about this thing. What do you think the most important thing is right now for people to know about LGBTQIA people in the state of Hawaii, youth, old people, medium age people, medium young, what is the most important things that we need to focus on as a society to make it better, especially now given the situation where our economy is in freefall. It'll stop, it will get better, but even without that, what can we be focusing on? What should we be doing? What can we do? We should be focused on an acceptance of the LGBTQIA plus community and part of that way to get to this is understanding and education. We have, if you get to our Facebook page, we have a wonderful symposium done by, brought to us by the Lavender Clinic about understanding gender identity and the gender spectrum because that's the new frontier when it comes to LGBTQIA rights is understanding what the difference is why there's genderqueer, the term genderqueer, understanding that gender is not male nor female, it's not the binary that we were all taught growing up and that we need to learn more about each other and that hopefully people will be able to use the shelter and place time to educate themselves and learn about our community. And just, so if they don't understand and they have asked questions and I'm always willing to answer any questions there. I don't believe there's a stupid question. It's how you respond to the answers you're given. And so that we need people to, and we need our allies to come out more. If you support the LGBTQIA plus community, be more vocal when you hear the gay joke, when you hear the trans joke, shut it down because homophobia and transphobia are still the most socially acceptable forms of discrimination allowed. And we need to, everybody needs to step up and say and speak out when they hear it. Yeah, and I think maybe you can address like, things under President Obama remarkably improved in this society, I mean, across all fronts. In the last several years, we've had some serious challenges with the current administration across, well, our entire society, but especially I think into racism, sexism, homophobia and homophobia is also transphobia, but it's bleeding right through. And so people have, we've got a lot of catching up to do at this point because so much has been, I guess, retrenched there. So we're starting from a place that's, we thought I think that we were getting to be really enlightened, we're marching forward. And then suddenly we just sort of all got slapped. It's a shock for us, but here in Hawaii, are things basically the same? And are we gonna come out of this, okay, or is our nation going to say, you know what, we took whatever that was, it wasn't good for us. Are we gonna come out that way and realize we need to value all people, whether they're gay or women or young or old or black or brown or white or whatever it is, handicap, otherly able to able to. Are we gonna come out of this with stronger values as people? Do you have optimism and faith in that? Because right now it seems like there's some dark time. I do have hope and faith for the future. Otherwise I wouldn't be in this, I wouldn't be doing the things I do. I have grave concerns about what the future holds for us, especially coming up with into the 2020 elections. Currently we are looking at two Supreme Court cases that would redefine workers' rights for the LGBTQIA plus community in those 52 states that would, if the courts side with the current federal administration and the occupant of the White House, it would drastically hurt workers' rights for the LGBTQ plus community and then therefore harm workers' rights anywhere because the idea is an injury to one is an injury to us all. And so these cases would say that we do not have protections under the federal government that were established by President Obama and that they would be able to fire somebody because they're gay, because of who they love because their gender, be it transgender or gender identity and expression. And so the one thing that the COVID-19 pandemic might do is slow down the courts and they won't release their decision in June and that we'll have some time and that maybe this will waken up some of those more conservative justices on the courts and they will actually come down on our side of justice and equality to ensure that all workers no matter your creed, no matter your sexual orientation gender identity that you deserve protection and you deserve protection. You deserve protection and you deserve a place to live and a place to work. Absolutely. And I think that that's what it is is we're looking at these court cases very carefully because I was heartened, Virginia recently, past protections in housing, employment and something else. This isn't work from all knowledge. Hey, Joe, it's first Southern state to pass protections and it was just in January, February, first state to pass protections in 10 years. So the country, 25 states divided 10 years ago basically and they said, we're going to be free, fair, equal, inclusive and the other 25 said, nope, we're not going to do it. So, but we're seeing some shifting now. So, and this was an issue. So this is right on the lines of, you know how states can become more progressive so that actually gave me some hope. Well, and just real quick in Virginia, that's proof there, the elections matter. The Democrats took control of the house. They took the Senate. They took the governorship. That is how they were able to pass those legislations. It was, they had one of the first transgender House members there who won in the off year and she won reelection in 2019. And so in the 2019, they were able to take back the, take, have full control. And so the reasons we're seeing these progressions in Virginia is because people came out and supported Democrats. And so people say there's no difference between the two parties and I point to Virginia and I say, yes, there is. I point to the bills that before Congress today as we looked to address COVID-19 and the slush fund from Mitchell, Mitch McConnell. And it shows that elections do matter and that if everybody that pays attention to this is not registered to vote, get out there and register to vote and vote. Because there's, so that's what's on the ballot box is your future and your right to live. And your right to live, your right to work, your right to have a home. All of this is important because there's no one that says that this couldn't be taken away or rolled back for any currently protected group of people. It's important that we all step forward, that we all realize the value of our inherent humanity, no matter who we are, who we love. It's important that people really step up right now. I mean, just on a human level to their neighbors here for COVID, I think they're gonna look left and they're gonna look right and they're gonna realize, well, these are my fellow humans. Why are we not treating them equally? And maybe COVID is gonna be a real way to call for a better future. It's gonna be a real way to call for that and we're gonna be able to deep strengthen our relationships. It's my hope that we do anyway. So are we gonna have a Democratic Party convention this year live? Do you think, what are your chances of having that given COVID? We're looking to reschedule in September. If you were elected as a delegate, use election hold and go to HawaiiDemocrats.org to find out more information as we address these problems. The State Central Committee will be meeting in April to help one, to be able to shore this up for 2020. Okay, so we've got a lot of important work to do if people are interested. They can certainly join the caucus. They can get involved. They can help advance these bills. They can help write bills and be involved with the LGBT caucus and the State Central Committee if they like, but start with the caucus for the folks that are close to you. For women, I wanna be on the women's caucus, be on that. If you wanna be on the cocoon and caucus, be on the cocoon and caucus. Whatever it is that you wanna believe in, get out there folks, help advance our society, help us value each other. And it's my great pleasure to have had you on here today. So that you can explain a little bit about what you do at the LGBT caucus here, Michael. And I really appreciate you coming on. I hope that you will come on again. Maybe we can do a debrief after the session to see where we were and what we're doing and how people can get involved, helping the Kapuna, whether they're LGBTQ or not, helping our homeless youth, whether they're LGBTQ or not advancing issues of justice equality and all the things, the good things that we're trying to do here. So I appreciate you coming on the show. Stay safe, wash your hands, enjoy our shelter in place for the next few weeks. And if there's anything that we can do, please let us know. Thank you for having me. Yes, did everybody please get involved? Okay, thank you so much. And folks, we are unfortunately out of time as we always are so quickly on Out and About, but you can see us here every other week where we are interviewing, it's just like my Google law, you, Junior, who is the chair of the LGBT caucus and representative of the state central committee of the Democratic Party of Hawaii. Every other week catches here on Out and About if you have some topics or events or organizations you'd like us to highlight, please let us know in the comments bar or by emailing us at techboy. Until then, stay safe, practice aloha, go see your neighbors and make sure that they're okay and we're gonna get through this together. Thanks so much, happy week, aloha.