 to this special edition of Out and About, a show where we explore a variety of people, events, and organizations doing good in our city, state, and world. It's my great pleasure to have two special guests here today. Our title is SGM Services Directory, and we have Tai Bradshaw-Lang from the Hawaii Department of Health, SGM Work Group, and Skyler Smella from the Hawaii Rainbow Chamber of Commerce, who is a board member there. This is an interesting show, this is our, you know, we have a special emphasis on LGBTQIA2S Plus issues, or maybe we call them SOGI or SGM issues. It's a lot of acronyms to unpack, but welcome to the show and thank you for being here. Thank you for having us. So this was really interesting for me to have, I didn't know about this, this directory that's come out. Tell us if you would, Tai, what is the SGM Services Directory? Well, you can think of it kind of as an opt-in phone book. SGM stands for Sexual and Gender Minority, and it's the term that a lot of governmental agencies are adopting because it is incredibly, incredibly broad. The sexual and gender minorities is, you know, basically anybody who's not a majority. And what research has shown is that being a minority of any kind is much more stressful for any individual than being part of a majority. And part of that is manifested in having more difficulty accessing business services, accessing medical services. As part of my work at UH, I did some interviews with community members. And one of the gentlemen that I interviewed said that he had put off medical care because of the office staff. He said that he had a really good doctor, and he really liked them, but he didn't know who he was going to get on the phone. He didn't know if the person that answered the phone was going to act with identity affirming communication. And that can be very hampering. So the idea of the services directory is anyone who would like to be listed, it's basically just saying, I'm going to try. Like, let's figure this out. You know, not having equal access really sucks. Let's all work on this problem together. And this directory is put out by the Department of Health of the state of Hawaii. Is that right? Right. Yes. So the first edition is coming out in January, and hopefully will be updated several times a year. And it's going to be hosted on the Department of Health Resource Hub, which personally is a program that I'm super excited about. Hawaii has, when it comes to sexual and gender minorities, has often really been in the forefront. And this is a great example of that. I don't know of any other department in any state that is tackling things in this way that, you know, the community said, hey, this is a resource we needed. And the Department of Health said, okay, let's make it. That's a wonderful testament to our state. And it's progressive nature and also just acknowledging reality, which has been in short supply, I think, especially the last four years. Can you, can you intend it primarily for medical services provider or providers, or is it for general services providers? Or how is, how does it fit into the whole scheme of things? So it first started, the initial scope was pretty narrow, just medical providers. And that is who we have the most listings for currently. But there were some other interested parties. And, you know, we kind of realized like, why not, why not include everybody? So we have a medical providers section and like a businesses section, which is, you know, kind of like everything else. And so pretty much anybody who offers any kind of service is welcome to have a listing in our SGM services directory. Okay, but the focus is primarily on finding is in the Department of Health. Is that, is that true to say? Well, so the resource hub is under the harm reduction branch of the resource hub. And so the viewpoint is that providing resources for the SGM community is harm reduction. So any resources, which is, I would say the Department of Health is definitely why it started as provider focused. But I mean, ultimately, we would like our scope to be as broad as possible. Okay. And I see, so you're asking people to opt in to identify themselves as providers or or self identified members of the community, or certainly allies that are willing to try to come up and say, I'm willing to meet your needs where you're at for who you are, whatever you, whatever, however you term or yourself or identify. And so let's get into that a little bit because I noticed that next to our names, we've got some pronouns. And we've got, I have he, him next to mine and Ty and Skyla, you have they, them. Skyla, can you talk about that a little bit? What is with they, them and what is pronoun usage and why does that matter? Yeah, thank you. That's a really great question. In many different countries and with different languages, pronouns that are gendered such as he, him and she, her are non-existent. There isn't a gendered pronoun. It's the same one for men, women and people who don't fit into those two binary categories. Of course, there's always been people who don't fit quite neatly into those two boxes. And in recent years, especially in the last 20 years, but really since the 20th century, there's been more and more organizing for the people who don't quite fit into he or she. I myself am non-binary. That means that I'm not a man, nor am I a woman. I was born AFAB. That means assigned female at birth. But while I don't want to transition, that would be a trans man. I also don't feel like the term woman really applies to me in my identity. And that's the reason why I use they, them pronouns. There are a lot of other gendered neutral pronouns out there. There's Z, there's A, and a whole slew more. But the most common one for people who are non-binary is they, them, theirs. They, them, theirs. So instead of saying Mark loves strawberries, he goes to the store and buys his strawberries. We would say Mark loves strawberries. They go to the store and they buy strawberries using they as a singular pronoun. That's right. They buy their strawberries. And it's a little bit, it's a little bit of a, you know, linguistic twist for people to take some getting used to. But like any new idea, I remember in the olden days when Ms. Magazine came out, this was a radical idea that women could not be missed or misses, but it was missed. Now we take this pretty much for granted. And we do use they right now all the time. We just don't know it. Like we say a kind person is someone who, a good person, a citizen is someone who pays their taxes on time. So we're using that anyway. Instead of saying his taxes or his or her taxes, we just defaulted today sort of naturally over the last 30 or 40 years. Do you imagine that younger people are going to adopt they and them and theirs as gender neutral pronouns throughout society? Or do you think this will remain a province of sexual and gender minorities? Well, I think it's already giving huge inroads into society at large. I mean, if you think about the internet, especially now with quarantine, we're all interacting online. And if you just have a username, you don't necessarily have a face or a voice. Then gender and the usual gender markers that we would use to tell if you should use he or she, they're flying out the window, especially as we get more into virtual reality. The, I guess, relevance of using gendered pronouns as well as gendered salutations, you know, sir or ma'am, I think that's going to change a lot. And I think what the younger generation already has. Another thing that Hawaii has done, not to chew Hawaii's horn, but we were one of the first states to get a gender-neutral driver's license. That means you can get a driver's license. Well, instead of M or F, you can have X. And that's very important for a lot of things, because having to show your identification, especially if you don't necessarily look like the gender that is on your ID card, this can have issues stemming anywhere from on comfort to possibly being in danger by being outed. So it's a really wonderful thing for gender nonconforming, nonbinary people to have that legal recognition on your driver's license that you are either male or female. And go ahead, Ty. And just to kind of add on to that, something that I just learned earlier today in the workgroup quarterly meeting. There was work that unfortunately, because the Hawaii legislature was dismissed early because of COVID, didn't go anywhere this year. But there is something in the works to have IDs that have no gender markers. Just get rid of it all together. Right. Because what is the relevance in this day and age, unless it is a medical emergency, perhaps then you might need to know. But other than your health provider, who really needs to know what you have in your pants, right? Well, you know, that's our argument that we've been making for a long time, or what you're doing is a consenting adult as well. This is on the forefront of, you know, in the olden days, when it was just gay and lesbian, and then we had gay and lesbian and trans and people were trying to wrap their mind around that. And then of course, inside of each of these terminologies, we have internal references and external references. So it's okay to say certain things if you're inside the group, but it's not okay for you to say that if you're outside the group. And I think that's also true with minorities, but especially inside of this community. And so while I bring up the pronoun usage, I think it strikes at the heart of the matter of what we're trying to do here is create some awareness and respect for people for who they are, regardless of their identity or expression or orientation. And when we have something as seemingly simple as pronoun usage next to our name, I think that really brings a lot of awareness. And I've seen a lot of conferences lately move to this format where they have this. And other folks I've seen will use she, they, or he, they, if they're comfortable with maybe a dual designation and not riled by that. But, you know, just like in the trans community, if someone is a trans feminine and they're mispronouning called him or his, it's very disrespectful and rude because you're not acknowledging that. So I think is the easiest way just to ask someone what pronouns do you prefer? Yeah, I would say so. I think many people find it a little bit nerve wracking at first to introduce themselves, say their pronouns and ask for other people's pronouns. But whenever somebody does that when I'm meeting them for the first time, I immediately feel this huge sense of relief because not only is that normalizing for me, it's also so such a good sign that that person if not is, if not being already very aware of LGBTQ issues is crying. And that goes really far in making a safe space for people who are not the majority when it comes to sexuality or when it comes to gender. Yeah, the show does have a Q&A portion. We did get a question from a viewer who says, I get very uncomfortable when waiters assume I'm female, but I get told that I can't expect a stranger to know my gender from a five minute interaction. Is there a way around this or am I being too sensitive? Well, I would definitely say you're not being too sensitive. I think that there's a lot of ways that we as a society can change those expectations as far as whether this waiter needs to use gender pronouns at all. Before and even now, many people think using sir or ma'am is a way of showing respect. But is it really respectful to assume what's going on on someone's body without even meeting them for the first time? I think that as we go forward in society and get more knowledge on non-binary intersex identities, we're going to realize that there needs to be a change that's wider than the individual level. But on the individual level, we can still do our part to not assume, to always check, or to just use gender-neutral they-them for people unless otherwise. Do we have any good substitutes right now or alternatives for ma'am or sir when we're trying to get someone's attention in public that's non-binary? We have to, I realize we're like make a new vocabulary and cover this a new terminology to help us describe what exists when it's not exactly specific. And there may not be an answer. I'm just curious about that. Well, I always use, hey my dear or hey friend, Deep Tide, do you have any terms that you usually use? Gendered language doesn't normally occur to me. So when I'm trying to get someone's attention in public, I usually go with escalating volume of excuse me. Excuse me. So you leave off the sir or the ma'am and just excuse me. Okay, I love this friend or what was the other one that you said, Skyler? Pardon me, my dear. My dear or friend. Okay. So, you know, you mentioned Tye earlier that there's some health disparities that the sexual and gender minority community face. And there's an excellent report on the website of the state. The last one I saw there was 2018, which you may have had some hand in creating the Hawaii's SGM health report. And it talks about issues like how many meals you have, you know, incidents of things that we just take for granted as a normal community, that's not as a minority community. Can you speak to some of these disparities that this directory is hopefully will let us overcome? Yeah, those disparities were actually part of the reason that we decided to widen the scope. Because in the Manslow's hierarchy of need, having a safe place to sleep, having food, having water, having, you know, shade when the sun is beating down on you. Those are things that, frankly, are more important than medical care. Medical care is really important. But knowing where your next meal is going to come from is more important than going to the dentist twice a year. And hopefully, the services directory, so we're working with Google right now to have kind of a map that'll be embedded in the resources directory, sorry, in the resource hub, so that people can scroll around to do it that way. And we're also going to have a PDF, which somebody could print and then have available offline for folks that don't have access to the internet. And so the resource directory is going to bring together some really fabulous, like there's the transfunding project, and just things that I had actually never heard of. I've been really thrilled how stuff has kind of come out of the woodworks, you know, like, yes, we want to help. And I think that's such a great energy. Intersectionality, when you have, you know, like, when you have one status that puts you at risk for things, and then you have another status that puts you at risk for things, that's intersectionality. And the risk, having intersectional status just multiplies your risk so much. And even me, as someone who I thought of myself as pretty plugged in, there are so many resources that I was not available, I was not aware of. You know, someone who has intersectional status that, you know, has really taken them down to the ground, like someone who is homeless, for instance, you know, who doesn't have access to these resources, they would have much less of a chance of being aware of these services. And so we just, I am trying to get the information out there in as many ways as possible. I mean, honestly, if I could do like the pamphlet propaganda drop from World War II, I would, I would do that. Okay, well, hopefully this show will be part of it. And, you know, Hawaii is, I think of being a liberal state that we're more accepting and also just traditional with, with classic Hawaiian culture or that I'm sorry, the native Hawaiian culture was flexible in a lot of this, as well as like in Samoa with the Fa'afa Hine, Fa'afa Hine, I'm sorry if I'm getting that wrong, or, you know, other colonies and cultures where you weren't, where there was a third gender and it was recognized and respected and still is with the Mahu Wahine and Mahukane. So that is something where we already had it here, so we didn't have to import that idea. In fact, it's something where we can sort of base this upon and export it and that understanding along with adding in other cultures like the Hidra in India or the Twin Spirit in, you know, Native American culture. So it's not an either or, it may be a both and or something off to the side. That helps a lot. I just am thrilled that our state is sponsoring this. Now, I understand that then we, like you mentioned the dentist and it's because people who are sexual and gender minorities don't visit the dentist as often and find themselves at risk of being homeless, much greater percentage than those who are not members of a sexual or gender minority. And that's what this directory resource hub is intended to help combat. So, Ty, again, give us some keywords that we could Google if we're just watching this and we wanted to find this hub. What would we Google? So if you just Google like Hawaii SGN resource hub or like Hawaii Department of Health resource hub, it should pop up. Okay. And you're launching in January of 2021. So the resource hub is already up. Okay. We have training for medical providers and a lot of people actually. We have some training material for people so they can get CE credit because one of the often cited reasons that medical providers and social workers and just the general public aren't comfortable with sexual and gender minorities is because there's no exposure. It doesn't matter if your heart is in the right place if you have no knowledge. You don't know how to move forward. And so exposure is normalizing. And so we have a document that's got training material so that people can go in and get exposure and at the same time get continuing education that will count towards what they need for their licensure. And so it's kind of like a double dip. So I think it's training, resort, training, education, normalization on how to deal with the community, meet the community where it's at. And then the directory is coming out. Is it the directory then that will come out in January? Yes. Yep. Okay. And how do people, if they want to join that, they just go to the resource hub right now and there's forms on there where they can sign on. Is that correct? So the DOH put out a press release. And it's the second, if you Google Hawaii Department of Health press release, right now it's the second press release on the page. But it has service directory in the title. So it's pretty easy to find. Okay. And so the press release talks a little bit about the service directory. And it also has links for the medical provider listing form and for the business listing form. And so the medical provider is dentists, doctors, mental health, nurses, all that good stuff is medical. And then businesses is everything else. Yeah. And just to add on to that, the rainbow chambers of commerce also has a business directory. And you can check that out at H.I. rainbow chamber of commerce. Of course, medical, because there's a lot of lack of knowledge of LGBTQ, so he understanding in the medical community, I think that's so pressing. But also even if you want to go to a hotel with your partner and be respected, or do something as mundane as go get your dog's nails trimmed and not have somebody raise their eyebrows at you. That's really important too. And just our day to day life to support places that are open and affirming and also to get that small micro progression in our day to day system. So I definitely encourage businesses that are either LGBTQ plus owned or are interested in showing their support to sign up for both. Why not? Yeah, I think this is a classic example where we got both and that that we have this this the resource hub from the Department of Health, which is wonderful government service that's being provided that's a model really for the rest of the states and congratulations on that tie into I saw Bruce Anderson's name is there. I know he's since retired, but and also to Skyler for the Hawaii Rainbow Chamber of Commerce. Certainly we more is better as we overlap in these things and we we cross reference each other's organizations and and empower each other to find to find these resources, especially where you know the state may have more of a health emphasis that people might look to rather than a Chamber of Commerce because Chamber of Commerce is do different things and Department of Health and do different they can focus the focuses are different. But the end result is that we're increasing awareness, we're increasing understanding and acceptance of the SGM community. There's a lot of information here to unpack that we just barely are scratching the surface of so I would really encourage people to what we'll do is we will list some links in the discussion below so it'll be there on YouTube but I saw our friends at Think Tech were putting out flashes of what the website looks like now and some links there as well. But I encourage people educate yourselves understand Google SGM what is SGM how do I deal with this? I'm really happy that you're both able to come on in and just start this conversation and I would love to continue this if we can in a couple of weeks because there's a lot here that like I said we're just beginning to understand this as a community of society how to talk about it how to reference it how to grasp the impact on people so it's really an honor to have you both on here and I just wanted to give you a chance to give some last thoughts about anything that you like before we sign up today so Ty did you have anything that you wanted to share with folks we might have missed? I would like to address the question from our viewer that's something that I have struggled with also and I correct people I think there's definitely this concern of you know who needs to bear the discomfort do I need to bear the discomfort just all day my whole life of being continually misgendered or is it appropriate for this five minute interaction for the other person to be a little uncomfortable and have the realization of oh I misgendered them and I would say that is appropriate because again exposure is normalizing and also it's real world representation you never know who's listening you never know who needs to hear that okay so just you're all about normalize it when it happens and just be there and it's and a teachable moments as they as they happen as as much as I have bandwidth for yes yes as much exactly sometimes you may not feel teaching so and Skyler do you have any last thoughts that you've learned wanted to leave people with? Yeah I want to thank you Winston so much for having me on the show Ty for all the amazing work you're doing with the Department of Health here and just creating this space where we can talk about it I think most people are allies they don't have a problem with any minority but there's so little information and a lot of that information is misinformation so just having people on the show having people in the medical field who are affirming having businesses that are affirming and having people who look different in those fields you know without saying a word that's going to be a huge game changer so I really appreciate both of you for what you're doing thank you yeah it's a great point is we're just coming out and showing up and showing that we're just people too and we're doing the best we can and like you said most people are allies most people do want to support us they may not know how and it's shows like this it's it's programs like the resource hub that the state has it's the rainbow chamber it's all of it together where we make a collective difference because as we move forward in the society it's not getting any less complex we just need to understand each other better so we can have the rich full society that we all really want and and deserve and but these needs are being met as they become met better and better we all benefit whether we're members of this community or not so thank you so much for coming here today and I look forward to continuing your conversation