‘I belong somewhere.’ Madera Coalition fosters supportive space for local LGBTQ+ community

When she went away to San Francisco for college, Jazmin Guzman was told she would experience culture shock in the big city.

Culture shock actually struck her when she returned home to Madera and began to understand that she identifies as a lesbian woman.

Guzman’s work for Madera’s LGBTQ+ community has played out alongside her own coming out story. She grew up in a traditional Latino household, and not everyone in her family is understanding of her identity.

“The hardest part for me coming out was feeling like I was betraying my family,” she said.

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Guzman, 27, has worked for the Madera Coalition for Community Justice, a local nonprofit known for providing aid to low income families, since last fall. Much of her work has focused on building a supportive space for LGBTQ+ people in a part of the San Joaquin Valley where they have had to travel elsewhere to seek resources in the past. The coalition has already established an LGBTQ+ support group in Madera and recently received a proclamation from the City Council in honor of Pride month.

On Saturday, June 22, the coalition will hold the city’s first-ever Pride event at the community garden on 611 E. 4th St. from 5-8 p.m. There will be food trucks, art vendors and information about LGBTQ+ resources, as well as drag performances.

“We want the community to be able to come out and see for themselves who we are,” she said. “That might change a lot of mindsets – being able to go somewhere where it feels really inclusive and really loving.”

The coalition’s work has not been without obstacles. The LGBTQ+ community faced significant push-back when it attempted to have the Pride flag raised at City Hall last year. The city ultimately decided it needed to pass an ordinance to fly the Pride flag at City Hall, but has not yet done so.

“We just don’t have the votes for it,” Madera Mayor Santos Garcia told The Fresno Bee on Thursday. “I’m still optimistic that we will be able to raise the flag at some point in Madera at City Hall, but it’s going to take some more education in the community and for my colleagues on the (city) council.”

Some members of the coalition’s LGBTQ+ support group said the accomplishments they have made despite the obstacles are signs that the community has made a lot of progress.

“It’s about time,” said Brenda Barriga, a member of the support group. “Madera needed that change.”

A space between Fresno and Merced

Barriga, 35, said growing up LGBTQ+ in the ’90s was difficult in Madera, and it was not always safe to come out. “They treated you like you had a disease,” she said.

“When people feel alone and trapped, they get suicidal, they go through problems, they turn to drugs, alcohol, whatever it may be,” Barriga said. “I was one of those because I felt alone.”

August, a 19-year-old transgender Maderan who is not out to all of his family, said he also experienced the stigma. He began questioning his identity in middle school, when he became aware that he was not straight nor cisgender, a term that refers to people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.

“I was bullied in school,” August said. “I was treated sort of like an animal. That’s not the best way to be treated, especially when you’re trying to figure out your own identity.”

Barriga and August have been able to find support through the Madera Coalition. But barriers to resource access remain a big issue for LGBTQ+ people in the more rural parts of the San Joaquin Valley, said Misty Gattie-Blanco, the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission’s director of Sanctuary and Support Services.

Gattie-Blanco said the Fresno EOC opened the city’s LGBTQ+ Resource Center in 2019 after noticing the need for a physical space – something a lot of the support groups outside of the city do not have. The resource center offers case management and vetted resources, including for transgender medical needs, and also provides transportation to clients when they need it. It has even sent staff as far as Mendota to help people in need.

About 25% of the several hundred people the Fresno EOC serves each year come from outside the city, Gattie-Blanco said, and several of them are from Madera. The creation of the Madera Coalition’s support group makes it the first physical space for the LGBTQ+ community between Fresno and Merced.

The Madera support group, which has only been around for a few months, does not offer a comprehensive list of services at this point. As it grows, Guzman said, it could split into groups that serve different age groups and also begin to educate the wider community.

“They’re making history and they are impacting lives,” Barriga said about the coalition. “I feel like I belong somewhere. I finally feel like I have people that I could relate to, people that are just like me and that understand the same struggle.”

‘We’re here, we’re not going anywhere’

Working for the Madera Coalition and establishing the LGBTQ+ support group in Madera has also helped Guzman. Her workplace is an accepting space, but she said things have been difficult at home.

“It’s that typical story of, my parents came here, they worked really hard for me to have this ideal life that they wanted me to have,” Guzman said, “and, in a way, you’re not fulfilling that goal for them, at least in their mind.”

She said she has had to handle the situation with a mixture of grace and assertiveness: standing up for who she is, but also being patient and understanding that some of her family members hold deeply-rooted religious beliefs.

“It is hard in the mexicano culture, the Latino culture, because, no matter what, some people are still going to have those views,” Barriga said, “That’s why we’re here to make a difference. We’re here, we’re not going anywhere.”

Marco, a gay man who works in education in Madera and chose to only be identified by his first name, said he has also seen the progress the community has made. He also thinks the LGBTQ+ community needs to be better integrated into the wider community.

“To have a community be accepting of accepting of us, they also need us see us,” he said. “It can’t just be at events and in areas where we’re expected to be.”

Noe Hernandez, who is in charge of the Madera Coalition’s food distributions, said he takes members of the LGBTQ+ support group out with him to drop-offs for that reason: It makes them visible as they provide a community service.

“If we’re helping out in the community, if we’re showing that we’re a part of the community, you can’t tell us we’re not here,” Guzman said. “You can’t tell us we shouldn’t be represented.”