By Walter Ryce

Steven “Quazar” Goings (they/them/theirs pronouns) is a student mental health counselor at CSUMB’s Personal Growth and Counseling Center, as well as the director of the campus affiliate of the National Coalition Building Institute. Goings is also a licensed clinical social worker, founding member of Monterey Peninsula Pride, and life member of the Monterey County Branch NAACP.

Question: What have been some recent victories and progress in the LGBTQ movement?
Goings: The biggest one was the 2015 constitutionality of same-sex marriage. I think in 2018 trans people were allowed to openly [serve] in the military. The Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the Civil Rights Act pertains to LGBTQ employment discrimination. On the ground, every LGBTQ person in most places in this country was not protected from employment discrimination. That one is really important and really universal. Locally, of course, I point to Monterey Peninsula Pride and the election of Tyller [Williamson] as a gay, Black mayor.

What are the most urgent threats to the LGBTQ community in the U.S. now?
Well, I think we're in a terrible backlash. Anti-LGBTQ legislation is the biggest concern that's going on now. Political violence against us has soared within the last couple of years; people are trying to ban LGBTQ representation and culture. We're in a period where there are forces really trying to drive us back underground.

Is it different in California compared to the rest of the country?  
As far as the state government is concerned, it's fairly LGBTQ-friendly, as are a lot of local governments. But California is not a monolith. In terms of on-the-ground experience, it really depends community by community.

The June 10 panel you facilitated for The Village Project, Inc.'s Mental Health Education Series (webinar ID 876 6625 3817, more info at 831-392-1500) was titled "The Transgender Community and Mental Health: Refusing Pathology by Embracing Community." What does that mean?
There's been a long tradition of pathologizing LGBTQ people as deficient. We were demonized as being intrinsically evil and therefore deserving of criminalization in this life and damnation in the next one. Then psychiatrists and psychologists started thinking instead that rather than a moral failing, it was a mental illness – which was, in some degrees, progress. Transgender is still a mental illness in the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] in the form of gender dysphoria. It's really the discrimination and the isolation of oppression that causes negative physical and mental outcomes for minorities, including LGBT people. We’re not crazy, but we’re living in a crazy society that says some people are up and some people are down. That’ll drive us to have a negative mental outcome. Refusing to be isolated is the best thing you can do for your mental health.

You're hosting another panel on July 16 at CSUMB the day after the Monterey Peninsula Pride Parade. What will be some discussion topics?  
It will be something like “Supporting LGBT youth and students in the K-12 and university system.” Schools systems all over the country are banning references to us, banning books. It’s going to be about what we do in this present moment to protect our rainbow children. 

What are some of the mental health needs and supports that the young trans community needs?
Well, they need the same thing that any other member of the social species needs: respect, belonging, appreciation, fellowship, love. Gender, as a post-biological sex, is entirely socially constructed and is imposed on male, female, and intersex bodies to conform to pre-established gender norms. Trans people are being miscast to perform and think of themselves in ways that are alien to them. Essentially, what they need is to be affirmed for who they say they are. No cis-gendered men I know like to be called “woman” or “ma’am.” Nobody likes to be misgendered. 

Licensed clinical social worker, Steven Goings (they/them/theirs pronouns), also known by their Radical Faerie name, Quazar, is a bigender gay Black male with multiple disabilities. They are also a founding member of the local LGBTQ+ organization, Monterey Peninsula Pride, and a life member of the Monterey County Branch NAACP. Quazar’s primary roles at CSUMB are as a student mental health counselor and diversity lead for Health and Wellness Services. As a mental health counselor, they specialize in issues related to discrimination, internalized oppression and poor self-esteem. As HWS diversity lead, they are the director of the campus affiliate of the National Coalition Building Institute which provides leadership training related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Goings is an active member of the African Heritage Faculty and Staff Alliance and is on the Board of Advisers for the Helen Rucker Center for Black Excellence.  They are also the co-chair of the communications sub-committee of the President’s Committee on Equity and Inclusion and editor of the Otter Inclusivity newsletter.  Along with Merideth Canham-Nelson, Quazar is a co-facilitator of the LGBTQ+ counseling and support group for students and co-chair of the LGBTQ+ faculty and staff affinity group with David Reichard.