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Grantees Profiles
Family Arts Bridge (FAB) Camp
Family Arts Bridge (FAB) Camp The core mission of FAB Camp is to provide a residential arts-based family camp experience for queer families and their extended families, friends, and allies in the greater Bay Area. FAB Camp builds and nutures critical LGBTQ partnerships with diverse community organizations (representing people of color, low-income people, and people living with disabilities), and strengthens individual families and their core relationships through the arts. Children can build lifetime relationships in the context of a creative, nurturing, and extended community, and adults can have meaningful and fulfilling vacations with their children and friends in a context that decreases isolation and supports their creativity and parenting.
Transgender, Gender Variant, & Intersex (TGI) Alternative Sentencing Project
TGI Alternative Sentencing Project The TGI Alternative Sentencing Project works to expose and end abuse of TGI prisoners. Created by and for TGI people, the Project challenges the abuse of TGI prisoners by improving access to alternatives to incarceration for TGI people held in Bay Area jails awaiting sentencing, and promoting community organizing and leadership development among TGI communities. The Project operates with conscious anti-oppressive principles and prioritizes the leadership of those most affected.
Billy DeFrank Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center
Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center The Billy DeFrank Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center first opened its doors in 1981 in a two-room storefront in south downtown San Jose. As its first visitors entered, they crossed the threshold to a new era of possibility for the LGBT community of the South Bay, and they celebrated an important victory. Since then, the DeFrank Center has continued to inspire purposeful action and ensure a safe place to gather for all in our community. The Center was named for William Price ("Billy DeFrank"), who is remembered as "an entertainer; a teacher; a leader; a good friend and a champion of gay freedom."

More than two decades later, the Billy DeFrank Center serves a large and diverse community. LGBT people of all ages and backgrounds find resources at the Center that are not available elsewhere. Each month over a thousand people - from as far north as Foster City and as far south as Gilroy - visit and call seeking information, support, and services.

The Center's mission is to provide a broad array of opportunities and programs, a dedicated and caring staff, a corps of volunteers, and a spirit of community that celebrates the many facets of their broad-based LGBT constituency.

For the DeFrank Center, William Price's legacy remains a call to action for the LGBT community to continue his important work fighting for LGBT rights, advancing liberty and justice for all, and providing opportunities for positive social identification. The DeFrank Center is "a place to call home."

AIDS Legal Referral Panel (ALRP)
AIDS Legal Referral Panel The AIDS Legal Referral Panel (ALRP) is the only institution in the San Francisco Bay Area whose entire mission is dedicated to providing free and low-cost legal assistance and education on virtually any civil matter to persons living with HIV/AIDS. This includes such widely disparate areas as housing, employment, insurance, confidentiality matters, family law, credit, government benefits, or public accommodations. ALRP accomplishes this either through direct representation of clients by one of ALRP's attorneys or by careful placement of clients with one of ALRP's 600 panel attorneys.

Founded in 1983, ALRP has handled over 40,000 legal matters for their clients over the last 21 years. Their goals are to provide legal counsel and representation on often-complex legal matters with respect to HIV/AIDS for a community of individuals often least able to afford it, and to leverage the resources of the private bar for the public good. In the process, they increase resources dedicated to the public interest through the private market, and increase the skill and capacity of the legal community to handle the intricacies of HIV/AIDS related law and representation.

Last year alone, ALRP helped over 1,500 people with HIV/AIDS, successfully leveraged nearly $1 million in donated legal services and provided training for nearly fifty attorneys.

Unfortunately, ALRP was hit hard by the federal government's 12% cut in the 2004 Title I/Ryan White CARE Act funds for San Francisco: the organization's entire amount (expected to be $265,000) was eliminated. Although this forced dramatic reductions in both their programs and staff, ALRP remains committed to offering free and low-cost legal services to the HIV/AIDS community.
Our Family Coalition
Our Family Our Family Coalition protects the civil rights and well-being of families with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender members through education, advocacy, social networking, and grassroots community organizing. Our Family Coalition is a broad-based group of families, individuals, and organizations that serves as a clearinghouse for information and resources about family issues, such as LGBT-friendly pediatricians, legal referrals, fun events for kids, and an LGBT parents-only evening out.

Our Family was formed in 1994 as a group for lesbian and gay parents with infants. In 2001, the group combined with All Our Families Coalition, the leading LGBT family rights organization in San Francisco, to become Our Family Coalition. The organization's membership now numbers more than 500 families and hundreds of individuals and family organizations throughout the Bay Area. OFC plans social and educational events each month where families can enjoy potlucks at the beach, visit museums, parks, and the zoo. Educational events happen each month with diverse topics, such as "Spirituality and Your Family," "Advocating for Your Child in Public Schools," and "Choosing Parenting." These forums help keep the community informed on legal, social, and parenting issues. Our Family is constantly evolving. As new members join, ideas are passed around and our horizons expand. Prospective parents are encouraged to join and network with people who have created their families in many ways.
Liquid Fire
Liquid Fire empowers lesbians of color to create, develop and stage original multidisciplinary performances that authentically express their experiences, promotes liberation and fosters social change. The company's training program and full-length productions explore sexuality, race and gender issues, heighten the public visibility of lesbian artists of color, and enhance their artistic skills.

To date, the company has developed and staged seven original productions. The organization grew out of a performance piece entitled, "Liquid Fire" that played to capacity houses at Luna Sea Theater in September 1997, where Veronica Combs was the Artistic Director. In 2000 Combs formed Liquid Fire Productions and the Queer Cultural Center became the company's fiscal sponsor.

Liquid Fire's multidisciplinary performances provide both creative and performing opportunities for emerging lesbian artists of color. The typical company production comprises between 10 to 15 short vignettes exploring sexuality, race and gender identity issues. Since 2000, Liquid fire has developed a large and enthusiastic loyal audience (85% of the ticket buyers are lesbians of color) and has emerged as one of the Bay Area's strongest lesbian arts organizations.

Horizons Foundation made its first grant to Liquid Fire in 2001 through our Community Issues Grant Cycle, and has been an on-going supporter of this important work over the last three years.
Community United Against Violence (CUAV)
Community United Against Violence (CUAV) is a 20-year old multicultural organization working to end violence against and within lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer /questioning (LGBTQ) communities. CUAV believes that in order for homophobia & heterosexism to end, we must fight all forms of oppression, including racism, sexism, ageism, classism and ableism. CUAV offers a 24-hour confidential, multilingual support line, free counseling, legal advocacy, and emergency assistance (hotel, food, and transportation vouchers) to survivors of domestic violence, hate violence, and sexual assault. CUAV uses education as a violence prevention tool through the speakers bureau, the youth program, and the domestic violence prevention program.

Horizons Foundation made its first grant to CUAV in 1983 and since then has had a strong history of funding their important violence prevention work. Most recently Horizons Foundation made an $8,000 grant to CUAV from our 2002 Community Issues Grant Cycle for its Love and Justice Project, which promotes self esteem and leadership skills among LGBTQQ youth and dialogue /education to end violence.
Beloved Daughter - The Family Letter Project of Asian/Pacific Islander PFLAG

Horizons' grant to the Family Letter Project of Asian/Pacific Islander PFLAG supports the publication and distribution of "Beloved Daughter." "Beloved Daughter" is a booklet of letters, conceived by MAPLBN (Mandarin-speaking Asian/Pacific Islander Lesbian/Bisexual Network), and written by family members of the Mandarin-speaking Chinese lesbian/bisexual women's community about their experiences with their daughters.

The project emerged from discussions on how to help families accept and understand their daughter/sister in a way that was sensitive to the cultural, linguistic and immigrant backgrounds of the families. The letters share stories to ease feelings of isolation and to provide support for other families within the larger Asian community. Since the letters are written both in Mandarin and in English, this pioneering booklet will help to fill a gap in the Chinese-language resources for the LGBT community.
American Socrates - A documentary film on the life of Bayard Rustin

Funded by Horizons in 1999
Horizons is honored to have been a funder of the film production of American Socrates, a documentary portrait on the life of Bayard Rustin, a key civil rights leader credited with organizing the successful 1963 March on Washington. This wise man was silenced - threatened, beaten, arrested, imprisoned, and fired from important leadership positions - sometimes because of his uncompromising political beliefs, but more often because he was a gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. Rustin rose to important leadership positions within the civil rights movement time and time again, only to lose his position in disgrace because of a new charge or revelation about his "homosexual lifestyle."

The film used Rustin's life and work as a lens through which to examine the political and social tensions running through twentieth-century America - particularly those at the intersections of race, class, sexual orientation and political activism. The Horizons grant supported the development of the American Socrates website, which is used to publicize the film and on-going fundraising efforts for the project. The site features extensive biographical information on Rustin, recordings that he made, selections from his essays and letters, rare photographs, and documents culled from FBI files.
The Life Project

Funded by Horizons in 1998
Adele Morrison has a mission: to break the cycle of domestic violence in same-sex couples, and to educate other domestic violence service providers on the special needs facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals experiencing same-sex domestic violence.

"This is a difficult issue for our communities because people aren't comfortable talking about something that makes the community look bad," explains LIFE Director Morrison. "But the reality of domestic violence in same-sex relationships exists, and without appropriate intervention, the battering almost always continues or escalates."

After graduating from Stanford Law in 1996, Morrison received an eching green fellowship and proposed a program called LIFE to the Domestic Relations Unit of the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation (SNFLAF). SNFLAF is a legal services agency which helps low-income San Francisco residents. The Domestic Relations Unit of SNFLAF assists survivors of domestic violence with restraining orders, divorce, custody/visitation, support, and property settlement.

"There has been a big gap in services for women being battered by women and men being battered by men," said Morrison. "I designed a program to fill the family law gaps which is a combination of direct intervention and community education. We work closely with Communities United Against Violence (CUAV) who provide social services while LIFE focuses on the legal needs of the clients."

In 1996, SNFLAF agreed to sponsor the Legal Intervention for Family Empowerment (LIFE) Project. LIFE is a community legal education and services project which provides a range of advise, information, referrals, outreach, education, advocacy, and direct legal services around issues of family violence, working primarily with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities.

SNFLAF was enthusiastic about the program, but could offer only limited resources. Morrison turned to the Horizons Foundation. "Without grants from Horizons Community Issues and the BACW, I could not operate LIFE's two programs: LIABLE and Two of a Kind. Most domestic violence funders don't want to fund lesbian/gay specific programs, and queer funders, the very few that there are, don't want to fund a negative issue like domestic violence."

LIABLE stands for Legal Intervention and Advocacy for Battered Lesbian Empowerment and is a domestic violence legal education program and services program for women experiencing same-sex domestic violence. Two of a Kind is a family law education and advocacy program for families with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members. "Through these grants," explained Morrison, "we are able to provide intervention through community education, trained volunteers, and direct counseling. Horizons has expanded this program from just me to "we" by providing resources to train volunteers and domestic violence agencies of the unique needs and issues of the lesbian and gay population."

The LIFE Project of SNFLAF received grants in 1996 and 1997 from the Horizons Foundation Community Issues cycle and the BACW A Fund of Our Own grant cycle. These funds are received from donors to Horizons and BACW, and allow us to meet the current emerging needs of the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender community of greater Bay Area.
National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) - Helping create safe schools for transgender and questioning youth

"Peter has known he was a male since 6 or so. At school, he conformed to expectations as a girl until about 5th or 6th grade, but then he began to dress the way he wanted and to change his name. That's when the harassment started.... "
- Susan, mother of Peter, a female-to-male transgender student in the North Bay
At middle school, Peter was constantly chased after school and harassed by his classmates. By high school, he found that teachers were joining in the ridicule and harassment. For example, despite written requests from his mother and instructions from the principal, some teachers and administrators refused to use Peter's chosen name and male pronoun. When a drama teacher wanted to split the class by gender, he made three rows: boys on one side, girls on the other and "confused" in the middle, making Peter sit alone in the middle of the room.

Peter is one of many transgender youth who have sought and received help from the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR). NCLR Staff Attorney, Shannon Minter, wrote to the school explaining their obligations to create a safe and sensitive environment and requesting that Peter's name change be recognized. Just as importantly, Shannon, who is also transgender, was a source of hope and support for Peter. As Susan put it: "Shannon has been Peter's role model; Peter sees that Shannon is happy and successful and he knows that there is hope for him too."

Like many other transgender students, Peter ended up leaving school and doing independent study. But this is not meeting his needs socially or academically - he is an honor student. He and his mother plan to move to San Francisco in search of a more supportive school environment.

With a grant from Horizons Foundation, NCLR is working to make that safety a reality by producing and disseminating a model policy to ensure that transgender students are free from discrimination and harassment in San Francisco schools. Despite the urgency of this issue - research shows that about 3 in 100 young people experience some level of conflict or discomfort about their gender and about 50% of transgender youth have attempted suicide - NCLR has found most foundation doors closed to transgender issues, particularly those of youth. This makes the Horizons grant all the more important, as NCLR Director of Resource Development, Ruth Herring put it:
"This is truly groundbreaking work. We applaud the Horizons Foundation for demonstrating, through grants like this, that advancing the rights of transgendered people is central to the movement to advance liberty for the entire queer community. In funding this project you have set a new standard of inclusiveness which we hope will be emulated by foundations across the country."
Queer Asian Women's Service - Breaking the silence on same-sex domestic violence

Domestic violence within same sex relationships is a truth that has long been easier to ignore. The issue remains invisible both within the LGBT community, where there is often a sense that we are "letting our community down" by acknowledging its existence, and among service providers, whose services are not perceived as safe or sensitive to LGBT people, and who as a result are rarely exposed to queer victims of domestic violence.

Asian Women's Shelter has not been willing to follow the logic that if queer women are not coming to them for services, then the need for services does not exist. "Studies have revealed that the same types and rates of abuse existing in lesbian and gay relationships as in heterosexual relationships" says Joy Caneda, Coordinator of Queer Asian Women Services (QAWS) at Asian Women's Shelter. "We also know about and hear of Asian lesbians and bisexusal and transgender women who are suffering abuse, but who still don't feel safe to come to us for help".

Asian Women's Shelter brings to this issue more than a decade of experience serving battered women and children in the Bay Area's diverse Asian communities, and understands that there is no simple solution. First focussing internally, Asian Women's Shelter developed policies and training on same-sex domestic violence, established an anti-homophobia task force within the shelter. Then QAWS developed a community education network, made presentations and distributed over 1000 posters and emergency cards. But still, queer women are reluctant to access their services.

"We realize that we need to bring a different approach to the challenges that are specific to queer Asian women" Joy Caneda says. "For example, how do we address domestic violence in a close-knit community? How do we provide alternative safe places when shelters are not an option? How do we build accountability for an issue that our community is still unwilling to name or own?"

In a series of discussion groups and meetings, supported by a grant from Horizons, queer Asian women are coming together to grapple with these questions and define new strategies and community-based solutions. Horizons is honored to support Asian Women's Shelter in their innovative, thorough and sensitive approach to ensuring that all women - including lesbian, bisexual and transgender women - have the right to live in a violence-free home.
Lesbian and Gay Seniors - Collaborating to provide each other support

"My partner of 42 years passed away three years ago, and I've just been completely lost. I have a few friends but we don't talk about it. We went through the McCarthy era you know"

This story, told by a 72-year old lesbian to a counselor at Spectrum in Marin, is not unique. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) seniors have survived for many decades by remaining hidden in a world where to have one's sexual orientation discovered could mean loss of job, school, family and friends and sometimes confinement in jail or a mental institution. But that invisibility, developed as a survival skill, itself becomes a threat to our seniors' health as they get older and remain wary of seeking needed programs and services. Sadly, even when older LGBT people do take the courageous step to attend a senior center or other programs, they all too often find that the embarrassment, insensitivity or direct discrimination that they feared is a reality.

Fortunately in the Bay Area, three organizations - Spectrum Center for LGBT Concerns in Marin, Gay & Lesbian Outreach to Elders (GLOE) in San Francisco and Lavender Seniors of the East Bay - have, since the mid-80's, been building programs to meet the special needs of LGBT elders. They currently serve more than 900 elders annually, through social groups, home and hospital visits and provider trainings among other services.

Horizons has been a key partner in the development of these programs since the early 1980's. Horizons provided one of the first grants to GLOE; put up seed funding for the Lunch Bunch - a social/meeting group for frail seniors which received Horizons funding again in 1998 - and brought the three organizations to meet and talk together.

Those meetings, initiated in 1995 by then Horizons Executive Director Doug Braley, have now resulted in the launch of the Lesbian & Gay Senior Services Collaborative. The Collaborative will combine the three organizations' expertise and resources to recruit, train and coordinate volunteers who will provide home visits, telephone support and group connections to at-risk seniors and give awareness and sensitivity training to mainstream senior service providers.

Through this Collaborative, the organizations hope to expand their services to more of the estimated 86,000 LGBT people over 60 in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin. It also brings a unique model of training volunteers who themselves are older gays or lesbians.

As Joyce Pierson, Program Director at GLOE, puts it: "LGBT seniors are most comfortable with volunteers who share and understand their experiences. And in serving their peers, the volunteers also see that their experiences and strengths are valued".

Horizons Foundation is honored to partner with this innovative program where older volunteers and clients alike will feel recognized and valued for who they are as LGBT people and empowered to participate in their community-- perhaps for the first time.