“When it comes to trying to access a medical transition, trans folks are forced to out themselves,” he says. It’s a personal choice, one not often afforded to transgender people at the doctor’s office. When speaking to medical providers or guidance counselors at schools, Cervantes identifies himself as trans. We’ll go out to different spaces both in and outside UCI, and we’ll provide lectures and information on how best to care for trans and gender-diverse patients.”įor Cervantes, that outreach comes informed by personal experiences, ones formed largely before the benefits of the program he now boosts. “One of the most important parts of our program is provider education. “It’s currently OC’s only program dedicated to caring for transgender and gender-diverse youth,” says Cervantes. Three physicians are enlisted: a pediatrician, an endocrinologist and a psychiatrist. Started in January 2017, the Gender Diversity Program Cervantes promotes offers gender-affirming hormone therapy, puberty suppression, counseling, community connections and support to youth up to the age of 26. Normally, I’m watching the parade, so it’ll be fun to be in it.”
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“I never expected to be nominated, let alone elected as grand marshal. “It actually still feels pretty unreal to me,” he says. The feeling is mutual, with Cervantes being announced as this year’s grand marshal for OC Pride, an honor bestowed largely thanks to his pivotal work as program coordinator for the UC Irvine Health Pediatric Gender Diversity Program. It’s an identity and calling he now deems a gift, especially with the OC Pride community that has become like family. Four years later, Cervantes understood himself as transgender and became an advocate. At 16, he came out as gay to his family, but something about that didn’t seem quite right nor was it immediately embraced by them (and South County ain’t exactly the most LGBT-affirming place to be, either). Later, Cervantes felt his body betrayed him, especially at the awkwardness that is puberty. Assigned female at birth, he eschewed playing with dolls as a young child, preferring football and climbing trees with his brother. Growing up in South Orange County, Brit Cervantes didn’t always know where he fit in. Despite marriage equality, LGBTQ clubs in high schools and the rising acceptance of the LGBT community throughout the country, each freedom fighter will tell you why Pride remains just as vital now as it did 50 years ago at Stonewall and 30 years ago at the first Orange County festival. OC Weekly introduces you to just some of the many Orange Countians who have helped bring about those changes, milestones and accomplishments. Its theme, “Stand Up Stand Out,” is “inspired by the exciting changes, milestones and accomplishments in the name of LGBT rights,” according to organizers. About 25,000 festival-goers are expected in SanTana on June 22 for OC Pride 2019.
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Photo by Federico MedinaĪttendance surpassed the 20,000 mark a few years back, and the festival and other large and small events sponsored by OC Pride in non-Pride months have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charitable causes. was incorporated, and volunteer officers and directors have run OC Pride ever since. Two years later, Orange County LGBT Pride Inc. They have since grown by leaps and bounds, and in 2012, OC Pride returned to its birthplace in downtown Santa Ana, where more than 8,000 attendees turned out (and, in some cases, came out!). Credit the 2009 passage of Proposition 8, the state ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California, with re-igniting the fire that led to the formation of the Orange County Equality Coalition and the return of Pride events in Orange County. OC Pride eventually moved to Irvine but dissolved in the early 2000s. Attendees waited it out like caged animals before authorities finally deemed it safe for the Pride festival to continue. Law enforcement ordered Pride organizers to lock the festival gates temporarily as they considered shutting down the event. However, the first OC Pride, like Stonewall, was marred by violence-not from attendees, but from anti-LGBTQ goons who crashed the party.
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Those events 50 years ago led to the creation of Pride Month, as well as annual celebrations across the country, during which rainbow-colored LGBT liberation flags proudly wave. A police raid of Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn in the early-morning hours of June 28, 1969, led to spontaneous and violent demonstrations by members of the gay community. The first Orange County Pride Cultural Festival was a rather small affair in Santa Ana during the summer of 1989, but the event’s roots actually date back 20 years earlier-to New York City.