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A new resource center for LGBTQ+ residents opening in New Castle on Saturday aims to bring more inclusivity and acceptance to western Garfield County amid a rise in legislation targeting transgender and nonbinary people across the country and instances of local discrimination.
Carbondale-based LGBTQ+ and disabilities advocacy nonprofit Cook Inclusive received initial funding of $75,000 to launch the Queer Resource Space from the Colorado Health Foundation.
“They made a donation to us to support the LGBTQ+ community and our intersectional identities like BIPOC, disabled, and Spanish-speaking folks between New Castle and Parachute,” said Cook Inclusive Executive Director Ashley Stahl. “We’re just such an underserved area when it comes to LGBTQ+ programming; I can count on one hand the number of people who are doing anything even close to it.”
The center, located on Main Street in a rental space that was previously a hair salon, will offer a variety of free programs such as art classes, book clubs celebrating queer literature, gender-affirming haircuts and makeup lessons.
“People can get haircuts and hair styling in an environment that is more comfortable, or with a stylist that might know how to do a cut that you could style a couple of different ways, depending on how you're presenting that day,” Stahl said. “We also have a local trans woman who's going to be doing makeup lessons for gender nonconforming folks who maybe didn't have the opportunity growing up to learn how to do makeup, and now they’re an adult and are confused and not sure what to do.”
In addition to inclusive programs and connecting people with a network of professional mental health, medical, legal and harm reduction resources, Stahl hopes the center will be a gathering space where people can relax and hang out.
“We really want to be a place that even if home sucks, even if school is no good, or work is not, you know, a safe place for you — you have another space where you can come and find community,” Stahl said. “There are not a lot of third spaces in western Garfield County that are safe and accepting.”
Zodie Woolsey, who lives in Silt and works as a job coach for Cook Inclusive, said staff and volunteers have already started using the space prior to the public opening.
“During Christmas break, I would just come over here and write code or play the PS5 or something, and sometimes bring a roommate or two, because most of them are trans too,” Woolsey said. “So I'm so excited for this space, especially coming from Missouri, where I'd never met another trans person before.”
A variety of LGBTQ+ community centers exist across the country, including in Grand Junction, and Cook Inclusive consulted with some of them to help inform its vision for a local resource space.
“There's a nonprofit called CenterLink, and it's sort of a connection hub for all these different centers, so that when you do have questions or challenges, you can reach out to people who have done it before,” Woolsey said. “What's unique about ours is it's in a rural area; there are very few places like this in rural areas.”
Strengthening community
According to the crisis-support nonprofit The Trevor Project, LGBTQ+ youth are at higher risk of suicide than their peers because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized by society — and support and acceptance from others can help protect against mental health challenges.
As a trans woman, Stahl has experienced this reality firsthand and wants to provide support and resources to others that she didn’t have growing up in the suburbs of Chicago.
“I'm a person who grew up knowing something was going on with me, but no one around me knew what the word ‘transgender’ was. Like, my parents didn't know that word, none of my teachers knew that word — and I don't want any other people to go through that,” Stahl said. “What I want is for kids who are growing up, who are like me, to know that the feelings they're having are fine, that there's nothing wrong with them and there are other people who have had these feelings, who have grown up, who are happy.”
Stahl spent another decade in the closet after first hearing the word “transgender” at age 21 and coming out to her parents, but going to therapy and eventually finding a supportive LGBTQ+ community marked an important turning point in her transition.
“I drove all the way to Grand Junction and tried on my name, pronouns and different gender presentations to see what worked, because I had nowhere I could go that was safe and private in this area,” she said. “Before that, I was at home getting drunk, getting high, watching TV and not doing anything … and now I'm a mother, and I have built such an incredible community, and I see many of them suffering in the same way that I did, and it hurts me.”
Both Stahl and Woolsey are hopeful that the new center will provide connection for people experiencing loneliness or isolation.
“Having a public space like this, where I can tell people they can go and meet up and be safe, or I can just find new people that I don't know yet, is going to be so cool,” Woolsey said. “One of the most important things surviving in the modern day is the emotional aspect and having local communities is really, really important.”
Preparing for backlash
With an increase in anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination and hate crimes across the country, Cook Inclusive has also had to prepare for backlash against its new resource center.
“It's something that, unfortunately, we always expect and deal with somewhat regularly doing this work,” Stahl said. “Part of the reason we’re opening this space is because we couldn’t publish the locations of other places we would do our activities in the past.”
Stahl said they worried about sharing the address of spaces run by other community members for fear of putting them at risk.
Although there haven’t been any direct threats to the new center, Stahl and some of her colleagues have been the subjects of discriminatory and menacing social media posts related to their advocacy work on issues such as a recently passed name-changes policy for transgender students in the Garfield Re-2 School District. Stahl worries that could escalate.
“There's always stuff where people will intentionally misgender me and, you know, call me a groomer or insinuate that I’m harming children, and there will potentially be more egregious versions of that,” Stahl said. “It always makes you a little nervous when people are talking about you in a bad way, because it just takes one off-kilter person to do something terrible.”
In addition to taking personal self-defense classes and weapons training, Stahl and her colleagues have been building relationships with local police and investing in security measures, including cameras and monitoring equipment.
“There's been a few of these centers across the country that have been shut down because militia groups have come in and stood outside, marched around with their long rifles, like, trying to scare people away. How do we respond if that happens?” Stahl said.
Bridging divides
As the new center gains visibility in the community, Stahl and Woolsey see an opportunity to have dialogue with residents who might not understand the necessity of creating safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people at a time when political divides are widening.
“If there are community members who are concerned and genuinely curious and want to have a conversation with an open mind, I want to sit down and get coffee with you,” Stahl said. “I want to be vulnerable and share what my experience has been, and I want to genuinely listen to you and your experience and your fears.”
Although Woolsey wishes she didn’t have to defend her existence as a trans person, she is prepared for difficult conversations.
“A lot of people are like, ‘Well, why do you need a queer space? Why can't I have a straight space or something,’ and it's like, ‘Well, there's only a very small percentage of people who are known to be trans in the U.S., and so being a trans person, it's very hard to find other people who are like you that you can talk to and connect with.’”
For Woolsey, the idea is similar to other communities that connect around a common experience and share critical resources that might not otherwise be available to them.
“There's a community of people who have cancer that talk together and share medical resources,” Woolsey said. “Having more information is always better, so you can make better decisions and be safer — you know, which doctors are friendly, or which doctors might overprescribe or underprescribe, all the different things.”
Although the new center will primarily serve LGBTQ+ residents, Cook Inclusive also plans to offer inclusivity training and workshops on how to reduce bias for employers and the public.
“I think there's a lot of people who are afraid to talk about some of these issues, and they're afraid that they might hurt someone's feelings or get canceled,” Stahl said. “I want to create some spaces also for those people to have an opportunity to ask the questions that they have, and to hear the stories of the people that maybe they haven't interacted with a whole lot in their lives, and maybe we can come to some level of mutual understanding.”
Woolsey has already had some positive outcomes having conversations with people in her own life by sharing her personal experience and combating misinformation.
“You know, really helping people be like, ‘Oh, well, I wasn't sure why people would want to transition or something, but now this makes more sense because here's a bunch of research about it very thoroughly explained.’”
During a recent policy debate over whether Garfield Re-2 schools should be required to notify parents if their child requests a gender-affirming name at school, Stahl also invited the school board and superintendent to talk with trans youth, their families and mental health practitioners willing to share their perspectives.
“There was some disagreement, and that was expected and planned for, but I do think it was a valuable opportunity for the people who are going to be impacted by this decision to speak to the people in power and share their stories,” Stahl said.
Although Stahl and other local LGBTQ+ advocates did not support the board’s ultimate policy decision, she’s still hopeful that the new resource center can bridge divides and ensure that underserved community members have a voice at the table.
“The Colorado that I know, the Western Slope that I know, even our more conservative neighbors, really have always had a culture of ‘Let your neighbors be your neighbors, and we're not here to take from anyone else,’” Stahl said. “And I think there's a lot of common ground; we all love our families, we all want to take care of our community, we all want the best for everyone here.”
The new center only received initial funding for its first year, but Cook Inclusive has applied for additional funding from the Colorado Health Foundation, along with its local fundraising efforts.
Saturday’s grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Queer Resource Space is open to the public and will take place at 386 West Main Street #2B, New Castle from noon to 1:30 p.m.
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, or is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which provides support in both Spanish and English.
The Trevor Project also offers 24/7 crisis counseling for LGBTQ+ youth.
