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Interview with Nathan Saavedra of Equality New Mexico
The Equity Hour third part of the LGBTQIA+ series, interview with Nathan of EQNM
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Interview with Nathan Saavedra of Equality New Mexico
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Interview with Nathan Saavedra of Equality New Mexico
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The transcript is a conversation on Gila Mindre's Community Radio with hosts Cindy Renee Provencio and Kit West interviewing Nathan Salazar from Equality New Mexico. Nathan discusses the organization's advocacy work for LGBTQ individuals, focusing on policy, narrative shift, and youth development. They aim to protect vulnerable communities with an intersectional lens. The hosts also appreciate the unique job titles within the organization, highlighting roles like Chief Liberation Officer and Director of Influence, Experience, and Culture. Nathan explains the importance of these roles in shaping the organization's public image and narrative shift efforts. Michelle Mengera's role in internal strategies and office management is also discussed. The conversation reflects on the ongoing nature of advocacy work and the organization's commitment to supporting marginalized communities. The following program is pre-recorded. The views expressed on this program do not reflect the views of Gila Mindre's Community Radio and belong solely to the program hosts and guests. You are listening to Gila Mindre's Community Radio, KURU 89.1 FM, Silver City, New Mexico, and online at gmcr.org. You are listening to the Equity Hour, where the political is personal, a monthly show. Equity Hour is part of the Kindred Continuum series and airs on the first Monday of the month at 10 a.m. and is replayed on the air the following Sunday at 4 p.m. I'm your co-host, Cindy Renee Provencio. And I'm your co-host, Kit West. And this show is the third part of our series on the LGBTQIA plus issues. And we are interviewing Nathan Salazar, Director of Policy, Power, and People at Equality New Mexico. Nathan, thank you for coming on the show with us. Can you tell us about the organization, Equality New Mexico, and the work that you do? Yeah, of course. And thank you again, Cindy and Kit, for having me and Equality New Mexico here during the show. We super appreciate it. No problem. Wonderful. So, yeah. My name is Nathan. My pronouns are he, him, so out there. And I work at Equality New Mexico. I've been at this organization for around the past three years. And we are a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization. At least that is our main focus. We have existed for just about 30 years here in the state of New Mexico, advocating for the betterment and liberation of queer and trans individuals as much as we can. And this is largely through advocacy, but we also engage in narrative shift work, which is, you know, changing the broader opinions of LGBTQ people, especially right now. One of our major concerns is the care of transgender folks in our state. And we also have recently started working on some youth queer and trans professional development through our fellowship program. And our main goal as an organization is really just to protect our most vulnerable communities. And this goes back into, like, really our work being through a very, you know, intersectional lens. The LGBTQ community is a unique group of folks because not only are we a community in ourselves, but we also are people of color. And we are underserved and economically pushed to the side a lot of times. And so when we are thinking about what policies or what work needs to be done in the state of New Mexico to reach queer and trans liberation, there's really no end date or end post of where that is. It's really just improving the lives of all people with a focus on queer and trans folks, of course. That's amazing. You said 30 years? That the organization... Yeah. Just... Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. Just over 30 years. Actually, we're hitting our 33rd year this year. It was made in the fall of 1993. So... Or 32 years. I'm bad at math. That's not my job. That's okay. In the 90s. It's the 90s. Yes. 1993 is when we were first founded. And we've been going strong ever since then. With this ongoing philosophy. Like, there's no, like, end date. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Sure. Okay. Yeah. That's exactly right. You know, a lot of people in the advocacy and, like, community organizations, they're like, oh, we're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. Yeah. That's exactly right. You know, a lot of people in the advocacy and, like, community organizing spaces, we like to tell ourselves that our goal is to organize and advocate ourselves out of a job, which is a funny little joke, you know, but the reality is, like, it's likely never – we're likely never to reach a space where we don't need advocates for any group of people. And if at some point we do reach that, I would be happy to move on to a different job doing the same thing in a different group of people. Very interesting approach. It was different than Adrian's because he said that when he started the Transgender Resource Center, they looked forward to the day where they could close it, you know, because it was no longer necessary. Yeah. Like, the transgender people would just be part of society, and they would be helped along with everybody else. Yeah. So, your vision is, like, a little bit broader, it seems like. Mm-hmm. Right? You just want to help everybody, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. The Transgender Resource Center is amazing. Yeah. Incredible. In fact, they do direct service work. Yeah. Yeah. And amazing work, like, directly helping so many people across the state. Yeah. Phenomenal. And making sure that they have the legal – it's amazing. And what we do is – well, we don't engage in direct service at all. Our whole gig is advocacy and policy work, which never ends as long as we have a democracy. Right. So, we're happy to keep doing it. Right. Good clarification. Yeah. So, one of my favorite parts of Equality New Mexico's website, eqnm.org, is the staff page. I absolutely love some of the job titles. And can we just take a moment to appreciate some of these job titles and talk about the roles of some of your colleagues? In the organization, for example, Chief Liberation Officer, which is Marshall Martinez. Like, I want that title. That is a super cool title. I like Director of Influence. Like, experience and culture. Sorry. Yeah. By itself. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about some of these roles? Like, the Chief Liberation Officer. I imagine that's kind of like a CEO or, you know, the head of the organization, maybe. Yeah. I'm super happy to. And I also love that you bring this up because it is not too long ago we just updated our titles at the end of our fiscal year, which is around June. Pride month. Perfect timing. And, yeah, we largely, you know, we're a queer organization. Most of us are queer. We're a little creative sometimes. And that leads to, you know, some very fun names, very fun meetings. And so, yeah, our previous Executive Director, now Chief Liberation Officer, Marshall Martinez, changed his own title. And we're all a very big fan of it. Just to try and make things seem, one, a little less corporate, and two, a little more fitting to what we're working on. I don't know. You can't put such a large emphasis on queer and trans liberation as, like, our future goal. But it makes a lot of sense for our head man, Marshall Martinez, to be Chief Liberation Officer. But, yeah, basically, our Executive Director, he's an amazing guy. He handles most of our fundraising work, directs our programs, directs me while I handle our programs. And he's actually on sabbatical right now, taking a three-month break in the effort of work-life balance and being sure that he has the momentum to continue to do the great work that he's been for this community for the past 20-ish years. He really has dedicated most of his professional life to fighting for the movement. And sometimes you need a little break. Longer than a week-long vacation to fully reset after that long of really driving it home. So not so corporate. That's great. Because corporate America doesn't do that, right? This is a new kind of group. That's so cool. Yeah. So how about Director of Influence, Experience, and Culture, Rudy Lomboya? Yes. He is wonderful. He was also just hired full-time around June, although he's been an employee with us since late last year. And he handles everything from communications and marketing to what do people see when they look at EQNM and what do they think when they hear the name EQNM or Equality New Mexico. His whole role is our public image, which we're so grateful to have him, because so far before this we haven't really had someone on the team whose whole entire focus was who are we to the public. We've focused a lot over the past couple of years on, I guess, kind of strengthening slash crystallizing what we look like to the public. Equality New Mexico being who it is and not doing direct service work oftentimes means we're not, like, super in the public eye or the communities aren't, like, super knowledgeable of who we are or what we do, because most of that work is up in the roundhouse advocating and talking with legislators to try and get these bills passed. And so it's nice now to have both Rudy Montoya and Leila Garcia, who's our narrative and voice strategist, working on figuring out who we are, planning that narrative shift work that I mentioned earlier, and really thinking through ways that we can be more out there, because as much as our work is not fully focused on being in communities, that's the whole point of our work. And so the more that we can grow and gain this, like, familiarity, especially from our base of supporters, queer and trans New Mexicans and those who support us, it builds our power. And the more power we have, the more work we're able to do to support those who care about us. So my second favorite title is Internal Liberation Strategies. I don't know. I just like the liberation part. Tell us a little bit about what Michelle Mengera does. Yes. So this is Michelle Mengera. She is the one staff person who is not queer. And she does lovely work. She's been with us for about the past two years, almost the same time as me. We came on right around the same time. And she handles most of scheduling. She does a little bit of our human resources work. She manages our office, which we also just got earlier this year. So super happy about that. And she just kind of leads all the background work that we would not survive with or without. Really so grateful for her every single day. She does, yeah, just the amazing background research. A lot of the times when we're looking into new programs or new policy areas that we haven't quite looked into yet, she'll be, you know, the first stop in compiling some resources or explaining things in a way that works out. And, yeah, really I see her as the back end of the organization. She does a lot of work that no one sees. And so it's wonderful to talk about her for a second. Awesome. Well, that's really cool to hear about how you guys, you know, really imagined your titles to fit the work that you do more clearly and... Playfully. Playfully, yeah. And powerfully. I feel like these are powerful titles. So, you know, our last two shows have been on transgender issues specifically. And one of your organization's priorities is trans community advocacy. Can you tell us more about that effort and what it looks like? Yeah, of course. So it is, we'll just start by saying that it's the unfortunate reality that political, the political atmosphere over the past couple of years, and especially now, is coming to a heat that transgender identities and ideologies have become one of the most controversial and heated topics during whatever political system we have going on right now. And so transgender advocacy has always been a part of each UNM's work. It has never been something that we haven't focused on. But now, given what is happening federally as well as, you know, more tightening in communities, each UNM has taken a broader step to try and do some of the work that we've been doing around general LGBTQ advocacy narrative shifting and organizing work to focus on what we can do individually for specifically the trans community across New Mexico. And a lot of this comes through partnerships. I don't, actually, I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but yeah, we work extremely closely with the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico. Our office is actually in their building, which they just purchased earlier this year. So we're super happy to be living here. It's an amazing space, and it's great to be in community with our partners just across the hall. But our advocacy looks like pretty much everything. We work intersectionally, and I think our work can probably be split up into about two different, sorry, excuse me, about two different categories, the first one being like advocacy and direct lobbying work, and the second one being specifically community organizing and like communication focus. And so when it comes to our advocacy and lobbying arm of the organization, we just make sure that any policy we are looking at or any policy that our coalition partners are looking at has the lens of a transgender person taken into account at the beginning of those steps. You are listening to Gila Mendes Community Radio, KURU 89.1 FM, in Silver City, New Mexico, and online at GMCR.org. You are listening to the Equity Hour, where the political is personal. And we are interviewing Nathan Saavreda, Director of Policy, Power, and People at Equality New Mexico, and we were just talking about the trans community advocacy. Please continue, Nathan. Yeah, of course, thank you. That was very fun. So, yeah, we just split things up. We try to make sure that a trans person or trans identities are represented at every table where policies are being made that affect them, which, like we spoke about earlier, is like most things, LGBTQ people are everywhere, and this is not exclusionary of trans folks whatsoever. So when we're talking about policies or legislation that impacts the unhoused populations across New Mexico or the people who are dealing with addiction issues and who are suffering the harms of domestic violence, all of those will impact a trans person, and so it is Equality New Mexico's prerogative to actively engage in those spaces to make sure that not only is it not exclusionary of trans people while it's being made, but it's inclusive and protective of everyone across New Mexico, not just certain groups. So we do our absolute best with all of our work to make sure that there's no one left out, generally, that the work that we're doing actually means something and has positive effects for every group that is vulnerable in New Mexico or could be vulnerable or has faced attacks on them. And then besides our specific advocacy work, community organizing is a whole separate fund of the organization where we just try our best to center trans voices, bringing people to the table who are not always engaged in policy, and inviting them to share their experiences. And all of that information then helps us formulate our legislative strategies. We don't just decide once a year what our political priorities are going to be. We like to take in advice, input from the community. That's the whole point of why we exist. I mean, we're a community-based advocacy organization. So if we were to just do the work from this very top-down, grass-tops, bourgeoisie level, it would kind of negate the fact that what we're doing is to support people, not alienate anyone. Right. I love that, that the structure itself sort of reflects what you're doing, if you understand me. Yeah. Yeah. That's the way it kind of has to be, but isn't most of the time, right? You're trying to help people, but you don't listen to the people that you're trying to help. Yeah. Right? It doesn't work. And they're like, why isn't this working? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Haven't you had that experience, Nathan? I have. It's like, we want to help all these people, but where are the people? They're not in the room talking to you about what they want. Yeah. So this is great. That's exactly right. And that's partly to why, I don't know. I think New Mexico, especially the New Mexican legislature, is in a very good position to be fully accepting of these community voices. We all know it's kind of hard. New Mexico is a very large state. If you want to be heard and live in Roswell, New Mexico, you have to find time off during a 30- or 60-day session, drive four-plus hours up to the Santa Fe capital, and then find time to capture your legislator and let them know your opinions. But because New Mexico has such an amazing group of community organizations like ours, like the Transgender Resource Center, like the ACLU, and Bold Futures New Mexico, all these great advocacy and community-based organizations up in the legislature communicating on their behalf, but also being so centered in their own selves to hear from their community and hear what they want and hear what they need to be better and to live better lives is an amazing place. I guess I don't really know if that's true for other states, but I know that New Mexico's unpaid, short legislature kind of creates a very good environment for us to come in and be the people's advocates, as much as we are for our communities. Yeah, I don't know about other states either, but I know that Washington is not happening. That's what I can say about it, right? So we've got to start somewhere, right? So that's wonderful. Maybe it'll be addictive or something like that. Yeah, so I have a master's degree in women and gender studies, and I love talking about intersectionality. And one of the criteria for your organization's priorities is, does the work ensure an intersectional framework? So can you tell us about your organization's intersectional approach and what does that look like? Yeah, so thanks for the question. This is wonderful. Yeah, I don't know. Intersectionality has always, at least personally, been a very abstract idea, at least until I got to this job. And honestly, maybe it started confusing me even more afterwards. But to keep things not abstract, I will just say that, yes, all of our priorities, like I previously mentioned a second ago too, have to go through this lens, which is very much like, are the people who are being impacted at the table? Who is going to be most impacted? Where can we find someone who could engage in this work that would have something to say that is not what we know? How can we be sure that, like, all of the experiences that are a part of this framework moving forward be heard? And I think the way that we handle it and the way that a lot of organizations in Mexico handle it, as far as I'm aware, is through coalition building and coalition relationships. I mentioned some previous organizations just a second ago, like Goal Futures and the ACLU of Mexico. Those are some of our closest partners, but we work with so many more. At least 10 to 15-plus organizations across New Mexico have some sort of advocacy interests, and the best ways for anything to get done in our state and probably in most other states also is to build collective power, which I think is also a message that is just so important to be holding dear right now. The only thing that the only real power that any of us have who aren't directly in a government seat is to community organize and to build the strength that shows up to, say, the Roundhouse and have a public outcry of what the priorities really are and what the community cares about. Because at the end of the day, it may not look like it's us who are hiring and firing legislators because we're on it. We get one vote out of how many, but it's always extremely important to prove exactly what kind of people power is behind the priorities that you're pushing forward. And so when all of our different organizations come together, there's us who works on LGBTQ advocacy, Planned Parenthood who works on reproductive health care access, the ACLU works on civil liberties. We have some organizations like the Coalition to End Homelessness who work to help our in-house folks across the state. All of these different organizations come together and share their expertise from their organizational perspective, but we also share our expertise and our experience from a personal perspective. We bring our full selves to our work, and I truly think that that is part of the reason New Mexico has been pretty progressive so far. Our organizations are a bit of a power punch, and as long as we continue to keep doing this community-centered approach and focusing as much as we can on highlighting what makes us different as opposed to what doesn't, I think that is what intersectionality is and the way it looks like in this context for us to just look at exactly what we're doing and then figure out how to make it community-based and how to make sure that no one is left behind. That sounds like a beautiful weaving, doesn't it? It's like everything is woven together, and I think that we traditionally don't think about advocacy in that, at least I haven't yet. In that particular way, we always think of someone advocating for somebody else, I guess an individual or it's a crisis or something like that, but this ongoing weaving of all of these different groups coming together and that you are not just a paid advocate. It's you. Like you said, it's very personal to you so that all these personalities, it's very important and very centered to them, and they all come together and weave these coalitions. It sounds very inspiring to me. It sounds almost very ancient, like maybe this is how we used to do it long before it was sort of corporatized or whatever happened. It sounds very inspiring, Nathan. It's great. Yeah, it's wonderful. I also had the same exact ideas. I went to college. I wanted to do political science. I still did not do political science, but what I learned there is not at all what I've been doing in practice in this job, and all I can say is that I'm glad. Yeah, focusing on not only the staff members, but the community, valuing everything that you bring to the table, regardless of whether or not you learned it from a textbook or not. It's amazing. Not only is it powerful because messages from people are really what work, especially when you're trying to pass policy and influence people's hearts, but they also give me and other employees and other people just this buy-in to really be able to show up to work with your full self. Yeah, that's what I'm hearing is that your full self is engaged, and that's what everybody wants, right? In life, we want to be fully engaged in what we're doing. We don't want to just be doing it for a paycheck. I know we're also not. Our identities are not. We have different aspects of our identities that don't fit into boxes. They're all intersecting. I'm not just a woman. I'm a queer Hispanic woman, and I have those three identities that all intersect and impact my life experience. That's important, right, to be able to bring your full self to the table in those experiences. Yeah, that's what I keep thinking of. I keep seeing a weaving, right? We're multiple. We're all multiple, and our society wants to make us singular frequently. So how do you bring your full multiple self to your community to help? It's difficult. So you guys seem to have solved that one. Good for you. Well, we're always trying, but I love to hear that. Yeah, there's always more work to be done and better ways to do things, but for now, this is working for us, and it feels good. Well, that's a story right there. Who does the influence, experience, and culture? She's the person who does that. That could be a novel or a book or something like that. Just the story of how you all come together and how you work is very inspirational. Not just the work you do, but how you work is very exciting for me. Yeah, it's extremely interesting, and, yeah, I mean, it's not always easy. Working with massive groups of people is worth it, but, you know, there's always complications, and it's always wonderful when you get past them because you're just working with such a values-aligned group where even if there's hiccups, it's how can we move past this, what's the best solution, and how can we do what we're here to do, especially when you're focused on the mission. Right. You are listening to Hua Mingus Community Radio, KURU 89.1 FM, Silver City, New Mexico, and online at gmcr.org. You are listening to the Equity Hour. We're the Politico's personnel, and we are interviewing Nathan Salveraza, Director of Policy, Power, and People at Equality New Mexico, and Kit. Yeah, Kit's a specific one, so I have these specific curiosities about your 2025 legislative agenda. So I was wondering if you could give us a kind of overview of your priorities, but also, like, I know you've mentioned this a little bit earlier in the show that there are particular pressures now, like on the trans community and stuff, because of the present administration. So if you could talk generally, but then also, like, what are these pressures now or, you know, what's happening with those? Like, how are you focusing? What are you focusing on in particular under this stress that we're experiencing now? Yeah, of course. So, yeah, we've got a lot going on in this next legislative session. To just set a baseline real quick, next year, in 2026, we will have a 30-day legislative session. It will go from about mid-January to mid-February, and during 30-day legislative sessions in New Mexico, legislators are only allowed to introduce bills that have something to do with the budget. It's called a budget session, and if it doesn't have something to do with money, then the only way it can get onto the floor is if the sitting governor makes it a priority, in which case then it can be passed as a 30-day session. The following year, in 2027, we will have a 60-day session in which we can pass any type of legislation whatsoever. There are no qualifications, of course, besides it being an actual bill. So, yeah, taking that now, over the next year or so, at least over the next few years, so I can talk a little bit about bills that don't have to do with funding, we're going to be prioritizing a lot of what we have in the past. I will mainly mention sex education, particularly medically accurate sex education, curriculum at the state level. We've also been very passionate about 16- and 17-year-olds voting, so we'll likely be prioritizing that again. We have a – just this session, we started working on some insurance privacy measures to try and ensure that folks in between the ages of, like, 18 to 24-ish who are still on their parents' insurance have the privacy to get STI tested or pregnancy tested and have that not reflected in the explanation of benefits that's sent to their parents through their insurance. And we're also going to be working a lot on some actual general data privacy legislation. I know in your question you mentioned what types of actions we're going to take to do what I said we've been doing about protecting trans folks specifically. And one of the biggest gaps in New Mexico's protection that we see right now and that we're hoping to fix over the next couple of years is the overall availability of our data that exists and the fact that anyone can access it. And so let's take the federal government as an example right now. Unfortunately, the information that you put into Google or social media apps or anything online, if you're checking out at Target, all of your information, as well as your purchase history, your search history, your location data from running apps, the data that can be found in your period tracker or your medication tracker, none of that is legally protected data. And not only is it not legally protected, but it is actively being sold and processed to anyone who is willing to buy it. And unfortunately, that does include governments. And so a lot of the times when we'll be talking about this, we will refer to hostile state actors or the hostile federal government, of course, which is either referring to Texas, Arizona, you know, the residents around us who may have ill intentions towards New Mexicans or those who come here for your health care. And so given the fact that your medication history could be accessed, sold, and that right alongside that your geographical history could be accessed and sold and then given to a government entity, our fear is that especially moving forward, and we've already seen a number of scary examples of it, even national headlines recently, is that governments will take this data and use it to find you and then they will use it to prosecute you. And, I mean, right now, given the current situation, they could use it to deport you. So this is a situation where Medicaid data was given to ICE so they could actively find people. And that's, I mean, that's the government data. That's something a little different, but the possibility is there. And so right now we're thinking that in order to protect our most vulnerable communities, and this includes trans folks and immigrants and people accessing reproductive health care, the best way to protect them is to protect their data. And to do that, we need to pass strong legislation that actually does stuff. We need opt-in consent and more controls of whether or not your data is allowed to be shared or sold whatsoever and to whom you're okay with it being sold and shared to. And so that's something we're working on right now. It's a little bit. It's called the NMTSPA campaign. But besides data privacy and everything I just mentioned a second ago, too, we're really, I mean, back to kind of what I was saying earlier, too, we're open to hearing more about what is going to help people here in New Mexico. We are lucky to live in a state that has some of the most protective laws for queer and trans people across the country. So that has changed. Besides general health care access needs, we have great laws and legislation protecting our health care access. And so really we're focused on a lot of different things, but we're always happy to hear more about what the community needs specifically. And a lot of that right now is housing access and addiction treatment, which eQNM, of course, that's not our total wheelhouse, but we work in a coalition for it, and we all come together to try and figure out what works best and what the best solutions are for anyone who's on house. And then eQNM pipes in and says, what about trans folks who have been disproportionately left out of most housing resources that are meant for the community in past times? And I think, yeah, as long as we're able to keep working in coalition and figuring out what these major issues are, like eQNM definitely has our primary priorities, but we're constantly working on other things, too. Just earlier in this year, Equality New Mexico engaged in its first climate legislation, alongside Conservation Voters New Mexico and a bunch of other partners. Super happy about that. And it's really a move to making everything focused on this lens of equity and inclusion and making sure that experiences are all at the table, as well as facts. Because sometimes there's a discrepancy there, and you've got to make sure that everything is being heard, not just the numbers. Yeah, it's dizzying. It's really a kaleidoscope, isn't it? So many issues, and they're all connected, of course, but in different ways, and it's kind of incredible. What I was wondering is if you could go into some detail, like give us an example of how it works. Like this sex education that you were talking about is a particular priority, and you're talking about medically accurate sex education curriculum. So like for somebody who doesn't really have any idea of what you do, how advocacy works, like what do you mean by accurate sex education curriculum? Would this include like demystifying gender, affirming care? And what kind of legislation addresses this? Like how do you approach this just for our listeners so that we can better be in your shoes? Yeah, so this is actually kind of a fun one, and it required a lot of brainstorming when the group who was working on this, including us, came up with this last iteration of comprehensive sex education legislation. So the bill that was introduced this year was the very first time that it had been introduced. In that case, it's not so much of a shock that it didn't pass. Those often take a lot more than one year to get fully through the system like that. But, yeah, so we are actually unable, the state is unable, to directly say what should be in a curriculum. But what we are able to do is say what a, oh, my God, that's a hard word, what a curriculum, like what the baseline of it should be. So we cannot say, I guess in a weird way, we cannot say that you have to teach these specifics about gender affirming care. But we can pass a bill that says districts across New Mexico should talk about gender affirming care in a medically accurate way. So, yeah, it's kind of weird. Like we can say, we can have a bill that says schools need to talk about what, about reproductive health care, and it should be medically accurate. And it can include abstinence, but it cannot only talk about abstinence. Okay, for example. It also, yeah. Got it. And so that's part of the bill that we tried to pass this year. And the medically accurate portion is really just to ensure that there's no lies, and that like individual districts are not able to co-opt and say that this is accurate because it may not be medically accurate. And this is also like not only it being an LGBTQ issue and a sexual health issue, but it's an equity issue too, which was one of our biggest talking points at the time. Because, I don't know, take a student in Santa Fe. They have amazing sex education curriculum up there. They get taught A through Z, what, you know, good sexual health care is, what gender ideology, what sexual orientation looks like in practice. They do the whole thing. But someone in rural Mexico gets taught abstinence and the anatomy of their body, and that's it. And so this was a big effort to kind of make things equal across New Mexico also. Oh, I see. To try and, you know, put all the districts on the same level, especially because, I mean, it's proven that bad sex ed is dangerous. It actively, you know, sex ed that does not talk about consent harms people. Sex ed that doesn't go over all sexual health protection measures actively harms people. And, yeah, we're just trying to protect folks. We're trying to make sure also that LGBTQ students are not alienated in their classrooms. And just overall increase safety for our students across New Mexico. That's great, and I'm sure that New Mexico isn't the only state that has these rural communities that teach abstinence and anatomy, and that's it, you know. So I think it's nationwide that you have these discrepancies, right? There's really good education in the cities, let's say. I grew up in Missouri. I lived in St. Louis, you know, and this is a red state. It's not progressive, but St. Louis was, right? And then you go to the rural towns and everything, and it's a completely different world. It's a completely different world, and their education reflects that. So it's important to try and equalize that. Yeah, it's kind of nerve-wracking. We did a survey during this past legislative session. I think we got about 50-ish responses asking what sex ed experiences were like across New Mexico. I mean, we definitely got some from, like, Texas and stuff also. But a majority of them, like an alarmingly high majority, I would say like 40 out of the 50, did not have good sexual orientation at all. And actually a good chunk of that number even then specifically called out, like, bad trauma from sex education at the time, mostly from an LGBTQ perspective, being alienated and not being included, and then those experiences leading to harmful real-life experiences because you didn't learn. It's mental health. It's a public health issue. Yeah. So this is much. Right. Yeah. Right. Got it. Well, that was very enlightening. That's great. Can you say another? You are listening to Hilo Mimbrez Community Radio, KURU 89.1 FM, in Silver City, New Mexico, and online at GMCR.org. You are listening to the Equity Hour, where the political is personal. And we are interviewing Nathan Salvega, Director of Policy, Power, and People with Equality, New Mexico. And I think you are ready for the next question. I have. Yeah, I have some burning questions. I love this. Like, why is 16-, 17-year-old voting in state and local board elections a priority? That's a question. I think our young listeners, if we have some, would be interested in that. I just want the back story of that. Like, what is the back story of that? If I were 16 or 17, I would really be interested in this. I don't know. I think you are right to say. Yeah, no, this is one of my favorite things. This is, yeah, this is one of the first, like, policy areas that I started working on at EQNN. And it's still one of my favorites. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a lot of momentum behind it, but I am trying to fix that every year. But our whole, our biggest message is really that specifically queer and trans youth, 16- and 17-year-olds, are suffering the fact that they have to hear their very existence debated in school board meetings, in city council meetings, and they have no say whatsoever. They just have no power in those situations at all. And they are also the most impacted, specifically since school boards are able to control what goes on in their locker rooms or how many bathrooms they have or what resources are available, like mental health or just generalized health care for these students. City councils often control where, like, actual community resources go, where housing resources go. And seeing as, like, queer and trans folks are often kicked out of their homes at much higher rates than their peers. They suffer discrimination and harassment and abuse at their school much higher. They also face it at home that it's a priority for their voices to be heard in these spaces. So they can try and, so they can do their civic duty and get engaged in the political process to try and make sure that their voices are heard, yes, and also that some action is taken, possibly. And with that being our main, like, emotional message, I'll also pair along with it the fact that a lot of 16 and 17-year-olds work. They pay taxes with that money. A lot of the times 16 and 17-year-olds, especially across rural New Mexico, are put into these pseudo-provider roles where they're watching their siblings or they're putting in money for rent or groceries and they're facing maturity at a much quicker rate and they still have no voice to put anywhere besides online. And, I mean, that's really, they work. They do their voice and 16 and 17, there's really no, like, no reason they shouldn't be able to vote. They try. They're in school actively. I would probably say 16 and 17-year-olds have more civic knowledge right off the bat than most others. And also voting is a habit, so the earlier we start them on it, the more likely they are to continue doing it the rest of their lives. Absolutely. And community engagement as well, right? That's a habit. If you learn that young, you continue it. There's more chance, right, that you continue it the rest of your life? Yeah. And that's, like, especially true for our local elections leading up to the state. I don't know, I feel like communication around voting is largely that it only matters during a presidential year and that's just not true. And if you're unable to vote in a presidential election but you are able to vote in state and local elections, you're going to start caring about those a little more, especially if you're able to. Exactly. I think that we're learning the hard way that you can't just be engaged every four years. That's how we got here, right? We don't have enough people who are engaged all the time. And I think that's changing. You know, I see that all around me. People are like, uh-oh, time to wake up. But it's best when we're done young. I agree with you. I think that's very wise, very practical, you know? Yeah. And we almost got there. This year was the first year it got passed, even its first committee. So it's on its way. I mean, you know, the actual process is like two committees, a floor vote, two more committees, another floor vote, and then it goes to the governor's office. But we've gotten further than ever before, so I'll call it a win. Do the young people know that this is out there, that you're struggling for their vote? That was a nice idea. Do you talk to them? We're trying to get it out. When it comes time for us to start focusing on this bill, when our other priorities allow. Our community organizer, Hazel, does do, like, classroom presentations in high schools, actively tries to attend youth events to try and gauge interest on this issue. So far, we've heard really good things. I mean, definitely they're excited. They want it. And, I mean, you talk to one of them, the 16- and 17-year-olds who's, like, actively engaged, or, I mean, mostly we go and talk to, like, GSA groups across the state, and they already feel such, like, this advocating heart or this, like, special interest in helping people like themselves. And you can really tell that it's not, like, not a phase, I guess, to quote a common parentage thing. But these kids have real interest, and they really want to do something that will help themselves and their peers. Okay. Okay, thanks. That's very clarifying, too. Do we have time for another question? I think one more question. Okay. So I have these. Here in Silver City-Grant County in general, we have a behavioral health issue, like, right around here. We have a really big lack of behavioral health. It's incredible. So one of your priorities is to address the provider shortage, right? And I'm wondering what kind of legislation can address this. Like, what are you working on? And I know your focus might be different than the one here, but there's a lot of homelessness here, and there's just a gap. There's nowhere for people to go. They're working on it. They're trying, but it's an issue. And so I saw that it was an issue for you all, too. So if you could talk a little bit about where you're going with this, that would be interesting for our listeners. Sure. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I'll just start off by saying that a lot of the work specifically in this behavioral health space, crime and homelessness space, comes from our public safety coalition work. And in that case, I should say that we have not planned ahead for this next year or the following year quite yet. But so far, just this last legislative session, we actually completed two out of three of our main goals, the first one being that we kind of got over $3 million in the budget to support behavioral health care practicums at the university level to try and increase the level of providers here in our state who come to school here and then stay afterwards so they can go ahead and get that year of internship paid, which is a large barrier for them. Right now, they have to go to school, get their whole graduate degree, and then have to do a full-time year of practicum, which is often unpaid, unless you're lucky enough to be able to do it through the UNM program. And I think maybe NMSU also has a similar program, but that's only two colleges out of however many we have across the state of New Mexico that offer paid solutions for these groups. So we were able to get $3 million in the budget to go ahead and support that. And we also passed another bill that canceled excessive fees on rental properties. So when you're applying for a rental, there's often a fee for, I don't know, like an application fee, a management fee, a credit check fee, these random things that end up tallying up to a lot. And we were able to bring that down to no more than a $50 application fee total. And also now so you can bring your credit checks to multiple different properties. A lot of what we heard from the community was that just getting a rental with Borderland Impossible when every single application would cost you upwards of $100 and you had to submit multiple and you couldn't share anything on LinkedIn and they all did separate credit checks. Yeah, and so that bill actually passed and went into effect later this year or earlier on this year, I guess. It already went into effect. So that's wonderful. And we're going to continue doing work like that. I don't know. Not everything needs to be as intense as it might seem. A lot of the times it's just these really simple solutions that we can get past quickly that will actively impact the money in people's pockets or the health care that they can access in less than a year. What I'm actually dealing with is a much larger problem than can be fixed quickly. Well, you're chipping away at it. You're chipping, right? Is that what you're saying? You're chipping away at it? Yeah. Yeah, bit by bit. So we only have about three minutes left, Nathan, and I do want to talk a little bit about how our listeners can volunteer for your organization. I know you solicit volunteers on your website, so what are some ways that people can get involved and support the work that you do? Yeah, of course. So thank you again. Yeah, you can use our website, eqnm.org, and on there we ask. There's a little volunteer button. Just click that. It asks you for some information. As soon as you submit that form, it will go ahead and pop off to our community organizer, Hazel, who will be in contact with you about potential organizing opportunities. There's always something. It's not always super specific because we're an advocacy organization, but a lot of it looks like tabling with us at a pride event or any event across the state at any time and just sharing our message. We are starting to host monthly volunteer meetings. We do phone banking a lot. We always need volunteers for that, especially people who love to talk. We do text banking. If you want to host a dinner for us and tell all your friends, we can send you some stickers to hand around. If you want to repost our information on social media or especially during legislative session, we have a ton of advocacy forms that go out. They're these wonderful little things where we will send you a link. You'll click it. You'll put in some of your information, and there's an editable pre-written message that is ready to be sent off to your legislators. That's cool. For or against the bill. Absolutely wonderful. It's the best way for legislators to hear from us as well as from you, and so they know that it's an issue that you care about. Like I said before, the message is totally editable. If there's anything you want to add or personal stories that you feel like would make more of a difference, we always encourage you to. Is this all available on your website? Yes. Well, once you sign up, it will be available by email or text. Okay. We'll let you know. Okay, great. That sounds wonderful to get people involved that way. Thank you so much, Nathan, for coming on the show and for the work that you do. You've given us a lot of good information and enlightened us, and thank you. We're very grateful on many different levels. I love the weaving. It's my favorite, too. Yeah, thank you so much, Sylvia and Kit. This was wonderful. Thanks, Nathan. Take care.
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