Overview: St. John’s Community Health in San Bernardino hosted the first-of-its-kind DIVACON event to celebrate and uplift the city’s LGBTQ+ community. The event included an art show, tabling, a clothing drive, and a talent show, aiming to provide a safe space for the community amid ongoing unprecedented times. The talent show featured drag performances, with performers like Lillith Van Buren and Arianna Taylor showcasing their talents. The event was a group effort organized by St. John’s Community Health workers and affiliated organizations.
Aryana Noroozi
On Saturday July 12, St. John’s Community Health hosted their first DIVACON. The event featured an art show, tabling by community organizations, a clothing drive, and a talent show, with poetry, song and drag performances. The event’s intention was to foster a safe, creative and positive space for the LQBTG+ community and their allies.
The event was a group effort presented by those involved in St. John’s Community Health’s various programs that specifically serve the LQBTG+ youth community in San Bernardino.
“We’re hoping [the community] can come out with more resources, more knowledge, and to enjoy themselves and just be awesome,” said Mario Rubio, a community health worker at St. John’s Community Health.
In the last year, a St. John’s Community Health Center opened in San Bernardino, expanding from the Los Angeles area. They provide medical, dental, behavioral and mental health, and substance use services as well as case management, supportive services, and outreach services.
Their mission is to improve health equity by addressing the health care needs of low-income, uninsured, and under-insured populations.
In 1964, St. John’s started as a one-room, volunteer-run pediatric health clinic and has grown to become one of the largest non-profit, federally qualified health center healthcare providers in Los Angeles.
Among the services and programs the clinic offers are behavioral health, Transgender Health Program, PRIME HIV/ AIDS, Hep C & PrEP, RISE Re-Entry program, Harm Reduction Program, Homeless Health Services, and CAL AIM Care Management.
As a community health worker, Rubio works on Affirm, a mental health program for LGBTQ+ youth in San Bernardino. The services include hormone replacement therapy, referrals for gender confirming surgeries; and to transgender advocates, legal support, as well as support with name and/or gender marker changes.
“We just wanted something for the community where, the LGBTQ+ community, could feel safe, especially during the political climate right now,” said Rubio. He shared that the agency hopes to continue this event every year. “We really wanted to create a safe space. That’s why we had this event.”
Behind the camera, a Black Voice News photographer captured that joy during the talent show drag performances.
