Martha Mae's

Hi, I'marisa. My pronouns are she, her, and I'm the Director of Community Engagement and Development at Alamo Area Resource Center. I'm also part of a leadership team that helped create the Martha May Transgender Health Fund, named in honor of Martha's memory, her spirit, and her healthcare journey. The Fund's purpose is the ease of financial burden of healthcare. Patients at the ARC Health Equity Clinic receive compassionate and competent care, but that's not always enough. Too often, gender diverse patients have to choose between their health and basic needs This fund ensures that health doesn't have to be a choice. It's accessible to those who need it the most. Though Martha passed away too soon, today we'll hear how she continues the work that she started at ARC and how she's making a lasting impact on the transgender community. I'm Libby Alamon. My pronouns are she, her. I am the Director at the ARC Health Equity Clinic and I am Martha May'sister. Martha was the friendliest and kindest person to pretty much anybody she met. She was a lover of video games and anime and she loved movies, cats. She had this amazing quirky and funky style that made everybody really love her. And the one thing that I really admired about my sister is that she wasn't afraid to be herself. Well, hello. I'm Andrew Prado, he, him, and I am one of Martha's besties. I met her at Chuck E. Cheese. Were both birthday party coordinators. It was really fun. We did a lot of dancing and singing and bonding really. I have a lot of memories of my sister. There'so many that I couldn't count but I think my most favorite is when we would come in to work together and she was always so happy and so proud to walk in and tell everybody Unfortunately in August of 2022, Martha passed away from her ongoing health concerns that she had. Martha was always there for myself, for other people and I could tell that Martha was struggling herself and being out in public and I would always be that person that stared other people down whenever went out and to eat at Cracker Row or I hop a lot of I hop. But Martha was just always herself and I think she was just this anime girl that didn't know how to anime girl herself until the end. I kind of see her as a sailor moon rather and she just had to wait for the right kitty cat to help her change and be herself and be powerful. But I got a lot of my strength through her personality. Although she was at ARC providing the care and advocating for her community, she had her own fear of addressing her personal issues. My name is Chase Cates, pronouns are he, him. I am the physician and medical director here at Alamor Area Resource Center. I have been here since 2020 and have enjoyed every second of being here. Access to specialized care for trans folks is extremely important. 50% of trans people have reported that when they go see their doctor, they are the expert in the room when it comes to their transgender health. When I go see my doctor or when you go see your doctor, you're expecting them to be the expert to tell you this is what we need to do rather than you telling the doctor, okay, this is what I need to do. When that's happening, you may not be getting the right care because you may just be getting what somebody else did and then it just keeps getting continued and you don't know that's the best option out there for you. You don't know that it'safe. I've had many people on extremely unsafe medications, maybe outdated medications, levels are not the right dose or they're too high, too dangerous. And so if it just keeps getting continued because the doctor doesn't know what they're doing, it doesn't set the patient up, the person for the best healthcare, the best life possible. Our hope with the Martha May Fund is that we can help our transgender patients going through hard times financially with co-pays, medications, gender-forming essentials, or even connecting them with resources that go beyond healthcare. My name is Arietta Harper and my pronouns are he day. I am a psychology student at UTSA and I'm set to graduate this fall with hopes to go into clinical psychology or social work. I came to terms with that when I was in high school. It was kind of overwhelming to figure out where to start medically. I know how to have my friends tell me, look for clinics nearby so I could start because whenever I go to somebody that's bigger it's really hard for me to take the first step. And then I think this ALMA was the first place I applied to and once I figured out I got accepted it was a big weight off my shoulders to finally get that started. The Martha May Transgender Fund has supported access for many of our trans folks in multiple ways. We've had patients who unfortunately lost their job which for transgender people is unfortunately not unheard of. Transgender folks upwards of 30% have dealt with poverty at some point in their life. Many times because they can't get a job because of their gender identity, they can't get promoted, they get fired and they lose their benefits or access to their hormones to their identity of who they are. Martha May has been able to retain that access so that they can still be who they are while trying to get access to their hormones, to their insurance so that they can maintain care long term. We've also utilized it for people that have struggled with housing for similar situations whether they're in a rough spot or they're being treated poorly just from their gender identity that we've been able to utilize this to make sure that our trans folks are in the safest spot possible. My name is Nick Ramos. My pronouns are he, him. I am a trans man. I'm a husband. I'm a dog man. I'm a cat dad. And of course being from San Antonio, I am a huge San Antonio Spurs. It's a part of this matters because we're all in and we all experience hardships and we don't know when these hardships would come or what happened and what would occur. And that's life. But knowing that there's a resource there that we can rely on that we're not alone, that'll help us get to the next step, it's amazing. It brings peace of mind. It even brings joy to know that folks can utilize this resource in their time of need. The more that my fund means to me personally, that I am able to start transitioning at a much younger age than I would have been able to. Because this fund helps pay for my medicine, I am able to start my transition now. It's versus later when I would have had, I guess, a higher paying job. Since my medication costs about half of my monthly income, I am able to start transitioning now about having to worry about, And because of that, I'm able to enjoy, Martha May could have a huge impact on the future of transgender healthcare. With this current administration, transgender folks are under constant attack and constant fear. A lot of my trans folks are coming in and they're afraid. And I get it. And their rights, their ability to live authentically as who they are is constantly in danger. And so we're not just looking at access to their hormones. We're looking at access to living a full and complete life. So they have fears that maybe they won't be able to access surgeries. Maybe they won't be able to access their job in a way that identifies them as who they are in their current gender and name. People are worried that they can't go to school the way that they're supposed to have just their full authentic self recognized. And so where I foresee Martha May in the future is improving all aspects of somebody's life, whether that means we have scholarships to help go back to school, whether we can maybe assist in surgeries so that they can feel more comfortable in their bodies, as well as making sure that they have stable housing and they're not having to live with homelessness So I foresee Martha May expanding and encompassing the entirety of somebody's life and not just access to their hormones. The Martha May transgender fund means to me personally that I get to finish the work that Martha started. It also means that the transgender patient has a safe place for them to come and seek care without any judgment. To me it means to be a friend of Martha is just So the Martha May fund to me, I think goes a little bit deeper. It really represents the spirit of giving that Martha was and how open her arms were to all people and seeing her struggles and seeing the obstacle she had and really seeing her be able to help others in a capacity that she may not have had in the past. There were plenty of times where the medical issues that she had and that she had been a capacity away from, she had them for a long time and I would tell her go to the doctor but the obstacles that she had that I don't have in a different capacity were always there so she may have been fearful or she may have felt uneasy or uncomfortable or maybe dismissed in the healthcare system. She was afraid of being discriminated. She was afraid of being judged. She didn't She wanted to get care without the judgment. The Martha May fund really provides access to make someone's life that much more rich and I really wish that there was something