LGBT Tobacco Education Partnership: The CLASH between Tobacco and LGBT Lives

by Ken Ludden for the San Francisco Spectrum

The LGBT Community has faced many foes along the road to equality, and though many queers are health conscious, more of us die from tobacco related disease than the mainstream public. In fact, tobacco causes more deaths in the LGBT community than HIV/AIDS, drug use, alcohol and other factors. In 1991 the quest to educate began with the formation of CLASH (the Coalition of Lavender Americans on Smoking and Health). This first group to address the education gap on tobacco served two purposes: 1) to inform people in the LGBT Community that tobacco killed more people than other factors presumed far more lethal, and 2) to inform California’s tobacco education community about the increased statistical vulnerability LGBT people had to potential harm from tobacco products.

The formation of CLASH was a direct result of the eagerness of the tobacco industry to advertise to the LGBT community, demonstrated in 1992 by the first advertisement in Genre magazine. The tobacco industry was not shy at all of crafting advertisements specifically designed to lure more LGBT people into addiction and death.

California had an effective and powerful education program, as it does today, but in 1991 they didn’t know much about the LGBT community. About twelve years ago, the State of California created groups called Ethnic Networks that were used to distribute education programs. At that time these Networks included (in the terminology of that time) American Indian, Asian American/Pacific islander, African-American, and Hispanic/Latino. Missing were LGBT people, and CLASH, along with other allies, started to advocate to have LGBT visibility in the tobacco education movement. A small, grass-roots nonprofit, CLASH members began supporting each other and exchanging important information.

CLASH efforts began to have success, and the State changed the title from Ethnic Networks to Priority Populations. There are now seven Priority Populations adding LGBT, Low SES (low socio-economic status), and Building and Construction Trades. These three new groups, along with the original four groups, smoke tobacco products at higher than average levels in California. Due to this dubious distinction, the tobacco industry has specifically targeted these groups. And, as Bob Gordon, an original member of CLASH, says with dark humor, “As LGBT people we’re over-achievers when it comes to tobacco use.”

Until this year, CLASH did not have an office. Their work was conducted in spaces borrowed from people’s private lives, on time borrowed from the busy schedules of active people. Then in February, 2004 a grant was offered for LGBT Tobacco Education by the California Department of Health Services, Tobacco Control Section (CDHS/TCS), and Bob Gordon applied for it. “I applied for it,” Gordon says, “with support from CLASH, and support from American Cancer society, and moral support from so many other organizations (Lung Association, Heart Association, etc) all who wanted to see the LGBT community have a chance to counteract the tobacco industry and be funded to do that.” As a result of winning that grant, CLASH is now able to take up residence in the LGBT Community Center.

CLASH is the latest in a list of major organizations that have moved into the Center. In considering the Center as a potential home, Gordon and others in CLASH knew they would be in compatible territory. The San Francisco LGBT Pride Committee, who have also just moved in, and the Center itself have both written policies to refuse any funding and donations from the tobacco industry. Assembly Member Mark Leno presented awards to the two groups for having taken the courageous step.

“We are thrilled to support the center with our rent check every month,” says Gordon, “and to be part of the Center family, which now includes SF Pride, GGBA, and all of the great programs that happen at the center.” Equally thrilled will be the many community members who will now be able to easily attend programs provided by CLASH, like Technical Assistance Programs to County Health Agencies, LGBT communities who desire to be smoke-free and are aided by County Health Agencies, the California Smokers’ Help Line (1-800-NO BUTTS), free quit-smoking seminars offered at the Center four times a year, and both MTF and FTM transgender individuals who will benefit from assistance by CLASH as information is spread at the increased risk those populations face.

In addition to the training programs being developed by CLASH and successful training of health care workers in dealing with the LGBT community, other organizations are able to use many of the training models as well. But one of the more practical and peripherally life-saving services offered by CLASH is in the form of a short booklet called Ethical Funding, which informs about the ethics of tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical funding, a practical guide for LGBT organizations. The booklet, which is available for free from the CLASH address below or for $3 per copy from the Tobacco Education Clearing House of California, will help organizations understand the pros and cons, far-reaching implications and direct impacts of accepting such funding.

This is no small dilemma for non-profit organizations and small businesses in today’s failing economy. The tobacco industry has hundreds of millions of dollars to give at a time when many businesses are being forced to close their doors due to financial hardship. Every time one of these businesses fails some individual, neighborhood, community or constituency group loses resources and services.

“Personally I would love it if people would not do business with the people who are addicting us and killing us,” says Gordon, “but would wish that if they do make that decision they would educate themselves before they become allied with that industry. I believe it’s a dilemma for organizations who need funding in a time where funding is scarce. That is why we developed this guide to help people sort through this dilemma.”

Just as the California tobacco education programs did not include the LGBT community in the early 1990s, today the transgender populations are similarly disenfranchised. CLASH is stepping up to the plate on their behalf as they did for the entire LGBT community twelve years ago. “We should be able to say who we are, feel comfortable with it and receive equal services regardless of our sexual orientation or our gender identity,” Gordon says with conviction. “Preliminary research is showing that transgender women may face complications such as blood clots if they are undergoing hormone therapy, and transgender men who are using testosterone can be at an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, while they are smoking.”

CLASH firmly believes that transgender people deserve equal access to this research and these services. And this is often called Overcoming Health Disparity that people may not have equal access to information about what happens to their bodies while smoking because the research has not been done. “We want to help everybody in our community be as healthy as possible, we want to help them.”

For more information, visit the CLASH offices at the LGBT Community Center. And to receive the free brochure mentioned above or other materials, please contact Bob Gordon, California LGBT Tobacco Education Partnership (LGBT Partnership), 1800 Market Street, #4, SF, CA 94102, 415-436-9182, email: bob@lgbtpartnership.org

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