Pride Center San Antonio is responding to an uptick in demand for counseling services as President Donald Trump and Texas elected officials intensify their attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, officials told the Current this week.
“This year we’ve already provided 800 hours of free counseling,” Pride Center Board Director Cristian Sanchez said. “We’ve seen an increased need for our services, and that just comes from changes in law and policy and changes in discussions regarding trans people and other LGBTQ people that create more exclusion, discrimination and stigma.”
As the fear builds for San Antonio’s LGBTQ+ residents, especially those who identify as transgender, the Pride Center is expanding its programming by offering free, one-off, one-hour counseling sessions.
“I’m telling you there are more people who need free counseling,” Sanchez said. “People who have mental health crises — their mental health has slipped.”
The expanded counseling services arrive as the LGBTQ+ community braces for even more attacks from right-wing political figures. Last week, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported in a Substack post that the FBI is looking to categorize all transgender individuals as terrorists.
“When it comes to the FBI labeling trans people as terrorists, it’s obviously ridiculous, stigmatizing and not supported by evidence,” Sanchez said. “I don’t know where that is, where that’s going and how that will practically effect people. But, I do know things like the bathroom bill are going to affect our community very practically.”
Indeed, during the last legislative session, Texas GOP lawmakers passed a slew of anti-LBGTQ+ legislation, including the Senate Bill 8, which restricts transgender people’s ability to use restrooms in state-owned buildings. House Bill 229 strips away gender identities other than the one assigned at birth on legal government documents.
The Pride Center’s new counseling services will be provided by interns in the process of earning their masters’ degrees in social work, Sanchez said.
It’s not that the Pride Center doesn’t want to pay licensed counselors, Sanchez said. However, the organization is one of the many that’s lost funds amid Trump’s drastic federal budget cuts.
Sanchez said the Pride Center is actively applying for private grants, but there’s just not enough money to go around.
“We are getting rejections saying, ‘We love what you’re doing, we want to support it, but we just have too many applications,'” Sanchez said.
However, the Pride remain defiant, and under new leadership added last year, they’re eager to continue their work, he added.
The San Antonio Pride Center, located at 1303 McCullough Ave., is open noon-6 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and noon-8 p.m. on Mondays.
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