Changemaker Rox Anderson on creating safe spaces for LGBTQ+ health
MPR News reporter Feven Gerezgiher interviews Rox Anderson, a 2018 Bush Fellow and community organizer, in the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition offices in Minneapolis on May 17.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
It's Pride month, and for our ongoing Changemakers series, MPR News is featuring trans and nonbinary individuals who are making a difference in our community.
One of those Changemakers is Rox Anderson. They're a longtime Minneapolis resident with decades of experience serving LGBT communities as an activist, a creative and a health worker. Anderson is the director of the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition and a former Bush Fellow. They're currently working on a campaign to improve health outcomes for queer people across the region.
MPR News reporter Feven Gerezgiher talks with Anderson about their work creating safe spaces for LGBT people, especially those who are most marginalized.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: It is Pride month, friends, as you know. And we have a series called Changemakers. We're featuring trans and non-binary individuals who are making a difference in our community. One of those changemakers is Rox Anderson. They're a longtime Minneapolis resident with decades of experience serving LGBTQ communities as an activist, a creative, and health worker.
Anderson is the director of the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition and a former Bush Fellow. They're currently working on a campaign to improve health outcomes for queer people across the region. Reporter Feven Gerezgiher talked with Anderson about their work creating safe spaces for LGBTQ people, especially those who are most marginalized.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: So tell me about yourself in your own words.
ROX ANDERSON: I'm a mid-fifties gender queer dyke. I'm a parent. I'm an activist and organizer who's really interested in our liberation, ensuring that we have access to health, and health care, and fun.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: So what are you currently working on?
ROX ANDERSON: Currently, I'm working on Our Space, which is an LGBT center for the state of Minnesota. We are actually one of three states in all of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, that don't have an LGBT center.
We have an enormous amount of LGBT folks here in the state, but we don't have any formalized place for folks to go and hang out. Most of the LGBT serving organizations don't even really have a lobby or a hangout place where people can connect, and collaborate, and cause good trouble.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: I understand that was kind of part of your research project as a Bush Fellow?
ROX ANDERSON: Yes.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: What had learned about the impact of community centers for LGBTQ people?
ROX ANDERSON: I mean, we can look in all the kind of statistical ways, right? If you just start with the social determinants of health, and some of those cues say that we do better when we have a place to socially connect. We do better when we have a place to go where people who look like us can understand us.
And so for me, it's really about creating an equity base for queer Minnesotans right now, most of our LGBT organizations spend between $300 and $5,000 a month on rent. And when you start talking about 10, or 11, or 12 organizations that are all kind of doing work in a really siloed way, including paying rent-- they have no equity, they have no voting, they have no investment in self or the folks that they serve.
And so my idea, really, is to work with those LGBT serving organizations so that we're collectively organizing our rent into a space that we own. So the idea would be able to build and source our own space that has a place for us to have weddings, and funerals, and balls, and galas, and pageants-- a place for us to connect and celebrate, a place that has a commercial kitchen so that we can cook and feed one another, a space that has some outdoor green living area, and a space where folks can actually connect with LGBT serving organizations and get resources, a place that has housing, because that's the other issue that really all people in the metro area are dealing with and facing. And we have a huge number of people who are LGBT identified who are unhoused or precariously housed.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: What's the status of that? What's the progress on Our Space having a physical space?
ROX ANDERSON: Yeah. Well, our space is in that process of still gaining supporters, gathering volunteers, and really looking at the kind of nitty gritty of space building. We talk a lot about, well, we just need a space. But we don't just need a space. We need the right space. This is really an attempt to include organizations like the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition, like POC s Pride, like Out Front Minnesota, like Quorum, like the Queer Equity Institute-- really just ensuring that when I walk into that space, I can connect with all the LGBT serving organizations at one time in one space, and then I can get the resources that I need-- kind of a one stop shop.
We also don't really have any place where our community can just go and drop in. As far as I know, there are no LGBT serving organizations in the Twin Cities metro area where folks can just walk in. You have to get buzzed in. Or you have to have an appointment. Somebody has to come and let you in.
And so we want to create this environment that's welcoming, that has a reception, that I can walk into any time of the day or night and somebody is going to be there to greet me and get me access to the resources that I need. And I think that that's going to be more and more important as more folks are moving here. All the LGBT serving organizations are already taxed to our gills, and now we have this kind of on flux of folks moving to the state.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: What's something you want everyone to know about gender queer people?
ROX ANDERSON: We're everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. And we've been here since the beginning of time. We're not going anywhere. And we will lead our people to liberation.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: You've done quite a few things. As you look back, what is one thing you've done that, you're the most proud of?
ROX ANDERSON: It has absolutely nothing to do with organizing. It's really about connecting with my son. The thing that I'm most proud of is raising a Black man who cares about himself, and his community, and wants to learn and explore.
CATHY WURZER: That is Rox Anderson speaking to MPR's Feven Gerezgiher. To listen to interviews and see some portraits of Rox and everyone in the Changemaker series, go to MPRNews.org/changemakers.
Anderson is the director of the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition and a former Bush Fellow. They're currently working on a campaign to improve health outcomes for queer people across the region. Reporter Feven Gerezgiher talked with Anderson about their work creating safe spaces for LGBTQ people, especially those who are most marginalized.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: So tell me about yourself in your own words.
ROX ANDERSON: I'm a mid-fifties gender queer dyke. I'm a parent. I'm an activist and organizer who's really interested in our liberation, ensuring that we have access to health, and health care, and fun.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: So what are you currently working on?
ROX ANDERSON: Currently, I'm working on Our Space, which is an LGBT center for the state of Minnesota. We are actually one of three states in all of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, that don't have an LGBT center.
We have an enormous amount of LGBT folks here in the state, but we don't have any formalized place for folks to go and hang out. Most of the LGBT serving organizations don't even really have a lobby or a hangout place where people can connect, and collaborate, and cause good trouble.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: I understand that was kind of part of your research project as a Bush Fellow?
ROX ANDERSON: Yes.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: What had learned about the impact of community centers for LGBTQ people?
ROX ANDERSON: I mean, we can look in all the kind of statistical ways, right? If you just start with the social determinants of health, and some of those cues say that we do better when we have a place to socially connect. We do better when we have a place to go where people who look like us can understand us.
And so for me, it's really about creating an equity base for queer Minnesotans right now, most of our LGBT organizations spend between $300 and $5,000 a month on rent. And when you start talking about 10, or 11, or 12 organizations that are all kind of doing work in a really siloed way, including paying rent-- they have no equity, they have no voting, they have no investment in self or the folks that they serve.
And so my idea, really, is to work with those LGBT serving organizations so that we're collectively organizing our rent into a space that we own. So the idea would be able to build and source our own space that has a place for us to have weddings, and funerals, and balls, and galas, and pageants-- a place for us to connect and celebrate, a place that has a commercial kitchen so that we can cook and feed one another, a space that has some outdoor green living area, and a space where folks can actually connect with LGBT serving organizations and get resources, a place that has housing, because that's the other issue that really all people in the metro area are dealing with and facing. And we have a huge number of people who are LGBT identified who are unhoused or precariously housed.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: What's the status of that? What's the progress on Our Space having a physical space?
ROX ANDERSON: Yeah. Well, our space is in that process of still gaining supporters, gathering volunteers, and really looking at the kind of nitty gritty of space building. We talk a lot about, well, we just need a space. But we don't just need a space. We need the right space. This is really an attempt to include organizations like the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition, like POC s Pride, like Out Front Minnesota, like Quorum, like the Queer Equity Institute-- really just ensuring that when I walk into that space, I can connect with all the LGBT serving organizations at one time in one space, and then I can get the resources that I need-- kind of a one stop shop.
We also don't really have any place where our community can just go and drop in. As far as I know, there are no LGBT serving organizations in the Twin Cities metro area where folks can just walk in. You have to get buzzed in. Or you have to have an appointment. Somebody has to come and let you in.
And so we want to create this environment that's welcoming, that has a reception, that I can walk into any time of the day or night and somebody is going to be there to greet me and get me access to the resources that I need. And I think that that's going to be more and more important as more folks are moving here. All the LGBT serving organizations are already taxed to our gills, and now we have this kind of on flux of folks moving to the state.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: What's something you want everyone to know about gender queer people?
ROX ANDERSON: We're everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. And we've been here since the beginning of time. We're not going anywhere. And we will lead our people to liberation.
FEVEN GEREZGIHER: You've done quite a few things. As you look back, what is one thing you've done that, you're the most proud of?
ROX ANDERSON: It has absolutely nothing to do with organizing. It's really about connecting with my son. The thing that I'm most proud of is raising a Black man who cares about himself, and his community, and wants to learn and explore.
CATHY WURZER: That is Rox Anderson speaking to MPR's Feven Gerezgiher. To listen to interviews and see some portraits of Rox and everyone in the Changemaker series, go to MPRNews.org/changemakers.
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