Amid escalating attacks on queer rights, the SF LGBT Center has a new leader. Jen Valles has been elevated from deputy director to executive director, taking over from Rebecca Rolfe, who led the center for 22 years before announcing her retirement earlier this year.
Since the LGBT Center opened its 1800 Market St. location in 2002, it has hosted more than 100,000 visitors annually for events and provided services to 7,000, especially transgender individuals, youth, and immigrants.
At a time of divisiveness in national politics and within the queer community, Valles advocates the importance of partying together, whether at Pride events and the Folsom Street Fair, or at smaller, regular gatherings. She recalls a mantra about the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, when queer people buried their friends in the morning, protested in the afternoon, and then “danced all fucking night.”
“The dancing at night was so critical,” she said. “That’s what got us up in the morning to start again.”
We spoke to Valles about her priorities, how to navigate the difficult cultural and financial climate, and the importance of maintaining joy.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
What’s top of mind for you in this new role?
What’s really energizing me are all the challenges that we’re facing, from funding shortfalls to an increasing demand for services and growing attacks on LGBTQ+ rights. We need to keep leaning into the core programs and services many people have come to rely on for years.
We also always have our ear to the ground, so we’re constantly looking at ways to pivot. What is happening for the community right now? What is the community telling us that they need? How can we fill that gap?
People in this moment are really asking for opportunities to engage; for example, if we can do more activist training or organize more unity work. Everyone understands that this is an all-hands-on-deck moment and that we all need to be stepping up in some way, but it can be hard to know how to do that.
Sometimes people think, “I have to do 50 hours of work and make this huge difference myself.” But that’s not how that works, right? The way for us to be most impactful is for each of us to step up and do what we can, together. We’ve become so siloed.
There are increasing divisions even within the LGBTQ+ community. How do you plan on addressing that?
The center’s director of cultural programs, Timothy Hampton, often talks about the “rainbow within the rainbow,” because we are so incredibly diverse. But the thing we do have in common is our shared history. As much as we have many different types of culture, we also have a beautiful shared culture. Honestly, “they” are trying to divide us. I’m not going to define who “they” is, but in all the systems of oppression that we’re facing, division is a critical part.
We don’t need to find things that we all agree on, but we do need to lean into radical empathy, love, acceptance, and joy. “Joy” might be becoming a bit of a buzzword, but it really is the fuel — we need that to keep going. We need to be seeing each other and dancing together and remembering what it is that we’re fighting for: this beautiful, diverse, resilient community.
What’s your response to lawmakers trying to strip away trans rights?
This hurts us all. These rights that are being stripped from us are the beginning of stripping rights from other people. It’s a message that’s out there a lot — they might not be coming for you today, but they will tomorrow.
There’s never been a time without trans people, and there never will be. Across cultures, across the world, across history, there’s always been space and celebration for the trans community. We are not going anywhere. You cannot legislate the trans community away. You cannot legislate the queer community away. We are here, and we’re going to continue to be here.
There are people right now who are asking, “Do I need to leave? Do I need to be thinking about fleeing this country?” That’s a real concern for a lot of our community, particularly our trans community.
The center is not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere. I want to make a joke and say that we will be like the band on the Titanic, but the ship is not going down.
What is the funding landscape like, and how is that impacting the center’s work?
We’re seeing all of these federal cuts in ways that truly are unprecedented.
This is really a moment where necessity is the mother of invention. There are ways we could have been thinking a little more creatively that now we’re forced into.
When I was at the center in the late aughts as a community programs manager, we had to figure out how to support the entire community and have the most robust programming possible on a shoestring budget. Part of that was empowering and supporting people to lead their own activities. If you need space, we have space. If you need guidance, we have guidance. If you need media resources, we have those too.
What’s your rallying cry for people who might not be familiar with the center?
Art and culture as activism is a tool for resistance. What I want more than anything is just to invite everybody back into our space. We don’t have a lot of alcohol at our events; we have fun offerings like queer tango, and we have a lot of wellness programming, like yoga for everyone in the community, including trans, intersex, and gender-nonconforming yoga. We have such a wide range of events that are free and accessible. We are your third space. Please come and just be with us.
San Francisco is one of the most famously queer cities. How does that distinction influence the work you do?
That is really heavily on my mind. I’m very aware of the beacon that San Francisco is, and that many parts of the country and the world look to us.
A lot of really incredible pieces of our movement start here and radiate out. For example, we launched the nation’s first transgender employment program in collaboration with the Transgender Law Center and the city of San Francisco, and then many other places across the country adopted that model.
So we’re very conscious of what our programming is going to be, how we’re leading, and how we’re communicating that out. Through innovative programming, or amplifying the voices of our activated, passionate community, we’re hoping that a lot of what we do can be a model.
How will your previous experience at the center shape your new role?
I’ve seen the growth and the pivots, and tracked what has happened in the community in the Bay Area. I have those voices in my heart and carry all of that with me. I’m able to look back and say, OK, here’s what we did then, what worked and what didn’t, and take those lessons and figure out how we make them work for now.
I’ve also been fortunate to have worked with Rebecca as a younger person in the late aughts and have learned a lot from her leadership and how to sustain and support this organization.
My background was in community organizing and protest activism. I was a radical cheerleader.I’ve been doing really deep community work, paid and largely unpaid, for a large chunk of my life. I think that background, combined with my skills to run this organization, is the synergy needed at this particular moment to take on these attacks that we’re facing.