Underground Good: Clayton Seabourn

Ed Note: This Opinion piece is part of our new series, Underground Good, which focuses on providing a window into the mindsets of ordinary people doing good work in their community. It’s written by sociologist and educator Sharon Brisolara. You can find the rest of our Underground Good series here. Want to nominate someone? You can do that here.

Welcome to our first Underground Good interview! Clayton Seabourn is the volunteer office manager for the NorCal Outreach Project (NCOP), a local nonprofit with a mission to support and unite the LGBTQIA+ community and its many allies by providing social connection, public events, support groups, and educational training. 

The reader who nominated Clayton noted that he volunteers at the Center twenty-five hours a week and referred to him as the “the heart of NCOP,” saying “Clayton has been through so much in his life—that gives him a unique perspective that allows him to help others.”

Clayton and I spoke for nearly an hour. He allowed me to record the interview so that I could transcribe what he said and present you with his words. My questions have been summarized and Clayton’s responses have been very lightly edited. As you read, I hope you’ll see, as I did, Clayton’s dedication, passion, and deep personal commitment to this work.

“I guess it just comes down to love.”

Clayton Seabourn

How did you first become involved in the NorCal Outreach Project?

“When I was about twenty something, I wasn’t a person that could be out in public. I was very withdrawn because I grew up here in Redding and you kind of hid yourself away here if you were part of the LGBTQ community back then. But when the AIDS crisis hit (in the ‘80s) and my friends were dropping all around me right and left, I got involved really quickly. . . Many years later, a friend told me about NorCal Outreach and I didn’t believe it at first, honestly. I had to come see it for myself.  I came to our little center and I volunteered the same day. I’ve been here ever since, coming up on five years.”

Tell us a little more about your position. It’s not a typical office manager position, is it?

“I do handle that stuff, the billing and ordering things and keeping the schedule, but I am also the first person everyone meets when they come through the door. Often, they’re very vulnerable or they’re afraid and it took all their courage to just step through that door, so I see it as my job to make that person feel at home and loved and supported. I think that is the most important part of my job. I also try to keep up the morale of all the group facilitators—I like to call them hosts. We create a family here for the LGBTQ community so that nobody has to feel like they’re alone out there, that they have people here that care about them.” 

What kind of groups and support do you offer?

“We have a youth group, a young adult group, a transgender group for those who are transgender, gender questioning, or non-conforming in some way. We have a Recovery/AA group, and an ally group that’s for parents, friends, siblings to come and ask questions. That one is pure peer-group support so parents and family members that have been dealing with their situations with loved ones for a while—we’re here to support them in that as well.  We really want to get a bi group and a 50-plus group going, but I need to find a facilitator to do those. There are a range of challenges for different parts of the LGBTQ+ community, so we’re trying to provide a different group for each of those segments of the community. 

“We offer clinics here at the center providing health for our community—COVID vaccines and STI testing and several other things. We also have Narcan available and soon we’re going to have fentanyl test strips. For some people, it may seem like that’s enabling, but we’re really trying to save lives. You know, all these people are human and often they’re vulnerable. I’ve seen the violence that has happened against them and we do everything we can here to protect them, to find support for them, to let them know that somebody in the community cares about them no matter what their situation is. We welcome everybody here.“

What do you wish the community would understand about the work you do and why?

“The center in particular is vital in this community because we’re the only one in Northern California—I think Chico is the next closest place. And the medical part—it is so difficult for a patient to tell their doctor or dentist or even a therapist at times who they are really are. It’s important in medical situations that your doctor knows who you are. It can be very difficult to share issues that you’re dealing with as a gay person, a lesbian, bi person or especially a transgender person. But is very important for us to talk with our doctor and medical professionals about what’s going on with us, what issues we’re having that are specific to our sexuality. A lot of gay men fear telling their doctor that they’re gay and so they don’t get tested for HIV or monkeypox or a whole host of other things because they’re afraid to share that information with their doctor. That’s why we’re currently working with local health centers on providing medical services by folks that know how to work with a diverse community. If I could convince people in the community that diversity is a positive thing that would be amazing.“

How do you define good, when you think about the good you do?

“I don’t really look at it as doing good. It’s just part of who I am and who I’ve always been. As I get older, I’m realizing that this has been a part of who I am my entire adult life.  I guess it’s a kind of a calling to do this work. The way I look at it, what I do is to help our entire community, not just the LGBTQ+ community. A diverse community, an educated community, is a much healthier situation for everyone.“

How are you facing the challenges that come your way?

“One of our priorities right now is that our schools are under attack by a group of individuals; they are threatening school employees and board members and people in the community. So, often, young people don’t feel safe to speak up for themselves. That’s not always the case, but we definitely are going to be there to speak up for them and to get other individuals and professionals to speak up at these school board meetings about why it’s important for these children to be able to express who they are. Being visible allows other kids to see what kind of people they are and that the stereotypes they hear aren’t real.

This particular group seems to adopt the idea that if you hide LGBTQ people away they won’t exist and I’m living proof that that’s not the case. I don’t want a single child to go through the isolation that I felt growing up here. I knew who I was when I was five years old, but I couldn’t express it. I couldn’t tell anybody who I was and that just eats at your soul. 

Clayton Seabourn

“This particular group seems to adopt the idea that if you hide LGBTQ people away they won’t exist and I’m living proof that that’s not the case. I don’t want a single child to go through the isolation that I felt growing up here. I knew who I was when I was five years old, but I couldn’t express it. I couldn’t tell anybody who I was and that just eats at your soul. 

“We’re in a constant battle here in this area with ignorance and misunderstanding and stereotypes, especially during the last few years. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this. I saw it when the AIDS crisis happened. We were ostracized from the community back then and you didn’t know who you could trust. I personally have been fired from a job and got kicked out of my apartment because they suspected I was gay. All it took was one neighbor saying ‘I think that person is gay.’ At least we don’t have to face those things now. That was a hard battle to fight and I’m getting up there in years. But I’m going to keep fighting as long as I’m able. It’s important that people have rights. That they have the freedom to be seen. We also have been having a lot of LGBTQ sex workers come to the center recently and there’s a lot of hopelessness there which leads to alcohol and drug use. 

We offer someone to talk to about what they’re going through and give them a way, if they’re ready, to get out of that life, to end their addiction. . .you can’t put somebody in a rehab program if they don’t want to be there. It won’t work. They have to actually want to get out of that life. It’s a process to get someone to the point where they feel strong enough that they could do it. You have to give them the support they need to do it. Often people have been rejected by their family and their friends and to get out of that cycle, they have to have that little glimmer of hope.“

Who has inspired you?

“I’ve had many inspirations over the years. One was Harvey Milk. To a country kid like me—seeing someone like myself be able to stand up as a politician and run for office and to make positive change in the community—that definitely was an inspiration. It took one person to do that and he got the ball rolling in San Francisco and it changed how the city worked. You know, it only takes one or two people sometimes to get something rolling that makes a positive impact on the entire community.“

What is it that gives you hope and sustains you?

“I’ve seen over time that society does move forward. It just moves forward painfully slowly. I think Martin Luther King said something about the arc of morality: ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.‘

I won’t say that it’s not tough sometimes. It really is, because a lot of the stuff that I talk with people about is very deeply emotional and deals with traumas. And those things are very hard to listen to and deal with on a weekly basis.

On the other hand, I get to see the results of what we do here with people. To see someone come in and they’re terrified of everybody and they’re traumatized and they spend time in the group and you see them a few months later and they’re smiling and happy and they’ve made friends. . .those are success stories. It’s food for the soul for me.

To see someone come in and they’re terrified of everybody and they’re traumatized and they spend time in the group and you see them a few months later and they’re smiling and happy and they’ve made friends. . .those are success stories.

Clayton Seabourn

I have talked to a lot of transgender folks, some that have been hiding who they are inside a facade their whole life and it’s taken them until the middle of their life to accept who they are and finally have the courage to walk through our door and talk to somebody about it.  It comes back to that isolation . . . if you can make somebody feel loved and wanted . . . that they’re a beautiful soul in the world, it gives them hope to be who they are, when they feel like they have somebody in their corner. Which we are.  

I love the work that I do. It energizes me and keeps me level.  When you see the positive change in someone’s life . . . some of these things are life-changing for people. We’ve helped house parents who have children that are LGBTQ and their families rejected them; parents who said, no matter what, I am going to love my child. They were living on the street because they wouldn’t reject their kids. And youth whose families threw them out with nothing and are out there trying to survive. It’s a horrible situation. It’s amazing when they get into housing when they find work and they get stabilized. You see them come in, and it’s night and day. 

I love people. I even love the people that don’t love me back—the haters, the folks that would rather we were all dead, to be honest. They’re human beings, too, and I hold no malice against them. I think they’re just misinformed and misdirected. People are afraid of what they don’t understand.

I guess it just comes down to love. I can’t speak for everybody here, but for me this is a labor of love.”

NCOP relies on donations and volunteers. To learn more, volunteer, or donate, go to norcaloutreach.org.