'A safe space': Nonprofit unveils Polk County's first LGBTQ center in Lakeland

LAKELAND — The message veritably shouts from a wall in the reception room of the Rose Dynasty Center: “Loved, Accepted & Wanted! — Momma Ashley Rose.”

Jason DeShazo, the Lakeland man who created the matronly drag character, describes that sentiment as the law — for the acronym LAW — of the LGBTQ center.

“I’ve been wanting a building since I was a teenager,” said DeShazo, 45. “I've been wanting a safe space.”

After a lengthy search, DeShazo and his nonprofit, Rose Dynasty Foundation, settled on the location of what he says will be the first center in Polk County designed to provide medical services and emotional support for local LGBTQ residents. The Rose Dynasty Center, at 1253 W. Memorial Blvd., will hold a grand opening Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. and will begin offering services June 11.

DeShazo, a gay man who grew up in Central Florida, noted that LGBTQ residents often drive to Orlando or Tampa for testing, medical care, counseling and other services, unable to find them from local providers who make them feel accepted. He exults in the idea of finally providing a “one-stop shop” for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning youth and adults.

“Everyone needs a place where they can feel safe,” DeShazo said. “And as a queer person growing up in Florida, it was a thing that I needed. And I knew other people that needed it. Polk County has a very large representation. We see them at (Polk) Pride every year. And why not have a place where they can get mental health and other community resources?”

He said that news of the facility has generated “a lot of excitement” in the local LGBTQ population.

The center will be open Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with support groups meeting in evenings and events scheduled on weekends. The grand opening will feature local performers, and DeShazo said that representatives from such groups as Planned Parenthood and the Red Tent Initiative will be present.

Rose Dynasty Center is affiliated with CenterLink, a national community of LGBTQ Centers founded in 1994. The country’s first such community centers opened in 1971 in Los Angeles and Albany, New York, according to a history on the CenterLink website.

Searching for right spot

Rose Dynasty Foundation, the nonprofit DeShazo founded in 2017, organizes drag shows, brunches and other events as fundraisers. He said the organization has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to various charities, including the LGBTQ-oriented Fitzlane Project and Dru Project and others, such as Project PUP, Faith Equine Rescue and food pantries.

DeShazo began searching in earnest for a location about a year and a half ago. He had hoped to find a place closer to downtown Lakeland, but he said a combination of market forces and perceived prejudice scuttled some potential deals.

The center occupies about 2,300 square feet in the back of a one-story building at the site of a truck rental dealership. Fundraising and sponsorships are helping cover the cost, and the center will also earn income from renting space, DeShazo said.

Pineapple Healthcare, a nonprofit that will offer medical services from the center, is the financial sponsor, DeShazo said.

Fittingly for its name, the Rose Dynasty Center welcomes guests with a pair of planters near the entrance bearing pink-tinged roses. Inside the door, a visitor encounters the designated greeter — or “diva extraordinaire” — a Pomeranian terrier named Eevee.

The reception area, resembling the waiting room of a doctor’s office, holds sets of brightly colored chairs that DeShazo said were donated by Amazon. DeShazo’s husband, Scottie DeShazo, sat behind a reception desk on a recent afternoon, beside Hannah Mathre, 22; the center’s youth director.

Scottie, who handles makeup and styling for Jason’s drag appearances, is vice president of the center’s board of directors and a health care advocate for Pineapple. Aidan Rosario, a virtual student at the University of Florida, serves as social media manager.

For years, Rose Dynasty Foundation has organized drag shows and other entertainment at various locations in Lakeland. Jason DeShazo said he plans to host as many events as possible at the new center, though his group will maintain a relationship with ARTifact Studios in downtown Lakeland for performances that require more space.

DeShazo, in full makeup and a quilt-like dress following a photo shoot with an Orlando publication, led a tour of the center on a recent afternoon.

A small, connective space will become a library, and DeShazo plans to stock it with books that have been removed from Florida schools for their LGBTQ content. The partially filled shelves contained a few of those titles — “Being Jazz,” by Jazz Jennings; “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” by George M. Johnson and “The Art of Being Normal,” by Lisa Williamson.

Another small space has been outfitted as the “green room,” or preparation area for performances, complete with four mirrors lined with makeup lights.

A resource room is set up as a classroom, with five rows of desks and a video screen on the front wall. DeShazo hopes to host classes on such topics as business and finance. He also expects some secular homeschool groups to use the space.

A small, warmly lit therapy room is decorated with a rainbow-hued display declaring “You are loved, accepted and wanted,” and a small banner that reads, “You can cry here.”

The center includes two medical spaces, one an exam room outfitted with basic medical devices. Rows of unused blood vials signaled that fluids for laboratory testing would be drawn in the room.

Pineapple Healthcare emerged in Orlando in 2020, opening a clinic to offer what President and CEO Ethan Suarez calls “culturally competent” primary care for the LGBTQ population. The partnership with Rose Dynasty Center is its first expansion into Polk County, Suarez said.

Offering limited medical care

Pineapple initially plans to have a family nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant at the center one day a week, offering primary care services in both English and Spanish, Suarez said. Telehealth appointments will also be available, and Pineapple hopes to expand its clinical services later at the Lakeland site.

Services offered will include dispensing PrEP, pre-exposure prophylaxis, a drug that reduces the risk of contracting HIV.

The nonprofit accepts most major insurance plans, but not Medicare and Medicaid, and charges a co-pay of $40 per visit for those without insurance. Pineapple also provides services to those who cannot pay, Suarez said.

At present, Pineapple will not be providing gender-affirming care for transgender patients. The Florida Legislature passed a law last year barring minors from receiving gender-affirming care, a measure that also stripped the authority of nurse practitioners to prescribe hormones for transgender adults.

“If they need primary care, we are a safe space,” Suarez said. “But we cannot do any gender-affirming care until that law is resolved.”

Several organizations filed a lawsuit against the measure, known as SB 254.

HIV and STI testing without appointments will be offered Tuesday through Friday. In Florida, anyone 13 and older may seek testing without parental permission, though minors would need parental permission for treatment, Suarez said.

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Heather Stambaugh, a licensed mental health counselor, will rent space at the Rose Dynasty Center to provide services, along with Black Swan Counseling. Stambaugh, who is licensed to work with ages 13 and older, said she has specialized in treating LGBTQ clients since opening a solo practice in Lakeland in 2015.

“Florida in general, politically has become a really unsafe place for the community to exist, and that has significantly impacted people's mental health and just shaken their sense of safety and existing in the state,” Stambaugh said. “So to be able to know they have the local resources where they can find community, find connection and support and resources is really helpful in helping reduce the stress of being LGBTQ, when a lot of members of the community are fleeing or moving out of Florida.”

The Rose Dynasty Center is lining up meetings of support groups, DeShazo said, including one for LGBTQ residents 55 and older. Stambaugh had established a network of transgender support groups that met in person but shifted to online meetings during the COVID pandemic. She said she is eager to restart those communal meetings at the Rose Dynasty Center.

Stambaugh said the facility will give Lakeland what LGBTQ populations find in larger cities.

“I think being able to come into sort of a one-stop shop, where they can have their medical needs met, their mental health needs met, their social needs, their connection needs, I think that that will play a significant role in helping people feel supported,” Stambaugh said.

Gary White can be reached at [email protected] or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk County's first LGBTQ center promises 'safe space' in Lakeland