NWI Life: Regional Health Systems celebrates 50th anniversary of providing skilled medical and mental health services
Jun 23 2025
When Andrew Portlock is asked what motivates him to lead Regional Health Systems’ Gender Affirming Peer Support Group, he often recalls a story his grandmother told him about an uncle Portlock never met.
It was the late 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic was growing in the U.S. Portlock’s uncle, who was gay, received a diagnosis while in the doctor’s office that he had the disease. The doctor “pretty much called him slurs,” Portlock said. His uncle never received adequate monitoring or treatment and died about a year later.
“I don’t want to devalue what I do,” Portlock said, “but this is the minimum I could do, and it seems to be offering something valuable to my clients.”
Portlock and Jakob Carballo, a doctoral psychology intern who works with several LGBTQ+ clients, have observed a growing concern among that population.
“My clients have been increasingly scared,” said Portlock, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker at Regional Health Systems since 2021. “I started my day with an email from a trans client who is in a panic because they just found out that their insurance is not going to cover the endocrinologist who provides their hormone treatment.”
Added Carballo: “There’s increased fear about what is going to be coming in the future.”
Both noted legislative and administrative efforts aimed at restricting LGBTQ+ rights.
Those actions and the accompanying, growing concern underscore the importance of participating in counseling and, if appropriate, joining gatherings such as the Gender Affirming Peer Support Group, which meets every Wednesday at a Regional Health Care office.
“I think it’s important for LGBTQ+ folks to be engaged with therapy for the same reason it’s important for anyone experiencing psychological distress,” Carballo said. “Psychotherapy is an excellent resource for validation, understanding, personal growth and seeking support while being in relation with a safe person.”
Carballo noted that the mental health struggles of LGBTQ+ people typically are not inherent to their identity. Rather, anxiety disorder, increased suicide rates, substance use disorder and other mental health issues that LGBTQ+ people present usually arise for another reason, he said.
“We are unique, and we are different,” said Carballo, who is gay. “But, at the end of the day, we’re also human beings.” Mental health conditions for LGBTQ+ folks often comes down to “how the environment treats us,” he said.
Space to be themselves
Portlock started the Gender Affirming Peer Support Group (GAPS) in 2022 in part because he sensed that safe spaces for transgender people were shrinking.
Most of his trans clients have been physically, emotionally and sexually abused, he said.
“One of my clients from the group put it best,” Portlock added. “They said this is a space that they can go to just be themselves… and not have to mask who they are.”
The Gender Affirming Peer Support Group is open to any identity that goes beyond simply male and female—people of nonconforming gender identities. Those would include transgender, non-binary, pangender, gender fluid, intergender/intersex and genderqueer. An estimated 1.6% of U.S. adults are transgender or nonbinary—meaning that their gender differs from the sex they were assigned at birth—according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey.
“Anything and everything comes up,” during meetings, Portlock said. “There have been sessions where everyone’s just checking in on what they’re enjoying about life and how they’re just trying to keep sane in the world. Then there are other sessions where they’re talking about traumatic experiences.”
Portlock tries to give members of the group as much autonomy as possible to allow a natural flow to discussions.
“It’s just an hour and a half of people getting together and just supporting each other and whatever they bring up,” Portrock said, “whether it’s pleasant, neutral or painful stuff.”
Call 219.769.4005 to learn more about the group.
Roots of Pride
Although organized efforts to promote LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S. date back to at least 1924, historians generally trace Pride Month to the Stonewall Uprising, a series of riots that erupted after a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City, on June 28, 1969.
The riots catalyzed the gay rights movement and led to the first Pride marches in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago on the one-year anniversary of the uprising.
Over the decades, the marches, rallies and celebrations expanded into a monthlong event that President Bill Clinton declared “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month” in 1999. President Barack Obama in 2011 broadened the name to “LGBT Pride Month,” which President Joe Biden expanded into “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) Pride Month” in 2021.
Today Pride Month commemorates “the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally and internationally,” according to the Library of Congress.
The designation has helped create a sense of belonging and empowerment for groups that have been marginalized, ostracized, neglected and abused. The Gender Affirming Peer Support Group and therapy, in more modest ways, seek the same goal.
“Therapy often cannot take away the source of distress, especially when the stress is systemic in nature,” Carballo said. “But it can help people find who they want to be when experiencing this stress and possibly find a personal resiliency to thrive in the face of adversity.”
Sources on Gay Pride Month history:
Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/story/why-is-pride-month-celebrated-in-june
The American Presidency Project: https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/president-obama-proclaims-lgbt-pride-month
ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/president-obama-proclaims-lgbt-pride-month
The American Presidency Project: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/icymi-president-biden-brings-pride-back-the-white-house
Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/lgbt-pride-month/about/
Source on percentage of trans people in U.S.
