Luka Cai is helping LGBTQ+ people access crucial resources & find community

“I don’t know about you, but I like hanging out with people who are smarter than I am.”

That’s what Jaimie Hileman, a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis, says about her Hometown Hero nominee, up-and-coming LGBTQ+ activist Luka Cai, who co-founded the St. Louis Queer+ Support Helpline (SQSH) at just 22 years old.

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Hileman met Cai – who’s now 26 and identifies as transgender, nonbinary and queer – not long after they arrived from Singapore to study political science and sociology at WashU, where they earned their masters.

Cai buttonholed the longtime trans advocate after crossing paths with her at several LGBTQ+-centered events in St. Louis.

“Luka asked my advice on what was happening with the community,” says Hileman. “What are some of the community organizations, in particular those serving trans people or trans students, who was doing the job, who needed support, and they seemed really interested in activism.”

“Being queer and trans and looking for safe spaces in a new home is very challenging,” says Cai. “So I did a lot of community work and community organizing, and I was really drawn into St. Louis’s activism culture.”

“There’s a really strong current of resistance and activism in St. Louis, even though it’s a city in a region that a lot of people overlook or neglect, or think about it as a place with a lot of violence or harm,” Cai says. “I think it’s actually a really beautiful city with really resilient, strong people with really strong social justice values. I love the people here in St. Louis.”

The work that SQSH (pronounced squish) does is informed by the community and Cai’s peers who helped launch the organization, as well as Cai’s own experience arriving in a city in flames, ignited by the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in 2014. In the midst of those protests, Donald Trump declared his run for president.

“I was part of a lot of debates about democracy and equity and civic engagement,” Cai says of their early years in the U.S. “And then after that, being able to do work within the relationship and sexual violence survivor-led movement when I took calls over the phone for a sexual assault hotline.”

“Talking to survivors, hearing their stories, also learning peer-counseling skills, I think really gave me a sense of hope for the kind of liberated future in society we can live in, where we are part of a loving community that really believes in investing in mutual aid and community resources, not in carceral systems like the police and courts. And so those are some of the things that led to me starting SQSH.”

In their research and engagement with the community, Cai found a need and filled it.

“SQSH is a grassroots, community-based organization that provides free confidential and identity-affirming peer support, resource referrals, education, advocacy, and storytelling,” explains Cai, “and we see ourselves situated as part of the larger queer liberation movement in the U.S.”

The group’s website is a comprehensive guide to resources for every member of the LGBTQ+ community, with a Peer Support Helpline taking pride of place among a host of available services, including professional, high-quality training services in “peer counseling, protest support, non-hierarchical facilitation, and related socio-emotional skills”; the SQSHBook resource guide, which catalogs “1,200+ St. Louis resources, consolidates vetting information from queer-led organizations, and connects users to LGBTQIA-affirming services”; and an LGBTQIA+ Media Library, “a curated list of articles, books, videos, and other forms of media that discuss different aspects of queer identity and history.”

In November, SQSH hosts a Fall Community Healing & Open Mic event focused on queer and trans visibility, with participants sharing stories through postcards, interviews, performances, a photoshoot, art therapy, reiki, and other healing approaches.

“In the almost 13 years I’ve been involved with advocacy, they’re one of the most impressive people that I’ve met,” Hileman says of Cai. “And I nominate them not primarily for everything I’ve seen them achieve so far, and all the relationships forged, all the capacities created or strengthened along that way. But, frankly, primarily, I would say because of what I think they’re going to do next. I think that the trajectory that they’ve got — barring the burnout, which is always an issue in advocacy, particularly advocacy within our community — I really think they’re going to do great things, and I can’t wait to see how all that unfolds.”

“The work we do is really fulfilling,” says Cai, and also “really hard.”

“Jamie really supported our work, and I’m honored that she nominated me for this award. And I hope that we can live up to the hopes and wishes of the activists and organizers who came before us.”