U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and his wife, Angela Padilla, spoke with the Washington Blade for an exclusive interview last week ahead of their receipt of Voice Awards from the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles at a ceremony on June 30.

“I’ve known members” of the organization “off and on over the years, going back to my days on the city council in Los Angeles,” when battles were waged over California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage, Padilla said.

“I was proud to be an ally for a long time, but especially in those moments, really, as a public official, as an elected official, knowing how important allyship was,” he said, stressing “the tremendous talent of the chorus” and “what they represented individually and as a group” serving as allies for “young people who may not necessarily grow up in a supportive environment or in supportive families.”

“I work very closely with Joseph Guardarrama,” a board member for GMCLA, “for many years now on my nonprofit, and it’s all in support of mental health and wellness and educating people on how to get help, why they should get help, and why it’s important to take care of your brain,” Mrs. Padilla said by phone.

“I started FundaMental Change in 2017,” she said, to push for “the mental change that I feel that we have to have as a society when it comes to how we look at [and] how we treat mental health conditions.”

The senator’s wife added that LGBTQ people are twice as likely to have a mental health condition while dealing “with so much more social stigma and discrimination” than their straight and cisgender counterparts.

“This month we’re going to have a table for June 30 working with the [California] Department of Mental Health at the Pride parade,” she added. FundaMental Change also operates an LGBT Youth TalkLine and Trans Lifeline.

Padilla noted the organization’s work combatting stigma. “One thing that we recognize both coming from Latino families is the need to overcome stigma,” he said. “There’s a lot of misunderstanding or misperceptions about mental health.”

The effort is also central to the senator’s work as a policymaker, he said, referencing the bipartisan Senate Mental Health Caucus that he founded alongside U.S. Sens. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) to serve as “a forum for us to share stories.”

“It’s been fascinating, there are more than 30 members of the caucus now, so about a third of the United States Senate,” he said. “It’s 50/50 Democrats and Republicans,” and when approached, every member had a story to share, whether about “something that they’ve been through [or] somebody in their family, a colleague, a neighbor who can relate.”

Padilla said his decision to announce the formation of the caucus concurrently with his visit to the San Francisco LGBT Community Center “was very intentional.”

When it comes to mental health, “We’ve really prioritized trying to develop bipartisan solutions,” he said, “because those are more sustainable here in Congress.”

The first bill backed by the caucus was Padilla and Tillis’s Local 9-8-8 Response Act of 2023, which “was to require the FCC to move to implement the geolocation technology to the 988 system.”

Unveiled by the Biden-Harris administration in 2022, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The program provides the option for callers to reach specialized LGBTQI+ affirming counselors by pressing “3.”

On the importance of geolocation technology, Padilla said “if I’m here in Washington, and have a need to call 988, my area code on my phone is Los Angeles — so, I’d be passed through to the Los Angeles providers.”

The senator noted that the FCC “is moving forward with those improvements” independently of his bill’s path forward in Congress.

More broadly, some of the policy challenges concern supply and demand problems. “From a bigger picture, longer term perspective, we’re talking about the workforce needs,” Padilla said. “So, what’s the game plan for [getting] more psychologists or psychiatrists or counselors, more therapists, more everybody in the field to better serve people across the country?”

Padilla also discussed the importance of “cultural competence” as a means of guaranteeing the best possible treatment. “When we ask people to go get help, if there’s somebody that they can relate to or that they know gets them, the better quality experience in treatment is going to come,” he said.

“We’re not quite there yet with the Republican colleagues, but I have faith that in time we will get them there,” the senator added. “And again, the LGBTQ community is a prime example. You’ve got to feel comfortable going to somebody when you need help.”

Padilla said, “not everybody comes from a supportive environment; not everybody lives in a city or a state that is supportive. And at this particular time politically, they’re really under attack. They’re being targeted acutely. And that’s more reason and urgency to speak up and stand up.”

On Sunday, the Padillas will share the stage with the recipients of the third GMCLA Voice Award, from the critically acclaimed HBO series “We’re Here,” which follows drag queens as they travel the country to perform in one-night-only performances in small towns.

Mrs. Padilla celebrated the ways in which drag has brought communities together, recalling when RuPaul’s Drag Race “was first airing and it was like everyone was so interested in watching the show” and “it just brought people from everywhere.”

“I have a lot of frustrations, as a Latina, with the misrepresentation of our community and our culture in television and movies,” she said. “And I feel like every opportunity that you get to see something that’s just authentic — it’s such a benefit to everyone. It really helps us understand that we have more in common than not.”

“Drag is not new,” the senator said. “It goes back generations in the United States and I think for the LGBTQ+ community it can be can be very empowering, as an outlet for performers, but also participants in an audience to see on stage what you may not see in other places.”

Republican-led efforts to restrict access to drag performances, especially by young people, “feels like it’s an act of desperation,” Mrs. Padilla said.

“I think they’re resisting something that they don’t understand. I just think it’s really coming from a place of fear. And really not understanding the human behind it,” she said, adding that the reactionary forces are a product of the LGBTQ movement’s success and “that feeling of it’s out of their control.”

“The diversity of our communities, the diversity of our country, is a big source of strength,” Padilla said. “It’s just not always been embraced. I think a lot of people either misinterpret it or frankly exploit it to cause divisions in society.”

“We can’t ignore the political climate that we’re living in,” the senator said, “heightened only by the fact that it’s a presidential election year and we see who the Republican nominee is going to be.”

Looking ahead to November’s elections, he said, “as with so many other issues, LGBTQ+ rights and opportunity in the future — It’s a 180-degree difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Let’s not take it for granted. Let’s not take it lightly. Let’s get out and vote.”