A musician in Portland, Oregon has come forward reveal the extent of the gender lobby’s power over social and political institutions in the city — welding such immense influence that it left him not only homeless, but unable to access crucial services.
Matt Insley explains that his entire situation of homelessness was caused after a ‘cancellation’ when he deviated from popular opinion on emerging gender trends three years ago.
Insley was incarcerated from 2010 to 2014 in Columbia River prison. While there, he created a successful music school for the incarcerated men, one which is now run by Grammy-award winning artist Nate Query, the bassist for The Decemberists. After serving his sentence, he became active in Portland’s music scene, and enjoyed a great deal of local success.
“I was a rush-hour DJ on the nation’s first LGBT FM radio station … I covered major events, I was an award-winning composer and producer.” Insley describes feeling as though he were “on top of the world” prior to expressing an opinion he says changed the course of his life.
“I was fully booked, winning awards, directing and composing my music… and then I started questioning how gender ideology was evolving. I started referring to it as ‘the non-binary fad.'” Insley says he hadn’t even taken issue with transgenderism, but had begun expressing some confusion about the increasing popularity of ‘non-binary’ identities around 2019.
“The moment I started questioning the non-binary thing, I was unable to get work … I was known as the well-connected guy who could get anyone [arts] funding. I was hosting fundraisers every month for different organizations… And they just shut it all off.”
Insley, who is gay, explains that after he was branded a ‘transphobe’ for questioning hip ‘gender identities,’ he became a pariah in notoriously-woke Portland.
“I had bricks thrown through my friend’s window… I have had to change my phone number four times. If [activists] find my number, they pass it around.”
Unable to get work, he lost his stable housing and quickly became homeless and transient. But, he explains that as a person who has been living with HIV for 13 years, leaving Oregon was out of the question.
“I have no money to leave, and, quite honestly, despite the setbacks of Portland, the funding for the HIV programs is some of the best in the country,” Insley explains, “If I tried to leave, I would need to make sure I had access to all of the same resources. So it’s not like I can up and move.”
Stuck in Portland, Insley paints a bleak picture. He explains that ‘gender ideology,’ that which left him homeless in the first place, also wields an increasing amount of power over the key institutions he now relies upon.
He explains he has been on the general housing waiting list since losing his stable housing after no longer being able to find employment. In total, he has been waiting over two years, a time frame he says is far longer than the average person would experience.
“I didn’t notice it until after what should have been the average wait was far exceeded, then I started having questions … Everyone I have spoken to says I have been waiting for way too long, and even acknowledged people have gone ahead of me,” Insley explains, noting he then discovered those with identity-based mental health issues, such as gender dysphoria, are being provided housing on an accelerated basis, sometimes within just months.
“The doctors are saying the hormones and surgeries for them are ‘life saving’ and therefore they need a high priority into housing.”
In August of 2021, Insley was referred to the Quest Center for Integrative Health — a federally-funded resource center specifically for LGBT individuals in Portland. He had just graduated from in-patient rehab for his addiction to alcohol, and was set to do out-patient through the Center, which would have also been able to provide him with housing, therapy, and various other needed services.
“Out of an hour-long class that was supposed to be on addiction, maybe 45 minutes was dedicated to pronouns and trans people’s struggles,” Insley says. Confused about the program’s angle, he contacted the Center and expressed his confusion.
“I said that I was concerned that more time was being spent on pronouns than my recovery.”
In one email Insley had sent to Quest, he stated he was comfortable using people’s names rather than their pronouns in the event group-work was needed.
“I’ll simply say someone’s name every time other than using a pronoun in group. I won’t call a man a woman. I think I should still be allowed in this program. In other words: even though I feel this way, I’m in the G and I deserve these services as much as anyone else in the alphabet spew,” Insley wrote in his email.
Shortly after, Insley received a response from Ryan Christianson, an addiction counselor with Quest. In an email shared with Reduxx, Christianson wrote that Insley’s concerns about gender ideology did not align with the values of the center, and he was being referred back to his addictions case manager.
“My case manager had referred me for housing through Quest. After [Christianson] sent me that email, I was no longer applicable for that housing.” Insley explains that due to gaps in the way services are managed in Oregon for people with addiction and mental health diagnoses, there was little his case manager could continue to do.
“[My case manager] told me that because my situation involved mental health and addiction, she couldn’t help me because she only provides resources for addiction,” Insley says, “So, because I’m dual diagnosis, there was no help for me after Quest. And because they provided all of those different services, to deny me access to Quest was to deny me access to everything.”
Insley says he continued to try and contact other staff at Quest to address his concerns, but never received a response.
But his list of run-ins with gender ideologue-controlled resources didn’t end there.
Earlier this year, Insley says he was turned away from Esther’s Pantry — the only food bank in the area specifically for people with HIV. The Pantry is run by Brent Blackwell, a drag queen who also goes by the name Summer Lynn Seasons.
“I arrived and went to put in my list for food, and they told me I had to come back the next day,” Insley says, noting that the had been told it was a day reserved for gender non-conforming and “BIPOC” people, an acronym standing for Black, Indigenous, and (other) People of Color.
Insley explains claiming to be ‘gender non-conforming’ or ‘trans’ was out of the question, as his high profile within the LGBT community of Portland would result in him surely being identified anyway. He chose to simply leave.
“This might shock you …” he begins sarcastically, “… but causing an issue around trans people in front of trans people — especially here in Portland with the anti-fascists? They can get quite violent.”
Insley says after he was turned away, he managed to get an emergency ration for that evening at a Church, noting: “It’s funny that Churches have helped me more than gay organizations have, these past couple of years.”
He explains that food banks in the city are only open during a certain hour, and he had used his small window of time trying to go to Esther’s due to its specific servicing for the HIV positive community.
“We are not a big enough community for them to require special days so certain people can get access. We are just not that huge. It is people with HIV. There are quite a few people with HIV in Portland, but not enough to justify having a certain day for certain people and excluding others.”
Insley attempted to contact Our House of Portland, the organization which facilitates Esther’s Pantry, to lodge a complaint, but was quickly dismissed. When asked if he was concerned any further complaint would lead to his food access at the Pantry being cut off entirely, as with other services, Insley says: “Yes. Absolutely.”
Insley explains a culture of fear prevents people from speaking out against powerful trans groups in Portland, and that he quickly backed down.
“What they would have done is painted me to be an aggressor who was unsafe to transgender people. That’s what they would have done. They would have painted me as a villain, and said I was an unsafe person for gender non-conforming people to be around.” He continues: “I have to have food. I have to maintain my status on the housing waiting list, and I feel like if I do one thing out of step they are going to find a reason to boot me, even though they are already finding reasons to push me down the list.”
Insley isn’t the first person in a particularly vulnerable situation who found their access to needed resources threatened after expressing concerns about gender ideology.
As previously revealed by Reduxx, a sexual abuse survivor in Vancouver, British Columbia was evicted from a women’s domestic violence shelter after becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of gender ideology on women’s rights.
Jane, whose identity was protected by Reduxx at her request, had been exposed to multiple disturbing incidents in the shelter after arriving due to the presence of two trans-identified males who had been housed amongst the women.
For Insley, he says he was unconcerned with protecting his identity, feeling as though public exposure to his problems may provide him some opportunity to better navigate his situation. But as his life continues to leave him scrambling for a safe place to sleep every night, he hopes speaking out will also educate people on the way gender ideology is now impacting even homeless people and their access to needed resources.
“I would like to see our housing and medical system get back to having a proper sense of prioritization. It’s deeply upsetting to see people that are pursuing elective treatments and using neopronouns being treated as if their situation is life-threatening.” Insley says, but concluding: “[These changes shouldn’t] require someone like me having to expose my own vulnerable situation just to break through the cacophony of gender ideology.”
Reduxx did reach out to the Quest Center for comment, but did not receive a response.
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