Leslie Dvorak

By Kamrin Baker
Photo by Ron Coleman, C4 Photography

Omaha’s “Pride Health Clinic” is tucked away in a discreet office building in a residential area—no rainbow flags or neon signs in sight. But inside, judging by the nail polish display and crocheted “emotional support butt plugs” in owner Leslie Dvorak’s office—it’s a vibrant ecosystem of seemingly underground care.

Dvorak opened the Pride Health Clinic nearly three years ago, but her medical background is grounded in the Air Force, where she was an OB/GYN nurse practitioner for 21 years. Afterwards, she began working as a reproductive nurse practitioner at Charles Drew Health Center, where her clientele was a lot different from military personnel. Patients on Medicaid or non-paying patients mostly came to her for STI testing and other emergent health needs. There, she began dropping breadcrumbs: They could get no-cost birth control or cervical cancer screenings in her office, too.

“Then one day, a trans woman came in,” Dvorak said. “She was part of our homeless population, and she said, ‘I need my hormones.’ I said to her, ‘I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve never done this, but I want to do this for you.’”

After creating a proposal for her chief medical officer, Dvorak began to fall even deeper in love with her work, often providing life-changing gender-affirming care or sex education to the most vulnerable LGBTQ+ folks in the city.

“If they got sex education, it was always heterosexual sex education, which then makes them feel like they’re weird because that doesn’t apply,” Dvorak said. “That just killed me. I always tell my patients, ‘My job is to help you stay healthy in whatever choices you choose to make. I’m here for information and safety, and I want to listen to you, and I want you to be an active participant in your health care. It shouldn’t be me saying, ‘This is what we’re doing.’ It should be us having a conversation.”

Later, when a job in Nebraska Medicine’s gender care clinic opened up, she took it. But amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she felt like she wasn’t doing enough for her patients, and she needed full independence to provide that.

Enter The Pride Clinic. Here, care runs the gamut.

“We provide gender-affirming care. We provide reproductive care. We provide primary care. We have free STI testing and treatment. We have insurance-based testing and treatment. We do GYN exams. We do Nexplanon and IUD for birth control procedures, but also just regular birth control and reproductive health. We do reproductive health for cis women, for cis men. We do PrEP injections, oral, whatever PrEP people need. We have a lot of harm reduction items available at no cost, no questions. We have, of course, Plan B, NARCAN, fentanyl test strips, condoms, dental dams, lube and more, available all over the clinic. People can just take what they want, they don’t have to make an appointment. We even have it in the lobby of the building.”

People also donate clothes, makeup, and all kinds of beauty products to a closet for trans people to shop at no cost. With three practitioners, the clinic also offers psychological medication management, laser hair removal, and other aesthetic procedures. And on top of all of this, Dvorak’s latest project is “The Pride Initiative,” a nonprofit arm of the practice that provides financial support for gender-affirming care for patients who can’t afford it.

“We’re trying to make it a one-stop place that people can feel safe, and we’re not making them go all over for their care,” Dvorak said. “Our patients have a lot of medical trauma, and so having to send them somewhere else, we want to make sure it’s a safe environment, a safe place. The more we can do for them, the better.”

It doesn’t look much like an OB-GYN’s office, and that’s the point. No one wears white coats. Patient rooms include couches and chairs, books and colorful decor. The lone procedure room still has comfortable furniture, too.

“We don’t even typically bring our computers in the room,” she said, “I want to look at my patient. I want to talk to my patient. I’m not just doing hormones. A lot of what we end up doing is more social work stuff with our patients, helping them navigate gender-affirming care in their lives. They can go anywhere and get hormones. I mean, hormones are the easiest part of my job. It’s all the other stuff.”

The impact goes without saying. In a political climate where trans healthcare—for both children and adults—is vilified (and, devastatingly, criminalized), spaces like this keep trans and queer people alive. Similarly, having safe and welcoming access to reproductive care is essential, as choice and contraception are increasingly threatened nationwide.

Dvorak is also licensed to practice in 11 states and holds telehealth appointments every Thursday.

“I can see patients all over. Some states are getting overwhelmed, especially with youth care. Sadly enough, some states, because of the threat of losing their federal funding, have stopped doing youth care, and these youth have nowhere to go. Because we own the clinic and we’re not federally funded, we have a different set of rules.”

The clinic also has a more discreet LLC behind it, with words like “pride,” and “gender-affirming care” hidden behind the curtain.

“We have to be creative,” Dvorak said.

Even though the space has fortunately not been on the receiving end of anti-LGBTQ+ protesters, Dvorak takes security very seriously. Patients are buzzed into the facility, and panic buttons are installed in the event of a crisis.

All of the precautions and the added layers of scrappiness are worth it, Dvorak said.

“From the first appointment with a brand new patient, to when they come back in three months, they’re like, ‘I’ve never felt so good in my life. I’ve never been so happy,’” Dvorak said. “How can you not love that job?”

Despite political uncertainty, Dvorak is doing everything she can within the realm of the law to keep up with the need. In fact, she hopes the clinic will expand. Her husband is a psychiatric nurse practitioner who does medication management and writes referral letters for patients needing surgery. She wants to build an even bigger network of care to reach as many people as she can.

From the outset, it’s easy to see that the clinic runs like a strategic and well-oiled machine, but a far cry from Dvorak’s military days. The result is a warm, nurturing and cheerful space for people to find care.

Dvorak said she’s always been like this—open to lots of different people and ready to serve whoever needs her help.

“How do you not like somebody you liked yesterday just based on the fact that this is who their partner is? How does that affect you? Who am I to judge anybody in what they do and who they love, and how they live their life? I just want to help people, and I want people to feel safe,” she proclaimed.

“I want them to be seen.” W