Hundreds of residents in Hastings, Minnesota, took to the streets over the weekend to rally in support of LGBTQ youth after an official’s transgender child was publicly outed.
The demonstrations in support of the child come after Concerned Parents of Hastings, a Facebook group for conservative parents, publicly outed Kit, 8, in the wake of a bitter school board election, KARE-TV, an NBC affiliate based in Minnesota, reported.
The child’s mother, Kelsey Waits, was running for re-election to the town school board in November when opponents of her campaign outed her child, who is nonbinary and uses gender-neutral pronouns. In light of the rally, Waits said she is proud that the community is denouncing the harassment.
“Seeing so many people rally behind a child is particularly meaningful. … It meant a lot to [Kit],” Waits told NBC News on Monday. “It was amazing. I would not have expected almost a thousand people to come out for my kid.”
The rally highlighted dozens of LGBTQ speakers, groups and elected officials who rallied in support of transgender children. This comes as transgender youth face a wave of anti-trans bills limiting their participation in school sports and use of bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity.
In a tweet on Saturday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz voiced his support for the Waits family.
“Everyone deserves to live in a state that values them for who they are — especially our kids,” Walz, a Democrat, wrote.
One of the participants at the rally, Ren Olive, a 30-year-old transgender person, said they want Kit to continue being themself even in the face of transphobic bullying.
“My message to Kit is to don’t give up,” Olive told KARE-TV. “We’re here, we’re loud, we’re queer and we have your back.”
Before her child’s gender identity was publicly disclosed, Waits said her family “spent years trying to be incredibly private.” Following the incident, Kit has been misgendered by classmates and is experiencing more anxiety and fear, Waits said in a statement.
Waits said this is the latest in a string of harassment facing the family. She hopes the demonstrations can hold the harassers accountable and prevent future incidents.
“If we moved away and didn’t say anything, the bullies would have won,” Waits said. “What does that teach? That teaches that they can do all of these things and that there are no repercussions and that no one is going to push back against them, and that just makes them bully harder for the next person.”
One of the administrators of the Concerned Parents of Hastings Facebook group issued a statement on Tuesday denying that they harassed the family.
“Many members were confused about why they were mentioned in relation to the harassment that the Waits family had received in this town,” the administrator wrote in a Facebook post, according to a photo Waits shared with NBC News. “Many of them said they had no idea Kelsey has a transgender child, let alone bullied her or her child.”
The administrator added that the controversy stems from Wait’s position on the school board.
“The only reason Kelsey’s parental decision was a concern to the members was because she was not just an average mom, but someone who was running for a position where she would be in charge of making decisions for other parents’ children,” the administrator wrote in the same post. “Most parents in the group believe that a child needs to be mature enough to make life-altering decisions.”
Following the demonstrations, Waits said residents are reckoning with the community’s lack of action on this issue.
“It’s woken a lot of people up to their silence,” she said. “A lot of leaders in the community were aware of what was happening and did not say anything because they didn’t want it to impact them. Now they are seeing the damage that silence can cause.”
While it’s unclear whether Waits will seek legal action, she is weighing her options with the support of the Minnesota-based advocacy group Gender Justice. As a result of the alleged harassment, Waits said her family is fleeing the city.
“We need to keep this work moving forward in this community for everyone who does not have the option to leave,” Waits said. “This was the final event for us, but really this neighborhood, this house, there is a lot of trauma here. A lot of negativity has been brought into our home, and we need a fresh start for our own mental health.”
Georgia’s prison system on Monday agreed to pay $2.2 million to the parents of a transgender inmate who hung herself in her cell in 2017.
The settlement came four years to the day since Jenna Mitchell, 25, died after being in a coma for two days before life support was withdrawn.
A lawsuit filed by Mitchell’s parents in 2019 said she had been approved for gender reassignment surgery but was being held at Valdosta State Prison, a men’s prison.
While at the prison, she had been in and out of solitary confinement for months. Before hanging herself on Dec. 4, 2017, she had been housed in solitary confinement for more than two weeks, according to the lawsuit.
When Mitchell was placed in solitary confinement, the prison staff told her she was “being moved to the compound for transgender inmates,” the suit said.
Mitchell’s mother had called the prison on Dec. 2 after receiving a letter from her daughter saying she was going to pull a “suicide stunt” at the prison. She took the threat seriously because Mitchell “had a history of mental illness, was suffering from gender identity issues, and had engaged in a pattern of suicidal and self-harming behavior,” the suit said.
Mitchell’s mother told the woman who answered the phone at the prison about the threat and asked that her daughter be put on suicide watch. The woman said Mitchell was already “in medical” for attempting suicide and that she was “okay,” the suit said.
The warden of the prison was made aware of the call, according to the lawsuit.
But Mitchell was placed back into solitary confinement, and on Dec. 4 told a corrections officer that she was about to hang herself. The officer didn’t wait with Mitchell or try to prevent her from hanging herself, but rather left to alert others about the threat, the suit said.
Mitchell hanged herself while alone. The suit said it took too long to cut her down because officers couldn’t find a cutting tool nearby and had to travel to and from the medical unit for scissors.
Following Mitchell’s death, according to the suit, the supervisor of the corrections officer who left Mitchell alone “prepared a false incident report to cover up” the officer’s conduct so that he and other staff members would avoid discipline, an investigation or a lawsuit.
This cast of five features Alexander Howard as Casey, the Elvis impersonator whose career goes awry, whose life falls apart, and who ends up needing to learn how to work in drag.
Joey Abrego is the fabulous Miss Tracy Mills, who teaches Casey how to do it.
The following is a slightly edited interview I conducted with Joey, who arrives next week from LA to begin rehearsals on the show.
CK – In The Legend of Georgia McBride, you teach Casey how to perform as a drag queen. Did you have mentors when you entered the world of drag performance?
I truly am a believer in the idea that it takes a village. I have been fortunate enough to have a variety of mentors in and out of the drag community that have influenced, inspired, and shaped me. I started out in theater here in Santa Rosa and then continued to study theater in college down in Southern California. After graduation, I was working in regional theater in the area, and during that time, I would go out with some friends every now and then and I met a couple of drag queens. One of them convinced me to participate in a fundraiser as a drag queen and they put me in drag and let me prance around to some music. It was an absolute BLAST! From that moment on, I dove headfirst into drag and tried to soak up as much knowledge as I could.
I’ve had mentors who helped me figure out makeup, hair styling, performance for drag, outfits, business relationships, etc. In addition to these queens who have helped me in those areas, I also have to acknowledge all my theater teachers and mentors who gave me the foundation upon which I develop my drag. I try to bring theatricality and all the training that goes with that into my drag in order to make it feel more unique and like myself.
CK – What were your greatest strengths or challenges?
I felt like my strengths always resided in my performance and connection to the audience. Of course, I have learned and continue to learn to refine and improve, but I’ve been lucky enough to have the instincts to work a crowd and perform.
Challenges have been PLENTIFUL! Drag is FAR from easy and takes a while to get used to and to feel grounded and comfortable in. Of course, learning to style hair or do your make-up is challenging, and being in tights and heels for hours upon hours is difficult. But the most challenging part of drag for me has been discovering what I bring that makes my drag special and allowing myself to sit in that instead of comparing myself to others. Which is a WASTE of time. Haha!
CK – You participated in our Applause Gala virtual performance earlier this year, and wowed the audience with your performance. What have been the high points of your experience performing in Sonoma County?
Well, thank you so much for saying that! It was very fun to get to actually sing for a change! It really was such a well-executed fundraiser and I was so lucky to be part of it!
I started out doing the youth theater summer programs at 6th Street under the brilliant Holly Vinson. I did Music Man and Oliver! with her and she really opened me up to the wildly fun world of theater. I also did RENT, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Producers with the Playhouse before I left for college. In addition to those productions, I also assisted with the Playhouse’s School of Drama and helped direct and teach in a couple of youth productions. I love love LOVED being at 6th Street. It always felt like a safe, warm home for me through my teen years and I am forever grateful for the love I felt and the freedom I had to explore and learn there.
I also have to say that being a student under board member Sue Byrne in the Montgomery High School Drama Department was also a HUGE and vital part of my upbringing. Sue really was and still is one of the most wonderful, encouraging, supporting, and loving humans I know. I was very lucky to be a pupil of hers.
CK – I can’t help noticing, in your drag photos, that you have some amazing and beautiful cleavage. I can’t find a clue as to how you do that. Is it a trade secret?
AH YES! My boobies! Haha! I get this question all the time!
It’s honestly just a heavy silicone bib that wraps around my neck. I usually cover the line around my neck with a necklace so it looks seamless. I’ll let you try them on when I see you! I just made my aunt try them on about 20 minutes ago! It’s a great laugh!
CK – How long have you been doing drag performance? Where do you usually perform?
I have been doing drag since the fall of 2017—so a little over 4 years now! That feels so long, yet so short. I have friends who have been doing it for 30 plus years… which is to be applauded because I don’t think my body will last that long! Haha.
I perform all around Southern California! I can be found from Long Beach to West Hollywood to Palm Springs! It is my full-time job and I couldn’t be more fortunate for that.
CK – You mentioned that you’re not yet in rehearsals, so your portrayal of Miss Tracy Mills will be evolving, under Carl Jordan’s direction, but what are your thoughts about her so far?
At this current time I would say that Tracy is motivated by her love for drag and performance. And on the other side of that she is also motivated by fear of failure. She spends a great deal of time saving the show, and helping it grow and blossom. I think the great deal of love and joy she has for drag really pushes her to not only improve the show but also allows her the opportunity to impart knowledge and teach Casey/Georgia all about it.
I also think that a fear of what she considers to be failure motivates her to keep the show going and make sure that employment is steady for herself. I truly think she’s afraid of not being able to work as a drag queen. I see that drive and that same quality in a lot of not only drag queens but performers in general. I completely relate to all of that. It’s an incredibly human quality that is so universal, yet laid into a very specific being. That’s part of the brilliance of Matthew Lopez’s characters.
I think what I love MOST about Tracy is that while she is sassy, fun, and can be frank or serious, she leads with kindness and compassion. I don’t get to see that quality reflected in drag queens very often on TV or in movies.
CK – Is there anything else about your preparation for this role that you’d like to share?
This is the first theatrical production I’ve done in a few years! So I am equal parts excited and terrified! I’m excited to dive into the play with everyone, collaborate, discover, and play! Terrified that I forgot how to do all of that! But I suppose the only difference between fear and excitement is if I’m breathing or not. Haha!
Federal prosecutors arrested a man Monday who they said threatened to attack this year’s New York City Pride March with “firepower” that would “make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting look like a cakewalk.”
Officials from the FBI and the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force announced that Robert Fehring, 74, was charged with mailing dozens of letters threatening to assault, shoot and bomb LGBTQ-affiliated individuals, organizations and businesses, including New York City’s annual Pride festival.
After executing a search warrant at his home in Bayport, New York, last month, law enforcement agents recovered photographs from a Pride event on Long Island this year, two loaded shotguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, two stun guns and a stamped envelope addressed to an LGBTQ-affiliated attorney containing the remains of a dead bird, federal prosecutors said.
“Fehring’s alleged threats to members of the LGBTQ+ community were not only appalling, but dangerous, despite the fact he hadn’t yet acted on his purported intentions,” Michael J. Driscoll, the assistant director-in-charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, said in a statement.
A criminal complaint released Monday said Fehring had sent more than 60 threatening letters to members of and organizations affiliated with the LGBTQ community since 2013 and as recently as September.
In many of the letters, he describes LGBTQ individuals as worse than the “bottom of the pig-pen” or states that “even animals know better” than to engage in same-sex activity, according to the complaint.
Notably, the complaint stated that Fehring threatened that there would “be radio-cont[r]olled devices placed at numerous strategic places” at the 2021 New York City Pride March with “firepower” that would “make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting look like a cakewalk,” referring to the massacre at the gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which left 49 people dead and dozens injured.
NYC Pride, which runs New York City’s Pride march, “received threatening letters earlier this year and reported them,” the organization’s executive director, Sandra Pérez, told NBC News in an email.
“We are cooperating in any way we can, and we remain committed to the safety and well-being of the LGBTQIA+ community,” she added.
Prosecutors also detailed an incident in which Fehring allegedly sent a letter threatening the organizer of the Long Island Pride event in East Meadow, New York. The letter called the organizer a “freak” and stated, in part, “You are being watched. No matter how long it takes, you will be taken out…. high-powered bullet…. bomb….knife…. whatever it takes.”
Last month, Fehring waived his Miranda rights and allowed federal prosecutors to interview him, according to the complaint. During the interview, he acknowledged that he authored certain letters under investigation and that he had a general animosity toward the LGBTQ community, according to the complaint.
There is “a sick overdose of that stuff being shoved down everybody’s face on the paper, on the TV and all over the place and I’m not a fan of any of the homosexuality, homosexual thing,” he said.
Fehring is expected to make his initial appearance in court Monday afternoon.
Harriet M. Welch, the titular character of Louise Fitzhugh’s iconic children’s book Harriet the Spy is eleven years old and determined to write everything down. As training for one day becoming a famous novelist, she ventures on a daily “spy route,” stalking a handful of brownstones on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, secretly watching her friends and neighbors, chronicling their business in a private notebook using a tone so deadpan and factual it borders on cruel. Readers young and old, however, sixty years ago as much as today, find in Harriet a cathartic release and creative permission. Now Harriet’s author, Louise Fitzhugh, is the subject of a biography—Leslie Brody’s Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy, a succinct and readable portrait of the short-lived and charismatic lesbian writer and illustrator.
A Queer Heroine in Childhood
With her matter-of-fact tone and acerbic humor, Harriet the Spy is the quintessential story of a tomboy—a queer heroine in childhood. Harriet is unstoppable: she eats cake and egg creams in the afternoons, argues with grown-ups, climbs onto buildings and into dumbwaiters to spy, all while filled with that kind of youthful rage one can only find in children. It is hard to tell whether Harriet’s influence on queer writers comes from her insufferable writing ambitions, her gender-agnostic bearings, or that she finds her world incomprehensible and repressive.
Much of the humor and intrigue of Harriet the Spy is the heroine’s own interior monologue, a relentless string of crude, or, as we say today, very real observations, externalized by the notes she takes: “DOES PINKY WHITEHEAD’S MOTHER HATE HIM?” She writes about a boy in her school, “IF I’D HAD HIM I’D HATE HIM.”
With her matter-of-fact tone and acerbic humor, Harriet the Spy is the quintessential story of a tomboy—a queer heroine in childhood.
Sometimes You Have to Lie
When Harriet’s classmates, without Harriet’s consent, obtain and read her notebook—which spells out PRIVATE on the cover—they are horrified and start a campaign against her. Following the lead of the school bullies, even Harriet’s closest friends turn on her. Finally, after bravely resisting mob rule, Harriet manages to make amends by following the advice of her beloved former nanny, who suggests using white lies to save Harriet’s friendships: “Sometimes you have to lie,” goes the moral truism of the novel, “but to yourself, you must always tell the truth.”
Published in 1964 into an undersaturated book market of children’s literature, Harriet the Spy’s idiosyncratic eleven-year-old protagonist instantly hit a nerve. The book spoke to its readers as complex people and not as inferior creatures, changing the tone and sophistication of children’s and young adult fiction for generations to come.
“Sometimes you have to lie,” goes the moral truism of the novel, “but to yourself, you must always tell the truth.”
A Kind of Detective Work
And yet Harriet’s popularity and household name eclipse that of her creator, whose larger-than-life persona remained out of the public eye. For the length of her career, Louise Fitzhugh minded her privacy. She never made public appearances or gave interviews to promote Harriet. After her sudden death, at forty-six, Fitzhugh’s estate and friends worked to retain Fitzhugh’s evasive nature according to their own terms. Only very few photographs were circulated of Fitzhugh: one, from the cover of Harriet the Spy, shows the intrepid Fitzhugh sitting on a swing with an unreadable, if mischievous expression. Even to children (or at least to the author of this text) she seemed somehow readably queer. Gamine, with short brown hair and lively, discerning eyes, the person depicted in this photograph was all that many of us ardent readers knew of her, including the fact that she was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1928.
Brody likens her biographical research to a kind of detective work, setting different chapters to key terms of “spy language,” using words like snoop and detect. The metaphor seems just a little too obvious: in order to reveal Fitzhugh’s hidden life, Brody had to do some sleuthing of her own. With Brody’s storytelling, Fitzhugh’s personality resonates distinctly, deliciously, to a degree that the reader falls in love with Fitzhugh as much as with the heroine of any good novel. Privacy, after all, does not equal shyness.
[..] the Fitzhugh that emerges comes across as a charmer, the kind of person you would want at your party, vibrant, contradictory, and extremely creative.
Quite the opposite actually: the Fitzhugh that emerges comes across as a charmer, the kind of person you would want at your party, vibrant, contradictory, and extremely creative. Wherever Brody’s research hits the sealed lips of former lovers or estates, the biographer leaves spaces alive and lets secrets and omissions speak for themselves—she paints a distinct enough character of Fitzhugh for the reader to fill in the blanks. What she does end up uncovering of Fitzhugh’s life story, Brody seems to suggest, like many queer histories, was never truly hidden. It was just kept slightly out of the spotlight of a hetero-centric world.
The Ultimate Resistance Facing a Hypocritical World
In the same way Louise Fitzhugh never appeared to be actively closeted—just simply never put in the limelight—so too are her politics of justice and resistance consistently overt. Harriet the Spy and her two best friends—wily Janie, an aspiring mad scientist, and gentle Sport, who looks after his bohemian father—can just as easily be read as queer by virtue of not behaving according to gender expectations. Beyond the obvious non-conformity Harriet displays in her behavior and attire (a tomboy of the mid-sixties, Harriet’s comfort clothes consist of sneakers, old jeans, and a hooded sweatshirt), she is an outspoken observer, the ultimate resistance facing a hypocritical world.
Her dilemma, or a good deal of it before the novel’s dramatic disaster strikes, consists of puzzling over how to fit into society and retain her dignity as a powerless eleven-year-old, but also in her identity as a spy. With the help of her nanny, Harriet devises ways of passing in straight society: she will, for instance, go to the revolting dance classes her mother wants her to attend, because spies, like Mata Hari, need to know how to dance in order to deceive people. Harriet needs to be a spy to fit into a world of dishonesty and deception while the rest of the world simply bows to injustice.
This unsentimental, humorous, and political attitude towards childhood runs through all of what is published of Louise Fitzhugh’s creative output: from her illustrations in the Eloise-parody Suzuki Beane (Fitzhugh drew the barmy ink illustrations featured in Harriet the Spy, as well) to the advocacy towards children’s political agency in Nobody’s Family is Going to Change, children strive for autonomy and fairness in Fitzhugh’s work.
Like several prolific female writers of the 20th century still known today, Louise Fitzhugh came from generational wealth that allowed for relative financial independence. And though she could live quite comfortably off her inheritance and royalties, Fitzhugh never turned her work away from people; instead, she fueled her writing with a subversive political will: “Her response to any kind of assertion of supremacy,” Brody writes, “was to oppose it.”
Liked to Consistently Reinvent Herself
Fitzhugh also liked to consistently reinvent herself and turn her own life into a tall tale. This comes to her biographer’s aid. Brody’s portrayal of Fitzhugh’s tempestuous life takes on the shape of those figures within 20th century literary genres where famous lesbian authors were starkly prevalent: Fitzhugh’s childhood, situated in what sounds like a gothic Memphis mansion, surrounded by an eccentric grandmother, a disturbed uncle living in the attic, various nannies, as well as a wealthy father extorting Fitzhugh’s working-class mother for money, recalls the kind of lonely child narrator by the likes of someone like Carson McCullers or Harper Lee.
Once Fitzhugh dropped out of Bard college to join her first girlfriend in bohemian 1950’s Greenwich Village, she resembled a pulpy heroine not unlike those by Ann Bannon and Vin Packer. Popular, charismatic, and energetic, Fitzhugh hung out in gay bars and galleries, painted and wrote, travelled to Europe, and entertained and collaborated with her long list of lovers as well as many well-connected friends. (Harriet the Spy’s neighbor and subject Harrison Withers lives with two dozen or so cats named after many of Fitzhugh’s close friends.)
Among these were the likes of Lorraine Hansberry and James Merrill, as well as pulp writers such Sandra Scoppetone (the author of Suzuki Beane), with whom Fitzhugh both collaborated and romanced, and through whom Fitzhugh befriended the grande dame of lesbian pulp fiction, Marijane Meaker—aka Vin Packer—who spent several years in a relationship with Patricia Highsmith, later penning a whole book about it.
Lost Manuscript
One of the more tragic and mysterious sections of the biography is the plot surrounding Louise Fitzhugh’s lost manuscript. The contents of this manuscript were rumored to be the re-telling of Fitzhugh’s first own secret teenage romance with another well-off Memphis girl, Amelia. Fitzhugh and Amelia had been each other’s first true loves in the South, later successfully eloping to New York to make it the home of their artistic pursuits. Amelia would become a reporter for the Times and a good friend of Fitzhugh’s, before her tragic and disturbing death in a freak accident. The manuscript containing the story of this teenage courtship, which some friends claim to have read excerpts of, would have been one of the first lesbian young adult novels ever published in the U.S.—years ahead of what is known of the first of its kind, Sandra Scoppettone’s Happy Endings Are All Alike (1978).
The existence of this manuscript, its content and disappearance, remain a mystery. It is possible Fitzhugh lost the manuscript by accident, or by her own mechanization? What would a book of Fitzhugh’s lost manuscript have looked like? Was it more literary than the lesbian pulp novellas of her day, or was it meant for a younger audience? Would it have been a kind of forerunner of historical young adult LGBTQ+ romance fiction, not unlike Malinda Lo’s recent, and powerfully moving, Last Night at the Telegraph Club (2021)?
The manuscript containing the story of this teenage courtship […] would have been one of the first lesbian young adult novels ever published in the U.S.
The mysteries at the heart of this biography, alongside its depictions of various eras of queer literary New York City, only make for an even more compelling read. And Brody’s complex depiction of Fitzhugh, with her contradictions and idiosyncrasies, her tireless work and quest for artistic fulfillment, becomes a refreshing study of the arduous process and pay-offs of creativity itself: its fits, its dead ends, its blinding inspirations, leaving behind a vast and complicated legacy that might, in the end, emit one truly great achievement, a single character and her unforgettable name—Harriet the Spy.
Sometimes You Have to Lie
by Leslie Brody
Seal Press
Hardcover, 9781580057691, 352 pp.
December 2020
After four years of debate, New Zealand has unanimously passed a self-ID bill for trans people, voting “in favour of inclusivity and against discrimination”.
The self-ID bill was introduced in 2018, and was finally passed by New Zealand’s parliament on Thursday (9 December) after its third reading.
It will remove the requirement for medical intervention to change legal gender marker in favour of a “statutory declaration”.
The changes will come into force in 18 months time, allowing for consultation with the LGBT+ community on how the process should work, how young people can access correct gender markers, and how to be inclusive of non-binary people and different cultures.
According to the NZ Herald, Green Party MP Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, a cisgender lesbian and longtime trans ally, said: “This bill recognises that those who need to amend their birth certificate can do so, that the courts do not have the right to make that choice for them, that parents do not have that right, that cisgender people who don’t even know them or care about them do not have that right.”
“As a takatāpui, cis-lesbian fem ally to our takatāpui, trans and intersex non-binary whānau, I am very proud to commend this bill to the house,” she continued.
Internal affairs minister Jan Tinetti described the passing of the bill as “a proud day in Aotearoa’s history”, and added: “Parliament has voted in favour of inclusivity and against discrimination.”
She said that trans folk and those who supported the bill had been “hurt, mocked, belittled and discriminated against” during the course of the years-long debate, and continued: “A lot of discussion was aimed at trans women. As a cis woman I am proud to stand alongside my sisters.
“Trans misogyny is still misogyny… We are changing legislation that is truly a step closer to an inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand.
“Keep proudly being you.”
Lagging shamefully behind New Zealand, in the UK, self-ID for trans folk seems like a distant dream.
While the Tory government conducted research as far back as 2018 showing broad public support for reform of the gender recognition, under Boris Johnson, the government announced last year that it was scrapping plans for reform completely.
Steve Bronski of Bronski Beat has died at the age of 61 (Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Steve Bronski, co-founder and keyboard player of pop group Bronski Beat, has died.
Bronski, best-known for the LGBT+ anthem “Smalltown Boy”, passed away at 61-years-old. No cause of death has been given.
Jimmy Somerville, who formed Bronski Beat alongside Bronski and Larry Steinbachek, led tributes on Twitter, calling the late star a “very melodic man”.
“Sad to hear Steve Bronski has died,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Working with him on songs and the one song that changed our lives and touched so many other lives, was a fun and exciting time. Thanks for the melody Steve.”
Bronski was born Steven Forrest in Glasgow and worked as a labourer and stage hand in his youth.
It was after he moved to London that he met his future bandmates. The trio formed Bronski Beat in 1983 when they shared a flat in Brixton, London.
Steinbachek had heard Somerville singing during the making of Framed Youth: The Revenge of the Teenage Perverts, a documentary produced by the London Lesbian and Gay Youth Video Project, and suggested they make music together.
The band often dealt with issues facing the LGBT+ community, famously performing at the Pits and Perverts concert in support of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign.
Bronski Beat’s debut single “Smalltown Boy” received widespread praise from the LGBT+ community for its video portraying a young, gay man leaving his home town to live in the big city. Their debut album, The Age of Consent, followed in 1984.
The number for the London Gay Switchboard was etched into the single’s runout groove.
Bronski told The Guardian in 2018: “At the time we were just three gay guys who started a band – we didn’t feel like part of any particular movement.
“Of course, it would transpire many years later that there were more gay artists than the public were led to believe.”
After news broke of Bronski’s death, writer Matthew Todd said: “A lot of people are called gay, queer icons today but few deserve it as much as Steve Bronski. Out and angry and protesting when almost no famous people dared to. Rest in peace.”
Bronski Beat disbanded in 1995, with Steve Bronski going on to become a producer for other artists.
He then teamed up with Ian Donaldson again in 2016 with an aim to bring the band back. In 2017, the new Bronski Beat released a reworked version of The Age of Consent entitled The Age of Reason, which aimed to support the trans community.
In an interview with Penny Black Music, he said: “The transgender community should not live in fear and gay children should not be bullied. “We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.”
Canada this week banned conversion therapy, a debunked treatment that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
A bill making it a crime to subject Canadians of any age to the discredited practice became law Wednesday after Canada’s Parliament passed the measure this month.
“It’s official: Our government’s legislation banning the despicable and degrading practice of conversion therapy has received Royal Assent — meaning it is now law. LGBTQ2 Canadians, we’ll always stand up for you and your rights,” Canadian President Justin Trudeau wrote on Twitter. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/M7hDVJs?_showcaption=true&app=1
The Canadian law is the latest instance of a growing global effort to eradicate conversion therapy, a practice that ranges from religious counseling to electric shock therapy and has been associated with “severe psychological distress.”
Canada’s ban follows that of Germany, Malta, Ecuador, Brazil and Taiwan. Some of the nations, such as Germany, have passed bans exclusively for minors, whereas others, like Malta, have passed bans for all citizens.
In the United States, 20 states and the District of Columbia have restrictions in place for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank. Three states — Florida, Alabama and Georgia — are in a federal judicial circuit with an injunction that blocks conversion therapy bans.
In addition to Canada, France’s Senate voted in favor of legislation this week that would also criminalize the practice, with prison sentences of two to three years and fines up to $50,000.
In 2019, the American Medical Association voiced its support for state and federal efforts to ban conversion therapy, saying that it “has no foundation as scientifically valid medical care and lacks credible evidence to support its efficacy or safety.”
And last year, the United Nations called for the practice to be banned internationally and released a detailed report on the practice’s global implications.
“The attempts to pathologize and erase the identity of individuals, negate their existence as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or gender diverse and provoke self-loathing have profound consequences on their physical and psychological integrity and well-being,” the report stated.
LGBTQ advocates hailed the Canadian law’s passage.
“To the survivors who have fought for years for a safer, more equal future: thank you and congratulations. This is your moment,” No Conversion Canada, a Canadian nonprofit coalition to end conversion therapy, wrote on Twitter this week.
Join Positive Images LGBTQIA+ Center and North Bay LGBTQI Families for an end-of-year Social Saturday: Intergenerational Gathering on December 18th from 11am-3pm at Brew (555 Healdsburg Ave) in Santa Rosa! Come by to celebrate the season with us, and take home one of our specially assembled LGBTQIA+ Family and Community Care Packages!
All LGBTQIA+ youth, families, adults, and elders are welcome at this gathering, which is part of a recurring series of monthly events taking place throughout Sonoma County where we are seeking to bring together members of our community across generations, particularly gender expansive youth, teens, and adults. This event will also serve as the December monthly gathering for the North Bay LGBTQI Families Gender Expansive Youth Under 12 social and family program.
We will have some art and family activities at this event, and we also want to send folks home with something special to maintain a sense of community connection over the subsequent winter weeks after this long and challenging year. With the support of our amazing local art and business community, we are putting together a number of LGBTQIA+ Family and Community Care Packages to distribute to attendees. Care packages will include art supplies, Noble Folk ice cream tokens, rose quartz stones, seeds, and more!
We will also have $50 gift cards available at the gathering to families for whom financial barriers such as the cost of gas, a meal, or missed work would otherwise prevent them from attending. If you feel your family could benefit from this support, please fill out the form at the following link:
We at Positive Images and North Bay LGBTQI Families are still very aware of and concerned about the spread of COVID-19. If you are feeling sick in any way, please stay home and take care of yourself. Masks will be mandatory with no exceptions. We will have masks on hand for those who may need them. We will maintain a distance of six feet from one another at all times.
We’re excited to see you then!
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Acompañe a Positive Images LGBTQIA + Center y North Bay LGBTQI Familiespara un sábado social de fin de año: ¡Reunión intergeneracional el 18 de diciembre de 11 am a 3 pm en Brew (555 Healdsburg Ave) en Santa Rosa! ¡Ven a celebrar la temporada con nosotros y llévate a casa uno de nuestros paquetes de atención comunitaria y familiar LGBTQIA + especialmente ensamblados!
Todos los jóvenes, familias, adultos y ancianos LGBTQIA + son bienvenidos en esta reunión, que es parte de una serie recurrente de eventos mensuales que se llevan a cabo en todo el condado de Sonoma, donde buscamos reunir a miembros de nuestra comunidad a través de generaciones, particularmente jóvenes, adolescentes y adultos con género expansivo. Este evento también servirá como la reunión mensual social y familiar de diciembre para el programa de North Bay LGBTQI Families para jóvenes de género expansivo menores de 12 años.
Tendremos algunas actividades artísticas y familiares en este evento, y también queremos enviar a la gente a casa con algo especial para mantener un sentido de conexión comunitaria durante las siguientes semanas de invierno después de este año largo y desafiante. Con el apoyo de nuestra increíble comunidad local de arte y negocios, estamos preparando una serie de paquetes de atención comunitaria y familiar LGBTQIA + para distribuirlos a los asistentes. Los paquetes de cuidado incluirán materiales de arte, fichas de helado de Noble Folk, piedras de cuarzo rosa, semillas y más.
También tendremos tarjetas de regalo de $ 50 disponibles en la reunión para las familias para quienes barreras financieras como el costo de la gasolina, una comida o el trabajo perdido les impedirían asistir. Si cree que su familia podría beneficiarse de este apoyo, complete el formulario en el siguiente enlace:
En Positive Images y North Bay LGBTQI Families todavía estamos muy conscientes y preocupados por la propagación del COVID-19. Si se siente mal de alguna manera, quédese en casa y cuídese. Las máscaras serán obligatorias sin excepciones. Tendremos máscaras a mano para quienes las necesiten. Mantendremos una distancia de seis pies entre nosotros en todo momento.
People changing their patterns of sexual behaviour because of COVID has led to a staggering drop in new HIV diagnoses, according to UK government data.
On World AIDS Day 2021 (1 December), the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) released data about HIV testing, new diagnoses and the ability to access HIV services in 2020.
This new data revealed that the total number of new HIV diagnoses in England dropped by 33 per cent. According to the data, there were 2,630 new diagnoses in 2020 compared to 3,950 in 2019.
Among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, the number of new HIV diagnoses made in England decreased by 41 per cent from 1,500 in 2019 to 890 in 2020. The UKHSA reported 1,010 people who probably acquired HIV through heterosexual contact were diagnosed with HIV in England in 2020, a 23 per cent decrease from 1,320 in 2019.
The government agency attributed the drop in new diagnoses to COVID-19changing patterns of sexual behaviour, testing and access to sexual health and HIV services.
Dr Valerie Delpech, head of HIV surveillance at UKHSA, said that the decline in HIV diagnoses is “encouraging”. But Dr Delpech warned that the data should be “considered in the context” of the pandemic which “saw prolonged and unprecedented public health restrictions, coupled with intense pressure on health services resulting in a decline in HIV testing overall”.
“It is now crucial that we continue to ramp up testing and start people on treatment at the earliest possible opportunity,” she added. “We must address inequalities and find creative ways to achieve a reduction in transmission across all populations.”
Deborah Gold, chief executive of National AIDS Trust, described the continued decreases in HIV transmissions – driven by regular testing, access to PrEP and increases in those diagnosed having access to HIV treatment – “rays of light in the UK’s response to HIV”.
But Gold said the pandemic has had a “catastrophic impact” on testing and treatment services in the UK, and “we now need an urgent plan for their recovery”.
“HIV testing must increase markedly, and the HIV prevention drug PrEP must reach all communities,” Gold said. “The government has committed to report annually on progress towards 2030, it is vital these reports identify what progress is being made in all population groups in the UK.”
According to the UKHSA data, there had also been a big decrease in HIV testing as the number of people tested at sexual health services decreased by 30 per cent from 1,320,510 in 2019 to 927,760 in 2020.
There was a seven per cent decrease (from 157,710 in 2019 to 146,900 in 2020) in the number of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men having an HIV test at sexual health services.
In contrast, the number of heterosexual people tested fell by 33 per cent from 1,142,950 in 2019 to 760,260 in 2020.
Debbie Laycock, head of policy at Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), told PinkNews that the charity welcomed the fall in diagnoses in gay and bisexual men, but she said “we need to see this same level of progress across the board”.
“There has been a steep decline in HIV testing among heterosexual men and women compared to previous years – this drop is a concern given that heterosexual men and women accounted for the majority of diagnosis, and rates of late diagnosis were highest in this group,” Laycock said.
In 2020, almost half (42 per cent or 640 out of the 1,540) of people first diagnosed in England were diagnosed late, an increase from 40 per cent in 2019. The UKHSA reported rates of late diagnosis were highest for heterosexual men and women at 55 per cent and 51 per cent respectively, compared with 29 per cent in gay and bisexual men.
Laycock told PinkNews that COVID-19 has had a “significant impact” on HIV services and testing, and she said there needed to be urgent action from the government to ensure the pandemic doesn’t “hinder efforts to end new cases of HIV by 2030”.
She added that testing the provision of PrEP – Pre-exposure Prophylaxis, a medicine taken to prevent getting HIV – “must be expanded to ensure that progress is felt in all communities” because “progress that isn’t felt by everyone isn’t progress at all”.
The data comes as the UK government unveiled its HIV Action Plan, which sets out how England can end new HIV transmission by 2030. The government pledged to invest £20 million to expand opt-out testing in emergency departments in areas that have the highest prevalence of HIV in England.
The plan aims to reach an 80 per cent reduction in transmissions by 2025 as well as a commitment to reach zero new transmissions by 2030.
But the government acknowledged such goals can only be met if people are diagnosed early and provided with antiretroviral treatment to reduce the viral load in a person’s bloodstream to an undetectable level.
Ian Green, chief executive at THT, welcomed the government’s plan. He said the £20 million investment for opt-out testing “keeps alive” the government’s commitment to end transmission by 2030.
But he cautioned there is “still so much more to do to make it a reality”.
“To really get on track, we need to see opt-out testing scaled up across the country to ensure equitable progress in more areas, alongside training for those involved,” Green explained.
He continued: “Ramping up HIV testing isn’t just about numbers – it’s about addressing the inequalities that continue to exacerbate the HIV epidemic and ensure we see progress across all groups, including those traditionally most impacted by HIV.
“That’s why we strongly welcome the action plan’s signal of intent to ensure free HIV test kits to do at home are available across the country – this needs to be available all year round and accessible to all who could benefit.”