“Out” at the LakeSaturday September 10, noon to 3 pm Stafford Lake ParkPicnic Area #4 near the restroom sponsored by our friends at the Northbay LGBT+ Senior Social Committee Bring an appetizer & beverage to share, bring a chair, and prepare to meet old and new friends. Please RSVP: socialcommittee@comcast.net
West County LGBT Senior Town Hall Coming to San Geronimo Valley CC12:30 to 1 pm Brown Bag Lunch1 to 2:30 Town Hall On the Fourth Tuesday of every month beginning September 27, we will be hosting an event for West County LGBT seniors at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center. This first event is framed as a Town Hall where we can hear from West County residents what they want and need. We could, going forward, have a discussion group or a tea & cookies social or something else entirely. I met with the staff of SVGCC and they are enthusiastic partners in this project. We want to hear from you so come out and get acquainted. There are more of us out in West County than we realize.
MONKEYPOXThere is a cluster of Monkeypox, increasingly called Mpox, among San Francisco’s gay men and men who have sex with men and therefore close by us here in Marin. To learn more about it, including symptoms and prevention, click here. Your health provider may be able to provide vaccine for you. If you want to speak with someone at The Spahr Center about Monkeypox –or HIV prevention – contact Romario, our HIV prevention navigator, at rconrado@thespahrcenter.org.
UPCOMING EVENTS(more info below) September 1RESILIENCY Presented by Dana PeppTopic of Our Weekly Thursday Zoom Groupmore info below September 5LGBTQIA+ Meetup **2 to 5 pm in The Square in Mill Valley September 6LGBTQ+ & HIV+ Grief and Bereavement Support Group **at the Spahr Center and on zoomsemi- (ramp & elevator/door not automatic) September 10“OUT” at the Lake * **noon to 3 pm at Stafford Lake Park, Novato September 13First Tuesday at Mgt Todd watch for details September 14LGBTQ Monthly Mixer at San Rafael Joe’s **from 4th Street entrance
*Social Committee event, RSVP required;to RSVP or get on their email list, write to them atsocialcommittee@comcast.net;find a link to their calendar and flyers below ** See flyer below
To join the Spahr Senior Groupon ZoomMondays, 7 to 8 pm, &Thursdays, 12:30 to 2 pm,click the purple button below the Butterfly Heart or here:
New participants are warmly welcomed!If you’re zoom-challenged, let me know and I’ll work with you!
Topical Thursdays12:30 to 2 pm September 1Resiliency What is resiliency? Why is it important? How can you become more resilient and prepared for climate changes, aging, and the challenges of daily life? During this discussion, we will talk about ways in which you can become more resilient, more prepared and more connected to the people and resources you need. We’re looking forward to an engaging, open discussion. Please bring your questions and insights! Our facilitator for this discussion will be Dana Pepp. She is a consultant who works with Marin Center for Independent Living. She enjoys facilitating positive, productive and informative conversations to improve wellness, collaboration and communication within groups and communities. Presented by Dana Pepp http://www.dppconsulting.org
Living Room Mondays7 to 8 pm We share with each other about how we’re doing and have unstructured conversations focused on listening from our hearts and deepening community.
Enjoy the music of Santa Rosa Symphony and Face to Face Board member Roy Zajac & Friends playing Gershwin, Mozart, and more in a stunning backyard setting at a private home in Calistoga. Light bites and wines by Merriam Vineyards with proceeds benefiting The Santa Rosa Symphony League and Face 2 Face.
Saint Kitts and Nevis’ colonial-era law banning same-sex relations has been struck down in a “historic moment” for the Caribbean country.
On Monday (29 August), the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court struck down sections 56 and 57 of the Offences Against The Person Act which banned the “abominable crime” of “buggery”.
The law carried a maximum penalty of 10 years with hard labour.
While no evidence showed the longstanding provisions had been enforced in recent years, it seemingly justified the discrimination and violence LGBTQ+ Kittitians and Nevisians face due to societal stigma and shame.
Judge Trevor Ward overturned the parts of the act that criminalised “unnatural offences” and compared them to “bestiality”, which he said was unconstitutional.
He wrote in his judgment: “The absolute nature of the prohibition created by sections 56 and 57 are not reasonably justified in a democratic society in circumstances where they proscribe sexual acts between consenting adults in private, which involve no element of public conduct or harm to, or sexual acts, with minors.”
“To the extent that it criminalises the private lives of gay persons in this year, the law is excessive and arbitrary,” he continued, adding that the sections “fail to meet the constitutional qualification of being … in the interest of public morality.”
Ward added: “Section 56 of the act shall be read as if the words ‘This section shall not apply to consensual sexual acts between adults in private’ were added at the end of the section.”
The court’s verdict immediately went into effect.
“This is a transformative journey and a step to full recognition of LGBTQ persons across the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States,” Kenita Placide, executive director of the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality (ECADE), said.
“An affirmative decision means a yes to privacy and a yes to freedom of expression.”
Jamal Jeffers, a gay man, brought the constitutional challenge in January 2021 arguing that sections 56 and 57 breached constitutional rights to freedom of expression and privacy, and should be made null and void.
Joined by advocacy group St Kitts and Nevis Alliance for Equality, the claimants sought orders for same-sex acts to not be an offence if committed privately between “persons 16 years of age or more”, their motion read.
Saint Kitts and Nevis were among the first islands in the Caribbean to be colonised by the British, bringing with them centuries-old laws that outlawed homosexuality.
Section 56 read: “Any person who is convicted of the abominable crime of buggery, committed either with mankind or with any animal, shall be liable to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding ten years, with or without hard labour.”
Former British colonies Barbados, Dominica, Guyana, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines all have similar buggery laws in the books.
“We are witnessing a historic moment in the Caribbean in which antiquated, colonial-era laws are being challenged and struck down,” said Maria Sjödin, executive director of global LGBTQ+ rights group OutRight Action International.
“We are awed by the strategic persistence of activists in the region who are leading the charge to ensure that human rights are advanced and that discriminatory, outdated law like this is overturned. Hopefully, the remaining countries in the region and beyond will follow.”
Anti-LGBTQ users on 4chan targeted the Trevor Projects suicide prevention services on Tuesday in an effort to prevent LGBTQ youth from getting help.
In a post on the notorious platform’s “Politically Incorrect” imageboard, an anonymous user posted a plan to bog down the nonprofit organization’s crisis hotline and online chatswith fake requests for help. The goal was to “f**k up the queue so sodomites and f*gs commit suicide,” to “demoralize the therapists,” and “waste as much of their resources as possible.”
According to The Daily Dot, the original thread appears to have been deleted, but it’s unclear whether it was removed by 4chan or the original poster. A second thread has been archived and was still visible on the site as of Tuesday evening.
Alex Kaplan, a senior researcher at progressive media watchdog org Media Matters for America, posted screenshots of the original post and responses from trolls sharing screenshots of their chats with Trevor Project councilors.
One 4chan user posted a screenshot from the Trevor Project’s online crisis chat saying that “wait times to reach a counselor are higher than usual.”
“The act of attacking a crisis services line intended to prevent suicide among young people is egregious,” the Trevor Project said in a statement. “Our crisis counselors work around the clock to be there for LGBTQ youth who feel like they have nowhere to turn, and it’s harrowing that anybody would attempt to compromise our lifeline or encourage suicide.”
“LGBTQ youth are at significantly increased risk for suicide—not because of anything inherent about their identities, but because of the stigma, bullying, violence, and discrimination that they face,” the Trevor Project said. “The incident of users on 4chan who maliciously planned to overtake our crisis lines today is exactly the kind of mistreatment and abuse that contributes to heightened suicide risk. Alarmingly, our research has found that every 45 seconds, an LGBTQ young person attempts suicide. Every second counts when you work in suicide prevention, and we strongly condemn this intent to obstruct our lines and create even more barriers for LGBTQ people who rely on our help. We are working diligently in the face of this disruption to protect our counselors and those youth who need us.”
The Trevor Project became a target of far-right trolls earlier this year when Chaya Raichik, who runs the influential anti-LGBTQ Twitter account “Libs of TikTok,” called the non-profit “a grooming organization” in a tweet that was later deleted. Other anti-LGBTQ organizations and pundits like Moms for Liberty and Lauren Chen followed suit, equating the Trevor Project’s outreach to LGBTQ teens in crisis with giving abusers access to children.
California would present itself as a haven for transgender youth facing discrimination in other states under a bill that advanced Monday, much as it is positioning itself as a sanctuary for those seeking abortions.
The Assembly approved the measure without debate, 48-16, sending it to the Senate for a final vote before lawmakers adjourn at month’s end.
The legislation is designed to provide legal refuge to parents from other states who risk having their transgender children taken away or being criminally prosecuted if they support their children’s access to gender-affirming procedures and other health care.
Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener sought the measure in response to actions in several Republican-dominated states including Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas. He said 19 other states have since introduced similar “trans refuge state” bills.
“Trans kids and their parents are being criminalized and used as political punching bags by right-wing zealots,” he said in a statement. “No one should ever have to worry about being separated from their child simply for allowing that child to be who they are.”
Conservative groups argued the bill could shield parents who use it as a pretext.
The bill mimics a new California law that bars the enforcement of civil judgments against doctors who perform abortions on patients from other states. It’s among several measures designed to make California a sanctuary for people seeking or providing abortions.
The transgender bill would similarly reject any out-of-state court judgments removing transgender children from their parents’ custody because they allowed their children to receive gender-affirming healthcare.
It would also bar California health officials from complying with out-of-state subpoenas seeking medical or related information about people who travel to California for gender-affirming care.
The measure would also prohibit arrests or extraditions of people charged with violating another state’s law that criminalizes allowing a person to receive or provide gender-affirming health care.
Brad Dacus, president of the conservative nonprofit Pacific Justice Institute, said it would allow parents to bring their children to California “under the guise of securing genital surgeries,” a move he equated to “kidnapping children from conservative states.”
It would “make California a safe haven for child abductors and predators” and “condone the taking of children from other states in violation of court orders,” he warned in a fundraising letter to supporters.
The bill would allow judges to take temporary jurisdiction over any child who comes into California for gender-affirming care even if they are brought in by someone other than their parents, objected Greg Burt of the California Family Council.
He said the bill “declares war on parents throughout the country who don’t want their children sterilized because of their gender dysphoria.”
Enormous progress has been achieved in the last 50 years for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in the United States but unfortunately “equality is not yet within reach and in many cases not within sight” for LGBTQ communities, the independent U.N. expert on sexual orientation and gender identity said Tuesday.
Victor Madrigal-Borloz told a U.N. press conference after a 10-day visit to the United States that he applauds President Joe Biden for “very powerful” executive actions during his first days in office seeking to eradicate discrimination and violence against the LGBTQ community. But he said he is “extremely concerned” about a concerted series of actions at the state and local level based “on prejudice and stigma, to attack and to rollback the rights of LGBT persons.”
Madrigal-Borloz said that in access to health, employment, education and housing, the LGBTQ community suffers.
Among young adults aged 18 to 25, for example, LGBTQ people have a 2.2 times greater risk of homelessness, 23% of LGBTQ adults of color have no health coverage, and in a recent study 43% of lesbian, gay and bisexual participants reported having suffered at least one act of discrimination or harassment, he said.
Madrigal-Borloz, a Costa Rican lawyer and human rights advocate, also expressed serious concern at the disproportionate impact of violence against the LGBTQ community.
He cited the National Crime Victimization Survey that found that 20.3% of hate crimes were related to sexual orientation or gender identity bias, significantly disproportionate to the LGBTQ population in the U.S., which he said is usually estimated at between 5% and 8%. He also cited a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that found that bisexual women encountered intimate partner violence at higher rates than other populations, with 46% reporting having been raped and 74.9% reporting being victims of sexual violence other than rape, which he called “extremely worrying.”
Madrigal-Borloz, who was appointed by the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, wrapped up visits to Washington, Birmingham, Alabama, Miami and San Diego at the invitation of the U.S. government. He said he met with over 70 federal, state and local representatives, more than 100 civil society representatives, and people with “lived experience” in the LGBTQ community.
He stressed that his comments Tuesday reflected his preliminary observations, and his final report with recommendations will be presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2023.
“The conclusion of my visit in this preliminary moment is that there are significant efforts being deployed by the current administration to dismantle systems of social exclusion,” Madrigal-Borloz said. But there is also “a significant risk that LGBT persons will be caught in what I have described as a riptide created by all of these actions at local level.”
He said NGOs and human rights defenders have found at least 280 current legislative attempts at the local level that would lead to a regression of LGBTQ rights, “and which also create a terribly polarizing narrative that exacerbates already high and worrisome risks of violence and discrimination.”
As examples, Madrigal-Borloz cited legislation in Alabama making it a felony to provide gender-affirming medical treatment to transgender youth and legislation in Florida nicknamed “don’t say gay” by opponents that bans teachers from talking about sexual orientation or gender identity through the third grade. He also cited limits on comprehensive sexual and gender education, and on participation in sports for transgender people.
He stressed that typically there is no evidence “that any of these measures need to be considered reasonably under a democratic society.”
Madrigal-Borloz, who is also a researcher at Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program, said the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe vs. Wade and a woman’s right to abortion is also “a devastating action” for lesbian, bisexual and transgender women. That’s “because it is members of these communities that actually suffer also disproportionately from unwanted teen pregnancies,” he said.
“They also require statistically more abortions,” he said, “and LGBT persons in general actually benefit enormously from the services concerning sexual and reproductive health provided by abortion providers in different states, and the closure of these centers will affect disproportionately these persons.”
Madrigal-Borloz said suggestions that following the Roe vs. Wade ruling, other precedents could be overturned could have a huge impact on the LGBTQ community, especially if gay marriage was outlawed and homosexuality became a criminal act, as it currently is in more than 65 countries.
He also pointed to early statistics showing that 98% of monkeypox cases are in men who have sex with men, which he said “concerns me greatly because it creates a risk of furthering, and retrenchment of, stigma and discrimination against this population.”
In March of 1947, a Florida court ordered the Ha Ha Club — a nightclub famous for its “female impersonators,” as they were called at the time — to close after declaring it a public nuisance.
The order came just a month after Frank Tuppen, a juvenile probation officer with political ambitions, filed a complaint against the venue. He argued that the club’s performers were “sexual perverts” who had embedded “in the minds of the youngsters” who lived in the area “things immoral” and were “breaking down their character.”
The owner of the club, Charles “Babe” Baker, appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, but in October 1947, it affirmed the lower court’s decision that the club was a public nuisance. “Men impersonating women” in performances that are “nasty, suggestive and indecent” injure the “manners and morals of the people,” the court ruled.
Andrea Kinig at the Ha Ha Club in New York City. Herb Breuer / NY Daily News via Getty Images
Last month, nearly 75 later, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who is widely thought to be eyeing a 2024 presidential run, cited the case that shut down Ha Ha Club in a complaint against Miami restaurant R House over its drag performances.
The 2022 complaint, filed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, threatened to revoke R House’s liquor license, arguing that the establishment violated a state public nuisance law by becoming “manifestly injurious to the morals or manners of the people.”
Historians say the parallels between the R House and the Ha Ha Club complaints, and the fact that DeSantis’ administration cited a 75-year-old court decision, reveal how conservatives are resurfacing a decades-old moral panic about LGBTQ people to target queer spaces.
‘Seeding America with queer consciousness’
Baker first opened the Ha Ha Club in April 1933 in New York City’s Midtown Manhattan neighborhood, where it became “Broadway’s favorite hangout spot,” said Michail Takach, who researched the Ha Ha Club for a book he co-authored, “A History of Milwaukee Drag: Seven Generations of Glamour.”
Later that year, Baker traveled south and opened the club in Hallandale, Florida, about 13 miles north of R House, which is in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood. He opened the club toward the end of the so-called Pansy Craze, which was a time period when drag surged in popularity, particularly in cities, Takach said.
Same-sex sexual relations were illegal at the time in most states, and cross-dressing was criminalized in many cities, though Miami never officially had an anti-cross-dressing law on the books. As a result, Takach said clubs like the Ha Ha Club catered primarily to seemingly straight, cisgender audiences, because drag drew attention and could be a liability to club owners.
Dozens of men dressed as women were locked up on charges of masquerading and indecent exposure at the National Variety Artists’ Exotic Carnival and Ball held at the Manhattan Center in 1962. Bettmann Archive / Getty Images
However, Takach wrote in his book that female impersonator clubs offered gay and gender-nonconforming men that performed at these venues “a safe sanctuary where they could not only embrace their identities but make a name for themselves.”
In Baker’s court testimony, he described how he stood at the club’s door every night and greeted all of the guests. The club held three shows from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., with more than 40 performers who sang, danced and told jokes, according to court documents.
Baker featured some of the most famous female impersonators, including Jackie Maye, whose wardrobe was estimated at the time to have been worth $50,000, Takach said, which would be worth over $1 million in today’s dollars.
His production was also a traveling show, called the Ha Ha Revue, which was inspired by the Jewel Box Revue, a famous touring company of female impersonators — and the first racially integrated drag revue in the country — that operated from 1937 to about 1960, according to Takach’s drag history book.
The traveling version of the Ha Ha Club’s show and the Jewel Box Revue “really did a solid job of seeding America with queer consciousness,” Takach said. “And you have to wonder how much of that played into the gay liberation era — how many children that went to these shows, how many adults that watched these shows, were later part of the gay liberation scene.”
The shows brought queer representation to many cities across the U.S. at a time when gay people were being criminalized and also at a time when drag had fallen “violently out of favor,” Takach said.
“They brought it back in a big way and created a mid-century drag craze in the 1950s that, in some ways, is a parallel and a rival to the RuPaul drag craze of this decade,” he said.
‘A home of perverts, queers, phonies’
On Feb. 2, 1947, after operating his club in Hallandale for 14 years, Baker tried to stop a fight between two customers at the club and called the police. Both he and a customer were arrested for assault and battery, though Baker was never charged, according to court documents.
Just three days later, on Feb. 5, Tuppen — who was running for sheriff of Broward County in an upcoming election — filed his complaint against the club. He claimed multiple men he had arrested for having same-sex sexual relations said they frequented the Ha Ha Club.
James Lathero, the lawyer for the state, asked Tuppen what the general reputation of the Ha Ha Club is, and Tuppen said, “General knowledge, it is nothing but a home of perverts, queers, phonies.” Tuppen’s complaint also alleged that the venue had contributed to “juvenile delinquency” in the county that was “injurious to the manners and morals of the people” residing there.
Baker’s lawyers called more than half a dozen locals who testified that they enjoyed the club’s shows. Baker also testified that his cast had performed for a church and the Kiwanis Club and that it had raised money for the March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization that supports mothers and babies. He also denied that his club was associated with homosexuals and said there was no evidence of “crimes of perversion” at the club.
But the Broward County Circuit Court ultimately declared the Ha Ha Club a public nuisance and ordered it to close in the spring of 1947.
Baker appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, and one of his lawyer’s, Robert Lane, wrote in the appeal that there were no complaints against Baker’s club during its 14 years in business “until an aspirant for a political office decided to complain,” referring to Tuppen and his run for sheriff.
Lane also argued that “there are different views as to what may injure the manners and morals of the public.”
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Despite Baker’s efforts, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s decision in October 1947.
“The lawful evidence presents a dirty picture; the Ha Ha Club looks as if it were a cross between a ‘honky tonk’ and a ‘speak easy,’” wrote Justice William Terrell, who later went on to defend segregation after the Supreme Court struck it down in Brown v. Board of Education. He added that the lower court determined that the Ha Ha Club’s “major connotations were evil, that it was exerting a corrupting influence and that the time had arrived to abate it.”
The case against the Ha Ha Club happened at a time when public support for drag had waned, because law enforcement and media nationwide claimed that gay people were a danger to women and children, Takach said.
“There was a very strong reaction to the liberation that people had felt, and the visibility that gay and lesbian people and gender-nonconforming people had earned during the Pansy Craze,” he said. “It led to many cities creating drag bans, shutting down drag clubs, banning female impersonation completely — silencing the queer nightlife and the queer representation that had really flourished during the Pansy Craze in the early parts of the 1930s.”
‘A cultural panic moment’
Last month, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation alleged in its complaint against R House that a “nearly nude dancer was filmed parading a young girl through the audience” on or about July 3 and that the video ignited public outrage.
Inquired about it during a news conference, DeSantis said the video prompted the department to investigate further, “and what they found was not only were there minors there — and these are sexually explicit drag shows — the bar had a children’s menu. And you think to yourself: ‘Give me a break, what’s going on?’”
People wait in line for a Drag Brunch at R House Wynwood on April 9, 2022 in Miami, Fla. Daniel A. Varela / Tribune News Service via Getty Images
The complaint threatened to revoke R House’s liquor license and cited the Ha Ha Club case, noting that the Florida Supreme Court recognized that “men impersonating women” in the context of “suggestive and indecent” performances can constitute a public nuisance.
R House’s ownership said in an emailed statement last month that it is aware of the complaint and that it is working with the department through its attorney to “rectify the situation.”
“We are an inclusive establishment and welcome all people to visit our restaurant,” the email said. “We are hopeful that Governor DeSantis, a vociferous supporter and champion of Florida’s hospitality industry and small businesses, will see this as what it is, a misunderstanding, and that the matter will be resolved positively and promptly.” Ownership has not returned an additional request for comment.
There are multiple parallels between the Ha Ha Club case and DeSantis’ complaint against R House, historians said, revealing a cultural cycle.
Just as there was a public backlash to increasing queer visibility after the Pansy Craze, historians said conservatives are now pushing back against LGBTQ people winning major rights such as same-sex marriage.
But unlike in decades past, those who oppose LGBTQ equality cannot “attack gay people per se, so the people they attack are actually trans people or trans youth or drag queens, and then only in connection with children,” said Michael Bronski, a professor of women and gender studies at Harvard University and author of “A Queer History of the United States for Young People.”
Bronski called the backlash against drag today part of a “cultural panic moment,” and Takach said it’s happened throughout history in the U.S.
“People get drawn in by the glamor, and it’s a novelty,” he said of drag, “and then something happens, and the entire community turns on it.”
Maxx Fenning, the president and founder of Prism, a nonprofit that works to expand access to LGBTQ-inclusive education in South Florida, said the complaint against R House, like the one filed against the Ha Ha Club 75 years ago, shows how laws related to “public morals” can be used to disproportionately censor LGBTQ people and topics.
“This Florida Supreme Court case noted that men impersonating women is not in and of itself a verifiable offense, but it’s doing it in an indecent fashion,” he said. “You see very often this use of vague and subjective language to be able to create laws and rulings that seem common sense, but have just enough vagueness to be applied in ways that unnecessarily silence the queer community.”
As for the Ha Ha Club, Babe Baker didn’t shut down his performance after the club was forced to close. In fact, he moved it to about a mile away, to a club called Leon & Eddie’s, a nightclub first opened in New York City by Leon Enker and Eddie Davis and later moved to Miami.
He also started advertising in a “curious” fashion, Takach said. He placed ads in the Miami Herald that prominently featured the word “gay” in phrases like “gay laughs,” “gay surprises,” “gay faces,” “gay music” and “gay dancing.” Even though gay wasn’t widely used at the time to refer to queer people, Takach said Baker chose the word intentionally.
Prior to opening the Ha Ha Club in New York, Baker worked at the Howdy Club, which Takach described as “an unapologetic lesbian bar” and one of the first places in Manhattan to hire lesbians as entertainers and allow women to gather and drink without male company. Takach said it was raided by police regularly, and that the word “howdy” became synonymous code for queer.
The word “gay” similarly became a code in Baker’s newspaper ads, and the Miami Daily News caught on in 1952, Takach said. The paper criticized the Miami Herald, its competitor, for running ads for clubs like Baker’s on one page and then condemning the clubs in the Herald’s editorials. “The words ‘gay,’ ‘ha ha’ and ‘howdy’ have become beacons pointing to the hands of the perverts,” the Miami Daily News wrote, according to Takach.
Baker’s cast performed four times a night at Leon & Eddie’s, and they also went on tour across the country, selling out weeks of shows in cities including Milwaukee; Detroit; Dayton, Ohio; Minneapolis; and Spokane, Washington, Takach said.
“You could say that Broward County won the battle, but Babe Baker won the war.”
Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) order to investigate the parents of transgender youth for child abuse caused behind-the-scenes tumult at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services caused by, according to internal emails.
In February, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton (R) issued a non-binding opinion stating that gender affirming health care for transgender youth is a form of child abuse. A week later, the governor directed DFPS to investigate parents who support their transgender children and allow them access to gender affirming medical care prescribed by their doctors in a letter sent to the agency.
“I will resign,” one staffer wrote in February in response to DFPS associate commissioner for statewide intake Stephen Black’s emailed guidance on Abbott’s directive. The same employee wrote in a separate email to a colleague, “I have told my boss I will resign before I (report) on a family whose child is transitioning.”
Another employee wrote in an email to her supervisor that the directive was “Effing bull poop.”
Last week, the Houston Chronicle published a report in which several former DFPS employees said they had left the agency because of Abbott’s order regarding the families of transgender children. In April, The Texas Tribunereported that more than a dozen child abuse investigators said they had either resigned or were actively looking for new jobs for the same reason.
According to WFAA, 11 DFPS investigations have been opened related to Abbott’s directive, eight of which have been closed.
“None of the investigations have resulted in a removal of a child,” said DFPS media relations director Marissa Gonzales.
In June, a Texas judge issued a temporary injunction halting the investigations into the three remaining families.
EuroPride has defiantly vowed to host the event in Belgrade even after Serbia’s president claimed it has been cancelled.
For Serbia’s LGBTQ+ community, hosting EuroPride in the capital city in September was intended as a way to celebrate diversity and push for more rights in the deeply conservative country.
But Serbia’s strongman president, Aleksandar Vučić, claimed EuroPride won’t be happening amid growing tension with Kosovo, he said at a press conference in Belgrade on Saturday (27 August).
The leader of the nationalist Serbian Progressive Party told reporters: “The Pride parade that was scheduled for the month of September will be postponed or cancelled, or whatever that miracle is called, it doesn’t matter.
“We can’t at this moment when we have both the open Balkans and the crisis in Kosovo and Metohija that will not end at least until 31 October, we have no progress, we have nowhere to move. We have to deal with energy, and drought, we have many crises.”
He said prime minister Ana Brnabić on behalf of the government “will explain everything in accordance with the law”, according to television network Nova S.
But EuroPride won’t be shut down anytime soon, European Pride Organisers Association (EPOA) president Kristine Garina said.
“President Vučić cannot cancel someone else’s event. EuroPride is not cancelled, and will not be cancelled,” the Latvian activist said.
“EuroPride in Belgrade will not be cancelled and will bring together thousands of LGBTI+ people from across Europe with LGBTI+ people from Serbia and the wider western Balkans.”
Garina pointed to a letter to the EPOA in 2019 from Brnabić in which she backed Belgrade Pride’s bid to host EuroPride.
Serbian president Aleksandar Aleksandar Vučić said EuroPride was ‘cancelled’. (Milos Miskov/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“The government I lead is committed to ensuring the full respect of human rights and of all citizens and we hereby promise to help the Belgrade Pride organising team in ensuring a safe and successful organisation of EuropPride in Belgrade in 2022,” she wrote at the time.
To ban a Pride event, Garina said, would violate Serbia’s commitment to the European Convention of Human Rights.
“Aside from the illegality of such a ban, it must be noted that those opposing EuroPride in Belgrade are using tired old tropes, inaccuracies and downright lies to discredit what is, in fact, a celebration of human rights and equality,” she continued.
“They say that we are against family values when all of us comes from a family and many of us have families of our own. They say that we are child abusers when we all stand firm against all child abuse.”
EuroPride, a nearly month-long festival, has been held almost every year since 1992 when London, England, first hosted the event.
Belgrade Pride won the right to host EuroPride in a landslide vote by the EPOA, the European counterpart of the InterPride association, in 2019.
British-Serbian activist Nik Jovčić-Sas sees tensions are higher than ever before as Vučić drags the country further and further right.
“Vučić is simply pandering to the far-right, who are violently opposed to EuroPride. It’s hard to know if this is serious or just political manoeuvring – the president cannot ban a public gathering, only the police have that power and they have yet to do so,” Jovčić-Sas told PinkNews.
Since Vučić won the presidency in 2017, the quality of Serbian democracy has fallen from “free” to only “partly free”, according to Freedom House, an independent rights research group.
If the president does find a way to make LGBTQ+ Serb’s dreams of hosting the event come crashing down, Jovčić-Sas expects the backlash to be swift.
“We will not allow compromise on our fundamental human rights,” he said.
