Gary Carnivele
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Food for Thought Yoga Benefit Series is back
Our Yoga Benefit Series is back for a third year, and better than ever! Join us for the first of four classes, raising money and awareness for Food For Thought to keep bringing healthy food and love to thousands of people living with serious medical conditions and food insecurity in Sonoma County. The first 75 minute Hatha/Vinyasa yoga class will be taught by our resident yoga teacher, Elana, taking place at River Road Family Vineyards & Winery in Sebastopol on Tuesday, March 26 at 5:30 PM. This year will feature an amazing exclusive raffle, sponsored by Bliss Organic Day Spa. Just choose the “Supporter” pass at registration to be entered to win. 100% of all proceeds support the cause. This event is a great way to introduce your loved ones to Food For Thought in a fun, enjoyable way while giving back at the same time! |
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Over a dozen LGBTQ nonprofits among recipients of billionaire MacKenzie Scott’s latest donations
MacKenzie Scott, a billionaire philanthropist and the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is giving $640 million to hundreds of nonprofit groups, including dozens of organizations that support LGBTQ people.
Scott announced Tuesday that the 361 community-led nonprofit groups were selected from a pool of more than 6,000 applications received since last year, when she announced that her organization, Yield Giving, was launching an “open call” for nonprofit groups it could fund. The $640 million is more than double the $250 million Scott pledged to fund at the start of the open call.
The nonprofit groups, many of which Scott said “have met with discrimination and other systemic obstacles,” were chosen through a peer review process and an evaluation panel “for their outstanding work advancing the voices and opportunities of individuals and families of meager or modest means,” she said in a statement Tuesday.
Scott described the recipients as “vital agents of change.”
Among the chosen groups are dozens that support LGBTQ people and at least 14 LGBTQ-focused nonprofit organizations, including EDGE New Jersey and Carolinas CARE Partnership, which support people living with or at risk of HIV; Gender Justice, a Minnesota-based LGBTQ legal and policy advocacy group; and LGBTQ community centers in Cleveland and the California cities of Sacramento and Long Beach.
Kat Rohn, executive director of OutFront Minnesota, an LGBTQ advocacy group founded in 1987, said the $2 million it was awarded is larger than its entire annual budget.
“This has been over a year in the making, and we are just tremendously excited to be one of the recipients and one of a handful of Minnesota groups to be in the recipient pool,” Rohn said.
Rohn added that the organization plans to use some of the funds to support outreach to more rural communities in the state and to its anti-violence program, which provides crisis intervention services, confidential crisis counseling and other advocacy services for LGBTQ victims and survivors of violence and harassment.
“We’ve been increasingly doing more outreach to Greater Minnesota and to rural communities outside of the Twin Cities metro area, and so being able to really fund travel to those areas, engagement with local organizing groups, and support for services and connections in those spaces is a really important part of how we broaden the message of inclusion and really make sure that folks all across our state are experiencing equity and support wherever they are,” Rohn said.
Yield Giving also awarded $1 million to GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, a national LGBTQ legal advocacy group. Carole Allen-Scannell, GLAD’s director of development, said the funding will help the organization better address the hundreds of bills filed in recent years that target LGBTQ people, particularly transgender youths, by restricting their access to transition-related health care and barring them from playing school sports on the teams that align with their gender identities.
She also said it will also help the group advocate for positive legislation, such as a recently passed bill in Michigan awaiting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signature that would ensure children born to LGBTQ parents will have a legal tie to their parents, if, for example, they were conceived through IVF.
“It’s something that’s going to really empower us to show up where we’re needed and when we’re needed,” Allen-Scannell said of the award.
In latest move, Russia adds ‘LGBT movement’ to official list of extremists and terrorists
Russia has added what it calls the “LGBT movement” to a list of extremist and terrorist organizations, state media said on Friday.
The move was in line with a ruling by Russia’s Supreme Court last November that LGBTQ activists should be designated as extremists, a move that representatives of gay and transgender people said they feared would lead to arrests and prosecutions.
The list is maintained by an agency called Rosfinmonitoring that has powers to freeze the bank accounts of the more than 14,000 people and entities designated as extremists and terrorists. They range from Al Qaeda to U.S. tech giant Meta and associates of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The new listing refers to the “international LGBT social movement and its structural units,” state news agency RIA said.
As part of a shift under President Vladimir Putin towards what he portrays as family values that contrast with decadent Western attitudes, Russia has tightened restrictions over the past decade on expressions of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Among other steps, it has passed laws outlawing the promotion of “non-traditional” sexual relations and banned legal or medical changes of gender.
Sens. Butler, Smith introduce Pride in Mental Health Act to aid at-risk LGBTQ youth
U.S. Sens. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) introduced the Pride in Mental Health Act on Thursday, legislation that would strengthen resources in mental health and crisis intervention for at-risk LGBTQ youth.
“Accessing mental health care and support has become increasingly difficult in nearly every state in the country,” said Butler, who is the first Black LGBTQ senator. “Barriers get even more difficult if you are a young person who lacks a supportive community or is fearful of being outed, harassed, or threatened.”
“I am introducing the Pride in Mental Health Act to help equip LGBTQ+ youth with the resources to get the affirming and often life-saving care they need,” she said.
“Mental health care is health care,” said Smith. “And for some LGBTQ+ youth, receiving access to the mental health care they need can mean the difference between living in safety and dignity, and suffering alone through discrimination, bullying, and even violence.”
The Minnesota senator added that data shows LGBTQ students are experiencing “an epidemic” of “anxiety, depression and other serious mental health conditions.”
For example, a 2023 study by The Trevor Project found that 54 percent of LGBTQ youth reported symptoms of depression, compared to 35 percent of their heterosexual counterparts.
Joining the senators as cosponsors are Democratic U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.), Bob Casey (Penn.), Peter Welch (Vt.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Cory Booker (N.J.), and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.). Baldwin was the first LGBTQ woman elected to the House in 1999 and the first LGBTQ woman elected to the Senate in 2013.
Leading the House version of the bill are LGBTQ Democratic U.S. Reps. Sharice Davids (Kan.), Eric Sorensen (Ill.), and Ritchie Torres (N.Y.), along with 163 other House members.
Organizations that have backed the Pride in Mental Health Act include the Human Rights Campaign, GLSEN, American Academy of Pediatrics, National Education Association (NEA), National Center for Transgender Equality, Seattle Indian Health Board, PFLAG National, The Trevor Project, American Psychological Association, Whitman-Walker Institute, InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth, National Alliance on Mental Illness, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Mental Health America, and Center for Law and Social Policy.
Christian actress spent 5 years in court defending her right to make anti-LGBTQ+ comments. She just lost.
Actress Seyi Omooba has been ordered to pay £300,000 ($381,767) in legal costs after losing the religious discrimination case she brought against her former agents and a theater in Leicester, England after being fired from a production of The Color Purple for an anti-LGBTQ+ statement she made on social media.
Omooba was cast to play the lead role of Celie in the Curve Theatre’s 2019 production of the musical based on out author Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel. As in Walker’s novel, Celie’s same-sex romance with blues singer Shug Avery is prominently featured in the musical adaptation. Their romance gradually empowers Celie to stand up to her abusive husband.
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Soon after Omooba was cast in the role however, a 2014 Facebook post in which Omooba wrote that homosexuality goes against “the word of God” resurfaced online.
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“I do not believe you can be born gay, and I do not believe homosexuality is right, though the law of this land has made it legal doesn’t mean it’s right,” Omooba wrote in the post. “I do believe that everyone sins and falls into temptation but it’s by the asking of forgiveness, repentance and the grace of God that we overcome and live how God ordained us to, which is that a man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.”
Omooba, who has claimed that she is not homophobic, later said that she was urged by Curve Theatre to publicly disavow the old post, but she refused, saying, “I did not want to lie just to keep a job.” Omooba was dropped from the production of The Color Purple, and she sued the theater and her former agents, who also dropped her, for religious discrimination. “I want to make sure no other Christian has to go through something like this,” she said in 2019.
After hearing testimony in 2021 that Omooba had previously told her agents that she refused to play gay roles and had not bothered to read the script for the musical version of The Color Purple before accepting the role, an employment tribunal dismissed the actor’s religious discrimination claim, The Telegraphreported. The tribunal agreed with Curve Theatre that Omooba had not been fired for her Christian beliefs, but rather because her anti-LGBTQ+ statements would have likely led to “catastrophic” backlash for the theater if she had appeared in the queer role.
Omooba, represented by the Christian Legal Centre and anti-LGBTQ+ organization Christian Concern, appealed the decision.
Earlier this month, an employment appeal tribunal again ruled against Omooba, ordering her to pay £300,000 in legal costs. Justice Jennifer Eady agreed with the previous ruling that the actor had not been dismissed for her Christian beliefs, Leicestershire Live reported.
“Moreover, as the claimant knew she would not play a lesbian character, but had not raised this with the theatre, or sought to inform herself as to the requirements of the role, she was in repudiatory breach of her express obligations and of the implied term of trust and confidence,” Eady said.
“I have long forgiven all those who have sought to ruin my theatre career,” Omooba said in a statement following the ruling, “but the theatre world needs to be told, loud and clear, that canceling people for their Christian beliefs is illegal and wrong.”
According to the BBC, Omooba’s lawyers said they intend to appeal Eady’s decision.
Antiquated HIV laws excessively target Black men for actions that don’t even transmit the virus
Ohio activists are arming themselves with new data in the battle to repeal antiquated laws across the country that criminalize people with HIV.
Two reports, one released by Equality Ohio with the Ohio Health Modernization Movement, and another from The Williams Institute at UCLA, look at the criminalization of HIV in the Buckeye State. They discovered that over half of prosecutions for so-called “HIV crimes” were for acts statistically unlikely to transmit HIV.
Ohio has six laws on the books that either criminalize certain acts by people living with HIV or substantially increase sentences for them compared to other people in the criminal justice system who do not carry the virus.
Those acts include sex with other adults regardless of the HIV-positive person’s therapy or viral count, and “harassment” by bodily fluids, such as spitting, or throwing urine, feces or blood at someone. Only exposure to blood would result in HIV infection.
Most of Ohio’s HIV laws were written at the height of AIDS panic in the 1980s and early ’90s, before research and experience clarified the limits of HIV infection and effective therapies made living with HIV a reality.
HIV laws remain on the books in 34 states.
The studies also found a disproportionate number of people charged with HIV-related crimes were Black, compared to Ohio’s total population.
“Ohio is unique in that these antiquated laws are actually being utilized and enforced against everyday Ohioans who are living with HIV,” Kate Mozynski, an attorney with Equality Ohio and one of the co-authors of the organization’s report told the Buckeye Flame.
In 2022, about 25,000 people in Ohio were living with HIV, while new diagnoses ticked down from 985 in 2018 to 866. Forty-seven percent of new diagnoses were among Black people, making their infection rate nearly seven times higher than the white population’s.
More than half of new diagnoses were among people aged 20 to 34. Men having sex with men accounted for fifty-six percent of the transmission rate.
Ohio is also one of six states that require anyone convicted of “HIV crimes” to register as a sex offender. Louisiana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Arkansas and Washington State round out that list.
The Williams Institute looked at arrests under Ohio’s six laws over two decades, as well as felony prosecutions from 2009 to 2022 in Cuyahoga County, the state’s most populous county, which is home to Cleveland.
They discovered nearly half of the cases were for HIV-positive individuals who had consensual sex without disclosing their status to their partner, regardless of their viral load and whether or not the other individual contracted the virus that causes AIDS.
As activists fight for repeal at the state level, the Biden administration is deploying the Justice Department to address discriminatory HIV laws.
In December, the DOJ notified Tennessee it was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act for enforcing a state law that increases penalties for people convicted of prostitution if they’re also HIV-positive. Federal charges were filed against the state in February.
Idaho considers a ban on using public funds or facilities for transgender care
Idaho lawmakers are expected to vote this week on a bill that would ban the use of any public funds for gender-affirming care, including for state employees using work health insurance and for adults covered by Medicaid.
The legislation already passed the House and only needs to clear the majority Republican Senate before it is sent to Gov. Brad Little’s desk, where it would likely be signed into law. The Republican governor has said repeatedly he does not believe public funds should be used for gender-affirming care.
If the legislation is enacted, Idaho would become at least the 10th state to ban Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care for people of all ages, according to the advocacy and information organization Movement Advancement Project. The laws are part of an ongoing national battle over the rights of LGBTQ Americans.
Opponents to the Idaho bill say it almost certainly will lead to a lawsuit in federal court. The state has already been sued multiple times over attempts to deny gender-affirming care to transgender residents and so far has not had much success defending the lawsuits.
In one case, the state was ordered to provide a transgender inmate with gender-transition surgery, and the inmate was later awarded roughly $2.5 million in legal fees.
Last year a federal judge barred Idaho from enforcing its newly enacted ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors until a lawsuit brought by transgender youth and their families is resolved. A different federal judge denied the state’s motion to dismiss a separate lawsuit filed by adults in 2022 who said Medicaid officials wrongly denied coverage for their medically necessary gender-affirming treatment.
“This bill violates the 14th Amendment equal protections clause” and the federal Medicaid Act, Boise attorney Howard Belodoff told lawmakers during a hearing on Thursday.
Belodoff represents the transgender adults who sued the state over what they said were discriminatory Medicaid policies excluding coverage for genital reconstruction surgery.
“You cannot distinguish between providing care on the basis of diagnosis, type of illness or condition,” Belodoff said. “That’s exactly what this bill does: it violates the Medicaid Act.”
One of the bill’s sponsors, Republican Rep. Bruce Skaug, said those lawsuits prompted creation of the bill.
“This is a taxpayer protection bill in my view,” Skaug said, suggesting that without it the state could end up paying millions for gender-affirming care. Roughly 70% of Idaho’s Medicaid program is federally funded.
Some who testified against the bill suggested it could have a far larger reach than intended by eliminating gender-affirming care for even privately insured residents living in rural areas with only state-funded medical centers.
Isaac Craghtten, an Idaho Department of Correction employee, noted that many correctional employees work 12- to 16-hour shifts, which can require taking some prescribed medications like hormone therapy while on the job.
But the legislation bars the use of any state property, facility or building for providing surgical operations or medical interventions, which could mean employees would be subject to criminal penalties for taking their own legally prescribed medication while in a break room, Craghtten said.
The punishment for violating the law would include fines ranging from $300 to $10,000 and imprisonment between one and 14 years.
At least 23 states including Idaho have passed laws banning gender-affirming care for minors. Some states also have considered policies that experts say would make it more difficult for transgender adults to receive care, such as eliminating telehealth options or requiring repeated psychological examinations for continued gender-affirming treatment.
Major medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, oppose gender-affirming care bans and have endorsed such care, saying it is safe when administered properly.
While courts have blocked the enforcement of gender-affirming care bans for minors in Idaho, Montana and Arkansas, they have allowed enforcement in Alabama and Georgia.
Help Positive Images Create A Sonoma County Where all LGBTQIA+ People Thrive
Belong and Thrive
For 33 years, Positive Images has been a key resource for serving the diverse needs of LGBTQIA+ individuals. We have seen firsthand the unique needs and barriers (as well as joy and strengths) that comes with identifying as Queer and/or Trans. Because of this, we are disheartened by lack of LGBTQIA+ data in Sonoma County data collection efforts, such as the Portrait of Sonoma County, and inspired to create a needs assessment that represents our community. Although we praise the work of the Portrait, the report as it stands overlooks the nuanced challenges faced by LGBTQIA+ individuals when it comes to systemic issues such as education, income, housing, health and more. In order for us to be seen and taken into consideration by decision-makers, it is important to account for LGBTQIA+ representation as an intersection of identity in reports like these.
This is where your support becomes transformational. Your organization can join us in supporting this work in several ways:
1. Share the link to our online bilingual survey with your networks and/or on your social platforms from now until August. Please see attached graphics for social media posts. http://tinyurl.com/LGBTQIAneeds
2. Help us facilitate connections with professionals who identify as LGBTQIA+ and/or who work directly with the LGBTQIA+ community so that we may conduct key-informant interviews.
Your partnership in this initiative is not only an investment to create a more inclusive Sonoma County but also a powerful statement affirming the diverse voices within the LGBTQIA+ community!
Texas appeals court blocks state from probing transgender kids’ parents
A Texas appeals court on Friday upheld a lower court’s injunction blocking the state from investigating parents who provide their transgender children with gender-affirming medical treatments, which Gov. Greg Abbott has called abusive.
Abbott, a Republican, had ordered the state Department of Family Protective Services to carry out child abuse investigations into families whose children were receiving puberty-blocking treatments in February 2022.
A month later, a district court judge imposed a statewide temporary injunction on such investigations, saying the probes endangered children and their families.
The appeals court in Austin upheld the district court judge’s injunction in a pair of rulings on Friday, delivering a victory to LGBTQ groups, medical professionals and civil liberties advocates opposing moves by conservative politicians in dozens of states to criminalize the provision of gender-affirming treatments for trans youth.
“This is a much-needed victory for trans youth and those who love and support them,” the American Civil Liberties Union said on X on Friday.
Representatives for Abbott and the DFPS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ACLU and Lambda Legal challenged Abbott’s order on behalf of the family of a 16-year-old transgender girl targeted for investigation.
The child had taken puberty-delaying medications and hormone therapy. Her mother was a DFPS employee and was put on paid administrative leave after asking what Abbott’s directive would mean for her family.
In 2022, the district court judge said the governor’s order could cause “irreparable injury” to families, given the stigma attached to being targets of a child abuse investigation, as well as the loss of livelihood.
Texas restricted gender-affirming care for youth in 2023, making it one of more than a dozen states that currently bars young transgender people from receiving certain puberty-blockers and hormone therapies, according to the Human Rights Campaign.