In an assault outside a popular San Francisco leather bar early Sunday morning, a gay man sustained severe internal and external injuries and suffered a heart attack.
As Barry Miles left the popular Folsom Street venue, Powerhouse, on the night of February 4, two men attacked him and stole his wallet.
On Instagram, he shared stunning photos showing his bloodied, bruised, battered, and swollen face, making it hard for him to be recognized.
“My face hit the sidewalk,” he wrote on Instagram. “[A]lso a front tooth was knocked out, and [I have] a small fracture in my neck.”
He added, “I’m pretty banged up.”
He also said that he also had a heart attack due to high cholesterol, for which he had to have two coronary stents placed.
A well-being check was conducted on nearby Langton Street just minutes after midnight on Sunday, February 5, according to the San Francisco Police Department, the San Francisco Standardreports.
“The victim was unable to provide details regarding what led up to his injuries,” police officials told the outlet. “Officers responded to a business on the 1300 block of Folsom Street, where the male stated he had come from, and during their initial investigation, officers were unable to determine that a crime had occurred at that location.”
A leader in the San Francisco Bay Area’s LGBTQ+ community set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for Miles. Gary Virginia wrote in the fundraiser’s description that Miles is self-employed and asked for any size donation to help Miles recover.
Barry’s Recovery Fund after an assault & robbery, organized by Gary Virginia
At the hospital, he is receiving treatment for injuries that are not life-threatening but will require extensive medical care. Miles’ return to work has not been determined since he runs a housekeeping business. The fund states it will be used to pay Miles’ living expenses and to cover the cost of an expensive front tooth implant.
“Barry is a community leader, titleholder, volunteer, and fundraiser for many organizations that have benefited numerous charities near and far,” the fundraiser says. He is involved in the Krewe de Kinque Mardi Gras club and appeared in a charity Bare Chest Calendar, among other activities.
As of publication, the fundraiser earned more than its original $10,000 goal.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis filed a complaint against the Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation alleging that the nonprofit group held a sexually explicit drag show in December in the presence of minors.
The complaint, filed Friday through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco and shared with NBC News, alleges the foundation violated Florida statutes on lewdness and maintaining a public nuisance and seeks to revoke its liquor license.
The administration cited the same decades-old case in its complaint against the foundation and argued that it is “operating and maintaining a nuisance” that injures “the health of the citizens in general” or corrupts “the public morals.”
DeSantis’ administration announced Dec. 27, the day before the foundation’s show, that it was investigating the performance after receiving “multiple complaints,” according to Bryan Griffin, the governor’s press secretary.
The administrative complaint says the foundation — which owns and operates The Plaza Live theater and supports the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra — advertised “A Drag Queen Christmas,” a performance being held at the theater, as holiday-themed and welcoming of all ages.
The Plaza Live theater in Orlando, Fla. Google
The department said in its complaint that it sent a letter to the foundation prior to the show and notified it that “sexually explicit drag show performances constitute public nuisances, lewd activity, and disorderly conduct when minors are in attendance” and, if the foundation didn’t prohibit minors from the show, The Plaza Live could lose its liquor license.
Despite the warning, the complaint says, the foundation allowed minors to attend and posted a sign outside the entrance that read: “While we are not restricting access to anyone under 18 please be advised some may think the content is not appropriate for under 18.”
According to the complaint, the show featured “acts of sexual conduct,” simulated sexual activity and “lewd” displays, including performers intentionally exposing prosthetic female breasts and prosthetic genitalia to the audience. The show also included “sexualized adaptations” of popular Christmas songs, such as “Screwdolph the Red-Nippled Reindeer,” the complaint alleges.
The complaint claims that the foundation violated six Florida statutes by allowing minors to attend the show.
The Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation did not immediately return a request for comment, but its board of directors told the Orlando Sentinel that The Plaza Live has hosted drag performances for eight years, and added that the venue is a “welcoming and inclusive establishment that operates in good faith and compliance with all applicable laws.”
“That includes respecting the rights of parents to decide what content is or is not appropriate for their own children,” the statement said, according to the Sentinel. “We have just been made aware of this administrative complaint and are working with our legal team to evaluate and respond appropriately.”
DeSantis’ complaint against the foundation is part of an escalating campaign against drag shows. In June, for example, former state House Rep. Anthony Sabatini called on the governor to hold an emergency special legislative session to consider legislation that would make it a crime for parents to bring their children to drag shows. That same month, when asked by a reporter whether he would support such legislation, DeSantis noted that the state has child protective statutes “on the books.”
“We have laws against child endangerment,” he said. “It used to be kids would be off-limits. Used to be everybody agreed with that. Now it just seems like there’s a concerted effort to be exposing kids more and more to things that are not age appropriate.”
The governor’s efforts are part of a nationwide backlash against drag and LGBTQ rights more broadly. Nationwide, state lawmakers have introduced at least 200 bills targeting LGBTQ people, according to an NBC News analysis.
At least 13 states have considered bills that would redefine any venue that hosts drag performances as an adult-oriented business or cabaret; some of the bills, including two in West Virginia, would also make it a crime for a person who is dressed as a sex different than the one they were assigned at birth to perform at all in front of minors.
The National Hockey League finds itself on thin ice with some conservatives as a new target in the U.S. culture war.
In the run-up to its All-Star Game in Florida on Saturday, the league has sought to put its efforts aimed at promoting diversity and inclusion front and center. But those moves have drawn sharp criticism from powerful conservatives, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a leading contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the most-watched primetime cable news host, and sparked controversy on and off the ice.
There’s little indication those tensions will soon wane. Amid calls for change from both inside and outside the sport, the NHL and its teams have sought to address past instances of racism and abuse, diversify its workforce and foster a welcoming environment for LGBTQ fans and athletes. In doing so, the league has promoted semi-regular “Pride” nights at games, conducted a top-to-bottom diversity and inclusion assessment of itself and appealed to racial and ethnic groups who have traditionally not made up a significant portion of the league’s workforce.
At the same time, leading conservatives argue that some of those initiatives are openly discriminatory toward straight white men — who still make up the vast majority of team and league employees — or impede on religious freedom. DeSantis, ahead of his potential presidential bid, has strategically picked fights on social issues with large corporations and entities like Disney, the College Board and the NHL when they are operating in his state, which he has said is where “woke goes to die.”
Shaun Anderson, an assistant professor at Loyola Marymount University who focuses on the intersection of sports and social justice initiatives, said the idea that the NHL’s recent efforts at changing hockey culture are too “woke” is comical. For years, it lagged behind contemporary leagues like the NFL and NBA when it came to addressing social, cultural and political issues.
“I kind of laugh, because the [idea of the] woke NHL,” he said, “I’m like, ‘well, they must’ve woken up yesterday.”
It’s in Florida where one of the more prominent face-offs took place. Weeks ago, the league published a post on LinkedIn advertising its “Pathway to Hockey Summit,” an informational career event the NHL ultimately hosted Thursday at the start of its All-Star weekend festivities. The forum was described as being for “those that have historically not been exposed to hockey” to learn more about opportunities within the game.
It included a note that read: “Participants must be 18 years of age or older, based in the U.S., and identify as female, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and/or a person with a disability. Veterans are also welcome and encouraged to attend.”
The league subsequently said the phrasing was a mistake and replaced the post, but not before DeSantis’ office condemned it in a statement and called for the “discriminatory prohibitions” on attendance be removed.
“Discrimination of any sort is not welcome in the state of Florida, and we do not abide by the woke notion that discrimination should be overlooked if applied in a politically popular manner or against a politically unpopular demographic,” spokesman Bryan Griffin said in a statement.
After the change, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told The Athletiche did not “want to get way into all of this” and “increase the debate on it” but said the event had been “mischaracterized.” DeSantis himself highlighted the episode, telling Fox News: “We’re not going to indulge in this woke conceit that it’s OK to discriminate against some people if that’s politically correct to do so and so we made it very clear to the NHL that they were running afoul of our laws.
“They reversed course very quickly,” he said. “And our society’s better when we’re all treated equally and all treated as individuals and not as members of groups.”
Florida state Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican, described the NHL’s description of the initiative as openly racist and said the league folded on the issue because they did not have “a publicly palatable position.”
“People engage in sports to get away from politics,” he said. “The notion of using these vehicles to jam this down people’s throats, I think it’s short-sighted, I think it’s a terrible business strategy.”
He added, however, that he did not find anything wrong with a private business wanting to diversify its workforce, but he objected to the framing of this event.
“Had the thing said, ‘Hey, we’re having a diversity event, and we’d love folks from these groups to come, but everybody’s welcome, I don’t think it would have gotten on the governor’s radar screen,” he said. “But the event literally said white men are forbidden from attending. That should bother people.”
Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat, countered that the league “backtracking” from the post in light of DeSantis’ pushback was “dangerous” and, when considered with DeSantis’ broad actions on social issues, “should be a national concern for everyone.”
“Hockey is just not a sport that’s popular within the Black community,” Jones said. “The fact that the NHL saw it to be necessary to reach across to lend a hand to bring Blacks and others to appreciate the sport, that is the stance of right. That is being inclusive. That is making sure that everybody can enjoy hockey. … This will cause long-term effects if companies start bowing down to this authoritarian, fascist way of leadership that we’re seeing.”
Though the league changed its promotion of the event, the summit did take place as originally scheduled on Thursday and, as the Associated Press reported, was focused on diversity efforts. Kim Davis, the NHL’s executive vice president of social impact, growth and legislative affairs, told the outlet the league does not “mind the hard questions being asked, as long as the assessment is fair.”
The NHL did not respond to a request to speak with Davis for comment for this story.
Former NHL forward Brandon Bochenski, now the Republican mayor of Grand Forks, North Dakota, thought it was inevitable that the same forces for social change that have pushed for progress in other sports would soon shape hockey.
“The NHL was the next target, I suppose,” he said. “It’s tough, because diversity is more than skin color and sexuality. I think a lot of people believe that.”
One reason the NHL has traditionally attracted a majority white audience and talent pool is that the game is most popular in countries with lengthy and sustained winters — such as Canada, Russia and Scandinavian countries — that are less racially diverse.
And in the United States, the sport’s high costs for skates, pads, sticks and other equipment and fees have also often made it a more exclusive sport, limited to affluent communities — an issue Bochenski said the league should be at the forefront of solving.
But Bochenski said the backgrounds of people in the sport are more varied than they first appear.
“I don’t think that hockey on the cover maybe looks as diverse as it really is,” he said. “If you get in there and you talk to guys, whether they come from different faiths, different families, different upbringings, how they treat people, there’s a lot more to it. So I think it frustrates people when it’s really just focused on only skin color and sexuality because you do have a pretty diverse group of people that are making up the NHL.”
The league has skated into thorny issues beyond the DeSantis dust-up in recent weeks. Ahead of a “Pride Night” game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Anaheim Ducks last month, Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov opted against participating in the pre-game skate because he refused to wear the pride-themed warm-up jersey, saying after the contest he wanted “to stay true to myself and my religion.” The incident sparked both backlash against, and support for, the Russian-born player.
Last week, the New York Rangers, aware of how the Provorov situation played out, chose not to wear their scheduled pride-themed warm-ups, with the team saying in a statement the “organization respects the LGBTQ+ community and we are proud to bring attention to important local community organizations as part of another great Pride Night.
“In keeping with our organization’s core values, we support everyone’s individual right to respectfully express their beliefs,” the team added.
Bochenski said both incidents would have created dilemmas within NHL locker rooms, where culture dictates that individuality is set aside for the whole of the team. For the Flyers, “having one [player who] wasn’t going to participate was probably tough for them to decide what to do.
“I think the Rangers decided not to put that pressure on anybody,” he said. “And I don’t know which one’s the right choice.”
In light of each instance, Anderson said the league and individual teams should strive “to always engage in a collaborative effort with the organization that’s putting out the initiative, and the people who are directly affected by it.
“The hope is that you do the right thing. You put these events together, and withstand a backlash,” he said. “Because you’re a multibillion dollar company. Everybody that says, Oh, I’m going to stop watching the NFL or the NHL because it’s ‘woke,’ that’s going to subside.”
“And then,” he continued, “you’re doing right by a group of people who only want a chance at doing something great in sports.”
A bill advancing in North Carolina’s Senate would prohibit instruction about sexuality and gender identity in K-4 public school classes, defying the recommendations of parents, educators and LGBTQ youths who testified against it.
Sponsors of the bill, approved Wednesday by the Senate education committee, say they want to grant parents greater authority over their children’s education and health care.
Sponsor Sen. Amy Galey said that without it, teachers can “shove parents out of the school door” and teach curriculum that conflicts with parents’ beliefs. “It baffles me to think that this bill would be divisive, quite frankly,” Galey told the committee Wednesday.
Hong Kong’s top court ruled Monday that full sex reassignment surgery should not be a prerequisite for transgender people to have their gender changed on their official identity cards, in a move that is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the transgender community.
A transgender activist, Henry Edward Tse, and a person identified only as Q appealed to the court last month over the government’s refusal to change the genders on their ID cards because of their decision not to have full sex reassignment surgeries.
Tse and Q are both transgender men who have had their breasts removed, received hormonal treatments and lived their lives as males with professional support and guidance as well as psychiatric treatment.
The judgment by the Court of Final Appeal is expected to have a wide impact on the LGBTQ community because many of its transgender members consider having the operation unnecessary and risky.
The two went to court because existing government policy allows transgender men to change their official gender only if they have removed their uteruses and ovaries and constructed male genitalia. Only those who cannot undergo the surgical procedures due to medical reasons can be exempted.
Both the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal dismissed judicial review proceedings brought by Tse and Q. The two were allowed to go to the Court of Final Appeal.
In a judgment made public Monday, the court said the government’s policy was unconstitutional and imposed an “unacceptably harsh burden.” They also said that the policy was “disproportionate” in its encroachment upon the rights of the two to gender identity and physical integrity.
The judges also said any administrative issues that usually arise tend to pertain to a transgender person’s outward appearance and not the appearance of their genital area, and that leaving the gender on their identity card unamended “produced greater confusion or embarrassment.”
Tse welcomed the ruling, saying many transgender people have been longing for a “final victory” for years.
“Now I have a male ID card, it will be a lot easier for me to access gender-segregated spaces,” he said. “I wouldn’t be questioned and humiliated by being outed by my ID that’s incongruent to who I am.”
Liam Mak, co-founder and chairperson of local transgender youth organization Quarks, described the win as an “important milestone” for the transgender community in Hong Kong.
“We believe that the gender identity of oneself should not be tied to medical intervention, we should ensure minimal to no medical intervention in the policy,” Mak said. “Given that every individual has different preferences or decisions in their own gender transition journey, I hope that the government will be referencing the advice from the court to protect the right of all transgender people.”
Throughout her 30 years as a teacher, Patricia Nicolari said she faced repeated harassment from students due to her sexuality. Some left notes on her desk asking if she is a lesbian. Others called her a “dyke” under their breaths. And one day, students carved “Lez” into her car.
“At the time, I remember thinking, ‘I’m going through so much anxiety as a teacher. I can’t imagine what our students go through questioning themselves and how unsafe it is for them to come out,’” Nicolari said.
Years later, Nicolari is done imagining. Instead, she’s taking action.
In September, she plans to open a private school in Connecticut that’s designed to be an oasis for LGBTQ students. PROUD Academy, which stands for Proudly Respecting Our Unique Differences Academy, will prioritize what Nicolari saw lacking in the U.S. education system: a safe, affirming and bully-free academic environment for LGBTQ students.
The private school’s curriculum aims to includeeducational basics like math and science classes, rigorous courses at theAdvanced Placement and honors levels, and lessons that touch upon LGBTQ history and literature. In addition to fostering a queer-friendly environment, Nicolari said she wants to hire mental health counselors who can cater to the specific challenges of these youths.
When Nicolari first set out to launch PROUD Academy, she planned to only enroll students in grades seven through 12. But since word about the school has spread, Nicolari said, there’s been a strong demand from parents with younger children as well, and she now plans to accommodate these families.
The interest in PROUD Academy has even crossed state borders. At least two families from out of state — including one from Florida, where LGBTQ issues have become a political lightning rod — plan to relocate to the solidly Democratic Connecticut and send their kids to the school this fall.
“Some parents are just saying, ‘I just want my child to be happy again,’” Nicolari said. “And if we can offer that to a family? That’d be priceless.”
While the school doesn’t have a set location yet, Nicolari said it will be in or near the city of New Haven, where Yale University is, and she hopes to start the school from grade three.
Research has long shown that LGBTQ youths suffer from disproportionate rates of bullying and mental health issues.
Just over 83% of LGBTQ students said they experienced in-person harassment or assault at school, according to a 2021 survey by GLSEN, an advocacy group that aims to end LGBTQ discrimination in education. And nearly 1 in 3 respondents said they missed at least one day of school in preceding month as a result of feeling unsafe.
A survey released last year by LGBTQ youth suicide prevention group The Trevor Project found that nearly half of queer youths in the United States had “seriously considered” suicide within the 12 months prior to being surveyed. Respondents who were accepted for their LGBTQ identities at home or at school were less likely to have attempted suicide in the prior year, the survey also showed.
Melissa Combs’ transgender son currently attends a middle school in Farmington, Connecticut. Combs, who is working as a fundraiser for PROUD Academy, said her son is regularly bullied for his gender identity and was physically assaulted last year during Pride Month in June.She said sending her son to a school like PROUD Academy will be “life-changing.”
“This means that I won’t knowingly send my child into a hostile environment every day,” Combs said. “It means that my kid will get to be who he is 100% of the time.”
PROUD Academy will join a handful of other LGBTQ-centered schools — including Alabama’s Magic City Acceptance Academy and Ohio’s Albert Einstein Academy — that have opened within the last handful of years, as the nation’s culture wars over LGBTQ issues have intensified.
Within the last year alone, school officials in states across the country have banned books about gay and trans experiences, removed LGBTQ-affirming posters and flags, and disbanded Gay-Straight Alliance clubs. Simultaneously, conservative lawmakers have introduced hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills, with many seeking to limit the rights and representation of queer students in U.S. schools.
Of the more than 200 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced so far this year, about half restrict the rights of trans students in schools, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Among the large cohort of bills is legislation that would force teachers to disclose trans students’ gender identities to their parents, restrict bathroom access for trans and nonbinary kids, and ban trans children from playing on sports teams that correspond with their gender identities.
Nicolari reasoned that the recent legislation explains why the majority of the roughly 30 parents who have inquired about enrollment at PROUD Academy have trans or nonbinary children.
“The political climate absolutely accelerated the need for a PROUD Academy and a need for PROUD Academies across the United States,” Nicolari said. “Our kids matter. Their lives matter. Their education matters. Their mental health matters. And we can’t have our students and families be bullied into being less than they’re capable of being.”
Scotland’s gender recognition bill would have introduced gender self-identification in a similar way to that of Finland’s new law – and legislation which already exists in 18 other countries.
The new Finnish law – passed by 113 votes to 69 – removes the requirement for trans people to be sterilised and obtain a psychiatric diagnosis in order for them to get legal gender recognition.
Under Finland’s current legislation, which Amnesty International states is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, a person has to provide proof of infertility before they can be granted legal gender recognition.
Matti Pihlajamaa, Amnesty International Finland’s LGBTI rights advisor said: “By passing this act, Finland has taken a major step towards protecting trans people’s rights and improving their lives and right to self-determination.
“The vote comes as a result of more than a decade of campaigning by civil society groups and is a testament to the commitment of activists who have fought long and hard – often in the face of toxic rhetoric – to see this day.”
“While this new law will have a huge and positive impact and provide an important pillar for non-discrimination, more must still be done,” Pihlajamaa continued, “Excluding children from legal gender recognition violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“We will continue to call on the government to amend the legislation accordingly to ensure it advances the rights of children.”
In a statement, Finnish LGBTQ+ rights organisation Seta said: “Victory for human rights! #Translaki strengthens human rights in Finland. Next, the rights of children and young people must be protected!
“A huge thank you to all the organisations and partners who voted in favour of the law and made an impact!”
The bill would have made obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) easier for trans people.
However, the UK government blocked the act over concerns for “single-sex” spaces and “equal pay” protections.
On 17 January, Scotland secretary Alister Jack told the House of Commons he did not take the decision “lightly” but the insisted government believed the bill would have a “serious adverse impact among other things on the operation of the Equality Act 2010”.
Tennessee’s recent decision to reject over $8 million in federal funds to combat HIV was motivated, at least in part, by right-wing provocateurs stoking anti-LGBTQ sentiment, according to four sources within the state Health Department.
The move by Republican Gov. Bill Lee will hamstring, if not cripple, efforts to combat one of the country’s most poorly controlled epidemics of the virus, HIV advocates said.
The announcement followed a political crisis in Tennessee that began in September when conservative media personalities, including Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro, launched attacks on Vanderbilt University Medical Center over its care of transgender minors, which they alleged was barbaric.
Gov. Bill Lee delivers his inaugural address in the Legislative Plaza in Nashville, Tenn., on Jan. 21, 2023.John Amis / AP file
In October, the pressure wound its way to the unit that combats HIV, sexually transmitted infections and viral hepatitis at the Tennessee Health Department.
On Oct. 24, the unit’s director, Dr. Pamela Talley, told employees that because of the social media firestorm over Vanderbilt, information about the Tennessee Transgender Task Force — a volunteer team the unit established in 2018 to focus on trans health and HIV prevention — and other trans resources had been scrubbedfrom the department’s website. That is according to two staffers present, who, like two of their colleagues, spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Then, on Nov. 7, Talley told the unit that federal HIV funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for both the task force and Planned Parenthood in Tennessee would terminate at the end of the year, according to three staffers at the meeting, which took place in person and on a conference call.
“There were at least three different levels of leadership on the call,” a staffer said. “It was discussed that there had been media attention around the Vanderbilt trans health clinic, which led those reporters to learn about the trans task force, and that they were funded by [the state Health Department] HIV prevention program and that all HIV prevention contracts were being reviewed.”
People walk outside Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., on July 16, 2013.Mark Humphrey / AP file
In mid-January, the Lee administration announced it would pull the plug not just on federal HIV-prevention funds for Planned Parenthood and the task force, which total $235,000, but on all $8.3 million from a pair of CDC grants for HIV prevention, treatment and monitoring in the state. The move shocked HIV experts and advocates.
In addition, the Lee administration, which has said it will replace the federal funds with state dollars, has pledged a shift in funding priorities that would effectively steerHIV prevention efforts away from groups at substantial risk of contracting the virus, including gay men and people who inject drugs.
“All of this is willful ignorance on the part of the state government,” said Greg Millett, the director of public policy at amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. “People at risk for HIV are going to suffer because of these decisions.”
Right-wing media pile-on
A leading voice in the right’s opposition to the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors, Matt Walsh, a columnist for the conservative media outlet Daily Wire, published a series of widely read tweets on Sept. 20 targeting Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s treatment of minors at its Transgender Health Clinic. “They now castrate, sterilize, and mutilate minors as well as adults,” Walsh said.
The next day, Walsh appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to publicize his investigation, and Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator who co-founded Daily Wire, further amplified Walsh’s attacks on Vanderbilt on his YouTube channel and podcast, decrying the “nonsense garbage that a boy can be a girl and a girl can be a boy.”
Matt Walsh speaks about firm traditional gender roles and definitions in Phoenix on Dec. 18. 2022.John Rudoff / Sipa USA via AP file
The same day, Lee issued a statement calling for a “thorough investigation.”
“We should not allow permanent, life-altering decisions that hurt children or policies that suppress religious liberties, all for the purpose of financial gain,” he said. “We have to protect Tennessee children.”
Walsh, Shapiro, Daily Wire and Fox News did not respond to requests for comment, and the Lee administration did not respond to questions about the impact right-wing media personalities had on the state’s rejection of federal HIV funds.
Ray Holloman.Emily April Allen
A Daily Wire article published on Oct. 20, which denounced the Tennessee Transgender Task Force as an “extreme” activist group, appears to have drawn the Lee administration’s attention. The task force, according to its chair, Ray Holloman, is staffed by trans-identified volunteers and focuses on providing HIV educational resources, sharing health insurance information and connecting people to supportive health providers — including those at Vanderbilt.
The article took a victory lap, saying that the Lee administration and the state Health Department denounced the task force “in response to a Daily Wire inquiry” and that information about the task force on the department’s website was “only removed after the Daily Wire asked about it.”
Around the same time, two Health Department supervisors told staffers in private conversations that critical media coverage provoked the Lee administration to scrutinize the source of the task force’s $10,000 in annual funding — a $6.2 million CDC HIV prevention and surveillance grant — two Health Department employees said.
Also under new scrutiny after the article was published, fouremployees said, was Tennessee’s Planned Parenthood program, which received $225,000 a year from the CDC grant, largely for condom distribution.
In a Nov. 7 email that was among a collection of correspondence shared with NBC News by Ashley Coffield, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and Northern Mississippi, Talley informed Coffield that the Health Department’s separate arrangement to supply Planned Parenthood with about 500 HIV test kits a year would be canceled. Talley subsequently wrote to Coffield, “I want to thank you for your statewide efforts in HIV testing and reassure you that this discontinuation was not based on performance concerns.”
Ashley Coffield is the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and Northern Mississippi.Planned Parenthood
Three days later, Coffield said, she got a call from a director at the United Way of Greater Nashville, which distributes the CDC grant funds to dozens of community-based organizations in Tennessee, including Planned Parenthood. The director, Niki Easley, said Planned Parenthood would lose its $225,000 in CDC HIV prevention grant funds at year’s end. Coffield said Easley told her that politics were behind the funding cut. “I think you should fight back,” Coffield recalled Easley’s saying.
But there was a wrinkle in the state’s plan:Because of a 2013 legal injunction, the Lee administration could not legally block HIV-related federal funds specifically for Planned Parenthood.
In the collection of emails and letters Planned Parenthood provided to NBC News, the nonprofit’s attorneys threatened to sue. In an emailed response, the Health Department’s attorney, Mary Katherine Bratton, denied having tried to disqualify the organization for the funds but said the department was “currently reviewing all” CDC grants.
Several officials at the Health Department, including Talley, Bratton and communications staffers, did not respond to requests for comment.
After it contacted Easley and several of her colleagues at the United Way of Greater Nashville, NBC News heard from a spokesperson, who said the group “is working closely with the Tennessee Department of Health to understand the changes being made to this grant funding,” adding that “the details of the changes and how our partner agencies will be affected are still developing” and that “all funding decisions are made by” the Health Department.
‘The nuclear option’
Ultimately, instead of focusing on cutting funds for Planned Parenthood and the Tennessee Transgender Task Force, the Lee administration decided to pull the plug on the entire $8.3 million in CDC grants for HIV prevention, surveillance and treatment.
On Jan. 17, Health Department officials held an 8 a.m. meeting with HIV prevention staffers and informed them of the decision to end all CDC HIV grant funding effective June 1, according to two employees who were present.
“People have been crying all week,” a staffer said in a Jan. 21 interview.
Coffield said “it felt like they were punching me in the gut” when she found out the state was abandoning the grants.
“I couldn’t believe that the governor would take the nuclear option,” she said, adding that she views the decision as the culmination of a “political vendetta against abortion rights groups and transgender people.”
Tennessee Department of Health in Nashville, Tenn.Google Maps
The rejected grants consist of the $6.2 million for HIV prevention and surveillance and $2.1 million for Shelby County, home to Memphis. The latter sum comes from a national plan focused, in part, on improving treatment and prevention of HIV in 50 local hot spots that account for about half of new HIV diagnoses nationally — a plan President Donald Trump endorsed in his 2020 State of the Union address.
Friends for Life, a nonprofit Memphis group that provides services to those living with and at risk for HIV, will lose about $500,000 a year, chief programs officer Mia Cotton said. The imminent lack of any federal grants will also render the organization’s health clinic ineligible for pharmaceutical rebates through a separate federal program that last year brought in $1.2 million to an overall operating budget of $8.5 million, Cotton said.
Molly Quinn, the executive director of OUTMemphis, Tennessee’s largest LGBTQ nonprofit group, said her organization would lose $120,000 a year, or 10% of its operating budget, compromising efforts to provide HIV testing, help clients access the HIV prevention pill, PrEP, and give financial assistance to people with the virus.
‘A fictitious epidemic’
The Lee administration says it will replace the $8.3 million in CDC grants with state funds, giving it freedom to target such resources as it sees fit.
“We think we can do that better than the strings attached with the federal dollars that came our way, and that’s why we made that decision,” Lee said Jan. 20.
Currently, the priority populations for the CDC grant for Shelby County, for example, include LGBTQ people, sex workers and those who inject drugs, are unhoused or are formerly incarcerated.
Lee’s press officer, Jade Byers, said in an email that the administration “is committed to maintaining the same level of funding, while more efficiently and effectively serving vulnerable populations, such as victims of human trafficking, mothers and children, and first responders.”
Those priorities, HIV prevention experts said, are in egregious conflict with the actual demographics of the people most at risk of the virus.
“Tennessee is preferring to fight a fictitious epidemic rather than their very real HIV epidemic,” said Millett, of amfAR. “First responders are just not at risk for HIV anywhere in the United States. Sexual trafficking is awful, but it’s not a major contributor for HIV cases in Tennessee or elsewhere.”
Women comprised 9% of HIV diagnoses in Tennessee in 2019, down from 14% in 2016, and only 1 to 6 babies were born with HIV in the state annually from 2016 to 2020.
More than half of new diagnoses in Tennessee were in men who have sex with men in 2019, according to the state Health Department’s surveillance reports. And in 2016, the CDC released a report warning that 220 of the country’s counties, including 41 in Tennessee, were at high risk of HIV and hepatitis C outbreaks among people who inject drugs (that population accounted for 5% of new Tennessee HIV diagnoses in 2019).
New U.S. HIV cases, the CDC estimates, declined by 8% from 2015 to 2019, but that masks considerable progress in some states and either stagnancy or increases in most Southern states, where the bulk of transmissions occur. Even as HIV has steadily declined in, for example, New York and California, where liberal governments have invested heavily in evidence-based HIV treatment and prevention programs, the CDC estimates that Tennessee’s transmissions increased slightly from 2017 to 2019.
While Lee announced Jan. 20 that the state would forgo the federal HIV dollars, a CDC spokesperson said Thursday that the agency had received no word from Tennessee that it intends to block the $8.3 million in grants.
The political climate has become increasingly toxic for LGBTQ people in Tennessee, advocates in the state say.
Since he took office in 2019, Lee has signed several bills that target transgender youths, including one that bars trans students from joining sports teams that align with their gender identities. And so far this year, conservative Tennessee lawmakers have filed at least 11 bills targeting LGBTQ people, including one, which Lee said he supports, that would ban gender-affirming medical care for all minors.
Nationally, lawmakersin at least 21 states have proposed bills to ban or restrict gender-affirming care for minors this year. Trump released a video Tuesday on Truth Social pledging to “stop” such care, which he described as “child sexual mutilation.”
Pope Francis, the head of the Anglican Communion and top Presbyterian minister together denounced the criminalization of homosexuality on Sunday and said gay people should be welcomed by their churches.
The three Christian leaders spoke out on LGBTQ rights during an unprecedented joint airborne news conference returning home from South Sudan, where they took part in a three-day ecumenical pilgrimage to try to nudge the young country’s peace process forward.
They were asked about Francis’ recent comments to The Associated Press, in which he declared that laws that criminalize gay people were “unjust” and that “being homosexual is not a crime.”
South Sudan is one of 67 countries that criminalizes homosexuality, 11 of them with the death penalty. LGBTQ advocates say even where such laws are not applied, they contribute to a climate of harassment, discrimination and violence.
Francis referred his Jan. 24 comments to the AP and repeated that such laws are “unjust.” He also repeated previous comments that parents should never throw their gay children out of the house.
“To condemn someone like this is a sin,” he said. “Criminalizing people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice.”
“People with homosexual tendencies are children of God. God Loves them. God accompanies them,” he added.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, recalled that LGBTQ rights were very much on the current agenda of the Church of England, and said he would quote the pope’s own words when the issue is discussed at the church’s upcoming General Synod.
“I wish I had spoken as eloquently and clearly as the pope. I entirely agree with every word he said,” Welby said.
Recently, the Church of England decided to allow blessings for same-sex civil marriages but said same-sex couples could not marry in its churches. The Vatican forbids both gay marriage and blessings for same-sex unions.
Welby told reporters that the issue of criminalization had been taken up at two previous Lambeth Conferences of the broader Anglican Communion, which includes churches in Africa and the Middle East where such anti-gay laws are most common and often enjoy support by conservative bishops.
The broader Lambeth Conference has come out twice opposing criminalization, “But it has not really changed many people’s minds,” Welby said.
The Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields, the Presbyterian moderator of the Church of Scotland who also participated in the pilgrimage and news conference, offered an observation.
“There is nowhere in my reading of the four Gospels where I see Jesus turning anyone away,” he said. “There is nowhere in the four Gospels where I see anything other than Jesus expressing love to whomever he meets.
“And as Christians, that is the only expression that we can possibly give to any human being, in any circumstance.”
The Church of Scotland allows same-sex marriages. Catholic teaching holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”
LGBTQ+ activists have staged a defiant protest in Afghanistan to draw attention to the United States’ failure to offer protection from the Taliban.
At a private residence on Wednesday (1 February) in the country’s capital Kabul, around a dozen Afghan people from the Behesht Collective, an LGBTQ+ group, congregated to show the world that their lives are still in jeopardy.
Since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, reports have circulated of LGBTQ+ people being beaten, raped and even murdered in Afghanistan.
It’s a dire situation, but finding a route to safety isn’t always easy – numerous western governments have introduced policies making it harder for people to claim asylum in recent years, meaning many can’t access the support they need.
While countries like Canada have offered specific schemes for LGBTQ+ Afghans, others have yet to recognise the danger queer people face under Taliban rule.
Qadam, one of the LGBTQ+ people who took part in Wednesday’s protest, is now calling on the world to sit up and pay attention to what is happening to the country’s queer community.
Activists staged their protest in a private residence. (Supplied)
“This is a regime that doesn’t believe in LGBTQ+ rights, human rights and the rights of women,” Qadam, who previously worked in a senior state security role before the Taliban takeover, tells PinkNews.
“We decided to stage this protest because the USA and western countries left us alone here.”
LGBTQ+ people living in hiding in Afghanistan
Immediately after the protest in Kabul, Qadam and others involved fled to a neighbouring country to protect themselves from the Taliban – but there’s still a long path to safety.
The country they’re now residing in is a Muslim country where same-sex sexual relations are criminalised – but as Qadam says, it’s still better than Afghanistan.
“In Afghanistan, if they know that you are LGBT they punish you, they beat you, they arrest you. They even kill LGBT people… You are hiding everywhere.”
As the Taliban continues to wage war on LGBTQ+ Afghans, Qadam is pleading with governments in western countries to help them – to give them the chance to live their lives free from the threat of violence or persecution.
Members of the Behesht Collective, an LGBTQ+ group, holding up posters at a protest in a private residence. (Supplied)
“My last message is that the world, the USA and western countries should help LGBT Afghans to flee because they are in a very bad situation here.”
Nemat Sadat, a gay Afghan who’s working to evacuate LGBTQ+ Afghans, says Wednesday’s private protest is signifiant because it took place “under the noses of the Taliban”.
“They are speaking for themselves and the hundreds of thousands of LGBTQI+ Afghans who have no future under Taliban-rule in Afghanistan,” Sadat tells PinkNews.
Like many LGBTQ+ Afghans, Sadat has been left disappointed by the response from the United States. He says the government hasn’t done enough to protect vulnerable people put in harm’s way by the Taliban takeover.
“The facts are as clear as day: the US did nothing for LGBTQI+ Afghans during the 20 years of US occupation in Afghanistan and continues to turn a blind eye to the savagery committed by the Taliban.
“Unless the US reverses course and proactively works with the Behesht Collective and Roshaniya, we will witness the total annihilation of the LGBTQI+ community in Afghanistan.”
