A 74-year-old retired schoolteacher from a New York City suburb was sentenced to 30 months in prison Wednesday for mailing dozens of violent threats to LGBTQ affiliated individuals, groups and businesses over several years.
According to prosecutors, Robert Fehring threatened to blow up the Stonewall Inn, a historic bar in Manhattan considered the birthplace of the gay rights movement. He also threatened to place explosives at 2021 New York City Pride march that would “make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting look like a cakewalk,” referring to the 2016 attack in which 49 people were killed and dozens wounded at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Other messages threatened to kill, shoot and bomb LGBTQ affiliated businesses and individuals, including an African American-owned barbershop in Brooklyn that Fehring wrote in one letter “is the perfect place for a bombing.”
Fehring pleaded guilty in February to mailing threatening communications through the postal service.
“We are disappointed in the length of the sentence, but Mr. Fehring is happy to be putting this nightmare behind him,” his attorney, Glenn Obedin, said in an email. “He is deeply remorseful for what occurred, and looks forward to living quietly with his family once he has served his sentence.”
An FBI search of Fehring’s home last November in Bayport, Long Island, yielded two loaded shotguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in addition to copies of letters containing threats. Investigators also found a stamped envelope addressed to an LGBTQ-affiliated attorney containing the remains of a dead bird, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York.
“Robert Fehring made heinous threats against members of the LGBTQ community in locations throughout New York, including Suffolk County, for nearly eight years,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said in a statement. “Thanks to the tireless efforts of our department’s Hate Crimes Unit detectives and the diligent work of our law enforcement partners, Fehring is being held accountable for his crimes.”
Joseph Ladapo — Florida’s surgeon general appointed by the state’s anti-LGBTQ Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — is trying to make people distrust the monkeypox vaccine, stating that there is “little data” on it, which is misleading.
Ladapo’s position is hardly surprising considering that he spent years spreading COVID-19 disinformation and echoing DeSantis’ distrust in vaccines.
On Tuesday, DeSantis criticized the Democratic governors of California, Illinois, and New York for declaring states of emergency over monkeypox. The declarations give their governments greater ability to mobilize resources against the virus. (U.S. President Joe Biden declared a national state of emergency for monkeypox on Thursday.)
DeSantis said the governors were using the emergency declarations to stoke fear, control people, and “restrict your freedom.”
Ladapo backed up DeSantis’ words, stating, “It’s just kind of remarkable to see some of the headlines — the headlines that very clearly are trying to make you afraid of monkeypox or fill-in-the-blank. You know, because if you’re not afraid of this there will be something else after that and something else after that.”
“These people are determined to make you afraid and do whatever it is they want you to do. And, um, you know, I hope that more and more people choose not to do that,” he added.
Then after revealing that Florida had distributed 8,500 monkeypox vaccines, Lapado said, “You should know that there’s actually very little data on this vaccine.”
To understand why Lapado’s claim is misleading, a little background is necessary.
As of Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 6,326 monkeypox cases within the United States. The Florida Department of Health shows 525 monkeypox cases statewide, The Florida Phoenix reported.
The Jynneos vaccine is made from a virus that is closely related to, but less harmful than, monkeypox viruses. It does not cause disease in humans and cannot reproduce in human cells.
A study of 400 individuals found that the Jynneos vaccine was as effective against monkeypox as the ACAM2000 smallpox vaccine, which the FDA approved in 2007. The safety of Jynneos was assessed in more than 7,800 individuals who received at least one dose of the vaccine, the FDA said. Previous studies have shown that smallpox vaccines are 85% likely to provide a high level of immunity against monkeypox for up to two years, according to the MIT Technology Review.
Ladapo’s authority on vaccines is highly questionable at best.
In July 2020, near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he appeared in a 43-minute viral video as part of a group called America’s Frontline Doctors. The group, which had no epidemiologists or immunologists qualified to speak on infectious diseases, promoted the anti-malaria medication hydroxychloroquine as a “cure” for COVID-19, even though no studies substantiated that claim. The video also said that face masks do not slow the virus’s spread and that COVID-19 is less deadly than the flu. Both claims are untrue.
The video also featured Dr. Stella Immanuel, a pediatrician and religious minister who gained notoriety in 2020 for her bizarre theories, including that “demonic seed” causes endometriosis and ovarian cysts. Immanuel explained on her church’s website that demons insert sperm into sleeping individuals when they have sex in their dreams.
The doctors’ recorded speech was organized by the Tea Party Patriots, a right-wing group backed by wealthy Republican donors. Lapado has written numerous op-eds repeating the video’s false claims.
The video received millions of views when then-President Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and other right-wing media figures shared it on social media. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter all removed the video for violating their policies on sharing COVID-19 misinformation.
In October 2020, Ladapo signed the Great Barrington Declaration, a statement that called for developing societal herd immunity to COVID-19 through natural infection. In response, 80 medical researchers signed an open letter published in The Lancet, a leading medical journal, calling the declaration’s theory “a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.”
Florida ranks third among U.S. states with the highest numbers of COVID-19 infections and related deaths. DeSantis has signed orders expanding exemptions for people who don’t want to get vaccinated against COVID-19 vaccines and to prevent schools and local governments from instating face mask mandates in Florida.
A southwest Florida school district added warning labels to more than 100 books, many of which touch on issues related to race or the LGBTQ community.
Collier County Public Schools, a district that includes part of Naples, added the labels both on physical copies of the books and in Destiny, the district’s online catalog, according to the nonprofit Florida Freedom to Read Project. The top of the label, according to a photo shared with NBC News by Florida Freedom to Read Project, says “Advisory notice to parents” in capital letters.
An advisory notice to parents placed on over 100 books in public schools in Collier County, Fla.Courtesy Stephana Ferrell/Florida Freedom to Read Project
“This Advisory Notice shall serve to inform you that this book has been identified by some community members as unsuitable for students,” the label states. “This book will also be identified in the Destiny system with the same notation. The decision as to whether this book is suitable or unsuitable shall be the decision of the parent(s) who has the right to oversee his/her child’s education consistent with state law.”A sticker of the notice is on the front inside cover of the books, according to Stephana Ferrell, co-founder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, which advocates against censorship in Florida schools. Ferrell said a media specialist in the school district shared photos of the labels with her in June.
After a series of public records requests about the labels, challenged books and the district’s creation of a committee that reviews school materials, Ferrell said she received a phone call from Elizabeth Alves, associate superintendent of teaching and learning for Collier County Public Schools.
Ferrell said Alves told her the district began adding the labels in February, after the district’s legal representative spoke with the Florida Citizens Alliance, a conservative group that last year issued a “Porn in Schools Report.” The report included a list of books that “promote gender self-identification and same-sex marriage” as well as titles that include “indecent and offensive material,” according to the group.
Alves defended the decision as “a compromise,” Ferrell said.
“I said, ‘It’s unfortunate, because this is a literary work. The sticker that they chose to put on there, the language that they chose, would make any reader who would otherwise pick up the book based on the cover and the description, it would make them think twice about reading the book,’” Ferrell said of her response to Alves.
Chad Oliver, a spokesman for Collier County Public Schools, confirmed that Alves spoke to Ferrell but denied that the warning labels were added in response to a conversation with the Florida Citizens Alliance.
“Based upon advice from the General Counsel, we placed advisory notices on books about which parents and community members had expressed concern and in accordance with the recently passed Parents’ Bill of Rights Law (HB 241),” Oliver said in an email, referring to a state law that allows parents to object to instructional materials.
A total of 110 books feature the advisory labels, according to PEN America, a nonprofit group that promotes free speech. This list, which PEN America shared with NBC News, has significant overlap with a list of at least 112 books that the Florida Citizens Alliance inquired about in a Dec. 11 email sent to Collier County Public Schools. Ferrell, who obtained the email through a public records request, shared a copy with NBC News.
Keith Flaugh, CEO and co-founder of the Florida Citizens Alliance, confirmed his group submitted a public records request about 112 novels in the district.
“Many of these contain sexually explicit and age inappropriate content,” which he said in an email is in direct violation of Florida laws on obscenity and the sale of harmful materials to minors. He also citeda 2017 law that the group helped draft that allows parents and any residents of the state to object to instructional materials and provide evidence for why they believe the material is inappropriate.
“Gender Queer” by Maia KobabeOni Press
Some of the titles that appear on both lists — and now have an “advisory notice to parents” warning label in Collier County Public Schools — include LGBTQ- and race-related books that have landed on banned-book lists across the country. These titles include “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, and “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You” by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. The list also includes literary classics like “Beloved” by Toni Morrison and “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou.
Also included is the popular children’s book “Everywhere Babies,” a rhyming, illustrated book about what babies do. The illustrations include what could be interpreted as a few same-sex couples, but they are never identified as such in the text. The book first landed on a banned-book list in Walton County, Florida, in the spring, after the Florida Citizens Alliance included it in its 2021 “Porn in Schools Report.”
“It’s a really good example of just how extreme this is getting,” Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education programs at PEN America, said in a phone interview. Some of the images in the book are “assumed to be gay,” he added, and as a result some critics think they require a warning.
“These warning labels are like something you might see on a cigarette package,” Friedman said. “They’re treating it like a controlled, alarming substance. This is literature for young people.”
Oliver said none of the books were removed from the district’s media centers and that parents were made aware of the labels in a districtwide email prior to spring break.
He added that the district is “very mindful and concerned with protecting the rights of all students and employees.”
“At no time were the members of the LGBTQ community a focus of the district’s review,” Oliver said. “Whether we are following new State laws or responding to concerns from community members, Collier County Public Schools is mindful of both U.S. Supreme Court precedent based upon the First Amendment principals, Fourteenth Amendment equal protection principles, and Florida Civil Rights Law.”
The Florida Citizens Alliance supported the Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by LGBTQ advocates, which bans instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity “in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
Ferrell, a mom of two kids in Orange County Public Schools, said she’s worried about the message the label will send to parents about books that their child might love. For example, she said her son loves the series “The Bad Guys,” by Aaron Blabey, which has been challenged in Florida.
She added that the sticker doesn’t include a disclosure that it was placed there at the request of the parents and community members, and, as a result, it sends the message that the district agrees with the sticker’s sentiment.
“Now, I cannot go in there and make a decision for myself without seeing somebody else’s opinion on this book,” Ferrell said.
A new draft report from the California Attorney General’s office indicates transgender people in the state are stopped by police at vastly different rates than cisgender men and women.
The report is based on data reported from 58 of the state’s largest law enforcement agencies and shows transgender people were stopped because of “reasonable suspicion” alone —instead of a specific violation or clearly unlawful behavior — in nearly half the stops.
For transgender people, the proportion of “reasonable suspicion” stops was 44%, or four times the ratio for cisgender people.
The data includes all people stopped by police, regardless of whether the officers were responding to a potential offense they observed or to a call for service.
California requires police departments to report the demographic data of every driver, bicyclist, or pedestrian they stop, including perceived race, gender, and approximate age.
The new state data shows that transgender women are stopped due to an officer’s “reasonable suspicion” in more than 45% of encounters when they were stopped in 2021. Trans men were stopped for the same reason 43% of the time.
Interactions with police officers were also more likely to lead to more drastic outcomes – with transgender people more likely to be searched, handcuffed, and arrested – and to have lethal and non-lethal force used against them.
Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard that requires officers to articulate why they believe a person is likely engaged in a crime. Probable cause, the standard required to arrest someone, has a higher bar.
Under the 2015 Racial and Identity Profiling Act, or RIPA, law enforcement agencies with 334 or more officers were required to report data to the state for 2021. The reporting requirement expands to all police agencies for data collected this year.
Alex Binsfeld, legal director at the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project, an advocacy group in San Francisco, told the San Francisco Chronicle that gender biases result in officers focusing on transgender people because they don’t fit their notions of how a woman or man ought to look.
“It’s in effect a way to enforce Western gender binary norms on appearance, that you will be punished if you are not gender binary in your appearance,” they said. “Policing of trans folks at these disparate rates has led advocates to argue it’s a status crime.”
Cisgender people, who made up the overwhelming majority of the total number of stops statewide, were stopped for traffic violations the majority of the time. Cisgender women were stopped because of an officer’s “reasonable suspicion” in less than nine percent of encounters; cisgender men were stopped because of an officer’s suspicion in 11% of encounters.
Out of 3.2 million total stops, transgender people accounted for 4,740.
Transgender advocates scored a major victory in July when Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed S.B. 357, a bill repealing a notorious “walking while trans” law. Effective January 1, the bill repeals a 1995 law that prohibits loitering in public places with the “intent to commit prostitution.” The voided statute allows police to cite people they find suspicious due to factors like how they dress or where they stand on the street.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, the San Francisco Democrat who sponsored S.B. 357, said the sweeping loitering law causes innocent people to get swept up in the criminal justice system and makes sex workers less safe because they fear seeking out law enforcement.
“Even one arrest can have such profound implications for someone’s life,” Wiener said. “It’s one step; there’s certainly more work to do.”
Saturday, August 13 @ 7:30 pm. Mimi and the Moonlights at Occidental Center for the Arts. Enjoy an evening of fine jazz from the 1930’s, with a dash of blues. Vocalist extraordinaire Mimi Pirard will be stepping outside her French cafe repertoire to sing some sultry early jazz standards in our acoustic sweet spot on Bohemian Highway. She will be accompanied by a stellar ensemble of talented Bay Area musicians : Jan Martinelli, Issac Vandeveer, Kendrick Freeman, Jeff Pierce, and Chris Amberger. Not to be missed! Tickets are $25 General/$20 OCA Members at www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org; or at the door. OCA is following current Sonoma County masking guidelines. Fine refreshments for sale, Art Gallery open during intermission. Wheelchair accessible. 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental, CA. 95465. 707-874-9392. Become an OCA Member and get free/reduced admission on all events.
Before the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision was overturned, the family-building landscape for LGBTQ couples was already fraught with legal and financial obstacles. But now, with the uncertainty following the Roe reversal in June — including how it may affect the legality of certain reproductive procedures — health and legal experts are advising LGBTQ prospective parents to consult with attorneys versed in the specific laws of their states before they begin their family-planning journeys.
Primary care physician Eric Kutscher and his husband, medical student Lala Tanmoy Das, of New York, are starting a family, which they have been thinking about doing for years.
“We talked about having kids literally on our second date,” Das said.
The couple have already gone through in vitro fertilization, or IVF, which entailed using the sperm of one of the men to fertilize a donated egg. The next step on their journey is to find a surrogate to carry the embryo to term. However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade has given them pause.
Primary care physician Eric Kutscher with his husband, medical student Lala Tanmoy Das, of New York.Courtesy Henriette Kutscher
Many potential surrogates live in states that have restricted abortion access after the high court decision, Das and Kutscher noted, and should there be a complication during the pregnancy, they do not want their surrogate’s options limited.
“Eric and I are extremely pro-choice people,” Das said. “Maternal health comes first, no matter what.”
Kristin Marsoli, the director of marketing for Circle Surrogacy of Boston, said her agency adjusted its screening process and questionnaires last year after Texas changed its laws to ban abortionafter detection of a fetal heartbeat.She said the agency wanted to “ensure that surrogates from Texas were properly educated about what a termination would mean if it came up in their journeys.”
Marsoli said the agency — where nearly half (44% to 46%) of the intended parents identify as LGBTQ — is prepared to make further adjustments as conservative states seek to restrict abortion and reproductive care after the reversal of Roe. Since the decision on June 24, 14 states have already banned or restricted abortion, and seven more are considering similar restrictions.
“Our legal team is keeping a close eye on trigger laws and other changes being made in each state and providing regular updates to our teams so that we can continue to adjust our process as needed,” she said.
For now, the agency is not advising couples like Das and Kutscher to geographically restrict their search for surrogates when the wait for surrogates can easily take up to a year and the legal landscape is still in flux.
“There is still so much that is unknown,” Marsoli said.
“Eric and I are extremely pro-choice people,” Lala Tanmoy Das said. “Maternal health comes first, no matter what.”Courtesy Eric Kutscher
Just a few days after the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, Louisiana legislators debated a bill that would have defined life as beginning at fertilization with no exception for assisted reproductive treatments like IVF.
While Louisiana’s personhood bill was scuttled after debate on the House floor, the Dobbs ruling opened the door for states to pass laws that not only dramatically restrict or ban abortion, but also have potential effects on assisted reproductive services.
“Roe was holding up a floor. Legislators couldn’t restrict reproductive health decisions beyond what Roe protected,” said Cathryn Oakley, the state legislative director and senior counsel at the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group. “States have basically the unfettered ability to regulate those issues as they see fit.”
Depending on the exact wording of state abortion bans, such measures could affect reproductive technologies like IVF, because the process may result in discarding fertilized human embryos.
“If the law says that life begins at the moment of fertilization … that means that those embryos have rights,” Oakley said, even if the fertilization happens outside the body. “It may be impossible for folks in some states to get IVF where they live.”
From 1% to 2% of all U.S. births are the products of IVF every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while it is not uncommon for heterosexual couples to use IVF in their family-building journeys, same-sex couples do so disproportionately. A report last year from the U.K.’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority found a fourfold increase in the use of IVF among female same-sex couples: In 2009, 489 IVF cycles (1% of all cycles) involved female partners, compared to 2,435 IVF cycles (4% of all cycles) in 2019.
While many anti-abortion rights groups support IVF, others advocate against access to the procedure. A coalition of anti-abortion rights groups called The Personhood Alliance objects to IVF on the ground that it violates the rights of the embryo.
Missouri, Kansas, Georgia and Alabama already have fetal personhood laws, and legislators in six more states have introduced such measures, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research group. The Alabama attorney general’s office has said the law will not affect IVF treatment; the consequences of personhood laws in other states remain unclear.
Existing challenges
LGBTQ people are disproportionately affected by any law restricting access to assisted reproductive health care, like IVF.
“The fact is that in the LGBTQ community, a larger percentage of their family-building journeys are going to access assisted reproductive technology,” said Dr. Roger Shedlin, the CEO of Connecticut-based WINFertility. “By definition, you could see that the community is disproportionately impacted.”
And the reversal of Roe comes in the context of an already difficult legal landscape for LGBTQ parents and prospective parents, because states are free to establish their own parentage laws.
“Dobbs doesn’t just drop into a vacuum,” said Polly Crozier, a senior staff attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD. “Already we have seen attacks on LGBTQ families, because there have been cases in the past few years attacking nonbiological parents. We will probably see more challenges to the marital presumption of parentage and challenges to rights of nonbiological parents.”
Many states have not updated parentage laws to accommodate the reality that at least one of the two parents may not be biologically connected to their children, which is the case for many LGBTQ couples with kids.
“Nonbiological parents are already feeling that vulnerability, and then you see all the anti-LGBTQ bills,” Crozier said. (State legislators have already introduced more than 340 anti-LGBTQ bills this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign.)
She added that LGBTQ families should take the legal steps necessary — like second parent adoption or voluntary acknowledgment — to make sure their families are protected.
“This is really the time to make sure those core protections are in place,” Crozier said.
There is even less consistency when it comes to other kinds of laws about assisted reproduction. For example, Louisiana law restricts IVF already. Dr. Nicole Ulrich, a reproductive endocrinologist and specialist in fertility medicine at Audubon Fertility in New Orleans, said her clinic does not store embryos in the state long term. “We store them in Texas right now,” she said.
Ulrich, who estimated that as many as 20% of her patients are LGBTQ, said the clinic is making “contingency plans” about how to make other arrangements for patients in case laws in Texas change, requiring it to relocate the embryos again.
In addition, Louisiana law prohibits the use of a donor egg or donor sperm in a gestational carrier, meaning only couples able to use their own sperm and eggs can access gestational services.
“Because of regulations in Louisiana, we actually can’t help same-sex male couples conceive,” Ulrich said.
“It’s frustrating to essentially be forced to exclude a whole population.”
Financial obstacles can also make treatments like IVF and services like surrogacy prohibitively expensive for many LGBTQ people, and they are often not covered by health insurance.
According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, people can expect to spend an average of $12,400 for one cycle of IVF, and surrogacy can cost anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000.
“To add any additional burden or barrier of crossing state lines, staying in a hotel, that’s all going to really add additional burdens for something that is already not accessible for so many people,” Oakley said.
Over the past several years, insurance companies have been improving coverage for assisted reproduction, Shedlin said. However, because of the medical definition of infertility, even some LGBTQ people who have insurance face barriers to accessing those benefits. In many instances, laws designed for heterosexual couples require them to establish histories of infertility before they qualify for coverage.
“Just to access your coverage, you face six months to a year, because we have a medical focus,” Crozier said of qualifying for insurance coverage. “They are essentially treating LGBTQ couples differently than non-LGBTQ couples.”
There is an overall context of heteronormativity, which can produce discrimination and exclusion for LGBTQ people, said Rebecca Kluchin, a professor of history at California State University, Sacramento, focusing on American reproductive history.
“We have this assumption that pregnancy is the purview of straight women,” Kluchin said. “There is an assumption that reproduction is still heterosexual.”
Despite the legal uncertainty and financial obstacles, Kutscher and Das are moving ahead with plans to build their family.
“It means the world to us,” Das said. “We definitely have qualms about what the future will hold — and what the child’s reality will be, what the world will be like … but we’re excited, and we feel ready.”
The Biden administration declaredmonkeypox a public health emergency on Thursday as cases topped 6,600 nationwide.
The declaration could facilitate access to emergency funds, allow health agencies to collect more data about cases and vaccinations, accelerate vaccine distribution and make it easier for doctors to prescribe treatment.
“We’re prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously and to take responsibility to help us tackle this virus,” Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a Thursday briefing about the emergency declaration.
A quarter of U.S. cases are in New York state, which declared a state of emergency last week. California and Illinois followed suit with emergency declarations Monday.
The World Health Organization declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern last month, a designation reserved for the most serious global disease outbreaks. It has previously been used for Covid-19, Zika, H1N1 flu, polio and Ebola. At least 26,200 monkeypox cases have been confirmed worldwide this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The WHO recently advised men who have sex with men to reduce their number of sexual partners and reconsider sex with new partners while the outbreak is ongoing.
The average U.S. monkeypox patient is around 35 years old, but people of all ages can be infected. The CDC has recorded five cases in children: two in California, two in Indiana and an infant who is not a U.S. resident who tested positive in Washington, D.C.
The California and Indiana health departments declined to provide details about their pediatric cases, but Jennifer Rice Epstein, the public affairs officer at the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, said the patient in her city was exposed via a close contact.
As of last week, white people represented 37% of U.S. monkeypox cases, followed by Hispanic or Latino people (31%), Black people (27%) and Asian people (4%), according to HHS.
U.S. officials still think the outbreak can be contained
HHS officials still hope to prevent monkeypox from becoming endemic in the U.S.
“We continue to marshal forward the tools that we need to make sure that we can take on monkeypox and keep it from spreading to the point of becoming endemic,” Becerra said Thursday.
“There should be no reason why we can’t stay ahead of this if we all work together,” he added.
That work relies primarily on testing, targeted vaccinations and treatment.
As of Thursday, the U.S. had distributed 600,000 of the 1.1 million available doses of the Jynneos vaccine, which is administered as a two-shot regimen. In total, the country has ordered 6.9 million doses. HHS said a shipment of 150,000 doses will arrive in the U.S. in September to then be distributed.
The shot can prevent monkeypox if given before or within four days of exposure. If given within 14 days after exposure, it can ease symptoms.
U.S. testing capacity has also increased, from 6,000 weekly tests in May to 80,000 now.
“Right now we’re really only testing at about 10% of the capacity we have. We are encouraging anyone who has a rash that could be monkeypox to present for testing,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Thursday.
Around 14,000 people in the U.S. have received TPOXX, an antiviral drug that is authorized for use against smallpox but can also be used to treat monkeypox. The Strategic National Stockpile contains 1.7 million of the treatments, HHS said. But the drug’s use is for now limited to people with severe disease or a high risk of becoming severely ill. Physicians must also complete extensive paperwork to prescribe it for monkeypox.
Expanded access to TPOXX was among the many reasons that sexual health providers called on HHS to declare a public health emergency.
“It’s unconscionable not to further make changes to make TPOXX accessible to all that need it,” David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, said Tuesday on a news call.
Most U.S. monkeypox patients have reported a rash
The most common monkeypox symptoms include a rash — reported in 99% of U.S. cases so far — malaise, fever and swollen lymph nodes. Some patients have also reported chills, headache and muscle pain.
Some people with monkeypox develop just one or two lesions in their rash, while others can develop several thousand, according to the WHO.
A study published last month, which examined monkeypox cases in 16 countries from April to June, found that nearly 65% of people had fewer than 10 lesions. The lesions were most commonly found in the anus or genital area, followed by the torso, arms or legs. A smaller number of people saw lesions on their face, palms or soles of the feet.
Symptoms usually appeared within a week of exposure, the study found. Around 13% of people studied were hospitalized, mostly for pain management.
Goal for vaccination clinics is to reduce risk of transmission of the Monkeypox virus during the Lazy Bear week among participants and the host community.
WHEN: West County Health Centers will be holding two Monkey Pox vaccine clinics on Friday, August 5th
ELIGIBILITY: Due to a very limited supply of 500 vaccines available from the California Department of Public Health for this event, the following criteria must be met to receive a vaccine:
Registered for Lazy Bear Week – OR –
Current resident or works in the lower Russian River Area – OR –
Active patient at West County Health Centers
REGISTRATION: No appointment required. Please bring reasonable documentation of eligibility.
n response to a mean-spirited tweet sent by Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida about her appearance, a queer activist from Texas has gotten the last laugh. In addition to clapping back hard, she has raised more than $1.5 million to support abortion care as of Friday.
Olivia Julianna, a political strategist for Gen-Z for Change, a social justice advocacy group led by young people, revealed to The Advocate that she wasn’t prepared for her overnight success but appreciated it. She uses her first and middle names publicly for privacy concerns.
“I’m in shock at the amount of support that we’ve gotten from people across the country,” she says.
Julianna says she could never have imagined the level of impact she will have had with her deft navigation of the situation that Gaetz inadvertently made possible.
As of midday Thursday, donations to a fundraiser she established were $3,000 short of $700,000, she told The Advocate. On Friday that number reached $1.5 million, she tweeted.
“We’ve now hit $1.5 million raised!! That’s 500K+ just in the last day,” she wrote. “Any celebrities or philanthropists want to close that gap to 2 million[?]”
“I would like to say thank you to him for giving me such a big platform to share my message and share my work with,” she says.
The activist launched the fundraiser for the nonprofit organization’s abortion fund after being body-shamed by Gaetz on Twitter. Julianna had responded to remarks Gaetz made last weekend. The congressman mocked abortion rights activists, calling them “disgusting” and overweight. Julianna criticized the congressman’s comments online.
“It’s come to my attention that Matt Gaetz — alleged pedophile — has said that it’s always the ‘odious…5’2 350 pound’ women that ‘nobody wants to impregnate’ who rally for abortion,” she began in her tweet.
“I’m actually 5’11. 6’4 in heels. I wear them so the small men like you are reminded of your place,” she continued.
Gaetz responded by tweeting an image of her next to a news article mentioning his comments.
Julianna raised the clap-back level several notches and replied, referencing Gaetz’s ongoing potential legal troubles for alleged sexual encounters with underage women.
Then she announced a fundraising campaign on behalf of Gen-Z for Change, a 500-strong youth-led group that supports abortion rights and says it seeks to create tangible change on “issues adversely affecting young people.”
A reporter asked Gaetz whether he believed women who attended abortion rights rallies were “ugly and overweight” after his comments at the weekend rally at the conservative Turning Point USA Student Action Summit drew condemnation, and Gaetz doubled down on his remarks, according to The Washington Post.
He replied to those offended by the comments: “Be offended.”
It’s taken just a little more than 48 hours for Julianna to raise three-quarters of a million dollars.
Among other reproductive health care services, Julianna says donations will be split among 50 abortion funds.
As for Gaetz’s political acumen, Julianna says he lacks any.
“I think it’s hilarious that Matt Gaetz underestimated me and didn’t think that I would clap back in such a strong way,” she says.
The incident has taught Julianna one thing that she hopes will benefit other young people.
“It goes to show no matter how young you are, no matter what position of power you’re in, you can make a difference,” she says. “I hope that this absolute insane event that’s taken place will motivate young people across the country to make their voices heard and fight for the things that they believe them.”
And Julianna has one final assessment of Gaetz: “He’s a joke,” she says.
Will they or won’t they support marriage equality? That is the question facing Senate Republicans. Backers of the Senate version of the House’s Respect For Marriage Act think they are close to finding 10 Republican votes to make up the 60 votes needed to pass the measure and overcome a filibuster. But many Republicans have been very quiet about whether or not they support the bill. A common response is that they haven’t looked at the bill — a four-page document — yet.
The time it’s taken just to confirm that eight more members of the GOP will vote yes on the measure is very much at odds with the lightning speed at which the House introduced and passed the bill. It aims to codify marriage equality for LGBTQ and interracial couples into law and would effectively cut off expected attempts to throw the U.S. back into darker times by outlawing marriages for some based on sexual orientation or race.
The time it’s taken just to confirm that eight more members of the GOP will vote yes on the measure is very much at odds with the lightning speed at which the House introduced and passed the bill.
With 47 House Republicansvoting in favor of the bill, it seems like conservative lawmakers have figured out something very important: They can’t be the party of family values and be in favor of taking away the right to be a family for many of their constituents at the same time.
Now, we wait to see how many Senate Republicans have realized it too.
As a journalist who has covered many similar pieces of legislation, this issue is also particularly personal. For many queer people, marriage isn’t even a goal. In many communities, it’s still something seen as what boring heteronormative suburban gays do. I say this as someone who doeswant to get married someday and carries an aching heart over the fact that marriage was legalized for me just as my last serious live-in relationship ended — and might be taken away again just as I’ve moved in with a new partner and am exploring domestic bliss once again.
But regardless of whether it’s a knot you’d like to tie (or not), everyone from staunch Republican voters to anti-assimilationist queer activists agrees that it’s a right people should have. Marriage equality was never about assimilation — it was about putting an end to a separate-but-equal society in which only some people have fundamental rights, including financial security and protection and stability for children, while others are seen as lesser and undeserving of those same rights and relationship recognition.
A majority of American voters across all political parties have supported equal marriage rights for same-sex couples since 2021, when the annual Gallup Values and Beliefs poll found 55% of Republicans, 73% of independents and 83% of Democrats saying same-sex marriages should be recognized under law. This year, Gallup reported that 71% — up from last year’s 70% — of Americans support marriage rights for LGBTQ people. It’s a number that has risen every year since the Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalized it. It could explain why 47 Republican House representatives voted in favor of the Respect For Marriage Act in this era of hyper-partisanship and divisiveness over everything politics.
Decades of advocacy and activism led to this moment: LGBTQ people are more visible and accepted across mainstream society than ever before, and marriage is a fundamental part of that. We are out and proud, able to live authentically at work, school and in communities without having to hide our partners and identities out of fear of repercussion. Another Gallup poll this year found that 7.1% of the U.S. population identify themselves as LGBTQ, with numbers increasing with each younger generation to the point where 1 in 5 members of Gen Z is out as LGBTQ.
This visibility has led to increased discrimination. A 2022 report from GLAAD found that 70% of LGBTQ people reported that personal discrimination has risen over the past two years. Not to mention the dozens of discriminatory state laws proposed to shove LGBTQ youth into a closet they’ve never had to be in. But change is inevitably coming; when it comes to LGBTQ equality, the train has already left the station.
The GOP claims to be for family values. LGBTQ people have families now. Families with kids.
LGBTQ people serve at every level of government from the federal Cabinet down. Transportation Secretary and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, campaigned openly and affectionately to help millions of people see how mainstream and likable gay couples can be. Buttigieg’s unspoken campaign slogan might as well have been, “We’re boring and suburban, just like you.” We’ve come far from the 2004 resignation of former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey, who stepped down in brewing scandal and outing threats with a new phrase that quickly entered the discourse: “I am a gay American.”
But the current conservative makeup of the Supreme Court threatens to stop the progress LGBTQ communities have fought hard for. When Justice Clarence Thomas said that the court should “reconsider” its ruling in cases like Obergefell, which guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry, and Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized LGBTQ intimacy, it sent such a panic throughout LGBTQ communites across the country. How could it not? After all, the nation had just watched the court decide to eliminate the constitutional right to abortion — despite a majority of Americans disagreeing with the move.
To even “consider” overturning constitutional protections for the LGBTQ community would be out of step with not just what the majority of the American people want, including the majority of Republicans. But anything seems possible right now.
Now is the time for Republican lawmakers to act. The GOP claims to be for family values. LGBTQ people have families now. Families with kids. How would a Wanda Sykes or a Neil Patrick Harris, much less the countless other LGBTQ parents across America, explain to their kids why the Supreme Court took their parents’ marriage away and why the government didn’t do anything to stop it? When did breaking up families become a mandate for the party of family values? These questions should haunt the 157 Republicans in the House who voted against the Respect For Marriage Act, and it should give pause to the senators poised to cast their own votes. Republican voters made it clear that they support marriage equality. Now it’s up to Republican senators to listen.
