California is banning state-funded travel to Ohio over the state’s new law allowing doctors to decline medical services to people on moral or religious grounds.
The Ohio measure triggered a 2016 California law that requires the attorney general to prohibit state-funded travel to states that discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, according to a Friday news release from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The ban takes effect Sept. 30, according to the release. Ohio will become the 18th state to which California won’t pay for travel, according to the release.
Ohio legislators tucked the provision into a massive budget bill, House Bill 110, that was recently passed.
The provision’s language is broad, allowing not just doctors but nurses, counselors, social workers, researchers, pharmacists and others to deny services if they have a “conscience-based objection” to the specific service requested.
The law allows health insurers to deny payment for services on the same grounds.
“Whether it’s denying a prescription for medication that prevents the spread of HIV, refusing to provide gender-affirming care, or undermining a woman’s right to choose, HB 110 unnecessarily puts the health of Americans at risk,” Bonta said in the news release.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s office didn’t immediately respond to an email Friday.
Ohio’s law provides that, “when possible and when the medical practitioner is willing, the medical practitioner shall seek to transfer the patient to a colleague who will provide the requested health care service.”
It also designates that emergency treatment doesn’t qualify for the objections.
In addition to Ohio, California has banned travel to Arkansas, Florida, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia, Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
Last summer, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the nation, the players of the Atlanta Dream stood united against an off-the-court opponent: Kelly Loeffler, then a U.S. senator from Georgia and a co-owner of the team.
After opting out of the 2020 season to focus on social justice issues, Montgomery, who said she was inspired by LeBron James’ role in the “More Than a Vote” campaign, recognized the rare and unique opportunity to have a stake in an ownership group that aligned with her own values, which prompted her to announce her retirement after 11 seasons.
“You can’t be a player and an owner at the same time, and for me it was a pretty quick decision, because I understood that this was a big moment that I basically wanted to capitalize on,” Montgomery told NBC News. “I felt like women’s basketball was changing.”
While there was no official announcement that the Atlanta Dream was looking for new ownership, Montgomery had “heard the rumblings” from different sources and reached out to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who introduced her to Abair and Gottesdiener, who had been in talks with the league about acquiring a team.
“At Northland, we basically focus our philanthropic initiatives around three items: eliminating racism, empowering women and ending homelessness,” Abair said. “If you look at those three issues, I think it’s very easy to see that there’s a clear alignment in both the progressive nature of the Northland organization and the core values of the WNBA.”
With a set of similar core values, the trio bonded over a shared desire to invest in women’s professional and collegiate sports — which, they say, continues to be undervalued and underappreciated — and in the minority communities across the Greater Atlanta area.
“We really believe that there’s a need for investors like us to do a number of things: to elevate the league, to essentially bring deep-pocketed investors to the league, to build model franchises, to respect our players as athletes and people,” Abair said, adding that there’s a “need to change that narrative” that women’s sports aren’t worth investing in.
“I would say that having Renee as the third member of the ownership team has just been really incredibly valuable to both Larry and I — just to have that former player’s perspective,” Abair continued. “Renee knows the market from a different perspective than we do, and I think having the three of us each focused on different aspects, as we start to build the organization, has been a really nice blend.”
Montgomery echoed those sentiments, adding that she understands the “inner workings of the league” and can, therefore, “do things that are more player-friendly” during periods of travel and free agency. She also credited Abair and Gottesdiener for bringing the best practices from their work at Northland to their business dealings with the team.
“And then, to take it a step further, I don’t have to hold them kicking and screaming to talk about social justice or to lean into the community of Atlanta, because they’re so in on minority-owned business, small-owned businesses,” Montgomery said. “‘How can we be a part of the community? How can we be a part of the culture?’ They’re locked in, so any ideas that we all come up with together are always going to be for community first. Obviously, we want to be great on the court — and that will come, but we want to make sure we’re doing our part from the front office.”
By virtue of their acquisition of the Atlanta Dream, Abair and Montgomery also became among the first openly LGBTQ people to own and operate a major professional sports franchise in the U.S., helping to pave the way in an industry that has historically lacked queer representation on and off the court (though the WNBA boasts a long list of out players). It’s a responsibility that both women, who know what it feels like to not be seen or represented, don’t take lightly.
“I think it’s important that members of the community, particularly younger members, see that and know that if you are a member of the LGBTQ community, you can do great things,” Abair said. “There is a tremendous opportunity for you everywhere, and I think if you see it, you can be it, or you can believe it. I think just being visible to members of the community is really important, whether it’d be as a female business leader in the real estate sector or as an owner of a professional women’s sports team.”
For Montgomery, “representation is the foundation I stand on in everything that I do,” she said with a natural fervor. “So when I’m in a room and it’s a project that I’m creating, I want to make sure that there’s representation all around — Black women, Latin women, LGBTQ [people]. I want to make sure that, all the things that I do, there are voices there that can add to it. Because, for me, when you have different people from different walks of life, you have diverse input, and that’s how you build a great brand, a great company.”
When they officially acquired the team in early March, Gottesdiener, Abair and Montgomery were less than six weeks away from the start of training camp. Describing the next month-and-a-half of preparation as “an all-out sprint,” Abair said that the group faced a steep learning curve as they worked diligently to get up to speed about the inner workings of the team and the strict, league-mandated Covid-19 protocols.
But while the leadership of the front office has changed, the new co-owners wanted to reiterate that they are committed to honoring the same spirit that brought women’s basketball into sharp focus last year — and recently earned the Atlanta Dream ESPN’s “Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year Award.”
“It’s not like this was a one-and-done sort of goal for the players, and we will continue to honor that spirit and that commitment around causes that the players and other individuals in the organization care deeply about,” Abair said. “We need to live up to our name. We are the Atlanta Dream, named after Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. Our goal is to build an organization that honors the legacy of our name by rising to meet the urgency of now, whatever that may be in the political landscape.”
“With the civil unrest that happened in 2020, I think a lot of people’s eyes were opened to not even just social justice but women’s sports,” Montgomery added. “A lot of people were introduced to the WNBA in 2020 in the sense of they didn’t know about the culture of the league, the players in the league, what we stood for. I was really happy to see that people started to dive deeper into the players and the storylines of the WNBA, and now we have new fans.”
Despite the change in leadership in the United States Senate, Montgomery said the current sociopolitical situation in the country continues to be top of mind for the entire organization, particularly as state and federal governments pass legislation on increasingly fraught issues like voting rights and abortion.
With no intention of rehashing the past, the co-owners have signaled that, with their acquisition of the Dream, they are committed to creating a “flagship franchise in the WNBA,” partnering with other organizations in the community, and winning both on and off the court.
“That means building an organization both on the business side and the basketball side with a winning culture,” Abair explained. “When we talk about winning off the court, we mean [something] that honors our name … that our players are visible in the community and that we’re essentially a valued member of the Atlanta and Greater Atlanta marketplace like the other professional sports teams in the market. [We mean] occupying our own space and having our own brand and really elevating women’s professional sports in a relatively crowded sports market.”
At the end of the day, it comes down to “not being afraid to take a stand on issues, even when it might not be the most popular thing, but you’re doing it because you think it’s right,” Abair said.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to create a dynasty here, where every year we’re in the running, and it’s a surprise if we aren’t … And then, in the same breath, our goal is to be that North Star in the WNBA,” Montgomery added. “Suzanne sent an email out to all of the players at the beginning of the season, asking them, ‘What issues are you passionate about? What do you want us to be leaning into?’ We want to be able to adapt to which players we have. … But we just really want to be that organization that leans into social justice, that leans into women empowerment. Those are the pillars that we stand on.”
Brianna Hamilton, a Black trans woman who was “loved by many”, is being mourned as the 37th trans person violently killed in America so far this year.
Hamilton, also known as Brianna Ulmer, was fatally shot in Chicago, Illinois on 17 September. She was 25 years old.
Her death was confirmed by LaSaia Wade of Brave Space Alliance. The Black- and trans-led LGBT+ centre in Chicago posted a photograph and tribute to Hamilton on its Facebook page.
“Brianna Hamilton rest in power my luv, she was found two days ago killed on the south side of Chicago.”
The Chicago Sun-Timesreported that officers found Hamilton with a gunshot wound to the head at around 6.30am in Gresham on Chicago’s South Side. She was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead.
As is sadly often the case when reporting the death of trans and gender non-conforming people, Hamilton was misgendered and deadnamed by the outlet.
On Sunday (19 September), Hamilton’s mother, Ronda Ulmer, thanked anyone who had offered condolences after her daughter’s death on Facebook. She wrote that Hamilton had a lot of friends, and said she had planned a “balloon release” and candlelight vigil for her daughter.
Hamilton’s family also launched a GoFundMe campaign to help offset funeral costs. Ronda wrote that her daughter was the “victim of a ruthless murder” and “funeral expenses is an unexpected challenge” for her as a “single mother”.
“I know Brianna was loved by many and at this time your support is greatly needed and appreciated,” Ronda wrote on the GodFundMe page. “Brianna was a amazing person who touched so many people hearts with her presence and her memory will forever live on.”
Hamilton is at least the 37th trans or gender non-conforming person to die by violence in the US this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). This puts 2021 on track to meet or exceed 2020’s record-breaking tragic total of 44 such deaths.
Sadly, this figure could be higher as the deaths of trans and gender non-conforming people often go underreported, or the individuals are misgendered or misreported by the news.
Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the HRC’s transgender justice initiative, said in a statement that Hamilton is the “second killing of a Black trans woman in Chicago” in the past month and the “fourth this year”.
“Black trans lives matter, and we need urgent action to end this epidemic of violence,” Cooper said.
Earlier this month, Disaya Monaee was shot to death outside the Prestige Inn and Suites in Chicago. Family members told 5Chicago that the crime scene was “gruesome” and pleaded with anyone with information to come forward.
Amanda Kammes was offered a position earlier this month as the head girls lacrosse coach at Benet Academy, a private Catholic high school in suburban Chicago.
A day later, after Kammes submitted paperwork listing her wife as her emergency contact, the offer of employment was rescinded, according to Kammes’ supporters.
“Benet Academy respects the dignity of all human beings to follow their conscience and to live lives of their choosing,” spokeswoman Jamie Moss said. “Likewise, as a Catholic school, we employ individuals whose lives manifest the essential teachings of the church in order to provide the education and faith formation of the young people entrusted to our care.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/lJOVdr1?app=1
However, after a groundswell of support for Kammes, including a rally outside the school and a letter signed by more than 3,000 alumni and members of the community, Benet reversed its decision Monday.
“The Board of Directors of Benet Academy today announced that the Academy has extended an offer to Amanda Kammes to be the school’s next girls lacrosse head coach and she has accepted the offer,” Benet Academy’s board said in a statement emailed to NBC News. “The Board has heard from members of the Benet community on all sides of this issue over the past several days. We had an honest and heartfelt discussion on this very complex issue at our meeting. Going forward we will look for opportunities for dialogue in our community about how we remain true to our Catholic mission while meeting people where they are in their personal journey through life. For now, we hope that this is the first step in healing the Benet community.”
Kammes, who is also an alumna of the school, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Colleen Savell, the assistant varsity lacrosse coach at Benet Academy, said she’s “overjoyed” by the school’s decision to reverse course.
“I am so proud of the girls on the team and of their parents,” Savell said, referring to the girls lacrosse team. “They have really rallied around Amanda, and it’s been unbelievable. They have blown my mind.”
Savell added that she hopes school officials take steps to support LGBTQ students at Benet whose mental health and sense of well-being were affected by the school’s treatment of Kammes.
While this particular story has a happy ending for Kammes and her supporters, legal uncertainties continue to surround how much leeway religious institutions have when it comes to hiring and terminating LGBTQ employees — and experts say these disputes are unlikely to disappear soon.
“I think it’s going to percolate for a while,” Jenny Pizer, law and policy director for Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ civil rights organization, said.
In a landmark decision last year, the Supreme Court ruled thatLGBTQ employees are protected from discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, there are important carve-outs for religious organizations like Catholic schools.
Lynn Starkey, a guidance counselor of nearly 40 years at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, was fired after school officials discovered she is married to a woman. She sued the city’s archdiocese, but last month a federal judge sided with the Catholic school, saying Starkey could be considered a “minister of faith” and is therefore subject to the “ministerial exception” in employment law that allows religious institutions tremendous discretion when it comes to hiring and firing.
Not all the news is bad for LGBTQ employees, as some courts have found the ministerial exception is limited in scope.
Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled in favor of gay substitute teacher Lonnie Billard, who announced on social media that he was marrying his partner. The judge found the school was not protected under Title VII exemptions because Billard did not give religious instruction.
The Supreme Court, which has the legal final word on questions regarding the ministerial exception, has demonstrated what Pizer called an “enthusiastic embrace” of religious liberty. The court has issued decisions about the ministerial exception in recent years, finding in favor of the religious schools.
Changing social attitudes, however, may send a clearer message than case law, according to Pizer.
“I think that there is a growing recognition among some of the faith-based institutions that they are increasingly out of step with the young people that they are inviting to be students and to get their education,” Pizer said. “Parents have a greater sense of confidence and urgency to push the institution to be consistent.”
“It’s lovely that in this situation the school decided to value the needs of the students,” she added.
The Biden administration has awarded more than $48 million to medical centers under Health Resources & Services Administration in localities with high incidents of HIV infection as part of the initiative to beat the disease, the Washington Blade has learned exclusively.
Xavier Becerra, secretary of health and human services, said in a statement the contributions are key component of the initiative, which is called “Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S.” and seeks to reduce new infections by 90 percent by 2030.
“HHS-supported community health centers are often a key point of entry to HIV prevention and treatment services, especially for underserved populations,” Becerra said in a statement. “I am proud of the role they play in providing critical services to 1.2 million Americans living with HIV. Today’s awards will ensure equitable access to services free from stigma and discrimination, while advancing the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2025.”
The $48 million contribution went to HRSA centers 271 HRSA-supported health centers across 26 states, Puerto Rico and D.C. — areas identified with the highest rates of HIV infections — to expand HIV prevention and treatment services, including access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as well as outreach and care coordination, according to HHS.
The Ending the HIV Epidemic was set up under the Trump administration, which made PrEP a generic drug after an accelerated effort and set a goal of beating HIV by 2030. Biden has continued the project, after campaigning on beating HIV a full five years earlier in 2025. Observers, however, are skeptical he can meet that goal.
Diana Espinosa, acting HRSA administrator, said in a statement the $48 million will go a long way in reaching goals to beat HIV/AIDS.
“We know our Health Center Program award recipients are well-positioned to advance the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. initiative, with a particular focus on facilitating access to PrEP, because of their integrated service delivery model,” Espinosa said. “By integrating HIV services into primary care, and providing essential enabling services like language access or case management, HRSA-supported health centers increase access to care and improve health outcomes for patients living with HIV.”
Tens of thousands of LGBT veterans forced from the military for their sexual orientation and given other-than-honorable discharges will be able to receive full Veterans Affairs benefits despite their dismissal status under a new move set to be announced Monday.
The change comes as the country approaches the 10th anniversary of repeal of the controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” law which forced nearly 14,000 service members out of the ranks for admitting their sexual orientation.
But the impact of the new VA announcement goes further than just those individuals, to potentially include troops who served before and after the law who may have been given bad performance reviews or intimidated into leaving the military because of their LGBT status.
Outside advocates estimate as many as 100,000 over the last 70 years may have been involuntarily separated from the military based on their sexual orientation. Data on how many received other-than-honorable discharges is not available.
According to sources familiar with the pending announcement, VA officials plan a series of reviews of those veterans’ cases, with a presumption in favor of granting them benefits unless records give a clear reason to oppose that.
The announcement to be released on Monday — the anniversary of the DADT repeal — includes VA Secretary Denis McDonough asserting that department officials have the authority to award those individuals full VA benefits if their case warrants, regardless of the discharge status.
Individuals with dishonorable discharges or clear criminal history documented in their service records will still not be granted benefits under the new plan.
The military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was in place from 1993 to 2011. It prohibited LGBT service members from publicly discussing or acknowledging their sexual orientation, with a penalty of dismissal from the ranks if the truth was discovered. Before that, all LGBT individuals were barred completely from serving.
Gay rights advocates for years have noted that both before and while the DADT policy was in place, many military commanders biased against LGBT troops often issued bad conduct dismissals to those individuals — citing issues like substandard fitness reports or poor performance — to cover up bigotry or frustration related to issues of sexual orientation.
That later prompted VA staff to deny benefits to those veterans, since their paperwork did not show honorable discharge status.
The new move will extend VA medical care, disability payouts, employment assistance and other benefits individuals previously blocked because of other-than-honorable discharges.
Department legal officials believe the change will not require any new legislative action or policy statements, because the department already has broad authority to interpret which veterans are eligible for department services.
White House officials are expected to mark the DADT repeal anniversary with an event on Monday. Exact timing on the VA announcement is unclear. VA officials declined comment on the pending news.
In the same brief, which calls for Roe to be overturned, Mitchell and co-counsel Adam Mortara, an anti-abortion activist and lawyer who clerked for the Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, said such a decision could open the door for other “lawless” rights and protections to be reversed, including the right to have gay sex and the right to same-sex marriage.
The lawyers argued that while it was not necessary for the high court to immediately overrule the legal cases that enshrine those rights, “neither should the court hesitate to write an opinion that leaves those decisions hanging by a thread”.
Those cases (Lawrence, which outlawed criminal sanctions against people who engaged in gay sex, andObergefell, which legalized same-sex marriage) were “far less hazardous to human life”, they said, but just “as lawless as Roe”.
Charles Blow recalls being in the audience at the premiere of the opera based on his memoir, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” and watching the scene that depicts his sexual abuse as a child by an older cousin.
“To be honest,” he said, “it was more uncomfortable watching everybody watching me. Because they were so unnerved by it they worried about my reaction.”
They needn’t have been concerned, Blow said in an interview. “When I wrote the book I’d already dealt with all that,” he said. “I don’t have the residual trauma that a lot of people expect me to have.”
Blow, a columnist for The New York Times, will again be in the audience when the opera opens the Metropolitan Opera season on Sept. 27. It will be the first operatic performance in the house since the pandemic shutdown 18 months ago.
More history-making is the fact that “Fire,” with a score by jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, will be the first opera by a Black musician presented at the Met in its 138 years.
“Of course you’re filled with pride to be labeled with that,” Blanchard said after a rehearsal last week. “But there’s a certain sense of, not guilt, but sorrow, because I know I’m not the first who was qualified.”
For example, Blanchard said he was at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis this summer — where “Fire” premiered in 2019 — and heard a performance of “Highway 1,” a one-act opera by Black composer William Grant Still first performed in 1963.
“I’m sitting there listening to that,” he said, “and I go, like, why couldn’t that be at the Met?”
Blanchard said OTSL artistic director James Robinson had been after him to compose another opera after his first, “Champion,” based on the life of boxer Emile Griffith, premiered there in 2013. When his wife, Robin Burgess, recommended he read Blow’s memoir, Blanchard said it struck a chord.
In his book, Blow, now 51, describes growing up in poverty as a shy, sensitive child in rural Louisiana with four macho older brothers, a philandering drunk for a father and a warm-hearted, hard-working mother who carried a gun in her purse.
“What drew me to this story was the notion of being isolated and different in your own community,” said Blanchard, who was born in New Orleans. “I knew a lot about that growing up, wanting to be a musician and walking to the bus stop on the weekends, carrying my horn and wearing glasses while the other boys were playing football in the street. That was not a popular look.”
To write the libretto, Blanchard enlisted filmmaker Kasi Lemmons, his friend and frequent collaborator. She had never written an opera libretto, though she said it was on a “bucket list” of things she hoped someday to accomplish.
“I didn’t know what the process normally was,” Lemmons said. “I didn’t even know the libretto went first. I thought maybe the music came first.”
For advice, she turned to Robinson who gave her the crucial suggestion that “in an opera, anything can sing.” Inspired by that, she created two characters known as Destiny and Loneliness who accompany Blow at different points in his life. She also has a child in the role of the young Charles on stage at various points alongside the adult character.
Lemmons said she was nervous about how Blow might react to some of her inventions because, “OK, I’ve written this guy’s loneliness as a character. That’s pretty intrusive.
“On the other hand,” she said, “the way he spoke about loneliness in the book was very palpable.”
Once she handed the libretto to Blanchard, he set it to music with few changes. The score is infused with jazz rhythms and filled with lyrical passages, including full-fledged arias for some of the characters.
The Met production is co-directed by Robinson and Camille A. Brown, who is the first Black director on the Met’s main stage. Met music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin will lead a cast that stars baritone Will Liverman as the adult Charles, soprano Latonia Moore as his mother and soprano Angel Blue as Destiny, Loneliness and his girlfriend Greta. There will be eight performances, with the final one on Saturday afternoon Oct. 23 shown live in HD in movie theaters worldwide.
The production is co-commissioned by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, where it will be presented next spring, and by LA Opera.
In his memoir, Blow describes himself as bisexual and writes frankly about having homoerotic fantasies, which are dramatized in the opera through a dance sequence choreographed by Brown.
Lemmons hopes audiences can see past the trauma Blow endured as a youngster and draw inspiration from his story.
“It’s deeply sad. But the thing that’s not sad is Charles Blow,” she said. “The remarkable aspect of the story is how you can draw strength from pain.”
Blanchard echoes that view: “The mere fact that Charles is such a success in his life indicates how much he overcame,” he said.
“Hopefully some young kid coming to this opera will see that. Hopefully it can really change some people’s lives.”
FFT’s 20th annual Dining Out For Life event is on December 2!Dining Out For Life raises funds to support our nutrition programs for people living with HIV and other serious medical conditions in Sonoma County. The event lands on Thursday December 2, which follows after World Aids Day. This event is Food For Thought’s most delicious fundraiser of the year, and we would love your help to make it a big success! Plan to dine-in or take-out at one of dozens of participating Sonoma County restaurants on December 2! Participating restaurants will be generously donating a portion of their sales to Food For Thought that day.
We Need Ambassadors! Food For Thought is looking for volunteer ambassadors for Dining Out For Life on the day of the event. Volunteer shifts are available to welcome guests for breakfast, lunch or dinner at a local eatery. Contact [email protected] for more information.
Check Out the Dish and FFT’s Annual Report Online FFT’s summer newsletter highlights the “food is medicine” concept and the difference that having access to nutritious food makes in improving the health of our clients. The issue also includes a story celebrating Ron Karp’s 25th anniversary as executive director and details about our 2020 Annual Report. You can now view both publications online. Interested in getting a copy of the next issue of the Dish by mail? Click here to sign up.
Support FFT’s Upcoming Food DrivesMore than ever FFT could use help to make our upcoming food drives successful. All of the events listed below are located in Sonoma County. Strong community support ensures that FFT can provide healthy groceries for our neighbors living with serious medical conditions. Community Market Collection Bin6762 Sebastopol Ave, Sebastopol, CA 95472DATE: Ongoing through September, 2021TIME: Store open daily 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Oliver’s Market (Stony Point location) *Volunteers Needed*461 Stony Point Rd, Santa Rosa, CA 95401DATE: Saturday, September 25th, 2021TIME: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
VOLUNTEER. We need food drive volunteers for all of our food drives! We have new COVID-19 safety guidelines to keep our volunteers and donors safe.
DONATE. When ordering or shopping for your own groceries, FFT would greatly appreciate it if you could include any or all of our most needed items: Peanut Butter, Whole Grain Crackers, Olive Oil . These items can be dropped off to the Food For Thought team on the day of the event. Check out our Virtual Food Drive, too!
HOST. Host a food collection for a specific event, season or all year long. Anyone can host a food drive! Businesses, parishes, schools and apartment complexes have all hosted successful Food & Fund Drives for Food For Thought. SPREAD THE WORD. It’s also a huge help to tell every person you know! You can share the events from our Facebook page or forward our emails to your family and friends. For more information about hosting & participating in food drives, click here or email Chelsea at [email protected].
A gay Guatemalan congressman who is a vocal critic of his country’s president and corruption says he is afraid for his life.
“I am scared of what may happen with so much persecution against me,” Aldo Dávila told the Washington Blade on Sept. 10 during an interview at a Guatemala City hotel. “I am scared for my life, for my partner, for my family and for my team.”
Dávila — a member of the Winaq movement, a leftist party founded by Rigoberta Menchú, an indigenous human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner — in 2019 became the first openly gay man elected to Guatemala’s congress. Dávila, who also lives with HIV, had previously been the executive director of Asociación Gente Positiva, a Guatemala City-based HIV/AIDS service organization.
Three men on April 19 approached his vehicle while it was stopped at a traffic light near Guatemala’s National Library and tried to rob him.
One of Dávila’s bodyguards who was driving shot one of the men. The other two men fled the scene before passersby and police officers arrived.
Dávila was not injured, but he later said in a Facebook post that he is “thankful for life.” Dávila told the Blade that Guatemalan authorities have not thoroughly investigated the attack.
“I requested an armored car after the attack, but I have not received it yet,” said Dávila, who arrived at the hotel with two female police officers who sat in the lobby while he spoke with the Blade. “This has not been resolved, even though it was in April. It is very complicated.”
Dávila said Culture Minister Felipe Aguilar, Congress President Allan Rodríguez and other supporters of President Alejandro Giammattei have lodged nine formal complaints against him after he publicly criticized the government over a variety of issues that include its response to the pandemic.
“It has been a systematic attack against me,” said Dávila.
Dávila told the Blade that he and his partner installed cameras in their apartment after someone killed their dog. Dávila also said he continues to receive death threats online and at his home.
“We are going to kill you, we are going to shut you up,” said Dávila, referring to the type of threats he says he receives.
“They send me little messages, I am clearly making those who are corrupt very uncomfortable,” added Dávila.
Prominent transgender activist murdered in June
Discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity remains commonplace in Guatemala.
Dávila told the Blade that 21 LGBTQ people have been reported killed in Guatemala so far in 2021, including one person who was stoned to death.
Andrea González, executive director of Organización Trans Reinas de la Noche, a trans advocacy group, was shot to death in Guatemala City on June 11, days after Vice President Kamala Harris visited the country. The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power both condemned González’s murder, but Dávila told the Blade there has been “no investigation.”
“It’s one more case about which to forget, unfortunately,” said Dávila.
Dávila also noted he has met with officials who include representatives of the National Civil Police, the Public Ministry and the National Institute for Forensic Sciences “to ask what they are doing” to combat anti-LGBTQ violence in the country.
“This is serious,” he said.
‘People don’t migrate because they want to’
Menchú, Visibles Executive Director Daniel Villatoro and Ingrid Gamboa of the Association of Garifuna Women Living with HIV/AIDS are among the 18 members of Guatemalan civil society who participated in the roundtable with Harris while she was in the country. The U.S. vice president met with Giammattei before the event.
Harris has previously acknowledged that violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity is among the “root causes” of migration from Guatemala and other Central American countries. Harris and other Biden administration officials have also told migrants not to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“People migrate because states don’t have the capacity to respond to the most basic needs,” said Dávila. “People don’t migrate because they want to. People don’t migrate because (they say) today I am going to go to the United States because I have nothing to do. They don’t go on vacation. They go in search of health, work, security and economic resources to be able to sustain themselves.”
“Guatemala has not had the capacity to retain Guatemalans because it doesn’t offer them the minimum to be able to live,” he added.
Dávila described Harris’ visit to Guatemala as “important.”
He said Guatemalans are “eternally grateful for the” COVID-19 vaccines the U.S. has donated to the country. Dávila added he would like Washington to “take a look at the human rights violations that are happening in” the country and further sanction those who are responsible for them.
Giammattei earlier this year named his chief of staff to Guatemala’s Constitutional Court.
The U.S. has granted asylum to former Attorney General Thelma Aldana, who the Constitutional Court refused to allow to run for president in 2019 after prosecutors alleged she embezzled money from a building purchase. The Biden administration in July stopped working with current Attorney General Consuelo Porras’ office after it fired Juan Francisco Sandoval, a leading anti-corruption prosecutor who subsequently fled the country.
The U.S. has imposed travel bans on a number of Guatemalan officials, but Dávila said these sanctions are not effective.
“We want clearer, more drastic sanctions,” he said. “The U.S. has been a historical ally for Guatemala, not just since yesterday, not from five years ago … it has been economically and financially supporting this country for a long time. The United States can impose more drastic sanctions against the government so the government stops being corrupt, so the government does not fight against migration.”
Dávila told the Blade he has not decided whether he will run for a second term in 2023.
Dávila said he has had “some problems” with the Winaq movement over funding for hospitals during the pandemic, but he remains a member. Dávila told the Blade he has received invitations to join other political parties.
“I am thinking about it and evaluating all the scenarios,” he said.
Dávila added he remains “very proud to be part of the opposition in the history of this country.”