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About Gary Carnivele

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Youngkin’s Rhetoric of ‘Parental Rights’ Abandons Students Like Us

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Throughout his campaign for Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin embraced the rhetoric of “parental rights,” allowing it to guide his campaign’s position on key issues, including mask mandates and diversity efforts in our K-12 system.

To be clear, there is a dire need to ensure that parents have a voice in our education. The disregarded mental health concerns, failure to appropriately implement accommodations for disabled students, and lackluster equity responses during the COVID-19 pandemic made clear the school systems were largely ill-equipped to handle community concerns. As students, we are acutely aware of the difficulty in engaging with education leaders: We constantly raise concerns that fall onto deaf ears. We can only imagine the similar frustrations of parents and teachers. 

Nonetheless, the failure of education leaders to address the needs of community members is not partisan but institutional. It is abundantly clear that the convoluted processes of school boards are not suited for widespread stakeholder engagement. But Gov. Youngkin’s embrace of parental rights is not centered on improving community relationships. Instead, he exploits the language of parental rights to attack marginalized students, with the goal of advancing his political prospects.

Before he even assumed office, Youngkin supported efforts to censor books, attacking Beloved, the acclaimed Toni Morrison novel. Ignoring that Beloved can be a powerful tool for students to confront difficult truths around racism, Youngkin instead sought to allow some to censor the book in our classrooms. More recently, the governor has championed Senate Bill 656, which would allow parents to opt students out of classroom instruction deemed “sexually explicit.” SB 656 includes “homosexuality” in its definition of sexually explicit and mandates an onerousapproval process for any instruction that meets this standards, chilling the already limited queer representation in our classroom. After all, why would teachers, already overworked, go through the process of getting approval for texts that include LGBTQIA+ people when they can simply opt for content without us?

More recently, Youngkin’s Department of Education released draft changes to Virginia’s model transgender policies. The original guidelines required school districts to implement evidence-based protections for queer students, including prohibitions against the forced disclosure of a student’s LGBTQIA+ identity and upholding the right of queer students to be addressed by their correct pronouns and name. 

As students, we experienced the power of the original guidelines. The fear of outing, for example, hangs over the head of every queer student from an unsupportive household. We once worked with a student who was denied water after their parents found out they were gay, and we’ve worked with other students whose parents have threatened them with conversion therapy. The original affirming guidelines, while not perfect, removed some of this fear.

WIthout the constant worry that teachers would out our friends to hostile parents, we were finally able to be ourselves. We saw our transgender classmates finally walk through the halls without having to justify their existence at every moment. We saw our friends sit up taller in class, knowing that their identities were protected.

But the revised guidelines revoke that progress. With forced outing provisions, a refusal to acknowledge a student’s transition without both parental consent and legal documentation, and a bathroom ban, the new draft revisions to the model transgender policies erase our community’s existence. They effectively take away the one place where we could be ourselves and will only heighten abuse, harassment, depression, and suicide. 

The draft guidelines have already seen massive opposition. We helped organize walkouts of more than 12,000 students at schools across Virginia, and well over 50,000 comments, most opposed, have been left on the DOE’s public comments website. But Glenn Youngkin seems to be ignoring Virginian voices, instead using these policies as a change to address national conservative audiences as he gears up for a potential 2024 presidential run.

Lost in all the governor’s politicking is the real harm done to students. We have had to talk friends out of taking their lives, and we rarely meet a queer student who isn’t struggling with their mental health. Our experiences aren’t unique: Research consistently suggests that the majority of LGBTQIA+ students are vulnerable to depression and suicide. Yet our governor is hell-bent on removing the solace and affirmation found in inclusive books, classroom instruction, and school regulations for his own political future, rather than address the real crises in our schools.

Our schools are in crisis. We hope our leaders stop focusing so much on polling boosts and fundraising hauls and instead, address the depression, abuse, and harassment that ravages our schools.

Natasha Sanghvi, Ranger Balleisen, Casey Calabia, Juno Teller, and Rivka Vizcardo-Lichter are students in Virginia who helped organize a massive school walkout this month in protest of Youngkin’s reversal of protections for trans students in schools.

Views expressed in The Advocate’s opinion articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, Equal Pride.

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Taliban lashes and flogs Afghans in crowded football stadiums for ‘adultery and gay sex’

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The Taliban have flogged a group of people in a crowded football stadium for “moral crimes” including gay sex.

Twelve people, including three women, were lashed in front of thousands of onlookers in the eastern Logar province, a Taliban official has informed theBBC. 

According to the source they were punished for “sins” including “adultery, robbery, and gay sex”.

The people flogged received between 21 and 39 lashes each, with the maximum a person can receive being 39, another Taliban official shared.

It comes a week after the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, announced the group would be “implementing sharia law” in full force across the country.

The islamic law enforces punishments such as public executions, stoning, floggings and the amputation of limbs for thieves.

Under Sharia law same-sex sexual activity is prohibited and can be punished by the death penalty.

The recent floggings resemble the group’s previous rule from 1996 to 2001, when it was condemned for carrying out public executions, stoning and floggings at the national stadium in Kabul.

The flogging in Logar province follows 19 people being flogged in a similar way in the Takhar province in northern Afghanistan just last week.

It also comes after the Taliban promised a “softer” version of its regime, but since the group’s return to rule last year reports of public floggings have been rife.

Since the group’s rule it has continued to destroy women’s freedoms by banning them from entering parks, funfairs, gyms and public baths, with women saying they were beaten for standing up of their rights.

A 22-year-old gay man was previously shot dead by the Taliban in Afghanistan because of his sexuality. 

Hamed Sabouri, from Kabul, was killed in August, local activists told PinkNews. 

He was reportedly kidnapped by the Taliban and a video showing his murder sent to his family days later.

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‘Never Seen a Vagina’: Lindsey Graham’s Sexuality Is a Joke

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Because I’ve been writing this column for several years, and get to talk to lots of amazing people, my friends, mostly the straight ones, like to quiz me about who’s gay, who’s not, and who’s in the closet.

This fishing expedition is mostly generational, since it’s mostly my contemporaries who inquire about the sexuality of celebrities and politicians. Those of us who are LGBTQ+ and over 50, still look on with low-level shock when someone we know announces they are queer.

For straight people in this demographic, being gay, or being in the closet is still something that they sensationalize. The current generation just shrugs. They might debate Harry Styles, for example, and that’s because he’s thrown up the question for debate. He’s often accused of gay- baiting, but if he were to come out tomorrow and say he was in a relationship with a man, most young people would simply congratulate him.

I always confess to the fact that I really don’t have any inside knowledge on anyone, and I hear the rumors just like everyone else. Rumors are just rumors, until someone comes forward and confirms or denies them. Meanwhile innuendo, and jokes about the person’s sexuality abound.

For politicians, particularly in Congress, it’s a bit different. Capitol Hill is a very small community. When I worked there, I, like many, knew who was in the closet mainly because we’d see them in a gay bar or knew someone that had a relationship with them. There really were no secrets on the Hill.

For example, most of us knew former Wisconsin congressman Steve Gunderson was gay before he was outed on the House floor. I spoke to Gunderson on the 25th anniversary of that moment and wrote a column about it.

Gunderson was publicly thrown out of his closet, after right-wing Rep. Bob Dornan joked about Gunderson on the floor of the House of Representatives during a debate on a bill that would have discouraged school districts from adopting gay-friendly curricula. “My fellow Republican has a revolving door in his closet,” said Dornan. “He’s out. He’s in. He’s out. He’s in.”

It was all a way to poke and joke about Gunderson’s sexuality.

“Clearly, we were living in different and difficult times regarding public officials being openly gay,” Gunderson told me. “At that time, there was no process for coming out as gay, nor were there any predetermined examples and parameters about how to come out.”

Today, there are 11 openly LGBTQ+ members of Congress. And, this year, for the first time ever, two gay men, one a Republican and one a Democrat, are running for Congress in New York’s Third Congressional District.

To be sure, not everyone is out. Whether they choose to remain in the closet might be for several reasons, because they’re fearful of the reactions of their constituents, that they still think being gay is a scarlet letter, or out of some deep seeded self-loathing which sometimes can backfire.

Case in point, former Illinois Republican congressman Aaron Schock. He was on a trajectory to be a rising star in the party, when he began to unravel, all the while denying rumors that he was gay. He eventually came out after a federal investigation into his campaign funds ended.

Everyone who I knew who still worked on or around the Hill knew he was gay, so when he came out, that wasn’t a surprise. It also proves that there are some U.S. legislators who are most definitely hiding. There are 535 members of Congress. The most recent Gallup poll estimated that 5.6 percent of the U.S. population is LGBT. Translating that to Congress, that would allow for at least 30 queer members, which means that in a very theoretical hypothesis, 19 are hiding in the closet.

Now, that brings us to what you’ve all been waiting for, ever since the title of this column drew you in — is Senator Lindsey Graham gay? First, I have no idea. I do know that, again, my friends who work on or around the Hill have their own opinions. In fact, one of them texted me on Saturday a story that appeared on Mediaite. “Did you see this????” She said with all those question marks.

The story was about a wild discussion the night before on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour, hosted by Stephanie Ruhle. She just replaced long-time network anchor Brian Williams.

Ruhle’s show has proven to be a bit more animated than Williams’s version. On Friday’s show, during one of the last segments, Ruhle hosted a panel that included Nancy Giles of CBS Sunday Morning‘s Nancy Giles, Ron Insana of CNBC, columnist Liz Plank, and lesbian comic and podcaster Judy Gold.

The group began to discuss Senator Graham’s ill-timed, ill-thought out, and cruel national abortion bill — which would ban the procedure nationally — and then sequed into a poke and joke about his sexuality.

“Why do this? Republicans don’t even support it across the board. He’s dividing Republicans,” Ruhle said. Which brought protest from Giles that Graham was telling women what to do with their bodies.

Giles’s statement was seconded by Gold, who was goaded on to continue by Giles, “He’s never seen a vagina! He’s never seen a naked woman!” Gold blurted, as the whole panel laughed it up, including Ruhle. “And he is telling me?”

Of course, we all know what Gold was suggesting. She said it in a way that made it appear to be a joke, which is why everyone was laughing. 

“We don’t know that for sure. We do not know that for sure,” Ruhle said.
“It’s probably true, it’s probably true,” Plank replied.
“Judy we would refer to that as an unconfirmed report,” CNBC’s Insana interjected.
“Someone needs to find out!” Plank corrected.
“I’m going to speculate…” Gold said. (See below, at the 35 minute mark.)

Speculate, speculation, speculating, speculative. Those words have appeared in the past when others have…well, speculated, about Senator Graham. Just this week, The View host Whoppi Goldberg had to walk back another poke and joke that hinted at Graham’s sexuality, and when she did backtrack, one viewer on Twitter wasn’t happy with her, “I have no idea why she had to scale back on a suggestive, subtle joke that half the country has already been speculating about anyway concerning Ms. Graham lol. You’re fine Whoopi.”

This week it would appear that Graham’s sexuality has gone from “speculative” to a national open secret. Is it right for “half the country” to be speculating about Graham? Is it ok to use his sexuality as punchline material? Is there a need for these comedians to walk back their jabs? Or are their jokes more a poke at a sensitive subject for Graham? If they are just innocent teasing, then why walk them back?

For as long as I can remember, and I’ve been following politics obsessively even before Graham was elected to the House in 1995, I’ve heard rumors about Graham. I’ve poked and joked about those rumors — not here — but during private conservations. In fact, to me this whole dance around Graham’s sexuality seems more like a sophmoric joke, especially with that uncomfortable “Lady G” nickname that trends on Twitter every other month.

The fact that he may or may not be gay, to me, seems far less important than the inherent danger he creates in his job as a bachelor senator. His flip flop about Trump from calling him a “jackass,” a “kook,” “a race-baiting bigot,” to last month saying there would be “riots in the streets” if Trump was prosecuted is an affront to the decorum of a United States senator.

His phone call to Georgia election officials was most likely illegal and completely outside his role as a representative of South Carolina.

His whiplash from condemning Trump for January 6 to condemning the January 6 committee is beyond unacceptable for someone who swore an oath to the constitution.

And, his absurd legislation of creating a national abortion law flies in the face of his repeated comments that abortion should be left to the states. His reversal, and his audacity to author a bill on behalf of women, when he is a loutish, 67-year-old white man who has never been married, never fathered a child, dealt with a pregnancy, dealt with a wife whose life was in jeopardy because of a pregnancy, or a daughter whose future was in danger…well, a real man wouldn’t be this sanctimonious.

Graham’s sexuality might be private, and the jokes about it juvenile and tinged with homophobia, but his efforts at tearing the fabric of American democracy is far more offensive. It’s hard to get more angry at Judy Gold and Stephanie Ruhle than the man who’s working overtime to take away their rights — and those of all American women.

Views expressed in The Advocate’s opinion articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, EqualPride.

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Russian embassy in Canada sparks furious row after stating ‘family is a man and a woman’

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The Russian embassy in Canada has sparked outrage after tweeting a photo of the pride flag with a red symbol prohibiting it and writing: “family is a man and a woman and children”.

Posted on Friday (25 November), following Russia adopting a “gay propaganda” law prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality the day before, the tweet has been condemned by many who have demanded response and action from the Canadian government.

“It is all about family. Family is a man and a woman and children,” the tweet states.

In response to backlash the embassy has released a statement: “Canada and a range of other States-supporters of the neoliberal agenda are deliberately distorting the reality by conflating the concepts of individual sexual preferences and universal human rights.

“Fortunately, there are no universally acknowledged international documents in place that would establish such a status for any relations that are different from a traditional family structure (a kind reminder that we are considering a natural family of procreation, which refers to a social unit of two male and female parents and their potential children).”

One Twitter user pointed out the reference to “individual preference” against “universal rights”.

They wrote: “Open homophobia by the official Russian embassy handle in Canada. Note the reference to “individual preference” vs “universal rights” – it’s key to what Putin & Xi mean by “multipolarity” – a rejection of universal standards of human rights.”

The statement goes on to claim there is “no discrimination in Russia with respect to the rights of sexual and other kind of minorities”. 

It adds: “Individual sexual preferences of adults and details of their relations should remain strictly personal. It should not become a political matter, especially international relations’ agenda topic.”

Montreal city councillor Serge Sasseville said the tweet was “unacceptable”, and “it should be condemned, publicly”.

“I expect that since it’s been issued by an embassy in Ottawa that our minister of foreign affairs Melanie Jolie, and our prime minister Justin Trudeau, will publicly condemn that tweet and reiterate their support for the LGBTQAI+ community because we’re in 2022 and we cannot live in a society where such a publication goes without a reaction from our government.”

Lawyer and former vice president of Pride Montreal, Jean-Sébastien Boudreault, accused the embassy of Russia in Canada of “bullying the LGBTQ community”.

Boudreault said the post was “frustrating”,  “disheartening” and he urged Canada to react.

“You probably have LGBTQ Russian people that are seeing this and saying the motherland is saying this against us and that’s probably one of the reasons they left Russia to come to Canada, so we need to think about the LGBTQ community, we need to defend the LGBTQ community and we need to remember that human rights are very fragile,” Boudreault said.

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A Season of Giving Thanks — For What?

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We who live with HIV live in a country where many of our fellow citizens seem adamantly determined to negate our very lives. Thirty-seven states continue to criminalize being HIV-positive, despite our knowing that people living with undetectable viral loads cannot pass the virus on to others via sex. Twelve of those states refused to expand Medicaid, cutting many PWAs off from the medications they need to live. During the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of the services available to people living with HIV were curtailed: as funds and personnel were diverted from HIV to COVID-19, clinics closed; testing for HIV declined; PrEP use withered; sheltering-in-place and quarantining forced many long-term survivors back into the kind of isolation and loneliness that we had just begun to address. With many of us long-term survivors living at or below the poverty level, worldwide inflation has made it increasingly difficult to afford the basics of life like food and shelter. The last two years have been abnormally grim for us.

The HIV-negative members of the LGBTQ+ community have not been spared the back-sliding in the efforts to secure our civil rights. Anti-LGBTQ forces in Florida have criminalized even speaking about LGBTQ people in school classrooms, with many states poised to pass copy-cat laws like Florida’s. The activist, uber-conservative Supreme Court that overturned Roe V. Wade, leading to the criminalization of those who seek or perform abortions, signaled quite clearly that their next targets are the right to use contraception and the right to same-sex marriage. With the Court’s conclusion that there is no Constitutional right to privacy, the right to engage in homosexual sex acts may well be on their chopping block, despite the guarantees in Lawrence v. Texas.

Our transgender sisters and brothers, regardless of their serostatus, are under constant threat in Republican-controlled states. South Dakota, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas have all enacted laws that inhibit the availability of gender affirming care — with some states actually criminalizing doctors who offer gender affirming care. Conservative politicians and church leaders routinely mock transgender folks and the use of appropriate pronouns. The transgender community has weathered the bulk of attacks in recent years.

But we have all been vulnerable. For every step forward toward true equality we have taken, we seem to have taken two steps back in recent years. None of the advances we have made is immune to the forces that seek to erase those advances. There are citizens and politicians in our country who seem hell-bent on making our lives as miserable as possible.

In the face of all this hatred and bigotry, I ask again, “Thanks for what?”

The only answer I can give is a very personal one, a list of things that I strive to be grateful for.

I’m grateful for the medications that have kept me alive since 1996 (even despite the ones that caused my advanced osteoporosis). I am grateful for the many long-term survivors whom I’ve gotten to know through SFAF’s Elizabeth Taylor 50-Plus Network and through Shanti’s Honoring Our Experience — friends with whom I share much more than just serostatus, friends whose love and support have sustained me through more than my share of setbacks. I am thankful that after five years of being confined to a wheelchair, I am finally walking again! I am thankful that despite the ravages of living with HIV for thirty-three years, despite facing a handful of death sentences, I will celebrate my seventieth birthday next month. I am thankful that despite my advanced ageing (70 is the new 85!), my brain still functions well enough for me to be able to string words together in coherent sentences… sometimes!

The one, the only thing that I never struggle to be grateful for is the enduring love and support of a great, generous, loving man. My husband Rick Greathouse has been a true godsend, not only for the last two years, but for the twenty-one years we’ve been together. He has wholeheartedly supported my writing — every time I write something, he is my first and best reader; in fact, his love and support are the sole reason I was able to break a 33-year trauma-induced writer’s block, and he has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me whenever I’ve taken my writing public. He has taught me patience in dealing with things I cannot control and courage in changing those things that I can control. He has weathered my every illness alongside me, and during those long years that I spent in a wheelchair, he never once complained about having to push me around this hilly city. He has dried my many tears and brought more joy and laughter into my life than any one man deserves. They say a good man is hard to find. I am forever deeply grateful that I found one of the best.

And so, despite this hateful world that seems to wish harm and grief on all of us, it is still possible to feel gratitude every day. It’s difficult sometimes to maintain that sense of gratitude, for all of us. But we must. We all must find and nurture those things that make us grateful for each new day in a world that seems to conspire against our joy.

For this Thanksgiving and throughout the coming season, my wish is that you live every day filled with bountiful joy and gratitude for life. You deserve it!

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Lauren Boebert lashes out at LGBTQ critics

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Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) defended her anti-LGBTQ rhetoric after she was widely denounced online in the wake of the Club Q shooting for stoking violence against LGBTQ people.

“That is completely false,” she told Ross Kaminsky on KOA, an AM radio station. “I have never had bad rhetoric towards anyone and their personal preference as an adult.”

Sexual orientation is not a “personal preference” and minors can have sexual orientations. In fact, Boebert herself got pregnant for the first time when she was in high school.

This past Saturday, a shooter entered the LGBTQ bar Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado, killed five people, and injured 18 with an AR-15-style weapon before being subdued.

Boebert released a statement saying that “the victims & their families are in my prayers” and was immediately slammed online after spreading hateful rhetoric against LGBTQ people for years, something people said may have contributed to anti-LGBTQ violence.

“You encourage this type of hatred,” Chasten Buttigieg – the husband of out Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – responded. “Get off Twitter and start looking inward.”

It didn’t take long in the radio interview for Boebert to go back to bashing LGBTQ people.

“What I’ve criticized is the sexualization of our children,” she said, an expression conservatives use to refer to a wide range of actions, including teaching kids that some families have two mothers or two fathers and allowing LGBTQ clubs to form in high schools. It’s unclear exactly what she was referring to.

“And I’ve criticized men dressing up as caricatures of women,” she continued. Drag is an art form with deep roots in LGBTQ culture, and the idea is to play with gender, often to express one’s own femininity, masculinity, or androgyny.

“We don’t need six-year-old children putting dollar bills in the thongs of grown men shaking and twerking in front of children,” Boebert said, possibly referring to a viral photo of a child putting money in the thong of a straight, cisgender woman burlesque performer. “That is child abuse.”

“If there’s an issue that comes up where the government, the public system, is sexualizing our children I’m going to stand up against that. Absolutely. Children can’t get tattoos, but they can be chemically castrated, they could have fixed changes as minors,” she said, again spreading the lie that kids are getting “castrated.” Puberty blockers – what she’s likely referring to – are reversible and have been shown to reduce lifelong suicide risk among trans people. Moreover, taking them is a decision families make with doctors, not with high school dropouts like Boebert.

“It’s gotten worse and worse,” Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone (D), who is trans, said about anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. “So it’s not a surprise to me, and to a lot of other people that we’re at this point where a violent attack is happening, and it’s happening in a place like [Club Q] because this has been brewing for a long time.”

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World AIDS Day is a Day to Heal our Grief

World AIDS Day. For most, it is a global event where we honor, memorialize, and celebrate the lives of those we have lost to HIV and AIDS since the pandemic began in 1981. For me it is so much more.

During those early years of the AIDS pandemic, many of us long-term survivors experienced nothing short of a catastrophic loss of life–losing friend, after lover, after friend, after lover, after friend within a very short period of time. At the height of the AIDS pandemic, there were many  of us who were attending an average of four memorials a week, in some cases, six or more.

Psychologists call what we experienced “compounded grief,” something that can occur during and after a mass casualty event such as war or natural disaster. Entire communities were affected, and like other events that result in mass casualties, collective grief manifested. We felt powerless to control the crisis consuming us.

Years later, we feel anticipatory grief. We are scarred by our pasts, seeing the loss around us and the problems not yet fixed as we confront new pandemics (Covid-19, MPX) and crises.

What can we do to heal?

I’ve found comfort in these four steps, and I make sure to incorporate them into every day of commemoration, including World AIDS Day. They are: Acknowledge, Memorialize, Take a Break, and Take Action.

Last year, on December 1, 2022, I took a break from my daily life to focus on the grief that I normally tend to push down. This is normally an act of self-preservation: I push my grief away so that I can function. Most days, if I dwell on my grief, it would overwhelm and consume my very soul. On World AIDS Day, I let my emotions surface.

The day began with Inscribe. Created by George Kelly, in 2016, Inscribe began as a way to teach the students at the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy about those early days of the AIDS pandemic. As a community–students, parents, teachers, neighbors, merchants, tourists, and community leaders–we inscribe the names of those we have lost along two full blocks of Castro Street sidewalks using chalk. By the end of the day, the sidewalks along Castro Street are a patchwork of chalk art, reminiscent of The AIDS Memorial Quilt. It is a powerful act of acknowledgement and a way to memorialize those we have lost.

The display–and the collective act of remembrance–brought tears to my eyes.

Later that day, closer to sunset, we held a Vigil1 on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, where we acknowledged the contributions of civic leaders and others, past and present who were essential in the creation the service and safety network that San Francisco sets as the standard of care for those living with and at risk for HIV.

Then we marched. Just like we did those early days we held candles in one hand and protest signs in the other. Reminding people that HIV and AIDS is not over.

By marching from the steps of City Hall to the steps of St. John the Evangelist Church, we reminded people that there are still 16,000 people in San Francisco living with HIV and that over seventy percent of them are over the age of fifty. We were led by Ms. Billie Cooper, who reminded us that even forty years later, there are still disparities among communities including among trans and Black and brown communities. Dr. Monica Gandhi, from Ward 86, called upon us to refocus our efforts on ending the HIV epidemic, marched with us. And afterward…

…we DANCED!

Under a sky of Quilt panels hanging from the ceiling of the church–made up of panels of parishioners lost to AIDS–we celebrated and memorialized all who were lost.

Quilt panels on display at St. John the Evangelist Church, World AIDS Day, 2021. Photo: HIV Advocacy Network/SFAF.

We danced to the music made popular by the Sunday Tea Dances popular in the early years of AIDS. I danced to honor Jerry, my first friend who died. I danced to honor Vincent, the love of my life who I had buried, not even three months earlier on October 14, 2021, a day before his forty-sixth birthday. I danced to honor those who stuck by us and cared for us over the years. I danced to honor those who lost not one, not two, but three partners and yet still continued to fight alongside us. I danced to honor those young people who continue to fight on my behalf so that I may continue to have access to the services that I need.

I laughed. I cried. And I was healed just a little bit more than I had been a day before.

And that’s the thing. Each World AIDS Day, when I am able to join my friends, my colleagues, my peers and so many others of my community and take a break, acknowledge my loss, memorialize those losses and take action by marching or by dancing, I am healed a little bit more.

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1This event was thanks to the combined efforts of Ande Stone and the other members from the HIV Advocacy Network, Gregg Cassin from the Honoring Our Experience group at Shanti, John Cunningham, Joanie Juster and Michael Bongiorni from the AIDS Memorial & Quilt, the folx at Black Brothers Esteem and TransLife with the help from some good friends at City Hall and the Reverend Kevin Deal and the parishioners at the Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, and Dr. Monica Gandhi, from Ward 86.

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On World AIDS Day Remember Those We Lost and Help Those in Need By ‘Dining Out For Life’ at local Restaurants

Today is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness. Since 1983 Face to Face has been on the forefront of the AIDS crisis in Sonoma County. As we head into our 40th year we are reminded not only of those that we lost to HIV/AIDS but to all those living with HIV in our community. It is our mission to end new cases of HIV while supporting the health and well-being of those living with HIV/AIDS. Our Prevention program performed 678 HIV tests in 2022 alone while our Harm Reduction program has provided 840,000 Syringes to those in need while reversing 3,200 overdoses by supplying people with Naloxone. Our Care Services team has assisted 180 clients with financial assistance, case management, legal and medical advocacy support with 112 clients receiving housing benefit services. Today we take a moment to remember those lives lost and to all those that our team gets to help each and every day by being on the forefront here in Sonoma. Our work is not finished. 
Visit our Website
benefiting our friends at FOOD FOR THOUGHT Dine Out, Take Out, Give Back
VIEW PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS

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Twitter, others slip on removing hate speech, EU review says

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Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it in 2022 compared with the previous year, according to European Union data released Thursday. 

The EU figures were published as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms’ compliance with the 27-nation bloc’s code of conduct on disinformation. 

Twitter wasn’t alone — most other tech companies signed up to the voluntary code also scored worse. But the figures could foreshadow trouble for Twitter in complying with the EU’s tough new online rules after owner Elon Musk fired many of the platform’s 7,500 full-time workers and an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial tasks. 

The EU report, carried out over six weeks in the spring, found Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82% in 2021.

In comparison, the amount of flagged material Facebook reviewed within 24 hours fell to 64%, Instagram slipped to 56.9% and YouTube dipped to 83.3%. TikTok came in at 92%, the only company to improve. 

The amount of hate speech Twitter removed after it was flagged up slipped to 45.4% from 49.8% the year before. TikTok’s removal rate fell by a quarter to 60%, while Facebook and Instagram only saw minor declines. Only YouTube’s takedown rate increased, surging to 90%.

“It’s worrying to see a downward trend in reviewing notifications related to illegal hate speech by social media platforms,” European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova tweeted. “Online hate speech is a scourge of a digital age and platforms need to live up to their commitments.” 

Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment. Emails to several staff on the company’s European communications team bounced back as undeliverable.

Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last month fanned widespread concern that purveyors of lies and misinformation would be allowed to flourish on the site. The billionaire Tesla CEO, who has frequently expressed his belief that Twitter had become too restrictive, has been reinstating suspended accounts, including former President Donald Trump’s. 

Twitter faces more scrutiny in Europe by the middle of next year, when new EU rules aimed at protecting internet users’ online safety will start applying to the biggest online platforms. Violations could result in huge fines of up to 6% of a company’s annual global revenue.

France’s online regulator Arcom said it received a reply from Twitter after writing to the company earlier this week to say it was concerned about the effect that staff departures would have on Twitter’s “ability maintain a safe environment for its users.”

Arcom also asked the company to confirm it can meet its “legal obligations” in fighting online hate speech and that it is committed to implementing the new EU online rules. Arcom said it received a response from Twitter and that it will “study their response,” without giving more details.

Tech companies that signed up to the EU’s disinformation code agree to commit to measures aimed at reducing disinformation and file regular reports on whether they’re living up to their promises, though there’s little in the way of punishment.

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25 Gay Men Could Have Been Killed by Indiana Serial Killer

 Bones found in the 1990s on Fox Hallow Farms in Westfield are linked to Herb Baumeister, the man largely considered Indiana’s most prolific serial killer.

In 1996, authorities found only 11 DNA profiles among the bones and identified eight of the men.

Now, that total of DNA profiles could rise to about 25 men with new testing of the bones.

Jeff Jellison, who takes office in January as the new Hamilton County coroner, said DNA technology has advanced, and it is time to identify the rest of the men.

“The search produced more than probably 10,000 bones and bone fragments,” Jellison said. “We believe there are as many as 25 individuals that were recovered from that property. So from that initial find, there were 11 DNA samples identified. Eight of those people were actually matched to DNA samples and were actually identified. There are still three remaining DNA samples that were not matched to anyone.”

The Hamilton County Coroner’s Office is partnering with the University of Indianapolis Archeology and Forensic Lab to sort the 10,000 bones and fragments to determine which ones can be used to create additional DNA profiles.

“We’ve identified approximately 100 bones that are viable for DNA extraction. Many of these bones are very, very small, small as a fingernail, because they were crushed. Many of the longer bones were burnt before they were discarded, so DNA may not exist in those bones.”

Baumeister was believed to have coerced young men in Indianapolis gay bars to return to his Westfield house before killing them. He took his own life before law enforcement could arrest him.

Jellison said, “We know we have a couple of people that we believe are in that group of bones, and we have been able to track down family members from them. Through our investigators, through my deputies, through law enforcement, we’ll go to work.”

The coroner-elect is stressing the need for anyone with a male relative or friend missing from the 1980s to mid-1990s in Indiana or other states to come forward and give a DNA sample or a tip to help the investigation.

“When you look at the middle ’80s to middle ’90s, family members didn’t know maybe that their relative was gay. So you have to take ‘gay’ out of this equation, and, if you had someone missing, a male individual in your family that was missing middle ’80s to middle ’90s, I need you to come forward, and we don’t know that all of these people were gay, so we do know that they are male.”

Jellison said getting a sample from a family member is painless.

“We can get DNA from a bone, but if we don’t have something to match that to our efforts, (they) go nowhere,” Jellison said. “So if someone had a loved one go missing in that time, I need them to come forward and give a DNA sample. It’s very simple. It’s just swabbing someone’s cheek.”

The investigation would not be happening without Jellison’s dedication. He said he wants to bring closure and give the men a final resting place. He said he cannot fully explain why this investigation took so long to pick back up.

“I can’t answer that. I know I’ve spoken with previous coroners and all of them have said, ‘Yes, we should have done something like this.’ I think manpower was a big prohibitive factor at that time.

“I mean this is huge. This is a big investigation that’s going to take quite some time and a lot of manpower, and our office didn’t quite have the manpower to do that.

“I tell people these people were forgotten, but they’re not forgotten any longer.”

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