LGBTQI History: A Sonoma County Timeline 1947-2000.
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Programs during the 1980s on our LGBT Community.
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| PrEP Program Update |
As Fall comes into view we wanted to update you on our new PrEP Program. We started to prescribe PrEP, the once-a-day pill to prevent HIV in June. As of today we have 18 people who are now on PrEP, meaning 18 people who won’t get HIV! And we are just getting started…..If you know of a friend and/or loved one who should get on PrEP, please do give them our information or direct them to this link and they can get started on PrEP in a matter of days. It’s FREE and prescriptions are delivered to your door. This new program in partnership with Q Care telehealth continues to lead us towards our mission to end HIV in Sonoma County. |
| The Holigays are right around the corner!Saturday, December 18 at 5pm The Green Music CenterWe are thrilled that the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus will return to the Green Music Center for their annual holiday show benefiting our work. Join us in your festive attire as we gather again in person. Get ready for a joyous, hilarious, and celebratory evening. This event always is a sell-out so get your tickets now. Tickets are available here |   |
| We talk a lot about HIV testing and our harm reduction programs but did you know that we also provide Care Services to over 500 clients who are living with HIV in Sonoma County? We offer comprehensive support services to people living with HIV disease in Sonoma County. We walk our clients through the maze of health care services and help them address their health and social service needs. We provide benefits counseling, information and referrals, housing and volunteer services. Our team has extensive experience in HIV care and local resources. All our services are provided free of charge and are completely confidential. |
Blood banks in Northern California and across the nation are sounding an alarm over a blood and platelet shortage the American Red Cross says amounts to a national emergency, with supplies at their lowest levels in at least six years.
The shortage, now in its third week, is the third and most severe supply crisis at blood banks since the coronavirus pandemic began, according to the Red Cross.
It has spurred blood banks, including those in the North Bay, to plead for donors of all blood types to visit as soon as they can, especially those with O-negative blood, the universal type that can be given to anyone in an emergency.
The Red Cross, which typically experiences a fall bounce-back from summer blood shortages, saw donor turnout drop to 10% of normal in September amid a surge in COVID-19 cases caused by the delta variant.
“This is such an unusual situation,” said Justin Mueller, the regional donor services executive for the American Red Cross’s Northern California coastal region. “Throughout this pandemic, it’s been ‘How are we going to make sure we have enough blood products?’ because the need is absolutely still there―and quite frankly, that’s what we’re tasked with each and every day.”
The Red Cross is the nation’s largest supplier of donated blood, providing supplies to hospitals, surgery centers and other health care facilities. They aim to maintain a 5-day supply of all blood types, but report stockpiles of O-positive and O-negative blood have dipped to less than a half-day supply in recent weeks. There’s also been a critical need for platelets, blood particles that help with clotting and have a five-day shelf life.
An upcoming Vitalant blood drive:
Oct. 19 at Sonoma State University at the Bloodmobile in Parking Lot D located at 1801 E. Cotati Ave. in Rohnert Park from 10 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
The Vitalant donation center in Santa Rosa is located at 3505 Industrial Dr., which is open everyday. For more information on times and to make an appointment, visit vitalant.org.
Red Cross blood drives include:
Oct. 19 in Santa Rosa from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the American Red Cross Chapter located at 5297 Aero Drive.Oct. 20 in Petaluma from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Calvary Chapel of Petaluma located at 1955 S. McDowell Blvd.
For more information and to make an appointment, visit www.redcrossblood.org.
A gay refugee who was forced to flee El Salvador because of anti-gay discrimination has opened up about his painful efforts to start a new life in the United States.
Martin – not his real name – is currently residing in a refugee camp in Reynosa, Mexico, where water supplies are short and living conditions areinhumane.
He never intended to leave El Salvador – he lived “peacefully” in his home country and even had his own business. But everything changed for Martin when he was raped.
“I am from the LGBTQ community, I am gay,” Martin said. “And in my country, I suffered discrimination and violent because of that.
“So, at that moment I had no choice but to take the savings I had and try to flee to a more liberal place, where they don’t push you aside, where they don’t see you badly.”
Shortly afterwards, Martin made contact with a person who claimed he could help him get into the United States as an undocumented migrant.
The deal was simple – this person would try three times to get Martin into the United States. If he was turned away at the border – as so many migrants are – he was on his own.
He left El Salvador on 5 March and managed to make it to Monterrey, Mexico – but his plans quickly disintegrated. He tried to cross into the United States on three separate occasions. Each time, he was sent to Reynosa in Mexico.
“Then the last time, I was kidnapped as I was leaving the bridge,” Martin said. “Someone told me that he could help me, made me get into a car and took me to a house where they locked me up for several days.
“We took advantage of an oversight by the kidnappers and escaped with another boy who had also returned to Reynosa. We managed to get to a highway and got on the first bus that passed, which took us to Monterrey. With a 500 pesos bill that the boy had been able to hide we bought some food and cleaned ourselves up a bit.
“There I found out through Facebook that, instead of trying to cross illegally again, I could ask for asylum in the United States to get there by doing things right.”
Martin ultimately decided to return to Reynosa, where he has remained ever since. According to MSF/Doctors Without Borders, at least 2,000 people – most of them from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – have been living in the makeshift camp in Reynosa since it was set up.
People live in “deplorable conditions” and have limited access to basic services, the advocacy organisation said.
“The process of being in the camp has not been comfortable at all, the situation here is very difficult, because everyone lives in tents and I don’t have one yet, so I have to sleep where there is space,” Martin said.
“Besides that, there are many needs. For example, water is very vital for humans, but here we have very little for the amount of people we have at the moment.
“The conditions are not the most pleasant for us. I am trying to endure this.”
Martin said that living in Mexico isn’t an option for him long term. He has faced “abuse attempts” in Reynosa and he only feels safe inside the plaza.
“With the guidance of other people, I started the process of applying for asylum and I am waiting to see what the future holds from now on,” he said.
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“Here they tell you to be patient, because patience is the only thing that can sustain us. I only hope the there will be a positive result.”
Martin’s story is just one of many, according to Doctors Without Borders. Many others are living in appalling conditions as while they await a decision on their applications for asylum in the United States. Most have fled countries where their human rights were under threat – including other gay refugees.
Most of the migrants currently based in the Reynosa camp were previously expelled from the United States under Title 42, a public health order that constitutes “a flagrant violation of international law,” according to Doctors Without Borders.
The policy means that people can be deported under COVID-19 regulations – and it is putting asylum seekers in danger.
“The situation of migrants in Mexico is unsustainable,” said Gemma Domínguez, MSF’s general coordinator in Mexico.
“Policies that criminalize migration, the lack of an adequate humanitarian response, and repeated violence and persecution against migrants are unacceptable and endanger the lives of thousands of men, women and children”.
A 17-year-old student continues to recover following a brutal beating by a classmate. The reason for the attack: The bully saw his victim carrying the pride flag.
The incident happened at Southwestern High School in the southern community of Piasa, Illinois. School administrators had promoted a “red, white, and blue,” day encouraging students to bring their favorite flags to school. The Jacksonville Journal-Courier reports that when a classmate noticed the student’s pride flag, he asked him to throw it away. When the student refused, his classmate attacked him, punching him in the head.
At the time of this writing, the extent of the victim’s injuries remains unclear.
Police later detained the assailant and charged him with excessive battery. He remains at a juvenile detention center and could face hate crime charges in the future.
Related: Transgender high school wrestler slams anti-trans sports bills, shares story of survival
Fellow students at Southwestern High, meanwhile, have sided with the bully.
“You wear a gay Pride flag to school and you don’t expect people to do anything? You go to Southern (sic) High, where we support the Confederate flag and you wonder why you get beat up?” one student posted to social media.
“It’s disrespectful to wear a pride flag on patriotic day, it’s not queer day,” another posted.
The victim’s brother also released screenshots of a terse conversation he had with a fellow student. When he asked what happened that got a student arrested, the “friend” showed little sympathy.
“Some gay kid brought a gay pride flag in and some kid beat the [expletive] out of him,” the classmate said, punctuating his statement with laughing emojis.
When the victim’s brother objected, the classmate showed no sympathy.
“Well don’t send him in a country ass school wearin’ some gay (expletive) if you don’t want his ass beat.”
2021 has seen a number of attacks on LGBTQ students and the pride flag in high schools across the United States. In Florida, a group of students carrying makeshift Confederate flags attacked a group of students promoting the school’s queer-straight alliance. In May, a 14-year-old student endured an attack from classmates for carrying the pride flag to school. In April, video of students defacing the pride flag at a Colorado high school went viral.
When students at a California school stole their teachers Pride flag, defecated on it and posted a video on TikTok, the school responded with a ban.
According to the San Luis Obispo Tribune, last month, two boys at Paso Robles High School in California posted a TikTok video in which they defecated on their science teacher’s large classroom Pride flag, before trying to flush it down the toilet.
Although the school claims it took “disciplinary action” against the boys after it was alerted to the incident by other students, it then responded by banning similar Pride flags.
On 1 October, teachers received a letter about a new policy to make sure classrooms weren’t “politicised”. It told teaching staff to remove any flags that were “alterations of the American flag”, and limited any other flags to two feet by two feet, a significantly smaller size that the flag that was stolen.
Paso Robles Joint Unified School District superintendent Curt Dubost, who sent the letter, told the publication: “We don’t want to turn it into a politicised issue where a student enters a classroom and looks up, ‘Oh, there’s a rainbow flag here, or there’s a blue lives matter flag here — that determines what the partisanship is of my teacher.’
“We think that that’s a real slippery slope. And so we continue to believe that this is a very reasonable compromise solution that allows rainbows, but within reason.”
But sophomore Eve Barajas, president of the high schools equity club, said: “It’s obviously just banning the Pride flag altogether unless you want those little mini ones. It’s a way of subtly just getting rid of it.
“Their defense was that the Pride flag may be a trigger for certain students. But if I had said that the American flag was a trigger to me, I would be treated like a terrorist.”
LGBT+ students and their allies at Paso Robles High School have been protesting the flag ban by drawing tiny Pride flags, which fall within the guidelines, and putting them up around the school.
In a joint op-ed for the San Luis Obispo Tribune, they wrote: “What message does this send to students?
“The flag ban means the school has allowed the haters to win, while LGBT+ students feel punished for wanting to be seen and supported.
“When you are a high school student in the LGBT+ community, you walk into every classroom and school bathroom not knowing if you’ve entered a safe space.
“You endure angry stares, hurtful comments, and relentless assaults of microaggressions that erode our mental health and self confidence. It is exhausting. It is oppressive. It is unacceptable. And so we’re coming out against hate.”
The students have organised a forum, titled “Coming Out Against Hate”, to be held at the school on 20 October.
For the first time, pupils will have an opportunity to “share their experiences and visions for a more welcoming, inclusive educational environment.”
Grassroots activists and union groups are preparing to launch a flurry of protests later on Wednesday against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz) — who they worry could single-handedly sink President Biden’s agenda.
“We’re committed to birddogging Kyrsten Sinema with her constituents until the very end,” Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese said in an interview. “What we want to show is that her constituents are very serious about wanting policies and activism and we’re going to make her life unpleasant or uncomfortable until that happens.”
Our Revolution, the Bernie Sanders-inspired grassroots group, is joining Arizona union leaders, educators and other grassroots activists for a series of demonstrations outside of her Phoenix and Tucson offices over the next several days, according to a strategy outline first shared with POLITICO. https://e4c8813589ae02d166c72e5a82167489.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
The planned demonstrations mark the next phase of an aggressive approach activists have taken to turn up the heat on Sinema, who has been a hold-out on the massive domestic spending plan that’s at the heart of Biden’s economic agenda.
Last week, the in-your-face tactic came to head when protesters followed Sinema into a bathroom and filmed her. On Monday, they followed her to Boston where she was to compete in the marathon before a foot injury kept her from participating.
Currently, activists on the ground in Arizona describe Sinema’s constituents bubbling over with frustration.
“They want somebody to listen and the fact that that’s not happening is infuriating,” said Yolanda Bejarano, national legislative and field director for Communications Workers of America. “The folks are not strangers to her. They helped get her elected.”
During the protests, the groups are heading a petition drive in an ongoing attempt to persuade Sinema to sign onto legislation that would strengthen unions and the right to organize.
In it, the senator said she supported the freedom of expression but was distressed over the position it put her students in, some of whom she said were also filmed inside the bathroom. Sinema also noted that she and her office had previously met with LUCHA Arizona, the immigration activists involved in the bathroom ambush.
“In the 19 years I have been teaching at ASU, I have been committed to creating a safe and intellectually challenging environment for my students. Yesterday, that environment was breached,” Sinema said in the statement. “My students were unfairly and unlawfully victimized. This is wholly inappropriate.”
In interviews, several of the activist groups said they could not see their members employing such tactics. But, they also didn’t apologize for the behavior, portraying it as an act of desperation by voters who cannot reach a public official.
“She ignores them and dismisses them,” Bejarano said. “When you dehumanize somebody like that, that’s intolerable.”
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday met with more than a dozen LGBTQ activists.
Tremenda Nota, the Washington Blade’s media partner in Cuba, reported the meeting took place at Havana’s Palace of the Revolution. Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, a gay man living with HIV who writes under the pen name Paquito el de Cuba, and Malú Cano, coordinator of Transcuba, a transgender organization that is affiliated with the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), are among those who participated.
“I see it as a political will to advance the recognition of the rights of LGBTIQ+ people, an outstanding debt that the revolution has always had with us,” Cano told Tremenda Nota.
The Cuban government tweeted pictures of of the meeting. Rodríguez in a blog post notesCENESEX Director Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro, was sitting next to Díaz-Canel.
Former President Fidel Castro, who was Mariela Castro’s uncle, in the years after the 1959 revolution that brought him to power sent gay men and others to work camps known by the Spanish acronym UMAP. The Cuban government until 1993 forcibly quarantined people with AIDS in state-run sanitaria.
Mariela Castro and Díaz-Canel both publicly support marriage rights for same-sex couples. Friday’s meeting took place less than a month after Cuba’s Justice Ministry released a draft of a proposed new family code that would allow gays and lesbians to tie the knot.
Yoan de la Cruz, a gay man from San Antonio de los Baños in Artemisa province who live-streamed the first of a series of anti-government protests that took place across Cuba on July 11, and hundreds of others who participated in the demonstrations remain in custody.
14ymedio, an independent website founded by Yoani Sánchez, a prominent critic of the Cuban government, earlier this week reported the country’s attorney general is seeking an 8-year prison sentence for De La Cruz. 14ymedio also notes Cuban authorities continue to hold De La Cruz “somewhat incommunicado” in a prison east of Havana.
Two weeks ago, The Athletic published an incredibly harrowing story that rocked the world of women’s soccer. Multiple National Women’s Soccer League players accused a prominent coach, Paul Riley of the North Carolina Courage, of sexual coercion. (Riley has denied the allegations.) In the wake of the story, league Commissioner Lisa Baird resigned, Riley was fired and Steve Baldwin, the controlling owner and CEO of the Washington Spirit women’s soccer team, stepped down (more on that later).
The players banded together and forced the cancellation of a weekend’s worth of games, and, when they returned to the pitch, brought with them public protest and a list of demands.
The players banded together and forced the cancellation of a weekend’s worth of games, and, when they returned to the pitch, brought with them publicprotest and a list of demands. Their bravery inspired other players from the women’s soccer world to speak out, and Alético Madrid player Deyna Castellanos released a statement accusing the coach of the Venezuelan national team of sexual abuse, as well. (That coach has also denied all allegations against him.) These events are part of a larger reckoning across the world of sports, as we saw in fencing over the last few months and in gymnastics when athletes came forward about Larry Nassar.
But there is one element to the abuse described by the women’s soccer players that has been under-discussed: the homophobic elements of it. This is an important point, because the world of women’s sports is thought to be generally queer-friendly, with many openly gay players and a large queer fan base. While it’s true that it’s much more acceptable to be openly queer in women’s sports, there are plenty of examples that show it’s still not entirely safe.
In The Athletic’s report, players alleged that Riley, while he was coaching the Portland Thorns, was hyperfocused on their sexual orientation. Former Thorns players Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim said Riley brought them back to his apartment one night and pressured them to kiss each other while he watched, incentivizing them with decreased team conditioning if they complied. Farrelly claimed that when she began dating one of her teammates, Riley became focused on their relationship, saying Farrelly couldn’t be gay because she was “too hot to be a lesbian” and that she wasn’t a “real lesbian” because she had previously been involved with men.
Shim said when she arrived in Portland in 2014, she was instructed not to talk publicly about being gay. In 2018, Riley defended Courage player Jaelene Daniels after she blamed her homophobia on her Christian faith, saying she had “a good heart.” (Riley was fired from the Thorns in 2015 after Shim reported his behavior and an investigation found he had violated team policy; he was hired by the Courage just months later.)
But it goes beyond Riley and the Portland organization’s behavior nearly a decade ago. The Washington Post in August reported that Washington Spirit coach Richie Burke was verbally abusive toward his players, including using homophobic slurs, something also alleged by youth players he had coached previously. (Burke was fired in September after an investigation into his conduct.) On Sept. 1, it was also announced that Andy Carroll, the chief business officer for the Real Salt Lake organization, which oversees the NWSL’s Utah Royals FC, was taking a leave of absence. Among other things, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Carroll would comment often on players’ sexual orientation, saying things like, “They’re all just a bunch of lesbians.”
But going back further to 2016, leaders in the Spirit organization have been accused of homophobia. That year, OL Reign (which was then called Seattle Reign) player Megan Rapinoe accused Bill Lynch, the Spirit’s owner, of anti-gay behavior. “I have had conversations with Spirit players current and past, the fact that [the organization doesn’t] have a Pride Night,” Rapinoe said at the time. “They’ve made it pretty clear, at least internally, that that’s not a game they are interested in, which is homophobic to me. … Yeah I do think that Bill Lynch is homophobic.”
Married NWSL players Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris, who currently play for the Orlando Pride, corroborated Rapinoe’s accusations in 2019. The pair reported that they clashed frequently with Lynch during their time in Washington. (In 2018, Lynch sold his majority ownership stake to Steve Baldwin, who stepped down in the wake of the recent allegations against coach Richie Burke.)
To be clear, this is not just a problem in women’s soccer. NCAA women’s basketball has long grappled with a homophobic culturethat has encouraged players to stay closeted or pressured them to make their appearance more feminine. The WNBA also has a number of openly gay players, and a strong LGBTQ fan base. But it has really only openly embraced its inherent queerness in recent years.
The reality is that even leagues known to be queer-friendly are often run by white, cishet men. As a result, they replicate — and enforce — existing systems of power and oppression. “Women’s sports, traditionally, have been built by men and are also trying to use the structures of men’s sports,” Meg Linehan, one of The Athletic reporters who broke the NWSL story, said on MSNBC. “That leads to problems in a major way.”
The reality is that even leagues known to be queer-friendly are often run by white, cishet men.
It’s always been this way. Throughout the history of professionalized women’s sports, players have been forced to wear feminized clothing (like the skirts and makeup worn by the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II) or told to keep quiet about their personal life if they didn’t have a male partner. They have been sexualized in ways that would make them appeal to the straight male gaze. And while the world has changed over the last century, female athletes still deal with stereotypes about being gay or masculine and, therefore, unappealing.
There are signs of hope. New data from Outsports, the University of Winchester and the Sports Equality Foundation shows that LGBTQ athletes who are out to their teams receive widespread, deep support from their teammates. The bravery of players like Farrelly, Shim and others who have come forward will also, hopefully, highlight how and why cultures of sexism, abuse and homophobia must be eradicated.
But in order to root these problems out completely, sports must recognize the ways that homophobia is deeply related to sexism and be committed to dismantling all of it. The recent spate of revelations out of the world of women’s soccer shows how far we still have to go.
Hundreds of out transgender people and allies from across Florida and from as far away as Southern California gathered in Orlando Saturday to rally and to march, demanding justice, equality and acceptance.
Chanting, “Trans Solidarity,” and “Hey Hey, Ho, Ho, Transphobia Has Got To Go!” participants in the 3rd annual National Trans Visibility March stepped off for their first march to be held outside Washington, D.C. This was also the first in-person parade since last year’s march was held mostly virtually, on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There are so many of us who feel excluded from our cities and our communities,” said Ariel Savage of Riverside, Calif.
“Visibility and support is crucial,” declared Savage, 24, in one of the stirring speeches to the crowd at a rally on the shores of Orlando’s Lake Eola, just prior to the march. “We are here today at the National Trans Visibility March because we are real and we have had enough!”
“There are so many of us who feel excluded from our cities and our communities,” said Ariel Savage of Riverside, Calif.
“Visibility and support is crucial,” declared Savage, 24, in one of the stirring speeches to the crowd at a rally on the shores of Orlando’s Lake Eola, just prior to the march. “We are here today at the National Trans Visibility March because we are real and we have had enough!”
ARIEL SAVAGE DELIVERS A SPEECH PRIOR TO THE NATIONAL TRANS VISIBILITY MARCH IN ORLANDO, FLA., ON SATURDAY. (VIDEO BY DAWN ENNIS)“It just goes to showcase the collective love that we, as trans people, have for each other, and that even in a world that excludes us and locks doors on us, we keep marching and we keep breaking those doors down every day,” Savage later told the Los Angeles Blade. She’s the policy director at TruEvolution, a Riverside-based nonprofit focused on racial justice and providing health services and emergency housing for LGBTQ+ people. “The Inland Empire has a lot of work to do,” she said, calling it “not necessarily the most accepting environment.” This was her first visit to Orlando.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many trans people in one place before,” Savage said. “It feels very beautiful to be in a place where I’m not scared and I just feel excited and happy and at peace.”
Flynn, who is 14 and from Orlando, held a sign decorated in the blue, white and pink colors of the transgender flag that said, “I’m so proud to be me.” He marched with his mother, Michelle, and her cousin Rochelle, who is lesbian. Flynn said he’d known he was a trans boy since sixth grade but only recently came out to his mom. “Of course, I was confused, at first,” said Michelle, of Orlando. “But since then, I have educated myself and I’ve joined parent groups and I support him fully.”
Florida’s ban on trans student-athletes and similar laws in eight other states are worrisome for Flynn’s family, his mother said. “It does worry me as a mom, because I want to protect my kids. But I also want him to be who he is. I think it’s really important as parents to support our children.”
March organizers say they chose both this location, and the weekend of Orlando Pride, to show unity with the larger LGBTQ community. “Orlando has a spirit of heart and love, and we wanted it to be here to celebrate with them,” said NTVM executive director, CEO and founder Marissa Miller.
Following the march, members of the transgender community and allies formed a special contingent in the annual LGBTQ Pride Parade through downtown Orlando, holding aloft a huge trans Pride flag.
Next year, the march moves to Los Angeles, according to Come Out With Pride’s communications director, YouTuber Melody Maia Monet, who first brought the idea for combining the Orlando events to her board of directors. She’s been out 11 years and said she’s excited to see how Pride has evolved in her adopted hometown of Orlando.
“What I really love is that we’re kind of moving away from the binary,” Monet said. “When you walk around this place, not just the National Trans Visibility March area, but all around Lake Eola Park, where we’re having Come Out With Pride, you’ll see people of basically every stripe under the rainbow, you know? So I think that is that is a great thing to see.”
