History buffs rejoice! We have added several new resources to the Sonoma County Library Digital Collections site, including a historical photo map viewer and an updated Local History Index. Find out more about these collections below!
The Historic Photo Map Viewergraphically provides the location for nearly 35,000 photos taken within Sonoma County, and is a great way to discover new images in our collection. The tool also allows a view of locations over time, from 1942 (for selected areas) through 2018!
The Local History Index is a tool for researching Sonoma County people, places, organizations, and events referenced in books, journals, and newspapers found primarily in the Sonoma County History and Genealogy Library. The index records—created over several decades by volunteers—include links to the library’s catalog for location and other information.
Dig into the annual final reports from the Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury (CGJ)and its predecessor, the Sonoma County Grand Jury (GJ). This independent institution oversees all aspects of county, special districts and city governments in the County to ensure that the best interests of its citizens are being served.
The Sonoma Historian(originally published as The Journal) is the official publication of the Sonoma County Historical Society. This quarterly publication contains articles, book reviews, and announcements of events pertaining to the history of Sonoma County, as well as news of the society. All issues through the current year are available here.
The Sonoma County Commission on AIDS was formed in 1988 to act as a link between services, clients, and businesses. The commission is committed to assisting the community of Sonoma County to develop and implement an efficient HIV strategy plan that addresses prevention, treatment, and care, and assures the preservation of human rights. This collection consists of meeting agendas, minutes, announcements, and other material from the first ten years of the commission. Start Researching Now
Thank you for being a member of the Sonoma County Library community. Visit us online or in person at one of our branches. Be sure to check out open jobs at Sonoma County Library here.
Descubre la historia del Condado de Sonoma con nuestras colecciones digitales
¿Eres un aficionado a la historia? Hemos agregado varios recursos nuevos al sitio de Colecciones Digitales de la Biblioteca del Condado de Sonoma, incluido un visor de mapas fotográficos históricos y un Índice de Historia Local actualizado. ¡Descubre más sobre estas colecciones a continuación!
El Historic Photo Map Viewerproporciona gráficamente la ubicación de casi 35,000 fotos tomadas dentro del Condado de Sonoma, y es una excelente manera de descubrir nuevas imágenes en nuestra colección. ¡La herramienta también permite una vista de las ubicaciones a lo largo del tiempo, desde 1942 (para áreas seleccionadas) hasta 2018!
El Local History Index es una herramienta para investigar a las personas, lugares, organizaciones y eventos del Condado de Sonoma a los que se hace referencia en libros, revistas y periódicos que se encuentran principalmente en la Biblioteca de Historia y Genealogía del Condado de Sonoma. Los registros del índice, creados durante varias décadas por voluntarios, incluyen enlaces al catálogo de la biblioteca para la ubicación y otra información.
Lee los informes finales anuales del Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury (CGJ) y su predecesor, el Sonoma County Grand Jury (GJ). Esta institución independiente supervisa todos los aspectos del condado, los distritos especiales y los gobiernos de la ciudad en el Condado para garantizar que se atele a los mejores intereses de sus ciudadanos.
The Sonoma Historian(originalmente publicado como The Journal) es la publicación oficial de Sonoma County Historical Society. Esta publicación trimestral contiene artículos, reseñas de libros y anuncios de eventos relacionados con la historia del Condado de Sonoma, así como noticias de la sociedad. Todos los números a lo largo del año en curso están disponibles aquí.
Sonoma County Commission on AIDS se formó en 1988 para actuar como enlace entre los servicios, los clientes y las empresas. La comisión se compromete a ayudar a la comunidad del condado de Sonoma a desarrollar e implementar un plan estratégico eficiente contra el HIV que aborde la prevención, el tratamiento y la atención, y garantice la preservación de los derechos humanos. Esta colección consiste en agendas de reuniones, actas, anuncios y otro material de los primeros diez años de la comisión.Comienza a investigar ahora
Gracias por ser miembro de la comunidad de Bibliotecas del Condado de Sonoma. Visítenos en línea o en persona en una de nuestras sucursales. Asegúrese de consultar los trabajos disponible en la Biblioteca del Condado de Sonoma aquí.
¿Preguntas? Por favor llame a su biblioteca local o haga clic para mandar un mensaje.
HOLIDAY MEAL FREE TO ALLThursday, Dec 2 from 11am – 1pm
Your invited to join us to celebrate our annual holiday meal! This year we will be serving YOU. Traditional holiday menu, with vegetarian options too! More info below.
Due to COVID restrictions we ask that you do not bring any food to the meal. All of the food is provided and served by the SASC Board of Directors. RSVP required as we are limited in space. Details are on the webpage when you register!
Helping Other People “HOP” Day! Are you a senior needing a hand with a basic project around your home? Great news, the Sebastopol Area Senior Center and local Service Clubs have partnered to help you! First HOP Day in Sebastopol: Saturday, January 15, 2022!
What you need to know:This application is open to seniors aged 60 or betterAll recipients MUST be vaccinated and wear masks indoors when volunteers are present.Applications are accepted year-round; service days are once per quarterBy submitting this application, we cannot guarantee we can complete the project, but we will try our best!Please note there are some projects we cannot complete including anything that requires a permit.
Here are some sample projects we can complete for you:changing light bulbschanging simple fixtures around your homeremoving cobwebs or debrishelping with basic yard workany project you can’t do around the house, tell us what it is and we can try to helpPartnered Agencies: Sebastopol Area Senior Center, Gravenstein Lions Club, Rotary Club of Sebastopol, Rotary Club of Sebastopol Sunrise, Kiwanis Club, Soroptimist, Active 20/30 Club, VFW Gold Ridge Post, Sebastopol Grange, Masons La Fayette Lodge #126
Application Process: 1. Senior completes application 2. The Senior Center funnels applications to the Service Clubs 3. Applications are reviewed, approved by the Service Clubs. 4. Applicants are notified.
THE HARVEST CAFEat the Sebastopol Area Senior Open Tuesday – Friday 11am – 1pm for Lunch$10 for members; $12 for non membersProof of vaccination required.Masks required unless you are sitting down and eating
VOLUNTEER DRIVERS NEEDED!This program is in its 14th year. We now have over 1,400 people who have used our program since we started, with over 40,000 rides to date! You only accept the rides you want. Most volunteers drive twice a month. If you would like to find out more, please contact::Scotty King | Manager of Special Services Volunteer Driver Program & LGTB+ Liaison SASC – 707-829-2440 scotty@sebastopolseniorcenter.org
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
Take part in an Alzheimer’s Prevention Study! The goal of this study is to identify people who may be ‘at risk’ for cognitive decline based a blood test showing a build up of amyloid and tau, the two markers of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain. All costs for all testing/exams/MRIs are covered by the sponsor. No cost to the individual or their insurance company.
Eligibility requirements: Age range 55-80Has a normal cognitive exam on a screening (can be done on a computer)Has a positive blood test as noted aboveHas a negative MRI for other risk factors, such a strokes. People who can not get MRIs for any reason are excluded as it is used both for screening and for safety assessments during the studyNo other serious illnessesHas study partner who can help assess any cognitive changes (spouse, friend, adult children, etc.)The study will last about three years.
Exclusion:Dementia or cognitive impairmentAbnormal liver function tests on initial screening. The study involves an IV infusion, once a month, for nine months. There is a placebo arm to the study. After the initial nine months, there is tracking for any cognitive decline or side effects for up to three years, using on-line visits about every six months, including the study partner’s assessment of the individual.
To find out more information or to sign up, email: Lauren Weber ~ Lauren.Weber@stjoe.org
Gender-affirming healthcare for trans and non-binary people is being attacked, legally and politically, in the UK.
We’ve seen this with Keira Bell’s well-funded court case, which almost succeeded in making it so that trans kids needed court approval to get puberty blockers; we see it with the fact that the trans healthcare crisis means that a trans person in London going to their GP today for a referral to a gender clinic might wait as long as 26 years for a first appointment, going by the current rate of intake; and we see it every time a politician bleats about “only women having cervixes“, a lie that comes as many trans men and non-binary are struggling with access to timely cervical screenings and reproductive healthcare.
Transphobic rhetoric about how gender-affirming surgeries are “mutilation” and lies about how hormone replacement therapy leads to “sterility in 100% of cases” are widespread, shared by blue-tick “gender critical” activists, heterosexual newspaper columnists, and steadily creeping into parliamentary debates.
But why are cis people so bothered about gender-affirming healthcare for trans people, when they themselves get gender-affirming healthcare all the time?
Let me explain with a story. A couple of years ago, a housemate of mine was prescribed a testosterone-blocking medication called spironolactone by her GP. She has PCOS and the doctor said that spironolactone would help treat some of the symptoms she was experiencing, like increased hair growth on her body and face.
She left the appointment, prescription literally in hand, and picked up the medication from the chemist a few minutes later. After trying spironolactone she realised that she liked the side-effects of that even less, so she stopped taking it. And then, she asked me if I knew any trans women who might want the meds she had left over – because trans women, too, are prescribed spironolactone to block their testosterone.
But the vast majority of trans women in the UK can’t get spironolactone from their GP. If they wanted to block their testosterone, which many trans women do, they’d start with a GP appointment, which would lead to a referral to a gender clinic, then a wait of several years before a psychiatric assessment and a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Then, they could be prescribed a testosterone blocker – and, most likely, also the hormone oestrogen.
This inequality in access to hormones is not limited to spironolactone. When I wanted to try taking testosterone, I first had to go to my GP for a referral that meant I then spent several years on an NHS gender clinic waiting list. Finally I had two hours-long appointments, one with a social worker and one with a clinical psychologist, discussing everything from my childhood to my sex life to my mental health. I received the precious diagnosis of gender dysphoria, which permits me to obtain gender-affirming hormones and surgery. Then, finally, I was prescribed testosterone gel.
If I’d been a cis man, say in my forties, struggling with a low sex drive, depressed and feeling a bit moody, then I also might’ve gone to my GP as a first port of call. But there the similarity ends. As a cis man, my GP could order a blood test and, if my testosterone levels were low, send me to a specialist (after a wait of weeks, rather than years) who could prescribe me testosterone gel. Note: no several years spent waiting, and no need to obtain a clinical diagnosis to prove myself.
In both cases, testosterone gel is being used as a gender-affirming treatment. But the way the same medication is prescribed is hugely different.
Gender-affirming healthcare: Not just for trans people!
It’s not only hormones that cis and trans people alike use to affirm their genders.
I would, and happily will, argue that in many cases a cis person who is going to the gym, getting tattoos, shaving their legs, wearing a bra, dying their hair or wearing make-up is acting in a way that, for them, affirms their gender – however unlikely they might be to recognise that that’s what they’re doing.
But there’s no crowdfunded £250,000 court case saying that cis men shouldn’t have access to Viagra. Perhaps it would’ve been money better spent.
And that’s because when cis people affirm their genders – be it through the clothes they wear, their haircuts, their jewellery or, yes, the surgical operations they undergo to better assert their gender – it’s not a big deal. It’s commonplace. So commonplace, in fact, that we don’t even see it that way.
Yet when trans people affirm our genders through the way we dress, our haircuts, our jewellery or, sometimes, through medical interventions like taking hormones or having surgery, it’s a very big deal to cis people. It is perceived not just as healthcare, like what they have, but trans healthcare. And as such, they feel the need not only to tightly control it, but to argue against it and to make it harder for us to have it.
And for those of us who talk publicly about aspects of our own personal medical transitions, they feel it’s OK to tell us exactly why they think what we’ve chosen to do with our bodies is disgusting – in language that would rightly be lambasted if it was aimed at cis people. It’s expected that trans people will accept a certain level of abuse if we talk publicly about the gender-affirming healthcare we’re accessing, in a way that a cis woman taking hormonal contraception or a man dying his greying hair might be surprised to experience.
The answer is not to restrict cis people’s access to gender-affirming healthcare, but to make it easier for trans people to get hold of. Hormones should, as trans civil rights activists have long argued, be available at GP’s and sexual-health clinics under the model of informed consent – in other words, the same way in which the same hormones are already available to cis people. And why is it that some medication is available at big supermarkets, while other medication is not? Codeine and anti-histamines at Tesco, but not testosterone? Why?
The earlier examples of testosterone and spironolactone are not the only hormones where we see this health inequality between trans and cis people play out. We see the same thing with oestrogen: readily available to cis women as a hormonal contraceptive at their GP, yet extremely hard to get hold of for trans women, who must go through a specialist gender clinic and psychiatric assessment to access the same drug.
In fact, most trans healthcare is actually cis healthcare, if you think about it – very few of the speech and language therapists, laser hair-removal specialists, or surgeons constructing penises for trans men, originally trained to offer their services to trans people. Their services were for cis people first, and then adapted for trans people.
And the fact that cis people are happy to have these different forms of healthcare for themselves yet so vehemently against it when trans people want it takes us back to the question: Why are cis people so bothered about gender-affirming healthcare for trans and non-binary people? Perhaps it’s not the healthcare that they have a problem with, after all.
Same-sex couples can wed in Switzerland from July 1 next year, the government said on Wednesday, enacting the results of a groundbreaking referendum on the issue in September.
Voters approved the “Marriage for All” initiative by a nearly two-thirds majority, making Switzerland one of the last countries in Western Europe to legalize gay marriage.
In a two-stage process, same-sex couples who have married abroad will have their status recognized from the start of January. Previously, the couples were seen as a registered partnership in Switzerland.
The new law will start six months later, which means couples will be allowed to marry or convert their registered partnership from July 1, 2022.
Preparations for the marriage can be submitted before this date, the government added. No more registered partnerships will be allowed after this date.
Advocates expect several hundred people to take advantage of the law change in the first year it comes into effect.
“We are really happy with the outcome of the vote, and that it is now being put into law,” Maria von Kaenel, co-president of the Marriage for All campaign, said on Wednesday.
“We have been fighting for marriage equality for 30 years and the referendum result was a historic moment.”
Join us to celebrate the 50th Annual KPFA Holiday Benefit!
The Craneway Craft Fair presents a unique opportunity to support local artists & craftspeople, and community powered KPFA radio—all while taking care of everyone on your holiday shopping list!Increase your impact by shopping from 200+ small businesses this Small Business Saturday with catered food and free parking.
November 27–28 | 10am–5pmTickets are available online or at the door.
It is 18 years today since the controversial and homophobic legislation known as Section 28, introduced under Margaret Thatcher, was repealed in England and Wales.
The clause – an amendment to the Local Government Act 1988 – banned local authorities and schools from promoting homosexuality and was brought forward by Thatcher’s government.
The legislation has been labelled “toxic and regressive” by deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey, who introduced the clause that led to its repeal, and told PinkNews that Section 28 left young people feeling “alone and vulnerable”.
“I am proud to have moved the clause that abolished Section 28 once and for all. But we still have so far to go,” Davey said, in 2019.
“From trans rights, to tackling the persistent discrimination faced by the LGBT+ community: the fight is far from over.”
Section 28 was introduced by Margaret Thatcher amid renewed anti-gay sentiment
More than three decades have passed since Thatcher’s government introduced the anti-LGBT+ legislation, but its shadow still looms over schools and local authorities in the UK today.
The legislation meant that councils were prohibited from funding of books, plays, leaflets, films, or other materials showing same-sex relationships, while teachers weren’t allowed to teach about gay relationships in schools.
This clause was the Conservative government’s vitriolic and traditionalist response to calls for equality from lesbian and gay rights activists in the late 1980s.
The homophobic legislation Section 28 was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1988. (AFP via Getty/ GERRY PENNY)
Thatcher captured these venomous anti-gay views in her infamous speech at the 1987 Conservative Party conference, which was met with rapturous applause.
“Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay,” she said. “All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life. Yes, cheated.”
LGBT+ activists railed against the legislation – but the government didn’t listen
On the day the clause was passed in the House of Lords, a group of lesbians abseiled into the House of Lords in protest, making national news broadcasts.
The legislation – so loathed, so reviled by supporters of LGBT+ equality – caused 20,000 Mancunians to take to their city’s streets to march against it. It also prompted Sir Ian McKellen to come out publicly as gay.
Section 28 was introduced following a difficult period for the LGBT+ community in the UK. There had been some progress, but the outbreak of HIV/AIDS led to the widespread demonisation of gay and bisexual men in the 1980s.
The Conservative Party capitalised on this anti-gay sentiment. In the run-up to the 1987 general election, they issued posters claiming that the Labour Party wanted LGBT+ friendly books like Young, Gay and Proud and The Milkman’s on His Way to be read in schools.
Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay. All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life. Yes, cheated.
In 1987, a British Social Attitudes Survey found that three-quarters of the population thought homosexuality was “always or mostly wrong”. Just 11 per cent said it was “never wrong”.
Just before the general election of 1987, the Earl of Halsbury introduced theLocal Government Act 1986 (Amendment) Bill, also known as an act to refrain local authorities from promoting homosexuality.
Owen Franken/Corbis via Getty
This bill was successfully passed through the House of Lords, and even passed the first stage on the way to becoming law in the commons, but it went no further. Section 28 was not dissimilar to the legislation that the Earl of Halsbury tried to introduce.
The anti-LGBT+ legislation left teachers afraid to broach LGBT+ issues in schools.
Soon after the Tories were re-elected, Tory MP David Wilshire put forward an amendment to the new Local Government Bill – known first as Clause 27, and later as the notorious Clause 28 – based on the Earl of Halsbury’s Bill, which was subsequently passed through Parliament.
Marchers at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride event, Piccadilly, London, 4th July 1998. One marcher is holding a Socialist Worker placard, calling for the scrapping of Section 28. (Steve Eason/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The night before Section 28 became law, a group of lesbians famously stormed the BBC’s Six O’Clock News in protest.
The effects of Section 28 soon became apparent, with some schools and councils shutting down LGBTQ+ youth support groups – and many teachers too afraid to teach about same-sex relationships.
The legislation was ultimately repealed in 2003, and David Cameron issued an apology for the harm it had done in 2009 – but despite this, its implications are still felt far and wide and teaching around LGBT+ issues still remains a taboo topic in many schools.
This year, Thatcher was portrayed by queer icon Gillian Anderson in the most recent series of The Crown. However, proving that Section 28’s horrific history can be all too easily forgotten, the show skipped over the issue entirely.
Lil Nas X, Brandi Carlile, and Lady Gaga were the most nominated LGBTQ artists for the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, which were announced on Tuesday morning from the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, with each artist receiving five nominations.
For the first time, the Recording Academy eliminated voting committees and nominees were decided upon only by the Academy’s members. Moreover, the Academy expanded the number of nominees in the four main categories – Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist – from 8 to 10 nominees this year, in an announcement that came ten minutes before the nominations were announced.
Lil Nas X was nominated in all three big categories that he was nominated for, including Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6swmTBVI83kIn Record of the Year, Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” was nominated alongside Brandi Carlile and Lady Gaga, for “Right On Time” and “I Get A Kick Out Of You” (feat. Tony Bennett), respectively.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/iTdHQ065A_oIn Album of the Year, Lil Nas X’s “Montero” will be up against Gaga and Bennett’s “Love For Sale.”
In Song of the Year (an award that goes to the songwriters), Brandi Carlile will be up against herself! Both she and Brandy Clark were nominated for “A Beautiful Noise,” Carlile’s song performed with Alicia Keys. And Carlile is up for her solo track, “Right On Time.” Lil Nas X was also nominated in this category for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/tOpWqWK0q4UAnd in Best New Artist, the last of “the big four” categories, Japanese Breakfast – led by queer singer Michelle Zauner – was nominated, alongside bisexual British artist, Arlo Parks.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/mcoC5ZgaFjY https://www.youtube.com/embed/-gFCd5CE4bgLil Nas X was also nominated for Best Music Video for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” and for Best Melodic Rap Performance (for “Industry Baby” feat. Jack Harlow). In the latter category, he’ll be up against Tyler the Creator, who’s also nominated for “Wusyname.”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/NJea386275cTyler the Creator also was nominated for Best Rap Album for “Call Me If You Get Lost.” Bi rapper Cardi B was nominated for Best Rap Performance for “Up.”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/rCiBgLOcuKUIn addition to her two aforementioned nominations, bisexual singer Lady Gaga also received a nomination for Best Music Video for her and Bennett’s “I Get a Kick Out of You.” The song was also nominated in Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. And lastly, Gaga and Bennett’s “Love For Sale” was nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
Brandi Carlile also received further nominations – for Best Pop Solo Performance for “Right On Time.” Over in the country categories, she received a nomination for Best American Roots Performance for “Same Devil” alongside Brandy Clark.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/hmdBm3GYJksAlso in country, The Brothers Osborne – the duo which includes out musician TJ Osborne – were nominated twice: for Best Country Duo Performance for their song “Younger Me” and Best Country Album for “Skeletons.”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/wc5j50XbvqsIn the electronic categories, DJ Tracy Young received her second Grammy nomination for Best Remixed Recording for her Fashionably Late Remix of k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving.” Young won the Grammy the first time she was nominated in 2019 for her remix of Madonna’s “I Rise.”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/9s1VUkWGL3QHalsey, St. Vincent, and Japanese Breakfast were all nominated for Best Alternative Music Album, for “If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power,” “Daddy’s Home,” and “Jubilee,” respectively.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7Azv0G85lh8 https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZUTu65AXrJwOver in the Latin music categories, Pablo Alborán was nominated for Best Latin Pop Album for “Vértigo.” And bi Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis was nominated for Best Música Urbana Album for, “Sin Miedo (Del Amor y Otros Demionos).”
Stephen Schwartz was nominated for Best Musical Theater Album for “Steven Schwartz’s Snapshots.” He’ll be up against Cameron Mackintosh, who was nominated for “Les Misérables: The Staged Concert (The Sensational 2020 Live Recording).”
Musical theater songwriter Benj Pasek was nominated Best Song Written For Visual Media for co-writing P!nk’s “All I Know So Far” from Amazon Studios’ P!nk’s All I Know So Far.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/wGj9oADcyRsQueer artist Tayla Parx was amongst the artists who helped Recording Academy president Harvey Mason Jr. in announcing nominees on Tuesday morning.
As GLAAD can’t know the sexual orientations or gender identities of all of the nominees in the Grammys 100+ categories, we inevitably will have missed some LGBTQ folks. GLAAD will update this article with any nominees we’ve missed as we learn about them going forward.
The 64th Annual Grammy Awards will take place live from Los Angeles, on Sunday, January 31st at 5pm PT/8pm ET and will broadcast on CBS.
A settlement was reached Thursday in the nearly decade-old case of a Christian flower shop owner in Washington state who refused to provide a same-sex couple flowers for their wedding despite the state’s anti-discrimination laws.
The U.S. Supreme Court left intact the state court rulings against Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, in July. Shortly afterward, Stutzman petitioned for a rehearing.
Stutzman withdrew her petition Thursday and agreed to pay a settlement of $5,000 to the couple, Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed.
“We took on this case because we were worried about the harm being turned away would cause LGBTQ people. We are glad the Washington Supreme Court rulings will stay in place to ensure that same-sex couples are protected from discrimination and should be served by businesses like anyone else,” the couple said in a statement. “It was painful to be turned away and we are thankful that this long journey for us is finally over.”
The case dates to 2013, when Stutzman refused to provide flowers for the couple’s wedding. She said it would violate her Southern Baptist beliefs and her “relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Using an argument similar to that of Colorado baker Jack Phillips in the hot-button 2018 Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Stutzman argued that her floral arrangements are works of art and that having to create them for same-sex weddings would trample on her freedom of expression.
A lower court ruled in 2015 that Stutzman broke a Washington law that bars businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. The state Supreme Court ruled in favor of the couple in 2017 and then again in 2019, findingthat selling flowers for a wedding “does not inherently express a message about that wedding.”
Ingersoll and Freed will donate the $5,000 to a local chapter of PFLAG, an LGBTQ advocacy group, and they also plan to match the donation, Thursday’s statement said.
Last Saturday, Que Bell led a vigil for Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual observance to honor the memory of transgender homicide victims that began in 1999.
Bell has led these vigils before. He is the executive director of the Knights and Orchids Society, a nonprofit group based in Selma, Alabama, that supports Black transgender, queer and gender-nonconforming people, and he has been an advocate for more than a decade. But this year will be different.
“This is literally the first time that I’ll have to write down my best friend’s name for a TDOR celebration,” Bell said, using the initialism for Transgender Day of Remembrance. “It’s really going to hit differently.”
Bell’s best friend, Mel Groves, died Oct. 11 after having been shot multiple times. Groves, 25, a Black transgender man, was studying plant and soil science at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi. Just before he died, he was about to become the full-time community garden manager for the Knights and Orchids Society.
Mel Groves, a farmer from Jackson, Miss.Courtesy Mel Groves
But on Saturday, Bell will light a candle in Groves’ memory.
Groves is one of at least 47 transgender or gender-nonconforming people — and one of 28 Black trans people — to have died by violence in 2021, which has surpassed 2020 to become the deadliest year on record for trans people, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which has been tracking fatal anti-trans violence since 2013. A disproportionate number of the deaths have been in the Southeast.
State legislatures across the country this year have also considered a record number of anti-transgender bills — more than 100 — many of which target trans youths, specifically trans girls. Advocates say the rhetoric coming out of legislatures is connected to the violence, because it describes transgender girls as boys and vice versa and, in many cases, characterizes trans people as “predators”on sports teams or in bathrooms.
Transgender Day of Remembrance is also known as Transgender Day of Remembrance and Resilience — the latter part an effort to remind people that while trans people face disproportionate discrimination and violence, they are also leading grassroots efforts to make things better for their communities.
Deadnaming, misgendering and clearance rates
Bell said that he and Groves’ friends and family ultimately want the person who killed Groves brought to justice but that he doesn’t have confidence in the police investigation.
When the Jackson Police Department first reported on Groves’ death, it used his legal name and misgendered him, causing local news outlets to repeat the mistakes. Groves’ loved ones had to reach out while grieving his loss to ask news outlets to update their stories to reflect who Groves actually was. Some updated their stories; others said they couldn’t change them without confirmation from law enforcement authorities or Groves’ immediate family. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/nt4ufYW?_showcaption=true&app=1
A week after Groves died, Jackson police provided the same statement to NBC News that they first issued, which used his birth name (also known as deadnaming) and misgendered him. The police department hasn’t responded to a request for comment about whether it plans to update the statement.
Bell said police officials need to be more educated about what the trans community faces; otherwise, he said, they will be unable to solve the case. He recalled one officer’s public statement that he would investigate Groves’ death just like any other.
“That is totally avoiding the issue,” Bell said. “I want you to be knowledgeable enough to know that, when something happens to trans people, how your department should be reacting to it and how you can help, versus being so defensive about acknowledging that this happened because it was a trans issue.”
Bell said police need to understand that anti-trans violence is connected to discrimination and higher rates of homelessness, among other issues that trans people face, or “we’re never going to be able to solve the problem.”
Jaida Peterson, a transgender woman, was found dead in a hotel room in Charlotte, N.C., on April 4, 2021.AP / NBC News
Anti-trans fatal violence cases nationwide appear to have a lower average clearance rate — the percentage of cases in which someone has been arrested, charged and turned over to a court for prosecution — than fatal violence cases in general, said Brendan Lantz, an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University.
Lantz and his research team at the university’s Hate Crime Research and Policy Institute are creating the first database to track fatal violence against the transgender community. Although the Human Rights Campaign and other nonprofit groups track such deaths, the database Lantz’s team is creating, which will date to 2012, also tracks characteristics of the offenses, victims’ background information, perpetrators’ information, handling by police departments (including whether victims were misgendered or deadnamed) and whether cases have been solved, among other information.
Preliminary data, which Lantz said are subject to change, show that the nationwide clearance rate for fatal anti-trans violence is about 44 percent, which is well below the national average of 60 percent to 70 percent.
Early patterns also show that there’s “very likely a correlation between the prevalence” of deadnaming or misgendering by police and the likelihood of clearing a case, he said.
Evidence is important when police are trying to solve a homicide, he said, “and if we’re not even using the correct name, obtaining that evidence isn’t particularly easy to do, right?”
“Witnesses are less likely to come forward, and a lot of issues enter the equation,” he said.
Transgender rights groups say anti-trans sentiment, reflected in bills considered in dozens of states, affects how trans people are treated, including by police. Police initially misgendered victims and used their birth names in reporting on 30 of the 46 known deaths, an NBC News analysis found.
Since 2013, about 80 percent of trans people in deaths involving trans people with available data were initially misgendered by the media or law enforcement, according to a report released Wednesday by the Human Rights Campaign. An NBC News analysis of this year’s cases found that victims in 73 percent of investigations were misgendered or deadnamed by police, compared to 59 percent of cases in which someone was arrested and charged.
‘A sense of survival mode’
Trans advocates say some policymakers and national advocacy organizations are quick to suggest police reform as a solution.
But while many of them agree that improving police competence and investigations is important, they say the strategy addresses the issue only after the fact — when people have already died.
That leaves many in the transgender community feeling unsafe, which has led some of them to take their safety and well-being into their own hands.
“When you get tired of depending on a system to protect you that you know was not designed to protect you or to support you, you realize that you’re literally wasting time and resources putting money into a system that is not going to change,” Bell said. “So instead … we decided to start investing in the things that we could tangibly change.”
Advocates like Bell say community organizations should be given more resources and support, because they know how to best keep their people safe and help them thrive — by providing them with gender-affirming health care, as the Knights and Orchids Society does, or housing, as a number of trans-led groups across the country do.
Mariah Moore, a national trans rights activist and a co-director of the House of Tulip, a nonprofit collective creating housing solutions for trans people in Louisiana, said: “It’s so important that we support community-led initiatives, because those folks leading those initiatives are actually folks who have that lived experience and are able to speak to the needs and actually distribute those resources directly to impacted community members.”
Trans United Leading Intersectional Progress, or TULIP, is a nonprofit collective creating housing solutions for trans people in Louisiana.House of Tulip
Bell echoed that sentiment with respect to funding for nonprofit groups. He said that many people support and know of national advocacy organizations but that the groups aren’t providing emergency housing or money for trans people.
“I’m committed to this work to always keep trans folks safe,” he said, adding that he has been evicted twice in the past because he has provided a place for people experiencing homelessness to stay, some of them as young as 13.
“That comes out of a sense of survival mode,” he said. “I don’t have a lot, but what I do have I want to share with the folks who are like me who also don’t have.”
In neighboring Georgia, Toni-Michelle Williams, the executive director of the Atlanta-based Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative, a Black trans- and queer-led organization that builds community safety through organizing and leadership training, said the group has supported more than 160 people through its Taking Care of Our Own Fund, which provides funding for emergency bail, housing, health care and other needs.
The group provided the support with less than 3 percent of $15 million, Williams said, which represents this year’s budget increasefor the Atlanta Police Department.
“Just imagine what we could do for our communities — Black trans and queer folks, sex workers, formerly incarcerated people — with at least 3 percent of that funding,” she said. “I definitely just want to encourage people to continue to push and to join our side around what it means to reallocate funding from these large institutions that have so many resources. Our communities are in need of them.”
Looking ahead, Bell said he’s determined “not to lose another Mel.”
“I want to do everything I can to make sure that we don’t have any more Mel Groves — that we don’t have another person who slips through the cracks, that for whatever reason we have the resources to make sure that folks have a fighting chance,” he said.
A memorial was held for Mel Groves in Jackson, Miss., in October.Courtesy TC Caldwell/The Knights and Orchids Society.
He added that he feels as though he has done a disservice to trans people who have been killed in the past. “Because what I don’t want people to remember about Mel is that he was the 39th person murdered,” Bell said. “And that’s often what happens when we lose somebody, is that the tragedy of their death is highlighted over their legacy, their purpose and all the good things that they have contributed to the world during their time.”
He wants people to remember that Groves was a promising scientist and that his professors bragged about him and his research after his death. He loved Nat King Cole, he had a smile that made people want to talk to him, and he always offered to share food with his friends.
People living with HIV could be at long last “liberated” from a “burdensome” daily pill regimen, as a new long-lasting injectable is approved for use in Britain.
In news dubbed “brilliant” by a leading HIV activist, the NHS has been given the go-ahead to roll out injections taken every two months to manage the virus.
Currently, people living with HIV are offered antiretroviral medicines that must be taken every day to suppress the virus – usually one to four daily pills. Effective treatment reduces a person’s viral load – the amount of virus in their blood – to an undetectable level.
When the virus is undetectable, it cannot be transmitted, and a person with HIV can live a long, healthy life.
The new treatment approved by England and Wales’ National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Scottish Medicines Consortium on Thursday (18 November) is a combination of two jabs taken every two months.
Around 13,000 people will be eligible in England, NICE estimated.
HIV jabs will do away with the ’emotional burden’ of daily pills, says leading activist
Many people struggle to take the tablets they need to keep HIV at bay, Matthew Hodson, executive director of HIV outreach charity NAM aidsmap, told PinkNews. The stigma around HIV can discourage people, while others may simply forget.
“Taking daily pills becomes an emotional burden,” Hodson said, “a constant reminder that their health is at risk without medication.
“For some, who are unable to be open about their need for HIV treatment, it can create considerable obstacles to necessary adherence required for HIV medication to be effective.
“For many, a switch to injections just six times a year will be a liberation.”
HIV works by slipping into the human genome and tricking the machinery of white blood cells into making copies of HIV. As white blood cells are the body’s natural defenders, this weakens people’s immune systems.
The two injectables, cabotegravir and rilpivirine, work by suppressing how many HIV particles are in the blood, their viral load. It makes the viral load so low that the virus cannot be detected or even transmitted between people.
The jabs are just as effective as currently available oral drugs, clinical trial results have shown.
Both medicines have been licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which carries out safety checks on drugs that pass clinical trials.
Now that they have been recommended by NICE draft guidance , they can receive crucial funding from local health authorities.
“It is important that HIV treatment continues to adapt and innovate to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit,” Hodson added.
“Effective treatment means we can now enjoy the same life expectancy as those without the virus and we can no longer pass HIV on during sex; getting treatment to all people with HIV in a way that supports our circumstances holds the key to ending this epidemic.”
Hodson said he hopes such innovation can be brought to pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, the drug which when taken correctly prevents people from acquiring HIV.
“Many of the barriers to effective PrEP use are down to the need for daily pills – or the two-one-one on-demand strategy for cis men who can plan their sexual activity,” he explained.
“Injectables, implants and even very long-lasting pills are all in the pipeline, and these could have a huge impact on our ability to prevent HIV.”
Welcome to Zida who is 10 and our newest, youngest member! Zida joined with her grandpa Gary.
