The United States has issued its first passport with an “X” gender marker, which denotes that someone is neither exclusively male nor female, the State Department said Wednesday.
This marks a milestone for nonbinary and intersex Americans, who make up an estimated 1.2 million and 4 million Americans, respectively, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, and interACT, an intersex advocacy group. An increasing number of intersex, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people have come out in recent years, but most of them have been unable to obtain IDs that accurately reflect who they are due to a patchwork of state laws across the country.
The State Department said that it expects to be able to offer the “X” designation to more people early next year.
The U.S.’ special diplomatic envoy for LGBTQ rights, Jessica Stern, called the moves historic and celebratory, saying they bring the government documents in line with the “lived reality” that there is a wider spectrum of human sex characteristics than is reflected in the previous two designations.
“When a person obtains identity documents that reflect their true identity, they live with greater dignity and respect,” Stern said.
The department did not announce to whom the passport was issued. A department official declined to say whether it was for Dana Zzyym, an intersex Colorado resident who has been in a legal battle with the department since 2015, saying the department does not usually discuss individual passport applications because of privacy concerns.
Zzyym (pronounced Zimm) was denied a passport for failing to check male or female on an application. According to court documents, Zzyym wrote “intersex” above the boxes marked “M” and “F” and requested an “X” gender marker instead in a separate letter.
Zzyym was born with ambiguous physical sexual characteristics but was raised as a boy, according to court filings. Zzyym later came out as intersex while working and studying at Colorado State University, and uses gender-neutral pronouns. The department’s denial of Zzyym’s passport prevented them from being able to travel to a meeting of Organization Intersex International in Mexico.
The State Department announced in June that it was moving toward adding a third gender marker but said it would take time because it required extensive updates to its computer systems. A department official said the passport application and system update with the “X” designation option still need to be approved by the Office of Management and Budget, which approves all government forms, before they can be issued.
The department now also allows applicants to self-select their gender as male or female, no longer requiring them to provide medical certification if their gender does not match that listed on their other identification documents.
The United States joins a handful of countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Nepal and New Zealand in allowing its citizens to designate a gender other than male or female on their passports.
Stern said her office planned to talk about the U.S.′ experience with the change in its interactions around the world and she hopes that might help inspire other governments to offer the option.
“We see this as a way of affirming and uplifting the human rights of trans and intersex and gender-nonconforming and nonbinary people everywhere,” she said.
It’s unclear how the policy change will affect state laws that do not recognize “X” gender markers. Twenty states and D.C. allow residents to use an “X” marker on their driver’s licenses, according tothe Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank.
States also have a mix of laws that regulate how someone can request a gender marker change on an ID. Twenty-two states allow people to decide what gender markers are appropriate for them — which is now the policy that the State Department will use — according to MAP.
That process, known as self-attestation, allows trans and nonbinary people to keep themselves safe, said Arli Christian, a campaign strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union, which has been pressuring the Biden administration to allow “X” gender markers on passports and advocates for laws that allow people to attest to their own gender.
“That is hands down the best policy for ensuring that all people have the most accurate gender marker on their ID,” Christian said.
The remaining states either require medical provider certification in order to update a gender marker, a court order and proof of genital surgery or they have an unclear law.
This summer, a Texas judge declared the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program unlawful. But President Biden’s administration is moving swiftly to respond and protect undocumented young people. He must, for so much more is at stake for LGBTQ+ Asian Dreamers.
President Obama created DACA in 2012, which has helped thousands of undocumented young people to work, study, and improve their lives in this country, without the fear of deportation. Many of them are LGBTQ+. And many come from Asian counties.
To address this disastrous court decision from this summer, Biden is looking to shore up the program with new rules. Still, only Congress can permanently safeguard DACA recipients and grant them, along with the rest of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., a pathway to citizenship.
Estimates say that 267,000 undocumented immigrants are LGBTQ+, of which a disproportionate share is Asian and Pacific Islander. More than 169,000 people who are API are eligible for DACA. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, over 16,000 people from South Korea, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, and China have already benefitted from DACA. The court’s ruling will subject 800,000 potential DACA beneficiaries to again live in fear of deportation.
On Biden’s first day in office, he announced the Citizenship Act of 2021 (HR 1177/S.348), which will give undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship (including 1.5 million Asians and a quarter million LGBTQ+ immigrants), keep LGBTQ+ Asian immigrant families together, reduce visa backlogs, and expand visas and green cards for workers.
Absent congressional action, thousands of talented LGBTQ+ and Asian young people could be deported, many of them to countries where they cannot live their authentic lives and reach their fullest potential.
For LGBTQ+ people, the stakes are even higher than those who are not LGBTQ+. Many countries in Asia and the Pacific prohibit same-sex relations, such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga. In Indonesia, police shaved the heads of trans women and publicly caned a gay couple for having consensual sex. In most Asian and Oceania countries, transgender people cannot legally change their gender on their IDs, and LGBTQ+ people are not protected by anti-discrimination laws.
The programs supporting undocumented youth have real-world consequences for real people. Tony Choi is a 32-year-old gay Korean DACA beneficiary from New Jersey. In 2010, his options were taking care of his mother with cancer in the U.S. or returning to Korea where his LGBTQ+ identity would subject him to harsh hazing for two years in the mandatory military service. The Korean military penal law also criminalizes homosexuality. Because of DACA, he’s been able to serve his community. Bupendra Ram is a South Asian Dreamer from Fiji who came to the U.S. when he was only 2 years old. He is the first person in his family to earn a college degree, but he had to save every extra dollar from his minimum wage job in order to afford tuition. His undocumented status at the time meant he couldn’t receive financial aid.
DACA has provided LGBTQ+ undocumented young people employment opportunities and educational opportunities. Asian Americans, South Asians, Southeast Asians, and Pacific Islanders are the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S. today and the largest segment of new immigrants. Undocumented immigrants, LGBTQ+ Dreamers, and DACA recipients are the ones who are making our country great and they deserve an opportunity for a pathway to citizenship.
Glenn D. Magpantay has been an advocate for the LGBTQ+, AAPI, and immigrant communities for over 30 years. He is a longtime civil rights attorney, professor of law and Asian-American Studies, and LGBTQ+ rights activist.
Anxiety. Depression. Stress. These are some of the emotions LGBTQ Americans experienced during the Trump administration, according to two recent studies. The reports, conducted independently, both landed on the same conclusion: There was a significant decline in the mental well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people while Donald Trump was president.
“Everybody’s worst fears came into reality,” Adrienne Grzenda, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA and lead author of one of the studies, told NBC News. “We were noticing this undercurrent of despair and hopelessness among our clients,” many of whom are LGBTQ.
While Trump is no longer in the White House, the ongoing introduction of anti-LGBTQ legislation in the states continues to expose LGBTQ people, especially children, to the risk of significant mental health consequences, according to some advocates and researchers.
‘Extreme’ and ‘frequent’ mental distress
A study scheduled to be published in the December issue of the journal Economics and Human Biology found that “extreme mental distress” — defined as reporting poor mental health every day for the past 30 days — increased among LGBTQ people during Trump’s rise and presidency.
The report, written by Masanori Kuroki, an associate professor of economics at Arkansas Tech University, compared the likelihood of extreme mental distress among LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people by using data on more than 1 million people interviewed from 2014 to 2020 for the government’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/9TzYQA1?app=1
This study found that the “extreme mental distress gap” between LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people “increased from 1.8 percentage points during 2014–2015 to 3.8 percentage points after Trump’s presidency became a real possibility in early 2016.” Even seemingly small increases in extreme distress are important, the study notes, because such distress is not common.
While Trump was not the first president to advocate and enforce policies widely considered anti-LGBTQ, his tenure followed the relatively pro-LGBTQ Obama presidency. The possibility of removing recently gained rights and protections “might be more damaging to LGBT people’s mental well-being than simply not having equal rights in the first place,” the study states.
While Kuroki’s report does include a cautionary note about attributing the increase in mental distress among LGBTQ people to the rise and presidency of Trump, he does note that “the findings do suggest that the Biden administration may have inherited higher rates of mental distress among LGBT people” than they would have “if Trump had not run and won the 2016 election.”
In his conclusion, Kuroki suggests that future research examine LGBTQ mental health under the Biden administration, which has already implemented measures to advance LGBTQ rights and protections.
“If presidents affect LGBT people’s mental health, then we should expect that the extreme mental distress gap between LGBT people and non-LGBT people to narrow under the Biden presidency,” he stated in his report’s conclusion.
Grzenda’s study used data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to measure whether the 2016 election and transition to the Trump administration led to a change in the number of sexual and gender minority (SGM) adults reporting “frequent mental distress” compared to cisgender, heterosexual respondents (frequent mental distress is defined as feeling depressed, stressed or unable to control one’s emotions during at least 14 of the last 30 days). Between 2015 and 2018, LGBTQ respondents reporting frequent mental distress increased by 6.1 percentage points, from 15.4 percent to 21.5 percent, while non-LGBTQ respondents reported a 1.1 percentage point increase, from 10.4 percent to 11.5 percent.
“A clear association exists between the 2016 election and the changeover to a decisively anti-LGBT administration and the worsening mental health of SGM adults, although a completely causal relationship cannot be fully established,” the report, published this year in the journal LGBT Health, states.
The effects, however, were not seen evenly among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
“We’ve got to start looking at sub-populations more,” Grzenda said. “When we break it down, it was bisexual individuals and especially transgender individuals who were really hit the hardest.”
Grzenda said the differential impact on gender minority adults may be because of the Trump administration’s targeting of transgender rights and protections in military service, health care and access to public facilities. At the same time, the focus on lesbian, gay and transgender rights may have “exacerbated feelings of bisexual invisibilty/erasure,” and compounded existing stress for bisexual respondents.
The study, which had a sample size of nearly 270,000 adults, approximately 5 percent of them LGBTQ, states in its conclusion that its findings provide “data-driven support for advocacy efforts toward the implementation of unequivocal antidiscrimination protects on the basis of [sexual orientation and gender identity] across all domains of daily living, immutable to sudden political realignment.”
Grzenda, like Kuroki, notes that a definitive causal link cannot be drawn between the Trump administration and the decline in LGBTQ mental health with existing data, though both studies controlled for likely competing factors.
‘Bullying by legislation’
The effect of politics on LGBTQ mental health is not just relegated to the federal government and national policies. The spate of anti-LGBTQ legislation in statehouses raises concerns about other sources of mental health strain, particularly for young people.
From 2015 to 2019, 42 states introduced more than 200 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation, according to a recent study by Child Trends, a nonpartisan research institute, and the introduction of these measures were found to have negative mental health consequences on LGBTQ minors.
The report notes that Crisis Text Line, a global nonprofit that provides free mental health texting services, saw an uptick in messages from LGBTQ youths in the four weeks after their respective states proposed anti-LGBTQ legislation.
“This suggests the bills are harmful whether or not they are passed,” Dominique Parris, director of diversity, equity and inclusion at Child Trends and lead author on the study, told NBC News. “We need to understand the full scope of what these laws do to young people.”
Among the most common types of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced during the 2015-19 timeframe were restrictions on single-sex facilities, the report states.
This year alone, there have already been over 200 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced at the state level, Parris said.
“Oftentimes the argument in support of [these bills] is to protect children, but what this research suggests is that that may not in fact be the outcome, and simply proposing this legislation may cause children distress,” Parris said.
“When there have been public policy decisions, we hear about that on our crisis line,” Amit Paley, the project’s CEO, told NBC News.
When Trump banned transgender people from the military, the Trevor Project saw an increase in trans and nonbinary people reaching out for crisis services, he said. This was not due to trans people necessarily wanting to serve in the military, Paley added, but because a powerful public figure was making judgments about their worth.
“Young people are listening,” he said. “When their message is discriminatory and hateful, that does have an impact.”
Trans and nonbinary youth are at particular risk for the most devastating consequences of mental distress, including suicide, according to Trevor Project research.
“That’s not because LGBTQ trans nonbinary people are born more likely to consider suicide,” Paley said. “It’s because of the discrimination, isolation and rejection they face.”
Paley said that Texas legislators this year have introduced dozens of anti-LGBTQ bills, many of which target trans and nonbinary people.
On Wednesday, a bill that would that would require student athletes to compete on sports teams corresponding to their “biological sex” advanced out of committee and heads toward a full vote on the state House floor where it is likely to pass. The bill advanced despite emotional testimony from parents and students regarding the toll such a law would take on trans children, something LGBTQ children’s advocates have been sounding the alarm about for some time.
“Trevor Project has received almost 4,000 calls, chats and texts from trans and nonbinary people in Texas this year,” Paley said. “This is effectively bullying by legislation. It is dangerous and it is wrong.”
‘Some steps forward and several steps backward’
Advocates hope LGBTQ mental health might improve under the Biden administration, which has made public statements and enacted policies in support of LGBTQ rights.
However, some, like Paley and Parris, worry about the message that certain signals — like the ongoing support for Trump among many Republicans, the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ state legislation and the failure to pass the Equality Act in Congress — will send to LGBTQ youth and adults.
“I think we are seeing some steps forward and several steps backward,” Paley said.
Dining Out For Life, on December 2, is Food For Thought’s biggest and most delicious fundraiser of the year! This year we celebrate our 20th annual Dining Out For Life and the event lands the day after World AIDS day. See below for all the ways you can participate in the event and support our organization!
Want to help out?
Volunteering during Dining Out For Life is FUN! Our volunteer ambassadors help spread the word about Food For Thought and Dining Out For Life and encourage their network of family and friends to attend. They help Food For Thought to stay in contact with their assigned restaurant, including dropping off and picking up event materials.
On the day of the event, Ambassadors will volunteer at their assigned restaurant to approach tables, hand out event materials and information, answer questions, accept raffle and donation envelopes and thank guests. VOLUNTEER
Participating Restaurants
Plan to dine at or order takeout from the Sonoma County restaurants below and make a donation online to support Food For Thought. These spectacular restaurants will donate a percentage of their sales to Food For Thought on Thursday, December 2.
The criticism also hones in on the fact that the BBC continues to platform anti-trans charity LGB Alliance, which the public broadcaster has received backlash for in the past. In fact, the BBC has previously been branded “institutionally transphobic” by senior MPs, LGBT+ campaigners and public figures for its anti-trans coverage.
Linda Riley, publisher of DIVA, Europe’s top magazine for LGBT+ women and non-binary people, told PinkNews that the BBC News article about trans and cis lesbians is “biased” and “very harmful”.
“I don’t understand why BBC News has published an article perpetuating the idea that trans women are sexually preying on lesbians,” Riley told PinkNews. “During all my time as the publisher of DIVA magazine and indeed as a member of the community, I have never heard from a lesbian saying she has been pressurised into having sex with a trans woman.”
Riley, who is also the founder of Lesbian Visibility Week, made clear she is “not saying” the accounts of women featured in the article “are untrue”. However, she is “reiterating that this is not a common experience in our community”.
“I have also noticed how many people who are not part of the LGBTQI community are voicing their opinions on this matter,” Riley continued. “An ally’s role is to amplify our voices. They are not amplifying mine, nor the voices of thousands of DIVA readers.
“It seems clear to me that they are amplifying a transphobic campaign.”
BBC article is ‘anti-trans’ and also ‘anti-lesbian’
Another cis lesbian, Amy, who is based in London, told PinkNews that it is “emotionally exhausting” to see the BBC “stirring up anti-trans rhetoric”.
“It’s also anti-lesbian,” she said, “because this narrative does not fit with the majority of lesbians. It does not speak for me or any lesbians I know.”
Amy points out that many of the individuals driving the narrative that trans women are a threat to cis women are not even lesbians themselves.
One such person, anti-trans comedy writer Graham Linehan, went to the lengths of making himself an account on a queer women’s dating app to “prove” that trans women are dangerous to cis lesbians. Linehan, who is a straight cisgender man, was banned by the app (he is already banned by Twitter for hateful conduct) but spoke on a panel at the LGB Alliance conference last week.
Amy also said that as a survivor herself, she wishes the BBC “would instead chose to spend our money on holding the police and CPS to account on tackling sexual violence and the horrifically poor conviction rates, rather than stirring up hatred that pits struggling minorities against other struggling minorities”.
“The obsession with women’s genitalia in the mainstream media is bizarre and dehumanising – if you don’t want to date someone, you don’t have to, it’s simple. In reality, most trans women are probably dating other trans people who won’t judge them for who they are anyway!
“Please leave trans women alone, please stop painting lesbians as anti-trans and please, let’s get back to fighting misogyny and sexual violence so we can all be free.”
She added that a better use of BBC time and money could be spent highlighting the inequalities that British lesbians do face, “such as the fact we have to have thousands of pounds to access any kind of IUI or IVF treatment in the UK, while straight couples immediately get free IVF when they need it”.
“This is a major issue that is getting very little mainstream media attention, meaning the government is not held to account and lesbians are unable to become parents.”
Cis lesbians take to Twitter to defend trans women
Other cis lesbians added their voices in support of trans women on Twitter.
Lisa Power, co-founder of LGBT+ charity Stonewall, said: “I’ve been a lesbian for almost 50 years. I’ve known trans women, mostly lesbians, all that time.
“None have ever ‘pressured’ anyone into sex that I know of. This grubby fantasy is identical to the straight sex fears of the 80s about gay people.”
Folk singer-songwriter Grace Petrie also pointed out that the real issues lesbians face are rarely covered by the media, and that the BBC is contributing to a “baseless moral panic” against queer women, while ignoring “the real threat of a culture of violence against women”.
“You know what has happened to me, as a lesbian?” she said. “A man once threatened to break my nose when I asked him to stop harassing my then-girlfriend. A group of men harassed me and my then-girlfriend and attacked our home for 10mths w/ vandalism and bricks (once a firework) til we moved.
“I have been physically intimidated by homophobia and misogyny at various points my whole life. None of it has ever been from trans women.
“My experience reflects that of hundreds of lesbians I have met. That article does not reflect the experiences of anyone I have ever met.”
Responding to criticism of the article, a BBC spokesperson said: “The article looks at a complex subject from different perspectives and acknowledges it is difficult to assess the extent of the issue.
“It includes testimony from a range of different sources and provides appropriate context. It went through our rigorous editorial processes.
“It is important that journalism looks at issues – even where there are strongly held positions. The BBC is here to ensure debate and to make sure a wide a range of voices are heard.”
A-League midfielder Josh Cavallo says he knows there are other players “living in silence” after becoming the only known current male top-flight professional footballer in the world to come out as gay.
Cavallo on Wednesday became a rarity in men’s professional sport, announcing on social media he was “ready to speak about something personal that I’m finally comfortable to talk about in my life”.
The Twitter post and emotive personal video, shared by his club Adelaide United, has since made international headlines and elicited support from all corners of the game.
The 21-year-old said growing up he “always felt the need to hide myself because I was ashamed.” “Ashamed I would never be able to do what I loved and be gay,” he wrote.
“Being a closeted gay footballer, I’ve had to learn to mask my feelings in order to fit the mould of a professional footballer. “Growing up being gay and playing football were just two worlds that hadn’t crossed paths before. “I’ve lived my life assuming that this was a topic never to be spoken about.”
Adelaide United coach Carl Veart said Cavallo, who has played 19 games for the Reds after playing nine matches for Western United, has “shown incredible courage to be one of very few professional sportsmen to be this brave.”
An Adelaide United statement said: “Today, Josh Cavallo speaks his truth to the world and demonstrates profound courage. Adelaide United, not only as a football club, but as the embodiment of an inclusive community, supports a remarkable and brave person.
“We stand alongside Josh for proudly being true to himself and will continue to love and support him as a member of our beautifully diverse family.”
Football Australia chief executive James Johnson said: “Football Australia wishes to commend Josh’s bravery to come out as the only openly gay player in the A-League Men competition. His courage to be open with himself and share that part with others is inspiring and will hopefully inspire more footballers to do the same in the future.”
When Jaime was 44, we fell hard for each other. We had been working on queer youth projects together over 10 years and in the middle of our second date, we decided to have a child. We know the cliché — lesbians usually bring a U-Haul to the second date. Amazingly, masculine-identified, gender non-binary M’Bwende brought a bassinet.
So, in a few short months, we took a massive leap of faith that many people in love take: we got pregnant with the help of some great fertility choreography. M’Bwende’s 35-year-old eggs, Jaime’s 45-year-old womb, and sperm from a 49-year-old gay male beloved who had sired Jaime’s then 6-year-old son.
In 2006, we felt nothing but grateful for this option. When Jaime came out in 1984, lesbians could not even access sperm at a sperm bank — only heterosexual, married women “qualified.” Our family’s reproductive journey to our daughter ultimately took nearly a year of overstimulating egg production, retrieval, implantation, one failed attempt, and $40,000, which we financed by taking out a loan on M’Bwende’s house.
A recent lawsuit against Aetna insurance company for discriminating against LGBTQ women in fertility coverage has brought this all back to us in technicolor. In our family, it’s gone like this: the miracle baby is in her first year of high school; our romantic partnership long ago ended; our parenting partnership is solid; and M’Bwende lost their house to the predatory loan undertaken to bring our daughter into being.
There’s been so much more hemorrhaging of cash and dignity along the way — the work and cost of “adding” one of us to our daughter’s birth certificate, inability to access health insurance during the many years when only one of us was on the birth certificate, one of us has been fired twice for being “too activist” (actual quote), one has navigated unemployment and underemployed due to racism and their gender presentation, one of us has suffered outrageous police harassment, one has endured humiliation at various agencies for not being our daughter’s “legal” parent… the list goes on and on.
Today, Jaime is part of a team of veteran LGBTQ+ activists that has created a new National LGBTQ+ Women’s Community Survey to capture all of the blood, sweat, tears and lost assets that come when LGBTQ+ women form and grow our families. How do sexism, racism, and anti-LGBTQ animus impact families headed by lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, intersex, and/or transgender women? What do masculine spectrum people who identified as or were perceived to be women have to tell us about their experiences in relationships with women who partner with women? How do LGBTQ+ women and their families thrive, regardless? What are our brilliant adaptations and forms of resistance? We want to know!
It is thrilling to finally have this place to tell our stories. The larger world needs to see us, and all we have been forced to endure to make our amazing lives work. Policy makers, corporations, and movement organizations need to wake up to our realities and change laws and priorities. We want equity and justice for all of us. The LGBTQ+ National Women’s Community Survey is over 100 questions long and yet it will ultimately only scratch the surface of the complexity of our struggles. Six thousand people who formerly or currently identify as an LGBTQ+ women have already taken the survey. We plan to be the largest repository on data by, for and about LGBTQ+ women in the world. Come join us.
M’Bwende Anderson is an organizer/activist with various nonprofit, NGO, and government agencies. Dr. Jaime M. Grant, author of Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, and Great Sex: Mapping Your Desire, is an equity expert, researcher and trainer.
Texas officials removed two webpages in late August that provided resources for LGBTQ youths — including a link to a suicide prevention hotline — a few hours after criticism from one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Republican primary challengers.
The candidate, Don Huffines, who owns a real estate development company in the Dallas area, wrote Aug. 31 on Twitter: “It’s offensive to see @GregAbbott_TX use our tax dollars to advocate for transgender ideology. This must end.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/gi7itgd?app=1
He described a webpage on the Department of Family and Protective Services’ website titled “gender identity and sexual orientation.”
“They’re talking about helping ‘empower and celebrate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, allied,’ nonheterosexual behavior, and it goes on and on,” Huffines said in a video. “I mean, really? This is Texas. These are not Texas values. These are not Republican Party values. But these are obviously Greg Abbott’s values.”
In a separate tweet the same afternoon, Huffines linkedto a webpage for Texas Youth Connection, a program run by the Department of Family and Protective Services, which included a link to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention group, and other LGBTQ rights groups. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/C3LZcyj?app=1
“This is the webpage where @GregAbbott_TX’s political appointees are promoting transgender ideology,” Huffines wrote.
A few hours later, both pages had been removed.
“The Texas Youth Connection website has been temporarily disabled for a comprehensive review of its content,” a message on the website says. “This is being done to ensure that its information, resources, and referrals are current.”
Patrick Crimmins, the director of communications for the Department of Family and Protective Services, said in an email Tuesday that the review of the webpages “is still ongoing” and would not provide further comment about why the pages were removed.
Abbott’s office has not returned a request for comment.
The Houston Chronicle reported Tuesday that emails obtained through a public records request show that agency officials discussed removing the gender identity and sexual orientation webpage in response to Huffines’ tweet.
Just 13 minutes after Huffines’ video went up, Marissa Gonzales, the department’s media relations director, emailed a link to Crimmins with the subject line “Don Huffines video accusing Gov/DFPS of pushing liberal transgender agenda,” the Chronicle reported. She wrote in the body of the email: “FYI. This is starting to blow up on Twitter.”
Crimmins emailed Darrell Azar, the department’s web and creative services director. He asked who runs the page and wrote, “Darrell — please note we may need to take that page down, or somehow revise content,” according to the Chronicle.
Azar responded that the webpage came from the department’s Preparation for Adult Living program, which supports older teens placed in foster care by the state. He wrote that the content Huffines criticized is “only a few years old” but that the adult living program has posted “content related to LGBTQ for as long as I can remember,” according to the Chronicle.
Huffines took credit for the pages’ removal in a tweet Tuesday.
“Greg Abbott was using taxpayer dollars to advocate for transgender ideology and the Human Rights Campaign,” he wrote. “Our campaign made him stop.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/2Dukul1?app=1
Many advocates spoke outagainst the pages’ removal in August, but even more people, including elected officials, condemned the decision in response to the Chronicle’s article.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/Maxrkow?app=1https://iframe.nbcnews.com/BIGR3m4?app=1
Former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro, who was secretary of housing and urban development in the Obama administration, said the decision to remove the webpages was “disgusting.”
“Greg Abbott is so scared of losing his primary, he’s sabotaging an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention hotline to kowtow his extremist base,” he wrote Tuesday. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/BTMcnyY?app=1
Ricardo Martinez, the CEO of the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas, said in an emailed statement that LGBTQ children are overrepresented in foster care and “face truly staggering discrimination and abuse.”
“The state is responsible for these kids’ lives, yet it actively took away a resource for them when they are in crisis,” he said. “What’s worse, this was done at the start of Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. LGBTQ youth who have been in foster care report three times greater likelihood of attempting suicide in the past year (according to a Trevor Project research brief). Again and again this year, we are simply asking that these kids’ lives not be politicized.”
Texas has considered more than 50 bills this year that target LGBTQ youths, particularly transgender youths, according to Equality Texas.
While advocates have defeated all of the bills so far, the Legislature recently began a third special legislative session — the fourth legislative session overall this year — and it is considering a number of anti-transgender bills again.
Advocates have said the rhetoric in the bills has a negative effect on the mental health of LGBTQ youths statewide.
From Jan. 1 to Aug. 30, crisis calls from LGBTQ young people in Texas increased by 150 percent compared to the same period last year, according to data shared last week by the Trevor Project.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741741 to reach a trained counselor at the Crisis Text Line. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional support networks.
The world of DC Comics-Warner Brothers became more LGBTQ+ inclusive this weekend as the venerable comic book franchise of Wonder Woman expanded with the introduction of the character of Bia, a Black trans woman, in the first issue of the series Nubia & The Amazons.
Earlier this month on National Coming Out Day, the canon of the Superman series changedfor the life of Jon Kent, the Superman of Earth and son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, taking a bold new direction. After initially striking up a friendship with reporter Jay Nakamura, he and Jon become romantically involved, making Kent an Out bisexual character.
In this latest offering, Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala, writers and creators confirmed that Bia is a Black Trans woman. They stressed that she “isn’t a box to tick … [she] is important to her community. Just as Black trans women are important to us in real life.”
Of special significance to the introduction of the character in the DC Comic worlds was the endorsement of actress Lynda Carter who played the title role of Wonder Woman on television based on the comic book superheroine, which aired on ABC and later on CBS from 1975 to 1979. Earlier in the week Carter tweeted her support of Trans women;
“It’s been a dream to work with the likes of Vita Ayala, a non-binary Afro-Latinx comic writer who has been making quite a name for themselves. And then there is the illustrious and widely talented and dedicated Afro-Latina artist Alitha Martinez who is already in the comic hall of fame for all-time greats. Her passion for Nubia is unmatched. It shows in every cover and panel from Nubia’s Future State story written by L.L. McKinney, her Infinite Frontier #0 story written by Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad, and now the Nubia and the Amazons miniseries written by myself and Vita Ayala.”
“I’m so excited about the history we’re creating, adding to, and remixing. The foundation has always been there, but needed some TLC. As Nubia embarks on this new journey as Queen of Themyscira, I hope her rebirth will be met with open arms and the desire to keep her always at the forefront. Nubia, now being queen, is poetic in so many ways, but one that stays on my mind is the very personal connection I feel. As I help to add to her legacy, she’s opened the door wider to my own,” Williams said adding:
“Long may Queen Nubia reign, forever and always.”
Nubia and the Amazons #1 by Stephanie Williams, Vita Ayala and Alitha Martinez is now available in print and as a digital comic book.
Along with co-writing Nubia and the Amazons, Stephanie Williams writes about comics, TV and movies for DCComics.com. Check out more of her work on Den of Geek, What To Watch, Nerdist and SYFY Wire and be sure to follow her on both Twitter and Instagram at @steph_I_will.
The LA LGBT Center has completed construction of a new senior housing complex next-door to its Anita May Rosenstein Campus in Hollywood.
Los Angeles-based Killefer Flammang Architects (KFA) and New York-based Leong Leong have completed the Ariadne Getty Foundation Senior Housing Complex.
Replacing a surface parking lot at 1127 N. Las Palmas, the five-story senior housing complex features 98 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments reserved for low-income seniors.
The building, in addition to housing, includes a fitness center, and a courtyard. The apartments are accompanied by inset balconies, and are designed to be wheelchair accessible.
The project includes a mix of traditional affordable housing, leased through a lottery system, and permanent supportive housing where rents will be covered through public funds.
The apartments, which are reserved for residents aged 62 and older, will offer rents up to $1,175 per month, as well as access to specialized services catering to LGBT adults, meals, case management, and employment training. Twenty-six of the 98 units are earmarked for individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness. The rents of those units will be fully covered by city- and county-provided grants.
“The lack of affordable housing in this country is at an all-time high and presents even greater hardships for the LGBTQ community given the many biases which continue to exist. It’s an even greater problem amongst LGBTQ seniors,” said Ariadne Getty, president and executive director of the foundation, in a statement.
In early 2020, construction commenced on the housing-focused second phase of the project, one made possible thanks to a $2.5 million gift from the Ariadne Getty Foundation (AGF). Also recently completed on the campus is a 26-unit Youth Housing complex located across the street from the Ariadne Getty Foundation Senior Housing building.
Ariadne Getty Foundation Senior Housing was developed by Thomas Safran & Associates, an L.A.-based affordable housing developer and property management company.
