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.
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.”
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.”
Queer students say the school ‘has allowed the haters to win’ with Pride flag ban
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.
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.
Portland Thorns and Houston Dash players, along with referees, gather at midfield, in demonstration of solidarity with two former NWSL players who came forward with allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct against a prominent coach, during the first half of an NWSL soccer match in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 6, 2021.Steve Dipaola / AP
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.
“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, left, was accompanied by his mother, Michelle and her cousin, Rochelle, at the National Trans Visibility March in Orlando, Fla. (Photo by Dawn Ennis)
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.
Marissa Miller, executive director, CEO and founder of the National Trans Visibility March, spoke at the Torch Awards in downtown Orlando, Fla. (Photo by Dawn Ennis)
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.
Transgender marchers and allies held aloft a huge trans Pride flag, designed by Monica Helms, as they joined the LGBTQ Pride Parade in Orlando, Fla. (Photo by Josh Bell, executive director of One Orlando Alliance)
Next year, the march moves to Los Angeles, according to Come Out With Pride’s communications director, YouTuberMelody 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.
Melody Maia Monet, center, held a sign saying, “Visible 4 Those Who Can’t Be” as she marched in the National Trans Visibility March in Orlando, Fla. (Photo by Dawn Ennis)
“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.”
The Biden administration is using a Trump-era policy to approve the expansion of health care coverage for transgender Coloradans, forcing many of the state’s private insurers to cover gender-affirming care.
Former President Donald Trump’s 2018 policy allows states to redefine the essential health care benefits insurers are required to cover under the Affordable Care Act. On Tuesday, the Biden administration used it to approve Colorado’s request to add gender-affirming care among its health plans’ guaranteed benefits.
The move will force individual and small-group insurers to cover transition-related procedures, including hormone therapy, breast augmentation and laser hair removal, starting Jan. 1, 2023.
Federal officials and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, one of two openly LGBTQ governors, said they hoped the measure would serve as a model to expand gender-affirming care in other states. The Biden administration also cited discriminatory barriers that transgender Americans frequently face when they seek transition-related care, often described as cosmetic.
“Health care should be in reach for everyone; by guaranteeing transgender individuals can access recommended care, we’re one step closer to making this a reality,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement Tuesday. “I am proud to stand with Colorado to remove barriers that have historically made it difficult for transgender people to access health coverage and medical care.”
Medicaid covers gender-affirming care in more than a dozen states, including Colorado. But onlya handful of states, including Massachusetts and Washington, have policies similar to the new Colorado measure, requiring many private insurers to cover transition-related care.
As a result, nearly half of transgender Americans — including 54 percent of trans people of color — say that their health insurers covered only some of their gender-affirming care or that they had no providers in network, according to a survey last year by the Center for American Progress. The report found that 46 percentof trans respondents and 56 percent of trans respondents of color were denied gender-affirming care by their insurers.
Dr. Alex Keuroghlian, the director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center at Boston’s Fenway Institute, who works directly with transgender patients, applauded the Biden administration’s new measure.
“What we’ve learned the hard way is that private insurers and employers won’t necessarily have these equitable policies around coverage of medically necessary gender-affirming care without the government enforcing such expectations,” he said.
Keuroghlian said that when Massachusetts similarly expanded coverage for transgender patients in 2014, he had to modify his schedule to keep up with the demand.
“We saw a remarkable increase in trans and diverse community members pursuing gender-affirming care because they didn’t have to pay out of pocket,” he said.
Many health insurance companies and lawmakers describe transition-related procedures as cosmetic, but many of the country’s leading health institutions say they are vital.
“In our mind, there is no debate,” said Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld, the first and only openly LGBTQ board member of the American Medical Association. “These transition services and gender-affirming care for transgender patients are medically necessary. That’s what the science has demonstrated.”
Trans advocates have also long argued that transition-related procedures can help trans people more easily assimilate into society and avoid targeting.
“We are trying to eliminate trauma and discrimination in our lives,” said Lourdes Ashley Hunter, the founder and executive director of the advocacy group Trans Women of Color Collective. “And if that means that I need to get facial feminization so that when I go to the store or market I’m not being harassed and I’m doing so freely and safely, then so be it.”
The Biden administration’s approval of Colorado’s health care request aligns with the president’s campaign pledgeto expand medical care for transgender Americans. It also follows the administration’s decision in May to reinstate federal discrimination protections for trans patients, which the Trump administration had rolled back.
Conversely, some states led by Republicans have tried to limit access to care for trans Americans.
In April, Arkansas became the first state to ban health care providersfrom providing trans youths with gender-affirming care, with legislators in favor of the measure arguing that they wanted to protect children from procedures they would regret later. Similar bills have been introduced in dozens of other states, including Texas.
Sunday, October 17th 4pm. Book Launch. Occidental Center for the Arts auditorium. Generation Occupy: Reawakening American Democracy by Michael Levitin. Free event, donations welcome.Proof of vaccination/ID required at the door, masking while indoors. Selected readings, book sales and author signing. Refreshments available for sale. OCA: 3850 Doris Murphy Court, corner of Bohemian and Graton Rds. Go to occidentalcenterforthearts.org or (707) 874-9392 for more info. OCA is accessible to people with disabilities.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is considering a second intentional power shut-off this week in parts of 19 California counties, including portions of the North Bay, the utility said.
The shut-off would start Thursday morning, when dry, windy conditions are again expected to ramp up wildfire danger, the utility said. It would include 1,481 homes and businesses in Sonoma County, 1,774 in Lake County and 3,750 in Napa County.
High elevations may experience gusts of 40 mph, but overall conditions won’t be as bad or widespread as earlier this week, according to the National Weather Service.
“It’s not enough to put us in the threshold for a red flag warning or wind advisory, but I can see why (PG&E’s) exercising caution,“ said meteorologist Brayden Murdock.
This latest warning of another possible shut-off came as PG&E began restoring power in some areas affected by an intentional blackout that began early Monday.
Astronaut Sally Ride will become the first out LGBT+ person to appear on US currency, as part of the new American Women Quarters Program.
According to United States Mint, the first five limited edition coins in the American Women Quarters Program will launch next year.
The coins honour Ride as well as Maya Angelou, Asian American actor Anna May Wong, Cherokee Nation leader Wilma Mankiller, and suffragette Nina Otero-Warren.
Ride, an engineer and a physicist as well as an astronaut, was the first American woman to travel to space.
She married fellow NASA astronaut Steve Hawley in 1982, but they divorced five years later, and she later entered into a 27-year relationship with science writer and professor emerita of school psychology at San Diego State University, Tam O’Shaughnessy.
Although Ride was open about her sexuality with those around her, it was not widely known about until after her death in 2012. She stayed with O’Shaughnessy until she passed away.
The year after her death, Ride was awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama.
Otero-Warren, who was born in 1881 and will also be the first Hispanic American to appear on US currency, was also LGBT+ but was not out in her lifetime.
The politician from New Mexico was initially married to a man, but struck up a relationship with a woman named Mamie Meadors in the 1920s.
They lived on the same homestead, but in different houses, and were known as “Los Dos”, or “The Pair”.
United States Mint acting director Alison L Doone said in a statement: “These inspiring coin designs tell the stories of five extraordinary women whose contributions are indelibly etched in American culture.
“Generations to come will look at coins bearing these designs and be reminded of what can be accomplished with vision, determination and a desire to improve opportunities for all.”
