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The South African government has taken important steps but did not provide adequate funding for shelters and other services for gender-based violence survivors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many survivors have been made more vulnerable in the context of Covid-19.
The South African government has acknowledgedhigh rates of gender-based violence both during and before the pandemic. But South African experts told Human Rights Watch that despite promises – including in a National Strategic Plan – to address gender-based violence and femicide, the government has still failed to provide necessary funding for shelters and other services. Efforts should be made to improve access for marginalized people, including sex workers; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people; and undocumented survivors.
“South Africa is facing a situation in which survivors have been locked down with abusers, and they need economic security to free themselves from their abusers, all during a very tight job market and a period of food insecurity,” said Wendy Isaack, LGBT researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Key services such as shelters have been under huge stress for months because of pandemic-related problems and costs and long-standing difficulties like late payment of funds in some places and patchy government support.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed staff at seven shelters spread across the country and six other frontline organizations working directly with victims to prevent gender-based violence or provide emergency support to survivors. Human Rights Watch also interviewed activists and other experts from 12 organizations working to end this violence. Human Rights Watch made unsuccessful attempts to interview or obtain feedback from South Africa’s Department of Social Development (DSD), which oversees shelter services.
Those interviewed said that the biggest problem was a lack of adequate government funding to help overwhelmed nongovernmental organizations providing direct support to victims, including shelters, cope with the pandemic.
The DSD should finalize its draft Intersectoral Shelter Policy as a matter of urgency, and all government agencies involved should carry out planned improvements.
Immediate-, medium- and long-term impacts from South Africa’s Covid-19 lockdowns have increased the risk for women and girls of domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence. Human Rights Watch research with frontline workers in South Africa suggests that this risk may be greater for additionally marginalized people like black lesbians, transgender men and women, sex workers, and older women, as well as refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants.
Those interviewed said that domestic violence victims living under lockdown were cut off from others who might help them, giving them no respite from partners or family members beating, raping, or psychologically or verbally abusing them.
Government support to shelters during the Covid-19 pandemic appeared to vary enormously among provinces. Some shelters described firm relationships and public health guidance and other support from the provincial DSD staff. Shelters in the Western Cape, for example, said that the agency provided guidance, solidarity, and personal protective equipment (PPE) and that funding for shelters arrived on time.
In other places, though, funding was late. The National Shelter Movement of South Africa, a nonprofit organization with about 78 shelters under its umbrella, said that some staff even had to take personal loans to pay expenses. The South African government did promote a hotline for victims it had set up in 2014, but civil society members said it sometimes provided confusing or out-of-date information and that it was hard for some victims to use because they were afraid their abuser would hear them.
Commentators have said that the South African government worked to keep services open for the survivors. But experts criticized the South African government, saying it was too late to acknowledge the impact of strict lockdowns and had not provided adequate public information about shelters and services to make clear that domestic violence victims could leave their homes to get help.
Frontline workers said that many people, perhaps especially among vulnerable populations, were further endangered by the sudden loss of jobs, incomes, or housing. Sex workers, in particular, were forced to leave brothels and to take greater risks to make ends meet as the work dried up, sex worker rights groups said. Research by Human Rights Watch in 2018 found that female sex workers are especially vulnerable to violence in South Africa, in part because their work is criminalized.
Frontline workers also said that loss of income and lack of food security made undocumented migrants even more dependent on abusive partners and less likely to leave them. Human Rights Watch researchfound that the government’s Covid-19 aid programs, including food parcels during national lockdown, overlooked people with disabilities, refugees and asylum seekers, and many LGBT people.
Shelters vary in whether they accept undocumented migrant survivors. South African law prohibits sheltering immigrants without documentation but allows for emergency humanitarian support for undocumented people. The exception is not clearly defined, and some shelters fear liability for violating the law. South Africa has one shelter designed for LGBT survivors, the Pride Shelter in Cape Town. Though other shelters accept them in theory, experts said that more funding, training, and skills building is needed to counter discrimination and bias in the shelter space, provide tailored services, and raise awareness about availability of shelter services among marginalized populations.
The pandemic and lockdowns temporarily affected or made impossible some important in-house services in shelters, such as some forms of counseling and job training, Human Rights Watch found. Job opportunities for clients evaporated. Shelters were unable to carry out normal in-person outreach activities to raise awareness about their services as well as fundraising activities to support themselves or supplement government grants.
Perhaps because of uncertainty and isolation, several shelter workers said they felt that anxiety and depression among clients increased. Staff also had to make significant changes to how they worked, they and experts said, for example, working week-long shifts rather than going home every day, and there were many reports of burnout among shelter staff.
Inconsistent government support for the shelters is not a new problem. The Heinrich Böll Foundationfor example, together with the National Shelter Movement, has long noted that shelters are “chronically underfunded,” and that funding is also highly variable between and within provinces. A 2019 report on the state of shelters by the Commission for Gender Equality, an independent government watchdog body, found “grossly inadequate and misaligned” funding for shelters from the agency and late payments in some provinces.
Ongoing sensitization and skills training for shelter staff to prevent discrimination against LGBT people, sex workers, or undocumented African non-nationals and to ensure tailored services are available is important, Human Rights Watch said. The DSD should also ensure that all shelters accept undocumented survivors and know how to assist them with immigration procedures.
“The government of South Africa has been addressing gender-based violence during the crisis over the past year,” Isaack said. “But a large-scale and fully resourced effort will be needed to ensure the Covid-19 crisis and its fallout over the next years doesn’t result in South Africa’s rates for gender-based violence worsening further.”
For more information about gender-based violence in South Africa and the impact on shelter services, please see below.
Gender-Based Violence in South Africa
South Africa’s president has characterized gender-based violence in South Africa as a “second pandemic,” after the coronavirus. Statistics, including police reports, are worrying but incomplete, both because of problems with data collection and because victims often do not report abuse. Despite the lack of accurate statistics, it is evident that the rates are high, both for women and for LGBT people.
It is also not yet clear to what extent gender-based violence increased during the Covid-19 lockdowns. An analysis by the Heinrich Böll Foundation released in August 2021 found that various data, including police reporting, a government helpline, and hospitals, did not provide a clear indication that rates had increased, but said that more research was needed. Several people interviewed said that they thought rates increased, and experts and frontline workers widely agreed that the pandemic created additional vulnerabilities.
In September 2021 parliament passed three linked bills amending relevant laws. One, the Domestic Violence Amendment Act, should make it easier for victims to get protection orders.
There is political will to address the crisis, but adequate funding has long been a problem, Human Rights Watch found. The National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide attributed the high rates of gender-based violence to South Africa’s history of violence and apartheid, but also to government underinvestment in solving the problem. Others have also concluded that budgetary constraints and lack of cooperation among government departments have undermined progress. Victims lack support when attempting to report violence and lack adequate access to courts and to shelters. The experts interviewed said that the pandemic worsened these problems.
The Commission on Gender Equality’s March 2020 submission to the United Nations committee that oversees states’ compliance with Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women detailed the situation just prior to the pandemic and lockdown. It said that while there was “political willingness to lead national efforts to deal with gender-based violence”, in practice, funding and implementation of a pre-Covid-19-era Emergency Response Action Plan was “still unfolding.” Despite promises of more support, the commission said that even before the pandemic, a lack of government funding had meant the shelters were forced to close, police were undertrained, and medical services for rape survivors were lacking.
The National Strategic Plan is the result of years of activism by South African civil society, including demonstrations in August 2018 that triggered a Presidential Summit Against Gender-Based Violence. Drafted by government and activists, the South African cabinet has also approved the plan. However, it is difficult to track how the plan is being funded. In February 2021 in response to government efforts, the private sector pledged a total of 128 million South African Rand (R, about US$8.1 million) to fight gender-based violence.
Government financial support to shelters and services for survivors is an important part of meeting human rights obligations to address gender-based violence. The National Plan’s Pillar 4, “Response, Care Support and Healing,” and Pillar 5, “Economic Empowerment” tasks the DSD with increasing funding for shelters and services at shelters, and to increase access to shelters and interim housing for all victims, including LGBT people, sex workers, undocumented immigrants, older women, and women with older children.
Covid-19 and Economic Insecurity
The abrupt change in economic activity caused by the pandemic and response had a profound impact on many South African’s economic security. Interviewees said that certain marginalized populations, in particular, African LGBT asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, and sex workers, already more at risk of violence, experienced a significant drop in food security and loss of income. This compounded their risk, especially for those who were forced into homelessness.
Human Rights Watch analysis showed that the authorities did not take steps to facilitate support, including from donors, for refugees and asylum seekers whose access to food and other basic necessities were limited during the nationwide lockdown. As far as Human Rights Watch has been able to ascertain, the government did not consult with people from vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as people with disabilities, leaving many at serious risk of Covid-19 infection, hunger, and other harm.
“Things were very bad to be honest – migrant sex workers were told to move out of brothels and safe houses,” a sex worker peer advocate said about her efforts to assist sex workers in a small town in Gauteng province. “We intervened and made agreements [with the owners] like [in one place] – as long as the sex workers were able to pay electricity the owner allowed them to stay. In another brothel [the owner] gave them a few days after we intervened, but eventually they had to go.”
Dudu Dlamini, a sex worker activist, said that “Sex workers had no cash, no income, they were chased out of houses by landlords”. She said that the loss of income often affected three or four dependents. “They couldn’t go home without bringing money, (couldn’t) visit their children.”
Sex work remains criminalized in South Africa, and as a result, the South African Police Service in some places perpetuates abuse by profiling and harassing sex workers. “Lockdown amplified the challenges for sex workers,” said Nosipho Vidima, a sex workers’ rights advocate. “You can imagine if you’re trying to work and there’s no one else in the street because of curfew… sex workers were harassed and arrested by police for being out, because they were known to be sex workers.”
A social worker at People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression, and Poverty (PASSOP), a community-based organization working to defend the rights of asylum seekers, refugees, and non-nationals in Cape Town, said economic insecurity because of the pandemic made it even less likely that their clients, mostly undocumented immigrant LGBT survivors of gender-based violence, would leave abusive partners or report violence. “The majority [of our clients] have lost their jobs [and the need for food and shelter have been those most faced during Covid-19,” he said, adding that the group’s programming had been replaced by proving food parcels and other emergency relief.
“[Even under better times] our clients can’t get work and struggle because they don’t have documents and so have to rely on partners even if they are ill-treated,” he said. He said that at least nine clients were doing sex work to survive, and some had faced police harassment and others violence, and all were more likely to have unsafe sex.
“We did an announcement about our food parcels on the radio as well as our evacuation services and our line blew up,” the codirector from Rise Up Against Gender-Based Violence said. “[Newly homeless people needed] things like buckets to go get water and plastic bags to keep their things in. Especially during the hard lockdown, we had a lot of LGBTIQ people we needed to assist because their families had thrown them out of homes [and] we also did a lot of parcels for non-nationals because there was no assistance for undocumented people.”
Covid-19 Impacts on Gender-Based Violence Shelters
Human Rights Watch found that the pandemic had a significant impact on gender-based violence shelters. The shelters provide refuge from violence and include safe houses that offer temporary accommodation. Crises centers typically offer accommodation for three to six months, and most interviewed by Human Rights Watch also provide counseling, psychosocial and emotional assistance, and life planning, skills building and job training, as well as connections to courts or other government services such as help with protection orders or divorces.
Human Rights Watch did not receive any reports about major Covid-19 outbreaks in shelters, but protecting clients and staff from Covid-19 infection and managing lockdowns strained shelters in many ways. Several shelter workers said that stress and anxiety were greatly heightened for both clients and staff. “We probably worked harder than ever before,” said a senior social worker from a Durban shelter in KwaZulu-Natal. “We had greater levels of anxiety than before among the clients.”
One social worker said that a client and a worker, a cleaner at her shelter, had died of Covid-19, causing anxiety and distress among both staff and clients. “It was a roller coaster,” she said.
Clients at shelters had to self-isolate, especially new arrivals, meaning they lost out on solidarity and community, made worse by restrictions against visitors or making trips outside of the shelter. At one Gauteng shelter, for example, new clients had to self-isolate for 14 days. “It was a very traumatic time,” said a social worker at the shelter. “I’ve never spoken or debriefed about it, but it was frustrating and depressing and not just for the clients here but also for the staff.”
Two other senior shelter workers said that they and their staff had not had a chance to talk about the impact of the pandemic on their wellbeing, and a few people said that the work and sacrifices of shelter staff had not been acknowledged, and that burnout was increasingly a problem. “Everyone just put their heads down and did the work, but now we’re seeing the impact on staff,” said a senior social worker at a 120-bed shelter, Saartjie Bartman Centre, in Cape Town. At least two shelters moved employees from daily shifts, going home at night, to working a week at a time to reduce exposure.
Protections against Covid-19 also created additional costs. “We spent huge amounts of money on PPE in the first months, some R60,000 [about $3,800],” said a senior social worker at the Saartjie Bartman Centre. Like others, this shelter also spent precious funds on private car services to reduce staff exposure on public transport. Fundraising events were canceled and at least some shelters decided to stop in-kind deliveries of food and other support that they usually depend on to reduce opportunities for virus transmission. In-person outreach work in communities also stopped, potentially reducing people’s access and knowledge about sheltering.
Covid-19 Impacts on Services for Survivors
Shelter workers said that perhaps the most worrying loss for shelter residents from the pandemic has been job opportunities. “Women can’t find jobs now, some have been with us for six months now and have no follow-up plan because of that,” a KwaZulu-Natal social worker at a shelter said in February. “I refuse to send a client back to an abusive situation.”
“Our clients have been disappointed,” said a senior social worker from the Sahara Shelter. “A lot come here unemployed, and we try to work as much as possible with local businesses and people who can give our clients jobs, so they have income, but that’s not been possible under Covid-19.” Another social worker said that “We have 15 women [clients] with us now, and only two are employed – it’s terrible.”
Government services were harder to get, including some lifesaving services. “Some government officials were working from home and it was hard to reach them”, a social worker from a shelter in the Eastern Cape Province said. “[This] led to a delay in service delivery to our clients and also added strain on them with regard to their cases. In the beginning of the lockdown, cases were postponed in court and protection orders could not be granted on the date set.”
“We faced huge problems in getting protection orders,” another social worker said.
Others said that health services were affected, with some hospitals shutting down or canceling normal services their clients depended on, some medications being harder to get, and general anxiety and uncertainty as to when taking a client to a hospital or clinic was worth the risk of exposure to Covid-19. “Access to mental [health services] and other health care has proved to be extremely inaccessible during lockdown, even more so than before,” a domestic violence worker in the Cape Flats said.
Shelters struggled to keep essential services such as psychosocial – mental health – support and counseling ongoing, and these essential services were halted in some places for at least a period. Some shelters lost at least some programming. “We also had to stop all our extra services,” said one social worker.
Organizations like SWEAT, the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce, and Mothers for the Future, a SWEAT offshoot, who work to support sex workers including protecting them against gender-based violence, struggled with major programming losses, especially in the early days of the pandemic. “We had to stop support group meetings,” Dlamini said. “We moved over to a WhatsApp group so we could provide a little support.”
“We even saw places that had provided condoms for free had shut down,” said a sex worker activist, Megan Lessing. “Some sex workers were earning R50 a day [about $3.20] and paying R20 [about $1.30] for condoms.”
Access to Shelters for Marginalized Survivors
Human Rights Watch found that shelters differed in whom they accepted as clients. Undocumented migrants, LGBT people, and women with older male children were sometimes excluded, for reasons that range from lack of private family facilities to concern about running afoul of the immigration law, or not being able to pay expenses the government would not reimburse for non-nationals. Older women, people who use drugs, and women with severe illnesses were sometimes excluded as well, with many facilities lacking the resources to provide specialized health or services, such as personal care and other support, to people with disabilities, including older people with disabilities.
While sex workers, transwomen, transmen, and lesbians, were usually accepted in theory, people working with these vulnerable groups said that particular group often did not feel welcome and that more needed to be done to help them access shelters.
“Vulnerable groups struggle to find or use shelters mainly because of stigma,” a shelter social worker said. “They are often discriminated against by the public and by staff at shelters … and they’re coming from a place where there’s a lack of acceptance to start with from family members.”
Citing security concerns, about half of the shelters contacted would not take older boys, usually any male over 12. Two shelters said that they did not take older women, in one case because of fears that they would never find another home for them. “We can’t [discharge] them because other support structures [like [older] people’s homes] are not working,” said one social worker. More commonly shelters said that they would not take women using drugs, because they are not set up to safely provide necessary services.
“Some shelters won’t take foreign nationals, especially undocumented people, [and] we spent a lot of time trying to place foreign nationals,” said one person who had helped more than 50 women leave domestic violence in Johannesburg. “We will assist, we won’t judge them if they’ve got papers and have been referred to us and have a right to be in the country,” one shelter social worker said. Others said that they would take undocumented survivors, but it was “problematic … we then have to refer them to the correct institutions handling their cases.”
The Creighton Shelter in KwaZulu-Natal said that they had recently taken in a transwoman. “It was very hard for her to find a shelter because in her ID she’s still a man,” the manager said. Other shelters said that staff can feel reluctant to accept transwomen in the facility, especially if there are no private rooms and bathrooms, or training for staff. Another shelter manager and National Shelter Movement executive committee member, Bernadine Bachar, said that the shelter serves transwomen, but that generally, “there’s a lot of reluctance to take transwomen. Staff feel that they’re not equipped to deal with issues.”
Sex workers experience barriers to accessing shelters, including assumptions about their drug use, on whether they can remain working and not violate shelter rules, or whether they have immigration documentation. One shelter worker said: “Sex workers are sometimes [dependent on] drugs; we have a zero-tolerance policy on that.” She also said that female sex workers often “disregard” the shelter’s 5 p.m. curfew, along with the government’s Covid-19 regulations.
“Sex workers … often do not stay long because they have to leave to do their work and so they violate the shelter rules as well as Covid lockdown regulation,” another person interviewed said.
“I put one sex worker in a shelter and the staff there saw her working and told us to take her to another shelter,” Dlamini said. “And there was another case where a sex worker tested positive for drugs and so was not allowed to stay.”
Sex workers usually do not even consider a shelter an option, a sex worker peer said. “The general feeling is that without a South African ID you can’t access anything.”
Government Support During the Pandemic
Unlike many other governments in the region, South Africa does provide support to shelters, and the pandemic has placed many strains on government institutions and services, Human Rights Watch said. It is apparently difficult to calculate government spending on gender-based violence, but experts agree that more funding and focus is needed.
Experts said that the government was too slow to publicly note that the pandemic and the stringent lockdowns had increased the risks of gender-based violence. They said that national and local officials have never acknowledged the added dangers to some groups like sex workers, refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants as well as LGBT people. The experts also said that it was not made clear from the beginning that shelters and other services were essential services that would remain open and that survivors could leave their houses to get help even during curfew or the various levels of lockdown. “Women didn’t know what was going on,” Bachar said. “It was unconscionable.”
South African authorities’ enforcement of curfews and lockdowns has been strict, and sometimes violent, which may have affected victims’ ability to seek help. In June 2020 a report by the Atlantic Council noted that, “Since South Africa instituted a country-wide lockdown on March 27, the number of violent incidents by police against civilians has reportedly more than doubled, with poor and vulnerable populations most affected.”
For many shelters, work with local government officials and police continued during the pandemic even if it was bumpy. Some said they got some additional assistance like funds, PPE including masks and sanitizers, and advice from the government, although more commonly from the National Shelter Movement.
A social worker at the Sahara Shelter in Durban said: “we got masks and sanitizer … whenever there was stuff available (DSD) would drop it off and they helped with deep cleaning two or three times.”
“DSD worked with us from the beginning to prepare, even before lockdown, they sent an epidemiologist to consult with shelters,” a senior worker at a large shelter of 120 beds in Cape Town said. Other shelters said that they did not get any additional support from the government and instead were dependent on the National Shelter Movement for PPE and other resources as well as guidance on how to handle social distancing for example.
The biggest problem was when funding arrived late, those interviewed said. But the overall lack of funding for shelters, even when on time was also consistently mentioned as a problem. “A lack of funding means many shelter workers earn a minimum wage even though they are essential and the work they do is so important,” said Claudia Lopes from the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
Lopes and Kailash Bhana, who are doing research for the Heinrich Böll Foundation on the impact of Covid-19 on shelters, and Lisa Vetten, another expert, said that two shelters in the Eastern Cape had to halt their operations because they could not afford to pay for food as they had not received government funding during the pandemic. They said that at least one shelter in the Northwest province, struggled to feed about 80 clients, some of them children, and came close to collapse because of significantly delayed government funding.
Experts also expressed concerns about the quality of a government hotline set up during the pandemic for victims. “We were shocked by the GBV [gender-based violence] hotline,” the codirector at Rise Up Against Gender-Based Violence said. “[Victims are] trapped in their homes with their abuser and you’re giving them a telephone line. Many people have no phone, and [even if they do] the abuser is within earshot.”
Even when survivors could call, said Lopes, hotline workers were sometimes giving callers inappropriate advice and “deciding for themselves whether someone was eligible for shelters or not” rather than just doing referrals. In one example, she said, “the victim’s partner was a gangster, and she was needing urgent escape from the situation and the community that she lives in, but the command center told her that she was not eligible for sheltering as she could be accommodated elsewhere, essentially with her mom in the same community she had to leave for her own safety. They simply didn’t understand the dynamics.”
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed to suggest earlier this week that landmark LGBTQ cases could support overturning federal abortion rights.
The Supreme Court heard 90 minutes of oral arguments Wednesday concerning a Mississippi law that would ban almost all abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
A majority of the court’s conservative justices appeared prepared to uphold the law and possibly overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision holdingthat women have a constitutional right to have an abortion before fetal viability, usually around 24 weeks.
The crux of Wednesday’s oral arguments centered around whether the justices should preserve or walk back on precedent, a court decision that is considered authority for subsequent cases involving similar or identical circumstances. The court’s liberal justices warned that reversing a decades-old ruling would politicize the country’s highest court.
However, citing two landmark gay rights cases — Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state laws criminalizing consensual same-sex activity in 2003, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which resulted in the legalization of same-sex marriage across the United States in 2015 — Kavanaugh suggested that overruling the court’s previous opinions was standard procedure.
“If you think about some of the most important cases, the most consequential cases in this court’s history, there’s a string of them where the cases overruled precedent,” Kavanaugh said. “If we think that the prior precedents are seriously wrong, if that, why then doesn’t the history of this court’s practice with respect to those cases tell us that the right answer is actually a return to the position of neutrality and — and not stick with those precedents in the same way that all those other cases didn’t?”
The lawyers who argued in favor of gay rights in the landmark LGBTQ cases offered differing views on the validity of the argument by Kavanaugh, who was appointed in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump.
Mary Bonauto, who argued on behalf of same-sex couples in Obergefell v. Hodges and now serves as the Civil Rights Project director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD, challenged Kavanaugh’s analogy.
“It’s a pretty thin interpretation of a reversal,” she told NBC News. “The reversals that Justice Kavanaugh is citing were about righting wrongs. They were centered on the rights of individuals and expanding constitutional protections to more individuals, not about taking rights away.”
When the court ruled in favor of same-sex couples in Obergefell v. Hodges, it effectively overturned its prior decision in Baker v. Nelson. That ruling centered on Jack Baker and Mike McConnell, who in 1970 were blocked from obtaining a marriage license. The high court rejected the men’s case in 1972 without ever hearing oral arguments.
Bonauto argued against Kavanaugh’s comparison of reversing Baker v. Nelson to the potential reversal of Roe v. Wade.
“There was no briefing, there was no argument. They just essentially utterly dismissed the case for basically: ‘There’s no way same-sex couples seeking to marry have claim under the Constitution.’ The end,” she said.
LGBTQ advocates largely agreed with Bonauto, saying that the landmark gay rights decisions in Obergefell v. Hodges and Lawrence v. Texas “reflected the growing societal understanding of our common humanity.”
“To that we say, NOT IN OUR NAME,” Sharon McGowan, legal director of the LGBTQ advocacy group Lambda Legal, said of Kavanaugh’s argument in a statement Wednesday. “Those landmark LGBTQ decisions EXPANDED individual liberty, not the opposite.”
But Paul Smith, who argued in favor of LGBTQ rights in Lawrence v. Texas — which overruled the court’s 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick — suggested that Kavanaugh’s comparison was valid. Smith said that in order to win Lawrence v. Texas, he also had to bolster the argument for the court overriding precedent.
“We really, actually made those arguments ourselves in Lawrence because that was the whole point — we had to get rid of Bowers v. Hardwick,” Smith, who is now a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said. “It is certainly one of the most prominent examples of an overruling that’s happened in the last 20 years.”
“People talk about stare decisis when they like the prior decision and not when they don’t,” Smith added, referring to the legal term for following what the court has ruled previously.
But during the oral arguments, Justice Sonia Sotomayor raised the question of whether overruling Roe v. Wade could open the floodgates for the court’s 6-3 conservative majority to overrule a broad swath of previous opinions it does not agree with.
“Why do we now say that somehow … Roe and Casey are so unusual that they must be overturned?” Sotomayor said Wednesday, referring to Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 opinion that affirmed Roe v. Wade.
Later, during the oral arguments, Justice Amy Coney Barrett pressed Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart, who was defending the Mississippi abortion limits, to address Sotomayor’s assertion.
Stewart said that several of the other cases Sotomayor cited, including the LGBTQ cases, produced “clear rules that have engendered strong reliance interests and that have not produced negative consequences,” in contrast to Roe v. Wade.
But if the court does overrule the landmark abortion law, some legal experts warn that previous rulings, including the landmark LGBTQ decisions, would be in danger.
“You can be sure that the Alliance Defending Freedom has the lawsuit ready to file the day after the Supreme Court issues an opinion broadly overruling Roe,” Katherine Franke, the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, said referring to a Christian law firm with a decadeslong track record of litigating against LGBTQ rights. “They will file the next day challenging Obergefell and even Lawrence. I have every confidence that that is what they’reto do.”
The court is expected to decide on the Mississippi abortion law early next summer.
As Qatar prepares to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the government has assured prospective visitors it will welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) tourists and that fans will be free to fly the rainbow flag at the games. But for LGBT Qataris like Mohammed, openly expressing his sexuality as a gay man is not an option. Doing so, he fears, would land him backin jail.
Mohammed was arrested in 2014 for alleged same-sex conduct, punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment under article 285 of Qatar’s penal code. While in detention, officers searched his phone, identified a man he’d been messaging, and attempted to contact this person to target him as well. Mohammed was detained for weeks, enduring verbal abuse and sexual harassment by police. Officers even shaved his head.
Seven years later, Mohammed has resigned himself to a life of discretion: he dresses in a masculine style, refrains from posting about his sexuality online, and no longer meets men from dating apps.
“There is zero freedom [to post anything related to sexuality online],” Mohammed said.
As Qatar advances its surveillance capabilities, including inside football stadiums, the possibility of LGBT Qataris being persecuted for publicly supporting LGBT rights will remain long after the international fans have gone.
Physical and virtual spaces free from surveillance are vanishing in Qatar as data protection law allows broad exemptions that undermine the right to privacy. When digital surveillance is combined with laws that target individuals based on consensual sexual conduct outside of marriage, there is nowhere left to hide.
The Qatari government should repeal article 285 and all other laws that criminalize consensual sexual relations outside of marriage and leave people like Mohammed living in fear in the shadows. Freedom of expression and nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity should be guaranteed for all Qataris, not just spectators and tourists flocking to Qatar for the World Cup.
To commemorate the Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20, the Biden administration issued a report on violence and discrimination against transgender people in the United States. The report outlines positive steps the administration is taking to address the root causes of violence – but progress will be limited unless lawmakers enact laws that support them.
Over the past two years, Human Rights Watch spoke with dozens of transgender survivors of violence, advocates, and service providers in the states of Florida, Ohio, and Texas about the forms anti-transgender violence takes. One of the key findings of that research was that socioeconomic marginalization, such as unemployment, housing insecurity, and a lack of reliable transportation keeps many transgender people in unsafe situations. The most marginalized, particularly Black transgender women, are especially at risk.
The Biden administration’s roadmap, created with input from transgender people and advocates, identifies key concerns and outlines steps the administration has been taking to advance transgender rights. Among these are support for inclusive employment opportunities, health services, housing and homeless shelters, and antiviolence services, which are all badly needed.
Recognizing these factors is laudable, but state and federal lawmakers also need to take concrete steps to address them if meaningful progress is to be achieved.
At a minimum, lawmakers should stop demonizing transgender people and attempting to restrict their rights, and instead enact laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity. They should decriminalize sex work, making it easier for transgender sex workers to keep themselves safe and report violence when it occurs. They should explicitly cover gender-affirming care in state Medicaid policies and remove barriers to legal gender recognition to avoid instances in which people are publicly outed as transgender.
To improve support when violence occurs, lawmakers should reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, enact the Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act, and provide training and support to ensure shelters and anti-violence services are truly inclusive. And they should ban the “trans panic” defense, which allows perpetrators of anti-transgender violence to use their own fear or dislike of transgender people as a legal defense to minimize culpability in criminal proceedings when they have harmed or even killed a transgender person.
The Biden administration has identified some ways it can act to curb anti-transgender violence. To do that effectively, federal and state lawmakers will need to demonstrate the same commitment.
Both Pagels-Minor and Field had alleged that Netflix retaliated against them following the walkout, which was organized to protest against the streaming giant carrying the comedian’s stand-up special The Closer, which many felt was bigoted against LGBTQ people.
“My clients have resolved their differences with Netflix and will be voluntarily withdrawing their NLRB charge,” Laurie Burgess, a lawyer representing Pagels-Minor and Field said in a statement, according to Yahoo News.
A spokesperson for Netflix also echoed the resolution, writing that all parties “have resolved our differences in a way that acknowledges the erosion of trust on both sides and, we hope, enables everyone to move on.”
Neither Netflix nor the former employees would discuss if the three parties have reached a settlement.
Netflix fired Pagels-Minor in October following the walkout, claiming that Pagels-Minor had also leaked confidential information within the company–a charge Pagels-Minor denied. Netflix also suspended Field after she attended a high-level meeting to which she was not invited; the company subsequently reinstated her to her job.
Now, Field is leaving Netflix voluntarily.
“This isn’t how I thought things would end, but I’m relieved to have closure,” Field wrote in her letter of resignation. “Shortly after B. was fired for something I did not and do not believe they did, I made a decision: sink or swim, I was going to walk side by side with B. as they had for so many of us while they led the [Netflix transgender employee resource group.]”
The Closer comedy special has attracted ardent criticism and defenders over Dave Chappelle’s remarks about the LGBTQ community.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos defended the special–which includes Chappelle making crude remarks about transgender anatomy and accusing the queer community of constantly attacking African-Americans–before admitting that he “screwed up.” Other celebrities, including Andrew Yang,Caitlyn Jenner, and Jon Stewart, have also voice support for Chappelle.
As for Chappelle, he’s back on the road making anti-LGBTQ jokes again, despite saying he would retire them from his repertoire. At a Monday night screening for his new documentary project, the self-proclaimed “uncancelled comedian” once again let his transphobia and homophobia fly.
In addition to a running gag about pronouns, he used the word “f*g,” joked about claiming to identify as a woman to get a better prison placement, and waved off his previous promise to stop making jokes about LGBTQ people, saying that rule only counts when cameras are rolling.
Since its publication nearly a decade ago, Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universehas been widely regarded and accepted as a seminal young adult novel in the queer literary canon. Sáenz’s lyrical and beautiful novel about two Latinx boys becoming best friends and falling in love has been beloved among queer readers of all ages in the years since, prompting a sequel that released October 15, 2021, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World. I spoke with Sáenz via email about the new novel, his unique writing style, and what readers can expect from the new book.
I want to start with a simple question—why a sequel to Aristotle and Dante and why now?
In the years after Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe was published, I had the awful feeling in a dark corner of my heart that, in the novel, I had stopped short of exploring so many things that mattered—that mattered to me, and that mattered to other people as well. The first book turned very much inward and explored Ari and Dante facing themselves and facing each other. The book was intimate. It ended at the very moment that Ari acknowledged the love he had unknowingly buried deep inside him. The novel I wrote was deliberately sweet and tender—but it failed to examine the serious implications of a love between two boys in 1987. It ends at the easiest part of their relationship. Falling in love for the first time foregrounds Ari’s and Dante’s innocence and sense of wonder.
But staying in love is quite another thing. I don’t mean to be so critical of the first Ari and Dante book, but it’s rather romantic and doesn’t deal with the realities of a relationship between two boys in the late eighties. The sequel turns outward, toward the culture, the society, the country, and the world in which the boys live—the world that helps define them and is often a kind of prison that impedes their freedom.
Ahead of its release, there has been a re-examination of the first Aristotle & Dante book and some discussion of the sequel. Without spoiling either book, can you discuss the storytelling choices you made and why? What do you have to say to readers who might find this subplot transphobic?
I understand why readers might find this subplot in Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe transphobic—and to those who do, and who feel hurt and angry and disappointed in me, I offer my apologies. I have learned a lot from the trans community since the first book came out, and I am still learning. And I understand that just because I offer my apologies does not mean I am entitled for others to accept my apologies.
When it comes to Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World, I brought everything I had learned to the way I wrote about this existing subplot. I did my best to honor the trans character by giving her a new name, Camila, and by having Ari show respect and reverence for her life in a way that is true to his character, an eighteen-year-old boy in the 1980s who still has a lot to learn about life. And, like Ari, I’m sure I still have more to learn, too. I take responsibility for the things I say, write, and do, and offer no excuses.
I did my best to honor the trans character by giving her a new name, Camila, and by having Ari show respect and reverence for her life in a way that is true to his character, an eighteen-year-old boy in the 1980s who still has a lot to learn about life.
Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World is set against the backdrop of the AIDS pandemic. Considering the two books are so close together in time, why did you choose to incorporate it in the sequel, but not the first novel?
The AIDS pandemic was something that affected me personally, just as it affected millions of people. I lost a mentor, Arturo Islas, a brother, Donaciano Sanchez, and a very close friend, Norman Campbell Robertson. The AIDS pandemic was a watershed moment for the gay community and, to my mind, it was in many ways the beginning of the Gay Rights movement as we know it.
In addition, since we are experiencing yet another pandemic, I thought my readers could draw their own parallels between the AIDS pandemic and the pandemic they are living through. I wrote most of the book during the early COVID-19 pandemic.
Elephant sitting on the living room couch
Much of Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World deals with Aristotle discovering who he is as a man. How did this central theme develop for you and why do you think it’s relevant for young readers?
We are obsessed with masculinity and the toxic forms it takes and the way it affects our society. Manhood is the elephant sitting on the living room couch. And of course, it’s relevant for younger readers. Remember being in high school? The great thing about being gay is that you have an opportunity to pause and think about what kind of man you want to be because I knew that I would never be a man in the way that the heterosexual world defined it.
Toxic masculinity is what rules in our politics, our police departments, the way we organize our educational system, our family lives, the way we do business. And the theme that runs alongside that is the issue of feminism.
The young women in this novel play a big role. They’re not just sidekicks to Ari and Dante. They’re strong and they know themselves, know who they are, know how to communicate and confront, know how to fight for what they believe. And these young women help Ari and Dante become men. And so do Ari and Dante’s mothers. It was my mother who taught me how to be a man—much more than my father. And it was my two sisters who had the kind of strength that we, the five brothers, seemed to lack. They were the organizers of our family life. At one point in the novel, Ari asks Dante’s father, “What would we do without women?” Dante’s father answers, “We’d be screwed, that’s where we’d be.”
“The great thing about being gay is that you have an opportunity to pause and think about what kind of man you want to be, because I knew that I would never be a man in the way that the heterosexual world defined it.”
“Writing those parts made me feel beautiful, really beautiful”
Related, the sequel finds Ari and Dante navigating a new element of their relationship including their respective queer identities. I found this to be one of the more charming and sweet parts of the book. What do you want readers to take away from these moments?
I must admit that I still wince at the word “queer.” I know that I am in the minority here, but for me, that word conjures up a lot of hate. It isn’t that I don’t accept the fact that young people and intellectuals use the word with pride. Nor am I offended when someone applies that word to themselves. Most members of the LGBTQ+ community seem extremely comfortable with the word. Young people understand the power of words when it comes to their identities. But I carry the history of that word inside me, and in my body, and in voices I remember. And those voices are the voices of cruelty and bigotry. I’m 67 years old and I don’t call myself queer. I call myself a gay man.
And yes, I agree with you about these parts of the book. Ari and Dante are learning how to love and what that means. They’re learning about their own bodies and their own desires—and it’s funny and it’s tender and there’s nothing dirty about that. It’s never dirty. It’s pure. But our religious institutions and our duplicitous political culture and even our educational institutions make something dirty out of it. I loved writing those sections of the book because writing those parts made me feel beautiful. Really beautiful.
“Growing up is also about loss, after all. Growing up is about learning to let go and what to hang on to.”
Without spoiling anything, Ari experiences a big loss in the sequel. What led you to this storytelling choice and why did you place it at the point in the novel where you did?
The event seemed necessary to me. So many young people experience losses and I wanted to show Ari live through and transcend that loss—because those moments of loss make us aware of what love is, and makes us aware of what we’re really made of. And that had to occur early enough in the novel so we could see Ari’s acceptance and experience his pain, and the slow healing after such a loss. Growing up is also about loss, after all. Growing up is about learning to let go and what to hang on to. This novel would have been all the poorer without that event. It seemed so right and even necessary to me in this novel—just like the car accident seemed right and central to the original book.
Additionally, the structure of the sequel is a bit different from the original. While they’re both told in parts, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World is broken down into more acts and uses epigraphs to guide each section, reinforcing the “cartographer” theme of the novel. How did you come to this structure and theme for Ari’s journey?
God, I wish I could answer that question. I rely on instinct and the epigraphs just felt right. And this novel may be a sequel, but why repeat the same things and the same themes and the same structures that were in the first novel? I think every novel has to justify itself and it has to be unique. Things have changed. For the characters of the book and for the author. This is a more mature novel—and that’s the good news and the bad news. If you’re fixated on the first novel, then you won’t allow yourself to experience the changes that have occurred. Change is what makes life interesting. Change is inevitable. Change is the only constant in our lives.
“I think every novel has to justify itself and it has to be unique. […] This is a more mature novel—and that’s the good news and the bad news.”
You’re known for your unique way of writing dialogue with a tendency not to rely on speaker tags. How do you build out the scenes so that the reader will understand who is speaking? How does this change when there’s more than two people speaking?
I find not using speaker tags a challenge. It’s an art. I don’t mean to be coy, I really don’t—but if you study those sections carefully, you’ll discover the secret. If it’s more than one person, well, that’s part of the art of dialogue. You know, when I taught creative writing, dialogue was very difficult for my students. But I always enjoy writing dialogue. It’s what makes my characters seem less like characters. One of my editors told me I didn’t write characters at all. “You write people,” she said.
“They always ask me if I know Dr. Seuss.”
You’ve written for younger readers and adults as well as both poetry and prose. What are some of the joys and challenges of writing different forms for different age categories? How do you know what project will fit which form or audience?
I’m writing a book of poems right now, and poetry remains my favorite genre to write. It brings me a type of peace and makes me feel centered. Poetry makes me meditate on life in the way no other genre allows me to do. I feel comfortable in my own skin when I write poetry. For a man who’s been writing for more than thirty years, I’m not always self-assured and confident.
Writing different genres and age groups demands that I respond to the different sides of me. I can tap into the little boy in me. I can tap into the high school kid in me. I can tap into the hurt and hopeful man in me. I’m able to manage to do that. But I don’t know how it happens.
I love writing for little kids. And I love reading to them. My favorite audience of all: first graders. They are simply amazing. They always ask me if I know Dr. Seuss. I love their uncensored responses to what I read to them. Apart from the Ari and Dante books, my most successful book is a children’s bilingual book entitled A Gift From Papa Diego. It was published in 1998. It’s been in print for 23 years and it’s still selling and reaching new audiences of children.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Oh gosh, yes, I have to say that I still feel that it’s a great privilege to be a writer. I got to be what I wanted to be—an artist and a writer. I’ve lived my dream. That doesn’t mean that life’s been easy—but it’s not supposed to be easy. And I’m very grateful to have an audience, be that audience small or very large. I’ve learned that I’m not entitled to have an audience just because I wrote a book. I’ve always written the books I needed to write, and I write because I need to write. That’s how I’ve survived. I did with my life what I was supposed to do. I am the luckiest.
Hungary’s parliament passed a resolution on Tuesday which will empower the government to hold a referendum on LGBTQ issues, raising Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s anti-LGBTQ campaign to a new level as he heads into a tough election race next year.
Orban, a nationalist who has been in power since 2010, this year proposed a referendum on ruling party legislation that limits schools’ teaching about homosexuality and transgender issues, stepping up a culture war with the European Union.
Facing his first competitive election in more than a decade, nationalist Orban has sought to promote social policies that he says safeguard Christian values against Western liberalism, putting gender issues and what he calls LGBTQ propaganda at the center of his campaign along with migration.
Parliament voted on four referendum questions one by one, passing them with Fidesz’s ruling majority.
“The Hungarian government proposes that citizens should have a chance to express their stance on the issues of gender propaganda,” deputy minister Balazs Orban told parliament.
“We are committed. We believe that we …have to say no to LGBTQ propaganda in schools carried out with the help of NGOs and media, without parental consent.”
He said holding the referendum on the same day as the parliamentary vote would save taxpayers money but it is up to President Janos Ader to set the date. Ader, an ally of the government, has not yet fixed a date for the parliamentary elections which are expected to be held in April.
In the referendum, Hungarians will be asked whether they support the holding of sexual orientation workshops in schools without parents’ consent and whether they believe gender reassignment procedures should be promoted among children.
They will also be asked whether media content that could affect sexual orientation should be shown to children without any restrictions.
The law passed in June, which the government says aims to protect children, has caused anxiety in the LGBT community.
November 3o – Women’s Coffee at Sam’s*December 14 – In-Person at Mgt. Todd!**
Every Mon. & Thu. – Spahr Senior GroupsEvery Tue. – Trans/Non-Binary Support Grp. * Sponsored by the Social Committee / requires registration / link to flyer linked below for more information** Save the date! More information soon.
To join the Spahr Senior GroupMondays, 7 to 8 pm, &Thursdays, 12:30 to 2 pm,click the purple button below the Butterfly Heart or here:
New participants are warmly welcomed!If you’re zoom-challenged, let me know and I’ll work with you!
Topical Thursdays12:30 to 2 pm November 25 Harvest FeastRecognizing that many of us may still not feel safe to gather together for a meal, we are again hosting a Harvest Day feast on zoom. All are welcome to join us in community at our regular time to celebrate the harvest and the blessings we have. Bring your turkey or tofurkey, vegies and dressings, cranberries with our without orange (make mine without!) – or Chinese takeout or whatever you wish – to your computer-side and share a meal together with the hopes that before long, we can all feel safe in sharing a celebratory meal in the same place. Support Group Mondays7 to 8 pm We share with each other about how we’re doing and have unstructured conversations focused on listening from our hearts and deepening community.
I’m writing to introduce Brian Adkins, our new LGBTQ Senior Program Manager who will be working half-time. He is taking on the Friendly Visitor Program, matching trained LGBTQ volunteers with isolated seniors who would appreciate a weekly zoom or phone call in order to build community and connection.
He will also be reaching out to senior residential facilities to train staff and management in creating a safe, welcoming environment for our people. Brian has most recently worked as an out gay Methodist pastor, fighting within the church to make it a more affirming place for LGBTQ people as well as accepting of queer people as ministers. Prior to that, he worked for the International Rescue Committee and the SF LGBT Community Center. Brian has a great heart and cares passionately for our community and, in particular, Transgender people. He’s very sensitive to the ways organized religion has hurt us. Brian has worked extensively with seniors, loves working with volunteers, and has great organizational skills as well. He lives in San Francisco with his black lab, Waylon. I’m thrilled to be working with Brian, to introduce him to you and to welcome him as part of Team Spahr!
A Trans/Non-Binary Support Group is offered by The Spahr Center every Tuesday, 7-8:15, for adults 18+. For more information, contact Sam at swood@thespahrcenter.org.
The Spahr Center’s Food Pantryis open to seniors who need support in meeting their nutrition needs. We want to help! Items such as fresh meats, eggs and dairy, prepared meals, pasta, sauces, and canned goods are delivered weekly to people who sign up. Contact The Spahr Center for more information: info@thespahrcenter.org or 415/457-2487
The Social Committee has been consistently offering fun events to offset the boredom of the pandemic. They want to help celebrate your birthday if you’ll let them know when it is. Everyone born in September will be celebrated on September 14th at 4 pm on zoom. They offer a women’s coffee plus a number of times to gather – now in person at Sam’s Place in Novato! – over games, breakfast and conversation. People wishing to attend still must register in advance due to room occupancy limits. To sign up for their emails or register for events, clickhere. To see their calendar & flyers for November, click here.
Vivalon Resources for Seniors Whistlestop, now renamed Vivalon, offers many resources for us seniors, now listed in this easy-to-print one-page guide. Access to rides, food, classes, activities, resources, referrals, and more. Membership not required for most classes and services during the pandemic. Some in-person events are being planned. To get Vivalon’s listings, click here. They also provide access to resources including rides for older adults. Please note: there is a 3-week registration process for the ride program so register now if you think you may need rides in the future. Click here for their website.
Building Community in the Midst of Sheltering-in-PlaceSee old friends and make new ones! Join us!The Spahr Center’s LGBT Senior Discussion Groupscontinue everyMonday, 7 to 8 pm& Thursday, 12:30 to 2 pm on zoom
To Join Group by Video using Computer, Smart Phone or TabletJust click this button at the start time, 6:55 pm Mondays / 12:25 pm Thursdays:Join GroupAlways the same link! Try it, it’s easy!
To Join Group by Phone CallIf you don’t have internet connections or prefer joining by phone,call the following number at the start time,6:55 pm Mondays / 12:25 pm Thursdays:1-669-900-6833The Meeting id is 820 7368 6606#(no participant id required)The password, if requested, is 135296# If you want to be called into the group by phone, notify Bill Blackburn at 415/450-5339
California Department of Aging ResourcesThe CDA has a website that is packed with information and resources relevant to the lives of seniors in our state. From Covid-19 updates to more general care for age-related health issues, access to legal assistance to getting home-delivered meals to help with housing, you may well find answers to your questions by clicking: here.
Adult and Aging Service’s Information and Assistance Line, providing information and referrals to the full range of services available to older adults, adults with disabilities and their family caregivers, has a new phone number and email address: 415/473-INFO (4636) 8:30 am to 4:30 pm weekdays473INFO@marincounty.org
Questions? Assistance? We have resources and volunteers for:grocery deliveryfood assistancehelp with technology issues such as using zoomproviding weekly comfort calls to check in on youplus more!
A Trans/Non-Binary Support Group is offered by The Spahr Center every Tuesday, 7-8:15, for adults 18+. For more information, contact Sam at 
