Pennsylvania lawmaker Brian Sims made headlines back in 2012 when he became the first openly gay man elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature. Now he’s looking to make history again by announcing his run for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania.
“I have a lot of hope when I look at the people across the country that decided over these last number of years that they’d had enough. That they looked at a lack of leadership and thought that they could do better and oftentimes they’re right,” said Sims in his announcement video.
My name is Ranae and I live in Dublin, Ireland with my wife Audrey. Our daughters Ava and Arya are 4 and 2. Our girls have two mothers, yet I am still seen as a single parent.
Audrey and I were an unlikely couple from the start. She was in her fourth and I was in my first year of acting in a theater school in Dublin. We were paired together at an open day and became friends. We were so different, yet we immediately clicked. I knew Audrey wasn’t straight, but over the course of the next year, I had no idea that I was developing feelings for her. The day before my 21st birthday the realization hit me like a bolt of lightning. The feelings I had for her were so much more than just friendship. The rest, as they say, is history.
We have been together for 12 years now, and married for five. Audrey and I always knew we wanted to have kids and talked about this from the moment we started dating. We both have lots of siblings and knew that life wouldn’t be complete for us without having our own kids. I always dreamed about being pregnant and going through the process of growing and birthing a baby. Audrey, on the other hand, didn’t really want to be pregnant as long as she could become a parent. It was almost an unspoken thing that I would be the one to carry our child, should we go down the IVF route.
One night in early 2015, after a few glasses of wine, I had an idea. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could use Audrey’s eggs but I would carry the baby? This way, our children would genetically be Audreys, but I would be the birth mother. At the time it was just a silly idea we had. Little did we know that conversation would change the course of our lives. We decided to Google it and lo and behold, we found out that it wasn’t that crazy of an idea. Reciprocal IVF was actually an incredibly popular fertility treatment option for same-sex couples. At that moment, we knew that Reciprocal IVF was right for us.
When we tried to book a clinic appointment in Dublin, we were disappointed to find out that they wouldn’t treat us in Ireland. Back in 2015, Reciprocal IVF wasn’t licensed yet. In fact it’s only been licensed in the last year. We were given the option to do IUI/IVF with my own eggs, but at that point we had our hearts set on using Audrey’s eggs. Despite the setback, it made us more determined to find a way. We found a clinic in Spain and to be honest it was a bit of a crazy time for us. We didn’t know any other LGBTQ+ parents, let alone any who had undergone treatment abroad. We had no clue what we were doing, and made so many mistakes along the way. A few months later, we conceived our first child with the help of an anonymous sperm donor.
Conceiving our first child in the wake of marriage equality in Ireland was like a dream. Wrapped up in our little bubble of happiness, we went through that pregnancy with a sense of hope for our future. We got married when I was five months along and we celebrated a future that was finally equal. Little did we know what lay ahead of us.
Toward the end of my pregnancy, we learned something that devastated us. LGBTQ+ parents in Ireland were still not equal. I remember feeling so overwhelmed with emotions and going through various stages of shock. My first reaction was ‘but we are married and we voted for marriage equality last year.’
After consulting with a solicitor, we found out more. From the moment our daughter was born I would be a married woman but considered a single mother. I would be forced to register myself as a sole parent and our family would not be recognized under the law, simply because we were a same-sex couple. The simple difference was that I was married to a woman and not a man and because of this, Audrey would be a legal stranger to her own child.
There are some moments that stick with me. Moments that were stolen from us as a young family and ones that we will never get back. The day we registered Ava’s birth, we walked into the registration office and saw all the proud parents with their babies. When they called us into the room, the registrar sat down behind her desk. Without looking up she asked, ‘OK, so which one of you is the mother?’ We said, ‘We both are.’ ‘But which one of you gave birth?’ I said, ‘I did!’ She looked at me and said, ‘OK Ranae, I will be directing all my questions at you, if that’s OK?’ From that point on, she didn’t even look at Audrey. It felt like a kick in the gut. It was just all wrong.
That was the day I promised Audrey I was never going to stop fighting until we fixed this. I joked and said, well at least this will all be sorted out by the time we have another baby. How wrong I was. Fast forward to New Year’s Eve 2018 and I lie bleeding in the recovery suite with a second daughter, listening to fireworks, my heart breaking because I knew we were still in the same position as before. As it stands today, I am considered a single parent to our daughters. Our children, along with countless others in Ireland, are denied the right to a legal connection with both of their parents simply because their parents are a same-sex couple.
Much has changed in the last five years. In 2019, following on from an online petition that I started, we started a campaign called ‘Equality For Children’ along with a group of other LGBTQ+ parents. Since then we have been successful at lobbying the government for change and raising awareness of these issues within Ireland. Legislation was finally passed in 2020 that would allow certain LGBTQ+ families to have both parents legally recognized. Sadly it’s legislation that will only cover certain methods of conception. It’s great to see progress in the right direction, but it’s galling for anyone who falls outside of this and is still being actively discriminated against. Only female couples who have conceived in an Irish clinic with a non anonymous donor and a child born in Ireland are covered.
I can’t really put into words how damaging this has been for our family. To be reminded every day that you are ‘less than.’ That you are not equal. For your kids to be punished because their parents aren’t straight. In practical terms it’s an issue for children when one of their parents is unable to give medical consent, unable to travel freely with them, unable to make decisions on their behalf. But it goes beyond that, the emotional and physiological damage it has done to our families is immeasurable.
Following on from lengthy legal proceedings, our family soon hopes to be recognized. If we are, we will be one of the lucky ones. What about all those who fall outside of this? Are their children less deserving of equality? Because they have two dads? Because they were conceived outside of a clinic? Because they have a known donor? Because they weren’t born in Ireland?
This fight will never be over until every child of an LGBTQ+ parent in Ireland has the same rights and protections as any other child in the country.
Ranae von Meding is a writer and a same-sex parent to two young daughters with her wife Audrey. They live in Dublin, Ireland where she has become an outspoken advocate for equal rights for children of LGBTQ+ families. She is the co-founder and CEO of ‘Equality For Children.’ You can find her on Instagram at @ranaevonmeding.
A study that could one day lead to a potential HIV vaccine has shown promising results, scientists have said.
Researchers from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and Scripps Research say that a phase-one trial has shown “proof in principle” for a new type of vaccine that could be used against the virus.
An effective vaccine to prevent HIV infection has proved elusive for nearly four decades, not least because the virus constantly evolves into different strains to evade the immune system.
However, the trial found success in “stimulating production of rare immune cells needed to start the process of generating antibodies” that could neutralise diverse strains of HIV.
The trial succeeded in generating cell production in 97 per cent of participants, though researchers stressed it is only a first step.
Professor William Schief, executive director of vaccine design at IAVI’s Neutralizing Antibody Center, said in a release: “This study demonstrates proof of principle for a new vaccine concept for HIV, a concept that could be applied to other pathogens, as well.
“With our many collaborators on the study team, we showed that vaccines can be designed to stimulate rare immune cells with specific properties, and this targeted stimulation can be very efficient in humans.
“We believe this approach will be key to making an HIV vaccine and possibly important for making vaccines against other pathogens.”
The researchers are now partnering with biotechnology company Moderna to develop and test an mRNA-based vaccine – the same radical approach employed in the creation of coronavirus vaccines.
Former Trump official Richard Grenellis reportedly considering a run to become governor of California.
Republicans are currently pushing a recall effort in a bid to remove the state’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, which could trigger a ballot on replacing the official.
The move, which comes amid rising anger from conservatives over coronavirus restrictions in the state, has sparked inevitable jockeying over who should be put forward to replace him.
Richard Grenell hints at California bid with attack on Gavin Newsom.
Politicoreports that Grenell, one of the few openly gay figures associated with the Trump White House, is planning to announce a campaign if the recall effort qualifies for the ballot.
As the effort gathers steam, Grenell has penned an op-ed for Fox Newspressing the odd argument that Newsom has taken wildly unpopular actions to clamp down on coronavirus due to the “selfish ambitions of a career politician”.
Former Trump advisor Richard Grenell (Getty/Chip Somodevilla)
Grenell is said to be courting conservative donors in the state, though he denied suggestions he is already interviewing campaign strategists to lay the groundwork for a run.
It is unclear why the obedient Trump fanatic believes he would appeal to voters in the solidly-Democratic state, where Donald Trump attracted only a third of the vote in the 2020 presidential race.
However, Republican operative Carl DeMaio told Politico that Grenell’s association to Trump would “get the base to show up” in the race, adding that he “would have more name ID than the other names being considered”.
‘Gaslight Grenell’ was in charge of Trump LGBT+ voter outreach.
Richard Grenell held a disastrous role ahead of the 2020 election as the head of LGBT+ voter outreach, earning the moniker “Gaslight Grenell” due to his willingness to obfuscate anti-LGBT+ actions taken under the Trump administration.
One figure who is definitely not running, meanwhile, is Caitlyn Jenner. The ex-Olympian and former I Am Cait star made clear she had no interest in the vacancy, after rumours she was preparing a bid.
Ari Gold, the charismatic queer musician who was mentored by RuPaul, opened for Chaka Khan and sung with pop-soul titan Diana Ross, has died. He was 47.
Performing since he was just five years old, Gold went from voicing the squeaky Cabbage Patch Kids and recording catchy jingles to touring the world with Cyndi Lauper and modelling for Boy George.
Born in 1974, Gold quickly seized the house music scene as an openly gay musician in New York City, US, in the early 2000s. Living up to his surname, Gold spun up award-winning and chart-topping hits such as “See Through Me” and “Where the Music Takes You”.
The Bronx native’s music, equal parts finger-snapping and lyrically powerful, often explored spirituality and sexuality. They were even featured on NBC’s Scrubs and ABC’s Cougar Town.
Friends described Gold as a world-wise and ambitious record producer who paved the way for future queer talent – he sang of same-sex love in Manhattan music clubs and honky-tonks years before mainstream artists would feel comfortable doing the same.
“Until we meet again, dear friend,” wrote RuPaul on Twitter Sunday (14 February) in a series of touching tributes, describing the songwriter as a “lovely, gentle man”.
They had first met in 2002 and remained close ever since, with Gold appearing in the queen of drag’s 2007 film, Starrbooty.
Even though it’s been more than five years since the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have the right to marry “on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples,” dozens of states still have constitutional amendments on the books that ban gay marriage.
Virginia is one of those states, and its first openly LGBTQ legislator is leading the charge to ax the outdated law.
Democratic state Sen. Adam Ebbin is sponsoring SJ 270, which would replace language in the state Constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman with an affirmative statement that the right to marry is fundamental “regardless of the sex or gender of the parties to the marriage.”
“For young LGBTQ people, or even those who aren’t married or don’t want to get married, removing this language is an important step … It tells them that they matter, that they are equal to everyone else in the state.”
FRAN HUTCHINS, EQUALITY FEDERATION
On Feb. 5, SJ 270 cleared the Senate by a margin of 24 to 12. One day earlier, HJ 582, the House version, passed 60 to 33.
In Virginia, though, overturning a constitutional amendment is a two-year process — one that requires two separate General Assembly sessions separated by a general election to pass identical bills before a measure is put on the ballot for a public vote.
Since the landmark Obergefell ruling, at least eight states have tried to remove similarly unenforceable marriage bans, according to the Equality Federation. In November, Nevada became the first to do so, with 62 percent of voters backing the measure.
But 30 states still have such prohibitions written into their constitutions, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Sixteen of them also ban civil unions, and two, including Virginia’s, prohibit any legal recognition of gay relationships.
“For young LGBTQ people, or even those who aren’t married or don’t want to get married, removing this language is an important step,” Equality Federation Executive Director Fran Hutchins said. “It tells them that they matter, that they are equal to everyone else in the state.”
But homophobic laws can have a long shelf life in Virginia. Although the Supreme Court ruled that sodomy bans were unconstitutional in 2003’s Lawrence vs. Texas decision, it took a full decade for Virginia’s to be struck down — and even then it was by a federal appeals court, not by legislators.
Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, in Richmond, Va., on Feb. 5, 2021.Bob Brown / Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP
The Code of Virginia first restricted marriage to different-sex couples in 1975, the same year clerks in Arizona and Colorado issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In 1997, the General Assembly passed a statute denying recognition of gay marriages performed in other states.
Then, in 2006 — three years after Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriage — lawmakers sponsored the Virginia Marriage Amendment, a ballot initiative reserving the institution for one man and one woman. Also known as the Marshall-Newman Amendment, the measure further barred any recognition of unmarried couples “that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage.” Voters approved the resolution 57 to 43, and it was implemented as Article I, Section 15-A of the Virginia Constitution.
Civil rights advocates argued its broad language could be used to invalidate living wills, powers of attorney and even property agreements between same-sex partners. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, gay conservative Jonathan Rauch branded the amendment a “Jim Crow” law for the 21st century.
“It disenfranchises gay people as individuals,” he wrote. “It makes us nonpersons, subcitizens. By stripping us of our bonds to each other, it strips us even of ownership of ourselves.” In January 2014, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced his office would not defend the amendment in federal court.
“I believe the freedom to marry is a fundamental right,” Herring told reporters at the time, “and I intend to ensure that Virginia is on the right side of history and the right side of the law.”
Less than a month later, U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen for the Eastern District of Virginia found the Virginia Marriage Amendment unconstitutional in Bostic v. Rainey, paving the way for same-sex marriage in Virginia later that year.
Then, in June 2015, the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges guaranteed the freedom to marry on the federal level.
Last March, the Virginia General Assembly repealed two laws banning same-sex marriage. But neither that nor the Obergefell ruling can remove what Ebbin calls “a stain” on the Virginia Constitution.
“All citizens deserve the dignity to know they won’t be targeted and denied their rights, and an affirmative statute does that,” he told NBC News. “It’s not about personal opinion; it’s about the law. You can keep your marriage between a man and a woman, but the law says it’s a right for everyone to enjoy.”
He and state Delegate Mark Sickles, who is also gay, have been introducing bills to update the state Constitution since 2015. Before now, they had always been defeated. This time, they received support from 11 Republicans, including state Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City, who supported the original 2006 marriage ban amendment.
This session, lawmakers are also working to repeal Virginia’s HIV criminalization law and strike down religion-conscious exemptions for foster care and adoption agencies.
Danica Roem, the first transgender member of the Virginia General Assembly, is also introducing legislation to ban the so-called panic defense, which has been used to excuse or mitigate violent crimes against gay and transgender people.
Ebbin said the General Assembly has become increasingly supportive of gay rights since he started as a delegate in 2004. The LGBTQ caucus now has five members, including Roem.
“We’ve moved from being on the defensive to where we as a governing body affirm the rights and equality of all Virginians,” he said. “It was a bipartisan vote, and there wasn’t an active opposition on the floor.”
There’s also support among voters: In 2014, 50 percent of Virginians supported same-sex marriage, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. By 2017, the last year the group polled on the question, that had jumped to 60 percent.
In 2020, a national polI by the group found a record 70 percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage, including about half of Republicans.
“They realize gay people can get married and the sky won’t fall,” Ebbin said. “So unless the Legislature goes through some drastic change, I predict that we’ll pass it.”
Still, efforts to repeal the marriage amendment have been met with resistance.
In an email to members, Victoria Cobb, president of the conservative Family Foundation of Virginia, warned that Ebbin and Sickles were trying to redefine marriage “outside of what God has designed for human flourishing.”
“As expected, all of society, including those whose deeply held convictions have not moved with secular society, are uniformly expected to not only abide those with differing views on marriage but embrace them in their speech and celebrate them in their business life,” she wrote, the Tennessee Star reported.
State Sen. Amanda Chase, a Trump loyalist running for governor, told the Virginia Mercury she voted against Ebbin’s measure to take “a stand for traditional values.”
“I personally believe that marriage is between a man and a woman,” said Chase, who has been formally censured for supporting the Capitol rioters and is suing her own party for holding a nominating convention in lieu of a primary. “If other people choose differently, that’s their choice, but I do not believe that this should be a constitutional amendment.”
Delegate Kirk Cox, the other Republican lawmaker running for governor, opposed Sickle’s bill in the House. Though the proposal includes a provision allowing clergy to refuse to perform any wedding, a spokesperson for the lawmaker told the Mercury that “Delegate Cox’s faith informs his views of the nature of marriage.”
“In the competition to demonstrate who is the most extreme and out of touch, Cox and Chase are neck and neck,” Anna Scholl, executive director of Progress Virginia, said in a statement. “This vote against marriage equality is just the latest example.”
On the national level, the Republican Party’s national platform — which hasn’t changed since 2016 — defends “natural marriage, the union of one man and one woman” as the cornerstone of the American family, and affirms that “every child deserves a married mom and dad.”
The GOP headquarters did not respond to a request for comment about Virginia’s proposals.
‘A tale of two states’
Carol Schall, a plaintiff in Virginia’s 2014 gay marriage case, said it is well past time Virginia’s Constitution reflect the will of the people. And there’d be a sort of historic symmetry, too: It was Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law, after all, that spurred Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court decision outlawing bans on interracial marriage.
“Virginia has long been on the wrong side of history when it comes to civil rights,” Schall said. “But we finally got this one right. This amendment doesn’t reflect the reality anymore.”
An associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Schall has been with her wife, Mary Townley, for 36 years. The two were legally married in San Francisco in 2008, during the brief window when California recognized same-sex marriages before the passage of Proposition 8.
Schall said leaving your rights to a court decision “is kind of naive,” especially considering how the Trump administration appointed more than 50 circuit court judges and three Supreme Court justices in just four years. LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal issued a report last month that found nearly 40 percent of Trump’s confirmed federal appellate judges have a “demonstrated history of anti-LGBTQ+ bias.”
Carol Schall, Mary Townley and their daughter Emily Schall-Townley at their home in North Chesterfield, Va., on May 8, 2014.The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Images file
Following the high court’s rejection of an appeal from former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis last year, conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito (neither of whom was a Trump appointee) issued a scathing dissent that said the Obergefell ruling “will continue to have ruinous consequences for religious liberty.”
“If the courts change their minds — which they do — as long as we have that amendment, the state would have to enforce it,” Schall, 60, said. “I don’t want that hanging over my family’s head.”
Schall lived in Virginia in 2006 and was canvassing outside a polling station when voters passed the Virginia Marriage Amendment. She recalled having flyers opposing the measure shoved back in her hands.
“It was terrible,” she said. “It felt very personal — like all of Virginia voted and I lost.”
Since then, she said, there’s been a seismic shift. Virginia has gone from a Republican stronghold to a solidly blue state that went for Joe Biden in November.
“We used to be the state of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, of Ralph Reed. It didn’t feel safe to be out at work, to be out to my neighbors,” she said. “It’s different now. Virginia has done this mindfully, the work of educating our neighbors, and at some point the zeitgeist here shifted.”
Well, maybe not entirely, she added.
“Virginia is really a tale of two states,” she said. “In the east, you have the ‘golden crescent’ that’s pretty progressive. But to the west, we still have Liberty University. We still have people who think I’m living a life of sin.”
After officiating a same-sex wedding for two friends in 2019, Republican Delegate Denver Riggleman was censured by the state GOP for “abandoning party principles,” according to The Hill. The following summer, he was defeated in a drive-thru party convention by primary challenger Bob Good, a former athletics director at Liberty University.
And thanks to gerrymandering, Schall said, the state is more splintered than ever.
“I live in Chesterfield County near Richmond, but because of the way the Republicans have carved things up, Amanda Chase is my state senator,” she said.
Schall is confident about the new amendment’s chances but admits “the work is never done.”
“We passed it this year, but we have to keep a Democratic majority in the Assembly and a Democratic governor when it comes up for a vote again,” she said.
An Arizona state representative is facing an ethics complaint after he compared transgender people to farm animals at a Wednesday committee hearing.
The hearing was for House Bill 2725, which would require state identification documents to contain only a male or female gender marker. The bill pre-emptively bans nonbinary people, who are neither exclusively male nor female, from using gender-neutral X markers on their IDs, even though Arizona law doesn’t currently permit that.
State Rep. John Fillmore, the bill’s sponsor, said during the hearing that he “proposed this bill just to give clarity in government documents and was hoping to avoid the whole gender identity issue on the gender dysphoria,” according to a video of the hearing.
“What’s going to happen when someday someone wakes up and they want to go to a far extreme and identify as a chicken or something, for crying out loud,” he added. “Where do we draw the line?”
Megan Mogan, who is the mom of a 15-year-old nonbinary child and testified against the bill Wednesday, said Fillmore’s comment was dehumanizing.
“I don’t think you have to be the parent of a nonbinary person, you can just be the parent of anyone, and if someone dehumanizes your child, it’s like one of the worst possible feelings you can have,” Mogan told NBC News on Friday.
She tweeted after the hearing, “Still shaking after an elected GOP state rep just compared my non-binary child to a barnyard animal.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=NBCNews&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1359599151525203970&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Ffeature%2Fnbc-out%2Farizona-legislator-compares-transgender-people-farm-animals-n1257763&siteScreenName=NBCNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=889aa01%3A1612811843556&width=550px
Riley Behrens, a Harvard University graduate student who was previously a Democratic campaign staffer in Arizona, called Fillmore’s “chicken” comment “disgusting.”
“We were all just in shock,” Behrens, who said he was texting some of the Democratic House members during the hearing, said. “It’s heartbreaking to be in a room and hear people talk about our community that way. … It’s not what we expect from an elected official and shouldn’t be tolerated.”
Behrens said he left the Capitol around 1 p.m. on Wednesday and returned with a notarized ethics complaint against Fillmore at 4:45 p.m.
“I wanted to make a statement,” Behrens said. “You’re not going to say this without some sort of repercussion or public statement back at you.”
Andrew Wilder, director of communications for the Arizona House’s Republican Majority Caucus, shared a statement Friday with NBC News on Fillmore’s behalf.
“The complaint is entirely without merit, and it’s rather unfortunate that some opponents of the bill have unfairly and grossly mischaracterized my comments at Wednesday’s hearing,” the statement read. “I invite people to listen to my actual remarks, which do not remotely match the distorted version critics have alleged.”
On Saturday morning, however, Fillmore emailed NBC News directly, calling the situation “silly and dangerous” and saying words “have consequences.”
“I believe this whole darn conversation is just childish silly,” he wrote. “When a person wants to change the meanings of words because of their ‘feelings’ how can a society have a reasonable discussion about anything if for instance they feel the word ‘blue’ is in fact ‘red’ to them, and then add the word ‘green’ to the color ‘yellow,’ now try to go have an intelligent conversation with an oil artistic painter.”
Behrens also filed a second complaint against Republican state Rep. Kevin Payne in which Behrens alleges Payne “continuously disrupted public testimony.” During Mogan’s testimony about her child, Behrens alleges Payne said, “So it doesn’t know who it is?”
“Referencing any person as ‘it,’ particularly a child, is discriminatory and cannot be tolerated,” Behrens’ complaint, which was shared with NBC News, stated. “By his actions, Representative Payne has engaged in conduct that compromises the character of himself, the integrity of the Arizona State House of Representatives, and shows a lack of respect for members of the LGBTQ+ community.”
Wilder told NBC News in an email, “Representative Payne has stated that he does not recall saying anything like what is alleged in the complaint, nor are such words by him heard in the committee hearing video – an important fact the complainant conceded Thursday to the Arizona Mirror.”
Behrens said Payne’s comment can’t be heard in the hearing video because they were made while Mogan was testifying, but Behrens said he heard them firsthand, as he was sitting about 10 feet away from Payne at the hearing.
Bridget Sharpe, the Arizona state director for the Human Rights Campaign, said she doesn’t think Fillmore “understands the gravity of what he said” or the effects the bill would have on nonbinary people.
“I truly don’t think he understands what this means for nonbinary Arizonans, because he doesn’t believe that, you know, nonbinary is a choice,” Sharpe said. “That’s very difficult to take in. I think that was very offensive. I was upset, mostly for the mothers that were in the Zoom room, and [Mogan] took the time to be vulnerable and testify, only to be met with that comment.”
Sharpe said she and some other advocates reached out to Fillmore’s office to offer him education on the impacts of his statement and the bill but that she hasn’t received a response.
HB 2725 is unnecessary, Sharpe said, because Arizona state law currently only permits people to use a male or female gender marker on their IDs. The bill “takes it a step further and writes it into statute, which is much harder to change down the line,” Sharpe said. “We believe this is cruel, because nonbinary folks should be given a chance at some point to be able to have that X gender marker on state documents including things like their driver’s licenses.”
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently offer nonbinary residents the option to use a gender-neutral “X” on IDs, in lieu of an “M” or “F,” according to Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank.
Sharpe said Democratic state Sen. Rosanna Gabaldón has introduced a bill for the last few sessions that would allow nonbinary Arizonans to use an X marker on their IDs, but “so many times, bills like that do not even get hearings, essentially because Republicans feel it’s controversial,” Sharpe said.
Gabaldón introduced the measure, Senate Bill 1162, again in January, but it has not yet been given a hearing.
Mogan said a gender-neutral ID option would relieve her kid and others of “this constant threat of being outed, of being misgendered” in public settings, including those where they might be bullied or discriminated against.
“When you’re free from that constant level of anxiety, you can do other things like be a kid, or be happy,” she said.
Sharpe said she’s not sure whether HB 2725 will pass. It will go to the House Rules Committee next, and then it would move to the floor for discussion, which Sharpe said could happen as early as next week.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum presents a Facebook Live event on straight and gay couples that resisted through love during the Holocaust on Feb. 12 at 9:30 a.m.
The Nazis persecuted gay men as enemies of the “Reich.” Gad Beck and Manfred Lewin met in a Jewish youth group. They spent many nights together, before events of the Holocaust ripped them apart. Their story is part of the event, which also includes straight couples who found love in Nazi concentration camps.
Museum historians will discuss their stories on Facebook Live to show “how love became an act of resistance for people persecuted by the Nazi regime.” Visit the Holocaust Museum on Facebook for details on how to access the event.
Former World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Gabbi Tuft said she left the house and walked with her “head up high” for the first time Thursday, after she came out as transgender.
She cried when she recalled the moment. “I felt so happy,” she told NBC News. “My hair wasn’t in my face, and I wasn’t clenching my fists and hiding my nails. It just felt so amazing.”
Tuft officially announced the news on social media Thursday. In an Instagram photo, she sat alongside an image of herself prior to her transition. “This is me,” she wrote in the caption. “Unashamed, unabashedly me. This is the side of me that has hidden in the shadows, afraid and fearful of what the world would think; afraid of what my family, friends, and followers would say or do.”
“I am no longer afraid and I am no longer fearful,” she wrote. “I can now say with confidence, that I love myself for WHO I am.”
Tuft wrestled professionally from 2007 to 2014, and appeared in WWE shows “Superstars,” “Raw,” “SmackDown” and “WrestleMania.”She retired from wrestling to spend more time with her wife, Priscilla, and their daughter, and began a career as a fitness coach and motivational speaker, according to a press releaseannouncing Tuft’s coming out.
But behind all of her career success, Tuft said, her mental health suffered. “The previous eight months have been some of the darkest of my entire life,” she wrote in her coming-out post.
“The pain was overwhelming,” she told NBC News, adding that she struggled with suicidal ideation. “I was that person that was always preaching, ‘Never care what people think, go be yourself,’” she said. “Then when it came to be my turn, it was so much more difficult than I ever imagined.”
Eventually, with her wife’s support, she began the process of coming out. She started a “countdown” on Instagram 10 days before her official announcement. Now, she’s inviting her social media followers to ask questions and has promised to be “transparent” about the entire process. With the help of her wife, she has also started a podcast about her transition called “Her.”
Tuft said her process shows that coming out is different for everyone.
“I don’t ever want anyone to think that the way I did it is the way that everyone should do it,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a blueprint for this.”
She said she wants to be open about her transition to help create awareness and understanding. For example, though many transgender people do not want others to use their previous name, also known as their “deadname,” after they come out, Tuft said she isn’t offended by it. The press release announcing her coming out includes both her former name, Gabe, and her WWE stage name, Tyler Reks.
“The rest of the world is transitioning, too, it’s not just me,” she said. “I can’t expect an overnight change from everyone.”
Gabbi Tuft.Courtesy of Gabbi Tuft
Tuft acknowledged that though her Instagram announcement showed a photo of herself prior to her transition, that’s not something all trans people are comfortable with.
“There’s a lot of people out there that may feel differently about their past,” she said. “They may not embrace the past, because it’s been so painful for them. But I wanted the world to know that I loved who I was — but I love even more who I am today.”
It’s not her job to change people’s minds, she said, but she hopes that by being transparent and sharing her story, people will relate to her and public acceptance for trans people will grow.
“All I want to do is create empathy and maybe through empathy, we can gain some understanding, and we can reduce the amount of fear and then slowly make a change,” Tuft said. “I think the more relatable that I am, the more that we can create that empathy and build a relationship with people that are watching so that they know they’re not alone.”
Since coming out, she said, she’s been surprised by the overwhelming amount of support: Neighbors have knocked on her door to drop off flowers, and she’s received thousands of messages and comments on social media. “It tells me that there is so much love in this world still,” she said.
She said she’s also surprised by the extent of the joy she feels. “I never expected to have an ear-to-ear smile for the last 24 hours, but I can’t get the smile off my face,” she said. “It’s from the heart, and it’s from the soul, and I never expected to feel this elated.”
A transgender activist said he encountered two women allegedly posting transphobic stickers in New York City and decided to confront them.
“You know being transphobic kills people? You want to kill innocent people with your hatred?” Simon Chartrand can be heard telling the women in a video he recorded and shared with NBC New York.
The neon-pink stickers read, in part, “Transwomen are men.”https://nbcnewyork.com/video-layout/amp_video/?noid=1:2:2866308&videoID=1853390915852&origin=nbcnewyork.com&fullWidth=y&turl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Ffeature%2Fnbc-out%2Factivist-confronts-women-he-says-posted-disgusting-transphobic-stickers-n-n1256754&ourl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com&lp=5&fullWidth=y&random=p7qpff&callletters=wnbc&embedded=true
Chartrand, who was with his partner when he confronted the women, said that once he “made sure it was them putting the stickers up, I had to act, I had to record it, I had to call it out. I had to call out the hatred for what it was.”
The video shows the unidentified women walking away from Chartrand, with one of them responding to him with just one word: “misogynist.” To that, Chartrand responded, “It’s not misogynist, you’re transphobic.”
Simon Chartrand.NBC New York
Chartrand, who is transgender and works for Translatinx Network, a trans advocacy nonprofit, told NBC New York that the incident has motivated him to work even harder for equality.
“I want you to feel it from our hearts. We are human beings, and we deserve the same rights as every other human — no more, no less,” he said.
Activists and politicians have also condemned the transphobic stickers.
“This is bigotry that inflicts pain & violence on transgender New Yorkers. We reject and condemn this hateful act,” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer tweeted.
Transgender singer and activist Mila Jam shared an Instagram post about Chartrand’s encounter, shutting down the “rancid narrative.
Drag performer and LGBTQ activist Marti Gould Cummings shared a Twitter post about the incident, saying “transphobia has no place” in New York City and telling friends to “stay safe.”
