A 37-year-old non-binary person who passed away from coronavirus this week kept a heartbreaking online journal of their experience.
PJ McClelland from Florida, who died on April 11, had gained hundreds of followers as they shared their experience of having COVID-19 through daily Facebook posts.
They were originally screened for coronavirus on March 23 and sent to be tested the next day. A few days later they found out they had a positive test result. They had no underlying health conditions other than a recent diagnosis of sleep apnea.
Their update that day read: “I’m getting sicker by the day. It feels like I have a migraine, bronchitis, and the flu all at once… Don’t worry about me. I’m relatively young and healthy.
“Worry about the people I’ve been around who are EXTREMELY high risk. It breaks my heart to think I may have given this to them.”
PJ McClelland was sent home after being rushed to hospital.
They later began to develop severe chest pain and were taken to hospital by ambulance, then admitted in isolation.
McClelland wrote: “I was their first confirmed case, and I am REALLY f**king worried. NO ONE had proper PPE. They had zero N95 masks.”
However, after their oxygen levels increased to 94 per cent, they were sent home with an inhaler.
By day 10, their symptoms were still worsening, and they wrote: “I’m only sharing this because I think people need to know that not everyone has ‘minor cold symptoms for a few days’.
This is, by far, the sickest I’ve ever been. I’m writing this through tears.
On day 16, McClelland’s symptoms took an even scarier turn. They wrote: “For the last three days I’ve been coughing ridiculously often… but s**t got REAL early this morning.
“For what seemed like an eternity, but was actually a couple of hours, I coughed non-stop. Literally. I couldn’t breathe. Like barely at all. Just a gasp between coughing here and there. I was having a panic attack the entire time.
“My hands were tingling and I lost my peripheral vision. I know you’re wondering why the f**k I didn’t call 911. Idk if it was the lack of oxygen, the fever, exhaustion, or something else, but I was extremely confused/ disoriented.
“I can’t quite articulate how absolutely terrifying this ordeal was. I just wanted to breathe, and I couldn’t. It was, without a doubt, the scariest thing that has ever happened to me.”
Non-binary COVID-19 victim shared final update two days before their death.
On April 9, in what would be their final update, they said: “I can safely say this has been the longest, and some of the worst, three weeks of my life… I know I’ve said this, but it bears repeating: I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m NOT saying I’m out of the woods yet.
“I’ve seen far too many cases of people who were on the mend in the morning and died that night.”
They said they would be getting more blood tests and another chest x-ray that day, and promised to update later.
But the update never came, and McClelland passed away from coronavirus at home two days later.
Their close friend Tim Ross told Fox News: “As a close friend for many years, it was difficult to read. But I feel it was important.
“Everybody who met PJ became a friend, and it’s been evident in the outpouring of support since their passing.
A mother is suing a school district which she claims did nothing to stop the relentless homophobic bullying that drove her son to attempt suicide.
Traci Matuschek has launched a federal lawsuit against Warren Consolidated Schools over an alleged campaign of abuse at Sterling Heights High School in Michigan.
Her 15-year-old son came out as bisexual to his football teammates in August 2018, believing they’d support him as “he thought they were his friends, like family”.
Unfortunately his peers weren’t as supportive as he’d hoped and he was subjected to vicious homophobic bullying, with some of his teammates at the centre of it.
“He was getting gay-bashed in school,” Matuschek told the Macomb Daily. “He quit something he loved. He played football since he was in the seventh grade.”
15-year-old was called a ‘fag’ and physically assaulted.
Students reportedly called him a “fag,” a “faggot,” and asked if he looked at other players’ genitalia in the locker room or got aroused while playing.
By October the bullying had escalated to physical violence, and on one occasion a football player allegedly stamped on his head until he got a concussion.
According to the suit, the school didn’t provide Matuschek’s son with any medical attention or discipline the student who stomped on him. A complaint filed with police also failed to bring any charges against the student.
“As a direct result of the severe harassment, [the boy] became socially withdrawn, became frightened of the school environment, suffered academically and fell into deep depression,” the lawsuit says.
Teenager attempted suicide after homophobic bullying.
His mother said school officials were fully aware of the bullying but failed to take action, effectively ignoring it until it was too late and the boy attempted suicide.
Fortunately his parents were able to intervene, but the incident has left him with severe emotional trauma.
“He’s afraid to go to the park or anywhere because he’s constantly looking over his shoulder,” Matuschek said, noting that several of the bullies live in the local area.
She alleges the school district violated her son’s civil rights based on sexual orientation and sex, as well as violated the 14th Amendment, equal protection and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender.
The lawsuit is seeking more than $75,000 in damages for emotional distress and “loss of educational opportunities,” along with attorney fees.
The school district has refused to comment on the lawsuit.
The Samaritans are the UK’s suicide reduction charity and their free helpline number is 116 123.
A new study on LGBTQ issues made public Tuesday has found a modest — but noticeable and sustained — drop over time in opposition to business owners being allowed to refuse services to LGBTQ people.
The study, conducted by the non-profit research organization PRRI, found 56 percent majority of Americans oppose allowing a small business owner in their state to refuse to provide products or services to LGBTQ people, if doing so violates the owner’s religious beliefs. Meanwhile, 37 percent of Americans support such denials of service to LGBTQ people.
Although a majority of Americans have opposed religious-based refusal of services for some time, the strength of that opposition — based on previous iterations of the survey — has fluctuated in the last five years.
Opposition rose slightly between 2015, when it was at 59 percent, and 2016, when it was at 61 percent, but that has since dropped each year and was 60 percent in 2017, 57 percent in 2018 and — as the most recent study found — 56 percent in 2019.
Further, the study found this decline is most pronounced among groups that have been the most opposed to refusing service to LGBTQ people historically.
For liberal Democrats, opposition decreased from 85 percent in 2016 to 78 percent in 2019; for liberal Republicans, 63 percent in 2016 to 51 percent in 2019; for younger adults under the age of 30, 70 percent in 2016 to 62 percent in 2019; and for white Democrats without a college degree, 76 percent in 2016 to 68 percent in 2019.
At the same time, the study found support for LGBTQ non-discrimination protections remains strong.
According to the study, 72 percent of Americans favor laws that would protect against anti-LGBTQ discrimination in employment, public accommodations and housing, while 75 percent are opposed.
Support for non-discrimination protections includes majorities of both political parties, religious groups, and nearly every major demographic group, the study found.
“Support for LGBT rights continues to be strong and expansive in all 50 states. Issues that in the recent past demarcated major political and religious fault lines now find broad agreement,” PRRI CEO and Founder Robert Jones said in a statement. “However, this landmark survey also finds some erosion in opposition to allowing business owners to refuse to serve gay and lesbian people based on their religious beliefs.”
The study was conducted in both English and Spanish between Mar. 26, 2019 and Dec. 29, 2019 among a random sample of 40,357 U.S. adults ages 18 and up. The margin of error for the total sample is +/- 0.6 percentage points at the 95 percent level of confidence, according to PRRI.
The timeframe for when the survey was conducted is the same time the U.S. Supreme Court issued a narrow ruling in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a custom-made wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
The court determined the Colorado Civil Rights Commission harbored anti-religious bias in adjudicating the case against Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, and vacated the decision against him.
Anti-LGBTQ groups, most notable Alliance Defending Freedom, are continuing to make the case the First Amendment grants business owners to right to refuse wedding-related services to LGBTQ people.
A petition from Arlene’s Flowers, whose owner Baronelle Stutzman refused to provide custom-made floral arrangements for a same-sex marriage, is pending before the Supreme Court. Justices had declined to hear the case before, but have yet to act on the current petition before the court.
Despite the increase in opposition to religious-based refusal of services to LGBTQ people, the PRRI study had also promising findings for LGBTQ rights, including an upward trajectory in support for same-sex marriage.
One such finding: A majority of seniors in the United States for the first time ever in the United States are now in favor of same-sex marriage. A bare majority of Americans age 65 and older — 51 percent — now support marriage rights for same-sex couples, compared to 41 percent who oppose them, the study found.
The findings also confirmed majorities in all racial groups in the United States, including 58 percent of black Americans, support same-sex marriage, as well as most major religious groups. The exception is white evangelical Protestants, 41 percent of whom support same-sex marriage.
But views on same-sex marriage still vary along party lines, the study finds. Seven in ten Democrats and two-thirds of independents support same-sex marriage, compared to 47 percent of Republicans.
After the Food and Drug Administration changed the rules for blood donations from gay and bisexual men earlier this month, coronavirus survivor Lukus Estok saw an opportunity to help other patients recover from the disease.
For years, the FDA has restricted men who have had sex with men in the preceding year from donating blood, but loosened its rules on April 2 as a way to address a sharp drop in donors during the coronavirus outbreak.
Within days, Estok tried to donate blood plasma for a test program in New York City that treats severely ill COVID-19 patients with plasma from patients who have developed antibodies and recovered from the disease. He said he was turned away after revealing he was gay.
“I was shocked,” said Estok, 36. “I’ve been through a month of hell with this virus. I’m finally recovered. I’ve been through a screening process that tells me I’m a potential candidate to help somebody else and now I’m being told I can’t.”
NBC News found that despite the rule change hundreds of the nation’s blood centers are still unable to accept blood from gay men, even though there’s a desperate need for blood at U.S. hospitals and a desire to get plasma with antibodies from COVID-19 survivors. Both the Red Cross and America’s Blood Centers, which together represent 800 banks nationwide, told NBC News they haven’t been able to accept donations.
Estok and other gay men who have tried to give blood since April 2 have been unable to do so because many blood donation centers have not yet trained staffers or updated their computer systems to accommodate the new rule. It’s also because a trade group to which nearly all U.S. blood banks belong has not yet gotten approval for an important document from the FDA.
In 1985, as a way to block the transmission of HIV, the FDA blockedall men who had had sex with other men after 1977 from donating blood. The rule was changed to sex within the past 12 months in 2015, and then to sex within the past three months on April 2.
Gay and bisexual men began showing up at blood banks to donate immediately, only to be turned away.
Estok was trying to donate his blood plasma as a part of the Mount Sinai hospital system’s blood plasma therapy program. He found out about the program through friends and knew he wanted to donate his plasma to help others who were sick.
“Having gone through a bit of a horrific experience with the virus and feeling pretty grateful to have come out the other side, I reached out to Mount Sinai,” said Estok.
After multiple screenings, Estok said Mount Sinai called him and said his blood had sufficiently high levels of the needed antibodies and that New York Blood Center would be in touch to schedule an appointment. But once he arrived at New York Blood Center, Estok was told he would be unable to donate.
“I was not expecting the reaction I got,” said Estok on when he told the staff he was gay. “It was like I was radioactive.”
In an exchange that Estok recorded on his phone, the NYBC staff explained to him that they had not yet implemented the FDA’s new guidelines and that the process was “complicated.” Estok was forced to go home without donating plasma.
“I was so upset,” said Estok. “I genuinely want to be able to contribute to help somebody and right now they’re basically putting out messages that they need blood that there’s shortage of blood. But at the end of it, they sent me home.”
An NYBC staffer denied that a potential donor would be asked if he were gay, saying the donor would instead be asked about sexual activity with another man during the past 12 months.
Brandon Gunther, 24, of Sacramento, California, had a similar experience. He attempted to donate at a local blood bank, believing he was eligible under the new guidelines, but was turned away after revealing his sexual history.
“I hadn’t had sex in the past three months so figured I was good to go,” said Gunther. “But the computer rejected my eligibility to donate and I was told ‘you have to remain abstinent from male to male sex for at least one year to be eligible to donate.'”
Gunther says the experience felt discriminatory and jarring.
Blood bank representatives told NBC News the experience has also been frustrating for them, especially since they have been pushing for relaxation of the rules for years. The blood centers can’t just flick a switch and change their rules for donation, they say — making such changes can take months.
Linda Goelzer, a spokesperson for Carter BloodCare in Dallas, said “tons” of people showed up at their facilities the day after the FDA guidelines were announced, believing they were now eligible to donate. The staff were forced to turn them away.
“They were so angry with us,” said Goelzer. “People were calling and saying ‘You lied to us, you’re not following the FDA,’ and it’s so unfair. Every blood center in the country has been advocating for these changes, but we have to go through some very rigorous protocols to make these changes so that we can still keep safety in the blood supply and in the process.”
“When the FDA says the word ‘immediately’ that means something totally different in our world,” said Goelzer. “It takes about three months to implement this stuff but [the FDA] is relying on us to communicate that to the public.”
Kate Fry, CEO of America’s Blood Centers, said that the language in the FDA’s guidance was intended to mean that blood centers should immediately begin the process of implementation, recognizing that it would take some time.
“The struggle is in the public perception that it’s actually blood centers who are stalling the effort,” said Fry. “And that is just not the case at all. They are 100 percent working on it. It just takes time.”
According to Fry and confirmed by the FDA, the phrase “immediate implementation” as used in the FDA’s April 2 press release did not necessarily mean that blood centers could immediately begin collecting blood and plasma from newly eligible donors.
In a statement, an FDA spokesperson said that the agency understands that blood centers will have to undergo a lengthy implementation process and that they are willing to help blood centers if needed.
“We are hopeful that blood collectors will work expeditiously to make the changes needed to implement the modified recommendations so that they may begin collecting blood and blood products under these recommendations as quickly as possible,” said Michael Felberbaum, an FDA spokesperson. “The FDA is available and willing to work with them as appropriate to assist them.”
The question of a questionnaire
The spokesperson for the New York Blood Center, where Estok tried to donate plasma, told NBC News that the delay in implementation involved the time needed to train staff, but also involved receiving an updated Donor History Questionnaire from AABB, a industry group formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks. AABB’s has more than 1,400 institutional members, accredits “virtually all” the blood centers in the U.S., according to a spokesperson, and collects the majority of the blood donated in the U.S.
In fact, representatives from all blood centers NBC News contacted said they’re currently waiting on AABB’s updated donor history questionnaire to first be approved by the FDA and then released by the industry group, before they can begin the implementation.
The AABB said it submitted its primary documents, including the donor history questionnaire, to the FDA on April 3 – just one day after the FDA announced new donor guidelines. AABB said it has since sent several documents to the FDA. An AABB spokesperson said that as of Monday it had submitted all of the needed documentation to the FDA, and is in touch with the agency, answering any questions it may have.
The FDA says it is reviewing all COVID-19 related items as quickly as possible, but also noted that the AABB’s member organizations don’t actually have to wait for approval of the AABB questionnaire to move forward. If they submit their own questionnaire to the FDA, they can begin accepting donors immediately.
“As noted in the guidance, while licensed blood establishments may wait to use the revised donor questionnaire and accompanying materials provided by industry associations and found acceptable to the FDA, they may also revise or create their own materials to implement these changes immediately upon receipt of this information by the FDA,” said Felberbaum.
Blood centers say that when they do receive an FDA-approved updated questionnaire from AABB, they will still need to update their computer systems and train their staff on new protocols. A spokesperson for Carter BloodCare said that the staff training would take at least 30 days. The NYBC spokesperson said it hopes to be able to receive newly eligible donors by mid-May.
The Red Cross said it anticipates being able to accept newly eligible donors in June. Kate Fry of America’s Blood Centers said she anticipates her network’s centers will be able to accept newly eligible donors in June or July.
‘The policy remains discriminatory in nature’
Gunther and Estok share in outrage from the LGBT community over what they call a discriminatory experience.
“Not only is it imperative that gay and bisexual men who are now able to donate blood be allowed to do so without delay, the FDA must also lift the 3 month deferral in its entirety,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of GLAAD, a LGBTQ advocacy organization. “The policy remains discriminatory in nature, unaligned with science, and continues to prevent LGBTQ Americans from saving lives.”
But those who are deferred under the old guidelines will still have to wait. Gunther said he wants to encourage others like him to keep trying to donate and not be discouraged if they are turned away.
“We have perfectly good blood to give, and we want to give it and help.”
Kate Fry advised that those who are newly eligible under the FDA guidelines should keep in touch with their local blood bank to check on when the facility expects to finalize implementation.
“We’re so excited to have these individuals become donors again,” said Fry. “We are absolutely working as fast as we can as an industry. Patience is what we ask for our guests during this time and we’ll get them into the fold as quickly as possible.”
Gay Carnivele: Talk a bit about your background, how you came to be involved with LGBTQ Connection, what your position there is, and what it entails.
Jessie Hankins: I’m the Program & Evaluation Manager at LGBTQ Connection, which is an initiative of On The Move. On The Move is also the parent organization of our sibling programs VOICES Sonoma and La Plaza in Santa Rosa, as well as Parent University in Sonoma Valley. In my role, I manage all of LGBTQ Connection’s efforts here in Sonoma County, which center around creating a more visible and connected LGBTQ community, driven by the young people we work with. I also manage all of our evaluation-related activities for our program in both Napa and Sonoma counties. We are in year four of a five year state grant called the California Reducing Disparities Project. We were selected as one of seven state model LGBTQ programs doing innovative, community-defined work to address mental health disparities within our community. Our model focuses on building leadership skills with young people in order to create lasting change in their communities. I’ll have been at my position for 4 years this June. Time has really flown by! I came to LGBTQ Connection in the middle of my Masters program, looking for more non-profit experience and humbled at the opportunity to work for a cause that was very near and dear to my heart. LGBTQ Connection and On The Move’s emphasis on leadership development has allowed me to grow and develop as a leader, and for that I am incredibly grateful.
GC: How are you and your family doing during this pandemic?
JH: We are hanging in there. Luckily everyone is healthy and staying safe at home. My wife’s and my family are spread across the country so it’s been really interesting to see how different states are responding to our current crisis. I’m very grateful to our local and state leadership for acting quickly to flatten the curve. It’s hard to be away from family in times like this but in some ways I feel more connected than ever. Last weekend my whole family had a FaceTime tea party for my niece’s 8th birthday, it was so sweet!
GC: How is LGBTQ Connection continuing to serve it’s clients?
JH: We’ve transitioned all our services to remote platforms. We’ve shifted our free, all ages LGBTQ-affirming counseling services to phone calls and have offered weekly wellness phone calls to anyone who would like to be checked in on. In addition to our weekly hang outs for youth ages 14-24, we’ve also been experimenting with all types of different online events for many other parts of our communities, from a virtual “Cheers for Queers” happy hour to Facebook live cooking and dance classes, to online pictionary and group meditation. We’re looking to provide spaces for people to connect, forget about the virus for a bit, or learn a new healthy habit to help them get through this time. It’s been fun to get creative and try new things.
GC: Not all young LGBTTQ+ people live in situations that are ideal and/or understanding of their gender identity, sexuality. etc. How is your non=profit helping young folks who are finding themselves in such situations?
JH: Unfortunately, this is very true. What we most want to emphasize is that just because someone is not in an affirming space at home, we don’t want to let that get in the way of the support they need. It’s possible to be in communication with us without outing themself. We are encouraging people (young or any age) in these situations to take a walk or step outside to participate in a group or individual check in. This has to be assessed on a case by case basis but it’s so important for young people in situations like this to have access to affirming people, and we are very committed to making sure they are able to do so. We also provide a variety of options: individual or group videos, phone calls, text messages, social media, websites. If there still are barriers to us providing the connection or service, we can also work with trusted allies at youth’s schools, mental health providers, and other community organizations that families–and their youth–know and trust.
We also are open to working with families who are struggling to understand or agree with their child’s identity. We know that if a family accepts or rejects who we are that affects us for the rest of our lives. We want families to know that they are critical to helping their child grow up happy and healthy. There are things they can do to grow love and trust even if they don’t understand their child’s identity. Plus, we can help grow understanding, too.
GC: What tips can you offer young people who may find themselves in this situation?
JH: Take a walk every day and set up a phone check-in with an affirming person. Xfinity has opened up free WiFi hotspots all over, so find one close to you where you can access the internet and join in on a group or online event. There are some great 24 hour hotlines out there as well, so even if the only time it’s safe to make contact is in the middle of the night, there are still people out there who care and want to support you.
The Trevor Project has 24 hour support available through the TrevorLifeline:1-866-488-7386, by texting START to 678678, or online through TrevorChat at www.thetrevorproject.org/get-help-now/.
The Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860 and the LGBT National Hotline at 1-888-843-4564 are two other great 24 hour crisis hotlines.
Our sibling program VOICES is still operating their youth center Tuesday-Friday, 12pm-4pm. If you are in need of essential services like financial assistance or food, you can drop in during those hours or you can send an email to [email protected] or a text to 707-595-8961 if you’d like to see an LGBTQ Connection staff member in person.
GC: Suicide rates are much higher among younger LGBTQ+. What is LGBTQ Connection doing to assist those who may be at risk and again what advice would you offer those who are experiencing depression during this Stay-at-Home order?
JH: Reach out and know you are not alone! While social distancing can make us feel more isolated, there is also opportunity for more connection. Maybe going to an in-person therapy session felt intimidating before. Now, you can set one up by phone–and for free! Trying to find little things that bring you joy is really important. If you need someone to talk to immediately please reach out to the 24 hour hotlines mentioned above.
GC: Is the LGBTQ Connection office open at all, perhaps for emergency situations?
JH: Since LGBTQ Connection Sonoma is located inside of Voices, which is still open and providing essential services, yes, we could meet at our office for essential services, like food, emergency financial assistance, or finding affirming resources.
GC: Have LGBTQ Connection group leaders been reaching out to group participants and if so, what are they hearing about their time at home, away from support groups, and being kept from work/scholl/friends?
JH: Yes, we have checked in with all of our current and past youth leaders and participants to make sure they are safe and have all their immediate needs met. Many are struggling with online classes, some must continue to work as essential workers, and others are worried about income and housing stability. In spite of all of the extra stress, their resilience is always inspiring!
GC: I would imagine donations and even funding will or may be impacted. What can our readers do to help LGBTQ Connection continue to provide services and support to LGBTQ+ youth and seniors?
JH: Yes, many of our big fundraising activities (Give Out Day and Pride events) have been cancelled or postponed. To support our work now, folks can head to our website: www.lgbtqconnection.org and click the donate button to make a donation. We really appreciate the support to continue our work during this difficult time!
GC: You recently completed your master’s thesis which explores the feasibility of a Sonoma County LGBTQ+ Community Center. What can you tell us about your findings and conclusions?
JH: In my other role as a graduate student, this was such an exciting project to work on and I’m excited to see where it goes from here. I conducted the research in the hopes it might spark enough community interest and excitement to move the project forward. I have lots more to say on this that probably warrants a whole other conversation but I can tell you my main findings. One is that local LGBTQ people are looking for more ways to feel connected and have a sense of a unified community. The other is that the process to opening a center must involve representation from all identities and orientations, especially those sometimes left out of other LGBTQ spaces, from the very beginning of the process.
GC: I know you are a very busy woman, so what else are you working on now?
JH: I’m wrapping up a three year project called #Out4MentalHealth where I co-chaired a Sonoma County task force with Jessica Carroll of Positive Images. The project focused on making policy changes in our community to improve mental health outcomes for LGBTQ people. To wrap up the project, we’ll be hosting a virtual town hall on May 6th from 6-8pm to discuss current needs and resources for our local LGBTQ community during the pandemic. Outside of work I’m enjoying post-grad school married life, being a dog mom to our senior dog Charlie, and am looking forward to being in community with friends and loved ones some day soon!
Matthew, 30, keeps an emergency stockpile of his life-saving HIV medication at his home in Sacramento, California. He started building his stash shortly after he was diagnosed six years ago, on the recommendation of people he met through a forum for those living with HIV. Without his once-a-day pill, his viral load would increase and his general health would decline.
Now, over a month after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic, Matthew hasn’t broken into his stash. But, like many of the 1.1 million HIV-positive people in the United States, he has questions about how the ongoing crisis could affect his access to medication and his chances of contracting the coronavirus, and whether his chronic immune condition could put him at a higher risk of complications due to COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.
“Being positive, it puts it at the forefront of your mind,” Matthew, who requested that his last name not be used to protect his medical privacy, told NBC News. “You have to be present and aware.”
CDC’s recommendations for HIV and COVID-19
There is currently “no specific information” about the risk of COVID-19 in those living with HIV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the CDC noted that HIV-positive people who are not receiving treatment (antiretroviral therapy) or still have a weakened immune system despite treatment are at greater risk of “getting very sick,” should they contract the coronavirus. According to a 2017 CDC report, approximately half of HIV-positive Americans do not have the virus under control and would fall into this higher-risk category.
To prevent sickness, the CDC recommends HIV-positive individuals avoid exposure to the virus by using everyday preventive measureslike social distancing and frequent hand washing; maintain a healthy lifestyle by eating right, getting at least eight hours of sleep and reducing stress; and continue HIV treatment.
In addition to what’s recommended for all Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic, the CDC advises those with HIV to have at least a 30-day supply of HIV medicine and any other supplies needed for managing HIV; make sure vaccinations are up-to-date; establish a remote clinical care plan; and maintain a remote social network to stay mentally healthy.
Impact of age, comorbidities and poverty
Dr. Robbie Goldstein, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and director of its Transgender Health Program, said the coronavirus is most likely to affect the HIV-positive population through secondary conditions, such as homelessness, incarceration, old age and underlying health problems.
“What I say to my patients is, if you’re taking your medications and your CD4 count is greater than 200, for right now, we believe that it is not your immune system that is going to increase your risk of acquiring COVID,” Goldstein said. “That said, many of my patients and many patients living with HIV have other issues that they’re facing that put them at really high risk.”
One of those issues, according to Goldstein, is age. The CDC has warned that older adults “seem to be at higher risk for developing more serious complications from coronavirus,” with 8 out of 10 people reported dying from COVID-19 complications in the U.S. being 65 and older.
Individuals living with HIV are disproportionately older than the general U.S. population, according to the CDC: While approximately 35 percent of the U.S. population is over 50, nearly half of HIV-positive people are.
Beyond the physical health risks, older people living with HIV are also more likely to experience negative psychological effects as a result of the pandemic, according to Goldstein, who sees HIV-positive patients at his clinic twice a week.
“These are people who watched as all of their young friends died around them” during the AIDS crisis, he said, “and they are once again watching as young people around this country die.”
“We also have to remember that these folks who are now in their 60s and 70s and in some cases in their 80s … are living a life with very few other people around them,” Goldstein said. “They don’t have the same family structure that many other people in their 70s and 80s have. They don’t have kids and friends and partners and parents who can help support them through this.”
People of any age who have “serious underlying medical conditions might be at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19,” according to the CDC. In its guidance, the CDC specifically mentions chronic lung disease, asthma, serious heart conditions, diabetes, liver disease and severe obesity, among other conditions.
While HIV-positive people who start their medication soon after contracting the virus have about the same life expectancy as the general U.S. population, people with long-lasting infection are still more likely to experience additional health problems later in life, according to Stephen Helmke, a geriatric cardiology researcher at Columbia University who has been living with HIV for 34 years.
For example, HIV-positive people are at least 1.5 times more at risk for heart disease and stroke than the general population, according to the American Heart Association. Helmke said this is often a result of the chronic inflammation HIV causes, specifically for people who began their treatment with less effective drugs. Additionally, those living with HIV are more likely to suffer from liver damage, often because of their medication, and are more at risk for additional infections, like hepatitis and tuberculosis.
After recovering from a mild case of COVID-19, Helmke, 56, said he now has a deeper awareness of how dangerous the virus can be for those who have serious underlying conditions, including untreated HIV.
“There are deaths that are directly able to be tied to lung function, and then there’s folks whose lungs are still at the level of functionality, but their heart is not able to deal with the loss of optimal oxygenation,” Helmke said.
Dr. Revery Barnes, a physician specializing in HIV for Los Angeles County, said her main focus for her HIV patients, many of whom are homeless or in poverty, has been ensuring they have access to their medication, as well as food and housing.
While HIV drugs have remained in stock in the United States thus far, Barnes said she is navigating other barriers, like the skyrocketingunemployment rate, that might prevent her patients from accessing and taking their medicine.
“Poverty has been a huge pandemic going on for a long time,” Barnes said. “When you actually get down to the barriers to people taking their medications, so much of it has to do with the fact that they’re spending all of their time trying to find money, or trying to find housing.”
HIV also disproportionately affects incarcerated populations, which have infection rates three to five times higher than the general population, according to a 2013 report from the National Minority AIDS Council. According to the report, “as many as half” of all HIV-positive inmates released from correctional facilities each year have no home to return to.
Goldstein, the physician from Massachusetts, added that factors like homelessness and incarceration have an inherent physical risk when it comes to suppressing a contagious disease like COVID-19.
“The thing that is unique about all of those people … is the fact that they live in high density settings,” Goldstein said. “It’s really easy to social distance when you live alone in an apartment in New York City. It’s very hard to social distance when you live in a shelter in Boston.”
Surviving a pandemic
Two federal assistance programs for people living with HIV — the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS — will see millions in additional funding from the$2 trillion stimulus package that was signed into law on March 27.
Jeremiah Johnson, the HIV project director for Treatment Action Group, an HIV/AIDS advocacy organization, called the funds, which total $155 million, “incredibly welcome,” but he said it is crucial for advocates to keep track of how that money is ultimately used and ensure that it’s enough to help those living with HIV weather this storm.
“I think it’s incumbent on us to really start to sit down and do the math as a community,” he said. “We have a lot of landscaping to do in order to understand if this is even close to what we need to take care of these very vulnerable communities.”
Amid this latest public health crisis, Johnson also stressed the importance of keeping focused on the “ultimate end goal of trying to reign in HIV as an epidemic.”
Echoing the CDC’s guidance, Goldstein said it’s important for those living with HIV to establish a strong virtual support network to combat loneliness as they self-isolate during the mitigation phase of the pandemic. Barnes stressed the importance of keeping up with one’s health status — in terms of HIV and beyond.
“Because you know, somebody who’s diabetic and doesn’t know it is also immune compromised,” Barnes said.
Johnson, a longtime HIV activist who has lived with the virus for over a decade, said he sees a silver lining for people living with HIV and other chronic conditions, who are accustomed to navigating health care obstacles.
“I’m incredibly resilient, and I think that that applies to many people living with HIV,” he said. “We’re actually better prepared than a lot of people to deal with this current reality.”
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has issued a landmark ruling that says Peru is responsible for the rape and torture of a transgender woman.
Azul Rojas Marín alleges police officers in Casa Grande, a town in the La Libertad region of northern Peru that is roughly 370 miles northwest of the country’s capital of Lima, detained her on Feb. 25, 2008. Rojas says she was forcibly stripped and beaten before two officers sodomized her with a police baton.
Rojas filed a formal complaint against the officers two days after the incident took place.
The court’s ruling — released on March 12, but made public on April 6 — notes local prosecutors launched an investigation into Rojas’ allegations, but they later dropped it. Rojas appealed the decision, but a Peruvian court in January 2009 “dismissed the investigation into the crimes of aggravated sexual assault and abuse of power.”
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights accepted Rojas’ case nearly a decade later.
The ruling orders Peru to “provide medical, psychological and/or psychiatric treatment” to Rojas and to prosecute the officers who tortured her. The ruling also directs Peru to track anti-LGBTQ violence in the country and develop a national strategy to respond to them.
Gabriela Oporto Patroni, a lawyer with Centro de Promoción y Defensa de los Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos, a Peruvian LGBTQ advocacy group known by the acronym PROMSEX, represented Rojas.
Oporto on April 8 told the Washington Blade during a WhatsApp interview from Lima that Rojas “is very pleased with the sentence.” Oporto also said the ruling sends a strong message to LGBTQ Peruvians who remain disproportionately vulnerable to violence and discrimination because of their gender identity and/or sexual orientation.
“The Peruvian state in the entire process before the court, before the commission, all the time has denied the existence of discrimination against LGTB people in Peru,” Oporto told the Blade.
“It is absolutely false that there is no discrimination against LGTB,” added Oporto. “The court has recognized that this context persists to this day.”
Oporto said Peru has not responded to the ruling.
“We have not had any communication from them,” Oporto told the Blade.
The Organization of American States created the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which is based in Costa Rica, in 1979 in order to enforce provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights. Peru is among the countries in the Americas that recognize the convention.
The court has previously ruled in favor of LGBTQ rights.
The court in 2018 issued another landmark ruling that recognized same-sex marriage and trans rights in the Western Hemisphere. The court in 2012 ruled in favor of Karen Atala, a judge who lost custody of her three daughters to her ex-husband because she is a lesbian.
The court also works closely with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which has urged countries in the region to decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations and address anti-LGBTQ violence and discrimination.
Gay bars have been shuttered by public-place closure orders during the coronavirus pandemic. In March, more than half of U.S. statesissued statewide closure orders for bars and restaurants, decimating the nightlife industry. This has left LGBT people without a place to gather in public and LGBT workers without employment.
But gay bars were already closing their doors before the virus hit. Their decline began sometime around 2002 and has since accelerated. My research shows that as many as 37% of the United States’ gay bars shut down from 2007 to 2019.
In this era of increasing LGBT acceptance, there’s growing competition from straight establishments. “I go wherever I want with my friends,” one former employee of a gay bar told Talking Points Memo in 2015. “Every bar is a gay bar.” In addition, the debut of geolocating smartphone dating and hookup apps like Grindr also heralded an era where cruising for sex – one of bars’ primary offerings – could be conducted anywhere, anytime.
The mainstreaming of LGBT people is a positive sign of progress, but something is lost when gay bars close.
They were once the only places where LGBT people could gather in public. Today, they are often the only place where they regularly do. Going to a gay bar is still a rite of passage for every LGBT person’s coming out.
Big cities have many gay bars and LGBT organizations, but most places only have one or two gay bars. In many smaller municipalities – from McAlester, Oklahoma, to Lima, Ohio, to Dothan, Alabama – the local gay bar is the only public place that caters to an LGBT crowd. When one of them closes, whether it’s due to the coronavirus or an owner’s retirement, entire regions are left without an LGBT community hub.
Grappling with an uncertain future
Some well-known establishments from big cities have responded to the coronavirus closures by moving their programming online.
These shows, however, represent a mere fraction of the bars’ regular weekly schedules, and virtual tip jars don’t bring in the same cash as the regular live shows did. Still, it’s something, and for LGBT people with disabilities, these online offerings are often more accessible than the physical places.
But shuttered gay bars outside of big cities don’t have the resources -— nor the national reach —- to move content online or raise money. Because these bars in smaller cities are often the only LGBTQ address for multi-county regions, their temporary closure leaves already-isolated LGBTQ people even more isolated than ever. As one gay bar owner told The Daily Beast, “The vast majority of bars don’t operate with margins to be able to sustain themselves for two weeks, four weeks or eight weeks without cash flow.”
If these temporary closure orders become permanent business failures, bars are unlikely to reopen quickly. Investors are required to open a bar in expensive, gentrified coastal cities. Savvy business owners may be able to declare bankruptcy and eventually reopen, but nearly all gay bars in America’s interior are mom-and-mom and pop-and-pop shops. These owners sometimes commingle personal finances with the professional, and lack the lines of credit to bounce back quickly.
The extent to which the stimulus package will help gay bars remains to be seen – all small businesses are in a state of limbo as they await relief funds. But the pathways for financial support for independent contractors and gig workers are even more cumbersome and convoluted in many states. These are the people not on the payroll who provide the sparkle to LGBT nightlife: the DJs, drag queens, dancers and security guards.
True, gay bars were never all things to all LGBT people. Caring about them means reckoning with their histories of exclusion of women, of transgender people, of people of color. Scholars once described them as the “primary social institution” of gay and lesbian life, but they haven’t been that for years. For many LGBT people they never were, even among the white gay men they primarily served. There are long histories of gay bars excluding those under 21, the undocumented, the disabled and those in addiction recovery.
But only a pessimist would condemn bars for these exclusionary sins, while only a willful optimist would celebrate the closure of what is often the only place for LGBT people to find like-minded others to celebrate in our queer ways.
Whether 37% fewer gay bars is a lot or a little depends on where you stand. True, there are fewer of them now than at any time in the last 40-plus years. There were more gay bars during the depths of the AIDS crisis, even. On the other hand, there are still over 800 across 46 states, with new ones appearing each year. Gay bars may be in trouble, but they’re not disappearing.
Nonetheless, the pandemic threatens the most vulnerable establishments – and their loss affects those of us in the LGBT community who have the least to lose.
San Francisco Pride officials announced Tuesday they were cancelling the 2020 Pride Parade and the weekend Pride 50 celebration over concerns raised by the continuing coronavirus outbreak in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The parade and weekend celebration of diversity and the LGBTQ community, originally scheduled to take place June 27-28, annually brings massive crowds to San Francisco, presenting a difficult challenge to organizers in these times of social distancing.
As 2020 is a historic 50th anniversary, upward of a million people were expected to attend, to witness more than 275 contingents march down Market Street toward Civic Center, where more than 20 community-programmed stages and gathering spaces highlight the diversity of all LGBTQ experiences.
The Sonoma County Library has tracked a steady shift from physical to digital use over the past few years. “Every year, we see more and more patrons checking out electronic books, streaming movies, tracing their family tree or conducting research,” said Ann Hammond, Sonoma County Library Director. “Some of our most loyal and active patrons rarely come into a branch.”
In fact, up until recently, the digital library was almost as busy as the physical library. For example, while Sonoma County Library patrons checked out 2.9 million physical items in the fiscal year ending in June 2019 (the most recent state figures), the library recorded 2.4 million website visits and 829,121 instances of electronic usage of materials.
That all changed on March 14, when all Sonoma County Library branches closed, in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the county’s shelter-in-place order. Since then, as physical circulation has come to a halt, digital circulation is skyrocketing.
OverDrive, a popular way to check out electronic books and audiobooks through the library, had a 356 percent increase in website page views in the 23 days from March 17 to April 8. In the same time period, the library’s Hoopla platform, which offers books, films, TV, music, comics and more, had a 786 percent increase in page views.
Kanopy, a resource for classic films and documentaries, had a 298 percent increase, and RBDigital, an easy way to read thousands of current issues and back issues of magazines, topped all Sonoma County Library digital resources with a 2,434 percent increase in page views.
Library patrons are discovering other digital resources as well, learning languages with Mango, brushing up on software skills with Lynda, deciding what home appliance to purchase with Consumer Reports, researching car repairs with Chilton, looking up ancestors on Ancestry.com, or reading the New York Times – all free with a library card.
“We don’t see this shift as temporary,” Hammond said, reflecting on what to expect when library branches reopen. “There is no substitute for a one-on-one conversation with a friendly librarian, or attending a library event, or bringing your child to a story time, but a lot of our patrons are discovering how easy it is to try the digital option, and we’ll be prepared to keep supporting them. We’ve already added or expanded digital resources, and we will keep looking for ways to serve our community, in person or online.”
But, not everyone has reliable internet access. That worries Hammond, a lot. “We do so much to help bridge the digital divide,” she said. “We have free high speed WiFi in our branches, and it’s still on during the closures so people can access it from outside when the building structure permits. We also have more than 500 WiFi hotspots and more than 100 Chromebooks in circulation, but it’s not nearly enough.”
Hammond and her staff are busy adapting to the temporary closures, and she knows they’ll be busy again when branches reopen, but she vows not to forget about the people who are left out because they can’t afford broadband. “This is a wake-up call for every library in America,” said Hammond. We can’t close the digital divide by ourselves, but we intend to be loud and persistent voices in finding a solution.”