Pride season is here. Tens of thousands of ATMs across the country will sport rainbow adornments, Target and H&M will devote sections of their stores to a panoply of rainbow trinkets and garments, companies from nearly every business segment in America will wish the LGBTQ community a “Happy Pride.” Rainbow flags will be festooned across storefronts nationwide and then disappear.
What many companies fail to realize is this annual ritual known as ‘rainbow washing,’ can have unintended negative consequences. Pride is 24/7/365 and companies that relegate their LGBTQ outreach to one month a year are often perceived as pandering and “tokenistic.”
What forward thinking marketers understand is the need for brands to talk to the LGBTQ consumer on a year-round basis. So time to move off of the Pride-month-only strategy.
A $1 trillion spending engine, LGBTQ consumers are recognized as having the highest discretionary household income, estimated to be 23% above the national average. Recent surveys say that a whopping 20% of trendsetting millennials ages 25-34 identify as LGBTQ. The math speaks for itself.
The LGBTQ segment is not homogenous or monolithic. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, creating the need for nuanced outreach efforts. Fully, 61% of respondents in a recent poll found that diversity in marketing and advertising was highly important, positively impacting a brand’s bottom line. All aspects of marketing messaging can be customized and delivered to segments and subsegments of the LGBTQ consumer sector through multiple mediums.
LGBTQ consumers are highly enthusiastic, recognized as the earliest adopters and greatest influencers representing disproportionate control of a brand’s profitability. Brands should develop emotional connections. Qualitative research shows that ‘positive image enforcement’ leads to positive purchasing decisions. Oreo’s “Proud Parent” outreach and commercial is an of-the-moment illustration, making this connection. This community responds favorably to the perception of being treated equally, as friends or family, rather than as outsiders.
Savvy marketers must carefully navigate a fine line, necessitating tactile communication, devoid of stereotypes, while staying laser focused on brand messaging. LGBTQ relatable lexicon and imagery should be employed, wherever possible, to create a stronger bond between a brand and this consumer. This consumer understands sincerity and authenticity.
Not to be underestimated is the power and outsize impact of social media ‘influencers’ on brand building and purchasing decisions. LGBTQ influencers have surged on all main platforms, including Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. More than 92% of those aged 18-34 respond that they seek recommendations from a trusted source. Choosing relatable influencers that connect with consumers on emotional levels is key. Impactful LGBTQ ‘champion’ Tyler Oakley, reaching more than 7.5 million followers, connects daily with core consumers’ values and aspirations.
The pandemic has forced companies to be creative in their marketing outreach. For example, many alcohol companies are hosting online happy hours and dance events with prominent DJs. A prime example is Jack Daniels’ drag queen hosted virtual entertainment parties.
Recently, companies such as Budweiser, Walgreens, IBM and Microsoft, to name a few, have launched consumer specific campaigns representing the ‘world around us.’ Geico’s affectionate portrayal of a male couple is another example of how these slice-of-life moments are all encompassing, reflecting a melting pot of the USA.
Sponsorships are also highly effective ways to bond with the LGBTQ consumer. Molson Coors’ Vizzy Hard Seltzer’s $1 million sponsorship of the Human Rights Campaign is extremely visible, as is Kellogg’s collaboration with GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) on its “Together with Pride” cereal launch.
When Pride season comes to an end, farsighted companies will cease the 11-month hibernation, and will use 2021 to create a holistic approach to the LGBTQ consumer, talking to them throughout the year. One thing will become crystal clear: These visionary companies will jump over the rainbow into a pot of gold.
Today, 70 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage. But on June 24, 2011, when the New York Legislature passed the state’s marriage equality measure, only 46 percent did, barely surpassing the 45 percent who opposed the right of gay couples to wed.
Five years earlier, in 2006, the New York Court of Appeals had determined the state constitution did not guarantee same-sex couples the right to marry. That left advocates with only a legislative remedy.
Failed attempts to pass marriage equality measures in 2007 and 2009, however, left supporters deflated.
Christine Quinn, an out lesbian who served as speaker of the New York City Council during both attempts, said the 2009 defeat in the state Senate felt “like the rug had been pulled out from under us.”
“It was so personally painful and so, really not to be dramatic, but devastating,” Quinn said. “And it gave strength to the other side. New York is seen as a progressive state … so us not having marriage equality, it made a great excuse for other states not to do it.”
Then came 2011: Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo was sworn into office in January after making same-sex marriage a key plank in his campaign.
“Previously, we had Gov. [Eliot] Spitzer, and he kind of crashed and burned. Then we had Gov. [David] Paterson, and he had no political juice,” Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell, who introduced five marriage bills over four years, said. “Then we get Cuomo: Here was a guy who was willing to make marriage a priority.”
Cuomo had first publicly supported same-sex marriage when he successfully ran for attorney general in 2006.
“I don’t want to be the governor who just fights for marriage equality,” he told attendees at an Empire State Pride Agenda dinner in fall 2010, the Observer reported then. “I want to be the governor who signs the law that makes equality a reality in the state of New York. And we’re going to get that done together.”
Attempting a ‘herculean feat’
On Jan. 5, 2011, in his first State of the State address, Cuomo promised same-sex marriage legislation would pass that year. With that mandate, activists got to work: The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, partnered with Freedom to Marry, a national organization, and Empire State Pride Agenda, a statewide LGBTQ group, to form New Yorkers United for Marriage, an umbrella group laser-focused on getting legislation passed. They targeted regions across the state, from the Hudson Valley to the Capital Region, to garner support from constituents.
“We built this huge campaign over time, over six months,” David Contreras Turley, then-associate regional field director at HRC, told City and State New York in 2019. “We ended up harnessing about 125,000 constituent contacts for what I know is one of the largest grassroots campaigns in terms of numbers, especially in the LGBT civil rights movement.”
The time was right, but advocates knew they had to strategize differently. Not only had they lost in New York in 2009, but that same year a same-sex marriage bill signed into law in Maine was overturned in a voter referendum.
“We had the opposite of momentum,” said Brian Ellner, who left then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office in 2011 to help lead New Yorkers for Marriage Equality. “No one thought that we could get it done with a Senate that was controlled by Republicans. They didn’t even think the Senate majority leader would bring it to a vote. And we needed to find four Republican yeses, two years after we lost in a Senate that was controlled by Democrats? It was quite a herculean feat.”
For O’Donnell, one of six openly LGBTQ lawmakers serving in the state Legislature at the time, the way to win was to make it more personal: Previously, he said, state Sen. Tom Duane, Assembly Member Deborah Glick and other gay legislators had kept their partners out of politics.
“I knew that that wasn’t going to work,” O’Donnell said. “If I wanted my colleagues to see John and I as part of a couple that deserves equal rights, I had to show them my relationship.”
Daniel J. O’Donnell, democratic member of the New York State Assembly, left, kisses his husband John Banta, right, as supporters of same-sex marriage rally on Christopher Street after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and declined to rule on the California law Proposition 8 in New York, on June 26, 2013.Michael Nagle / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
O’Donnell and his now-husband, John Banta, met on the first day of classes at Catholic University in 1978 and began dating two years later.
“I brought John around to a much greater degree than my colleagues had,” he recalled. Banta, the director of special events for the Metropolitan Opera, was a name on his own, and the pair made something of a power couple in Albany.
“It didn’t hurt that he was tall, thin and good looking,” O’Donnell joked. “But, more importantly, he was there, and people saw it as voting against us, rather than just voting against an issue.”
Duane also decided to start bringing his then-partner to Albany more often.
Preaching to the unconverted
They worked diligently to garner Republican support because they didn’t want marriage equality to become a party-line issue, “even though in my heart I knew it clearly was going to be,” O’Donnell said. He also sent weekly letters to his colleagues, with appeals coming from many different angles.
“One might be a poll, one was a letter from a California state senator who went from a ‘no’ to a ‘yes’ and got re-elected anyway,” he recalled. “One was a letter from Mildred Loving — who was, of course, the plaintiff in Loving v. Virginia, which took down anti-miscegenation laws at the Supreme Court — saying this is the same thing. We went around and around pivoting from the moral issue, to the legal issue, to the political issue, to try to give people enough cover to feel that they could vote for it.”
At the end of each letter, O’Donnell wrote, “John and I thank you for taking the time to consider this.”
For Ellner, a new approach meant reaching a new audience and changing the message.
“We couldn’t just talk in an echo chamber if we wanted to convert people to the cause,” he said. “At the time, support for marriage equality was barely at 50 percent in New York, I think, and we really wanted to get it to a majority, if not supermajority, before the vote.”
On March 9, 2011, Cuomo held a meeting with legislators, lobbyists and other major players inside the Capitol’s Red Room. After the disastrous 2009 vote, he wanted to be certain they weren’t working at cross purposes.
“He called a bunch of us to Albany to have a meeting about all of us who were working to get this done, to make sure we were aligned and coordinated,” Ellner recalled. “He made it very clear that this was a very, very high priority for him, if not his top priority that session. I don’t think he could have leaned in any harder to use all of his popularity and his influence.”
What many people don’t understand, O’Donnell said, is that “part of New York is more like Ohio” than New York City.
“We have very rural areas, we have very poor areas, we have some beautiful places. It’s a wonderful place to visit, but it’s not all liberal New York City people,” he said.
As he lobbied for the bill, O’Donnell said, “many senators said to me privately, ‘I think it’s the right thing to do, but my voters won’t tolerate it.’”
Ellner said he had senators, both Democrats and Republicans, telling him they needed to hear from their constituents that there was support. Legislators claimed that, in 2009, voter contacts “were running something like 3 to 1, or even 4 to 1, against marriage,” Ellner said.
So New Yorkers for Marriage Equality launched an enormous field effort with volunteers working across districts — knocking on doors, standing outside supermarkets — to talk to constituents and get postcards signed.
“When you talk to these senators, it’s about voter contact from within the district,” Ellner said. “They don’t care about a national email petition. They don’t care that Brian Ellner from Chelsea wrote to a senator upstate. They want to hear from their constituents, either by phone or preferably by mail. The mail gets counted and weighed, and that has a huge impact, because many politicians are focused on survival.”
Ellner said his team would get intelligence about a senator they had a shot at winning over, and then they would flood that lawmaker’s district with workers to get signatures.
“And if we heard that someone was definitely a ‘no,’ we would move everyone out of that district and into another one,” Ellner said. “We had really dedicated young people throughout the state who were couch surfing.”
That was the less glamorous part of the campaign, he admitted, “but there was no way we were going to let these senators hear more ‘nays’ than ‘yeas.’”
New Yorkers for Marriage Equality also launched a massive video campaign, with famous New Yorkers making the case for same-sex marriage. Directed by documentarian Annie Sundberg (“Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work”), the videos featured celebrities (Julianne Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Anna Wintour), athletes (New York Ranger Sean Avery and Michael Strahan of the Giants) and establishment types (Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and police Commissioner William Bratton).https://iframe.nbcnews.com/ZZoTZob
“We really wanted to broaden the support and show that there was widespread support across all different communities,” said Ellner, who knew Sundberg from Dartmouth College. “We just wanted this drumbeat of constant positivity, especially toward the end of the session when the legislature really slows down and there’s all kinds of deal-making going on. And frankly, we didn’t want to give the media the opportunity to write negative stories — to say that this was being derailed.”
Advocates turned up the heat on state senators, pressing their friends, relatives, even their rabbis, to track their vote and bring them to a “yes.”
But the clock was ticking. Cuomo had made his declaration in January and called everyone together in March. By late May a bill still hadn’t come forward, and the session ended in June.
Finally, on June 13, 2011, three Democratic state senators who had opposed same-sex marriage in 2009 — Joseph Addabbo Jr., Shirley Huntley and Carl Kruger — announced they would vote “yes” this time.
The final countdown
The Marriage Equality Act was introduced in the Assembly on June 14, and the following day, it passed the chamber 80 to 63. Though a healthy margin, it was a smaller one than the 2009 measure enjoyed.
A vote in the Senate was delayed while Cuomo negotiated with Republican leadership. For more than a week, thousands rallied outside the Capitol on both sides of the issue.
Finally, on June 24, the last day of the legislative session, Republican state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos announced that “same sex marriage legislation will be brought to the full Senate for an up or down vote.”
O’Donnell and Banta went to the Senate floor to watch the proceedings.
“The Capitol was entirely filled with people, so it’s hot as hell, and there are thousands of people on the stairways, in the hallways, everywhere,” O’Donnell said. “As each vote was taken, John was there. All my colleagues knew who he was. He was sitting in the audience, and many of the senators knew who he was. So we’re standing on the back of the floor of the Senate, and people are walking up to him and I and giving us both hugs and kisses.”
The vote was a nail-biter till the end, O’Donnell said — a rarity in Albany, where most bills don’t come to the floor unless passage is practically guaranteed.
State Sen. Stephen Saland of Poughkeepsie, a Republican who voted against same-sex marriage in 2009, announced he would vote “yes” the same day the bill came to the Senate floor.
“I have defined doing the right thing as treating all persons with equality,” he said during the debate on the measure. “That equality includes the definition of marriage. I fear that to do otherwise would fly in the face of my upbringing.”
‘All New Yorkers are equal under the law’
Late in the evening of June 24, 2011, the Marriage Equality Act passed the GOP-controlled Senate 33 to 29, with all Democrats and four Republicans voting in its favor. Cuomo signed it into law the same night at five minutes to midnight.
“With the world watching, the Legislature, by a bipartisan vote, has said that all New Yorkers are equal under the law,” Cuomo said in a statement. “With this vote, marriage equality will become a reality in our state, delivering long overdue fairness and legal security to thousands of New Yorkers.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs the Marriage Equality Act, with Harry Bronson, Matthew Titone, Daniel O’Donnell, Bob Duffy, Tom Duane and James Alesi, on June 24, 2011.Judy Sanders / Office of Andrew M. Cuomo
The New York Marriage Equality Act amended New York’s Domestic Relations Law to affirm that “no government treatment or legal status, effect, right, benefit, privilege, protection or responsibility relating to marriage shall differ based on the parties to the marriage being the same sex or a different sex.”
Quinn, who was in City Hill at the time trying to pass the city’s budget, remembers getting word during a press conference with Bloomberg. A staffer gestured wildly from the sidelines with a giant thumbs up.
“Oh God, as a New Yorker, it just made me so proud,” Quinn said, “and gratified that, finally, a discriminatory fact had been erased from the record. It meant a lot. It’s hard to hold your head up higher as a New Yorker, because we’re a pretty arrogant group, but I felt I could hold my head up higher.”
Ellner, who was in Albany as the vote was taken, said his only regret was not celebrating at the Stonewall Inn with the thousands of LGBTQ people and allies who had gathered there.
“It was kind of bittersweet to see it on CNN,” he said. “But, no, honestly, it was amazing.”
Banta stayed with O’Donnell in Albany that night, then the two returned to New York City the following morning. It was gay Pride weekend, and they marched in the parade with O’Donnell’s 5-year-old nephew.
“He told all his friends he was going to ‘Uncle Danny’s parade,’” O’Donnell said. “Literally, when the march would stop moving, people would chant my name on Fifth Avenue. But really, there was such a sense of euphoria — and relief.”
‘It felt miraculous’
The New York Marriage Equality Act took effect Sunday, July 24, 2011, and couples started getting married that same day.
One of them was Jonathan Thompson and Jonathan Polansky, who got married at the Queens courthouse in Forest Hills, after dating since 2002.
“We’d been together so long at that point that once the vote happened, we just sort of looked at each other and said, ‘So, we’re doing this, right?’” Thompson said.
It wasn’t a big romantic gesture, he said, but they were acutely aware of how monumental the moment was.
“It had been such a long push for marriage in New York, and we’d all been disappointed so many times before,” Thompson said. “When the bill actually passed — and during Pride Month, no less — it felt miraculous. There was just this communal feeling of emotion, and we just wanted to be a part of it.”
That wasn’t the only reason, though.
“If I’m being honest, I was also a little distrustful,” he said. “We wanted to do it right away, before anyone could take it away.”
The city had initially announced a lottery for the first day — Thompson and Polansky applied and won. Then officials decided to let everyone who had entered the lottery get a marriage license.
“So it ended up being a big, huge event,” Thompson said. “I remember it was extremely hot. We wanted to dress up, but it was stifling. So, we just went with business casual.”
It was a Sunday, when normally the courthouse would have been closed. But clerks and judges volunteered to work that day.
“Just to know that everyone there was rooting for us was a monumental thing,” Thompson said. “We took a number and sat in the waiting area, where we ran into some friends who were volunteers. Everyone there was talking to each other and taking pictures. It was definitely a sense of community and excitement.”
As a council member, Quinn didn’t have the power to perform ceremonies, but she was determined everything would go smoothly.
“My office, the speaker’s office, asserted itself into the full planning process,” she said. “I went to four of the five boroughs to congratulate and meet people who were getting married and also to thank the council staff that were there. I’ll never forget this one intern we had that summer. … He was holding up this huge sign that said, ‘This way to photos.’ Just the joy on his face and the joy of the people who were following him. I told him it looked like he was leading a parade.”
She recalled seeing City Clerk Mike McSweeney conducting the first ceremony in Manhattan, for Connie Kopelov, 85, and Phyllis Siegel, 76. The women had met in the mid-1980s volunteering with SAGE, an advocacy group for LGBTQ older adults.
Phyllis Siegel, right, kisses her wife, Connie Kopelov, after exchanging vows at the Manhattan City Clerk’s Office with New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn in attendance, back left, on July 24, 2011.Michael Appleton / Pool via Getty Images file
“It was magical,” Quinn said. “It was really, like, you couldn’t believe that a law, which on some level is just a piece of paper, could have such an impact. But it did — and it has.”
Everything had happened so fast that the offices of the city clerk hadn’t even had time to change its paperwork.
“The forms still had ‘man’ and ‘woman’ on it,” Thompson said. “It wasn’t embarrassing, though. It was amusing. It was nice. It was this feeling of, ‘We’re not gonna wait to fix it; let’s just get going, and we’ll all figure it out as we go.’ That was exciting.”
More than 800 couples registered to get married in New York City that first day alone, according to The Associated Press.
“People were booking flights to New York to get married,” O’Donnell said. “We didn’t have a residency requirement, so anybody could come here from anywhere in the world and get a marriage license and bring it back to where they’re from.”
‘Tremendous momentum’
For O’Donnell, the writing was now on the wall for federal marriage equality. Vermont, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia had already passed marriage laws legislatively, but New York was by far the largest state.
“Even in places like Mississippi or Alabama, at some point they were going to have a problem with the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution if they say, ‘We’ll accept straight marriages from New York but not gay ones.’” he said. “So it was coming.”
Ellner recalled “tremendous momentum” among activists coming out of the victory in New York.
“It felt like it was a matter of time,” he said. “It all shifted radically and so quickly. It was really the velocity that was surprising, but we felt, ‘As New York goes, so goes the nation.’”
A group walks down Fifth Avenue during the New York City gay pride march on June 26, 2011.Stan Honda / AFP via Getty Images file
It wasn’t a bloodless victory, though: The four Republican state senators who crossed the aisle to support the bill all were out of office within the next few years.
In September 2012, Sen. Roy McDonald, who represented conservative Saratoga County, was defeated in a Republican primary by Kathy Marchione. During the race, Marchione questioned McDonald’s conservative bona fides, claiming he backed same-sex marriage to secure campaign donations.
“I could have found an easier way to get re-elected,” McDonald countered during a primary debate, insisting he supported the bill as “a human being that cared.”
“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing,” he told reporters. “You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, f— it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing.”
But an undeniable tipping point had been reached: In 2012, Maine, Maryland and Washington all enacted same-sex marriage measures at the ballot, and, for the first time ever, the Democratic National Convention adopted a political platform endorsing same-sex marriage. That May, then-Vice President Joe Biden came out in favor of same-sex marriage, quickly followed by President Barack Obama.
The following year, a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down by the Supreme Court, and nine more states recognized same-sex marriage — five through legislation (Rhode Island, Delaware, Minnesota, Hawaii and Illinois).
“We showed that you could do it,” O’Donnell said of New York’s LGBTQ advocates. “I offered to help anybody out there who wanted to know how to do it, because it takes work. In the House, I flirted with some colleagues, I threatened others. I promised every single one of them if they voted ‘yes’ that I would invite them to my wedding, which I did — our wedding had 450 people at it. They all came.”
O’Donnell said he had toyed with getting married on that first day, but July 24 was Banta’s birthday, “and I didn’t need to be the first,” he said.
The pair married on Jan. 29, 2012, at Guastavino’s in Manhattan, with both Democratic and Republican legislators, the state comptroller, Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy and Cuomo all in attendance.
“If you’ve never thought you could get married, you never spend any time thinking about what your wedding would be,” O’Donnell said. “The two things that I wanted were a wedding cake and an actual honeymoon. So we had our wedding, we had our cake and then we went to Paris.”
Ruth Coker Burks never intended to be an advocate, activist or even an angel. She just wanted to do the right thing.
“Oh, I’m no angel,” Coker Burks, 62, told TODAY. “I’m just a person.”
But that’s how her legacy has been defined when one fateful day in 1986, at just 26 years old, she was visiting a friend, Bonnie, at a local hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, who had been suffering from oral cancer. Bonnie had her tongue removed, and Coker Burks was her interpreter. This was their fifth extended hospital stay, but this time there was something different. Out of the corner of her eye, Coker Burks spotted a door down the hall with a bright red tarp across it, food trays piled up outside and a group of nurses at the door, unwilling to go in.
Ruth Coker Burks in the mid-1980s.Courtesy Ruth Coker Burks / Grove Atlantic
“I had been in hospitals a lot of times and so I thought that was really bizarre,” she said of the biohazard red door. “The nurses were literally drawing straws to see who would go in and check on this person. They would draw straws and it’d be best out of three, and then they didn’t like that and so then it’d be best 2 out of 3 and then no one would end up going in to check in on this person. They just walked away.”
Her curiosity overcame her, so when the nurses left their stations, she snuck into the room to see who was there. She struggled finding the person at first, who was so frail and near death, she couldn’t even tell he was in his bed. “I had to look for him,” she explained. “I thought maybe he was in the bathroom. You couldn’t tell the difference between him and the bedsheets. It was just horrible.”
This was the first time she would encounter a person dying from AIDS, but it wouldn’t be the last. Over the next decade, Coker Burks would care for over 1,000 gay men dying of the disease who were abandoned by their families.
In honor of LGBTQ Pride Month and the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in 1981, TODAY had the opportunity to talk with the accidental activist to look back on her incredible story that above all else, shows what happens when someone overcomes fear for love and life.
‘Nobody’s coming’
Prior to that fateful hospital visit, Coker Burks had heard rumors about the then-unnamed disease when visiting her hairdresser cousin in Hawaii. A devout Christian, single mother of one and real estate agent working in the timeshare industry, Coker Burks pretended to know a lot more about the gay community than she actually did.
“Oh honey, don’t worry about that,” her cousin told her about the disease soon to be labeled HIV and AIDS. “Just the leather guys in San Francisco are getting that.”
But it was that day while caring for her friend Bonnie when she encountered AIDS for the first time in person — and knew it wasn’t just affecting the “leather guys” in California.
“I went over to the bed and I didn’t know what to do but I took his hand and I said, ‘Honey, what can I do for you?’” she remembers of the fateful encounter. “He looked up at me and he didn’t have any more tears to cry. He was so dehydrated there was nothing left to produce any tears. But he looked up at me and he said he wanted his mama.”
Coker Burks felt this was something she could do: Get his mother to come to the hospital and then go back to Bonnie and get back to minding her own business, something she admits she’s never been very good at doing. But what she quickly realized is that his mother knew where he was, and she had no intentions to visit him.
“I went over to speak with the nurses, and they backed up like I had them at gunpoint,” she said. “They said, ‘You didn’t go in that room, did you?’ Well yeah, I noticed that y’all weren’t going in. So they started fussing at me and then they just backed up even more.”
She recounted what they said to her: “His mother’s not coming. Nobody’s coming. He’s been in this hospital for six weeks, nobody’s been here and nobody’s coming and don’t you go back in that room.”
Well, Coker Burks didn’t listen.
The man’s name was Jimmy, and his experience was more common than not. Many gay men who became sick with HIV and AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s were shunned by their families, abandoned and left to die alone.
Coker Burks tried calling Jimmy’s mother numerous times, but each time his mother refused to take the call. After a few attempts — and a heated threat to put his obituary in her local newspaper — his mother answered her questions. “My son died years ago when he went gay,” she told Coker Burks. “I don’t know what thing you have at that hospital but that’s not my son.”
Coker Burks knew that was the best she was going to get out of her, so she stayed by Jimmy’s side until he died the next day.
“I thought he would be the only one, and I would get back to going to church every Sunday and you know, being a good Christian living the best life I could,” she said. “I had a young daughter, her father and I were divorced, and I was just trying to be the best mother and set the best example I could for her. I thought I’d just go back to that.”
Coker Burks and her daughter, Allison. Grove Atlantic
But after leaving Jimmy’s hospital room after he passed, she learned that the homophobia these men experienced lived on well after their final breathes. The nurses said the body needed to be dealt with, and that the hospital’s morgue didn’t want him because they were scared the other bodies would get contaminated. (She jokes, “Of course, you don’t want a dead body contaminated with anything, especially imagination.”)
The nurses insisted she take him. It was difficult to find a funeral home who would take Jimmy, but after many attempts she was able to find a place that would cremate him and she buried him with her father. With her daughter Allison by her side, they got a cookie jar for his ashes, dug a hole above her father’s coffin and planted flowers to mark the spot.
“We had a little do-it-yourself funeral, said the Lord’s prayer, put the flowers and a big rock on top of him and we left,” she explained. “And I thought, you know, that’s going to be the only person I ever have to do this for. I mean, who would think you would ever have to do it twice in your life, right?”
She went back to selling timeshares. Then more and more local men in Arkansas began getting infected with HIV and becoming sick with AIDS. Nurses started giving out Coker Burks’ number to their patients.
No matter what, Coker Burks answered their calls. She buried 39 others in her family’s cemetery and cared for hundreds more for over a decade.
Coker Burks with Billy, who became one of her best friends before he died of AIDS at 24.Grove Atlantic
Hope, friendship and understanding
Coker Burks tells her story in the book, “All the Young Men,” published in December 2020.
“It is not to diminish her story to say that heterosexual angels weren’t the dominant narrative of the AIDS crisis, but a vanishingly rare exception to a rule of homophobia, cruelty and prejudice,” writes The Guardian’s Olivia Laing. “That said, there’s something immensely uplifting about her decision to involve herself in the travails of a community not her own, simply because she could see that there was a need. It’s a brighter story of human nature…”
Last year, it was also announced that her story will be made into a film as well, “The Book of Ruth,” starring Ruth Wilson and Matt Bomer.
Above all else, Coker Burks wants people to understand that her story is one of hope.
“It’s about friendships, and it’s about having the very worst of situations and turning it into something else,” she said. “It’s about kindness and stepping through the door, whatever the door is. It’s a fear that you override. Whatever fear you have and you just walk into that room, because everybody always asked me what made me walk into that room. To me, it was a voice of God saying, ‘Go in there. It’s going to be OK.’”
Coker Burks and drag queens from the Discovery Nightclub in Little Rock, Arkansas.Grove Atlantic
Coker Burks said what she learned the most was to see joy in everything, even in death.
“Oh no, my guys lived until the day they died,” she said. “I learned more about living from the dying than I ever learned about dying with the dying.”
“Hope was all they had. That was it. And, you know, we would go to drag shows. … I had never even heard of a drag queen but I would stand by the stage with my dollars, I wouldn’t even go back to my chair, I was just handing out dollars all night, thinking to myself these are the most fabulous creatures I’ve ever met in my life.”
“Step out of your lives, step out of your boundaries and deliberately meet new people who aren’t you.”
During LGBTQ Pride Month, TODAY is sharing the community’s history, pain, joy and what’s next for the movement. We will be publishing personal essays, stories, videos and specials throughout the entire month of June. For more, head here.
“Marriott International has long been a champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and our commitment to the cause is stronger than ever…we believe in a warm welcome for all.” Brian King, President, the Caribbean and Latin America region.
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Copenhagen is one of the world’s most gay-friendly cities on the planet with its colorful buildings and welcoming lifestyle! WorldPride 2021 is August 12 – 22 and will celebrate equality, arts, and human rights proudly hosted by Copenhagen Pride in collaboration with Malmö Pride. COVID protocols mean the Opening Ceremony will be live-streamed, setting the stage for the next 10 days of spectacular events.
Steel House Copenhagen embodies “industrial chic” combined with a warm and welcoming staff who create a positive vibe around the house. You’ll settle right into this hip, luxury hostel.Manon les Suites manifests a tropical vibe smack in the middle of Copenhagen. You’ll experience bohemian luxury in a festive atmosphere at this sustainable and 5-star hot spot!
Bryggen Guldsmeden is Denmark’s most accomplished sustainable hotel. Its name comes from the Islands Brygge. “Bryggen” is a waterfront neighborhood best known for “Havneparken,” and within walking distance to Tivoli & the Central Station.Axel Guldsmeden is a lovely, eco-friendly hotel located in a turn-of-the-century building in the center of Copenhagen. Their garden, lush with plants and flowers, has an outdoor fireplace & fleece blankets to wrap around yourself. Ahhhh.
Check for calendar updates not just during Pride Month but throughout the full year! Events and schedules are subject to change. Photo Credit: Toni Reed
The Vatican has taken a highly unusual step against its neighbor, sending a diplomatic note to the Italian government that protests a draft law aimed at preventing hate and violence against LGBT people.
The complaint marks a formal effort by the Vatican to influence Italian lawmaking and could provide a test for how forcefully the church can exercise its clout on culture war issues — not just as a religion but as a state.
While it’s common for church figures to take stances on affairs in other countries — whether on same-sex marriage, LGBT rights or abortion — in this case the Vatican is invoking its prerogatives as a nation, arguing that the law, if passed, would violate the “concordat” that provides the framework for its relationship with Italy.
Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard will become the first transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics after being selected by New Zealand for the women’s event at the Tokyo Games, a decision set to fuel the debate over inclusion and fairness in sport.
The 43-year-old, who will be the oldest lifter at the Games, had competed in men’s weightlifting competitions before transitioning in 2013.
“I am grateful and humbled by the kindness and support that has been given to me by so many New Zealanders,” Hubbard said in a statement issued by the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) on Monday.
Hubbard has been eligible to compete at Olympics since 2015, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued guidelines allowing any transgender athlete to compete as a woman provided their testosterone levels are below 10 nanomoles per litre for at least 12 months before their first competition.
Some scientists have said the guidelines do little to mitigate the biological advantages of those who have gone through male puberty, including bone and muscle density.
Advocates for transgender inclusion argue the process of transition decreases that advantage considerably and that physical differences between athletes mean there is never a truly level playing field.
NZOC CEO Kereyn Smith said Hubbard met IOC and the International Weightlifting Federation’s selection criteria.
“We acknowledge that gender identity in sport is a highly sensitive and complex issue requiring a balance between human rights and fairness on the field of play,” Smith said.
“As the New Zealand Team, we have a strong culture of …. inclusion and respect for all.”
The New Zealand government offered its support.
“Laurel is a member of New Zealand’s Olympic team. We are proud of her as we are of all our athletes, and will be supporting her all the way,” Minister for Sport and Recreation Grant Robertson said in a statement.
Center of debate
Weightlifting has been at the centre of the debate over the fairness of transgender athletes competing against women, and Hubbard’s presence in Tokyo could prove divisive.
Save Women’s Sport Australasia, an advocacy group for women athletes, criticized Hubbard’s selection.
“It is flawed policy from the IOC that has allowed the selection of a 43-year-old biological male who identifies as a woman to compete in the female category,” the group said in a statement.
Hubbard’s gold medal wins at the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa, where she topped the podium ahead of Samoa’s Commonwealth Games champion Feagaiga Stowers, triggered outrage in the host nation.
Samoa’s weightlifting boss said Hubbard’s selection for Tokyo would be like letting athletes “dope” and feared it could cost the small Pacific nation a medal.
Belgian weightlifter Anna Vanbellinghen said last month allowing Hubbard to compete at Tokyo was unfair for women and “like a bad joke”.
Australia’s weightlifting federation sought to block Hubbard from competing at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast but organizers rejected the move.
Hubbard was forced to withdraw after injuring herself during competition, and thought her career was over.
“When I broke my arm at the Commonwealth Games three years ago, I was advised that my sporting career had likely reached its end,” said Hubbard on Monday, thanking New Zealanders.
“But your support, your encouragement, and your aroha (love) carried me through the darkness.”
Olympic Weightlifting New Zealand President Richie Patterson said Hubbard had “grit and perseverance” to return from injury and rebuild her confidence.
“We look forward to supporting her in her final preparations towards Tokyo,” he said.
Another transgender athlete, BMX rider Chelsea Wolfe, will travel to Tokyo as part of the United States team, but is named as an alternate and not assured of competing.
Canadian women’s soccer player Quinn, who came out as transgender last year and uses only one name, also has a chance to be selected for the Olympics, five years after winning bronze with the women’s team at the 2016 Rio Games.
The Stonewall Inn’s owners say they won’t serve certain beers at the famous LGBTQ bar during Pride weekend to protest manufacturer Anheuser-Busch’s political contributions to some politicians who have supported anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Co-owners Stacy Lentz and Kurt Kelly said they would be instituting the ban on Friday in support of the “Keep Your Pride” campaign, a recently launched effort highlighting five companies that it says advertise support during Pride but have also made contributions to anti-LGBTQ lawmakers.
The campaign, a project of Corporate Accountability Action, used data compiled from the National Institute on Money in Politics to show that Anheuser-Busch contributed more than $35,000 to 29 legislators it described as anti-LGBTQ between 2015 and 2020.
“We just felt Stonewall having the platform, the power to do this, it was important to stand up,” Lentz said. “We really just want Anheuser-Busch to stop donating to lawmakers who are trying to legalize discrimination.”
In a statement, Anheuser-Busch said, “We support candidates for public office whose policy positions and objectives support investments in our communities, job creation, and industry growth.”
The statement continued, “Together, with our brands, we have a clear role to play in bringing real change and creating an inclusive and equitable world where we cherish and celebrate one another.”
It was at an earlier incarnation of the Stonewall Inn in June 1969 when bar patrons fought with police who had come to carry out a raid, which galvanized gay rights activism around the country and the world.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, said he plans to introduce the first resolution to condemn state bills targeting transgender people this week.
This year, state legislatures have considered more than 100 bills targeting trans people, “making 2021 the worst year for legislation that discriminates against the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community since 2015,” the bill states. Eighteen anti-LGBTQ bills have passed, and 10 await governors’ final signatures, it adds.
Most of the bills target transgender youth by seeking to ban them from school sports teams that align with their gender identity or limit their access to gender-affirming medical care. Governors in nine states have signed athlete bans into law, and two have signed restrictions on medical care.
“It is shameful to witness legislatures across the country endorse policies that endanger the safety of trans individuals and block access to critical services,” Torres said in a statement to NBC News. “My resolution makes it clear that Congress denounces the rise in anti-trans legislation and hate crimes, and that as a body we will pursue legislation that protects the well-being and safety of the trans community.”
The legislation specifically mentions an Arkansas law that will ban gender-affirming care, including hormones and puberty blockers.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, vetoed the bill in April, calling it a “vast government overreach,” but the Legislature overrode the veto, and the bill will become law next month unless a judge intervenes. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuitlast month in an effort to block the law.
Nearly 1,500 trans kids will lose access to medical care if takes effect, according to Torres’ bill.
Legislation like Arkansas’ “discriminates against the transgender community, is not based in science and is intended to sow division and instill animosity toward our fellow Americans,” the bill states.
The bill also connects “laws and political rhetoric that deny the humanity of transgender people” to negative mental health outcomes for LGBTQ youth and rising anti-trans violence. By blocking trans people from accessing health care, housing, public spaces and employment, the bills “give license to others to take violent action based on their biases,” the bill says.
Fatal violence disproportionately affects trans women of color, especially Black trans women, who make up half of those killed so far this year.
Torres’ legislation is co-signed by 30 other representatives and endorsed by 13 LGBTQ advocacy organizations.
In a letter to colleagues requesting sponsors for the legislation, Torres urged them not to ignore the “troubling lived realities experienced by members of the transgender and nonbinary community.”
“We must uplift their narratives and take actions that advocate for their well-being.”
Benali Hamdache, Green Party spokesperson for migration and refugee support, looks at the issues facing LGBT+ refugees on World Refugee Day.
In too many places, this pandemic has allowed regimes to crackdown on LGBT+ people. Cameroon, Ghana, Philippines and Uganda have all seen outbreaks of arbitrary arrests and violence. LGBT+ refugees in Kenyan camps have experienced assault and murder.
Here in the UK the Home Office’s social media is currently adorned with the rainbow flag and Boris Johnson has acknowledged that COVID has worsened the situation for LGBT+ people globally. We have a government that professes inclusivity, openness and action.
But Priti Patel’s New Plan for Immigration threatens to close the door on countless LGBT+ refugees. At a time when refuge is in greater need, our Home Secretary is out selling harsh new proposals on refugees during Pride Month.
Earlier on in the year, the Home Secretary released a 46 page policy statement on her vision for changing the asylum process. These represent the biggest changes proposed in two decades. Nowhere in the document is the impact on refugees seeking support because of their gender or sexuality considered.
But those impacts are real and have been laid out by Rainbow Migration, one of the country’s leading charities working with LGBT+ refugees.
The first concern is the demand that all evidence for an asylum claim must be laid out at the beginning of the case. It is suggested that anything disclosed later will be given “minimum weight”.
This will mean many more LGBT+ asylum seekers will have their claims rejected. The reality is that not everyone is able to tell a stranger everything that has happened to them immediately. Many will carry huge amounts of shame and trauma about the experiences that brought them to flee. This harsher process will result in people being sent back to danger.
There is no need to dramatically shorten the process in manner. People deserve a fair hearing and the time to open up and share their journey.
The second concern is around how refugees will be detained. Detaining people in “reception centres” will be doubly damaging for a range of asylum seekers.
There’s huge amounts of evidence that LGBT+ asylum seekers face discrimination and intimidation in refugee holding centres. While out in the community people have been able to find support and begin to express their gender and sexuality freely.
We’ve seen what mass detention of refugees looks like in Australia. Unbelievably hostile spaces that re-traumatise the traumatised. We should not be emulating that here.
The final concern, also laid out excellently by Rainbow Sisters (a collective of LGBT+ women and non-binary refugees), is around routes to the UK.
The new proposals threaten to send back anyone who could have claimed asylum somewhere on their way to the UK. They make arbitrary decisions about what constitutes a safe harbour for LGBT+ refugees and emphasise the value of resettlement plans. But many LGBT+ people have to flee their homes suddenly and quickly. What constitutes a safe country may differ widely from person to person and across the EU not all countries guarantee the same level of rights to LGBT+ people.
These proposals also threaten the plight of trafficked people. Punishing refugees for being brought here “illegally” would add another layer of cruelty.
In reality Priti Patel’s proposals that asylum seekers can be sent back to their first “safe” harbour seem unlikely. EU countries in the wake of Brexit seem unwilling to sign any kind of reciprocal deal along these lines. LGBT+ refugees deserve more than empty threats and being treated like a political football.
We already have an undoubtedly harsh asylum system. A Freedom of Information request looked at how many claims based on gender or sexuality had been rejected between 2016 and 2018. More than 3,100 LGBT+ asylum claims had been rejected from countries where gay sex is criminalised. From Pakistan and Nigeria to Bangladesh.
Priti Patel’s proposals to make the system harsher are wrongheaded and mean spirited. This Pride, our government cannot claim to be allies, but then turn its back on LGBT+ people in danger.
