A trans woman was reportedly beaten and brutally dismembered by her friends after going for drinks in an attack that has fuelled fear in Miranda, Venezuela.
Elizabeth Rondón, a 33-year-old vegetable seller, was slain Monday morning (13 June) after at least three people beat her, according to activists and witnesses.
Loved ones described Rondón as a quiet but charismatic person who traded vegetables for food in the Santa Cruz del Este neighbourhood of the Baruta municipality.
But her friends, they said, “bothered her a lot” for being trans, often harassing her for it.
On Sunday night (12 June), Rondón went to drinks with her friends who proceeded to cruelly mock her for being trans, witnesses told police, according to Agencia Carabobeña de Noticias.
Rondón, upset from the comments, hit back and a scuffle reportedly ensued. She then allegedly left with the group who beat her unconscious, police said.
The morning after, passers-by found her dismembered body in El Pozo. Her head had been severed off, her jaw detached, and her arms and legs all detached, a coroner report said.
Rondón is the fourth LGBT+ slain in Baruta this year, according to data collected by LGBT+ advocacy group Never Stop Dreaming. Fearing the “growing wave of violence” in the municipality, it tweeted: “They are killing us.”
Never Stop Dreaming called for “competent authorities to carry out an exhaustive investigation” while urging police to consider the killing a hate crime, considering that “trans women are not recognised” in Venezuela.
To Movimiento SOMOS, an activist group working from Mérida, the killings represent the “importance of Pride as a political response to systematic hatred”.
The group took aim at what it called the “indifferent” authorities, it wrote in a Twitter statement.
“Trans lives matter,” it added. “We demand justice for this and all crimes against LGBT+ done with impunity.”
This month, we’re honoring Pride with virtual programs and events, summer Take & Make craft kits, booklists for all ages, community resources, and more. Visit this news post for the full list.
Register for the Sonoma County LGBTQI+ History Timeline on Tuesday, June 22, at 5:30 pm. Explore the community building, cultural, and social change forged by local LGBTQI+ people from 1947 to 2000.
Join us in celebrating Pride Month, a time to promote the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of the LGBTQ+ community. The LGBTQ+ community will always be welcomed and celebrated at the library, not just during Pride Month but every day.Learn More
Thank you for being a member of the Sonoma County Library community. Visit our online library for thousands of films, TV shows, eBooks, databases, magazines, classes, videogames, and more. Be sure to check out open jobs at Sonoma County Library here.
Este mes dedicamos al Orgullo LGBTQIA+ con eventos virtuales, kits de arte para llevar y hacer en casa, listas de lectura recomendada para todas edades, recursos comunitarios y más. Vea todo aquí.
Regístrese para una charla virtual con las historiadoras de la Cronología de la historia LGBTQI+ en el condado de Sonoma el martes, 22 de junio a las 5:30pm. Exploraremos cómo personas LGBTQI+ locales se crearon comunidad y fomentaron cambio cultural y político durante los años 1947 a 2000. *Este evento será en inglés.
Celebremos juntos el Mes de Orgullo LGBTQ+, un tiempo para promover la autoafirmación, dignidad, igualdad y mayor visibilidad de la comunidad LGBTQ+. La comunidad LGBTQ+ siempre estará bienvenida y celebrada en la biblioteca, no solo durante el Mes de Orgullo, sino cada día.Obtenga más información
Gracias por ser miembro de la comunidad de la Biblioteca del Condado de Sonoma. Visite nuestra biblioteca en línea para ver miles de películas, programas de televisión, libros electrónicos, bases de datos, revistas, clases, videojuegos y mucho más. Revise aquí los puestos disponibles en la Biblioteca del Condado de Sonoma.
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State utility regulators have extended a moratorium on electricity and gas shutoffs for unpaid customer bills through Sept. 30, the California Public Utilities Commission announced Thursday.
Under the decision, residential customers who have fallen behind on their energy bills during the pandemic will be automatically enrolled in one- or two-year payment plans. Small businesses will also be signed up for a similar plan.
Ratepayers can apply for state and federal aid to help cover missed energy payments during the pandemic.
A conservative Republican lawmaker in the House of Delegates took to Twitter and other social media platforms this past weekend announcing that he is gay. Twenty-four year old Joshua Higginbotham said that he felt he owed it to the voters of West Virginia, after recently deciding to share it with his family and friends.
Higginbotham, who was first elected to the House when he was only 19, represents rural Putnam County located alongside Interstate 64 between the state’s capital city of Charleston to the East and Huntington to the West. His campaign adverts have all trumpeted his avid support of the Second Amendment as well as taking a pro-life position.
However, a check of some of his recent legislation shows a more progressive mindset. He is lead sponsor on House Bill 2998, a measure amending the State’s current codes relating to unlawful discriminatory practices in four categories covered by the West Virginia Human Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, adding language that prohibits discrimination based upon age and sexual orientation, or gender identity; and defining “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”
That measure, earlier in the legislative session, led to a series of conflicts which involved the state’s only other openly gay lawmaker, Democratic Delegate Cody Thompson (D43-Marion). Republican House Delegate John Mandt, who resigned after posting an anti-gay slur but then was re-elected drew harsh criticism for an extended online diatribe opposing protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity the Associated Press reported earlier this year on February 7, 2021.
In his social media video as well as in an interview with reporter Anthony Conn from the local ABC News affiliate WCHS 8 in Charleston, Higginbotham said, “I am still a Christian. People think that gay people can’t be Christians. I believe God loves me no matter what. I’m still a conservative Republican. That’s rare, I know, but you can be gay and Republican. You can be gay and conservative.”
He added referring to his conservative politics that “nothing changes except now [you] know about my personal life.”
The statewide LGBTQ advocacy group Fairness West Virginia applauded the delegate’s decision to come out. “We think that it’s great that Delegate Higginbotham can lead his authentic life now. This must be a big burden that’s lifted off his shoulders,” Executive Director Andrew Schneider told WCHS ABC 8.
There are some in the state who are critical of Higginbotham. One source who asked to not be identified, told the Blade in a phone call Tuesday that Higginbotham’s support of former President Trump raised some doubts as to his veracity especially in issues surrounding Transgender West Virginians.
The Bank of England began circulating its new £50 bank notes featuring World War II codebreaker Alan Turing on Wednesday, which would have been the pioneering math genius’ 109th birthday.
Often referred to as the “father of computer science and artificial intelligence,” Turing was hailed a war hero and granted an honor by King George VI at the end of the war for helping to defeat the Nazis. Despite this, however, he died as a disgraced “criminal” — simply for being a gay man.
“I’m delighted that Alan Turing features on our new £50 bank note. He was a brilliant scientist whose thinking still shapes our lives today,” Sarah John, Bank of England’s chief cashier, told NBC News. “However, his many contributions to society were still not enough to spare him the appalling treatment to which he was subjected simply because he was gay. By placing him on this new £50, we are celebrating his life and his achievements, of which we should all be very proud.”
Born in London on June 23, 1912, Turing graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1934. At the start of WWII, he joined the British government’s wartime operation, designing a code-breaking machine known as “Bombe.” Bombe went on to supply the Allied Forces with significant military intelligence, processing, at its peak, 89,000 coded messages per day.
Former operator Jean Valentine, 82, with a restored and fully functioning Turing Bombe during it’s unveiling at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire on Sept. 6, 2006.Rui Vieira / PA Images via Getty Images file
At the end of the war, Turing was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, an honor granted by the royal family to a selected few for their contribution to science, arts and public service.
In the years that followed, Turing carried on working as a computer scientist. His design for the Automatic Computing Engine, or ACE, would have been the first and most advanced computer for his time. But his colleagues at the National Physical Laboratory feared the engineering was too complex and decided to build a much smaller pilot ACE instead. Their competitors at Manchester University consequently won the race, and the disheartened Turing had joined their forces as deputy director. Turing also wrote the first programming manual.
“What we really don’t realize is how this moment and Turing’s vision changed the entire world. Before this, literally nobody in the world had imagined that a single machine could apply countless strings of abstract symbols. Now we know them as programs,” according to David Leslie of the Alan Turing Institute.
But being an outstanding computer scientist and a war hero didn’t spare Turing from what some have called a “witch hunt” of gay and bisexual men in the U.K., which led to the imprisonment of thousands of gay men and those suspected of being gay throughout the 1950s.
In January 1952, Turing was prosecuted for indecency over his relationship with another man in Manchester. Despite being referred to as a “national asset” during this trial by character witness Hugh Alexander, the head of cryptanalysis at the Government Communications Headquarter, Turing was persecuted.
The Bank of England began circulating its new £50 bank notes featuring World War II codebreaker Alan Turing on Wednesday.Bank of England
In March of that year, Turing pleaded guilty and, to avoid imprisonment, had to agree to be chemically castrated by taking a hormonal treatment designed to suppress his libido.
His criminal record disqualified him from working for a governmental intelligence agency. Disgraced and disenfranchised, he took his own life by cyanide poisoning June 8, 1954, in his home in Manchester. He was 41.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in the U.K. more than a decade later June 14, 1967.
Despite his tragic end, Turing’s legacy as a wartime hero and the father of computer science has lived on, and the British government has attempted to right its past wrongs. In 2009, more than a half century after Turing’s death, then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking on behalf of the government, publicly apologized for Turing’s “utterly unfair” treatment. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a royal pardon.
Featuring him on a £50 bank note marks another milestone. This is the first time that a gay man is featured on a British bank note. It has been welcomed by parts of the LGBTQ community as a symbol of the country facing up to its dark past of the horrific persecution of gay men.
This visionary computer and artificial intelligence pioneer, once criminalized and disgraced, is now widely celebrated. In Turing’s own words from 1949: “This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be.”
A Florida homeowners association has ordered a gay couple to remove a small rainbow flag from their front yard, but the couple has no intention of taking it down.
Bob Plominski and Mike Ferrari of Oakland Park, Florida, were issued a citation on June 5 that told them to take the flag down by June 15 or pay a $50 daily fine. The couple put it up to celebrate Pride Month.
Plominski and Ferrari told NBC Miami they were confused by the notice because they have flown the pride flag before and posted political signs in the neighborhood without any problems.
“I got upset,” Plominski said. “We’ve done this before and it’s a simple showing of our pride to the community and it’s up for 30 days. We were in shock they were going to do that.
Bob Brusseau, president of the Eastland Cove Homeowners Association, said the five-person board sent the couple a violation notice after one of the association’s members complained based on a rule that restricts residents to displaying only U.S. or military flags in the neighborhood.
“It’s in the document, and you can be sued,” he told NBC News.
Fines actually won’t be enforced until around 30 to 40 days from the issuing date of the citation, according to Brusseau.
“Personally, I’ll vote against any fine,” he said, adding that two board members didn’t even wish to pursue the case, but the other three did.
Plominski and Ferrari have a right to appeal the association’s decision before a grievance committee.
“I really think the citation is because it’s a gay pride flag and someone in the neighborhood is offended, simple as that,” Ferrari told NBC Miami.
The couple said they will continue to fly their pride flag until the end of the month.
“It’s going to stay up until June 30,” Plominski told NBC Miami. “We as a community worked really hard to earn and get to where we are today. We’re not going to back down on this one.”
I told myself I would not do it again: explain who I am and who my son was as an introduction to my story. I love writing, but how many times can I talk about the horrific things that happened? What you need to know: he was gay, Jewish, and the victim of a hate crime. This tragedy propelled me into the public eye and gave me a chance to be an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community, and it also ended the beautiful life of my son Blaze Bernstein. He should be enjoying gay pride month this June, but instead his body lies in an Orange County cemetery since January 2018. He died at just 19 years of age.
I don’t want to be a captive storyteller, forced to regurgitate our sad truth and the story of how we endured Blaze’s disappearance and violent death. I want to talk about the great things we have accomplished since then and the miraculous things people around the country did and continue to do to show their support for those who identify as queer and for the kindness movement we wholeheartedly embraced when we started #BlazeitForward in honor of Blaze. The story of my brilliant and kind son who was going to change the world, should not start with the horrific ending of his life. The story should start with hope because his life started with and even in death continues to give hope to all of us.
The night he disappeared many of my dreams for my family ended and a radical new timeline began. I came out of the closet as a supporter of LGBTQIA+ and a parent of a gay teen. While Blaze was alive and living in the closet, he was not comfortable with us participating in any activities that would draw attention to his sexual orientation. While we encouraged him to live openly, he was young and we respected his right to “out” himself. We will never know how our failure to educate ourselves and our family on how best to support a gay child impacted the tragedy that came to us.
Our family lived in the shadow of the normative Orange County world that we raised him in that did not understand the needs of gay teenagers or the dangers they face both from alienation that can lead to teen suicide nor did we understand the dangers posed by malevolent outsiders and ignorant peers, teachers and strangers. It was this revelation after his death that spurred our entry into the public eye when the opportunity arose.
My husband Gideon and I made the quick decision that Blaze’s death should herald a new age of sex positivity. We also wanted to do something about the stereotypes and hateful tropes we heard about Jewish people and that inundated the media. While Blaze would not live to see a world where his uniqueness and kindness became an ideal, we live to promote it. We exposed the haters and hate groups as we did the unthinkable: put our mourning on hold and immediately used his death to educate the public about the danger hate groups such as Atomwaffen pose to all of us. We also began promoting the power of kindness to heal our broken world and to promote and support LGBTQIA+ community and ethnic diversity.
As the years after his death progressed, a pattern began to develop. The polarization in political, religious and sexual beliefs became unmanageable in our country. We could not come together to fight the pandemic when it began. Civil unrest ensued. Corruption and racism exposed throughout the United States caused rioting and more polarization. Reforms were proposed. People began to see the need for learning how to have respectful discourse. Some became more sensitive and either apologetic for wrongs against the marginalized or outraged by the way the system has kept us marginalized. No one was left untouched by the violence, inequity, and unhappiness that was left in the wake of the events of the last few years.
We coined the term #BlazeitForward and use it to encourage people to do intentional kind acts in honor of Blaze and his legacy. My husband and I spent the last few years powering the Facebook public group #BlazeitForward where we encourage our members to post stories of kindness, community philanthropy and everyday miracles. We also oversee endowments created in Blaze’s name that fuel college scholarships, the Blaze Bernstein school of Culinary Arts at the Merage Jewish Community Center, annual Orange County School of the Arts conservatory funding, an annual Real Arts internship for the University of Pennsylvania, and annual donations to various foundations such as homeless shelters, Orangewood Foundation, the Human Relations Council, Second Harvest Food Bank, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Tilly’s Life Center, the Anti-Defamation League, The LGBTQ Center of Orange County, and The City of Hope, to name a few.
In addition to our advocacy for marginalized people and Holocaust education, we speak out against homophobia and hate groups, conversion therapy, bullying and hate speech. We do all of this to give life to Blaze’s legacy of kindness while we await the commencement of the criminal trial set to begin by the fall of this year.
In June we stand proud with good people around the country and celebrate Gay Pride. I cringe at the absurdity that I could not do this with Blaze. We “came out” and support the LGBTQIA+ community because there are parents out there who do not know what to do or say to help their LGBTQIA+ children. Hearing me speak out could be the first time, they learn the importance of giving these kids acceptance and love.
If you want to repair the world, you need to start at home with your own family. Do it right now. Call your younger siblings and tell them you are a proud supporter of this community. Give your teen a hug and tell them that their sexual orientation is not something they need to hide – you love them and support them unconditionally. Tell your kids that hate in any form and for any reason is something you will not support. Educate your kids on hate groups, the Holocaust, the dangers of ethnocentrism and the beauty of diversity. Go to a Pride parade. Show your support for and be curious about people who aredifferent. Listen non-judgmentally to the stories of others. Join the #BlazeitForward group on Facebook. Create a legacy of kindness in your family.
Jeanne Pepper is a writer and the mother of Blaze Bernstein, who was killed in an anti-LGBTQ hate crime.
The driver of a pickup truck that struck two men, killing one, at a Pride parade in Florida was connected to the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus, and so were the victims, the group’s president said Saturday.
The truck was to be part of the chorus’ entry in the Stonewall Pride Parade in Wilton Manors, the organization said.
“Our fellow Chorus members were those injured and the driver is also a part of the Chorus family,” Justin Knight said in a statement. “To my knowledge, this was not an attack on the LGBTQ community.”
One man was killed and another injured after they were struck by the truck Saturday evening just as the parade was about to get underway near Fort Lauderdale, officials said.
“We know two individuals marching to celebrate inclusion and equality were struck by a vehicle,” Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony said in a statement. “One person has died and the other remains hospitalized.
The victims’ names have not been released. The survivor was expected to recover, said Det. Ali Adamson at a news conference.
She said the cause of the crash was under investigation.
“We are evaluating all possibilities,” Adamson said. “Nothing is out of the question right now.”
She said the driver was being questioned, and the FBI was assisting with the inquiry.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, who was at the event, said that he and others were “terrorized” by the crash. In a statement, he said he was concerned it may have been intentional.
“Law enforcement took what appeared obvious to me and others nearby and investigated further — as is their job,” he added. “As the facts continue to be pieced together, a picture is emerging of an accident in which a truck careened out of control.”
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who was also at the event, said she is “so heartbroken by what took place at this celebration.”
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., tweeted, “Devastated by the horror we saw at Wilton Manors Pride.”
“I’m so sorry, Wilton Manors,” he said. “I’m so sorry, my friends.”
Tony said deputies witnessed the collision.
“This tragedy took place within feet of me and my BSO team, and we are devastated having witnessed this horrific incident,” he said, referring to the sheriff’s office. “Our prayers are with the victims and their families.”
LGBTQ civil servants and service members were systematically fired or forced to resign due to their sexual orientation or gender identity over the past seven decades, and a proposed bill is seeking to have the federal government issue an official apology acknowledging its past discriminatory policies.
The bill, introduced Thursday by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., says the federal government “discriminated against and terminated hundreds of thousands” of LGBTQ people who served in the armed forces, the foreign Ssrvice and the federal civil service for decades, “causing untold harm to those individuals professionally, financially, socially, and medically, among other harms.”
Kaine and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the country’s first openly gay U.S. senator, led the introduction of the resolution.
“Throughout our history, far too many people serving our nation have lived in fear of retribution or persecution because of their sexual orientation,” Kaine said in a statement. “It’s time to acknowledge the harm caused to these Americans, their families, and our country by depriving them of the right to serve as federal civil servants, diplomats, or in the Armed Services. I’m proud to introduce this Senate resolution during Pride Month to reaffirm our nation’s commitment to treat everyone, including LGBT Americans, with equal respect and fairness. I will continue working toward advancing equality for all LGBT people in Virginia and across our nation.”
Thousands of federal employees were fired or forced to resign from the late 1940s to the 1960s during what has been called the Lavender Scare — when the federal government sought to investigate and purge employees thought to be gay.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/OfO2m5N?app=1
The American Psychiatric Association declared homosexuality a mental illness in 1952, and in 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued an executive order that said “sexual perversion” was a fireable offense. It wasn’t until 1973 that the association changed its position and declared that “homosexuality does not meet the criteria for being a psychiatric disorder.”
Historians have estimated that at least 100,000 service members were forced out of the armed forces between World War II and 2011 for being LGBTQ, according to Kaine’s resolution. More than 1,000 State Department employees were also dismissed due to their alleged sexual orientation, and others were prevented from joining due to discriminatory hiring practices, the resolution states.
Many others had to hide their identities or risk losing their jobs.
In addition to the Department of State, the National Security Agency and the CIA “continued to harass and seek to exclude lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals from their ranks until 1995,” the resolution continues. At that time, then-President Bill Clinton issued an executive order that prohibited the government from denying security clearance based solely on sexual orientation. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/esC6QyB?app=1
According to the bill, transgender service members and civilian employees were also “harassed and excluded” from federal civil service until 2014, when then-President Barack Obama issued an executive order prohibiting the federal government and contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
LGBTQ people continued to serve “honorably,” the bill says, “upholding the values, and advancing the interests, of the United States even as the country discriminated against them.”
Baldwin said the resolution shows respect for LGBTQ Americans who have served the country.
“As we celebrate Pride Month, I take great pride in being a part of this effort to move our county forward as we join together with a shared commitment to the idea that with each passing day, and each passing year, America should become more equal, not less,” she said in a statement.
Democratic lawmakers have attempted to pass similar measures in the past. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland in 2017 and Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey in 2019 introduced the LOVE Act, which would have expunged the records of State Department employees who were fired during the so-called Lavender Scare.
The LOVE Act also sought to set up a permanent museum about the Lavender Scare in the U.S. Diplomacy Center and a board to review difficulties facing LGBTQ diplomats and their families, among other actions, though the bill never passed.
