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Ritchie Torres Becomes First Gay Afro Latino Elected to Congress

Ritchie Torres has won his House race for New York’s 15th Congressional District, making him the first gay Afro Latino person elected to Congress.

Torres was all but certain to win in his deep-blue House district. He defeated Republican Patrick Delices, a former professor of Caribbean studies at Hunter College.

He fills a seat left by Rep. Jose Serrano, a 16-term Democrat who said last year that he would not run for re-election.

“Tonight we made history,” Torres tweeted Tuesday night, calling it “the honor of a lifetime to represent a borough filled with essential workers who risked their lives so that New York City could live” during the pandemic.

Torres could be joined by Mondaire Jones, who’s currently ahead in his race for New York’s 17th Congressional District, as the first gay Black members of Congress.

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Torres, 32, a Bronx native, is the youngest member of the New York City Council, where he has advocated for better public housing and programs to address racially concentrated poverty. (His congressional district is the poorest in the country.)

He has been an ardent proponent of police reform, calling for increased accountability and independent oversight, saying that without them, “there’s never going to be an end to police brutality.”

“Police departments across the country cannot be trusted to police themselves,” Torres told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” earlier this year. “There has to be an independent system for investigating, punishing and, if necessary, prosecuting police misconduct.”

In September, he called for the resignation of Ed Mullins, president of the New York Police Department’s Sergeants Benevolent Association, after Mullins tweeted Torres was a “first class whore.”

“Calling an openly LGBTQ Afro-Latino a ‘first-class whore.’ There is NOTHING benevolent about the bigotry of the @SBANYPD,” Torres tweeted in response. “Ed Mullins must resign.”

Mullins insisted his now-deleted comment was in reference to Torres’ “dangerous policies and worldview,” not his sexuality.

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The out politician has also squared off against fellow City Council member Ruben Diaz Sr., his opponent in the primary.

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Diaz, 77, a Pentecostal minister, has referred to gay people as “cursed” and voted against legalizing same-sex marriage in 2009 and 2011 as a member of the New York State Senate. Last year, Diaz described the New York City Council, which has five openly LGBTQ members, as being “controlled by the homosexual community.”

After the comment, Torres worked with City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is also gay, to strip Diaz of committee positions.

Torres is the first openly gay elected official from the Bronx and blames Diaz for fostering a “homophobic culture” in the borough.

“It’s personal,” Torres told NBC News last year. “He made the experience of running for public office more terrifying for me.”

A record 26 openly gay candidates for the House and Senate were on the ballot Tuesday, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which advocates for and trains out elected representatives. Many of those races have not yet been called.

“Most would have thought New York City’s first LGBTQ member of Congress would be from Chelsea or Greenwich Village or Hell’s Kitchen,” Victory Fund President Annise Parker said in a statement, “but the Bronx beat them to it.”

Torres’ victory, Parker added, “gives hope at a time when many Americans desperately need it.”

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Sarah McBride to Become First Transgender State Senator in U.S. History

Sarah McBride has won her Delaware state Senate race, poising her to become the first and only openly transgender state senator in the U.S. and the country’s highest-ranking transgender official.

“I hope tonight shows an LGBTQ kid that our democracy is big enough for them, too,” McBride, 30, tweeted Tuesday night after the election was called. “As Delaware continues to face the Covid crisis, it’s time to get to work to invest in the policies that will make a difference for working families.”

She easily defeated Republican Steve Washington to represent Delaware’s 1st Senate District. Incumbent Democrat Harris McDowell, who did not seek re-election after 44 years, had endorsed McBride.

The 1st District covers Bellefonte, Claymont and parts of Wilmington, the state’s largest city.

“I’ve spent my life fighting for people to have dignity, peace of mind, and a fair shot at staying afloat and getting ahead,” McBride said in a statement announcing her candidacy last year. “Sen. McDowell’s retirement at the end of this term is a well-deserved cap on a remarkable career of public service, and now our neighbors need someone who will continue to fight for them.”

McBride, a former spokesperson for the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, made national headlines in 2012 when she stepped down as American University’s student body president and came out as trans in the school’s student newspaper.

While still in college, she interned with the Obama administration, becoming the first out transgender woman to work in the White House, according to her campaign announcement.

McBride then became the first trans person to speak at a major political convention in 2016, when she addressed Democrats in Philadelphia.

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OUT POLITICS AND POLICYLGBTQ candidates are running for office in record numbers — and being attacked for it

There are four transgender people in state legislatures, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund. The first was Danica Roem, who won a seat in the Virginia House in 2017.

“For Sarah to shatter a lavender ceiling in such a polarizing year is a powerful reminder that voters are increasingly rejecting the politics of bigotry in favor of candidates who stand for fairness and equality,” said Annise Parker, president of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which works to train and support out candidates.

Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said McBride “made history not just for herself but for our entire community.”

“This victory, the first of what I expect to be many in her career, shows that any person can achieve their dream, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation,” he said.

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Egypt Detains Men for Alleged Sexual Orientation, Alongside Alleged Rapists

When Seif Bedour, 21, returned to Egypt this year to visit his family after years studying abroad, he did not expect to end up behind bars. His “crime”? “Suspicion” about his sexual orientation.

Bedour was looking forward to his graduation. Now, he looks forward to seeing his family only when prison authorities allow.

Police arrested Bedour in late August, when he accompanied a friend who had been arrested by the police as part of their investigation into a party in 2014 at Cairo’s Fairmont Hotel. A woman at that party recently reported she was drugged and raped by several men in a hotel room on the same night.

Bedour, who was only 14 and not present when the Fairmont incident took place, had voluntarily accompanied a witness, a woman friend, to the police station after police arrested her from her home at dawn. “He didn’t want her to be alone in a difficult situation,” according to his family.

Also at the police station was Ahmed al-Ganzoury, 40, who was initially summoned by police because he was an organizer of the Fairmont party.

At the station, police unlawfully searched Bedour’s and al-Ganzoury’s phones and, based on private photos they found, detained them for allegedly engaging in same-sex conduct.

They remain in jail more than two months later, after judges renewed their pretrial detention three times in hearings they were not allowed to attend.

Authorities kept them for several weeks in a police station in east Cairo, permitting only one family visit. On October 14, they were transferred to al-Nahda prison, where they are currently detained in the same cell as the suspected Fairmont rapists.

According to the men’s families, prison guards forcibly shaved their heads, and prosecutors ordered them to undergo drug testing and forced anal exams, a form of torture and sexual assault under international human rights law, which Egyptian authorities routinely carry out to seek “proof” of same-sex conduct.

Government-affiliated media appear to have reframed the alleged gang rape as a “group sex party” and claimed that security forces had broken up “the biggest homosexual network.”

Egyptian authorities are sending a disturbing message that persons who voluntarily go to a police station to assist others may be arrested for their alleged sexual orientation. Prosecutors should immediately drop all charges and investigations concerning the sexual orientation and private life of Bedour and al-Ganzoury and release them.

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LGBT Advocacy Groups Sue over Trump Diversity Training Order

LGBT advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate President Donald Trump’s September executive order banning the government from working with contractors that conduct “any form of race or sex stereotyping,” including diversity training.

The groups receive federal grants and contracts to provide multiple services and health care to LGBT individuals. Their lawsuit, filed Monday in a California federal court, contends that the order limits them from using “scientific and medical-based information regarding systemic race or sex disparities in the provision of medical treatment” when training their staff.

LGBT advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate President Donald Trump’s September executive order banning the government from working with contractors that conduct “any form of race or sex stereotyping,” including diversity training.

The groups receive federal grants and contracts to provide multiple services and health care to LGBT individuals. Their lawsuit, filed Monday in a California federal court, contends that the order limits them from using “scientific and medical-based information regarding systemic race or sex disparities in the provision of medical treatment” when training their staff.

Trump’s executive order explicitly prohibits contractors from using any workplace training “that inculcates in its employees any form of race or sex stereotyping or any form of race or sex scapegoating.”

The Labor Department clarified that “race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating” includes using concepts in training that suggest “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously” or that “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.”

The lawsuit argues that the order violates freedom of speech protections and is overly vague as to what conduct would violate the order.

The advocacy groups say that if the order is allowed to stand, “more people will fall out of care, become homeless, fail to get tested, decline to take a vaccine when one becomes available, sicken, and even die.”

Opposition building: Groups from across the political spectrum have lined up in opposition to Trump’s order.

More than 150 trade groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have urged the president to abandon the executive order, warning that it will “lead to non-meritorious investigations, and hinder the ability of employers to implement critical programs to promote diversity and combat discrimination in the workplace.”

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund, National Urban League and National Fair Housing Alliance also filed a lawsuit over the order late last month.

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SCOTUS to Hear LGBTQ Case, Designed to Give Christians Right to Discriminate

Just one day after 2020’s historic Election Day, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear a landmark case seeking to revoke non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people, along with minority religious groups like Jews and Muslims. The case could hand Christians special rights to discriminate. It relies on overturning a 30-year precedent, something Justice Amy Coney Barrett has said she is not opposed to doing.

The case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, involves Catholic Social Services (CSS) of Philadelphia, which lost in a unanimous Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, but appealed to the Supreme Court.LISTEN: Mark Cuban Joins The New Raw Story Podcast!

The City of Philadelphia notified Catholic Social Services in 2018 that it would no longer send children to them to be fostered or adopted because of the religious group’s refusal to place children in homes headed by same-sex couples or LGBTQ people.

With the loss of placements comes a loss of taxpayer funds. CSS isn’t banned from continuing to adhere to its policies or religious beliefs, it just won’t be able to use children the City of Philadelphia was sending them as tools to continue its discriminatory practices.

“In court papers, the group has argued that Philadelphia’s moves unlawfully targeted its right to exercise its religion, which is protected under the First Amendment,” CNBC reports. “Philadelphia, on the other hand, has said it is entitled to enforce anti-discrimination policies in order to protect LGBT residents. The city says it is not hostile to religion, noting that its policies apply evenly to religious and secular government contractors.”

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“The True Adventures of Wolfboy” is a New Film Written by a Trans Woman

Today, just in time for Halloween, The True Adventures of Wolfboy premieres in select theaters and anywhere you can rent or buy movies. This isn’t a horror movie though – it’s a beautiful coming-of-age film written by Olivia Dufault, a transgender woman, about the fears and emotions trans people may experience as they approach transition. 

Paul (Jaeden Martell) is the wolfboy of the title (he has hair all over his face) and he is struggling with his fear that his condition means the world will only ever see him as a freak. As Paul stumbles toward self-acceptance, he meets Aristiana (Sophie Giannamore) who has already made that journey herself as a young trans girl. As she accompanies Paul on their adventures, Aristiana embodies the self-knowledge that many trans people possess, and she quietly shows Paul what it looks like to accept yourself as you are. Giannamore, a young trans actress, stars alongside Martell, John Turturro, Chloë Sevigny, Eve Hewson, and Chris Messina. 

Wolfboy has been on GLAAD’s radar since 2017 when the casting director reached out to us for help finding a trans teen to play Aristiana. When Wolfboy premiered at NewFest last year, we published an interview with Sophie Giannamore and you can read that here.

There are very few feature films with transgender characters that are written by trans people, and Wolfboy is a shining example of why trans stories are more rich, compelling, and profound when trans people tell them. Wolfboy is a transition narrative, but since it’s written by a trans woman, it’s told from the inside-out, not the outside-in. We’re so excited to talk to Olivia Dufault about her thought process behind the creation of this beautiful film.

What inspired you to write The True Adventures of Wolfboy?

It was my final semester of college, and I’d waited until the last moment to fulfill my science course requirement. I ended up begrudgingly enrolled in a genetics class, wherein I was exposed to a presentation on unusual conditions passed down hereditarily. One of these slides displayed folks living with hypertrichosis, which results in thick hair that grows on the entirety of one’s face and body. It’s where many believe the “wolfman” myth originated from.

Immediately I was struck by this intersection between the mythological and the mundane, the fantastical and the very real.

But to be brutally honest, my interest in this topic was much more personal. I’d always struggled with my own relationship to my, at the time, unruly facial hair. This potential story felt like a poignant allegory for my issues, though one which I was uncertain how much I’d fully allow myself to explore.

GLAAD and other trans advocates have repeatedly urged cisgender creators to stop writing transition narratives. For one thing, like LGB coming out stories, it’s been done repeatedly and can be reductive if that’s the only story told about trans people. More importantly, the “before during and after transition” stories written by cis people are just not well done or authentic. But for me, Wolfboy is what a transition narrative looks like when a trans person writes it. Were you conscious of trying to write a different type of transition narrative?

I didn’t necessarily set out to write a transition narrative, but as my life and this script proceeded forward in parallel, I soon realized what this story wanted and needed to be.

I began writing Wolfboy about seven years ago, when I was twenty-six. At that time, I was grappling with gender dysphoria, before ultimately reaching the conclusion that I needed to transition in order to essentially survive. It was a thrilling and terrifying time; I was giddy and raw, confronting decades of internalized self-loathing and fear of societal acceptance. I desperately needed to process these feelings, and overcome the insecurities that had festered for so long in my brain. In many ways, writing Wolfboy was essentially the act of me mustering up the courage to transition.

Even at that stage of my life, however, I’d grown tired of the typical “transition narrative” tropes. I didn’t want to underplay the challenges of self-acceptance, but I also didn’t want to see a young trans person struggle endlessly onscreen. There’s enough trans trauma in this world.

As such, employing an allegory (as is so often done in fairytales!) felt like the perfect opportunity to discuss these complicated topics in a way that was unique, honest, and compassionate.

I really appreciate the fact that Aristiana isn’t subjected to the “trans trauma” that we’ve seen in other films.

Other writers might have chosen to leave the transgender story allegorical, but you chose to create Aristiana, a young trans girl who befriends Paul. For me, Paul and Aristiana both represent trans people at different stages of transition: one just starting out and full of fear, and the other comfortable with herself and her place in the world. Is that just me? Or did you choose to write Paul and Aristiana that way?

It’s not just you! This was absolutely intentional on my part. Paul and Aristiana very much represented my internal dialogue with myself, as I was processing my anxieties and overcoming my fears associated with transitioning. Paul was where I was, Aristiana was where I wanted to be.

I love allegories, but one of the problems associated with them is that they can often result in the erasure of a marginalized group of people that they’re intended to represent. As such, it was very important to me from the gestation of this project to depict a vibrant young trans person who was resilient, self-assured, and had already found a community of folks who embraced her.

I wan

ted to create a character that I could have watched at age thirteen and both resonated with and been inspired by.

Not to spoil anything about the story, but there is a scene where Paul gets to talk to an elder who also has hair all over his face and body, and Paul asks him “How hard is my life going to be?” I feel like young queer people often long to ask that question of queer elders, yet we rarely have them in our own families. That scene nearly brought me to tears. Did you have any trans elders in your life that you could talk to, or is this scene a moment you wish you could have had?

Sadly, this scene was absolute wish fulfillment on my part. At that time in my life, I would have very much appreciated a trans mentor figure to provide me with practical knowledge and emotional reassurance. I didn’t have that person, so I did the next best thing, and wrote one (of a sort) into existence!

What was it like to work with Sophie Giannamore as she brought Aristiana to life? Are you still in contact with her?

Sophie’s a brilliant actor and an even more brilliant human being. Getting to collaborate with her was one of the highlights of this whole experience. The first time I saw her and Jaeden Martell rehearse a scene together, I got chills. It’s impossible to imagine the character being portrayed by anyone else.

I’m fortunate enough to still remain in contact with Sophie and her family. I just had a socially distanced dinner with them a month ago! We spent the majority of the time gleefully bad-mouthing the Republican party.

I know you’ve written for AMC’s Preacher and FX’s Legion, is there anything else coming up on the horizon for you that we should keep an eye out for?

I have a few exciting projects currently in development, but unfortunately none that I can speak of officially. But stay tuned! I have an indefatigable determination to force the stories I want to see out into this world.

Check out the trailer below for The True Adventures of Wolfboy which is now available in select theaters and anywhere you can rent or buy movies.

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Pro-Equality Voters Across California Energized Ahead of Historic Election

73% of Equality California members* have already voted, compared to 51% of registered voters statewide*. LGBTQ+ voters and their allies throughout the state are especially energized this year with so much at stake in this election for the LGBTQ+ community and the diverse communities to which LGBTQ+ people belong.

Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, and aligned political action committees have contacted over 429,000 Equality California members registered to vote in the Golden State and more than 602,000 additional California voters identified as supporters of LGBTQ+ equality by mail, phone calls and nearly 211,000 text messages, urging them to support pro-equality candidates for federal, state and local offices, as well as statewide ballot measures endorsed by Equality California. Equality California Votes, an independent federal super PAC aligned with the civil rights organization, and Equality California Political Action Committee are running digital ads in key Congressional, state and local races, as well as general get-out-the-vote ads on the popular gay dating app Grindr in Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego Counties. Last month, Equality California Institute released a PSA encouraging voters to cast their ballots narrated by LGBTQ+ actor and advocate Billy Porter.

Equality California endorsed 161 candidates at the local, state and federal levels in 2020, including 44 openly LGBTQ+ candidates, who are among an historic wave of openly LGBTQ+ candidates running across the country. The organization and aligned state and federal political action committees have spent over $1.5 million in total to educate, energize and mobilize members and pro-equality voters in key races throughout the Golden State:

  • Equality California Political Action Committee has spent over $1.1 million on direct mail, text messages, digital ads and paid phone calls supporting pro-equality candidates for state and local offices, including Sen. Scott Wiener in SD 11, Asm. Susan Talamantes Eggman in SD 5, Chad Mayes in AD 42, Chris Ward in AD 78, Asm. Todd Gloria, who is running for mayor of San Diego, and Christy Holstege, who is running for re-election to the Palm Springs City Council.
  • Equality California Votes has reported spending over $130,000 on direct mail, text messages, digital ads and paid phone calls to turn out pro-equality voters in support of pro-equality candidates in the state’s battleground Congressional districts, including Christy Smith in CA-25, Ammar Campa-Najjar in CA-50, Rep. TJ Cox in CA-21, Rep. Gil Cisneros in CA-39, Rep. Harley Rouda in CA-48, Rep. Katie Porter in CA-45 and Rep. Josh Harder in CA-10.
  • Equality California has spent over $200,000 educating members about pro-equality statewide ballot measures, including Propositions 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 25 — and opposing Proposition 20.

For a complete list of Equality California’s endorsed candidates, visit eqca.org/elections.

*As of 8:00am PST on November 2, 2020, Political Data Inc. early voter data shows 309,795 of the 425,798 Equality California members registered to vote in California have cast a ballot in the November 2020 general election. As of the same time, Political Data Inc.’s 2020 Ballots Returned Tracker shows 11,236,035 Californians of the 22,033,688 registered voters statewide have cast a ballot.

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Equality California is the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization. We bring the voices of LGBTQ people and allies to institutions of power in California and across the United States, striving to create a world that is healthy, just, and fully equal for all LGBTQ people. We advance civil rights and social justice by inspiring, advocating and mobilizing through an inclusive movement that works tirelessly on behalf of those we serve. www.eqca.org

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Trans, Gender Fluid Teens 7 times as Likely to use Drugs; Alcohol before Sex than Cisgender Youth, Study Finds

Trans youth are twice as likely to be depressed and seven times as likely to engage in risky sexual behaviours, a new study has found.

A Minnesota study of 411 teenagers who went to the emergency department at a hospital found that rates of cis and trans teenagers having sex was not significantly different – 20.8 per cent and 23.3 per cent, respectively – but that trans youth were more likely to use drugs or alcohol before sex.

The study found that 35.7 per cent of trans youth reported that they’d drunk alcohol or used substances before sex, compared with only 4.6 per cent of cis youth. Sexually active trans youth were also more likely not to have discussed STIs before sex than cis youth – 21 per cent compared to 6.2 per cent – and 78.5 per cent of trans youth didn’t discuss pregnancy prevention before having sex, compared to 50 per cent of cis youth.

Brianna S McMichael, of Children’s Minnesota in Minneapolis, led the study and reported the findings at a virtual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

McMichael told the meeting that gender-diverse youth are also more likely to say they have been depressed for at least half of the days in the fortnight prior, with a quarter of trans youth compared with 12.6 per cent of cis youth, and trans youth are three times as likely to have tried smoking as cis youth.

“With risky sexual behaviours, smoking, and depression, the next step in our process is to figure out how we safely identify youth and provide appropriate resources around these topics,” McMichael told MedPage Today. “That is a challenge to figure out how we are going to bring it up in clinical care, how often, and in ways that are safe.”

“Gender identity and sexual orientation are still considered sensitive or taboo topics in certain communities,” McMichael said. “Because we’re a pediatric institution, parents come with their children and, depending on the reason they’re visiting the ED, parents may or may not be able to step out.”

The survey asked children about the sex they were assigned at birth and whether they were genderqueer, gender fluid or trans, which all came under the “gender diverse” category used by the researchers. If youth told the survey they were trans, they were then asked if they were trans masc or trans femme.

While most estimates put trans people at around one per cent of the population, the Minnesota study found that 15.4 per cent of youth were gender-diverse.

This could be due to the fact that the hospital where the research took place recently opened a gender clinic for trans youth, as well as being recognised as being supportive of LGBT+ patients.

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Angel Haynes, a ‘Free-spirited, Smart and Giving’ Transgender Woman, Killed

Angel Haynes has become at least the 34th transgender person to be murdered in the United States so far this year.

Haynes, 25, lived in Jackson, Tennessee, but was staying in a hotel in Whitehaven, Memphis when she was shot dead on October 25.

Police were called to the Motel 6 on East Brooks Road, near Fontaine Road, at 2.19am and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Haynes, a cosmetologist, had contacted her friend Shinese Weddle earlier that evening to say that she would be staying at the motel.

“Angel wasn’t only my best friend, she was my sister,” Weddle said, according to WREG.

“She was the only friend I had and now she’s gone.”

The latest victim of an epidemic of violence against trans women, Haynes had promised to call Weddle and let her know that she arrived – but she was shot dead before she got the chance.

 She was taken away from her mom, grandmother, uncle… she was taken away from all of us unexpectedly.

Weddle believes she was likely targeted because she was a Black trans woman, saying they “really don’t like people like that” in the Whitehaven area of Memphis.

Haynes is at least the 34th transgender person murdered this year.

A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family pay for Angel Haynes’ funeral and end-of-life expenses, as she did not have insurance.

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“Angel was free-spirited and wasn’t afraid to be no-one but herself,” the fundraiser reads.

The friend described Haynes as “caring, determined, funny, smart and giving” and added: “Unfortunately, our time with her was cut very very short. She was MURDERED!! She was taken away from her mom, grandmother, uncle… she was taken away from all of us unexpectedly.”

Friends and family gathered on Friday (October 30) where they held a candlelit vigil to remember Haynes.

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Rugby Pro Dan Palmer Comes Out after Years of ‘Despising Himself’

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Dan Palmer has come out as gay, becoming the first Wallabies player and just the second men’s international to do so.

In a moving column for the Sydney Morning Herald, the 32-year-old Australian former rugby union player described his mental health problems and drug abuse as he struggled to accept his sexuality, revealing that he regularly cried himself to sleep and even contemplated suicide.

“I was incredibly frustrated, angry and desperately sad. I despised myself and the life I was living. I was trapped in a false narrative and could see no way out,” he wrote. “Most nights, I cried myself to sleep and routinely numbed myself with a heavy cocktail of opioids.

“I fantasised about disappearing, changing my name and starting my life all over again. It is not an exaggeration to say my own death felt preferable to anybody discovering I was gay.”

After years of emotional turmoil, Palmer said he was partly prompted to come out in response to “the ignorance of Israel Folau”.

Folau was sacked from the New South Waratahs in disgrace last year for his persistent homophobic remarks, including the claims that “hell awaits” gay people and the Australian bushfires are “God’s judgment” for same-sex marriage.

Folau launched a $14 million wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Rugby Australia and eventually received a hefty settlement and an apology from his former employer. The disgraced player has now signed a new deal to play for the RFL Super League team Catalans Dragons.

His explosive comments led Palmer to reflect on how homophobia is internalised by young players, which was a contributing factor in his decision to write the column.

Dan Palmer: ‘Israel Folau will never see the impact he has had on these young people, but if he could, I doubt he could live with himself.’

Dan Palmer continued: “Although it wasn’t the primary impetus for me doing this, the longer the Folau saga dragged on, the more I felt a responsibility to say something.

“To me, what is more important than the damage he has caused rugby is the deep impact he has undoubtedly had on kids who looked up to him, and who struggle every day with understanding their sexuality.

“He will never see the impact he has had on these young people, but if he could, I doubt he could live with himself.”

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