Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., reintroduced the Equality Act in the House of Representatives on Thursday, with a vote on the sweeping LGBTQ rights bill expected next week.
The move brings the bill one step closer to potentially establishing the first federal discrimination protections for LGBTQ people. Specifically, it would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces, public funding and jury service.
The Equality Act passed the Democrat-controlled House in May 2019, but it stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. Now that Democrats have taken control of the Senate, advocates are hopeful that the bill will pass.
“In 2021, every American should be treated with respect and dignity,” Cicilline, who has introduced the bill every year since 2015, said in a statement. “Yet, in most states, LGBTQ people can be discriminated against because of who they are, or who they love. It is past time for that to change.”
Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin also announced that they would reintroduce the bill in the Senate next week when the Senate floor reopens for bill introductions.
“All of us go to work and school, go home and go shopping, and none of us should have to keep our families hidden or pretend to be someone we’re not to do those things,” Merkley, who wrote the Equality Act, said in a statement. “But in 29 states, Americans can still be evicted, be thrown out of a restaurant, or be denied a loan because of who they are or whom they love.”
Before Cicilline reintroduced the bill, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., announced in a letter to colleagues Tuesday that the House would vote on the Equality Act next week. In May 2019, it passed by a 236-173 vote, with eight Republicans voting for it. However, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., never took it up in the Senate.
In October of last year, Biden told Mark Segal, publisher of Philadelphia Gay News and a longtime LGBTQ rights activist, that passing the bill is “essential to ensuring that no future president can ever again roll back civil rights and protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.”
He added that he would also direct his Cabinet to enforce the Equality Act across federal agencies. “Too many states do not have laws that explicitly protect LGBTQ+ individuals from discrimination,” Biden said in the interview. “It’s wrong to deny people access to services or housing because of who they are or who they love.”
‘A clear, consistent nationwide statement’
The Equality Act was first introduced by Rep. Bella Abzug, D-N.Y., in 1974, but the bill was eventually killed.
Cicilline introduced the current version in 2015, just after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage constitutional nationwide. Unlike previous versions of the act, the current version includes protections from discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.
LGBTQ people across the U.S. currently have some level of protection from discrimination through state and local laws and Biden’s expansion of workplace discrimination protections through the Supreme Court’s Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, ruling last year. However, advocates say the Equality Act is needed to fill in the gaps and ensure that all Americans, regardless of where they reside, are protected.
“While President Biden’s Executive Order implementing the Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling was a crucial step in addressing discrimination against LGBTQ people, it’s still vital that Congress pass the Equality Act to codify the Bostock decision to ensure protection in key areas of life including where existing civil rights laws do not have protections on the basis of sex,” Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights group, said in a statement.
Kevin Jennings, CEO of the LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal, said the legislation will give clarity to employers and landlords, among others, about discrimination.
“In some instances, individuals lose rights and protections the moment they cross the border into a neighboring state, underscoring that the current patchwork of protections for LGBTQ people is inadequate,” Jennings said in a statement. “In addition, as evidenced by the thousands of phone calls to our Help Desk we receive each year, many employers, landlords and lenders still haven’t gotten the message that discrimination is just wrong, which is why we need the absolute clarity of the Equality Act, and we need it now.”
Mara Keisling, executive director at the National Center for Transgender Equality, said the bill is especially important for transgender people who face a disproportionate amount of violence.
“No act of Congress can end bias overnight or stop all attacks against transgender people,” Keisling said in a statement. “But the Equality Act is a clear, consistent and nationwide statement that says our country believes that all people – including those who are transgender – should be treated fairly and with respect. For transgender people, every trip to the store, every dinner out, every job interview or attempt to rent an apartment carries the risk of disrespect, discrimination and potentially violence. The Equality Act will help allow transgender people to live their lives openly and without fear.”
The Log Cabin Republicans thanked Donald Trump for “standing up for family” in a bizarre Presidents’ Day video littered with falsehoods.
The gay Republican group, which claims to represent “LGBT conservative and allies” but rarely challenges rampant homophobia within the GOP, put out an odd love letter to Donald Trump to mark Presidents’ Day.
Trump is praised for “standing up for our American ideals of family, freedom and liberty” by one participant, while others resort to gaslighting as they peddle a number of abject falsehoods.
The video claims that “one of the best things that he did was launch a global campaign to decriminalise homosexuality”, though there is no evidence to suggest any such campaign ever actually existed beyond a press release, while Trump left the position of international LGBT+ envoy sitting empty for his entire term.
The group suggests that Trump was the “the first pro-gay president when entering office”, a bizarre claim given he made no pledges on LGBT+ rights at all in 2016 or 2020 aside from his pledge to sign a proposed law to permit anti-LGBT+ discrimination on the grounds of religion.
Trump is also described as the “first Republican President in American history to enter office as a supporter of marriage equality”. In reality, ahead of the 2016 election Trump said he would “strongly consider” appointing Supreme Court justices to overturn equal marriage, before committing to picking justices from a list vetted by anti-LGBT+ groups.
Indeed, several of these points were made succinctly in 2016 by none other than the Log Cabin Republicans, when the group pointedly declined to endorse Trump’s presidential bid, citing his anti-LGBT+ policies.
Internet not impressed with the Log Cabin Republicans.
Suffice to say, the clip has not gone down well outside of the increasingly-small circle of gay Trump firebrands.
A Twitter user quipped: “Just when you think LCR can’t be any more ridiculous, they never let you down.”
Another pointed out: “Less than two hours after Trump and his virulently anti-LGBTQ activist vice president Mike Pence were sworn into office, all mentions of LGBTQ issues were removed from the official White House webpage.”
One respondent said: “To me, Log Cabin Republicans are like Women for Trump. They take pleasure in remaining second-class citizens as long as they think they’re slightly elevated above other groups who are being treated like second-class citizens.”
The Book of Anna, by Joy Ladin, explores the emotional landscape of life after the Holocaust through the eyes of fictional protagonist Anna Asher. This month, EOAGH books will release a revised & expanded edition.
We meet Holocaust survivor Anna first through detailed diary entries. These day-to-day accounts of work, home, & doctor visits deepen our connection to Anna as an individual we could easily meet next door, save for the letter-headers that remind us that we meet her in Prague in the 1950s. These diary sections ground us in Anna’s interior & double as allegory. Coupled with sections of poetry, we shift genre & scope throughout the collection.
Originally published by Sheep Meadow Press in 2007, EOAGH’s updated The Book of Anna explores grief in the aftermath of the Holocaust in a way that breaks the heart open—Ladin opens the collection with a letter from Anna after receiving a poetry rejection claiming “My muse is rage, not beauty./Was. There are no muses for me now…It is time for me to write, if I write at all, the true story of my life.” We soon meet Anna’s neighbor, Suzanne Wischnauer, in the second letter. A fellow survivor of the camps, she first appears because she “smells gas.” Anna explains “I know what she smells. It’s seeping from the story I’ve started to tell.” So often we see stories of the Holocaust through textbooks, facts, museums, in a way that creates distance from the gravity & trauma of this collective wound. Ladin breaks the objectivity of history; Ladin makes the historical personal—the impossible grief of tragedy, of surviving the unspeakable. Through Anna Asher’s eyes, we are given insight into a survivor’s psyche in a way that only poetry can create. The reader is allowed to witness the irreconcilable faith of the narrator paired with their irreconcilable grief.
From linear narrative to nonlinear poetry, Ladin reconciles the irreconcilable by cultivating our presence in the collection’s world, where the unspeakable is spoken. Through sectional arrangement & timeless lines, The Book of Anna decentralizes the common fallacy that history is to be “consumed” as a separate, distant past. Here, as the epigraph reminds us, “Nothing is harder to predict than the past.” We are never looking back, but rather looking on & looking in.
While the journal texts create a linear narrative, the fragmented lyric poems center snapshots of Anna’s day to day comings and goings. We are allowed to witness Anna’s subconscious processing—a channel from trauma to healing—a momentary look into the larger connections, both triggered & opened, by the world. There are ants in the kitchen. When Anna kills them, she immediately thinks of Hitler and Stalin. When the ants reappear, they remind her of “her girlhood.” Time becomes seamless—limitless—an act of impermanence in a senseless world. Where the journal collects, the poems scavenge. We are the digger and the dirt, the earth and what the earth can and cannot hold.
At times numb, at times overtaken, Anna Asher is constantly searching for the truth—through doctor visits, theological consultations, relationships, sex, anything and everything she can get her hands on to reckon with the living, with the present moment, with continuing. As Ladin’s poem “Golem” reminds us, “Emet or Met, Truth or Death—” speaking a theme that threads The Book of Anna, reflecting the narrator’s refusal of death & search of truth in the perpetual present.
While Anna cannot escape the past, she still chooses to write through death. And with this book, Joy Ladin has chosen to write towards truth. Powerful, unsettling, and breathtaking, The Book of Anna is a must-read for 2021.
The Book of Anna
by Joy Ladin
EOAGH Books
Paperback, 9781792307225
March 2021
Today, Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer Kahan (D-Orinda), in partnership with Equality California, introduced AB 493 that will include death certificates among the official documents with nonbinary options for gender identity.
The bill will expand on Senator Toni Atkins’s 2017 legislation, SB 179, which authorized nonbinary identification on birth certificates, court documents, and driver’s licenses. California is leading the nation in inclusive recognition of gender identities, and this bill continues and strengthens that work.
“Adding nonbinary as a gender option ensures nonbinary individuals’ right to equal treatment under the law, and is a needed step towards true inclusivity throughout our legal codes” said Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan. “Historically, US law has not recognized the many ways people experience gender. This causes serious pain and marginalization for nonbinary communities, with their existence denied on documents that identify them.”
It is essential to codify inclusive language to establish uniformity and parity across California’s legal system. Incorrectly assigning deceased nonbinary individuals a gender is disrespectful to their memories. Official erasure hurts grieving loved ones, as well as the larger nonbinary community.
“Affirming someone’s gender identity is just as important in death as it is in life,” said Equality California Executive Director Rick Chavez Zbur. “We owe it to our nonbinary community members — and their loved ones — to correctly recognize the gender identity of all Californians on their death certificates. Equality California applauds Assemblymember Bauer-Kahan for continuing the work started by Pro Tem Toni Atkins in 2017 to right this wrong.”
Nonbinary youth who reported their pronouns were not respected by those in their lives were twice as likely to attempt suicide as those whose correct pronouns were used. With suicide rates among nonbinary youth quadruple those of their peers, affirming language on death certificates is all the more essential.
This bill takes the precedent set by Senator Atkins in SB 179, as well as the current practices of using nonbinary-inclusive language and codifying it to bring code in line with California’s values, and ensures long-term protection of the nonbinary community’s civil rights.
AB 493 secures in code that nonbinary individuals are identified as such on their death certificates.
Coauthors of the bill include Assemblymembers Evan Low (D–San Jose), Alex Lee (D-Santa Clara), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Corona), Chris Ward (D-San Diego), David Chiu (San Francisco), Cristina Garcia (D- Bell Gardens), Mark Stone (D-Santa Cruz), Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), and Senators Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) Susan Talamantes-Eggman (D-Castro Valley) and John Laird (D-Santa Cruz).
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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
Rush Limbaugh, a talk radio pioneer who saturated America’s airwaves with cruel bigotries, lies and conspiracy theories for over three decades, amassing a loyal audience of millions and transforming the Republican Party in the process, has died, his wife revealed at the beginning of his show on Wednesday. He was 70 years old.
Limbaugh announced in February 2020 that he had been diagnosed with advanced stage 4 lung cancer.
Former President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the 2020 State of the Union, calling Limbaugh “the greatest fighter and winner you will ever meet.”
Perhaps no moment better encapsulated Limbaugh’s legacy, nor demonstrated the immense influence he came to wield in Washington.
The medal was a just reward: Trump’s ascension to the presidency couldn’t have happened without Limbaugh’s brand of right-wing media.
The modern Republican party often functioned with Limbaugh as a fulcrum. President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, once called Limbaugh “the voice and intellectual force of the Republican Party.” Limbaugh would at times massage the failures of the party and its leaders, dismissing obvious policy or political failures as simply part of liberal conspiracies.
But he also helped set the agenda. When a Republican politician promoting racist and sexist policies could only use a dog whistle, Limbaugh provided a bull horn — he was, for example, an early progenitor of the racist birther conspiracy theory about Obama that Trump would later use to fuel his political career.
For decades, Limbaugh was associated with the far-right fringes of the Republican Party. In 1995, only days after Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, President Bill Clinton issued a blistering attack at a speech in Minneapolis in which he said the “nation’s airwaves … spread hate, they leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable. … It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.”
Limbaugh vehemently protested the characterization, assuming that it was about him — which in all likelihood it was. “Make no mistake about it: Liberals intend to use this tragedy for their own political gain,” he said on the radio afterward.
People did take up Clinton’s charge to speak against Limbaugh’s style of “reckless speech and behavior,” but without much success. While remaining a controversial figure and at times suffering advertising boycotts and derision from the mainstream media, less than 25 years, rather than be condemned by another American president, Limbaugh was given a medal.
Decades Of Hate
A full accounting of Limbaugh’s lies and exaggerations; his racism and his misogyny; his homophobia and his Islamophobia; and his sheer cruelty could fill books — and have — but even a cursory overview of his lowlights makes his prejudice clear.
In 2003, he was forced to resign from ESPN after stating that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was only receiving praise because the media was “very desirous that a Black quarterback do well.” In 2004, Limbaugh said the NBA should be renamed the T.B.A. —“the Thug Basketball Association.” He then added: “Stop calling them teams. Call ’em gangs.” He similarly whined that watching the NFL was like watching “a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.”
Once, after arguing with a Black man who called into his show, he told the caller to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back.“ Another time, Limbaugh asked his audience, “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?” while discussing the Black civil rights activist and politician. Limbaugh once ludicrously asserted that “if any race of people should not have guilt about slavery, it’s Caucasians.” He invited a guest on air who sang “Barack, the Magic Negro” to the tune of “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” In 2016, he read an essay on air that had been penned by a well-known white supremacist.
Limbaugh’s radio career was also one long exercise in misogyny, perhaps best summed up by his thesis that “feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.”
In one of his most infamous episodes, he called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” in 2012 after she testified in Congress about the importance of women having access to birth control.
Rush Limbaugh smoking a cigar while taping his radio show.
Nearly every marginalized group or minority bore the brunt of Limbaugh’s bigotry. Once, while speaking about the genocide of America’s indigenous peoples, Limbaugh said, “Holocaust 90 million Indians? Only 4 million left? They all have casinos, what’s to complain about?”
Limbaugh frequently mirrored white nationalist talking points when discussing Latino immigrants, whom he described as lazy and dependent on the government. He called migrants at America’s southern border an “invasion.”
An opponent of marriage equality — which he suggested was “perverted” and “depraved” — Limbaugh argued in 2016 that legalizing gay marriage would lead to bestiality. “What happens if you love your dog?” he said. He once referred to transgender people as being mentally ill.
Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Limbaugh also frequently denigrated those who were HIV positive, saying the best way to stop the spread of the virus was to “not ask another man to bend over and make love at the exit point.” He spoke out against federal funding to fight the virus too, calling it the “only federally protected virus.”
His Father’s Son
Limbaugh’s journey to becoming one of America’s foremost bigots began in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where he was born to a prominent local political family on January 12, 1951. His father, a lawyer and Republican activist, would sternly lecture about politics in the home and rant against communism. Limbaugh later called his father “the smartest man I ever met.”
At age 14, Limbaugh says his parents bought him a Remco Carevelle radio set, which enabled him to broadcast on AM channels within a few hundred square feet of his house. In high school, Limbaugh worked as a DJ at KGMO, a local radio station co-owned by his father.
“Even when I was a little boy, I dreamed of being on the radio,” Limbaugh told biographer Ze’ev Chafetts. “In the mornings getting ready for school I’d hear the guy on the radio, and he just sounded free and happy, like he was having a wonderful time. That’s what I wanted, too.”
Limbaugh enrolled at Southeast Missouri State University but dropped out after a year to pursue a career in radio. Throughout the 1970s, he worked at different radio stations in Missouri and Pennsylvania but was often fired after clashing with management. He eventually landed a steady on-air gig in Sacramento, California, before getting hired to host his own show at WABC in New York, which remained his flagship station throughout much of his career. Subscribe to the Politics email.From Washington to the campaign trail, get the latest politics news.
As his fame rose, Limbaugh liked to explain his success by claiming he had “talent on loan from God,” but it was a Reagan-era Federal Communications Commission policy shift that allowed Limbaugh to reach national infamy and create the mold for modern right-wing media stardom. In 1987, the FCC abolished the decades-old Fairness Doctrine which mandated that TV and radio broadcasters present both sides of controversial issues. This meant that stations were no longer required to feature opposing views, and instead radio hosts like Limbaugh could spend hours spouting off right-wing fallacies without challenge.
Decades before online extremists and pro-Trump trolls used memes and ironic detachment to make their far-right beliefs seem less repugnant, Limbaugh’s employed the same strategy. He popularized cartoonish terms such as “Commie-Libs” and “Feminazi,” while also claiming that abortion represented a “modern day Holocaust.” He used mocking voices and affectations as he belittled women’s rights, Black activists and the gay community. His persona as an absurd blowhard gave audiences an excuse to brush off Limbaugh’s mainstreaming of far-right views as part of an act — just Rush being Rush, or El Rushbo, as he was often called.
Becoming A National Star
The end of the Fairness Doctrine allowed for Limbaugh’s brand of unhinged right-wing rhetoric and shock jock persona to become a media phenomenon. By 1990, his nationally syndicated show aired on 300 stations ― a number that more than doubled over the next four years.
Limbaugh’s rise turned him into a ubiquitous cultural figure in the 1990s. Limbaugh’s voice echoed for hours a day on syndicated radio stations around the country; he appeared on magazine covers and in newspaper profiles. His success made him into a curiosity for the mainstream media, but little of the coverage properly grappled with what Limbaugh was doing to radicalize his listeners.
As his radio audience grew, Limbaugh got his own half-hour television show on Fox in 1992 and created a prototype for prime time opinion shows hosted by right wing pundits like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. The show’s executive producer was Limbaugh’s longtime friend Roger Ailes, who would go on to launch Fox News in 1996 and run it for two decades until he was fired for widespread sexual harassment.
Limbaugh’s political influence made him beloved among Republican Party elites. When the GOP won the House for the first time in 40 years in 1994, Republicans called him the “majority maker.” At then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s victory party, they sold “Rush Limbaugh for President!” T-shirts.
But Limbaugh never fully tied his fate to any one politician, always staying focused on his own success above all else. “I don’t define my success by who wins elections, because politicians are going to come and go, and I’m going to be around as long as I choose to be,” Limbaugh told Time Magazine in 2008.
Like any successful right wing media star, Limbaugh had a financial angle behind his vitriol and an appetite to center himself in controversies. He turned his infamy into extreme wealth: In 2008, he signed an an eight-year deal for his show worth around $400 million. He bought a private jet and a fleet of luxury cars to usher him from place to place.
“I wanted to be the reason people listened,” Limbaugh told The New York Times in 1990. “That’s how you pad your pocket.”
While he claimed to represent the views of the average American, Limbaugh lived for years as a caricature of an East Coast elite in his luxury condo overlooking Central Park in New York City. He sold the property in 2010 for $11.5 million, moving primarily to a sprawling mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, where he lived until his death.
Meanwhile, Limbaugh used his platform to condemn policies designed to actually help working class Americans. He fervently opposed the expansion of public health care and said an Obama-era health insurance program for low-income children “ought to die.” He condemned taxes against the ultra-rich, such as himself, and fled New York after the proposal of increased taxes on millionaires.
In 2006, Limbaugh — despite once saying that all drug addicts should be convicted and “sent up the river” — struck a plea deal with prosecutors in Florida after being charged with prescription fraud. Limbaugh, who admitted to being an oxycodone addict, was accused of “doctor shopping,” the act of deliberately deceiving physicians in order to receive multiple prescriptions. Although Limbaugh had previously told his listeners that “too many whites are getting away with drug use” and should all be sent to prison, Limbaugh avoided time behind bars himself, paying a $30,000 fine and agreeing to stay clean.
Rush Limbaugh shortly after being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by First Lady Melania Trump during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in 2020.
The President’s Ear
Limbaugh was still the most popular radio host in America by the time of the 2016 election. Although initially supportive of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) during the Republican primary, he became a staunch supporter of the eventual nominee, Donald Trump. Limbaugh could be counted on to support the president during some of the most disgraceful episodes of Trump’s sole term in the White House.
In 2017 white supremacists, emboldened by Trump’s presidency, gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, for the “Unite The Right” rally, the largest such gathering in a generation. A neo-Nazi rammed his car into counter-protesters at the rally, killing one person. Trump initially refused to condemn the white supremacists, and Limbaugh swiftly came to the president’s defense, blaming anti-racist activists for the violence.
It was part of a pattern for Limbaugh, who repeatedly tried to downplay white supremacists during Trump’s four years in the White House, a period of rising far-right terror across the globe. After an avowed white supremacist massacred 51 Muslims inside two New Zealand mosques in 2019, Limbaugh speculated on air that the shooter “may in fact be a leftist” who shot Muslims “to smear” those on the right.
A day after a mob of Trump supporters — among them white supremacists and militia members — stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, ransacking the seat of American democracy, Limbaugh falsely told his listeners no looting had occurred and that the protesters only “took selfies.”
Limbaugh then endorsed the political violence, saying he disagreed with those “who say that any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable,” before invoking America’s Founding Fathers. “I am glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, the actual Tea Party guys, the men at Lexington and Concord didn’t feel that way,” he said.
It’s no surprise that Limbaugh sought to downplay the historic insurrection, which Trump incited. Limbaugh was a close confidant of the president, and he and Trump often went golfing together in Florida. The president sometimes called into Limbaugh’s radio show, and Limbaugh claimed they spoke on the phone weekly.
Their relationship culminated with Trump awarding Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the State of the Union address in February 2020. In his speech, Trump heralded Limbaugh as “a special man” who has inspired millions of Americans through his “decades of tireless devotion to our country.” Limbaugh had announced the day before that he had lung cancer.
The next month, when the coronavirus pandemic began sweeping across the U.S., Limbaugh promoted conspiracy theories about the virus and its death toll. Despite that, Vice President Mike Pence, the head of the White House coronavirus task force, appeared on his show multiple times during this period.
Limbaugh spent his final months on air downplaying the historic pandemic and spreading dangerous medical misinformation, including calling coronavirus “the common cold” and telling listeners “we have to remember that people die every day in America.”
On the day Limbaugh died, the coronavirus had killed more than 488,000Americans.
Pennsylvania lawmaker Brian Sims made headlines back in 2012 when he became the first openly gay man elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature. Now he’s looking to make history again by announcing his run for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania.
“I have a lot of hope when I look at the people across the country that decided over these last number of years that they’d had enough. That they looked at a lack of leadership and thought that they could do better and oftentimes they’re right,” said Sims in his announcement video.
My name is Ranae and I live in Dublin, Ireland with my wife Audrey. Our daughters Ava and Arya are 4 and 2. Our girls have two mothers, yet I am still seen as a single parent.
Audrey and I were an unlikely couple from the start. She was in her fourth and I was in my first year of acting in a theater school in Dublin. We were paired together at an open day and became friends. We were so different, yet we immediately clicked. I knew Audrey wasn’t straight, but over the course of the next year, I had no idea that I was developing feelings for her. The day before my 21st birthday the realization hit me like a bolt of lightning. The feelings I had for her were so much more than just friendship. The rest, as they say, is history.
We have been together for 12 years now, and married for five. Audrey and I always knew we wanted to have kids and talked about this from the moment we started dating. We both have lots of siblings and knew that life wouldn’t be complete for us without having our own kids. I always dreamed about being pregnant and going through the process of growing and birthing a baby. Audrey, on the other hand, didn’t really want to be pregnant as long as she could become a parent. It was almost an unspoken thing that I would be the one to carry our child, should we go down the IVF route.
One night in early 2015, after a few glasses of wine, I had an idea. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could use Audrey’s eggs but I would carry the baby? This way, our children would genetically be Audreys, but I would be the birth mother. At the time it was just a silly idea we had. Little did we know that conversation would change the course of our lives. We decided to Google it and lo and behold, we found out that it wasn’t that crazy of an idea. Reciprocal IVF was actually an incredibly popular fertility treatment option for same-sex couples. At that moment, we knew that Reciprocal IVF was right for us.
When we tried to book a clinic appointment in Dublin, we were disappointed to find out that they wouldn’t treat us in Ireland. Back in 2015, Reciprocal IVF wasn’t licensed yet. In fact it’s only been licensed in the last year. We were given the option to do IUI/IVF with my own eggs, but at that point we had our hearts set on using Audrey’s eggs. Despite the setback, it made us more determined to find a way. We found a clinic in Spain and to be honest it was a bit of a crazy time for us. We didn’t know any other LGBTQ+ parents, let alone any who had undergone treatment abroad. We had no clue what we were doing, and made so many mistakes along the way. A few months later, we conceived our first child with the help of an anonymous sperm donor.
Conceiving our first child in the wake of marriage equality in Ireland was like a dream. Wrapped up in our little bubble of happiness, we went through that pregnancy with a sense of hope for our future. We got married when I was five months along and we celebrated a future that was finally equal. Little did we know what lay ahead of us.
Toward the end of my pregnancy, we learned something that devastated us. LGBTQ+ parents in Ireland were still not equal. I remember feeling so overwhelmed with emotions and going through various stages of shock. My first reaction was ‘but we are married and we voted for marriage equality last year.’
After consulting with a solicitor, we found out more. From the moment our daughter was born I would be a married woman but considered a single mother. I would be forced to register myself as a sole parent and our family would not be recognized under the law, simply because we were a same-sex couple. The simple difference was that I was married to a woman and not a man and because of this, Audrey would be a legal stranger to her own child.
There are some moments that stick with me. Moments that were stolen from us as a young family and ones that we will never get back. The day we registered Ava’s birth, we walked into the registration office and saw all the proud parents with their babies. When they called us into the room, the registrar sat down behind her desk. Without looking up she asked, ‘OK, so which one of you is the mother?’ We said, ‘We both are.’ ‘But which one of you gave birth?’ I said, ‘I did!’ She looked at me and said, ‘OK Ranae, I will be directing all my questions at you, if that’s OK?’ From that point on, she didn’t even look at Audrey. It felt like a kick in the gut. It was just all wrong.
That was the day I promised Audrey I was never going to stop fighting until we fixed this. I joked and said, well at least this will all be sorted out by the time we have another baby. How wrong I was. Fast forward to New Year’s Eve 2018 and I lie bleeding in the recovery suite with a second daughter, listening to fireworks, my heart breaking because I knew we were still in the same position as before. As it stands today, I am considered a single parent to our daughters. Our children, along with countless others in Ireland, are denied the right to a legal connection with both of their parents simply because their parents are a same-sex couple.
Much has changed in the last five years. In 2019, following on from an online petition that I started, we started a campaign called ‘Equality For Children’ along with a group of other LGBTQ+ parents. Since then we have been successful at lobbying the government for change and raising awareness of these issues within Ireland. Legislation was finally passed in 2020 that would allow certain LGBTQ+ families to have both parents legally recognized. Sadly it’s legislation that will only cover certain methods of conception. It’s great to see progress in the right direction, but it’s galling for anyone who falls outside of this and is still being actively discriminated against. Only female couples who have conceived in an Irish clinic with a non anonymous donor and a child born in Ireland are covered.
I can’t really put into words how damaging this has been for our family. To be reminded every day that you are ‘less than.’ That you are not equal. For your kids to be punished because their parents aren’t straight. In practical terms it’s an issue for children when one of their parents is unable to give medical consent, unable to travel freely with them, unable to make decisions on their behalf. But it goes beyond that, the emotional and physiological damage it has done to our families is immeasurable.
Following on from lengthy legal proceedings, our family soon hopes to be recognized. If we are, we will be one of the lucky ones. What about all those who fall outside of this? Are their children less deserving of equality? Because they have two dads? Because they were conceived outside of a clinic? Because they have a known donor? Because they weren’t born in Ireland?
This fight will never be over until every child of an LGBTQ+ parent in Ireland has the same rights and protections as any other child in the country.
Ranae von Meding is a writer and a same-sex parent to two young daughters with her wife Audrey. They live in Dublin, Ireland where she has become an outspoken advocate for equal rights for children of LGBTQ+ families. She is the co-founder and CEO of ‘Equality For Children.’ You can find her on Instagram at @ranaevonmeding.
A study that could one day lead to a potential HIV vaccine has shown promising results, scientists have said.
Researchers from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and Scripps Research say that a phase-one trial has shown “proof in principle” for a new type of vaccine that could be used against the virus.
An effective vaccine to prevent HIV infection has proved elusive for nearly four decades, not least because the virus constantly evolves into different strains to evade the immune system.
However, the trial found success in “stimulating production of rare immune cells needed to start the process of generating antibodies” that could neutralise diverse strains of HIV.
The trial succeeded in generating cell production in 97 per cent of participants, though researchers stressed it is only a first step.
Professor William Schief, executive director of vaccine design at IAVI’s Neutralizing Antibody Center, said in a release: “This study demonstrates proof of principle for a new vaccine concept for HIV, a concept that could be applied to other pathogens, as well.
“With our many collaborators on the study team, we showed that vaccines can be designed to stimulate rare immune cells with specific properties, and this targeted stimulation can be very efficient in humans.
“We believe this approach will be key to making an HIV vaccine and possibly important for making vaccines against other pathogens.”
The researchers are now partnering with biotechnology company Moderna to develop and test an mRNA-based vaccine – the same radical approach employed in the creation of coronavirus vaccines.
Former Trump official Richard Grenellis reportedly considering a run to become governor of California.
Republicans are currently pushing a recall effort in a bid to remove the state’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, which could trigger a ballot on replacing the official.
The move, which comes amid rising anger from conservatives over coronavirus restrictions in the state, has sparked inevitable jockeying over who should be put forward to replace him.
Richard Grenell hints at California bid with attack on Gavin Newsom.
Politicoreports that Grenell, one of the few openly gay figures associated with the Trump White House, is planning to announce a campaign if the recall effort qualifies for the ballot.
As the effort gathers steam, Grenell has penned an op-ed for Fox Newspressing the odd argument that Newsom has taken wildly unpopular actions to clamp down on coronavirus due to the “selfish ambitions of a career politician”.
Former Trump advisor Richard Grenell (Getty/Chip Somodevilla)
Grenell is said to be courting conservative donors in the state, though he denied suggestions he is already interviewing campaign strategists to lay the groundwork for a run.
It is unclear why the obedient Trump fanatic believes he would appeal to voters in the solidly-Democratic state, where Donald Trump attracted only a third of the vote in the 2020 presidential race.
However, Republican operative Carl DeMaio told Politico that Grenell’s association to Trump would “get the base to show up” in the race, adding that he “would have more name ID than the other names being considered”.
‘Gaslight Grenell’ was in charge of Trump LGBT+ voter outreach.
Richard Grenell held a disastrous role ahead of the 2020 election as the head of LGBT+ voter outreach, earning the moniker “Gaslight Grenell” due to his willingness to obfuscate anti-LGBT+ actions taken under the Trump administration.
One figure who is definitely not running, meanwhile, is Caitlyn Jenner. The ex-Olympian and former I Am Cait star made clear she had no interest in the vacancy, after rumours she was preparing a bid.
Ari Gold, the charismatic queer musician who was mentored by RuPaul, opened for Chaka Khan and sung with pop-soul titan Diana Ross, has died. He was 47.
Performing since he was just five years old, Gold went from voicing the squeaky Cabbage Patch Kids and recording catchy jingles to touring the world with Cyndi Lauper and modelling for Boy George.
Born in 1974, Gold quickly seized the house music scene as an openly gay musician in New York City, US, in the early 2000s. Living up to his surname, Gold spun up award-winning and chart-topping hits such as “See Through Me” and “Where the Music Takes You”.
The Bronx native’s music, equal parts finger-snapping and lyrically powerful, often explored spirituality and sexuality. They were even featured on NBC’s Scrubs and ABC’s Cougar Town.
Friends described Gold as a world-wise and ambitious record producer who paved the way for future queer talent – he sang of same-sex love in Manhattan music clubs and honky-tonks years before mainstream artists would feel comfortable doing the same.
“Until we meet again, dear friend,” wrote RuPaul on Twitter Sunday (14 February) in a series of touching tributes, describing the songwriter as a “lovely, gentle man”.
They had first met in 2002 and remained close ever since, with Gold appearing in the queen of drag’s 2007 film, Starrbooty.
