The Trump administration is moving to scrap an Obama-era policy that protected LGBTQ patients from discrimination, alarming health experts who warn that the regulatory rollback could harm vulnerable people during a pandemic.
The health department is close to finalizing its long-developing rewrite of Obamacare’s Section 1557 provision, which barred health care discrimination based on sex and gender identity. The administration’s final rule on Thursday was circulated at the Justice Department, a step toward publicly releasing the regulation in the coming days, said two people with knowledge of the pending rule.
The White House on Friday morning also updated a regulatory dashboard to indicate that the rule was under review. Advocates fear that it would allow hospitals and health workers to more easily discriminate against patients based on their gender or sexual orientation.
Read the full article. As I’ve previously reported, this change has been long coming. Apparently the Trump administration figures they can finally push it through relatively unnoticed during the relentless pandemic news. They may be right.
We are very excited to announce that this Sunday, April 26, The Spahr Center is partnering with CenterLink and GLAAD to present “Together in Pride: You Are Not Alone,” a star studded livestream event to bring the LGBTQ community together and honor our frontline healthcare workers during COVID-19.
We’ll also raise important funds for CenterLink and our partners at over 250 local community centers in the U.S. and around the world! A portion of the money raised will go directly to The Spahr Center. Here’s how to watch on Sunday, April 26 and 8pm ET / 5pm PT:Signup to watchhere and you’ll get a reminder email to tune in when the program goes live!Tune in on our Facebook page hereFollow @GLAAD on Twitter and Facebook to watch liveRSVP to the Facebook event here and invite your friends!
The livestream will share stories of LGBTQ front-line doctors and essential workers. Hosted by Lilly Singh and Billy Eichner. Featuring performances by Ke$ha and Melissa Etheridge. Messages of pride and support will be sent to LGBTQ youth from special guests including Pete & Chasten Buttigieg, Billy Porter, Rosie O’Donnell, Matt Bomer, Adam Lambert, Bebe Rexha, Dan Levy, Mj Rodriguez, Wilson Cruz, Kathy Griffin, Gigi Gorgeous, Nats Getty, Michelle Visage, Javier Muñoz, Sean Hayes, Sharon Stone, and Tatiana Maslany. More names will be announced soon! LGBTQ community centers, including The Spahr Center, serve as safe spaces for nearly 40,000 LGBTQ people each week and 2 million people each year. During the pandemic, LGBTQ community centers are still providing critical services such as medical care, mental health counseling, virtual support groups, filling prescriptions, providing hot meals and check-in phone calls for older adults, serving as shelters for homeless youth, distributing nonperishable food items and hygiene products, case management, HIV testing, and hosting virtual engagement activities to decrease social isolation. Given the current financial crisis and loss of revenue, LGBT community centers could be forced to shrink our services, meaning tens of thousands of LGBTQ people could go without care. We hope you will tune in to support The Spahr Center and our partner LGBTQ+ community centers. Stay safe and stay healthy. Sincerely,Dana Van Gorder
PS: Don’t forget to sign up for the livestream: here
A UCSF doctor did some math to estimate the number of lives the San Francisco Bay Area may have saved by jurisdictions acting quickly and residents following strict shelter-in-place orders.
Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology and the head of the division of infectious disease and global epidemiology, believes some 34,000 to 44,000 lives have been saved partially through the region’s early action, such as San Francisco Mayor London Breed issuing a state of emergency on February 28.
Rutherford pointed out that Breed’s declaration nudged people to start staying home nearly three weeks before the shelter-in-place order was issued, dramatically limiting people’s movement.
How did Rutherford get to these numbers? First, he looked at the worst-case scenario forecasts for deaths in the United States if no precautions were taken.
A top disease modeler at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecast that the U.S. could see as many as 1.7 million deaths. The C.D.C. didn’t release the number to the general public, but the New York Times obtained screenshots from a presentation done on a phone conference and verified the data with scientists on the call. What’s more, a model from the Imperial College of London forecast 2.2 million Americans could die as a result of the coronavirus pandemic if people went on with their daily lives as disease spread.
Rutherford figured the six Bay Area counties that issued shelter-in-place orders on March 16 — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara — make up about 2% of the U.S. population, considering these counties have about 6.6 million residents compared to the 328.2 million U.S. population.
Two percent of 1.7 million is 34,000 and of 2.2 million is 44,000; these numbers provide a very rough estimate of the number of deaths that could have occurred if no precautions were taken, according to the C.D.C. and Imperial College in London. In reality, Rutherford said, “We’ve had 200 deaths so far. That’s the delta. That’s the difference. That’s a lot.”
The reservation site Open Table is one indicator offering additional proof that people in the Bay Area were staying home earlier than those in other parts of the country. Rutherford said reservations dropped dramatically in San Francisco after February 28 while in Los Angeles and New York, the data shows people continuing to go out.
A Chinese lesbian couple’s landmark court battle over the custody of their two children has stirred debate over LGBTQ rights and put a spotlight on a legal vacuum created by the absence of a same-sex marriage law.
Shanghai resident Zhang Peiyi split up with her partner last year. The partner has since broken off communication and taken their two toddlers away to an unknown location.
So Zhang has turned to the courts, filing a case in the eastern province of Zhejiang this month, to fight for custody of one of the children, the one she gave birth to, and visitation rights to the other.
A court has accepted the case but hearings have yet to begin.
“Even if I can find them, I won’t be able to see them,” Zhang told Reuters. “I thought who else can help me? I could only find a lawyer.”
The case is the first of its kind in China and has attracted media attention. It is likely to be complicated by the fact that Zhang and her partner are women and not legally married, at least not in China, where marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman.
More LGBTQ couples are choosing to have families but many find themselves pushing up against the limits of the law if the relationship ends, said Yang Yi, a program officer at LGBT Rights Advocacy China.
“There are more than 100 assistive reproductive companies that target gay couples,” said Yang.
Yang said there have been custody battles between same-sex couples before but they were settled out of court.
‘Rights and interests’
Zhang and her former partner had their children with the help of reproductive technology in the United States. Zhang’s partner provided the eggs for the embryos and then each of them carried a separate embryo to full term.
While they were there, they also got married. However, that is not recognized in China, nor is there an existing law for Zhang’s claim over the children.
Traditionally in custody disputes, the law recognizes the birth parent. While Zhang can claim that she gave birth to one child, her partner can claim that she is the parent by blood.
The court will have to decide whether Zhang can claim custodial rights or is it only her partner who provided the egg and therefore has the genetic connection.
Another question is whether an LGBTQ parent can claim custodial rights over a child who they raised but may not have any biological relationship to, as is the case with Zhang’s other child, whom her partner carried to term.
The case has stirred public interest with social media posts attracting more than 380 million views this week.
“I can’t say whether I support gay people … but I support this opportunity to give them their legitimate rights and interests,” said one social media user.
For Zhang, the key is the legalization of same-sex marriage.
“The focal point is how can you determine who is a child’s mother. But if you consider that there are two mothers, then it will return to the issue of same-sex marriage,” she said.
Zhang supports a campaign for the legalization of same-sex marriage. Though the prospect of the legislation looks slim, she said she won’t give up.
“You may feel like it wouldn’t happen very quickly, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything,” Zhang said.
Activists said Thursday that the two bodies found inside a charred car in southeast Puerto Rico were of transgender women, marking four such deaths in the past two months.
The women were identified as 21-year-old Layla Peláez and 32-year-old Serena Angelique Velázquez, according to the Broad Committee for the Search for Equity.
“They are hunting us,” Pedro Julio Serrano, a spokesman for the group, said in a phone interview.
Authorities found the car before dawn on Wednesday in the coastal town of Humacao after receiving a 911 call.
Capt. Teddy Morales, who oversees criminal investigations in that district, said in a phone interview that police are investigating whether it was a hate crime and how exactly the two victims were killed. No one has been arrested.
The killings come a month after a 19-year-old transsexual man identified as Angélica Marie Méndez was fatally shot in the western town of Moca and two months after the fatal shooting of a person identified as Neulisa Luciano Ruiz, which Puerto Rico’s governor said was likely a hate crime. The victim’s body was found in the northern town of Toa Baja after a video was made public in which at least two men are heard mocking and threatening a person believed to be the victim followed by gunfire.
“We trans people deserve to live in peace, equality and freedom. Enough of so much hate,” said Ivana Fred with the Broad Committee for the Search for Equity.
Overall, eight people from the LGBTQ community have been killed in Puerto Rico in the past 15 months, Serrano said. None of the cases have been solved.
discussions are underway among local officials to crystallize plans for allowing residents limited access to Sonoma County’s parks after they were closed a month ago to stem the risk of coronavirus spreading among the local populace.
Top elected and appointed officials in county government, including Health Officer Sundari Mase, have endorsed the move, with leaders citing test results that they said show progress in suppressing growth of COVID-19 cases.
Given that evidence, and clear pent-up demand in the community as the shutdown drags on and days grow warmer, a first step toward allowing people some opportunity to access local parks seemed warranted, leaders said.
Any misstep, however, could eclipse gains made to control the virus’ spread, so initial plans envision access limited to paved multi-use trails, like the popular Joe Rodota Trail, as well as walk-in or bike-in entry to parks within reach of residents’ homes, park officials and county supervisors said.
“We don’t want to go backward,” said Supervisor Shirlee Zane. “But at the same time, we want to offer some hope and ability to exercise outdoors, now that it’s a spring, and see if we can exercise in a way that doesn’t endanger our vulnerable populations.”
Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Susan Gorin said she hoped to have more official plans over the weekend or early next week.
Playgrounds, restrooms, picnic areas and other high-touch, tight spaces that make physical distancing difficult would remain closed, officials said.
Beaches and parks on the coast would remain closed for the near future, largely because of the risk that they would draw unwanted visitors from outside the region who already account for a disproportionate share of the thousands scofflaws who state park rangers have encountered in recent weeks on closed stretches of coastline, officials said.
It’s unclear what’s in store for Russian River beaches, but park officials have similar concerns about the potential to lure people from far beyond nearby neighborhoods, as the river does this time of year.
Any loosening that would unduly expose local residents or tend to encourage nonessential travel while a statewide shelter-at-home mandate remains in place would not pass muster with Mase, who has final approval on any change in the county’s current order, Regional Parks Director Bert Whitaker said.
That order spelling out a host of social distancing rules and business closures expires May 3, but a revised extension is widely expected.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom was a guest on KCBS Radio Thursday morning and discussed the first modification to the state’s stay-at-home order that was issued last month to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Newsom said “essential surgeries” are now allowed “because we believe we have appropriate capacity within our hospitals and alternative care sites to allow scheduled surgeries to go back and be conducted.”
Newsom added: “That’s a very positive thing. It’s the first sign of progress — an indicator light that went green, not red. I hope to be making subsequent announcements over the next days and weeks so that we can get back into the beginning of some semblance of normalcy.”
The governor initially announced the augmentation to the order at his Wednesday press conference and clarified that “essential surgeries” — not “cosmetic surgeries” — are allowed effective immediately. Examples include the removal of tumors or a heart valve procedure that isn’t an emergency but, if neglected, could become a problem.
“These are surgeries that are scheduled but also essential,” he said. “The surgeries where if it gets delayed it becomes acute.”
Find the full KCBS interview here and read more about Newsom’s press conference here.
Cumulative cases in the greater Bay Area (due to limited testing these numbers reflect only a small portion of likely cases):
LGBT+ Asian Americans are reportedly experiencing a horrific “double whammy” of homophobia and racism due to the coronavirus pandemic.
As the coronavirus spreads across the world, many Asian people are facing discrimination and racism from people who ignorantly and wrongly assume that they are harbingers of infection.
The situation is dire in the United States, where Donald Trump has repeatedly drummed up anti-Asian sentiment by referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese Virus” (the outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, China).
But the outlook is even more hopeless for Asian Americans who are also LGBT+, as they are facing an increase in racism and homophobia during this time.
Those who ‘live in the intersections’ are most likely to be targeted by hate.
Hieu Nguyen, founder of the Viet Rainbow of Orange County, told Vice. that being LGBT+ and Asian during the coronavirus pandemic is a “double whammy”.
“When you’re LGBTQ and an ethnic minority, there’s already a sense of not feeling safe in the environment that you’re in,” Nguyen said.
“It just adds a heightened level of anxiety for folks, and it challenges their sense of safety.”
Between March 19 and April 3, Stop AAPI Hate recorded 1,100 complaints of hate incidents from the Asian American community.
While the entire Asian American population is facing discrimination, a number of groups have warned that LGBT+ Asian Americans are at a particular disadvantage.
Cynthia Choi, co-executive director for Chinese for Affirmative Action, said those who are most likely to be targeted are people “who live in the intersections”.
“Those who were already vulnerable — whether you’re an immigrant, undocumented, or because of your gender identity and sexuality — the pandemic has amplified that, Choi told Vice.
Those who were suffering before the pandemic, their situation is worse off.
Meanwhile, NQAPIA executive director Glenn Magpantay said LGBT+ Asian Americans “have experienced an uptick in racism and discrimination as a result of COVID-19.”
“The ignorance has come to bear on our community. It’s enormously challenging and difficult,” Magpantay said.
Groundbreaking gay photographer Shahin Shahablou, who fled Iran for London in order to be himself, has died from coronavirus.
Shahablou left Iran, where homosexuality is illegal, for Britain in 2011. He gained refugee status and went on to become an award-winning photographer.
He died last week, on April 15, from coronavirus complications, just months after meeting his partner Kevin Lismore, Buzzfeed News‘ Patrick Strudwick reports.
“He really wanted someone that he could share his life with,” Lismore told Buzzfeed. “He said he would never be able to find a partner there in Iran; that it would just be sex. But he wanted a partner for life.”
Shahin Shahablou found love just months before he died from coronavirus.
Lismore said that “something very special” happened between them, and Shahablou believed that their meeting and falling in love was destiny.
“That’s the cruellest thing, to lose him so soon,” Lismore said. “It feels really unfair on him and me, and on his friends and family. It’s tragic.”
David Gleeson, a friend of Shahablou’s, said they considered having him repatriated to Iran, but his family felt that he should remain in London, the city he had come to call home.
It feels really unfair on him and me, and on his friends and family. It’s tragic.
Shahablou also enjoyed a long and varied career as a photographer. In London, he worked as a freelance photojournalist for organisations such as Amnesty International.
Photography was his first love, and he carved out a career for himself in Britain.
Sadly, he experienced financial hardship throughout his time in the UK. Friends said he refused to ask for the money he deserved for his work, and also tended to pass up more commercial jobs, choosing instead to focus on the work he cared about.
He was working part-time in a supermarket at the end of his life in order to make ends meet, but photography was his first love.
Shahablou was a well known figure in the LGBT+ community in central London, where he spent much of his time. He also dedicated much of his work to photographing members of that community.
He was afraid when the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK because he had asthma and a leaky heart valve.
He went into hospital last month but was later discharged. Then, on March 27, an ambulance was called and Shahablou spent his remaining days on a ventilator in intensive care.
The Trump administration is considering cutting back on sharing intelligence with partner countries that criminalize homosexuality as part of a push by the acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, to prod those nations to change their laws.
The intelligence community should be pushing American values with the countries it works with, Mr. Grenell said in an interview this week.
“We can’t just simply make the moral argument and expect others to respond in kind because telling others that it’s the right thing to do doesn’t always work,” he said. But, he added, “to fight for decriminalization is to fight for basic human rights.”
Nearly 70 countries criminalize homosexuality, including U.S. intelligence partners like Egypt, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. Grenell did not clarify if the new policy would withhold additional cooperation or just curtail the information that is given to the countries.
“If a country that we worked in as the United States intelligence community was arresting women because of their gender, we would absolutely do something about it,” Grenell said. “Ultimately, the United States is safer when our partners respect basic human rights.”
