Thursday, November 21 7:00–9:00 p.m.The GLBT Historical Society Museum4127 18th St., San Francisco$5 | Free for members
With its plate-glass windows looking out on the corner of Castro and Market Streets, the landmark San Francisco gay bar Twin Peaks Tavern is not only one of the Castro’s most beloved establishments, but also a living testament to the revolutionary idea that LGBTQ people should be seen and celebrated rather than hidden in the darkness of alleys and behind blacked-out windows.
Filmmakers Petey Barna and Bret Parker will present their new documentary, “Through the Windows” about the history of Twin Peaks Tavern, featuring deeply personal interviews that illuminate the history of the bar and the lesbian owners who transformed it from a straight working-class tavern into a gay landmark in 1972. The film recounts the ways this establishment has provided a feeling of home, family and emotional nourishment for its patrons every day of its 47-year history.Tickets are available online here.
Champion baseball player Sean Doolittle has declined an invitation to a ceremony in the White House because he disagrees vehemently with the policies of Donald Trump.
Doolittle – who plays for the Washington Nationals – told the Washington Post that he cannot justify visiting the White House as he finds Trump’s policies offensive.
He revealed that part of the reason he refused to visit the White House is because his wife has two mothers and he wanted to “show support for them”.
“I think that’s an important part of allyship, and I don’t want to turn my back on them.”
Sean Doolittle refused to visit White House over Donald Trump and his ‘divisive rhetoric’.
“There’s a lot of things, policies that I disagree with, but at the end of the day, it has more to do with the divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country,” Doolittle said.
“At the end of the day, as much as I wanted to be there with my teammates and share that experience with my teammates, I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.”
I think that’s an important part of allyship, and I don’t want to turn my back on them.
Elsewhere in the interview, Doolittle drew attention to Trump’s treatment of race issues, refugees and disabled people.
“I feel very strongly about his issues on race relations,” he said. Doolittle spoke about the Fair Housing Act, the Central Park Five as well as Trump’s comments about white supremacy as examples of problem areas.
Doolittle said that Trump has disrespected the office of the president.
“I have a brother-in-law who has autism, and [Trump] is a guy that mocked a disabled reporter. How would I explain that to him that I hung out with somebody who mocked the way that he talked or the way that he moves his hands? I can’t get past that stuff.”
The baseball player also revealed that some people have taken issue with his refusal to visit the White House and said he should be respecting the office of the president.
However, Doolittle feels that Trump himself has disrespected the office on a number of occasions – and believes that this is the most important issue.
Doolittle and his wife Eireann Dolan have advocated for the rights of LGBT+ people on a number of occasions.
In less than three days a protest organized by students against the increase in subway fares turned into an imposing and unexpected national protest over years of inequalities in Chile that completely paralyzed the country and put the entire Chilean political class on notice. Millions of people have taken to the streets over the last few days to demonstrate their discontent.
Some of the massive marches have nevertheless ended with protesters attacking businesses, torching and looting supermarkets in the worst unrest the country has seen in decades. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera declared a state of emergency, deployed soldiers to the streets and imposed a curfew that deepened the conflict by unleashing the worst cases of human rights violations in the last 30 years in the Latin American country. A group of lawmakers have announced a constitutional complaint against Piñera.
“These weeks have been a time bomb that we all knew was going to explode, but we did not know that it would explode now and with such intensity,” said Alessia Injoque, executive president of Fundación Iguales, a Chilean LGBTQ organization. Franco Fuica, legislation and public policy coordinator of Organizando Trans Diversidades (OTD), a trans advocacy group, has a similar opinion.
“We are living a social revolution,” he affirmed.
The crisis in Chile has been brewing for a long time. Dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1973 staged a coup to topple Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first democratically elected Socialist president. Pinochet reversed Allende’s model and began to implement a diametrically opposed economic formula. The country became a sort of neoliberal laboratory and a cruel dictatorship that persecuted, tortured and killed its opponents.
A group of liberal economists who were educated at the University of Chicago, where they learned the ideas of Americans Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger, who were known as the “Chicago boys,” led Pinochet’s economic changes. They implemented economic and social reforms that privatized everything, and were enshrined in Chile’s 1980 constitution that was adopted in 1980 and remains in place.
Chile is the only country in the world where water is privatized, retirement pensions are low, health is bad and the majority of households have difficulties making ends meet at the end of the month. A report the U.N. Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) published in January that analyzed the evolution of poverty, spending and social inclusion revealed Chile continues to maintain its high rates of inequality. “1 percent of the population holds 26.5 percent of wealth,” the investigation concludes.
“We have been in an unfair system for years, where everything is done to ensure the same people always win. Beyond that injustice, there was impunity where nothing happened to people who caused a lot of damage that runs from pain to frustration. The government was indolent and everything came to a head,” said Injoque. The trans activist said they were truly afraid.
“I had chills when I found out that soldiers were out on the streets,” they said.
“Piñera declared war against my grandchildren on national television, deployed the army to shoot and kill them for peacefully protesting (against) their enormous suffering and the people realize there is complicity there and I hear another loud clamor: ‘Resign Piñera,’” Pamela Jiles of the Frente Amplio, a new political force in the Chilean Congress who has lead the impeachment movement, told the Washington Blade.
“My duty as a lawmaker is to constitutionally accuse Piñera, as Humanist Congresswoman Laura Rodríguez would have done, using a parliamentary procedure and a constitutional provision, to turn my back to the elite and face the people,” Jiles explained. “It cannot be anything else because he has already seriously jeopardized the nation’s security, has plunged the country into misgovernment and is the main — although not the only — person responsible for the deaths of those they should have protected.”
Brutal cases of human rights violations allegedly committed by the Chilean armed forces have been reported since the onset of this social revolution. Repression, abuse of power, indiscriminate violence, illegal detentions and deaths prompted U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, who is Chile’s former president, to decide to send a team of observers to verify the cases, which include a young gay man who was illegally detained, tortured and sexually abused by the police.
Josué Maureira, a medical student at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile who was arrested while bringing first aid to injured protesters, claims he was beaten until he was unconscious, mistreated because of his sexual orientation and gender identity, beaten again until his septum was broken, violated with a baton, threatened with death and jailed because of alleged attacks against police officers. The National Human Rights Institution has filed a sexual torture complaint.
“The states of emergency authorize the restriction of free movement, but not attempts to take people’s lives. The ‘exit from the crisis’ as the elite likes to say, is only Piñera’s exit. it is our obligation to stop the killing of innocent people,” said Jiles.
Shane Cienfuegos, an activist and investigations coordinator of Colectiva Neutres who in recent weeks has managed to unify the majority of LGBTQ groups, mentioned that “I have been in the streets since the subway evasion, activating constituencies. We summoned all the organizations and more than 50 came. We made a diagnosis and discovered that we were vulnerable.”
Congresswoman Pamela Jiles told the Blade “we grandmothers of this country will not allow Piñera to continue killing people, wounding children, violating men and women in police stations and in particular abusing and denigrating sexually diverse people. (Photo courtesy of Pamela Jiles)
A massive demonstration across the country was called for Oct. 25. #LaMarchaMásGrandeDeChile (Chile’s biggest march) was a trending topic on Twitter around the world and television stations across covered the historic protest, which drew more than 1.5 million people. “The other thing that I was going to say, that we have also forgotten to mention, is apart from soccer teams and Chilean flags that are very important, there are many flags from the LGBTQ movement, many people with different sexualities are also present and they are movements that are protesting today and their flags are there in the streets,” interrupted Mónica Rincón, a CNN reporter and LGBTQ ally, on live television.
The majority of Chilean LGBTQ institutions on their social media networks backed the protests, while people of diverse sexualities were deployed in groups to participate. “We went out with a lot of passion and creativity to rise up with force and at the same time claim our rights that have been violated by the Chilean state for decades and go against a neoliberal system that oppresses us,” added Cienfuegos.
Chile in 1999 decriminalized sodomy, and in 2012 enacted an anti-discrimination law — to which activists have pointed as inadequate — and same-sex couples since 2016 have been able to enter into a civil union. A gender identity law that will recognize trans people’s right to identity will take effect in December of this year. There are also public policies that benefit sexual and gender diversity, but however, there is still much to do to win full equality in the country.
“We created a roundtable with 19 civil society organizations with a presence throughout Chile, to be able to work on certain matters of law that need to be modified to be able to ensure recognition, rights and guarantees to the LGBTQ+ community,” said Natalia Castillo, a young member of the Chilean House of Representatives from the leftist Frente Amplio party who is behind a multiparty group for the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans and queer called the “Diversity Caucus.”
Congresswoman Natalia Castillo has become known for defending and promoting the rights of sexually and gender diverse Chileans since she took office. (Courtesy photo)
A marriage equality bill stalled in the Senate’s Constitution Committee more than a year ago. The “Diversity Caucus” led by Castillo, on the other hand, is working on the creation of other legislative initiatives in favor of sexual and gender diversity that will be presented in the coming weeks.
“I think that it is a great opportunity to perfect the anti-discrimination law, to promote a law that penalizes the incitement of hatred, and perhaps, this is the moment that LGBTQ+ people will be compensated by the Chilean state for their historic violation,” Fuica concluded.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has teamed up with the National Institute of Health (NIH) to develop revolutionary gene-based cures for HIV and sickle cell anaemia.
They are now giving an additional $100 million which, combined with the NIH’s investment, will amount to at least $200 million over the next four years – a huge boost to researchers fighting the diseases.
It’s particularly vital as scientists recently announced they have discovered a new strain of HIV for the first time in nearly two decades.
Dramatic advances in genetics over the last ten years have made effective gene-based treatments a reality, including new treatments for blindness and certain types of leukaemia.
However, the high cost of these breakthroughs makes them largely inaccessible to much of the world – particularly for those in the resource-poor countries hit hardest by HIV.
But Bill and Melinda Gates and the NIH have vowed that the cures funded by their investment will be affordable and available for all.
A lab technician draws blood from a patient for HIV testing at the AIDS Information Centre in Kampala, Uganda (ISAAC KASAMANI/AFP/Getty)
The idea is to focus “on access, scalability, and affordability … to make sure everybody, everywhere has the opportunity to be cured, not just those in high-income countries,” NIH Director Francis Collins said in a statement. “We aim to go big or go home.”
They hope to bring safe, effective and durable gene-based cures to clinical trials in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa within the next seven to 10 years.
Anthony S Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, agreed that it was an “ambitious” step.
“[We are] harnessing the most cutting-edge scientific tools and NIH’s sizeable global HIV research infrastructure to one day deliver a cure and end the global HIV pandemic,” he said.
“We are taking into account those with the greatest need at the foundation of this effort, to ensure that, if realised, this exceptional public health achievement will be made accessible to all.”
The “rainbow wave” of the 2018 elections continued Tuesday, with 99 of 200 known LGBTQ candidates winning their races — including a number of successes in historically conservative states such as Virginia and Kentucky.
The Victory Fund, a group that trains, supports and advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer candidates who are pro-choice, said 80 of its 111 endorsed candidates emerged victorious Tuesday. So far in 2019, the organization found 144 LGBTQ contenders won in 382 races, for an overall victory rate of 38 percent.
LGBTQ men ran in much higher numbers than their women counterparts, though queer women had a higher success rate, 46 percent to 37 percent, according to Victory’s election tracker. Trans women specifically — who won in state races in Virginia, Utah, Massachusetts and Iowa — had a success rate at 56 percent. The vast majority of LGBTQ candidates (83 percent) ran as Democrats, with just 2.4 percent running as Republicans. LGBTQ Democrats had a success of 40 percent, compared to 33 percent for their GOP counterparts.
Among Tuesday’s noteworthy winners were twice-elected transgender state Rep. Danica Roem, gay, black Muslim school board member N.J. Akbar, and the new LGBTQ members of the Indianapolis City Council.
Akbar, who won a seat on the Akron Board of Education in Ohio, became one of the first gay, Muslim, African Americans ever elected to any office in the U.S., according to the Victory Fund.
“As one of the first openly LGBTQ Muslims elected in United States history, N.J. will become a role model for so many LGBTQ students, students of color and Muslim students who too rarely see people like them in positions of power,” Annise Parker, president and CEO of the Victory Fund, said in a statement.
In Virginia, State Delegate Danica Roem, the first openly trans person elected to statewide office, won a second term. In 2017, Roem ran on expanding Medicaid to her constituents and fixing the traffic-clogged Route 28 in Manassas.
“I’m grateful to represent you because of who you are – never despite it,” Roem wrote on Twitter. “I’ll see you Nov. 20 at our next #fixRoute28 public hearing.”
The Indianapolis City Council tripled its number of LGBTQ representatives by re-electing Zach Adamson and newly electing Alison Brown and Keith Potts. Brown is the first out LGBTQ woman elected to that body.
Not all noteworthy races in question have been called. The nationally watched race for Texas’ 28th state legislative district is heading for a runoff with no candidate having secured an outright majority. Democrat and out lesbian Elizabeth Markowitz ran against six Republicans and won roughly 40 percent of the vote. Markowitz will now face Republican Gary Gates in a runoff election that has not yet been scheduled by the governor.
Anti-trans ads: A losing strategy?
In several states that saw transphobic political attack ads flop against LGBTQ-supportive candidates, political watchers are asking whether such ads will be effective heading into 2020’s general election.
The apparent victory of pro-LGBTQ Democrat Andy Beshear in Kentucky in the race for governor, signaled that outside efforts to use transphobic election scare tactics — like one that implied transgender inclusion in sports, would mean that “anyone at any time could change teams for any reason” — are not a clear path to electoral victory.
Chris Hartman, executive director of Kentucky’s Fairness Campaign, a LGBTQ advocacy group, said the anti-transgender ads run in Kentucky “looked initially like a desperate ploy” and noted that he and his LGBTQ friends were heavily targeted with these ads on YouTube and Hulu.
“As more information came out, we learned that we were a testing group for what the conservatives thought was going to be their new election tactic, in the way that trans bathrooms used to work for them, in the way that gay rights used to work for them,” Hartman said. “They’re testing the field to see if anti-trans bias is strong enough to propel them to victory in places that have unpopular candidates.”
Don Haider-Markel, a professor of political science at the University of Kansas, said that a 2015 ballot measure in Houston, used “fear-based advertising” around transgender people’s access to public accommodations and bathrooms.
“It’s clear that that was effective,” Haider-Markel said. However, “the ads in Kentucky about high school sports and things like that don’t seem to have the same traction.”
“Tagging that to a candidate instead of an issue on the ballot is something different,” Haider-Markel continued. “For LGBTQ candidates, success doesn’t come from what your sexual orientation or gender identity is, success comes from focusing on the issues that people care about in their local community.”
Danica Roem is “a prime example of that,” Haider-Markel said.
An ad attacking Delegate Danica Roem from The Family Foundation Action on Facebook.via Facebook
Danica Roem, a transgender woman who was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2017, was the highest ranking LGBTQ winner Tuesday. Her re-election makes her the longest serving transgender state legislator in U.S. history, and the first to ever win re-election.
Although she is a history maker and was targeted because of her transgender identity, Roem has become known to her constituents for her laser focus on her district’s Route 28 — a traffic-clogged artery that many of her district’s voters struggle with on a daily basis as they commute into Washington, D.C.
“The success of trans candidates this Election Night – in states red and blue – is a warning to those using cynical campaign tactics to divide communities for their own political gain,” Victory’s Parker said in a statement.
Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, echoed Parker, saying “the biggest topline takeaway” from Tuesday’s results is that “voters care about equality.”
“What we saw in Virginia specifically is that anti-equality candidates have been using an outdated and offensive playbook that is not working anymore,” David said.
Sunday November17 @ 4 pm. Occidental Center for the Arts proudly presents Patrick Ball: Celtic Harp & Story. Patrick Ball is one of the premier Celtic harpers and master storytellers in the world today. In ‘Celtic Harp & Story’, he weaves the marvelous old Irish tales of wit and enchantment together with ethereally gorgeous harp melodies into a warm and magical performance full of laughter and mischief, politics and passion that will leave the audience spellbound. He has recently relocated to the magic isle! so do not miss this unforgettable afternoon of music and spoken word in Occidental. $20 Adv/$25 at the door. Fine refreshments available. Art Gallery open. Accessible to people with disabilities. www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. 707-874-9392. OCA is a non profit performing and fine arts center staffed by volunteers.
Mary Rodgers, a principal scientist at Abbott whose team published their findings on Wednesday in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, said there was no reason for the public to be excessively concerned about the newly discovered HIV subtype, which they believe to be extremely rare.
But the scientists said the discovery of the new strain — called HIV-1 Group M, subtype L — should serve as a reminder of how diverse and continually evolving HIV viruses are, and how necessary it is for medical and research communities to remain vigilant.
“We can never become complacent, we need to be proactive and we’re working to stay a step ahead of the virus,” Rodgers told the Chicago Tribune.
“Identifying new viruses such as this one is like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Rodgers added in a statement. “This scientific discovery can help us ensure we are stopping new pandemics in their tracks.”
The identification of a new HIV subtype “tells us that the HIV epidemic is still ongoing and still evolving,” immunology expert Jonah Sacha, who was not involved in the Abbott study, told Scientific American.
“The calling card of HIV is its diversity. That’s what’s defeated all of our attempts to create a vaccine,” said Sacha, a professor at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute at Oregon Health & Science University. “People think it’s not a problem anymore, and we’ve got it under control. But, really, we don’t.”
For the fourth consecutive year, broadcast television has featured a record percentage of LGBTQ characters, according to a report released Thursday by the media advocacy group GLAAD.
Last year, GLAAD called on the broadcast networks to have 10 percent of its regular characters on prime-time scripted series identify as LGBTQ by 2020. According to its 2019-20 “Where We Are on TV” report, the networks more than exceeded that goal.
Of the 879 regular characters scheduled to appear this season, 90, or 10.2 percent, are LGBTQ. This is the highest percentage GLAAD has found in the 15 years it has kept such a count.
“We made a specific call, and to see the networks surpass it is really noteworthy,” Megan Townsend, GLAAD’s director of entertainment research and analysis, told NBC News. “It’s especially exciting to see the number of trans men on TV more than double this year, which last year’s report really pushed television networks to do, and to see that for the first time, LGBTQ women outnumber LGBTQ men on broadcast.”
Among the other significant findings are a marked increase in the racial diversity of LGBTQ characters on broadcast. For the second year in a row, LGBTQ people of color outnumber white LGBTQ characters, with 52 percent of queer regular characters being of color on broadcast series. There are also nine characters with HIV/AIDS on broadcast television, an increase from the seven characters counted last year.
Though considerable progress has been made, Townsend said there were still steps networks needed to take to ensure more equitable LGBTQ representation, which is why GLAAD’s Media Institute works with networks and shows to consult on storylines, find queer talent, train writers’ rooms to talk about LGBTQ issues and promote projects.
“There’s a lot of great numbers to celebrate, but there’s still work to be done,” Townsend said. “Progress is also still found in clusters. Even though there are hundreds of cable networks, 44 percent of LGBTQ representation on television can be found on just three networks: Showtime, Freeform and FX.”
GLAAD also found that only 26 percent of LGBTQ characters on television identify as bisexual+ — a number that is not reflective of their presence, given bisexual+ people compose the majority of the LGBTQ community.
Another gap in representation includes LGBTQ characters with disabilities. While GLAAD counted 27 characters with disabilities this year, the highest percentage its reports have ever noted, this number still falls short of the U.S. population of people with disabilities. Additionally there is only one asexual character across all platforms — Todd Chavez on Netflix’s “BoJack Horseman” — which is a drop from two asexual characters on television last year.
This year GLAAD is calling for 20 percent of characters on prime-time scripted broadcast series be LGBTQ by 2020, and for half of all LGBTQ characters on every platform be people of color within the next two years.
“From ‘Batwoman’ to ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ to ‘Schitt’s Creek’ to ‘One Day at a Time’ to ‘The Politician,’ there’s so many great shows already out there and many upcoming projects we’re looking forward to,” Townsend said. “The key is making sure it’s never left to one character to be the voice of the community.”
The Ames man accused of tearing down a pride banner from Ames United Church of Christ and setting it on fire was found guilty by a jury Wednesday morning.
Adolfo Martinez, 30, was found guilty of a hate crime, third-degree harassment, reckless use of fire and habitual offender, Story County Attorney Jessica Reynolds said. The habitual offender charge associates with previous reckless use of fire crimes.
It was the first time a hate crime has gone before a jury in Story County, Reynolds said. “Hate crimes will not be tolerated in our jurisdiction,” she said. “Offenders will be held accountable.” A date for sentencing was not immediately set, but he faces up to 15 years in prison.
The Trump administration on Wednesday sued Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical company that sells H.I.V.-prevention drugs that can cost patients up to $20,000 a year, accusing the company of earning billions from research funded by taxpayers without paying taxpayers back.
The government said the company infringed upon patents owned by the Department of Health and Human Services, and had refused attempts by the department to license its patents and collect royalties. The company sells two drugs, Truvada and Descovy, that can be taken once daily to prevent H.I.V. infection, a strategy called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP.
Wider access to PrEP is central to the government’s goal, announced in February, to reduce new H.I.V. infections by 75 percent over five years, and to “end the H.I.V. epidemic in America” by 2030. Critics have said the drug’s lofty price tag has limited its accessibility to high-risk people with low incomes, thwarting the government’s efforts.
Gilead is already facing a separate class action anti-trust suit filed by six AIDS activists including Peter Staley.
