One of Chicago’s oldest churches will soon be transformed into one of the only holistic, queer-friendly centres for the LGBT homeless at-risk youth in the city.
The Black Methodist for Church Renewal has stood in the heart of Chicago’s South Side since 1926. The 12,000-square-foot space remained empty for years after the congregation moved to a new venue, with the site’s owners refusing to sell it until they found a worthy buyer.
It’s now home to the LYTE Collective, a social organisation dedicated to helping the more than 16,000 homeless youth in the city. Around 30 percent of Chicagoans aged between 15 and 24 live below the poverty line, with the bulk of them living on the South and West sides.
“There are very few spaces for young people across the city already, and for LGBTQ youth in particular, and we wanted to plant the flag and say that this is where everyone’s welcome,” founding member Carl Wiley told Block Club Chicago.
“We’re all going to respect each other in here, and we’re all going to figure out what our next steps are in terms of housing, employment, therapy.”
When the centre opens in summer 2020, young LGBT homeless people will be able to access a music studio, an art studio, a gym, computer lab, performance stage, teaching kitchen, co-working space, an on-site clinic and 250 storage units.
A blueprint for the centre, which has been dubbed the LYTE Lounge (lytecollective.org)
“It’s not enough to just give them a place to hang out,” Wiley said. “They need something to do, someone to talk to. We wanted to provide them a space where they could explore the things they were interested in.”
Construction began several weeks ago and neighbours have pitched in to help with the project. Jerome Davis, who lives across the street, watched the building deteriorate for decades but has now come out of retirement to help “keep the neighbourhood looking good.”
“God gave me this building to take care of. It may not be mine, but it will be beautiful,” he said.
The LYTE Collective has already raised $2 million to cover renovations, but is still $340,000 short of their total goal. Those interested in supporting the project can donate here.
Utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric announced a $13.5 billion settlement agreement to resolve all claims associated with several Northern California wildfires that killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of businesses and homes. The wildfires have been tied to the company’s equipment.
“We want to help our customers, our neighbors and our friends in those impacted areas recover and rebuild after these tragic wildfires,” said PG&E Corp. CEO and President Bill Johnson in a statement released late Friday.
The settlement fund, if accepted by a bankruptcy judge, will go to victims who lost loved ones and/or property, as well as government agencies and attorneys who have pressed the claims.
Saturday December 21 @ 7:30 pm. Teresa Tudury & Friends at Occidental Center for the Arts. Direct from her current Las Cruces, New Mexico home, Sonoma County’s favorite singer- songwriter and musical comedienne returns to her former Occidental digs for the ‘holidaze’ to gift us with her own brand of madcap musical magic ; along with some well known musical friends! Doug Jayne of KRCB will be the MC. $20 Adv/ $25 at door. Fine refreshments. Art Gallery open. Wheelchair accessible. www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental, CA. 95465
Every holiday season traditional and streaming networks create a ton of holiday romantic comedies but they consistently fail to create meaningful stories from the queer perspective.
Written by Kathryn Trammell, directed by Christin Baker, “Season of Love” is a lighthearted rom-com featuring a large ensemble cast of diverse women and their connected love lives during the hectic holiday period just before Christmas through the New Year who discover love truly is the best gift of all.
The movie brings together some fan favorites including actresses from classic LGBTQ films and current television shows including Dominique Provost-Chalkley (“Wynonna Earp”, “Avengers: Age of Ultron”), Jessica Clark (“True Blood”, “A Perfect Ending”), Emily Goss (“Snapshots”), Laur Allen (“Young and the Restless”), Janelle Marie and Sandra Mae Frank (“Deaf West’s Spring Awakening”, “Daybreak”).
Decrying the lack of LGBTQ+ characters and more specifically LGBTQ+ female leads in holiday movies, Tello Films and DASH Productions are proud and excited to be breaking grounds and releasing the first ever Holiday romantic comedy for LGBTQ+ women, Season of Love this December.
“We talk a lot today about diversity on screen but it’s also important to talk about diversity behind the camera. Season of Love has a queer female writer, director and producers that shape the voice of the film and it rings so true to a queer woman’s experience because we have queer women all over this cast and crew. It’s a delight to be part of that,” said Goss.
The Pride LA spoke with Baker about her experience creating the ultimate queer holiday movie. Check it out:
In one sentence, what is Season of Love?
Season of Love is the holiday RomCom that you’ve been waiting for!
Can you elaborate more?
The producing team of Season of Love (Ashley Arnold and Danielle Jablonski) was inspired last holiday season because there wasn’t one Holiday movie that had a queer lady storyline. Ashley said that it was time that we did something about it and came up with the idea to do a call for holiday RomComs. We launched it during the holidays in 2018 and now here we are a year later releasing the first Queer Lady Holiday RomCom. Written by Katheryn Trammell it has a “Love Actually” vibe with 3 interconnected storylines with their own level of cuteness and all the holiday feels and magic.
What interested you in directing the film?
I love directing, I love working with actors so that is my happy place. It only added to the joy that this project was so well written and it was the chance to direct something that I knew I would want to watch and the community would want to watch.
What makes the movie unique?
Season of Love is the first specifically queer women-centric holiday feature.
Of course there have been plenty of others with main and supporting queer characters but never one film that had a 100% LGBTQ storyline.
There have been really great Queer Holiday movies but the different love stories in this one is one of the most fun and unique aspects of this movie. I think people will find a storyline that really speaks to them. A couple that they can relate to, which is so fun.
Can you comment on LGBTQ+ representation on screen?
LGBTQ+ representation is really improving a lot on screen which is fantastic. But despite there being over 40 holiday romantic comedies scheduled to come out this holiday season alone there has still never been one that focuses on LGBTQ+ women. So we decided to change that!
Our film features six diverse female characters. Many of the actors identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community as well as the writer, director, producers and many others behind the camera identifying as queer women. We also believe that it’s important to have diversity in casting and are so proud that all three of our main couples are interracial and that one of our lead characters is also deaf. We’ve tried to make this film authentic to the queer experience, where the characters just are who they are and love who they love. While the majority of LGBTQ films feature coming out stories or stories of struggle or stories that rely on the stereotypes of their sexuality, this movie doesn’t. It’s not about coming out, or dealing with homophobia. It’s truly a fun, romantic comedy with a happy ending for our community. As one of our actors, Jessica Clark says, “This is our ‘Love Actually’.”
What was your favorite scene to direct? Why?
Oh, that’s such a tough question! I can’t pick just one… I loved directing a scene where our character Iris is drunk after her husband leaves her at the alter. Emily Goss played it spot on and Jessica and Janelle were so fun watching and trying to help this train wreck friend. Anytime Jessica Clark had to drop something, she plays a clutz really well, which you’d NEVER guess but she’s so good at it! I never had to say “that looked fake” because she sold it every time. There is an adorable scene where Janey sings to Sue and Janelle and Dominique was just so cute. They played off of each other so well and it’s a very sweet scene.
Why should people watch this?
Because Love. It’s a feel-good, fun, love story and we can really use that right now, I think.
Our hope is that it becomes a classic holiday movie staple for our community.
The film is now available online for pre-sale and will be available for rent and/or purchase on December 1, 2019
California earned top marks in Equality California’s recently released annual state legislative scorecard for 2019
Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization, demonstrating support in the California Legislature for LGBTQ civil rights and social justice. Sixty-one of the 80 members — including two Republicans — received perfect scores in the Assembly. Twenty-six out of 40 senators earned perfect marks, too. Scores were based on six floor votes and a committee vote in the Assembly, and eleven floor votes in the Senate.
Governor Gavin Newsom also scored 100 percent in his first year in office. He signed all five bills sponsored by Equality California that reached his desk. Notably, this included historic legislation authored by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblymember Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) to allow pharmacists to furnish life-saving HIV prevention medication without a doctor’s prescription. The bill, SB159, will take effect January 1, 2020.
“While the Trump-Pence Administration launches new anti-LGBTQ attacks on a near-daily basis, we’re continuing to work with our partners in the legislature and Governor Newsom to make California a beacon of hope to LGBTQ people around the world,” Equality California Executive Director Rick Zbur said in a press statement. “Civil rights and social justice are nonpartisan and nonnegotiable in California, and voters reward pro-equality legislators every two years for their support. President Trump and Senator Mitch ‘Grim Reaper’ McConnell should take note.”
Pamela Karlan, a Stanford Law School professor and self-described “snarky bisexual”, stole the show at Donald Trump’s impeachment hearing with her scathing and quick-witted put-downs.
Karlan specialises in constitutional law, once served as US deputy assistant attorney general for voting rights, and lives with her partner, writer Viola Canales.ADVERTISING
At Wednesday’s (December 4) hearing, she was part of a panel of legal experts debating whether the president should be impeached, and in her opening statement referred to Trump putting pressure on Ukraine for political favours.
She told the House Judiciary Committee: “Based on the evidentiary record before you, what has happened in the case today is something that I do not think we have ever seen before: a president who has doubled down on violating his oath to ‘faithfully execute’ the laws and to ‘protect and defend the Constitution’.
“The evidence reveals a president who used the powers of his office to demand that a foreign government participate in undermining a competing candidate for the presidency.”
But when Doug Collins, a Republican on the Judiciary Committee, implied that Karlan was not qualified to comment at the president’s impeachment hearing, she clapped back: “Mr. Collins, I would like to say to you, sir, that I read transcripts of every one of the witnesses who appeared in the live hearing because I would not speak about these things without reviewing the facts, so I’m insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor I don’t care about those facts.”
Vanity Fair described her response as a “verbal bitch-slap”. She added that she had spent so much time over Thanksgiving reading the transcripts that she had to eat “a turkey that came to us in the mail that was already cooked”.
Later, she was questioned by representative Matt Gaetz over her political contributions. He listed that she had given $1,000 to Elizabeth Warren, $1,200 to Barack Obama and $2,000 to Hillary Clinton.
By the time Gaetz asked her why she had given more to Clinton than the other two, Karlan had had enough.
She said: “I’ve been giving a lot of money to charity because of all the poor people in the United States.”
Professor Pamela Karlan speaks during a House Judiciary Committee Impeachment hearing at the Longworth House Office Building on Wednesday December 04, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty)
Her snappy comebacks have even alerted Melania Trump. When making a point about the differences between a president and a king, she said: “So while the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron.”
This prompted an irritated response from the first lady on Twitter, which read: “A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it.”
While Karlan did apologise for mentioning the 13-year-old Barron during the impeachment hearing, she still managed to slide in a dig at Trump.
She said: “If I can just say one thing. I want to apologise for what I said earlier about the president’s son, it was wrong of me to do that.
“I wish the president would apologise obviously for the things that he’s done that’s wrong, but I do regret having said that.”
A transgender student’s fight over school bathrooms comes before a federal appeals court Thursday, setting the stage for a groundbreaking ruling.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will hear arguments about whether a Florida school district should be ordered to allow students to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.
Drew Adams, who has since graduated from Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, won a lower court ruling last year ordering the St. Johns County school district to allow him to use the boys’ restroom. The district has appealed, arguing that although it will permit transgender students to use single-occupancy, gender-neutral restrooms, it shouldn’t be forced to let students use the restroom of the gender they identify with.
The 11th Circuit could become the first federal appeals court to issue a binding ruling on the issue, which has arisen in several states. The ruling would cover schools in Florida, Georgia and Alabama, and could carry the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The 4th Circuit had ruled in favor of a Virginia student, but the Supreme Court sent the case back down for further consideration. That’s because the U.S. Department of Education, under President Donald Trump, withdrew guidance that said federal law called for treating transgender students equally, including allowing them to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.
Adams transitioned from female to male before starting his freshman year at the high school just outside Jacksonville. He said he used the boys’ restroom without incident for weeks until several girls complained. He and his mother eventually sued in federal court, winning an order after a bench trial that he could use the boys’ restroom.
Now a student at the University of Central Florida, Adams told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday, “I really think it is going to take the courts to change it.”
The district argues that Adams is not a boy and that he should be excluded from the boys’ bathroom because those born as boys have “the right to be free from exposing one’s private and personal space and unclothed and partially clothed body to members of the opposite sex.”
The trial judge rejected this argument, finding that Adams would use a stall and that no breach of privacy would occur. “Plaintiff’s anatomy has no relevance to his ability to use the boys’ restroom,” wrote Adams’ lawyer, Tara Borelli of Lambda legal. “Defendant’s witnesses conceded at trial that Drew is treated differently because he is transgender, which is sex discrimination.”
The district argues that the trial judge “overextended” a 2011 decision by the 11th Circuit that found the state of Georgia had illegally discriminated against an employee of the state legislature by firing the employee when she announced her transition from male to female. The district also argues that a federal educational law that bans discrimination “on the basis of sex” doesn’t cover transgender people.
Borelli, though, say the law, called Title IX, does cover transgender people and that it’s impossible for the school board to carry out its desired policy without sex-based discrimination.
“These kinds of policies inflict suffering,” Borelli told the AP.
Kenyan police brutally battered LGBT+ refugees and lobbed teargas bombs in an attack that led to four in a coma today, activists on the ground have claimed.Moreover, the organisation said that “five persons have returned to the reception centre to access these registration services.”ADVERTISING
For days, rainbow refugees staying at the Kakuma camp un-rolled mats outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to peacefully protest the “unclean” conditions of the camp and ask to be allowed to “live quietly in Nairobi just like other urban refugees”.
But activists reported that camp law enforcement descended upon them, described as “death squads” by one protester, to “bludgeon” them.
“[They] want us dead,” alleged one trans protester.
According to them, officers teargassed them while Kakuma locals seized refugees’ “phones, documents and bags”.
Protesters in Kenya pummelled by camp police, many allegedly hospitalised and jailed.
Queer refugees in the Kenyan camp – many fleeing from neighbouring country’s vicious anti-LGBT laws – have reported being under siege from assaults in recent weeks.
Approaching boiling point, LGBT+ refugee leaders organised to leave the camp and re-locate outside the UNHCR main offices on November 28 to peacefully protest against these conditions.
According to an UNCHR statement shared to PinkNews, around 50 to 60 queer refugees are camped outside offices.
Rainbow refugees rolled-out sleeping bags and Kats outside the UNHCR main offices in Kakuma, Kenya. (Facebook)
Refugees told PinkNews they are sleeping near bushes swarming with scorpions and snakes, small ponds of brown water being the only source of water while many go hungry.
“We are helpless,” a refugee attacked by officers, who wished to remain anonymous, told PinkNews, “we are hungry.”
Yet, Refugee Affairs Secretariat – the security body that provides protection for Kenyan refugee camps – allegedly raided the refugees’ makeshift camp today.
The organisation is under the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government and works with the UNHCR.
Refugee Affairs Secretariat officers allegedly dotted the dusty roads leading to near villages and beat LGBT+ refugees. (Facebook)
Authorities arrived on the scene on motorcycles before allegedly launching an attack as well as firing “teargas” bombs at refugees.
Officers can be seen in photographs taken on refugee’s mobiles lining the dusty roads.
Protesters were reportedly battered by officers, with one refugee suffering gaping gashes on their arm and lower torso and wounds on their back, photographs shared to PinkNews showed.
A queer protester was allegedly attacked by police, suffering a wound on their lower right torso as a result. (Supplied)
The trans protester, who fled from Uganda after his family attempted to kill him for his gender identity, later told PinkNews he thinks, “the guys [RAS] want to see us dead.”
Moreover, another activist said the incident saw “four members in a coma”, and five refugees jailed. “They are all expected to be arrested, handcuffed and directed to a police cell,” he claimed.
“The RAS death squads came with sinister plans to cause as much havoc as possible,” he said.
Testimonies from refugees to PinkNews have detailed a camp playbook of near-weekly attacks from not only fellow refugees, but reportedly from camp organisers themselves.
Last month, a trans asylum seeker was attacked by fellow refugees just hours before a group of locals from a neighbouring town pelted stones at the LGBT+ refugees.
Kakuma, a town in northwest Kenya. (PinkNews)
While the week before, another trans refugee had his neck cut and genitals tugged on by a similarly described “homophobic group”.
“My life is in danger,” he told PinkNews, explaining how camp paramedics only gave him “paracetamol” to treat the wounds on his neck.
Conditions in the camp have forced some LGBT+ refugees to fundraise for financial aid, as they report of “unclean” living situations and daily abuse.
A news release from UNCHR stated that, on 29 November, protesters were informed:Refugee Affairs Secretariat will register all unregistered asylum-seekers present in Kakuma and that the data of those who are already registered will be transferred from Nairobi, regardless of whether they raised asylum claims based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity or not.
Three LGBT+ workers who were fired by Google during Thanksgiving week are alleging that they were dismissed by the tech giant because of their employee activism, and plan to file federal charges.
Laurence Berland, Sophie Waldman and Rebecca Rivers, who all identify as LGBT+, were fired duing the same week, along with another employee, Paul Duke, who is not LGBT+.
Google told its employees that the reason for firing the four workers was “clear and repeated violations of our data security policies”.
But the former Googlers, according to The Guardian, deny any wrongdoing and are alleging their dismissal was to send a message to stop workers organising and employee activism, which they say violates federal labour laws.
Waldman, who used to be Google software engineer, told the newspaper: “Google fired us not just to target us, but to send a message to other employees in the company.”
Berland added: “It’s not about us, but intimidating everyone else. They want us afraid, they want us resigned, and they want us cynical.”
Some of the group’s activism included using employee resource groups (ERGs) for LGBT+ employees to push for changes like equal benefits for same-sex partnerships.
Waldman said: “From the beginning, queer and trans people at Google have banded together to make sure we have great benefits and a strong community.
“A lot of us feel very directly that it’s us and people like us that are on the line [when it comes to the company’s ethical decisions]… Google is a lovely place to work if you are transgender and don’t care about what is going on in the world.”
She alleges that when she was suspended, before being fired, Google wiped her personal phone, meaning she lost pictures documenting her gender transition.
The group say that workers at the company are calling for a union, when just last month the New York Times reported that Google had “hired an anti-union consulting firm to advise management as it deals with widespread worker unrest”.
In a statement to CNN, a Google spokesperson maintained: “We dismissed four individuals who were engaged in intentional and often repeated violations of our longstanding data security policies, including systematically accessing and disseminating other employees’ materials and work.
“No one has been dismissed for raising concerns or debating the company’s activities.”
The U.S. government will start a national HIV prevention program that will distribute free HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis medication, or PrEP, to uninsured Americans at risk of acquiring the virus, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday. Activists, however, say the plan doesn’t go far enough.
Health Secretary Alex Azar called the new “Ready, Set, PrEP” program a “historic expansion of access to HIV prevention medication” and a “major step forward” in President Donald Trump’s Ending the HIV Epidemic plan, which was announced in February and seeks to reduce HIV transmission by 90 percent by 2030.
“Thanks to Ready, Set, PrEP, thousands of Americans who are at risk for HIV will now be able to protect themselves and their communities,” Azar said in a statement.
According to a risk index devised by the CDC, men who have sex with men should be advised to start PrEP if they have multiple risk factors, such as having more than one partner per month or being between 18 and 28. One risk factor — having condomless receptive sex once in the past six months — results in an automatic PrEP recommendation, according to the guidelines.
Azar noted that just 18 percent of the 1.2 million Americans who might benefit from HIV PrEP are actually taking the medication. That low level of access is in part because of the $2,000 monthly list price of Truvada and Descovy, the two Gilead Sciences drugs approved for HIV prevention, as well as the absence of a generic alternative. A generic version of Truvada is set to be released in September 2020.
This new national program is a win for activists, like those involved in the PrEP4All Collaboration, who have for years called for a national PrEP program to end the U.S. HIV epidemic.
However, the program has one glaring loophole: Ready, Set, PrEP does not cover the blood work required for PrEP, which advocates call “a barrier to PrEP access.”
The CDC’s 2017 PrEP provider guidelines state all sexually active PrEP users should receive multiple blood tests annually in order to initiate and continue taking PrEP. These tests can easily cost hundreds of dollars per visit, and with no federal coverage for them, it remains unclear how users would pay for them. In a conference call, Azar said community health centers could provide these tests for free, though this is not an official part of the government plan.
PrEP4All Collaboration member James Krellenstein said Ready, Set, PrEP leaves much to be desired, because it is “poised to repeat the errors of Gilead’s own Medication Assistance Program, which donated free PrEP to qualified uninsured individuals, albeit on a much smaller scale.”
“Similar to the HHS program, the Medication Assistance Program did not cover lab costs or associated clinical care,” Krellenstein wrote in an email. “As a result, people who access PrEP through the Medication Association Program were found to have a statistically significant lower rate of PrEP initiation and a longer time between PrEP prescription and initiation.”
While PrEP access is weak nationwide, there are areas where it is more widely used and supported by government health care services, like New York City and San Francisco. In those municipalities, the rate of new HIV infections has declined since the introduction of PrEP and is now reaching a level where there are few HIV-positive people who are at risk of transmitting the virus and few HIV-negative people who are at risk of contracting it.
HHS launched a website — GetYourPrEP.com — and a telephone number — 855-447-8410 — to help guide potential patients to PrEP resources.
