Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren has called on the Trump administration to protect transgender asylum seekers, who allegedly suffer “rampant” abuse while in detention.
Along with her fellow senator Tammy Baldwin, the first out LGBT+ person elected to the US Senate, Elizabeth Warren wrote a letter urging the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to “immediately reverse policies” that harm transgender migrants seeking refuge in the US.
The senators state that the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy is particularly harmful to trans asylum seekers as it forces them to remain in countries where their gender identity puts them at risk.
They said the administration must allow trans asylum seekers entry into the US, warning of the danger in “placing their health and safety at risk while they wait – potentially for years – for their asylum claims to be processed”.
In one case cited by Warren and Baldwin, a transgender woman’s “finger was cut off by a cartel” while her application was intentionally delayed.
Hundreds of activists and immigration advocates took to the streets in New York City to demand an end to Salesforce and Amazon profiteering from immigrants detention camps (Erik McGregor/LightRocket/Getty)
Warren and Baldwin also drew attention to recent reports of “abuse and neglect of transgender migrants and asylum seekers”, both at the border and in US custody.
“While in detention, transgender migrants and asylum seekers are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment, discrimination, and abuse,” the letter reads.
“The United States should protect individuals fleeing persecution and targeted violence, including persecution based on gender identity or expression — not subject them to further harm.”
Some trans women have accused ICE of housing them in barracks with heterosexual men where officers ordered them: “Walk like a man! You better sit like a man!”
They told of being forced to bathe and sleep in units with men who sexually harassed and threatened them. These men would intrude on them while they were in the shower, leering at them and offering to “help” them bathe. The women claim they were thrown into solitary if they complained.
Another trans woman named Alejandra Barrera was refused treatment for a progressive medical condition, which if left untreated could cause severe complications or even death.
Alejandra Barrera, a trans asylum seeker (Facebook/Translatina@ Coalition)
After a sustained advocacy campaign by her attorney and several non-profit organisations, she was finally released after 20 months – the longest period of detainment for a trans person ever at the facility.
Activists claim her experience is representative of the widespread mistreatment of all trans women in ICE custody.
Warren and Baldwin have requested a meeting with ICE and DHS “to update our offices on your efforts to address the harm to transgender migrants” before October 30.
More than half of homeless young people in Atlanta, Georgia, have been victims of human trafficking and LGBT+ and African American youth are most at risk, according to a new study.
The Atlanta Youth Count 2018 study by Georgia State University sociology professor Eric Wright found that there were an estimated 3,372 homeless young people in Atlanta between the ages of 14 and 25.ADVERTISING
Human trafficking is defined in the report as “acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them either for sexual acts or labour services”.
Overall, 54 per cent of homeless youth had experienced some form of human trafficking in their lifetime, and 37 per cent had experienced it since becoming homeless.
African American, black and multiracial young people were at high risk of trafficking, as 56 per cent of homeless youth counted in the study were black or African American and 32 per cent were multiracial.
Looking just at LGB youth, these numbers increased. 61 per cent of lesbian, gay or bisexual homeless youth had experienced human trafficking in their lifetime and 44 per cent had been trafficked while homeless.
For trans and non-binary young people experiencing homelessness the figures jumped even more dramatically.
71 per cent had experienced trafficking during their lifetimes, and 65 per cent had been victims of it while homeless.
The report said cisgender young women are often seen as the main targets, but that is not the case.
The report states that LGBT+ homeless youth “require special attention in the provision of safe and secure services”, and that “gendered definitions of trafficking need to be expanded”.
It continues: “While cisgender female individuals are often conceptualised as the main targets of trafficking vulnerabilities, transgender respondents report significantly higher rates of trafficking than their cisgender counterparts (including both male and female cisgender respondents).
“The full spectrum of gender identity must be understood and accepted in order to fully serve transgender youth and effectively address the needs of trafficked youth.”
Of those surveyed between September and November 2018, seven per cent were trans or non-binary and 24 per cent identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual. Four per cent identified as an orientation other than LGB or straight.
Sunday October 27 @ 4 pm. Occidental Center for the Arts presents The Quitters: Glenn Houston &Stevie Coyle. Don’t miss this iconic Americana acoustic/electric guitar picking twosome (The Waybacks, Hearts On Fire, Houston Jones),who are perennial Strawberry Music Festival favorites, at our acoustic sweet spot! $20 Adv/$25 at door. Fine refreshments; Wheelchair accessible; Art Gallery open. www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental CA. 95465. 707-874-9392
High school football players allegedly shouted homophobic slurs at a male cheerleader, aged just 14.
The incident on October 18 at Wilcox High School in Santa Clara, California, saw the teen targeted with homophobic chants from varsity football players, who branded him a “fag” for being part of the cheerleading squad.
According to local newspaper Mercury News, school officials asked the Santa Clara Police Department to investigate after the teen and another female cheerleader were threatened with violence.
The boy, who is not being named, is still attending school.
Father of cheerleader is ‘fearful for his safety’.
His father told the newspaper: “We are fearful for his safety — now more than ever
“Even after everything that happened, he went back [to the field] and faced it.
“He’s so courageous. He has a responsibility to his team and to the school. He’s out there to cheer the football team and this is what they do.”
The school said in a statement: “At Santa Clara Unified School District, we proactively work to create an environment that embraces diversity and we do not tolerate harassment or bullying of any kind.”
Thousands demand action after ‘sickening’ incident.
A petition in support of the bullied teen has attracted more than 2,800 supporters.
It states: “Despite the fact that the cheerleaders spend hours of their day cheering on various sports teams, these football members thought it appropriate to be cruel and harass a single cheerleader based on their biases and prejudice.
“While many people are aware of this incident, there is a slim chance much will be done to change this behaviour by tweeting/posting about it.
“The main purpose of this petition is to call the administration and football coaches to attention, so they can investigate this incident.ADVERTISING
American fast-food chain Chick-fil-A recently ventured across the pond to the United Kingdom — but the controversial chicken restaurant won’t last long.
Soon after opening Oct. 10, Chick-fil-A’s restaurant at the Oracle Mall in Reading, a town in Berkshire, announced it will close after its six-month lease expires, according to the BBC, with the mall saying in a statement it was the “right thing to do.”
The suburban eatery faced protests from activists who took issue with the company’s track record on LGBTQ rights.
Prior to the closure announcement, Reading Pride, a local LGBTQ advocacy group, said it was “staunchly opposed” to the restaurant opening in the U.K., “and certainly in Reading.”
“The chain’s ethos and moral stance goes completely against our values, and that of the U.K. as we are a progressive country that has legalized same sex marriage for some years, and continues to strive toward equality,” its statement read. “We respect everyone’s freedom to eat where they choose, however, we ask the LGBT+ community (including allies) to boycott the chain in Reading.”
Protesters gathered outside the chain Friday — but they had already won. A day before the protest, the BBC broke the news that the Chick-fil-A branch would only stay for six months. The chain claimed in a statement to The Washington Post, however, that it had only ever planned to be in Reading for six months.
“Chick-fil-A have subsequently stated they’d not planned to stay past 6 months, but what business would not stay if they were successful and profitable?” Martin Cooper, CEO of Reading Pride, said in an email to NBC News. “The point is, they’ve not been given the option to stay by the landlords, The Oracle.”
Matt Rodda, a member of Parliament for Reading, also praised the move in a tweet, saying he was “pleased” that the mall “listened” to activists.
In the United States, Chick-fil-A has more than 2,400 restaurants across the country, but the chain frequently faces protests from LGBTQ activists over its record on gay rights. Before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, Chick-fil-A lent support to organizations that worked to ban same-sex marriage and roll back LGBTQ rights.
Earlier this year, local activism foiled Chick-fil-A’s plans to open restaurants at airports in Buffalo, New York, and San Antonio. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott responded by signing legislation dubbed the “Save Chick-fil-A” bill, which prohibits government entities from taking “adverse actions” against businesses or individuals because of their religious beliefs or moral convictions.
While Chick-fil-A did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment Monday regarding its Reading location, in a previous statement, the company claimed its “restaurants welcome and embrace all people, regardless of … sexual orientation or gender identity.”
For the first time last June, residents in Heber City, Utah, saw their downtown adorned in rainbows.
Sky Elizabeth Smith, 15, remembered driving with her family through the tiny Rocky Mountain town in northern Utah where she grew up, and finding herself surrounded by dozens of rainbow banners on both sides of Main Street.
“It made me feel really, really happy,” she told NBC News.
Sky Elizabeth Smith, left, and mother Elizabeth Gale Seiler at the Heber fair days in August 2019.Sky Elizabeth Smith
Smith, a high school student who identifies as pansexual, attempted suicide last year after what she described as routine bullying from classmates. Some classmates, she recalled, told her that Jesus was going to return and kill anyone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer.
When Smith’s mother, Elizabeth Gale Seiler, a day care worker and lifelong member of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, saw her daughter’s reaction to the banners, she was overcome with emotion.
“She looked at me, and she said, ‘I’m not alone here,’ and I just started to cry. In fact, I’m going to cry right now,” Seiler, 35, said. “It was the first time in this valley that she has felt accepted.”
A devastating trend
Youth suicide rates have tripled in Utah since 2007, according to the most recent data available from the Utah Department of Health. The problem is so severe that Republican Gov. Gary Herbert spearheaded a task force to combat the issue.
Nationwide, youth suicide skyrocketed 56 percent from 2007 to 2017, according to a newly released report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it’s unclear what’s behind the increase. LGBTQ youth are almost five times as likely to attempt suicide compared to their heterosexual and cisgender peers, according to the Trevor Project, a national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth.
Many advocates believe LGBTQ youth represent a large portion of suicides in Utah, but because public health data do not track sexuality and gender identity, there is no data that confirms their suspicions, according to Hillary McDaniel, a manager for the Utah Pride Center, Utah’s largest LGBTQ organization.
“When someone dies by suicide, their family often knows by a note or just knowing them that that was the issue, because they were gay, or lesbian, or transgender, bisexual, and they didn’t have that support or were being bullied,” McDaniel said.
Ironically, Utah’s large population of Mormons, who represent about 61 percent of the state, have become increasingly lenient on the issue, Allen said, with more and more Mormon leaders showing a willingness to work with LGBTQ advocates.
“If you look at public opinion polling, Mormons fall somewhere between white evangelical Christians and mainline Protestants on LGBTQ issues,” Allen said. “So it means that Mormons aren’t going to be quite as hard-line as maybe religious folks in the Bible Belt and parts of the Deep South, but they aren’t going to quite go to West Coast levels of LGBTQ acceptance just yet.”
In 2015, the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature passed “the Utah compromise,” a law that made Utah the only solidly conservative state to pass some protections in housing and employment for LGBTQ people. Two years later, Utah became the first of eight conservative states to repeal a “No Homo Promo” law that prohibited discussing LGBTQ issues in schools. And after an attempt to ban conversion therapy failed in the Legislature, the state’s Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing issued a draft rule to prohibit therapists from practicing conversion therapy on minors. If Herbert adopts the rule without changes, Utah will become the 19th state and the first reliably conservative state to ban the practice.
However, in a statement released last week, the politically powerful Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opposed the proposed ban, stating that the rule would interfere with psychologists’ religious beliefs, and said the measure “does not account for important realities of gender identity in the development of children.”
Small towns divided
Not everyone in Heber City was pleased to see Main Street bedecked in rainbow banners. Like many small towns in Utah, the population is largely Mormon, and is divided over LGBTQ issues, according to Mayor Kelleen Potter.
On June 4, a day after the banners were installed, Heber City residents gathered for a City Council meeting to voice divided opinions over the flags, Potter said. Some threatened to tear them down, she added, while others were overjoyed.
“There were a lot of really tender stories of people contacting me, telling me they’ve grown up in Heber, some of the difficulty growing up as an LGBTQ person in that community, and how they never believed that they would see something like that,” Potter recalled.
Herber City, Utah.Allison Phillips Belnap
In the following weeks, Potter fielded angry phone calls and emails from community members who felt the flags were inappropriate. She said some people saw them as an attempt by LGBTQ advocates to use city-owned property to send a “political” message, an idea she dismissed.
“There is no one advocating for any legislation, or anything,” she said of her city. “This is a civil rights issue. It’s just a message of love and inclusion. It’s good for our community.”
Allison Phillips Belnap, 46, a local real estate attorney, raised $3,553 through a GoFundMe campaign to purchase the rainbow banners for Heber City. Phillips Belnap left the Mormon Church in 2017 after coming out as a lesbian. As one who had attempted suicide, she said she purchased the banners because she wanted to show other members of the local LGBTQ community they were not alone.
After the flags were installed, residents began reaching out to Phillips Belnap on social media to say thanks. One message was from Elizabeth Gale Seiler, still distraught over her daughter Sky’s suicide attempt.
“I think that’s what makes it worth it,” Phillips Belnap said. “And it meant more to me than I ever would have anticipated starting out. I didn’t realize what a big effect it would have on individuals and the community.”
St. George, Utah.Courtesy Pride of Southern Utah
A similar debate erupted in St. George, a small desert town in Utah’s southwest corner, almost 300 miles from Heber City. During the early weeks of September, commuters there were greeted by rainbow banners on either side of St. George Boulevard, a main thoroughfare that cuts through the city center.
Pride of Southern Utah, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, paid for the banners, which were installed on about 30 lampposts along the boulevard. The group also installed banners in the towns of Cedar City and Hurricane.
Inspired by the banners in Heber City, Pride of Southern Utah raised more than $6,100 on GoFundMe to purchase the banners.
“Within 20 hours, we had more than twice as much as what we needed,” Stephen Lambert, director of Pride of Southern Utah, said. “It was very humbling.”
The group filed for a permit to install the banners, which were part of the group’s Pride Week celebration spanning a week in mid-September.
Hurricane, Utah.Project Rainbow
The banners set off waves of approval and outrage from residents of St. George. In an email circulated on social media, a councilwoman referred to the flags as “political statements,” igniting a debate over whether an ordinance surrounding public signage should be reevaluated.
Lambert refuted the idea that his group has political motivations.
“Pride of Southern Utah is not a political organization,” he said. “We are not out there trying to change policy. Our purpose is to be a support group for the LGBTQ+ community, to be a resource for them, to be a safe place for them. That’s all.”
As the controversy mounted, city officials received at least two informal inquiries from groups interested in installing their own banners on the city-owned lampposts, according to St. George Mayor John Pike. Pike declined to specify the names of the organizations, but he said one was a white supremacist group and the other was interested in installing flags with President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
St. George put a moratorium on applications for city lamppost banners until officials could revisit the city’s policy around what can be displayed on city-owned property, according to Pike.
The rainbow banners in Heber City prompted similar inquiries, according to Mayor Potter. She said at least one group inquired about installing anti-abortion banners on city-owned lampposts. While Heber City has not placed a moratorium on flags, Potter said the town will likely need to create an official policy that specifies what kinds of messages can be displayed on city-owned property.
Rainbow flags vandalized
Throughout Utah this year, rainbow flags adorned more than city lampposts. From summer through fall, flags were staked in the front yards of hundreds of homes in urban and rural neighborhoods.
Behind the effort was Project Rainbow, a small Salt Lake City-based nonprofit.
For $15, Utahans could rent rainbow flags from Project Rainbow during the duration of their city’s Pride festivities, which took place at various times throughout the summer and fall. Volunteers from Project Rainbow traversed the state to stake flags in customers’ front yards on PVC poles.
This year, the group raised $17,000 for the Utah Pride Center in Salt Lake City, and several thousand more for smaller LGBTQ groups throughout the state, including Pride of Southern Utah, according to Lucas Horns, who founded Project Rainbow in 2017.
Horns, 25, a professional ballet dancer who lives in Salt Lake, said the group staked 1,400 flags in the city and hundreds more throughout Ogden, Logan, St. George and Provo — more than doubling the number from last year.
Horns said Project Rainbow received backlash in response to the flags on social media, with some people accusing the group of “forcing their beliefs” on local communities. He estimated that about 10 percent of the flags Project Rainbow staked throughout Utah were stolen or vandalized.
“It’s sad that it’s been turned into a political symbol,” Horns said. “People have roped it into the dichotomy of our nation and I don’t think it has to be.”
Shally Sorensen, 46, a hair stylist who lives in St. George, came home one day in mid-September to see that her rainbow flag had disappeared from her property.
Sorensen, a mother of four, said she ordered the flag from Project Rainbow to show support for her nephew, who is gay. A few of her neighbors’ flags had also been thrown down or vandalized, she said.
“My girls and I, all of us cried, because we had a lot of sadness that week,” Sorensen, who has teenage daughters, said.
Days later, in an empty lot next to Sorensen’s house, a friend discovered a rainbow flag in a porta potty, soiled and partially burned. Instead of calling the police, Sorensen invited family and neighbors to her home to draw “messages of love” in colorful chalk on her driveway. About 40 to 50 people showed up, she said, including the local news media.
“It was beautiful to see that many people come together just to show love and support,” she said.
Sorensen washed the flag and put it back in her yard. Six days later, the flag vanished for the last time.
“I do know that I think there was a lot of good that came from all of this despite the yucky that came out,” Sorensen said. “It caused a lot of people to have conversations about what the flag means and that was really a good thing.”
‘Then came the flags’
Despite some backlash against the flags, advocates say Utah is warming to LGBTQ rights.
Mormon families are increasingly beginning to accept their LGBTQ children, according to Allen. Driving much of the change, she said, is Mormonism’s unique focus on family togetherness.
In recent years, a burgeoning online network of Mormon mothers known as the “Mama Dragons” emerged to help parents in the Mormon community understand their LGBTQ kids. Founded in 2014, the group has grown to more than 3,000 members throughout the country.
“I think it’s really telling that Mama Dragons came out of Mormonism,” Allen said. “You have these amazing moms who decided they were going to be really vocal and stand by their kids.”
Both Potter, who has a gay son and a transgender daughter, and Elizabeth Gale Seiler are proud members of the group.
“They’ve really helped me with some struggles I have with balancing how to help Sky through the struggles she’s been having with the bullying situation,” Seiler said.
Sky Elizabeth Smith has joined a newly formed a gay-straight alliance at her high school, and is doing much better, according to her mother.
“It’s been a real struggle,” Seiler said between tears. “But we make it through. She makes it through. She’s proud of who she is. She doesn’t hide who she is.”
Smith said the bullying she endured at school last year was “really bad.” One boy, she said, told her to “kill myself.”
“Then came the flags,” Smith said, recalling that day in June when she was surrounded by rainbow banners in downtown Heber City. “It just made me realize that there are people in this town and out there that actually care about us.”
Thursday October 31 @ 7:30 pm. Occidental Center for the Arts presents Halloween Bash with the Thugz!! A fun-filled evening of dancing and frolicking awaits you when West County favorites The Thugz (Tribal Hippie Underground Zone) – long-time purveyors of cosmic Americana and old-time psychedelic music – bring their positive vibes and communal spirit, original songs and cosmic jams to a first time ever Halloween Bash at OCA! There will be a $250 cash prize for Best Halloween costume! $15 Adv/$18 at the door. OCA is wheelchair accessible. www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. 707-874-9392. 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental, CA. 95465.
Sebastopol Senior Center’s Fabulous Halloween LGBTQ and Friends Dance Party. Included in the $15 door prices are 4 rooms of fun, black light art, gorilla kissing photo booth, talking pumpkins, delicious food for meat eaters and vegetarians, CAKE, Fortune Tellers for private sessions by donation, live DJ takes requests, home-backed chocolate chip cookies, FUN PEOPLE, ghosts that fly through windows, 8-foot clowns, skeletons. Beer and wine only $5. Our team of volunteers are up late preparing this wonderful event for you to enjoy. All money raised goes to help Seniors. And DJ BearCake Donald Rodreick has been up late working on his “Monster Mash” dance music set! Come Sat Oct 26th, 6:30 PM to the Sebastopol Senior Center 167 N High Street, Sebastopol
The singer and Tony nominated Broadway actor Sam Harris wrote a memoir, which he parlayed into a one man stage show picking up Ovation Awards in LA, and now its a full blooded film.
Most people know of Harris from when he won TV’s first ever talent show Star Search back in 1987 but Ham A Musical Memoir starts way before then when he was growing up as gay boy in Oklahoma’s bible belt. His story is full of ups and downs,, with more of the latter as anybody who also had to hide their sexuality for a very long time will know all to well.
The film starts of a little hesitantly but as soon as the charismatic Harris warms up he is beaming telling tales of his first break into show business. At junior school he was cast as one of the polynesian children in South Pacific and next as african/american child in a play about Helen Keller where he was desperate to play the lead,
Acting these all out Harris, a rather adept song and dance man, is a delight until the mood gets dark and he relates how as an 11 year old boy he swallowed more than a handful of seconal because he couldn’t equate being gay in the world that he lived in. It was an extremely touching scene that will ring so true particularly with so many other gay men and women.
He moves on quickly on to his decision to leave home at 16 and follow his dream of being a performer and his accounts of all the low dives he had to play …….once with not a single soul in the audience…. are hilarious . He claims he has no humility, but his self-effacing honesty is the reason why his stories have such an authenticity to them and that draws us in more.
Winning every week on Star Search changed his life ….. and gave him Somewhere Over The Rainbow as his theme song …. but that wasn’t his highlight. After kissing a few frogs along the way, some 27 years ago he met Danny, now his husband, and when they adopted Copper their son, Harris had achieved his life’s ambition.
Harris’s is an entertaining and compelling story that finally has a happy ever-after ending and by setting it all to song, he makes it that more enjoyable. Filmed live at the Pasadena Playhouse,with a generous performance from his musical arranger and accompanist Todd Schroeder and some neat choreography by Lee Martino he has all the help to make him look and sound good, and he takes full advantage of it.
This movie will delight his loyal fans but it really needs to get in front of other audiences too as it well definite appeal to a whole slew of people who may not have seen Harris since his early days of fame . The boy grew up good.
WorldPride 2023 will be held in Sydney, InterPride has announced, marking the 50th Anniversary of Australia’s first Gay Pride Week.
InterPride is the international association of Pride organisations, and it voted on Sunday, October 20, at its Annual General Meeting in Athens on the bids for 2023 WorldPride.
The bid said that WorldPride in Sydney, with the theme of “fearless”, would “benefit those communities who need it most; neighbouring countries where LGBTQI communities experience some of the worst human rights abuses in the world”.
2023 will now be the first time a city in the Southern hemisphere has hosted the international LGBT+ event.
The bid highlighted the importance of a Southern Hemisphere WorldPride: “It presents a unique challenge to the WorldPride movement, asking it to engage with and celebrate the many unique, culturally diverse expressions of genders and sexualities found in Oceania and Asia on an unprecedented scale.
“From the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sista Girls and Brutha Boys, to the Fa’afafine and Fa’afatama from Samoa, the Fakaleiti from Tonga, the Kathoey from Thailand, and the Hijra from India.
“WorldPride in Sydney will be a global first, providing a unique opportunity for the Prides of the world to meet with these diverse communities and for them to be seen, be heard and be included.”
New South Wales minister for tourism Stuart Ayres told ABC that WorldPride could generate $664 million for the city, and it has been estimated that the event could draw around one million visitors.
He added: “Sydney is a truly cosmopolitan city with an amazing harbour, delicious food and beverage, world-class transport and a proud history of celebrating diversity.
