Patsy, the title character in Nicole Dennis-Benn’s exemplary second novel, yearns for one thing in the book’s opening pages: an American visa. Her best friend and lover, Cicely, long ago disappeared there, resurfacing in letters that promise a new life, a fresh start, and freedom. And though Patsy is a mother to a little girl, Tru, she desires nothing more than to escape the stifling life of Pennyfield, Jamaica, alone.
But the American dream that Cicely speaks of is far from the reality Patsy finds when she arrives in New York City on a temporary visa. Cicely has not exactly been forthcoming about the truth of her life: she has a son by her abusive, racist husband, and that tie, unlike Patsy’s own to her daughter, is enough to keep Cicely emotionally captive. Patsy’s fantasies of a new life with Cicely quickly dissolve, leaving her alone in an unfamiliar city, without documentation, without money, without community.
Depression threatens to subsume her, but she quickly discovers that as an immigrant, with no access to benefits or a safety net, allowing the “Devil’s cold” to take over will cost her livelihood. Thus begins her life in New York City, first as a bathroom attendant, then as a house cleaner, and ultimately, ironically, as a nanny.
Meanwhile, Tru, Patsy’s daughter, finds herself adrift amid her new life with her father and step family—a new mother and brothers she hadn’t previously known. She misses her mother and tries to follow her imperative to “be a good girl,” though as the years pass, this promise becomes harder and harder to keep. Tru finds solace in excelling at school and in soccer matches with the neighborhood boys. She’s whip-smart and sharp-tongued, refreshingly rebellious and centered as a teenager. Despite her occasionally self-destructive actions, Tru is able to embrace her sexuality and imagine a way out of a culture that doesn’t understand who she is—a hope that helps her navigate the rough waters of her life.
Patsy spans approximately ten years—from 1998 to 2008—and runs the gamut of undocumented immigrant experience: culture shock, indignity, loneliness, confusion, fear, regret, and eventually, uneasy acceptance. Dennis-Benn strives for an authentic portrayal, giving Patsy a distinct voice and emotionality as she grapples with the decisions she’s been forced to make.
Patsy, despite her struggles, can be difficult to empathize with, perhaps in part because of her seemingly careless abandonment of Tru. While there is no imperative for a mother to love her child, and while the idea of Patsy not feeling cut out for motherhood is well established, her break remains incomplete—encased in a sometimes baffling silence. (Indeed, one of the most heartbreaking elements of Patsy’s story is that despite her bravery in fleeing a place where she feels she has no voice, she finds herself even more invisible in America.) As the story progresses, however, it digs into the meat of Patsy’s past, exposing the constrictions placed upon working-class women in Jamaica. As the years pass, Patsy’s feelings about the life she left behind move away from ambivalence, toward reckoning, and ultimately, redemption.
Of course, Patsy’s not the only character in the book whose behavior pushes the boundaries of sympathy. Most, if not all, of the women in Patsy are forced up against their limits. If they often behave in incomprehensible ways, and say unkind things, and refuse to see one another for who they are; if they, ironically, refuse to recognize the desperation they all (sometimes ungracefully) face, then it’s hard not to blame their behavior on the circumstances of poverty and patriarchy and expectation.
Though Patsy gets off to slow start and loses momentum towards its finish, the bulk of the novel is compelling. As Patsy’s story unfolds, it gains poignancy, finding a steadiness of heart. Tru’s sections shine throughout, pushing as they do to understand a child’s sense of loss, loneliness, and otherness. Dennis-Benn has an eye for detail and ear for dialogue, and she does not shy away from confronting the brutal reality that immigrants face in a place like New York City. As the narrative winds to a close, Patsy may be no closer to her dream of American citizenship, but she may be closer to the freedom of spirit she’s been looking for all along.
GLAAD and The Harris Poll’s annual Acceptance Index shows a decline in LGBTQ acceptance among younger Americans. At the same time, GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project counts more than 114 attacks on LGBTQ Americans from The Trump Administration since President Trump took office.
Additionally, anti-LGBTQ violence continues to plague LGBTQ Americans. GLAAD compiled the following partial list of incidents of violence from news coverage from January to June 2019. From the horrific murders of transgender women of color to other random acts of violence – this list is a snapshot of anti-LGBTQ violence in America and is not comprehensive. If you’ve seen examples of anti-LGBTQ violence reported on in the media, contact press@glaad.org.
If you or someone you know has experienced anti-LGBTQ violence, please contact the Anti-Violence Project by calling their 24 hour free and confidential hotline at 212-714-1141 or vsiting their Report Violence site.
GLAAD mourns the loss of the following transgender women. For more about their lives please visit the Human Rights Campaign. GLAAD released the ‘More Than A Number’ report for more information on the epidemic of violence facing transgender Americans, especially transgender women of color, and best practices for reporting on this issue.
If you or someone you know has experienced anti-LGBTQ violence, please contact the Anti-Violence Project by calling their 24 hour free and confidential hotline at 212-714-1141 or vsiting their Report Violence site.
The LGBTQ community in Montgomery, Alabama, has been left with more questions than answers after a drag show was shut down by authorities Saturday night, during the 50th anniversary weekend of the historic Stonewall uprising.
“We’ve been running for weeks trying to raise money for a gay club in Montgomery, because we don’t have one,” Victoria A. Jewelle, a local drag queen who serves as the show’s director, told NBC News. “We were trying to raise money for a new establishment so we can have a place to feel safe.”
Alee Michelle is one of the drag queens who was set to perform at A Touch of Soul on Saturday, June 29, 2019, before authorities shut down the venue.Courtesy Nakeia Moss
Officials with Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board canvassed a dozen local bars, restaurants and nightclubs June 29 for what they call a “minor buy.” Essentially, the board sends a young person under the age of 21 into the establishment to see if the business will sell alcohol to them. It was assisted in this effort by the Montgomery Police Department and the Montgomery Fire and Rescue, in addition to other agencies.
At 10:45 p.m., officials arrived on the scene at A Touch of Soul, a soul food restaurant that was hosting a drag show to raise funds for the opening of a new LGBTQ nightclub in Montgomery. The city’s only full-time gay bar, Club 322, closed in May.
According to Jewelle, the fundraiser has gone on for weeks with absolutely no backlash from local authorities. All of that changed when performers say officials with the agencies came into their dressing rooms while they were putting on their makeup, shined flashlights in their faces and even went through their laptops.
Authorities ordered A Touch of Soul to close at midnight, giving everyone about an hour to pack up and leave. The fundraiser, which also served as the after party for Montgomery’s LGBTQ pride weekend, was essentially over before it even started.
Ambrosia Starling, a drag queen and community leader in Montgomery, said the scene was reminiscent of the bar raids at the long-closed HoJohns, the city’s premiere gay nightclub during the 1980s. She claimed that police would typically visit the bar at the end of their shifts to “practice the dogs” on its LGBTQ clientele.
“They used to raid HoJohns continuously,” Starling said. “The city of Montgomery has a history of harassing some of the older community LGBTQ spaces.”
‘NEVER HAD THIS PROBLEM BEFORE’
A second establishment experienced issues with authorities while hosting an LGBTQ event on Saturday night, the same day as the city’s LGBTQ Pride Month celebrations. Montgomery officials showed up at Club Reset, which was formerly known as Envi Ultra Lounge, at 2:00 a.m. and ordered patrons to “pour out their drinks” and vacate the premises immediately.
T’Chelle Monroe, a party promoter who has been organizing LGBTQ events at Club Reset for a year, said the bar typically stops serving drinks at that time and allows clubgoers to file out in a leisurely fashion.
Monroe said she’s “never had this problem before.”
“I’ve been in other clubs before, and I know they shut their bar down at 2 a.m.,” she said. “I’ve never heard that you actually had to be out of the club at that time.”
As LGBTQ people filed out of Club Reset after it was shut down, Monroe said many went over to nearby Club Ciroc, which shares a building with an auto supply shop and a hookah lounge. She said officials “followed” them to Club Ciroc, despite the fact that it had already passed its regulations check earlier in the evening.
A representative with Club Ciroc confirmed authorities did show up a second time at 2:30 a.m. but did not know whether they had followed patrons of Club Reset there.
“It made me feel like they’re targeting us,” Monroe said. “We already have enough to deal with being gay, but we’re here trying to celebrate each other on our weekend. They were tarnishing what we were trying to do. We’re just trying to have a good time amongst each other.”
NBC News contacted two other businesses that Monroe said were visited by police Saturday: Xscape Tapas Grille and Sky Bar.
A representative with Xscape confirmed that authorities were at the business for a half hour on Saturday, rigorously checking the lights, inspecting identifications and looking at liquor receipts, though the representative had no complaints about the interactions with city officials that night.
While Club Ciroc, Xscape and Sky Bar all confirmed authorities had visited their businesses, representatives from each declined to be quoted in this story.
Montgomery officials maintain that everything that took place Saturday night was completely by the book.
Dean Argo, the government relations manager for the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, said the board didn’t initially intend to scrutinize A Touch of Soul this weekend. However, he said an inspector approached the restaurant after he observed “people outside sitting on stools collecting money at the door,” as a board representative would later write in an incident report.
Argo read NBC News the report in its entirety.
“Upon entering the location, we found there was no food in the kitchen, no cook on duty,” the report states. “A restaurant license is issued for this location and that is described as habitually and principally used for the purpose of preparing and serving meals for the public to consume on premise.”
“Speaking only for the ABC Board,” Argo added, “we did not instruct anyone at this business to shut down.”
Jason Cupps, a captain with the Montgomery Fire Rescue, added that city authorities “verbally reminded the restaurant that, under the terms of its business license, it is required to close by midnight.”
Geri Moss, the restaurant’s owner, said that explanation doesn’t hold water. Since opening A Touch of Soul in 2016, she said it has regularly stayed open Fridays and Saturdays until 2 a.m. without incident. A Google search confirms those hours. According to Moss, the restaurant doesn’t shut its doors before that time unless business is slow.
“I was told that I could stay open until 2 a.m. on Saturday,” she said, adding that the city authorities who came to the restaurant over the weekend didn’t mention its hours being an issue.
While the ABC Board inspector noted in his report that there was no cook in the kitchen at the time of the visit, Moss claimed that is not true. She said she got up that morning around 4 a.m. to prepare the menu for the show, which was steak, potatoes and salad. There was another cook onsite ready to assist patrons in the meantime, should they want to order a hamburger and fries, she added.
“My kitchen is never closed unless the cafe’s closed, and there is always a cook,” she said. “If I’m not there, there’s a cook.”
Others confirmed there was a cook onsite.
Moss also said despite claims that A Touch of Soul was “collecting money at the door” for the fundraiser, she claimed there “weren’t any customers at that point.”
“The only persons that they saw were workers that I hired to work the party,” she claimed.
When NBC News approached the ABC Board and the Montgomery Fire and Rescue with the discrepancies between their official statements and what those present at A Touch of Soul said occurred Saturday, they could not offer an explanation. Both Argo and Cupps say they had been offered no additional information on the subject.
‘UNFORTUNATE’ TIMING
Several members of Montgomery’s LGBTQ community said what upsets them most about the weekend incident is that it seems to be a departure from the improving relationship between LGBTQ residents and city authorities. That relationship, they maintain, has improved greatly since the 1980s, when police harassment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer people was the norm.
Montgomery, Alabama’s second-largest city, hired its first LGBTQ liaison officer two years ago, and now it has two: Bianka Ruiz and Devin Douglas.
“We thought that we had gotten on such good footing, and that was one of the things that was so confusing for us,” Starling said. “We’re trying to build a good relationship with the police department. We thought that was being accomplished.”
Starling credits the Montgomery Police Department with being responsive to the community’s concerns about how the drag show was handled. Police Chief Ernest N. Finley addressed the matter in a speech to the LGBTQ community Sunday. According to the Montgomery Advertiser, Finley claimed the action had been planned for weeks but admitted the timing was “unfortunate.”
“You have my word that this shouldn’t happen,” he said, promising “more communication” in the future.
But even if the intentions of local authorities were benign, those present during the incident at A Touch of Soul wondered why officials couldn’t have chosen any weekend other than Pride to do a sweep of bars and nightclubs in Montgomery.
“If you knew for months, why didn’t you switch the day out of respect?” Jewelle asked.
When NBC News reached out to the Montgomery Police Department for comment, it deferred to the Montgomery Fire and Rescue’s statements on the matter.
Despite the controversy, A Touch of Soul has no plans to cease holding drag shows at the restaurant. Moss promised members of the city’s LGBTQ community they could keep putting on events until they raise enough money to “get their home,” and she doesn’t intend to break that pledge.
“If they got to shut me down, then they’re going to have to come with something not bogus and not made up,” she said.
In the classic GayDar tradition the social group invites the entire LGBTQI Community to takeover Buffalo Billiards in Petaluma for a Gay Night of fun. Join us for a gay night of friends, games and a good time! We’ve arranged for our GayDar friends to have a special happy hour menu and we will be holding a raffle for Sonoma County Pride 2020! Invite all your friends and join us for a fun time!.
Meet the Spahr Center’s Youth Advocacy CoalitionThe Spahr Center’s Youth Advocacy Coalition is a group comprised of queer and trans youth, high-school aged and up, who are passionate about activism and changing societal norms surrounding the LGTBQ+ community in Marin. Founded in March of 2018, the Youth Advocacy Coalition meets every week to organize and plan our events. Nina Friedman was our first program coordinator, and over the last three months, Fel Agrelius has taken that role. The group is entirely youth-led and directed. We pursue projects that we are most passionate about, and we prioritize those that show the most demonstrated need in our community. We initially started out planning social events, but as we grew together as a group, we realized we wanted to focus more on activism and community advocacy. Our group provides a way to get involved with other LGBTQ+ identified folks and create meaningful change, connecting those in and outside of the community and reducing the ignorance and prejudice with which we have personal experience. Click here to read more
40 PEOPLE STEPPED UP, NOW ONLY $2,000 MORE IS NEEDED TOWARD A $25,000 GOAL TO PROTECT LGBTQ STUDENTS, SENIORS AND PEOPLE WITH HIV
Good news: We recently announced that our Cause to be Proud Campaign had received a generous $5,000 challenge grant from Sid Hartman and Miguel Ruelas. To date, already $23,000 has been raised to meet this challenge. These funds will sustain and help usgrow our vital programs that support and empower LGBTQ+ youth and seniors, and people living with HIV. Sunday, June 30 is the last day of our fiscal year and Pride Month. Please help reach our $25,000 goal by contributing as generously as you can toward our $2,000 shortfall in reaching that goal by midnight 6/30. Note that you can make a monthly recurring gift that might just make it possible to increase your contribution! Today’s Spahrkle highlights the truly impressive work of our Youth Advocacy Coalition, which is preparing an important back-to-school training program for Marin County educators on the best ways to support a positive learning environment for LGBTQ+ students. The $2,000 we hope to raise before July 1 will help us to meet the costs of this program, building the kind of welcoming environment we all wanted and needed when wewere in school. Please donate by clicking the button below, or call our Executive Director Dana Van Gorder who will happily accept your gift or monthly pledge by phone 24/7 on his cell phone 415.987.7061.
Welcome to New Board of Directors Members Wade Flores and Bobby MoskeAssuring that its membership is inclusive of all people being served by The Spahr Center is a key priority of the Board of Directors. And so, it is with admiration and excitement that we welcome Bobby Moske and Wade Flores to the Board to help assure the effectiveness of services to our 255 clients living with HIV, as well as to prevent new HIV infections.Both Wade and Bobby have selflessly and effectively represented the needs of people living with HIV as members of the Marin HIV Care Council, the official body that guides the spending of some $800,000 in federal Ryan White Program funding coming to the County. Click here to read more
Marin PRIDE PicnicA Sweet Afternoon of Community, Fun and PurposeThe June 22 Marin Pride Picnic was a great event — bringing 225 people together to celebrate the contributions of the LGBTQ+ and HIV communities in Marin County, and re-dedicating themselves to assuring our visibility and well-being. We heard from many people how happy they were to attend their first LGBTQ+ event locally, to make new friends, or to run into people they had not seen for many years. And we are thrilled to have been able to provide this opportunity. Many people helped to make Saturday such a great afternoon. Special thanks to Bri Silva and Fel Agrelius of The Spahr Center staff, as well as members of our brilliant Youth Advocacy Coalition, who put great thought and energy into the event. Marshall Grimes and Jeff Devoto outdid themselves standing over a hot, smoky grill for hours to feed grateful guests delicious grass fed beef hamburgers donated by Stemple Creek of West Marin. And our deep gratitude to Kaiser Permanente, Westamerica Bank, and Thomas Henthorne of Sotheby‘s for their sponsorship of the festivities. Attending the Picnic to express their strong commitment to addressing the needs of the LGBTQ+ and HIV communities were Assembly member Marc Levine; Supervisors Damon Connolly and Dennis Rodoni; and Amy Schroeder, representing Congressman Jared Huffman. The Spahr Center looks forward to continued work with these and other elected officials from Marin to assure a powerful future for our community. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for the announcement of the date of the 2020 Marin Pride Picnic. Trust us, you won’t want to miss out on the friendship and warm spirit that permeate this event.
We RememberNancy Flaxman, MSW, Senior Program Advisor
In February 2016, I was contacted by Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa to present on working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender seniors at a Grand Rounds for physicians and other medical staff on June 21st. The Kaiser LGBT Employee Association was sponsoring this cultural competency forum for Pride month. The week before the Grand Rounds, on June 12, 2016, 49 people were killed and 53 others wounded at Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando, Florida. This was the deadliest mass killing by a single shooter in the United States and the deadliest incident against LGBT people. Click here to read more
The Spahr Center lobbies for PrEP and PEPAndy Fyne, Testing & Prevention ManagerPrEP and PEP are exciting and important strategies for helping us to prevent new HIV infections. But both medically-based prevention strategies are suffering from alarmingly low levels of use. The Spahr Center is engaging in advocacy of state legislation to address this problem by allowing pharmacists to provide both PrEP and PEP to people who request it. You can help secure passage of this important legislation, and help make sure people you care about know of these prevention strategies. PrEP (PRE-exposure prophylaxis) is a once-daily pill for HIV-negative people that almost entirely eliminates the risk of contracting HIV. PEP (POST-exposure prophylaxis), on the other hand, is medication that a person takes after potential exposure to HIV, in order to prevent the virus from taking hold. Click here to read more.
LGBTQ Senior LuncheonMark your calendars now! Our next LGBTQ luncheon will be held on Wednesday, August 28th. 12 pm – 3 pm at The Marin Yacht club! We can’t wait to see you there!
Join AIDS WALK 2019!Andy Fyne, Testing & Prevention ManagerIt’s a great time to show some PRIDE and begin your fundraising for AIDS Walk 2019. It’s coming right up on July 14th! Whether you join us in Golden Gate Park and stroll the 10K or whether you cannot physically be there and sign up as a Virtual Walker, we want you to join our team! Tell your friends and families just how proud you are of the wonderful work that is done every day at the Spahr Center and watch the donations pour in!Some of us have already begun asking our friends and families AND dentists, dry cleaners, carpool riders, neighbors, coworkers, frenemies, butchers and book club participants for contributions. It’s really easy and people are happy to give when you tell them why you care about The Spahr Center’s mission and good works. Some of you have reached out to me for assistance in making this happen. I AM HAPPY TO HELP! I can help with personalized web pages, provide flyers and other technical assistance. I also have giveaways to entice your contacts to give generously. Everyone has their own style of fundraising and I can help you tailor your appeal. Give me a call at 415-886-8556 and let’s get started. OR If you want to register right now, call 415-615-WALK or go to: https://sf.aidswalk.netand click the register button. Select The Spahr Center as your team. If you wish to donate, please click the button below and give a donation with PRIDE!!Donate to our AIDSWALK team
Harm Reduction Saves Lives“It’s an epidemic [syringe sharing]. That’s how bad it’s getting. I mean, you’ve got four or five people sharing a needle, and then they’ll throw it down on the ground and maybe somebody else come along and they pick it up and they think burning it with a lighter will sterilize it. Well, that’s not so. And then the next thing you know, four or five people use that needle. One needle will probably do 15 people.”In a recent qualitative study of program participants by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, one person who injects drugs recounted this terrifying new reality of using drugs when syringe services programs aren’t readily accessible. We are hearing similar anecdotes from our syringe access site participants. Is a cluster of HIV cases down the road for Marin as well? Read the following article for more background: HIV Transmission in People Who Use Drugs The Spahr Center distributed 146K syringes in 2018 when we were located at our home in San Rafael. Now that we cannot provide syringe access from our offices, we are located at five evening mobile locations. Our distribution is down 83% in the first half of 2019 because of the disruption our move has brought. We need to step up our outreach so that people can once again find us and use all our Harm Reduction services including lifesaving Narcan and connection to treatment. We need to step up our volunteer team also- not only to staff our five (and soon to be more) mobile sites, but to help us meet people and spread the word about our lifesaving services. Call Andy at 415-886-8556 or email Rhiannon at rhiannon.spahr@gmail.com and find out how you can get involved and help us prevent an increase of HIV and Hepatitis C in Marin.
Results of the Ryan White – HIV Services Satisfaction SurveyEach year, the County of Marin reaches out to all the clients who have accessed Ryan White Program funded HIV services to measure their satisfaction with the full range of services being provided by The Spahr Center. For 2019, 176 surveys were distributed to clients, who were offered two ways to complete the survey – online or on paper. A total of 89 surveys were returned, yielding a solid 48 percent response rate. This is higher than last year’s response rate of 45 percent. The Spahr Center was honored by the outcome of the survey this year. While our scores have always been in the high 80’s and low 90’s, this year all but one program rated in the mid 90’s. These are our best results yet for the annual survey. We have carefully reviewed individual comments made by survey respondents and are addressing each one that asked us to do better. We greatly appreciate this helpful information, and take each comment very seriously. Many thanks to our HIV services team – Leslie Gallen, David Mon, Maria Camacho and Andy Fyne – for the devotion and skill they put into their work. For more information about the results of the Satisfaction Survey, contact Leslie Gallen at lgallen@thespahrcenter.org
Support GroupsThe Spahr Center offers a variety of social support groups. Below is a list of the groups, with a short description. Please click any of the groups to learn more!
HIV Groups Latino Support Group – this group is for Latinos living with or affected by HIV.Women’s Support Group – this group is for women living with or affected by HIV.Long Term Survivors Group – this group is for any individual who identifies as a “long-term survivor” of HIV.
Amazon has removed books by a ‘gay cure’ conversion therapy author.
Joseph Nicolosi penned a book that spread the dangerous and harmful practice of attempting to ‘cure’ a person’s sexual or gender identity.
He was the co-founder of the National Association of Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and a prominent leader in the ex-gay movement.
His book, A Parent’s Guide To Preventing Homosexuality, is one of the most well known ‘conversion therapy’ books.
But now, it has been removed from the UK and US versions of Amazon.
Rojo Alan, from Peterborough, wrote to Amazon several times to get the book removed from listings.
He previously went through conversion therapy himself as a young child.
Failing to get the right response, he engaged with others to leave negative reviews on the website. Quickly, the rating fell from four stars to two stars.
‘I looked into the “rules of publishing” on Amazon, to see what sort of things they allow and don’t allow,’ he said.
‘Once I wrapped my head around that I started to look into the laws of conversion therapy. The legal side of things.
‘Once I gathered everything I went back to Amazon and I threw all the information I had at them in several conversations. Yet I was given the same “we will refer this to the relevant team”. Again it felt hopeless and I wasn’t too sure what else I could do.’
But, sure enough, Amazon removed all of the English language books by Nicolosi. It took Alan three months from the first email to removing the books.
‘Huge step’
‘These books were “how to” books,’ Alan told Gay Star News, also describing it as a ‘huge step in the right direction’.
‘These were books that were lying to parents on how they could cure their children from being gay or trans. It’s lying because it’s actually just a form of abuse.
‘The books went into ways in which you can mentally and physically abuse your child.
‘If this helps anyone from being harmed, that would be a good reason to do it.’
He was previously quoted in a documentary: ‘Everyone is heterosexual.’
‘The idea that some people are naturally homosexual, or naturally gay, is just a social construct.’
He also said: ‘So when you have individuals with same-sex attraction, we it as something went wrong developmentally and we try to resolve the issue and put them back on the path toward their natural heterosexuality.’
The World Psychiatric Association has condemned so-called ‘gay cure’ conversion therapy.
The group said they consider sexual orientation to be ‘innate’. They also said it is determined by ‘biological, psychological, developmental and social factors’.
‘WPA believes strongly in evidence-based treatment,’ they also said.
‘There is no sound scientific evidence that innate sexual orientation can be changed.
‘Furthermore, so-called treatments of homosexuality can create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish, and they can be potentially harmful … The provision of any intervention purporting to “treat” something that is not a disorder is wholly unethical.’
Nepal made history on Saturday (29 June) when hundreds marched through the capital Kathmandu to celebrate LGBTI pride.
More than 300 people donned colorful face paint, carried rainbow umbrellas, and waved flags according to local media.
Although Nepal has held LGBTI pride events in the past, this was the first march through the city in June. Hundreds of LGBTI rights supporters, for example, attend the Gai Jatra festival each year in August.
Queer Youth Group (QYG) and Queer Rights Collective organized the event.
Attendees of the first pride parade in the capital of Nepal Kathmandu. (Photo: Queer Youth Group) 4
‘I feel like these are my people. I know they won’t judge me and I can fully be myself here, attendee Jyoti Shrestha told South Asia Time.
‘People here don’t know the specific terms used and although they know we exist, there is still taboo surrounding this topic,’ Shrestha also said.
One pride attendee shared footage of an apparent confrontation with police on Twitter.
User Shubha Kayastha told pride attendees to take down their rainbow flags outside the designated area.
The mountainous South Asian country legalized gay sex in 2007, and theoretically has laws to protect LGBTI equality. It also recognizes a third or ‘other’ gender marker in citizenship documents.
But, local activists have warned, that is not always the case in practice.
‘There has always been a romanticization of Nepal as being one of the more tolerant countries in Asia; however, the ground reality is very different’ organizer Rukshana Kapali told South Asia Time.
A new criminal code enacted in August last year fails to guarantee equal marriage, for example.
The campers at Brave Trails are told, above all else, they get a “second family” while participating in this Los Angeles-based LGBTQ+ youth summer camp.
Brave Trails blossomed out of the love that founders Jessica and Kayla Weissbuch’s share for summer camp and queer youth mentorship.
“With the skills learned at camp, our campers will be primed to thrive in their schools, workplace and personal lives,” Jessica said. “In addition, our campers will have the knowledge and confidence to be more impactful leaders and implement innovative social change in their communities.”
The camp’s program focuses on four key elements: Leadership, Community Building, Self-Realization, and Service. They use workshops, adventure and artistic programming, service projects, peer connections and positive role models to “create a safe space where youth can thrive.” Jessica said that with the skills learned at Brave Trails, campers will be primed to thrive in their schools, workplace and personal lives. In addition, Jessica said that campers will have the knowledge and confidence to be more impactful leaders and implement innovative social change in their communities.
“It is important to have a queer-specific space for our youth because the campers are able to connect with one another in a very different way,” Jessica said. “They are able to talk about things they have in common and find a tribe that they fit into. Even though much of Los Angeles is a liberal bubble, not all of it is.”
Most campers come to Brave Trails with a “shield of armor” on, but through the course of the program, they are able to “take that off,” Jessica said.
“We give them the space to not have to look over their shoulder and defend themselves (which they often have to do at their schools and in their communities),” Jessica explained.
This year, Brave Trails has partnered with Los Angeles-based Camp TAZO ambassador JD Knapp for more fun and mentorship. Camp TAZO® ‘Passion’ was TAZO tea’s inaugural camp experience that brought 30 strangers from across the country to Marble Falls, TX to break out of their comfort zones, and send them to a sleep-away camp directed by vivacious drag queen Alyssa Edwards.
“Brave Trails attendees can expect a surprisingly heartfelt yet undeniably entertaining speech from me this June,” JD said in an interview with the Pride LA. “My life story is truly a work of fiction and I cannot wait to start using my past pain to help encourage and inspire the next generation of LGBTQ+ leaders.
As the U.S. — and many other parts of the world — celebrates the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, rainbow flags and LGBTQ-inclusive ad campaigns appear to be omnipresent, especially in big cities. The ubiquity of these Pride campaigns make it easy to forget that this was not always the case. While many point to corporate America’s embrace of LGBTQ inclusivity as a major sign of progress, others believe corporations are coopting the movement.
Advertisements geared toward gay and lesbian consumers began to appear in earnest in the 1970s, inspired in part by the energy of the Stonewall uprising, which is widely considered the spark that fueled the modern LGBTQ movement.
So-called “sin” products, like alcohol and tobacco, were the first marketed to gays. These companies had little or nothing to lose from a potential boycott by the religious right, according to Katherine Sender, a communications professor at Cornell University and author of “Business, Not Politics: The Making of the Gay Market.”
“Now, getting a gay boycott is a much worse thing than getting a boycott from the religious right.”
PROFESSOR KATHERINE SENDER
Absolut vodka was the first brand to build itself with an eye toward the gay market, featuring full-page ads in gay outlets, such as The Advocate. Other alcohol brands like Boodles Gin ran ads in gay publications, but most ad revenue came from local gay bars and businesses.
However, with the exception of Absolut, much of the advertising aimed explicitly at gays came to a halt in the 1980s because of the HIV/AIDS crisis and the stigma surrounding the disease.
Things changed in the 1990s. Marketing surveys, namely the 1988 Simmons Market and the 1990 Overlooked Opinions survey, presented an image of gays and lesbians as an affluent, untapped market. Marketers estimated the total annual income of the gay community at over $500 billion. The surveys, however, were not representative and helped to start what researchers have since described as the “myth of gay affluence.”
In 1994, Ikea launched the first television ad to feature a gay couple. In the commercial, the two men tease each other about their taste in furniture.
“I remember it extremely well, because it was radical,” said Bob Witeck, president of Witeck Communications, a firm specializing in LGBTQ marketing. The couple “behaved in every sense like a married couple, and it was radical because it was normal and natural,” he said.
Not everyone loved the ad. In fact, the backlash was swift and strong. The American Family Association staged a boycott, and an Ikea store in New York received a bomb threat.
That same year, AT&T launched a direct-marketing mail campaign, making them the first US phone company to openly target lesbian and gay customers (MCI ran an earlier campaign, but used suggestive statements and imagery rather than a direct appeal).
“They got a big pushback from the religious right,” Sender said.
Companies remained more focused on gay men, though a notable exception was Subaru. In the late ‘90s, Subaru undertook a very successful lesbian-focused marketing campaign after research revealed its sturdy, practical cars appealed to this demographic. “It’s not a choice, it’s the way we’re built,” a 2000 print ad boasted.
This new interest in the “pink dollar” coincided with a massive increase in gay and lesbian visibility in the media. Ellen came out on TV in 1997, which Sender called “a massive deal.” Shows like “The L Word,” “Queer as Folk” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” ushered images and information about gays and lesbians into homes across the country.
Despite the increased visibility and a number of successful ad campaigns, even into the early 2000s mainstream companies still risked a backlash for gay and lesbian inclusivity, according to Sender. Many companies were still afraid to be labeled as selling a “gay product.” Representation of transgender people was almost always negative, relying on transphobic tropes of deceit or mistaken identity, according to Sender’s research.
FROM THE GAY MARKET TO THE LGBTQ MARKET
Rich Ferraro, chief communications officer at GLAAD, a national LGBTQ media advocacy organization, has been consulting on LGBTQ images in advertising since 2008. He sees a very different media landscape today.
“The backlash that once occurred if a brand had LGBTQ marketing campaigns is no longer,” Ferraro wrote in an email. “For instance, fringe organizations like Family Research Council, National Organization for Marriage and One Million Moms would start petitions (which never really reached large numbers), but now they do not.”
Chloe Pultar, right, slides down the Tinder Pride Slide in support of Equality Act kicking off WorldPride at Flatiron Plaza on June 24, 2019 in New York City.Michael Loccisano / Getty Images
Sender agreed, saying, “Now, getting a gay boycott is a much worse thing than getting a boycott from the religious right.”
More and more companies are engaging in LGBTQ-inclusive advertising, Ferraro said. “Categories have exploded — spirits and travel were typically leaders in LGBTQ-inclusive campaigns, but now it’s retail, cars, banking and financial services, food and beverages, youth-oriented brands,” he explained.
Witeck said “there is probably no more efficient way to say we are a contemporary brand” than to make your ad campaigns LGBTQ-inclusive.
For legacy brands, like Coca Cola, they must always be refreshed and made relevant, Witeck added. “LGBTQ marketing is an effective way to say, ‘We get it. We look and talk and act like we are in the 21st century.’”
However, Sender said that LGBTQ consumers are not only looking for inclusion in campaigns, but are holding companies accountable in their employment and production practices.
“Now, people are asking more questions, particularly around transgender polices and health care,” she said.
“What constitutes the responsibility of the advertising companies is expanding in ways that are really quite powerful,” Sender added, noting that consumers are asking questions like, “Are they buying products or services or in countries that have extremely bad policies and legal enforcement around LGBTQ people?”
Because of their resources, companies are also in a position to exert powerful political influence if they want to. Witeck mentioned the corporate boycotts of North Carolina after the passage of HB2 (the so-called “bathroom bill) that helped to precipitate its repeal and major companies’ outspoken support for transgender equality.
While historically there has been much less representation of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals, this year examples of such campaigns abound: Raquel Willis for Express on a Times Square billboard, Gillette’s commercial featuring a young trans man and his dad, and Uber running a campaign featuring trans, genderqueer and bisexual pride flags.
“Traditionally, one or two campaigns are inclusive of transgender people, now it is a norm,” Ferraro said.
GAY INC.
Kristin Comeforo, associate professor of communications at Hartford College, worries that advertisers often take a “check-the-box approach” to the inclusion of gender and racial diversity, rather than a genuine engagement with intersectional experiences.
She also worries that corporate sponsorship can silence the voices of LGBTQ people who face intersectional marginalization.
Sender agreed, noting that “the 50th anniversary of Stonewall is such a big deal everyone wants a piece of that.” As a result, she added, Pride marches have become “a party for everybody.”
“What gets left behind are the very real struggles of LGBTQ people in this country — trans people in particular and people of color facing multiple layers of discrimination,” she added. “This ‘party’ suggests that being gay is just an excuse to have a lovely time, but there is still a long way to go.”
Nearly 2 million LGBTQ youths ages 13 to 24 in the United States consider suicide each year, according to research released Thursday by the Trevor Project.
Using data from a variety of sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its own National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, Trevor Project researchers determined that LGBTQ teens were particularly at risk. Those 13 to 18 were approximately twice as likely to contemplate suicide as those 19 to 24.
Amy E. Green, the nonprofit’s director of research, told NBC News that although these numbers are harrowing, they are “conservative estimates.”
“These numbers are the bare minimum they could be because we used a conservative method to conclude our estimates,” Green said. “The fact that we still arrived at these huge astonishing numbers shows that this is a serious health problem.”
According to the mental health survey, released this month, there are multiple factors that can negatively affect the well-being of queer adolescents — the foremost being lack of acceptance.
More than 70 percent of respondents reported experiencing discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and two-thirds of respondents stated that someone has tried to convince them to change those identities.
Though previous research has revealed that LGBTQ youth are more likely to experience thoughts of suicide, Green said these latest figures “provide additional context to just how widespread this problem is.”
A separate research released by the Trevor Project on Thursday offered some positive news, however. LGBTQ youth who report having at least one accepting adult in their lives were 40 percent less likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year.
“I hope this research will inspire the country to come together to change policies on the state and federal levels that affect LGBTQ youth’s lives, like ending the harmful practice of conversion therapy, as well as inspire other researchers who are looking into this area to study the factors and find solutions,” Green said. “We also need to support organizations that are doing the work to launch anti-bullying and suicide prevention efforts.”
