Elsie Carson-Holt

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Affordable housing project for queer seniors faces setback despite rising need

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A much-needed affordable housing project for LGBTQ+ seniors in San Francisco’s Castro District has hit a setback, as state agency funding was denied, even though the proposal was described as “a great project,” The Bay Area Reporter wrote.

Mercy Housing California, a senior living facility for elderly LGBTQ+ people, had applied for nearly $39 million from the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) Program, a joint initiative by California’s Department of Housing and Community Development and the Strategic Growth Council. The funds would have funded a 187-unit affordable housing development in the Castro, the city’s historically gay neighborhood.

Amar Cid, deputy director of Community Investments and Planning, said the project had limited funds and much competition, with other applicants scoring higher.

“Round 8 of the AHSC program had many transformative, impactful community projects. Like every round, total project requests far exceeded the available funds. This year, requests were more than double what we could grant. It was a highly competitive process,” he told The Bay Area Reporter.

Cid emphasized that the rejection doesn’t mean the project isn’t valuable. 

“The team met with the 1939 Market Street project team in mid-September to discuss ways to increase their score if they choose to apply in a future round,” he said, emphasizing that he told its organizers to apply again in the future. ” 

“[It’s] a great project … [and] we hope they consider applying in a future round,” he said.

“Why some projects may have been awarded with a lower score than the 1939 Project has to do with other projects perhaps meeting specific [disadvantaged communities] and/or program priorities,” Cid said.

The affordable housing developer is partnering with Openhouse, a San Francisco nonprofit that provides services for LGBTQ+ seniors, to create their third building of below-market-rate apartments, primarily for LGBTQ+ seniors. Previously, the two organizations collaborated on 119 units of affordable, LGBTQ+-friendly senior housing spread across two buildings located at 55 and 95 Laguna Street — both are near the Castro District.

The push for affordable housing in the Castro is especially crucial as LGBTQ+ seniors face unique challenges in finding safe, inclusive living spaces. Mercy Housing’s commitment to resubmitting their application is a step forward, but the struggle for adequate funding continues.

Mercy Housing California said that it will reapply for funding in 2025. In a statement to Bay Area Reporter, the organization expressed hope for next year. 

“Unfortunately, this does push the schedule back one year. However, we remain committed to delivering 187 units of LGBTQ+ friendly housing as soon as possible,” the organization said.

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Homophobic “locker room” talk hurts straight boys more than gay boys

Team sports are generally regarded to have positive benefits for kids, from gaining a new skill to socialization. However, there are some negatives associated with sports teams, particularly boys’ sports teams, when a culture of toxic masculinity and anti-LGBTQ+ language is present. 

A study by Fordham University has shown that when youth are exposed to anti-LGBTQ+ language, it greatly harms them, unsurprisingly. However, the data also showed that it was not young queer children who are the most impacted by anti-LGBTQ+ language in athletic environments. It was young, straight white boys.

Locker room talk with homophobic undertones, phrases like “man up” or “don’t be a sissy,” pressure boys not to act feminine, with deeply harmful results, even if the phrases are used jokingly. Researchers write that language like that is often used in boys’ sports environments, allegedly to motivate. But it often simply ends up “policing,” as the researchers write, the right and wrong way to be a man.

Using language and phrases like that “harms the well-being of everyone,” said Laura Wernick, one of the study’s lead authors and an associate professor of social service at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service.

Youth exposed to higher levels of such language did not benefit as much from the positives that youth sports offer compared to their peers who were not exposed to hurtful language. Self-esteem was one of the primary benefits lost when sports environments were inundated with harmful language. 

Wernick said that the decrease in self-esteem was significantly greater among straight white cisgender boys than any other subgroup, calling it “the irony of policing masculinity.”

It’s not that LGBTQ+ youth are unaffected by this type of language in youth sports environments. However, researchers suggest that the impact on them and other marginalized groups may be less severe, as their past experiences have often helped them develop coping strategies.

The study was published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues. Data was collected in 2014 as part of a project started by high school students in Michigan who were a part of Neutral Zone, an organization in Ann Arbor. The LGBTQ+ students who started the project bonded over shared experiences being bullied and were mentored by Wernick, a doctoral student at the time.

About the experience, Wernick said, “This was before a lot of media were starting to pay attention to the experiences of queer and trans youth.Their experiences weren’t being heard or believed.”

The study surveyed students in five urban, rural, and suburban schools about their experiences of harmful language in different environments, such as youth sports. 

“I don’t think coaches think about the actual impact it has on boys,” Derek Tice-Brown, an assistant professor of social service at Fordham and the study’s co-lead author, said. “They grew up playing sports the exact same way, and that’s how they were taught to compete, to live up to a certain idea of what manhood is.”

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Gay man freed from Qatar after being “honey-trapped” by police in Grindr plot

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A gay man from Britain who was jailed in Qatar after being entrapped by the police has finally been permitted to leave by Qatari authorities and has returned to the United Kingdom after months of imprisonment in inhumane conditions.

Manuel Guerrero Aviña, a gay man who has British/Mexican citizenship, was arrested in February 2024 in Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal. Aviña was a former employee of Qatar Air Lines. He was convicted of drug possession in a so-called “honey trap.”

Aviña said he responded to fake messages on Grindr that were actually sent by the police. 

He was lured to a location in Doha, where the profile he was messaging with said would meet other gay men, he says. In Doha, the police were waiting to arrest him. The police say they found methamphetamine in his apartment during the arrest, which Aviña says they planted there.

He was jailed on February 4, and was given a suspended six-month prison term and a fine at Al Sadd Criminal Court in the capital city of Doha in June.  

While jailed, Aviña was deprived of antiretroviral medication that he needs as an HIV-positive man. He was also forced to sign documents pertaining to his imprisonment that were written in Arabic, which he does not speak, without a translator. He said that he was forced to identify which contacts in his phone were his sexual partners, and subjected to “psychological torture.”

Aviña’s family and LGBTQ+ rights advocates around the world launched a campaign for him to return home, which was finally successful this week. 

The X account @QatarFreeManuel announced yesterday, “At this moment Manuel flies free and dignified towards London! We are grateful for the unwavering support in this fight for justice. There is no doubt that ‘solidarity is the tenderness of peoples.’”

A statement posted on the accounts reads, “Manuel and his family thank you for your tireless support in this emblematic struggle against injustice, against homophobia and in favor of human rights for all people. But, as the saying goes, the struggle goes on, it is not over, and it will not end until there is justice for all people. Manuel’s case, and all the cases we have defended, teach us that only organisation, solidarity and courage can change this world and its injustices.”

Aviña himself spoke about his release, saying, “Although I welcome the fact that I can leave the country, I still condemn the unfair trial I have been subjected to and the torture and ill-treatment I endured during my preliminary detention.”

“I urge the UK and Mexican governments to raise concerns with the relevant Qatari authorities about the unfair trial and the violations of due process,” he added.

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HIV cases are increasing among younger queer Latinos

Although HIV transmission rates have declined from 201 to 2022, one demographic is seeing a rising share in new HIV infections: young Latino men, the Associated Press reported.

Young Latino men are the most at risk for HIV infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This demographic recently accounted for nearly 33% of new HIV infections even though they only make up 19% of the United States population.

African-American men still have the highest rate of new infections from HIV. However, Latino gay and bisexual men accounted for the largest amount of new HIV cases in 2022. Kentucky, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina have the highest rates of these new diagnoses.

The finding comes at a time when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is three years into a federal initiative to end the U.S. HIV epidemic.

HHS seeks to increase access to HIV treatment and information by allocating funding into areas that have the highest infection rates. HIV rates declined 23% from 2012 to 2022, but there are still currently 1.2 million people living with HIV in the U.S., including those who don’t know they’re infected.

In 2022, Kentucky, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina saw the highest rates of new diagnoses among Latinos. But in South Carolina, there is enough funding for only four community health workers focused on HIV outreach, some of whom are not bilingual; leaving Latinos who only speak Spanish cut off from healthcare resources. 

Public health advocates say that the federal government should redistribute funding to focus on HIV prevention, including access to testing and pre-exposure prophylactics (PrEP), a medication that greatly reduces the likelihood of HIV transmission. Only 4% of the almost $30 billion dollars in federal funding for HIV healthcare has gone to prevention.

Advocates say that outreach efforts at churches, training bilingual HIV testers, and testing at clubs on Latin nights could all help decrease new HIV infections in Latino communities.

“HIV disparities are not inevitable,” Dr. Robyn Neblett Fanfair, director of the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention, in their call for additional funding and awareness around this disparity.

The aforementioned study also noted that although South Carolina saw HIV infection rates double among Latinos from 2012-2022, the state has not yet expanded HIV mobile testing in rural areas, where the need is greatest. 

Likewise, in Shelby County, Tennessee the Latino HIV diagnosis rate rose 86% from 2012 to 2022, yet health department director Dr. Michelle Taylor said, “There are no specific campaigns just among Latino people.” 

Shelby County received $2 million in initiative funding in 2023, setting forth a response plan that acknowledges Latinos as a target group for HIV treatment and outreach.

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Police conduct mass arrest of post-Pride partiers in Chicago

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Police declared a “mass arrest situation” in Chicago, Illinois on Sunday night following the city’s annual Pride parade.

The arrests began at 1:23 a.m. in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, with police ordering a mass arrest, but no other information was given. The Chicago police department has not announced how many people were arrested during or after the parade.

CWB Chicago reported widespread fights and disruption throughout Boystown, home to one of the largest LGBTQ+ communities in the Midwest. The chaos continued into Monday morning, with videos of people clashing with the police being posted on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

Videos show police throwing members of the crowd to the ground, shoving people, and people running away from the scene.

Police also said “of the known arrests, at least two people were taken into custody for gun possession.” 

The police blocked off an area of West Belmont which usually hosts all-night Pride after parties. Rather than people dancing and socializing, the street was “bumper to bumper” with Chicago police vehicles. Residential side streets, however, were filled with people celebrating the last night of Pride.

Chicago’s Pride Parade and its afterparty have led to between 46 and 52 arrests each year between 2013 and 2015, according to CWB Chicago records. There were 25 arrests last year, including 21 adults and four juveniles.

Local Alderman Bennett Lawson addressed the chaos in a statement to The Chicago Sun-Times on Monday Night. 

“The Pride Parade yesterday was a safe and wonderful celebration of our diverse LGBTQ+ community, and it was such a joy to see so many people come out to show their support in the fight for equality,” Bennett said. “Following the Parade’s conclusion, I was extremely disappointed to see disruptive actions in our neighborhood into the early morning hours. I am grateful to the Chicago Police Department for their quick and decisive action to limit any damage and keep people safe, and to the Streets and Sanitation Department for their great work to clean our neighborhood.”

“I look forward to meeting with city departments and stakeholders in the coming days to discuss how we can continue to improve the Parade for participants, attendees and neighbors, and prevent these disturbing actions from occurring in the future,” Lawson said.

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Protestors threatened to ruin this Idaho county’s first Pride, but the community came together

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When Tom Wheeler set out to help organize Canyon County, Idaho’s first Pride event, he envisioned a small picnic in a park in Nampa, where he volunteers at an LGBTQ+ drop-in center. It would be a small event open to everyone. 

But Canyon County’s first Pride was not small and had 700 feet of six-foot-tall metal fencing and a police barricade. The event drew a crowd of thousands of people and featured food trucks, drag entertainers, and a stage. 

It was also highly controversial, the mayor of Nampa said that Pride events conflicted with her beliefs, and residents of Nampa said it should be protested. 

Though it was never completely safe to be a gay person in the United States, the Obama-era optimism of marriage equality and Pride Celebrations as parties are gone. Thanks to rising homophobia and transphobia, Pride events are now commonly threatened and protested. There have been 1,800 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced nationwide, and the State Department recently issued a warning about terrorist attacks during Pride celebrations.

Wheeler and fellow volunteer, Van Knapp, who lives in Nampa, decided to plan a Pride celebration together for the community. But what they originally intended to be a small picnic in the park for about 50 people grew into a gathering for 2,000, with the pair receiving $18,000 in donations. 

The Washington Post reports that “there were no explicit threats of violence” against the event, but before the event, Wheeler said that he received a call in which someone told him, “My family’s been here since 1901. This is God’s country. You’re not welcome here.”

His uncle told him he should wear a bulletproof vest. Instead, he opted for a cowboy hat and a pink T-shirt.

Even the mayor of Nampa spoke out, releasing a statement in May that reminded people that, while the First Amendment protects the right for the group to assemble in public, she personally doesn’t agree with Pride.

“While this event does not reflect the personal beliefs and convictions of myself, the Nampa City Council, and many living in Nampa who have already reached out to us requesting it be canceled, the advice of our legal counsel was that the City of Nampa must recognize the protected first amendment rights of those scheduling and involved in this event,” Nampa Mayor Debbie Kling said.

For their safety, Wheeler waited until the day before to announce the drag performers and offered them the option to drop out of the event, which they declined. 

“I’m just excited to show a little brown kid what I would have loved to see,” a queen named Percephone Bias said.

The day of saw protests: some people stood outside and held signs that read “Appeal to Heaven” or stood near the entrance wearing Make America Great Again hats. About ten Liberty Dogs, a far-right group, stood at the barricades around the event with guns. 

But by 1:45 p.m., the event was at occupancy, and even more so, a 1,000-foot line of people was waiting to get in. While Wheeler was initially worried about getting shut down for having too many people, the fire chief told him that “the crowd is a good thing! It’s good to see this here in Nampa.”

By the time the drag performers started, the Liberty Dogs were gone. The nine queens who lived in Canyon County, who had never gotten to perform in their hometowns, were cheered for and celebrated by a massive crowd. The celebration ended with a proposal: a man from Nampa went on stage and asked his boyfriend to marry him, who said yes. 

Wheeler told Inman that he “would totally categorize the event as peaceful and a step in the right direction for civil liberties for LGBTQ folks in Idaho.”