Almost 23% of trans youth in the United States have lost access to gender-affirming care.
A new report from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) found that of the 300,000 trans youth ages 13 through 17, there are 66,600 living in states that have passed bans on this lifesaving care. And 84,700 more trans youth (28.2%) live in states that are currently considering bans.
The state is the fourth to pass a law prohibiting trans students from using bathrooms that match their gender identity.
According to the Movement Advancement Project, there are currently eight states that fully ban gender-affirming care for minors, along with one state (Arizona) that bans “best practice surgical care” for trans youth.
In the first few months of 2023, alone, gender-affirming care bans have become law in Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, Arkansas, Iowa, and Utah, in addition to five other anti-trans bills.
Over the past few years, Republicans have focused their agenda on attacking equality for transgender youth, with a particularly chilling new Tennessee law requiring youth who have already started gender-affirming care to de-transition. Other states, like Oklahomaand Florida, are considering similar legislation.
These laws go against the best practices of trans-related pediatrics outlined by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association. Numerous studies have shown that a lack of societal acceptance and access to gender-affirming care contribute to high rates of suicide among trans youth. And other studies have found that gender-affirming care actively lowers the risk of depression and suicide in trans youth.
And it’s more than just trans youth being targeted.
Over 400 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have already been filed this year – more than the total number filed in 2022. The American Civil Liberties Union tracks these hateful bills with a map that allows viewers to search by state, issue, or status. It says 14 have become law, 332 have advanced, 64 have been defeated, and 19 have been introduced.
Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) has announced an “emergency regulation” that restricts gender-affirming medical care for transgender people in his state.
Trans and civil rights advocates have criticized Bailey’s announcement for spreading misinformation and attempting a “power grab” while his state’s legislature considers a bill restricting gender-affirming care. Though Bailey’s announcement mentions “children,” it doesn’t list any age limits for his emergency regulations, meaning that it could apply to people of all ages.
Republicans sneaked a last-minute amendment into a voting rights bill. One Democrat said the genital examinations would happen “over my dead body.”
In a March 20 statement, Bailey announced restrictions including a requirement that individuals must wait 18 months before being given gender-affirming care.
During this waiting period, they must undergo at least 15 hours of therapy, including “a full psychological or psychiatric assessment” to see if they have autism and to ensure that all their “mental health comorbidities” have been “treated and resolved.”
“Comorbidities” is a word for other medical conditions that may be present in a patient, and it has become one of anti-transgender activists’ favorite words as they push the unsubstantiated theory that mental health conditions are regularly mistaken for transgender identity by health care professionals.
In a tweet, out journalist Erin Reed noted that a trans person’s mental health comorbidities could often be resolved by receiving gender-affirming care. However, if trans people are blocked from receiving such care until those comorbidities are resolved, those conditions may never get resolved.
Bailey’s announcement said transitioning individuals must be monitored for 15 years afterward to find any adverse effects of their gender-affirming care. Patients must also undergo an annual check-in to ensure that they’re “not experiencing social contagion with respect to the patient’s gender identity.” “Social contagion” is another anti-transgender buzzword that refers to the idea that people just transition because their transgender friends are pressuring them to do so.
Bailey’s emergency regulation would also require transitioning individuals to sign an informed consent document that says the use of hormone replacement therapy and puberty blockers are “not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”
Susan Halla, president of the trans advocacy group Transparent, said that the FDA hasn’t approved of such treatments because “studies involving young people are rarely conducted,” Salt Lake Public Radio reported.
The informed consent document would also contain statistics suggesting that gender-affirming care is dangerous and unnecessary. These statistics have been debunked, Halla said, and also contradict the suggestions for trans-related care issued by major American medical and psychological associations.
In his announcement, Bailey wrote, “Because gender transition interventions are experimental, they are covered by existing Missouri law governing unfair, deceptive, and unconscionable business practices,” suggesting that his office may prosecute any clinics that don’t follow his new regulations. However, such interventions aren’t “experimental.” Medical practitioners have rendered such care for decades.
“Even Europe recognizes that mutilating children for the sake of a woke, leftist agenda has irreversible consequences,” he added, echoing a right-wing lie that gender-affirming surgeries are commonly performed on children. They aren’t.
Halla said of Bailey’s announcement, “There are many things on it that are blatantly false, or impossible to quantify in some way. One of the items was to make sure that this child is not part of a social contagion. Like, how do you do that?”
Tom Bastian, a spokesman for the Missouri American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, “These actions do not protect anyone; rather, they put an already marginalized group of children in greater danger.”
Bailey, who is not a doctor, said his emergency regulations will last 30 legislative days or 180 days, whichever is longer, his statement said.
Reed wrote of the announcement, “This is a de facto ban for many trans youth while the Missouri legislature considers a ban in and of itself. This unilateral action is a power grab by the Attorney General, plain and simple.” Bailey is also up for re-election in 2024 and may be pursuing this crusade to shore up conservative votes.
Meanwhile, Missouri’s Republican-controlled senate approved bans on gender-affirming care and transgender women participating in women’s sports, including at private schools and colleges.
“With [Bailey’s] announcement, I think you’ll see that very few clinicians are willing to risk direct, retaliatory, legal action and or risk to their professional license,” Brandon Barthel, a Kansas City-based endocrinologist who provides care for transgender adults, told The Kansas City Star. “Wouldn’t surprise me if this effectively halts any gender-affirming care on minors in the state of Missouri.”
California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D) has introduced a bill designed specifically to protect LGBTQ+ youth in foster care.
S.B. 407 seeks to require that the unique needs of LGBTQ+ youth are considered when assessing the fitness of home. Under the bill, homes in which potential foster parents are not supportive of LGBTQ+ identities would be considered ineligible to foster.
“My dad grew up watching you as Wonder Woman,” the trans woman wrote. “Unfortunately he isn’t as open minded as you.”
“Every child deserves to be one hundred percent supported at home,” Wiener told the Los Angeles Blade. “S.B. 407 ensures that foster youth receive this essential support by specifically requiring LGBTQ acceptance be considered in the resource family approval (RFA) process, creating standard documentation for the assessment of LGBTQ youth needs, and ensuring more frequent follow-up. These youth are at high risk for homelessness, criminal justice involvement, and mental health issues, and we must do everything in our power to ensure they have a safe home in the state of California.”
The bill states that at least three studies estimate that approximately thirty percent of youth in foster care identify as LGBTQ+ and that these kids “have a right to be placed in out-of-home care according to their gender identity and the right to have caregivers that have received instruction on cultural competency and sensitivity” regarding caring for LGBTQ+ youth.
It also stated that LGBTQ+ foster youth who are currently being placed with families that do not affirm them are experiencing “additional harm and trauma.” It cites the Trevor Project, which found that teens with parental support for their gender identity were 93% less likely to attempt suicide.
Since 2019, California’s Foster Youth Bill of Rights has included a child’s right to have their LGBTQ+ identity affirmed, as well as the right to keep it private if they want to. But those rights have not yet been applied to the placement process.
“LGBTQ+ foster youth experience violence and other stressors unique to the LGBTQ+ community, including homophobia or transphobia,” Tony Hoang, Executive Director of Equality California, a sponsor of the bill, told the Blade.
“S.B. 407 protects LGBTQ+ foster youth from being placed in non-affirming homes by creating standard guidelines and criteria that carefully screens potential families. LGBTQ+ foster youth need a healthy environment that supports and embraces them as they explore their identity.”
While the country remains in shock after Tennessee’s recent ban on public drag performances, another, more insidious attack on the LGBTQ+ community has been underway in the state.
A coordinated effort by right-wing media and conservative lawmakers has decimated community-based programs addressing healthcare for LGBTQ+ people in Tennessee, including efforts to combat HIV.
In January, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) announced his administration was rejecting $8.8 million in federal funds provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for HIV prevention and treatment.
Left unsaid was the fact that some of those dollars had made their way to programs run by groups associated with trans healthcare. After a months-long outrage campaign by right-wing media, Gov. Lee finally threw the baby out with the bathwater.
The pressure campaign started in September, when right-wing provocateurs Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro set their sights on the transgender care program at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which Walsh described as “barbaric.”
“They now castrate, sterilize, and mutilate minors as well as adults,” Walsh said at the time.
Walsh amplified the accusations with an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on September 21 publicizing his “investigation,” while the Daily Wire co-founder Shapiro promoted the charges on his YouTube channel and podcast, detailing “nonsense garbage that a boy can be a girl and a girl can be a boy.”
The very next day, Gov. Lee issued a statement calling for a “thorough investigation.”
The accusations ignited a social media firestorm and surfaced the existence of the Tennessee Transgender Task Force, a volunteer team at Vanderbilt focused on trans health and HIV prevention, funded in part by those CDC dollars.
Weeks later, in November, the trans program’s director Dr. Pamela Talley told staff that federal dollars funding the task force, as well as Tennessee Planned Parenthood, would cease at year’s end.
Then in mid-January, the Lee administration announced it would not just end funding for those recipients, which totaled $235,000, but also that it would reject entirely a pair of CDC grants directed at HIV prevention, treatment and monitoring in the state worth more than $8.8 million.
“People have been crying all week,” one Tennessee Health Department staffer told NBC News after the announcement on January 20.
Ashley Coffield, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and Northern Mississippi, said the decision “felt like they were punching me in the gut.”
“I couldn’t believe that the governor would take the nuclear option,” she said, adding that she saw the move as a “political vendetta against abortion rights groups and transgender people.”
On Wednesday, newly appointed Tennessee Health Commissioner Ralph Alvarado told a state Senate committee that money from the grants would be replaced with $9 million in state funds.
Alvarado called the federal grants “cumbersome.”
“I think this is going to allow a bit of innovation, a little bit of liberty,” Alvarado testified. “I think it’s going to help vulnerable populations: people who are in human trafficking populations, mothers, children, first responders.”
But those populations, also identified by the governor’s office, are not the ones most affected by the HIV epidemic in Tennessee, experts say.
“Tennessee is preferring to fight a fictitious epidemic rather than their very real HIV epidemic,” Greg Millett, the director of public policy at amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, told NBC News.
“First responders are just not at risk for HIV anywhere in the United States. Sexual trafficking is awful, but it’s not a major contributor for HIV cases in Tennessee or elsewhere.”
He added: “All of this is willful ignorance on the part of the state government.”
When State Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) asked Alvarado if future state funding would focus on the highest-risk groups, including men who have sex with men and intravenous drug users, the health commissioner was less than definitive.
“I imagine that the same populations they’ve been approaching will continue to receive benefits from this.”
The UK government is facing fierce condemnation from opposition MPs and senior Tories over its “immoral, ineffective and incredibly expensive” Illegal Migration Bill.
The bill has been devised by the Tory government to reduce or stop “small boat crossings”across the English Channel.
If it becomes law, all adults who arrive in the UK via the Channel or in the back of a lorry will be detained for 28 days. They would then be sent back to their country of origin or on to a third country like Rwanda. Families with children could also be detained and deported.
Opposition MPs, human rights advocates, religious leaders and even Tory MPs have condemned the measure, which could jeopardise vulnerable people’s lives.
Labour MP Diane Abbott told PinkNews that the Illegal Migration Bill is “disgraceful”.
“It probably breaks international law, which is even admitted by ministers on the face of the bill,” the veteran MP said.
“It would deprive vulnerable asylum seekers their rights under international law, fail victims of modern slavery and leave unaccompanied children in detention centres.”
She added: “It is completely unworkable as well as immoral. The government probably knows that. But this is not about solving the issue of thousands of people endangering their lives by cross the Channel in small boats. It is aimed at bolstering a Tory core vote strategy for the next election.”
Illegal Migration Bill could condemn LGBTQ+ refugees to death
Liberal Democrats MP Layla Moran told PinkNews that the UK has “a proud history of offering sanctuary to those in need of international protection” – but the government is now intent on “trashing that legacy”.
“People fleeing war or persecution should be treated with compassion, not as criminals,” she said.
“I am deeply concerned about what this means for the safety of LGBTQ+ people seeking sanctuary in the UK. What may be a so-called safe country for some often is not for minority groups. Being sent back may be a matter of life or death for simply being who they are.”
Moran added: “Just like their botched Rwanda plan, this new legislation is immoral, ineffective and incredibly expensive for the taxpayer.
“It does nothing to punish the evil gangs who are responsible for these dangerous crossings, and instead criminalises their victims. This is not a practical or sustainable solution, it’s another vanity project for this Conservative government.”
Labour’s Bell Ribeiro-Addy said those who have escaped “horrifying situations” shouldn’t have to risk their lives to get to the UK.
“Instead of putting down immoral and ineffective legislation that will further criminalise and punish some of the most vulnerable for taking the only option left to them, the government should be opening viable safe routes and giving people a genuine chance to rebuild their lives as part of our communities.”
Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman described the bill as “indefensible” in a press release.
“It would punish some of the world’s most vulnerable people as part of a desperate and racist culture war that has been fuelled from Downing Street,” she said.
“Locking up refugees and asylum seekers in prison-like conditions and then deporting them to Rwanda is the sort of policy you would expect from the BNP, but now it is being promoted by some of the most senior politicians in Westminster.
“It is utterly shameful. The Tories are going against every principle of how to treat refugees, and are using the kind of vile rhetoric that would have been at home in the fascist regimes of the 1930s.”
Senior Tories to rebel on immigration bill
The government is also facing opposition from within its own ranks. Tory MP Caroline Nokes told Times Radio that she will vote against the bill.
“I might be an outlier in my party but I think we have an absolute duty to treat people humanely to keep people safe. I have absolute horror at the prospect,” she said.
Nokes continued: “I am deeply troubled at the prospect of a policy which seeks to criminalise children, pregnant women, families and remove them to Rwanda.
“I didn’t vote for the last Nationality and Borders Bill, this hasn’t achieved its aim in reducing crossings. In fact, we’ve seen them increase, and I fail to see what this legislation is going to do to act as a deterrent”.
Tory MP Chris Skidmore joined Nokes, saying he too will vote against the bill.
“I am not prepared to break international law or the human rights conventions that the UK has had a proud history of playing a leading role in establishing,” he tweeted.
“I will not be voting for the bill tonight.”
Opposition to the bill has grown steadily since Sunak first announced his government’s plans while standing at a podium bearing the slogan “Stop the Boats”.
The government’s bill has already been lambasted by Amnesty International UK and by Human Rights Watch, along with a number of other human rights groups.
It will receive its second reading on Monday evening (13 March).
On the heels of the White House vocally condemning a call to eliminate transgender people, President Joe Biden called out Florida for attacking transgender youth.
“What’s going on in Florida, is as my mother would say, close to sinful,” Biden told out actor Kal Penn on The Daily Show in an interview that will air later today.
The White House press secretary was done being talked over by Simon Ateba.
“It’s just terrible what they’re doing,” he continued. “It’s not like you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I want to become a man,’ or ‘I wanna become a woman.’”
“They’re human beings! They love, they have feelings, they have inclinations- I mean, it just to me is, it’s cruel.”
Biden said Congress needs to “pass legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage.”
“You mess with that, you’re breaking the law, and you’re going to be held accountable.”
Florida has passed a number of laws and rule changes attacking transgender people’s rights, including a ban on trans youth participating in school sports and a ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. The state is considering several more this year, including one that would allow the state to take away trans kids from their affirming families, even if they’re just on vacation in the state.
This past Friday, out White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned attacks on transgender people’s rights as “shameful, hateful, and dangerous.”
She pointed to far-right Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, who called for “transgenderism” to be “eradicated from public life entirely” at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
“Look, it started with a speaker at a conservative conference calling for the eradication of transgender people, language that not a single national Republican leader has condemned,” Jean-Pierre said.
“In Iowa and Tennessee, Republicans are now calling for legislation to attack gay marriage and protections for same-sex couples. In Florida — just Florida alone — Republicans introduced 20 bills — 20 bills — on a single day to roll back the rights of LGBTQ community. One of those bills would give the state the right to remove kids from their parents just because that kid is transgender.”
She noted that there have been hundreds of bills attacking LGBTQ+ people filed in state legislatures across the country.
“So, so far this year, we have seen more than 450 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced at the state level — you’ve heard me say that before — amounting to a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills in our country’s history. Guys, today is day 70. It is day 70 of 2023.”
“The same leaders that tout freedom apparently don’t extend their love for freedom if they disagree with who you are, who you love, or how you parent.”
After a long period of restoration, one of Italy’s most famous archaeological treasures — the House of the Vettii — is reopening to the public.
The house’s extensive collection of fresco wall paintings includes lots of erotic art. But while some commenters have claimed that the house’s original owners were preoccupied with sex or even running a brothel, a gay Roman historian has said that those claims show a misunderstanding about the role queer sex played in ancient Rome.
The house was originally constructed for two freed male slaves who were likely owned by the same master. These men became wealthy from selling wine, and their now-famous house included numerous scenes of sex and mythology, painted on wet plaster and preserved in wax.
Mount Vesuvius buried the house in volcanic ash in 79 AD, but it has since been restored, giving art history fans a time capsule of wealthy Roman social life.
The house’s entrance includes an image of Priapus, the god of fertility and abundance, showing off an uncut penis that’s as long and thick as his arm. It rests upon a scale, balanced by a bag filled with money. Other scenes show different couples having sex.
João Florêncio, a gay researcher who examines visual depictions of sexual cultures throughout history, says that it’s a mistake to assume that Roman men resembled modern-day gay men just because they owned art of a well-hung god and often had sex with other men.
“Roman sexuality was not framed in terms of the gender of partners but in terms of power,” he added. “An adult free man could have sex as the penetrating partner with anyone of a lower social status—including women or slaves and sex workers of both genders.”
The researcher said that evidence of same-sex intercourse has been preserved in Pompeii’s sexually explicit artifacts and graffiti, but a lot of it has been disavowed or at least purified by mainstream modern culture. A lot of these artifacts were designated as “pornography” and moved to “secret museums” in the early 1800s.
While a modern man wouldn’t likely display the image of a well-endowed man in his home unless he was gay, Florêncio points out that phallic imagery in Roman culture was associated with machismo. Some men might have desired Priapus’s large dong, but far more men would’ve likely envied it for their own, as a sign of their own potency and power.
Florêncio also noted that, while some historians believe the house doubled as a brothel, he said the sexual images may have just functioned as domestic symbols of power, wealth, and culture, especially since sex wasn’t taboo in Roman culture. Indeed, images of sex were “everywhere in Rome, including in literary and visual arts,” he writes.
When Gad Yola hit the red carpet on December 20th, 2022, the 34-year-old Peruvian drag queen wanted to make a statement. Nearly 6,000 miles away from her home, Yola was far from the political crisis unfolding across Peru. So on her white dress, she bedazzled the words “25 Peruvians killed by the state”—a reference to the number of people who had died since protests erupted across the Andean nation.
Her dress quickly went viral on Twitter, and she received both messages of support and hate from Peruvians around the globe. Her artistic gesture is just one example of how LGBTQ+ Peruvians are making their voices heard in a political crisis that has persisted for nearly two months.
On December 7, 2022, former President Pedro Castillo rocked Peru’s democracy. Facing a vote for his impeachment, Castillo attempted a “self-coup”—a complete power grab by someone already in power. With trembling hands, the embattled president announced to the nation that he was unilaterally dissolving Congress and would rule the country by decree.
For Peruvians, this announcement was shocking, but it was not unprecedented. More than 20 years ago, former President Alberto Fujimori successfully pulled off this political machination and remained in power for another eight years. Fujimori, though, had the backing of the National Police of Peru and the Peruvian Armed Forces before he made this risky move; neither institution backed Castillo.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/nXyFgvCfyHI?feature=oembedPedro Castillo reads a statement announcing his decision to dissolve Congress and rule by decree.
Shortly after the announcement, ministers in his cabinet resigned, members of his political party, Peru Libre, denounced him, and his Vice President, Dina Boluarte, condemned the move. A couple of hours later, Congress successfully voted to impeach Castillo. Castillo was arrested and brought to a detention facility when he tried to seek asylum in the Mexican embassy; he currently remains in pre-trial detention.
Later that day, Boluarte was sworn in as President, and many members of Congress celebrated the ouster of an opponent they sparred with for the entire duration of his presidency.
Their celebration was short-lived.
On December 8th, just one day after Castillo’s arrest, protests began to sprout around the country.
Castillo was Peru’s 5th president in five years. He was also the first president to be of a peasant and indigenous background. His ouster, and Boluarte’s subsequent rightward shift, was taken as a sign by the historically marginalized groups of Peru that the country’s democracy is not an institution that works for them. Many believe Castillo was a victim of a conservative Congress hellbent on preventing an indigenous person from ruling effectively.
So they took to the streets.
In cities and towns all over Peru, aggrieved protesters began marching to demand political change. Their demands included the following: President Boluarte’s resignation, a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution, earlier elections, and for some, the liberation of Castillo.
From Cusco to Lima, protesters have been demonstrating their dissatisfaction with the state of their country. They have set up roadblocks and taken over airports. And in one case, a politician’s home was set on fire. Meanwhile, police have killed 46 people, some of whom were medics and bystanders, and injured dozens of others. One police officer was also killed due to the unrest, and at least ten people died in ambulances after being unable to reach hospitals due to blockades.
In addition to the anti-establishment protests, there have also been marches billed as “Marcha Por La Paz” or “March for the Peace.” These peace marches are right-wing and pro-police. And due to the march’s collaboration with the police, they have often inflamed tensions between the two sides.
Despite the assumption that LGBTQ+ rights are a left-wing cause, supporters and queer Peruvians are spread across the political spectrum. The political crisis has divided members of the queer community about how to resolve an increasingly intractable conflict.
Shortly after Boluarte was sworn-in, several LGBTQ+ activists and organizations condemned the violence at protests calling for her resignation.
Promsex, one of Peru’s most prominent LGBTQ+ and intersex rights groups, addressed the new president in a statement on Twitter.
“We demand that the Executive Branch guarantee the safety of all people, including that of law enforcement personnel, and that there be no more deaths in the democratic and legitimate exercise of the right to protest,” the organization tweeted.
However, since that statement was released, the violence has escalated, and so has the intensity of statements from left-wing LGBTQ+ groups. On January 21st, the Lima Pride March Collective released a statement calling for one of the primary demands of the anti-Boluarte protestors—new elections.
“As LGBTI people, we demand a prompt democratic exit [from this crisis] through the advancement of elections in the shortest term possible,” the statement said.
The Collective changed their name on Twitter to #NuevasEleccionesYa (new elections now), accompanied by the Peruvian and pride flags.
Jorge Apolaya, a spokesperson for the group, spoke to LGBTQ Nation about why he supports the marches.
“[LGBTQ+] organizers have the responsibility to speak out and denounce what is contrary to democracy and therefore to the rights of LGBT people,” he told LGBTQ Nation. “The government of the current president Dina Boluarte has become repressive and violent in the face of legitimate protests in the country. We cannot allow more deaths, and that is why there is a social consensus in the request for the resignation of the current president.”
The consensus does not extend to all LGBTQ+ Peruvians. La Liga Libertad, a classically liberal group founded by LGBTQ+ people, has called the protesters’ demands, including the demand for Boluarte to resign, “anti-democratic.” They have described protesters’ attempts to take over national airports as “terrorism,” echoing Boluarte’s characterization of the ongoing unrest.
La Liga Libertad did not respond to LGBTQ Nation’s request for comment.
It is not only left-wing LGBTQ+ groups who favor Boluarte’s resignation. Popular Action (Acción Popular) is a centrist political party. One of its members, queer activist Manuel Siccha, spoke with LGBTQ Nation.
“Currently, the position [of the Party] is to request the resignation of President Dina Boluarte based on her lack of legitimacy to govern,” Siccha said. “You cannot govern without social legitimacy and she alone has been losing legitimacy little by little with the decisions she has made from actions which are dehumanizing and authoritarian.”
Siccha also told LGBTQ Nation that he believes the Boluarte administration does not have the capacity to respond to the urgent political needs and the agendas of vulnerable populations, including LGBTQ+ populations.
The division among the queer community is also visible among Peru’s two out members of Congress. Although both voted for Castillo’s impeachment in December, they diverge significantly in how they approach the conflict.
Susel Paredes is the first out lesbian to win a congressional election in Peru. A progressive member of Congress, she voted against giving Boluarte’s cabinet a vote of confidence two weeks ago due to the more than 50 deaths which have occurred since protests first broke out.
Alejandro Cavero, a conservative congressman from the Avanza Pais political party, has said he is “LGBT and proudly of the right.” While Cavero said he understands the “frustration and indignation of the South,” he also praised police reactions to the violent protests.
Other LGBTQ+ Peruvians who spoke with LGBTQ Nation expressed a similar sentiment to Cavero.
“It’s definitely a midway support,” said Vero Mourou when asked if she supports the protests. Mourou is a drag artist from Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian Amazon. Like Cavero, she is sympathetic to the plight of the poor and indigenous Peruvians protesting. However, she blames the “communist left” for taking advantage of the situation.
“[The left] has caused innocent people to die like a cannonball for their own political interests, such as the constituent assembly. They use their pain and suffering for political purposes. I am against any act of violence disguised as protest…we cannot allow anarchy in Peru.”
As Peruvians inside the country express varying opinions on this conflict, many Peruvians abroad are also speaking out, including Yola. Based in Madrid, Yola spoke with LGBTQ Nation about why she supports the protests.
“Dina Boluarte has committed crimes against humanity, has murdered in the name of a false democracy that does not represent the inhabitants of the country, both in the provinces and in the capital,” she said.
Yola acknowledges that some on the left are homophobic and transphobic, including the former president. However, she believes that certain struggles must come before LGBTQ+ rights.
“Many gay people…do not see beyond the privileged reality of Lima, because they do not see that before being gay or lesbian, they are brown, descendants of indigenous people, of black people, that the agenda against the fight against poverty in the regions is, honestly, more relevant than same-sex marriage.”
Gad Yola wears a dress that says: “25 Peruvians killed by the state.”
One of the most conservative countries in South America, Peru does not have a stellar record on LGBTQ+ rights. Regardless of the outcome of this political crisis, the situation for queer and trans Peruvians is unlikely to change dramatically. However, as the nation struggles through nearly two months of unrest, LGBTQ+ Peruvians continue to make their voices heard and fight for their future.
A mid-level professional ice hockey team in Illinois has released a player who posted a string of disgusting, anti-LGBTQ+ tweets.
And the player Louie Rowe has retweeted numerous more messages since he was let go by ECHL outfit the Peoria Rivermen, accusing LGBTQ+ people of grooming and raping children, as well as using them as prostitutes.
Rivermen co-owner Bart Rogers told the Lincoln Journal Star: “We are shocked, and we have immediately released Louie Rowe.”
Rowe’s retweets targeted LGBTQ+ people, calling them peadophiles, and trans people, who were labelled mentally ill.
In addition to anti-LGBTQ+ tweets, Rowe’s Twitter includes messages demonising other minority groups.
Rowe retweeted messages supporting the likes of anti-trans, right-wing media pundit Jordan Peterson, as well as anti-vax conspiracy theories and statements from infamous social media account LibsOfTikTok, which rabidly attacks LGBTQ+ educators and drag venues.
On 12 January, another mid-level pro hockey team, the Kalamazoo Wings, sent a response to a Twitter user who said they were no longer going to attend games after the team released a rainbow logo on social media as part of a Pride Night event for LGBTQ+fans.
In response to the Wings’ message, Rowe wrote on Twitter: “I knew the Kwings were soft but I didn’t know they were gay, trans and soft.”
He went on to respond with an image that called Pride flags a “mental illness flag.” He also tweeted: “Imagine marketing towards the bottom of the barrel of society LMAO… what’s next? Felony offender night?”
Others took to Twitter to voice their disgust at Rowe’s comments, with one person writing: “Embarrassed that this guy ever put on a @FWKomets Sweater.”
Another person wrote: “What a turd. Enjoy the beer league hockey career – take the L – loser !!”
The Riverman’s co-owner, Bart Rogers, added: “Our organisation does not condone that language, nor do we support that point of view or behaviour. Those things do not represent the beliefs of our team, our partners nor our fans, nor the great sport we play. It does not represent the values of our organisation’.”
President Joe Biden will address the nation soon when he gives the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. The ceremonial speech will outline the president’s priorities and the country’s challenges. But what about the LGBTQ+ nation?
LGBTQ Nation spoke with six of the nation’s best and brightest to find out what they saw as the difficulties — and solutions — for the queer community and our struggle for equal rights. In a time of unprecedented challenges, these individuals can shine light in the darkness and show us a way out.
Mondaire Jones knows the best defense queer people have is the ballot
Former Congressman Mondaire Jones (D-NY) was first elected in 2020 and is one of the two first-out LGBTQ+ Black members of Congress; he lost his seat in 2022. He co-introduced the Respect for Marriage Act in Congress to ensure same-sex couples continue to have the rights associated with marriage should the Supreme Court overturn the marriage equality case Obergefell v. Hodges.
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Jones helped get former President Donald Trump impeached for a second time after his supporters rioted in the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He pushed for even tougher democratic reforms, including automatic voter registration, public financing of elections, and an end to partisan gerrymandering.
“The crisis of our democracy is the biggest existential threat,” Jones told LGBTQ Nation. “If we do not have a truly representative government, if we do not have a pro-equality majority in both chambers of Congress and the White House, then we are going to continue to see this Supreme Court whittle away at our rights.”
So it’s no surprise that Congressman Jones’s message now is that getting better people elected is the key to moving Congress toward equality.
“We have to continue to build and renew the movement for liberation through organizing at the grassroots level and defeating those who are hostile to the humanity of our community,” Jones said. “My project will be to ensure that Democrats take back the branches of government in 2024.”
How V Spehar is keeping tabs on America from under a desk
Self-described citizen journalist V Spehar says being in the room where it happens reveals the true colors of elected officials and how their personal and political agendas may impact our country’s future.
Spehar, 40, spent the early part of their career in the hospitality industry in New York City, Tampa, and eventually as an event planner with one of Washington D.C.’s most prominent caterers. “People speak so honestly in front of you when they don’t think you’re ‘that’ kind of smart — when they think you’re just a waiter, a bartender, or whatever,” Spehar told LGBTQ Nation. “And so I got to see these people, not just for the policies that they wrote, but for the people that they are, and understanding that who they ate dinner with changed how the world was going to be.”
“You’re not going to get somebody to stop believing their sole mission is to be a protector,” Spehar said, “but you can get them to understand who actually needs protection.”
What does ‘activist-elected official’ Park Cannon foresee in the future for queer rights?
In 2016, Park Cannon was Georgia’s youngest elected official in the state legislature at 24 years old. Seven years later, she continues to exhibit an insatiable energy for fighting for equity and standing up for marginalized groups.
In 2021, Cannon became a national name after she was arrested for standing up to S.B. 202, a law that significantly rolled back voting rights for Georgians. Cannon, who is Black, was arrested by a white state trooper for knocking on Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) office door as he signed the bill in a closed-door ceremony. Charges against Cannon were ultimately dropped.
“We will not live in fear and we will not be controlled,” she wrote on Twitter after her arrest. “We have a right to our future and right to our freedom. We will come together and continue fighting white supremacy in all its forms.”
“I know the feeling of coming out in the South and expecting that there would be hate. And there was, but there was also a lot of fun and exploration and resistance that teaches people more than they could ever imagine,” Cannon told LGBTQ Nation. “I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to look at LGBTQ culture as groundbreaking and inclusive and not look at it as anything but that.”
Activist Matt Foreman questions whether we have the leadership and resources needed for full equality
Matt Foreman has seen it all from the forefront of the struggle for equality. The veteran politico led multiple queer organizations, including the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (now the National LGBTQ Task Force). As someone who has had to do the hard and inglorious work of both soliciting donations and funding campaigns, it’s no surprise he has a decidedly pragmatic view of how the movement can move forward during a challenging time.
“What is urgently and desperately needed is a coordinated, multifaceted campaign to push back against all this horrific legislation that has come down the road and will be coming down the road this year at the state level,” Foreman told LGBTQ Nation.“It’s the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bills, the anti-trans bills, the curriculum attacks, book bans, it’s all of that, and right now, our movement at the state level is strapped for resources.”
“I think the number one priority is fighting back in the states and grinding the other side down over time by showing their true nature, which is not about protecting kids, just about hate and demonizing good people. And so because that kind of rhetoric is out there, it becomes accepted wisdom,” Foreman said. “It has an impact on the way people treat queer people. And we’re seeing this rise in the rhetoric now, which isn’t just rhetoric once it influences people to attack us physically, financially, or emotionally. The only way we’re gonna get around that is to take it on, fight back, and expose them for what they are.”
Kelley Robinson is head of the largest LGBTQ+ organization — and she knows our Achilles’ heel
In November 2022, Kelley Robinson was elected the ninth president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), becoming the first Black queer woman to hold the position in the civil rights group’s 40-year existence. Now she aspires to be the first Black queer woman to spearhead the HRC infundamentally changing the country and its systems of power.
“I come to this work as a Black woman, as a queer person, as a wife, and as a mom,” Robinson told LGBTQ Nation. “And there are so many issues that matter to people in the community because we hold all of these identities, right? You can’t get to liberation without racial justice; you can’t get there without disability rights, immigration justice, climate change, and climate reform.”
When asked about how to prioritize the country’s most urgent issues, Robinson said, “The biggest thing to understand is that we cannot be single-issue. You have to talk about the violence happening in Black trans communities, particularly against Black trans women. At the same time, be able to talk about how it is a disgrace that we are still living with the HIV epidemic in this country. At the same time, also be able to talk about the issues facing folks related to discrimination across this country because of the loopholes created under the guise of ‘religious freedoms.’”
But shifts in voter demographics offer signs of hope. HRC polling estimates that queer voters will make up increasingly large parts of the electorate as Gen Z ages into adulthood. “To take advantage of the demographic shifts, we’ve got to make sure that we’re giving people a meaningful way to engage and fixing the system,” Robinson said, “so that they know that when they vote, it will actually make a difference.”
“It’s a time to be nervous. Being nervous is different than being afraid,” Brorby told LGBTQ Nation. “We live in a country that allows the targeting of vulnerable people whose rights aren’t fully enshrined in our governmental documents.”
Brorby suggests that dismantling the rural-urban divide may be one solution to uniting the country despite its geographic differences. “We have to start the conversation by reminding ourselves we’re actually dependent on each other,” Brorby said. “City people value rural people, too. Growing up in North Dakota, we knew rural America enriched everyone’s life, and the goal now shouldn’t be to get everyone to an urban center. It should be possible to have a good life wherever you live. We do not hear each other’s stories. We need ambassadors.”