Thirty-one-year-old Clayton Hubbird has been charged with first-degree reckless homicide and use of a dangerous weapon for killing Regina “Mya” Allen.
August 29 video footage from a BP gas station showed that Allen and Hubbird briefly talked inside the station before she stepped into the passenger’s seat of his black Chevy Tahoe SUV, police told FOX6. When the two arrived at Allen’s apartment complex, a witness told police that he saw them arguing in the vehicle before hearing a gunshot.
Allen reportedly stumbled out of the vehicle and exclaimed, “I’m shot!” before dialing 911 for emergency services. When police arrived, she told an officer that she had met the man who shot her at a gas station. She later died from her injuries, barely a month before her 36th birthday.
On August 30, police found the SUV parked in Wauwatosa, a city about seven miles east of Milwaukee. Investigators found ammunition and firearm magazines in Hubbird’s bedroom.
Police issued a warrant for Hubbird’s arrest on September 6.
Hubbird appeared in court on October 2, and cash bond was set at $250,000, according to FOX6.
Friends remembered Allen as full of laughter.
“I remember seeing her, and I was jut like, amazed by her, her beauty and the way that she carried herself,” said Ananna Sellers, a member of a Wisconsin Black trans leaders coalition called The Black Rose Initiative. “I really did have a soft spot in my heart for Mya.”
Sellers added, “Whenever something happens to a girl like us, it’s always got something to do with [being trans] to some capacity.”
Thirty-one trans people have been murdered so far this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). A majority of the individuals murdered have been Black trans women. The number is likely an undercount seeing as some trans people are misgendered by their families, police, or media after death while others are never identified at all.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has released an anti-trans campaign ad as part of his reelection campaign.
The ad features former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has been vocal in opposing trans swimmer Lia Thomas’s participation in women’s NCAA competitions. Gaines tied with Thomas for fifth place in the 200-meter freestyle at this year’s NCAA championships.
In the ad, Gaines claimed that “for girls across America” the dream of being a successful athlete is “being taken away by men competing in women’s sports.” At that moment, a photo of Thomas appears on the screen.
“Sadly, few stood up for me,” Gaines said. “But Rand Paul is not afraid to fight for fairness for women and girls.”
Rand Paul then speaks to approve the message “because I’ll always fight for fairness.”
Gaines has been speaking out against trans athletes for a long time and has become a mouthpiece for anti-trans Republicans.
In 2021, she appeared in an attack ad put out by the Republican Governor’s Association against Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) after she vetoed bills banning trans girls from women’s sports.
“I was forced to share a locker room with a biological man. It was uncomfortable and it was wrong.” Gaines said in the ad.
“This has to stop,” she concluded. “If Laura Kelly can’t protect women, she shouldn’t be governor.”
Gaines also recently joined Herschel Walker, Georgia’s anti-LGBTQ Republican Senate nominee, at a rally where Walker voiced his belief that trans kids will not get into heaven.
This is also far from the first time Paul has taken a stance against the trans community.
Last year, Paul went on an anti-transgender tirade when questioning Admiral Rachel Levine, who was at the time President Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary of health. She now holds the position.
Paul decided to rant about how gender affirming health care for transgender kids should be banned instead of left up to families and doctors. He peddled lies about transgender health care and the treatments available to trans youth and peppered Levine with questions about trans identities, declaring that transitioning is a “temporary, superficial fix for a very complex identity issue.”
“You give a woman testosterone enough that she grows a beard,” he said, “you think she’s going to go back to looking like a woman when she stops the testosterone?”
Bisexual Swedish geneticist Svante Paabo won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday.
The 67-year-old helped found the study of paleogenetics, a field that investigates ancient humans and other species using very old genetic materials. Using this science, Paabo successfully reconstructed the genome of Neanderthals, the closest ancient relative to homo sapiens, the modern human species. Scientists think that Neanderthals genetically diverged from homo sapiens nearly 500,000 to 650,000 years ago.
Paabo’s reconstruction of the Neanderthal genome was particularly impressive considering that his team only had DNA evidence that had severely degraded over nearly half a million years.
He and his team also helped discover a new human species called the Denisovans by successfully extracting DNA from a small finger bone fragment found in a Siberian cave. The discovery helped scientists understand how humans migrated across Asia.
Paabo’s work isn’t just about the past. Paleogenetics can help modern scientists understand how both the human mind and body evolved, particularly in response to illnesses.
For instance, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Paabo found that people with greater amounts of Neanderthal DNA were more likely to become severely ill. Scientists used this information to understand more about how best to respond to newly infected individuals.
“Trying to understand the implications of [ancient DNA] for health is something that will be with us for the rest of…our time as a species,” David Reich, a population geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston told The National News when speaking of Paabo’s work.
Paabo’s Nobel prize came with a $900,000 reward. Upon hearing about his win, his teammates celebrated by throwing him into a pool of water near the institute where he works.
Paabo publicly came out as bisexual in his autobiographical 2014 nonfiction book, Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes.
He reportedly wrote that he thought he was gay until he met his wife, U.S. primatologist and geneticist Linda Vigilant, and fell for her “boyish charms.”
They are now raising a son and a daughter in Leipzig, Germany. There, Paabo founded the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, where he now works.
Paabo’s father, Sune Bergstrom, also won the Nobel prize in medicine in 1982.
“The biggest influence in my life was for sure my mother, with whom I grew up,” Paabo said in his Nobel interview. “And in some sense, it makes me a bit sad that she can’t experience this day. She sort of was very much into science, and very much stimulated and encouraged me through the years.”
Paabo is also an adjunct professor at Japan’s Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.
When transgender activist Erin Reed first started transitioning, she found it difficult to locate gender-affirming health centers that provide informed consent around hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and its effects. So, as an adult, she conducted extensive research in trans-inclusive web forums and created a Google Map listing 786 trans-supportive clinics, LGBTQ community centers, and other services across the nation.
A transphobic website called “The Gender Mapping Project” (or “The Gender Mapper”) seemingly reposted Reed’s map — typos and all — in order to help anti-trans activists “name and shame doctors” that support trans clients. The website’s stated goal is to abolish the “gender industry.”
“We are dedicated to delivering the truth about what is happening to children and youth by documenting the hard numbers on how many gender clinics, how many surgical clinics, and recording evidence where necessary. We wish to hold those who are harming to account and we demand justice for the victims,” the website states.
The website — which repeats right-wing falsehoods about “experimental surgeries,” chemical castration, and using gender-affirming care to “abuse” children — was founded by Alix Aharon, a member of the Women’s Liberation Front, a group that opposes trans legal and civil rights.
When Reed became aware of the website allegedly using her map, she tweeted, “I am enraged. I made my informed consent HRT map specifically for people dealing with poverty or lack of access to be able to obtain hormones after a move, or obtain without going for a year of therapy they can’t afford. And this d**k is using it for hate.”
Reed filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act claim and asked Google to remove the map. But the Gender Mapping Project continues to use it, Reed told The Daily Dot.
Aharon’s website map may have already helped anti-trans groups target gender-affirming care providers. Reed and other trans activists worry that others will use the map to intimidate, harass, or commit violence against care providers and their clients. This possibility seems entirely possible considering that death and bombing threats have targeted at least two gender-affirming hospitals so far.
Aharon’s website, Republican politicians, Fox News, as well as other activists and media figures have claimed that gender-affirming care is a form of “child abuse” even though every major U.S. medical association says such care improves the lives of trans people.
“Given the threats made against clinics and attacks on LGBTQ community centers, this poses an immediate risk to every place listed in this map,” trans advocate Alejandra Caraballo wrote on Twitter. “Anti-abortion activists use similar lists to coordinate bombings of clinics and murders of providers.”
In response to such criticism, Aharon disingenuously told Salon, “My map is subject to interpretation. I don’t express an opinion on the actual map, if someone thinks that child gender clinics are a wonderful thing then my map is simply a resource for treatment.”
She told The Daily Dot that she doesn’t “really have other political views” and doesn’t see how her map can be transphobic seeing as pro-trans advocates have posted similar maps.
While her website rails against gender-affirming care for children, its map contains listings for places offering “’adult advocacy, support & ancillary services’ including support groups, chest binders, and STD testing,” The Daily Dot noted.
The Gender Mapping Project’s Twitter and Facebook accounts have both been suspended. However, the site maintains a monetized YouTube account, meaning that Google and Aharon can both profit from it. Google told the aforementioned publication that it is investigating the YouTube channel and Google Map.
Google also said that anyone can create maps and also report ones that may violate the company’s policies. Meanwhile, Twitter users are sharing the map online, tagging high-profile anti-trans activists who could help direct violence toward gender-affirming caregivers, the aforementioned publication reported.
One Twitter user criticized Google’s inaction against Aharon, writing, “Seriously @google @googlemaps you are putting people in danger by not taking this down. Do something about it. #NoHate.”
When Jennifer Eller first began transitioning in 2011, she was an English teacher in Kenmoor Middle School in Maryland. That year, the students began calling her a pedophile. A human resources worker said that her therapist’s note about her transition was “garbage” before insisting that Eller present as male at the school. Another administrator told her not to wear skirts because it’d make others feel uncomfortable.
Eller transferred to Friendly High School, thinking things would get better. They got worse.
Students and parents repeatedly called her a tr***y and a pedophile and misgendered her. Students regularly called Eller “mister,” a “he/she,” an “it,” and “a guy in a dress.” They asked about her genitals. One threatened to rape her and make her “their girlfriend.” She reported the rape threat, but the school principal said he couldn’t do anything about it.
The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you.
One parent who accused Eller of “lying to everyone” about her gender came to school to yell at her. The parent had to be removed by school security.
Eller said she filed formal harassment and discrimination complaints with school officials. In response, school officials retaliated against her, she said. The school removed Eller from teaching an advanced English course, accusing her of being too friendly with students. Later, administrators and staff baselessly accused her of shouting at students and making them fear for their safety, Eller said.
She eventually resigned from teaching in 2017, citing a need to protect her own mental and physical health. She later filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EOCC). The EEOC determined that Eller’s claims had merit. She then filed a lawsuit against the Prince George’s County Public School district in 2018, stating that officials had done nothing to stop or address the transphobic abuse.
The school district recently settled with Eller for an undisclosed amount. The district also put into place policies and administrative procedures for handling future transphobia. These changes were part of the settlement agreement, The Washington Post reported.
The changes also include school staff resources that explain trans identity and related terms, pronoun use, policies about bathroom and locker room facilities, dress codes, athletic participation, and other related issues.
“If these policies had been in place when I started my process,” Eller told the Post, “I would have known what my protections were and what I can expect from folks. And that’s not to say everybody’s perfect or that everyone would follow it. But I think that it would have been different. I think it would have been a healthier environment for me.”
Eller currently works as part of the U.S. Navy’s Child & Youth Programs where she is treated with respect, her lawyers said. However, working there, she only earns a fraction of what she made as a teacher.
Last Thursday activists, residents and students protested Columbia University’s aggressive expansion into Harlem in Manhattan, New York outside the university steps. The neighborhood is integral to the Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ culture we honor today. The protest, organized by The United Front Against Displacement (UFAD), a tenant organization fighting gentrification throughout US cities, criticized the university’s partnership with the city to continue the privatization of the New York Housing Authority (NYCHA) and the national war on housing in general.
NYC’s reality is common among the country’s 50 largest cities, which the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development’s latest Annual Homeless Assessment Report states, make up more than half of all people experiencing sheltered homelessness in 2021.
Housing prices and rent increases disproportionately affect BIPOC and LGBTQ people as they’re four times more likely to be in public housing. Housing access is related to deliberate policy choices and underfunding that’s persisted for decades, but has worsened since the Great Recession.
The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you.
UFAD protesters didn’t deliberately go into who is affected by homelessness, but they did set a list of demands for those partially responsible. Compliance with these demands, in particular inflation-matched pay for university employees, is a small step toward restoring these “gross injustices”, said the UFAD in an Instagram post.
Ryan Costello, UFAD organizer Lana Leonard
Ryan Costello, an organizer for UFAD, says that Harlem apartments are filled with asbestos, human feces, and broken elevators. Columbia University brags about how much money they’ve made, while they, along with NYCHA, neglect public housing, says Costello. The university raked in nearly $25 billion in net assets in 2021, exceding 2020’s profits by about 15%, despite a global pandemic and rising poverty rates.
“In the long term, my hope really is that we can do something collectively to amend this whole system of injustice. We have a whole series of injustice all together because the elite who are running this country—whether it be Republican or Democrat—have an agenda that is pretty similar in the sense of enriching the few at the expense of the many perpetuating various systems of oppression,” Costello said to LGBTQ Nation.
Nevertheless, Harlem reminds America of what resilience against adversity, homelessness, and injustice looks like. The 70s and 80s gave rise to the Ballroom scene as a new world for homeless trans and queer children to thrive in. The shared homes of royal house mothers and fathers informed culture, joy, and quality of life for all people despite the illegality of balls, drag, and living openly as an LGBTQ person in general.
Today, LGBTQ youth is estimated to be 40% of NYC’s homeless youth. For West Harlem City Councilwoman Kristin Richardson Jordan, an out lesbian, the housing crisis in Harlem threatens the safety of LGBTQ youth seeking homeless shelters as well as hundreds of multi-generational Black and Brown families that have lived in Harlem for decades.
“Developers are entering our community with no accountability for the existing surrounding areas or their socioeconomic impact,” the socialist democrat told LGBTQ Nation.
She adds that developers are doing the bare minimum of affordable units based on Area Median Income (AMI). AMI affects communities throughout the country by skewing the reality of income for most families once high incomes are integrated into the median income adjustment.
For example, when assessed, Harlem’s AMI is $93,400 per year. However, a majority of Harlem families actually make about $37,000 to $57,000, says Jordan. New Jersey uses a similar system. Yet, the state is one of the most expensive states to rent in.
Regardless, those that have maintained their homes in Harlem plan to keep them.
Activists protest outside Columbia University over the school’s planned expansion into Harlem Lana Leonard
Veronica Hickman, a multi-generational West Harlem resident and UFAD organizer, sat on the university steps looking out onto the protest. She said she needed to rest after singing “We Shall Overcome” to protesters. She comes when she can because Costello comes out for Harlem.
“I feel like he’s supporting us, and you know what, if the money isn’t supporting you, you need to do your part. Even if it’s just showing up and doing a song or something, you know, that’s what I need to do,” she said.
The Harlem gentrification project is almost 20 years old. Renzo Piano, a famous Italian architect, announced his plans to former Columbia University President Lee Bollinger in 2003 to “revitalize” West Harlem with what is called The Manhattanville Project: a 17-acre expansion of the university’s business school overlooking the Hudson River. The ivy-league school owned 65% of the neighborhood at this time.
But Columbia University is one of many corporations buying American neighborhoods today. Thirty-three percent of all homes in America were purchased by investors by 2022, according to John Burns Real Estate Consulting. This leaves BIPOC and LGBTQ communities to compete against investors with a wage gap ranging 10-70% lower than the average non-LGBTQ worker, reported the Human Rights Campaign earlier this year.
Moving forward, Councilwoman Jordan has hope for Harlem and the wider world.
“I want to see the upcoming generation that has been raised here, like myself, given fair opportunities to obtain property and invest in the community they have grown up in,” said Jordan. “I aim to use my time in office to advocate for our neighbors; standing up for all the constituents in my district who have consistently been left behind by people who only seek to fill their pockets.”
At the start of the new school year in New York, a trans, Jewish teacher at Brooklyn’s Magen David Yeshivah was outed by parents and forced by the school from her job.
Talia Avrahami, who holds a master’s degree in Jewish education from Yeshiva University, was hired shortly before the school year began.
Following parents’ night at the yeshiva, which serves a mostly Syrian Orthodox community, video of Avrahami introducing herself went viral on YouTube and WhatsApp, with accusations that Avrahami was masquerading as a woman. People dug up pictures from before she transitioned and shared them on social media platforms.
Two Orthodox outlets, in posts since removed, disparaged Avrahami’s hire as shocking and “insane.” She was doxed, with her home address published online. The family was forced from their Washington Heights apartment for fear of reprisal. Video of Avrahami leaving her building with her husband and child with bags packed on Friday was posted to an Orthodox YouTube channel.
That video was shot the same day Avrahami was forced to resign her position as a social studies teacher.
According to a spokesperson for Avrahami, the yeshiva told her she wasn’t a good fit for the school. Avrahami agreed to take her salary through January in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement, barring her from disparaging the school publicly.
Over the weekend, the yeshiva sent an email to parents addressing the vacancy: “Please be advised that beginning Monday, September 19th, your child will have a replacement teacher for Social Studies.”
“It’s sad to see that some people want to derail our lives,” Avrahami told The Times of Israel. “We’re questioning whether or not our entire lives are ruined or not. It’s tough.”
“They’re posting pictures of our family, they’re posting where we live, we’re getting death threats. They’ve somehow taken videos outside our home,” she said.
Despite the fact Avrahami signed a non-disclosure agreement with the school, she retains the right to make claims under civil rights employment law. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the protections of Title VII against discrimination applies to people who are LGBTQ.
Last week, Avrahami posted to Facebook seeking a “lawyer with expertise in defamation, contract law and human rights issues.”
Bisexual workers report lower rates of workplace discrimination than cisgender lesbians and gay men, a new study has found, but that may be because fewer cis bisexuals are out at work compared to cis lesbians and gay men.
The Williams Institute — a UCLA’s School of Law group that researches sexual orientation and gender identity issues — analyzed survey data collected in May 2021 from 935 LGBTQ adults in the workforce.
Its analysis found that 33.8 percent of gay and lesbian employees experienced at least one form of employment discrimination, namely, being fired or not hired due to their sexual orientation. Comparatively, 24.4 percent of bi employees reported experiencing the same.
The lower overall rates of discrimination may be due to the fact that fewer bisexuals are out at work. Only 19 percent of bi workers are out to all their co-workers, compared to 50 percent of gay and lesbian workers who are out to co-workers.
Only 19 percent of bi workers are out to their coworkers, compared to 50 percent of gay and lesbian workers. Similarly, only 36 percent of bi employees are out to their supervisors, compared to 74.6 percent of gay and lesbian employees.
Bi men and women were also more likely than gay and lesbian employees to report changing their workplace appearance to hide their sexual orientation. Approximately 26.4 percent of bi workers said they had done so, compared to 17.9 percent of gay and lesbian workers.
Interestingly, roughly 60 percent of gay, lesbian, and bi employees said they avoided social events and personal discussions to reduce the likelihood of discrimination and harassment. But when bi employees were out to their coworkers, they reported facing similar or higher rates of discrimination and harassment as out gay and lesbian workers.
The survey also found that gay and bi men typically faced higher rates of employment discrimination, verbal, and sexual harassment than lesbians and bisexual women.
For example, 57.7 percent of bi men experienced verbal harassment, compared to 26.8 percent of bisexual women. While 41.6 percent of gay men experienced verbal harassment, only 29.5 percent of lesbians experienced the same thing. Nearly 50 to 65 percent of all discrimination was religiously motivated, the respondents said.
Workplace sexual harassment was experienced by 34.8 percent of bi men, 33.6 percent of gay men, 29.2 percent of bi women, and 17.4 percent of lesbian women. While 58 percent of out bi men said they had left previous jobs due to workplace discrimination, only 27 percent of out bi women had left previous jobs for the same reason.
These findings came out just before Celebrate Bisexuality Day, an annual day for uplifting the bisexual community, individuals, and their shared history. Today is Celebrate Bisexuality Day.
A 2021 Gallup found that 57 percent of LGBTQ Americans identify as bisexual.
A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that monkeypox disproportionately affects people with HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
The study looked at HIV and STI rates among 1,969 people with monkeypox in eight U.S. jurisdictions.
Of that sample, 38 percent of people with monkeypox had also contracted HIV in the last year. About 41 percent of people with monkeypox also had an STI in the preceding year. About 61 percent of the sample had contracted either an STI or HIV in the previous year.
Researchers said this correlation doesn’t necessarily mean that having HIV or an STI means you’re more likely to contract monkeypox.
In fact, the higher number may be due to a “self-referral bias,” meaning that people who visited a medical professional due to monkeypox symptoms may also already have established healthcare for HIV and STIs. Either that, or sexual health providers may be more likely to recognize and test for the monkeypox virus among men who’ve had HIV and STIs over the past year.
“Persons with monkeypox signs and symptoms who are not engaged in routine HIV or sexual health care, or who experience milder signs and symptoms, might be less likely to have their Monkeypox virus infection diagnosed,” researchers wrote.
HIV-positive people in the study sample were also twice as likely to be hospitalized due to monkeypox compared to HIV-negative people with monkeypox, WTTW reported.
This could mean that people with compromised immune systems — the kinds associated with advanced and under-treated forms of HIV — are more likely to exhibit severe monkeypox symptoms. Despite this, people with HIV aren’t more likely to exhibit worse monkeypox symptoms than HIV-negative people in the general population, according to Dr. Aniruddha Hazra, assistant professor of infectious disease and global health at UChicago Medicine.
The study also found HIV was more prevalent among Black and Latino people with monkeypox, with rates of 63 percent and 41 percent, respectively. These rates were higher than the 28 percent of white people and 22 percent of Asian people who have both HIV and monkeypox.
These racial disparities are particularly concerning considering that numerous studies have shown that Black and Latino men are less likely than white men to be vaccinated against monkeypox and to have access to HIV-related medical care.
In response to the study’s findings, the CDC recommended that medical professionals prioritize people with STIs and HIV for monkeypox vaccination. Additionally, the CDC recommended offering STI and HIV screenings for people who are evaluated for monkeypox.
This last week, White House health officials voiced their belief that “we’re going to get very close” to eradicating monkeypox. As of September 23, there were 24,846 total confirmed monkeypox cases in the United States, the CDC reported.
In just a few short years in politics, Evelyn Rios Stafford has managed to make an impression at the highest levels of government, and at the most local, too.
The first transgender person to hold elected office in Arkansas, Rios Stafford serves as Justice of the Peace for her small district in Fayetteville. In her role, she’s officiated dozens of weddings for constituents. “That’s one of the highlights of this gig as Justice of the Peace. It always gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling to do that for people,” she told LGBTQ Nation.
Now, Rios Stafford is running for reelection to the post without serious opposition, a vote of confidence even before the election that constituents view her time in office as effective.
Rios Stafford’s first political involvement was getting a local civil rights ordinance passed in the late 2010’s. In 2020, she ran for an open seat on the local Quorum Court, the equivalent of a board of supervisors, and won. She represents about 16,000 people in her district.
At 49, with a broad smile and the easy, thoughtful cadence of a Texas native, Rios Stafford says being trans wasn’t a focus of her first campaign. “You know, I made one post…about it on National Coming Out Day during the campaign. But that was about it.” It wasn’t until after she was elected that “some folks got wind of the fact that I was a first of something.”
But her victory would become pivotal in the fight over trans rights in the state.
In 2021, the Arkansas legislature passed HB1570, also known as the Save Adolescents from Experimentation or SAFE Act. Like similar legislation introduced in other red states, the bill would ban all gender-affirming care for minors, prohibit insurance from covering gender transition procedures, and criminalize those assisting minors in the process.
The bill was awaiting Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson’s signature when Rios Stafford was enlisted by an Arkansas legislator to help halt the bill’s march into law. From the “phone call to me to meeting the governor was probably, I’d say 24 hours.”
While Rios Stafford was trans, she hadn’t transitioned as a youth. “I knew that I needed to also make space for folks who had this experience and were directly impacted, because their voices are really the ones that have been left out of this whole thing,” she said. Rios Stafford brought 18 year-old Willow Breshears, who began transitioning at 16 with her family’s active support, to the ornate conference room table for her meeting with the governor.
“This was probably the first time that he had ever had a sit down, face-to-face discussion with a trans person before, or in this case two trans people. And, you know, he was kind of starting at zero in terms of knowledge.” A 15-minute appointment turned into half an hour and then 45 minutes. “He was just wanting to know more, basically.”
“I was on pins and needles walking out of that room, like, you know, almost on the verge of having a panic attack. I was replaying all of my answers in my head, like, did I say the right thing, did I screw this up completely?”
Not only did Hutchinson veto the bill, he wrote a Washington Post op-ed explaining why and also went on Tucker Carlson’s show to defend his decision. No matter, the Arkansas legislature overrode his veto, though the law remains tied up in court challenges.
Still, Rios Stafford was satisfied to hear “echoes of some of the things we talked about” in Hutchinson’s defense of the veto.
“‘Traditionally, Republicans have held themselves up as champions of limited government,’” Rios Stafford told the governor. “‘In what way, shape or form is this limited government? Because this is big government. This is government getting in between the families and their doctors.’”
Rios Stafford’s own gender awakening was pivotal to her work in her adopted home state. She majored in English at Rice University in Houston and was pursuing a career in journalism when she got a call from the ABC-TV affiliate in San Francisco asking her to come in for an interview. She got the job. She was young and bright and on the loose in Baghdad by the Bay.
“It was a great time to come there,” she recalled. “During the dot-com boom, the city was kind of going crazy, and it was a really fun time to be there in my 20s. And obviously San Francisco is a place where you can really explore your identity, as well.”
Born and raised in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, she grew up attending Catholic school, where she encountered the first signs of her conflicted gender identity.
“In Catholic school, I had a boyfriend when I was 15. A couple of our friends knew about it, but it definitely wasn’t something that we were out about. I knew that I wasn’t straight, exactly,” she remembers thinking, “but I didn’t really have the language or knowledge to have an understanding of exactly in what way.”
In college, she figured it out. It was “literally, when I was, like, doing research in the college library, that I came across the idea of transgender. And it was this lightbulb moment of like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s what’s been going on with me.’”
In San Francisco, she embraced her new reality. “Gradually, I became more and more out,” Rios Stafford recalled. “It was not a surprise for some people. It was a surprise for others.” While she was “bracing for the worst,” she was “really pleasantly surprised and so grateful for having such a positive experience.”
Evelyn Rios Stafford on her wedding day Provided
“Back then, this was sort of like, this was new territory,” she said. “I think I was the first employee at an ABC owned-and-operated station to transition on the job.” The following year, Rios Stafford picked up two Emmys for her producing. “I feel like it was all tied together.”
The total package arrived shortly after she transitioned, when Rios Stafford met her future husband, Bob Stafford, an artist and graphic designer, online. She was “smitten from the beginning.” The two shared mutual friends in the arts scene South of Market in San Francisco, and Southern roots, as well. Soon after, the couple moved east to Stafford’s hometown of Fayetteville. They were married in 2016.
According to Rios Stafford, performing weddings in her job as Justice of the Peace is optional. “Not all the JPs do it. I have a feeling that one or two of them might not be on there because if they were on the list, they might have to do a same-sex wedding, and it’s against their personal beliefs or something? But I was like, ‘Sign me up! I’ll do anybody.’”