More than 120 German Roman Catholic priests and officials have jointly come out as LGBT+ and called on the church to do better by queer Catholics.
Presenting a fresh test for the church, which has long resisted calls to modernise when it comes to LGBT+ rights, 125 former and current priests, teachers, church administrators and volunteers came out on Sunday (23 January).
In a Change.org petition, the group wrote that while some have “bravely and dared” to come out in the past, others have only “just taken the step”.
“We no longer want to remain silent,” they wrote.
Jointly, the group is demanding that church leadership bring an end to “outdated statements of church doctrine” when it comes to sexuality and gender.
“We want to be able to live and work openly as LGBTIQ+ persons in the church without fear,” the statement read.
The initiative, called Out In Church, posted Sunday evening a lengthy list of demands addressed to the Roman Catholic Church.
LGBT+ Roman Catholics must have access to “all fields of activists and occupation in the Church without discrimination”, they said.
Out In Church also took aim at Church employment rules that consider being openly queer as a “breach of loyalty or a reason for dismissal”.
“Defamatory and outdated statements of church doctrine on sexuality and gender needs to be revised on the basis of theological and human scientific findings,” the officials continued.
“This is of utmost relevance especially in view of worldwide church responsibility for the human rights of LGBTIQ+ persons.”
Among the group’s other calls is a plea for the church to give LGBT+ people of faith access to God’s blessings and sacraments, and to oppose LGBT+ discrimination in all its forms.
Above all, the group urged church leaders to shoulder accountability for the institution historic discrimination of LGBT+ people.
“In dealing with LGBTIQ+ persons, the church has caused much suffering throughout its history,” Out In Church concluded.
“We expect bishops to take responsibility for this on behalf of the church, to address the institutional history of guilt and to advocate for the changes we call for.”
It’s the latest example of Catholics challenging the Vatican’s increasingly mixed messages on LGBT+ inclusion.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith said that it does not “discriminate” but that God “cannot bless sin”.
The Vatican even objected to a proposed bill in Italy that would protect queer people from discrimination, with the unprecedented intervention sparking outrage.
Francis himself has flip-flopped on the issue of LGBT+ rights. While he once appeared to suggest support for civil unions, he has previously said that parents of queer children should “consult a professional” and referred to “gender ideology” as a “move away from nature”.
As the beleaguered BBC faces backlash from government ministers, PinkNews takes a brief look back at the broadcaster’s track record on LGBT+ rights.
Tory culture minister Nadine Dorries fuelled alarm over the weekend after she questioned the BBC’s main source of funding, a license fee charged to all TV viewers in the nation.
On Monday evening (17 January), Dorries confirmed that the BBC budget will be frozen for the next two years, adding that the future of the public-owned broadcaster’s funding will be “up for discussion”.
It’s the latest salvos against the BBC fired by a minister in Boris Johnson’s government – one that has increasingly smeared the public broadcaster as a megaphone of the metropolitan elite that is anything but “impartial”.
Others, however, disagree. Stressing that right-wing opinions often receive more airtime than progressive ones, according to a Cardiff University study, among other concerns.
From airing the first same-sex kiss televised on a soap opera to the constant accusations of “transphobia” riddling its senior ranks, here are some of the good – and the bad – of the BBC’s history with queer lives and issues.
When the BBC aired the first televised gay kiss on Eastenders
(BBC)
In 1989, the BBC made history when it aired the first mouth-to-mouth same-sex kiss on British TV.
Kind-hearted Colin Russell, played by Michael Cashman, was the long-running show’s first gay character, a time when LGBT+ representation on prime-time TV was threadbare.
In 1987, a monumental episode of the soap opera saw Russell receive a kiss on the forehead from his on-screen boyfriend Barry Clark (Gary Hailes). Two years later, in 1989, Michael Cashman’s character made history yet again, with Russell and his boyfriend Guido (Nicholas Donovan) sharing the first mouth-to-mouth same-sex kiss on British TV.
Both landmark moments were inevitably blasted by the right-wing press – with Piers Morgan branding the latter as “a love scene between two yuppie poofs” in The Sun – and inundated with complaints from fuming viewers, but the show since been credited with helping to soften the public’s attitudes towards queer folk.
BBC’s Boy Meets Girl casts first trans actor in trans role on a British sitcom
Rebecca Root and Harry Hepple in ‘Boy Meets Girl’. (BBC)
Boy Meets Girl, a comedy-drama about two people falling in love, was the broadcaster’s first sitcom focusing on trans lives.
The show’s lead, Rebecca Root, became the first trans actor cast in a television soap opera, with both the programme and Root bagging a nomination at the British LGBT Awards in 2016.
“The BBC should be proud of its commitment to diversity and groundbreaking coverage of LGBT+ issues,” Sarah Garrett, who founded the awards, told the BBC at the time.
Strictly Come Dancing welcoming historic first same-sex pairings
John Whaite and Johannes Radebe. (BBC)
Strictly Come Dancing, a staple of many a Brit’s living room, broke ballroom ground when it finally welcomed its first same-sex dancers in 2020 and 2021.
Nicola Adams and Katya Jones and John Whaite and Johannes Radebe became the competition’s first all-female and male pairings respectively.
In the face of bigoted backlash from pearl-clutching viewers, the BBC continually refused to uphold viewer complaints and defended the simple act of two people of the same gender dancing.
A commitment to bringing LGBT+ stories to the forefront of its programming
Sheridan Smith as Sarah Sak in BBC drama, Four Lives. (BBC)
From the quietly subversive Everybody’s Talking About Jamie documentary,Drag Queen at 16, in 2011 to this year’s Four Lives, the BBC has in the last decade gone out of its way to represent LGBT+ lives beyond tired coming out plot lines.
BBC Three, the home of the network’s more off-the-wall, youth-focused shows, has been especially at the forefront of this.
The channel aired both Growing Up Gay with Olly Alexander and Transitioning Teens, which saw trans activist Charlie Craggs chat to trans teens who have waited years to be seen by the NHS.
The time BBC debated the ‘morality’ of LGBT+ lessons in schools
All of the Question Time panellists supported LGBT-inclusive education. (Screen capture via the BBC)
On Question Time, BBC One’s weekly political discussion show, panellists were posed the question of whether it is “morally right” to teach children about LGBT+ issues in 2019.
As much as the panel, made up of senior lawmakers, company bosses and journalists, agreed that LGBT-inclusive education is “morally right”, the episode drew fierce complaints online.
“The framing of this question is deeply worrying,” tweeted BBC presenter Sue Perkins. “Are we really here again, nearly two decades after Section 28 was repealed…?”
When the BBC ‘balanced’ its coverage by featuring a gay execution supporter
Elton John and David Furnish with their two sons. (Getty)
In 2010, seven million people tuned in to watch BBC’s flagship News at Sixbulletin as it reported on the birth of Elton John and David Furnish’s first child.
During the broadcast, the show interviewed a single person – Stephen Green, of right-wing group Christian Voice.
But it failed to mention that Green has previously supported the death penalty for gay men in Uganda, among other examples of small-mindedness. The BBC did so, it told PinkNews at the time, to add an “opposing viewpoint” to the subject of surrogacy.
The BBC once debated whether ‘gays should be executed’
Ugandan men hold a rainbow flag reading ‘Join hands to end LGBTI genocide’ (ISAAC KASAMANI/AFP/Getty)
As Ugandan lawmakers debated a bill that would introduce the death penalty for LGBT+ people in 2009, the BBC World Service asked: “Should homosexuals be executed?”
The backlash was swift. The radio station’s director, Peter Horrocks, apologised for the report in a statement published to the BBC Editors’ Blog.
“The original headline on our website was, in hindsight, too stark,” he said. “We apologise for any offence it caused.”
The BBC quitting a workplace Stonewall scheme over a ‘risk of perceived bias’
Stonewall is the UK – and Europe’s – largest LGBT+ charity. (Getty)
BBC bosses said that the departure was to “minimise the risk of perceived bias” when it comes to covering LGBT+ issues.
It was the upshot of a divisive culture war that had pelted the programme, with many taking aim at the scheme in what Stonewall has described as part of a “coordinated attack” against the charity.
Fran Unsworth allegedly telling LGBT+ staff to ‘get used to hearing views you don’t like’
Fran Unsworth, head of news at the BBC. (BBC)
The BBC’s director of news Fran Unsworth reportedly told the corporation’s LGBT+ network to “get used” to hearing opinions they do not agree with.
“You’ll hear things you don’t personally like and see things you don’t like – that’s what the BBC is, and you have to get used to that,” Unsworth allegedly said at the meeting.
The meeting had been called following weeks of tension within the BBC surrounding the broadcaster’s handling of LGBT+ issues, mainly trans rights.
‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women’
Trans rights protestors gather outside the BBC building. (Hollie Adams/Getty Images)
Among the laundry list of criticisms from LGBT+ people: How it relied on a survey of just 80 people, how the survey was conducted by an anti-trans group, how Lily Cade, a porn star interviewed in the article, had called for trans women to be “lynched” and “executed”.
Some former and current BBC staffers even quit the organisation, citing a “hostile” environment against LGBT+ people – with the podcast being the final straw.
“We really need to start looking internally at ourselves as the BBC,” said one staff member in a leaked document, “and ask a very simple question.
Sex workers and strippers explained how the pandemic has forced them into unsafe working conditions and hit them financially.
United Sex Workers is a trade union branch organising for better working conditions and to change the sex work industry from within. Among its aims is to establish ‘worker’ status for strippers and sex workers, which bestows basic employment rights such as sick pay and annual leave.
Its work has become even more important during the pandemic, which has seen strip clubs fall quiet and close down, and has seen sex workers often forced to gamble with their safety in order to make a living.
While some people have been able to work remotely during the pandemic, many people’s livelihoods depend on in-person contact.
To make matters worse, sex workers are classed as self-employed, meaning they can’t access sick pay or other benefits. The result is that many sex workers are left struggling to make ends meet if they test positive for COVID-19.
That puts sex workers in a uniquely difficult position – how do you stay afloat when you have no guaranteed income and no safety net to fall back on?
We spoke to members of United Sex Workers to find out what it’s been like to work in the sex industry since the arrival of the Omicron variant. They spoke about financial instability, the fear that comes with being exposed to COVID-19, and working with riskier clients in a bid to make ends meet.
Surnames have been withheld to protect identities.
Audrey
December is always a slow month, yet the Omicron wave reduced it to a glacial pace. When I tested positive for COVID over Christmas it meant I had to take 10 full days off work, which only increased the anxiety I felt about not being able to make rent. When you’re self-employed, 10 days of work can mean the difference between paying bills or subsisting on super noodles. I had to take on potentially dangerous clients I would have usually refused to see just to make ends meet, alongside juggling the health anxiety of being so close to strangers in the middle of a global pandemic.
Being a hooker, I was unable to access any financial support from the government earlier in the year, and any savings I had at the start of the pandemic are now long gone, so all I can do is continue to see clients and hope I don’t fall ill again. The longer the pandemic stretches on, the more terrified I am of never being able to financially recover. I often wonder if this perpetual anxiety is how it would feel if sex work were criminalised; having to take riskier bookings due to there being less clients, knowing that with each booking I’m gambling with my own safety.
Ava
My work phone was quieter than usual and I needed to take any booking I could. This meant that I screened less than usual and men tried to push my boundaries a bit more I think because they knew I was desperate for the money.
This is what it might be like if we have the Nordic model, the nicer clients will behave and not come out and the bad clients will still be there and they will know that we need the money and push us.
Amelie
Omicron has hit the stripping industry really hard. November and December is usually the best time of the year for dancers, but this year it has been very quiet. We saw a massive decline in the number of customers visiting our clubs, as Christmas parties and stag dos were often cancelled. This, combined with the arrival of COVID passports has made it incredibly hard for strippers to make a decent amount of money. A lot of us also tested positive for COVID and have had to self-isolate and miss out on work. Due to being self-employed, we had no access to sick pay.
The last two years have been incredibly hard for the industry. A number of clubs did not get any financial support as a result of their local authority discriminating against them simply because of the nature of those establishments. This has led to the closure of some clubs which did not manage to make it through the pandemic. Some of them tried to recoup their financial losses through higher house fees, fines given to the workers for very arbitrary reasons, and booking more dancers than they usually would, making it harder for everyone to make money.
Many strippers are queer, and a significant proportion of the customer base also is.
Some cities such as Bristol, Edinburgh and Blackpool have used those difficult times to try and introduce nil-caps, essentially a ban, on strip clubs. Blackpool has unfortunately been successful, although the process they went through to achieve this was more than questionable. No decision has been made in Bristol and Edinburgh so far. Those decisions from local authorities have received a massive backlash from the industry itself, with us dancers in Bristol organising ourselves with the Bristol Sex Workers Collective and advocating against the ban, arguing it would push the industry underground and make us unsafe. We have been supported by our trade union United Sex Workers, which is also campaigning against nil-caps.
These caps would not only endanger the dancers, who would lose safe and regulated workplaces, but it would also be a huge loss for the LGBTQ+ community. Many strippers are queer, and a significant proportion of the customer base also is. Closing them down would once again be removing safe spaces for the community, due to the high security presence in those venues and the very strict licensing.
Alice
I tested positive for COVID along with many others in the week leading up to Christmas. This meant that I had to isolate and therefore couldn’t work. It was very stressful to be sat at home with no income worrying that if there was another lockdown I could be facing even more losses and that I could struggle to pay my rent and bills. There’s no furlough pay and no sick pay if you’re a sex worker. I just wish that we had access to these basic rights so that we can feel protected and supported along with other workers.
Amy
At the start of COVID, I managed to take a few months off sex work because I had a few days work each week in a civvie job. When money got tight I started seeing clients again and, perhaps due to their mental health being bad, and mine too, the sessions were so difficult, with clients pushing boundaries or being more emotionally intense than usual and less respectful of boundaries.
Touch also felt strange after so long avoiding human contact. I was missing the people I wanted to be close to so much, so the touch from those I didn’t love felt stifling. I also think, as sex work is so stigmatised and I have internalised some of that, I was worried about spreading COVID that I’d picked up via clients, as if this somehow was worse than if I’d picked it up working in an office.
You can join the United Sex Workers trade union or find out more about the work they do here.
Chris Dickerson, who holds the duel honour of being the first Black man to win the Mr America contest and first openly gay man to win Mr Olympia, has died aged 82.
Dickerson was a powerhouse of the bodybuilding community and broke barriers. He died on 23 December at a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his friend Bill Neylon confirming the cause of death as a heart ailment, the Washington Post reported.
Neylon – a retired amateur bodybuilder who trained alongside Dickerson – said his friend had lived in a rehab centre after he had been hospitalised for a broken hip in 2020, had a heart attack and COVID-19.
He told the New York Timesthat Dickerson “brought class and dignity and culture to bodybuilding”.
Chris Dickerson’s storied career spanned over three decades, and he won over 50 titles. He ended his career having won four major bodybuilding titles: Mr Olympia, Mr America, Mr Universe and the Pro Mr America.
Dickerson trained in opera and dance before beginning to lift weights to build up his chest and expand his vocal range.
He was named Mr America in 1970, becoming the first Black winner of the bodybuilding competition. He was also one of the first Black men to win the Mr Universe competition in 1982.
Dickerson was also gay, which was widely known in bodybuilding circles by the late 1970s. But he didn’t publicly discuss his sexuality at the height of his career, the New York Times reported.
Dickerson acknowledged that being gay and Black was a barrier for him in the bodybuilding world.
He said the promoter of the Mr Olympia contest was a “real low life, a bigot, who had a real dislike for me – partly on racial grounds and partly for my sexual orientation”.
The paper alleged the promoter also told another official that “Chris couldn’t win because he was a f*g”.
Chris Dickerson came in second again in 1981 before finally taking the Mr Olympia title in 1982 aged 43. He was the oldest Mr Olympia champion at the time.
In the 1970s, Dickerson modelled nude for Jim French, a photographer who specialised in erotic imagery of gay men. He also posed in a t-shirt for a portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe in 1982.
Samir Bannout, Dickerson’s friend and the 1983 Mr Olympia champion, told the Washington Post that Dickerson was “one of the nicest people in the entire sport”.
“He had no chip on his shoulder,” Bannout said. “When he won the Mr Olympia, he was still a normal guy.”
Bannout described the gay bodybuilder as “masterful” and as someone who had “more confidence than anyone out there”.
Chris Dickerson was the youngest of triplets. His brothers died before him, the New York Times reported.
A group of activists invite social media to join their campaign to ‘disrupt the religious violence trans people experience every day’.
Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi and J Mase III edited the Black Trans Prayer Book to dismantle toxic religious practices that alienate people in the LGBT+ community. The anthology is composed of work by Black trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people.
In 2019, the pair hosted their first annual event for the #TransphobiaIsASin Campaign. The online campaign highlights religious violence that impacts trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people worldwide – especially those from Black, Indigenous and other marginalised communities.
Now, on Saturday (15 January), Dane and Mase will launch their fourth iteration of the campaign. In it, they are inviting anyone that is “invested in ending religious (ie: all) violence against Trans, Non-Binary and Gender Expansive Peoples”.
“Anti-trans religious violence does not just look like demonising trans people within worship spaces,” they said. “It is the theology that finds its way to the tongues of politicians who create anti-trans policies.”
They continued: “It manifests as the framework that blooms violence against trans people on the street, in their families, and in community at large.”
In a post on social media, Dane and Mase explained they want to “call attention to, and disrupt the religious violence trans people experience everyday”.
They have invited anyone interested in taking part to take a photo holding up a sign with one of the following lines: “Transphobia is a Sin”, “Transphobia is Haram”, “Trans People are Divine” or “Trans People Exist Because Our Ancestors Existed”.
The photo should be posted to social media on or close to Saturday, and it should use the hashtag “
Mase told them that the book came into existence as they wanted to do “some intentional work on creating spiritual space” for people within their community.
“That included Black trans people who are part of religious communities as well as Black trans folks who’ve been run out of religious communities,” Mase said.
He added that they knew this wasn’t a job just for him and Dane. So the pair gathered a “crew of people from all over the US and beyond” to offer their insights for the interfaith, multi-dimensional work.
Dane said her main takeaway from the book was: “Wow, Black trans people are just amazing”.
“Black trans people are the leaders this world has been looking for,” she explained. “It’s time some of these cis folks, especially the white ones, get out the way.”
Dane continued: “Get out the way and pour resources into the community.
“The solutions for liberation that the world has been seeking have already been theorised.
“Now it’s time for the world to actually honour the role that Black trans people have always been destined to play: healing the world, prophesying a future and birthing liberation.”
Dane and Mase will also close out the new campaign with a workshop on how to heal from religious trauma which is set to take place on 18 January.
After an 18-month fight, an LGBT+ activist who fled Jordan is finally “supported, seen and heard” in their new home in Australia.
AlShaima Omama AlZubi, 25, who identifies as a non-binary lesbian, has been a “victim of rape, sexual assaults, torture, forced marriage, forced conversion therapy, forced hospitalisation, and forced veiling abuse that dates back to their childhood”, according to Amnesty.
AlZubi, an LGBT+ and women’s rights defender, comes from a powerful family, with many members working for Jordan’s government, and whose “influence extends across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq”.
They first fled to Turkey from Jordan in July 2020, and later made it to Lebanon, planning to travel onwards to Australia on a humanitarian visa.
But in December, 2021, they were stripped of their passport and detained by Lebanese authorities for five days, who told them there was an Interpol Red Notice out of their arrest. During this time, Amnesty suspected that the Jordanian embassy in Lebanon was working on having them repatriated.
Finally, after tireless work by NGOs and Australian diplomats, AlZubi was able to board a flight to Australia on 30 December.
Speaking to SBS News, they said that since arriving, they have begun seeing a therapist and are finding their place within the local LGBT+ community.
They said: “Now I feel supported, seen, heard and treated like a human being regardless of my beliefs, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
“[I want to] move on in my life, continue my education, [and have] a great career and independence.
“Finally I have the chance to be myself without people shaming me and trying to kill me for it.”
In a message “to all of the women and the LGBTIQ+ community in the Middle East”, they added: “There’s always a way to be free. We just need the right people to help us.
“Never be ashamed of being yourself, never be sorry for who you are. Don’t let religion or anyone control your being. No one on Earth can be you.”
While homosexuality was decriminalised in Jordan in 1951, LGBT+ people face frequent harassment, discrimination and violence.
There are no laws to protect queer people from discrimination, no recognition of same-sex relationships, and one 2019 study found that 93 per cent of Jordanians believe that society should not accept homosexuality.
New Jersey is set to decriminalise HIV transmission, ending an historic law that “fuels stigma”.
Under current New Jersey law, a person who engages in sexual penetration by any body part without disclosing they are HIV-positive could face up to five years in prison.
For other sexually-transmitted infections, the sentence is limited to 18 months.
On Monday (10 January), state senators voted 26-11 to pass a bill, S-3707, that would put an end to this.
The bill would still criminalise the transmission of non-airborne infectious or communicable diseases, but will no longer target those living with HIV or STIs.
“This legislation is a step in the right direction [to] removing the stigmatisation that surrounds individuals living with HIV,” said Senate majority leader Teresa Ruiz, one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
“The criminal code is meant to punish actions that harm others, not discriminate against people living with a chronic health condition.”
New Jersey state senator Teresa Ruiz speaks at the 25th Anniversary of Kid Witness News. (Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images for Kid Witness News)
Co-sponsor senator Joe Vitale said the bill would bring New Jersey in line with “what we now know about the transmissions of certain diseases, especially in light of the advances in treatment”.
It’s a law that has been a “huge priority” for activists, he said.
“I am thankful to the advocates who brought this issue to our attention, not only for leading the way on solid public health policy,” Vitale added, “but also in serving those in need in New Jersey.”
‘Criminalisation does not prevent HIV transmission’
Even activists across the pond celebrated the news, who said that such laws are based on long-outdated conceptions of what HIV is and deepen animosity.
Matthew Hodson, a British HIV activist and executive director for NAM aidsmap, which monitors HIV criminalisation law, told PinkNews: “Criminalisation of HIV creates barriers to HIV testing and treatment, which only serves to increase opportunities for HIV to be transmitted.
“Criminalisation does not prevent HIV transmission.
“There is a shameful history of such laws being used against people in cases where not only has HIV not been passed on but there was no actual possibility of HIV being passed on.
“Criminalisation fuels stigma and is often used against those who are already marginalised or vulnerable, including against LGBT people in countries with state-sanctioned homophobia.
A history of the US criminalising the transmission of HIV
At least 35 US states, many in the Midwest and Deep South – still have laws on the books that criminalise “HIV exposure”, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A 2017 analysis of 393 HIV-related convictions in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee found the average sentence was nearly eight years in prison for having sex without first informing their partner of their status.
In Arkansas, ‘intentional HIV exposure’ carries a minimum of six years and a maximum of 30 years alongside thousands of dollars in fines.
People convicted of ‘intentional exposure’ in South Dakota and Louisiana are also required to register as sex offenders, the Center for HIV Law and Policy says.
Ohio and Tennessee enforce this requirement regardless of intentionality, while in Arkansas it is not a statutory requirement but a court may order it.
A man holding a PrEP tablet. (Daniel Born/The Times/Gallo Images/Getty)
At least six states even have laws that enhance sentences for sexual offences if the person convicted is living with HIV, the Movement Advancement Project found.
The Movement Advancement Project said nearly three in every 10 LGBT+ people live in a state with such outdated law in place. Such laws are often used to punish people who have done no harm, the American Academy of HIV Medicine has warned.
Michigan, for example, exempts those living with HIV who have sex without disclosing their status as long as they are on viral suppression medication.
Many states scrambled to roll out laws criminalising people living with HIV amid the paranoia of the early HIV epidemic, when acquiring the virus was considered a death sentence.
Science in no way supports laws that single out people living with HIV, and activists have argued that these laws are tinged with racism and transphobia.
People living with HIV are more likely to be trans, Black and Latinx, meaning that they are disproportionately targeted by the laws, Lambda Legal and Injustice Watch have found. Some prosecutors even weaponise hateful stereotypes of these demographics to justify the charges.
If New Jersey repeals its law, it would join Illinois and Texas in throwing out entirely their HIV-specific criminal laws.
Missouri, California, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada, Virginia and Michigan, meanwhile, have all softened their anti-HIV laws since 2014, according to the CDC.
American Idol star Clay Aiken has launched a second congressional bid after being inspired to fight hate perpetuated by North Carolina’s top lawmakers.
Aiken was the runner-up on the second season of American Idol in 2003. Afterwards, he launched a music and acting career – even appearing as acontestant on Celebrity Apprentice hosted by former president Donald Trump.
In 2014 he turned his attention to politics, winning the Democratic primary in North Carolina’s second congressional district, but he was defeated in the general election by Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers.
Now he’s running for Congress again. But this time, Aiken, who has referred to himself as a “loud and proud Democrat”, is running to represent the newly drawn sixth district. He is hoping to replace representative David Price, who was first elected in 1986 and said he would not seek re-election in October.
Aiken told Variety that he wasn’t initially planning to run for congress again, but he changed his mind after hearing a homophobic speech by North Carolina’s lieutenant governor Mark Robinson.
He described how “several people” asked if he would be interested in running for Price’s seat after the long-time politician announced he would be retiring from the role in 2022.
“I told them, you know, I’m keeping an eye on it, but I’m not really necessarily thinking about running right now,” he recalled.
“He gave a speech in which he said: ‘What is the purpose of homosexuality? What purpose do homosexuals serve?’” Aiken said.
He continued: “I watched that sort of with just dumbstruck awe that someone could be so ignorant.
After watching it, I said, you know, ‘I got your purpose, bitch. I will show you’.”
Clay Aiken onstage during the opening curtain call for “Ruben & Clay’s First Annual Christmas Show” on 11 December 2018. (Getty/Walter McBride)
Aiken described himself as a “North Carolinian” his entire life, adding his family has “been here since the 1700s”. He said Robinson’s anti-LGBT+ hatred made him “really think about the reputation” the state has “gotten over the past several years”.
“In my entire life, I’ve never known a time when this state has had a reputation that wasn’t progressive and welcoming and friendly,” he added.
He added that some friends wouldn’t want to visit because they didn’t feel “comfortable in North Carolina”. Aiken said he was “sick” that his beloved state has such a reputation, and he isn’t “willing” to let it continue any longer.
“And that p**ses me the hell off,” he said. “Because this area is not like that, and the fact that people outside of this state have this opinion or this perception of North Carolina based on people like Mark Robinson and Madison Cawthorn.”
A group of North Carolina voters have launched a bid to keep Cawthorn, a Republican congressman, off the ballot in this year’s midterm elections, citing his alleged involvement in the 6 January Capitol riot.
Cawthorn claimed the election was stolen from Trump during the “Save America Rally” before the riot and has been accused of firing up the crowd, The Guardian reported.
A group of voters have said that Cawthorn can’t run for Congress because he fails to comply with an amendment in the Constitution.
The 1868 amendment says no one can serve in Congress if they have “previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”.
In the video announcing his congressional run, Clay Aiken condemned Cawthorn and Robinson as “white nationalists” and “hateful homophobes”.
He also acknowledged it wasn’t a “North Carolina thing” before showing images of reviled GOP representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) and Lauren Boebert (Colorado).
The Times has been forced to issue two corrections within two days after publishing ‘anti-trans’ misinformation.
On Tuesday (4 January), the newspaper finally offered a correction to a story on inclusive language around birthing which it published almost a year ago.
In February, 2021, a Times article claimed that in new guidance, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust was telling staff in perinatal services to “say ‘chestfeeding’ instead of ‘breastfeeding’”, and to “replace the term ‘mother’”.
A quick glance through the trust’s guidance proves this claim to be categorically untrue, as it clearly states that it will be “taking a gender-additive approach”, which it says means “using gender-neutral language alongside the language of motherhood”.
However, it took a ruling by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) to convince The Times to admit the inaccuracy of its story.
In its correction, the newspaper said: “Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust’s guidance did not advocate the universal substitution of the term ‘breastfeeding’ with ‘chestfeeding’, rather that the term ‘breast/chestfeeding’ should be used instead in the trust’s literature and communications.”
With no evidence, The Times claimed that hundreds of ‘male-bodied sex offenders were classified as women’ in recent years
Just a day later, on Wednesday (6 January), The Times was forced to print another correction relating to trans people.
In the story, Massie claimed: “We pretend that women can — and do — commit rape… In England and Wales 436 male-bodied sex offenders were classified as women from 2012 to 2018.”
In the correction, The Times said: “In fact, under English law, accessories to a crime are charged as principal offenders, and therefore women can be charged with rape.
“How many female defendants were ‘male-bodied’ is not recorded. We are happy to make this clear.”
Following the correction, The Times has now re-published the piece, removing the explicit claim that all recorded female sex offenders are trans.
However, at the time this article was published, it continued to claim that “436 rape defendants were classified as women”.
Stonewall CEO Nancy Kelley was among those to comment on the correction, tweeting: “Good to see [The Times] issuing a formal correction of the misinformation it published on rape statistics.
“Trans women are constantly being represented as threats and as predators in our press and public conversation. They are not.”
A trans woman currently incarcerated in Texas could become the first American to receive gender-affirming surgery while in federal prison.
Cristina Iglesias, 47, is a trans woman who has been incarcerated in Texas’ Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for 27 years.
glesias made prison officials aware that she was transgender when she was first sent to prison, in 1994, and has been working to access gender affirmation surgery since 2016.
Just last year, after she launched legal action against the BOP, she was finally moved to a female facility after suffering “severe physical and sexual violence”, according to the ACLU of Illinois, which is representing her.
She alleges that the BOP is violating her rights under eighth amendment, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”, but not allowing her to undergo necessary gender affirmation surgery.
Finally, on 27 December, Chief Judge Nancy J Rosenstengel issued a decisionin the US District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
Rosenstengel ruled that the BOP’s Transgender Executive Council must evaluate Iglesias for gender affirmation surgery, and that it must complete the evaluation before 24 January.
If both the council and the BOP’s medical director approve the surgery, then the BOP must produce a detailed plan for it to go ahead, including a timeline of preparation for the surgery, a list of possible surgeons, and a timeline for the trans woman’s recovery.
While a few trans inmates in state prisons have been approved for the surgery, the decision marks the first time in US history that an federally incarcerated trans person will be evaluated for gender affirmation surgery, and could see Iglesias become the first person ever to access the life-saving surgery from within the federal prison system.
Cristina Iglesias and her legal team hope her case will set a precedent for other trans folk in prison
John Knight of the ACLU of Illinois, who represents Cristina Iglesias, said in a statement: “For years, Cristina has suffered greatly from the denial of appropriate healthcare and the constant threats to her life while in BOP detention.
“Cristina has fought for years to get the treatment the constitution requires. The court’s order removes the unnecessary hurdles and delays BOP has repeatedly constructed to prevent her from getting the care that she urgently needs.
“We hope that the order directing BOP to move forward will result in medically necessary and long overdue healthcare for Cristina — and, in time, for the many other transgender people in BOP’s custody who have also been denied surgery and other much-needed gender-affirming care.”
Iglesias herself told the Dallas Morning Newsin a statement: “I am happy to have had the chance to tell my story and am hopeful that other transgender people will benefit from my case.”
