The UK has seen a sharp rise in an “extremely drug-resistant” strain of the STI shigella among gay and bisexual men, according to a government report.
Although not well-known, a shigella infection, from a bacterium that causes dysentery, can be very serious.
Shigella is transmitted through the accidental ingestion of faecal matter containing the bacteria, such as by licking skin, condoms, toys or fingers that have been contaminated during rimming, fisting, or giving oral sex after anal sex. Even a tiny amount can cause infection.
The infection affects the gut, and can cause severe and long-lasting diarrhoea, stomach cramps and a fever. Because of its symptoms, it is sometimes mistaken for food poisoning.
The symptoms of shigella usually subside within a week, but in some cases hospitalisation is required to administer intravenous antibiotics. Rarely, shigella can spread to the blood and become life-threatening.
On Thursday (27 January), the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) reported that cases have been on the rise among gay and bisexual men,
In the last four months, the agency has recorded 47 cases of the STI, while in the 17-month period between April 2020 and August 2021, there were just 16 cases.
The UKHSA said that “recent cases show resistance to antibiotics is increasing”.
Dr Gauri Godbole, a consultant medical microbiologist at UKHSA, said in a statement: “Practising good hygiene after sex is really important to keep you and your partners safe. Avoid oral sex immediately after anal sex, change condoms between anal or oral sex and wash your hands with soap after sexual contact.”
She said it was vital that men who have sex with men speak to a GP or sexual health clinic if they experience symptoms so they can be tested for shigella, which is usually done via a stool sample.
“Men with shigella may have been exposed to other STIs including HIV, so a sexual health screen at a clinic or ordering tests online is recommended,” Godbole continued.
“If you have been diagnosed with shigella, give yourself time to recover. Keep hydrated and get lots of rest.
“Don’t have sex until seven days after your last symptom and avoid spas, swimming, jacuzzis, hot tubs and sharing towels as well as preparing food for other people until a week after symptoms stop.”
The UK’s first ever national LGBT+ museum is set to open its doors in Kings Cross, London, later this year.
The museum – called Queer Britain – will explore the stories, people and places that are central to the LGBT+ community in the UK and beyond. It will be located at 2 Granary Square in Kings Cross, which is owned by Art Fund, the UK’s national charity for art.
Organisers have been putting plans in place to open an LGBT+ focused museum since 2018. They have promised that Queer Britain will be “an inclusive place that promises to welcome everyone regardless of sexuality or gender identity” .
The museum is expected to open its doors free of charge in the spring, according to Art Fund, although a firm date has not yet been specified.
Queer Britain museum will explore LGBT+ community’s ‘diverse histories’
Lisa Power, a trailblazing LGBT+ activist and trustee of Queer Britain, celebrated the news in a statement released by Art Fund.
“I’m really excited that Queer Britain is finally going to have a space to show what we can do and that we’re here for all the community, from old lesbian feminist warhorses like me to young queer folk of all genders and ethnicities. Queer Britain aims to tell our many and diverse histories, and now we have a home to do that from.”
Anjum Mouj, also a trustee of Queer Britain, said: “The UK is finally getting the LGBTQ+ museum it deserves, to reflect and celebrate all our exciting and wildly diverse communities, whatever their sexualities, gender identities, backgrounds, ability or heritage. Community lives in unity.”
Joseph Galliano, director and co-founder of the museum, said the time had come for the UK to have its own LGBT+ focused museum.
“We are delighted to have found our first home in beautiful Granary Square with Art Fund as our first landlord,” Galliano said. “It’s a prime location accessible to swathes of the country, and in a part of town with a rich queer heritage.”
Queer Britain will be made up of four galleries, a workshop, an education space, a gift shop, and it all also be home to offices for the team. Organisers have promised that it will be “fully accessible” with lifts and ramps and entry will “always” be free.
A great deal has changed for LGBT+ people in the United States since Joe Biden came into office one year ago today – but there’s still a long way to go.
The dark days of the Trump presidency aren’t quite as distant a memory as we might like. The far-right still holds a great deal of influence in the United States, and queer people continue to face disproportionate levels of violence and discrimination.
Since inauguration day on 20 January 2021, Joe Biden and Kamala Harrishave strengthened legal rights, they have rolled back Trump-era attacks, and they’ve created a more hospitable environment for LGBT+ people to exist in. The feeling among LGBT+ rights activists and advocacy groups is clear – it’s a good start, but there’s still plenty more to achieve.
One year on from inauguration day, we take a look at some of the issues Biden and Harris need to focus on over the next year to ensure that LGBT+ people’s lives are improving in tangible ways.
Joe Biden needs to end the epidemic of violence against trans women
Trans people, particularly trans women of colour, continue to face shocking levels of violence in the United States and across the world. We wish we could say things were getting better – but Biden’s first year in office was also the deadliest year on record for trans people in the United States.
One thing is clear – something needs to change, and it needs to change fast. The problem is that a political solution isn’t entirely clear or straightforward, according to Sarah Warbelow, legal director at the Human Rights Campaign.
It’s a regressive policy that is not based in science, and it’s a cruel hangover from the worst days of the AIDS epidemic.
“The American Red Cross just announced a blood donation crisis,” Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO and president of GLAAD, tells PinkNews. “Our nation’s blood supply is drastically, dangerously low. One way to alleviate the shortage and advance equality would be to urge the FDA to eliminate the discriminatory deferral period for gay and bisexual men to donate blood, and lead all agencies to revise donor screening processes to focus on current science rather than outdated notions and stigma.”
“We applaud the administration’s efforts to enforce nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ young people in schools, particularly transgender, nonbinary, and intersex students who are experiencing ongoing attacks and attempts to sanction discrimination in state legislatures across the country,” they say.
“GLSEN will continue to partner with the US Department of Education and other federal agencies to strengthen these protections and promote inclusive data collection practices that will help increase the effectiveness of programs and services.”
Over the next year, GLSEN would like to see the Biden administration expand on its current efforts to advance equality for LGBT+ people who face marginalisation in the education system. They would also like to see the administration “continue to se a tone that encourages classroom teachers, families, principals, administrators, state leaders and everyone who is part of K-12 learning communities to affirm and meet the needs of all students”.
The federal government must focus on LGBT+ mental health
Numerous studies have shown that LGBT+ people are more likely to experience mental health difficulties, and they’re also at a greater risk of suicide than their straight and cisgender peers.
Preston Mitchum is director of advocacy and government affairs at The Trevor Project, an organisation that works to prevent suicide among LGBT+ people. He says Biden “deserves credit” for prioritising LGBT+ representation in his cabinet and for reversing the trans military ban, among other measures.
However, more has to be done to protect the mental wellbeing of LGBT+ people in America.
“We will continue to push the administration to take action at the federal level to protect young people from the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy, to expand access to mental health care for all, to improve the collection of sexual orientation and gender identity data across federal agencies, and to allocate the resources necessary to make [crisis line] 988 a success come July, including specialised services for LGBTQ youth,” Mitchum says.
Adam Polaski, communications director with Southern Equality, says the Biden administration needs to challenge those laws. He notes that Biden “has followed through on many of his commitments related to LGBTQ+ equality”, but it’s now time to look towards the future.
“We’d like to see him continue to use the ‘bully pulpit’ now to call for passage of federal non-discrimination protections – and, what’s more, work specifically with legislators on both sides of the aisle to pass meaningful federal protections,” Polaski says.
“He and his Department of Justice can also dive into challenging anti-LGBTQ laws, including the anti-trans healthcare discrimination law in Arkansas and myriad anti-trans student athletics laws. And we’d like to see him continue nominating out LGBTQ+ people and allies to federal judgeships and other government positions.”
Giggle, a social media app designed for “females”, has come under fire for excluding trans women with its use of artificial intelligence.
The app is marketed as a female-only space that allows women to find roommates, engage in freelance work, find friendship groups and more.
The Verge reported that Giggle, which first launched in early 2020, uses facial recognition to determine if new users are male or female, however it has allegedly failed to properly recognise women of colour or transgender women.
Jenny, a 23-year-old trans woman from California, told The Verge: “The way the app works is when you install it, you have to take a picture of yourself and it uses AI to analyse your face.
“And if it decides you’re a woman, it will let you in. If it decides you’re a man, it will reject you. But if it rejects you, you can just submit another picture.”
Jenny said she first tried to sign up for Giggle two years ago, however she claims she was removed from the app without warning when she tweeted about joining. A Twitter user tagged Giggle’s founder and CEO Sall Grover, claiming that Jenny was “transgressing women’s boundaries” by using the app.
Grover told PinkNews: “Giggle is a social networking app for females. Males are excluded from the user base. There is no other specific demographic that is excluded from the app other than males.
“Like how Grindr is an app for gay men and therefore not for women, Giggle is an app for a specific demographic. In our case, females.
“Giggle is clearly stated as being for females. It would be lovely, however, if male people respected female spaces and left them alone.”
Taking to Twitter, Grover shared PinkNews‘ comment request pertaining to the exclusion of trans women, suggesting she considered trans women to be males, remarking: “In case anyone was wondering whether or not misogyny is alive and f**king well.”
When asked if trans women were encouraged to join Giggle, she replied: “No males are ‘encouraged’ to join Giggle.”
Grover also failed to acknowledge that Grindr is not just an app exclusively for gay men, but instead a space that’s welcoming of trans and non-binary people, as well as bisexual and questioning cis men.
PinkNews has contacted Grover for clarification.
Giggle has also been criticised for its use of AI to open an account; the app works with facial-recognition AI company Kairos, which was found to misgender women of colour in a 2019 report.
The way the app works is that a user sends off a selfie to Giggle. If the Kairos AI is 95 per cent certain the person is female, they are allowed to create an account.
In the 2019 report on Kairos, however, Joe Buolamwini, a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, found that the technology misgendered darker-skinned women 22.5 per cent of the time.
Melissa Doval, then-CEO of Kairos, told the New York Times that it had since made changes to its algorithm to improve its accuracy.
Grover denied that the platform’s AI prevented women of colour from using it, saying “women of every race are not just welcome on Giggle, women of every race are on Giggle”.
The horrific spate of anti-LGBT+ killings that have fuelled fear in Jamaica is to be investigated as part of a new podcast series.
Ring The Alarm, an Apple Podcasts series that will explore what it’s like to be LGBT+ in the island country, will be hosted by Jasmyne Cannick, one of Los Angeles’ most recognisable Black political strategists and journalists.
Cannick helped capture national attention to the sordid killings by small-time American Democratic donor Ed Buck – now she’s training focus on the creeping homicide rates of LGBT+ people in Jamaica.
“I have always used my platform to elevate Black stories and issues I felt were being ignored and Ring the Alarm is no different,” Cannick told The Advocate.
“When I was asked to come to Jamaica to speak to the LGBTQ+ community and share their stories, I immediately said yes.
“I said yes because American’s have had so much to say about the plight of queer people in places like Iran and Afghanistan but for decades have ignored the murders of lesbian women, gay men, and trans men and women in Jamaica.
“Well not anymore.”
The world ‘can’t keep ignoring’ wave of LGBT+ murders in Jamaica
In Jamaica, it is illegal to be gay, punishable by up to a decade in prison with hard labour. Some take the law into their own hands, carrying out brutal torture and murders that capture the deepening homophobia in the country.
Many queer Jamaicans live in fear, with more than half saying they have been victims of some form of violence fuelled by hatred for their sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the Human Rights Watch.
Contempt towards LGBT+ people is entrenched in the Jamaican state, the group warned.
Queer youth rejected by their families remain among the most vulnerable in society and battle to survive as the public and police target them.
But described by Cannick as like a modern-day underground railroad, countless safehouses provide LGBT+ people with a place of safety, healing and camaraderie.
Cannick hopes to tell the stories behind the safehouses and those who run them while raising money for the organisers. Above all, she hopes to raise national attention once again to a pressing issue – the killing of the most vulnerable.
“Americans love vacationing in Jamaica,” she added, “but just beyond the carefully curated tourism corridor, people are being murdered for being queer.
“We can’t be okay with that. We can’t keep ignoring that.”
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.
