The Pride LA Staff

Detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, West Hollywood Station, are reaching out to the public for help in identifying a suspect involved in an assault with a deadly weapon incident. The victim was identified as a West Hollywood Security Ambassador. 

The incident occurred in the early hours of Thursday, February 15th, 2024, at around 1:20 a.m., within the 7300 block of Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. According to reports, two suspects confronted the victim, resulting in an assault during a verbal argument.

Prompt response from West Hollywood Station Deputies led to the apprehension of one suspect, who was arrested in connection with the assault. However, the second suspect remains at large, and authorities are seeking assistance in identifying this individual.

The outstanding suspect is described as a male adult, aged approximately 30-40 years old, standing at 5’10” and weighing around 190 lbs.

Authorities have provided video footage of the incident, available for viewing at this link: LASD Video Portal.

The investigation remains ongoing, and anyone with information about the incident is urged to contact Detective J. Morales at (310) 358-4058 or via email at [email protected] those who wish to remain anonymous, Crime Stoppers can be reached at (800) 222-8477 or online at www.p3tips.com.

The Los Angeles LGBT Center announced today that it has reached a temporary agreement with the Los Angeles Department of Public Health (DPH) to reinstate funding for vital STD and HIV services for the LGBT community. 

“The Los Angeles LGBT community saved the day. From phone calls to tweets and emails, their voices were heard and ultimately saved these vital services for our community,” Los Angeles LGBT Center CEO Lorri L. Jean said. “It’s a potent reminder of the strength, tenacity, and resilience of our community.”

The agreement, reached overnight, comes one day after the announcement that free STD and HIV testing and STD treatment funded by the County would end at the Center due to funding cuts by DPH. The subsequent public outcry and activism through phone calls to DPH and its director, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, led to the temporary funding agreement.

The temporary agreement restores funding through the end of March.

“Services were saved and are continuing—for now. That is crucial,” Jean said. “And, between now and the end of March, we will work with Dr. Ferrer and the Department of Public Health to find a long-term solution that ensures care and treatment for our community. We are hopeful, but nothing is guaranteed. Clearly our community stands at the ready to re-engage should this become necessary.”

Los Angeles is in the midst of raging STD epidemics, with infections continuing to rise. Up to 90 percent of certain STDs have no symptoms, which means people can be passing them to their partners without realizing it. Over the last five years, there has been a 98 percent increase in primary and secondary syphilis; 81 percent increase in gonorrhea; and 25 percent increase in chlamydia cases in Los Angeles County. Alarmingly, the epidemic disproportionately impacts communities hardest hit by health inequities and stigma, including young gay and bisexual men, women, people of color, and transgender people.

For more information, visit lalgbtcenter.org.

This week 35 years ago in history, actor Rock Hudson publicly announced that he had AIDS. He was one of the first mainstream celebrities to be diagnosed with the disease. Then, three days later on July 28, 1985, Walk Los Angeles held its first event, hoping to raise $100,000.  – Advertisement –

The news of Hudson’s diagnosis shook the HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ communities in Los Angeles but also surged a tide of 4,500 walkers to participate in the first AIDS Walk Los Angeles at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. The walk surpassed its goal, raising $673,000 and ignited a movement to eradicate the disease. Yet, today, the need to eradicate HIV/AIDS is still as prevalent as ever. 

This year, AIDS Walk Los Angeles will be held on October 20 at Grand Park in Downtown Los Angeles. Individuals and Teams can register at no cost and fundraise on a newly launched website (aidswalkla.org). AIDS Walk Los Angeles is the pioneer fundraising walk that raises vital funds and builds support and awareness of the continuing need to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. 

“AIDS Walk Los Angeles is the premiere HIV/AIDS event to organize community, educate, bring awareness and work to end an epidemic,” said Craig Thompson, CEO, APLA Health. “We’ve made major strides in improving the health and quality of life for people living with HIV, but the disease has yet to be eradicated and our work continues. Our ask for this year’s walk is simple: Walk with us, talk with us, and share your experience.”

This year’s AIDS Walk Los Angeles is the first to be managed in house by APLA Health, which has been the beneficiary of the walk since its inception. The theme for the 2019 event is “AIDS Has Met Its March,” which calls upon participants to continue the fight in our efforts to make AIDS history. The walk is approximately four miles and starts and ends at the steps of L.A. City Hall and takes about two hours to complete. The morning kicks off with an aerobic warm-up, followed by opening ceremonies featuring celebrities, musical performances, and HIV/AIDS activists and leaders. A post-walk celebration congratulates walkers, volunteers and supporters.

Each year AIDS Walk Los Angeles opens registration during Pride Month – when LGBTQ+ communities and supporters stand together to celebrate and advocate for inclusiveness and civil rights. Since 1985, hundreds of thousands of walkers and supporters have raised over $88 million in the fight against HIV/AIDS. These funds are a vital lifeline that sustains APLA Health as well as other HIV/AIDS health and support organization beneficiaries.

“The HIV health services and support programs, HIV prevention programs, and advocacy we offer to the thousands of men, women, and families affected by the disease in Los Angeles County are still as relevant today as they were when we opened our doors to help our first five clients in 1983,” said Thompson. “In 2017, the CDC reported that African-American and Latinx gay or bisexual men accounted for a higher proportion of new HIV diagnosis and people living with HIV compared to other races. In 2018, the CDC reported an uptick in HIV infections in millennials. Because of these statistics, we continue to walk to educate, provide care, and support for all of our communities. Funds raised allow us to offer critical services that include primary medical care, HIV specialty care, dental and behavioral health care, as well as food, housing support and more.”

A state bill designed to provide intersex individuals with informed consent for medical treatments regarding their sex characteristics has been pushed to a vote in 2020- Advertisement –

 Last week, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) announced that legislation to ensure intersex individuals—a term used often used by people born with variations in their sex characteristics, including genitalia—can provide informed consent before any medical treatments or interventions that could irreversibly affect their fertility or sexual function, will be pulled from the 2019 legislative session and pushed to 2020. After hearing testimony on the bill last Monday, the Committee decided to postpone the vote to see if consensus could be reached between the bill’s supporters and medical associations that had previously refused to negotiate with Senator Wiener. 

Senate Bill 201 would give individuals the opportunity to delay medically unnecessary, potentially harmful, irreversible procedures until they have the ability to make an informed decision for themselves. 

“SB 201, at its core, is about giving people born with variations in their sex characteristics autonomy over their own bodies and lives. When it comes to choosing deeply personal interventions for an individual when they may not be wanted, acting is risky, while waiting costs nothing,” a press release stated. “Delay gives individuals and their families the most options, including access to future medical advances once the patient can understand the risks and their own priorities. Senate Bill 201 would not have prohibited treatment or surgery when medically necessary; it simply prohibited medically unnecessary surgeries on babies that are purely elective and based on a desire to “normalize” a child’s genitals. Some of these surgeries include invasive procedures such as reducing a clitoris, creating a vagina, or removing healthy gonadal tissue. They can also lead to assigning a gender before an individual has the opportunity to express a gender for themselves.”

Comprising approximately 1-2 percent of all people, those born with both with variations in their sex characteristics, sometimes referred to as intersex traits, aren’t rare—they are just invisible. A subset of these variations are recognized at birth, while others may go unnoticed until later in life, if ever. Although a very small percentage of intersex infants may require immediate surgical intervention—for example some are born without the ability to pass urine—the vast majority are born with no health issues related to their genitals and are able to live rich, fulfilling lives without any modification. 

“We’ve made significant strides in California to protect the right of sexual minorities to determine our lives and make decisions about our own bodies, but much work clearly remains to raise awareness and educate about this important civil rights issue, both in the Legislature and in the medical profession,” Wiener said. “Progressive California should not be denying individuals the basic human right to decide what happens to their own bodies, yet that is exactly what is happening as surgeons and parents assign genders to babies without any actual input from that child. SB 201 stands for a very basic and common-sense notion: That individuals should choose for themselves if and when to undergo life-altering and gender-assigning surgeries that aren’t medically necessary. Our broad coalition of intersex advocates, medical professionals, LGBT advocacy organizations, parents, civil rights organizations, and affected individuals look forward to the day when this basic human right is respected and protected by law, and we will continue to fight to make this vision a reality.” 

Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, physicians began modifying the genitals of infants they considered atypical. These treatments and interventions have included infant vaginoplasties, clitoral reductions, and removal of gonadal tissues, and may result in extreme scarring, chronic pain, incontinence, loss of sexual sensation, post-traumatic stress disorder, and incorrect gender assignment. While a number of doctors continue to perform these irreversible procedures in infancy based on the theory that they will help intersex people feel more “normal,” no research definitively proves that claim, or the assumption that conformity is more important than autonomy over their bodies. All major groups led by affected adults condemn the practice when performed without the consent of the individual involved.   

Three former Surgeons General, who were appointed by Presidents of both parties, oppose medically unnecessary genital surgery on intersex babies stating, “When an individual is born with atypical genitalia that pose no physical risk, treatment should focus not on surgical intervention but on psychosocial and educational support… [I]ntersex persons routinely face forced medical surgeries that are conducted at a young age without free or informed consent. These interventions jeopardize their physical integrity and ability to live free.” 

 “SB 201 has not only already raised tremendous intersex visibility in California and national media, it has given our entire community hope that compassionate and ethical care for children born with intersex traits is on the horizon,” said Kimberly Zieselman, Executive Director of interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth, an intersex woman herself affected by the surgeries.

 “At its core, SB 201 is about the State of California respecting each and every person’s autonomy over their own body and their own gender identity,” said Equality California Executive Director Rick Zbur. “California has led the way in protecting the civil rights of LGBTQ people over the last 20 years, and the fundamental principle underlying those protections has been respect for an individual’s own sexual orientation, gender identity and autonomy over their body. The bill’s delay today means that thousands more Californians will be subjected to medically unnecessary and often irreversible procedures aimed at ‘normalizing’ their bodies—without their consent and before they have any sense of their gender Identity.”

 “We are proud that SB 201 has brought awareness of this marginalized population of children to the legislature. California already prohibits certain other practices with high risks of irreversible harm from taking place during childhood. SB 201 is in line with this approach and will help ensure that care is centered on the needs of patients themselves, not the ‘normalization’ of their bodies,” said Becca Cramer-Mowder, Legislative Coordinator and Advocate for the ACLU of California. 

SB 201 builds on Senator Wiener’s Senate Concurrent Resolution 110, passed in 2018, which called on the medical community to delay performing medically unnecessary sex-assignment and genital “normalization” procedures until an individual can provide informed consent. The resolution was the first of its kind in the nation, and called on the medical community to create clear guidelines to protect this population of vulnerable children. Unfortunately, the California medical community failed to act, and it became clear that SB 201 was needed to drive this next step. The bill was opposed by the California Medical Association, the American Association of Clinical Urologists, the American Urological Association, the California Society of Plastic Surgeons, the California Urological Association, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, and the Societies for Pediatric Urology.

Just in time for its 50^th anniversary, the Los Angeles LGBT Center celebrated the grand opening on Sunday of the highly anticipated two-acre Anita May Rosenstein Campus, an unprecedented complex designed to serve the most vulnerable people of the LGBT community: seniors and youth. To commemorate the momentous day, the Center hosted a free six-hour block party in front of the Campus, to which the public was invited, with a ceremonial ribbon cutting, guided tours of the state-of-the-art facility, and musical performances.

“We are immensely proud that the Anita May Rosenstein Campus allows us to greatly expand our services, especially to LGBT seniors and youth,” said Los Angeles LGBT Center CEO Lorri L. Jean. “The Campus is proof that a committed group of people who have the audacity to dream big and work hard are capable of creating something the world has never seen, something that now stands as a testament to the fact that we will not turn back in our march toward full equality and humanity.”

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With 100 beds for homeless youth, a new Senior Community Center, Youth Drop-In Center and The Ariadne Getty Foundation Youth Academy, as well as expanded programming, administrative space and more, the Campus will also serve as the Center’s flagship facility. Its current headquarters (located at the four-story McDonald/Wright Building) will be transformed entirely into a health center. Phase II of the Campus—scheduled to open in mid-2020—will include 99 units of affordable housing for seniors and 25 supportive housing apartments for youth.

Envisioned by Center leaders more than a decade ago, the sprawling 180,000-square-foot Campus was brought to fruition by more than 350 capital campaign donors and a record-breaking 15 seven-figure gifts. Lead donor Anita May Rosenstein’s gift of $8 million—through the Anita May Rosenstein Foundation, Wilbur D. May Foundation, and the Anita and Arnold Rosenstein Family Foundation—is the largest gift by a living donor to an LGBT organization.

“Let’s be clear: this is not my Campus, it’s our Campus,” said lead donor Anita May Rosenstein. “Our Campus is a beacon of hope and inspiration for people around the world. It is a safe haven for youth experiencing homelessness, and it will become a unique experience for youth and seniors to live together and learn from each other.”

David Bailey, co-chair of the Center’s Board of Directors and Capital Campaign Chair, said donors supported the Center because the organization has a history of success. 

“We know how to manage our dollars, and we know how to deliver vital services to our community,” Bailey said. “This entire project has been so inspiring. Eleven years ago, we dreamed of a large, intergenerational campus. And, now, the Anita May Rosenstein Campus will truly help make a life-changing difference for the youth and seniors who turn to the Center every day for help.”

Total costs for the Campus exceed $141 million. Of that amount, more than $57 million has been raised through gifts from generous individual and foundation donors, and another $9.5 million in New Market Tax Credits. The affordable housing costs ($63 million) are covered by government and other funding streams. After combining the generous gifts of the capital campaign donors with a contribution from the Center’s strategic reserve fund (approved by the Center’s Board of Directors), the Campus will be mortgage-free once everyone pays their pledges.

Design Architects were Leong Leong and Killefer Flammang Architects (KFA). Executive Architects were KFA. Swinerton Builders were the contractor. 

“The Center’s leaders gave KFA and Leong Leong a clear vision: that the design of the new Anita May Rosenstein Campus must reflect the boldness, optimism, and absolute certainty of the Center’s mission to care for, champion, and celebrate LGBT individuals and families,” said KFA Partner Barbara Flammang, AIA. “KFA is immensely proud to have participated in the creation of this historic new campus. We hope that the design and formal expression of these buildings and open, landscaped spaces contribute to the flourishing of the people who live in, work at, and visit this wonderful place.”

“The Anita May Rosenstein Campus is a new type of social infrastructure for the LGBTQ community that synthesizes social services and affordable housing into a porous urban campus,” added Dominic Leong of Leong Leong. “The architecture proactively interfaces with the city, while serving as a sanctuary for diversity. A series of internal courtyards create spaces of refuge within, while a new public plaza invites the community and the city to connect. The architecture is a mosaic of identities and programs rather than a singular iconic gesture.”