In his new memoir, The Rest of It: Hustlers, Cocaine, Depression, and Then Some, 1976-1988, Martin Duberman meditates on an era that, perhaps more than any other, proved pivotal for queer life, political, cultural, and otherwise. “Although most gay people did share the prescribed values and aspirations of mainstream culture,” Duberman writes, “a radical minority… firmly rejected the liberal view that our national institutions were basically sound and that a little tinkering here and there around the edges would make them better still.” As homosexuals serve openly in the military and get married from coast to coast, as the divide between mainstream gay and radical queer becomes a wider gulf, as activists and academics and business fags continue to enrage each other, reading Duberman’s reflection on the period that made this all possible seems one of the most personally and politically important readings one could take on.
Duberman is perhaps best known as a historical biographer. In his lustrous lifetime in letters, he has published quintessential biographies on fireside poet James Russell Lowell (1966), politician Charles Francis Adams (1968), arts patron Lincoln Kirstein (2008), and social activist Howard Zinn (2012). The crowning jewel of his biographical work, however, is the 1989 biography of actor-turned-radical-Black-Marxist Paul Robeson. In a New York Times review of the Robeson biography, critic John Patrick Diggins writes of Duberman’s sage ability, “his astute knowledge of dramaturgy and music, his feeling for character and its complexities and, not least, his understanding that love may express itself, as it did in Robeson’s romantic adventures, in defiance of conventional monogamy, [which] makes Mr. Duberman the ideal biographer of a man who was both prince and pariah.” Much of The Rest of It is devoted to Duberman’s writing of the Robeson biography, which seemed to change his life, and by proxy, the future of queer studies as an intersectional endeavor itself.
Such an endeavor, Duberman illustrates, is not always a harmonious balance. Of taking on the monumental Robeson biography during the 1980s, he explains how “the demands of scholarship (and of my hermit instincts) have always compromised my counter impulse to engage more consistently in direct political activism.” In the words of RuPaul, can I get an amen (from all my fellow queer scholars / writers / progressives)? Such a split self is exhausting, and exhaustion is central to Duberman’s memoir. His historian identity shines throughout The Rest of It, an exhaustive encyclopedic documentation of his own life — its loves and losses, from his mother to his lovers and friends — and of the gay movement itself, both in the streets and in the academy between 1976 and 1988.
The love child of Eve Sedgwick and Oscar Wilde, Duberman does not dumb down the complex era or issues of which he writes; rather, he asks us, his readers, to rise to the occasion. Moving swiftly from the analytical to the confessional mode, The Rest of It is comfortable in its innate inbetweenness, its queerness of form and tone. And thankfully, at a time of such cultural and personal darkness, this is a book also full of queer optimism. “It isn’t all pain and lamentation,” Duberman writes in the book’s preface, ultimately concluding, “at the end of the eighties I’d very much learned to count my many blessings, though, as I wrote one day in my diary, ‘I loathe the ungrateful bastard in me who manages so continually to lose sight of them.’” What a lesson we lucky academics might benefit from learning: that even in a world of political turmoil, we have jobs that allow us time to read and write and ponder. To teach the next generations of readers, writers, and thinkers.
Here Duberman humbly explores a life central to queer studies and activism in the United States. In fact, he may be one of the most important queers readers know little about. He almost always writes about others: in the many biographies, yes, but also his award-winning plays (most notably “In White America,” a 1964 play revived many times over, documenting the quest of racial equality from the nation’s founding to Little Rock Central High School in 1957, a play all-too-relevant today); novels (such as the recent Jews Queers Germans, a breathtaking chronicle of Germany’s homosexual elites between the late 19th century and the start of World War II); and edited collections (particularly the 1989 landmark collection Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, an anthology collecting together writers who would become luminaries in the then nascent world of gay and lesbian studies, such as John D’Emilio, Esther Newton, and David Halperin). Just after the decade chronicled in The Rest of It, Duberman founded CUNY’s Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) in 1991, “the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study of historical, cultural, and political issues of vital concern to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals and communities.” His contribution to the activism of gay revolution in the academy is paramount; in fact, we may not have queer studies at all without him, a history all-too-often and sadly erased.
But here, Duberman turns that historicist’s eye upon himself, and to much success, for both chronicling his own life and changing the way many of us think, research, and write. “Although I was reinhabiting my historian’s role, I was doing it in a new way,” he looks back, “helping to foster a field of inquiry — gender and sexuality studies — of more than academic interest… [providing] the gay and feminist movements with fresh data for challenging old assumptions and stereotypes.” We queers are better off, better informed and better empowered, for Duberman’s astute, engaged lifetime of work. We are also better off for reading The Rest of It: Hustlers, Cocaine, Depression, and Then Some, 1976-1988, for understanding the beautifully written history of one man, yes, but in effect, a part of the history of us all.
Clayton Delery’s previous book, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, was named Book of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities in 2015. His new book is Out for Queer Blood: The Murder of Fernando Rios and the Failure of New Orleans Justice. It tells the story of an anti-gay hate crime that took place in New Orleans in 1958 and chronicles a time and place in American history where such a crime was inevitable. In addition, Delery is a contributor to collections such as My Gay New Orleans and Fashionably Late: Gay, Bi, and Trans Men who Came Out Later in Life. Clayton Delery lives in New Orleans, where he is currently working on a book which does not involve autopsies or homicide.
Tell me briefly about how Mr. Fernando Rios was killed.
In September of 1958, three young men who were students at Tulane University didn’t have anything to do one night, so they decided to “roll a queer.” They were going to beat up and rob a gay man, simply because he was gay. Today this might be described as a gay bashing, and the crime might be described as a hate crime.
One of the students, a man named John Farrell, went inside a gay bar known as Café Lafitte. He started talking to Fernando Rios, who was a professional tour guide visiting the city. Farrell and Fernando Rios spoke for somewhere between a half hour and an hour. Then Farrell offered Rios a ride back to his hotel. When Farrell and Rios left the bar, Farrell’s two friends joined them from across the street. Farrell led Rios into an alley, where he was beaten so badly that he died of his injuries.
What sparked your interest in Mr. Rios? Was your interest in this case purely academic or historical? Was “rolling a queer” a popular hobby for the youths of the day?
I thought my interest was purely academic, but late in the process, I realized that I had always identified with Fernando Rios. In high school, I was bullied fairly regularly. Some of the bullying consisted of verbal taunts, but some of it was physical. Things like being pushed from behind, or having my face shoved into lockers. I was always afraid it would escalate.
Those kinds of events—rolling queers, or harassing the gay kid at school—may not happen as often as they used to, but they haven’t gone away.
Mr. Rios was only a visitor to New Orleans. Was his family, if any, present for the trial?
His family lived in Mexico City, and they couldn’t afford to come to New Orleans for the trial. The defendants packed the courtroom with their relatives. Especially their mothers, sisters, and aunts. It had the effect of creating sympathy for the defendants, and the fact that Rios had neither friends nor relatives in the room allowed the defense attorneys to create any picture of him that they chose.
After the assailants were arrested and tried, they were acquitted by a sympathetic jury, and when the verdict for acquittal was announced, the courtroom erupted into loud and sustained cheers. Were you surprised by this spirited applause?
I was not at all surprised. City Hall and both the daily newspapers were on the side of the defendants. The men who killed Rios were being portrayed as the real victims, and Rios was portrayed as a foreign pervert who had threatened them. The killing was self-defense—their attorneys said—because he had made an “indecent advance.” The fact that Rios was Mexican made it even easier to turn him into the villain, because it was a period of intense anti-Mexican prejudice. In fact, there are even newspaper articles in which Rios is not mentioned by name. Instead, he is identified as “the Mexican.”
Please describe the process of retrieving and examining courtroom documents from the case. Were they easily accessible? What document(s) provided you with the most details? Did you have access to everything you desired?
I had access to a good number of documents. The case report filed by the New Orleans Police, for example, detailed what happened when Rios was found in the alley. Their report contained the statements made by the three defendants upon their arrest. The pre-trial documents filed by both the prosecution and defense teams were available, and so was Fernando Rios’s autopsy report.
Unfortunately, the transcripts from the actual trial were lost when the city flooded after Hurricane Katrina. Fortunately, both of the New Orleans daily papers covered the trial in detail, so it was fairly easy to reconstruct what happened in the courtroom.
Were you able to locate any of Mr. Rios’s family? If so, what was their response?
He would be eighty-six today if he hadn’t died. It’s possible there are surviving siblings, or maybe some nieces and nephews, but I was never able to locate any. I would love it, though, if one day I were to get an email or a letter from somebody who had known him.
Out For Queer Blood delves into the connections between anti-Latino prejudices, homophobia, and societal norms in 1950s America regarding “operation wetback.” How does that parallel with today’s society and the Trump Administration’s stance on immigration? While writing your book and watching the evening news or reading newspapers, how did it make you feel?
I spent several months reading newspapers from the 1950s, and then I would come home and watch the news and realize that many of the stories were the same. In the 1950s, newspapers described Mexican immigrants as sources of poverty, crime, and disease. I would read that, and then come home and see Donald Trump on television describing them as murderers, rapists, and drug dealers.
But the parallels went beyond the issue of immigration. In the 1950s, newspapers warned people that gay men were a threat, because they would molest young children in public restrooms. While I was writing this book, many politicians on the political right were claiming that transgender people were a threat, because they would molest children in public restrooms. In the 1950s, conservative politicians were trying to disenfranchise black voters through literacy tests. Today, conservative politicians are trying to pass voter I.D. requirements. They claim this is to prevent voter fraud, but on-site voter fraud is virtually nonexistent. The voter I.D. laws would, however, make it difficult for poorer people to vote, and those poorer people are disproportionately people of color.
Was there any difficulty writing this book compared to writing The Up Stairs Lounge?
The difficulty was emotional. As horrible as the story of The Up Stairs Lounge was, there were at least a few people courageous enough to speak out publicly on behalf of the dead and injured. When Fernando Rios was murdered, there was nobody to speak out for him. That left the press and the defense team free to describe him as a pervert and a potential rapist, and to claim that the three men who killed him had done absolutely nothing wrong. Indeed, it was implied that they had done a public service. And I found dealing with that part of the story very painful.
Your book launch was this past November and was hosted at Cafe Lafitte which is the bar where Mr. Rios met his attackers. Describe the night of your book launch.
It was a great night. The current management knew about the Fernando Rios murder, and that he had been in the bar right before he died. They were delighted to host the event. In the 1950s, the mayor was engaged in an official effort known as “the drive against the deviates.” He wanted to eliminate homosexuality from the city of New Orleans. Instead, New Orleans is now internationally recognized as one of the nation’s capitals of LGBT life. Rios was a victim of the drive against the deviates, but clearly the city’s LGBT community is winning the war.
In 2016, we were cohorts through the Lambda Literary writing workshop and studied nonfiction with Sarah Schulman. You workshopped Out For Queer Blood. What impact did that have on your book? How did you find your publisher?
Sarah Schulman is a remarkable woman and a very gifted teacher, so just being in a room with her, and with other talented writers, was a real blessing. She also was gracious enough to read my manuscript and comment upon it while I was getting it ready to send to the publisher. You and the other students in the workshop helped me realize what parts of the story—and New Orleans history—were common knowledge, and where I had to fill in background information.
As for how I found my publisher—well, my publisher found me. For years, I was writing one version or another of the Great American Gay Novel, and nobody was ever particularly interested. Then I started writing a nonfiction account of the fire at the Up Stairs Lounge, and an editor at McFarland heard about what I was doing and sought me out. Later, when I was nearing completion of a nonfiction account of the Fernando Rios killing, McFarland came looking again. So my advice to young writers who have a difficult time getting published might be to put the novel on hold for now, and consider writing nonfiction. There are lots of true stories out there that need to be told.
Sunday April 29 @ 4 pm.T Sisters! at Occidental Center for the Arts.Oakland-based siblings Erika, Rachel and Chloe are fast-rising singer/songwriter stars on the folk/Americana festival circuits who collaborate with and support acts such as Amos Lee, Laurie Lewis,Todd Rundren, the Woods Brothers, and more. Captivating audiences with soaring harmonies, inventive arrangements, and plenty of sisterly sass, they evoke the classic girl groups from the Andrews and Pointer Sisters to modern family bands like First Aid Kit. Enjoy their lively originals and covers of folk, Americana, gospel, R & B, soul and bluegrass at OCA’s acoustic sweet spot. Reservations advised! $19 Adv/$24 at door. Fine refreshments. Art Gallery open. Wheelchair accessible. 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental 95465 . 707-874-9392www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org.
Calendar/ Blues/Rock/Soul Music: Saturday April 14 @ 8 pm. Occidental Center for the Arts presents Sarah Baker with NinaGerber & Mona Gnader. Composer, pianist, teacher and blues/rock/soul singer-songwriter extraordinaire Sarah Baker is back on our stage! with the legendary Nina Gerber on guitar, joined by electric bassist Mona Gnader of The Waboritas. Don’t miss this exciting collaboration of powerful women musicians at OCA’s acoustic sweet spot! $22 Advance/$26 at the door. Reservations advised. Fine Refreshments. Wheelchair Accessible. Art Gallery open during events. 707-874-9392. www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental 95465.
There are dozens of new books to choose from each month if you’re a fan of f/f or m/m romance, never mind the m/f romance that’s been booming for decades. But what if you want to read a “happily ever after” or “happy for now” story that includes a trans person? Or someone who is asexual and/or aromantic? Those are much harder to find, especially if you want stories that don’t fling themselves (sometimes willfully, it seems) into the pitfalls of stereotypes and damaging, or even triggering, representation.
Queerly Loving (Volume 1) is a short story collection that gives happy endings to a range of LGBTQA+ characters, by authors who themselves are from across the LGBTQA+ spectrum. The nine stories are so varied in style and content that there is sure to be something for everyone. Want to read a fluffy contemporary YA story with a Jewish trans boy and his crush? It’s in there and it’s called “Miss Me With That Gay Shit (Please Don’t)” by Sacha Lamb. How about a science fiction story with lesbians, nonbinary people and a trans woman, that features a poly triad rescuing their friend’s girlfriend? It’s in there too, and it’s called “A Gallant Rescue” by A.P. Raymond! Best of all, because the stories celebrate queer love in many of its possible forms, nobody dies or gets their heart broken, and it’s glorious.
Unless you’re particularly interested in the theme of an anthology, it can be hard to know whether you’re likely to enjoy one or not. It’s not unusual to pick up a collection only to find one or two excellent stories, a few very good ones, one terrible story, and the rest falling somewhere in between. Not so with Queerly Loving, where all of the stories are engaging and interesting, and many of them warm and lovely.
The writing style and genres vary from story to story. In addition to the contemporary YA and science fiction stories I just mentioned, readers are treated to fantasy worlds with magic and dragons, teen girls in the 80s who bond over typing tournaments, a short one-act play about young girls in 1879, and a grad student and a park ranger finding lust and possibly more in the mountains of contemporary Colorado. No two stories are alike, even when they share the same genre—except, of course, that they all deliver a happy sigh by the end—because they each explore queerness in different ways.
Particular standouts include “First Light at Dawn” by Nyri Bakkalian, told in email form from one trans veteran to another, sharing how her life has changed since they were in the service together; “Dragons Do Not” by Evelyn Deshane, about a woman who learns that not everything she’s been told about her companion dragon is as true as she was led to believe; and “Birthday Landscapes” by E H Timms, about an aromantic warrior with magical powers and his family as he comes home to celebrate his twins’ birthday.
Because the stories aren’t connected by anything except that they all provide a happy ending, no matter the characters’ sexual orientation or gender presentation, the shift from genre to genre can sometimes be jarring. Readers are moved between contemporary, historical, and futuristic settings, with a third of the stories being fantasy. Starting a new story requires finding your feet each time in a way that’s different than it might be when reading an anthology with a tighter theme, but each story is so lovely that discovering them is a delight. The heat level in the stories also varies, with many of them having no sex and a couple with explicit sex on the page, always in a way that’s fitting for the each story being told.
The blurb for Queerly Loving says “Get ready for your queer adventure,” which is an apt catchphrase. Each story is sure to make your heart happy and full of hope that everyone can have a happily ever after. You won’t be able to read these stories without a smile and many of them will stick with you long after you’ve finished reading them.
Queerly Loving (Volume 1)
Edited by G Benson and Astrid Ohletz
Queer Pack
Paperback, 9783955339517, 190 pp.
November 2017
Colfax police Captain Alex Ryan arrives home to find a thug barring her door and an unwelcome visitor inside their apartment with her wife, CJ St. Clair. The uninvited guest turns out to be CJ’s snobby, fractious mother, Lydia. She estranged CJ years before when CJ came out to her. Now, she’s shown up demanding her daughter come to the aid of the family using her skills as a police investigator to find the killer of her brother’s ex-wife. Otherwise, her brother, Clayton, may end up going to jail for the murder.
After some mental gymnastics, CJ finally decides to travel to her Savannah childhood haunts to prove who killed Amy St. Clair, leaving Alex in Colorado. While she’s away, Alex finds herself confronted with a mystery of her own and a decision she knows she can’t make without CJ.
While CJ slogs through her informal investigation, trying to clear her brother, she finds herself no closer to discovering who the killer is than we are, yet she’s determined to get to the bottom of it all. She also tries to get to know her niece—not an easy task with a teen who’s recently been through the trauma of her mother’s death.
Taken In is a story with an abundance of red herrings, all swimming upstream, while CJ stands with a dangerous current pounding at her back. She needs to snag the right fish, but if her timing is off, she could find herself in serious trouble. That little fish she’s after could turn out to be a shark.
At home, Alex is followed by a wraith and she has no idea who the woman is or why she’s doing it. It’s a simple matter to discover the identity of the woman, and what’s driving her quickly comes to light. However, once it does, Alex is confronted with old memories, old pain, and a moral dilemma.
More than a mystery, this story is also about relationships and choices. When Alex is forced to reveal what she knows about the stranger who’s been following her to family, she and her sister must choose how to go forward with their lives. Alex must determine if the promotion she’s encouraged to pursue is something she wants and, given the circumstances, that decision will have to be postponed until she can discuss it with her wife. Once CJ gets to the bottom of her investigation, she must resolve how she will deal with her mother and her long held rejection of her. Finally, CJ must decide what to do about her rebellious teenage niece, should her brother end up in prison.
CJ and Alex’s devotion to one another makes them easy to like. As they traverse the story trying to solve their own mysteries, information revealed through narration and their own inner dialogue help us determine who they are. The different pieces of the story are well integrated, interesting, and they move the tale along quickly to conclusion.
Characters like Lydia St. Clair push CJ to get to the bottom of the story, all the while acting as a thorn in her side, forcing CJ to confront long buried emotions concerning the woman. Her brother, Clayton, is both a player and a buffoon, contributing to his own problems and possibly his own downfall, begging the question: Is he the killer? Or is it someone else in the long string of suspects?
Abbott has skillfully portrayed the characters in this tale. A bit of a “cozy” with a little “thriller” thrown in for good measure, the story makes us feel as if we’re walking alongside CJ and Alex, discovering answers and experiencing how each revelation affects them. This story is an easy read—delightfully entertaining, jam-packed with baffling suspects and a surprising twist, all leading us to its satisfying end. A great read for the couch or the beach.
A drama about a transgender woman has won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Chilean film A Fantastic Woman has taken home the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, its only nomination.
A Fantastic Woman’s director Sebastián Lelio, thanked star Daniela Vega when accepting the award.
He said: “I want to thank the cast of the film, especially the brilliant actor Francisco Reyes Morandé and the inspiration for this movie, Daniela Vega.
“This film was made by a lot of friends and artists. I share this with all of you tonight.”
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
28-year-old Vega has been receiving rave reviews for her central role in the film.
Vega’s character Marina has to deal with her partner’s death and his family’s subsequent transphobia, while simultaneously trying to find her identity without her beloved Orlando.
Screening in several film festivals internationally, A Fantastic Woman had been very well received, particularly for Vega’s performance.
The magazine said she deserved “so much more than political praise,” and was one of many publications heaping compliments on the actress.
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
The film has been praised both for Vega’s performance and the artistic merit of the film, but for also ensuring that a transgender character was played by a transgender actress.
After his win, director Lelio said that it was critically important that the main character in the film be played by a transgender actress.
He said: “I felt that, for me, it was [a] very instinctive and strong decision knowing that I was not going to make this film without a transgender actress in main role.
“That put [the] film in a different dimension because of everything that Daniela brought to the film.”
The Season 4 IKEA Home Tour Squad Is Back & Ready to Tackle Your Biggest Design Challenges
Once again, IKEA is sending a team of design experts on the road to help America solve real home furnishing challenges.
Ad by IKEA®
(Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images)
After it was screened at the Berlin Film Festival, Variety called Vega’s performance “a multi-layered, emotionally polymorphous feat of acting.”
However, Vega herself missed out on a nomination for Best Actress.
As Vega took the stage at the 90th Academy Awards, she said: “Thank you for this moment. I want to invite you to open your hearts and your feelings to feel the reality, to feel love. Can you feel it?”
Sunday March 25 @ 4 pm.Occidental Center for the Arts presents: Meredith Axelrod: ‘Popular Songs from a Bygone Era’. Engaging vintage Americana songstress and instrumentalist Meredith Axelrod brings her unique pre-mic vocal style, fine guitar technique and her own charm and humor to the great old songs of ragtime, minstrel, boogie-woogie jazz , blues, country and more to OCA’s acoustic sweet spot. $15 Advance/$18 at the door. Fine refreshments for sale. Art Gallery open. Wheelchair Accessible. www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. 707-874-9392.
On the eve of the expiration of his 20th Century Fox deal, Ryan Murphy has signed a momentous multimillion-dollar deal with streaming service Netflix.
The implications of this new partnership are sure to allow Murphy to test even more boundaries and engage in even more controversy-baiting than he has in his previous anthology works, notably “American Horror Story” and “American Crime Story.” Beyond a few new TV shows, Murphy now has the potential to produce films and documentaries through the Netflix Studios imprint.
With his irreverent, campy, and macabre voice, Murphy will continue to serve as an important mouthpiece for the LGBTQ+ audience, and also inflict his unique brand on users of the streaming service who might not otherwise choose to get involved in his programming.
With his latest edition of “American Crime Story” going to extremely grim lengths to accent homophobia in the 90s (which has only persisted in the present) through the lens of Andrew Cunanan’s eventual assassination of Gianni Versace, one can only imagine where Murphy’s already insidious to the average American voice might go under the increased liberty of this fresh alliance.
Although Murphy’s foray into television began with a somewhat challenged start – the WB’s “Popular” – he has always managed to get by through crafting stories with incredible mass appeal that don’t sacrifice their niche appeal.
With “Popular” on for a paltry two seasons from 1999 to 2001, perhaps no network could have predicted just how loudly Murphy would have the last laugh. With each show growing bolder and bolder – ”Glee” being a strange exception – Murphy also proved himself cinematically adept through his adaptation of Augusten Burroughs’ illustrious memoir, “Running With Scissors,” back in 2006.
With regular collaborator Brad Falchuk at his side, Murphy already has a new show for Netflix in the pipeline: “The Politician,” with gay icon Barbra Streisand rumored to be in talks to guest star.
Best of all, maybe that still shelved screenplay, “Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn?,” about an Audrey-obsessed bride who gets left at the altar, might finally come to fruition now that Murphy has even more creative and budgetary free rein.
A Media Matters analysis of broadcast and cable news found that networks discussed anti-LGBTQ violence and homicides only 22 times for less than 40 minutes across seven channels in 2017, even though it was the deadliest year in hate violence against the community since at least 2012. The majority of the coverage was about two specific stories and came on just four days, and the networks rarely noted the trend of increasing anti-LGBTQ violence nationwide in their coverage.
Top trends from a year of anti-LGBTQ violence coverage on broadcast and cable TV news
Media Matters analyzed 2017 coverage of the deadliest year in anti-LGBTQ hate violence since at least 2012 on cable and broadcast TV news, flagging segments in which speakers focused on anti-LGBTQ violence or on a specific anti-LGBTQ killing. We analyzed cable TV news coverage between 6 a.m. and midnight on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC and broadcast TV news coverage on the morning shows, flagship evening news programs, and Sunday political talk shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox Broadcasting Co. Here are some of our key findings:
Across seven networks, anti-LGBTQ violence was discussed only 22 times for a total of 39 minutes and 36 seconds.
Speakers contextualized their subjects as part of an overall trend of increasing violence against the LGBTQ community in only seven of the 22 discussions.
Discussion of two stories — the death of Scout Schultz and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to send a hate crimes prosecutor to investigate the 2016 killing of Kedarie Johnson — comprised more than half of all discussions about, and time spent covering, anti-LGBTQ violence. Stories about Schultz’s death occurred over a three-day period, and stories about Johnson’s case all occurred on one day.
Though Fox News spent the most time covering anti-LGBTQ violence — at 10 minutes and 21 seconds — most of that coverage came from one 7.5-minute segment featuring a disgraced police detective who defended the police officer who shot Schultz.
Anti-LGBTQ hate homicides in 2017 were at their highest rate in more than five years, mirroring a years-long rise in anti-LGBTQ hate incidents
NCAVP finds that anti-LGBTQ murders were up by 86 percent in 2017, and the latest FBI data found an increase in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes in 2016. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) reported that anti-LGBTQ homicides were up by 86 percent in 2017, with the number of victims growing from 28 in 2016 to 52 in 2017. Of the 52 victims, 27 identified as transgender or gender nonconforming and 22 were transgender women of color. People of color made up 71 percent of anti-LGBTQ hate homicide victims in 2017, and 67 percent of the total victims were under the age of 35. According to a report by the Human Rights Campaign and the Trans People of Color Coalition, “Transgender women are estimated to face more than four times the risk of becoming homicide victims than the general population of all women.” These findings reflect a general trend of increasing anti-LGBTQ hate crimes and violence. In November, the Human Rights Campaign reported that the FBI’s 2016 hate crime statistics showed increases in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes, noting, “Of the 6,121 incidents reported, 1,076 were based on sexual orientation bias and 124 were based on gender identity bias. These numbers reflect a two percent and nine percent increase, respectively.” [National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, January 2018; Human Rights Campaign and Trans People of Color Coalition, 2017; Human Rights Campaign, 11/13/17]
Some media have reported on the rise in anti-LGBTQ violence throughout 2017. Media have been aware of increasing violence against LGBTQ people since well before NCAVP’s January report was released. In March 2017, TheWashington Post wrote that seven transgender women had been killed only two months into the year, quoting Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) saying that the country was “certainly on pace to blow right by the record set last year.” The article also noted that “while not unprecedented, the frequency of the killings has rattled a community whose members are prone to suffering violent attacks, whether hate-based or otherwise.” That same week, Newsweek similarly reported that those seven murders put “the rate well on course to beat the previous figure of 23 reported murders” of transgender people in 2016. In June, The Daily Beast reported on NCAVP’s 2016 report, noting that the year “was the deadliest year on record for the LGBT community” and that it marked an increase in anti-LGBTQ homicides even if you didn’t count the “49 victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre” in Orlando, FL. The report added that “anti-LGBT violence shows no signs of stopping in 2017” and that the year was “on track to be the most violent on record for the U.S. transgender community.” [The Washington Post, 3/16/17; Newsweek, 3/15/17; The Daily Beast, 6/12/17]
Broadcast and cable news spent less than 40 minutes discussing anti-LGBTQ hate violence in 2017
Throughout 2017, broadcast and cable news spent a total of 39 minutes and 36 seconds discussing anti-LGBTQ hate violence. Broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox Broadcasting Co. spent a total of just over 17.5 minutes during their morning shows, flagship evening news programs, and Sunday political talk shows discussing anti-LGBTQ hate violence in 2017. Cable news networks CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, meanwhile, spent just under 22 minutes covering the topic throughout the year, based on a review of 18 hours of coverage every day between 6 a.m. and midnight. Of the total 39 minutes and 36 seconds of coverage across networks, 24.5 minutes were spent discussing just two stories — the murder of Scout Schultz and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to send a hate crimes prosecutor to investigate the death of Kedarie Johnson — accounting for more than 60 percent of the coverage. Fox News spent the most time discussing anti-LGBTQ violence, devoting 10 minutes and 21 seconds to the topic, but more than 7.5 minutes of that coverage came from one segment that included disgraced former Los Angeles Police Department Detective Mark Fuhrman defending the police officer who shot Schultz. Fuhrman became toxic during the O.J. Simpson murder trial with the discovery of hours of video tape of him using a racial epithet and was later charged with perjury for lying under oath about his language. Fox News has a history of hosting Fuhrman to discuss police violence. MSNBC had the most segments addressing the subject, but its coverage lasted less than 5.5 minutes in total, the lowest of any cable channel. In terms of broadcast networks, Fox Broadcasting Co. did not address anti-LGBTQ violence in 2017 but does not have morning or evening news programming; ABC News had the next least amount of coverage with less than 2.5 minutes. [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 9/19/17; Media Matters, 3/30/16]
Across networks, anti-LGBTQ violence was discussed only 22 times in 2017, and only seven of those reports explicitly mentioned or alluded to it as part of an overall upward trend
Throughout 2017, cable and broadcast news shows discussed anti-LGBTQ violence only 22 times. An analysis of programming between 6 a.m. and midnight on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News and on the morning shows, flagship evening news programs, and Sunday political talk shows on broadcast stations ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox Broadcasting Co. found that networks discussed hate violence against the LGBTQ community only 22 times in total in 2017. MSNBC had the most discussions, with six pieces of coverage, and ABC News and Fox Broadcasting Co. had the least coverage, with one and zero segments, respectively, although Fox does not have morning or evening news programming like the other broadcast networks.
Only seven out of the 22 discussions of anti-LGBTQ violence and its victims contextualized it as part of an overall trend of increasing violence against the LGBTQ community. Only seven segments discussing anti-LGBTQ violence and its victims mentioned or alluded to an overall growing trend in anti-LGBTQ hate violence, with all seven also noting in some way the trend of increased violence against the transgender community. All 15 discussions that failed to contextualize the trend were about specific murders of LGBTQ victims (for instance, not one of the 13 segments about Johnson or Schultz mentioned the trend). We deemed coverage as contextualizing the trend in anti-LGBTQ hate violence if it specifically mentioned an increase in anti-LGBTQ violence, acknowledged the high rates of violence against LGBTQ people, or noted several instances of anti-LGBTQ violence within a specified time frame.
Reports on the death of Scout Schultz and the investigation into Kedarie Johnson’s killing made up more than half of the coverage of anti-LGBTQ violence
Out of 22 discussions of anti-LGBTQ violence across the networks, eight were specifically about the murder of Scout Schultz. More than one-third of the discussions about anti-LGBTQ violence in 2017 were about a single case, the killing of Scout Schultz, the “bisexual, nonbinary, and intersex” president of an LGBTQ student group at Georgia Tech, who used the gender-neutral pronoun they. All eight discussions occurred between September 17 and 19, while protests were erupting on the Georgia Tech campus. A campus police officer fatally shot Schultz, who reportedly was holding a multipurpose tool with an unextended blade and saying “shoot me,” after Schultz “called 911 to report a suspicious white male with long blonde hair on campus holding a knife and possibly a gun,” according to The New York Times. Schultz had left three suicide notes in their room, and, according to the Times, their mother said that they “suffered from depression and had attempted suicide in the past.” Half of the segments were framed around the campus protests that erupted after Schultz’s murder, and of the eight discussions, only three mentioned Schultz’s LGBTQ identity. [The New York Times, 9/18/17]
Five of the 22 pieces of coverage discussing violence against the LGBTQ community were about Jeff Sessions sending a hate crimes prosecutor to Iowa to investigate the killing of Kedarie Johnson. More than 22 percent of TV news discussions in 2017 of anti-LGBTQ violence were about Attorney General Jeff Sessions sending a hate crimes prosecutor to Iowa to investigate the 2016 killing of gender-fluid black teenager Kedarie Johnson. All five discussions occurred on October 16 on cable news, with MSNBC discussing the case three times and CNN and Fox News discussing the case one time each. [The New York Times, 10/15/17, 10/26/17]
Methodology
Media Matters searched Nexis transcripts for cable TV coverage appearing between 6 a.m. and midnight on CNN and between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Fox News and MSNBC (daytime transcripts for those networks are not available on Nexis), as well as transcripts of broadcast TV news morning shows (Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, and Today) flagship nightly news shows, and Sunday political talk shows on ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2017, for mentions of the words or variations of the words “LGBT,” “gay,” “transgender,” “gender identity,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” “sexual orientation,” “gender nonconforming,” or “gender fluid” occurring within 25 words of the terms or variations of the terms “violence,” “crime,” “hate,” “attack,” “homicide,” “shoot,” “murder,” “death,” “die,” or “kill.”
We also searched for the names of all 52 anti-LGBTQ homicide victims in 2017, using the name or names listed in the NCAVP report: Mesha Caldwell, Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow, Sean Ryan Hake, Savyon Zabar, Bill Denham, Dontae Lampkins, JoJo Striker, Jaquarrius Holland, Keke Collier/Tiara Richmond, Chyna Gibson/Chyna Doll Dupree, Glenser Soliman, Ciara McElveen, Alphonza Watson, Andrew Nesbitt, An Vinh Nguyen, Kenne McFadden, Bruce Garnett, Chay Reed, Mx. “Kenneth” Bostick, Earl English, Imer Alvarado, Sherrell Faulkner, Kevin Wirth, David Swartley, Matthew Murrey, Josie Berrios/Kendra Adams, Neil Rodney Smith, Ava Le’Ray Barrin, Michael “Chris” Jones, Ebony Morgan, Robert Lee Covington, Rodriguez Montez Burks, TeeTee Dangerfield, John Jolly, Jaylow MC, Juan Javier Cruz, Gwynevere River Song, Kiwi Herring, Ally Lee Steinfeld, Anthony Torres, Derricka Banner, Scout Schultz, Elizabeth Stephanie Montez, Candace Towns, Giovanni Melton, Sydney Loofe, Brooklyn BreYanna Stevenson, Brandi Seals, Shanta Myers, Brandi Mells, Kerrice Lewis, and Kaladaa Crowell. Media Matters also searched for a number of variations and potential misspellings of the victims’ names.
We also searched Nexis transcripts of Fox Broadcasting Co.’s Sunday show Fox News Sunday (the network does not have an evening or morning news program) for the same terms. Any reruns of programming were not included in analysis.
Additionally, Media Matters conducted the same searches on iQ media for the above terms and names appearing on MSNBC’s and Fox News’ programming between 6 a.m. and midnight for the same time frame, as full transcripts from shows on these networks’ daytime programming are not available on Nexis. The iQ media search of Fox News and MSNBC coverage was limited by iQ media’s transcripts.
We excluded from the study coverage of anti-LGBTQ violence in other countries such as Chechnya and Saudi Arabia, updates on past instances of anti-LGBTQ violence like the murders of Harvey Milk and Gianni Versace, and coverage of the 2016 massacre at the Pulse nightclub, an LGBTQ bar in Orlando, FL.
When we found the above terms, we included the segments if the stated topic of discussion was anti-LGBTQ violence in general or instances of anti-LGBTQ violence, such as a specific anti-LGBTQ homicide, or if there was significant discussion of the topic. We defined “significant discussion” as a back-and-forth exchange between two or more people; passing mentions were not included in the analysis.
