The Bisexual Resource Center (BRC), America’s oldest national bisexual organization, will celebrate the 9th annual Bisexual+ Health Awareness Month (#BiHealthMonth) social media campaign throughout March 2022.
#BiHealthMonth, founded and led annually by the BRC, raises awareness about the bisexual+ (bi, pansexual, fluid, queer, etc.) community’s social, economic and health disparities; advocates for resources; and inspires actions to improve bi+ people’s well-being.
This year’s #BiHealthMonth theme is “Connection.” This theme has been chosen to highlight the importance of connecting bisexual+ people to each other, to supportive communities and to health care resources that are affirming of their identities.
While there are many different ways that bi+ people can connect, the goal of connection is to build safe, inclusive spaces — in-person and online, locally and globally — for bi+ people to share their experiences and create meaningful relationships. When bi+ people are connected, it greatly improves their physical, mental and social health, particularly for bi+ people living in historically oppressed, marginalized or isolated communities.
“This year’s #BiHealthMonth is all about connection,” said Belle Haggett Silverman, president of the Bisexual Resource Center. “How are we connected as people? As communities? As a movement? We know that, while connection comes in many forms, it is always crucial for people to thrive individually and collectively. When we create spaces for bi+ people to come together and support each other, we can build a healthier, happier bi+ community and improve health outcomes for bi+ people worldwide.”
Throughout the month of March, the BRC will partner with a diverse array of leading organizations, including #StillBisexual, AIDS United, Athlete Ally, the Battered Women’s Justice Project, BiArtsFestival, Bisexual Queer Alliance Chicago, Bi Women Boston, Fandom Forward, Fenway Health, Howard Brown Health, Human Rights Campaign, LGBT Center of Wisconsin, Los Angeles Bi Task Force, Magic City Acceptance Center, Mini Productions, Milwaukee LGBT Community Center, NARAL, North Shore Pride, the NYC LGBT Center, PFLAG National, the National LGBTQ Task Force, SAGE, SpeakOUT Boston, Step Up For Mental Health, TAIMI, the Visibility Impact Fund and others to feature engaging and informative content, events, research, resources and actions. The BRC invites individuals, organizations, media outlets, companies and anyone interested to participate all month long by posting online using #BiHealthMonth, hosting local community events, donating to the Bisexual Resource Center and more.
Some #BiHealthMonth highlights this year include a screening of the short film “Treacle,” hosted by April Kelley; panels on bi+ health featuring conversations with BRC board members Gabby Blonder, Andrea Holland, and River McMican; new, original content from bi+ advocates, including Robyn Ochs; and a full calendar of BRC-hosted online events including a Bisexual Social and Support Group (BLiSS) meeting (March 2), a Bi+ Crafternoon (March 6); and an in-person Bi/Pan Guyz+ Social Night (March 23).
For more on #BiHealthMonth, follow the Bisexual Resource Center on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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The Bisexual Resource Center works to connect the bi+ community and help its members thrive through resources, support, and celebration. Through this work, we envision an empowered, visible and inclusive global community for bi+ people. Visit www.biresource.org for more information.
Alabama lawmakers on Tuesday night approved legislation that would bar transgender students from using school bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
The bill mandates K-12 schools require students to use multi-person restrooms and locker rooms that match the sex on their original birth certificate. The Alabama House of Representatives voted 74-24 for the bill after two hours of contentious debate where Republicans said it would address an ongoing problem in public schools but opponents said it targets trans youth to score political points. The bill now moves to the Alabama Senate.
“Right now, you’ve got males who are dressing up as females, who are identifying themselves as females, and wanting to use the female bathrooms,” Republican Rep. Scott Stadthagen of Hartselle told lawmakers.
Stadthagen said some schools are now being asked to accommodate transgender students who request to use the bathrooms that align with their gender identity. He said the bill is also about protecting girls’ privacy and safety.
“All you are doing is demonizing an already vulnerable population. It’s all under the guise of protecting children just to win cheap political points. That’s all it is,” Rep. Neil Rafferty, a Democrat from Birmingham, said during debate on the bill.
Rafferty said schools in his Birmingham district have handled accommodations for transgender student, “without targeting vulnerable youth that are already having issues with suicide, mental illness, bullying.”
Stadthagen, in urging support for the bill, cited sexual assaults that have happened in school bathrooms. But opposing lawmakers challenged him to name any bathroom assault where a transgender individual was the attacker.
“How many of those cases involved a transgender woman?” Rep. Merika Coleman, a Democrat from Pleasant Grove, asked. Stadthagen replied he didn’t know.
Similar policies in other states have resulted in litigation. The U.S. Supreme Court last year rejected a Virginia school board’s appeal to reinstate its transgender bathroom ban, handing a victory to transgender rights groups and a former high school student who fought in court for six years to overturn the ban.
The full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was scheduled to hear oral arguments Tuesday in the case of a transgender student in Florida who was blocked from using the boy’s bathroom.
Republicans who spoke in favor of the bill said teachers and parents in their districts have expressed discomfort over transgender students using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
Rep. Andrew Sorrell, a Republican from Muscle Shoals, said there is a transgender student using the girl’s bathroom at a high school in his district. Sorrell said he would not let his now infant daughter attend that school in the future without this bill.
“I think this is such a commonsense bill. I understand and appreciate that you are trying to protect our daughters,” Sorrell told Stadthagen.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, condemned the passage of the bill.
“Today, the Alabama State House of Representatives took steps to discriminate against transgender students who deserve the fundamental human dignity of being able to use the bathroom without being discriminated against or humiliated,” Human Rights Campaign Alabama State Director Carmarion D. Anderson-Harvey said in a statement.
The Alabama bill is the second targeting LGBTQ youths to advance in legislative committee this year. A Senate committee last week advanced a bill that would outlaw the use of puberty-blockers, hormonal treatments and surgery to assist transgender youth 18 and younger in their gender transition.
Last year, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law a bill to block transgender girls from playing on female sports teams at public schools.
Dr. Mehmet Oz leans in to ask a little girl, “Do you remember when your parents thought you were a boy?”
The question was but a few seconds of a full 2010 episode of “The Dr. Oz Show” that focused on the experience of raising transgender children. But the clip now appears in an attack ad aired by a super PAC supporting one of his Republican primary opponents in the crowded and high-stakes race for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.
Another campaign ad, from Republican U.S. Senate candidate Vicky Hartzler in Missouri, targets transgender people in sports and has her referring to an NCAA athlete — Ivy League championship-winning University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas — by her deadname and saying “women’s sports are for women, not men pretending to be women.”
And on Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who is running for re-election, ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate reports of gender-confirming care for kids as abuse.
Derision and disparagement of transgender people, and even of those perceived as their allies, are proliferating on the airwaves and in statehouses across the country as 2022 election campaigns heat up. It’s a classic strategy of finding a “wedge issue” that motivates a political base, political observers say.
“They are just weaponizing the fact that most everyday Americans don’t yet realize that they know someone who is transgender,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “It is easy to fall for a myth about a group of people you don’t know, and that’s just human. … It’s just really unfortunate to now see a group of politicians try to use that to their own advantage.”
Republicans use it because public opinion is on their side, said Neil Newhouse, a veteran Republican pollster.
The idea of restricting transgender athletes resonates with parents of high school athletes, motivates the Republican base, and carries swing voters by 2 to 1, Newhouse said.
In a primary, a Republican candidate can use it to establish their conservative credentials and to come out first or forcefully enough to own the issue, Newhouse said. Or it can be used to push a rival to the left, he said.
Asked for comment on the ad, which does not mention sports, Oz’s campaign — using inaccurate terminology to describe transgender women — said only that the celebrity surgeon doesn’t believe that “biological males should compete in women’s sports.”
The efforts to make political hay of transgender and other LGBTQ people extend well beyond just campaign ads.
At least 10 states have banned transgender athletes from participating in sports in a way that is consistent with their gender identity.
Indiana is poised to be the 11th, although federal courts have blocked laws in Idaho and West Virginia. And then there are states that are banning or investigating gender-confirming treatment, such as Texas.
The narrative of transgender people as a threat has strong parallels to bathroom-use and same-sex marriage bans and can be traced to Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign in 1977, said Andrew Proctor, an associate professor of politics at Wake Forest University who studies and teaches LGBTQ politics.
The political framing is often around protecting girls, which is probably designed to broaden its appeal, Proctor and others said.
“It’s good messaging. Who doesn’t want to protect children?” said Don Haider-Markel, a University of Kansas political science professor.
Although examples like Lia Thomas are few across the country, Hartzler — who cites her experience as a high school athlete and coach — said in an interview that the issue of trans athletes is ad-worthy in a Senate race because it is a “representation of the wokeness that is being inflicted upon us from all sides and has gone beyond common sense.”
A spokesperson for University of Pennsylvania athletics said Thomas would not comment on the ad.
The NCAA in January adopted a sport-by-sport approach for transgender athletes to document testosterone levels before championship selections. For high school sports, states have a hodgepodge of policies.
In Pennsylvania, the TV ad from the super PAC supporting Republican David McCormick tries to characterize Oz as a “Republican in Name Only,” or not conservative enough.
The ad rips a few seconds from the episode and presents it without the context of a show that looked at transgender children from a measured standpoint, with input from a pediatrician and their parents on the kids’ newfound happiness.
The clip in the attack ad stops after Oz gently asks the girl, from a military family, if she remembers when her parents thought she was a boy. The full episode continues:
“A little bit,” the girl answers.
“Talk to me about that a little bit,” Oz says. “What do you remember?”
The girl’s mother, sitting next to her, says: “Like, how did it make you feel when I used to take you and get your hair cut at the barber shop on base?”
“It made me very angry,” Josie answers.
“You did not like your hair cut,” the mother says. “Why not?”
Josie answers: “Because I’m a girl, not a boy.”
A political consultant to Honor Pennsylvania did not return messages asking how that makes Oz not conservative enough. A McCormick campaign spokesperson did not return messages asking whether McCormick agrees with the ad’s attack.
Josie and her mother could not be located for comment on being featured years later in a political attack ad.
“I think it’s incredibly sad when a political leader finds that the only way that they can get themselves elected to office is by attacking vulnerable children and their parents,” said Lisa Middleton, the transgender mayor of Palm Springs, California. “Of all the issues that are before us in this world and this country today … to make it more difficult for a transgender child and their parents to navigate their life to adulthood is irresponsible. It’s un-American.”
Republicans aren’t the only party that uses wedge issues — Democrats often cast the wealthy in a negative light for political gain.
But the GOP’s targeting of transgender people may have a shelf life, just as both parties’ efforts against same-sex marriage shifted along with public opinion, said Paul Goren, a political psychology professor at the University of Minnesota. If it doesn’t pay off with electoral wins, he said, then Republicans will move on.
In Texas, Abbott’s letter came just a week before the state’s Republican primary, the nation’s first for the 2022 cycle. It aligns with a recent legal opinion from state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who is also running for re-election, that is directed at gender-confirming treatments incorporating puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
Pushback in Texas is coming from civil liberties groups, medical professionals and district attorneys in some counties.
Kimberly Shappley, a Texas nurse and mother of an 11-year-old transgender girl, Kai, said she was distraught and had begun looking for a job in another state. The family has already been on edge for years over efforts to prevent transgender children from using public bathrooms that match their identity, she said.
“As the parent of a trans kid, I can tell you that our close-knit community is just a wreck,” Shappley said on a video news conference organized by the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s just been a lot of tears. It’s been a lot of, ‘Do we have our documents in order? Do we have our plan in place? Is this the time we have to move?’”
But it’s hard to know where to go, she said.
“The whole United States is on fire with anti-trans legislation. It’s not just Texas,” Shappley said. “What is the safe place that you think trans kids can live right now? Because there’s not that many left.”
While the One Male Condom is not markedly different from the hundreds of other condoms on the market, it is the first that will be allowed to use the “safe and effective use” label for reducing sexually transmitted infections during anal sex. It is also approved for use as a contraceptive and as a means to reduce STIs during vaginal intercourse.
“This landmark shift demonstrates that when researchers, advocates, and companies come together, we can create a lasting impact in public health efforts,” Davin Wedel, president and founder of Boston-based Global Protection Corp, maker of the One Male Condom, said in a statement. “There have been over 300 condoms approved for use with vaginal sex data, and never before has a condom been approved based on anal sex data.”
Courtney Lias, director of the FDA’s Office of GastroRenal, ObGyn, General Hospital and Urology Devices, noted that the risk of STI transmission during anal intercourse is “significantly higher” than during vaginal intercourse.
“The FDA’s authorization of a condom that is specifically indicated, evaluated and labeled for anal intercourse may improve the likelihood of condom use during anal intercourse,” Lias said in a statement. “Furthermore, this authorization helps us accomplish our priority to advance health equity through the development of safe and effective products that meet the needs of diverse populations.”
Anal sex poses the highest risk for contracting HIV, with the risk of HIV transmission from receptive anal sex about 18 times higher than receptive vaginal sex. Gay and bisexual men accounted for 69 percent of the 36,801 new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in the U.S. in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Queer men of color were overrepresented within this group, with Black men representing 37 percent, Latino men representing 32 percent and white men representing 25 percent of these new diagnoses, according to the CDC.
One Male Condoms are available in standard, thin and fitted versions, and the fitted version is available in 54 different sizes.
A clinical trial of 252 men who have sex with men and 252 men who have sex with women found the One Male Condom has a failure rate of 0.68 percent for anal sex and 1.89 percent for vaginal sex, according to the FDA, which defined condom failure as condom slippage or breakage.
Dr. Will DeWitt, clinical director of anal health at the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York City, said the newly approved condoms could be a helpful tool for HIV/AIDS prevention.
“The hope would be that people would be more willing to use condoms for anal sex and to have that direct encouragement would increase the rates of people using them,” DeWitt said. “Condoms still remain an important tool for people who don’t want to or can’t use PrEP.”
PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, is typically taken in the form of a daily pill to prevent HIV/AIDS in people who are not diagnosed with the virus. Last year, the FDA also approved an injectable PrEP shot that can be given every two months.
DeWitt did, however, add that he is worried the One Male Condom name and marketing could alienate those who engage in anal sex but do not identify as male.
“Anal sex really does belong to everyone,” DeWitt said. “Even if it’s the perspective of who has to wear the condom, it’s not just male bodies and male identified folks who need to use it.”
While health experts have long encouraged the use of condoms for STI prevention through anal sex, DeWitt said FDA’s official approval is long overdue.
“Here we are in 2022, and we are only now getting condoms approved for anal sex,” DeWitt said, noting that it’s been more than three decades since the start of the HIV crisis. “It’s a little frustrating that it’s taken this long to have this kind of official endorsement.
Some of the top companies in the U.S. that show public support for the LGBTQ community have donated thousands of dollars to the politicians behind a piece of Florida legislation opponents deemed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
The bill, which has versions in both the Florida House and Senate, would ban classroom discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity that are not “age-appropriate” in schools — though it is not clear what is considered “age-appropriate.” It also includes a provision that could effectively “out” LGBTQ students to their parents without their consent.
Despite opposition from Democrats and LGBTQ rights advocates, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill is gaining momentum in the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature.
Two weeks ago, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared to voice support for the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, saying at a press event that it was “entirely inappropriate” for teachers and school administrators to have conversations with students about their gender identity.
“I know the ramifications of a bill like this could be detrimental to our LGBTQ youth,” out Florida state Senate candidate Eunic Ortiz told the Washington Blade.
Yet, a recent investigation from Popular Information, a political Substack newsletter run by veteran progressive journalist and political staffer Judd Legum, found some of the nation’s top companies — like Comcast/NBC Universal, UnitedHealth Group, Duke Energy, AT&T and Walgreens — have donated to the politicians behind the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Comcast/NBC Universal, for example, donated $1,000 to state Sen. Dennis Baxley, the main sponsor behind the bill in the Senate. In addition, the company gave a total of $28,000 to the top supporters of the anti-LGBTQ legislation since 2020, according to Legum and two other reporters, Tesnim Zekeria and Rebecca Crosby.
The Blade reached out to several representatives at Comcast but did not immediately receive a response, nor did Popular Information.
Comcast has publicly supported the LGBTQ community in recent years. “Some people may think the LGBTQ rights journey is done and the struggle is over, but it isn’t. Our job is to continuously educate,” said Yvette Miley, senior vice president of MSNBC and NBC News, on its website.
UnitedHealth Group has donated at least $200,000 to DeSantis since 2020 despite his public support for the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and other anti-LGBTQ legislation, according to the article.
The healthcare company has received perfect scores from the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ organization, Corporate Equality Index. Its chief talent officer, Ryan Craig, has also said, “Strengthening the sense of community among our LGBTQ+ employees and allies” makes the company stronger. https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=WashBlade&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1486716900079927308&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonblade.com%2F2022%2F02%2F19%2Ftop-lgbtq-supporting-companies-bankroll-dont-say-gay-bill%2F&sessionId=17ccd4a9af6d38b05809589364151bcde7d9ac4b&siteScreenName=WashBlade&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2582c61%3A1645036219416&width=550px
UnitedHealth Group did not immediately respond to the Blade’s request for comment. Public Information’s request also went unanswered.
Duke Energy, one of the largest electric companies in the U.S., has donated $34,000 to Florida legislators behind the “Don’t Say Gay” bill since 2020, including $25,000 to DeSantis and $1,000 to Baxley, according to the investigation.
“We are guided by our vision of an inclusive environment where employees feel a sense of belonging,” Cameron McDonald, Duke Energy’s vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, said in a statement. “We make sure to integrate diversity and inclusion into everything we do.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=WashBlade&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1401954613226622982&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonblade.com%2F2022%2F02%2F19%2Ftop-lgbtq-supporting-companies-bankroll-dont-say-gay-bill%2F&sessionId=17ccd4a9af6d38b05809589364151bcde7d9ac4b&siteScreenName=WashBlade&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2582c61%3A1645036219416&width=550px
The Blade attempted to reach Duke Energy representatives by phone and email but have yet to receive a response. Legum’s team also couldn’t contact the company for comment.
AT&T has donated $86,000 to the politicians behind the bill, including $80,000 to DeSantis and $500 to Baxley, Popular Information reported.
The company has supported the LGBTQ community on social media, partnering with the national LGBTQ youth suicide group the Trevor Project during last year’s Pride month. https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=WashBlade&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-3&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1401355695430291456&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonblade.com%2F2022%2F02%2F19%2Ftop-lgbtq-supporting-companies-bankroll-dont-say-gay-bill%2F&sessionId=17ccd4a9af6d38b05809589364151bcde7d9ac4b&siteScreenName=WashBlade&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2582c61%3A1645036219416&width=550px
“At AT&T we understand that unity starts in our own community, and we are committed to being a company that recognizes, embraces, and standings with LGBT+ people,” it said in a statement.
Warner Media, the company that owns AT&T, did not immediately respond the Blade’s request for comment.
Walgreens has donated at least $28,000 to DeSantis and four lawmakers who have voted in favor of the bill, according to Popular Information.
For Pride 2021, Walgreens Boots Alliance, its parent company, said it “created and encouraged everyone … to use a special Pride month background when they appeared on video during meetings to express their allyship.”
The company also did not respond to the Blade’s request for comment.
A beloved trans Latina woman allegedly killed in Lubbock, Texas, has become 2022’s third victim of an unceasing “epidemic of violence” in the US.
Cypress Ramos, a 21-year-old who could always be found smiling and cheering on her friends, was found dead in a storage unit on the morning of 12 February.
She died of blunt force trauma to the head after being struck by an unspecified hard object, according to the murder warrant for 32-year-old Allan Montemayor, who has been charged for Ramos’ murder, KCBD reported.
Ramos was found inside a locked container in the 2700 block of North Frankford Avenue after a fire was reported by a neighbour. Lubbock Fire Rescue put out the blaze only to discover a “dead body” inside at 11.30am.
As police arrived at the storage unit, officers elsewhere were dispatched to Montemayor who told cops he “f**ked up” and that there was a body in a storage unit set on fire.
Surveillance footage showed Montemayor’s pickup truck parked outside the unit. Both he and Ramos entered the unit – one hour and 20 minutes later, only he left and drove away.
When pressed by police about what took place inside, the warrant said he simply “shrugged and stated: ‘Isn’t it apparent?’” He alleged that Ramos has set a fire before coming at him with a bat and, “at this point, it was either me or [her],” Montemayor added, misgendering the victim.
Montemayor later told detectives that he believed a “song” had compelled Ramos to launch an attack against him in the unit. He also said, however, that the same song gave him instructions to kill the victim.
Lubbock County Sheriff investigators said that Montemayor had blood on his legs as well as his pants, said Ramos’ friend, drag queen Camilla Urbina, to KCBD.
“He tried to burn my friend, literally,” she alleged. “Like burn, burn them up.”
“There was blood on his pants, I believe that something else happened. And the truth will come out. And you will pay, promise.”
Montemayor is currently in the Lubbock County Detention Center where he is held on a $500,000 bond for a charge of murder.
Cypress Ramos was ‘always smiling’ and ‘loved everyone,’ friends say
According to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT+ campaign group that has been monitoring trans homicide rates since 2013, Ramos is “at least” the third trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming person violently killed in 2022.
It comes after last year’s record-breaking death tally of at least 56, many of them Black trans women, an already dizzyingly high figure that has continued to climb as more homicide cases emerge months after 2021 came to an end.
HRC has long warned that its own count is likely inaccurate, given that three-fourths of trans victims are misgendered and deadnamed by the police and press.
The American Medical Association has warned of an “epidemic of violence” against trans Americans – a statement repeated by president Joe Biden. The latest victim of this wave of violence, Ramos, was to those who knew her a “friend, a sister, a daughter”.
“Cypress was always smiling,” a friend of Ramos told Equality Texas in a statement on Saturday (19 February). “She was so tiny, so it felt like my arms wrapped around her three times.
“She just loved everyone,” the friend said before Equality Texas added: “A bright light like Cypress deserved to shine bright for much longer.”
The state-level advocacy group said a candlelight vigil in honour of Ramos’ life was held later that day at Tim Cole Memorial Park.
“Cypress Ramos’ death was an awful end to such a young life,” Tori Cooper, who leads HRC’s Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a statement.
“Her story highlights how trans women of colour are still devalued in our society.
“We must all work to end the epidemic of violence against transgender and non-binary people. May justice be served in this case.”
In a large clinical trial assessing Apretude, ViiV Healthcare’s recently approved injectable drug, as a form of HIV prevention, seven participants contracted the virus despite receiving their injections on schedule.
The new findings indicate that, just as with those who take daily pills to prevent HIV, breakthrough infections are possible among people receiving Apretude.
Dr. Raphael J. Landovitz, who led the Apretude clinical trial in question, told NBC News that he expects such cases of PrEP failure to remain what he characterized as rare, regardless of which form of preventive antiretroviral medication people at risk of HIV receive.
Apretude is nevertheless so efficacious, Landovitz said, that the drug has “the potential to end the HIV epidemic, particularly for people who are challenged with taking oral PrEP.”
Landovitz, an infectious disease specialist at UCLA, said it might always remain unclear why the breakthrough infections among those receiving Apretude occurred. He and his colleagues already know that the blood concentrations of the drug in the first four people to experience such infections weren’t unexpectedly low.
The Food and Drug Administration approved Apretude for use as what’s known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, against HIV on Dec. 20. The long-acting drug, which is meant to be injected every two months by a health care worker, joined two daily pills — Gilead Sciences’ Truvada and Descovy — that were approved as PrEP in 2012 and 2019, respectively.
HIV advocates have looked to Apretude as a potential solution to this enduring medication-adherence problem. And yet, receiving Apretude requires a clinic visit every two months, compared with visits every three months to maintain a prescription to Descovy or Truvada as PrEP.
Men who have sex with men account for an estimated 70 percent of the approximately 35,000 HIV transmissions in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Apretude vs. Truvada
One of the two double-blinded clinical trials that prompted the FDA to approve Apretude for use as PrEP included 4,566 cisgender MSM and transgender women in the U.S. and six other nations in Latin America, Asia and Africa. (A second trial included cisgender women in Africa.) Half of the 1,698 U.S. study members were Black.
The participants, who were all deemed at substantial risk of contracting HIV, were randomized to receive Truvada or Apretude, with each group receiving a corresponding placebo.
In 2020, Landovitz and his colleagues announced that after a median of about 17 months of follow-up during the study’s blinded phase, those who received Apretude had about a two-thirds lower HIV acquisition rate compared with those who got Truvada. This stark difference was driven by suboptimal adherence to the daily Truvada regimen and, by comparison, greater Apretude coverage of the participants’ sex acts.
Dr. Raphael J. Landovitz speaking at the International AIDS Society conference in Paris in 2017.Benjamin Ryan
During that period, the rate of new HIV cases rose in both the Apretude and Truvada groups. This phenomenon, Landovitz suggested, was likely driven by two factors. Firstly, participants’ adherence to both the injection schedule and the pill regimen was lower after the unblinding. Additionally, during this latter trial phase, a greater proportion of the participants were living in Latin America, where the background HIV transmission rates were relatively high.
Nevertheless, Apretude injections maintained about the same rate of superior overall protection against HIV compared with oral PrEP as seen during the trial’s blinded period.
During the combined study periods, 25 people in the Apretude group and 72 people in the Truvada group contracted HIV during a nearly identical amount of cumulative follow-up time.
Breakthrough cases
The seven breakthrough infections among people who received their injections on schedule occurred during a cumulative 4,660 years of follow-up among all those in the Apretude arm of the trial. (During that time, an additional 18 people contracted HIV who did not receive Apretude on schedule.) This means that if a group of 10,000 people in similar circumstances were given Apretude, about 15 of them would be expected to experience breakthrough HIV infections over one year.
Transmission of HIV that is resistant to Apretude’s antiretroviral class, Landovitz said, is “vanishingly rare.” So he said that drug resistance cannot explain breakthrough infections among those receiving the injectable as PrEP.
Breakthrough infections also occurred in at least one, possibly two, people in the Truvada group of the Apretude trial including trans women and MSM. One additional such breakthrough case occurred in the corresponding trial of cisgender women. Further analyses are needed to determine if after each trial’s unblinding, additional people contracted HIV while adhering well to the Truvada regimen.
Research has indicated that compared with concentrations of Apretude in the blood, concentrations of the drug are about 90 percent to 92 percent lower in rectal tissues but only about 80 percent lower in tissues in the vagina and on the cervix. Landovitz told NBC News that these disparities could possibly help explain the emergence of the seven breakthrough infections among those in the Apretude arm of the PrEP study including trans women and MSM. So far, ViiV is able to report that in the PrEP trial including cisgender women, there were no cases of Apretude failure during its blinded phase; further analysis is needed to determine if such breakthrough infections occurred after that study’s unblinding.
Cost and availability
Apretude is not yet widely available in the United States. ViiV is campaigning for insurers to add the injectable preventive to their lists of covered medications.
The pharmaceutical company is up against the fact that multiple generic versions of Truvada hit the market last year and now cost as little as $26 per month. Apretude is priced at the equivalent of $1,850 per 30-day period, similar to Gilead’s pricing of Descovy and brand-name Truvada. The CDC reported at this week’s retrovirus conference that during the first three quarters of 2021, about 42 percent of U.S. PrEP prescriptions were for generic Truvada.
In a paper that Landovitz wrote with Dr. Anne M. Neilan of Harvard Medical School and others and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on Feb. 1, they conclude that Apretude would need to have a monthly cost no greater than $308 over generic Truvada’s price to remain cost-effective.
Due to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force granting it an “A” rating in 2019, oral PrEP must now be covered by almost all private insurers with no cost sharing. That means both the medication and the quarterly clinic visits should be free to people with private health plans. Medicaid and Medicare also cover pill-form PrEP, but they may still demand out-of-pocket payments for the prescription.
In the meantime, ViiV will offer a copay card to people with private insurance that will cover up to $7,500 in out-of-pocket expenses related to the injectable drug each calendar year, plus $350 toward injection-administration fees.
Dr. Rupa R. Patel, the PrEP Clinic Lead atWhitman-Walker Health in Washington, told NBC News that Apretude’s considerable efficaciousness notwithstanding, the drug’s every-other-month dosing schedule “is still not ideal.”
“Something taken every six months or 12 months would be better, of course,” Patel said.
Multiple additional forms of long-acting PrEP, dosed as seldom as twice per year, are indeed in the pharmaceutical pipeline. However, Merck announced in December that the company was putting a hold on all clinical development of its experimental drug islatravir after the long-acting antiretroviral was linked to declines in some trial participants’ CD4 immune cells — white blood cells that provide a key indication of immune health. This trend occurred both among those receiving the drug as HIV treatment and in those receiving it as PrEP.
A trans teen died by suicide while waiting to access mental health care and a first appointment at a gender identity clinic, with a coroner warning that future deaths are possible unless action is taken.
Daniel France, a 17-year-old teenager from Cambridgeshire, killed himself during the first coronavirus lockdown in April 2020 while taking medication to treat depression.
He was trans, and had been referred to an NHS gender clinic – but, like thousands of others, faced several years of waiting before he would be called for his first appointment.
France, described as “extremely kind” and someone who had “many friends” by a local LGBT+ group, also had a history of suicide attempts, said coroner Philip Barlow.
In a report to “prevent future deaths” following an inquest into France’s suicide, Barlow told local agencies to address the delays in accessing mental health services for young adults, and noted concerns around the waiting times for NHS gender clinics.
“Danny was a vulnerable teenager,” Barlow wrote in his coroners report, adding that two separate safeguarding referrals to Cambridgeshire County Council about France had been “incorrectly” closed.
According to the report, France sought counselling from the NHS’ Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, but was deemed too high risk. When he was assessed by Cambridge’s First Response Service, which supports people experiencing a mental health crisis, it was decided he did not ‘require urgent intervention’. He had been referred to adult mental health services, having previously been under a young person’s service, but was still awaiting assessment.
The coroner noted that France “was repeatedly assessed as not meeting the criteria for urgent intervention” and that the “waiting list for psychological therapy was likely to be over a year from point of first presentation”.
The inquest also heard “evidence about the considerable delay in obtaining appointments for the Gender Identity Clinic, and about the shortage of availability for psychological therapies such as CBT”.
Barlow warned: “In my opinion there is a risk that future deaths could occur unless action is taken.”
A copy of Barlow’s coroners report has been sent to NHS England and the secretary of state for health, Sajid Javid “for information purposes only”. The local council and NHS trust have been given 56 days to respond to Barlow’s concerns on mental health care provision
The Kite Trust, a local charity that runs support groups for young LGBT+ people that France attended, warned about the “hostile society” that trans people, and especially young trans people, currently face in the UK.
“What Danny faced, and what trans people of all ages continue to face, is a society that is hostile to our very existence,” said Pip Gardner, chief executive of The Kite Trust, in an emailed statement. “Using the wrong name or pronouns for a trans person, is not just a spelling mistake – it causes emotional harm and breaks down trust.”
They continued: “The responsibility must be on those with statutory duties and in positions to safeguard young people’s welfare, especially crisis services, to take immediate action to ensure that other trans young people like Danny can access the care they are entitled to, without having to endure such harms.”
Suicide is preventable. Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact theNational Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
George M. Johnson’s young-adult memoir “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” about growing up Black and queer, appeared on The New York Timesbestseller list this month for the first time since its publication nearly two years ago. The spike in sales was undoubtedly fueled by the publicity the title received after being banned in public libraries and schools in at least 19 states, according to Johnson’s count.
“People were seeing me on list after list and congratulating me and being like, ‘Oh, my God, you must be so happy. This must be such a badge of honor. Your sales must be so great,’” author Mark Oshiro said of banned and challenged book lists. “That’s not how it actually works.”
When Oshiro, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, heard one of their books, “Each of Us a Desert,” a fantasy novel about two girls falling in love on a quest through the desert, was on Texas Rep. Matt Krause’s list of 850 books to be pulled from Texas schools, they didn’t realize how much attention this particular list would get. After all, their books had been on many such lists before. But even with all the publicity surrounding the Krause list — which included titles the lawmaker said could “make students feel uncomfortable” — because Oshiro’s book was just one of hundreds, they didn’t see a spike in sales, despite the many calls online to buy the banned books in support.
Since the list’s release in October, Oshiro has had multiple teachers cancel class visits, an immediate and significant loss of income for an author.
“That’s been a much more obvious barometer for me of what’s been going on for me than book sales,” they said.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said book bans can indeed generate more demand for certain titles, as communities will often buy a copy of a book to donate to a public library when a school library bans it. However, she said, she is also concerned about quiet censorship, a term that includes instances when librarians or educators choose not to buy a book out of fear of potential challenges.
Book challenges doubled from 2020 to 2021, according to the association, and Caldwell-Stone said she is also concerned about what’s happening on the legislative front, with proposals such as Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and a bill in Tennessee that would prohibit any instructional materials that “promote, normalize, support, or address” LGBTQ people or issues.
Author Adib Khorram, whose young-adult book about a gay teenager, “Darius the Great Deserves Better,” appears on Krause’s list, said he is also concerned about so-called quiet censorship.
“I think the atmosphere of fear the bans create is actually far worse than the bans themselves,” he said. “On that list of 850 books, one or two of them are going to be very loudly talked about, and people are going to go check them out. But 848 are going to quietly disappear.”
Khorram is one of many LGBTQ authors and authors of color now weighing how this climate factors into their future work. When he was writing his biographical blurb for his next book, “Kiss & Tell,” that comes out next month, he said he paused when choosing whether to include that he is a queer Iranian American.
“There’s every chance that just having that in my bio will make people not stock the book,” he said. Ultimately, he did choose to include that personal information, saying he did not want to let the current climate affect his work.
“Adults fearing the discomfort of majoritized students is not going to stop me from writing books that uphold the lives and dignity of minoritized students,” he added.
Maia Kobabe, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, is also writing a new book without the bans in mind. In the meantime, Kobabe’s illustrated memoir, “Gender Queer,” has seen skyrocketing sales along with frequent challenges and bans. Already on its fifth printing, a new hardcover edition will come out in June.
While Kobabe acknowledges that “Gender Queer” being banned and challenged has led to a flurry of publicity that it would not have otherwise received, Kobabe worries about who is gaining access to the book through the increase in sales. Those who listen to NPR to hear an interview, read articles about book banning or have their own income to buy books are the ones increasing the sales, according to Kobabe, but the young people who don’t have money to buy books or who need the access at the library to read it there instead of bringing a book back to an unaccepting home will not be the ones contributing to the sales numbers.
“The part that really hurts is the fact that the people who might need this book the most are the people who are going to have less access,” Kobabe said. “So it’s just another case of the most marginalized readers being further marginalized.”
Kobabe added, “I would rather have the book not be banned and have it just quietly existing on library shelves where queer and questioning teens could discover it in a peaceful, quiet way and could safely read it on a shelf.”
As for Johnson, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, making The New York Times bestseller list is bittersweet. Having their book banned has not been easy, Johnson added, but they said they are the kind of person who isn’t afraid to fight back.
“It sucks. It is overwhelming. It’s heavy,” Johnson explained. “But at the same time, I’m witnessing parents buy this book for their teens. I’m witnessing parents and teens reading the book together. I’m also witnessing students find their agency and find their voice because I’m using mine.”
Editor’s note: The writer of this article is the author of two young-adult books on Texas Rep. Matt Krause’s list of 850 books to remove from Texas schools: “Queer, There, and Everywhere” and “Rainbow Revolutionaries.”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., laid out a conservative blueprint this week for a GOP takeover of Congress, and included in his “11-Point Plan to Rescue America” are a number of proposals that would limit the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.
The document outlines Republican policy objectives on everything from the economy to abortion, but the point that caused the most alarm to LGBTQ advocates was in a section titled “Gender, Life, Science.”
“Men and women are biologically different, ‘male and female He created them,'” Scott wrote. “Facts are facts, the earth is round, the sun is hot, there are two genders, and abortion stops a beating heart. To say otherwise is to deny science.”
In this section, Scott — who served as Florida’s governor from2011 to 2019 — called for nationwide bans on government forms that “include questions about ‘gender identity’ or ‘sexual preference’”; gender-affirming procedures on minors; and transgender women and girls participating on female sports teams.
“We will protect women’s sports by banning biological males from competing,” the policy outline states. “It is hugely unfair and would erase many of the gains women have made in athletics over the last 50 years.”
Scott’s proposals echo the ongoing nationwide push of anti-LGBTQ legislation by state lawmakers.
So far this year, conservative state lawmakers have filed more than 170 anti-LGBTQ bills — already surpassing last year’s 139 total — according to Freedom for All Americans. The majority of the bills target transgender minors’ ability to receive gender-affirming health care or participate in sports.
In the eighth point of Scott’s plan, labeled simply “Family,” he called out the “radical left” for seeking to “devalue and redefine the traditional family,” using language associated with activists opposed to same-sex marriage.
LGBTQ advocates slammed Scott’s proposals.
Brandon Wolf, the press secretary for advocacy group Equality Florida, said that Scott’s manifesto was “affirmation of what we’ve been trying to warn folks about.”
“What is happening in Florida isn’t isolated,” Wolf told NBC News. “It’s a test market for a national strategy by the extreme right to legislate this country back to 1960, mire us in culture wars and decimate the progress we’ve won.”
Scott, a first-term senator who is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is not the only Republican to preview how the GOP would pursue anti-LGBTQ legislation should it regain power in Washington.
Last month, former President Donald Trump said he would ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports nationwide if he were re-elected.
“We will ban men from participating in women’s sports,” Trump said during a rally in Conroe, Texas. “So ridiculous.”
Aside from how the GOP should navigate LGBTQ rights, Scott’s manifesto called for Republicans to “eliminate racial politics in America,” finish building a southern border wall and name it after Trump, and battle “the new religion of wokeness.”
