JK Rowling refuted allegations that she is transphobic while returning a Ripple of Hope award to the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights organisation.
Rowling announced she is giving back the honour after Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late senator and president of the human rights nonprofit, shared her “profound disappointment” in the author’s remarks on trans rights.
Kerry Kennedy released a statement on August 3, eight months after Rowling received the award for her work on behalf of children. She joined previous honourees including Barack Obama, Desmond Tutu and Hillary Clinton.
“I have spoken with JK Rowling to express my profound disappointment that she has chosen to use her remarkable gifts to create a narrative that diminishes the identity of trans and non-binary people, undermining the validity and integrity of the entire transgender community,” she wrote, citing Rowling’s tweets and essay on trans lives, as well her liking a tweet “that opposed a bill to ban conversion therapy”.
Kennedy rejected what she understands Rowling’s position to be: that sex as assigned at birth “is the primary and determinative factor of one’s gender, regardless of one’s gender identity”.
“The science is clear and conclusive: Sex is not binary,” she continued.
“Trans rights are human rights. JK Rowling’s attacks upon the transgender community are inconsistent with the fundamental beliefs and values of RFK Human Rights and represent a repudiation of my father’s vision.”ADVERTISING
JK Rowling can’t keep Robert Kennedy award in good conscience.
In response, Rowling wrote Thursday (August 27): “The statement incorrectly implied that I was transphobic, and that I am responsible for harm to trans people.
“As a longstanding donor to LGBT charities and a supporter of trans people’s right to live free of persecution, I absolutely refute the accusation that I hate trans people or wish them ill, or that standing up for the rights of women is wrong, discriminatory, or incites harm or violence to the trans community.”
She continued by repeating her claim that she “feels nothing but sympathy towards those with gender dysphoria”, and her baseless allegation that “an ethical and medical scandal is brewing” regarding gender-affirming therapies.
Rowling ended her statement by disagreeing with the Kennedy organisation’s stance on trans rights: that they do not clash with women’s rights.
“The thousands of women who’ve got in touch with me disagree, and, like me, believe this clash of rights can only be resolved if more nuance is permitted in the debate.”
She concluded: “I am deeply saddened that RFKHR has felt compelled to adopt this stance, but no award or honour, no matter my admiration for the person for whom it was named, means so much to me that I would forfeit the right to follow the dictates of my own conscience.”
Hundreds of Black trans people lost to violence have been honoured in a powerful street mural painted by local artists in Chicago.
The words ‘Black Trans Lives Matter’ stretch across the street in Catalpa Avenue, Andersonville. It was created by 22 artists or art groups, with the help of neighbours who donated $4,000 to pay the artists for their time and materials.
Last weekend the whole community came together to add names and portraits to the artwork, giving faces to those who have died.
“It is vital that when folks see that Black Trans Lives Matter [mural] they understand the context of why it matters,” said David Oakes of the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce, speaking to Block Club Chicago.
Each participating artist decorated an individual letter in the mural. One artist, Bailey Funk, painted the words “say their names” in the letter B, prompting the chamber to consider giving more prominence to the names of the dead.
Now the names encircle the mural, each one colour-coded to give context to the deaths.
The names in pink are people whom police killed in the last five years, while the names in yellow identify unarmed people of colour killed by police since 1975. More names are being added this week, according to the chamber.
Among those honoured in portraits are Merci Mack, a Black trans woman killed by a gunshot to the head, Tony McDade, a Black trans man shot by police, and Marsha P Johnson, a Black queer rights activist instrumental in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.
“Transgender women of colour were leaders in LGBT+ activism and throughout time, but they have been erased,” Laura Austin, associate director of the Andersonville chamber, said in a statement.
“We wanted to give them space. We wanted to make them a priority. It is long overdue.”
The Black Lives Matter movement gave rise to several memorials to the trans community, including a huge art installation on Hollywood Boulevard. Last week it was announced that the huge letters reading ‘All Black Lives Matter’ will remain there permanently.
Steven King, a popular content creator on the social media platform TikTok, said he stumbled across the video-sharing app by accident early last year.
“I saw an advertisement for what I thought was an app that could put your selfies into motion” he said. “I downloaded it, and two days later I was posting my first video.”
King, 47, started by sharing videos about his day, his relationship with his husband and what clothes he wanted to wear. They must have resonated because his following started to grow — all the way to 3 million as of this week.
As Steven King’s TikTok account started to grow, he needed to be photo-ready every time he left his house, he said. Courtesy Steven King
“The amount of people that are seeing my face, that are engaging with these videos I’m creating,” he said, “really put me in awe.”
King, now a verified creator on the platform, said he knew he was onto something when the comment sections on his page started to fill up with questions about coming out, LGBTQ relationships and confidence in one’s own identity.
“When I joined TikTok, there was definitely the sense that it was a young-adult app,” he said, and “I knew right away that these were teenagers asking, and I had a responsibility.”
So in February 2019, King, who lives in Arizona, began doing livestreams where he would answer questions from his followers — many of them LGBTQ youth and young adults — and creating videos to share his advice and aspects of his life story, from his 24-year relationship to his sobriety.
“The traumas that we suffer from as we grow have a huge impact on who we are as adults,” King said. “To be able to empathize and put myself back in the position that these teenagers are in, knowing where I came from and how I made it through, I just had to give back that information.”
With the help of the algorithm on its “For You” page, which feeds users curated content based on their previous interactions and “likes,” TikTok has helped LGBTQ content creators and audiences find one another on the platform. But some fear the queer community they helped foster on the social network may be in danger amid the face-off between TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and the Trump administration.
Collins Onosike, a verified TikTok content creator, has amassed 4.4 million followers since joining the platform several years ago.
Collins Onosike started making videos in 2016. Now, as a college student, he balances school and life as an influencer.Slash MGMT
“My ‘For You’ page is full of queer people — I love it,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of friends on here; it’s really a happy place”
Onosike, who has built both his career and social group around TikTok, is among those who has been on edge amid the back and forth between the president and ByteDance.
“The thought of just losing it, just losing all of it is quite scary — for myself and other influencers,” he said.
Onosike, 20, joined TikTok in its early days when the app was still called Musical.ly. At first, he focused on dance and lip-sync videos, but he then pivoted to comedy skits where he often incorporates drag into his performances.
“I get a lot of comments saying, ‘Seeing the way you express yourself has given me the courage to be myself as well.’ It’s so cool to see the amount of power a video can give to someone else.”
‘Freaking out’
For Sarah Schauer, the prospect of TikTok shutting down was like “having deja vu.”
“I was like, ‘Are you f—— kidding me? I’ve done this before,” said Schauer, who started her social media career on the now-defunct video-sharing platform Vine and lost 848,000 followers in one day when it shut down in 2017.
“I understand why everyone else was freaking out, but it was like ‘I had practiced for this,'” she said. “This time I would lose 1.2 million [followers].”
Sarah Schauer said it felt good to get recognized on TikTok after her time on the now-defunct video-sharing platform Vine.Slash MGMT
Schauer, who lives in Los Angeles, started posting on TikTok last year after hearing success stories of other creator accounts growing rapidly on the platform. She said she has found a supportive fan base on the app, where she shares point-of-view-style comedy videos.
“I didn’t do queer content when I was on Vine, because I came out later, but I’ve started to integrate it into my content now,” said Schauer, who is bisexual and estimates that her followers are about half queer and half straight.
Schauer, who said the platform’s large queer community is commonly referred to as “gay TikTok,” said the app’s algorithm is about discoverability — and goes far beyond LGBTQ-related content.
“I’ve seen so much Native American and native Hawaiian content. The disabled community can create videos about their situations,” she explained. “I’ve never seen their videos as much as I have now.”
‘We’ll find a way to do it again’
For Chris Olsen and Ian Paget, a gay couple who split their time between New York and Los Angeles, TikTok started as a place to watch videos and stay entertained amid the pandemic. But then in April, the duo started posting their own videos to the platform.
Ian Paget, left, and Chris Olsen wear apparel they made after seeing the success of their pages on TikTok.Courtesy Chris Olsen
A group of hard-right religious-right leaders is hosting “America at the Crossroads: A 911 Call for Pastors,” which will be held at a resort near Dallas, Texas, at the end of the month. The event page describes the Aug. 30-Sept. 2 gathering as “three days of R & R, fellowship, food and training on Black Lives Matter, White Privilege, Critical Race Theory, Cultural Marxism, Covid-19 and the calls for Global Government!” Guests will be welcomed by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
“America at the Crossroads” is being organized by Liberty Pastors, which is led by the Oklahoma-based pastor Paul Blair, a right-wing nullification activist who urges state officials to ignore Supreme Court rulings like Roe v. Wade and Obergefell, the marriage equality ruling. Blair promotes the Christian reconstructionist idea that the Bible does not give the government authority to care for the poor: “There’s nowhere in the Bible where God commands the civil authority to use the sword to take from those who are working hard and then redistribute to those that simply refuse to work.”
Here’s more from the event’s registration page, which describes the event as sold out:
America is in peril! We see rioting in the streets with showing no regard for life or personal property. For the first time in America’s history, we intentionally collapsed our economy over a viral threat originating in Communist Red China. Mayors and Governors are demanding that Churches and businesses close, while abortion clinics, liquor stores and big box stores are open. People are gripped with fear, yet where is the Prophetic voice of Almighty God?
The event shows the extent to which conservative evangelical support for President Donald Trump has further blurred distinctions between what might have once been considered “mainstream” and fringe religious-right groups.
Blair and his clergy colleague Dan Fisher, who is also scheduled to speak at this month’s conference, are both on the organizing committee of Gone 2 Far, an aggressively anti-LGBTQ coalition launched last year with a press conference that smeared advocates for LGBTQ equality, including the late civil rights icon John Lewis.
Notorious anti-LGBTQ extremist Scott Lively is scheduled to speak at the event, as are anti-equality religious-right legal advocate Mat Staver and Trump cheerleaders and megachurch pastors Robert Jeffress and Jack Hibbs.
Lively, author of “The Pink Swastika,” is among the most notorious anti-LGBTQ activists in the world. Among his homophobic attacks are his claim that homosexuality is a worse sin “by far” than slavery and his assertion that he would rather be beheaded than forced by the government to wear a mask. As Right Wing Watch noted recently:
He has supported anti-LGBTQ legislation in Uganda, Russia, and around the world. Last year he helped launch an extreme anti-LGBTQ group with comments charging that the transgender movement is really about promoting the “pedophilia agenda.” In 2015, he said homosexuality was worse than murder and genocide and warned that if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality, it could lead to the rise of the Antichrist by the end of the year.
Lively recently told WND readers, “Reelecting President Trump is not a political choice but an act of self-defense for every American who loves the Holy Bible and the U.S. Constitution.”
Lively has also called for defiance of public health restrictions on churches, which he says are invalid because the church is a separate “sovereign.” Lively explained in an Aug. 10 WND column:
Government attempts to regulate church attendance and worship practices violate not only the law of our land, the US Constitution, they violate the law above the law, and because of that every Christian pastor should individually be in open defiance of restrictive “mandates” and collectively in active civil rebellion against the state and local governments issuing them.
…
While other churches and congregations might have acquiesced to the court’s illegitimate authority, I am not bound by their decisions, having newly established my own church totally independent of them. I have not registered First Century Bible Church with the government and have no intention to do so.
As an Ambassador of the Church of Jesus Christ I do not recognize the authority of the Supreme Court — an arm of the state — to legislate from the bench on church/state matters. It retains authority to regulate the state in church/state matters, but not the church.
Scheduled “America at the Crossroads” speakers include the following individuals:
Bob McEwen is a former member of Congress who heads the Council for National Policy, an influential and secretive network of right-wing officials and activist leaders.
E.W. Jackson, right-wing pastor and radio host and Republican nominee for Lt. Gov. in Virginia in 2013, said earlier this year that he sees no substantive difference between American progressives and the totalitarian regime in North Korea. Jackson has warned that a “homovirus” is devastating the family and American society. Jackson promised members of his congregation that God would prevent them from becoming infected with the COVID-19 virus and called Rep. Adam Schiff “treasonous” for suggesting a commission to examine the federal government’s response to the pandemic.
Rafael Cruz, father of Sen. Ted Cruz and a religious-right activist, is an anti-LGBTQ zealot who has claimed falsely that the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling—which he charged was the work of Satan—legalized marriage “between two men and a horse.” Rafael Cruz had supported his son’s presidential bid by saying that God had raised Ted up and that electing him would spare America from divine judgment. In 2016, he said that President Barack Obama had been trying to take people’s guns away as part of a plan to install a communist dictatorship.
Dan Fisher, who co-pastors Blair’s church, calls for “bringing back the Black Robed Regiment,” a reference to colonial-era pastors who mobilized support for the revolt against Great Britain. He served two terms in the state legislature before running unsuccessfully for governor in 2018 on a platform that including abolishing and criminalizing abortion and asserting state sovereignty to disobey “wrong” Supreme Court rulings. He drew just under 8 percent of the vote in the Republican primary.
Rick Scarborough called AIDS “God’s judgment on a sinful generation” and said that marriage equality is part of Satan’s effort to “destroy this country.” He falsely claimed that the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling “made it unlawful and illegal for Christians to hold position” in government; years earlier he falsely claimed that the passage of the federal Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Act in 2009 would “criminalize pastors and ordinary citizens who speak out biblically against homosexuality.” At the 2013 Values Voter Summit, he warned that “infidels” in the Obama administration were “hell-bent on silencing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” His Recover America Now has abandoned its plans to hold 75 gatherings across Texas this year and, according to the group’s website, has “entered into a partnership with the Jonathan Project to register and mobilize thousands of Christian Voters across America, targeting with special outreach Texas, Florida and North Carolina.” The Jonathan Project is a voter identification, registration and mobilization effort. RAN has hosted online calls with Jeffress, David Barton, Mat Staver, and others in an effort to maximize conservative Christian turnout this fall. Scarborough hosts a podcast that describes separation of church and state as a “myth.”
Two transgender teenagers are suing Arizona over its blanket ban on paying for transition-related healthcare for Medicaid recipients.
The claimants, 17-year-old D.H. and 15-year-old John Doe, are bringing a class-action lawsuit alleging that their civil rights are being violated by Arizona’s prohibition on transition-related surgeries.
Arizona is one of 10 states that explicitly bans coverage for transition-related treatments to transgender Medicaid recipients, according to Metro Weekly.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights filed the complaint against the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System on August 6.
“D.H. and John bring this lawsuit on behalf of themselves and similarly situated individuals to challenge Arizona’s categorical prohibition of coverage of medically necessary treatments for gender dysphoria, specifically, male chest reconstruction surgery,” the complaint reads.
The pair argue that top surgery is a medically necessary treatment for their gender dysphoria and that by denying them this healthcare, Arizona is causing them physical and psychological harm.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights argues that given the Supreme Court’s recent historic decision making it illegal to fire workers for being gay or trans, Medicaid’s ban on transgender healthcare constitutes sex discrimination.
The lawsuit comes a year after a Wisconsin judge ruled that Medicaid must cover transgender healthcare, including hormone therapy and gender confirmation surgeries such as chest surgery.
The US district judge made the ruling in the case of four trans Wisconsin residents, who were challenging a 1997 provision that excluded coverage of “transsexual surgery” for Medicaid recipients.
The judge ruled that the provision was discriminatory.
Lawsuit against Arizona’s Medicaid ban on transgender healthcare.
Both of the claimants in the case against Arizona currently wear binders.
D.H. started wearing a binder to flatten his chest aged 12. He says this helps with his gender dysphoria but significantly impairs his ability to function, with the pain and discomfort caused by wearing the binder interfering with his ability to focus on school and homework.
Both D.H.’s paediatrician and his therapist have recommended he get top surgery, but this was denied by Medicaid because in Arizona, there’s been a categorical ban on transition-related coverage since 1982.
John also wears a binder to alleviate his gender dysphoria, which according to the lawsuit is “tight and restrictive”.
“Even with the binder, John feels uncomfortable being outside without layers of clothing. He wears a hooded sweatshirt nearly every day, including in the summer.
“John’s chest also hinders his social interactions. For example, John wears his binder and a t-shirt when at the pool, often having to answer uncomfortable questions about why he insists on wearing a t-shirt in the water.”
John’s healthcare team have also recommended he get top surgery, which again he can’t because of Arizona’s ban on transition healthcare.
The lawsuit says: “Arizona disregards the transition-related health care needs of Medicaid’s transgender beneficiaries. In doing so, Arizona exposes transgender people to significant and avoidable harms to their health and well-being, in violation of the US Constitution and federal law.”
It alleges that Arizona’s ban violates two provisions of the Medicaid Act: that states must provide “early and periodic screening, diagnostic and treatment’ for individuals under 21 before medical conditions become more complex and treatments become more costly; and the act’s comparability requirements, which say that any medically necessary treatment that would be given to one individual cannot be arbitrarily denied to another.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights is asking for the state to pay for the pair’s top surgeries now, before the court case begins.
An Idaho judge has granted an injunction against enforcement of the state’s discriminatory law excluding trans athletes from the student sports teams corresponding to their true gender.
The anti-trans bill, HB500, was signed into law by Republican governor Brad Little in the midst of the pandemic in March, alongside its sister bill HB509 that bars trans people from changing the gender marker on their birth certificate.
In June, a judge ruled that HB509 is a violation of transgender people’s constitutional rights, in a lawsuit filed against Idaho by LGBT+ advocacy group Lambda Legal.
And on Monday (August 17), another lawsuit against the anti-trans laws saw victory as a judge granted an injunction against enforcement of HB500 pending a case against it being heard in court.
District court judge David Nye said that the state’s interest was not justifiable but rather “an invalid interest of excluding transgender women and girls from women’s sports entirely”.
Nye’s order recognises that both HB500 and HB509 were not motivated by legitimate policy goals but purely “motivated by a desire for transgender exclusion”, said the Human Rights Campaign, one of the organisations fighting Idaho’s laws in court.
“Today’s decision is a huge, positive step forward for transgender athletes in Idaho and around the country,” said Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign.
“Everyone should be able to play sports, and gender identity should not be a barrier to participation.
“We’re hopeful that the court will ultimately make the right decision to strike down HB500 in totality, so that athletes such as Lindsay Hecox and others can continue to excel at the sports they’ve poured themselves into, without having their identities used as a wedge against them.”
Idaho anti-trans laws would put athletes at risk of genital exams.
HB500 would place an outright ban on trans girls and women playing on female sports teams, and would place all female athletes at risk of invasive genital examinations to “prove” that they are not trans before being allowed to play.
Judge Nye’s decision comes as athletes in Idaho begin preparing for the sports season ahead – including Lindsay Hecox, a cross-country runner on Boise State University’s women’s track team and one of the plaintiffs suing Idaho over its anti-trans law.
Before the judge granted the injunction against HB500, Hecox would have been prohibited from participating in the upcoming athletic season.
This would have put Idaho in conflict with the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s own trans-inclusive policy.
As the judge noted, HB500 puts Idaho in “stark contrast to the policies of elite athletic bodies… which allow transgender women to participate on female sports teams once certain specific criteria are met”.
Idaho is the first and only state to categorically ban trans women from participating in women’s sports.
A gay lawmaker and coronavirus survivor tried to donate plasma to help others – but he was turned away because of his sexuality.
Shevrin Jones, a Democratic member of the Florida House of Representatives, went to a blood drive on August 7 with his mother Bloneva Jones and his father Eric Jones.
The three decided to donate blood because they had recently recovered from COVID-19 and wanted to help others by donating their antibody-rich blood.
Writing on Twitter, Jones said: “I was blessed to get through COVID, and it’s only right that we bless someone else and give them a fighting chance to live also.
“It’s the right thing to do.”
Florida lawmaker Shevrin Jones was told he can’t donate blood because of his sexual orientation.
But Jones’ dreams were quickly shattered when he was turned away by OneBlood because of a government policy that requires queer men to practice celibacy for three months before donating blood.
After he was turned away, Shevrin wrote on Twitter that he was “disappointed” he could not donate blood because of his sexual orientation.
“I was ‘deferred’ for another time. The good news is, my mom, dad, brother and over 20 other people saved a life today!”
He added: “Too bad my blood plasma isn’t good enough.”
To make matters worse, the incident was later turned into a campaign tactic in an anonymous homophobic text campaign.
I was ‘deferred’ for another time. The good news is, my mom, dad, brother and over 20 other people saved a life today!
Jones, who is currently running to become Florida’s first Black gay senator, was shocked to discover that texts were sent out to voters in Senate District 35 last week saying he had been discriminated against for “homosexual contact”.
The text linked to a website set up where an article about his blood donation ban was copied word-for-word.
“It’s a shame that my opponents have stooped to this new low to try and win,” Jones told the Miami Herald.
“Rather than running off the issues that matter to the voters of our community, they have chosen to lob desperate attacks based on antiquated, discriminatory FDA policy… Hate never wins.”
Experts have urged the United States to overturn its ‘scientifically outdated’ blood donation ban.
Gay and bisexual men have been banned from donating blood in the United States since the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic was at its height.
The original ban prevented any man who had ever had sex with another man from donating blood for life – but it has been relaxed considerably since then.
Earlier this year, the food and drug administration (FDA) reduced the deferral period – meaning the amount of time a man must remain celibate before donating blood – from 12 months to three months.
In April, more than 500 doctors and experts in the United States wrote to the FDA urging them to overturn the “scientifically outdated ban”.
“While the FDA’s recent decision to shorten the prohibition window to three months is a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough in reversing the unscientific ban,” the letter said.
It had been several years since professor Joseph Palamar had seen that unmistakable “caveman face,” the telltale sign of an imminent overdose of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, or GHB.
Standing among throngs of concertgoers at a Brooklyn music venue last year, Palamar spotted the bulky man with the contorted face nearby. He was struggling to remain conscious.
“I’ve noticed that when people are meant to pass out and they keep forcing it, they make these very strange, primitive faces,” Palamar, an epidemiologist and associate professor of population health at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, told NBC News. “They look like they are in such euphoria it’s almost painful.”
Within minutes, the man succumbed, apparently to the suppressive effects of the drug, and collapsed to the floor. Security staff raced over and carried him away.
The ordeal reminded Palamar of New York’s sweaty nightclubs at the turn of the millennium, the same venues that had sparked his interest in studying drug use. Back then, overdoses, particularly on GHB, were so common that some clubs hired private ambulances to avoid 911 calls and police scrutiny. One club allegedly hid unconscious patrons in a back room without medical assistance.
Despite these efforts, the clubs didn’t go unnoticed. After a rash of overdoses across the United States in the late ’90s, Congress scheduled GHB as a controlled substance in 2000. Exposures to GHB reported to poison control centers fell almost immediately.
But 20 years on, a new generation of recreational users — a disproportionate number of them gay and lesbian, according to researchers — has rediscovered the drug. Recent indictments in a Texas federal court reveal that today’s networks for distributing GHB aren’t spread over local dealers but far-flung markets linking buyers to legal businesses with dubious motives. Social media and the world’s largest online marketplace are also tangled in this web. This illicit network generates millions of dollars each year and has spurred a small but growing crisis, for which federal regulators and the medical community appear ill-equipped and unprepared.
GHB 101
Occurring naturally in the body, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid was first synthesized in a lab in the 1960s. Although its application in medicine has always been limited, GHB has had various recreational uses. In the 1980s, health food stores marketed the compound as a dietary supplement. Then, in the ’90s, the drug found its way into American nightlife.
In small doses — mere milliliters — GHB produces feelings of relaxation and confusion and heightens sexual arousal, lending to its allure as a party drug. It can also cause amnesia and hallucinations.
While not particularly addictive, the drug has a steep dose-response relationship, meaning the difference between experiencing euphoria and losing consciousness is a matter of a few drops of the clear, viscous liquid. It is this quality of GHB that gives it the nickname “the date-rape drug,” although the compound is rarely a factor in sexual assault. Overdoses can result in coma and respiratory arrest, which to an unaccustomed observer may appear as if the affected person has only fallen asleep.
GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate) is a depressant, which means it slows down the messages traveling between the brain and the body.The Alcohol and Drug Foundation
GHB overdoses surged in the United States during the 1990s. In 1995, the Drug Abuse Warning Network recorded 145 emergency department visits for GHB-related illness in a single year. By 2000, this number was nearing 5,000. That same year, the American Association of Poison Control Centers logged some 2,000 exposures to GHB and its analogues as well as six deaths.
In reacting to the growing crisis, Congress passed the Hillory J. Farias and Samantha Reid Date-Rape Drug Prohibition Act of 2000, which authorized the attorney general to list GHB as a Schedule I controlled substance. The law, named after two teenagers who allegedly died from GHB overdoses after unknowingly ingesting the drug, also targeted GHB analogues, or chemicals that are “substantially similar” to the illegal compound. Two of these — gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4-butanediol (BDO) — were named in the act’s text.
Once ingested, GBL and BDO metabolize into GHB and have similar clinical effects. But unlike GHB, both chemicals have widespread use in industrial manufacturing, which prevents them from being regulated as controlled substances. Under the Farias-Reid act, GBL became subjected to greater control by the Drug Enforcement Administration, while BDO was left unregulated. Even so, under the new law, the sale and distribution of either GBL or BDO could result in criminal prosecution if the seller knew the buyer would consume the chemical.
New market for an old drug
After the federal government targeted GHB, reports of its use began to fall. By 2005, poison control centers in the U.S. only recorded some 550 exposures to GHB and one death.
During that same period, online retail grew to offer new avenues for buying and selling GHB and its analogues under the guise of legitimate business.
In 2002, in its first major action against the sale of GHB, codenamed Operation Webslinger, federal agents busted four drug-trafficking rings that had used the internet to connect with buyers. One of these operations, a mother-son team in Missouri, was accused of setting up a limited liability company called Miracle Cleaning Products to deal BDO online. Through their business, the duo could legally purchase the chemical in bulk from two U.S.-based suppliers and then distribute smaller quantities to their customers throughout the U.S. When law enforcement finally arrested the family, federal agents recovered 2,200 gallons of BDO and seized $300,000 in cash. Ultimately, the court sentenced the mother to 14 years in federal prison and the son to more than eight years.
Congress again took action by passing the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act in 2006. In addition to establishing the national sex offender registry, the law made it illegal to use the internet to sell GHB or its analogues to any person without a legal prescription to use the drug or any business not authorized to handle the chemical. Anyone convicted of using the internet to sell these compounds to unauthorized buyers could face a fine and 20 years imprisonment.
The new law also authorized the attorney general to develop regulations for record-keeping and reporting by anyone handling BDO. To date, the Department of Justice has not established these requirements.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which is part of the DOJ, told NBC News the it “has not promulgated any regulations that were authorized but not required by legislation,” adding that “1,4-butanediol is produced in large volumes for a multitude of legitimate industrial uses, none of which are intended for human consumption.”
Last month, federal agents raided Right Price Chemicals, a wholesaler in Texas, and arrested nine individuals who were accused of distributing BDO for human consumption beginning in 2015. According to the DOJ, the defendants had used the internet to sell the compound to buyers in 48 states. Some of these buyers then dealt smaller quantities to other users.
In just four years, sales of BDO generated $4.5 million for Right Price Chemicals, according to the Department of Justice. Prosecutors also claim that the product caused at least two deaths.
A lawyer for one of the defendants told NBC News that Right Price Chemicals warned customers on its website and its products that BDO was not for human consumption.
“Simply because people misuse a product does not place criminal liability on the retailer of that product,” Ryan Gertz, the lawyer, said. “Right Price Chemicals is a legitimate business that maintained thorough records, paid taxes, employed experts to advise them about proper practices and openly consulted with the government about its operations.”
The defendants in the case have pleaded not guilty and attest that they only distributed BDO for legitimate, legal purposes. If convicted, they face a minimum of 20 years, and up to life, in federal prison.
This BDO “cleaner” was for sale through the Amazon and Walmart online marketplaces as recently as early August. “Not for human consumption” is printed on the bottle. In the interest of public health, NBC News has blurred the company’s name from the label.
Right Price Chemicals is not the only business that has cashed in on BDO. Companies purportedly based in Europe, China and India market the compound on English-language websites. Stateside, companies have also found success by selling BDO on Amazon, the world’s largest online marketplace. As of last week, two third-party sellers offered consumer-sized quantities of BDO on Amazon (Amazon removed these products after NBC News reached out to the company for comment).
In the interest of public health, NBC News has chosen not to name the companies or share their websites and social media accounts.
One of these sellers markets its products as an “organic reagent” and “heavy-duty cleaner” with multiple at-home uses, though the Drug Enforcement Administration maintains that 1,4-butanediol “has no household applications.”
On Amazon, the companies’ products were much pricier than traditional cleaning supplies. Whereas most heavy-duty cleaners on Amazon retail for about $15, BDO of a comparable size went for over $100.
Both sellers are legally registered in different Midwestern states as limited liability companies. The name of one suggests it is a chemical wholesaler; however, it only distributes 1,4-butanediol. The other began as an all-natural soap company in 2015 but switched to selling BDO via its website and Amazon last year.
Prior to early August, buyers could also purchase BDO through the website of one of the sellers using cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin.
One seller included a legal disclaimer on its Amazon product page stating that its BDO was not for human consumption. Nevertheless, commenters on several blogs, including Reddit, have discussed purchasing BDO as a GHB substitute through Amazon.
NBC News attempted to contact multiple people who allegedly purchased BDO from one of the third-party sellers on Amazon. Only one agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. This buyer confirmed purchasing 1,4-butanediol on Amazon in order to ingest it and said the seller did not ask for justification when placing the order. The buyer said that the day after consuming the BDO, they felt “absolutely terrible.” The compound, this individual said, caused them to feel fatigued, nauseous and confused.
Shortly after NBC News began contacting these alleged buyers, the third-party seller removed images of BDO bottles and packaging labels from its Instagram account. The company also removed its offering of BDO from its website and instead provided links directing customers to its product pages on the Amazon and Walmart marketplaces.
Amazon prohibits third-party sellers from using its marketplace to sell scheduled controlled substances, like GHB, and List I chemicals, like GBL. BDO is neither. Still, Amazon specifies that its list of restricted products is “not all-inclusive” and the sale of “unsafe” products is strictly prohibited.
“Third party sellers are independent businesses and are required to follow our selling guidelines when selling in our store. Those who do not will be subject to action including potential removal of their account,” an Amazon spokesperson told NBC News. “The products in question are no longer available.”
Walmart also prohibits third-party sellers from selling controlled substances and “products that are subject to regulatory action or criminal enforcement.” Like Amazon, Walmart removed 1,4-butanediol products from its website following NBC News’ request for comment.
In a statement, a Walmart spokesperson said: “We strive to make our third-party Marketplace a trusted destination for safe, high quality products. We require our third-party sellers to comply with all applicable laws and our prohibited products policy. We removed the product 1,4-butanediol from Marketplace and have taken steps to prevent sellers from listing similar items going forward.”
NBC News tried to contact both companies that formerly sold 1,4-butanediol on the Amazon and Walmart marketplaces. Neither responded.
One of the sellers, however, appears to have moved to another major online marketplace after being removed from Amazon and Walmart.com. This marketplace, whose name NBC News will not publish in the interest of public safety, makes sellers’ purchase histories publicly available and shows the seller earned over $2,670 in just 48 hours this week from selling 35 units of BDO.
The comeback of a ‘party drug’
As the online market for GHB and its analogues has grown in recent years, researchers have seen an uptick in the drugs’ recreational use.
From 2016 to 2019, Palamar and Katherine Keyes, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, surveyed adults at electronic dance music parties in New York City to track relative changes in drug use. In that three-year span, they found that the rate of GHB use increased from one in 100 to roughly one in 25, a relative increase of 300 percent.
But for certain demographic groups, the use of GHB is far more widespread. In another survey taken from 2016 to 2018, Palamar and a group of researchers at NYU and Rutgers University found that both gays and lesbians at electronic dance parties were at higher odds for GHB use than straight patrons. According to the study, gay men were nearly 12 times more likely than heterosexual men to self-report GHB use within the past year. Lesbians were nearly seven times more likely than straight women. While gays and lesbians reported comparable or higher rates of use across most surveyed drug types, the difference in GHB use between gay and straight attendees was by far the greatest.
It was in nightlife that Jon, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy, discovered GHB.
As a newcomer to New York City in 2013, Jon, like many young gay men, found a community in nightclubs where he began taking GHB with friends. At first, the drug was only a cheap weekend indulgence.
After drinking one glass of water mixed with GHB, “I wouldn’t need to drink for the rest of the night,” Jon said. “That’s a very attractive selling point.”
But the party didn’t always end on Monday. What had started as only a weekend exploit soon became a weekday occurrence and eventually a physical dependence on the drug.
For several years, no one — including Jon’s boyfriend at the time — knew of this dependence. Even when Jon acknowledged his problem to himself, he still didn’t reveal it to others.
“I wanted to detox without anyone knowing, because at that point I knew I was only doing it for maintenance,” he said. “I was only doing it to curb the withdrawals.”
These were often debilitating. If Jon didn’t ingest GHB on a regular basis, his body would begin to show symptoms akin to alcohol withdrawal. He would sweat and shake. His anxiety would soar to the point of confusion. As a young person trying to make something of himself in New York, Jon needed to maintain his dependence on GHB. The alternative — abruptly stopping his GHB use — was to risk a coma and even death.
So, Jon continued to consume 1.25 milliliters of GHB every two hours for three and a half years.
When he finally sought help at a rehabilitation center last summer, Jon encountered a different problem altogether.
“They had never heard of the drug,” he said of the rehab’s staff. “They had no idea what it was. They didn’t know how to treat it. They didn’t know how to deal with it. Nothing.”
Ultimately, Jon’s doctors treated him with diazepam, which has been shown to be effectivein treating GHB dependence. As of today, Jon has been in recovery for over a year.
The ignorance around GHB that Jon experienced in rehab is not unique to a single health care provider or institution. It pervades the entire society.
“It’s called ‘generational forgetting,’” said Palamar, using a term coined by the social psychologist Lloyd Johnston. “One generation could be fully aware of the potential adverse effects of a drug, but then the next generation just doesn’t know.”
This “forgetting” may also contribute to the apparent rise in GHB use among gays and lesbians.
“In the gay community, people don’t tend to go out for a very long period of their lives,” said Guy Smith, producer of the popular gay Pines Party on New York’s Fire Island. “A gay generation in nightlife is about 10 years, so the conversation that people have about a drug in any particular place will only last that long. There is no conventional wisdom.”
Like Palamar, Smith came of age in New York nightlife at the turn of the millennium when GHB overdoses spiked. In recent years, Smith said, use of the drug has started peaking again.
Spurring this rise are industries, like online retail and social media, which came of age in that same timeframe and which therefore lack experience with the drug.
In such a lax environment, the front lines for addressing GHB abuse have shifted to unlikely places. Several nightclubs and parties, including Guy Smith’s events, now enforce a zero-tolerance policy on GHB. The move is not without its naysayers.
But Smith and Palamar stress that these policies save lives.
Both men witnessed GHB devastate New York nightlife when clubs ignored problematic drug use in the early 2000s. Young opponents of zero-tolerance policies, Palamar said, were “not around when people were dropping like flies” and “not there with all the deaths.” And he hopes they never will be.
Idaho officials’ latest attempt to ban transgender people from changing the gender on their birth certificates violates a court order issued two years ago, a federal judge said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy Dale first ruled in 2018 that a law barring the birth certificate changes was unconstitutional, and she banned state officials from implementing it. Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers passed new legislation that did largely the same thing.
That law signed by Republican Gov. Brad Little went into effect on July 1. It set strict criteria for changing gender on a birth certificate, including a requirement that a person first obtain a court order, and only allowed people to seek the court order if the sex listed on their birth certificate was mistakenly entered, entered fraudulently or under duress.
As a result, the state Department of Health and Welfare created procedures to implement the new law, including revising an application form and the department’s instructions for changing the sex listed on a birth certificate.
In her order Friday, Dale said the new procedure does the same thing as the old one by effectively preventing transgender people from changing the sex on their birth certificates.
“The plain language of the statute, as quoted, forecloses any avenue for a transgender individual to successfully challenge the sex listed on their Idaho birth certificate to reflect their gender identity,” Dale wrote.
Lambda Legal represented two transgender women who filed the original lawsuit that led to Dale’s first ruling. The advocacy group successfully argued the state’s ban on birth certificate changes for transgender people violated their constitutionally protected right to privacy, liberty and freedom from compelled speech.
“It is astonishing that the Idaho Legislature and Gov. Little plowed forward with resuscitating this dangerous and archaic ban in direct defiance of multiple court orders that repeatedly ordered the government to stop discriminating against transgender people,” said Nora Huppert, an attorney with Lambda Legal. “What was discriminatory in 2018 remains discriminatory today.”
Spokespeople with the Department of Health and Welfare and the governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Another anti-transgender law passed this year also is being litigated. It bars transgender and intersex girls and women from competing in women’s sports. Boise State University student Lindsay Hecox is suing the state in federal court, contending the law is discriminatory and would prevent her from trying out for the women’s cross country team because she is transgender.
Two transgender teens sued Arizona’s Medicaid agency Thursday, alleging their civil rights are being violated by the state health insurance program’s ban on gender-affirming surgeries.
The suit, filed Thursday in an Arizona federal courthouse, seeks to establish a class action on behalf of the teens — known only as John Doe, 15, and D.H., 17, and other transgender Arizonan Medicaid recipients under age 21 who seek chest reconstruction as treatment for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The complaint estimates there are at least 100 Arizonans who would be affected by the suit.
The suit defines the class as “individuals who have been unable and will be unable” to obtain coverage through the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System “for medically necessary male chest reconstruction surgery because of the [ban], and as a result, have faced or will face delayed or denied access to these medically necessary treatments.”
The claims say the state’s 1982 ban on “gender reassignment surgeries” violates the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination provisions, the Medicaid Actand the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
According to the suit, the two came out as transgender years ago and since then have faced significant challenges as puberty began to change their bodies. It also states the reliance on chest binders to create a more masculine appearance forced D.H. to abandon his beloved hobby of dance and resulted in John Doe wearing a heavy hoodie through Arizona’s sweltering summers.
Both teens’ physicians recommended chest reconstruction surgery, and the state’s 1982 ban on Medicaid funding for “gender reassignment surgeries” means that as Medicaid recipients, they are ineligible for the medically necessary surgery even if a doctor recommends it, according to the suit.
Arizona is among 10 states across the U.S. that explicitly ban transgender health care coverage for Medicaid recipients, according to Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., explicitly cover this type of care, while 18 states have no explicit policy regarding trans health coverage.
Asaf Orr, an attorney working on the case and the director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Transgender Youth Project, said there is “no legitimate justification for Arizona’s refusal to provide this critical care to transgender Medicaid recipients.”
“Instead, excluding that care creates unnecessary barriers that prevent transgender young people from thriving in every aspect of their lives and can cause lifelong harms,” he said in a statement.
In June’s landmark Supreme Court decision Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the high court found that the Civil Rights Act’s ban on employment discrimination “on the basis of … sex” also bans employment discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender identity.
“In Bostock, the United States Supreme Court unequivocally held that the definition of ‘sex’ under federal law includes discrimination against transgender people,” Orr wrote in an email to NBC News. “By maintaining and enforcing a categorical exclusion for surgical treatment for gender dysphoria, AHCCCS is impermissibly discriminating against transgender Medicaid recipients on the basis of sex and, as a result, the Court should enjoin AHCCCS from denying coverage under that exclusion.”
The suit notes that Medicaid requires that recipients under age 21 receive “Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment” so that major “medical, vision, dental, and hearing” problems are diagnosed and treated early in life. It then states that “[s]urgery to treat gender dysphoria, including male chest reconstruction surgery” is such a service.
Heidi Capriotti, a spokesperson for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, declined to comment.
