More than half of homeless young people in Atlanta, Georgia, have been victims of human trafficking and LGBT+ and African American youth are most at risk, according to a new study.
The Atlanta Youth Count 2018 study by Georgia State University sociology professor Eric Wright found that there were an estimated 3,372 homeless young people in Atlanta between the ages of 14 and 25.ADVERTISING
Human trafficking is defined in the report as “acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them either for sexual acts or labour services”.
Overall, 54 per cent of homeless youth had experienced some form of human trafficking in their lifetime, and 37 per cent had experienced it since becoming homeless.
African American, black and multiracial young people were at high risk of trafficking, as 56 per cent of homeless youth counted in the study were black or African American and 32 per cent were multiracial.
Looking just at LGB youth, these numbers increased. 61 per cent of lesbian, gay or bisexual homeless youth had experienced human trafficking in their lifetime and 44 per cent had been trafficked while homeless.
For trans and non-binary young people experiencing homelessness the figures jumped even more dramatically.
71 per cent had experienced trafficking during their lifetimes, and 65 per cent had been victims of it while homeless.
The report said cisgender young women are often seen as the main targets, but that is not the case.
The report states that LGBT+ homeless youth “require special attention in the provision of safe and secure services”, and that “gendered definitions of trafficking need to be expanded”.
It continues: “While cisgender female individuals are often conceptualised as the main targets of trafficking vulnerabilities, transgender respondents report significantly higher rates of trafficking than their cisgender counterparts (including both male and female cisgender respondents).
“The full spectrum of gender identity must be understood and accepted in order to fully serve transgender youth and effectively address the needs of trafficked youth.”
Of those surveyed between September and November 2018, seven per cent were trans or non-binary and 24 per cent identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual. Four per cent identified as an orientation other than LGB or straight.
For the first time last June, residents in Heber City, Utah, saw their downtown adorned in rainbows.
Sky Elizabeth Smith, 15, remembered driving with her family through the tiny Rocky Mountain town in northern Utah where she grew up, and finding herself surrounded by dozens of rainbow banners on both sides of Main Street.
“It made me feel really, really happy,” she told NBC News.
Smith, a high school student who identifies as pansexual, attempted suicide last year after what she described as routine bullying from classmates. Some classmates, she recalled, told her that Jesus was going to return and kill anyone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer.
When Smith’s mother, Elizabeth Gale Seiler, a day care worker and lifelong member of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, saw her daughter’s reaction to the banners, she was overcome with emotion.
“She looked at me, and she said, ‘I’m not alone here,’ and I just started to cry. In fact, I’m going to cry right now,” Seiler, 35, said. “It was the first time in this valley that she has felt accepted.”
A devastating trend
Youth suicide rates have tripled in Utah since 2007, according to the most recent data available from the Utah Department of Health. The problem is so severe that Republican Gov. Gary Herbert spearheaded a task force to combat the issue.
Nationwide, youth suicide skyrocketed 56 percent from 2007 to 2017, according to a newly released report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it’s unclear what’s behind the increase. LGBTQ youth are almost five times as likely to attempt suicide compared to their heterosexual and cisgender peers, according to the Trevor Project, a national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth.
Many advocates believe LGBTQ youth represent a large portion of suicides in Utah, but because public health data do not track sexuality and gender identity, there is no data that confirms their suspicions, according to Hillary McDaniel, a manager for the Utah Pride Center, Utah’s largest LGBTQ organization.
“When someone dies by suicide, their family often knows by a note or just knowing them that that was the issue, because they were gay, or lesbian, or transgender, bisexual, and they didn’t have that support or were being bullied,” McDaniel said.
Ironically, Utah’s large population of Mormons, who represent about 61 percent of the state, have become increasingly lenient on the issue, Allen said, with more and more Mormon leaders showing a willingness to work with LGBTQ advocates.
“If you look at public opinion polling, Mormons fall somewhere between white evangelical Christians and mainline Protestants on LGBTQ issues,” Allen said. “So it means that Mormons aren’t going to be quite as hard-line as maybe religious folks in the Bible Belt and parts of the Deep South, but they aren’t going to quite go to West Coast levels of LGBTQ acceptance just yet.”
In 2015, the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature passed “the Utah compromise,” a law that made Utah the only solidly conservative state to pass some protections in housing and employment for LGBTQ people. Two years later, Utah became the first of eight conservative states to repeal a “No Homo Promo” law that prohibited discussing LGBTQ issues in schools. And after an attempt to ban conversion therapy failed in the Legislature, the state’s Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing issued a draft rule to prohibit therapists from practicing conversion therapy on minors. If Herbert adopts the rule without changes, Utah will become the 19th state and the first reliably conservative state to ban the practice.
However, in a statement released last week, the politically powerful Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opposed the proposed ban, stating that the rule would interfere with psychologists’ religious beliefs, and said the measure “does not account for important realities of gender identity in the development of children.”
Small towns divided
Not everyone in Heber City was pleased to see Main Street bedecked in rainbow banners. Like many small towns in Utah, the population is largely Mormon, and is divided over LGBTQ issues, according to Mayor Kelleen Potter.
On June 4, a day after the banners were installed, Heber City residents gathered for a City Council meeting to voice divided opinions over the flags, Potter said. Some threatened to tear them down, she added, while others were overjoyed.
“There were a lot of really tender stories of people contacting me, telling me they’ve grown up in Heber, some of the difficulty growing up as an LGBTQ person in that community, and how they never believed that they would see something like that,” Potter recalled.
In the following weeks, Potter fielded angry phone calls and emails from community members who felt the flags were inappropriate. She said some people saw them as an attempt by LGBTQ advocates to use city-owned property to send a “political” message, an idea she dismissed.
“There is no one advocating for any legislation, or anything,” she said of her city. “This is a civil rights issue. It’s just a message of love and inclusion. It’s good for our community.”
Allison Phillips Belnap, 46, a local real estate attorney, raised $3,553 through a GoFundMe campaign to purchase the rainbow banners for Heber City. Phillips Belnap left the Mormon Church in 2017 after coming out as a lesbian. As one who had attempted suicide, she said she purchased the banners because she wanted to show other members of the local LGBTQ community they were not alone.
After the flags were installed, residents began reaching out to Phillips Belnap on social media to say thanks. One message was from Elizabeth Gale Seiler, still distraught over her daughter Sky’s suicide attempt.
“I think that’s what makes it worth it,” Phillips Belnap said. “And it meant more to me than I ever would have anticipated starting out. I didn’t realize what a big effect it would have on individuals and the community.”
A similar debate erupted in St. George, a small desert town in Utah’s southwest corner, almost 300 miles from Heber City. During the early weeks of September, commuters there were greeted by rainbow banners on either side of St. George Boulevard, a main thoroughfare that cuts through the city center.
Pride of Southern Utah, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, paid for the banners, which were installed on about 30 lampposts along the boulevard. The group also installed banners in the towns of Cedar City and Hurricane.
Inspired by the banners in Heber City, Pride of Southern Utah raised more than $6,100 on GoFundMe to purchase the banners.
“Within 20 hours, we had more than twice as much as what we needed,” Stephen Lambert, director of Pride of Southern Utah, said. “It was very humbling.”
The group filed for a permit to install the banners, which were part of the group’s Pride Week celebration spanning a week in mid-September.
The banners set off waves of approval and outrage from residents of St. George. In an email circulated on social media, a councilwoman referred to the flags as “political statements,” igniting a debate over whether an ordinance surrounding public signage should be reevaluated.
Lambert refuted the idea that his group has political motivations.
“Pride of Southern Utah is not a political organization,” he said. “We are not out there trying to change policy. Our purpose is to be a support group for the LGBTQ+ community, to be a resource for them, to be a safe place for them. That’s all.”
As the controversy mounted, city officials received at least two informal inquiries from groups interested in installing their own banners on the city-owned lampposts, according to St. George Mayor John Pike. Pike declined to specify the names of the organizations, but he said one was a white supremacist group and the other was interested in installing flags with President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
St. George put a moratorium on applications for city lamppost banners until officials could revisit the city’s policy around what can be displayed on city-owned property, according to Pike.
The rainbow banners in Heber City prompted similar inquiries, according to Mayor Potter. She said at least one group inquired about installing anti-abortion banners on city-owned lampposts. While Heber City has not placed a moratorium on flags, Potter said the town will likely need to create an official policy that specifies what kinds of messages can be displayed on city-owned property.
Rainbow flags vandalized
Throughout Utah this year, rainbow flags adorned more than city lampposts. From summer through fall, flags were staked in the front yards of hundreds of homes in urban and rural neighborhoods.
Behind the effort was Project Rainbow, a small Salt Lake City-based nonprofit.
For $15, Utahans could rent rainbow flags from Project Rainbow during the duration of their city’s Pride festivities, which took place at various times throughout the summer and fall. Volunteers from Project Rainbow traversed the state to stake flags in customers’ front yards on PVC poles.
This year, the group raised $17,000 for the Utah Pride Center in Salt Lake City, and several thousand more for smaller LGBTQ groups throughout the state, including Pride of Southern Utah, according to Lucas Horns, who founded Project Rainbow in 2017.
Horns, 25, a professional ballet dancer who lives in Salt Lake, said the group staked 1,400 flags in the city and hundreds more throughout Ogden, Logan, St. George and Provo — more than doubling the number from last year.
Horns said Project Rainbow received backlash in response to the flags on social media, with some people accusing the group of “forcing their beliefs” on local communities. He estimated that about 10 percent of the flags Project Rainbow staked throughout Utah were stolen or vandalized.
“It’s sad that it’s been turned into a political symbol,” Horns said. “People have roped it into the dichotomy of our nation and I don’t think it has to be.”
Shally Sorensen, 46, a hair stylist who lives in St. George, came home one day in mid-September to see that her rainbow flag had disappeared from her property.
Sorensen, a mother of four, said she ordered the flag from Project Rainbow to show support for her nephew, who is gay. A few of her neighbors’ flags had also been thrown down or vandalized, she said.
“My girls and I, all of us cried, because we had a lot of sadness that week,” Sorensen, who has teenage daughters, said.
Days later, in an empty lot next to Sorensen’s house, a friend discovered a rainbow flag in a porta potty, soiled and partially burned. Instead of calling the police, Sorensen invited family and neighbors to her home to draw “messages of love” in colorful chalk on her driveway. About 40 to 50 people showed up, she said, including the local news media.
“It was beautiful to see that many people come together just to show love and support,” she said.
Sorensen washed the flag and put it back in her yard. Six days later, the flag vanished for the last time.
“I do know that I think there was a lot of good that came from all of this despite the yucky that came out,” Sorensen said. “It caused a lot of people to have conversations about what the flag means and that was really a good thing.”
‘Then came the flags’
Despite some backlash against the flags, advocates say Utah is warming to LGBTQ rights.
Mormon families are increasingly beginning to accept their LGBTQ children, according to Allen. Driving much of the change, she said, is Mormonism’s unique focus on family togetherness.
In recent years, a burgeoning online network of Mormon mothers known as the “Mama Dragons” emerged to help parents in the Mormon community understand their LGBTQ kids. Founded in 2014, the group has grown to more than 3,000 members throughout the country.
“I think it’s really telling that Mama Dragons came out of Mormonism,” Allen said. “You have these amazing moms who decided they were going to be really vocal and stand by their kids.”
Both Potter, who has a gay son and a transgender daughter, and Elizabeth Gale Seiler are proud members of the group.
“They’ve really helped me with some struggles I have with balancing how to help Sky through the struggles she’s been having with the bullying situation,” Seiler said.
Sky Elizabeth Smith has joined a newly formed a gay-straight alliance at her high school, and is doing much better, according to her mother.
“It’s been a real struggle,” Seiler said between tears. “But we make it through. She makes it through. She’s proud of who she is. She doesn’t hide who she is.”
Smith said the bullying she endured at school last year was “really bad.” One boy, she said, told her to “kill myself.”
“Then came the flags,” Smith said, recalling that day in June when she was surrounded by rainbow banners in downtown Heber City. “It just made me realize that there are people in this town and out there that actually care about us.”
The parents of murdered gay man Matthew Shepard snubbed a Trump administration ceremony in his honour, accusing the GOP-led Department of Justice of exploiting his memory.
A ceremony was held at the Department of Justice on Thursday to mark ten years since the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a law signed by president Obama that extended federal hate crime laws to cover LGBT+ people.
The law is partly named in memory of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in Wyoming in 1998 in a homophobic attack that saw his killers escape hate crime charges.
Shepard’s parents, Judy and Dennis Shepard, skipped the ceremony, and angrily denounced the Trump administration’s attempt to take advantage of their son’s memory while fighting at the Supreme Court against protectionsfor LGBT+ employees.
Parents of Matthew Shepard blast ‘hypocritical’ attorney general William Barr.
In a letter, the couple denounced attorney general William Barr, writing: “We find it interesting and hypocritical that he would invite us to this event commemorating a hate crime law named after our son and Mr Byrd, while, at the same time, asking the Supreme Court to allow the legalised firing of transgender employees.”
“If you believe that employers should have the right to terminate transgender employees, just because they are transgender, then you believe they are lesser than and not worthy of protection.”
“If so, you need not invite us to future events at the Department of Justice that are billed as celebrating the law that protects these same individuals from hate crimes. Either you believe in equality for all or you don’t.
“We do not honour our son by kowtowing to hypocrisy.”
Attorney general Barr also did not attend the event at the Department of Justice.
Judy and Dennis Shepard thanks federal employees for fighting ‘uphill battle’ against Trump administration.
The Shepards paid tribute to employees within the Department of Justice who “truly believe in protecting all Americans from injustice”, adding: “We understand how frustrating and thankless it is when you are fighting an uphill battle under today’s political climate and with little or no support or assistance from the administration.”
The couple added: “We don’t want to see another incident or life lost as we lost Matt. Any loss of life, any loss of a job, any loss of desire to work towards fulfilling a person’s dreams and goals because of hate related words or actions is a loss to the local community where that person lives, a loss to the state where that person lives, and a loss to this country.
“We look forward to a re-focus on the causes of hate crimes and the reduction of hate crime incidents as America changes direction and moves forward towards a more equal and just country.”
Shortly after Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi died by suicide in 2010, Canadian teen Brittany McMillan decided to do something about it: She created a Facebook event calling on people to wear purple — the “spirit” color of the rainbow pride flag — on the third Thursday of October to show that they stand against anti-LGBTQ bullying.
By the time the first Spirit Day took place on Oct. 20, 2010, it was already a worldwide phenomenon.
“Since then, it has evolved into more than just wearing purple, but ‘going purple,’ which is really quite amazing,” McMillan told NBC News in 2016.
Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, the LGBTQ media advocacy organization, said Spirit Day had become “a megaphone for allies to send a unified message of acceptance and support to LGBTQ youth each year.”
“In today’s divisive culture and political climate,” she said, “LGBTQ people and allies need to be louder than ever to outshine bullies and tell young people that they will always be supported just as they are.”
As in past years, celebrities across the U.S. and beyond — from movie stars to sports teams — have shared messages of hope and empowerment with LGBTQ youth on Thursday, Spirit Day 2019.
And as a sign of how far Brittany McMillan’s dream has come, this year, several 2020 presidential candidates also shared their messages to LGBTQ youth.
“You’re incredible, you’re as good and better than anybody else, and don’t let people try to tell you you’re not,” former Vice President Joe Biden said. “Remember that, you’re special.”
In his Spirit Day video, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, noted that when he was in high school, “there was literally not one out person that I knew of.”
“When you do speak up, when you are willing to be yourself — which is not an easy thing — know that you are having an impact on other people that are looking to you who you might not even realize,” Buttigieg continued. “Be strong, be yourself, and know that it gets better.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told LGBTQ youth, “You have friends and you have people that have your back.”
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., let LGBTQ youth know they’re “not alone.”
“So do not ever silently suffer and know that you are deserving of respect and dignity and safety, and we will always fight for that,” Harris said in her video.
This year, the 10th annual Spirit Day, the event is more widely observed than ever, even as bullying remains a stubbornly common experience for LGBTQ youth. GLSEN’s 2017 National School Climate Survey found that 70 percent of LGBTQ students say they have been verbally harassed, and over half didn’t report it because they doubted adults in charge would intervene. In that same survey, 60 percent of those who did report bullying say that school staff either did nothing or told the reporting student to “ignore it.”
As awareness of the impact of bullying has spread, thanks in part to groups like the Tyler Clementi Foundation, several cases of LGBTQ suicides have made national headlines as examples of the dangerous consequences of bullying, which increasingly takes place online.
There was 9-year-old Jamel Myles from Denver who died by suicideafter classmates bullied him for being gay. He had come out to his mother the summer before fourth grade and wore false fingernails on the first days of school.
And then there was Nigel Shelby, an Alabama high school freshman who died by suicide after facing bullying from classmates and unsympathetic school administrators who allegedly told him being gay was “a choice.” His mother, Camika Shelby, said administrators knew her son was having suicidal thoughts and did not tell her. Just last month, Tennessee teen Channing Smith died by suicide after sexually explicit texts he had sent to another boy were shared on social media.
Facing growing awareness that bullying increasingly takes place in cyberspace, Instagram took a stab at reducing it on the platform with a new set of features that would use artificial intelligence to tell commenters their posts are abusive, and also allow users to discreetly mute abusers.
In a rare display of intraparty fighting over LGBT rights, a senior Democratic aide is accusing Senate Democrats of buckling in efforts to overturn the transgender military ban as part of closed-door negotiations for major defense spending legislation.
Amid negotiations for the fiscal year 2020 defense authorization bill, the senior Democratic aide late Tuesday faulted Senate Democrats for failing to push for inclusion of the “Harry Truman” amendment introduced by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and approved by the U.S. House as part of the legislation.
“There is deep concern that Senate Democrats led by Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, are not fighting hard enough to retain the reversal of Trump’s transgender military service ban in the final NDAA conference report,” the aide said. “Ten House Republicans joined with House Democrats to pass the Speier amendment. We hope Senate Democrats will reverse course and make this a top priority in the negotiations.”
The “Harry Truman” amendment, named for the executive order President Truman signed in 1948 to desegregate the military, would reverse the transgender military ban the Defense Department implemented in April as a result of direction from President Trump.
The measure would not only restore transgender military service, but prohibit the U.S. armed forces from discriminating against LGBT service members.
The amendment states the military must consider applicants based on gender-neutral occupational standards and military occupational specialty, but “may not include any criteria relating to the race, color, national origin, religion, or sex (including gender identity or sexual orientation) of an individual.”
Further, the amendment states any Defense Department personnel policy for members of the armed forces “shall ensure equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces, without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, and sex (including gender identity and sexual orientation).”
The House approved the amendment in July as part of the defense authorization bill by a bipartisan 242-187 vote. The Senate version contains no similar language. Conferees charged with hammering out a final conference report for the defense authorization bill with have to make a decision on the legislation.
Chip Unruh, a Reed spokesperson, disputed the notion of Senate Democrats buckling on the measure, calling the source “inaccurate.”
“Sen. Reed’s history of supporting LGBTQ troops goes back to his vote against President Clinton’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy,” Unruh said.
Keeping the language in the final version of the bill will be challenging. Although the Democratic-controlled House agreed to the measure, it would have to make it through a Republican-controlled Senate and avoid President Trump’s veto when the larger bill reached his desk — a tall order to fill given Trump will likely seek to defend the ban he instituted.
The “Harry Truman” amendment was one of three LGBT-related amendments the House included in its version of the defense bill.
Another is an amendment introduced by Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) seeking a report from the Defense Department on waivers granted under the transgender ban. The third is an amendment from Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) seeking to ensure service members expelled under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” have honorable discharges in their records.
It’s unclear when conferees will finish negotiations on the defense bill. Conferees began negotiations late last month and the final conference report is expected when all final signatures are compiled.
Aaron Belkin, director of the San Francisco-based Palm Center, said inclusion of the Speier amendment in the conference report was essential.
“Military leaders have explained time and again that discipline and good order depend on having one set of standards that applies equally to all service members,” Belkin said. “Given the Trump administration’s reinstatement of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ for transgender troops, a statutory solution is the quickest path for restoring inclusive policy. Inclusive policy succeeded for nearly three years because it held transgender troops to the same standards as all other service members.”
Some 21% of LGBTQ adults aren’t registered to vote, according to a study released this week by the University of California, Los Angeles’ Williams Institute. That’s compared to an estimated 17% of non-LGBTQ adults.
The finding, part of a larger poll of 2,237 people that measured LGBTQ voters’ demographic characteristics and political attitudes, came as LGBTQ rights have taken center stage in the national conversation. Meanwhile, Friday marked National Coming Out Day.
Some LGBTQ voters already face an uphill battle making their voices heard at the ballot box.
“Voter suppression has primarily targeted voters of color, who also happen to include LGBTQ Americans, who far too often face disproportionate barriers in accessing their right to vote,” Human Rights Campaign president Alphonso David told the Washington Post after HRC, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ rights, backed a voting-rights initiative led by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
For instance, David said, voter-ID laws in some states requiring that a person’s documentation match their birth-assigned gender could preclude a transgender person from casting a ballot. While about 137,000 transgender people who had transitioned in the U.S. were eligible to vote ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, more than half might not have had documentation or ID that correctly reflected their gender, the Williams Institute found in August 2018.
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Half of the LGBTQ adults registered to vote next November said they were Democrats, 22% were independents and 15% were Republicans.
With that said, almost 9 million LGBTQ adults are eligible and registered to vote next November, according to the most recent poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in collaboration with the Williams Institute and Thomson Reuters. Half said they were Democrats, while 22% were independents and 15% were Republicans.
The sample included 136 registered LGBTQ voters and 1,836 registered non-LGBTQ voters.
LGBTQ rights feature in the 2020 presidential race
The analysis by the Williams Institute, a UCLA Law think tank that researches sexual orientation, gender identity and public policy, comes ahead of a high-stakes election in which civil-rights protections for LGBTQ people could hang in the balance.
The Equality Act, a bill that would shield LGBTQ individuals from discrimination in credit, housing, employment and a range of other areas, passed earlier this year in the Democrat-led House. Activists believe that turning the Republican-led Senate blue in 2020 would boost the bill’s chances of being signed into law.
Many leading Democrats vying for the 2020 nomination — including former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, the only openly gay candidate running — have thrown their support behind the Equality Act. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has also proposed abolishing the filibuster to clear a path for the Equality Act’s passage, should Senate Republicans block it.
‘LGBT voters differ from non-LGBT voters in several ways. For example, they are more likely to be young, male, and live in urban areas.’ —Study author Christy Mallory, the Williams Institute’s state and local policy director
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not brought the bill to the floor, and President Trump’s administration has claimed that the bill in its current form “is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights.”
“I’m just going to be blunt: We’ve got to have some more Democrats in the Senate,” Warren said during CNN’s Equality Town Hall on Thursday, responding to a question about how to ensure that the Equality Act passed the Senate. “I’m willing to continue to push Mitch McConnell right now, but my No. 1 goal is to make sure he is not the majority leader come January 2021.”
The Supreme Court will make critical decisions for LGBTQ protections
Separately, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday to determine whether Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits sex discrimination, also protects LGBTQ people from discrimination in the workplace on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.
LGBTQ people were more likely than their non-LGBTQ counterparts (51% to 40%) to support “a career politician who knows his or her way around the political process,” the Williams Institute study found. LGBTQ voters and non-LGBTQ voters alike showed greater support for younger candidates, and both groups signaled that the race of a candidate wouldn’t impact how they voted — though LGBTQ voters were more likely than non-LGBTQ voters to back a candidate because that person was black or Latino.
Majorities of both groups said it wouldn’t matter to their vote if a candidate were gay or lesbian, but far more LGBTQ voters than non-LGBTQ voters said they were “more likely to support a gay candidate” (41% to 10%) or “more likely to support a lesbian candidate (34% to 11%). LGBTQ voters also showed greater support for hypothetical candidates who were transgender or gender-nonbinary.
“LGBT voters differ from non-LGBT voters in several ways. For example, they are more likely to be young, male, and live in urban areas,” study author Christy Mallory, the Williams Institute’s state and local policy director, added in a statement. “LGBT voters are also more likely to identify with the Democratic Party. Over four million LGBT Democrats are eligible to vote in the primaries next year.”
Founded in 1988 by psychologist Robert Eichberg and activist Jean O’Leary, National Coming Out Day is observed annually on Oct. 11, and it’s day to celebrate and promote the increased visibility of the LGBTQ community. The date was chosen to mark the anniversary of the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, which drew an estimated 500,000 people to the nation’s capital.
“Most people think they don’t know anyone gay or lesbian, and in fact everybody does,” Eichberg said in a 1993 interview. “It is imperative that we come out and let people know who we are and disabuse them of their fears and stereotypes.”
In honor of National Coming Out Day, here are some of our top coming out stories of 2019.
Grammy-Award winning singer-songwriter Sam Smith came out as nonbinary on actor Jameela Jamil’s Instagram show “I Weigh Interviews in March.” Smith said when they saw the words “nonbinary” and “genderqueer” and heard people speak about these identities, which are used to describe those who identify as neither exclusively male nor female, they thought, “F–ck, that’s me.” Last month, the artist announced they will be using gender-neutral they/them pronouns.
Defensive end Ryan Russell, an NFL free agent, came out as bisexual in an article published on ESPN.com. “My truth is that I’m a talented football player, a damn good writer, a loving son, an overbearing brother, a caring friend, a loyal lover and a bisexual man,” said Russell, who spent one season on the Cowboys roster and played two more for the Buccaneers.
Republican lawmaker Nathan Ivie said it took him more than 20 years to come to terms with his identity. Ivie said he attempted to cure himself of “gay feelings,” but that interacting with gay couples through his passions for the outdoors and photography helped him accept himself.
Mr. Ratburn from the children’s show “Arthur” got married to another man in the show’s 22nd season premiere, spurring effusive reactions from those who grew up watching the program. The historic episode, titled “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone,” starred lesbian actor Jane Lynch as a special guest.
Matt Easton, valedictorian of the Brigham Young University class of 2019, came out as gay in his graduation speech. Easton said he hopes the speech helps ease loneliness felt by other LGBTQ students at the institution where an honor code forbids dating between members of the same sex.
On the last day of Pride Month, rapper Lil Nas X came out as gay. The performer — who shot to stardom with the country-rap hit “Old Town Road,” which held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for weeks — asked his followers to listen to his new song, “c7osure,” in which he alludes to his sexuality.
The father of five, including kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart, announced his departure from the Mormon church and his divorce from his ex-wife in August. “I have recently acknowledged to myself and my family that I am gay. The decision to be honest and truthful about my orientation comes with its own set of challenges, but at the same time it is a huge relief,” Smart wrote in a Facebook post.
Amy Ko, an associate professor at The Information School at the University of Washington, took to Medium to share that she identifies as a woman, prefers she/her pronouns and would like to be called Amy instead of her given name. “Sharing this in such a public way has led a lot of other people in the world coming out to me … that’s helped them have a little bit more courage, in the same way that I got courage from all the people in the world who are out that I saw in public,” Ko told NBC News.
After a 16-year-old, who identifies as asexual and panromantic — one who feels their partner’s gender has little affect on their relationship — came out publicly to her neighborhood, neighbors left her flowers and cards at her home as a sign of their support.
NBC correspondent Joe Fryer recalls coming out to his family 22 years ago and says coming out is a continuous experience. “I’m still telling people. It happens, for example, when someone sees the ring on my left hand and makes a comment about my ‘wife,’ Fryer wrote. “Most of the time I politely correct them and tell them I have a partner.”
Everyone has a different coming out story. In celebration of Pride Month and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, a group of LGBTQ people shared how their experience of coming out has changed through the years.
Young people in search of support in coming out can contact The Trevor Project’s TrevorLifeline 24/7 at 1-866-488-7386. Counseling is also available 24/7 via chat every day atTheTrevorProject.org/Help, or by texting 678-678.
Nine Democratic presidential candidates touted their support for LGBTQ rights and sought to illustrate a stark contrast between their views and those of the man they hope to defeat in 2020: President Donald Trump.
A town hall Thursday hosted by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and CNN focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer rights. The candidates’ views and policy proposals displayed more similarities — including ending the transgender military ban and passing the Equality Act — than differences.
Each was given about 30 minutes to address issues ranging from HIV prevention pills to hate crimes and violence. While the topics were wide-ranging, five themes could be found throughout the forum: violence, workplace discrimination, religion as a defense for discrimination, the HIV epidemic and LGBTQ youth.
The forum included nearly every top Democratic contender: South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; former Vice President Joe Biden; U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar; former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke; former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro; and businessman Tom Steyer.
Bernie Sanders, who had been scheduled to attend, missed the event as he recovers from a heart attack.
Thursday’s town hall in Los Angeles was the second Democratic presidential forum dedicated to LGBTQ issues this year. Last month, an event in Iowa drew 10 candidates.
Ahead of the forum, at least three candidates — Warren, Buttigiegand Harris — released detailed plans to secure equality for LGBTQ people, and their priorities for doing so include a number of similar initiatives.
At the event, Booker called hate violence against LGBTQ people of color “a national emergency” and said he plans to create a “presidential-level effort” against hate crimes and white supremacy.
“We can’t stop there,” he continued. “Thirty percent of LGBTQ youth — 30 percent — have reported missing school in the last month because of fears of their physical safety.”
Booker also promised to appoint a LGBTQ-friendly secretary of education. Warren also made a similar vow.
Many candidates also decried the violence faced by members of the transgender community.
“You’re right,” Harris said after she was interrupted by an activist who shouted that trans people were being “hunted.”
“There has to be serious accountability,” the senator said before highlighting efforts she made as San Francisco’s district attorney to create a plan that prosecutors could use to beat the gay and trans panic defense.
Biden — whose first question came from Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, the Wyoming man who was killed in a brutal 1999 hate crime — called for increased law enforcement efforts “to keep watch on these groups that we know are out there, like terrorist groups.”
The former vice president also urged the passing of the Equality Act and predicted “very little disagreement” from his fellow candidates on the issue. Indeed he was right: Every candidate endorsed the Equality Act.
“Let’s remember that even if the Supreme Court upholds the idea that the Civil Rights Act applies to discrimination against, for example, same-sex couples in the workplace, we’ve still got a long way to go when it comes to other forms of discrimination, for housing, public accommodation,” Buttigieg said. “That is why we urgently need an Equality Act. I will fight for that, and I will sign it the moment that it hits my desk.”
Buttigieg, the only openly LGBTQ candidate, drew upon his religious background and said his marriage to Chasten Buttigieg moved him “closer to God.” He also said that LGBTQ people, by dint of being randomly scattered throughout the population, can serve a healing role in society.
“We are in every state, every community, whether folks realize it or not, we are in every family, and that means also we can have the power to build bridges.”
In a viral moment that Warren’s campaign quickly shared in a tweet, Warren was asked what she would say to a potential voter who tells her that his religion makes him believe that marriage is between one man and one woman.
“I’m gonna say: then just marry one woman. I’m cool with that — assuming you can find one,” Warren joked.
Several candidates fielded questions about anti-LGBTQ countries. Biden swore to curtain foreign aid to anti-gay countries, and said Saudi Arabia, which executes gays, has “very little socially redeeming values,” eliciting murmurs from the crowd. “Culture is never a rationale for pain, never a rationale for prejudice,” Biden continued.
Candidates are also united in their mission to improve the HIV epidemic by expanding access to PrEP, pre-exposure prophylaxis, — and aside from lowering the price, some candidates called for more drastic measures.
O’Rourke endorsed an activist effort to #BreakThePatent and strip Gilead of its right to exclusively market and distribute Truvada in the U.S. market — though that privilege ends in September 2020.
Warren touted her plan to publicly manufacture PrEP. “I commit that in my administration, we will let out a government contract to produce that drug and make that drug available at cost, both here in the United States and around the world,” Warren said, avoiding saying the name of the patented drug, Truvada, that will go off patent next year.
Buttigieg, who came out publicly at age 33, was asked about pressure to be an “adequate representative” of the LGBTQ community.
“I so admire people who are coming out at young ages, but also recognize that there is no right age or time to come out,” Buttigieg said. He noted he was well into his 20s before he could admit to himself that he was gay and said that going to war in Afghanistan made him realize he might die without ever “having any idea of what it’s like to be in love.”
Gavin Grimm, a transgender activist and college student, asked Booker about Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which forbids sex discrimination in education. “As your president,” Booker said, “I will fight for it with the same ferocity the same sense of urgency every single day for LGBTQ Americans.”
Jacob, a young trans boy from Massachusetts, asked Warren about school safety for LGBTQ children. “Here’s what I plan to do,” Warren told Jacob. “I’m going to make sure that the person I think is the best Secretary of Education meets you and hears your story, and then I want you to tell me if you think that’s the right person, and then we will make the deal.”
The event was historic in many ways. It represents the longest extended discussion devoted to LGBTQ rights with major presidential candidates and featured multiple gay moderators. The four-hour event faced several interruptions, including three by transgender activists, including an extended exchange between Blossom Brown, Don Lemon, and Beto O’Rourke.
And Democrats are fighting for LGBTQ vote in primaries and the general election. LGBT people made up 6 percent of the electorate in the 2018 midterms, and 82 percent cast their ballot for their district’s Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives, according to a NBC News exit poll.
Research from UCLA’s Williams Institute shows that 9 million LGBTQ Americans are now registered to vote and half are Democrats, 15 percent are Republicans and 22 percent are independents. They’re likelier to support a minority candidate, but also are likelier to “say that they would support a seasoned political candidate,” according to the research. The Human Rights Campaign estimates that 57 million voters prioritize LGBTQ-inclusive policies when picking candidates.
A Wisconsin man was so badly beaten in an an alleged anti-gay hate crimeattack that he had to have all his teeth removed.
Cedrick Green of Racine, Wisconsin, is facing a hate crime charge of battery causing great bodily harm over the incident, as well as a charge of bail jumping.
Local outlet The Journal-Times reports that the victim, who is yet to come forward publicly, was attacked by three men who called him gay and taunted him for his sexual orientation.
Victim’s jaw was ‘so broken he had to have teeth removed’.
According to the criminal complaint, the victim was repeatedly beaten by the men, and sustained injuries to his face, jaw, arm and knee.
The complaint adds that the victim’s jaw “was broken so severely it required all of his teeth to be removed from his mouth”.
The victim managed to escape by running to a local petrol station for help, where he was able to get a ride home, before seeking medical attention.
The victim was able to identify Cedrick Green, 23, as one of the attackers after looking at a photo lineup.
The man who suffered the attack is yet to be identified, and the date of the incident was not included in the criminal complaint.
A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for October 17. The cash bond was set at $10,000.
String of previous convictions.
The newspaper adds: “Green also has several other criminal charges filed against him, including hit-and-run, theft, domestic abuse, battery, criminal damage to property, disorderly conduct, and resisting or obstructing an officer.
“He also has prior convictions for carrying a concealed weapon, possession of THC, theft, and resisting or obstructing an officer.”
Longtime LGBT rights advocate and former Obama administration official Kevin Jennings will become the CEO of Lambda Legal, the organization announced Monday.
“Being Lambda Legal’s CEO is a dream job that anyone would love to have, and I am thrilled to be stepping into this role at such a critical time for Lambda and our nation,” Jennings said in a statement. “From my childhood as the son of a Southern Baptist preacher to when I became a member of the Obama administration, I’ve known what it’s like to be the target of hateful, anti-LGBT bullies, but those attacks only made me more determined to challenge them.”
Jennings is set to begin his role at Lambda Legal on Dec. 12, a spokesperson for the organization said.
Previously, Jennings served as assistant deputy secretary for education in the Obama administration, where he headed the department’s Office of Safe & Drug-Free Schools and headed an anti-bullying initiative.
Jennings more recently served as the president of the New York-based Tenement Museum, which focuses on America’s urban immigrant history. For five years, Jennings led the Arcus Foundation, one of the world’s largest foundations funding LGBT rights causes.
But Jennings has been an LGBT rights advocate since 1988, when he helped students create the first school-based Gay-Straight Alliance club at Concord Academy.
Subsequently, Jennings founded the organization now known as GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which he led for 18 years.
Anne Krook, board chair of Lambda Legal, said in a statement Jennings brings a wealth of experience to his new role that will energize the LGBT legal group.
“For nearly 50 years, Lambda Legal has been on the frontlines of the fight for LGBT rights in our courts on behalf of transgender students, workers fired for being gay, transgender service members and service members living with HIV,” Krook said. “Now, more than ever, we need a leader who has cut his teeth in the movement and understands and embraces the significance of Lambda Legal’s legacy and commitment to the community.”