For Fabliha Anbar, 20, her LGBTQ identity is an important part of her social and academic life. She’s out to friends, on social media and at her progressive university, where she founded the South Asian Queer and Trans Collective. But last month, when her campus closed due to the global coronavirus pandemic, Anbar returned home — and back to the proverbial closet.
“Having to go home and act a certain way 24/7 is a means for survival,” said Anbar, who asked that the name of her university and hometown not be published. “That can be straining emotionally and extremely damaging.”
For the past six weeks, Anbar has been self-isolating in a small, two-bedroom house with her parents, whom she said she doesn’t feel safe coming out to.
Anbar’s situation is not unique. Since schools across the U.S. started to close in mid-March to help stem the spread of the coronavirus, LGBTQ advocates say a number of queer youth and young adults have lost crucial support systems and have been forced to self-isolate with unsupportive family members.
“They may have had to go back in the closet if they were out at school. If they had support from a GSA or an LGBTQ club or group at school, they don’t have that anymore,” said Ellen Kahn, senior director of programs and partnerships at the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights group.
Kahn said she’s particularly concerned about those “who are in overtly hostile environments,” saying, “It could put them at risk of physical or emotional abuse; it could force them out to the streets.”
‘Students might feel isolated’
Danushi Fernando, the director of LGBTQ and gender resources at Vassar College in New York, said a number of students with whom she works “voiced their concerns” about returning home when the campus announced it would close last month.
“We are super aware that there are people who are not able to go back to their homes because either they’re not safe, or students aren’t out to their families,” she said.
After discussing this situation with the university administration, Vassar opened up some dorms on a case-by-case basis to students who felt unsafe leaving.
But for some of those who did leave — thinking their departure would just be for an extended spring break — living back at their parents’ house has been uncomfortable or isolating.
“There are lots of times that students might feel isolated,” she said. “There are students who have reached out like, ‘Do you know of anyone in Idaho that I could connect with?’”
As for Anbar, she said she’s been hosting virtual programming and support groups over Zoom, joined by people from all over the world, for the South Asian Queer and Trans Collective. If she’s within earshot of her parents, she said she has to be careful.
“It does get kind of scary,” she said. “That’s why I make sure to be very careful about the words that I choose. I usually take advantage of the language barrier between me and my parents. I say things like ‘queer’ rather than ‘lesbian.’”
When speaking to her parents, she said she describes the South Asian Queer and Trans Collective, the organization she dedicates so much time to, as a “feminist collective,” which she said “isn’t entirely wrong.”
‘Stuck at home with abusers’
In the weeks following school closures, child abuse and neglect hotlines, like the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, reported an inundation of calls and texts from young people newly confined to unsafe environments.
“A lot of these young people are stuck at home with abusers,” Daphne Young, the organization’s chief communications officer, said. “College kids are coming home from school and have to re-enter the home with perpetrators.”
Young said LGBTQ youth and adolescents have consistently been among their callers.
She also noted that the financial strain caused by the pandemic has the potential to make bad environments even worse.
“Whatever was the stressor or the discord between the family, you now have compound trauma,” Young said.
Like Childhelp, The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people, reported a steep increase in the number of youth and young adults who have reached out to its 24/7 hotline.
The New York-based nonprofit published a white paper last month outlining the “serious implications” the COVID-19 crisis could have on the mental health of LGBTQ youth. The organization cited the physical distancing, economic strain and increased anxiety related to the pandemic as being among the most worrisome problems.
“LGBTQ young people … are already at risk of discrimination and isolation, which can impact their mental health,” Amit Paley, the organization’s CEO, said last month in an interview with MSNBC. “For a lot of LGBTQ young people, the main sources of support that they get are at their schools, at clubs, at community centers, at physical spaces that they no longer have access to. … Not being able to connect with some of those really important, positive influences in your life can be extremely challenging for LGBTQ youth right now.”
‘An opportunity’ for parents
Two thirds of LGBTQ youth hear their families make negative comments about LGBTQ people, and only 1 in 4 feel like they can be themselves at home, according to data from the Human Rights Campaign.
“If you’re that kid, whether you’re 6 or 12 or 18, that changes dramatically how you feel in your own skin, how you can thrive or not in your family,” Kahn said.
A newly engaged couple, Stephanie Mayorga, 27, and Paige Escalera, 25, disappeared in mid-April under “suspicious” circumstances, the police in Wilmington, North Carolina, said Wednesday at a news conference.
Stephanie Mayorga (left) and Paige Escalera (right), have not been seen since April 15th.Wilmington, NC Police Department
Their roommate filed a missing persons report several days after the women were last seen on April 15.
Capt. Thomas Tillman said surveillance footage showed the couple leaving their Wilmington home and driving a gray 2013 Dodge Dart with two stickers on the back windshield and South Carolina plates.
Tillman described the disappearance as “suspicious” based on undisclosed information received in the past week.
He said detectives had spoken to family members, friends and coworkers of both missing women “in an attempt to gather information of where they might have gone and where they went missing.”
Tillman said the coronavirus pandemic is partly to blame for the more than two-week delay between the couple’s disappearance and the news conference.
“Life is not going on at the Wilmington Police Department as simply as it did before the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
In an interview with Oxygen, Stevie Jenkins, Escalera’s sister, said that Escalera and Mayorga had only recently met and had moved in together at the beginning of March.
Jenkins also said that close friends of her sister had been blocked from her social media over the last week or two. “It is normal for family to not hear from her, but not her closest friends,” Jenkins told Oxygen.
Brooklyn’s last remaining lesbian bar, Ginger’s, sits on a busy avenue that cuts through the borough’s gentrified Park Slope neighborhood. Over the past two decades, it has endured 9/11, the Great Recession and skyrocketing rent, but owner Sheila Frayne is unsure it will survive COVID-19.
“Realistically, I’m saying maybe this is the end,” Frayne, 53, told NBC News.
In compliance with citywide guidelines for nonessential businesses, Frayne locked the doors of Ginger’s on March 15, two days before St. Patrick’s Day and what would have been the bar’s 20th anniversary. Through the darkened windows, she peered at the shamrock decorations that still hung on the walls and started to cry.
“The bar business is recession proof — it’s not pandemic proof, though.”
HENRIETTA HUDSON OWNER LISA CANNISTRACI
“It’s really sad, because women-owned businesses are hard anyhow, and women-owned bars are unheard of,” Frayne said. “Usually, they have somebody backing them or something like that, but I did do it by myself, and it’s just blood, sweat and tears to get where I did and keep surviving.”
Ginger’s Bar is one of three lesbian bars still standing in New York City, and one of just a handful left in the entire country. With most, if not all, of these establishments forced to temporarily shutter due to the coronavirus pandemic, their future is uncertain, with several facing the potential of permanent closure.Last call for lesbian bars?
The number of lesbian bars in the United States has always been far fewer than those primarily catering to gay men, even though statistically women are more likely than men to identify as LGBTQ. The peak came in the late 1980s with an estimated 200 lesbian bars across the country, according to a study published last year by Greggor Mattson, an associate professor of sociology at Oberlin College, but the number is now estimated to be 16. These venues include Henrietta Hudson in New York City, My Sister’s Room in Atlanta, Wildrose in Seattle, Walker’s Pint in Milwaukee and Gossip Grill in San Diego.
Opening night at A League of Her Own bar, “ALOHO,” in Washington on Aug. 9, 2018.John Gallagher / John Jack Photography
The decline in the number of lesbian bars is part of a broader trend of LGBTQ bars shuttering across the U.S. Throughout the 1980s, there were more than 1,500 such bars, but that number has been steadily declining since the late ‘90s, with less than 1,000 existing today (with the lion’s share of them catering mostly to male or mixed-gender crowds), according to Mattson’s study. These closures, however, have not happened equally: Between 2007 and 2019, an estimated 37 percent of all LGBTQ bars shuttered, while bars catering to women and queer people of color saw declines of 52 percent and 60 percent, respectively, according to the report.
Mattson said even the closure of a single gay or lesbian bar can be a particularly acute loss for a community.
Since the gay liberation movement began in the 1960s, many of these bars have served as the nucleus of America’s “gayborhoods” — refuges where people could organize, raise funds, meet friends and find romance. Mattson said even the closure of a single LGBTQ bar can be a particularly acute loss for a community.
New York City has witnessed the country’s largest rise and fall in lesbian spaces — with about 200 opening and closing over the last century (including bars, cafes, bookstores, and community centers), according to Gwen Shockey, creator of the Addresses Project, a digital tool that tracks the city’s lesbian venues. Shockey said New York saw a wave of lesbian bar openings in the the ‘70s and ‘80s, likely bolstered by the surging feminist and LGBTQ rights movements of the time and the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974, which made it illegal for banks to deny loans on the basis of gender. This trend, however, didn’t last, with the following decades seeing closures amid soaring commercial rents in metropolitan areas and alternative ways for queer people to meet each other, like dating sites and apps.
Shockey said the loss of additional brick-and-mortar spaces dedicated to LGBTQ people, particularly for women, would be tragic.
“There’s nothing like sitting in a safe space that’s controlled by queer people, and having a conversation, dancing, interacting,” she said. “It’s just so valuable, and it’s so liberating, and it’s enabled me to come out and to find a life for myself.”
In the last five years alone, iconic lesbian bars such as Sisters in Philadelphia and The Lexington Club in San Francisco permanently shut their doors. In New York City, at least 11 bars and clubs frequented by lesbians and queer women have shuttered since 2004, including One Last Shag, Meow Mix and Crazy Nanny’s. Bum Bum Bar, which had been the only lesbian bar in Queens, officially closed last year.
While there are only three lesbian bars left in all five boroughs of New York City — arguably considered, along with San Francisco, to be the queer capital of the U.S. — online listings show there are more than 80 venues catering to gay men or mixed-gender LGBTQ crowds in the city.
In America’s heartland, there are few bars that cater to the gay and lesbian community. Walker’s Pint, Milwaukee’s lone lesbian bar and perhaps one of just two left in the entire Midwest, temporarily shuttered in March after Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers ordered nonessential businesses to close. With help from her bank, owner Elizabeth “Bet-z” Boenning said she managed to receive a modest loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program — just enough to cover expenses for about three months. If her bar doesn’t reopen, she said it would be a devastating loss for the local community.
“Women don’t have a place that’s for women other than the Pint, really,” Boenning said, noting that her Milwaukee business is surrounded by several bars that cater to gay men.
Walker’s Pint has been closed since March 17, on what would have been the city’s popular St. Patrick’s Day bar crawl.Courtesy Elizabeth Boenning
In Washington State, only one lesbian bar remains: Wildrose. Owned by Shelley Brothers since 1984, it has managed to survive sky-high rents in Seattle’s gentrified Capitol Hill neighborhood. In mid-March, as COVID-19 swept through the city, Brothers temporarily closed her bar. If she’s unable to reopen, she said it would be more than the loss of a historic watering hole.
“It’s like a bar in a community center,” Brothers said. “We’ve always just tried to provide a safe space for women to come.”Systemic funding issues
Many attribute the loss of lesbian bars to the high cost of opening and maintaining a bar, as well as the systemic difficulty women often have in acquiring financial support.
“If you look at any funding statistics, they always show you that women-owned businesses get even less than male-owned businesses, or that 4 percent of venture capital goes to women,” said Pamela Prince-Eason, president and CEO of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC).
In mid-March, as COVID-19 swept through the city, Shelley Brothers temporarily closed Wildrose in Seattle.Courtesy Shelley Brothers
The pandemic is likely exacerbating the problem. Millions of small businesses throughout the U.S. have been unable to access assistance through the $2.2 trillion emergency relief package passed by Congress at the end of March. Even before the emergency relief program ran out of money in April, several bar owners interviewed for this story said they were unable to apply for assistance through the online application, which they said routinely froze or crashed, and most of these owners said they lacked relationships with banks that could help them.
While the federal stimulus was meant to help small mom and pop shops, $243.4 million worth of payroll loans went to publicly traded companies, because language in the bill opened the door for many to apply. Within WBENC’s network of more than 16,000 women-owned businesses, less than 1 percent received aid through the first round of stimulus, according to Prince-Eason.
Currently, about 12 million of the 32 million businesses (less than 4 in 10) in the U.S. are owned by women, and the majority of these are small businesses, according to WBENC. Even fewer businesses are owned by LGBTQ people — about 1.4 million, according to theLGBTQ Chamber of Commerce.
If the next round of stimulus leaves out many small businesses again, Prince-Eason said much of the gains made by women-owned businesses — which saw a 58 percent increase over the last decade — are likely to be reversed. “Which is very depressing and demeaning and painful for all people affected,” she said.Online fundraising efforts
As lesbian bar owners nervously await government assistance or the green light to reopen their businesses, and negotiate rent payments with their landlords, many are launching fundraising campaigns to raise money for their overhead costs and their employees.
Boenning — whose Milwaukee pub has been closed since March 17, on what would have been the city’s popular St. Patrick’s Day bar crawl — recently raised $3,695 for her Walker’s Pint staff. “I don’t know what else to do for them,” she said.
Walker’s Pint, Milwaukee’s lone lesbian bar and perhaps one of just two left in the entire Midwest, temporarily shuttered in March.Courtesy Elizabeth Boenning
Nightlife workers stuck at home — bartenders, barbacks, bouncers and performance artists — whose income depends largely on tips, wonder when they will be able to work again. Many who have been unable to get unemployment through their states’ overwhelmed unemployment systems grapple with an uncertain future.
“One day we’ll feel pretty good, and the next day we’ll feel terrible,” Jo McDaniel, a manager and bartender at A League of Her Own in D.C., said. “It’s a real struggle personally to keep my mental health above water.”
A League of Her Own, a bar patrons call “ALOHO” in Washington’s Adams Morgan neighborhood.John Gallagher / John Jack Photography
A League of Her Own and its brother bar, Pitchers, both owned by David Perruzza, managed to raise over $8,000 for staff. Neighboring Washington, D.C., lesbian bar, XX+, managed to raise about $4,000 for staff after not receiving government assistance.
“I’m trying to do all the legit things by applying for this, applying for that, and never get any word about when you’re going to get a grant or if you should get a grant,” XX+ owner Lina Nicolai said, “and so it’s very uncertain.”
Cubby Hole, a popular hangout for queer women in Manhattan, raised over $48,000 for staffers after owner Lisa Menichino was unable to retrieve federal aid. Even with tens of thousands raised, she’s not sure she will be able to sustain her bar through the fall without emergency assistance. “It’s been really scary,” said Menichino, whose monthly expenses total more than $10,000. But she is not giving up hope.
“I’m going to find a way to keep this bar open,” she said. “I have to. It’s like an icon. It means so much to so many people. Even if I have to go into my personal finances, I will.”
My Sister’s Room owners Jen and Jami Maguire are raising money for staff by selling T-shirts online.Courtesy of Jen and Jami Maguire
My Sister’s Room in Atlanta is the only bar that serves lesbian and bisexual women in Georgia, and possibly the entire Southeast. Owners Jen and Jami Maguire are raising money for staff by selling T-shirts online. They applied for emergency aid but haven’t received any. They’re hopeful, but also worried. If the pandemic stretches into October, when Atlanta holds its annual Pride celebration, it would be “very catastrophic,” Jen Maguire said.
“We just want to do what we can to get everybody back to work, but not at the sake of someone losing their life for someone to make some money,” she said. “Safety is number one.”
Many bar owners question how to reopen once the pandemic is over. Typically, people gather in bars whether times are good or bad, Henrietta Hudson’s owner, Lisa Cannistraci, said. Her bar remained open through a number of hard times, including 9/11 and the Great Recession, but she sees this new era of social distancing as an entirely different crisis to navigate.
“The bar business is recession proof — it’s not pandemic proof, though,” Cannistraci, who has raised over $6,000 for her staff, said. Her insurance policy doesn’t cover damage from pandemics, she said. And while she applied early for all the government aid she could, she hasn’t received any assistance.
“I did everything,” she said, “and there’s nothing — crickets.”
With New York City Pride events postponed indefinitely and Ginger’s Bar shuttered until bars and restaurants are allowed to reopen, Frayne is suffering a devastating loss of revenue. For the first time in 20 years, she’s unable to pay rent, and her insurance policy doesn’t cover her pandemic-related losses. She applied for government aid, she said, but hasn’t received any. She worries about her staff, who she said have been unable to file applications through New York City’s paralyzed unemployment system.
“It’s kind of impossible,” said Frayne, who raised over $5,000 for her staff, and is now raising money to save her bar.
So far, Brothers has managed to raise over $36,000 to keep the Wildrose afloat for the time being, but she said it won’t last long. Her annual $30,000 insurance policy doesn’t cover pandemic-related losses, though she said she still has to foot the monthly insurance bill. And her application for emergency aid has gone unanswered. Not knowing the future of Washington state’s last lesbian bar weighs heavy on her.
“It’s minute to minute, basically. It’s up and down. You’ll be all filled with hope, and then it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, this is so horrible,’ and then, ‘OK, we can do this,’ and then ‘Oh, God, this is horrible.’ It just goes back and forth,” Brothers said.‘A stronger economy that includes all of us’
Last week, Frayne returned to Ginger’s Bar to collect the mail that had piled up since she shuttered it in March — mostly bills, she said. Without assistance, she wonders if Brooklyn’s last lesbian bar will ever reopen.
“I mean, after 20 years, do I really want to owe a ton of money with rent and insurance to open a business again?” she said. “I worked too hard; I’m getting too old for it. I don’t know if I can do that again.”
A queer teacher, who has worked at the same Catholic school for 20 years, has just been sacked for violating the school’s anti-LGBT+ policies.
According to Dayton Daily News, the teacher was a graduate of Alter High School in Ohio, which is controlled by the archdiocese of Cincinnati, and had taught there for two decades.
The principal of the Catholic school, Lourdes Lambert, told the publication that someone had raised a “concern” about the unnamed teacher with the archbishop.
As a result, the teacher will not have his contract renewed, although he will be permitted to finish the school year, teaching children from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
Lambert said: “It’s a very unfortunate circumstance for the teacher and the Alter community. Some things are taken out of our hands as an archdiocese-owned school.” However, she admitted: “I’m the archdiocese, too.”
The archdiocese of Cincinnati describes homosexuality as “disordered” and “immoral”, and even provides programmes for LGBT+ people and their families to encourage them to never act on “same-sex attraction”.
Teachers at any Catholic school controlled by the archdiocese are forced to sign a “teacher-minister” contract every year.
The contract states that a teacher must “exemplify Catholic principles in a manner consistent with teacher-minister’s relationship with the Catholic Church and to refrain from any conduct or lifestyle which would reflect discredit on or cause scandal to the school or be in contradiction to Catholic social doctrine or morals.”
Examples of this unacceptable conduct include “cohabitation outside marriage; sexual activity out of wedlock; same-sex sexual activity; use of abortion; use of a surrogate mother; use of in vitro fertilisation or artificial insemination” as well as “promoting” any of these things.
If the contract is breached, “the school immediately may terminate the teacher-minister’s employment”.
Supporters have spoken out about the teacher’s dismissal, branding it “blatant discrimination”.
David Beck, a former student at Alter High School, wrote that the teacher had been fired “for being married to a man”.
He continued: “He’s been married since 2016, one year after marriage equality passed…Supposedly some misguided soul found his marriage certificate and brought it to the attention of the archdiocese.
“How convenient that he is fired now, during the pandemic, as to sweep it so easily under the rug. If these reports are true, this is blatant discrimination, and we need to band together to stop it.”
He said he remembered the teacher as “wonderful, kind, with a sense of humour and a creative spirit”, and added: “He should not be fired for his marriage, which, let us remember, is guaranteed as a human right by the constitution.”
LGBT+ advocates are mourning three trans women who were tragically murdered within a single week in Puerto Rico.
The bodies of Serena Angelique Velázquez Ramos, 32, and Layla Pelaez Sánchez, 21, were found together in a charred car on April 21.
Their deaths were preceded by Penélope Díaz Ramírez, 31, who was killed in a correctional centre on April 13. Her death was not reported until April 27.
It marks the ninth violent death of a transgender person in the US this year, and comes as Puerto Rican activists desperately warn: “They are hunting us.”
“There is no longer any doubt, this is an epidemic of anti-LGBT+ violence,” said Pedro Julio Serrano of Coalition for the Search for Equity (CABE), a Puerto Rican LGBT+ group.
“The police have the obligation to disclose the status of the investigations of at least eight murders, one death without a determined cause and several attacks in which LGBTTIQ people have been injured since January 2019.”
Tori Cooper, director of the Human Rights Campaign‘s transgender justice initiative, agreed that the problem is escalating.
“Penélope did not deserve to die. Transgender people do not deserve to die. Every single advocate, ally, elected official and community member must stand up in light of this horrific news and say ‘No more.’ What we are doing is not enough.”
She continued: “Transgender and gender non-conforming people, especially women of colour, are too often the victims of a toxic mix of transphobia, racism and misogyny.
“People and policy must work together to protect our lives and our well-being. HRC stands in solidarity with all who knew and loved Penélope, and we will continue our tireless fight to ensure a future where living one’s truth can never become a death sentence.”
A former police officer will receive $90,000 in damages after filing a lawsuit claiming he was denied employment as a sheriff’s deputy in 2012 when his prospective employer learned he has HIV. The case, along with another lawsuit involving two HIV-positive members of the Air Force who claimed they were discharged because of their HIV status, has brought renewed attention to policies surrounding HIV employment discrimination.
A lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana said the former officer, Liam Pierce, was up for a job with the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office in New Iberia until he disclosed his status during a pre-employment medical exam. According to the LGBTQ legal advocacy group, Pierce — who had moved to Louisiana in 2005 to assist in the relief effort following Hurricane Katrina — had experience working as a police officer, volunteer firefighter and paramedic.
Scott Schoettes, an attorney for Lambda Legal and the director of its HIV Project, said everything “seemed perfectly on track” for Pierce to land the job.
“He had good interviews and talked to them about an alleged misconduct at a previous job,” Schoettes told NBC News. “They said that wasn’t a problem.”
Schoettes was referring to a job Pierce lost with the Abbeville Police Department in Louisiana for discharging a firearm in front of two inmates held in custody.
Schoettes said everything changed, though, when Pierce informed the medical team evaluating him for employment about his HIV status. He alleged the plaintiff was told by doctors that having HIV “was not a disqualification for the job,” but shortly after his results were sent to the sheriff’s office, Pierce was denied the position. The department cited the incident at Abbeville as a pretense, but Schoettes said Pierce “immediately recognized where this was coming from.”
“This was a result of his HIV status, because he basically had the job until his medical evaluation,” Schoettes said. “He was pretty frustrated and upset.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found in 2018 that Pierce had probable cause to bring legal action regarding his claim, and he settled out of court on Tuesday with the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office. As a condition of the settlement, the department’s staff will undergo education and training regarding HIV, and the office’s hiring guidelines will include a statement that “discrimination on the basis of disability, including HIV status, is prohibited.”
Pierce said in a statement that it “feels good to finally be vindicated” eight years after his case was initially filed. “I hope that my case helps others avoid going through my experience,” he said.
Pierce’s experience is not isolated, according to the EEOC. While employment discrimination based on HIV status has been banned under the Americans With Disabilities Act since 2008, the federal agency reported that 155 people brought claims of workplace discrimination based on their HIV status in 2019. Although that accounts for just 0.6 percent of overall ADA discrimination claims brought to the EEOC, people living with HIV only make up about 0.3 percent of the U.S. population.
Pierce’s case is at least the second involving alleged HIV-related workplace discrimination to make national headlines so far this year. In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit unanimously upheld a preliminary injunction against an Air Force policy discharging active duty service members based solely on their HIV-positive status. According to the court, the U.S. government “cannot reconcile these policies with current medical evidence” regarding HIV transmission.
The case is the first time federal courts have ruled on behalf of servicemembers living with HIV, according to Lambda Legal, which filed the lawsuit. It is now headed back to a lower district court to weigh in. Lambda Legal is also representing service members from other branches of the military in two companion lawsuits.
Jim Pickett, senior director of prevention, advocacy and gay men’s health at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said these cases illustrate the stigma to which people living with HIV are still subjected, despite decades of medical advancements. He said the fear that working with an HIV-positive police officer or airman will make their co-workers vulnerable to transmission is “based on pure ignorance and discrimination.”
“It’s not based on science,” he said. “HIV is not easily transmittable.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is “extremely rare” for individuals to contract HIV in the workplace. A guide to occupational HIV exposure posted on its website cautions that risk of transmission “varies by the type of exposure” but says, for instance, that the incidence of spreading HIV by being “splashed with body fluids” is “near zero.” Even among health care workers, arguably the most at-risk group for occupational HIV transmission, there have been only 58 confirmed cases ever in the United States.
It’s even less likely for individuals living with HIV to transmit the virus to another person if they are taking daily medications to suppress the virus. According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS, studies show that people who are undetectable, meaning that their viral load is so low it cannot be detected through HIV testing, “cannot transmit HIV sexually.”
But Pickett explained that despite these facts, it has been “very hard” for advocates to change “entrenched” beliefs about HIV dating back to the early days of the crisis, particularly the idea that people living with the virus are “dirty and bad.”
“There’s still this strong segment of society where facts don’t matter,” he said. “We can see this with anti-vaxxers and climate denialists, and we can see this with people right now who are going out and fighting public health authorities and governors to open up the economy because they think the coronavirus is an overblown hoax.”
Experts said these misconceptions about HIV and those affected by the virus will continue to prevent people from speaking out about the routine discrimination they experience. Aisha Davis, director of policy at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said it’s “really difficult to know exactly how many people” are experiencing targeted bias in their places of employment because these individuals are often “suffering in silence” to avoid bringing “more attention to themselves.”
“When you’re talking about a population of people who already fight stigma on a day-to-day basis, there’s an acceptance of a certain amount of discrimination that they experience,” Davis told NBC News. “The assumption is usually that this is something that everyone experiences. It’s terrible, but it’s the status quo.”
Despite federal protections under the Americans With Disabilities Act regarding workplace discrimination, many states still have decades-old laws on the books criminalizing the transmission of HIV between sexual partners. According to a 2017 report from the legal advocacy group Center for HIV Law and Policy, 36 states had some form of legislation on the books mandating a misdemeanor or a felony charge for exposing another individual to HIV. Davis said these kinds of laws, although seemingly unrelated to workplace discrimination, can erode the faith of people living with HIV that their state and federal governments are on their side, even in areas where they are protected.
“A lot of people don’t think that the policy or the regulation is actually going to protect them, so we need cases like these,” she said of the lawsuits brought by Pierce and the airmen. “We need to see these wins, and we need to amplify these wins, because people need to know that it’s not just a pretty piece of paper or some really nice words. We need to know that it’s something that every person has access to.”
Schoettes said he hopes the two cases send a message to people living with HIV and prospective employers that not only is it illegal to refuse to hire someone based on their HIV status, but it’s also irrational.
“A person living with HIV is capable of doing any job in the world safely,” he said.
Activists said Thursday that the two bodies found inside a charred car in southeast Puerto Rico were of transgender women, marking four such deaths in the past two months.
The women were identified as 21-year-old Layla Peláez and 32-year-old Serena Angelique Velázquez, according to the Broad Committee for the Search for Equity.
“They are hunting us,” Pedro Julio Serrano, a spokesman for the group, said in a phone interview.
Authorities found the car before dawn on Wednesday in the coastal town of Humacao after receiving a 911 call.
Capt. Teddy Morales, who oversees criminal investigations in that district, said in a phone interview that police are investigating whether it was a hate crime and how exactly the two victims were killed. No one has been arrested.
The killings come a month after a 19-year-old transsexual man identified as Angélica Marie Méndez was fatally shot in the western town of Moca and two months after the fatal shooting of a person identified as Neulisa Luciano Ruiz, which Puerto Rico’s governor said was likely a hate crime. The victim’s body was found in the northern town of Toa Baja after a video was made public in which at least two men are heard mocking and threatening a person believed to be the victim followed by gunfire.
“We trans people deserve to live in peace, equality and freedom. Enough of so much hate,” said Ivana Fred with the Broad Committee for the Search for Equity.
Overall, eight people from the LGBTQ community have been killed in Puerto Rico in the past 15 months, Serrano said. None of the cases have been solved.
LGBT+ Asian Americans are reportedly experiencing a horrific “double whammy” of homophobia and racism due to the coronavirus pandemic.
As the coronavirus spreads across the world, many Asian people are facing discrimination and racism from people who ignorantly and wrongly assume that they are harbingers of infection.
The situation is dire in the United States, where Donald Trump has repeatedly drummed up anti-Asian sentiment by referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese Virus” (the outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, China).
But the outlook is even more hopeless for Asian Americans who are also LGBT+, as they are facing an increase in racism and homophobia during this time.
Those who ‘live in the intersections’ are most likely to be targeted by hate.
Hieu Nguyen, founder of the Viet Rainbow of Orange County, told Vice. that being LGBT+ and Asian during the coronavirus pandemic is a “double whammy”.
“When you’re LGBTQ and an ethnic minority, there’s already a sense of not feeling safe in the environment that you’re in,” Nguyen said.
“It just adds a heightened level of anxiety for folks, and it challenges their sense of safety.”
Between March 19 and April 3, Stop AAPI Hate recorded 1,100 complaints of hate incidents from the Asian American community.
While the entire Asian American population is facing discrimination, a number of groups have warned that LGBT+ Asian Americans are at a particular disadvantage.
Cynthia Choi, co-executive director for Chinese for Affirmative Action, said those who are most likely to be targeted are people “who live in the intersections”.
“Those who were already vulnerable — whether you’re an immigrant, undocumented, or because of your gender identity and sexuality — the pandemic has amplified that, Choi told Vice.
Those who were suffering before the pandemic, their situation is worse off.
Meanwhile, NQAPIA executive director Glenn Magpantay said LGBT+ Asian Americans “have experienced an uptick in racism and discrimination as a result of COVID-19.”
“The ignorance has come to bear on our community. It’s enormously challenging and difficult,” Magpantay said.
The Trump administration is considering cutting back on sharing intelligence with partner countries that criminalize homosexuality as part of a push by the acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, to prod those nations to change their laws.
The intelligence community should be pushing American values with the countries it works with, Mr. Grenell said in an interview this week.
“We can’t just simply make the moral argument and expect others to respond in kind because telling others that it’s the right thing to do doesn’t always work,” he said. But, he added, “to fight for decriminalization is to fight for basic human rights.”
Nearly 70 countries criminalize homosexuality, including U.S. intelligence partners like Egypt, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. Grenell did not clarify if the new policy would withhold additional cooperation or just curtail the information that is given to the countries.
“If a country that we worked in as the United States intelligence community was arresting women because of their gender, we would absolutely do something about it,” Grenell said. “Ultimately, the United States is safer when our partners respect basic human rights.”
A man has been arrested in connection with the death of a Florida queer venue employee who was shot dead in a hotel room.
Police were called to Parliament House Resort on April 1 after guests reported hearing shots fired.
They discovered the body of Ricardo Filmore, a 37-year-old employee, in a hotel room. He was pronounced dead at the scene, the Orlando Sentinelreports.
Investigators have since arrested 28-year-old Courtney Lamar Williams in connection with Filmore’s death, and he now reportedly faces a charge of first degree murder.
Florida’s Parliament House led tributes to Ricardo Filmore.
Filmore’s death was mourned by staff at Parliament House. In a Facebook post, the historic gay venue said he had become involved in “a domestic dispute” and “lost his life”.
“We are completely devastated by the loss of Ricardo,” they wrote.
“He was an incredible part of our family. We appreciate all of your messages of support at this time.
“Rest in Peace, Ricky.”
We are completely devastated by the loss of Ricardo.
Tributes poured in for the murdered staff member from regulars at the venue.
“My condolences. Saw him many times keeping us safe,” one Parliament House customer commented.
Another wrote: “Parliament House and his family have our deepest condolences.”
“So sad he was such a nice guy, Rest In Peace Ricky,” another regular wrote.
More than 2,000 people die from gun violence in Florida every year.
People who knew Ricardo personally expressed their shock at his death, and urged anybody with information on his killing to come forward.
According to Everytown Research, 2,568 people on average die every year in Florida from gun violence. The state has the 26th highest rate of gun deaths in the United States.
Parliament House was founded in 1975 and has become a staple for the local LGBT+ community since then. The resort is home to a number of gay bars and regularly hosts drag shows.
Various high-profile drag queens have performed at the venue over the years, including RuPaul, Shangela, Latrice Royale and Sharon Needles.
