Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has accused Donald Trump of giving “safe harbour” to anti-LGBT+ hate.
In a message marking the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, Biden called out the Trump administration’s “odious” agenda on LGBT+ issues.
He wrote: “The Trump-Pence administration has done everything it can to undermine LGBT+ rights: giving safe harbour to hate and rolling back protections for LGBT+ persons, blocking the ability of transgender individuals to openly serve their country, denying LGBT+ people access to critical health care, and failing to address the epidemic of violence against transgender people, among other odious policies.
“Today, many LGBT+ people in the United States live in fear, and LGBT+ activists in other countries, who are often fighting desperately for their rights and personal safety, are no longer sure that the United States is their friend and ally.”
Democrat vows to ‘reinvigorate’ efforts to support LGBT+ rights internationally.
Biden stressed that if-elected, he would work across international boundaries to “eliminate discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity”.
Former Vice President Joe Biden (Michael Brochstein / Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
He wrote: “As president, I will reinvigorate and expand US efforts to advance the human rights of LGBT+ people at home and around the world.
“The United States will again be a beacon of hope for people anywhere in the world who suffer violence and discrimination for the simple fact of who they are or who they love.
“We will strengthen the coalition of countries determined to eliminate discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Anything less would be un-American.”
LGBT+ rights group are falling in behind Joe Biden.
Human Rights Campaign endorsed the former vice president earlier this month.
HRC president Alphonso David said: “This November, the stakes could not be higher. Far too many LGBT+ people, and particularly those who are most vulnerable, face discrimination, intimidation, and violence simply because of who they are and who they love.
“But rather than have our backs, Donald Trump and Mike Pence have spent the last three and a half years rolling back and rescinding protections for LGBT+ people.
“Joe Biden will be a president who stands up for all of us. HRC and our more than three million members and supporters will work day and night to ensure he is the next president of the United States.”
HRC says that ahead of the 2020 election, it has identified seven key target states – Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania Texas and Wisconsin – where there are 3.4 million voters who support equality “at risk of not turning out” on election day.
The U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to grant religious schools an expanded ministerial exemption in employment decisions based on oral arguments Monday in litigation that could have significant bearing on LGBTQ teachers at these institutions.
The cases, Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, Agnes and St. James School v. Darryl Biel, were brought by Catholic schools seeking immunity under the law to conduct employment practices for non-ministerial jobs — such as the hiring and firing of teachers — consistent with their religious beliefs under the exemption granted by the First Amendment.
The schools raised the claims in response to a lawsuit from teachers alleging wrongful termination. One alleges she was terminated based on age discrimination, the other based on disability after having to request time off to treat cancer. The schools have maintained the termination was the result the teachers not fulfilling their ministerial roles at the schools.
Predictably, the five conservative justices on the bench seemed amenable to the idea of an expanded ministerial exemption, while the four liberal justices were against it.
U.S. Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was blunt in her questioning about the possible implications of a ruling in favor of Catholic schools, calling it “staggering.”
“Suppose a teacher who does everything the two teachers in these cases do as a faith leader also reports a student’s complaint of sexual harassment by a priest and is terminated,” Ginsburg said. “She has no remedy?”
U.S. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, on the other hand, appeared to justify a decision for the Catholic schools by indicating the work of teachers there would be considered a violation of the Establishment Clause at a public schools.
“It’s my understanding they actually let them from time to time in prayer or took them to service, things like that,” Thomas said.
The cases have broad implications for workers at religious schools, including LGBTQ teachers. The ruling could impact whether gay teachers have a legal right to sue a Catholic school if they’re terminated for entering into a same-sex marriage, or transgender teachers if they’re fired for undergoing a gender transition.
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said based on the arguments the court seems ready to grant Catholic schools the considerable leeway they’re requesting.
“It seems likely there are enough votes to broaden the scope of the so-called ‘ministerial exception’ for religious employers, which would give religious schools and other religious employers more leeway to fire workers without regard for anti-discrimination laws, including those that protect LGBTQ people,” Minter said.
Jeffrey Fisher, an attorney with the Menlo Park, Calif.-based law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP, represented the teachers who were terminated and estimated hundreds of thousands of lay teachers across the country may be affected.
“The schools’ argument would strip more than 300,000 lay teachers in religious schools across the country of basic employment law protections — and necessarily included in this number are teachers who teach so-called secular classes,” Fisher said.
The Trump administration backed the arguments from the religious schools during oral arguments by sending — completely on a voluntary basis because the U.S. government isn’t a party in the litigation — a high-level attorney to argue in favor of an expansive ministerial exemption.
Assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General Morgan Ratner maintained a ruling in favor of an expanded ministerial exemption would be consistent with Supreme Court precedent.
“Under Hosanna Tabor, those teachers are ministering to their students by teaching them how and why to be Catholic, so this should fall within the ministerial exemption regardless of what the school calls them,” Ratner said.
Much of the argument in favor of the expanded ministerial exemption rested on the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in Hosanna Tabor v. EEOC, the 2012 ruling that determined federal discrimination laws don’t apply to religious organizations’ selection of ministerial leaders. However, that decision didn’t specify which employees are considered ministers and which aren’t.
Eric Rassbach, an attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who represented the Catholic schools before the court, said the court’s decision in Hosanna Tabor compels to rule in favor of an expanded ministerial exemption.
“Eight years ago in Hosanna Tabor — the pretext inquiry, the notice requirements, the idea that freedom of association makes freedom of religion entirely unnecessary — all were raised in Hosanna Tabor and rejected unanimously,” Rassbach said. “Eight years later, respond to arguments are not any more convincing. In short, there’s no reason for government to get into business of teaching religion.”
U.S. Associate Justice Elena Kagan sought to clarify the implication of what Rassbach was seeking by peppering with questions on hypothetical jobs for which he thinks the ministerial exemption should apply.
A math teacher who is told to teach something about Judaism for 10 minutes a week? “Probably not.” A press or communications staffer who prepares press release for a religious institution? “That should fall within it.” An employee at a soup kitchen who distributes religious literature and leads grace before meals? “My guess is that that would be de minimius.” A church organist who provides musical accompaniment and selects hymns for religious services? “I think that would fall within it because that’s an important religious function.”
A nurse at a Catholic hospitals who prays with sick patients and is told otherwise to tend to their religious needs? “I think a nurse doing that kind of counseling and care may well fall within the exception.”
Fisher seized on Rassbach’s admission nurses at Catholic hospitals would have no recourse under non-discrimination law with an expanded ministerial exemption as evidence of the breadth of such a decision.
“If you write an opinion that says all important religious functions trigger the ministerial exception, I don’t think there’s any way to escape — you’re going to have the cases with the nurses, you’re going to have the cases with the football coaches, you’re going to have the cases with the summer counselors,” Fisher said. “The only thing the other side says to that in our brief is, ‘Well, those cases haven’t been brought so much,’ but my answer to that is that just shows how revolutionary their case would be, because there’s no good answer to those cases and Mr. Rassbach himself said nurses would be covered.”
U.S. Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor also expressed fear about the potential ruling for an expansive ministerial exemption because the two teachers in the cases “are not claiming that they were fired because the school thought they were teaching religion wrong.”
“You’re asking for an exception to the Family & Medical Leave Act, to wage and hourly laws to all sorts of laws, including breach of contract, because at least one of the schools here, contract with the teacher says they won’t discriminate because of the teachers age or disability,” Sotomayor said.
The conservative justices, nonetheless, devised scenarios in their questioning that appeared to justify having an expanded ministerial exemption for employment at religious schools.
U.S. Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch raised the possibility of a religious school with limited funds that hires a full-time teacher, but asks the teacher to act as a religious leader part-time, or a religion that believes all its members are leaders of the faith.
“You said we shouldn’t focus on their sincerely held religious beliefs, but that is what we do elsewhere in First Amendment jurisprudence,” Gorsuch said. “We don’t second guess those sincerely held religious beliefs. Why would we do it here?”
Although the issue of titles was brought up as a way to distinguish between ministerial and non-ministerial positions, U.S. Associate Justice Samuel Alito said that would be insufficient because titles don’t always give a clear indication of role.
“How does it even help to understand the person’s role?” Alito said. “Suppose you have two people who do exactly the same thing in two different religiously affiliated schools but one has a title and the other one doesn’t have a title, other than the title of the teacher. Why should the presence or absence of this title make any difference?”
It’s true LGBTQ people, as of now, have extremely limited explicit non-discrimination protections under federal law, but the Supreme Court will soon issue a ruling on the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that will determine whether the law covers LGBTQ people. A ruling for Catholic schools in these cases would undercut an LGBTQ-inclusive in the Title VII litigation.
Further, a ruling in favor of an expanded ministerial exemption would undermine the laws in 21 states and D.C. that bar anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the workforce. Not just LGBTQ people would be affected. A ruling for Catholic schools would also allow them to discriminate based on race, national origin, disability or any other category in non-ministerial jobs.
U.S. Associate Justice Stephen Breyer noted various categories of people with histories of discrimination against which a religious institution could lawfully terminate if the ruling came out in favor of the Catholic schools.
“This case has to do with a religious organization might dismiss someone on the basis of race or religion or national origin…where that isn’t related to the carrying on of the religious activity, for example, a person who’s handicapped,” Breyer said.
Minter echoed that concern in his assessment of the oral arguments based on the way judges appeared to lean in favor of an expanded ministerial exemption.
“If the schools win today’s cases, religious schools would be able to fire many more LGBTQ teachers based purely on anti-LGBTQ animus or for any other reason, regardless of whether they have a religious reason for doing so,” Minter said.
A decision in the case is expected before next month at the end of the term for the Supreme Court.
An anti-LGBT+ hate group is attempting to get a judge disqualified from hearing their case because he has refused to permit them to misgender trans people in the courtroom.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a hardline evangelical group which has filed countless lawsuits seeking to undermine and roll back LGBT+ rights, had launched action against the state of Connecticut in February over trans-inclusive rules for high school sports.
However, the case being heard before US district judge Robert N Chatigny has turned extremely ugly – after ADF’s lawyers insisted on repeatedly misgendering transgender children.
The judge had requested that the lawyers use correct terminology after they referred to trans students intervening the suit as “boys” and “males”, with Chatingy urging them to avoid “needlessly provocative” language and maintain “respectful, humane, intelligent, civil discourse”.
Hate group claims judge is biased because he asked them to use the correct gender for trans kids.
ADF responded by calling for the judge, who has served on the court for 26 years, to be disqualified over supposed “bias”.
The group claimed that the request not to repeatedly misgender kids has “destroyed the appearance of impartiality in this proceeding” and “would leave an impartial observer gravely concerned that the Court has prejudged the matter”.
In the complaint, the group appears to suggest that being a decent human being to transgender people in conversation “obscures and rejects the binary of reproductive biology”.
ADF also resorted to the old tried-and-tested staple of claiming that literally everything they say is actually constitutionally-protected freedom of speech.
The group claimed: “The order deprives the plaintiffs of due process rights to present their case fully and fairly through zealous representation, as well as First Amendment rights.”
The group has called for the judge to be moved off of the case and to permit it “to be heard by a different tribunal”.
Alliance Defending Freedom has a long anti-LGBT+ record.
The group has also filed legal challenges across the US seeking to strike down laws banning gay cure therapy, and most notably represented anti-LGBT+ baker Jack Phillips, to advance the argument that religious freedom gives Christian business owners the right to discriminate against gay customers.
Amazon is paying a gay bar $200,000 to make and deliver meals to first responders in Virginia during the coronavirus crisis.
The online retail giant recently moved its headquarters to Arlington in Virginia. In a bid to support the state through the pandemic, it has enlisted a local queer eatery, Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant, to provide 10,000 free meals for police, firefighters and frontline healthcare workers.
“During this unprecedented time, Amazon is working to not only support our frontline workers and first responders across the Arlington area, but also our most vulnerable neighbours in immediate need,” a spokesperson for Amazon in a statement.
“We are proud to work alongside Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant, a beloved local restaurant in our new neighbourhood, to ensure that we’re thanking our neighbours who are keeping us safe, and caring for our neighbours who need extra support right now with hearty meals throughout May.”
In the past week Freddie’s has already prepared and delivered over 400 of the meals to the county police department, sheriff’s office, and emergency communications centre.
Freddie’s owner Freddie Lutz told the Washington Bladehe was “delighted” to accept Amazon’s offer to help first responders, whose sacrifice he and his staff greatly admire.
The support from Amazon has enabled the gay bar owner to bring back most of the employees he had to lay off when the state imposed a coronavirus lockdown. At his suggestion, Amazon also agreed to involve three other neighbouring venues in the project.
Gay bars across the country are in a fight to survive amid the coronavirus, with many already struggling before the pandemic hit.
As many as 37 per cent of America’s gay bars shut down from 2007 to 2019, leaving LGBT+ people without a place to gather in public and LGBT+ workers without employment.
Unfortunately this number is likely to increase before the pandemic ends – which is why alternative forms of income in the meantime can make all the difference.
Joe Biden has reaffirmed his commitment to LGBT+ healthcare, vowing to make PrEP and gender affirming surgeries covered by insurance plans.
The presumptive Democratic nominee described gender affirming surgeries as “medically necessary” as he vowed to reverse Donald Trump’s attacks on trans and non-binary people during a virtual town hall event with the Human Rights Campaign on Wednesday (May 6).
He also pledged to remove the price barrier which prevents many people from accessing PrEP.
“As president, I’m going to protect and build on Obamacare with a public option,” Biden said.
“That’s the fastest way to get to universal coverage. Reverse Trump’s actions and restore Obamacare protections for LGBTQ Americans.
“And cover PrEP so that people at high risk of getting HIV and AIDS, HIV/AIDS, do have – don’t have to choose between covering their rent and staying alive.
“And make sure insurance companies treat gender confirmation surgery as a medical necessary, which it is.”
Joe Biden wants to reinstate Obama-era LGBT+ healthcare protections.
The presidential hopeful said that he would reinstate the LGBT+ protections Trump had scrapped to ensure that no one is refused healthcare on the basis of their sexuality.
“Trump has been trying to gut these protections since he took office,” Biden said.
“Anyone involved in patient care, from the board of directors to a receptionist in charge of scheduling, could put their beliefs above your healthcare.”
Biden has long been outspoken in his support for LGBT+ healthcare, and his campaign platform To Advance LGBTQ+ Equality in America and Around the World calls for full coverage of care related to transitioning.
In January he stated that trans rights “is the civil rights issue of our time” and said “there is no room for compromise”.
His words and actions earned him the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign, which gave him their backing on the eight-year anniversary of him coming out in support of same-sex marriage.
“His dedication to advancing LGBTQ equality, even when it was unpopular to do so, has pushed our country and our movement forward,” HRC president Alphonso David said in a statement.
On May 6, 2012, Vice President Joe Biden declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he supported the legalization of same-sex marriage — getting out ahead of his boss, Barack Obama, on one of the most volatile political issues of the day.
The largest national LGBTQ rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign, formally endorsed Biden for president on Wednesday, the eighth anniversary of that event.
“Joe Biden is the leader our community and our country need at this moment,” HRC President Alphonso David said in a statement. “His dedication to advancing LGBTQ equality, even when it was unpopular to do so, has pushed our country and our movement forward.”
The endorsement itself is no surprise, given the antipathy that most LGBTQ activists have toward Biden’s rival, President Donald Trump. But the timing is a way of highlighting Biden’s bona fides among activists who gratefully remember his 2012 role.
Obama had taken office in 2009 as a self-described fierce advocate for gay rights, yet for much of his first term, he drew flak from activists who viewed him as too cautious and politically expedient. They were frustrated he wouldn’t endorse same-sex marriage — Obama cagily said he was “evolving” on the issue.
That changed swiftly after Biden told “Meet the Press” that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage. Three days later, in a White House interview with ABC News, Obama followed suit.
Biden, a Democrat, subsequently has entrenched himself as a stalwart ally of the LGBTQ rights movement, including periodic appearances at Human Rights Campaign fundraising dinners. He is scheduled to participate in a livestreamed conversation with the organization’s president on Wednesday evening.
Since Trump succeeded Obama in 2017, his Republican administration has taken multiple steps to slow or reverse gains by LGBTQ Americans. For example, it has restricted military service by transgender people and argued in a Supreme Court case that the federal civil rights law doesn’t protect LGBTQ people from discrimination at work.
Along with its endorsement of Biden, the Human Rights Campaign is releasing new details about its 2020 election strategy — identifying voters who support LGBTQ rights, then working to maximize their turnout. Texas is a new addition to the list of targeted states, along with Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
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.”
