After a string of successful general and special elections, the number of LGBTQ elected officials in the U.S. today stands at 698 — the highest number ever, and an increase of nearly 25 percent over last year, according to the Victory Institute, which tracks openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer elected officials.
The data was released as part of Victory’s 2019 Out for Americareport; in last year’s report, there were 559 out LGBTQ officials.
Some of the most well-known LGBTQ officials to take office this year are Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. All are Democrats.
“Some of it is that more out people are running, some of it is that more out people are getting elected, and then more people who are in office are coming out,” Victory Institute President and CEO Annise Parker, the former mayor of Houston, told NBC News. “So it’s becoming much more acceptable, so the numbers are going up every day.”
However, Parker noted that for all the increase in representation, the LGBTQ community remains severely underrepresented in raw terms. The 698 out LGBTQ elected officials make up only 0.13 percent of all elected officials nationwide. Gallup estimates that the LGBTQ community is roughly 4.5 percent of the population.
“Unfortunately, even though this is the highest number we have ever had, we need to elect nearly 23,000 more to achieve parity in elected office,” Parker said.
The number of black LGBTQ elected officials rose from 30 to 43, Latino LGBTQ officials rose from 58 to 74, and transgender elected officials rose from 13 to 20.
“It is time for our first trans member of Congress, our first LGBTQ governor of color, and our first LGBTQ American president,” Parker said in a statement. She called for LGBTQ people to be elected “to every school board, to every city council and to every state legislature.”
62 percent of gay and lesbian Black Census respondents report having felt threatened or harassed at least a few times a year, while a quarter say they feel threatened or harassed once a week or more.
The data comes from the US-based Black Futures Lab, which gathered responses from 5,400 black LGB people to its self-selecting Black Census survey.
Black queer people: Violence is a major problem
According to the group’s report, “more than 78 percent of LGB Black Census respondents report that violence against gays, lesbians, and transgender people is a problem in the community, and 62 percent or more say it is a major problem.”
The data also shows that black LGB people’s biggest concerns include “bread-and-butter economic issues like low pay, unaffordable health care, and access to housing.”
Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, who set up the project, explained: “Too often, Black LGB+ people are perceived as distinct and separate from the larger Black community and defined more by their sexual orientation than their race.
“Attending a gay wedding and changing your Facebook profile picture to a rainbow flag is great, but it’s simply not enough.”
“In fact, LGB+ respondents prioritise the same concerns as the rest of the Black community and face triple consciousness: violence and discrimination based not only on race but gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation.”
“Black LGB+ people often lose employment opportunities, access to housing and quality affordable health care because of how we identify.
A woman holds a pro-LGBT placard on a Martin Luther King Day march. File photo. (Reza/Getty Images)
“It is important for policymakers, activists and community groups to remember this and create an agenda that reflects that understanding when representing and serving Black LGB+ people.
“Attending a gay wedding and changing your Facebook profile picture to a rainbow flag is great, but it’s simply not enough.”
Separate Black Census report will focus on trans experiences
The group is planning to release a separate report looking at the experience of trans and non-binary people.
It explained: “While transgender and gender non-conforming people are frequently combined with LGB+ people into a single group (often described as LGBTQ+), Black Futures Lab has chosen to consider gender identification separately from sexual orientation in order to highlight in a separate report the distinct viewpoints of Black Census respondents who identify as transgender, gender non-conforming, or identify with a gender different than male or female.”
On the other side of the Atlantic, UK Black Pride is taking place on Sunday (June 7).
GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today released a new report highlighting the records of the anti-LGBTQ activists appointed to serve on the U.S. State Department’s new “Commission on Unalienable Rights.” According to reports, the “Commission” will provide the federal government “an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy” – putting LGBTQ acceptance at risk on a global scale.
“This ‘Commission’ is a farce and further illustrates the bold-faced anti-LGBTQ agenda of this administration,”said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. ”The Trump Administration is knowingly appointing activists who have made careers out of fighting against LGBTQ progress and is now providing them an opportunity to export their anti-LGBTQ activism around the world through the U.S. State Department.”
GLAAD’s new report dug into the records of the ten members appointed to serve on the State Department’s Commission and found troubling, anti-LGBTQ history in seven of its members. The Commission includes members like Mary Ann Glendon, a longtime anti-LGBTQ activist who claimed marriage equality was a “radical social experiment,” and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, who claimed marriage equality was “one of the signs of the End Times.” The launch of the “Commission on Unalienable Rights” now marks the 117th attack against the LGBTQ community by the Trump Administration since the start of 2017.
GLAAD REPORT: Anti-LGBTQ Members of the State Department’s New “Commission on Unalienable Rights”
Peter Berkowitz — Criticized the Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling overturning sodomy laws as “dangerous,” writing that “Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion seemed to follow the logic of his moral and political judgments rather than the logic of the law.”
Mary Ann Glendon (Chair) — Has written extensively on her view that marriage equality is a “radical social experiment” that harms children. She alsorecently wrote a blurb for a viciously anti-trans book, calling the book—which culminates in a plan of action that calls for the complete erasure of trans people —“eminently readable and insightful.”
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson — Lectured that his belief is for Muslims to repress being gay, and (at 3:23) that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are prophesized as “one of the signs of the End Times.”
Jacqueline Rivers — Delivered a speech at the Vatican, insisting that LGBTQ activists were “abolishing in law the principle of marriage as a conjugal union and reducing it to nothing other than sexual or romantic partnerships or domestic companionship.” She went on insist that LGBTQ activists have “unjustly appropriated” civil rights language.
Meir Soloveichik — Called the notion of gay people’s marriages “nonsensical” (see page 71); he went on to suggest that arguments favoring bestiality will follow same-sex marriage (page 72); Also, blurbed an anti-LGBTQ book written by the National Organization For Marriage’s cofounder.
Christopher Tollefsen — Wrote an anti-trans essay that culminated in the opinion that “…attempts to change one’s biological sex all fail. That is an undefeatable reason against trying to do so.” In a follow up, he further argued that “…it is a mark of a heartless culture that it encourages such confusion even to the point of encouraging bodily mutilation as a solution to gender dysphoria and prohibiting therapy that might be psychologically and spiritually beneficial.”
F. Cartwright Weiland (Rapporteur) — Served as policy analyst for the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute, an anti-LGBTQ think thank that advised the Texas legislature and Governor’s office; also served as speechwriter to anti-LGBTQ US Senator John Cornyn.
LGBTQ acceptance has been threatened by President Trump and his administration since the start of 2017. Not only has President Trump banned transgender Americans from serving in the nation’s armed forces, but his administration has also opposed the Equality Act, a bill which would provide across-the-board protections for LGBTQ Americans at home, at work, and in their communities. A full list of the Trump Administration’s anti-LGBTQ actions can be found by going to GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project.
U.S. Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) has no problem pretending to be pro-LGBT when he’s at a fundraiser hosted by a conservative LGBT organization, but he can’t hide his record from voters or from his challenger, a gay Democrat.
Dan Baer, a former U.S. Ambassador under President Barack Obama, announced in April he is running for the U.S. Senate, hoping to win the Democratic nomination and the Senate seat currently held by Gardner. As The Advocate reports, Baer “just received the endorsement of the LGBTQ Victory Fund,” which works to help elect out LGBTQ candidates.
Baer, if elected, would be the first openly gay man to serve in the U.S. Senate. Senator Tammy Baldwin, who is a lesbian, was the first out LGBT person elected to serve in the Senate.
As the Colorado Times Recorder reported in May, Sen. Gardner “was one of three swing-state Republican senators to receive money from a fundraiser hosted by American Unity Fund (AUF), a conservative LGBT rights group.”
Here he is posing with “AUF supporter Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers,” who “posted a picture of Gardner and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) posing with Timmons and his husband at the event.”00:0100:45
Senator Gardner’s anti-LGBT history is well-known. He has been rated extremely low (12% and 16%) by HRC.
Gardner has a troubling relationship with marriage equality. He has stated very publicly his opposition, but in his tough race against Democrat Tom Udall, the incumbent, Gardner massaged his position, saying it was a matter for the courts.
In June of 2014 HRC called Gardner’s views on equality “incredibly antiquated,” noting he “voted against allowing unmarried same-sex partners to adopt children and to prohibit sexual orientation discrimination.” Gardner, HRC said, “is determined to discriminate against and exclude LGBT people.”
Later that year, less than one month before he would be elected to the U.S. Senate, Gardner “issued a statement … that he isn’t budging from his position that marriage should only be between a man and a woman but also emphasizing his respect for the law and for all couples,” Colorado’s Fox 31 reported.
“My views on marriage have long been clear,” Gardner told the Denver-based station. “I believe we must treat each other with dignity and respect. This issue is in the hands of the courts and we must honor their legal decisions.”
His press secretary in that same article is quoted saying Gardener is “a strong supporter of marriage equality.”
Marriage equality seems to be a marriage of convenience for Sen. Gardner.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday announced the formation of a new commission that will take a “fresh look” at human rights through the lens of “natural law,” and civil and human rights advocates are outraged. In preliminary filings the State Dept. noted the Commission will explore “our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.”
“Natural law,” is religious right wing extremist code for anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ rights, especially marriage for same-sex couples.
Secretary Pompeo, a known right wing Christian extremist in his own right, has named Mary Ann Glendon, a professor who is also his former mentor, to lead the “Commission on Unalienable Rights.”
“I hope that the commission will revisit the most basic of questions: What does it mean to claim something is, in fact, a human right?” Pompeo told reporters Monday, adding, as Yahoo News notes, that “words like rights can be used for good or evil.”
Glendon should understand Pompeo’s remarks. She penned a 2004 op-ed supporting a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In a unique twist of language she claimed the amendment “should be welcomed by all Americans who are concerned about equality and preserving democratic decision-making.”
And in a shocking move Glendon chastised the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize to the Boston Globe for its work exposing pedophile priests. She reportedly said; “If fairness & accuracy have anything to do with it, awarding the Pulitzer to the Boston Globe would be like giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Osama bin Laden.”
Anti-gay hate group leader Tony Perkins was briefed on the Commission before it was officially announced, CBS News reports.
A State Dept. official says the Commission is a “personal project” of Secretary Pompeo’s, and Politico reports the Commission “was conceived with almost no input from the State Department’s human rights bureau, people familiar with the matter say, effectively sidelining career government experts who have focused on human rights policy and history across numerous administrations.”
“This administration has actively worked to deny and take away long-standing human rights protections since Trump’s inauguration. If this administration truly wanted to support people’s rights, it would use the global framework that’s already in place. Instead, it wants to undermine rights for individuals, as well as the responsibilities of governments.”
“This approach only encourages other countries to adopt a disregard for basic human rights standards and risks weakening international, as well as regional frameworks, placing the rights of millions of people around the world in jeopardy.”
“International agreements, like the Universal Declaration for Human Rights, have been upheld by prior administrations over the last 71 years, regardless of their party. This politicization of human rights in order to, what appears to be an attempt to further hateful policies aimed at women and LGBTQ people, is shameful.”
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict — ostensibly not about LGBTQ issues and thousands of miles from the U.S. — has become a potent flashpoint within the queer community.
For years, the debate over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has roiled LGBTQ gatherings and parades where Jewish groups wanted to display symbols of the religion. In 2017, organizers of the Chicago Dyke March kicked women out for carrying the Pride flag with a Star of David, citing its resemblance to the Israeli flag.
This month, a soon-to-open gay bar in Minneapolis became embroiled in the dispute when a journalist unearthed tweets by the bar’s owner calling for the death of all Israelis. The owner also accused Zionist Jews, broadly defined as those who support a Jewish state in Israel in some form, as running America. The tweets were both anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist, but in many other recent controversies, parsing those two ideologies can be divisive.
As it is, many Americans living at the intersection of Jewish and queer identities have been alarmed by news reports that affect the two groups: synagogue shootings, rollbacks in federal rights for LGBTQ people, swastikas painted on Jewish institutions, Israeli and Pride flags being burned and urinated on and rising hate crimes against Jews and queer people. Activists say that shared sense of alarm should prevent political disagreements over Israel from boiling over into anti-Semitism.
A.J. CAMPBELL
“It’s important that we all call out anti-Semitism in our own spaces,” said Amanda Berman, founder of the “unabashedly progressive” and “unquestionably Zionist” group Zioness. “It’s hard work to call it out in your own movement.”
CONFRONTATION OVER SYMBOLS
At this year’s Creating Change conference in Detroit, a national event that focuses on LGBTQ issues, pro-Palestinian protestors disruptedthe opening ceremony to condemn the lack of Palestinian programming. At the 2016 conference, in Chicago, the pro-Israel LGBTQ organization A Wider Bridge shut down its event and evacuated guests because of intense protests.
A participant holds a rainbow flag with a Star of David symbol during the LA Pride Parade in West Hollywood on June 10, 2018.Roven Tivony / NurPhoto via Getty Images file
Whether that flag that has produced so many protests is Jewish, Israeli or both is complicated. The Star of David has been a Jewish symbol for hundreds and possibly thousands of years, long before the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. The Pride flag with the Jewish star in the middle of a rainbow background is the most common symbol of Jewish LGBTQ Pride, but it is not the official Israeli Pride flag, which replaces the two blue banners at the top and bottom of the Israeli flag with rainbow colors.
Rae Gaines, 30, is an organizer of the Dyke March in Washington that took place June 7. Gaines, who is Jewish but anti-Zionist, said it was unfortunate that Jewish women were kicked out of the Chicago march and wanted the situation handled better in Washington. Organizers there decided to ask attendees not to bring “nationalist symbols” of any country, but allowed Palestinian flags because they “don’t yet have a nation.”
“It can be scary to be a Jew. I can relate to the fear of existing,” Gaines said. “I wanted to relate to that, but without being nationalist.”
Gaines said march organizers had alternate Jewish Pride flags on hand and intended to ask anyone with a Star of David on their flag to swap them out in order to avoid making Palestinians feel unwelcome or unsafe. However, the nuanced approach Gaines hoped for turned into a bitter public confrontation.
A.J. Campbell, 50, an activist, contacted the march to ask about bringing the rainbow flag with the Jewish star, with the events in Chicago in mind. She was angered when she was told it “would not be welcome.” She took the issue to the media, and it was widely reported and condemned as a ban. The National LGBT Taskforce and the Human Rights Campaign disaffiliated from the march, condemning the policy as anti-Semitic and not inclusive.
“There’s Pride flags with crosses and crescent moons in the center. The Jewish star is our symbol,” Campbell said. “I would never ask Palestinians to censor their symbols,” she continued, noting that some Jews might feel unsafe around a Palestinian flag because of terror attacks against Israelis.
A group of 30 people, including Campbell, showed up to the Dyke March in Washington with their flags and argued with organizers about whether the placement of the star at the flag’s center was equated with Zionism and if the star should be placed elsewhere on the flag.
The group ultimately joined the march, flag in tow. Gaines said there was never an intention to block the flag but rather a hope people would understand why it wasn’t welcome.
“The narrative became that we were a space that was anti-Semitic, which was painful,” Gaines said. “I’m a Jew who loves being Jewish, so it hurts.”
EXCLUDED OVER MIDEAST POLITICS
Some LGBTQ Jews embrace the Jewish Pride flag’s similarity to the Israeli flag, saying they want to celebrate their connection to Israel as part of their intersectional identity. However, some say if they openly identify as anything other than anti-Zionist, they are unwelcome in certain queer spaces.
Emily Cohen, 36, a queer woman who runs an advocacy group for transgender people and other underserved groups in South Florida, said she is constantly defending her beliefs in LGBTQ spaces.
“It’s tiring to have to explain my position over and over,” she said. “There’s a line in the sand, you’re on one side or the other, and it shouldn’t be that way.”
Emily Cohen on a trip to Tel Aviv with A Wider Bridge.Courtesy Emily Cohen
In 2012, Cohen ran an LGBTQ student center at a South Florida university. She said she kept her Judaism quiet, because the students were “vehemently anti-Israel.”
That experience inspired her to explore her connection to Israel, so she went on a mission there with A Wider Bridge.
She said she came back emboldened to defend her support for Israel existing as a Jewish state, clarifying that she would like to see an end to the conflict and a Palestinian state. But she said the situation is complicated and cannot be blamed on or fixed solely by Israel.
She explains to friends that the Israeli government does not represent all Israelis, just as President Donald Trump does not speak for all Americans. Still, she said some of her queer friends dismissed her trip as a brainwashing effort by Israel supporters.
She said that sometimes the comments are blatantly anti-Semitic.
“People talk as if Jews are racist and elitist for wanting their own country, that Jews like to steal land,” she said. “It’s super uncomfortable for me.”
Cohen points out that in Israel, most LGBTQ people live safely with many rights, even if far from full equality, while many queer people in Palestine cannot live openly. She asks why pro-Palestinian queer people don’t specifically condemn queer oppression in Palestine, noting a report of Hamas executing a gay man in Gaza by throwing him off a building.
Gaines, the Washington march organizer, said that discussion of condemning the reported Palestinian brutality against queer people did not come up in planning meetings for the march, which considered itself “fiercely” pro-Palestinian. “Perhaps that’s something we can talk about for next year,” Gaines said.
Alyssa Rubin, 24, a queer activist with IfNotNow, a group that advocates ending the occupation of Palestinians, also declined to specifically condemn Palestinian oppression of queer people.
“Palestinians deal with multiple systems of oppression — from the occupation to the patriarchy and homophobia,” she said.
But, unlike many progressive activists, she also declined to dismiss Pride events in Israel, such as last week’s parade in Tel Aviv with over 250,000 participants, as “pinkwashing,” or an attempt to distract from the occupation of Palestinians.
“Queer Israelis have a right to celebrate being queer,” Rubin said. “Terrible things are happening in the U.S. right now, but we still celebrate Pride. The Dyke March has anti-colonialist politics, yet they’re in the U.S., colonial sins and all.”
Rubin said that while support for Israel can be a litmus test for Jews in queer spaces, it can also be a test for queers in Jewish spaces. She cited events in which Hillel, a Jewish organization across college campuses that supports Israel, banned queer Jewish groups that partner with anti-Zionist groups.
“Unquestionably supporting Israel should not be a requirement for Jews to support Jewish queers,” she said. “Hillel should support all queer Jews, regardless of Israel politics.”
All of the activists interviewed said their Jewish and queer identities are tightly bound and most said they have struggled to gain acceptance within the queer community, the Jewish community or both.
“We’ve made so much progress as queer Jews,” Campbell said. “I did not expect the next fight to be within the queer community.”
US Customs and Border Patrol agents at a migrant processing center in Texas allegedly attempted to humiliate a Honduran migrant by making him hold a sign that read, “I like men,” according to emails written by an agent who witnessed the incident.
The emails — obtained by CNN — were sent to the agent’s supervisor and outlined the March 5 episode in which a Honduran man was forced to hold a piece of paper that said, “Me gustan los hombre(s),” which translates to “I like men,” while being paraded through a migrant detention center.
The incident is one of many, per the emails, in which the CBP agent allegedly witnessed several colleagues displaying poor behavior and management’s failure to act.
Stacy Feintuch, a mother of two in suburban New Jersey, said she didn’t know what was wrong when her oldest daughter, Amanda, 17, began to withdraw.
“I confronted her and said, ‘You need to talk to me,’” Feintuch said: “She said, ‘It’s not what you think. I’m fine, it’s not that.”
“I can’t tell you, I can’t tell you.’”
Feintuch said her mind raced: “Is she pregnant? Is she in trouble?” Finally, Amanda buried her head in her pillow and said, “I’m gay.”
“I was just dumbfounded, just shocked. It wasn’t even a thought in my head,” Feintuch said. “I said, which ended up being the absolute wrong thing to say, ‘Why do you think this?’ She started screaming at me.”
“I said: ‘Take a breath, I didn’t mean anything by it. I love you. I’m shocked, I just want to talk to you about this.”
Amanda calmed down and, fortunately, they talked.
While Feintuch considers herself an accepting person, she still faced some immediate stress and shock when her child came out to her. That’s not uncommon. A new study conducted by researchers at George Washington University found that most parents of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth have difficulty adjusting after their kids come out.
The study says it is one of the first to systematically examine the experience of parents raising lesbian, gay and bisexual children. David Huebner, one of the study’s lead authors and a public health professor at George Washington University, said his team approached the study with a question: “Can we identify the families that most need intervention to support the families and protect the kids?”
The study found that African American and Latino parents have a harder time accepting their lesbian, gay and bisexual children, as do the parents of children who come out at a later age.
The study, which surveyed a much larger sample size than previous studies, confirmed smaller studies that showed parents’ negative reactions tend to ease over time; the first two years are the hardest for parents.
There were no significant differences in reactions between mother and father, the age of the parent, or the gender of the child. The study did not examine the reactions for the parents of transgender children.
In general, acceptance seems to be growing rapidly for lesbian, gay and bisexual youth. “We see improvement in people’s respect for LGBT rights, we’ve seen political progress, concrete political progress, and we have also seen attitudes shifting at the population level,” Huebner said. “I think for parents, when you’re confronted with your own child who you love so fiercely, I think that reaction in that moment is a very personal one, and it’s one that’s hard to predict from public opinion.”
After Amanda came out, Feintuch told her daughter that she worried her life would become more difficult after having struggled with depression in high school. “I was hoping that now your time would get easier, and your life would get easier, and it scares me that it would be more difficult.”
“She’s like: ‘It’s not like how it was when you were growing up. There’s a lot of kids in my school who are gay. Its not a big deal,’” Feintuch said. “I had to get it through my head first, and get it through my mind: ‘This is how her life is going to be, and it’s going to be fine.’”
“It was about a year until Amanda was like, OK, definitely 100 percent, and then she had a girlfriend and then I saw it all come together.”
Huebner said his study is the first to measure these reactions and that previous studies of the parents of LGBTQ youth mostly recruited from accepting and friendly environments, like PFLAG, an organization for the parents of LGBTQ people.
“I think we have made a huge improvement here — 80 percent [of survey respondents] had never been to a support group, had never talked to a therapist,” Huebner said. “These were parents who had never before been heard from in research.”
Still, Huebner pointed to some potential oversights: “There’s reason to believe we are missing two groups of people: those super rejecting people, and those parents who were so immediately accepting that they also didn’t need the resources.”
Huebner hopes that this will allow advocates to devise materials so parents can better prepare themselves to accept and love their kids.
“Parents have the power to protect their kids, their LGBT kids, from all sorts of threatening forces,” Huebner said. “We know that when parents are supportive of their LGBT kids those kids have less depression and fewer risk behaviors.”
GLAAD and The Harris Poll’s annual Acceptance Index shows a decline in LGBTQ acceptance among younger Americans. At the same time, GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project counts more than 114 attacks on LGBTQ Americans from The Trump Administration since President Trump took office.
Additionally, anti-LGBTQ violence continues to plague LGBTQ Americans. GLAAD compiled the following partial list of incidents of violence from news coverage from January to June 2019. From the horrific murders of transgender women of color to other random acts of violence – this list is a snapshot of anti-LGBTQ violence in America and is not comprehensive. If you’ve seen examples of anti-LGBTQ violence reported on in the media, contact press@glaad.org.
If you or someone you know has experienced anti-LGBTQ violence, please contact the Anti-Violence Project by calling their 24 hour free and confidential hotline at 212-714-1141 or vsiting their Report Violence site.
GLAAD mourns the loss of the following transgender women. For more about their lives please visit the Human Rights Campaign. GLAAD released the ‘More Than A Number’ report for more information on the epidemic of violence facing transgender Americans, especially transgender women of color, and best practices for reporting on this issue.
If you or someone you know has experienced anti-LGBTQ violence, please contact the Anti-Violence Project by calling their 24 hour free and confidential hotline at 212-714-1141 or vsiting their Report Violence site.
The LGBTQ community in Montgomery, Alabama, has been left with more questions than answers after a drag show was shut down by authorities Saturday night, during the 50th anniversary weekend of the historic Stonewall uprising.
“We’ve been running for weeks trying to raise money for a gay club in Montgomery, because we don’t have one,” Victoria A. Jewelle, a local drag queen who serves as the show’s director, told NBC News. “We were trying to raise money for a new establishment so we can have a place to feel safe.”
Alee Michelle is one of the drag queens who was set to perform at A Touch of Soul on Saturday, June 29, 2019, before authorities shut down the venue.Courtesy Nakeia Moss
Officials with Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board canvassed a dozen local bars, restaurants and nightclubs June 29 for what they call a “minor buy.” Essentially, the board sends a young person under the age of 21 into the establishment to see if the business will sell alcohol to them. It was assisted in this effort by the Montgomery Police Department and the Montgomery Fire and Rescue, in addition to other agencies.
At 10:45 p.m., officials arrived on the scene at A Touch of Soul, a soul food restaurant that was hosting a drag show to raise funds for the opening of a new LGBTQ nightclub in Montgomery. The city’s only full-time gay bar, Club 322, closed in May.
According to Jewelle, the fundraiser has gone on for weeks with absolutely no backlash from local authorities. All of that changed when performers say officials with the agencies came into their dressing rooms while they were putting on their makeup, shined flashlights in their faces and even went through their laptops.
Authorities ordered A Touch of Soul to close at midnight, giving everyone about an hour to pack up and leave. The fundraiser, which also served as the after party for Montgomery’s LGBTQ pride weekend, was essentially over before it even started.
Ambrosia Starling, a drag queen and community leader in Montgomery, said the scene was reminiscent of the bar raids at the long-closed HoJohns, the city’s premiere gay nightclub during the 1980s. She claimed that police would typically visit the bar at the end of their shifts to “practice the dogs” on its LGBTQ clientele.
“They used to raid HoJohns continuously,” Starling said. “The city of Montgomery has a history of harassing some of the older community LGBTQ spaces.”
‘NEVER HAD THIS PROBLEM BEFORE’
A second establishment experienced issues with authorities while hosting an LGBTQ event on Saturday night, the same day as the city’s LGBTQ Pride Month celebrations. Montgomery officials showed up at Club Reset, which was formerly known as Envi Ultra Lounge, at 2:00 a.m. and ordered patrons to “pour out their drinks” and vacate the premises immediately.
T’Chelle Monroe, a party promoter who has been organizing LGBTQ events at Club Reset for a year, said the bar typically stops serving drinks at that time and allows clubgoers to file out in a leisurely fashion.
Monroe said she’s “never had this problem before.”
“I’ve been in other clubs before, and I know they shut their bar down at 2 a.m.,” she said. “I’ve never heard that you actually had to be out of the club at that time.”
As LGBTQ people filed out of Club Reset after it was shut down, Monroe said many went over to nearby Club Ciroc, which shares a building with an auto supply shop and a hookah lounge. She said officials “followed” them to Club Ciroc, despite the fact that it had already passed its regulations check earlier in the evening.
A representative with Club Ciroc confirmed authorities did show up a second time at 2:30 a.m. but did not know whether they had followed patrons of Club Reset there.
“It made me feel like they’re targeting us,” Monroe said. “We already have enough to deal with being gay, but we’re here trying to celebrate each other on our weekend. They were tarnishing what we were trying to do. We’re just trying to have a good time amongst each other.”
NBC News contacted two other businesses that Monroe said were visited by police Saturday: Xscape Tapas Grille and Sky Bar.
A representative with Xscape confirmed that authorities were at the business for a half hour on Saturday, rigorously checking the lights, inspecting identifications and looking at liquor receipts, though the representative had no complaints about the interactions with city officials that night.
While Club Ciroc, Xscape and Sky Bar all confirmed authorities had visited their businesses, representatives from each declined to be quoted in this story.
Montgomery officials maintain that everything that took place Saturday night was completely by the book.
Dean Argo, the government relations manager for the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, said the board didn’t initially intend to scrutinize A Touch of Soul this weekend. However, he said an inspector approached the restaurant after he observed “people outside sitting on stools collecting money at the door,” as a board representative would later write in an incident report.
Argo read NBC News the report in its entirety.
“Upon entering the location, we found there was no food in the kitchen, no cook on duty,” the report states. “A restaurant license is issued for this location and that is described as habitually and principally used for the purpose of preparing and serving meals for the public to consume on premise.”
“Speaking only for the ABC Board,” Argo added, “we did not instruct anyone at this business to shut down.”
Jason Cupps, a captain with the Montgomery Fire Rescue, added that city authorities “verbally reminded the restaurant that, under the terms of its business license, it is required to close by midnight.”
Geri Moss, the restaurant’s owner, said that explanation doesn’t hold water. Since opening A Touch of Soul in 2016, she said it has regularly stayed open Fridays and Saturdays until 2 a.m. without incident. A Google search confirms those hours. According to Moss, the restaurant doesn’t shut its doors before that time unless business is slow.
“I was told that I could stay open until 2 a.m. on Saturday,” she said, adding that the city authorities who came to the restaurant over the weekend didn’t mention its hours being an issue.
While the ABC Board inspector noted in his report that there was no cook in the kitchen at the time of the visit, Moss claimed that is not true. She said she got up that morning around 4 a.m. to prepare the menu for the show, which was steak, potatoes and salad. There was another cook onsite ready to assist patrons in the meantime, should they want to order a hamburger and fries, she added.
“My kitchen is never closed unless the cafe’s closed, and there is always a cook,” she said. “If I’m not there, there’s a cook.”
Others confirmed there was a cook onsite.
Moss also said despite claims that A Touch of Soul was “collecting money at the door” for the fundraiser, she claimed there “weren’t any customers at that point.”
“The only persons that they saw were workers that I hired to work the party,” she claimed.
When NBC News approached the ABC Board and the Montgomery Fire and Rescue with the discrepancies between their official statements and what those present at A Touch of Soul said occurred Saturday, they could not offer an explanation. Both Argo and Cupps say they had been offered no additional information on the subject.
‘UNFORTUNATE’ TIMING
Several members of Montgomery’s LGBTQ community said what upsets them most about the weekend incident is that it seems to be a departure from the improving relationship between LGBTQ residents and city authorities. That relationship, they maintain, has improved greatly since the 1980s, when police harassment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer people was the norm.
Montgomery, Alabama’s second-largest city, hired its first LGBTQ liaison officer two years ago, and now it has two: Bianka Ruiz and Devin Douglas.
“We thought that we had gotten on such good footing, and that was one of the things that was so confusing for us,” Starling said. “We’re trying to build a good relationship with the police department. We thought that was being accomplished.”
Starling credits the Montgomery Police Department with being responsive to the community’s concerns about how the drag show was handled. Police Chief Ernest N. Finley addressed the matter in a speech to the LGBTQ community Sunday. According to the Montgomery Advertiser, Finley claimed the action had been planned for weeks but admitted the timing was “unfortunate.”
“You have my word that this shouldn’t happen,” he said, promising “more communication” in the future.
But even if the intentions of local authorities were benign, those present during the incident at A Touch of Soul wondered why officials couldn’t have chosen any weekend other than Pride to do a sweep of bars and nightclubs in Montgomery.
“If you knew for months, why didn’t you switch the day out of respect?” Jewelle asked.
When NBC News reached out to the Montgomery Police Department for comment, it deferred to the Montgomery Fire and Rescue’s statements on the matter.
Despite the controversy, A Touch of Soul has no plans to cease holding drag shows at the restaurant. Moss promised members of the city’s LGBTQ community they could keep putting on events until they raise enough money to “get their home,” and she doesn’t intend to break that pledge.
“If they got to shut me down, then they’re going to have to come with something not bogus and not made up,” she said.