“Two years ago, our nation witnessed one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history. It was an attack on the LGBTQ community, the Latinx community, and LGBTQ people of color everywhere. It was an attack on the American people and the values of diversity and equality that all of us should cherish. And it was an all too common reminder that our nation is in dire need of common sense gun reforms.
“On this anniversary, let us honor the lives lost that night by recommitting ourselves to the fight for a world where no one faces discrimination, where no life is taken by hatred or bigotry, where everyone is treated with respect and dignity – no matter who they are or who they love. As we celebrate Pride Month, we recognize that the fight for LGBTQ equality is far from over, and the Democratic Party will continue to stand with LGBTQ communities in America and around the world who are fighting for the rights they deserve.”
An emotional, rain-soaked rally on the eve of the Pulse anniversary Monday evening was mixed with anguish and raw anger over the lack of progress on gun reform and gay rights in Florida and the sheer number of mass shootings that have happened since.
“Six hundred and twelve days,” said Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the 2016 Pulse shooting and organizer of the Pulse Rally to Honor Them with Action at Orlando City Hall. “That’s how long it took for Pulse headlines to become Parkland headlines. … That’s how long it took for 49 lives lost to become 17 more. And in those 612 days, nothing changed.”
Pulse survivors were joined on the steps of City Hall by survivors of the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and about 200 rallygoers, several of whom stretched a rainbow ribbon in front of the podium reading “Gays against guns.”
It’s been two years to the day since the Pulse nightclub shooting that claimed 49 lives in Orlando. And for two years, Gov. Rick Scott has faced the same question from many in the state’s LGBTQ community. Why didn’t the governor do more to reach out to LGBTQ citizens after the massacre?
Scott, for the second year in a row, officially proclaimed June 12, “Pulse Remembrance Day.” But some LGBTQ advocates say they want more from the governor. Smith has long criticized Scott for failing to sign an executive order banning discrimination based on sexuality or gender identity in the workplace.
And many have noted the difference in the governor’s response to the Pulse shooting — after which the governor failed to push for any law regulating firearms — and Scott’s legislative push after the Feb. 14 Parkland shooting.
Two years ago on June 12 at 2:02 a.m., Orlando was forever changed. On Tuesday, the city and Pulse nightclub will remember the 49 people who were killed and continue to support the more than 50 others who were shot or injured.
At noon, a bell will toll 49 times at the First United Methodist Church marking the 49 lives taken. Later in the day, a remembrance ceremony and community gathering will happen at the new Pulse memorial beginning at 7 p.m.
A month before the second anniversary of the shooting, the temporary memorial at Pulse opened to the public. It was the first time mourners and visitors had had an official place to leave tokens and write notes at the South Orange Avenue location since the FBI erected a fence around the club hours after the shooting.
Senior leaders at the Pentagon are distancing themselvesfrom the Defense Department’sannual LGBT Pride Month celebrations, declining to formally acknowledge the observances for the first time since the practice became routine after President Barack Obama repealed the military’s ban on homosexuals serving openly.
The absence this year of an official Pentagon memo marking LGBT Pride Month has raised questions among service members and Defense Department civilian employees who are troubled by President Trump’s surprise proclamation last July that he would ban transgender people from serving in the military. Typically, thememo is distributedas LGBT Pride Month begins each June, effectively endorsingthe observance and encouraging personnel to hold local events. The memo has putLGBT Pride Month on par with other special observances and heritage months.
“It opens the door for LGBT service members, civilians and their allies on military bases to hold events recognizing Pride Month without having to ask for special permission or an exception,” said a former senior Obama administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the official’s dealings with the Pentagon. “It makes it known that there’s an authorization, that there’s support.”
Even without an official observance memo, the LGBT employee group at the Defense Department held an event Monday at the Pentagon. Contrary to past years, though, no high-level department leaders made public remarks — another first since such eventsbegan in 2012, the year after the policy known as“don’t ask, don’t tell” was repealed. Instead, Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.) headlined Monday’s gathering.
Air Force Maj. Carla Gleason, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon, declined to discuss why no observance memo has been issuedthis year, saying only: “The Department of Defense supports diversity of all kinds across our military and we encourage everyone to celebrate the diversity of our total force team. . . . We value all members of the DOD total force and recognize their immense contributions to the mission.”
Gleason noted, too, that despite the absence of an official memo, the Pentagon’s LGBT employee group held its annual event.
The event’s organizers designed this year’s promotional posters because, without an official observance memo, the Pentagon’s design office was prohibited from doing the work, according to people familiar with the plans.
The Defense Department Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity maintains a website publicizing the posters and memos designating 2018’s other official observances. As of Monday, it listed five: Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Holocaust Days of Remembrance, and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. In each instance, all materials were distributed across the force in accordance with regular protocol.
The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is responsible for issuing the memos. Robert L. Wilkie, Trump’s nominee to become the next Veterans Affairs secretary, currently runs the office, pending his confirmation to the Cabinet post.
Trump’s transgender ban has yet to go into effect because of court challenges. In the meantime, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has recommended a new policy that disqualifies transgender people who require or have already undergone gender transition, and bans people with current or recent gender dysphoria except in rare circumstances. Gender dysphoria is the medical term for people who feel distress as a result of their birth gender.
Mattis’s policy recommendation marks a reversal of the Obama administration’s decision in 2016 to lift a ban on transgender men and womenserving in the U.S. armed forces, though it grandfathers those currently serving.
Trump positioned himself as a supporter of gay rights during his campaign, promising during the Republican National Conventionto “protect LGBTQ citizens.” His decision last July to announce a ban on transgender people serving in the military has drawn sharp criticism from gay rights groups and raised questions about the commitment he offered on the campaign trail.
Civil libertarians and LGBTQ rights advocates praised Republican Gov. Chris Sununu on Friday after he signed into law a bill prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity. “Discrimination – in any form – is unacceptable and runs contrary to New Hampshire’s Live Free or Die Spirit,” Sununu said in a statement after signing House Bill 1319.
“If we really want to be the ‘Live Free or Die’ state, we must ensure that New Hampshire is a place where every person, regardless of their background, has an equal and full opportunity to pursue their dreams and to make a better life for themselves and their families.”
Sununu on Friday also signed legislation banning conversion therapy for gay minors. The transgender rights bill passed the New Hampshire House and Senate with all Democrats in favor and enough Republicans in support to pass it. The roll call in the House was 195-129, and in the Senate, 14-10.
NOTE: New York has banned insurance coverage for conversion therapy by Gov. Cuomo’s executive order, but not by legislative statute as in other states. If you count New York, the current total is 14 states, not 13.
A survey has found more than half of Americans have no qualms when it comes to their colleagues’ sexual orientation or gender identity.
The poll, carried out by Bospar Public Relations and market research firm Propeller Insights, found 55 percent of Americans aged 18 and over were OK with having gay, lesbian or transgender co-workers.
The poll found those aged 75 and over were the age group most likely to be accepting of LGT colleagues, with 60 percent saying they had no preference of sexuality or gender identity.
56 percent of respondents aged 18-to-34 and 59 percent of those aged 35-to-54 said the same.
Baby-boomers were the least accepting, with only 47.9 percent saying they had no preference.
Many Brits still fear coming out in the workplaceThe survey did not include views on bisexual workers.
Of those polled, only 4.7 percent and 4.6 percent said they would prefer to work with transgender men and women respectively.
“I think it shows that we have a long way to, especially with the trans community,” Bospar executive Curtis Sparrer told NewNowNext.
“When I looked at the data it seemed to suggest that people wanted to work with people like themselves, which would explain why straight men and women did so well—since they are a majority of the country’s population.”
The survey was carried out over a five-day period in April and included 1,010 respondents.
A survey by the organisation found that 35 percent of of LGBT people in the UK remain in the closet to colleagues.
The poll revealed discrimination against transgender workers (Mark Makela/Getty)
Ruth Hunt, chief executive of Stonewall, said: “Over the past decade, leading employers across all sectors have shown a real commitment to inclusion and have taken positive steps towards LGBT equality.
“Unfortunately, the findings of our Work Report show there’s still lots to do. The fact that more than a third (35 per cent) of LGBT staff have hidden their identity at work for fear of discrimination shows that change is still very much needed.”
Nearly three quarters of American adults oppose businesses refusing to serve gay men and lesbians based on the owner’s religious beliefs.According to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released Monday, 72 percent of respondents said that businesses whose owners are opposed to LGBT rights based on their religious beliefs should not be allowed to refuse to serve gay and bisexual men and lesbians.
The poll was released on the same day that the Supreme Court sided with a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. The high court’s ruling was narrow in scope and appeared to only apply to this case.
Pollsters found that 14 percent of respondents believe that business owners, because of their religious beliefs, have the right to refuse service based on sexual orientation. Nine percent said the right existed in “certain circumstances,” while 6 percent said they do not know.
The poll also found a majority of Americans (53%) support extending marriage rights to gay couples, up 11 percent from a 2013 Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The Supreme Court today reaffirmed the core principle that businesses open to the public must be open to all in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The court did not accept arguments that would have turned back the clock on equality by making our basic civil rights protections unenforceable, but reversed this case based on concerns specific to the facts here. The American Civil Liberties Union argued the case on behalf of Charlie Craig and David Mullins, who were refused service at a Colorado bakery because they are a same-sex couple.
In 2012, Mullins and Craig visited the Masterpiece Cakeshop to order a cake for their wedding. After the bakery turned the would-be customers away because they were a same-sex couple, Mullins and Craig filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The commission found that the bakery had discriminated against the couple in violation of Colorado law, a decision the Colorado courts upheld. The Supreme Court today found that members of the Commission had made statements evidencing anti-religious bias, and thus had not given a fair consideration to the bakery’s claims.
“The court reversed the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision based on concerns unique to the case but reaffirmed its longstanding rule that states can prevent the harms of discrimination in the marketplace, including against LGBT people.” said Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the ACLU.
A trans woman has died in US custody, with migrant groups blaming the death on the “medical negligence” on the part of American authorities – and accusing them of “institutional murder.”
Roxana Hernández, 33, died in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
She had been seeking asylum at the San Ysidro port of entry on the US border earlier this month, when she was detained in ICE custody on 13 May.
Hernández, known simply as Roxy, had travelled to the American border as part of a ‘refugee caravan’ – a group of more than 1,300 people – organised by immigration support group Pueblo Sin Fronteras.
In a statement announcing Hernández’s death, ICE said that she had been admitted to hospital on 17 May with symptoms of pneumonia, dehydration and complications associated with HIV.
The US body said that medical staff identified the “preliminary cause of death” as cardiac arrest.
The statement also said that Hernández had entered the US illegally three times since 2005 – but was arrested and removed on her last attempt to stay in the country in 2014.
But a statement released by Pueblo Sin Fronteras, alongside other migrant groups Al Otro Lado and Diversidad Sin Fronteras, disputed ICE’s version of events and described the death as “institutional murder.”
“Roxy died due to medical negligence by US immigration authorities. In other words, she was murdered, much like Claudia Gómez González was murdered by a Border Patrol agent’s bullet less than a week ago,” it reads.
“Roxy died in the country she had sought to start a new life in, she died for being a transgender woman, a migrant who was treated neither with respect nor with dignity.”
The groups added that, in ICE custody, Hernández suffered from “cold, lack of adequate food or medical care, with the lights on 24 hours a day, under lock & key.”
“During her first week in the United States Roxy’s body and spirit quickly deteriorated,” their statement says.
Nino Starr was murdered in the US earlier this month. (Nino Starr/Facebook)
Hernández had been fleeing violence and discrimination she faced because of being transgender in her home country of Honduras.
She told Buzzfeed News last month about an attack in Honduras when a group of gang members shouted at her “we don’t want you in this neighborhood, you fucking faggot,” before gang-raping her.
Earlier this month, a transgender person was shot and killed in Georgia.
Nino Fortson was shot multiple times following an argument in Atlanta, Georgia during the early hours of May 13.
Get ready for the rainbows. June is LGBTQ Pride Month, which means Americans around the country should expect some colorful marches throughout the month as people make a stand for equality.
In recent years, the month has been marked by celebration — over the US Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, as well as some of the other progress made in LGBTQ rights in broader American politics and culture.
This year, Pride celebrations fall in a markedly different atmosphere. Although LGBTQ advocates have seen big gains in recent years, the election of President Donald Trump and state-level initiatives against LGBTQ rights — from Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military to bills in North Carolina and Texas to stop trans people from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity — have shown just how fragile these gains can be.
The less friendly political climate, however, is in line with the original Pride marches, which were often protests — not celebrations — in response to the violence and brutality that LGBTQ people faced at the hands of their fellow Americans, police, and the government. It speaks to the mixed nature of LGBTQ Pride Month: It’s a time to celebrate a person’s true identity, but it’s also a time to stake some ground in the ongoing political and cultural battles for equality.
Pride celebrations began to commemorate a pro-LGBTQ uprising
The first march came at a time when Americans were considerably less accepting of LGBTQ people. Back in the 1970s, Gallup found Americans were evenly split on whether homosexuality should be legal in the first place.
That first march, back when the events were known as Gay Pride Marches, took place in New York City in 1970 in commemoration of the Stonewall Riots.
Through the 1960s, it was fairly common for police to raid gay- and trans-friendly bars. But in June 1969, LGBTQ patrons at the Stonewall Inn in New York City decided they had enough and refused to cooperate with police. When police tried to arrest and allegedly mistreated the bar’s customers and employees (including trans women of color), four nights of rioting commenced. Police and protesters were injured, and dozens were arrested.
“Police brutality (particularly NYPD raids of gay bars, nightclubs, and bathhouses) had been documented in New York City since the beginning of the century,” Kevin Nadal, executive director at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, previously wrote in an email. “So, by 1969, LGBT people were quite fed up with this unfairness and decided to fight back.”
A year after the riots, the Christopher Street Liberation Day Umbrella Committee held the first Pride March.
LGBTQ advocates show their support on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.New York Daily News via Getty Images
Fred Sargeant, one of the original organizers of the march, recalled his experiences in the Village Voice. The idea, Sargeant explained, was to commemorate the Stonewall Riots and move away from a conservatism that had mired LGBTQ organizations, such as the Mattachine Societies, that led the movement at the time.
“Before Stonewall, gay leaders had primarily promoted silent vigils and polite pickets, such as the ‘Annual Reminder’ in Philadelphia,” Sargeant wrote. “Since 1965, a small, polite group of gays and lesbians had been picketing outside Liberty Hall. The walk would occur in silence. Required dress on men was jackets and ties; for women, only dresses. We were supposed to be unthreatening.”
Sargeant pointed to one particular situation that inspired him and his partner, Craig Rodwell, to do away with the careful approach: “When Craig returned from Philadelphia [from the 1969 Reminder], he was blistering over an incident: Washington Mattachine’s Frank Kameny told two women holding hands that there would be ‘none of that’ and broke them apart. This physical act confirmed for Craig that we needed something much bigger and bolder than the Mattachine Society.”
Breaking through that conservatism, however, proved to be difficult. The Christopher Street Liberation Day Umbrella Committee had to negotiate with a dozen small LGBTQ organizations to give everyone a seat at the table, and the committee had to leverage the mailing list Sargeant and Rodwell had built up after they opened one of the nation’s first gay bookstores.
Sargeant recalled the first march as much more of a protest than a celebration. There were thousands of people, but there were no floats, music, or scantily dressed men. Marchers instead carried signs, chanted, and waved to reportedly surprised onlookers.
Nadal said the first march showed society that LGBTQ communities existed and included family members, friends, and neighbors. And it helped encourage other members of the LGBTQ communities to come out and be proud of who they are.
Pride celebrations spread over time
The knowledge and outrage of the Stonewall Riots gave LGBTQ advocates the momentum necessary to turn their cause into a true nationwide movement.
“Before Pride and Stonewall, there really wasn’t a comprehensive LGBT movement,” Nadal wrote. “Stonewall really was the first time that demonstrated that protesting and rioting and fighting back actually worked for the LGBT community.”
Indiana University sociologists Elizabeth Armstrong and Suzanna Crage explained that the reaction to the police raid at Stonewall Inn — the riots — resonated with LGBTQ people. After centuries of oppression, they understood why people would feel the need to react violently to yet another sign of discrimination and oppression. The Stonewall Riots, in other words, came at an exact moment in which social dissatisfaction and other political elements converged to push forward a larger LGBTQ movement.
It took just a few years for the movement to spread across the country. On the same year of the first Pride March in New York City, marches also took place in Los Angeles and Chicago. The next year, Dallas, Boston, Milwaukee, and San Jose took part. By 1972, participating locations included Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Buffalo, Detroit, the District of Columbia, Miami, and Philadelphia.
As Kameny later described, “By the time of Stonewall, we had 50 to 60 gay groups in the country. A year later there was at least 1500. By two years later, to the extent that a count could be made, it was 2500.”
Since then, the LGBTQ movement has grown even further. At first, LGBTQ Pride was typically celebrated on the last Sunday of June as Gay Pride Day or Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day. Over time, that day grew to a month of events for all LGBTQ people.
LGBTQ Pride Month is now a mix of celebration, protest, and political activism
LGBTQ Pride Marches in the US have become much more celebratory in nature over the decades, with more attendees, participants, and organizations taking part each year in the events.
There’s good reason for the positive outlook: While Americans were divided on the legality of homosexuality in the 1970s, a solid majority now support same-sex marriages, and marriage equality is legal across the US following a Supreme Court decision.
Those victories, however, have been met with a backlash in recent years. In 2016, North Carolina passed an anti-LGBTQ law that banned transgender people from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity and prohibited local ordinances that protect LGBTQ people from discrimination — a law that was only partially repealed after the state’s Republican governor was voted out of office later in the year. Several states, including Texas, have proposed, but not passed, similar measures.
The election of Trump and a Republican-dominated Congress have also highlighted the potential dangers that a mere change in government can present for LGBTQ rights. The Trump administration has taken all kinds of anti-LGBTQ — and particularly anti-trans — actions, from trying to ban trans people from the military to rescinding Obama-era memos that protected trans workers and students from discrimination.
But the political activism of Pride isn’t just about Trump. Even before Trump, the US has by and large turned a blind eye to discrimination against LGBTQ people: It’s not explicitly illegal in most states to discriminate against LGBTQ people in the workplace, housing, public accommodations, and schools. This means that a person can be fired from a job, evicted from a home, kicked out of a business, or denied the correct bathroom facility just because an employer, landlord, business owner, or school principal doesn’t approve of the person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
“We don’t have full equality throughout the nation,” Jim Williams, who worked with New York City Pride, previously told me. “Although we’re very pleased with the progress that’s been made, there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
In New York City, there are also huge historical overtones going back to the Stonewall Riots. New York City Pride, after all, arguably represents the birthplace of the world’s modern LGBTQ rights movement. That’s why march organizers closely follow the advice of the Stonewall 50 Committee, a group that is working toward commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, to stay true to Pride’s original intent.
The celebration of LGBTQ Pride has also spread to many more events than just a march. New York City’s Pride group, for instance, plans to host a public rally, a street fair, and even a family movie night.
Participants “need an opportunity and a place to celebrate, to play, to feel comfortable, to dress how they want to dress, to march with their friends,” Williams said. “There’s something very empowering about walking down New York City streets with crowds of people cheering you on.”
LGBTQ Pride Marches are also international, including in countries where the public remains much less supportive of LGBTQ people. In those places, the marches still act as one of the very few ways advocates can show their solidarity and support.
If you want to participate in one of the biggest LGBTQ pride events of the year, check the list for New York City, San Francisco, Montreal, London, Sydney, Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires. It can be a lot of fun!
The new face of Planned Parenthood is unafraid of the current climate of hyper-conservative populism. If anything, Dawn Laguens is optimistic about the chronically besieged organization’s future.
“Planned Parenthood is happy, though, to be taking on the fight, and to be standing up against some of these outrageous attacks that we see both at the federal and state level,” Languages said in an interview with The Advocate.
The longtime VEO and president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, stepping down in January, Laguens, the executive vice president and chief brand officer, has assumed the role of acting spokesperson.
Laguens, who identifies as a “member of the gay community,” according to The Advocate, is quick to emphasize the inclusivity of Planned Parenthood, especially in regards to the LGBT community and HIV/AIDS treatment. “A really exciting thing we’re doing is offering PrEP in 44 of our states, in terms of AIDS prevention work,” she said of the HIV prevention treatment. “We now offer hormone therapy for our trans patients in 20 states and counting. And, as we have always done, we offer nonjudgmental, welcoming care, knowledgeable care for LGBTQ young people, all throughout their life.”
As an organization founded for reproductive justice, Planned Parenthood has long retained elements of its female-oriented origins. The tax-exempt corporation has taken some flak over its pink marketing, with some on the left arguing it reinforces gender stereotypes.
Laguens points to evidence that contradicts accusations of exclusivity. A recent survey indicated that 20 percent of patients identified as LGBTQ. Planned Parenthood recently rolled out an updated gender-neutral website to reflect the diverse services it offers to male-bodied and female-bodied individuals, both trans and cisgendered.
“A lot of people don’t know how many folks we serve in the LGBTQ community, but also don’t understand that we offer a wide range of services for men,” Laguens said.
Despite public perception, 12 percent of Planned Parenthood’s patients are men who take advantage of STI testing and treatment, vasectomies, and “a full range of sexual and reproductive health care,” according to Laguens.
In the era of #MeToo and #TimesUp, Laguens sees Planned Parenthood at the forefront of the renewed dialogue about agency over one’s body. While #MeToo has been driven by revelations of predatory behavior on the part of individual men, Planned Parenthood has long fought the systemic violation of physical autonomy committed by governmental and judicial forces. To Laguens, there is a direct connection between the two.
“So many people are getting the connection that it’s not like #MeToo and #TimesUp over on this side of the equation, and then [on the other side] there’s whether the government will allow you to have birth control, or access to abortion, or access to honest, accurate information in sex education – it’s all connected, because again it’s all about how do you be equal, and how do you be free?”
Planned Parenthood has withstood over 100 years of attacks, but the day it ceases to draw political ire – the day when we accept complete autonomy for women and LGBTQ folks – is the day it outlives its founding charter. Until then, Laguens is confident in the organization’s strategy: Continue helping people.
“Planned Parenthood is making a difference every day in the lives of people you know, allowing them to have control of their body, to have a shot at their dreams, to be able to complete their education, and of course to participate economically. So Planned Parenthood is actually the solution, not the problem in this country.”
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