LGBTQI History: A Sonoma County Timeline 1947-2000.
Wednesdays 1:30-3pm. Online via Zoom. On April 26,
Janet Zagoria will be joining us for a discussion on the early
years of We The People newspaper. Contact me to enroll in this
FREE class and receive a Zoom invite: cdungan@santarosa.edu
Luxembourg’s openly gay prime minister Xavier Bettel has taking aim at the leader of Hungary for the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
Hungary passed its most notable anti-LGBTQ+ law, the Child Protection Act, in June 2021. The legislation bans the discussion of LGBTQ+ people in schools and in the media.
The country has been taken to the European Union Court of Justice by the European Commission over the act, signed into law by prime minister Viktor Orbán, on the basis that it “discriminates against people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity”.
Speaking at the European Parliament on Wednesday (19 April), Luxembourg’s Xavier Bettel said: “I’m ashamed to see that some of my colleagues want to win votes at the expense of minorities.”
According to Euronews, he added that anyone in the parliament who “thinks you become homosexual by watching TV… by listening to a song, then you prove you have understood nothing.
“The most difficult [thing] for a homosexual is to accept himself.”
Bettel said LGBTQ+ people didn’t demand pity, solidarity or compassion – just respect, Euronews reported.
To stigmatise queer people and “tell them that it is the fault of education, culture, and the audio-visual [sector]” was contrary to the European way and “its open tolerance”, he said.
This is not the first time Bettel has spoken so openly against Hungary’s law.
After the Child Protection Act passed, he was quoted as saying that he did not just wake up one day after watching some advertising or Modern Family and suddenly become gay.
“It is not something I chose,” he said in 2021.
“Accepting yourself is already very hard, being stigmatised is… very far-reaching.”
Hungary has made it clear that it intends to defend the law, which has been widely condemned, with a number of European nations supporting the legal action.
However, last month, justice minister Judit Varga filed a counter claim with the court.
At the time, she said: “Hungary will not surrender” and claimed there were “cases that have come to light” that “clearly” showed the need for the law “as well as further measures”.
Earlier this month, Hungarian lawmakers voted in favour of a bill that would allow its citizens to report same-sex families with children to local authorities. Orbán is expected to sign it into law.
Almost half of LGBTQ+ young adults the UK are estranged from at least one relative, with many feeling their family won’t accept them if they come out, a study has revealed.
The survey of 3,695 adults, aged between 18 and 25, found that 46 per cent of them are estranged from at least one family member, while 31 per cent said they weren’t confident their parent or guardian will accept them as they are.
Further findings, according to research conducted by LGBT+ young people’s charity, Just Like Us, revealed that 14 per cent of young LGBT+ adults said they weren’t close to their immediate family members, compared with six per cent of their straight peers. That figure jumped to 19 per cent for trans respondents and 23 per cent of non-binary participants.
The survey also discovered that lesbians were the most confident (72 per cent) that their parents or carers would accept them if they came out, followed by gay men at 68 per cent, while transgender and non-binary young people were equally the least likely to feel confident.
Amy Ashenden, the interim chief executive of Just Like Us, said the findings were “heartbreaking”.
“It’s sadly a common myth that being LGBT+ is easier today, when in fact many LGBT+ young adults remain fearful of their parents not accepting them, with almost half estranged from at least one family member,” she said.
Ashenden added that the LGBTQ+ community should know “that their identities are valid and deserve to be celebrated”, and that the charity hoped more parents and teachers will show them that this is the case.
“When there is silence, there is shame, so we must talk about these topics in school and at home, to ensure LGBT+ young people no longer live in fear of rejection.”
The research was carried out independently by market researchers Cibyl in January and will form part of Just Like Us’ Positive Futures report, covering a range of experiences of young LGBT+ adults in the UK, due to be published on 1 June.
At the beginning of the year, a study by The Trevor Project found 87 per cent of some 34,000 LGBTQ+ young people are dissatisfied with their bodies.
Another study, published in the Annals of Epidemiology, revealed that LGBTQ+ youth in the US are spending significantly more time on their mobile phones than straight young people.
The study’s author, Jason Nagata, suggested that this could be down to higher levels of LGBTQ+ youth being excluded from school activities by their peers.
The Florida House passed a litany of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation on Wednesday. These bills could prohibit gender-affirming care for children, punish businesses letting minors watch drag shows, and treat transgender people peeing in the wrong bathroom as criminals.
While lawmakers insisted none of the bills targeted queer people specifically, all sparked fears and concern within the community in the Sunshine State.
Florida Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican who openly said he supports erasing LGBTQ people, said his real hope in legislation is protecting children.
“We heard that this bill is about the right to decide what is appropriate for your child. I got news for parents. You don’t have that right today,” he said. “You can’t decide to not send your kid to school. You can’t decide to starve them. You can’t send your kid to an NC-17 movie, for all those folks who said there’s no standards in the movie business. There’s all kinds of decisions. There’s all sorts of guardrails that the government has put in.”
He sponsored a bill targeting venues that admit minors into shows deemed as live adult entertainment. While Florida already has laws barring children from strip clubs and other entertainment deemed pornography, this would expand limits on shows that include prosthetic breasts or sex organs or which have sexually suggestive material.
The Florida Senate already passed an identical version of the bill. The House on Wednesday approved the legislation on a party-line 82-32 vote.
“I just don’t understand when drag queens became enemy number one,” said Florida Rep. Fentrice Driskell, the House’s Democratic caucus leader.
The drag bill wasn’t the only anti-LGBTQ+ one to clear the body Wednesday. But it’s the only one now headed straight to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s desk, adding to a list of anti-gay policies on his resume as he prepares to run for President.
The House also approved a bathroom bill that would require individuals to use gender-designated restroom facilities based on the gender on their birth certificate instead of their gender identity. Florida Rep. Rachel Plakon, the Republican sponsor, said this was about protecting women from violence, not ostracizing trans people.
“This bill simply codifies what has been part of our culture and tradition since 1887, what we all learned in kindergarten, that boys use the boy’s room, and girls use the girl’s room,” she said.
Her bill makes exceptions for intersex people, but not for trans people, and in fact defines sex based on chromosomes and hormones.
Florida Rep. Michele Rayner-Goolsby, the only lesbian in the Florida Legislature, castigated colleagues for intruding on transgender individuals’ most private activities.
“I’m sorry for the adults that work in this building and cannot use the bathroom,” she said, “or no longer feel that they can use the bathroom. I’m sorry. And for those who may have been triggered by what I just said, I said what I said because at the end of the day, we in this House are called to respect all Floridians. And this bill does not do that.”
The out lawmaker this week labeled the slew of anti-queer legislation a Thunderdome of Hate.
A silver lining, at least for now, is that a Senate version of that bill hasn’t advanced as smoothly. It has cleared one committee that needs a sign-off by the Senate Fiscal Policy Committee before it reaches the floor.
Meanwhile, the House also passed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, in an 82-31 vote. The prohibition included the use of treatments like puberty blockers as well as surgery. The Senate has moved forward on that as well, but the chambers do have significant differences in bills right now. The most significant is that House members don’t want to allow care to continue for minors even if they have already started medically transitioning. The Senate legislation would stop new treatments for minors but allow those who already have received care to continue with treatments. The House also wants to ban private insurers from reimbursing gender-affirming care, even for adults.
“Minors should not be making decisions relating to gender dysphoria that can have life-altering long-term, irreversible conditions,” said Fine, who also sponsored the health care bill.
Major medical associations support gender-affirming care for trans youth. Most care for young people involves treatment that is reversible.
With drag shows and performers under attack around the nation, the LGBTQ-friendly city of Palm Springs, Calif., has taken a stand for them.
Greater Palm Springs Pride has announced that the theme for Pride Week, to be held in November, will be “Drag Now. Drag Forever,” and that the city will be a sanctuary for drag and all forms of self-expression.
“Greater Palm Springs Pride declares Palm Springs, the Mother Church for Drag in the Coachella Valley, supports drag queens, kings, drag mothers, and baby queens regardless of their realness, flawlessness, disheveled presentation, or fierceness,” reads a press release from the group. “Drag is not a crime. Drag is art. Drag is entertainment and has existed for hundreds of years and is part of everyday life.”
“‘Drag Now. Drag Forever’ is a theme that calls on the community to unite and support the drag community,” Palm Springs Pride President and CEO Ron deHarte said in the release, issued Tuesday along with a proclamation. “Drag is not a crime. Our country has a rich history of drag as an artistic expression, standard of activism, and the backbone of fundraising in the community. We call on everyone to support the drag community and fight all anti-LGBTQ+ bills that threaten the freedom and equality of all.”
“Facing a legislative landscape of increased attacks on members of the LGBTQ+ community coupled with physical violence, we must gather to support one another and be unified against fear and intimidation,” he added. “The fight for freedom continues.”
In 2022, there were 141 documented protests and threats against drag events in the U.S. This year, Tennessee passed a law restricting drag performances, the first state to do so; it is temporarily blocked by court action. Anti-drag bills have been introduced in at least 14 other states.
Palm Springs joins other California cities, including West Hollywood and San Francisco, in supporting drag performances.
The primary Palm Springs Pride activities, including a parade and festival, will be held November 3-5 in the city’s downtown area. It will be the 37th annual celebration. Pride Week is the largest annual event in Palm Springs and the largest multiday gathering of LGBTQ+ people in Southern California’s Coachella Valley. In 2022, official Pride Week events attracted 200,000 attendees and generated a $38 million direct economic impact for area hotels, shops, restaurants, and other local businesses, according to the release.
A wave of robberies that took place after the victims were drugged has left at least seven clubgoers dead in New York City, The Guardian reported. There have been at least 43 known druggings — mostly taking place at LGBTQ-themed nightclubs — since September 2021, and police are saying the deaths are not isolated incidents.
So far, police have arrested four suspects who conspired to “approach intoxicated individuals upon exiting a bar or nightclub, engage them in conversation, and offer and administer dangerous and illicit substances to them for the purpose of causing their incapacitation,” according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Last month, police found that the death of a rising New York fashion designer, Katie Gallagher in July was due to her being robbed while drugged. No suspects have been arrested in her case.
Linda Clary, whose deceased 33-year-old son John Umberger was one of the victims, says she’s worried more robberies are going unnoticed.
“I’m convinced that there are significantly more cases because I think out of embarrassment, shame or fear, victims have not come forward,” she told The Guardian.
NYPD chief of detectives, James Essig, says he doesn’t think LGBTQ people are being solely targeted, but many in the community say they feel particularly vulnerable, especially since hate crimes are on the rise.
“The truth is, I do let my guard down when I come out to these places, because you’re yearning for connection. And I think for homosexuals especially, we want to co-mingle, want to let others into our friend groups,” said Miguel Tavares, who’s frequented clubs in New York City for over a decade.
ABC News reports:
The Florida Board of Education has voted to expand restrictions on classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
This rule would build on the Parental Rights in Education law Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in March 2022. The law bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for students in kindergarten through third grade.
Supporters of the rules argue that “there is no reason for instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity to be part of K-12 public education. Full stop,” according to a spokesperson for DeSantis.
Read the full article.
Mission Local is informed that the San Francisco Police Department early this morning made an arrest in the April 4 killing of tech executive Bob Lee, following an operation undertaken outside the city’s borders. The alleged killer also works in tech and is a man Lee purportedly knew.
We are told that police today were dispatched to Emeryville with a warrant to arrest a man named Nima Momeni. The name and Emeryville address SFPD officers traveled to correspond with this man, the owner of a company called Expand IT.
Multiple police sources have described the predawn knifing last week, which left the 43-year-old Lee dead in a deserted section of downtown San Francisco, as neither a robbery attempt nor a random attack.
Rather, Lee and Momeni were portrayed by police as being familiar with one another. In the wee hours of April 4, they were purportedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect.
Some manner of confrontation allegedly commenced while both men were in the vehicle, and potentially continued after Lee exited the car. Police allege that Momeni stabbed Lee multiple times with a knife that was recovered not far from the spot on the 300 block of Main Street to which officers initially responded.
This scenario would explain, in part, why Lee was walking through a portion of Main Street in which there is little to no foot traffic at 2:30 a.m. That was one of several incongruous circumstances surrounding Lee’s violent death, which law-enforcement sources, from the get-go felt made it far from a straightforward or random crime.
Nevertheless, some of Lee’s fellow tech luminaries and a chorus of other influential voices portrayed this killing as part and parcel of a city awash in violent crime and on a descent into further chaos. While Lee is one of a dozen homicide victims in San Francisco this year, his is the only killing that has garnered national coverage — or, in most cases, even cursory local coverage.
San Francisco’s other homicide victims in 2023 are Gavin Boston, 40; Irving Sanchez-Morales, 28; Carlos Romero Flores, 29; Maxwell Maltzman, 18; Demario Lockett, 44; Maxwell Mason, 29; Humberto Avila, 46; Gregory McFarland Jr, 36; Kareem Sims, 43; Debra Lynn Hord, 57; and Jermaine Reeves, 52.
San Francisco is home to much in the way of visible public misery, unnerving street behavior and overt drug use. Its property crime rate has long been high, and the police clearance rate for property crimes has long been minimal. But the city’s violent crime rate is at a near-historic low, and is lower than most mid-to-large-sized cities.
Today’s arrest would appear to undermine the premise that Lee’s violent death was due to street conditions in San Francisco. If the police do have their man, this was not a robbery gone bad nor a motiveless assault by some random attacker, but an alleged grievance between men who knew one another, which the suspect purportedly escalated into a lethal conflict.
Lee’s death, however, was packaged in the media and on social media into a highlight reel of recent San Francisco misfortunes and crimes: large groups of young people brawling at Stonestown; the abrupt closure of the mid-market Whole Foods, leaving San Franciscans just eight other Whole Foods within city limits; the severe beating of former fire commissioner Don Carmignani in the Marina District, allegedly by belligerent homeless people — it all adds up to a feeling of a city coming undone.
This manner of coverage, however, does not capture the actual lived experience of the vast majority of San Franciscans. It also omits potentially mitigating details of the individual events. Carmignani, for instance, was brutally struck in the head with a metal rod and hospitalized. But the lawyer for his alleged attacker claims that the former fire commissioner first pepper-sprayed the homeless man accused of beating him — which certainly would color this incident.
Of note, police sources say that a series of homeless people had previously been pepper-sprayed in the Marina District prior to this instance.
The arrest in the Lee case is a breaking story. We will update or follow this article as soon as possible.
On a riotous Instagram profile featuring pole-dancing, cross-dressing and fierce makeup, a picture of Ivan Honzyk in high heels and stockings next to an image of him in military uniform has gotten the most likes by far.
The junior sergeant’s posts are a bold statement in socially conservative Ukraine, where pride parades were often attacked before the war and swaths of the country are occupied by forces loyal to Russia, one of the world’s most conspicuously homophobic states.
But as more members of the LGTBQ community fight on the front lines, the greater visibility of gay and lesbian military personnel appears to be a catalyst for acceptance in wider society, and opinion polls show attitudes are changing.
Honzyk, 27, said his uncompromising self-expression, combined with his work in places like Bakhmut — the city in eastern Ukraine that has seen some of the bloodiest battles of the war, while serving as a potent symbol of the country’s defiance — is helping to further the cause of LGBTQ rights in the country faster than any pride marches could.
“My fellow soldiers are really impressed with what I’ve done in Bakhmut, the massive scale of work that I did there, and after that they just don’t care about who I sleep with,” Honzyk, whose medical unit evacuates wounded soldiers and provides emergency first aid, said in a hip café in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, while on leave from the front line.
Plenty of other gay and lesbian soldiers have also posted photos and videos of themselves online, some sporting unicorn insignia on their uniform, the mythical creature an ironic riposte to the idea that there are no LGBTQ people in the military.
In the U.S., lesbian, gay and bisexual people were allowed to serve openly in the military only in late 2011. Ukraine’s armed forces did not have rules preventing the LGTBQ community from serving, but homophobia was rife in the ranks, reflecting a more widespread societal attitude.
But in apparent recognition of their services, Ukrainian lawmakers recently tabled draft legislation that would recognize same-sex relationships and address the lack of inheritance, medical and other rights for the partners of LGTBQ soldiers killed or wounded fighting pro-Moscow forces.
“The parades and pride events were not enough,” said Honzyk, who has served for four years. “The better way to change attitudes is what we’re doing now. We entered the military and we’re showing that we’re worthy. We’re not hiding somewhere at the back. We’re doing real missions, dangerous missions.”
Across the border, President Vladimir Putin has maintained that he launched the invasion in February 2022 to protect Russian-speaking people in Ukraine’s east, while attempting to frame what he calls the “special military operation” as a defense of morality against un-Russian liberal values promoted by the West.
Putin has frequently espoused “traditional values” in his speeches and framed gender-transition surgery and same-sex parenting as morally degenerate Western imports. In December he signed a law expanding Russia’s restrictions on promoting what it calls “gay propaganda,” in effective outlawing any public expression of LGBTQ behavior in Russia.
Any action considered an attempt to promote homosexuality in public; online; or in films, books or advertising could incur a heavy fine.
Activists like Edward Reese, 37, a nonbinary communications officer with KyivPride, said Russia’s invasion had sharpened Ukraine’s sense of its own distinct identity and caused many of his countrymen to show more empathy toward their LGBTQ compatriots.
“People see that homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism are Russian values,” he said. “People understand that they don’t want to have anything in common with Russia. So that’s why they start to rethink their own homophobia here in Ukraine.”
Reese said he had a tough upbringing and was sent for so-called conversion therapy by religious parents who followed the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The church has been outspoken against LGBTQ people, and last year its leader, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, said the “sin” of gay pride parades justified the war in Ukraine.
But his influence and that of his church has plummeted in recent years in Ukraine. In 2019 the Orthodox Church of Ukraine split from its Russian counterpart.
Kyiv has since accused Russian Orthodox priests of spying for Moscow, charges they deny.
“Ukrainian civil society is trying to kick out the Russian Orthodox Church, and they are the most anti-gay people in Ukraine,” said LGBTQ activist Maksim Mishkin, 40, speaking at KyivPride’s offices.
“Today most religious people in Ukraine are either positive or neutral towards us.”
Away from the battlefield, LGBTQ groups in Ukraine and abroad have helped evacuate and house people displaced by the fighting and raise money for the military.
Mishkin said he had held fundraisers to send care packages to serving personnel, the appreciative soldiers sending back photos of themselves brandishing coffee mugs and other items featuring LGBTQ-affiliated logos.
Such efforts may have contributed to growing acceptance in Ukraine.
A January survey by the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that works to increase the effectiveness of democratic institutions in developing countries, found that 58% of Ukrainian respondents agreed that LGBTQ “people should have the same rights as others.”
That contrasts with a 2016 survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology that showed 60.4% of respondents viewed LGBTQ people negatively. Last year a similar poll found that percentage had shrunk to 38.2%.
Ukrainian politician Inna Sovsun hopes to harness the positive momentum to pass a draft bill she introduced in parliament last month recognizing same-sex relationships.
“When a person in uniform says, ‘Look, I have a loved one. If I am killed in action protecting this country, protecting every single one of you, my partner will not be able to make decisions about where to bury me because there is no legal connection between us,’ that is something that society cannot say no to, because they are in uniform and risking their lives every single minute for us,” she said.
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“Right now it’s not just the right thing to do, it’s also the politically smart thing to do, because the majority of Ukrainians actually support it,” she added.
However, she cautioned that the level of support for LGBTQ rights in Ukraine can be overstated.
Outside of the country’s main metropolitan centers, life for LGBTQ people can be difficult, she said, adding that not all LGBTQ military personnel were accepted by their peers and some had been bullied.
For Honzyk, life’s too short to worry about the haters before he heads back to the front line.
“If you accept yourself, then the world will accept you too. You need to remember a lot of people are wearing masks, but you shouldn’t do that because you have only one life, and any day a missile may kill you,” he said.
“Don’t care about what other people say, because they’ll always find somebody to hate.”
