Orlando police said they’re investigating and confirming a homophobic threat that was posted on a digital traffic sign in Lake Nona that read “Kill all gays.” Police say the threat was posted on a sign at Lake Nona Blvd. and Nemours Pkwy. around 3:45 a.m. on Wednesday and that the sign appeared to have been tampered with.
News 6 is asking Orlando police if this kind of incident would fall under a new bill the governor signed into law last month that makes it a more punishable crime if someone projects hateful messages onto private property without permission. Police said the investigation is ongoing.
Wednesday commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia around the world. But in the city where a gunman killed 49 people inside a popular gay bar in 2016, the day began with the hateful message. Hours later, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed into law four bills targeting transgender rights.
The bill package — dubbed “Let Kids Be Kids” — imposes restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors and adults; expands the ban on gender identity and sexual orientation instruction in classrooms; makes it a crime to admit minors to drag performances; and bans trans people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity.
A prominent LGBTQ+ center in China is closing down after 15 years, another sign of the tightening of space for sexual orientation-focused organizations under President Xi Jinping. In a statement on its WeChat account on Monday, the Beijing LGBT Center said it was terminating its operations effective immediately, saying only that the closing was due to a “force majeure.”
China’s LGBTQ community has been coming under increased political scrutiny as Xi promotes more conservative and conformist values around gender and sexual identity. Shanghai’s Pride organizers announced in 2020 that they would cease all activities, without giving a reason. Dozens of WeChat accounts run by LGBTQ groups at leading universities were blocked then deleted in 2021, prompting outrage. Some had tens of thousands of followers.
The Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a dedicated group of nuns committed to promoting universal joy and expiating stigmatic guilt, hereby express our profound sadness in response to the recent decision made by the LA Dodgers to uninvite The LA Sisters from the Pride Night event and take back the “Community Hero Award”. It is truly disheartening to witness the Dodgers’ refusal to acknowledge and honor the incredible work carried out by the Sisters within the community.
Our mission is to “promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt”. The Sisters help members of the community to understand that they are entitled to claim the universal joy that we are all born with. Just as young children find joy in the world, we grownups need to understand that this joy belongs to us as adults as well! Stigmatic guilt is the shame that we feel when society slams us with labels such as “queer” “fat” “ugly” “pervert” etc. We cast aside the stigmatic guilt when we understand that WE ALL are entitled to be happy and healthy JUST AS WE ARE. NO MORE GUILT!!
The Russian River Sisters are a diverse group of people, and our order includes gay, straight, transgender and non-binary members. We welcome people from all walks of life, gender identities and sexual orientations into our order. We pride ourselves on being inclusive to everyone. We have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for our community and beyond. We have received many awards including the Jefferson award, a resolution from Sonoma County Board of Supervisor honoring the Sisters for their community service, “Organization of The Year” by the CA Chapter of the Association of Social Workers, The Association of Fundraising Professionals Philanthropy Award”, Certificate of Congressional Recognition” by the US Congress, “The Distinguished Service Award for HIV Prevention and Care ” from Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.
The Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Sisters all over the world remain dedicated to supporting and promoting inclusivity across our communities. Our efforts extend far beyond the LGBTQIA+ community, encompassing seniors, children, schools, animal programs, food programs, local fire departments, and numerous other local nonprofit organizations. We firmly believe that it is through unity and collective support that we can create a better world for all.
We acknowledge the numerous individuals, including Sisters around the world, of every faith who contribute tremendous good to this world and we support their incredible work. Nevertheless, it is deeply disturbing to witness certain factions within the Catholic Church and other groups promoting hate and prejudice, particularly against the LGBTQAI+ community. The Russian River Sisters will continue to resist those who use religious texts to propagate hate within our communities. We refuse to tolerate such discrimination and animosity.
We take immense pride in those who have taken a stand against the LA Dodgers’ decision to exclude the Sisters from the Pride Night event. The outpouring of support and solidarity from all corners has been truly inspiring. It serves as a testament to the power of unity and the ongoing fight for equality, love, and acceptance. The Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence remain undeterred in our mission to promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt. We will persist in our endeavors to create a world where everyone can live authentically and embrace their true selves, free from stigma and prejudice.
Love Light and Joy to ALL,
Sister Yanita Letgo Abbess Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
A Democratic organization has censured a Texas state Democrat who voted in favor of two anti-LGBTQ+ bills.
Texas State Rep. Shawn Thierry (D) recently voted in support of HB 900, a bill to ban LGBTQ+-themed books from schools. She was also one of four state Democrats to vote in favor of SB 14, a bill to ban trans youth from accessing gender-affirming healthcare.
The new rules could be selectively enforced against trans and nonbinary employees, some fear.
SB 14 would ban trans youth from accessing gender-affirming care including puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy (HRT). The bill would require trans teens who are currently undergoing treatment to de-transition, and it would punish doctors who provide such care by revoking their medical licenses.
Thierry was one of four Democratic representatives to vote in favor of SB 14. The other three were Reps. Harold Dutton, Tracy King, and Abel Herrero.
In a three-page statement explaining her vote, she claimed that no studies have shown the long-term effects of puberty blockers and HRT on young people, even though these reversible medications have been used on non-trans children to treat rare cancers for decades.
Her statement also highlighted the potential side effects of such medications and claimed that unnamed studies from “European countries” have shown that trans minors’ rates of suicide and depression aren’t improved by hormonal treatment.
Her position is in opposition to the findings of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the Endocrine Society, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association, who have all found that age-appropriate gender-affirming care is safe, evidence-based, and medically necessary to the well-being of trans youth.
“While many of my constituents encouraged me to vote in favor of this legislation, hostile activists have made nasty political threats to influence my vote against the bill. These personal even racist attacks on me as an African American woman are neither productive or persuasive,” Thierry wrote.
Responding to Thierry’s votes, the Meyerland Area Democrats Club of Houston, Texas, an organization that promotes Democratic candidates and policies, voted to censure her in a 13-7 vote on May 15.
“Rep. Thierry campaigned on being an ally to the LGBTQ+ community,” the club wrote in a statement about its censure. “Yet she has supported legislation which will harm this community and doesn’t ally with democratic principles.”
The club said that HB 900 would ban books under “a vague and constitutionally dubious rating system that will create layers of bureaucracy, cost, and red tape” and will disproportionately target LGBTQ+, indigenous, and non-white authors for censorship, marginalizing queer kids and educators in the process.
Mentioning SB 14, the club wrote, “Not only will her vote for this dangerous legislation hurt her constituents, but she has already harmed transgender Texans by spreading misinformation that is not backed by science.”
Progressive state groups like the Texas Freedom Network and the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have signaled that they’re prepared to file lawsuits if the two above bills become law. The two are among the 141 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in Texas during its 2023 legislative session.
Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
Two men have been arrested in connection with the cold-blooded murder of a Black gay teenager who was shot and left burning on freight train tracks in Brooklyn, New York in February.
Isiah Baez, 19, was taken into custody by the New York Police Department (NYPD) on Thursday (11 May) and charged with murder, criminal possession of a weapon and tampering with physical evidence in the murder of 19-year-old DeAndre Matthews.
Baez is the second person to be arrested for the killing of Matthews. His accomplice Remy McPrecia, 24, was arrested on 4 May and charged with concealing a corpse and evidence tampering.
Following news of the arrest, Matthews’ mother, Danielle Matthews, told News 12 the Bronx that Baez “deserves any and everything that he gets”.
“He deserves every day to rot in that jail,” she said.
DeAndre studied criminal justice at SUNY Broome Community College and he was paying his way through school by working at Buggy Service Center, where pushchairs are repaired and cleaned. His mother described him as a “beautiful soul”.
“He was just a beautiful soul. He was a great kid. Never had police contact. First in my family to go to college. He was amazing.”
Matthews was last seen on 6 February. On the day of his disappearance, he left work and went home to borrow his mother’s car to go out.
His mother’s Jeep Cherokee was found burned the next day, leading to the discovery of his body.
Police found him dead from a gunshot wound to the head, with “significant burn wounds throughout his body”, lying on train tracks close to Brooklyn College. Matthews also showed signs of smoke inhalation, police said.
The police are yet to establish a motive for the murder of Matthews, although they found evidence that Baez and DeAndre had been communicating for a year and pictures of the two of them were on Matthews’ phone.
His mother told Daily News that she believes her son was killed because Baez was “hiding his true identity”.
Matthews’ sister, Dajanae Gillespie, told NBC New York that his murder was likely due to his sexuality.
“He was gay. And I feel as if this could’ve been a hate crime. I want to know why [the killer] did it. What was the reason?
“DeAndre wasn’t a violent person. This wasn’t for retaliation. He wasn’t in the streets,” she said.
Anyone who has witnessed or experienced a hate crime is urged to call the police on 101, Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or visit theTrue Vision website. In an emergency, always dial 999.
Four out of 10 LGBTQ people in Italy believe discrimination has damaged them at work, a survey by national statistics bureau ISTAT and state anti-discrimination office UNAR showed on Monday.
Among those surveyed, 41.4% said that being gay or bisexual had been a disadvantage for their career, professional recognition or salary, especially among payroll workers in the private sector.
More than six out of 10 preferred not to speak about their private lives at work in order to avoid revealing their sexual orientation, the survey showed.
The poll was carried out in 2022 and surveyed 1,200 people.
LGBTQ rights and gender equality in Italy have been a particularly sensitive issue since right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni came to power seven months ago vowing to combat what she called the “LGBT lobby.”
Her government has told mayors to stop registering the children of same-sex parents and the ruling majority has submitted a bill to parliament aimed at prosecuting couples who go abroad to have a baby via a surrogate, mainly targeting gay couples.
In a historic ruling, the Supreme Court of Namibia has ruled that the government is required to recognize same-sex marriages performed legally in other nations between citizens and foreign nationals.
In a 4-1 vote, the judges overturned a previous ruling from the country’s High Court that said these marriages could not be acknowledged.
The litigants spoke with LGBTQ Nation about their fight for equal rights.
“This Court accordingly found that the approach of the Ministry to exclude spouses, including the appellants, in a validly concluded same-sex marriage… infringes both the interrelated rights to dignity and equality of the appellants,” stated the ruling.
The lawsuit was brought by a Namibian woman who married a German woman, as well as a Namibian man who married a South African man (South Africa is the only African country where same-sex marriage is legal). The non-Namibian spouses could not obtain resident rights in the country, so the couples sued.
Homosexuality remains illegal in the Christian-majority nation, though according to Africa News, the 1927 sodomy law is almost never enforced.
“Today’s verdict and outcome clearly indicates that Namibia is moving towards recognizing diversity in this country irrespective of people’s political or social positioning,” LGBTQ+ rights activist Linda Baumann told Reuters.
“Today after a six-year battle, we finally won, and the court has ruled that the Ministry of Home Affairs has to recognize these marriages by foreign spouses to Namibian spouses,” Carli Schickerling, a lawyer who represented the couples, told VOA.
Baumann also spoke with VOA and cautioned that there are so many more rights to fight for.
“It is important to understand the status of this case; it’s couples that are coming back to this country to claim their right to equality, their right to dignity and their right to family. To answer that question about same-sex marriages, I believe that a lot of LGBTQ people in this country, we experience a number of inequalities in service, in benefits, in having the right to say something over your partner.”
She hopes this ruling will lead to other rights for same-sex couples as well.
Mark your calendars for the SF Pride 2023 Kick Off, “A Night of Queer Entertainment,” taking place at the legendary Castro Theatre on Friday, June 2nd at 7pm. Prepare to be enthralled by an evening of dazzling queer entertainment, featuring excerpts from the powerful play “Compton Cafeteria Riots,” captivating movie shorts “Mrs. Vera’s Daybook” and “The Girl from 7th Avenue,” and the extraordinary vocal talents of Tori Teasley.
This year our pride celebration is more crucial than ever. On June 25th, as we march down Market St., let us reaffirm our commitment to San Francisco’s role as a beacon of hope for our nation and the world. In this city, we embrace the freedom to be ourselves and love whomever we choose. Join us in ensuring that SF Pride carries on the profound work of the past 53 years; educating the world, commemorating our heritage, celebrating our culture, and liberating our people. The resilience of SF Pride shone brightly in 2022, as we hosted our first in-person event since 2019. Although the pandemic has severely impacted our revenue, necessitating the replenishment of our reserves and the adoption of new strategies to sustain the Parade and Celebration, we are thrilled to bring you a memorable pride season.
SF Pride is funded entirely by donations, and every ounce of your support matters. Click here to help us further our mission and get your ticket for our kick-off soiree on Eventbrite! We eagerly anticipate your presence at this remarkable event, as we come together to celebrate our community’s resilience, diversity, and collective spirit. Suzanne Ford (she/her) Executive Director SF Pride
About San Francisco PrideThe San Francisco Pride Celebration Committee is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded to produce the San Francisco Pride Celebration and Parade. The mission of the organization is to educate the world on LGBTQ+ issues, as well as to commemorate the heritage, celebrate the culture, and liberate the people of all LGBTQ+ communities. As a world leader in the Pride movement, San Francisco Pride is also a grant-giving organization through its Community Partners Program. Since 1997, San Francisco Pride has granted more than $3 million in proceeds to local nonprofit LGBTQ+ organizations as well as to organizations working on issues related to HIV/AIDS, cancer, homelessness, housing rights, and animal welfare.
Researchers from the Williams Institute and the Social Justice Legal Foundation reviewed transcripts of 42 parole hearings in California to understand how transgender parole seekers are treated since the implementation of the Transgender, Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act.
In this report, we describe findings of research conducted by scholars at the Williams Institute in collaboration with the Social Justice Legal Foundation (SJLF) that aimed to understand how transgender parole seekers fare in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) parole hearings. As a result of a public records request by SJLF, we received transcripts of 42 parole hearings that took place between January 1, 2021 – February 28, 2022, in which persons seeking parole identified as transgender.
Our analysis shows that
Transgender individuals, aged 30 – 76, for whom transcripts were provided, were granted parole at approximately the same rate as the general population of parole seekers during that period: 31% of the transgender individuals in our sample (13 of 42) were granted parole as compared with 34% of all parole seekers in 2021, as reported by the CDCR.
Approximately 43% (16 out of 37 with relevant data) of parole hearings for transgender individuals included misgendering and/or insensitive or biased comments.
Examples of insensitive or biased statements included parole commissioners questioning whether the parole seeker would remain sober because the “LGBTQ community has big parties,” and one commissioner spending several minutes discussing whether a transgender woman is able to maintain an erection.
Examples of misgendering include a parole seeker’s own attorney misgendering them, stating that he felt “weird” about using his client’s preferred pronouns. One nonbinary individual asked the commissioners to be addressed by name, but the commissioners pushed the individual to choose a pronoun.
Some commissioners appeared moved when parole seekers spoke about how challenges stemming from being closeted as a transgender person (prior to transition) contributed to criminal behavior or how a transition could facilitate rehabilitation.
Other commissioners had negative reactions to the transgender individuals before them.
For example, one commissioner doubted that the incarcerated individual’s transgender status would make life easier on the outside, suggesting that because one parole seeker had never “lived in society as a transgender woman . . . surely it’s going to be difficult.”
Another commissioner stated, without prompting, “I don’t want to offend anybody, but your whole . . . , how you identify, is going to be an issue in the community. Right? I mean, that’s going to cause stress.”
Having an explicit parole housing plan was an important factor in granting parole—10 of 18 (56%) people with a housing plan were granted parole as compared with 3 out of 24 (13%) individuals who did not have an explicit housing plan.
Although finding appropriate transitional housing is extraordinarily challenging for transgender individuals, parole commissioners heavily consider this factor in their parole determination.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Monday a bill restricting how race and gender can be taught in Florida’s public higher education institutions and banning them from using state or federal funding for diversity programs.
At a ceremony at the New College of Florida in Sarasota, DeSantis signed three bills that he said would give students foundational skills and prevent people from imposing orthodoxies at public universities. It marked an escalation of a broader conservative effort to limit the ways schools can teach about issues of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Referring to the initialism for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” DeSantis said: “If you look at the way this has actually been implemented across the country, DEI is better viewed as standing for ‘discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination,’ and that has no place in our public institutions. This bill says the whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in the state of Florida.”
Critics, however, say the measures, particularly Senate Bill 266, censor teachers and will make it harder to attract and support diverse populations at Florida’s schools. Andrew Gothard, the president of United Faculty of Florida, a union of faculty at Florida’s public universities, called the bill “authoritarian censorship” in a statement sent to NBC News.
“We believe in the free exchange of all ideas, and we reject efforts to control what students get to learn and what professors have the right to teach,” Gothard said.
A spokesperson for DeSantis referred a request for comment to the governor’s news conference.
Senate Bill 266, which passed the Legislature this month, will prohibit state colleges and universities from using state or federal funds for programs that promote activism or advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion.
The bill also augments the study of Western civilization, directing universities, whenever applicable, to provide instruction about the history and philosophy of Western civilization, particularly the nation’s founding documents. It requires that humanities courses include selections from the Western canon.
The bill bans general education core courses that “distort” historical events or teach “identity politics.” It requires the Board of Governors, the strong majority of whose members DeSantis appoints, to review every institution’s mission and make updates or revisions as it deems necessary. The board must include in its review a directive on university programs that are “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”
Brandon Wolf, the press secretary for Equality Florida, an anti-discrimination organization, said the bill represented a “war on academic freedom.”
“From the podium today, he encouraged students that value academic freedom to look for educational opportunities elsewhere, cementing him as a governor who would rather drive away good talent than miss an opportunity to generate content for his right-wing acolytes,” Wolf said of DeSantis.
DeSantis also signed House Bill 931, which will prevent universities from requiring prospective students or faculty members to pledge loyalty to any “ideology or movement,” including to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Taken together, the three bills devote millions of dollars to civic and workforce education efforts. The laws will go into effect July 1. Protesters chanted in opposition to DeSantis as he signed the bills, according to local news reports.
New College, where DeSantis signed the measures, had been considered a progressive institution before he installed conservative allies on the board of trustees.
