Police in Idaho arrested 31 people who had face coverings, white-supremacist insignia, shields and an “operations plan” to riot near an LGBTQ Pride event on Saturday afternoon. Police said they were affiliated with Patriot Front, a white-supremacist group whose founder was among those arrested.
Authorities received a tip about a “little army” loading into a U-Haul truck at a hotel Saturday afternoon, said Lee White, the police chief in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a city of about 50,000 near the border with Washington. Local and state law enforcement pulled over the truck about 10 minutes later, White said at a news conference.
Many of those arrested were wearing logos representing Patriot Front, which rebranded after one of its members plowed his car into a crowd of people protesting a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens.
The men were standing inside the truck wearing khakis, navy blue shirts and beige hats with white balaclavas covering their faces when Coeur d’Alene police stopped the U-Haul and began arresting them on the side of the road.
“They came to riot downtown,” Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said at a news conference. All 31 were charged with conspiracy to riot, a misdemeanor, White said. The men were going through the booking process Saturday afternoon and are scheduled to be arraigned on Monday, he said.
Police led the men, one by one, to the front of patrol cars, took off their masks and then brought them to a police van. The group’s manifesto calls for the formation of a white ethnostate in the United States, the Southern Poverty Law Center said.
Right wingers and Trump cultists are flooding social media with their usual claims that Patriot Front is a secret FBI operation to make them look bad.
Patriot Front first appeared on JMG in February 2020 when over 150 members chanted “reclaim America” as they marched through Washington DC.
We heard from them again last summer when they were chased back to their U-Haul by counter-protesters in downtown Philadelphia.
They marched again in Washington DC in December 2021before crashing January 2022 anti-abortion rallies in Chicago and Washington DC.
Police are investigating an incident that occurred during a Drag Queen Story Hour at the San Lorenzo Library on Saturday afternoon after Panda Dulce, the San Francisco drag performer hosting the reading, said they were targeted by “a group of 8-10 Proud Boys” who stormed the room and shouted homophobic and transphobic threats at them, forcing them to leave the event with a security guard and hide in a back office.
The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said that police responded to a report of a disturbance at the library at around 1:30 p.m. and discovered five men “described as members of the Proud Boys organization.” The men were “described as extremely aggressive with a threatening violent demeanor causing people to fear for their safety,” the sheriff’s office said. It is not clear whether they are members of the national Proud Boys organization or were simply representing themselves as such.
The sheriff’s office said an “active hate crime investigation is underway, as is an investigation into the annoying and harassing of children.”
In an Instagram post that was first reported by KQED, Dulce said the men also attempted to record them on their phones.
“They got right in our faces. They jeered. They attempted to escalate to violence,” Dulce wrote, adding that the confrontation “totally freaked out all of the kids.”
In a press release, the sheriff’s office said they escorted the men from the premises. But after they were out of the building, Dulce said the group of protestors then proceeded to form a line in an attempt to cut off the exit doors to the library. At this point, Dulce returned to the library and finished the reading, which was geared toward preschool-aged children in celebration of Pride Month.
“I eventually got out. I’m safe. I’ll be fine,” wrote Dulce. “Drag queen story hours have always seen protestors. And I’ve always received hate mail. But today hit different.”
Dulce was one of the first drag performers to lead a Drag Queen Story Hourwhen author Michelle Tea spearheaded the program in San Francisco in 2015. While the events quickly garnered positive feedback and are intended to encourage open-minded discussion of gender identity among children and their parents, they’ve been frequently targeted for harassment by anti-LGBTQ, far-right extremists, who have attempted to dox the participants and attendees.
Notably, Saturday’s event was amplified late last month by Libs of TikTok, an influential right-wing social media account that was suspended on Instagram and had some of its tweets removed earlier this week after posting the locations of drag-focused events for children taking place across the country.
A spokesperson for the Alameda County Library told SFGATE on Sunday afternoon that it would continue to celebrate Pride Month and offer similar programming.
“Libraries are open to all and are places that foster inclusion of all our communities. Attempts to intimidate and silence others are not tolerated in libraries,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. ”We are grateful to Panda Dulce for showing bravery and resilience and finishing the Storytime event. …We appreciate the support that has poured in from communities throughout the Bay Area.”
The Trading Post in Cloverdale is going to host a Pride Event on Sunday, June 19th from 4pm to 8pm. There will be dancing, schmoozing, and cruising. We’ll also be selling food, wine and cocktails.
Proceeds from the event will go to OutRight Action International’s Ukraine Fund, which supports LGBT refugees and organizations impacted by the war. The Fund has already raised close to $1 million since the war began.
Thanks to some generous sponsors all proceeds from food and beverages will benefit the Ukraine Fund. We have also generated more than $3,000 in contributions to the Fund before the party has even started! You can contribute here.
Please spread the news far and wide. Last year was a blast, and this year should be even more fun!
Surrounded by thousands of people wearing rainbow flags, glitter and sparkly outfits, Eddie Balčiūnaitė prepared to take part in one of the biggest marches the Baltic countries have ever seen.
The 21-year-old nonbinary Lithuanian grew up in a country that since 2009 has banned sharing information that “expresses contempt for family values (or) encourages … entry into a marriage and creation of a family other than stipulated in the Constitution.” Dubbed the “gay propaganda” law by its critics, the ban even preceded Russia’s 2013 infamous legislation.
“The first time I heard about queer people was in the church, so it wasn’t a very positive portrayal, as you can imagine,” Balčiūnaitė, who uses he/she/they pronouns, told NBC News. “You Google stuff, you talk to your friends, and hopefully you learn something about yourself — but not with the help of the school or your teacher.”
Eddie Balčiūnaitė.Enrique Anarte Lazo
Around 10,000 people, mostly young adults, flocked to the capital, Vilnius, from across Lithuania — a country of 2.8 million and the biggest Baltic country — and its neighbors Latvia and Estonia to join the annual Baltic Pride march Saturday.
“This is incredible,” said Juan Miguel, a Spaniard who studied abroad in Lithuania and arranged a reunion with his friends who are now spread across the continent. “Nine years ago, there were neo-Nazis at both sides and more police than participants.”
Since 2009, the annual event has rotated among the capitals of the three countries, gathering local activists and international allies. Vilnius hosted Baltic Pride for the first time in 2010. Back then, only 400 people marched.
“It wasn’t easy. People looked at us like they were in a zoo,” said Vladimir Simonko, executive director of LGL, Lithuania’s biggest LGBTQ group. “Our community is very brave to show up, and we have lots of allies that march with us.”
Big companies such as Google, Moody’s and the Nordic-Baltic bank Swedbank were among the participants and sponsors of this year’s march, as well as the embassies of countries such as the United States, Canada and Norway. The parents of Matthew Shepard, the American student brutally killed in Wyoming in 1998, also attended.
Under Soviet occupation from 1944 until 1991, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all joined the European Union in 2004, together with other countries of the Eastern bloc, including Poland and Hungary. But unlike their Nordic neighbors — only a short plane trip away — their human rights records lag behind, particularly when it comes to sexual minorities.
In the E.U., only Poland, Romania and Bulgaria rank worse than Lithuania and Latvia for LGBTQ rights, according to the LGBTQ advocacy group ILGA-Europe. And Estonia, an economic success story in the region for its impressive digital transition, remains in the lower half of the ranking in legal protections for queer people. Estonia is, for example, the only Baltic country that has so far introduced civil unions for same-sex couples.
Yet, things are slowly changing. Both the Lithuanian and the Latvian parliaments are currently debating similar bills that would introduce civil partnerships for same-sex couples, granting them some — but not all — the rights of marriage.
“We didn’t pay enough attention to human rights in Lithuania before,” said Jurgita Sejonienė, a conservative member of parliament and sponsor of the bill. “We arrive too late with this legislation. They’re people; they deserve the same rights as everyone else”.
After several failed attempts and the bill being watered down — avoiding the term “family” in its wording, for example — she hopes to secure a parliamentary majority in favor of the measure in the next weeks or months. But same-sex marriage is still years away, she said: “When people realize that civil unions don’t affect them in any way, we will change the public opinion step by step. This could be the way of success in Lithuania.”
Mayor Colin Ratushniak of La Ronge, Saskatchewan, left, Vladimir Simonko and Tomas Raskevičius at the Baltic Pride march Sunday in Vilnius, Lithuania.Enrique Anarte Lazo
Tomas Raskevičius, Lithuania’s only openly gay member of parliament, said reluctance to grant LGBTQ people further legal recognition comes mostly from the deep influence of the Catholic Church, as well as the legacy of Soviet occupation. The USSR made same-sex relations a crime in 1933, and it wasn’t until 1993 that Lithuania, already an independent country, decriminalized homosexuality. Latvia and Estonia had done so a year earlier.
Raskevičius was a lawyer and LGBTQ activist who went into politics to create “systemic change,” he said as he prepared to meet a group of young Lithuanians at the parliament and listen to their concerns. He said he will vote for the civil union bill in the hope that it will help ignite more substantive change in the long term.
“I’m not happy with the bill, because it’s full of compromises,” he noted. “The reality of politics is tough. This is just the first step on the road toward equality.”
Latvia could take a similar step in the next days or weeks, with its civil union bill only a vote away from being approved, providing the president doesn’t veto it.
“Until now, politicians didn’t care about this, but things have been changing in the past couple of years,” said Kaspars Zālītis, board member at the Latvian LGBTQ group Mozaika. “We went over a long way for the recognition of families outside the concept of marriage.”
The Baltic Pride march Sunday in Vilnius, Lithuania. Enrique Anarte Lazo
Latvia is, however, the only country that still requires transgender people seeking to legally change their gender to undergo mandatory sterilization, according to the advocacy group Transgender Europe. In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights determined that a sterilization requirement breaches trans people’s right to bodily integrity.
“The wording of the law isn’t very clear, because it speaks about a permanent or semipermanent sex change, so some trans people can find their way around it,” Latvian activist Ana Metra said as she marched along the rainbow parade across Vilnius. “Trans issues are not even part of the public discussion, unlike same-sex civil unions. It feels like trans people have to wait in line until their turn comes.”
That trans rights aren’t even on the table is a view shared by activists across the region. Since 2002, Estonia has allowed trans people to change their legal gender without undergoing sex-reassignment surgery, sterilization or divorcing their partners.
“But if you want to change your legal gender marker, you have to start taking hormones and prove your gender identity to a medical committee,” said Anette Mäletjärv, an activist at the Estonian LGBT Association. Even though the Estonian language’s gender neutrality keeps people from having to come out in many situations — a bigger concern, for example, for many nonbinary Lithuanians, whose language is highly gendered — Mäletjärv said “people still don’t understand.”
In Europe, only a handful of countries, such as Iceland, Malta and Germany, have introduced some sort of nonbinary gender recognition.
“Many of the laws taken in the early years were influenced by the wish to enter the European Union in 2004,” Mäletjärv said. “But now we’re in a sort of pause; there doesn’t seem to be much movement.”
Yet, judging by the growing number of participants taking part in Pride events across the Baltics, civil society, particularly those in younger generations, seems to be slowly embracing LGBTQ rights.
“We are the first generation that did not grow up under Soviet occupation. We grew up in the European Union. We are free to do as we wish. It’s going to get better,” Balčiūnaitė said Saturday as the Pride march speakers on the floats played global queer anthems from Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” to Gloria Gaynor’s legendary “I Will Survive.”
Russia-Ukraine war looms large
At this year’s Baltic Pride march, there was an additional flag next to the sea of colorful Pride symbols that flooded Vilnius. Protesters from all over the region brought Ukrainian flags and banners calling for an end to Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.
“We’re not surprised about what’s going on in Ukraine. Everybody understood that it was a question of time,” Lithuanian activist Simonko said.
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The Ukrainian bloc of protesters at the Baltic Pride march Sunday in Vilnius, Lithuania.Enrique Anarte Lazo
Mäletjärv agreed, adding, “Ukrainians are not only fighting for their freedom, but they’re also fighting for human rights and liberal values across Europe.”
Thousands of Ukrainians have fled to the Baltics, among them some LGBTQ people. Anna Dovgopol, a lesbian from Kyiv, said she is moved by the support: “This is very comforting, to feel part of the community.” Before the war, she had been a queer rights activist in her home country, but two months ago, she had to leave everything behind.
“This is an inspiration for me. I hope it gets as good as this in Ukraine once the war ends,” she said. A bloc of Ukrainian LGBTQ refugees and allies, as well as other migrants who have been living in Lithuania for longer, held banners calling for LGBTQ equality and peace in their mother tongue. An openly bisexual woman wore a traditional Ukrainian dress while she danced with a rainbow flag.
Anna Dovgopol.Enrique Anarte Lazo
Dovgopol, who plans to go back to Kyiv in the next few days if the situation doesn’t get worse, said she remains optimistic about the future of sexual minorities in her country after the war ends.
“It’s going to be a hard time, but I hope Ukraine takes a more ambitious stance on human rights,” she said.
In the meantime, though, LGBTQ people from the region fear they could be next.
“We know Russia better than many other countries. I was born in the Soviet Union, and lived there until I was 8,” the Latvian activist Zālītis said. All three Baltic countries share borders with Russia. Lithuania and Latvia also border Belarus, a supporter of Russia’s invasion.
“We understand word by word what Putin is saying. He’s out of his mind. No one can anymore predict what he’s going to do,” Zālītis said of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Tomas Raskevičius.Enrique Anarte Lazo
But the shadow of Russia in the Baltics goes far beyond the invasion of Ukraine.
“They have been using their soft power for a very long time”, Lithuanian MP Raskevičius said. “Russian-speaking Lithuanians consume the ‘dirt’ Russia is putting on us, and they have been exporting homophobia very actively in the region.”
All three countries have Russian-speaking minorities who consume news and information from Russian-based outlets.
“It happened the same with Covid-19, when they were spreading misinformation about the virus and the vaccines in the region,” MP Sejonienė said.
Since the war in Ukraine started, tens of Russian TV channels have been banned from broadcasting in the different Baltic countries.
“Some of the right-wing anti-LGBTQ+ abuse has the same wording as it does in Russia and Hungary, and sometimes in Poland, so you can do the math,” said Zālītis, who also blames U.S.-based evangelical groups for promoting homophobia and transphobia across the region.
Queer people in the Baltics worry the spread of anti-LGBTQ narratives could compromise what has been achieved so far, or even halt further progress.
‘We are the future’
Growing up under Lithuania’s “gay propaganda” law, Rimas Prokopovičius, 21, said he never heard a word about people like him.
“No one talked about it in schools. The only thing we heard was the f-word, that’s how I learned about LGBTQ+ people,” he said. “We did talk about LGBTQ+ people with our religion teachers though. Somehow that was OK, because they could just call it a sin.”
Rimas Prokopovičius.Enrique Anarte Lazo
In Vilnius, he can now be openly gay, but he’s reluctant to come out to his parents, who live in a smaller city, until he’s financially independent, he said. Lithuania has the highest rate of LGBTQ people in the E.U. who are “never open” about their sexuality (60 percent), according to a 2020 survey by the E.U.’s Fundamental Rights Agency.
Lithuania’s 2009 “gay propaganda” law hasn’t been implemented since 2014, but it remains on the books.
“If you don’t use it, you need to revoke it,” activist Simonko said. But unlike same-sex civil unions, this is an even tougher conversation, because it involves the kind of LGBTQ representation minors are exposed to, advocates say.
Yet, the “gay propaganda” law is being challenged at the European Court of Human Rights after a fairy-tale book featuring same-sex couples was sold with stickers saying it was not suitable for those younger than 14.
“Of course, the public discussion is going to be very sensitive, because it’s about minors, children,” Raskevičius said. “People still think that having LGBT people around their children will turn them gay.”
After the march, young people from the different Baltic nations gathered at what appeared to be a semi-abandoned industrial building outside Vilnius’ city center. The event branded itself as “queer-feminist,” and the words “WE ARE PROPAGANDA” were projected in rainbow colors onto a wall.
During the event, Sandra, a 21-year-old local, stopped dancing to answer a question about the future of LGBTQ rights in the Baltics.
“We are the future of this country, despite Russia, despite the church, despite all those who try to stop it,” she said.
The UK public is most likely to have feelings of respect and admiration towards LGBTQ+ community, according to new research from Stonewall.
The research – published by the charity on the first day of Pride Month 2022, which also marks 50 years since the first Pride march in the UK – surveyed 2,000 adults across the UK to measure public sentiment towards LGBTQ+ people.
Given a choice of words to describe their feelings toward different sections of the community, the most commonly chosen word was “respect”, followed by “admiration”.
The proportion of respondents who chose the word “respect” was around a third across the board, although people were more likely to say they felt respect for lesbian and gay people (38 per cent and 37 per cent) than bi or trans people (32 per cent and 31 per cent).
Trans people garnered the most admiration from the public (21 per cent), while 19 per cent said they admired gay and lesbian people, and 16 per cent said they admired bisexuals, “which may be related to biphobic stereotypes”, Stonewall noted.
Despite relentless fear-mongering in both the media and the UK governmentabout trans people and trans rights, just four per cent of respondents said they felt “fear” towards trans folk, the same proportion that felt fear towards the rest of the LGBTQ+ community.
Less than 10 per cent of the public chose the word “disgust” when thinking about queer people – nine per cent for gay people, eight per cent for trans and bi people, and just 7 per cent for lesbians – showing that homophobia, biphobia and transphobia are limited to a tiny minority of the UK population.
Veteran LGBTQ+ rights activist Peter Tatchell told PinkNews: “This is terrific news that debunks the bigoted agenda of government ministers, right-wing culture warriors and transphobes like the LGB Alliance.
“They are out of touch with public opinion. There is almost no support for the Conservatives’ regressive policies on LGBTQ+ issues.
“Boris Johnson is deluded. He thinks he can shore up his administration with the support of bigoted voters. But this poll shows his cynical strategy won’t work and may turn many voters against the Tories. It proves that our sustained efforts to educate against prejudice are paying off.
“These statistics confirm the long term trend that anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes are waning fast: down massively from two-thirds of the public in the late 1980s believing that homosexuality is ‘mostly’ or ‘always’ wrong.”
Stonewall CEO Nancy Kelley said in a statement: “Over the last 50 years, every battle for the rights of LGBTQ+ communities has been fought in the court of public opinion as well as in the corridors of power.
“This data reminds us to celebrate how far we’ve come, as well as focus on how far there is to go. Nobody should have to grow up and go through life worrying that the people around them feel disgusted by who they are.
“From the fight to decriminalise men who have sex with men, to the fight for trans people’s rights to be protected and respected, we’ve always relied on allies to stand alongside us.
“That’s why, as we enter Pride Month, we need people to do more than wear a rainbow pin – we need everyone to show they take pride in our community, by stepping up and fighting for a more equal world.”
A North Carolina teacher has resigned amid a controversy over the use of LGBTQ-themed flashcards to teach inclusivity and colours in her preschool classroom.
The preschool teacher, who has not been identified by the Wake County school system, resigned from Ballentine Elementary School in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. Wake County Public School System spokesperson Lisa Luten told WRALthat the district was “concerned to learn of the inappropriate instructional resource” found in the preschool classroom.
“An initial review determined that flashcards were not tied to the district’s Pre-K curriculum, did not complement, enrich or extend the curriculum and were used without the principal’s review, knowledge and/or approval,” Luten added.
Luten also said that extra security was stationed in the school after the backlash against the LGBTQ+ flashcards.
The backlash started to mount against the school after state House speaker Tim Moore said he’d been informed about the flashcard by Republican representative Erin Paré.
Moore released a statement on Friday (27 May) in which he said a “concerned constituent” emailed Paré about the LGBTQ+ flashcards – including one he said depicted a “pregnant man” – which were being used to teach colours to kids in a preschool class.
The LGBTQ+ themed cards were reportedly used in a Ballentine Elementary School preschool classroom to teach about colours. (WRAL)
Paré said in an interview with Fox Newsthat “loving families come in all different shapes and sizes” and that “kids need loving families right now”. But she drew the line at the card’s depiction of a pregnant person with short hair being embraced by their partner.
“But I think when you’re looking at a card in front of a preschooler that has a mommy hugging a daddy with a baby in his belly, that’s just not age-appropriate material to be showing preschoolers, and I’m glad that this principal and the district acted immediately,” Paré said.
Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert also joined the pile-on against the teacher on Twitter and alleged it was an example of how “the Left” are “grooming” children.
“A North Carolina preschool is using LGBT flag flashcards with a pregnant man to teach kids colors,” Boebert wrote. “We went from Reading Rainbow to Randy Rainbow in a few decades, but don’t dare say the Left is grooming our kids!”
But one parent has shared her devastation that her child was losing the teacher. Jackie Milazzo, who has a three-year-old son in the class, told WRAL that the preschool educator was “one of the most remarkable teachers I have ever met” and it was “such a loss for our community”.
She described how parents were crying and hugging each other after they learned that the teacher was resigning over the LGBTQ+ flashcards.
Milazzo added in a separate interview for ABC 11that the preschool kids are “being used as a publicity stunt” by conservative lawmakers.
“We are not upset about what’s in the classroom,” Milazzo said. “I know a lot of the community at Ballentine Elementary aren’t upset about this being in the classroom.”
She added that a “picture of a same-sex couple” doesn’t “make my child unsafe” but the horrific waves of hate she’s received do.
“I’ve been receiving messages that our teachers are groomers, my child is being brainwashed… like how am I supposed to feel safe sending my child to school like this?” Milazzo said.
“These actions are not supporting our schools, they’re not supporting our teachers, they’re not supporting our kids, my child has now lost his teacher.”
The North Carolina Senate is set to debate legislation – dubbed a ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill – that would stop discussions on LGBTQ+ issues in classrooms in the state. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty)
The backlash comes as Republican lawmakers are considering a bill (HB 755) that would prevent instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade classrooms.
The legislation – which has been dubbed a ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill by LGBTQ+ advocates – would also require parents to be notified if a student chooses to change their name, update their pronouns or use school counselling services.
The Reverend Vance Haywood, senior pastor of St John’s Metropolitan Community Church in Raleigh, said the bill “proposes forced outing of queer kids”, the Associated Pressreported.
“It’s creating an environment where we’re telling folks that it’s not OK to be yourself,” Haywood said. “You have to hide parts of who you are.”
The bill has passed through the Senate Rules Committee and is expected to receive a debate and vote on Wednesday before the Republican-controlled Senate.
Europe’s first LGBTQ+ youth support centre has reopened in Manchester after a massive redevelopment effort.
LGBTQ+ charity The Proud Trust unveiled its newly redeveloped centre, The Proud Place, on 27 May. It’s a place where LGBTQ+ people can access community groups, support workers, and a range of events to meet local peers.
The £2.4 million centre opened its doors after four years of development to the rapturous applause of Manchester patrons; its previous home of 20 years closed in 2020.
Among the crowd were It’s A Sin star Nathaniel Hall and Schuh managing director Colin Temple, who presided over its opening along with other Manchester dignitaries. Hall spoke about the “beautiful” new building during its opening, saying that “it feels like a place you can kick off your shoes and just relax”.
“The Proud Place is amazing – it’s so beautiful,” he said. “It’s the place that I definitely needed when I was 14, 15, 16 growing up and understanding my sexuality and navigating a homophobic world.
“To spend time with other people my age, like me, and grow and learn and connect would have been invaluable. Everyone needs to come down and experience it.”
Nathaniel Hall and a friend. (Proud Trust)
The building spans three floors and will play host to activities, amenities and events that are free to apply or participate in for queer youth looking for a place to meet new people. With its new golden exterior, it’s hard to miss.
The Proud Trust CEO Lisa Harvey-Nebil said: “It’s an honour for The Proud Trust to take care of such an important building on behalf of Manchester’s LGBTQ+ community and we’re excited for this next chapter in our history.
“Our beautiful new home is such a far cry from the original building, which was built for privacy in the days when many people in our community were fearful of accessing service.”
Organisations such as Schuh, Amazon, Post Office, and Siemens funded The Proud Place’s renovations, buying corporate bricks and/or contributing other considerable expertise and financial support.
“Working with the Proud Trust helps us further understand the key issues for young LGBTQ+ people,” Schuh managing director Colin Temple said. “We want to continually educate ourselves and our teams, customers, and the wider community.”
Lord-lieutenant Sir Warren. (Proud Trust)
The original building was constructed in the same Sidney Street location in 1988 and has been a pillar for Manchester LGBTQ+ youth for decades. Now, after waiting for its eventual refurbishment, service users such as Simone, 24, are ecstatic to see its return.
“It means so much to be here today,” Simone said during the opening. “To see it all finally complete, it very much feels like now everything can start.
“I first came to The Proud Trust as a young person to help me with getting employment, they supported me on my options, as I hadn’t been out long as a trans woman,” she continues. “Ever since then I have never looked back.”
Lord-lieutenant of Greater Manchester, Sir Warren Smith, attended the launch and spoke to the attending guests, saying: “This centre was the first of its kind in the whole of Europe when it first opened. It makes a real statement and should be something that Manchester is really proud of.
“I was the first openly gay lord-lieutenant in 500 years of history, I must admit it was a challenging route. I went through 40 years of being mocked. This organisation will eventually change that, and I am so proud to be a part of it.”
Support for same-sex marriage has reached an all-time high in the US, according to new polling.
Seventy-one per cent of Americans said they support same-sex marriage in Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs poll, released Wednesday (1 June).
This is one percentage point more than last year, and the highest level of support since Gallup began asking Americans about marriage equality in 1996. That year, just 27 per cent of Americans supported same-sex unions.
According to Gallup, the statistic reflects a “steady increase [of support]among most subgroups of the population, even those who have traditionally been the most resistant to gay marriage.”
Support for same-sex marriage reached a majority among adults aged 65 or older in 2016, protestants in 2017, and Republicans in 2021.
Weekly churchgoers remain the main outlier, with 58 per cent opposing same-sex marriage.
In contrast, as of 2004, Americans that almost never attend church are the predominant supporter of same-sex marriage.
As of 2022, 82 per cent of those who seldom/never attend church support gay marriage, while 70 per cent of monthly attendees are in support.
Overall, since 2011, the majority of Americans have backed same-sex marriage. It hit 60 per cent in 2015, just one month before the historic Obergefell V. Hodges decision by the Supreme Court that guaranteed the right to same-sex marriages.
“As Gallup’s trend on support for legal same-sex marriage inches ever upward, the question is when it will reach its ceiling,” the report said.
“Some observers of the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion related to Roe V Wade in May have questioned whether an overturning of Roe would clear a path for the conservative-leaning court to also overturn Obergefell.”
“If this were to happen, the court would be moving in opposition to a public opinion trend that has shown increasing support,” it continued.
The poll is based on telephone interviews conducted every year to a random sample of 1,007 American adults, living in all 50 US states, as well as the District of Columbia. There is a 95 per cent confidence level in the report, with sampling errors at around ±4 percentage points.
The Taliban is using monkeypox as an “excuse” to harass and detain LGBTQ+ people in Afghanistan.
Two gay men who live in Kabul told PinkNews that the Taliban’s persecution of LGBTQ+ people has been ramping up ever since monkeypox started being detected in Europe.
While not sexually transmitted, public health officials believe monkeypox is being transmitted in these networks through close contact during sex – though experts have also suggested the statistics may be skewed towards queen men because they are more conscious of their sexual health.
Right now, Afghanistan has not officially recorded any cases of monkeypox – but that hasn’t stopped the Taliban from using the spread of the virus to crack down on and attack the LGBTQ+ community.
Monkeypox has emboldened the Taliban to ‘harass’ LGBTQ+ Afghans
Maalek*, a gay man living in Kabul, told PinkNews that the Taliban’s persecution of LGBTQ+ people has only worsened since the monkeypox outbreaks began.
“The Taliban have no scientific knowledge about the disease,” Maalek says. “The Ministry of Health has stated that no cases of the disease have been registered, yet they are still looking for excuses to harass the Afghan gay community.”
He continues: “Wherever they see handsome men wearing no local clothes, they check their cell phones and, if they find the slightest evidence that they are gay, they arrest them and take them away.
“When they detain homosexuals, [they tell the public it’s to] prevent the spread of monkeypox.”
According to Maalek, trans people are just as much at risk. If the Taliban finds a nude photo on a person’s phone, they will beat and detain them.
The monkeypox virus under a microscope. (Getty)
Being detained by the Taliban is a terrifying prospect for Maalek. He knows a gay man who was arrested and raped by six Taliban members.
“He now suffers from a mental illness and has fled Kabul,” Maalek says. “The Taliban do not like anyone to wear fashionable clothes. They threaten all homosexuals with death after being detained. They say they should wear local clothes, should not shave their beards and act as they wish.”
Trans people cannot even come out of their house.
Like most LGBTQ+ Afghans, Maalek has been forced to change his behaviour and the way he presents himself to the world in a bid to stay safe from the Taliban.
“We no longer go to beauty salons to cut our beards, we can not even cut our hair in a modern way. We can not wear stylish and acceptable clothes. Trans people cannot even come out of their house because they are arrested immediately.
“Personally, I go out in local clothes now. I do not bring my smartphone with me when I leave home. I try not to leave home without doing my homework. Their checkpoints are very dangerous.”
LGBTQ+ Afghans are ‘scared and miserable’
Maalek’s claim that the Taliban is cracking down on LGBTQ+ people ever since monkeypox started spreading in the community was backed up by another gay man who lives in Kabul.
Timur* thinks the Taliban is using the spread of the virus in other countries as another reason to “torture” LGBTQ+ people.
“I’m afraid in Afghanistan. I’m afraid of being arrested by the Taliban,” Timur says. “I’m not leaving home. I’m scared and miserable.
“I’m asking the big governments of London and other countries to help me and all LGBTQ+ people leave Afghanistan.”
Nemat Sadat – a gay Afghan author and activist who lives in the US – has also received reports that gay men are being “singled out” by the Taliban because of monkeypox.
“The Taliban are rounding up gay people on the grounds that homosexuals carry monkeypox,” Sadat tweeted.
“They are singling out pretty men and checking their phones. This operation is happening in the Lycée Mariam, Khairkhana neighbourhood and all the districts of Kabul.”
LGBTQ+ Afghans have been facing heightened persecution since the Taliban seized power in August 2021. Reports suggest that queer people have been killed, raped, beaten and arrested for arbitrary reasons ever since the takeover.
Ever since monkeypox was detected in the UK and other European countries in May, concerns have been raised about anti-LGBTQ+ stigma.
Health experts have said the virus appears to be predominantly circulating among gay and bisexual men, however, they are clear that it is not a “gay disease”.
It is believed that monkeypox is spread through close contact with an infected person’s skin, meaning that anybody is susceptible. Because of the way it is transmitted, it’s thought that monkeypox is working its way through sexual networks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) initially said the unusual spread of the virus posed a “low risk to the general public”, but that was upgraded to “moderate” at the end of May.
Officials said the risk could be upgraded to “high” if the virus spreads to those who are medically vulnerable, such as children and immunosuppressed people.
In a truly electrifying performance, Leonardo Sbaraglia bares his heart, soul, and everything else as Santiago, a gay single father on the verge of a midlife meltdown, in actor-turned-director Leonardo Brzezicki’s moving sophomore feature. With his teenage daughter Laila (Miranda de la Serna) about to leave home for the first time, Santiago must confront his self-destructive behaviors and his deep-rooted fear of being alone over the course of a fateful summer split between Argentina and Brazil.
With a career spanning five decades now, Sbaraglia is no stranger to challenging, demanding roles, from one-half of a gay bank-robbing duo in Burnt Money to Antonio Banderas’ former muse in Almodóvar’s Pain & Glory. But as Santiago, Sbaraglia delivers his finest performance to date, unearthing a magnetic mixture of vulnerability, swagger, and depth. Wandering Heart showcases both a director on the rise and a veteran actor at the height of his talents coming together for a film that lingers long after the credits have rolled.
This film screens at the Castro Theatre JUNE 17, 2022 9:15 PM — 11:11 PM
Streams online JUNE 24, 2022 12:01 AM — JUNE 30, 2022 11:59 PM
