A landmark NHS report has laid bare the concerning health inequalitiesfaced by lesbian, gay and bisexual adults in the UK.
The first-of-its-kind report, published today (6 July) by NHS Digital, is based on data from 1,132 LGB adults who participated in the Health Survey for England between 2011–2018.
The research found that LGB adults are more likely to drink more, smoke more and have worse mental health than the straight population, with worse health outcomes as a result.
Despite LGB adults being 12 per cent less likely to be overweight or obese than straight people, a higher proportion of LGB people (7 per cent) reported “bad” or “very bad” health, compared with heterosexual adults (6 per cent).
The prevalence of limiting longstanding illness was also higher at 26 per cent compared to 22 per cent.
When asked about alcohol consumption, 32 per cent of LGB adults reported drinking levels which put them at increased or higher risk of alcohol-related harm (more than 14 units per week) compared to 24 per cent of heterosexual adults.
A similar trend was found with smoking, with more LGB adults (27 per cent) than heterosexual adults (18 per cent) saying they are current smokers. The proportion of adults who currently smoked cigarettes was highest among LGB women at 31 per cent, and lowest among heterosexual women at 16 per cent.
LGB adults also had lower average mental wellbeing scores on the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (48.9) compared with heterosexual adults (51.4), with LGB women reporting the lowest wellbeing scores (47.3).
Sixteen per cent of LGB adults said they had a mental, behavioural or neurodevelopmental disorder as a longstanding condition; the proportion of heterosexual adults reporting the same was significantly lower at 6 per cent.
LGBT+ people continue to face barriers to healthcare in NHS
The NHS Digital’s Chief Statistician Chris Roebuck said: “One of the biggest benefits to collecting and publishing health data is the ability to highlight health inequalities.
“We’re pleased to be able to publish these LGB statistics for the first time, which show important differences in health status and behaviours.”
Campaigners have long highlighted the prevailing gap in healthcare provision for the LGBT+ community, who commonly face barriers not experienced by the straight population.
Back in 2019 a leading advisor on UK public health committee warned a parliamentary committee that the NHS is “absolutely” prejudiced against LGBT+ people, saying that problems largely stem from lack of funding and reporting, improper training and ingrained prejudice.
Queer women in particular often struggle to be heard in healthcare settings, with lesbian and bisexual women’s health said to be “invisible” in the UK discourse.
Last year the LBT Women’s Health Week reported that lesbian, bi and trans women are more likely to experience inappropriate questions or curiosityfrom healthcare professionals, with 8.1 per cent of lesbians, 5.9 per cent of bisexuals, 12.1 per cent of queer cis women and 15.4 per cent of trans women reporting this happening to them in the past year.
LBT+ women are also more likely to experience difficulties accessing mental-health services, with more than half of lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans women saying they found it “not easy” or “not easy at all” to access mental healthcare in the past year.
The same year, a major NHS England report disturbingly appeared to characterise being LGBT+ as a disability, highlighting the continuing ignorance and insensitivity LGBT+ people often endure from health professionals – which in turn leads to fewer doctors’ visits and poorer health outcomes.
Wilter Gómez was 12 years old when his stepfather took him from his hometown in Gracias a Dios, Honduras, to the jungle. After walking for hours on remote trails, the man began to beat him repeatedly.
“He wanted me to disappear,” Gómez said bitterly. His stepfather threw him and left him in a ditch full of water, but the intense pain from the beatings caused Gómez to wake up, saving him from drowning. He never returned to his Gracias a Dios home.
“My only sin was being who I am, a gay person. My people are very discriminated against because we don’t speak Spanish well, and we only live off the sea and the mountains. But inside, among the Indigenous people, there is a lot of machismo. It’s like living a curse because they cut us, they beat us, that’s why I had to leave,” said Gómez, 22, speaking from a shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, in the country he now calls home.
Yet there are dangers in his adopted home. In 2020, at least 79 LGBTQ people were killed in Mexico, about 6.5 per month, according to Letra S, Sida, Cultura y Vida Cotidiana, a civil organization dedicated to the defense of LGBTQ people that has been registering cases since 1998.
The most recent report by Letra S states that in the last five years there have been 459 violent deaths of LGBTQ people, although the 2020 figures show a 32 percent decrease compared to 2019, when 117 were registered.
“What state governments did not achieve, the pandemic did. But locking ourselves in our homes and not going to recreational places is by no means an option,” said Alejandro Brito, executive director of the organization. “It is very likely that the figures will skyrocket as activities in the country are re-established.”
LGBTQ Mexicans like Gómez say they are battling multiple layers of discrimination, in many cases facing greater danger in their own Indigenous communities.
Jorge Mercado Mondragón, a sociologist and academic at the Autonomous Metropolitan University, has studied the internal migration of the LGBTQ population in Mexico and said that the moment a young Indigenous person “dares to manifest their diverse sexuality,” it begins a process of aggression, large and small, which often mark the family and culminate with the departure of young people from their hometowns.
“Forced internal displacement not only occurs due to generalized violence, natural disasters or religious conflicts, it also responds to discrimination on the basis of gender identity. There are many Indigenous people who flee their communities because of their sexual orientation,” Mercado Mondragón said.
Gómez lived on the streets of Tegucigalpa for several years until 2019, when the house he shared with some friends was broken into and one of them was killed. That was the trigger to walk out of his country and cross the borders to Mexico where, in his words, he has not had much luck. He said he’s been exploited in various jobs, he’s been drugged and abused, and fell into a deep depression. He spent several months in a psychiatric institution last year.
“When they put me in the hospital, I was dying inside. Sometimes this country is very scary,” Gómez said.
Official crime and violence figures do not differentiate victims according to characteristics such as sexual orientation and gender identity, which makes it difficult to make the problem visible. Prosecutors have not incorporated these variables into their records, and LGBTQ victims of homicidal violence are included in other categories such as robbery, assault and simple homicide, among others.
Of the 32 states of Mexico, only 14 consider hate crimes due to “sexual orientation” as an aggravating factor to the crime of qualified homicide, but the Mexican Federal Criminal Code still does not include it, nor does it mention the term “gender identity.”
“Minority within a minority”
For Marven, an Indigenous trans woman who recently unsuccessfully ran as a candidate for Mexico City’s Congress, the vulnerability of the sexually diverse community is a fundamental political issue. When she was a child, her father beat her incessantly for her gender identity and family members made fun of her.
In the case of the Indigenous, she said they’re a minority within a minority. “Inclusion is not seen. I got into politics to fight for our health,” said Marven, better known as “Lady Tacos de Canasta.” She gained great popularity in 2019 when she appeared in a Netflix documentary that showed her selling tacos from her bicycle, dressed in colorful traditional dresses and her braided headdresses.
“Mexico has to change. It is not possible that one has to get used to living with that hatred and mistreatment,” Marven said. “I have tough skin, like a crocodile, because if you don’t they’ll destroy you.”
A recent scandal illustrates the uphill fight for the rights of sexual diversity in politics. LGBTQ groups have denounced that 18 male candidates for office registered as trans women in the state of Tlaxcala to circumvent the conditions of sexual parity imposed by election laws.
Despite the crudeness of the maneuver, it’s not the first time that it has happened. In 2018, 17 men posed as trans women to meet gender quotas in Oaxaca, but the electoral authorities managed to suspend those candidacies.
Almost 27 percent of people said they have faced physical aggression in school due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. In addition, 9 percent said they have suffered some kind of abuse or sexual violence by those in their own community, including school and family.
“This data is brutal,” said César Flores Mancilla, from Conapred. “The population was asked if the environment of hostility and discrimination that comes with assuming their sexual orientation and gender identity has led to suicidal ideas, and the response was positive in 73 percent of trans men, 58 percent of trans women, 51 percent of bisexual women, 48 percent of bisexual men, 43 percent of gay men and 42 percent of lesbian women.”
Compounding discrimination
In these investigations, the term “accumulation of disadvantages” is often used to describe the structural discrimination that people suffer based on their identity. An Indigenous woman may experience discrimination accessing education, health and other public services, but if they also belong to the LGBTQ community, those disadvantages increase.
“The issue of being Indigenous and being women puts us in a guardianship role all the time,” said Yadira López Velasco, a Zapotec poet and sociologist. “They have always told us that we are incomplete beings, that as Indigenous we need the tutelage of the state, that as women we need the tutelage of a man and, in that sense, we are invisible. Furthermore, it is not believed anywhere that an Indigenous woman can feel desire and love for another woman.”
López is part of the National Coordinating Committee of Indigenous Women, one of the groups fighting for the rights of Indigenous people in Mexico, where 25 million identify as Indigenous and more than 7 million speak an Indigenous language.
Several experts pointed out that there was an awareness of gender fluidity in Indigenous ancestral traditions. The patriarchal machismo and gender discrimination rooted in many Indigenous communities today — a determining factor in the physical and psychological abuse of LGBTQ people — is often seen as an inheritance from the colonization process.
“Before the conquest we had a greater permissiveness to be and to show ourselves — the Indigenous cosmogony had to do with this idea that the masculine and the feminine were intertwined, there was no distinction,” said Gloria Careaga Pérez, a scholar at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and founder of the National Observatory of Hate Crimes against LGBT people. “The conquest came to impose a religion and already delegitimized a series of things that used to be part of daily life.”
Deadly violence in Veracruz
For several years, the Mexican state of Veracruz has been considered the deadliest entity for LGBTQ people in the country. Letra S registered 27 murders in that state during 2020 and, so far in 2021, the observatory has recorded six murders and one disappearance.
The region has also been singled out for the cruelty of the attacks against people from the LGBTQ community. Alaska Contreras Ponce, a 25-year-old trans woman and beauty queen, was tortured to death in 2018. Miguel Ángel Medina, 21, was stoned in a pantheon in 2019; Jesusa Ventura Reyes, 35, was beheaded and her head was left in an ice chest in front of the city hall of Fortín de las Flores, a city in Veracruz, in 2019. Getsemaní Santos Luna, a trans woman, was shot in February.
“The authorities always say that they are crimes of passion, or that they were related to drug trafficking, but they do not investigate, they do not make expert opinions,” said Jazz Bustamante, a trans woman and political candidate in Veracruz.
Bustamante, who is part of the civil association Soy Humano, said more than 40 percent of LGBTQ people who are killed in the region end up in mass graves because the authorities only give their remains to blood relatives.
“Many are from other states such as Guerrero, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and they leave those regions because of the abuses they suffer. They do sex work, because they don’t let us study or practice professions, they have no other option,” Bustamante said. “So they cut ties with their family and we cannot bury them because no one comes to claim them.”
Sofía Sánchez García, a 25-year-old trans woman, had to leave Papantla, her Indigenous town in Veracruz due to extreme violence against the LGBTQ community and the lack of work and academic opportunities.
“I had to leave there because there is no branch of work for someone like myself. People do not understand that you were born with a name and an identity different from how you see yourself. That’s why I had to leave my studies, and now I dedicate myself to sex work,” Sánchez said with a hint of sadness.
The psychological abuse she suffered throughout her life has taken a toll, Sánchez said, because “strange thoughts enter her.”
“You have to fight depression because the mind betrays you many times,” she asserts.
A place in the world
They are overflowing silhouettes, shades of lights and characters that unfold. Pedro Miranda’s photographs are suggestive, not precise. They seem like something out of a dream. In a world obsessed with sharpness and brightness, Miranda opts for the mist, for the dreamlike universe and the textures that turn his work into an experience.
“Sometimes my friends joke with me, because they say that I am part of the minority, of the minority, of the minority,” he said with a laugh, looking up at the sky. Miranda is a blind plastic artist and an LGBTQ Indigenous person, but he says that none of that defines him.
“I think the most important thing is to know where you are in the world. The fact of being Indigenous does not detract from me. On the contrary, it adds to me because I am from a region that has survived a great number of terrible things,” said Miranda, who says he is aware that he is privileged by being part of the artistic community.
“It’s supposedly a more open world, and I understand that it is. Although they have come to accuse me of overexploiting my Indigenous image, can you believe it?” he said, laughing.
This year Miranda did the Perfect Disabled Handbook, a project of in-depth interviews with other creators who share their experiences living with various types of disabilities.
“You don’t have to look at your limitations, even if that is difficult. There are things worth dying for, worth losing privileges for, and that is knowing who you are, living by your own personality, and that includes sexual orientation,” he said. “That is why you came into the world.”
Hate crime in California surged 31% in 2020, fueled mainly by a big jump in crimes targeting Black people during a year that saw the worst racial strife in decades, according to an annual report released Wednesday by the state’s attorney general.
Overall hate crimes increased from 1,015 to 1,330 last year, while the number of victims increased 23%, from 1,247 to 1,536. Black people account for 6.5% of the state’s population of nearly 40 million people but were victims in 30% of all hate crimes — 456 overall, up 87% from the previous year.
“What we see from these reports is what we have seen and felt all year — we are in the midst of a racial justice reckoning in this country. It’s multi-faceted, and it cannot be solved overnight.” Attorney General Rob Bonta said.
California saw some of the largest protests following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. And it also saw a surge in attacks on people of Asian descent following the emergence of the coronavirus in China.
Last year’s hate crime reports were the most since 2008, when there were 1,397. That in turn was topped several times in prior years, including 2001, when there were 2,261 hate crimes reported.
While the overall numbers of hate crimes targeting Asians was low — 89 — that was more than double the number in 2019. The most events during 2020 were reported in March and April, just as the statewide shutdown and other pandemic restrictions took hold.
“For too many, 2020 wasn’t just about a deadly virus, it was about an epidemic of hate as well,” Bonta said while speaking in Oakland’s Chinatown..
While the pandemic is easing, that fear still resides in the Asian American community, said Bonta, the state’s first Filipino American attorney general. He related that he feared even for his mother going alone into an urban area.
“There was a surge in anti-Asian violence correlated with the words of leaders who sought to divide us when we were at our most vulnerable,” Bonta, a Democrat, said in an apparent reference to former President Donald Trump.
Violent crime incidents driven by anti-Asian hate increased from 32 in 2019 to 72 in 2020, according to a companion report that aims to put that violence into modern and historical context dating to Gold Rush days of the mid-19th century and a history of harmful Asian stereotypes in the United States.
California defines hate crimes as those targeting victims because of their race or ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender or a disability. The definitions have been expanded at various times in recent years. Each hate crime event can include more than one related offense against more than one victim by more than one offender.
Such crimes targeting Latinos increased from 110 in 2019 to 152 last year, while those against white people rose from 39 to 82.
While hate crimes based on race increased, those prompted by religion dropped 13.5%. Anti-Jewish events fell from 141 in 2019 to 115 in 2020 and anti-Islamic events decreased from 25 to 15.
Those involving sexual orientation fell from 233 to 205. However, those with a gender bias increased, led by a jump in anti-transgender events from 29 in 2019 to 54 last year.
Though Bonta said more than half of hate crimes are believed to go unreported, he said he has confidence in local investigators and prosecutors to address the problem.
He nonetheless distributed a new law enforcement bulletin and guidance for prosecutors intended to help them to help them identify and investigate hate crimes, increase immediate and consistent contact with victims their communities and promote alternative forms of sentencing and restorative justice approaches when dealing with hate crimes.
Sunday August 8th 4-6 PMThe Musers / Familiar Strangers
The Musers are Sonoma County’s goofy folk trio made up of Anita Bear Sandwina playing banjolin, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and harmonica; Megan McLaughlin on guitar and mandolin and Tom Kuhn driving upright bass and mouth percussion. At a Muser’s show you can be sure that each musical dish will be served with laughter. dancing feet, and the pure joy of their love of music and life.Familiar Strangers are a trio of Sonoma County treasures: Kevin Russell, Candy Girard and Tim Sarter. This trio is chock full of talent, positive vibes and musical prowess that is sure to please any crowd with their swing-y and upbeat selection of music.
The Global South presents unique challenges for LGBTQ activists and advocacy groups.
The Human Rights Council notes 29 countries have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples, and the majority of them are located in the Global North that comprises more developed countries in the Americas and Europe. Less than a handful of these countries — such as South Africa and Brazil — are in the Global South. Countries in the Global North, as a result, are more likely to harbor LGBTQ-friendly public sentiments compared to the Global South, which is rife with restrictive anti-LGBTQ laws.
This reality not only makes life tumultuous for both openly and closeted queer individuals in the Global South, the chances of encountering LGBTQ-friendly sentiments in these regions are also close to non-existent. Ensuring the fundamental human rights of the queer people who live in these regions are guaranteed is imperative for activists.
The Washington Blade recently spoke with activists from Thailand and Lebanon about their advocacy work and also how they celebrated Pride in countries where LGBTQ identity is not widely acknowledged.
Thailand
Midnight Poonkasetwattana is the executive director of the Asian Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM), a non-profit organization located in Bangkok. The organization’s work centers on addressing sexual health-related issues by collecting data on gay men and men who have sex with men in 35 countries across Asia and the Pacific.
“What we do in general is empowering communities on the ground to be able to speak their truth, and also participate meaningfully in country, regional, and global fora so they can have their voices and actually articulate what is it the needs of communities on the ground are,” says Poonkasetwattana.
APCOM, by giving these communities the ability to articulate their concerns, creates and facilitates an environment where LGBTQ people’s sexual and mental health needs are met, even though discrimination remains a barrier to accessing these services.
APCOM’s work does not come without its challenges because of the prevalence of anti-LGBTQ laws in many Asian countries. Their work, however, usually continues undeterred because of their ability to work with local community organizations in the public health sector.
“There are some opportunities to work under public health, and we’ve been able to do that in certain places [like Afghanistan] where it’s still difficult to talk about equality,” says Poonkasetwattana. “When we talk about ensuring that those who are marginalized and most at risk to [contract] HIV are able to get prevention and treatment, [we focus on working] with community-based organizations.”
APCOM, as a result, has been able to facilitate important conversations around HIV/AIDS, with the specific information about the use of necessary and appropriate language in web programming that recognizes people’s different sexual identities and encourages direct conversations around drug use and sex work.
APCOM, in order to commemorate Asia’s LGBTQ community’s tenacity, began Pride month with a virtual discussion that the Australian Embassy in Thailand sponsored. The event, titled “Celebrating Pride Month 2021: LGBTQI Inclusion and the Effect of COVID-19,” had two sessions.
The first session, “Voices from Thai LGBTQI: Launch of Khormoon Report,” discussed COVID-19’s impact in Thailand. The second, “COVID-19 Recovery and LGBTQI Inclusion: A Perspective from the Business Sector,” focused on how Thailand’s business sector practiced inclusion and how it will further propel LGBTQ advocacy.
As APCOM prepares to ease back into normalcy as the pandemic wanes, Poonkasetwattana will begin to prepare for the organization’s HERO Awards (HIV, Equality and Rights), a fundraising gala that honors outstanding LGBTQ activists, HIV/AIDS service providers and allies from across Asia and the Pacific and also raises money for the HIV prevention and human rights work of APCOM.
Lebanon
Helem, whose executive director is Tarek Zeidan, is an LGBTQ advocacy organization in Beirut, Lebanon. Founded in 2001, this non-governmental entity works to improve the legal and social status of LGTBQ people in the Middle East and North Africa.
Lebanon is what Zeidan describes as a slightly safer place for queer people. Lebanon, compared to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East, has emerged as a more inclusive and liberal place despite it being anything but a safe haven for queer people.
“When it comes to LGBTQ rights, Lebanon packs a punch way above its weight,” says Zeidan. “Because, in a region which is notorious for LGBTQ rights violations, Lebanon has enjoyed, and here I use the word enjoy very loosely, a relatively safer and more inclusive sort of experience.”
Helem in its many incarnations throughout its 21-year history has always had one main goal: React to whatever priorities and needs that queer people in the Middle East have.
Helem is structurally divided into three parts.
The first is the services department which does a lot of work to protect and assist LGBTQ people in crisis.
“We [offer] emergency intervention, case management, emergency cash, free mental health support, free medical aid, everything,” says Zeidan. “Food security [also] acts primarily as the hub in which we gather a lot of data, particularly data on the locale, density, and type of human rights violations, as well as demographic information.”
The second part of the organization is its community department.
Helem runs the largest non-commercial queer space in the Arab world that serves as a community center. This space is where the Zeidan guides localization work, community building, power building work, capacity building and vocational training.
“That’s where we do our family support, youth outreach, and all of that sort of community building and integration time work,” says Zeidan.
The final leg is the advocacy part or “bureau” that anchors on policy work, procedure, cultural change, public awareness, and legislation. Helem’s advocacy work also focuses on criminalization that Zeidan describes as “getting more attention,” even though it is not a central focus.
“In addition, criminalization, which is something we always do gets a lot of attention, but it’s really not the central thing that we engage with,” says Zeidan. “There are multiple ways in which you can guarantee LGBTQ rights and inclusion that don’t necessarily pass through Parliament, or the Supreme Court, especially when those two are blocked. So in a nutshell, the central question that we ask is, what can we do in order to improve institutions to become LGBTQ inclusive? How do we improve the lives of LGBTQ people?”
Zeidan further mentions that this strategy makes way for avenues that are not necessarily within the traditional human rights view by extracting opportunities from both development and human rights frameworks.
When tackling the lack of employment within Arab LGBTQ communities, for example, Helem doesn’t approach corporations that are more likely to be LGBTQ-inclusive. It instead identifies the industries that target LGBTQ people.
“We are more interested in targeting small and medium enterprises as locales for employment rather than big banks, because that’s where most of the working class and low income queer people are, and that’s where they get most of their livelihoods,” says Zeidan.
Zeidan says he anticipates even more engagement with LGBTQ activism in the Middle East in the future.
“We’re really excited about deciphering the question: What does regional activism really look like in the Middle East,” says Zeidan. “This is a very complicated question.”
He further mentions this goal is complicated because the Middle East does not have a regional organization to which they can turn for advocacy. Africa, for example, has the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, but the Middle East does not have such a body.
Helem’s modus operandi will therefore be engorged in trying to make sense of how to best liberate queer Arabs.
Three Texas men were sentenced yesterday for violent crimes. Michael Atkinson, 28, Pablo Ceniceros-Deleon, 21, and Daryl Henry, 24, were sentenced to prison terms for their involvement in a scheme to target gay men for violent crimes. Atkinson was sentenced to over 11 years in prison, Ceniceros-Deleon was sentenced to 22 years in prison, and Henry was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
“These three men participated in and committed acts of violence against innocent victims because they believed the victims were gay men,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This type of bias-motivated violence runs contrary to our values and violates our federal civil rights laws. The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division will aggressively investigate and prosecute those who target members of the LGBTQI community.”
“These defendants brutalized multiple victims, singling them out due to their sexual orientation. We cannot allow this sort of violence to fester unchecked,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Prerak Shah for the Northern District of Texas. “The Department of Justice is committed to prosecuting hate crimes. In the meantime, we urge dating app users to remain vigilant. Unfortunately, predators often lurk online.”
On Dec. 11, 2017, the conspirators used Grindr to lure five men to a vacant apartment in Dallas where they held the men at gunpoint, kidnapped, carjacked, and assaulted them. As part of his plea agreement, Henry admitted that he used violence and threats of violence to hold the victims in the backroom and closet of the vacant apartment while other conspirators used the victims’ vehicles to drive to local ATMs to steal cash from the victims’ accounts.
Atkinson and Ceniceros-Deleon admitted that they traveled in the carjacked vehicles to take cash from the victims’ accounts. While the victims were held at gunpoint, some were physically assaulted, at least one victim was sexually assaulted, and all of the victims were taunted with gay slurs.
In 2019, Atkinson pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit hate crimes, kidnapping and carjacking and one count of kidnapping. Ceniceros-Deleon pleaded guilty in 2019 to one hate crime count, one count of carjacking, and one count of use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. Henry pleaded guilty in 2019 to one hate crime count and one count of conspiracy to commit hate crimes, kidnapping and carjacking.
Chloe Lula, a Berlin-based writer and audio producer, writes for PinkNews and openDemocracy about the unique challenges trans folk face in ultra-conservative Georgia.
Bart Nikolo, a transgender man living in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, spends his winter nights gathering kindling for the sex workers who wait for clients near Heroes’ Square.
t’s something he’s done for years. After driving around for hours picking up fallen branches, he stacks them in neat piles, creating small fires that radiate a feeble heat.
When police officers try to fine him for “littering”, he explains what he says should be obvious: that he’s only trying to help ensure that these women, many of whom are also transgender, do not die from the cold.
In the absence of government support for queer people, Nikolo feels that the burden of care has fallen on the LGBT+ community’s shoulders.
During the pandemic, in particular, government aid has failed to reach its most vulnerable citizens, including those facing socioeconomic problems and gender and identity-based discrimination.
Many trans people who aren’t able to pass as cisgendered are pushed into dangerous, unstable and often illegal work, such as prostitution. This makes it difficult for them to access healthcare, housing, mental health services and unemployment assistance.
I met Nikolo in October 2020 on the upper floor of Success in downtown Tbilisi, the city’s only queer bar.
“I started by fighting for my own rights,” he told me. Horrified by the bigotry he faced when he first came out as trans in 2006, he set up Equality Movement, an NGO for queer advocacy, in 2011.
“Word of my desire to help [other LGBT+ people] spread fast. I discovered that there were hundreds of people who needed it – more than you would think,” he said.
Georgia’s hostility towards LGBT+ rights, Nikolo told me, stems from the contradictions between the two pillars of Georgian national identity, the Church and the State.
When the United National Movement (UNM) party rose to power following the ‘Rose Revolution’ in 2003, it promised to overturn the stagnant Soviet political economy and culture by introducing widespread neoliberal reforms, government-led modernisation projects and closer ties to NATO and the EU.
But UNM’s desired shift towards a Western-aligned national identity was at odds with Orthodox traditionalism.
UNM’s rise to power led to a period of polarisation – along with a rise in poverty and inequality that has left the country’s most socioeconomically marginalised people, including queer people, at greater risk of exploitation and discrimination.
While homophobic stigma has inhibited above-ground queer organising, more widespread internet access has enabled inclusive values to take hold in underground communities.
The internet is a major meeting point for Tbilisi’s queer people in the absence of physical safe spaces
“It was only with the advent of the internet that new identity categories became available,” wrote Georgian feminist studies scholar Anna Rekhviashvili.
This new form of connection helped mobilise clandestine gay networks, she explains, which eventually emerged in a small number of visible sanctuaries – such as Success – in the 2010s.
The internet continues to be a major meeting point for Tbilisi’s queer people in the absence of physical safe spaces and LGBT-affirming resources.
Homophobia vs solidarity
In May 2013, a small rally in central Tbilisi to mark International Day Against Homophobia was ambushed by thousands of angry protesters. Many of them, including Georgian Orthodox priests, violently attacked the gay rights demonstrators.
Russian millionaire and ultra-nationalist Levan Vasadze was a prominent participant in the 2013 ambush. Last month, he announced his plans to enter politics with a new movement Unity, Essence, Hope – abbreviated in Georgian as ERI, meaning “nation”.
Recently, Vasadze talked of destabilisation if Tbilisi Pride takes place in early July. “We give the government time,” he said, “to cancel the events, otherwise people will react to the government’s decision” and “will not allow the ‘anti-Christian and anti-Georgian’ activities.”
Vasadze “is doing nothing to discourage extremist and nationalist bigoted views, and that’s disturbing,” said Ian Kelly, the US ambassador to Georgia 2015–18.
“His power comes from uniting the opposition and creating a situation that’s very much ‘us-vs-them’.”
Such developments are alarming, but they highlight the importance of solidarity – and improved connections – within the queer community. Giorgi Kikonishvili, a gay rights activist in Tbilisi, was among those attacked in 2013 and remembers it as a turning point for the Georgian LGBT+ movement.
“But,” he said, “we need to start working together very fiercely.”
The American LGBTQ+ Museum will have a permanent home in the expansion of the New-York Historical Society’s headquarters on Central Park West, with a $35 million infusion in capital funds from the city.
The capital funds represents a quarter of the historical society’s $140 million expansion to add more than 60,000 square feet onto the lot directly behind its headquarters, which was acquired in 1937 by the society’s trustees in anticipation of their eventual growth. Among the plans for more classrooms, galleries and exhibit space is a permanent home for the American LGBTQ+ Museum, which has been in the works since 2017.
“Several years ago, as we really faced a huge shortage, a huge deficit of space in our main building, and also began to think through the new stories that we would like to tell in addition to those we’ve been telling in our headquarters, we were introduced to the board of the American LGBTQ+ museum,” said Louise Mirrer, president and chief executive officer, in a phone interview Saturday. Through discussions, Mirrer said, the historical society decided to “use the new building as a place both to fulfill our needs and ambitions and accommodate them.”
“We’re delighted to partner with New York’s foremost museum of history to build a new museum dedicated to an exploration and celebration of the richness and diversity of LGBTQ+ history and culture in America,” Richard Burns, the chair of the board of directors for the American LGBTQ+ Museum, said in a statement. “The respect and rigor with which New-York Historical has approached this process, including their consultation with local communities, mirrors our own commitment to building a thoughtful, welcoming, queer, and inclusive experience for our visitors and partners.”
The New York City Council and the city Department of Cultural Affairs allocated $35 million for the expansion, which will be designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects. The expansion will also include more classrooms for the society’s Academy for American Democracy program, an educational program for sixth-graders, and a new storage facility for the historical society’s Patricia D. Klingenstein Library.
The new museum will occupy the entire fourth floor, two galleries, have access to the roof garden, and areas for offices and storage. Mirrer said she believes this will be the first LGBTQ+ museum with a historical focus in the country.
The historical society has mounted exhibits about the legacy of the Stonewall riots and is currently exhibiting Safe/Haven about the roots of the LGBTQ+ community in Cherry Grove on Fire Island.
The new collaboration between the venerable historical society and the nascent LGBTQ+ museum “really makes it clear that the history of the LGBTQ+ community is part of American history,” Mirrer said. “It’s not a sideshow to American history. It is part of the mainstream of American history.”
The Spahr Center saves lives through many of its HIV and LGBTQ programs Not the least of these essential services is our Harm Reduction Program, which works to prevent HIV and hepatitis C infections among people who use drugs by providing sterile syringes to people who use drugs in order to prevent HIV and hepatitis, distributes Naloxone to prevent opioid related overdoses, and links our clients to medical care and social services.
We are looking for people who refuse to look the other way as overdose and disease transmission impact the lives of our Marin neighbors. The Harm Reduction movement understands that illicit substance use is harmful and wants people to be safe until they are ready to quit. If you want to get involved in the solution to a complex set of problems, we can offer you a positive opportunity.
As more people come to realize that the war on drugs has been a crime against humanity, our army of harm reductionists is rising up to say that mass incarceration is not the answer to homelessness and drug dependence. We believe that respecting a person’s self-determination and recognizing their equality as citizens is a better approach. We believe that science and data and compassion and treatment are much better roads forward. This week our President issued a supportive statement and funding for Harm Reduction activities – the first endorsement and funding of its kind!
Please consider joining our small corps of volunteers and Peer2Peer Advocates at The Spahr Center’s Syringe Access Program. We have opportunities daytime or evening for two hour shifts at our sites. For a few hours a week, you can help us in the office preparing supplies Click the link below.
If you can help us recruit, please pass this email along to ensure that our harm reduction services remain free and available for everyone.
Kataluna Enriquez, who was crowned Miss Nevada USA on Sunday, will become the first openly transgender woman to compete in the Miss USA pageant.
With a platform centered on transgender awareness and mental health, Enriquez, 27, beat out 21 other contestants at the South Point Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/xImrqkG?app=1
“I didn’t have the easiest journey in life,” she said, according to KVVU-TV. “I struggled with physical and sexual abuse. I struggled with mental health. I didn’t have much growing up. I didn’t have support. But I’m still able to thrive, and I’m still able to survive and become a trailblazer for many.”
After her win, Enriquez thanked the LGBTQ community on Instagram, writing, “My win is our win. We just made history. Happy Pride.”
The Miss Nevada USA organization congratulated Enriquez for her historic win on social media and shared the hashtag #bevisible.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/QywZSoD?app=1
In March, Enriquez, who previously competed in trans-specific pageants, became the first transgender woman crowned Miss Silver State USA, the main preliminary for Miss Nevada USA.
During the pageant’s question-and-answer segment, Enriquez said being true to herself was an obstacle she faced daily.
“Today I am a proud transgender woman of color. Personally, I’ve learned that my differences do not make me less than, it makes me more than,” she said, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. “I know that my uniqueness will take me to all my destinations, and whatever I need to go through in life.”
Enriquez, who is Filipina American, designs her own outfits, including a rainbow-sequin gown she wore Sunday night in honor of Pride Month “and all of those who don’t get a chance to spread their colors,” she posted on Instagram.
“Pageantry is so expensive, and I wanted to compete and be able to grow and develop skills and create gowns for myself and other people,” Enriquez said, according to the Review-Journal.
She will represent Nevada at the 2021 Miss USA pageant, being held Nov. 29 at the Paradise Cove Theater at the River Spirit Casino Resort in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Miss Universe pageant system, of which Los Angeles-based Miss USA is part, began allowing transgender entrants in 2012. If she is crowned Miss USA, Enriquez will be the second trans contestant in a Miss Universe pageant, after Spain’s Angela Ponce in 2018.
Miss America, a separate organization headquartered in New Jersey, did not immediately reply to an inquiry about whether transgender women or nonbinary individuals are allowed to compete in its annual competition. As of 2018, the pageant was reportedly only open to “natural born women,” according to the Advocate.
In February, a federal judge upheld the right of another organization, Nevada-based Miss United States of America, to bar transgender contestants from its pageant.