We are a month into the New Year and we are just getting started on what promises to be an exciting year for Face to Face and the clients we serve in Sonoma County. To all who have supported our work through the years we are grateful for your continued support. Hard to believe but we are now in our 39th year of helping people with HIV/AIDS in Sonoma County. What began as a grassroots effort to help those who were dying of AIDS has grown into an organization that provides best-practice, evidence-based prevention and care services, all the while supporting the health and well-being of people living with HIV. We continue to push boundaries, staying true to the core of our humble beginnings. We have big plans for the upcoming year with an exciting announcement coming up in just a couple of weeks. In the meantime here is what we are working on heading into this New Year! Best In Health, Sara BrewerExecutive Director
SIERRA HEALTH FOUNDATION- STIMULANT USE GRANT
We were fortunate to receive a grant from the Sierra Health Foundation for Stimulant Use. This grant has enabled us to reach BIPOC population, to educate and help reduce stigma on substance abuse. Sonoma County’s opioid-related deaths are 70% above our California state average, and fentanyl-related overdoses in particular have increased in our county from just four in 2017 to 94 in 2020.In particular, people of color who use drugs are more likely than their white neighbors to end up in the criminal justice system or experience an overdose. They face greater barriers to treatment, and greater stigma. In the first eight months of expanding our SSP to include smoking supplies we have seen huge increases of people who use drugs accessing our prevention services and treatment support. Our strategy combines targeted outreach, education, linkage to medicated assistance treatment, naloxone distribution, counseling, and other personalized support. These activities will reduce overdose deaths, increase access to treatment, and support healthier outcomes in our community.
Progress and ResilienceBlack communities have made great progress in reducing HIV. Yet racism, discrimination, and mistrust in the health care system may affect whether Black people seek or receive HIV prevention services. These issues may also reduce the likelihood of engaging in HIV treatment and care.
To continue to reduce the burden of HIV and other health risks, people need adequate housing and transportation, employment, access to culturally competent health services that are free of stigma and discrimination, and more.Together, when we work to overcome structural barriers to HIV testing, prevention, and treatment and to stop HIV stigma, we help reduce HIV-related disparities and health inequities in Black communities.We must address systemic social and health inequities to #StopHIVTogether.
BEERFEST, “THE GOOD ONE” RETURNS SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2022After a 2 year absence we are thrilled to be bringing back this annual event to the lawn of the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts In Santa Rosa
We look forward to welcoming you back!
Expect mouth-puckering sour beers, hop bombs, barrel-aged brews, and a wide range of other cool libations that make Northern California one of the best beer producing regions in the world. More than 40 breweries & cideries will be pouring their samples for you to enjoy from 1-4:30 pm. VIP starts at Noon!
Parents in Georgia have reported that an elementary school administrator took down a young child’s Pride artwork and compared it to a Nazi flag.
The artwork featured a rainbow Pride flag, an umbrella, and the words “Gay is OK”, and was drawn by a student at Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary School, in Athens, Georgia, which teaches children aged five to 11.
The child’s teacher proudly displayed the drawing in their classroom, but according to local TV station WXIA-TV, was told to remove it by school administrators.
When the teacher questioned why they should take it down, an administrator reportedly compared the adorable Pride artwork to a Nazi flag.
Many parents were extremely upset about the incident, including Jemelleh Coes, who said that it was not isolated.
Coes, a professor at the University of Georgia, said: “There are ongoing complaints about this current administration has been discriminatory against women, being discriminatory against LGBT+ people, being discriminatory against English language learners or emerging bilinguals, emerging multilingual and Spanish speakers.
“So we have seen a pattern of inequity at our school and we have been asking for support at this point for years.”
Gee Campbell, who is transmasculine non-binary and has two children at the school, added: “We’ve been part of this school community for four years.
“My experiences with the teachers in regards to my transitioning have always been positive and respectful. My daughter is in this classroom and my immediate thought was, ‘What message does this give my daughter about her family?’”
One anonymous teacher also released a statement: “On behalf of a majority of the staff at Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary School, we are disheartened that these words and actions have happened in our school building during this time.
“This does not represent why we chose this profession, and it does not represent the feelings, beliefs, values, and attributes our amazing school family has within these four walls.”
They called on the school district to take action, and added: “We will continue to seek resolution and promote a community of love, acceptance, and tolerance within our building and community.”
In response, the Clarke County School District said in a statement: “We have investigated the situation and are working to address the issues with all parties involved.
“To be clear, we condemn this comparison and discrimination in all its forms.
“The Clarke County School District embraces diversity and inclusion for all students and staff. We stand with our LGBTQIA+ community and are dedicated to proving our commitment to diversity and inclusion.
“To that end, we will continue having sensitive and appropriate conversations with our school communities.”
A trans woman has shared her heartbreaking experience of conversion therapy to warn how the barbaric practice can at first come across like “kindness”.
Warning: Discusses mental health, suicidal thoughts, sexual assault and conversion therapy.
While there, she claimed, she underwent horrific conversion therapy.
Megan said that she knew that she was a girl from the age of four.
“When I first learned about trans people I asked a parent about them,” she wrote.
“They told me, ‘Transsexuals are deeply unhappy people who become prostitutes, get AIDS, and die homeless.’ Those words became the root of my closet.”
Negative depictions of trans people in the media forced Meghan even further into the closet, which severely affected her mental health, and saw her try to take her own life at the ages of eight and 15.
She “fell into Evangelical purity culture”, which she was attracted to because of “the constant references to healing, regeneration, renewal, and rebirth”.
“In short, I knew that I wanted to be a woman, society told me that was a bad thing, so I wanted a way out of wanting to be a woman,” Meghan said. “Evangelical purity culture promised me a way out, and I grasped onto it.”
While she prayed “fervently”, she still struggled with dysphoria, and entries from her prayer journals at the time show that she had become desperate for God to “heal” her.
In one entry, Meghan wrote: “I don’t even want to be happy anymore. I’ll make [do] with content. You want to work a work in me? Do it. Do it and get it over with.
“I can’t wait anymore. I hate this. I hate existing.”
In another, she wrote: “I just want to give up. I’ve been praying for a decade. For a decade you haven’t healed me. Maybe tomorrow I’ll finally have the courage and walk out the window.”
Enrolling at Moody Bible Institute, a private Evangelical Christian Bible college founded in Chicago, Illinois, became the next step in her “plan to be healed of [her] gender issues”.
According to the college’s doctrinal statement: “Non-marital sex, homosexual sex, same-sex romantic relationships, and gender identification incongruent with one’s birth-sex all violate God’s generous intention for human relationships.
“Such practices misrepresent the nature of God Himself, and therefore are sinful under any circumstance.”
Meghan claims she was threatened with academic probation if she refused to attend what would soon become conversion therapy
Meghan’s mental health continued to suffer, and while a student at Moody Bible Institute, she suffered a “nervous breakdown” following a bad bout of insomnia.
“I was referred to resident life supervisors who required me to attend therapy with a Moody therapist or else face probation,” she said.
“I want to add that what I now recognise as a threat wasn’t presented as a threat, it was presented in the nicest, most sincere way possible.
“They were incredibly gentle with me at this stage, even though they were holding real academic consequences over my head.”
The therapist Meghan saw practiced nouthetic counseling, “an Evangelical model of therapy that rejects psychiatry and psychology, relying on Biblical principles in order to help their clients”.
In an effort to figure out which “unconfessed sin” had “caused” her mental health problems, Meghan finally admitted that she “hated being a man”.
Her therapist was “extremely kind”, and Meghan was “convinced through his words and deeds that he had my best interests at heart”.
He told her: “Many men struggle with feeling like they should have been women, and we have a way to treat this problem.”
“I was ECSTATIC,” recalled Meghan.
“I left that session thinking that I wished I had confessed those feelings decades ago. He promised me the healing I had been praying for for years. I began to think that this was God’s providence, the fulfillment of my purpose at Moody.”
The trauma of being sexually assaulted as a child became an integral part of Meghan’s ‘therapy’
Meghan said her therapist told her that “abuse, either physical, emotional, or sexual, was the primary cause” of people being transgender.
She disclosed that she “had been sexually assaulted while in the hospital after one of [her] suicide attempts, and that it was extremely difficult to talk about”.
But her therapist, she wrote, told her that the experience had caused “gender identity disorder”.
“Both of us conveniently ignored that the assault occurred over a decade after my first reported experience of gender incongruence,” she wrote.
He reportedly instructed that whenever she felt gender dysphoria she should try to relive the assault under she was hyperventilating and in tears, as “cognitive aversion therapy”.
She said that she continued this “therapy” for a year, while having weekly meetings with “Christopher Yuan, an adjunct faculty member at Moody who was a prominent member of the ex-gay community“.
In an article, still live on the Moody Bible Institute blog, the college describes Yuan’s “ex-gay” journey, stating: “While studying the Bible, Christopher slowly realised he had put his identity in the wrong thing, his sexuality.
“But, God called him to put his main identity in Jesus Christ alone. This new identity in Christ compelled him to live in obedience to God whether regardless of what his sexual desires were. This obedience led to a radically changed life.”
Meghan wrote that her therapist told her “marriage signalled the final end of feelings of ‘same-sex attraction’ and gender identity disorder”, and so she “courted a woman and got married”.
While she told her wife about her experiences, she insisted she was “healed”, until she began to experience a faith crisis “precipitated largely by the rise of racism, xenophobia, and the increasing post-truth culture of the Evangelical Church”.
She said: “It took years for me to finally come out to my ex-wife. I held on for so long because I thought I could just tough it out for the last fifty years of my life.
“But there came a point where, I knew that doing so would kill me in the end.”
Now, Meghan is working “with a therapist to undo the damage done”, but explained that she was telling her story to warn others that conversion therapy can often seem harmless at first.
She wrote: “I suppose the thing I want people to learn from my experience is how NICE and KIND and WELL-INTENTIONED the people involved in my therapy were.
“That kindness reads insidious to me now, like a smile on the face of an abuser.”
Her Twitter thread soon went viral, and has to date been liked almost 8,000 times.
PinkNews has approached Moody Bible Institute for comment.
Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk).
Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255, or The Trevor Project which provides 24/7 crisis support, 365 days a year. Text START to 678-678, or call: (866) 488-7386.
For the first time in history, California’s Legislative LGBTQ Caucus could grow to comprise 10% of the state legislature in 2022. Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, announced endorsements of three openly LGBTQ+ candidates on Wednesday: former San Diego City Council President Georgette Gómez in Assembly District 80; Palm Springs City Councilmember and former Mayor Christy Holstege in Assembly District 47; and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Joseph C. Rocha in Senate District 40. Equality California previously announced early endorsements of Rick Chavez Zbur for Assembly District 51 and Chula Vista City Councilmember Steve Padilla for Senate District 18. There are currently eight openly LGBTQ+ Californians serving in the Legislature, including four in the Assembly and four in the Senate.
“For decades, California has led the nation in the fight for full, lived equality and served as a beacon of hope to LGBTQ+ people around the world,” said Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang. “But unfortunately, our community is still underrepresented at all levels of government — here in California and across the country. Representation is power, and we have an historic opportunity this year to achieve proportionate representation in Sacramento. Equality California is going to take it.”
“This year, we stand ready to mark a massive milestone in the history of our caucus and the broader LGBTQ+ community,” said California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus Chair Asm. Evan Low and Vice Chair Sen. Susan Eggman. “There is no better way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the California Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus than by achieving increased LGBTQ+ representation in the Legislature. More members of the LGBTQ+ community are rolling up their sleeves and running for office than ever before. The Caucus stands ready to support them because representation matters. We won’t stop until every member of the community can see themselves reflected in the halls of their state capitol.”
Georgette Gómez is running in an April special election to replace former Assembly Appropriations Chair Lorena Gonzalez — who recently resigned to lead the California Labor Federation — in the current Assembly District 80. She is also running in the June primary for a full term representing the newly redrawn 80th district, which includes most of the same communities as the current district. Gómez previously made history as the first openly queer Latina to serve as city council president in the state’s second largest city after being elected unanimously by her peers. On the council, she championed civil rights and social justice, environmental justice and support for immigrant communities. She has been endorsed by the Latino and LGBTQ Caucuses, San Diego Assemblymembers Chris Ward and Tasha Boerner Horvath and Supervisor Nora Vargas.
“Georgette Gómez is a proven champion for social justice and the perfect person to represent San Diego’s LGBTQ+, Latino and border communities in the California Assembly,” said Hoang. “We have proudly supported Georgette throughout her career and can’t wait to welcome her to the California Assembly this spring.”
“It’s a great honor to be endorsed once again by Equality California,” said former City Council President Gómez. “As a Queer Latina born and raised in Barrio Logan, you know I’m ready to be the strong voice for equality and fairness that every South County family deserves. In the State Assembly, I’ll fight for families working hard to make ends meet and basic dignity for every Californian — regardless of where you’re from, what you earn, or who you love.”
Christy Holstege is running for the newly redrawn Assembly District 47 in the Coachella Valley, which is an open seat after Asm. Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) announced he will not seek reelection. Redistricting made the district more Democratic and reunited Cathedral City, which has a large LGBTQ+ population, with the rest of the Coachella Valley’s LGBTQ+ community in a single district. Holstege made history in 2017 as part of the nation’s first all-LGBTQ city council in Palm Springs and again in 2021 as the nation’s first openly bi+ mayor. If elected in November, she’ll make history once again as the first openly bi+ woman to serve in the California Legislature.
“We couldn’t be prouder to support Christy Holstege’s historic campaign for California Assembly,” said Hoang. “On the city council, Christy has been a tireless champion for civil rights, reproductive freedom, affordable housing and an economy that works for everyone. We have no doubt that she will continue to be a powerful force for progress in Sacramento when she makes history this fall.”
“It’s an honor to receive Equality California’s endorsement in our campaign for Assembly District 47,” said Councilmember Holstege. “Throughout my time on the Palm Springs City Council, my colleagues and I have made advancing inclusion, diversity, and justice the center of what we do. I’ve dedicated my whole career to this mission — as a community organizer for the No on Proposition 8 campaign; a civil rights attorney for our community’s most vulnerable, including LGBTQ clients; and as the leader of this compassionate world-class city. I’m grateful to EQCA for their support and look forward to working together in the State Legislature.”
Joseph C. Rocha is running to defeat anti-LGBTQ+ Senator Brian Jones — who earned a 36% on Equality California’s 2019 Legislative Scorecard and 0% in 2020 — in San Diego’s newly competitive Senate District 40. Rocha dedicated his life to serving his country when he joined the Navy on his 18th birthday, only to be discharged later under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. While he advocated for repeal of the discriminatory policy, Rocha graduated from San Diego City College, then the University of San Diego, then University of San Francisco School of Law. Following the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Joseph rejoined the military, rising to the rank of a Marine Corps Captain and prosecutor, continuing to fight for justice.
“Joseph Rocha has exemplified service to community and country throughout his life, and he will be an incredible partner in the fight for full, lived equality in the California Senate,” said Hoang. “Joseph’s unique perspective and powerful life experiences will be invaluable in Sacramento as he continues his lifelong fight for justice. We’re thrilled to support Joseph’s campaign.”
“I am heartened to join the ranks of the fearless trailblazers who have earned Equally California’s endorsement,” said Rocha. “As a principal witness in the federal case that ruled Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell unconstitutional, I have a proven track record of fighting for LGBTQ+ inclusion in some of the toughest and most conservative spaces. I’m running for State Senate out of the same sense of duty and service that has guided me my entire life, and I will be a champion for equality and justice for San Diego County.”
For a complete list of Equality California’s 2022 endorsements, visit eqca.org/elections.
###
Equality California is the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization. We bring the voices of LGBTQ people and allies to institutions of power in California and across the United States, striving to create a world that is healthy, just, and fully equal for all LGBTQ people. We advance civil rights and social justice by inspiring, advocating and mobilizing through an inclusive movement that works tirelessly on behalf of those we serve. www.eqca.org
The human rights and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan threatens everyone there, but lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and other sexual and gender minorities, face an acute threat of violence and even death from the Taliban authorities. These people find hope in Rainbow Railroad, a nongovernmental organization that helps LGBT people flee across borders to safety.
Rainbow Railroad has a mandate to help LGBTQI+ persons facing persecution find pathways to safety. We’ve been doing this work since 2006. We’re based in Canada and the United States, and we have been successful in helping nearly 2,000 people.
How did you find yourself in this line of work?
I’ve been invested in social justice for most of my career. But my own background gives me an affinity for Rainbow Railroad. Although I’m a cisgendered gay male who was born in Canada, my parents were from Jamaica, a country that criminalizes same-sex intimacy. I both understand the privilege that comes with being born in Canada, as well as the risks that are associated with being in a country that criminalizes same-sex relationships. So that, and a real desire to tackle the challenges that we face globally, is why I really invested in Rainbow Railroad.
When was the moment when you thought, “Oh no, we need to work on Afghanistan…”?
Even though we’ve been around since 2006, we really built up ourselves as an organization over the past six years during my tenure as executive director. Up until that point, we focused on helping individuals at risk on a case-by-case basis. But since then, we’ve become more grounded in our work, expanded our international partnerships and networks, and built our capacity. We have worked on multiple crises in Chechnya, Egypt, and other countries.
However, up until this point we’ve never dealt with a full-blown geopolitical crisis that was affecting our community. With Afghanistan, we didn’t initially really realize we’d be working on this issue so intensely, until governments started to identify the LGBTQI+ community as people of concern. And while it’s a sign of progress that governments did proactively label this community as at-risk, it also put expectations on us to intervene. Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban last August, requests for help just spiked.
Could you share a story or two about some of the people from Afghanistan that Rainbow Railroad helped?
I always find telling a story challenging because so many stories are… hard. They’re hard to listen to, and they really demonstrate the risky situations people are in. We had one individual describe what it was like to run from the Taliban when they took over. This person was identified as LGBTQI+ and went into hiding when the city was taken over, only to find themself under open gunfire because their whereabouts were discovered. This person escaped by running away. That story crystallized for me why this community is particularly vulnerable, and why evacuation was a necessity because of the immediate threat to life.
How does the work on Afghanistan compare to other countries Rainbow Railroad has worked on?
This was a major instance of when the persecution of LGBTQI+ persons intersected with geopolitical issues like conflict. A unique challenge was that governments did not have, and still do not have, diplomatic relations with the Taliban. This meant that civil society had to really take the lead on evacuation efforts and be on the ground and innovative, using approaches we’ve never done before. There are a couple key lessons from that. I think one is that we recognize now that state-sponsored crackdowns are always going to exist, but as we engage more with conflict, or climate issues, or humanitarian issues, the intersection between those and sexual orientation and gender identity is going to be acute. As an LGBTQI+ organization doing this work, we have unique expertise on this population, in order to be of assistance to those at risk.
How are governments doing at assisting LGBTQI+ Afghans who feel like they have no choice but to flee? Anything you would like them to do differently?
Governments have been slow to act. They don’t have the tools to act quickly. That’s been the biggest challenge that we’ve had: they’re not acting fast enough even though they’re saying they are committed to supporting Afghans, and particularly LGBTQI+ Afghans. Rainbow Railroad and civil society partners have been on the ground, doing this work in Afghanistan, for nearly six months. For any intervention to be successful during a crisis, governments need to allow us to refer cases for immediate resettlement into those countries.
Rainbow Railroad in particular, before the crisis began, was sounding the alarm. We were saying governments need to have proactive crisis response plans in place with nimble corridors to protect LGBTQI+ persons at risk. We already know from experience that when crackdowns happen, people are displaced immediately and need very quick solutions. Our plea to governments is: Let’s not wait for another crisis to occur, let’s think of proactive solutions now. And the thing that gives me hope, that I think governments should appreciate, is that civil society is equipped to be an active partner.
What do you think is going to happen in the next year or two in Afghanistan for LGBTQI+ people?
The Taliban are trying to signal that they’re not going to target women and girls, the LGBTQI+ community, etc. But we already know that won’t be the case. My fear is a humanitarian crisis where even more LGBTQI+ persons will be targets of violence, especially if there are not tools to provide international development assistance to people at risk, to help us build civil society on the ground, and to relocate people. If we don’t intervene, we could see much more targeted violence and potentially the deaths of LGBTQI+ persons, which we really want to avoid.
Lydia Caradonna says there’s “no way to work safely” as a sex worker as long as the coronavirus pandemic is ongoing.
COVID-19 has upended so many industries and it has resulted in countless people losing their jobs. Sex workers have been among the worst affected.
The Omicron wave has made the outlook even worse. Once again, sex workers have found themselves unable to meet clients safely, always working in fear that they could contract or pass on COVID-19.
High case numbers have also impacted on client numbers. Countless sex workers have found themselves struggling to make ends meet – and they no longer have savings to fall back on as they did at the start of the pandemic, Lydia says.
“Within the sex industry, most of us write off October to February as the slow season,” Lydia explains. “Lots of us will be living on savings in that time anyway because work always drops around that time of year. But the problem is, we haven’t been able to make any savings because we’re on – what is it, year three now? – of this pandemic.
“We’re having more than just a usual slow period – we’re having another wave of COVID, this huge Omicron wave. I’m in a group chat with 20 sex workers and last night we were all freaking out because no one was even getting time wasting texts, no one was getting phone calls. Last brothel shift I did, I came home with £80, which is absolutely terrible.”
Lydia says many sex workers have stopped “screening” – the process by which they assess if a client is safe – because they can no longer afford to turn anyone away.
“We’re having to take chances on the clients we can get,” she says. “Even dropping safety measures isn’t helping us make ends meet. We’re in really dire times.”
Lydia has resigned herself to the fact that she’s probably going to get COVID soon because it’s impossible to avoid it as a sex worker.
We really don’t have any option but to go and do really risky work with no way to protect ourselves, and then we get blamed for it.
“I’ve somehow – God knows how – managed to avoid it so far, but people are dropping like flies,” she says. “I’m in this awful situation where I’m going to a shift where I know I’m probably still not going to make enough for rent, and while I’m on this shift I’m risking getting seriously ill and in that time I won’t be able to work, so I still own’t be able to make rent. You’re going and doing this extremely risky thing because you have absolutely no choice but to with the way your finances are at the moment.”
The situation gives rise to feelings of guilt, Lydia says – she sometimes feels like it would be her fault if she ended up getting COVID.
“I know we shouldn’t feel guilty because the government put us in this situation where we have to go and work,” she says. “The self-employment income scheme has basically stopped. We really don’t have any option but to go and do really risky work with no way to protect ourselves, and then we get blamed for it. We get called vectors of disease, or people talk about these ‘prostitutes’ going out spreading COVID, but we’ve been given no choice but to.”
Some sex workers have stopped meeting clients – but the financial impact is severe
Kate McGrew, a sex worker who lives in Dublin, has faced similar challenges. She hasn’t worked with any clients in person since Omicron hit – she moved entirely online to avoid contracting the virus through her work.
“I have been surprised since the onset of the pandemic to discover how hot virtual work can be – the brain is a powerful sex organ – but I would prefer to meet these fellas in person,” she says. “I am very appreciative of my subscribers but creating content is not my preferred way of working.”
There’s also the fact that online work is “less lucrative” to contend with. “It takes way more time for way less money,” she says, adding that the platform she uses takes 30 per cent of her earnings.
“Like many people who are missing out on work at this time my earnings have taken a hit,” she says. “The bank account may halt but the bills never do.”
The pandemic has also impacted on sex workers who operate through websites like OnlyFans. Matt Lownik, better known to his fans as TenInchLondon, started sharing content through the platform shortly before the pandemic began. COVID meant that he couldn’t make new videos during lockdowns as he couldn’t get together with potential partners. Instead, he relied on unreleased footage and material, along with solo content.
The arrival of Omicron before Christmas disrupted his plans once again.
“When Omicron really started kicking off just before Christmas and we weren’t sure about the seriousness of the variant, I rescheduled the content that I was meant to be filming,” Matt explains. “I spent Christmas with my family and friends, and didn’t want to put them at risk through filming in those couple of weeks before.”
Matt considers himself lucky that COVID hasn’t disrupted his work in the same way it has affected other sex workers. He found himself in the unique position that his income actually increased over the latest COVID wave as more people turned to the internet for sexual fulfilment. The same phenomenon occurred in previous lockdowns, he says.
“I think people have been staying home and avoiding hook-ups or cruising, so actually have been engaging more with content on Twitter and fan sites,” he says.
Matt is back to work now, but he’s still taking precautions to make sure he can continue to earn a living safely. He’s gotten his booster, and he expects scene partners to have done the same.
“Keep safe, get boosted and do regular lateral flow tests to make sure your health – and the health of the people close to you – are always the top priority over filming,” he says.
Young LGBT+ people who have experienced sexual assault have reported being afraid to seek help because of prejudice.
A survey released Monday (7 February) by the NHS asked 4,000 people in England about their experiences of sexual assault.
Two in five people said they did not know where to get help after being sexually assaulted, while 56 per cent of sexual assault survivors sought no help from support services following the attack.
The NHS offers support for people who have experienced sexual assault including through specialised sexual assault referral centres, or SARCs. However, 72 per cent were unaware the NHS even offered such help.
Of the 150 LGBT+ people aged 18-33 surveyed, the trend remained the same. Two-fifths sought no support at all, and three out of five were not aware that the NHS provides various support services for sexual assault survivors.
Among LGBT+ people who had been sexually assaulted who did not report the attack, many cited a fear of not being believed or of being judged.
The poll was conducted as part of the NHS’ £20 million bid to boost awareness of SARCs and other support services for sexual assault survivors.
Across the next three years, millions will be injected into both sexual assaultand domestic violence services.
Such funding comes in response the troubling decline in the number of people receiving help from SARCs. Statistics from the NHS show SARC service-use halved after the first lockdown compared with the previous year, despite figures from the Office for National Statistics showing that domestic abuse and sexual assault sharply increased across 2020 in has been called a “shadow pandemic“.
Again, only 14 per cent of the 505 queer men surveyed by SurvivorsUK reported the incident to the police. Almost a third of LGBT+ people who told the police said the cops “disbelieved” them or refused to take their claims seriously.
In England, those who have been sexually assaulted can seek free medical, practical and emotional support from SARCs.
The 24-hour centres are staffed by healthcare workers and advisors, according to the NHS. Survivors can be connected to police officers and forensic examiners who support them as they report the assault to law enforcement.
Other options include people’s general practitioners (GP), sexual health clinics and hospital emergency departments as well as voluntary organisations such as Rape Crisis and Male Survivors Partnership, many of which operate freephone helplines.
“Sexual assault or domestic abuse can happen to anyone – any age, ethnicity, gender or social circumstance – and it may be a one-off event or happen repeatedly,” said Katie Davies, NHS director of sexual assault services commissioning.
“But sadly, thousands of people aren’t sure where to turn to get the help they need, and today the NHS is making it clear that you can turn to us.”
From a secluded spot in her high school library, a 17-year-old girl spoke softly into her cellphone, worried that someone might overhear her say the things she’d hidden from her parents for years. They don’t know she’s queer, the student told a reporter, and given their past comments about homosexuality’s being a sin, she’s long feared they would learn her secret if they saw what she reads in the library.
That space, with its endless rows of books about characters from all sorts of backgrounds, has been her “safe haven,” she said — one of the few places where she feels completely free to be herself.
But books, including one of her recent favorites, have been vanishing from the shelves of Katy Independent School District libraries the past few months.
For more on this story, watch NBC’s “Nightly News with Lester Holt” tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT.
Gone: “Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts),” a book she’d read last year about a gay teenager who isn’t shy about discussing his adventurous sex life. Also banished: “The Handsome Girl and Her Beautiful Boy,” “All Boys Aren’t Blue” and “Lawn Boy” — all coming-of-age stories that prominently feature LGBTQ characters and passages about sex. Some titles were removed after parents formally complained, but others were quietly banned by the district without official reviews.
“As I’ve struggled with my own identity as a queer person, it’s been really, really important to me that I have access to these books,” said the girl, whom NBC News is not naming to avoid revealing her sexuality. “And I’m sure it’s really important to other queer kids. You should be able to see yourself reflected on the page.”
Her safe haven is now a battleground in an unprecedented effort by parents and conservative politicians in Texas to ban books dealing with race, sexuality and gender from schools, an NBC News investigation has found. Hundreds of titles have been pulled from libraries across the state for review, sometimes over the objections of school librarians, several of whom told NBC News they face increasingly hostile work environments and mounting pressure to pre-emptively pull books that might draw complaints.
Records requests to nearly 100 school districts in the Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin regions — a small sampling of the state’s 1,250 public school systems — revealed 75 formal requests by parents or community members to ban books from libraries during the first four months of this school year. In comparison, only one library book challenge was filed at those districts during the same time period a year earlier, records show. A handful of the districts reported more challenges this year than in the past two decades combined.
All but a few of the challenges this school year targeted books dealing with racism or sexuality, the majority of them featuring LGBTQ characters and explicit descriptions of sex. Many of the books under fire are newer titles, purchased by school librarians in recent years as part of a nationwide movement to diversify the content available to public school children.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/qT9NUOR?_showcaption=true&app=1
“Why are we sexualizing our precious children?” a Katy parent said at a November school board meeting after she suggested that books about LGBTQ relationships are causing children to improperly question their gender identities and sexual orientations. “Why are our libraries filled with pornography?”
Another parent in Katy, a Houston suburb, asked the district to remove a children’s biography of Michelle Obama, arguing that it promotes “reverse racism” against white people, according to the records obtained by NBC News. A parent in the Dallas suburb of Prosper wanted the school district to ban a children’s picture book about the life of Black Olympian Wilma Rudolph, because it mentions racism that Rudolph faced growing up in Tennessee in the 1940s. In the affluent Eanes Independent School District in Austin, a parent proposed replacing four books about racism, including “How to Be an Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi, with copies of the Bible.
Similar debates are roiling communities across the country, fueled by parents, activists and Republican politicians who have mobilized against school programs and classroom lessons focused on LGBTQ issues and the legacy of racism in America. Last fall, some national groups involved in that effort — including No Left Turn in Education and Moms for Liberty — began circulating lists of school library books that they said were “indoctrinating kids to a dangerous ideology.”
And during his successful bid for governor in Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin made parents’ opposition to explicit books a central theme in the final stretch of his campaign, leading some GOP strategists to flag the issue as a winning strategy heading into the 2022 midterm elections.
The fight is particularly heated in Texas, where Republican state officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have gone as far as calling for criminal charges against any school staff member who provides children with access to young adult novels that some conservatives have labeled as “pornography.” Separately, state Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican, made a list of 850 titles dealing with racism or sexuality that might “make students feel discomfort” and demanded that Texas school districts investigate whether the books were in their libraries.
A group of Texas school librarians has launched a social media campaign to push back.
“There have always been efforts to censor books, but what we’re seeing right now is frankly unprecedented,” said Carolyn Foote, a retired school librarian in Austin who’s helping lead the #FReadom campaign. “A library is a place of voluntary inquiry. That means when a student walks in, they’re not forced to check out a book that they or their parents find objectionable. But they also don’t have authority to say what books should or shouldn’t be available to other students.”
Carolyn Foote, a retired school librarian, is spearheading a grassroots effort to fight back against book challenges in Texas.NBC News
Ten current or recently retired Texas school librarians who spoke to a reporter described growing fears that they could be attacked by parents on social media or threatened with criminal charges. Some said they’ve quietly removed LGBTQ-affirming books from shelves or declined to purchase new ones to avoid public criticism — raising fears about what free-speech advocates call a wave of “soft censorship” in Texas and across the country.
Five of the librarians said they were thinking about leaving the profession, and one already has. Sarah Chase, a longtime librarian at Carroll Senior High School in Southlake, a Fort Worth suburb, said the acrimony over books contributed to her decision to retire in December, months earlier than she’d planned.
“I’m no saint,” said Chase, 55. “I got out because I was afraid to stand up to the attacks. I didn’t want to get caught in somebody’s snare. Who wants to be called a pornographer? Who wants to be accused of being a pedophile or reported to the police for putting a book in a kid’s hand?”
In interviews and recorded comments at school board meetings, parents who’ve pushed for book removals described doing everything in their power to shield their children from sexually explicit content on the internet, only to discover it’s readily available in school libraries.
“It’s not censoring to guard minors from exposure to adult-themed books,” Kristen Mangus, a parent, said at a meeting in November of the Keller Independent School District Board of Trustees, a suburban district outside Fort Worth that’s fielded dozens of requests to ban books in recent months. “If they choose to check out from the public library with a parent, then so be it. But there is no reason whatsoever to have these books in our schools.”
Some protesting parents have insisted that their opposition is about sexually explicit books, regardless of the races or sexual orientations of the characters. They point out that some of the books being challenged feature heterosexual sex scenes. But in many instances, parents and GOP politicians have flagged books about racism and LGBTQ issues that don’t include explicit language, including some picture books about Black historical figures and transgender children.
Free speech advocates and authors deny that any of the books in question meet the legal definition of pornography. Although some include sexually explicit passages or drawings, those scenes are presented in the context of broader narratives and not for the explicit purpose of sexual stimulation, they said.
“Some parents want to pretend that books are the source of darkness in kids’ lives,” said Ashley Hope Pérez, author of the young adult novel “Out of Darkness,” which has been repeatedly targeted by Texas parents for its depiction of a rape scene and other mature content. “The reality for most kids is that difficulties, challenges, harm, oppression — those are present in their own lives, and books that reflect that reality can help to make them feel less alone.”
Several queer students, meanwhile, said the arguments by some parents, specifically the idea that it’s inappropriate for teenagers to read about LGBTQ sexual relationships, are making them feel unwelcome in their communities.
“Reading books or consuming any kind of media that has LGBTQ representation, it doesn’t turn people gay or make people turn out a certain way,” said Amber Kaul, a 17-year-old bisexual student in Katy. “I think reading those books helps kids realize that the feelings that they’ve already had are valid and OK, and I think that’s what a lot of these parents are opposed to.”
A teacher at the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake hung caution tape over bookshelves in October to protest efforts to remove “controversial” books.Obtained by NBC News
‘Short-circuiting’ the process
This fall wasn’t the first time Texas parents packed school board meeting rooms to complain about the corrupting influence of books.
Every year for nearly two decades beginning in the late 1990s, the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union surveyed every public and charter school in Texas to document attempts to ban library books. The annual reports paint a picture of past censorship movements, and make clear that the volume of challenges now hitting schools is unlike anything previously recorded in the state.
In the early 2000s, a conservative backlash to the Harry Potter book series, which some Christian leaders condemned as a satanic depiction of witchcraft, fueled a surge of book banning attempts in Texas, according to the ACLU data. But even at the peak of that wave, the Texas ACLU never documented more than 151 school library book challenges in one year. About half that many were documented in just the first four months of the 2021 school year at only a small sampling of Texas school districts, according to the records obtained by NBC News.
During the 2018-19 school year, the last time the ACLU conducted the censorship survey, Texas schools reported only 17 library book challenges statewide. Twice as many have been filed so far this school year at Keller ISD alone.
“I’ve been doing this work for 20 years, and I’ve never seen the volume of challenges that we’re seeing right now,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association, which tracks attempts to ban library books nationwide.
Caldwell-Stone said the number of Texas book challenges documented in the records obtained by NBC News likely represents a vast undercount, because it doesn’t account for books that are being removed from shelves based on verbal complaints at board meetings or parent emails, often in violation of school district policies.
In response to past censorship movements, the American Library Association developed guidelines for schools to prevent the sudden and arbitrary removal of books. Under the guidelines, which have been adopted by most large districts in Texas and nationally, parents are asked to fill out forms explaining why they believe a book should be banned. Then a committee of school employees and community volunteers reviews the book in its entirety and determines whether it meets district standards, keeping in mind that a parent’s ability to control what students can read “extends only to his or her own child,” according to language included in most district policies.
A challenged book is supposed to remain on shelves and available to students while the committee deliberates, and the final decision should be made public, Caldwell-Stone said.
“What we’re seeing these days is a short-circuiting of that process, despite the fact that school boards often do have these reconsideration policies on their own books,” she said. “They’re ignoring them to respond to the controversy and the moral panics that they’re getting targeted with at school board meetings, and books are being abruptly removed.”
A photo taken by a teacher shows a cart full of books as they were being removed from a North East ISD library in December.Obtained by NBC News
That scenario has been repeated at several Texas school districts in recent months, NBC News found. In December, the Denton Independent School District near Dallas made headlineswhen administrators pulled down a copy of “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a memoir by queer Black author George M. Johnson, after learning that parents in neighboring towns had concerns about it. A district spokesperson, Julie Zwahr, said school officials are now reviewing a total of 11 library books to determine whether they are “pervasively vulgar,” even though the district has received only one formal book challenge this school year. The North East Independent School District in San Antonio hadn’t received any library book challenges from parents as of December, according to records provided to NBC News. But that month, administrators directed librarians to box up more than 400 titlesdealing with race, sexuality and gender.
At a subsequent school board meeting, North East leaders said that they had pulled the books for review after Krause, the Republican lawmaker, distributed his list of 850 titles that he said violate new state laws governing how sex and race are addressed in Texas classrooms. North East spokesperson Aubrey Chancellor did not respond to a reporter’s request for comment, but told the Texas Tribune in December that the district asked staff to review books on Krause’s list “to ensure they did not have any obscene or vulgar material in them.”
A photo taken by a student in Granbury, Texas, shows men hauling away boxes of library books labeled “Krause’s List,” in reference to the 850 titles that state Rep. Matt Krause wants removed from schools.Obtained by NBC News
“For us, this is not about politics or censorship, but rather about ensuring that parents choose what is appropriate for their minor children,” she said then.
In another instance, the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, responding to an NBC News public records request, reported that it had received zero library book challenges in 2021. But emails reviewed by a reporter show that a parent had complained informally in August to a Carroll administrator and two school board members about the book, “Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out,” by Susan Kuklin.
“There is extreme sexual content in that book that isn’t even appropriate for me to put in an email,” the parent wrote.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/bExjHrx?_showcaption=true
Rather than requiring the mom to fill out a form to initiate the district’s formal library review process, Chase, the recently retired Carroll librarian, said an administrator shared the email with her and another librarian, and in order to avoid conflict, they agreed to remove the book from high school shelves.
“I hate that we did this, because we didn’t go through the formal review ourselves,” Chase said. “I think a lot of librarians are making decisions out of fear, and that puts us in a position of self-censorship.”
Book fight spreads from Virginia to Texas
Mary Ellen Cuzela, a mother of three in Katy, a sprawling and booming suburb outside Houston, had never thought much about what library books her kids might have access to at school. But in September, she heard then-candidate Youngkin mention a Virginia school district’s fight over “sexually explicit material in the library” during his campaign for governor against Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
Curious, Cuzela searched the Katy Independent School District’s catalog and was surprised to find that one of the books at the center of the Virginia fight, “Lawn Boy,” by Jonathan Evison, was available at her children’s high school.
Cuzela picked up a copy from the public library and “was absolutely amazed” by what she read, she said. The book, which traces the story of a Mexican American character’s journey to understanding his own sexuality and ethnic identity, was “filled with vulgarity,” Cuzela said, including dozens of four-letter words, explicit sexual references and a description of oral sex between fourth-grade boys during a church youth group meeting.
“I don’t care whether you’re straight, gay, transgender, gender fluid, any race,” she said. “That book had it all and was degrading for all kinds of people.”
She soon discovered that several other young adult books that had been targeted in Virginia and other Texas districts were available at Katy ISD. Cuzela shared her findings with some “like-minded parents,” and together they set out to get administrators to do something.
The school system, a diverse district of nearly 85,000 students, had already made national headlines that fall when administrators temporarily removed copies of “New Kid” and “Class Act” by Jerry Craft from school libraries after parents complained that the graphic novels, about Black seventh graders at a mostly white school, would indoctrinate students of color with a “victim mentality” and make some kids feel guilty for being white.
But Cuzela said she and her friends were having a hard time getting Katy administrators to take their concerns about sexually explicit books seriously. So they hatched a plan, and on Nov. 15, she and five other moms showed up at a Katy school board meeting with a stack of books.
One by one, they took turns at the lectern during public comments. Cuzela implored the board to audit all of the district’s library books and get rid of those that are too obscene to be read aloud in public.
“If you are filtering a student’s internet access,” she said, “why are we not filtering the library?”
Minutes later, Jennifer Adler, a mother of five, held up a copy of “Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts),” by L.C. Rosen, for the board to see. Adler explained that the book is about a character named Jack, who writes a teen sex advice column for an online site. Then she began reading.
“‘I wonder how he does it … how he gets all that D?’” Adler said, reading the first in a series of explicit excerpts referring to anal and oral sex.
After ending with a passage that included a detailed description of male genitalia and advice on how to give oral sex, she looked up at the board members, her voice shaking as she spoke.
“I cannot even imagine how I would feel if my child came home with this type of book,” said Adler, whose oldest child is in middle school. “We cannot unread this type of content, and I would like to protect my kids’ hearts and minds from this.”
The audience, packed with parents and community members who shared her concerns, erupted in applause.
‘Taking the matter seriously’
Rosen, the author of “Jack of Hearts,” wasn’t surprised when he heard about the demands to ban his book in Katy. Like other authors whose books have been targeted in recent months, Rosen said parents have been reading passages out of context.
At the time of the book’s release in 2015, the School Library Journal, a magazine that districts rely on to select library books, wrote that the dearth of “sex positive queer literature” made “Jack of Hearts” an “essential addition to library collections that serve teens.”
The sex advice columns written by the book’s protagonist are part of a bigger narrative that’s meant to empower queer teens and help them feel safe talking about their sexuality, Rosen said.
All of the questions answered in Jack’s advice column were submitted by real students, Rosen said. And the author consulted with sex education experts to write Jack’s responses, with the goal of providing LGBTQ teens with practical information that’s often omitted from sex ed classes.
“I think it’s troubling when they can’t distinguish between porn — which is not meant for education — and a book like mine that’s trying to educate teenagers and tell them, ‘It’s OK to have these desires; here’s how to act on them consensually and safely,’” Rosen said.
Cuzela and her allies, who denied that they were specifically targeting LGBTQ content, saw things differently. And so did Katy ISD leaders, according to internal messages obtained by NBC News.
Rather than asking the parents to file formal challenges or forming a committee to review the books they’d read aloud, Darlene Rankin, the district’s director of instructional technology, sent an email the day after the school board meeting directing school staff to immediately remove two titles from all libraries: “Jack of Hearts” and “Forever for a Year,” by B.T. Gottfred.
“If these books are currently checked out to students, you must contact the student in order to have the book returned,” wrote Rankin, who declined an interview request.
In the weeks that followed, Katy parents continued applying pressure, calling on the district not only to audit libraries for vulgar content, but to overhaul the selection process to de-emphasize recommendations from prominent book review journals, arguing that those groups are pushing a liberal agenda.
In early December, Superintendent Ken Gregorski responded to those demands, announcing in a letter to all parents that the district was launching a broad review of its library books to remove any that might be considered “pervasively vulgar.” Gregorski, who declined to be interviewed, invited parents to report other books they want removed and assured them that he would “ensure the district is taking the matter seriously and putting into action the plans that resolve the issues for which we are all concerned.”
In total this school year, according to internal messages, the district has launched reviews into at least 30 library books and so far has deemed nine to be inappropriate for students at any grade level, including five that prominently feature LGBTQ characters. Several other books, including “This Is Your Time,” by the civil rights era icon Ruby Bridges, were deemed inappropriate or too mature for young children and removed from either elementary or middle school libraries.
Most of these reviews were opened without a formal book challenge, records show, even though one is required under Katy ISD’s local policy.
In at least two instances, according to three district employees with knowledge of the review process, senior district administrators have ordered books to be removed from libraries even after review committees examined them and voted to keep them in schools. The district employees spoke to a reporter on the condition of anonymity, worried that they might be disciplined for sharing their concerns publicly.
In response to detailed written questions, Katy ISD spokesperson Maria DiPetta wrote that “the district will have to kindly pass on your request.”
Cuzela said she’s pleased that the district is now taking her concerns seriously and hopes administrators go further. Although she doesn’t believe most librarians are knowingly stocking shelves with “pornographic material,” she agrees with Abbott’s call for criminal charges against any who do, including in Katy.
“We have laws in Texas against providing sexually explicit material to children,” she said. “It’s a law on the books, and if they knowingly are providing this, they need to be advised and investigated.”
Foote, the retired school librarian who’s leading a statewide campaign against book bans, said Katy’s approach is flawed, not only because it lacks transparency and opens the door for additional censorship attempts, but because of the signal it sends.
“You can’t overstate the impact these decisions can have on LGBTQ students and even teachers,” Foote said. “Intentional or not, these bans are sending a message to them about their place in the community.”
On the phone at her high school library, the queer Katy student who worries her parents won’t accept her for who she is said she was outraged when she found out librarians had started removing books — especially “Jack of Hearts.”
“For me, a lot of these books offer hope,” the student said. “I’m going to be going to college soon, and I’m really looking forward to that and the freedom that it offers. Until then, my greatest adventure is going to be through reading.”
Like other library books she’d read that centered on LGBTQ characters, the student said “Jack of Hearts” gave her a sense of validation. The main character, a 17-year-old who isn’t shy about his love for partying, makeup and boys, was a sharp contrast to her own high school experience, constantly on guard against saying or doing anything that might lead to her being outed.
The book, she said, made her feel less alone.
Rosen, the author, has heard similar things from other teenagers. When he gets those messages, he said he usually replies to say that he hopes things will get better.
But then he adds: “I can’t promise that it will.”
From a secluded spot in her high school library, a 17-year-old girl spoke softly into her cellphone, worried that someone might overhear her say the things she’d hidden from her parents for years. They don’t know she’s queer, the student told a reporter, and given their past comments about homosexuality’s being a sin, she’s long feared they would learn her secret if they saw what she reads in the library.
That space, with its endless rows of books about characters from all sorts of backgrounds, has been her “safe haven,” she said — one of the few places where she feels completely free to be herself.
But books, including one of her recent favorites, have been vanishing from the shelves of Katy Independent School District libraries the past few months.
For more on this story, watch NBC’s “Nightly News with Lester Holt” tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT.
Gone: “Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts),” a book she’d read last year about a gay teenager who isn’t shy about discussing his adventurous sex life. Also banished: “The Handsome Girl and Her Beautiful Boy,” “All Boys Aren’t Blue” and “Lawn Boy” — all coming-of-age stories that prominently feature LGBTQ characters and passages about sex. Some titles were removed after parents formally complained, but others were quietly banned by the district without official reviews.
“As I’ve struggled with my own identity as a queer person, it’s been really, really important to me that I have access to these books,” said the girl, whom NBC News is not naming to avoid revealing her sexuality. “And I’m sure it’s really important to other queer kids. You should be able to see yourself reflected on the page.”
Her safe haven is now a battleground in an unprecedented effort by parents and conservative politicians in Texas to ban books dealing with race, sexuality and gender from schools, an NBC News investigation has found. Hundreds of titles have been pulled from libraries across the state for review, sometimes over the objections of school librarians, several of whom told NBC News they face increasingly hostile work environments and mounting pressure to pre-emptively pull books that might draw complaints.
Records requests to nearly 100 school districts in the Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin regions — a small sampling of the state’s 1,250 public school systems — revealed 75 formal requests by parents or community members to ban books from libraries during the first four months of this school year. In comparison, only one library book challenge was filed at those districts during the same time period a year earlier, records show. A handful of the districts reported more challenges this year than in the past two decades combined.
All but a few of the challenges this school year targeted books dealing with racism or sexuality, the majority of them featuring LGBTQ characters and explicit descriptions of sex. Many of the books under fire are newer titles, purchased by school librarians in recent years as part of a nationwide movement to diversify the content available to public school children.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/qT9NUOR?_showcaption=true&app=1
“Why are we sexualizing our precious children?” a Katy parent said at a November school board meeting after she suggested that books about LGBTQ relationships are causing children to improperly question their gender identities and sexual orientations. “Why are our libraries filled with pornography?”
Another parent in Katy, a Houston suburb, asked the district to remove a children’s biography of Michelle Obama, arguing that it promotes “reverse racism” against white people, according to the records obtained by NBC News. A parent in the Dallas suburb of Prosper wanted the school district to ban a children’s picture book about the life of Black Olympian Wilma Rudolph, because it mentions racism that Rudolph faced growing up in Tennessee in the 1940s. In the affluent Eanes Independent School District in Austin, a parent proposed replacing four books about racism, including “How to Be an Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi, with copies of the Bible.
Similar debates are roiling communities across the country, fueled by parents, activists and Republican politicians who have mobilized against school programs and classroom lessons focused on LGBTQ issues and the legacy of racism in America. Last fall, some national groups involved in that effort — including No Left Turn in Education and Moms for Liberty — began circulating lists of school library books that they said were “indoctrinating kids to a dangerous ideology.”
And during his successful bid for governor in Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin made parents’ opposition to explicit books a central theme in the final stretch of his campaign, leading some GOP strategists to flag the issue as a winning strategy heading into the 2022 midterm elections.
The fight is particularly heated in Texas, where Republican state officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have gone as far as calling for criminal charges against any school staff member who provides children with access to young adult novels that some conservatives have labeled as “pornography.” Separately, state Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican, made a list of 850 titles dealing with racism or sexuality that might “make students feel discomfort” and demanded that Texas school districts investigate whether the books were in their libraries.
A group of Texas school librarians has launched a social media campaign to push back.
“There have always been efforts to censor books, but what we’re seeing right now is frankly unprecedented,” said Carolyn Foote, a retired school librarian in Austin who’s helping lead the #FReadom campaign. “A library is a place of voluntary inquiry. That means when a student walks in, they’re not forced to check out a book that they or their parents find objectionable. But they also don’t have authority to say what books should or shouldn’t be available to other students.”
Carolyn Foote, a retired school librarian, is spearheading a grassroots effort to fight back against book challenges in Texas.NBC News
Ten current or recently retired Texas school librarians who spoke to a reporter described growing fears that they could be attacked by parents on social media or threatened with criminal charges. Some said they’ve quietly removed LGBTQ-affirming books from shelves or declined to purchase new ones to avoid public criticism — raising fears about what free-speech advocates call a wave of “soft censorship” in Texas and across the country.
Five of the librarians said they were thinking about leaving the profession, and one already has. Sarah Chase, a longtime librarian at Carroll Senior High School in Southlake, a Fort Worth suburb, said the acrimony over books contributed to her decision to retire in December, months earlier than she’d planned.
“I’m no saint,” said Chase, 55. “I got out because I was afraid to stand up to the attacks. I didn’t want to get caught in somebody’s snare. Who wants to be called a pornographer? Who wants to be accused of being a pedophile or reported to the police for putting a book in a kid’s hand?”
In interviews and recorded comments at school board meetings, parents who’ve pushed for book removals described doing everything in their power to shield their children from sexually explicit content on the internet, only to discover it’s readily available in school libraries.
“It’s not censoring to guard minors from exposure to adult-themed books,” Kristen Mangus, a parent, said at a meeting in November of the Keller Independent School District Board of Trustees, a suburban district outside Fort Worth that’s fielded dozens of requests to ban books in recent months. “If they choose to check out from the public library with a parent, then so be it. But there is no reason whatsoever to have these books in our schools.”
Some protesting parents have insisted that their opposition is about sexually explicit books, regardless of the races or sexual orientations of the characters. They point out that some of the books being challenged feature heterosexual sex scenes. But in many instances, parents and GOP politicians have flagged books about racism and LGBTQ issues that don’t include explicit language, including some picture books about Black historical figures and transgender children.
Free speech advocates and authors deny that any of the books in question meet the legal definition of pornography. Although some include sexually explicit passages or drawings, those scenes are presented in the context of broader narratives and not for the explicit purpose of sexual stimulation, they said.
“Some parents want to pretend that books are the source of darkness in kids’ lives,” said Ashley Hope Pérez, author of the young adult novel “Out of Darkness,” which has been repeatedly targeted by Texas parents for its depiction of a rape scene and other mature content. “The reality for most kids is that difficulties, challenges, harm, oppression — those are present in their own lives, and books that reflect that reality can help to make them feel less alone.”
Several queer students, meanwhile, said the arguments by some parents, specifically the idea that it’s inappropriate for teenagers to read about LGBTQ sexual relationships, are making them feel unwelcome in their communities.
“Reading books or consuming any kind of media that has LGBTQ representation, it doesn’t turn people gay or make people turn out a certain way,” said Amber Kaul, a 17-year-old bisexual student in Katy. “I think reading those books helps kids realize that the feelings that they’ve already had are valid and OK, and I think that’s what a lot of these parents are opposed to.”
A teacher at the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake hung caution tape over bookshelves in October to protest efforts to remove “controversial” books.Obtained by NBC News
‘Short-circuiting’ the process
This fall wasn’t the first time Texas parents packed school board meeting rooms to complain about the corrupting influence of books.
Every year for nearly two decades beginning in the late 1990s, the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union surveyed every public and charter school in Texas to document attempts to ban library books. The annual reports paint a picture of past censorship movements, and make clear that the volume of challenges now hitting schools is unlike anything previously recorded in the state.
In the early 2000s, a conservative backlash to the Harry Potter book series, which some Christian leaders condemned as a satanic depiction of witchcraft, fueled a surge of book banning attempts in Texas, according to the ACLU data. But even at the peak of that wave, the Texas ACLU never documented more than 151 school library book challenges in one year. About half that many were documented in just the first four months of the 2021 school year at only a small sampling of Texas school districts, according to the records obtained by NBC News.
During the 2018-19 school year, the last time the ACLU conducted the censorship survey, Texas schools reported only 17 library book challenges statewide. Twice as many have been filed so far this school year at Keller ISD alone.
“I’ve been doing this work for 20 years, and I’ve never seen the volume of challenges that we’re seeing right now,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association, which tracks attempts to ban library books nationwide.
Caldwell-Stone said the number of Texas book challenges documented in the records obtained by NBC News likely represents a vast undercount, because it doesn’t account for books that are being removed from shelves based on verbal complaints at board meetings or parent emails, often in violation of school district policies.
In response to past censorship movements, the American Library Association developed guidelines for schools to prevent the sudden and arbitrary removal of books. Under the guidelines, which have been adopted by most large districts in Texas and nationally, parents are asked to fill out forms explaining why they believe a book should be banned. Then a committee of school employees and community volunteers reviews the book in its entirety and determines whether it meets district standards, keeping in mind that a parent’s ability to control what students can read “extends only to his or her own child,” according to language included in most district policies.
A challenged book is supposed to remain on shelves and available to students while the committee deliberates, and the final decision should be made public, Caldwell-Stone said.
“What we’re seeing these days is a short-circuiting of that process, despite the fact that school boards often do have these reconsideration policies on their own books,” she said. “They’re ignoring them to respond to the controversy and the moral panics that they’re getting targeted with at school board meetings, and books are being abruptly removed.”
A photo taken by a teacher shows a cart full of books as they were being removed from a North East ISD library in December.Obtained by NBC News
That scenario has been repeated at several Texas school districts in recent months, NBC News found. In December, the Denton Independent School District near Dallas made headlineswhen administrators pulled down a copy of “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a memoir by queer Black author George M. Johnson, after learning that parents in neighboring towns had concerns about it. A district spokesperson, Julie Zwahr, said school officials are now reviewing a total of 11 library books to determine whether they are “pervasively vulgar,” even though the district has received only one formal book challenge this school year. The North East Independent School District in San Antonio hadn’t received any library book challenges from parents as of December, according to records provided to NBC News. But that month, administrators directed librarians to box up more than 400 titlesdealing with race, sexuality and gender.
At a subsequent school board meeting, North East leaders said that they had pulled the books for review after Krause, the Republican lawmaker, distributed his list of 850 titles that he said violate new state laws governing how sex and race are addressed in Texas classrooms. North East spokesperson Aubrey Chancellor did not respond to a reporter’s request for comment, but told the Texas Tribune in December that the district asked staff to review books on Krause’s list “to ensure they did not have any obscene or vulgar material in them.”
A photo taken by a student in Granbury, Texas, shows men hauling away boxes of library books labeled “Krause’s List,” in reference to the 850 titles that state Rep. Matt Krause wants removed from schools.Obtained by NBC News
“For us, this is not about politics or censorship, but rather about ensuring that parents choose what is appropriate for their minor children,” she said then.
In another instance, the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, responding to an NBC News public records request, reported that it had received zero library book challenges in 2021. But emails reviewed by a reporter show that a parent had complained informally in August to a Carroll administrator and two school board members about the book, “Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out,” by Susan Kuklin.
“There is extreme sexual content in that book that isn’t even appropriate for me to put in an email,” the parent wrote.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/bExjHrx?_showcaption=true
Rather than requiring the mom to fill out a form to initiate the district’s formal library review process, Chase, the recently retired Carroll librarian, said an administrator shared the email with her and another librarian, and in order to avoid conflict, they agreed to remove the book from high school shelves.
“I hate that we did this, because we didn’t go through the formal review ourselves,” Chase said. “I think a lot of librarians are making decisions out of fear, and that puts us in a position of self-censorship.”
Book fight spreads from Virginia to Texas
Mary Ellen Cuzela, a mother of three in Katy, a sprawling and booming suburb outside Houston, had never thought much about what library books her kids might have access to at school. But in September, she heard then-candidate Youngkin mention a Virginia school district’s fight over “sexually explicit material in the library” during his campaign for governor against Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
Curious, Cuzela searched the Katy Independent School District’s catalog and was surprised to find that one of the books at the center of the Virginia fight, “Lawn Boy,” by Jonathan Evison, was available at her children’s high school.
Cuzela picked up a copy from the public library and “was absolutely amazed” by what she read, she said. The book, which traces the story of a Mexican American character’s journey to understanding his own sexuality and ethnic identity, was “filled with vulgarity,” Cuzela said, including dozens of four-letter words, explicit sexual references and a description of oral sex between fourth-grade boys during a church youth group meeting.
“I don’t care whether you’re straight, gay, transgender, gender fluid, any race,” she said. “That book had it all and was degrading for all kinds of people.”
She soon discovered that several other young adult books that had been targeted in Virginia and other Texas districts were available at Katy ISD. Cuzela shared her findings with some “like-minded parents,” and together they set out to get administrators to do something.
The school system, a diverse district of nearly 85,000 students, had already made national headlines that fall when administrators temporarily removed copies of “New Kid” and “Class Act” by Jerry Craft from school libraries after parents complained that the graphic novels, about Black seventh graders at a mostly white school, would indoctrinate students of color with a “victim mentality” and make some kids feel guilty for being white.
But Cuzela said she and her friends were having a hard time getting Katy administrators to take their concerns about sexually explicit books seriously. So they hatched a plan, and on Nov. 15, she and five other moms showed up at a Katy school board meeting with a stack of books.
One by one, they took turns at the lectern during public comments. Cuzela implored the board to audit all of the district’s library books and get rid of those that are too obscene to be read aloud in public.
“If you are filtering a student’s internet access,” she said, “why are we not filtering the library?”
Minutes later, Jennifer Adler, a mother of five, held up a copy of “Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts),” by L.C. Rosen, for the board to see. Adler explained that the book is about a character named Jack, who writes a teen sex advice column for an online site. Then she began reading.
“‘I wonder how he does it … how he gets all that D?’” Adler said, reading the first in a series of explicit excerpts referring to anal and oral sex.
After ending with a passage that included a detailed description of male genitalia and advice on how to give oral sex, she looked up at the board members, her voice shaking as she spoke.
“I cannot even imagine how I would feel if my child came home with this type of book,” said Adler, whose oldest child is in middle school. “We cannot unread this type of content, and I would like to protect my kids’ hearts and minds from this.”
The audience, packed with parents and community members who shared her concerns, erupted in applause.
‘Taking the matter seriously’
Rosen, the author of “Jack of Hearts,” wasn’t surprised when he heard about the demands to ban his book in Katy. Like other authors whose books have been targeted in recent months, Rosen said parents have been reading passages out of context.
At the time of the book’s release in 2015, the School Library Journal, a magazine that districts rely on to select library books, wrote that the dearth of “sex positive queer literature” made “Jack of Hearts” an “essential addition to library collections that serve teens.”
The sex advice columns written by the book’s protagonist are part of a bigger narrative that’s meant to empower queer teens and help them feel safe talking about their sexuality, Rosen said.
All of the questions answered in Jack’s advice column were submitted by real students, Rosen said. And the author consulted with sex education experts to write Jack’s responses, with the goal of providing LGBTQ teens with practical information that’s often omitted from sex ed classes.
“I think it’s troubling when they can’t distinguish between porn — which is not meant for education — and a book like mine that’s trying to educate teenagers and tell them, ‘It’s OK to have these desires; here’s how to act on them consensually and safely,’” Rosen said.
Cuzela and her allies, who denied that they were specifically targeting LGBTQ content, saw things differently. And so did Katy ISD leaders, according to internal messages obtained by NBC News.
Rather than asking the parents to file formal challenges or forming a committee to review the books they’d read aloud, Darlene Rankin, the district’s director of instructional technology, sent an email the day after the school board meeting directing school staff to immediately remove two titles from all libraries: “Jack of Hearts” and “Forever for a Year,” by B.T. Gottfred.
“If these books are currently checked out to students, you must contact the student in order to have the book returned,” wrote Rankin, who declined an interview request.
In the weeks that followed, Katy parents continued applying pressure, calling on the district not only to audit libraries for vulgar content, but to overhaul the selection process to de-emphasize recommendations from prominent book review journals, arguing that those groups are pushing a liberal agenda.
In early December, Superintendent Ken Gregorski responded to those demands, announcing in a letter to all parents that the district was launching a broad review of its library books to remove any that might be considered “pervasively vulgar.” Gregorski, who declined to be interviewed, invited parents to report other books they want removed and assured them that he would “ensure the district is taking the matter seriously and putting into action the plans that resolve the issues for which we are all concerned.”
In total this school year, according to internal messages, the district has launched reviews into at least 30 library books and so far has deemed nine to be inappropriate for students at any grade level, including five that prominently feature LGBTQ characters. Several other books, including “This Is Your Time,” by the civil rights era icon Ruby Bridges, were deemed inappropriate or too mature for young children and removed from either elementary or middle school libraries.
Most of these reviews were opened without a formal book challenge, records show, even though one is required under Katy ISD’s local policy.
In at least two instances, according to three district employees with knowledge of the review process, senior district administrators have ordered books to be removed from libraries even after review committees examined them and voted to keep them in schools. The district employees spoke to a reporter on the condition of anonymity, worried that they might be disciplined for sharing their concerns publicly.
In response to detailed written questions, Katy ISD spokesperson Maria DiPetta wrote that “the district will have to kindly pass on your request.”
Cuzela said she’s pleased that the district is now taking her concerns seriously and hopes administrators go further. Although she doesn’t believe most librarians are knowingly stocking shelves with “pornographic material,” she agrees with Abbott’s call for criminal charges against any who do, including in Katy.
“We have laws in Texas against providing sexually explicit material to children,” she said. “It’s a law on the books, and if they knowingly are providing this, they need to be advised and investigated.”
Foote, the retired school librarian who’s leading a statewide campaign against book bans, said Katy’s approach is flawed, not only because it lacks transparency and opens the door for additional censorship attempts, but because of the signal it sends.
“You can’t overstate the impact these decisions can have on LGBTQ students and even teachers,” Foote said. “Intentional or not, these bans are sending a message to them about their place in the community.”
On the phone at her high school library, the queer Katy student who worries her parents won’t accept her for who she is said she was outraged when she found out librarians had started removing books — especially “Jack of Hearts.”
“For me, a lot of these books offer hope,” the student said. “I’m going to be going to college soon, and I’m really looking forward to that and the freedom that it offers. Until then, my greatest adventure is going to be through reading.”
Like other library books she’d read that centered on LGBTQ characters, the student said “Jack of Hearts” gave her a sense of validation. The main character, a 17-year-old who isn’t shy about his love for partying, makeup and boys, was a sharp contrast to her own high school experience, constantly on guard against saying or doing anything that might lead to her being outed.
The book, she said, made her feel less alone.
Rosen, the author, has heard similar things from other teenagers. When he gets those messages, he said he usually replies to say that he hopes things will get better.
San Francisco Pride is reimagining what Pride itself means to our communities. While nothing could ever — ever! — cancel Pride in the queerest, most inclusive city in America, we know it has been a long time since we all gathered along Market Street and at Civic Center. As we prepare for our return to a “traditional” San Francisco Pride, we are examining every element of Pride Weekend to ensure that 2022’s experience is our best yet. From community stage programming to partnerships, we’re working hard to make you feel represented, valued, and seen.
SF Pride 2022 and Public Health We know that our communities are concerned about the spread of the omicron variant. We also know that people are mourning the passing of LGBTQ+ icons like Betty White and Andre Leon Talley, losses that hit us harder than usual after two years of nonstop loss, false starts, and disappointments. The safety and wellbeing of our communities — LGBTQ+ people of the Bay Area residents, visitors to San Francisco, allies, everyone — have guided our actions since Day One. We are focused on making #SFPride2022 the safest and most welcoming event in our history.
Help Us Make Pride 2022 the Best It Can Be Now that New Year’s is behind is, we’re actively looking for sponsors to support the work of SF Pride. These corporate partnerships allow us to build the extensive infrastructure of our large event, and help us share funds with nonprofits that directly serve our communities, via our Community Affiliates Program. To get your organization involved in Pride 2022 — or simply to see our criteria for who we choose to work with and why — go to sfpride.org/partners.
Thank You to Everyone Who Submitted Nominations for Community Grand Marshals! We have to play coy on the names just yet (sorry not sorry) but we’re aiming to release the public ballot in early February — and then members of the general public will have your chance to select who we bestow this honor to. Later, in March, SF Pride members in good standing will conduct a separate vote to make their choice, and then our Board of Directors will make one final selection of its own. The full slate of 2022 Community Grand Marshals will be announced at our membership meeting on Wednesday, April 13, at 7 p.m.
A new California law requires public colleges to update diplomas and records for transgender students who have changed their names.
The new law, which took effect on Jan. 1, requires the state’s public colleges to update records for students who have legally changed their names. It also allows graduates to request an updated copy of their diploma at no cost to them.
Then, starting with the 2023-24 class, it will require institutions to allow students to self-identify their names on diplomas, even without legal documentation of a name change. (The legislation does not specifically require colleges to let students self-identify their names on educational records besides diplomas without legally changing their name. It also does not affect how people are identified on legal documents used for tax, immigration status and other purposes.)
California is the first state to enact such a law. A previous version failed in the Legislature in 2020.
The right to self-identify one’s name on a college diploma helps protect transgender and gender non-conforming students, advocates say. Research shows that transgender people are at higher risk of discrimination and violence.
More than one in four trans people has experienced a “bias-driven assault”, with rates even higher for trans women and trans people of color, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Academic records listing a student’s name and gender as assigned at birth could potentially “out” that student’s identity, which can put them at a significant disadvantage when seeking housing and employment, said David Chiu, who authored the bill while representing San Francisco in the state Assembly. Chiu, now the San Francisco city attorney, said he was asked by Equality California and other transgender activist groups to draft the bill.
Progress and ResilienceBlack communities have made great progress in reducing HIV. Yet racism, discrimination, and mistrust in the health care system may affect whether Black people seek or receive HIV prevention services. These issues may also reduce the likelihood of engaging in HIV treatment and care.
We look forward to welcoming you back!
