News

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Happening this Month at Marin’s Spahr Center

AIDS Memorial Quilt Display Golden Gate Park June 11 & 12 Marking the 35th Anniversary of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, formerly called the Names Project Quilt, nearly 3000 memorial panels will be on display in the park’s Robin Williams Meadow. A ceremonial Quilt unfolding begins at 9:30 am Saturday and a closing ceremony takes place at 4 pm Sunday. The opening ceremony will be followed by the continuous reading of the names of those whose lives have been lost to AIDS. There will be several community villages for visitors including a panel-making workshop and Quilt history village, a volunteer village, a social […]

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Sonoma County Pride Happens this Week

This Pride Month, following two years of subdued celebrations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sonoma County residents are getting ready to don their rainbow garb and spread the love at in-person events and festivals. Sparked by the 1969 Stonewall uprising in Manhattan and the first Pride march in New York City in June the following year, LGBTQ+ pride celebrations have long been held in June across the United States to recognize the impact of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people and the intolerance they often face. Sonoma County has its own unique LGBTQ+ history. While there has long been […]

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Gay music teacher was blackmailed. Instead of helping him, his school forced him to resign

A gay music teacher in Iowa was forced to resign from his high school after a blackmailer threatened him. Matthew Gerhold began working at Valley Lutheran High School in Cedar Valley, Iowa last year. Although he told school officials that he was gay before he was hired, they later compelled him to resign or face termination after he was blackmailed.  Gerhold’s phone was hacked in January 2022 and the hacker blackmailed him by threatening to share private information about his sexuality publicly. Gerhold alerted the school about the hack and the blackmail, then resigned from his position at the high […]

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An unlikely queer hero dodges bombs to deliver aid in Ukraine

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A pair of vans, cosmetically weathered but carrying an unmeasurable amount of personality along with over 12,000 lbs of food, medicine, and hygiene supplies, were used by a motley group of heroes to deliver critical supplies to two towns still under attack in northeast Ukraine. Agatha Williams, a metal fabricator from Denver, Colorado turned front-line aid worker aiding civilians amid the Russian invasion, joined the relief effort for the first time. Piloting one of the vehicles, Williams, who goes by the pronouns they/them and identifies as queer, left the United States for the first time to make a difference in […]

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Ukraine’s ‘unicorn’ LGBTQ soldiers head for war

As volunteer fighters Oleksandr Zhuhan and Antonina Romanova pack for a return to active duty, they contemplate the unicorn insignia that gives their uniform a rare distinction — a symbol of their status as an LGBTQ couple who are Ukrainian soldiers. Members of Ukraine’s LGBTQ community who sign up for the war have taken to sewing the image of the mythical beast into their standard-issue epaulettes just below the national flag. The practice harks back to the 2014 conflict when Russia invaded then annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, “when lots of people said there are no gay people in […]

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LGBTQ lawmakers in Latin America pledge to end conversion therapy in region

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Openly LGBTQ lawmakers from across Latin America who gathered in Argentina’s capital last week agreed to work together to ban so-called conversion therapy in the region. The second meeting of the Global Equality Caucus’ Latin America chapter took place in Buenos Aires. Those who attended agreed the effort to ban conversion therapy in the region would begin in countries where openly LGBTQ people have been elected to public office and where allies can be identified. “Efforts to correct sexual orientation and gender identity (ECOSIG), also misnamed ‘conversion therapies,’ lack scientific support and are based on prejudices contrary to the human […]

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Kevin Spacey charged with four counts of sexual assault against three men

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Actor Kevin Spacey has been charged with four counts of sexual assault against three men, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has said. In addition, the Oscar-winning American actor faces one charge of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent. On Thursday (26 May), Rosemary Ainslie, head of the CPS Special Crime Division, which “deals with the most complex and sensitive cases in England and Wales”, said: “The CPS has authorised criminal charges against Kevin Spacey, 62, for four counts of sexual assault against three men. “He has also been charged with causing a person to engage […]

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Political Rights for Cubans Should Not Start with a Marriage Equality Referendum

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Cubans might have a chance this year to do something they’ve done very rarely: cast a meaningful vote. The government, which rarely consults its people, says it will allow Cubans to “have their say” in a referendum, with respect to whether same-sex couples, a minority, can marry. Cuba’s government has a well-documented history of violating citizens’ right to vote in free and fair elections and to take part in public affairs. The Communist Party, the only one allowed in the country, has governed since the 1959 revolution without giving citizens the option to vote its leaders out of office—or even to protest their actions. […]

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Kyrsten Sinema shredded by fellow Democrats for blocking gun reform as kids are killed

Bisexual Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) is being shredded for upholding the Senate filibuster and blocking possible gun reform even as she expressed heartbreak over Tuesday’s Uvalde, Texas elementary school shooting that killed 19 children and 2 adults. “We are horrified and heartbroken by the senseless tragedy unfolding at Robb Elementary School in Texas and grateful to the first responders for acting swiftly. No families should ever have to fear violence in their children’s schools,” Sinema wrote in a May 24 tweet. “Just stop,” Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) tweeted in response. “Unless you are willing to break the filibuster to actually pass […]

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Montana not following transgender birth certificate ruling

It’s been a month since a Montana judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a state law that required transgender people to undergo surgery before they could change their gender on their birth certificate, and the state still isn’t in compliance with the court order, the ACLU of Montana said. Jon Ebelt, spokesperson for the state health department, said the agency is still working with the Department of Justice to review the April 21 ruling and its implications. He did not respond to an email asking if that meant the state was evaluating whether to appeal the order. “We have continued to […]

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