Officials in California are set to start tracking how coronavirus is spreading in the LGBT+ community in a groundbreaking move.
The state will start collecting data on the sexual orientation and gender identity in all new cases of COVID-19, making it the first state in America to do so, CBS Sacramentoreports.
The move will help officials better understand the unique challenges the pandemic poses for queer people after months of warnings from LGBT+ organisations that the community has been disproportionately affected.
The move came about after senator Scott Wiener worked with LGBT+ rights organisation Equality California to advocate for the data to be collected.
They introduced legislation in May that would require sexual orientation and gender identity data to be collected in all new coronavirus cases.
California will start collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity in new coronavirus cases.
The bill was recently amended to include all reportable diseases. It was passed by the California senate unanimously on 25 June, paving the way for LGBT+ organisations to better understand the impact COVID-19 is having on the community.ADVERTISING
It will now be referred to the Assembly Committee on Health, where it will be heard on 4 August.
If passed and signed into law, the bill would take immediate effect.
From the beginning of this crisis, we have been clear: If LGBTQ+ people are left out of COVID-19 data, we will be left out of California’s data-driven response.
Governor Gavin Newsom said the decision was a move in the right direction.
Equality California executive director Rick Chavez Zbur welcomed news that the bill was passed by the state senate.
LGBT+ community will finally understand just how bad coronavirus has hit the community.
“The COVID-19 crisis has devastated the LGBT+ community. But for months, we haven’t had the data to understand how, why or exactly what to do about it,” he said.
“From the beginning of this crisis, we have been clear: If LGBT+ people are left out of COVID-19 data, we will be left out of California’s data-driven response.
“Thanks to governor Newsom’s leadership and his administration’s hard work, we will start to have answers.”
He added: “This data will finally give our government, our public health leaders and our community an understanding of the degree to which this pandemic is devastating LGBT+ people — and what steps need to be taken to save lives.”
Three police officers have been jailed for murdering a trans woman in El Salvador, in the nation’s first-ever homicide conviction with a trans victim.
According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Camila Díaz Córdova, a 29-year-old trans woman, had fled El Salvador for the US after being subjected to death threats by a gang, but was deported two years ago as she could not provide enough proof that her life was in danger.
Díaz Córdova, a sex worker, was picked up by three police officers in January 2019 accused of creating a public nuisance.
The three police officers have each been handed 20-year prison sentences for her murder, and their convictions mark a huge victory for the queer community in El Salvador.
According to advocacy group COMCAVIS Trans, the country has seen 600 LGBT+ murders since 1993.
Government data shows that of the 109 LGBT+ murders between December 2014 and March 2017, only 12 went to trial, and none ended in convictions.
Cristian Gonzalez, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters: “It’s a landmark case for the rights of transgender Salvadorians.
“It sends a strong signal that anti-trans and more generally anti-LGBT violence is not going to be tolerated in the country.”
Activists are disappointed, however, that despite 2015 hate crime legislation that covers gender identity, Díaz Córdova’s murder will not be classified as such.
Roberto Zapata of advocacy group AMATE El Salvador said: “It leaves a bad taste in our mouths that the prosecutor’s office wasn’t able to build the case as a hate crime.
“If the state had recognised the homicide as such, it would have sent a much stronger message.”
According to local media, the police officers plan to appeal the ruling.
A gay Baltimore intensive care doctor passed away from coronavirus in his husband’s arms after months of battling the pandemic on the front line.
According to the Baltimore Sun, Dr Joseph Costa, 56, was the chief of the critical care division at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
As he was dying in the hospital he worked at on Saturday, 25 July, his husband of 28 years David Hart held him, while around 20 of Costa’s colleagues held a vigil.
Hart said: “Those who cared for Joe were his best friends. A housekeeper who knelt by his bed and shook with grief said: ‘I’m now losing my best friend.’”
He described his husband, who had worked at Mercy Medical Center since 1997, as the bravest man he ever knew.
Costa was an “egalitarian person”, Hart said, who often volunteered to work on holidays so his colleagues could spend time with their children.
The couple had a farm in Shaftsbury, Vermont, and Hart said: “Being married to a doctor isn’t easy and you give up a lot.
“When Joe and I were at the farm we always had such a good time. He was a workaholic and he told me I taught him how to relax.”
Hart said his husband’s death makes him even more frustrated to see people not taking the proper precautions to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
There have been more that 3,000 deaths in Maryland due to COVID-19, and Hart added: “I keep thinking, now there is one less ICU doctor to care for pandemic patients in Baltimore.”
“It makes me want to take a bar of soap and write on my car’s rearview window that ‘My husband who saved so many lives died of COVID-19. Wear a mask!’”
Mercy Medical Center released a statement on death of the gay Baltimore doctor from coronavirus, saying Costa was “admired and respected” throughout Baltimore for “his clinical expertise”.
It added: “He was beloved by his patients and their family members – known for his warm and comforting bedside manner as well as his direct and informative communication style.
“When he counselled our patients and families, he did so with great compassion and empathy.
“For all the nurses and staff who worked closely with Joe on the intensive care unit, he was like an older brother that all admired and revered… A life so beautifully lived deserves to be beautifully remembered.
“Planning is underway now for a memorial service and details will be shared as soon as possible. We will grieve together and we will get through this challenging time together.”
A Saudi court has sentenced a Yemeni blogger to 10 months in prison, a fine of 10,000 riyals ($2,600) and deportation for a social media post supporting equal rights for people in same sex relationships, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The group said Mohamad al-Bokari fled Yemen in June 2019 and was living as an undocumented migrant in Saudi Arabia when he was arrested on April 8 for a Twitter video that drew online condemnation from Saudis and calls for his arrest.
In the video, seen by Reuters, Bokari was asked by one of his Twitter followers for his view of same-sex relations, to which he replied, “Everyone has rights and should be able to practice them freely, including gay people.”
In a statement to Saudi-owned Al Arabiya confirming Bokari’s arrest, the spokesman for Riyadh’s police department said in April that the video contained “sexual references” which “violate public order and morals”.
Bokari was charged with violating public morality, “promoting homosexuality online” and “imitating women,” said HRW, adding it showed authorities discriminated against Bokari for his “perceived sexual orientation and gender expression.”
A Reuters request for comment to Saudi Arabia’s government media office went unanswered.
Bokari was sentenced on July 20 and has 30 days from that date to appeal.
Saudi Arabia has no codified legal system and no laws regarding sexual orientation or gender identity. Judges have convicted people for “immorality”, having sexual relations outside of marriage, and homosexual sex.
Italy has been divided by debate over the country’s first law that would punish discrimination and hate crimes against LGBT+ people.
The proposed legislation would bring Italy in line with its western European counterparts by explicitly recognising discrimination against LGBT+ people as well as women.
As lawmakers begin debating the draft in parliament on Monday (July 27), the bill is already being virulently opposed by far-right parties and religious groups.
On July 16 politicians from the right-wing populist Lega party joined hundreds of Catholics protesting at Rome’s Piazza Montecitorio, insisting that the bill was a threat to their freedom of speech.
They carried banners with the slogan “Establishing a new crime is not needed and is wrong”, but countless LGBT+ Italians beg to differ.
“We need this law,” said Marco, a gay man who spoke to The Guardian ahead of the parliamentary debate. He and his boyfriend have been repeatedly harassed by a neighbour who forced his way into his home, called them “dirty faggots” and threatened to torch their car.
“My boyfriend managed to get rid of him but he returned with a baton and threw himself against the door, repeating the same insults and threatening to set us alight when we were asleep,” he said.
His pleas to police have been ignored, despite the recorded evidence on his mobile phone, and he’s seen the same inaction from police when a gay friend of his was similarly harassed.
“Twice the police came, and twice they did nothing,” he said.
Italy currently punishes hate crimes for racial, ethnic and religious reasons, as well as neo-Nazi and neo-Fascist actions and slogans. But the law still doesn’t recognise attacks based on gender identity or sexual orientation as hate crimes.
The push for legislative change was sparked by a spate of violence against the LGBT+ community, including a brutal attack by a gang of seven on a young man who was walking hand-in-hand with his boyfriend in Pescara.
The victim was beaten so badly that his jaw was smashed and had to be surgically reconstructed with titanium.
“After what happened, no one in the LGBT community feels able to walk freely,” one gay man told the FT. “The sense is that there could be aggression at any time. Everyone feels threatened.”
A recent Eurobarometer survey showed that LGBT+ acceptance in Italy was well below the European average. Only 55 per cent of Italians stated they would feel comfortable with a LGB person in the country’s highest elected office, compared to 90 per cent of people in Sweden and 93 per cent in the Netherlands.
Alessandro Zan, the centre-left MP who has championed the law change, said there was an urgent need for Italy to align itself with other European countries.
“Homophobia is widespread across the country — even if it’s often hidden. It emerges every time gay, lesbian and transgender men and women try to live openly,” he told the FT.
Monica Cirinnà, a senator from the centre-left Democratic party, added that the debate over the proposed law highlights the conservatism “ingrained” in Italian society.
“Italy has been reluctant to embrace diversity because people are pigeonholed in gender stereotypes due to a mixture of deeply rooted patriarchal and Catholic culture,” she told the paper.
“When you don’t fit into one of these stereotypes, you’re to be feared or kept away. But it’s time to move on,” she said.
Sarah Kate Ellis, president of LGBT+ advocacy organisation GLAAD, is calling for LGBT+ people and their allies to do three crucial things ahead of the US election.
“We have 100 days to impact the course of history and put LGBTQ+ equality and social justice back on the forward-moving path,” Ellis said in a passionate op-ed for The Advocate.
Ellis urged everyone to register to vote, to talk to 10 people they know about how the election impacts them as an LGBT+ person, and, crucially, to get out and vote on November 3.
Exit polls during the 2018 mid-terms suggested that six per cent of voters are LGBT+. Trump won “razor-thin victories in key swing states” that could be flipped, Ellis said, if more LGBT+ people get out and vote.
And on top of this, she pointed out that the “rainbow wave” in 2018 could be repeated: “In 2018, LGBTQ+ voters and our allies helped to create a Rainbow Wave — electing an unprecedented number of LGBTQ+ people to public office at all levels and contributing to the tide that swept in a pro-equality majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.”
“This year,” Ellis said, “we can do the same in the U.S. Senate.”
Ellis wrote that Donald Trump and his administration have been “disastrous” for the LGBT+ community, pointing to GLAAD’s monitoring of his policies and campaign rhetoric.
“GLAAD has tracked more than 160 attacks in policy and rhetoric from the president and his appointees since he took office in January 2017, and the number continues to grow,” she said.
“It literally started on day one with the removal of all mentions of LGBTQ+ people and policy from the official White House website and has continued nonstop.
“From the egregious ban on transgender service members to the elimination of tracking LGBTQ+ bullying and harassment in our schools to arguing against our equality in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, the attacks have been incessant.
“The president even asserted that businesses should be able to hang signs in their windows that say, ‘Gays Not Allowed’.”
LGBT+ people and their allies must block Donald Trump’s re-election bid, Ellis argued.
Hundreds of Thai LGBTQ activists and allies raised rainbow flags on Saturday evening as they called for democracy and equal rights, the latest in a series of youth protests calling for the government to step down.
Several youth-led demonstrations have sprung up across the country since last week, when thousands of Thai activists defied a coronavirus ban on gatherings and staged one of the largest street rallies since a 2014 military coup.
The activists on Saturday danced and sang and performed stand-up comedy sketches making jabs at the government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former army chief who ousted an elected government six years ago. Pride flags were waved against the backdrop of Bangkok’s Democracy Monument.
“We’re here today mainly to call for democracy. Once we achieve democracy, equal rights will follow,” said a 21-year-old activist who went by a made-up name, Viktorious Nighttime.
“The LGBT group do not yet have equal rights in society, so we’re calling for both democracy and equality,” added Viktorious, who was wearing a glittery tiara and a face mask.
The calls came after Thailand’s cabinet backed a civil partnership bill earlier this month that would recognize same-sex unions with almost the same rights as married couples.
Saturday’s gathering was the latest in a series of protests under the Free Youth movement, which has issued three demands: the dissolution of parliament, an end to harassment of government critics, and amendments to the military-written constitution.
“Even if they don’t step down from power today, we want to let them know that we won’t go anywhere, we will be here,” said a 21-year-old protestor who gave her name as Yaya. “Even if they get rid of us, our ideology will never die, we will pass this on to the next generation.”
A gay man who worked as a flight attendant for Hawaiian Airlines is being mourned by his loved ones after he tragically died of coronavirus.
Jeff Kurtzman, 60, was one of 17 people to test positive after attending an employee training session in Honolulu in late June. He was admitted to hospital after returning home to Los Angeles, and died of complications relating to coronavirus just a few weeks later on July 21.
“I am heartbroken,” John Duran, council member and former mayor of West Hollywood, told The Advocate.
“We sang together in the gay men’s chorus and he was a sobriety brother of mine. He was a sweet and gentle giant. He gave away more to others than he received. He was an inspiration and a joyful presence in my life — and hundreds of others.”
Other West Hollywood locals have shared their grief on social media, describing Kurtzman as a “one-of-a-kind, gentle soul” and “a loving, generous, and kind man” with an “amazing sense of humour”.
Kurtzman had worked for Hawaiian Airlines for 34 years. Confirming his death in an email to staff, CEO Peter Ingram paid tribute to “his passion for discovering new places, people and cultures; his terrific sense of humour and knack for easy conversation; and his caring heart.”
“He embodied the values of aloha and malama that we hold dear,” he added in the email, seen by NBC.
According to the Hawaii Department of Health, social distancing at the Hawaiian Airlines training session was non-existent and masks were optional.
Kurzman told a close friend he met after the session that some people “got a little lax on the second day”, but added: “I kept my mask on. I don’t want to get sick.”
Of the at least 16 employees that were infected, some went on to expose eight household members. It is believed that one infected person from the training program is also responsible for 20 additional cases at two Hawaiian gyms.
Hawaiian Airlines has now resumed its training with stricter rules on the use of face masks and social distancing.
“All of our instructors have been tested, and the approximately 60 employees who have been through recent training were asked to self-quarantine and monitor their health,” a statement read.
The airline is offering support to Kurtzman’s family and is monitoring those who are recovering from COVID-19.
Mike Feuer, Los Angeles City Attorney, announced charges against a man in connection with a “heated altercation” at Las Perlas bar in downtown Los Angeles that ended with transgender women and gay men being dragged out of the bar.
Eduardo Gonzalez has been charged with one count of making a criminal threat and a second count alleging the criminal threat constituted a hate crime.
The incident happened almost a year ago on the night of August 23 last year.
On that night, several transgender women and gay men met at Las Perlas bar for drinks following the DTLA Proud Festival.
During that time Gonzalez and his girlfriend sat at a table with the group and allegedly “made multiple transphobic and misgendering slurs toward the transgender women, leading to an argument with the group,” officials said.
Eventually a security guard at the bar forcibly removed everyone involved but while being kicked out, Gonzalez allegedly shouted threats that he would return with a gun.
Video of the altercation went viral over the weekend, the footage shows one person being carried out of Las Perlas. It then pans to a woman, identified as Jennifer Bianchi, shouting, “Don’t touch me like that,” before she is shoved into a wall. Bianchi shoves back and says she needs her shoe before she’s carried out as well.
A third woman is put into a chokehold before being forced out.
The group was made up of staff and volunteers from Bienestar Human Services, a non-profit social services organization for Latino and LGBTQ groups. They said in a statement later that they were treated unfairly because of their identity.
After the incident, a protest was started at Las Perlas the following day, as well as support by Mayor Eric Garcetti, who vowed that a thorough investigation will be done.
In a tweet after the incident occurred Mayor Garcetti wrote “Los Angeles is a place where hate against any person, regardless of gender identity, is not tolerated. My office is in communication with @LAPDHQ about the incident at Las Perlas, and will ensure a proper investigation is completed.”
Feuer echoed the sentiment in announcing the charges against Gonzalez and he is scheduled to be arraigned on August 7th.
Las Perlas bar also issued an apology on their Facebook account stating a new security staff — one that has received sensitivity training — is being hired.
They went on to say “Our first and primary concern, and has been from day one, is to operate a safe place for all people,” the bar posted. “Period, no exceptions. We regret that didn’t happen Friday night, and want to apologize to all of our guests, including the Transgender community, a community who has come to our bar as well as works there.”
Before Edafe Okporo founded New York City’s first and only shelter for asylum-seekers and refugees, he was wandering the streets of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a refugee with nowhere to go. Although he was homeless, Okporo was happy to be in the United States.
“Everything just changed when I stepped my feet into this country,” said Okporo, 30, an LGBTQ activist who fled his homeland, Nigeria, in 2016, “because there is an opportunity to dream of a better future, to have a path here as a gay man.”
Okporo grew up in Warri, a city in southern Nigeria. Not only was he poor growing up, but he also struggled with his sexuality. When high school classmates discovered that Okporo was interested in boys, he said, they outed him to his parents, who made him undergo conversion therapy.
Later, while attending college in Enugu, Nigeria, he arranged a meeting with a man he had met through a dating website. What he thought was a date, he said, turned out to be a “siege.” Once he was inside the man’s apartment, he said, a group of men jumped out of a closet and held him hostage while they stole money from his bank account.
“That was the first time I realized that it’s not just that my parents were trying to prevent me from being gay,” he said, “but they were trying to protect me from such kind of persecution.”
Many such laws are thought to be rooted in the British Empire: According to a report published in the Cambridge Review of External Affairs in 2014, former British colonies are “much more likely” to criminalize same-sex acts than other countries. Since 1999, however, some parts of northern Nigeria that are governed by Sharia law punish homosexual activity with “caning, imprisonment or death by stoning,” according to Human Rights Watch.
Traumatized by the attack, Okporo spent the rest of college forcing himself to date women. He joined a church and even became a pastor. But after he graduated in 2014 — the same year Nigeria made same-sex relationships punishable by up to 10 years in prison — he decided he could no longer live a lie. He moved to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, where he helped found the International Centre for Advocacy on Right to Health, an LGBTQ rights organization and HIV clinic.
But Okporo’s activism made him a target. One night in 2016, alone in his apartment, he was startled awake by a loud noise. A mob, he said, was ramming down his door. They rushed in, dragged him into the street and beat him unconscious. Some good Samaritans found him, saw his ID card and carried him to the clinic where he worked.
“When I woke up in the clinic, I knew I had to leave Nigeria for me to be safe,” he said.
After fleeing to Dubai and then returning to Nigeria, he obtained a visa to attend the International LGBTQ Leaders Conference, organized by the Victory Institute, in Washington D.C. — a chance to seek asylum in the U.S., where same-sex marriage had recently been legalized and which he pictured as “a very accepting place.”
That image, he said, turned out to be different from the reality. Okporo approached an admission officer at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and explained that he was seeking asylum. He said the officer took him to an airport jail cell, where he was forced to sign deportation papers.
“The officer came and he put handcuffs on me,” Okporo said, “and drove me to the detention center in New Jersey.”
Okporo would spend five harrowing months in a detention center in Elizabeth. Immigration Equality, a group that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants, connected him with a lawyer who helped him fight deportation in court. After winning his case, he was released from detention, but he had nowhere to go.
His only resource was a phone number advertised on a flyer tacked to the wall of the detention center. The number belonged to First Friends of New Jersey and New York, an organization that supports detained immigrants and asylum-seekers.
A volunteer picked Okporo up and drove him to a YMCA shelter in Newark, New Jersey. He used a computer at the public library to connect with a former colleague from the International Centre for Advocacy on Right to Health, who was living in Queens, New York. She agreed to let him stay with her for three months while he found work, first at a New Jersey-based catering company and then at a nearby HIV clinic.
But Okporo wanted to do more to help asylum-seekers and refugees like himself. He persuaded the leaders of the RDJ Refugee Shelter in Harlem — named after homeless advocate Robert Daniel Jones — to turn the shelter into a full-time transitional refuge for migrants fleeing violence and persecution abroad.
Housed in a former church, the shelter is New York City’s only full-time refuge for asylum-seekers and refugees. The 10-bed shelter has provided temporary housing for more than 80 migrants, said Okporo, the shelter’s director. The shelter also provides legal counseling and job assistance.
The number of refugees in the U.S. is the lowest since 1980, according to the Pew Research Center. The Trump administration last year capped the number of refugees permitted into the U.S. at 18,000, down from 30,000. The administration also enacted a rulelast year that prevented immigrants from claiming asylum in the U.S. if they did not first try to claim it in a country they passed through on their way to the U.S. border.
Late last month, a federal judge ruled that the restriction was illegal. However, a newly proposed rule would allow the Trump administration to deny asylum to immigrants who are considered public health risks because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under those restrictions, Okporo said, asylum-seekers would face more barriers coming to the U.S. than ever before.
“The pandemic has given the administration an opportunity to really close the door for a lot of the refugees and asylum-seekers who usually expect America to be that place of safety when they think about fleeing their countries,” he said.
Not everyone fleeing homophobic and transphobic violence abroad is from a country that criminalizes homosexuality, he said, noting that a majority of those housed in the RDJ Refugee Shelter who have received asylum are from Honduras and Jamaica. While sex between men is outlawed in Jamaica, same-sex activity is legal in Honduras. Still, LGBTQ migrants, particularly those who are transgender, face widespread persecution in both countries, Okporo said. Many non-LGBTQ migrants, he added, are fleeing war-torn regions.
All too often, LGBTQ asylum-seekers who make the journey across the border end up homeless, he said, because family and friends with permanent residence in the U.S. will not open their doors to them.
“Most of them face a kind of rejection even from their community in New York,” Okporo said. “The shelter provides them that space to be themselves even in New York City.”
Okporo, who has a degree in food science, considers himself lucky. Many asylum-seekers do not have the education or proper documentation to qualify for jobs or shelter, he said. Transgender asylum-seekers and refugees in the process of transitioning are especially vulnerable, he said, because they often lack documentation and frequently experience discrimination and violence in shelters.
“Knowing that New York is one of the most liberal places in the world and people are still subjected to such kind of persecution just makes me wonder where else in the world can LGBTQ migrants be safe,” he said.
Okporo is a finalist for the David Prize, an initiative of the Walentas Family Foundation that awards grants to New Yorkers who are making a difference. Okporo said that if he is selected, he will use the money to expand the RDJ Refugee Shelter, which subsists largely on grants and donations. He would also train faith leaders around New York City to use their churches, mosques and temples as places of refuge for migrants fleeing violence and persecution.
Okporo no longer feels the need to hide who he is.
“I have wanted to be open about my sexuality all my life,” said Okporo, who is unashamed to hold hands with his boyfriend, Nicolas, when they walk the streets together. “There is no way I’m going to hide it.”
In June, for the second year in a row, Okporo shared his story during NYC Pride’s annual LGBTQ celebrations, which this year were virtual. He has also written a book, “Compassion is Worth More: Using Your Civil Power to Create Change.” He said it is important for people to listen to the struggles of LGBTQ migrants, who are unable to vote, and to understand that the fight for civil rights did not end with marriage equality.
“When I came to the U.S., I discovered that some states, they have laws that permit conversion therapy. I was shocked. … In the U.S., I thought that gay marriage had eliminated such kind of struggles,” he said.
“A lot of gay people in America after gay marriage think that it is over,” Okporo added. “It’s not over.”
CORRECTION (July 26, 2020, 11:30 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Okporo’s hometown of Warri. It is a city of more than 500,000 people in southern Nigeria; it is not a village.