Brazilian governor and potential major party presidential candidate Eduardo Leite, a prominent critic of President Jair Bolsonaro, came out as gay in a TV interview.
Leite, governor of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, would be the first openly gay presidential candidate in Brazil. Anti-gay rhetoric has been a staple of speeches by Bolsonaro, who once declared that if he had a gay son, he would rather he died in an accident.
“I have never spoken about a subject related to my private life”, Leite told Brazilian journalist Pedro Bial in a TV interview on Thursday evening.
“But during this moment of low integrity in Brazil, I have nothing to hide, I am gay. I am a governor who is gay, not a gay governor, as former President Obama in the U.S. was a president who was Black, not a Black president. And I am proud of that.”
Leite, a member of social democratic party PSDB, supported Bolsonaro in the second round of Brazil’s 2018 elections, but became a critic of the president’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Leite, 36, will be a candidate in the PSDB primaries scheduled for November to choose the presidential candidate for the 2022 elections. Other candidates in the primary are the Sao Paulo governor Joao Doria, senator Tasso Jereissati and former senator Arthur Virgílio.
Bolsonaro on Friday told supporters Leite was trying to use his coming out as a “business card” for the presidential campaign.
“I have nothing against his private life, but he cannot impose his lifestyle on others,” he added.
A trip to Manhattan took a dark turn for Dylan Spinosa and his friend upon their return home via the Staten Island ferry. While waiting for their taxi, a drunken stranger stabbed Dylan in the back while spewing anti-gay slurs.
Spinosa, 20, and his friends had gone into the city to celebrate pride and enjoy a day out now that COVID-19 restrictions have lifted. While they waited for their ride home, Spinosa and his friends noticed a drunken man harassing women with sexual remarks.
Spinosa told the New York Daily News that the suspect was “harassing every girl that he passed by, talking to them sexually.” Spinosa and another passerby tried to pressure the man to leave and stop bothering the women. When they did, the man replied that he had a gun, ignored their request, and began harassing another female.
“He was in her ear, sexually harassing her, saying he was going to have sex with her,” Spinosa described. “Me and this other guy were like, ‘Dude, leave her alone. Go home. You’re drunk. This doesn’t have to get any further.’ ”
Then things turned violent. The drunken suspect attacked the stranger by punching him in the face. Spinosa reacted by putting the assailant in the headlock and wrestling him to the ground. When Spinosa released him, he heard his friends scream.
“I turn around and the guy’s charging us,” Spinosa said of the moment. “I didn’t realize that he had a knife. It felt like he punched me. I thought he threw a beer on me.”
“He stabbed me in the back,” Spinosa elaborated.
The suspect then began yelling anti-gay slurs as Spinosa slumped to the ground, blood pouring down his back. Police arrived shortly thereafter and arrested Eric Shields, 47, while an ambulance rushed Spinosa to the hospital. Medics there treated his wound and discovered that the knife had scraped his scapula. He will need to keep his arm in a sling for some time. He is, however, expected to make a full recovery.
Police have charged Eric Sheilds with assault, weapons possession, menacing and harassment. The District Attorney has also not ruled out hate crime charges, pending an investigation.
The attack follows a recent rash of assaults on LGBTQ people this year. Earlier this month, police in Washington, DC arrested a man for harassing gay diners at a restaurant with a machete. In May, police in New York opened a hate crime investigation following the murder of a 24-year-old transgender woman.
n case anyone forgot, California gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner is once again reminding everyone that she’s a total asshole.
Speaking to Inside California Politics, the 71-year-old reality star talked about a recent trip she took to Venice Beach, a popular tourist neighborhood in Los Angeles, where she was absolutely appalled by the number of homeless people she saw.
“They’re destroying Venice Beach!” she said. “They’re destroying all the businesses down there. They don’t need to be there. The crime rate is going up … It’s mostly homeless-on-homeless murders. We can’t have that in our streets.”
Jenner, who is worth an estimated $100 million, went on to say that it’s imperative to “clean those places up.”
Her solution? Round up all the homeless people and drop them off in “an open field out in some place” where they can presumably kill each other off without disrupting the rest of us.
This isn’t the first time Jenner has made insensitive remarks about homeless people either.
Last month, she told a local media outlet that she has this super rich friend who’s thinking about leaving California because he “can’t take” seeing people living in tents.
“He says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Ariz. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless’,” Jenner claimed.
“When you drive in Beverly Hills and you look at the park, and there’s tents in the park, we have to look at that issue very seriously,” she said, adding, “Before, the homeless were all downtown. I’m sure you’ve been downtown. I mean, you walk down there, and it’s just like so tough, so difficult on these people.”
In addition to being a staunch Trump supporter, even after acknowledging he’s “the worst president we’ve ever had” when when it comes to LGBTQ rights, Jenner believes that “biological boys should not be allowed to participate in girls sports” and says it was easier to come out as trans than it was to come out as a Republican.
People took to the streets of Spain’s biggest cities on Monday evening to express their anger at the death of a man in a suspected homophobic attack at the weekend.
Crowds filled a central Madrid square and activists marched down a major street in Barcelona, chanting slogans and waving placards and rainbow-colored flags.
“The response to the wave of LGBT-phobic hatred that ended the life of Samuel in A Coruna is overwhelming,” the left-wing Podemos party that governs in coalition with the ruling Socialists wrote on Twitter.
Thousands gather to protest the killing of Samuel Luiz in Madrid, Spain, on July 5, 2021. Bernat Armangue / AP
Samuel Luiz, a 24-year-old nursing assistant, was beaten near a nightclub in the early hours of Saturday in the town of A Coruna, northern Spain, by several assailants including one who shouted a common pejorative description of a gay person, state broadcaster RTVE reported. He later died in the hospital.
Jose Minones, a local government representative in the region where A Coruna is located, tweeted that the police were working to find out what happened and to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Local media quoted him as saying the investigation would show whether or not the attack was motivated by homophobia.
Protesters in Madrid, Spain, on July 5, 2021. Bernat Armangue / AP
Interior Ministry data shows 278 hate crimes related to sexual orientation or gender identity were reported in Spain in 2019, an 8.6 percent increase on the previous year. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights warns only a fraction of hate crimes are reported to the police.
In central Barcelona, 21 year-old Sergio Cuevas said: “I think this crime happened because homophobia kills.”
The Supreme Court on Friday declined to wade into the contentious issue of whether businesses have a right to refuse service for same-sex wedding ceremonies despite state laws forbidding them from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
The court dodged the wedding question three years ago in a case involving a Colorado baker who said baking a cake to celebrate a same-sex marriage would violate his right of free expression and religious beliefs. The issue came back in an appeal brought by Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts in Richland, Washington.
The court said Friday that it would not take up her appeal, leaving the state court rulings against her intact and again ducking the hot-button issue. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said the court should have taken the case.
Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips decorates a cake inside his store in Lakewood, Colo., on March 10, 2014.Brennan Linsley / AP file
Stutzman refused to provide flowers for the wedding of two longtime male customers in 2013, explaining that as a Southern Baptist, it would violate her religious beliefs and her “relationship with Jesus Christ.” Like the Colorado baker, she said her floral arrangements were works of art and that having to create them for same-sex weddings would trample on her freedom of expression.
The florist’s lawyer, Kristen Waggoner of the Alliance Defending Freedom, said other judges have ruled in favor of businesses claiming that they cannot be forced to create works that violate their religious beliefs.
“We are confident that the Supreme Court will eventually join those courts in affirming the constitutionally protected freedom of creative professionals to live and work consistently with their most deeply held beliefs,” she said.
Robert Ingersoll, who requested the flowers for his wedding ceremony, praised the Supreme Court for denying the florist’s appeal. He said he hopes the court’s action “sends a message to other LGBTQ people that no one should have to experience the hurt that we did.”
Ria Tabacco Mar, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represented the gay couple, said the denial is a reminder that “no one should walk into a store and have to wonder whether they will be turned away because of who they are. Preventing that kind of humiliation and hurt is exactly why we have nondiscrimination laws. Yet 60 percent of states still don’t have express protections for LGBTQ people like the kind in Washington State. Our work isn’t over.”
Supporters on both sides of the case line a walkway following a hearing before Washington’s Supreme Court about a florist, Barronelle Stutzman, who was sued for refusing to provide services for a same sex-wedding on Nov. 15, 2016, in Bellevue, Wash.Elaine Thompson / AP file
State courts ruled that Stutzman broke a Washington law forbidding businesses to discriminate on the basis of several factors, including sexual orientation. The Washington Supreme Court said providing or refusing to provide flowers for a wedding “does not inherently express a message about that wedding.”
After ducking the issue in the Colorado case, the U.S. Supreme Court sent Stutzman’s case back for another round in the Washington courts, where she lost a second time and again appealed.
“Religious people should be free to live out their beliefs about marriage,” her lawyers said in urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. They said states have taken action against calligraphers, videographers and other business that refuse to serve same-sex weddings because of their religious beliefs.
“These First Amendment violations must stop,” they said.
But the ACLU, representing Washington state, said Stutzman is not required to participate in any actual same-sex wedding ceremony.
The state also told the court that the florist refuses to prepare any flower arrangement for the wedding of a gay or lesbian couple, even if the arrangement is identical to one the shop’s employees would prepare for a heterosexual couple.
“It is thus clear that their objection is not to any ‘message’ sent by the flowers themselves, but rather to the message they perceive would be sent by serving a gay couple,” lawyers for the state said.
The ACLU said courts have repeatedly ruled that there is no right to be exempt, on religious freedom grounds, from general laws that are not enacted to disfavor religious beliefs.
“All people, regardless of status, should be able to receive equal service in American commercial life,” it said.
Seeking Friendly Volunteers plus Seniors Who Want Visits!Bill Blackburn
The Spahr Center has established a new program bringing friendly visitors together with seniors who wish to connect with others. We are seeking LGBTQ+ volunteers willing to offer an hour or two each week in bringing community to a senior who longs for more connection. We also want to hear from our seniors, who would enjoy having someone to talk to on a regular basis. Everything we do that connects lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people with each other is creating community. Whether young or old, as LGBTQ+ people, we all need opportunities to be with other LGBTQ+ people and to be who we are. Community becomes even more important as we age and face the challenges of health, mobility, and loss. Our volunteers will be screened and then trained to provide companionship: what to do as well as what limits are appropriate. Then they will be carefully matched with an LGBTQ+ senior. Seniors may be living in residential facilities or assisted living facilities where they are hesitant to be out to staff or other residents due to concerns about discrimination. Or they may be living in their own homes, simply desiring more connection with others like themselves. Please look over the attached flyers at the bottom of this e-letter and consider whether you might become involved with the program. By volunteering to bring community to a senior, you may well find your own sense of connection and purpose broadening. And by asking to be matched with a friendly visitor, you may well find a connection of great value. Contact Katharine Cowan for more information: kcowan@thespahrcenter.org
The US Supreme Court Stands Up for Decency
We were thrilled at the decision of the US Supreme Court on June 28 (during Pride month), handing a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding with his gender identity.
The justices left in place a lower court’s ruling that the Gloucester County School Board had acted unlawfully in preventing Gavin Grimm from using the boys’ bathroom before he graduated in 2017. In doing so, the court opted against taking up a major transgender rights case that could have set a terrible nationwide precedent on the issue. The court turned away the board’s appeal of a 2020 ruling by the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Grimm is protected under the federal law known as Title IX that bars sex discrimination in education and the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that people be treated equally under the law. The current assault on transgender Americans is cruel and calculated. To have this current, conservative court stand up to this hatred, for now, represents a rare and much needed moment of civility.
Introducing Beth Brenner-Josef, our new Finance Director!
The Spahr Center is thrilled to announce the addition to our staff of Beth Brenner-Josef as Finance Director. With years of great experience managing finances for non-profit organizations, including beloved Frameline, she is helping us to strengthen systems to manage a larger and more complex agency. In the last two years, The Spahr Center has gone from managing a $1 million budget to a budget of $2.2 million in the fiscal year started July, 2021. We have attracted more grants and operate a pharmaceutical program that require intensive management. We thank Leslie Gallen enormously for managing our finances during these past two years. Her real job is to manage our HIV care program, a whole job in and of itself! And we warmly welcome Beth to help us ensure that we are even better stewards of our donors’ contributions. Beth can be reached at bbrenner@thespahrcenter.org. Thank you Beth!
The Spahr Center Now Has Onsite Meeting and Event Space. Everyone is Welcome to Request It!
The Spahr Center has recently added 1,250 square feet of space to our offices to accommodate our growth and, more importantly, the urgent need for flexible meeting and event space. We can now have our discussion and support groups, as well as other community events, occur onsite! Wow, are we excited!! If you have an interest in bringing a club or group together, or creating a fun community event – movie night, reading, knitting circle, book club, gardening talk, or musical performance – that we can help you advertise, we would love to host. Please email info@thespahrcenter.org
Save the Date for The Spahr Center’s 2021 Marin Pride Picnic – Saturday, September 25!
Our great supporters, Bob and Rick enjoying the 2019 picnic.
We here at The Spahr Center are bummed out that we have not been able to safely assemble LGBTQ+ people of Marin, and our HIV community, for a joyous celebration of pride for the past two Junes! Now that the world is opening up again, we are eager to bring people together. We have set the date of Saturday, September 25th for the Marin Pride Picnic. Hours of the event are noon (12 pm) until 2:00. Location and further details will be announced as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, we hope you will hold this date. Please stay tuned for further announcements!
Take the LGBTQ+ Vaccine Survey!
We are excited to share the California LGBTQ+ COVID-19 vaccine survey with you. This survey was built-in collaboration with CSU Sacramento, Bryn Mawr University, Equality California, the California LGBTQ+ Health and Human Services Network, and The Sacramento LGBT Community Center. The results will better direct statewide and local policy change efforts that will improve accessibility and dissolve barriers stopping LGBTQ+ people from getting vaccinated. Please take a moment to complete this survey, and feel free to share it with others! To take the survey, go to http://bit.ly/VaccineSurveyCA
Tickets Available for an Indie-Rock event Benefiting Spahr
Saturday, July 24 at Live Bait in Sausalito. Doors at 6:30. Show at 7pm. Live Bait is a new music venue at 350 Harbor Dr, Sausalito. Next to the world famous Fish Restaurant. Tickets at: https://m.bpt.me/event/5160794 Universal Ingrooves Music recording artist Alan Chapell from the Band Chapell is excited to play a concert at Live Bait and offer his share of the door proceeds to The Spahr Center – Marin County’s only non-profit community agency devoted to serving, supporting and empowering the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community and everyone in the county living with and affected by HIV. Having recorded with Jerry Harrison, Prairie Prince, and members of Susanne Vega, Avril Levigne and Jon Bon Jovi’s respective bands, indie-rocker Chapell is about to begin a nation tour supporting his sixth studio album TWO FISHES. Listen to Chapell on Spotify, Amazon, and Apple Music, or at www.ChapellMusic.com. Pre-save Chapell’s first single from Two Fishes here.
A young gay man was tortured, burned and killed in Mexico after he revealed at a party that he was living with HIV, activists say.
The victim, who has not been named, was allegedly slain in a blacksmith shop in Cancún, a southeastern beach town in the state of Quintana Roo, in early June.
t was a night of revelry that slipped into mayhem when the victim informed party-goers that he was living with HIV, advocacy group Resilientxs told Presentes, a local queer news outlet.
He died from a “blow to the head with a blunt, short object”, the Attorney General’s Office said in a report.
“This case has caused us a lot of anger because we are in the month that commemorates the pride of our community in which rights are requested and claimed,” Resilientxs member Edwin Reyes told the press.
The authorities have since tracked down and arrested the alleged killer in Tabasco, some 900 kilometres from Cancún, who was a man believed to be the neighbour and tenant of the victim.
To Reyes, the tragedy touches off how Quintana Roo, with its sprawling beaches and blue skies, is thought of as a “paradise” to so many when the reality – for LGBT+ people especially – is anything but.
“This cruel case should not have happened,” Reyes said. “And it only tells us that the state has failed to legislate and create the necessary public policies to prevent, address and punish violence due to prejudice that exists in the state.
“That is why we raise our voices because Quintana Roo is not paradise, it is non-gay friendly.”
Seemingly compounding this, Vallarta Daily News reported that the State Attorney General’s Office has opened an investigation into the incident – but officials are treating it as a homicide, but not a hate crime. Hate crimes are not part of the state’s criminal code.
Meet Bryce Dershem, the 18-year-old valedictorian of Eastern Regional High School in New Jersey. While giving his graduation speech, his principal cut his mic after he referred to his queer identity. Undeterred, Dershem gave his uncensored speech to the crowd anyway.
The incident occurred during Eastern Regional High School’s commencement ceremony on June 17. Dershem, who identifies as gay, had an ongoing debate with the school principal, Robert Tull, over the content of his speech. Dershem had loaded his initial draft with references to his coming out as queer and his struggles with anorexia and mental health. Tull, however, forbade him to mention either. Finally, Tull gave Dershem an “approved” version of the speech, which scrubbed all references to sexuality and mental health. According to Dershem, Tull thought referring to either would alienate members of the audience.
“I felt like I was faced with this choice where I could either honor all the belief systems and virtues that I cultivated,” Dershem revealed, “or I could just follow the administration.”
With a bit of encouragement from his family, Dershem memorized the full speech and opted to give it on graduation day over Tull’s objections. Just one minute in, Dershem made reference to coming out, Tull pulled the plug.
“As it was happening, passion was surging through my veins that, yes, I need to give this speech,” told The Chicago Tribune, “because this is the exact kind of stigma that I want to fight against.”
Video of the graduation ceremony shows Tull pulling cords out of the sound system to silence Dershem. He then walked to the podium, took the mic and Dershem’s notes, and pointed to the approved speech on the podium. When the sound returned, a terrified Dershem opted to continue his speech from memory.
“I tried my very best to give the speech from memory, and I was just a mess throughout the whole speech and I was just so vulnerable,” he added.
When he finished, the audience gave Dershem a standing ovation. One woman in the crowd approached him in tears to thank him for his honesty.
“She told me her son hadn’t survived the pandemic due to mental health struggles and she started to cry,” Dershem recalled. “I thought, ‘This was the one person I made feel less alone,’ and I knew I did the right thing.”
It would appear Dershem is not alone in that sentiment, either. In the aftermath of the censorship debacle, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy issued a statement commending Dershem for “speaking truth to power, and for your resilience and courage.” Video of the entire speech posted by Dershem’s father has also nabbed more than 147,000 views on YouTube.
At the time of this writing, neither Principal Robert Tull nor administrators for Eastern Regional High School have commented further on the incident.
Another day and another Pride Month attack from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
When she’s not bashing Dr. Anthony Fauci and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or engaging in a double-act with fellow Rep. Matt Gaetz at pro-Trump rallies, Greene has had plenty to say about LGBTQ people.
Following earlier attacks on embassies flying Pride flags, she yesterday took to Twitter to lambast what may or may not be on the school curriculum.
Greene shared a video of a 14-year-old girl recently testifying before a school board meeting in a suburb of Indianapolis. The girl has not been named.
In the clip, the youngster, who has certainly had a difficult upbringing in her formative years, talks of being a “trauma child” and of being adopted from a foster home when she was four.
She complains about being taught about sexuality at school, which she believes should be a private matter. She also says she cannot see how she has white privilege, given her own background.
The clip was first shared on Twitter last week and went viral. Greene re-shared it yesterday and used it to attack schools talking about Critical Race Theory, gender identity of sexuality.
Critical race theory (CRT) has been talked about for the last 40 years in academic circles but has only more recently entered mainstream debate. It explores the idea that racism and patterns of discrimination in the US have shaped its society, legal systems and institutions.
In recent months, CRT has become an increasing lightning rod for some on the right of the GOP to attack anti-racism campaigners or those on the left.
Many educators and advocates believe talking about sexuality in school, and teaching kids that it’s OK to be gay, will reduce anti-LGBTQ bullying and would support many LGBTQ youngsters struggling with mental health issues. LGBTQ youth are at a far greater risk of attempting suicide than their straight peers. They contemplate suicide roughly three times as often as straight youth.
As explained by The Trevor Project, “All young people deserve access to safe and supportive public education, free from harassment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
“However, policies known as ‘No Promo Homo’ and ‘Don’t Say Gay’ laws ban educators from talking about LGBTQ people, issues and history entirely, or they only allow negative discussion. These laws keep supportive teachers from speaking out in the classroom, eliminating vital safe spaces for LGBTQ students.”
LGBT activists in Georgia have cancelled a Pride march in the capital Tbilisi after violent clashes ahead of the parade. Violent groups stormed and ransacked the office of gay rights campaigners on Monday, Georgian authorities confirmed.
Activists posted photos and videos of people breaking into the premises and some journalists had reported that their equipment was broken in the attack. After scuffles between anti-LGBT groups and the police, the organisers of the 2021 Pride said they would be cancelling the event.
Video and photographs showed anti-gay protesters scaling a three-storey building to break into the headquarters of the Tbilisi Pride march in the Georgian capital, while elsewhere men with long beards in priests’ clothing punched and kicked journalists, with as many as 20 injured.
One journalist said he was beaten with a stick while others reported having their cameras and other equipment broken.
Irakli Garibashvili, the prime minister, on Monday appeared to claim the Pride organisers had provoked the violence, saying it was “unreasonable” to hold the demonstration in a public place that could lead to “civil confrontation”.
Joint Statement of the Embassies of Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, the European Union Monitoring Mission, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, UN system in Georgia, the United States, and the EU Delegation to Georgia concerning violence in Tbilisi.
We condemn today’s violent attacks on the civic activists, community members and journalists, as well as the failure of the government leaders and religious officials to condemn this violence. Participation in peaceful gatherings is a human right guaranteed by Georgia’s Constitution.
Violence is simply unacceptable and cannot be excused. Those who incite or threaten violence or commit violent acts are interfering with the efforts of Georgia’s law enforcement professionals to uphold a safe and secure environment.
They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We call on all Georgia’s leaders and law enforcement to act swiftly to protect those exercising their Constitutional rights to freedom of expression and assembly, to protect journalists exercising freedom of the press, and to publicly condemn violence.
Our great supporters, Bob and Rick enjoying the 2019 picnic.
