LGBT+ Asian Americans are reportedly experiencing a horrific “double whammy” of homophobia and racism due to the coronavirus pandemic.
As the coronavirus spreads across the world, many Asian people are facing discrimination and racism from people who ignorantly and wrongly assume that they are harbingers of infection.
The situation is dire in the United States, where Donald Trump has repeatedly drummed up anti-Asian sentiment by referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese Virus” (the outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, China).
But the outlook is even more hopeless for Asian Americans who are also LGBT+, as they are facing an increase in racism and homophobia during this time.
Those who ‘live in the intersections’ are most likely to be targeted by hate.
Hieu Nguyen, founder of the Viet Rainbow of Orange County, told Vice. that being LGBT+ and Asian during the coronavirus pandemic is a “double whammy”.
“When you’re LGBTQ and an ethnic minority, there’s already a sense of not feeling safe in the environment that you’re in,” Nguyen said.
“It just adds a heightened level of anxiety for folks, and it challenges their sense of safety.”
Between March 19 and April 3, Stop AAPI Hate recorded 1,100 complaints of hate incidents from the Asian American community.
While the entire Asian American population is facing discrimination, a number of groups have warned that LGBT+ Asian Americans are at a particular disadvantage.
Cynthia Choi, co-executive director for Chinese for Affirmative Action, said those who are most likely to be targeted are people “who live in the intersections”.
“Those who were already vulnerable — whether you’re an immigrant, undocumented, or because of your gender identity and sexuality — the pandemic has amplified that, Choi told Vice.
Those who were suffering before the pandemic, their situation is worse off.
Meanwhile, NQAPIA executive director Glenn Magpantay said LGBT+ Asian Americans “have experienced an uptick in racism and discrimination as a result of COVID-19.”
“The ignorance has come to bear on our community. It’s enormously challenging and difficult,” Magpantay said.
Groundbreaking gay photographer Shahin Shahablou, who fled Iran for London in order to be himself, has died from coronavirus.
Shahablou left Iran, where homosexuality is illegal, for Britain in 2011. He gained refugee status and went on to become an award-winning photographer.
He died last week, on April 15, from coronavirus complications, just months after meeting his partner Kevin Lismore, Buzzfeed News‘ Patrick Strudwick reports.
“He really wanted someone that he could share his life with,” Lismore told Buzzfeed. “He said he would never be able to find a partner there in Iran; that it would just be sex. But he wanted a partner for life.”
Shahin Shahablou found love just months before he died from coronavirus.
Lismore said that “something very special” happened between them, and Shahablou believed that their meeting and falling in love was destiny.
“That’s the cruellest thing, to lose him so soon,” Lismore said. “It feels really unfair on him and me, and on his friends and family. It’s tragic.”
David Gleeson, a friend of Shahablou’s, said they considered having him repatriated to Iran, but his family felt that he should remain in London, the city he had come to call home.
It feels really unfair on him and me, and on his friends and family. It’s tragic.
Shahablou also enjoyed a long and varied career as a photographer. In London, he worked as a freelance photojournalist for organisations such as Amnesty International.
Photography was his first love, and he carved out a career for himself in Britain.
Sadly, he experienced financial hardship throughout his time in the UK. Friends said he refused to ask for the money he deserved for his work, and also tended to pass up more commercial jobs, choosing instead to focus on the work he cared about.
He was working part-time in a supermarket at the end of his life in order to make ends meet, but photography was his first love.
Shahablou was a well known figure in the LGBT+ community in central London, where he spent much of his time. He also dedicated much of his work to photographing members of that community.
He was afraid when the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK because he had asthma and a leaky heart valve.
He went into hospital last month but was later discharged. Then, on March 27, an ambulance was called and Shahablou spent his remaining days on a ventilator in intensive care.
The Trump administration is considering cutting back on sharing intelligence with partner countries that criminalize homosexuality as part of a push by the acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, to prod those nations to change their laws.
The intelligence community should be pushing American values with the countries it works with, Mr. Grenell said in an interview this week.
“We can’t just simply make the moral argument and expect others to respond in kind because telling others that it’s the right thing to do doesn’t always work,” he said. But, he added, “to fight for decriminalization is to fight for basic human rights.”
Nearly 70 countries criminalize homosexuality, including U.S. intelligence partners like Egypt, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. Grenell did not clarify if the new policy would withhold additional cooperation or just curtail the information that is given to the countries.
“If a country that we worked in as the United States intelligence community was arresting women because of their gender, we would absolutely do something about it,” Grenell said. “Ultimately, the United States is safer when our partners respect basic human rights.”
Five Bay Area counties will begin enforcing face coverings in essential businesses and on public transit Wednesday to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
In the following counties, you could be hit with a citation and/or a fine if you’re not following the order asking people to cover their noses and mouths with cloth.
Alameda
Contra Costa
Marin
San Francisco
San Mateo
Sonoma began enforcing its order last Friday. The cities of Berkeley and Fremont issued their own mandates.
Santa Clara County is “strongly urging all individuals” to wear face coverings when out of their homes to perform essential activities, but has yet to issue an official requirement that’s enforceable by law. In a statement, the county noted “enforcement resources across the county are limited” and the public has generally followed past guidance without enforcement.
The orders in all jurisdictions are generally the same, requiring people to wear coverings in public places, especially indoor spaces, where they’re unable to physically distance.
The reason for the new rules is that research shows a cloth covering the nose and mouth can help prevent the spread of respiratory droplets that are the main way the coronavirus is transmitted between people.
In all jurisdictions, the coverings can be manufactured or handmade or simply any type of cloth fabric or soft material such as a bandana, scarf or neck gaiter. Medical masks aren’t necessary and should be prioritized for health care workers.
Here’s a quick overview of the orders in each jurisdiction.
Alameda: The county is requiring members of the public and workers to wear face coverings while inside of or waiting in line to enter essential businesses, when seeking health care, and when waiting for or riding on public transportation. Read the full order.
Berkeley: Anyone out in public visiting essential businesses, seeking health care or using public transportation is required to use a face covering. Workers at essential businesses are also required to cover their face. Read the full order.
Contra Costa: Anyone working at or visiting an essential business, such as a grocery store or gas station, is required to wear face coverings. The order does not require children 12 and younger to wear masks. Read the full order.
Fremont: The East Bay city of Fremont is requiring workers and customers at essential businesses to wear face coverings amid the COVID-19 emergency. An employee can deny service to an individual who is not wearing a face covering. Read the full order.
Marin: Residents are being asked to wear a face covering when they are interacting with others who are not members of their household in public and private spaces. Children aged 12 years old or younger are not required to wear a face covering. Read the full order.
San Francisco: Residents and workers in SF will be required to wear face coverings at essential businesses, in public facilities and on transit. Read the full order.
San Mateo: The order mandates members of the public and workers at essential businesses to wear face coverings outside the home for certain activities and in places of business. The order took effect Friday night but will not be enforced until 8 a.m. on April 22. Read the full order.
Sonoma: All people must wear facial coverings before they enter any indoor facility besides their residence, any enclosed open space, or while outdoors when the person is unable to maintain a six-foot distance from another person at all times. Children over the age of 2 are being asked to wear face coverings. The requirement went into effect Friday. Read the full order.
Cumulative cases in the greater Bay Area (due to limited testing these numbers reflect only a small portion of likely cases):
The spread of COVID-19 has given Philippines law enforcement broad discretion to enforce public health measures. When discrimination is added to the mix, that unfettered power can be particularly demeaning and dehumanizing for vulnerable groups.
On April 5, volunteers in the village of Pandacaqui, in Pampanga province stopped and detained three LGBT people outside after curfew, two of whom explained they were running an errand for their grandmother. A village official accused them of looking for illicit sex and, as punishment, publicly humiliated them by ordering them to kiss, dance, and do push-ups on live video broadcast on social media. They were identified by name and the videos of their punishment went viral, adding to their embarrassment.
The incident illustrates the danger of unrestrained law enforcement power under the guise of public health. Other individuals who violated curfew in Pandacaqui were also subject to a range of punishments broadcast on social media. Where curfews exist as a means of slowing the spread of the virus, they should be enforced in a professional, measured manner that does not jeopardize people’s rights and dignity.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government, which has administrative control over officials in villages like Pandacaqui, should investigate incidents in which village officials and police mistreat violators of curfew and quarantine regulations. It should hold to account those responsible for these abuses.
Efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 are essential, but should not be used as an excuse to demean vulnerable groups. The humiliation of LGBT people and others in the Philippines demonstrates the need for oversight and accountability to ensure that officials across the country respect people’s rights and dignity during the current crisis.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom appeared on “CBS This Morning” Tuesday and co-host Tony Dokoupil asked, “Can you say from where you’re sitting at this moment that the worst is over in California?”
Newsom responded, “No, because if we all pull back, we could see a second wave that makes this pale in comparison. I can’t say that. Honestly, that’s determined by the act of 40 million Californians stepping in, continuing to meet this moment… ICU numbers are beginning to flatten, but we’re not seeing yet the significant decline that we need to see ultimately to toggle back. But we are committed to a process. We’ve socialized that process. And we are leaning in, working with 58 counties across the state to make sure that we do it together in a thoughtful and strategic way.”
Last week, Newsom announced the beginnings of a plan to relax the stay-at-home order and reopen the economy and society under new guidelines. Newsom alluded to the next phase on CBS, and the governor is expected to give more details in a press conference on Wednesday.
“I don’t anticipate that normalcy that many of us wish for happening any time soon,” Newsom said on CBS. “But we will begin to toggle back, to put a little dimmer switch up, and begin to change the way we currently are conducting ourselves from a full lockdown stay at home order to one that is more prescriptive, targeted and strategized.”
Dokoupil also asked Newsom about baseball and whether games may happen this summer, as soon as July. “But the idea of tens of thousands of fans coming together across their differences, high-fiving one another, hugging each other— after a base hit or a strikeout— is not something I’m anticipating any time soon,” he said on CBS.
Cumulative cases in the greater Bay Area (due to limited testing these numbers reflect only a small portion of likely cases):
Living in a shelter for homeless people shouldn’t be illegal. But according to Ugandan police, 23 people living at a shelter serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Kampala are guilty of “a negligent act likely to spread infection of disease,” as well as “disobedience of lawful orders.”
Two were released from police custody for medical reasons, as was a nurse who worked at the shelter’s clinic. But 20 were remanded to prison, a disastrous move when civil society leaders have been pleading with officials to decongest Uganda’s teeming prisons.
At the root of the arrests is homophobia. According to the legal aid group Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), neighbors complained to local leaders about the presumed sexuality of shelter residents, prompting the mayor, Hajj Abdul Kiyimba, to lead a raid on the home. A video viewed by Human Rights Watch shows Kiyimba berating residents for “homosexuality” and beating them with a stick.
HRAPF said police searched the shelter for evidence of homosexuality, which is punishable by up to life in prison. Police confiscated HIV medication, self-testing kits, and condoms. At least three of those arrested were undergoing HIV treatment at the shelter. Police eventually settled on COVID-19-related charges.
The arrests echo an October 2019 raid on another LGBT shelter, where police arrested 16 people after they were attacked by a mob, detained them, and subjected them to forced anal examinations. The case against them was eventually dropped.
The Children of the Sun detainees may be less fortunate. Their lawyers can’t visit them in prison – Uganda’s latest COVID-19 guidelines only allow movement for “essential services,” which do not include legal services. Indeed, HRAPF’s application to visit them was rejected by the Ministry of Works and Transport. In the meantime, the detainees may be exposed to COVID-19 in prison. If any become ill or die, the Ugandan authorities will bear responsibility.
A man has been arrested in connection with the death of a Florida queer venue employee who was shot dead in a hotel room.
Police were called to Parliament House Resort on April 1 after guests reported hearing shots fired.
They discovered the body of Ricardo Filmore, a 37-year-old employee, in a hotel room. He was pronounced dead at the scene, the Orlando Sentinelreports.
Investigators have since arrested 28-year-old Courtney Lamar Williams in connection with Filmore’s death, and he now reportedly faces a charge of first degree murder.
Florida’s Parliament House led tributes to Ricardo Filmore.
Filmore’s death was mourned by staff at Parliament House. In a Facebook post, the historic gay venue said he had become involved in “a domestic dispute” and “lost his life”.
“We are completely devastated by the loss of Ricardo,” they wrote.
“He was an incredible part of our family. We appreciate all of your messages of support at this time.
“Rest in Peace, Ricky.”
We are completely devastated by the loss of Ricardo.
Tributes poured in for the murdered staff member from regulars at the venue.
“My condolences. Saw him many times keeping us safe,” one Parliament House customer commented.
Another wrote: “Parliament House and his family have our deepest condolences.”
“So sad he was such a nice guy, Rest In Peace Ricky,” another regular wrote.
More than 2,000 people die from gun violence in Florida every year.
People who knew Ricardo personally expressed their shock at his death, and urged anybody with information on his killing to come forward.
According to Everytown Research, 2,568 people on average die every year in Florida from gun violence. The state has the 26th highest rate of gun deaths in the United States.
Parliament House was founded in 1975 and has become a staple for the local LGBT+ community since then. The resort is home to a number of gay bars and regularly hosts drag shows.
Various high-profile drag queens have performed at the venue over the years, including RuPaul, Shangela, Latrice Royale and Sharon Needles.
On the morning of March 15, as Italy became the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic, a half dozen high-ranking California health officials held an emergency conference call to discuss efforts to contain the spread of the virus in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The tight-knit group of Bay Area doctors organized the call to discuss a consistent policy on public gatherings for the region’s 7 million people, which then had fewer than 280 cases and just three deaths. Soon, though, the conversation focused on the potentially catastrophic emergency on their hands and how stay-at-home orders could slow the advance of the virus.
Many factors have fueled the speed of the disease spread throughout the world. But that three-hour call and the bold decisions to come out of it were central to helping California avoid the kind of devastation the virus wrought in parts of Europe and New York City, experts say.
“It was obviously spreading like wildfire under our noses and literally every minute we did not take aggressive action was going to mean more and more death,” said Dr. Scott Morrow, health director for San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco and home to Facebook.
The doctors who met that day are members of the Association of Bay Area Health Officers, a group born out of the AIDS epidemic that ravaged San Francisco in the 1980s. The group usually meets a half-dozen times a year and has tackled other global threats such as Ebola and swine flu.
By mid-March, group members were alarmed by the spread of the virus since an initial case in the state was confirmed Jan. 26. Dr. Sara Cody, the top doctor in Santa Clara County, home to 2 million residents and the headquarters of Apple and Google, told her peers that COVID-19 cases were doubling every three days. In neighboring San Mateo County, every test conducted was coming back positive, shared Morrow. Across the bay in Alameda County, Dr. Erica Pan reported that cases were rising in areas bordering Santa Clara County.
A day later, the San Francisco Bay Area became the first place in the nation to order residents to stay home. At least 20 other California counties adopted the Bay Area order within hours. Two days later, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all 40 million Californians to stay home unless they had essential jobs.
It’s impossible to quantify how much those orders helped or truly compare states or countries because of other potential factors such as population density, international travel and the number of tests being conducted in each place. However, experts in disease control say the Bay Area’s early intervention clearly played a significant role in slowing the speed of infection throughout California.
On March 15, California reported 335 cases and six deaths. As of Sunday morning, the state had confirmed more than 30,800 cases and nearly 1,150 deaths. The slowing rate of infection, at 73 per 100,000 residents as of Friday, and deaths is one one of the reasons Newsom says the state can contemplate reopening businesses.
The area is now reaping the benefit of putting stringent recommendations in place “very, very early,” said Robyn Gershon, a clinical professor of epidemiology at New York University’s School of Global Public Health.
“In New York, by the time social distancing came we already had many, many people sick. Without tests, without a vaccine, your only tool is having people not contact each other,” Gershon said.
Just a few days after California’s order, with the number of infections above 15,000 in New York state and more than 100 dead, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered businesses and workplaces to shut down.
Most people recover from the new coronavirus with symptoms such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.
In January, the group in California began holding twice weekly phone calls to prepare for coronavirus, initially discussing how to monitor Americans returning from China, where the virus began, or how to disinfect ambulances that had transported COVID-19 patients.
But on March 15, the call focused on “extreme social distancing.” Marin County Public Health Director Dr. Matt Willis wondered whether such a radical measure was needed in his county, which at the time had only 10 cases. But with no federal or state guidance, he soon agreed “an aggressive approach to a shelter-in-place policy was really the one lever that we had.”
Cody, who has been credited by many for driving the urgency during that call and whose county was the first to declare a state of emergency in California, told colleagues of increasing hospitalization rates there, sharing early data from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention community survey that found about one in 10 of those seeking medical care for flu-like symptoms at public clinics had coronavirus.
“We realized we were not that far behind what was happening in Italy,” the Santa Clara County health director said.
On March 15, Italy’s hospitals were already overwhelmed, with more than 1,800 having died. Less than a week earlier, officials had imposed countrywide, strict stay-at-home orders after they failed to contain the outbreak in the hard-hit north. The death toll has now climbed to nearly 23,000. The European country had confirmed its first two cases on Jan. 31.
Officials have contemplated why San Francisco Bay Area residents have largely complied.
Californians were already seeing daily images of a cruise ship off California’s coast with at least 21 confirmed coronavirus infections aboard before it docked on March 9, so the virus was front-of-mind. Tech conferences that typically bring international travelers to the Bay Area each spring were being canceled and tech companies from Silicon Valley to San Francisco began telling employees to work from home. It’s also the makeup of the Bay Area, officials say, including people with connections around the country and world.
San Francisco residents generally are willing to comply with such things “when shown the science, when shown the data about what can be accomplished,” said Dr. Susan Philip, director of disease prevention and control at the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
In the month since, Bay Area residents have largely continued to heed the mandate, quickly understanding the concept of “flattening the curve” to slow the rate of infection and avoid overwhelming hospitals.
“The timing of instituting the stay-at-home order is very, very critical in blunting the epidemic,” said Lee Riley, a professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases at the University of California Berkeley. He warned, though, that complacency could ruin any initial success, noting “we need to remain vigilant.”
Still, a challenge looms for the Bay Area doctors who continue to talk to each other twice a week: How to lift the shelter-in-place orders without creating a second surge.
“We’re going to be relying on the same kind of partnership that we relied upon for the first stage of this to help us through,” Willis said.
The NYC Pride March has been canceled for the first time in its half-century history, along with all in-person events leading up to the annual June event, which draws millions of participants and revelers every year.
Heritage of Pride, the organization that runs the march, made the announcement Monday, shortly after New York Mayor Bill De Blasio announced the cancellation of permits for all large events for the month of June.
“This probably will not surprise you,” De Blasio said at a coronavirus briefing before announcing the cancellation of June’s Celebrate Israel, Puerto Rican Day and LGBTQ pride parades. The mayor promised these events would go on in some format “when it’s the right time.”
“This year is the 50th anniversary of the pride parade, and it’s a very, very big deal,” De Blasio said in Monday’s briefing. “That march is such an important part of life in this city, but this year in particular it was going to be something that was a historic moment.”
The first pride march, in June 1970, honored the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising the year before, which helped sparked the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Last year’s NYC Pride March on the 50th anniversary of the rebellion, #Stonewall50, drew an estimated 5 million people.
Instead of an in-person pride march this year, Heritage of Pride endorsed an effort led by InterPride, an international organization comprised of local, regional and national pride planning organizations, to hold a 24-hour virtual “Global Pride” event on June 27, to be broadcast around the world.
Ron deHarte, co-president of the United States Association of Prides and a member of the InterPride organizing committee, said “the plan is to have this 24-hour program that will be a worldwide celebration of pride.”
“It will peak in time zones around the world, and in each of those time zones, those regional pride organizations and those local pride organizations will be directly involved in that programming component,” deHarte said.
Cathy Renna, a representative of Heritage of Pride, suggested this year’s events might resemble something like televised New Year’s Eve celebrations, which cascade around the world’s time zones.
Prior to New York City’s announcement on Monday, a number of other major cities across the U.S. had already announced they were canceling or postponing their pride events: Los Angeles postponed, San Francisco canceled and Seattle said it would “go virtual.” The European Pride Organisers Association has been maintaining an open source online count of pride events around the world that have either been canceled or postponed due to the global coronavirus pandemic.