Professor Gita Ramjee, a highly acclaimed scientist who dedicated her life to fighting and preventing HIV, has sadly died of coronavirus.
Ramjee, 64, was a South African researcher internationally renowned for her work expanding disadvantaged women’s access to HIV treatment.
On March 31 she tragically passed away from coronavirus complications, having just returned from a symposium in the UK. She was working on trials for a gel that could potentially reduce HIV infection.
“The passing of professor Ramjee comes as a huge blow to the entirety of the healthcare sector and the global fight against HIV/AIDS,” the deputy president of South Africa, David Mabuza, said in a statement.
“In her, we have indeed lost a champion in the fight against the HIV epidemic, ironically at the hands of this global pandemic.
“In her honour, we should heed the call to flatten the curve by strengthening our responses to this global pandemic as well as continue the fight to achieve zero new HIV infections.”
Deeply saddened by the loss of an #HIVprevention pioneer, Gita Ramjee. She was a tireless champion of science, research, women’s reproductive health and rights — and may we all build on her legacy and make her calling, her dream a reality
Ramjee held an honorary professorship at the the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as the University of Washington and the University of Cape Town.
In 2018 she was awarded the Outstanding Female Scientist award from the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership in recognition of her work on HIV prevention, notably the field of microbicide research.
The international scientific community are now paying tribute, with the head of UNAids Winnie Byanyima describing her death as “a huge loss” at a time when the world needed her most.
“Gita was a vibrant person, a real fighter,” her colleague, professor Gavin Churchyard, told the BBC. “If she sets her mind on something, nobody better stand in her way.
“That will be my lasting memory of her – how she fought with everything to advance access to healthcare for women in disadvantaged communities.”
Many other scientists and researchers took to Twitter to share their grief at her passing.
A gay rights leader in Uganda says 20 members of the local LGBT community have been detained after police raided their shelter and accused them of violating coronavirus-related social distancing measures.
“It is evident that they were arrested because of their homosexuality,” Frank Mugisha [photo] said Wednesday, expressing concern for their safety as “some of them are on AIDS medication.” Gay sex is criminalized in Uganda.
Mugisha said the 20 were among 23 people accused of violating the president’s orders during a police raid on Sunday. Three were freed because of ill health, he said. Mugisha said the house in Kyengera, a town near Kampala, is a known shelter for LGBT people seeking community as well as treatment for AIDS.
Multiple people who had been at the party later posted on social media confirming that they, or someone they knew who had also attended, had been diagnosed.
Over the weekend, a second person has died after contracting the virus at the festival.
Ron Rich, 65, who lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was a musician and formerly a high school band director.
He was also a prominent figure in the local LGBT+ community, volunteering for Outshine Film Festival, Lambda Legal and the National LGBTQ Task Force.
The National LGBTQ Task Force wrote on Facebook on Tuesday, March 31, that it was “mourning the passing of a loyal volunteer, Ron Rich, who succumbed to COVID-19 over the weekend”.
It continued: “Ron was a familiar face to the guests who attended the Task Force Gala, Winter Party Festival and our Fort Lauderdale house parties over the past five years as his big smile and warmth had him mostly serving on our hospitality team… He will be missed.
“We extend our condolences to his family and friends.”
His friends took to social media to express their grief after his death.
Onre Soto wrote: “I’m heartbroken by the news I got last night… My best friend Ron Rich passing Saturday night.
He was truly honest [and] sincere… We [are] all grieving for his family. I will miss you forever, until we meet again.”
Another friend, Theo Vernon, wrote: “I am devastated this morning. My good friend Ron Rich has passed away due to the COVID-19 virus.
“I student taught at Grissom under him and worked with him my first year teaching at Grissom high school in 1985. He was an amazing mentor, musician and we became great friends.”
Israel Carreras passed away last week after attend the Winter Party.
Israel Carreras, 40, who had no prior health conditions, was the first person to pass away after contracting coronavirus at the Winter Party.
Carreras’ partner, Franco Conquista, told WSVN: “He started to feel sick after the event. We went together.
“I went to his place, taking care of him for two days, and I also had it. He couldn’t breathe, so he wanted to go to the hospital, and then, he was at the hospital for four or five days.
“Then, they put him to sleep because he was really agitated, and then, he never woke up again.”
Conquista added that he was currently at home in isolation, grieving his partner, and called for others to stay at home.
He said: “This poor boy was only 40 years old. It can kill anybody, so just stay home and think of other people.”
Amid the coronavirus crisis, state health officials responsible for gathering data on COVID-19 are declining to collect and report whether or not patients identify as LGBTQ — a practice that angers LGBTQ advocates who say those answers could yield important information to combat the disease.
The lack of data, advocates say, will essentially blind the public to the coronavirus’ impact on LGBTQ people — a population that may be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 — as the epidemic continues to rise and health officials warn the death toll in the United States will hit its peak in the coming weeks.
An estimated 100,000 to 240,000 Americans may die as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, U.S. government health advisers said this week.
The deputy director of the National LGBT Cancer Network, who goes by the name Scout and has a Ph.D. in sociomedical sciences from Columbia University, said the lack of data on the coronavirus’ impact on LGBTQ people reflects the absence of LGBTQ data collection in medical surveys writ large.
“The common phenomenon of not collecting LGBTQ health surveillance data hurts us in so many ways. Now it will hurt us by masking the impact of COVID-19 on our communities,” Scout said. “Considering an estimated 3.3 million of us use tobacco products, and therefore have a higher risk of negative outcomes if we get coronavirus, not collecting LGBTQ+ status in health surveillance data is horrible. We will mourn our losses but never be able to measure them.”
The Blade reached out to several states where the confirmed cases of coronavirus infection are at their highest and as of this week surpassed 5,000 cases, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Additionally, the Blade sought LGBTQ demographic information on the COVID-19 impact from jurisdictions local to the D.C. region and states that have had greater incident rates of COVID-19 cases.
The only jurisdiction to report having collected data on whether COVID-19 patients identify as LGBTQ was D.C,, where the department of health affirmed Tuesday to the Blade that process was underway.
“DC Health is collecting information about LGBTQ+ status of coronavirus patients,” said Alison Reeves, a D.C. Department of Health spokesperson. “However, that data is incomplete and will not be made public at this time.”
Harper Jean Tobin, director of policy for the National Center for Transgender Equality, said any reporting on COVID-19’s impact on LGBTQ people would likely be an undercount “due to the fast spread of the virus and the extraordinary shortcomings in the United States’ response to the pandemic.”
“Unfortunately, many of our pre-existing public health surveillance systems did not yet incorporate basic demographic data about LGBTQ people, and many health care institutions haven’t yet implemented this data collection in their patient record systems either,” Tobin said. “That’s inexcusable, but it’s also not likely we’ll be able to correct those deficiencies in the middle of a fast-moving global pandemic.”
Jurisdictions other than D.C. either didn’t respond to the Blade’s request to comment, or affirmed they didn’t collect data on whether coronavirus patients identify as LGBTQ.
In Michigan, where Detroit has become a new epicenter for the coronavirus epidemic, a spokesperson for the state department of health confirmed LGBTQ status of patients isn’t asked by health officials.
“That’s not something captured in the Michigan Disease Surveillance System where cases are reported, so we wouldn’t be able to determine that information,” said Lynn Sutfin, a spokesperson for Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services didn’t respond to a follow-up email inquiry on why LGBTQ status isn’t collected in the state medical data system.
In New York, a spokesperson said the NY Department of Health is “not tracking COVID-19 cases by sexuality,” then when asked why that was the case referred the Blade to recent remarks from Gov. Andrew Cuomo on COVID-19.
“This virus does not discriminate,” Cuomo said. “It doesn’t discriminate by age. It doesn’t discriminate by party. It affects all Americans, and what you’re seeing in New York is going to spread across this country.”
Privacy issues around asking COVID-19 patients whether they identify as LGBTQ were cited by one state contacted by the Blade about LGBTQ demographics on the epidemic.
In Washington State — where the coronavirus spread early on the during the epidemic, but has since stabilized compared to other states — the state department of health affirmed it doesn’t collect data on whether coronavirus patients identify as LGBTQ.
Danielle Koenig, a Washington State Department of Health spokesperson, said, “We don’t have sexual orientation information on patients.” When asked why that was the case, Koenig replied, “We don’t publish more specific demographic data to protect patient privacy.”
Tobin sought to assuage concerns about privacy issues on collecting LGBTQ information in health surveys by saying state officials could keep it confidential and that information could be used to augment health care.
“Providers and our leaders need to make sure that everyone who needs help is getting it, and discrimination won’t be tolerated,” Tobin said. “Though it may take much longer than it should, we need to ensure going forward that LGBTQ-inclusive demographic data is included in all our health surveillance and electronic health record systems, that this information is voluntary and confidential, and that it’s used to improve access and quality of care.”
The departments of health for New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia didn’t respond to the Blade’s request to comment, and the California Department of Health referred the Blade to a page on its website showing the information state officials record for COVID-19. (It doesn’t include whether patients identify as LGBTQ.)
Emphasizing changing forms to include LGBTQ questions amid a pandemic may not be realistic, Tobin cited several examples for why they would have been useful, including finding out whether LGBTQ people have particular health vulnerabilities and the right way to tailor public health messages.
“The health care system runs on data,” Tobin said. “Collecting information in patient records helps promote honest communication between patients and staff to make sure their health needs and concerns are addressed. It helps us determine whether certain populations are seeking or receiving specific services at different rates, or having different outcomes.”
The lack of data collection on whether coronavirus patients identify as LGBTQ appears to be the result of a general practice as well as the official CDC form specific for COVID-19 data collection, which doesn’t include questions seeking to identify whether a patient is LGBTQ.
The CDC form seeks to obtain information on patients who tested positive for COVID-19 based on age, sex and ethnicity, but no where does it ask their sexual orientation.
For the query on sex, the form allows states to record the patient’s answer as “male,” “female,” “none,” or “other.” Although those options provide some flexibility to patients who are non-binary, it doesn’t explicitly seek to ascertain whether a COVID-19 patient is transgender.
The Centers for Disease Control didn’t respond to multiple requests from the Blade on whether it has information on COVID-19’s impact on LGBTQ people, nor why its data collection survey doesn’t ask patients if they identify as LGBTQ.
Tobin said she’s optimistic about seeing more LGBTQ demographic data in health surveys in the future, but recognized the current reality.
“For now, we know that the virus doesn’t care about gender, but that having physical vulnerabilities, a high-risk job, no paid leave, smoking, lacking safe housing, or living in an institutional setting (such as a shelter, jail, or nursing home) all put you at greater risk,” Tobin said. “Trans people, on average, are more likely to experience each one of these risk factors.”
States and the CDC aren’t collecting data on whether COVID-19 patients identify as LGBTQ despite a recent joint letter declaring LGBTQ people would be vulnerable to the epidemic.
More than 150 advocates warned LGBTQ people would be disproportionately affected by the coronavirus because they smoke and suffer from cancer at higher rates; have high reported rates of discrimination in the health care system; and are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS.
(However, Dr. Susan Henn, chief medical officer for the D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Health, has told the Blade for people with well-managed HIV, the increased risk would only be “very slight.”)
The letter takes note ensuring “surveillance efforts capture sexual orientation and gender identity as part of routine demographics” would be a crucial goal to achieve in serving LGBTQ people during the COVID-19 epidemic.
Dr. Scott Nass, president of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality and a Palm Springs, Calif.-based family physician, said LGBTQ advocates will continue to beat the drum for LGBTQ inclusion in health surveys despite states declining to do that during the coronavirus crisis.
“GLMA has long advocated for data collection inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity as central to ensuring the health and well-being of LGBTQ people,” Nass said. “Given the potential risk factors for LGBTQ individuals, inclusive data collection at federal and state levels may reveal important and life-saving data about the coronavirus and LGBTQ people and that’s exactly why GLMA, the National LGBTQ Cancer Network and more than 150 organizations called for data inclusion in our open letter on COVID-19 and LGBTQ communities.”
The Department of Health & Human Services added a question on sexual orientation to the National Health Interview Survey, the principal source of information on the health of the U.S. population. Although the administration was sluggish to add questions on transgender status, the Obama administration eventually allowed states to ask both sexual orientation and gender identity questions on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, or BRFSS, if they so choose.
Scout said allowing states to include the LGBTQ questions on health surveys “has actually proven unexpectedly strong as political winds shifted” and now around 35 states made the inquiry on BRFSS, but “that’s still not full U.S. data.”
“Collecting SOGI data on electronic health records is rare as hens teeth,” Scout said. “This leaves us with all of our health issues masked for anything that is reliant on real time or end stage disease reporting (save HIV which has a separate system). Thus, in a time like today, we will only be able to measure which LGBTQ people had COVID years after the fact through self-report of people who have survived and happen to live in a state that collects SOGI on their BRFSS, and then only if BRFSS coordinators decide to add a COVID question.”
An asylum seeker from Ghana who said he was attacked by a mob led by his father because of his sexuality has shown a valid fear of persecution, a U.S. appeals case said in a case argued by two law students.
The petitioner, a gay man in his late 20s from Accra, said he had a secret relationship with a friend from his Muslim school days when his father found out in 2016 and flew into a rage. He said he was beaten, doused with kerosene and threatened with being beheaded before escaping, naked and bleeding.
He later made his way to the U.S., where immigration judges rejected his case, in part because it involved only a single attack. The initial judge suggested he could avoid further prosecution back home if he kept his sexuality a secret, according to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.
Same-sex male relationships are misdemeanors in Ghana and can bring up to three years in prison, the ruling said. The Associated Press is not naming the petitioner at the request of his lawyer, Adrian Roe of Pittsburgh, who fears for his client’s safety if he is deported and hopes to have his name redacted from court records.
“(He) was threatened with death by fire or decapitation while being assaulted, doused with fuel and exposed to a cutlass. All that was left for the mob to do was to cut off his head or set him on fire,” U.S. Circuit Judge L. Felipe Restrepo wrote in directing the immigration court to reconsider the claim.
The case was argued last year by then-students Paige Beddow and Scott A. Cain of the Immigration Law Clinic at West Virginia University College of Law. Justice Department lawyers in Washington, who opposed the asylum bid, did not immediately return a message left Tuesday with the press office.
“The government was arguing that one (attack) does not create a significant incident, or does not constitute past persecution. And the court said that one incident can be enough,” Roe said.
Sonoma County residents and businesses must continue to follow a shelter-at-home order through at least May 3, with new provisions that allow rebuilding efforts from wildfires to continue but otherwise bar all but the most essential construction work while shutting down short-term vacation rentals and strengthening social distancing requirements on businesses allowed to remain open.
The new, extended order, issued late Tuesday by the county’s health officer, Dr. Sundari Mase, came in the wake of an announcement that schools statewide were unlikely to reopen classrooms this instructional year, forestalling a return to campus for nearly 70,000 local K-12 students.
The move also comes amid a new breakdown of Sonoma County cases on Tuesday showing that two children are among the 85 people who have tested positive for the coronavirus, which can cause a serious respiratory disease. Information on the children’s condition, including whether they had been hospitalized, was not immediately available.
The breakdown Tuesday night showed 17 local virus patients in hospital care, 61 not hospitalized, and the care of an additional seven unknown. Only one death, a man in his 60s, has been reported.
The extended order to stay home aligns Sonoma County with at least seven other Bay Area counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo and Solano — that moved to extend their orders this week. Napa County had yet to announce its plans late Tuesday while the statewide order handed down by Gov. Gavin Newsom has no set end date.
All of us at The Spahr Center hope you are taking good care of yourselves and loved ones, and that you remain healthy! If there is anything we can do to help you get through this, please be in touch at info@thespahrcenter.org or call me at 415.886.8551. Let me begin by acknowledging our mighty team, my deep respect and appreciation go out to the entire staff of The Spahr Center. I shouldn’t be surprised at the way in which they have risen to the occasion with creativity, commitment and even more hard work. But I am sure grateful. We want all of you to know that our work definitely continues here at The Spahr Center. In order to minimize physical contact between all individuals, staff is working remotely during the shelter in place. Services for clients are by appointment only at 415-457-2487
Programs and Services Updates
Leandro, Case Management Assistant, is phoning all of our 220 HIV-positive clients to check-in on them and assess their needs so the rest of our awesome HIV services team (Leslie, David, and Maria) can take care of those needs. Our food pantry continues to be stocked and is operational; however, to further minimize person-to-person contact we will either make a delivery to you at home or fill a bag for you to pick-up in our lobby. Please contact us to get set up with a delivery or to make arrangements for a pick-up. Andy and Rhiannon on our Harm Reduction team have implemented new policies and procedures at our syringe access sites to assure the safety of all staff, volunteers and clients. We are pleased the County agrees that our lifesaving harm reduction services are an essential service that must continue providing clean syringes, safe injection supplies, as well as Naloxone (Narcan). Fel, our LGBTQ Youth Program Coordinator, is maintaining close contact with, and organizing virtual gatherings for, our queer youth in an effort to keep them connected to each other and their community. This connection is especially important for youth whose experiences of rejection at home and challenges with self-esteem are being exacerbated as a result of being home 24/7. Nancy Flaxman, LGBT Senior Discussion Group Facilitator has called all of the discussion group participants to check in, assess needs, and arrange to have others be in touch to prevent isolation. I am happy to announce that we were able to let Nancy return to retirement as Bill Blackburn comes aboard as our Interim Senior Program Coordinator to expand our services in this area. Our Mental Health team, Deb, Debbie and Ari are expanding our capacity to offer individual therapy to all of our clients as a result of increased funding for our mental health services.
Lastly, some fantastic news – our own Jane Spahr has been elected Community Grand Marshall of the 2020 San Francisco Pride Parade & Celebration! Thank you to everyone who voted to make sure she received this great honor. We obviously had great voter turnout from Janie’s massive family of admirers! I watched Jane’s remarkable leadership and achievements from across the bridge during my San Francisco-based career – a beacon of light coming from Marin County. It was so clear what a powerful force for good she was in the world; making certain that LGBTQ+ people in Marin are respected and thriving, that the county’s response to HIV/AIDS is comprehensive and effective, and leading advocacy to insist that Christian institutions be more Christian. Very recently, Jane has also helped to open Trans Heartline, a home in San Anselmo that welcomes transgender people post-surgery and supports their recovery. I only had the joy of meeting Jane upon joining the staff of The Spahr Center, and I feel more whole with her warm and encouraging presence in my life. I thank her for all of the support she has provided as we strengthen the work of this agency. Today we acutely feel the need for compassionate, courageous and visionary leadership – the kind that is only second nature for Jane (for President)!
People have been great about sending me interesting things that I thought would be good to share with others. Hopefully you’re not inundated. Here are a few:
This astronaut spent a year in space, here are his tips on thriving and surviving in isolation!
Are you sure you’re washing your hands well? Check out this video!
Opera fan? You’re in luck! The Met is streaming a different encore presentation from the company’s Live in HD series each night. Each performance will be available for a period of 23 hours, from 7:30 p.m. EDT until 6:30 p.m. the following day.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is live streaming videos of of some of their best attractions! From coral reefs to kelp forests, and don’t forget to check out the shark habitat.
What a great time to practice yoga, with our very own Janna Barkin! Join her on Facebook live at 12:30 pm Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or find her teaching at YogaWorks Live.
Here is a great list of things to do online – somewhat youth focused, but we’re all young at heart!
I want to express our deep gratitude to BioMarin, which has very generously become a Visionary Sponsor of The Spahr Center’s 5th Anniversary celebration. Enormous gratitude to the LGBTQ+ employee group at the company for this exciting partnership. Finally, we will have news on the status of our May 31 fundraising event and Pride Picnic soon! Our warmest regards. Once again, do not hesitate to be in touch if there is something we can help with, or if you have questions and comments. We will conquer this, together! Dana Van Gorder
Want to know which California counties are evidently not doing a very good job of obeying the statewide shelter-in-place order that has been in effect for over a week now?
The data company Unacast, a firm that collects cell phone location data for private companies, created an interactive map that shows which counties in California and beyond are correctly “socially distancing” by staying at home.
Each county and state is graded on an A-F basis on the “change in average mobility,” or the decline in distance traveled since quarantine measures were first put in place.
“To calculate the actual underlying social indexing score we combine tens of millions of anonymous mobile phones and their interactions with each other each day – and then extrapolate the results to the population level,” Unacast writes in its methodology.
While it is somewhat unnerving to know we’re being unwittingly tracked at all times, the data is useful in providing a picture of social distancing at work.
The state of California received an “A” grade overall thanks to a 40 percent decline in average distanced traveled, but several counties — all in rural areas with few reported cases — have actually logged an increase in distance traveled since the shelter-in-place order was issued. However, this could be partially explained by the fact that residents of these counties have to drive further to reach grocery stores, restaurants for takeout and other essential services.
Every Bay Area county with the exception of Solano County received an “A” grade, and the region’s numbers for reductions in average distance traveled is in line with other national hot spots including New York City and New Orleans. Here are the nine Bay Area counties ranked in order of “best at social distancing” to worst:
The number of anti-LGBTQ hate groups soared 43 percent last year, rising from 49 groups in 2018 to 70 in 2019, according to a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Groups that vilify the LGBTQ community, in fact, represented the fastest-growing sector among hate groups in 2019,” the report states. The SPLC found the surge in anti-LGBTQ groups occurred amid an overall decrease in hate groups last year, which dropped to 940 from an all-time high of 1,020 in 2018.
The report said the surge was “possibly fueled by continued anti-LGBTQ sentiment and policy emanating from government officials,” largely attributing it to the Trump administration.
“Anti-LGBTQ groups have become intertwined with the Trump administration, and — after years of civil rights progress and growing acceptance among the broader American public — anti-LGBTQ sentiment within the Republican Party is rising,” the report states. “Though Trump promised during his campaign to be a ‘real friend’ to the LGBTQ community, he has fully embraced anti-LGBTQ hate groups and their agenda of dismantling federal protections and resources for LGBTQ people.”
Then Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a rainbow flag given to him by a supporter during a campaign rally at the University of Northern Colorado on Oct. 30, 2016 in Greeley, Colo.Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images file
In a statement sent to NBC News, White House spokesman Judd Deere called SPLC a “far-left smear organization” and said its “comments are disgusting.” He also pointed to the president’s track record on LGBTQ issues, saying Trump has “fought for inclusion and repeatedly condemned hate and violence.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as “an organization that — based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities — has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.”
Most of the growth in new anti-LGBTQ hate groups, SPLC’s report found, comes from grassroots churches.
One example is the expansion in the network of churches run by Steven Anderson. Anderson runs Faithful World Baptist Church, in Tempe, Arizona, which has been listed as a hate group by the SPLC for some time. The church, according to its website, believes “homosexuality is a sin and an abomination which God punishes with the death penalty.”
Faithful World Baptist Church did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
Many of the 70 “anti-LGBTQ hate groups” in SPLC’s report are well established.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins at the 2017 Value Voters Summit on Oct. 13, 2017 in Washington.Evan Vucci / AP file
One of the best known is the Family Research Council, which was founded in 1983 and hosts the annual Value Voters Summit for conservative politicians and thousands of participants each year. At last year’s summit, President Donald Trump repeated his opposition to the Equality Act, a bill passed by the House that would extend federal nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQ people.
Lecia Brooks, an SPLC spokesperson, told NBC News that the council’s long-time president, Tony Perkins, has been granted “unfettered access” to the Trump administration. Notably, Perkins was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Following Perkins’ appointment to the independent, bipartisan commission, the national LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD compiled a list of more than 30 examples of Perkins’ and FRC’s opposition to the rights of LGBTQ people in the U.S. and abroad. Among those examples are a comparison of same-sex marriage to a marriage between “a man and his horse”; calling the “It Gets Better” project, an initiative designed to help LGBTQ young people cope with bullying and marginalization, “disgusting” and a “concerted effort” to recruit kids into the gay “lifestyle”; and claiming that the “blood” of “young Marines” would be on the hands of lawmakers who voted to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
The Family Research Council did not respond to a request for comment.
Another “anti-LGBTQ hate group” named in the report is the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group with attorneys across the country and a long track record of litigating against LGBTQ rights.
In a lawsuit that made national headlines last year, ADF represented Jack Phillips, a Christian baker who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding, in a narrow victory at the Supreme Court. ADF is also involved in another Supreme Court case dealing with LGBTQ workers rights, representing a Detroit funeral home that fired an employee after she informed the home that she was undergoing a gender transition. Among its non-Supreme Court cases, ADF is currently representing three athletes in a suit against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which adopted a policy allowing transgender girls to compete in interscholastic sports with cisgender high school girls.
Jeremy Tedesco, ADF’s senior counsel and vice president of U.S. advocacy, slammed the Southern Poverty Law Center and the timing of its new report, which was released March 18.
“It is appalling that the Southern Poverty Law Center would choose this time of national emergency to launch their divisive and false ‘hate report,’” Tedesco told NBC News. “We call on SPLC to retract the report, stop sowing division and join the rest of America against our common foe: COVID-19.”
Brooks dismissed criticisms of SPLC releasing its annual report during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Fighting hate is something we have to keep at the forefront of our minds,” she said. “They don’t take a break, and we don’t take a break either.”
Westboro Baptist Church, known for its public protests that consistently feature signs with homophobic messages like “God Hates Fags,” also appears on the SPLC’s list. In 2019, the grouppicketed Morehouse College and Spelman College after the two historically black, single-sex institutions changed their admissions policy to include transgender students.
Jonathan Phelps, a spokesperson for the church, told NBC News that the SPLC is “not being honest” in their characterization of the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group.
“We don’t discriminate. Whatever your favorite sin is, if you ask us about it we are going to articulate in the plainest language possible what the Lord Jesus Christ has said about it,” he said. Regarding homosexuality, “it is an abomination,” Phelps added.
Brooks said SPLC stands by its “hate group” designations and dismissed criticisms that the organization disproportionately focuses on religious groups.
“We are not against Christian groups,” Brooks said. “For us, it’s more about the way they go out of their way to demonize LGBTQ folks.”
Brooks also lamented the lack of public pushback against many of these groups.
“Sadly, there is not enough public outcry against anti-LGBTQ groups because we have just let it go saying, ‘That’s just their religion,’” she said.
History of ‘anti-LGBTQ hate’
The SPLC has been tracking the number of hate groups in the United States since 1990, but the anti-LGBTQ movement emerged decades before.
“Along the same lines that you see today, they put forward stereotypes and vilify, especially gay men, as predators and predators of children, and use that to justify the tactics of taking rights way from LGBTQ people,” Fetner explained.
Fetner cited as an early example the activism of Anita Bryant in Florida. The singer-turned-anti-gay-activist was behind the “Save Our Children” campaign, which in 1977 helped overturn a newly passed local ordinance in Miami-Dade County that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing and public services.
“It caught on with socially conservative evangelical communities, and sort of blossomed and became the lead issue of the Religious Right,” Fetner said.
The late 1970s also saw the emergence of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, a political action group that wielded significant influence in the Republican Party. Fetner said Falwell realized early on that raising issues of sexuality was both “titillating and scandalous” enough to prompt followers to make sizable donations to his organization.
“The Religious Right really inserted itself into the Republican Party in the ‘80s and ‘90s and has had an influence in American politics ever since,” she added. However, Fetner said the movement began to decline in the 1990s.
“Young evangelicals weren’t as interested in anti-gay activism as the older folks,” she said. At the same time, acceptance of homosexuality was on the rise in the U.S., across all segments of the population. “People were actually changing their minds.”
By the early 2000s, the U.S. reached a tipping point for acceptance of homosexuality, according to a Pew study, and by 2016, LGBTQ advocates had solidified many civil rights gains, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Why are we seeing a surge?
So, what changed?
“Trump’s embrace of these groups, their leaders and their policy agenda fuels this growth,” Brooks said of the rise in “anti-LGBTQ hate groups.”
The report points to significant staffing and policy choices by the Trump administration that reflect the position of organizations on the SPLC’s growing anti-LGBTQ list.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has rolled back several protections for LGBTQ people through executive orders, includingnondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ workers employed by federal contractors.
“The administration has consistently claimed that laws and regulations that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex do not apply to LGBTQ people and has worked to install religious exemptions to civil rights laws,” the report states.
In addition, nearly one third of the administration’s judicial nominees boast anti-LGBTQ track records, according to a report by Lambda Legal.
“Religious conservatives have taken this as an opportunity to push back on any civil rights gains LGBTQ folks have made,” Brooks said. “They couch it in ‘religious freedom,’” she added.
“I think that anti-gay activism is swept up as part of this new social embrace of intolerance and right-wing attitudes of all kinds,” Fetner said.
“People are disgruntled, going online, getting misinformation and getting radicalized,” she added. “Some portion of these people are joining new organizations or new churches.”
Fetner sees the Trump administration is both the outcome of this broader phenomenon, and a catalyst for increased anti-LGBTQ activism.
“Trump’s win was a signal to these larger social forces that this is their moment,” she said.
What’s the impact?
Anti-LGBTQ groups have a significant impact on policy outcomes, social violence and the priorities of LGBTQ advocacy organizations, according to civil rights advocates and scholars.
“Extremist ideas long believed outside of the realm of legitimate politics are penetrating deeply into the mainstream, spawning public policies that target immigrants, LGBTQ people and Muslims,” the report states.
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said this “pattern of escalating attacks has put the LGBT movement on the defensive” and caused advocacy groups to invest a “tremendous amount of resources to deal with these attacks.”
Fetner said most LGBTQ advocacy groups are funded at “a fraction of the Religious Right groups that were proposing these initiatives.” She said that means they’re “sucked into these battles where their very right to exist is on the table again,” and they’re “putting out fires that have been started by better resourced organizations.”
The SPLC report and LGBTQ advocates also connect the surge in “anti-LGBTQ hate groups” to violence against LGBTQ people.
The FBI’s most recent Hate Crime Statistics report, released in November, found nearly 20 percent of all reported hate crimes in 2018 were motivated by anti-LGBTQ bias. While reported anti-LGBTQ hate crimes grew from 2017 to 2018, the most growth was seen in reports of anti-trans violence, which increased 34 percent year-over-year.
“I don’t think the anti-LGBTQ movement will win, but the damage they can do along the way is substantial,” Fetner said. Despite this, she remains optimistic, saying, “The LGBTQ movement will carry on and will come out of it stronger.”
Idaho Governor Brad Little Monday evening signed into law two bills that place new restrictions on transgender individuals in the state. The first of the two bills the Republican governor signed targets a transgender person’s ability to request a birth certificate change.
Under the new law, transgender individuals will no longer be able to change their listed sex on their official birth certificates and the certificate can only be amended within a single year of its initial filing. After that year has expired, the only grounds on which the certificate could be changed would be “fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact.”
The second transgender-related bill Little signed Monday bans transgender woman and girls from participating in women’s sports sponsored by public schools, colleges and universities.
