Opinions

/ /

Trans community demands lawmakers end onslaught of attacks

 enjoy living in Kansas. Specifically, Lawrence, Kansas, where I can attend a watercolor painting class at the local plant shop on Wednesday, the weekly drag show on Thursday, and a vintage clothing pop-up on Friday. But despite the beauty of the rolling Flint Hills, there is something ugly happening in the place I call home. Growing hostility towards the transgender and non-binary community is being codified through policies and perpetuated through violence that threatens our basic human rights. 

Rights activists see such rollbacks of hard-fought progress spreading across the US, and we’re bracing for new attacks that will test the country’s purported commitment to equality. The fight is the most grueling for those of us who are from Black and other marginalized communities. 

In the last year, violence claimed the lives of at least 25 transgender and gender non-conforming people in the US, with violence disproportionately affecting Black transgender women. These numbers are most likely underrepresented, as attacks against the LGBTQ+ community often go undocumented.

Black and Brown trans people should be able to live as their most authentic self without fear of transphobic violence and discrimination. 

To add to the growing animus, some states chose to attack transgender rights through legislation rather than protect them. This past June, the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, declared a state of emergency after more than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in 41 states. Hundreds of these bills specifically targeted transgender people. 

Some of these anti-LGBTQ+ bills would limit the ability to update gender information on identity documents like driver’s licenses and birth certificates, weaken nondiscrimination laws and protections in employment, and restrict free speech and expression through book and drag performance bans. State bills also attempt to restrict access to medically necessary health care including bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth, prohibit access to public accommodations like public bathrooms, and prevent trans students from participating in school activities like sports. While introducing a bill doesn’t mean it will pass, 84 of these draconian measures made it out of committee and have been signed into law.

Even the introduction of these bills perpetuates harmful stigmas and allows misinformation to spread. I have witnessed how harmful the introduction of these bills has been on members of the trans community I am a part of. In Kansas, 14 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced and four were passed into law in the last legislative session. During that time, my trans friends and peers pleaded with conservative lawmakers to respect their dignity and protect their autonomy over their own bodies. Medical experts testified that the mere act of introducing these bills causes great harm to the mental health of transgender people across the state.

One bill, misnamed the Women’s Bill of Rights though it limits protections for transgender women, passed and went into effect on July 1st.  In response, LGBTQ+ activists in Lawrence refused to rest until the City Commission enacted a sanctuary city ordinance, increasing protections for trans people. Despite the immense fear transgender people were feeling in this moment, their message rang loud and clear: LGBTQ+ people have the right to live without fear, and we are not going anywhere.

Make no mistake, allowing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation to be passed sends a message that legitimizes homophobic and transphobic sentiment.  

There are some hopeful signs. Legislation to outlaw the LGBTQ+ panic defense was introduced in nine states as well as in the US House and Senate this year. Under that defense, people charged with violent crime against LGBTQ+ people can get a reduced sentence or evade criminal liability by stating that the victim’s real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity prompted the violent act. 

As violence against the LGBTQ+ community continues to increase, it is important now more than ever for lawmakers in statehouses across the country and for the federal government to strengthen protections for trans people and especially for the most vulnerable members of this community—Black and Brown trans women. Lawmakers should be recognizing and protecting LGBTQ+ people’s equal dignity under the law. Legislators should support active efforts to quell discrimination, like Kansas’s HB 2178, and codify LGBTQ+ protections. The US Government should also meet its human rights obligations to respond to foreseeable threats to life and bodily integrity, and to address patterns of violence targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

While activists continue to fight for LGBTQ+ liberation, I am reminded to celebrate the small wins. I remain hopeful when I see young LGBTQ+ people organizing and exercising their right to protest in the name of egalitarianism.  They remind me that pride is not something solely limited to the month of June, but a badge of honor we always carry with us.

*****************************************************************************************

Bria Nelson is a Researcher and Advocate on Racial Justice and Equity Issues with the Human Rights Watch U.S. Program.  Bria is an attorney and concentrates their research on racial justice and equity issues across the U.S., with a particular focus on reparations for enslavement and its legacies. 

As a movement lawyer, Bria has also worked to mobilize response and advocacy after the public murder of George Floyd, including undergoing an intensive fellowship training program with Law for Black Lives, an organization focused on grounding movements in Black queer feminism, abolition, and anticapitalism.

/ /

Banning books: The greatest scheme to get kids to read again

Don’t touch that hot stove! Don’t pull the dog’s tail! Don’t say bad words! Tell a kid that they can’t do something and what’s the normal response? Do it. Why? Because your parents, the commanders of your universe, told you not to not to do it (which is the simultaneous birthplace of both your curiosity and independence). Don’t they remember being a kid — and that delicious wanting to know what’s on the other side of “Don’t?”

One of my greatest joys as an author is to inspire kids to read. Books were my curiosity creators and my independence days, dreaming up entire universes of imagination and possibility, all within this hand-held, human-made wonder.

But being told “Don’t read that book.” Or better yet, ban it. Huh? Why?

You — the book banners of the world— have now unleashed one of the oldest unintentional human marketing schemes since the dawn of kids. The “Don’t.” You have done the one thing you can’t do to kids — make something mysterious or forbidden. And now they want to read the book you have banned. I’m sure this was not your intention but, nonetheless, you have unleashed the good intentions behind the power of “Don’t.” Because if the book you’re banning contains forbidden or mysterious information that adults don’t want you to read, it must be worth reading. Taboo sells.

So, to all book banners, thank you.

Banning books? The Greatest Marketing Scheme to get Kids to Read Books Again . . .

Book banners: You are now in the marketing business. Your motto should be, “Books your parents don’t want you to read.” Brilliant. That will seal the deal. Why did “1984” become a bestseller again? Because it was banned again.

And all those obscure books you’re ferreting out to ban? Now you’re really helping to put them on the map, and even making them bestsellers again. Some are books that maybe a few kids might have read, if at all. Now kids — and parents — want to read them because you say not to read them. Brilliant marketing and marvelous adult logic.

The 10-Million Pound Elephant in the Room is the Internet. If you’re scared of the books in the library, you should be horrified at the Internet. You think that banning books about identity, sexuality, racism, slavery, or finger painting is going to stop a kid from wanting to know — if they want to know more? Nope. Now they can turn to your worst nightmare — the Internet. Because most likely what they’ll encounter on the web is absolutely everything you don’t want them to see or hear in the most graphic ways you can and can’t imagine. If nature abhors a vacuum, then curiosity abhors knowledge that’s locked up.

By banning a book, you are choosing to decide my own — and everyone else’s — reading destiny. Freedom is not about taking one’s choice away. It’s about allowing more choices. It’s trusting us to figure it out all on our very own. And the liberty to choose what to read — or not.

Taking away a book that’s offensive offends me. Books are easy to bully. You can find anything in any book you want to be offended by and that’s the ultimate slippery slope of book banning. Heck, you can even be offended by “The Cat in the Hat” or “Winnie the Pooh” if you’re so inclined. But fundamentally when you ban a book, you take away my freedom to be offended by something I may want to read — or not. And that’s offensive.

What are we teaching our kids? Fear. Fear is what we teach our kids when we don’t want them to know. Banning books is about banning knowledge. And when we don’t trust them with knowledge, we lose our ability — and respect to talk. Because fear loves secrecy. It thrives on lack of communication — the worst thing you can do with kids who are trying to figure out the world. It’s so much better to talk with them about ideas that they’re curious about because they’ll find out anyway — and maybe not in a responsible, mature way.

What should we teach our kids? Trust. Let’s trust our kids to explore. To be curious. And give them the freedom to be curious. That’s the most powerful form of liberty for kids.

Our job as parents is to teach our kids where knowledge fits into their world. How to question it and how to use it — or not use it. The freedom to learn, to question, to comprehend, to converse, and to do it over and over again is one of the greatest legacies that books continue to give the world, and nobody can take that liberty and legacy away from us.

Carew Papritz is the award-winning author of the bestselling inspirational book, ‘The Legacy Letters.’ Through his innovative literacy efforts to inspire kids to read, Papriz has created the ‘I Love to Read’ and ‘First-Ever Book Signings’ through his ‘CarewTube’ video series.

/ /

Organizing in a Time of Anxiety: Taking Inspiration From the Gay Men’s Health Crisis

We often feel duty-bound to tackle everything from a worsening climate catastrophe to systemic racism, economic inequality, global humanitarian crises, public health emergencies, rampant corporate greed and the potential threat of authoritarianism, just to name a few. It can be not only daunting, but also downright exhausting to face the challenges inherent in fighting for a more just and peaceful world.

At the same time, we’re organizers precisely because we want to make progress on intractable problems, and we know the solutions lie in the communities more directly impacted. In the midst of moments that feel hopeless – where it’s easy to slip into despair or inaction – we can instead use proven tools to spark action.

So, where to begin? It often takes multiple, aligned strategies to win meaningful change, and, as we point out in our book, Practical Radicals, context matters when you’re considering the best strategies to advance your vision. While some organizers may need to stop and take a bigger, long-term view before launching their efforts, others might need to hit the ground running to begin building a deep and diverse base of supporters. Drawing on our combined six decades of experience in movement building and organizing for progressive causes, we wrote our book to offer organizers some guidance in this fraught moment and to help them identify the strategies they need to win. Along the way, we dive into approaches used by dozens of other organizers past and present to show why strategy is vital to building and sustaining any movement for change. 

One of the efforts we zeroed in on can be summed up as “how people make change when things are as terrible as they can be.” The Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) was founded in 1982 as the AIDS crisis had begun to devastate gay communities from New York to San Francisco and everywhere in between. GMHC exemplifies the strategy for social change we call collective care: efforts by an oppressed group to meet its own needs for survival and safety, often when the state fails to meet urgent human needs.

GMHC focused on education on HIV and prevention, supportive care for those who were sick and policy advocacy – work that ultimately laid the foundation for the emergence of more militant action later. Volunteers led and created an astonishing array of programs including GMHC’s signature “buddy program” where ten thousand volunteers were placed with total strangers in their homes to provide practical daily help, compassionate care and emotional support. 

GMHC built trust, took risks and built care infrastructure with a political goal in mind: ending the AIDS crisis and uprooting homophobia. They rooted their policy advocacy in the experience of the people they were serving, as former volunteer-turned-leader David Hansell told us. GMHC moved the ball forward in ways that the movement’s direct action side couldn’t, but a collective-care group could. An example is how GMHC built bridges to important stakeholders like leaders in the Catholic Church who – despite their appalling hostility toward gay communities during the crisis – were critical to passing policies to support people with AIDS and could be won over on a tactical basis. 

As former GMHC executive director Tim Sweeney said, “We bent the arc of the pandemic. We changed it. We didn’t bring an end to it, unfortunately, which is what our goal was, but we definitely saved millions of people.”

Collective care is a vastly underappreciated but essential element for social change movements. It strengthens solidarity by building trust and relationships that can be harnessed for political action. When care is embedded in the culture of an organization, it increases the capacity of ordinary people to engage in struggle and of organizers to stay in the movement for the long term. 

Collective care strategies, like disruptive movements, often emerge as a response to crises and tragedies, particularly when governments are failing to meet the moment. When it feels like the world is ending, as it did for queer people in the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, sometimes the only thing you can do is turn toward each other and care for one another. In such circumstances, collective care can be a form of both survival and strategy. 

And we know change doesn’t happen overnight. Like so many movements for transformative change, the AIDS crisis presented upsurges of intense activity between slow periods of frustration and even defeat. Landmark AIDS legislation wasn’t passed until 1990, eight years after GMHC’s founding, and there was still important work left to do. Movements need stamina, which is where care becomes not only helpful but also essential to staying in the fight.

This is all why you see elements of collective care strategies present in many different organizing lineages, including parts of the Black radical tradition, mutual aid, feminism, disability justice, labor, environmental, immigrant rights, and Indigenous traditions. And it operates alongside other, important strategies to win, like changing the narrative and engaging in disruptive action.

GMHC is emblematic of many movements for change that show that, even amidst periods of rage and despair, the world is full of generosity and kindness. By looking back, we can find the inspiration to move forward. Our movement ancestors show us that there is always a strategic and humane response available to us, even in the darkest times. They rose to the challenge of taking care of one another and our shared planet in circumstances even more challenging than we face today.

In the spirit of that history, every organizer needs to be rooted in lineage. You can find strength in generations of organizers who left us tools and strategies – including, notably, how to build and care in dark times – that we can renew and adapt to change the world.

/ /

Watching the Armageddon of the House GOP and Speaker Johnson

I was speaking to a friend of mine recently about the preposterous nonsense going on with House Republicans and their inability to elect a speaker. “They need to find someone who only has six months to live. They will get the sympathy vote, and they’ll have an out when that person dies,” he joked.

“They already tried that, to a degree,” I answered, in a more serious tone. “Steve Scalise is being treated for blood cancer, and he didn’t get an ounce of sympathy, so he pulled out of the speaker’s race instead of making himself sicker.” (As a side note of concern, Scalise isn’t dying, and I hope he makes a speedy recovery.).

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy failed 14 times in January, winning — or losing, if you really think about it — on the 15th try. When the extremists dumped McCarthy, Scalise put his name up and won the chance to run, but didn’t even bother to try since he knew he was doomed. 

That allowed the horridly obtuse Rep. Jim Jordan to put his name forward. He lost three times — I think all those years of wrestling, boxed ears, and abuse allegations, made him immune to the word “no.”

If anyone would know the meaning of “no,” or “NO,” in this case, it would be Jordan. Former Republican House Speaker John Boehner called him a “legislative terrorist,” meaning that he said no to legislation instead of trying to find compromise and agreement. In fact, during his over 10-year tenure in the House, he’s never had one bill signed into law. How do you even consider someone as speaker who has zero, none, zilch success legislating? 

And soaring rhetoric, like Jimmy Stewart’s in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, is not Jordan’s forte. His diatribes are deliriously diabolical. More like Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. As a matter of fact, the whole caucus is cuckoo.

I spoke to California Rep. Zoe Lofgren last week, and she told me that one Republican told her if Jordan were to become speaker, there would only be 165 Republican votes in the next Congress. It’s hard to see, with no speaker and no results except shutdowns, and letting terrorists and tyrants win, how the party could even reach 165.

Call them whatever you want, lugheads, knuckleheads, dysfunctional, morons, numbskulls, or as Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat, told me during a recent Zoom call, dopes and jagoffs (that latter being a Pittsburgh vernacular). House Republicans defy explanation, defy description, and are defying every conceivable sense of reasoning. 

I hear people liken their insanity, and the Republicans’ inability to govern, to the films Groundhog Day, Dumber and Dumber, No Way Out, and Idiocracy. But none of them are sufficient. It’s more like Godzilla. Donald Trump, a.k.a. Godzilla, like everything else he touches, turned the House into a scary torture chamber, with bullying threats and “F*CK OFF’s” not toward Democrats, but among Republicans themselves. They are from the Hatfields & McCoys – a comparable television show — who are battling each within the Republican caucus. 

Godzilla is also analogous because there have been 29 sequels in that franchise. The House Republican horror movie, if you count the speaker votes and near-miss government shutdown, is at 19, with more two-thumbs-down installments ahead by these bumbling idiots.

What will this mean for the House Republicans’ new, albeit most likely brief, Speaker Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson? Who is Mike Johnson? Exactly! He was the former chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House. He was on Trump’s legal team during one of his impeachments. He voted not to certify the 2020 election. The New York Times called him one of the leading architects of the phony electoral college scheme.

He is rabidly pro-life. He is against funding for Ukraine. And antigay. He’s the House’s version of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, sponsoring a bill to deny funding for educational institutions that “say gay” to children under 10. He is an evangelical Christian — nothing wrong with that until there is.

When the media tried questioning Johnson last night about some of these issues where he’s been an “extremist,” North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx kept yelling “shut up,” like telling kids to stay out of her yard. She was particularly harsh to ABC News reporter Rachel Scott who was asking some of the questions. On Good Morning America Wednesday morning when Scott wrapped up her report, anchor Robin Roberts added an unusual commentary, telling Scott, “You had every right to ask your questions.”

The fact people don’t know Johnson is why moderates supported him. Jordan was too much of a firebrand. Nobody except political wonks knew who Johnson was, so the middle-of-the-roaders climbed on board, despite the fact that he is an extremist like Jordan. The moderates won’t be able to hide their support for a man who shuns democracy, feels President Joe Biden should be impeached, and won’t admit that Trump lost the election. Long-time Republican consultant Stuart Stevens said that Johnson was Jordan with a suit coat. In other words, he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The House agreeing to Johnson was a Miracle on 34th Street, but it stops there. Johnson, the victor — or more aptly put, a victim — has an unknown background and an unknown future. What do we really know about this guy? What hope does Johnson have for lasting more than one month? Because now that he’s ascended to the chair, all hell is going to break loose.

The new speaker will immediately be hit with having to make a deal with the devil, in this case Democrats, to pass a 2024 budget or risk a government shutdown. Republican moderates will again be put on the spot and will now be careful not to support anything that looks too extreme. 

Johnson will need to pass a motion even to consider President Biden’s emergency request to fund support for Ukraine and Israel, and humanitarian aid — which he has opposed at time in the case of Ukraine, so there’s a quagmire of epic portions in waiting. All three bills that face the House are humongous pieces of legislation that are doomed from the get-go. If the new speaker cannot get his caucus to agree amongst themselves, agreeing with Democrats is the only remaining option, but an impossibility. Mission: Impossible, without all the thrilling stunts.

It won’t be the least bit thrilling. It will be an epic failure, and we will all pay the consequences. Indeed, there really is No Way Out for the Republican Party and the improbable new speaker, Johnson. And you know what? 

If you think for a minute that a government shutdown will be avoided and that Biden will get his foreign aid funds, you would be sadly mistaken. I hope I’m wrong, but that will all be tangled up in a big mess, and once again, Republicans will be tagged as do nothing.

Frustrated Americans have already had enough of the game Republicans are playing with their inability to elect a speaker. They are fed up, and if a government shutdown occurs, there may be no turning back in the eyes of the electorate. Simply put, House Republicans have used up all of America’s patience on their whack-a-mole Speaker game, so there’s no room for error moving forward, which they won’t be able to do. 

And you can then forget about a Speaker Johnson lasting until the end of the year. If he makes a deal with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to pass a budget, he will be shot down. If he makes a deal to pass Biden’s emergency support for Ukraine and Israel, he will be shot down for that too. Can you imagine House Republicans supporting anything that Biden supports? The new speaker wants Biden impeached, for God’s sake! Republicans don’t care that a vast majority of Americans support Biden’s foreign policy. They just don’t care about anything.

The new, albeit short-lived speaker will be vacated immediately — remember, it only takes one member, or Matt Gaetz, to bring up the motion. And Gaetz could care less that he’s being told to “F**K OFF!” When those klieg lights emanating from television cameras shine on Gaetz, it’s like a drug. He can’t get enough of seeing his name in the headlines — his colleagues be damned!

After the new speaker is vacated, the search for a new Republican speaker will start all over again. A House caucus, divided amongst itself, and leaderless, is impossible to stand. It will sink, in a Poseidon Adventure-esque way. The party will drown in its ineptitude.

Democratic campaign ads about the Republicans descending into a hell pit are already in the can; however, Democratic strategists are going to have to go back and update them, with the extremist Johnson being second in line for the presidency, and with all the travesties that lie ahead.

Which all raises the question, are we watching, in real time, the Armageddon of the Republican Party?

/ /

LGBTQIA+ and progressive communities have a Palestine problem; supporting Israel is not the answer

For 11 excruciating days now, I have been in tears and terrified for the safety of my blind mother, paralyzed father and two siblings in the Gaza Strip. 

For 11 days, I have been watching horrific Israeli violence defying humanity while being fully supported by the U.S. — liberals and conservatives alike — with the stated intent of destroying the lives of more than two million people, including my family and loved ones. This intent and the magnitude of the destruction and loss of life make a textbook example of genocide, defined as: 

Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

  • Killing members of the group;
  • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

On top of the horror of it all, I have watched dehumanizing misinformation about people in the Gaza Strip being spread like wildfire, only to be debunked and proven false. This includes misinformation spread on social media by several LGBTQIA+ individuals in my social circles here in the District — I thought we were friends, until I saw their Instagram posts cheering on Israel’s violence and the threat it poses to my family.

How could they be so quick to judge? How could they be so quick to throw their progressive values out the window and embrace mass murder of women, men and babies — civilians from all walks of life? What goes through their mind when they consciously choose to propagate the wicked and indiscriminate murder of people so casually?

These and a million other questions have been racing through my mind.

Unlike those morally bankrupt people who are using the tragedy unfolding in the region for fleeting validation and personal gain on social media, those of us most impacted by what’s happening are not playing political football and “gotcha” with the lives of our loved ones. We know and recognize that no one in their right mind would relish this violence. In fact, besides the tragic loss of human life, the other tragedy is that this entire situation was preventable, easily and peacefully preventable. Anyone who has been paying attention to the reality of Israel’s brutal military occupation of Palestine — specifically its years-long siege of the Gaza Strip — knows this. 

Yet, here we are, at a bloody juncture because of choices made over the course of decades, including the choices of successive administrations here in the U.S. to support and turn a blind eye to Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights and the apartheid regime it imposes on Palestine.

Sadly, though perhaps unsurprisingly, this context is absent from the content dehumanizing Palestinians that many LGBTQIA+ individuals are thoughtlessly sharing on social media. 

Worse yet, is the knee-jerk reaction of some LGTBQIA+ people to grossly generalize and reduce the tragedy we are witnessing to plainly stupid points such as: Israel has Tel Aviv Pride. Hamas hates gays. I, therefore, stand with Israel. Points like this makes no sense. 

Homophobia in the Gaza Strip, and Palestine generally, is a problem, just like it is a problem in many parts of the U.S. and many countries around the world. It is not a Hamas problem. Meanwhile, the cause of how and why we got to this horrific violence is squarely an Israeli problem: The brutal military occupation and apartheid regime. Just because Israel hosts an annual Pride parade, it does not mean Israel is a haven for LGBTQIA+ people — certainly not for LGBTQIA+ Palestinians, and certainly not when the Israeli government’s own laws regarding LGBTQIA+ matters is mixed at best. After all, Pride parades are not a measure of a country’s human rights record, which in the case of Israel is abysmal when considering its actions toward Palestine. 

LGBTQIA+ posts standing with Israel based on believing in freedom, equality and dignity miss the mark and fail to make any sense when the same freedom, equality, and dignity are not consistently applied and extended to human beings everywhere, including Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The only way such posts could make sense is by completely removing the humanity of Palestinians — a hateful and repugnant offense.

Freedom, equality and dignity are indivisible human rights — they cannot be upheld and protected willy-nilly, unless the intent is to discriminate and dehumanize. One is either for them or against them — there is no middle ground or cherry picking.

So, if you are reading this and have shared content supporting Israel and stripping Palestinians of their humanity over the past 11 days, which can very well harm my family, I ask that you stop and remember, at the end of the day, as LGBTQIA+ people, we know what it’s like to feel unsafe in our own skin, to be stripped of our humanity for no other reason than existing as we are. That’s what Palestinians like me and my family are experiencing now and have been enduring for years and years. 

It is, therefore, incumbent on all of us to make sure that humanity — the same humanity we fight for in the advocacy for our rights and safety as LGBTQIA+ people — prevails so that we can see better days ahead.

Anything less would be a betrayal of our humanity and a blatant display of hypocrisy and warmongering.

If you cannot find it in your heart to simply stop and think before blindly signing up for genocide with an “I stand with Israel” post, your hatred, ignorance and unwillingness are part of the problem that got us to this horrific violence to begin with.

Dorgham Abusalim is a writer and communications professional based in D.C.

/ / / /

STI Rates, Including HIV, Could Spike Due to Medicaid Cuts

We have come a long way from the days when HIV was an almost certain death sentence. But our work is far from over. The COVID-19 pandemic led to an uptick in rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, and low-income communities, LGBTQ+ communities, and communities of color continue to be impacted at alarming and disproportionately high rates.

These communities are also more likely to be served by Medicaid. Medicaid is the largest source of insurance coverage for people living with HIV in the United States, covering an estimated 40 percent of nonelderly adults with HIV, and Medicaid accounted for 45 percent of all federal HIV spending in 2022. During September, Sexual Health Awareness Month, it is worth examining the crucial ways Medicaid works to keep people healthy—and what threatens our progress today.

In recent weeks, we have seen a troubling trend develop. Five million Americans have been removed from Medicaid rolls, and many millions more are on the verge of losing coverage as a result of the Medicaid enrollment cuts. This represents the single greatest threat to our progress toward ending the HIV epidemic in years. 

During the pandemic, Medicaid enrollment grew by an estimated 20 million people, contributing to the uninsured rate dropping to the lowest level on record in early 2022. But, after a three-year period during which states provided continuous enrollment in exchange for enhanced federal funding, some states resumed disenrolling people from Medicaid on April 1. A recent KFF survey found that 17 million people could lose Medicaid coverage as a result of this process, referred to as the Medicaid “unwinding.”

Many states are not doing enough to ensure that Medicaid-eligible residents don’t lose their coverage. While some have been removed from the rolls because they are newly ineligible, procedural issues account for 74 percent of people losing coverage. An unacceptably high number of Florida, Texas, and Virginia residents who are still eligible for Medicaid are losing coverage because of procedural reasons, such as failing to confirm proof of income or household size.

Our goal should be to ensure that no one who qualifies for Medicaid loses their coverage. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) gave states the option to use a 12-month grace period, along with other flexibilities, to prepare for the unwinding and make sure residents had what they needed to recertify. So why are some states so eager to remove their residents from Medicaid rolls?

New York, on the other hand, has made equity a cornerstone of recertification work and provides a template for what states can do to help their residents remain covered. The state maximizes the flexibilities offered by CMS and works directly with providers, health plans, and recipients to minimize procedural disenrollments and ensure that people retain health care coverage, either through Medicaid, the state’s health exchange, or private insurance. New York is among the nation’s top-performing states in terms of call center wait times, call drop rates, and average time it takes to make an eligibility determination, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. New York’s call center is also able to produce materials in 26 languages. In June 2023 alone, New York State certified renewals for more than 400,000 residents.

At Amida Care in New York, we know firsthand that gaps in care for people living with or placed at elevated risk of contracting HIV can be especially devastating. When people lose access to PrEP medication to prevent HIV, they are left vulnerable to contracting HIV, and when people living with HIV lose access to antiretroviral therapy, they risk becoming seriously ill and transmitting HIV to others. We support and guide our members through the recertification process with dedicated outreach efforts that include phone calls, mailings, text messages, and home visits to limit loss of coverage and interruptions in life-saving treatments. 

We cannot begin to address health inequity or end the HIV epidemic without strengthening Medicaid. The recent moves by some states to strip their residents of Medicaid coverage will undermine the progress we’ve made. 

Doug Wirth is the President and CEO of Amida Care, a Medicaid Special Needs Health Plan for people affected by HIV.

/ /

Anti-trans attacks aren’t the winning election issue the right thinks it is

Republicans are waging war against the transgender community, believing that they have a winning electoral strategy. 

In terms of causing both physical and emotional damage, they have succeeded, as states like North Carolina and Missouri have banned gender-affirming treatment for minors. But the attacks may not be quite the brilliant campaign tactic that the GOP thinks it has. If anything, Republicans are finding that they may have gone too far. Moreover, based on history, attacking the trans community may be more of a losing proposition at the ballot box than Republicans believe. 

The current run of attacks on the trans community is sadly not out of the ordinary. With Republicans dominating in several states, they can pretty much do whatever they want legislatively, with few repercussions. The result is a spate of bills that cover not just medical treatment but bathroom policies and even what children can call themselves in school.

Virginia presents the most interesting case of how far Republicans can go in pushing their anti-trans policies. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) won his election in 2021 largely bypushing a “parents’ rights” agenda during his campaign. Youngkin was pretty tight-lipped about what that meant, preferring to traffic in generalities. Once elected, however, it was clear that Youngkin was targeting LGBTQ+ students, especially trans students. 

That hasn’t gone over well in parts of the state. School districts in heavily Democratic areas of Virginia are refusing to follow the anti-trans policies that Youngkin pushed through, and there is little he can do about it. 

The bigger issue for Youngkin is that he is now on record for having turned a vague campaign line into a specific, hateful policy. While he is still popular in the state, that makes him vulnerable when he comes up for re-election. 

In Indiana, parents are irritated that schools there are requiring them to fill out paperwork if their kid wants to use a nickname, all in an effort to prevent trans kids from using a different name in school without informing their parents. This is the kind of bureaucratic nightmare that results from desperation to police trans kids. It’s also the kind of stuff that parents remember less than fondly next time an election rolls around. 

Theoretically, using anti-trans issues at the ballot box is a way to juice evangelical turnout. It hasn’t quite worked out that way, however. 

In an effort to boost its failing efforts, supporters of a proposed Ohio constitutional amendment tried to make it about transgender rights, saying it would let children have “sex changes.” The amendment was really an effort to prevent abortion from being protected in the state constitution, and voters resoundingly defeated it. 

Republicans have relied on similar transphobic messages in campaigns in Michigan and Wisconsin. In Michigan, the issue again was an initiative to protect abortion rights, which the right said would lead to 12-year-olds having gender reassignment without telling their parents. 

The Wisconsin election involved a race for state Supreme Court justice, which was again seen as pivotal to protect a woman’s right to choose. The right once again said that an “innocent” 12-year-old  “transitioned into a boy by school officials without parental consent.” (He asked for different pronouns.) 

In all three elections, the right lost by huge margins. 

The fact of the matter is that, for most Americans, trans issues are not going to be front-and-center in motivating how they vote. For Republicans, trans issues are often just shorthand for “woke,” which means whatever the listener wants it to mean. For a small subset of voters, it means a lot. For most voters, it doesn’t really matter much at all. 

The problem for the GOP is that it resides in a bubble where the small subset has outsized influence. For that group, nothing is more important than winning the culture war. 

For most voters, bread-and-butter issues matter more. Former Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who is the mother of a trans son, told The Hill that her party should stop with the attacks and focus on the real issues.

“There are so many crucial challenges that hard-working American families are facing every day but instead of coming up with viable solutions to real problems, such as the high cost of food and the unaffordability of housing, many legislators, especially at the state level, are obsessing over how they can make the lives of endangered youth even more perilous,” she said. “Intolerance is not a good look on anyone. I remain optimistic that voters will see through this charade and will encourage their elected officials to solve the real problems of America instead of masquerading as Moral Police Officers.”

/ /

The Supreme Court opened a dangerous can of worms after granting the right to discriminate

What can we infer from those religions that justify the discriminatory treatment of other human beings?

In terms of LGBTQ+ equality, I simply cannot comprehend the clear and undeniable contradiction between a religion’s expressed claims, in various forms, to love one’s neighbor as oneself, and how it is better to give than to receive, combined with, for example:

·       a baker’s refusal to bake a confectionery delight

·       a photographer’s refusal to preserve joyous moments

·       a caterer’s refusal to cook the pleasures of delectable sustenance

·       a florist’s refusal to arrange the beauties from the garden

·       a jeweler’s refusal of a band connecting human souls

·       a web designer’s attempts to deny creation of a personalized website

·       a realtor’s refusal to show shelters signifying new chapters in one’s book of time

·       a landlord’s refusal to rent

·       a shop owner’s refusal to sell the common and special objects supporting and enhancing life

·       a restauranteur’s refusal to serve anyone a time away from the kitchen

·       an employer’s refusal to hire a fully qualified and committed employee

 All these refusals based solely on people’s social identities.

In a 6-3 ruling last week, the Supreme Court, in 303 Creative LLC Et Al. v. Elenis et al, came down on the side of Lori Smith, the owner of a graphic design business who wants to expand her business to include developing websites for couples seeking wedding websites but claims that to do so for LGBTQ+ couples would violate her First Amendment right to free speech.

Denver-based Smith challenged Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws and asked for an exception by citing her Christian beliefs against same-sex marriage.  

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the ruling that Colorado’s law would force Smith to create speech that she does not believe, in violation of the First Amendment.

For the court’s liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.”

Sotomayor added, “By issuing this new license to discriminate in a case brought by a company that seeks to deny same-sex couples the full and equal enjoyment of its services, the immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status. In this way, the decision itself inflicts a kind of stigmatic harm, on top of any harm caused by denials of service.”

Though the ultra-conservatives on the Court held that this decision was limited to this single case, they opened the door for business owners to claim First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion any way they see fit, such as if their religion opposes interracial or interfaith marriages.

What about in the case of serving people who practice other religious beliefs or no religious beliefs? Some Christian denominations still wrongly assert, for example, that Jews killed “the Lord, Jesus.” Would followers of these religions be given full permission to discriminate against Jews?

And what about a business owner who runs a café and a customer wearing a rainbow shirt enters the premises? Would that owner have the right to kick the person out even when that owner posts no dress code?

President Biden was quick to speak out against this ruling.

“In America,” he said, “no person should face discrimination simply because of who they are or who they love….The Supreme Court’s disappointing decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis undermines that basic truth, and painfully it comes during Pride month when millions of Americans across the country join together to celebrate the contributions, resilience, and strength of the LGBTQI+ community. While the Court’s decision only addresses expressive original designs, I’m deeply concerned that the decision could invite more discrimination against LGBTQI+ Americans.”

Let’s look at another Supreme Court ruling, this one during the Trump Administration.

In a 7-2 ruling in 2018, the Supreme Court came down on the side of the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Jack Phillips, who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in Colorado on “religious grounds.”

When pressed by Michael Shear, a reporter for The New York Times at a White House press briefing, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders asserted that the President considers it fine for businesses to hang a sign in their window saying they won’t serve gay people.

Though the Trump administration had hoped the ruling would apply “religious freedom” (to discriminate) nationwide, the decision was limited in scope to this one baker. The case, however, cleared the legal path for the courts and U.S. Justice Department to advance its cause, supported by conservative Christian nationalist groups, at the expense of others’ civil and human rights.  

The United States of America was founded on conservative Christian justifications for oppression, utilizing so-called “religious” rationalizations for slavery, prohibitions on interracial relationships and marriage, advances in racial segregation, bans on women’s enfranchisement, on contraception, and on people’s rights to control their bodies, initial opposition to universal public schooling, injunctions on public education and other services for people with disabilities, restrictions on immigration and voting rights, imposition of school prayer and so-called “Blue Laws” prohibiting Sunday sales, banning of books and other curricular materials, promotion of “God-given” rights to carry weapons, and many other areas of public policy.

The real people involved

Picture this: The scene is Des Moines, Iowa, 2011. A joyous and excited engaged couple, in preparation for their upcoming nuptials, entered Victoria Childress’s home bake shop for a taste-testing appointment for their wedding cake.

The tradition of the wedding cake dates back centuries. It symbolizes the anticipation of a sweet life together. The couple cuts the confectionary delight hand-in-hand representing their first of many combined and cooperative undertakings in marriage. They feed each other a piece to show their joint commitment.

When the couple entered Victoria Childress’s shop, the owner asked who was getting married. A member of the couple, Janelle Sievers, told the baker that they were, she and her partner Tina Vodraska. Upon hearing this, Childress informed the couple, according to published accounts: “I’ll tell you I’m a Christian, and I do have convictions. I’m sorry to tell you, but I’m not going to be able to do your cake.”

Later, according to Sievers, “I don’t think either one of us knew what to say. We were just shocked.”

Interviewed by a reporter for local TV station KCCI, Childress gave her reasons: “I didn’t do the cake because of my convictions for their lifestyle. It is my right as a business owner….[I]t’s to do with me and my walk with God and what I will answer [to] him for.”

The Iowa State Supreme Court in 2009 voted unanimously to uphold a lower court ruling legalizing marriage for same-sex couples, preceded by the Iowa Legislature, which amended Iowa’s Civil Rights Act in 2007 to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in the areas of employment, housing, education, and public accommodations.

Sievers and Vodraska have yet to decide whether they will file a civil lawsuit. This preceded the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalizing marriage for same-sex couples nationwide.

Now picture this: The scene is the small Virginia town of Central Point in Caroline County in 1958, when childhood friends fall in love and marry across the Potomac River in Washington, DC. Virtually the entire town attends the reception festivities in the Central Point home of one of the partners, whose family invited the young couple to live with them until they could afford a home of their own.

Soon afterward, as the couple sleeps peacefully embracing in their bed, local police officers crack the silence by abruptly storming the room, guns poised, flashlight beams temporarily blinding the couple who suddenly find themselves shacked in handcuffs as officers march them terrified to the town jail.

“Richard,” asked Mildred, “what did we do wrong?” Richard could only shake his head in bewildered astonishment, though they both knew why they had been brought there.

Richard Loving, a man of European descent, and Mildred Jetter Loving, a woman of African descent, married in a state that passed and retained its anti-miscegenation statute, the so-called “Racial Integrity Act” of 1924, making it unlawful for a White person and a Person of Color to engage in sexual relations.

At the trial, the judge, Leon Bazile, convicted and sentenced them both to one-year imprisonment with a suspended sentence on the condition that the couple leaves the state of Virginia for a period of 25 years.

Staring at Richard and Mildred during the sentencing, Bazile invoked Biblical justifications to convict the couple: “Almighty God created the races — white, black, yellow, Malay and red — and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.”

Mildred and Richard filed several lawsuits taking their case all the way to the highest court in the land. In the case of Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court of the United States declared in 1967 that Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute was unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883), and ending all race-based legal restrictions on adult consensual sexual activity and marriage throughout the U.S.

I mention these two cases in an attempt to distinguish two vital concepts. The first is the issue of morality, which I see based on our values and our set of beliefs derived by some from religious faith traditions, and by others from secular humanist principles.

We live in a country that protects all of our moral belief systems, which no one has the right to take from us. Our beliefs are our own to cherish and to live by as long as we deem them fitting. Some people may refer to “morality” as the “Golden Rule,” whereby we treat others how we want to be treated.

A closely aligned but also somewhat distinct notion is the concept of ethics. For me, this applies to what some refer to as the “Platinum Rule,” whereby we treat others how they want to be treated. We consider their needs, their best interests, their values and beliefs, even if these do not necessarily connect or bond with our own.

As a university professor of pre-service teacher education students, I raise the distinction between moral convictions and professional ethics when we discuss issues of controversy within the field of education.

I discuss how as teachers, they might find their moral teachings in opposition with the lives or beliefs of their students. For example, their students may “come out” to them as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, queer, or other identities, or they may live with same-sex parents or guardians.

Or some of their students’ parents or caregivers may be undocumented workers. Or students may be followers of faith traditions of which they may not understand or approve. As teachers, however, they have ethical obligations to serve all their students with the highest degree of professionalism and to treat them equitably.  

With this backdrop, then, I ask us, how would Janelle & Tina and Mildred & Richard wish to be treated, and what would be in their best interests?

So, rather than denying someone the right to public services based on their social identities, religions, abilities, or relationship status, instead, if designing a website or baking a cake for LGBTQ+ people or couples goes against your religious beliefs or values, you might question your own religion and consider changing to a different religion, or none at all.

How can one believe in the value of religions that blatantly discriminate?

/ /

Drag Doesn’t Kill People — Guns Do

August 9, 2002 was the first day I went out in drag. I had just moved to Nashville for college and had touched nearly every theatrical production I possibly could but had yet to venture into the world of drag. The second I did, Nashville welcomed me with open arms and I quickly realized with the help of other queens, that this would allow me to celebrate my creativity in a whole new way. 

And thus, Veronika Electronika was born. 

I have used drag in a myriad of ways in the past 20-plus years: to cultivate community, call for political action, and educate those across the state on inclusion. That’s the beauty of drag — you can contour the art form to become whoever you want. 

Drag has given new meaning to my life and a flourishing diverse community of which I am grateful to be a part. But this freedom and my community are under attack. All year, lawmakers around the country have been working to make life more dangerous for transgender people, queer people, and drag queens, advancing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation while systematically dismantling gun safety laws. 

In March, Tennessee became the first state to explicitly ban drag performances in public spaces,punishing first-time offenders with misdemeanors and possible prison sentences of up to six years for repeat offenders. (The law has now been ruled unconstitutional.) This legislation and bills like it target drag queens, taking particular aim at our right to peacefully coexist. Let’s call these what they are: discriminatory policies grounded in prejudice and fear — fear of us harmlessly expressing ourselves. Empowered by the hateful rhetoric of our so-called leaders, armed Nazis and white supremacists have targeted our community — swarming LGBTQ+ drag events across the country. 

Meanwhile, lawmakers ignore the real threat to public safety: gun violence. 

Guns are a threat to safety in this country. Drag queens are not. Guns kill more than 120 people every day and are the number 1 killer of children and teens in America. Set against the backdrop of our country’s raging gun violence epidemic and a concerted movement to loosen existing firearm laws, this exponentially growing hatred of drag queens, trans people, and queer people is a recipe for hate-motivated gun violence against LGBTQ+ people. There is an already clear disproportionate effect of gun violence on queer communities. We saw the deadly intersection of guns and anti-LGBTQ+ hate when a shooter walked into a sacred queer space in Colorado Springs and killed five people. 

In an average year, more than 25,000 hate crimes in the U.S. involve a firearm — 69 a day. Across different LGBTQ+ populations, the risk for violence is higher than in straight and cisgender populations. Lesbian and gay people are more than twice as likely to experience violent victimization as straight people. Transgender people are 2.5 times as likely to be victims of violence as cisgender people. Bisexual people are seven times as likely to experience violent victimization as straight people.

This year alone, at least 12 trans people have been killed in the U.S., the vast majority with a gun. Between 2017 and 2022, there were 222 homicides of transgender or gender-nonconforming people. During this period, 74 percent of the trans people killed were killed with a gun. 

Now more than ever, states desperately need to pass common-sense gun safety laws, but instead, legislators across the country, backed by a gun lobby that is driven by profits over public safety, are systematically working to weaken our gun laws and remove fundamental public safety laws. 

The Tennessee legislature recently passed permitless carry and continues to introduce other harmful legislation, such as guns on campus and expansions to the state’s Shoot First law, also known as Stand Your Ground. In August, legislators will convene a special session, and we’ll be calling on them to pass a lifesaving extreme risk law — a law that could have prevented the shooting at the Covenant School. 

We shouldn’t have to live in a world where members of the LGBTQ+ community and drag queens have to live in fear every single day. It’s exhausting to endure these tragedies over and over again.

As we commemorate Pride Month this June, we must remember that Pride and what it has become started as a protest. In 1969, the Stonewall riots in New York City served as a pivotal moment for the modern LGBTQ+ movement, and we will carry the power of those who came before us to say enough is enough. Enough hate. Enough violence. We don’t have to live this way, and I don’t want to die this way. 

Drag queens have the right to exist in peace. Drag queens have the right to be safe in their communities. Drag queens and queer people have the right to express themselves and to live free from the fear of gun violence. We won’t stop working to make our communities safe — for everyone. 

Veronika Electronika is a Tennessee-based drag queen.

/ /

Taking Away Our Civil Rights Must Not Become the New Normal After Dobbs

One year later it still feels surreal. I still find myself shaking my head in disbelief that the Supreme Court actually overturned Roe v. Wade, marking the first time it has eliminated rather than expanded a fundamental personal right. How can a constitutional guarantee of liberty not include the right to determine what happens to one’s own body? How can those who profess a commitment to that liberty support forced pregnancy? With its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court demonstrated, as it has in so many areas, how far out of alignment it is with what the majority of people in this country believe and want. The majority does not want the government forcing people to be pregnant against their will. The elections last summer and fall showed that clearly. And yet here we are.

The majority of people in this country also favor equality for LGBTQ people. They don’t want to force us back into the closet with “don’t say gay” bills, censorship of library books, or drag show bans. They celebrate our marriages and support our families. They don’t want us fired from our jobs or denied service in stores and restaurants because of who we are. And yet 2023 is far and away the worst year on record for anti-LGBTQ legislation in the states.

Those who want to control others and force us into gendered roles don’t care that their views are deeply unpopular. If anything, the Dobbs ruling has emboldened them. Now, in addition to banning abortion or restricting abortion in many states, this same aggressive minority is succeeding in banning medically necessary health care for transgender youth and, in some states, adults. They’re using the anti-abortion playbook to attack essential medical care and deprive people of established medical treatments. In some instances, they’re seeking to ban both types of care — abortion and transition-related care — in the same bills. And, not content with oppressing those within their own states’ borders, some of these legislators are seeking to enforce these laws even against state residents — effectively health care refugees — who travel to other states to get the care they need.

In recent years, the LGBTQ community has seen historic advances. The Supreme Court has issued decisions recognizing our freedom to marry, enter into same-sex relationships, and work free from discrimination. Public acceptance of our civil rights is at an all-time high. LGBTQ people hold high-ranking positions in the Biden administration and in public office across the land. A growing number of states have banned conversion therapy, the dangerous practice of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ youth are stepping forward as advocates, not only for LGBTQ rights but also for racial and economic justice, voting rights, and reproductive freedom. We increasingly see LGBTQ people positively represented in the media and celebrated as artists, athletes, and scholars.

The ugly rhetoric and cruel laws that are proliferating now represent a vicious backlash against this progress. While the arc of the moral universe does bend toward justice, it doesn’t always move in a linear fashion. Those upset by change are grasping for the past, recycling decades-old tropes to demonize LGBTQ people. They are borrowing tactics from the anti-abortion movement — pretending they are trying to protect children, ignoring science and standards of care, criminalizing health care providers, turning people against their neighbors with bounty hunter schemes, and fomenting violence.

In some ways, it makes sense that anti-LGBTQ forces would turn to anti-abortion tactics — because they have worked. Those opposed to progress know that if women truly controlled their reproductive lives, they would be empowered and equal. They talk of being pro-life, but they are in reality pro-control. What do they do to prevent unintended pregnancy? What do they do to reduce maternal mortality, especially among Black women? What do they do to ensure that the children born of these forced pregnancies can actually thrive?

At the National Center for Lesbian Rights we have long understood the fundamental connections between LGBTQ equality and reproductive health, rights, and justice. Unfortunately, our opponents are now seeing it too. But while they want to take us backward, we know that a vision of freedom from gender oppression — a vision that unites the movements for LGBTQ equality and for reproductive justice — is the key to a future of true liberation for all.

We’ve been living in the post-Roe United States for a year, and it is taking its toll on those who need abortion care they can’t get and can’t afford to seek in another state. Families with trans youth are now finding themselves in the same untenable position. The attacks from the gender enforcers keep coming and they seem unstoppable and overwhelming. But we can’t stand down, not now. We can’t get used to it, and we can’t give in to it. We are the majority, and we have power. We can show up at school board meetings, run for office, vote, march, write op-eds, and hold our elected officials accountable. And perhaps most importantly, we can tell our stories and show our humanity, because people tend not to try to hurt those they know.

At this moment of peril, when so many states are resorting to brute force threats of criminal punishment and other jackboot tactics in their efforts to turn back the clock on gender equality, it may be tempting to lie low and hope to ride out the storm. But that would be a terrible mistake, and one that will only further embolden and strengthen the dangerous minority who want to impose their cruel regime on the rest of us. Now, far more urgently than ever, we must not become collaborators in our own oppression. We must not silence ourselves. 

Together we can shift the trajectory back toward justice.

Julianna S. Gonen is federal policy director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

1 2 3 4›»