Following a string of incidents at New York City gay bars where incapacitated men had money stolen from their bank accounts with the help of facial recognition technology, safety experts are recommending a multi-pronged approach for those seeking a fun and safe night out.
Calls for vigilance were reignitedlast week when the New York City Police Department confirmed that three men who had visited The Eagle NYC, a gay leather bar, in the fall were incapacitated and then had thousands of dollars stolen from their online financial accounts by criminals who accessed the victims’ smartphones using facial recognition technology. These incidents were similar to the circumstances surrounding the deaths of two men in the spring, Julio Ramirez and John Umberger, who were last seen at gay bars in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood on the evenings they died.
In the wake of these incidents, public safety experts have advised patrons of the city’s LGBTQ nightlife spaces to avoid using facial recognition technology on their smartphones and to take several other steps to ensure a fun night out doesn’t result in a dangerous situation, especially incapacitation.
Brian Downey, an NYPD detective and the president of the Gay Officers Action League, or GOAL, said the ideal solution “is not getting in that position to begin with.”
Gay bars and nightclubs have long served as de facto community centers for queer people, especially in New York, which has the nation’s largest population of LGBTQ people. This rich history, and the long-held idea of gay bars as safe spaces, has led many patrons of these venues to believe in the inherent good nature of those around them, Downey said. However, he cautioned that queer New Yorkers must avoid letting their guards down and maintain situational awareness, even within these historically safe spaces.
“Our community should be aware at all times that no matter what community you’re going to be a part of, no matter what age cohort you’re in, there are always going to be people who absolutely do not have good intentions,” Downey said. “There are people who perceive our community as weak, our community as folks who can be preyed upon, and they will use that to their advantage.”
In addition to these incidents, the NYPD has confirmed that it is investigating similar crimes that have victimized bar patronswho do not identify as LGBTQ or were visiting venues that are not queer-affiliated. Authorities have also not publicly commented on whether the victims were drugged on the evenings they were victimized. However, three victims of such crimes, including one of The Eagle NYC victims, and family members of three other victims, including Ramirez and Umberger, previously told NBC News they strongly suspect druggings occurred before the thefts.
To avoid being drugged or consuming unsafe substances that can lead to illness or incapacitation, experts shared some prevention methods that officials have been advising for decades: Watch your drink being prepared, do not leave your drink unattended and do not accept drinks or drugs from strangers.
Joseph Palamar, an epidemiologist and associate professor of population health at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, has spent decades studying drug use in New York City’s nightlife scene. He warned that drinks left unattended can easily be spiked with powdered opioids or gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), which can be difficult to detect or taste.
Even if equipped with fentanyl test strips, which are small strips of paper that can detect the presence of the deadly opioid in other substances, Palamar acknowledged that most people are probably not testing their drinks or drugs while they’re out partying. He said it would be more advisable to simply refrain from accepting drinks and drugs from strangers.
“It would be a little awkward testing the person’s drugs in front of them, and I think it would ruin the intimacy of the moment,” Palamar said. “I mean picture it: You’re trying to kiss somebody in a stall and, ‘Oh, hold on! Let me test this bump before you give it to me.’ It’ll be insulting, and there goes the hookup.”
Clubgoers and bar patrons who engage in one-on-one activities with strangers are most vulnerable, he added.
“When you’re off dancing with somebody or kissing somebody or you go to the bathroom with someone to do a bump or to have sex or to do whatever, that is when the risk is much higher to be drugged,” Palamar said. “You can do your thing and run around and hook up, but you need a friend around to notice if you begin acting out of the ordinary.”
Palamar also acknowledged that some clubgoers might go out by themselves, sometimes with the intention of meeting strangers to hook up with. In those scenarios, he and other experts advised making friends or family members aware of your whereabouts before going out.
For those going out solo, Darlene Torres, the director of client services at LGBTQ advocacy group NYC Anti-Violence Project, recommended sharing their phone’s location data — a feature available on most smartphones — with friends or family members. She also recommended they set up check-ins throughout the evening with their loved ones and create a plan should their loved ones not hear from them on evenings they’re going out alone.
“We can’t control people,” Torres said. “We can only really try to give as many tools and safety plans — plan A, plan B, plan C — and to make sure folks have those plans laid out for them before they go out for the night.”
The NYPD has not made any arrests in connection with the incidents at The Eagle NYC or in the cases of Ramirez and Umberger, though the department confirmed all of these incidents are still being investigated. But Downey cautioned that even when those responsible for these victimizations are brought to justice, LGBTQ New Yorkers must continue to be vigilant and practice common nightlife safety measures.
“I would never say, ‘Don’t go out,’ because if we don’t go out, we’re sending a message to people that we’re afraid of them and that we’re not strong enough to come together against these bad actors,” Downey said. “Instead of hiding, what needs to just be increased is our level of situational awareness — and it’s not a time to be complacent.”
President Joe Biden will address the nation soon when he gives the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. The ceremonial speech will outline the president’s priorities and the country’s challenges. But what about the LGBTQ+ nation?
LGBTQ Nation spoke with six of the nation’s best and brightest to find out what they saw as the difficulties — and solutions — for the queer community and our struggle for equal rights. In a time of unprecedented challenges, these individuals can shine light in the darkness and show us a way out.
Mondaire Jones knows the best defense queer people have is the ballot
Former Congressman Mondaire Jones (D-NY) was first elected in 2020 and is one of the two first-out LGBTQ+ Black members of Congress; he lost his seat in 2022. He co-introduced the Respect for Marriage Act in Congress to ensure same-sex couples continue to have the rights associated with marriage should the Supreme Court overturn the marriage equality case Obergefell v. Hodges.
Get the Daily Brief
The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you.
Jones helped get former President Donald Trump impeached for a second time after his supporters rioted in the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He pushed for even tougher democratic reforms, including automatic voter registration, public financing of elections, and an end to partisan gerrymandering.
“The crisis of our democracy is the biggest existential threat,” Jones told LGBTQ Nation. “If we do not have a truly representative government, if we do not have a pro-equality majority in both chambers of Congress and the White House, then we are going to continue to see this Supreme Court whittle away at our rights.”
So it’s no surprise that Congressman Jones’s message now is that getting better people elected is the key to moving Congress toward equality.
“We have to continue to build and renew the movement for liberation through organizing at the grassroots level and defeating those who are hostile to the humanity of our community,” Jones said. “My project will be to ensure that Democrats take back the branches of government in 2024.”
How V Spehar is keeping tabs on America from under a desk
Self-described citizen journalist V Spehar says being in the room where it happens reveals the true colors of elected officials and how their personal and political agendas may impact our country’s future.
Spehar, 40, spent the early part of their career in the hospitality industry in New York City, Tampa, and eventually as an event planner with one of Washington D.C.’s most prominent caterers. “People speak so honestly in front of you when they don’t think you’re ‘that’ kind of smart — when they think you’re just a waiter, a bartender, or whatever,” Spehar told LGBTQ Nation. “And so I got to see these people, not just for the policies that they wrote, but for the people that they are, and understanding that who they ate dinner with changed how the world was going to be.”
“You’re not going to get somebody to stop believing their sole mission is to be a protector,” Spehar said, “but you can get them to understand who actually needs protection.”
What does ‘activist-elected official’ Park Cannon foresee in the future for queer rights?
In 2016, Park Cannon was Georgia’s youngest elected official in the state legislature at 24 years old. Seven years later, she continues to exhibit an insatiable energy for fighting for equity and standing up for marginalized groups.
In 2021, Cannon became a national name after she was arrested for standing up to S.B. 202, a law that significantly rolled back voting rights for Georgians. Cannon, who is Black, was arrested by a white state trooper for knocking on Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) office door as he signed the bill in a closed-door ceremony. Charges against Cannon were ultimately dropped.
“We will not live in fear and we will not be controlled,” she wrote on Twitter after her arrest. “We have a right to our future and right to our freedom. We will come together and continue fighting white supremacy in all its forms.”
“I know the feeling of coming out in the South and expecting that there would be hate. And there was, but there was also a lot of fun and exploration and resistance that teaches people more than they could ever imagine,” Cannon told LGBTQ Nation. “I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to look at LGBTQ culture as groundbreaking and inclusive and not look at it as anything but that.”
Activist Matt Foreman questions whether we have the leadership and resources needed for full equality
Matt Foreman has seen it all from the forefront of the struggle for equality. The veteran politico led multiple queer organizations, including the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (now the National LGBTQ Task Force). As someone who has had to do the hard and inglorious work of both soliciting donations and funding campaigns, it’s no surprise he has a decidedly pragmatic view of how the movement can move forward during a challenging time.
“What is urgently and desperately needed is a coordinated, multifaceted campaign to push back against all this horrific legislation that has come down the road and will be coming down the road this year at the state level,” Foreman told LGBTQ Nation.“It’s the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bills, the anti-trans bills, the curriculum attacks, book bans, it’s all of that, and right now, our movement at the state level is strapped for resources.”
“I think the number one priority is fighting back in the states and grinding the other side down over time by showing their true nature, which is not about protecting kids, just about hate and demonizing good people. And so because that kind of rhetoric is out there, it becomes accepted wisdom,” Foreman said. “It has an impact on the way people treat queer people. And we’re seeing this rise in the rhetoric now, which isn’t just rhetoric once it influences people to attack us physically, financially, or emotionally. The only way we’re gonna get around that is to take it on, fight back, and expose them for what they are.”
Kelley Robinson is head of the largest LGBTQ+ organization — and she knows our Achilles’ heel
In November 2022, Kelley Robinson was elected the ninth president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), becoming the first Black queer woman to hold the position in the civil rights group’s 40-year existence. Now she aspires to be the first Black queer woman to spearhead the HRC infundamentally changing the country and its systems of power.
“I come to this work as a Black woman, as a queer person, as a wife, and as a mom,” Robinson told LGBTQ Nation. “And there are so many issues that matter to people in the community because we hold all of these identities, right? You can’t get to liberation without racial justice; you can’t get there without disability rights, immigration justice, climate change, and climate reform.”
When asked about how to prioritize the country’s most urgent issues, Robinson said, “The biggest thing to understand is that we cannot be single-issue. You have to talk about the violence happening in Black trans communities, particularly against Black trans women. At the same time, be able to talk about how it is a disgrace that we are still living with the HIV epidemic in this country. At the same time, also be able to talk about the issues facing folks related to discrimination across this country because of the loopholes created under the guise of ‘religious freedoms.’”
But shifts in voter demographics offer signs of hope. HRC polling estimates that queer voters will make up increasingly large parts of the electorate as Gen Z ages into adulthood. “To take advantage of the demographic shifts, we’ve got to make sure that we’re giving people a meaningful way to engage and fixing the system,” Robinson said, “so that they know that when they vote, it will actually make a difference.”
“It’s a time to be nervous. Being nervous is different than being afraid,” Brorby told LGBTQ Nation. “We live in a country that allows the targeting of vulnerable people whose rights aren’t fully enshrined in our governmental documents.”
Brorby suggests that dismantling the rural-urban divide may be one solution to uniting the country despite its geographic differences. “We have to start the conversation by reminding ourselves we’re actually dependent on each other,” Brorby said. “City people value rural people, too. Growing up in North Dakota, we knew rural America enriched everyone’s life, and the goal now shouldn’t be to get everyone to an urban center. It should be possible to have a good life wherever you live. We do not hear each other’s stories. We need ambassadors.”
A 2022 Human Rights Watch report shows LGBTQ and intersex people in Cameroon continue to suffer persecution and abuse.
The Penal Code of 2016 criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual activity for both men and women. It carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine. Cameroon’s first penal code, which was adopted in 1965, did not criminalize homosexuality, but a 1972 amendment made consensual same-sex sexual activity illegal.
“In 2022, armed groups and government forces committed human rights abuses, including unlawful killings, across Cameroon’s Anglophone regions and in the Far North region and the persecution of LGBT people and mob attacks against members of the LGBT community intensified,” notes the report.
The report notes security forces from March to May 2022 “arbitrarily arrested” at least six people and detained 11 others “for alleged consensual same-sex conduct and gender nonconformity.”
Human Rights Watch indicates a crowd of eight men armed with machetes, knives, sticks and wooden planks attacked a group of at least LGBTQ and intersex people in April 2022. Cameroonian police detained and beat at least two of the victims, according to the report.
Tembeng Eli-Ann Anwi, a Cameroonian gender rights activist, said religion also plays a pivotal role in the ostracization of LGBTQ and intersex people.
“Identifying as 2SLGBTQIA+ is still a crime in Cameroon as per our Penal Code. Even though we are rectifying laws on gender equality, our government still finds it a criminal offence because it is still a crime and doing it publicly is bad, as any crime in Cameroon with evidence is a punishable offense,” said Anwi. “Moreso, if we look in the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed partly because this was practised there and for Christians, we know just the relationship between a man and a woman and not people of the same gender.
“So to protect the people of this rainbow nation, they have to go to where it is being accepted, if you think it is right, come out and advocate for your beliefs, but do not forcefully engage people in your circle,” added Anwi. “However, not everyone or every society goes with every belief so to be safe you have to practice yours in your closet till the day it is legal, but people should not judge people for who they are.”
Blaise Chamango, director of Human Is Right, a Cameroonian NGO, said the police use the Penal Code to justify the arbitrary arrests of LGBTQ and intersex people.
“Section 346 of the Cameroon Penal Code condemns homosexuality in Cameroon so the police officers use this as a pretext to keep harassing LGBT persons and subjecting them to illegal detention,” said Chamango. “As a result, those who identify as LGBT are constantly under attack from the community because it is something which is new and strange to many here, in some communities which are still very traditional it is even a taboo to mention that as some people are hostile to LGBT and do not want to associate with them.”
Chamango, like Anwi, noted religion in Cameroon “is strongly against the LGBT community as most religious leaders here abhor the practice and discourage believers to associate or accept identifying as LGBT as being normal.”
Nevertheless, we need to empower civil society organizations to carry out sensitization campaigns to promote a culture of tolerance and coexisting with LGBT persons and the rest of the society,” said Chamango. “It is also important to provide technical and material support to such organizations so as to provide legal support to LGBT persons who are victims of abuses.”
The State Department’s 2021 human rights report notes numerous cases of authorities arresting LGBTQ and intersex Cameroonians and abusing them while in their custody. Violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and HIV status were also commonplace in the country.
“The constitution prescribes equal rights for all citizens; however, the law does not explicitly prohibit discrimination against LGBTQI+ persons in housing, employment, nationality and access to government services such as health care,” notes the report. “Security forces sometimes harassed persons based on their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, including individuals found with condoms and lubricants. Fear of exposure affected individuals’ willingness to access HIV and AIDS services, and several HIV positive men who had sex with men reportedly were partnered with women, in part to conceal their sexual orientation. Anecdotal reports suggested some discrimination occurred in places of employment with respect to sexual orientation.”
U.S. Ambassador to Cameroon Christopher Lamora is openly gay.
The Washington Blade has reached out to the State Department for comment on the Human Rights Watch report.
Just a few months ago, the midterm elections saw a “rainbow wave” with a record-breaking number of LGBTQ candidates elected to public office across the country.
After statehouses and city councils and other legislative bodies opened for new business, however, within weeks it became clear that Americans can expect to see a greater number of anti-LGBTQ bills and policies in 2023 than were introduced in any year in recent memory.
Five LGBTQ officials, both newly elected and reelected, recently connected with the Washington Blade to discuss their observations from the campaign trail and experiences in elected office. They shared reactions to the spate of harmful proposals that have been introduced so far and detailed plans for advancing pro-equality legislation while fighting against anti-LGBTQ policies this year and beyond.
New Hampshire State Rep. Gerri Cannon talked with the Blade earlier this month, and newly elected Trenton (N.J.) City Councilwoman Jennifer Williams responded to written questions last week. First-time officeholders Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr and Connecticut State Treasurer Erick Russell, along with returning Colorado Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno, each sat down with the Blade last month during the International LGBTQ Leaders Conference in D.C.
The conference was hosted by the LGBTQ Victory Institute, which administers programs and trainings for elected leaders whose campaigns are supported by the LGBTQ Victory Fund political action committee. Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who serves as president of the LGBTQ Victory Fund and Institute, also talked to the Blade by phone earlier this month.
So diverse are the identities, backgrounds, experiences and political views of these officeholders that they shatter restrictive notions that LGBTQ candidates must fit into a certain mold or serve only in certain elected positions.
How were they treated on the campaign trail?
Zephyr, who became the first openly transgender person elected to the deep-red Montana Legislature, told the Blade she was nervous about the prospect of knocking on doors for the first time.
“There’s always that fear as a trans person that it only takes one scary moment,” she said. “But what I found was what I always knew: My community supported me and loved me.”
Many of Zephyr’s constituents, she said, “were excited to see me and to be talking to a trans woman about policy,” as well as LGBTQ issues. Many voters were eager to get into substantive discussions on topics as wonky as how policies concerning solar power might intersect with local unionization efforts, she said.
“What I saw in my community, and what I’ve seen, broadly, across Montana, is first and foremost kindness and community,” Zephyr said.
Russell, who with his election for Connecticut treasurer became the first gay Black man to serve in statewide office, said his constituents were “excited about the fact that they felt they were represented in a campaign” with many voters relating to Russell’s “humble beginnings.”
Voters were also heartened to see a younger candidate running, said Russell, who earned his bachelor’s degree in 2009 and graduated from law school at the University of Connecticut in 2012.
His identity aside, “at the end of the day, we were running a campaign that was built on substance,” he said. And “people want to know that they’re going to have advocates for their communities.”
Likewise, Cannon told the Blade, “I don’t use my status as being a trans person as a lever in most cases. I’m fighting for people in my community; I’m there to do the people’s business, and I just happen to be transgender.”
“I haven’t run into anyone that’s used my status as a trans person during an election cycle,” said Cannon, who has served in the New Hampshire Legislature since 2018.
“When I ran for City Council here in Trenton,” Williams said by email, we “probably knocked on 3-4,000 doors and spoke with all kinds of people.” The questions she and her team received concerned crime, jobs, public utilities like water and roads, and Williams’ ability to work constructively with other councilmembers, she said.
Williams, who recently became Trenton, New Jersey’s first transgender city councilmember, said that voters did not ask about her gender identity or sexual orientation, nor did they bring up politically divisive topics like policies concerning the participation of trans athletes in school sports leagues or drag queen story hours.
Likewise, since her election to the city council, Williams’ Council colleagues who have been sworn in as well as her at-large colleagues who won their runoff elections last Tuesday have been supportive — “very much so,” she told the Blade.
At the same time, Williams said she encountered some challenges because of her being a Republican. It “has been an issue with some people who are beyond my immediate circle or who haven’t gotten a chance to know me and support me,” she said.
“Some of my biggest supporters are very well-known local Democrats because they have seen the LGBTQ advocacy work and civic involvement that I have done in the past,” Williams said. “They also have very good ‘ears to the ground’ and trust me, people would tell them if I had come to canvass their neighborhood and if they spoke with me.’”
Williams expressed gratitude for the “endorsement and support” she received for her candidacy from the Victory Fund as well as for her progressive and Democrat supporters, because “they took a chance on believing in me and stuck with me even when they caught some hell for doing so.”
How will they approach challenging colleagues or difficult political circumstances?
Parker told the Blade there is room for LGBTQ elected officials to make a positive impact even in the most challenging of circumstances.
“We are just as interested in seeing them be who they are and stand up and speak out in their legislatures — whether or not they can pass pro-equality legislation,” she said.
When passing pro-equality policy or batting away harmful policy is difficult, Zephyr said she expects to draw from some of the lessons she learned as an athlete: “if you put in the work, day in and day out, you will see the progress. If you trust that process and do the work, you’ll see the results.”
Most people have nuanced opinions on policy matters and are sincere in their convictions, including legislators who might not support pro-equality bills or the LGBTQ community, she said. “And I trust that if I go into those conversations, — I would even say most — of them” will engage in good faith. “To me, that’s how you change hearts and minds.”
Earlier this month, the Montana Free Press reported that during a sausage making party for Montana lawmakers, Zephyr was caught chatting amicably with Billings Republicans. She later told reporters that she enjoyed the chance to connect with her colleagues outside the Capitol building “to just hang out and talk to someone about where they grew up.”
There can often be more room for diversity, including ideological diversity, among candidates elected to state legislatures because these bodies are typically governed less by the strictures of calcified partisan politics that are difficult to overcome at the national level, Moreno told the Blade.
“It’s vastly more personal,” he said, which means “you do see a lot more cross-party collaboration” in the Legislature.
With his first election to public office in 2012, Moreno, who is gay, became one of the four LGBTQ members of the Colorado House of Representatives elected to serve that year, which was hailed by the Denver Post as “a historic first for gays.”
Zephyr and Moreno both discussed how hateful and vitriolic rhetoric informs the development and passage of harmful laws and policies — all factors that raise the likelihood of violence against LGBTQ and particularly trans people.
The painful reality of violence against the community was a top of mind for the officeholders as well as the organizers and attendees of the International LGBTQ Leaders Conference, which fell just a couple of weeks after a gunman killed five people and injured 25 in Club Q, a Colorado Springs, Colo., LGBTQ nightclub.
Moreno recalled that when he first joined the Colorado Legislature 10 years ago, as he and his colleagues were debating a bill concerning conversion therapy, “some Republican members associated being LGBTQ with being an alcoholic.”
“I took an opportunity to have a conversation with them to let them know how offensive that rhetoric is,” Moreno said. “What I think the Club Q tragedy will do is remind people to be more careful with their language, because I do think that the kind of very hateful rhetoric we’re seeing today has played a role in the instigation of violence against minority communities.”
There are some extreme state legislators in New Hampshire, Cannon said, noting last year’s proposal by Republicans to secede (in the language of the bill, New Hampshire “peaceably declares independence” from the U.S. “and proceeds as a sovereign state.”)
Asked whether these lawmakers are a “lost cause,” Cannon did not hesitate: “I would absolutely use that term,” she said, comparing them to committed anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists. “They really don’t care for LGBT people; they don’t want to learn.”
However, Cannon said, “I’ve talked to Republicans who are favorable who have gotten to know trans people in the Legislature.”
Russell stressed the importance of representation: “I think the important piece is electing folks to office who are committed to fighting for our values.”
For her part, Williams joins the City Council at an interesting juncture. Following a series of ugly incidents in which previous members displayed “anti-LGBTQ bigotry and anti-Semitism,” a few years ago, “our city was crying for new start and a new City Council that would welcome, respect and affirm everyone,” she said.
Williams added that while she hopes Trenton will never again face that kind of scandal — partly because it happened when the members were working remotely and in-person meetings tend to discourage officeholders from making hateful comments to each other — “I am confident that all six of my colleagues will have my back if anything happens.”
How are they approaching policy that impacts LGBTQ constituents?
In the legislature, consistent with the approach she has employed in her prior work as an activist, Zephyr said she expects to focus her work on “making sure that we are taking action behind the scenes” to make sure each measure carrying a pro-equality message also carries a pro-equality impact.
For example, she said, passing a nondiscrimination ordinance is commendable, but when residents have cause to file a complaint, is there an accessible and effective means for them to do so?
Among the work Zephyr has done since she was seated has been the introduction of bills to ban the “gay and trans panic defense” and protect same-sex adoptive parents. She has also been a vocal critic of her Republican colleagues’ move to table Democrats’ proposal to allow police to temporarily take firearms from those deemed by a court as a danger to themselves or others.
The Club Q shooting provides for the opportunity for Colorado to build upon its already strong gun safety laws, such as by passing an assault weapons ban and achieving universal implementation of the state’s “red flag law,” Moreno told the Blade, adding that “we’re going to explore some of that in this next [now current] legislative session.”
Democratic state lawmakers in Colorado introduced an assault weapons earlier this month. With expanded Democratic majorities in both chambers of the state legislature serving with Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who is gay, the state is in a position to pass more progressive legislation across the board, Moreno said.
In New Hampshire, Cannon has proposed a bill to make it easier for residents to change the sex listed on their birth records, having previously introduced the proposal to allow for people to change the sex listed on their driver’s licenses and state-issued IDs with the option to check a box for “nonbinary.” Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed that bill into law and it went into effect in 2020.
Despite his support for that proposal, Cannon said Sununu pushed back against a previous version of her birth records bill because it had included an option to identify as nonbinary. She told the Blade she has reintroduced the measure this year without that provision, with the expectation that its success will provide for an opportunity to make it more inclusive in the future.
In her position on the school board, too, where until recently she served concurrently, Cannon focused her approach on working towards incremental change — voting, for instance, for a proposal that allows students to use restrooms and facilities that align with their gender identities even though it requires parental permission, therefore excluding trans students who are not out and supported at home.
“Getting that policy in place will open the door in the future” for a more inclusive policy, Cannon said.
Another bill introduced by Cannon, which was modeled after California’s, would make New Hampshire a sanctuary for LGBTQ families to escape prosecution in states that have criminalized parents for facilitating their children’s access to medically necessary and guideline directed medical treatments for gender dysphoria.
Parker noted that these types of bills were a major topic discussed by LGBTQ legislators when they convened for programs hosted by the Victory Institute.
Republicans, meanwhile, including Cannon’s GOP colleagues, are continuing to advance proposals to outlaw healthcare for minors for the treatment of gender dysphoria.
“I’m speaking out against the [GOP’s] healthcare bill, flagging it as discriminatory and in violation of HIPPA rights,” Cannon said, referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which prohibits the disclosure of sensitive health information without the patient or guardian’s consent or knowledge.
“You have to be able to use medical information to prosecute a family [for facilitating access to gender affirming healthcare],” Cannon said, adding constitutional issues might also be raised under the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.
Cannon is confident she will be able to convince enough of her Republican colleagues to table the bill so it never reaches a vote, adding that she expects Sununu would veto the proposal should it ever reach his desk.
Others see room to leverage their backgrounds to make positive impacts elsewhere
Williams told the Blade that apart from bringing back Pride weekend celebrations that were on pause during the pandemic, Trenton does not have any LGBTQ-specific policy matters on the horizon.
“I think that is due to our being the capital of a very protective state that has strong LGBTQ protections written into law,” she said.
At the same time, she said, “my lived experience as a LGBTQ person informs me in many ways that correlate with the experiences of other marginalized groups,” Williams said.
“From issues ranging from youth homelessness to economics to law enforcement, LGBTQ people can bring much to government and its decision-making that can benefit everyone,” she said.
Likewise, Russell said, “being an advocate for LGBTQ rights and issues is going to be something that I will continue to do in my role” as treasurer. “But I think the there are opportunities for there to be overlap with a lot of different things.”
For instance, the attacks on LGBTQ rights come alongside efforts to abridge women’s reproductive freedoms. “One of the policies that I built through the campaign and worked with some legislators and nonprofits on was the creation of a safe harbor fund within the treasurer’s office,” Russell said.
“It would ultimately be a fund that we would put in place, and it would be used to help individuals traveling from anti-choice states who needed to access safe reproductive health care,” he said.
Other matters on Russell’s agenda will impact all residents in Connecticut, policies like “baby bonds, which was passed in our Legislature,” and will provide publicly funded trust accounts for every new child. Another priority is “expanding financial literacy programs so that we [will] have young folks who are coming out of school who know how to manage money,” he said.
Anti-LGBTQ bills, motivated by prejudice, will help no one
Whatever their putative purpose might be, Cannon stressed that the impact of anti-LGBTQ legislation proposed by her colleagues is often a solution in search of a problem — a message that was echoed by Parker and Williams.
“In New Hampshire, the trans population is one-tenth of one percent,” she said. Nevertheless, “We have people trying to put forth legislation against the trans community when we’re such a small community of people.”
Likewise, regarding the debate over her proposal to allow residents to change the gender listed in their birth records, Cannon said, “the number of people born in the state who want to change their birth records is incredibly small,” while, “many of us who were born outside the state already had our information changed.”
Zephyr stressed the ways in which anti-LGBTQ bills are based on lies about LGBTQ people.
She pointed to a proposal in the Montana Legislature that would prohibit minors from attending drag shows, which comes from the baseless smear propagated on the right that organizers of and participants in all-ages drag performances are sexually abusing or exploiting children.
Bills like these are “not a matter of logic or facts or information,” Parker told the Blade, but rather are intended as politically motivated attacks on the LGBTQ community. It’s “political theatre” cooked up by “right wing think tanks that circulate these bills to legislators around the country,” she said.
Russell noted how unpopular these policies are, broadly speaking. “Republicans are really using these campaigns to target trans kids, for instance, or to create these kinds of social wars around issues that the large majority of Americans believe that people should have the freedom and right to be who they are, and love who they love, and express themselves how they want to,” he said.
Williams sees both political opportunism and sincere bigotry motivating these anti-LGBTQ proposals: “There is definitely some hard-core prejudice behind some of these bills, but for many of these bills’ sponsors I believe they feel that they have put forth anti-LGBTQ legislation because they think they need to do so for their ‘conservative street cred’ and to raise money or gain a few percentage points in a primary.”
“There are definitely some Republican legislators who believe their legislation will solve problems that don’t exist,” Williams said. “I also learned that there are more moderate Republicans will to push against such bad legislation, but they need support to help defend themselves when they get attacked for supporting LGBTQ people and in particular, trans kids.”
Parker has had first-hand experience dealing with anti-LGBTQ legislation when serving as mayor of Houston from 2010-2016, during which time, as an out lesbian, she was one of the first openly LGBTQ mayors of a major U.S. city.
In 2015, when voters repealed a broad nondiscrimination ordinance that included sexual orientation and gender identity, “it was about fear,” Parker said, stoked in large part by “the smear that trans women are sexual predators.”
She added that the effect of anti-LGBTQ bills can be both harmful and performative at the same time, pointing to efforts by conservative lawmakers to ban books that contain LGBTQ characters or themes.
“We [in the the LGBTQ community] have fought so hard to have affirming depictions of our lives in books and other media, so, to have books about LGBT lives removed from school libraries is really frustrating,” Parker said.
Particularly after the bills addressing “performative culture war stuff,” including book bans, are signed into law, she said, it often becomes clear that their proponents had failed to consider what that their implementation will look like in practice, perhaps in many cases because they did not expect the proposals to succeed in the first place.
From anti-LGBTQ laws to the onerous abortion restrictions that have been passed by many conservative states, GOP legislators are discovering the unintended and unforeseen consequences of poorly-construed policies and suffering the backlash from voters, Parker said. “It’s like the dog who chased the car.”
Teachers at a school district in Florida have been instructed to “cover or store” books in their classroom libraries pending reviews.
In an internal training video, Duval County Public Schools superintendent Diana Greene announced the launch of a formal review of classroom libraries, which generally consist of books either donated or purchased by teachers themselves, to ensure that they are in compliance with Florida legislation passed last summer.
Florida’s House Bill 1467 passed last July and requires books made available through school libraries and classroom libraries to be selected by a certified media specialist.
Under the new law, books must not contain instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in books available to grades K–3; “pornography,” which the district defines using the Merriam Webster dictionary as “the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement; or discrimination in such a way that implies “an individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin is inherently racist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”
The law also requires all schools to publish a searchable list of all books in school and classroom libraries, making it easier for parents to challenge books.
“Books not on the district-approved list or not approved by certificated media specialists need to be covered or stored and paused for student use,” Duval’s Chief Academic Officer Paula Renfro says in the video.
According to a Duval County Public Schools release, “The Florida Department of Education has trained all Florida school districts to ‘err on the side of caution’ in determining if a book is developmentally appropriate for student use.”
As WJCT News notes, Duval Schools has already rejected 47 book titles that were ordered in 2021, with an additional 26 titles from the same collection still under review. Jax Todayreports that the books, which included multiple titles with LGBTQ+ characters and families as well as books about Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, are described by the distributor as featuring “diverse, inclusive” stories.
Across the country, recently instituted school and public library book bans have disproportionately targeted books by non-white authors and those featuring LGBTQ+ characters and stories.
Duval County Schools has previously made headlines for the district’s efforts to comply with Florida’s recently enacted anti-LGBTQ+ laws, including the Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly referred to as “Don’t Say Gay.”
Student athletes in Florida could be forced to turn in information about their menstrual history after an athletics association’s medical panel doubled down on its recommendation.
The move comes after a suggestion that the association’s board adopt a national sports registration form – which makes menstrual information mandatory.
Questions listed on the form include asking if players have had a period, when they first got their period, the date of their most recent one was and the regularity of their cycle during the previous 12 months.
Notably, the main difference between the national form and Florida’s system, as the Palm Beach Post reports, is where the information is stored.
The national form states that the part detailing athletes’ medical history – including their menstrual history – should not be turned into schools but remain with their physician.
However, the FHSAA’s sports medicine committee recommended that all pages of the form be handed over to their schools.
The committee argues that school staff need all the information they can get on their athletes, in case of a medical emergency.
The committee’s recommendation now goes to the FHSAA’s board of directors, which is due to meet at the end of next month.
The questions could pose legal consequences
The questions and the recommendation about where the information will go has come under fire from parents, medical professionals and abortion rights campaigners in recent weeks and months.
Such information could thus be used by courts to convict students if they have an abortion after the 15-week limit.
Parents have also spoken out against the risk of children’s medical information being leaked or stolen in the event of a data breach.
As the Palm Beach Post reported, huge swathes of student athletes’ registration forms have already been moved online and are stored by a third party.
Dr. Michael Haller, a paediatric endocrinologist based in Florida city of Gainesville, said: “I don’t see why [school districts] need access to that type of information. It sure as hell will give me pause to fill it out with my kid.”
A trans woman in Xenia, Ohio, is facing three counts of public indecency for using her local women’s YMCA changing room, despite having permission to do so and breaking no laws.
Rachel Glines, 31, will attend court on 6 February after charges were brought against her following complaints filed by YMCA members on several occasions in 2021 and 2022.
Local TV station WHIO-7 reported that the charges stem from three or more complaints made by YMCA users who “reported seeing a naked male in the female’s locker room”. Glines is yet to have gender-affirming surgery.
Included is a complaint filed in November, when a mother-of-two told local police there was a trans woman using the women’s changing room.
She claimed that the woman was – as many usually are in such situations – “completely exposed to the rest of the locker room area”, local TV station WKEF reported.
YMCA of Greater Dayton told WHIO-7 that it would comply with legal mandates while endeavouring to protect the privacy of its members.
It said: “Under no circumstance will we investigate an individual’s birth identity and then assign individuals to locker rooms.
“That would be counter to the law, counter to respect for all people and it is not who or what we are as an organisation.”
Experts have called the case “unique” and said it will be “difficult” to convict the trans woman because no laws were broken.
Last month, Xenia City Council president Will Urschel told citizens: “I encourage you with your families to just let people be aware of what’s going on with the restroom there.”
But a spokesperson for the council informed PinkNews: “Comments made by the individual council member… were his own and were not authorised by or on the behalf of the rest of the city council, the mayor, the city manager or the law director.
“Despite what has been reported, the law department has no plan or intention of bringing charges against the YMCA as the required level of culpability is not met, based on the facts as presented,” the spokesperson went on and insisted that neither the city council nor any member of the council had any part in filing the charges.
YMCA says trans women can use women’s spaces
Thaddeus Hoffmeister, professor of law at the University of Dayton, told WKEF: “It’s going to be difficult to convict this person of public indecency. My understanding is that the YMCA granted this person permission.
“They identify as a woman, they went into the women’s bathroom. YMCA says trans individuals could go to the bathroom they identify in. I don’t see them breaking the law.”
He added: “Some states have gone so far as to say, you must use the bathroom or locker room that is for your birth and what gender you were recognised at birth. Now that’s different, if a state passes that law. Ohio hasn’t passed that law.”
LGBTQ+ advocates have said the case is increasing discrimination in Ohio.
Karen Shirk, president of PFLAG Dayton, an LGBTQ+ organisation supporting Glines, informed the station: “Nobody knows what really happened in this case, and what the reality is.
“We do know it has increased hate and increased discrimination, and suppressed love and care and acceptance.”
PFLAG remains hopeful that the Xenia community will come together and fight injustice.
Shirk added: “I love Xenia because in all of the times I’ve been there, [it’s] been a community that supports one another. Even this person they’re talking about has family, has friends, that live in our community.”
PinkNews has contacted YMCA of Greater Dayton for comment.
It can often feel like joy and optimism went on sabbatical around 2015 and have yet to reappear. Counter that despair with the Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, a young organization building community and mobilizing resources for underrepresented artists. Since its founding in 2019 by Jordyn Jay, the grassroots organization has raised over a million dollars to support Black trans artists. Members of the collective have appeared on HBO Max’s Legendary, staged exhibitions at Los Angeles’s Armand Hammer Museum, and performed on Broadway.
Jay says their organization is necessary because disparities of funding and safe spaces, and the general inaccessibility of art education, contribute to a lack of representation for Black trans women in the arts.
Jay states that, “Today, BTFA addresses all of those concerns by providing funding for projects led by Black trans femmes artists via BTFA Productions, providing artists with free studio space in New York City at BTFA Studios, creating programming for Black trans femmes to support their development as artists, businesspeople, and individuals, and connecting Black trans femmes to the resources needed to survive and thrive.”
Black trans femmes have contributed so much to American (and world) culture and BTFA’s ultimate goal is to allow these women to “take ownership of their cultural production” and continue to create without limitations.
Find out more about BTFA, and contribute to their cause, at btfacollective.org.
M23 rebels in Congo’s North Kivu province have displaced a number of transgender people and left them even more vulnerable to persecution.
M23 rebels last November approached Goma, the province’s capital city, and forced around 180,000 people to leave their homes. Jérémie Safari, coordinator of Rainbow Sunrise Mapambazuko, a Congolese LGBTQ and intersex rights group, told the Washington Blade that residents of the Kibumba camp where displaced people have settled have refused to assist trans people and have accused them of being sorcerers.
“Trans people went (through) war like everyone else,” said Safari. “In the Kibumba camp where the displaced have settled, the local community there has refused trans people access, accusing them of being sorcerers, bad luck charms and of being the origin of the war following their evil practice.”
Safari said other displaced people who did not want trans women in the camp have attacked them. Safari said these trans women currently sleep in the street in Kibumba without food.
Safari, in addition, said the government has done little to help these displaced trans people, even though consensual same-sex sexual relations are not criminalized in the country.
“The displaced people received help but not the trans people since they do not live in the camp and also the government is still extremely hostile towards LGBTIQA+ organizations in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo). No LGBTQA+ organization can be legally recognized by the Congolese State,” said Safari.
Safari saidRainbow Sunrise Mapambazuko currently needs funds to provide housing, food and medicine to the displaced trans people.
“If we could have $7,000 (U.S. dollars) firstly for their survival, since we are afraid of their life and their health which is in danger, that would be of immense help,” said Safari.
The M23 since last May has demonstrated increased firepower and defensive capabilities that have enabled the group to overrun U.N.-backed Congolese troops and hold territory.
The U.N. says the fighting between Congolese troops and M23 rebels has forced nearly 200,000 people to flee their homes.
Human Rights Watch has called upon the U.N., the African Union and governments to publicly denounce M23 abuses found to have been committed by other combatants, maintaining sanctions against senior M23 commanders and expanding them to those newly found responsible for serious abuses and senior officials from across the region complicit in them. Human Rights Watch also said any political settlement should not include amnesty for those responsible for human rights abuses and prevent responsible M23 commanders to integrate into the Congolese armed forces.
“The government’s failure to hold M23 commanders accountable for war crimes committed years ago is enabling them and their new recruits to commit abuses today. Civilians in eastern Congo should not have to endure new atrocities by the M23,” said Thomas Fessy, a senior DRC researcher at Human Rights Watch.
M23 sprung from elements within the Congolese army in 2012.
The rebel group claims it is defending the rights of Congolese Tutsi and originally comprised of soldiers who participated in a mutiny from the Congolese army in April-May 2012. They claimed their mutiny was to protest the Congolese government’s failure to fully implement the March 23, 2009, peace agreement — M23 derives from this date — that had integrated them into the Congolese army.
The Congolese army and the U.N. Force Intervention Brigade defeated M23 in November 2013, and its members fled to Rwanda and Uganda. The group re-emerged in November 2021.
A trans boy has been forcibly removed from an Israeli school following months of disgusting anti-trans pressure by parents.
The country’s Education Ministry announced on Tuesday (24 January) the student was to be removed from a religious school in central Israel midway through the academic year.
The parents of the child told Israel’s public broadcaster they planned to appeal the decision and that it was a punishment for “who he is”.
Rather than treating the public outing of a child with respect, parents instead chose to stage an anti-LGBTQ+ protest outside of the school.
This group of transphobic parents, who routinely disregarded the feelings of the child, then began desperate attempts to try and force him out of school.
Some parents failed to move their children to different schools, while others sent multiple complaints to school administrators.
Some began to make assertions that their own children had suddenly started to develop “many psychological issues” by merely being around the trans boy, while others even claimed their children had started to “wet the bed”.
A “breakaway” classroom outside of the school was then created by rabbi Eliyahu in January following the Hanukkah break.
During a collective video call with the parents, Eliyahu said: “You are the spearhead to this very important battle and we must all mobilise and stand behind you.”
Finally, after multiple complaints and attempts to prevent a trans child from simply existing, the Education Ministry decided to remove the boy from school.
It denied accusations of transphobia in making the move, saying: “This is a complicated, unique, and sensitive case – and the ministry and the educational team is working only for the good of the student.”
It could not share information about whether the child would be moved to another school due to child privacy laws.
‘Very serious harm to a small boy’
LGBTQ+ rights group Hoshen said in a statement: “This ministry decided that political and social considerations are more important than the safety and wellbeing of a small boy.
“You promised above all that there would be no harm to LGBTQ+ people, and this morning, you allowed very serious harm to come to a small boy.”
Prime minister Netanyahu had insisted that he would not allow harm to come to LGBTQ+ people after the appointment of Israel’s first gay speaker caused controversy among anti-LGBTQ+ politicians.