The Church of England will refuse to allow same-sex couples to get married in its churches under proposals set out on Wednesday in which the centuries-old institution said it would stick to its teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman.
The proposals were developed by bishops, who form one of three parts of the Church’s governing body known as the General Synod, after the Church of England’s six-year consultation on sexuality and marriage — among other subjects — and will be put to the General Synod at a meeting next month.
The Church of England is central to the wider Anglican communion, which represents more than 85 million people in over 165 countries.
“Same-sex couples would still not be able to get married in a Church of England church,” the statement said, confirming a BBC report overnight that bishops had refused to support a change in teaching to allow priests to marry gay couples.
Under the proposals, same-sex couples could have a service in which there would be “prayers of dedication, thanksgiving or for God’s blessing on the couple” in church after a civil marriage. Gay marriage was legalized in Britain in 2013.
Still, the prayers would be voluntary for clergy to use and could be used in combinations “reflecting the theological diversity of the Church”, the Church of England said, implying spiritual leaders could choose not to offer such blessings.
“I am under no illusions that what we are proposing today will appear to go too far for some and not nearly far enough for others, but it is my hope that what we have agreed will be received in a spirit of generosity, seeking the common good,” said Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Separately, Church of England bishops will be issuing an apology later this week to LGBTQ people for the “rejection, exclusion and hostility” they have faced in churches, according to the statement.
The Church of England, which was founded in 1534, has been divided for years on how to deal with same-sex marriages, with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer activists fighting for the same rights as heterosexual Christians.
Seeking to address the contentious issue, Welby called on the bishops last year to “abound in love for all,” even as he backed the validity of a resolution passed in 1998 that rejected “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.”
The European Court of Human Rights has ordered Russia to recognise same-sex partnerships, but it’s unlikely Russia will implement protections for queer couples.
The ruling came in response to a years-long fight by three queer couples for legal recognition and protection after they were denied the ability to marry by Russia.
The applicants were originally turned away by registrars on the basis that the Russian Family Code defines marriage as a “voluntary marital union between a man and a woman”.
The court ruled Wednesday (18 January) that Russia had an obligation to make equivalent legal protections to marriage available to same-sex couples under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In the absence of marriage equality, the court found that Council of Europe member states have an obligation to put in place a “specific legal framework” for the recognition and protection of same-sex couples.
Russia ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights in September 2022 as a result of its expulsion from the Council of Europe in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
However, the court retains jurisdiction over applications lodged before that date.
Russia argued that extending marriage to same-sex couples would be “contrary to the Russian Constitution and public policy”, and that introducing any other form of legal union would be “unreasonable from a legal perspective”.
The government submitted to the court that “family in its traditional form was a fundamental value of Russian society” as it’s “intrinsically linked to the aim of preserving and developing the human race”.
However, the court ruled that these arguments weren’t enough to deny the couples their rights.
It also concluded that Russia “overstepped its margin of appreciation and has completely failed to comply with its positive obligation to secure the applicants’ right to respect for their private life and family life”.
Pierre Karleskind, vice president of the LGBTI Intergroup, said “justice is done across the Council of Europe area” because of the ruling.
“This court judgement crystalises what the LGBTIQ community has revindicated for years: that their relationships deserve as much right to legal recognition (and protection) as any other couple,” Karleskind said.
“With this in mind, we will keep advocating for the remaining EU member states to make steadfast progress at national level to respect and implement the court’s interpretation.”
Currently, there are six EU member states – Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – that do not provide any legal framework for recognition of same-sex relationships.
Maria Walsh, who is also a vice president of the LGBTI Intergroup, called the ruling a “glorious day for our community and their restless energy”.
“This judgement can only be deemed a categorical stance on where our European continent stands,” Walsh said.
“It is high time rainbow families get the protection and recognition they deserve, and we will keep pressing to ensure that this judgement will one day be translated into a mandatory recognition of relationships in cross-border cases.”
However, it’s almost certain that Russia will not heed the court’s ruling given it has ignored previous orders on LGBTQ+ issues in the past.
In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia’s ‘LGBTQ+ propaganda’ law is discriminatory, promotes homophobia and violates the European Convention on Human Rights.
The law make it a crime to distribute information about LGBTQ+ identities and people to minors.
Russia ignored the ruling and kept the law in place, even expanding its age limit in December 2022.
After the windows of an Orlando, Fla., LGBTQ+ bar were shot out Wednesday evening, police are characterizing the crime as a bias-motivated attack on the LGBTQ+ business.
District Dive, located in Orlando’s Milk District, posted security video to its Facebook page of a man shooting out windows in the Southern Nights complex. The complex is home to several queer establishments, including District Dive, Southern Craft, and the Southern Nights nightclub. The post on District Dive’s page said the complex “was a target of a suspected hate crime.”
“Please stay safe Orlando,” the company wrote.
The Orlando Police department distributed the video across its own social media channels.
“The Orlando Police Department does not tolerate criminal behavior of any kind,” said Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith in a statement. “Whoever committed this brazen vandalism against our city’s LGBTQ+ businesses will be held accountable.”
In the video, an individual wearing a hoodie, pants and possibly a surgical mask walks up to the complex with a strap hanging over his shoulder. While the perspective on the suspect in the video is obstructed for much of the 2 minutes and 44 seconds of footage, the video captures shots that shatter windows in the building.
The violent act against LGBTQ businesses had Orlando leaders on edge.
“Orlando’s top LGBTQ bar strip has been vandalized,” tweeted Carlos Guillermo Smith, an LGBTQ+ activist and former state lawmaker. “Please be careful out there, ya’ll!”
The worst attack victimizing the LGBTQ+ community in U.S. history occurred in the Florida community in 2016, when a gunman killed 49 at the Pulse nightclub shooting before being killed by police in a standoff.
“We are dismayed at what seems to be a hate crime on another one of our queer spaces. Last night, someone shot out the windows at District Dive—one of our safe spaces,” read a statement from The Dru Project, an LGBTQ+ rights nonprofit launched after the Pulse shooting. “As we learn more, please keep in mind the communities who are continually retraumatized by shootings like this.”
Political leaders also spoke out about the incident.
“Awful and unacceptable,” wrote Florida state Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, on Facebook. “We will do everything we can to find out who did this and remain committed to LGBTQ+ equality and safety for all.”
The only HIV vaccine in a late-stage trial has failed, researchers announced Wednesday, dealing a significant blow to the effort to control the global HIV epidemic and adding to a decadeslong roster of failed attempts.
Known as Mosaico, the trial was the product of a public-private partnership including the U.S. government and the pharmaceutical giant Janssen. It was run out of eight nations in Europe and the Americas, including the U.S., starting in 2019. Researchers enrolled nearly 3,900 men who have sex with men and transgender people, all deemed at substantial risk of HIV.
The leaders of the studydecided to discontinue the mammoth research effort after an independent data and safety monitoring board reviewed the trial’s findings and saw no evidence the vaccine lowered participants’ rate of HIV acquisition.
“It’s obviously disappointing,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, who as the long-time head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was an integral partner in the trial, said of the vaccine’s failure. However, he said, “there are a lot of other approaches” early in the HIV-vaccine research pipeline that he finds promising.
“I don’t think that people should give up on the field of the HIV vaccine,” Fauci said.
Fauci previously said he did not want to retire from the NIAID until an HIV vaccine had been proven at least 50% effective — good enough, in his view, for a global rollout. Instead, he retired from his post at the end of last month with this dream unfulfilled.
In addition to NIAID and Janssen, which is a division of Johnson & Johnson, the trial was run by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, which is headquartered in the Fred Hutchinson Research Center in Seattle, and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command.
Mosaico’s lack of efficacy was not unexpected, experts said, because of the recent failure, announced in August 2021, of a separate clinical trial, called Imbokodo, which tested a similar vaccine among women in Africa. Between the two trials, NIAID spent $56 million, according to an agency spokesperson.
The vaccines testedin both trials used a common cold virus to deliver what are known as mosaic immunogens, which were intended to trigger a robust and protective immune response by including genetic material from a variety of HIV strains prevalent around the world, according to the National Institutes of Health. Mosaico included an additional element intended to broaden the immune response.
Participants in Mosaico, who were between ages 18 and 60, received four injections over 12 months, either of the vaccine or a placebo. The monitoring board found no significant difference in the HIV acquisition rate between the two study groups.
Fauci said that a critical limitation of the Mosaico vaccine was that it elicited what are known as non-neutralizing — as opposed to neutralizing — antibodies against HIV.
“It is becoming clear,” he said, “that vaccines that do not induce neutralizing antibodies are not effective against HIV.”
The critical problem that has bedeviled HIV vaccine research for decades, Fauci noted, is a crucial weakness that the virus already successfully exploits: The natural immune response to infection is not sufficient to thwart the virus.
“So vaccines would actually have to do better than natural infection to be effective,” he said. “That would be a very high bar.”
A decadeslong effort
In 1984, following the discovery of HIV as the cause of AIDS the previous year, President Ronald Reagan’s health secretary, Margaret Heckler, famously claimed a vaccine for the virus would be available within two years.
In the decades since, there have been nine late-stage clinical trials of HIV vaccines, including Mosaico and Imbokodo, plus one, called PrEPVacc, that is still underway in Africa. However, the vaccine in PrEPVacc is not considered to be on a direct path to licensure if it demonstrates efficacy. Only one of these vaccines has shown any efficacy — and only at a modest level, not considered robust enough for regulatory approval — in a trial conducted in Thailand between 2003 and 2006, the findings of which were published in 2009.
In the years since, a phalanx of global researchers has studied the Thai trial in hopes of developing insights to inform further HIV-vaccine development.
The yearslong effort to design the Imbokodo and Mosaico vaccines was in part grounded in an attempt to build on the modest success of the Thai trial.
“We had hoped that we would see some signal of efficacy from this vaccine,” said Dr. Susan Buchbinder, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who co-led the Mosaico trial. She added that, promisingly, as in the Imbokodo trial, there were no evident concerns about the vaccine’s safety.
Buchbinder said it is too early to determine the reasons behind the Mosaico vaccine’s failure. Her team will be analyzing blood samples from participants over the coming months to investigate. They will also seek to determine if there were any subgroups of participants among whom the vaccine did show any efficacy. As with the Thai trial, the hope is to channel research findings into future HIV vaccine development.
Other HIV prevention tools
Jennifer Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at Kaiser Family Foundation, said the trial’s failure is a “stark reminder of just how elusive an HIV vaccine really is and why this kind of research continues to be important.”
“Fortunately, there are a number of highly effective HIV prevention interventions already,” Kates added. “The challenge is to scale them up to reach all at risk.”
Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, in which people at risk of HIV take antiretroviral medications in advance of potential exposure to the virus, is highly effectiveat preventing infection but remains vastly underutilized in the U.S. and around the world.
Additionally, researchpublishedin the mid-2000s showed that voluntary medical male circumcision lowers the risk of female-to-male HIV acquisition by about 60%. This led to a major effort to promote circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the HIV cases in the world.
In more recent years, an antiretroviral-infused vaginal ring has proven effective at lowering women’s HIV risk. Initial efforts are underway to introduce it in African nations.
And, of course, there is the old mainstay: condoms.
Globally, an estimated 38.4 million people were living with HIV in 2021, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Some 1.5 million people currently contract the virus annually, a figure that has more than halved since its peak in 1996.
It is at least theoretically possible, although extremely challenging, to bring HIV to heel without a vaccine. Fortunately, successfully treating HIV eliminates the risk of transmitting the virus through sex. So HIV transmission has declined in recent years in large part because of the dramatic scale-up of antiretroviral treatment of the virus, which by 2021 reached 28.7 million people.
Mosaico was particularly challenging to design ethically because of the advent of PrEP, which was first approved in the U.S. in 2012. To prove a vaccine works, researchers must recruit participants who remain at substantial risk of HIV over time. So Mosaico first offered PrEP to those seeking to enroll in the trial and only accepted as participants those who adamantly declined the preventive therapy notwithstanding their risk of HIV.
Minnesota state Rep. Leigh Finke was sworn into office on January 3, representing the Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party. She joins 11 LGBTQ+ state legislators who won their elections in the midterms.
Finke won against challenger Dave Thomas with a 25% margin. She then won the November general election with a whopping 81% of the vote against opponent Trace Johnson. She is the first out trans lawmaker elected to the Land of 10,000 Lakes, and she’s ready to fight back.
Last year more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills passed through state legislatures, and while only a handful made it into law, they have detrimental effects.
Already, a minimum of 58 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced into the US legislature, with about half in Texas alone, according to Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and clinical instructor at Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic. In particular, a slew of anti-trans gender-affirming healthcare bans have been introduced in 11 states, according to PBS News Hour. This life-saving healthcare is already a felony in Alabama, Tennessee, and soon, Arizona (a ban goes into effect in March), while Texas and Oklahoma have attempted to restrict gender-affirming healthcare, according to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP).
Nevertheless, Finke remains confident. For the first time in a decade, Minnesota’s government is a trifecta for progress, says Finke. The state’s Democratic Party has a stronghold in the governor’s office, the state Senate and state House of Representatives. For Finke, this means moving LGBTQ+ protections forward with less than a pause.
“There’s excitement around the ability to get things done,” Finke told LGBTQ Nation.
The immediate focuses of the queer caucus chair are banning conversion therapy, creating abortion access, and passing the Trans Refuge Bill into law. The bill seeks to protect trans children and their families from anti-trans laws and violence. State Sen. Scott Dibble (D) joined 21 LGBTQ+ legislators in introducing the Trans Refuge Bill across 19 state legislatures, according to a press release from California state Sen. Scott Weiner’s (D) office.
“It is because we have the trifecta that we can push forward,” said Finke. “We can say: ‘This is a priority for our community and we want it to be heard with an expectation that it will follow through’… at least on the House side; I can’t speak for the Senate.”
For the LGBTQ Victory Fund candidate, running for public office sets a national precedent for securing a safe anti-racist future for LGBTQ+, Black, and Indigenous people in Minnesota. Finke’s action plan to ensure this future is congruent with teamwork and her life spent in the state.
“I was the first trans person I ever met,” she said.
Finke says Minnesota is home to a strong, vocal protest movement that has translated the understanding that the fight for trans lives is a fight for Black lives, a fight for Black trans lives, and a fight for Minnesota’s 11 Indigenous tribal nations.
“I think the success of the trans and LGBTQ movement over the last couple of years has very directly been linked to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and its power in Minnesota,” Finke said. “It’s about being able to recognize what we can do as a queer caucus, but also understanding that the queer caucus needs to be willing to be led by those who are representing those other movements as well.”
Along with Finke, the Minnesota legislature welcomed the first Black women state senators in its 164 years of statehood: Erin Maye Quade, Zaynab Mohamed, and Clare Oumou Verbeten, according to Sahan Journal. Additionally, the three legislators are joined by Indigenous rights activists; state Rep. Alicia Kozlowski of the Objwe tribe is the state’s first two-spirit, nonbinary lawmaker.
“We are mutually dependent on each other because our communities, at the end of the day, are one community,” said Finke.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s 2018 inauguration was seen as a new dawn not only for the country’s political and economic elite, but for LGBTQ and intersex Zimbabweans and other groups. The LGBTQ and intersex community nevertheless continues to reel from intimidation, harassment and ostracization five years after the late-President Robert Mugabe, who ruled the country with an iron fist, left office.
The 2013 Constitution that is currently in use does not outlaw consensual same-sex sexual relations, but same-sex marriages if one is found engaging in sexual activity that is regarded as illegal. The Zimbabwean government, in other words, does not have a problem with anyone who is part of the LGBTQ and intersex community as long as they do not get married or have sex in public.
Even though the Constitution may appear to tacitly protect LGBTQ and intersex Zimbabweans, their everyday experiences, especially when it comes to the issue of gender-based violence, is vastly different.
“Mainstream dialogue of GBV (gender-based violence) in Zimbabwe has predominantly given salience to the experience of cisgender category of women over LBT women. Little to no conversation has been facilitated on the experiences of LBT women, who are disproportionally affected by GBV. GALZ (Gays And Lesbians of Zimbabwe) has recorded extreme cases of correctional rape, sexual assault and physical assault and intimate partner violence (IPV),” said Samuel Matsikure, programs manager for Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, an LGBTQ and intersex rights group.
According to a study conducted by GALZ in 2021, at least one in three lesbian, bisexual and transgender women experienced violence inflicted based on perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. Gay, bisexual and trans men have also experienced heightened emotional and physical violence, and a lack of accountability exacerbates these experience.
GALZ has also documented cases of intimate partner violence, but the restrictive environment in which it works perpetuates silence around them. Other factors that contribute to this inaction include an unresponsive police force and judicial system and a patriarchal society that does not acknowledge violence between partners of the same sex and ridicules men who report they are survivors of intimate partner violence.
At least 65 percent of people who GALZ interviewed for their 2021 study said they never reported the abuse they experienced for fear of double victimization.
“This is primarily due to the fact that law enforcement is relatively lux to take action and investigate same-sex partner violence and general violence perpetrated on LGBTI people and society at large also turns a blind eye to this calibre of violence. Such attitudes in turn, discourage victims to speak out and report GBV,” said Matsikure.
Matsikure also described the government’s commitments to protect LGBTQ and intersex Zimbabweans through its National Development Strategy as nothing more than lip service.
“The government has indirectly made considerable efforts to protect LGBTI people from all forms of harm and abuse,” said Matsikure. “However, government is yet to fulfill such commitments creating challenges such as, hesitancy of law enforcement agencies to crack down on GBV experienced by LGBTI persons and hesitancy of LGBTI persons to report or speak out against GBV due to fear of blackmail, homophobic backlash, stigma non-recognition of females as perpetrators of IPV. Lack of political will and leadership to address GBV against LGBTI persons. Delays in seeking treatment, there can be significant delays between GBV and presentation to medical care.”
“Moreover, constant threats of deregistration of organizations working on the protection of human rights and LGBTI rights by the State limits the interaction of communities with the law enforcers as same-sex conduct is still criminalized,” added Matsikure. “The perception that the current Constitution outlawed homosexuality hinders some government entities from openly assisting LGBTI persons where GBV or IPV has been reported yet the Constitution only mentions same-sex marriage.”
Trans and Intersex Rising Zimbabwe also said they were working on establishing a safe environment for LGBTQ and intersex Zimbabweans in which they will coexist with the heterosexual community.
TIRZ says it’s working through a an initiative that focuses on three areas: Family and friends, sensitizing people on LGBTQ and intersex issues and building an educational and informational support system that focuses on creating lobby, advocacy, religion and cultural programs. TIRZ hopes these efforts will create common ground and allow dialogues with heterosexual Zimbabweans.
TIRZ Program Director Chihera Meki said LGBTQ and intersex Zimbabweans still face major challenges, despite these efforts.
“Challenges such as gate keepers as well as religious and cultural beliefs have affected the program to reach out to the various communities, to help close the gap on information,” said Chihera.
Daniel Itai is the Washington Blade’s Africa Correspondent.
Transgender youths reported more life satisfaction and fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety after receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy for two years, according to a new study.
The research, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, evaluated 315 transgender youths between 12 to 20 years old, with an average age of 16, over the course of two years while they were being treated with gender-affirming hormone therapy.
The researchers are a group of physicians and professors associated with universities and children’s hospitals in Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles. The study was supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The researchers used scales that measured depression and anxiety, positive emotions and sense of life satisfaction, and appearance congruence — meaning how much a trans person feels their external appearance aligns with their gender identity. Participants rated each of these factors numerically.
Researchers found that, on average, participants reported increases in positive emotions, life satisfaction and appearance congruence. Those increases were associated with decreases in depression and anxiety symptoms.
The findings, researchers wrote, support the use of hormone therapy as an effective treatment for trans and nonbinary youths.
The researchers said their findingsalso suggest appearance congruence is important for trans and nonbinary youths’ well-being. The mental and physical health differences between youth who had undergone substantial “gender-incongruent” puberty — which is the puberty associated with their assigned sex at birth — and those who had not also supported the importance of appearance congruence for well-being.
Only a small subgroup (24 participants) in the study did not undergo extensive gender-incongruent puberty, either because they began puberty blockers at an early stage of puberty, or started gender-affirming hormones when their puberty began later.
“Those who had not gone through substantial gender-incongruent puberty had higher scores for appearance congruence, positive affect, and life satisfaction and lower scores for depression and anxiety at baseline than youth who had undergone substantial endogenous puberty,” meaning the puberty associated with their assigned sex, the researchers wrote.
They also noted that depression and anxiety symptoms decreased significantly and life satisfaction increased significantly among trans and nonbinary youth designated female at birth but not for those designated male at birth. This difference, they wrote, could be attributed to a few factors: First, some physical changes associated with estrogen, such as breast growth, can take between two to five years to reach their “maximum effect.”
As a result, the researchers speculated that a longer follow-up period may be necessary for trans feminine youth to see an effect on mental health.
Second, they wrote that physical changes that result from going through testosterone-driven puberty, such as a deeper voice, might be “more pronounced and observable” than those associated with an estrogen-driven puberty.
Third, the researchers wrote that it’s possible the differences in anxiety and life satisfaction could be related to less social acceptance of transfeminine people, compared with transmasculine people.
Research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2021 suggested that transfeminine youth may experience more minority stress, which is stress faced by stigmatized minority groups like LGBTQ people, than transmasculine youth.
The authors of the new study wrote that understanding the effect of gender-affirming hormones on the mental health and well-being of transgender and nonbinary youth “would appear crucial, given the documented mental health disparities observed in this population, particularly in the context of increasing politicization of gender-affirming medical care.”
Over the last two years, state legislatures have considered dozens of bills that seek to restrict access to gender-affirming medical care, such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for transgender minors.
Governors in four states — Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee and Arizona — have signed restrictions on such care into law, but measures in Arkansas and Alabama have been blocked from taking effect by federal judges pending litigation.
So far this year, lawmakers have introduced such legislation in at least 16 states.
Supporters of this legislation argue that the care is experimental and that minors are too young to make decisions about medical care that could have irreversible impacts.
These groups point to the growing body of research that has found the care to have significant positive mental and physical health effects for transgender youth, who have disproportionately high rates of suicide.
A national survey released last year by the Trevor Project, a national youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, found that more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth (53%) seriously considered suicide in the past year. Nearly 1 in 5 (19%) reported that they had attempted suicide in the past year.
In addition to the New England Journal of Medicine study, about half a dozen others have shown that access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy can improve mental health outcomes, including reducing suicidal ideation, among transgender youths.
Three studies — two published in 2020 and another published in 2021 — found that earlier access to gender-affirming medical care is associated with better mental health.
And a 2021 study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, which was based on data from the Trevor Project, found that gender-affirming hormone therapy is strongly linked to a lower risk of suicide and depression for transgender youths between the ages of 13 and 24.
The researchers behind the New England Journal of Medicine Study noted that there were some limitations to their study. For example, they recruited participants from gender clinics at children’s hospitals in Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles.
As a result, they said the findings might not apply to youth who cannot access comprehensive gender-affirming care or youth who are self-medicating with gender-affirming hormones.
They also noted that improvement in mental health varied widely, and that some participants continued to report high levels of depression and anxiety and lower levels of positive emotions and life satisfaction.
Two participants died by suicide during the study and six withdrew, according to the researchers. The information gathered before they died or left the study was included in the analyses, they added.
The study did not examine other factors that are known to affect psychosocial functioning among trans youth, such as parental support. The study also lacked a comparison group, which the researchers said limits their ability to establish causality. They plan to study those other factors and will continue to follow the cohort to see whether the improvements are sustained over a longer period of time.
The Flyers donned Pride-themed jerseys and used sticks wrapped in rainbow Pride tape as they warmed up for their game against the Anaheim Ducks.
Provorov said his Russian Orthodox faith precluded him from taking part in the LGBTQ event.
“I respect everybody. I respect everybody’s choices. My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion. That’s all I’m going to say,” Provorov told reporters after the game.
The NHL pro then snapped at a reporter who asked if his refusal to warm up had any impact on the game.
“Did you not hear what I just said? Can you respect that?” Provorov testily responded.
While Flyers coach John Tortorella called the hockey team’s Pride Night event “a great night,” he also defended Provorov’s refusal to participate.
“With Provy, he’s being true to himself and to his religion,” Tortorella said, using Provorov’s nickname. “This has to do with his beliefs and his religion. It’s the one thing I respect about Provy. He’s true to himself.”
There was no consideration to benching Provorov over the pregame boycott, Tortorella said. Provorov skated a team-high 22 minutes and 45 seconds in Tuesday night’s game.
“The Philadelphia Flyers organization is committed to inclusivity and is proud to support the LGBTQ+ community,” the team said in a statement after the game. “Many of our players are active in their support of local LGBTQ+ organizations, and we were proud to host our annual Pride Night again this year. The Flyers will continue to be strong advocates for inclusivity and the LGBTQ+ community.”
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, a longtime ally of of Russian President Vladimir Putin who backs the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, said last year that Russia must resist liberal foreignerswho support “gay parades.”
“Old Glory Only Act,” one of the Republican majority’s first legislative priorities in the U.S. House of Representatives would prohibit flags other than the American flag from being flown over U.S. diplomatic and consular posts.
“Old Glory Only Act,” sponsored by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), is nothing but a tired reminder that the GOP has no real plan for improving American lives and instead is doubling down on exclusionary, racist, and homophobic rhetoric.
The GOP claims the Old Glory Only Act remedies (what they call) the politicization of U.S. embassies during the Biden administration, which has allowed Pride and Black Lives Matter flags to be flown from U.S. embassies.
“Our beautiful flag, Old Glory, should be the only flag flying and representing our country over our diplomatic and consular posts worldwide,” Duncan said in a press release. “The American flag is a beacon of liberty, and no other flag or symbol better portrays our shared values than the Stars and Stripes.”
“It is important to ensure that Old Glory only is flown at American embassies to represent our ideals abroad,” Duncan said.
My question for Duncan and his colleagues that support this legislation is: Which ideals? Have we reached a level of openly embracing discrimination in the U.S. to the point that we are going to pretend that Americans, U.S. citizens and residents aren’t Black? Queer? SGL?
At the heart of it, the bill seeks to permanently ground the Pride flag and Black Lives Matter flag for the very same reason that these two flags were first approved to be flown at U.S. embassies during the Obama administration — the U.S. flag is not automatically seen as inclusive of those communities. Old Glory’s “shared values” could represent all Americans at some point in the future, sure, but this is not the Old Glory we fly today. The flying of the Pride flag and Black Lives Matter flag sends a critical message when those communities of people aren’t represented by the American flag and should be.
The GOP is intentionally hailing a flag whose 50 stars and 13 stripes represent states that are actively waging violent, exclusionary campaigns to strip non-white and LGBTQ residents of their rights and safety. In some states, the question of representation has become regressive to the point that state legislatures have passed dress codes so restrictive that some state representatives can easily be prevented from performing their duties to constituents because of the representative’s gender identity and attire.
And the argument that any flag other than the American flag is politicization of American embassies clearly missed the history lesson on the establishment of this country, whose beginnings are rooted in genocide, enslavement, theft, and lies.
The GOP was the first to dehumanize Black and LGBTQ people by attempting to politicize their right to exist. And the Old Glory Only Act joins the same dehumanizing discourse as Republicans’ unsubstantiated claims about bathrooms and drag queen story hours as the GOP continues to shove Christian nationalism down the throats of all who refuse to swallow their poison.
For politicians like Duncan, the only liberty in this country is for those whose complexion, gender identity, and sexual orientation passes the GOP’s litmus test of humanity.
How can LGBTQ people have the right to liberty in a country that threatens healthcare providers for providing trans affirming healthcare or the right for two same-gender people to marry?
How can Black people have the right to liberty in a country where white murderers go free for unjustly taking Black lives and 33 out of 50 states still allow for Black people to lose their livelihoods for their hair texture and styles?
Let’s be clear: There is nothing glorious about Old Glory or its representation of the failed experiment that is America.
Brandie Blade is a journalism student at the University of Maryland and a Blade Foundation fellow.
A gay-owned restaurant in Chicago had a window shattered by a hammer-wielding man in a suspected homophobic attack last night.
Witnesses and police say a man was shouting antigay slurs at a couple in the city’s Rogers Park neighborhood afternoon and followed them into the R Public House in the 1500 block of West Jarvis Avenue. The man allegedly turned violent when fellow patrons stood up to the man and told him to leave.
“He walked in, started calling them some like antigay slurs, and they were like, ‘Just leave, man, just get out of here,’” bar employee Corey Rolon told local ABC affiliate WLS-TV. “And then he took out a hammer and started bashing everything.
Queer couple Sandra Carter and Renee Labrana said they had just left the restaurant around 5:30 p.m. when the man followed the couple into the restaurant they’ve owned for a decade. They told the Chicago Sun-Times that some patrons went running for the exits when the glass exploded.
“They weren’t sure if it was gunshots,” Renee Labrana told the paper. “And knowing the horrific hate crimes that have happened in different bars, it was scary.”
Last November, five people were killed and 19 injured when a gunman opened fire in the Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colo. The suspect in that shooting has been charged with more than 300 counts ranging from murder to assault.
Carter and Labrana told the Sun-Times they created R Public House as a safe and affirming space open to all, and that the attack was a reminder not everyone shares their inclusive vision.
“It’s very frustrating and disconcerting because we live in this neighborhood because it’s so diverse, and we love that about the neighborhood,” Labrana said. “So you tend to forget that there’s people that hate you out there just for who you love. And it makes me really angry that we even have to think about it.”