A trans woman won a major Delhi region for her party during an election on Wednesday (7 December).
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Bobi won the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) election after votes were counted this week.
The trans politician won Sultanpur-A ward against Congress candidate Varuna Dhaka by 6,714 votes according to Indian Express.
Her win came just hours before it was announced that the AAP crossed the finish line with 134 seats, winning against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The win means that the AAP now holds a strong majority over the municipal corporation, which makes up one of the three municipalities in Delhi, overseeing the region.
Voters line up to cast their vote in the MCD elections. (Getty)
Sultanpur’s new representative, who is often nicknamed Bobi “Darling”, has routinely said she would work in cleaning up the corruption within the MCD and “beautify” the constituency.
“I want to dedicate my victory to the people who worked so hard for me,” she said.
“I would like to thank everyone. Now I just have to work for development in my area.”
A long-time social worker, Bobi originally ran as an independent candidate during the 2017 MCD election, but later joined up with the self-proclaimed “anti-corruption” party.
She is also well known for her work toward improving education and social mobility in and around Sultanpur.
Her victory was incredibly close during pollings, with BJP regularly overtaking AAP multiple times before votes were fully counted.
In the end, BJP failed to win the constituency and the wider election, finishing with 104 seats according to NDTV.
Bobi’s win is a huge step for LGBTQ+ representation
The victory is another huge step for LGBTQ+ rights and representation in India.
While the country has many rights in place for queer minorities, it still has a long way to go in actualising true equality.
Same-sex marriage is still forbidden, despite routine attempts by activists to reverse the government’s policy.
Lead petitioners Supriyo Chakraborty and Abhay Dange argued that not extending the rights of marriage to LGBTQ+ couples is an affront to their human rights.
The inability to marry means that the couple cannot adopt together, nor can they inherit each other assets.
Additionally, it means that hospital visits for medical emergencies could be refused since the two are not legally recognised as family.
As part of Trans Awareness Week, the community honours those we’ve lost on Trans Day of Remembrance every year.
Candlelit vigils take place worldwide each year commemorating the trans lives lost to transphobic hate crimes each year. This year, those vigils will happen on Sunday (20 November).
As well as a time to remember those lost to violence, and to raise awareness of hate, Trans Awareness Week is also about honouring those who fought so hard for the community and for their right to exist.
From Mexican revolutionaries to New York drag queens, these trailblazers prove that trans and non-binary lives have always mattered.
Rita Hester
Trans woman Rita Hester’s tragic death in 1998 sparked the existence of Trans Day of Remembrance as it’s known today.
Hester was a popular part of the Boston trans community and was intertwined with the city’s rock scene. Described as a magnetic personality who “was out for good times,” there was rarely a moment when she wasn’t dancing the night away with friends
On November 28, 1998, she was killed at her home in Massachusetts in a horrendous crime that still hasn’t been solved. In response, a candlelight vigil was held, with 250 people attending.
This later inspired activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith to create a web project named Remember Our Dead which honoured trans people who were victims to horrible hate crimes.
This became Transgender Day of Remembrance and has been held in cities across the world ever since.
Lucy Hicks Anderson
Lucy Hicks Anderson was born in 1886 and became a socialite and hostess. (Twitter/@historyteller)
The story of Lucy Hicks Anderson proves that, no matter your background, the struggles of trans people across the world are ubiquitous.
Anderson was born in Kentucky in 1886. From an early age, she expressed a desire to present as female and socially transitioned in her teens under advice from doctors despite the term transgender not yet existing.
After leaving school at age 15, Anderson worked in various jobs until she was able to buy a California brothel, becoming a well-known socialite and hostess.
When claims that an outbreak of disease came from her establishment, Anderson was forced to undergo a medical examination that outed her to authorities.
Attorneys tried her for perjury, claiming that she had deceived the government about her gender. During the trial, she stated: “I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman. I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.”
The court convicted Anderson and sent her to a men’s prison. After serving her sentence, Anderson relocated to Los Angeles where she lived until her death in 1954.
Amelio Robles Ávila
The amazing thing about trans activism is it can take several forms – from street protests to simply correcting pronouns. In Mexican trans colonel Amelio Robles Ávila’s case, it was holding a pistol to a transphobic soldier until they correctly gendered him.
Born in 1889, Robles’ life was defined by the bloody conflict of the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s.
He joined the army in 1911 and was sent to the Gulf of Mexico to obtain money from oil companies for revolution efforts. Two years later, aged 24, he began to identify as a man and demanded to be treated as such.
Historical accounts detail Robles’s lengths to combat transphobia, including threatening those who called him Doña or madam with a pistol.
Robles was eventually promoted to colonel, commanding 315 men during the Agua Prieta Revolt. He donned the nickname “el coronel Robles,” and was described as a capable military leader. He died aged 95 on 8 December 1984.
SOPHIE
SOPHIE performs at Mojave Tent during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival. (Getty)
Sophie Xeon, better known as SOPHIE, is one of the most significant trans musicians of all time and well-known for defining the hyperpop genre.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland on 17 September 1986, she became obsessed with music at a young age after her dad played electronic music in the car.
Her music became incredibly influential and is one of the foundations of hyperpop. Her song “Immaterial” has been listened to over 22 million times on Spotify.
She died on 30 January 2021 after falling from a cliff while trying to take a picture of the moon. Artists including Charli XCX, Sam Smith, and Rihanna expressed their condolences.
Not a huge amount is known about Jens Andersson, but what is known is that of a life defined by transphobia and a lack of understanding about non-binary people.
Born in the 1760s, Andersson began presenting as male when he moved to Strømsø, Norway in 1778.
After getting married, his wife later privately told a minister she thought her “husband might be a woman” and as such, Andersson was accused of sodomy.
During the trial, when asked about his gender, an associate answered: “He believes he may be both.”
After awaiting punishment “by fire and flames,” Andersson somehow escaped prison before a verdict was reached, the rest of his life is a complete mystery.
Blake Brockington
A photo of Blake Brockington before his death in 2015. (Twitter)
Trans male high school student Blake Brockington gained popularity after being the first trans high school homecoming king in North Carolina.
After coming out while in tenth grade, Brockington struggled with his parent’s disapproval, eventually joining a foster family.
In 2014, he collected $2,555 during a charity drive at his school in East Mecklenburg and became the first openly trans high school homecoming king.
He his platform to advocate for LGBTQ+ youth issues and spoke during a Trans Day of Remembrance service at Charlotte Independence Square.
Brockington took his own life at just 18 years old in March 2015. He was laid to rest in South Carolina.
Sylvia Rivera
LGBTQ+ activism just wouldn’t be the same without Sylvie Rivera, a trans woman born in 1951 who was involved with the Gay Liberation Front along with icon Marsha P Johnson and fellow activists.
Born in New York City, she was abandoned by her father as a child, living on the streets in 1962 before being taken in by a local community of drag queens.
While she did not attend the Stonewall riots, Rivera still spent much of her life advocating for the rights of LGBTQ+ people in and around New York, including after Johnson’s death.
She died in 2002 due to complications with liver cancer. After her death, her activism was celebrated with a street sign in her name.
Rusty Mae Moore
Rusty Mae Moore was a trans rights activist who ran a de facto homeless shelter in the late 1990s and early 2000s known as the Trans House.
A trans woman herself, Moore ensured that trans people in New York were taken care of and protected.
She was described as a “second mother” to patrons of Transy House, with resident Antonia Cambareri saying: “She paved the way, recording our culture, allowing us to survive.”
Moore died in February 2022 in Pine-Hill, New York home at 80 years old.
Thomas Baty
One of the only images of Thomas Baty available today. (Bains News Source)
English scholar Thomas Baty, also known as Irene Clyde, was a gender binary-crushing visionary who defined his life around a rejection of societal gender norms.
Modern writers have described Baty as non-binary, though it is unclear if he identified with the term.
Baty published several books under the name Irene Clyde, most of which were feminism-based critiques of the gender binary in the form of essays or science fiction. Most notable was his book Beatrice the Sixteenth – a utopian novel set in a postgender society.
He died aged 86 in 1954 in Ichinomiya, Chiba, Japan.
Anderson Bigode Herzer
Trans man Anderson Bigode Herzer was a profound trans writer from Brazil whose experiences were used to create the film Vera by Sérgio Toledo.
Born in 1962, much of Herzer’s life was noted in a book titled A queda para o alto or Descending Upwards. He was institutionalised at 14 years old in a youth state detention centre until 17, when politician Eduardo Suplicy hired him as an intern.
Herzer struggled with mental health issues and trauma due to his detainment, taking his own life at just 20 years old.
Angie Xtravaganza talks during a clip of the documentary Paris is Burning. (Paris is Burning)
If you’ve watched the emotionally heavy documentary Paris is Burning, then Angie Xtravaganza needs no introduction. The trans performer was prominent in New York’s gay ball culture.
Xtravaganza was born in the South Bronx in 1964 where she was raised in a Catholic house of 13 children.
She started doing drag in 1980 and performed at balls at just 16. Her performances became well-known enough that she established the House of Xtravaganza in 1982.
She was diagnosed with AIDs in 1991 and died two years later at the age of 28.
As monks chanted evening prayers in the dimly lit Saint John’s University church, members of the student LGBTQ organization, QPLUS, were meeting in a dedicated, Pride flag-lined lounge at the institution’s sister Benedictine college, a few miles away across Minnesota farmland.
To Sean Fisher, a senior who identifies as nonbinary and helps lead QPLUS, its official recognition and funding by Saint John’s and the College of Saint Benedict is welcome proof of the Catholic schools’ “acknowledging queer students exist.”
But tensions endure here and at many of the hundreds of U.S. Catholic and Protestant universities. The Christian teachings they ascribe to are different from wider societal values over gender identity and sexual orientation, because they assert that God created humans in unchangeable male and female identities, and sex should only happen within the marriage of a man and a woman.
“The ambivalence toward genuine care is clouded by Jesus-y attitudes. Like ‘Love your neighbor’ has an asterisk,” Fisher said that late fall evening.
Most of the 200 Catholic institutions serving nearly 900,000 students have made efforts to be welcoming while staying true to their mission as Catholic ministries, said the Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.
Among Protestant institutions, a few are pushing the envelope, and most are hoping to stay out of the messiness, said John Hawthorne, a retired Christian college sociology professor and administrator.
“Denominations won’t budge, so colleges will need to lead the way,” Hawthorne added. Otherwise, they might not survive, because students are used to values far different from churches’ teachings, as highlighted by last week’s Senate passage of legislation to protect same-sex marriage.
“Today’s college freshman was born in 2004, the year Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage,” Hawthorne said, suggesting there might not be enough conservative students in the future for some of the universities to survive.
The consequences extend beyond the experiences of current students, many of whom enroll not because of faith but academics, athletics or scholarships. Some will likely become church leaders in an already divided society, where the recent shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado was only the latest reminder of the threats against that community.
From right: Ryan Imm, Sean Fisher and Sam Schug on campus in St. Joseph, Minn., on Nov. 8, 2022. Giovanna Dell’Orto / AP
The majority of Christian colleges and universities list “sexual orientation” in their nondiscrimination statements, and half also include “gender identity” — far more than did so in 2013, said Jonathan Coley, a sociologist at Oklahoma State University who maintains a Christian higher education database of policies toward LGBTQ students.
But translating that into practice creates tensions affecting most campus life, including enrollment at single-gender institutions, housing, restroom design and pronoun use.
Backlash follows from opposing corners: At some conservative schools, some students and faculty have filed discrimination complaints, while at more affirming institutions, some parents and clergy argue that approach doesn’t align with their mission.
“We have to learn to live with this tension,” said the Rev. Donal Godfrey, chaplain at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit institution in a city with a history of LGBTQ rights advocacy and a conservative Catholic archbishop opposed to same-sex marriage.
New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ Catholics, keeps a list of over 130 Catholic colleges it considers LGBTQ-friendly because they provide public affirmation, including courses and clubs, said its director, Francis DeBernardo.
“Catholic colleges and universities were … and still are the most LGBTQ-friendly places in the church in the United States,” DeBernardo added.
The Cardinal Newman Society, which advocates for fidelity to church teachings on all Catholic education issues, maintains its own list of recommended schools, a little more than a dozen the organization considers “faithful.”
“For these colleges, being ‘Catholic’ is not a watered-down brand or historical tradition,” Newman president Patrick Reilly said via email.
Other campus leaders see tension in Catholic teachings, which tend to skew conservative on human sexuality but progressive on social justice.
“It’s kind of a tightrope,” said John Scarano, campus ministry director at John Carroll University, a Jesuit school near Cleveland with “safe zone trainings” as part of its ministry to LGBTQ students.
When parents and prospective students come to him undecided between John Carroll and Franciscan University, 100 miles away in Steubenville, Ohio, Scarano tells them, “Here, your Catholicism is going to be challenged” by different perspectives.
At the Franciscan-run school, “we don’t move away from the truth of the human person as discovered in Scripture, the tradition of the Church, and the teaching authority of the Church — this is our mooring, and we believe that to follow Christ is to be faithful to the Church’s teachings,” said the Rev. Jonathan St. Andre, a senior university leader.
The Steubenville institution strives to develop students’ “healthy sense of the gift of their human sexuality,” he added via email — but with no tolerance for harassment of those who disagree.
Students’ safety is a priority, said Mary Geller, the associate provost who oversees student affairs for the 3,000 undergraduates at Saint John’s and Saint Benedict, the single-sex institutions in Minnesota.
“We’re set up in the binary, but we know there are people coming to us who don’t live in the binary,” Geller said. They now admit students based on the gender they identify with, and consider transfers for those who transition.
That has enraged a few parents, like a father complaining “that we have students with male body parts in a female dorm,” Geller recalled. “I just said, ‘Sir, I don’t check body parts.’”
With the help of legal advocates, some students at evangelical and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints schools are suing.
Last year, 33 LGBTQ students or former students at federally funded Christian schools filed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education, claiming the department’s religious exemption allows schools that receive federal dollars to unconstitutionally discriminate against LGBTQ students. The plaintiffs have grown to more than 40.
In May, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launched a separate investigation for alleged violations of the rights of LGBTQ students at six Christian universities — including Liberty University.
The independent evangelical university is one of several that have greatly expanded their rules prohibiting students from identifying as LGBTQ or advocating for such identities.
Liberty forbids LGBTQ affinity clubs, same-sex displays of affection, and use of pronouns, restrooms and changing facilities not corresponding to a person’s birth sex. As of this year, its student handbook, called “The Liberty Way,” bans statements and behaviors associated with what it calls “LGBT states of mind.”
“Liberty is very anti-gay,” said Sydney Windsor, a senior there who first decided to attend Liberty to quash her sexual attraction for women and now identifies as pansexual. “I found friendships ending and me getting bad grades because of differing opinions or things I said or posted. It’s years of irreversible trauma.”
At some evangelical schools, the argument has now moved from fighting over student’s sexual and gender equality to fighting for LGBTQ diversity in faculty and staff hiring.
This year, Eastern University, located in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, and affiliated with American Baptist Churches USA, amended its policies to allow for the hiring of faculty in same-sex marriages — one of only a handful of evangelical schools to do so.
“If we can get faculty to come out and to have queer people openly represented on campus, that would be really big,” said Faith Jeanette Millender, an Eastern University student who identifies as bisexual or queer and is active in the school’s LGBTQ group.
A high-stakes clash between students, faculty and the school’s board of trustees over hiring LGBTQ faculty is unfolding at Seattle Pacific University, a 131-year-old school affiliated with the Free Methodist Church.
The faculty held a vote of no-confidence in the board, one-third of which is appointed by the denomination, because it insists on keeping the policy barring people in same-sex relationships from full-time positions. Faculty and students have also sued the board in Washington State Superior Court for breaching its fiduciary duty, arguing the policy threatens to harm SPU’s reputation, worsen an already shrinking enrollment and possibly jeopardize its future.
“This entrenchment around human sexuality feels so incongruent with the on-campus experience and what we teach our students,” said Lynnette Bikos, professor and chair of SPU’s clinical psychology department and a plaintiff in the suit against the board.
Chloe Guillot, a 22-year-old graduate student at SPU who is one of 16 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the school, said it was a matter of social justice.
“I’m wrestling with my own identity and I know how much Christianity has brought harm to communities, whether its people of color, women, or LGBTQ people,” Guillot said. “I have a responsibility to step into those spaces and be willing to fight back. As someone who is a Christian we need to hold ourselves accountable.”
In late November, a group of students and faculty decorated several campus buildings with rainbow-colored Christmas lights.
The administration has responded to one of the suits in a court filing saying that it expects students and faculty to “affirm the University’s statement of faith, and to abide by its lifestyle expectations, which together shape the vision and mission of the institution.”
Kathryn Lee, who came out as lesbian last year, while still a professor at Whitworth University, an evangelical school in Spokane, Washington, said debates over LGBTQ issues will persist for years.
“What’s unfortunate in my view is that in some people’s minds how do you define Christian education and it will be, ‘Oh, where are they on LGBTQ?’” she said. “I find that tragic.”
To students like Fisher in Minnesota, concrete actions will show if LGBTQ people can truly be welcomed on Christian campuses.
There are still too many incidents. Ryan Imm, a Saint John’s University junior and QPLUS leader who identifies as gay, recalled an anti-LGBTQ slur used on his residential floor. Sitting together in the QPLUS lounge, both students pointed to signs of hope — like the popular drag show at Saint Benedict.
“It’s almost like people forget there’s dissonance,” Imm said.
James was just 16 when Mom and Dad found out he was gay. Faced with the choice of accepting his orientation, they chose not to and forced him to leave. They couldn’t tolerate his “lifestyle choice.” In the small rural town in Georgia where he lived, he became an outcast with no support system. He ended up on the streets of Atlanta, where he eventually found his chosen family, which embraced him and fulfilled his need for support, comfort, and kinship.
James’s story is hardly unique. Roughly 40% of queer adults have faced rejection from their biological families. As for homeless youth, more than 40% are LGBTQ. What happens to these queer individuals once the safety net from parents, other family members and colleagues is yanked away?
Chosen families in the queer community are a lifeline, all about belonging and filling the void left by biological families. Chosen families are inclusive. Rather than shutting people out, they provide joy, security, and protection.
A new project — The Chosen Family Project — seeks to explore this little-understood but essential part of the LGBTQ story, the idea of the chosen or “found” family.
The Chosen Family Project was born out of months of discussion in 2020 among the initial three founders, Steve Rossetti, Steven Drew Auerbach and Bruce Purdy, all gay men living in Palm Springs, Calif. These founders wanted to support the gay community through an online platform that assists gay men through the coming out process. After exploring the existing literature and organizations, they discovered there was very little about what happens after coming out. The original idea evolved into a focus on the chosen, created family.
The Chosen Family Project’s mission is to celebrate, honor, and give voice to the diverse, loving, and joyful people we in the LGBTQ community call “family.” Through
books, interviews and documentary films, The Chosen Family Project will redefine the notion of the traditional nuclear family. It will share stories from people of various age groups and regions of our country about how they found, created and nurtured their chosen family. The Project will shine a light on the many forms and combinations of these families.
Through stories, testimonials, photographs, re-imagined iconic images and select family recipes, the Project will provide a new lens for understanding the concept of family. The chosen family becomes a refuge and a source of unconditional love from the people we support and who support us.
In this way, The Chosen Family Project hopes to change the prevailing narrative that has labeled LGBTQ families as different, though in reality they are more alike than different.
These powerful stories are a part of the LGBTQ history and culture, not to be forgotten. Our goal is to highlight and counteract the long-standing adversity that the LGBTQ community has faced (and continues to face), based on whom they love. We aim to inspire compassion and community rather than divisiveness.
Revenue from The Chosen Family Project will support LGBTQ foundations and individuals that assist those moving from traumatic family circumstances toward the triumph of living authentically with the family they choose.
A transgender member of the Asheville City Board of Education has resigned after a months-long campaign of harassment by a representative of a national hate group.
Peyton O’Conner announced her resignation from the board on Monday night, effective immediately.
Ronald Gates, a self-described pastor and “ambassador” for the Arizona-based hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, started showing up at Asheville City Board of Education meetings in October, hectoring the board with anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, denouncing critical race theory, and misgendering board member O’Conner.
“Mr. Gates is a fascist whose hatred and fear-mongering have no place within the Asheville City School’s community,” O’Conner wrote in her letter of resignation to the board. “He is dragging a well-funded group of fascists into our town in order to claim his own 15 minutes of fame. His views are ignorant, disgusting, and vile.”
O’Conner was appointed to the seat in March 2021 by the Asheville City Council to fill a term ending in 2024.
O’Conner’s resignation follows a board meeting at which she ripped up a letter transmitted by Gates that demanded “parents, school board members, and local clergy be informed if teachers plan to allow ‘indoctrination teaching’ in the school system.”
Alliance Defending Freedom identifies itself as a “legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, the sanctity of life, parental rights, and God’s design for marriage and family.” The Southern Poverty Law Center describes it as a “hate group.” ADF has joined with like-minded organizations in Europe in support of forced sterilization of transgender individuals.
When Gates took the mic for public comment, he repeatedly misgendered O’Conner, despite rebukes from the board chair. O’Conner interjected: “Mr. Gates, I would ask that you refrain from bigotry and hate speech. That is not my gender.”
Gates went on: “We should be focusing on reading, writing, math, and history, true history, instead of sexual immorality or indoctrination or CRT. As I shared, the submittal of the information, it was submitted before the board, respectfully, and the individual that took time to rip up that information is not known, as you reflect it, as ‘Miss.’ I will say ‘Mr.’ if the blood was drawn XY, which is a male.”
Board members can be heard repeating “no,” and Gates is gaveled out of order and told to yield his time. The pastor and his supporters were escorted from the room by security, as Gates continued his rant.
“The ADF has a playbook,” O’Conner wrote in her resignation letter. “Essentially, Mr. Gates will continue attacking until he is censured in a way that allows him (with the assistance of the ADF) to create a lawsuit and turn our district into the circus and s**t show that he and the ADF desire. This isn’t a guess, the ADF makes no attempt to hide its tactics. It’s a group with 1.6 million followers, they are looking for their next opportunity for their next Fox News press blitz.”
Asheville is one of the most progressive cities in the southeast. According to the last U.S. Census, the Asheville area has 83% more LGBTQ+ people than the typical American city or town. In 2021, the city council unanimously passed one of the country’s most sweeping anti-discrimination ordinances, protecting residents based on sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and several other classes.
Want to be part of ending new HIV transmissions this decade? Here’s what you need to know.
Over the last decade, the fight against HIV has been transformed by medical breakthroughs.
England is on track to end new transmissions by 2030, with the HIV prevention medication PrEP, alongside more traditional methods of prevention (HIV testing, condoms, and U=U), proving to “accelerate the downtrend in new HIV infections in recent years”, according to Robbie Currie, lead commissioner of London’s HIV prevention program branded: Do It London.
Jo, 27, from Hackney, has been taking the once-daily pill for two years. It works by preventing the HIV virus from replicating in the body.
“PrEP has totally changed my relationship towards sex,” they say. “Before, sex was always tinged with a slight uncertainty and fear in the aftermath, but since I’ve been taking it, I’ve been able to let go.”
People can enjoy great sex while protecting themselves from HIV. (Stock image via Getty)
PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is one of four proven methods which, when combined, can stop the spread of HIV. The other three are using condoms, regular HIV testing, and treatment upon diagnosis of HIV to achieve an “undetectable” status.
If people who have HIV have been taking effective HIV treatment and their viral load has been undetectable for 6 months or more, it means they cannot pass the virus on through sex. This is called undetectable=untransmittable (U=U).
Across London, people are combining these four methods to have great, safe sex while helping to stop the spread of HIV.
Benjamin, 32, from Bermondsey, has just become a PrEP user in the last month. Beforehand, he visited his local sexual health clinic every three months to get tested for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and he’ll continue to do so now.
PrEP is a daily pill that protects from HIV. (Getty)
“Before I used PrEP, I was pretty diligent about using condoms and getting tested,” he says. “PrEP doesn’t protect against all STIs, so I’ve still been using condoms most of the time and I’m still going to get tested every three months.” (Taking regular HIV tests is a requirement for PrEP).
Phil, 34, from Haringey, was diagnosed with HIV in 2018. He takes one pill every day and is “undetectable”, so he can’t pass the virus on to any sexual partners.
“One thing I was so happy to learn is that if you’re diagnosed with HIV, like me, and you get access to treatment early, then you can live a long life,” he says. “And you can still feel good about yourself and have great sex.”
HIV myths busted
Thanks to PrEP, improved access to testing and other medical advancements, London and England as a whole are on track to end new HIV transmissions by 2030 – something which would have once seemed inconceivable.
But there are still challenges ahead to reach the goal. Currie says that misconceptions around HIV are still an issue and HIV related stigma is still present.
“People aren’t aware of how much treatment and prevention options have advanced,” he says. “And one of the biggest misconceptions is that someone with HIV can still pass it on if they are on effective treatment, which we know isn’t true.”
People with HIV can live long, healthy, happy lives on effective treatment. (Stock image via Getty)
Another misconception, Currie says, is that people on HIV treatment have drastically different health outcomes in later life.
“If you have HIV and receive treatment early, there is no reason why you won’t have a normal lifespan,” he says.
Something else people aren’t always aware of is that, if you have unprotected sex and you aren’t on PrEP, there is medication that can be taken for 72 hours afterwards.
PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) is a short course of HIV medicines taken very soon after a possible exposure to the virus, to prevent it from taking hold in your body.
The best place to get PEP is a sexual health or HIV clinic, but if you need PEP over the weekend or outside of office hours, when clinics will often be closed, it’s available at accident and emergency departments.
Condoms are one of the four proven methods of preventing HIV. (Getty)
In an ideal world, PrEP and condoms would prevent such a situation from arising. But sex doesn’t always pan out that way. “Now that we have PrEP, what we’re trying to do is shift the dial a bit,” Currie explains. “So if you’re at a period in your life where you may be more exposed to HIV, then we really want you to be on PrEP.”
The good news is that we now have the tools to eliminate HIV, because there are prevention and treatment medications that are effective.
“Our latest Do It London campaign called ‘Be sure, know the four’ seeks to raise the awareness and uptake of the methods of HIV prevention to those most at risk.” Currie says. “The campaign is funded by all of London’s local authorities who remain committed to ending new HIV diagnoses by 2030.”
The world watched in horror this week as the proudly resilient LGBT community here coped with unthinkable tragedy.
Sadly, our community has a lot of experience with such things.
From the AIDS crisis in which we fought an indifferent government and hostile neighbors. To an untold number of previous attacks on our bars and clubs, including the 1973 firebombing of the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans that killed 32 gay men. To enduring the playground taunts and everyday slurs that go along with being “different” in this country.
We were horrified, too, about what happened at Pulse, though not as shocked as our straight counterparts. They will never know what it’s like to walk through life with a permanent target on your back. To pause before each touch; to hesitate before exchanging a hug or kiss with a partner or spouse. To calculate before coming out at work. To endure the judgmental stares when checking in at a hotel or booking a restaurant reservation on Valentine’s Day. To walk around the block, scanning the scene before mustering the nerve to walk into a gay bar. To be insulted, mocked, beaten up just for loving someone of the same sex. We’ve all been there.
So much has been written in recent years about this “post-gay” world in which we supposedly live. A world in which there’s no need for LGBT-identified spaces like bars, clubs, coffee shops, bookstores and, yes, newspapers, because we’re “integrated” and “accepted” now.
What happened in Orlando is a heartbreaking reminder that there’s no such thing as “post-gay,” and that our spaces are sacred. Where outsiders see only a bar or club, we see a community center or the place where we formed our closest friendships or met our significant others. Our bars and clubs have played a heroic role in supporting the community, serving as gathering places in times of triumph and tragedy and helping to raise countless dollars to fund our causes, to fight HIV, to aid our own. When the government turned its back, the first dollars raised to fight AIDS came from the bar and club scene.
The attack in Orlando was an attack on all of us because there’s a Pulse in every city in this country. A place where we can let our guard down, be ourselves, embrace our friends and kiss our partners openly. We need those places because regardless of whether you live in Dupont Circle or rural Alabama, there is a risk in engaging in public displays of affection if you’re LGBT.
A look at the public response to the Orlando massacre reveals just how much work lies ahead. The Florida governor has tried to erase LGBT identity from the attack. We can’t even get validation in death in some quarters. The lieutenant governor of Texas tweeted homophobic Bible verses on the morning of the attack yet somehow still has a job. Last week, before the attack, Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) read a Bible verse on the U.S. House floor that calls for the death of gay people. Shortly after, the House voted overwhelmingly to reject a spending bill that included discrimination protections for LGBT workers.
Even those Republicans who have issued milquetoast statements offering “thoughts and prayers” are left to reconcile those sentiments with their own voting records hostile to LGBT causes. The presumptive GOP nominee for president, whose name I can’t bear to include in a tribute to Orlando, claims to care about what happened, yet has pledged to nominate Supreme Court justices committed to overturning the marriage equality ruling.
Hillary Clinton is right — this isn’t the time for politics. As we struggle with how to respond to the massacre and to those who would demonize and discriminate against us and cast us back into the closet, we should resist the urge to lash out and respond simply with love.
It’s been humbling to be here in Orlando this week, watching members of our community cope with such grace, dignity and determination. They didn’t shut down the community center in fear, instead they opened the doors wide to all while working tirelessly to raise money for the victims, collect donations of water and supplies for blood centers overwhelmed by volunteers, negotiate deals with airlines to fly loved ones to town for unexpected funerals and more.
One of the remarkable people I’ve met here this week, Pastor Brei, said it best: “Have faith and believe that evil and hate can be eradicated one person at a time. How do you treat someone? How do you embrace someone who treats you wrong? We all bleed, laugh, hope and have great victories and major defeats. And so, you know me, even if you don’t know my name — I’m you.”
Kevin Naff is editor of the Washington Blade. Reach him at knaff@washblade.com.
Lesvos rolls out of bed each morning before the sunrise, heads to work, then punches her time card at exactly 6 a.m. By day, she’s a chef at a traditional Korean restaurant in downtown Seoul, but by night, she runs South Korea’s first lesbian bar. The venue, Lesvos Bar, is located in a section of the Itaewon neighborhood known as “Homo Hill,” one of this country’s few queer-friendly areas.
Lesvos, who said she legally changed her given name more than two decades ago and is only known by her mononym, said her bar provides LGBTQ Koreans the type of identity-affirming space she longed for in her younger years.
“I want this bar to be a place for all LGBTQ Koreans, not just lesbians,” Lesvos, 66, said. “It’s my way of giving back to our community.”
“I will do whatever it takes for South Korea’s LGBTQ community until I take my last breath.”
LESVOS
Her bar may be queer-friendly but South Korea is not, she said. In a country known for itschart-topping music, visionaryfilms and comparatively robust democracy, only 38% of the public supports same-sex marriage, according to a 2021 Gallup Korea Poll. Discrimination, Lesvos emphasized, is everywhere.
In South Korea, national law provides no protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Same-sex marriage and civil unions are illegal. Queer students face round-the-clock discrimination in schools, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, and same-sex couples cannot jointly adopt. In the military, consensual same-sex intercourse among soldiers is a crime, punishable by up to two years in prison — and all able-bodied men must serve about two years in the South Korean military as part of the conscript system.
On LGBTQ rights, South Korea is an outlier among the world’s wealthy democracies. In the 2019 Franklin & Marshall Global Barometer of Gay Rights, the world’s 38 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations averaged a grade of B. Only three — South Korea, Poland and Turkey — earned an F. Countries with an F are “persecuting” their queer communities, the report said.
NBC News spoke with South Korean lawmakers, human rights organizations and dozens of LGBTQ South Koreans in three of the country’s largest cities: Seoul, Daegu and Busan. Most say a bill that would outlaw discrimination against all minority groups — including the LGBTQ community — is the critical first step toward legal equality.
In 2007, former President Roh Moo-hyun’s administration helped draft South Korea’s first comprehensive nondiscrimination bill, but conservative groups like the Congressional Missionary Coalition immediately objected to its inclusion of “sexual orientation.” One petition sent to the Ministry of Justice prophesied, without any evidence, that “homosexuals will try to seduce everyone” if the bill were to become law.
Lawmakers have since proposed eight comprehensive nondiscrimination bills, but the country’s conservative presidentand legislators, as well as its powerful Christian lobbies, all but doom such bills in the Assembly, even though a majority of the public (57%) support a nondiscrimination bill, according to a 2022 Gallup Korea Poll.
But Lesvos said she is undeterred by the political deadlock. Defying the odds, she said, is the secret behind her survival.
At age 14, after revealing she had a crush on a female classmate, Lesvos was outed to her mother by a school teacher, who showed up at her home to share the revelation.
“She was postured like I was guilty or had just committed a crime,” Lesvos said of her mother. “I was so afraid. I wondered if I should run away — and I was only 14.”
The years ahead were not any easier. In her 20s and 30s, Lesvos said, she nearly lost the will to live, each day a barrage of discrimination, isolation and abuse.
“I couldn’t go a moment without alcohol,” she said. “I wanted to die. I thought I was alone, and I seriously considered taking my own life.”
Things changed in 2000, when Lesvos, then 44 years old, stumbled upon a small, queer-friendly bar in Seoul.
“I finally met queer friends,” she said, “and I finally got to be immersed in queer culture.”
A few months later, she cobbled together her savings and bought Lesvos Bar, which had originally opened in 1996, making her the single owner of South Korea’s first lesbian bar. In the spirit of self-reform, she dropped her given name and, henceforth, was known to all simply as Lesvos, she said. The name, as well as the word “lesbian,” derives from the Greek island of Lesbos, home to the ancient poet Sappho.
Lesvos has since assumed a second title: activist. Affixed to her bar’s taupe-colored walls are pride flags, rally leaflets and a command bestowed upon all who enter: “Pass the nondiscrimination bill.”
“Do we not have the right to live as equals?” Lesvos asked, her voice reaching a measured crescendo. “I wish the word discrimination didn’t even exist. But it does. It’s everywhere.”
‘Like a smoking habit’
Rep. Jang Hye-yeong, who was elected in 2020 at the age of 33, is a woman of many trades. The documentary filmmaker turned progressive lawmaker calls herself an advocate for this country’s LGBTQ community. Jang’s firebrand style quickly shot her to global stardom: She is now the face of the push for the nondiscrimination bill, and last year, Time listed her among the 100 emerging leaders shaping the future.
Rep. Jang Hye-yeong.Office of Rep. Jang Hye-yeong
“Just telling somebody that you are LGBTQ will certainly subject you to discrimination,” the lawmaker, now 35, told NBC News. “A nondiscrimination bill means no citizen of this country is subject to state-condoned discrimination. A nondiscrimination bill means nobody is left behind, and now is the time to pass the nondiscrimination bill.”
South Korea, she said, has both a national and international imperative to pass a nondiscrimination bill, adding that the lack of such a law “means that South Korea — an important member of the U.N. and an advanced economy — is not protecting its citizens’ human rights.”
Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the U.N. Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, told NBC News that even if a country has no LGBTQ-specific anti-discrimination laws, “that doesn’t mean it’s not subject to its obligations under international human rights law,” including the right to freedom from discrimination and violence. This, he added, “includes South Korea.”
While support for a comprehensive nondiscrimination bill is strong in South Korea, Jang concedes that the odds of one passing, at least in the near future, are slim.
Rep. Jang Hye-yeong holds a press conference for the nondiscrimination bill outside the Korean National Assembly.Office of Rep. Jang Hye-yeong
In the last election, Jang’s progressive Justice Party, which supports the bill, won only six seats in the 300-seat assembly. The country’sconservative president and People Power Party oppose a comprehensive nondiscrimination bill, while the left-leaning Democratic Party has expressed lukewarm support. But Jang blames the logjam on the country’s powerful Christian interest groups, which she said lobby against the bill and “LGBTQ people’s right to exist.” Lawmakers often avoid challenging Christian political stances to placate their base, she said.
The office of President Yoon Suk Yeol, along with leaders ofthe conservative and centrist parties, declined NBC News’ requests for comment.
Explaining his stance on same-sex marriage, then-candidate Yoontold Human Rights Watch that “although one may have the right to choose their sexual orientation,” South Korea needs “a careful approach to the issue because denying biologically assigned genders and recognizing same-sex couples could have significant social impact.” In May, a top adviser to President Yoon said“homosexuality can be treated,” like a smoking habit (he later resigned).
Protestant Pastor Yonah Lee, a staunch supporter of Yoon’s policies, is often called this country’s de facto “ex-gay” spokesperson. He has held events at the country’s legislature, and the former general secretary of the Christian Council of Korea called his work a “milestone to Korean history and society.”
Pastor Yonah Lee, center, leads an “ex-gay” march in Seoul.Holy Life
Pastor Lee acknowledged that discrimination against LGBTQ individuals is “wrong,” but he argued that the Bible “condemns homosexuality” and baselessly claimed that an anti-discrimination law that explicitly protects LGBTQ people would “force churches to close.”
Madrigal-Borloz, the U.N. expert, said the purported contradiction between religion and human rights is nonexistent.
“One does not speak the language of theology or dogma when addressing the human rights of persons,” he said, adding that South Korea is a constitutionally secular republic, and “there are limitations to the way in which one can expect their religious beliefs to limit the rights of others.”
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Asked how his stance squares with South Korea’s obligations under international law, Pastor Lee cited a series of biblical scriptures, then demurred.
“LGBTQ adults can live their lives freely in Korea,” he said. “So why do we need the bill?”
‘We’re feeling furious’
To YoonDuck Kim, the presumption that LGBTQ people can live freely in the country is laughable. “The pastor is wrong,” he said. “He’s so wrong.”
Kim is a bisexual student at Seoul’s Yonsei University and was the president of its queer student union last year. The club, Come Together, publishes a magazine at the end of each school year, which is typically filled with essays from LGBTQ Koreans on and off campus.
YoonDuck Kim is a bisexual graduate student at Yonsei University and last year’s president of the school’s queer students club. “We’re feeling furious,” he said.Courtesy Lim Beom-sik
In the spring of 2021, however, Come Together devoted its entire 240-page issue to the importance of a nondiscrimination bill. It was a notable moment for the club and it signaled that the LGBTQ community’s patience had worn thin, Kim said.
“We’re all asking ourselves, ‘Why hasn’t the bill passed yet?’ We’re feeling furious.”
He then explained how his community experiences discrimination: Same-sex couples still cannot marry, which blocks them from marriage’s legal protections, nor can they start a family, at least in the eyes of the law. South Korean public and private schools are “extremely closeted,” he said, adding it’s “typically unsafe [for students] to be out.”
A Human Rights Watch investigation published last year accused South Korean schools of “neglecting the rights of LGBTQ youth,” citing around-the-clock “bullying and discrimination, invisibility and misinformation in curricula, and rigid gender segregation.” In one poll of LGBTQ students cited in the report, 96% of respondents reported experiencing discrimination or bullying in school, while a second poll found 92% of LGBTQ students were verbally harassed by peers and 80% were harassed by teachers.
Jeon Il, a gay bartender from Itaewon, said the city’s small Homo Hill neighborhood is the only spot “where we can really be gay.” He added that a simple dinner date elsewhere is “basically impossible, because it isn’t even safe to hold hands in public,” and even at timesin Itaewon.
Jeon Il is a bartender at Always Homme, South Korea’s first gay bar, located in Itaewon’s Homo Hill neighborhood. Holding hands with a partner in public is “basically impossible,” he said. Courtesy Lim Beom-sik
Yoo, who asked that only his surname be published because of workplace discrimination, said he is forced to “erase the queer to act masculine” while working his corporate job in Seoul. “I’m afraid of what they’d do if they find out I’m gay,” he said.
Same-sex intercourse is not illegal for civilians in South Korea, but it is between men in the military. Article 92-6 of the Military Criminal Act penalizes “indecent acts” in any military setting with up to two years in prison — and all able-bodied men must serve about two years in the military. No law criminalizes heterosexual intercourse in the South Korean military.
However, there are some signs that restrictions on LGBTQ service members may be easing: Earlier this year, the South Korean Supreme Court overturned the conviction of two soldiers for gay sex, and last year, a district court posthumously reinstated a transgender soldier who died by suicide after being dismissed from the army.
Gender-diverse South Koreans face discriminatory challenges unique to their community. June Green, a trans male bartender and human rights activist, said transgender Koreans often struggle to find stable employment. The first digit of the country’s equivalent of a Social Security number corresponds to one’s sex assigned at birth, amounting to “forced outing” in any job interview.
Simple errands like grocery shopping aren’t any easier for Green.
“I have to make a deeper voice whenever I leave my house, and even then, people still approach me to ask if I’m a guy or girl,” he said.
June Green is a trans-male bartender, recording artist and human rights activist in Seoul. Since national law provides no protection from discrimination based on gender identity, “I often feel threatened to just walk on the street,” Green said.Courtesy Lim Beom-sik
Codifying anti-discrimination laws would not necessarily alleviate these concerns, but activists say it could catalyze additional protections, like same-sex marriage and joint adoption.
For Green, it could also provide an additional sense of security.
“Because we still don’t have an anti-discrimination law, I often feel threatened to just walk on the street,” he said.
‘So many lives lost’
Lesvos said her mom once told her that she would grow out of her identity, “but decades later, I’m still a lesbian,” she said.
But while Lesvos has persevered, she solemnly acknowledged that discrimination has exacted a deadly toll.
“I’ve known so many queer Koreans who killed themselves,” she said. “So many lives lost. Suicide is not the answer. We have to survive.”
She added, “I will do whatever it takes for South Korea’s LGBTQ community until I take my last breath.”
Jang, the human rights activist and politician, believes the assembly will eventually pass the nondiscrimination bill; she just doesn’t know when. She noted that a majority of Koreans in their 20s support same-sex marriage, even though the older generations are still broadly opposed. Lawmakers will ultimately share the young’s tolerance, she said, “and love will win.”
June Green said the undated promise to pass a nondiscrimination bill does not assuage his everyday sense of danger. However, he did acknowledge that things have improved for the country’s queer community, and he said he sees no reason to think that progress will cease.
South Korea has “new queer shows, and there are more and more people coming on the street for Pride. We couldn’t even imagine that five years ago,” he said as a small smile lined his face. “It’s really sensational.”
Kim acknowledged that the road to change might be bumpy, even unpaved, but he vowed to do whatever he can to “make the impossible possible.”
Asked how he’ll feel if and when a nondiscrimination bill passes, he said he’ll be both “happy and sad,” because he’ll “think of Choi.”
Choi, who used they/them pronouns, was an untiring champion of the nondiscrimination bill, an editor of last year’s special Come Together club magazine and Kim’s close friend. The two students would often talk about the burden of anti-queer discrimination, Kim said. Then, last summer, Choi died by suicide — leaving Kim and his friends devastated.
Reflecting on the fight for equality still ahead, Kim glanced at the floor beneath his feet, then began to speak to his late friend.
“We won’t stop fighting, even though you’re gone,” he said as a single tear inched down his face. “So rest easy. We’ll take it from here.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
President Andrzej Duda of Poland should veto a regressive and discriminatory bill that threatens sex education, including about sexual orientation and gender identity, Human Rights Watch said today.
The proposed legislation is a revised version of a bill including similar provisions that Duda vetoed earlier this year, calling for unity at a time of crisis due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Duda should swiftly veto this harmful new bill,” said Kyle Knight, senior LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Accurate and inclusive age-appropriate sex education is a crucial element of the rights to health and education and is critical to promoting healthy relationships and reducing gender-based violence, adolescent pregnancy, maternal mortality, and HIV.”
The bill would centralize control over Polish schools and limit already restricted access to comprehensive sexuality education. The bill is informally called “Lex Czarnek 2.0” after Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek, who initiated the first bill and has been promoting the revised version. The legislation would give government “educational welfare officers” the authority to decide what extracurricular or educational activities can occur on school grounds and establish a complex bureaucracy around approving or refusing such activities.
On November 29, the opposition-controlled Senate, the upper house of Poland’s national legislature, rejected the bill, sending it back to the Sejm, the lower house, controlled by the ruling Law and Justice party. On December 2, the Sejm rejected the Senate’s veto and passed the bill. President Duda has 21 days to decide whether to sign or veto it.
Nongovernment organizations are the only providers of comprehensive sexuality education in many places in Poland. The state school curriculum includes misinformation about reproductive health and sexuality and perpetuates myths and discriminatory stereotypes rather than providing evidence-based sex education in line with international and regional standards.
The bill would increase the authority of regional school superintendents, appointed by the education minister, over school principals and grant superintendents the power to block activities led by nongovernment organizations in schools, a decision currently in the hands of parents’ councils.
Because school superintendents are appointed by the government and the government has targetedcomprehensive sexuality education and those who provide it, the changes could lead to ideological control over schools and politicized choices about who can provide educational activities. Superintendents would also be involved in decisions about removing principals, potentially politicizing that process as well.
If the bill becomes law, it would have a chilling effect on teachers and organizations that provide comprehensive sexuality education, and de factoprohibit Polish schools from addressing topics of sexual orientation, gender identity, and reproductive rights, Human Rights Watch said. The bill puts a host of children’s rights at risk, including the rights to information, education, and health.
Dozens of civil society organizations, teachers’ unions, and local authorities’ consortiums associated with the Free School Coalition have warned that the measure would gradually deprive schools of autonomy and create fear and distrust among teachers, who may fear repercussions if they step out of line with the government. Education and rights advocates have pointed out that Education Minister Czarnek recently approved a new official textbook that contained biased and discriminatory content.
Czarnek, known for efforts to reshape the school curriculum in line with a conservative, Catholic agenda, claims the new law is necessary to “protect children.” He has promoted gender stereotypes, including emphasizing women’s “destiny to bear children,” and the near-total abortion ban introduced in 2020. Czarnek also positions himself as an opponent to so-called “gender and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) ideology,” a term used to demonize gender equality and the rights of women and LGBT people. In December 2020, over 170 academics from around the world called for an international “boycott” of Czarnek, due to his “homophobic, xenophobic and misogynistic views.”
Another bill that could have a detrimental impact on education was referred to government committees for further review in April. If passed, this bill, introduced by Law and Justice allies, would potentially criminalize anyone providing sex education or information with prison sentences of up to three years. Even without more stringent laws, teachers and school administrators who support sexuality education or reproductive rights have already been harassed, dragged through administrative proceedings, and threatened with losing their jobs.
The bill would also affect 200,000 child refugees from Ukraine studying at Polish schools, which rely heavily on civil society organizations to provide specialized assistance such as psychosocial and language support to refugee children. Many organizations offering such services also work on LGBT or women’s rights. The bill would place additional bureaucratic requirements on such organizations, which could prevent them from receiving approval to work in schools at all.
“President Duda already decided once that vetoing a variation of this law was the right thing to do, and he should do the same again,” Knight said. “Students, teachers, and parents across Poland have spoken up to make clear just how harmful and unnecessary this legislation would be.”
Same-sex married couples handle stress better than different-sex spouses do, according to a new study.
The study, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships by researchers at the University of Texas Austin, found that while stress is common in all kinds of marriages, same-sex couples are able to deal with it better together.
By analysing survey responses of 419 couples on dyadic coping – coping as a couple – in both same-sex and different-sex marriages, researchers revealed that same-sex spouses were able to be more positive and collaborative in handling stress compared to their counterparts.
Same-sex married couples handle stress better than different-sex spouses do, according to a new study.
The study, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships by researchers at the University of Texas Austin, found that while stress is common in all kinds of marriages, same-sex couples are able to deal with it better together.
By analysing survey responses of 419 couples on dyadic coping – coping as a couple – in both same-sex and different-sex marriages, researchers revealed that same-sex spouses were able to be more positive and collaborative in handling stress compared to their counterparts.
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The differences, researchers said, stem from links between gender and coping strategies.
For example, women married to men said that their spouses were more ambivalent and hostile in responding to stress compared to women married to women.
According to study author Yiwen Wang: “This research shows that while there are some gender differences in dyadic coping efforts, the effects of supportive and collaborative dyadic coping as well as of negative dyadic coping on marital quality are the same for all couples.
“Our findings also emphasise the importance of coping as a couple for marital quality across different relationship contexts, which can be an avenue through which couples work together to strengthen relationship wellbeing.”
The study’s authors believe that because the stress was handled better by both male and female same-sex couples, the key to their dyadic coping is their ability to work together to deal with stress, using their similarities in stress responses and their shared gender-related experiences.
Debra Umberson, Wang’s co-author, said that coping with stress collaboratively may even be more important for same-sex couples, who are less likely to have familial and institutional support compared to straight couples.
“Including same-sex spouses and looking at how they work with each other to manage stress as compared to different-sex spouses can help us better understand the ways in which gender dynamics unfold in marriages,” she said.
“Same-sex couples face unique stressors related to discrimination and stigma. Coping as a couple may be especially important for them as they do not receive as much support from extended family, friends or institutions as different-sex couples do.”
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