A Virginia lawmaker has introduced a bill that would ban transgender students from joining school sports teams that are consistent with their gender identity.
Senate Bill 766, which state Sen. Jennifer Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach) introduced on Friday, would require “each elementary or secondary school or a private school that competes in sponsored athletic events against such public schools to designate athletic teams, whether a school athletic team or an intramural team sponsored by such school, based on biological sex as follows: (i) ‘males,’ ‘men,’ or ‘boys’; (ii) ‘females,’ ‘women,’ or ‘girls’; or (iii) ‘coed’ or ‘mixed.’”
“Under the bill, male students are not permitted to participate on any school athletic team or squad designated for ‘females,’ ‘women,’ or ‘girls’; however, this provision does not apply to physical education classes at schools,” adds the bill. “The bill provides civil penalties for students and schools that suffer harm as a result of a violation of the bill. Such civil actions are required to be initiated within two years after the harm occurred.”
Kiggans introduced her bill less than a week after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin took office.
Youngkin during his campaign said he does not support allowing trans children to play on sports teams that are consistent with their gender identity. Elizabeth Schultz, an anti-LGBTQ former member of the Fairfax County School Board, has been named the Virginia Department of Education’s Assistant Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The General Assembly’s 2022 legislative session began on Jan. 12 with Republicans in control of the state House of Delegates. Democrats still control the state Senate, and they have pledged to thwart any anti-LGBTQ bills.
“Let’s be clear: This is part of an ongoing, nationwide effort to exclude trans people from enjoying the benefits of sports like their cisgender peers,” tweeted the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia on Friday after Kiggans introduced SB 766. “We won’t tolerate this.”
More than 120 German Roman Catholic priests and officials have jointly come out as LGBT+ and called on the church to do better by queer Catholics.
Presenting a fresh test for the church, which has long resisted calls to modernise when it comes to LGBT+ rights, 125 former and current priests, teachers, church administrators and volunteers came out on Sunday (23 January).
In a Change.org petition, the group wrote that while some have “bravely and dared” to come out in the past, others have only “just taken the step”.
“We no longer want to remain silent,” they wrote.
Jointly, the group is demanding that church leadership bring an end to “outdated statements of church doctrine” when it comes to sexuality and gender.
“We want to be able to live and work openly as LGBTIQ+ persons in the church without fear,” the statement read.
The initiative, called Out In Church, posted Sunday evening a lengthy list of demands addressed to the Roman Catholic Church.
LGBT+ Roman Catholics must have access to “all fields of activists and occupation in the Church without discrimination”, they said.
Out In Church also took aim at Church employment rules that consider being openly queer as a “breach of loyalty or a reason for dismissal”.
“Defamatory and outdated statements of church doctrine on sexuality and gender needs to be revised on the basis of theological and human scientific findings,” the officials continued.
“This is of utmost relevance especially in view of worldwide church responsibility for the human rights of LGBTIQ+ persons.”
Among the group’s other calls is a plea for the church to give LGBT+ people of faith access to God’s blessings and sacraments, and to oppose LGBT+ discrimination in all its forms.
Above all, the group urged church leaders to shoulder accountability for the institution historic discrimination of LGBT+ people.
“In dealing with LGBTIQ+ persons, the church has caused much suffering throughout its history,” Out In Church concluded.
“We expect bishops to take responsibility for this on behalf of the church, to address the institutional history of guilt and to advocate for the changes we call for.”
It’s the latest example of Catholics challenging the Vatican’s increasingly mixed messages on LGBT+ inclusion.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith said that it does not “discriminate” but that God “cannot bless sin”.
The Vatican even objected to a proposed bill in Italy that would protect queer people from discrimination, with the unprecedented intervention sparking outrage.
Francis himself has flip-flopped on the issue of LGBT+ rights. While he once appeared to suggest support for civil unions, he has previously said that parents of queer children should “consult a professional” and referred to “gender ideology” as a “move away from nature”.
The NCAA has adopted a sport-by-sport approach for transgender athletes, bringing the organization in line with the U.S. and International Olympic Committees.
Under the new guidelines, approved by the NCAA Board of Governors on Wednesday, transgender participation for each sport will be determined by the policy for the sport’s national governing body, subject to review and recommendation by an NCAA committee to the Board of Governors.
When there is no national governing body, that sport’s international federation policy would be in place. If there is no international federation policy, previously established IOC policy criteria would take over.
“Approximately 80% of U.S. Olympians are either current or former college athletes,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a release. “This policy alignment provides consistency and further strengthens the relationship between college sports and the U.S. Olympics.”
The NCAA policy is effective immediately, beginning with the 2022 winter championships.
NCAA rules on transgender athletes returned to the forefront when University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas started smashing records this year. She was on the men’s team her first three years, but she is competing for the women this season after transitioning.
The Board of Governors is suggesting NCAA divisions allow for additional eligibility if a transgender student-athlete loses eligibility based on the policy change. That flexibility is provided they meet the NCAA’s new guidelines.
“We are steadfast in our support of transgender student-athletes and the fostering of fairness across college sports,” Georgetown President John DeGioia said in a release. “It is important that NCAA member schools, conferences and college athletes compete in an inclusive, fair, safe and respectful environment and can move forward with a clear understanding of the new policy.”
The French fashion designer Manfred Thierry Mugler has died at the age of 73. His death was due to “natural causes” according to his agent.
On his official Mugler Instagram page, a statement said, “We are devastated to announce the passing of Mr Manfred Thierry Mugler on Sunday January 23rd 2022. May his soul Rest In Peace.”
Mugler was born and raised in Strasbourg, where he trained in his teens as a ballet dancer for six years. He relocated to Paris at the age of 24 and launched his eponymous fashion line in 1973. He opened his first boutique in 1978 and his fame skyrocketed in the 80s, with his broad-shouldered, theatrical designs perfectly chiming with the power-dressing ethos of the times.
Diana Ross, David Bowie and Grace Jones were among those he dressed, and celebrities flocked to his spectacular runway shows.
In later years, besides his clothing, he became just as known for his perfumes, including Angel and Alien.
Mugler sold the rights to his name to Clarins in 1997. He retired from his label in 2002 but continued to design occasional outfits for big-name clients. This included Lady Gaga, Cardi B, Rihanna, and Kim Kardashian’s Met Ball outfit in 2019. He was creative director for Beyoncé’s I AM world tour in 2010.
Mugler was an out, gay man. After retiring from his label, stepped away from the limelight and went by his real first name, Manfred. A longtime fan of bodybuilding, he transformed his body with the help of a trainer and bulked up, becoming quite unrecognizable from his former self (although this was partly due to reconstructive facial surgery he also underwent after a bad motorbike accident).
In a 2019 interview with Fashion, Mugler said he’d never had a problem with being gay, only with the reaction of others to it.
“I didn’t have a problem with my sexuality or identity. I had a problem with my family, and I had a problem with the world. I was feeling out of place, and I was feeling very miserable. I was in the ballet for six years, and no one in my family came to see me onstage; I was the ugly duckling who left the theatre alone. I guess I was too bizarre. I would watch the skies at night and look for the blue star and know that I had to hold on.”
“He was timeless and ahead of his time,” supermodel Jerry Hall told the New York Times in 2019. “He knew all about gender fluidity and his clothes reflected the heat and sexuality of the late 70s and early 80s.”
Among those to pay tribute to the designer was Diana Ross.
Casey Cadwallader, the current creative director at the house of Mugler, wrote on Instagram, “Manfred, I am so honored to have known you and to work within your beautiful world. You changed our perception of beauty, of confidence, of representation and self empowerment. Your legacy is something I carry with me in everything I do.”
“When was the last time anybody said ‘wow!’” a friend asked me.
I couldn’t remember the last time anyone I know (including me) had any “Wow!” moments. Until I heard about trans woman and software engineering manager Amy Schneider’s 29-game winning streak on “Jeopardy.”
You wouldn’t think anything could dispel our COVID exhaustion and political divisiveness. Yet, news about a champion on “Jeopardy,” a quiz show that has been on TV since 1964, has broken through our gloom.
In our culture, there are few things that everyone loves. But, “Jeopardy” is beloved by many, from theater geeks to 80-year-old sports nuts. A progressive friend was over the moon when his brother was a “Jeopardy” contestant. A buddy, a hetero (non-Trump) Republican, is a “Jeopardy” fanatic and a gay librarian pal is a “Jeopardy” freak.
Many of us daydream about being on “Jeopardy.” But we know that we wouldn’t have a chance on this legendary quiz show with its deceptively simple format: You give the answer to the (often incredibly hard) clues in the form of a question. You have to have a strategic military commander’s and a world-class athlete’s coordination: so you can press the buzzer to answer the clue.
The game’s categories run the gamut from opera to mountain ranges. Most of us, mere mortals, would be lucky to know even one category in the first round of the game. Let alone in the “Double Jeopardy” round or the “Final Jeopardy” clue. I might jump on clues about Katharine Hepburn movies or M&Ms. But that would be it for me.
It’s exciting to watch a “Jeopardy” contestant become a long-running champion. You marvel at the player’s intelligence, endurance, and nerve. It’s thrilling when the contestant on a winning-streak is part of your community.
Many of us LGBTQ “Jeopardy” fans are thrilled by Schneider’s record-setting winning streak. As I write this, Schneider has won more than $1 million in 29 games of “Jeopardy.” She is the fifth millionaire in “Jeopardy” history, and only the fourth player to reach this milestone in the regular season. She has won more than any other female “Jeopardy” contestant.
Schneider, like so many of us, doesn’t want to be defined by her gender identity or sexuality. Schneider’s life is multi-faceted; she has many interests. Schneider lives with her girlfriend Genevieve. They have a cat named Meep.
Yet, Schneider doesn’t want to hide that she’s trans. On “Jeopardy,” Schneider brilliantly dealt with this dilemma. She didn’t make a big deal about being out. She just wore the trans Pride flag pin.
“It was something that I wanted to get out there and to show my pride in while not making it the focus of what I was doing there,” Schneider told the New York Times. “Because I was just there to answer trivia questions and win money.”
As a cisgender lesbian, I can’t speak to how Schneider’s record-setting “Jeopardy” streak feels to transgender people.
But, as a trans ally, I’m cheering for Schneider. Kudos for her bravery! At a time when many states are passing anti-trans laws, it takes guts to be out on TV and the Internet.
Few things are as mainstream as “Jeopardy.” I bet that many “Jeopardy” viewers who are frightened at the idea of trans people, will become more comfortable with transgender people after watching Schneider on the popular quiz show. Because folks on TV come into our living and bedrooms and we feel as if we know them after watching them for a while.
“Amy looks like everybody else,” my neighbor said when I told her Schneider was trans. “She doesn’t act odd. She’s not strange.”
Transgender people encounter violence and discrimination in everything from housing to health care to employment.
I know Schneider’s “Jeopardy” triumph won’t end transphobia. But her winning streak will go a long way toward jumpstarting a change in hearts and minds.
More than a year after the January 6th insurrection where a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and violently entered the Capitol Building, leading to multiple deaths and injuries. Now, prosecutors are readying themselves for the trials of a number of the alleged organizers of the events.
While some insurrectionists, like Brandon Stratka, have cut deals to provide investigators with information, others have stood their ground. Jessica Watkins, a trans woman who is one of the most prominent figures in the trials, has maintained her innocence and is set to argue her case at the end of January.
Who is Jessica Watkins?
Jessica Watkins is an Army veteran. She served in the military under her former name, serving in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2003. Later, she was a first responder as a firefighter and emergency medical technician in North Carolina. She lived in Woodstock, Ohio with her boyfriend Montana Siniff. There, she owned and operated a bar and grill with him called The Jolly Roger.
Watkins was a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers. In addition, she formed a small, local “paramilitary group” according to Buzzfeed News, called the Ohio State Regular Militia.
What did Jessica Watkins have to do with the insurrection?
According to social media evidence, records obtained by investigators, and various videos, Watkins traveled to Washington, DC to take part in the insurrection and, wearing full tactical gear, was a part of the group that entered the Capitol, getting at least as far as the rotunda. According to prosecutors, though, she not only participated in the action but helped to coordinate it: investigators showed texts to those she wanted to join her militia and other messages where she tried to get them to come to trainings. She mentioned getting the recruits “fighting fit” for inauguration.
After Watkins home was raided — she was not there — where FBI agents found numerous firearms, pool sticks cut down to baton size, and medical supplies, she turned herself into police.
What does Jessica Watkins say happened at the January 6 insurrection?
According to Watkins, she was in Washington D.C. as security for various speakers for the events leading up to the Capitol invasion. Her posts on Parler made this clear. In another Parler post, she wrote that she had been a part of the storming of the Capitol.
“Teargassed, the whole, 9,” she wrote. “Pushed our way into the Rotunda. Made it into the Senate even. The news is lying (even Fox) about the Historical Events we created today.” In interviews, she has consistently claimed that once inside she tried to stop others from vandalizing the building.
After being arrested, in court Watkins disavowed the Oath Keepers and said she had disbanded her militia. A judge ruled that she was to remain in custody until her trial though Watkins said she was being treated unfairly as she is transgender. She said that injuries she had were not treated and she was forced to remain naked in her cell for days. Officials denied this happened.
“My name is Jessica Watkins, and I am a January 6th defendant,” she wrote in a statement to The Gateway Pundit in December. ” I have been incarcerated nearly a year for crimes I did not commit, so as to serve as a pawn for ‘The Party’ to exploit. And exploit they have.” In the statement, she claimed that January 6 was a riot incited by police.
“Our charges are false, the truth manipulated, and we will one day be vindicated,” she wrote.
What are the charges against Jessica Watkins for the January 6 insurrection?
Watkins is of the most high-profile cases in the prosecution of those involved in the January 6 insurrection. According to investigators, she went beyond being a participant and was an organizer of the event, recruiting, training, and directing others. On January 13, 2022, she was one of 11 individuals indicted in federal court with seditious conspiracy. She has also been charged with conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, entering and remaining in a restricted building, and tampering with documents.
Watkins faces decades in jail. The sedition charge carries a maximum of 20 years.
Watkins first trial begins on January 31, 2022, and then she has another trial on April 19, 2022.
André Leon Talley, giant of the fashion industry, has died aged 73.
Talley, who was Vogue’s first Black creative director, and later editor-at-large, passed away on Tuesday (18 January), his literary agent confirmed.
He had been suffering from an unknown illness.
A pioneer in fashion, Talley passionately championed diversity and inclusion in an industry that for years resisted it. He was remembered by friends and fans for his glamour, grace and grit.
Talley grew up with his grandmother in the city of Durham in Jim Crow era North Carolina, and told NPR in 2018 that he first came across a copy of Vogue at his local library when he was nine or 10 years old.
He described it as a “rabbit hole” into “a world of glamour”, and added: “[Vogue] was my gateway to the world outside of Durham.
“It was the world of literature, what was happening in the world of art, what was happening in the world of entertainment.”
Talley went on to study French literature at Brown University, where he wrote his thesis on the influence of Black women in Charles Baudelaire.
He later moved to New York City, working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Andy Warhol’s Factory studio, and at Women’s Wear Daily, Interview, W, and the New York Times.
Talley finally made his way to Vogue, where he was fashion news director from 1983 to 1987, creative director from 1988 to 1995, and editor-at-large from 1998 to 2013.
The fashion icon became known for his signature kaftans and capes, and told NPR: “I went to [Morocco] and saw that the men in North Africa in Marrakech and Casablanca walked around in caftan shirts and loose-fitting clothes all day, every day… I decided: I want to be like that. I want to wear that instead of a suit because it’s comfortable. You are ventilated. You’re roomy. You’re cozy, and you can just stretch.
“I’m not a tall stick anymore! I’m a big, big guy of great girth and people think I look like maybe my clothes don’t look that important, but I have taken great time and [done] fittings for my capes and caftans made by the great designers.
“I will continue to wear these things for the rest of my life!
Talley published three books during his lifetime: A.L.T.: A Memoir in 2003, the photography book A.L.T. 365+, and in 2020, The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir, which became a New York Times best seller.
In 2010 and 2011, he had a place on the judging panel of America’s Next Top Model.
Diane von Furstenberg, the designer who was a close friend of Talley’s, wrote: “Goodbye darling André … no one saw the world in a more glamorous way than you did. No one was grander and more soulful than you were.”
Bette Midler added: “I’m sorry to say the extraordinary André Leon Talley has died.
“He was such a force and believed in the magic of fashion and its illusions with all his being. His life was a saga of great highs, great lows, the dramatic, the ridiculous, and the endless pursuit of beauty. Love and RIP.”
Slave Play writer Jeremy O’Harris tweeted: “For a little Black gay boy who reached for the stars from the south there were few people I could look up to up there amongst the stars who looked like me just more fab except for you André.
“For a generation of boys André Leon Talley was a beacon of grace and aspiration. RIP.”
Preston Mitchum, attorney and director of advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project, tweeted: “André Leon Talley made it possible for so many Black queer boys and men to express ourselves out loud. No reservations.
“A legend. An icon. May he rest in peace and power knowing that he paved the way for many people who looked up to him.”
As the beleaguered BBC faces backlash from government ministers, PinkNews takes a brief look back at the broadcaster’s track record on LGBT+ rights.
Tory culture minister Nadine Dorries fuelled alarm over the weekend after she questioned the BBC’s main source of funding, a license fee charged to all TV viewers in the nation.
On Monday evening (17 January), Dorries confirmed that the BBC budget will be frozen for the next two years, adding that the future of the public-owned broadcaster’s funding will be “up for discussion”.
It’s the latest salvos against the BBC fired by a minister in Boris Johnson’s government – one that has increasingly smeared the public broadcaster as a megaphone of the metropolitan elite that is anything but “impartial”.
Others, however, disagree. Stressing that right-wing opinions often receive more airtime than progressive ones, according to a Cardiff University study, among other concerns.
From airing the first same-sex kiss televised on a soap opera to the constant accusations of “transphobia” riddling its senior ranks, here are some of the good – and the bad – of the BBC’s history with queer lives and issues.
When the BBC aired the first televised gay kiss on Eastenders
(BBC)
In 1989, the BBC made history when it aired the first mouth-to-mouth same-sex kiss on British TV.
Kind-hearted Colin Russell, played by Michael Cashman, was the long-running show’s first gay character, a time when LGBT+ representation on prime-time TV was threadbare.
In 1987, a monumental episode of the soap opera saw Russell receive a kiss on the forehead from his on-screen boyfriend Barry Clark (Gary Hailes). Two years later, in 1989, Michael Cashman’s character made history yet again, with Russell and his boyfriend Guido (Nicholas Donovan) sharing the first mouth-to-mouth same-sex kiss on British TV.
Both landmark moments were inevitably blasted by the right-wing press – with Piers Morgan branding the latter as “a love scene between two yuppie poofs” in The Sun – and inundated with complaints from fuming viewers, but the show since been credited with helping to soften the public’s attitudes towards queer folk.
BBC’s Boy Meets Girl casts first trans actor in trans role on a British sitcom
Rebecca Root and Harry Hepple in ‘Boy Meets Girl’. (BBC)
Boy Meets Girl, a comedy-drama about two people falling in love, was the broadcaster’s first sitcom focusing on trans lives.
The show’s lead, Rebecca Root, became the first trans actor cast in a television soap opera, with both the programme and Root bagging a nomination at the British LGBT Awards in 2016.
“The BBC should be proud of its commitment to diversity and groundbreaking coverage of LGBT+ issues,” Sarah Garrett, who founded the awards, told the BBC at the time.
Strictly Come Dancing welcoming historic first same-sex pairings
John Whaite and Johannes Radebe. (BBC)
Strictly Come Dancing, a staple of many a Brit’s living room, broke ballroom ground when it finally welcomed its first same-sex dancers in 2020 and 2021.
Nicola Adams and Katya Jones and John Whaite and Johannes Radebe became the competition’s first all-female and male pairings respectively.
In the face of bigoted backlash from pearl-clutching viewers, the BBC continually refused to uphold viewer complaints and defended the simple act of two people of the same gender dancing.
A commitment to bringing LGBT+ stories to the forefront of its programming
Sheridan Smith as Sarah Sak in BBC drama, Four Lives. (BBC)
From the quietly subversive Everybody’s Talking About Jamie documentary,Drag Queen at 16, in 2011 to this year’s Four Lives, the BBC has in the last decade gone out of its way to represent LGBT+ lives beyond tired coming out plot lines.
BBC Three, the home of the network’s more off-the-wall, youth-focused shows, has been especially at the forefront of this.
The channel aired both Growing Up Gay with Olly Alexander and Transitioning Teens, which saw trans activist Charlie Craggs chat to trans teens who have waited years to be seen by the NHS.
The time BBC debated the ‘morality’ of LGBT+ lessons in schools
All of the Question Time panellists supported LGBT-inclusive education. (Screen capture via the BBC)
On Question Time, BBC One’s weekly political discussion show, panellists were posed the question of whether it is “morally right” to teach children about LGBT+ issues in 2019.
As much as the panel, made up of senior lawmakers, company bosses and journalists, agreed that LGBT-inclusive education is “morally right”, the episode drew fierce complaints online.
“The framing of this question is deeply worrying,” tweeted BBC presenter Sue Perkins. “Are we really here again, nearly two decades after Section 28 was repealed…?”
When the BBC ‘balanced’ its coverage by featuring a gay execution supporter
Elton John and David Furnish with their two sons. (Getty)
In 2010, seven million people tuned in to watch BBC’s flagship News at Sixbulletin as it reported on the birth of Elton John and David Furnish’s first child.
During the broadcast, the show interviewed a single person – Stephen Green, of right-wing group Christian Voice.
But it failed to mention that Green has previously supported the death penalty for gay men in Uganda, among other examples of small-mindedness. The BBC did so, it told PinkNews at the time, to add an “opposing viewpoint” to the subject of surrogacy.
The BBC once debated whether ‘gays should be executed’
Ugandan men hold a rainbow flag reading ‘Join hands to end LGBTI genocide’ (ISAAC KASAMANI/AFP/Getty)
As Ugandan lawmakers debated a bill that would introduce the death penalty for LGBT+ people in 2009, the BBC World Service asked: “Should homosexuals be executed?”
The backlash was swift. The radio station’s director, Peter Horrocks, apologised for the report in a statement published to the BBC Editors’ Blog.
“The original headline on our website was, in hindsight, too stark,” he said. “We apologise for any offence it caused.”
The BBC quitting a workplace Stonewall scheme over a ‘risk of perceived bias’
Stonewall is the UK – and Europe’s – largest LGBT+ charity. (Getty)
BBC bosses said that the departure was to “minimise the risk of perceived bias” when it comes to covering LGBT+ issues.
It was the upshot of a divisive culture war that had pelted the programme, with many taking aim at the scheme in what Stonewall has described as part of a “coordinated attack” against the charity.
Fran Unsworth allegedly telling LGBT+ staff to ‘get used to hearing views you don’t like’
Fran Unsworth, head of news at the BBC. (BBC)
The BBC’s director of news Fran Unsworth reportedly told the corporation’s LGBT+ network to “get used” to hearing opinions they do not agree with.
“You’ll hear things you don’t personally like and see things you don’t like – that’s what the BBC is, and you have to get used to that,” Unsworth allegedly said at the meeting.
The meeting had been called following weeks of tension within the BBC surrounding the broadcaster’s handling of LGBT+ issues, mainly trans rights.
‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women’
Trans rights protestors gather outside the BBC building. (Hollie Adams/Getty Images)
Among the laundry list of criticisms from LGBT+ people: How it relied on a survey of just 80 people, how the survey was conducted by an anti-trans group, how Lily Cade, a porn star interviewed in the article, had called for trans women to be “lynched” and “executed”.
Some former and current BBC staffers even quit the organisation, citing a “hostile” environment against LGBT+ people – with the podcast being the final straw.
“We really need to start looking internally at ourselves as the BBC,” said one staff member in a leaked document, “and ask a very simple question.
A gay cruise company has described a New York Times story which questioned whether 2,000 gays would be safe on a boat during COVID as “homophobic” and “sensationalised”.
This week a New York Times article was published which looked at the safety of an upcoming cruise by LGBT+ tour operator Atlantis Events, which will carry almost 5,000 passengers.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is carefully monitoring cruise ships as Omicron cases continue to spread.
The story interviewed various prospective gay cruise passengers, with some expressing the desire to sell their tickets for fear of catching COVID, and others looking forward to “dirty dancing, sex, drugs, raves, orgies and sweet, sweet freedom”.
The newspaper also referenced the Celebrity Millennium cruise ship, which LGBT+ cruise company VACAYA has chartered this week for a seven-night Caribbean cruise, and said that prospective Atlantis Events passengers would be “watching closely” to see how the trip panned out.
The New York Times noted that the Millennium, which carries more than 2,000 people, had been flagged by the CDC as having “met the investigation threshold for COVID-19 cases” on board.https:
VACAYA has now hit out at the newspaper, calling the article “homophobic”.
VACAYA co-founder and CEO Randle Roper told Seatrade Cruise News: “The venerated Times, whose article quoted several people not even travelling on either cruise, did not live up to the journalistic integrity we expect and was an affront to Atlantis Events, LGBT+ travel companies in general and the gay community.”
Referencing the New York Times’ slogan, he added: “This certainly wasn’t news ‘fit to print’.”
Roper continued: “As we begin to come out of the pandemic, it’s OK to ask questions about how, why and when we’ll return to normal, but the Timescompletely missed the story here.
“Their decision to focus on errant quotes taken from various social media pages to sensationalize the story was both a misfire and — let’s hope unintentionally — homophobic.
“The focus should have been on the positive steps being taken by travel companies to adapt to live in a new world of testing, screening and exposure reduction through contact tracing, upgraded onboard medical facilities and staff, and improved guest stateroom ventilation.”
Roper said that passengers were vaccinated, most had received a booster, and all were tested.
PinkNews contacted The New York Times for comment.
The administration of President Joe Biden has made slow progress protecting human rights in the United States, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2022.
“The Biden administration has made some big-picture pronouncements on key issues like racial and gender equity with little evidence so far that the words will translate into real impact for people whose rights have been systematically and historically ignored or trampled,” said Nicole Austin-Hillery, US Program executive director at Human Rights Watch. “Black people in the United States still suffer from significant economic disparities stemming from systemic racism that have impacts across generations, and border policies have shredded the right to seek asylum while officials subject migrants to violent, abusive treatment.”
In the 752-page World Report 2022, its 32nd edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in nearly 100 countries. Executive Director Kenneth Roth challenges the conventional wisdom that autocracy is ascendent. In country after country, large numbers of people have recently taken to the streets, even at the risk of being arrested or shot, showing that the appeal of democracy remains strong. Meanwhile, autocrats are finding it more difficult to manipulate elections in their favor. Still, he says, democratic leaders must do a better job of meeting national and global challenges and of making sure that democracy delivers on its promised dividends.
In addition to executive branch policies and actions to achieve racial and gender equity and protect LGBT people’s rights, the US House Judiciary Committee voted to move H.R. 40, a bill to study the provision of reparations for slavery, to the full House for a vote for the first time in 32 years. But at the end of 2021, this landmark step toward reparations for the legacy of slavery has stalled in the House.
Among the rights failures in US domestic policy linked to systemic racism, despite some reductions in incarceration rates for Black people, they remain vastly overrepresented in jails and prisons. Black people are killed by police at a per capita rate that is three times the rate of white people. Black people still make up almost 42 percent of the current death row population despite being only 12.4 percent of the US population.
Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities have been disproportionately harmed by Covid-19, which has deepened existing racial disparities in health care, housing, access to safe and affordable water, employment, education, and wealth accumulation, Human Rights Watch said. Economic inequality remains high and has slightly increased in the United States, although poverty dropped largely due to increased government benefits. The wealth gap between Black people and white people persists.
The Biden administration has also kept in place the harmful Title 42 border policy, under which it expels asylum seekers to unsafe conditions in Mexico or their home countries on specious public health grounds. In a particularly grievous example of the policy, US Border Patrol agents on horseback menaced Haitian border crossers in Del Rio, Texas in September, and the United States then summarily expelled thousands of Haitians to dangerous conditions in Haiti.
Human Rights Watch reported on other evidence of abusive treatment of asylum seekers by US border officials as described in Department of Homeland Security documents obtained after litigation. The documents catalog over 160 internal reports of physical and other abuses of asylum seekers as well as violations of their due process rights.
In its foreign policy, the administration announced its commitment to “putting human rights at the center of US foreign policy” and to multilateralism. The US sought – and won – election to the UN Human Rights Council and rejoined the Paris Climate Accord. It rescinded the harmful Global Gag rule on funding for women’s health care, reinstated funding to the UN Population Fund, and reintroduced reporting on reproductive rights in the State Department’s annual human rights report.
But significant failures to protect and promote human rights include continued arms sales to governments violating international human rights and humanitarian law including the Philippines, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and failing to publicly condemn rights abuses by perceived strategic partners.
The Biden administration should end the abusive and illegal Title 42 policy and take concrete actions and robustly report on progress aligned with its policy pronouncements on racial and gender equity. State and local governments in the US should end abusive policing of Black people and other people of color and instead invest in communities in ways that address structural racism. State policies threatening the right to access to abortion and reproductive freedom should end in order to fully protect the rights of women and girls.
“The US government needs to take bold and concrete actions to protect the human rights of all people in the United States – Black and white, citizen and noncitizen alike, as well as to promote human rights globally through its foreign policy,” Austin-Hillery said.
