When she heard that her university campus would be shutting down after spring break due to the coronavirus pandemic, Alexis feared her life could fall apart.
She wasn’t able to afford campus housing this semester and is living instead in a nearby homeless shelter. But she depended on her school’s health and fitness center for daily showers and her school’s library for quiet study time.
“My whole life revolves around the university, and the university is closed,” said Alexis, a 34-year-old trans woman and student at the University of Eastern Michigan. (A university spokesperson told Vox that campus dining halls are still open for “grab and go” meals in accordance with a Monday order from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer; however, other services likethe rec center are closed.)
When her school decided to shift to online classes, which meant finding a public space to study and attend classes, she knew that wouldn’t be possible in the shelter. She also knew that other public spaces would likely soon close to promote social distancing. She worried she may have to move back home with her father, who doesn’t support her transition and doesn’t use her name or correct pronouns.
“My relationship with my parents is not good, particularly my dad,” Alexis said. “My parents in general are just not very accepting of me, but [being] trans is kinda like the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Alexis is one of thousands of LGBTQ college students dealing with campus closures; a 2016 survey of more than 33,000 college students found that 10 percent identified as LGBTQ. But many queer students don’t have a safe or supportive place to go home to while campuses struggle to manage the ongoing pandemic. When state and local health officials outlined guidance about closing down spaces where large groups gather,universities across the country were among the first to act in order to try to mitigate the spread of Covid-19, the disease stemming from the coronavirus.“MY WHOLE LIFE REVOLVES AROUND UNIVERSITY, AND THE UNIVERSITY IS CLOSED”
On March 6, the University of Washington was the first to shut its doors, moving entirely to online classes in a region hit early in the pandemic. Since then, most schools have followed suit. But the closings disproportionately affect LGBTQ students, who are less likely in general to have supportive places to go home to.
“As a queer community, we have a long way to go. Oftentimes, for our youth, that means [they have] unfriendly places to go back home to from college — because at college at least maybe they’ve created a community, a group of friends, a support system,” said Shane Windmeyer, founder and executive director of Campus Pride. But sometimes “these situations or crises happen where students are asked to go home, and sometimes they don’t have a home to go to.”
What to do when LGBTQ students don’t have anywhere to go
The collective action by institutions of higher learning has triggered a panic among many queer students who have been forced to find alternative housing, medical providers, and even employment.
One of those students was Cooper, a 20-year-old junior attending DePauw University, a private college in Greencastle, Indiana. Cooper lives in on-campus housing and depends on a work-study job for income while he attends school. But the university’s decision to close meant scrambling to find basic accommodations.
“There had been rumors circulating between students that our university was going to cancel classes, but it kind of blindsided all of us,” he said. On March 12, DePauw gave students until March 20 to clear out, according to a university spokesperson. But then on March 15, the CDC issued a two-day travel advisory and the university informed students that they needed to leave the following day. It caught everyone off-guard.
“I am lucky enough to have a support system in Indianapolis, but I rely on this institution for my therapy, for medical treatment, and my whole support system is on campus,” he said. “There are other trans people I know on campus that aren’t lucky enough to have people they can stay with, that have families that have either kicked them out or they have to go back to being in the closet when they get home.”
At the same time, Cooper knows that closing campus was the right call to protect vulnerable people from Covid-19. “I completely understand the need for taking us off campus because there’ve been a lot of cases in the central Indiana area and they don’t want to risk a student getting infected. I get that they want to slow the spread of a pandemic. That being said, our university specifically seems to have given no options” for LGBTQ students who rely on the campus’s services. (The DePauw spokesperson told Vox that students were allowed to apply to stay on campus after the March 20 deadline, prioritizing international students, students who live far away from campus, students who do not have internet or other safe housing available, students who need access to special equipment to complete coursework, and others with extenuating circumstances.)
Different administrations have taken on different policies. Many schools have allowed international students and students with nowhere else to go to stay on campus. After initial vagueness when answering questions from a student reporter about housing for LGBTQ students, a spokesperson from Boston College, a Jesuit school in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, told Vox that they were able to accommodate all of the LGBTQ students who applied to stay on campus during the outbreak. Nearby Northeastern University in Boston announced last Wednesday that students could also stay on campus if they needed to.
Ultimately, the level of support parents offer their LGBTQ kids dictates the decision-making process for how LGBTQ students handle their campuses shutting down in the wake of the pandemic. While many students are able to find alternative housing, some are forced to go back into the closet in order to move home with their parents.“THESE SITUATIONS OR CRISES HAPPEN WHERE STUDENTS ARE ASKED TO GO HOME, AND SOMETIMES THEY DON’T HAVE A HOME TO GO TO”
Such is the case for Cal, a 20-year-old gender nonbinary student attending the University of Utah. Cal’s parents are conservative Christians, and Cal has never come out to them.
“I don’t think that they’ve earned that from me,” Cal told Vox. “I have repeatedly, time and time again, heard them say things about the queer community in general that did not resound with their quote ‘unconditional love.’ So that has discouraged me from being completely honest with them.”
Before Utah transitioned to online-classes, Cal was living in off-campus housing. It was a very supportive situation, and they attended a support group for trans and nonbinary students on campus.
Cal now finds themself living in their childhood bedroom again, trying to finish out the school year online. Cal is also now unemployed, having lost their on-campus job as a barista and any progress toward becoming a certified lab assistant, which means they can’t afford their off-campus housing. They had also planned on starting the application process for graduate school soon, but the shutdown has put those plans on hold as well.
Even with their life unraveling, they still think essentially shutting down the campus was the right call (a university spokesperson told Vox that the school has kept open its residence hall and dining services). “Despite the fact that it’s kind of destroying my life right now, I think that it will be easier for me to recover than somebody who could get the disease and perhaps not survive from it.”
In response to the pandemic and subsequent campus closings, some people have taken to offering their homes to LGBTQ students with nowhere else to go. In Washington, DC, locals organized a Google form to assist with housing students who can’t remain in student housing at nearby American University.
Windmeyer said that even when universities are strained under emergency circumstances, there’s often a queer community if not on, then around, campus that’s ready and willing to help. “I do think that in times of crisis that asking or making sure that you let people that you trust know your situation, many times through that openness and trust, people are able to come together and help each other,” he said.
In other words, queer students are doing what they’ve always done in times of crisis: turning to their communities for resources. That’s what Alexis ended up doing. She reached out to a local group offering direct support for students in need when Covid-19 cases first began popping up in Michigan. “I was like, ‘Oh, well I’ll reach out to them and see what we can do.’ And they hooked me up with a person who is generous enough to let me stay here.”
As millions of students see their lives turned upside-down by a global pandemic, queer and trans students are facing additional challenges. But they’re surviving through solidarity, a lesson that everyone will need to learn to overcome what’s ahead.
Zambia’s president has pardoned a gay couple sentenced to 15 years in prison in November under colonial-era sodomy laws in a case that caused a diplomatic row with the United States.
Japhet Chataba, 39, and Steven Sambo, 31, were among nearly 3,000 inmates pardoned by President Edgar Lungu last Friday to commemorate Africa Freedom Day, according to the government gazette.
A Lusaka High Court judge had sentenced them to 15 years in prison under laws that forbid sex between couples “against the order of nature.”
The case drew criticism from then U.S. ambassador Daniel Foote, who said the sentence was too harsh and could damage Zambia’s reputation. Washington later withdrew Foote following the row with Zambian authorities over the issue.
Over the past decade, several African countries have come into conflict over LGBTQ rights with Western countries, many of who are major aid donors.
The previous Obama administration cut aid to Uganda and Malawi over their anti-homosexual laws and policies, although Western condemnation sometimes provokes African leaders into taking more hardline positions.
Uganda announced plans in October last year for a bill that would impose the death penalty for gay sex, but later backtracked after major aid donors said they were monitoring the situation.
Larry Kramer, the noted writer whose raucous, antagonistic campaign for an all-out response to the AIDS crisis helped shift national health policy in the 1980s and ’90s, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 84.
His husband, David Webster, said the cause was pneumonia. Mr. Kramer had weathered illness for much of his adult life. Among other things he had been infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, contracted liver disease and underwent a successful liver transplant.
Mr. Kramer was a founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first service organization for H.I.V.-positive people, in 1981. His fellow directors effectively kicked him out a year later for his aggressive approach, and he returned the compliment by calling them “a sad organization of sissies.”
The National Black Justice Coalition and Black Policy Lab, a project of Pink Cornrows, has announced a new initiative to gather data on one of the most vulnerable populations in the COVID-19 pandemic, Black LGBTQ+ and same gender loving (SGL) people. COVID while Black and Queer will find crucial data on how Black LGBTQ/SGL people are weathering the pandemic at a time when data shows that Black communities make up 60% of the COVID-19 deaths in the United States.
“Existing data from this crisis has already proven what many of us have already known: Black communities continue to be the least supported and most exploited—more Black people are testing positive and dying as a result of the virus and we should expect that existing data is undercounting what’s more likely the reality given the history of Black communities not being targeted for testing and data collection” said David J. Johns, Executive Director of the National Black Justice Coalition. “What we know now is important; however, to protect all Black people, we need data on specific needs and experiences of Black LGBTQ and same gender loving people.”
The new survey will build on the Black Policy Lab’s ongoing COVID while Black initiative, which has surveyed hundreds of Black Americans in the past weeks. “Data is a powerful tool, but often isn’t the full story. Traditional empirical research and interpretation methods are not without bias, and frequently disseminated without insight from our community,” said Ifeoma Ike, attorney, researcher, and Founder of Black Policy Lab. “COVID while Black was launched to invite traditionally underrepresented and over-impacted communities to provide important data and narratives about their own lives. This valuable qualitative input does not limit our Black experiences to just statistics, but instead allows us to see trends and opportunities that hopefully will inform policymakers tasked with recovery and restoration efforts.”
Unlike other surveys, COVID while Black, for example, also allows respondents to share the names of loved ones who were ill, essential workers serving on the front lines, and those who have transitioned, contributing to a virtual homegoing experience at a time where mass gatherings are prohibited and for communities who heal, in part, by coming together.
Previous data has shown that Black people are disproportionately experiencing the severest health impacts of the disease with systemic racism within healthcare, inequalities resulting in health disparities and Black people disproportionately working in ‘essential’ jobs as major contributing factors. We also know that historically Black communities are not targeted for testing or democratized health care.
Past research has shown that LGBTQ/SGL Americans also experience underlying health disparities that increase the likelihood of testing positive for and suffering as a result of COVID19. LGBGTQ/SGL Americans are more likely to be smokers—a high risk factor—and work minimum wage jobs. Transgender people especially face widespread workplace discrimination, are more likely to be incarcerated, and more than 1 in 4 transgender people have reported being denied healthcare due to their gender identity. Black LGBTQ people also predominantly live in the South where it is legal to deny access to employment, public housing, and medical services on the basis of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender orientation, and gender expression. These are the states that are rushing to open while investing the least in targeted testing and treatment.
This new survey aims to reveal new data on how Black LGBTQ/SGL people have been affected to inform policy decisions and necessary shifts in practice. Black Policy Lab will soon launch a series of virtual summits to discuss survey results, solutions, and design policy recommendations.
Emma thought that going off to Carleton College would be the beginning of a new life. The 18-year-old trans girl had struggled to come out in high school after repeated outings to her strict Italian Catholic parents in New Jersey.
“Those were difficult,” she told Vox. “I like to say that I negotiated my way back into the closet” to finish high school.
She thought college would become her salvation and chose the liberal arts school of about 2,000 students in Northfield, Minnesota, because of a visit, during one of her tours, to the on-campus LGBTQ center.
While Emma’s dad accompanied her on the tour, he decided to spend a little time alone in town, at which point the admissions officer offered to bring her to the center.
“Meeting some very happy, very out, very successful and well-situated trans people was very important to me,” she said. “[That] ended up really selling me on the school.”
Once there, the center helped her explore and figure out a plan for coming out more broadly, and connect with other queer and transgender students. Things moved quickly for Emma, who said it only took her about a month to start asking people to refer to her with her new name and she/her pronouns. Her parents accused her of getting taken in by a cult and threatened to stop paying her tuition.
During an extended Thanksgiving break, Emma’s parents dangled her tuition in front of her like a “carrot on a string,” so she lied and agreed to go back to school as a male student — an agreement she quickly went back on once she had returned to school.
However, the coronavirus pandemic threw a wrench into her plan once Carleton decided to move to online classes on March 18. The college freshman is now back home — and back in the closet — because of Covid-19, cut off from the school LGBTQ center where she had met many of her friends and received emotional support.
Having a space where LGBTQ people can simply exist in their own skin and experience, without judgment or pressure to hide for the benefit of cisgender, heterosexual people, can be enormously beneficial.
But in recent months, queer and trans people have been feeling the loss of affirming LGBTQ spaces since cities and states began shutting down nonessential public spaces in mid-March.
Queer bars, LGBTQ centers, and affirming sexual and specialized health clinics are closed because of the pandemic. Pride celebrations all over the country, and the world, have been canceled, often replaced by virtual online events. At the moment, the safest physical place to be — at least in terms of avoiding contracting the virus — is at home, which for some queer folks is not a safe space at all, and for others serves as a callback to a previous time when LGBTQ people could not safely reveal themselves to be queer in public.
Like Emma, Max Meyer, a 25-year-old nonbinary grad student, has watched the trans support group they ran at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Campus Union for Trans Equality and Support (CUTES), shut down. In response, Meyer helped the group set up a Discord server to facilitate voice and text communications. But like Emma, many of the group’s students don’t have a safe home environment in which to discuss their queer identity over a computer.“MEETING SOME VERY HAPPY, VERY OUT, VERY SUCCESSFUL AND WELL-SITUATED TRANS PEOPLE WAS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME”
As a result, only about five people regularly participate in the group’s Discord meetings, a contrast to the up to 30 who would attend in-person meetings. The pandemic “raises barriers for being able to reach out and get any kind of trans support,” Meyer said. It’s “further isolating an already marginalized group away from resources, support, and people with similar experiences.”
Before the pandemic shut down the school, Meyer had been lobbying the university to allow preferred names on diplomas, but now those plans have been scuttled. Meyer is also scared for next year’s crop of incoming trans students who may not be able to access the group’s resources. Not having the CUTES physical space “really increases how much effort it takes for somebody who might be unsure or questioning to reach out and get any kind of help,” they said.
With universities planning how to handle the start of this year’s fall semester, there’s a growing concern over how best to support trans students like Emma and Max. But the concern also applies to other critical areas of the LGBTQ community, from queer bars to sexual health spaces. This pattern of queer people getting cut off from critical and affirming resources is being repeated all over the country due to the pandemic.
Queer sobriety is difficult to manage during the pandemic
Damian Jack is a 40-year-old cis gay black man living in New York City. He’s also 20 months sober and in recovery. He’s been attending regular Tuesday night sobriety support meetings at the Center, an LGBTQ community center in Manhattan’s West Village since October 2018.
Jack said that before he started working toward recovery, he pushed everyone who loved him out of his life and felt utterly alone. But through the support meetings at the Center, which he says are typically 99 percent attended by queer people, he’s been able to build a core group of friends and people he can lean on.
That support has been critical for his recovery. “My journey toward recovery, it has been long in getting here,” he told Vox. “The community itself is really what helped me a lot. And that was something that I looked everywhere else to find.”
According to 2015 data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people were twice as likely (39.1 percent to 17.1 percent) as heterosexual adults to have used illicit drugs within the past year. Additionally, a 2013 US Census Bureau surveyfound that a higher percentage of LGBTQ adults between ages 18 and 64 reported past-year binge drinking, which was defined as consuming five or more alcoholic beverages in one sitting, than heterosexual adults.
But the Center closed its doors on March 13. The loss of that critical queer recovery space, Jack said, has pushed quite a few people off the wagon again. “There are a lot of people who are suffering because of the lack of connection,” he said.
In response to the pandemic, Jack’s support group moved to regular Zoom meetings, which he said is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, participation in meetings has expanded thanks to connections to people outside the city through LGBTQ sobriety Facebook groups like “Gay and Sober.” Where once there were usually 20 to 100 people at the in-person meetings depending on which day of the week it was held, Jack said there are about 60 people who show up on Zoom thanks to attendance from people who live too far away to attend the Manhattan-based meetings.
It’s also allowed Jack some freedom to work later on Tuesday nights, because if he misses the New York meeting, he can now hop on Zoom to attend a Los Angeles-based meeting held later in the evening.
But without that personal connection, Jack said, it’s difficult for those who may be early in their recovery journeys. “If I were to be getting sober now, it would probably be the hardest thing for me because of the fact that I needed the community around me. That was something that I searched for my entire life, and I needed that,” Jack said.
Jack said going to an LGBTQ recovery group was important for his journey to sobriety because he felt like he could be more vulnerable and authentic there compared to a cis het space. “I didn’t have much of a problem interacting with straight people when I was sober, just because I could always put on my, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m a silly gay man’ [persona],” he said.
But the group taught him how to interact with other gay people without constantly having a drink in his hand. “I was never around any gay people while I was sober; this was my first time doing that. I didn’t really have the necessary tools to communicate because I didn’t know how to communicate with anyone in a community that I was so ashamed of.”
So Jack said he tries to take newbies on socially distanced walks in the city as often as possible. “A lot of people are relapsing,” he said, thinking of one person from his group in particular. “He’s like, ‘I don’t feel connected.’”
“SARS-CoV-2 isn’t the only pathogen that we need to be mindful of right now”
For their own health, it’s recommended that queer cis men and trans women, especially, get tested regularly for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In the 1980s, as it is now, it was important to have sexual health providers who would treat LGBTQ people without harassment, in order to contain a different deadly virus without a treatment or vaccine — HIV/AIDS.
Many of the testing protocols now being deployed to fight Covid-19 were first developed to fight the spread of HIV. But while everyone is rightly focused on the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, New York City-based sexual health advocate Jeremiah Johnson, HIV project director at the Treatment Action Group, said it’s important that queer people not lose sight of their own sexual health needs.
“When it comes to addressing sexual health services for marginalized communities, it’s always such a stigmatized topic, and we experience so much judgment and marginalization from health care systems that do not fully respect queer people,” said Johnson. “Frequently, the way that we access those services is to go to specific clinics and community-oriented clinics where we know that we’re going to get compassionate care that is reflective of our communities and fully accepting of our whole selves.”
That has become more difficult, Johnson said, because of Covid-19. “In this crisis scenario, underrepresented and historically marginalized communities have even greater dangers of being pushed to the margins and not having their needs addressed,” he told Vox.
“WHEN IT COMES TO ADDRESSING SEXUAL HEALTH SERVICES FOR MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES … WE EXPERIENCE SO MUCH JUDGMENT AND MARGINALIZATION FROM HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS THAT DO NOT FULLY RESPECT QUEER PEOPLE”
While many sexual health clinics are still open for emergency services, like prescriptions for post-exposure prophylactics, which helps prevent transmission of HIV after contact with an infected person, and Plan B contraceptives, routine STI screenings are not considered emergency services.
“Particularly, within all of this disruption we’re seeing now, it’s difficult to get a picture of just how impacted queer communities have been in terms of accessing the unique health care services that we depend on to take care of our emotional, spiritual, physical, sexual, and health care,” Johnson said.
Further complicating matters, he said, it’s hard to tell at this point how people are behaving sexually while under stay-at-home orders and other social distancing measures. Additionally, most of the nation’s 2,200 contact tracers have shifted their focus away from STD tracking to focus on Covid-19. That could be a recipe for an STD outbreak that won’t be caught until regular testing can resume.
“We’ve seen a substantive decline in the number of new diagnoses for sexually transmitted infections in New York City, which is probably more likely a product of a lack of testing, rather than an actual reduction in the number of those infections,” said Johnson.
Johnson worries that once the Covid-19 pandemic is over and regular testing begins again, we could see a surge in the number of new STIs. “SARS-CoV-2 isn’t the only pathogen that we need to be mindful of right now,” he said.
Gay bars have been central to the LGBTQ community since Stonewall. The pandemic has ripped that connection away.
My favorite queer space, a queer women’s bar called A League of Her Own, nestled in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC, has been closed since the city shut down all its bars and restaurants on March 30. The bar, affectionately known by its acronym “ALOHO,” was the place where my friends and I met and hung out semi-regularly, providing a welcoming home amid political attacks on LGBTQ people from the somewhat nearby White House.
The staff at ALOHO have experienced a sense of loss of the community that found itself in the basement of its gay male sibling bar, Pitchers. “I definitely, personally have had [some] struggle days,” said bar manager Jo McDaniel, who has tried to stay connected to her regulars through a weekly Instagram Live broadcast every Wednesday, which she films on-site at ALOHO. “Just being in the space makes me nostalgic and sad and all over the place. There’s a huge amount of loss.”
Queer women’s bars were already closing at an alarming rate over the past decade. ALOHO is one of only two lesbian bars in DC. NBC News estimated in early May that there are just 16 queer women’s bars in the US, down from a peak of 200in the 1980s. Though ALOHO is financially safe for now — the bar’s owner has applied for a PPP loan — McDaniel thinks that several of the small handful of queer women’s bars may not survive the pandemic.
In fact, two DC gay bars catering to men, DC Eagles and Secrets, have already announced they will not reopen once the city does. In San Francisco, the city’s oldest gay bar, the Stud, which has been open for 55 years, announced this week that it will permanently close because of Covid-19.
DC recently extended its order keeping bars closed through June 8, but McDaniel hopes the bar’s regular patrons know that the staff is still around for support. “People would come in and sort of share their problems with their bartenders, like slide into the DMs,” she said. “We’re all very public in terms of social media and we’re all still here.”
For now, the Instagram Live posts offer a brief chance for the bar’s community to reconnect. “What’s really cool is watching people who are viewing the Live chat with each other in the comments,” she said. “That’s been the thing that’s really been awesome for me is to see people essentially see each other virtually.”
As queer and trans people continue to navigate the coronavirus pandemic, those who can are trying to help others stay connected. Meanwhile, there are a lot of queer and trans people who have been put in unhealthy and potentially dangerous situations just to have a roof over their heads. Losing queer spaces exacerbates the stresses many were already facing before this.
For now, Emma is staying in the closet while living at home with her parents, but she can’t help but pine for the escape she once thought she had at school. “I had this lifeline at Carleton, where things were going to be better and I was going to go there and be myself and it was going to be really good,” she said, thinking about her current situation. “[There’s] definitely despair. I’m just awash in it.”
A new study has revealed that nearly a third of trans and non-binary young people have attempted suicide in the past 12 months.
More than 25,000 queer young people between the ages of 13 and 24 were surveyed for the peer-reviewed study by researchers at The Trevor Project, which has been published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Of the trans and non-binary youth young people responding to the survey, 78.2 per cent said that they have experienced discrimination because of their gender identity.
Trans and non-binary youth report depression, physical abuse and thoughts of suicide.
Asked about their experiences over the past 12 months, 29.7 per cent of trans and non-binary youth said they had been physically threatened or harmed.
82.8 per cent reported a depressive mood, 54.2 per cent had seriously considered suicide, and 28.6 per cent had attempted suicide.
Even compared to their cisgender LGB+ peers in the Trevor Project survey, young people who identify as trans and non-binary are still more than twice as likely to experience depressive symptoms, seriously consider suicide, and attempt suicide – adjusting for age, family income and ethnicity.
Young people who identify as trans and non-binary are most at risk of depression and suicide. Trans males are the the highest-at risk group, with 35 per cent having attempted suicide in the past 12 months – but trans females and non-binary youth were also significantly more likely than cisgender LGB+ youth to report seriously considering suicide, according to the research.
Transgender young people ‘particularly vulnerable to poor mental health’.
The study corroborates findings from previous research on the issue, which has long indicated that trans youth have a greater risk of suicide.
Amy E Green, director of research at The Trevor Project, said: “Prior to this study, there was a clear lack of research on the differences in mental health and suicidality within different sub-groups of LGBT+ youth.
“These results underscore that transgender and non-binary youth are particularly vulnerable to poor mental health outcomes and suicide risk compared to their cisgender peers within the LGBT+ community. Furthermore, they show how LGBTQ-based discrimination and victimisation contribute to these increased mental health disparities.”
Research scientist Myeshia Price-Feeney, added: “At The Trevor Project, we hear from trans youth in crisis every day and we understand the detrimental impacts discrimination and harassment can have on their mental health and well-being.
“We hope this data will encourage more robust nationwide data collection on LGBT+ youth mental health, and that policymakers and health care providers will use these insights to create policies and safe spaces that protect and affirm trans youth everywhere.”
Ben Rimalower, 44, has been vacationing on New York’s Fire Island since 2005. The island’s Pines section, a popular beach destination for gay men dating back to the 1920s, has been a reliably safe and sunshine-filled locale for Rimalower and his friends, primarily other gay men, to spend the summer.
“I first fell in love with Fire Island from afar while in college in California during the early ‘90s,” he told NBC News. “It seemed like Shangri-La to me.”
Rimalower said even on the “queerest blocks” of New York City, where he lives, he’s “uncomfortable kissing or holding hands” with another man, “but on Fire Island, I’m free.”
This year, however, his annual trip to Fire Island Pines is shrouded in uncertainty.
“If we can go at all, it will be with lots of changes,” he lamented. “I hope we can be safe on the beach, because that’s my favorite part.”
“This is all so new and complicated,” he said, adding there’s still a chance he and his friends will cancel their trip. “We haven’t even broached the topic of house rules yet, but I imagine at least at first we won’t be having any hookups or friends over.”
With the typically busy summer season kicking off, LGBTQ beach destinations in the Northeast — a region particularly hard-hit by the global coronavirus pandemic — are bracing for a new normal, and some of their loyal patrons are apprehensive.
New York’s Fire Island
Fire Island is a narrow, car-free, barrier island just south of Long Island and not far from the ritzy beaches of the Hamptons. While Fire Island boasts 15 communities, two of them have long been popular with LGBTQ beachgoers, with the Pines historically catering to gay men and Cherry Grove to lesbians.
The Pines only has one hotel, which is currently closed, so nearly all visitors rent houses during their stay. According to a community newsletter published May 14, brokers shared that vacation renters “have generally made their last payments and are planning to come to the Pines this summer, even if bars and restaurants are not open.”
P.J. McAteer, a co-owner of the Outpost Pines, which make up the majority of the Fire Island Pines’ commercial businesses, opened two of his restaurants May 15 for to-go service, and he plans to continue opening additional venues and expanding services as Suffolk County and Gov. Andrew Cuomo allow.
At his businesses, there will now be temperature and hand sanitizing stations at the entrances, a 50 percent capacity maximum and a mandate that employees wear masks and other personal protective equipment.
McAteer, who typically employs about 40 people during the summer months — from event photographers to drag queens — said his employees are eager to get to work.
“All of my staff and entertainers are chomping at the bit to come back,” he said. “They all cannot wait to be back here and bring back the life that is Fire Island Pines.”
“The gay community is very creative and inventive, especially in a crisis … We survived the HIV epidemic and made a comeback. I think the same thing about this. Those same creative energies will be out this summer.”
JAY PAGANO, FIRE ISLAND PINES PROPERTY OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION
And when beachgoers return to the island for the summer, they won’t be alone. Jay Pagano, president of the Fire Island Pines Property Owners’ Association, said occupancy has been higher than usual over the past few months, because many homeowners opted to quarantine on the island starting in mid-March.
“A large number of residents chose to spend the pandemic in the Pines,” he said in early May. “They thought it would be a safer or nicer venue to be locked down in. I’m guessing that’s probably 200 to 250 homes are occupied full-time right now, and that’s unusual this early.”
And while there hasn’t been much to do over the past two months, there’s always the beach.
“The beaches are open, and they will remain open,” Pagano explained. “We have a wonderfully wide beach this summer. We are going to encourage the residents to use it, but the requirements for social distancing and masks will be implemented on the beach as in the community, and the police will be enforcing those requirements.”
In neighboring Cherry Grove, the beach is also open to sunbathers, swimmers and strollers.
“It’s as safe here as it is anywhere,” Diane Romano,president of the Cherry Grove Community Association, said, adding that “the people in Cherry Grove have been really great at implementing social distancing.”
And for those thinking about heading to Fire Island’s Cherry Grove section, Romano said, “We want to make sure you’re someone that will follow guidelines and work with the community to make sure you protect yourself and others.”
In order to ensure everyone’s safety, Romano said local law enforcement, starting in mid-June, will patrol the beach to make sure everyone is following proper social distancing guidelines, which include limiting large groups from congregating.
Fire Island regulars, such as Rimalower and Zach James, who reserved a house for a week in July, are preparing for a different Fire Island experience than they’re used to, which typically includes large beach dances, drag shows and house parties.
“It’s going to be an isolated house trip without the fuss, which will be just fine,” James said. “We will change what we do out there to be in line with the world we live in.”
Arguably the most popular event in the Pines — the annual Pines Party dance and fundraiser, which is typically held the last weekend in July and draws an estimated 3,000 attendees — will not go on as planned this year. However, Guy Smith, the event’s creative director, said his group is “hard at planning” an alternative “to bring together our community and continue the Pines Party magic.” He said this year’s event will include live performances streaming from the Fire Island Pines that will “broaden the reach of our event and raise much-needed funds for our 2020 beneficiary, Stonewall Community Foundation.”
As for ferry service — the only way in and out of Fire Island unless you own your own boat — the schedule is more limited than recent years due to a decline in ridership amid the pandemic. The boats will be running at a maximum of 50 percent capacity, and all passengers must wear face coverings.
“Fire Island has so much beauty, and there’s so many things out here to do,” McAteer said, looking ahead to the next few months. “Whatever the new normal is, it’s going to be OK; we’re going to figure it out.”
“Summer 2020 is not canceled in my book,” he added. “Summer 2020 is just going to be done differently.”
New Jersey’s Asbury Park
Asbury Park, a 1.6-square-mile city located along the Jersey Shore, has been attracting an increasing number of LGBTQ homeowners and beachgoers since the ‘50s, when New Yorkers started purchasing and restoring Victorian homes, leading to the city’s rejuvenation.
While the city’s beach and boardwalk had been closed due to the pandemic, they recently opened ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. In order to ensure everyone’s safety, officials have put a number of new measures in place.
“We know our residents are looking forward to summer, and Asbury Park has always welcomed visitors — we know how much they help our economy,” Mayor John Moor said in a statement. “That said, this is not a normal summer season. We are in the middle of a pandemic, and we need to be smart. We are going to have to limit numbers, practice social distancing, wear face coverings and masks, and make the experience as contactless as possible for the safety of beach visitors and our staff.”
The city’s measures, which can be found on its website, will include the limited sale of beach passes, which are required for beach entry; one-way travel in each direction on the boardwalk; and a face mask requirement except when sunbathing or swimming.
“The next few weekends are going to be our tests to figure out how to do this, because all of this is so new, and we are learning as we go,” Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn said. “If people do not respect these rules, we will make changes.”
Michael Cook, who has lived in Asbury Park since 2005, said he’s preparing for a “Jersey Shore summer with a twist.”
“We all will learn a slightly new way of living this summer,” he said.
As for the shops and restaurants that line the city’s downtown area — including the popular gay venue Paradise — they remain closed.
“Right now, the music isn’t playing, and the cocktails are not flowing, but this is simply a moment,” the last post on Paradise’s Instagram reads. “We will all dance together again.”
Delaware’s Rehoboth Beach
Rehoboth Beach along Delaware’s coast has for decades been a popular beach destination with LGBTQ travelers from Philadelphia down to Washington, D.C. The resort town boasts over 200 gay-owned businesses, according to GayCities, and its Poodle Beach section is particularly popular with queer beachgoers.
While Delaware has not been as hard hit by the coronavirus as New York and New Jersey, Rehoboth Beach Mayor Paul Kuhns said the town is taking precautions and heeding the governor’s guidance on reopening.
“About 80 percent of the homes in Rehoboth are owned by people from out of town. What we have seen is a lot of those second-home owners have come to Rehoboth in order to get away from where they were, but they have been very positively practicing social distancing,” Kuhns said earlier this month. “It has been very manageable, but as we get more crowds coming in, it will be a difficult situation.”
As of 5 p.m. Friday, beaches along the Delaware coast will be open for exercising, sunbathing and swimming. Guidelines, which can be found on the state’s website, require social distancing among those from different households and encourage face coverings. There is a catch, though: Those who reside out-of-state will have to maintain a 14-day quarantine upon entering Delaware in order to enjoy what its beaches have to offer.
Kuhns, however, said, “We will not have police at the entrances of Rehoboth checking your ID and making sure you live in town or not.”
As for the town’s shops and restaurants, many will be open with restrictions, with most offering only curbside pick-up.
Massachusetts’ Provincetown
As the artist’s colony in Provincetown began to thrive in the early 20th century, so did its gay community. By the 1970s, the bohemian village at the tip of Cape Cod became known for its cabaret and drag scenes. Today, Provincetown boasts around 300 businesses that are part of the Provincetown Business Guild, an organization that focuses on drawing LGBTQ visitors to the destination.
“We are spending a lot of time talking about what the P-Town experience is going to look like this summer and trying to reimagine the Provincetown experience, because we believe there will still be people that come here,” Bob Sanborn, executive director of the Provincetown Business Guild, said. “We have a lot of these large-scale events and theme weeks that won’t happen as they have historically happened. With that said, we aren’t expecting the up-swells and crowds that traditionally happen here week to week.”
During the typical summer peak season, Provincetown has a population of about 30,000 to 50,000, with peak holidays and events seeing nearly 100,000.
“Eighty percent of the homes are second homeowner owned, so those people will still come with their house guests,” Sanborn speculated. “And we still believe there will be some tourists. So it’s going to be a slower but steady summer.”
Both of the region’s most well-known beaches — historically gay beach Herring Cove and Race Point — are part of the Cape Cod National Seashore and have not been closed amid the pandemic, though their operations have been limited. The area’s smaller beaches, those around the harbor, have been closed, but will open on Memorial Day. Social distancing will be expected on all beaches: Household clusters will be allowed to gather, but larger groups, especially with 10 people or more, will be prohibited.
“This summer will still be uniquely Provincetown,” Sanborn explained. “It will be a special summer. Many people are saying this will be like Old Provincetown, before the big theme weeks became such a part of our culture. People used to flock here years ago for the sun and the fun and the joie de vivre and the simple, colorful life. We believe it will be a summer like that.”
And, just like in years past, Sanborn and other community leaders acknowledged the resiliency of the LGBTQ community when unforeseen threats arise.
“The gay community is very creative and inventive, especially in a crisis,” Pagano said. “We survived the HIV epidemic and made a comeback. I think the same thing about this. Those same creative energies will be out this summer.”
A tiny village made history at the weekend by electing Marie Cau the first-ever trans mayor in France.
On Saturday morning, Cau was elected mayor of a small village in northeastern France – the country’s first out trans mayor.
Cau, 55, was elected almost unanimously by the council in Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes, with 14 votes in favour and one null vote.
The municipal elections were held in March 15, with the village’s 550 citizens voting for councillors solely from the “Deciding Together” list, among them Cau.
She ran on a platform of environmental sustainability and building the local economy, according to the BBC.
Cau said she’s “not an activist” and would be focusing on municipal politics.
“People did not elect me because I was or was not transgender, they elected a programme,” she said.
“That’s what’s interesting: when things become normal, you don’t get singled out.”
Stéphanie Nicot, co-founder of the National Transgender Association (ANT), said that Cau was, to her knowledge, the first trans person elected mayor in France.
However, she cautioned that “people have been able to pass under the radars” before.
The election of Cau showed that “our fellow citizens are more and more progressive”, she added, suggesting that Cau’s win showed people voting on “the value of individuals, regardless of their gender identity”.
Marlène Schiappa, France’s minister for gender equality, tweeted her congratulations to Cau.
“Trans visibility, and therefore the fight against transphobia, also requires the exercise of political or public responsibilities,” she said.
“Congratulations to Marie Cau!”
Cau has lived in Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes for 20 years, and has three children.
She toldLe Parisien that her plan for the village in her role as mayor is “a model based on sustainable development, the local economy and short circuits, social and better living together”.
A qualified engineer, she will combine her mayoral duties with her business of IT consultancy.
It was perhaps ironic that Little Richard and Roy Horn (of Siegfried & Roy) died within hours of each other this month. Though they were from totally separate pop culture factions, seeing their obits side by side in some outlets, such as the May 10 New York Times, was a sobering reminder of how an older generation of gay men — Horn, who died at 75 was on the outer cusp of the Boomers; Richard was 12 years older — dealt with (or didn’t deal with) their sexuality in a pre-Stonewall era when practically nobody was officially out but demeanor, style, stage persona and more “read” gay to middle America the same way sexual innuendo was implied in early jazz and movies long before it was discussed or depicted openly.
Little Richard (Richard Wayne Penniman was his legal name) was known for a string of ’50s hits like “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally” whose impact went far beyond their initial chart peaks. Richard has been widely lauded as a rock and roll innovator and the first pop star to integrate black and white audiences in a time of rigid segregation in music and society. He died May 9 from bone cancer at his home in Tullahoma, Tenn., after a two-month illness. He was 87.
Horn came to fame with his nearly life-long professional (and for a time personal) partner Siegfried Fischbacher, who were known for their flashy Las Vegas act in which they made lions and tigers (and each other) vanish and reappear. They came to Vegas in 1967 and had a sellout run at the Mirage Resort and Casino from 1990-2003 that found them performing 500 shows yearly. By 1999, the show had grossed half a billion dollars and they were Vegas’s highest-paid entertainers.
Sadly, their careers ended abruptly on Oct. 3, 2003 (Horn’s birthday) when one of the tigers attacked Horn resulting in serious injury. Suffering a stroke and partial paralysis on his left side, Horn was eventually able to walk with assistance but never performed again. The duo made one final public appearance in 2009 with a tiger at a benefit for the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, the Times reported, before retiring officially in 2010. Horn died of COVID-19.
The duo (both German immigrants) only officially came out in 2007 in a National Enquirer article that announced “We’re gay” on the cover. They gave few interviews (even in their heyday) and could be testy about it when pressed.
Behind the glitz
But with their over-the-top costumes (including Roy’s trademark codpiece), ostentatious Vegas home and inseparable public image (and never a hint that either might be involved romantically with anyone else), they didn’t have to state it explicitly. They donned capes and silver space suits, battled a sorceress and a fire-breathing dragon amidst smoke machines, lasers and, of course, lions and tigers, many of which were white, which are uber rare. Their act had a Liberace-esque flair to it, even if neither were ever quite that fey. Siegfried was the magician; Roy the animal trainer. They presented a yin/yang-type persona and lived together at Jungle Palace, an eight-acre Vegas estate (a much larger ranch was just outside the city proper) with, as of 1999, 55 tigers and 16 lions. Horn was the “Tiger King” decades before anybody heard of Joe Exotic (also gay) of the hit Netflix series.
“So you go deeper and say what is going on in my bedroom and in Roy’s bedroom,” Fischbacher said in a 1999 Vanity Fair profile. “I don’t care, I don’t know. I tell you this because this is me and I wouldn’t ask what you do with your dick either.”
Both said they were “very honored” to be considered gay icons but spoke of gay as “other.”
“I have a lot of friends who are gay and I made a lot of friends in show business and I found out that they are always interesting, intelligent and good people and fun to be with,” Fischbacher told Vanity Fair.
“I am flattered to think that people think that I am versatile,” Horn said. “You don’t have to define everything and I don’t want to disillusion people because I’m not a guy who kisses and tells.”
Pal Shirley MacLaine told the magazine they “used to be lovers a long time ago, yeah? In this day and age, who cares?”
Mainstream media only coyly touched on Horn’s sexuality. The Times said Fischbacher and Horn “were domestic as well as professional partners” but left it at that. Journalist Steve Friess, who in The Advocate called them “the world’s most openly closeted celebrities,” said a Mirage spokesperson told him the night of Horn’s attack that “it’s well known that they were lovers at one time.”
They were said to have little presence in Vegas gay life, according to Friess and others, and outside of buying an ad in a program book for an AIDS fundraiser, were not known to have used any of their vast wealth to support LGBTQ rights.
For some, that’s not a problem.
Milt Larsen, founder of The Magic Castle, a private club for magicians and enthusiasts in Hollywood, is 89, straight and knew Siegfried and Roy for many years, initially through his late sister-in-law, Irene Larsen. She and her husband Bill Larsen (Milt’s brother) loved magic and animals and discovered Siegfried & Roy in their early years in Vegas. Larsen later met the duo through his brother and sister-in-law and says Horn was “a dear, great friend.”
“Before Siegfried & Roy, magicians were very seldom anything other than an opening act,” Larsen says. “They came along and went from being an opening act to the headliner with their own huge show because it was so popular. … They were the best.”
Larsen’s friend Dale Hindman also know Siegfried & Roy and says he was at their house several times. He says Roy “fought like crazy” to recover and “they had the best medical people” working with him. He did daily physical therapy, swam and would zip around the grounds on a scooter. He recalls one Vegas convention in which Horn made a rare, post-accident appearance and walked to the podium.
“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Hindman says. “I saw him a number of times at different places. He was in the scooter, he would talk, he loved people, he had great quality of life and they had the resources to have the best medical care. It’s such a shame that something like this virus came along and killed him.”
Larsen and Hindman say Horn’s sexuality was understood but “never really discussed.”
“I’ve been in show business a long time and sometimes it feels like just about everybody I’ve ever known was gay,” Larsen says with a laugh. “It was a different world then. I just don’t recall anybody ever talking much about it.”
Hindman says it was generational and gradual when more celebrities started coming out officially. Larsen says Fischbacher, especially (whom he calls a “great” businessman), just “never made a big point of it.”
“They were a couple in the sense that they were absolute partners in what they did and that their lives were their business,” he says. “People are people and in the world we live in today, it’s just not questioned as much.”
Larsen remembers “many, many times” being backstage in their Vegas dressing room post-show.
“The Champagne would be flowing and there were lots of wonderful friends,” Larsen says. “[Roy] was very, very gregarious and he and Irene really got to know each other and became wonderful friends.”
“There would be drinks and hors d’oeuvres and plenty of people,” Hindman says. “After awhile, Roy would go play with the animals. Siegfried would say, “I’m tired but you all stay as long as you want.’”
Out magician/actor Michael Carbonaro, 44, of reality show “The Carbonaro Effect,” said in a written comment to the Blade it didn’t matter if Siegfried & Roy were coy about their sexuality.
“I actually don’t know what Siegfried & Roy ever did or didn’t put into words,” he said. “I grew up seeing two gorgeous men living their magic dreams in bedazzled outfits, so they were always an iconic form of queer inspiration.”
It’s complicated
Others, however, aren’t willing to let them off the gay hook so easily.
Matthew Rettenmund, a gay blogger and pop culture historian/author, says Horn’s approach to being “out” reminds him of singer Barry Manilow who finally came out in 2017 at age 73 after decades of evading the question.
“They’re men who have convinced themselves that being gay in private is the same thing as being out,” he said in an e-mail. “Which is simply not true. I do hope that as the Rip Taylors and Richard Simmonses of the world leave us, as sad as it is to lose their talent, that they won’t be replaced by more of the same. Hiding in plain sight is still hiding and it still sends such a warped message of self-acceptance.”
Long-time gay Vegas resident/historian Dennis McBride says he can see where both sides of the issue were coming from.
“Siegfried and Roy were never involved in the Las Vegas queer community in any public way I’m aware of,” McBride wrote in an e-mail to the Blade. “They were much like Liberace in that respect — they were Las Vegas icons, counted Las Vegas as their personal and professional home, but deeply closeted because they came of age and established their careers during a time when they could have been jailed for being gay and lost those very lucrative careers. I remember there was some resentment in the community because we needed role models — particularly in the 1980s and early 1990s during the worst of the AIDS pandemic — and both Liberace and Sigfried & Roy might have been a great help in our struggle, brought credibility and support to our fight. I don’t think any of us entirely blamed them, though, because we were all in danger then ourselves as queer people.”
And while Richard stated he was gay explicitly on multiple occasions, he was never at peace with it and at multiple times in his career recorded gospel music and even for a time sold Bibles in a repudiation of the rock and roll and gay “devil’s” music and “lifestyle.” For him, being gay was a vexation and something to be overcome, which is, to some, even more troubling than Horn’s avoiding the issue.
“The problem is his religiosity and self doubt forced him back in the closet just as many times, “Rettenmund wrote. “And though he camped it up to earn a living in his final decades, it was homophobia that won. He died an ‘ex-gay,’ a sad loss.”
Richard was married to a woman from 1957-1964. They had one adopted son. As recently as 2017, he was condemning gay sex. “God, Jesus, he made men, men, he made women, women, you know? And you’ve got to live the way God wants you to live,” Richard told the Three Angels Broadcasting Network, a religious channel, reported by The Advocate.
Gay author/actor Michael Kearns (who’s been on “Cheers,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Waltons,” “Knots Landing” et. al. and has said in interviews and books he had sex with Rock Hudson and Barry Manilow) says Richard deserves a more compassionate assessment.
“I don’t know how much gay sex he was having, but for me it was all about him having such a gay persona,” Kearns says. “I think what young men like me found so stirring and exciting is that it gave us something to grasp onto. Here was this sissy, this exciting, flamboyant, theatrical, wild persona and yeah, he later had the doubts and went back into the closet as a religious fanatic, well, of course he did. He was a black man from the South dealing with all that church stuff. I mean that’s a big struggle and I think people just don’t give him enough human credit for battling that publicly.”
McBride says after their performing years, Sigfried & Roy were occasioally seen in Vegas’s gay spots. They separated romantically in 1996, he says, when Fischbacher got his own house in Spanish Trails. In more recent years, after Horn’s accident, speaking out for gay causes wouldn’t have carried as much weight, he says.
“No one really cared by then,” McBride says. “The moment when their honesty mght have made a positive difference to the Las Vegas queer community had long passed and so had the careers they might have lost if they’d come out earlier.”
He says they were “largely circumspect” but “we still saw them discreetly out and about.”
“Even before (they broke up), when we saw them in the community, it was usually separately,” he says. “The two of them would visit the Le Cafe nightclub in the 1970s which then stood on the northwest corner of Tropicana Avenue and Paradise Road. The club’s lesbian owner, Marge Jacques, counted them as friends. In the 1980s, separately or together, they’d come to Gipsy, which then was an upscale dance club on Paradise Road and Naples Drive.”
They were also spotted occasionally at seedier gay spots, McBride says.
“Roy seemed to enjoy the Talk of the Town adult bookstore when it was in the Crestwood Shopping Center on East Charleston Boulevard and one or the other was occasionally seen at the Camp David bath house on Industrial Road,” he says. “But mostly, they and their circle of gay friends — which included Liberace and Hans Klok, who came out about the same time Sigfried & Roy did in 2007, and their protege, Darren Romeo, who just came out during his run in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., — kept themselves pretty much sequestered at Little Bavaria back in the day. I think the idea of a queer community was alien to them, outside their experience, maybe even distracting and a bit threatening.”
Religious hangups
Gospel music producer/historian Anthony Heilbut has written at length about how black Christian denominations have shamed or welcomed queer musicians to varying degrees in the ‘50s, ‘60s and prior. He knew Little Richard — not well, but they’d met on several occasions — and says one must consider the era when deciding how much blame to assign him. He wanders into another room of his New York apartment during a phone interview last week and puts on a recording of gospel singer Marion Williams (1927-1994), who for a time was in The Famous Ward Singers, helmed by Clara Ward (one of Aretha Franklin’s major influences) and who also had a significant solo career. He holds the phone up to a recording of her whooping and hollering and it’s easy to see where Little Richard got some of his inspiration. Richard appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors when Williams was inducted.
“His phrasings and his timbre and even his ballad singing, and he was a great ballad singer although we typically think of him as this sort of rock and roll clown, all that came from Marion Williams,” Heilbut, who’s gay, says. “You can’t copyright phrasings. That’s what singers could take from each other.”
Heilbut also says Richard, whom he first met in 1961 and says he’s “one of the very few people who ever saw him sing on a gospel program,” says Richard’s gospel singing career was never terribly convincing or memorable partially because he came from a staid denomination (Seventh Day Adventist, not nearly as musically rowdy as black Baptists and those in the Sanctified Church) and the fact that it was performed more dutifully than his rock and roll material.
“He was singing, ‘I quit show business and I wanna go straight/I wanna serve the Lord before it’s too late,’” Heilbut says. “His singing was very bland. There was more of the real gospel drama in his R&B and rock music.”
Heilbut also says Richard admired Williams in the traditional way gay men have worshiped show-stopping divas. He remembers seeing Richard at a Nashville studio when Heilbut was producing one of Williams’ later recordings. He mimics Richard’s speech patterns, recalling the conversation: “‘Is she still fabulous? Do she still make notes? I makes notes. I heard she preaching. I preaching too. … She always war my heart, she know, she know. I’ve been singing like her down through the years. Mahalia good, but Marion always were my singer.’”
Heilbut also says Richard’s various stints in gospel music robbed his career of momentum in rock. As respected as he was among rock pioneers, he’s almost wholly associated with his ‘50s heyday. Attempts at secular music comebacks in the ‘60s and ‘70s could not come close to matching his peak period.
“He made some very lovely records later and he could be a wonderful singer, but by then the audience had changed,” Heilbut says. “The train had passed.”
Later in life, Heilbut says, Richard was seen socializing in gay bars. He never personally saw him but says friends reported him being “the belle of the ball” at St. Louis gay bars on various occasions.
Richard, whom Heilbut says “always struck me as very goofy,” was ultimately “just incredibly confused.”
Roy, Richard ‘lacked courage’
Gay activist/entrepreneur Mitchell Gold, who like Siegfried & Roy, knows something about being linked for life to a former partner — he and business partner/former domestic partner Bob Williams formed their eponymous furniture company Mitchell Gold+Bob Williams in 1989, which they continue to run jointly. He says celebrities holding onto or returning to the closet are a reminder of “how horrible these religious teachings are, how toxic.”
“I don’t even know what it’s like to live like that,” Gold says. “I was tortured about it until I was 24, 25 but then that was the end of it. These guys who live their whole lives having to be careful about that they said, it’s just horrible. I don’t know as much about Siegfried & Roy except that after awhile it just gets to be ridiculous, like the Barry Manilow thing was for so many years.”
Gold understands Richard not being out in the ‘50s or Siegfried & Roy at the advent of their careers but later in life, once they were financially secure, he says they “lacked courage.”
“I never cared if we lost money for being out,” Gold says. “I don’t have to be a gazillionnaire. If I make less, I make less and it’s the same for Siegfried & Roy. At some point they had plenty of money and so why wouldn’t they speak out for people who aren’t being sheltered the way they are and are forced to live a closeted, unhealthy life. The only thing I can say is I don’t think these folks even know what a healthy life looks like.”
Gay journalist/author Michael Musto agrees.
“It’s partly generational, though many of their generation ended up being belatedly but wonderfully out and proud — Richard Chamberlain, Joel Grey, etc.,” he wrote in an e-mail. “It’s more of a sort of self-loathing-tinged caution based on a lifelong fear of an image adjustment or career damage. Roy played to Middle American high rollers, but obviously didn’t want to gamble on his own career. One of his magic tricks was being cagey about his sexuality.”
Musto says the music business has been especially troubling for non-straight black entertainers.
“Little Richard renounced his queerness when he should have just been at peace with it and allowed himself to celebrate and be celebrated by our community,” Musto says. “Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston and many others were unwilling to step out of the shadows because the people around them (and sometimes their own inner voices) told them not to. Little Richard was so queer that it seems like a ‘duh’ that he should have just gone there. But with Adam Lambert, Sam Smith and many others (and Elton John, Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang having led the way), things have inalterably changed.”
Although Fischbacher and Horn never spoke of their religious influences — their decor reflected influences of Eastern religion and Horn would sound a large gong in his bedroom to let the tigers know he was awake — for Richard, Kearns says, it was tragic.
“I’m not saying there aren’t some fabulously evolved people who are religious but we’ve seen time and time again how religion gets its hold on gay people at a very early age and just does not let go and the result can be horrific,” Kearns says. “Richard is a fascinating creature to me. In a way, it’s amazing he lived as long as he did with this struggle. He deserves a lot of credit. He didn’t have an easy time of it.”
LGBT+ refugees and asylum seekers are being excluded from crucial coronavirus relief packages offered by the South African government, multiple human rights groups have warned.
South Africa is a common destination for those fleeing countries that persecute sexual minorities, as 33 out of the 70 countries that criminalise homosexuality are in Africa.
But queer people arriving in the country have little access to basic amenities and are now facing starvation amid the ongoing lockdown.
The pandemic has cut them off from working in the informal trades that previously sustained them, including restaurants, bars, or sex work, and they are not eligible to receive government social grants or food parcels, as these are are distributed only to those with South African identity cards and Social Security cards.
Human Rights Watch is appealing to the country’s government to take urgent steps to help these migrants, who were already living on the economic margins before the pandemic began.
“The Ramaphosa administration should either ensure access to food for thousands of refugees and asylum seekers, or say that it can’t meet the need and seek donors to step in and provide assistance,” said Dewa Mavhinga, southern Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
“The government is ignoring the plight of refugees and asylum seekers currently confined in their homes and unable to work to provide for themselves.”
After hearing desperate pleas from refugees and asylum seekers, Human Rights Watch raised the issue with the South African Human Rights Commission.
The Commission confirmed receiving similar reports and pressed the authorities to extend support for these marginalised people during the coronavirus lockdown.
Their calls of alarm were joined by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The ACHPR delivered an urgent appeal to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, expressing concern at the lack of protection for vulnerable groups, which includes LGBT+ migrants.
“South Africa should make special efforts to protect the most vulnerable in the country and ensure that refugees and asylum seekers are not overlooked or forgotten,” Mavhinga said.
“The authorities should act and seek donor support to avert an imminent humanitarian catastrophe.”