India’s National Medical Commission has ordered publishers and medical schools to edit their textbooks and curricula to exclude discriminatory and unscientific portrayals of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people.
The order from the country’s highest medical regulator follows a June 2021 Madras High Court rulinginstructing institutions across the country to roll back prejudicial and inaccurate portrayals of sexual and gender minorities. In the judgment, Judge Anand Venkatesh said, “Ignorance is no justification for normalizing any form of discrimination.” His language echoes previous court rulings and commission reports in India.
In 2018, when the Supreme Court unanimously struck down India’s colonial-era criminal prohibition on same-sex relations, Justice Indu Malhotra stated that, “an apology [is owed] to members of the LGBT community … for the ostracization and persecution they faced because of society’s ignorance.” In the case’s early stages, the Indian Medical Association made clear: “We are seriously concerned that homosexuality is looked upon as a disorder and in our joint petition appealed to the Supreme Court that it was not an illness.”
In January 2021, the Delhi Child Rights Commission recommended a ban on medically unnecessary “normalizing” surgeries on children born with intersex variations. This follows the southern state of Tamil Nadu banning such operations in 2019 after a court upheld the informed consent rights for intersex children. The commission’s recommendation received support from the Delhi Medical Council, which wrote that, “[s]urgical interventions … that are not deemed medically necessary should be delayed until the patient can provide meaningful informed consent.”
Welcoming the medical commission’s advisory this week, Dr. L. Ramakrishnan, vice president of SAATHII, an LGBT advocacy group, said: “The issue is not only one of misrepresentation but also one of absence. For instance, standard Indian textbooks in Pediatrics do not mention same-gender attraction or transgender identity in a non-pathologizing manner while addressing child and adolescent development.”
The National Medical Commission’s announcement further indicates the widespread support for reform among Indian legal and medical experts. It is a good precedent for what is needed across the education sector – a comprehensive update of outdated curricula.
A 25-year-old Black trans man called Mel Groves died of multiple gunshot wounds in Mississippi on Monday (11 October).
Groves is at least the 39th trans or gender non-conforming person to be violently killed in the US in 2021, according to the Human Rights Campaign(HRC), which tracks anti-trans violence in the US.
He was a student at Alcorn State University, a historically Black university in Lorman, Mississippi, where he began studying plant science in August 2021.
Police in Jackson, Mississippi, confirmed that Groves died after driving himself to hospital with multiple gunshot wounds.
Groves collapsed while getting out of the vehicle at Merit Health Hospital and was transferred to the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he died on Monday afternoon (11 October), Jackson Police Department (JPD) spokesperson Sam Brown told local news.
Brown added that JPD are trying to determine the location of the shooting, as well as potential suspects and motives.
roves’ death is the 115th homicide in Jackson this year. The state capital recorded 130 murders last year, the highest number in its history.
Murdered Black trans man misgendered by media outlets
According to the Human Rights Campaign, Groves was an active member of The Knights & Orchids Society (TKO), “a southern centered grassroots startup founded and led by Black, queer, transgender, and gender non-conforming people supporting gender justice and LGBTQ visibility”.
On Facebook, TKO said: “He was murdered. The news outlets are already misgendering Mel and using his old name.
“The motive is unknown, but we know the violence that happens to trans people in our communities. Mel had even shared that he feared for his life because he was trans in Jackson.”
The organisation added that it is “trying to find real answers” and offered a reward for “any leads and information”. TKO also asked its community to contact Mississippi media outlets and demand they stop misgendering Groves.https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FTKOSociety%2Fposts%2F1787350028134229&show_text=false&width=500
Tori Cooper, HRC’s director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, said: “Mel Groves had an incredibly bright future, but it was stolen from him well before his time. The loss of such a life is a tragedy for our community and for the world.
“We must work to create a society where trans people, especially Black trans people, no longer have to live in fear.”
At least 39 trans people have been violently killed in the US this year. The real number is likely to be higher, as many such killings go unreported, or the victim misgendered and deadnamed.
Mel Groves’ death follows that of Kiér Laprií Karter, who was shot dead on 30 September in Arlington, Texas. She was 21 years old.
In 2020, 44 trans and gender non-conforming people were violently killed in the US – more than in any other year since HRC began tracking such deaths in 2013.
The State of Texas has just been busted for deleting the existence of LGBTQ people from its official website.
The New York Timesreports that the state scrubbed a resources page for LGBTQ youth from its site after one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Republican primary challengers called it “offensive” and not in line with good ol’ fashioned “Texas values.”
Candidate Don Huffines voiced his outrage over the page in a homophobic video posted to Twitter on August 31.
“They are promoting transgender sexual policies to Texas youth!” he raged. “I mean, really?! This is Texas! These are not Texas values. These are not Republican Party values. But these are obviously Greg Abbott’s values.”
Hours after Huffines posted the video, the page vanished.
To add insult to injury, the page, which provided information for LGBTQ youth who were feeling depressed, bullied, or suicidal, was removed at the start of Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month.
Patrick Crimmins, spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, claims it was taken down “as part of a review,” but leaked internal emails suggest officials took it down in response to Huffines’s comments.
“FYI. This is starting to blow up on Twitter,” department official, Marissa Gonzales, wrote shortly after the homophobic video went live.
A follow up email sent from Crimmins reads, “Please note we may need to take that page down, or somehow revise content.” One day later, an email was sent to the webmaster explaining that “the Texas Youth Connection (TYC) website has been temporarily disabled for a comprehensive review of its content.”
“This is being done to ensure that its information, resources and referrals are current,” it claimed.
Six weeks later, the “comprehensive review” still is not complete and Gov. Abbott’s office is refusing to comment on the matter.
In a statement, Ricardo Martinez, chief executive of Equality Texas, blasted the state for removing the page.
“State agencies know that LGBTQ+ kids are overrepresented in foster care and they know they face truly staggering discrimination and abuse,” Martinez said. “The state is responsible for these kids’ lives, yet it actively took away a resource for them when they are in crisis.”
As for Huffines, he appears to have moved on from attacking LGBTQ youth and is now on a crusade against mask mandates as the state continues to report some of the highest COVID-19 death rates in the nation.
Edgar García and his partner, Dannys Torres, on Oct. 3, 2018, used a canoe to cross the Arauca River that marks the Venezuela-Colombia border.
García was a member of the board of directors of Alianza Lambda de Venezuela, a Venezuelan LGBTQ rights group, before he fled Venezuela. Torres worked as a hairdresser in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.
The couple now lives in Rafael Uribe Uribe, a working-class neighborhood in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.
Torres continues to work as a hairdresser. García most recently worked for a telecommunications company.
“We are settled here in Bogotá,” García told the Washington Blade on Sept. 21 during an interview with him and Torres that took place at a shopping mall near their home. “You have your life here.”
From left: Dannys Torres and his partner, Edgar García, at a shopping mall in Bogotá, Colombia, on Sept. 21, 2021. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
García and Torres are two of the more than 5.4 million Venezuelans who the Coordination Platform for Migrants and Refugees from Venezuela say have left their country as of November 2020 because of its ongoing economic and political crises.
Statistics from the Colombian government indicate there are currently more than 1.7 million Venezuelans in the country. More than 50 percent of them live in Bogotá and the departments of Norte de Santander, Atlántico and Antioquia.
Colombian President Iván Duque in February announced the country would legally recognize Venezuelan migrants who are registered with the government.
Sources in Colombia with whom the Blade has spoken say there are likely many more Venezuelan migrants in the country than official statistics indicate. Venezuelan migrants who are LGBTQ and/or living with HIV remain disproportionately vulnerable to discrimination and violence and often lack access to health care and formal employment.
A report the Red de Movilidad Humana LGBTI+—a network of advocacy groups in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Guatemala and Mexico—published with the support of the U.N. Refugee Agency notes sex trafficking and even death are among the myriad threats that LGBTQ migrants from Venezuela face once they enter Colombia. The report indicates they also face discrimination in shelters because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, sexual violence and a lack of access to the Colombian judicial system.
Trans woman left Venezuela ‘in search of a better quality of life’
Vanesa, a 25-year-old transgender woman from the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo, came to Colombia eight years ago “in search of a better quality of life.”
She told the Blade on Sept. 14 during an interview at Fundación de Atención Inclusiva, Social y Humana (FUVADIS)—an organization in Barranquilla, a city in Atlántico department that is near the mouth of the Magdalena River in northern Colombia, that serves Venezuelan migrants—she entered Colombia near Maicao, a city in La Guajira department via an informal border crossing known as a “trocha.” Vanesa said she was nearly kidnapped.
“The people who were standing on the sides (of the “trocha”) who ask you for money were supposedly security,” she said. “There was no security. They left me there because I was trans. They said a lot of ugly things. They assaulted me, including one (man) who was not going to let me go. They wanted me to kidnap me or have me there to do whatever they wanted to me.”
Vanesa said a woman helped her escape.
“The experience was horrible,” she said.
Vanesa traveled to Cartagena, a popular tourist destination that is less than two hours southwest of Barranquilla, and began to work at her friend’s hair salon. Vanesa told the Blade that her friend’s mother “never liked me because … she is a Christian.”
Vanesa now lives in Barranquilla and supports herself through video chats. Vanesa also competes in local beauty pageants and is able to send money to her mother in Venezuela.
“I work here,” she said. “I am relatively well off.”
Vanesa, a 25-year-old transgender woman from Venezuela, at the offices of Fundación de Atención Inclusiva, Social y Humana (FUVADIS) in Barranquilla, Colombia, on Sept. 14, 2021. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
Andy, a trans man from Venezuela’s Maracay state, left Venezuela four years ago with his partner and their daughter. Andy, like Vanesa, entered Colombia via a “trocha” near Maicao.
“I migrated because the situation was becoming worse and worse each day,” Andy told the Blade on Sept. 14 as he attended a workshop that Caribe Afirmativo, an LGBTQ group in northern Colombia, organized at a Barranquilla hotel.
Caribe Afirmativo has opened three “Casas Afirmativos” in Barranquilla, Maicao and Medellín that provide access to health care and other services to Venezuelan migrants who are LGBTQ and/or living with HIV/AIDS. Caribe Afirmativo also operates several “Casas de Paz” throughout northern Colombia that support the implementation of an LGBTQ-inclusive peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that came into force in 2016.
Andy said his work in Venezuela allowed him to learn how “to sell whatever product,” but he told the Blade he struggled to find a job once he arrived in Colombia.
Andy told the Blade that he, his partner and their daughter now have stable housing in Barranquilla. Andy said he also has received a job offer in Medellín, the country’s second-largest city that is the capital of Antioquia department.
Andy, a transgender man from Venezuela, at a Caribe Afirmativo workshop in Barranquilla, Colombia, on Sept. 14, 2021. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
Jesús Gómez is a 33-year-old gay man from Venezuela’s Trujillo state in the Venezuelan Andes that are close to the country’s border with Colombia.
He previously worked with Venezuela Diversa, a Venezuelan LGBTQ advocacy group, and accepted a position with the municipality of Chacao that is part of Caracas. Gómez, whose mother was born in Colombia, also joined a student protest movement against the government.
Gómez fled to Colombia and is pursuing his asylum case with the help of UNHCR.
“I feel bad emotionally, but I am well-off compared to other people,” he told the Blade on Sept. 16 during an interview at a hotel in Cúcuta, a city in Norte de Santander department that is a few miles from the country’s border with Venezuela. “I am working to help other people who are in the same situation.”
Gómez in December is scheduled to graduate from nursing school. He also works with Fundación Censurados, a Cúcuta-based HIV/AIDS service organization that works with Venezuelan migrants, and has supported other organizations in the area that serve them.
Jesús Gómez in Cúcuta, Colombia, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
FUVADIS Executive Director Luis Meneses, like Gómez, was an LGBTQ activist in Venezuela.
Meneses, who is from Venezuela’s Zulia state, in 2010 unsuccessfully ran for Venezuela’s National Assembly. Meneses in February 2018 fled to Colombia because of the “political persecution” he said he suffered.
“Discrimination and prejudice against me began when I came out to defend LGBTI rights,” Meneses told the Blade on Sept. 14 during an interview at his office.
Meneses in August 2018 launched FUVADIS, which receives support from groups that includes UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration. FUVADIS provides health care, antiretroviral drugs and a host of other services to Venezuelan migrants with HIV/AIDS and other populations that include sex workers. Vanessa and nearly 900 other FUVADIS clients are LGBTQ.
“We cannot work for the migrant population by only giving them humanitarian assistance,” said Meneses. “It’s also about guaranteeing access to their rights.”
Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS die because of lack of medications
The New York-based Aid for AIDS International estimates more than 10,000 Venezuelans with HIV have left the country in recent years. Activists and health care service providers in Venezuela with whom the Blade has spoken in recent years have said people with HIV/AIDS in the country have died because of a lack of antiretroviral drugs.
The Venezuelan government has also targeted HIV/AIDS service organizations.
Members of Venezuela’s General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence in January raided the offices of Azul Positivo, an HIV/AIDS service organization and arrested President Johan León Reyes and five other staff members. Venezuelan police on Feb. 15, 2019, raided the offices of Fundación Mavid, another HIV/AIDS service organization in Valencia, a city in Carabobo state, and arrested three staffers after they confiscated donated infant formula and medications for people with HIV/AIDS
Deyvi Galvis Vásquez, a doctor who is the manager of prevention and testing for AIDS Healthcare Foundation Colombia on Sept. 17 during an interview at AHF’s Cúcuta clinic showed the Blade pictures of Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS in Colombia who had cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma.
“The conditions are of extreme vulnerability,” said Galvis.
People wait in the waiting room at an HIV/STI clinic in Caracas, Venezuela, on Feb. 13. 2019. Venezuelan HIV/AIDS service providers tell the Washington Blade that people with HIV/AIDS have died because of an acute shortage of available antiretroviral drugs in the country. (Photo courtesy of Alianza Lambda de Venezuela)
Andrés Cardona, director of Fundación Ancla, a Medellín-based group that works with migrants and other vulnerable groups, during a Sept. 13 interview with the Blade in his office echoed Galvis. Cardona added stigma specifically against Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS is one of the myriad issues he and his colleagues confront.
“The issue of the elimination of HIV also implies not only an issue of communication and prevention, but also an issue of effective attention,” said Cardona. “We have our conservative culture, an idea that the Venezuelans who are coming are going to give us HIV.”
“This is totally discriminatory,” he added.
Cardona, like those inside Venezuela with whom the Blade has spoken, said there are no services in the country for people with HIV/AIDS.
“There are many Venezuelan migrants with HIV who enter Colombia, because they are going to die if they don’t,” he said.
AHF operates clinics throughout Colombia
AHF operates other facilities in Bogotá and in the cities of Bucaramanga, Yopal, Valledupar and Ríohacha. The organization, along with the Colombian Red Cross and the government of Santander department, in March began to distribute condoms, food and water and offer rapid HIV tests to Venezuelan migrants who travel through Páramo de Berlín, a high plateau in the Colombian Andes through which a highway between Cúcuta and Bucaramanga passes.
AHF, among other things, offers migrants rapid HIV and syphilis tests and counseling for people who test positive. AHF also provides lab tests, formula for children of mothers with HIV and health care with an “interdisciplinary health care team.”
AHF Colombia Country Program Manager Liliana Andrade Forero and AHF Colombia Data Manager Sandra Avila Mira on Sept. 20 noted to the Blade during an interview at AHF’s Bogotá clinic that upwards of 2,000 migrants currently receive care from the organization. They also pointed out that 1,952 of them are taking antiretroviral drugs the Brazilian government donates.
Galvis noted to the Blade that many of AHF’s patients also have access to mental health care and social workers.
“AHF’s policy is to reach out to everyone,” he said.https://www.youtube.com/embed/yJBrbPEkilw?feature=oembed
Pandemic has made migrants even more vulnerable
Galvis, Fundación Censurados Director Juan Carlos Archila and other Colombian HIV/AIDS service providers with whom the Blade spoke say the pandemic has made Venezuelan migrants with HIV/AIDS in the country even more vulnerable.
Lockdowns prevented sex workers and others who work in the informal economy from earning money. A “pico y género” rule implemented by Bogotá Mayor Claudia López that allowed women to leave their homes on even days and men to leave their homes on odd days sparked criticism among trans activists.
Archila, who is a nurse, on Sept. 16 told the Blade during an interview at a Cúcuta hotel the pandemic has also left Censurados in a precarious situation.
“We endured practically two years with the doors closed, with expenses increasing,” he said. “The need of people who come to us for the issue of HIV remains, and yet we are all trying to cope with the situation.”
Andrade noted AHF’s Bogotá was closed for several months at the beginning of the pandemic because of the city’s strict lockdown.
The pandemic also forced FUVADIS to close its offices in March 2020, but Meneses told the Blade the organization was able to see a handful of patients at a time. He said “basic humanitarian assistance” that included hygiene kits and food were among the things that FUVADIS was able to provide its patients during the pandemic.
“Understanding how the situation for the LGBTI community, people with HIV, the migrant population and the refugee population is, we could not allow (our services) to shut down,” Meneses told the Blade.
The outcry by LGBTQ+ advocacy groups and allies since the release last week of the Netflix Dave Chappelle’s comedy special The Closer, regarding transphobic and other anti-LGBTQ innuendo and statements by the comedian grew on Monday after the company suspended one of its Trans employees.
Adding more fuel to the ongoing controversy in a memorandum to the company’s staff members obtained by entertainment trade news magazine Variety, sent last week by Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, the company executive defended Chappelle.
“Chappelle is one of the most popular stand-up comedians today, and we have a long standing deal with him. His last special “Sticks & Stones,” also controversial, is our most watched, stickiest and most award winning stand-up special to date,” Sarandos wrote in the memo.
“As with our other talent, we work hard to support their creative freedom — even though this means there will always be content on Netflix some people believe is harmful,” he added.
Sarandos in his memo wrote, “Several of you have also asked where we draw the line on hate. We don’t allow titles on Netflix that are designed to incite hate or violence, and we don’t believe The Closer crosses that line. I recognize, however, that distinguishing between commentary and harm is hard, especially with stand-up comedy which exists to push boundaries. Some people find the art of stand-up to be mean-spirited but our members enjoy it, and it’s an important part of our content offering.”
LGBTQ Media watch group GLAAD responded to Sarandos’ memo saying that anti-LGBTQ content is technically against Netflix policy.
“Netflix has a policy that content ‘designed to incite hate or violence’ is not allowed on the platform, but we all know that anti-LGBTQ content does exactly that,” the statement reads. “While Netflix is home to groundbreaking LGBTQ stories, now is the time for Netflix execs to listen to LGBTQ employees, industry leaders, and audiences and commit to living up to their own standards.”
After the special aired, Terra Field, an Out Trans Netflix senior software engineer based in San Francisco, posted a series of tweets that expressed anger over Chappelle’s blatant transphobia.
Field in her Twitter thread countered the position laid out by Sarandos, pointing out that Chappelle’s promoting the kind of ideology and speech can result in real-world consequences especially death for Trans people.
In her tweets, Field writes, “Yesterday we launched another Chappelle special where he attacks the Trans community, and the very validity of transness – all while trying to pit us against other marginalized groups. You’re going to hear a lot of talk about ‘offense.’ We are not offended.”
Field went on to say of Chappelle, “our existence is ‘funny’ to him – and when we object to his harm, we’re ‘offended.’” She then listed numerous names of Trans people, specifically highlighting Trans women of color, killed in hate crimes. The thread went viral and as of Monday, the initial tweet had more than 13,000 retweets and 35,000 likes.
In reporting by both The Verge and Variety on Monday, Field and two other employees were suspended by the company although Netflix denies that Field was suspended due to the twitter thread. A source in the company told Variety that Field, who identifies as queer and Trans, and the other employees were not invited to the virtual gathering last week of the company’s executives, the “QBR” — Netflix’s quarterly business review, a two-day affair that convenes the top 500 employees at the company.
“It is absolutely untrue to say that we have suspended any employees for tweeting about this show. Our employees are encouraged to disagree openly and we support their right to do so,” a Netflix spokesperson told Variety.
Neither Field nor Netflix responded to requests for comment Monday by the Blade.
A vital new research project will examine the impact of “the increasingly toxic rhetoric around sexuality and gender identity” on LGBT+ Christians.
A survey will be launched on World Mental Health Day (10 October) to measure how safe “increasingly vulnerable” LGBT+ Christians feel.
The vital research, looking at the wellbeing of LGBT+ people in religious spaces which “can cause significant harm and trauma”, is being conducted by a consortium of nine Christian LGBT+ organisations.
The survey was instigated by Jayne Ozanne, director of the Ozanne Foundation, who said: “Many LGBT+ Christians feel increasingly vulnerable in their local churches given the increasingly toxic rhetoric around sexuality and gender identity.
“We thought it essential to measure in a safe and anonymous way just how safe people feel able to be about who they are, and what steps should be taken to make them feel safer.”
The survey’s launch on World Mental Health Day will also coincide with the Church of England’s first “Safeguarding Sunday”, an initiative“encouraging local churches to use their regular Sunday service to explore together what safer places look like”.
Dr Sarah Carr, an LGBT+ mental health expert who is overseeing the survey, said: “It is critical that LGBT+ people’s well being is prioritised in spaces which we know have and still can cause significant harm and trauma.
“By asking them directly about how they feel we can build a picture of what is happening in the UK today, and identify steps that they tell us will help improve things.”
Executive director of OneBodyOneFaith Luke Dowding, whose organisation coordinates LGBT-friendly Christian spaces and gatherings and is part of the consortium organising the survey, explained: “We know that many LGBT+ people have a deep faith, but some feel unable to attend church because they fear that they will not be welcomed or understood in their local places of worship.
“We would therefore like to understand if there are LGBT+ Christians who do not currently go to church for fear of their safety, with a desire to learn what if anything local churches might do to help address these concerns.”
The online research survey will run for two weeks, with results to be made public in November, and all LGBT+ adult, self-identified Christian in the UK can take part, whether or not they attend church. Click here to take part.
A gay refugee who was forced to flee El Salvador because of anti-gay discrimination has opened up about his painful efforts to start a new life in the United States.
Martin – not his real name – is currently residing in a refugee camp in Reynosa, Mexico, where water supplies are short and living conditions areinhumane.
He never intended to leave El Salvador – he lived “peacefully” in his home country and even had his own business. But everything changed for Martin when he was raped.
“I am from the LGBTQ community, I am gay,” Martin said. “And in my country, I suffered discrimination and violent because of that.
“So, at that moment I had no choice but to take the savings I had and try to flee to a more liberal place, where they don’t push you aside, where they don’t see you badly.”
Shortly afterwards, Martin made contact with a person who claimed he could help him get into the United States as an undocumented migrant.
The deal was simple – this person would try three times to get Martin into the United States. If he was turned away at the border – as so many migrants are – he was on his own.
He left El Salvador on 5 March and managed to make it to Monterrey, Mexico – but his plans quickly disintegrated. He tried to cross into the United States on three separate occasions. Each time, he was sent to Reynosa in Mexico.
“Then the last time, I was kidnapped as I was leaving the bridge,” Martin said. “Someone told me that he could help me, made me get into a car and took me to a house where they locked me up for several days.
“We took advantage of an oversight by the kidnappers and escaped with another boy who had also returned to Reynosa. We managed to get to a highway and got on the first bus that passed, which took us to Monterrey. With a 500 pesos bill that the boy had been able to hide we bought some food and cleaned ourselves up a bit.
“There I found out through Facebook that, instead of trying to cross illegally again, I could ask for asylum in the United States to get there by doing things right.”
Martin ultimately decided to return to Reynosa, where he has remained ever since. According to MSF/Doctors Without Borders, at least 2,000 people – most of them from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – have been living in the makeshift camp in Reynosa since it was set up.
People live in “deplorable conditions” and have limited access to basic services, the advocacy organisation said.
Gay refugee stuck living in ‘deplorable’ camp with limited access to water
“The process of being in the camp has not been comfortable at all, the situation here is very difficult, because everyone lives in tents and I don’t have one yet, so I have to sleep where there is space,” Martin said.
“Besides that, there are many needs. For example, water is very vital for humans, but here we have very little for the amount of people we have at the moment.
“The conditions are not the most pleasant for us. I am trying to endure this.”
Martin said that living in Mexico isn’t an option for him long term. He has faced “abuse attempts” in Reynosa and he only feels safe inside the plaza.
“With the guidance of other people, I started the process of applying for asylum and I am waiting to see what the future holds from now on,” he said.
“Here they tell you to be patient, because patience is the only thing that can sustain us. I only hope the there will be a positive result.”
Martin’s story is just one of many, according to Doctors Without Borders. Many others are living in appalling conditions as while they await a decision on their applications for asylum in the United States. Most have fled countries where their human rights were under threat – including other gay refugees.
Most of the migrants currently based in the Reynosa camp were previously expelled from the United States under Title 42, a public health order that constitutes “a flagrant violation of international law,” according to Doctors Without Borders.
The policy means that people can be deported under COVID-19 regulations – and it is putting asylum seekers in danger.
“The situation of migrants in Mexico is unsustainable,” said Gemma Domínguez, MSF’s general coordinator in Mexico.
“Policies that criminalize migration, the lack of an adequate humanitarian response, and repeated violence and persecution against migrants are unacceptable and endanger the lives of thousands of men, women and children”.
A 17-year-old student continues to recover following a brutal beating by a classmate. The reason for the attack: The bully saw his victim carrying the pride flag.
The incident happened at Southwestern High School in the southern community of Piasa, Illinois. School administrators had promoted a “red, white, and blue,” day encouraging students to bring their favorite flags to school. The Jacksonville Journal-Courier reports that when a classmate noticed the student’s pride flag, he asked him to throw it away. When the student refused, his classmate attacked him, punching him in the head.
At the time of this writing, the extent of the victim’s injuries remains unclear.
Police later detained the assailant and charged him with excessive battery. He remains at a juvenile detention center and could face hate crime charges in the future.
Fellow students at Southwestern High, meanwhile, have sided with the bully.
“You wear a gay Pride flag to school and you don’t expect people to do anything? You go to Southern (sic) High, where we support the Confederate flag and you wonder why you get beat up?” one student posted to social media.
“It’s disrespectful to wear a pride flag on patriotic day, it’s not queer day,” another posted.
The victim’s brother also released screenshots of a terse conversation he had with a fellow student. When he asked what happened that got a student arrested, the “friend” showed little sympathy.
“Some gay kid brought a gay pride flag in and some kid beat the [expletive] out of him,” the classmate said, punctuating his statement with laughing emojis.
When the victim’s brother objected, the classmate showed no sympathy.
“Well don’t send him in a country ass school wearin’ some gay (expletive) if you don’t want his ass beat.”
Grassroots activists and union groups are preparing to launch a flurry of protests later on Wednesday against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz) — who they worry could single-handedly sink President Biden’s agenda.
“We’re committed to birddogging Kyrsten Sinema with her constituents until the very end,” Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese said in an interview. “What we want to show is that her constituents are very serious about wanting policies and activism and we’re going to make her life unpleasant or uncomfortable until that happens.”
Our Revolution, the Bernie Sanders-inspired grassroots group, is joining Arizona union leaders, educators and other grassroots activists for a series of demonstrations outside of her Phoenix and Tucson offices over the next several days, according to a strategy outline first shared with POLITICO. https://e4c8813589ae02d166c72e5a82167489.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
The planned demonstrations mark the next phase of an aggressive approach activists have taken to turn up the heat on Sinema, who has been a hold-out on the massive domestic spending plan that’s at the heart of Biden’s economic agenda.
Currently, activists on the ground in Arizona describe Sinema’s constituents bubbling over with frustration.
“They want somebody to listen and the fact that that’s not happening is infuriating,” said Yolanda Bejarano, national legislative and field director for Communications Workers of America. “The folks are not strangers to her. They helped get her elected.”
During the protests, the groups are heading a petition drive in an ongoing attempt to persuade Sinema to sign onto legislation that would strengthen unions and the right to organize.
In it, the senator said she supported the freedom of expression but was distressed over the position it put her students in, some of whom she said were also filmed inside the bathroom. Sinema also noted that she and her office had previously met with LUCHA Arizona, the immigration activists involved in the bathroom ambush.
“In the 19 years I have been teaching at ASU, I have been committed to creating a safe and intellectually challenging environment for my students. Yesterday, that environment was breached,” Sinema said in the statement. “My students were unfairly and unlawfully victimized. This is wholly inappropriate.”
In interviews, several of the activist groups said they could not see their members employing such tactics. But, they also didn’t apologize for the behavior, portraying it as an act of desperation by voters who cannot reach a public official.
“She ignores them and dismisses them,” Bejarano said. “When you dehumanize somebody like that, that’s intolerable.”
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday met with more than a dozen LGBTQ activists.
Tremenda Nota, the Washington Blade’s media partner in Cuba, reported the meeting took place at Havana’s Palace of the Revolution. Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, a gay man living with HIV who writes under the pen name Paquito el de Cuba, and Malú Cano, coordinator of Transcuba, a transgender organization that is affiliated with the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), are among those who participated.
“I see it as a political will to advance the recognition of the rights of LGBTIQ+ people, an outstanding debt that the revolution has always had with us,” Cano told Tremenda Nota.
The Cuban government tweeted pictures of of the meeting. Rodríguez in a blog post notesCENESEX Director Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro, was sitting next to Díaz-Canel.
Former President Fidel Castro, who was Mariela Castro’s uncle, in the years after the 1959 revolution that brought him to power sent gay men and others to work camps known by the Spanish acronym UMAP. The Cuban government until 1993 forcibly quarantined people with AIDS in state-run sanitaria.
Mariela Castro and Díaz-Canel both publicly support marriage rights for same-sex couples. Friday’s meeting took place less than a month after Cuba’s Justice Ministry released a draft of a proposed new family code that would allow gays and lesbians to tie the knot.
Yoan de la Cruz, a gay man from San Antonio de los Baños in Artemisa province who live-streamed the first of a series of anti-government protests that took place across Cuba on July 11, and hundreds of others who participated in the demonstrations remain in custody.
14ymedio, an independent website founded by Yoani Sánchez, a prominent critic of the Cuban government, earlier this week reported the country’s attorney general is seeking an 8-year prison sentence for De La Cruz. 14ymedio also notes Cuban authorities continue to hold De La Cruz “somewhat incommunicado” in a prison east of Havana.
