On May 6, 2012, Vice President Joe Biden declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he supported the legalization of same-sex marriage — getting out ahead of his boss, Barack Obama, on one of the most volatile political issues of the day.
The largest national LGBTQ rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign, formally endorsed Biden for president on Wednesday, the eighth anniversary of that event.
“Joe Biden is the leader our community and our country need at this moment,” HRC President Alphonso David said in a statement. “His dedication to advancing LGBTQ equality, even when it was unpopular to do so, has pushed our country and our movement forward.”
The endorsement itself is no surprise, given the antipathy that most LGBTQ activists have toward Biden’s rival, President Donald Trump. But the timing is a way of highlighting Biden’s bona fides among activists who gratefully remember his 2012 role.
Obama had taken office in 2009 as a self-described fierce advocate for gay rights, yet for much of his first term, he drew flak from activists who viewed him as too cautious and politically expedient. They were frustrated he wouldn’t endorse same-sex marriage — Obama cagily said he was “evolving” on the issue.
That changed swiftly after Biden told “Meet the Press” that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage. Three days later, in a White House interview with ABC News, Obama followed suit.
Biden, a Democrat, subsequently has entrenched himself as a stalwart ally of the LGBTQ rights movement, including periodic appearances at Human Rights Campaign fundraising dinners. He is scheduled to participate in a livestreamed conversation with the organization’s president on Wednesday evening.
Since Trump succeeded Obama in 2017, his Republican administration has taken multiple steps to slow or reverse gains by LGBTQ Americans. For example, it has restricted military service by transgender people and argued in a Supreme Court case that the federal civil rights law doesn’t protect LGBTQ people from discrimination at work.
Along with its endorsement of Biden, the Human Rights Campaign is releasing new details about its 2020 election strategy — identifying voters who support LGBTQ rights, then working to maximize their turnout. Texas is a new addition to the list of targeted states, along with Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The LGBTQ media are reeling from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, as venues remain shuttered and public gatherings are cancelled or postponed in markets across the country.
But those at the helm of several publications say they’re determined to keep delivering the news, information, and insight their loyal readership relies on, by shoring up steadfast relationships and cultivating new clients.
“Almost immediately, we got calls to cancel advertising” at the onset of COVID-19, recalls Jan Stevenson, co-publisher and CFO of Pride Source Media Group, whose biweekly LGBTQ print publication, Between The Lines, is normally available for free pickup at over 600 locations throughout the greater Michigan area (see pridesource.com for more info).
The closure of most of their distribution sites, notes Stevenson, led to the decision to publish “only a PDF version of the paper, and to include all the booked ads, except for events that were cancelled, at no charge.”
Pride Source, which Stevenson owns alongside her wife, Susan Horowitz, sent a message to advertisers “acknowledging that with everything they are facing, the last thing they need to worry about is their ads with us—so we froze, in place, all contracts, to be revisited when things open up. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, and thankful.”
Between the Lines re-established itself as a print publication when the hard copy edition resumed on April 30. Still, says Stevenson, “Michigan’s largest Pride celebrations have all been either rescheduled or cancelled. It will result in a huge loss of revenue for our publications. We are conserving our resources now, applying for whatever assistance we can, and hoping to weather the rest of 2020.”
Pride month and its perennial attendant revenue “is everything for every gay publication,” says Troy Masters, publisher of the Los Angeles Blade (losagnelesblade.com), a weekly print publication that, like Between the Lines, is part of the 12-member National LGBT Media Association (nationallgbtmediaassociation.com). “It represents a disproportionate percentage [of annual sales income],” notes Masters.
Says Masters of the postponed LA Pride Festival and Parade and other events: “Events are critical in this market and very popular with potential sponsors, but that is presently impossible… Asking people to spend money on marketing is very hard, although we have had success talking to our regular clients about collections. We’ve actually gained a few small ones. A hardware store comes to mind, but we remain down in advertising numbers and revenue.”
The Los Angeles Blade, which normally prints up to 35,000 copies, is now printing around 15,000, and has gone down from an average page count of 28-32 to 16-20.
On March 6, anticipating the looming crisis, the paper revised its distribution to focus “on every residence and apartment building on key blocks of West Hollywood, as well as grocery stores we can access,” says Masters, who notes the Blade continues to be available via street boxes, albeit only within the West Hollywood area.
Norm Kent, founder/publisher of the South Florida Gay News (southfloridagaynews.com), is similarly determined to forge ahead.
“I will just give you the grim outline,” says Kent. “We are facing a disease that is threatening our lives, as well as our livelihoods—and I am more concerned about our community surviving and my friends living than I am my newspaper printing. You can start a paper up again, not a life. So what material losses I endure are inconsequential compared to the friends I may lose.”
The advertising revenue lost from the postponement of April’s Pride of the Americas festival in Fort Lauderdale and March’s Miami Beach Pride and Palm Beach Pride, notes Kent, represents “the balance of our year. So we’re going to have to find a way to engage this adversity, with a smaller paper that is laser-focused, understanding that bigger is not always better, and sometimes, less is more.”
Last March 24, recalls Kent, “I published one of the largest weekly gay papers in history, at 124 pages. One year later, the paper was 28 pages. But the real losses are being endured by the social service programs that were the intended beneficiaries of those events.”
Notes Kent, who left his position as executive director of AIDS Project Florida to found his publication, “I’ve always cared more about people than profits, and that’s why I’m going to use all my resources to tread water in the tides of a rising ocean—and I’m pretty confident, because I’m a good swimmer.”
Some silver linings remain, notes Masters, of the Los Angeles Blade. Advertisers including the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, AIDS Project Los Angeles, and the City of West Hollywood, who’ve been a consistent presence throughout since the paper’s 2017 inception, have increased their visibility throughout the COVID-19 crisis, both in print and online.
Stevenson says that online traffic is up significantly, noting, “People obviously want to stay connected, and are concerned about how the pandemic is impacting LGBTQ people and organizations. The other non-pandemic news about LGBTQ issues—like the passage of anti-trans legislation—is getting a lot of traction.”
Furthermore, says Stevenson, local health departments wanting to communicate messages about HIV testing and COVID-19 services have come on board, along with several others who’ve requested banner ads and other online outreach.
That presence sends more than just a message about products and services.
“Our community is especially receptive to seeing that people are supportive,” maintains Masters. “That’s always true, but in a pandemic that echoes the trauma of the AIDS crisis, it’s especially true. We want to know that our gains are important and that we are included.”
“There are some real heroes out there in LGBTQ media, like Comcast and [HIV/AIDS treatment provider] Gilead, who are continuing their campaigns in LGBTQ media,” says Todd Evans, president and CEO of Rivendell Media (rivendellmedia.com), which places advertisements for the National LGBT Media Association. Together, the association’s members — including Boston’s Bay Windows and the Dallas Voice— reach an estimated 500,000 weekly print and online readers.
“In a time when the news is dominated by a crisis,” notes Evans, “LGBTQ consumers want to know who is supporting us, and who is not.
One big difference with this crisis versus 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, and the financial crisis of 2008/2009, says Evans, is, “We’ve had virtually no cancelling of ads. I’ve had a few campaigns that were just ready to start now, so they’re delaying, which makes sense. So I think that shows that advertisers are waiting for information—how long we stay at home, how long distribution points are closed.”
That said, says Evans, “The community still needs its news. We still want to know who supports us, and who doesn’t. I know myself, as a super-consumer of news media, when it comes to the LGBTQ community, I only find out, especially the political stuff, via our own media… I truly feel, at the end of this, that we will be stronger than ever as a community, because we’re used to fighting—and we’re also used to being under attack.”
Pat and Paulette Martin, both 68, live in Harlem, New York City. They have been together four and a half years and were married in April 2018. “All is well,” said Pat in a recent Zoom call, smiling of the lesbian couple’s time in coronavirus lockdown. “Well, we haven’t murdered each other yet anyway!”
Paulette said the couple was “blessed” to have a courtyard to relax and get some air in and do some gardening. Pat said: “Isolation is the problem. Quite a few of our friends have lost partners, so they are not as blessed as we are. We can still go out. But hearing the constant sirens of ambulances wears on your nerves, it really does. You watch the Doomsday news and it becomes a bit much. That’s the main thing of feeling isolated. You feel so alone.”
The couple—who tell their lockdown stories, along with other LGBTQ seniors below—are among 5,000 New York City seniors who are members of SAGE, the country’s oldest and largest LGBTQ elder advocacy organization, founded in 1978. SAGE is “very actively engaged” with calling 3,000 of its constituents and organizing meal deliveries to those who need them.
“The two major issues facing LGBTQ elders right now are isolation and food,” said Michael Adams, SAGE’s chief executive officer. “Older LGBTQ people have been told they are a high-risk group and to shelter in place. Many can’t go shopping or get food to eat. It’s a complete vicious circle, which for many people feels inescapable at this point. We used to provide a hot meal every day at our center. Now that isn’t available, and people are understandably afraid to go out and do shopping.”
The situation is worse for those on lower incomes, he said, whose local neighborhoods perhaps don’t have a supermarket.
The organization has launched SAGE Connect, a volunteer-run telephone support system to ensure LGBTQ seniors feel connected to the outside world.
“Over and over again, what we’re hearing from them that the person calling them is the only human voice they’re hearing all week, other than what they’re hearing on TV or online,” Adams said. “This is the only human contact that many of them are having. That is a powerful and deeply troubling reality.”
“LGBTQ elders are absolutely suffering and in many ways are at the epicenter of this pandemic, and not just because of their age,” said Adams. “Those with underlying health conditions are at greater risk for COVID-19. HIV leads to compromised immune systems; smoking rates are higher with LGBTQ older adults, which can lead to compromised lungs. Twenty-five percent of the LGBTQ elders SAGE works with don’t have any emergency contact other than SAGE.
“The other major issue is a lot of LGBTQ seniors are already socially isolated,” said Adams. “They don’t have anyone to rely on. Twenty-five percent of the LGBTQ elders SAGE works with don’t have any emergency contact other than SAGE. Being an older LGBTQ person, having underlying health conditions, and being isolated is a huge triple whammy.”
Eleven SAGE members have died since March 16, a SAGE spokesperson said. “Only a handful have been confirmed as COVID-19 related. The others were not able to obtain the test because of the limitations of testing.”
The organization believes that currently “10 or so” members have been told by their health-care provider that they are possibly positive and that they should self-quarantine. The organization has lost contact with some of its constituents who are not answering their phones or responding to emails. SAGE does not know if this is related to COVID-19.
“For many of those getting sick, they’re not getting tested because tests are hard to access and people are afraid to leave their homes to get tested,” said Adams. “It’s hard to know if they have COVID-19 or something else.”
Isolation is particularly acute for LGBTQ seniors, Adams said. “They are four times less likely to be parents than older Americans in general. Whereas most older Americans have adult children, they do not. They are twice as likely to grow old living alone without partners or spouses than older Americans in general. Because of discrimination and bias, LGBTQ elders are more likely to be disassociated from their families of origin than older Americans in general.”
“The traditional family structure is missing for many of our folks,” Adams said. “When folks are younger in the LGBTQ community, they deal with that by forming ‘families of choice.’ But there’s a limitation to that when you’re 75, 80, 90, and it’s harder to form such support networks.”
LGBTQ seniors may not feel safe where they reside in private or public housing, or within the residential care system. Adams said some “go back into the closet” in fear of homophobia and mistreatment by neighbors or nursing staff. “You can understand why,” said Adams. “There is a lot of discrimination still going on.”
I’m used to doing my own thing. This makes me feel isolated in the sense of a lack of activity.
Even in progressive urban centers like New York City, Adams said, LGBTQ seniors may go to a senior center to build new relationships but experience homophobia from other seniors. “At SAGE, they are embraced for who they are,” he added.
Ellen Ensig-Brodsky, who is 87 and lives in New York City, told The Daily Beast: “If you sit alone in a one-room apartment, it’s isolated. I’m still very active. I live in the center of New York City, down the block from MoMA, Carnegie Hall, and Broadway. I’m used to doing my own thing. This makes me feel isolated in the sense of a lack of activity.”
Ensig-Brodsky has a daughter, son, and grandchildren, whom she keeps in touch with by phone, and she is also in regular touch with members of the women’s group she belongs to at SAGE.
“I am fortunate to be speaking to people and feel closer to people perhaps than those who do not have that kind of interaction in this horrible period,” she told The Daily Beast. “If someone is not part of a family group, or a group like the one I’m in at SAGE, I would think it would be extremely lonesome.” (More of Ensig-Brodsky’s story is below.)
At Stonewall House in Brooklyn, New York City’s first LGBTQ senior living residential housing, which opened last year, 100 out of the 145 apartments are occupied, after the full moving-in process was put on hold following the outbreak of the coronavirus. That freeze will remain in place until the city gives the green light. Residents are being cared for by SAGE staff and having their meals delivered.
Being locked down has been tough for the residents, Adams said, especially those who moved to a new neighborhood to be there and are now “basically trapped indoors,” without access to their previous support networks.
SAGE has moved many of the meetings previously held in its New York HQ online. In the first couple of weeks, SAGE hosted a grab-and-go meal distribution at its Seventh Avenue base. But it was deemed too risky, health-wise, to continue, for both staff and clients. Adams has been “heartened” to see the elders supporting each other.
New York City has initiated a home delivery program for older adults, acknowledged Adams, though “several hundred SAGE constituents” were among those who had “fallen through its cracks.” Since then the organization has moved to introduce “a hodgepodge of strategies” to ensure its members are fed. The organization has an affiliates’ network in 30 other American cities doing some version of what it does in New York.
Adams said those people wanting to support LGBTQ seniors could volunteer to help with SAGE’s programs and virtual classes, or simply donate to SAGE. The organization, he said, isn’t in danger of closing but—like so many other advocacy organizations—is facing “very serious financial challenges.”
At a virtual hearing held last week on the coronavirus’ disproportionate impact on communities of color, Adams, speaking about LGBTQ seniors of color and LGBTQ seniors generally, presented eight recommendations to New York City lawmakers.
Among the recommendations was: ensuring virtual support programs received proper funding; that the city and state’s severe budget shortfalls did not affect the care and support of LGBTQ elders; that there should be ongoing financial support of all those services deemed “essential” to LGBTQ elders; that there should be funding of volunteering programs to shop and run errands for older adults; and ensuring the provision of proper internet access for older people.
An executive budget meeting is scheduled for May 21, and then the New York City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio will likely agree on a budget in late June.The thing at the back of your mind is ‘How many years do I have left?’
Adams told The Daily Beast one story of an older lesbian who had fractured her clavicle in the middle of the night and had no one to turn to, and was too frightened of going to the hospital. She went online and figured out how to make a sling. “It shows the isolation but also the resilience many older LGBTQ people have.”
The virus has raised other urgent questions for LGBTQ seniors: the quality, as well as quantity, of the life they have left. Kevin Burns, 71, from Albany, told The Daily Beast: “The thing at the back of your mind is ‘How many years do I have left?’ It’s complicated. In your seventies, you are hoping to do things, because in your eighties you may have to slow down. For the last couple of months, we have lost this time, and we are thinking, ‘How much more time are we going to lose?’”
LGBTQ seniors speak out on life under lockdown
Ellen Ensig-Brodsky: “There is an openness and truthfulness. We know about each other”
For Ellen Ensig-Brodsky, despite the isolation that LGBTQ seniors endure, “in some ways, LGBTQ people share connections that most straight people do not, which is extremely important, especially in periods like this. There is an openness and truthfulness. We know about each other.”
This forging of connections is rooted in history, she said. “Go back 40 years, and it was very different then than it is now. Back then you didn’t say you were gay or lesbian. You hid it, and you met in places that were hidden. My family knows now, and it’s no big deal. But years it ago it would have been. And look at geography. You might feel OK being out in New York City, but not the Midwest.”
Ensig-Brodsky does not have a partner presently, “but my family is made up of ex-partners and we are in touch.” That group of friends includes the surviving wife of a now-deceased ex-husband, whom her children encouraged her to go stay with so both women could have company. Ensig-Brodsky did so for three and a half weeks, then returned to the city.If you reach out, it will give you a sense of connection, and you may be helping someone else.
“I prefer being in back in my own apartment,” she said. “I can dance, listen to music, watch TV. I’m happier here even though I am alone.” It helped, she said, that she was brought up as an only child, reliant on her own company. She goes for walks, does errands, and then—just as she did the day before we spoke—“didn’t get out of my pajamas and stayed in bed all day, nibbling away at all kinds of goodies.”
Ensig-Brodsky laughed. “I was a medical nutritionist, and I have not been following what I preached. I would lose my job if I saw what I was eating!”
She is looking forward to normality returning. “I need a haircut, and a lot of women feel that way. But when will those theater and concert venues be able to open?”
Other older LGBTQ people, Ensig-Brodsky said, should reach out to others by calling or email. “If you reach out, it will give you a sense of connection, and you may be helping someone else. It creates a pathway to the future and shows who’s there for you.”
Pat and Paulette Martin: “We felt it was time for us to take responsibility for ourselves”
Pat and Paulette Martin, who first met at SAGE Harlem, said LGBTQ seniors faced special issues living under lockdown.
“We were told from the beginning that coronavirus especially affected their age group,” said Paulette. “Our immune systems are weaker, the virus attacks organs and blood. So because you’re older you have this worry it’s just going to come and get you. So you isolate.
“Where the older LGBTQ community is not being understood is that we are from a generation where we were attacked for who we were, we didn’t get services or medical care because of our sexuality. You have that experience embedded long before this came along. A lot of people I know feel this.” Right now, speaking to friends face to face via Zoom is important, she said, and better than just phone calls.
Just as SAGE’s Michael Adams said, food is a huge issue, said Paulette, not just because of the difficulty of accessing it and the fear of going to a grocery store. “We give food bank details to as many people as we can. Older people have dietary restrictions, and so even if we are getting fresh food or food parcels or other items, sodium affects blood pressure, or if you have cancer you shouldn’t be eating processed food.
“Older people get very anxious about their medications too,” said Paulette. “Right now, they can’t go out and pick them up, and are relying on others to deliver them. This whole situation is taking away a lot of our independence in a lot of areas, and we are frustrated by that. Going for walks was a form of exercise before this, and now some people feel they can’t do that.”
There are, said Pat, “layers of frustration,” made more acute by being an LGBTQ senior of color, “the triple-edged sword of ‘you’re a person of color, you’re gay or lesbian, and you’re a senior.’ There’s a fear of going out. Will you be accosted? Police are accosting African Americans with masks on because they think we are up to something. Going out is a realistic fear for us.”
Both women are determined to take back, and exercise, power for themselves. They recently set up the Masculine Identified Lesbians of Color Collective, which includes African American, Latino, and a “few white women also.”
“We are coming together as a social justice group,” said Pat. “We feel for a long time we have been pushed to the side. Back in the day, clubs and bars in the 1970s and ’80s were primarily for white lesbians, and if we went we were refused entry or if we were given entry to a free club, all of a sudden there was an admission cost. If you look now, most of the LGBTQ organizations of substance who have money and get all the publicity are headed by white folks. So we came together because we felt it was time for us to take responsibility for ourselves.”
The group, comprising women of all ages, has members from New York, New Jersey, Washington, Chicago, North Carolina, South Carolina, and California.
Pat hopes the older women in the group can be role models for younger women, who may only have male relations—a father, brother, or uncle—to emulate. “A lot of them don’t know how to go to a doctor and say, ‘I’m a lesbian, sleeping with women. This is what I need.’ We need to be role models and teach these younger lesbians about self-care, how to run their own businesses, and share experiences. The buck stops here. We can no longer rely on anyone else to do it. We have to do it for ourselves.” Start every day with a prayer, whatever your spiritual belief is. Then take a shower. Don’t put on pajamas. Put on clothes. Do a skincare routine. Exercise.
Paulette said this was a good time to look at how, as a couple, you can “enrich” your relationship and work on things that are not right in it, in areas like communication and finances. “It’s hard to do,” she admitted, “so set some ground rules. But it’s better to try changing something than staying stuck with old stuff.” The key, said Pat, “was looking at how you can move forward in unity, while remaining individuals.”
To get through this time, Paulette recommended other LGBTQ seniors initiate a routine. “Start every day with a prayer, whatever your spiritual belief is. Then take a shower. Don’t put on pajamas. Put on clothes. Do a skincare routine. Exercise. It’s so important. Have breakfast, coffee, or whatever your morning beverage is. Journal. Read. Turn off the TV news. Reach out to people. Take your eyes off yourself and cast them to someone else.”
Pat added that if you have ever dreamed of doing anything, like running your own business, now is the time to get those plans down on paper. “Create a bucket list. Think about life, not death.”
Kevin Burns: “The virus is cheating us of our remaining time”
Kevin Burns, 71, from Albany, New York, considers himself lucky. He has his own home, and while he lives alone, he feels very connected to a wide circle of friends and family. He has enjoyed Zoom cocktail hours, and his regular trivia quiz group has been meeting the same way. Being at home “hasn’t been a terrible strain.” It’s been good to see familiar faces, albeit virtually.
He is one of the “Vintage Pride” group of those LGBTQ people aged 55 and older belonging to Albany’s Pride Center of the Capital Region. The LGBTQ center is closed now, and Burns knows many people for whom their pot-luck lunches were their only social outlet.
He goes to the grocery store roughly once a week, shopping at special senior hours. He misses the gym and hanging out with friends. “Not having those benchmarks in a typical week to look forward to takes quite a mental adjustment. Just as everybody is finding, every Tuesday evening is now like every Friday evening. There’s no difference.”
Having spoken to friends, Burns said the psychological impact of the coronavirus on LGBTQ elders has been pronounced.
“As many years as we hope we have, they are running down, and now we are deprived of what we enjoy doing even if it’s once a week, or whatever the time frame is and whatever the activity is. The virus is cheating us of our remaining time. For me, personally, spring was a time to travel. Not being able to do that is a minor glitch compared to other people’s suffering. But as seniors, we all have things we look forward to. This current situation means we can’t do anything. How long will this go on? How long will older people be told they cannot go out, or do things?”
Burns and his friends presume this spring and summer are now a diary-date tundra. No dinners, no holidays, no Broadway trips, no Tanglewood, no Williamstown Theatre Festival, no trips to the Cape or Maine before the main holiday season begins. “I know this may sound frivolous. I know people are suffering. But these are just the things I did and am missing. I know I am lucky, and am thankful for that.”People talk about the danger of underlying issues. We all have the same underlying issue: It’s age!
“You can watch a DVD and get takeout, sure,” he said. “But when you’re a senior, you’re isolated anyway. Now you’re more so.”
Every senior Burns knows is being scrupulous about wearing a mask and washing hands. He laughed. “People talk about the danger of underlying issues. We all have the same underlying issue: It’s age! It’s kind of infuriating to do what we’re told and then see younger people hanging out together not wearing masks when I go out walking. I’m not making judgments, but are they going into stores, or seeing grandparents afterwards? Please think about those people. I’ve heard them complaining about wearing the masks and saying they can’t breathe in them. Well, wait till you’re 70-something!”
On the other hand, Burns said, it has been heartening to have younger people in his life reaching out to him and doing things to make sure he knew he is included in Zoom chats they are setting up.
Whatever opens up, whenever it opens up, Burns said he and his friends won’t be going anywhere until they feel assured about a vaccine or proper and accessible medical treatment. “If it takes another six months, that’s really tough, but if it means whatever is left of our lives is spent in relative good health, minus COVID, then it’s worth waiting.”
“Reach out and find other people,” Burns advised his fellow LGBTQ seniors. “I had never hosted a Zoom meeting. I didn’t know how to do it. It took a few steps, trial and error, but it paid off for me and my friends because now we can get together. It was a lot easier than I thought. Motivate yourselves to reach out.”
Dr Richard Friedman, the psychoanalyst responsible for debunking the myth that homosexuality can be cured, has sadly passed away at the age of 79.
As a young man Friedman stood out in his field by becoming the first to combine findings in psychobiology, gender identity and family studies with psychoanalytic theory.
His revolutionary 1988 book, ‘Male Homosexuality: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspective,’ showed that sexual orientation was largely biological, not mental.
It had a major impact at a time when most other psychoanalysts were continuing to describe homosexuality as a “perversion”, even though the American Psychiatric Association had stopped classifying it as an illness by 1973.
“I felt an ethical obligation to find the reasons for anti-homosexual prejudice,” he once told an interviewer, according to the New York Times.
His wife, Susan Matorin, explained his motivation more simply: “Straight people had the same personality issues, and they got away with murder, but gay people were stigmatised, and he didn’t think that was right.”
“He very much felt like you followed the science, and it didn’t matter what the political backdrop was,” his son,Jeremiah, added.
Using studies of identical twins and theories of developmental psychology, Friedman argued that it was biology, rather than upbringing, which played a significant role in sexual orientation.
The controversial position was a direct challenge to popular Freudian theories and thrust him into the centre of debates alongside more established heavyweights of his field.
“Given that he was a younger colleague, it was brave of him to take older experts on,” Jack Drescher, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, told the New York Times.
Friedman went on to publish an article on female homosexuality which received an award from The Journal of The American Psychoanalytic Association as the best publication of 1998.
His work on sexuality was well ahead of its time – just last year the American Psychoanalytic Association issued a belated apology for treating homosexuality as an illness, acknowledging that its past errors contributed to discrimination and trauma for LGBT+ people.
The implications of his work continue to have an impact today as LGBT+ advocates battle against the discredited practice of conversion therapy, which is still legal in most parts of the world.
Dr Richard Friedman sadly died on March 31 at his home in Manhattan. Although his cause of death has not yet been determined, he reportedly struggled for years with health problems, including cardiac and metabolic conditions.
He is survived by a wife, son, two daughters and two grandchildren.
Had there been no coronavirus pandemic, America’s largest mainline Protestant denomination would be convening this week for a likely vote to break up over differences on same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBTQ pastors.
Instead, the United Methodist Church was forced to postpone the potentially momentous conference, leaving its various factions in limbo for perhaps 16 more months. The deep doctrinal differences seem irreconcilable, but for now there’s agreement that response to the pandemic takes priority.
“The people who are really in trauma right now cannot pay the price of our differences,” said Kenneth Carter, the Florida-based president of the UMC’s Council of Bishops. “What is in our minds and hearts is responding to death, illness, grief, loss of work.”
The conference was to have taken place at the Minneapolis Convention Center starting Tuesday, running through May 15. Instead, bishops are proposing to hold it there Aug. 31-Sept. 10 of next year.
The differences have simmered for years, and came to a head in February 2019 at a conference in St. Louis where delegates voted 438-384 for a proposal strengthening bans on LGBTQ-inclusive practices. Most U.S.-based delegates opposed that plan and favored LGBTQ-friendly options; they were outvoted by U.S. conservatives teamed with most of the delegates from Methodist strongholds in Africa and the Philippines.
In the aftermath of that meeting, many moderate and liberal clergy made clear they would not abide by the bans, and various groups worked throughout 2019 on proposals to let the UMC split along theological lines.
There have been at least four different proposals for how to implement a split.
The most widely discussed plan has a long name — the Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation — and some high-level support.
It was negotiated by 16 bishops and advocacy group leaders with differing views on LGBTQ inclusion. They were assisted by renowned mediator Kenneth Feinberg, who administered victim compensation funds stemming from the 9/11 attacks and the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Under the protocol, conservative congregations and regional bodies would be allowed to separate from the UMC and form a new denomination. They would receive $25 million in UMC funds and be able to keep their properties.
Formed in a merger in 1968, the UMC claims about 12.6 million members worldwide, including nearly 7 million in the United States. Leaders of the various factions have avoided making predictions of how many members might leave for a new denomination.
In hopes of minimizing friction, the protocol calls for a moratorium on enforcement of bans related to LGBTQ issues. Most bishops seem comfortable with that proposal, although Virginia-based Bishop Sharma Lewis approved initial disciplinary proceedings against a pastor in her region who officiated at a same-sex marriage.
There have been tangible benefits for one of the protocol negotiators, the Rev. David Meredith, who entered into a same-sex marriage with his long-time partner while serving as a pastor in Cincinnati.
The bishop of Meredith’s West Ohio region, Gregory Palmer, also served on the protocol team and endorsed the moratorium that freezes ongoing judicial proceedings against Meredith.
“Everything that has been a threat is now in a drawer collecting dust,” Meredith said.
Some conservatives worry that further flouting of the bans will occur ahead of the rescheduled national conference.
“For any clergy to try to use this interim to willfully violate their own vows … would demonstrate an extreme lack of integrity and self-control,” said John Lomperis, who works with the conservative Institute on Religion & Democracy and will be a delegate at next year’s conference.
Lomperis is among a faction of UMC conservatives, now eager to form a new denomination, who worry that bishops supporting LGBTQ inclusion will use the delay to tilt outcomes in their favor during decision-making by regional bodies.
The Rev. Tom Lambrecht, general manager of the conservative Methodist magazine Good News, said he and his allies have heard of instances where liberal pastors were appointed to lead conservative congregations and where small conservative churches were closed.
“We will be vigilant to call out such behavior after the coronavirus crisis passes,” Lambrecht said via email.
Some conservatives complain that the proposed $25 million payment to a new traditionalist denomination is unfairly small.
But the Rev. Tom Berlin of Herndon, Virginia, a supporter of LGBTQ inclusion who served on the protocol team, says the proposal is generous in allowing departing churches to keep their property.
“The majority of the wealth in the UMC is found in the real estate and bank accounts of the local churches,” he said. “The protocol allows them to retain that.”
Berlin says debate over LGBTQ policies “is on the back burner for now.”
“Once we get out of this, we’ll get back to the future of the UMC,” he said. “But now, churches of all varieties are working to respond to this pandemic in positive ways.”
Support for the protocol is far from unanimous, though its backers predict it will win majority support next year. One dissenting faction, known as the “liberationists,” believes the proposal doesn’t go far enough in curbing racism, sexism and anti-LGBTQ sentiment within the UMC.
A leaders of that faction, the Rev. Jay Williams of Union Church in Boston, hopes local churches will use the coming year to “innovate and adapt” without awaiting top-down directives.
“I hope that we might claim this moment as an opportunity to courageously confront the systemic oppressions that have plagued our denomination since its beginning,” he said via email.
When the conference does convene, the African delegates will be a key voting bloc. In St. Louis, they were pivotal in approving the strengthened bans on LGBTQ-inclusive practices.
The Rev. Keith Boyette, president of the conservative Wesleyan Covenant Association and one of the protocol negotiators, has met with many African delegates. He says they have pledged support for the protocol, but want some changes – for example, giving them the option of retaining the words “United Methodist” in the name of whatever new traditionalist body they join.
Bishop John Yambasu of Sierra Leone, the lone African among the protocol negotiators, said the proposal was “by no means perfect” but seemed to be the most acceptable option.
In an email, he depicted the pandemic as “a holy call to action from God…. to make make Christian disciples for the transformation of the world.”
For Fabliha Anbar, 20, her LGBTQ identity is an important part of her social and academic life. She’s out to friends, on social media and at her progressive university, where she founded the South Asian Queer and Trans Collective. But last month, when her campus closed due to the global coronavirus pandemic, Anbar returned home — and back to the proverbial closet.
“Having to go home and act a certain way 24/7 is a means for survival,” said Anbar, who asked that the name of her university and hometown not be published. “That can be straining emotionally and extremely damaging.”
For the past six weeks, Anbar has been self-isolating in a small, two-bedroom house with her parents, whom she said she doesn’t feel safe coming out to.
Anbar’s situation is not unique. Since schools across the U.S. started to close in mid-March to help stem the spread of the coronavirus, LGBTQ advocates say a number of queer youth and young adults have lost crucial support systems and have been forced to self-isolate with unsupportive family members.
“They may have had to go back in the closet if they were out at school. If they had support from a GSA or an LGBTQ club or group at school, they don’t have that anymore,” said Ellen Kahn, senior director of programs and partnerships at the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights group.
Kahn said she’s particularly concerned about those “who are in overtly hostile environments,” saying, “It could put them at risk of physical or emotional abuse; it could force them out to the streets.”
‘Students might feel isolated’
Danushi Fernando, the director of LGBTQ and gender resources at Vassar College in New York, said a number of students with whom she works “voiced their concerns” about returning home when the campus announced it would close last month.
“We are super aware that there are people who are not able to go back to their homes because either they’re not safe, or students aren’t out to their families,” she said.
After discussing this situation with the university administration, Vassar opened up some dorms on a case-by-case basis to students who felt unsafe leaving.
But for some of those who did leave — thinking their departure would just be for an extended spring break — living back at their parents’ house has been uncomfortable or isolating.
“There are lots of times that students might feel isolated,” she said. “There are students who have reached out like, ‘Do you know of anyone in Idaho that I could connect with?’”
As for Anbar, she said she’s been hosting virtual programming and support groups over Zoom, joined by people from all over the world, for the South Asian Queer and Trans Collective. If she’s within earshot of her parents, she said she has to be careful.
“It does get kind of scary,” she said. “That’s why I make sure to be very careful about the words that I choose. I usually take advantage of the language barrier between me and my parents. I say things like ‘queer’ rather than ‘lesbian.’”
When speaking to her parents, she said she describes the South Asian Queer and Trans Collective, the organization she dedicates so much time to, as a “feminist collective,” which she said “isn’t entirely wrong.”
‘Stuck at home with abusers’
In the weeks following school closures, child abuse and neglect hotlines, like the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, reported an inundation of calls and texts from young people newly confined to unsafe environments.
“A lot of these young people are stuck at home with abusers,” Daphne Young, the organization’s chief communications officer, said. “College kids are coming home from school and have to re-enter the home with perpetrators.”
Young said LGBTQ youth and adolescents have consistently been among their callers.
She also noted that the financial strain caused by the pandemic has the potential to make bad environments even worse.
“Whatever was the stressor or the discord between the family, you now have compound trauma,” Young said.
Like Childhelp, The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people, reported a steep increase in the number of youth and young adults who have reached out to its 24/7 hotline.
The New York-based nonprofit published a white paper last month outlining the “serious implications” the COVID-19 crisis could have on the mental health of LGBTQ youth. The organization cited the physical distancing, economic strain and increased anxiety related to the pandemic as being among the most worrisome problems.
“LGBTQ young people … are already at risk of discrimination and isolation, which can impact their mental health,” Amit Paley, the organization’s CEO, said last month in an interview with MSNBC. “For a lot of LGBTQ young people, the main sources of support that they get are at their schools, at clubs, at community centers, at physical spaces that they no longer have access to. … Not being able to connect with some of those really important, positive influences in your life can be extremely challenging for LGBTQ youth right now.”
‘An opportunity’ for parents
Two thirds of LGBTQ youth hear their families make negative comments about LGBTQ people, and only 1 in 4 feel like they can be themselves at home, according to data from the Human Rights Campaign.
“If you’re that kid, whether you’re 6 or 12 or 18, that changes dramatically how you feel in your own skin, how you can thrive or not in your family,” Kahn said.
HIV transmission has dropped significantly with lockdown breaking the chain of new cases, a leading sexual health clinic has claimed.
56 Dean Street, a London-based sexual health clinic, is urging people to order free home test kits online in an effort to keep the number of new HIV cases down when the pandemic is over.
The clinic said HIV transmission has “plummeted” during coronavirus lockdown.
“Even COVID clouds have silver linings,” it wrote on its website.
“Fewer hook-ups since lockdown has resulted in a huge reduction of HIV and other STIs. The chain is broken.”
56 Dean Street says an increase in testing could help them ‘beat HIV’.
56 Dean Street said that an increase in testing now could help to “keep transmissions down and beat HIV”.
“We may never get this chance again,” the organisation continued, explaining that the coronavirus pandemic has presented a “once-in-a-generation opportunity in the fight against HIV”.
They said transmission of the virus has “dropped dramatically” in the last few weeks because “there are less people having sex in London”.
“What’s more, when someone first catches the virus, they are super infectious and more likely to pass on HIV than normal,” it continued.
“But because there aren’t many super infectious people around, this has reduced transmission even further.”
Transmission of the virus could remain low after the pandemic if testing is increased.
The clinic says if everyone gets tested during lockdown and knows their status, transmission could be kept at this low rate after the pandemic has come to a close.
Those who test positive during lockdown can start taking medication straight away, which if taken properly would make it impossible for them to pass it on to others through condomless sex.
A newly engaged couple, Stephanie Mayorga, 27, and Paige Escalera, 25, disappeared in mid-April under “suspicious” circumstances, the police in Wilmington, North Carolina, said Wednesday at a news conference.
Their roommate filed a missing persons report several days after the women were last seen on April 15.
Capt. Thomas Tillman said surveillance footage showed the couple leaving their Wilmington home and driving a gray 2013 Dodge Dart with two stickers on the back windshield and South Carolina plates.
Tillman described the disappearance as “suspicious” based on undisclosed information received in the past week.
He said detectives had spoken to family members, friends and coworkers of both missing women “in an attempt to gather information of where they might have gone and where they went missing.”
Tillman said the coronavirus pandemic is partly to blame for the more than two-week delay between the couple’s disappearance and the news conference.
“Life is not going on at the Wilmington Police Department as simply as it did before the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
In an interview with Oxygen, Stevie Jenkins, Escalera’s sister, said that Escalera and Mayorga had only recently met and had moved in together at the beginning of March.
Jenkins also said that close friends of her sister had been blocked from her social media over the last week or two. “It is normal for family to not hear from her, but not her closest friends,” Jenkins told Oxygen.
Here’s a Democratic campaign ad for you: show Trump speaking at a rally to a stadium full of people who gradually disappear and their cheers die away.
Weakness in a president is deadly.
The day after Donald Trump suggested injecting disinfectant and using ultraviolet light inside people’s bodies as treatments for COVID-19 during his daily improv routine in the White House briefing room, which resulted in a viral video of Dr. Deborah Birx struggling to compose herself, he walked it back and blamed the press.
“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen.” No you weren’t, clown. STFU.
Everyone from the Environmental Protection Agency to cleanser makers to song parodist Randy Rainbow urged people not to follow the president’s dangerous suggestion. Across the nation, the ridicule was as rampant as the warnings. Jokes about chewable Clorox tablets went around. During cocktails via Zoom with friends from Nellie’s Sports Bar, one couple drank what I am sure were not really “Lysoltinis.”
My first impulse after hearing Dr. Trump’s brainstorm was to say “Go right ahead,” but the thought of gullible parents poisoning their children stopped me short.
On April 24, a White House official threatened to summon the Secret Service when Washington Blade reporter Chris Johnson refused to switch seats in the briefing room with CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan’s questioning had displeased the Maximum Leader, so they ordered her back to Chris’s seat. Well sorry, but the White House Correspondents’ Association, not the Trump Administration, determines seating assignments. Kudos to Chris and Kaitlan for staying put.
Imagine the insecurity that would impel a president to blame and punish reporters for his own murderous ignorance. When members of the press corps refuse to be bullied or set against one another, they uphold their crucial role enshrined by our Founders in the First Amendment.
Trump’s lies, threats, and wishful thinking, his responsibility dodging and refusal to respect expertise, have already killed more Americans than the 58,220 who died in Vietnam. The question is whether that and the tanked economy will cost him reelection, and there the news is encouraging. Polls show he is in trouble, and his desperate flailing shows that he knows it. Republicans are afraid that his disastrous handling of the public health crisis will cost them the Senate as well as the White House.
Still, the election is six months away, and Trump’s mischief proceeds apace. A few examples:
The Conscience and Religious Freedom Division at the Department of Health and Human Services (which sounds like something George Orwell thought up to entertain himself during the Blitz) is going to let doctors refuse to treat LGBTQ patients for religious reasons. Never mind that there are far more biblical injunctions against everything Trump does than against queers.
Trump issued an executive order last week temporarily suspending the issuance of new green cards, though it carved out exceptions such as for essential workers—including, presumably, resort staff and Slovenian models. His invocation of health and jobs as justification is a thin veil for the racism that he and advisor Stephen Miller have fomented all along.
Trump’s decision to speak at West Point, prompted by Mike Pence’s Air Force Academy appearance, will require 1,000 graduating cadets to return to the military academy from the homes to which they scattered because of the pandemic. They will be tested for the virus, given masks, monitored, and segregated in the mess hall—all to serve as props for one insatiable ego.
We respond to a challenging time in various ways. Businesses adapt, fresh connections are improvised, new charities spring up. A few blocks from me, Metropolitan AME Church, like many other houses of worship, has gone enthusiastically virtual with a range of programs.
As for that confrontation in the briefing room, it is notable that the president’s aide backed down. Secret Service agents are not a dictator’s thugs, as he may discover if he refuses to leave the White House on January 20. For now, he will resort to any destructive act and tell any lie in his growing fury, while the reporters he slanders and abuses labor on. Let them be our inspiration.
A YouTuber has been forced to flee the country of Russia after she invited a gay man to be in one of her videos, and subsequently being convicted of violating Russia’s “gay propaganda” law.
25-year-old Victoria Pich has been producing entertainment videos since 2013, according to Codastory, and over that time has gained almost two million YouTube subscribers.
Wanting to cover more serious topics, in 2019 she started a series titled “Real Talk”.
It was inspired by the American YouTube channel HiHo Kids and its “Kids Meet” series which shows children meeting different kinds of people – for example someone living with HIV, a divorce lawyer or an ex-gang member – to encourage them to ask questions and develop tolerance.
Pich told Codastory: “The American show inspired us. We decided to make a similar program, just one set in Russian realities.”
One episode she produced featured a gay man, 21-year-old graphic designer Maksim Pankratov, fielding questions from children.
Pich said she was proud of the video, which quickly attracted more than a million views, and was careful that sex was never mentioned.
She added: “What did we do? We just asked a person about his life.”
However, the “Real Talk” episode featuring Pankratov was where Pich’s problems began.
An organisation claiming to promote “family values” reported the video to Roskomnadzor, a federal service responsible for media censorship. Although the service ruled that the episode did not break any laws, homophobic Russian lawmaker Pyotr Tolstoy appealed the decision.
Tolstoy described Pich’s YouTube show as “ethically unacceptable and immoral”, and his appeal led to severe consequences.
A case was opened against Pich for violating the “gay propaganda” law in Russia. President Vladimir Putin and his government banned “gay propaganda” in 2013, prohibiting the “promotion of nontraditional sexual relations to minors” and meaning that sharing information about LGBT+ people’s lives can earn a prison sentence.
But this wasn’t all. The state prosecutor’s investigative committee also accused Pich of sexual violence against children and began investigating whether she had violated Article 132 of Russia’s criminal code. The law is most often used in cases of paedophilia and child pornography.
Although Pich removed the entire series, the media jumped on the story. The Russian YouTuber was questioned by the police, as were the parents and children involved in the “Real Talk” series.
She began to realise that authorities were not going to back down, and realised she had only one option. She booked a one-way ticket to America.
Now living in California, and only just beginning to learn English, Pich said: “If I knew about the consequences, I never would have done this.”
She said that she now has sleepless nights, and as much as she misses home, she is terrified of returning to Russia. She added: “The case can be closed and it could be reopened just as easily. That’s what can happen in Russia.”
Pankratov, the gay man featured in the video, was recognised in the street and attacked, before receiving death threats. He is now seeking asylum in Europe.