Sharon Kleinbaum was installed in 1992 as rabbi of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in Manhattan, considered the largest LGBTQ synagogue in the nation. At the time, AIDS was killing thousands of gay New Yorkers each year.
“The CBST community knows what it takes to live through a plague,” Kleinbaum says in a message posted on the synagogue’s website after New York became an epicenter of COVID-19.
Yet the pandemic poses challenges that weren’t present during the AIDS crisis — notably that she’s fulfilling virtually all her duties without face-to-face contact. She mostly works from her apartment in far-northern Manhattan, where she lives with her wife and dogs, 10 miles from the synagogue.
“That I cannot be with people physically is very hard,” Kleinbaum said.
During the AIDS crisis, she recalled, there were no such worries.
“I could be with people. I could hold their hand in the hospital. I could be with their loved ones.”
The Associated Press followed 10 New York City residents on Monday, April 6, as they tried to survive another day in the city assailed by the new coronavirus. For more, read 24 Hours: The Fight for New York.
One key challenge these days is technology, given the congregation’s reliance on digital communications.
“I’m not fluent with tech on the best of days,” Kleinbaum says. “I need to be more fluent very quickly.”
Yet she’s grateful for the ability to lead services online.
“I was shocked about how spiritually deep it felt,” she says. “I was prepared for it to be an alienating experience, and it wasn’t.”
Late Monday morning, she convened an online meeting with 14 staff members. Three have endured bouts with COVID-19; one lost a parent to the virus, another has a spouse who is battling it.
By phone, Kleinbaum spoke to a woman in the congregation who was traveling to a cemetery to bury her mother — under state orders, only 10 people were allowed at the funeral.
“I let her know that she’s not alone, that people in the congregation are thinking about her,” Kleinbaum said.
She also spoke to a congregant whose spouse, in hospice care at their home, is close to dying.
“It’s made worse because I can’t visit them,” she said.
Despite such difficulties, Kleinbaum is grateful — just to be there.
“I feel like God wants me to be alive right now,” she says. “Maybe for this you were born.”
On March 30, the eve of Trans Day of Visibility, Idaho governor Brad Little signed two anti-trans bills into law.
One barred trans people from updating the gender on their birth certificate, the other barred trans girls and women from playing sport at school or college.
This is being done in the name of safety and fairness in sport for cisgender women and girls.
But the scientific evidence for excluding trans women and girls from sport on the basis this will maintain fairness for cisgender women and girls doesn’t exist, as Dr Vinny Chulani, director of the Phoenix Children’s Hospital Adolescent Medicine Program, explained in an interview yesterday with them.
“This is a decision that is really not based on science,” said Chulani, an esteemed practitioner in the field of LGBT+ care.
“There are so many characteristics that contribute to excellence in sports. And the same attributes don’t always carry over from one sport to the next. You need different skills for golfing than you need for archery, basketball, soccer, or gymnastics.
“Plus, there’s not really any sound body of evidence that speaks to the advantage that testosterone confers. When you take a look at some of the studies that have been done on transgender females in terms of their athletic ability, it overlaps with the range that you would find in cisgender women.
Chulani added that there were huge misunderstandings about sex, gender and bodies among legislators and those advocating for the exclusion of trans women from sport.
“Bills like Idaho’s fail to recognise the diversity within the transgender female population.
“They also fail to understand the biology of puberty and where we are presently in terms of treatment, specifically with puberty blockers.
“Remember that when you take a look at pre-pubertal bodies, assigned male and assigned female bodies look a lot alike; it’s not until puberty that they go their different ways under the influence of sex steroids…
“Nowadays, if you have a patient in early puberty who was assigned male at birth and has gender distress or gender questions, we can use puberty blockers to suppress male puberty.
“They would not develop the traits that would theoretically afford them the advantage. Yet this child, under Idaho law, would still be excluded.”
Chulani went on to talk about what he sees as a huge problem with the bill – how to implement a law that will “force women to prove their womanhood”.
With the burden of proof on those accused of not being women, those who cannot afford blood tests or genital exams to offer up medical evidence to schools and colleges that they are female will not be able to play sports.
“The other thing that’s crazy about this is that it’s being applied to kids in K-12,” Chulani said.
“That means the rules for participating in K-12 sports will be more stringent than those governing the Olympics.”
Finally, Chulani said, it’s important not to lose sight of what this bill really is: part of a larger anti-trans movement.
“This law in Idaho has to be viewed in the context of the march that we are seeing in legislative houses across the country,” he said. “Let’s not be ignorant, right? This is part of a larger anti-transgender agenda.”
The study’s authors found that transgender and nonbinary youth often lack access to critical support systems to educate them about safer sex practices. The research team conducted three-day focus groups with 30 young people ages 13 to 24 and found that respondents widely lacked “affirmative and culturally competent” resources to understand their sexual health needs.
These resources ranged from a lack of LGBTQ-inclusive sexual education courses to parents who did not affirm the respondent’s gender identity when discussing topics related to sexual and romantic intimacy.
“Youth really need adults to be there for them, to meet their needs, and to be open and respectful of them,” the lead author, Holly Fontenot, a professor at the Boston College School of Nursing, told NBC News. “If youth had adult caregivers, teachers or health care providers that could provide that affirmation, they feel supported and then they might have better overall health outcomes.”
Written by researchers from the Fenway Institute, the University of Chicago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Boston College, the study notes that trans and nonbinary youth are less likely than their peers to engage in safe sex practices. According to researchers, this group is more “likely than cisgender youth to report first sexual intercourse before age 13 years, intercourse with four or more partners, drinking alcohol or using drugs before intercourse, and not using a condom at last intercourse.”
Fontenot said the research found that one of the roots of these disparities is a widespread feeling among trans and nonbinary youth that they are “isolated and left out of the conversation” about sexual health in classrooms and at home. One participant in the study admitted that they “really don’t know what counts as sex,” because the definition they had been given from parents and educators “is very heteronormative” and “doesn’t apply to LGBT people.”
“When they do ask for help, youth might feel stigmatized, diminished or have negative experiences with the adults in their lives instead of ones that affirm who they are and tell them that they’re loved and supported,” Fontenot said.
Others said they had no one to turn to — even in their own peer group — for advice that’s inclusive of their gender identities. “I don’t really get any support, but I would like support in knowing that it’s OK to question who you want to have sex with, and it’s OK to explore your body,” one member of the focus group is quoted as saying.
The lack of a support network left many of the trans and nonbinary young people surveyed without the basic skills to discuss intimacy and consent with their sexual and romantic partners. The majority of respondents described open communication with potential partners as “challenging,” and many said they struggled “with self-advocacy, particularly when negotiating sexual preferences with cisgender partners.”
“Participants noted that sex requires more communication when experiencing gender dysphoria, and inability to negotiate safe behaviors might lead to feeling ‘abused or taken advantage of,’” the study noted.
Fontenot said these responses show that it’s “really important” for adults to model healthy relationships for trans and nonbinary youth.
“If you’re already feeling different and afraid, then you’re really not going be able to advocate for yourself in terms of safer sex behaviors,” she said. “It goes to that affirmation and support for youth. If they feel they have inherent self-worth and that they’re a member of society that’s loved and respected just like any other person, then they’ll carry that into whatever romantic relationship they may form in the future.”
Sean Cahill, a co-author of the study and the director of health policy research at the Fenway Institute, an LGBTQ-focused research center, said these lessons apply not only to parents and teachers but also health care providers who work with trans and nonbinary young people.
“For example, school nurses can support youth in school but also work with community partners to develop educational resource lists for youth and their parents and guardians,” he said in a statement.
Fontenot said the study suggests several ways in which all adults can be better advocates for trans and nonbinary youth, whether in a professional or personal capacity. For instance, young people who participated in the focus groups expressed a desire for more “coaching and guidance around healthy communication,” and Fontenot encouraged parents to turn to LGBTQ advocacy organizations or resources geared toward LGBTQ youth if they aren’t sure how to have those conversations.
However, Fontenot acknowledged that the availability of “competent sexual health resources that are really medically informed and accurate” remains scarce online, which can be a major barrier to access in rural areas. Only 27 states and Washington, D.C., mandate both sex education and HIV education, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual health research and policy nonprofit.
Five states — Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama — still have “no promo homo” laws on the books, which prohibit sex education and health teachers from discussing LGBTQ people in a positive light, if at all. (South Carolina, Arizona and Utah only recently had such laws repealed or struck down.)
“That’s an area that needs great improvement because I don’t think our country’s in a place where schools across the nation are going to be delivering inclusive sex education,” Fontenot said of LGBTQ-inclusive online sex ed resources. “We have to think about alternative venues to deliver comprehensive sex education that’s inclusive of multiple identities.”
This week Trump welcomed his new White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, a combative TV pundit with a long history of anti-LGBT+ comments.
McEnany has previously worked as Trump’s spokesperson for his re-election campaign and as a pro-Trump commentator on CNN during the 2016 presidential election.
She’s frequently appeared on television to defend him and his policies, revealing some particularly unsavoury views as she does so.
The LGBT+ advocacy group GLAAD has compiled a list of her most egregious comments, which include opposing a bill to ban conversion therapy and repeatedly framing the issue of transgender bathroom access as a “predatory” threat to women and girls.
McEnany has previously argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality is a threat to religious rights, and described late justice Antonin Scalia’s criticism of a pro-marriage equality ruling as “awesome“.
And she dismissed claims of LGBT+ discrimination prior the Supreme Court ruling as nothing more than “farcical blabber.”
“Throughout her career, Kayleigh McEnany has used her role as a commentator to attack LGBTQ people through the press,” GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.
“Whether it be her opposition to marriage equality or her attacks on transgender people, McEnany has shown that she knows how to, and even enjoys using the media to spread dangerous, anti-LGBTQ messages to wide audiences.
“Unfortunately, in her new role as press secretary, she will have the power to continue doing so, but now with the White House name attached to hers.”
McEnany has already come under fire for her early statements on the coronavirus, which dangerously downplayed the risk.
“We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism come here,” she boldly stated on Trish Regan Primetime. “And isn’t that refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama?”
Since McEnany made the comments on February 25, over 402,000 people in the US have been infected with the coronavirus and nearly 13,000 have died.
Despite her rocky start, she won’t have to try too hard to do better than her predecessor Stephanie Grisham, who didn’t conduct a single press briefing during her nine-month tenure.
As coronavirus continues its spread across the world, it takes with it a disgusting wave of anti-Asian racism. But the LGBT+ Asian community is fighting back.
Asian LGBT+ activists spoke to the Bay Area Reporter about the current situation and the action they’re taking as they attempt to take care of themselves, as well as their communities.
Amazin LeThi is a queer Vietnamese athlete and founder of LGBT+ advocacy organisation the Amazin LeThi Foundation. She was the first out athlete to compete for Vietnam at the South East Asian Games and is using her platform to speak out against coronavirus fuelled racism.
She said: “Obviously, there has always been racism toward the Asian community, but we’ve never seen anything that has been so quick and so globally widespread as this.
“Sometimes it just feels like they just consider the whole continent of Asia, China. They just see an Asian person and because the coronavirus came from Asia, we are all part of the problem.
The coronavirus may have come from China, but in terms of how it’s being spread across the world, it’s everyone. It’s a global virus.
Gerald Esguerra, head of the Filipino LGBT Europe Out&Proud advocacy committee in Amsterdam, said: “It’s alarming in a way and it’s kind of weird, right?
“We lost humanity. It doesn’t necessarily mean that if you’re Asian you are carrying the virus.”
Esguerra has noticed increased racism in Amsterdam, a city he says is usually very welcoming. Wanting to support his community, he has been working on setting up virtual programmes to help queer Filipinos in Europe and in the Philippines.
In terms of the perpetrators, he added: “The only way that we can win this is through proper education and information dissemination to people.”
Social distancing leaves LGBT+ Asian communities vulnerable.
Glenn Magpantay, executive director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, is using online resources to tackle the effects of racism as social distancing continues, creating a “series of virtual community sessions”.
He said: “Social distancing and rise in anti-Asian violence have left the LGBTQ+ API [community] disproportionately vulnerable and our community is hurting.
“The online course includes skill building and support groups and is working hard to support our community leaders who are supporting their communities.”
Even Asian communities who are in self-isolation are still at risk of race-based hatred.
Got this reply on Grindr after all he had was my photo and my greeting. There’s so much I wanna say…
1. Not surprised. These apps have always been hostile spaces. Many Bumble, Tinder, Hornet, etc, users have no idea, because POC are never given space to talk about #racism.
Founding San Francisco Bay Times contributor, pioneering lesbian, and civil rights activist Phyllis Lyon has died at age 95, according to Bay Times columnist Kate Kendell, who was mentored by Lyon and served as the former executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Lyon died on the morning of Thursday, April, 9 of natural causes.
Lyon was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on November 10, 1924. After earning a degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, she worked as a reporter and journalist for several years. In 1950, she met Del Martin and the two became partners a few years later. In 1955, the couple moved to a Castro Street apartment and, with three other lesbian couples, helped to found the Daughters of Bilitis, which was the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the U.S.
After moving to a home in Noe Valley, which remained their longtime permanent residence, they began publication of The Ladder in 1956. It was the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the country, and continued until 1972.
In 1964, Lyon and Martin helped to found the Council on Religion and the Homosexual with Glide Memorial Methodist Church. This was the first group in the U.S. to use the word “homosexual” in its name. Three years later, they became the first lesbian couple to join the National Organization for Women, and subsequently helped to expand that influential organization’s policies to include lesbian rights.
The couple in 1972 were among the first members of the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club. That same year, they authored the groundbreaking book Lesbian Woman, which is considered to be a foundational text of lesbian feminism. This work was followed by Lesbian Love and Liberation, published in 1973.
In 1978, the pair chaired San Franciscans Against Proposition 6 (Briggs Initiative). With Cleve Jones and numerous other LGBTQ community leaders, they also became founding contributors of the San Francisco Bay Times. The following year, activists founded Lyon-Martin Health Services and named it after them. Now a program of HealthRight 360, Lyon-Martin Health Services continues to provide specialized, non-judgmental healthcare to women and to LGBTQ individuals.
Lyon and Martin were early supporters of now Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when she was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1987.
The film Last Call at Maud’s, released in 1993, chronicled the lives of Lyon and Martin, along with other Bay Area-based lesbian community leaders and members. The 2003 documentary No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon as well as the book and film Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Birth of the Lesbian Rights Movement are among other works that highlight their achievements.
The couple in 1995 served as delegates to the White House Conference on Aging. In 2000, they made the brave decision to sign on as a plaintiff couple in In re Marriage Cases filed against the California law enacted by the passage of Proposition 22. On February 12, 2004, launching the “Winter of Love,” Martin and Lyon were issued a marriage license by the City and County of San Francisco after then mayor Gavin Newsom ordered that marriage licenses be given to same-sex couples who requested them.
The marriage license of the devoted couple, along with those of several thousand other same-sex couples, was voided on August 12 of the same year by the California Supreme Court. It took four more years before Lyon and Martin could be legally wed yet again. The mayor presided over the memorable ceremony that took place on June 16, 2008, making them the first same-sex couple to be married in San Francisco after the California Supreme Court decision concerning In re Marriage Cases legalized same-sex marriage in the state. Martin passed with Lyon by her side just four years later.
It was not until June 26, 2015, that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage, thereby legalizing it in all fifty states.
After Martin’s passing, Lyon remained very active in the San Francisco LGBTQ community by lending her support to numerous organizations, promoting civil rights causes, and attending numerous events, including those produced by “Betty’s List” and the San Francisco Bay Times. She was thrilled when the play The Daughters, based on her and others’ lesbian activism, held its world premiere at the San Francisco Playhouse on October 9, 2019.
Lyon celebrated her 95th birthday on Sunday, November 10, 2019, with Kendell and Rocket Science Associates CEO Joyce Newstat. It was a joyous day for all that was commemorated with a special issue of the San Francisco Bay Times. As Kendell shared, “We drove, ate, laughed, talked. And felt grateful every second.”
On the occasion of Lyon’s final birthday, numerous friends paid tribute to her for the San Francisco Bay Times. Those tributes may be found at: https://bit.ly/3bTzXDV
Kendell shares that the family wishes to thank the devoted caregivers and community members whose devotion and commitment gave Lyon joy and security in her final years.
Survivors are her beloved sister Patricia Lyon, her devoted daughter Kendra Mon, son-in-law Eugene Lane (dubbed by Lyon an honorary lesbian), granddaughter Lorri Mon, grandson Kevin Mon, his wife Ellen, and Lyon’s great granddaughter Kexin Mon.
The family requests that gifts in honor of Phyllis be made to the Lyon-Martin Health Clinic: https://bit.ly/3b8C1bv
It’s a surprise to no one when the New York Times writes, “Tensions persist between Trump and medical advisors over coronavirus.” We already know our president is a moron and gets a failing grade for how he is handling the coronavirus crisis.
Trump talks about filling sports stadiums while thousands are dying from a virus we know is passed by close contact. We also know despite Trump’s total incompetence the United States will survive this pandemic. We will mourn the loss of lives caused by Trump’s failure to effectively address COVID-19. Despite his efforts to blame others — whether the Chinese for lying or the Democrats for impeaching him — the reality is he has failed us.
The LGBTQ community has seen a president put his head in the sand during a crisis before. The first cases of AIDS in the United States were seen in 1981 and the term AIDS was first used in 1982. President Ronald Reagan would not use it until 1985 and it was 1987 until he declared it “public enemy number one” in a speech to the College of Physicians.
Today we look at various timelines on what and when Trump did anything about COVID-19 and they all point to his refusal to act soon enough. PolitiFact details Trump’s response from the time we heard about the cases in China. Other timelines detail more of his activities in between responses when he spent his time golfing or holding mass political rallies where he insisted it was a Democratic hoax. No matter what timeline you look at, it’s clear Trump refused to deal with the pandemic. Still today he makes light of it while people are dying by the thousands claiming it will be like a ‘miracle’ when it suddenly ends. His responses can be explained by one thing: He is seeing his second term in office slip away from him.
We must be thankful some Democratic governors like Jay Inslee in Washington, Gavin Newsom in California, Andrew Cuomo in New York and Republican Larry Hogan in Maryland, among others, were willing to act on their own to try to save as many people in their states as possible. They called out the president but that is all they could do. Trump is still lying about the national stockpile of equipment and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the quintessential know-nothing, is making statements like, “It’s our stockpile” in response to governors’ requests for help with materials.
Some of the federal government’s failure to lead goes back to the days after Trump was elected in the surprising results of 2016. He never expected to be president and every day since has proven what an error the country made when it elected a failed businessman turned reality TV star. Many key positions in government remain unfilled or are filled with acting officials hampering response to the coronavirus. There was never a full transition of government after Trump fired all the Obama appointees as soon as he took office.
I agree with former President Bill Clinton who recently said, “I have always believed that our country’s strength is our people. We see that every day, in the heroic work of health care workers, first responders, and everyday people reaching out to lend each other a hand. The rest of us must take care of all the workers who are taking care of us and keeping our country going, and our families and loved ones, however we can.”
Americans as a whole are showing we can and will do that. Let’s not focus on the few who selfishly pretend this epidemic is not real or the rules for co-existence and shared responsibility for each other are not something they have to consider. Those few governors who still refuse to issue ‘stay at home’ orders or the outrageous pastors who are still asking their congregants to come to their churches. Thankfully they are in the minority and most of the rest of us will manage to survive them.
A new clinical trial is underway in Spain that will assess whether Truvada, a drug commonly used as PrEP for HIV prevention, can stave off COVID-19 infection among medical practitioners seeking to treat patients amid the pandemic.
If successful, the trial may have broader implications for the general public and not just health workers. But the next step would be awaiting the result of the trials before the drug is determined to be effective.
The study, which began April 1 and is expected to run through the summer, is being conducted at Ramón y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid and sponsored by the Spanish National AIDS Plan, an arm of the Spanish government.
An estimated 4,000 participants will participate in the study, each of whom are medical workers age 18 to 65 working in areas of Spain heavily afflicted with the coronavirus.
Dr. Jose Arribas, research director of HIV and infectious diseases at La Paz Hospital in Madrid, said in Spanish via email to the Washington Blade one underlying basis for testing Truvada against COVID-19 is his findings that relatively few HIV-positive people have the disease.
“We are seeing few cases of HIV-positive people with severe COVID-19,” Arribas said. “This is surprising because the immune system of an HIV-positive person has similarities to that of older people who do have severe cases of COVID-19. Furthermore, there is evidence from in vitro studies support that Truvada can have an immunomodulatory effect.”
Asked whether Truvada could be used for everyone, not just health care workers, if shown to have a positive impact in the study, Arribas replied, “You have to wait for the results of the study before we can answer this question.”
The National Institutes of Health in the United States posted a notice Monday about the test on the agency’s website, which lists ongoing or upcoming clinical trials across the globe.
According to the abstract, the study will seek to assess whether the components of Truvada — as well as hydroxychloroquine, a drug with well publicized potential use against COVID-19 — are effective in preventing coronavirus infection among medical practitioners because “healthcare workers are particularly at risk of SARS-CoV-2.”
“In the absence of a vaccine, other strategies aiming to reduce the development of COVID-19 in the population, more specifically in healthcare workers is being sought,” the abstract says. “Administration of effective drugs to people at risk of developing an infectious disease is well accepted and is part of clinical practice.”
The choice of Truvada for the study, according to the abstract, is the result of anecdotal evidence the medicine may be effective against COVID-19.
“Existing recent and scarce literature shows that RNA synthesis nucleos(t)ide analogue inhibitors, acting as viral RNA chain terminators, like TDF, abacavir or lamivudine, amongst others, could have an effect against SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the abstract says.
Over the course of the 12-week study, administrators will provide daily doses of Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate and Emtricitabine, the components of Truvada, Hydroxychloroquine and placebos to study participants.
One group will receive a daily dose of Truvada and a hydroxychloroquine placebo; another will receive hydroxychloroquine and a Truvada placebo; another will receive both drugs; and another will receive a placebo of both drugs.
The trial will assess confirmed infections of COVID-19 as a primary outcome measure, then the severity of disease, including its duration, among confirmed infected participants as a secondary outcome measure.
The initial results of the study are expected to be compiled by June 30, but the study won’t be completed until July 31, the abstract says.
Overseeing the test will be Dr. Rosa Polo of the Spanish National AIDS Plan and Miguel Hernan, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, according to the abstract.
Ramón y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid and the Spanish National AIDS Plan didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Truvada has been brought up as a potential drug to test against COVID-19 among many other medications being assessed for use against the epidemic. Also in the mix is Remdesivir, an antiviral drug the medical experts have said may hold the best chance against COVID-19.
Dr. Sarah Henn, chief health officer of the D.C-based Whitman-Walker Health, welcomed news of the trial in an email responding to the Washington Blade’s request to comment on the study.
“We are happy to see trials focusing on both prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infections and look forward to learning from these results,” Henn said.
Dr. David Hardy, adjunct professor of medicine for the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, on expressed skepticism about study because it makes “a big jump” on the use of Truvada for HIV prevention to its use for COVID-19 prevention.
“Truvada for PrEP was created as a new option for trying to prevent those who aren’t infected with HIV,” Hardy said. “If we can use that analogy with COVID-19, we don’t have a treatment that we can easily extrapolate into prevention yet.”
Based on that, Hardy said he’d be more supportive of a study that strictly tested hydroxychloroquine as a means to prevent COVID-19, and not the combination of the drug with Truvada.
“That’s simply because of the fact that we list up some laboratory information that says that hydroxychloroquine does in fact have some anti SARS-CoV-2 antiviral activity,” Hardy said. “We know that it works against the virus, at least in a test tube.”
The Spain study appears strictly to be a project of the Spanish government; U.S. government health officials aren’t involved even though NIH posted an abstract of the study online.
Kathy Stover, a spokesperson for the National Institutes of Health, told the Washington Blade NIH doesn’t have any involvement in the study.
“The study you highlighted is actually not being funded or conducted by the NIH,” Stover said. “It’s being led by the Plan Nacional sobre el Sida (PNS) in Spain.”
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has signed a law requiring the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles to offer a non-binary option on driver’s licenses.
The governor signed Senate Bill 246 on March 31, which now offers driver’s license applicants the option to mark “male,” “female” or “non-binary” when designating their sex.
The measure introduced by state Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax County), passed in the Virginia House of Delegates on Feb. 25 and in the Virginia Senate on March 2.
“Historically, transgender and non-binary Virginians have experienced challenges obtaining accurate identity documents due to unnecessary barriers,” said Equality Virginia Executive Director Vee Lamneck. “This law helps to change that, and we are proud that Virginia has now joined the ranks of 16 other states and D.C. who already offer a third gender marker option on state driver’s licenses and IDs.”
Maryland and D.C. have each offered “X” gender neutral identifiers since 2017 and 2019, respectively.
“This will have a significant and positive impact on the LGBTQ community in Virginia,” Lamneck explained. “And allow individuals to go about their daily lives with identification that accurately reflects their identity.”
Regional activists applaud new Va. law
Equality Virginia has been tracking the bill’s progress through the General Assembly and Lamneck said they are proud of the hard work both legislators and community supporters have put in to bring Virginia’s policies in-line with the region and a growing portion of the country.
“Congratulations to the people of Virginia,” said Kaniya Walker, a transgender woman who works for Heart to Hand, Inc., a Maryland-based organization supporting those infected and affected by HIV and other STDs. “I’m actually a Virginian and it’s good that they are progressing. It’s been a long time coming.”
“We at Trans Healthcare MD are so proud of the non-binary activists and their allies who worked so hard in Virginia for so many years to make this happen,” said Lee Blinder, the organization’s executive director and founder, in a statement to the Washington Blade. “The whole DMV now has a non-binary ID option.”
Trans Healthcare MD held a rally last year in support of Maryland’s “X” gender option becoming law. Blinder, who identifies as non-binary and like Lamneck uses singular they pronouns, recognized the hard work that went into this achievement.
“We are excited to see the next steps towards equity for (non-binary), gendered, intersex and those who want privacy on their identification documents. That will be possible after these wins,” Blinder said. “Congratulations to our siblings in Virginia. Affirming documents have made a true difference practically and emotionally for us, and our hearts are so full to hear this good news.”
Walker also pointed out this is a necessary but first step for trans and non-binary inclusion.
“I’m hoping that in the near future Virginia gives non-binary and people of trans experience the same benefits as we get in Maryland and D.C.,” she told the Blade. “Because I know so many trans persons who find it hard to gain employment or go to school because of barriers such as gender marker changes.”
CP Hoffman of FreeState Justice, Maryland’s LGBTQ advocacy group, also applauded the Virginia law.
“We in Maryland are very excited for non-binary Virginians for the ability to have ID that respects who they are,” Hoffman told the Blade. “This will also eliminate the existing situation in the DMV, where moving from one part of the metro area to another can cause you to lose gender-affirming ID. Now, DMV residents won’t be faced with that sort of decision anymore.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday the visibility LGBTQ people brought to themselves during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic helped change the tide for public perception.
Fauci made the remarks during the daily White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing when responding to COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on black Americans, saying the disease has “shed a light” on health disparities in the United States much like HIV/AIDS did with LGBTQ people.
“During that time, there was extraordinary stigma, particularly against the gay community,” Fauci said. “And it was only when the world realized how the gay community responded to this outbreak with incredible courage and dignity and strength and activism — I think that really changed some of the stigma against the gay community, very much so.”
As head of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, Fauci was responsible for developing medications to treat HIV/AIDS at the height of epidemic. His efforts resulted in drugs still used today, although that came after activism of groups like ACT UP pushing the U.S. government to release the medication.
The impact of HIV/AIDS on LGBTQ people, Fauci said, is similar to the impact COVID-19 is having on African-Americans.
“When you’re in the middle of a crisis, like we are now with the coronavirus, it really does have ultimately shine a very bright light on some of the real weaknesses and foibles in our society,” Fauci said.
State data on COVID-19 is beginning to reflect African-Americans suffer from the disease at a greater rate than others.
In Michigan, for example, 35 percent of all COVID-19 cases are black or African-American, as are 40 percent of all deceased cases, according to state data. But the black or African-American population makes up just 14.1 percent of Michigan’s population.
Fauci said COVID-19’s has a disproportionate impact on black people not because they’re getting infected more often, but because the population suffers from health disparities.
“When they do get infected, their underlying medical conditions — the diabetes, the hypertension, the obesity, the asthma — those are the kind of things that wind them up in the ICU and ultimately give them a higher death rate,” Fauci said.
Fauci concluded the COVID-19 epidemic “will end,” but when that happens “there will still be health disparities which we really do need to address in the African-American community.”
President Trump expressed indignation over the disproportionate impact COVID-19 is having on the black population.
“What’s happening is we’re trying to find out why is it that it’s three and four times,” Trump said, “Now, maybe that’s not going to be the final number, but why is it three or four times more so for the black community as opposed to other people. It doesn’t make sense, and I don’t like it.”
Trump said his administration would have statistics on COVID-19’s impact on black people in “probably two to three days.”
Asked by a reporter if that pattern of black people being disproportionately affected by COVID-19 will continue nationwide, Fauci hinted that was the case.
“I can’t be confident to predict patterns, but the underlying reason why that is happening doesn’t change from state to state,” Fauci said. “I expect that when African-Americans get infected, given the disproportionate disparity of the underlying conditions that lead to complications like the ones I mentioned, I expect that we will still see the pattern that when you loo at the proportion of people who get into serious trouble and die, again, it’s going to be disproportionate towards the African-Americans. I do expect.”
Fauci affirmed the federal government is now leading the charge in collecting information said it will be public in days or the coming week.
Although states are collecting information on the racial and ethnic identities of COVID-19 patients, they aren’t ascertaining whether patients are LGBTQ. The lack of information has angered LGBTQ advocates, who are calling for greater data collection because LGBTQ are vulnerable to COVID-19.