Activists said Thursday that the two bodies found inside a charred car in southeast Puerto Rico were of transgender women, marking four such deaths in the past two months.
The women were identified as 21-year-old Layla Peláez and 32-year-old Serena Angelique Velázquez, according to the Broad Committee for the Search for Equity.
“They are hunting us,” Pedro Julio Serrano, a spokesman for the group, said in a phone interview.
Authorities found the car before dawn on Wednesday in the coastal town of Humacao after receiving a 911 call.
Capt. Teddy Morales, who oversees criminal investigations in that district, said in a phone interview that police are investigating whether it was a hate crime and how exactly the two victims were killed. No one has been arrested.
The killings come a month after a 19-year-old transsexual man identified as Angélica Marie Méndez was fatally shot in the western town of Moca and two months after the fatal shooting of a person identified as Neulisa Luciano Ruiz, which Puerto Rico’s governor said was likely a hate crime. The victim’s body was found in the northern town of Toa Baja after a video was made public in which at least two men are heard mocking and threatening a person believed to be the victim followed by gunfire.
“We trans people deserve to live in peace, equality and freedom. Enough of so much hate,” said Ivana Fred with the Broad Committee for the Search for Equity.
Overall, eight people from the LGBTQ community have been killed in Puerto Rico in the past 15 months, Serrano said. None of the cases have been solved.
LGBT+ Asian Americans are reportedly experiencing a horrific “double whammy” of homophobia and racism due to the coronavirus pandemic.
As the coronavirus spreads across the world, many Asian people are facing discrimination and racism from people who ignorantly and wrongly assume that they are harbingers of infection.
The situation is dire in the United States, where Donald Trump has repeatedly drummed up anti-Asian sentiment by referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese Virus” (the outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, China).
But the outlook is even more hopeless for Asian Americans who are also LGBT+, as they are facing an increase in racism and homophobia during this time.
Those who ‘live in the intersections’ are most likely to be targeted by hate.
Hieu Nguyen, founder of the Viet Rainbow of Orange County, told Vice. that being LGBT+ and Asian during the coronavirus pandemic is a “double whammy”.
“When you’re LGBTQ and an ethnic minority, there’s already a sense of not feeling safe in the environment that you’re in,” Nguyen said.
“It just adds a heightened level of anxiety for folks, and it challenges their sense of safety.”
Between March 19 and April 3, Stop AAPI Hate recorded 1,100 complaints of hate incidents from the Asian American community.
While the entire Asian American population is facing discrimination, a number of groups have warned that LGBT+ Asian Americans are at a particular disadvantage.
Cynthia Choi, co-executive director for Chinese for Affirmative Action, said those who are most likely to be targeted are people “who live in the intersections”.
“Those who were already vulnerable — whether you’re an immigrant, undocumented, or because of your gender identity and sexuality — the pandemic has amplified that, Choi told Vice.
Those who were suffering before the pandemic, their situation is worse off.
Meanwhile, NQAPIA executive director Glenn Magpantay said LGBT+ Asian Americans “have experienced an uptick in racism and discrimination as a result of COVID-19.”
“The ignorance has come to bear on our community. It’s enormously challenging and difficult,” Magpantay said.
Groundbreaking gay photographer Shahin Shahablou, who fled Iran for London in order to be himself, has died from coronavirus.
Shahablou left Iran, where homosexuality is illegal, for Britain in 2011. He gained refugee status and went on to become an award-winning photographer.
He died last week, on April 15, from coronavirus complications, just months after meeting his partner Kevin Lismore, Buzzfeed News‘ Patrick Strudwick reports.
“He really wanted someone that he could share his life with,” Lismore told Buzzfeed. “He said he would never be able to find a partner there in Iran; that it would just be sex. But he wanted a partner for life.”
Shahin Shahablou found love just months before he died from coronavirus.
Lismore said that “something very special” happened between them, and Shahablou believed that their meeting and falling in love was destiny.
“That’s the cruellest thing, to lose him so soon,” Lismore said. “It feels really unfair on him and me, and on his friends and family. It’s tragic.”
David Gleeson, a friend of Shahablou’s, said they considered having him repatriated to Iran, but his family felt that he should remain in London, the city he had come to call home.
It feels really unfair on him and me, and on his friends and family. It’s tragic.
Shahablou also enjoyed a long and varied career as a photographer. In London, he worked as a freelance photojournalist for organisations such as Amnesty International.
Photography was his first love, and he carved out a career for himself in Britain.
Sadly, he experienced financial hardship throughout his time in the UK. Friends said he refused to ask for the money he deserved for his work, and also tended to pass up more commercial jobs, choosing instead to focus on the work he cared about.
He was working part-time in a supermarket at the end of his life in order to make ends meet, but photography was his first love.
Shahablou was a well known figure in the LGBT+ community in central London, where he spent much of his time. He also dedicated much of his work to photographing members of that community.
He was afraid when the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK because he had asthma and a leaky heart valve.
He went into hospital last month but was later discharged. Then, on March 27, an ambulance was called and Shahablou spent his remaining days on a ventilator in intensive care.
The Trump administration is considering cutting back on sharing intelligence with partner countries that criminalize homosexuality as part of a push by the acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, to prod those nations to change their laws.
The intelligence community should be pushing American values with the countries it works with, Mr. Grenell said in an interview this week.
“We can’t just simply make the moral argument and expect others to respond in kind because telling others that it’s the right thing to do doesn’t always work,” he said. But, he added, “to fight for decriminalization is to fight for basic human rights.”
Nearly 70 countries criminalize homosexuality, including U.S. intelligence partners like Egypt, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. Grenell did not clarify if the new policy would withhold additional cooperation or just curtail the information that is given to the countries.
“If a country that we worked in as the United States intelligence community was arresting women because of their gender, we would absolutely do something about it,” Grenell said. “Ultimately, the United States is safer when our partners respect basic human rights.”
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that a potential second wave of the novel coronavirus could be far more fatal than the current phase of the pandemic because it may overlap with the beginning of flu season this winter.
Government leaders at all levels must use the months ahead to prepare for such a resurgence even as some states announce plans to resurrect their economies, CDC Director Robert Redfield told The Washington Post in a wide-ranging interview published Tuesday.
“There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” Redfield told the Post. “And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean.”
The health official said the virus could be harsher in a second wave because having concurrent outbreaks of the flu and COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, would put immense pressure on the nation’s health care system. Both viruses cause respiratory symptoms and can require similar protective gear and medical equipment.
Redfield also said that government leaders must stress the need to continue social distancing as states lift stay-at-home orders, as well as exponentially scale up each state’s ability to identify infected residents through testing and then trace back others they’d come in contact with.
But Trump just this week dismissed bipartisan concerns about states not having adequate supplies, claiming that the U.S. was testing people “at a number nobody thought possible.”
“Not everybody believes we should do so much testing,” Trump said during Monday’s coronavirus briefing. “You don’t need so much. The reason that the Democrats and some others maybe … they want maximum because they want to be able to criticize, because it’s almost impossible to get to the maximum number, and yet we’ve been able to do it already.”
TRUMP: “Not everybody believes we should do so much testing. You don’t need so much. … Democrats and some others … want maximum because they want to be able to criticize because it’s almost impossible to get to the maximum number and yet we’ve been able to do it already.”94:44 PM – Apr 20, 2020Twitter Ads info and privacy25 people are talking about this
The White House released criteria last week for states to review how to best restore their economies in phases, including being required to first record 14 days of declining cases and to establish strong testing programs. The CDC has also created detailed guidelines for state and local governments on how to ease mitigation efforts to support a safe reopening, which Redfield told the Post will be “in the public domain shortly.”Subscribe to The Morning Email.Wake up to the day’s most important news.
Despite public demands to reopen the economy, a new set of HuffPost/YouGov polling found that the overwhelming majority of Americans support their state’s stay-at-home orders and are making a concerted effort to follow them. The most recent survey, conducted last Friday through Sunday, suggested that 86% of Americans were trying to stay home as much as possible, and about 65% said they would continue to stay home even if their area lifted all restrictions.
Part of the preparation for a potential second wave of COVID-19 includes convincing Americans to get their flu shots in the coming summer months so that public health officials can minimize the number of people hospitalized for one of the two respiratory illnesses. Redfield told the Post that getting vaccinated for the flu “may allow there to be a hospital bed available for your mother or grandmother that may get coronavirus.”
The spread of COVID-19 has given Philippines law enforcement broad discretion to enforce public health measures. When discrimination is added to the mix, that unfettered power can be particularly demeaning and dehumanizing for vulnerable groups.
On April 5, volunteers in the village of Pandacaqui, in Pampanga province stopped and detained three LGBT people outside after curfew, two of whom explained they were running an errand for their grandmother. A village official accused them of looking for illicit sex and, as punishment, publicly humiliated them by ordering them to kiss, dance, and do push-ups on live video broadcast on social media. They were identified by name and the videos of their punishment went viral, adding to their embarrassment.
The incident illustrates the danger of unrestrained law enforcement power under the guise of public health. Other individuals who violated curfew in Pandacaqui were also subject to a range of punishments broadcast on social media. Where curfews exist as a means of slowing the spread of the virus, they should be enforced in a professional, measured manner that does not jeopardize people’s rights and dignity.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government, which has administrative control over officials in villages like Pandacaqui, should investigate incidents in which village officials and police mistreat violators of curfew and quarantine regulations. It should hold to account those responsible for these abuses.
Efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 are essential, but should not be used as an excuse to demean vulnerable groups. The humiliation of LGBT people and others in the Philippines demonstrates the need for oversight and accountability to ensure that officials across the country respect people’s rights and dignity during the current crisis.
Living in a shelter for homeless people shouldn’t be illegal. But according to Ugandan police, 23 people living at a shelter serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Kampala are guilty of “a negligent act likely to spread infection of disease,” as well as “disobedience of lawful orders.”
Two were released from police custody for medical reasons, as was a nurse who worked at the shelter’s clinic. But 20 were remanded to prison, a disastrous move when civil society leaders have been pleading with officials to decongest Uganda’s teeming prisons.
At the root of the arrests is homophobia. According to the legal aid group Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), neighbors complained to local leaders about the presumed sexuality of shelter residents, prompting the mayor, Hajj Abdul Kiyimba, to lead a raid on the home. A video viewed by Human Rights Watch shows Kiyimba berating residents for “homosexuality” and beating them with a stick.
HRAPF said police searched the shelter for evidence of homosexuality, which is punishable by up to life in prison. Police confiscated HIV medication, self-testing kits, and condoms. At least three of those arrested were undergoing HIV treatment at the shelter. Police eventually settled on COVID-19-related charges.
The arrests echo an October 2019 raid on another LGBT shelter, where police arrested 16 people after they were attacked by a mob, detained them, and subjected them to forced anal examinations. The case against them was eventually dropped.
The Children of the Sun detainees may be less fortunate. Their lawyers can’t visit them in prison – Uganda’s latest COVID-19 guidelines only allow movement for “essential services,” which do not include legal services. Indeed, HRAPF’s application to visit them was rejected by the Ministry of Works and Transport. In the meantime, the detainees may be exposed to COVID-19 in prison. If any become ill or die, the Ugandan authorities will bear responsibility.
A man has been arrested in connection with the death of a Florida queer venue employee who was shot dead in a hotel room.
Police were called to Parliament House Resort on April 1 after guests reported hearing shots fired.
They discovered the body of Ricardo Filmore, a 37-year-old employee, in a hotel room. He was pronounced dead at the scene, the Orlando Sentinelreports.
Investigators have since arrested 28-year-old Courtney Lamar Williams in connection with Filmore’s death, and he now reportedly faces a charge of first degree murder.
Florida’s Parliament House led tributes to Ricardo Filmore.
Filmore’s death was mourned by staff at Parliament House. In a Facebook post, the historic gay venue said he had become involved in “a domestic dispute” and “lost his life”.
“We are completely devastated by the loss of Ricardo,” they wrote.
“He was an incredible part of our family. We appreciate all of your messages of support at this time.
“Rest in Peace, Ricky.”
We are completely devastated by the loss of Ricardo.
Tributes poured in for the murdered staff member from regulars at the venue.
“My condolences. Saw him many times keeping us safe,” one Parliament House customer commented.
Another wrote: “Parliament House and his family have our deepest condolences.”
“So sad he was such a nice guy, Rest In Peace Ricky,” another regular wrote.
More than 2,000 people die from gun violence in Florida every year.
People who knew Ricardo personally expressed their shock at his death, and urged anybody with information on his killing to come forward.
According to Everytown Research, 2,568 people on average die every year in Florida from gun violence. The state has the 26th highest rate of gun deaths in the United States.
Parliament House was founded in 1975 and has become a staple for the local LGBT+ community since then. The resort is home to a number of gay bars and regularly hosts drag shows.
Various high-profile drag queens have performed at the venue over the years, including RuPaul, Shangela, Latrice Royale and Sharon Needles.
The NYC Pride March has been canceled for the first time in its half-century history, along with all in-person events leading up to the annual June event, which draws millions of participants and revelers every year.
Heritage of Pride, the organization that runs the march, made the announcement Monday, shortly after New York Mayor Bill De Blasio announced the cancellation of permits for all large events for the month of June.
“This probably will not surprise you,” De Blasio said at a coronavirus briefing before announcing the cancellation of June’s Celebrate Israel, Puerto Rican Day and LGBTQ pride parades. The mayor promised these events would go on in some format “when it’s the right time.”
“This year is the 50th anniversary of the pride parade, and it’s a very, very big deal,” De Blasio said in Monday’s briefing. “That march is such an important part of life in this city, but this year in particular it was going to be something that was a historic moment.”
The first pride march, in June 1970, honored the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising the year before, which helped sparked the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Last year’s NYC Pride March on the 50th anniversary of the rebellion, #Stonewall50, drew an estimated 5 million people.
Instead of an in-person pride march this year, Heritage of Pride endorsed an effort led by InterPride, an international organization comprised of local, regional and national pride planning organizations, to hold a 24-hour virtual “Global Pride” event on June 27, to be broadcast around the world.
Ron deHarte, co-president of the United States Association of Prides and a member of the InterPride organizing committee, said “the plan is to have this 24-hour program that will be a worldwide celebration of pride.”
“It will peak in time zones around the world, and in each of those time zones, those regional pride organizations and those local pride organizations will be directly involved in that programming component,” deHarte said.
Cathy Renna, a representative of Heritage of Pride, suggested this year’s events might resemble something like televised New Year’s Eve celebrations, which cascade around the world’s time zones.
Prior to New York City’s announcement on Monday, a number of other major cities across the U.S. had already announced they were canceling or postponing their pride events: Los Angeles postponed, San Francisco canceled and Seattle said it would “go virtual.” The European Pride Organisers Association has been maintaining an open source online count of pride events around the world that have either been canceled or postponed due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
Transgender activists in Latin America have expressed concern over rules that allow people to leave their homes during the coronavirus pandemic based on their gender.
A “pico y género” rule that took effect in Panamá on April 2 allows men to leave their homes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in order to buy food and medications and to go to the bank. Women can leave their homes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Reuters reports Panamanians, regardless of their gender, cannot leave their homes on Sundays.
The Peruvian government implemented a similar “pico y género” rule earlier this month.
Gabriela Oporto Patroni, a lawyer with Centro de Promoción y Defensa de los Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos, a Peruvian LGBTQ advocacy group known by the acronym PROMSEX, said police officers and soldiers in several Peruvian cities harassed trans women who had left their homes to buy food and medicine on days when women were allowed to do so.
Oporto said many of these incidents were recorded and posted to social media.
“It has caused problems for many trans people, people with non-binary gender expression,” Oporto told the Washington Blade on April 14 during a WhatsApp interview from Lima, the Peruvian capital.
Claudia López, the first woman and first lesbian elected mayor of the Colombian capital of Bogotá, implemented a “pico y género” rule in her city that allows women to leave their homes on even days and men to leave their homes on odd days.
Fundación de Grupo de Acción y Apoyo a Personas Trans, a Bogotá-based trans advocacy group known by the acronym GAAT, in a press release notes authorities will enforce the rule based on a person’s gender identity. GAAT nevertheless notes the regulation “opens the door to situations of discrimination and police abuses.”
“Similar measures have been implemented in Panama and Peru,” notes GAAT in its press release.
“In the case of Peru, the president called for no discrimination, but it did not prevent abuses against trans women in shops and even worse by the police who were in charge of implementing the measures,” added GAAT.
GAAT says it reached out to Bogotá officials who work directly on LGBTQ-specific issues and urged them to ensure the police don’t discriminate against trans people while they implement the “pico y género” rule.
Luis Ernesto Gómez, who is López’s chief-of-staff, in an April 8 tweet confirmed the rule allows trans people to leave their homes on days based on their gender identity.
Discrimination and violence based on gender identity remains commonplace throughout Latin America. Activists throughout the region with whom the Blade regularly speaks say police officers are among those who target trans people.
The Latin American and Caribbean Network of Trans People, a group known by the acronym REDLACTRANS, in a press release notes there has been “an increase in institutional violence throughout the region” during the coronavirus pandemic.
REDLACTRANS specifically singles out Colombia, Peru, Panama, Honduras and Ecuador as countries in which it has seen this trend play out. REDLACTRANS also notes Gabriela Redondo, a trans activist in Honduras, is among the dozens of people who have been victims of “arbitrary arrests” since the pandemic began.
“Trans people of Latin America and the Caribbean are a population at-risk against the coronavirus,” says REDLACTRANS in its press release. “If the responses of the states are not aligned to this reality, they increasingly lead us to death.”