Mississippi’s Republican governor has signed a discriminatory bill to ban transgender athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender.
“I will sign our bill to protect young girls from being forced to compete with biological males for athletic opportunities,” he tweeted last week.
“It’s crazy we have to address it, but the Biden EO [executive order] forced the issue. Adults? That’s on them. But the push for kids to adopt transgenderism is just wrong.”
Despite Reeves’ claims, legislators pushing the bill gave no evidence of any transgender athletes competing in Mississippi schools or universities.
Legal advocates have previously noted that such bills aren’t actually being requested by constituents, but are driven by national far-right organisations “attempting to sow fear and hate” against the transgender community.
Chase Strangio, ACLU deputy director for transgender justice, said the Mississippi bill “is very vague and seemingly unenforceable” and isn’t really about sport at all.
“Unfortunately, there is already rampant discrimination against trans youth in Mississippi, which means people are already driven out of sport,” he told AP.
“Governor Reeves’ statement makes clear that this isn’t about sports at all, this is about attacking trans youth and stopping kids from being trans — a dangerous project with deadly consequences.”
Commenting on Twitter, Strangio went on to question the governor’s priorities in signing the bill as the state’s capital city enters its fourth week of a water crisis.
The bill is set to become law on 1 July, making Mississippi the first state to enact such a ban this year.
Hygiene in the American Wild West was probably about what you’d expect – unhygienic.
Many others are expected to follow in its footsteps thanks to a Republican-led “legislative boom” that has seen at least 25 states introduce over 60 bills targeting trans children.
In total, more anti-trans bills were introduced in the first three months of 2021 than any other year so far.
Tatiana Williams said she “adopted” her daughter Alexus Braxton about 25 years ago in Miami after the two met while doing sex work to survive.
“It was her and a group of friends, they would come hang out,” she said. “And I think they were looking for a sense of family.”
The two became each other’s chosen family, and Williams said “Lexus” — as she calls her — “would be my ear to the streets” and her source for gossip.
“She has a lot of people that feed her information, you know, and she was a good source when it came to information,” she said.
On Feb. 4, Braxton was found dead in her apartment. Miami-Dade Police are investigating her death as a homicide, and Detective Juan Segovia said in a Feb. 15 statement that she was killed in a “violent and vicious attack.”
Williams said she’s devastated. She’s familiar with cases like Braxton’s, both personally and as an advocate — she’s also the executive director of Transinclusive Group, a nonprofit in South Florida. In 1999, her friend Pilar was murdered in front of her. Now, more than 20 years later, she’s lost her adopted daughter.
“For once in my lifetime, all of the advocacy work that I do, in this case, I find myself being involved,” she said. “I’m more emotional, as opposed to my advocacy hat where I get to move to the other side.”
Braxton is one of at least 10 transgender people murdered so far in 2021 — a 233 percent increase from this point last year, when three trans people had been murdered. Half of the victims so far in 2021, including Braxton, are Black trans women.
The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, has called violence against transgender people “a national epidemic” and requested in a list of policy recommendations released in November that the Biden administration form an interagency working group to address anti-transgender violence.
Advocates say preventing anti-trans violence requires a comprehensive approach that spans many sectors, but it also requires governments and law enforcement to better understand the trans community.
‘The full scope of the problem’
It’s difficult to know with certainty how widespread violence against trans people is in part because the government doesn’t track it. That’s why the National Center for Transgender Equality would like the Department of Justice to do a comprehensive study of the violence, Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the organization’s deputy executive director, said.
“We are left with a patchwork of state and local information that doesn’t really add up to giving us the complete picture,” he said. The center tracks the murders of transgender people largely through social media, local reporting, and by confirming information with other LGBTQ organizations.
But that method likely leaves people out. For example, advocates say that “at least” 10 trans people have been murdered in 2021 because police departments and local media often deadname and misgender trans people when reporting on their deaths.
“We are having to piece things together as best we can, but we don’t have the resources or the ability to cross-reference everything nationally that the federal government has,” Heng-Lehtinen said.
Another piece of the puzzle is sexual orientation and gender identity mortality data, said Sam Brinton, vice president of advocacy and government affairs at The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention organization. Brinton said law enforcement should be taught how to ask friends and family members about the deceased’s identity during death investigations.
For example, in 2019, Los Angeles County became the first jurisdiction in the nation to pass a motion to train medical examiners and coroners to investigate the violent deaths of LGBTQ people and to collect mortality data on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“Asking affirming questions to family and friends and community members when you are doing a death investigation will give us actual whole and complete data,” Brinton said.
Knowing the extent of the problem would allow advocates and lawmakers to come up with better prevention efforts, Brinton said, comparing the lack of mortality data in violent crimes to Covid-19 data. “We do not know how many trans people have died from Covid because we do not ask the questions,” Brinton said. “When you don’t ask the death questions, the life of the person and the life of the next generation is really at risk.”
Stigma leading to violence
Though a number of factors influence violence against transgender people, one of the most significant is stigma, according to Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign.
David said a number of Trump administration proposals contributed to stigma, such as proposals to allow homeless shelters to reject transgender people and allow health care providers to refuse to serve trans people. Those measures, as well as then-President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military, “trickle down to ordinary citizens who think that transgender people are not human,” he said.
Directors of TKO with Alabama state Rep. Laura Hall.TC Caldwell / Knights and Orchids Society
In addition, the more than 70 bills targeting transgender people being heard in state legislatures across the country “undermine trans identities,” he said.
Anti-trans stigma affects trans people from a young age. Quentin Bell, executive director of the Knights and Orchids Society, an Alabama-based trans-led nonprofit, said many of the organization’s clients don’t have a high school diploma because they dropped out of school due to stigma and violence.
“I literally have a 17-year-old who’s currently in our program, and she could not be happier when school ends in May,” Bell said. “She feels like her life can start when school finally ends, and that the pandemic has been a good thing because she hasn’t had to face the violence and the ridicule every day.”
On Feb. 24, a city work crew found the body of Jenna Franks, who friends and family have described as a transgender woman and genderfluid, in Jacksonville, North Carolina, according to WITN. On March 3, police said they were investigating her death as a homicide, making her the 10th known transgender person slain in 2021.
Dennis Biancuzzo, executive director for the Onslow County LGBTQ Center, said the center had helped Franks find housing after she completed treatment for substance misuse. But in January, she relapsed and became homeless again. Biancuzzo said he tried to contact her about 10 times since then, but he never heard from her.
Jenna Franks.Courtesy Jenna Franks
“She was a loving person,” he said. “She wanted to be able to do peer counseling and help people that have been through the situation she had been through.”
Biancuzzo said the community center started a program to support people experiencing homelessness, and through that program he helped Franks and others apply for health care. But, he said, someone at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services customer service center told him they would only be eligible for limited services.
“What each one of them was told, as an individual, they could receive North Carolina family planning health assistance, which consists of one physical a year, treatment for any sexually transmitted diseases and sterilization,” he said. “I blew a gasket with the woman I was speaking to from the state. When she said the word sterilization, my head exploded.”
When Franks completed her drug treatment program, Biancuzzo said she was put on the street. He said there’s no continuum of care, which would coordinate various services for people experiencing homelessness. “There’s no health care, there’s no food equity, there’s no housing, and those are things that have to be done if you take a person and put them in a treatment facility for 28 days. You cannot just put them out on the street when you’re done with them,” he said.
Bell said that many trans people who experience homelessness can’t go to shelters. He said he’s called every shelter in the Selma area, and even some in Montgomery, Alabama, to ask them if they provide services to trans people.
“They will tell you blatantly on the phone — they don’t care how discriminatory it is — they don’t house transgender people, or even worse, ‘We don’t have them, we don’t house those people,’” he said.
When trans people face job and housing discrimination, and then can’t even turn to shelters, they often engage in sex work to survive, Heng-Lehtinen said, which can put them in dangerous situations and lead to a criminal record.
The stigmitization surrounding sex work can also affect how the deaths of trans women — particularly Black trans women, who are more likely to engage in sex work — are investigated. For example, Williams said she was hesitant to share with Miami-Dade Police that Braxton was going to start an account on OnlyFans, a subscription platform that allows people to share adult content. “I was afraid if I gave too much information that he would get turned off from the case,” she said.
She said police departments need to have a better understanding of the trans community in order to adequately investigate murders of trans people. “I think that law enforcement doesn’t understand how often this is happening within the community, because they’re thinking like, ‘Oh, this is just a one-off,’” Williams said. “But if they were to do a little deeper research, they would see it’s not just a one-off, and what does that look like when you are working in regards to that community and solving these cases.”
She said she’d like to see policy reform at all levels of government that instills a “sense of urgency” in law enforcement when it comes to investigating and solving the murders of trans people.
In the meantime, though, she is trying to cope with Braxton’s death. She said she also jokes with people, saying “So where am I going to get all my gossip from?”
“She would call you 2 o’clock in the morning and have me laughing, and so she brought a lot of joy and laughter to people, just because of her being wise, you know, her knowing a lot of people,” Williams said. “She would bring me joy and laughter in the process.”
Virginia lawmakers have approved legislation modernizing laws around HIV exposure.
Passed after two versions of the bill were reconciled, the legislationwould repeal the felony criminal ban on blood, tissue or organ donation by people with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections; make HIV-testing for people convicted of certain crimes, including prostitution and drug charges, optional rather than mandatory; and strike down a statute making failure to disclose HIV-positive status before sex a Class 1 misdemeanor punishable by up to 12 months jail time.
Intentional transmission of HIV, or “infected sexual battery,” would remain a felony in Virginia, rather than a misdemeanor, as proponents had hoped, but the new legislation would require proof of actual infection, rather than just exposure.
The bill now heads to Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, who has until March 31 to sign the measure into law. While Northam has not specifically said he would sign the bill, he has previously signed pro-LGBTQ bills, including one requiring schools to create policies related to the treatment of trans students and a ban on so-called conversion therapy.
Virginia state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, a Democrat, who introduced the bill with fellow Democrat and state Sen. Mamie Locke, said HIV criminalization laws are an ineffective public health tool that disproportionately affect the LGBTQ community and people of color.
“They target and stigmatize people who are HIV positive, even though being HIV positive is itself not a threat to public safety.” McClellan told NBC News. “It makes people less likely to disclose or get tested.”
There’s also the question of determining someone’s intention to expose a partner.
“It’s so hard to prove,” McClellan said. “There have been instances where you’ve had a bad breakup and someone will swear out a warrant, saying ‘You tried to infect me,’ or use it as a threat.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37 states have laws criminalizing intentional transmission of HIV. Many were enacted after Congress approved the federal Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act in 1990. That landmark legislation provided millions of dollars in health care and support services for people with HIV. But to qualify, states had to enact laws allowing for the prosecution of anyone “who knowingly and intentionally exposes a nonconsenting individual to HIV.”
In the intervening decades, understanding and treatment of HIV have grown exponentially. But leading health organizations, including the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization and the CDC itself, say the laws have not caught up with advances in science.
According to the CDC, many HIV laws criminalize behavior that cannot transmit the virus — including spitting or biting — and can be applied whether or not there is actual transmission. They also don’t account for advances in HIV medication, which can keep an individual’s viral load undetectable, presenting zero risk of transmission.
Before Saturday, only six states had modernized their criminalization laws since 2014: California, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina and Washington, according to the advocacy group Equality Virginia. Just one, Texas, has repealed its laws.
While Virginia’s law has rarely been enforced, between 2019 and 2020 three people in the state were convicted of felony infected sexual battery and misdemeanor sexual battery, according to the Roanoke Times.
McClellan’s bill, which made infected sexual battery a misdemeanor, passed the Senate 21-17 earlier this month. But a version keeping the felony charge intact cleared the House of Delegates 56-44 Friday. In negotiations to reconcile the two bills, the House version prevailed.
Some lawmakers were concerned the language in McClellan’s bill would allow someone to intentionally transmit HIV without fear of prosecution.
“I find it stunning that we would want to eliminate the felony for what is potentially fatal, deadly conduct,” state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, a Republican, told The Washington Post.
McClellan argues there are other laws about intentionally infecting someone with a disease, including those prohibiting “malicious wounding.” “There’s no reason to specifically single out people with HIV,” she said.
Cedric Pulliam, co-founder of Ending Criminalization of HIV and Overincarceration in Virginia, or ECHO VA, said the group will continue to work with advocates and legislators to change the law, “whether it’s this year or the next.”
“When you’re a felon, it messes up your career, your housing, your education — your entire mental state,” said Pulliam, a public health expert at the CDC. “We want to focus on the rehabilitative things we can do rather than punish people.”Last session ECHO VA didn’t back a less comprehensive version of the bill, because it “didn’t push the needle far enough,” co-founder Deidre Johnson told NBC News. She wasn’t sure McClellan’s bill, which included repeals of the donation ban and mandatory testing, would succeed. “We knew we wouldn’t get everything but we were shocked we got what we did,” she said.
But it wasn’t a bloodless battle, Johnson said.
“It did give us some heartache to hear the draconian and outdated rhetoric around HIV” during the debate,” she said. “It was a real gut-check. We realize we have a lot more education to do. But now Virginians are talking about HIV and we’re glad it’s in a public forum.” Since gaining control of both houses in 2019, Virginia Democrats have moved swiftly to advance LGBTQ legislation: In 2020, lawmakers banned so-called conversion therapy on minorsand became the first Southern state to pass anti-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ community.
Just last week, a bill banning the use of the so-called panic defense, used to mitigate violent crimes against LGBTQ people, passed with clear majorities in both houses.
“We’ve made generational change in less than two years,” McClellan said. “I think the public was there, I think there were even Republicans that were there. But the GOP leadership wouldn’t let [LGBTQ rights legislation] out of committee.”
The bill’s passage helps to cement Virginia as a leader on LGBTQ rights. On Tuesday, the Congressional HIV/AIDS Caucus reintroduced the REPEAL Act, which provides incentives to states that reform their HIV exposure laws.
Sponsored by Reps Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Jenniffer González Colón, R-Puerto Rico, the bill also directs the Health and Human Services and Justice departments to review policies that criminalize people living with HIV.
“We cannot achieve our shared goal of an AIDS-free generation while these laws are on the books,” Lee said in a statement. “It is past time that we repeal these harmful and discriminatory laws and instead focus our efforts on promoting public health equity and public awareness.”
President Joe Biden has indicated he supports the REPEAL Act on his policy site, saying HIV exposure laws have no basis in science and “perpetuate discrimination and stigma towards people with HIV/AIDS.”
Dr Igi Moon is a chartered psychologist whose work focuses on psychotherapy, gender, sexuality and emotion. They are also chair of the Coalition for the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Against Conversion Therapy, which includes 17 major therapy organisations, such as BPS and UKCP, GPs, NHS England and NHS Scotland, and is pushing for a ban on conversion therapy in the UK.
Moon told PinkNews why a ban on conversion therapy in the UK is vital, and why all healthcare providers “must come together again and fight to stop any of our community being told they need to be ‘cured’”.
Are you a white cis gay man in your mid-60s living in London? Then you may have been given conversion therapy. Against your wishes. Simply because you needed to be ‘cured’.
Are you a Black British transgender woman aged 18 to 24 years old living in London? Or an Asian British cis gay man aged around 16 to 17 years old living in Northern Ireland? Then you are likely to be offered conversion therapy. Right now. In the UK.
As a way of dealing with this you may want to talk it through in therapy with a counsellor or psychotherapist. It is imperative you know you will be safe. But will you?
Later this year all LGBT+ people will hopefully be supporting the government calls for a complete ban against conversion therapy.
Conversion therapies are techniques used to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity and can range from corrective rape to spiritual counselling to ‘cure’ them of being LGBT+.
In 2018, the government said it would bring forward proposals to end the practice of conversion therapy after its own LGBT Action Plan in 2018 (the largest LGBT+ survey of its kind in the world with 108,000 responses) told us that five per cent of respondents had been offered ‘conversion’ or ‘reparative’ therapy, and a further two per cent had actually undergone conversion therapy. If you take time to look at the data, it is shocking.
We already know from the survey that a whole population of people aged in their mid-60s who identify as gay men and lesbians have been harmed by conversion therapy and we hope the government will recognise the damage these people from our community have gone through and address these issues.
But the survey also tells us our LGBT+ youth are being offered ‘the cure’ of conversion therapy. This is a live issue affecting our young LGBT+ people and it needs to be stopped. NOW.
We know that religious leaders of all faiths must come together and address this issue regardless of how painful and sensitive.
Because faith organisations are by far the most likely to offer (53 per cent) or conduct (51 per cent) conversion therapy, according to respondents in the survey.
Even if you consider yourself to be in good health, it’s important to keep up with…
We also know that parents and family members are likely to conduct conversion therapy (16 per cent), so we need to help our young LGBT+ siblings to be aware of this when they are at school. And we need to work with organisations such as Childline to help our young LGBT+ youth know where to turn in a crisis.
However, one shocking finding indicates that healthcare providers or medical professionals also conducted conversion therapy (19 per cent), while a far higher number of trans people reported being given conversion therapy by healthcare providers or medical professionals (29 per cent).
This means that when you see a GP or psychologist or psychiatrist you may be exposed to people who believe you need to be ‘cured’.
This could be by denying treatments such as hormones as part of your gender transition or by a psychotherapist or psychologist believing that being heterosexual or cisgender is preferable to being lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or asexual.
As chair of the Coalition for the Memorandum of Understanding against Conversion Therapy we are united in speaking out against conversion therapy as unethical and potentially harmful.
As sexual orientations and gender identities are not mental health disorders, it would be totally unethical to offer any treatment to ‘cure’ them.
So, we are pleased to represent at least 250,000 medical and healthcare professionals including psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors who are affiliated to officially recognised organisations such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP), British Psychological Society (BPS) United Kingdom UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC), British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), Northern Ireland Humanists (NIH) and LGBT led organisations such as cliniQ and Gendered Intelligence. Alongside, we have the full support and attendance of NHS England, NHS Scotland and Stonewall.
We are working tirelessly with the government and MPs such as Alicia Kearns– who is doing an excellent job to outline how legislation will look – to bring in a ban and stop conversion therapy before it does more harm.
We have spent the last six years making sure that anyone who has to meet with a counsellor, psychologist, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst or psychotherapist will know that the organisation their mental health professional is affiliated with has signed up to the MoU and is against conversion therapy.
This document can be read here and I would ask you to check it out. We have asked that all organisations dedicate time to training and curriculum development.
Why? Because, believe it or not, very few therapists, analysts, psychiatrists or GPs are trained in LGBT+ healthcare issues.
We ask our organisations to address this shortfall, and if you look at their websites you can see how they are making sure practitioners uphold the highest degree of training.
We aim to make sure you are well informed about the risks of conversion therapy, that healthcare professionals are aware of ethical issues relating to conversion therapy, that all new and existing therapists are trained appropriately, that evidence into conversion therapy is regularly reviewed and that all of us on the MoU work together to achieve these goals.
As a person who was part of that 80s London scene depicted by It’s a Sin, I trained as a counselling psychologist in the 90s to help the mental health of my community as we faced social prejudice, political hatred and the devastation of HIV/AIDs.
We really must come together again and fight to stop any of our community being told they need to be ‘cured’.
We want to live in safety because to live in safety is our freedom and to have our freedom is the greatest form of equality we can share.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said on Monday that she’s “excited” to sign a bill banning transgender girls and women from participating in sports teams that correspond to their gender identity. Her remarks came just moments after South Dakota became the second U.S. state this year, after Mississippi, to pass legislation targeting transgender sports athletes.
HB 1217 is just one among an overwhelming number of similar bills that specifically restrict the rights of transgender and nonbinary youth, and that are currently advancing out of state legislatures. Last week, the GOP governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, announced that he’d sign Senate Bill 2536 into law, after the legislation passed through both legislative chambers.
Young trans people and their families living in Alabama have been warned to “run” after the state banned gender-affirming care for minors.
Marie Willa, who posted on TikTok as MissWilla, pleaded for parents living in Alabama to get their trans children out of the state and to “somewhere safe”.×ADVERTISING
In an emotional video on TikTok, Willa, a trans woman, said: “I come to you tonight on a very serious note with a dire warning and a plea for help.
“If you are the parent of a transgender child that is 19 or under and you live in the state of Alabama, your child lives in the state of Alabama, get out.
“Get your child out to somewhere safe.
“They have just made it a felony to provide any gender-affirming care to any transgender person age 19 or younger.”
She warned the ban would “drive the suicide rate up just astronomically high” and pleaded for parents to “get your children to safety”. Willa also called on the wider community to “help us”.
Alabama Senate votes to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth
On Tuesday (2 March), lawmakers in Alabama passed senate bill 10 (SB10), an anti-transgender bill that will prohibit medical professionals from providing critical healthcare and gender-affirming treatment to trans people under the age of 19.
The bill would bar medical professionals from administering hormones or puberty blockers to trans youth, in addition to prohibiting gender-affirming surgeries for trans minors.
If the bill passes into law, it would make it a Class C felony for medical professionals to provide gender-affirming care to trans minors. This class of felony would result in a 10-year prison sentence or a $15,000 fine in Alabama.
Even if you consider yourself to be in good health, it’s important to keep up with…
The bill would also require teachers and staff at schools in Alabama to share with students’ parents if they learn that a “minor’s perception that his or her gender is inconsistent with his or her sex”. In effect, it would require teachers to “out” trans students to their parents.
The Montgomery Advertiser reported SB10, dubbed the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, passed by a vote of 23-4.
If the Alabama House of Representatives approves its companion bill, HB1, and the proposal is signed by governor Kay Ivey, Alabama would be the first state in the US to pass a bill of this kind.
Republican senator Shay Shelnutt proposed the bill. According to the Montgomery Advertiser, he said he wanted to “protect children” by passing the bill. Shelnutt said: “I don’t think the same way I did at 14 when I was 25.
“You know the male brain – I don’t know when it fully matures, but you know, the human brain is not fully mature, and you know they are going to think differently.”
But the ACLU of Alabama said the bill would “criminalise medical professionals who choose to support transgender youth’s identity, forcing them to choose between the possibility of government prosecution and adhering to the evidence-based clinical guidelines of their field”.
LGBT+ activist and actor Elliot Page called on lawmakers to protect trans kids and vote no on these bills. Page wrote on Twitter: “Efforts to criminalize trans kids are deadly and we need to fight back against Alabama’s HB1/SB10.
“Trans kids’ lives depend on stopping this bill.”
‘Make some noise’
Willa’s initial video received over 310,000 views on TikTok with many people in the comments asking how they could help the trans children and their families affected in Alabama. She posted a follow-up video calling on people to speak up against the oppression of trans and LGBT+ youth in Alabama.
“Silence and inaction of good people has always been the greatest tool used by oppressors of marginalised communities,” Willa explained. “So the best answer I can give you: Make some noise.”
A new study claims that 88 per cent of LGBT+ gamers who are out to their gaming communities receive some form of harassment while playing online.
The study, from gaming website OnlineRoulette.org, surveyed LGBT+ gamers to examine how inclusive the gaming industry is for the LGBT+ community.×ADVERTISING
Out LGBT+ gamers are 21 per cent more likely to receive harassment than those who have not disclosed their sexuality, with 73 per cent of LGBT+ gamers receiving harassment specifically based on their sexuality. That rises to 83 per cent for lesbian gamers, who are harassed more frequently.
It’s no surprise then that 41 per cent of LGBT+ players will avoid certain games and toxic communities due to the harassment they receive.
That’s not to say there aren’t supportive communities for LGBT+ players, however. Almost one in every two gamers surveyed said that Animal Crossinghas the most supportive gaming community. Call of Duty was ranked second (27 per cent) and Minecraft third (26 per cent).
What’s more, 45 per cent of LGBT+ players said they discovered their sexuality through playing games, showing how important games themselves and supportive communities can be. In fact, 71 per cent said that online communities were more supportive of their sexuality than IRL communities.
Representation is also important to the LGBT+ community, with 81 per cent of LGBT+ gamers saying they were more likely to purchase a game with a queer storyline.
It’s a sadder story in e-sports, however, where LGBT+ professionals earn considerably less than their straight counterparts. The top all-time LGBT+ earner is SonicFox ($676,770), but by comparison the top earning straight e-sports players of 2020 have lifetime earnings over $1million (James “Clayster” Eubanks and Ian “Crimsix” Porter).
While the study may not be surprising to LGBT+ gamers, it certainly reinforces not only how toxic gaming communities can be, but also how vital encouraging and supportive communities are to LGBT+ gamers discovering their identity.
President Joe Biden has announced two new orders to promote gender equality at the federal level with a new White House Gender Policy Council.
The executive orders are set to be signed by Biden Monday (8 March) to mark International Women’s Day.
The official White House statement said: “The White House Gender Policy Council will be an essential part of the Biden-Harris administration’s plan to ensure we build a more equal and just society – by aggressively protecting the rights and unique needs of those who experience multiple forms of discrimination, including individuals who are Black, Latina, Native, Asian American and Pacific Islander, people with disabilities, and LGBTQI+.”
The statement also highlighted how the COVID-19 pandemic “has exacerbated barriers that have held back women, especially women of colour”.
The first order is focused on advancing gender equity and equal opportunities for women and girls. The second is focused on reviewing the Department of Education’s policies to “guarantee education free from sexual violence”.
The executive order establishing the council will require its co-chairs to submit a strategy to address gender policies, programs and budgets across the government. The council will also employ two staff roles specifically focused on preventing and responding to gender-based violence.
The order states it is “intended to advance gender equity and equality, with sensitivity to the experiences of those who suffer discrimination based on multiple factors, including membership in an underserved community.”
The second executive order is specifically focused on “guaranteeing an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual orientation or gender identity.”
It highlights “the significant rates at which students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) are subject to sexual harassment, which encompasses sexual violence”. It also specifically notes other intersectional discrimination including “on the basis of race, disability and national origin”.
This order calls on the Education Department to re-evaluate the controversial Title IX regulation which offers protections to those accused of sexual harassment or sexual assault on campus. This was implemented under former education secretary Betsy DeVos during the Trump administration.
The move comes shortly after Biden called for the Equality Act to be passed quickly in congress to prohibit discrimination against LGBT+ people in housing, employment and education, among other areas.
Biden has also recently hired a senior advisor for LGBT+ issues to help aid the administration in its commitment to inclusion, alongside an associate director of public engagement who will also advise on LGBT+ issues.
You may have heard of Abby and Brittany Hensel before, either on Oprah, in Time…
In his victory speech after the 2020 presidential election, Biden promised: “Young, old, urban, suburban, rural, gay, straight, transgender, white, Latino, Asian, Native American… You always had my back and I’ll have yours.”
President Joe Biden has come through with his promise to promote inclusion by appointing Reggie Greer as a senior advisor on LGBT+ issues.
Greer previously served as the director of constituent engagement at the Victor Institute before joining the Biden presidential campaign in March 2020. He helped build Biden’s LGBT+ elected officials network and the administration’s candidate training, which encourages LGBT+ people to run for office.
In his new role as director of priority placement and senior advisor on LGBTQ issues, Greer will help bring forward Biden’s vision to create the most LGBT+ inclusive administration in history. As such, Greer will act as the “bridge” between the LGBT+ community and the Biden administration.
He will be joined by Hannah Bristol, who was appointed as an associate director of public engagement, in advising on LGBT+ issues as well as youth and progressive issues.
Mayor Annise Parker, president and CEO of the Victory Institute, said Greer is a “ray of sunshine in the conflict-driven world of politics and the respect and trust he’s earned from LGBTQ leaders will make him an extremely effective advisor”.
“He exemplifies the America United ethos, with a rare ability to bring diverse communities and interests together and rally them behind a common cause and vision,” Parker said. “He will be invaluable as a bridge between the administration and the millions of LGBTQ Americans relying on president Biden to bring needed change to our nation.”
‘Biden will fight for queer people with disabilities like me’
In a column for Out magazine, Greer promised that Biden would fight to restore the “soul of the nation” by bringing forward more inclusive policies, especially by fighting for LGBT+ rights “here at home and abroad”.
He also said Biden would “fight the epidemic of violence against transgenderpeople, tackle the effects of climate change, address systemic racism and injustice and rebuild an economy that works for everyone”.
Greer shared how his life as a disabled, gay man had shaped his career. He grew up with hemifacial microsomia, a degenerative birth defect that affects one out of every 10,000 births, which he said “was not easy, but I learned early on to make this journey my own”.
He also remembered “how impactful it had been for me” to come out to his parents. Greer said he was able to “lean into my truth and embrace all of the qualities that make up who I am”.
He explained Biden is a “president of the light” who is “explicitly drawing upon our collective desire for a just and inclusive society — a society where we embrace cultural differences and policies that are equitable”.
A Buncombe County commissioner who gained national prominence in the campaign to fully legalize same-sex marriage has said she will seek the congressional seat held by far-right Republican Madison Cawthorn.
The Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara of Asheville announced her run March 3 for the 11th District seat, taking an immediate shot at Cawthorn and his Washington speech to supporters of former president Donald Trump directly before the Capitol storming.
“Some people will say a gay woman who’s a Christian minister just can’t get elected in the South. Not to mention, she’s a Democrat. When I say an insurrectionist who flirts with Nazis, fires up a violent crowd to attack our democracy, well he shouldn’t get reelected anywhere,” she said in a campaign video released with the announcement.
