The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum presents a Facebook Live event on straight and gay couples that resisted through love during the Holocaust on Feb. 12 at 9:30 a.m.
The Nazis persecuted gay men as enemies of the “Reich.” Gad Beck and Manfred Lewin met in a Jewish youth group. They spent many nights together, before events of the Holocaust ripped them apart. Their story is part of the event, which also includes straight couples who found love in Nazi concentration camps.
Museum historians will discuss their stories on Facebook Live to show “how love became an act of resistance for people persecuted by the Nazi regime.” Visit the Holocaust Museum on Facebook for details on how to access the event.
Former World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Gabbi Tuft said she left the house and walked with her “head up high” for the first time Thursday, after she came out as transgender.
She cried when she recalled the moment. “I felt so happy,” she told NBC News. “My hair wasn’t in my face, and I wasn’t clenching my fists and hiding my nails. It just felt so amazing.”
Tuft officially announced the news on social media Thursday. In an Instagram photo, she sat alongside an image of herself prior to her transition. “This is me,” she wrote in the caption. “Unashamed, unabashedly me. This is the side of me that has hidden in the shadows, afraid and fearful of what the world would think; afraid of what my family, friends, and followers would say or do.”
“I am no longer afraid and I am no longer fearful,” she wrote. “I can now say with confidence, that I love myself for WHO I am.”
Tuft wrestled professionally from 2007 to 2014, and appeared in WWE shows “Superstars,” “Raw,” “SmackDown” and “WrestleMania.”She retired from wrestling to spend more time with her wife, Priscilla, and their daughter, and began a career as a fitness coach and motivational speaker, according to a press releaseannouncing Tuft’s coming out.
But behind all of her career success, Tuft said, her mental health suffered. “The previous eight months have been some of the darkest of my entire life,” she wrote in her coming-out post.
“The pain was overwhelming,” she told NBC News, adding that she struggled with suicidal ideation. “I was that person that was always preaching, ‘Never care what people think, go be yourself,’” she said. “Then when it came to be my turn, it was so much more difficult than I ever imagined.”
Eventually, with her wife’s support, she began the process of coming out. She started a “countdown” on Instagram 10 days before her official announcement. Now, she’s inviting her social media followers to ask questions and has promised to be “transparent” about the entire process. With the help of her wife, she has also started a podcast about her transition called “Her.”
Tuft said her process shows that coming out is different for everyone.
“I don’t ever want anyone to think that the way I did it is the way that everyone should do it,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a blueprint for this.”
She said she wants to be open about her transition to help create awareness and understanding. For example, though many transgender people do not want others to use their previous name, also known as their “deadname,” after they come out, Tuft said she isn’t offended by it. The press release announcing her coming out includes both her former name, Gabe, and her WWE stage name, Tyler Reks.
“The rest of the world is transitioning, too, it’s not just me,” she said. “I can’t expect an overnight change from everyone.”
Gabbi Tuft.Courtesy of Gabbi Tuft
Tuft acknowledged that though her Instagram announcement showed a photo of herself prior to her transition, that’s not something all trans people are comfortable with.
“There’s a lot of people out there that may feel differently about their past,” she said. “They may not embrace the past, because it’s been so painful for them. But I wanted the world to know that I loved who I was — but I love even more who I am today.”
It’s not her job to change people’s minds, she said, but she hopes that by being transparent and sharing her story, people will relate to her and public acceptance for trans people will grow.
“All I want to do is create empathy and maybe through empathy, we can gain some understanding, and we can reduce the amount of fear and then slowly make a change,” Tuft said. “I think the more relatable that I am, the more that we can create that empathy and build a relationship with people that are watching so that they know they’re not alone.”
Since coming out, she said, she’s been surprised by the overwhelming amount of support: Neighbors have knocked on her door to drop off flowers, and she’s received thousands of messages and comments on social media. “It tells me that there is so much love in this world still,” she said.
She said she’s also surprised by the extent of the joy she feels. “I never expected to have an ear-to-ear smile for the last 24 hours, but I can’t get the smile off my face,” she said. “It’s from the heart, and it’s from the soul, and I never expected to feel this elated.”
A transgender activist said he encountered two women allegedly posting transphobic stickers in New York City and decided to confront them.
“You know being transphobic kills people? You want to kill innocent people with your hatred?” Simon Chartrand can be heard telling the women in a video he recorded and shared with NBC New York.
The neon-pink stickers read, in part, “Transwomen are men.”https://nbcnewyork.com/video-layout/amp_video/?noid=1:2:2866308&videoID=1853390915852&origin=nbcnewyork.com&fullWidth=y&turl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Ffeature%2Fnbc-out%2Factivist-confronts-women-he-says-posted-disgusting-transphobic-stickers-n-n1256754&ourl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com&lp=5&fullWidth=y&random=p7qpff&callletters=wnbc&embedded=true
Chartrand, who was with his partner when he confronted the women, said that once he “made sure it was them putting the stickers up, I had to act, I had to record it, I had to call it out. I had to call out the hatred for what it was.”
The video shows the unidentified women walking away from Chartrand, with one of them responding to him with just one word: “misogynist.” To that, Chartrand responded, “It’s not misogynist, you’re transphobic.”
Simon Chartrand.NBC New York
Chartrand, who is transgender and works for Translatinx Network, a trans advocacy nonprofit, told NBC New York that the incident has motivated him to work even harder for equality.
“I want you to feel it from our hearts. We are human beings, and we deserve the same rights as every other human — no more, no less,” he said.
Activists and politicians have also condemned the transphobic stickers.
“This is bigotry that inflicts pain & violence on transgender New Yorkers. We reject and condemn this hateful act,” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer tweeted.
Transgender singer and activist Mila Jam shared an Instagram post about Chartrand’s encounter, shutting down the “rancid narrative.
Drag performer and LGBTQ activist Marti Gould Cummings shared a Twitter post about the incident, saying “transphobia has no place” in New York City and telling friends to “stay safe.”
Fifty Bandz, a 21-year-old Black trans woman, has become the latest victim of a wave of violence against trans people in the US that activists and physicians have dubbed an “epidemic”.
Bandz was shot to death in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on 28 January by her former partner, Michael Joshua Brooks, 20, according to The Advocate.×
Brooks told law enforcement that he pulled the trigger during an argument at the 5000 block of McClelland Drive in the Brookstown neighbourhood.
The pair had been in a one-year-long relationship, Baton Rouge Police Department detectives said, but began seeing one another again only days before the victim’s death. Brooks has since been arrested.
Witnesses described their relationship as “very volatile”. He “was not open or forthcoming” about dating Bandz, which “caused personal problems” for them both.
Bandz met Brooks in Brookstown to hand him a mobile phone, detectives said. But he became rattled when she made the delivery in from of his girlfriend and brother, witnesses alleged, and then began arguing over the phone.
She borrowed a vehicle and told witnesses she was heading back to grab the phone from Brooks. During the drive there, she dialled a friend and told them what had happened – she then placed the pal on hold, noting Brooks had rung her.
But Bandz never returned the call. She was found dead inside a vehicle at 11pm, suffering from several gunshot wounds that Brooks had fired during a heated exchange, he admitted.
Friends, family and other loved ones released balloons in Bandz’s honour 1 February.
“In just one month, multiple transgender or gender non-conforming people have been killed, four of whom were Black trans women,” Tori Cooper, HRC director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a statement.
“This level of violence is infuriating and heartbreaking. This is an epidemic of violence that must be stopped.
A former Vermont woman, accused of kidnapping when she fled the country more than a decade ago, is now behind bars. Lisa Miller had fled the United States in a child custody dispute with her former civil union partner, Janet Jenkins.
After more than 10 years, Miller turned herself in to authorities in Nicaragua, and was listed Monday afternoon as an inmate at a federal detention center in Miami.
A federal judge in Florida ordered that she stay in jail until her case can be transferred to a federal court in the western district of New York, where the kidnapping charges were brought.
Jenkins v. Miller is a federal case in Vermont brought by a lesbian woman, Janet Jenkins, against her former civil union partner, Lisa Miller, who “renounced” homosexuality and kidnapped their then 7-year-old daughter, Isabella, in 2009 to avoid shared visitation and custody with Jenkins.
After breaking off their Vermont civil union, Lisa, the child’s biological mother, took their daughter to Virginia in 2004. Lisa converted to fundamentalist Christianity and began withholding Isabella from Janet.
A custody battle ensued in both the Vermont and Virginia courts. The Vermont courts awarded visitation rights to Janet and the Virginia courts upheld the Vermont decision. SPLC-designated hate group Liberty Counsel represented Lisa in the custody litigations.
A longtime JMG readers will recall, I’ve been reporting on this case since the early years of JMG. The links below are in reverse chronological order going back to 2009.
LGBT+ people have joined in the ongoing protests against the military coup in Myanmar, demanding the freedom of the country’s elected officials.
Over the past four days, tens of thousands of people across Myanmar have taken to the streets in protest of a military coup which removed power from the country’s elected officials. Myanmar’s elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and members of her party were arrested on 1 February by the military after it declared the country’s November general election results fraudulent.
Now, LGBT+ people in Myanmar have joined in the protests.
Myanmar freelance photographer Kyaw Htet captured photos of LGBT+ people who were walking among the protestors. Htet shared the photos, which were dated 8 February – the eighth day of the military coup, with the caption “queers for democracy”.
Three drag artists are featured in the pictures with a Pride flag and signs that read “Power to the people” and “We want our leader. Free Daw Aung San Suu Kyi”. In other photos, there are signs that read “gays for democracy” and “queers for democracy”.
Journalist and filmmaker Ali Fowle also shared a picture on Twitter which showed the LGBT+ community would be joining in the protests. In the picture, four individuals wear Pride flags on their backs.
Hnin Zaw, a journalist and former Myanmar correspondent for Reuters, posted pictures of the LGBT+ community participating in a general strike in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, against the military.
What has happened in Myanmar and why?
Myanmar is located in south-east Asia and neighbours Thailand, Laos, Bangladesh, China and India. It has a population of roughly 54 million people. The country gained independence from the British Empire in 1948 and was ruled by the armed forces from 1962 to 2011, when the it returned to civilian rule.
The military seized control on 1 February and put the country’s elected officials, including Suu Kyi, under house arrest, after Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won the country’s general election by a landslide in November.
The military backed the opposition, claiming widespread fraud, and has declared a year-long state of emergency. However, the election commission said there was no evidence to support these claims.
Protests have been largely peaceful, but there have been reports of the police using water cannons against protestors. In Yangon, protestors have given police fizzy drinks, cakes and other refreshments, according to The Guardian.
Who is in charge now?
Commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing is now in power in Myanmar. In his first TV address since the coup began, Hlaing said the electoral commission failed to investigate irregularities over voter lists in the November election and had not allowed fair campaigning.
He promised new elections would happen and a new “reformed” election commission would oversee it. Hlaing said the country would achieve a “true and disciplined democracy” and told citizens to “go with the true facts and not to follow feelings of your own”.
The Biden administration is now reportedly considering targeted sanctions in response to the military takeover in Myanmar. White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said the administration believed it could work with Congress on a “package of sanctions to impose consequences in response to this coup”.
“We will also be working with allies and partners around the world,” Sullivan said during a White House news briefing. He added: “We are reviewing the possibility of a new executive order, and we are also looking at specific targeted sanctions, both on individuals and on entities controlled by the military that enrich the military.”
The armed forces have imposed a curfew and banned gatherings of more than five people in the country’s two biggest cities. Gatherings are now illegal in at least seven areas in Yangon and Mandalay. People are also banned from leaving their homes between 8am and 4pm.
Social-distancing measures and lockdowns have disproportionately increased alcohol use in the LGBTQ community, studies find.
Abigail Mazzarella, 26, often went to gay bars in Baltimore before Covid-19 stay-at-home measures were introduced.
“I don’t live anywhere near my family, so I did depend on that community and friendships to get by and have a type of family here,” she said.
When bars in the state closed, this physical community disappeared as Mazzarella needed its support the most. But the liquor store across her street remained open. Around the same time Covid-19 infection rates were increasing early last March, Mazzarella’s mother unexpectedly died, and exactly one week later she lost her job because of the impact of pandemic restrictions.
Abigail Mazzarella.Courtesy of Abigail Mazzarella
“I started drinking pretty much immediately after all that happened, and didn’t really stop for months,” she told NBC News. “I wasn’t drinking socially; I was just doing it by myself in my house and spending a ridiculous amount of money on it for no reason other than just to get drunk, go to sleep and do it again the next day. I wasn’t functioning for a good half of 2020.”
Mazzarella has not had a drink in more than four months, but her experience with alcohol during the pandemic is far from isolated. Several recent studies investigating how both social-distancing and lockdowns affected LGBTQ people found alcohol use sharply increased.
One study discovered around one-third of men who have sex with men (MSM) reported their substance use or binge-drinking had increased during the Covid-19 lockdown, with another survey of LGBTQ university students in the U.S. by the University of Maryland Prevention Research Center revealing 32 percent were drinking more since the outbreak.
Drinking increased among the wider population during the pandemic, too, but at a lower rate compared to the LGBTQ community. Research published in September found that the frequency of alcohol consumption in the general population since the pandemic started grew by 14 percent above pre-pandemic levels. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reported that 13 percent of U.S. adults said they had started or increased substance use, defined as use of “alcohol, legal or illegal drugs, or prescription drugs that are taken in a way not recommended by your doctor,” to cope with pandemic-related stress or emotions, in late June last year.
At-risk groups
Boredom, isolation and loneliness have been experienced by many Americans amid the pandemic. LGBTQ people, however, also face additional challenges, including increased stress from social prejudice and discriminatory laws, as well as family rejection due to their sexuality or gender identity, which can play a role in using damaging substance-based coping mechanisms.
Some parts of the LGBTQ community have seen particularly sharp rises in drinking over the past 11 months. According to research from John Salerno, who co-wrote the University of Maryland Prevention Research Center study of LGBTQ university students, 46 percent of transgender female students and 35 percent of queer-identifying students reported increased alcohol use since the start of the Covid-19 crisis.
“We found that those that reported an increase in alcohol use were more likely to suffer from greater psychological distress compared to those that did not report an increase in alcohol use,” Salerno, a Ph.D. candidate in behavioral and community health at the University of Maryland, said.
The breaking of social bonds among young LGBTQ adults who are exploring their identity can be especially traumatic. A studypublished in the Emerging Adulthood journal found that after social-distancing guidelines went into effect, LGBTQ people aged 18-29 had “lower levels of hope for the future, higher levels of alcohol use, a lower sense of connection to and pride regarding the LGBTQ community.”
Some LGBTQ students who moved back home as the pandemic spread had to isolate with families who don’t accept their sexuality or gender identity, according to Barrett Scroggs, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University Mont Alto and co-author of the Emerging Adulthood report.
“These emerging adults are folks who might be leaving their college dorm where they’re very comfortable, open and out. Then they return home to a house where they have to go back in the closet or maybe have to be with somebody who is homophobic, biphobic or transphobic,” Scroggs said.
Dianna Sandoval, chief clinical officer of AspenRidge Recovery, a network of rehab centers that offers LGBTQ-specific addiction treatment, explains that LGBTQ people are at a greater risk of being victims of violence and harassment, which can lead to more frequent cycles of distress and depression resulting in addictive behaviors.
“We’re already seeing higher levels of mental health challenges in the LGBT community being compounded with isolation,” Sandoval said. “Because it’s so difficult for folks to connect even to the small communities they’ve built for themselves, due to social distancing, there’s an even greater distance between people in the LGBT community. Some people just don’t feel that same sense of connection over Zoom.”
‘Perfect storm’
Christian Cerna-Parker, CEO of the New York-based nonprofit Gay and Sober, said he has seen the age of people reaching out to his organization dropping since the pandemic hit.
“I’ve seen people as young as 19 come in recently. Normally, people who reach out for help are in their 40s or 50s,” he said.
He added that the number of people seeking help from his organization with their substance misuse and addiction issues has rapidly shot up, too.
“From March until now, we’ve had a 40 percent increase in people wanting our services,” Cerna-Parker said.
He said for many people the combination of job losses, not being to partake in typical everyday activities and social isolation was “a perfect storm for an increase of alcohol and drugs.”
“Before they knew it, some of them found they were predisposed to addiction and things got out of hand,” Cerna-Parker said. “There’s only so much that people can take. If they think: ‘I don’t have a job, I don’t have income, and the government is not sending me unemployment,’ there is lack of hope. That’s a really dangerous place to be because the only thing they need to self-medicate is alcohol.”
Manny Minnie.Courtesy of Manny Minnie
Manny Minnie, 36, has experienced first-hand how the isolation and lack of social contact caused by Covid-19 restrictions can contribute to problematic drinking behavior.
“My thing with alcohol is that I drink a lot more when I’m bored,” Minnie, who lives in Los Angeles, said.
He had recently been diagnosed with AIDS and low immunity levels made it essential for him to enter quarantine. Minnie usually drank only on the weekends, but once lockdown was introduced, he said his drinking spiraled out of control.
“I was drinking every day. I’d start with a box of wine, then have a regular sized bottle of vodka and open a 12-pack of beer,” he said. “When I would wake up, I’d have maybe three beers left. It was a 24-hour thing.”
A check-up visit to his doctor was the catalyst for Minnie to stop drinking.
“Before I even thought about quitting drinking, I was drinking a lot. Then my doctor said: ‘I don’t know what you’re doing to your body. Your immunity is getting lower and lower; you have to stop doing whatever you’re doing.’”
Anxiety, stress and physical withdrawal symptoms — mainly shaking and sweating — made the journey to sobriety a challenge, but Minnie said through painting, he found a way to channel his energy into a positive output, rather than turning to alcohol.
Now, Minnie is using his experience with alcoholism to help newcomers to 1,000 Hours Dry LGBTQIA, an Instagram community for queer people who are on a journey to sobriety or are “sober curious.”
“When I was drinking, it was like my energy source was this broken Bic lighter that would just have a spark,” Minnie said. “When I stopped drinking, the light just grew and grew.”
Two gay men who escaped torture in Chechnya but were returned by Russia police are in “mortal danger” with no access to a lawyer, the Russian LGBT Network has said.
Salek Magamadov and Ismail Isayev, who is just 17 years old, managed to escape to Russia from Chechnya, the site of deadly so-called gay purges, in June 2020.
Having been tortured by the Chechen special police for running an opposition Telegram channel, the Magamadov and Isayev were relocated by the Russian LGBT Network to Nizhny Novogorod, a city around 400 kilometres east of Moscow.
But on Thursday (4 February), the Russian LGBT Network reported that the pair had gone missing and when their lawyer, Alexander Nemov, rushed to their apartment he found signs of a struggle.
The Russian LGBT Network has now provided an update on their situation, and insisted the two men are in “mortal danger”.
Nemov said he found out that Magamadov and Isayev had been captured by both Russian and Chechen authorities, who were working together, and that the gay men had been taken back to Chechnya by car.
He followed them there, but authorities refused to tell him where his clients were being held or the reason they were being detained.
On Saturday (6 February), Magamadov and Isayev were moved to the interior ministry in Gudermes. The Russian LGBT Network reported that they appeared “exhausted and intimidated”, and that they had been “pushed” to decline legal representation.
The two men were then moved again, this time to the village of Sernovodskoe, and Nemov followed with members of the men’s families.
Once they arrived, he was again refused the opportunity to see or speak with his clients, and was forced to file “complaints and applications” from the street outside. The Russian LGBT Network sent a second lawyer to Sernovodskoe, who was also denied access.
Russian LGBT Network spokesperson Tim Bestsvet told Moscow Timesthat the men are in “mortal danger”.
Two mothers’ fight for their baby’s right to EU citizenship will be heard by the European Court of Justice.
In 2019, Bulgarian-born Kalina Ivanova and Gilbratar-born Jane Jones welcomed a child, Sara, who was born in Spain (not their real names).
Under Spanish law, the baby cannot be considered for citizenship as neither of her mothers are Spanish citizens.
Jones tried to apply for Sara to be a UK citizen, as she is of British descent. However this was denied, due to Jones having been born in Gibraltar and not in the UK, meaning she cannot pass on her citizenship to her child.
As a last-ditch attempt, Ivanova requested Bulgarian citizenship for her child. This was rejected by the government, which argued that a child cannot have two mothers and refused to issue a birth certificate stating as such.
As a result Sara has been deprived of citizenship and has no documentation of any kind. This poses a significant risk to her health, education and social security, and prevents the family from leaving Spain.
The case will be brought before the European Court of Justice (CJEU) on 9 February. According to the mothers’ legal representatives, Bulgarian authorities are violating the rights of a European citizen on the grounds of sexual orientation, namely the rights to free movement and to family life.
The citizenship battle is a breach of the fundamental principals of the EU, the court will hear.
Arpi Avestisyan is head of litigations at ILGA-Europe, which is supporting Bulgarian LGBT+ rights group Deytsvie with the citizenship case.
Avestisyan has called on the court to make things easier for all LGBT+ families to gain citizenship.
“Through this case, the CJEU has the opportunity to clarify that parentage established in one member state must be recognised across the EU, and all EU citizens and their families equally enjoy freedom of movement.”
Avestisyan also referred to the words of EU president Ursula Von der Leyen.
“In her state of the union 2020 address, president Ursula von der Leyen said: ‘If you are parent in one country, you are parent in every country’.
“However, thousands of same-sex-parented families in the EU currently live at risk of not having the parental relations recognised and face legal turmoil due to differences in member states’ national systems.
Tennis bigot Martina Navratilova is calling on Joe Biden to introduce special rules that would prevent trans people from gaining a foothold in elite sports.
Navratilova, a vocal opponent of trans inclusion in sport, has in the past supported laws that would ban trans girls from participating in school sports. She has also claimed that including trans women in sport is “tricky”.
Now, she wants Joe Biden to carve out an exception in an executive order he signed on his first day in office which says the federal government must not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Under the terms of that order, transgender students must be allowed to learn and participate in their schooling without facing sex discrimination – and that means that trans girls and women should compete on girls’ and women’s teams, according to the White House.
While there is already a patchwork of strict measures in place governing trans people’s participation in various elite sports, Navratilova wants Biden to carve out an exception to his executive order to ensure that women’s elite sports are not affected.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Navratilova said she supports equality but claimed that trans women have “pretty obvious” physical advantages, a suggestion which has been widely disputed by LGBT+ sporting organisations and experts, including Athlete Ally.
She said she opposed “an all-inclusive situation where trans men and women, just based on their self-ID, would be able to compete with no mitigation, no rules outside of that whatsoever”.
Navratilova said that such an eventuality, which is not currently the case, “would not be a level playing field” for cisgender women.
Martina Navratilova has claimed her trans-exclusionary views are based on ‘biology’
She was among a group of women who launched the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group on Tuesday (2 February), which claims it wants a “middle ground that protects girls’ and women’s sport and accommodates transgender athletes”.
The group has called for Biden to “carve out” out special rules in the executive order that would strictly control trans inclusion in elite sport.
“We are only talking about taking a carve-out or a separate policy for elite sports or sports at the higher level of high school, college and pros,” she said.
Martina Navratilova, who is a lesbian, came under fire on social media in December 2018 when she first complained about rules that allow trans women to participate in women’s sport.
In June 2019, Navratilova fronted a BBC documentary about trans athletes. In the documentary her views on trans participation in elite sports appeared to evolve from her previous stance.
She concluded that trans athletes should be able to participate in all levels of sport.
However, she later regressed to her earlier thinking, telling a summit in Scotland in September 2019 that her objections to trans women competing in sport are “about biology”.
Navratilova said: “In sport we have categories and it’s about biology and fairness, so I was always coming about it from that angle. And I still am.”
“I don’t think it should be up to women and girls to prove there is a disadvantage for us. I think it needs to be proven the other way — that there is no disadvantage — so that women and girls are not discouraged from playing the sport they love because they have no chance.”
