Joe Biden believes that every human being should be treated with respect and dignity and be able to live without fear no matter who they are or who they love. During the Obama-Biden Administration, the United States made historic strides toward LGBTQ+ equality—from the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to Biden’s historic declaration in support of marriage equality in 2012 to the unprecedented advancement of protections for LGBTQ+ Americans at the federal level.
But this fight’s not over. Donald Trump and Mike Pence have given hate against LGBTQ+ individuals safe harbor and rolled back critical protections for the LGBTQ+ community. Hate and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people started long before Trump and Pence took office. Defeating them will not solve the problem, but it is an essential first step in order to resume our march toward equality.
Anthropologist Mary Gray, who said her research focusing on queer and other underrepresented communities often was seen as a “marginal topic” in some academic circles, never thought she would have access to a grant that would give her over half a million dollars with no strings attached.
All that changed when Gray was chosen as one of this year’s MacArthur Fellows, which will provide her with a $625,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation that she can use in any way she chooses. The fellowship, commonly referred to as the MacArthur “genius grant,” counts essayist Susan Sontag, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, filmmaker Errol Morris and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda among its past recipients. This year, there are 21 fellows from fields as varied as astrophysics and choreography, and each will receive the same amount of money, which will be disbursed over five years.
Gray, 51, is one of three LGBTQ MacArthur “geniuses” in the Class of 2020 who spoke with NBC News about their work, their plans for the grant money and the diversity of voices in this year’s class. She is joined by writer Jacqueline Woodson and econometrician Isaiah Andrews.
“This is for every queer kid out there,” Gray said of her selection. “The last thing I would have thought was that the work I do would be acknowledged in this way.”
Gray’s recent academic work explores how the digital economy has transformed labor, identity and human rights. Driving this research is her past research on how queer people in rural America have used the internet to form communities around their identities, which stems from her upbringing in California’s rural Central Valley. She is currently a faculty associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, while also maintaining faculty positions in the anthropology and gender studies departments at Indiana University.
Gray said she doesn’t know exactly how she’ll use her MacArthur grant money, but she said it will likely be used to help with her pandemic response network research, which is being run through Duke University’s health center to support the marginalized communities hit hardest by the Covid-19 health crisis.
The McArthur grant means Gray “can look at the projects I’m doing and the political activism I care about and feel like I can support that work and support myself at the same time.” She described the ability to pursue any direction she wants in her research as liberating, but also a reminder of the immense privilege being bestowed the grant means.
“If anything, it is galvanizing me to push people to think about who’s not supported right now,” she said. “This is a moment of solidarity. None of us really move forward if we’re not holding each other together and moving forward together.”
Andrews, 34, is a professor in Harvard’s economics department whose work explores new statistical methods to counter potential biases in the field of econometrics. Andrews, who is Black and gay, said it’s important for people to see people of color and LGBTQ people at the highest levels of his field.
“I hope that my getting this grant will help to demonstrate and show that there is room for success from a wide variety of folks in the economics profession,” the Massachusetts native said. “While the profession is not as diverse as it should be and has a lot of work to do, to its credit, is at least it’s trying to do some of that work.”
As he continues his research, Andrews said having a secure source of additional income for the next five years is thrilling. Like Gray, he does not have an immediate plan for what the money will be used, but he said he hopes it will put a “spotlight on the importance of thinking carefully about statistical methods” that are developed and can contain hidden biases.
Woodson, 57, said she already knows how her MacArthur grant money will be used: to expand an artist residency program she runs in Brewster, New York, for people of color, called Baldwin for the Arts. The author of numerous children’s books, a memoir and adult fiction novels, the Brooklyn resident was also one of the founding faculty members of Vermont College’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults.
The goal of the residency is to give writers and visual artists a community and safe space to invest in their work and the time to grow and create. The residency was started with a grant from the Swedish government and has slowly been expanding through personal contributions by Woodson. Now, with the grant money, the long-term, expanded dreams of the residency feel closer than ever, she said.
“I learned very young what it meant to be in a space where I felt 100 percent inside my body, and be around people I didn’t have to explain to,” Woodson said. “I think that a lot of us do know what we need, but can’t even fathom it. A space like this would allow people to start thinking about the importance of self-care and this kind of attention to creation of their own art.”
Under the rule of Vladimir Putin, authorities have declared gay men in Russia who have had children by surrogacy will face arrest for “baby trafficking”.
According to The Independent, Russian state media reported that a source within the country’s Investigative Committee compared surrogacy to baby trafficking, and insisted that it was an offence for men with “non-traditional orientation” to use their sperm for IVF.
“We plan to arrest a number of suspects, single men, and Russian citizens, who have used surrogate mothers to give birth to children,” the source added, despite the fact that surrogacy is actually legal in Russia. This plan has not been confirmed by the government.
Seven people have already been arrested in Russia on baby trafficking charges after a baby born to a surrogate mother died in a tragic cot death in January.
The baby was found in a flat in Moscow with three other children, all believed to have been conceived by surrogate, and two nannies.
The children were being cared for by nannies while their parents organised paperwork to take them back home. The baby was found to have died by natural causes.
But Russian authorities decided that the baby died “by negligence” and that the surrogacy arrangement constituted “baby trafficking”. Medical staff and lawyers involved in the surrogacy were arrested.
Lawyer Igor Trunov, who is representing the children’s parents, told The Independent: “Babies, unfortunately, do die… Whatever you do, you should not believe state investigators when they say they are acting out of interests of child welfare.
“They have chosen to send three eleven-month-old kids to a children’s psychiatric facility.”
The babies’ parents are suing the government in Russia for “abducting” their children, who are legally recognised as foreign citizens.
But government investigators are playing the blazing anti-LGBT+ sentiment in Russia, said Trunov, by linking baby trafficking to gay men.
He said: “They want to connect baby trafficking to the idea of sexual orientation, knowing how that resonates with the wider public. They understand no one is going to stand up for gays.”
Trunov added that he had no doubt a “political order” was driving the investigators’ sudden interest in gay men a surrogacy.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has consistently taken aim at the country’s LGBT+ community, stirring up hatred among his most loyal supporters, members of the Russian Orthodox Church, and leaving LGBT+ rights groups outside of Russia alarmed in the ways he is targeting queer people.
In 2013, Putin oversaw the introduction of the country’s infamous “gay propaganda” law, which bans so-called “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” among minors.https://lockerdome.com/lad/13296932562903654?pubid=ld-5883-3439&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinknews.co.uk&rid=www.pinknews.co.uk&width=572
Half of trans and non-binary people want to abolish legal gender categories altogether, new research has found.
A University of Exeter study into potential reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, which comes after the long-delayed results of a 2018 public consultation on gender recognition were finally published on 22 September, found that half of trans and non-binary respondents wanted to abolish legal gender categories by ending the practice of recording sex at birth.×
Introducing an additional third option was particularly popular with non-binary people, with zero non-binary people opposed to this proposal.
The 2018 Gender Recognition Act (GRA) consultation attracted more than 108,000 responses, with 80 per cent of respondents in favour of de-medicalising the process of obtaining a GRC, and three-quarters in favour of dropping a requirement for trans people to provide “evidence” of living in their chosen gender.ADVERTISING
In a ministerial statement published alongside the consultation, equalities minister Liz Truss said that she would digitise the GRA process and reduce the fee to a “nominal” amount but signalled that broader reforms to the GRA will not go ahead.
Mollie Gascoigne, a PhD Candidate at Exeter Law School who is leading the research, said: “The government’s proposals to reduce the application fee is welcome as the current cost has posed a significant barrier to many people hoping to access legal gender recognition.
“However, to substantively increase the number of people applying for legal gender recognition and to make the system more accessible particularly for non-binary people, these findings suggest that further reform is still needed to address the current lack of non-binary gender recognition and the requirement of gender dysphoria.”
A total of 276 transgender and non-binary people completed a survey about the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and 21 non-binary people were also interviewed for the research, which is part of the Gender Recognition and Reform (GRR) Project at the University of Exeter Law School.
The research found that trans and non-binary people would be more likely to use the GRA if the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria was removed.
Half of trans people who took part in a survey opposed the gender dysphoria requirement, as did 80.7 per cent of non-binary people. Non-binary participants were more than two times more likely to report that removing the gender dysphoria requirement would make them more likely to apply for a GRC.
Respondents to the survey also said they had had poor experiences with medical professionals, found the need for a mental diagnosis stigmatising and didn’t agree that legal gender should be defined according to a medical model.
President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month ignited fears of an increasingly conservative court rolling back recently gained LGBTQ rights.
Fuel was then added to the fire on Monday when two of the court’s conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, mounted a fresh attack on the landmark 2015 decision Obergefell v. Hodges, which made same-sex marriage legal across the United States.
“By choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment, and by doing so undemocratically, the Court has created a problem that only it can fix,” Thomas, joined by Alito, wrote. “Until then, Obergefell will continue to have ‘ruinous consequences for religious liberty.’”
“The Court could significantly water down what marriage means for LGBTQ couples across the nation to what the late, great Justice Ginsburg, called ‘skim milk marriage.'”
HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN PRESIDENT ALPHONSO DAVID
The four-page statement followed the Supreme Court’s rejection of an appeal from Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who made headlines after she denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples following the 2015 Obergefell decision. Davis, a Christian, had cited her religious beliefs, and her lawyers argued to the Supreme Court that her case came down to “whether the law forces an all-or-nothing choice between same-sex marriage on the one hand and religious liberty on the other.”
While the Court ruled unanimously against hearing her appeal on technical grounds, Thomas and Alito used the opportunity to issue a blistering critique of Obergefell, stating that Davis “may have been one of the first victims of this Court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last.”
John Arthur, an ALS patient, and Jim Obergefell, partners for more than 20 years, are married on a medical plane in Maryland in 2013.Glenn Hartong / Cincinnati Enquirer via AP file
Advocacy groups were quick to hit back at the two conservative justices, with the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest gay rights group, saying in a statement that Thomas and Alito had “renewed their war on LGBTQ rights and marriage equality, as the court hangs in the balance.”
During a call with reporters Monday afternoon hosted by the campaign, Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the 2015 case, called the remarks by Thomas and Alito “deeply disturbing and upsetting.”
“They signal that they are still willing to roll back progress, to rip rights away from LGBTQ+ people, and that if given the chance they would work to overturn the right to marriage that I and so many activists and advocates have fought for,” Obergefell said. “Justices Thomas and Alito seem to imply that freedom of religion carries more weight, is more important than all other rights.”
On that same call, HRC President Alphonso David, a civil rights lawyer, said the justices’ statement “made clear that the war on marriage equality against the lives of same-sex couples is alive and well.”
“This outlook and the language in the Thomas and Alito statement is doubly troubling, as the court could soon be reshaped in a more dangerous anti-LGBTQ image if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed by the United States Senate,” David said. “The Court could significantly water down what marriage means for LGBTQ couples across the nation to what the late, great Justice Ginsburg, called ‘skim milk marriage.’”
The Human Rights Campaign and other LGBTQ rights groups have been sounding the alarm over Barrett since before she was nominated on Sept. 26. The day before, the campaign warned in a statement that Barrett “would work to dismantle all that Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought for during her extraordinary career.”
The campaign included a laundry list of concerns, including Barrett’s defense of the justices who dissented in Obergefell v. Hodges, as well as her arguing, during a lecture at Jacksonville University in Florida, that reading Title IX protections to include transgender people is a “strain on the text,” and, in that same lecture, referring to trans women as “physiological males.”
That same day, Sept. 25, Lambda Legal came out against the Barrett nomination, calling it “rushed” in a statement. The organization also noted Barrett had once written a law review article arguing Supreme Court cases could be broken down into two categories: “precedent and superprecedent,” with the second representing decisions that are harder to overturn. It added that when asked by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., during her 2017 nomination hearing for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett wouldn’t answer in which category she would place the issue of marriage equality, or any other particular cases, for that matter.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett in the Rose Garden on Sept. 26, 2020.Olivier Douliery / AFP – Getty Images
Polumbo also said he believes LGBTQ rights should be gained through Congress and not through the courts.
“I don’t think that a judge has to always rule in favor of the best outcome for LGBT interests,” Polumbo told NBC News. “They have to rule with what the law says … and that’s what Amy Coney Barrett says specifically she will do.”
“She says she will not impose her personal beliefs on the law, and she will rule for the law as it is written, and I believe her because she has a track record of doing that, as do many of these conservative justices,” he added.
How safe is gay marriage?
When it comes to the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, Paul Smith, a professor at Georgetown Law School, said, “There are a number of reasons why even a very conservative court is probably not going to overrule it.”
Smith successfully argued the landmark 2003 Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized same-sex sexual activity among consenting adults, striking down sodomy laws in Texas and a dozen other states. He said he’s confident we will not see a return of such laws, as even those not as explicitly anti-gay as the one at the center of Lawrence v. Texas “were just a way of regulating same-sex conduct,” which he sees both the high court and public opinion as having advanced beyond.
Smith, who said the “precedent versus superprecedent” argument is a solely political one with no real legal basis, was also quick to note, regarding the Obergefell decision, that the many same-sex married couples across the U.S. cannot be unmarried. There are currently more than a half million households made up of same-sex married couples in the country, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released last month. To go back on gay marriage now, Smith said, would cause such a “political cataclysm that the court would be very reluctant to take on such an unpopular position.”
Jon Gould, a professor at Arizona State University’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, agrees. He noted that polling data shows public support for same-sex marriage has continued to rise, and that the Supreme Court’s decisions on social issues tend to hew closely to public opinion.
“As much as we say, ‘They don’t consider politics,’ of course the justices consider where the public is on particular issues,” Gould said. “The polling has just moved so fast and this issue, there is no way they’re going back from that.”
According to Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted in May, 67 percent of Americans said same-sex marriage should be recognized by law as valid, matching an all-time high. When Gallup first polled Americans on the topic of gay marriage, in 1996, only 27 percent said they were in favor of it.
Gould also noted there was an increase in support for workplace protections for LGBTQ people, which the court recently ruled in favor of in June’s Bostock decision, determining that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Many were surprised when Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, voted in favor of those protections, and in fact wrote the decision.
Gould argued that many “misread Gorsuch,” whom he called “not your traditional social conservative” but rather a “libertarian conservative,” hence his decision on that case coming through a “plain reading of a statute rather than a large constitutional exercise.”
Barrett, Gould said, “is a social conservative as well as a legal conservative,” adding that he thinks Republicans “will get exactly what they bargained on with this nominee.”
LGBTQ equality vs. religious freedom
But if anti-gay laws are unlikely to make a comeback, where should gay rights activists focus their attention? The answer to that lies, at least in part, in the still fluid, and at times blurry, line between religious freedom and LGBTQ civil rights, according to Gould and Smith. They said they believe the main threat to LGBTQ rights under a more conservative court lies in religious exemptions, which Gould said could “blow a hole” in constitutional jurisprudence.
“That’s where her nomination is going to be a tipping point potentially, because there’s nothing about her that suggests that she will do anything other than advance that argument,” Gould said of Barrett.
As Lambda Legal noted in its September statement, Barrett has been a paid speaker at legal conferences hosted by the Alliance Defending Freedom. The conservative legal group, which has a long track record of opposing gay and transgender rights, has been deemed an anti-LGBTQ “hate group” by the Southern Policy Law Center, though the organization contests that characterization. Among its past cases is 2018’s Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, where the Supreme Court narrowly ruled in favor of Jack Phillips, an ADF client and a Christian baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
Religious exemption, Gould warned, allows “an activist court to expand the argument to more and more things that don’t seem like they are about artistic expression.”
“The very fact that that argument exists when it comes to someone’s immutable sexual orientation makes no sense,” he said.
He added that the same argument could have been applied earlier in America’s history by white supremacists in regards to interracial marriage.
Gould also said the religious freedom argument didn’t gain traction in the Davis case because “she was performing an entirely governmental function,” without any “potential First Amendment artistic argument to employ.”
Future of the high court
If confirmed by Election Day, Barrett would get to weigh in on Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a case involving whether private child welfare agencies that receive taxpayer money can refuse to work with same-sex couples. How she rules there, and what arguments she uses to arrive at her decision, would offer insights into what can be expected during her time on the court, which could be decades as she is only 48.
“I would assume that she is going to be on the aggressive exemption side of those kinds of cases,” Smith said.
And while Smith posited that there might be some cause for hope on the part of LGBTQ advocates due to Gorsuch’s Bostock decision, he believes Gorsuch will likely try to distinguish between employment discrimination and issues like access to bathrooms and locker rooms, as well as participation in athletics, being decided by sex assigned at birth instead of gender identity.
Transgender rights are less well established by legal precedent, which means they are likely to be at a bigger risk of failing to advance than gay rights, Gould argued.
“The whole concept of rights are socially constructed by what people think, and the justices are following that,” Gould said. “We’re not at the point right now where trans rights are there. If we ever get to that point, you may see the court expand the rights, but we’re not, and so I just don’t see them going out on a limb for that.”
It is worth noting that the Supreme Court did rule in favor of trans worker rights, and that polling shows most Americans are opposed to discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, although there is more opposition when it comes to sexual orientation than gender identity. Polls have additionally found a growing level of support for trans rights.
Polling also shows most Americans support allowing transgender people to serve in the military. However, bathroom access based on gender identity has been a harder sell, with a slim majority opposing such policies.
The reality of a more conservative Supreme Court has led to talk of packing the court, or adding justices, if Democrats gain control of the White House and Senate. It is an idea gaining in popularity among the left in the wake of Barrett’s nomination just weeks before the 2020 election, while President Barack Obama’s 2016 nominee, Merrick Garland, never received a Senate vote, despite being nominated 10 months before that year’s presidential election.
Both Gould and Smith suggested adding justices could be a real possibility, if Biden wins the election and the Democrats take full control of Congress. “You can put this all under the heading of: You reap what you sow,” Gould said.
Many in the LGBTQ community also fear what a Barrett nomination could mean for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), with a challenge to the landmark Obama-era legislation also set to come before the court in November.
The ACA has been especially important to the LGBTQ community, as it prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ people in health care and insurance coverage. Discrimination within the health care system has exacerbated disparities commonly found among minority groups, who face increased barriers to care.
Smith said if the court rules the ACA unconstitutional, he sees the odds of Democrats looking to add justices to the high court increasing to over 50/50.
Even without the possibility of court packing, Gould said he believes that even if religious exemptions are expanded at an aggressive rate, they “will exist for a couple generations, if that, and then a future court will close” the exemptions.
That, however, does not assuage the fears of today’s LGBTQ advocates, who fear the imminent reversal or watering down of recently won rights.
Sanay Martinez, a trans student from Louise, Texas, has been kicked out of her school until she abides by the male dress code.
With in-person teaching reopening for the autumn semester, Louise Independent School District prohibited Martinez from adhering to the school’s female dress code after she alerted officials that she is trans.×
Administrators told her that unless she cuts her hair, takes out her earrings, and dresses in accordance with the “male handbook”, she cannot return.
Martinez was just a typical student at who enjoyed her classes and loved spending time with her friends, but told ABC13 that the experience has made her feel almost like a pariah.
“It’s my senior year and I would love to go back to Louise ISD, but I don’t feel welcome at all,” she told the outlet.ADVERTISING
She and her close friend are even considering transferring to a school some 10 miles away in El Campo in protest. School officials sought to stress that as much as they “accept” Martinez, she must abide by their rules.
Trans teen and her best friend may have to transfer to another school due to anti-trans dress code.
The 18-year-old said: “[The school administrators] don’t have to accept it, but they should respect it”.
“They told me I can’t come back until I cut my hair and take out my piercings. And I do not like that because as a female, I should follow the female handbook and not the male handbook.”
Due to the school’s inability to respect as well accept Martinez, she and her friend Alexis Mendoza will most likely have to be transferred to El Campo High School, in the neighbouring town of El Campo.
Mendoza said: “They’re being really disrespectful. They know [Sanay] since [she] was in Pre-K.”
She said that the school was “fine” when Martinez came out as gay, “but when [she] came out as trans, that’s when everything changed.”
The superintendent of Louise Independent School District said how they “accept” and “love” Sanay, but she must follow the rules.
Martinez continued “I’m here to tell everyone, that transgender students should be allowed for their education.
“It is their rightful purpose for them to go into the school and get their education. It doesn’t matter what race, gender or sexuality.”
A wedding photographer and a group of several Christian institutions filed two different lawsuits against Virginia officials Monday over a new law that bans discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
The lawyers representing the plaintiffs argue that the law violates their First Amendment rights and forces them to “abandon and adjust their convictions or pay crippling fines.”
The law, titled the Virginia Values Act, went into effect on July 1 and prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in housing, public and private employment, public accommodations and access to credit. It was the first Southern state to adopt these types of protections for the LGBTQ community. Violations could be met with fines of up to $50,000.
In one lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Loudoun County wedding photographer Bob Updegrove argues that the law forces him to photograph same-sex weddings, even though he is opposed to same-sex marriage because of his faith.
Jonathan Scruggs, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ legal organization representing the plaintiffs in both cases, claims the new policy places the photographer in an impossible position between promoting “views against their faith” and violating the law.
“The government cannot demand that artists create content that violates their deepest convictions,” Scruggs said in a statement posted to the Alliance Defending Freedom’s website.
In a separate suit filed in Loudoun County Circuit Court, two churches, a religious school and a pregnancy center network claim the law will force them to hire employees who don’t share their beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity.
The U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled that no religious organization can be required to hire someone outside their faith and they must be allowed to dismiss or hire their leaders without government interference.
“Virginia’s new law forces these ministries to abandon and adjust their convictions or pay crippling fines,” Denise Harle, another Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer, said in a statement. “Such government hostility toward people of faith has no place in a free society.”
Charlotte Gomer, a spokesperson for Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, said he was still reviewing the lawsuits and would respond in court.
“Attorney General Herring believes that every Virginian has the right to be safe and free from discrimination no matter what they look like, where they come from, or who they love,” she said in a statement. “LGBT Virginians are finally protected from housing and employment discrimination under Virginia law and Attorney General Herring looks forward to defending the Virginia Values Act in court against these attacks.”
Equality Virginia heavily advocated for the Virginia Values Act. In a statement, Executive Director Vee Lamneck pointed to the support the law garnered from a coalition of more than 140 religious leaders in 2019.
“Protecting LGBTQ Virginians from discrimination does not threaten [religious] freedom,” Lamneck said in their statement. “That’s why people of faith across the state advocated with us in support of the Virginia Values Act—because of their deep faith—not in spite of it.”
When Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the most visible members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, learned about the impact the virus could have on patients with underlying medical conditions, among his concerns was the health of a man he had grown to love and admire while battling a prior public health crisis.
“As soon as Covid-19 came, I immediately thought about my dear friend Larry,” Fauci, 79, said of the longtime AIDS activist and gay rights titan Larry Kramer.
When the coronavirus swept through New York City earlier this year, Kramer, who resided in Manhattan, was 84, HIV-positive and the recipient of a liver transplant. If he were to contract the novel virus, his odds of suffering a severe case of Covid-19 would have been high. But while the outbreak gave the two old friends reason to reflect on the early days of the AIDS epidemic — where they were both on the front lines — and discuss the current global health crisis, it was not Covid-19 that claimed the life of the outspoken activist in May, but pneumonia.
In the months following Kramer’s death, Fauci recalled some of their final conversations and the legacy of a man with whom he had a “complicated relationship,” though “at its foundation there was a great deal of affection.”
Kramer — who in 1982 co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, once the largest supplier of resources to AIDS patients across the country, and then in 1987 founded the grassroots activist group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) — never turned down a fight against federal officials tasked with overseeing public health policy. One of these officials was Fauci, who in 1984, as the AIDS crisis rose to prominence, became the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position he still holds today.
Kramer would regularly lambaste Fauci during the early years of the AIDS crisis in public statements, saying he was too inexperienced to lead the national institute. He also accused Fauci of ignoring the outbreak, similar to how former President Ronald Reagan had done so throughout much of his first term in office, when he refused to even acknowledge the existence of the then-novel virus.
In a 1988 open letter that called Fauci a “murderer,” Kramer wrote: “Your refusal to hear the screams of AIDS activists early in the crisis resulted in the deaths of thousands of queers.”
But many AIDS activists would later hail Fauci as a powerful mediator between them and the international scientific community. He has been credited by both advocates and scientists alike with increasing the amount of patients with access to experimental treatments for HIV and AIDS by amending the way the government conducts clinical drug trials.
“One important legacy from the HIV epidemic is how the FDA, clinical research and science were transformed by the urgency and activism of groups like ACT UP,” said Dr. Adrienne Shapiro, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Washington who is part of a national study exploring the impact Covid-19 has on those living with HIV.
Shapiro said much of the research she is now conducting would not have been possible without AIDS activists like Kramer and the initiatives led by Fauci throughout his career.
“Here we are leveraging this incredibly well-characterized, well-resourced cohort study that has been set up for 15 years, with people who have been followed for years and years, to ask questions about Covid. Data collection processes were already in place,” she said. “We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
In both public health crises, Fauci has worked under presidents who were slower than he was to sound the alarm about the viral outbreaks. Whereas Reagan was accused of outright ignoring the AIDS crisis, President Donald Trump has been accused of “downplaying” the coronavirus pandemic so as not to cause widespread concern.
While Kramer was one of Fauci’s loudest critics during the early days of the AIDS crisis, Fauci said the late activist was one of his strongest defenders during the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak.
“He became kind of protective,” Fauci said, recalling that Kramer was livid when he heard the immunologist faced death threats and incendiary attacks over his calls for Americans to wear masks and follow social distancing measures during the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Larry wrote me this email, and he was really indignant,” Fauci said. “He would say, ‘These a——- are not treating you very well.’”
Fauci said there was a notable irony in their final conversations.
“Here was a guy who would not hesitate for a moment to criticize me,” he said, “but he didn’t want anybody else unjustifiably criticizing me.”
He recalled how Kramer would send him notes complaining about how his response to the pandemic was being criticized by some in the media.
“You’re killing yourself during this outbreak,” Kramer wrote, according to Fauci. “What a bunch of jerks.”
When the two discussed the pandemic on the phone, Fauci said it felt as if Kramer “really was like my old friend being protective of me.”
But the leading immunologist’s reputation was the last thing on his mind when he spoke to his once-toughest critic after learning what the pandemic was capable of inflicting on those with pre-existing health conditions.
“I have always been very concerned about Larry,” Fauci said, adding that he called Kramer as Covid-19 cases began to soar in the U.S., to ensure his safety: “I got on the phone with him, and I said, ‘Larry, you’re not going to like this, but here’s what you’ve got that’s a problem: You’re 80-something-years old, you have HIV and you have a liver transplant.”
Like millions of other Americans, Fauci was trapped in a battle of words, trying to convince his friend to focus on what he felt was the biggest issue at hand.
“I told him, ‘I know you like to be up and about, but you’ve really got to hunker down until this thing blows over,’” he remembered telling him. “I joked about it. You know, I’m not so young myself. I said, ‘We old guys, Larry, us old has-beens, we’ve got to take care of ourselves.’”
Now, four months after Kramer’s passing, Fauci said the activist’s legacy and indefatigable tenacity live on. Whether it’s the coronavirus or another novel virus that sweeps the nation, the country’s top doctor said he will always be guided by the spirit — and the unending criticism — of his “dear friend.”
A majority of LGBTQ youth reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression amid the pandemic, according to poll released Friday by Morning Consult and The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization.
The poll surveyed 1,200 people across the U.S. between the ages of 13–24 in late July, including 600 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth and 600 non-LGBTQ youth.
Stay-at-home orders have led to some LGBTQ youth being stuck inside in unsupportive households, which could lead to adverse mental health affects, as well as limited opportunities to get needed care, according to the survey. Nearly 1 in 4 LGBTQ youth who responded said they were unable to access mental health care because of the pandemic.
Three-fourths of LGBTQ respondents said they were suffering from increased loneliness since the pandemic began, with 55 percent reporting symptoms of anxiety and 53 percent reporting symptoms of depression in the two weeks preceding the poll. The survey found non-LGBTQ respondents were 1.75 times more likely than LGBTQ youth and 2.4 times more likely than trans and nonbinary youth to exhibit no signs of either anxiety or depression.
Over one-third of LGBTQ youth surveyed said they were unable to be themselves at home, and nearly one-third of transgender and nonbinary youth reported feeling unsafe in their living situation since the start of the pandemic.
“This year has been difficult for everyone, but it has been especially challenging for LGBTQ youth, and particularly Black LGBTQ youth, who have found themselves at the crossroads of multiple mounting tragedies,” Amit Paley, CEO and executive director of The Trevor Project, said in a statement.
Paley said that since the onset of the pandemic, the volume of youth reaching out to his organization’s crisis services programs has, at times, been double its pre-Covid-19 volume.
“We’ve known that LGBTQ youth have faced unique challenges because of the countless heartbreaking stories we’ve heard on our 24/7 phone lifeline, text, and chat crisis services; but these findings illuminate the existence of alarming mental health disparities that must be addressed through public policy,” he stated.
Compounding the negative effects of stay-at-home orders related to the public health crisis are the ongoing news reports and social media videos of violence against Black Americans and reports of police violence against people of color.
A majority of LGBTQ youth said the ongoing unrest had negatively affected their well being, with 78 percent of Black LGBTQ youth saying they had been negatively affected. Of that, 44 percent of Black LGBTQ youth said their well being had been negatively affected “a lot.”
Only 8 percent of Black LGBTQ youth said police in their neighborhood were there to protect them, which reflected a larger trend of 71 percent of LGBTQ youth in total reporting that they deeply distrust the police.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
If you are an LGBTQ young person in crisis, feeling suicidal or in need of a safe and judgment-free place to talk, call TrevorLifeline now at 1-866-488-7386.
“Please help me make this video viral! The army just killed my wife! Please help me spread it! … They killed Juliana … We don’t have weapons, we don’t have drugs, we don’t have anything, this man killed her. Look, we’re not wearing anything, they killed Juliana, that man shot her in the head.”
Unable to contain his tears or anguish, Francisco Larrañaga pleads for help in a video that he recorded himself. His wife, Juliana Giraldo Díaz, a 38-year-old transgender woman, had just been killed instantly by a bullet that a Colombian soldier fired from his gun while she passed through a military checkpoint.
The shooting took place at around 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 24 in a rural area of Cauca department in southwestern Colombia. Giraldo was in the passenger seat of the car that Larrañaga was driving.
Two versions of why the soldier opened fire are circulating in the Colombian media: One indicates the car did not stop at the checkpoint, while the other says the vehicle was backing up.
General Marco Mayorca, commander of the Colombian Army’s 3rd Division, supported the latter version. In an interview with Caracol Radio, Mayorga said a soldier reported having shot the vehicle’s tires when it was backing up near the checkpoint because he thought it was preparing to crash into it.
“The soldier said he shot the tires to stop the vehicle,” Mayorga added. “It seems to me that a bullet hit the pavement and changed course … unfortunately hitting Juliana.”
President Iván Duque and Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo condemned the shooting on Twitter. Duque has called for a swift investigation and added the person responsible should be prosecuted fully under the law.
Holmes said that the soldier involved in the shooting and other uniformed men who were with him when it happened have been relieved of their duties. Colombia’s attorney general has also launched an investigation into whether Giraldo was targeted because of her gender identity.
The Transgender Community Network, a trans rights group, notes Giraldo is the 28th trans person killed in Colombia this year. The Transgender Community Network says violence against LGBTQ Colombians has increased during the first eight months of 2020, with at least 63 people—including 17 trans women—killed.
