A New Jersey man was charged for detonating an explosive device at a lesbian-owned gym long considered by locals as a “safe haven” for LGBT+ people.
Dwayne A Vandergrift Jr, 35, was charged by federal authorities on September 4 for not only causing devastating damage to the Gloucester City gym, but for unlawful possession of two destructive devices and unlawful possession of a short-barrelled rifle, according to a press release from the US Attorney’s Office for New Jersey.
At around 4am on August 26, Vandergrift tacked the explosive device on the front door of GCity Crossfit Gym, according to surveillance footage.
Sprinting off, the resulting explosion shattered the glass and desolated the door.
An LGBT+ Pride flag decorating it on lithely hanging on the hinges, prompting the gym’s owners as well as the local community to suspect the incident was a hate crime.
LGBT+ gym allegedly bombed by man who searched how to produce makeshift explosives only days before the attack.
Owned by Jenai Gonzales and her wife Ann Panarello, the gym is a “known safe-haven in the area for LGBT+ youth” and many of its personal trainers and staffers are queer, athletic apparel Lifting Culture owner Steven Vitale wrote on his website.
As much as the gym’s owners suspect the attack was motivated by queerphobia, the Attorney’s Office does not specify a motive.
Federal and local law enforcement officers combed Vandergrift’s home on 28 August, finding inside bomb-making materials as well as several weapons, tactical vests, ammunition and around 85 marijuana plants.
Investigators tapped his home computer to find that he had in recent days searched for ways to jerry-rig explosives, including pipe and pressure cooker bombs. He was arrested later that day and is presently in custody.
Vandergrift faces a total prison term of at 20 years as well as a maximum fine of $250,000.
Though the attack left the local LGBT+ community shaken, Vitale wrote: “G-City Crossfit had, and will continue to have, a large gay Pride flag displayed prominently in their front door.”
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the national Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance results for 2019. It’s clear from the national data that many LGBTQ young people continue to suffer higher health and suicide risks than their peers. This follows the same trends present in an HRC analysis of the 2015 and 2017 data — LGBTQ students are more likely to experience victimization, violence and suicidality. In many areas of the data, transgender students are facing more disparities in 2019 than they were in 2017.
The data show that 43% of transgender youth have been bullied on school property. 29% of transgender youth, 21% of gay and lesbian youth and 22% of bisexual youth have attempted suicide.
Since the YRBS began including data on sexual orientation in 2015 and gender identity in 2017, we’ve seen consistently that LGBTQ youth face greater health disparities than their cisgender straight peers. This data continues to make clear a truth that we’ve long known — that LGBTQ students are not getting the support, affirmation and safety they need and deserve. We must ensure that adults are doing everything possible to support LGBTQ youth, especially those who are living at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities. Complete and robust data collection for our entire community is vital to putting systems and structures in place to support LGBTQ students. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation will continue to provide resources for LGBTQ students and educators across the country and will work with our network of youth-serving professionals to be sure they have the resources and tools they need.
Ellen Kahn, HRC Senior Director, Programs and Partnerships
In 2019, many states collected gender identity data. Data for 14 of these states across more than 107,000 youth are included in publicly available files on the CDC’s website. Below are initial key findings from HRC’s original analysis of these 2019 data:
29% of transgender youth have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property, compared to 7% of cisgender youth; transgender youth were more likely in 2019 to have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property than reported in 2017
16% of gay and lesbian youth and 11% of bisexual youth have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property, compared to 7% of straight youth
43% of transgender youth have been bullied on school property, compared to 18% of cisgender youth; transgender youth were more likely in 2019 to have been bullied on school property than reported in 2017
29% of gay or lesbian youth and 31% of bisexual youth have been bullied on school property, compared to 17% of straight youth
29% of transgender youth have attempted suicide, compared to 7% of cisgender youth
21% of gay and lesbian youth and 22% of bisexual youth have attempted suicide, compared to 7% of straight youth
These data underscore the need and urgency for youth-serving professionals to be well equipped to meet the needs of LGBTQ youth. The HRC Foundation has many resources for LGBTQ students and educators, including our Welcoming Schoolsprogram, resources for LGBTQ youth and resources specific to COVID-19. If you’d be interested in speaking with an HRC expert about this data, I’d be happy to help connect you. After all, youth-serving professionals who have attended the annual HRC Foundation’s Time to THRIVE conference are 64% more likely to say they are prepared to promote physical safety of LGBTQ youth than youth-serving professionals who haven’t attended Time to THRIVE.
An outspoken Christian preacher and activist is accusing his daughter’s school of violating her First Amendment rights by forcing her to change out of a shirt proclaiming that “homosexuality is a sin.” He is contemplating legal action. Brielle Penkoski, the daughter of Rev. Rich Penkoski, attends Livingston Academy, a public high school in Livingston, Tennessee. During the school day on Tuesday, Aug. 25, she was allegedly asked to change out of a black T-shirt shirt bearing white letters asserting that “homosexuality is a sin.”
The shirt references the New Testament passage of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. When she refused to change out of the shirt, she was sent home from school, her father told The Christian Post in a recent interview. Penkoski, who regularly speaks out in opposition to things like homosexuality and Drag Queen Story Hour events, runs an organization called Warriors for Christ, which describes itself as a “pre-denominational ministry” that has a global online presence.
Call it the convention that dared not speak our name. LGBTQ people earned not a single mention during Republicans’ pageant in red, through four nights of televised speeches last month.
This refusal to acknowledge the existence of more than 15 million LGBTQ people, 5 percent of the populace and residents of every ZIP code in America, shows a paralyzing hypocrisy. The Republican Party depends on anti-gay intolerance to rev up its base at election time but has to feign tolerance when the broader public is watching, knowing bigotry turns off a key slice of getable voters.
The GOP platform, held over from 2016, embraces the brutal practice of reparative therapy to coerce youth to renounce their emotions and identity. Most Republican candidates oppose and even seek to nullify existing protections in law that protect the safety of LGBTQ people, including in medical settings, marriage and the adoption process. Still, the party covets the support of donors who cringe at overt homophobia. Stuck in this dilemma of the party’s own making, silence can be as good as it gets.
The run-up to the GOP convention included two anti-LGBTQ slurs that were anything but quiet. In Kansas City, the baseball play-by-play announcer of the Cincinnati Reds, Thom W. Brennaman, was caught on a microphone talking about “a fag capital of the world.” During the game, and despite apologies, Brennaman, who happens to be a past donor to the Republican Party and candidates, was suspended and banished from the broadcast booth.
Several commercial sponsors and professional sports have at long last put anti-gay slurs on a par with other forms of bigotry as disqualifiers. Conservative politics have not caught up. Witness U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, who last month labeled his opponents as “liberal, socialist pansies,” a dated anti-gay epithet.
The silence observed at the GOP convention is familiar to those of us who contended for years with Republican parents and relatives. No mention was a concession or, as perhaps they let us know later, an indulgence of our presence at the dinner table or the reunion.
But times are changing. By disappearing any mention of gay people, the GOP convention reflects a state of denial that is itself disappearing.
More than 75 percent of Americans claim an openly LGBTQ friend, coworker or family member (and where exactly are the outliers hiding?). Polling in 2019 at the outset of the first-ever serious campaign for president by an “out” candidate, Pete Buttigieg, showed that 68 percent of Americans were comfortable or enthusiastic about a bid like his for the nation’s highest office.
That message of inclusion and pride was both shown and told at the Democratic convention the week before. Buttigieg, a military veteran, spoke plainly about coming out and getting married. Lori Lightfoot, the lesbian mayor of Chicago, Danica Roem, the transgender state delegate from Virginia and Robert Garcia, the gay mayor of Long Beach, all had significant moments on camera. So did Judy and Dennis Shepard, parents of gay hate crime victim Matthew Shepard, in Wyoming.
The late conservative commentator Marvin Liebman argued that homophobia was a glue that held the Republican Party together. A gay man who came out late in life, he gave many conservative operatives their first jobs and lived long enough to make them reckon with the inconvenient fact of his sexuality, repressed for decades but expressed without shame in the seven years before his death in 1997.
Coming out still takes courage, as many a teenager can testify. The policies of the Trump administration, whether to take away anti-bias protections in health care, to deny transgender students access to restrooms of the gender they identify with or to ban transgender people from the military, perpetuate stigma and make the path of openness no easier.
At Republicans’ convention in Cleveland in 2016, one month after the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, this president showed he could say “LGBT.” But in his quest for re-election, while flouting laws against using federal installations as props and staging areas during four nights on television, the large and diverse community of LGBTQ Americans never got named a single time. That refusal to value the lives and votes of one in 20 Americans—and those who love us unconditionally—is another testament to the cowardice of this presidency and the party that made it possible.
Hans Johnson has advised LGBT organizations and ballot measure campaigns in nearly every state. A longtime Washingtonian and former Blade columnist, he now lives in Los Angeles.
A man in Perth, Australia, has been jailed for five years after he failed to disclose that he was living with HIV to four sexual partners – all of whom later tested positive for the virus.
The 30-year-old, who has not been named to protect the identities of his victims, told the four men that he did not have HIV before having condomless sex with them, the West Australian reports.
A court heard that the accused had actually been diagnosed with HIV in 2012.
In 2013, he told a man that he did not have HIV before having condomless sex with him. His sexual partner was later diagnosed with the virus.
In 2014, he told another man through the dating app Squirt that he did not have HIV. A year later, the two met and had condomless sex. Just weeks later, his sexual partner became ill, and he tested positive for HIV four months later.
In 2012 the accused embarked on a long-term relationship, and told his boyfriend that he did not have HIV. They started having condomless sex in 2014, but his boyfriend’s suspicions were aroused in 2015 when he found antiretroviral medication.
The boyfriend went for a HIV test and discovered that he too had the virus. They separated a year later.
Following that incident, the accused met up with a man through Tinder and had condomless sex with him after claiming that he did not have HIV. That man also tested positive.
Man who lied about HIV status ‘extraordinarily selfish’.
The offender was arrested in January 2018 and charged with unlawfully engaging in an act that was likely to endanger his victims’ life, health or safety.
In his sentencing, district court Judge Troy Sweeney said the man had been “reckless” by failing to disclose his HIV status to the four men.
The man claimed that he had struggled with his diagnosis and was afraid of being ostracised by his community, but Sweeney accused him of burying his head “in the sand”.
He told the man that he had failed in his “duty” to his fellow human beings by not telling the men that he had HIV.
“Your behaviour was so extraordinarily selfish, so utterly self-absorbed,” the judge told him.
“Apart from the illegality of what you did, it was so grossly immoral to fail to take precautions and to fail to be honest with these four men with whom you were sexually involved.”
His sentence was backdated to July 2019 and he will be eligible for parole after serving three years.
Today, people who live with HIV can have an undetectable viral load when taking effective medication – meaning they cannot pass the virus on through condomless sex.
However, when the viral load is not controlled through antiretroviral medication, it can be passed on through sex.
President Donald Trump added 20 additional names to his shortlistof potential Supreme Court nominees Wednesday, and the list — which includes sitting judges and U.S. senators — immediately drew criticism from LGBTQ advocacy groups.
“This list is teeming with individuals who have alarming anti-LGBTQ and anti-civil rights records, which should be disqualifying for any judicial nominee, let alone a nominee for the Supreme Court,” Sharon McGowan, legal director for Lambda Legal, said in a statement, characterizing many of the potential nominees as “dangerous, ultraconservative ideologues.”
The Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, called the 20 names a “wishlist” from conservative groups that have a “record of hostility towards progress, tolerance and equality.”
“If the past is prologue, he may once again nominate people who would deny legal protections for LGBTQ people, take away the health care provided by the Affordable Care Act, undermine the fundamental right to vote, erode core civil rights laws, and fail to value the lives, needs and Constitutional rights of the LGBTQ community,” the group’s president, Alphonso David, said in a statement.
When asked about assertions that the names on the shortlist are anti-LGBTQ, the White House broadly defended the president’s record on judicial appointments.
“President Trump has an unmatched record of appointing judges who believe in applying the Constitution as written, not legislating from the bench,” White House spokesperson Judd Deere told NBC News in an email. “Once again, the President is being transparent with the American people about the qualifications he considers paramount and who he would consider for a seat on the High Court to ensure this exceptional nation built on the rule of law continues for generations to come.”
Those qualifications, which were mentioned along with the president’s additional list of potential high court contenders, include a commitment to “protect life,” “protect religious liberty,” “protect the 2nd Amendment” and “protect our borders.”
Shortlist’s new names
McGowan said the sheer number of people on Trump’s running listof over 40 potential Supreme Court justices “whose records are replete with anti-LGBTQ bias is both staggering and terrifying.”
Among the newly added names is Noel Francisco, who served as U.S. solicitor general from 2017 until earlier this year. McGowan said the Trump-appointee drove an “anti-LGBTQ agenda” in that role which included submitting a Supreme Court brief asserting that gay workers are not protected by federal civil rights law.
Also on the list is Lawrence Van Dyke, who currently sits on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last year ahead of his 9th Circuit confirmation, Van Dyke broke down in tears when confronted with a scathing letter from the American Bar Association that deemed him “not qualified” and questioned his ability to treat LGBTQ litigants fairly. As solicitor general of Montana, a role he held from 2013 to 2014, Van Dyke argued against same-sex marriage in two cases and in favor of allowing photographers to deny wedding services to gay couples in another.
Another name causing “deep concerns” for LGBTQ advocacy groups, including Lambda Legal, is Allison Jones Rushing, who currently serves as a judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. One reason for the concern is the Trump-appointed judge’s ties to Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal nonprofit that the Southern Poverty Law Center has deemed a “hate group” for its espousal of beliefs such as the criminalization of homosexuality, legislation to restrict transgender people’s access to sex-segregated facilities and support of businesses to deny service to LGBTQ people.
A number of the newly added names to Trump’s shortlist — many of whom Trump previously appointed to lower courts — have already “lived up to the worst expectations” of LGBTQ advocates, according to McGowan.
Stuart Kyle Duncan appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee as a U.S. 5th Circuit Court nominee in Washington on Nov 29, 2017.C-Span
“He even went so far as to say it was inappropriate to refer to a transgender person by their [preferred] pronouns,” McGowan said.
Prior to his 5th Circuit confirmation, Duncan was part of the legal team that represented Virginia’s Gloucester County School Board in its case against Gavin Grimm, a transgender high school student who was unable to use the restroom that aligned with his gender identity. And in 2014, he represented Louisiana in its bid to uphold the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Another 5th Circuit judge on the shortlist, James Ho, ruled against a transgender inmate seeking to undergo gender reassignment surgery in prison in December. McGowan called Ho “one of the most anti-LGBTQ judges on the court of appeals.”
Some of the most well-known additions to Trump’s shortlist include conservative Republican senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, as well as former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, who argued in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act before the Supreme Court in 2013 on behalf of Congressional Republicans.
‘Lasting damage to civil rights’
In less than four years in office, Trump has confirmed over 200 judges — two to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, and 53 to appeals courts. By comparison, President Obama confirmed two Supreme Court justices and 55 appeals court judges during his entire eight years in office.
According to a 2019 report from Lambda Legal, eight of 12 appeals courts — which sit just below the Supreme Court in the judicial hierarchy —are now composed of more than 25 percent of Trump appointees.
Many of Trump’s appointments have provoked criticism from gay and civil rights advocates — a third of the more than 50 circuit court judges nominated by Trump since he took office have a “demonstrated history of anti-LGBTQ bias,” according to the report. This “threatens to do lasting damage to the civil rights of LGBT people,” the report states.
The next appointment to the high court could shape the future of LGBTQ rights for decades. In June, the Court delivered a landmark ruling for LGBTQ workers, finding that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects them against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. One of Trump’s high court appointees, Gorsuch, sided with the majority, while Kavanaugh voted against the broader interpretation of Title VII.
“The impact that another anti-LGBTQ nominee could have on the Supreme Court would be catastrophic,” McGowan said.
The court, currently divided 5-4 between conservatives and liberals, will hear a key gay rights case in the fall. In Fulton v. The City of Philadelphia, the court will decide whether faith-based child welfare organizations can reject same-sex couples and others whom they consider to be in violation of their religious beliefs.
The Trump administration is siding with religious leaders who ordered a Catholic school in Indiana to fire a teacher in a same-sex marriage, saying the church’s actions are protected by the First Amendment.
In a 35-page amicus brief filed on Tuesday, the Department of Justice argued that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis — which fired gay high school teacher Joshua Payne-Elliott last year — is, like other religious employers in the U.S., “entitled to employ in key roles only persons whose beliefs and conduct are consistent” with its “religious precepts.”
In addition, the brief states, the “Constitution bars the government from interfering with the autonomy of religious organizations.” Payne-Elliott’s battle with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis started last spring, two years after he married Layton Payne-Elliott, who teaches at a different Catholic high school in Indianapolis.
Tokyo will open Pride House, Japan’s first permanent such center, next month to raise awareness of LGBTQ rights before and during the rearranged Olympic Games in 2021.
Although there have been similar initiatives before previous Games, organizers said Pride House Tokyo, which will open its doors on International Coming Out Day on October 11, is the first to get official International Olympic Committee backing.
“Pride House Tokyo aims to educate the world and also Japan of the difficulties the LGBTQ community has playing and enjoying sports … while helping create a safe space for the community too,” Pride House Tokyo said in a statement on Monday.
“Many people might think that Japan is a human rights defender, but actually there are no laws to protect LGBTQ people.”
GON MATSUNAKA
It is traditional for most nations competing at the Olympics to have a hospitality “house,” where they promote their country and hold parties for winning athletes.
Gon Matsunaka, the head of Good Aging Yells, one of the organizations supporting the project, said Japan lags behind many other developed nations when it comes to LGBTQ rights.
“Many people might think that Japan is a human rights defender, but actually there are no laws to protect LGBTQ people,” Matsunaka told Reuters via email.
“Society is filled with prejudice, discrimination and harassment towards LGBTQ community.”
“While we have to change the sports arena, we also hope Pride House Legacy can help change society as a whole as well.”
Gay marriage is illegal in Japan and although about two dozen cities, towns and wards issue same-sex partnership certificates, they lack legal standing and prejudice persists.
Fumino Sugiyama, a transgender man and former fencer for the Japanese national team, said little had changed in 15 years since retiring from professional sport.
“Even now looking around, there are few LGBTQ athletes that live their lives openly and that is the reality here in Japan,” Sugiyama told a news briefing to launch Pride House Tokyo.
A gay New York City councilman and U.S. congressional candidate is calling on an NYPD union leader to step down after a tweet sent from the union’s official Twitter account called the councilman “a first class whore.”
The now-deleted tweet is credited to Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, a union representing approximately 13,000 active and retired police sergeants, and was directed at Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat running for Congress in November.
“He we go America this is what a first class whore looks like RITCHIE TORRES,” said the tweet, typos untouched, which was originally posted on Sept. 4. “Passes laws to defund police, supports criminals, & now because he’s running for office he blames the police to protect what he voted for. Remember Little Ritchie? Meet LYING RITCHIE.”
In a since-deleted post, the official Twitter account of the NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association refers to openly gay congressional candidate Ritchie Torres as a “first class whore.”@SBANYPD
That social media message is just part of an ongoing war of words between Torres — who has called the sergeants union “a bona fide hate group masquerading as a union” — and the union, which has accused Torres of supporting anti-police violence.
The deleted tweet included a video of Torres criticizing the NYPD for making fewer gun arrests and solving fewer gun-related cases as the number of summertime shootings doubled in 2020 compared to last year. In the video, Torres calls for an investigation into whether the NYPD initiated a “work slowdown” and, if so, to what extent the slowdown has “driven the growth of violence in New York City.”
“Calling a black NFL player a ‘wild animal.’ Calling a Latina Health Commissioner a ‘bitch.’ Calling an openly LGBTQ Afro-Latino a first-class whore.’ There is NOTHING benevolent about the bigotry of the @SBANYPD. Ed Mullins must resign,” Torres wrote.
Torres’ message referred to a tweet last September by the sergeants’ union calling a Black NFL player a “wild animal” for allegedly punching a police officer, and a tweet from earlier this year calling a female health official a “bitch” after she said she had told a police official, “I don’t give two rats’ asses about your cops” in response to a request for face masks (she since apologized for the remark).
On Tuesday, Mullins issued a response to the call for him to step down, saying that he’d “never resign” and that his comments about Torres “had nothing to do with his race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.”
A Miami-Dade County jail is facing potential legal action after two transgender women said they were mistreated and humiliated at the jail following their arrests at a Black Lives Matter rally.
“Initially I think we can all say it was a very inspiring experience,” Viola, one of the arrested women, said of the rally. “Even through the rain, we were chanting, screaming our lungs out.”
But that empowering experience escalated into something more humiliating and degrading, according to Viola and Gabriela Amaya Cruz, a trans woman who was arrested alongside Viola. The women said officers started using excessive force and alleged Viola was pushed to the ground and tackled by two officers. Dramatic video shows the moment things took at turn at the protest.
More than a dozen people were arrested and all were transported to Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center where the women alleged things got worse.
“They had no idea to where to place me,” Cruz said. “And when they said my legal name, I had to raise my hand, obviously, because it was me. And that’s when it started to get like, ‘That’s not a woman, that’s a man,’ and that’s when things got very transphobic.”
A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department released a statement to NBC Miami saying, in part, that the department is “committed to ensuring that all inmates in our custody including transgender persons are treated appropriately throughout our intake, classification and housing placement process.”
