The High Court of Uganda awarded damages of UGX 5,000,000 (about US$1,340) to 20 homeless gay, bisexual, and transgender people who had been arbitrarily detained and held without access to their lawyers.
Their arrests had occurred in response to complaints about their sexual identities.
On June 15, the court ruled that the prison system’s refusal to allow the 20 people access to counsel violated their rights to a fair hearing and to liberty. The 20 people, who were residents of the Children of the Sun Foundation (COSF) shelter, had been detained for over 6 weeks without access to lawyers.
Human Rights Watch reported on the arrests and, on May 11, sent the director of public prosecutions, Jane Abodo, an open letter calling for dismissal of the charges. Abodo, in acknowledging receipt of the letter, pledged to work to rectify the situation that Human Rights Watch had highlighted. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions did withdraw the charges, and on May 18, the Nsangi Magistrate’s Court ordered the release of the 20 detainees who had been taken from the shelter.
The 13 gay men, 4 transgender women, and 3 bisexual men were arrested on March 29, when the mayor of Nsangi led a raid on a shelter for homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in response to neighbors’ complaints about the residents’ gender expression. Police first searched the shelter for evidence of homosexual activity, which is punishable by up to life in prison in Uganda. During the search, police confiscated HIV medication, self-testing kits, and condoms. Police then charged the residents with “a negligent act likely to spread infection of disease” as well as “disobedience of lawful orders.”
The “COSF-20,” as the 20 were nicknamed, were represented by lawyers from the Kampala-based legal aid group Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF). HRAPF said some of the COSF-20 suffered torture, ill-treatment, and possible exposure to Covid-19 while detained. HRAPF has filed a complaint with the commissioner general of Uganda’s prison system about one prison officer who allegedly personally participated in or oversaw the beating and burning of some of the COSF-20 – abuses that were based on their perceived sexual orientation and gender identity.
The arrests echoed an October 2019 raid on another LGBT shelter in the area, when police arrested 16 people who had been attacked by a mob. After detaining the LGBT people, police subjected them to forced anal examinations. The charges against those victims were eventually dropped as well.
Our research shows that the Covid-19 crisis has exposed and exacerbated the inequality, violence, and abuse LGBT people face on a regular basis. Human Rights Watch remains committed to supporting HRAPF in its quest for justice for LGBT victims of human rights violations in Uganda and to investigating, exposing, and changing the draconian laws that are used as grounds for mistreatment towards LGBT people.
The number of openly LGBTQ elected officials in the United States has more than doubled in the past four years — and those ranks could soon grow, thanks to a record field of LGBTQ candidates this year, according to new data from an advocacy and research group.
The LGBTQ Victory Institute’s Out For America report, released Thursday, tallies 843 openly LGBTQ elected officials across all levels of government at present, up from 417 in June 2016. The institute says a record 850 LGBTQ people are running for office this year, including several candidates with strong chances of entering Congress.
Yet the institute’s president, former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, says that despite significant progress, LGBTQ people “continue to be severely underrepresented in every state and at every level of government.”
She said LGBTQ people make up about 4.5% of the U.S. adult population, yet hold only 0.17% of the more than 510,000 elected positions in the U.S., ranging from Congress and state legislatures to city councils and school boards. To achieve proportionate representation, Parker said, LGBTQ people would need to win more than 22,500 additional positions.
The Victory Institute data reveals a striking partisan divide. As of 2018, it counted 438 LGBTQ elected officials affiliated with the Democratic Party and only 16 Republicans. Among the LGBTQ candidates with solid chances of winning in November are several Democratic congressional contenders.
One is Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force veteran who nearly beat Republican incumbent Will Hurd in a southwest Texas district two years ago, and now is viewed as an even stronger candidate in the mostly Hispanic district because of Hurd’s retirement.
Jones, in a telephone interview, said health care is the dominant issue on the minds of many of the district’s voters, but on the campaign trial she frequently shares her thoughts on the need for equality for LGBTQ people.
Gina Ortiz Jones, the Democratic nominee for a House seat in West Texas, poses for a photo, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in San Antonio, Texas.
When she went to college on an Air Force ROTC scholarship and later served in Iraq as an intelligence officer, the now-defunct Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was in effect — obligating gay and lesbian service members to be secretive about their sexual orientation.
“If they found out I was gay, I would have lost my scholarship,” she said. “I bring my entire self to this race — people want to get a sense of the life that you’ve lived.”Subscribe to the Politics email.From Washington to the campaign trail, get the latest politics news.
In New York state, a gay, Black attorney, Mondaire Jones, was this week declared winner of the Democratic primary for a congressional seat opening up in New York City’s northern suburbs. It’s an overwhelmingly Democratic district, so Jones has a strong chance of becoming a history-maker in Congress — it’s never had an openly LGBTQ Black member.
Jones could have company in breaking that barrier. Gay New York City Councilman Ritchie Torres, who is Afro-Latino, also has a good chance of winning a congressional seat in the Bronx.
“Growing up poor, Black, and gay, I never imagined someone like me could run for Congress, let alone win,” Jones said in his primary victory statement.
Mondaire Jones, left, winner of the Democratic primary for the 17th Congressional District, addresses a Black Lives Matter rally near a statue of Martin Luther King Jr., Wednesday, July 15, 2020, outside the Westchester County courthouse in White Plains, N.Y.
Among other LGBTQ congressional candidates — all Democrats — are Beth Doglio in Washington state, Pat Hackett in Indiana, Alex Morse in Massachusetts, and Georgette Gómez in California.
Gómez is currently president of the city council in San Diego, where a gay state legislator, Todd Gloria, is a leading contender in the race to become mayor.
The Victory Institute says the number of LGBTQ Black people and Hispanic people holding elected positions has doubled in the past three years — from 92 to 184.
During that same time period, the number of transgender elected officials rose from six to 26. In Delaware, Democratic candidate Sarah McBride is campaigning this year to become the first openly transgender person elected to a state senate anywhere in the U.S.
Parker said LGBTQ elected officials have been leaders on a wide range of issues, including affordable housing, health care, immigration and gun control, as well as influencing debate on LGBTQ rights.
“When LGBTQ elected officials are in the halls of power, they change the hearts and minds of their lawmaker colleagues, defeat anti-LGBTQ bills and inspire more inclusive legislation,” she said.
A gay man from Massachusetts has recounted the terrifying moment he was punched by a complete stranger on his own front lawn for flying a Pride flag.
The incident occurred at the end of June when Tom Anderson and his husband Jacob put a Pride flag up outside their home, Boston25Newsreports.
The Taunton residents had the flag up for just an hour when a man driving past stopped, got out of the car and attacked Tom.
The attacker swore at him, called him a name and punched him in the face before getting back into his car and driving away.
The Massachusetts gay man was shocked when he was punched for putting up a Pride flag.
“I was kind of in a state of disbelief, like really, I’m in my own yard,” Tom told the local news station.
The gay man was left without his two front teeth and in need of stitches after the incident.
I was kind of in a state of disbelief, like really, I’m in my own yard.
Jacob, who witnessed the attack, said its as “definitely a hate crime just based on the words he used”.
The couple contacted police and filed a report, but the man has not yet been found. They are hoping police will be able to track down the assailant.
“I’m more worried about him getting away with it and thinking, ‘Oh this is OK to do,’” Tom said.
The couple has received gifts from friends and strangers since the incident.
The couple have been heartbroken since the attack, but the local community has rallied around them in an effort to show them that they are loved and accepted.
Tom and Jacob have received gifts from friends and strangers, with somebody even gifting them a home security system.
They originally hung the Pride flag outside their home as it was approaching the end of Pride Month – but the attack has inspired them to keep it up even longer.
“I want to just keep it up all year long now,” Tom said.
He added: “It’s not just gay people, it’s so many different people are just targeted because of who you are.”
Local police have said they are investigating the incident but the attacker has not yet been found.
Two in 5 LGBTQ youth in the United States have “seriously considered” suicide in the past year, a sobering survey released Wednesday said, showing what one expert called the “devastating mental health consequences” of society’s failure to create a safer and more affirming environment for America’s queer youth.
The 2020 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth crisis intervention and suicide prevention organization, paints a stark picture of pervasive mental distress among America’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth, with a majority reporting symptoms consistent with generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.
The survey, the largest of its kind, polled 40,000 LGBTQ people between ages 13 and 24 and found that 68 percent of the respondents reported symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, 55 percent reported symptoms of major depressive disorder and 48 percent reported engaging in self-harm. In addition, 40 percent say they have “seriously considered” attempting suicide in the past year.
In a clinical mental health setting, survey responses like these would lead to follow-up screenings, according to Amy Green, the study lead and director of research at The Trevor Project.
“Our physicians, pediatricians and mental health providers need to be screening youth,” she said, urging professionals to take a closer look at sexuality and gender issues in youth mental health settings.
Dr. Jack Turban, a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he researches the mental health of transgender youth, said the findings “highlight that our society has a long way to go to create a safer and more affirming environment for LGBTQ youth.”
“We once again see the devastating mental health consequences of our failures,” he said in an email.
As the survey’s own data show, many LGBTQ youth are not getting screened for the mental health issues they report. About half of the respondents say they want but could not get mental health care in the past year, with affordability the “strongest barrier to receiving mental health care.”
The risks associated with unmet mental health care needs are stark. Overall, suicide is the second leading cause of death for American adolescents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and LGBTQ youth are at a higher risk of suicide than straight and cisgender youth. Fifteen percent of the respondents attempted suicide in the past year, the survey found.
“If we take a step back and look at minority stress model, that says that experiences of rejection, discrimination and victimization are the primary causal mechanisms that cause that ideation,” Green said, adding that it’s not who they are, “but how they are treated.”
In the survey, LGBTQ youth who reported facing greater rejection, violence and discrimination also reported higher rates of suicide attempts.
For transgender and nonbinary youth, having their identity and pronouns respected by “all or most” people was associated with a greatly reduced risk of a suicide attempt.
Even so, respect is still rare: Just 20 percent of trans and nonbinary youth said their gender identity is respected by “all or most” people in their lives.
LGBTQ youth in the survey identified with more than 100 different combinations of terms to describe their gender identity.The Trevor Project
Turban said rejection “takes an insidious toll and plants the seed for mental health problems.”
“We can’t underestimate the broad adverse health effects caused by societal discrimination against LGBTQ people, and youth in particular,” he said. “Things like rejection from family and conversion therapy lead to a range of adverse mental health problems by telling these young people that something they can’t change about themselves makes them ‘bad’ or ‘wrong.’”
Green said understanding that rejection can lead to worse mental health outcomes can also illuminate a path forward
While many LGBTQ youth face discrimination, the vast majority (86 percent) reported having a rock — at least one person who strongly supports them as an LGBTQ person — and those who have a rock also report lower rates of suicide attempts overall.
“The simple act of acceptance and letting kids express their identity can be incredibly powerful,” Green said.
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 the TrevorLifeline now at 1-866-488-7386.
Six transgender people have been stopped by security officials in Panama in recent weeks for allegedly violating Covid-19 curfew rules based on gender, even though the government had promised to resolve the problem, Human Rights Watch said today. The government needs to take more decisive steps to prevent the continuing discriminatory impacts of its gender-based quarantine or scrap the measure altogether.
The quarantine schedule, implemented by the Health Ministry on April 1, 2020, requires women and men to remain at home on alternate days. From the first day of these measures, trans people – who have a gender identity or expression that may not match the “female” or “male” sex marker on their identification document – faced discrimination.
“The Ministry of Public Security took an important step when it acknowledged discrimination against transgender people, but transgender people are still experiencing discrimination,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “To effectively address this problem, Panama needs to either explicitly authorize transgender people to comply with the quarantine in accordance with their gender identity or expression or scrap gender as a basis for quarantine measures.”
On May 11, the Public Security Ministry issued a statement announcing that it had “spoken with the security sector to prevent any type of discrimination against the LGBTI population” in carrying out the Covid-19-related restrictions. The announcement followed reporting, including by Human Rights Watch, that police and private security guards had been singling out transgender people for profiling, arresting them or preventing them from buying essential items.
But the ministry has yet to issue any guidance as to how trans people are expected to comply with the gendered quarantine measures. And since this statement, Human Rights Watch has documented six more incidents of discrimination, including one arrest. Other trans people said they avoided leaving their homes for fear of arrest or humiliation.
Between June 1 and June 7, Panama replaced its gender-based quarantine measures with a curfew from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. However, starting June 8, Panama reinstated the gendered quarantine in the provinces of Panama and West Panama, the country’s most populous, citing a rising number of Covid-19 cases.
Panama is not unique in setting gender-based quarantine measures but it is a rare approach, raising questions of whether it is necessary and proportionate, in addition to concerns about its discriminatory impact. For example, in Peru, similar measures were scrapped after just eight days. In Colombia, law enforcement officers in the capital, Bogota, were instructed to respect gender identity and did not demand an ID to enforce compliance. Bogota scrapped its gendered quarantine starting on May 11.
In four of the six new incidents that Human Rights Watch documented, police and private security agents discriminated against trans people when they left their homes for essential needs on days that corresponded to the sex marker on their national identification card. These people were complying with the rules established by the Health Ministry, but police or security agents believed they were out on the wrong day and targeted them due to their gender expression. In two other cases, trans people faced discrimination – and in one case, arrest – when they left home for essential needs on days that corresponded to their gender identity or expression.
International human rights law recognizes that governments may be legally justified in restricting some rights, including freedom of movement, in the context of serious public health threats and public emergencies, like Covid-19. However, law enforcement agents and private entities may not discriminate against individuals on the basis of their gender identity or expression when enforcing emergency measures. Discrimination is particularly harmful when it keeps transgender people from seeking medical help or acquiring life-sustaining necessities like food and medicine, Human Rights Watch said.
The Panamanian government should establish clear guidance authorizing residents to comply with the gender-based quarantine in accordance with their gender identity or expression, Human Rights Watch said. Currently, for the majority of transgender people who go out based on the sex marker on their identification, their gender expression is often different from their sex marker, making them vulnerable to profiling. Panama should also issue a directive for law enforcement agents reiterating the obligation to respect Panamanians’ gender identity and expression, and issue warnings along the same lines for private entities like supermarkets and their security agents.
“Many transgender people in Panama are trying to cooperate with the government in this time of public health crisis,” Vivanco said. “The government of Panama should meaningfully respond to their realities and protect their rights.”
For details about the new incidents of discrimination, please see below.
New Cases of Discriminatory Enforcement of Covid-19 Rules
Since May 11, Human Rights Watch documented six incidents of discrimination against transgender people in Panama. Human Rights Watch also spoke again with four people who had similar experiences earlier. All four said they had been afraid to leave their homes.
Discrimination When Circulating in Accordance with the Identification Document Sex Marker
During the week of June 8, on a day designated for men, Pamela, a trans woman, and her male partner went to a supermarket in the Calidonia neighborhood of Panama City to use a government-issued food voucher. A security agent told Pamela that she could not enter. After Pamela explained that she was a trans woman and showed her male identification card, she said that the security agent still did not let her in because she was wearing feminine clothes. Pamela said, “I was extremely angry, and my partner had to enter the supermarket to shop. I had to stay outside. I have still not used the voucher in its entirety, and I am scared of what will happen if I go to use it.”
Before the Public Security Ministry’s May 11 statement, Pamela had been denied entry to the same supermarket on two occasions on days designated for men, once by a police officer and once by a private security agent. Both, Pamela said, told her that her body was “too feminine.”
On May 16, a day designated for men, a police officer stopped Manuela on her way to a market in the Santa Ana neighborhood of Panama City and asked for her letter of transit, allowing any person to be out for essential needs. Manuela said:
I told them that I was a trans woman and I showed them my identification that says “male,” but the police officer called her supervisor. She didn’t know what to do with me. When the supervisor arrived, she told me that people like me just want to go out any day we please.
When the supervisor looked at her identification, she realized that Manuela was also out at the wrong time of the day and reprimanded her for this. Manuela was released when a third officer arrived and urged the first officer and the supervisor to let her go with a warning.
On June 13, Adriana, a 34-year-old trans woman, tried to shop at a supermarket in the Villa Zaita neighborhood of Panama City. A private security agent questioned her but let her in after seeing her identification. However, when Adriana was leaving, the security agent was speaking with a police officer. Adriana said:
The police officer looked at me and questioned in a rude manner whether I was a man or not. I did not want any trouble or to get arrested, so I didn’t say anything and left. It’s better to stay quiet in these situations because we trans women are always the ones who end up harmed.
Adriana had an earlier experience of discrimination. On April 9, while she was waiting to enter a bank on a day designated for men, a private security agent told her that she was “dressed inappropriately.” She had to speak with another security agent, an employee, and a manager before being allowed to complete her transaction.
On May 29, a day designated for women, Linx, a 21-year-old trans man, went to a supermarket in the Punta Pacífica district of Panama City with his grandmother. Linx’s grandmother stayed in the car, while Linx lined up to enter the supermarket. A private security agent questioned him about his gender identity for several minutes, allowing other customers to bypass him in the line, before allowing him in. Linx said, “I felt powerless and was speechless. I just wanted to buy ice cream at the supermarket for my family and had to face this.”
Arrest and Discrimination When Circulating in Accordance with One’s Gender Identity
On June 10, a day designated for women, Katherine, a 24-year-old transgender woman from West Panama Province, was on her way to a medical appointment for treatment of a kidney condition. Two police officers stopped her on the street, apparently because they did not think she looked like a woman. Katherine showed the officers a paper with her appointment, but the officers called a patrol, handcuffed her, and took her to a police substation in Burunga.
“In the substation, there were seven officers and they were laughing at me,” she said. “I was wearing make-up and they were mocking that. They put me in a cell by myself.” She was released about an hour and half later, only after a higher-ranking official listened to her story and ordered her release. “I ran to the hospital to make the appointment even though I was late and luckily I could still see the doctor,” Katherine said.
In mid-May, “Luis,” a 22-year-old trans man, went with his father to a supermarket in the Condado del Rey neighborhood in Panama City. The supermarket’s private security agent checked his identification. Luis said, “He looked at me in a strange manner, shifting his gaze from my identification to me…. It was very uncomfortable.” The agent did not let Luis enter the supermarket and Luis stayed in the car while his father shopped.
Fear of Leaving Home, Including for Essential Goods or Services
Human Rights Watch also spoke again in June with four trans people Human Rights Watch had interviewed in April from the provinces of Panama and West Panama. All said they avoid going out for fear of another incident of discrimination:
Miranda, a transgender woman in Panama Province who faced discrimination in April when attempting to enter a supermarket on a day designated for men, reported that she has not left her home for fear of discrimination. She received a food basket from the community-organized Trans Solidarity Network and is trying to make it last as long as possible.
Mónica, a transgender woman who was arrested and fined in April when she attempted to enter a supermarket on a day designated for men, said that she has tried not to leave home for fear of another arrest. Her friends and family do her shopping for her. Mónica said, “I feel like a prisoner. It’s unjust. I cannot risk going out again and having to pay a fine. I don’t have the money to give the government.”
“Sofía,” a transgender woman who was denied entry into a supermarket in April on a day designated for men, said, “I am scared every time I leave my home.” She said that even though she has a letter of transit from her workplace, she fears any contact with the police and purposefully does not leave her vehicle if she sees them. She often pays for grocery delivery services instead of risking discrimination at the supermarket.
Li, a transgender man from Panama Province who was denied entry to a supermarket in April on a day designated for women, said, “I am taking it one day at a time, it’s a stressful situation and I try not to leave my home because there are situations where people don’t understand the issue.” Li pays for grocery delivery services instead of risking discrimination at the supermarket.
All hopes of same-sex marriage in Russia have been crushed as lawmakers push forward with a package of constitutional amendments that could prolong Putin’s power until he’s 84.
Russia does not currently register same-sex marriages, but until now it had recognised marriages registered abroad as long as they weren’t between close relatives.
That’s set to change as a draft bill submitted by seven senators late on Tuesday (14 July) will amend Russia’s Family Code and legally ban same-sex marriage and adoptions, including those by transgender people.
“The bill ends the practice of marriage between persons of the same sex, including those who changed genders,” its co-author, senator Yelena Mizulina, told Interfax.
The text of the bill states that it must be adopted “due to changes in public life, including the public demand to preserve traditional family values and strengthen and protect family institutions”.
It continues: “It is no secret that the modern family faces many challenges that threaten its well-being and integrity. The package of draft laws is… aimed at protecting against the threat of destruction, especially of families with minor children and thereby strengthening it.”
The move comes two weeks after a referendum in which voters overwhelmingly approved a set of constitutional amendments that included a provision defining marriage solely as a “union between a man and a woman”.
But foreign commentators have noted that the vote was nothing more than an “elaborate spectacle” of public affirmation as Putin already had the necessary approval from parliament, regional governments, and the courts.
In fact, not only had the constitutional amendments already been enacted, the newly-amended constitution had actually been printed and sent to bookstores for sale – before the vote even happened.
‘President for life’ Putin spells disaster for LGBT+ people in Russia.
Putin has held power over Russia in various forms since 1999, commanding an appalling wave of anti-LGBT+ persecution over the course of his extended presidency.
In 2012, the Moscow city government ordered that Pride parades be banned for the next 100 years. The following year, the parliament unanimously passed a law forbidding “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships” among minors.
The controversial law bans any positive depiction of LGBT+ people and anyone found guilty of sharing such information with minors can be sentenced to heavy fines or up to 15 years in prison.
Perhaps the most horrifying example of LGBT+ persecution is Chechnya’s ‘gay purge’ which has seen LGBT+ people imprisoned, beaten, tortured and killed in gay concentration camps.
Local authorities deny the crackdown ever happened – “We don’t have any gays,” said Chechen autocrat leader Ramzan Kadyrov – despite countless refugee reports detailing the violent abuses they have suffered.
Unsurprisingly, Kadyrov has been among the strongest supporters of Putin’s permanent power grab.
“I always said we should have a president-for-life,” the Guardianreported him saying on Tuesday. “Who can replace him? There’s no political leader of international standing. We should be proud of this.”
Retired Olympic swimmer Martha McCabe has come out as a lesbian, saying she hopes her own visibility will encourage other sports stars to do the same.
The Canadian Pan Am Games medallist specialised in the 200-metre breaststroke and placed fifth in the London 2012 Olympics, but it wasn’t until after she stopped competing that she began to explore her sexuality.
In her eight years on Canada’s national team McCabe estimates she had at least ten LGBT+ teammates. She believes that knowing more out sportswomen could have helped her understand her identity earlier on.
“I think because I didn’t see it in people I looked up to, the thought never crossed my mind. I didn’t question the norms society had built around me because I didn’t even realise there was something to question,” she told CBC.
McCabe now hopes to serve as a role model for increased LGBT+ representation in swimming, specifically on the women’s side, where she says it is severely lacking.
“I want to be an example to young female swimmers and help ones who are struggling with this, so they can see it’s normal,” she said.
Sex education may be starting too late to help young gay men, according to new research.
A study from Rutgers University, published in the Journal of Sex Research, highlights a disparity between young gay men and the straight population when it comes to the age at which people first engage in sexual behaviours.
Queer men become sexually active at an earlier age, researchers find.
Based on a sample of 600 young men who have sex with men, researchers found that on average, same-sex sexual encounters first happen at 14.5 years of age – before straight teens are typically sexual active. Queer men have their first experiences of penetrative sex at age 16 on average – one year earlier than their straight peers.
The researchers wrote: “We found that the mean age of same-sex sexual debut was between 14 and 15 years old, with mutual masturbation occurring earliest on average among this sample, followed by oral sex performed and received occurring at approximately age 15.
“Notably, we found that the debut of same-sex anal intercourse was approximately age 16, which is younger than the national mean of 17 for vaginal intercourse among heterosexual men in the United States.”
Queer Black and Hispanic men are also more likely to report an earlier age for the start of sexual activity.
Men who have sex with men are sexually active from an earlier age on average
The study, which includes only “self-identified consensual behaviours,” also found that approximately 19 per cent of young men who have sex with men indicated that their first sexual intercourse before age 13 – more than double the upper range of national estimates.
Caleb LoSchiavo, doctoral student at the Rutgers School of Public Health, said: “As many schools are forced to redesign their classrooms and curricula to accommodate socially distanced or remote learning for COVID-19, this may be the perfect time to consider implementing comprehensive sex education programming to provide age-appropriate sexual health education for people of all genders and sexual orientations.”
The research also concludes that providers working with young gay men of all ages should consider beginning routine testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases at earlier ages than previously indicated, particularly among youth of colour.
Perry N Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, said: “Our results suggest that health care providers can play an active role in mitigating sexual and health behaviours that are associated with the early onset of same-sex sexual behaviours; to date the medical profession is ill equipped to address the needs of LGBT+ people.”
President of Poland Andrzej Duda has narrowly secured re-election, after an ugly election campaign that saw him resort to homophobic dog whistles.
According to preliminary results from Sunday’s run-off vote, the ultra-conservative Duda received 10,394,843 votes (51.22 per cent), giving him a wafer-thin margin of victory over the liberal candidate Rafal Trzaskowski, who received 9,901,371 votes (48.78 per cent).
The result suggests that the Duda’s election campaign tactic of repeatedly targeting LGBT+ people in an effort to tap into rising homophobic sentiment appears to have paid off.
President Andrzej Duda secures narrow victory after tapping into public homophobia.
Duda, an ultra-conservative who was backed by the ruling Law and Justice Party, has sought to bolster support for his campaign by attacking same-sex marriage, adoption and gay “ideology”.
In a “family charter” published ahead of the election, Duda pledged to “prohibit the propagation of this ideology” in public institutions and “defend the institution of marriage” as defined as a “relationship between a women and a man”.
With days to go until the run-off vote, Duda also proposed an amendment to Poland’s constitution that would ban same-sex couples from adopting children. He said: “I am convinced that, thanks to this, children’s safety and concern for the good of children will be ensured to a much greater extent.”
President of Poland, Andrzej Duda seen after voting. (Filip Radwanski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
LGBT+ groups suggested that Duda was simply trying to ride back into power on the coat tails of a culture war, aping the tactics of far-right populists who have leveraged bigotry against other minorities elsewhere.
While he claimed an overall victory, exit polling reveals that Trzaskowski maintained a strong lead with younger voters, with Duda only clinching victory due to his support among the 50-59 and 60+ demographics.
LGBT groups make clear: ‘Regardless of the result, there is a place for you.’
Ahead of the final result, Poland’s Campaign Against Homophobia assured LGBT+ people in the country: “Do remember that regardless of the result of the elections, you are important, there is a place for LGBT people!”
The group also shared a video from the actor Mateusz Janicki, which assured LGBT+ voters: “Remember, this is also your country, you have a place here, you have the right to fight for your happiness, you have the right to fight for your dreams. You are great, you are brave.”
Ahead of the vote, LGBT+ group Lambda Warszawa appealed “to all members of our group, to our families, allies and supporters for mass participation in the presidential election”.
The group said: “In view of the unprecedented hatred campaign that has been going on for several weeks against our community; in view of the tragic news about the suicides of people who could not stand the hate and persecution – we turn to everyone to ensure that the words ‘you are not human’ will never flow from the Presidential Palace!”
Taking aim at LGBT+ people is not a new tactic, with the Law and Justice Party successfully converting homophobic sentiment into political capital before – contributing to a surge in public homophobia and nationalist rhetoric over the past few years.
The European Parliament passed a resolution that strongly condemned the concept of LGBT-free zones in December, noting that they are “part of a broader context of attacks against the LGBT+ community in Poland, which include growing hate speech by public and elected officials and public media, as well as attacks and bans on Pride marches”.
Ever since Perriviia “Black Butterfly” Brown moved into her Memphis, Tennessee, apartment in 2015, she has been afraid to sit on her front porch. A Black transgender woman who is partially blind, Brown said she doesn’t feel safe in her neighborhood. She said she often deals with transphobic abuse when she ventures to the nearby grocery store.
“I just stay in the house and mind my business,” Brown, 46, told NBC News. “If I have someone come over, they just have to come over on the inside. I would love to entertain on the outside, but it’s … so violent out here, and you don’t know who likes you and who don’t like you, and you don’t know if they got a hatred against trans women.”
Despite her fear, Brown considers herself lucky to have a home. A 2018 Human Rights Campaign report noted that 41 percent of Black transgender respondents reported experiencing homelessness at some point in their lives, a rate five time higher than the general U.S. population.
“If you are experiencing the intersection of racism and transphobia that leads to social and economic marginalization without access to some kind of permanent housing support, it’s going to be very difficult to fight to try and access that stability that a lot of people in our country take for granted.”
DYLAN WAGUESPACK
But thanks to a recent campaign that has raised over $250,000 to build a small neighborhood of 20 “tiny homes” for Black trans women and nonbinary people in the Memphis area, Brown may soon own her own home — one with a porch where she can sit outside unafraid.
“Tiny homes” are a rising trend made popular with reality TV shows like HGTV’s “Tiny House Hunters.” Seen by some as a path to affordable, minimalist living, tiny homes are pre-made studio structures, sometimes converted from sheds, that cost a fraction of the price of a traditional home.
The project is the brainchild of Memphis-based My Sistah’s House, which helps Black transgender women and nonbinary people access safe housing. The small nonprofit also helps individuals with bail assistance and the legal processes around transitioning.
In June, the group launched a GoFundMe page and quickly exceeded its $200,000 goal in a matter of weeks, according to My Sistah’s House cofounder Kayla Gore.
Since its founding in 2017, My Sistah’s House has provided temporary shelter to those in the Memphis area but has struggled to help them access permanent housing, Gore said. Many of the organization’s clients have been turned away from homeless shelters due to their transgender identity, she said, adding that long-term housing projects are necessary to lift the Black trans community out of an endless cycle of homelessness and poverty.
“It’s been super overwhelming to see the support that’s coming in so fast and so rapidly,” Gore said. She hopes the project will serve as a model for other advocacy organizations that want to help trans people own their own homes.
Transgender homeownership
Homeownership is low among transgender people: The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, which included interviews with nearly 28,000 trans individuals across the U.S., found 16 percent of transgender respondents reported owning their homes, compared to 63 percent of the general public at the time.
My Sistah’s House is among a handful of trans-led, grassroots groups that are working to create long-term housing solutions for Black trans women and nonbinary people in the South.
Trans United Leading Intersectional Progress, or TULIP, is a nonprofit collective creating housing solutions for trans and gender-nonconforming people in Louisiana.House of Tulip
In Atlanta, a campaign called the Homeless Black Trans Women Fund, organized by trans activist Jesse Pratt López, has so far raised over $2.7 million of its $3 million goal to create secure, long-term housing for Black transgender women. In Louisiana, Trans United Leading Intersectional Progress, or TULIP, is more than halfway to its goal of raising $400,000 to purchase and restore a six-bedroom house (to be named “House of Tulip”) that will provide a pathway to home ownership for trans and gender-nonconforming people in New Orleans.
“Housing really is this first thing that is such a necessity for people to be able to access all of these other things,” according to Dylan Waguespack, co-founder of TULIP and public policy director for True Colors United. “If you are experiencing the intersection of racism and transphobia that leads to social and economic marginalization without access to some kind of permanent housing support, it’s going to be very difficult to fight to try and access that stability that a lot of people in our country take for granted.”
‘There’s so many roadblocks’
The low rate of homeownership and high rate of homelessness for transgender Americans are connected to the disproportionate discrimination, unemployment and incarceration they face, which can all cascade into a cycle of poverty, according to advocates.
Rebeckah Hill, a Memphis-based rapper, is familiar with this cycle of poverty. A Black trans woman who has experienced homelessness on and off since her early 20s, she has been unable to get her name and gender updated on her government ID, find a stable job and secure housing, or even build the credit necessary to qualify for her own home.
“I can’t get into an apartment now,” she said. “I’m 31 years old. I’ve never had my own place to stay.”
Black trans people have an unemployment rate more than three times that of the general population, and half of these individuals reported “feeling forced to participate in underground economy for survival,” according to a 2018 American Psychological Association report. When people turn to the “underground economy,” which includes sex work and drug sales, they then risk going to jail or prison, and a criminal record is often another barrier to obtaining long-term housing. According to the U.S. Transgender Survey, the rate of Black trans women who were incarcerated in the course of a year was 10 times the rate of the general public.
In May, Hill was incarcerated on a pending drug case. After a week in jail, she was bailed out by the Official Black Lives Matter Memphis Chapter and My Sistah’s House, which also helped her find a room in a temporary rental. Having a felony on her record, she said, has made it difficult for her to qualify for public housing and climb out of the cycle of poverty.
“There’s so many roadblocks,” Hill said. “It makes my head hurt.”
A landmark Supreme Court ruling issued last month found that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discriminationbased on sexual orientation and transgender identity. While the decision was welcome news to LGBTQ advocates, Gore noted that many Black trans women still lack access to quality education and job training that will help them begin a decent-paying career that would in turn allow them to qualify for an apartment or mortgage.
“A big portion of the folks that we serve participate in survival sex or sex work, therefore, they don’t have verifiable income,” Gore said. “So that’s the reason that they can’t get housing or they’re underemployed, in a sense that they don’t necessarily have access to equitable jobs that will provide them an income that is enough to obtain stable housing.”
Currently, federal law does not explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity in private housing, and at least 25 states do not have state-level protections against such discrimination, according to Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. While an Obama-era rule protects transgender people from discrimination in federally funded housing, the Trump administration announced it intends to reverse this measure, which could result in trans women being assigned to men’s homeless shelters.
Trans women who cannot access stable housing often seek shelter in hotel rooms, according to Hill, who said hotel managers often turn them away “because we’re automatically assumed to be sex workers.”
Even when trans people meet the requirements to qualify for an apartment, they frequently report dealing with discrimination from housing providers, advocates say. According to the 2015 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, 19 percent of respondents reported being refused a home or apartment, and 11 percent reported being evicted due to their gender identity or gender expression. A 2017 Urban Institute study that relied on paired testing found that housing providers were less likely to tell transgender people about rentals. The study found that rental seekers in the Washington, D.C., metro area who told housing providers they were trans were less likely, on average, to be informed about available rentals than those who didn’t.
When Brown applied for her Memphis apartment five years ago, she said she presented as a man to avoid any potential discrimination.
“It made me feel nervous, it made me feel like I’m doing something wrong, and it made me feel like I was an outcast,” she said. “I had to play the role that they wanted me to play, the role to just give me a place to stay.”
Recent studies indicate that the lack of access to secure housing and employment often puts Black trans people at a dangerous crossroads where they are vulnerable to violence. Between January 2013 and July 2020, Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, has tracked at least 180 cases of trans and gender-nonconforming people being violently killed in the U.S., with trans Black women accounting for approximately 70 percent of the deaths.
The violence Black trans women endure is directly related to housing insecurity, Gore said, adding that the COVID-19 pandemicwill likely exacerbate the situation.
“That’s because we’re trying to maintain our housing, so we’re doing things that may be a little risky in order to survive and make sure that we do have housing,” she said.
Hill knows this violence firsthand. “I’ve been stabbed in my chest. … I have been shot. I have been through a lot,” she said.
At the end of June, Hill became homeless again after her landlord raised her rent. But through My Sistah’s House’s tiny-homes campaign, Hill hopes to soon have a house to call her own.
“I still have an opportunity to do what it is that I want to do,” said Hill, who hopes to build a career as a musician. “Stability right now would be overwhelming for me. I’m crying now, because it feels so good and sounds so good.”
Last year, the House of Representatives passed the Equality Act, a federal bill that would broadly modify existing civil rights legislation to ban discrimination against LGBTQ people in employment, housing, public accommodations, jury service, education, federal programs and credit, but the law has been held up in the Republican-controlled Senate.
In the absence of federal protections that would make it illegal for both private and federally funded housing providers to discriminate on the basis of gender identity, including homeless shelters, there is no universal safety net that protects Black trans people from the cycle of poverty, advocates say.
“We’ll never be able to eliminate discrimination; it will happen,” Waguespack said. “What we do need is recourse for people who experience it; we need access to justice for those folks, and we need federal, state and local dollars to be moving to folks who are actively working to make housing solutions available to communities that experience this kind of discrimination.”
‘We might have our own town’
My Sistah’s House is currently in negotiations to purchase a plot of land in the Memphis area, where the 20 tiny homes will be installed, according to Gore. The next step, she said, is to purchase the homes (at about $10,000 each) and work with a contractor to ensure they meet building codes. The group also plans to raise additional funds to complete the homes’ interiors and furnish them.
“If it’s successful, we might have our own town in a minute,” said Gore, who hopes to have the project complete by the end of 2020.
In the meantime, Brown imagines how her future tiny house will be adorned: pink and white siding with a black butterfly painted on the side, a rose bush and a swing where she can sit on her front porch with friends.
“Having my own key, just turning my own door into my own home,” Brown said of what she looks forward to the most, “and sitting outside on the porch enjoying the fresh air and the butterflies and just smelling fresh air and freshness and freedom that I can own my own home.”
