For Fabliha Anbar, 20, her LGBTQ identity is an important part of her social and academic life. She’s out to friends, on social media and at her progressive university, where she founded the South Asian Queer and Trans Collective. But last month, when her campus closed due to the global coronavirus pandemic, Anbar returned home — and back to the proverbial closet.
“Having to go home and act a certain way 24/7 is a means for survival,” said Anbar, who asked that the name of her university and hometown not be published. “That can be straining emotionally and extremely damaging.”
For the past six weeks, Anbar has been self-isolating in a small, two-bedroom house with her parents, whom she said she doesn’t feel safe coming out to.
Anbar’s situation is not unique. Since schools across the U.S. started to close in mid-March to help stem the spread of the coronavirus, LGBTQ advocates say a number of queer youth and young adults have lost crucial support systems and have been forced to self-isolate with unsupportive family members.
“They may have had to go back in the closet if they were out at school. If they had support from a GSA or an LGBTQ club or group at school, they don’t have that anymore,” said Ellen Kahn, senior director of programs and partnerships at the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights group.
Kahn said she’s particularly concerned about those “who are in overtly hostile environments,” saying, “It could put them at risk of physical or emotional abuse; it could force them out to the streets.”
‘Students might feel isolated’
Danushi Fernando, the director of LGBTQ and gender resources at Vassar College in New York, said a number of students with whom she works “voiced their concerns” about returning home when the campus announced it would close last month.
“We are super aware that there are people who are not able to go back to their homes because either they’re not safe, or students aren’t out to their families,” she said.
After discussing this situation with the university administration, Vassar opened up some dorms on a case-by-case basis to students who felt unsafe leaving.
But for some of those who did leave — thinking their departure would just be for an extended spring break — living back at their parents’ house has been uncomfortable or isolating.
“There are lots of times that students might feel isolated,” she said. “There are students who have reached out like, ‘Do you know of anyone in Idaho that I could connect with?’”
As for Anbar, she said she’s been hosting virtual programming and support groups over Zoom, joined by people from all over the world, for the South Asian Queer and Trans Collective. If she’s within earshot of her parents, she said she has to be careful.
“It does get kind of scary,” she said. “That’s why I make sure to be very careful about the words that I choose. I usually take advantage of the language barrier between me and my parents. I say things like ‘queer’ rather than ‘lesbian.’”
When speaking to her parents, she said she describes the South Asian Queer and Trans Collective, the organization she dedicates so much time to, as a “feminist collective,” which she said “isn’t entirely wrong.”
‘Stuck at home with abusers’
In the weeks following school closures, child abuse and neglect hotlines, like the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, reported an inundation of calls and texts from young people newly confined to unsafe environments.
“A lot of these young people are stuck at home with abusers,” Daphne Young, the organization’s chief communications officer, said. “College kids are coming home from school and have to re-enter the home with perpetrators.”
Young said LGBTQ youth and adolescents have consistently been among their callers.
She also noted that the financial strain caused by the pandemic has the potential to make bad environments even worse.
“Whatever was the stressor or the discord between the family, you now have compound trauma,” Young said.
Like Childhelp, The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people, reported a steep increase in the number of youth and young adults who have reached out to its 24/7 hotline.
The New York-based nonprofit published a white paper last month outlining the “serious implications” the COVID-19 crisis could have on the mental health of LGBTQ youth. The organization cited the physical distancing, economic strain and increased anxiety related to the pandemic as being among the most worrisome problems.
“LGBTQ young people … are already at risk of discrimination and isolation, which can impact their mental health,” Amit Paley, the organization’s CEO, said last month in an interview with MSNBC. “For a lot of LGBTQ young people, the main sources of support that they get are at their schools, at clubs, at community centers, at physical spaces that they no longer have access to. … Not being able to connect with some of those really important, positive influences in your life can be extremely challenging for LGBTQ youth right now.”
‘An opportunity’ for parents
Two thirds of LGBTQ youth hear their families make negative comments about LGBTQ people, and only 1 in 4 feel like they can be themselves at home, according to data from the Human Rights Campaign.
“If you’re that kid, whether you’re 6 or 12 or 18, that changes dramatically how you feel in your own skin, how you can thrive or not in your family,” Kahn said.
HIV transmission has dropped significantly with lockdown breaking the chain of new cases, a leading sexual health clinic has claimed.
56 Dean Street, a London-based sexual health clinic, is urging people to order free home test kits online in an effort to keep the number of new HIV cases down when the pandemic is over.
The clinic said HIV transmission has “plummeted” during coronavirus lockdown.
“Even COVID clouds have silver linings,” it wrote on its website.
“Fewer hook-ups since lockdown has resulted in a huge reduction of HIV and other STIs. The chain is broken.”
56 Dean Street says an increase in testing could help them ‘beat HIV’.
56 Dean Street said that an increase in testing now could help to “keep transmissions down and beat HIV”.
“We may never get this chance again,” the organisation continued, explaining that the coronavirus pandemic has presented a “once-in-a-generation opportunity in the fight against HIV”.
They said transmission of the virus has “dropped dramatically” in the last few weeks because “there are less people having sex in London”.
“What’s more, when someone first catches the virus, they are super infectious and more likely to pass on HIV than normal,” it continued.
“But because there aren’t many super infectious people around, this has reduced transmission even further.”
Transmission of the virus could remain low after the pandemic if testing is increased.
The clinic says if everyone gets tested during lockdown and knows their status, transmission could be kept at this low rate after the pandemic has come to a close.
Those who test positive during lockdown can start taking medication straight away, which if taken properly would make it impossible for them to pass it on to others through condomless sex.
A newly engaged couple, Stephanie Mayorga, 27, and Paige Escalera, 25, disappeared in mid-April under “suspicious” circumstances, the police in Wilmington, North Carolina, said Wednesday at a news conference.
Stephanie Mayorga (left) and Paige Escalera (right), have not been seen since April 15th.Wilmington, NC Police Department
Their roommate filed a missing persons report several days after the women were last seen on April 15.
Capt. Thomas Tillman said surveillance footage showed the couple leaving their Wilmington home and driving a gray 2013 Dodge Dart with two stickers on the back windshield and South Carolina plates.
Tillman described the disappearance as “suspicious” based on undisclosed information received in the past week.
He said detectives had spoken to family members, friends and coworkers of both missing women “in an attempt to gather information of where they might have gone and where they went missing.”
Tillman said the coronavirus pandemic is partly to blame for the more than two-week delay between the couple’s disappearance and the news conference.
“Life is not going on at the Wilmington Police Department as simply as it did before the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
In an interview with Oxygen, Stevie Jenkins, Escalera’s sister, said that Escalera and Mayorga had only recently met and had moved in together at the beginning of March.
Jenkins also said that close friends of her sister had been blocked from her social media over the last week or two. “It is normal for family to not hear from her, but not her closest friends,” Jenkins told Oxygen.
Here’s a Democratic campaign ad for you: show Trump speaking at a rally to a stadium full of people who gradually disappear and their cheers die away.
Weakness in a president is deadly.
The day after Donald Trump suggested injecting disinfectant and using ultraviolet light inside people’s bodies as treatments for COVID-19 during his daily improv routine in the White House briefing room, which resulted in a viral video of Dr. Deborah Birx struggling to compose herself, he walked it back and blamed the press.
“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen.” No you weren’t, clown. STFU.
Everyone from the Environmental Protection Agency to cleanser makers to song parodist Randy Rainbow urged people not to follow the president’s dangerous suggestion. Across the nation, the ridicule was as rampant as the warnings. Jokes about chewable Clorox tablets went around. During cocktails via Zoom with friends from Nellie’s Sports Bar, one couple drank what I am sure were not really “Lysoltinis.”
My first impulse after hearing Dr. Trump’s brainstorm was to say “Go right ahead,” but the thought of gullible parents poisoning their children stopped me short.
On April 24, a White House official threatened to summon the Secret Service when Washington Blade reporter Chris Johnson refused to switch seats in the briefing room with CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan’s questioning had displeased the Maximum Leader, so they ordered her back to Chris’s seat. Well sorry, but the White House Correspondents’ Association, not the Trump Administration, determines seating assignments. Kudos to Chris and Kaitlan for staying put.
Imagine the insecurity that would impel a president to blame and punish reporters for his own murderous ignorance. When members of the press corps refuse to be bullied or set against one another, they uphold their crucial role enshrined by our Founders in the First Amendment.
Trump’s lies, threats, and wishful thinking, his responsibility dodging and refusal to respect expertise, have already killed more Americans than the 58,220 who died in Vietnam. The question is whether that and the tanked economy will cost him reelection, and there the news is encouraging. Polls show he is in trouble, and his desperate flailing shows that he knows it. Republicans are afraid that his disastrous handling of the public health crisis will cost them the Senate as well as the White House.
Still, the election is six months away, and Trump’s mischief proceeds apace. A few examples:
The Conscience and Religious Freedom Division at the Department of Health and Human Services (which sounds like something George Orwell thought up to entertain himself during the Blitz) is going to let doctors refuse to treat LGBTQ patients for religious reasons. Never mind that there are far more biblical injunctions against everything Trump does than against queers.
Trump issued an executive order last week temporarily suspending the issuance of new green cards, though it carved out exceptions such as for essential workers—including, presumably, resort staff and Slovenian models. His invocation of health and jobs as justification is a thin veil for the racism that he and advisor Stephen Miller have fomented all along.
Trump’s decision to speak at West Point, prompted by Mike Pence’s Air Force Academy appearance, will require 1,000 graduating cadets to return to the military academy from the homes to which they scattered because of the pandemic. They will be tested for the virus, given masks, monitored, and segregated in the mess hall—all to serve as props for one insatiable ego.
We respond to a challenging time in various ways. Businesses adapt, fresh connections are improvised, new charities spring up. A few blocks from me, Metropolitan AME Church, like many other houses of worship, has gone enthusiastically virtual with a range of programs.
As for that confrontation in the briefing room, it is notable that the president’s aide backed down. Secret Service agents are not a dictator’s thugs, as he may discover if he refuses to leave the White House on January 20. For now, he will resort to any destructive act and tell any lie in his growing fury, while the reporters he slanders and abuses labor on. Let them be our inspiration.
A YouTuber has been forced to flee the country of Russia after she invited a gay man to be in one of her videos, and subsequently being convicted of violating Russia’s “gay propaganda” law.
25-year-old Victoria Pich has been producing entertainment videos since 2013, according to Codastory, and over that time has gained almost two million YouTube subscribers.
Wanting to cover more serious topics, in 2019 she started a series titled “Real Talk”.
It was inspired by the American YouTube channel HiHo Kids and its “Kids Meet” series which shows children meeting different kinds of people – for example someone living with HIV, a divorce lawyer or an ex-gang member – to encourage them to ask questions and develop tolerance.
Pich told Codastory: “The American show inspired us. We decided to make a similar program, just one set in Russian realities.”
One episode she produced featured a gay man, 21-year-old graphic designer Maksim Pankratov, fielding questions from children.
Pich said she was proud of the video, which quickly attracted more than a million views, and was careful that sex was never mentioned.
She added: “What did we do? We just asked a person about his life.”
However, the “Real Talk” episode featuring Pankratov was where Pich’s problems began.
An organisation claiming to promote “family values” reported the video to Roskomnadzor, a federal service responsible for media censorship. Although the service ruled that the episode did not break any laws, homophobic Russian lawmaker Pyotr Tolstoy appealed the decision.
Tolstoy described Pich’s YouTube show as “ethically unacceptable and immoral”, and his appeal led to severe consequences.
A case was opened against Pich for violating the “gay propaganda” law in Russia. President Vladimir Putin and his government banned “gay propaganda” in 2013, prohibiting the “promotion of nontraditional sexual relations to minors” and meaning that sharing information about LGBT+ people’s lives can earn a prison sentence.
But this wasn’t all. The state prosecutor’s investigative committee also accused Pich of sexual violence against children and began investigating whether she had violated Article 132 of Russia’s criminal code. The law is most often used in cases of paedophilia and child pornography.
Although Pich removed the entire series, the media jumped on the story. The Russian YouTuber was questioned by the police, as were the parents and children involved in the “Real Talk” series.
She began to realise that authorities were not going to back down, and realised she had only one option. She booked a one-way ticket to America.
Now living in California, and only just beginning to learn English, Pich said: “If I knew about the consequences, I never would have done this.”
She said that she now has sleepless nights, and as much as she misses home, she is terrified of returning to Russia. She added: “The case can be closed and it could be reopened just as easily. That’s what can happen in Russia.”
Pankratov, the gay man featured in the video, was recognised in the street and attacked, before receiving death threats. He is now seeking asylum in Europe.
A trans police officer in Utah is suing his former employer after alleged discrimination at work drove him to alcohol and suicidal thoughts.
Taylor Scruggs had worked for the Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake (UPD) for ten years without issue, but when he came out as trans in 2015 he started to experience problems.
In a lawsuit, Scruggs alleges that his co-workers began to make snide and hostile remarks, and that a “Men Only” sign was put on a previously unisex bathroom.
The former officer says he was also deprived of help from superiors, and was lumped with “lesser assignments and busy work”.
He was also reportedly barred from accessing transition-related care under the force’s health care policy — which permits “medically necessary hormone replacement therapy” and “medically necessary genital surgery” for cisgender people but “expressly excludes coverage of such treatments when prescribed for gender transition”.
The police officer says he was discriminated against (Mark Kolbe/Getty)
Speaking to The Salt Lake Tribune, Scruggs said: “I felt really alone, like I wasn’t being supported. I would go home and not feel feel that same, ‘Gosh, you can’t wait to get up and do it all over again tomorrow’ feeling.”
Scruggs explained that the hostile treatment drove him to a stint in rehab in July 2018 — after which he says he was punished for “sick leave abuse” and later demoted. Two months later, he called a suicide crisis hotline fearing that he was going to kill himself, venting about work. He says he was fired as a result of the call in November 2018.
Former police officer wants his job back and trans-inclusive training.
In his lawsuit, Scruggs is seeking his job back — as well as new policies and training to accommodate its transgender employees.
He said: “If I can help somebody else go through this process and it not be so complicated for them, then that’s what I hope to accomplish.”
The department has said it disputes Scruggs’ allegations, but has declined to comment publicly while preparing its response.
If you are in the UK and are having suicidal thoughts, suffering from anxiety or depression, or just want to talk, you can contact Samaritans on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. If you are in the US call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
Brooklyn’s last remaining lesbian bar, Ginger’s, sits on a busy avenue that cuts through the borough’s gentrified Park Slope neighborhood. Over the past two decades, it has endured 9/11, the Great Recession and skyrocketing rent, but owner Sheila Frayne is unsure it will survive COVID-19.
“Realistically, I’m saying maybe this is the end,” Frayne, 53, told NBC News.
In compliance with citywide guidelines for nonessential businesses, Frayne locked the doors of Ginger’s on March 15, two days before St. Patrick’s Day and what would have been the bar’s 20th anniversary. Through the darkened windows, she peered at the shamrock decorations that still hung on the walls and started to cry.
“The bar business is recession proof — it’s not pandemic proof, though.”
HENRIETTA HUDSON OWNER LISA CANNISTRACI
“It’s really sad, because women-owned businesses are hard anyhow, and women-owned bars are unheard of,” Frayne said. “Usually, they have somebody backing them or something like that, but I did do it by myself, and it’s just blood, sweat and tears to get where I did and keep surviving.”
Ginger’s Bar is one of three lesbian bars still standing in New York City, and one of just a handful left in the entire country. With most, if not all, of these establishments forced to temporarily shutter due to the coronavirus pandemic, their future is uncertain, with several facing the potential of permanent closure.Last call for lesbian bars?
The number of lesbian bars in the United States has always been far fewer than those primarily catering to gay men, even though statistically women are more likely than men to identify as LGBTQ. The peak came in the late 1980s with an estimated 200 lesbian bars across the country, according to a study published last year by Greggor Mattson, an associate professor of sociology at Oberlin College, but the number is now estimated to be 16. These venues include Henrietta Hudson in New York City, My Sister’s Room in Atlanta, Wildrose in Seattle, Walker’s Pint in Milwaukee and Gossip Grill in San Diego.
Opening night at A League of Her Own bar, “ALOHO,” in Washington on Aug. 9, 2018.John Gallagher / John Jack Photography
The decline in the number of lesbian bars is part of a broader trend of LGBTQ bars shuttering across the U.S. Throughout the 1980s, there were more than 1,500 such bars, but that number has been steadily declining since the late ‘90s, with less than 1,000 existing today (with the lion’s share of them catering mostly to male or mixed-gender crowds), according to Mattson’s study. These closures, however, have not happened equally: Between 2007 and 2019, an estimated 37 percent of all LGBTQ bars shuttered, while bars catering to women and queer people of color saw declines of 52 percent and 60 percent, respectively, according to the report.
Mattson said even the closure of a single gay or lesbian bar can be a particularly acute loss for a community.
Since the gay liberation movement began in the 1960s, many of these bars have served as the nucleus of America’s “gayborhoods” — refuges where people could organize, raise funds, meet friends and find romance. Mattson said even the closure of a single LGBTQ bar can be a particularly acute loss for a community.
New York City has witnessed the country’s largest rise and fall in lesbian spaces — with about 200 opening and closing over the last century (including bars, cafes, bookstores, and community centers), according to Gwen Shockey, creator of the Addresses Project, a digital tool that tracks the city’s lesbian venues. Shockey said New York saw a wave of lesbian bar openings in the the ‘70s and ‘80s, likely bolstered by the surging feminist and LGBTQ rights movements of the time and the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974, which made it illegal for banks to deny loans on the basis of gender. This trend, however, didn’t last, with the following decades seeing closures amid soaring commercial rents in metropolitan areas and alternative ways for queer people to meet each other, like dating sites and apps.
Shockey said the loss of additional brick-and-mortar spaces dedicated to LGBTQ people, particularly for women, would be tragic.
“There’s nothing like sitting in a safe space that’s controlled by queer people, and having a conversation, dancing, interacting,” she said. “It’s just so valuable, and it’s so liberating, and it’s enabled me to come out and to find a life for myself.”
In the last five years alone, iconic lesbian bars such as Sisters in Philadelphia and The Lexington Club in San Francisco permanently shut their doors. In New York City, at least 11 bars and clubs frequented by lesbians and queer women have shuttered since 2004, including One Last Shag, Meow Mix and Crazy Nanny’s. Bum Bum Bar, which had been the only lesbian bar in Queens, officially closed last year.
While there are only three lesbian bars left in all five boroughs of New York City — arguably considered, along with San Francisco, to be the queer capital of the U.S. — online listings show there are more than 80 venues catering to gay men or mixed-gender LGBTQ crowds in the city.
In America’s heartland, there are few bars that cater to the gay and lesbian community. Walker’s Pint, Milwaukee’s lone lesbian bar and perhaps one of just two left in the entire Midwest, temporarily shuttered in March after Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers ordered nonessential businesses to close. With help from her bank, owner Elizabeth “Bet-z” Boenning said she managed to receive a modest loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program — just enough to cover expenses for about three months. If her bar doesn’t reopen, she said it would be a devastating loss for the local community.
“Women don’t have a place that’s for women other than the Pint, really,” Boenning said, noting that her Milwaukee business is surrounded by several bars that cater to gay men.
Walker’s Pint has been closed since March 17, on what would have been the city’s popular St. Patrick’s Day bar crawl.Courtesy Elizabeth Boenning
In Washington State, only one lesbian bar remains: Wildrose. Owned by Shelley Brothers since 1984, it has managed to survive sky-high rents in Seattle’s gentrified Capitol Hill neighborhood. In mid-March, as COVID-19 swept through the city, Brothers temporarily closed her bar. If she’s unable to reopen, she said it would be more than the loss of a historic watering hole.
“It’s like a bar in a community center,” Brothers said. “We’ve always just tried to provide a safe space for women to come.”Systemic funding issues
Many attribute the loss of lesbian bars to the high cost of opening and maintaining a bar, as well as the systemic difficulty women often have in acquiring financial support.
“If you look at any funding statistics, they always show you that women-owned businesses get even less than male-owned businesses, or that 4 percent of venture capital goes to women,” said Pamela Prince-Eason, president and CEO of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC).
In mid-March, as COVID-19 swept through the city, Shelley Brothers temporarily closed Wildrose in Seattle.Courtesy Shelley Brothers
The pandemic is likely exacerbating the problem. Millions of small businesses throughout the U.S. have been unable to access assistance through the $2.2 trillion emergency relief package passed by Congress at the end of March. Even before the emergency relief program ran out of money in April, several bar owners interviewed for this story said they were unable to apply for assistance through the online application, which they said routinely froze or crashed, and most of these owners said they lacked relationships with banks that could help them.
While the federal stimulus was meant to help small mom and pop shops, $243.4 million worth of payroll loans went to publicly traded companies, because language in the bill opened the door for many to apply. Within WBENC’s network of more than 16,000 women-owned businesses, less than 1 percent received aid through the first round of stimulus, according to Prince-Eason.
Currently, about 12 million of the 32 million businesses (less than 4 in 10) in the U.S. are owned by women, and the majority of these are small businesses, according to WBENC. Even fewer businesses are owned by LGBTQ people — about 1.4 million, according to theLGBTQ Chamber of Commerce.
If the next round of stimulus leaves out many small businesses again, Prince-Eason said much of the gains made by women-owned businesses — which saw a 58 percent increase over the last decade — are likely to be reversed. “Which is very depressing and demeaning and painful for all people affected,” she said.Online fundraising efforts
As lesbian bar owners nervously await government assistance or the green light to reopen their businesses, and negotiate rent payments with their landlords, many are launching fundraising campaigns to raise money for their overhead costs and their employees.
Boenning — whose Milwaukee pub has been closed since March 17, on what would have been the city’s popular St. Patrick’s Day bar crawl — recently raised $3,695 for her Walker’s Pint staff. “I don’t know what else to do for them,” she said.
Walker’s Pint, Milwaukee’s lone lesbian bar and perhaps one of just two left in the entire Midwest, temporarily shuttered in March.Courtesy Elizabeth Boenning
Nightlife workers stuck at home — bartenders, barbacks, bouncers and performance artists — whose income depends largely on tips, wonder when they will be able to work again. Many who have been unable to get unemployment through their states’ overwhelmed unemployment systems grapple with an uncertain future.
“One day we’ll feel pretty good, and the next day we’ll feel terrible,” Jo McDaniel, a manager and bartender at A League of Her Own in D.C., said. “It’s a real struggle personally to keep my mental health above water.”
A League of Her Own, a bar patrons call “ALOHO” in Washington’s Adams Morgan neighborhood.John Gallagher / John Jack Photography
A League of Her Own and its brother bar, Pitchers, both owned by David Perruzza, managed to raise over $8,000 for staff. Neighboring Washington, D.C., lesbian bar, XX+, managed to raise about $4,000 for staff after not receiving government assistance.
“I’m trying to do all the legit things by applying for this, applying for that, and never get any word about when you’re going to get a grant or if you should get a grant,” XX+ owner Lina Nicolai said, “and so it’s very uncertain.”
Cubby Hole, a popular hangout for queer women in Manhattan, raised over $48,000 for staffers after owner Lisa Menichino was unable to retrieve federal aid. Even with tens of thousands raised, she’s not sure she will be able to sustain her bar through the fall without emergency assistance. “It’s been really scary,” said Menichino, whose monthly expenses total more than $10,000. But she is not giving up hope.
“I’m going to find a way to keep this bar open,” she said. “I have to. It’s like an icon. It means so much to so many people. Even if I have to go into my personal finances, I will.”
My Sister’s Room owners Jen and Jami Maguire are raising money for staff by selling T-shirts online.Courtesy of Jen and Jami Maguire
My Sister’s Room in Atlanta is the only bar that serves lesbian and bisexual women in Georgia, and possibly the entire Southeast. Owners Jen and Jami Maguire are raising money for staff by selling T-shirts online. They applied for emergency aid but haven’t received any. They’re hopeful, but also worried. If the pandemic stretches into October, when Atlanta holds its annual Pride celebration, it would be “very catastrophic,” Jen Maguire said.
“We just want to do what we can to get everybody back to work, but not at the sake of someone losing their life for someone to make some money,” she said. “Safety is number one.”
Many bar owners question how to reopen once the pandemic is over. Typically, people gather in bars whether times are good or bad, Henrietta Hudson’s owner, Lisa Cannistraci, said. Her bar remained open through a number of hard times, including 9/11 and the Great Recession, but she sees this new era of social distancing as an entirely different crisis to navigate.
“The bar business is recession proof — it’s not pandemic proof, though,” Cannistraci, who has raised over $6,000 for her staff, said. Her insurance policy doesn’t cover damage from pandemics, she said. And while she applied early for all the government aid she could, she hasn’t received any assistance.
“I did everything,” she said, “and there’s nothing — crickets.”
With New York City Pride events postponed indefinitely and Ginger’s Bar shuttered until bars and restaurants are allowed to reopen, Frayne is suffering a devastating loss of revenue. For the first time in 20 years, she’s unable to pay rent, and her insurance policy doesn’t cover her pandemic-related losses. She applied for government aid, she said, but hasn’t received any. She worries about her staff, who she said have been unable to file applications through New York City’s paralyzed unemployment system.
“It’s kind of impossible,” said Frayne, who raised over $5,000 for her staff, and is now raising money to save her bar.
So far, Brothers has managed to raise over $36,000 to keep the Wildrose afloat for the time being, but she said it won’t last long. Her annual $30,000 insurance policy doesn’t cover pandemic-related losses, though she said she still has to foot the monthly insurance bill. And her application for emergency aid has gone unanswered. Not knowing the future of Washington state’s last lesbian bar weighs heavy on her.
“It’s minute to minute, basically. It’s up and down. You’ll be all filled with hope, and then it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, this is so horrible,’ and then, ‘OK, we can do this,’ and then ‘Oh, God, this is horrible.’ It just goes back and forth,” Brothers said.‘A stronger economy that includes all of us’
Last week, Frayne returned to Ginger’s Bar to collect the mail that had piled up since she shuttered it in March — mostly bills, she said. Without assistance, she wonders if Brooklyn’s last lesbian bar will ever reopen.
“I mean, after 20 years, do I really want to owe a ton of money with rent and insurance to open a business again?” she said. “I worked too hard; I’m getting too old for it. I don’t know if I can do that again.”
The transgender community, which is one of the populations that has been most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, has been explicitly excluded from contingency plans that seek to prevent the virus’ spread.
Sex workers have been left to their own devices during this health crisis and they can practically only count on themselves. Due to confinement, most of them can’t go out to work, and to stop working is not a choice when they live on a day by day basis and the only housing they can afford are “pagadiarios” (places for which they pay by the day.) Some of the sex workers who can’t get enough money to pay them do not have anywhere to stay during the lockdown or, even worse, they have had to live on the streets where they are more prone to get infected with COVID-19.
Different community-based organizations like Calle 7 Colombia and Fundación Red Comunitaria Trans have created initiatives to mitigate the impact of this situation.
Red Comunitaria, for example, created an emergency fund for sex workers during the pandemic. It has given — aside from safety — economic support, food and housing to thousands of trans people. However, individual private donations alone will not be enough to benefit everyone who needs it.
That is not the only problem the trans community is facing. Many different Colombian cities, including Bogotá, from April 13 have implemented “pico y género”, a gender-based measure that allows only men to leave their homes on odd days, only women to leave their homes on even days and trans people to leave their homes on those days based on their gender identity.
Although this decision was taken as a strategy to diminish both the number of people in the streets and to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, this decree makes non-binary or gender non-conforming people and the trans community more prone to violence.
The main concern with the decree is the police become the identity definer and watchdog. Their use of violence and abuse of power has been a historic phenomenon that has served to kill many people.
As of the date of this publication, they have already been numerous physical and verbal assaults against trans and non-hegemonic gender people. These include the case of Joseph, a trans man who was denied the right to enter a supermarket because the employees thought he was not enough of a “man.”
A similar situation happened in Peru, which alongside Panama also applied this measure. The government rescinded the policy after a video posted to social media showed police officers forcing three trans women to squat while they were forced to repeat “I want to be a man.”
It is understandable that a pandemic’s reality requires the adoption of measures for controlling the spread of the virus among citizens and that some of them demand the restrictions of some fundamental rights, such as freedom of movement and association. All of this is aimed to protect public health, but these policies cannot, in any moment, infringe on nondiscrimination rights.
The Colombian government must therefore listen to the voices of the most vulnerable populations during the crisis, who have been forced to endure unfair exclusion and assume the State’s responsibilities. Countries around the world must adopt mechanisms to restrict movement without using criteria that fosters additional risks for populations that already cope with structural exclusion in society because they are constantly criminalized and persecuted.
A queer teacher, who has worked at the same Catholic school for 20 years, has just been sacked for violating the school’s anti-LGBT+ policies.
According to Dayton Daily News, the teacher was a graduate of Alter High School in Ohio, which is controlled by the archdiocese of Cincinnati, and had taught there for two decades.
The principal of the Catholic school, Lourdes Lambert, told the publication that someone had raised a “concern” about the unnamed teacher with the archbishop.
As a result, the teacher will not have his contract renewed, although he will be permitted to finish the school year, teaching children from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
Lambert said: “It’s a very unfortunate circumstance for the teacher and the Alter community. Some things are taken out of our hands as an archdiocese-owned school.” However, she admitted: “I’m the archdiocese, too.”
The archdiocese of Cincinnati describes homosexuality as “disordered” and “immoral”, and even provides programmes for LGBT+ people and their families to encourage them to never act on “same-sex attraction”.
Teachers at any Catholic school controlled by the archdiocese are forced to sign a “teacher-minister” contract every year.
The contract states that a teacher must “exemplify Catholic principles in a manner consistent with teacher-minister’s relationship with the Catholic Church and to refrain from any conduct or lifestyle which would reflect discredit on or cause scandal to the school or be in contradiction to Catholic social doctrine or morals.”
Examples of this unacceptable conduct include “cohabitation outside marriage; sexual activity out of wedlock; same-sex sexual activity; use of abortion; use of a surrogate mother; use of in vitro fertilisation or artificial insemination” as well as “promoting” any of these things.
If the contract is breached, “the school immediately may terminate the teacher-minister’s employment”.
Supporters have spoken out about the teacher’s dismissal, branding it “blatant discrimination”.
David Beck, a former student at Alter High School, wrote that the teacher had been fired “for being married to a man”.
He continued: “He’s been married since 2016, one year after marriage equality passed…Supposedly some misguided soul found his marriage certificate and brought it to the attention of the archdiocese.
“How convenient that he is fired now, during the pandemic, as to sweep it so easily under the rug. If these reports are true, this is blatant discrimination, and we need to band together to stop it.”
He said he remembered the teacher as “wonderful, kind, with a sense of humour and a creative spirit”, and added: “He should not be fired for his marriage, which, let us remember, is guaranteed as a human right by the constitution.”
The Republic of Tunisia has become the first Arab state to recognise a same-sex marriage, a Tunisian LGBT+ rights organisation has announced.
According to Association Shams, a marriage settlement between a Frenchman, 31, and a Tunisian man, 26, was legally recognised in Tunisia for the first time on Friday.
Homosexuality is illegal in the north African country and same-sex marriage is not yet permitted, but the marriage in question was formalised in France.
It was officially noted in the birth certificate of the Tunisian registry, allowing the Tunisian man to obtain a visa for family reunification. Both men have remained anonymous for their safety.
Although the news hasn’t been confirmed by the Tunisian state, Shams is celebrating it as a huge step forward for LGBT+ rights in the Arab-Muslim world.
“[It is a] success of which I am very proud,” said SHAMS president Mounir Baatour, adding that it followed a years-long legal battle.
“We won… against the many post-revolutionary political-judicial regimes! This is not the least of my satisfactions.
“To my knowledge, Shams is now the only [LGBT+] legal association in the Arab-Muslim world. This is not nothing and offers us hardly believable opportunities, sometimes beyond our borders.”
“There is no centralisation of civil status data at the ministry of local affairs. We are therefore in the process of verifying the information,” said minister Lotfi Zitoun.
But he added: “If it is true, know that it is against the law. French law does not allow recognition of same-sex marriage by Maghreb countries. There was a precedent, an error committed by the municipality of Tunis. And it has been rectified.”
The LGBT+ and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was tentatively optimistic but acknowledged that there is more work to be done.
He told The Jerusalem Post: “This recognition of a gay marriage is a milestone in the Arab world. But it is indirect recognition, and not the legalisation of marriage between same-sex couples.
“Even if it is appealed or overturned, this is a breakthrough that will give hope to LGBT+ people in Tunisia and across North Africa and the Middle East.”
