Author and illustrator John Paul Brammer knew he had hit a professional low when was he living in New York City and recapping gay porn for a living.
Fired from a short-lived job working for a start-up, he found himself on “the smut circuit” — his words — feeling like a failed journalist. He was sleeping a lot, having panic attacks and drinking mimosas in the middle of the day. One morning, while staring at some graphic content awaiting his attention, a chilling thought hit him: “Oh God, my abuela picked fruit in this country for me to become this.”
Brammer, 30 and “very single — make sure you put that in,” he instructed, originally began his advice column on the gay dating app Grindr. “Total strangers often sent me messages that began with Hola Papi, so I thought that would be a good name for the column; I intended it to be a spoof, as satire,” he said.
Papi, which means father in Spanish, is also used casually as a term of endearment to refer to a guy. “Then I began getting letters that were more serious,” Brammer said, “and I realized I had a responsibility to take them, and my role, more seriously.”
John Paul Brammer’s first book “Hola Papi: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons.”Simon and Schuster
One of the most common themes Brammer sees in emails from readers is loneliness, whether it is young people feeling isolated, or adults wondering about their place in the LGBTQ community.
With “Hola Papi,” Brammer illuminates his own ups and downs as well, like the time he took a job in a tortilla factory out of a misplaced desire to prove his Mexican-ness, or when his former childhood bully contacted him on a gay hookup app. He describes everything from how he came out in college (“in a fit of gay mania,” he writes), to a dysfunctional relationship with a Christian youth group member, to his own sexual assault.
“Hola Papi” has received mostly positive reviews. Kirkus Reviews called it a “sassy, entertaining debut collection,” praising it as “charming, instructional, and frequently relatable.” Brammer has also written for NBC News, The Washington Post and The Guardian.
In his book, Brammer, a self-described “ambiguously Latino potato” from “Satan’s Armpit, Oklahoma,” opens up about his own struggles with depression, anxiety and more. One time, a random negative tweet directed at him from a total stranger led him to attempt suicide. “The internet is an unnatural arrangement of community, and we are not wired to accept blatant hostility from strangers at a fast clip,” he reflected. “Usually when I receive negativity on social media, it doesn’t affect me — I don’t see those people as my peers. But it is harder on the gay or Latino internet, when the criticism is coming from there and it is personal, it hurts. If your perceived community turns on you, it is not a good experience.”
Building on a tradition — the advice column
Brammer noted that although he never set out to be an advice columnist, that genre of media is a place where female writers, along with other traditionally marginalized voices, have been able to gain a toehold in newspapers and publishing.
Brammer’s publisher calls him the “Chicano Carrie Bradshaw” of his generation, referring to Sarah Jessica Parker’s sex columnist character in “Sex and the City.” On a broader level, his writing is continuing a tradition that is familiar to Latino and non-Latino readers alike.
Beginning in 1998, the late Dolores Prida wrote the “Dolores Dice” (Dolores Says) column in Latina Magazine for over a dozen years. “We used to do surveys, and her column was more popular than our cover girls,” said writer and documentary filmmaker Sandra Guzmán. The former editor-in-chief of Latina, Guzmán considers hiring Prida for the column her greatest legacy at the magazine.
“Dear Abby wasn’t thinking about us. She wasn’t getting letters about experiencing racism in college or wrestling with assimilation,” Guzmán said. “Dolores Prida created a safe space where readers could share their problems.”
Many Latinos are not acculturated to going to therapy, Guzmán pointed out, and the “Dolores Dice” column was a way for readers to get advice from someone who could seem like a savvy cousin or a wise aunt. “It takes a special skill to answer questions and be funny and be light — and also profound and truthful.”
“Taking problems outside of your family is often not something that our communities approve of,” Guzmán added, “So Dolores’ column was a place where readers could seek counsel on relationships, career advice, and cultural identity.”
In a similar vein, from 2004 to 2017, writer Gustavo Arellano took questions from readers in his “Ask a Mexican” column. Like Brammer, Arellano’s original column began as a satire, then morphed into a syndicated column and then a book. “I started the column on the advice of my editor at the time, at the OC Weekly (in Orange County, California). We did it to fill up space, to make fun of the dumb questions people asked about Mexicans.”
“Never in a million years did I expect the column to take off,” said Arellano, now a columnist with The Los Angeles Times. At its peak, “Ask a Mexican” was reaching over 2 million people in 38 markets.
“People used to write and ask why Mexicans did certain things, like going to the beach with clothes on, or readers would make ignorant comments, but I saw it as a way to educate people,” Arellano said, noting that he got questions from all kinds of people, including both whites and Mexicans. He still writes “Ask a Mexican” in his weekly newsletter.
Brammer has received emails from around the world, including Morocco, India, Brazil and Japan. His column, he said, has helped him come to terms with events in his own life. “I’ve learned that there is no singular Mexican experience, no singular Latino or gay experience. I don’t consider myself an expert on things; but hearing other people’s struggles has helped me reckon with my own.”
In Brammer’s view, everyone is an author of sorts, as people sift through their experiences and craft narratives to make sense of their lives.
“Over the years, I have finally learned to stop looking for approval in places where I am not going to get it,” he said. “I can only do my best to make sure my head and heart are in the right place. And I hope my readers see that there is a lot of room for happiness, exploration and wisdom in all the things that make us our unique selves.”
During his time in office, former President Barack Obama maintained something of a hot-and-cold relationship with Jewish leaders, particularly around his administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East. Obama first entered the national stage with longstanding ties to the Jewish community that predated his career in politics. Once in the White House, he frequently found himself at odds with communal leaders who took issue with, among other things, his administration’s support for the nuclear deal with Iran as well as the controversial decision to abstain from voting on a U.N. Security Council resolution castigating Israel.
Near the end of his recent memoir, A Promised Land, the former president conveys a sense of frustration with critics who, he suggests, doubted his commitment to the Jewish state based more on their gut feelings rather than assessing actual policy positions, including his administration’s effort to secure funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and signing a memorandum of understanding guaranteeing $38 billion in military assistance over 10 years.
“On Election Day, I’d end up getting more than 70 percent of the Jewish vote, but as far as many AIPAC board members were concerned, I remained suspect, a man of divided loyalties,” Obama writes, “someone whose support for Israel, as one of [senior advisor David Axelrod’s] friends colorfully put it, wasn’t ‘felt in his kishkes’ — ‘guts,’ in Yiddish.”
However, in a recent interview with Jewish Insider — his first with a Jewish publication since leaving office in 2017 — Obama shied away from discussing that tension in more detail. The former president avoided every question touching on Israel and the Middle East that JI posed to him.
Of the 13 questions JI sent to the former president, listed below in full, he provided answers to just five, focusing on the history of Black-Jewish relations, the Capitol siege, the state of American politics and the rise of antisemitism, among other topics.
In the exchange, which was conducted via email, Obama sounded a characteristically hopeful note while acknowledging the deep divisions that have riven the American electorate in the years since he left office. “There’s no doubt that the country is deeply divided right now — more divided than when I first ran for president in 2008,” Obama told JI. “America has been fractured by a combination of political, cultural, ideological, and geographical divisions that seem to be growing deeper by the day.”
“Until we can agree on a common set of facts and distinguish between what’s true and what’s false, then the marketplace of ideas won’t work. Our democracy won’t work,” Obama said. “So, as citizens, we need to push our institutions to address these challenges. At the same time, we can’t just wait for someone else to solve the problem. We need to stay engaged, and ask what we can do — especially at the local level where arguments are often less heated and everyone who gets involved can make a bigger difference.”
In this handout photo provided by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Israeli citizen Pinhas Amar inspect the repairs being done to his home after it was hit by a Palestinian Qassam rocket in December 2007, as mayor Eli Moyal (L) and Defence Minister Ehud Barak (R) stand to the sides during Obama’s visit July 23, 2008 to the southern Israeli town of Sderot. (Credit: Ariel Hermoni/MOD via Getty Images)
Though such work “can be exhausting,” Obama admitted, “our system of government has been tested before, and every time people who believe in this country and our founding ideals have refused to let the American experiment fail. The same thing can happen this time if we put in the work.”
Amid a distrubing uptick in antisemitic attacks, the former president was equally level-headed, even as he recognized that “some of the negative and divisive trends that we’ve seen at home and around the world have contributed” to such hatred.
Obama cited a speech he gave at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., at the end of his presidency. “I said that the seeds that gave rise to the Holocaust have always been with us. They have found root across cultures, faiths, and generations. And they have reemerged again and again, especially in times of change and uncertainty,” Obama told JI. “When I gave that speech, it was clear that anti-Semitism was on the rise around the world. People’s anger over everything from immigration to inequality was boiling over — and many of them were looking for someone else to blame. And for four years, we had a President in the White House who fanned those flames.”
Still, Obama was optimistic about countering antisemitism and other forms of bigotry.
“In many cases, I’ve been pleased to see these acts of hate countered by far larger expressions of solidarity,” he noted. “People are recognizing that we all have a responsibility to stand together against bigotry and violence, to not be silent but there will always be a need for vigilance against anti-Semitism. We’ll never be able to wipe out hatred from every single mind, but we must do everything we can to fight it. And more people are realizing that. That dynamic, more than anything, is what gives me hope.”
In the interview, Obama suggested that the historic bond between Black and Jewish Americans — one he also alludes to in his memoir — can serve as a guiding light for those seeking instruction from the past.
“Black and Jewish Americans understand the dark side of human nature better than just about anyone,” he said. “We’ve seen people at their worst. But we also know that progress is possible, and that ordinary people can make a difference — not just for those who look like them or worship the same God, but for everyone. That’s the legacy of Blacks and Jews coming together through the civil rights movement to insist upon equal rights — that understanding that injustice should spur people to action and to a sense of solidarity, and that collective activism can succeed in making change.”
“Right now, it’s easy to focus on what divides us, and there are plenty of people out there who benefit from driving us further apart. But our future depends on our ability to actively resist those forces; to look past our differences and understand that we want the same things for ourselves, our families, and our communities,” Obama told JI. “The new movements for justice in this country are informed by the Black and Jewish experience, as well as many other communities who have come together. The more we can focus on what we have in common — whether we’re Black, White, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or anything else — the better off we’ll be.”
US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former inmates and Holocaust survivors Bertrand Herz (L) and Nobel Peace prize laureate Elie Wiesel walk with white roses at the memorial of the former Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald on June 5, 2009 in Buchenwald near Weimar. (Credit: Jens-Ulrich Koch/DDP/AFP via Getty Images)
But the question of Obama’s at-times strained relationship with Jewish leaders during his time as president went unaddressed. Though Obama appears to express frustration throughout A Promised Land that others too often cast aspersions on his motivations instead of assessing his policy positions, JI asked him to consider a question inverting that dynamic: How would he respond to those who opposed the Iran nuclear deal on policy grounds, for instance, but are characterized as having prioritized the interests of another country? Is there space for disagreement on an issue like the Iran nuclear deal — otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — without such accusations?
The former president did not address that question in the interview with JI. (The second volume of Obama’s book, yet to be released, is expected to include his perspective on the JCPOA.)
Our full exchange with the former president is included below, and the questions are listed in the order in which they were sent.
Jewish Insider:In his commentary on the most recent Torah portion, the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks remarks how “the United States is the only country today whose political discourse is framed by the idea of covenant,” and he cites your second inaugural address in 2013 as one of two textbook examples. “Obama five times begins paragraphs with a key phrase of covenant politics — words never used by British politicians — namely, ‘We the people.’” Rabbi Sacks continues, “That is the essence of covenant: we are all in this together. There is no division of the nation into rulers and ruled. We are conjointly responsible, under the sovereignty of God, for one another.”
Since that 2013 address, how do you assess the state of our country’s “covenant”? Is our political system and discourse set up in a way that incentivizes and rewards division (“us vs. them”) that makes “we the people” nearly impossible to achieve? Going forward, what can be done to better strengthen that “covenant”?
Barack Obama: There’s no doubt that the country is deeply divided right now — more divided than when I first ran for president in 2008. America has been fractured by a combination of political, cultural, ideological, and geographical divisions that seem to be growing deeper by the day.
I think a lot of that has to do with changes in how people get information. I’ve spoken about this before, but if you watch Fox News, you’re presented with a different reality than if you read The New York Times. And everything is amplified by social media, which allows people to live in bubbles with other people who think like them.
Until we can agree on a common set of facts and distinguish between what’s true and what’s false, then the marketplace of ideas won’t work. Our democracy won’t work. So, as citizens, we need to push our institutions to address these challenges.
At the same time, we can’t just wait for someone else to solve the problem. We need to stay engaged, and ask what we can do — especially at the local level where arguments are often less heated and everyone who gets involved can make a bigger difference.
I know it can be exhausting. But our system of government has been tested before, and every time people who believe in this country and our founding ideals have refused to let the American experiment fail. The same thing can happen this time if we put in the work.
JI: In A Promised Land, you write about devouring “the works of Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer” in high school, “moved by the stories of men trying to find their place in an America that didn’t welcome them.” Do you still return to these authors, and what lessons do you feel they can impart to new readers approaching their books for the first time? Moreover, are there any contemporary Jewish writers you’d like to mention whose works you admire?
Obama: [No answer.]
JI:You’ve had a long and fruitful relationship with the Jewish community, one that predates your career in politics. The book describes your pre-political life and the decisions you made about pursuing community service and organizing instead of a big law career. What was your relationship with the Jewish community in Chicago then and how has it developed since?
Obama: [No answer.]
JI:“I believed there was an essential bond between the Black and the Jewish experiences — a common story of exile and suffering that might ultimately be redeemed by a shared sense of community,” you write in the book. What’s your advice for building on that bond in the future?
Obama: Black and Jewish Americans understand the dark side of human nature better than just about anyone. We’ve seen people at their worst. But we also know that progress is possible, and that ordinary people can make a difference — not just for those who look like them or worship the same God, but for everyone. That’s the legacy of Blacks and Jews coming together through the civil rights movement to insist upon equal rights — that understanding that injustice should spur people to action and to a sense of solidarity, and that collective activism can succeed in making change.
Right now, it’s easy to focus on what divides us, and there are plenty of people out there who benefit from driving us further apart. But our future depends on our ability to actively resist those forces; to look past our differences and understand that we want the same things for ourselves, our families, and our communities. The new movements for justice in this country are informed by the Black and Jewish experience, as well as many other communities who have come together. The more we can focus on what we have in common — whether we’re Black, White, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or anything else — the better off we’ll be.
JI:In Chapter 25 of A Promised Land, you write: “On Election Day, I’d end up getting more than 70 percent of the Jewish vote, but as far as many AIPAC board members were concerned, I remained suspect, a man of divided loyalties: someone whose support for Israel, as one of Axe’s friends colorfully put it, wasn’t ‘felt in his kishkes’ — ‘guts,’ in Yiddish.” And earlier in that paragraph, you write, “they attributed these whisper campaigns not to any particular positions I’d taken (my backing of a two-state solution and opposition to Israeli settlements were identical to the positions of other candidates) but rather to my expressions of concern for ordinary Palestinians; my friendships with certain critics of Israeli policy, including an activist and Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi; and the fact that, as Ben bluntly put it, ‘You’re a Black man with a Muslim name who lived in the same neighborhood as Louis Farrakhan and went to Jeremiah Wright’s church.’”
Throughout the book, you appear to convey a sense of frustration with folks casting aspersions on your motivations and not assessing your actual policy positions. But to invert that dynamic for a moment, what do you say to folks on the other side who perhaps opposed the JCPOA on policy grounds yet are characterized as having prioritized the interests of another country? Is it possible for there to be disagreement on something like the JCPOA on the merits?
Obama: [No answer.]
JI: In her book The Education of an Idealist, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power takes readers behind the scenes as your administration sought congressional approval for a military operation in Syria, writing that “an important factor in their thinking was Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vocal support for US military action, along with that of the influential lobbying group AIPAC.” AIPAC lobbied Congress in support of your plan. It’s clear there were times that you disagreed with AIPAC’s positions and other times where you sought to collaborate with the group (for instance, on nominations requiring Senate confirmation). You also addressed AIPAC’s annual policy conference more than any other president (your successor did not attend a single time while in office). In your view, what did the pro-Israel community in the U.S. get right and what did it get wrong during your time in office?
Obama: [No answer.]
JI: During the Green Movement in Iran 12 years ago, you admit to feeling constrained in your desire to support Iranian protesters: “As the violence escalated, so did my condemnation. Still, such a passive approach didn’t sit well with me — and not just because I had to listen to Republicans howl that I was coddling a murderous regime. I was learning yet another difficult lesson about the presidency: that my heart was now chained to strategic considerations and tactical analysis, my convictions subject to counterintuitive arguments; that in the most powerful office on earth, I had less freedom to say what I meant and act on what I felt as a senator — or as an ordinary citizen disgusted by the sight of a young woman gunned down by her own government.” Now that you are a citizen again — though perhaps not so ordinary — do you feel as if there is any hope for Iran’s pro-democracy demonstrators?
Obama: [No answer.]
JI: On Middle East issues, did you feel less inhibited in your second term than in your first? If so, does that partially explain the U.S. decision, in 2016, to abstain on U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlement construction?
Obama: [No answer.]
JI: Over the past year, Arab countries including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have normalized ties with Israel. What factors would you attribute this development in the region to? Was it mutual opposition to Iran? A recognition from these countries of the closeness between the U.S. and Israel? Economic incentives? Or something else entirely?
Obama: [No answer.]
JI: The second volume of your book is expected to include your perspective on the JCPOA. The parties are currently negotiating in Vienna. Does that impact your writing in any way? What should readers expect in your second book on this topic and how do you expect it to be received given the ongoing negotiations?
Obama: [No answer.]
JI: In 2009, you visited the Buchenwald concentration camp with Angela Merkel and Elie Wiesel, an experience you recount in your memoir. Wiesel, you write, “beseeched us, beseeched me, to leave Buchenwald with resolve, to try to bring about peace, to use the memory of what happened on the ground where we stood to see past anger and divisions and find strength in solidarity.” Since that visit, Americans only seem to have become more divided as antisemitic conspiracy theories and attacks appear to be on the rise. A man wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” shirt stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and QAnon has gained traction. Did you anticipate these developments when you left office in 2016? And do you believe the country can overcome such forms of hate?
Obama: In my last year as President, I gave a speech at the Embassy of Israel where I said that the seeds that gave rise to the Holocaust have always been with us. They have found root across cultures, faiths, and generations. And they have reemerged again and again, especially in times of change and uncertainty.
When I gave that speech, it was clear that anti-Semitism was on the rise around the world. People’s anger over everything from immigration to inequality was boiling over — and many of them were looking for someone else to blame. And for four years, we had a President in the White House who fanned those flames.
So while I never anticipated what happened at the Capitol on January 6th, some of the negative and divisive trends that we’ve seen at home and around the world have contributed to a rise in anti-Semitism and other forms of hate. In many cases, I’ve been pleased to see these acts of hate countered by far larger expressions of solidarity. People are recognizing that we all have a responsibility to stand together against bigotry and violence, to not be silent but there will always be a need for vigilance against anti-Semitism.
We’ll never be able to wipe out hatred from every single mind, but we must do everything we can to fight it. And more people are realizing that. That dynamic, more than anything, is what gives me hope.
JI: Both Democrats and Republicans seem to take inconsistent stands on free speech issues. The right, for its part, supports bakers who refuse to make wedding cakes for gay couples, but draws the line at boycotts of Israel; the left sees things the other way around. Where do you land on this dynamic? What role, if any, should the state play in keeping the marketplace free of bigotry, and how can it do so while safeguarding First Amendment rights?
Obama: I can’t claim to be perfectly consistent, but as a former constitutional law professor, I am pretty firm about the merits of free speech.
Now, that’s not a terribly controversial statement. Most people believe in free speech on principle, especially when the views being expressed are ones they agree with. But the real test comes when someone says something you disagree with, and you have to decide whether to support their right to free speech as well.
There are obviously limits to free speech, including when it directly threatens someone else. And I think the state has a role to play in keeping people safe. But beyond that, I believe the purpose of free speech is to make sure that we are forced to use argument and reason and words in making our democracy work.
You don’t have to be fearful of somebody spouting bad ideas. Just out-argue them. Make the case as to why they’re wrong. Win over adherents. That’s how things work in a democracy.
JI: What should readers of Jewish Insider be most looking forward to about visiting the planned Barack Obama Presidential Center?
Obama: Our hope is that the Center will have something for everyone. Like other presidential museums, there will be exhibits telling stories about my time in the White House. But there will also be a branch of the Chicago Public Library, an auditorium, a sledding hill for kids, walking and biking trails, a public plaza for community gatherings and performances, and a program, activity, and athletic center.
But what I’m looking forward to the most is the role the Center will play in bringing people to the South Side of Chicago, and the work it will do to help young people discover the change they want to make in the world.
In that way, the Center won’t just be a place to learn about my story. It will be a place where people everywhere can get inspired to write their own.
A veteran with a fever and hacking cough that suggest a possible coronavirus infection tries to make a doctor’s appointment, only to be turned away by a receptionist who personally decides the would-be patient can’t see a physician.
A former service member and sexual assault survivor at risk of suicide is denied access to mental health services by a bureaucratic gatekeeper stationed at the therapist’s front desk.
These are two of thousands of examples of veterans seeking the Veterans Affairs health care they’re legally entitled to — and being wrongly refused it. This is due to a pervasive misunderstanding, and misapplication, of the rules regarding other-than-honorable discharges.
Among veterans this refusal is based on what is known as having “bad paper.” The “bad paper” designation can be based on minor misconduct, such as being late to morning formation, showing disrespect to a superior or one-time drug use.
Being turned away is an institutional shortcoming that can be easily remedied — not by an act of Congress, or time-consuming changes to federal rules, but instead through administrative corrective steps that can be taken at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
An estimated 400,000 former service members are at risk of wrongly being denied VA health care and other benefits, according to a 2020 study by OutVets, a group of LGBTQ+ military veterans. It showed that gay and lesbian veterans and victims of military sexual assault are disproportionately at risk. So are veterans who served in the Navy or Marines, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Once burdened with “bad paper,” such veterans are more likely to be homeless and suffer mental health problems, and are at greater risk of suicide.
Here’s how the denial of care happens. Veterans who receive other-than-honorable discharges — a designation applied to roughly 7% of them since 1980 — can still qualify for VA health care and are legally entitled to individualized eligibility reviews and written notification of the determination.
Though that group includes some with bad conduct and dishonorable discharges, which can involve the commission of serious crimes while in uniform, more than 80% of them bear the burden of an administrative determination made without full due process.
The majority of “bad paper” veterans includes many of the estimated 100,000 LGBTQ service members discharged for purported misconduct between the end of World War II and the 2011 official repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that banned gay people from openly serving in the military.
Though there should be consequences for military misconduct, they shouldn’t include an across-the-board denial of health care — especially if a person has a service-related disability, is experiencing homelessness or dealing with the effects of military sexual trauma or PTSD.
Yet the OutVets study found that VA gatekeepers in more than a dozen states — including California, Florida, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas — incorrectly told “bad paper” veterans they were ineligible for benefits.
In one case, a Vietnam veteran endured untreated PTSD for more than 50 years after he was wrongly told he didn’t qualify for VA health care. The situation was rectified only after a pro bono lawyer intervened. Just as no one should need a lawyer to apply for a driver’s license, or enroll a child in public school, a veteran shouldn’t need an advocate solely to access VA health care for which they qualify.
A new report released last week by Legal Services Corp.’s Veterans Task Force further documents the lingering stain of “bad paper” on veterans. The report notes that, often because of service-related mental health conditions and other hardships, these veterans are often in greater need of supportive services. Yet their “bad paper” status prevents them from receiving the vital assistance they need to recover and reintegrate into civilian society.
In response to the OutVets report, VA officials described an “updated enrollment system” that would better identify and track those with other-than-honorable discharges. Such promises aren’t enough.
The VA must also work to overhaul the training, guidance and oversight of its staff and improve how it communicates with veterans. Its outreach to those who have been unlawfully refused care should include social media campaigns and easy-to-understand letters that outline who is eligible to receive care.
Congress and the military have started to take notice of the need for reform. In April, a federal court in Connecticut approved a class-action lawsuit settlement requiring the Army to reconsider thousands of less-than-honorable discharges issued over the last 20 years after failing to properly account for whether mental health conditions played a factor in those discharges. A similar class-action suit on behalf of Navy and Marine Corps veterans is pending.
Military service members dedicate their lives to defending our country. Once they return home, they shouldn’t have to fight for access to justice and basic benefits earned from their selfless service.
Dana Montalto is a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Veterans Legal Clinic, which published the OutVets report “Turned Away” with Veterans Legal Services.
Filmmakers may have started representing the LGBTQIA+ community on-screen in a more sensitive light and some might even agree that the non-cisgendered have now become a relatively comfortable topic of conversation with mainstream actors playing these characters. But what continues to bother many is if queer actors should be cast to play queer characters. This conversation has resurfaced with the recent release of Neeraj Ghaywan’s Geeli Pucchi themed on homosexuality and class differences.
Shonali Bose, who directed Margarita With A Straw (2014), points out she needed “brilliant actors” to play roles of a blind and gay girl and a bisexual teenager with cerebral palsy. “It is extremely important that queer stories are mainstreamed. That we have queer characters in our cinema who are not there because they are queer in fact. Their sexuality is immaterial. My commitment is to make the marginalised mainstream. And for that if I have to cast a heterosexual person I am comfortable with that,” she says.
Harish Iyer, a gay rights crusader who moved the SC to decriminalise homosexuality, asserts, “When we ask if queer actors should play queer characters, we’re implying that they shouldn’t play straight roles.” Questioning heterosexual actors who caricaturise gay characters, Iyer says, “Acting is all about getting into another person’s shoes. So, to expect queer people to play queer roles might go against the principles of acting as a field. If a straight actor is playing a gay character, then they bloody well do a good job!”
But Iyer is quick to add, “Having said that, I believe that people with lived experiences will be able to portray the role better.” Durga Gawde, India’s first performing drag king, echoes a similar sentiment. Drawing attention to the state of misrepresentation and under-representation of queer and trans people, they say, “Look at a show like Pose, for instance, where non-binary and trans folks people of colour are cast to portray roles that are about trans and queer lives, magic happens. We need more magic in the world. It gives voice to voices that are ignored, unheard, abused and under-represented.”
Shree Ghatak, a trans-woman actor, who was seen in Season’s Greetings and will be seen playing a transgender character in a Telugu film, feels that mainstream actors are crowd pullers and hence, makers would rather cast them in their stories about a queer character. But she rues the lack of opportunity meted out to actors like her. “Unless we are given a chance, how will be gain fame, become bankable and hence, a choice for filmmakers to headline their projects?” she questions.
Judas Priest‘s Rob Halford has marked Pride month by reflecting on the moment he came out as gay on television.
The frontman of the metal icons revealed his sexuality during a 1998 interview with MTV, and said the “beautiful” moment was totally unplanned.
He told Apple Music’s Hattie Collins: “It was one of those things where I’m at MTV in New York, I’m talking about a project that I was working on called Two, with myself and John 5, the amazing guitar player.
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“I was doing the rounds in New York City and ended up at MTV talking about this project. And in the casual course of the conversation, we were talking about the overall music, and the direction, and the feelings.
“And I said something to the effect of, ‘Well, speaking as a gay man, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ And then I heard the producer’s clipboard bounce on the floor. It was one of those gay sharp intakes, ‘Oh my God, he’s come out.’
“And so that was it. So it was very simple. I think if I’d…I still say today, if I’d have really thought this through, like today’s the day I’m going to come out, maybe I even wouldn’t… maybe I may not have come out per se, because it’s still a big moment for so many of us, with a close friend, with someone at school, with Mum and Dad, with whomever, to actually say, ‘Hey, I’m a gay guy or I’m a gay girl.’ It’s just a big, big deal. It’s just a glorious, glorious moment.”
He added: “So there I was, and I did the interview, and then I walked back to the hotel, and went back to my room, and go well, that’s it, now everybody knows. And then, of course, it hit the news wires and that was that.
“So wow, it was just this enormous feeling of freedom, and the pressure was gone, and there’s no more talking behind your back because you have all this ammunition of power as a gay person now, as an out gay person. Nothing can hurt you because this is it. You can’t throw insults, you can’t throw rumours, you can’t say anything negative about me because I am who I am. So that’s my wonderful memory of my great coming out day.”
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In the same interview, Halford also opened up on the emotional toll of hiding his sexuality during Judas Priest’s formative years in the 1970s.
“As a youngish guy in a thriving heavy metal band, it was difficult because I was in that place where a lot of us protected everybody else,” he said.
“[I thought] ‘Oh, I better not come out because it will upset my mum and dad. I hadn’t better come out because it will upset my friends, I hadn’t better come out because it’ll upset my bands and my fans and record company.’
“I had all that riding on my shoulders through those moments of Priest when we were gaining headway, particularly in America. It was difficult y’know, I went back to my room and turned on the TV and that was it.
“I couldn’t go to clubs, I couldn’t go to bars because it was suggested, ‘Don’t do that, because paparazzi might get you and we’ll have to do the cover story’ and all this innuendo.
“Mentally, on top of being the gay man in the closet, I had all these extra pieces piled onto my life at that time.”
LGBTQ small business owners are confident about their post-pandemic recovery, but more than 78% don’t have a succession plan in place, according to a new CNBC + Acorns and NGLCC Small Business Owner Financial Health Survey.
Since many small businesses are handed down generation to generation, that’s really frightening, said Justin Nelson, co-founder of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce.
“We have a number of same-sex couples that that may or may not have children, so there may not be a hereditary succession plan,” he said.
“They absolutely need to start thinking about a succession plan for their company and what happens when either they decide it’s time to retire or step back from a main management role.”
When it comes to saving for retirement, about 70% of LGBTQ small business owners are doing so in 401(k) plans, individual retirement accounts, SEP IRAs or similar plans. Meanwhile, 23% are not saving at all, they survey found.
The Formstack online poll was conducted May 12-21 among a national sample of 2,361 adults. The respondents were selected from the more than 1,600 certified LGBT Business Enterprises, as well as thousands of LGBT business owner members across the 50-plus local affiliates of the NGLCC.
For 46-year-old NiK Kacy, funding a retirement plan isn’t an option right now. Kacy, a transmasculine nonbinary queer Asian, quit their job at Google in 2013 to start a namesake footwear business that addresses the lack of options available to the LGBTQ community.
NiK Kacy, founder of NiK Kacy Footwear, has a 401(k) from a previous job but has not saved for retirement since starting their company.
Photo: Nicolette J-Pownall
“I would love a lot of the men’s shoes, but whenever I would try to go find something similar to wear for myself, I was told I was in the wrong section or they didn’t make my size,” said Kacy, who was assigned female at birth.
Fortunately, Kacy has a 401(k) plan from their time at Google. However, these days, any money coming in goes toward their business or living expenses, which are very tight.
With business dropping 60% during the pandemic, Kacy is wondering if it would be smarter to get a full-time job with benefits, and continue NiK Kacy Footwear on the side, with employees.
“I am wondering, what is going to happen to me when I get older?” Kacy said.
That’s a very real concern for many small business owners, who may have to figure out the best vehicle to save in, since any 401(k) plans would be from former employers.
Yet, they should remember the old adage “pay yourself first,” said certified financial planner M. David Goldstein, CEO and chief investment officer of Washington-based Kalorama Wealth Strategies, a financial planning firm focused on members of the gay and lesbian community.
“Once the business has sufficient excess cash flow, beyond your basic living needs, that should become part of the business and personal spending plan or budget,” he said.
Debt and credit concerns
The survey also found that 45% of LGBTQ small business owners don’t stick to a personal budget each month.
More than half are carrying personal debt to support their business, yet 45% say their business doesn’t carry debt.
Nearly 20% have $10,000 or more in credit card debt.
NGLCC’s Nelson sees a disconnect between what LGBTQ owners should be able to access and what they are actually able to acquire for their businesses.
Of those polled, 40% had an exceptional credit score (800-850) and 28% had a very good score (740-799).
“We tend to have this exceptional level of credit, yet there are still credit crunches for small businesses,” he said.
Just over 40% said they have been denied a loan in the past, and more than 30% aren’t optimistic the Equality Act will provide better access to credit for their business. The legislation, passed by the House in February, would extend existing civil rights laws to include gender identity and sexual orientation.
Yet there has been what Nelson calls major progress. When asked if they thought their sexual orientation or gender identity might make them lose a contract, just over 56% said no. That number has doubled over the last 10 years, he said.
Covid impact
Like business owners across the country, LGBTQ entrepreneurs were slammed by the pandemic. Just over 32% said they lost 50% or more of their business as a result of Covid.
Yet they are optimistic. About 78% expect to make a full recovery in 2022.
“While small business owners may have been knocked down, they have not been knocked out,” said Nelson, who applauded the resilience of the LGBTQ business community.
“They are ready to get to work.”
Register now: Invest in Pride: Ready. Set. Grow. featuring Suze Orman. She will discuss the most pressing issues currently facing small business owners and answering their questions about how they can manage their personal and business finances.
That’s not the only erasure in Schulman’s book. For her, setting the record straight means emphasizing ACT UP’s broad vista of coalition politics. Yet of the nearly two hundred interviews that she draws upon for the book, only a few are with Black people. The voices of important activists of color who didn’t survive the plague are absent, owing to her reluctance to use archives other than her own. Even in a chapter describing the plight of H.I.V.-positive Haitians interned in Guantánamo, all her interview subjects are white. Early in the book, she says that her subjects spoke with her openly because, as New Yorkers, “they were used to telling their thoughts and feelings to a middle-aged Jewish woman.” In the context of her argument, the shrink joke, with its caste and class presuppositions, cuts a little close to the bone.
“ACT UP is a racist organization,” the late Keith Cylar, a prominent member of the group, told Spin in 1990. He wasn’t condemning ACT UP; he was saying that racism was an inevitable feature in a mostly white organization, and required vigilance. The sociologist (and ACT UP veteran) Deborah B. Gould, subtly probing the group’s racial politics, has written about a “scarcity mentality” fuelled by desperation. When people of color raised issues of particular concern to them, they routinely met the rejoinder “What does this have to do with AIDS?” or were told, “We don’t have time.” But Schulman hurries past such conversations, more concerned with scrutinizing the group’s media image than its complicated reality.
In the end, what Schulman calls ACT UP’s “tragic split” was precipitated more by dissension over research than by disagreements over race. Any list of the most important medical trials of modern times would have to include the AIDS Clinical Trials Group Protocol 076 study, which was launched in 1991. That study was designed to determine whether the antiretroviral AZT, administered during advanced pregnancy, would prevent H.I.V. transmission from mother to infant. And it led to a decisive rift between those in ACT UP, like Harrington, who argued for the study’s critical importance and those, like Maxine Wolfe, who wanted it stopped at all costs.
AZT was the first antiretroviral that received F.D.A. authorization to treat H.I.V. For a while, it would bring down a patient’s viral load, but H.I.V. is a fast-mutating virus, and the drug, when used on its own, as a “monotherapy,” typically lost efficacy within months. For a woman about to give birth, however, a temporary drop in viral load could be enough to reduce the risk of transmission. At the time of the study, between a quarter and a third of infants delivered to women with H.I.V. were born infected, and most died. Would the therapy help?
The A.C.T.G. 076 study—which enrolled nearly five hundred pregnant women—demonstrated that a brief regimen of AZT administered to a mother before and during delivery, along with a small dose for the newborn, decreased the perinatal transmission rate by nearly seventy per cent.
That trial, and others that followed, helped doctors throughout the world prevent the deaths of millions of children, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where infection rates were exceptionally high. Still, AZT was a poison that had to be used wisely, and the trial raised thorny ethical questions. Was it fair to give poor women drugs that could cause resistance later and, in theory, hinder subsequent treatment? Or did the immediate threat to all the children who might be born with H.I.V. take precedence? Was it ethical to use a placebo group? Many women in ACT UP wanted to shut the trial down, or substantially alter it. The Science Club fought forcefully for the trial. (So did many Black women, who knew that it could be particularly helpful to hard-hit communities of color.)
Wolfe, who brought Schulman into the group, and who emerges as a major opponent of Harrington and his approach, considered the trial too dangerous. She has never swerved from her conviction that it was immoral. “I regret that we couldn’t stop 076,’’ she told Schulman. “To this day, I think it was a big mistake.” Schulman—who uncritically presents Wolfe’s false assertion that the risk of viral transmission to infants was “minuscule”—condemns the trials as privileging the “imagined future” over the present; unborn babies over their mothers. She implies that some of the mothers later died because they were “rendered resistant to some subsequent classes of new medications.”
Yet, since trial subjects almost invariably received a higher “standard of care” than would have been available to them otherwise, participation could save their lives, not just the lives of their offspring. And Schulman’s concern that these mothers wouldn’t benefit from new classes of medicine has long since been laid to rest. Newer antivirals—notably protease inhibitors, which won F.D.A. approval a year after the trial results were published—became part of an updated standard of care. These regimens proved widely effective for people who had previously taken AZT.
It’s nearly impossible to assess the value of a medical trial without at least exploring the consequences of not carrying it out. I travelled to Africa to write about this issue nearly twenty years ago. I could hardly find an African physician or researcher who didn’t consider the A.C.T.G. 076 study to be of immense value. I found none who thought it should have been stopped. White feminists like Schulman and Wolfe, who understandably saw the study through the lens of reproductive politics—and the way anti-abortion advocates have elevated the welfare of a fetus over that of its mother—failed to grasp what these trials meant to vulnerable communities around the world. Almost three decades later, Schulman refuses to acknowledge that, on a deeply contentious issue, the Science Club was right.
Inevitably, personalities as well as principles played a role in ACT UP’s subsequent split. As Schulman observes, Maxine Wolfe and Mark Harrington deserve a great deal of credit for the group’s successes; the two were equally responsible, she contends, for what she calls its “self-defeat.” Although Wolfe is at pains to distance herself from the antagonism that arose toward the Science Club, people within that group had their own perspective. The estimable Garance Franke-Ruta, who joined ACT UP as a teen-ager, and followed Harrington to the Treatment Action Group, spoke bluntly to Schulman: Wolfe, she said, “was awful to me.”
The grievance that Wolfe and her allies had with the Science Club went beyond the battle over a single drug trial. They were concerned that the Club’s members had increasingly pursued the “inside strategy”—working with pharmaceutical researchers, N.I.H. administrators, and other public officials. This meant that, as Wolfe put it, they “were meeting with the very people who we were fighting against.” Her allies discussed a moratorium on letting anyone in ACT UP meet with government officials, and the prospect deepened the sense within the Science Club that ACT UP no longer valued its agenda. Although ACT UP didn’t collapse after the schism, it was badly damaged, and it never recovered its centrality. When the inside-outside strategy was largely reduced to an outside strategy, the organization became far less consequential.
In retrospect, one can ask whether ACT UP’s victories on the research front pushed the F.D.A. too far. The drugs-into-bodies approach to fast-tracking—the use of “surrogate endpoints” (like T-cell counts or viral load), for example, rather than clinical benefits in actual people—can be valuable, especially for patients who are facing death and have no good alternatives. This approach at least offers desperate patients a chance, while allowing scientists to gather meaningful data. But, today, a number of drugs, for everything from asthma to periodontitis, have won approval before benefits in human patients were established, and critics argue that drug approval is too often based solely on benefits shown in biomarkers rather than in bodies. “Right to try” legislation, meanwhile, enables the sale of drug candidates without even involving the F.D.A. When restrictions are weakened, experimental drugs—many of which end up proving useless or worse—become harder to distinguish from effective medicine.
Today, Franke-Ruta is a journalist, and she spoke to Schulman about the wider implications of some of ACT UP’s success. “I don’t think that we realized at the time that this was part of the broader gutting of the FDA that we’ve seen since; that there was a lot of political agendas that we just happened to be in sync,” she said. After President Donald Trump touted the promise of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, the F.D.A. issued an emergency-use authorization for the drug, which was shown to be useless for the purpose. (The agency withdrew the authorization three months later.) “Sometimes it seems like it’s gone too far in the other direction,” Franke-Ruta went on. “But there’s a really strong pharmaceutical lobby against the FDA as well that I don’t think we were aware of.”
ACT UP’s legacy is hardly restricted to the realm of research. “The movement for Black lives would look very different if its thought leaders—many of whom are self-identified Black queer people—hadn’t been able to draw on the example of ACT UP,” the legal scholar Kendall Thomas, who joined the group in 1987, has observed. “Black activists and their allies now understand that the struggle for Black freedom has to make connections across many different constituencies and concerns that used to be seen as different and disconnected.” At the same time, Schulman implicitly reprimands many contemporary social-justice movements and their emphasis on allyship and “accomplices” (who must take direction from a marginalized community) over coalitions of shared interests and values. She plainly considers call-out culture a distraction. ACT UP members who were women or people of color, she says, directed resources to projects that were specifically of concern to them. They “did not stop the drive toward action to correct or control language or to call out bias,” she adds pointedly. “The language and behavior of racist and sexist ACT UPers was not the focus.”
There are lessons in ACT UP’s failures, of course, as well as in its successes. If the group were the richly coalitional grassroots organization that Schulman describes, how could the departure of two dozen people—Harrington’s TAG team—have derailed it? Her institutional analysis is rather cryptic. The way ACT UP dealt with the differences among its members “was to practice a kind of radical democracy,” she says. “Subverting this range of difference and trying to channel it through open and hidden moves was ultimately its downfall.”
One notably disaffected voice in “Let the Record Show” is that of Charles King, who (with his partner, Keith Cylar) helped start Housing Works. King told Schulman that ACT UP was, at its heart, “gay men and their allies fighting for their lives.” By the mid- to late nineties, the demographics of death were changing: “It was now a Black disease, not their disease.”
Schulman promptly dismisses King’s unsettling critique: “True to the ACT UP tradition of alienation, Charles was defining ‘ACT UP’ by the people he disagreed with, not by himself and his allies.” Her insistence on ACT UP’s diversity is important and correct. Still, the group’s most famous image—the inverted pink triangle of the “Silence = Death” logo—didn’t just link AIDS and the Holocaust; it was also an assertion of a gay identity, as not incidental but integral.
King suggests that an easing of desperation within the gay community may have caused ACT UP’s undoing. As long as the core cadre felt that they were fighting for their own lives, ACT UP could accommodate vigorous internal disagreement, even as the group secured advances for women, people of color, and the homeless. After medical advances meant that, for most H.I.V.-positive Americans, the infection was no longer a death sentence but a chronic condition, the forces of fragmentation could no longer be managed.
ACT UP was always argumentative, though, and “Let the Record Show” remains faithful to that spirit. If Schulman’s record-keeping sometimes projects her own ideals and aspirations, she never fails to make one truth eloquently clear: “how brutal debates within the AIDS community could be, how high the emotional and literal stakes were, how desperate people were, how little anyone else was listening, and how truly destructive the pain and frustration could become.” ♦
“Oh, don’t look at me like that! Don’t act straight when you’re gay” is a new TikTok sound is not standing for any heteronormative nonsense. Certainly not during Pride Month!
If your FYP is anything like mine, you won’t be able to scroll without coming across this sound right now. It’s everywhere, it’s really quotable and it’s camp as tits.
The setup goes as such: group of pals are out for a bev, and their gay friend is having a pint rather than something more stereotypically femme. The queer in the group lip syncs “don’t look at me like that!” and the hetero pal does the “don’t act straight when you’re gay!”. And hilarity ensues!
It is, like all queer content worth your time, from Lady Gaga of course!
The sound is taken from a live performance of her song Donatella – an album track on her third record ARTPOP and an ode to her good friend and fashion designer Donatella Versace. If you don’t know Donatella, it’s one of the most high camp bangers in Gaga’s discography.
The song starts with the iconic lyrics “I am so fab! Check out – I’m blonde. I’m skinny. I’m rich. And I’m a little bit of a bitch!”
You might have seen the big #JusticeForArtpop campaign that went on earlier this year – it was likely a big factor in the “don’t act straight” sound surfacing and gaining traction on TikTok.
Obviously, these videos are all done tongue in cheek and are laughing and embracing the queer stereotypes that plague us as gay people. Couldn’t think of a funnier way to create this Pride Month.
Stonewall told organisations wanting to be included on its equality leader-board to say “parent who has given birth” instead, according to reports.
Documents released to The Telegraph said employers were told they should stop using “gendered language” – such as “mother” and “father”.
It has prompted backlash against the charity, which runs the Workplace Equality Index, with calls for the Government to sever ties with the group.
Marco Longhi, MP for Dudley North, hit out at the move and slammed the “woke brigade’s left-wing agenda” for trying to impose their views.
He said: “Stonewall’s decision to ban the word ‘mother’ is outrageous. This is a continuation of the woke brigade’s left-wing agenda to impose their own views of what society should be – it is a form of Marxism.
“The vast majority of people will reject this nonsense – including many members of the LGBTQ+ community who I have spoken to. I very much look forward to Father’s Day and Mother’s Day in our calendar of festivities.”
The Workplace Equality Index ranks employers based on how inclusive they are judged to be – with a number of Government departments, including the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, featuring on the list alongside the British Army and MI6.
Stonewall says featuring on the Workplace Equality Index allows employers to understand their employees’ experiences and shows commitment to LGBT equality, with employers achieving a coveted Top 100 spot allowed to use the Top 100 Employers logo to promote their achievement.
Figures from the charity say there are more than 850 organisations, including 250 Government departments and public bodies such as police forces, councils and NHS trusts, signed up as ‘Diversity Champions’.
A spokesman for the charity said in a statement: “All employers need to ensure that their staff, including LGBTQ+ staff, are free from discrimination and prejudice at work, and our Diversity Champions programme is one way for organisations to be supported to meet this requirement.
“Since we set up the Diversity Champions programme in 2001, many large employers have developed major internal programmes to promote diversity and inclusion across their staff and make the workplace better for LGBTQ+ people.
“As with every membership programme, organisations come and go depending on what works best for them at the time, and it’s great that organisations can continue this important work on their own. “
The group added it is “confident in our advice on the Equality Act which is based on the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Equality Act Code of Practice”.
There will be a ribbon cutting for event sponsors, host committee members and ambassadors at 5 p.m., and the public is welcome to attend from 6 to 8 p.m.
“Really, coming back to Asbury is like coming home for us,” said QSpot executive director John Mikutuck.
QSpot has been at work at extensive renovations for its new location since late 2019, and moved out of its Ocean Grove site in early 2020, just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the pandemic, the organization moved its programming — including support groups, its book club and a social club for older adults — to Zoom.
“All of them have been still holding their meetings, really embraced the technology and now are beginning the conversations about coming back in person after our Grand HOPEning,” said Mikytuck.
QSpot’s new location will also feature a cafe, with sales supporting the organization’s efforts.
Mikytuck described the move to a stand-alone home as “such a leap forward,” explaining it was always the goal of the organization’s founders.
The Asbury Avenue site, Mikytuck said, has been vacant since 2007 or so. It had previously housed a car rental business, a bank and a service station.
For more information on QSpot, and for the latest updates on its new location, visit qspot.org.
Alex Biese has been writing about art, entertainment, culture and news on a local and national level for more than 15 years.
Pride Month, which began Tuesday, is always a bittersweet time for me. As a gay man, I am indeed proud: proud to be able to walk down the street or sit at a café with my husband. Proud of the overwhelming support of so many in the straight community, who are allies and rally to help fight for LGBTQ rights and freedoms. Proud, simply, to be able to be me.
Allowing Jordan to fly under the radar regarding human rights abuses only emboldens the perpetrators and threatens the victims.
At the same time, I cannot help remembering the many long years when “being me” meant being constantly riddled with shame and crippling fear. Those were the years when I was in Jordan — the country where I was born and raised. Jordan is a place of tradition, of strict traditional Islamic values, conformity and repression. It is a place where people are expected to live a certain way, and any variation of that predetermined lifestyle is seen as a threat to the kingdom itself.
In April, Jordan’s Prince Hamzah made headlines for inciting a family feud by calling out the kingdom’s glaring repression, among other ills. But his comments applied to people who dared criticize government policy, not to people like those in the LGBTQ community who don’t conform.
Conformity is baked into Jordanian society from a very early age, enforced in the home and school and everywhere in between. Bullying, harassment, threats and violence — some of it deadly — are rampant against anyone who differs in any way from the established stringent norms.
Related
To spectators in the United States, countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran dominate the headlines when it comes to treatment of LGBTQ people. Jordan is often given a pass, especially at the government level. The United States government sees Jordan as a stable, important ally in the region, strategically located between Israel, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Jordan is seen as progressive, a guiding light of Western values in an ancient tribal world.
This is a flawed perception, and a dangerous one. Jordan is still extremely conservative, religiously dominated and racially biased. Just because the death penalty isn’t handed out to gay people doesn’t make it a progressive kingdom. Allowing Jordan to fly under the radar regarding human rights abuses only emboldens the perpetrators and threatens the victims.
June 1, 202104:51
Growing up, I knew that if my sexuality were to be revealed, my father would disown me and throw me out of the house. I knew that my cousins and friends would target me with brutal bullying and harassment and that I would likely be subject to hate crimes. I knew I wasn’t safe as a gay man and that my life would be in jeopardy.
Though being gay in Jordan hasn’t been a crime since the 1950s, that doesn’t mean it’s allowed. By openly embracing oppressive values, the monarchy doesn’t need to arrest gay people; they are more than happy to let the people repress us for them.
Related
Indeed, these social norms are baked into society from a young age. Children are indoctrinated at school and at home, taught how to be a “normal and good” Jordanian. Just as I knew I wasn’t safe, everyone else knew to discriminate against anyone who was LGBTQ. The discrimination is intentional and premeditated, as I show in my novel “The Kingdom’s Sandcastle,” which is based on true events.
This environment enabled a predator to abuse me for years. He sexually assaulted me and blackmailed me into silence with the threat of outing me to the world. I couldn’t go to the police, I couldn’t tell my family and I couldn’t protect myself. The abuse led to drug addiction, depression and suicide attempts, and the only escape I found was fleeing to the United States, which I did in 2007.
Today, pride can barely describe how I feel. Yes, I am beaming with pride. I am also grateful and filled with joy. But a part of me is sad, and always will be. Although LGBTQ activism has become more present in the Middle East in recent years, there is still a very long road ahead. TikTok recently banned certain LGBTQ hashtags in several countries, including Jordan. A few years ago, members of the Jordanian Parliamentopenly attacked LGBTQ media, which saw a corresponding spike in hate violence. Hate speech has also been blossoming online, and social media companies like Facebook have done practically nothing to stop its growth.
The United States has also been silent on the issue. When the recent news broke regarding the former crown prince, the U.S. was fast to proclaim its continued support for the Jordanian monarchy. But nothing was said about the continued human rights violations. Nothing was said about the treatment of the LGBTQ community and how the hate is enabled from the monarchy to the Parliament to the people.
Related
How can we in the United States hold ourselves on such a pedestal of equality and freedom when we routinely enable the opposite? The rights of LGBTQ people abroad have never been a strong tenet of American foreign policy, and that needs to change. If we truly want to reflect the values we claim to hold dear, we need to integrate all of them into our foreign policy. We cannot continue to give nations like Jordan a free pass.
In Jordan, and elsewhere, countless people still live with the relentless pain of hiding their true selves from society under the threat of violence amid intense discrimination. So when Pride Month comes around, let’s celebrate, yes, but let’s also take a moment from our revelry to think about all those around the world for whom Pride is an inaccessible luxury — and a potentially fatal risk.
Luai Qubain
Luai Qubain is the author of “The Kingdom’s Sandcastle.” He received his degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Oklahoma and started his career with an international oil and gas company before opening his own consulting firm. He now lives in Denver with his husband, three cats and a dog.
Pride Month, which began Tuesday, is always a bittersweet time for me. As a gay man, I am indeed proud: proud to be able to walk down the street or sit at a café with my husband. Proud of the overwhelming support of so many in the straight community, who are allies and rally to help fight for LGBTQ rights and freedoms. Proud, simply, to be able to be me.
Allowing Jordan to fly under the radar regarding human rights abuses only emboldens the perpetrators and threatens the victims.
At the same time, I cannot help remembering the many long years when “being me” meant being constantly riddled with shame and crippling fear. Those were the years when I was in Jordan — the country where I was born and raised. Jordan is a place of tradition, of strict traditional Islamic values, conformity and repression. It is a place where people are expected to live a certain way, and any variation of that predetermined lifestyle is seen as a threat to the kingdom itself.
In April, Jordan’s Prince Hamzah made headlines for inciting a family feud by calling out the kingdom’s glaring repression, among other ills. But his comments applied to people who dared criticize government policy, not to people like those in the LGBTQ community who don’t conform.
Conformity is baked into Jordanian society from a very early age, enforced in the home and school and everywhere in between. Bullying, harassment, threats and violence — some of it deadly — are rampant against anyone who differs in any way from the established stringent norms.
Related
To spectators in the United States, countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran dominate the headlines when it comes to treatment of LGBTQ people. Jordan is often given a pass, especially at the government level. The United States government sees Jordan as a stable, important ally in the region, strategically located between Israel, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Jordan is seen as progressive, a guiding light of Western values in an ancient tribal world.
This is a flawed perception, and a dangerous one. Jordan is still extremely conservative, religiously dominated and racially biased. Just because the death penalty isn’t handed out to gay people doesn’t make it a progressive kingdom. Allowing Jordan to fly under the radar regarding human rights abuses only emboldens the perpetrators and threatens the victims.
June 1, 202104:51
Growing up, I knew that if my sexuality were to be revealed, my father would disown me and throw me out of the house. I knew that my cousins and friends would target me with brutal bullying and harassment and that I would likely be subject to hate crimes. I knew I wasn’t safe as a gay man and that my life would be in jeopardy.
Though being gay in Jordan hasn’t been a crime since the 1950s, that doesn’t mean it’s allowed. By openly embracing oppressive values, the monarchy doesn’t need to arrest gay people; they are more than happy to let the people repress us for them.
Related
Indeed, these social norms are baked into society from a young age. Children are indoctrinated at school and at home, taught how to be a “normal and good” Jordanian. Just as I knew I wasn’t safe, everyone else knew to discriminate against anyone who was LGBTQ. The discrimination is intentional and premeditated, as I show in my novel “The Kingdom’s Sandcastle,” which is based on true events.
This environment enabled a predator to abuse me for years. He sexually assaulted me and blackmailed me into silence with the threat of outing me to the world. I couldn’t go to the police, I couldn’t tell my family and I couldn’t protect myself. The abuse led to drug addiction, depression and suicide attempts, and the only escape I found was fleeing to the United States, which I did in 2007.
Today, pride can barely describe how I feel. Yes, I am beaming with pride. I am also grateful and filled with joy. But a part of me is sad, and always will be. Although LGBTQ activism has become more present in the Middle East in recent years, there is still a very long road ahead. TikTok recently banned certain LGBTQ hashtags in several countries, including Jordan. A few years ago, members of the Jordanian Parliamentopenly attacked LGBTQ media, which saw a corresponding spike in hate violence. Hate speech has also been blossoming online, and social media companies like Facebook have done practically nothing to stop its growth.
The United States has also been silent on the issue. When the recent news broke regarding the former crown prince, the U.S. was fast to proclaim its continued support for the Jordanian monarchy. But nothing was said about the continued human rights violations. Nothing was said about the treatment of the LGBTQ community and how the hate is enabled from the monarchy to the Parliament to the people.
Related
How can we in the United States hold ourselves on such a pedestal of equality and freedom when we routinely enable the opposite? The rights of LGBTQ people abroad have never been a strong tenet of American foreign policy, and that needs to change. If we truly want to reflect the values we claim to hold dear, we need to integrate all of them into our foreign policy. We cannot continue to give nations like Jordan a free pass.
In Jordan, and elsewhere, countless people still live with the relentless pain of hiding their true selves from society under the threat of violence amid intense discrimination. So when Pride Month comes around, let’s celebrate, yes, but let’s also take a moment from our revelry to think about all those around the world for whom Pride is an inaccessible luxury — and a potentially fatal risk.
Luai Qubain
Luai Qubain is the author of “The Kingdom’s Sandcastle.” He received his degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Oklahoma and started his career with an international oil and gas company before opening his own consulting firm. He now lives in Denver with his husband, three cats and a dog.
Natashya Alma, 36, began her small beauty parlor in Surabaya, East Java, with her former boyfriend, Widodo, and named it Nathwi, a blend of their names. Widodo provided the salon’s equipment, while Natashya was responsible for the technical aspects.
Following their separation, Natashya, who also worked as a dancer and a model, moved to Denpasar, Bali, where she continued her business, this time under the name Blossom.
“I just like that name,” she said, adding that her brand focused on high-quality yet affordable hair treatments.
As a trans woman, Natashya was aware of the growing discrimination against her in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country. It did not stop her from pursuing her passion. In fact, she believes that being part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community (LGBT) has its own benefits when it comes to running her business.
“People, in general, prefer [their hair treatment] to be handled by LGBT people because we are more thorough and the results are satisfactory,” she said.
Furthermore, Natashya believes that the more LGBT Indonesians start their own businesses that benefit society, the more they would be accepted.
“Slowly, they will accept the existence of our people who run businesses and appreciate us,” she added.
Overcoming stigma
Natashya is just one example of LGBT Indonesians who run their own businesses while being open about their identity. In recent years, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy has shown growing hostility toward gender-minority groups.
Tika, 25, and her partner Della, 26, both based in Depok, West Java, were aware of the stigma. Together, they recently opened Hutan Seni Art & Craft, which sells clothes, tote bags, postcards, necklaces and mini sketchbooks among other items.
Against stigma: Natashya Alma, 36, established ‘Blossom’, a beauty parlor, in Denpasar, Bali. She is one of the few Indonesian trans women who has started a business despite the stigma against them. (JP/Courtesy of Blossim)
To tackle the stigma, Tika and Della are determined to show their contribution to the community by running a responsible business. For them, this is important in order to show people that LBGT businesses are not only creative but also care for the environment.
“We try to minimize plastic bags — although it’s not 100 percent yet,” said Tika, adding that it was important to hold on to the “uniqueness” of the LGBT identity.
Similarly, Venon Sa’id Ali, 27, and Ida Bagus Jagannatha, 25, started Kwiir in September 2020 in Denpasar, Bali. They began by providing workshops for trans women whose means of living drastically declined because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The workshops included free sewing courses.
Enjoying work: Trans women under Kwiir work hard during the COVID-19 pandemic. (JP/Courtesy of Kwiir)
Venon, who identifies as queer and uses they/them pronouns, said that following the course’s conclusion, Kwiir began selling products such as handmade tote bags and decorative pillows.
Though conceding that it was often difficult to run a business as part of the LGBT community, Venon said it was important for Kwiir to put forward its beliefs in its company profile. Both founders maintained that by doing so, Kwiir could show its support for the community while continuing to create.
“Our profile states: Made by trans and queer creators,” they said.
Quality
Rikky Muchammad, 35, a gay man and organizer of Sanggar Seroja, a collective small business and cooperative chiefly run by trans women, acknowledged that Indonesian netizens could be quite nasty toward them.
“There were some Indonesians who left nasty comments about us on YouTube,” he said.
Sanggar Seroja focuses on small culinary ventures. It teaches trans women to deliver high-quality products, work on their confidence in handling customers and other skills, such as communications, using mobile applications and reaching out to delivery services.
So far, customers have given the business a positive response, provided feedback, as well as promoted its products on their personal social media accounts.
Rikky believes that at the end of the day, it all comes back to the quality of the products, reasonable prices, quality service and promotions in order to maintain and grow the businesses.
“Even a master chef selling premium-priced boxed meals will experience a business decline if the food is not delicious,” he said. “I want to remain optimistic, although more effort and strategy are needed for [our] products to be well-received by society in general.”
Sanggar Seroja was established last March by Rikky and several friends after many trans women who mainly worked as beauticians, street singers and sex workers lost their income because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many beauty parlors were forced to close, while make-up artists were either let go or faced many cancellations from their customers. Street singers and sex workers also lost their customers.
Delicious snacks: Trans women under Sanggar Seroja focus on culinary businesses. (JP/Courtesy of Sanggar Seroja)
“Food became the new alternative to making ends meet,” Rikky said.
Sanggar Seroja members currently sell products with long shelf lives, such as chips and fried shallots. While several lockdown periods might have hindered deliveries, sales of chips and fried shallots were more stable in terms of sales compared to other products.
“For other products [that we sell] such as cakes, we have to use instant-delivery services that are more expensive, which saw many customers cancel their orders,” he added.
Rikky said that unlike beauty parlors and entertainment businesses, which are considered the forte of LGBT people, trans women under the Sanggar Seroja umbrella needed to work harder to convince customers about their food products.
“Questions such as, is the kitchen hygienic? Is the food healthy? Can they [trans women] actually cook? Do they follow safety protocols?”
Resilience
Natashya conceded that her businesses have slowed down ever since the pandemic hit the world last year, including in the tourism-reliant island of Bali.
“[My] income has gone down by 40 percent,” she said.
She revealed that in order to make ends meet, she went back to sex work, something that she was not ashamed of. Natashya’s Blossom opens at 9 a.m. and closes at 9 p.m. After that, Natashya would go on to the streets.
“I don’t want to be stuck. I still need to pay my rent, food and pay off my debts,” she said, adding that some of the cash that she got from sex work also went to the salon.
For Tika and Della, whose business relies on creativity, the pandemic affected their motivation to create products. As a result, they did not release new products in 2020. They also planned to open standing booths in art markets, but that had to be canceled due to the pandemic.
“But [other than that], there are no crucial problems,” she said.
In the first feature article of his Pride Month series on football, Danyal Khan looks at how supporters groups for LGBTQ+ people and allies are contributing towards greater understanding around inclusion…
That’s the type of comment many LGBTQ+ people have received on social media before, and comments like this are the reason why many LGBTQ+ people feel that they can’t have an active involvement in the “beautiful game.”
But these incidents don’t just happen on social media. A select few fans, who are now the minority, feel it’s fine to just throw derogatory terms left, right and centre at players without any consequences.
Thankfully in the battle against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in football, certain individuals are starting to stand up to perpetrators in order to show them that derogatory comments are not acceptable in this current progressive footballing environment in the UK.
The likes of Kick It Out have made it easier now for fans to feel safe to report other fans via an app – meaning fans don’t have to directly confront a perpetrator.
Villa and Proud founder Samuel Timms is one of a minority of people who have directly stood up to homophobia in the terraces.
“I never had to report fans at Villa Park because of homophobic abuse being directed at a player. But I had to do it last season,” Timms reveals. “Someone used the word fa**** three times in front of me.”
Timms went on to add: “I actually decided to speak to this person at half-time. He had no idea I was gay, he couldn’t tell otherwise I don’t think we would have had the discussion in the calm manner that we did.
“But it’s clearly a generational problem. And I was worried when this guy was doing it with a little child sat next to him, who could have been related to him.
“It’s not good for him to hear the venomous abuse that was coming out from his mouth, so that’s why I stepped in.”
And this tale of witnessing homophobic abuse in the terraces or online is a common story amongst many LGBTQ+ football fans.
Click on the audio clips below to hear different LGBTQ+ football fans speak about their experiences of homophobia in football...
Rainbow Blades member Callum Mackay talks about his experiences of homophobia in footballProud Valiants member Sam Clarke opens up about his experiences of homophobia in footballVilla and Proud member Tom Cowley opens up about his experiences of homophobia in football
Whilst many factors point towards the negatives of football not being inclusive for the LGBTQ+ population, there is a lot of positive work being done by individuals and groups that goes unnoticed in the battle to make football a sport for everyone.
The likes of Stonewall, Football v Homophobia (FvH) and Sky Sports are just a few of the organisations who work hard trying to make football inclusive for LGBTQ+ people all around the world.
Whether that’s tackling deep-rooted issues within the game like Stonewall and FvH do, or even giving the exposure to the LGBTQ+ stories that don’t get covered by other outlets like Sky Sports do, all these organisations play a key part in making football as inclusive as it can.
Sky Sports writer, editor, and the founder of Sports Media LGBT+Jon Holmes joined me to discuss everything LGBT+ inclusivity in football…
How LGBTQ+ fan groups give lesbian, gay, bi and trans fans confidence to attend football matches
“What has your sexuality got to do with being a football supporter?”
This is one of the questions panel guests had to answer in December 2020 as part of the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) panel on the importance of LGBTQ+ fan groups.
Misconceptions fly around about how much of a ‘nuisance’ these groups are to the typical heterosexual football fan who doesn’t see the need for these networks in the beautiful game.
Unfortunately, negative comments circulate around social media like “don’t bring politics into football.”
This is counteracted by the positive allies out there who do show their support to their respective LGBTQ+ community.
An example I have looked into in terms of responses to fan communities online is Liverpool FC’s group Kop Outs.
Two posts from Kop Outs themselves and the club demonstrate both sides when it comes to how fans perceive and react to LGBTQ+-based social media posts.
The first post is about the Kop Outs banner being introduced to the well-known Kop End at Anfield. This was how a few people reacted on social media…
A mixed reaction – not a surprise to see. This ‘pic n mix’ type of reaction is also demonstrated in the next example, where Liverpool FC put out a post recently to celebrate #IDAHOBIT (International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia).
We are proud and welcoming of supporters from all backgrounds no matter their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation 🙌
Today we celebrate sexual orientation and gender diversity, pledging our allyship to the community 🏳️🌈 #IDAHOBIT
Despite the controversy that surrounds these groups online, the real impact they have on the typical LGBTQ+ fan is huge and is one of the main reasons why football is starting to move towards a point where being LGBTQ is normalised within the ‘beautiful game’.
The idea of having an LGBTQ+ football group has grown rapidly and we are now starting to see more and more Premier League and EFL teams having their own unique fan group.
The importance of having that community as a sounding board has even resonated with a couple of diversity and inclusion officers at clubs who engage well enough with these groups.
Some clubs, such as Charlton Athletic who are currently in League One, have an official affiliation to their LGBTQ+ fan community – in Charlton’s case, Proud Valiants.
According to Pride in Football who are the official network of LGBT+ fan groups, there are approximately 50 LGBTQ+ football fan communities in the UK.
There is no exact number as we are constantly seeing new groups and communities form which as Timms says, is a ‘promising’ sign that football is starting to become more LGBTQ+ inclusive.
In the last year, we have welcomed the newly-formed Rainbow Blades (Sheffield United) and Chairboys LGBT (Wycombe Wanderers) to the family of LGBTQ+ football fan groups.
So why do football clubs need LGBTQ+ supporters groups and how did it all start?
Unsurprisingly, this was another question asked at the Football Supporters’ Association webinar on LGBTQ+ fan groups that I had the privilege to be asked to participate in.
Statistics from Stonewall in the last five years have shown that seven in 10 football fans who have attended a match have heard or witnessed homophobia on the terraces.
Additionally, one in 10 LGBT+ people who attended a live sporting event pre-Covid experienced discrimination because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
Ten percent, despite not sounding a significant amount, is a telling figure as to why LGBTQ+ fan groups and communities exist to help those affected by witnessing or experiencing homophobia in the terraces at a live match.
Gay Gooners (Arsenal) and Villa and Proud (Aston Villa) are two of the biggest LGBTQ+ fan communities out there in the UK.
Both are two large groups among others out there to set up in the early days and give a blueprint to other fans on how running a big network can benefit LGBTQ+ footballing communities around the UK.
Timms, the founder of Villa and Proud and a big advocate for LGBT inclusion in football, describes his journey into setting up Villa’s fan group.
“It was all the key experiences that I had built up over the years with Charlton Invicta (LGBTQ+ inclusive football team) and setting it up with Gary Ginnaw (Sam’s partner) and speaking to a professional football club.
“Aston Villa is a massive part of me,” Timms reflects. “I’ve said it before in the past, it doesn’t matter what team you support – sometimes you are born that way.”
The head of Villa and Proud smiles while clarifying that “born this way” wasn’t a Lady Gaga reference in this case!
He goes on to add: “It’s part of your DNA. I haven’t known any different.
“Aston Villa is the best club, and they reached out to me about it, and so we had a meeting back in June 2018.
“And fast forward to now, we are currently at a fantastic point with our second anniversary which has just passed.
“We have made some amazing strides with the club themselves, and the Villa fans and even football fans in general.”
Charlton Athletic fan and Proud Valiants vice-chair Gary Ginnaw on the power of LGBTQ+ supporter groups
Villa and Proud has not just provided a safe space for all LGBTQ+ Aston Villa fans to hang out in.
As a result of the Birmingham-based group being set up, opportunities have opened up for Villa fans to help out with the day-to-day running of the group.
Tom Cowley is an LGBTQ+ Aston Villa fan and has been involved in Villa and Proud since its early days.
He has been one of the key figures in the organisation’s growth, and as a result earned the reward of being the social media officer for the network.
Villa and Proud member Tom Cowley on how he got involved with the group
Cowley reveals how being part of a fan network like Villa and Proud has changed his experience as a football fan. Not only this, but also perceptions of the LGBTQ+ community have changed as a result of being an active member of the group.
He says: “I think the Villa community in general are an accepting and tolerant fan base.
“At the same time, I think having an LGBTQ specific community suits us well.
“But we prefer to call ourselves a network rather than a supporters group, because that’s really what it is. It’s more of a network for connecting.
“And it does exactly that, it connects you with other LGBTQ fans.
Tom Cowley get to know feature
“It’s nice to know that you are not alone in the universe. All the stereotypes you hear in school about gay people only liking dance and drama are not true.
“There are a minority who do like sport, like myself and many other LGBTQ+ people out there.”
The pure existence of these groups mean a lot to their members.
They are so vital that without their existence, many LGBTQ+ fans would decide not to pay interest to what’s going on in the footballing world.
Villa and Proud’s Social Media Officer Tom Cowley on what football would be like for himself and others if LGBTQ+ fan groups didn’t exist
This is the case for Addicks fan and Proud Valiants member Sam Clarke who is proud of Charlton’s inclusivity work, even during the dark times of bad ownership at the club.
“I’ve said it multiple times, I don’t think I would have fallen back in love with football if Charlton weren’t so inclusive,” Clarke surprisingly reveals. “Look at the work they are doing with Proud Valiants.
“We are one of the best-treated supporters groups in terms of their connections to the club.
“This has been consistent even during the darker times for the club when the ownership wasn’t the best.”
Clarke’s views and experiences highlight that without these groups, many LGBTQ+ fans would actively decide not to pursue their interests in the sport. It’s a sad reality.
Thankfully, that’s why we are seeing more and more fan groups set up, with the aim of trying to make football as inclusive as it can be for the LGBTQ+ population.
As previously mentioned, Rainbow Blades (Sheffield United) is a newly formed group looking to improve the inclusivity of the ‘beautiful game’ for LGBTQ+ Sheffield United fans.
The Sheffield set-up was created the season after the club got promoted to the Premier League in the 2018/19 campaign, and events officer Callum Mackay gave me the lowdown of how the community was built.
Mackay says: “Our founder James Laley assigned different roles as part of the setup of the group.
“It all took place over lockdown, so May 2020, and he (Laley) opened up to the club on their social media.
“I joined up then had an initial Zoom call. And then from that, James asked about who wanted to join the committee, so then I put my name forward and I’m here today.
“We haven’t always had a proper club affiliated LGBTQ fan group. Before Rainbow Blades, there was an LGBTQ+ group in the name of the club. The guy moved away but kept the Twitter page.
“So when James formed the Rainbow Blades page, the guy said you can take over and from there, we then had the task of building our own affiliation to the club.”
Similar to Villa and Proud but in a shorter space of time, Rainbow Blades – despite being newly formed – already have a good working relationship and affiliation to Sheffield United.
“It’s absolutely brilliant. We’ve got really good support already,” Mackay relays to me, when speaking about the relationship with the club. “During one week, we had a committee meeting where we had good fan engagement with the club and also having the diversity and inclusion officer at the club who joined the call was nice to see.
“They are right behind us and get involved with us with the Rainbow Laces campaign.
“They have been collaborating with players trying to get them wearing supportive shirts for upcoming games in the warm-ups during Rainbow Laces month.
“We are having ongoing discussions with players to get them involved in some way and they are really friendly during our discussions which is great to see.”
For all the progress at the top levels, evidence suggests that the EFL lag behind when it comes to setting up these LGBTQ+ fan communities.
Charlton are one of a minority of clubs in the EFL League One and Two remit to have an LGBTQ+ fan group. However, the likes of Dons for Diversity (AFC Wimbledon) and Proud Shrimpers (Southend United) are relatively new.
The fact that these groups are being set up for fans of lower league clubs show that the need is there for the majority of clubs in the third and fourth tiers of English football to have an affiliated LGBTQ+ supporters’ network.
Wonderful people at the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) like ex-player Anwar Uddin are providing the support and funding to help these new fan groups set off in their mission to make football more inclusive.
Looking in from the outside at clubs that don’t have LGBTQ+ fan networks, Mackay believes that LGBTQ+ fans at other clubs would be “envious” of what goes on at these fan groups weekly.
He says: “I think if you are part of a smaller club, you question what you are missing out on.
“You’d be envious looking across the road at what bigger clubs are doing.
“For our part, we are very sociable.
“And if you aren’t part of one, you will be missing out on a number of events which can help build a support network for vulnerable fans who may need a bit of confidence.
“I think many League One and Two clubs and even clubs in the Championship who don’t have an LGBTQ+ fan group should invest in one as there is always a need for it, no matter the size of population.”
Cheltenham Town fan Jamie Howells explains how his personal experience of football would change if a network was formed for the Robins.
Howells says: “It would massively change my experience, because you’ve got people there who share the same experiences and you can go to them with any problems you have.
“And then someone can go to the club hierarchy to raise that concern.”
When asked why Cheltenham don’t have one, Howells says: “I think it’s the fear of the unknown.
“And we have a relatively older fanbase, so the club may not think it’s necessary to have a fan network for the LGBTQ+ fans who support the club.”
“What has your sexuality got to do with being a football supporter?” Timms believes that your identity can affect the way that you are able to enjoy your experience of watching football live at a stadium.
That’s why these fan groups are essential for the football world and more specifically the LGBTQ+ population – to provide them with a safe space where they know they can be themselves and enjoy the game without any fear of judgement.
Jamie Howells with current Cheltenham Town Manager Michael Duff
The question remains – can we move forward and strive to a place where the vast majority of clubs in the top four flights of English football have an affiliated LGBTQ+ fan community?
“Meeting people like myself at games would change my life for the better,” Howells believes.
My second feature all about the importance of LGBTQ+-inclusive football clubs will be released later on during Pride Month, so keep your eyes peeled for feature two.
Sports Media LGBT+ is a network, advocacy, and consultancy group that is helping to build a community of LGBT+ people and allies in sport. We’re also a digital publisher. Learn more about us here.
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Celia Sandhya Daniels has 23 years of experience as a business and management consultant with expertise in computer science. She has worked with Fortune 500 health care and biotechnology companies such as UnitedHealth Group and Gilead Sciences Inc. and managed a $250 million portfolio throughout her career. But after she came out as transgender, Sandhya Daniels said, clients “dropped like a hot potato,” and she struggled to find jobs. “I tried applying for jobs, and people wouldn’t want to hire me at the same level,” Sandhya Daniels said. “I was a senior director in these companies … but unfortunately I’ve seen that people are not valued because of who they are, even in spite of being educated,” she said. Knowing that she wasn’t alone, Sandhya Daniels in 2016 started working for Trans Can Work Inc., a Los Feliz-based nonprofit dedicated to achieving workplace equality and economically empowering transgender people. Trans Can Work is one of several local nonprofits in this space. The services these organizations provide have become even more essential over the past year as workplace discrimination and disparities in unemployment worsened during the pandemic. According to a study released in March by Human Rights Campaign Foundation and PSB Insights, both based in Washington, D.C., 22% of LGBT individuals were unemployed during the fourth quarter of 2020, when the monthly national unemployment rate ranged from 6.7% to 7.9%. The study found that 19% of transgender individuals were unemployed in that time. For those who remained employed, 31% of LGBT individuals and 43% of transgender individuals reported having their work hours cut, whereas 18% of the general population reported losing hours. Even Trans Can Work clients who are highly educated have had trouble finding jobs at companies with inclusive policies and cultures amid the pandemic, Sandhya Daniels said. “It’s sad to look at their resumes and think about why they would get discriminated against,” she said. “So that leads us to a point where I think companies need to rethink their strategy.” Here are three organizations helping companies adjust their strategies as they strive to make workplaces more equitable for members of the LGBT community in Los Angeles.
Trans Can Work
Trans Can Work’s mission is to educate employers on transgender inclusivity and equality “from bathroom to boardroom,” said Sandhya Daniels, who serves as the organization’s chief programs officer. Founded in 2016, Trans Can Work offers services for employers and job seekers. For employers, the organization offers evaluations, consultations, training and recruiting support. “We educate employers at a point where they look at the entire spectrum within the company,” Sandhya Daniels said. “They’re looking at their policies, looking at their inclusivity, looking at HR, legal, finance, payroll.” For employees, the organization offers career consultation, networking and courses to develop skills such as resume writing, interviewing, self-promotion and financial well- being. The organization also provides “wraparound services,” Sandhya Daniels said, connecting its clients with mental health, homelessness, incarceration and immigration resources. Trans Can Work has seen an influx of between 800 and 1,000 people seeking services amid the pandemic, double the number it received pre-pandemic. The organization now offers all its training sessions and services online. It will open an office in San Diego in late summer.
Trans Can Work
LOCATION: Los Feliz TOP EXECUTIVE: Michaela Mendelsohn SERVICES: Employment services CONTACT INFORMATION: (805) 222-0502 | info@transcanwork.org
StartOut Los Angeles Chapter
StartOut helps entrepreneurs in the LGBT community network grow and raise funding, according to Sandra Sick, Los Angeles Programming Board co-chair for the organization. With more than 17,000 members at its eight chapters in the United States, StartOut is the largest nonprofit in the country supporting LGBT entrepreneurs. StartOut was founded in 2009 in San Francisco and launched its Los Angeles chapter in 2013. In the eight years since, StartOut L.A. has grown to more than 2,000 members. “StartOut is a younger, nimble company, and we work a lot with a lot of startups that are like us, bootstrapping and getting a lot done with small steps,” Sick said. StartOut helps entrepreneurs connect with mentors and potential investors, and it offers “theme-based” programming on early stage funding, financial management and networking. StartOut also launched a six-month accelerator program called the Growth Lab in 2017 offering mentorship, connections to investors and free legal consultation from DLA Piper. The program to date has 35 alumni who have raised more than $250 million and created 300 jobs, Sick said. Prior to the pandemic, the L.A. chapter held monthly events for members, which Sick hopes to begin again as Covid-19 restrictions ease.
StartOut: Los Angeles Chapter
TOP EXECUTIVES: Sandra Sick, Cindy Lamar, Craig Lyn SERVICES: Networking and investor partnership CONTACT INFORMATION: (415) 275-2446 | info@startout.org
Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Transgender Economic Empowerment Project
The Los Angeles LGBT Center launched its Transgender Economic Empowerment Project in 2010. Since then, it has supported upwards of 3,000 clients, according to Program Manager Eden Anaï Luna. “We work with the community and employers to be able to bridge the connection between our community members and to offer opportunities for employment,” they said. The mission of the project is to support transgender job seekers and educate employers on providing an equitable workplace environment for LGBT employees. It also offers gender and sexuality diversity training for employers, which go over best practices on how to respect identities, pronouns and challenges faced by the transgender community. The project has worked with major companies, includin g Amazon.com Inc., Monster Beverage Corp. and Raytheon Technologies Corp. Luna’s goal is to attract more donors in order to expand the program throughout Southern California. Their goal is for more companies to take advantage of the project’s long-term training programs to ensure that companies’ employees are protected and supported in the workplace.
Los Angeles LGBT Center: Transgender Economic Empowerment Project
LOCATION: Koreatown TOP EXECUTIVE: Eden Anaï Luna SERVICES: Job placement and employer training CONTACT INFORMATION: 323-993-2900 / transwellness@lalgbtcenter.org
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