LGBTQ Breaking News Service

Of the four candidates seeking our highest offices, the least vetted is Mike Pence. Typically, he’s given a pass, his flaws downplayed or overlooked. A troubling omission considering that Pence has built his political career on defending anti-LGBT bias and bigotry. Indeed, protecting discrimination is the sole area where this consummate yes-man has shown notable leadership.

Pence has staunchly resisted each advance in gay rights, and championed every rollback and restriction. He repudiates same-sex marriage and upholds exclusion of LGBT people as an exercise of “religious liberty.” He opposed repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and favored restoring a full ban on openly gay soldiers. As vice president, Pence has filled the Trump administration with cronies bent on marginalizing gay people and curtailing our rights.

While Pence has not openly supported medically discredited gay conversion therapy, he has never abjured it. The vice presidential debates will give Sen. Kamala Harris a crucial opportunity to smoke him out on this travesty. For starters she could challenge him to join her in pledging his support for a bill to make gay conversion therapy illegal throughout the U.S.

If Pence’s stand on conversion therapy remains masked, his worst transgression is blatant. Pence and his wife Karen educated their children at Immanuel School in Northern Virginia where Karen still teaches. Immanuel boasts draconic anti-LGBT policies that are illegal in 29 states and immoral everywhere. It bars LGBT staff and students, and requires job applicants to agree that marriage unites one man with one woman “in a single, exclusive covenant union as delineated in Scripture.”

Its 2013 website declared: “Homosexual acts and lifestyles are clearly perversion and reprehensible in the sight of God.” The current website bases the school’s anti-LGBT policies on a cherry picked Old Testament verse: “If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death,” Leviticus 20:13. Stop and think about it. The Pences’ chosen school tells impressionable young children that God wants gay men to be put to death!

Americans need to ask themselves whether a candidate who countenances teaching school children that gay men should be killed is fit to lead our country. The suicide rate among LGBT youth is four times higher than among non-LGBT youth, a prime cause being that they must face the bigotry the Pences labor to protect. Anti-gay bigotry costs America in excess of 2,000 young suicides per year, more than twice the toll of all police killings.

Sen. Harris, don’t let Pence wriggle off the hook. Hold him accountable! He boasts he is proud that his wife Karen teaches at Immanuel; ask him if he is equally proud of the price many LGBT youth pay for her “religious” bigotry.
Some defend the Pences by claiming they “just follow the Bible.” Their devotion to Holy Scripture, however, is highly selective. In respect to LGBT people, they openly disregard Jesus’s core teachings: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and “Judge not that you be not judged.”

Few realize that Karen Pence divorced her first husband, Dr. Steven Whitaker, and then married Mike Pence. Jesus specifically condemns such divorces and remarriages, e.g. Matthew 5:32, “whosoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Here’s what Leviticus 20:10 says: “the man that commits adultery with another man’s wife . . . the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” Sound familiar?

Judged by the harsh biblical standards Immanuel School applies to LGBT people, Mike and Karen Pence deserve the same sentence. The Pences’ true Bible, however, is a handbook of political expediency where straight divorce is readily condoned, gay marriage is righteously forbidden, and Jesus’s ethic is utterly forgotten.

In the vice presidential debates, Harris should leave Trump to Joe and the media. Instead, aim her fire at the bigotry and hypocrisy facing her across the stage. The most likely next president after Trump or Biden will be either Pence or Harris. She must demonstrate that she is the better choice. Speaking the plain truth about Pence, Harris can help rescue young LGBT lives while again proving herself a champion of fair play and equal rights for all Americans.

James Driscoll, Ph.D., is a long time AIDS activist, and a resolute NPR (Never Pence Republican) whose most recent book is ‘How AIDS Activists Challenged America.’

I already dance around to the Mamma Mia! soundtrack on a weekly basis, so I might as well get an official workout of it. Thankfully, fitness YouTuber Emily Thorne (aka emkfit) has created a dance-party routine that fulfills my HIIT dreams and more. She released a video earlier this month that’s set to the greatest hits from the ABBA-inspired musical — including “Dancing Queen,” of course.

The 25-minute high-intensity workout starts out with a warmup to “Lay All Your Love on Me” and transitions into tracks like “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” and “Take a Chance on Me.” She incorporates plenty of lower-body movements, like squats and lunges, and pairs them with arm exercises that are equal parts fun and exhausting. Seems like exactly what we’d need before partying the night away at the Villa Donna. Check out the energizing workout above, and let it motivate you into moving and grooving until the third Mamma Mia! movie hits theaters.

August 21, 2020 |
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MELBOURNE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Lying sick in hospital, Martin Stark was not only worried about his poor health – the gay boxer was also crushed by the news that boxing had been dropped from the 2022 Gay Games.

So the 45-year-old Australian decided to create another LGBT+ sports festival to achieve his dream of competing on the world stage.

“I was calling myself the future world gay boxing champion, I was going to go and win gold for Australia,” Stark told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.

“I was in my hospital bed, and I thought, ‘I can’t stop this journey I’ve started’ so I decided to create the World Gay Boxing Championships.”

Homophobia in sport is a global problem, with fear of abusive chants, threats, bullying and physical assault leading many players to hide their sexuality.

In a 2015 international study initiated by Australian gay rugby groups, 80% of respondents said they had witnessed or experienced homophobia in sport and 75% said it was not very safe to be an openly gay spectator at a sporting event.

Such attitudes led to the founding in San Francisco of the Gay Games in 1982. Hong Kong is set to host the 2022 event, which is expected to attract some 15,000 participants.

Stark said he hopes his 2023 championship – to be held during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, when the city will also host World Pride – will attract LGBT+ boxers from around the globe and encourage LGBT+ people to participate in sport.

“I want the LGBTQI community to be empowered to do whatever they want to do and achieve their dreams,” said Stark, who has so far funded the championship on his own and organised it with the help of friends.

“For me, that’s encouraging people to participate in the sport of boxing.”

CONFIDENCE

It took almost losing his life for Stark to discover his passion for boxing. In 2017, he ended up in the emergency ward due to complications arising from Addison’s disease, a disorder of the adrenal glands, which regulate the immune sytem.

Shortly afterwards, he took up self-defence classes to improve his confidence and fitness, entering the boxing ring for the first time.

“In school, I was usually the last person to be picked for sport, and people would say I couldn’t punch my way out of a paper bag,” Stark said.

But boxing quickly become a “new passion in life”.

While he found the boxing community to be “very welcoming” he said the sport has “some way to go” before LGBT+ people are fully accepted.

A growing number of high-profile athletes have come out in recent years, including British Olympic gold-winning boxer Nicola Adams, as public acceptance of LGBT+ people has grown.

But it remains difficult for high-profile men to come out in sports that reinforce gender stereotypes, like football.

Boxing has a poor record, with British middleweight James Hawley being sacked after posting homophobic and transphobic comments online last month, while Irish lightweight Conor McGregor was captured on video in 2017 using a homophobic slur.

The first boxer to come out while active professionally was Puerto Rican featherweight Orlando Cruz in 2012, with American Patricio Manuel becoming the first transgender boxer to win a professional fight in 2018.

In the future, Stark said he hoped events like the World Gay Boxing Championships would not be necessary because LGBT+ people will be able to compete in mainstream competitions without facing homophobia or transphobia.

“I think boxing will evolve to the extent that we won’t need (them) because we will have made such inroads in sport,” he said.

In the meantime, he hopes the LGBT+ and sports communities will rally around the World Gay Boxing Championships.

“We’re going to need corporate sponsors, we’re going to need the support of the LGBTQ sporting community and also the boxing community. I’m starting to realise how big this thing is, and I relish the challenge,” he said.

(Editor’s Note: This story is part of Club Industry’s series on diversity, equity and inclusion. To see more articles in this series, go here.) 

As a psychology professor for close to 20 years now, I have always been curious about how the mind works. But more importantly, I have always been fascinated by the impact that context, culture and socialization have on our behaviors as humans. Ironically, it wasn’t until about five years ago when I started teaching sports psychology at Long Island University-Brooklyn and started collaborating with the amazing Dr. Leeja Carter that I started to dive into the world of microaggressions. These are described as “everyday slights, indignities, put downs and insults that people of color, women, LGBT populations or those who are marginalized experience in their day-to-day interactions with people,” according to a May-June 2007 article in American Psychologist.  

It was during this time that a lightbulb went off. It was at that moment I realized that there was a name for the various slights that I had experienced in my many years as a fitness professional. And, as is the case with many microaggressions, I didn’t think that deeply about them or simply brushed them off because, of course, my clients who take my classes and listen to me tell them to do burpees would not say or do anything to make me feel “less than,” to make me feel unseen or to be surprised at my competence. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

I quickly began to reframe a lot of my previous experiences, especially as a recurring comment I was hearing at that time forced me to assess the larger impact that microaggressions were having on my day-to-day experience. To keep this story short: I was working with someone at the time who looked enough like me that we could have been cousins, but we had enough significant physical differences that you could not confuse one of us for the other. My coworker was on a popular fitness-related TV show and did relatively well. Unfortunately, I was congratulated at least seven times for being on the show. Oh, wait, I almost forgot to share—I have had dreadlocks for 20 years while my coworker had a short afro at the time.  

At first, I laughed it off, but then I started to come to the uncomfortable realization that these individuals did not “see” me. They saw an amalgamation of features and a context within which they expected to see me, but they didn’t really see me.

This awkward and unnerving realization led to me paying more attention to not only how I was being perceived and responded to within the space but also how others that look and sound like me were treated. Eventually, I began facilitating focus groups to get a better grasp of the fitness milieu and the role that microaggressions had within that space. One of the issues I noticed was the dearth of women of color in these spaces, so I interviewed women of color on both ends of the spectrum (both as facilitators and clients). It became increasingly clear that these women did not feel safe in boutique fitness, and they felt unseen. They were often the only “representation” in the room (or within the organization). They shared various stories about being ignored and made to feel unwanted. A lot of this information would lead to my chapter in Dr. Carter’s book “Feminist Applied Sports Psychology” (2020).

As these conversations continued, I was public in my disdain for how the fitness industry seemed to ignore Black History Month when COVID-19, quarantine and a resurgence of police violence against BIPOC were at the forefront of our thoughts. This captive space that we were all in due to quarantine not only forced us to have to witness this movement and figure out how to engage in it, but it also forced the fitness industry to take a stand and publicly advocate for the lives of BIPOC. Some got it right, but most got it wrong and simply checked off the anti-racism box, posted a black square and that was the end of the allyship.

For real, sustainable and genuine changes to occur within health, wellness and fitness spaces, there have to be uncomfortable, honest and judgment-free conversations about the deleterious impact these spaces have had on BIPOC. Until these microaggressions, where they come from and the impact that they have are addressed and understood, there can’t be a united and truly open path forward.

BIO

Carlos Davila is an adjunct professor at Long Island University-Brooklyn (where he teaches sports psychology at the undergraduate and graduate level) and John Jay College and Baruch (where he teaches Intro to Psychology). He also is the diversity officer and a group exercise instructor at the Fhitting Room (a boutique HIIT studio) and a coach at 5th Ave Gym. He has an M.A. in developmental psychology. Davila has been a part of both fitness and psychology focused spaces for more than 20 years. As a personal trainer, group exercise instructor, professor of psychology, athlete and avid exerciser, Davila is acutely aware of the intersection of these spaces. As both athlete and coach, specifically within the Crossfit/HIIT space for more than 10 years, he has a wealth of insight into the culture within these spaces. His previous research into microaggresions within sporting spaces and his understanding of intersectionality allow for an analysis of fitness spaces from a varied and multi-layered perspective.

The U.S. Supreme Court has set Nov. 4 as the date when it will hear oral arguments on whether a taxpayer-funded, religious-affiliated foster care agency can lawfully reject same-sex couples — a case that could have significant impact on policies and laws prohibiting discrimination across the board.

The court on Wednesday designated the Nov. 4 date for the hearing on the docket for the litigation, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which was filed by Becket Law on behalf of Catholic Social Services. Justices had agreed to take up the case in February.

The case came about after the City of Philadelphia learned in March 2018 that Catholic Social Services, which the city had hired to provide foster care services to children in child welfare, were refusing to license same-sex couples despite signing a contract prohibiting agencies from engaging in anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

When the city said it would terminate the contract, Catholic Social Services sued on the basis it can maintain the contract and refuse placement into LGBTQ homes for religious reasons under the guarantee of free exercise of religion under the First Amendment.

Because the case is based on First Amendment claims, a decision in favor of Catholic Social Services, if granted on those grounds, may have implications on non-discrimination polices and laws across the board — whether at the local, state or federal level — based not just on sexual orientation and transgender status, but also race, religion, national origin, sex and any other protected characteristic.

That means religiously affiliated agencies could legally refuse placing children into Black families or families of a minority religion. It’s not just foster care; civil rights laws for employment, housing and health care would also be compromised. Although the Supreme Court ruled in favor of LGBTQ rights in Bostock v. Clayton County, a decision in favor of Catholic Social Services would undermine that in the name of religious freedom.

The case history hasn’t been favorable to Catholic Social Services. A federal judge in Pennsylvania and the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals denied a preliminary injunction in favor of Catholic Social Services. The Third Circuit, which declined to revisit the case “en banc” before the full court, based its decision in part on the 1990 ruling in Employment Division v. Smith.

But in the aftermath of President Trump restructuring the Supreme Court with the appointments of U.S. Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, there’s no telling how the court might rule.

Although the Supreme Court had rejected injunctive relief to the foster care agency in response to an emergency request, Gorsuch as well as U.S. Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas signaled they would have ruled for Catholic Social Services — before any briefing had even taken place in case.

The Trump administration, in the form of a legal brief in June from former U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, argued before the Supreme Court the City of Philadelphia “impermissibly discriminated against religious exercise” by requiring Catholic Social Services to abide by its contract.

However, the Justice Department brief heavily relies on the Supreme Court decision in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, which was a narrow ruling in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex couple, in an apparent attempt to link the issues to Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia and avoid a wide-ranging ruling applicable to other scenarios that may compromise the U.S. government’s authority in making contracts.

Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall has made a formal appeal before the Supreme Court for time for the U.S. government to participate in oral arguments. Although justices haven’t yet responded to the request, they’re likely to allow the acting solicitor general to participate given the federal implications of the case.

Philadelphia City Solicitor Marcel Pratt, in a brief before the Supreme Court signed by her and other attorneys, argues the city “acted within broad scope of its managerial authority” by requiring Catholic Social Services to abide by its non-discrimination rules.

“[Catholic Social Services] may resume certifying foster parents for the City at any time,” the brief says. “The City “strong[ly] desire[s]” that it will do so. But the Constitution does not entitle CSS to perform those services on the City’s behalf, with City funds, pursuant to a City contract, in a manner that the City has determined would be harmful to its residents and the thousands of children it has a duty to protect.”

Becket Law, in its brief filed in May before the Supreme Court, maintained the City of Philadelphia targeted the foster care agency in violation of the First Amendment “under any standard,” but takes pains to make the case the city didn’t take the right administrative procedure before cutting off Catholic Social Services.

“In its rush to penalize this religious exercise, the City failed to figure out whether CSS actually violated any law, much less a neutral, generally applicable one,” the brief says. “Instead of a law, Philadelphia had a preferred outcome: the Archdiocese of Philadelphia should get with the times, accept that it is ‘not 100 years ago,’ and start endorsing same-sex relationships for foster care.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has intervened in the case, argues in a brief filed last week the City of Philadelphia’s contract applies to “all contractors, both religious or secular,” therefore should survive judicial review even under a higher level of scrutiny.

“The requirement imposes no substantial burden on CSS,” the brief says. “It does not require CSS to endorse any same-sex marriages, but merely to certify that families meet Pennsylvania’s statutory criteria.”

The Supreme Court announced the date for oral arguments on the same day the House Ways & Means Committee issued a report on the waiver the Trump administration gave to South Carolina from non-discrimination rules on federal funding. The request was based on Miracle Hill Ministries seeking to place children consistent with its religious beliefs.

The committee report, titled “Children at Risk: The Trump Administration’s Waiver of Foster Care Non-Discrimination Requirements,” found the Department of Health & Human Services permitted discrimination within the child welfare system based on religion and sexual orientation and failed to recognize its negative impact on LGBTQ families. Further, the report found the Trump administration didn’t consult policy experts on the decision and instead relied on political appointees.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly characterized Catholic Social Services as an adoption agency. The Blade regrets the error.

While Monday’s injunction blocked the HHS provisions regarding sex discrimination in health care, it did not address other provisions in the rule change, including its elimination of language access protections and incorporation of religious exemptions, said Lambda Legal, which filed a separate challenge in D.C. that takes issue with those provisions and others. A decision in that case, Whitman-Walker Clinic v. HHS, is still pending.

Levels of sexual health screening among gay men taking PrEP fall well below recommended levels, investigators from the United States report in the online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.  Rates of testing for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the rectum and throat – which can be asymptomatic – were especially low, so too testing coverage in south-eastern US states which have an especially high burden of HIV and STI infections among gay and other men who have sex with men.

“Consistency of STI screening at PrEP care visits was lower than recommended, especially for rectal and pharyngeal infections that are mostly asymptomatic,” write the authors. “Our findings also highlight the regional variation in gaps between recommendations and PrEP clinical practice overall, and raise concerns about whether comprehensive PrEP care as currently practiced would be effective for STI control.”

Tenofovir-based PrEP is highly effective at preventing infection with HIV but the treatment provides no protection against STIs. Pre-existing research shows elevated STI rates among PrEP-using gay men, probably the result of increased surveillance and sexual risk behaviour. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) therefore recommends that gay men taking PrEP should have comprehensive check-ups for bacterial STIs every three to six months. These sexual health screens should include tests for chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis, with swabs or samples taken from the urethra, throat and rectum.

Several regional studies have suggested that screening coverage does not meet recommended guidance. A team of investigators led by Dr Christina Chandra of Emory University expanded this research base, examining national US data collected between 2017 and 2019 from HIV-negative gay men enrolled in the ARTnet study.

Information was obtained concerning PrEP use and STI screening. The aim was to determine overall frequency of sexual health testing and also to determine if this differed by geographical region. This was because of concerns that gay men in south-eastern states have poor access to affordable health care, a situation that is especially worrying given that over half of new HIV diagnoses among gay men in the entire US are in this region.

A total of 3259 sexually active HIV-negative gay men aged between 15 and 65 years were recruited to the study. Approximately three-quarters were White, 51% were aged 15 to 34 years and 23% lived in south-eastern states. Just under a fifth (19%) were currently taking PrEP and 6% had taken PrEP in the past.

A sexual health screen in the previous 12 months was reported by 89% of current PrEP users, 71% of men who had previously taken PrEP and 44% of individuals who had never taken the therapy.

Attending PrEP care every three months was reported by 84% of current PrEP users and 71% of prior users.

Overall, 91% of gay men who had ever used PrEP said they were always screened for HIV at their follow-up visits.

But screening rates for STIs were well below recommended standards. The proportion of current PrEP users who reported that care visits “always” involved STI throat swabs, rectal swabs, urine samples/urethral swabs and a blood test for syphilis was 44%, 37%, 59% and 70%, respectively. The corresponding figures for previous PrEP users were 35%, 32%, 50% and 57%, respectively.

Even more concerning, large proportions of men who had ever taken PrEP reported they had “never” had a rectal swab (35%), throat swab (28%) or provided a urine sample/urethral swab (17%) during a PrEP follow-up visit.

Combined analysis of men who were currently taking or had ever taken PrEP showed consistent screening for syphilis was reported by 87% of individuals, with 78% saying they were consistently tested for urethral STIs. This was higher than the proportion stating they were consistently screened for STIs in the throat (64%) and rectum (57%).

Consistent screening rates were consistently higher among younger (15 to 24 years) compared to older (55 to 65 years) gay men.

Regional variations were also detected, with 66% of men in south-eastern states reporting consistent STI screens compared to 80% of men residing in other regions. South-eastern men, compared to men in other regions, were also less likely to report consistent screens for infections in the anus (44% vs 60%) and throat (55% vs 66%).

Dr Chandra and her colleagues calculated that gay men in south-eastern states were 14% less likely than men in other regions to have consistent urogenital screens (adjusted prevalence ratio – aPR = 0.86; 95% CI, 0.76-0.98), 24% less likely to have consistent anal screening (aPR = 0.76; 95% CI, 0.62-0.93) and 13% less likely to have consistent throat swabs (aPR = 0.87; 95% CI, 0.74-1.03).

“These results have implications for regional improvements of comprehensive PrEP care at the patient, provider and systems level,” comment the authors. “Gaps in comprehensive PrEP care may exacerbate the large racial and sociodemographic disparities in HIV and STI incidence in the region.”

Earlier research has suggested that regular STI screening of gay men using PrEP could lead to substantial reductions in overall STI rates due to the detection and treatment of asymptomatic infections. But the findings of this study suggest that inconsistent testing means that this is unlikely to occur and that action is needed to improve rates of testing, especially in south-eastern states.

“Barriers exist to complete adherence to CDC PrEP guidelines for STIs at all exposure sites among men who have sex with men,” conclude Dr Chandra and her co-authors. “This is especially true in Southeastern states where the STI burden is high.”