San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced this week that her office secured a conviction of Ronald Anthony Silveria (27), of Fremont, after a trial by jury for attacking and stealing from a man he met on the Grindr application.
Silveria was convicted of first-degree robbery (PC 211), false imprisonment by violence or menace (PC 236/237(a)), identity theft (PC 530.5(a)), and misdemeanor assault (PC 240) and false imprisonment (PC 236).
“The jury’s verdict holds Mr. Silveria accountable for his despicable crimes,” said District Attorney Jenkins. “My office will always stand with victims of crime and work to ensure there are consequences for criminal behavior.”
According to evidence and other testimony presented at trial on September 15, 2022, Silveria met a man in Fremont through the Grindr app. They traveled in separate cars to a San Francisco motel where the victim had rented a room.
After hanging out in the room for a while, Silveria pulled out a gun and tied the victim, who was naked, to the bed. He then proceeded to go through the victim’s bags and electronics, hitting the victim and demanding passwords for bank apps. Silveria eventually agreed to release the victim if he withdrew $400 from an ATM and gave it to him.
The victim agreed and Silveria allowed him to dress, then forced him to wipe down the room, and get into his car to drive to a nearby ATM. After taking the $400, Silveria refused to return the victim’s car keys and belongings. Silveria then drove across the Bay Bridge and abandoned the victim in Emeryville, California at 4:30am. He drove off with all of victim’s belongings including his phone, iPad, and wallet.
The case against Silveria was successfully prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Edward Mario, with assistance from District Attorney Investigator Mike Beaver, and paralegal Melissa Cruz. The case was successfully prosecuted based on the thorough investigation of the San Francisco Police Department’s Robbery Division and the ongoing participation from the victims.
“Mr. Silveria preyed on a man who was in a trusting, compromised, and vulnerable position,” said Assistant District Attorney Edward Mario. “I thank the victim for his bravery in testifying and re-living traumatic life events. This conviction ensures accountability for Mr. Silveria’s actions and provide a measure of justice for the victim.”
Silveria is currently in custody. He faces up to twelve years in state prison for his crimes. Sentencing is scheduled for May 22, 2024.
The Milwaukee LGBT Community Center is working to keep its doors and services open for hundreds of people with a funding campaign. The financial outlook currently is dire as the center has a May 31 deadline to raise the required funds so that the Leonard-Litz Foundation will match it.
The community center is attempting to raise $25,000. When it achieves that goal, the Leonard-Litz LGBTQ+ Foundation will match the funding for a total campaign of $50,000.
In an interview with ABC News affiliate WISN 12 News in Milwaukee, Ricardo Galaviz, the center’s associate director said keeping the center’s doors open is not only his goal, but also a full circle moment for him.
“Everyone was telling me, like being gay is going to hinder you,” Galaviz told WISN 12 News journalist Diana Gutierrez. “You’re never going to be successful because of who you are,” he added.
WISN 12 reported that at 16, Galaviz found support at Project U, a youth program at the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center. “At the time, my family was not accepting,” he said.
Years later he’s the associate director of the same center that saved him.
“Not only was I able to find people like me, but I was also able to see people who are like me in positions of success,” Galaviz said. He stressed that currently, the center is in need of some saving, too. “The sustainability of the center is what we’re trying to lock down right now,” he said.
In a Facebook post the center noted: “Free activities like yoga classes, potlucks, teen nights, crafternoons, discussion groups, book clubs, and so many more would not be possible without the generosity of our members and donors.”
According to the website of the Leonard-Litz LBGTQ+ Foundation, its mission is to “fund organizations which advance the interests and well-being of the LGBTQ+ community.” The foundation gives grants to local LGBTQ+ organizations, usually focusing most on the U.S. Northeast.
WISN 12 reported the fundraising plan is meant to bring the organization, located at Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Drive and Court Street, back to its full operating status. The organization’s new Interim Executive Director Ritchie T. Martin Jr. and the board of directors created this plan and partnership.
“We are extremely grateful to the Leonard-Litz Foundation for providing us with a grant to keep our doors open and a further matching grant,” said Martin Jr. “Now we look to our donors and community to help us in this next step of getting the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center to a stronger future.”
“From the people that were utilizing services prior to the pandemic. Compared to now, the numbers have multiplied quite quickly,” Galaviz told WISN 12. “We understand the importance of self-care, of taking care of ourselves, not just health wise, physical health, but also emotional and mental health. So, we’re seeing a lot of those services be the ones that people are looking for.”
He stressed it’s important to keep this center running. And although this might be a tough time, he wants to highlight the positives.
“There’s a lot of things that are happening socially, politically to this community. But there’s also a lot of things to celebrate here in Milwaukee. The great things that the center is doing, the great things that we’re able to provide the community,” Galaviz said. “I want people to know too that this is a thriving community. It’s not just a community that’s, you know, in crisis mode. We are in crisis mode. But as history has taught us, we have to come together. We’re all we have, but we’re also all we need.”
A Roman Catholic high school in Charlotte, North Carolina, did not violate federal civil rights law by firing a gay teacher after he announced that he would marry his same-sex partner, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, overturning a lower court ruling.
Lonnie Billard, a longtime teacher at Charlotte Catholic High School, shared a post on Facebook in 2014, shortly after the state legalized same-sex marriage, saying that he and his partner were engaged. He was fired several weeks later. Billard then sued the school for sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and a district court judge ruled in his favor in 2021.
Wednesday’s decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, reversed that ruling, finding that the religious high school’s termination of Billard “falls under the ministerial exception to Title VII.”
“We conclude that the school entrusted Billard with ‘vital religious duties,’ making him a ‘messenger’ of its faith and placing him within the ministerial exception,” the ruling, written by Judge Pamela Harris, states.
Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin, and in the 2020 landmark Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the high court ruled that workplace sex discrimination includes discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. However, the Supreme Court has upheld that nondiscrimination laws are subject to a carve out, known as a “ministerial exception,” which permits religious organizations from being subjected to government interference in the hiring and firing of people in religious roles.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the school and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte, applauded the ruling.
“The Supreme Court has been crystal clear on this issue: Catholic schools have the freedom to choose teachers who fully support Catholic teaching,” Luke Goodrich, Becket’s vice president and senior counsel, said in a statement. “This is a victory for people of all faiths who cherish the freedom to pass on their faith to the next generation.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina and Tin Fulton Walker & Owen, which represented the plaintiff, issued a statement that referenced the Bostock decision and its protection for LGBTQ workers.
“This is a heartbreaking decision for our client who wanted nothing more than the freedom to perform his duties as an educator without hiding who he is or who he loves,” the statement said. “While today’s decision is narrowly tailored to Mr. Billard and the facts of his employment, it nonetheless threatens to encroach on that principle by widening the loopholes employers may use to fire people like Mr. Billard for openly discriminatory reasons.”
Billard and his lawyers have 14 days to request a rehearing by the 4th Circuit or 90 days to appeal to the Supreme Court. The ACLU declined to comment on whether they would make a rehearing request or appeal.
Two Russian online film distributors, including a company owned by Nasdaq-listed internet giant Yandex have been charged with offenses under the country’s so-called LGBT propaganda law, a notice on a Moscow court’s website said.
Russia last year expanded its restrictions on the promotion of what it calls LGBT propaganda amid a broader clampdown on queer rights, which President Vladimir Putin has sought to portray as evidence of moral decay in Western countries.
The companies, Kinopoisk and Restream Media, face an administrative case for the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” or “gender reassignment” online, according to the notice posted on Wednesday.
Separate charges were filed on Wednesday against two Kinopoisk and Restream Media executives for the same offense, an online court notice showed.
Yandex-owned Kinopoisk and Restream Media, majority-owned by digital services giant Rostelecom have both been fined repeatedly under a similar article banning the “demonstration” of LGBTQ relationships to minors.
That resulted from them listing films such as “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and “Perfect Strangers” without an 18+ label.
A spokesperson for Kinopoisk told Reuters that the charge was related to its listing of the U.S. television series “Supergirl,” which features a same-sex relationship, and that the company planned to challenge the court ruling.
“The laws and regulations as currently drafted do not provide sufficient objective criteria for determining propaganda of non-traditional relationships,” the company said in a statement provided to Reuters.
“We hope that the current practice of fines against online cinemas will be revised to warnings.”
Restream Media did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.
When people look at images captured by Ty Busey, the photographer says she wants them to know that the pictures and films were captured by a queer woman. Drawing on Renaissance paintings as inspiration, Busey poses her subjects, who are LGBTQ women and nonbinary people, with halos and textured backgrounds in lounging postures. She describes her artistic eye in one word: “Sapphic.”
The term derives from Sappho, a lyrical poet who lived in ancient Greece and created verses about pursuing women lovers that were rich in sensuality and nostalgia — and even libertine at times.
A self-portrait of photographer Ty Busey.Courtesy of Ty Busey
The style of Busey’s work is a fitting way to rectify its namesake’s historical legacy. In the hundreds of years after her death around 570 B.C.E., Sappho was often portrayed in art as heterosexual when her own poetry said otherwise.
When asked what she hopes viewers take away from her visuals, Busey said, “I want the person watching the video to be like, ‘Yes, this is what it feels like to be with a woman.’”
Busey, a Maryland resident who has identified as a lesbian since she was a teenager, first learned about the label “Sapphic” on TikTok in 2021. In the years since she’s embraced the term, it has abounded, appearing on social media meme pages, as a literary genre, as a descriptor for events in brick and mortar spaces and even as a noun for self-identification.
Photographer Ty Busey draws on Renaissance paintings for inspiration.Courtesy of Ty Busey
Over two-and-a-half millennia removed from its namesake, the term Sapphic does not have a precise definition that’s agreed upon by all of those who currently embrace it. However, its current use is generally as an umbrella term for lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals and other women-loving women, and for transgender and nonbinary people who may not identify as women themselves but align with this spectrum of attraction and community.
While Sapphic may evoke ancient images of romance, it has a lesser-known political undercurrent: The poet Sappho resisted tyranny in her own era by the military general Pittacus, making her a potent queer symbol during a tenuous time for LGBTQ rights.
A rebirth on the internet
Describing herself as “chronically online,” Tyler Mead, 28, said she learned about the term Sapphic “funnily enough, actually, on the internet.”
As a singer, songwriter and producer under the moniker STORYBOARDS, she came across queer artists like Fletcher using the term.
“It got me intrigued, and I was like, ‘What does this term mean? What does this mean to them? And, what could it also mean for me?’ Because it’s been a bit of a journey for me of coming out in multiple layers,” Mead said.
In 2018, Mead came out as pansexual, then in 2020 as a trans woman. For the past year, she’s identified as a lesbian and as Sapphic, which she said captures a philosophy of “softness” in her approach to romance and dating.
“An interesting part of being a trans woman who is Sapphic is that, even before I started transitioning, I always knew that I was attracted to women … but not in a straight way,” Mead, who lives in Los Angeles, said.
The expansiveness of the term, she explained, is a strong draw, adding that she knows people who are trans masculine that use it.
A songwriter since middle school, Mead not only considers her music Sapphic but sums up her entire “energy” on the bio section of her TikTok profile as: “Sapphic fairy.”
The word “Sappho” appears to have first emerged digitally in 1987 on an early iteration of an email list, according to Avery Dame-Griff, curator of the Queer Digital History Project.
The Greek poet, it seems, was the namesake of an English language mailing list for LGBTQ women during a time when email would have only been accessible to those in academic or computer-related fields, according to Dame-Griff.
A name like Sappho, he explained, would have signaled that the mailing list was for queer women without using a term like “gay” or “lesbian,” which would have drawn unwanted attention.
Since 2004, the first year for which Google Trends provides search data, the term “Sapphic” peaked in December 2005 before steadily declining for the next 15 years. Since 2020, however, it has been on a steady upward trajectory.
Perhaps nowhere is the term currently more prominent than social media, where Sappho-themed meme accounts — Sappho Was Here, Suffering Sappho Memesand Sapphic Sandwich, just to name a few — have amassed tens of thousands of followers on Instagram. And, on TikTok, a wildly popular social media platform among those in the 18-29 demo, the term has been hashtagged over 340,000 times.
Some of those hashtags lead to 26-year-old New Yorker Nina Haines. During the pandemic, Haines said, she was craving queer community. Unable to see LGBTQ friends in person because of Covid, she started posting about Sapphic literature on TikTok in an effort to find connection.
Then, in 2021, Haines founded Sapph-Lit, a book club that today boasts 8,200 members from over 60 countries, with members who identify as queer women and nonbinary people. Her book picks have included modern romances, like Casey McQuiston’s “I Kissed Shara Wheeler,” and classics like Audre Lorde’s “Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.”
Nina Haines, founder of Sapph-Lit, and her Sappho tattoo, inked by Yink of Golden Hour Tattoo in Brooklyn, N.Y.Courtesy of Nina Haines
“At the end of the day, we really want to prioritize Sapphic literature, because Sapphics have been historically rendered invisible throughout history,” she said.
For Haines, who has a tattoo of Sappho on her arm, the term Sapphic “captures the women-loving-women experience” in a way that is “rooted in history” and that signals “that we have always been here.”
A historical legacy
Hailing from the Greek island of Lesbos and living from roughly 630 B.C.E. to 570 B.C.E., what is known of Sappho’s life comes from surviving fragments of her poetry and what was written about her by other ancients, according to Page duBois, the author of 1995’s “Sappho Is Burning” and a professor of classics and comparative literature at the University of California, San Diego.
Sappho’s queer legacy, duBois added, emerges from an expression of romantic and sexual desire toward women in her poems, often with a tint of nostalgia.
Greek lyric poet Sappho and another woman listen to a performance by fellow poet Alcaeus on the lyre circa 610 B.C. Hulton Archive / Getty Images
“They are really lovely and project that kind of world of voluptuous, flower filled, scented eros [desire] directed toward women,” duBois said.
But a passive “pink, romantic Valentine” she was not. “An aggressive pursuer of her lover,” Sappho described intimate memories of a far away, beloved woman, according to duBois.
“She talks about anointing her with beautiful ointments and putting garlands on her, and satisfying each other on soft beds,” duBois said of Fragment 94 of Sappho’s poetry.
A painting depicting Sappho throwing herself into the sea due to unrequited love, circa 580 B.C.Archive Photos / Getty Images
There are contradictory interpretations that Sappho was a schoolteacher, an aristocrat or a hetaira (a sex worker who operated like a courtesan or geisha), and that she was perhaps enslaved. In the Middle Ages and Victorian periods, she was presented as heterosexual in art, portrayed as a forlorn woman who threw herself off a cliff after she was rejected by a ferryman she loved.
Finding a new generation
For the past 100 years, an ever-evolving lexicon — and a debate about the best terms to use — has been a consistent feature of LGBTQ culture.
Of course, butch, femme, dyke, stud and a host of other terms have been embraced by queer women, each shaped by the communities that created them and the social movements of their time.
“Maybe in some ways, the terms are changing because it’s about a break from a past generation,” said Woolner, an associate professor of history at the University of Memphis.
Though Woolner and others have noted that there are those who eschew certain terms or identifiers, for one reason or another. Some LGBTQ women, for example, don’t identify with “Sapphic” due to a perceived chasteness and the ancient aura.
A photograph from Maryland-based photographer Ty Busey.Courtesy of Ty Busey
For the past three years, Busey has organized a “Sapphic picnic” outside of Washington, D.C. For this year, Busey chose the theme “For the Gods,” an ode to Greek gods and goddesses and conducted a photo shoot to match.
“There’s something about those ancient photos and the way that they’re all falling on each other — I really love them so much,” she said. “I just want to recapture it specifically with women, especially if I could put a Black woman in there.”
More than 2,500 years after Sappho walked the earth, champions of the term Sapphic see the parallels between finding their own power and the erasure and subsequent embrace of the lyrical poet’s queer identity.
“I see her as this reclamation,” Haines said of Sappho. “As this statement of, ‘No, I actually mean the words that I say, and don’t twist them.’”
Chicago officials going to reduce the scale of this year’s Pride Parade even more after already announcing an approximately 37% reduction in floats and performances.
The Chicago Police Department (CPD) recently revealed a proposal to reduce the length of the parade by a few blocks, which would eliminate the need for 48 officer posts, Block Club Chicago reported. The possibility has angered many in the LGBTQ+ community.
“We were obviously not thrilled to hear that,” said Jin-Soo Huh, chair of the LGBTQ+ advisory council to the mayor. “Even though it is only a proposal, our message is that this is a proposal that should have been done in consultation with the community. We’re still calling on the Mayor’s Office to restore the Pride Parade [to its original form].”
Huh said he had not even been told about the reduced number of entries allowed in the parade and had to learn about it from a Block Clubreport.
“That really caught us off guard,” he said. “As the mayor’s council, we hope that anything major like this affecting the LGBTQ+ community is brought to our attention and that we’re consulted about it. That’s our main function.”
The Chicago Pride Parade is one of the largest in the country. The changes—including an 11 a.m. start time instead of the usual noon—are reportedly due to city officials’ increased efforts to maintain safety and manage overall logistics. It is not known whether the changes are related to an increased need for security based on the current rise in attacks on LGBTQ+ rights across the country.
Regardless of the reasons, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s (D) LGBTQ+ Advisory Council continues to fight to maintain the parade’s original integrity. Last week–before CPD’s proposal to shorten the route was announced–14 of 20 members signed on to an open letter asking the city to lift the 125-entry cap.
“The city of Chicago and the state of Illinois have made great strides to advance the rights and protections of LGBTQ+ people,” the council members said. “We urge the city of Chicago to work towards having the largest, most visible, and most powerful Pride Parade in the country, especially at a time when LGBTQ+ communities, and in particular trans youth, are facing unprecedented and life-threatening attacks.”
“We ask the mayor and the city of Chicago to lean into their values of equity and transparency and work with the parade organizers, the advisory council and the supporting organizations to restore the Pride Parade and support the LGBTQ+ community in Chicago and beyond.”
However, according to the Windy City Times, the groups support the 11 a.m. start time, which is needed to better accommodate CPD shift changes.
The letter also advocated for other parades held in the city throughout the year, asking officials to engage the community in any decision relating to changes to these beloved traditions. Several local organizations, in addition to the council members, signed on to the letter, including Equality Illinois, Brave Space Alliance, Pride Action Tank, Howard Brown Health, and the parade organizers.
The U.S. Census Bureau, after nearly a year of pushing the Biden administration, will begin testing questions pertaining to LGBTQ+ identity on its American Community Survey (ACS). These questions would ask people about their sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Bureau put out a Federal Register notice signifying that this is the last chance for the public to give comment on all pending ACS questions, including those pertaining to LGBTQ+ individuals. The deadline given for comment is May 30, with an online form provided for any feedback on these questions.
The wording for these questions can be found on the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website.
After the Bureau’s deadline, it will be submitting the questions to the Office of Management and Budget, where they will await approval for testing in the summer.
The ACS asks questions about demographic, socioeconomic, and housing-related topics annually. New questions must undergo a rigorous approval and testing process that can take months or years.
The only LGBTQ+ question it currently asks is whether the participant is married to someone of the same sex.
This current process was initiated back in September 2023, when the Census Bureau asked the Biden administration for permission to begin the testing phase of these questions. The public comment period was initiated in February of this year, with mostly positive responses.
“The currently too-limited data resources stand in stark contrast to the numerous policy debates and legislative efforts focused on these populations,” said Gary Gates, a retired demographer, to the Associated Press.
However, like several others, Gates also had critiques of things like the wording of some of the possible responses to questions, including “Straight, that is not gay” as a response to the question about sexual orientation.
“The phrase is patently offensive,” Gates said. “Not being gay is hardly an accurate definition of a straight identity…. Why emphasize that they specifically are not gay? It is simply not an adequate description of straight identity.”
Others critiqued the requirement of people to answer their assigned sex at birth or the separation of “transgender” from “male” and “female” on the gender identity question. Additionally, there were criticisms given for the lack of inclusion of intersex, asexual, and pansexual individuals within any of the questions.
Conservatives have taken issue with the inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals on these questions at all. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) wrote a letter to the director of the Census Bureau opposing the specific inclusion of “gender identity.”
Nancy Bates, lesbian and a sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data collection expert who was named a member of the 2030 Census Advisory Committee, told Bay Area Reporter that she was satisfied with the ACS questions.
“This test is extremely critical and will move the needle forward on our understanding of SOGI reporting using a single household proxy to report for all members.”
Larry Walraven, a 75-year-old Las Vegas man, allegedly pointed a gun at his gay male neighbors and said, “I hope you f**gots die.” He then allegedly said, “I’m going to kill you f**king f**gots,” and fired the weapon four times — none of the shots hit the men.
One of the men called 911 to report the alleged assault. When police questioned Walraven, he said “he had no clue what happened” and claimed that he spent the entire night taking care of his mother inside his home, KLAS-TV reported.
Police identified the weapon as a BB gun — BB guns kill an average of four people a year. Police arrested Walraven and charged him with assault with a deadly weapon with a hate crime enhancement. The charge carries a sentence of up to six years in prison and up to $5,000 in fines. The hate crime enhancement can add up to 20 years in prison. Because Walraven was already on parole as a repeat offender, a judge decided to keep him in police custody without bail.
While Walraven’s sexual identification is unclear, heterosexual people are more likely to have guns in the home than gay and bisexual people, according to the Williams Institute. While 19% of LGB adults have a gun at home, 35% of heterosexuals have a gun at home.
Guns are used in nearly 60% of bias-motivated homicides against LGBTQ+ people, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects. LGBTQ+ people are more than twice as likely to be victims of gun violence than their cisgender and straight peers, according to the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. LGBTQ+ people also experience person-based violence at higher rates than victims of religiously or racially motivated crimes, according to the Williams Institute.
The number of hate crimes against sexual orientation in Nevada has fluctuated over the last three years for which data is available, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. While 14 anti-LGB hate crimes were reported in 2020, 30 were reported in 2021, and 18 were reported in 2022.
LGBTQ+ Victory Fund Spotlight Candidate Molly Cook won the special election to represent District 15 in the Texas Senate and will serve out the remaining term of now-Houston Mayor John Whitmire. Cook makes history as the first out LGBTQ+ member of the upper chamber, which is especially hostile to LGBTQ+ rights.
Cook will be on the ballot again for the primary runoff election on May 28, where she’s competing for the full term that starts next year.
Annise Parker, president & CEO of LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and former Houston mayor, released the following statement:
“For too long, the LGBTQ+ community has been the punching bag of bigots in the Texas Senate. Now, they’ll have an out LGBTQ+ peer as their colleague who will look them in the eye and make them see the Texans they’re hurting. We know Molly will not only be a powerful voice for LGBTQ+ Texans, she’ll do a wonderful job fighting for the needs of all her constituents in District 15, including myself. Between now and May 28, I’ll be doing everything I can to ensure another victory for Molly and the cause of equality.”
About LGBTQ+ Victory Fund
LGBTQ+ Victory Fund works to achieve and sustain equality by increasing the number of out LGBTQ+ elected officials at all levels of government while ensuring they reflect the diversity of those they serve. Since 1991, Victory Fund has helped thousands of LGBTQ+ candidates win local, state and federal elections.
Mothers’ Day Bridge Walk for Peace Sun, May 12 @ 12 PM, 11:45: Gather at the Welcome Center Plaza on the East (Hill) side of the Golden Gate Bridge Food to Gaza, not Weapons to Israel. No Tax $$ for Genocide.
