At the end of August, the last U.S. passenger plane disappeared from Afghanistan’s horizons. The Taliban had finally taken control of the entire country after several days of battles and fire within the capital city. The leaders of the Taliban declared a new state of rule from the presidential palace formerly occupied by President Ashraf Ghani.
Soon after the Taliban’s taking of Kabul, Afghan men and women panicked in troves to the airport to flee oppressive rule. Getting a ticket onto an American bound plane was like winning the lottery for many Afghans.
Canada declared it would help resettle 20,000 Afghans, purposefully including LGBT Afghans among that mix. Canada made its intention to resettle those who would suffer tremendously under Taliban rule: Gay and trans folk, and any other kind of queer person, among a few other marginalized groups.
In early August of 2021, when the Afghan crisis was unfolding, a group of Democratic senators urged Biden to prioritize LGBT refugees. This group of senators, including Amy Klobuchar, wrote a letter to the State Department asking them to explain in greater detail a statement that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made regarding LGBT asylum seekers.
In February of 2021, President Biden signed a memorandum that instructed U.S. agencies to ensure the rights of LGBT persons around the world. After that memorandum was signed, the State Department under Sec. Blinken said that it would make an enhanced effort to protect LGBT asylum seekers.
But the group of senators, in their letter, are still asking what has specifically been done to protect LGBT asylum seekers. What new steps has the Biden administration taken? And specifically, what steps has it taken to protect these LGBT refugees in Afghanistan?
It’s time that the United States not only resettle Afghan refugees, but purposefully make it part of its mission statement to resettle LGBT people. Although, since 1994, the U.S. has acknowledged asylum claims based on homosexuality, during the latest Afghan crisis, the Biden administration never made any intentional effort to prioritize LGBT folk as refugees. Biden never came out and aggressively prioritized LGBT Afghans.
Under Taliban rule, gay people are killed and thrown off buildings. Under the former Afghan administration, being gay was a punishable crime and LGBT folk who were outed were sent to jail.
Taliban rule also spells disaster for trans people: Being trans is not even an option in Afghanistan, where the Taliban would surely kill trans people as well as those who are gay.
Article 130 of the Afghan constitution implements Sharia law, which bans homosexuality. In these cases, men who have sex with men or women who have sex with women can be put to death. Moreover, Sections 645 and 646 of the constitution punish intimacy between two women with jail time.
Some recent victims of Taliban rule describe how the Taliban is asking LGBT folk to identify others in the LGBT community within the country. They are promising a safe rite of passage to those who identify members of the queer community. Such targeting is inordinately cruel—asking members of the LGBT community to turn on each other.
The Biden administration, armed with a liberal agenda, should create an LGBT refugee resettlement initiative. Some details about this kind of initiative have to be ironed out—take, for instance, the issue of metrics. How would the U.S. accurately assess someone’s LGBT status? If you were to argue that this initiative already exists, then I must ask—where is it? Where are these concrete steps that Biden has taken to make the lives of LGBT Afghans safer? Has he given a speech on this topic?
Perhaps the administration can start by reaching out to LGBT nonprofits in these uncertain regions—Rainbow Railroad, is, for instance, an organization that helps LGBT people in the Middle East find better lives in safe countries. Other groups in countries such as Jordan help smuggle trans people to safer countries, such as Turkey. Preexisting LGBT citizens who seek help from these nonprofits can be identified by the Biden administration to come to the United States, seeking a safe rite of passage.
Afghanistan serves as an example to help LGBT people who suffer in crisis. It’s high time that the U.S. government not only acknowledge LGBT asylum seekers, but place them on a pedestal, along with other groups who are immune to abuse.
Isaac Amend (he/him/his) is a transgender man and young professional in the D.C. area. He was featured on National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ in 2017 as a student at Yale University. Isaac is also on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Find him on Instagram @isaacamend.
“Tell me about your coming out,” my 30-something friend Seth recently said to me.
“It was more than a day!” I joked.
National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is on Oct. 11. The holiday, celebrated yearly on Oct. 11, was first observed on Oct. 11, 1988.
That date was the one-year anniversary of the 1987 queer rights march in Washington, D.C. More than half a million people were at the march, which was a turning point in the LGBTQ+ rights movement.
Robert H. Eichberg, a psychologist who died in 1995, and gay rights activist Jean O’Leary, who died in 2005, co-founded NCOD.
Things have progressed so far for us queers since then. We can marry and serve in the military. We’re parents, cops, athletes, teachers and preachers.
In this era of marriage equality, it’s tempting to wonder: What is all the fuss about coming out?
But, a reality check shows that coming out still matters.
A quick look through the news headlines reveals why staying in the closet is so hurtful and how unsafe it can still be to come out as LGBTQ+.
If you’re of a certain age, you likely cried your eyes out when you watched the Disney movie “Old Yeller.” Who could forget the scene when the young boy Travis (played by Tommy Kirk shoots “Old Yeller” because his dog has rabies? In 2019, the Library of Congress added
”Old Yeller” to the National Film Registry.
Kirk died on Sept. 28 at 79 at his Las Vegas home. Despite Kirk’s popularity with fans, Disney didn’t renew his contract because he was gay.
“I was caught having sex with a boy at a public pool in Burbank,” Kirk told the gossip columnist Liz Smith. “We were both young, and the boy’s mother went to Walt.”
In the 1960s, there was no way that an out actor would have had a chance in Hollywood.
I wish I could say that everything’s changed since Disney fired Kirk. But, this isn’t the case.
In August, Jamel Myles, a fourth grader in Denver killed himself, the Denver Post reported. His mother told the Post that her son, who’d come out to her as gay, took his own life because he’d been bullied for a year.
“We are deeply committed to our students’ well-being,” a Denver Public Schools spokesman said in a statement.
Unfortunately, Jamal’s story is far from unique. Nationwide, many LGBTQ+ students in the U.S. have been bullied. Nearly half (43 percent) of transgender youth have been bullied, according to the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance survey. Nearly a third (29 percent) of trans youth, 21 percent of gay and lesbian youth and 22 percent of bisexual youth have attempted suicide, the survey reports.
Life is far more dangerous for queer folk in many places worldwide from Hungary to Ghana.
You could respond to this grim news by going to bed, staying under the covers—tucked in the closet.
But that would let homophobia and transphobia have the right of way. It would deny us the chance to joyfully, proudly, defiantly celebrate who we are.
Studies have shown that knowing us can help alleviate prejudice.
Family members, friends and colleagues may still feel uncomfortable around us because of our sexual orientation or gender identity.
But, it’s hard to hate your non-binary 10-year-old granddaughter on Christmas morning. Or your gay buddy at the gym.
One of my fondest memories is when I came out to my Aunt Manci. I worried that she wouldn’t accept my girlfriend. I needed have been anxious. “You’re lucky,” she said, “she loves you.”
Coming out is a process that lasts a lifetime—from deciding if you want to be out in the third grade to ensuring that your loved ones won’t erase your queerness from your obituary.
Coming out can be arduous. But, it’s liberating! Let the revels begin! Happy National Coming Out Day!
Last summer, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the nation, the players of the Atlanta Dream stood united against an off-the-court opponent: Kelly Loeffler, then a U.S. senator from Georgia and a co-owner of the team.
Renee Montgomery with Suzanne Abair and Larry Gottesdiener. Courtesy of Atlanta Dream
After opting out of the 2020 season to focus on social justice issues, Montgomery, who said she was inspired by LeBron James’ role in the “More Than a Vote” campaign, recognized the rare and unique opportunity to have a stake in an ownership group that aligned with her own values, which prompted her to announce her retirement after 11 seasons.
“You can’t be a player and an owner at the same time, and for me it was a pretty quick decision, because I understood that this was a big moment that I basically wanted to capitalize on,” Montgomery told NBC News. “I felt like women’s basketball was changing.”
While there was no official announcement that the Atlanta Dream was looking for new ownership, Montgomery had “heard the rumblings” from different sources and reached out to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who introduced her to Abair and Gottesdiener, who had been in talks with the league about acquiring a team.
“At Northland, we basically focus our philanthropic initiatives around three items: eliminating racism, empowering women and ending homelessness,” Abair said. “If you look at those three issues, I think it’s very easy to see that there’s a clear alignment in both the progressive nature of the Northland organization and the core values of the WNBA.”
With a set of similar core values, the trio bonded over a shared desire to invest in women’s professional and collegiate sports — which, they say, continues to be undervalued and underappreciated — and in the minority communities across the Greater Atlanta area.
“We really believe that there’s a need for investors like us to do a number of things: to elevate the league, to essentially bring deep-pocketed investors to the league, to build model franchises, to respect our players as athletes and people,” Abair said, adding that there’s a “need to change that narrative” that women’s sports aren’t worth investing in.
“I would say that having Renee as the third member of the ownership team has just been really incredibly valuable to both Larry and I — just to have that former player’s perspective,” Abair continued. “Renee knows the market from a different perspective than we do, and I think having the three of us each focused on different aspects, as we start to build the organization, has been a really nice blend.”
Montgomery echoed those sentiments, adding that she understands the “inner workings of the league” and can, therefore, “do things that are more player-friendly” during periods of travel and free agency. She also credited Abair and Gottesdiener for bringing the best practices from their work at Northland to their business dealings with the team.
“And then, to take it a step further, I don’t have to hold them kicking and screaming to talk about social justice or to lean into the community of Atlanta, because they’re so in on minority-owned business, small-owned businesses,” Montgomery said. “‘How can we be a part of the community? How can we be a part of the culture?’ They’re locked in, so any ideas that we all come up with together are always going to be for community first. Obviously, we want to be great on the court — and that will come, but we want to make sure we’re doing our part from the front office.”
By virtue of their acquisition of the Atlanta Dream, Abair and Montgomery also became among the first openly LGBTQ people to own and operate a major professional sports franchise in the U.S., helping to pave the way in an industry that has historically lacked queer representation on and off the court (though the WNBA boasts a long list of out players). It’s a responsibility that both women, who know what it feels like to not be seen or represented, don’t take lightly.
“I think it’s important that members of the community, particularly younger members, see that and know that if you are a member of the LGBTQ community, you can do great things,” Abair said. “There is a tremendous opportunity for you everywhere, and I think if you see it, you can be it, or you can believe it. I think just being visible to members of the community is really important, whether it’d be as a female business leader in the real estate sector or as an owner of a professional women’s sports team.”
For Montgomery, “representation is the foundation I stand on in everything that I do,” she said with a natural fervor. “So when I’m in a room and it’s a project that I’m creating, I want to make sure that there’s representation all around — Black women, Latin women, LGBTQ [people]. I want to make sure that, all the things that I do, there are voices there that can add to it. Because, for me, when you have different people from different walks of life, you have diverse input, and that’s how you build a great brand, a great company.”
When they officially acquired the team in early March, Gottesdiener, Abair and Montgomery were less than six weeks away from the start of training camp. Describing the next month-and-a-half of preparation as “an all-out sprint,” Abair said that the group faced a steep learning curve as they worked diligently to get up to speed about the inner workings of the team and the strict, league-mandated Covid-19 protocols.
But while the leadership of the front office has changed, the new co-owners wanted to reiterate that they are committed to honoring the same spirit that brought women’s basketball into sharp focus last year — and recently earned the Atlanta Dream ESPN’s “Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year Award.”
“It’s not like this was a one-and-done sort of goal for the players, and we will continue to honor that spirit and that commitment around causes that the players and other individuals in the organization care deeply about,” Abair said. “We need to live up to our name. We are the Atlanta Dream, named after Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. Our goal is to build an organization that honors the legacy of our name by rising to meet the urgency of now, whatever that may be in the political landscape.”
“With the civil unrest that happened in 2020, I think a lot of people’s eyes were opened to not even just social justice but women’s sports,” Montgomery added. “A lot of people were introduced to the WNBA in 2020 in the sense of they didn’t know about the culture of the league, the players in the league, what we stood for. I was really happy to see that people started to dive deeper into the players and the storylines of the WNBA, and now we have new fans.”
Despite the change in leadership in the United States Senate, Montgomery said the current sociopolitical situation in the country continues to be top of mind for the entire organization, particularly as state and federal governments pass legislation on increasingly fraught issues like voting rights and abortion.
With no intention of rehashing the past, the co-owners have signaled that, with their acquisition of the Dream, they are committed to creating a “flagship franchise in the WNBA,” partnering with other organizations in the community, and winning both on and off the court.
“That means building an organization both on the business side and the basketball side with a winning culture,” Abair explained. “When we talk about winning off the court, we mean [something] that honors our name … that our players are visible in the community and that we’re essentially a valued member of the Atlanta and Greater Atlanta marketplace like the other professional sports teams in the market. [We mean] occupying our own space and having our own brand and really elevating women’s professional sports in a relatively crowded sports market.”
At the end of the day, it comes down to “not being afraid to take a stand on issues, even when it might not be the most popular thing, but you’re doing it because you think it’s right,” Abair said.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to create a dynasty here, where every year we’re in the running, and it’s a surprise if we aren’t … And then, in the same breath, our goal is to be that North Star in the WNBA,” Montgomery added. “Suzanne sent an email out to all of the players at the beginning of the season, asking them, ‘What issues are you passionate about? What do you want us to be leaning into?’ We want to be able to adapt to which players we have. … But we just really want to be that organization that leans into social justice, that leans into women empowerment. Those are the pillars that we stand on.”
Amanda Kammes was offered a position earlier this month as the head girls lacrosse coach at Benet Academy, a private Catholic high school in suburban Chicago.
A day later, after Kammes submitted paperwork listing her wife as her emergency contact, the offer of employment was rescinded, according to Kammes’ supporters.
“Benet Academy respects the dignity of all human beings to follow their conscience and to live lives of their choosing,” spokeswoman Jamie Moss said. “Likewise, as a Catholic school, we employ individuals whose lives manifest the essential teachings of the church in order to provide the education and faith formation of the young people entrusted to our care.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/lJOVdr1?app=1
However, after a groundswell of support for Kammes, including a rally outside the school and a letter signed by more than 3,000 alumni and members of the community, Benet reversed its decision Monday.
“The Board of Directors of Benet Academy today announced that the Academy has extended an offer to Amanda Kammes to be the school’s next girls lacrosse head coach and she has accepted the offer,” Benet Academy’s board said in a statement emailed to NBC News. “The Board has heard from members of the Benet community on all sides of this issue over the past several days. We had an honest and heartfelt discussion on this very complex issue at our meeting. Going forward we will look for opportunities for dialogue in our community about how we remain true to our Catholic mission while meeting people where they are in their personal journey through life. For now, we hope that this is the first step in healing the Benet community.”
Amanda Kammes.via LinkedIn
Kammes, who is also an alumna of the school, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Colleen Savell, the assistant varsity lacrosse coach at Benet Academy, said she’s “overjoyed” by the school’s decision to reverse course.
“I am so proud of the girls on the team and of their parents,” Savell said, referring to the girls lacrosse team. “They have really rallied around Amanda, and it’s been unbelievable. They have blown my mind.”
Savell added that she hopes school officials take steps to support LGBTQ students at Benet whose mental health and sense of well-being were affected by the school’s treatment of Kammes.
Members of the Benet Academy lacrosse team wear rainbow Pride masks in support of new coach Amanda Kammes.Courtesy Colleen Savell
While this particular story has a happy ending for Kammes and her supporters, legal uncertainties continue to surround how much leeway religious institutions have when it comes to hiring and terminating LGBTQ employees — and experts say these disputes are unlikely to disappear soon.
“I think it’s going to percolate for a while,” Jenny Pizer, law and policy director for Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ civil rights organization, said.
In a landmark decision last year, the Supreme Court ruled thatLGBTQ employees are protected from discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, there are important carve-outs for religious organizations like Catholic schools.
Lynn Starkey, a guidance counselor of nearly 40 years at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, was fired after school officials discovered she is married to a woman. She sued the city’s archdiocese, but last month a federal judge sided with the Catholic school, saying Starkey could be considered a “minister of faith” and is therefore subject to the “ministerial exception” in employment law that allows religious institutions tremendous discretion when it comes to hiring and firing.
Not all the news is bad for LGBTQ employees, as some courts have found the ministerial exception is limited in scope.
Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled in favor of gay substitute teacher Lonnie Billard, who announced on social media that he was marrying his partner. The judge found the school was not protected under Title VII exemptions because Billard did not give religious instruction.
The Supreme Court, which has the legal final word on questions regarding the ministerial exception, has demonstrated what Pizer called an “enthusiastic embrace” of religious liberty. The court has issued decisions about the ministerial exception in recent years, finding in favor of the religious schools.
Changing social attitudes, however, may send a clearer message than case law, according to Pizer.
“I think that there is a growing recognition among some of the faith-based institutions that they are increasingly out of step with the young people that they are inviting to be students and to get their education,” Pizer said. “Parents have a greater sense of confidence and urgency to push the institution to be consistent.”
“It’s lovely that in this situation the school decided to value the needs of the students,” she added.
Homophobic chants ground a football match in Mexico to a halt as players were forced off the pitch.
Players left the field for some 10 minutes in the Concacaf Champions League semi-final second leg in Mexico City which saw Cruz Azul fair against Monterrey.
At around the 64-minute mark in Azteca Stadium, the match was frozen as Cruz Azul fans began hurling homophobic insults from the stands.
Cruz Azul was trailing Monterry 4-1 at the time. They had also resorted to similar homophobic language earlier in the match that forced referees to issue a stern warning.
The supporters shouted the “goalkeeper chant”, which typically sees Mexican fans chant “ehhh…” as the opponent’s goalkeeper lines up a goal kick until the kick is followed by a cry of “p**o!” – anti-gay slang for a male sex worker.
Such a slur has long given football chiefs a headache, and Thursday night’s (16 September) game was no exception.
Football body condemns ‘offensive and discriminatory’ homophobic chant
The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, the football association otherwise known as Concacaf, said it will investigate the “offensive and discriminatory” comments.
A “large number” of Cruz Azul fans took part in the chart, Concacaf said in anews release on its website.
“We commend the referees for correctly activating the anti-discrimination protocol and the stadium security for ejecting hundreds of Cruz Azul fans when the match was paused,” the governing body said.
“The Confederation has for several months proactively communicated to fans, through its What’s Wrong Is Wrong campaign, that these types of behaviours have no place in football.
“We are all committed to eradicating the discriminatory ‘goalkeeper’ chant.”
In line with Concacaf’s discriminatory language policy, the game had to be briefly suspended as players from both sides walked off the pitch and returned to their locker rooms.
If fans had continued to chant, referees would have been forced to enter “Step Three” of the policy which sees the match stopped altogether.
The match resumed, however, without a hitch. Ending with Monterrey making it to the finals on a 5-1 aggregate.
A similar incident took place in June when FIFA, the sport’s top regulator, ordered a ban on spectators at two World Cup qualifier matches after Mexico fans refused to stop screaming the homophobic slur “p**o” at opposing players.
Las Vegas Raiders star Carl Nassib has made history as the first openly gay player to play during an NFL game.
Nassib contributed to the Raiders nail-biting 33-27 win over the Baltimore Ravens on Monday (13 September).
Nassib, who came out publicly as gay in June, told reporters that he was happy the team got to win on the “day I kind of made a little bit of history”.
“I had a lot of people come before me in the LGBTQ community that helped me get to where I am, and I’m super thankful for that,” Nassib said, USA Todayreported.
He added that the atmosphere in the stadium that night was absolutely “bananas” and said the team “loved the enthusiasm from fans”, according to CNN.
“This was my first experience of Raiders fans – by far the best NFL fans I’ve ever seen,” the defensive lineman added.
Nassib caused a game-changing fumble which clinched the win in overtime, helping the Raiders earn their third straight season-opening win.
Raiders’ head coach Jon Gruden hinted there was every chance that Nassib could play in future games. According to USA Today, he said Nassib had a “great training camp”, and the team will “need him here obviously as we move forward” in the season.
Nassib caused a game-changing fumble which clinched the win in overtime, helping the Raiders earn their third straight season-opening win.
Raiders’ head coach Jon Gruden hinted there was every chance that Nassib could play in future games. According to USA Today, he said Nassib had a “great training camp”, and the team will “need him here obviously as we move forward” in the season.
Last month, Carl Nassib opened up about how his teammates reacted to him coming out. He described how he got a “great” reception from his fellow players, adding he knew their reaction was “going to be good”.
“I had zero stress about that,” Nassib told reporters. “Absolutely no worries about that.”
He received “nothing but love and support” from his “great teammates”.
“Football players get a bad rep, but we’re humble, hardworking, accepting people, and this is a great example of that,” Nassib added.
In the tail end of National Geographic’s “Gender Revolution” documentary, Katie Couric interviews Hari Nef, a trans model. Hari Nef is a beautiful trans woman, who has debuted at New York Fashion Week and acted in the TV show “Transparent.”
“So what are you hoping the future will bring,” Couric asks Hari.
Hari says,“I want a gender chill future. I want a community, a society, a world, that just chills out. About the freaking gender thing!”
Hari Nef couldn’t be further from the truth.
The more we expect young people to conform to a male or female, the worse their mental health will be.
Society’s obsession with gender reinforces the notion that gender is some intrusive, ubiquitous, significant force in children’s lives that should dictate their every move and influence their world views. The more we impress gender as an outsized influence in children’s lives, the more harmful it becomes in their brains.
In reality, gender actually shouldn’t matter that much—if at all. The notion that there is “feminine” clothing and “masculine” clothing is slowly becoming outdated, as more women wear suits to party functions, as more men wear earrings and get manicures, and as more people come out as nonbinary.
There’s nothing inherent about being transgender that makes trans folk suicidal. What instead makes trans folk suicidal is society’s weird fetish with gender and the massive influence it has on our lives, starting when we’re just kids. Society has taught many people that being transgender is some strange anomaly and fluke of nature, when in reality having feelings of gender nonconformity is actually quite normal and abundant among the population, and has existed since the beginning of time.
Trans people have existed since inception. In the 4th century AD, a Roman priestess was found in North Yorkshire. She was born male but took on a female role as a priestess to the goddess Cybele. Buried artifacts revealed she was trans.
In the 18th century, Chevalierr d’Eon was a transwoman who was a French spy and diplomat, having fought in the Seven Years War. Chevalier d’Eon lived a decorated life and snooped on Russian forces.
During the Civil War, a Union soldier named Albert Cashier was originally born a woman. Albert lived as a man until his death and was buried with military honors.
In current society, the Fa’afafine are a third gender in Samoa. Born as men, they traditionally veer toward effeminate appearance and style. The Fa’afaine community, deemed a third category of sex, allow individuals to explore their femininity without being persecuted by Samoan law.
Unfortunately, some Americans tend to forget that being trans is a natural thing. It’s going to take a lot more activism to arrive in a post-gender world. While the Republican Party tramples on trans kids and prevents trans people from participating in sports, LGBT folk are forced to fight back and speak about their gender, almost nonstop—just in an effort to exist.
Separating the world into two gender binaries—male and female—is extremely harmful for the human brain to handle.
Living in a post-gender society means that one’s gender identity will be a casual topic of conversation with a friend—and not something that tears one apart from their family. Living in a post-gender society means we’ll do away with toxic gender reveal parties. Living in a post-gender society means all employees will use pronouns in their email signatures without second thought.
In the 1950s, policemen across America punished men for dressing like women and even sent them to jail for this reason. Now American society is slightly decent enough not to do this (although police still victimize trans women).
In the 1950s, the U.S. government outed and fired people for being gay, let alone trans. Now American society is decent enough not to do this.
In the 2020s, the GOP is harassing poor trans youth who want nothing more than to not be bullied at school.
Fifty years from now, in what ways will we be more decent as a society? What issues will we look back on in 2020 with disdain?
The entire notion of male and female might be a good starting point.
Isaac Amend (he/him/his) is a transgender man and young professional in the D.C. area. He was featured on National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ in 2017 as a student at Yale University. Isaac is also on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Find him on Instagram @isaacamend.
The last decade has seen an explosion of films and books on the AIDS crisis, marking the end of the Second Silence — the amnesia toward the plague years evinced by many LGBTQ+ organizations in the late ‘90s and aughts. (The First Silence was Reagan’s callousness.) The desire to move on from AIDS was understandable — for more than a decade the community had fought a traumatic and exhausting struggle against a death sentence.
The emergence of antiretroviral drugs in 1996 marked both a victory for people with AIDS and an opportunity for activists to leave the past behind and move onto civil rights battles, like marriage equality. By hastily moving on from AIDS history, however, we risked forgetting one of the most inspiring movements in the gay rights story that bequeathed, as Larry Kramer has argued, its greatest accomplishment: saving ourselves and others.
Fortunately, that history is no longer at risk of being forgotten. Journalist David France’s Oscar-nominated documentary “How to Survive a Plague” (2012) and subsequent 2016 book has arguably done more than anything else to memorialize that history for generations of queer people too young to remember or born long after the crisis. Harvey Milk confidante and AIDS Memorial Quilt founder Cleve Jones’s memoir “When We Rise” (2016) added a layer of personal history to the AIDS years. Queer scholar Sarah Schulman’s new book “Let the Record Show” (2021) has been called by the New York Times a “Monument to the AIDS Movement” for its extensive survey of ACT UP — the frontline activist New York-based AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power fighting for drug treatment. To this growing list, we can add former ACT UP member Peter Staley’s upcoming memoir “Never Silent.”
A young Wall Street trader with political aspirations, Staley’s life was upended after receiving an HIV diagnosis in the early ‘80s. Staley didn’t panic; instead, he came out to his family, both as gay and HIV+, quit his job and threw himself into full-time AIDS activism.
He quickly rose to become one of ACT UP’s most prominent members. It was Staley who confronted Pat Buchanan on a now-famous episode of “Crossfire” where the conservative co-host called gay sex Russian roulette. Staley rebuffed the homophobic moralizing and advised young men to use a condom and a lubricant — only to later fret that his anal sex advice might have made half the audience turn off the TV. CNN booked Staley to discuss ACT UP’s demonstration at FDA headquarters that morning demanding the agency stop slow-walking HIV drugs and permit people with AIDS quick access to treatment. Staley famously climbed the building’s awning to unfurl a Silence = Death banner. The FDA eventually fast-tracked the drugs — the first time the agency acted in response to public pressure.
Staley is the best kind of guide to this history, particularly in relating the science behind AIDS treatment in common terms. Equally charming and even-handed, this is one story on the queer underdogs who roused a country from its indifference that should enter the AIDS canon.
What makes his story endearing is the personal dimension that Staley feels nostalgic for. ACT UP was more than a movement, it was a family of creative, loving and joyous people. And plenty of sex. ACT UPpers were not into being shamed. They were going to have tons of safe gay sex. It was a badge of honor to be a movement slut — and Staley proudly confesses to being one. The death of friends never abated, but the darkness could be kept at bay by cultivating a supportive space where people could channel rage into constructive action.
Righteous anger and a noble cause, Staley advances, aren’t enough to sustain a movement. Show me an angry activist, Staley cautions, and I’ll show you a failed activist. In order to keep going, people need a loving and forgiving space otherwise they burn out.
ACT UP wasn’t all rainbows. Eventually, the movement split up due to an irreconcilable divide over strategy.
Through it all, Staley and his comrades took their work seriously but never themselves too seriously. There’s a lesson here for contemporary left-wing activism, which can be bogged down by smug indignation and righteous one-upmanship, and where incrementalism is mocked as selling out. AIDS activists took every opportunity, no matter how small, to push their agenda.
And Staley and his comrades never forgot that activism is meant to serve a happy life. Their spirit sustained a movement that saved millions of lives. It’s one for the history books.
Khelil Bouarrouj is an activist who writes about LGBTQ issues.
Out cyclist Crystal Lane-Wright is the latest queer athlete to win big at the Tokyo Paralympics, securing two silver medals for Team LGBT+.
The 35-year-old British Paralympic track and road cyclist won her first silver on the velodrome in the 3000 metre individual pursuit on 25 August, the opening day of the competition.
She went on to win a second silver medal on Tuesday (31 August) in the Women’s C5 Road Time Trial with the incredible time of 37:40.89 over 32 kilometres (19.88 miles).
On both occasions she was beaten by fellow Brit Dame Sarah Storey, a former swimmer turned cyclist who happens to be the most successful British Paralympian of all time.
“I don’t think I’ve reached my full potential. I think I can keep getting better,” Lane-Wright told the BBC after the 3000m event. “As much as I’m up against Sarah, it’s me against me. I can only control what I can do. To get such a good PB this morning, I’m so pleased.”
Lane-Wright actually became an elite cyclist in part due to Storey, who noticed her at a 2009 British Cycling talent search event and took her under her wing.
She has one more chance to beat her mentor in the upcoming Women’s C4-5 Road Race on 2 September, but no matter the result, she takes encouragement from knowing she’s competing against the best of all time.
“[Sarah’s] pushing the boundaries all the time in our category,” she told Leicester Live. “It just means that whenever I retire I can look back and I think I know I was the best I ever could be. If I was winning everything, maybe complacency would step in.
“Everything I do, I’m doing to my absolute best so whatever medal colour I win or wherever I come at least I know I’ve given 110 per cent and I can only be pleased with that.”
Crystal Lane-Wright now has four Paralympics medals in total, including the silver and bronze she took in Rio 2016.
Her latest effort makes her the second member of Team LGBT+ to have more than one medal at these Games, according to Outsports, joining the British equestrian Lee Pearson.
That’s more than double the 12 who competed at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio, and it comes after record-setting representation at the Tokyo Summer Games, where at least 185 queer Olympians competed, according to Outsports.
Lauren Appelbaum of RespectAbility, a nonprofit that works to change how society views people with disabilities, said the increased visibility points to the “large intersection” between the LGBTQ and disabled communities.
“We hope that even more out athletes participate in the future,” Appelbaum said in a statement, “as it is critical for all disabled people to have positive role models for success.”
As with the Summer Olympics, the majority of openly LGBTQ Paralympians are women, including four members of Great Britain’s women’s wheelchair basketball team — Jude Hamer, Robyn Love, Lucy Robinson and Laurie Williams.
Williams and Love, a couple for more than six years, got engaged in February 2020, shortly before the start of the pandemic.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/GZyiJKd?app=1
“I couldn’t imagine what my GB journey would have been like if Laurie and I weren’t together,” Love wrote on Instagram, using a shortened term for Team Great Britain. “I don’t think I would have progressed so quickly without her pushing me so hard, I can still hear ‘one more push’ in my head every time I’m defending.”
The only out gay man at the Tokyo Paralympics is Sir David Lee Pearson, a highly decorated para-equestrian who has won gold 11 times at the Paralympics.
Great Britain’s Sir David Lee Pearson competes at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games in Rio de JaneiroAdam Davy / PA Wire via AP file
There are also two nonbinary Paralympians competing, both Australian: Wheelchair racer Robyn Lambird and Maria “Maz” Strong, who competes in seated shot put. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/m1LmGwL?app=1
“I love seeing our out Paralympians highlighted because it shows that while we still have a ways to go, as a society, we have become more accepting,” Team USA sitting volleyball player Monique Matthews told Outsports. “People are able to be their authentic selves and feel safe.”
Like the Olympics, the 2020 Paralympics were delayed a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. During that downtime, American cyclist Monica Sereda, an Army veteran, found love: She and her partner, Samantha, recently celebrated their one-year anniversary.
“She has been a wonderful, amazing partner and supporter,” Sereda told Watermark Online, adding that, because Samantha is a psychotherapist, “she’s been a huge blessing because she’s able to understand disabilities.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/23QU39R?app=1
Triathlete Hailey Danz, who will also represent Team USA, came out as gay in a heartfelt Instagram in November 2020, admitting “I‘ve spent much of my life building dams — constructing barriers that prevented me from flowing freely — in an attempt to hide my sexuality. ”
“I know there are a lot of people who say that sexuality has no place in sport; that the press should stop sensationalizing who we love and simply focus on the game,” Danz elaborated in a piece on the Team USA website in June. “To those people let me say this: it was by seeing openly gay athletes that I’ve been able to work through my shame and insecurities and accept who I am.” https://iframe.nbcnews.com/byOqJYu?app=1
The Paralympics are the largest sporting event in the world for people with disabilities — this year, welcoming more than 3,500 athletes from at least 134 nations to compete in a total of 540 events across 22 sports, including, for the first time, badminton and Taekwondo.
First held in Rome in 1960, the Paralympic Games were created “to allow athletes with disabilities to strive for and reach the pinnacle of athletic excellence,” according to RespectAbility.
The Winter and Summer Paralympics are held in the same city as the Olympics and use the same facilities. Eligible disabilities are divided into different categories and classifications and vary by sport.
