National
N.Y. protesters see importance of LGBT economic issues
As demonstrations spread, so does gay visibility in movement
Jonathan "J.C." Lopez of Brooklyn, N.Y. has been 'camping' in Zuccotti Park with his boyfriend for nearly two weeks with the 'Occupy Wall Street' protests. (Washington Blade photo by Phil Reese)
NEW YORK — The Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York City on Sept. 17 as an outpouring of frustration over the economy has captured the attention of the nation and spread to Washington and other cities.
Many protesters have decried government bailouts for financial institutions whose leaders escaped accountability for the recession. Others have focused on local issues and many LGBT advocates have joined the demonstrations. In New York, there is frustration among LGBT youth over cuts to programs like homeless youth shelters and HIV/AIDS care and prevention programs.
Jonathan “J.C.” Lopez of Brooklyn has, like many of these “campers,” been sleeping on the ground in Zuccotti Park in a sleeping bag with his boyfriend for nearly two weeks.
“I experienced a lot of messed up things, and a lot of good things that come along here, like how the cops were,” Lopez said about clashes with police that triggered widespread criticism. “They messed up and I’m glad that what they did is on camera.”
He hopes that the protests bring change to the New York Police Department.
“The good thing is that everybody works together for one thing and one thing only: Stand up,” Lopez said about the actions in New York’s financial district. “Everybody is tired of not speaking. The protest here is mainly for helping everybody. You know, the homeless, the justice, everything to make a change.”
Lopez sees unique economic challenges for LGBT youth and sees the protests as a catalyst to fix those problems.
“Certain people are just stranded in the street because of what they are,” he told the Blade as the sun was setting over his campsite. “Changing the whole economic system, changing people that are homeless, putting the programs back on, like the shelters and so on and so on, so people can get a job, people can get a home. I hope that will change.”
“Queer economic justice can mean several things,” Jake Goodman of New York activist group Queer Rising told the Blade. “On a very literal level, corporations — to my knowledge of which most have changed their employment policies to be favorable to at least gays and lesbian people — still donate a majority of their donations to candidates and to political parties that actively pursue policies that take away our rights or block us from our rights. So queer economic justice is to stop funding those people.”
“Also queer economic justice is to remember that gay people are not the only queer people — there are transgender people that need help with housing [and employment protections] and we need to remember our other brothers and sisters and ensure economic justice for them,” Goodman said, as a crowd gathered below the red “Joie de Vivre” statue towering over Zuccotti Park. “Economic justice for them is providing protection for [homeless queer youth] while they’re on the streets because families kick them out,” Goodman continued. “[Queer Rising is advocating] for additional $3 million per year in the budget every year, which would provide 100 additional beds per year until everybody has beds and protection.”
The Blade spent Monday and Tuesday in New York and LGBT protesters were found at every turn.
Diego Angarita of Massachusetts sees LGBT issues wrapped up with many of the other issues being addressed.
“As you saw in the declaration for Occupy Wall Street, there is still discrimination based on your sexual orientation and gender,” said Angarita, who was the sole marcher carrying a rainbow flag in a procession around the park. “Transgender people are discriminated against all the time. Imagine if there was a transgender stock trader. Are you kidding me that would never happen.”
“There are gay people who were immigrants, gay people who are undocumented, gay people who are on welfare, I mean gay people who are environmentalists, gay indigenous folks,” Angarita continued. “Being gay is so integrated into every form of identity that is out there and being the particular gay angle I guess is just discrimination for gender inequity and forms and in the sense of identity in general.”
Sunlight Foundation organizer Bridget Todd has been marching with the Occupy Washington protests in Lafayette Park since the start of the demonstrations and said the D.C. branch of the movement is only getting started.
“I don’t think that cops are going to force them to get out and they’re going to see if it peeters out on its own; but I actually don’t think it will, I think it’s only getting stronger,” Todd said of the D.C. demonstrations. “We were there just the other day on Sunday doing a teaching and trying to find ways to help them strengthen their movements and strengthen their ideas and really engage them.”
“I got laid off in April and we’re all suffering,” said Kristin Ridley, who traveled from Occupy L.A. to join the New York protest. “We’re all suffering and this is a basically becoming a plutocracy in this country, being ruled by the wealthy, and it hurts all of us.
“We need to go out and show support for a populist movement,” she continued. “And wrapped up into that are also a lot of the individual things that help people, for example, advancing equal rights based on things like sexual orientation, it just fits right into it.”
Though many members of the swelling group repeated that all were welcome, and that LGBT issues were not specifically being singled out because the economic policies being advocated would help all, some gay participants said they saw opportunities to educate passersby and others on unique LGBT economic issues. Paula Cambronero had an exchange with a man who approached her near the food trucks where interviews with protesters were being conducted.
“He was interested in what was going on … and he didn’t feel he understood what people were here for, so he started asking me a few questions,” Cambronero said. “He asked me what ‘real’ democracy meant, whether we thought we had a fake democracy now, where we were going, and he also asked me what we thought social justice meant. I said I thought it meant that everyone should have the same opportunities and the same rights, and he said that everybody already did.”
Cambronero used the inability of same-sex couples to marry as an example of inequality, which led him to proclaim all gay people can marry, as long as they marry the opposite sex.
“We had an interesting discussion where he shared his viewpoints of why he thought the law should not change, and I shared my opinion of why it should,” she told the Blade. “I hope I got him thinking.”
Rev. Magora Kennedy — whose hat was decorated with a rainbow flag — was in the Stonewall Inn the night that the police raid on the gay bar sparked three nights of unrest in New York City, leading to the dawn of the modern LGBT rights struggle.
“We were in the streets from that Friday until that Monday,” Kennedy said. “That weekend, there was very little ‘salt in the pepper.’ Most of us that were out there were people of color. The thing that happened with Stonewall, as the movement went on, it got whiter and whiter. Most of us that were involved with Stonewall, there’s not many of us that are alive today.”
Kennedy, a lesbian, was married to a gay man in the military. The two married to prevent Kennedy’s husband from being kicked out of the military. They had four sons. Kennedy now has 14 grandchildren and nine great grandchildren and calls herself the “gayest great-grandmother out of the closet.”
“I’m so sorry that he’s not alive today to know that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was repealed and that gay people can openly join the services now.”
Kennedy sees the LGBT rights movement and the Occupy Wall Street protests as extensions of the civil rights movement.
“This whole thing is something that we’ve all been going through from the time of the civil rights movement,” she said above a chorus of protesters and drums rising from the center of Zuccotti Park, just steps from the site of the World Trade Center. “When they were putting together Wall Street … it was very, very white; no women and no people of color.”
She continued, “today … the people of color — the blacks, the Puerto Ricans, and just people of color in general — they gave them good salaries so they’d shut up. These people are making millions of dollars and as long as they stay quiet it’s a brand of new slavery and it’s economic slavery.”
“The state is a central organized power of violence, and that’s what forces violence against queers and everything else,” Vita told the Blade. “Queers in particular face violence and pressure from the state. For example, the issue of marriage. I’m not necessarily pro-marriage, I’m for getting the government out of marriage so there’s no bias either way for straight, gay or anybody.”
A local nanny who wished to remain anonymous came to the rally on Sept. 18, initially to support “the vague sentiments being expressed at the beginning, the sense of dissatisfaction with injustice.”
She decided to stay and has taken on the role of medic for the community of occupiers because she enjoys the community developing at Zuccotti Park.
“I think that what’s being built here is a revitalization of progressive politics and the labor movement and a lot of other things that I feel really needed some new energy.”
“The energy’s definitely gone up,” she said among the clamour of a call-and answer chant making its way across the park. “When it started it was maybe a couple hundred people, and it was a pretty consistent group of people, so we all knew each other. That’s changed.”
“One of the best things about this community is that everybody here is listening all the time,” the New York nanny-turned medic said. “so when we do things like, for example, saying ‘let’s go around the circle and say our names and our preferred gender pronoun,’ and somebody says ‘why should I need to say my preferred gender pronoun,’ we can explain, ‘not everybody here is going to prefer the pronoun that you may assume based on their body.’ And they sort of listen and go ‘oh, OK. I didn’t know that, and now I do, and now I have a new way to think about gender, and a new way to think about how people present themselves,’ that they can not only take into their interactions with people here, but hopefully take back home with them into their communities.”
“One of the reason that I’ve always opposed people like the Log Cabin Republicans, its not just that I’m a progressive, but I don’t believe that a conservative outlook — even a conservative economic outlook — can be consistent with gay rights,” the anonymous medic said. “I believe that the conservative political mindset is founded on elitism, its founded on special privileges, so it will never create a society in which LGBT people can live as equals to straight people and cisgender people. So if LGBT people want a society where they can be treated as the legal and cultural equal of the majority, they need to be part of a community that is working toward change and working toward more a equal rather than less equal community.”
Kat Adams, a queer minimum wage worker from Staten Island works with the medics at Zuccotti Park. He is eager to have a family some day, but as his salary barely pays his rent, he is reticent to start his family.
“Not by a long shot,” he said about whether or not minimum wage is a living wage. “I will not bring a child into a situation where I can’t even provide shoes.”
“Most of us have full time jobs,” he said of criticism of the protesters.
“What brought me here was just medical. I came down here with no interest in the politics, very little knowledge of what was going on, and honestly I didn’t think it would work, I didn’t think it mattered, and thought it would all fall apart within a couple weeks.”
“After seeing what happened Wednesday with the police confrontations and all the chaos, I consider myself part of it now,” Adams said, recalling an ugly injury he helped treat, of a camper who was hit so hard by a police baton he required EMT attention.
“You’ll see the rainbow flag out, you’ll see a lot of people, but its such a diverse group, but everyone looks so ‘weird,’ that you’re not going to find us.”
Many protesters believe that mainstream media outlets have been resistant to fairly portraying the actions in New York’s financial district.
“You haven’t seen nearly as much coverage [of the protests] as you would think there would be of something like this big and loud and widespread, say, compared to the Tea Party where fifty people show up and it’s and it’s backed by a political party and they get a lot of attention,” said Kristin Ridley. “But when its this big, widespread, truly grassroots movement it doesn’t get nearly the same amount of attention.”
Though their goals are intentionally abstract, according to the back page of the protester’s daily newspaper, ‘The Occupied Wall Street Journal,’ many of those that spoke with the Blade feel that progress will spark from the colorful demonstrations.
Kat Adams notes that many groups from across the political and economic spectrum, from libertarian Ron Paul supporters to communists to anarchists have assembled at the park to exchange ideas and express frustration with a political process that has made them feel left behind.
“You see arguments that spring up, but I think that’s good,” Adams continued. “A lot of people talk about how aimless this is, but that really is expressive of the idea here. Its all these different groups who would never talk to each other, let alone hang out like this, have come together because they all see the same problem.”
“I think they’re actually constructive arguments, people are trying to understand one another, and help others understand them.”
“What we want to happen here is a change to the way the process works, is a change to the way society is ordered,” The anonymous medic summarized the goals of the occupation. “So that it is not the richest part of society that has all the political power, so its not the richest part of society that has all of the economic power, so that wealth is more fairly distributed, and so that things like education, food, health care, housing are recognized as basic human rights are treated as basic human rights by the government and by society.”
Ethan Lee Vita agrees that the Occupy Wall Street protests and the dozens more that have began to appear all over the nation, are a good opportunity for a wide-range of like-minded individuals to network and exchange ideas.
“I’m not entirely sure if the occupation itself will forge anything, but the bonds that are built within it, and the ideas exchanged will be very helpful down the line,” Vita concluded.
Bridget Todd supports the Wall Street group, but thinks that the Washington contingency will be even more successful at initiating change.
“I think Wall Street is important but I think K Street is arguably more important; that’s where a lot of the money goes and that’s where a lot of it happens so I think it’s very important and I’m glad to see that this is a sort of countrywide movement but especially DC and New York.”
Stonewall veteran Reverend Magora Kennedy believes uniting different movements against injustice is vital.
“We’re all in this together. Whether you’re gay or straight, white, black, blue, green, whatever; we’re all in this together because if we don’t come together and unite and do something about this we will perish.”
Florida
Key West Pride’s state funding pulled
Republican Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed anti-DEI bill
Following the passage of anti-DEI legislation in Florida, Key West will no longer receive any state funding for its future Pride events.
In a letter provided to the Key West Business Guild, the LGBTQ visitor and tourism center for the string of islands, a senior assistant county attorney for Monroe County officially said that the organization would no longer receive funding for its ongoing projects as a result of Senate Bill 1134 and House Bill 1001, starting in 2027.
The popular Key West Pride, gay men–leaning Tropical Heat weekend, and Womenfest will no longer receive any state money. This is something that Gay Key West Visitor Center Executive Director Rob Dougherty highlighted will shift how all the largest LGBTQ events in the Keys will be held after this year.
He said that the explanation is solely a result of SB 1134 and HB 1001, which limits the official actions of local governments by “prohibiting counties and municipalities, respectively, from funding or promoting or taking official action as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion …”
The legislation is being used to impose restrictions on funding events that exclude — whereas the events’ true purpose is to uplift already marginalized groups.
“Womenfest lost it [funding] because it’s a women’s-only event. Tropical Heat lost it because it’s a men’s-only event … that’s how this is being applied.”
This will not impact anything this year, Dougherty assured the Washington Blade; however, the future is not as certain.
“The law that (Republican Florida) Gov. DeSantis signed does not go into effect until Jan. 1, so for 2026 we’re okay,” Dougherty told the Blade. “But it impacts Key West Pride 2027, it impacts Tropical Heat 2027 and Womenfest — so we have lost all funding for those three events.”
He said that this will amount to a large chunk of the expected funding for the LGBTQ celebrations, which the Key West tourism board says is “internationally known as a gay mecca.”
“We’re due to lose about $200,000. Not all of that is direct, but the way that the Tourist Development Council (TDC) distributes their money, about $75,000 of it is for Key West Pride, and that helps to pay for things like marketing, swag, and other things that promote the event.”
He went on to explain that marketing to many major metropolitan areas with large LGBTQ populations may not see the same Key West advertisements and push as in years past — and that is the point.
“Our digital marketing, our print marketing, our SEO marketing — all of that is paid for through there, and it targets places with direct flights like Washington, D.C., New York, Philly, Atlanta, Dallas. So it’s definitely going to impact that.”
The money that will stop coming is not just to run events and celebrations, he explained. Money that goes back directly into the community is going to be hardest hit.
“An estimated 250,000 LGBTQ+ travelers make it to Key West on an annual basis, and on a very conservative basis, for every LGBTQ+ person there are two to four allies traveling with the same values.”
“The TDC also estimates that $1,500+ is spent per person per visit … so if you take those figures and multiply those all together, it comes up to about $1.2 billion … that is potentially going to be lost.”
He says that this will intrinsically change how Key West’s tourism — especially the large LGBTQ side of it — will run, especially since gay vacations need a foundation and expectation of safety and support to blossom.
“We travel based upon where we feel most welcome,” Dougherty said. “Key West has always been its own little place … the LGBTQ+ history of Key West and everything about Key West has always been a little bit weird for people, and that’s why they come here.”
The Guild was formed in 1978 to encourage summer tourism and support Key West’s gay community — becoming the nation’s first LGBTQ destination marketing organization. It has grown tremendously from its original membership to now include more than 475 enterprises representing virtually every facet of the island’s business community.
He also went on to say that this should be eye-opening for anywhere considered an LGBTQ destination, regardless of whether it is in a blue state or a red one.
“I think it can be a wake-up call across the country, because if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.”
Federal Government
DOE investigates Smith College’s trans-inclusive policy
Mass. college accused of violating Title IX
The U.S. Department of Education announced on Monday that it opened an investigation into Smith College for admitting transgender women.
Smith College, a private and famously all-women’s college in Northampton, Mass., established in 1871 and opened in 1875, has a long list of women who make up its historic alumni — including first ladies, influential political figures, and cultural leaders.
The DOE released a statement about the investigation into the institution through the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, saying it was looking into the possibility that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was violated by allowing trans women, referred to in the statement as “biological males,” into women’s intimate spaces protected by IX.
The statement explicitly highlighted that this stems from trans women being granted “access to women-only spaces, including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams” while also allowing their audience into the school itself.
This is the first time the Trump-Vance administration has taken a step into admissions processes, a stark jump past investigating policies that allowed trans women to participate in women’s sports and use women’s bathrooms, and allows for the administration to go more after trans acceptance policy as a whole.
Smith’s admission policy allows for “any applicants who self-identify as women,” including “cis, trans, and nonbinary women,” according to the college’s website, and has since 2015, when it updated its policy.
“The college is fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws,” Smith’s statement in response to the DOE’s investigation said. “The college does not comment on pending government investigations.”
“An all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance under federal law. The Trump administration will continue to uphold the law and fight to restore common sense.”
This move continues to align with actions the Trump-Vance administration has taken to curtail LGBTQ — and specifically trans — rights in America, as members of the administration attempt to break down safeguards and protections that have long been used to protect marginalized communities.
Since Trump took office in his second term, there have been significant legal challenges. According to the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, there are over 35 court cases that have emerged since his second swearing-in that directly relate to the administration’s attempts to minimize the rights and protections of trans Americans — from medical care and educational protections to military policy.
Much of this anti-trans policy direction was outlined beginning in 2022 with the Project 2025 playbook, which Trump officials have used as a guide to scale back protections for LGBTQ people, Black Americans, poor and Indigenous communities, while also increasing costs for lower-income Americans and providing tax cuts to the wealthy and ultra-wealthy. The plans also “erode” Americans’ freedoms and remove crucial checks and balances that have allowed the executive branch to remain in line with the Constitution without becoming too powerful over either the courts or the legislative branch.
New York
Gay ICE detainee freed after 150 days in detention
Cayman Islands native taken into custody before green card interview
Following nearly half a year in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, Allan Marrero has been released and is back home with his husband in New York.
Marrero spent 150 days in ICE custody, held in multiple detention centers across the U.S. after missing an immigration court hearing while in a rehabilitation program for alcohol addiction — a circumstance widely considered “good cause” for failing to appear.
The Washington Blade first reported on Marrero’s case in March after the Cayman Islands native was detained by ICE officers during what was supposed to be a routine marriage-based green card interview at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City.
Marrero had been married to his husband, Matthew Marrero, for two years at the time of the interview. But almost immediately, the experience turned hostile.
The Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft, a minister at Middle Church in Manhattan who accompanied the couple to provide spiritual support, later described the process as “dehumanizing” and “barbaric.”
During the interview, it became clear the couple was facing an uphill battle. At one point, when asked how they met, Matthew Marrero instinctively looked over at his husband and was “snapped at” and told not to look at him. As the interview continued, the outlook only grew more grim.
Unaware that he had a prior removal order tied to the missed court date while he was in rehab, Allan Marrero was detained on the spot.
Over the following months, Allan Marrero was transferred through multiple detention facilities, including centers in Arizona and Texas, the Everglades Detention Facility — also known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” which has been described as having “unsanitary inadequate conditions” — and ultimately a detention center in Mississippi.
While in custody, Allan Marrero was denied access to prescription medication and, according to advocates, was psychologically pressured by ICE agents to self-deport rather than remain detained while his legal case proceeded.
Although a judge later reopened his case and granted bond after Allan Marrero provided proof that he had been in rehab — a valid medical reason for missing his court date — ICE used procedural mechanisms to keep him detained. A separate judge later issued a ruling denying relief, leaving Allan Marrero in custody.
On the outside, Matthew Marrero said his life felt as though it had been put on pause so ICE could meet enforcement quotas.
“[It feels like] somebody came in and kidnapped someone close to you and took away all of your control and power,” Matthew Marrero told the Blade on March 7. “You shouldn’t be able to have this much control over somebody’s life, especially if they are trying to do the right thing … You’re not going after criminals, you’re not going after the worst of the worst. You’re trying to fill a quota.”
Alexandra Rizio, Allan Marrero’s attorney with Make the Road New York, a progressive grassroots immigrant-led organization, told the Blade that “there seems to be an underlying element of cruelty baked into not only this administration, but everything.”
“It didn’t have to go down that way,” Rizio continued. “If someone goes in for a green card interview and their marriage interview, and they learn that they have a removal order, what the USCIS officer could have done is say, ‘Look, you have a removal order in your name. You need to go hire an attorney right away to get this taken care of. I can’t adjudicate your green card…’ And if you hire a lawyer, you know, you might be able to get it straightened out. Of course, that’s not what happened. And so ICE, which was in the building, were called and they did arrest Allan.”
The Marreros are scheduled to hold a press conference on Tuesday at Middle Church, where Allan Marrero will speak publicly for the first time about his detention.
For additional information on the press conference please visit middlechurch.org.
Key West Pride’s state funding pulled
DOE investigates Smith College’s trans-inclusive policy
A reign defined by commitment and human impact
Ukrainian MPs advance new Civil Code without protections for same-sex couples
Gay ICE detainee freed after 150 days in detention
Republicans attach five anti-LGBTQ riders to State Department funding bill
Tennessee’s trans data bill a frightening omen
New Zealand blood donation rules shift
The university that refuses to let go
