National
AIDS 2012: Laura Bush stresses women pivotal in fight against AIDS
Former First Lady and Aung San Suu Kyi address International AIDS Conference
Former First Lady Laura Bush at AIDS 2012 (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Former First Lady Laura Bush stressed on Thursday that women continue to play a crucial role in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
“When you look around the world, you see that women are in the forefront of life changing progress,” she said during her speech at the International AIDS Conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. “Women have been central in the fight against AIDS.”
Bush cited a woman with HIV whom she met with her husband, former President George W. Bush, in Africa last December that had been shunned by her family after her husband passed away. A faith-based organization subsequently taught her how to make purses from recycle materials. And she now supports her children and the family that had once ostracized her. “Her story is a powerful testament to why we must do more to promote the good health of women everywhere,” said the former First Lady. “The health of women affects families, communities and whole countries. Healthy mothers make healthy families.”
Bush also referenced her mother-in-law, former First Lady Barbara Bush, as someone who helped change attitudes about HIV in this country. She noted that the former First Lady held babies and hugged people with AIDS and met with families of those who had lost loved ones to the epidemic at a time when stigma against those with the virus was rampant. Barbara Bush also visited the AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall.
“Her graceful example challenged all Americans to confront HIV/AIDS with care and compassion, rather than fear and judgment,” said Laura Bush.
She further categorized the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that her husband announced during his 2003 State of the Union address as a blueprint to fight other global epidemics. PEPFAR committed $15 billion over five years to fund HIV prevention efforts, anti-retroviral drugs for those living with the virus and programs for children orphaned by AIDS.
Laura Bush stressed that both she and her husband have seen “first-hand the devastating toll of AIDS” during several trips they made to Africa during and after his presidency. She further recalled a young girl wearing a lavender dress that she and her daughter Barbara met at a Botswanan pediatric clinic a few months after the then-president announced PEPFAR.
“This precious little child lay on an examining table so frail and sick; her mother’s last hope was to make her beautiful,” said Laura Bush, who visited the same facility three weeks ago. “Today with access to anti-retrovirals, that little girl would have another chance at life.”
Statistics continue to show that women and girls remain disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS.
UNAIDS noted that 1.3 million women and girls became HIV-positive last year. The agency further reported that 63 percent of those between 15-24 living with the virus are young women — and 60 percent of those with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are women and girls.
Laura Bush noted that rates of cervical cancer are nearly five times higher among women with HIV. The George W. Bush Institute, PEPFAR, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and UNAIDS last September pledged at least $75 million over five years to fight cervical and breast cancer among those with the virus through the “Pink Ribbon, Red Ribbon” initiative that Zambian First Lady Christine Kaseba and other female African leaders have endorsed. The former First Lady said more than 14,000 Zambian women have received these screenings – and nearly 40 percent of them live with HIV. Nearly a third of them tested positive for pre-cancerous or cancerous cervical cells. Of those, more than 80 percent were able to receive immediate treatment.
“In our fight against AIDS, we’ve learned that any measure of success requires sustained leadership at every level,” said Laura Bush. “By working together, we can give hope to mothers and fathers, to sisters and brothers, to wives and husbands and sons and daughters so they and their families can live full and productive lives.”
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi also spoke about the need to end stigma against those with HIV.
“Our people need to understand what HIV really is. We need to understand that this is not something that we need to be afraid of, that people who have contracted HIV need not to be discriminated against, that they’re not a danger to society at large,” she told AIDS 2012 delegates in a videotaped message. “Once this message has gotten through, we will be able to base activities on the natural compassion of human beings and of course as the great majority of people in Burma are Buddhist, there’s a special emphasis on the value of compassion. Based on this and based on wide community education, I hope that we will be able to become one of those innovative societies where we approach a problem as human beings — as intelligent, caring human beings. In this way, we will be able to handle not just the issue of AIDS and new ideas, but issues related to those who are subjected to particular suffering and particular discrimination.”
CARE President Dr. Helene Gayle noted that Suu Kyi, who won a seat in the Burmese Parliament in April, delivered a video address at the 2000 International AIDS Conference in South Africa. The Nobel Peace Prize recipient, who remained under house arrest for the better part of two decades until late 2010, held her first public event after the country’s rulers released her at an HIV/AIDS center.
“This was a powerful message to her people and to those living with HIV that their champion was again free and was going to work hard to improve their situation,” said Gayle. “She is a global icon for democracy and human rights and she is also in her dignified and quiet way a powerful AIDS advocate.”
Federal Government
RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth
‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD
A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.
The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.
“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”
While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.
The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”
Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.
“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”
GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”
Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.
“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.
“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”
“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.”
Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.
“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”
The White House
Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador
Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor
President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Mike Waltz to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Waltz, a former Florida congressman, had been the national security advisor.
Trump announced the nomination amid reports that Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were going to leave the administration after Waltz in March added a journalist to a Signal chat in which he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other officials discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations,” said Trump in a Truth Social post that announced Waltz’s nomination. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role.”
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor, “while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”
“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America, and the world, safe again,” said Trump.
Trump shortly after his election nominated U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Trump in March withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
U.S. Federal Courts
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.
Lambda Legal on April 25 filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people who are challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s passport policy.
The lawsuit, which Lambda Legal filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, alleges the policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers “has caused and is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people like plaintiffs, in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection.”
Two of the seven plaintiffs — Jill Tran and Peter Poe — live in Maryland. The State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the federal government are defendants.
“The discriminatory passport policy exposes transgender U.S. citizens to harassment, abuse, and discrimination, in some cases endangering them abroad or preventing them from traveling, by forcing them to use identification documents that share private information against their wishes,” said Lambda Legal in a press release.
Zander Schlacter, a New York-based textile artist and designer, is the lead plaintiff.
The lawsuit notes he legally changed his name and gender in New York.
Schlacter less than a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration “sent an expedited application to update his legal name on his passport, using form DS-5504.”
Trump once he took office signed an executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. The lawsuit notes Schlacter received his new passport in February.
“The passport has his correct legal name, but now has an incorrect sex marker of ‘F’ or ‘female,'” notes the lawsuit. “Mr. Schlacter also received a letter from the State Department notifying him that ‘the date of birth, place of birth, name, or sex was corrected on your passport application,’ with ‘sex’ circled in red. The stated reason was ‘to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.'”
“I, like many transgender people, experience fear of harassment or violence when moving through public spaces, especially where a photo ID is required,” said Schlacter in the press release that announced the lawsuit. “My safety is further at risk because of my inaccurate passport. I am unwilling to subject myself and my family to the threat of harassment and discrimination at the hands of border officials or anyone who views my passport.”
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
Lambda Legal represented Zzyym.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.
Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January. Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.
A federal judge in Boston earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction against the executive order. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.
PDAB: A mysterious acronym that could affect your health
I make more money than my partner and getting resentful
D.C. liquor board extends drinking hours for WorldPride
PHOTOS: Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch
Executive director of LGBTQ Catholic group to travel to Rome for conclave
TRAITOR: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has blood on his hands
Potential Pope Francis successor views homosexuality as an ‘abomination’
Jacob Elordi rides high in ‘On Swift Horses’
Liberal Party wins Canadian election
