National
Gay Boston Marathon runners unhurt by bombings
Five D.C. Front Runners members crossed finish line before explosions
D.C. resident Lennie Carter runs in the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. (Photo courtesy of Lennie Carter.)
Adrian Budhu had just turned onto Boylston Street from Hereford Street to run the final stretch of the Boston Marathon on Monday when the first of two bombs placed along the route exploded.
He and other runners had begun to slow down as the second device detonated two blocks west of initial blast near the Prudential Center a few seconds later.
Budhu, who was running to raise money for the Theater Offensive, a Boston-based group that uses art to highlight the lives of LGBT people, said volunteers, first responders and even his fellow runners told them to run backwards away from the finish line after the explosions.
He ran west on Boylston Street and eventually to his home in the nearby South End.
“At that time the spectators are cheering everyone because you can see the finish line, you can see the big clock,” Budhu told the Washington Blade on Tuesday as he recalled the scene on Boylston Street. “Everything you’ve put in this race is about to happen [and then] everyone just stopped. It was just surreal.”
The two explosions killed three people and wounded at least 170 others near the finish line in front of the Boston Public Library. Local, state and federal authorities continue to investigate who placed the devices the Associated Press reported were made from pressure cookers that contained nails, ball bearings and metal shards along Boylston Street.
The Dallas Voice reported on Tuesday that Javier Pagan, the Boston Police Department’s LGBT liaison, was among the first who responded to the scene after the bombs exploded.
Former GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios was running about a third of a mile away from the finish line at the intersection of Massachusetts and Commonwealth Avenues when the two explosions took place. His son Javier who was waiting for him at the finish line near Copley Square was uninjured.
“He was, as many people were, very frightened,” Barrios, who is the chief executive of the American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts, told the Blade. “We’ve talked a lot about this.”
Kilian Melloy, who is a massage therapist who volunteers with the Boston Athletic Association, which organizes the marathon, was in the basement of the John Hancock Building near Copley Square massaging a runner who had just finished the race when the bombs exploded. He said he had no idea of what had just happened on nearby Boylston Street until a volunteer came into the room and told everyone to evacuate the building and walk away from the finish line.
He told the Blade it took him an hour and a half to walk with his massage table from Copley Square to a subway station in Kendall Square in Cambridge over the Longfellow Bridge that spans the Charles River. Melloy further detailed his experience in a blog post to the EDGE Media Network.
“I’m really angry and I’m also really sad,” he told the Blade. “I’m in the healing profession and to think about how people got hurt — cruelly hurt — that’s very upsetting.”
Members of gay D.C. running group complete race
Five members of the D.C. Front Runners also ran in this year’s race.
Lennie Carter, who had previously run 10 Boston Marathons, crossed the finish line about 25 minutes before the bombs exploded. He told the Blade earlier on Tuesday before he boarded his flight back to D.C. that he was about to return to Boylston Street to meet his partner and watch the rest of the runners finish when he decided to return to their hotel near Tufts Medical Center.
“We just got to the room and everybody started calling us to make sure we were okay,” Carter said. “We turned on the TV and we had just been there I would say within 10 minutes of when everything went off.”
D.C. residents Brian Beary and Lennie Carter pose at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 14, 2013. (Photo courtesy of Lennie Carter)
D.C. resident Brian Beary, who ran the marathon for the first time, also first heard about the bombings after he returned to his hotel. His parents who had traveled from Ireland to watch the race had been standing for about an hour at the same location along Boylston Street where the second bomb exploded.
They left the area after Beary crossed the finish line.
“Basically if I had run an hour slower, they would have been right there,” he told the Blade after he returned to D.C. “They were right at the spot where the explosion was.”
’So many kids’ along the marathon route
Beary noted the contrasts he saw during the annual event that draws hundreds of thousands of spectators along its 26.2 mile route from Hopkinton to Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood on the third Monday in April — Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts.
He said he had goose bumps as he ran through the so-called Scream Tunnel at Wellesley College, up Heartbreak Hill in nearby Newton and on other parts of the course. Beary also noted runners observed a moment of silence for the victims of last December’s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., before the race began.
“It was just one of the most beautiful marathons I’ve ever run — if not the most, until obviously the horrible stuff that came later,” Beary said.
Budhu further noted the “so many kids” he saw along the marathon’s route to watch the race. These included Martin Richard, an 8-year-old boy from Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood who died during the first bombing as he and his family stood watching the runners cross the finish line.
“It’s so not necessary,” Budhu said. “It’s so appalling. It’s so horrific. I just cannot believe it happened.”
Tennessee
Tenn. lawmakers pass transgender “watch list” bill
State Senate to consider measure on Wednesday
The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill last week to create a transgender “watch list” that also pushes detransition medical treatment. The state Senate will consider it on Wednesday.
House Bill 754/State Bill 676 has been deemed “ugly” by LGBTQ advocates and criticized by healthcare information litigators as a major privacy concern.
The bill would require “gender clinics accepting funds from this state to perform gender transition procedures to also perform detransition procedures; requires insurance entities providing coverage of gender transition procedures to also cover detransition procedures; requires certain gender clinics and insurance entities to report information regarding detransition procedures to the department of health.”
It would require that any gender-affirming care-providing clinics share the date, age, and sex of patients; any drugs prescribed (dosage, frequency, duration, and method administered); the state and county; the name, contact information, and medical specialty of the healthcare professional who prescribed the treatment; and any past medical history related to “neurological, behavioral, or mental health conditions.” It would also mandate additional information if surgical intervention is prescribed, including details on which healthcare professional made a referral and when.
HB 0754 would also require the state to produce a “comprehensive annual statistical report,” with all collected data shared with the heads of the legislature and the legislative librarian, and eventually published online for public access.
The bill also reframes detransitioning as a major focus of gender-affirming healthcare — despite studies showing that the number of trans people who detransition is statistically quite low, around 13 percent, and is often the result of external pressures (such as discrimination or family) rather than an issue with their gender identity.
This legislation stands in sharp contrast to federal protections restricting what healthcare information can be shared. In 1996, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, requiring protections for all “individually identifiable health information,” including medical records, conversations, billing information, and other patient data.
Margaret Riley, professor of law, public health sciences, and public policy at the University of Virginia, has written about similar efforts at the federal level, noting the Trump-Vance administration’s push to subpoena multiple hospitals’ records of gender-affirming care for trans patients despite no claims — or proof — that a crime was committed.
It has “sown fear and concern, both among people whose information is sought and among the doctors and other providers who offer such care. Some health providers have reportedly decided to no longer provide gender-affirming care to minors as a result of the inquiries, even in states where that care is legal.” She wrote in an article on the Conversation, where she goes further, pointing out that the push, mostly from conservative members of the government, are pushing extracting this private information “while giving no inkling of any alleged crimes that may have been committed.”
State Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby), the bill’s sponsor, said in a press conference two weeks ago that he has met dozens of individuals who sought to transition genders and ultimately detransitioned. In committee, an individual testified in support of the bill, claiming that while insurance paid for gender-affirming care, detransition care was not covered.
“I believe that we as a society are going to look back on this time that really burst out in 2014 and think, ‘Dear God, What were we thinking? This was as dumb as frontal lobotomies,’” Faison said of gender-affirming care. “I think we’re going to look back on society one day and think that.”
Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law’s senior director of Transgender and Queer Rights, shared with PBS last year that legislation like this changes the entire concept of HIPAA rights for trans Americans in ways that are invasive and unnecessary.
“It turns doctor-patient confidentiality into government surveillance,” Levi said, later emphasizing this will cause fewer people to seek out the care that they need. “It’s chilling.”
The Washington Blade reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which shared this statement from Executive Director Miriam Nemeth:
“HB 754/SB 676 continues the ugly legacy of Tennessee legislators’ attacks on the lives of transgender Tennesseans. Most Tennesseans, regardless of political views, oppose government databases tracking medical decisions made between patients and their doctors. The same should be true here. The state does not threaten to end the livelihood of doctors and fine them $150,000 for safeguarding the sensitive information of people with diabetes, depression, cancer, or other conditions. Trans people and intersex people deserve the same safety, privacy, and equal treatment under the law as everyone else.”
National
Glisten’s 30th annual Day of Silence to take place April 10
Campaign began as student-led protests against anti-LGBTQ bullying, discrimination
Glisten’s 30th annual Day of Silence will take place on April 10.
The annual Day of Silence began as a student-led protest in response to bullying and discrimination that LGBTQ students face. It is now a national campaign for the LGBTQ community and their allies to come together for LGBTQ youth.
It takes place annually and has multiple ways for supporters to get involved in the movement.
Glisten, originally GLSEN, champions LGBTQ issues in schools, grades K-12. Glisten’s mission is to create more inclusive and accepting environments for LGBTQ students through curriculum, supportive measures, education campaigns, and engagement, such as the Day of Silence.
There are three main ways for the community to get involved in the Day of Silence.
Glisten has a Day of Silence frame, a series of pictures used as profile photos across social media that feature individuals holding signs. The signs allow for personalization, by providing a space to put the individual’s name, followed by filling in the prompt “ … and I am ENDING the silence by…”
Participants are encouraged to post the photo on social media and use it as a profile picture. The templates can be found on Google Drive through this link.
Using #DayOfSilence and #NSCS, as well as tagging Glisten’s official Page @glistencommunity, is another way to participate in the Day of Silence.
Glisten also encourages participants to tag creators, friends, family and use a call to action in their caption, to call attention to the facts and stories behind the Day of Silence.
“Today’s administration in the U.S. wants us to stay silent, submit to their biased and hurtful conformity, and stop fighting for our right to be authentically ourselves,” said Glisten CEO Melanie Willingham-Jaggers. “We urge supporters to use their social platforms and check in with local chapters to be boots on the ground to help LGBTQ+ students feel seen, heard, supported, and less alone. By participating in the ‘Day of Silence,’ you are showing solidarity with young people as they navigate identity, safety, and belonging. Our voices matter.”
South Carolina
Man faces first S.C. ‘hate intimidation’ charge
Timothy Truett allegedly shot at gay club in Myrtle Beach on April 1
A South Carolina man remains in custody on a more than $300,000 bond after he allegedly opened fire at a Myrtle Beach nightclub on April 1, according to WMBF.
Reports say 37-year-old Timothy James Truett Jr., of Clover, S.C., was detained by the Myrtle Beach Police Department after the April 1 incident outside Pulse Ultra Club. He was later arrested and charged with possession of a weapon during a violent crime, discharging a firearm into a dwelling, discharging a firearm within city limits, malicious injury to real property valued over $5,000, and assault or intimidation due to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
At 10:57 a.m. on April 1, officers responded to a call about a possible shooting at Pulse Ultra Club, located in the 2700 block of South Kings Highway.
In an affidavit released later, the club’s owner, Ken Phillips, said he was doing paperwork that morning when he heard “five or six” gunshots. He went outside and found a window and the windshield of his SUV shattered by bullets. An SUV with blue plastic covering one window was left at the scene.
Police later reviewed footage that showed a silver vehicle stopping in the middle of the road. The video appeared to capture muzzle flashes coming from the passenger-side window.
According to the affidavit, an officer later pulled over a vehicle driven by Truett and found spent shell casings in the back seat, along with a gun.
Documents do not detail why Truett was ultimately charged under the state law covering assault or intimidation tied to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
As of April 1, records show Truett is being held in Horry County on a combined bond of more than $312,000.
WMBF spoke with Phillips after the incident and asked whether there was any prior conflict that might have led to the shooting.
“I don’t know if it’s personal, I don’t know if it’s related to being gay, I don’t know if it’s related to the bar issues,” Phillips told WMBF. “Anybody with a mindset of pulling out a weapon in broad daylight is not right.”
“My primary concern has and always will be the safety of my community and my customers,” he added. “It’s given me great concern … as to how far people will go.”
WMBF also spoke with Adam Hayes, vice chair of Myrtle Beach’s Human Rights Coalition, who was involved in pushing for the ordinance. He said that while the incident itself is troubling, it shows the policy is being put to use.
The ordinance is intended to deter “crimes that are motivated by bias or hate towards any person or persons, in whole or in part, because of the actual or perceived” identity, in the absence of a statewide hate crime law.
“It’s nice to see that something we put into policy is not just a piece of paper, that it’s actually being used,” said Hayes.
He said the shooting underscores the need for a statewide hate crime law in South Carolina and added that the incident has left the local LGBTQ community shaken.
South Carolina and Wyoming are the only two states in the U.S. without a comprehensive statewide hate crime law.
Truett remains in jail as of publication.
Trump’s war threats trigger rare 25th Amendment discussion
A Sondheim masterpiece ‘Merrily’ rolls onto Netflix
ROSENSTEIN: Vote McDuffie for mayor of D.C.
New book celebrates 1970s dance music icons
