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Live your Pride every day

We should welcome all, including corporations, police, military

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Pride month, gay news, Washington Blade
2018 Capital Pride Parade (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Pride celebrations have changed over the years and in many ways that is a good thing even if some have trouble with it. June is Pride month and this year even our disgusting president is getting in on it. It is reported he is the first Republican president to promote Pride month. This after he had taken action to install policies that hurt the LGBTQ community, including banning trans people from the military. I hope the + community doesn’t get taken in by his rhetoric in a tweet.

Each of us should have the opportunity to come out in their own time. But once you are out you need to live your pride each day to make it easier for the next person and the next generations. The LGBTQ community doesn’t always agree on how to do that. Once again there is a divide in the community revolving around whether corporate entities and the police should be able to participate in and help fund our festivals and parades. A very public example of this debate is occurring in New York between the leaders of the official New York City Pride March organized by Heritage of Pride and another group that has gotten a permit to have a counter march they are calling the ā€œReclaim Prideā€ march. Both marches will take place on June 30, the same day at the same time, along different routes. 

The basic debate as I understand it is the counter march organizers believe that all the corporate involvement in the regular Pride parade dilutes its meaning. In this year’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of Stonewall they believe in what some have called a ā€˜back to basics’ Pride parade.

While I can respect the feelings of those who believe corporate floats and police in uniform shouldn’t be part of a Pride parade it seems to me their view goes counter to all we have fought for over the past 50 years since Stonewall. Haven’t we wanted broad-based acceptance and recognition for members of our community? Why is it a bad thing if a corporation is proud to have its LGBTQ employees march openly under their banner in a parade? We want our community to be accepted everywhere. Imagine we now have police departments proud to have their LGBTQ members and other officers who support them march openly and proudly in a Pride parade. 

Others object to the military participating in the parades. We fought long and hard to have members of the LGBTQ+ community be able to serve openly in the military. Why would we now not want them to march proudly in their uniforms we worked so long and hard to allow them to wear? I am not blind to the discrimination in our society, and even in our own community, especially toward people of color and women. I understand we must work day in and day out to end it. We must demand our police be appropriately trained and that we diversify our police departments. Too often individual members of the departments allow their racial biases to influence their actions and people of color and transgender individuals among others are threatened and even killed by those who are supposed to be there to protect them. We each must commit to see that end. But I am not sure banning members of police departments who are supportive of LGBTQ rights or are themselves members of the community from our parades helps in that fight. 

Yes Pride celebrations have morphed from a small group of out members of the community gathering together, some surreptitiously, to citywide events in places like New York and Washington, D.C. New York Pride and World Pride that is being hosted there are expected to draw up to four million people to their various events from around the world. Yes it’s an economic boon for New York and I think the positive advertisement corporations get by having their employees march under their banners and sponsoring various events is great. 

When we needed help fighting anti-gay laws in North Carolina and Indiana among other places we wanted and got the help of the corporate community. They stood with us. Isn’t that what we have fought to have happen for all these years? Those of us who are out need to live our pride every day of the year. We need to urge more and more people to come out and it’s so much easier if they know their neighbors and their employers say ā€œyou are welcome here and we support you.ā€ 

Whether that employer is corporate, the military or the police department we should want the welcome mat to be out for them at our Pride celebrations.Ā 

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBT rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.

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Medicaid cuts will lead to an uptick in STIs

Move threatens progress to end HIV epidemic

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We have come a long way from the days when HIV was an almost certain death sentence. But our work is far from over. The COVID-19 pandemic led to an uptick in rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, and low-income communities, LGBTQ+ communities, and communities of color continue to be impacted at alarming and disproportionately high rates.

These communities are also more likely to be served by Medicaid. Medicaid is the largest source of insurance coverage for people living with HIV in the United States, covering an estimated 40 percent of nonelderly adults with HIV, and Medicaid accounted for 45 percent of all federal HIV spending in 2022. During September, Sexual Health Awareness Month, it is worth examining the crucial ways Medicaid works to keep people healthy — and what threatens our progress today.

In recent weeks, we have seen a troubling trend develop. Five million Americans have been removed from Medicaid rolls, and many millions more are on the verge of losing coverage as a result of the Medicaid enrollment cuts. This represents the single greatest threat to our progress toward ending the HIV epidemic in years.   

During the pandemic, Medicaid enrollment grew by an estimated 20 million people, contributing to the uninsured rate dropping to the lowest level on record in early 2022. But, after a three-year period during which states provided continuous enrollment in exchange for enhanced federal funding, some states resumed dis-enrolling people from Medicaid on April 1. A recent KFF survey found that 17 million people could lose Medicaid coverage as a result of this process, referred to as the Medicaid ā€œunwinding.ā€

Many states are not doing enough to ensure that Medicaid-eligible residents don’t lose their coverage. While some have been removed from the rolls because they are newly ineligible, procedural issues account for 74 percent of people losing coverage. An unacceptably high number of FloridaTexas, and Virginia residents who are still eligible for Medicaid are losing coverage because of procedural reasons, such as failing to confirm proof of income or household size.

Our goal should be to ensure that no one who qualifies for Medicaid loses their coverage. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) gave states the option to use a 12-month grace period, along with other flexibilities, to prepare for the unwinding and make sure residents had what they needed to recertify. So why are some states so eager to remove their residents from Medicaid rolls?

New York, on the other hand, has made equity a cornerstone of recertification work and provides a template for what states can do to help their residents remain covered. The state maximizes the flexibilities offered by CMS and works directly with providers, health plans, and recipients to minimize procedural disenrollments and ensure that people retain health care coverage, either through Medicaid, the state’s health exchange, or private insurance. New York is among the nation’s top-performing states in terms of call center wait times, call drop rates, and average time it takes to make an eligibility determination, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. New York’s call center is also able to produce materials in 26 languages. In June 2023 alone, New York State certified renewals for more than 400,000 residents.

At Amida Care in New York, we know firsthand that gaps in care for people living with or placed at elevated risk of contracting HIV can be especially devastating. When people lose access to PrEP medication to prevent HIV, they are left vulnerable to contracting HIV, and when people living with HIV lose access to antiretroviral therapy, they risk becoming seriously ill and transmitting HIV to others. We support and guide our members through the recertification process with dedicated outreach efforts that include phone calls, mailings, text messages, and home visits to limit loss of coverage and interruptions in life-saving treatments. 

We cannot begin to address health inequity or end the HIV epidemic without strengthening Medicaid. The recent moves by some states to strip their residents of Medicaid coverage will undermine the progress we’ve made.

Doug Wirth is president and CEO of Amida Care, a Medicaid Special Needs Health Plan for people affected by HIV.

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Jann Wenner’s racist, sexist take on musicians isn’t surprising

New book ā€˜The Masters’ excludes Black, women pioneers

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Jann Wenner (Screen capture via CBS Mornings YouTube)

I enjoyed sharing my birthday with Bruce Springsteen, until I read the bigoted remarks made by his friend Jann Wenner in a recent New York Times interview.

Then I wasn’t so glad to have the same b-day as Bruce.

Springsteen didn’t make the comments. I’m a fan of his music. But, as I write this, Springsteen, as well as some of Wenner’s other friends, hasn’t spoken out against Wenner’s hurtful comments.

As the saying goes: Some gifts keep on giving. Wenner, who was removed from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation board after making sexist and racist remarks in a Sept. 15 interview with the Times, keeps on giving. But what’s he’s giving isn’t a gift. Not to Black people, women, music lovers, or queer folk.

Wenner’s one of us. He’s gay. 

I’m fine with his sexuality, but you’d hope that Wenner, for decades a gatekeeper of music and culture, would be a source of queer pride. But, that’s not the case with Wenner, a co-founder of the Rock the Roll Hall of Fame.

The fallout from Wenner’s Times interview is a needed wake-up call for queers.

Too often, we give ourselves a pass. We believe that because we live with homophobia, bi-erasure and transphobia, we know the score. That we’re not sexist, racist, ageist, ableist – we’re free of prejudice. Paragons of virtue.

Wenner, with his demeaning comments, is, I hope, getting us (especially, we who are Boomers) to look in the mirror. To check ourselves (as we examine our dogs for ticks) for our own prejudices, and for our virtue-signaling.

The controversy around Wenner began when he sat for the interview with David Marchese of the Times on Sept. 15 to promote his new book ā€œThe Masters,ā€ released by Little Brown and Company on Sept. 26.

ā€œThe Mastersā€ is a compilation of seven interviews that Wenner conducted with acclaimed musicians who are (or were before their death) his friends: Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Jerry Garcia, Bono, and Springsteen. All of the interviewees are white, male and Boomers.

ā€œThat there are no women or Black musicians in this collection is obvious,ā€ Wenner writes, according to Kirkus Reviews, in ā€œThe Masters.ā€ ā€œThis is reflective of the prejudices and practices of the times.ā€

It’s hard to describe how bigoted and absurd this is. As many have noted, rock ā€˜n’ roll was invented by Black people.

You have to wonder what Wenner was thinking. Had he never heard of Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin? Stevie Wonder? Joni Mitchell? Madonna?

Though too much racism and sexism exist today, the culture has gotten somewhat better. Attitudes have evolved. We’ve become more aware of our biases. 

Unfortunately, this isn’t so for Wenner. Marchese asked Wenner why every musician he talked with in ā€œThe Mastersā€ is white and male. ā€œInsofar as the women,ā€ Wenner responded, ā€œjust none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.ā€

When pressed by Marchese, who wondered how he could say Joni Mitchell wasn’t ā€œarticulate enough,ā€ Wenner said, ā€œJoni was not a philosopher of rock ā€˜n’ roll.ā€

ā€œI mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level,ā€ Wenner said of Black musicians.

Reading the interview, I wondered if he’d read Rolling Stone, the magazine he edited for decades. Had he missed the covers with Melissa Etheridge, Joplin, and Tina Turner (to name a few of the women and Black artists featured on the magazine’s cover)?

Sadly, Wenner’s condescending, racist and sexist take on Black and women musicians isn’t surprising. Often, people with power (rich white men) believe they’re smarter, more talented, and more entitled to be cultural gatekeepers than those from marginalized groups. They’re convinced they’re more talented and ā€œarticulateā€ than those who don’t have power. 

Forget ā€œThe Masters.ā€ Check out Etheridge’s new memoir ā€œTalking to My Angels.ā€ That’s a good read.

Kathi Wolfe, a writer and a poet, is a regular contributor to the Blade.

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O’Shae Sibley’s murder is an attack on LGBTQ people and their expression, as both rise

More than 350 anti-LGBTQ attacks reported between June 2022 and July 2023

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O’Shae Sibley (Headshot from O'Shae Sibley's Facebook page)

BY HENRY HICKS IVĀ | What do the banning of a children’s picture book about two male penguins, white supremacist stand-offs outside of weekend brunches and a killingĀ during impromptu dancing at a gas station have in common? Plenty. Each impinges on the escalating trend of attacks on LGBTQ+ people and their right to free expression.Ā 

On the evening of July 29, O’Shae Sibley pulled into a Brooklyn gas station parking lot with his friends to fill up their gas tank. As they waited for the tank to fill, the group spilled from the car and used the moment to move joyfully in the hot summer night, cranking the car radio’s volume and dancing together. Sibley, a gay man, was also a skilled professional dancer and choreographer. He displayed his talents this night, voguing to the sounds of BeyoncĆ©, an artist that Sibley and his friends were fans of. By coincidence, the artist was performing just a few miles away that night, with professional voguers joining her on stage.

Vogueing, a dance style born out of the traditionally queer ballroom scene, is known for its electrifying dips, drops and duckwalks. The style has been prominently featured in the Golden Globe-winning television showĀ “Pose” — and, more recently, on stage in Beyoncé’s all-consumingĀ Renaissance World Tour. The energy of the ballroom scene has spirited communities across the country, as Beyoncé’s tour has touched down city-by-city, and Sibley and his friends were not exempt to this reach. He was, in fact, eager to participate in his artistry as someone known for his role as a dancer, choreographer, and active member of New York’s ballroom community.Ā 

As he and his friends vogued to BeyoncĆ© in the parking lot, moves that Sibley was adept in as an artist himself, they grabbed the attention of hostile onlookers. As captured on surveillance footage, Sibley was first berated with homophobic slurs — Sibley’s vogue performance seeming to signal his sexuality to his attacker. Shortly following the verbal assault, things turned violent. Sibley was stabbed and murdered in a tragic hate crime, fueled by homophobia and triggered by Sibley’s open expression as a dancer and artist. 

In mourning, and in defiant protest in the days following, the New York City queer communityĀ Ā hosted a memorial at the site of his murder where they honored his memory through performance,Ā with a vibrant and resistant ball.Ā 

ā€œYou won’t break my soul. / You won’t break my soul, no, no. / I’m telling everybody,ā€ BeyoncĆ© sings defiantly in her single, ā€œBreak My Soul.ā€

The murder of O’Shae Sibley was devastating — and a signal of a disturbing trend. Increasing violence toward LGBTQ+ people, and attempts to quash their personal and artistic expression, are on the rise in the United States. Advocacy organizations such as GLAAD and the Anti-Defamation League have reported surges in harassment, vandalism and physical violence against LGBTQ+ people — with 356 instances being reported between June 2022 and April 2023. Transgender people, as well as drag performers, have been targeted at notably high rates. The Human Rights Campaign reported 34 murders of trans people ā€” mostly trans women of color — in 2022  (HRC emphasizes that the actual number is likely higher, as most attacks go unreported, or are reported inaccurately.) 

Drag shows across the country have faced threats and intimidation from armed protesters,Ā including the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys. Gay bars have been targeted by armed assailants, such asĀ the tragic massacre thatoccurredĀ at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colo., last November. Hospitals providing gender-affirming care to transgender youthĀ have been targeted with bomb threats. On Aug. 18, a California store ownerĀ was shot and killed for displaying a Pride flag. Harassment, threats of violence, and hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ communityĀ have steadily risen in recent years. It is clear that this bigotry has been emboldened and its first goal is to silence the free expression of LGBTQ+ people, through violence if necessary.Ā 

The exponential increase in physical violence against LGBTQ+ people over the last few years cannot be divorced from the recent legislative environment that has grown ever-more hostile to LGBTQ+ expression. Bills categorizing drag shows as obscenity, book bans targeting LGBTQ+ authors and stories about queer identities in schools and public libraries, as well as other legislative attacks are part of this trend against the LGBTQ+ community. The attacks, both physical and through laws and bans, risk enabling a culture that normalizes repression of queer voices and increases the risk of violence aimed, in part, at suppressing expression of LGBTQ+ people, even when individuals are simply voguing to BeyoncĆ© in public. 

Starting in 2021, we’ve seen a historic surge in book bans around the country, targeting LGBTQ+ voices and stories at a disproportionately high rate. PEN America has reported that among the top eleven books targeted by bans in the first half of the 2022-2023 school year, four focused on LGBTQ+ narratives. These challenges, paired with the historic number of bills targeting LGBTQ+ people in state legislatures across the United States — with at least 566 bills ensnaring the broader LGBTQ+ community, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker ā€” contribute to the normalization of repressing personal and artistic expression of queer people. As these policy attacks continue to advance, violence against the LGBTQ+ community has surged. 

And while O’Shae Sibley’s murder occurred in New York, a state that has passed no anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the most recent legislative session, his brutal killing shows just how pervasive the impact of anti-LGBTQ+ legislative attacks on free expression in other states are, shaping a culture that spills across borders and impacting LGBTQ+ people throughout the country. Even states perceived to be supportive to the LGBTQ+ community, such as New York, are not immune to the cultural reach of anti-LGBTQ+ repression and intimidation: the home and office of Erik Bottcher, a gay city councilmember in New York City, was vandalized last December after he voiced support for Drag Story Hour, and more recently, a rainbow Pride flag at a Manhattan restaurant was intentionally lit on fire.

Political threats to LGBTQ+ expression, whether it be through restricting and chilling on-stage performance or making it virtually impossible to even acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people in Florida and other states’ schoolshave and will continue to put LGBTQ+ people at risk everywhere, chilling their ability to express themselves and potentially even sending them back into the closet, which, at its core, is a form of self-censorship. 

A culture of free expression, where people can speak, write — or dance — free from fear of violence, is essential to a thriving democracy. LGBTQ+ people deserve to equally enjoy this right — through creative performance, gender expression, or displays of joy. The ongoing trend of legislative attacks on drag, attempts to label LGBTQ+ stories as “obscene,” and the accompanying trend of violent assaults on LGBTQ+ people are attacks on free expression and must be condemned as such.

Henry Hicks IV is the coordinator for PEN America’s U.S. Free Expression program. PEN America is committed to defending against attacks on LGBTQ+ free expression. 

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