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Nonbinary physician fights COVID-19 without legal protections

LGBTQ healthcare workers are stepping up, saving lives

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LGBTQ physicians, nonbinary medical professionals, gay news, Washington Blade
Dr. Ly Pham is a queer nonbinary doctor working in Louisiana without legal protections. (Photo courtesy Pham)

Dr. Scott Nass and Dr. Ly Pham are LGBTQ physicians on the front lines of the pandemic fight, but only one is protected from workplace discrimination. While Nass is fortunate to be a gay cisgender man practicing in California, Pham is a queer nonbinary doctor working in Louisiana without legal protections.

ā€œShreveport is a level one trauma center similar to Baltimore,ā€ said Pham who uses singular they pronouns. ā€œThe hospital was fairly busy before COVID [but the pandemic] added another layer of stress and anxiety.ā€

Adding to Pham’s stress is the feeling that LGBTQ people are tolerated but not fully accepted into the larger Shreveport community. While HRC reports both Shreveport and New Orleans ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, Louisiana has had a tumultuous history with attempts to mandate a statewide ban.

ā€œI get misgendered all the time,ā€ Pham said before describing a usual day when they arrive at the hospital around 8 a.m. ā€œMostly by patients coming in and some coworkers. But I’m here to treat the patients and not educate them because they’re in a crisis right now and need to be treated and admitted to the hospital.ā€

Pham says they allow their patients to interact with them in a way that is emotionally damaging because they feel harms need to be triaged during a crisis. Louisiana governors have sought remedies to this preventable situation.

However, in 2018 the Louisiana Supreme Court struck down Gov. John Bel Edwards’ (D) executive order protecting LGBTQ state employees and contractors from workplace discrimination, according to a report by The Advocate.

The resulting tally from Freedom for All Americans shows Louisiana is one of 28 states where an LGBTQ worker, including essential medical personnel during a global health crisis, can legally be fired or face other negative action on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

ā€œThe case of healthcare workers helps illustrate why it is in everyone’s interest that people are able to work regardless of factors that have nothing to do with their ability to do the job,ā€ said Jon Davidson, Freedom for All Americans Chief Counsel. He is also an LGBTQ attorney who attended the Supreme Court arguments on this issue. ā€œI hope the court sees this is not just important to the employees affected, but for society as a whole.ā€

But not every state will be equally impacted by the ruling.

Davidson explains a Supreme Court ruling on the Bostock v. Clayton County, Altitude Express v. Zarda and Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC cases determining if Title VII protections ā€œon the basis of sexā€ includes sexual orientation and gender identity won’t affect the 22 states that already have LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination protections.

In April, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law the Virginia Values Act, expanding nondiscrimination protections in his state to include sexual orientation and gender identity and making it the first state in the South with such inclusions.

ā€œWe need every healthcare worker possible saving lives,ā€ Davidson emphasized. ā€œSo having protections is both important to keep qualified people in their jobs and it is also important that LGBTQ workers not be worried about who might learn they are LGBTQ. If you have to hide your partner [or who you are] because you’re afraid your employer might find out and you might be fired, that’s unacceptable.ā€

He added it was ā€œjust outrageous and cruelā€ for healthcare workers to endure such uncertainty during a crisis.

HRC, the Movement Advancement Project and other national policy trackers have noted California, where Dr. Nass encountered the initial waves of the deadly virus, has passed a series of increasingly inclusive statewide measures over the years. Their legislative efforts culminated in the recent Gender Nondiscrimination Act in 2011.

As a result, though Nass also finds the pressures of the pandemic to be ā€œincredibly stressful,ā€ he has not faced the added stress of having to conceal his orientation.

ā€œWhen I’m not working, I am sheltering in place at home with my husband,ā€ Nass said. ā€œA police officer in Los Angeles who is also on the front lines of the pandemic.ā€

While their lives are at risk, their jobs and identities are not. However, the situation is very different outside of California.

Pham currently shelters-in-place with their fiancee, who uses both female and nonbinary pronouns and identifies as queer in orientation. The couple bought a two-person hammock so they can lie together under the trees and daydream about a future when they can travel. They are also planning their wedding and an eventual move to Los Angeles.

ā€œIt’s spring,ā€ Pham said. ā€œAnd we are appreciating nature and the flowers blooming and a time to slow down.ā€

But the rest period doesn’t last long for the physician who graduated in the midst of a global crisis. Pham has been out as an LGBTQ person since attending medical school at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Although Texas is another state without LGBTQ-inclusive workplace protections, Pham was able to find mentors who helped them through their personal journey from self-described butch lesbian to nonbinary as well as through their professional journey from student to physician.

Pham details the rest of their current daily routine with almost machine-like precision.

ā€œI park in a parking lot that is gated using my badge,ā€ Pham said. ā€œThere I put on my surgical mask that I have in my car. Parking is in the back of the hospital. I walk to the front. There is only one entrance to the hospital. I try to keep six feet from anyone else and I try to see if anyone else is walking toward the entrance.ā€

ā€œEveryone feels a little more distant than usual,ā€ agrees Nass in less constrained cadence when discussing his own routine, which begins at 6:30 a.m. ā€œAnd I’ve worked on speaking more with my eyes now that no one can see me smile under the constant masks.ā€

Pham is a little more reserved beneath their mask as workplace interactions usually lead to misgendering without reasonable recourse, especially during the crisis.

They arrive at a screening station where they answer a hospital worker’s questions and get their temperature checked. When they pass the checkpoint, they get a sticker on their badge.

ā€œDifferent colors for different days,ā€ Pham explains. ā€œBefore I even get to my office, I usually swing by the ground floor and pick up my N95 mask and face shield, if I’m seeing COVID patients.ā€

But Pham admits it’s hard to know which patients are COVID positive, so they wear an N95 mask whenever they see patients. They also wipe down their keyboard, desk, chair, mouse, phone — everything in their work area.

Nass may be fortunate when it comes to workplace protections, but his personal equipment seems a little less protective than Pham’s, who works in a larger hospital and more closely with COVID patients.

ā€œI stop at the front desk of the hospital to get an ear-loop mask,ā€ Nass explains. ā€œNot the most protective kind, but those are kept even more securely in particular patient areas.ā€

Nass notes ā€œon administrative daysā€ he doesn’t usually see much of anyone as access into the office space has been limited to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

ā€œI am not assigned to take care of confirmed COVID-19 patients in one of the two units we’ve designated for that,ā€ he said. ā€œBut we have started to treat every patient, and each other, as though we may be carrying the virus.ā€

And this may be sound advice, though reminiscent of the early stages of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In March, when PPE distributions were no match for the steady influx of patients in New York City, Kious Kelly, a gay nurse working at Mount Sinai hospital, contracted COVID-19 and died from it.

Kelly’s sister, Marya Patrice Sherron, told BuzzFeed News of a homophobic comment posted to a GoFundMe page set up to help with funeral expenses.

ā€œIt was a very, very, very hateful and insensitive comment suggesting that [his death] didn’t matter because he was a gay male.ā€

Pham faces similar insensitivity from nonbinary erasure even as they struggle to save lives during the crisis.

Pham’s hospital has a dedicated COVID team where they work when they are on call. Pham said in the beginning stages of the crisis it took a week to get test results back so they weren’t certain who was infected and who wasn’t. Now, with better testing, the turnaround has been 24 hours or less.

ā€œWe know definitively if they are positive or negative faster, instead of just suspecting that they are,ā€ Pham said. ā€œIt helps us triage better.ā€

Pham also said this is safer for the medical staff since many of the infected are asymptomatic. As a result, everyone is tested regardless of symptoms.

ā€œWe stress the importance of social distancing because you don’t know who could test COVID positive and they could be spreading it around unknowingly,ā€ Pham said.

At the end of their shift, Pham removes their gear by following the guidance of a hospital instructional video. They then wipe down their shield with hospital-grade wipes and they toss the mask if it has been visibly soiled.

After cleaning themselves and their workstation again, they wear a surgical mask down to their car. They then clean themselves and the interior of their car with alcohol again. When they get home, they keep a six feet distance from their fiancee and toss their clothes into the washing machine before jumping into the shower.

When it is safe, the two of them can finally relax together and reconnect by cooking, watching Netflix or daydreaming in their shared hammock.

Nass similarly ends his day with a trip to the washing machine and shower before collapsing on the couch with his husband and Boston Terrier. In the hour or two before he falls asleep he catches up on ā€œThe Magiciansā€ or ā€œSchitt’s Creek.ā€

ā€œSometimes I eat dinner,ā€ he said in a rare consideration of his own health.

ā€œLGBTQ healthcare workers are stepping up to save lives in this crisis,ā€ said Hector Vargas, the executive director of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality, an LGBTQ medical professionals advocacy organization. ā€œIt’s long past time we step up for them to make sure they’re protected under the eyes of the law.ā€

Dr. Scott Nass is a gay cisgender man practicing in California. (Photo courtesy Nass)
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Books

Chronicling disastrous effects of ā€˜conversion therapy’

New book uncovers horror, unexpected humor of discredited practice

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(Book cover image courtesy of Jessica Kingsley Publishers)

ā€˜Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy’
By Lucas F. W. Wilson
c.2025, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
$21.95/190 pages

You’re a few months in, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.

You made your New Year’s resolutions with forethought, purpose, and determination butĀ after all this time,Ā you still struggle,Ā ugh. You’ve backslid. You’ve cheated because change is hard. It’s sometimes impossible. And in the new book,Ā ā€œShame-Sex Attractionā€ by Lucas F. W. Wilson,Ā it can be exceptionally traumatic.

Progress does not come without problems.

While it’s true that the LGBTQ community has been adversely affected by the current administration, there are still things to be happy about when it comes to civil rights and acceptance. Still, says Wilson, one ā€œparticularly slow-moving aspect… has been the fight against what is widely known as conversion therapy.ā€

Such practices, he says, ā€œhave numerous damaging, death-dealing, and no doubt disastrous consequences.ā€ The stories he’s collected in this volume reflect that, but they also mirror confidence and strength in the face of detrimental treatment.

Writer Gregory Elsasser-Chavez was told to breathe in something repellent every time he thought about other men. He says, in the end, he decided not to ā€œpray away the gay.ā€ Instead, he quips, he’d ā€œsniff it away.ā€

D. Apple became her ā€œown conversation therapistā€ by exhausting herself with service to others as therapy. Peter Nunn’s father took him on a surprise trip, but the surprise was a conversion facility; Nunn’s father said if it didn’t work, he’d ā€œget rid ofā€ his 15-year-old son. Chaim Levin was forced to humiliate himself as part of his therapy.

Lexie Bean struggled to make a therapist understand that they didn’t want to be a man because they were ā€œboth.ā€ Jordan Sullivan writes of the years it takes ā€œto re-integrate and become wholeā€ after conversion therapy. Chris Csabs writes that he ā€œtried everything to find the root of my problemā€ but ā€œnothing so far had worked.ā€

Says Syre Klenke of a group conversion session, ā€œMy heart shattered over and over as people tried to console and encourage each other…. I wonder if each of them is okay and still with us today.ā€

Here’s a bit of advice for reading ā€œShame-Sex Attractionā€: dip into the first chapter, maybe the second, then go back and read the foreword and introduction, and resume.

The reason: author Lucas F. W. Wilson’s intro is deep and steep, full of footnotes and statistics, and if you’re not prepared or you didn’t come for the education, it might scare you away. No, the subtitle of this book is likely why you’d pick the book up so because that’s what you really wanted, indulge before backtracking.

You won’t be sorry; the first stories are bracing and they’ll steel you for the rest, for the emotion and the tears, the horror and the unexpected humor.

Be aware that there are triggers all over this book, especially if you’ve been subjected to anything like conversion therapy yourself. Remember, though, that the survivors are just that: survivors, and their strength is what makes this book worthwhile. Even so, though ā€œShame-Sex Attractionā€ is an essential read, that doesn’t make it any easier.

The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.

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Arts & Entertainment

How queer Baltimore artists are building strong community spaces

Fruit Camp is home to tattoo artists, musicians, herbalist, and more

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A tattoo artist prepares to work at Fruit Camp. (Photo by Emi Lynn Holler/courtesy Fruit Camp Studio)

Fruit Camp, a tattoo and art studio in the Remington neighborhood of Baltimore, opened with a bang in February of 2020. ā€œWe had a big opening party. It was really fun. Everybody came,ā€ says Geo Mccandlish, one of the co-founders. ā€œIt was the last rager I went to,ā€ they said. 

The pandemic shut down their shop—alongside the world—for months, but the shop survived. ā€œWe just put our stimulus checks into keeping the rent paid,ā€ says Emi Lynn Holler, the other co-founder. 

They had built the space without loans, on a low-budget, do-it-yourself ethos with hands-on help from their community. ā€œThe deeply punk shoestring budget background worked really to our advantage,ā€ says Mccandlish.

While it wasn’t ideal, it was fitting. Mccandlish and Holler’s artistic partnership has almost always lived at the crossroads of community, DIY, and extraordinary circumstances. A decade ago they met as residents of the Bell Foundry, an arts co-op and co-living space, where sharing knowledge, making community, and living cheaply were key to getting by.

It was there that Holler gifted Mccandlish their first tattooing machine and taught them how to use it. And it was where the two of them—who also do printmaking, fiber arts, and other creative activities—started imagining co-founding a space of their own. That dream felt more urgent in 2016 when Baltimore condemned the Bell Foundry and evicted the residents, including Mccandlish, during a nationwide crackdown on artist co-ops after the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland.

Holler had by then moved to Massachusetts to pursue formal tattoo education and certifications. 

ā€œLiving inside that level of precarity,ā€ Mccandlish explains, ā€œmade us want to figure out a hybrid,ā€ between the unique, collaborative Bell Foundry and a licensed, commercial space. ā€œWe wanted to find a way to create more safety,ā€ says Holler.

But they didn’t just want to create safety for the two of them. When looking at spaces, they opted to lease a bigger studio—a two-story, double-row house with room for tattooing on the first floor and small studios on the second. Mccandlish said the prospect of a larger project felt ā€œtantalizing and preciousā€ because they felt ā€œif you have access to something, you try to make sure that every resource that is a part of it is also shared.ā€

Today, in addition to tattoos, Fruit Camp holds studios for musicians, fiber artists, an herbalist, a massage therapist, and a doula. ā€œWe’re able to incubate and hold nontraditional pathways to different kinds of creative practices,ā€ says Mccandlish.

You can consider Fruit Camp a queer business by several definitions. For one, every member of the studio identifies as queer, in some way. It also looks queer. ā€œIt’s campy and it’s pink, and we have a lot of gay art hanging around,ā€ explains Mccandlish. 

Holler says sometimes they get asked about losing potential patrons by being openly queer, but that isn’t a worry. ā€œI think it only strengthens us,ā€ they say. ā€œIt brings people to us who also want to find each other in that world.ā€ They pause, ā€œI feel like it boils down to we keep us safe and we take care of ourselves.ā€

Mccandlish emphasizes that ā€œqueer is the political meaningā€ and the ā€œorientation toā€ which they do their work as a community space and business. Their shop practices are explicitly queer and trans-friendly—in addition to being ā€œanti-racist, anti-sexist, liberation-oriented, and accessible.ā€ For example, the shop requires masking and has consent-forward and trauma-informed practices in place. They also use cost-sharing instead of a traditional profit model with those who work in their space. ā€œThe point is not to make as much money as everybody can, the point is to work enough with a low enough cost overhead that everyone can survive without overworking.ā€

That is a continued goal, not a static place, they explain. ā€œSome of our goals, we haven’t reached yet, like turning into a true worker co-op.ā€

But they are already making big strides in the community. For example, some patrons tell them that they are the only tattoo studio they feel safe using, due to the universal masking policies. To their knowledge, they are the only shop in Baltimore that has the policy.

Fruit Camp also has a big community name. One day Mccandlish logged onto a community Facebook group and saw an anonymous post asking about queer-friendly tattooers or tattooers who would tattoo someone who has HIV. The post said, ā€œI’ve been turned away from five different shops.ā€

Immediately Mccandlish went to the comments to write that Fruit Camp would be happy to tattoo them, but instead, they found the comment section full of that recommendation already. It warmed their heart. ā€œThat feels like a very minor way that [our work] is so important.ā€

(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)

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Theater

Timely comedy ā€˜Fake It’ focuses on Native American themes

Arena Stage production features two out actors

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Eric Stanton Betts (standing) and Brandon Delsid in ā€˜Fake It Until You Make It.’ (Photo by Daniel Rader)

ā€˜Fake It Until You Make It’
Through May 4
Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St., S.W.
Tickets start at $59
Arenastage.org

A farce requires teamwork. And Larissa FastHorse’s ā€œFake It Until You Make Itā€ now at Arena Stage is no exception.Ā 

The timely comedy focuses on Native American nonprofits fractiously housed in a shared space. Friction rises when rivals River (Amy Brenneman), a white woman operating in the Indigenous world, goes up against the more authentic Wynona (Shyla Lefner) to win a lucrative Native-funded grant.   

While Brenneman (best known for TV’s Judging Amy) is undeniably a big draw, it takes a group collaboration to hit marks, land jokes, and pull off the well-executed physical comedy including all those carefully timed door slams.

As members of the six-person ā€œFake Itā€ cast, Brandon Delsid and Eric Stanton Betts, both out actors of partly indigenous ancestry, contribute to the mayhem. Respectively, Delsid and Betts play Krys and Mark, a pair of two-spirited Native Americans who meet farcically cute and enjoy one of the play’s more satisfying arcs. 

For Krys, every attractive man is a potential next fling, but when Mark, handsome and relatively reserved, arrives on the scene, it’s something entirely different. 

Both onstage and sometimes off, Betts plays the straight man to Delsid’s waggishness. But when it comes down to real life business, the friends are on the same page: not only are the L.A.-based, up-and-coming actors intensely serious about their film and stage careers, but they’re also particularly engaged in the themes of Indigenous People found in ā€œFake It.ā€ 

On a recent Wednesday following a matinee and an audience talkback, they were ready for a phone interview. 

In establishing whose voice was whose, Delsid clarified with ā€œI’m the one who sounds a little like a Valley girl.ā€ 

WASHINGTON BLADE: Brandon, you’ve been with the show since its early work-shopping days in 2022 and through its debut in Los Angeles and now Washington. Have things evolved? 

BRANDON DELSID: Definitely. I’ve grown up in the last couple of years and so has my character; it’s hard to know where I end and Kry begins. There’s been a real melding.

Eric and I are both queer, and to get to play these roles that are so human, imperfect, sexy, and interesting is really joyful.

As queer artists you don’t always get the chance to do work like this. So many stories are queer trauma, which is incredibly important, but it’s liberating to feel joy and ride it off into the sunset, which, without revealing too much, is kind of what we get to do.

BLADE: There’s some race shifting in ā€œFake Itā€ particularly with regard to ā€œpretendianā€ (a pejorative term describing a person who has falsely claimed Indigenous status). 

ERIC STANTON BETTS:  The last few years I’ve been on a journey with my cultural identity and place in the world. I’m a mixed BIPOC artist, my dad is Black and Native American by way of the Cherokee tribe and my mom is white. 

Since 2020, I’ve tried to figure out where I belong in this cultural history that I haven’t had a tie to throughout my life; it’s gratifying to find my way back to my indigeneity and be welcomed. 

In the play, race shifting is introduced through farce. But it’s never in a disrespectful way; it’s never mocked or done in a way to take away from others. The playwright parallels race shifting with gender fluidity. 

DELSID: But in life, there are people posing as Indigenous, actively taking grants, and the play goes there, we don’t hold back. Larissa, our playwright, has made it clear that she’s not trying to figure it out for us. With that in mind, we hope people leave the theater interested and curious to learn more. 

BLADE: Mark arrives kind of the middle of some crazy drama, bringing along a jolt of romance. 

BETTS:  Yeah, when I show up, we’re all sort of shot out of a cannon, struggling to keep up with the initial lie. 

DESLID: A very gay cannon. 

BLADE: What’s up next for you two?

BETTS: Both Brandon and I are up for the same part in a TV pilot, so one of us may be getting some very good news. I also have a Tyler Perry film coming out soon [he plays a model, not an unfamiliar gig for Betts]. 

DELSID: Coming up, I have a recurring part on HBO’s ā€œThe Rehearsal,ā€ and a supporting part in ā€œJune and John,ā€ a John Besson film. But doing ā€œFake It Until You Make Itā€ in L.A. and now D.C. has been a special time in our lives. It’s 23/7 togetherness. There’s that hour for sleep. 

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