Arts & Entertainment
Nonbinary physician fights COVID-19 without legal protections
LGBTQ healthcare workers are stepping up, saving lives
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.
“Shreveport is a level one trauma center similar to Baltimore,” said Pham who uses singular they pronouns. “The hospital was fairly busy before COVID [but the pandemic] added another layer of stress and anxiety.”
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.
“I get misgendered all the time,” Pham said before describing a usual day when they arrive at the hospital around 8 a.m. “Mostly 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.”
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.
“The 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,” said Jon Davidson, Freedom for All Americans Chief Counsel. He is also an LGBTQ attorney who attended the Supreme Court arguments on this issue. “I hope the court sees this is not just important to the employees affected, but for society as a whole.”
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 “on the basis of sex” 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.
“We need every healthcare worker possible saving lives,” Davidson emphasized. “So 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.”
He added it was “just outrageous and cruel” 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 “incredibly stressful,” he has not faced the added stress of having to conceal his orientation.
“When I’m not working, I am sheltering in place at home with my husband,” Nass said. “A police officer in Los Angeles who is also on the front lines of the pandemic.”
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.
“It’s spring,” Pham said. “And we are appreciating nature and the flowers blooming and a time to slow down.”
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.
“I park in a parking lot that is gated using my badge,” Pham said. “There 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.”
“Everyone feels a little more distant than usual,” agrees Nass in less constrained cadence when discussing his own routine, which begins at 6:30 a.m. “And I’ve worked on speaking more with my eyes now that no one can see me smile under the constant masks.”
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.
“Different colors for different days,” Pham explains. “Before 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.”
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.
“I stop at the front desk of the hospital to get an ear-loop mask,” Nass explains. “Not the most protective kind, but those are kept even more securely in particular patient areas.”
Nass notes “on administrative days” 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.
“I am not assigned to take care of confirmed COVID-19 patients in one of the two units we’ve designated for that,” he said. “But we have started to treat every patient, and each other, as though we may be carrying the virus.”
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.
“It was a very, very, very hateful and insensitive comment suggesting that [his death] didn’t matter because he was a gay male.”
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.
“We know definitively if they are positive or negative faster, instead of just suspecting that they are,” Pham said. “It helps us triage better.”
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.
“We stress the importance of social distancing because you don’t know who could test COVID positive and they could be spreading it around unknowingly,” 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 “The Magicians” or “Schitt’s Creek.”
“Sometimes I eat dinner,” he said in a rare consideration of his own health.
“LGBTQ healthcare workers are stepping up to save lives in this crisis,” said Hector Vargas, the executive director of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality, an LGBTQ medical professionals advocacy organization. “It’s long past time we step up for them to make sure they’re protected under the eyes of the law.”
Movies
Queer team brings girl power to fully baked ‘The Wrong Girls’
Perfect film for anyone who loves stoner comedies
Generally speaking, the “Stoner Comedy” genre is aimed at an audience of “stoners,” and if you’re not one, you probably don’t get the appeal.
If you are, though, you’re likely to enjoy “The Wrong Girls,” the new indie from screenwriter Dylan Meyer in her directorial debut, which began a theatrical release on Aug. 14. The plot is ridiculous, the humor is lowbrow, and you won’t find any substance in it except for the ones that get consumed onscreen – but that’s exactly the reason why it’s pretty much perfect for anybody who loves stoner comedies, and the fact that everyone involved commits to it whole-heartedly might just makes it all the more so.
Starring Kristen Stewart (Meyer’s real-life spouse) opposite Alia Shawkat as a pair of broke, directionless best friends who share an L.A. apartment and spend an impressive amount of effort finding new and elaborate ways of consuming cannabis, it opens with them facing a financial crisis; Frankie (Stewart) is thousands of dollars in debt for a scholarship to Stanford – even though she failed out before graduating – and Molly (Shawkat), who dreams of being a professional chef, channels her creative cooking skills into creating off-the-wall recipes for cannabis-infused snacks. To make matters worse, rent is due, and – as usual – they are short.
Their situation gets a sudden surprise windfall when Frankie (through a freak case of mistaken identity) ends up in possession of a briefcase full of a mysterious liquid they assume is some kind of drug. Thinking they can sell it for rent money, they decide to try it for themselves, first, resulting in a pink-and-bubbly hallucinogenic experience in which they can hear each other’s thoughts (and their cats’ thoughts, too) – an effect that lingers even after the “trip” subsides.
Their plan to sell the substance hits a snag, however, when a cadre of gun-toting Euro-thugs in dark suits show up on the scene trying to get their hands on it. Forced to go on the run, they eventually learn that the substance they took is a top-secret experimental drug, developed by a scientist (Kate McKinnon) researching human consciousness – and that the Europeans work for a dangerous rival who wants the formula for his own nefarious purposes. Can two 20-something stoners successfully elude and overcome a team of international mercenaries on a mission? Probably not, but the superpowers they seem to be developing might improve their chances – if they can figure out how to use them, that is.
Cut from the same cloth as every weed-centric movie farce you’ve ever seen, “The Wrong Girls” leans into most of the genre’s usual formula points, first and foremost of which is that it doubles as a buddy comedy. From Cheech and Chong, through Jay and Silent Bob, to Harold and Kumar, these films have always relied on the goofy chemistry between two friends, and Mayer (who wrote as well as directed) makes a special point of following that blueprint – because it’s also where her film sets itself apart from most of the other examples within a traditionally male-dominated genre by making the buddies female instead.
It’s a simple switch, and it really doesn’t have any significant impact on the general “vibe” of the story; the dynamic is more or less the same familiar back-and-forth banter between two people who have spent years getting high together, and their antics are just as stupid. Even so, in another way, flipping the usual gender of its protagonists makes an essential difference, simply because we’re so accustomed to seeing it the other way around – but women also like to get high, so why shouldn’t we see them doing it in the movies? After all, the now-legendary Comedy Central series “Broad City” (to which “The Wrong Girls” also owes a debt of inspiration) brought a pair of stoner chicks to TV over a decade ago with the epic pairing of Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, so it’s high time (if you’ll pardon the pun) we see the same on our big screens, too.
There are other twists that spruce up the formula too – a boyfriend (Zack Fox) who sparks girl buddy jealousy by asking Molly to move in with him, the crashing of a party thrown by a corporate douchebag (Tony Hale) and provides a great target for the anti-establishment satire that’s almost obligatory for the genre, and a plot thread about giant squid biochemistry that adds an air of comedic mysticism while tapping into the “cephalopod awareness” trend that has wriggled its way into our cultural discourse around ethical seafood consumption. All of it is written and executed with a cleverness that makes it easy to laugh at all the “dumb” comedy without it feeling too much like a guilty pleasure.
Steward and Shawkat, needless to say, carry the film; they find just the right blend of authentic friendship and “train wreck” energy to make their relationship both wacky and relatable. LaKeith Stanfield brings an admirable seriousness to his role as the guy who delivers the briefcase to the wrong person before becoming a comic foil as he ends up being a reluctant ally; stoner movie veterans Seth Rogan and Kumail Nanjiani amusingly lend their voices to the girls’ two cats; but it’s McKinnon who raises the bar, entering the story late in the game to become the hands-down MVP in a comedy that is only improved by her proven gift for stealing every scene she’s in. It’s worth noting that Geena Davis turns up for a memorable appearance that feels like a nod to that grandmother of all girl-buddy films, “Thelma and Louise.”
It’s also worth mentioning the strong imprint of queer creativity that exudes from “The Wrong Girls,” which casts two queer stars in a queer-written-and-directed comedy that also features several other prominent cast members who are queer (or queer adjacent), despite not having any specifically queer story elements. Maybe it’s the camp sensibility, or the obvious lampooning of overtly toxic heterosexual “types,” or just a general feeling of irreverence and a sharply counter-cultural edge – but somehow, the whole thing comes across as an expression of queer perspective that manages to run circles around the banality that might otherwise easily have turned the movie into an unfunny slog through a territory we’ve all seen plenty of times before.
All that said, it’s important to return to the original point that stoner movies are not necessarily meant for everyone – and fresh as it might feel, “The Wrong Girls” is definitely a stoner movie. There’s a lot of humor (and we mean A LOT) that will fall flat for those who don’t “get it,” and a considerable amount of absurdity and excess which will probably only frustrate viewers without a natural taste for it. Like even the best of the genre, it’s not intended to be deep, or even coherent – it’s all just for the sake of mindless, feel-good fun for those with a taste for it. So be warned by that caveat if you think it applies to you – otherwise, we suggest you grab a pack of edibles and jump on board for the ride.
Out & About
Impulse to host ‘PrEP Pool Party’ at Vida: Navy Yard
‘Get wet, get tested, and get PrEP’d’
Impulse Washington DC will host “PrEP Pool Party” on Thursday, Aug. 27 at 8 p.m. at Vida Fitness: Navy Yard.
Get wet, get tested, and get PrEP’d at this pool party. There will be giveaways, good eats, and a limited open bar with Impulse DC + AHF DMV.
Guests are encouraged to pull up in their shortest shorts, show off that body, and dive into a night of wet skin, hot men, heavy flirting, and safer fun. Whether you’re already taking PrEP, curious about getting started, or ready to learn more, come mix, mingle, and make some very tempting connections.
For more information, visit Eventbrite.
Friday, August 21
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Happy Hour” at 7 p.m. at Uproar Rooftop. This is a chance to relax, make new friends, and enjoy happy hour specials at this classic retro venue. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Trans and Genderqueer Game Night will be at 7:00p.m. at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. This is a relaxing, laid-back evening of games and fun. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.
Saturday, August 22
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Black Lesbian Support Group will be at 1 p.m. on Zoom. This is a peer-led support group devoted to the joys and challenges of being a Black lesbian. For more details, email [email protected].
Monday, August 24
“Center Aging: Monday Coffee Klatch” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more information, contact Adam ([email protected]).
Queer Book Club will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. The Queer Book Club meets on the fourth Monday of the month to discuss books by queer authors. This month’s reading is “An Unkindness of Ghosts” by Rivers Solomon. For more details, visit the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center’s website.
Tuesday, August 25
Genderqueer DC will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a support group for people who identify outside of the gender binary, whether you’re bigender, agender, genderfluid, or just know that you’re not 100% cis. For more details, visit genderqueerdc.org or Facebook.
Wednesday, August 26
Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom upon request. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.
Asexual and Aromantic Group will meet at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a space where people who are questioning this aspect of their identity or those who identify as asexual and/or aromantic can come together, share stories and experiences, and discuss various topics. For more details, email [email protected].
Thursday, August 27
The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the Center. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245.
Virtual Yoga Class will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This free weekly class is a combination of yoga, breath work and meditation that allows LGBTQ+ community members to continue their healing journey with somatic and mindfulness practices. For more details, visit the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center’s website.
Log Cabin Republicans remove transgender rights from mission
Not all trans people are the same
Queer team brings girl power to fully baked ‘The Wrong Girls’
Democrat Maureen ‘Mo’ Madden takes on longtime GOP stronghold in Delaware’s 38th
Comings & Goings
‘Maddie’s Secret’ defies campy expectations
PHOTOS: Nellie’s Drag Brunch
Remembering Barbara ‘Boo’ Price, a pioneering force in women’s music
Russian LGBTQ rights group to shut down
