Connect with us

National

LGBTQ elder care facilities open nationwide, but discrimination persists

Advocates say seniors face challenges despite groundbreaking advances

Published

on

The Ariadne Getty Foundation Senior Housing facility opened this week in Los Angeles. (Blade file photo)

Marsha Wetzel, an out lesbian, shared her life with her partner of 30 years, Judith Kahn, at the coupleā€™s home in Illinois until Kahn died in 2013 of colon cancer.

As is the case with some same-sex couples who never married, Kahnā€™s family took legal possession of the coupleā€™s home several years later, forcing Wetzel, who suffered from severe arthritis, to move into the Glen St. Andrew Living Community, a retirement and assisted living facility in Niles, Ill.

According to a lawsuit filed on her behalf in 2016 by the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, when word got out that Wetzel was a lesbian after she disclosed her sexual orientation to a fellow resident, she was called homophobic slurs, spat on, and assaulted on several occasions by other residents of the facility. The lawsuit, which later resulted in a court ruling in Wetzelā€™s favor, charged that officials at the Glen St. Andrew facility illegally failed to take action to prevent Wetzel from being subjected to abuse and threats by fellow residents and retaliated against her when she complained.

Lambda Legal announced one year ago, on Nov. 20, 2020, that Wetzel passed away at the age of 73 of natural causes after a landmark 2018 appeals court ruling in her favor affirmed that residential facilities such as the one in which she lived are legally responsible for the safety of tenant residents.

ā€œMarsha spent the rest of her days in a senior living community where she was out and affirmed,ā€ said Lambda Legal attorney Karen Loewy, who represented Wetzel in the lawsuit.

Advocates for LGBTQ seniors were hopeful that the 2018 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruling in the Wetzel case would speed up the gradual but steady advances in the rights of LGBTQ elders in long-term care facilities and in society in general.

A short time later, the New York City-based national LGBTQ elder advocacy group SAGE expanded its programs providing cultural competency training for the nationā€™s long-term care residential facilities. And in some cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, LGBTQ specific retirement and long-term care facilities began to open to provide LGBTQ elders with a wide range of ā€œwrap aroundā€ services in addition to a safe place to live.

But LGBTQ elder advocates were taken aback in October of this year when news surfaced that transgender U.S. Army veteran Lisa Oakley, 68, was denied placement in more than two-dozen long-term care facilities in Colorado in 2020 and earlier this year.

ā€œWhen they found out I was transgender, a lot of the facilities didnā€™t want me,ā€ Oakley told USA Today. ā€œA lot of transgender people, Iā€™m sure, face the same thing,ā€ she said. ā€œWeā€™re humans, just like everybody else.ā€ 

Oakley told other media outlets her ordeal in trying to gain admission to a residential care facility began in October 2020, when she became unable to care for herself due to complications from diabetes. Her first choice was a facility in her hometown in rural Craig, Colo., where she had lived for the previous 25 years. She believes that facility turned her down because of her gender identity.

A social worker who assisted in Oakleyā€™s applications for long-term care facilities said the facility in Craig said Oakley would have to be placed in a private room, which was at the time unavailable, ā€œbecause she still has her ā€˜boy partsā€™ and cannot be placed with a womanā€ in a shared room. 

Many other Colorado facilities to which Oakley applied for admission, according to social worker Cori Martin-Crawford, cited the COVID pandemic as the reason for not accepting new residents. But as COVID related restrictions began to subside, other facilities continued to deny Oakley admission.

With Martin-Crawfordā€™s help, Oakley finally found a facility that is LGBTQ supportive in Grand Junction, Colo., which is nearly three hours away from her hometown of Craig, where she had hoped to remain.

LGBTQ activists expressed concern that the discrimination that Oakley faced took place in the state of Colorado, which has a state law that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Experts familiar with long-term care facilities for older adults have said many private elder care facilities can get around state LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws by claiming other reasons for turning down an LGBTQ person.

Michael Adams, the CEO of SAGE, told the Blade that the wide range of programs and initiatives put in place by SAGE and other groups advocating for LGBTQ elders in recent years have resulted in significant changes in support of LGBTQ seniors.

ā€œIt is the case now that in almost all states there are one or more elder care facilities that have been trained through our SAGECare program,ā€ Adams said. ā€œBut itā€™s nowhere near what it needs to be,ā€ he said. ā€œIt needs to be that there are welcoming elder care facilities in every single community in this countryā€ for LGBTQ elders.

Adams was referring to the SAGE program started recently called SAGECare that arranges for employees and other officials at elder care facilities throughout the country to receive LGBTQ competency training. The facilities that participate in the program are designated “SAGECare credentialed,ā€ and are included in SAGE database lists available to LGBTQ elders looking for a safe facility in which to reside.

SAGE spokesperson Christina Da Costa provided the Blade with data showing there have been 136,975 professionals trained at a total of 617 SAGECare credentialed organizations nationwide. Out of 617 organizations, 172 are residential communities. Also, out of the total of 617 are 167 Area Agencies on Aging, Aging and Disability Resource Centers, Senior Centers, and senior Ombudsman offices.

Da Costa said 278 of the credentialed entities that have received the SAGECare training throughout the country are ā€œother aging focused nonprofit and for-profit businesses.ā€

According to SAGE, there are 12 SAGECare credentialed elder care facilities or service providers operating in the D.C. metropolitan area, with two located in D.C. One of the D.C. facilities is Ingleside at Rock Creek, located in Northwest D.C., which is a residential facility. The other is Options for Senior America, a company that provides in-home care services for seniors, including seniors living in D.C.

A SAGE list of the D.C.-area SAGECare credentialed facilities shows that three are in Rockville, Md.; two are in Gaithersburg, Md.; and one each are in Bethesda, Md.; Arlington, Va.; and Alexandria, Va. The list shows that one of them that provides services to elders in the D.C. area is based in North Carolina.

SAGE has a separate list of the 15 elder care residential facilities in the U.S. created specifically to serve LGBTQ residents. 

None are in D.C., Maryland, or Virginia. However, SAGE says it has been working in cooperation with Maryā€™s House for Older Adults, a D.C.-based LGBTQ organization that advocates for LGBTQ seniors and is in the process of opening LGBTQ elder residential facilities in D.C. and others in the surrounding suburbs.

Maryā€™s House founder and CEO Dr. Imani Woody couldnā€™t immediately be reached to determine when the organization expects to open its first residential facility. 

While a residential LGBTQ elder facility has yet to open in the D.C. area, activists note that in addition to Maryā€™s House, services and amenities for LGBTQ elders in the area are currently being provided by the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community and Whitman-Walker Health, the LGBTQ supportive health center, which also has a legal services branch.

Adams of SAGE said the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center opened the nationā€™s first LGBTQ elder residential facility over eight years ago called Triangle Square. He said the L.A. Center opened a second LGBTQ elder residential facility a short time later. And this week, the L.A. Center announced it has opened a third LGBTQ elder residential facility in Hollywood that is part of a larger ā€œintergenerational campusā€ that will bring together LGBTQ seniors and LGBTQ youth. 

SAGE, meanwhile, operates two LGBTQ elder long-term care residential facilities in New York City, one in Brooklyn called the Stonewall House and one in the Bronx called Pride House. 

The other U.S. cities with LGBTQ elder residential facilities include: Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco (which has two such facilities), San Diego, Houston, Fort Lauderdale, and Islip, N.Y.

Adams said the LGBTQ elder residential facilities range in size, with the largest ā€“ New Yorkā€™s Stonewall House ā€“ having 143 apartments that can accommodate 200 residents. He said others vary from 40 or 50 residential units to 120.

Advocates for LGBTQ elders point to what they consider another important breakthrough for LGBTQ elders this year in the release of a joint SAGE-Human Rights Campaign Long-Term Care Equality Index report for 2021. Adams said the report is the first of what could become an annual report and rating and scorecard for long-term care elder residential facilities and other elder facilities. 

The 2021 report includes a self-reporting assessment of elder care facilities that the facilities themselves completed through a questionnaire in which many disclosed they have LGBTQ nondiscrimination policies for elders around admission to the facility and for practices by staff for those residing in their facilities.

The report includes a chart showing that 158 elder care facilities in 31 states responded positively to the outreach to them by organizers of the Long-Term Care Equality Index.

ā€œWe are thrilled to be working with SAGE and to be working with the Human Rights Campaign who are developing the Long-Term Care Equality Index,ā€ said Nii-Quartelai Quartey, who serves as senior adviser and LGBTQ liaison for the American Association of Retired Persons or AARP.

ā€œThere is a great deal of work that weā€™re doing in the area of LGBTQ older adults nationwide,ā€ Quartey told the Blade. ā€œAnd AARP has been engaged with the LGBTQ community nationwide for many years now,ā€ he said.

ā€œIn recent years, weā€™ve turned up the volume in working more closely with organizations like SAGE and Lambda Legal and the Victory Fund Institute, the Center for Black Equity, the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, and the Hispanic Federation.ā€

According to Quartey, a recent AARP study of LGBTQ elders called Maintaining Dignity shows that longstanding concerns of discrimination remain despite the many advances in support for LGBTQ seniors in recent years.

He said a survey that was part of the study found that 67 percent of the LGBTQ elders who responded, ā€œwere concerned about neglect in a long-term care setting.ā€ Over 60 percent feared verbal or physical harassment in a long-term care setting and over half ā€œfelt forced to hide or deny their identityā€ as an LGBTQ person, Quartey said.

Another recent survey of LGBTQ elders conducted by SAGE asking them how they feel about the use of the word ā€œqueerā€ in descriptions of LGBTQ people yielded findings that came as a surprise to some, according to Adams. A large majority of those surveyed from across the country said they are ā€œcomfortable at this point using that word and reclaiming that word, which is different from what we had heard historically,ā€ Adams said.

He said in response to those findings SAGE will now as an organization gradually shift to using the term LGBTQ instead of its past practice of using LGBT.

Although Congress has yet to pass the Equality Act, last year under the Trump Administration, Congress acted in a rare bipartisan way to approve the required five-year reauthorization of the U.S. Older Americans Act with new language supportive of LGBTQ older adults. President Trump signed the legislation.

The language includes a mandate for outreach to and reporting about services provided to LGBTQ older adults in federally funded programs. It also opens the way for LGBTQ older adults to be designated in a category of ā€œgreatest social need.ā€ Under that category, older adults receive a higher priority in the allocation of resources by the federal government.

ā€œWeā€™ve come a long way, but we still have a way to go to get over the finish line,ā€ said the AARPā€™s Quartey. ā€œAnd aside from passing legislation federally and on the state and local level, we absolutely need to continue the hard work of changing hearts and minds,ā€ he said.

Longtime gay activist and writer Brian McNaught, whose latest book, ā€œOn Being Gay and Gray ā€“ Our Stories, Gifts, and the Meaning of Our Lives,ā€ was just released, says his own very informal survey of LGBTQ elders found there is a need for intimacy that may be too controversial for the establishment LGBTQ elder groups.

ā€œIā€™m a SAGE volunteer and the 81-year-old man with whom I was working after his husband of 47 years died, said after his grieving process, ā€˜I want to be hugged and kissed. Does that make me a bad person?ā€™ā€

McNaught told the Blade he assured the man those feelings do not make him a bad person. McNaught said the manā€™s comment prompted him to conduct further research, in which he found that some gay male elders in the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., area who often need assisted living support would like to patronize gay bathhouses or seek the services of an escort agency. He said he determined that any LGBTQ elder group providing such services would trigger ā€œa huge uproar of protestsā€ and most likely a loss of funding.

ā€œWe donā€™t want to talk about sexuality and aging,ā€ McNaught said.

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

National

Lesbian software developer seeks to preserve lost LGBTQ history

Published

on

ā€˜There's so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,ā€™ says Kristen Gwinn-Becker.

Up until the early 2010s, if you searched ā€œBabe Ruthā€ in the Baseball Hall of Fame, nothing would pop up. To find information on the greatest baseball player of all time, you would have to search ā€œRuth, George Herman.ā€ 

That is the way online archival systems were set up and there was a clear problem with it. Kristen Gwinn-Becker was uniquely able to solve it. ā€œI’m a super tech geek, history geek,ā€ she says, ā€œI love any opportunity to create this aha moment with people through history.ā€ 

Gwinn-Becker is the founder and CEO of HistoryIT, a company that helps organizations create digital archives that are genuinely accessible. ā€œI believe history is incredibly important, but I also think it’s in danger,ā€ she says. ā€œLess than 2% of our historical materials are digital and even less of that is truly accessible.ā€

Gwinn-Beckerā€™s love for history is personal. As a lesbian, growing up, she sought out evidence of herself across time. ā€œI was interested in stories, interested in people whose lives mirrored mine to help me understand who I was.ā€ 

ā€œ[My identity] influences my love of history and my strong belief in history is important,ā€ she says.

Despite always loving history, Gwinn-Becker found herself living and working in San Francisco during the early dot com boom and bust in the ā€˜90s. ā€œIt was an exciting time,ā€ she recounts, ā€œif you were intellectually curious, you could just jump right in.ā€

Being there was almost happenstance, Gwinn-Becker explained: ā€œI was 20 years old and wanted to live in San Francisco.ā€ Quickly, she fell in love with ā€œall of the incredible new tools.ā€ She was working with non-profits that encouraged her to take classes and apply the new skills. ā€œI was really into software, web, and database development.ā€ 

But history eventually pulled her back. ā€œTech was fun, but I didn’t want to be a developer,ā€ she says. Something was missing. When the opportunity to get a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University presented itself, ā€œI got to work on the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, who I was and remain quite passionate about.ā€ 

Gwinn-Beckerā€™s research on Eleanor Roosevelt planted the seeds of digital preservation. ā€œEleanor Roosevelt doesn’t have a single archive. FDR has lots but the first ladies donā€™t,ā€ she says. Gwinn-Becker wondered what else was missing from the archive ā€” and what would be missing from the archive if we didnā€™t start preserving it now.

Those questions eventually led Gwinn-Becker to found HistoryIT in 2011. Since then, the company has created digital archives for organizations ranging from museums and universities to sororities, fraternities, and community organizations.

This process is not easy. ā€œDigital preservation is more than scanning,ā€ says Gwinn-Becker. ā€œMost commercial scannersā€™ intent is to create a digital copy, not an exact replica.ā€ 

To digitally preserve something, Gwinn-Beckerā€™s team must take a photo with overhead cameras. ā€œThere is an international standard,ā€ she says, ā€œyou create an archival TIFF.ā€ 

ā€œItā€™s the biggest possible file we can create now. Thatā€™s how you future-proof.ā€

Despite the common belief that the internet is forever, JPEGs saved to social media or websites are a poor archive. ā€œItā€™s more expensive for us to do projects in the 2000 to 2016 period than to do 19th-century projects,ā€ explains Gwinn-Becker, since finding adequate files for preservation can be tricky. ā€œThe images themselves are deteriorated because they’re compressed so much,ā€ she says.

Her clients are finding that having a strong digital archive is useful outside of the noble goal of protecting history. ā€œIt’s a unique trove of content,ā€ says Gwinn-Becker. One client saw a 790% increase in donations after incorporating the digital archive into fundraising efforts. ā€œItā€™s important to have content quickly and easily,ā€ says Gwinn-Becker, whose team also works with clients on digital strategy for their archive.

One of Gwinn-Beckerā€™s favorite parts of her job is finding what she calls ā€œhidden histories.ā€

ā€œWe [LGBTQ people] are represented everywhere. We’re represented in sports, in religious history, in every kind of movement, not only our movement. I’m passionate about bringing those stories out.ā€ 

Sometimes queer stories are found in unexpected places, says Gwinn-Becker. ā€œWe work with sororities and fraternities. There are a hell of a lot of our stories there.ā€

Part of digital preservation is also making sure that history being created in the moment is not lost to future generations. HistoryIT works with NFL teams, for example. One of their clients is the Panthers, who hired Justine Lindsay, the first transgender cheerleader in the NFL. Gwinn-Becker was excited to be able to preserve information about Lindsay in the digital record. ā€œItā€™s making history in the process of preserving it,ā€ says Gwinn-Becker.

Preserving queer history, either through ā€œhidden historiesā€ or LGBTQ-specific archives, is vital says Gwinn-Becker. ā€œThink about whose history gets marginalized, whose history gets moved to the sidelines, whose history gets just erased,ā€ she prompts. ā€œIn a time of fake news, we need to point to evidence in the past. Queer people have existed since there were humans, but their stories are hidden,ā€ Gwinn-Becker says.

Meanwhile, Gwinn-Becker accidentally finds herself as part of queer history too. Listed as one of Inc. Magazineā€™s Top 250 Female Founders of 2024, she is surrounded by names like Christina Aguilera, Selena Gomez, and Natalie Portman. 

One name stuck out. ā€œNever in my life did I think I’d be on the same list ā€“ other than the obvious one ā€“ with Billie Jean King. That’s pretty exciting,ā€ she said. 

But she canā€™t focus on the win for too long. ā€œWhen I go to sleep at night, I think ā€˜there’s so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,ā€™ā€ she says, ā€œWe have a very small period in which to do that in a meaningful way.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.)

Continue Reading

National

Bidenā€™s acknowledgment of LGBTQ History Month ā€˜consequentialā€™

Equality Forum honors 31 new ā€˜iconsā€™ as annual commemoration kicks off

Published

on

Rep. Mark Pocan was honored with Equality Forumā€™s International Role Model Award. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

President Joe Biden signed a letter acknowledging Equality Forumā€™s LGBTQ History Month launch event held on Sunday, writing that, ā€œby celebrating stories of bravery, resilience and joy, your example inspires hope in all people seeking a life true to who they are.ā€

Malcolm Lazin, Equality Forum executive director, said Bidenā€™s letter is ā€œconsequential.ā€ He noted that one year before the White House delivered a proclamation for Black History Month, it issued a letter signed by the president.

ā€œIt’s our hope that next year, our nation’s 47th president will issue that proclamation for LGBT History Month,ā€ Lazin said.

Equality Forum is an LGBTQ civil rights organization with an educational focus based in Philadelphia. The groupā€™s work includes coordinating LGBTQ History Month, producing documentary films and overseeing the application for and installation of government-approved queer historic markers.

When spearheading LGBTQ History Month for the first time back in 2006, Lazin said many pushed back against the idea. Some media outlets claimed it was trying to turn straight people gay or promote pedophilia. 

But Lazin said the homophobic reactions died down when people were educated on topics that typically werenā€™t taught in a widespread way.

ā€œWe were demonized, marginalized, and vilified,ā€ Lazin said. ā€œOne of the certain principal ways you’re going to make headway is if you humanize who we are, and also educate people about the important contributions we make to our common society.ā€

Education has always been Equality Forumā€™s solution to societal backlash or controversy since its inception, Lazin said.

The organization got its start in 1993 under the name PrideFest Philadelphia. Lazin, who was the founder, said it was created during a time when Pride parades were the main focus of the LGBTQ community. 

In an effort to shift focus onto civil rights issues, PrideFest hosted its first LGBTQ summit that eventually transformed into an event featuring national and international organizations. Lazin said it was an effort to educate people on LGBTQ history as well as inform the community on queer rights around the world.

Though that event was terminated in 2020, Lazin is still focused on educating both queer and straight people on LGBTQ civil rights. Equality Forum honors 31 ā€œLGBTQ iconsā€ each year for every day in October.

This initiative began when Equality Forum started coordinating LGBTQ History Month back in 2006, but Lazin didnā€™t notice their efforts taking off until about five years in.

ā€œIn year one, people thought, ā€˜Oh yeah, those are like all the important names of the gay community,ā€™ā€ he said. ā€œPeople paid a little bit more attention the following years, and all of a sudden they’re recognizing, ā€˜Oh, in a certain sense I was clueless about the role models that the gay community has.ā€™ā€

This yearā€™s icons being recognized include names like singers George Michael, Luther Vandross, and Sam Smith; pioneering drag queen William Dorsey Swann; ā€œThe Bachelorā€ star Colton Underwood; Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan; and longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff.

Pocan received the International Role Model Award during Sundayā€™s LGBTQ History Month launch event. Itā€™s the longest-standing LGBTQ award in the nation, and has been presented to prominent figures like former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

He said accepting the award allowed him to reflect on the progress thatā€™s been made in a relatively short time.

ā€œI was preparing to make some remarks for the event, and I realized that I’ve been kind of in the front row of a lot of the history making in the country, because more of our history is in the last several decades,ā€ Pocan told the Washington Blade. ā€œThere are significant moments in the past, but where the real improvements have happened have been more recent.ā€

In 1995, former President Bill Clinton invited Pocan, who is gay, and other LGBTQ elected officials to The White House for the first time. When they arrived and were going through security, Pocan said they noticed everyone was wearing blue gloves.

Initially assuming it was due to enhanced security following the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Pocan said they later discovered the Secret Service agents thought they could contract AIDS from out elected officials.

He said the Secret Service issued an apology letter and the Clinton administration made it clear that wasnā€™t their policy. Even more memorable for Pocan was when then-Vice President Al Gore made it a point to shake everyoneā€™s hands at the event.

Comparing that memory to Bidenā€™s recent letter puts the advancements of LGBTQ rights into perspective for Pocan. He said thatā€™s the reason recognizing and remembering queer history is vital.

ā€œIf you donā€™t know the history, itā€™s too easy to repeat it,ā€ he said.

The fight to recognize the global work done toward advancing LGBTQ civil rights, however, isnā€™t over, Lazin said.

Many states are working to restrict LGBTQ topics from being taught in schools. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1069 last year, dubbed ā€œDonā€™t Say Gayā€ by critics, to prohibit lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The New College of Florida faced backlash when photos of hundreds of library books, many containing LGBTQ topics, overflowing a dumpster were shared online. A New College spokesperson said the books were “taken after discovering that the library did not follow all of the state administrative requirements while conducting the routine disposition of materials.”

Despite what the future may hold for LGBTQ content in schools, Lazin said the resources Equality Forum promotes, including the website featuring 31 queer icons in October, are always available.

ā€œAt least on this site, students, teachers, and guidance counselors have resources,ā€ he said. ā€œSo if you’re an English teacher and you want to be celebrating LGBT History Month, click on poets, or click on authors. You’ve got a whole rich range of people to be able to bring into your curriculum.ā€

The reality of what LGBTQ History Month has become today is more than the work of one organization; Lazin said itā€™s the combined effort of local communities that are curious about their own history.

ā€œWhile we could not possibly take on doing the history of all the cities around the country or in North America or around the world, it really has helped to encourage people to appreciate that history and to make sure that it is well documented,ā€ Lazin said.

Continue Reading

National

LGBTQ groups mark National Hispanic Heritage Month

GLAAD screened ‘DĆ­melo’ at Sept. 20 event in Los Angeles

Published

on

(GLAAD screenshot)

Advocacy groups across the country are marking National Hispanic Heritage Month.

The Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles on Sept. 20 hosted a comedy night that featured Danielle Perez, Gabe GonzĆ”lez, Lorena Russ, and Roz Hernandez. The event, which GLAAD organized, also included a screening of “DĆ­melo,” a digital series the organization produced with LatiNation that features interviews with Latino comedians. 

A press release notes Damian Terriquez, Mimi Davila, Salina EsTitties, and Tony Rodriguez attended the event. GLAAD in a post on its website on Sept. 25 highlighted Essa Noche and other Latino drag queens.

“The art of drag has always been a vibrant expression of resistance, creativity, and identity, particularly within marginalized communities,” reads the post. “Latine drag artists not only embody the resilience and power of their heritage but also elevate queer voices in spaces where their visibility is often limited.”

EsTitties on Sept. 29 hosted QueerceaƱera, “an inclusive take on the coming-of-age quinceaƱera tradition throughout Latin America and the United States” the Los Angeles LGBT Center organized.

Celebrate Orgullo, which describes itself as the “first Hispanic and Indigenous LGBTQ+ festival in Greater Miami and Miami Beach,” will take place from Oct. 4-14. Unity Coalition|CoaliciĆ³n Unida, is organizing the events.

“The festival invites you to experience a warm and welcoming ‘wave’ of pride that celebrates what makes us unique while uniting us in a shared spirit of inclusion,” reads a press release.

GLSEN has posted to its website a list of resources for undocumented students.

“Especially in this political climate, it’s important not only to affirm LGBTQ Latinx identities with positive representation but also to ensure that students know how they’re protected, especially those who are among the most marginalized,” says GLSEN.

National Hispanic Heritage Month is from Sept. 15-Oct. 15.

Fenway Health in Boston on its website notes National Hispanic Heritage Month “honors and celebrates the vibrant histories, cultures, languages, traditions, values, and contributions of people whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.”

Hispanic Heritage Week began in 1968. It became National Hispanic Heritage Month in 1988.

Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua mark their respective Independence Days on Sept. 15. Mexico’s Independence Day is on Sept. 16, and Chile’s Independence Day is on Sept. 18. DĆ­a de la Raza is Oct. 12.

“Here at Fenway Health, we are grateful every day for the many Latino/a/Ć© staff members, clients, patients, volunteers, and supporters that are part of our community,” said Fenway Health. Their contributions and perspectives help drive Fenwayā€™s mission: To advocate for and deliver innovative, equitable, accessible health care, supportive services, and transformative research and education and to center LGBTQIA+ people, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color) individuals, and other underserved communities to enable our local, national, and global neighbors to flourish.”

President Joe Biden in his National Hispanic Heritage Month proclamation made a similar point.

“In our country, Latino leaders are striving for the American Dream and helping those around them reach it too,” he said. “From those who have been here for generations to those who have recently arrived, Latinos have pushed our great American experiment forward.”  

The proclamation also acknowledges Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Guzman, and other Latino members of his administration.

“I am proud to work with incredible Latino leaders, who are dedicated to bettering our nation every day,” said Biden.

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular