Opinions
Equal pay is achievable
Combating persistent gender and racial wage gap

Equal Pay Day is the date on the calendar each year through which a woman who works full-time, all year-round must work in order to get paid the same amount a man did the previous year. For 2022, Equal Pay Day is today, March 15, 74 days after New Year’s Eve.
The Department of Labor and Women’s Bureau have been working to close the wage gap, as well as to address the disparate and lasting impacts the pandemic has had on women and especially women of color.
Looking through the lens of Equal Pay Day helps drive home the fundamental unfairness of the persistent gender and racial wage gap in our country. The gaps are sadly even higher for Black women (64 percent) and Hispanic Women (57 percent) compared to white non-Hispanic men.
To understand how the gender wage gap expresses in our current economy, especially in the wake of COVID-19, the Department of Labor released a new report: “Bearing the Cost: How Overrepresentation in Undervalued Jobs Disadvantaged Women During the Pandemic.” The report examines the varied experiences of working women during the pandemic. Some lost jobs, others left work to care for children or family, and still others did essential work putting their health and safety at-risk. Amid all this – for the first time in a modern recession – women saw worse employment impacts than men. Women lost 11.9 million jobs compared to 10.1 million for men between February and April of 2020.
The report unpacks a concept known as “occupational segregation,” or the division of men and women into different types of jobs. For example, that 93 percent of childcare workers are women, but women are only 2 percent of electricians. The impact of occupational segregation is that the types of jobs where women are concentrated are valued less and pay lower wages than those where men are concentrated.
Occupational segregation has significant consequences. It preserves racial and gender wage gaps while reducing economic growth overall. Segregation by industry and occupation cost Black women an estimated $39.3 billion, and Hispanic women an estimated $46.7 billion in lower wages compared to white men nationally in 2019.
The good news is there are ways we can chip away at these disparities. For example, if you’re a woman in a union, you made up men’s 2021 earnings by Valentine’s Day, a.k.a. Union Women’s Equal Pay Day. That’s why Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh has made supporting worker organizing and collective bargaining a key feature of the department’s Good Jobs Initiative, an effort to harness unprecedented worker power to make inroads toward fairer and more sustainable working conditions for all.
Solutions to close the gender wage gap must involve disruption of occupational segregation and the gendered division of women into the lowest paying job categories. The Women’s Bureau leads efforts in the region to work with state and local organizations who are providing pre-apprenticeship training, orientation services to help women learn about apprenticeship, and programming to address the workplace culture and need for supportive services that are key to success.
We can also take other actions, including the following:
• Supporting women as they enter male-dominated fields.
• Fighting to raise wages and ensure job quality in women-dominated jobs.
• Making high-quality, affordable and accessible childcare.
• Increasing funding for home- and community-based care.
• Supporting paid family and medical leave.
• Strengthening overtime protections.
• Demanding predictable scheduling.
• Ensuring racial and gender equity in all jobs, especially those newly created climate and infrastructure job on projects funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill.
Most importantly, we can recognize that the status quo – 74 extra days of work before we are compensated equally with men – are not conditions we have to accept, that we must not resign ourselves to unfairness simply because it’s so typical. Instead, we can imagine a post-pandemic recovery that is truly equitable, and where Equal Pay Day is Dec. 31.
Kelly Jenkins-Pultz is Region 9 Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, which develops policies and standards and conducts inquiries to safeguard the interests of working women.
Opinions
Judy Heumann helped so many of us with disabilities to be out and proud
‘Like the color of my eyes or the color of my hair, it is a part of who I am’

When I was growing up, people like me, who were disabled, were usually met with scorn, pity and exclusion.
On March 4, Judith (Judy) Heumann, a founder of the disability rights movement, died at 75 in Washington, D.C.
For decades, Heumann, who contracted polio when she was 18 months old, was a leader of a civil rights movement that changed the lives of millions of folks like me.
Judy (so many of us, whether we knew or not, connected with her on a first-name basis), was known as the “mother” of the disability rights movement. She was the Harvey Milk of our struggle.
You might think: why should LGBTQ people care about the passing of a disability rights leader?
Here’s why: Nearly, 20 percent of people in this country have a disability, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This includes LGBTQ+ people. An estimated three to five million people are queer and disabled.
Studies, including a study by the Map Advancement Project, reveal that queer people are more likely than non-queer people to become disabled. We face the double-whammy of anti-queer and disability-based discrimination. The MAP study reported that of the more than 26,000 transgender people surveyed, 39 percent reported having a disability.
If you’re queer and have a disability (blindness, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, psychiatric disorder, etc.), you’ve likely run up against employers who don’t want to hire you or restaurants who don’t care to serve you. If you’re a queer parent of a disabled child, you’ve probably had to fight to get your kid the education they need.
These battles are hard. But, thanks to Heumann and the movement she led, there are ways — from the Americans with Disabilities Act to working the media — to fight this injustice.
Heumann, who at 29 led a month-long protest that was the Stonewall of the disability rights movement, and in her 70s was the star of the fab, Oscar-nominated documentary “Crip Camp,” was a powerhouse of energy, discipline, hard work and humor. She was a quintessential bad ass who worked for justice 24/7, and kicked your butt if you didn’t.“Kathi, get your self together!” commanded the voice over the phone, “or you won’t get anything done.”
It was 1987, and I was writing my first news story. I was interviewing Heumann about an historic protest that she’d led a decade earlier. It was the 10th anniversary of what is believed to be the longest non-violent sit-in a federal building.
In April 1977, more than 100 disabled people took over the (then) Health, Education and Welfare building in San Francisco. President Richard Nixon had signed the Rehabilitation Act into law in 1973. But, regulations, known as “504,” a section of the Act that prohibited discrimination against disabled people by institutions (schools, hospitals, etc.) receiving federal funding, hadn’t been signed. After protesting in the San Francisco building for a month and in Washington, D.C. (including at then President Jimmy Carter’s church), the “504″ regulations were signed.
Heumann, who was an official in the Clinton administration and a special adviser in the Obama State Department, was tough, kind, and proud of herself and the movement that she founded.
For Heumann, who is survived by her husband and brothers, disability was a normal part of life, not a tragedy.
“I never wished I didn’t have a disability,” Heumann wrote in her memoirs “Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist.”
When Heumann was a child, disabled children were often institutionalized. Like being queer, being disabled wasn’t considered to be normal then.
Doctors advised Heumann’s parents to send Judy to an institution when she was a child. But her parents, who were Jewish and had fled Nazi Germany, refused. This experience turned her mother and father against institutionalizing her, Heumann wrote in her memoir.
“If I’d been born just 10 years earlier and become disabled in Germany, it is almost certain the German doctor would also have advised that I be institutionalized,” Heumann wrote, “The difference is that instead of growing up being fed by nurses in a small room with white walls and a roommate, I would have been taken to a special clinic, and at that special clinic, I would have been killed.”
Just as it is if you’re queer, if you’re disabled, if you want to respect yourself, you need to be out and proud.
Judy more than anyone I’ve ever known, helped so many of us with disabilities to be out and proud. She taught us that being disabled isn’t something to be ashamed of. That it’s an important aspect of who we are.
Her disability, Judy often said, is, “Like the color of my eyes or the color of my hair, it is a part of who I am.”
I knew Judy only from interviewing her over the years and being on an episode of her podcast “The Heumann Perspective.” But Judy, whether you’d known for decades or just a few months, made you feel like you were a friend. She’d advise you, cheer you on and challenge you over the phone, in texts and on Zoom.
She almost got me, a non-make-up wearing lesbian, to wear lipstick (so I wouldn’t look like a ghost on her podcast). Earlier this winter, Judy wondered why I didn’t put my disability on my resume. Being nervous could be good, she said, when I was scared of reading at a poetry festival.
“If you don’t respect yourself and if you don’t demand what you believe in for yourself, you’re not going to get it,” Judy said.
Thank you, Judy for teaching us to respect ourselves and to demand our rights! R.I.P., Judy!
Kathi Wolfe, a writer and a poet, is a regular contributor to the Blade.
Commentary
Latest Uganda anti-homosexuality bill incites new wave of anti-LGBTQ hate
Mbarara Rise Foundation appeals to international community for help

To the international community,
I write to you today on behalf of the organization I lead, Mbarara Rise Foundation.
Since the year began, our rural grassroots LGBTQI+ communities have faced life threatening problems including an increased number of mob attacks, individual threats, police arrests and non-stop fears and insecurities arising from the homophobic campaigns happening in Uganda. Sadly, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023 was introduced on March 9, inciting a new wave of anti-LGBTQI+ hatred.
This anti-homosexuality bill is worse than previous bills because, under this new law, simply identifying as LGBTQI+ means you have committed a crime. Even before the bill has passed, this homophobic action in Parliament has encouraged more of the general population, bloggers, celebrities and politicians to increase their hate campaigns all over the country. More than ever, Uganda is not a safe environment for us now.
Currently, attacks are happening all over Uganda. Our communities have faced mob “justice” scenarios, threats and arrests and we have no legal recourse. Many of our constituents have received death threats, and in fact some have gone into hiding. This all increased dramatically when the bill was read in the Parliament and homophobic people are using it as a new excuse to inflict harm upon us. In just one of many examples, a transgender woman associated with our organization was beaten, publicly, by a group of cis men and she now sustains serious wounds. The police do not care.
Your voices are needed to speak out against these human rights abuses in Uganda. Your kind support is crucial and timely for us because we need protection, visibility and defense of our basic human rights. Mbarara Rise Foundation is working tirelessly to help LGBTIQ persons through building the capacity of the LGBTQI+ community, by documenting and advocating against violence, and through providing safety and security where we are able. We are fighting to increase access to legal counsel and justice and working to repeal homophobic laws and transform the attitudes of duty bearers towards LGBTQI+ persons. We cannot do this work alone.
These matters are urgent because Uganda needs interventions to protect the rights of LGBTQI+ persons amidst escalating violence and homophobia given the limited capacity of LGBTQI-led organizations, a shrinking civic space. In short, we need your outrage, your voices, and your support and we need it now.
Yours sincerely,
Real Raymond
Executive Director
Mbarara Rise Foundation

I had a very special and wonderful experience at my high school 60th reunion I recently attended on Jan. 28 in Deerfield Beach, Fla. Although I graduated from Great Neck North Senior High School, located in Great Neck, Long Island, N.Y., the reunion event was held in Deerfield Beach, Fla. You may ask: Why did we have our reunion in Florida if our high school was in Great Neck, N.Y.? Like many New York-Long Island Jews, most of the folks in my high school class moved to Florida. Whatever our political beliefs, it’s the weather.
Initially, I was not going to attend the reunion because I was boycotting Florida. I opposed Florida’s horrible homophobic Gov. Ron DeSantis and the homophobic legislation enacted in Florida — especially the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. But I realized that this is our 60th class reunion. We are in our late 70s. Will I ever see these guys again? Will I be around to attend? I relented and decided to go.
It was a wonderful experience. I hardly recognized most of my alumni. We look quite a bit different than what we looked like 60 years ago in 1962. We all enjoyed getting together. We shared stories about where we worked, who we married (or in my case, my domestic partner), where we live, and more.
After a pre-cocktail party and dinner, the coordinators of the event passed around the microphone, asking for recollections and comments from our classmates. At first, I passed up on the microphone. (What, me shy?) However, after a few comments from my fellow classmates, I grabbed the microphone.
I explained to my classmates that I initially refused to attend the 60th reunion because of DeSantis and Florida’s homophobic laws. My fellow classmates listened intently to the reasons I thought about skipping the reunion. Even though a few of my classmates are MAGA/Trumpers, they listened.
I introduced my classmates to Tom, my partner of 18 years. (I think they liked him more than me.) At that point, I asked my classmates to please support me and the rights of LGBTQ people by shouting out the forbidden words in Florida: “G-A-Y.” I said I would count to three, and asked them to say “GAY” on the count of three.
One, two, three: GAY! GAY! And they said it two times.
After I reluctantly gave up the mic, many of my fellow classmates came up to me afterwards and said: “We love you. We support you.” It was one of the best moments I will ever remember in my life.
And, yes, I intend to attend the 70th reunion – I hope with Tom. Let’s hope that Florida will have a new governor by then and the “Don’t Say Gay Law” will be repealed.
Larry Berman is a D.C. resident.
-
United Nations4 days ago
UN Security Council meeting to focus on LGBTQ, intersex rights
-
Politics2 days ago
Chasten Buttigieg speaks out against Pence’s homophobic remarks
-
Michigan4 days ago
Mich. governor signs statewide LGBTQ rights law
-
Florida3 days ago
Miami hotel liquor license may be revoked over a drag show
-
Maryland4 days ago
Man charged with ‘groomer’ vandalism arrested in child porn case
-
Theater4 days ago
New play explores bringing a partner home to meet traditional Indian parents
-
Photos3 days ago
PHOTOS: The Little Gay Pub opening night
-
District of Columbia4 days ago
Casa Ruby board members deny responsibility for org’s collapse