Opinions
LGBTQIA disparities amid COVID-19
Pandemic has disproportionately impacted vulnerable groups

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of meeting the needs of diverse communities and minorities when facing emergencies such as COVID-19. But more importantly, it highlighted their vulnerability, since they are considered much more prone populations. COVID-19 has made it even more evident the disproportionate burden vulnerable populations bear and the weakness of our health system.
Minorities who are members of racial/ethnic groups are disproportionately affected and often exposed to higher illness rates and have substantially higher mortality and morbidity rates than the general population. For example, people vulnerable to HIV infection usually belong to socially, economically disadvantaged and discriminated groups. The Human Rights Campaign presented an investigative report on how the community faces unique challenges due to their economic situations and access to healthcare. According to HRC, LGBTQIA Americans are more likely than the general population to live in poverty and lack access to adequate health care, paid sick leave and basic needs during the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states in one of its reports that the LGBTQIA community experiences stigma and discrimination in their lives that “… can increase vulnerabilities to illness and limit the means to achieving optimal health and well-being…” For example, discrimination and violence against LGBTQIA persons have been associated with high rates of psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, suicide and have long-lasting effects on the individuals. Furthermore, LGBTQIA mental health and personal safety are also affected when they go through the process of personal, family and social acceptance of their sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
According to the Williams Institute, the leading research center on rights based on sexual orientation and gender identity, one in 10 LGBTQIA people is unemployed and more likely to live in poverty than heterosexual people, so they cannot always pay for proper medical care or preventive health measures. Also, approximately one in five LGBTQ + adults in the United States (22 percent) lives below the poverty line, compared to an estimated 16 percent poverty rate among heterosexuals. This data is much worse when we look closely at the trans population with 29 percent and LGBTQIA Latinos with 45 percent. These disparities are even more evident when we see that 17 percent of LGBTQIA adults do not have any medical health coverage compared to the 12 percent of the heterosexual population. That 17 percent increases with the LGBTQIA Black adults with 23 percent, trans adults with 22 percent, and trans Black adults with 32 percent who do not have any health coverage, compared to 12 percent of the heterosexual population that does not possess health coverage. The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion statistics reflect that the LGBTQIA community is more likely to attempt suicide, be overweight or obese, have mental health problems, and less likely to receive cancer treatment.
According to several health organizations led by the National LGBT Cancer Network, the LGBTQIA population still faces great social and economic disparities compared to the heterosexual community, so they are more likely to get infected by COVID-19. The report summarizes how COVID-19 negatively affects the lives and livelihoods of the LGBTQIA community at disproportionate levels. The older generations of LGBTQIA encounter additional health barriers in the face of COVID-19 due to isolation, discrimination in the provision of services, and the lack of competent social services. The LGBTQIA community uses tobacco at rates that are 50 percent higher than the general population, and COVID-19 is a respiratory illness that has proven particularly harmful to smokers. In addition, the LGBTQIA population has higher rates of HIV and cancer, which means a more significant number may have compromised immune systems, leaving us more vulnerable to COVID-19 infections. LGBTQIA communities also face additional risks related to conditions that are often associated with complications from COVID-19. One in five LGBTQIA adults aged 50 and above has diabetes, a factor that raises the risk of complications for individuals diagnosed with COVID-19.
A Kaiser Family Foundation research finds that a larger share of LGBTQIA adults has experienced COVID-19 era job loss than heterosexuals adults (56 percent vs. 44 percent). Furthermore, the limited anti-discrimination protections from the LGBTQIA community also make them more vulnerable to joblessness due to an economic downturn resulting from COVID-19’s spread. Since February 2020, 56 percent of LGBTQIA people report that they or another adult in their household have lost a job, been placed on furloughs, or had their income or hours reduced because of the coronavirus outbreak, compared to 44 percent of non-LGBTQIA people.
In addition, recent data show that LGBTQIA respondents were more likely than non-LGBTQIA respondents to be laid off (12.4 percent vs. 7.8 percent) or furloughed from their jobs (14.1 percent vs. 9.7 percent), report problems affording essential household goods (23.5 percent vs. 16.8 percent), and report having problems paying their rent or mortgage (19.9 percent v. 11.7 percent). The research also shows that three-fourths of LGBTQIA people (74 percent) say worry and stress from the pandemic have had a negative impact on their mental health, compared to 49 percent of those, not LGBTQIA. A recent study from the William Institute also found that LGBTQIA people of color were twice as likely as white non-LGBTQIA people to test positive for COVID-19. According to the Williams Institute, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) represented a direct benefit for the LGBTQIA community amid the pandemic. However, LGBT people have still experienced the COVID-19 pandemic differently than heterosexuals, including being harder hit in some areas. The challenges presented by COVID-19 have exacerbated the stigma and discrimination to access to healthcare, social services, and basic legal protections for the LGBTQIA community. It is not the first time the LGBTQIA confronts the stigma and discrimination amid a pandemic. Since the HIV/AIDS pandemic from the 80s until now, the LGBTQIA community has developed an extraordinary resilience over decades, and pushing back against stigma and making claims for basic human dignity and equality
The World Health Organization recognizes that “vulnerable and marginalized groups in societies often have to bear an excessive share of health problems and are less likely to enjoy the right to health…” For this reason, the WHO recognizes the need for more aggressive regulations and laws that promote equality in services for these vulnerable groups to eliminate those current statutes that aggravate marginalization and hinder gradually, and even more so, access to health services, prevention, and care. National policies and state regulations must address the needs of LGBTQIA populations, with particular attention to black LGBTQIA and the absence of standardized protections against discrimination by healthcare providers. Although there have been substantial advances for the LGBTQIA population over the last decade, legal protections remain uneven, including those jurisdictions that do not expressly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or/and gender expression. Eliminating LGBTQIA health disparities and enhancing efforts to improve their health are necessary to reduce disparities and increase longevity. Furthermore, under the context of COVID-19, researchers have found that the intersection of race with sexual orientation and gender identity is essential to understand pandemic’s impact. For example, data collection efforts related to COVID-19 must immediately add sexual orientation and gender identity questions. Collecting sexual orientation and gender identity data will improve knowledge about disparities from sexual minorities, enhance cultural competence among health providers, help implement anti-bullying policies, and reduce suicide and homelessness among youth, among others.
Opinions
Community comes together to repair WorldPride history exhibition
Vandals damaged pictures, timeline walls on June 22

Earlier this month, vandals shouting homophobic slurs damaged the 8-foot hero cubes and timeline walls of the Rainbow History Project’s (RHP) WorldPride exhibition “Pickets, Protests, and Parades: The History of Gay Pride in Washington.” The week’s incident was the fifth homophobic attack on the exhibition chronicling DC’s LGBTQ+ History, the vandalism damage was only made worse by the storms this past week.
In response, RHP posted a call online for volunteers and donations and over a dozen volunteers showed up on Saturday to repair the exhibition in its final stretch.
It took three hours, but the group assembled during a heat advisory to bend the fences back into place, fix the cubes and zip tie all the materials together to keep them safe. Some of those who came out to volunteer, Slatt said, were known RHP volunteers but most were total strangers who had attended an event here or there or just wanted to get involved for the first time, one was even in D.C. as an out-of-town guest and after seeing the Instagram call, decided to spend their day lifting some heavy fencing back into place.
When asked why they showed up, volunteer Abbey said: “especially during Pride month, it’s so important to come together as a community, not just to celebrate, but to support each other. To know that this historic exhibit is even able to exist right now under this administration is really amazing. The fact that we’re just able to help continue it in its last leg of being out here is really important.”
“Rainbow History Project does a lot of work for the community,” another volunteer Ellie said, “they show up in a lot of ways that I think we really need right now, so in terms of being asked to come out and do a couple hours of lifting, that is something that we can easily support and do.”
“We put out a call asking for support from the community, and so we didn’t know what we’d get,” Slatt continued, “but strangers have shown up. We were upset, we were crying. We were trying to come up with a battle plan and more and more people have shown up with open arms and empty hands to do this. It’s 95 degrees, we are melting in the heat. It’s just amazing the number of people who have come here.”
If anything, the anonymous exhibit designer said, the people who vandalized the exhibit made the community stronger and mobilized members passionate about preserving and sharing our histories. Their efforts backfired in a big way — bringing together people who had only attended one or two RHP events or had read about the organization online to actively contribute to the work.
It’s a meaningful representation of the history of D.C.’s LGBTQ+ community, one that often starts with a small group of people who come together to protest but soon mobilize their communities and enact monumental change in the nation’s capital.
“If Pride in D.C. started with 10 people picketing the White House,” Slatt remarked, “you just got 12 more to join the gay history movement.”
This was especially poignant, another volunteer Mattie said, on the week that the Supreme Court issued a decision allowing Tennessee to ban puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors seeking gender affirming care. It was a devastating moment for the LGBTQ+ community who mobilized once more in front of the Supreme Court this past Friday.
“It’s been actually really important to see this community come together in the face of direct attack on our history in the wake of direct attacks on our rights,” Mattie said, “and we stand up to that. We come together, and we represent. That is so important to maintaining our strength and our community throughout trying times now and ahead.”
When asked about how community members can support RHP’s work and repair the damage long-term to the exhibit, Slatt urged people to donate to RHP, to volunteer as exhibit monitors, and to come visit the exhibit.
“We’ve been doing this for 25 years. This is our 25th anniversary, and if it weren’t for volunteers donating their time and their talents, if it weren’t for small dollar donors, we would never have gotten anything done,” Slatt said. “I’d say to anyone out there that we are on this plaza all through Independence weekend, we are here through the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, people can come on down.”
Slatt and other volunteers will be leading tours each evening at 7 p.m. at Freedom Plaza, and people can pre-order the exhibition catalog right now, which will be delivered in time for LGBTQ+ History Month in October.
Emma Cieslik is a D.C.-based museum worker and public historian.

Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing the United States of America. The delegates of the Second Continental Congress declared the 13 colonies are no longer subject (and subordinate) to the monarch of Britain, King George III and were now united, free, and independent states. The Congress voted to approve independence by passing the Lee resolution on July 2, and adopted the Declaration of Independence two days later, on July 4.
Today we have a felon in the White House, who wants to be a king, and doesn’t know what the Declaration of Independence means. Each day we see more erosion of what our country has fought to stand for over the years. We began with a country run by white men, where slavery was accepted, and where women weren’t included in our constitution, or allowed to vote. We have come far, and next year will celebrate 250 years. Slowly, but surely, we have moved forward. That is until Nov. 5, 2024, when the nation elected the felon who now sits in the Oval Office.
There are some who say they didn’t know what he would do when they voted for him. They are the ones who were either fooled, believing his lies, or just weren’t smart enough to read the blueprint which laid out what he would do, Project 2025. It is there for everyone to see. There should be no surprise at what he is doing to the country, and the world. Last Friday his Supreme Court, and yes, it is his, the three people he had confirmed in his first term, gave him permission to be the king he wants to be. The kind of king our Declaration of Independence said we were renouncing. A man who with the stroke of a pen can ruin thousands of lives, and change the course of America’s future. A man who has set back our country by decades, in just a few months.
So, I understand why many are suggesting there is nothing to celebrate this Fourth of July. How do we have parties, and fireworks, celebrating the 249th year of our independence when so many are being sidelined and harmed by the felon and his MAGA sycophants in the Congress, and on the Supreme Court. Yes, there are those celebrating all he is doing. Those who want to pretend transgender people don’t exist, and put their lives in danger; those who think it’s alright to take away a women’s right to control her body, and her healthcare; those who think parents should be able to interfere on a daily basis with their children’s schooling and wipe out the existence of gay people for them. Those who pretend there was a mandate in the last election, when it was only won by about 1 percent. Those who think disparaging veterans, firing them, and taking away their healthcare, is ok. Those in the LGBTQ community like Log Cabin Republicans, who think supporting a racist, sexist, homophobe is the right thing to do.
So, what do we, as decent caring people, do this Fourth of July. What do we say to those who are being harmed as we celebrate. What do we say to those trans people, those women, those immigrants who came here to escape their own dictators, and are now finding they have come to a country with its own would-be dictator. I say to them, please don’t give up on America. Don’t give up on the possibility decent loving people in our country will finally wake up and say, “enough.” That the majority of Americans will remember we fought a revolution to escape a king, and we fought a civil war to end slavery. That we moved forward and gave women the right to vote, and gave the LGBTQ community the right to marry. Don’t give up on the people that did all that, and think they won’t rise up again, and tell the felon, racist, homophobe, misogynist, found liable for sexual assault, now in the White House, and his sycophants in congress, and his cult, that we will take back our country in the 2026 midterm elections. That we will vote in large numbers, and demand our freedom from the tyranny that he is foisting on our country.
So yes, I will celebrate this Fourth of July not for what is happening in our country today, but rather for what our country actually stands for. Not for birthday parades, and abandonment of the heroes in Ukraine in support of dictators like Putin. But for the belief the decent people in our country will rise up and vote. That is what I will celebrate and pray for this Fourth of July. That is what I think the fireworks will mean this July Fourth. I refuse to accept defeat the same way our revolutionary soldiers wouldn’t, and the way our troops in the civil war wouldn’t till the confederacy was defeated.
I will celebrate this Fourth of July because I refuse to accept we will not defeat those who would destroy our beautiful country, and what it really stands for.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Opinions
Is it time for DC to have new congressional representation?
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton will turn 89 in June

With WorldPride, Supreme Court decisions, military parades in our streets, mayor and City Council discussions about a new football stadium, it is entirely understandable if we missed the real local political story for our future in the halls of Congress. Starting this past May, the whispered longtime discussions about the city’s representation in Congress broke out. Stories in Mother Jones, Reddit, Politico, Axios, NBC News, the New York Times, and even the Washington Post have raised the question of time for a change after so many years. A little background for those who may not be longtime residents is definitely necessary.
Since the passage of the 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act, we District residents have had only two people represent us in Congress, Walter Fauntroy and Eleanor Holmes Norton, who was first elected in 1990 after Mr. Fauntroy decided to run for mayor of our nation’s capital city.
No one can deny Mrs. Norton’s love and devotion for the District. Without the right to vote for legislation except in committee, she has labored hard and often times very loud to protect us from congressional interference and has successfully passed District of Columbia statehood twice in the House of Representatives, only to see the efforts fail in the U.S. Senate where our representation is nonexistent.
However, the question must be asked: Is it time for a new person to accept the challenges of working with fellow Democrats and even with Republicans who look for any opportunity to harm our city? Let us remember that the GOP House stripped away millions of OUR dollars from the D.C. budget, trashed needle exchange programs, attacked reproductive freedoms, interfered with our gun laws at a moment’s notice, and recently have even proposed returning the District to Maryland, which does not want us, or simply abolishing the mayor and City Council and returning to the old days of three commissioners or the very silly proposal to change the name of our Metro system to honor you know you.
Mrs. Norton will be 89 years old next year around the time of the June 2026 primary and advising us she is running for another two-year term. Besides her position there will be other major elected city positions to vote for, namely mayor, several City Council members and Board of Education, the district attorney and the ANC. Voting for a change must not be taken as an insult to her. It should be raised and praised as an immense thank you from our LGBTQ+ community to Mrs. Norton for her many years of service not only as our voice in Congress but must include her chairing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, her time at the ACLU, teaching constitutional law at Georgetown University Law School, and her role in the 1963 March on Washington.
Personally, I am hoping she will accept all the accolades which will come her way. Her service can continue by becoming the mentor/tutor to her replacement. It is time!
John Klenert is a longtime D.C. resident and member of the DC Vote and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund Campaign boards of directors.
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