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Before this week, we’d never paid much attention to Congressman Ronny Jackson. The staunch Republican offices in Amarillo, and we don’t pay much attention to Amarillo…
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Emma Ruby
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Tag: transgender
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Denton County Rep. Wants to Institutionalize Transgender People
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What data shows about trans people and mass shootings
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As families comforted their children and police pieced together what caused a shooter to open fire on an Annunciation Catholic School Mass in Minneapolis, some Republican pundits and policy leaders repeated a familiar talking point about transgender people.
“This should never have happened,” Fox News host Jesse Watters said Aug. 27, hours after 23-year-old Robin Westman’s attack killed two children and injured 21 other people. “But how did it?”
Watters highlighted Westman’s identity to say it’s part of a “pattern” of violence perpetrated by transgender people. In 2020, a judge granted Westman’s name change request — from Robert Westman to Robin Westman — in a court document that said Westman “identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.”
“Statistically, the trans population has been prone to violence,” Watters said, a comment viewed more than 3.7 million times on X when it was shared by conservative commentator Benny Johnson. “That’s not villainizing, that’s reality.”
Four days later on CNN’s “State of the Union,” White House Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka made similar remarks: “In just a couple of years, we have seen seven mass shootings involving people of transgender nature or who are confused in their gender. Seven in just the last couple of years. That is inordinately high.”
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We’ve reviewed similar statements about transgender people committing violence. Crime and terrorism experts still agree: There is no evidence that transgender people are more likely to commit gun violence than others.
That’s partly because of the way “mass shooting” is defined and tracked and partly because the data that is collected overwhelmingly shows that the majority of shootings are perpetrated by men who are not transgender.
The Violence Prevention Project at Hamline University studied mass shootings that it defined as shootings in public places that resulted in four fatalities excluding the shooter. Its analysis found that males were the perpetrators in 98% of the shootings, female shooters accounted for 2% of the attacks and transgender people accounted for less than 1%. (The Minneapolis incident would not qualify as a mass shooting under Hamline’s definition.)
When PolitiFact asked Fox News for Watters’ evidence, a spokesperson cited shooting incidents. Gorka posted a list of six incidents on X. Out of nine cases Fox News and Gorka cited going back to 2018, four involved shooters who identified as transgender, a PolitiFact review of news reports, investigations and court records found. One was nonbinary, which means they did not see themselves as exclusively male or female; in the other cases, the perpetrator’s gender identity was not as clear as Watters and Gorka framed.
Two incidents did not qualify as a mass shooting by any definition — one because it was not a shooting, and the other because the gunfire resulted in one injury, no fatalities.
The number of mass shootings in the U.S. since 2018 ranges from the tens to the thousands, depending on the data and criteria used to measure them. The most expansive definition comes from Gun Violence Archive, a nationally recognized source for gun violence data, which counts any incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, excluding the shooter — the only definition under which the Minneapolis incident would qualify.
If all seven shooting incident attackers included in Gorka and Fox News’ lists were counted, that would be seven out of 4,147 mass shootings from 2018 to 2025, based on Gun Violence Archive data — a rate of 0.17% as of Aug. 28.
“I think (it) is reasonable to assert that, anecdotally, there have been several high profile mass shootings committed by transgender individuals in recent years, and whether that is an aberration or a new trend has not yet been confirmed statistically,” said Adam Lankford, University of Alabama Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice professor and chair.
Speaking outside the school shortly after the incident, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, cautioned against blaming the trans community.
Anybody “using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity,” Frey said during a press briefing outside the Annunciation school and church.
Watters and Gorka cited cases that don’t neatly fit the description of trans mass shootings
When we reached out to Fox News for evidence behind Watters’ statement, a spokesperson sent us Statista data showing that, as of Aug. 11, there had been 60 mass shootings since 2018. The spokesperson listed six cases of shooters who she said were experiencing gender dysphoria, or the experience of distress that some people feel when their sex and gender identity don’t align.
Of the nine incidents that Gorka and Fox News together mentioned, one involved a Molotov cocktail tossed at Tesla vehicles in Kansas City in March, not a shooting. Another, in which a transgender person was wanted in connection to a shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Texas, left one police officer injured and resulted in no fatalities.
And not all of the cases involved shooters who clearly identified as trans. In a 2023 Philadelphia shooting, for example, an adviser to the district attorney’s office said the suspect “has not identified themselves as trans,” NBC News reported. And defense attorneys for the suspect in a 2022 shooting at Colorado’s Club Q nightclub — who was apprehended after the attack — wrote in court documents that the shooter identified as nonbinary.
After a 2024 shooting at Perry High School in Iowa, people claimed the shooter was trans because his social media posts contained LGBTQ+ symbolism and messages in support of transgender people. Officials, however, did not comment about the shooter’s gender identity.
Even in Westman’s case, tabloid reports premised on a YouTube video said Westman’s writings included some ambiguity around being transgender.
Data shows trans people conduct a very small percentage of mass shootings
Because there’s no one, agreed-upon definition for what qualifies as a mass shooting, organizations that track these incidents arrive at different figures. Besides the Gun Violence Archive, here are two:
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The FBI threshold for a “mass killing” involves “three or more killings in a single incident,” which is not exclusive to shootings. The agency separately tallies “active shooter” incidents, defined as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” From 2018 to 2024, the FBI reported 70 active shooter incidents that met the definition of “mass killings.”
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Statista pulled its tally of 60 incidents since 2018 from a Mother Jones tracker, which has the same fatality threshold as the FBI does for mass killings, but specifies that incidents should be in a “public place.”
Judging by any of those definitions, the number of trans mass shooters would not show any statistical evidence that trans shooters are disproportionately more prone to violence than nontransgender people.
An August 2025 report from the LGBTQ+ policy research center Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles found that 2.8 million people ages 13 and above identify as transgender in the U.S. That’s 1% of people in the U.S. aged 13 and older.
“If trans persons are 1% of the general population, but only 0.17% of the population of mass shooters, then they are under-represented in this group,” said Laura Dugan, Ohio State University of human security and sociology professor.
A 2023 FBI report on active shooters cited the Covenant Presbyterian School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, where the assailant was identified by authorities as “female/transgender male.” All of the other 48 active shooters that year were male, the report said.
“When you’re looking at the average violence across the community, disproportionately, you know it’s white, straight men,” said Mia Bloom, Georgia State University professor of communication and Middle East studies.
Trans people are more likely to be victims, not perpetrators, of violence
Data has also shown that trans people are more likely to be victims of violence than their cisgender peers, experts said.
The UCLA Williams Institute found transgender individuals were more than four times more likely to be victimized than cisgender people, and are more likely to experience violent crime.
Similarly, the research arm of the gun violence prevention organization Everytown for Gun Safety found that “transgender, nonbinary and gender-questioning young people reported higher rates of being impacted by or knowing someone impacted by a mass shooting (22%), compared to their cisgender LGBQ+ peers (19%).”
RELATED: No evidence of growing trend of trans radicalization or terrorism, experts say
RELATED: No evidence of rising LGBTQ+ violent extremism or ‘trans terrorism’
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California Students, Faculty Walk Out Over Gender Policies
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Southern California students and faculty staged a walkout at their middle school in protest of the Temecula Valley Unified School District’s policy that allows transgender girls in bathrooms and locker rooms.
During class on Tuesday, students, parents and faculty members at James L. Day Middle School walked out to protest against the district policy that affirms that transgender students can access bathrooms and locker rooms “consistent with a student’s gender identity.”
Since the start of the new school year, a student who identifies as female has been using the girls’ locker room, parents report.
The Board Policy 5145.31: “Religious or Mental Health-Related Accommodations” does offer girls two “outs,” which are either to file a religious-belief accommodation or a mental-health accommodation.
But parents at the protest told the California Family Council that neither option is acceptable. They don’t want to label their daughter with a mental health condition for wanting privacy or claim a religious exemption to avoid boys dressing in girls’ locker rooms, parents added. As one mom stated, “My daughter’s not anxious or sick. She just deserves a girls’ locker room.”
Those who attended the protest wore white and pink bracelets that said “Save Girls’ Sports” and held up signs.
“The students were clear,” said Sophia Lorey, outreach director of the California Family Council. “This wasn’t about attacking anyone. They want safe, private, female-only spaces to change for P.E. The boys who joined were there to stand with the girls – not to make trouble, just to say, ‘Protect girls’ spaces.’”
The Center Square reached out to Temecula’s schools superintendent, Gary Woods, for a comment, but has not received a response.
The district said in a statement that it “respects the rights of students and community members to engage in peaceful expression and assembly,” adding California law requires that students “be allowed to participate in sex-segregated programs and have access to facilities consistent with their gender identity. Any revised proposal will take this requirement into account while addressing the concerns raised by students, parents, and the community.”
Temecula Valley school board members Jen Wiersma and Dr. Joseph Komrosky also attended the middle school walkout.
Komrosky said the district’s “mental health and religious exemption accommodations” framework is the wrong tool.
“I was elected to represent the values of the parents of my community, and the majority of our community in Temecula have traditional family values,” Komrosky said. “What’s happening at this middle school, when a biological boy enters the girls’ locker room, is anything but traditional. It’s social and political activism. I want every child to have a good and safe education. Parts of this aren’t safe, and students feel their innocence is being robbed. I will continue to fight this moral battle to defend the innocence of children and empower parents.”
TVUSD is expected to address Board Policy 5145.31 and related privacy measures at the next regular board meeting on Sept. 9.
Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.
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The Center Square
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Fact vs. Fiction: Did Transgender People Commit a Disproportionate Share of Mass Shootings (2015–2025)?
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Claim by End Wokeness:
A viral chart posted on August 28, 2025, claimed that transgender individuals committed a disproportionately high number of mass shootings in the U.S. from 2015 to 2025, based on a “mass shooting rates by demographic” graph that showed trans/nonbinary shooters with the highest rate per million population.
Explanation:
The chart circulating on X.com provided no sourcing and was not supported by any reputable mass shooting database. In fact, organizations that systematically track such data—including the Gun Violence Archive and The Violence Project—confirmed that the numbers were inaccurate.
Gun Violence Archive’s director, Mark Bryant, stated that from 2013 to 2025, only five out of 5,729 mass shootings involved transgender perpetrators—representing just 0.087% of all incidents. Similarly, The Violence Project found only one confirmed transgender mass shooter in its database from 1966 to 2024. These findings contradict the viral chart’s implication that transgender individuals were significantly overrepresented among mass shooters.
Additionally, research from the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice confirms that the majority of mass shooters are cisgender white men. The chart not only misrepresents transgender data but also distorts the racial and gender distribution of mass shooting perpetrators overall.
Conclusion:
Fact or Fiction? Fiction. There is no evidence to support the claim that transgender people are disproportionately responsible for mass shootings. Verified data from established archives shows they represent a fraction of a percent of such incidents.
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Media Bias Fact Check
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Tensions boil at Arlington School Board meeting on transgender bathroom policy – WTOP News
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The debate was heated Thursday night at the Arlington County School Board meeting in Virginia as dozens of speakers lined up to give their thoughts on the school system and its transgender bathroom policy.
The debate was heated Thursday night at the Arlington County School Board meeting in Virginia as dozens of speakers lined up to give their thoughts on the school system and its transgender bathroom policy.
The room was packed and tensions were high from the beginning, including just after the Pledge of Allegiance with the room screaming, “for all, for all.”
The debate comes after Arlington County schools decided to keep its policy allowing students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
Arlington is one of five Northern Virginia school divisions that the federal government warned this week could have funding withheld if they don’t change their policies.
Republican candidate for governor of Virginia Winsome Earle-Sears attended and spoke at the meeting.
“Here’s the truth. There are two sexes, boys and girls, and for generations, we’ve understood this, that they deserve their own sports teams, their own locker rooms, their own bathrooms. That’s not discrimination. It is common sense,” Earle-Sears said.
Democratic candidate for Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger said in a statement:
“As a mom of three daughters in Virginia public schools, a former federal law enforcement officer, and a candidate for Governor, Abigail’s priority is ensuring that all of Virginia’s kids are safe and supported. While Abigail’s opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears stokes division and backs the Trump Administration’s threats to strip funding from Virginia schools, as Virginia’s next Governor, Abigail will work to protect public school funding, address the Commonwealth’s chronic teacher shortage, and contend with our last-in-the-nation math recovery ranking. While Winsome Earle-Sears has a decades-long record of trying to defund Virginia’s public schools — and has offered no plan to increase student achievement, Abigail will continue to focus on preparing students for success and bringing Virginia parents to the table.”
Parent Hans Bauman said he supports the school system’s decision as a parent of three students who graduated from APS and a graduate himself.
“Thank you for remembering that we are your constituents. Arlington has long stood for universal values that ensure all communities feel welcome and supported,” Bauman said.
“Supporting the human rights of all students is core to Arlington’s identity, but standing behind those values when tested is not easy.”
Arlington parent Amy Killelea said she’s worried about the impact of the school system potentially losing funding.
“It’s our kids’ education at stake, and there have now been thousands of our Arlington community voices that have publicly asked you to refuse to back down to political theater and pressure our kids are not a political point for Richmond and Washington, D.C. to score.”
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Valerie Bonk
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Highland Park teen charged with hate crime, murder of transgender woman in Detroit
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Detroit Police Department
Malique Javon Fails was charged with murdering a transgender woman in Detroit.
An 18-year-old Highland Park man was charged with homicide and a hate crime Monday in connection with the brutal death of a transgender woman of color whose body was found behind a laundromat in Detroit.
Malique Javon Fails is accused of fatally assaulting Christina Hayes, 28, of Taylor, on June 21 before robbing her of cash and a cellphone. Police said her body was discovered later that day in an alley on the 17600 block of Woodward.
Hayes suffered severe injuries to her face and neck, police said.
A Detroit police investigation led to Fails’s arrest Friday. He was arraigned Monday in 36th District Court on charges of felony murder, larceny from a person, and a hate crime based on gender identity bias. He was ordered held without bond.
“This case represents a continuing pattern of vicious attacks and murders on trans women of color,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Monday. “Every single citizen of Wayne County has the right to lead their lives and be safe. We will bring the alleged murderer of Christina Hayes to justice.”
A probable cause hearing is scheduled for Aug. 26, and a preliminary examination is set for Sept. 2.
If convicted, Fails faces up to life in prison.
Nationwide, violence against transgender and gender-expansive people remains alarmingly high. In 2024, at least 32 of those individuals were murdered across the U.S., according to data compiled by the Human Rights Campaign. A study of 229 fatal incidents found that Black transgender women accounted for roughly 78% of all transgender women murdered in the U.S.
In February, Tahiry Broom, a 29-year-old Black transgender woman, was shot and killed in Detroit. In June 2023, Ashia Davis, another Black transgender woman from Detroit, was shot to death in a hotel. In 2018, Kelly Stough, a Black trans woman, was murdered in Detroit. The killer, former pastor Albert Weathers, later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In 2015, then-Detroit Police James Craig pledged to crack down on crimes against LGBTQ+ people, saying many hate crimes go unreported.
“People in the LGBT community often don’t report crimes because there traditionally has not been a strong relationship with police,” Craig said. “We want to change that.”
Craig later appointed Officer Danielle Woods to serve as the department’s LGBTQ+ liaison. She still holds the position.
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Steve Neavling
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Cumbiatón returns to Los Angeles right in time for Pride season
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Picture it, West Hollywood, the tension is high in the air as this year’s Project Drag contestants battled each other, one act after the other. Los Angeles Blade was on hand as guest judge for this particular evening, with TV show characters being the theme of the night. Project Drag, created in 2013 by nightlife personality Tony Moore, is THE drag competition when it comes to representing local drag queens. Even though this evening’s edition marked just a few weeks into the competition, it was clear these queens wanted to win…badly.
LØRELEI, no stranger to a spotlight, took the stage dressed as Smurfette and launched into a frenzy of dancing (backup dancers in tow). Halfway through her act with a dizzying array of jumps and jazz hands, she leapt into the air and smack dab into the DJ! The audience gasped as she teetered on the edge of the DJ’s station. Would she crash into the DJ, taking the whole setup with her? Or would she fall back and crash into the audience? Gravity had its way, and she crashed into the floor in a blurred mess of yellow hair and red high heels. Was this the end of LØRELEI’s time with Project Drag? Like the showperson she is, she turned the moment into a bit, not knowing that weeks later, she would take home the crown.
Even though LØRELEI wanted the win so much, she came to the competition a consummate performer, mixing her theatre world with her drag skills to put on truly unique acts. She is a true drag queen in the sense that she’s not just about looks. She can command an audience, she is a successful podcast co-host of SHABLAM!, and she co-founded and runs Dionysia, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing long-form theatrical works by drag artists. Oh, and did we mention she’s been touring around the nation with the Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Drag Brunch? When did she even have time to do the competition? It’s what she does, she makes the show go on.
We chatted with this fabulous queen after her win, in between cities on her current tour.
What was your first exposure to drag?
I was always a theatre kid since I was 10, and I was introduced to drag in small doses through Musical Theater. A Chorus Line, La Cage Aux Folles, Kinky Boots – seeing queer representation in this particular medium was formative to my understanding of drag, and knowing that one day I wanted to be a famous drag queen. Through high school, I would dress in drag for Halloween, and by the time I got to college, I started to hit club nights that were 18+ in drag.
What was your first professional drag gig? How did it go?
I remember my first “big-time” professional gig was at Queen Kong with the Boulet Brothers back when they produced parties at Precinct in 2018. I competed in their star-search competition, placing 2nd in the Top 3 alongside Kornbread Jete (RPDR S14) and Charles Galin (King of Drag S1). After that, I was added to the rotation as a performer at Queen Kong until they finished producing the party in 2019. My very first booking with them after the competition was a “Satanic Lady Gaga” night, and I performed “Applause” as Charles Manson. I was so nervous, and I was corseting so tight, I think at that age I was corseting down to 21 inches – so I hate to say this, but I threw up onstage during my performance. The audience was shocked – and I was shocked too. But I kept performing and made it work. Around this time, Dragula was picking up speed, and we had seen the likes of Vander Von Odd vomiting on screen as part of the performance, so many thought that what I did was incredibly punk, and I just kinda ran with it. It’s one of my cringiest memories in drag – but I remember after my number, the Boulets came to check in with me and make sure I was okay, and they told me that I did a great job and that they loved the number. The show must go on, I guess!
What sets your drag apart from other Queens?
What sets me apart the most from other queens are my inventive performance ideas. I am a conceptual performer with a sense of humor that I express through writing and staging, and many of my performances feel like short-form theatre shows. My palette of references steers away from conventional drag pageantry, and gears more toward the avant-garde, the meta-theatrical and the bizarre. Every performance has a new character, so you never know what to expect from a Lorelei show – but I guarantee that no matter what you will be entertained.You are the winner of Project Drag! What did going through this competition teach you most about yourself?
That no matter how cunty you think you are, there is always room to grow. It taught me not to be afraid to try things that might make you uncomfortable. Being in a competition like Project Drag requires you to be vulnerable and receptive to critique, it requires you to risk failing despite your best efforts. There were plenty of times that I fumbled in the competition – literally. One week I fell clear off of the DJ stand (shoutout to my Smurfette performance). But there were also many successes – I won two challenges before hitting the finale, and those were celebratory moments that demonstrated the best of what my drag could be. You have to take the good with the bad, and if you don’t ever swing big, you’ll never get that pay off to celebrate your drag. You have always be a student of the world, and look for ways to constantly improve your craft.
What were your biggest challenges in making it through the competition?
I would say the schedule of the competition was probably the hardest part – this was an 11-week competition, with challenges that are comparable to Drag Race, including group challenges and design challenges. Our weeks were spent crafting, rehearsing, spending, working incredibly hard to stay on top of our game every week, while still balancing life obligations like work or our health.
Personally, I was competing in Project Drag while also traveling out of town every weekend as a cast member in the Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Drag Version brunch show. During the competition, I traveled to cities like Albuquerque, El Paso, Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, and Austin. Every week, I’d fly out after work on Friday, perform brunch shows on Saturday and Sunday, fly back home Monday morning, and then compete in Project Drag that same night. From Tuesday to Thursday, I balanced my day job, other drag gigs, and prepped as much as I could for the next week’s challenge—before hopping on another flight Friday and doing it all over again.
It was incredibly challenging, but that’s how badly I wanted to win. Looking back, I’m truly grateful for the experience. With everything I managed to juggle, I can honestly say this was the most drag I’ve ever done in my life—and I love living a life that’s so deeply connected to my craft.
What do you plan to do with your title?
I will probably leverage this title as rage bait against my haters for the rest of my life! And also — of course, I want to use this title to platform my own personal creative journey of making drag performance pieces, but also I would like to use it to platform other artists I work with. There are so many drag artists who helped me win Project Drag because they believed in my vision, and I want to give back to those friends and the community at large. With this title, I hope I can be a beacon for drag artists who may feel limited by the artistic scope of doing drag in a club or bar and are looking to bring their artistry to new arenas, like stages, art galleries, and alternative performance spaces. I hope to create new avenues for drag artists to incubate their ideas and develop performances that push the limits of our industry.
Theater and drag are two major components of your life. How do your drag and theatre aesthetics complement each other?
I’ve always considered myself a theatre artist, using drag as my medium. Drag has an important role in theatre traditions all around the world, and I think it is the chosen responsibility of a handful of drag artists to continue that performance tradition and innovate upon it as time passes. I’m inspired by artists like Taylor Mac, John Cameron Mitchell, Hibiscus – who use drag and playwriting as a means of distilling their ideas and insights about the world. In the future, I hope I can produce more theatrical work that uses drag as a means of storytelling, and infiltrate the theatre industry with new works that feature drag artists onstage.
What is your biggest mission in running Dionysia?
My biggest mission in running Dionysia is to create a collective of theatre artists and drag artists who help each other in producing more long-form theatrical works that feature queer voices. I would say most theatre queens are known for impersonating or re-creating famous theatre productions onstage, like doing Liza Minnelli or Wicked-themed drag brunch. However, my goal with Dionysia was to make an incubator for drag artists to bring in their own original material and collaborate with others to bring it to life onstage. It’s all about innovating new works to then perform onstage, submit to festivals or grants, and hopefully grow the skill set of each individual artist.
How can the queer community best support the drag community?
The queer community can help support the drag community by joining us at our events, and thus helping us promote our work of creating safe spaces at a time when being queer in public is becoming politicized once again. As drag artists, we do more than just perform onstage: we offer our image and our visibility as a means of indicating to others that we are creating a space that is sacred for our community. As drag artists, we share stories, we contribute to local culture, we help to preserve community and tradition, and we always appreciate audiences who at minimum come to enjoy the show because it motivates us to continue our work. Tipping helps too!
How has being a drag queen changed your life the most?
Being a drag queen has changed my life for the better because it has galvanized my life behind the guiding principle of liberation for obviously queer people, but really of all marginalized people. To me, being able to do drag feels like a proclamation of my freedom – my ability to be whoever I want, when I want. Everyone should have that freedom. I think of that age-old adage “no one is free until we are all free” – and it makes me realize that while I have the liberty to express myself, there are people around the world who don’t have that privilege. I think drag queens in general are especially attuned to the pursuit of justice, and that has helped to guide my life in the direction of being in service to others. Freedom for me means freedom for all – from the USA, to Palestine, no matter who you are or where you’re from.
We also love your podcast SHABLAM! What do you love most about the podcast?
Of course I love the opportunity on SHABLAM! to discuss my thoughts and opinions, but the best part is being able to do it with my co-host Annie Biotixx. Annie and I have been friends and collaborators for a long while now, and she always keeps me motivated to produce my best work. She competed in Project Drag 5, and although she didn’t make it as the winner of her season, she was a rock for me in my season of Project Drag, providing her support and guidance through all the challenges. She was even featured in my winning finale number! She’s an incredible host and drag queen here in Los Angeles, and a high-value theatre aesthete. Collaborating with her is effortless, and makes my job of showing up each week to record very easy.
What do you want listeners to walk away with after listening to SHABLAM?
At the end of the day, I want listeners to walk away feeling like they belong to an online community that supports them. Ultimately it’s a comedy podcast, so I always want people to laugh – but humor is such a great tool for building community. I feel through recording SHABLAM!, we are sharing our jokes, our vocal stims, whatever makes us laugh to build a shared language that we can use to identify who is part of this online community, and who share our values and principles. We create a space for people to find each other!
What are your biggest challenges in being a drag queen in SoCal?
Compared to other cities, I think the SoCal drag scene, particularly in Los Angeles, is uniquely suited to support many different types of drag, thanks to our sprawling geography. From West Hollywood to Downtown, from the Valley to the Inland Empire, there are countless pockets around LA that each celebrate a distinct style of drag. This diversity makes it possible for many people to pursue and succeed in drag.
However, that same strength also presents a challenge: everyone is looking to succeed, and the scene is highly competitive. The geography that fosters diversity also makes it difficult to make a name for yourself across all these different drag communities. Successful drag queens in SoCal know how to navigate between these various pockets. They show up professional, prepared, and with a strong point of view that sustains them over time. It takes patience, tenacity, and a commitment to continually growing your skill set and network.
You are touring with Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Drag Brunch Version! What Taylor Swift song most speaks to you presently and why?
Yes! I’ve been listening to a lot of her music for our show, and I would say that the song that speaks to me the most… on tough days, it’s “Anti-Hero” from Midnights. I think any artist can relate to the feeling of self-sabotage, and as I get older, I realize I have a lot of learning to do. But on good days – I believe in “Karma” from Midnights. I feel at ease in knowing that the universe is working for me, and what is meant for me will not pass me by. Winning Project Drag has amplified both of those feelings, and I know in my heart that this title was meant for me.
Do you get up to any shenanigans (wink, wink) while on tour?
My PARENTS are going to want to read this article, you FREAK! Lol, I’m kidding – yes, of course, there are plenty of shenanigans, and if you are interested, might I direct you to Season 2 of my podcast SHABLAM! Where, in addition to dissecting Project Drag week-to-week in real time, we discuss my escapades while on the road. Last thing I’ll say is get tested, get on PrEP, remember that undetectable = untransmittable! Mwah!
What kind of legacy do you want to create with your theatre and drag?
I’d like to leave a legacy as a thought leader in the school of theatre and drag. I want to hybridize performance theory, queer history and drag performance to create innovative works that push the limits of how drag can be used in storytelling. I want to be added to the canon of drag artists who are lauded by the global theatre community, and leave in my legacy a collection of dramaturgically astute, advanced works of drag theatre.What is your message to the community this Pride season?
Where do I even begin with all the chaos that has ensued in Los Angeles since the election of our current administration? ICE raids terrorizing our communities and kidnapping our neighbors is a crime beyond comprehension. It has rightfully left many of us feeling scared and hopeless, but I encourage the community to remain firm in our pursuit of justice and to fight back against Facism! Donate, Protest, Educate, Engage – do whatever you can to make it clear to any authoritative power that Los Angeles will not be fucked with! Especially the queer community! Today, we stand on the shoulders of queer ancestors who have endured similar treatment of threats and intimidation, and we have persevered. We will always be here! And no human is illegal on stolen land!
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Gisselle Palomera
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First of its kind: Los Angeles now home to first transgender voting center
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The rallying call urges all the Spanish-speaking and corrido-loving sapphics, butchonas, jotas and vaqueeras, to grab their boots and meet up at Little Joy Cocktails for a carne asada-style, family party every fourth Sunday of the month, featuring spins by DJ Lady Soul, DJ French and DJ Killed By Synth.
In Los Angeles, these three disc jockeys have embraced the word buchona, adding the ‘t’ as a play on the word butch.
The free event, now locally known as Butchona, is a safe space for all the Mexican and Spanish music-loving lesbians to gather on the last Sunday of every month.
Buchona is usually a term used in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries to describe a woman who is a boss– someone who exudes dominant energy or marries into a powerful position.
“I didn’t know how well [the idea for Butchona] was going to be received and my favorite part of all that, has been the looks everyone has been bringing,” said Rocio Flores, who goes by DJ Lady Soul.
(Photo Courtesy of Adelyna Tirado)
DJ Lady Soul poses outside of Little Joy Cocktails in her butchona outfit.The event that started only a few months ago, brings in dozens of dressed-up jotas. The ‘looks’ that the crowds bring are reminiscent of how dad’s, tíos, and their friends dressed at Mexican family parties: a tejana, cowboy boots, giant belt buckle and a beer in hand.
Dressing up in these looks is a way to show wealth and status to earn the respect of other males in a male-dominated and -centered culture– that is until now.
This traditionally male, Mexican, cultural identity, is something that has never been embraced or accessible to women or gender non-conforming people. The giant belt buckles that are traditionally custom-made and specific to male identities like head of household, ‘only rooster in the chicken coop’ and lone wolf, are only part of the strictly cis-gendered male clothes that dominate the culture.
The embroidered button-ups, belt buckles and unique cowboy hats –all come together to create the masculine looks that are now being reclaimed by women and gender nonconforming people at the event curated by three queer, Mexican DJs, who once had a little idea that could.
Flores, 37, (she/her), Gemini, says that to her the term butchona describes a woman who is a little ‘chunti,’ a little cheap in the way she dresses– but in a queer way.
“That title also means that you’re a badass,” she said. “I want to look like that señor, I want to look like that dude and now I feel like I could, so why not?”
Flores says that now she feels like she can embrace and reclaim that cultural identity, but it wasn’t always that easy.
At first, her family upheld the traditional cisgender roles that forced her to dress more feminine, but she always wanted to dress like her cousins and her tíos.
“Now, I’m like: ‘Fuck that!’ I’m going to wear the chalecos and the Chalino suits,” she said in Span-glish.
The Chalino suits are traditional, Mexican, suits that were worn and popularized by Chalino Sanchez, known as the King of corridos—a genre of music that is said to have originated on the border region of Texas, Tamaulipas and Nuevo León, Mexico.
“It felt good to break into the DJ scene, but what I always noticed was that the lesbian culture was always lacking,” said DJ Lady Soul. “I would mainly see gay males at parties and a lot of male DJs.”
According to Zippia–a career site that sources their information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics and the U.S. Census–23.5 percent of disc jockeys are women, 16 percent are LGBTQ+ and only 12.7 percent are Hispanic or Latin American.
What has always been a traditionally machista music genre and scene, is now being embraced by a growing number of queer women and non-male DJs in Los Angeles.
For Fran Fregoso, who goes by DJ French, 33, (they/she), Taurus– embracing their cultural identity came a lot easier because of their late uncle who sort of paved the way for them to come out as queer and be more accepted than he was as the first openly out queer person in their family.
(Photo by Adelyna Tirado) Dj French poses in their vaquero-style outfit. Their music journey began listening to the 90s grunge, alternative, hip-hop and metal music played by their older siblings at home.
“Then I met Vanessa [DJ Killed By Synth], and she introduced me to the industry,” said DJ French.
DJ French felt the acceptance and support to enter this music space and decided to embrace their cultural roots by playing music that they grew up listening to at family parties. They booked their first gig with Cumbiatón LA, a collective of DJs and organizers who host Latin American parties across Los Angeles, often centering queer DJs and other performers.
“When [Lady Soul and Killed By Synth], brought this idea up to create Butchona, I was like: ‘Oh, I’m in 100 percent’,” they said. “Because I love playing corridos and banda music because that’s a core memory from my childhood and family parties.”
Banda, corridos, cumbias and other traditional music is a big part of Mexican culture, even as gendered and male-centered as it has been, it is embraced by all.
“I know a lot of people in our queer, Latino, community love that music too, but they also want to be in a safe space,” they said. “That’s where we decided to make an environment for our community to dance and be themselves.”
Vanessa Bueno, 40, (she/her), Libra, who goes by DJ Killed By Synth, says her journey started about 20 years ago when she started DJing for backyard parties in East L.A. and across L.A. County.
(Photo by Adelyna Tirado) DJ Killed By Synth playing her set. Her family is from Guadalajara, so she says that growing up she also had a lot of family parties with corridos and banda blaring in the background of memories with the many cousins she says she lost count of.
“A lot of the music we heard was bachata, banda, cumbia and even some 80s freestyle,” said Bueno.
Even while she had a ‘little punk rocker phase,’ she says she couldn’t escape that Spanish music her family played ritualistically at family get-togethers.
When they began their music journey–back in the AOL, Instant Messenger days, they played a lot more electronic music, hence the name Killed by Synth. At first, it was just a username, but then it became her DJ name.
“Later down the line, comes [the idea for] Butchona came about, and me, Rocio and French collaborated,” she said. “It’s kind of always been my goal to create these safe spaces for women and queer people, and I had been in the scene long enough to where people were willing to answer my calls to work with them to make it happen.”
For Bueno, it was natural for her to build community and embrace this part of their culture later on in her career when she saw a need for queer, Latin American-centered club spaces with family party vibes.
She started hosting Latin American-style parties, blending music, culture, and food and attracting the exact audience she envisioned. With these events, Bueno aimed to reclaim her Mexican identity and foster a sense of family and community at these events.
“We’re here to build a safe space to embrace the music and kind of not think about the machismo that is tied to it and celebrate who we are,” said Bueno.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics, California, Texas, New York, Arizona and Washington rank the highest in employment rates for disc jockeys in 2023. There is also a recent trend in more women DJs–the study does not include gender nonconforming DJs–booking twice as many gigs as men in event spaces and concerts that host DJ sets.
“It feels like we’re barely cracking into these safe spaces and expanding our horizons a little bit,” said DJ French. “I hope this inspires other people to also create safe spaces like Butchona.”
The next Butchona event will be on Sunday, Oct. 27 and will feature all three DJs playing corridos, banda, cumbia and all the classics, for a chunti Halloween party.
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Troy Masters
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Dr. Javad Sajan Secures Insurance Coverage for Hair Transplants for Transgender Patients
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SEATTLE, October 31, 2024 (Newswire.com)
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Allure Esthetic and renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Javad Sajan are excited to announce a significant achievement in transgender healthcare. In a groundbreaking step, Allure Esthetic has successfully worked with major insurance providers to cover hair transplants for transgender patients seeking to feminize their hairlines. This advancement marks a pivotal moment in gender-affirming care and brings hope to many transgender individuals.Transgender patients assigned male at birth often seek hair transplants as part of their transition journey to create a more traditionally feminine hairline. The procedures, performed at Allure Esthetic, have been transformative, boosting self-confidence and contributing to the overall success of gender-affirming transitions.
Insurance Coverage for Transgender Hair Transplants
In a landscape where coverage for gender-affirming treatments can often be inconsistent, Allure Esthetic is proud to have pioneered efforts that ensure insurance providers recognize the medical necessity of these procedures. Dr. Javad Sajan and the Allure Esthetic team have worked tirelessly to advocate for transgender rights and ensure that patients receive the care they deserve without bearing the financial burden.
“Our transgender patients deserve access to the full spectrum of gender-affirming care, and hair transplants are an integral part of that journey for many,” said Dr. Sajan. “We are proud to partner with insurance companies to make this a reality and eliminate one more barrier to living authentically.”
Response from the Community
While this progress has been widely celebrated within the transgender community, it has sparked some controversy among non-transgender individuals who feel that similar procedures for non-transgender patients should also be covered by insurance. Dr. Sajan acknowledges this concern but emphasizes the distinction between cosmetic and medically necessary procedures.
“Insurance companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of covering procedures that are medically necessary for gender dysphoria,” Dr. Sajan explained. “While hair transplants for non-transgender patients are often considered cosmetic, for many transgender individuals, these procedures are crucial for their mental and emotional well-being as part of their transition.”
Commitment to Equality and Advocacy
Allure Esthetic remains committed to continuing its advocacy for inclusive healthcare. The practice has been at the forefront of providing a wide range of gender-affirming surgeries and procedures, always striving to expand access and make these services available to all who need them.
For more information on how Allure Esthetic and Dr. Javad Sajan advocate for transgender patients and secure insurance coverage for essential procedures like hair transplants, please visit Allure Esthetic’s website or contact our office.
About Allure Esthetic
Allure Esthetic, led by Dr. Javad Sajan, is a premier plastic surgery practice in Seattle. It specializes in gender-affirming surgeries and a wide range of cosmetic procedures. The practice is dedicated to providing compassionate, expert care and advocating for the rights of all patients, regardless of gender identity.
Source: Allure Esthetic
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Compare Trump and Harris’ views on LGBTQ rights and marriage equality
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Washington — Among the topics voters may consider in the 2024 presidential election are LGBTQ rights — and it’s an issue where former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have starkly different messages and backgrounds.
A large majority of Americans support legal protections for LGBTQ people, according to a survey from the Public Religion Research Institute. But support is stronger in blue states than red states, and has declined overall in recent years — especially among Republicans. And support for same-sex marriage has also seen a slight decline.
Meanwhile, 38% of Americans said LGBTQ rights are a factor in their voting decisions, and 30% say they will vote only for a candidate who aligns with them on the issue.
Here’s what to know about the candidates’ views and records on the issue:
Donald Trump on LGBTQ issues
The former president has been inconsistent on the issue during his time in the public eye, and his administration rolled back protections for LGBTQ people — especially transgender individuals.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, before he entered politics, Trump expressed support for domestic partnership laws that granted couples the same benefits of married couples — a position that the GOP widely opposed at the time — and often showed personal tolerance for LGBTQ issues more broadly. In a 1999 interview, where he also said he was “very pro-choice” Trump said that “it would not disturb me” for gay people to serve in the military.
Years later, Trump said in 2011, amid speculation about a possible presidential bid, that he was “opposed to gay marriage.” In 2015, he said he supports “traditional marriage.”
Trump became the first GOP presidential nominee to mention LGBTQ issues in his 2016 RNC speech, pledging to protect the community in the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting.
Trump chose a conservative running mate in 2016, Mike Pence, who had staunchly opposed same-sex marriage, but Trump’s own comments on the topic varied.
Trump said during his 2016 campaign that he would “strongly consider” appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn the 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriages. Then, days after he was elected, he said he was “fine” with same-sex marriage and suggested he wouldn’t appoint justices to the high court with the goal of overturning the ruling. His wife, Melania Trump, called him “the first president to enter the White House supporting gay marriage” as he sought reelection in 2020.
On transgender issues, Trump said in 2016, amid a controversy over a North Carolina bathroom ban, that transgender people should “use the bathroom they feel is appropriate.” But his administration went on to reverse a policy that required schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, and his administration banned some transgender people from serving in the military while Trump was in office — a policy that President Biden reversed. Trump’s administration also tried to repeal health protections for transgender people and sought to end protections for transgender individuals in federal prison, among other policies.
Anti-trans sentiments would go on to become a prominent talking point for Republicans on the campaign trail in the 2022 midterm elections. In early 2023, Trump said he would use his powers, should he return to the White House, to punish doctors who provide gender affirming care for minors and impose consequences for teachers who discuss it with students.
In the final months of the 2024 campaign, Trump and his allies leaned into anti-trans rhetoric, spending millions on advertisements focusing on the issue in battleground states.
Meanwhile, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, sponsored legislation in 2023 that would ban access to gender-affirming care for minors, along with a bill to bar the State Department from allowing the gender marker “X” on passports. The Ohio Republican also said he would vote no on the Respect for Marriage Act, which provided federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages, while campaigning for Senate in 2022, citing religious liberty concerns.
Kamala Harris on LGBTQ issues
Harris has generally been an early adopter of pro-LGBTQ policies and stances, doing so before other prominent members of her party.
The former San Francisco district attorney officiated some of the nation’s first same-sex marriages in 2004, after then-mayor Gavin Newsom directed the county clerk to approve the marriages although the law didn’t yet recognize them. The marriages were invalidated months later. Then, when she was elected as California’s attorney general in 2010, Harris said she would not defend in court a voter-approved measure known as Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage.
As district attorney, Harris had prosecuted violence against LGBTQ people, establishing a hate crime unit to look into crimes against LGBTQ youth. As attorney general, she sought to end the “panic defense” that allowed homicide defendants to seek lesser sentences if they attested to being panicked by the victim’s sexual orientation.
Harris has been criticized by LGBTQ advocates for denying gender-affirming surgeries for transgender inmates when she served as attorney general; she said she was bound by the Department of Corrections policy in place at the time. She later expressed support for providing such care to inmates during her 2020 presidential bid. During that campaign, where she ran on a more progressive platform, Harris also said she supports decriminalizing sex work, though she noted that it’s not a simple issue.
As a senator, Harris sponsored a handful of bills aimed at addressing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, along with other LGBTQ issues. Harris’ record has also been tied to the Biden administration, which expanded Title IX protections for LGBTQ students, although they were blocked by the Supreme Court. In 2022, Mr. Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law, enshrining federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages.
Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has a reputation as an advocate for LGBTQ rights. When Walz was a high school teacher, he served as the faculty adviser who helped form his school’s first gay-straight alliance in the ’90s.
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Here Comes the Sun: Will Ferrell, Harper Steele and more
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Here Comes the Sun: Will Ferrell, Harper Steele and more – CBS News
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40th anniversary AIDS Walk happening this weekend in West Hollywood
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Four months after seeking asylum in the U.S., Fernando Hermida began coughing and feeling tired. He thought it was a cold. Then sores appeared in his groin and he would soak his bed with sweat. He took a test.
On New Year’s Day 2022, at age 31, Hermida learned he had HIV.
“I thought I was going to die,” he said, recalling how a chill washed over him as he reviewed his results. He struggled to navigate a new, convoluted health care system. Through an HIV organization he found online, he received a list of medical providers to call in D.C., where he was at the time, but they didn’t return his calls for weeks. Hermida, who speaks only Spanish, didn’t know where to turn.
By the time of Hermida’s diagnosis, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was about three years into a federal initiative to end the nation’s HIV epidemic by pumping hundreds of millions of dollars annually into certain states, counties, and U.S. territories with the highest infection rates. The goal was to reach the estimated 1.2 million people living with HIV, including some who don’t know they have the disease.
Overall, estimated new HIV infection rates declined 23 percent from 2012 to 2022. But a KFF Health News-Associated Press analysis found the rate has not fallen for Latinos as much as it has for other racial and ethnic groups.
While African Americans continue to have the highest HIV rates in the U.S. overall, Latinos made up the largest share of new HIV diagnoses and infections among gay and bisexual men in 2022, per the most recent data available, compared with other racial and ethnic groups. Latinos, who make up about 19 percent of the U.S. population, accounted for about 33 percent of new HIV infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The analysis found Latinos are experiencing a disproportionate number of new infections and diagnoses across the U.S., with diagnosis rates highest in the Southeast. Public health officials in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and Shelby County, Tennessee, where data shows diagnosis rates have gone up among Latinos, told KFF Health News and the AP that they either don’t have specific plans to address HIV in this population or that plans are still in the works. Even in well-resourced places like San Francisco, HIV diagnosis rates grew among Latinos in the last few years while falling among other racial and ethnic groups despite the county’s goals to reduce infections among Latinos.
“HIV disparities are not inevitable,” Robyn Neblett Fanfair, director of the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention, said in a statement. She noted the systemic, cultural, and economic inequities — such as racism, language differences, and medical mistrust.
And though the CDC provides some funds for minority groups, Latino health policy advocates want HHS to declare a public health emergency in hopes of directing more money to Latino communities, saying current efforts aren’t enough.
“Our invisibility is no longer tolerable,” said Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
Lost without an interpreter
Hermida suspects he contracted the virus while he was in an open relationship with a male partner before he came to the U.S. In late January 2022, months after his symptoms started, he went to a clinic in New York City that a friend had helped him find to finally get treatment for HIV.
Too sick to care for himself alone, Hermida eventually moved to Charlotte to be closer to family and in hopes of receiving more consistent health care. He enrolled in an Amity Medical Group clinic that receives funding from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, a federal safety-net plan that serves over half of those in the nation diagnosed with HIV, regardless of their citizenship status.
His HIV became undetectable after he was connected with case managers. But over time, communication with the clinic grew less frequent, he said, and he didn’t get regular interpretation help during visits with his English-speaking doctor. An Amity Medical Group representative confirmed Hermida was a client but didn’t answer questions about his experience at the clinic.
Hermida said he had a hard time filling out paperwork to stay enrolled in the Ryan White program, and when his eligibility expired in September 2023, he couldn’t get his medication.
He left the clinic and enrolled in a health plan through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. But Hermida didn’t realize the insurer required him to pay for a share of his HIV treatment.
In January, the Lyft driver received a $1,275 bill for his antiretroviral — the equivalent of 120 rides, he said. He paid the bill with a coupon he found online. In April, he got a second bill he couldn’t afford.
For two weeks, he stopped taking the medication that keeps the virus undetectable and intransmissible.
“Estoy que colapso,” he said. I’m falling apart. “Tengo que vivir para pagar la medicación.” I have to live to pay for my medication.
One way to prevent HIV is preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which is regularly taken to reduce the risk of getting HIV through sex or intravenous drug use. It was approved by the federal government in 2012 but the uptake has not been even across racial and ethnic groups: CDC data show much lower rates of PrEP coverage among Latinos than among white Americans.
Epidemiologists say high PrEP use and consistent access to treatment are necessary to build community-level resistance.
Carlos Saldana, an infectious disease specialist and former medical adviser for Georgia’s health department, helped identify five clusters of rapid HIV transmission involving about 40 gay Latinos and men who have sex with men from February 2021 to June 2022. Many people in the cluster told researchers they had not taken PrEP and struggled to understand the health care system.
They experienced other barriers, too, Saldana said, including lack of transportation and fear of deportation if they sought treatment.
Latino health policy advocates want the federal government to redistribute funding for HIV prevention, including testing and access to PrEP. Of the nearly $30 billion in federal money that went toward things like HIV health care services, treatment, and prevention in 2022, only 4% went to prevention, according to a KFF analysis.
They suggest more money could help reach Latino communities through efforts like faith-based outreach at churches, testing at clubs on Latin nights, and training bilingual HIV testers.
Latino rates going up
Congress has appropriated $2.3 billion over five years to the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, and jurisdictions that get the money are to invest 25 percent of it in community-based organizations. But the initiative lacks requirements to target any particular groups, including Latinos, leaving it up to the cities, counties, and states to come up with specific strategies.
In 34 of the 57 areas getting the money, cases are going the wrong way: Diagnosis rates among Latinos increased from 2019 to 2022 while declining for other racial and ethnic groups, the KFF Health News-AP analysis found.
Starting Aug. 1, state and local health departments will have to provide annual spending reports on funding in places that account for 30 percent or more of HIV diagnoses, the CDC said. Previously, it had been required for only a small number of states.
In some states and counties, initiative funding has not been enough to cover the needs of Latinos.
South Carolina, which saw rates nearly double for Latinos from 2012-2022, hasn’t expanded HIV mobile testing in rural areas, where the need is high among Latinos, said Tony Price, HIV program manager in the state health department. South Carolina can pay for only four community health workers focused on HIV outreach — and not all of them are bilingual.
In Shelby County, Tennessee, home to Memphis, the Latino HIV diagnosis rate rose 86 percent from 2012 to 2022. The health department said it got $2 million in initiative funding in 2023 and while the county plan acknowledges that Latinos are a target group, department director Michelle Taylor said: “There are no specific campaigns just among Latino people.”
Up to now, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, didn’t include specific targets to address HIV in the Latino population — where rates of new diagnoses more than doubled in a decade but fell slightly among other racial and ethnic groups. The health department has used funding for bilingual marketing campaigns and awareness about PrEP.
Moving for medicine
When it was time to pack up and move to Hermida’s third city in two years, his fiancé, who is taking PrEP, suggested seeking care in Orlando, Fla.
The couple, who were friends in high school in Venezuela, had some family and friends in Florida, and they had heard about Pineapple Healthcare, a nonprofit primary care clinic dedicated to supporting Latinos living with HIV.
The clinic is housed in a medical office south of downtown Orlando. Inside, the mostly Latino staff is dressed in pineapple-print turquoise shirts, and Spanish, not English, is most commonly heard in appointment rooms and hallways.
“At the core of it, if the organization is not led by and for people of color, then we’re just an afterthought,” said Andres Acosta Ardila, the community outreach director at Pineapple Healthcare, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2013.
“¿Te mudaste reciente, ya por fin?” asked nurse practitioner Eliza Otero. Did you finally move? She started treating Hermida while he still lived in Charlotte. “Hace un mes que no nos vemos.” It’s been a month since we last saw each other.
They still need to work on lowering his cholesterol and blood pressure, she told him. Though his viral load remains high, Otero said it should improve with regular, consistent care.
Pineapple Healthcare, which doesn’t receive initiative money, offers full-scope primary care to mostly Latino males. Hermida gets his HIV medication at no cost there because the clinic is part of a federal drug discount program.
The clinic is in many ways an oasis. The new diagnosis rate for Latinos in Orange County, Florida, which includes Orlando, rose by about a third from 2012 through 2022, while dropping by a third for others. Florida has the third-largest Latino population in the U.S., and had the seventh-highest rate of new HIV diagnoses among Latinos in the nation in 2022.
Hermida, whose asylum case is pending, never imagined getting medication would be so difficult, he said during the 500-mile drive from North Carolina to Florida. After hotel rooms, jobs lost, and family goodbyes, he is hopeful his search for consistent HIV treatment — which has come to define his life the past two years — can finally come to an end.
“Soy un nómada a la fuerza, pero bueno, como me comenta mi prometido y mis familiares, yo tengo que estar donde me den buenos servicios médicos,” he said. I’m forced to be a nomad, but like my family and my fiancé say, I have to be where I can get good medical services.
That’s the priority, he said. “Esa es la prioridad ahora.”
KFF Health News and The Associated Press analyzed data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the number of new HIV diagnoses and infections among Americans ages 13 and older at the local, state, and national levels. This story primarily uses incidence rate data — estimates of new infections — at the national level and diagnosis rate data at the state and county level.
Bose reported from Orlando, Fla.. Reese reported from Sacramento, Calif. AP video journalist Laura Bargfeld contributed to this report.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is responsible for all content.
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
A Project of KFF Health News and the Associated Press co-published by Univision Noticias
CREDITS:
Reporters: Vanessa G. Sánchez, Devna Bose, Phillip Reese
Cinematography: Laura Bargfeld
Photography: Laura Bargfeld, Phelan M. Ebenhack
Video Editing: Federica Narancio, Kathy Young, Esther Poveda
Additional Video: Federica Narancio, Esther Poveda
Web Production: Eric Harkleroad, Lydia Zuraw
Special thanks to Lindsey Dawson
Editors: Judy Lin, Erica Hunzinger
Data Editor: Holly Hacker
Social Media: Patricia Vélez, Federica Narancio, Esther Poveda, Carolina Astuya, Natalia Bravo, Juan Pablo Vargas, Kyle Viterbo, Sophia Eppolito, Hannah Norman, Chaseedaw Giles, Tarena Lofton
Translation: Paula Andalo
Copy Editing: Gabe Brison-Trezise
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
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Gisselle Palomera
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Equality California celebrates 25 years of championing LGBTQ+ rights
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Ysabel Jurado, 34, a lifelong community member of Highland Park, and openly out candidate, is running against current Councilmember Kevin De Leon for Council District 14, the most powerful city council in Los Angeles County.
Her campaign slogan is ‘Ysabel For The Community.’
Earlier this year, Jurado made history in the primary, using her perspective as a historically underrepresented person in the hopes of bringing new leadership to the district after De Leon was called to resign in 2022, following a scandal.
The live voting results earlier this year highlighted Ysabel Jurado at 24.52%, with 8,618 votes, while De Leon fell behind by nearly 400 votes, with 23.39% in the primary.
Jurado is a tenants rights lawyer and housing justice advocate from Highland Park who has built her reputation in the community with support from social activist Dolores Huerta, L.A. City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez and L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis.
“I’m the daughter of undocumented immigrants, a public transit rider, a former teen mom, and a working class Angeleno who has navigated the challenges of poverty. I have held the line on countless strikes and defended truck drivers against the same wage theft my father faced,” said Jurado in her candidate statement.
De Leon secured the second spot and will go head-to-head against Jurado in November. Jurado rose to the top of the polls, while her opponents spent more money on their campaigns, including De Leon. Miguel Santiago raised the most money for his campaign and also spent the most to secure support. De Leon came in second with both money spent and money raised. While Jurado came in fourth in the amount of money spent and raised for her campaign.
Jurado is running to become the first queer, Filipina to represent CD-14. Among the list of issues she aims to tackle while in office are; homelessness, climate action, safer streets and economic justice that uplifts small businesses.
“I will bring the institutional knowledge of a legal housing expert and the lived experience of a queer, immigrant-raised, working class, woman of color – a battle-tested representative for and from the community,” said Jurado.
Though this is her first time running for office, she has already made it as far as political pioneer Gloria Molina in 2015.
De Leon might be facing an uphill climb after he was caught saying homophobic, racist and anti-sematic remarks in a leaked audio recording that rocked his political career. Even President Joe Biden called for his resignation.
The conversation that rocked L.A politics is said to have started because of redistricting plans and gerrymandering. According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, De Leon had his hopes set on running for mayor of Los Angeles. Since the audio was leaked, protests erupted, calling for his resignation. De Leon continued in his position after an apology tour and is now running against Jurado on the November ballot.
The recording of a conversation between De Leon, Ron Herrera, Nury Martinez and Gil Cedillo.
Jurado’s statement on her campaign website calls out the leaders of CD-14 that betrayed the communities in the district.
“Between FBI raids, backroom gerrymandering, racist rants, and corruption charges, our needs have been chronically ignored,” says the statement. “City government has failed us. We deserve better.”
If she wins, she would join a progressive bloc of leaders in city council that include Nithya Raman, Hugo Doto-Martinez and Councilmember Hernandez. The leadership would have a pendulum swing toward city affairs that has not been seen before.
CD-14 covers Eagle Rock, El Sereno, Boyle Heights and parts of Lincoln Heights and downtown L.A., which includes skid row and other points of interest.
Those points of interest make CD-14 seats particularly difficult when it comes to dealing with polarizing issues like homelessness and street safety measures.
According to the latest demographic data by L.A City Council, 61% of the population is Latin American, while the second highest population is white, at 16%, followed by Asian, at 14% and Black at 6%.
If elected, Jurado aims to tackle homelessness in a district that has one of the highest unhoused populations in the city.
Jurado is now gearing up for the November election by continuing to campaign at various events across Los Angeles, including ‘Postcarding with Ysabel,’ at DTLA Arts District Brewing and The Hermosillo.
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Gisselle Palomera
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Far-Right School Board Says It Is Installing Windows In Gender-Inclusive Bathrooms
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A Pennsylvania middle school is installing windows in its gender-inclusive restrooms that will allow teachers and students to look into the wash areas from the hallways.
The far-right South Western School District board approved the construction project at Hanover’s Emory H Markle Middle School this summer.
The school board president, Matt Gelazela, cited student safety for the decision. In a statement released to the media, he wrote that “in making the area outside of stalls more viewable, we are better able to monitor for a multitude of prohibited activities such as any possible vaping, drug use, bullying or absenteeism.”
The board said that it would “create openings” to add “privacy in the toilet area” and “increase oversight of the wash area.” Gelazela added that these changes put the restrooms in line with facilities in the local elementary schools.
Gelazela, a libertarian and former police officer, became politically active with the South Western School District board in 2021, fighting COVID-19 mask mandates and railing against schools teaching students about “sexual identity.”
The new restroom windows at Markle Middle School are being built only into the gender-inclusive bathrooms and are set to cost the district roughly $8,700. The school currently has five bathroom options. The Hanover Evening Sun wrote that these include “male, female, male gender identifying, female gender identifying, and single-stall private bathrooms.”
Gelazela did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.
The construction of the bathroom windows has outraged parents and LGBTQ+ advocates alike, who see it as a privacy infringement for students and a specific targeting of LGBTQ+ youth.
Jennifer Holahan, a parent of a student in the school district, said her son, who is not part of the LGBTQ+ community, was told he had to use a gender-inclusive bathroom because it was closest to his classes.
She told WGAL-TV in Lancaster that the window construction “just raised a ton of concerns for me — privacy concerns, safety concerns. … I felt like it was a deterrent to keep them [students] from using them.”
She added: “I can understand needing to have supervision over middle school and high school kids, especially in the bathroom. … But I also think windows aren’t the solution. I think if it was a real issue, it wouldn’t just be the gender-inclusive restrooms.”
The board approved the construction in August after seeking guidance from the Independence Law Center, a Christian law firm contracted by the board.
The law firm has contracted with other school boards in the state to push forward various anti-LGBTQ+ policies, such as restricting transgender students’ participation on school sports teams that align with their gender and allowing school administrators to avoid using a trans student’s correct name and pronouns.
The construction of bathroom windows is one of the latest targeting moves by the South Western School District, which in the last two years has sought to roll back protections for LGBTQ+ students.
Gelazela was appointed school board president in December 2023 after serving as a regular member. Five Republican newcomers, who organized under the group We the Parents of South Western School District, were also elected to the board that year. The new members ran on a platform in support of “traditional education” and removing “political agendas” and critical race theory from school curricula.
As president, one of Gelazela’s first actions was to put forth a set of policies to erase gender identity from the district’s sexual harassment policy and establish a narrow definition of sex that excluded the existence of trans and intersex people.
At the time, another member of the board had advised Gelazela not to stray from state and federal guidelines — including the Biden administration’s recent Title IX guidance that explicitly bars discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation — out of fear of inviting litigation.
But in March 2024, Gelazela entered the board into a contract with Independence Law Center, which so far has helped the board carry out these policy goals.
Earlier this year, the school board adopted a dizzying set of policies around how transgender students could update their names and pronouns in the school records, often creating exceptions for school officials to not be compelled to comply based on their religious beliefs.
The board allowed school personnel to refuse to use a student’s name or set of pronouns that use “language inconsistent with their beliefs.”
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Students who want to correct their name and pronouns in the school records can do so only if they submit a written “accommodation request” from their parents. But still the board would not allow students to change their sex on their school records and would allow school personally to not address a student by the “unwanted first name.” Instead, school administrators can choose to refer to students as “you” or “they.”
Since 2020, several members of the far-right activist group Moms for Liberty, have been elected to school boards at more Pennsylvania school districts, helping to introduce policies banning discussions of LGBTQ+ issues or racial justice.
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LGBTQ+Ñ Literary Festival kicks off this week in Los Angeles
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Washington State-native Travis Holp is a psychic medium with close to 300 thousand followers on Instagram and 500 thousand on Tik Tok. Known on social media as the Warrior Unicorn – a nod to his fighting spirit toward LGBTQ and mental health awareness issues, combined with his effervescent personality – Travis connects with those who have passed over and delivers messages to their loved ones in the physical world.
Through one-on-one readings and large public events, he says he does it with one aim in mind: that clients leave their time with him feeling a new sense of connection, clarity, closure and healing. He’ll make his Los Angeles debut at The Vault in the Beverly Center on Sunday, September 29, at 7pm.
Holp doesn’t recall when he discovered his psychic ability. He simply remembers being very young, maybe four-years-old, and having long conversations with what people around him assumed were his imaginary friends but, he now realizes, were his Spirit guides. “I can’t say there was one specific moment, but more like many moments throughout my life.”
It wasn’t until his early 20s when he decided to turn his skill into a profession. “Early on in my journey, I read as many books on mediumship as I could find,” he continues. He quickly found himself inundated with Spirit hoping to connect with loved ones in the physical world.
One of his biggest concerns became protecting his energy and learning to keep boundaries with the spiritual world.
“My now mentor and friend MaryAnn DiMarco wrote this great book called Medium Mentor, and she has some great exercises for spiritual protection.”
He also takes steps to nurture his special gift. “I regularly meditate and do things to raise my vibration like dancing to music.” A favorite song of his to listen to before readings and live events is Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth”.
He believes most people have psychic abilities. Some, like himself, are born with it, and others access it later in life. “Like any other ability, it is absolutely possible for a person to learn to connect for him or herself,” he says. He often teaches people how to do it during sessions and at live classes.
The best way he has found to enhance mediumistic abilities is to actively participate in one’s own emotional healing. He says the connection we have with ourselves is the foundation for mediumship. “Like anything, it takes some training but I have gotten really adept at understanding the messages Spirit tells me,” Holp explains. He sees Spirit in his mind’s eye, and he hears and feels their communications. “Spirit uses my own frame of reference and symbols to help me convey their messages.”
His main purpose with Spirit is being a vessel. He views himself as the Guncle (gay uncle) of the Spirit world. “I always tell it like it is,” he says, “but I’m careful to deliver information with kindness, joy, and hope.”
Though both of his grandmothers “pop in” from time to time (he’ll feel their warm and loving energy and always enjoys it when they come to say hello!), he typically won’t read for close family members because he knows too much information about them. However, sometimes Spirit does present itself for a loved one.
When it does, Travis will thank the Spirit for coming but let them know that he prefers not to send a message. It’s all about keeping healthy boundaries between himself and his loved ones.
He does the same thing while on dates.
“I don’t date much, but when I do and I tell a guy how I make my living, they often worry that I’m reading them. I am not,” he insists. “I may get little nudges here and there, like one time I felt the energy of a mom in Spirit for someone I was on a date with, and a few moments later, he shared his mom had passed from cancer a few years prior, but I won’t stop a date to deliver a reading. It’s not very romantic,” he laughs.
“I believe I am meant to help others along their healing journey,” he continues. “Whether a client seeks guidance on a specific topic, wants to connect with a loved one in Spirit, or wants to deepen their own spiritual practice, I’m here to help like any great guncle who knows a lot of sh-t would.”
He admits that he often surprises himself with the accuracy of his messages. “I especially love it when the two people shared a special word or song and then Spirit reveals that word or title to me so that I can relay it back to my client. It’s validation, for sure, but it is also a fun feather in my cap.”
As far as the messages that he most often receives from Spirit, Holp says our dearly departed wish that we would let go of regret, guilt, and shame. “One of the things I have learned from Spirit is that most of what we carry isn’t necessary. In the end, all that really matters is love.”
Travis Holp appears at The Vault in the Beverly Center (8500 Beverly Blvd, Suite 860) on Sunday, Sept 29th at 7pm. For tickets, visit: www.travisholp.com
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Donald Trump Tells Unforgivable Whopper About ‘Transgender’ Classes In School
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Donald Trump on Monday suggested “transgender” is the principal subject now taught in schools. He had a sympathetic ear in Fox Nation host Kellyanne Conway, his former adviser who introduced the world to the concept of “alternative facts.”
“We want reading, writing and arithmetic,” Trump said in a conversation about his plans for education reform if he wins the election next month. “Right now, you have mostly transgender. Everything’s transgender.”
“Some of these school programs, I looked at it the other night ― they’re destroying our country,” the former president added.
Trump prefaced his outrageous assertion ― yet another salvo in the culture wars ― by alluding to his plan to close the Department of Education and turn over education completely to the states. “And they’ll do great,” he said.
The Republican nominee noted that the U.S. spends more money per pupil than any other developed nation ― a claim that the data somewhat supports ― and yet is underperforming globally.
“We want school choice, but we have to get out of this Washington thing,” he said. “We’re gonna move it back to the states.”
The president has leaned on transphobia to characterize public schools as a breeding ground for extreme ideology on gender ― and his online plan for education reflects that.
Cutting federal funding “for any school or program pushing Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children” is the top priority listed on that page.
The plan also lists “Keep men out of women’s sports” as a priority, another sign of the campaign’s embrace of transphobia.
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Riley Gaines: Stand With Women
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Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, via Wikimedia Commons By Riley Gaines for RealClearPolitics
Are you part of the 70% of American adults who support protecting the integrity and fairness of women’s sports by opposing males competing with and against females? If so, you’ll have a chance to stand with women in less than two months when America goes to the polls to choose the leaders who will make the laws and regulations that ensure women’s sports are only for women.
Let’s face it: Women’s rights are on the line in this election. The attack on our ability to compete fairly and safely in athletic competitions is unlike any we’ve seen since the enactment of Title IX in 1972. That law – which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any school or education program that receives federal funds – is largely responsible for the exponential growth of women’s sports over the last 50 years.
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That growth in participation is significant: In 1970, just 15% of college athletes were female; today, we make up 44% of college athletes. Female participation in high school sports has exploded over the last five decades, too: During the 1971-72 school year, fewer than 300,000 girls participated in sports – but by 2018-19, that number had increased more than ten-fold to almost 3.5 million girls in competition.
That growth in participation, brought about by the legally mandated equality of the sexes, is now threatened by politicians, too many of whom appear more committed to ideological goals than to biological reality.
Since the start of the Biden-Harris administration, federal bureaucrats have moved aggressively to tilt the playing field. The Biden-Harris administration’s rewrite of Title IX regulations, released April 19 of this year, takes the view that keeping women’s sports all female violates Title IX. That’s just wrong.
I’ve been fighting this kind of thinking at the federal and state level for some time. We’ve made significant progress – 26 states now have laws or regulations on the books protecting women’s sports. And at the federal level, we’ve succeeded in passing legislation through the House, and we’ve forced a vote in the Senate, which allows us to know who’s with us and who’s not. (For the record, on that House vote, every member of Congress who voted for the Protection of Women in Sports Act was a Republican, and every member who voted against it was a Democrat. And in the Senate, every incumbent Democratic senator voted against bringing a women’s sports amendment to the floor for a vote, while every senator who cosponsors the Title IX Congressional Review Act resolution is a Republican.)
We still have a ways to go. After the elections, we’ll have a new president and a new Congress, and we’ll try again to move legislation at the federal level to protect women’s sports and spaces – like domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, women’s prisons, and locker rooms, for example. So electing the right leaders in November will be crucial to the success of our efforts next year.
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To that end, Independent Women’s Voice has created the Riley Gaines Stand with Women Scorecard, a helpful tool that will draw clear contrasts on the issue. On the one hand will be lawmakers and prospective lawmakers who support fairness, equal opportunity, safety, and privacy in women’s sports and spaces; on the other hand will be those who do not.
The Scorecard is as simple as it sounds – it’s a first-of-its-kind resource that scores every candidate for federal office on whether or not they “Stand with Women,” meaning that they are committed to supporting legislation that preserves female opportunities and private spaces. The Riley Gaines Stand with Women Scorecard, made possible by Independent Women’s Voice, will become an indispensable tool for those of us committed to this vital issue.
Elections are about choices, and campaigns are about contrasts. The choices we make in November will guide the policies enacted and implemented by government at the federal, state, and local level, and will, in many ways, shape the contours of the contests in which our sisters and daughters compete and the safety they feel in their women-only spaces.
This new tool to help identify candidates who are as committed to the cause as we are will help ease the way forward as we fight to maintain equality of the sexes.
We know what a woman is, and what a female is, and we’re committed to standing with women for fairness and equality. We believe our political leaders should know and be committed to those things, too. And now, with Independent Women Voice’s Riley Gaines Stand with Women Scorecard, we’ll know which politicians are worthy of our support – and which are not.
Riley Gaines is an ambassador for Independent Women’s Voice and the host of the OutKick podcast “Gaines for Girls”.
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
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