#news #homophobia #remembrance | New Orleans searches for remains of 4 victims of 1973 gay bar fire that killed 31

CBS / Firefighters give first aid to survivors of a fire at the UpStairsLounge //

New Orleans searches for remains of 4 victims of 1973 gay bar fire that killed 31.
CBS, 2022-08-06
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/upstairs-lounge-gay-bar-1973-arson-search-4-victims-new-orleans/ 

Nearly a half-century after arson killed 32 people in a New Orleans gay bar, the City Council has renewed the search for the remains of four victims, including three who were never identified.

The UpStairs Lounge burned on June 24, 1973, killing 31 men, including two whose mother died with them, and injuring another woman and 14 men.

Ferris LeBlanc, 50, a World War II veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and three bodies burned past identification were buried next to each other in the city's unmarked "potter's field."

The motion passed Thursday directs the city attorney, property management director and chief administrative officer to provide "all reasonable assistance" toward recovering the remains.

"The City's callous and deeply inadequate response ... rooted in pervasive anti-gay sentiment" made suffering worse for victims' families and friends, states the motion written by Councilmember J.P. Morrell.

And, he wrote, "Poor record-keeping and indifference continue to hamper the efforts of surviving family members to reclaim the bodies of victims and to provide them the dignity of a proper burial."

The council believes the city has a moral obligation to do all it can to aid "the recovery and dignified interment of the victims of the UpStairs Lounge massacre," the motion states.

The council issued a formal apology for the city's response on June 23, one day before the fire's 49th anniversary.

"The council has promised to get to the bottom of this issue and do everything they can to help us bring an end to this story," LeBlanc's family wrote in a statement to ABC News. "We are cautiously optimistic for this renewed interest and are hopeful it will end in a positive resolution."

The blaze was the 20th century's largest mass killing of gays, the City Council's apology and Thursday's motion noted. It was surpassed by the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016.

The location of LeBlanc's body was noted as "Panel Q, Lot 32" of the graveyard, Robert W. Fieseler wrote in a book published in 2018.

But city officials said maps and other relevant records were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, ABC reported later that year. The network had released a 45th-anniversary documentary about the fire and efforts to find LeBlanc's body.

Shortly after the documentary's release, Mayor LaToya Cantrell appointed five staffers to help the family. But they dropped the matter after months of fruitless searching, the network reported.

LeBlanc was estranged from his family in California — not because of his homosexuality but because he hadn't paid money owed to his grandfather, Fieseler wrote in "Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation."

His body was identified after an anonymous caller told the coroner's office that LeBlanc wore an antique ring made from a silver spoon, Fieseler wrote.

The other three were listed as bodies 18, 23 and 28, and buried more than a decade before DNA fingerprinting was developed.

"Body 18, an over-eighteen-year-old white male, ... had no identifying tattoos and burns over 70 percent of him," Fieseler wrote. "Body 28, over 60 percent of his body charred, met his final resting place with pants and an undershirt still grafted to his skin. Body 23, 90 percent burned, was the most unrecognizable figure who had been pulled from the ruins. All that is known is that he met his end wearing brown shoes and black socks."

Johnny Townsend, who interviewed more than 30 people who survived the fire for a book that he published in 2011, wrote that one survivor overheard two firefighters talking while the fire still roared.

One was frustrated that he couldn't get up to the blaze, Townsend wrote. The other replied, using a slur for homosexuals, "Let 'em burn."

#news #homophobia #remembrance | New Orleans renews search for missing remains of victims of notorious 1973 fire

ABCNews / Marilyn LeBlanc-Downey and her son, Skip Bailey, remember Ferris LeBlanc //

New Orleans renews search for missing remains of victims of notorious 1973 fire.
The arson was once the largest mass murder of LGBTQ citizens in U.S. history.
Pete Madden | ABCNews, 2022-08-05
https://abcnews.go.com/US/orleans-renews-search-missing-remains-victims-notorious-1973/story?id=86693414 

The New Orleans City Council is reviving an effort to locate the lost remains of several victims of an arson that killed 32 people at a popular French Quarter gay bar in 1973.

The fire at the UpStairs Lounge was the largest mass murder of LGBTQ citizens in United States history until the Pulse nightclub massacre in 2016.

The council passed a motion on Thursday directing the city's property management and legal departments to "take any and all appropriate steps necessary" to "facilitate the recovery" of three unidentified fire victims and one identified victim, Ferris LeBlanc, who were buried in an unmarked graves somewhere in the city's potter's field.

LeBlanc, a World War II veteran, has yet to be located despite a years-long effort led by his family to find his remains and return them to California for a military burial.

"Poor record-keeping and indifference continue to hamper the efforts of surviving family members to reclaim the bodies of victims and to provide them the dignity of a proper burial," wrote Councilmember JP Morrell, whose office is spearheading the effort, in the motion. "The Council believes the City has a moral obligation to take all steps within its power to facilitate the recovery and dignified interment of the victims of the UpStairs Lounge massacre."

LeBlanc's family told ABC News that they are encouraged that the city's leaders are taking action on their behalf.

"The council has promised to get to the bottom of this issue and do everything they can to help us bring an end to this story," LeBlanc's family wrote in a statement. "We are cautiously optimistic for this renewed interest and are hopeful it will end in a positive resolution."

In 2018, five members of Mayor LaToya Cantrell's office were tasked with the search for LeBlanc's remains shortly after the release of an ABC News documentary investigating the city's response to the fire and highlighting pleas from LeBlanc's family -- including his sister Marilyn LeBlanc Downey -- for help.

But after several months of searching, officials were unable to locate his remains, telling ABC News they "remain stymied by lost or incomplete records," and the inquiry was quietly discontinued.

On the eve of the tragedy's 49th anniversary, however, as the New Orleans City Council issued a formal apology to the victims, survivors and families affected by the fire, Councilmember Morrell pledged to take up the search.

"The City of New Orleans' lack of response to the deadliest fire in our history has kept individuals from mourning their loved ones, but today we took a step in the right direction," Morrell said in a statement on June 23. "Moving forward, my office will be working with the family of Ferris LeBlanc, a WWII veteran who died in the fire, to exhume his remains and properly memorialize him with full military honors."

Survivors, family members, first responders, activists and journalists interviewed by ABC News agreed that the city's response to the tragedy exposed pervasive prejudices toward the gay community in the otherwise famously tolerant city, an attitude that resulted in, among other indignities, the burial of several unidentified victims in unmarked graves in the city's potter's field -- LeBlanc among them.

According to Robert Fieseler, author of "Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation," shock and sympathy were quickly replaced by ignorance and apathy when people learned "what kind of bar had burned down and who the victims had been."

"The deadliest fire in New Orleans history provoked not an outpouring of grief for the dead," Fieseler told ABC News, "but instead, among mainstream residents, humiliation for the release of the dead's secrets: their unconventional sexual tastes, at a time when the mere discussion of homosexuality was taboo."

It was the failure of the city's leaders and institutions to recognize and respond to the tragedy in 1973 that prompted a rare public statement of "historic regret" in 2022.

"The City Council deems it not only necessary but past due to formally apologize," reads the resolution, adopted unanimously last month, "for the way that those who perished were not adequately and publicly mourned as valuable and irreplaceable members of the community."

Local media hailed the move as a "small but significant step" in the healing process that acknowledged the city's "indifference, if not hostility, toward the gay community" at the time, the painful legacy of which lingers to this day.

"We will continue," LeBlanc's family wrote in a statement. "We all hope for the day when this story will end as it should."

#news #monkeypox | Monkeypox Activists Disrupt AIDS2022 with Rageful Protest

POZ / Monkeypox Activists Disrupt AIDS2022 //

Monkeypox Activists Disrupt AIDS2022 with Rageful Protest.
Mark S. King | POZ, 2022-08-01
https://www.poz.com/blog/watch-monkeypox-activists-disrupt-aids2022-rageful-protest

There was something more than the typical passion on display when activists stormed the plenary stage at AIDS2022 today to protest the slow monkeypox response by United States public health officials. The cries of the diverse crowd of protestors were urgent and inflammatory. Their demands felt deeply personal.

During a plenary session on monkeypox epidemiology and treatment, the activists stormed the stage just as Demetre Daskalakis of the CDC was about to speak. “Share the shot! Share the shot!” the activists chanted.

The focus of the activists’ ire was the low supply of available vaccines in the United States, and the fact vaccines that might have been used for men who have sex with men (the community most affected at this time) have been withheld.

“I’m sad to say, I feel like a refugee here in Canada,” said Asher McQueen, a trans man living in New York City, during the protest. ”I had to come all the way here to get a shot that I should be able to get in my very own city.” Montreal has already provided more than 10,000 vaccinations by setting up tents in predominantly gay neighborhoods.

“Everything for us in New York is community led,” McQueen continued. “We get no help.”

“We are facing a disease that has been present since the 1970s, and we are not prepared,” said speaker James Krellenstein, a gay man from Brooklyn who has been active in PrEP4All. “Why hasn’t the World Health Organization (WHO) formed a committee to figure out how to scale up vaccine production? We need to act now! You have an exponentially worsening outbreak that could have been prevented.”

“And Demetre,” Krellenstein said, turning to the CDC official Demetre Daskalakis sitting somewhere on the stage filled with activists, “I look forward to your presentation. The United States has refused to release the doses we need to protect our community. Montreal did it. Why can’t the United States? Fuck the racism and colonialism that allowed this outbreak to happen.”

“How many outbreaks do we have to go through to understand that global health is global? That infectious diseases are infectious?” Krellenstein shouted. “Shame on all of us for not preventing this outbreak!” Activists on stage chanted “Shame! Shame!”

After the activists relinquished the stage, Daskalakis praised their efforts, even if he didn’t answer their questions. Instead, Daskalakis focused in his presentation on the messaging of monkeypox and the CDC’s work to more specifically speak to men who have sex with men about their risks without burdening them with undue stigma.

Daskalakis did seem to suggest that new guidance from the CDC was underway, making some wonder if the CDC will join gay activists and writers who have urged gay men to put the brakes on higher risk sexual activities until vaccines are more widely available.

#news #trans #lgtbi #wars | Trans People Stranded and Alone in Ukraine Following Russia’s Invasion

Vice / Zi Faámelu, transgender woman in Ukraine //

Trans People Stranded and Alone in Ukraine Following Russia’s Invasion.
Trans people in Ukraine tell VICE World News they are fearful of trying to escape Russian forces in case they are prevented from leaving by authorities.
Ben Hunte | Vice, 2022-03-02
https://www.vice.com/en/article/akvyxz/ukraine-war-trans-people-lgbtq

Trans people in Ukraine have told VICE World News that they are “totally stuck” and “scared for their lives” in the country.

Two Ukrainian trans women said they can’t leave Ukraine or even safely travel through it because all of their identification documents say “male” and mention their “old masculine names”.

Some trans people have even been advised to “lose their ID” by human rights groups, in order to get out of Ukraine. Trans campaigners estimate this issue is leading to “hundreds” of trans people in Ukraine being left in “serious danger” and feeling “completely alone”.

One trans woman said she is “terrified” of being stopped trying to leave Ukraine, and being forced to join the Ukrainian army “as a man” – especially because authorities are stopping men aged 18 to 60 from leaving. Another Ukrainian trans woman is too scared to leave her accommodation in fear of transphobic attacks. She’s the only person left in her neighbourhood.

One trans man, who transitioned over six years ago and has lived as a man in Ukraine since, only has an ID showing “female”. He told VICE World News about his fears of leaving his house and trying to make it across Ukraine. During a phone call, screaming and explosions were heard coming from outside his accommodation, but he still refused to leave because of his ID issue.

A non-binary Ukrainian person explained their fears of leaving Ukraine and heading to “places like Poland or Hungary” where their identity is “ridiculed” and not recognised. “I need to choose between my own country – that I have learned how to navigate –or a totally foreign place where I could feel even more excluded and in danger,” they added.

A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Ukraine following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. The UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, confirmed that 520,000 refugees from Ukraine have now entered neighbouring countries since last Thursday, warning “this figure has been rising exponentially, hour after hour.” However, trans people may not have made those journeys.

Zi Faámelu is a 31-year-old trans woman from Kyiv. She is a musician and has appeared on TV in her home nation. Faámelu said she can’t leave the country and her life is in danger.

“Like hundreds of trans people in Ukraine, I am a woman, but I have ‘male’ in my passport and on all my ID, so this is a war within a war. Ukrainian trans people were already fighting for their lives.”

“There are hundreds of us stuck like this, living miserable lives. We need some influence from abroad. We need people to write to their politicians and charities to help us.”

She is sitting in darkness while she talks to me. In her hands, she holds a “very sharp” knife. Alone in her area, she is scared of who could be outside her apartment.

Trans people in Ukraine can obtain legal gender recognition, but human rights groups have called the process “abusive”, as it “violates the rights to privacy and physical integrity.”

Asked why she didn’t change her ID documents before now, Faámelu said the process in Ukraine is “humiliating” and she’s seen people having to “stay in mental institutions for months, with psychological and physical tests to prove their gender.”

“We don’t want to go through that, so we just kept our passports as they were and laid low, stayed quiet. It’s hell for trans people here. I should have left earlier but I was waiting for some emergency gender documents, but the doctors suddenly said no.”

“I'm completely alone now. Everybody in my neighbourhood has left. It’s such a dangerous situation, but I'm trying to stay optimistic. I've seen people running for their lives, and screaming at each other to leave things behind and just get out - but I have to stay where I am. It’s the only option for me right now.”

“It is very dangerous for me as a trans person in Ukraine on a normal day, so now, it is impossible. Many gay people in Ukraine can blend in with the rest of society now, but for trans people it is impossible. There are so many physical traits that we are attacked for – big chin, broad shoulders – we’re beaten, we’re killed. We need to get out now, but we can’t even leave our apartments.”

“They will see my passport and see ‘male’, they will see my birth name, and call me a man in a dress and attack me.”

Faámelu spoke of trans people who have been threatened by individuals openly carrying weapons in their areas.

“I’m now even more scared to be in Ukraine because everyone has a gun. Now my attackers have an excuse to carry out their hate and violence. People know where I live. Every sound outside is scary,” she said.

“Trans people now feel forgotten, neglected, abandoned. We are actually invisible at the moment. We need the United Nations, we need human rights organisations. We need people to help us get noticed.”

People fleeing Ukraine have been told that several neighbouring countries will accept them without any ID, however the journeys to get to the borders may still involve being stopped at checkpoints by the police or military, queueing with members of the public, and being split into “male and female” groups for prioritising safety and travel.

Being LGBTQ in Ukraine can be life-threatening. Attacks against people based on their sexuality and gender identity are common, and citizens told us “our police just stand by and watch.”

Less than a month ago, vandals damaged an LGBTQ community centre in Kharkiv, a city in northeast Ukraine. The attackers wrote “death threats” and “Christian scriptures” across the centre’s “mural of equality.” Campaigners said the centre had only recently been repaired after the last attacks, when “urine, shit and blood were smeared on the front door.”

Trans people in Ukraine have told VICE World News that their lives “were not worth living” before the war, and the current situation has only made matters worse for them.

Robert, 31, is a trans man who was living in Kharkiv, Ukraine. We are not identifying Robert’s surname to protect his identity. Robert’s years on testosterone have led to him “being able to pass like any other man”, but his ID still says he is “female” and uses his birth name.

“My parents tried to kill me when I told them I’m trans,” he told VICE World News earlier this week. “Everybody here knows me as ‘he’, nobody knows my situation. This is why I’m in so much danger now.”

“I’m so afraid for my life,” Robert added. “A lot of people have offered me help once I get to different countries, but I can’t get through Ukraine like this. The problem here is that you can look like one thing, but your papers say something else.”

“I can’t work, I can’t have a bank account, I can’t have a driver’s licence. I can’t continue at university because the university can’t approve my papers. I’ve just been cutting people’s hair, cleaning bathrooms and apartments, just to feed myself. It’s just existing, not living.”

Robert is now being supported by LGBTQ campaigner Rain Dove, who recently created a group and a fund to directly help “LGBTQ people, disabled people and families” stranded in Ukraine. The group has now supported “over 700 people” to get out of Ukraine, and many of them are LGBTQ.

Rain Dove told VICE World News: “We’ve had trans people get rejected at some borders, but everyone we’ve supported has eventually got out.”

“If you’re a trans woman with an ‘M’ on your passport, or you’re gender nonconforming with an ‘M’, we recommend that you ‘lose’ your passport before you speak to Ukrainian officials. Hide your ID in a water bottle, or in your shoe. If you get stopped, you can just say that you’re not from here, you can say that you’re a student in Ukraine, or were just visiting. Without an ID, you will be sent to a long line of foreign nationals, but you’ll then be talking to officials from the bordering nations, and you can present your ID without an issue. This has worked 100 percent of the time.

“If you’re a trans man with an ‘F’ on your ID, prepare to be gaslit by Ukrainian authorities. They will say ‘if you’re really a man, then fight for your country.’ This is unfortunately a really common thing. You could also hide your ID, but we know some people who have stayed to fight.”

Rémy Bonny, executive director of Forbidden Colours, an organisation pushing for LGBTQ equality across Europe, told VICE World News, “the Russian aggression against Ukraine has shocked the entire world, and queer people are extraordinarily affected by this war.”

Asked what people around the world can do to help these individuals, Bonny said, “Please donate to initiatives that are helping queer refugees from Ukraine. We are expecting about 100,000 queer refugees in the coming weeks, entering Poland, Hungary and Romania, but in the past, refugee camps have proven not to be safe spaces for LGBTQ persons.”

#books #memory | Divine intervention : a memoir

Divine intervention : a memoir / Janet Freedman.
[S.l.] : Independently, 2021 [01-12].
195 p.
/ EN / Libros / Baltimore / Divine / Drags / Estados Unidos / Testimonios
📘 Ed. impresa: ISBN 9798592818783

[.en] Growing up in blue collar Baltimore in the socially rigid 1950’s groomed me for a life I did not want. My parents, conservative and religious, saw no academic future for me but felt that secretarial work, marriage and children were proper goals for a decently raised young woman. I longed to escape the impending doom of an office job where I would struggle with shorthand and my dress size for the rest of my life. A one-year scholarship to art school opened the door to new possibilities, and though timid and insecure, I left my parent’s home, moving to a shabby downtown apartment building where I met a group of eccentric new friends - including not-yet-famous drag queen Divine –who helped me move past my fears and insecurities, ditch my plain-Jane looks, and create a new future.

This memoir occurs against the backdrop of funky pre-revival Baltimore and the social upheaval of 1960’s America and includes some interesting Baltimore history. An example: our Marlborough apartments were on the same floor as the old Cone sister’s apartments, once home to the massive art collection now in the Baltimore Museum of Art and where Etta Cone was visited by Henri Matisse in 1930. I've also included photos and memorabilia from that time.

#books #lgtbi | LGBTQ+ in the Basque Country

LGBTQ+ in the Basque Country / [edited by] Marta Luxan, Jone Miren Hernandez, and Xabier Irujo.
Reno, Nevada : Center for Basque Studies Press, 2020 [12-15].
184 p.
Serie: Conference Papers Series ; 18.
/ EN / ENS / REC / Libros / Euskal Herria / LGTBI
📘 Ed. impresa: ISBN 9781949805253

[.en] This collaboration between the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, and the Master in Feminist and Gender Studies of the University of the Basque Country is the first English monograph on LGBTQI+ issues in relation to the Basque case. It addresses the existing void surrounding historical, legal, and political issues concerning this important topic, but it also tackles social and cultural aspects as well as problems and challenges of the LGBTQI+ collective in the Basque Country today. This book explores legislative issues, the mission of social movements and of their followers, and a historical perspective on lesbianism and homosexuality in the European context. Additionally, an attempt to understand bodies beyond binary categories has been made, and an examination of the cultural expressions through a literary analysis. It is a snapshot, combining the perspectives of the academic researchers and the one of actual activists. It is, in essence, an invitation to continue to discuss, research, and write about matters concerning LGBTQI+.

Homosexuality has historically been considered an aberration by most religions and a nefandum activity typified as a crime of sodomy in most countries of the world. Homosexuality was persecuted and punished in various ways and continues to be so in too many places around the world. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union establishes in article 21 that all discrimination shall be prohibited, included that based on sexual orientation, but the declaration does not mention the right to freely hold the person's own gender identity. We are certainly still far from living in a world in which the basic rights of humanity are fully respected. This book, fruit of the collaboration of the Center for Basque Studies of the University of Nevada and the Master in Feminist and Gender Studies of the University of the Basque Country, constitutes the first monograph written in English on this subject in relation to the Basque case. It tries to give response to the existing void around the issues of historical, legal and political, but also social and cultural reality, problems and challenges of the LGBTQI+ collective in the Basque Country.

#hemeroteca #inmemoriam #vih | Nita Pippins, A Mother Figure for Countless AIDS Patients, Dies Of Coronavirus

Nita Pippins con una foto dr su hijo Nick

Nita Pippins, A Mother Figure for Countless AIDS Patients, Dies Of Coronavirus.
Ruschell Boone | Spectrum News NY1, 2020-05-22
https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/05/23/nita-pippins--a-mother-figure-for-countless-aids-patients--dies-of-coronavirus

She only had one child, but Nita Pippins was a mother figure to many in the city who were living with AIDS.

She fell into that role after moving to New York to care for her dying son in 1987, but it lasted more than 30 years, right up until she could no longer get around on her own.

"Her work as supporting people with AIDS and supporting families with AIDS was the most important thing she did in her life," said Irwin Kroot, a close friend.

Kroot is also one of her unofficially adopted children. He said Pippins died at a Manhattan nursing after contracting the coronavirus. She moved there in January after she fell and broke her hip.

Pippins was in the middle of rehab when she became ill and died on Mother's Day. The woman who had held the hands of many during the AIDS epidemic died alone.

"She had been there in the nursing home for several months, so they knew her, but none of us who loved her, of course, were able to be with her. The last time I was able to FaceTime with her was earlier that week," Kroot said.

Pippins was a 60-year-old retired nurse when she left Florida to be with her son Nick, a 33-year-old actor. He died from AIDS three years later, but after becoming close with some of his friends, she decided to stay.

Pippins became an activist who helped to create Miracle House, a charity that provided free or low-cost housing for out-of-town families of AIDS patients. Her work made her an NY1 New Yorker of the Week.

In the 2010 interview, Pippins said, "I knew that for people to come up here and stay any length of time, it would be very expensive, and if they had a place to stay that didn't cost a lot, they could come and stay longer to see their sons."

She would also reach out to families to try to get them to see their loved ones before they died. She also started a breakfast program where she could sit and speak with them.

"I really wanted to get the mothers together and let them know that my son died of AIDS and it's very painful, and at that time, you were shunned," said Pippins.

Pippins was 93 when she died.

"She was a multifaceted human being who did wonderful things with her life," Kroot said.

She leaves behind a stepdaughter and three step-grandchildren, in addition to all of her unofficial sons.

#hemeroteca #inmemoriam #vih | Nita Pippins, a Mother to AIDS Patients, Dies at 93

Imagen: Nita Pippins con su hijo Nick

Nita Pippins, a Mother to AIDS Patients, Dies at 93.
At 60, she moved to New York to care for her dying son. Instead of returning home, she dedicated herself to AIDS patients during the worst of the epidemic.
Steven Kurutz | The New York Times, 2020-05-19
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/obituaries/nita-pippins-dead-coronavirus.html

One day in 1987, Nita Pippins received a call from her only child, Nick, a 33-year-old actor in Manhattan who was dying of AIDS. “Mom, I’m in bed. I can’t get out of bed,” her son told her. “It’s time.”

Ms. Pippins, a retired nurse living in Pensacola, Fla., put her belongings in a friend’s house, took what she could and moved to New York to care for her son. At age 60, she began an improbable and remarkable second act.

Devastated and ashamed by her son’s AIDS diagnosis, and troubled that he was gay, Ms. Pippins initially kept the illness a secret from her family and friends. And she felt out of place in the big city. On breaks while caring for her son, with whom she had moved in, she would sit inside the Nathan’s Famous restaurant then in Times Square and repeat, “I hate New York. I hate New York. I hate New York.”

But Ms. Pippins nursed her son for three years as AIDS ravaged his body and he went in and out of the hospital. She saw members of the theater group he had founded and residents of their midtown building, Manhattan Plaza, falling sick also. And by the time her son died, in 1990, Ms. Pippins had been transformed.

She became close with her son’s gay friends, and decided to stay in New York. She dedicated herself to AIDS causes. She became a tireless volunteer for Miracle House, a charity that provided out-of-town families of AIDS patients with housing and support.

For mothers working through anger, guilt and sadness, Ms. Pippins served as a parent who had been there. For men estranged from their families, she became a replacement mother, sometimes holding their hands as they died.

“She didn’t come here to be an activist,” said Irwin Kroot, who met Ms. Pippins through her son’s partner, Dennis Daniel, and interviewed her for a possible memoir. “She was filling a void. She was usually with young men who were dying and was, at their request, a go-between for them and their families.”

Ms. Pippins died on May 10 at Amsterdam Nursing Home in Manhattan. She was 93. The cause was complications of the novel coronavirus, Mr. Kroot said.

At a time when AIDS was widely misunderstood and gay men who suffered from the disease were treated like pariahs, Ms. Pippins called on countless families across the country to come visit their children. Often, those parents had little sense of their sons’ lives in the city or how sick they were.

Ms. Pippins would tell them to set aside differences and be present for their child. Some took her advice, some didn’t. Ms. Pippins would meet wary out-of-towners at the Port Authority Bus Terminal or airport, and take them to breakfast at a midtown diner.

As a nurse, Ms. Pippins could answer their medical questions. As a mother, and someone from a conservative Southern upbringing, she could relate to their fears and concerns of being ostracized back home.

“At that time, you were shunned if your son died of AIDS, or you had AIDS in your family,” Ms. Pippins told NY1 in 2010. “And I wanted to get together and let them know there was other people having the same problem.”

For Ms. Pippins, her work with AIDS patients was redemptive. “I needed to give back,” she told Mr. Kroot. “I needed to have something to do that made me feel better about me.”

Jessie Juanita Pippins was born on Feb. 2, 1927, in Dothan, Ala., to Alto Lee and Junie Roberts. Her father was a cotton farmer and wanted his daughter to stay on the farm, Ms. Pippins told Mr. Kroot.

She was not interested. She pestered her father to let her study nursing at Florida State University until he relented. She became a registered nurse, and later director of nursing at a hospital in Pensacola. She retired in 1981.

She and her first husband, Joseph Pippins, divorced. A second marriage, in effect arranged by her son so she wouldn’t be alone after he died, was short-lived. Her survivors include a stepdaughter, Kelley Pippins Hays, and three step-grandchildren.

In her second life as a New Yorker, Ms. Pippins attended Broadway shows and dined out with friends like Mr. Kroot and his husband, Anthony Catanzaro. Other friends from her son’s circle took her on vacation with them to London. The group remained bonded for decades.

Ms. Pippins, who was present at the end of life for so many during the AIDS crisis, died alone on Mother’s Day.

#hemeroteca #gais #vih | San Francisco May Lift '80s-Era Ban on Gay Bathhouses

Imagen: Advocate

San Francisco May Lift '80s-Era Ban on Gay Bathhouses.
At the height of the AIDS panic, San Francisco forced bathhouses to employ sex "monitors" and tear down walls of rooms. All of the venues shuttered.
Neal Broverman | Advocate, 2020-02-12
https://www.advocate.com/love-and-sex/2020/2/12/san-francisco-may-lift-80s-era-ban-gay-bathhouses

A San Francisco official introduced legislation this week that could remove restrictive regulations on bathhouses that have been in place since 1984.

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who is gay and represents the Castro District, wants the San Francisco Department of Public Health to throw out longstanding measures that ultimately led to the end of licensed sex clubs in the city.

Thirty-six years ago, the city and county of San Francisco sued the operators of bathhouses, citing them as a "public health nuisance." A judge ruled the bathhouses could remain open if they employed "monitors" who ensured patrons weren't engaging in unsafe sex.

Part of the decree required most walls and doors of individual booths, cubicles, and video rooms to be torn down, so activity would be out in the open and viewable. Later that year, city officials ordered the closure of 14 sex clubs, accusing them of flouting the requirements. The city's remaining bathhouses and sex venues were soon gone, according to Mandelman.

Slightly less restrictive regulations were enacted in 1997, but they still required "monitors" and the removal of all locks on doors.

“Our current regulations for adult sex venues were put in place as an emergency measure at the height of the AIDS crisis when San Francisco was desperate to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS” Mandelman said in a statement. “Decades later, with the emergence of PrEP and in light of San Francisco’s reduction in HIV diagnoses to under 200 for the first time since the 1980s, these regulations — including a ban on private rooms and required monitoring of patrons’ sexual activities — have no public health rationale and need to be changed.”

If successful, the health code could be amended by July. Mandelman hopes the city not only drops the current restrictions on sex venues but also adds requirements like providing condoms and educational materials on STDs.

"When properly operated, by providing access to safer sex educational materials and supplies and HIV and STD testing, these venues assist rather than impede our efforts to control the transmission of HIV," Mandelman said. "I hope that this ordinance will support our efforts to get to zero new HIV infections and will put a bookend on a painful chapter in the history of the queer community in San Francisco."

#books #homoeroticism | Peter Berlin : icon, artist, photosexual

Peter Berlin : icon, artist, photosexual / Michael Bullock (ed.).
Bologna, Italia : Damiani, 2019 [10-03].
208 p. : il.
ISBN 9788862086554 / 45 €
/ EN / ENS
/ Contracultura / Cultura gay / Fotografía / Gais / Homoerotismo / Iconos / Masculinidad / Testimonios

Featuring the work of Berlin along with images by Tom of Finland, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andy Warhol, ‘Peter Berlin: Icon’ pays tribute to the man who in the early to mid-1970s revolutionized the landscape of gay male eroticism and became an international sensation. His self-portrait photography graced the covers of gay magazines, and defined a look that re-imagined a new masculinity among gay men and an emerging gay male culture. Peter Berlin was a self-created. Tailoring his own clothes to accentuate an already naturally defined physique, every part of his anatomy became showcased. Cruising was his career, and with a background in photography, Peter embarked on recording thousands of self-portraits. The book is edited by Michael Bullock is a writer and publisher of ‘BUTT’, ‘Pin-Up’, ‘Fantastic Man’, ‘Gentlewoman’, and ‘Apartamento’ magazines.

#books #lgtbi #stonewall | Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising that Changed America

Stonewall : The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising that Changed America / Martin Duberman.
New York : Plume, 2019 [06-04] / revised edition.
432 p.
ISBN 9780593083987
/ EN / ENS
/ Activismo / Derechos / Estados Unidos / LGTBI / Liberación sexual / Memoria histórica / Nueva York / Stonewall Inn

The definitive account of the Stonewall Riots, the first gay rights march, and the LGBTQ activists at the center of the movement. On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, was raided by police. But instead of responding with the typical compliance the NYPD expected, patrons and a growing crowd decided to fight back. The five days of rioting that ensued changed forever the face of gay and lesbian life. In ‘Stonewall’, renowned historian and activist Martin Duberman tells the full story of this pivotal moment in history. With riveting narrative skill, he re-creates those revolutionary, sweltering nights in vivid detail through the lives of six people who were drawn into the struggle for LGBTQ rights. Their stories combine to form an unforgettable portrait of the repression that led up to the riots, which culminates when they triumphantly participate in the first gay rights march of 1970, the roots of today's pride marches. Fifty years after the riots, ‘Stonewall’ remains a rare work that evokes with a human touch an event in history that still profoundly affects life today.

#hemeroteca #stonewall #memoria | Trans activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera to get New York monument

Imagen: PinkNews / Sylvia Rivera y Marsha P. Johnson

Trans activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera to get New York monument.
Lydia Smith | PinkNews, 2019-05-30
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/05/30/trans-marsha-p-johnson-sylvia-rivera-new-york-monument/

Transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera will be commemorated with a monument in the city of New York.

It may be placed down the street from the Stonewall Inn, where the 1969 Stonewall Riots took place led by Johnson and Rivera.

The two transgender women of colour led the uprising against homophobic police raids, an era-defining moment in the struggle for LGBT equality.

Rivera and Johnson also later co-founded the organisation STAR, or Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens and trans women of colour.

The monument will mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and it is proposed for the Ruth Wittenberg Triangle in Greenwich Village, the New York Times reported.

It will also be one of the world’s first monuments dedicated to transgender people.

New York’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, told the newspaper: “The LGBTQ movement was portrayed very much as a white, gay male movement.

“This monument counters that trend of whitewashing the history.”

The Stonewall Riots
On June 28 1969, the police stopped by The Stonewall Inn on the grounds of checking for alcohol law violations and other transgressions, which is something they did regularly.

What actually occurred was police intimidation and demands for payoffs in return for not arresting or publicising the names of customers.

Johnson, known for her fierce activism and advocacy of homeless queer people and sex workers, was one of the first to resist police intimidation at the bar, and Rivera is rumoured to have thrown the first bottle.

The riot reportedly broke out when lesbian activist Stormé DeLarverie was attacked by police for saying her handcuffs were too tight.

Other Stonewall customers threw bottles, coins and other items at the officers as tensions boiled over when those inside the bar were dragged outside by police.

Both Johnson and Rivera, instrumental in the LGBT rights movement, are credited with playing major roles in the backlash against police brutality at the Stonewall Inn.

#books #architecture #health | X-Ray Architecture

X-Ray Architecture / Beatriz Colomina.
Zürich : Lars Müller, 2019 [04-10].
200 p. : il.
ISBN 9783037784433 / 35 €
/ EN / ENS
/ Arquitectura / Enfermedades / Higiene / Historia / Salud / Salud pública / Tuberculosis / Urbanismo

‘X-Ray Architecture’ explores the enormous impact of medical discourse and imaging technologies on the formation, representation and reception of twentieth-century architecture. It challenges the normal understanding of modern architecture by proposing that it was shaped by the dominant medical obsession of its time: tuberculosis and its primary diagnostic tool, the X-ray.

Modern architecture and the X-ray were born around the same time and evolved in parallel. While the X-ray exposed the inside of the body to the public eye, the modern building unveiled its interior, dramatically inverting the relationship between private and public. Architects presented their buildings as a kind of medical instrument for protecting and enhancing the body and psyche.

Beatriz Colomina traces the psychopathologies of twentieth-century architecture—from the trauma of tuberculosis to more recent disorders such as burn-out syndrome and ADHD—and the huge transformations of privacy and publicity instigated by diagnostic tools from X-Rays to MRIs and beyond. She suggests that if we want to talk about the state of architecture today, we should look to the dominant obsessions with illness and the latest techniques of imaging the body—and ask what effects they have on the way we conceive architecture.

Beatriz Colomina is an architecture theorist, historian, curator, and professor at the Princeton University School of Architecture. One of her research focuses are sexual fantasies in association with architecture.

#books #lgtbi #art #culture | Art & Queer Culture

Art & Queer Culture / Catherine Lord, Richard Meyer.
London: Phaidon, 2019 [04-03] / 2nd ed. rev. and updated.
304 p. : il.
ISBN 9780714878348 / 35 €
/ EN / ENS
/ Activismo / Arte / Cultura gay / Disidencia sexual / LGTBI / Memoria colectiva / Queer

An unprecedented survey of over 250 works over 130 years of queer art history. ‘Art and Queer Culture’ features work by famous artists such as Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe alongside that of AIDS activists, lesbian separatists, and pre-Stonewall photographers and scrapbook-keepers who did not regard themselves as artists at all. In a compact, reader-friendly format, this volume traces a spectacular history of queer life and creativity in the modern age. It traces the rich visual legacy of art's relationship to Queer culture, from the emergence of homosexuality as an identity in the late nineteenth century to the pioneering 'genderqueers' of the early twenty first.

It features admired artists such as Francis Bacon, Catherine Opie, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, as well as lesser known but important figures including Vaginal Davis, Celeste Dupuy Spencer, and Lola Flash. It also includes two authoritative essays and insightful and revelatory extended captions. Beautifully illustrated and clearly written, this new edition has been updated to include the art and visual culture that has emerged since the publication of its acclaimed first edition in 2013. A group of new contributors - themselves gay, lesbian, queer and trans - join the primary authors in emphasizing the global sweep of queer contemporary art and the newfound visibility of gender non-conforming artists.

Catherine Lord is professor of studio art at the University of California, Irvine. Richard Meyer is Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor in Art History at Stanford University.

#hemeroteca #lgtbi #universidades | Temple becomes first Philadelphia university to display Progress Pride flag

Imagen: Temple Now / Jason Levy muestra la bandera Progress Pride

Temple becomes first Philadelphia university to display Progress Pride flag.
The Progress Pride flag, now on display in the Howard Gittis Student Center atrium, updates the traditional LGBTQ rainbow flag to include colors representing additional communities.
Morgan Zalot | Temple Now, 2019-01-22
https://news.temple.edu/news/2019-01-22/temple-becomes-first-philadelphia-university-display-progress-pride-flag

Continuing its leadership in diversity and inclusion, Temple in January became the first Philadelphia college or university to display a Progress Pride flag on campus.

The flag, designed by Portland, Oregon-based artist Daniel Quasar and funded via an ongoing Kickstarter campaign, updates the traditional six-stripe rainbow LGBTQ flag, adding five pointed stripes to the hoist of the flag: three representing trans individuals and two representing marginalized people of color and individuals living with AIDS or facing other stigmas.

On Jan. 18, the new flag was installed on a column in the atrium at the Howard Gittis Student Center. Flags are a familiar sight in the atrium, with numerous international flags already displayed there. The international flags, which are rotated annually, have recently been updated, and 14 new flags were added, bringing the number of countries represented from 49 to 63.

“We are an inclusive university, and we try to do a better job every year to be inclusive,” said Jason Levy, senior director of Student Center operations and conferences. “The most important thing for us is for people to feel like they have a place in the Student Center. We want everyone who comes in to feel they’re a part of something special.”

The installation of the Progress Pride flag came as a result of joint efforts among Levy’s team, the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership (IDEAL), the Queer Student Union (QSU), and Temple Student Government (TSG). Temple is the first Philadelphia-area college or university to display the flag.

“As an organization, it is our job to represent the student body,” said TSG Director of Communications Hailey McCormack, a junior early childhood education major. “By adding the Progress Pride flag, it is a small step in the right direction in making sure that we as a university are recognizing the needs of students who identify in the LGBTQ+ community.”

Nu’Rodney Prad, director of student engagement for IDEAL, said beyond inclusivity, the hope is that the flag will help to spark important conversations around diversity and further educate people who may be unaware of its meaning. A description card was installed along with the flag.

“It’s always good to be the institution that creates best practices as it pertains to this area. It’s important as leaders within a city and an urban environment that we promote and check in with communities that are marginalized to show and demonstrate that there is support here,” Prad said. “It’s important for us to be a role model in having difficult conversations and dialogues to support others.”

#books #homosexuality #biography | All That Heaven Allows : A Biography of Rock Hudson

All That Heaven Allows : A Biography of Rock Hudson / Mark Griffin.
New York : Harper, 2018 [12-04].
496 p.
ISBN 9780062408853
/ EN / BIO
/ Cine / Estados Unidos / Historia – Siglo XX / Hollywood / Homofobia / Homosexualidad / Interpretación / Rock Hudson / Testimonios / VIH-Sida

The definitive biography of the deeply complex and widely misunderstood matinee idol of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Devastatingly handsome, broad-shouldered and clean-cut, Rock Hudson was the ultimate movie star. The embodiment of romantic masculinity in American film throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, Hudson reigned supreme as the king of Hollywood.

As an Oscar-nominated leading man, Hudson won acclaim for his performances in glossy melodramas (‘Magnificent Obsession’), western epics (‘Giant’) and blockbuster bedroom farces (‘Pillow Talk’). In the ‘70s and ‘80s, Hudson successfully transitioned to television; his long-running series ‘McMillan & Wife’ and a recurring role on ‘Dynasty’ introduced him to a whole new generation of fans.

The icon worshipped by moviegoers and beloved by his colleagues appeared to have it all. Yet beneath the suave and commanding star persona, there was an insecure, deeply conflicted, and all too vulnerable human being. Growing up poor in Winnetka, Illinois, Hudson was abandoned by his biological father, abused by an alcoholic stepfather, and controlled by his domineering mother.

Despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Hudson was determined to become an actor at all costs. After signing with the powerful but predatory agent Henry Willson, the young hopeful was transformed from a clumsy, tongue-tied truck driver into Universal Studio’s resident Adonis. In a more conservative era, Hudson’s wholesome, straight arrow screen image was at odds with his closeted homosexuality.

As a result of his gay relationships and clandestine affairs, Hudson was continually threatened with public exposure, not only by scandal sheets like ‘Confidential’ but by a number of his own partners. For years, Hudson dodged questions concerning his private life, but in 1985 the public learned that the actor was battling AIDS. The disclosure that such a revered public figure had contracted the illness focused worldwide attention on the epidemic.

Drawing on more than 100 interviews with co-stars, family members and former companions, ‘All That Heaven Allows’ finally delivers a complete and nuanced portrait of one of the most fascinating stars in cinema history.

Author Mark Griffin provides new details concerning Hudson’s troubled relationships with wife Phyllis Gates and boyfriend Marc Christian. And here, for the first time, is an in-depth exploration of Hudson’s classic films, including ‘Written on the Wind, A Farewell to Arms’, and the cult favorite ‘Seconds’. With unprecedented access to private journals, personal correspondence, and production files, Griffin pays homage to the idol whose life and death had a lasting impact on American culture.

#newspaper #homophobia | Don’t Drop the Soap — the game that makes racism, homophobia and prison rape FUN!

Image: Medium

Don’t Drop the Soap — the game that makes racism, homophobia and prison rape FUN!
Owen Duffy | Medium, 2018-11-24
https://medium.com/@owen_duffy/in-october-this-year-i-went-to-the-annual-internationale-spieltage-game-fair-in-essen-germany-b39ff44b666

In October this year, I went to the annual Internationale Spieltage game fair in Essen, Germany. More commonly known as Spiel, it’s the biggest, most important event in the board gaming industry.

This was my third time in attendance, and each time I go I’m stuck by the diversity of the crowd. Over the years I’ve played games with students, families and pensioners. I’ve met fellow gamers from Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. I’ve sat in hotel bars rolling dice and shuffling cards into the early hours with people of all backgrounds and from all walks of life, united by a common appreciation for cardboard fun.

It’s encouraging to see the analogue gaming community becoming more diverse, and the trend is being reflected in the gaming industry, where publishers are largely moving on from the kind of sexist chainmail-bikini artwork that characterised the hobby in past decades. These days you’re more likely to find minority ethnic characters, same-sex relationships and respectful depictions of indigenous cultures in games, and creators are increasingly realising that if the industry is to continue to grow, it needs to better represent its customers.

That’s why it’s so jarring to come across games that go in the opposite direction. And at this year’s Spiel, I encountered the most racist, homophobic, hateful product I’ve ever seen in the hobby.

‘Don’t Drop the Soap’ bills itself as a funny and fast-paced card game. In reality, it’s all about prison rape. To win, you’ll aim to get rid of your cards and avoid being left with only the “soap” one in your hand. As the game makes clear, though, there are really no winners, only “one loser.”

Mechanically, it looks pretty uninspired, but gameplay clearly isn’t its selling point. It promotes itself entirely on its theme of sexual assault. And before we even start to explore its abject stupidity, it’s worth looking at the underlying concept of prison shower rape humour.

When democratic societies send people to prison, it’s because they’ve done something wrong — in theory, at least. Someone commits a crime, causes harm to someone else, and they’re sentenced to a period of incarceration. But nowhere in the civilised world is the threat of sexual violence considered part of that sentence.

Why, then, are so many people willing to treat it so light-heartedly? Or even to argue that it’s a deserved and appropriate consequence of committing a crime? Whenever a particularly high-profile offender or public figure goes to jail, it doesn’t take long for Twitter to fill up with comments like: “Hope your cellmate takes a liking to you!” Regardless of someone’s actions, they still have agency over their own body, and where people are at increased risk of sexual assault, society has a duty to protect them.

It’s not just in its choice of subject matter that ‘Don’t Drop the Soap’ falls down, though. It also comes with some stunningly bigoted artwork.

Among the most blatant is the “Prison Bitch” card, which shows a small, scared-looking inmate about to be raped by a much larger man. The victim is white, the perpetrator is black, and as depictions of black people go, this is like something from a piece of far-right propaganda: a hulking, menacing predator with jutting, crooked teeth. They couldn’t have been more blatant if they’d put him in a gorilla suit.

The idea of black men being innately disposed towards sex crimes is nothing new. It’s one of the most vicious and destructive lies spread by white supremacists. It was behind countless lynchings in the American south, and it’s an attitude that’s still far too prevalent today. Making it the premise of a jolly five-minute card game is at best ignorant and irresponsible. At worst, it’s a calculated act of racial hatred.

Then there’s the game’s deep-seated homophobia. Prison rape humour rests on the assumption that men who are sexually assaulted by men suffer a loss of dignity. But that’s just the foundation of the game’s hateful attitude to gay and bi men.

At Spiel, its publishers had a banner promoting their stall. It showed a stereotypically effeminate man in a shower, pouting and presenting his buttocks. The message was clear: he wanted to be sexually assaulted, and he was making himself available.

The idea that gay and bi men are always receptive to sexual advances is incredibly harmful. It’s the same-sex equivalent of a man who rapes a woman arguing: “She wanted it, really.” It implies that we can’t be victims, we can’t be survivors, and it trivialises male-on-male sexual violence.

As the final cherry on the turd, the game’s “soap” card — the one you don’t want to be caught with in your hand — comes with a rainbow flag background. The flag is an internationally recognised symbol of pride, solidarity and respect. It stands against hatred, violence and discrimination against the LGBT community. This game attacks everything it represents, and appropriating it in this way is un-fucking-forgivable.

‘Don’t Drop the Soap’ isn’t just crude or offensive, it actively furthers dangerous attitudes and stereotypes. It demeans and belittles rape survivors, and it sneers at gay and bisexual men. There’s some small consolation in the fact that its audience isn’t likely to be very big, but its inclusion at Spiel raises some questions about what kind of event the organisers are running, and what kind of audiences they’re trying to cater to. I wouldn’t argue for a second that the game should be banned from production or sale. But should it be accorded a platform at the industry’s most important event?

Its designer, Martin Bruun Pedersen, argues that it’s just a game, it shouldn’t be taken seriously, and it’s an expression of the kind of dark humour that he enjoys. In reality, ‘Don’t Drop the Soap’ is a cheap attempt to sell an unimaginative and flimsy game design using juvenile shock value. In doing so, it promotes and perpetuates racism and homophobia, either intentionally or through breathtaking thoughtlessness. So Martin, I sincerely hope you and your publisher go broke.

#books #crossdressing | Soldier Studies : Cross-Dressing in der Wehrmacht

Soldier Studies : Cross-Dressing in der Wehrmacht / ed. Martin Dammann ; text(s) by Martin Dammann, Harald Welzer.
Berlin : Hatje Cantz, 2018 [10-29].
128 p. : il.
ISBN 9783775744836
/ DE / EN / ENS
/ Cross-dressing / Drag queen / Ejércitos / Fotografía / Historia – Siglo XX / Nazismo / Segunda Guerra Mundial / Transformismo / Travestismo

The artist and collector Martin Dammann has studied war photography, the impact of images, and how history is written. During his research, he came across many amateur photographs of soldiers in the German army who dressed as women—scenes that directly contradicted Nazi ideology. Dammann’s discoveries are now being presented for discussion in his critical book, which features pictures that provide surprising insights into the longings and everyday lives of German soldiers in World War II: from playful scenes of young recruits clowning around, to improvised disguises among close friends at the front, to carefully prepared performances in Allied POW camps. Essays by Martin Dammann and the renowned sociologist and author Harald Welzer examine the multiple facets of the pictures.