pgn Philadelphia Gay News LGBT NEWS SINCE 1976
Vol. 41 No. 2
Jan. 13-19, 2017
HONESTY • INTEGRITY • PROFESSIONALISM
Welcome to Philadelphia, Creating Change attendees!
Trans women targeted in robberies Police are looking into a possible link between two robberies of trans women. In one, the victim’s friend was fatally shot. By Jeremy Rodriguez jeremy@epgn.com
HEALTHY IN HARRISBURG: Pennsylvania Physician General Dr. Rachel Levine kicked off Pennsylvania Teen Health Week Monday at the State Capitol in Harrisburg. Levine, the highest-ranking out transgender official in Pennsylvania, met with teens in The College of Physicians of Philadelphia’s internship program, which is geared town youth interested in careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The College will wrap up the week with a closing celebration from 4-6 p.m. Jan. 13 at Mütter Museum. Teens are admitted for free, and adults get free admission if they wear lime green, the color of Teen Health Week. Photo: Courtesy of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Transgender women were attacked earlier this week in two separate incidents. While Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson Lt. John Stanford said it is unclear whether the same suspect carried out both attacks, the description for the suspect in both incidents was similar. The individual was described as a black man in his 20s with a medium build. He carried a handgun in both incidents, with the weapon being described as a black semi-automatic handgun in the first. The earlier incident occurred Jan. 8 after the robber allegedly responded to a woman’s personal ad on classifieds-advertising website Backpage. According to Stanford, the suspect knocked on the door of a home in the Kingsessing area and asked to speak with the woman. He then stole $500 in cash from one woman and a cell phone from another woman in the residence. A third woman was also in the residence but did not have anything stolen. All three women were transgender, Stanford said. The suspect began to flee on foot and fired a shot
once after one of the victims attempted to follow him, Stanford said. A separate incident occurred the following night, with 19th District officers responding to a shooting on the 5400 block of Girard Avenue. Stanford said in that case, a transgender woman placed an ad on Backpage and later allowed a man to enter her home. He attempted to rob the woman, at which time her friend, identified by Philly.com as 32-year-old Barry Jones, intervened and was shot. After shooting Jones, the suspect allegedly robbed the woman of cash and her cell phone. Jones was pronounced dead at 10:46 p.m. at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center on Monday. Philadelphia Director of LGBT Affairs Nellie Fitzpatrick said the public needs to “work to increase employment, health care, housing and other opportunities for trans-identified people.” “This culminates all of the discrimination, all of the hate — all of the bias culminates to place these women in places of heightened vulnerability and danger,” she said. “Right now, we see it happening in their own homes.” Anyone with information about these incidents are encouraged to call 215-686-TIPS. n
Day after inauguration, Trump to be ‘on everyone’s mind’ at Creating Change nary speaker, the Rev. Dr. William Barber, dedicated to 21 day-long “institutes,” givBy Jen Colletta women and allies to whose Thursday-night address is titled “The ing attendees the chance to delve deeply jen@epgn.com Prophetic Post-Election Call to Action.” into issues. march in Philly The looming presidential inauguration Barber, who delivered a fiery speech at Wednesday features the Racial Justice By Jeremy Rodriguez jeremy@epgn.com When Mariel Martin heard the presidential election results, she said the first thing she thought was, Are you f***ing kidding me? “I felt like our democracy failed us,” Martin said. The 31-year-old bisexual said it seemed like all of her identities were under fire after she heard Donald Trump would become the nation’s next president Jan. 20. “Being a Jewish minority and being a part of the LGBTQ community, I just felt like so much of what I am, who I am and how I identify [was being attacked],” Martin said. “It’s almost as if it PAGE 22 doesn’t matter that I’m
is expected to play a significant role at the largest annual gathering of LGBT-rights activists. More than 3,500 people are anticipated to participate in National LGBTQ Task Force’s 29th Creating Change Conference Jan. 18-22 at Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. Hundreds of workshops, panel discussions and comprehensive, interactive sessions will address the ongoing evolution of LGBT rights. Donald Trump will be inaugurated as president in the midst of the conference, a development that conference director Sue Hyde said will factor heavily into the discussion. “I expect a lot of the conversations, especially the strategy conversations, will be focused on the new context that we are entering into,” Hyde said. “I think it will come up in almost every session, one way or another.” That theme will kick off with opening-ple-
the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this past summer, is a minster in North Carolina, whose anti-LGBT-rights ordinance he vigorously campaigned against. Friday’s plenary features a conversation with entertainer Todrick Hall, Black AIDS Institute CEO Phill Wilson, George Washington University’s Dr. Richard Elion and blogger Ken Williams on the impact of HIV/AIDS on communities of color. A concurrent plenary features remarks by Task Force staff on the state of the LGBT movement. Instead of a sit-down plenary Saturday, organizers are encouraging participants to join the official Creating Change contingent at the Women’s March on Philadelphia to “fight back against Trumpism.” The closing plenary will include brunch with “Glee” star Alex Newell and the presentation of a series of awards. The first half of the conference will be
Institute, with group discussion followed by separate sessions for new and return people of color and white participants. Hyde expects up to 900 to participate. Thursday’s institutes feature conversations on student resources, Asian-American and Pacific-Islander and Latinx activism, faith communities, HIV/AIDS, aging and more. Attendees can choose from hundreds of workshop sessions the rest of the conference. Hyde said the conference programming closely matches the themes Task Force aims to address in its work. “When we sent out our requests for proposals, we intentionally and specifically used our own policy priorities as a kind of template for the topic areas we wanted to highlight: criminal justice, disability justice, economic justice, gender justice inclusive of transgender people, immigration justice, faith organizing, racial PAGE 24