Members of the transgender community experience higher rates of homelessness, food insecurity, healthcare issues, and violence than cisgender people, according to a study published in the Harvard Public Health Review.
“What struck me the most was the amount of financial burden that folks have is food insecurity and violence exposure,” said Ashley Mayfaire, co-founder of TransSOCIAL, who authored the study.
TransSOCIAL is a South Florida based non-profit that offers services and resources to the trans community, including name changes, support groups, and gender marker assistance.
Mayfaire said that the goal of the study was to demonstrate that “trans-led organizations and trans expertise exists and can produce very comprehensive reports on their own community.”
Data from the TransSOCIAL study shows that 60% of participants have reported violence due to their gender. A study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law concurs, stating that, “transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault, and aggravated or simple assault.”
Mayfaire hopes to create more affordable housing for trans individuals and to offer employment support so they can afford housing and food.
“I just wanted people to sit with that a little bit and realize that all of this is adding up to
real, violent experiences in trans people’s lives,” Mayfaire said.
According to the American Psychological Association, “[a] study of transgender adults in the United States found that participants were nearly 4 times more likely to have a household income of less than $10,000 per year compared to the general population.”
“Transgender adults were three times as likely as cisgender people to experience food insecurity this year, according to new data analyzed by the Williams Institute at UCLA,” reports the Washington Post. The data, collected in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, showed that more than a quarter of trans adults in the U.S. report some sort of food insecurity, compared to just 8% of cisgender adults.
One important resource the trans
community needs adequate access to is the healthcare community. Transitioning and maintaining health requires a lot of assistance from doctors and therapists. Yet according to TransSOCIAL’s research, only 27% of the trans community has health insurance.
Twenty-one percent of the trans community does not have access to a primary care physician, and 29% does not have access to mental health resources.
Mayfaire mentioned that follow-up data will be released in the next year to determine how trans people are handling their situation and the impact TransSOCIAL has made on their lives. She also says they will be releasing data from people who have never engaged in their services, as the recently published report includes responses from current and future clients of TransSOCIAL.
September 29, 2022
Volume 13
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Jessica Abramsky Photo via Adobe Stock. Associated Press SFGN COVER: From left to right, Misty Eyez Alicea, photo by Graciela Valdes, Chris Caputo, photo via Facebook, Terry Dyer, photo courtesy of Terry Dyer, Glen Weinzimer, photo by Tony Adams, Julian Cavazos, SFGN file photo, and Tony Lima, photo courtesy of SunServe.
The Human Rights Campaign has named Kelley Robinson as its new president.
Robinson has a background with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, where she has been executive director since 2019. She is HRC’s ninth president and the first Black queer woman to lead the group.
“I am just honored, humbled, and feel I’m so ready,” Robinson said in an interview with The Advocate.
She will begin the job on Nov. 28 and gave praise to the organization.
BY KENNEDY MCKINNEY
“Saturday Night Live” announced that Molly Kearney is joining the show, making them the first nonbinary cast member.
This is the 48th season of the show.
Kearney has been in Comedy Central’s “Up Next” showcase, Prime Video’s “A League of Their Own,” and Disney+’s “The Mighty Ducks.”
They are originally from Cleveland and use they/them pronouns.
“This will be a transition year, and the change years are always difficult but also really exciting because there’s new people and things are changing, and a different generation comes into the show,” creator and showrunner Lorne Michaels said in the Emmys press room.
Kearney will be joined by three other new cast members: Marcelo Hernandez, Michael
that is as inclusive as the people we’re
The Trevor Project named Grammynominated singer-songwriter, actor, and author Janelle Monáe as this year’s Suicide Prevention Advocate of the year. This award recognizes influential public figures in the LGBT community.
The award marks September’s National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and further brings awareness to the Trevor Project’s mission to end suicide among the LGBT youth.
“Monáe has consistently raised the voices and experiences of marginalized communities,” the Trevor Project said in its announcement.
Monáe came out as pansexual in April and has openly and proudly discussed their sexual orientation and gender identity.
“Growing up queer and Black in a religious household, I faced a lot of challenges trying to understand my identity and where I fit in as someone
who always felt beyond the binary. We, as LGBTQ folks, as people of color, are a powerful and unstoppable community. I want every young queer person out there to know that I see you, you are beautiful in all of your forms, and you are never, ever alone in this world,” said Monáe when they accepted the award.
Photo by Myles Kalus Anak Jihem, via Wikimedia Commons.
From your life... into our pages! SFGN takes a weekly look at a community that has stood together through countless trials and victories in the past year alone.
OF THESNAPSHOT
Photo by J.R. Davis
Chris Isaak with fellow server at DrYnk Bar and Lounge Nick Gal at the grand opening of Peak Fitness.
Russia is proposing tripling fines for exposing youngsters to what it considers “LGBT propaganda” and making any event or act that is perceived as supporting homosexuality an administrative infraction.
The 2013 “gay propaganda” law in Russia prohibits anybody from endorsing homosexual relationships among youngsters, but MPs argued in July that the measure ought to be expanded to cover adults as well.
According to Reuters, the new law would raise the fine for organizations that encourage “non-traditional sexual interactions” with youngsters to 2 million roubles ($33,000), with the maximum fine rising to 5 million roubles if the offense occurs online or in the media.
People who disseminate “LGBT
propaganda” could be punished up to 400,000 roubles, and foreigners who did so would be expelled from Russia.
Gay and bisexual men are disproportionately affected by monkeypox infections, according to groups of men from the LGBT community in Latin America who are preparing a statement to the authorities. They will argue that not enough has been done to prevent the disease while infections are rising overall.
Leaders of several LGBT organizations resolved to draft the Mexico Declaration on Monkeypox during the Conference on Health, Human Rights, and Care for Gay Men in Latin America and the Caribbean, with assistance from UNAIDS and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
According to a statement from Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF) and Vallart Daily, a nonprofit organization that provides medications to people living
with or affected by HIV/AIDS, the issue the community is facing is that “most governments are not implementing forceful actions to prevent [monkeypox], diagnose it in a timely manner, notify the public, stop it, and provide information.”
Following a last-minute statement by the country’s prime minister, Ana Brnabić, that the march might proceed despite an earlier prohibition, thousands of individuals participated in Serbia EuroPride.
In the Serbian city of Belgrade, where the march took place, Brnabić promised that the pan-European LGBT event will be safeguarded by police.
Threats from far-right and anti-LGBT organizations and a previous ban by the Serbian Interior Minister, who forbade the march citing “security concerns,” heightened tensions in the lead-up to Serbia EuroPride.
According to Euronews, despite multiple attempts to cause problems by anti-Pride
activists, the march went on without any serious disturbances.
EXPLORING LGBT NEWS EVENTS ACROSS THE GLOBE 9.29.2022 • 7 NEWS INTERNATIONAL BY EVERITT ROSEN Photo Photo via BelgradePride - EuroPride 2022/Facebook.Shevrin Jones is fired up. Florida’s first and, as of now, only LGBT state senator came to the Pride Center on Sept. 23 for a town hall meeting. He talked about activism, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ tyranny, and how a just a handful of votes in November’s election can make a difference between Democrats having a prominent seat at the table and becoming an absolutely powerless minority party in Tallahassee.
“We’re in a time when people aren’t just hurting, they’re scared and they’re looking for individuals who will stand up for our issues,” Jones told SFGN after the forum.
He laid out in bare-bones, easy to understand numbers how close Democrats are to power and powerlessness. He pointed out four purple state Senate districts that the party can flip, which would give them a chance to have real influence in the next legislative session. Conversely, if Republicans get a net-gain of just one seat, they’ll have a supermajority and Democrats will be
There are going to be plenty of new faces on the Fort Lauderdale City Commission come November. Three spots are up for grabs during the upcoming general election. Back in April, Commissioner Heather Moraitis announced that she would be resigning from her post in November; while she was not specific about her next steps, she did say that she wanted to return her primary focus to education. Vice Mayor Ben Sorenson’s term will be ending, as he made an unsuccessful run for Florida Congress in August. During the same midterm election, Commissioner Robert McKinzie won a spot on the Broward County Board of County Commissioners, beating out Bobby DuBose and Aude M.L. Sicard.
powerless to check legislation.
With mail-in ballots starting to arrive this week, Jones and his team are working to focus on issues that may not get a lot of discussion but could bring out small pockets of voters. While the Dobbs decision overturning a woman’s right to choose has motivated large swaths of voters in both parties, there are other kitchen table issues that need to be addressed.
John Hayden
Shevrin Jones. Photo via Facebook.
Photo via Adobe Stock.
Most analysts agree, Broward County Commissioner Jared Moskowitz is the odds-on favorite to win U.S. House District 23.
Moskowitz, 41, is running for the seat being vacated by seven-term Congressman Ted Deutch. It’s a district that leans Democrat and includes coastal communities from Fort Lauderdale to Boca Raton – home to a large population of queer folks of all stripes.
So how will Moskowitz, a clean-cut, heterosexual, married father of two boys, respond to the needs of his LGBT constituents?
“Jared is more than just my closest friend, he’s an accomplice to the LGBTQ community,” said Sen. Shevrin Jones. “Not only will he walk the walk for us, but I know he will get in the paint with us, that’s just who he is, a hands-on leader.”
The recent brouhaha over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law – aka “Don’t Say Gay” – is a case in point.
“The policy that came out singled out only the gay community,” Moskowitz said. “I think
most parents would agree that we don’t want any kind of sexual conversation with our little children in school. Any kind. That is reserved for parents. But to single out only part of that conversation and say this is the part we don’t want, that is where the divisiveness comes into this issue that didn’t need to exist.”
Dubbed the “Master of Disaster,” Moskowitz implemented pandemic programs that included supplying masks and gowns to hospitals, setting up testing sites in tents and pharmacies and going into homes of the immunocompromised and Holocaust survivors to get vaccine shots into arms.
SFGN just launched a new digital newsletter delivered to inboxes on Mondays.
This weekly newsletter will give readers all the biggest LGBT stories for the week from SFGN in five minutes or less.
“We understand not everyone has the time to look at our daily e-blast, we wanted to develop an option for those readers who still want to be kept informed, but their time may be limited. So we’re excited to introduce The Scoop!”
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Photo courtesy of Jared Moskowitz.
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Chief Justice John Roberts and conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh voted with the U.S. Supreme Court’s three liberal-leaning justices Sept. 14 to reject a request that would have undermined a New York City law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations.
While marking a temporary victory for civil rights for LGBT people, the 5 to 4 vote is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of whether the Supreme Court is inclined to allow entities to evade public accommodation laws by claiming a religious motive to discriminate. That question will likely be resolved by another case, 303 Creative v. Elenis, which has already been accepted for argument before the Supreme Court in the coming 2022-23 session.
The Supreme Court vote this month came in response to an emergency request from Yeshiva University, asking the Supreme Court to issue a temporary stay on a New York State trial court decision — the first stage of litigation, in which the Supreme Court seldom gets involved.
The trial court issued a “non-final order” June 14 that the university’s loose association with Judaism did not qualify it as a religious institution that is already exempt from the law. The trial court then held that the university did violate the non-discrimination
law when it refused to allow a student LGBT group to meet on campus.
Yeshiva University first said it would appeal the state trial court decision to the next level of state court; but, last month, it abruptly filed an emergency motion with the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who handles such requests for New York, referred the matter to the full court. The majority did not issue an opinion with its order; it simply indicated the university still had “at least two further avenues for expedited or interim state court relief.” So, for now, the discrimination law prevails and Roberts and Kavanaugh were on the LGBT side of that.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote a dissent from the majority’s order, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. The dissent relies on the university’s claim that it is a religious institution, even though it is incorporated as an educational institution and “has no religious rules of governance or stated religious affiliation in its corporate charter,” according to attorneys for the student group. Rather than focus on the issue of whether a student group should have access, the dissent claims that the case is about whether the law can “force a Jewish school to instruct its students in accordance with an interpretation of Torah that the school” disagrees with.
Lisa Keen Photo via Adobe Stock.On Sunday, nearly two-thirds of Cuban voters approved a referendum to legalize same-sex marriage and adoption.
“Isn’t it crazy that Cuba now has more rights for LGBTQ people than we might have in the state of Florida?” Perez asked.
An owner of a healthcare company and daughter of Cuban exiles, Perez is campaigning for the Florida Senate in MiamiDade’s District 38. If elected, she would become the first gay parent to serve in the state’s upper chamber. The married mother of two young daughters is extra motivated by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ culture wars.
“I cannot think of a better way to stick it to Ron DeSantis than by electing the first LGBTQ parent to the Florida legislature after the atrocious year we just had,” Perez said.
Perez’s race is also a revenge story for Democrats. Republican Ileana Garcia won
Florida Senate District 38 stretches from Key Biscayne to the Homestead Air Reserve Base, taking in parts of Kendall and Coral Gables. Affordability, Perez said, is the No. 1 issue for voters.
“Miami has become incredibly unaffordable,” Perez said. “Voters have a choice in this district – are they going to stick with the same rhetoric and same party that created this problem or are they going to send someone to Tallahassee that has experience in solving problems and I am that person.”
the 2020 election by just 34 votes, but the victory was tainted by a ghost candidate scheme that led to criminal charges against disgraced ex-Senator Frank Artiles
Photo courtesy of Janelle Perez Campaign.
Now in its fourth season, the Fruitbowl podcast blows the lid off of sexuality — the podcast is subtitled An Oral History of Queer Sex. Topics covered include body positivity, cruising, polyamory, coming out and the lack of queer education in schools, among many other subjects.
The format of the show is simple. Creator Dave Quantic interviews an LGBT person about the history of their sex life and their approach to sexuality. The the listener hears only the interviewee, who talks for about an hour. Interview subjects come from across the LGBT spectrum, including gay men, lesbians, trans and nonbinary people, white people and people of color. Quantic, who is based in Seattle, travels all over the country to conduct these interviews.
Quantic told SFGN that the seed for Fruitbowl was planted in 2018, when he made a short documentary for the Hump! Film Festival, which is a porn-oriented short film festival that The Stranger, a local paper in Seattle, puts on each year.
The film won the Jury Award at Hump! that year.
After that Quantic began to interview more people, mostly people he did not know, enlarging the list of questions that he asked, forming a 20-question interview that
has been consistent from that point on. He produced more podcast episodes, filming each interview with the intent of eventually making a docu-series or a feature length documentary about queer sex.
“It’s not just about sex and what people’s preferences are in the bedroom,” Quantic said. “A lot of it is about the coming-of-age years, and the formative moments that we all share as we discover our queer identities. A lot of the stories are ones that we never get to share with people in a meaningful way because when we were experiencing that part of our lives we were usually doing it all by ourselves. I find that a lot of people are very hungry to share that story because they probably went through quite a lot to get to where they were comfortable coming out and they just want to describe that part of their lives.”
Quantic reports that he’s only gotten positive feedback from listeners, who find it deeply meaningful and moving to hear other people’s stories. He’s gotten a lot of notes from people who’ve come out late in life, even people who have been in heterosexual relationships. Many of them find peace and recognition in hearing other people’s stories and hearing about how other people came out.
David-Elijah Nahmod Creator of Fruitbowl, Dave Quantic. Photo via Facebook.954-928-0410
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Welcome to SFGN’s Best Of 2022. The finalists have been chosen and voting is underway. Check out this year’s nominees for Best Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. Congrats to the finalists! Make sure you cast your vote.
1245 N. Federal 954-390-0770
jmarksrestaurant.com
J. Mark’s comfortable and relaxing atmosphere has been popular with locals since 2007. It has a warm, clubby dining room, large bar area and an expansive, covered patio. The menu ranges from sandwiches and salads to steaks and fresh seafood. It offers a wide variety of bottled and draft beers, an extensive and reasonably priced wine list, and, of course, cocktails.
3300 E. Commercial 954-772-2209 kaluzrestaurant.com
Upscale, New American cuisine overlooking the intracoastal with views from the elegant dining room and the casual patio and bar.
The display kitchen features a wood-burning grill. The menu includes a wide variety of appetizers, salads, sandwiches, flatbreads and wood-fire grilled steaks and seafood. The wine list has more than 130 selections with 30 wines by the glass, and the service is polished and efficient.
2415 N. Federal 954-563-9077 jalexanders.com
A national chain of contemporary American restaurants, known for its wood-fired cuisine. The menu features classic entrées including prime rib of beef, steaks, fresh seafood, sandwiches, and salads. The menu in each restaurant includes a varied and rotating selection of local specialties. A full-service bar offers an outstanding selection of wines both by the glass and bottle.
1800 E. Sunrise 954-524-1800 ilmulinofl.com
With recipes made in-house that date back three generations, Il Mulino has become Fort Lauderdale’s go-to classic Italian restaurant. If you’re looking for a glass of fine wine, a light meal, or a classic Italian dish, this comfortable yet intimate restaurant fits the bill.
1032 E. Las Olas
954-356-6699
louiebossi.com
The retro-Italian spot fills a 10,000 sq. ft. restaurant with both indoor and sidewalk seating, but the real gem is the garden-like piazza out back. The menu is inspired by Italian American neighborhood restaurants in New York and Chicago, albeit on steroids. This is not a quiet, relaxing spot; it’s always a bit crowded and frenetic, and service can be harried. However, the food is to die for!
Visit SFGN.com/BestOf to cast your vote. Deadline is October 12.
Grieco Ford is this year’s presenting sponsor of the contest.
Rick Karlin
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cleaning elevators, foyers, walkways, clubhouse, and pool area. May also
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