Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Israel through Oct. 9. Meta also removed this article from Lavers’s Facebook pages shortly after he published it.

Two LGBTQ Palestinians who spoke with the Washington Blade last week condemned Hamas’s surprise attack against southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They also expressed condemnation of the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli government’s policies towards the Palestinians.

Zaheer Subeaux is a queer Palestinian producer, DJ, emcee, and community organizer who lives in California. He is originally from Deir Dibwan, a small city on the West Bank that is a couple miles east of Ramallah, the Palestinian capital.

“Nothing justifies Oct. 7,” Subeaux told the Blade during a Sept. 30 telephone interview. He added the “international community, I think specifically the United States, has this perception that Oct. 7 is this new thing.”

“There’s a very short-lived memory for the American public, and there’s this concept that Palestinians are just creating more trouble,” said Subeaux.

He told the Blade that Jewish settlers before Oct. 7 shot his nephew “just for being on (their) land.” Subeaux said the situation on the West Bank “have been getting worse and worse and worse, and have continued to get worse and worse and worse up until this point, up until October of last year.”

“For a lot of Palestinians who have family back home, this seemed like a proportionate response to an oppressed people,” he said. “For everyone else who’s not paying attention, who allow their tax dollars to continue fund this genocide, for them it’s like, oh, shocking, oh, wow, right out of the blue, because they’re not paying attention to what’s happening.” 

“For the rest of us who actually are, this seemed like a completely reasonable thing for a people to feel during a time like this,” added Subeaux. “I don’t think a lot of people have the context for that.”

Hannah Moushabeck is a queer, second-generation Palestinian American who lives in Massachusetts.

Her family is from West Jerusalem. Moushabeck has relatives in Ramallah and in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, and has friends in Gaza with whom she has “been in daily communication.”

“My immediate reactions on Oct. 7 were obviously horror and fear of what’s to come and the violence that happened that day,” she told the Blade on Sept. 30 during a telephone interview.

Moushabeck said it is “not unusual for Palestinians in the diaspora to experience some of this violence happening in our homeland.”

“This is honestly something that’s been going on since well before I was born,” she said. “So, growing up, whenever my parents seemed upset or, Palestinians were being shown in the news, I knew it was likely because they were being killed or involved with some kind of intense violence.” 

Moushabeck said “a lot of Palestinians kind of had an instinct to go through the motions when Oct. 7 happened.”

“We also recognized that it was really unprecedented, and that the reaction and the revenge that the Israeli government took out on Palestinians would be like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” she added. 

Monday marks a year since Oct. 7.

The Israeli government says militants on that day killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival near Re’im, a kibbutz that is a couple miles from the Gaza border. The Israeli government says the militants also kidnapped more than 200 people on Oct. 7.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed more than 41,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7.

Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for an Oct. 1 attack at a Tel Aviv light rail station that left seven people dead and more than a dozen others injured. A Bedouin man on Sunday killed an Israel Border Police officer and injured 10 others when he attacked a bus station in Beersheva in southern Israel on Sunday.

Reuters on Friday reported the Lebanese Health Ministry said Israeli airstrikes in Beirut and elsewhere in the country over the last two weeks have killed more than 2,000 people. Iran last Tuesday launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in response to an Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese capital on Sept. 27 that killed Hassan Nasrallah, the long-time leader of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group. 

An Israeli airstrike in the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Oct. 3 killed 18 people in a Palestinian refugee camp. 

The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet, the country’s security agency, said the airstrike killed Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, a senior Hamas commander, and 11 other Hamas operatives. The Associated Press reported the airstrike also killed a family of four, including two young children.

The AP cites Palestinian officials who say an Israeli airstrike on a mosque in Deir al-Balah, a town in central Gaza, killed at least 19 people.

The International Criminal Court in May announced it plans to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh. 

Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said the five men have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel. (A suspected Israeli airstrike on July 31 killed Haniyah while he was in the Iranian capital of Tehran to attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration.)

The Montreal-based Queering the Map — a “community generated counter-mapping platform for digitally archiving LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space” — is an “interface to collaboratively record the cartography of queer life.” Several people who have used Queering the Map are from Gaza.

A person who placed their post near Netzarim Junction in central Gaza notes it was the place where they fell in love with someone in 2021, “the last major Israeli bombardment on Gaza.” The person notes their beloved is a student who has left the enclave.

“Israeli occupation bombs may take everyone and everything you ever loved away: Your mom, your home, your memories,” they wrote in on Queering the Map. “I am so sorry the world failed you, that your mom, sister, best friends, everything is lost in this genocide.”

Another person who used Queering the Map posted their message near Beit Hanoun, a city in the northeast corner of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli city of Sderot less than four miles away.

“IDK how long I will live so I just want this to be my memory here before I die,” reads the post. “I am not going to leave my home, come what may.” 

“My biggest regret is not kissing this one guy. He died two days back. We had told (sic) how much we like each other, and I was too shy to kiss last time. He died in the bombing. I think a big part of me died too. And soon I will be dead. To Younus, I will kiss you in heaven.”

The posts do not indicate when their authors wrote them. The Blade on Saturday heard Israeli airstrikes in Gaza while at the Nova Music Festival memorial and in Yad Mordechai, a kibbutz that is roughly three miles north of the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza.

Moushabeck told the Blade she helped raise funds that allowed her friend, his wife, and two children to leave Gaza and relocate to Cairo. Moushabeck also said she receives photos from other friends who remain inside the enclave.

“Seeing things happen in the news, and then getting personal video, not a video, but a personal video from my friend who’s watching the same things unfold; that was really horrifying,” she said. 

“I’m safe, and I have a lot of privileges living in the diaspora, and so I felt it was my responsibility to bear witness to these,” added Moushabeck.

Tarek Zeidan, the former executive director of Helem, a Lebanese LGBTQ rights group, has launched a fundraiser for a group of transgender women who Israeli airstrikes have made homeless. The campaign has raised more than $19,000.

“While it is contradictory to be focusing on any specific community, vulnerable or otherwise, at a time when entire populations in Lebanon and Gaza are being indiscriminately eliminated, the bitter reality is that humanitarian aid and services will not be available to the majority of queer people in need, especially trans* and non-conforming members of our community,” wrote Zeidan in his appeal. 

“Many humanitarian organizations are not capable or even willing to help, and are now even less likely to given that it is a crisis response,” he added. “We learned this hard lesson during the pandemic and in the aftermath of the 2020 Beirut port explosion and since then little has changed.”

Outright International, National LGBTQ Task Force have called for Gaza ceasefire

Outright International and the National LGBTQ Task Force are two of the many LGBTQ organizations in the U.S. and around the world that have called for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

Upwards of 200 people in February marched from Dupont Circle to the Human Rights Campaign and called upon it and other LGBTQ rights groups to “demand an end to the genocide and occupation of Palestine.” No Pride in Genocide, which describes itself as a “coalition of queer and trans Palestinians, Arab, and SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) people, Jews, and allies,” organized the event.

“As a queer Palestinian, my identity has sort of been weaponized against us for what is ostensibly a propaganda campaign by the State of Israel,” Moushabeck told the Blade. “We refer to it as ‘pinkwashing.’ They have pumped millions of dollars into what they call Brand Israel in order to project this idea of a queer utopia, queer haven, which, you know, a lot of Israelis say is not accurate.” 

“Certainly, Palestinians are not being asked their sexuality is before their homes are bombed or their families are killed,” she added.

Moushabeck also criticized HRC.

“We have organizational leaders like the Human Rights Campaign who are taking money from war profiteers like weapons manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, giving social capital to those profiting off of this violence,” she said.

Subeaux echoed Moushabeck.

“Our narrative of survival in the United States and in the West for queer rights is being co-opted to fear monger,” said Subeaux. “I don’t want that to be done on my behalf. I don’t want a genocide to be done on my behalf. I don’t want a genocide to be done on queer people’s behalf.”

CAMBODIA

Cambodia’s first ever LGBTQ community space, Cocoon, opened in the capital of Phnom Penh last month, with an event featuring art, dance, and drag performances.

Cocoon aspires to be a safe queer space for everyone and has planned a series of events including community brunches, movie nights, speed dating, and an introduction to queer ballroom culture. The space will also host a queer artist residency program beginning next year.

“To queer Phnom Penh people who do not have a safe space, this is your Cocoon,” says Cocoon founder Ian Goh. “To queer people visiting Phnom Penh, you now have a place to love and be loved unconditionally.”

While the general human rights situation in Cambodia has faced steady criticism from international observers, there has been progress in recent years on encouraging acceptance of the country’s LGBTQ community. The government has promoted LGBTQ-inclusive schools since 2017, and the nation’s monarch has publicly supported same-sex marriage, although it remains illegal in the southeast Asian nation.

EUROPEAN UNION

The European Court of Justice delivered a pair of rulings important for LGBTQ people this week, requiring all European Union member states to recognize legal gender changes carried out in other member states, and ordering Facebook’s parent company Meta to restrict how it collects data about users’ sexual orientations.

ECJ rulings are binding on all 27 EU member states.

The gender change ruling stemmed from a case where a Romanian transgender man, Arian Mirzarafie-Ahi, obtained a legal gender change after moving to the UK, and wanted his legal gender and name recognized when he later returned to Romania in 2021. 

Romania does not have a clear or simple process for its citizens to change their legal gender and refused to recognize Mirzarafie-Ahi’s UK gender change. Mirzarafie-Ahi filed a claim in Romanian court to have his gender and name change registered, and the national courts referred the matter to the ECJ.

In a preliminary ruling issued on Oct 4, the ECJ found that Romania’s refusal to recognize Mirzarafie-Ahi’s legal gender change was a violation of his mobility rights under the EU treaty.

The court found that EU states must recognize legal gender and name changes that have occurred in another EU member state, and they must issue updated identity documents without requiring any additional legal or medical process. The court found that the fact that the UK is no longer a member of the EU is irrelevant in this case, as Mirzarafie-Ahi had begun her gender change process while the UK was still a member.

The ruling stems from the fundamental right of all EU citizens to reside in any EU member state. The court found that refusing to recognize the legal gender and name of an EU citizen imperils that right, because it could prevent a trans person from residing in a country that does not recognize their identity.

“Today’s verdict has shown us that trans people are equal citizens of the European Union. When you have rebuilt a life in another part of the European Union because you are not welcome in your own country, it is normal to ask to be treated with dignity when interacting with the authorities in your home country,” says Mirzarafe-Ahi’s legal counsel Iustina Ionescu.  

In a similar ruling six years ago, the ECJ ruled that EU members must grant residency rights to the same-sex partners of EU citizens in another case that came out of Romania. However, Romania has yet to implement the ruling and continues to refuse to issue residency permits to same-sex spouses, including to the original complainant.

The ECJ also issued another ruling on Oct 4 restricting the way Facebook’s parent company collects data on users’ sexual orientation.

Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems filed a complaint after he received personalized ads on Facebook directed at gay men. Although Schrems had commented on his sexuality publicly, he objected to Facebook using his information for targeted ads.

The court found that the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation prohibits social media organizations from collection of personal data, including about a person’s sexual orientation, from outside their platforms for use in targeted ads.

GEORGIA

The government’s sweeping anti-LGBTQ bill was signed into law this week by the speaker of parliament, after the president refused to give it her signature.

The draconian law, which has drawn criticism from the opposition and Western allies, imposes some of the strictest restrictions on LGBTQ people in Europe. The law bans recognition of any same-sex relationship, bans LGBTQ people from adopting, bans trans people from marriage, bans all legal or medical gender change, forbids public gatherings and demonstrations for LGBTQ rights, bans positive portrayals of LGBTQ people in schools and the media, and rebrands the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia on May 17 as a holiday for the sanctity of the family.

The law mimics “LGBT propaganda” laws passed in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Hungary, and Bulgaria, and which have been taken up by far-right parties with close ties to Russia across Europe.

It’s the latest anti-democratic and anti-human rights legislation passed by the ruling Georgian Dream Party, which has strained relations with Georgia’s Western allies. Earlier this year, the EU froze accession talks with Georgia after it passed a law curbing opposition activities.

Georgia heads to the polls on Oct. 26.

HONG KONG

Hong Kong’s top court heard the government’s final appeal of a lower court ruling ordering the city to give same-sex couples equal access to public housing last week.

In Hong Kong, families and married couples are given priority access to social housing, and current policy does not recognize same-sex couples, who are barred from living together in the subsidized apartments.

The Court of Final Appeal’s judges did not seem sympathetic to the government’s arguments on Friday, according to the South China Morning Post. After the hearing, the court reserved judgment.

The CFA ruled last year that Hong Kong must provide a legal framework for recognizing same sex couples and gave the city two years to implement it. So far, the city government has not yet proposed a way to implement the ruling.

Hong Kong is formally part of China, but governs itself semi-autonomously, with a separate court and legal system inherited from the British colonial administration that ended in 1997.

CANADA

A provincial government minister facing reelection in New Brunswick is facing calls to resign after she used the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to compare trans-inclusive education policies to the genocide of Canada’s Indigenous People.

September 30 was established as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation by the Canadian government in 2021. The focus of the day has largely been on the abuse First Nations children suffered in the residential school system, a nationwide network of schools, often run by churches, where First Nations children who had been taken from their families were forcibly assimilated into European Canadian culture. 

Many children suffered loss of culture and language, physical beatings, sexual abuse, starvation, denial of medical care, and thousands of children died in the care of schools, with many being buried in unmarked graves.

Conservative politicians across Canada, who have taken a sharp anti-trans turn over the past few years, used the opportunity to compare trans-inclusionary policies in education to the genocide of First Nations.

Sherry Wilson, New Brunswick’s minister for women’s equality, wrote in a lengthy, since-deleted post on Facebook that her province’s previous policies that allowed trans children to use different names or pronouns at school without parental notification or consent were comparable to the residential schools. Earlier this year, New Brunswick put in place a policy requiring parental notification and consent if a student wants to use a different name or gender.

“The government of the day actually tried to make the case that parents were harmful to their children, and that government schools needed to change their culture and lifestyle,” Wilson’s post read. “The horrible tragedy is a stain on Canadian history, but it was only allowed to happen because children enrolled in school were isolated from their parents’ oversight, input and influence … This must never be allowed to happen again in Canada! We must never put our teachers in a position where they have to hide important parts of a child’s development from their own parents!”

New Brunswick goes to the polls on Oct 21, and the incumbent Progressive Conservatives are in a tight race. Wilson has faced calls to drop out of her reelection bid, but she has remained in the race.

“That she would try to draw this dog-whistle comparison on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation should make every New Brunswicker ashamed that she was recently a minister for this province,” the six chiefs of the Wolastoqey Nation also said in a statement.

Using residential schools as a talking point against trans-inclusive school policies and sex education generally has become a recurring talking point for Canada’s conservatives. 

Another New Brunswick PC candidate, Faytene Grasseschi, made similar statements to CBC last year.

British Columbia Conservative Party leader John Rustad compared residential schools to the province’s LGBTQ-inclusive sex ed curriculum last year. His party is running neck-and-neck with the incumbent New Democrats in BC’s provincial election on Oct 19.

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Israel through Oct. 9.

TEL AVIV, Israel — It has been quiet in Israel’s largest city since I arrived on Friday afternoon.

An Israeli airstrike in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Sept. 27 killed Hassan Nasrallah, the long-time leader of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group. Iran on Oct. 1 launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel.

Rosh Hashanah ended on Friday. 

Monday will mark a year since Hamas launched its surprise attack against southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. The group, which the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for an Oct. 1 attack at a Tel Aviv light rail station that left seven people dead and more than a dozen others injured.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed more than 41,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7. Reuters on Friday reported the Lebanese Health Ministry said Israeli airstrikes in Beirut and elsewhere in the country over the last two weeks have killed more than 2,000 people.

An Israeli airstrike in the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Thursday killed 18 people in a Palestinian refugee camp. 

The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet, the country’s security agency, said the airstrike killed Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, a senior Hamas commander, and 11 other Hamas operatives. The Associated Press reported the airstrike also killed a family of four, including two young children.

The International Criminal Court in May announced it plans to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh.

Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said the five men have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel. (A suspected Israeli airstrike on July 31 killed Haniyah while he was in the Iranian capital of Tehran to attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration.)

Here are some things I have seen since I arrived in Tel Aviv.

• Banners that read “Bring Them Home Now!” in reference to the hostages who remain in Gaza are on overpasses and buildings throughout the city. Several people who were jogging along Tel Aviv’s seafront promenade on Saturday morning were wearing “Bring Them Home Now!” t-shirts.

• “FCK HMS” stickers are on streetlights across Tel Aviv.

• I could not access Al Jazeera’s website on Saturday. (The Israeli government in May banned the Qatar-based network from working in the country, and shut down its bureaus in East Jerusalem and Nazareth, a predominantly Arab city in northern Israel. A judge in June extended the ban for 45 days. Israeli soldiers on Sept. 22 raided Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah, the Palestinian capital, and ordered its closure for 45 days.)

• Two men and a woman who were wearing nightclub wrist bands were sitting on beach chairs at Hilton Beach at around 8 a.m. on Saturday and talking about traveling to the Philippines and Thailand. A helicopter with what appeared to be two missiles attached to it flew south along the city’s seafront while swimmers, kayakers, and paddleboarders were in the water.

• A middle-aged man who was wearing an IDF uniform had a machine gun strapped across his body while he had dinner with his family at a restaurant on Friday night.

The situation in Gaza, in northern Israel, in Lebanon, and on the West Bank is obviously very different than in Tel Aviv.

The events of the last year have been horrific for LGBTQ communities in Israel, in Palestine, and throughout the region. The Los Angeles Blade remains committed to documenting this impact while on the ground in Israel.

Blaire Fleming is at the center of a national debate over transgender athletes joining gendered sports at the collegiate level, after her team won fourth match by account of forfeiture.

Fleming made headlines earlier this year as her former roommate and team co-captain, Brooke Slusser, filed a class-action lawsuit against her and the National Collegiate Athletics Association. Slusser took to the Independent Council on Women’s Sports to file the class action lawsuit along with other cisgender athletes.

They claim that allowing Fleming and other transfemme athletes compete in women’s sports is in violation of Title IX, which does not permit trans athletes to compete against biological women, or use women’s restrooms. 

The move to forfeit on account of a trans athlete, sparked controversy and driving the three other universities to forfeit in the recent weeks.

San Jose State responded to the latest forfeiture by stating that outing Fleming would have violated school policy. 

The NCAA stated that it will “continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition for all student-athletes in all NCAA championships.”

The controversy gained more traction as cisgender, far-right, voices joined the conversation. 

Riley Gaines, a former competitive swimmer who came in fifth place in a 200-yard NCAA freestyle championship – tying with trans athlete Lia Thomas – took to X to speak on the issue and openly express her transphobia.

In the post, Gaines repeatedly misgenders Fleming, also adding that it is ‘unfair and dangerous,’ to allow transfemme athletes to compete in women’s sports. 

Gaines is one of many far-right athletes who have either tied or lost a match to a trans athlete, then made it their mission to cast trans athletes out of women’s sports. 

Equality California’s Executive Director released a statement regarding the issue.

“Equality California stands with San Jose State University and appreciates their strong support for their student athletes. All students deserve a safe and inclusive environment where they can thrive without fear or anxiety while being themselves,” said executive director Tony Hoang. 

The San Jose State women’s volleyball team is scheduled to go against San Diego State on Oct 10.

Los Angeles Blade will continue to cover the issue as the story develops.

Up until the early 2010s, if you searched “Babe Ruth” in the Baseball Hall of Fame, nothing would pop up. To find information on the greatest baseball player of all time, you would have to search “Ruth, George Herman.” 

That is the way online archival systems were set up and there was a clear problem with it. Kristen Gwinn-Becker was uniquely able to solve it. “I’m a super tech geek, history geek,” she says, “I love any opportunity to create this aha moment with people through history.” 

Gwinn-Becker is the founder and CEO of HistoryIT, a company that helps organizations create digital archives that are genuinely accessible. “I believe history is incredibly important, but I also think it’s in danger,” she says. “Less than 2% of our historical materials are digital and even less of that is truly accessible.”

Gwinn-Becker’s love for history is personal. As a lesbian, growing up, she sought out evidence of herself across time. “I was interested in stories, interested in people whose lives mirrored mine to help me understand who I was.” 

“[My identity] influences my love of history and my strong belief in history is important,” she says.

Despite always loving history, Gwinn-Becker found herself living and working in San Francisco during the early dot com boom and bust in the ‘90s. “It was an exciting time,” she recounts, “if you were intellectually curious, you could just jump right in.”

Being there was almost happenstance, Gwinn-Becker explained: “I was 20 years old and wanted to live in San Francisco.” Quickly, she fell in love with “all of the incredible new tools.” She was working with non-profits that encouraged her to take classes and apply the new skills. “I was really into software, web, and database development.” 

But history eventually pulled her back. “Tech was fun, but I didn’t want to be a developer,” she says. Something was missing. When the opportunity to get a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University presented itself, “I got to work on the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, who I was and remain quite passionate about.” 

Gwinn-Becker’s research on Eleanor Roosevelt planted the seeds of digital preservation. “Eleanor Roosevelt doesn’t have a single archive. FDR has lots but the first ladies don’t,” she says. Gwinn-Becker wondered what else was missing from the archive — and what would be missing from the archive if we didn’t start preserving it now.

Those questions eventually led Gwinn-Becker to found HistoryIT in 2011. Since then, the company has created digital archives for organizations ranging from museums and universities to sororities, fraternities, and community organizations.

This process is not easy. “Digital preservation is more than scanning,” says Gwinn-Becker. “Most commercial scanners’ intent is to create a digital copy, not an exact replica.” 

To digitally preserve something, Gwinn-Becker’s team must take a photo with overhead cameras. “There is an international standard,” she says, “you create an archival TIFF.” 

“It’s the biggest possible file we can create now. That’s how you future-proof.”

Despite the common belief that the internet is forever, JPEGs saved to social media or websites are a poor archive. “It’s more expensive for us to do projects in the 2000 to 2016 period than to do 19^th-century projects,” explains Gwinn-Becker, since finding adequate files for preservation can be tricky. “The images themselves are deteriorated because they’re compressed so much,” she says.

Her clients are finding that having a strong digital archive is useful outside of the noble goal of protecting history. “It’s a unique trove of content,” says Gwinn-Becker. One client saw a 790% increase in donations after incorporating the digital archive into fundraising efforts. “It’s important to have content quickly and easily,” says Gwinn-Becker, whose team also works with clients on digital strategy for their archive.

One of Gwinn-Becker’s favorite parts of her job is finding what she calls “hidden histories.”

“We [LGBTQ people] are represented everywhere. We’re represented in sports, in religious history, in every kind of movement, not only our movement. I’m passionate about bringing those stories out.” 

Sometimes queer stories are found in unexpected places, says Gwinn-Becker. “We work with sororities and fraternities. There are a hell of a lot of our stories there.”

Part of digital preservation is also making sure that history being created in the moment is not lost to future generations. HistoryIT works with NFL teams, for example. One of their clients is the Panthers, who hired Justine Lindsay, the first transgender cheerleader in the NFL. Gwinn-Becker was excited to be able to preserve information about Lindsay in the digital record. “It’s making history in the process of preserving it,” says Gwinn-Becker.

Preserving queer history, either through “hidden histories” or LGBTQ-specific archives, is vital says Gwinn-Becker. “Think about whose history gets marginalized, whose history gets moved to the sidelines, whose history gets just erased,” she prompts. “In a time of fake news, we need to point to evidence in the past. Queer people have existed since there were humans, but their stories are hidden,” Gwinn-Becker says.

Meanwhile, Gwinn-Becker accidentally finds herself as part of queer history too. Listed as one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 250 Female Founders of 2024, she is surrounded by names like Christina Aguilera, Selena Gomez, and Natalie Portman. 

One name stuck out. “Never in my life did I think I’d be on the same list – other than the obvious one – with Billie Jean King. That’s pretty exciting,” she said. 

But she can’t focus on the win for too long. “When I go to sleep at night, I think ‘there’s so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,’” she says, “We have a very small period in which to do that in a meaningful way.”

(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)

International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Israel through Oct. 9.

Lavers will be in the country on Oct. 7, a year after Hamas launched its surprise attack against Israel, and will cover how the country’s LGBTQ community has coped with that horrible day and its ongoing aftermath. Lavers will also cover how the war in the Gaza Strip has impacted LGBTQ Palestinians — in both Gaza and the West Bank and among the Palestinian diaspora in the U.S.

Lavers arrived in Israel three days after Iran launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at the country.

An Israeli airstrike in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Sept. 27 killed Hassan Nasrallah, the long-time leader of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group.

Hezbollah since last October has launched rockets into northern Israel. The Israeli military earlier this week began a ground incursion into southern Lebanon. 

“The horrific events of Oct. 7 and their aftermath have impacted LGBTQ people in Israel, in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, and elsewhere throughout the Middle East and around the world,” said Lavers. “It is critically important for the Washington Blade to document the situation on the ground, and to show how the horrific events of the last year have impacted LGBTQ communities throughout the region.”

“We are committed to objective coverage of the situation in the Middle East and to highlighting the plight of LGBTQ Palestinians and Israelis caught up in the war,” said Blade editor Kevin Naff. “The generous support of our readers enables this coverage so please consider making a donation at bladefoundation.org to ensure the Blade’s 55-year record of award-winning journalism continues.”

The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute will honor Peruvian Congresswoman Susel Paredes at its annual International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference that will take place in D.C. in December.

Paredes, a long-time activist who in 2021 became the first lesbian woman elected to the South American country’s Congress, will receive the 2024 LGBTQ+ Victory Institute Global Trailblazer Award.

Paredes and her wife, Gracia Aljovín, married in Miami in 2016. The two women sued the Peruvian government after the country’s Constitutional Court denied their request to register their marriage. 

“It is a true honor and a recognition that I deeply value,” said Paredes in a post to her X account after she learned the Victory Institute will honor her in D.C.

Victory Institute Executive Director Elliot Imse described Paredes as “a true champion through her activism and political engagement for decades.”

“Her historic election to the Congress of Peru is just one of many testaments to her status as a true trailblazer who is exceptionally deserving of this honor,” added Imse.

The Unique Women’s Coalition, Equality California and FLUX, a national division of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, will host their second annual voter education town hall today at the Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center in Los Angeles from 7PM to 9PM tonight. 

The organizations will present and discuss ballot propositions and measures that will appear on the November ballot and that affect the LGBTQ+ community in this part of the town hall series titled ‘The Issues.’  

“The trans and nonbinary community is taking its seat at the table, and we are taking the time and space to be informed and prepare the voter base,” said Queen Victoria Ortega, international president of FLUX.

The town hall will feature conversations through a Q&A followed by a reception for program participants, organizational partners and LGBTQ+ city and county officials. 

There will later be a third town hall before the election and The Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center will also become a voting location for anyone who feels like they need a safe space to vote, regardless of what voting district they are a part of. 

“Our community is really asking for a place to talk about what all of this actually means because although we live in a blue sphere, housing and other forms of discrimination are still a very real threat,” said Scottie Jeanette Madden, director of advocacy at The Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center. 

A D.C. Superior Court jury on Aug. 15 ordered a company that owned and operated a McDonald’s restaurant franchise in Northwest Washington to pay $930,000 in damages to a transgender employee who charged in a lawsuit that she was subjected to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation because of her gender identity in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.

The lawsuit, which was filed in January 2021 by attorneys representing Diana Portillo Medrano, says Medrano was first hired to work at the McDonald’s at 5948 Georgia Ave., N.W. in 2011 as a customer service representative and was recognized  and promoted for good work until she began to transition as a trans woman two years later.

It says she was fired in 2016 after she filed a discrimination complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights on grounds that she did not have legal authorization to work in the U.S. as an immigrant from El Salvador. One of her attorneys, Jonathan Puth, said the jury agreed with the lawsuit’s allegation that the reason given for the firing was a “pretext” and the real reason was retaliation for her discrimination complaint.

Puth said evidence was presented during the eight-day civil trial that the McDonald’s had knowingly hired other immigrant employees who did not have legal authorization to work and never held that against them.

“Despite a successful five-year career with McDonald’s marked by raises, promotions, and awards and absence of discipline, Plaintiff Diana Medrano’s supervisors and co-workers subjected her to a barrage of taunts, laughter, ridicule, and harassment because she is a transgender woman,” the lawsuit states.

“Managers and supervisors routinely referred to her as male despite her expressed request that they respect her gender identity as female, encouraging co-workers to harass her relentlessly in like fashion,” it says. “When she complained to her managers, they claimed Ithat the harassment was justified because she hadn’t legally changed her name,” the lawsuit’s complaint continues.

“After she formalized and elevated her complaints, Defendants fired her on pretextual grounds. Defendants discriminated against Ms. Medrano because of her gender identity and retaliated against her in violation of the District of Columbia Human Rights Act,” the lawsuit complaint states.

The lawsuit names as defendants International Golden Foods LLC and MCI Golden Foods LLC, two companies based in Burke, Va. that it says were owned and operated by Luis Gavignano, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. The lawsuit says the two companies held the franchise rights to own and operate the McDonald’s where Medrano worked.

The Washington Blade’s attempts to reach a spokesperson for the two companies and for Gavignano as well as two of the attorneys that represented them in contesting the lawsuit through email and phone messages were unsuccessful. 

In a nine-page written answer to the lawsuit filed Feb. 12, 2021, on behalf of International Golden Foods, which is referred to as IGF, attorneys Amy M. Heerink and Kelvin Newsome dispute the allegations that Medrano was targeted for discrimination and harassment because of her gender identity.

The written answer to the complaint highlights the company’s claim that Medrano was fired because she didn’t have legal authority to work in the U.S. It refers to the company’s personnel official, Carla Vega, who informed Medrano that she could no longer work for the McDonald’s outlet.

“IGF admits that Ms. Vega informed Plaintiff that her employment had to be terminated due to Plaintiff’s voluntary and unprompted statement during the investigation that she was not authorized to work in the United States,” the written answer to the lawsuit states. “IGF admits that Plaintiff’s employment was terminated based on her ineligibility to work in the United States,” it says.

“The jury clearly found that IGF continually used unauthorized employees, hired and employed unauthorized workers knowingly,” Puth, Madrano’s attorney, told the Blade. “And they never fired anyone for that reason at any of their stores except for Diana,” Puth said.

“And so, the jury found that the reason given was a pretext for retaliation,” he said. “That was what was motivating them. They were motivated to retaliate against her because she kept complaining about discrimination.”

Puth noted that Medrano initially filed her complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights and was represented at that time by an attorney with Whitman-Walker Health’s legal clinic. He said Whitman-Walker later referred her to his law firm, Correia & Puth, after determining the case could not be resolved at the Office of Human Rights.

The jury’s verdict of $930,000 in damages included $700,000 in punitive damages and $230,000 in damages for the emotional distress Medrano suffered due to the discrimination and harassment to which she was subjected.

A statement released by the law firm representing her says the action by the jury is believed to be the first jury verdict in a transgender employment discrimination case under the D.C. Human Rights Act.

Attorney Puth and his law firm partner, attorney Andrew Adelman, were the attorneys of record representing Medrano in her lawsuit. 

 “When you are sure of what you have experienced, no matter how much time passes, the truth will come to light,” Medrano said in the statement released by her attorneys. “Our truth is our best weapon to achieve justice,” she said. “It is truth, justice, and faith in God that have helped me get here.”

In his law firm’s statement, Puth called the jury’s verdict a vindication of Medrano’s 11-year battle for her legal rights.

“Diana is our hero,” he said. “She stood up for her rights in the face of terrible harassment and kept fighting even after she was fired for doing so. This verdict puts other employers on notice that tolerating harassment of transgender employees is both unlawful and costly.”

Puth said earlier this year Medrano was approved for U.S. political asylum based on discrimination and harassment she faced in El Salvador. He said she is currently working full-time as a counselor for Empoderate, an LGBTQ health organization providing services for the Latina/Latino community that is affiliated with the D.C.-based La Clinica del Pueblo.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday took office.

Sheinbaum, Mexico City’s former mayor who is a member of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s leftist Morena party, on June 2 defeated Xóchitl Gálvez of the opposition National Action Party and Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizens’ Movement.

Sheinbaum, who is also a scientist, is Mexico’s first female and first Jewish president.

First lady Jill Biden, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Guzman, and U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) are among the American officials who attended Sheinbaum’s inauguration.

“Mexico and the United States are strong partners and close neighbors and we share deep political, economic, and cultural ties,” said President Joe Biden in a statement in which he congratulated Sheinbaum on her inauguration. “The United States is committed to continuing to work with Mexico to deliver the democratic, prosperous, and secure future that the people of our two countries deserve.” 

Sheinbaum before the election released a policy paper that reiterated her support for LGBTQ rights in Mexico. The platform, among other things, reiterated “absolute respect for diverse gender identities” and pledged to create “public policies to (end impunity) and to eradicate hate crimes and violence against LGBTIQ+ communities because of gender and sexual orientation.”