White House Hold LGBT Health Conference

via Advocate, by Andrew Harmon

PHILADELPHIA — The White House rolled out its first campaign-season LGBT conference Thursday, one focused on health care issues facing the community and headlined by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

The conference series was first announced by the White House last month.

Sebelius didn’t break big news on health care initiatives during a morning address at Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University.

But the White House’s engagement on the issue, coupled with the HHS secretary’s attendance, brought national visibility to what Sebelius accurately described as a health care system that has been “especially broken for LGBT Americans,” who have lower rates of coverage and have been historically excluded from federal health surveys.

“Given the discrimination that often is faced in the workplace, LGBT Americans often have a harder time getting access to employment-based coverage,” Sebelius said at the conference, also attended by gay White House officials including Gautam Raghavan, the LGBT liaison in the Office of Public Engagement; and John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management.

But “all Americans, regardless of where they live, what age, sex, race, sexual orientation, or gender identity, have a basic right to get the health care they need here in the United States, and that’s a principle we are committed to fighting for in this administration,” Sebelius said.

The speech was similar in tone and structure to Sebelius’s address before the National Coalition for LGBT Health in October, where she enumerated the administration’s regulatory accomplishments over the past three years — most famously a hospital visitation mandate for same-sex couples — and touted health care reform as a major step toward improving health care access for the community. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on the law’s constitutionality in late March.

The lack of marriage rights can be a major barrier to care, as Sebelius discussed with The Advocate in an interview published last month.

President Obama has endorsed legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages, though the White House has not budged in recent months beyond talking points of the president “evolving” on the issue of full marriage rights and opposing “divisive and discriminatory” measures against same-sex couples — this in reference to anti-gay marriage ballot measures in states such as North Carolina and Minnesota.

The issue-specific LGBT conferences, ranging from HIV/AIDS to aging-related and antibullying efforts, are slated to take place around the country over the next several months, ending in June.

Invites have already been sent out for a March 9 event in Detroit focused on housing and homelessness.

At the Creating Change conference last month in nearby Baltimore, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, announced the agency had finalized a rule prohibiting antigay and antitransgender discrimination in housing programs that HUD oversees.

The rule, Donovan said at the January conference, “says clearly and unequivocally that LGBT individuals and couples have the right to live where they choose.”

Donovan has stood out in pushing the envelope on LGBT rights in Obama’s cabinet, coming out ahead of the president in support of full marriage equality last November.

The Democratic Party has been urged to follow suit by supporting a pro-marriage equality platform with inclusive language on the issue, as proposed earlier this week by the group Freedom to Marry.

A spokesman for Rep. Nancy Pelosi told Metro Weekly Tuesday that the House Democratic keader supports the proposed language (read the report here).

Another trending topic discussed Thursday was that of cultural competency standards for health care professionals treating LGBT patients.

There are no uniform standards for doctors and medical staff on how (and how not) to treat LGBT individuals.

Sebelius said in January that she does not necessarily believe codified regulation needs to be implemented, though the Office of Minority Health is working to add sexual orientation and gender identity into the language of its Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health Care standards.


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Jon Huntsman, A Gay Rights Ally, To Join Race For White House

via On Top Magazine By Carlos Santoscoy

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. will formally declare for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination on Tuesday.

“I intend to announce that I will be a candidate for the presidency a week from today,”Huntsman said at an event yesterday.Huntsman will make his announcement near the Statue of Liberty, Reuters reported.

The 51-year-old Huntsman resigned during his second term as Governor of Utah to accept President Barack Obama's appointment as Ambassador to China, a post he left on April 30.

As governor, Huntsman backed a failed effort to extend some rights to gay men and lesbians in Utah. In 2009, the gay rights group Equality Utah introduced five bills backed by two openly gay lawmakers. Three bills would have brought greater equality in the areas of hospitalization, medical care, housing, employment and probate rights. And a pair of bills would have created a domestic partner registry for gay couples by repealing a part of Utah's constitutional marriage amendment.

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Prevent a Horror-Movie Ending: Pass Health Reform NOW!

Healthcare advocates expect excessively shaky camera work at Thursday’s high-stakes meetings, to be held at the Blair House in Washington. Will our leaders break the political impasse to bring about real health care reform? Or will they sentence lifesaving legislation to permanent banishment in the woods?

The White House released the president's health care reform proposal this morning, and on Thursday will hold a nationally televised summit on health reform, President Obama and congressional leaders must chart a course out of the political thicket obstructing final passage for health reform legislation. The hopes of tens of millions of uninsured Americans—and tens of millions more who will surely lose affordable coverage—rests in the outcome of this meeting.

Contact Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid NOW and urge them to do whatever it takes to pass comprehensive health reform through budget reconciliation. Call them—and your own members of Congress toll-free at: 1 (800) 828-0498. Go to www.congress.org to find out who represents you.

A Tranny Girl goes to the White House: a Personal Account by Helena Bushong

via AIDS Connect

As I sit here, I can’t help but ask the question, “Just how did I find myself headed to Washington, DC to advise on public policy at the White House?” It’s been a whirlwind fall that all started with me applying for and being selected as a member of the newly formed IL Alliance for Sound AIDS Policy (IL ASAP), a group of statewide policy and advocacy leaders picked to increase community involvement in HIV/AIDS activities, and fight for fair policies for those living with and at risk for HIV and AIDS.

On November 12, 2009, IL ASAP was fortunate enough to take part in a National HIV/AIDS Strategy Focus Group. Jeffery Crowley, Director of the White House Office of National Aids Policy and Senior Advisor of Disability Policy was the guest at the focus group and listened as community members spoke to issues that need to be addressed when forming the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. I testified at the focus group meeting regarding the barriers facing transgender, women, and aging populations; I had a lot to say!

After the focus group, I spoke with Mr. Crowley as a follow up to my testimony and I offered him a business card in case he had any questions or needed further input from me. I was impressed that Mr. Crowley seemed to listen carefully to testimony, took notes and asked thoughtful questions. I thought to myself, “Who knows?”

I did not think about it anymore until I open my email in early December, and spotted an email from the White House! Subject: December 8, White House “Women and HIV” meeting. It was flagged: Importance - High.

At first, I thought it might be a joke (I do have some prankster friends). I returned to the e-mail to read it again. As I read further, I felt almost unable to breathe. The email went on:

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Who's that Queer?

Brought to you by Pistol Pete

Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings was a prep school roommate and then lifelong close friend of President John F. Kennedy. He had his own room in the White House and was offered several official positions by the president, but preferred to be "first friend." Lem also worked for JFK in the West Virginia and Wisconsin primaries and helped gather delegates at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles when JFK was running for President.

Lem was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1916 to Frederic Tremaine Billings, a prominent physician and Romaine LeMoyne. The family went back to the arrival of the Mayflower and were ardent abolitionists who championed the education of free black Americans after the Confederate States of America was defeated. Lem's father died in 1933 placing additional strain on the family's finances. Lem had extremely poor eye sight and a high-pitched voice.

Lem and Jack first met at Choate Rosemary Hall in 1933 when Lem was 17 and Jack was 16. From all accounts, they became fast friends, drawn to each other by their mutual distaste for their school and its headmaster, Seymour St. John. "But the bond between Billings and Kennedy became so strong that Billings stayed back a year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935," according to David Pitts' 2007 biography Jack and Lem. They continued to Princeton University until Kennedy withdrew for medical reasons. Billings and Kennedy took their summer trip through Europe prior to World War II. They adopted a little dachshund they named Dunker but had to give him up because of Jack's allergies.


In 1942, Lem joined the Ambulance Corps, an organization that had no problem with his eye sight and saw action in North Africa. He later received a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve and served in the South Pacific eventually getting discharged in 1946. From 1946 to 1948, Lem attended Harvard Business School. Lem had several jobs including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores, working at a General Shoe store, Emerson Drug Company VP, and an advertising executive at the Manhattan advertising firm Lennen & Newell. He also is responsible for inventing '50s fad drink Fizzies for the Emerson Drug Company. He thought of adding a fruit flavor to disguise the sodium citrate taste.

In Victorian times, Lem might have been described as a "confirmed bachelor," although by the end of his own lifetime he would have been described as gay. In a 2007 book review of Jack and Lem, The New Haven Register interviewed the author and quoted from the book: "Jack made a big difference in my life," Billings said. "Because of him, I was never lonely. He may have been the reason I never got married." However, the relationship between the two men was friendship. "It’s the story of a really close friendship — and one of the guys just happened to be what we think of today as gay," said David Pitts, author of the book Jack and Lem.

John F. Kennedy was well aware of his friend's sexual orientation, as Billings had conveyed his interest in Kennedy early in their friendship. Kennedy rebuffed his advances sharply but actively continued the friendship for the rest of his life. He sometimes had to explain Jack to Jackie—or vice versa. Jackie Kennedy, who liked Billings for the most part, commented to a White House usher, "He (Lem) has been a house guest every weekend of my married life."

Billings maintained close ties to the Kennedys and their children throughout his life and Lem was like a father to Bobby Jr. after his father's passing. Lem Billings died in his sleep following a heart attack on May 28, 1981. Lem's dying wish was for the young Kennedy men to carry his coffin to its final resting place. JFK's sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver once said of Lem, “Of the nine or ten men who were close to the president, I would say Lem was number one…It’s hard to describe it as just friendship; it was a complete liberation of the human spirit. I think that’s what Lem did for President Kennedy.”

Source: Wikipedia.org

In the Pink at the White House

by David Ernesto Munar
(pictured, left, with partner Guillermo)

On this seemingly ordinary sunny day in our nation’s capital, my partner and I strolled slowly down 16th Street, looking for pockets of shade and commenting on the majestic magnolia trees and fragrant lilacs.

Despite the heat, we dressed in our best business attire to make a good impression at our first ever invitation to the White House.

At Lafayette Square, we watched a small group rally for human rights in Colombia and talked to activists and reporters about the significance of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s official state visit, in progress.

We posed for pictures at Pennsylvania Avenue as Sri Lankans, from the end of a bullhorn, urged greater U.S. attention to their country’s violent civil war.

“Excuse me, is this a new suit?” asked a stranger, kindly removing the dangling tag from my jacket. That one I must have missed, I said. “Leave it to a lesbian,” said my new friend, Kate Kendell of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco. I snapped pictures of Kate and her beaming son—all of 11 or 12—excited beyond words to soon see the President for a historic Stonewall commemoration at the White House.

Past security and a cordon of military officers, we assembled in the stately Entrance Hall where a hip DJ queued dance tunes on his MacBook.

We greeted Brian Bond of the White House Office of Public Liaison and leisurely strolled about the ornate rooms of antique furniture and impressive portraits. The deep windows of the Blue Room, overlooking the South Portico, frame a perfect view of the Washington Monument like a postcard. So these are the vistas upon which the most powerful gaze!

Long associated with LGBT equality, a half dozen AIDS advocates, me included, chatted with Jeff Crowley, Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, and Brian (openly gay HIV-positive staffer) who helped organize the event.

As the room filled, the crowd’s excitement grew palpable—And, why not?

Few of any of us had ever before been invited to the White House, much less with our significant others, much less to such an august space with the President and First Lady. And certainly never before in commemoration of the 1969 riot that sparked the modern gay rights movement!

Having arrived at the people’s White House, our community must fight like hell so such occasions become commonplace. We must keep the pressure up—even among our allies—to advance legal protections, official recognition, and respect for our basic health and human rights.

For many, the reception served as a solemn reminder of the sizable work and advocacy that remains. Our nation can and must fulfill its promise to treat all men and women equally. And it must use its considerable influence to promote health and human rights and stamp out homophobia, transphobia, AIDS stigma, gender bias and all forms of state-sanctioned oppression and discrimination.

While rarely feted, our work pursuing equality and justice must not rest.

Waiting in the East Room for the President, I was overwhelmed by the countless decades of collective struggle of those assembled. As LGBT and HIV social-justice advocates, we have many proud accomplishments to celebrate. And we each owe a debt of gratitude to so many courageous activists, past and present, who paved the way.

I marveled at the sight of us: patriotic, diverse, hard-working, family-oriented and utterly ordinary.

The arrival of the President and Mrs. Obama electrified the room. There was an audible relief in the crowd when the President specifically addressed transgender and bisexual advocates as part of our diverse coalition.

A cell phone—oddly programmed to quack like a duck—inserted laughter into the President’s serious remarks. “Where do you guys get these ring tones?” he asked.

I stood four feet from the President as he assured his guests that “I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I’ve made, but by the promises that my administration keeps.” No one in the room is soon to forget this pledge, the President included, nor should we.

RELATED:

Transcript of President Obama’s

Video of the President’s remarks

Brian Bond’s White House blog

Munar's photo album

Munar is running the Chicago Marathon this fall to raise funds for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and advocacy - please cough up some green!

Obama's White House LGBT Stonewall Event: Transcript, Guest List

[note - AIDS Foundation of Chicago's David Munar (right) - representing the National Association of People with AIDS - was among the guests at this event.]


via Towleroad

President Obama hosted 250-300 LGBT leaders in the East Room of the White House today, billed as a celebration marking the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion and Pride month. Obama acknowledged gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, to whom the government recently apologized for firing in 1957, because he was gay.

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