The PRIDE exhibit at the Northport Historical Society runs through June 30. Photo from Northport Historical Society
The PRIDE exhibit at the Northport Historical Society runs through June 30. Photo from Northport Historical Society
In perfect timing with Pride Month, the Northport Historical Society, 215 Main St., Northport presents PRIDE!, a pop-up exhibit curated and designed by Marketing and Membership Coordinator John N. Daniello.
The Society’s first LGBT+ exhibit, PRIDE! explores the history of the LGBT+ movement in the United States and Northport. The month-long exhibit is generously sponsored by Northport Copy and features local artist Greg Fox and his comic Kyle’s Bed & Breakfast. The Society welcomes members of Northport’s (and the surrounding areas) LGBT+ community — and their allies — to share their personal stories of Pride.
Viewing hours are Thursday to Sunday from 1 to 4:30 p.m. including during Northport’s Pridefest on June 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. at Northport Village Park. Admission to the exhibit is free. For more information, visit northporthistorical.org
Erica Forman, of Hauppauge, shares her story to be a voice for the transgender community. Photo by Julianne Mosher
Her name was always Erica.
Erica Forman, of Hauppauge, began to transition her gender from male to female in her late 20s. In 2012, she officially changed her name to Erica, one of two names her mother loved before she knew the sex of her baby 51 years ago.
“This would have been my name,” Forman said. “Back then, you had to choose two names, so Erica was the name that was planned.”
Forman chose to share her story to commemorate Transgender Awareness Month. November has been dedicated to the transgender community across the country in hopes of bringing awareness to a community that rarely has a voice. Nov. 20 is dedicated to solemnly remember the lives lost to anti-trans violence on Transgender Day of Remembrance.
‘I’m lucky I live here. There are parts of the country that I might go to, where I wouldn’t wear this shirt.’
—Erica Forman
According to GLAAD, an LGBTQ+ media force, TDOR was started in 1999 by transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was brutally killed in 1998 as a hate crime. The vigil, to take place Nov. 20, commemorates all the transgender people lost to violence since Hester’s death, something now called the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.
This year, more than 30 transgender people were killed in acts of violence as of Oct. 6, according to the nonprofit Human Rights Campaign. The campaign reported it has not seen such a level of violence at this point of the year since it began tracking that data in 2013.
Forman said she knew something was different as a child. At around age 12, she began experimenting when her mother wasn’t home.
“I never really understood why I identified with girls’ things growing up, but I couldn’t really be open about it,” she said. “I spent a good amount of my time pre-transition trying to fit in.”
In college she was in a fraternity. “I love those guys,” she said. “They’re my brothers and I’m their sister now.”
David Kilmnick, president and chief executive officer of Long Island’s LGBT Network, said acknowledging this month is important because it sheds light to issues that are rarely talked about.
“We’re bringing visibility and awareness about the trans community and the issues our trans community faces,” he said. “We join together as one community to stop hate against all groups, particularly the issues of violence against trans women and women of color that are kept in the closet.”
Kilmnick said the names of those who perished from hate crimes are rarely ever said.
“This brings together our community to speak out and say whatever is on your mind — say what you want to see happen,” he said. “Say the names of those who were murdered by hate violence, so we don’t have to say another name ever again.”
Transgender people often experience harassment in the day to day, such as in the workplace.
After more than a decade presenting as male at work, Forman decided to transition full-time in 2008.
“At my job, I experienced a whole a lot of resistance,” she said. “HR confronted me and said, ‘You know, we hired a man.’”
She said the job forced her to wear a tag with the male name she was assigned at birth, because she was still going through the lengthy and arduous process to legally become Erica on paper.
“It was awful,” she said. “Eventually I was able to hold on to it, and transition at the job, but it was a fight. There was a fight almost all the way. It’s one of those very difficult things that we face, finding work as our authentic selves — there’s just a lot of bias, and people will find other reasons not to hire you.”
Forman said she shared her story as an advocate to the trans community to let people out there know that things will be okay.
“Would you rather be happy, or would you rather be miserable?” she said. “My days are filled with me wanting to be alive and wanting to do things, and now I’m able to interact with the world, like I never did before.”
“We’ve helped hundreds of people,” said Ursula Nigro, the director of operations for the center. “Whether it’s a call for a resource, support groups, hooking people up together to go and rent spaces — we have a lot of homelessness in the trans community and it’s super difficult.”
Nigro helped found the group four years ago when her wife started transitioning. Their goal was to create a space that will help the local transgender community, while educating businesses, schools and offices on inclusivity training.
“Trans folks want to be treated with respect and dignity just like everyone else,” she said. “I think there’s a fear that needs to be extinguished, and people need to be aware that quite a large population of the world is trans. It’s not a choice and it’s not a mental illness.”
The month of November, especially this week ending Nov. 20, has become a time for the trans community to communicate tolerance.
“You’ve met somebody who’s trans in your life,” Forman said. “And did it hurt? Did that encounter hurt you? No, it doesn’t hurt anybody. The worst it does is wounds somebody’s heart and their memory of you.”
Being transgender means something different to each and every person.
“The best way to think about is people need to be comfortable in their bodies and their identity and that looks different for lots of people,” Forman said. “That’s why identity is something in your soul. Only you know what feels right, what fits right and what sounds right.”
From left, Steve Henaghan is still active marching for LGBT rights; Leah Gustavson is a regular participant in Long Island’s historical martial arts scene; David Kilmnick is the president of the LGBT Network on LI.
For several weeks in a row people of all races have crowded the streets of Huntington, sidewalk to sidewalk, calling for an end to prejudice.
A 1991 front page of Newsday along with the one of the original tank tops for the first LGBT pride parade in Huntington. Photo by Kyle Barr
Those same streets in Huntington village have held other marches, but one started just under 30 years ago still holds unique significance today. Go back to June 9, 1991, the sky was open blue while the sun blazed down on people who also marched through Huntington against prejudice. It was a time of oversized glasses, poofy hair and tees tucked into jeans. Many marched with rainbow flags in their hands and pride on their faces, but some also reportedly marched with bags over their heads. It wasn’t a fashion statement, it was a way to hide their identities during a time when many people in the LGBT community would be retaliated against at the workplace or even at home.
About 800 people stood between close to 3,000, according to what journalists wrote at the time. Most cheered for the marchers, but others screamed at them, warning of eternal damnation and holding signs reading, among other expletives, “Kill Yourself.” SWAT teams lined the surrounding roofs because there had been threats of violence toward the marchers.
It was June 10, 1991, when the first Long Island LGBT-led parade strode through Huntington. Marchers shouted “We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it.” That parade would be a landmark day for the LGBTQ community on Long Island, but for the people who marched, it meant much more than that.
“It was the proudest day of my entire life,” said Leah Gustavson, a Rocky Point resident and one of the original members of the committee who established the parade. “I felt like we started something, stuck to it and got to an end goal.”
That parade took place 24 years before the U.S. Supreme Court gave gay people the right to marry. It was 29 years before the court confirmed it was unconstitutional for businesses to discriminate against people on the basis of sex, a huge boon to the LGBTQ community, which has long experienced discrimination when applying for jobs and in the workplace.
But getting it together would take months of backbreaking effort destroying barriers, including taking a Long Island town to federal court to win their right to assemble.
Today, as protests and marches have broken out at every corner of the U.S., the memories of the struggle to have voices heard three decades ago adds a new perspective for those advocating for an end to prejudice. It’s a glimpse of how far Long Island has come and how far it might still have to go.
Beginnings of the March
The Lesbian/Gay Pride and Freedom Committee was established after June, nominally known as pride month, in 1990. It was after the group had attended other major pride celebrations that year, including the New York City pride parade as well as one earlier in March on St. Patrick’s Day, where members of an Irish gay and lesbian protest group led a parade before the main parade could start.
A few members of the local gay and lesbian community were having meetings at a gathering place near Stony Brook University. The school had an active LGBT scene with a school club found in the basement of the old Union building on campus. It was in a space that was once a closet, something that became an oft-used joke in the small burgeoning community.
No one who was there remembers who exactly brought up the idea, but everyone who was in that room one spring day remembers the conversation about pride parades and the simple question, why wasn’t there one on Long Island? Why didn’t they try to start one, because, after all, how hard could it be?
In that small group of likeminded people, what would become the 10-member Long Island Pride and Freedom Committee was born. Gustavson related that gung ho attitidue to a sense of ”ignorant optimism,” something that can be a powerful force, especially for people who know things need to change, and that now is the time to do it.
She, and other original members of the committee, said coming together to plan this march was a way for many of these people who have long felt marginalized on Long Island to finally show they have a voice. Even still, numerous people on the committee would only publicly go by their first name, knowing they could be retaliated against in the workplace.
“We knew we were not necessarily welcome by people, but the point wasn’t to be welcomed, we were demanding that we would have equality.”
— Steve Henaghan
Those who were there look back on it as a time that was not nearly as fraught and violent as previous decades, but there still was massive underlying prejudice toward the gay community. Steve Henaghan, of Mastic, was another of the original committee members trying to get the parade started. In the 1980s, he and other gay/lesbian rights activists helped create a political action committee called Citizens for Equal Rights PAC to raise money for candidates that would support issues of equality.
“At that time very few would come forward and say they were supporting our issues,” Henaghan said. “In 1988 and ’91 we were making inroads politically especially within the Democratic Party.”
The committee approached several places throughout the Island to hold their march. In March of ’91 they received rejections from multiple towns and villages on the Island, including both the Village of Port Jefferson and Village of Northport.
The Record, one of a few Port Jefferson area newspapers at that time, wrote about the village board rejecting the application, saying trustees felt the committee was not “locally based,” citing that it was based in Upton, though committee members argued that was simply their mailing address.
The Port Jeff mayor at the time, Harold Sheprow, was cited as referencing the controversy of that year’s gay rights group in the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Trustees argued a Sunday march would hurt businesses, create congestion and open up the village to having to host other marches. Trustee William Glass Jr. was quoted at the time as saying, “This is political with a ‘P.’”
Henaghan could not help but laugh at hearing that quote read to him again.
“It didn’t surprise us we were rejected, it angered us,” Henaghan said. “We knew we were not necessarily welcome by people, but the point wasn’t to be welcomed, we were demanding that we would have equality.”
Northport rejected the parade for similar reasons, especially citing it was policy to only permit “community based organizations” to schedule parades.
David Kilmnick was one of the original members of the LGPF Committee who now is president of the nonprofit LGBT Network, an association of nonprofits that looks to support the LGBT community on Long Island. He said if the committee didn’t end up securing a march route and permit, they were willing to do one anyway somewhere on Long Island, even if it potentially meant being arrested.
“We were told we would be arrested, we didn’t care,” he said. “It was our right to be able to do this. We were being flat out discriminated against because of our sexual orientation.”
With a number of rejections under their belts. LGPFC members knew they had to settle on one place, and that place was going to be Huntington.
Taking a Town to Court
The committee worked with police on creating a route through the town. Their original path was longer, about 1½ miles, but in speaking with Inspector Alden Berry of the Suffolk County Police Department, the group determined on a newer, shorter route that reduced the overtime cost for officers, closed only one lane of traffic and offered more protection to those demonstrating. By April 12, 1991, that route was approved by police and sent to Huntington.The group had already sent a request to the Huntington Highway Department. While they had confirmation the request was received, they didn’t hear back until after they sent out the notice of the parade route.
Huntington Highway Superintendent William Naughton, a Democrat, responded to the marchers with a letter the same day they sent in the revised route. The language used in the letter would become the basis for further legal action, one that would bring in the support of the American Civil Liberties Union.
From left, Steve Henaghan is still active marching for LGBT rights; Leah Gustavson is a regular participant in Long Island’s historical martial arts scene; David Kilmnick is the president of the LGBT Network on LI.
Along with citing overtime costs for the highway department and police, it said those looking to hold parades in the town should instead ask to be included in separate parades. It also read that, “Requests from several groups have been made in the past to hold additional parades, but my policy has always been to approve the traditional parades only.”
“We saw that as blatant discrimination, and we had the right just like every other group to have a march or parade,” said Kilmnick.
March planners got in contact with the New York Civil Liberties Union, which in turn picked out several attorneys to work on the issue. Two local attorneys were picked to lead the effort.
Mitchell Gittin, who is now an East Setauket resident and attorney with the Hauppauge-based Fitzgerald Law Firm, was then a volunteer on the legal committee of the NYCLU Suffolk Branch. He was tapped to lead the litigation effort alongside fellow attorney Joel Kupferman, who described himself as having been just recently out of law school back in early ’91.
“We tried to negotiate with them and asked them why they were so concerned and their reasons for denying the permit,” Kupferman said. At the time he was also a resident in Huntington. “[Huntington attorneys] said people get drunk and destroy property in these parades. I I told them we’ll concede that as soon as you stop having St. Patty’s Day parades — they were ridiculous concerns.”
The attorneys quickly noticed the language of the highway superintendent’s letter was not concurrent with basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution. Outright denying a march in line with the First Amendment because it was not one of those “traditional parades” did not stand up to scrutiny.
“That’s what was so gratifying with the case, because frankly the law was on our side,” Gittin said. “The other side didn’t have any kind of legal counterargument, you can put restrictions on gatherings … there was no reason from a logistical perspective the pride parade would have been more burdensome than any other parade — it really did come down really to discrimination.”
The attorneys sent a letter to the town May 9, but did not receive a response. Both the committee and Town of Huntington would end up in court.
The deadline of June 9 for the parade was fast approaching. In early June, both sides appeared in front of U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Wexler. Instead of a protracted back and forth, after just a few hours in court, the town agreed to grant the group a permit for the march.
Though the group did experience pushback from local elected officials there were a few that showed support, even if in small ways. New York State Sen. Jim Gaughran (D-Northport) was a Suffolk County legislator back in 1991. He said the LGPFC approached his office after being rejected by the Huntington highway superintendent. He told the assembled people that he was giving them approval to use his office’s parking lot as the end point for their parade.
“Back then there were a lot of officials who were afraid to take a stand,” he said.
Gitten said that recalling the case gives him a unique sense of pride.
“I look back on it, and not that it was a heroic thing, it was a lawyer job, I was in the right place at the right time,” he said. “It feels nice as a lawyer to look and having been part of a movement and part of a wave that’s still going on.”
The Day Of
The parade itself would be just three quarters of a mile, a short jaunt made by many pedestrians today in what is normally glowing nights on the town in historic Huntington village, or at least it was prepandemic. For the people at the march, it would be an experience none of them would ever forget.
The committee members took up positions at the head of the column. Moving up along Gerard Street, they marched down New York Avenue then turned east onto Main Street. Above them, marchers could see the hints of helmets and glint of rifles in the sunlight. SWAT snipers had been positioned on rooftops to watch over them, as there had been several threats of violence.
That was when the marchers saw the true extent of the crowds. Newsday reported at the time 3,000 people came out to see those in the parade. It was more than they expected, and surprisingly many were shouting support. Of course, there were many community members shouting at them, saying they would “go to hell” for what they were doing. Before it became well known thanks to the show “Game of Thrones,” those marching found use in shouting “shame, shame” at those heckling their procession.
“Our adrenaline was flowing so hard and strong and then we turned the corner, that’s where the protesters were,” Henaghan said. “It was like electricity was running through our bodies, we were so charged. You realize at that moment, you are not standing down, you are going to stand up. It was one of the greatest days of our lives,”
“In 30 years I will never forget that day, that day was a victory for all of Long Island.”
— David Kilmnick
There was a general sense of both exhilaration and apprehension. This was uncharted territory for them, despite participating in other pride parades. This one was theirs, and they had to own it.
“People would call it a parade, but it was a march,” Kilmnick said. “We didn’t have the pageantry, we marched down New York Avenue and had a rally in the back of Huntington Town Hall … In 30 years I will never forget that day, that day was a victory for all of Long Island.”
When they finally reached the end, the emotions of the day were overflowing.
“The relief was palpable,” Gustavson said. “People were hugging each other and cheering … A lot of people came to celebrate with us. Some of them were not gay, but a lot of them were. It was a party in the best sense of the word, it was celebratory.”
Douglas Futuyma, Stony Brook professor emeritus of evolutionary biology,was convinced to speak at the 1991 march in back of the town hall building. The professor has long been known on campus as an openly gay man, unafraid to talk about it in front of students when it came up. When it came time to speak at the rally, he wanted to talk about things beyond the biology of it, that gays and lesbians did not simply choose to be so, they were born that way. He spoke of Huntington’s native son Walt Whitman, and how that poet spoke to the quick of “humankind’s exploratory and vibrant spirit.” It was the fundamental question of human rights.
“It was certainly exhilarating, despite the heckling or harassment,” he said. “It was as it should have been, a celebration.”
Today and the Future
This month, the annual pride event was canceled due to the pandemic. Instead the LGBT Network held an online pride event June 14 featuring multiple celebrities and other local elected and civic leaders as speakers.
It’s been a roller coaster ride for the past 30 years with the annual pride parade. Gustavson left the committee after the third year. Henaghan stood on for several years before leaving as well. He came back on in the early 2000s, but again left the committee to its own devices.
The pride parade came under the auspices of the LGBT Network in its later years, and because of lagging participation a celebration was held instead of a parade in Huntington’s Heckscher Park. In 2017, the parade moved to Long Beach, and Kilmnick said the parade picked up steam once again. The LGBT Network president said last year an estimated 30,000 people participated. The biggest change from just a few decades ago, he said, is the number of young, school-age people coming out to march and support the annual parade.
SBU evolutionary biology professor Douglas Futuyma spoke at the first LI pride parade in ‘91. Photo from SBU
“In ’93, so many kids were being bullied in school, afraid to come to the parade,” he said. “We didn’t have any student groups that marched in that parade. Now they make up more than 50 percent of that parade.”
This year, the parade was set to move to Jones Beach after a dispute with Long Beach over a $70,000 fee the LGBT Network said other organizations did not have to pay for similar events. Leaders of the parade are hoping for a renewed involvement come 2021, which will be the 31st pride parade and its true 30-year anniversary.
But the fight for equality is not one lane for just one group of people. Those who spoke about their experience with the first pride parade all identified with those marching against police brutality and racism today.
Gustavson said things changed for the better in the past three decades, such as general awareness along with much more acceptance at the grade school level, but some things have not progressed nearly enough. For white gay people, she said things are “a lot better.” For gay people of color, trans people and especially trans people of color, there are way too many problems with prejudice both on the governmental and societal levels.
“It was as it should have been, a celebration.”
— Douglas Futuyma
“I don’t want to see violence, I never want to see violence,” she said. “But there are times when that’s what gets people talking and thinking and there are always people who will never understand why riots happen and why they destroy their own sh**. They will never understand that, and it’s passionate. When you’re passionate and you’re screaming because you’re afraid for your life, that it doesn’t really matter so much what gets ruined as far as ‘things’ go. Things are things. We’re fighting for our lives here, we’re fighting for our sanity, we’re fighting for our ability to walk in society without fear of being beaten to death because you’re a ‘fag,’ or because you’re Black.”
Henaghan, despite saying he has occasional bouts with pessimism, does believe the world is heading in the right direction. His partner for 23 years became his husband eight years ago, just a year after the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision. For the people marching in the streets today, he said many of those who spoke out against that march in ’91 are the same people or the ideological descendants of those who verbally harassed them 30 years ago.
“Many people will not let go of that hate they have, whether it’s for people of color, gays or lesbians, trans people, there are many people in our society they will not let go of that hate,” Henagan said. “They will fight you to the end. We still won’t stand for it.”
The Shoreham-Wading River Gay-Straight Alliance Club, including co-advisors Ed Stock, center, and Brittany Davis, far right. Photo by Kyle Barr
One may think the LGBT community in Suffolk County is a small minority, until there are more than 100 of them and their allies together in a room celebrating what makes them, them.
On Jan. 28, after close to half a year of planning, the Shoreham-Wading River High School Gay-Straight Alliance club hosted a Gender-Sexuality Alliance Leadership Conference, the first in all of Suffolk County. They were joined by over 100 students from 14 different schools as well as a score of adults, including teachers, parents and school administrators.
Well over 100 people from different Gay-Straight Alliance clubs throughout Suffolk County at the Shoreham-Wading River High School Jan. 28 conference. Photo from SWRCSD
“Not only did it bring together a group of kids that were not only like-minded, but were also there to support each other,” said club co-advisor Brittany Davis. “It really felt like there was a sense of community that was just beautiful, that we did something that changed everyone’s outlook on this and really changed the whole dynamic of the comfortability in the school.”
Senior and club member Ray Colon said it was an event unlike any he has experienced at the school setting. Students who felt they were marginalized or pushed to the boundaries in their own schools could talk freely.
“It was awesome to hear them share their own stories and their own struggles back at home,” he said. “At school, they don’t have that space to be free always — it allows them to open up.”
Between the discussions and presentations, Davis said students flooded into the upstairs balcony in the library for an impromptu dance party.
“They might be that quiet kid in class, but when they’re with others they can finally feel comfortable,” Davis said. “It was really cool to see them be themselves — their energy went throughout the room and made everyone smile.”
High school senior Emily Mulcahy, the club president, said while they were initially unsure how successful an event it would be, upon reaching out and getting a score of immediate responses, their doubts were eased. In fact, they had so many responses they could simply not fit all into the small space of the library.
Nearly five months of planning led to an event that included discussions about themselves and their place in the LGBT community, but also the recognition of administrators, including high school Principal Frank Pugliese and Superintendent Gerard Poole.
“In our building and district, we celebrate diversity, we don’t look down on it,” Pugliese said. “The fact so many districts felt the same way, I think even strengthened that message even more.”
The principal added he hopes this event will become “a normal part of the calendar.”
Fellow club co-advisor Ed Storck has been at the head of getting the whole event started. The fact that two school administrators could show such open support, he said, means a lot considering where the LGBT community has come from, especially in schools.
“So many kids were saying, ‘I didn’t know how many people were in support,’” he said.
SWR High School senior Ray Colon, of the Gay-Straight Alliance club, is flanked by GSA co-advisers Ed Storck and Brittany Davis. Photo from SWRCSD
Storck said the idea for the conference originally came to light when the club invited Jeremy Thode, an assistant principal at Center Moriches High School and the president of the Smithtown board of education, down to the school to speak to the club. Thode has been advocating for and educating about LGBTQ for little less than a year now. His son, Noah, came out as transgendered last January, and Thode has taken his experiences with his family’s path toward transition and acceptance and used it to advocate and educate both districts and parents.
“This event clearly told us that these kids, when with people who understand them, they are authentically themselves,” Thode said.
The club is planning future events for this year, including a visit this month to the LGBT Network of Long Island, a nonprofit support network that connects services on Long Island and Queens, where club students speak about the importance of allies in the community and how they wish to be treated by them. Later this year the club is planning a positivity week, which the club started three years ago. That week ends with a day of remembrance, where any participating student remains silent throughout the day to honor the people who have lost their lives due to discrimination in the past. On June 5, the district is also hosting the third annual Unity Dance for the other GSA clubs in Suffolk.
But club members also understand they have started something that may become a “legacy,” as Mulcahy put it. With Thode at the helm, the Smithtown school district is planning a similar event May 5. With more space in Smithtown High School West, they are able to fit the districts that were unable to come to the original event due to space.
“Ultimately, what needs to happen is more awareness, education and acceptance, not only in GSA’s, but in the wider community.” Thode said.
Location is largest of its kind in the United States
LGBT Network President David Kilmnick and state, county and town officials help cut the ribbon on the new 15,000 square-foot Hauppauge facility. Photo from DuWayne Gregory’s office
For Long Island’s LGBT community, a new 15,000 square-foot center is hoping to become the go-to center for helping those in the gay, bisexual and transgender communities.
“Twenty-five years later that need is just as great, if not even greater considering the climate we live in today — hate crimes are on the rise.”
— David Kilmnick
On May 31, on the eve of Pride Month, community members and elected officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony of the nonprofit association LGBT Network’s new facility at 125 Kennedy Drive, Suite 100, Hauppauge.
The new center will feature 7,500 square feet of community space which includes a café and workforce development program for young people. The Hauppauge facility will be the nation’s largest suburban LGBT center yet.
When LGBT Network president and CEO, David Kilmnick, began the organization 25 years ago, individuals were simply looking for a place to be themselves.
“Twenty-five years later that need is just as great, if not even greater considering the climate we live in today — hate crimes are on the rise,” he said.
The organization started during Kilmnick’s time as a graduate student. As part of a project, he conducted a workshop in several school districts throughout Long Island, talking to students about growing up LGBT in the suburbs.
He said after every workshop a few individuals would come up and ask him if there was a place to go where they could meet people like themselves.
“When I heard this from kids across the Island, I knew this project had to turn into something more,” he said.
The new site will include meeting and conference facilities, expansive health and human service programs including drop-in HIV testing five days a week, year-round arts and cultural programs, as well as additional services for LGBT-headed families and LGBT immigrants. The LGBT Network will employ more than 55 full-time staff at the new facility, making it one of the top 10 percent of employers in the region.
The LGBT Network president said he has heard from numerous individuals that if it wasn’t for the organization they don’t know if they’d be alive.
“Now there is a safe place for our youth and others to go.”
— DuWayen Gregory
“Our centers are saving lives every day, and this center will continue to do that for now and the next generations,” he said. “So today we begin a new chapter in helping all Long Islanders to be themselves, stay healthy and change the world.”
Suffolk County Legislature Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory (D-Amityville) shared his personal experiences of being a parent to his son, who came out to him as gay when he was 12 while they were getting ice cream.
“At first I was concerned, you don’t want your child to be a target,” he said. “Now there is a safe place for our youth and others to go.”
Gregory said he has supported the organization for quite some time and is glad the new site is finally open.
“This center will be great for future
generations,” he said.
The nonprofit’s reach extends now into Long Island City all the way to the East End. The organization is supporting an initiative called Teach LGBT NY, which is a bill that will require LGBT history to be required curriculum.
Also, in a couple of months, shovels will go into the ground in Bay Shore at the organization’s former center location to build 75 units of LGBT and LGBT-friendly affordable senior housing.
One protestor comforts another during a protest in Smithtown July 27. Photo by Jill Webb.
By Jill Webb
In a show of unity, North Shore residents resoundingly condemned President Donald Trump’s (R) intentions to ban transgender people from the military this past week.
Individuals gathered in front of the U.S. Army Recruitment Center in Smithtown in disapproval of President Trump’s announced ban July 27.
The ban stemmed from a series of tweets President Trump put out July 26, citing his reasoning for the transgender ban being that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
Trump’s declaration of the ban on Twitter led the Long Island Transgender Advocacy Coalition to come out to Smithtown to oppose the ban in a peaceful demonstration. The group advertised the demonstration via Facebook as a way for the transgender community and their allies to speak up for transgender service members.
Juli Grey-Owens, executive director of LITAC led the demonstration with a loudspeaker in hand, chanting in solidarity with the transgender community.
The goal of the demonstration, according to Grey-Owens, was to put transgender soldiers in the spotlight.
“To make people aware of the fact that there are Americans that are supporting our transgender troops — that’s important,” she said. “Number two, it’s to make people aware of the fact that the transgender community is constantly under duress, constantly being discriminated against and this is just one more thing.”
The aim of LITAC is to advocate for the transgender community, often through forums, demonstrations, and putting on informational sessions that Grey-Owens refers to as transgender 101s.
The Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act, passed in 2003 makes it unlawful for anyone in New York State to be discriminated against in employment, housing, credit, education and public accommodations because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.
A protestor shows support for transgender military members. Photo by Jill Webb.
But the law isn’t as clear for transgender individuals. SONDA does not explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and expression — but it does apply when a transgender person is discriminated against based upon his or her actual or perceived sexual orientation, according to the New York State Attorney General’s office.
Specific counties and areas, including Nassau and Suffolk County have taken matters into their own hands and passed more specific anti-discrimination legislation for sexual orientation.
Grey-Owens said that LITAC’s objective is to step in at any time the transgender community is being discriminated against.
The executive director, along with many of the other attendees of the demonstration, was aggravated with Trump’s accusations against the expenses of transgender health.
“One of things that they found is the number is so small in comparison to the defense budget, that it is a point zero something of the actual cost,” Grey-Owens said. “The army spends more on Viagra — ten times more on Viagra — then they will on transgender health costs.”
One of the best ways to help the transgender community, according to Grey-Owens, is to unite with them.
“If you take look at the crowd that’s here now, there are way more cisgender people [someone who’s gender identity matches the sex they were assigned to at birth] than transgender people here, and that’s made our voice louder,” she said. “People are adopting our cause as their cause. If they’re interested in helping out, this is how you help us: expand our voice.”
One participant, Edna White, said that she was in attendance in support of her transgender family and friends. She stressed the negative effects of the segregation.
“Taking a serious defense of our country — that shouldn’t be separated,” she said. “We’re already separated enough in war as it is, so to do that is really disheartening for me.”
Heather Sacc, another protestor said she found Trump’s sudden tweets against the transgender community very alarming.
“There’s 6,000 trans people in the military that have risked their lives,” she said. “The military didn’t ask for this. It’s just [Trump] woke up in the middle of the night and decided ‘oh that’s what I’m gonna do.”
A protestor shows support for transgender military members. Photo by Jill Webb.
Jay Gurecio attended the demonstration representing the LGBTQ+ visibility coalition, a group she is a co-founder of. Gurecio said she felt betrayed by Trump going back on his claims he would support the LGBTQ+ community during his campaign.
Trump tweeted in June 2016, thanking the LGBT community.
“I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs,” he said.
Guercio believes he has not kept to his promise.
“For him to go back on something that was implemented a year ago, that trans-people were allowed to serve and were allowed to get their surgery and their hormones covered, it’s just outright wrong,” Gurecio said.
Gurecio thinks the message Long Island should take from the demonstration is there is an LGBT community that will do everything in their power to stand in solidarity with each other.
“We’re peaceful, this isn’t angry, this isn’t something that’s even violent in any which manner,” Gurecio said. “I want people to understand that we just want to live our lives, and that we want the same rights as everyone else.”
The following day protestors continued to berate Trump during a visit he made in Brentwood to the Suffolk County Police Department.
Patricia Rios was holding a sign saying she voted for Trump and regretted her decision.
“Once he comes for the ‘T’ [talking about Transgendered] he’s going to come for the L, the G and the B,” she said. “So we’re here to protest that.”
Dr. David Kilmnick, CEO of LGBT Network, a Long Island LGBT advocacy group said more than just transgender military members rights were ignored this week.
“We found out… Trump was coming here, and timing would have it that he tweeted that he was going to ban transgender folks from serving our country and serving our military,” he said. “That wasn’t the only thing he did to the community this week — which was big enough. His attorney general filed a court brief saying that Title VII doesn’t protect LGBT people from discrimination from the federal government. Having Trump here on Long Island, having Trump as president is an embarrassment, a disgrace. He doesn’t represent the values of our country of equality and justice.”
A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released July 28 showed a large portion of the county disagrees with Trump on this position.
According to the poll, 58 percent of adults agreed transgender people should be allowed to serve while 27 percent said they should not.
Currently it’s unclear if Trump’s announcement will lead to real policy change, as the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford said last week the current military policy would not be changed until the White House issued further guidance.
Additional reporting contributed by Kyle Barr and Victoria Espinoza.
Sometimes common sense gets lost in arguments about transgender people using public bathrooms. File photo
Long before communities started talking about transgender people using bathrooms of the genders they identify with, our society has operated on a policy of privates being private. When someone walks into a male or female bathroom, no one already inside asks to inspect appendages or for legal proof of sex. And if urinators use separate, closed stalls, why does it matter what organs they have?
This apparently does matter for some, given the debates taking place on our local, state and national levels regarding transgender people and which bathrooms are safe or appropriate for them to use. Those debates, however, often lose sight of common sense.
There are those who want to prohibit anyone from using a restroom built for the sex other than the one they are legally labeled with, usually citing fear of predators posing as transgender to gain access to a different bathroom for nefarious purposes. We would like to ask those people two things: When has a legal limitation stopped a pervert from doing perverted things, and why would someone pretend to be transgender for a long period of time, enduring common things like public humiliation and bullying, just to one day enter a bathroom of the opposite sex and attack someone?
If the latter were ever to occur, it would certainly be a rare instance — too rare to make the legislation, which is impossible to enforce, worth the cost of further alienating a group that is already marginalized and just wants to be accepted for who they are.
It’s not like transgender people are using a toilet in front of others. In women’s public bathrooms, there are only private stalls, and a female transitioning to male would still use a stall in a men’s public bathroom.
The least controversial solution is, of course, to have only unisex, single-person bathrooms. To that end, we would encourage developers on new projects, wherever possible, to construct those kinds of bathrooms as opposed to shared bathrooms. They are simply more comfortable for everyone anyway — who doesn’t like to be alone in a bathroom?
But that isn’t necessarily a feasible fix for existing public spaces, not that we think they need to be fixed in the first place. In fact, the argument of transgender people using specific bathrooms opening a door for perverts reminds us of people who once feared homosexuals, contending that they were more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals.
The details are different but the message is the same — they seem to think accommodating or accepting LGBT people will put their society at risk.
We need to move forward in our thinking and understand that transgender people want the same thing in a public bathroom that the rest of us want: to pee in peace. Let’s not start a war over public toilets.
Stony Brook University has changed its class policy during the coronavirus outbreak. File photo
Stony Brook University is steps ahead of the nation on its public restroom policies.
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama required all public schools to provide restroom facilities for all students, including those who identify as transgender. But at Stony Brook, plans are already in place to accommodate students of any identification, making it the first school in the SUNY system to offer up all-gender restrooms and changing rooms.
Timothy Ecklund, dean of students at SBU, said the university introduced a draft diversity plan in December in an attempt to attack persistent issues of inequality affecting society as a whole. In an interview, he said the university’s plan to address gender and inequality, specifically pertaining to the transgender community, included requiring all new and renovated buildings on campus to have all-gender restrooms included in construction plans and installing at least one all-gender restroom in each existing campus building.
“As long as we have transgender people at our university, our perspective is they’re a member of our community and we need to support them,” he said.
Ecklund said Stony Brook University has a total of 24 all-gender restrooms, including three recently reassigned restrooms in its Student Activities Center building, which have multi-stall facilities.
“When we changed our restrooms to all-gender in the Student Activities Center, the feedback from our students was overwhelmingly supportive and positive,” he said. “I spend a lot of time on campus and I see students in and out of the restrooms there without any hesitation. It’s not an issue, for our students, at least.”
As for the students’ perspective, sophomore Sydney Gaglio, president of the campus’ Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Alliance, said the all-gender restroom discussion was long overdue, as it has always been a primary concern of her group.
“We are of course super excited about the all-gender restrooms on campus and it is definitely a point of pride on our campus,” she said in an interview. “As students, there has been some concern mentioned in that when it comes to social media sites like Yik Yak, where things are anonymous, commentary on the all-gender restroom policy on campus can get extremely transphobic, hurtful and invalidating. So there is concern for student health because of social stigma but, all in all, the conversation from members of LGBTA centers on excitement and validation.”
The issue has become a hot topic across the North Shore and greater United States. Last month, Port Jefferson school board members approved a policy for how district officials should interact with and accommodate transgender students, including on the way those students are referenced in school records and what bathroom and locker room facilities they can use. Other school districts on the North Shore have also tried to make rules for transgender students in recent years, but faced backlash from the community.
“Gender-specific restrooms still exist and if you feel more comfortable in those spaces, then that is okay,” Gaglio said. “But things like going to the restroom are personal things; let people do their business in peace and you do yours in peace and everyone will be happy. Allow people to occupy the space in which they feel comfortable in.”
But the university’s support for all of its students does not stop at the label on a bathroom door, the dean said.
Ecklund said the university is home to a number of transgender students, and the school is taking strides to accommodate them and be sensitive to their preferences.
“We are working now as a university at providing the opportunity for our transgender students to change their names,” he said. “We’re trying to make sure the places at which their names are present — especially on a daily basis — they’re able to use the name they prefer or the name that they have taken.”
James Stewart, second from left, with participants at last weekend’s LI Gay & Lesbian Festival. Photo from Raj Tawney
A Greenlawn resident with a love for film has helped create a diverse and welcoming environment at the Long Island Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
James Stewart, a retired Nassau County police officer who is gay, said he’s had a love for film ever since he was a young boy.
“My grandfather was a film usher,” Stewart said. The first film he ever saw with his grandfather was “Gone With the Wind.”
“To me, the Academy Awards are a holy night,” Stewart said. “Everyone who knows me knows not to call me that night.”
The festival celebrated its 18th year at Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington over the weekend, and it was Stewart’s third year as executive director. When he first got involved five years ago, he was the men’s feature program director and then the program director, before he became the executive director.
The executive director handles all of the programming for the festival, and the planning starts as early as March, he said. The festival was five days long and had more than 10 films, ranging from documentaries to feature films.
“My job is to balance everything out and make sure we have an equal amount of light movies, serious movies and documentaries and more, ” Stewart said.
There is also a balance of domestic versus international movies. Stewart said there were films from Australia, India and Mexico this year.
After almost every film, there is a food and cocktail reception, where Stewart said he hopes audience members will interact and help the festival become more of a social experience.
“It’s really about community,” Stewart said. “We hope to be starting new friendships.”
Stewart said he’s tried to get as many LGBT groups to sponsor the receptions as possible to encourage a communal feeling. At the receptions, there are also performers, including musical artists, comedy acts and more.
“I try to be as eclectic as possible,” Stewart said.
For the final night of the festival, Stewart said the entertainment included Broadway performers.
Everyone involved in this festival is a volunteer, and Stewart praised the staff he works with to make this festival possible. He also said Cinema Arts Centre is extremely generous and gracious with the flexibility they give the festival and describes it as “a match made in heaven.”
Stewart said he also likes the opportunity the film festival gives to independent movies that have a very little chance at getting shown on Long Island.
“A lot of these movies you wouldn’t normally get to see on Long Island,” Stewart said. “These are great films, but either they don’t have the proper distribution or enough money, so this is your chance to see them.”
Paul Garske addresses the Rocky Point Board of Education about the accommodations for transgender students. Photo by Giselle Barkley
After dealing with the outcome of the defeated $20.4 million maintenance bond vote, the Rocky Point Board of Education is faced with another issue to tackle — accommodating transgender or gender-nonconforming students, particularly when it comes to bathrooms and locker rooms.
Although the board tabled the issue during its Oct. 26 meeting, that didn’t stop parents from voicing their concerns. The issue, to parents, is not that these students use the bathrooms or locker rooms they identify with, it’s the fact that these students have not made the full transition to the sex they identify with.
Paul Garske, a father of four, is one of several parents who are not in favor of the school district’s current practice, saying that it confuses younger children and allows for an increase in sexual harassment within the institutions. Garske also mentioned that privacy is difficult to maintain in a locker room setting as students will or may change in front of one another.
“Kids are taught about the difference between boys and girls and privacy,” he said. “When you take that privacy away, it defeats what parents are teaching their children.”
Garske said he has no issue with transgender or gender-nonconforming students, and wouldn’t mind if these students completed their transition into the sex they identified with. He said kids prefer they share a bathroom or locker room with students who have the same genitalia, and suggested that such students utilize the handicapped bathrooms. When he contacted the assistant principal, he was informed that the school’s accommodations for these students was part of the law.
The New York State Education Department issued guidance to school districts to help keep their students safe and prevent discrimination of transgender or gender nonconforming students. The document suggests that a school accepts a student’s assertion regarding their gender identity. While it doesn’t offer many specific means of protecting these children, the document does say “prohibiting a student from accessing the restrooms that match his gender identity is prohibited sex discrimination under Title IX.”
Jen Carlson, another local parent, said regardless of how a student identifies, kids develop differently according to their biological sex. During the Oct. 26 meeting, a further parent stated that residents should keep in mind that these transgender students “are children, and everyone here in this community is also part of keeping those children safe — whether you agree with it or you disagree with it.”
The resident continued addressing the board and those who attended the meeting.
“I hope the school board does the right thing and keeps those children safe,” she said. “If they identify as a girl, then they’re a girl; if they identify as a boy, they’re a boy and they belong in a boys’ bathroom or a girls’ bathroom.”
Both Superintendent of Schools Michael Ring and Rocky Point BOE President Susan Sullivan are determining what is best for these students.
“As is required, while we await a final policy from the Board of Education, the district is operating to implement the outlined material issued and required by the NYSED,” Ring said in an email.
Sullivan added that the board “is continuing to review the new and multilayered guidance document provided by the state Education Department and is seeking advice from our legal counsel about the appropriate steps our district should take in order to ensure our adherence to its contents.”
According to Sullivan, the guidance document is also supported by the U.S. Department of Education. Despite this, Garske doesn’t feel that government should interfere with how he raises his children, who he said feel uncomfortable changing and going to the bathroom with individuals who are not of the same sex physically.
“Do they have a right to be who they are? Absolutely. Do they have a right to their privacy and their comfort? Absolutely,” Garske said. “But not at the risk of my own children’s privacy comfort and their rights.”
The board plans to look further into the issue and make a decision at its next meeting on Nov. 23.
