Center Blog

This week our Director of Center Wellness Andres Hoyos, joined two Center clients in testifying before New York City Council’s Committee on Immigration. The legislative body was specifically looking into how NYC immigrants are treated in detention centers and considering two resolutions. 

One resolution “urges the United States Department of Homeland Security to investigate abuse allegations and take action to ensure the safety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender immigrants in the custody of the United States Department of Homeland Security.” The other “calls upon the 112^th United States Congress to pass, and the President to sign, the Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act (H.R. 933), to reform immigration detention procedures and help ensure more just detention policies and procedures.”

Hoyos pointed out the often brutal conditions facing LGBT immigrants in custody:

The LGBT immigrants that seek services at the Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender Community Center tell us stories of the abuse they have suffered at detention centers. Their complaints span from verbal abuse, to excessive force, to sexual assault by fellow detainees and prison officers. Denial of adequate medical care is also widespread and includes medical treatment for detainees living with HIV, and hormone therapy for transgender immigrant detainees. The lack of enforceable regulations providing required care to LGBT immigrant detainees is obvious. Both, the federal and the local administrations have failed to adequately address LGBT immigration detention conditions.

Two clients we have served at the Center also testified about the poor treatment they encountered in detention centers.

Cecilia Gentili is a transgender immigrant from Argentina who faced both physical and verbal abuse in correctional facilities before she was ultimately granted asylum after being in this country for 10 years.

In January 2001 I came to the US from Argentina escaping from oppression, discrimination and stigma against transgender people. At that time I had already developed an unhealthy mechanism to cope with all the abuse experienced in my country of origin: drugs.

The uncertainties about my legal situation in this country, the very low self-esteem, and the inability to deal with my past didn’t help and my problem escalated.

I was arrested for drug possession four times and each arrest  was a very painful experience. Police officers made fun of me and I was verbally abused in the precincts. One time, before facing the judge, I was forced to have sex with an officer. When I tried to report it to my lawyer, she totally overlooked it and talked me into “taking care of getting me released,” instead.

After my last arrest I was sent to Rikers Island, where things did not go any better. A transgender woman already in the process of transition, I was placed with men and experienced physical and verbal abuse by other inmates that was absolutely ignored by the guards. It seemed more like an amusement for them.  I also received no treatment for heroine withdrawals for several days.

During those days my legal situation came up and I was sent to the Immigration Detention Center on Varick Street in Manhattan. I was put in isolation. My emotions and mental state where severely compromised.

Luckily Ms. Gentili has been able to overcome the immense obstacles she faced, but many LGBT immigrants are not as fortunate.  She urged the the City Council committee not to forget her harrowing story.

Another Center client, David Williams relayed the poor conditions he encountered at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility (BFDF), in Batavia, New York

There was inadequate rationing of clothing and hygiene supplies; poor quality food; constant toilet privacy violations; ‘double bunking’ with newly sentenced or pending sentencing federal prisoners (who usually started violent fights); freezing cold water in the showers; no proper medical treatment or availability; and cell blocks that contained segregated prisoners who required round the clock transport back and forth to their cells.

During his testimony Andres Hoyos gave the committee his recommendations for fixing the current system:

1.    Provide funding for awareness campaigns that inform LGBT immigrants about their rights and connect them to services as soon as they arrive in the United States.

2.    Ensure that voices of LGBT immigrants are heard within the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA). Encourage the creation of a LGBT immigrant committee within the MOIA whose job will be to ensure that all literature created by the MOIA is inclusive of LGBT immigrants.

3.    Assist the Center in expanding funding opportunities that will address the need for continued emotional support services and advocacy for LGBT immigrants at the Center.

4.    Enact and enforce protocols that take in consideration and safeguard the emotional and physical well being of the LGBT immigrants.

5.    Establish collaborations with community based organizations and other agencies to expand the pool of options beyond detention centers. These options should ensure that immigrants stay within the geographical area where he/she is based and not removed out of state as is currently the case in many instances.

6.    Establish collaborations with community based organizations and other agencies to increase education among the immigrant community about their rights,  and alternatives to detention, how to file complains and who can advocate on their behalf regarding any irregularity that may happen in while under the care of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

7.    Establish clear protocols as to how the immigrants that are under the care of DHS will have access to HIV medications, anti-depressants, hormone treatment and other mental or physical needs.

8.    Solitary confinement should never be the first option for LGBT immigrants but an alternative to detention, since this causes severe negative emotional impacts.

The Center is thankful that the City Council had this vital conversation and looks forward to collaborating to develop new programs that address the needs of the LGBT immigrant community.

Guest Post by Richard Allen

Though you may not be immediately familiar with the name Jonathan David Katz, you might be aware of the flap surrounding he and his co-curators, David C. Ward and Jenn Sichel last year. They originally organized HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.

Jonathan David Katz

The exhibit sought to show the gay presence, both as subject and creator, in American art in the last century, and was intentionally as un-sensationalistic as it could be. (In fact, apart from two or three exceptions, Katz and his colleagues chose to only show nudes by straight artists, and only showed portraits by gay artists that were clothed, and at most obliquely sexual.) One piece, however, a short video by the artist David Wojnarowicz called “A Fire in My Belly,” was removed without the curators’ prior knowledge or consent, due to content that some, including Speaker of the House John Boehner, saw as anti-Christian.  

The content is a brief shot of ants crawling over a crucifix, within a slightly longer scene of ants crawling over other objects as well.  The 1987 short film is meant to allegorize the artist’s feelings about his own looming death from AIDS. (He died in 1992.) The video is uncontroversial, as is the majority of the work in the exhibit (who knew there were so many Robert Mapplethorpe photographs that didn’t contain nudity?), to the extent that one gets the impression that protesters and critics were looking for anything that they deemed scandalous or inappropriate, and that they were clutching at straws to condemn something, anything about the show, because none of the more obviously homoerotic imagery, which was the true target, was particularly shocking or objectionable.

At the Center’s most recent Second Tuesday Lecture Series on November 15th, Katz avoided focusing on that aspect of the exhibit, which opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in November; he instead highlighted the curatorial process of the exhibit, and discussed the gay shadow history that lay just past the surface of the twentieth century.  

Katz is currently the director of the graduate program in visual culture studies at SUNY Buffalo, and the depth of his knowledge coupled with his engaging and unpretentious speaking style quickly won over a room that was initially more interested in the mediagenic side of the exhibit.

He began his lecture with a painting by Thomas Eakins called Salutat from 1898, depicting a young, muscular prize fighter on display for a shadowy audience.  The body is not presented only as the winner of a contest, but also as an object for delectation, both for the viewers in the painting, and outside.  Eakins, however, was straight, and this first image laid the groundwork for one of Katz’s main themes in the lecture: that prior to the Lavender Menace of the 1950s, co-witch hunt of the Red Menace, being gay, nebulous concept though that was, was frequently treated with a casual awareness, and even winking tolerance, by the larger, heterosexual culture.  

He went on to show several images of public bathing in World War I-era New York by George Bellows, also straight, that had figures that we moderns clearly peg as “gay”, and Katz hastened to assure us that the original audience of these pictures would also have understood what was being depicted, in a neutral, documentary fashion.  

Katz continued on with his selective overview of the 105 works in the show, cycling through gay touchstones like Paul Cadmus and the wealthy lesbian ex-pat scene in Paris, but also teasing out the overtones of same-sex attraction and gay identity in the works of artists like Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.  His characterization of the works of Johns and Rauschenberg during their relationship as a sort of lovers’ conversation was particularly poignant, and he convincingly argued that the mainstream art history community’s willful white-washing of this relationship not only robs gay culture of two major figures, but also ignores an entire set of clues for analyzing their output.

The final image Katz showed, and the final image in the exhibit, was of an enormous, wall-engulfing (84×168 inches) photograph by A.A. Bronson called Felix, June 5, 1994.  It shows the artist’s partner in bed, shortly after dying from AIDS, so emaciated that he looks barely human, his skin so drawn across his skeletal face that his eyes could not be closed after his death; there simply was no longer the excess flesh for eyelids.  The photograph is harrowing and brutal, and dares the viewer to look away, or to keep looking; both options are excruciating.  Its placement seems to say that this is where a hundred years of art and history and politics and disease have led to, and that the true scandal of this exhibit is not some ants crawling on a crucifix for a few seconds, but instead the photographic proof of the social and political indifference that led AIDS to ravage a community and a decade.

HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture runs through February 12, 2012 at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Guest Post by Otto Coca

On Monday, December 5, the Center hosted a very special holiday event. It was the Broadway Sings for Pride Winter Concert; an evening filled with fabulous music and performances with the emphasis on pride and holiday cheer. Hosted by the irrepressible Marissa Rosen, star of My Big Gay Italian Wedding and the dashing Raphael Miranda, NBC New York’s weekend meteorologist, the evening was an important fundraiser for the Center and a major success.

Before the doors opened, guests enjoyed cocktails in the reception area and browsed a Broadway-themed silent auction featuring signed playbills and window cards from top shows.

Inside, the set may have been minimal, but green and red projections kept the stage animated as the evening’s talent performed songs befitting the season in addition to songs that spoke to the theme of pride and love.

The third floor auditorium was packed as Raphael Miranda and Russell Fischer of Broadway’s Jersey Boys performed a charming Winter Medley while ‘snowclouds’ danced and sang around them. While Miranda played the strong silent type, Fischer, with his full, soulful voice, filled the room and got the evening off to a great start.

With such a full line-up, acts took to the stage in rapid succession and had time for only one or two songs before turning the stage over to the next eager performer. The performers camaraderie and enthusiasm was infectious and the audience greeted each act with huge rounds of applause.

Some highlights were Adam Pascal, the Tony-nominated star of Rent and other Broadway shows; Terri White spent her evening off from Follies to be part of the festivities; singer-songwriter Emily Kinney of Spring Awakening gave the crowd a dose of adorable with quirky selections from her recent album, Blue Toothbrush.

Lesser known performers gave their all: Katie Thompson and her ‘tween guest vocalist, Julia Riglioso, had the audience in hysterics with their I like Christmas for the Food and Amy Toporek raised the roof with her amazing voice and natural stage presence. Each of the evening’s performances earned the audience’s praise, not only from talent but also for simply being part of this wonderful evening.

Andres Hoyos (middle) receiving NASW-NYC Emerging Leaders Award

On December 1, Director of Center Wellness Andrés Hoyos, received an Emerging Leaders Award from the New York City Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW-NYC). Hundreds gathered at Jing Fong Restaurant in Manhattan to pay tribute not only to Hoyos, but a host of other influential social workers. Hoyos was joined by his Center colleagues Nicole Avallone, Director of Youth Services, and George Fesser, Director of Center Families.

Through its leadership awards, NASW-NYC recognizes social workers who demonstrate exemplary leadership qualities and a unique commitment to the improvement of social and human conditions, assuring a promising future for the profession and the communities they serve.

Andrés Hoyos is a gay Latino man, originally from Colombia, who has been working in the field of social services since he was a teenager. Hoyos began his career in his native Medellín, where he worked with an NGO to establish the first ever national HIV/AIDS hotline in Colombia.

Center Staff: Nicole Avallone, Dir. of Youth Services (left), Andres Hoyos, Director of Center Wellness (middle), George Fesser, Director of Center Families (right)

Since relocating to New York City in 2000, he has worked on a volunteer basis with several agencies and committees to improve the quality of life for our communities—such as GMHC, the NYC HIV/AIDS Prevention Planning Group, Queens Pride House, the Manhattan Alcohol and Substance Abuse Council, and the Cultural Diversity Committee of Association of Substance Abuse Provider NYS.

Hoyos has been working at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in NYC since 2003. In 2007, he founded and became director of Center Recovery, the first and only state licensed substance abuse prevention program serving the LGBT community in New York.

Hoyos currently serves as the Director of Center Wellness. Under his leadership, the program has provided vital support social services to tens of thousands of LGBT people.

Andres Hoyos, Director of Center Wellness, at NASW-NYC Awards

In 2009, Hoyos was selected along with 19 other people of color as new leaders of the LGBT movement nationwide, to be part of the inaugural “21st Century Fellows Program,” sponsored by Arcus Foundation, the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, and the Gill Foundation.

Andres Hoyos, Director of Center Wellness (left) and Nicole Avallone, Director of Youth Services (right)

Hoyos’ commitment to social justice has been infused throughout his work at the Center, his private practice, and most recently, as an Adjunct Professor and Faculty Advisor at NYU’s School of Social Work. The Center congratulates him on this well-deserved honor!

The Center is posting this information at the request of our sister organization, the NYC Anti-Violence Project.

Real Talk with AVP: Identifying Intimate Partner Violence

Tuesday December 13th

6:30 – 8:30pm

NYC Anti-Violence Project

240 W. 35^th St., 2^nd Floor, Between 7^th and 8^th Ave.

Want to learn more about what defines an abusive relationship? 

Ever felt powerless when your friends were in unhealthy relationships?

Do you want to end Intimate Partner Violence within Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ)  communities?

Come ready to learn, share, and take action to end Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTQ Communities.  “Real Talks” are chances for AVP community members to join together to learn issues and to create strategies to reduce violence.

Light refreshments will be served.  To register, please visit this link. 

Guest Post by: Stephan Lherisson

On Friday, November 11, LGBT veterans and supporters came together for the Center’s LGBT Veteran’s Day Reception: A Celebration of Service, honoring the first Veteran’s Day since the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Current and former soldiers of the United States armed forces from as far back as World War II, to as present as Afghanistan were available for an event to honor their sacrifices to the country as well as their ability to now serve openly and proudly as lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

Photo by Andy Duty

Alfred Eriksson, currently an antique prints and maps dealer, was one of those who served in the Second World War. Drafted in 1943 he served till 1946. He was a Sergeant in Army intelligence studying the Japanese army.  Of the repeal he said,” It’s wonderful.”

“During the actual war they didn’t pay attention to sexual orientation,”   he said when asked about attitudes toward sexuality in the army during that time. “Everyone was very discreet,” he added.

Ed Loecher who served as a Staff Sergeant in Korea from 1951-1955 echoed that sentiment. “I don’t think anyone cared too much. When you’re out in the field people don’t care as much.”

Morgan Cooley, an E5 Sergeant in the U.S. Army for six years in Afghanistan expressed her excitement over being able to attend multiple Veteran’s Day events openly now. She expressed the pressure she felt as a woman, especially in the military environment which can be as close as a family.

Photo by Andy Duty

The mastermind behind the event was Adrian Ogle, the Cultural Programs Coordinator. Why did he decide to make this his first event at the center? “Because following the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal I came to the conclusion I was disconnected from the service.”

The event was marked by a performance from the Gay Men’s Chorus as well as speeches from speakers Zeke Stokes from the Service Members Legal Defense Network, Brenda “Sue” Fulton from Knights Out, Denny Meyer from American Veterans for Equal Rights and the Transgender American Veterans Association, Joshua Seefried from OutServe, and Anu Bhagwati from the Service Women’s Action Network.

For all of its celebration the occasions was also used to remember the battles won but also the battles to come as event goers mentioned the continued plight of transgender soldiers who still cannot serve openly in the military.

One of our sister organizations, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), has asked the Center to help get the word out about its GSA Census.

Here’s direction from GLSEN on how you can get involved:

 Click Here to take the 2011 GSA Census and let your GSA’s needs in the safe schools movement be heard!

How many GSAs exist in the country? What kinds of support do GSAs need? We want to know and we need YOUR help! 

The GSA Census defines GSA as an umbrella term used to refer to all student clubs that bring LGBT youth and allies together to work on creating safe and inclusive school environments (e.g., Gay-Straight Alliance, Gay-Straight-Transgender Alliance, Queer-Straight Alliance, Rainbow Club). All GSA students and advisors/sponsors are welcome to take the GSA Census. 

All GSA Census participants will be entered in a raffle to win a www.glsenstore.org gift certificate!

Today is World AIDS Day, a time for the global community to remember those we’ve lost, contemplate ways to better help people living with HIV, and promote solutions to prevent the spread of this disease. This year marks 30 years since the first AIDS case was reported in the U.S.

Since our founding in 1983, the Center has been fully committed to providing HIV and AIDS services to our community, which has been profoundly affected by the AIDS epidemic. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers with HIV or AIDS have benefited from our help. Each year The Center provides more than 1,800 counseling and group sessions to people living with and affected by HIV and AIDS. More than 1,000 LGBT youth and young adults attend HIV prevention activities and leadership training.  Thousands more attend educational forums and conferences.

But our work to end the epidemic is far from over. According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, “New York City remains the epicenter of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. More than 107,000 New Yorkers are living with HIV, but thousands more don’t know they’re infected. New York City’s AIDS case rate is almost 3 times the U.S. average, and HIV is the 3rd leading cause of death for New York City residents aged 35 to 54.”

African Americans, gay and bisexual men, transgender people and youth 13-29 continue to experience high and increasing rates of HIV infection in New York City. New York is not alone, since the first AIDS cases were reported, the global AIDS epidemic has become one of the greatest threats to human health and development.

The Center’s for Disease Control released new figures this year showing that ‘despite years of great progress in treating AIDS, the number of new HIV infections has remained stubbornly around 50,000 a year in the United States for a decade.

Today as we reflect on 30 years of HIV/AIDS, we remain optimistic in the knowledge that with continued activism, support, education, prevention programs and community building we can ultimately end this epidemic.

As part of World AIDS Day formerViva Glam Ambassador and M·A·C AIDS Fund spokesperson, Cyndi Lauper will join M.A.C Cosmetics at the Center. Lauper and M·A·C will assemble gift bags, with items donated from the New York Liberty, Contesta Rock Hair and MTV Networks,  for the LGBT Center youth and speak to press on the importance of this day. Lauper is well known for her exceptional voice and endless dedication to raising awareness for HIV/AIDS prevention and care. She recently attended the Center’s Women’s Event 14, introducing her friend and our honoree, out comedienne and activist Wanda Sykes.

The Center will also commemorate World AIDS Day by presenting documentarians Kate Kunath and Sasha Wortzel in conversation with Dennis Parrott and Linda King, owners of the legendary Starlite Lounge.

In 1959, a decade prior to Manhattan’s Stonewall riots, the Starlite Lounge opened in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, as a non-discriminatory establishment for gay people of color. A half-century later, the neighborhood and the gay community were shocked when the oldest, Black-owned, LGBT establishment was given notice to vacate and was ultimately forced to close in 2010.

In honor of World AIDS Day, The Center will focus on how the Starlite became a refuge and organizing point in response to the AIDS epidemic. The filmmakers will share key excerpts of their documentary-in-progress, Starlite, and talk with former resident performer Lady Jasmine and long-time patrons about what the Starlite meant to the community, especially in the early days of the epidemic.

Also featured at the event will be the organizers of the AIDS Memorial Park and learning center currently being proposed for the triangle site opposite the former St. Vincent’s Hospital. The proposed location sits in the middle of the neighborhood, the site of significant AIDS epidemic organizing: from the first AIDS ward at St. Vincent’s Hospital to the founding of ACT UP and other advocacy organizations at the Center.

We invite our community to be a part of our World AIDS Day events, help us pay tribute to all those we have lost and work strategically with us throughout the next decade in our continued efforts to end AIDS.