Fusion Magazine - Spring 2021. The Intersectionality Issue.

wHat'S insIdE Left Behind 6 The Gap In LGBTQ+ And Disability Rights

Visibility In Education 10 LGBTQ+ Students In The Classroom

LGBTQ+ And Latino 12 Finding A Way To Be Both

The Black LGBTQ+ Experience 14 LGBTQ+ Asian And Pacific Americans 16 The Struggle To Find Acceptance

Word From The Wise 18 A Collection Of Stories From Queer Elders

Colors And Threads 20 How LGBTQ+ Culture Influences Fashion

Spectrum Of Pride 24 All In The Family 26 From Turing To Today 28 How Can Scientific Spaces Be More Welcoming?

The Keshet Connection 30 Where Judaism Meets The LGBTQ+ Community

On Fatness, Queerness And Gender Performance

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How Gender Dysphoria Impacts Eating Disorders 38

Bridging Worlds 40 How The United States Abandoned LGBTQ+ Refugees

Remembering MJ Eckhouse 42

FUSION SPRING 2021

meet tHe staff!

Angela Molina

Moira Armstrong

Khiara McCarroll

Amanda Stayer

Wesley Koogle

Drew Kazdin

Editor in Chief

Managing Editor

Senior Editor

Photo Editor

Art Director

Assistant Art Director

Amanda Fowler

Gianna Berresford Natalia Cruz Marketing Director

Julia Duanetto De Sousa

Chloe Parrino

Social Media Guru

Charmayne Williamson

Staff Writer

Hannah Clotz

Joe Herrera

Halle Shanks

Designer/Illustrator

Illustrator

Illustrator

Staff Writer

Beat Reporter

Photographer

Student Media Office

Contributors

Kevin Dilley

Paige Brown

Director of Student Media

Designer

Bruce Zake

Marcus Molina

Fusion Advisor

Designer

Norma Young

Nick Lee

Student Media Buisness Manager

Painter

Lorie Bednar

Mario Arteaga

Student Media Office Manager

Cover Model

Jenna Gobrecht Sales Manager

Not Pictured Grace Christopher Staff Writer

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lettER From tHe EditoR Dear readers,

W

elcome to our Spring 2021 issue. I would say it’s been a crazy year, but you knew that coming in. This year, we wanted to focus on something that colors our experiences within the LGBTQ+ community—intersectionality.

The term “intersectionality” was coined by Black feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. It is a framework that understands how various social and political identities interact to create different experiences of discrimination and privilege. And, whether we recognize it or not, it frames our lived experiences.

Our stories are centered on this theme, recognizing that the LGBTQ+ community is not a monolith but a quilt. We are many unique pieces, and we owe it to one another to protect and uplift the whole quilt, not just our individual patches.

We at Fusion are thrilled to explore this quilt with you, and while the possibilities of intersectionality are endless, we hope that this issue provides a starting point to understanding the beauty and diversity of our community.

The Fusion team has encountered unprecedented challenges this year. Having to perform our activities remotely, the staff has brought all their passion and creativity to this issue and then some. I could not be more proud of their tireless efforts and talents.

I want to thank all the mentors I have had that have led me to this point. I am so grateful for everything they have taught me, including how to come out of my shell. When I was young, I could not foresee what my future would look like as a lesbian. I can never thank the LGBTQ+ adults I have in my life who have shown me that it is possible.

I hope you enjoy our stories and that you walk away with a deeper understanding of how rich and varied our community is.

Angela Molina Editor in Chief

Angela MMolina 5

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Left Behind

The Gap In LGBTQ+ And Disability Rights Words by Moira Armstrong Photos and collage by Drew Kazdin and Charmayne Williamson

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n recent years, the LGBTQ+ community has made huge strides in terms of rights and acceptance. However, a significant part of the community—disabled LGBTQ+ people—are not always protected by new legislation or social change. This is a serious problem that affects a large population. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey shows that LGBTQ+ people are more likely to have a disability than the general population. Thirty-nine percent of surveyed transgender people are disabled, compared to 20% of the general population, according to the CDC. Failing to include disabled people in movements for LGBTQ+ equality also affects many areas of life, three of the most prominent being housing, employment and marriage.

Housing While the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) states that disability discrimination is prohibited by the Fair Housing Act and Americans with Disabilities Act, the disabled community faces a housing crisis due to a lack of affordable and accessible housing. According to Apartment

List, there are 15.2 million households in which disabled individuals live, but only 6.6 million of those residences are accessible.

Additionally, accessible homes are not often occupied by those who need them. Of those accessible houses, only 1.3 million are actually occupied by a disabled person.

This difficulty is compounded for LGBTQ+ disabled people.

The Human Rights Campaign’s State Equality Index 2020 (HRC) reports that only 22 states prohibit housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Michigan only prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Biden administration announced that HUD would begin accepting complaints of housing discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, who have been declared protected under the Fair Housing Act. While this federal ruling overrides state laws still in place, this has not yet been challenged in court, meaning that conflicts could still arise. This deeply affects the community, which is statistically proven to be discriminated against in the housing search.

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"135,030 disabled workers in the United States can be paid less than the federal minimum wage."

The Urban Institute found that landlords in Washington D.C. showed a bias against renting apartments to transgender applicants and landlords in Dallas, Texas showed a bias against gay male applicants. However, since neither location protects LGBTQ+ people from housing discrimination, queer disabled people may be turned away from the rare affordable and accessible housing that exists.

Employment The HRC shows a slightly better record of state protections for LGBTQ+ employment. Twenty-two states and Washington D.C. prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Michigan provides these protections based on sexual orientation only. The June 2020 Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County protects public LGBTQ+ employees from discrimination, but not those in the private sector. A 2017 survey conducted

by Harvard found that 59% of LGBTQ+ Americans feel less likely to be given employment opportunities because of their gender or sexuality, and one in five stated that they had experienced difficulty while applying for jobs.

The effect is even stronger on the transgender community, who experience unemployment at three times the rate of the cisgender population according to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey.

LGBTQ+ employees are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which establishes a federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. However, Vox reports that due to a loophole in this law, disabled employees do not have to be paid minimum wage if “they can’t perform a job as well as a person who is not disabled,” a parameter determined by the employer that leads to exploitation.

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Vox reported that the Department of Labor said about 135,000 disabled workers in the United States can be paid less than the federal minimum wage—some are paid as little as four cents per hour. NPR reported that Vermont, Alaska, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire and Oregon have banned this practice, but this still leaves people in 43 states vulnerable. For LGBTQ+ disabled people, this could mean not only a struggle to find a job, but also to find a fair-paying job.

Marriage Same-sex marriages have broader protection, having been recognized in the United States since 2015 when Obergefell v. Hodges legalized samesex marriage in all states. After the ruling, same-sex marriages also became recognized in terms of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a federal income supplement program designed to assist elderly and disabled people with little to no income by providing funds to meet basic needs like food, clothing and shelter.

However, for disabled people, marriage under SSI imposes stringent restrictions.

According to the University of Minnesota, if two individuals receiving SSI get married, they will receive 25% less in SSI benefits than two unmarried people.

In addition, the resource limit—set at $2,000 at one time in a bank account for an individual—only increases to $3,000 for a married couple. These SSI restrictions also apply to those who meet the definition of a couple as decided by the Social Security Administration.

B.J. Stasio, president of the Self-Advocacy Association of New York State, says, “the theory is that a couple can live on less income together than they

would as individuals.” However, this is not accurate. A paper from the Disability and Health Journal analyzed 20 studies that estimated the extra cost associated with disability in 2017. While the exact amount varies significantly, it is always upwards of a thousand dollars, ranging from $1,170 to $6,952 per year. This means that overall, marriage may financially disadvantage disabled people in a way that may make it entirely unfeasible.

Disability and Race Many of these difficulties compound for disabled people of color. According to the CDC, Native Americans and Black people are more likely to be disabled than white people. Isabella Kres-Nash writes for the American Association of People with Disabilities that throughout history, Black and brown bodies have been “pathologized in order to perpetuate white supremacy” and systemic issues that result in those increased rates of disability, such as lack of access to healthcare, are ignored by the political establishment.

Racism is equally as systemic, affecting many areas of life. The National Disability Institute reports that disabled adults of color “remain below the bottom rung of the economic ladder,” which exacerbates difficulties like paying for housing.Additionally,the National Bureau of Economic Research and Economic Policy Institute report that people of color are already hired less frequently and paid less in salary than white employees. Ralph Richard Banks writes in the Atlantic that marriage has declined and divorce has risen in the Black community at all income levels, which results in even greater economic inequality. Racism and ableism combined can shut disabled people of color out of housing, jobs and economic stability entirely.

An International Issue None of these problems are unique to the United States, either. Jase Puddicombe, an author in the United Kingdom who uses they/them pronouns, has faced marriage and housing inequality because under the UK’s benefits system, the income of anyone living with

Puddicombe is added to their household income, which means they lose their benefits. For this reason, they had to move out of their partner’s house last year.

“We won’t be able to get married any time soon,” Puddicombe says. “Not until my partner is earning enough to cover both our expenses and my care and medical costs. We have been together almost four years and we have no equality to live together or get married due solely to my disability … it’s a horrible situation.”

The Twitter tag #VowsYetPromised contains the stories of many other LGBTQ+ people in similar situations.

Sarah Cavar, a Ph.D. student in cultural studies at UC Davis who uses they/them pronouns, speculates that these gaps occur because “the legal protections around queer and disabled people, respectively, are designed to ‘normalize’ us as much as possible,” whether as participants in the traditional family structure or contributors to capitalism. However, able-bodied LGBTQ+ people can assimilate without social or financial disruption while “disabled people of all types are viewed as disposable and even worthless,” and not worth the investment in change.

They also point out that the intersection between LGBTQ+ and disabled people is often ignored, and Puddicombe raises a similar sentiment, saying, “I think I’ve experienced more inequality in regards to my disability because people are less aware of it as an issue … I have some legal protection as an LGBTQ+ person. I don’t have that same protection as a young disabled person.”

Mutual Aid as a Solution No organizations exist to serve the needs of queer disabled people specifically, and many people who belong to both communities turn to mutual aid for support. According to Joel Izlar from the University of Georgia, whose research focuses on community organizing and mutual aid, “mutual aid is when everyday people get together to meet each other’s needs, with the shared understanding that the systems we live in are not meeting our needs and that we can meet them together, right now, without having to pressure power structures to do the right thing.”

This can take many forms, from providing food to directly distributing funds.

In “Queer Disability Justice Dreams,” a panel discussion sponsored by City University of New York and Wesleyan University, disabled poet, writer, educator and activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, who uses she/ her and they/them pronouns, describes that mutual aid originated in disability communities. These often manifest as care collectives, defined by the Toronto-based Cultivating Collective Care founded by academic and activist Loree Erickson as “informal collectives within and between marginalized communities committed to meeting the care needs of community members independently.”

This is often safer than traditional methods of disability care, including familial, institutional or medical care. According to the World Health Organization, disabled people are more likely to face abuse than non-disabled people. That abuse is usually at the hands of non-dis-

abled people, and gaining care from fellow disabled people eliminates that risk.

Unfortunately, this history is often not acknowledged by the leftist groups that practice mutual aid and have become its mainstream face, but PiepznaSamarasinha notes that it is extremely necessary to both “name disabled genius” by acknowledging those roots and to incorporate disability justice principles in mutual aid. They elaborate that this includes working within communities to accept people’s needs at face value, ensure safety for disabled people who may have trauma surrounding care and work with people who are struggling to name their needs and ask for help.

This is a particular necessity in intersectional spaces.

“I was doing a workshop around care work ... and someone asked, ‘what even is a need? How do we know what our needs are?’” Piepzna-Samarasinha recalls. “It was a group of BIPOC [Black, Indigeneous and People of Color] people, all queer, and we had to have this conversation—most of us have survived by being like, ‘I don’t have any needs. I’m fine. I’m independent.’”

Bridging that gap is frequently addressed in disability-focused mutual aid, but not often in leftist mutual aid.

At the same panel, professor and activist Dr. Sami Schalk said that this and other voids in mutual aid occur because non-disabled mutual aid has “been divorced from community.”

The work of building relationships over time takes longer and is less popular than the common model of mutual aid, which tends to resemble charity. But she says “disability justice is right at the forefront” of building real, transformative communities.

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LGBTQ+ Students In The Classroom Words by Julia Duanetto Photos by Amanda Stayer Models: Autumn Pritchard (L) and Miranda Evans (R)

Visibility In Education 10

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GBTQ+ students are more visible on U.S. college campuses now than at any point in history, but they still remain a minority. They are often targets of discrimination and oppression, facing struggles such as verbal harassment, exclusion and lack of respect from their peers and instructors.

This is especially an issue for transgender and nonbinary students.

Trans and nonbinary is an umbrella term for a part of the LGBTQ+ community that encompasses many gender identities, such as genderfluid, genderqueer and gender non-conforming. Brianna Huang, from the Aragon Outlook, reports that many students who are trans and nonbinary experience a great deal of anxiety, stress and frustration when their identities are not respected in the classroom.

Students may be worried about peers, instructors or staff misgendering or outing them. They also may feel that they must come out every semester when introducing themselves, which can become tiring.

In recent years, students on campuses across the country have been increasingly outspoken about combating binary assumptions concerning gender identity and gender expression and providing more explicit support to trans and nonbinary students. Classrooms can be made more inclusive of these students through some easy steps.

The Daily Nebraskan opinion editor, Sydney Miller, writes that instructors can promote inclusion by asking for pronouns during introductions at the beginning of the semester. Introducing yourself in new classes can be challenging, and it is even harder for trans and nonbinary students if the instructor does not specifically ask people to share their pronouns. This forces them to either share their pronouns anyway and out themselves in a space that may not be accepting or put themselves into a situation where they are misgendered for the rest of the semester.

Due to stereotypes regarding gender, instructors and students may default to

he/him or she/her pronouns for people based on their name or gender presentation. Additionally, many people are resistant to singular they pronouns, despite the increasing number of individuals who use them. But, an inclusive environment starts with the instructor. They should ask for pronouns the first day of class and respect them, so trans and nonbinary students will be recognized and validated in the classroom.

Instructors can also utilize gender-neutral language. Lauren Vachon, assistant professor of LGBTQ studies at Kent State, says, “it’s simply more accurate and inclusive. It demonstrates to all students that, in this classroom space, trans and genderqueer people are seen, understood and respected.”

Instructors can avoid using gendered pronouns such as “he” or “she” when giving instructions and instead use they/ them when talking about unspecified subjects. They can also use gender-neutral greetings when referring to groups of students. A few options are to say “hello, all” or to use terms such as “folks,” “people” or “students” rather than “ladies and gentlemen.” Mistakes might happen, but instructors should acknowledge them, apologize and move on. This will make trans and nonbinary students feel as though their identities are respected without having to dwell on the fact that they were misgendered.

mental health is negatively impacted.

Vachon says, “when students aren’t respected or understood in the classroom, it absolutely affects how they learn.

There’s a theory called “minority stress” that has been applied to LGBTQ people.

What we see with minority stress is that when institutions don’t support marginalized people, they suffer. You can see how minority stress could also affect student performance, too.”

A report in New Directions for Teaching and Learning indicates that students may be more likely to prosper academically in settings with modes of learning that acknowledge students’ personal experiences. In this study, Matthew Kaplan and A.T. Miller suggest that “when students are referred to by their pronouns, when they know the classroom is a safe space and when they know respect is unconditional, it makes them feel more comfortable and included. Inclusiveness creates a more accepting school culture and sense of belonging for students.”

For some trans and nonbinary people, a significan't part of transitioning occurs in social spheres, which can include school. The social aspect of transitioning can include, but is not limited to, going by a different name or new pronouns and changing one’s physical appearance. People in their circles have to abide by these changes for them to feel accomplished in their transition.

When this does not happen, trans and nonbinary people’s 11

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LGBTQ+ and Latino:

Finding A Way To Be Both Words by Khiara McCarroll Illustrations by Joe Herrera

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here are approximately 1.4 million LGBTQ+ Latino adults currently living in the United States. LGBTQ+ Latinos are subject to both racism and homophobia, as well as conflicts with relationships, family and religion. They often experience more harassment, isolation and other forms of discrimination compared to white LGBTQ+ people.

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According to a 2014 CBS news poll, 50% of Latinos say same-sex marriage should be legal, but they still tend to be less accepting of LGBTQ+ people than other communities. Often, this is due to religion. A survey by the Pew Hispanic Center determined that 68% of Hispanics identified as Roman Catholic.

Historically, the Roman Catholic Church hasn’t had a very positive stance on LGBTQ+ issues, considering being gay to be “intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law.”

Armando Bassiet, a fourth year fashion design major at Kent State, didn’t grow up in a very religious home. However, his mother was raised Roman Catholic, and much of his family is still religious.

Bassiet says, “I’m Roman Catholic. I was baptized and everything, but my mother and I were more religious in name than in practice. But my grandmother and aunt were fervent Catholics. They had shrines and were superstitious. One time, as a child, my aunt caught me walking around in my mother’s heels and she looked like she saw a ghost. I definitely felt a disconnect between my familial and Latino identity, my social life and being gay.”

Bassiet went to Catholic school growing up and tried hiding parts of himself to blend in with other boys his age.

“I had supportive friends, but I still felt lonely,” he says. “So I became an athlete as a way to sort of hide my actual self and be what everyone wanted me to be. I ended up coming out and quitting shortly after.”

Traditional norms, family structure and machismo culture, defined by Eunice Mendoza’s literature review as a “strong sense of masculine pride,” are extremely prevalent in the Latino community. Machismo culture perpetuates ideas that men should be strong and aggressive, often forcing men to hide any signs of femininity in their behavior.

Erick De Santiago, a fourth year visual communication design major, is Latino and gay. Growing up with no positive influences or representation, he often didn’t feel masculine enough. “I had one gay influence, a family friend, but he was never really fully accepted,” De Santiago said.

“Because of the way my family treated him, I felt being gay was out of the ordinary. It was kind of frustrating, because I already felt different because of my behaviors and interests. It felt like just another way I wasn’t like the rest of my family. There’s always pressure to be a certain way, and I didn’t feel like I belonged in my own family.”

Hispanic and Latino LGBTQ+ individuals are also more likely to experience social prejudice, oftentimes being excluded from LGBTQ+ spaces and conversations.

It is difficult for them to find others who can understand or relate to their own specific experiences.

De Santiago, coming from the diversity of Chicago to Kent State, a predominantly

white institution, describes the experience as a bit of a shock. “Back home in Chicago, I was surrounded by other people of color. College was the first time I was in a predominantly white space. It felt hard to fit in where there’s not many other people like you around.”

When you're a part of multiple minority groups, you notice things that other people wouldn't notice. I was at a party with a white gay man and he made fun of my name, and that was very frustrating because my name is the biggest part of my identity.”

Latino LGBTQ+ people are also susceptable to discrimination and microaggressions. Kevin Nadal, a professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, describes microaggressions as “everyday, subtle, intentional—and oftentimes unintentional—interactions or behaviors that communicate some sort of bias toward historically marginalized groups.”

While the perpetrator may not be aware they are being discriminatory, it still has an impact on the recipient of that microaggression.

Minorities are also at a higher risk for mental health problems, substance abuse and even suicide. According to a Trevor Project study in 2020, Latino LGBTQ+ youth were 30% more likely to report a suicide attempt than nonLatino LGBTQ+ youth. The topic of mental illness is often a taboo one in the Latino community.

Bassiet has experienced his fair share of microaggressive behaviors both in terms of his race and LGBTQ+ identity, saying, “I have an ethnic name, but I have lighter skin. I feel discrimination in different ways than people with darker skin. I feel lumped in with white people at times, but being around white people I notice I’m the only person of color. I’ve dealt with ignorance, a lack of understanding, fetishization.

"Not only was I the only openly gay person living in my dorm, but also the only person of color."

“I deal with anxiety and depression. Even though I’m proud of my identity, I grew up existing in society marginalized and isolated which had a huge impact on my mental health,” De Santiago said. “My identities make me different and that is great, but sometimes you just want to fit in. It can also be exhausting going into a room and being the only person that looks like you. It’s lonely. That’s why diversity and inclusion are so important.”

While growing up a member of the LGBTQ+ community and a person of color has its difficulties, there’s a lot of beauty and pride to be found. De Santiago says one thing that makes him incredibly proud of being a member of both the Latino and LGBTQ+ communities is the culture.

“Not only do I bring my being queer to the table, but I can bring another aspect to that with being Mexican,” says De Santiago. “Having both identities makes me more socially aware and I understand intersectionality better.

Everything about me makes me different, and what makes me different makes me special and proud.”

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thE

LGbTq+ Experience

black

Words by Grace Christopher and Khiara McCarroll Illustration by Joe Herrera 14

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he Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been described by Refinery29 writer Elly Belle as “one of the biggest movements to shape this year—and this decade.”

According to The New York Times, almost every state participated in protesting the police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and other Black Americans. The COVID-19 pandemic and social media have played a role in this, providing people more time and avenues for participation than ever before.

LGBTQ+ members of BLM. Black LGBTQ+ people face higher levels of violence, discrimination and bias, according to the Center for American Progress. They are also subjected to elevated microaggressions based on race and sexuality.

priating Black femme culture and that a lot of “gay slang,” such as “sis” or “queen,” was created by Black femmes. However, they don’t receive the credit for it and may even face racial discrimination for using it in their speech.

The discrimination that Black LGBTQ+ people face isn’t confined to activist spaces—they face discrimination within the Black community as well. The Human Rights Campaign illustrates how important religion is within Black families and communities and how deep religious roots can lead to discrimination.

As Black LGBTQ+ voices are beginning to grow among the BLM movement, there is still a lot of work to be done to continue to elevate those voices.

Black LGBTQ+ people have been a part of the movement since its inception, but their struggles have not always been at the forefront. The Black Lives Matter organization was originally founded by three women of color—Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi— after George Zimmerman was acquitted of murdering Trayvon Martin in their Sanford, Florida neighborhood. While Garza, Cullors and Tometi wanted LGBTQ+ voices of color to be an integral part of the movement, the media coverage of police killings around the country largely focuses on Black cisgender men.

Rutgers University also highlights that expectations of masculinity are high within Black communities and that Black LGBTQ+ people struggle to be their authentic selves with their families.

Homophobia in the Black community stems from different traumas that Black people faced during slavery and the Jim Crow era, where they were subjected to different forms of violence that distorted their views on homosexuality.

2020 was the deadliest year for transgender people since the Human Rights Campaign began tracking violence against them in 2014. However, the media frequently undermines the deaths of Black trans people, meaning that names like Gemmel Moore and Giovanni Melton are not as well known as Taylor, Floyd and Martin. However, there has recently been a growing demand for more inclusivity in the Black community of Black queer and trans people.

“I understand the history of it,” says Mya Taylor, a senior human development and family studies major at Kent State. “But it’s very difficult to be queer in the Black community. It takes a lot of time. And it’s honestly very difficult. Coming out as a queer person in the Black community is hard because you’re not sure if they are going to accept you or not.”

“If you ever want to know what it feels like to not be seen as human, Black trans women. That’s what it’s like to not be seen as a human,” says protestor Brandi Ahzionae who was featured in a video from a Black Trans Lives Matter protest in Brooklyn, New York, posted by Insider. Fifteen thousand people gathered to show their support during the march, making it one of the largest trans-oriented protests in history.

Additionally, tens of thousands of people gathered in Los Angeles for the All Black Lives Matter protests, which focused on

“I do think that Black queer voices are getting louder, even if they aren’t as central as they should be,” says Taylor. “They’re definitely getting louder, which I’m thankful for.”

“There’s so much discrimination within the community.”

Additionally, racism and discrimination still exist within the LGBTQ+ community. According to The Washington Post, 77% of Black LGBTQ+ people believe that white LGBTQ+ people have certain advantages within the community because of their skin.

“There’s so much discrimination within the community,” says Taylor. “I would be scrolling through dating apps back when I was single and see things in people’s profile that they did not want Black queer women swiping on them, and I was like, okay, that’s kind of racist.”

Paper Magazine also mentions that white gay men have a history of appro-

Even though the protests and demonstrations have ended, people need to continue educating themselves and researching the issues that affect Black LGBTQ+ people. This is an important issue at Kent State.

At the start of Fall 2020, the university had to reckon with the fact that racism also affects liberal arts communities. The Rock on campus was painted with derogatory language such as “Blacks Have No Home Here.” This issue hit home for many Black Kent State students.

“I felt as though I had been sucker punched and the wind was knocked out of me. I’ve experienced racism before, but it was never as blatant as that moment,” says Taylor. She emphasizes the importance of education to combat racism.

“It’s very simple and very easy to look up information on your computer or go to Ritchie Hall. There are books, movies and music that can help you research.

You have the resources, you have the tools, there is no reason in 2021 to be so willingly ignorant.”

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LGBtq+ ASiAn AnD PACIFIC AmeRIcAnS The Struggle To Find Acceptance Words by Khiara McCarroll Artwork by Nick Lee

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eing a member of the LGBTQ+ community is not easy, and despite the strides that have been made when it comes to acceptance and representation, they often exclude LGBTQ+ people of color. This includes Asian and Pacific Americans.

Asian and Pacific Americans (APA) are a large and diverse group, with their communities spanning over 100 languages and 50 ethnic groups. Approximately two percent of LGBTQ+ Americans are also APA, and they face challenges unique from those of white LGBTQ+ people.

For queer APA, one of the biggest obstacles when discovering their identity and coming out is family. Many APA values center around familial structures and heteronormative society.

North Asian cultures tend to value a more patriarchal social structure. South Asian values aren’t as repressive of the LGBTQ+ community, but there is a history of gender and castebased repression.

Individuality is often suppressed in APA cultures, with deviation from societal norms being considered taboo.

Coming out is also associated with failure, as there is often pressure to get married and have children for men and women alike.

For this reason, queer APA struggle the most when coming out to parents. Many APA may be afraid to disappoint their families by coming out, not being able to live up to that traditional ideal. They often come out to siblings and friends first, though some don’t even feel the need to come out.

Mira Shah, an Indian American senior linguistics major at Kent State, says she never felt a huge change when it came to discovering her sexuality.

“I think I knew I was gay pretty early,” says Shah. “There wasn't a big realization. Around preteen age, I really started to realize ‘not everyone feels like this.’ I never felt a change or strong need to come out though. I think everyone kind of knew and people treated me differently, but I always felt different so it was nothing out of the norm.”

Cultural differences play a large part in why LGBTQ+ APA may be afraid to come out to their parents. Being LGBTQ+ is often 16

considered shameful or is believed to simply be a Western concept in APA circles.

Shah has also noticed the difficulties that come with being a queer woman in the patriarchal culture she grew up in, where women are generally expected to be passive, marry and have children. She says, “in the Indian American community, there's a lot of gender expectations and misogyny, so it can be especially difficult to navigate. Things are getting better as people learn more and are becoming more accepting.”

Queer APA also experience difficulties outside the home. They often face verbal and nonverbal forms of discrimination, such as bullying and exclusion due to being seen as different or even inferior. They may have very different experiences than their white LGBTQ+ peers. For example, only 29% of LGBTQ+ APA feel they can “definitely” be themselves at school.

Shah says, “there aren't too many other people you can relate to. There's just not a lot of intersection, especially in Ohio. White people don't experience racism, and you can feel that divide in the community at times. Race affects so much of our lives and I can't relate to most white [LGBTQ+] experiences. It's hard to find people who can relate. It's hard to navigate not having other people like you to talk to.”

LGBTQ+ APA representation in the media is also lacking and when it does appear, it’s often offensive. Media is what often shapes our perceptions of certain groups, which is why good representation is essential. According to GLAAD, in 2020, only 11% of LGBTQ+ characters on cable networks were APA. When it came to the big three streaming platforms—Amazon, Hulu and Netflix—only eight percent of queer characters were APA. Many queer APA youth wish they had more positive role models and depictions in movies, books, television and art. Nick Lee, a senior Japanese American painting major at Kent State, agrees.

As a child, Lee knew he was different but had no gay figures in his life to help him navigate that feeling. “It was weird because I felt forced into heteronormative stereotypes but I was more different, maybe not as masculine, and while my parents picked up on that, no one really talked to me about what being gay was.”

Lee has also noticed the lack of LGBTQ+ APA representation when it comes to his education.

“There are definitely more challenges when it comes to representation,” said Lee. “It is often found in the white male perspective but that obviously isn't always the case. I took an LGBT literature class and even then, there weren't lesbians or people of color.”

Sometimes you must create your own representation, and Lee does just that. Through his paintings, he works to tell the stories of queer people of color, saying, “I can really be myself. That can be inspiring. I make art about my own experiences, and I really love that I can tell my story and represent others.”

Lee had some advice for queer APA that may be struggling with finding their place in the world. He says, “build your community—it really opens the door to feeling acceptance.

What support I might not have at home, I’ve found in friends.”

Shah had some words of advice as well, saying, “I have a lot of pride in who I am. [LGBTQ+] people of color have done a lot of cool things. We’re pioneers. Be who you are. You shouldn’t have to feel ashamed and you shouldn’t let anyone make you feel that way.”

"It's hard to navigate not having other people like you to talk to" 17

FUSION SPRING 2021

Word fRom ThE wise A Collection Of Stories From Queer Elders

Interviews by Angela Molina and Moira Armstrong Illustration by Halle Shanks

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ccording to the Movement Advancement Project and Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders, there are an estimated 2.7 million LGBTQ+ adults aged 50 or older in the United States. An estimated 1 in 5 of those adults are people of color. While much of queer media tends to focus on youth, it is important to hear the experiences of our LGBTQ+ elders and the wisdom they have to share. They are resilient members of our community, unashamed to live their truth, and serve as a reminder that we have always been here.

These local LGBTQ+ elders agreed to share their stories. Here’s what they had to say.

Dale Shidler

Cyrus Anthony Regis, Jr.

63 – He/him

74 – He/him

“I came to the Visual Communication Design program at Kent …

My workplace – working for the Mennonites, actually – had given me a semester sabbatical … Jay Charles Walker and John Buchanan were the heads of the program there and they were a gay couple. And it was really my first time seeing a gay couple in my life … So I would say that part of Kent had a profound effect on me, because I really got very close with both of those guys …

When I decided to come back to Kent, they were already in place and they were wonderful role models for me as a gay man coming out, even though I was doing it so late in my life. Seeing them as a couple, as two men that were living out—and they had since I think the ‘70s. And so, I knew that they were gay when I came to Kent the first time and that would have been­—I would have been fully closeted and unaccepting of myself.”

“Growing up as a little boy and as I went into my preteens and teens, I felt lost because I knew I was different. I knew that I was attracted to other boys, but my teaching, my religious upbringing, that was all against it. The one thing that I have always remembered is that … I never had a relative, a male relative, that sat down to talk to me about what was going on. I didn’t know how to vocalize that. … It was just a feeling, as a male child, growing up with a real sense of being lost and having to grow up with that feeling of lost. …

Growing up all my life, I’d been reared in the church, and hearing all of the comments and the talk about this and how it was put down. I finally had to wake up and come into my own and realize that I am a man, gay man, however it may be. I am a responsible man, and my sexual choice was my sexual choice.”

Jeff Bixby

Erica Pelz

69 – He/him

46 – She/her

“I love seeing kids being involved … it’s good for kids to be able to have a group of people—a good group of people—that they are with, that they can bounce ideas off of … somebody who’s young and coming out and searching for their identity—just be honest with yourself, and you may not have everything all figured out.

Don’t act like you’re going to have everything all figured out because you don’t, and you’re not. And listen to your old people.

Listen to the old people, because a lot of them don’t take the time to listen. I think it’s really important for young people to be closely associated with older LGBT people. The more times we have to interact, the better.”

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“If you had asked me [about how LGBT rights had changed] five years ago, it would be a different answer than it is today. We made a lot of progress during the Obama administration. When I transitioned, it was the sort of thing that could easily get you killed. There were no out LGBT people in my high school at all … it was a very, very different time.

LGBT rights compared to other civil rights movements have moved at the speed of light. That’s been seriously set back over the last four years. I do see positive changes happening again as far as our leadership at a national level. Unfortunately, the damage that’s been caused over the last four years will take a long time to fix."

Darryl Fore 61 – He/him “I remember, once, that back in the ‘80s, there was this organization called the National Association of Black and White Men Together, and I frequented some of their meetings.

During that time, they were a very social-conscious group that were an open space for those men who were in interracial gay relationships, because at that time, they faced a lot of backlash from people within the community about their relationship. …

[F]requently as a young person during that time, I would go to some of their meetings and participate in some of their social events.”

"So just wake up in the morning and love yourself."

Daniel-Raymond Nadon

Jaelle Terrell

61 – He/him

67 – She/her

“I think when I was younger, you were asked to define yourself specifically and find a box in which to live. Then when you changed boxes, or you felt that it didn’t quite fit, that was a big deal and people were very resistant to that. I think now, we as a community embrace our breadth of experience and our individuality in terms of experience and without judgement.

Even outside of our communities, we seem to be able to understand that—the importance of looking at an individual and not trying to put them in a place that’s comfortable for you. So, we’re comfortable with all experiences now more than ever before. There’s a lot of work still to be done, of course, but that’s a great difference for me.”

“The questions you’re asking are the questions that every cis, straight, L-G-B or T person—and the rest of the letters—you know, we all struggle with it. We don’t know, we don’t know anything.

There is no one way, there is no right and wrong, so just wake up in the morning and love yourself. Start there. You matter and you’re important. And because you can love yourself, spread some of that around and love your friends. And greet each day and just feel.

You know, I don’t wanna get all corny but I am an old hippie— the sun and the wind and the clouds and the trees—ants, for goodness sake! You know, enjoy the ants! Yes. So just allow yourself to breathe and just to be and enjoy it. Enjoy today for what today gives you. That’s it!”

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colOrs and ThReadS FUSION SPRING 2021

How LGBTQ+ Culture Influences Fashion

Words by Amanda Stayer Photos by Amanda Stayer and Charmayne Williamson

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GBTQ+ designers have long been pushing the boundaries of the fashion world. The queer subculture began over 200 years ago in secret when homosexuality was still illegal.

According to Mindless Mag, LGBTQ+ individuals would use clothing as a way to communicate and identify each other.

Fashion acted as a secret code that would be used for many years to come.

During the 1900s, LGBTQ+ fashion took on new forms as women started to wear men’s clothes and vice versa, and “drag balls'' became a regular underground function. Grinnell College describes drag balls as competitions where individuals compete in different genres or categories. Drag kings and queens develop a persona to show their unique style. The scene was largely shaped by the Black and Latino LGBTQ+ communities in major cities such as New York. This subculture of drag balls provided a safe place for LGBTQ+ people to dress how they wanted without fear of harassment from an unaccepting public.

Throughout the century, mainstream designers started to test the limits of gender roles and style as well. It started in the 1950s, when women began wearing pants regularly and men became more involved in fashion. Combined, these occurrences gave rise to androgyny.

Later, in the 1990s, queer fashion began to make regular appearances on the high fashion runway as designers like Kim Jones, the head of menswear at Louis Vuitton, and Jean Paul Gaultier, a French fashion designer, used their experience as a part of the queer scene in their work. It became an important time in fashion where designers not only came out, but also showcased their identity in their work. Fashion was headed down a new path.

LGBTQ+ designers continue to represent themselves and blur the lines of gender boundaries within their work. It is more than 20

just clothing or jewelry, but an extension of themselves and the image they portray to the world. The market of LGBTQ+ consumers also continues to grow and holds no limits.

Student designers at Kent State University today are already producing work to continue the legacy of LGBTQ+ fashion.

Isabella “Zaz” Alvarino is a freshman fashion design major and has a passion for creation. Her long-term goal is to have her own brand to showcase her vision of “promoting an avant-garde lifestyle through exquisite garments, body positivity and less fabric waste.” She strives for increased inclusivity and creativity through her designs, saying, “being a fashion designer is about discovering beauty in every body and bringing it into the spotlight.”

Mario Arteaga is a senior fashion merchandising major with a minor in accessories, which includes jewelry, metals and textiles. Arteaga admires avant-garde fashion as well, and his work is influenced by brutalist architecture, which emerged in the mid-twentieth century during post-war reconstruction projects. He creates jewelry inspired by items that many people may not find beautiful, but that he finds gorgeous, such as odd architecture, ugly shoes and car parts. His art comes from feelings of self-worth and self-image.

Arteaga says, “my work carries the idea of broad shoulders and not fitting in, but trying my best to be beautiful and excellent despite not fitting the norm of my family or the industry of jewelry making.”

LGBTQ+ fashion is one of the truest forms of fashion. It exists without the limitations of traditional gender boundaries and gives freedom to designers to express themselves and represent their community. The fashion industry is still growing and there is a lot of room for new designers to represent their community.

FUSION SPRING 2021

Words by Natalia Cruz and Angela Molina Illustrations by Joe Herrera

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eurodiversity: the natural variation in the human brain’s structure and function regarding learning, attention, sociability, mood and other mental functions.

LGBTQ+ people have multiple facets that make up their identity. Understanding the different parts that contribute to a person’s sense of self helps us to understand the whole. This includes understanding neurodiversity.

Neurodiversity is normal within the human brain, but medical professionals often perpetuate misinformation about what being neurodivergent is and how it affects one’s life.

In the medical field, most research done on neurodiversity was conducted on cisgender, white men. Based on this research, medical professionals assume the presentations and experiences of neurodiversity within this group are universal without accounting for differences in gender, race or sexual orientation.

Tasha Oswald, Ph.D., writes that autistic girls and women are more likely to “. camouflage” their autistic behaviors, possibly due to the fact that girls are more likely to have higher expectations of social etiquette and behaviors placed on them than boys. They are also more 24

likely to be misdiagnosed as anxious or shy because “shyness is considered to be culturally acceptable female behavior.” Race also plays a role in the diagnosis of neurodiverse conditions. For example, Black children with symptoms of ADHD are less likely to be diagnosed compared to white children.

Many neurodiverse people also identify as LGBTQ+ and it is possible that they may do so at higher rates than the general population. Eileen T. Crehan, Ph.D., says that autistic people may identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual at two to three times the rate of non-autistic people.

Crehan also found that autistic people were more likely to identify as transgender or nonbinary compared to others.

Similar results have been found among children with ADHD, who were more likely to experience gender dysphoria.

Neurodiverse people face unique challenges, many of which stem from ableist ways of thinking. They may not be taught basic sex education due to outdated assumptions about their capacity to understand sex. Autistic and developmentally disabled teens and young adults are most often affected by this, with others in their life assuming they have a younger mental age than is actually the case. This is an incorrect line of thinking that not only infantilizes neurodiverse people but fails to prepare them for adulthood.

Steve Silberman, author of “NeuroTribes,” describes an interaction he had with an autistic teen he describes as “quite . evidently trans” and their mother. The mother would not provide sex education to her teen as she incorrectly believed they had the mental age of a child. Silberman says, “this is a very dangerous way to think, because that teen could end up in jail if they’re not taught about the limits of appropriate sexual behavior.”

Accessability is another major issue for neurodiverse people, and many neurodiverse LGBTQ+ people do not feel welcome in queer spaces. Many of these spaces, such as bars, nightclubs and Pride festivals, are loud and overcrowded. This can be overstimulating to neurodiverse people. To avoid these things, they may forgo queer spaces and miss out on vital social interaction and support.

How can we make queer spaces accessible for neurodiverse people? For one, we can listen to the experiences and advice of neurodiverse LGBTQ+ people, who have had plenty of time to dwell on this answer. Three individuals from Kent State University spoke about their experiences as neurodiverse LGBTQ+ people and how queer spaces can be made more friendly to neurodiverse individuals. Here is what they had to say.

Mattie Maeblick She/Her For Mattie Maeblick, a sophomore theatre performance major, her ADHD affects the way she functions on a daily basis. She has difficulties doing multiple tasks, saying she sometimes has to turn the radio off when she’s driving because it ends up being too distracting. She explains that compared to other students, it’s difficult to understand or grasp different concepts and it generally takes her more time than others to complete school work, such as finishing a paper or reading a book.

Maeblick says, “ADHD has a tendency to make people hyperfocus on things, and I think that occasionally for me, that ends up being my sexuality, especially when I was first coming out. I guess I’ve never thought about my ADHD in relation to being LGBT. It was just another one of those things that I learned about myself in high school that was difficult for me to deal with.”

Lou McAtee They/Them Lou McAtee is a senior student at Kent State’s School of Fashion. They say their autism has gotten harder to manage as they get older, because they have to mask their autistic behaviors to make other people feel comfortable. Big events and bars can be overwhelming, and most places do not go out of their way to accommodate someone on the spectrum.

Another issue they face is feeling as though they are oversharing and annoying others when talking about something they are passionate about. For McAtee, watching YouTube videos gives them validation.

They say it is nice to see representation of autistic people living ordinary lives, as they want others to talk about autistic people as regular people and not superheroes. “Autism doesn't mean that you can't be a person and that autistic people deserve a chance. Just try to be gentle and open-minded to people who are neurodivergent and especially autistic,” said McAtee, adding, “it is very important to be clear about how you are feeling and what you want as it can be hard to read [social] cues, so it's good to be mindful of other needs.”

Jessica Miller She/Her Jessica Miller, a senior visual communication design major, has dyslexia, which impacts her academics, day-to-day life and social life. She says getting the accommodations she needs in order to succeed in school is quite difficult. Reading extensive materials is tiring, taking notes is challenging and writing clearly and cohesively is difficult.

In her day-to-day life, Miller spends much time planning ahead. When she goes to a restaurant, she makes sure to check the menu ahead of time because certain fonts on menus can be hard to read.

In terms of her social life, she says, “It can be a challenge when my friends don’t consider my dyslexia. They don’t always understand my anxiety about school or going to new places. They also can’t always understand the challenges I face, like making fun of spelling mistakes that seem silly to them, but are genuine mistakes to me. That can feel really belittling and insulting when it happens over and over again.”

Miller provided some ideas about how LGBTQ+ spaces can be more accessible to people with disabilities, such as making sure written material is clearly and simply written with a large readable font and making the material accessible online. She also says having meetings in places that are quiet with minimal distractions is helpful. Most importantly, Miller says to be mindful and kind, as she has experienced bullying in a LGBTQ+ space for a simple mistake.

Miller’s big tips are to be more welcoming to the neurodivergent community, read about the different forms of neurodiversity and listen to people's specific struggles. She also reminds neurodiverse people, “to celebrate your differences, be proud of who you are and surround yourself with people who support you.”

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FUSION SPRING 2021

All In The

Family

Words by Angela Molina Photos by Amanda Stayer

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hat makes a family? This question is trickier than at first glance. The stereotypical image that comes to mind may be the heteronormative nuclear family structure—a mother and father and their two children, perhaps with a dog in tow.

However, the landscape of American families has changed in recent years, allowing for more diverse and inclusive familial structures.

Family Equality reports that between 2 million and 3.7 million children in the United States have an LGBTQ+ parent.

Many children “are being raised by a single LGBTQ+ parent” or by a “different-sex couple” in which one parent identifies as bisexual. The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law also found in a metaanalysis that one-quarter to one-half of transgender people are parents.

Above: Sandra Kurt, LaDonna BlueEye and Kennebec Left: Brett, David and Ethan Zimmerman

LGBTQ+ families face unique challenges that non-LGBTQ+ ones do not. Although a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017 prohibits public adoption agencies from discriminating against samesex couples, private adoption agencies may still turn away LGBTQ+ people looking to adopt. The Movement Advancement Project reports that 11 states permit child welfare agencies to turn away same-sex couples on the basis of religious freedom.

Same-sex couples have only recently been able to adopt children together.

Brett and David Zimmerman of Akron, Ohio became foster parents to their son, Ethan Zimmerman, in 1997. Ethan was then adopted in 1998. However, only David was legally permitted to adopt Ethan and Brett did not have parental rights.

These rights allow parents to make decisions on behalf of their children, such

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as education and healthcare. In the Zimmermans’ case, only David could make these decisions for Ethan; if something happened to render David incapable as a parent, Brett would not be able to make decisions for Ethan or retain custody of him.

On this, Brett says, “(I) had more rights as a co-foster parent than (I) did as David’s partner after the adoption.”

LGBTQ+ couples may also face financial challenges to starting families. According to Family Equality, adoption, assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and surrogacies can cost thousands of dollars.

They also found that 29% of LGBTQ+ respondents had an annual household income of less than $25,000, compared to 22% of non-LGBTQ+ respondents. This means that LGBTQ+ couples may be priced out of many alternative methods to conception.

Amanda Boyd and Angelique Mann, co-owners of Skullz Salon in Kent, have experienced this firsthand. To conceive a pregnancy, they first tried intrauterine insemination with donated sperm, which Boyd says cost about $500 per insemination. These may have a low sperm count, which lowers the odds of pregnancy, and can be a time-consuming process.

She also says that fertility clinics are not always LGBTQ+-friendly and that they had to “jump through a lot of hoops to even be allowed to have donor sperm.”

Boyd and Mann eventually had their sons Elijah in 2016 and Ezra in 2020. Mann’s brother, a gay man, donated the sperm to Boyd, and they used at-home insemination. For her, this was an excellent option, as it was free and provided the

family with a sense of lineage.

“I have a personal affinity towards lineage and ancestry, so it was kind of important to me for the kids to know exactly where they came from,” she says.

Finally, myths about LGBTQ+ people continue to shape societal views of their roles as parents. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation compiled a few of these myths. They include the beliefs that children need a mother and father, that LGBTQ+ people cannot provide stable homes and that they are predators.

These myths are untrue and distort the reality of LGBTQ+ families.

However, ideas of how families are formed and structured are changing in society and becoming more inclusive.

The LGBTQ+ community has often been at the forefront of this.

married, and Kurt says that they did not feel a need to place their parents’ expectations of family on themselves as their generation celebrated freedom from social norms.

Kurt notes that she sees this in younger generations as well and thinks this is healthy, as it provides young people with many alternatives to family than just those prescribed by society.

Kurt and BlueEye, Boyd and Mann, and the Zimmermans are just three examples of the many unique LGBTQ+ families in Ohio. But while the acceptance of LGBTQ+ families in American society is increasing, many of the same problems still exist. As the fight for LGBTQ+ equality continues, it can be comforting to know that there is support in one’s corner.

Summit County Clerk of Courts Sandra Kurt says that when she met her partner, LaDonna BlueEye, there was no template for LGBTQ+ families. Often rejected by their birth families, LGBTQ+ people formed their own families with friends and loved ones. These are known as “found” or “chosen families.”

“We decided who was in our family unit,” says Kurt. “If you felt like family, acted like family, and loved like family, you were family. That still defines our family today, with our beloved rescue dog, Kennebec.”

With limited options available for LGBTQ+ couples, Kurt says there was “no v thought of marriage in those days” and that children were “rare.” Kurt and BlueEye first met in 1986 in Alabama, but they did not become a couple until 2014.

They now live in Akron with Kennebec, who was adopted in 2019. They have not

Amanda Boyd, Angelique Mann, Elijah and Ezra 27

From Turing To Today

FUSION SPRING 2021

How Can Scientific Spaces Be More Welcoming?

Words by Julia Duanetto Photo by Amanda Stayer

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ome of the most brilliant minds in science throughout history have been part of the LGBTQ+ community. Alan Turing, the founding father of computer science and a gay man, used his knowledge to break the German naval enigma code, an essential step to the Allied victory in World War II. According to The Guardian, Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most prominent and pioneering figures of the Scientific Revolution, is also believed to have been part of the community. Frank Kameny, an astronomer for the American Army Map Service, was one of the first LGBTQ+ activists, according to an article from Elsevier.

However, these individuals often faced discrimination. Encyclopedia Britannica reports that Turing was convicted of “gross indecency,” the legal term for homosexuality, in 1952 and subjected to hormone treatments that ultimately led to his suicide.

Newton’s queerness was erased from history, and Kameny’s activism began after he was fired due to his sexuality.

Though LGBTQ+ people like Turing, Newton and Kameny have been a part of the scientific community for centuries, the field today is notoriously dominated by straight, cisgender men and lack of minority representation has become an issue. And despite legislative progress, such as state laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexuality or gender identity, the workplace for LGBTQ+ scientists is still far from welcoming.

Sexuality and gender minorities can feel disadvantaged in environments created by the unconscious bias of heteronormativity, or the belief that heterosexuality is the default. Discussions of personal gender and sexuality are often considered too political for the workplace or irrelevant to professional achievement, and thus, LGBTQ+ individuals often feel the need to stay closeted.

This view forms a barrier to creating an inclusive and equitable workplace as well as a successful one, since open diversity in STEM has documented economic and scientific benefits. Modern science has a collaborative nature and requires the pursuit of strong ideas generated by a team of intelligent people. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, diversity of thought leads to a broader pool of innovative hypotheses, and diverse teams are more likely to reach scientific breakthroughs and innovations due to their variety of perspectives.

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A welcoming culture also helps attract and retain talented researchers and increases the quality of their work by making them more comfortable in their research environments.

Despite these many benefits, Samantha Zaborowski, a junior psychology and neuroscience major at Kent State University, shared that she has experienced a lack of LGBTQ+ visibility in the field. She says, “what I have been presented with [in my classes] is the typical cishet white men in the science lab.”

She also added she has not encountered any professor that is openly part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Workplaces still have a long way to go before they are truly inclusive. The American Physical Society, a membership organization for professionals in physics and related disciplines, revealed that “approximately 15 per cent of LGBT men, 25 per cent of LGBT women and 30 per cent of gender-nonconforming individuals felt uncomfortable or very uncomfortable within their department or division.”

Transgender and nonbinary scientists were more likely than other groups to encounter challenges in their work environment, and women generally report more negative experiences than men.

Unwelcoming environments can be formed through harmful humor like mocking queer mannerisms, using the wrong pronouns and language that encompasses discriminatory aspects, such as using the term “gay” as an insult.

A safe workplace can be cultivated by developing and enforcing anti-discrimination policies. The same opportunities that are provided to cisgender, heterosexual people working in science should be provided to those in the LGBTQ+ community.

Additionally, if an LGBTQ+ researcher has a complaint, the lab administrators should take it seriously and launch an investigation.

Science-specific training that effectively supports LGBTQ+ staff and covers inclusive language and practices is also essential. These practices may include putting pronouns in email signatures and on name tags at events, normalizing the idea that not everyone uses binary pronouns.

Scientific spaces should also respect the fact that

when individuals become scientists, their cultures, backgrounds and lines of thought are not automatically shed at the door. Validity within research goes beyond correct controls and replicability. It is also affected by the researcher, as it encompasses choosing specific problems and populations to study.

It is commonly said within the field that scientists should keep a professional distance from what they study, but this is a misleading stance. Diverse scientists who choose to study their own communities can make great scientific gains. For example, according to an article from Nature website, diverse

groups have more community participation when studying minority populations, which increases the accuracy of their findings in a way that could not be achieved with a homogeneous group of researchers.

Zaborowski embodies the benefits of diversity in the workplace. She plans to study queer and neurodivergent teenagers and says, “I think enough studies have been done about cishet white men.

That’s all the data we have. We can go ‘next!’ and move on to bigger and better things and other groups of people.”

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FUSION SPRING 2021

The Keshet Connection Where Judaism Meets The LGBTQ+ Community Words by Angela Molina Illustrations by Drew Kazdin

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nd it was, " as he finished speaking to Saul, that Jonathan’s soul had become attached to David’s soul, and Jonathan loved him as himself.” —1 Samuel 18:1

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Were David and Jonathan lovers? The question of whether King David and his companion Jonathan were in a samesex relationship is a topic of hot debate among religious scholars. Some say the story of the two men is a clear example of a same-sex couple in the Old Testament. Others claim they were simply a homosocial pair of friends, misinterpreted by our modern assumptions of what a gay relationship looks like. The answer itself may be lost to time, but

it is just one example of the intersection of the Jewish and LGBTQ+ communities.

The history of LGBTQ+ rights within Judaism is long and rich. According to the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Reform branch of Judaism began advocating for LGBTQ+ rights in 1965 when the organization Women of Reform Judaism began calling for the decriminalization of same-sex activity.

In 1977, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis passed a resolution calling for human rights for LGBTQ+ people. Rabbi Emeritus David M. Horowitz of Temple Israel in Akron, Ohio calls this the point at which the Reform movement began

showing tolerance towards the LGBTQ+ community. Since then, the Reform movement has adopted resolutions supporting gay and lesbian rabbis and same-sex marriages, moving, as Horowitz puts it, from tolerance to acceptance to celebration.

“I’d say within the Reform movement, it’s settled law, if you will,” he says. “It’s settled procedure. Nothing is binding on any rabbi, nothing is binding on any congregation, but it’s settled issues, and nobody even discusses it anymore.”

While the Reform movement has made great strides in accepting and celebrating LGBTQ+ people, Horowitz says that in the Conservative movement, “the move

It is important to note that Judaism is not a monolith, and neither are its many movements. LGBTQ+ Jews may have very different experiences of acceptance within their faith and have to navigate unique challenges relating to their intersecting identities. Ezra Silkes, a sophomore theatre design, technology and production and integrated LGBT and religious studies major, points out that many Jewish rituals are traditionally gendered in ways that do not account for LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender and nonbinary people. For example, coming-of-age ceremonies in Judaism­—known as bar or bat mitzvahs—are highly gendered, and a nonbinary Jewish teen may not “fit” into either ceremony.

"The history of LGBTQ+ rights within Judaism is long and rich." towards acceptance and celebration has been slow.” The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism found that 60% of Conservative synagogues in the United States have members who openly identify as LGBTQ+. The Human Rights Campaign reports that since 2012, Conservative rabbis have been approved to officiate same-sex weddings, though not all Conservative congregations have adopted this policy. Within Orthodox Judaism, progress has been even slower.

While the HRC reports that the Orthodox community supports nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, “no Orthodox body approves of any religious ceremony for same-sex weddings.”

“There are individual rabbis who will speak out and affirm the right of gay people to marry and having semblance within the community,” Horowitz said.

“But I would say by and large, there is a negative response [by the Orthodox] to the LGBTQ community.”

“And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself.

And Jonathan stripped himself of the cloak which was on him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and even to his bow, and even to his girdle.” —1 Samuel 18:3–4

“So what do you do when a trans person walks into that space?” says Silkes. “There is a lot of really interesting liturgy and work happening by trans Jewish people and by LGBT-accepting people of reworking the scripture to create space for trans people, for gay and lesbian people, but that does involve grappling with the text once again because it wasn’t there in the first place.”

Beyond ritual, Jewish texts do not always contain accepting views of the LGBTQ+ community. The verse Leviticus 18:22 has historically been interpreted as a prohibition on same-sex activity, specifically saying that “you shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” This interpretation has been used to justify homophobia in both Jewish and Christian traditions by stigmatizing same-sex relations.

and the experience of LGBTQ+ people who are religious. As Silkes mentions, it further assumes that there is no space for queerness in Judaism, which they say is not the case.

“My queer identity would not be what it is without my Jewish identity and vice versa,” says Silkes. “I think if I wasn’t queer, I would not be as religious as I am.”

In addition to the challenges they may face in queer and Jewish spaces, LGBTQ+ Jews of color are very often left out of activism work and may experience racism in either space. Rabbi Sandra Lawson, an openly gay Black rabbi, writes in an article for the Forward, “The assumption that Jews are white renders black Jews invisible, which results in me often not being considered as authentically Jewish or not Jewish at all.” “... and he fell upon his face to the ground three times, and prostrated himself three times. And they kissed one another, and wept one with the other, until David exceeded.”

—1 Samuel 20:41 In recent years, much work has been done to promote LGBTQ+ equality in Jewish spaces, though both Silkes and Branfman note that there is still more to be done. LGBTQ+ Jews have worked to reinterpret and redefine traditionally gendered Jewish rituals, most notably considering how transgender and nonbinary Jews can create space within these rituals. One example of a well-known Jewish ritual that is being adapted is

“I think if I wasn’t queer, I would not be as religious as I am.”

At the same time, LGBTQ+ Jews may experience anti-Semitism and misconceptions about Judaism in queer spaces.

Jonathan Branfman, Ph.D. and Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies & English at Cornell University, explains there is a common belief that someone who is religious is also inherently bigoted against LGBTQ+ people. This belief discounts both the allyship of religious folks

the bar and bat mitzvah to a b'nai mitzvah. According to an article by Josefin Dolsten, "b'nai" a gender-neutral term that is being applied to bar and bat mitzvahs. This is more inclusive of transgender and nonbinary Jewish youth .

Organizations are also making efforts to further Jewish LGBTQ+ acceptance at national and local levels. Kesh 31

FUSION SPRING 2021 et—the Hebrew word for “rainbow”— is a national organization working towards “the full equality of all LGBTQ Jews and our families in Jewish life.”

In addition to supporting the professional development of LGBTQ+

and anti-Semitism in queer spaces is lagging. Notably, Branfman finds that the erasure of Jewish identity in queer spaces is the most persistent problem LGBTQ+ Jews face.

Auschwitz”— during the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 by pro-Trump supporters. In the face of this, LGBTQ+ Jews must be supported and heard within the LGBTQ+ community.

“We live in a Christonormative society. Even people who are not religiously Christian or actively bigoted against non-Christians still often have this notion that Christianity is normal and everything else is kinda weird,” Branfman said.

Branfman puts it best, saying, “please always make sure that your activism includes Jewishness within intersectionality and that your analysis of multiple oppressions always includes anti-Semitism in the picture.”

"The erasure of Jewish identity in queer spaces is the most persistent problem LGBTQ+ Jews face."

Jews, the organization hosts LGBTQ+ and allied youth retreats, provides programming for LGBTQ+ families and advocates for the Equality Act, which would provide nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people at the federal level. Other organizations include the Jews of Color Initiative, which works to advance “the professional, organizational and communal field for Jews of Color,” and Eshel, which is dedicated to promoting LGBTQ+ equality within the Orthodox community.

Branfman himself co-founded Keshet Columbus, a group for young Jewish LGBTQ+ professionals to network with one another, saying, “we wanted to create a space where being Jewish and queer was the norm.”

While LGBTQ+ issues have been advanced in Jewish spaces, Branfman and Silkes both agreed that recognition of Jewish issues

32

This lack of acknowledgement of Jewish struggles is troubling. According to a CBS News report, anti-Semitic attacks have been on the rise since 2016.

Exemplifying the issue was the prevalence of anti-Semitic imagery—including sweatshirts that read “Camp

“How did the mighty fall in the midst of the battle? Jonathan, on your high places you were slain! I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan, you were very pleasant to me. Your love was more wonderful to me than the love of women!” ­— 2 Samuel 1:25–26

FUSION SPRING 2021

On Fatness, queerness and gender performance Words by Moira Armstrong Illustration by Joe Herrera

34

"Dressing down is regularly met with accusations. Why have we let ourselves go so badly? Why don’t we care about our appearances?

Why can’t we just try harder?”

F

at people are always being asked to perform. Whether it’s a selfie at the gym on Instagram or a photo of a salad on Snapchat, creating the appearance of an active lifestyle is critical to gaining society’s approval as a fat person, because the only socially acceptable way to be fat is to constantly try to change one’s weight. This is a harmful standard that can damage one’s body image and relationship to exercise and food permanently.

However, that detrimental pressure to perform isn’t just reserved for health.

Performing gender is also required of fat people.

Judith Butler first proposed the idea of gender performativity by stating that “male” or “female” behavior is learned, not inherent. She proposed that “the ways that one’s learned performance of gendered behavior (what we commonly associate with femininity and masculinity) is an act of sorts, a performance, one that is imposed upon us by normative heterosexuality.”

This means that, for example, a boy who chooses to play a sport rather than take art classes does not play the sport be-

cause boys are naturally drawn to sports over art. He does it because the society around him tells him that he should, a message which is communicated to him through media such as TV shows and movies and social influences like his family and friends. He is performing the male role as he has been taught.

Almost everyone in society conforms to these roles to some degree, especially during childhood when we are more vulnerable to outside influence and have not been exposed to ideas that divert from the norm.

Performing gender can provide an element of safety, especially for transgender and nonbinary people in unwelcoming environments. For some people, performing gender can even be empowering.

In an article for xoJane, writer and style blogger Ragini Nag Rao writes, “As a fat woman, I’ve lived through most of my life being told that I’m less of a woman because of my size … beauty, glamour, and sexiness have all been denied me because I’m simply too big for them.”

Embracing femininity can be a way to challenge that stereotype, and as a result, the tactic has been adopted by many fat women. For example, the pinup girl aesthetic is extremely common in fat communities. Pinup girls were popularized in the 1940s as either photos or illustrations of women who were “self assured, put together, sensual and intelligent all at once,” with natural makeup, curled hair and outfits that accentuated their curves.

Despite the common modern-day idea of the pinup girl, throughout history, they were not always thin. The Curvy Fashionista reports that Hilda, a fat pinup girl, was created by Duane Bryers in the 1950s and was so popular that drawings of her remained in print for over 30 years. She has been celebrated by modern-day fat women, who have recreated her photos and crafted their own similarly-styled fat pinup illustrations in what Cosmopolitan calls “the most empowering thing you’ll see all day.”

Men also face the pressure to perform. Bruce Owens Grimm, writer and co-editor of “Fat & Queer: An Anthology of Trans and Queer Bodies and Lives,” 35

FUSION SPRING 2021 says that he has “most certainly” felt pressure to perform masculinity because he is fat.

“Oddly, this pressure has come from other fat men, especially gay fat men in the bear and bear adjacent communities. They won’t even say fat,” he adds.

“Burly or beefy or meaty is what I’ve noticed [being] used more often because it sounds more masculine than fat. Any gesture or how you hold yourself that might be perceived as effeminate is loudly discouraged.”

In these communities, the domineering boss and stern father figures are prevalent, and facial hair and suspenders are staples of style. Men who are not as masculine may struggle to make friends or find romantic partners. Grimm states that while he sometimes performs those standards and does feel shielded by gender performativity in vulnerable situations, he emphasizes, “that’s not the same as empowering.”

“As I’ve been answering these questions, I’m like, why do I hold onto my facial hair so much? I might go shave it off after I finish answering these questions,” he says.

As Grimm demonstrates, empowerment is not a one-size-fits-all box. Not all fat people want to perform gender to such a high degree, and those who do may not want to or be able to all the time. But fat activist Marie Southard Ospina points out that even when “lazy” fashion is trendy for thin people, fat people aren’t afforded the privilege of participating, at least not without judgment.

personally like to perform both femininity and masculinity at different times, and sometimes at the same time. It can be fun and empowering to do this freely, as long as no one else is making me feel pressured to perform in a certain way.”

This is more difficult under the constraints of gender performativity expected of fat people.

"Any gesture or how you hold yourself that might be perceived as effeminate is loudly discouraged" Anti-fatness is also often dangerously linked to anti-Blackness. Popular fat activist blogger Your Fat Friend writes that body mass index, one of the most common medical markers of fatness, has roots in eugenics. Its use has been connected to missed diagnoses of risk for Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke in all people of color, according to Newsweek. This can also be dangerous when law enforcement are involved.

A study from the Public Library of Science reports that fat Black and Hispanic men are at increased risk of being frisked, searched and treated with force by police.

periences are worlds different due to intersectionality. She has struggled with fetishization, hypersexualization and others who constantly downplay her fat identity.

“Fat Gurl Culture,” she states, “is … constantly being told you are beautiful and not fat—because fat is super bad and ugly.”

Additionally, since the dominant narrative of fatness is so strongly connected with traditional femininity, queer people are frequently left out of fat movements.

Nina Eriksson, a fat butch lesbian, states in a Refinery29 article that she “found that even in fat acceptance spaces and fat activist spaces, such a high level of assimilation to gender roles is expected from fat people … it’s been a struggle for me, trying to understand that not only the traditional feminine is sexy.”

She has turned to other butch women and lesbians for acceptance on both fronts.

Reyes agrees that queerness and queer spaces have been beneficial to their fat identity. They describe that they feel less dysphoric now that they are fat than they did when they were thin, and they have been accepted as fat by queer people more readily than by cisgender, heterosexual people.

and gender

Ospina writes that for fat people, “dressing down is regularly met with accusations. Why have we let ourselves go so badly? Why don’t we care about our appearances? Why can’t we just try harder?”

This effectively means that unless fat people keep up their extreme level of gender performance, they risk marginalization. These expectations also alienate fat people outside of the gender binary.

For example, Sonora Reyes, a fat writer who uses they/them pronouns, says, “I 36

However, fat activist movements are dominated by cisgender, heterosexual, white women. As a result, the bodies that are associated with fat positivity are not only usually femme—they’re usually white, too. Writer Nwabisa Mazana says that “the first thing that pops up” in media representations of fat women are “white plus-sized women who are usually profiting off of body positivity while fat black femmes who started the movement starve.”

She also calls attention to the fact that white fat experiences and Black fat ex-

“I think this is because, being queer, we’re already deviating from what society says you’re supposed to be, including what is considered attractive or beautiful,” they say. “Being trans means knowing what it is like to have our bodies scrutinized, and I think that plays a big role in the fact that I feel most accepted in my body around other trans people.”

Grimm has also found acceptance of his fatness in queer communities and vice versa. However, he adds, “I’ve been nervous about entering those spaces for fear they wouldn’t be welcoming of me for one reason or another, so I wish those spaces would be more vocal in welcoming fat and/or queer people.”

37

> < > FUSION SPRING 2021

How Gender Dysphoria Impacts Eating Disorders Words by Chloe Parrino

Content warning: This story features subject matter relating to eating disorders.

I

t is a popular misconception that eating disorders only affect cisgender white women. However, this is not the case. According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), transgender people experience eating disorders at a higher rate than cisgender people. One study by Washington University found that trans college students reported experiencing eating disorders at around four times the rate of their cisgender classmates.

These statistics may be linked to gender dysphoria. In an article for Penn Medicine News, Rachel Harvey writes that gender dysphoria is “a medical diagnosis for the serious stress associated with the conflict a person experiences between the way they feel and think of themselves and their physical or assigned gender.”

Not all trans people suffer from gender dysphoria, but those who do may experience significant emotional distress.

38

Transgender people also face immense pressure to “pass,” or fit into socially constructed gender roles associated with apperance. Research done in 2014

by Daphna Stroumsa from the University of Michigan shows that trans people who do not conform to traditional beauty standards are more likely to face discrimination and mental health problems than those who do.

As a result, transgender people may become more focused on “ideal beauty” because they believe that achieving it might alleviate their experiences of dysphoria or transphobia. They may turn to disordered eating to achieve their goals. For example, trans men may restrict their diet to minimize the appearance of breasts and hips, and trans women may restrict their diet to lose muscle mass and appear thinner.

Transgender people may even experience this unconsciously.

“I have had my eating disorder for longer than I have been out as trans,” says Ciaran Cooper, a junior classics major at Kent State. “From a very young age, I knew that I wasn’t in the body I was meant to be in.”

Unfortunately, there are many barriers to effective diagnosis and treatment.

The stereotypes surrounding eating disorders may mean that transgender people are not diagnosed correctly or are not diagnosed at all. The National Women’s Law Center states that transgender people face high rates of poverty and homelessness, which can mean treatment is economically out of reach. They may also face difficulty finding an accepting provider.

J, a source who wishes to remain anonymous since they are not publicly out as transgender, says, “I scheduled an appointment with my doctor recently. I have a really cis passing voice. They

< >

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zeroed in on my deadname, which I didn’t mention, and they called me [gender assigned at birth]. I will keep my mouth shut every time. I need healthcare, not to start a fight with receptionists.”

People of color face all of these issues at even higher rates. NEDA statistics show that Black and Hispanic teenagers are more likely to experience bulimia and Native American adolescents are more likely to engage in harmful behaviors to lose weight than any other demographic.

Despite these numbers, people of color are less likely to be asked by doctors about eating disorder symptoms and are less likely to receive help for their eating disorders than white people.

This, combined with the unique societal prejudice against transgender people of color and especially Black trans women, can block transgender people from receiving treatment for their eating disorders entirely.

However, progress is being made. Medical professionals are becoming more aware of the issues facing transgender people with eating disorders and the changes that need to be made to accomodate them.

Rosemary Thomas, coordinator of the Penn Medicine Program for LGBTQ+ Health, says, “it’s important to remember that the LGBTQ+ community has many of the same health concerns as other patients, but historically have had

For More Information: poorer access to health care and experiences of stigma and discrimination resulting in increased risk for certain health conditions and support around mental wellness.”

Activists are also working to demand better care from eating disorder treatment venues. FEDUP, a collective of trans people with eating disorders, released “An Open Letter to Eating Disorder Organizations & Institutions In Response to Statements Published About Diversity Campaigns & Solidarity with Black Lives” in June 2020. The letter's demands include the hiring of more queer BIPOC providers at treatment centers and in positions of power, additional resources for training BIPOC professionals, a transition away from gender-specific care and language, and increased funding to study eating disorders in relation to queer communities and people of color because currently, the majority of research is focused on white cisgender women.

“Eating disorders are different for everyone,” says Jillian Lampert, Chief Strategy Officer at The Emily Program, a trans-friendly eating disorder treatment provider. “They require personalized treatment plans. To really recover long-term, trans people need gender-affirming care.”

According to The Emily Program, those suffering with eating disorders may notice a preoccupation with weight, food, calories, carbohydrates, fat grams and dieting. If you begin skipping meals or cutting portions, you may want to seek help for disordered eating behaviors.

According to NEDA, eating disorders can cause stomach cramps, constipation, acid reflux, anemia, low thyroid and hormone levels, and low blood cell counts. They can also cause dizziness, fainting, sleep problems, hair loss, dry skin and muscle weakness.

Lampert says, “The earlier we catch and receive help for eating disorder thoughts and behaviors, the easier it is to fix them.”

To get help for yourself or a loved one, call or text NEDA at 800-931-2237.

For crisis situations, call 911 or text 741741. Relatives of people with eating disorders can reach out to Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders (F.E.A.S.T.), an international organization for caregivers of eating disorder patients that offers support groups and forums.

If you do not have access to affordable healthcare or medication, food or safe housing, you can find the nearest National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics (NAFC) participating clinic by going to https://www. nafcclinics.org/.

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FUSION SPRING 2021

bRidging wOrlds

How The United States Abandoned LGBTQ+ Refugees Words by Grace Christopher and Angela Molina Illustration by Hannah Clotz

D

uring the 2016 election, immigration was a major topic of debate between former President Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton. Trump was very vocal throughout his campaign about his plans for immigration reform. He famously claimed that he would build a “huge” wall between the United States and Mexico that would be paid for by the Mexican people. Once elected, his administration provided no track to citizenship for immigrants currently living in the U.S. He deported undocumented immigrants back to their countries of birth, and though according to Ballotpedia he claimed during his campaign that he would provide them a chance for re-entry, this did not occur.

Dignity Trust states that there are still over 70 countries around the world that ban same-sex activity, such as Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Kenya and Guyana. Breaking these laws can be punishable by jail time, life in prison and sometimes death.

One of the most controversial policies Trump implemented during his presidency was the travel ban. When he was elected president, Trump passed a ban on travelers from several Muslim-majority countries for 90 days. The ban also prohibited entry for all Syrian refugees indefinitely and all refugees from other countries for 120 days. Though this policy and a second attempt at the ban were blocked by the courts, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a third version to take effect.

This banned travelers from six Muslim-majority countries and North Korea.

Because of the ACA, LGBTQ+ refugees are required to wait in different countries until they can gain entry to the United States. Refugees can be transferred and held for months in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, which is considered a very dangerous country for LGBTQ+ people. At least 20 LGBTQ+ people have been killed in Guatemala since 2020.

These bans and stigmas surrounding immigrants in the U.S. are nothing new. The History Channel reports that there have been immigration bans against Chinese and Asian immigrants, beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. During the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980, former President Jimmy Carter cancelled visas for Iranian citizens living in the United States.

From 1934 to 1943, author David S. Wyman writes the U.S. severely restricted entry for Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Germany. And according to the UK-based organization Avert, in 1987, former President Ronald Reagan banned all HIV-positive persons from entering the U.S. This particular ban was not lifted until 2009 under former President Barack Obama.

Trump’s travel ban had particularly harmful effects for LGBTQ+ refugees seeking asylum in the United States. The Human 40

Many LGBTQ+ refugees looking for asylum in the United States were suddenly denied their chance to do so. For those already in the U.S., their status was jeopardized because the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security initiated the Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA), which eliminated protection for people seeking asylum due to persecution related to their sexuality or gender identity.

Many Latino LGBTQ+ asylum seekers are stranded at the border. While they wait in detention camps at the border, they are subjected to cruel treatment from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). LGBTQ+ immigrants are subjected to solitary confinement and are detained twice as long as other detainees, and while only .14% of all detainees identify as LGBTQ+, they make up 12% of reported sexual abuse and assault cases.

Latino LGBTQ+ refugees can also face violence and exploitation on their way to the border. Jade Quintanilla, a transgender woman, told The New York Times she left El Salvador to escape anti-transgender violence. After her and her friends were robbed, Quintanilla boarded a train in Mexico to travel north; while on the train, she says she was sexually exploited.

“We had to give our services so that they’d let us on,” she says.

“They were abusing us the whole way through. And if we refused, they’d threaten to push us off.”

In 2019, NowThis News produced “Between Two Homes,” a documentary that illustrates the life of Ali. Ali is a queer refugee from Iran who fled the country after receiving anonymous threats online regarding his artwork, which focuses on queer subject matter. In Iran, being gay is punishable by death. Ali fled to Turkey in Sept. 2014, which has become a hub for Iranian refugees.

Ali applied for asylum in the U.S. and, after completing a twoyear vetting process, was told that he would be moving to America in two months. However, the refugee ban impacted his plans. It left him stranded in the city of Denizli, where he is not allowed to work or leave the city. He relies on financial help from his mother to survive.

“I thought to myself, ‘where should I go?’” says Ali. “‘Which countries open their doors to me?’ It was like a nightmare, and it’s still like a nightmare for me.”

Violence against LGBTQ+ people is also epidemic on the continent of Africa, which has some of the most prohibitive laws regarding same-sex activity. These laws and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment are often the result of European colonization. Gay sex is punishable by jail time in Kenya, but Reuters reports

that the law is rarely enforced and it is seen as more tolerant of LGBTQ+ people. Many African LGBTQ+ refugees seeking asylum in the United States wait in Kenya for this reason.

Most LGBTQ+ refugees in Kenya come from Uganda, which has become increasingly hostile towards LGBTQ+ people in recent years. They face harassment, discrimination and police brutality, and they are subjected to extreme violence. George Mukhwezi, a gay refugee, fled Uganda after being assaulted multiple times and arrested by the police. He says, “I need to feel safe like other people in other countries … I want to go to a country that will respect my rights.”

After President Joe Biden was sworn into office, he lifted some aspects of Trump’s travel ban. While he reversed the ban on Muslim countries, diversity visa applicants who applied between 2017 and 2020 will not be granted visas and will have to reapply. Reapplication is a lengthy process, and this could harm people who have been waiting to enter the United States.

Biden did lift all bans on refugees, but many LGBTQ+ people are still waiting to be granted asylum in the U.S. We should not keep them waiting any longer.

"Which countries open their doors to me?"

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FUSION SPRING 2021

Remembering MJ Eckhouse Words by Angela Molina

M

J Eckhouse, Fusion’s beloved editor from Fall 2016 to Spring 2018, died unexpectedly in October 2020.

Eckhouse was known in the Kent community for his devotion to social justice, advocacy in the LGBTQ+ community and passion for helping others, especially those in recovery.

Eckhouse graduated from Kent State University in May 2018 with a bachelor’s in political science. As the editor of Fusion for two years, he saw the potential Fusion had to advocate on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community of Ohio.

In addition to an internship with Equality Ohio, Eckhouse became the Outreach Specialist for Community AIDS Network/ Akron Pride Initiative and the Communications Coordinator of the Ohio Environmental Council in Columbus.

“One thing that he was most passionate about was making the world a better place,” says Lis Regula, Eckhouse’s husband. He added that Eckhouse never stopped working to achieve this goal and was extremely persistent, being able to see others’ strengths and organize accordingly.

Eckhouse began as a staff writer for Fusion and later applied to be the editor. The Student Media Board was skeptical of him due to his grades, but he persevered and won the position, maintaining a high GPA afterwards. Regula described the magazine as “his baby” and that he was always immensely proud of the work his team produced.

Eckhouse fought for a better world and the LGBTQ+ community of Kent—and Ohio at large—have been made better by him.

John Hess, a friend of Eckhouse, said following the 2016 election, the two established a chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America in Portage County. The chapter was involved with the push for non-discrimination protections in Kent, as well as community clean-ups and attending protests around Northeast Ohio.

Hess added that Eckhouse was not only capable of large-scale activist work, but also able to build relationships with legislators and government officials to create those pathways for change.

Fusion advisor, Bruce Zake, agreed with Regula. “The board had concerns about MJ’s ability to pull off being editor while meeting the requirements the school has for being in a student leader position. MJ was brought on conditionally for a semester and nailed it academically. He ranks with many of the other top-notch editors I’ve had in the nearly 10 years that I’ve been the advisor.”

“He was very rare in his ability ... to do both of those things and do them well,” Hess said. He went on to add, “We all have a little bit more work to do … we need to sort of pick up the slack and be the kind of person that he was, or aspire to that.”

Kevin Dilley, Director of Student Media, added, “MJ was one of the most passionate people I know. His work at Fusion and his social justice influence in our community and beyond will be felt for a long time. He was his own force of nature.”

• The Kent State Foundation has an endowed scholarship fund in MJ's memory for an LGBTQ+ or ally student who is active in social justice work on or off campus, including work at Fusion.

Former Fusion editor Ella Abbott worked closely with Eckhouse, combining their backgrounds in political science and journalism to take the magazine down an activist path. Abbott said that he wanted to use the magazine’s platform to write stories not just about the LGBTQ+ community, but for them.

• The Portage Foundation fund is to support collaborative and intersectional projects working to improve lived equality and advance social justice in Northeast Ohio.

“Under MJ, [Fusion] took a lot more of an activist stance,” she said. Abbott’s work with Eckhouse would inspire her own ideas of using the magazine for activism during her tenure as editor after him, such as publishing a mini-magazine dedicated to the 2018 midterm election.

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Please Donate to MJ's Funds:

Donate here: tinyurl.com/mjeckhouse

Donate here: portagefoundation.org/donate Once you click 'Donate,' use the "(option) Use this donation for" drop down menu to select "Other (write in)" and write in MJ Eckhouse Memorial Fund.

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