An Increase in Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate; the Big Business of Hospice–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest

Indy Digest: Nov. 28, 2022

A vigil was held last night on Arenas Road to honor the victims of the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Nov. 19. The Palm Springs Post reported:

With the eerie presence of police snipers on rooftops above them and dance music rhythmically throbbing in the distance, members of the local LGBTQ+ community, their allies, and local politicians gathered in Palm Springs late Sunday afternoon to deliver a clear, powerful message:

Hate has no home here, but no community is safe until “angry young men” lose access to assault weapons.

“Each and every one of us knows it could have been us,” said Palm Springs Mayor Lisa Middleton as she addressed hundred who gathered on Arenas Road. “We all know, because we learned it the hard way, that we are targets. But we’re going to stand up strong and we are never going to back down. We are not going to give up one inch of this land.”

That land is Palm Springs, long home to the Coachella Valley’s largest LGBTQ+ community, and The Arenas District that has become a welcome refuge to those who simply want to live as their true selves. The nightclubs and restaurants along Arenas Road are not unlike Club Q in Colorado Springs, the scene of yet another mass shooting earlier this month that claimed the lives of five people and injured dozens of others.

If it can be scary to be an LGBTQ+ person in the gay mecca of Palm Springs, it can be downright terrifying to be one in a less-welcoming part of the world. The Los Angeles Times published a piece today on what it’s like to be LGBTQ+ in more-conservative parts of California. A tidbit:

After five people were shot dead in a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colo., Matthew Grigsby thought about Club 501.

It was the only gay bar in Redding, a Northern California city of 93,000 that, like Colorado Springs, is deeply religious and conservative.

There, Grigsby felt comfortable holding hands or dancing with another man.

Club 501 closed this summer, leaving Grigsby and other LGBTQ people without a place where they could be themselves. The news from Club Q in Colorado Springs was another gut punch.

“There’s no safe place anywhere,” Grigsby, 53, said, his voice shaking. “It doesn’t matter where we are or what we do. People are going to come for us.”

In politically red stretches of California — from the old logging towns in the north through the dusty farmlands of the Central Valley — the Colorado Springs massacre was yet another devastating reminder of how difficult and lonely it can be to be queer in conservative America. …

The Colorado Springs attack comes at a time when hateful rhetoric against LGBTQ people — especially from Republican politicians and conservative pundits — is on the rise.

That “hateful rhetoric against LGBTQ people” the Los Angeles Times mentions is only getting worse—and it is back in style on Twitter under the “leadership” of Elon Musk. Salon reports:

Barely 24 hours after a gunman killed five people and injured 19 others at a gay bar in Colorado Springs, Elon Musk’s new Twitter responded to the massacre by reinstating the account of James Lindsay, the right-wing activist responsible for popularizing the anti-LGBTQ slur “OK groomer,” which over the last 10 months has been used to imply that demands for LGBTQ rights or representation are tantamount to child molestation. In August, Lindsay was banned from Twitter for using a variation on the term, which under Twitter’s old regime was prohibited as a form of hateful conduct. But by Monday night, not only was Lindsay back, but “OK groomer” was trending on the platform under its new ownership. 

Lindsay’s reinstatement — alongside a number of other accounts previously suspended for anti-LGBTQ content — was just one response to the massacre at Colorado’s Club Q that quickly disappointed any hopes that the massacre might conceivably prompt conservative self-reflection after a year of demonizing LGBTQ people and their allies as pedophiles. Instead, across right-wing news and social media, a few common themes developed: First, that progressives were exploiting the slaughter to score political points; second, that allegations of “grooming” or “pedophilia” in fact have nothing to do with gay people; and third, that if the “grooming” doesn’t stop, the violence will continue. 

It’s 2022. This is happening. Anyone who’s LGBTQ+ or an ally needs to be on their toes. Club Q will not be the last violent incident against LGBTQ+ people; the anti-gay politicians, activists and others are making sure of that.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• In other Twitter-related news, it appears Elon Musk is getting ready to battle Apple. The New York Times reports: “In a series of tweets over 15 minutes, Mr. Musk, the new owner of Twitter, accused Apple of threatening to withhold Twitter from its App Store, a move that would limit some new users from downloading the app. The action would amount to censorship, Mr. Musk said, with no explanation from Apple for why Twitter would be blocked. He added that Apple had also reduced its advertising spending on Twitter. With his tweets, Mr. Musk set the stage for a power struggle with Mr. Cook, who holds immense influence over other tech companies through Apple’s dominance. … Mr. Musk has been poised to confront Apple since taking over Twitter. His business plan is predicated on shifting its revenue from a dependence on advertising to a greater reliance on subscription sales. But any new subscription revenue will be subject to Apple’s practice of taking as much as a 30 percent cut.”

• The new omicron subvariants are now dominant in the U.S. CNBC reports: “The omicron BQ coronavirus subvariants have risen to dominance in the U.S. as people gather and travel for the Thanksgiving holiday, putting people with compromised immune systems at increased risk. BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 are causing 57% of new infections in the U.S., according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday. The omicron BA.5 subvariant, once dominant, now makes up only a fifth of new COVID cases. The BQ subvariants are more immune evasive and likely resistant to key antibody medications, such as Evusheld and bebtelovimab, used by people with compromised immune systems, according to the National Institutes of Health. This includes organ transplant and cancer chemotherapy patients.”

• China is in the midst of unprecedented protests and turmoil over the country’s “zero COVID” policy. CBS News reports: “Thousands took to the streets in China over the weekend in the largest public protests the country has seen in decades. Demonstrators gathered in at least ten cities—including Shanghai and Beijing—calling for the resignation of President Xi Jinping over draconian COVID-19 policies that have seen hundreds of millions of people fenced into their apartment buildings. On Sunday night, CBS News spoke with one of the demonstrators as she joined a crowd of protesters on the streets of Shanghai. The woman, whose identity we’re protecting because speaking with the media could get her arrested, said residents were ‘very angry’ over the rolling lockdowns that have disrupted life in China for years. She said she and her friends don’t support the Chinese government’s management of COVID, adding, ‘Nobody around me supports the policy.’”

• And finally, ProPublica examines the hospice industry in the U.S., exploring how people’s end of life has become big business. A snippet: “It might be counterintuitive to run an enterprise that is wholly dependent on clients who aren’t long for this world, but companies in the hospice business can expect some of the biggest returns for the least amount of effort of any sector in American health care. Medicare pays providers a set rate per patient per day, regardless of how much help they deliver. Since most hospice care takes place at home and nurses aren’t required to visit more than twice a month, it’s not difficult to keep overhead low and to outsource the bulk of the labor to unpaid family members—assuming that willing family members are at hand. Up to a point, the way Medicare has designed the hospice benefit rewards providers for recruiting patients who aren’t imminently dying. Long hospice stays translate into larger margins, and stable patients require fewer expensive medications and supplies than those in the final throes of illness. Although two doctors must initially certify that a patient is terminally ill, she can be recertified as such again and again.”

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