From the article: "Countless acts of racism have been perpetrated against Asian people since COVID-19 began. We asked queer Asian Americans to describe what they’ve experienced, and how they’re coming together in the pandemic’s wake."

This is the first official press release from Virtual Arizona Pride.

This document shows the guidelines for presenters and performers at the first Virtual AZ Pride event. In addition to logistical challenges such as scheduling, this document also shows the care put in to ensuring online safety and security of the space.

This document is a description and outline of the first Virtual AZ Pride event.

With Phoenix Pride postponed, Virtual AZ Pride emerged as a new, virtual event meant to build community. This is the original logo for Virtual AZ Pride.

This is the official website for Virtual Arizona Pride. Screenshot taken 05/19/2020.

Echo Mag, an LGBTQ news source from Phoenix, provides an in-depth account of Virtual AZ Pride's goals and purpose. From the article: "With an attitude of resilience, the community bands together to put together a Virtual Pride weekend April 3-5"

This article notes the shift from Phoenix Pride to a new virtual Pride event. From the article: "To fight the spread of the new coronavirus, Phoenix Pride 2020 was postponed. But members and allies of the LGBTQ community can still celebrate this weekend, online from the safety of home."

One of the events mentioned in this article is the newly formed Virtual AZ Pride. The article speaks to community excitement about the new event. From the article: "Arizona Pride It’s been nearly 40 years since activists organized the first Pride march in Phoenix. This year, the annual event will get a new twist, as people avoid large crowds to help stem the spread of COVID-19. The first Virtual Arizona Pride event is happening on Saturday and Sunday, April 4 and 5. Expect an eclectic lineup of conversations, film screenings, music, comedy, drag storytimes, performances, and pop-up shops. The free virtual event is a way to support the local LGBTQ+ community, experience work by local creatives, learn more about Arizona LGBTQ+ history, and show a little love through online donations to participating creatives if you feel inspired to do so. You can find the daily schedule online."

Following the postponement of Phoenix Pride in April, a group of activists and organizations came together to host the first-ever Virtual Arizona Pride. The response was so positive that the team behind #VirtualAZPride decided to continue online programming every third Saturday of every month. As their website explains "Our Third Saturday series will feature a select, curated day programming similar to what you saw at #VitualAZPride, from partners old and new." This flyer (designed by Felicia Minor) provides an outline of the *first* Third Saturday event, and shows the range of programming such an event holds.

A couple of gay, trans college kids going to the park and shotgunning from a mini bong because it’s the only way to get out of the house and have fun these days!

Celebrating trans pride in quarantine

Celebrating trans pride in quarantine

An article on how elements of 'lockdown culture' are attitudes and pasttimes commonly attributed to the lesbian experience.

From the article: "The coronavirus outbreak is pummeling LGBTQ Americans, especially those of color, leaving a population already vulnerable to health care and employment discrimination suffering from high job losses and a growing rate of positive cases, according to preliminary data collected from multiple LGBTQ advocacy groups."

"A man unknowingly spread COVID-19 at gay clubs in Seoul. Now, media coverage is repeating antigay tropes."

"International transgender rights groups are warning global coronavirus lockdown restrictions have led to trans people being denied healthcare. Many have had surgeries delayed, and some are struggling to access hormone therapy and counselling services."

This NBC News article details the devastating impact of COVID-19 on already beleaguered lesbian bars.

Photo taken by my girlfriend while I shave my head after not having access to a barber in over a month.

From Facebook: "Join for a discussion about Arizona's LGBTQ Community reponse to being quarantined. Special Guest will be Equality Arizona, RipplePHX, Social Distancing Hotline, Virtual Arizona Pride, and PHX Gayborhood Pride. Hosted by the Arizona LGBT+ History Project"

Today (5/1/20), bandcamp.com is waiving all of its revenue so all money from purchases will go directly to artists. Bandcamp is a music-sharing platform where artists or labels can directly upload music for purchase. Today, I purchased a compilation of B-sides, demos, and covers from a bunch of musicians. The compilation is called "The Song is Coming from Inside the House" and all proceeds will go to the Groundswell Rapid Response Fund which provides fast funding to grassroots organizations led by women of color, trans people of color, and low-income women and trans people in critical, but unexpected, fights to protect and advance reproductive and social justice, including mutual aid societies, rent moratoriums, and digital organizing.

While many of Phoenix's gay and lesbian bars are currently closed, Boycott Bar-- a local lesbian bar-- is offering mason jar cocktails for curbside pickup. The switch to curbside pickup is indicative of the bar's efforts to stay afloat during this tumultuous time.

As the death toll and rate of infections continue to rise, the Trump administration is working to repeal an Obama-era rule which made it illegal for healthcare workers to deny care based on someone's gender identity or sexual orientation. The implication is that LGBTQ+ could be turned away from hospitals in the midst of a global pandemic.

Pride-themed protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic

It had been exactly 39 days since the last time I saw my partner. At the beginning of March, I made the decision to move in with my Mother in Tucson, where I had resolved to stay with her until the crisis was over. I needed to move out of my Tempe home by April 30th, so I made the trek from my parents’ house in Tucson back up to Tempe and enlisted my partner’s help in moving the last of my possessions. It felt dangerous, and even though it was essential travel and we’ve both been strict with social distancing since March, I must have asked at least ten times if she was sure it was safe. She assured me it was. I told her I was not sure if I could hug her. She told me it was okay. Before this whole crisis began, we had just started a conversation about moving in together. The 39 days apart provided some clarity: We wanted to take that leap as soon as it was safe to do so. As we looked at the stacks of boxes on my kitchen floor, we decided that some could be stored in her apartment. It was strange, because when 2020 began I had this vision of us packing up my stuff and moving in together. Here it was happening, but it wasn’t this joyous event, it just felt solemn. She cleared out space in her guestroom and we hauled boxes up three flights of stairs before we sat, winded, in her living room. It was so bittersweet—the hope of imagining this future together and the reality of our current separation. My favorite thing about our relationship is that it’s been defined by laughter. We’re always on some type of adventure, working on some new inside joke, and always pranking the other. But in isolation, it’s been hard for us to keep up the playful parts of our relationship. We can’t go on adventures, we can’t prank one another, and sometimes everything feels too serious to joke at all. Somedays, we’re too tired and sad to even talk much. As we moved things from my apartment to hers, she tried her best to cheer me up. She checked in with frequent are-you-okays and trotted out her best comedic material to elicit laughs. She’s become quite the TikTok aficionado in quarantine, and many of our jokes right now are shaped by the absurdist videos on the internet. Sure enough, each time we placed a new box in the car, she loudly yelled “CAROLE BASKIN”, a reference to the TikTok Tiger King inspired dance. Soon, throughout the afternoon, we’d both break out in the TikTok Song. CAROLE BASKIN! Killed her husband, WHACKED HIM. Can’t convince me that it didn’t HAPPEN Fed him to tigers THEY SNACKIN CAROLE BASKIN! As we sat in her apartment on Sunday evening, I got an idea. I walked to the front of the couch like I was presenting at a conference. “Play the music!” “What music?” “Play the Carole Basking song!” It took me a few times before I began to freestyle some moves. “You have to use your hips more!” she directed. “What? No, I don’t!” She pulled up another video for reference. “All the good TikTok dancers use their hips!” I tried again, this time bouncing my hips in ridiculous fashion. CAROLE BASKIN! (I shook my hands above my head) Killed her (I drew my thumb across my throat) husband (I pointed to my ring finger) WHACKED HIM (I mimicked an axe movement) Can’t convince me that it didn’t (I wagged my fingers and made an X across my chest with my arms) HAPPEN (I tapped my arms by my side) Fed him to tigers (I gestured from my chest out) THEY SNACKIN (My outward arms made the alligator chomp twice on beat, before I drew my arms up to claws) CAROLE BASKIN! (I bounced on my hip and flared my tiger claws outward with a rawr expression) By the time the dance was over, my partner was howling with laughter and I was too. It was the hardest we had laughed together in weeks. Before this pandemic started, I thought TikTok was silly. I still have no plans to join TikTok and I sincerely hope my TikTok dances never end up on the internet. I’ve also never seen Tiger King and I have no plans to and I keep hearing about Joe Exotic with no idea who that is. But honestly it doesn’t matter what I think about TikTok or Tiger King, because I know they make my partner laugh. They bring her joy during this terrible time. I know that a lot of other people feel that way right now too. So here I am, documenting my first TikTok dance; Or, as I like to think of it, a strange act of love in the midst of this pandemic.

Etymology and the way words have changed over time has always fascinated me, and the COVID-19 pandemic certainly has contributed and will contribute to how many words are interpreted in society. An example of this that has crossed my mind numerous times in the past few weeks is the word ‘quarantine’. Before the pandemic, I always envisioned ‘quarantine’ as being locked in a bright, spacious room in a hospital after getting off an airplane because I had some infectious disease. It always felt lonely, frightening, and uncertain to me. Who would’ve known that quarantine could also mean feeling those same emotions in our own homes? The word itself has become so commonplace and normal to hear because of what is currently happening. I’ve heard some people call quarantine “the q” and many other casual names as an attempt to nickname and accept the situation we are all in, which is only normal. After this pandemic is over, our perspective of the word ‘quarantine’ will be much less serious, as I was describing earlier with the dying of an infectious disease alone in a scary hospital room, and this may not be a good thing. There are already people not taking social distancing measures seriously at all, i.e. those who are currently protesting them, those who are leaving their houses to spend time with others without leaving six feet between them, and many more. If the novel coronavirus returns in the years to come or another disease that requires quarantine measures, especially stricter measures, spreads, then I fear that many won’t take these future quarantines as seriously. However, it is completely possible that the exact opposite will happen, but in order for people to learn from this pandemic, factual information, not disease, needs to be spread. Just like many other global issues, a solution to the course this pandemic has taken not being repeated again in the years to come is education, factual information, and learning from the mistakes we’ve made. Personally, this pandemic has further solidified my dream of becoming a biomedical engineer. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how hard I’d be working if I were only a few years older, but I don’t really have the tools at my disposal right now to do what I’d want to do, which makes me sad. I am coming up with a lot of my own ideas about devices, inventions, and improvements I’d like to make in the future, though. I was talking to my mentor and biggest inspiration on Friday about how this pandemic will change the future of the medical field, including the biomedical engineering field, and how I am going to be able to experience it firsthand. My biggest dream in life has always been to open my own research and development laboratory that is ideally nonprofit and would focus on helping those in third world countries and those who are usually underrepresented in the medical field like minorities. I’ve always been inspired by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the mistreatment people in the LGBTQ+ community received by medical professionals. It is sickening to me to watch something similar happen before my own eyes, as Black people and Latino people are dying at disproportionately higher rates than other races, and the treatment they receive in medical situations is known to be equal to that of their White counterparts. Again, the only way to solve this problem is through education and awareness, but I hope my future lab will be able to contribute.

James Anear. Age; 23 Race; White Occupation; Art student Gender; Nonbinary trans masculine Sexuality; Bisexual; Middle class.

Dr. Cervini has recently received media attention for creating a podcast and book club called "Quarantini," focused on LGBT history, as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

8 tips to look after your respiratory health for trans and non binary people who bind their chest .I am a member of a secret online group for transgender men. A member of the group from the US shared this resource, on how to look after your respiratory health for trans and non binary people who bind their chest. I realised that it was written by a member of the Australian trans community, someone I have connections with in my own city. It felt good to know that resources developed by someone in my own backyard are having a global reach and that the transgender community around the world are pulling together to support one another at this time.

This message was posted by Rabbi Joshua Lesser of Congregation Bet Haverim in Atlanta, Georgia, a Reconstructionist synagogue founded by LGBTQ+ Jews in the 1980s, during the AIDS epidemic. The message offers spiritual guidance and grounding in the synagogue's history of compassion toward people who were marginalized during the HIV epidemic that ravaged and stigmatized the Gay community at the time of the synagogue's founding.