Grindr has lost around 45 per cent of its staff after joining a growing number of companies enforcing a strict return-to-office policy.

Around 80 of its 178 employees are believed to have resigned after a mandate that employees work in person at assigned “hub offices” two days a week or be fired was announced last month, according to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) labour union.

Staff reportedly had two weeks to choose between relocating to their respective team’s “hub city” – either New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Washington D.C. – for in-person work, or leaving the company entirely with a severance package.

The change was announced after a majority of the LGBTQIA+ dating app’s workers announced their intention to unionise, the Los Angeles Times reported.

READ MORE: Grindr: 25% of users are on the app to network, company says

CWA branded Grindr’s updated policy as an attempt “to silence workers from speaking out about their working conditions”.

“It is unimaginably disappointing”

Erick Cortez, an employee of the company and member of Grindr United-CWA, said: “It is unimaginably disappointing that dozens of our colleagues have had to leave their jobs because Grindr management did not want to sit down with workers and respect our right to organise.”

The CWA last week filed a labour complaint against Grindr, the second in about a month.

READ MORE: Grindr’s new CEO faces backlash from users over his past conservative tweets

Grindr has adamantly denied that its return-to-office policy was not influenced by some of its staff choosing to unionise and said the claims filed by the CWA “have no merit”.

A spokesperson added that the company is “looking forward to returning to the office in a hybrid model in October and further improving productivity and collaboration for our entire team.”

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Dolly Parton, a world-renowned country music star and philanthropist, has been awarded $100m (£84.8m) by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for charitable causes.

She will be able to give the money to whichever charities she chooses.

“I think people who are in a position to help should put their money where their heart is,” Parton said in a video message. “I will do my best to do good things with this money.”

The award was announced by Bezos alongside his partner, Lauren Sanchez, who praised the 9 to 5 singer for being “a woman who gives with her heart and leads with love and compassion in every aspect of her work”.

“We can’t wait to see all the good that you’re going to do with this $100 million award,” she added.

I try to put my money where my heart is. I will do my best to do good things with this money ❤️ Thank you @JeffBezos #LaurenSanchez https://t.co/8RHh51z3jT

— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) November 13, 2022

Since its inception in 2021, the award has seen prizes given to the likes of activist Van Jones and chef and humanitarian Jose Andres.

Parton has consistently used her platform to advocate for a range of causes and charities.

In 2020, she donated $1m of her own money for COVID-19 vaccine research at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville (one of the trial sites for the highly successful Moderna vaccine).

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Thousands of people celebrated Pride in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi as full-scale celebrations returned for the first time since 2019.

Hanoi Pride Week took place from September 19 to 25 and saw members of the LGBTQ+ community and its allies take part in workshops, screenings and festivals.

The week culminated with a parade which saw thousands of attendees take to the streets of the city for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began more than two years ago.

People waved LGBTQ+ Pride flags alongside the country’s national one, while others danced and chanted positive slogans.

To get this year’s celebrations started, ambassadors from Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland met with LGBTQ+ activists and advocates in Vietnam to discuss what they would like to see from the country in the future.

As has been the case in previous years, the British Embassy was the main sponsor for the Hanoi Pride festival last week.

Iain Frew, the British Ambassador to Vietnam, spoke at one of the Pride stages on the afternoon of 25 September, the BBC reported.

He is said to have given a speech about the right to freedom, gender equality and love more generally before sharing a story about his husband – something which made some of the crowd very emotional.

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The fight against HIV and AIDS risks being derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic and other crises, the United Nations warned on Wednesday, with progress in cutting case numbers being reversed in some countries and slowing overall.

An estimated 1.5 million people contracted HIV worldwide in 2021, said a Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) report, with the number of new cases dropping just 3.6% compared to the previous year – the slowest rate of decline since 2016.

Coronavirus shutdowns frustrated initiatives to fight the virus and other world events such as the war in Ukraine have diverted funds and attention elsewhere, it said.

“The global AIDS response is in severe danger,” said executive director Winnie Byanyima in a statement marking the launch of the Global AIDS Update 2022.

Annual new HIV transmissions have risen over several years in Eastern Europe and central Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa, the report said.

The Philippines, Madagascar, Congo Republic and South Sudan are among the countries which have seen the biggest increases in cases since 2015, it added.

“During the last two years, HIV services have been interrupted in many countries, resources have shrunk, and millions of lives are now at risk,” Matthew Kavanagh, deputy executive director of UNAIDS told journalists.

The war in Ukraine and the worldwide cost-of-living crisis have hampered efforts to combat the virus, the organization warned.

An estimated 38.4 million people were living with HIV worldwide last year, UNAIDS said, roughly three quarters of whom are taking antiretroviral treatments that can make the virus a manageble condition and prevent further transmission.

However, the number of people accessing HIV treatment increased at the slowest rate in more than a decade, it said.
The organization estimates that an additional $29 billion is needed to successfully combat the HIV epidemic in low- and middle-income nations and to ultimately end the virus as a global public health threat.

“Many world leaders seem to have forgotten about HIV,” said Adeeba Kamarulzaman, president of the International AIDS Society, the world’s largest association of HIV/AIDS professionals.

“We risk veering off track in efforts to end the global HIV epidemic.”

BACKSLIDING PROGRESS

Some regions are backsliding, said UNAIDS, with cases rising in Asia and the Pacific where they had previously been falling.

In Brazil, official data shows about 770,000 people are living with diagnosed HIV, a rise of about 10% within three years in a nation previously heralded by activists and governments as a success story.

Maria Eduarda Aguiar da Silva, president of the HIV and AIDS rights nonprofit Grupo Pela Vidda, said widespread conservative attitudes played a role.

“In an ultra-conservative setting where you can’t talk about sexuality, it’s hard to talk about sexually transmitted infections,” she said.

After President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, the federal government closed a government division that had focused specifically on HIV, folding it into a broader department.

Racial and economic inequities also color the Brazilian HIV epidemic, said poet Ramon Nunes Mello, who was diagnosed with the virus in 2012.

“People who die of AIDS come from color and lower social classes,” Mello said.

“They are Black people and the poorest, and they die because of lack of information and of access to medication. It’s surreal for Brazil to go back to that.”

In the Philippines, UNAIDS data showed new annual HIV cases rose to an estimated 21,000 last year, more than double the 2015 rate.

But the number of people accessing HIV testing dropped by 61% in a year as the pandemic took hold in 2020, government data showed.

Though the Philippines is broadly accepting of gay people, homophobia in some sectors of society hamper responses, said Nenita Laude-Ortega, country program manager at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation Philippines.

“This usually comes from the religious groups, and the Philippines is more than 90% Christian,” Laude-Ortega said.

“We have very, very low condom use, and actually it’s the church who are not in favor of condom use.”

Reporting by Benjamin Ryan,Jennifer Ann Thomas, Seb Starcevic; Editing by Sonia Elks and Hugo Greenhalgh

GAY TIMES and Openly/Thomson Reuters Foundation are working together to deliver leading LGBTQ+ news to a global audience.

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The first participant screenings are set to get underway soon for a first-in-Africa clinical trial of a messenger RNA (mRNA) HIV vaccine antigen.

Biotechnology company Moderna and non-profit scientific research organisation IAVI made the announcement on 18 May, confirming that the trial will build on progress made in previous HIV vaccine research.

It is set to take place at the Center for Family Health Research (CFHR) in Kigali, Rwanda, and The Aurum Institute in Tembisa, South Africa.

Findings released earlier this year showed that data from the Phase 1 clinical trial IAVI G001 safely induced the targeted immune response in 97% of people who were vaccinated with the HIV immunogen eOD-GT8 60mer as a recombinant protein.

The current trial, dubbed IAVI G003, is going to build on these findings and is expected to see 18 healthy, HIV-negative adult volunteers receive two doses of eOD-GT8 60mer mRNA, which, according to Moderna’s press release, “contains a portion of the viral sequence and cannot cause an infection with HIV.”

Mark Feinberg, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of IAVI, said that “mRNA technology has the potential to accelerate the development of a safe, effective, affordable, and durable HIV vaccine for use throughout the world.”

mRNA technology was used in Moderna’s highly effective COVID-19 vaccine and helps the body make proteins that trigger immune responses.

First participant screenings are soon to start for a Phase I clinical trial of an #mRNA #HIV vaccine antigen (mRNA-1644) at the Center for Family Health Research (CFHR) in Kigali, Rwanda, and The @Auruminstitute in Tembisa, South Africa.https://t.co/wy80tAqE2I pic.twitter.com/ORgJh0o1HC

— Moderna (@moderna_tx) May 18, 2022

“The immunogen eOD-GT8 60mer is designed to be part of an eventual multi-step vaccination regimen that will stimulate an immune response to elicit bnAbs that neutralize, or block, HIV infection,” Moderna and IAVI explained in their statement. “On its own, eOD-GT8 60mer will not lead to this outcome, but IAVI G003 will yield important safety and immunogenicity data about this vaccine antigen in a population of healthy adults residing in the part of the world most severely affected by HIV.”

Those enrolled in the trial will be monitored for six months after receiving their last dose, with their immune responses being studied to see if the desired responses were achieved.

“With our mRNA technology and IAVI’s discovery and development expertise, we are looking forward to advancing a novel approach to overcome some of the longstanding hurdles to developing a protective HIV vaccine,” said Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna.

“Moreover, we are grateful for the opportunity to work in partnership with researchers and scientists from communities heavily burdened by HIV. Moderna’s HIV vaccine development program, together with our portfolio of COVID-19, Zika, and Nipah programs, advances 4 of the 15 priority vaccine programs we committed to develop by 2025, targeting infectious diseases that threaten global health.”

IAVI G003 is being supported by the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with additional support coming from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Gay and lesbian adults in the USA have a higher rate of COVID-19 vaccination than heterosexual people, a study has found.

On 4 February, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released how vaccination rates differ by sexual orientation and gender identity.

“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons are at increased risk for severe COVID-19 illness because of a higher prevalence of comorbidities,” the report stated.

It revealed that gay men and lesbians aged 18 and over were vaccinated with at least one dose of a COVID-19 jab at a rate of 85.4% compared with 76.3% of their heterosexual counterparts.

This was mirrored when it came to confidence in the vaccines, as 76% of gay or lesbian adults stated that they were either completely or very confident in its effectiveness compared with just 64% of heterosexual respondents.

Bisexual adults believed getting a COVID-19 vaccination was somewhat or very important at a rate of 87% compared with more than 90% of gay or lesbians.

Gay men were found to be vaccinated at a rate of almost 89% versus nearly 81% of lesbian women.

Vaccination rates within the LGBTQ+ community were lowest among Black people across all categories of sexual orientation and gender identity, with the proportion of trans adults getting more than one dose being in line with cisgender adults at 76% and 77%, respectively.

The study found no “significant differences” in vaccination rates when breaking down the data by gender identity.

It was noted by the CDC that American LGBTQ+ people could have higher rates of vaccination due to typically being politically liberal and usually living in urban areas.

Discussing their findings, the authors of the study said: “Understanding COVID-19 vaccination coverage and confidence among LGBT+ populations, and identifying the conditions under which disparities exist, can help tailor local efforts to increase vaccination coverage.

“Adding sexual orientation and gender identity to national data collection systems would be a major step toward monitoring disparities and developing a better-informed public health strategy to achieve health equity for the LGBT+ population.”

The CDC’s study collected data from more than 150,000 respondents in America from August and October 2021.

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Christina Aguilera will serve as the Saturday headliner during this year’s Brighton Pride in a “pride exclusive” performance, it was confirmed on 28 January.

The global superstar will be the main headline act for the entire event, performing on Saturday 6 August.

Paloma Faith was previously announced as the Sunday 7 August headline act.

Details of Christina’s show are being kept under wraps, though director Paul Kemp said it will be “beautiful” just like her hit single.

“As we celebrate our (delayed) 30th anniversary, we are really thrilled to have secured an iconic star and LGBTQ+ ally such as Christina Aguilera to perform at the Preston Park Pride festival, our main fundraiser for the Brighton Rainbow Fund,” he added.

Brighton Pride will take place from 5-7 August, marking its first event since 2019 after two years of cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year will mark the festival’s 30th anniversary celebrations, which were cancelled last year due to government restrictions.

It was originally due to be headlined by Mariah Carey.

Around 250,000 people usually attend Brighton Pride, with this year expected to be a return to form for the event.

Tickets are available here.

SATURDAY MAIN STAGE ALERT!
Global Superstar Christina Aguilera @xtina is confirmed to headline We Are Fabuloso on Saturday 6th August 2022, Brighton & Hove Pride’s official fundraiser for @BH_RainbowFund

Tickets available now: https://t.co/ZpX67Ih8dH#Pride30 #WeAreFabuloso pic.twitter.com/StzkVoNyDh

— Brighton & Hove Pride (@PrideBrighton) January 28, 2022

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Elton John has been forced to postpone two concert dates in America as a result of testing positive for COVID-19.

The 74-year-old has been embarking on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour and was due to appear in Dallas, Texas on 25 and 26 of January.

In the latest delay to his tour caused by the coronavirus, these dates have now been postponed.

In a statement shared to the singer’s Instagram on 25 January, Elton confirmed that those with tickets will be “contacted with the news dates really soon.”

He added that, thanks to being triple vaccinated, he is only experiencing “mild” symptoms which makes him confident that his upcoming shows in Arkansas will be able to go ahead as planned.

Elton’s tour first started in 2018 and is intended to be the global superstar’s final time hitting the road since starting out in the 1960s.

He recently had to delay the remaining UK and European legs of the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour after injuring his hip in September 2021.

“At the end of my summer break I fell awkwardly on a hard surface and have been in considerable pain and discomfort in my hip ever since,” he wrote on Instagram at the time. “Despite intensive physio and specialist treatment, the pain has continued to get worse and is leading to increasing difficulties moving.”

More information about Elton’s tour can be found by clicking here.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Elton John (@eltonjohn)

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Adele announced the indefinite postponement of her Las Vegas residency just 24 hours before opening night.

In an emotional video posted to the 33-year-old’s social media channels on 20 January, the Hometown Glory hitmaker explained that COVID-19 had thrown her team into chaos and resulted in unavoidable delays.

“I’m so sorry, but my show ain’t ready,” Adele told fans.

“We’ve been absolutely destroyed by delivery delays and COVID,” she added. “Half my crew, half my team are down with COVID, they still are and it’s been impossible to finish the show.”

The singer stated that she and her team had been “awake for over 30 hours trying to figure it out” at the time of filming her video.

“We’ve run out of time and I’m so upset and I’m really embarrassed and I’m so sorry to everyone that’s travelled again,” she continued. “I’m really, really sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Adele confirmed that all of the dates will be rescheduled once she has got her show to “where it’s supposed to be” in terms of planning.

Her ‘Weekends with Adele’ residency in Las Vegas, which was first announced in November 2021, was due to start on 21 January.

According to the BBC, tickets were priced anywhere between $85 (£60) to $685 (£500) and Adele would reportedly be earning £500,000 per show.

Some fans had already travelled from all over the world to see Adele in concert due to the last minute cancellation.

Josh Chavis of Kansas City told the BBC that his wife paid $1,800 (£1,300) for her travel and accommodation to see one of this weekend’s concerts.

He said: “We recognise that things are hard for everyone, but this is a huge misstep on the part of both the performer and those responsible for putting the show together.”

Chavis added that even just a few days’ notice “would have made all the difference” for his family.

Adele confirmed that additional information on the rescheduled shows will be available “soon.”

All dates will be rescheduled
More info coming soon
💔 pic.twitter.com/k0A4lXhW5l

— Adele (@Adele) January 20, 2022

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When British tattoo artist Eva Echo found the courage to come out as transgender, she quickly sought specialist medical care to help her transition. More than four years later, she is still waiting for her first appointment.

Echo, who is part of a potential legal challenge to England’s National Health Service (NHS) over waiting times, said the delay left her “drowning” in gender dysphoria – the distress caused by someone’s gender identity not matching their body.

“There’s no way to tell where I am on the list or when I’m likely to be seen,” said Echo, 41, who lives in Britain’s second-largest city, Birmingham.

“I basically feel like I’m in limbo – my life is on hold.”

As greater awareness and acceptance leads more people to come out as trans worldwide, waiting times for gender care are soaring – even in wealthy countries with relatively generous state-funded healthcare provisions.

Britain has free public healthcare and gender clinics, specialist centres that assess people for cross-sex hormones and refer for procedures such as hair removal and gender-affirming surgeries, but long waits drive many trans people to go private.

Some trans patients and rights campaigners say the delays smack of discrimination and neglect.

Echo estimated that she had spent about 30,000 pounds ($40,000) on private doctors since she first went to her local doctor in August 2017.

She is one of four people, two under 18, supported by legal advocacy group the Good Law Project (GLP) considering legal action over waits for a first consultation that can stretch to four or five years for adults.

“We’re now preparing to issue judicial review proceedings against NHS England,” a GLP spokesperson said.

“We don’t think they’ve done enough. Trans people have heard this story repeatedly and the situation continues to deteriorate.”

The NHS said it was doing its best to respond to a steep growth in patient numbers.

“We have seen a significant increase in demand for gender identity services as more people feel able to come forward for support,” a spokesperson said by email.

‘PEOPLE ARE DESPERATE’

Trans people have to “jump major hurdles” to get transition-related healthcare in many countries, said Masen Davis, executive director of advocacy group Transgender Europe (TGEU).

“Long waits for state-funded or subsidised healthcare, challenges finding a doctor, and providers and insurance providers forcing trans people to justify why they need care are common globally,” he said.

Defenders of systems that require trans people to wait for certain care or to get psychiatric diagnoses of gender dysphoria claim it reduces later regrets, but many trans advocates criticise what they term “gatekeeping”.

A research summary by Cornell University found between 0.3% and 3.8% of people regret going through medical transition, with most data showing it improved well-being.

Sam, who uses the pronouns they and them, has been trying to access gender reassignment surgery in New Zealand since 2012 and has been on the waiting list since 2014.

“I still don’t have any indication of when I might get surgery,” they said, asking not to give their real name for privacy reasons.

Just over 300 people are waiting for the procedure, the health ministry said on Oct. 31 on its website. Five surgeries were performed in 2020 by the country’s only surgeon, after COVID-19 delays, and nine so far in 2021.

In 2019, the government pledged 3 million New Zealand dollars ($2.1 million) over five years to address the backlog.

“The Ministry is currently working on improving capacity,” a spokesperson said by email.

Sam was first required to be on testosterone and have had a double mastectomy, known as top surgery, though doctors said waiting times made that a long shot.

Eventually travelling to Thailand to undergo the procedure privately in 2014, Sam noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had prevented other trans New Zealanders from going overseas for care, making waiting lists at home even longer.

“People are desperate,” Sam said.

WAITING YEARS

Long delays in England to access care for trans under-18s – whose waiting list is at least three years, according to the website of England’s only youth gender clinic – have already drawn complaints from trans children and their parents.

But Echo and other activists also want to highlight the plight of trans adults waiting years to see a specialist.

More than 21,000 people are currently on the waiting list for England’s seven adult gender care clinics, according to information on their websites or freedom of information requests published on various platforms.

Patients have to wait just over four years on average for an initial appointment, according to a Thomson Reuters Foundation analysis of times listed on their websites.

Those waiting for multi-step penis construction surgeries have had bigger delays to begin or finish procedures, with many waiting for follow-up or corrective operations, according to an October survey of 193 people by advocacy group TransActual UK.

“It’s been two years and a month since I had my stage 1 surgery,” said Chay Brown, a director of TransActual, who was told this month that “further” surgeries would resume in March after virtually coming to a halt for two years.

“As a group of people, we’ve been completely disregarded,” Brown said.

An NHS spokesperson said by email that doctors had started consultations with patients last week and that “surgery will start shortly”.

Last year, the British government announced three pilot clinics that it said would cut waiting lists by at least 1,600 by 2022 and later added a fourth scheme.

Elsewhere in Europe, too, policymakers are moving to bring their health policies in line with demand for gender identity treatment.

In Germany, which has a public-private healthcare system, the new centre-left coalition government has pledged LGBTQ+-friendly policies such as requiring insurance companies to fund gender-affirming care, including surgeries.

At the moment, German insurers often deny funding for surgeries, forcing patients to appeal and resulting in waiting times of up to five years, according to Bundesverband Trans*, an advocacy group.

Spain’s government, too, has proposed that gender-affirming healthcare be fully covered by the state in a draft LGBTQ+ rights law submitted to parliament earlier this year.

‘LIFE AND DEATH’

In the United States, most insurance policies cover hormones, but do not count surgeries as “life-saving care”, meaning patients have to provide extra paperwork, such as a gender dysphoria diagnosis, to persuade insurers to cover them.

“That just decreases the availability of that care, so it’s really a systemic issue,” said Dallas Ducar, chief executive of Transhealth Northampton, a trans-friendly clinic in Massachusetts.

For Scottie, a trans woman in Minnesota who did not want to give her surname, that meant nearly two years of appeals trying to access facial feminisation surgery, a process she said had made her feel “subhuman”.

After finally convincing her insurance provider to pay, it turned out the surgeon had moved out of state, meaning she had to find a new one and begin the appeal process all over again.

“Facial feminisation for me is life-and-death,” said Scottie, who now has a surgery date in 2022, having had it further delayed by COVID-19.

“Unfortunately … dysphoria is still looked upon like a trend.” ($1 = 0.7436 pounds) ($1 = 1.4399 New Zealand dollars)

Reporting by Rachel Savage and Sydney Bauer.

GAY TIMES and Openly/Thomson Reuters Foundation are working together to deliver leading LGBTQ+ news to a global audience.

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