Author: The Fenway News

Prior to the preliminary election on Sept. 24, the Fenway News asked all five District 8 City Council candidates to answer four questions related to affordable housing, climate change, transit and bike infrastructure, and issues related to the Red Sox. Answers from the five candidates are below: Kenzie Bok’s answers are in blue, Montez Haywood’s are in purple, Kristen Mobilia’s are in orange, Jennifer Nassour’s are in red, and Hélène Vincent’s are in green.

Affordable housing remains an obstacle to the city’s economic health, to social equity, and to the economic success of tens of thousands of Boston residents (or would-be residents). What are two to three things the City can do to improve housing policy? These could be broad policies, such as instituting rent control, or specific steps, such as imposing a tax to discourage the purchase of high-cost housing units by nonresidents for investment purposes.

The fight for an affordable Boston, where people from all walks of life can continue to live, is what drove me to run for City Council.  I have devoted myself to this cause as a citizen in a variety of ways—from helping to lead the successful Community Preservation Act campaign, which secured more funds for affordable housing, to working to preserve public housing at the Boston Housing Authority, to supporting affordable homeownership initiatives as a board member at the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA).  I also teach a class at Harvard on “Justice in Housing”. I think the struggle to keep families of every background and seniors on fixed incomes in Boston is a struggle for the soul of the city, and there’s much we can do on a public policy front to diverge from the path that cities like San Francisco, Vancouver, and London have already traveled. I support the proposed transfer tax on high-value property sales, to discourage speculation (Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard already have this in place), with proceeds to go to affordable housing.  I think we should also think creatively about how to discourage the conversion of housing stock into vacant investment properties, and I will work for strong enforcement of new tight regulations on short-term rentals. I support the recent home-rule petition to increase IDP and linkage, and also support community-led efforts to deepen affordability of IDP units, increase their number, and insist that they stay on site. MAHA, in partnership with the City of Boston, the Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP), and the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), has just launched the ONE+ Boston Mortgage to make affordable homeownership more achievable in the city—I’d like to scale that up, especially in Mission Hill and Fenway, to anchor another generation of families in Boston and help close the racial wealth gap.

I think that to create long-term affordable housing that is more detached from the speculative market, we need to get creative about the use of public land, set up land trusts, and make it easier for cooperatives to function financially.  I want to see us invest significant city capital in the preservation of public housing and the “project-basing” of new vouchers within Boston wherever possible (a method of anchoring more deeply-affordable units in the city). I was involved in such efforts at the Boston Housing Authority, and also in a policy change to allow low-income families to use their federal housing vouchers in more neighborhoods, including the higher-cost parts of the city such as many parts of District 8.  I support Rep. Adrian Madaro’s bill to help seniors facing eviction due to major rent increases, and believe that we need to work with renters and owners to find ways to better stabilize tenancies in general, since eviction—and the family homelessness that often results—comes at enormous personal and public cost. As I’ve knocked doors across District 8, I’ve met many owner-occupant landlords who are continuing to charge below-market rents to long-time tenants in order to keep them in our community, and I’d like to find ways to support and incentivize such action, through property-tax reductions or other measures.  I supported the Jim Brooks Act and was disappointed when the State House denied us its tools for data-collection about housing displacement; I also support a tenant right-to-counsel. We can only effectively tackle housing affordability by tackling it at every income level, thereby unshackling our whole economy by enabling people to allocate a more reasonable share of their income to rent. Keeping truly diverse communities in the city is an essential goal for me, and I will make it a focus of my work on behalf of District 8 on the City Council. -Kenzie Bok

I believe that the passage of the home rule petition requesting that the State grant the City of Boston the authority to change the tax linkage rate plays an important role in addressing the affordable housing needs of the City.  The BPDA study that was completed last year stated that the tax linkage rate needs to be increased to ensure that we fund affordable housing in Boston.  I will advocate that the Tax Linkage rate be increased and that increase be tied directly to the City’s affordable housing needs. 

I will advocate that we address short term  rentals in the City, and I believe that we should add a fee on short term rentals and use that revenue to fund affordable housing programs in the City.

To address our City’s affordable housing needs we will also need our surrounding Cities and towns to increase their housing stock.  I support the Housing Choices Act that will allow the towns across Massachusetts to change zoning laws with a simple majority vote of that community to allow for additional construction along transit corridors to ensure that as the population density of the region grows the regions housing stock will grow to match demand. -Montez Haywood

We are currently in a housing crisis and need a plan for immediate stabilization. Boston home prices and rents have gone up 55% since 2005. Income of residents has been much flatter with people often allocating 50% of their income to housing costs. Rents are at record highs, we have lost a great deal of family and workforce housing, and the demand for a range of affordable housing is well beyond the supply.

We need to provide more opportunities for different types of housing such as rent-to-own situations and co-op buildings with a range of income levels. Developers need to commit to building affordable housing onsite (no more deals to pay more to build offsite). Also, we need to provide tax incentives for landlords to maintain housing at reasonable rents.

I feel strongly that universities and colleges should build dormitories within their own footprints. Local institutions are not the non-profit entities that they used to be, and they seem to have ample space to construct classroom and lab buildings, dining facilities, etc. but not housing. We need to reverse the trend of student housing taking over available family and workforce housing within our neighborhoods. This has driven up rents, increased property taxes, pushed out longtime renters and homeowners, and kept new non-transient residents from calling our city home.

In addition, I would advocate for non-US purchasers to pay an increased Property Transfer Tax in the range of 15-20%. This has proven to be effective in cities like Vancouver that are in the midst of a major housing crisis. With luxury buildings like One Dalton being used by the elite as wealth storage, we are sacrificing opportunities to provide a range of affordable housing for people who actually live in, work in, and contribute to our neighborhoods.

For many years, I have advocated for affordable housing, participating in community development meetings across our District 8 community. In the end, we have stronger and more successful neighborhoods when we have engaged communities. We all do better and are safer when residents know each other, support each other, and are able to grow and age in community. -Kristen Mobilia

Keeping our neighborhoods affordable for a diverse range of incomes should be a priority for the City Council. I am not in favor of rent control, which can lead to disinvestment in our neighborhoods and higher property taxes. I am in favor of increasing the amount of workforce housing created within larger developments, as well as the creation of smaller units and transit-oriented development that does not require a parking space to be allocated for each unit. -Jennifer Nassour

I do think we need to look at all the possible avenues open to us in order to address our housing crisis, and we need to have short-term remedies in the mix as well as long-term solutions. Three specific things I would do are 1) revise and resubmit the original Jim Brooks Stabilization Act, which included non-binding mediation for large rent hikes and informing tenants’ rights groups about evictions, in addition to more robust tenant rights and the right to an attorney for indigent clients; 2) generate revenue for 100% deed-restricted affordable housing through linkage fees, commercial vacancy tax, university off-campus housing tax, Airbnb tax, and a foreclosure tax; and 3) submit policy that overhauls Boston’s IDP to mandate for a minimum of 25% affordable on-site and 30% off-site. I would also expand the 9-unit qualifier to developers that control 9 units within any given Boston ward or community, not just within a single structure.

At the state level, I support HD 1100, introduced by Reps. Mike Connolly and Nika Elugardo, looks to create a toolkit of options for cities to employ at their own will and which will include rent control (along with just-cause evictions, limiting up-front costs for tenants, and notification requirements for evictions). -Hélène Vincent

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has set 2030 as a target for the entire planet to make drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Does the City have in place the right set of policies to “de-carbonize” new development, building operations, utilities, transportation, and stewardship of open spaces? What are a few policies or programs you would commit to promoting as a member of the council?

The City has many important climate-related goals, including the objective of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but we’re not currently doing enough to meet them.  I am a strong supporter of Mothers Out Front and have protested natural gas leaks with them in Boston; as someone whose grandmother went door-to-door convincing her neighbors to give up coal so they could all breathe better air, I know we can and must make this transition away from fossil fuels in our own generation.  It will take ambition and collective action. I am in favor of changing the building codes for new buildings so that we stop putting fossil fuel infrastructure into new construction, and also in favor of making major investments in retro-fitting Boston’s old building stock; serious changes on this front are the only way we can make a Net-Zero city a reality.  I want to see Boston use its Community Choice energy program, as a municipal aggregator, to aggressively pursue more renewable energy sources for our grid. I will advocate for congestion pricing at the state level, and (as detailed below) I support major investments in public transit and in infrastructure that encourages transportation mode-shift away from cars.

District 8 is bordered on one side by the Charles River, and contains the kind of public open spaces—such as the Fens and the Esplanade—that are essential to climate resiliency (in their ability to absorb flood waters), to more breathable air, and to restful rejuvenation for the residents of a busy city.  As the Councilor for District 8, I will do everything in my power to support investment in these areas—including the design of a real park at Charlesgate—and will encourage investment in resilient public green space generally, whether along the harbor or at infill sites in our dense urban neighborhoods. Having grown up in the heart of Boston myself, with the public parks as my only ‘yard’, I know what essential public resources they really are. -Kenzie Bok

I do not believe the City has the right set of policies in place to address our climate crisis.  Boston current plan is to be Carbon neutral by 2050.  We need to take drastic steps to de-carbonize now. I believe that every City building should be powered through renewable sources, and I support the City moving to community choice energy programs. City buildings should be assessed for an energy efficient plan, and that plan should be instituted. The City needs to be holistically assessed to identify where we can make infrastructure upgrades that encourages the use of electric vehicles. -Montez Haywood

The Boston City Council needs to lobby the mayor, BRA/BPDA, and the Boston Zoning Commission (BZC) with regard to building requirements for the City of Boston. Ultimately the BZC enforces and manages zoning codes and requirements, but the mayor and BRA/BPDA do have the most influence over any changes. Additionally, we need to make residents aware of the overall development process and how the BRA/BPDA reports directly to the mayor and has no budget oversight from Boston City Council. This is not a democratic process – there are no checks and balances. The Boston City Council used to be involved in the decision-making and can in the future if residents create a strong enough voice. We need leaders in office who will put community first over development. Buildings that are constructed today will be in use for the next 100 years. We cannot allow new structures to be built that are not energy efficient and aren’t planned to have connections for renewable energy sources.

Net Zero Development – I have been and would continue to fight for all new buildings to be either net zero or net zero ready (with a defined transition date). Carbon Free Boston has a goal of 2050, but it is imperative that we move faster than that and that we do not approve any new buildings that won’t get us there sooner.

Retrofit Current Buildings for Net Zero – Boston has a great deal of commercial and residential housing stock that negatively impact the environment. Businesses and condo associations are perfect targets to educate and assist in planning for short-term and long-term improvements to de-carbonize. Discussions need to occur now to ensure that well thought out decisions are made. -Kristen Mobilia

The city can be doing more to encourage residents to make climate-conscious decisions. For example, the city needs to install more charging stations for electric vehicles. Additionally, the city needs to improve our maintenance of streets and sidewalks to reduce pollution that can be carried away by storm water runoff. Congestion on our streets, and the resulting idling vehicles in our neighborhoods, also needs to be addressed in order to reduce our impact on the environment that contributes to climate change. More four-way walk signals is one means to reduce congestion that merits study and implementation where appropriate. -Jennifer Nassour

Currently, the Mayor’s target is 2050 for Boston’s reaching carbon neutrality. Given current projections for climate change, we simply cannot afford to wait that long (I do applaud the mayor’s office for its efforts to implement Community Choice Energy). Acknowledging that we are barely a decade away from 2030, we and other cities have no choice but to do everything we can to make that year our target if we are to avoid the worst potential consequences of climate change. 

We need to mandate that new construction in Boston be net zero, meaning buildings will combine energy efficiency and renewable energy generation to consume only as much energy as can be produced on-site through renewable resources over a specified time period. The technology exists already, there are large-scale commercial precedents, and there will be tremendous cost savings over time, which means there is no need to push the costs onto the consumer. Incentivizing sustainable construction in the zoning code and allowing additional density for net-zero projects will also help. Renovation of old buildings should aim to come as close to net zero as possible, and the city can encourage energy-efficient upgrades that minimize greenhouse gas emissions through financial incentives to developers. For both old and new, the city should enforce regulations and penalize developers who fail to meet the requirements. 

I’m also passionate about expanding our urban tree canopy, which will help to mitigate heat islands and carbon dioxide levels. Green spaces also combat the heat island effect and create a more livable urban core. 

And of course, transportation will play a major role here as well. Transportation is not only a climate issue, it’s a climate justice issue. Making people who’ve been displaced by gentrification pay to commute back into the city is a regressive tax. I am interested in recent proposals to make the T free and would investigate possibilities there. We must create a holistic transportation system, including expansion of bike lanes, dedicated bus lanes, and expansion, refurbishment, and investment to the degree required for having a first-class transit system and making the fare system affordable to all residents. -Hélène Vincent

A recent report found that 21 percent of all daily car trips in the area are one mile or shorter, and nearly 50 percent are 3 miles or shorter — distances easily covered on bikes or e-scooters. Not only would increased use of micro-mobility reduce greenhouse gases, but it also would help untangle near-chronic congestion. The Walsh administration appears reluctant to move quickly to challenge the cars-first thinking that has ruled transportation planning for the last 60 years. Should the City commit to building a fully connected and protected network for micro-mobility over the next five years? What other policies would you support to help reduce the use of cars on city streets and boost transit and micro-mobility?

Boston has now passed the 700,000 mark and our population continues to grow.  The only way we can move that growing population around the city efficiently, in ways that save everyone’s time and improve the air quality in everyone’s lungs, is by encouraging as many people as possible to switch to micro-mobility, transit, and walking.  For those who do continue to drive, such mode-switching by others benefits them too. I am strongly in support of a fully connected and protected micro-mobility network that allows bikes and scooters to travel our main thoroughfares protected from cars and without any need to resort to the sidewalks.  This encourages use of these modes by families and less confident cyclists, as one sees in the Netherlands and other places with robust cycling infrastructure. It also accommodates increased use of e-scooters and e-bikes, both of which can reach higher speeds and therefore should be separated from pedestrians, but whose riders are still vulnerable to cars.  We have seen too many tragedies at unsafe intersections in District 8, including Paula Sharaga’s death in Fenway earlier this year. Giving micro-vehicles their own genuinely protected space reflects a real commitment to Vision Zero for their riders, and also should make our seniors who walk on the sidewalks feel more safe—an important element of supporting those aging in place in our urban neighborhoods.  As a citizen, I’ve successfully advocated to fix an unsafe crosswalk and to widen public sidewalks, and I consider great walking infrastructure to be another key piece of the puzzle in making a more livable city.

Transit is a central part of the equation here as well.  I am in favor of much more capital investment in the MBTA at the state level, and in the project to connect the Red and the Blue lines specifically, which would happen in District 8.  In my role at the Boston Housing Authority, I worked to expand utilization by low-income youth of the MBTA’s “Youth Pass” program, and as a citizen I have advocated for fare reductions and for extensions of the MBTA’s hours.  But we can also do a lot at the city level to support use of the transit system. For example, we should implement more rapid bus lanes—a 39 bus stuck in traffic on Huntington Ave often contains more riders than the cars in each direction for many blocks.  I strongly support experimenting with rapid bus lanes as a way to alleviate commuter delays during the planned Orange and Red Line closures later this year.

For more on my views on transit and micro-mobility infrastructure, please see my questionnaire for the MA Vision Zero Coalition. -Kenzie Bok

We need to reduce the number of vehicles on our roadways.  I would support a connected network of protected lanes to encourage micro-mobility. So long as the electronic scooters have designated docking areas to ensure clear pathway’s and sidewalks throughout the City.

I would encourage the State to institute Congestion tolling by expanding the current EZ-Pass network for people who drive into the City of Boston, and direct that revenue be used to make the MBTA and commuter rail, a cheaper alternative to driving a vehicle into the City. -Montez Haywood

I am in full support of making the T more reliable and affordable so that we get more people off the roads and into shared transport. We need to rebuild public confidence in the MBTA from a safety and dependability perspective. The T should operate above a baseline level of acceptable service, which means that we don’t have derailments, the trains regularly run on time, and bus and train capacity matches demand (especially during rush hour and special events). Additionally, we need the pricing of the MBTA to be set at a level that encourages more people to give up personal cars and rideshares.

Decreasing the number of vehicles on our roads saves taxpayer funds and time and improves our collective health by elongating the life of our roadways, improving commute times, and reducing exhaust pollution and stress levels. The recent announcement by the governor that MBTA capital construction projects will be pushed at an accelerated pace should have already been in process. We need proactive leadership to bring our transit system to a reliable and world-class level. I support making the T a top state and city priority and adding City of Boston representation on the MBTA oversight board as both are necessary in order to improve our shared transit system.

Additionally, at every public development meeting I stand up and state that we need a citywide transportation masterplan. We continue to have significant gridlock on our streets and this will only worsen as we keep building across the city. We need a strategic transportation plan, transparency, and clear accountability. This plan would include a fully connected and protected network for micro-mobility. We need to create slower and safer streets and sidewalks. That includes fully planned roadways that accommodate environmentally wheeled traffic and education of operators regarding the rules of the road. -Kristen Mobilia

The conditions of our sidewalks need to be improved to ensure that everyone in Boston – including our children, seniors, and persons with disabilities, can use our sidewalks to safely get where they are going. Curb cuts must be clear in the wintertime, and sidewalks must be repaired with like materials in a timely manner. Dockless bikes and scooters are not a good option for our neighborhoods at this time, and would limit the usability of the sidewalks. I also believe strongly that a thorough public information campaign is needed in order to educate drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians on how to share our roads safely and effectively as we encourage more people to choose alternative forms of transportation. -Jennifer Nassour

Absolutely, without a question. I am passionate about protected bike lanes and promoting bicycling and other alternative forms of transportation. I believe making these modes more accessible and less dangerous is a vital component of an overall transportation plan for Boston. Protected bike lanes—ones that connect the entire city and never suddenly end, dropping cyclists into dangerous intersections—will reduce the conflicts between cars and bikes and the conflicts between pedestrians and bikes by making the roadway a safe place for cyclists to be. We also need to make it clear that e-scooters belong there and not on sidewalks, where they are also dangerous to pedestrians. 

As referenced in the previous question, we need to invest deeply in the T. While the T is technically the responsibility of the state, there are several things we can do at the city level. Expansion of dedicated bus lanes, for example, is something Boston can work on that would have a beneficial effect across the system and has been successful in several places in the city already. And city councilors, as shown by Michelle Wu, have a platform they can use to organize and promote activism and awareness around transportation and bring pressure to bear on the Governor and the State House. 

Other policies we should investigate to reduce the use of cars include strategic congestion charging and charges for residential parking permits—small ones for single cars but increasing sharply for multiples. -Hélène Vincent

The Boston Red Sox contribute many positive things to the city, but they also bring enormous challenges — snarled traffic, crowded Green Line trains, quality-of-life issues in the neighborhoods around the ballpark. Immediate neighbors trying to control the number of summer concerts at the ballpark have repeatedly found at-large city councilors unwilling to say “no” to the team’s ownership. How would you balance the competing demands of neighbors concerned about ballpark operations and the “just say yes to the Red Sox” culture in City Hall?

People often comment on the variety of unique neighborhoods in District 8, but one feature they share is the struggle of balancing neighborhood life with the activities and ambitions of Boston’s largest institutions, from hospitals and universities to the Red Sox.  My view is that it’s the role of the district councilor to be an ombudsman for the neighbors in this dynamic—because, as the question alludes to, these large institutions are very capable of making their own voices heard at City Hall. This is also why I think it is important to be a voice for employees at these institutions, and I’m proud to have received the endorsements of nurses at Brigham & Women’s, academics at Boston University, and workers at Fenway Park.  While we feel affectionately about the core purposes of many of these institutions, we also have to think of them as large corporations, and be able to push back on them when necessary. I think that the permanent easement granted to the Red Sox for Jersey St, for example, was a mistake and an enormous undervaluing of a public asset. As the Councilor for District 8, I will be an advocate first and foremost for the people who live in the district, and will seek to make sure that neighbors are always at the table when institutions are making decisions that affect the quality of life in our neighborhoods. -Kenzie Bok

I pledge to make quality-of-life issues in the neighborhood a priority.  I will seek input from the community at every turn to ensure that I live up to that pledge. -Montez Haywood

The City of Boston has never recognized the fact that Fenway Park has had a major change of use to its year-round activities. If a developer approached the neighborhood today to construct a large, open-air entertainment venue in the middle of a densely settled neighborhood that would have amplified events all year long, that would not pass today. In essence, this is what has been accomplished by the Fenway Sports Group (FSG).

We need to look at this resulting situation in an objective manner. If the new use of the baseball park creates significant negative impact on the surrounding neighborhood, the FSG needs to be held accountable.

The city, neighborhood, and FSG need to detail a long-term Neighborhood Agreement that addresses noise (frequency and decibels), air pollution, traffic congestion (vehicle and public transportation plan), public health and safety, etc. I have been working with neighbors to resolve these issues by participating in City Hall hearings and advocating to our city and state elected officials. It is imperative that the City of Boston stands with residents on this matter as the current situation has greatly affected the quality of life of residents, creating a more transient population that contributes to increased housing costs, as well as safety and health issues. -Kristen Mobilia

The role of the District City Councilor is to advocate on behalf of the neighborhood residents. My focus as City Councilor will be on community development, and creating more opportunities for programs that serve our residents and improve their quality of life. I would like to hear from neighbors what community benefits they would like to see out of any future development in the neighborhood and be sure to begin advocating for their needs earlier in the proposal process than has been done to date. -Jennifer Nassour

I am trained and experienced in mediation and conflict resolution. These skills will be helpful in many regards, since the role of a city councilor involves mediating the competing needs of different constituencies and institutions. The Red Sox bring vital income to our local small businesses and hotels. However, as someone who lives in Kenmore Square and commutes using the Green Line, I am well aware of the inconveniences they bring to our neighborhood as well. Like any other major institution, the Red Sox need to be held accountable and provide mitigation for the disruption they bring to our neighborhood. -Hélène Vincent

Editor’s Note: In the July and August 2019 print issues, we published a series about the LGBTQ college experience and its impacts on health. Here, we’ve published both parts together.

by Isaac Stephens

Alicia anchored her eyes to the school nurse’s hands as they laboriously rolled a condom over the tip of a banana. She wouldn’t let her attention waver. If she wanted to have sex, Alicia thought, she needed to know how to do this. Now 23, and a graduating fifth-year at Northeastern University, she laughs at her younger, more close-minded self. “Joke’s on you, 14-year-old Alicia. You’re a lesbian.”

Alicia, who asked that her last name be omitted for professional reasons, has known in some way or another that she is attracted to women for about two years now. But realizing that was difficult. At her small private high school in Oxford, Connecticut, only one student in her class of 50 was openly gay, and most, she says, bordered on homophobic. Alicia says for a long time, this included herself.

When she finally came into her own and started dating women, the attitudes and stigmas she had internalized as a teenager stuck around, and she was left stranded, neck-deep in a river of self-doubt and anxiety. 

For Alicia, these feelings were rooted in ideology. For many, the problem is broader than that. Members of the LGBTQ community in general are considerably more likely than others to live with mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Lesbian and bisexual women in particular are close to four times more likely than heterosexual women to live with generalized anxiety disorders. Men who have sex with men deal with major depression and panic disorders at respective rates four and five times greater than strictly heterosexual men. In large part, studies suggest, this is a direct result of cultural and systemic stigmatization.

Alicia says for her, this was epitomized by her high school’s far-from-comprehensive sex education program. “It was about how men and women have sex,” she said. “It was never about how gay people have sex.” The curriculum perpetuated the attitude of heteronormativity — the idea that gay people are apart from the norm — magnifying the community’s already-intolerant atmosphere. Because the school had established the LGBTQ community as alien, Alicia suggests, people felt they had license to build walls.

Alicia remembers, for example, joking with her friends about a teacher with a pride flag on her desk. She remembers scoffing as her parents, two black Democrats in a town largely made up of rich, white Republicans, cried “happy tears” watching Obama win reelection. And she remembers staunchly opposing the legalization of gay marriage, along with most of her friends.

Timothy Wang, a senior policy analyst at the Fenway Institute, a national research center that focuses on LGBTQ health, says the heterosexual-exclusive sex education classes at Alicia’s high school likely contributed to its intolerant environment.

“In schools that have more inclusive [curricula], LGBTQ youth feel more accepted or safer in schools,” he says. “It’s moralizing. It de-stigmatizes the entire issue, and just presents it as a normal part of human existence.”

A variety of studies support Wang’s assertions. According to a 2017 study by GLSEN, an LGBTQ education organization, queer-inclusive curricula are associated with safer school environments, a stronger sense of belonging, and lower levels of victimization. Sex education researchers also found that classes that portray the LGBTQ community positively or neutrally are correlated with a reduction in prejudicial attitudes.

Alicia found herself on the other side of stigmatization as well. After enrolling at Northeastern and interacting with gay people in her daily life, she started to become more open-minded. She realized she liked women in her third year at Northeastern and shortly afterward started her foray into the WLW (“women who love women”) dating world. But Alicia had never been taught how to have sex with a woman. So, no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t — mostly out of anxiety.

“When I would have sex with girls, I would clam up. I just could not do it,” Alicia says. “I became emotionally unavailable, where I was just too afraid to connect, too afraid to get too deep into it, because if I messed up, or I wasn’t good enough — or wasn’t gay enough — I didn’t want to get hurt.” When one of her first female partners brought her fears to life, saying Alicia “wasn’t ready” to be with a woman, it magnified her insecurities. 

Alicia is black, and since freshman year of high school, she’s stood over six feet tall. She sometimes has doubts about her sexuality, she says, because she doesn’t fit the WLW stereotype. “If I don’t say I’m a lesbian, people often don’t know,” she says. “I had a lot of trouble in the beginning with feeling gay enough to date another woman.”

Past her own physicality, Alicia’s doubts were amplified by fears that she was still actually attracted to men. For the year or so after finding out that she liked women, she thought she was bisexual. “When I walked into a bar, I picked out the guy who I thought others would find the most attractive and go for him,” she said. “I just wanted them to want me.” She now realizes that she was never attracted to men in the way that she is attracted to women. When she went for guys, she says, she was just looking for male validation — doing what she had been taught her whole life to do.

Alicia’s self-doubt, coupled with her sexual anxiety, was too much for her to deal with on her own. “I really was very messed up for a very long time,” she says. It took months of therapy — and meeting a more understanding partner — for Alicia to be confident in herself again. But even now, she says, the little voice telling her she “isn’t gay enough” hasn’t completely gone away.

Sexual health

Beyond the problems associated with not knowing how to have sex, LGBTQ individuals often have issues making sex safe. Part of this can be explained away by anatomy — STDs are more likely to be contracted during anal sex than PIV sex — but that issue could largely be solved through destigmatization. The obvious starting point is sex education.

A large body of research suggests that comprehensive sex education — that’s condom-on-banana education — does a better job than abstinence programs, both at delaying when students start having sex and at getting them to use protection.

But for many people in the LGBTQ community — even for those who could theoretically wear condoms — what the federal government might consider even “comprehensive” sex education is inadequate. The vast majority of the United States’ sex ed programs don’t even acknowledge gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals, so people from those populations are left with a distorted view of their own health needs.

Colin Thompson, a fifth-year environmental science student at Northeastern, already knew he was gay when he took sex-ed in sophomore year of high school, so he knew for sure he wasn’t going to have the kind of sex his gym teacher was discussing. His district’s curriculum was typical of Texas and left out any reference to the LGBTQ community. HIV, for example, was not talked about in Texas because it was seen as a “gay disease,” Thompson says.

From his perspective, the school was sending a message that discussions about queer sexual health were not a part of civilized conversation. This had potentially disastrous impacts on Thompson’s perceptions. “I’ve always considered it as a negative thing,” he says. “So, when it came to sexual liberation and entering college, I could never really start that conversation without feeling some sort of resentment towards myself.”

Thompson says this attitude led him into a host of bad decisions. “A lot of the times when I was [in my] younger years, I would be hooking up with people, and they wouldn’t want to use protection — I’d be like, ‘okay, I guess that’s fine.’ I was getting myself into a sticky situation.” When he finally went to get tested in his third year, Thompson says, he was lucky to be free of STDs.

For two years now, Thompson has been using adequate protection, including an HIV-prevention pill called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP for short. But many people in the LGBTQ community still aren’t. In its 2014 report, the CDC found that almost two thirds of surveyed homosexually active men had had condomless anal sex that year. The same study also found that 96.5 percent of HIV-negative men who have sex with men did not use PrEP to protect against the virus.

After years of risky behavior, Thompson was fortunate enough to find that he was disease-free. Many people aren’t so lucky. Gay and bisexual men accounted for 56 percent of HIV infections in 2015, contributing to similarly high proportions for other sexually transmitted diseases as well. This phenomenon isn’t exclusive to queer men — bisexual women and heterosexual-identifying WSW show higher rates of STIs than women who exclusively have sex with men. Both of these disparities have been linked to risky behaviors.

Max Fournier, the president of Northeastern University Pride, says that these behaviors are probably rooted in a lack of understanding. “From my general experience of just hearing people in the queer community talk about their general knowledge of…practicing safe sex, or how sex works, they didn’t get anything valuable through high school education,” he says. “The biggest misconception is that you don’t need to wear a condom or have your partner wearing a condom if you can’t get pregnant from sex.”

The reasons for the lapse in knowledge is obvious: Less than 5 percent of students have access to LGBTQ-inclusive sex education classes, and stigmatization keeps students from talking about sexual health with their peers. Because most states don’t seem apt to change their curricula anytime soon — Massachusetts being an exception — the path of least resistance for sexual health, as with mental health, seems to be destigmatization.

The role of friends

For Alicia, the transition from straight, to bisexual, to lesbian; from Mitt Romney to Lori Lightfoot; from Vineyard Vines to baby-blue blazer came slowly. Most of those eureka moments, she says, only came with guidance from friends.

When Alicia arrived at Northeastern, she was a staunch conservative, and a very straight one at that (or so she thought). “I was really against gay marriage, and I thought that everyone on welfare was lazy and all immigrants [were] illegal,” she says. But her attitudes were largely a product of her environment. As she talked to more and more people — people that didn’t fit the mold of her Connecticut hometown — her views began to change. “When I came to college, that bubble burst, and I met people who were first generation [college students]. I met people who are gay. I met people who just weren’t who I grew up with.”

After being exposed to the world, she says, she was hit with an identity crisis. “I realized that everything I’d been believing the last 10-ish years my life […] was just completely, completely wrong.”

This was only the first crisis of many. In Alicia’s third year of college, she got the first inkling of a realization that she might be attracted to women. “There [was] a girl in class who was absolutely gorgeous, and she was so friendly and so sweet. She would bring me chocolate flowers to class now and then…She would always have a hair band for me, or she’d bring me a part of her salad.”

Alicia didn’t think anything of it, though, until she talked to her lesbian best friend, who told her it sounded like she had a crush. At first, she was in denial, and brushed it off as just thinking the chocolate flower girl was “really cool.” The first day of spring came a week later, though, and brought with it hosts of sundress-clad women. Sitting in the dining hall that day, Alicia says, she burst into tears: Her attraction to women could no longer be ignored. With flashbacks to years of overlooked crushes circling in her head — Kristen Stewart, Kim Possible — she called her best friend, still crying. “I think I’m gay.”

From there, Alicia’s journey to self-acceptance was largely facilitated by her queer peers. “If I didn’t have gay friends in college […] I think it would have been a much longer time before I realized,” she says. “When I [was] walking with a bunch of my friends who were into girls, and they were like ‘oh, that girl’s really pretty,’ I’d be like, ‘wow, what if I thought she was hot.’ And then I’m like, ‘wow, I kind of do think she’s hot.’”

Dialogue between peers certainly seems like a promising way to reduce the influence of internalized homophobia. For many people in the LGBTQ community, though — particularly those growing up in conservative areas — having queer or accepting friends isn’t a realistic option. Representation might be the next best thing, especially in areas without inclusive sex education. Without help coming from school, Wang says, many LGBTQ teens turn to media as a source for sexual knowledge.

Research has long suggested that there is a link between ethnic minority groups’ self-esteem and their representation in media. A paper by Dana Mastro in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia cites decades of studies connecting stereotypical depictions and low rates of representation with low self-esteem. This has tangible effects: As early as 2002, research demonstrated positive correlations between representation and children’s grades in school.

LGBTQ representation specifically is important because it helps questioning members of the community. A 2013 survey published in the journal Media Psychology found that for adolescents who were less sure of their sexuality, exposure to gay- and lesbian-oriented media positively impacted self-image and decreased feelings of dejection.

A 2018 report by GLAAD, an LGBTQ advocacy group, found that 6.4 percent of characters on broadcast networks’ primetime scripted shows were portrayed as queer — more, proportionally speaking, than the 4.5 percent of Americans who identify as such. But this potentially promising picture falls away upon closer inspection. Representation of the LGBTQ community on broadcast and cable networks skews disproportionately towards gay and lesbian characters, leaving 45 percent of queer viewers — mainly bisexual and transgender people — behind. Further, according to a 2015 report by researchers at USC, queer characters are often consolidated to only a few LGBTQ-oriented shows. This means that for the majority of viewers, functional representation is a lot less.

Stereotypical depictions only add to this problem, according to GLAAD. Bisexuals, for example, are often portrayed as immoral and manipulative, and bisexuality is often used as a plot device rather than an identity.

When children have role models that match their demographic identity, they think more — and think better — about their futures, according to a 2002 study published in the Teachers College Record. So, for people like Alicia — people who don’t fit neatly into the box of a stereotype — the problems caused by lacking representation only get worse. USC’s 2015 report found that almost 80 percent of LGBTQ characters in mainstream media shows were white. More than 70 percent were male.

To combat this, Alicia says, she makes a point to broadcast her gayness when working as a director of a mentorship organization’s Northeastern chapter. She says that as a gay, black, female student leader, it’s her job to make self-acceptance easier for everyone else — easier than it was for her.

“Somebody in that room is going to think of me when they think about their own identity,” Alicia says. “They’ll see that I [am] comfortable with it, and therefore they should be too.”

Isaac Stephens is a journalism student at Northeastern University.

Today, Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) announced that the MassArt Art Museum (MAAM), Boston’s new free contemporary art museum, will open in February 2020.

Formerly known as the Bakalar & Paine Galleries, the space will reopen after extensive renovations with a new name and an expanded mission. The MassArt Art Museum will continue the Bakalar & Paine Galleries’ legacy of offering an accessible contemporary art experience for all audiences.

A teaching museum, MAAM will be a resource for MassArt students and faculty, educating students about contemporary art, partnering with faculty to support the curriculum, and preparing students for careers in the museum field. The Museum will offer free, unique educational programming to Boston-area public schools and community groups.

“Our primary goal has always been to show what’s new and to make contemporary art accessible to everyone, and the MassArt Art Museum will make that truly possible,” said Lisa Tung, executive director of the museum, in a press release. “We have reimagined the museum-going experience to create an inviting and welcoming place for all our visitors, offering a richer engagement with exhibitions and programming. Our artists will also feel supported to realize their vision, and our students will be invited into the process to learn from the professional artists they aspire to be.”

In our March 2019 Print Edition, we published an excerpt of John Engstrom’s longform review of Robert Wilson’s performance at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The full review can be found here.