Despite protests and threats, these Cleveland drag performers aren't backing down

Veranda L’Ni is hard to miss. Dubbed as Cleveland’s tallest drag queen, she stands over 7 feet tall in her stunningly high heels. She ducks to enter the room, her vibrant rainbow wig grazing the doorway and all the children’s eyes are on her.

But it’s not just her stature that makes her stand out. It’s her unabashed assuredness in herself, in her art form and the way it makes people feel.

Veranda L'Ni stands among the crowd listening to Erin Reed and Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr speak. (Ygal Kaufman/Ideastream Public Media)

“We all want to enjoy something and go home feeling good,” said Veranda, who did not want to give her real name out of fear of threats of violence toward her and other drag performers. “And that's what drag does."

Out of drag, Veranda identifies as a man — one that’s remarkably tall at 6 foot 7 — but when he becomes Veranda, a character who uses she/her pronouns, something magical happens.

And she’s determined not to let that magic be dulled by the recent spike in protesters and hatred.

“Drag is the ability to change your body and your face and your appearance into something totally different,” Veranda said. “It's not about what gender you may be underneath those costumes, it's about the character you've created to step out on stage with. It's a chance to just have fun and express yourself.”

Veranda, who has been doing drag for more than 15 years, is perhaps best known in the community for her Drag Story Hours, which primarily take place at Near West Theatre in Cleveland’s Gordon Square Arts District. The Cleveland chapter of the national group, first founded in 2015 by author and activist Michelle Tea in San Francisco, offers Northeast Ohio families free entertainment, as well as a book to take home to continue reading.

Cleveland drag queen Veranda L'Ni is all smiles, surrounded by supportive fans. (Ygal Kaufman/Ideastream Public Media)

It’s an event that’s drawn the ire of conservatives and far-right extremists, many of whom frequent her show to protest outside, shouting at families as they enter and holding signs equating drag to pedophilia and grooming.

Even at a recent family-friendly Pride event at the youth LGBTQ support center Colors+, a sole protester objected outside, citing scripture into a bullhorn.

A woman protesting the Colors+ event using biblical quotes was largely ignored by attendees. (Ygal Kaufman/Ideastream Public Media)

“Protesters that I was once just really scared about — now I'm just angry,” Veranda said. “I just see this lack of knowledge. I see this lack of humanity.

She said that vitriol has always existed, but it has grown significantly in recent years. A study by GLAAD, the world's largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, documented at least 161 incidents of protests and threats targeting drag events since early 2022, with a sharp uptick during Pride Month last June. Those attacks have persisted: including a drag brunch in Columbus interrupted by a group of ski-mask-clad extremists shouting neo-Nazi chants and holding up flags with Swastikas.

And as drag bans in states like Tennessee and Texas are considered or even adopted as law, that puts Veranda’s profession — and her personhood — at risk.

“Before it was just the protesters on the sidelines just, you know, yelling in the megaphones and standing there back in the day. And we just kind of brushed them off and walked past and kept going and thought, ‘OK, well good for you.’ You have the ability to. That's your freedom of speech,” Veranda said. “And now I feel myself like, scanning the crowd, looking for that anomaly.”

Despite what the protesters outside might have you believe, she said what happens inside is quite innocent: colorful, larger-than-life characters telling stories of girls becoming knights, two male bunnies falling in love regardless of what a stink bug may say or think, unicorns accepting themselves in a world dominated by horses.

Veranda L'Ni reads to a group of kids and adults at Colors+ (Ygal Kaufman/Ideastream Public Media)

“All I want to do is read to the kids,” Veranda said. “All I want to do is perform for the kids. I want to be that Sesame Street character come to life.”

That’s what drag is, said Cleveland-based drag king Rhett Corvette: the embodiment of a character beyond yourself, typically exploring gender and gender performance. Historians say it’s an art form that’s been around for centuries: take William Shakespeare’s productions in 1500s London, where female roles were performed by men.

Rhett Corvette keeps cool while explaining the roots and inspirations of drag. (Ygal Kaufman/Ideastream Public Media)

“As a cisgender, pretty much gender conforming woman in the workplace, I'm having to do straight woman drag every day,” Rhett said. “All that is a decision: what you wear on your face, what you do with your hair, what you do with your body, what you wear on your feet like, that's all saying something about gender."

Out of drag, Rhett is comfortable identifying with the gender she was born as, but in drag, her character, a man, tests the boundaries of what traditional masculinity is and can be.

Drawing inspiration from Prince and David Bowie, Rhett was clad in a purple overcoat and white powdered wig with eccentric makeup reminiscent of Renaissance royalty as he reads a book to the children gathered at Colors+.

Growing up as a queer woman, Rhett said having representation at a young age is important.

“If you're saying that LGBT issues are an adult issue, you are having youth going through their life like I was: feeling strange, feeling different, feeling othered, feeling wrong,” Rhett said.

Rhett said he’s not scared of the recent threats and chalks them up to just that: threats.

Veranda L'Ni and Rhett Corvette soaked in the friendship and positivity of the afternoon. (Ygal Kaufman/Ideastream Public Media)

“Here at the event, I don't feel fearful that someone is going to make anything bad happen because we've already shown by having the event that their threats don't have any power,” he said.

But intimidation can quickly cross the threshold into violence, as demonstrated by a man arrested in Northeast Ohio in March for allegedly trying to use a Molotov cocktail to burn down a church that was set to host a drag story hour.

Regardless, drag artists like Sassy Sascha, a cisgender woman who performs as a drag queen, are not backing down. Her real name is Sascha, but she called that version of herself quiet and reserved. She said drag is her armor, something that’s empowering.

Sassy Sascha beams with pride before reading to kids at the drag story hour event. (Ygal Kaufman/Ideastream Public Media)

“Anybody can do it regardless of their gender or sexual orientation,” Sascha said. “It is simply just artistic expression. I know straight people that do it. I know gay people who do it, nonbinary. Everybody, it's really just an art form. It's show business.”

In a rainbow dress, blue and purple wig and sparkly makeup, Sassy Sascha is bubbly and outspoken as she read to the kids. But she’s worried about the future of these sorts of events. A Texas native, she thinks Ohio will soon follow the lead of other red states that have cracked down on the art form.

“I really am scared that that's going to happen here too,” Sascha said. “But at the end of the day, we're going to keep coming out in the masses, we're going to keep fighting.”

Sassy Sascha beams with pride before reading to kids at the drag story hour event. (Ygal Kaufman/Ideastream Public Media)

Veranda L’Ni also hasn’t let the protesters and online trolls take away what she loves most about performing drag. She said now more than ever, the world needs drag performers’ art in their lives.

“Having the ability to stand up and be visible for those people who are afraid to maybe walk out their door or feel like they can't come to an event or festival or pride festival because they fear for their safety.

“I'm not going to back down,” Veranda continued. “I'm going to continue to keep doing this because there's a need for it.”

And it’s clear from the smiling faces of the kids in the crowd, huddled into their parents laps, they aren’t going anywhere either.

Originally published/aired by WKSU/Ideastream Public Media on June 22, 2023.

Their pregnancies fall just outside Ohio’s new six week abortion ban. What do they do now?

Denise, a registered nurse at the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center in Cuyahoga Falls, looks at the ultrasound of a patient who is three days past Ohio’s new six-week legal limit to have an abortion. (photo by Karen Schiely)

A nurse presses a gelled probe into a young woman’s stomach, squinting at the staticky gray image on the screen. The 22-year-old holds her breath and stares at the ceiling.

“Unfortunately, you’re at six weeks and three days, so we can't help you."

She’s three days too late.

The woman sits up and looks straight ahead emotionlessly, avoiding eye contact with the nurse, who hands her a half-sheet of paper with numbers for out-of-state clinics that could perform an abortion.

Suddenly, she begins to sob.

The woman, who visited the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center in Cuyahoga Falls on Monday afternoon, is one of many across the state whose unplanned pregnancies are further complicated by Ohio’s recent passage of the so-called “heartbeat law,” which outlaws abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, typically around six weeks of gestation, except when the mother's life is at risk. 

The measure became effective immediately on Friday evening, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, a landmark case in 1973 that ruled a state law banning abortion was unconstitutional.

Abortion clinic adapting rapidly to accommodate new law

Dr. David Burkons, who runs the abortion clinic at 2127 State Road, says though he anticipated the law’s passage, the state moved weeks quicker than he and other abortion-rights advocates expected.

Burkons and his staff had to adapt overnight. New policies are in constant evolution now, with much confusion among staff and patients.

“The problem is the law isn’t clear,” Burkons says. “Nobody knows the answers to a lot of these questions that are coming up.”

Burkons’ strategy has always been to get patients early, but they’ve recently ramped up efforts by encouraging patients to come in as soon as they think they may be pregnant. He used to tell women to wait a few days, because if they came in too early, he might not see anything on the ultrasound. 

He says in the last few days, they've gotten an influx of women who are not even pregnant but scared because of missed periods and concern over securing an abortion.

Under previous Ohio law, abortions could be performed up to 20 weeks post-fertilization, usually about 22 weeks after the last menstrual period.

At the Northeast Ohio Women’s Clinic, which is one of six remaining surgical clinics in the state, patients have the option of having a procedure or a medical abortion via oral pills. After about nine and a half weeks, surgery was the only option. 

As of Friday, the clinic had performed about 1,800 abortions, 650 of which were surgical. Now, because of the six-week cutoff, pills are an option for any patient. Surgical abortions are still available, but Burkons expects a major drop-off in operations.

The pills have a higher failure rate, about 2% to 7% according to Burkons, but to each patient, “it’s all or nothing,” so some may opt for the surgical abortion instead.

In the case of medical abortions, Burkons previously only prescribed two doses to patients who were over eight weeks pregnant, but now, due to time constraints, he gives each person two doses.

“Usually, if the pill doesn’t work, we just have them come back a week or two later and try again,” Burkons says. “That’s not really an option anymore.”

‘Time is an issue now’: Early detection and action

In many cases, people don’t even realize they’re pregnant at six weeks.

Those who catch their pregnancies in time feel lucky.

“I was really nervous with everything going on about whether I was going to be able to do this or not,” says a 34-year-old woman at the clinic Monday. She and the other patients are not being identified to respect their privacy and safety.

The woman is already the mother of two young children and says she and their father cannot care for another child. She plans to take the pills, which block hormones to the fetus and force uterine contractions to terminate the pregnancy.

“Time is an issue now with the new heartbeat bill,” a nurse tells her after her ultrasound. The woman considers when her schedule allows her two days of rest, during which she will experience bleeding and cramping induced by the pills. The clinic’s new policy is to take a new ultrasound every 48 hours if the patient does not schedule their abortion within that time frame.

“What about Wednesday?”

The nurse scrolls through her calendar on her phone, calculating the days until her six-week mark.

“Yes, that should work,” the nurse says. “If you change your mind, that’s OK, just call us and let us know. But if you’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be soon because again, time is really important now.”

“This was a really hard decision for me,” the woman tells the Beacon Journal as she waits to get her blood drawn. “I’ve always been pro-choice, but never thought I could do it myself until my circumstances changed. I’m just glad I have this option because in a couple more days, I wouldn’t.”

Burkons says the heartbeat law, which he repeatedly condemns as “just politics,” may actually have unintended consequences for anti-abortion lawmakers. He says he’s already seeing more people choose to get abortions who might otherwise not have if given more time.

“I used to tell people if they were unsure, wait a few days or even a few weeks,” Burkons says. “Now, there’s just no time to decide, so a lot more women are going to be getting abortions.”

Some will travel to other states for abortions

Throughout the day, the copy machine whirs, feeding sheets of paper into the tray. The printed flyers bear the names and numbers of clinics across state lines, as well as organizations that will help fund travel. 

A medical assistant slides one across the table to a woman who just arrived at the clinic. She is 12 weeks pregnant.

The woman has no idea about the state’s recent ban and is immediately furious.

“The world is so (expletive) up,” she says. “These men have no idea what it takes to be a woman or raise a child. They have no right to tell us what to do with our bodies.”

She’s 24 and already has a 2-year-old child. She says the father is violent, striking both her and her daughter on previous occasions.

“He’s evil,” she says. “I can’t bring his baby into this world. It wouldn’t be safe for anyone involved.”

The paper lists clinics as close as Pittsburgh and Detroit, all the way to Atlanta, Georgia. Those states have at minimum an 18-week cutoff.

The woman says she plans to drive to Michigan with her dad as soon as possible but has logistical concerns. Her father works full time and she has a daughter she can’t leave behind, so she’ll need to bring another person to watch her while her dad drives her to and from the procedure.

“I’m going to do this, but I need to have people with me who I can trust,” she says.

Abortion in Ohio:Groups supporting abortion-rights rally in Akron's Highland Square neighborhood

For some women, those trips will not be possible. Between the cost of gas, lodging, meals and other expenses, many will be priced out. That doesn't even account for the cost of the abortion itself, which is $700 at the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center. 

“The real trouble will be for poor and rural women,” Burkons says. “They’re probably the ones who need it the most, because supporting a child is expensive, but some of them will be unable to travel and leave the state.”

Anti-abortion protests continue

On the sidewalk outside, anti-abortion protesters prop up signs with graphic images condemning abortion as “murder” and “sin.”

The protesters harass a Beacon Journal reporter on her way into the clinic, stepping off the sidewalks and approaching her car in the clinic’s parking lot, which is private property. The clinic’s escort ushers the reporter in, telling a woman she is trespassing and they’ve called the cops. She does not back off.

“Abortion is an injustice against a vulnerable population who cannot defend or speak for themselves,” Cuyahoga Falls resident and nurse Rita Vitale says to a male Beacon Journal reporter. Vitale is a longtime protester of the clinic. “And we reasoning adults need to stand up for the injustice against human beings.”

Soon, a counterprotest brews on the sidewalk. 

A woman drives up and parks near Vitale and other anti-abortion protesters. She does not give her name, but hands them a card identifying herself as a volunteer clinic escort from the Northeast Ohio Pro-Choice Action organization.

“You are accusing me of coming in here and getting an abortion,” the woman says to them. “I just parked my car here, and you got in my face and told me not to get an abortion. Excuse me, it’s not your body. It’s my body. I’m allowed to do whatever I want with my body.”

The woman says she had been abused as a teen and had an abortion. The male protester, who gives only his first name, Scott, says she is “pro death.”

“Abortion means death. Abortion means to abort, to terminate. That’s what it means, to stop," Scott says.

Other abortion-rights protesters show up throughout the day to show their support for the clinic, holding signs that say, “Keep Abortion Legal" and "Forced birth = Violence."

What comes next for abortion providers in Ohio?

Burkons plans to be here until the very end of abortion in Ohio, which he expects to come in the next six to eight months.

In the meantime, he says, he will continue to work with lawyers to accommodate patients within the law.

He is considering getting licensed in Pennsylvania and Michigan and opening clinics there, where he could refer clients from the area for abortions.

Logistics and legal restrictions are murky. What if, for example, a doctor prescribes pills in Pennsylvania but a patient takes them in Ohio and terminates the pregnancy there?

“You really hate to feel like you’re letting them down, but there’s only so much we can do,” he says. “I’m not going to put myself or my staff in legal jeopardy, but this is important work and we will try whatever we can.”

Jim Mackinnon contributed to this report outside the clinic. Originally published in the Akron Beacon Journal on June 28, 2022.

The day Roe v. Wade fell: Reactions inside and outside Greater Akron's only abortion clinic

Dr. David Burkons guides OB-GYN resident Deanna Lines through a procedure June 27 at the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center (Photo by Julie Vennitti Botos)

It’s loud outside the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center.

Cars whiz down State Road past the abortion clinic in Cuyahoga Falls. Drivers pound their horns and jab thumbs up in support of two anti-abortion protesters on the sidewalk. Other passersby scream profanities, calling them “Nazis" and "losers" with the flick of a middle finger. Men with signs shout at women as they walk into the clinic, denouncing abortion as a sin and offering them flyers with pregnancy resources.

Seventy-four-year-old Mark Kaufman pulls his car into the lot and hops out to yell in the faces of two men, who refused to give their names, holding American flags and a sign that says “Business closed 2022.”

"You're just an angry old man," the protester says.

“Yeah, I’m an angry old man with a granddaughter who you just turned into breeding stock,” Kaufman screams, engaging them in a six-minute long argument.

But inside, it’s quiet.

In the operating room, a gray-haired nurse holds the hand of a woman as a doctor works to numb her cervix before removing the fetus. The woman squeezes her eyes shut as the nurse gives words of encouragement in hushed tones.

“You’re doing great.”

It’s Friday, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court released its decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The majority opinion effectively overturned Roe v. Wade, a landmark case in the 1970s that ruled a state law banning abortion was unconstitutional.

On Friday afternoon, not much has changed for the staff of the Cuyahoga Falls clinic —  one of six surgical clinics remaining in the state and the only abortion provider in Summit County — except for a few confused patients and an emboldened sense of determination.

“This is appalling for every woman,” says a woman in a bright pink vest named "Madre" who escorts pregnant people safely into the clinic. “But the fight’s not over. I have not yet even begun to fight.”

Abortion is still legal in Ohio, medical professionals continue to remind both those inside and outside the clinic on this historic afternoon. But they do not expect that to be the case for very long.

'It's no one's choice but your own'

Kelley Lott drops pills into a clear container. The tablets — which block hormones and force uterine contractions to terminate the pregnancy— clack against each other. She has tears in her eyes.

“I'm just trying to take it all in right now. I was able to have an abortion when I needed one,” says Lott, a nurse of 10 years. “I feel very sorry for women who now or soon can no longer make that educated decision with a health care professional.”

Her own abortion played a major role in her decision to continue this work.

"I wouldn't be where I am today. I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for this decision I was able to make. I have no regrets,” Lott says. “I'm here. I'm alive. it was safe. I feel so fortunate I had that option."

In another room, Dr. David Burkons hands a 29-year-old woman those pills, explaining how they work and instructing her how to care for herself over the next few days. On the table, there’s a stack of flyers urging patients to vote: "THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Your rights are being taken away! Go to: VOTE.ORG."

“I just graduated as a nurse practitioner,” the woman tells the Beacon Journal. She and the other patients are not being identified to respect their privacy and safety. “I just started my life and I just had so many plans, and this was completely unexpected.”

Burkons, one of Ohio’s most prolific abortion doctors, moves on to a Zoom appointment with a 29-year-old in Sandusky.

He gives the woman the code to a lockbox which contains the oral medications that will terminate her pregnancy. She received the box the day before at her “day one” appointment, a requirement by the state that mandates a 24-hour waiting period between an ultrasound and abortion. The lockboxes are a workaround his clinic implemented after Ohio banned patients from receiving abortion-inducing pills via mail.

The woman already has two kids: a 5-year-old boy and a 3-year-old daughter.

“It’s literally more than my rent to pay for the day cares in this area,” she says. “So honestly, bringing a third in would be unfair to everyone involved.”

She calls the decision “very hard," citing her kids as a driving factor.

“I have always supported other people's decisions, but have always said I didn't think I could go through with it myself,” she says. “Then I was put in the situation.

"It's really easy to tell somebody what they should do until you are the person in the situation … It could be anyone. It's none of our business to know their stories or what they're going through or why they made their decision.”

On a bench outside the clinic, a 21-year-old says she feels “too young” to have a baby. She wants to go back to school. She’s had several friends who became pregnant at a young age and has seen firsthand the “toll it takes.”

“You lose a lot of time. I’m not ready for it.”

She’s relieved she still has access to an abortion because she is certain the clinic will be closed soon.

“I’m going to have to be really cautious now,” she says. “I’m glad I caught it now.”

New heartbeat law cancels appointments for many

For some, however, their decision to end their pregnancy comes a day too late.

A 15-year-old girl lays flat on the examination table. Her eyes stare at the tapestry on the ceiling, a swirling blue pond with lotus flowers and koi fish swimming above her head. Her mother anxiously strokes the girl’s hair as Lott presses an ultrasound probe to her stomach.

The girl is 13 weeks and six days along, putting her outside the range that would allow for a medical abortion via oral pills, which — until Friday evening — was up to 9½ weeks. She would have to have a surgical abortion.

“I know you’re not supposed to look things up on the internet,” she says nervously, picking at the Band-Aid on her thumb. “But I did. Is it going to hurt?”

Lott describes the process step-by-step.

“You’ll need someone to drive you home.”

“She can’t even drive yet, period,” her mother says with a forced laugh.

They schedule the procedure for next week — only to later be told it has to be canceled.

The teen will not be able to get an abortion, at least in Ohio.

Following the Supreme Court decision, Ohio’s Attorney General David Yost filed to make Ohio’s so-called “heartbeat bill” effective immediately. The measure, put on hold by the court while the fate of Roe v. Wade was determined, bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, typically around six weeks gestation. Later Friday night, after the clinic was closed for the day, the court lifted the stay and abortion officially became illegal after six weeks in the state.

That changes things for the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center overnight.

“We expected we would have another couple weeks,” Burkons says on Saturday morning. He knew the heartbeat law would be passed and expects a total ban soon, effectively closing his practice, but he didn’t think it would be so soon.

Now, he and his staff will have to turn away many pregnant people who have already scheduled abortions, like the 15-year-old girl whose surgery was scheduled next week.

Under previous Ohio law, abortions could be performed up to 20 weeks post-fertilization, usually about 22 weeks after the last menstrual period.

Many women won’t even know they’re pregnant by the six-week cutoff. But early detection and swift action is all the clinic is now legally allowed to do.

“We’re going to change our scheduling to get people in very, very quickly,” he says. “We’re going to do everything we can to accommodate this new law while we can.”

Under new law, the right to an abortion hinges on the results of the ultrasound at their first appointment. If a heartbeat is detected, staff will direct patients to other states for the procedure.

“We don’t write the laws. We have to deal with reality," Burkons says. "For many of these people, they’re going to have to do something else. We can’t help them.”

A 'celebration' outside

While staff and patients mourn inside on Friday afternoon, there’s a celebration among a handful of anti-abortion protesters on the sidewalk.

“It's a day of celebration," says the man with the “Business closing 2022” sign who refused to give his name. "We took a step closer to God today as a country."

The man greets another man who approaches: "Congratulations! We're one step closer to ending murder and sin."

“Amen,” the other man, who also did not give his name, responds, waving a small American flag with a smile.

Others show up throughout the day, as well as police officers monitoring the scene. Clinic escorts, who far outnumber protesters, watch them from the parking lot, ensuring safety for patients entering the office.

"I usually come Saturday to escort women to the clinic,” says one woman who did not want to give her name for privacy and safety concerns. “We usually have quite a crowd yelling and screaming and saying factually inaccurate things to women who are just here seeking health care. It was really important for me to show my support today.”

What’s next for the clinic?

While some passersby and patients bristled at the protester’s “Business closing” sign, Burkons admits it could be the end of his career.

Having graduated from medical school in 1973, the year the Supreme Court legalized abortion via Roe v. Wade, he has dedicated his whole career to medical access for people seeking abortion.

“We'll do everything we can within the law to keep providing abortions, but I wouldn't ask myself or the doctors or any staff to put themselves in legal jeopardy,” he says. “If it gets to a point where it's legally hazardous for us to keep providing access, I'll retire."

Even with the heartbeat law, his clinic will provide surgical and medical abortions, as long as it’s earlier than six weeks. Outside that window, he will refer patients to nearby states for abortion access.

“This is really important, fulfilling work,” he says. “It’s not surprising, but it’s disappointing. This is a major blow to women’s reproductive rights.”

He’s not ready to give up yet. At the end of each abortion — whether he’s handing a woman pills or pulling off his gloves in the operating room — he asks if the woman is registered to vote.

“You know how important it is to vote,” he says, handing each one a paper listing Democratic candidates on Ohio’s 2022 ballot. “Especially after what happened today.”

Originally published in the Akron Beacon Journal on June 27, 2022.

‘It made such a difference in my life’: Clinics, employers embracing gender-affirming care

Julie Boylen (Photo by Karen Schiely)

Julie Boylen remembers the day she finally found a doctor who could help her.

It was 2014, and she was on the floor of MetroHealth's Pride Clinic, a Cleveland-based medical office offering health care tailored to the LGBTQ+ community, including transgender patients like Boylen.

“I remember the lady telling me: ‘It's going to be OK. We can help you out here. We've got everything you're going to need,’ ” she said. “I broke down and cried on that floor. I did.”

Even now, eight years later, the memory brings tears to her eyes as she struggles to find the right words.

“It was a moment I needed so bad and it made such a difference in my life.”

In less than a decade since, gender-affirming care has expanded in the region with not only increased medical access, but also more employers insuring medications, therapy and surgery for the trans community.

But transgender individuals seeking medical care still have plenty of obstacles to face when it comes to navigating the health care system.

Boylen came out as transgender when she was 28. It was 2009, and it had been a long road for her to accept herself, spending years in the closet and attempting to change her identity through religion and other methods.

“It was really hard,” she recalled. “But I finally felt free.”

She was seeing a therapist at the time to help her work through past trauma and suicide ideation that 82% of the transgender population deals with, but was feeling misunderstood.

“They were trying,” Boylen said. “[At the time,] most of the therapists didn't know anything about being transgender. They were trying to help with symptoms of this or that.”

And if finding the right therapist was hard, she could forget about gender-affirming health care options like hormone injections or surgeries.

“When I first came out, there was a desert for transgender care and medicine,” she said. “We're talking a serious desert. There was no such thing.”

When she began hormone treatment in 2014 through MetroHealth's LGBTQI+ Pride Network, which at the time was one of the only health care systems in Northeast Ohio for people in her community, she felt a rush of emotions: relief, happiness, excitement. Like many trans individuals seeking physical transitions, she began hormone therapy, a regularly administered injection of estrogen.

“I kind of blossomed,” she said. “I realized I can be okay and survive all this.”

How has Akron’s gender-affirming care landscape grown in the last decade?

Akron’s Summa Health opened the doors to its Pride Clinic in 2019. The same year, Akron Children’s Hospital launched its clinic for gender diverse youths. It was a major win for much of the city’s trans population, who would have to otherwise leave Akron and travel to Cleveland or farther to seek medical treatment, or avoid care altogether.

Studies show that gender-diverse individuals often avoid preventative appointments and push off seeking needed medical care out of fear of discrimination. As a result, they tend to have higher rates of chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes, said Dr. Crystal Cole, director of Akron Children’s Center for Gender Affirming Medicine.

“Even if I don’t out myself, [doctors are] going to see it on my pharmacy records,” said Em, a 40-year-old trans person using he/they pronouns. They did not want to use their full name out of safety concerns. “I’ve had to go to an ER a few times over the last few years, and my fear walking in is I’m going to be immediately pegged and some doctor who’s not comfortable treating me or it’s against his religion or whatever is going to let me die or something equally bad because he doesn't agree with me.”

A clinic dedicated to treating gender diverse patients can mitigate those fears and offer a safe space where trans people know they’ll be accepted and treated as any other patient.

“The doctor who walked me through the process was very nice and not judgmental,” said Dolli Moody, a 20-year-old trans woman living in Akron's Sherbondy Hill neighborhood. Moody goes to Summa's Pride Clinic located at Chapel Hill for her care. 

“They were really understanding and such a delight,” she said. “I actually cried my first time going.”

Dolli Moody, a trans woman living in Akron. (Photo by Jeff Lange)

As the field continues to evolve, health care systems and insurers alike need to be prepared and open to address the specific needs of trans communities, said Akron Children’s Cole.

“More and more people have become more comfortable with expressing their gender diversity than in previous years,” Cole said. “All health care providers need to be adaptive and respectful of that.”

Though gender-affirming care typically applies to treatment options for people seeking physical transitions, Cole said any medical practitioner can and should offer gender affirmation while working with patients, such as using a patient’s correct name and pronouns and avoiding insensitive questions.

More employers offering insurance to cover care costs

Workplaces and insurance providers also are expanding their coverage to be inclusive of gender diverse patients.

When the Akron Children’s Center for Gender Affirming Medicine opened in 2019, Cole said it was challenging for many families to pay for treatments, which often were not covered by insurance.

But in just three years, Cole said, now it’s almost uncommon for insurance companies to deny claims for gender-affirming medicines.

“My experience with insurance was not difficult at all,” said Beau Shaniuk, a 24-year-old trans man living in East Akron. Shaniuk self-administers biweekly testosterone injections and has also had top surgery, which in the case of a trans man, removes breast tissue to create a masculine chest. That procedure was covered under his parents’ insurance policy at the time.

At the time they began hormone treatment, Moody, Boylen and Em were all on Medicaid, a federal and state program that assists with health care costs for people with limited income. Each one of their plans paid for all or part of the costs of hormone injections, which Cole said are relatively inexpensive, ranging from about $10 to $85 per month, depending on the drug used. 

“The medicine I’m taking, it makes me more sure of myself,” Moody said. “Me living my truth and being the woman I’ve always wanted to be has helped me work through problems and take my time growing into who I am.”

Some of Akron’s major employers also are providing coverage for gender-affirming medicine. In July 2021, the city expanded its health care coverage to include gender-affirming care for transgender employees and dependents, joining the cities of Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo and Dayton. 

For several years, the city offered hormonal therapy benefits for its insured employees and dependents, but the new policy included coverage of surgical treatments, a move Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan said would help create equity and inclusiveness.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. was listed in the Human Rights Campaign’s 2020 Corporate Equality Index as among the best employers for LGBTQ+ people that include at least one transgender-inclusive health care coverage plan.

“Employers have been looking at those options for individuals, even if they don’t have transgender employees currently, who’s to say they won’t in the future?” said Yvette Lee, a human resources knowledge adviser at Society for Human Resources Management. “The last thing an employer would want is to be caught behind the eight ball in regards to being progressive and inclusive.”

What obstacles threaten or complicate gender-affirming care?

While some employers oppose offering coverage because of religious or personal beliefs, Lee said logistical complications are much more common.

For example, she said, some states have bans on transgender surgeries, particularly for minors.

While employers locally and nationally work to make policies more inclusive, policies like the city of Akron’s health care plan could be in jeopardy as legislation works its way through the statehouse.

Another challenge Lee said she and other HR professionals are seeing is that employers do not fully understand “confusing” language or legalese in their chosen plans, so a plan may be more restrictive than employers initially thought.

Trans patients still face medical discrimination

Aside from potential legislative and insurance difficulties, the medical field itself poses some threats for gender diverse-patients. Even as more clinics pop up to accommodate LGBTQ+ populations, discrimination in traditional medical spaces and other logistical problems work against transgender people.

Em has been in desperate need of a hysterectomy for nearly six months. Following a uterine ablation, they were told that they needed an emergency hysterectomy.

But in Em’s follow-up visit a few days later, their doctor said he was uncomfortable doing the procedure because of their “unique anatomy.”

The situation baffled Em, who has not had bottom surgery to alter their genitals. Though they are taking testosterone, the hormone does not affect the anatomy of their uterus, the organ upon which the procedure would be operated.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” Em said. “In anyone else’s situation, they would be scheduled for emergency surgery and get it done. But because I’m trans, I’m having to wait for a doctor who is willing to work on me.”

Em’s situation is not uncommon within the transgender community: 29% say their health care provider refused to see them because of their gender identity. 

For Em, the refusal to provide treatment means they’re left to grapple with serious repercussions, including “severe and constant” cramping and bleeding that has not subsided since the ablation in February.

For months, they've been seeking other doctors willing to operate on them. They found a gynecologist who will accommodate them, one who they say is the only provider within their health care system willing to do so, but appointments are booked up months in advance.

“I’m in a lot of pain,” Em said. “It just feels like there’s nothing out there to help me.”

Long waitlists, medical costs still a burden to some

Lengthy waitlists are frequently an issue for transgender patients seeking care.

When Shaniuk began seeking hormone therapy in 2019, it took several months to begin treatment. He was living in Athens, Ohio, at the time, where he said there was only one physician in the region specifically working in transgender care.

When the time came for his top surgery, he waited about six months. In the end, he said, it was well worth the wait, recalling the feelings of excitement and validation of his gender identity.

Beau Shaniuk holds his Boston Terrier puppy, George, in his home. (Photo by Karen Schiely)

Now, as he continues hormone therapy, which is typically a lifelong commitment, Shaniuk is facing a new obstacle: being kicked off his parents’ insurance.

His family has not been supportive of his identity, he said, and they have not had contact for about a year. When his prescription was rejected by insurance earlier this year, he found out that they had removed him from their policy without warning.

He is now uninsured as he prepares to enter his doctoral program at Kent State, and the added burden of paying full price for his hormones — about $50 per month —  and figuring out how to get his prescription at all has created challenges in his life. 

“I'm still having difficulties to this day like getting it because of the fact that for whatever reason the refill process has been confusing for everyone,” he said.

Despite the continued obstacles, transgender patients are pleased with the progress that's been made in gender-affirming care in recent years.

Boylen likes to reflect on her journey and acknowledge how far medical infrastructure has come for transgender patients.

"It was 2014, and I was still showing up at doctor's offices and they're saying, 'No, we don't do that,'" Boylen said. "I was looking at closed doors. ... It was heart wrenching... But now young people are realizing who they are sooner and living in a world that is opening up to them. It's great."

Originally published in the Akron Beacon Journal on June 10, 2022.

‘I’ve grown up watching other children die.’ Young activists losing hope after Texas tragedy

In this file photo, Meredith Gallagher, then 15, of Cuyahoga Falls, the organizer of the Akron March for Our Lives event to end gun violence, yells into the microphone as she leads a rally at Highland Square. March 24, 2018. Photo by Karen Schiely.

Bree Chambers was 12 years old when a gunman tore through Sandy Hook Elementary, killing 27 people, including 20 young children.

At 17, the Akron native helped organize a walkout at Firestone High School after 17 students were shot dead at Parkland High School.

But now, following the most recent mass murder at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the 21-year-old can’t help but think about all the kids who never got to do the things she did: graduate high school, attend college and begin a career while looking forward to graduate school this fall.

And all the hope she had years ago is running out.

“Since I was a child, I’ve grown up watching other children die in school,” she said. “I am tired in a way that I have never experienced in my life because it has just been this. It has always been this.”

In 2018, Chambers and her classmates wanted to take a stand against gun violence amid the nationwide “March for our Lives” movement organized by survivors of the Parkland High School shooting.

“It could’ve very easily been me, my friends, my classmates, my teachers, and that was a very profoundly disturbing feeling,” she recalled.

Four years later, Chambers said feels jaded, having lost any hope that elected officials will do anything to prevent another mass shooting in schools.

“I miss the version of myself that thought that change was a possibility,” Chambers said. “Every time this happens, a part of that version of myself dies.”

Lawmakers are 'not listening to the words we're saying'

Chambers is not alone. Young activists are losing steam, barraged by a seemingly endless cycle of tragedy eclipsed by another tragedy.

“It's the worst-case scenario on both ends, like a racially motivated attack, and an attack on children,” said 20-year-old Akron resident Sarah Sterns, referencing the white supremacist assailant in Buffalo, New York, who murdered 10 people in a grocery store just 10 days before the Texas shooting. “And our legislators are doing literally nothing.”

Sterns was a 16-year-old student when she helped organize Akron’s March for our Lives rally in 2018. Her frustration has deepened over the years due to not only “lack of action” at the statehouse.

“I think [our legislators] hear us, like they hear the noise we make, but they're not listening to the words we're saying,” Sterns said. “I wish that we had more conversation on this, because it seems that we only talk about these tragedies when they happen. It's horrific and it’s disappointing.”

Zale Piepho, a 20-year-old studying environmental science at the Rochester Institute of Technology, was also a teenage activist at the time of the Parkland shooting.

Piepho  described increased anxiety throughout their schooling beginning as early as fourth grade, when their class was given training on how to respond to an active school shooter.

“It made us sitting ducks, like soda cans lined up on a fence at a shooting range,” Piepho said. “It was common for friends of mine to break down crying in fear of a shooting. … [March for Our Lives] seems so long ago, yet it feels as if nothing has changed.”

It appears any progress they were fighting for years ago has actually backpedaled, Piepho said, citing even further loosened laws, including recent passage of a law earlier this year that allows all Ohioans 21 and older to carry a concealed firearm without a permit, training or background check.

“Lawmakers need to enact legislation that puts people's lives first,” Piepho said. “The whole point of having a society and a government is to improve the lives, safety, and security of citizens. ... We are sacrificing our children, laying down the lives of our most marginalized communities, and turning to cheer for gun rights.”

What solutions are activists still trying to fight for?

Aside from recurring calls for gun restrictions, assault rifle bans and background checks, young activists want to affect change at the problem's root cause.

"Nothing is different except we teach our kindergarteners to hide from the bad guy with a gun instead of taking the bad guy’s gun," Chambers said.

Chambers voiced support for mandatory media literacy in schools, saying that a lot of the bigotry and hatred that run rampant in many of the young men committing mass shootings begins online, motivated by conspiracy theories.

“We need to make sure people know how to read a thing online and not instinctually believe it to be true,” she said. “It is beyond me how people are not taught to think critically.”

They're also advocating for mental health assistance and other social support systems to be readily available for those who need it.

"Gun violence is not just a student's issue," Piepho said. "It is an intimate partner violence issue. It is a mental health and suicide issue. It is a racial justice issue. It is a public safety issue. Ohioans deserve to be safe."

Meredith Gallagher, a 20-year-old studying anthropology at Princeton University who helped organize the 2018 march, emphasized the importance of more people joining the movement.

"It's really unfair that we expect teenagers to be the only ones to care enough about these things to actually spark movements," she said. "Why does it have to be the kids who are scared of going to school every day? It's often teenagers who are leading things. We need more buy in and participation from other people."

And even though she’s feeling dejected by the string of tragedies since Sandy Hook in 2012, Chambers said her heart “has to be in” the fight for her generation and future ones to come.

“There is no happy ending right now,” she said. “I feel like we’ve been spending a lot of time trying to manufacture one but at the end of the day we are chanting the same things and marching the same routes that we did in 2012 and nothing is different except more kids are dead.”

Beacon Journal staff writer Seyma Bayram contributed to this report.

Originally published in the Akron Beacon Journal on May 27, 2022.

'Completely broken': Exonerated death row inmate speaks out on flaws of capital punishment

Kwame Ajamu speaks about his time on death row. He spent 28 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. (Photo by Abbey Marshall)

Kwame Ajamu was only 17 years old when he was arrested and sentenced to die for a crime he didn’t commit.

It was a warm spring day on May 19, 1975. Ajamu, his brother and friend were wrapping up a basketball game. On their way home, the trio passed a crime scene where a money order salesman had been robbed and killed. His body was still on the ground, outlined in chalk. It was only a matter of days before Ajamu woke up in his bed, flustered and confused as armed Cleveland Police officers swarmed his home to arrest him.

Ajamu recounted the story to a crowd gathered Thursday in St. Ashworth Temple during an Akron NAACP meeting. It was exactly 47 years after the day of the murder that changed the course of his life.

What followed was a wrongful conviction leading to 28 years in prison and a death sentence, all hinging on the testimony of a 12-year-old boy who claimed to witness the crime and later admitted to lying.

“The system is completely broken in every way,” Ajamu said.

Even after he was released on parole in 2003, it was another 11 years before he was able to be exonerated and clear his name, at which point his brother and friend were finally discharged from prison.

“If not for the efforts I put forth in those 11 years after I got out and the people who believed me, they would still be in prison,” he said. “They probably would’ve died in there.”

Ajamu is now using his story to mobilize Ohioans to advocate for abolishing the death penalty. He serves as the board chair of Witness to Innocence, an organization whose members are all death row exonerees that advocate for the end of capital punishment.

“I’m here because it has become my obligation and duty ever since the age of 17 to tell this story,” he told Akron’s NAACP members. “I’m here because you can actually see someone who was sentenced to die. You can actually witness what wrongful incarceration looks like.”

Death penalty resources better spent on victims of the crimes, advocates say

Ajamu was joined by his wife, LaShawn Ajamu, a Canton native whose brother was murdered 25 years ago in a road-rage incident. LaShawn spoke passionately against the death penalty, saying that while her family wanted to see justice served against the man who killed her 20-year-old brother, an execution wouldn’t have given them the closure they needed.

She called the argument of using the death penalty as justice for the family “political grandstanding,” saying the state’s resources would be better spent on providing resources for victims of the crime.

Ohio taxpayers pay approximately $3 million per death penalty case, compared to $1 million per life without parole case.

“My family, myself, we had never experienced the intense trauma of losing a loved one to murder and we had no idea how to deal with this pain,” LaShawn said. “No state, city or any agency provided my family with any information about resources available to help us deal with our murdered loved one… We were on our own as far as the state of Ohio was concerned.”

She argued that capital punishment processes prolong a family’s grief period, as appeals can span decades and do nothing to help them heal.

“Killing this man, it wouldn’t have brought my brother James back,” she said. “There’s no such thing as closure because there will always be an empty seat at my family table.”

Death penalty disproportionately affects Black Americans

Since 1976, approximately 35% of prisoners executed were Black, despite only making up 13% of the U.S. population.

In Ohio, as of fall 2020, more than half of death row inmates were people of color.

In addition, a prosecutor is more likely to seek the death penalty if a victim is white; capital defendants charged with killing a white person are twice as likely to receive the death sentence as those charged with killing a person of color.

“The death penalty is the sharpest edge of the judicial system that needs so much work, and it contains every issue within our justice system: you have discrepancies of race, prosecutorial and police misconduct, faulty eyewitness testimony, junk science,” said Jennifer Pryor, the director of organizing and outreach for Ohioans to Stop Executions. “You got so many pieces of every part of our judicial system that leads to wrongful conviction.”

And wrongful convictions happen more often than people might think: for every five people Ohio has executed, one innocent person was exonerated from death row. In total, Ohio has sentenced 11 people who were later proven innocent to die.

Speakers urge legislative action, constituent advocacy

Ohioans to Stop Executions provided postcards for all attendees to address to lawmakers and urge them to vote in favor of H.B. 183 and S.B. 103 — legislation that would end capital punishment in Ohio. Pryor said they plan to hand-deliver the cards to the Statehouse.

“We have a real opportunity,” Pryor said. “No death penalty repealment has ever made it this far. We are killing people who are innocent, we are harming families and we are costing Ohioans a lot of money.”

Originally published in the Akron Beacon Journal on May 21, 2022.