July, 2020

• Fenway submitted Public Comment to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources; Health and Human Services on a proposed rule by the Department of Health and Human Services titled “Office of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources; Health and Human Services Grants Regulation.” Fenway expressed opposition to the proposed rule because it “would remove regulatory provisions that explicitly prohibit organizations that receive HHS grant funding from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, and religion. Under this dangerous and exceptionally broad rule, LGBT people, women, people of minority faiths, and non-religious people could face discrimination by a wide range of health and social service agencies that receive funding from HHS. This would put the health and well-being of millions of Americans at risk.”
  
  
• Fenway submitted a letter to the Office of Minority Health and Health Equity at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention following up on a conversation that representatives from both offices had with Sean Cahill, PhD, the Fenway Institute’s Director of Health Policy Research. Fenway wrote to express interest in engaging “the Health Equity Task Force created by the CDC Foundation and the Satcher Health Leadership Institute regarding sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data collection and reporting in the COVID-19 pandemic.”
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a coalition letter to the Massachusetts House Speaker and Senate President organized by the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union urging passage of “An Act to Save Black Lives” and “An Act to Secure Civil Rights.” Both measures would put systems in place to hold law enforcement accountable for violence and abuse.
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a coalition letter to the Massachusetts House Speaker and Senate President organized by the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless urging an increase in funding for Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) to $50 million. RAFT is a state-funded homelessness prevention program administered by the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development.
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a coalition letter to the Massachusetts Governor, House Speaker and Senate President organized by the Housing = Health Working Group urging passage of “An Act enabling local options for tenant protections.” The bill would give municipalities the authority to cancel rent debt and enact rent control ordinances.
  
  
• Fenway Health submitted testimony to the Massachusetts Senate Ways and Means Committee in support of “An Act relative to preventing overdose deaths and increasing access to treatment.” Known as Aubri’s Law, the bill would establish a supervised consumption site pilot program in Massachusetts.
  
  
• Fenway Health submitted testimony to the Massachusetts House Speaker and the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee in support of an amendment to current state law addressing prescription co-pay assistance. That law, enacted in 2012 has a sunset provision that would, when put in place, remove co-pay assistance. The sunset provision has been postponed numerous times. The amendment would permantly remove the sunset provision from state law and ensure uninterrupted patient access to copay assistance.
  
  

August, 2020

• The Fenway Institute presented at the International AIDS Conference on “Adolescent MSM’s Experiences and Perspectives of Sexual Health and HIV Prevention Access: Findings from Online and In-Person Focus Groups with Youth from across the United States.”
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a coalition letter to MassHealth organized by the Association for Community Health Improvement led by the Massachusetts Public Health Association supporting changes to the state’s 1115 Demonstration Waiver from the U.S. Centers for Medicaid and Medicare. The proposed changes would support data collection for equitable outcomes, coordinate service delivery and data sharing across state agencies, and support community health workers.
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a coalition letter to the Commonwealth’s Secretary of Health and Human Services organized by the Massachusetts Public Health Association’s COVID-19 Equity Task Force requesting that funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency be used to implement the state’s “Safer-at-Home” Advisory by ensuring that all individuals and families experiencing homelessness have a place to shelter safely through the the COVID-19 pandemic.
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a letter to the state legislature organized by the RaiseUp Coalition supporting an increase in taxes on corporations to generate revenue to support an equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
  
  

September, 2020

• Fenway submitted public comment to the Committee on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus; National Academy of Medicine; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in support of a draft “Preliminary Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine.” Fenway wrote to support the draft document’s focus on mitigating the “negative effects of existing health inequities on the transmission of and harms from the novel coronavirus.” Fenway also wrote to request that more attention be paid to “health inequities and enhanced risk affecting LGBTQ people, which intersect with racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequities.”
  
  
• Fenway submitted public comment to the Massachusetts Legislative COVID Health Equity Task Force requesting “that the task force include sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data collection and reporting in real time.” Fenway noted the need for this data collection “in order to understand how LGBTQ disparities in the COVID-19 pandemic intersect with race/ethnicity and other factors, and assess the impacts on all vulnerable populations.”
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a letter to the Governor organized by the Massachusetts Right to Counsel Coalition supporting $6 million in funding to establish an emergency statewide right to counsel pilot program for low-income tenants and homeowners in eviction proceedings.
  
  
• Fenway Health submitted testimony to the Massachusetts House Speaker and the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee in support of the Healthy Youth Act, which would require school districts that teach sexuality education to use a curriculum that is evidence-based and LGBTQIA+ inclusive.
  
  
• Fenway Health submitted testimony to the chairs of the Ways and Means Committee supporting passage of “An Act relative to parentage to promote children’s security.” The bill would require the use of language in parental rights laws that recognize the rights of LGBTQIA+ families.
  
  
• Massachusetts House Speaker and the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee in support of the Healthy Youth Act, which would require school districts that teach sexuality education to use a curriculum that is evidence-based and LGBTQIA+ inclusive.
  
  

October, 2020

• The Fenway Institute presented at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Expo on “Transgender-related discrimination is associated with substance use and treatment history in a multi-state sample of transgender adults” and “Safe Injection Facilities: What is the evidence?”
  
  
• The Fenway Institute published “Trump-Pence Administration policies undermine LGBTQ health equity,” a policy brief demonstrating that during its four years in office, the Trump Administration enacted more anti-LGBTQIA+ policies than any previous administration in history. demonstrating that during its four years in office, the Trump Administration enacted more anti-LGBTQIA+ policies than any previous administration in history.
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a coalition letter to the Massachusetts House Speaker and Senate President and to Conference Committee members organized by Jane Doe Inc. supporting passage of “An Act to reform police standards and shift resources to build a more equitable, fair and just Commonwealth that values Black lives and communities of color.” The bill would prohibit the use of facial recognition technology, place strict limits on qualified immunity, create an Independent Oversight System with strong accountability measures, create a Commission on Structural Racism, and create systems of justice reinvestment and opportunity in communities affected by incarceration.
  
  
• Fenway Health sent a letter to the state legislature’s Health Equity Task Force urging support for sexual orientation and gender identity data collection in COVID-19 testing.
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a coalition letter to the state legislature organized by the One Fair Wage coalition urging passage of a full minimum wage for restaurant industry workers because the subminimum wage for tipped workers disincentivizes COVID-19 enforcement.
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a letter to the Governor organized by the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute in support of allocating $5 million from the IT bond bill to permit health care consumers to apply for SNAP benefits at the same time as they apply for or renew their MassHealth or Medicare Savings Program coverage.
  
  

November, 2020

• Fenway Health sent a letter to state representatives Sarah Peake and Liz Malia requesting support for a budget amendment to support the LGBTQIA+ Aging Project and to require LGBTQIA+ competency training in elder services.
  
  
• Fenway Health sent a letter to state representatives Liz Malia, Denise Garlik, and Aaron Michlewitz requesting support for Youth HIV Prevention Access, which would permit minors to access pre-exposure prophylaxis, which reduces transmission of HIV.
  
  

December, 2020

• The Fenway Institute participated in a briefing on HIV and aging for the Congressional HIV Caucus and Congressional LGBTQ+ Caucus that was organized by Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders HIV and Aging Policy Action Coalition.
  
  
• The Fenway Institute participated in a panel discussion organized by MassEquality titled “Marching Together Towards Equality: The Other Epidemic: Ending HIV Stigma & Transmission” for the Canadian Consulate, Quebec Office in Boston.
  
  
• Fenway submitted public comment to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in opposition to the proposed rule, “Securing Updated and Necessary Statutory Evaluations Timely” which would “retroactively impose an expiration provision on most HHS regulations, and establish ‘assessment’ and ‘review’ procedures to determine which, if any, regulations should be retained or revised.” Fenway explained that the proposed rule “would undermine Medicaid, Medicare, and the health insurance marketplaces, as well as other core functions of government, such as the critically important health and safety work of the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Fenway also noted that the rule was “totally unnecessary for these programs’ proper administration.”
  
  
• Fenway submitted public comment to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health on the draft HIV National Strategic Plan released on World AIDS Day, 2020. Fenway wrote to request that “significantly” more attention be paid to the needs of older people living with AIDS and long-term survivors noting that half of people living with AIDS in the U.S. are over 50 years old and “experience multiple comorbidities and increased prevalence of geriatric syndromes such as falls, frailty, and polypharmacy.”
  
  
• Fenway sent a letter to Dr. Levine and Association of State and Territorial Health Officers encouraging them to “incorporate attention to LGBTQI populations into your COVID-19 vaccine health equity strategies, and to collect and report sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) plus intersex data in novel coronavirus testing, COVID-19 care outcomes, and vaccine uptake.” Fenway noted that it is “vital that governments and public health experts have a clear picture of the disparate risks and impacts of the novel coronavirus on LGBTQI people to inform public health efforts.”
  
  
• Fenway joined a coalition of LGBTQI+ health organizations urging the Advisory Committee on Immunization to “incorporate attention to LGBTQI populations into your COVID-19 vaccine health equity strategies, and to collect and report sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) plus intersex data in novel coronavirus testing, COVID-19 care outcomes, and vaccine uptake.” Fenway noted that it is “vital that governments and public health experts have a clear picture of the disparate risks and impacts of the novel coronavirus on LGBTQI people to inform public health efforts.”
  
  
• The Fenway Institute published “LGBT AGING 2025: Strategies for Achieving a Healthy and Thriving LGBT Older Adult Community in Massachusetts,” a status report on older LGBTQIA+ adults in Massachusetts. The report found that older LGBTQ adults in the Commonwealth report being diagnosed with depression at twice the rate of their straight, cisgender peers, and are twice as likely to fall and be injured in a fall over the past year. It also finds that while older LGBTQ adults are more likely to hold a college degree, they are more likely to report having had difficulty paying for housing or food over the past year. LGBTQ older adults living in rural areas of the state expressed concern about the lack of options for LGBTQ-affirming health care, as well as their on-going experiences with strong anti-LGBTQ prejudice and harassment in public settings and senior housing.
  
  
• Fenway Health submitted testimony to the Governor and the Commonwealth’s Secretary of Administration and Finance urging support for co-pay assistance in the FY21 state budget.
  
  
• Fenway Health submitted testimony to the Governor and the MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board opposing budget cuts to the MBTA that result in fewer runs of the 55 bus which is utilized by Fenway Health’s patients and clients to attend appointments.
  
  
• Fenway Health signed a coalition letter to the Massachusetts Division of Insurance organized by the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation requiring coverage for all peripheral medical costs related to pre-exposure prophylaxis such as laboratory tests.
  
  

January, 2021

• The Fenway Institute sent a letter to Massachusetts state legislators appointed to the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force urging them to support the recommendations of the Health Equity Task Force to collect and report sexual orientation and gender identity data for COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.
  
  
• Fenway Health sent a letter to Massachusetts state legislators appointed to the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force urging them to file legislation adopting the recommendations of the Health Equity Task Force to collect and report sexual orientation and gender identity data for COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.
  
  

February, 2021

• Fenway Health sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urging passage of the Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity in employment, housing, and public accommodations.
  
  
• Fenway Health sent a letter to Senator Patty Murray, Chairwoman, and to Senator Richard Burr, Ranking Member, of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions urging them to confirm the appointment of Pennsylvania Secretary of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine, to serve as Assistant Secretary for Health.
  
  
• The Fenway Institute submitted testimony to the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force urging them to file legislation adopting the recommendations of the Health Equity Task Force to collect and report sexual orientation and gender identity data for COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.
  
  
• In partnership with AIDS United, Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, GLMA: Health, Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality, Howard Brown Health, interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth, Lyon-Martin Health Services, National Black Justice Coalition, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Center for Transgender Equality, National LGBT Cancer Network, National LGBTQ Task Force, SAGE, Transgender Law Center, Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Whitman-Walker Institute, Fenway Health released “Next Steps for Building Better LGBTQI Health,” a policy brief outlining immediate steps for the Biden-Harris Administration to take in public health policy to regain lost ground during the previous presidential administration and lay a foundation for the future.
  
  

March, 2021

• Fenway Health signed a coalition letter to MassHealth organized by the Association for Community Health Improvement led by the Massachusetts Public Health Association supporting changes to the state’s 1115 Demonstration Waiver from the U.S. Centers for Medicaid and Medicare. The proposed changes would support data collection for racially equitable outcomes, support data collection of sexual orientation and gender identity data, coordinate service delivery and data sharing across state agencies, improve maternal health outcomes, improve outcomes for justice-involved individuals, and support community health workers.
  
  

April, 2021

• The Fenway Institute submitted public comment to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Office of the Secretary, United States Department of Health and Human Services urging that the patient demographics requirements in electronic health records be expanded to include sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, name used, and pronouns.
  
  
• Fenway Health sent a letter to leadership in the Texas state legislature urging them to oppose anti-transgender legislation.
  
  

May, 2021

• Fenway Health submitted testimony to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Health in support of support support of legislation that would permit minors to access pre-exposure prophylaxis, which reduces transmission of HIV.
  
  
• Fenway Health submitted testimony to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Education in support of the Healthy Youth Act, which would require school districts that teach sexuality education to use a curriculum that is evidence-based and LGBTQIA+ inclusive.