vox--2020-05-25--Working from home for a while? Here’s how to do it securely.

Alice M. , who works as a benefits manager for a health insurance company , primarily used her personal laptop for Netflix binges and Facebook updates before the coronavirus pandemic .
Since March , and for the foreseeable future , she ’ s had to give it a new task : handling confidential medical records .
Alice worries her home equipment isn ’ t up to the job of her job .
“ My company usually does give us necessary tools to feel secure , but because of Covid , they had to send everyone home , ” Alice told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t have their setup already , you had to use yours.
” “ I ’ d argue that if patients knew this , they wouldn ’ t be so happy , ” she added .
“ We aren ’ t as secure as we should be.
” Alice , who requested that neither she nor her employer be named for fear of retribution , may have reason to worry .
Millions of workers have had to take their work home with them due to the pandemic and may continue to do so for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it without the security and privacy tools their offices had — or even , in cases like Alice ’ s , the equipment .
The result : Hacking activity has more than doubled .
One Australian company even blamed the sudden switch to remote work for a ransomware attack .
“ In most scenarios , those protections that you had in place in the office don ’ t exist at home , ” Mark Ostrowski , security evangelist at cybersecurity company Check Point , told Recode .
“ So that ’ s where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things that I can do to protect myself ?
” There are a few easy and important things you should do in your work ( and personal ! )
lives to help keep yourself safe .
For example , make sure you ’ re using strong passwords and picking different passwords for every account .
Use two-factor authentication everywhere it ’ s offered .
And if you ’ re one of millions of people who will work from home a lot more as the pandemic stretches on for months , you should take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Virani , president of Alliant Cybersecurity , told Recode that with employees setting up several new accounts for various remote work services like file-sharing and virtual meetings , it ’ s especially important that they ’ re using strong , unique passwords .
And that extends to your home equipment : If you ’ re using the default password that came with your router , change it .
Hackers love default passwords .
“ Take time to set that equipment up adequately , ” Virani said .
“ Personalize it and secure it.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ current on software updates , too .
These often come with security patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities .
You can also set up your computer to update automatically so you get them as soon as possible .
Also , be wary of freeware .
Virani says one of the riskiest things he sees in the small- to mid-market companies his company advises is their use of free services to handle sensitive information like file-sharing or teleconferences .
“ The company that ’ s giving you something for free , they ’ re getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Virani said .
“ Really vet the partners you do business with and the tools that you use in your business .
...
I think a lot of this free software out there , they put a lot of the company information at risk because you don ’ t know what they do with that information.
” You should also keep your work and personal life as separate as possible .
Don ’ t use your work device for personal stuff and vice versa .
That ’ s a lot harder to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ house , where your personal computer might be just a little bit more convenient in a given moment .
It ’ s even harder if you have to use the same device for work and play .
You might open your work computer up to security threats through whatever weird things you do or sites you visit in your personal time .
“ I ’ m sure a lot of people have a distinction between what you do in the workplace and what you do on your own time , ” Jeremy Tillman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ When you blur those lines , and you mash those two things together .
You make yourself a little bit more vulnerable in no small part because you ’ re simply increasing the amount of volume of your at-home digital activity.
” A virtual private network ( VPN ) creates a private connection over a public network .
Some VPNs allow remote workers to connect directly to their physical office ’ s server or intranet through their home internet connection .
Think of these VPNs as secure tunnels between the two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from home , VPN use has surged during the pandemic — but so have attacks on VPNs .
So while VPNs are certainly useful , they ’ re not foolproof .
There are also consumer VPNs that anonymize all your internet activity by first routing it through a server and encrypting it before it goes out to the internet .
If you spend a lot of time on the internet for work , making that activity as private as possible is generally a good idea .
“ You do have this entire ecosystem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ network of tracking technologies , ” Tillman said .
“ You ’ re creating a digital footprint of your business activities and those can in turn be sold to anybody , really .
...
It does take on a very different implication when it ’ s your work.
” A VPN hides your real IP address and anonymizes your internet activity from the websites you visit ( as well as the trackers within them ) and your internet service provider .
To that end , you may also want to consider using tracker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your browser accepts , if it doesn ’ t do this already .
VPNs also prevent your data from being intercepted by man-in-the-middle attacks .
This is more of an issue when you ’ re using an unsecured public network like a coffee shop ’ s wifi — which many of us won ’ t be doing anytime soon , but we live in hope .
It ’ s not out of the realm of possibility that a man-in-the-middle attack could happen to you over your home network , too .
So when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over that internet , it ’ s more important than ever that it ’ s encrypted .
One thing to watch out for if you ’ re considering getting a VPN : Make sure you ’ re using a reputable company , since you ’ re running all your internet traffic through its servers .
Check out neutral and knowledgeable review sites like CNET and Wirecutter for their recommendations .
You ’ ll probably want to avoid the many free VPN services out there , as many have been caught collecting and sharing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In some ways , these options are riskier than not having a VPN at all .
This one should be pretty obvious , but it ’ s not always .
If you ’ re using a Mac , you might think your device is immune to malware — and you ’ d be wrong .
Windows devices are still more susceptible , but Macs aren ’ t impenetrable fortresses .
Or maybe you just assumed your company ’ s IT department was taking care of protecting your company from cyberthreats .
The average @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many good security measures like url filters that block access to suspicious links or sites known to contain malware , firewalls that shield the network from attacks , browser protections , not to mention antivirus software .
But that protection might not extend to your living room .
“ You ’ re using a personal computer or even just your work computer , and a lot of these things that are protecting you , unless the company is rerouting all your traffic back to your office [ through a VPN ] , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ostrowski said .
While you might be okay with running the risk of getting a virus or malware on your home computer , it might not be worth the risk on your work equipment .
You also may be putting your company at risk of a ransomware attack , and those can be devastating both in the money that has to be paid out and the time lost .
There are plenty of good antivirus programs and even browser extensions out there that will help protect your computer .
Again , review sites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to start if you ’ re looking for recommendations .
Wirecutter ’ s take is to eschew the antivirus software suite for a combination of your operating system ’ s built-in protections and a few add-ons like browser extensions .
Wirecutter does recommend that people who work with sensitive information or browse “ riskier parts of the Internet ” may want to seek “ more intense measures.
” Whatever you choose , consider purchasing it from an official app store or from a company you otherwise know you can trust through impartial reviews @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it ’ s on the up-and-up .
There are plenty of scams out there — especially these days — claiming to sell antivirus software that ’ s actually very much the opposite .
So , here ’ s the thing : The vast majority of security breaches don ’ t come from bad actors hacking their way into your computer or home network .
They come from you letting them in through phishing attacks — that is , emails or even text messages that appear to be from someone you know and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ World Health Organization , that contain links to malicious sites or files containing malware to download .
During the pandemic , the number of phishing attempts has grown exponentially .
You can prevent most , if not all , of these just by being careful about clicking on links or downloading files in emails , especially if they come from unknown senders .
Sometimes phishing emails come from a known display name but an unknown email address , so check your email provider ’ s settings to make sure you ’ re able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actual email address of the sender .
Also , be wary of any emails that ask you to provide any kind of personal information , like your Social Security number , account passwords , or bank information .
When in doubt , don ’ t click on those links and certainly don ’ t download attachments .
The FTC has a nice little guide on how to recognize and protect yourself from phishing attacks .
And if you think you have been the victim of a phishing attack , notify your employer as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or sensitive information you ’ ve given away .
Our lives are in our phones , and that means our work lives are in those devices , too .
But it ’ s easy to forget about or get sloppy with cybersecurity when it comes to your devices .
“ People often overlook their phone because they think of it more as a personal device , not a work device , ” Ostrowski said .
“ But we ’ ve also seen a huge uptick on mobile malware relative to Covid.
” Hackers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and for emails you open on your phone , it ’ s harder to tell if the sender names are spoofed or if links point to malicious sites .
If you must , refrain from opening suspect emails until you ’ re on your work computer , assuming that machine has security measures in place .
“ Mobile ’ s kind of the wild , wild West now , so if you ’ re not expecting something , be cautious , ” Virani says .
... or your other connected devices And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of devices , take stock of what you ’ ve got connected to your home network .
You might have a bunch of threat vectors hanging out there you didn ’ t even realize .
The proliferation of “ Internet of Things ” devices means everything from sex toys to baby monitors could be connected to your home wifi .
Not all of them take user privacy and security into account , leaving them — and you — with multiple vulnerabilities .
And with people working from home , there may be more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Employers and employees alike may overlook wireless devices like printers and smart speakers , but anything connected to your wifi can present hackers with another way into a target ’ s computer or home network .
“ Within the last two months , we ’ ve seen a 42 percent increase on the number of devices connected to an organization , ” Yossi Appleboum , CEO of Sepio , a company that provides security from hardware-based attacks , told Recode .
“ In the last week , we ’ ve seen an even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s not going to be another week or two [ of remote work ] , it ’ s going to be longer.
” Aside from limiting your network to only the essential devices ( do you really need every device to be a smart device ? )
, keep your software and firmware updated for patches to any newly discovered vulnerabilities .
Again , don ’ t forget to change any default passwords .
And make sure you ’ re buying connected devices from a manufacturer you know and trust .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ devices from obscure companies tend to have serious security flaws .
One other thing to consider : microphones and cameras .
Many devices have them , and if they ’ re on while you ’ re working they could present a risk .
For example , Alice , the benefits manager , told Recode that one of the few security measures her company did put in place was a rule to turn off all listening devices , like her Amazon Echo , which could accidentally pick her up discussing confidential patient information .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ cameras that often start recording whenever sound or movement is detected .
Inevitably , you should think about the security of your home office in broad terms as well as these specifics .
Don ’ t just do one of these suggestions to protect your work life .
Try several !
Security experts recommend a stack , or layers , of security so that you build some redundancies into the whole system .
Even the best anti-malware program can ’ t guarantee you won ’ t get hacked , but having multiple safeguards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prevent an attack or vulnerability the others missed .
If your employer has done its due diligence and provided you with the most secure home office setup possible , that ’ s great .
But it might not be a bad idea to incorporate some or all of these suggestions for your personal computing needs as well .
When it comes down to it , hackers are almost always after money , and they can get that from your workday as well as what you do after hours .
If you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you ’ re probably using the internet more than ever .
Might as well do it as safely as you can .
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network .
All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
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Alice M., who works as a benefits manager for a health insurance company, primarily used her personal laptop for Netflix binges and Facebook updates before the coronavirus pandemic. Since March, and for the foreseeable future, she’s had to give it a new task: handling confidential medical records. Alice worries her home equipment isn’t up to the job of her job.
“My company usually does give us necessary tools to feel secure, but because of Covid, they had to send everyone home,” Alice told Recode. “If you didn’t have their setup already, you had to use yours.”
“I’d argue that if patients knew this, they wouldn’t be so happy,” she added. “We aren’t as secure as we should be.”
Alice, who requested that neither she nor her employer be named for fear of retribution, may have reason to worry. Millions of workers have had to take their work home with them due to the pandemic and may continue to do so for months to come. Many are doing it without the security and privacy tools their offices had — or even, in cases like Alice’s, the equipment. The result: Hacking activity has more than doubled. One Australian company even blamed the sudden switch to remote work for a ransomware attack.
“In most scenarios, those protections that you had in place in the office don’t exist at home,” Mark Ostrowski, security evangelist at cybersecurity company Check Point, told Recode. “So that’s where you start talking about what are some things that I can do to protect myself?”
Cover the basics
There are a few easy and important things you should do in your work (and personal!) lives to help keep yourself safe. For example, make sure you’re using strong passwords and picking different passwords for every account. Use two-factor authentication everywhere it’s offered. And if you’re one of millions of people who will work from home a lot more as the pandemic stretches on for months, you should take a fresh look at everything.
Rizwan Virani, president of Alliant Cybersecurity, told Recode that with employees setting up several new accounts for various remote work services like file-sharing and virtual meetings, it’s especially important that they’re using strong, unique passwords. And that extends to your home equipment: If you’re using the default password that came with your router, change it. Hackers love default passwords.
“Take time to set that equipment up adequately,” Virani said. “Personalize it and secure it.”
Make sure you’re keeping current on software updates, too. These often come with security patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities. You can also set up your computer to update automatically so you get them as soon as possible.
Also, be wary of freeware. Virani says one of the riskiest things he sees in the small- to mid-market companies his company advises is their use of free services to handle sensitive information like file-sharing or teleconferences.
“The company that’s giving you something for free, they’re getting something out of it as well,” Virani said. “Really vet the partners you do business with and the tools that you use in your business. ... I think a lot of this free software out there, they put a lot of the company information at risk because you don’t know what they do with that information.”
You should also keep your work and personal life as separate as possible. Don’t use your work device for personal stuff and vice versa. That’s a lot harder to do when everything is done in your house, where your personal computer might be just a little bit more convenient in a given moment. It’s even harder if you have to use the same device for work and play. You might open your work computer up to security threats through whatever weird things you do or sites you visit in your personal time.
“I’m sure a lot of people have a distinction between what you do in the workplace and what you do on your own time,” Jeremy Tillman, president of Ghostery, told Recode. “When you blur those lines, and you mash those two things together. You make yourself a little bit more vulnerable in no small part because you’re simply increasing the amount of volume of your at-home digital activity.”
Try a VPN
A virtual private network (VPN) creates a private connection over a public network. Some VPNs allow remote workers to connect directly to their physical office’s server or intranet through their home internet connection. Think of these VPNs as secure tunnels between the two. Naturally, as more people work from home, VPN use has surged during the pandemic — but so have attacks on VPNs. So while VPNs are certainly useful, they’re not foolproof.
There are also consumer VPNs that anonymize all your internet activity by first routing it through a server and encrypting it before it goes out to the internet. If you spend a lot of time on the internet for work, making that activity as private as possible is generally a good idea.
“You do have this entire ecosystem of data brokers who have an extensive network of tracking technologies,” Tillman said. “You’re creating a digital footprint of your business activities and those can in turn be sold to anybody, really. ... It does take on a very different implication when it’s your work.”
A VPN hides your real IP address and anonymizes your internet activity from the websites you visit (as well as the trackers within them) and your internet service provider. To that end, you may also want to consider using tracker and ad blockers and limiting the cookies your browser accepts, if it doesn’t do this already.
VPNs also prevent your data from being intercepted by man-in-the-middle attacks. This is more of an issue when you’re using an unsecured public network like a coffee shop’s wifi — which many of us won’t be doing anytime soon, but we live in hope. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that a man-in-the-middle attack could happen to you over your home network, too. So when you’re sending important work-related data over that internet, it’s more important than ever that it’s encrypted.
One thing to watch out for if you’re considering getting a VPN: Make sure you’re using a reputable company, since you’re running all your internet traffic through its servers. Check out neutral and knowledgeable review sites like CNET and Wirecutter for their recommendations. You’ll probably want to avoid the many free VPN services out there, as many have been caught collecting and sharing user data or even containing malware. In some ways, these options are riskier than not having a VPN at all.
Consider buying some security software
This one should be pretty obvious, but it’s not always. If you’re using a Mac, you might think your device is immune to malware — and you’d be wrong. Windows devices are still more susceptible, but Macs aren’t impenetrable fortresses. Or maybe you just assumed your company’s IT department was taking care of protecting your company from cyberthreats. The average company’s office-based protections might include many good security measures like url filters that block access to suspicious links or sites known to contain malware, firewalls that shield the network from attacks, browser protections, not to mention antivirus software. But that protection might not extend to your living room.
“You’re using a personal computer or even just your work computer, and a lot of these things that are protecting you, unless the company is rerouting all your traffic back to your office [through a VPN], you start off on your own,” Ostrowski said.
While you might be okay with running the risk of getting a virus or malware on your home computer, it might not be worth the risk on your work equipment. You also may be putting your company at risk of a ransomware attack, and those can be devastating both in the money that has to be paid out and the time lost.
There are plenty of good antivirus programs and even browser extensions out there that will help protect your computer. Again, review sites like CNET and Wirecutter are good places to start if you’re looking for recommendations. Wirecutter’s take is to eschew the antivirus software suite for a combination of your operating system’s built-in protections and a few add-ons like browser extensions. Wirecutter does recommend that people who work with sensitive information or browse “riskier parts of the Internet” may want to seek “more intense measures.”
Whatever you choose, consider purchasing it from an official app store or from a company you otherwise know you can trust through impartial reviews so you’ll have extra confidence that it’s on the up-and-up. There are plenty of scams out there — especially these days — claiming to sell antivirus software that’s actually very much the opposite.
Watch out for phishing
So, here’s the thing: The vast majority of security breaches don’t come from bad actors hacking their way into your computer or home network. They come from you letting them in through phishing attacks — that is, emails or even text messages that appear to be from someone you know and trust, like your employer or the World Health Organization, that contain links to malicious sites or files containing malware to download. During the pandemic, the number of phishing attempts has grown exponentially.
You can prevent most, if not all, of these just by being careful about clicking on links or downloading files in emails, especially if they come from unknown senders. Sometimes phishing emails come from a known display name but an unknown email address, so check your email provider’s settings to make sure you’re able to see both the display name and actual email address of the sender. Also, be wary of any emails that ask you to provide any kind of personal information, like your Social Security number, account passwords, or bank information.
When in doubt, don’t click on those links and certainly don’t download attachments. The FTC has a nice little guide on how to recognize and protect yourself from phishing attacks. And if you think you have been the victim of a phishing attack, notify your employer as soon as possible and change any passwords or sensitive information you’ve given away.
Don’t forget about your phone ...
Our lives are in our phones, and that means our work lives are in those devices, too. But it’s easy to forget about or get sloppy with cybersecurity when it comes to your devices.
“People often overlook their phone because they think of it more as a personal device, not a work device,” Ostrowski said. “But we’ve also seen a huge uptick on mobile malware relative to Covid.”
Hackers may send text messages with malicious links, and for emails you open on your phone, it’s harder to tell if the sender names are spoofed or if links point to malicious sites. If you must, refrain from opening suspect emails until you’re on your work computer, assuming that machine has security measures in place.
“Mobile’s kind of the wild, wild West now, so if you’re not expecting something, be cautious,” Virani says.
... or your other connected devices
And while we’re on the subject of devices, take stock of what you’ve got connected to your home network. You might have a bunch of threat vectors hanging out there you didn’t even realize. The proliferation of “Internet of Things” devices means everything from sex toys to baby monitors could be connected to your home wifi. Not all of them take user privacy and security into account, leaving them — and you — with multiple vulnerabilities. And with people working from home, there may be more devices on your network than ever. Employers and employees alike may overlook wireless devices like printers and smart speakers, but anything connected to your wifi can present hackers with another way into a target’s computer or home network.
“Within the last two months, we’ve seen a 42 percent increase on the number of devices connected to an organization,” Yossi Appleboum, CEO of Sepio, a company that provides security from hardware-based attacks, told Recode. “In the last week, we’ve seen an even bigger jump because people started to realize it’s not going to be another week or two [of remote work], it’s going to be longer.”
Aside from limiting your network to only the essential devices (do you really need every device to be a smart device?), keep your software and firmware updated for patches to any newly discovered vulnerabilities. Again, don’t forget to change any default passwords. And make sure you’re buying connected devices from a manufacturer you know and trust. While no brand is perfect, cheap devices from obscure companies tend to have serious security flaws.
One other thing to consider: microphones and cameras. Many devices have them, and if they’re on while you’re working they could present a risk. For example, Alice, the benefits manager, told Recode that one of the few security measures her company did put in place was a rule to turn off all listening devices, like her Amazon Echo, which could accidentally pick her up discussing confidential patient information. The same could go for home security cameras that often start recording whenever sound or movement is detected.
Inevitably, you should think about the security of your home office in broad terms as well as these specifics. Don’t just do one of these suggestions to protect your work life. Try several! Security experts recommend a stack, or layers, of security so that you build some redundancies into the whole system. Even the best anti-malware program can’t guarantee you won’t get hacked, but having multiple safeguards in place means one might catch or prevent an attack or vulnerability the others missed.
If your employer has done its due diligence and provided you with the most secure home office setup possible, that’s great. But it might not be a bad idea to incorporate some or all of these suggestions for your personal computing needs as well. When it comes down to it, hackers are almost always after money, and they can get that from your workday as well as what you do after hours.
If you’re trapped inside with nothing else to do, you’re probably using the internet more than ever. Might as well do it as safely as you can.
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network. All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists.


vox--2020-05-26--LGBTQ people need queer spaces. The coronavirus has locked them out.

Emma thought that going off to Carleton College would be the beginning of a new life .
The 18-year-old trans girl had struggled to come out in high school after repeated outings to her strict Italian Catholic parents in New Jersey .
“ Those were difficult , ” she told Vox .
“ I like to say that I negotiated my way back into the closet ” to finish high school .
She thought college would become her salvation and chose the liberal arts school of about 2,000 students in Northfield , Minnesota , because of a visit , during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on-campus LGBTQ center .
While Emma ’ s dad accompanied her on the tour , he decided to spend a little time alone in town , at which point the admissions officer offered to bring her to the center .
“ Meeting some very happy , very out , very successful and well-situated trans people was very important to me , ” she said .
“ [ That ] ended up really selling me on the school.
” Once there , the center helped her explore and figure out a plan for coming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other queer and transgender students .
Things moved quickly for Emma , who said it only took her about a month to start asking people to refer to her with her new name and she/her pronouns .
Her parents accused her of getting taken in by a cult and threatened to stop paying her tuition .
During an extended Thanksgiving break , Emma ’ s parents dangled her tuition in front of her like a “ carrot on a string , ” so she lied and agreed to go back to school as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quickly went back on once she had returned to school .
However , the coronavirus pandemic threw a wrench into her plan once Carleton decided to move to online classes on March 18 .
The college freshman is now back home — and back in the closet — because of Covid-19 , cut off from the school LGBTQ center where she had met many of her friends and received emotional support .
Having a space where LGBTQ people can simply exist in their own skin and experience , without judgment or pressure to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heterosexual people , can be enormously beneficial .
But in recent months , queer and trans people have been feeling the loss of affirming LGBTQ spaces since cities and states began shutting down nonessential public spaces in mid-March .
Queer bars , LGBTQ centers , and affirming sexual and specialized health clinics are closed because of the pandemic .
Pride celebrations all over the country , and the world , have been canceled , often replaced by virtual online events .
At the moment , the safest physical place to be — at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virus — is at home , which for some queer folks is not a safe space at all , and for others serves as a callback to a previous time when LGBTQ people could not safely reveal themselves to be queer in public .
Like Emma , Max Meyer , a 25-year-old nonbinary grad student , has watched the trans support group they ran at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , the Campus Union for Trans Equality and Support ( CUTES ) , shut down .
In response , Meyer helped the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facilitate voice and text communications .
But like Emma , many of the group ’ s students don ’ t have a safe home environment in which to discuss their queer identity over a computer .
“ Meeting some very happy , very out , very successful and well-situated trans people was very important to me ” As a result , only about five people regularly participate in the group ’ s Discord meetings , a contrast to the up to 30 who would attend in-person meetings .
The pandemic “ raises barriers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get any kind of trans support , ” Meyer said .
It ’ s “ further isolating an already marginalized group away from resources , support , and people with similar experiences.
” Before the pandemic shut down the school , Meyer had been lobbying the university to allow preferred names on diplomas , but now those plans have been scuttled .
Meyer is also scared for next year ’ s crop of incoming trans students who may not be able to access the group ’ s resources .
Not having the CUTES @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effort it takes for somebody who might be unsure or questioning to reach out and get any kind of help , ” they said .
With universities planning how to handle the start of this year ’ s fall semester , there ’ s a growing concern over how best to support trans students like Emma and Max .
But the concern also applies to other critical areas of the LGBTQ community , from queer bars to sexual health spaces .
This pattern of queer people getting cut off from critical and affirming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country due to the pandemic .
Queer sobriety is difficult to manage during the pandemic Damian Jack is a 40-year-old cis gay black man living in New York City .
He ’ s also 20 months sober and in recovery .
He ’ s been attending regular Tuesday night sobriety support meetings at the Center , an LGBTQ community center in Manhattan ’ s West Village since October 2018 .
Jack said that before he started working toward recovery , he pushed everyone who loved him out of his life and felt utterly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Center , which he says are typically 99 percent attended by queer people , he ’ s been able to build a core group of friends and people he can lean on .
That support has been critical for his recovery .
“ My journey toward recovery , it has been long in getting here , ” he told Vox .
“ The community itself is really what helped me a lot .
And that was something that I looked everywhere else to find.
” According to 2015 data from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , lesbian , gay , and bisexual people were twice as likely ( 39.1 percent to 17.1 percent ) as heterosexual adults to have used illicit drugs within the past year .
Additionally , a 2013 US Census Bureau survey found that a higher percentage of LGBTQ adults between 18 and 64 reported past-year binge drinking , which was defined as consuming five or more alcoholic beverages in one sitting , than heterosexual adults .
But the Center closed its doors on March 13 .
The loss of that critical queer recovery space @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a few people off the wagon again .
“ There are a lot of people who are suffering because of the lack of connection , ” he said .
In response to the pandemic , Jack ’ s support group moved to regular Zoom meetings , which he said is a blessing and a curse .
On the one hand , participation in meetings has expanded thanks to connections to people outside the city through LGBTQ sobriety Facebook groups like “ Gay and Sober.
” Where once there were usually 20 to 100 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which day of the week it was held , Jack said there are about 60 people who show up on Zoom thanks to attendance from people who live too far away to attend Manhattan-based meetings .
It ’ s also allowed Jack some freedom to work later on Tuesday nights , because if he misses the New York meeting , he can now hop on Zoom to attend a Los Angeles-based meeting held later in the evening .
But without that personal connection , Jack said , it ’ s difficult for those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ journeys .
“ If I were to be getting sober now , it would probably be the hardest thing for me because of the fact that I needed the community around me .
That was something that I searched for my entire life , and I needed that , ” Jack said .
Jack said going to an LGBTQ recovery group was important for his journey to sobriety because he felt like he could be more vulnerable and authentic there compared to a cis het space .
“ I didn ’ t have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people when I was sober , just because I could always put on my , ‘ Oh , yeah , I ’ m a silly gay man ’ [ persona ] , ” he said .
But the group taught him how to interact with other gay people without constantly having a drink in his hand .
“ I was never around any gay people while I was sober ; this was my first time doing that .
I didn ’ t really have the necessary tools to communicate because I didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a community that I was so ashamed of.
” So Jack said he tries to take newbies on socially distanced walks in the city as often as possible .
“ A lot of people are relapsing , ” he said , thinking of one person from his group in particular .
“ He ’ s like , ‘ I don ’ t feel connected.
’ ” “ SARS-CoV-2 isn ’ t the only pathogen that we need to be mindful of right now ” For their own health , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women , especially , get tested regularly for sexually transmitted infections ( STIs ) .
In the 1980s , as it is now , it was important to have sexual health providers who would treat LGBTQ people without harassment , in order to contain a different deadly virus without a treatment or vaccine — HIV/AIDS .
Many of the testing protocols now being deployed to fight Covid-19 were first developed to fight the spread of HIV .
But while everyone is rightly focused on the disease caused by the novel coronavirus now , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Johnson , HIV project director at the Treatment Action Group , said it ’ s important that queer people not lose sight of their own sexual health needs .
“ When it comes to addressing sexual health services for marginalized communities , it ’ s always such a stigmatized topic , and we experience so much judgment and marginalization from health care systems that do not fully respect queer people , ” said Johnson .
“ Frequently , the way that we access those services is to go to specific clinics and community-oriented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re going to get compassionate care that is reflective of our communities and fully accepting of our whole selves.
” That has become more difficult , Johnson said , because of Covid-19 .
“ In this crisis scenario , underrepresented and historically marginalized communities have even greater dangers of being pushed to the margins and not having their needs addressed , ” he told Vox .
“ When it comes to addressing sexual health services for marginalized communities ... we experience so much judgment and marginalization from health care systems that do not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sexual health clinics are still open for emergency services , like prescriptions for post-exposure prophylactics , which helps prevent transmission of HIV after contact with an infected person , and Plan B contraceptives , routine STI screenings are not considered emergency services .
“ Particularly , within all of this disruption we ’ re seeing now , it ’ s difficult to get a picture of just how impacted queer communities have been in terms of accessing the unique health care services that we depend on to take care of our emotional , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health care , ” Johnson said .
Further complicating matters , he said , it ’ s hard to tell at this point how people are behaving sexually while under stay-at-home orders and other social distancing measures .
Additionally , most of the nation ’ s 2,200 contact tracers have shifted their focus away from STD tracking to focus on Covid-19 .
That could be a recipe for an STD outbreak that won ’ t be caught until regular testing can resume .
“ We ’ ve seen a substantive decline in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infections in New York City , which is probably more likely a product of a lack of testing , rather than an actual reduction in the number of those infections , ” said Johnson .
Johnson worries that once the Covid-19 pandemic is over and regular testing begins again , we could see a surge in the number of new STIs .
“ SARS-CoV-2 isn ’ t the only pathogen that we need to be mindful of right now , ” he said .
Gay bars have been central to the LGBTQ community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that connection away .
My favorite queer space , a queer women ’ s bar called A League of Her Own , nestled in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington , DC , has been closed since the city shut down all its bars and restaurants on March 30 .
The bar , affectionately known by its acronym “ ALOHO , ” was the place where my friends and I met and hung out semi-regularly , providing a welcoming home amid political attacks on LGBTQ people from the somewhat nearby White House .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ sense of loss of the community that found itself in the basement of its gay male sibling bar , Pitchers .
“ I definitely , personally have had [ some ] struggle days , ” said bar manager Jo McDaniel , who has tried to stay connected to her regulars through a weekly Instagram Live broadcast every Wednesday , which she films on site at ALOHO .
“ Just being in the space makes me nostalgic and sad and all over the place .
There ’ s a huge amount of loss.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closing at an alarming rate over the past decade .
ALOHO is one of only two lesbian bars in DC .
NBC News estimated in early May that there are just 16 queer women ’ s bars in all of the US , down from a peak of 200 in the 1980s .
Though ALOHO is financially safe for now — the bar ’ s owner has applied for a PPP loan — McDaniel thinks that several of the small handful of queer women ’ s bars may not survive the pandemic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ catering to men , DC Eagles and Secrets , have already announced they will not reopen once the city does .
In San Francisco , the city ’ s oldest gay bar , the Stud , which has been open for 55 years , announced this week that it will permanently close because of Covid-19 .
DC recently extended its order keeping bars closed through June 8 , but McDaniel hopes the bar ’ s regular patrons know that the staff are still around for support .
“ People would come in and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bartenders , like slide into the DMs , ” she said .
“ We ’ re all very public in terms of social media and we ’ re all still here.
” For now , the Instagram Live posts offer a brief chance for the bar ’ s community to reconnect .
“ What ’ s really cool is watching people who are viewing the Live chat with each other in the comments , ” she said .
“ That ’ s been the thing that ’ s really been awesome for me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other virtually.
” As queer and trans people continue to navigate the coronavirus pandemic , those who can are trying to help others stay connected .
Meanwhile , there are a lot of queer and trans people who have been put in unhealthy and potentially dangerous situations just to have a roof over their heads .
Losing queer spaces exacerbates the stresses many were already facing before this .
For now , Emma is staying in the closet while living at home with her parents , but she can ’ t help but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she had at school .
“ I had this lifeline at Carleton , where things were going to be better and I was going to go there and be myself and it was going to be really good , ” she said , thinking about her current situation .
“ [ There ’ s ] definitely despair .
I ’ m just awash in it.
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox @ @

Emma thought that going off to Carleton College would be the beginning of a new life. The 18-year-old trans girl had struggled to come out in high school after repeated outings to her conservative, Christian parents.
“Those were difficult,” she told Vox. “I like to say that I negotiated my way back into the closet” to finish high school.
While Emma’s dad accompanied her on a tour of the liberal arts school in Northfield, Minnesota, he veered off at one point to spend a little time alone in town. It was then Emma visited the on-campus LGBTQ center.
“Meeting some very happy, very out, very successful and well-situated trans people was very important to me,” she said. “That ended up really selling me on the school.”
Once at Carleton, the center helped her explore and figure out a plan for coming out more broadly, and connect with other queer and transgender students. Things moved quickly for Emma, who said it only took her about a month to start asking people to refer to her with her new name and she/her pronouns.
However, her parents accused her of getting taken in by a cult and, during an extended Thanksgiving break, threatened to stop paying her tuition. So she lied and agreed to go back to school as a male student — an agreement she quickly went back on once she had returned to school.
The coronavirus pandemic threw a wrench into her plan, though. With all classes now online, the college freshman is back home — and back in the closet — cut off from the school LGBTQ center where she had met many of her friends and received emotional support.
Having a space where LGBTQ people can simply exist in their own skin and experience, without judgment or pressure to hide for the benefit of cisgender, heterosexual people, can be enormously beneficial. But in recent months, queer and trans people have been feeling the loss of affirming LGBTQ spaces since cities and states began shutting down nonessential public spaces.
Queer bars, LGBTQ centers, and sexual and specialized health clinics are closed because of the pandemic. Pride celebrations all over the country, and the world, have been canceled, often replaced by virtual online events. At the moment, the safest physical place to be — at least in terms of avoiding contracting the virus — is at home, which for some queer folks is not a safe space at all, and for others serves as a callback to a previous time when LGBTQ people could not safely reveal themselves to be queer in public.
Like Emma, Max Meyer, a 25-year-old nonbinary grad student, has watched the trans support group they ran at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Campus Union for Trans Equality and Support (CUTES), shut down. In response, Meyer helped the group set up a Discord server to facilitate voice and text communications. But like Emma, many of the group’s students don’t have a safe home environment in which to discuss their queer identity over a computer.
“Meeting some very happy, very out, very successful and well-situated trans people was very important to me”
As a result, only about five people regularly participate in the group’s Discord meetings, a contrast to the up to 30 who would attend in-person meetings. The pandemic “raises barriers for being able to reach out and get any kind of trans support,” Meyer said. It’s “further isolating an already marginalized group away from resources, support, and people with similar experiences.”
With universities planning how to handle the start of this year’s fall semester, there’s a growing concern over how best to support trans students like Emma and Max. But the concern also applies to other critical areas of the LGBTQ community, from queer bars to sexual health spaces. This pattern of queer people getting cut off from critical and affirming resources is being repeated all over the country during an already-isolating time.
Queer sobriety is difficult to manage during the pandemic
Damian Jack is a 40-year-old cis gay black man living in New York City. He’s also 20 months sober and in recovery. He’s been attending regular Tuesday night sobriety support meetings at the Center, an LGBTQ community center in Manhattan’s West Village since October 2018.
Jack said that before he started working toward recovery, he pushed everyone who loved him out of his life and felt utterly alone. But through the support meetings at the Center, which he says are typically 99 percent attended by queer people, he’s been able to build a core group of friends and people he can lean on.
That support has been critical for his recovery. “My journey toward recovery, it has been long in getting here,” he told Vox. “The community itself is really what helped me a lot. And that was something that I looked everywhere else to find.”
According to 2015 data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people were twice as likely (39.1 percent to 17.1 percent) as heterosexual adults to have used illicit drugs within the past year. Additionally, a 2013 US Census Bureau survey found that a higher percentage of LGBTQ adults between ages 18 and 64 reported past-year binge drinking, which was defined as consuming five or more alcoholic beverages in one sitting, than heterosexual adults.
But the Center closed its doors on March 13. The loss of that critical queer recovery space, Jack said, has pushed quite a few people off the wagon again. “There are a lot of people who are suffering because of the lack of connection,” he said.
In response to the pandemic, Jack’s support group moved to regular Zoom meetings, which he said is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, participation in meetings has expanded thanks to connections to people outside the city through LGBTQ sobriety Facebook groups like “Gay and Sober.” Where once there were usually 20 to 100 people at the in-person meetings depending on which day of the week it was held, Jack said there are about 60 people who show up on Zoom thanks to attendance from people who live too far away to attend the Manhattan-based meetings.
It’s also allowed Jack some freedom to work later on Tuesday nights, because if he misses the New York meeting, he can now hop on Zoom to attend a Los Angeles-based meeting held later in the evening.
But without that personal connection, Jack said, it’s difficult for those who may be early in their recovery journeys. “If I were to be getting sober now, it would probably be the hardest thing for me because of the fact that I needed the community around me. That was something that I searched for my entire life, and I needed that,” Jack said.
Jack said going to an LGBTQ recovery group was important for his journey to sobriety because he felt like he could be more vulnerable and authentic there compared to a cis het space. “I didn’t have much of a problem interacting with straight people when I was sober, just because I could always put on my, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m a silly gay man’ [persona],” he said.
But the group taught him how to interact with other gay people without constantly having a drink in his hand. “I was never around any gay people while I was sober; this was my first time doing that. I didn’t really have the necessary tools to communicate because I didn’t know how to communicate with anyone in a community that I was so ashamed of.”
So Jack said he tries to take newbies on socially distanced walks in the city as often as possible. “A lot of people are relapsing,” he said, thinking of one person from his group in particular. “He’s like, ‘I don’t feel connected.’”
“SARS-CoV-2 isn’t the only pathogen that we need to be mindful of right now”
For their own health, it’s recommended that queer cis men and trans women, especially, get tested regularly for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In the 1980s, as it is now, it was important to have sexual health providers who would treat LGBTQ people without harassment, in order to contain a different deadly virus without a treatment or vaccine — HIV/AIDS.
Many of the testing protocols now being deployed to fight Covid-19 were first developed to fight the spread of HIV. But while everyone is rightly focused on the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, New York City-based sexual health advocate Jeremiah Johnson, HIV project director at the Treatment Action Group, said it’s important that queer people not lose sight of their own sexual health needs.
“When it comes to addressing sexual health services for marginalized communities, it’s always such a stigmatized topic, and we experience so much judgment and marginalization from health care systems that do not fully respect queer people,” said Johnson. “Frequently, the way that we access those services is to go to specific clinics and community-oriented clinics where we know that we’re going to get compassionate care that is reflective of our communities and fully accepting of our whole selves.”
That has become more difficult, Johnson said, because of Covid-19. “In this crisis scenario, underrepresented and historically marginalized communities have even greater dangers of being pushed to the margins and not having their needs addressed,” he told Vox.
“When it comes to addressing sexual health services for marginalized communities ... we experience so much judgment and marginalization from health care systems that do not fully respect queer people”
While many sexual health clinics are still open for emergency services, like prescriptions for post-exposure prophylactics, which helps prevent transmission of HIV after contact with an infected person, and Plan B contraceptives, routine STI screenings are not considered emergency services.
“Particularly, within all of this disruption we’re seeing now, it’s difficult to get a picture of just how impacted queer communities have been in terms of accessing the unique health care services that we depend on to take care of our emotional, spiritual, physical, sexual, and health care,” Johnson said.
Further complicating matters, he said, it’s hard to tell at this point how people are behaving sexually while under stay-at-home orders and other social distancing measures. Additionally, most of the nation’s 2,200 contact tracers have shifted their focus away from STI tracking to focus on Covid-19. That could be a recipe for an STI outbreak that won’t be caught until regular testing can resume.
“We’ve seen a substantive decline in the number of new diagnoses for sexually transmitted infections in New York City, which is probably more likely a product of a lack of testing, rather than an actual reduction in the number of those infections,” said Johnson.
Johnson worries that once the Covid-19 pandemic is over and regular testing begins again, we could see a surge in the number of new STIs. “SARS-CoV-2 isn’t the only pathogen that we need to be mindful of right now,” he said.
Gay bars have been central to the LGBTQ community since Stonewall. The pandemic has ripped that connection away.
My favorite queer space, a queer women’s bar called A League of Her Own, nestled in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC, has been closed since the city shut down all its bars and restaurants on March 30. The bar, affectionately known by its acronym “ALOHO,” was the place where my friends and I met and hung out semi-regularly, providing a welcoming home amid political attacks on LGBTQ people from the somewhat nearby White House.
The staff at ALOHO have experienced a sense of loss of the community that found itself in the basement of its gay male sibling bar, Pitchers. “I definitely, personally have had [some] struggle days,” said bar manager Jo McDaniel, who has tried to stay connected to her regulars through a weekly Instagram Live broadcast every Wednesday, which she films on-site at ALOHO. “Just being in the space makes me nostalgic and sad and all over the place. There’s a huge amount of loss.”
Queer women’s bars were already closing at an alarming rate over the past decade. ALOHO is one of only two lesbian bars in DC. NBC News estimated in early May that there are just 16 queer women’s bars in the US, down from a peak of 200 in the 1980s. Though ALOHO is financially safe for now — the bar’s owner has applied for a PPP loan — McDaniel thinks that several of the small handful of queer women’s bars may not survive the pandemic.
In fact, two DC gay bars catering to men, DC Eagles and Secrets, have already announced they will not reopen once the city does. In San Francisco, the city’s oldest gay bar, the Stud, which has been open for 55 years, announced this week that it will permanently close because of Covid-19.
DC recently extended its order keeping bars closed through June 8, but McDaniel hopes the bar’s regular patrons know that the staff is still around for support. “People would come in and sort of share their problems with their bartenders, like slide into the DMs,” she said. “We’re all very public in terms of social media and we’re all still here.”
For now, the Instagram Live posts offer a brief chance for the bar’s community to reconnect. “What’s really cool is watching people who are viewing the Live chat with each other in the comments,” she said. “That’s been the thing that’s really been awesome for me is to see people essentially see each other virtually.”
As queer and trans people continue to navigate the coronavirus pandemic, those who can are trying to help others stay connected. Meanwhile, there are a lot of queer and trans people who have been put in unhealthy and potentially dangerous situations just to have a roof over their heads. Losing queer spaces exacerbates the stresses many were already facing before this.
For now, Emma is staying in the closet while living at home with her parents, but she can’t help but pine for the escape she once thought she had at school. “I had this lifeline at Carleton, where things were going to be better and I was going to go there and be myself and it was going to be really good,” she said, thinking about her current situation. “[There’s] definitely despair. I’m just awash in it.”


vox--2020-05-26--Money Talks: The mother and daughter trying to keep their dance school afloat

Welcome to Money Talks , a series in which we interview people about their relationship with money , their relationship with each other , and how those relationships inform one another .
Linda Freyer founded the Freyer Academy of Ballet in Wilton , Connecticut , in 1988 ; she now co-owns the studio with her two daughters Heidi Freyer and Petra Freyer Heinzinger .
The business grosses around $ 134,000 annually , roughly $ 80,000 of which goes toward teacher pay .
Linda , Petra , and Heidi pay themselves when they teach ballet classes ; if there is net @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a given month , they also pay themselves a small bonus .
Heidi is currently on maternity leave , but 69-year-old Linda and 34-year-old Petra came together to discuss how the dance studio became a thriving business , how the coronavirus required them to adapt , and why they ’ re hoping their Paycheck Protection Program application gets approved as quickly as possible .
Linda : I had been dancing all my life , since I was 6 years old .
I decided to combine my two passions — dancing and teaching children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dance education at Adelphi University .
Then I graduated , met my husband , boom-boom-boom had three children under 5 .
My two oldest children were daughters , Heidi and Petra , and then my son Christian .
I kept up my dancing , even during my pregnancies , and I did some subbing for the local ballet teachers , but I knew I had to have my own studio .
I set up classes for my daughters and all of their friends — instant business , when you have kids — and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I hired additional teachers , I kept bringing on new students , and as I kept working with the children , I started getting interest from adults .
Mostly the mothers of the children , they ’ d come and drop their children off and look at the beautiful art and say , “ Gee , do you think you could … ” So we started teaching adults in the morning and children in the afternoon — and the adults wanted this art form , they wanted to learn classical ballet , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adults that started , who never had dance training as children , and with a lot of work and discipline I got them en pointe .
In toe shoes .
They never believed that could happen !
I have women who are still dancing with me 25 years later .
We have gone through deaths of parents , we have gone through breast cancer , we have gone through brain tumors , we have gone through divorces , we have gone through so many life-changing crises , and they find solace coming to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of my daughters working with me now .
My older daughter , Heidi , got a degree in dance and studied with the Alvin Ailey program .
Petra , my younger daughter ... well , I ’ ll let her tell it .
Petra : My story is a little different because I was working in finance before joining the studio .
I loved dancing , I continued dancing when I went to college , and then I got this job in finance .
I was there for a few years , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me — and one of the things I had always wanted to do was be a teacher .
I remember talking to my sister one day and saying , “ I need a change , I don ’ t know if I want to stay at this job anymore , ” and she said , half-jokingly , “ Do you want to work at the studio ?
” And I said “ Yes !
” I got certified in Pilates and in American Ballet Theatre teacher training , so now I teach and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ business .
Linda : The coronavirus rocked our boat .
We are such a community — I was teaching a class on the morning of 9/11 , and it was adults , and people were drifting in saying , “ Did you hear ?
Did you hear ?
” We were shell-shocked .
And I remember one dancer saying , “ Do you want to just cancel class ?
” We were speechless .
And one of our students looked at the group and said , “ Please teach us , Linda .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be the highlight of the next period of time.
” So I turned off the news and I taught that class , and I will tell you — the gals who were in that class still talk about it .
But this now — Wilton closed the public schools down on March 11 ; we immediately closed down because we felt like it was the right thing to do .
At first we were like , “ Okay .
This is only going to be a couple of weeks , so we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we realize that this isn ’ t going to go away .
This isn ’ t going to be a week off .
What are we going to do ?
We have students who have paid us through June !
Then we saw that all the schools were going online , so we said , “ Okay , we ’ re doing Zoom !
” Of course , for me , I was , “ What is Zoom ?
” But our teachers — these teachers are godsends — they figured out Zoom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ curriculum , video classes , and worksheets , and got the kids going .
Tremendous feedback from the moms : “ They so look forward to it , they love seeing the teachers and their friends.
” The adults we started a week later .
What I love about the adults is that , if the class starts at 6 pm , we sign on a half-hour early and gab .
“ How are you doing with Instacart ?
Did you get any meat this week ?
I can ’ t get any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do without chicken ?
” And then we start class , and what is amazing is that the teachers are able to give us corrections .
“ Linda , you aren ’ t working as hard as you do in the studio .
Can you get your leg up a little higher ?
” There we are , in our little spaces , sweating in front of a computer .
It ’ s a riot !
Then class is over and we gab for another 45 minutes !
I ’ ll tell you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to stop these Zoom classes .
In fact , when we started teaching Zoom classes , we sent an email out to all of our current and former students , no matter where they lived , and all of a sudden these people we hadn ’ t heard from in six , seven , eight years were in all of our classes .
It was unbelievable !
They ’ re part of the gang again .
Petra : We just sent out a survey , and the response was amazing .
They want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t want prerecorded classes ; they want them live .
So we ’ re adding more classes to the schedule .
Not everyone has the capability , I know that it isn ’ t as easy for someone who ’ s at home with three kids to join a live ballet class on Zoom , so we ’ re also trying to create some prerecorded classes so that we can serve everybody .
When we teach a ballet class , we think about everyone who ’ s going to be in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make it accessible for everybody , and now we ’ re doing the same thing .
If someone can ’ t make our class , we call them and ask how they ’ re doing and how we can help .
We also knew that we weren ’ t going to cut our teachers ’ pay [ teachers earn $ 40 to $ 50 per hour ] whether their classes ran or not .
It wasn ’ t even a question .
For our kids ’ classes , families pay by semester , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needed to pay our teachers for those classes through June .
Our adult classes are trickier because they ’ re drop-in , but Heidi and I decided that we would give all of our adult classes to our teachers .
We wouldn ’ t take any classes for ourselves , and we wouldn ’ t take any money for ourselves .
At first the shutdown didn ’ t affect our finances drastically , but that ’ s going to change .
May is usually one of our strongest months of the year , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us .
Linda : My husband ’ s in finance , and we knew about the Paycheck Protection Program right away .
There was no doubt that we were going to keep our teachers [ who are independent contractors ] on staff .
These teachers are invaluable to us .
If we don ’ t give them classes , if we don ’ t give them money , we can ’ t expect to snap our fingers in September and have them come back .
What if they get other jobs ?
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ m all over it .
I go to my bank , I fill out the forms , it ’ s not too bad , you have to supply a year ’ s worth of everything , a year ’ s worth of payroll , all these forms , but I get it done and off it goes .
I don ’ t hear anything , but there are millions of people doing this , and I ’ m not worried .
But we ’ re waiting and waiting and waiting , and my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the PPP ?
You ’ d better go on and follow up.
” So I called my bank and somebody answered .
They look up the application , they get back to me , they tell me that the application didn ’ t go through because we don ’ t have a business account with this bank .
Lo and behold , I Google other companies that can help , and one of them is Fundera [ an online loan broker ] .
I filled out their form , it was very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same , sent in all of the documentation , 50 pages of payroll and everything else , and now we ’ re waiting to hear .
It was a bit challenging , but we ’ re off and we ’ re waiting , and I ’ m sure it ’ s going to be fine .
Petra : We ’ re still paying our bills , but there ’ s less of the extra spending .
We have to be very cautious about every penny .
It ’ s been tough , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , so we ’ re using Instacart , which is more expensive than going to the store .
We ’ re paying rent on a studio that has sat empty since March 11 .
We ’ re still paying electric , though it has gone down a bit .
We don ’ t have any extras for the business that we can cut right now , so we ’ ve decided to pay ourselves less .
Our bills are paid , and our teachers are paid , and the three of us are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ talked to our landlord .
We ’ re in a little strip mall , and every one of us is a small business .
I said , “ I ’ ve applied for the PPP , I ’ m confident we ’ re going to get it , so if you could be a little flexible , give us a little time , we ’ re doing our best.
” If the PPP comes through , and I ’ m hoping it does , we ’ re going to be fine — and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paying ourselves again .
If you have a compelling story about how money comes into play in one of your relationships — whether with a partner , a friend , a sibling , a coworker — we want to hear about it !
Email alanna.okun @ vox.com and karen.turner @ vox.com with a little about yourself .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Welcome to Money Talks, a series in which we interview people about their relationship with money, their relationship with each other, and how those relationships inform one another.
Linda Freyer founded the Freyer Academy of Ballet in Wilton, Connecticut, in 1988; she now co-owns the studio with her two daughters Heidi Freyer and Petra Freyer Heinzinger. The business grosses around $134,000 annually, roughly $80,000 of which goes toward teacher pay. Linda, Petra, and Heidi pay themselves when they teach ballet classes; if there is net income left over at the end of a given month, they also pay themselves a small bonus.
Heidi is currently on maternity leave, but 69-year-old Linda and 34-year-old Petra came together to discuss how the dance studio became a thriving business, how the coronavirus required them to adapt, and why they’re hoping their Paycheck Protection Program application gets approved as quickly as possible.
Linda: I had been dancing all my life, since I was 6 years old. I decided to combine my two passions — dancing and teaching children — so I got a degree in dance education at Adelphi University. Then I graduated, met my husband, boom-boom-boom had three children under 5. My two oldest children were daughters, Heidi and Petra, and then my son Christian.
I kept up my dancing, even during my pregnancies, and I did some subbing for the local ballet teachers, but I knew I had to have my own studio. I set up classes for my daughters and all of their friends — instant business, when you have kids — and the business grew and grew and grew. I hired additional teachers, I kept bringing on new students, and as I kept working with the children, I started getting interest from adults. Mostly the mothers of the children, they’d come and drop their children off and look at the beautiful art and say, “Gee, do you think you could …”
So we started teaching adults in the morning and children in the afternoon — and the adults wanted this art form, they wanted to learn classical ballet, and they became passionate. I have adults that started, who never had dance training as children, and with a lot of work and discipline I got them en pointe. In toe shoes. They never believed that could happen! I have women who are still dancing with me 25 years later. We have gone through deaths of parents, we have gone through breast cancer, we have gone through brain tumors, we have gone through divorces, we have gone through so many life-changing crises, and they find solace coming to this ballet class.
I have both of my daughters working with me now. My older daughter, Heidi, got a degree in dance and studied with the Alvin Ailey program. Petra, my younger daughter ... well, I’ll let her tell it.
Petra: My story is a little different because I was working in finance before joining the studio. I loved dancing, I continued dancing when I went to college, and then I got this job in finance. I was there for a few years, but I knew it wasn’t for me — and one of the things I had always wanted to do was be a teacher.
I remember talking to my sister one day and saying, “I need a change, I don’t know if I want to stay at this job anymore,” and she said, half-jokingly, “Do you want to work at the studio?” And I said “Yes!” I got certified in Pilates and in American Ballet Theatre teacher training, so now I teach and I handle the finance end of the business.
Linda: The coronavirus rocked our boat. We are such a community — I was teaching a class on the morning of 9/11, and it was adults, and people were drifting in saying, “Did you hear? Did you hear?” We were shell-shocked. And I remember one dancer saying, “Do you want to just cancel class?” We were speechless. And one of our students looked at the group and said, “Please teach us, Linda. I have a funny feeling this class will be the highlight of the next period of time.” So I turned off the news and I taught that class, and I will tell you — the gals who were in that class still talk about it.
But this now — Wilton closed the public schools down on March 11; we immediately closed down because we felt like it was the right thing to do. At first we were like, “Okay. This is only going to be a couple of weeks, so we’ll take a break.” Then we realize that this isn’t going to go away. This isn’t going to be a week off. What are we going to do? We have students who have paid us through June!
Then we saw that all the schools were going online, so we said, “Okay, we’re doing Zoom!” Of course, for me, I was, “What is Zoom?” But our teachers — these teachers are godsends — they figured out Zoom, one-two-three, and we created a curriculum, video classes, and worksheets, and got the kids going. Tremendous feedback from the moms: “They so look forward to it, they love seeing the teachers and their friends.”
The adults, we started a week later. What I love about the adults is that, if the class starts at 6 pm, we sign on a half-hour early and gab. “How are you doing with Instacart? Did you get any meat this week? I can’t get any chicken! What am I going to do without chicken?” And then we start class, and what is amazing is that the teachers are able to give us corrections. “Linda, you aren’t working as hard as you do in the studio. Can you get your leg up a little higher?” There we are, in our little spaces, sweating in front of a computer. It’s a riot! Then class is over and we gab for another 45 minutes!
I’ll tell you right now: We are not going to stop these Zoom classes. In fact, when we started teaching Zoom classes, we sent an email out to all of our current and former students, no matter where they lived, and all of a sudden these people we hadn’t heard from in six, seven, eight years were in all of our classes. It was unbelievable! They’re part of the gang again.
Petra: We just sent out a survey, and the response was amazing. They want more classes on Zoom, and they don’t want prerecorded classes; they want them live. So we’re adding more classes to the schedule. Not everyone has the capability, I know that it isn’t as easy for someone who’s at home with three kids to join a live ballet class on Zoom, so we’re also trying to create some prerecorded classes so that we can serve everybody. When we teach a ballet class, we think about everyone who’s going to be in the ballet class and how we can make it accessible for everybody, and now we’re doing the same thing. If someone can’t make our class, we call them and ask how they’re doing and how we can help.
We also knew that we weren’t going to cut our teachers’ pay [teachers earn $40 to $50 per hour] whether their classes ran or not. It wasn’t even a question. For our kids’ classes, families pay by semester, so we already had the money we needed to pay our teachers for those classes through June. Our adult classes are trickier because they’re drop-in, but Heidi and I decided that we would give all of our adult classes to our teachers. We wouldn’t take any classes for ourselves, and we wouldn’t take any money for ourselves.
At first the shutdown didn’t affect our finances drastically, but that’s going to change. May is usually one of our strongest months of the year, and it’s going to hurt us.
Linda: My husband’s in finance, and we knew about the Paycheck Protection Program right away. There was no doubt that we were going to keep our teachers [who are independent contractors] on staff. These teachers are invaluable to us. If we don’t give them classes, if we don’t give them money, we can’t expect to snap our fingers in September and have them come back. What if they get other jobs?
So this Paycheck Protection Program, I’m all over it. I go to my bank, I fill out the forms, it’s not too bad, you have to supply a year’s worth of everything, a year’s worth of payroll, all these forms, but I get it done and off it goes. I don’t hear anything, but there are millions of people doing this, and I’m not worried. But we’re waiting and waiting and waiting, and my husband says, “Have you heard from the PPP? You’d better go on and follow up.” So I called my bank and somebody answered. They look up the application, they get back to me, they tell me that the application didn’t go through because we don’t have a business account with this bank.
Lo and behold, I Google other companies that can help, and one of them is Fundera [an online loan broker]. I filled out their form, it was very similar, they’re all the same, sent in all of the documentation, 50 pages of payroll and everything else, and now we’re waiting to hear.
It was a bit challenging, but we’re off and we’re waiting, and I’m sure it’s going to be fine.
Petra: We’re still paying our bills, but there’s less of the extra spending. We have to be very cautious about every penny. It’s been tough, because we’re trying to stay quarantined, so we’re using Instacart, which is more expensive than going to the store. We’re paying rent on a studio that has sat empty since March 11. We’re still paying electric, though it has gone down a bit. We don’t have any extras for the business that we can cut right now, so we’ve decided to pay ourselves less. Our bills are paid, and our teachers are paid, and the three of us are just coasting along.
Linda: I talked to our landlord. We’re in a little strip mall, and every one of us is a small business. I said, “I’ve applied for the PPP, I’m confident we’re going to get it, so if you could be a little flexible, give us a little time, we’re doing our best.”
If the PPP comes through, and I’m hoping it does, we’re going to be fine — and we’ll be able to start paying ourselves again.
If you have a compelling story about how money comes into play in one of your relationships — whether with a partner, a friend, a sibling, a coworker — we want to hear about it! Email alanna.okun@vox.com and karen.turner@vox.com with a little about yourself.