The multinational investment bank Citigroup is being sued by a gay man who claims he was demoted and discriminated against because of his sexual orientation.
The allegations by gay banker Thomas Krauss appear to counter Citigroup’s proud ranking as the most LGBT-inclusive financial services employer in the Stonewall Top 100.
Krauss joined the firm in 2010 and until recently led the firm’s capital introduction group for the Americas, Bloomberg reported.
He says he was targeted when he uncovered complaints of sexual harassment made against a new hire on his team, Deutsche Bank veteran Joseph Genovese.
Concerned that Genovese’s hiring could put Citigroup at risk of creating a “hostile and offensive work environment,” the suit says Krauss disclosed what he learned to senior Citigroup managers, who later withdrew the offer made to Genovese.
Although Krauss made the disclosure in confidence, he claims that several executives pushed to find out who “blew the whistle” on Genovese.
Once they learned it was Krauss, they allegedly began a campaign to punish him which eventually resulted in him being demoted.
Sadly the retaliation didn’t end there: despite receiving consistently positive evaluations, Krauss’s 2019 year-end review reflected a decrease in his leadership rating, which led to a pay reduction and “effectively destroyed his Citi career,” according to the complaint.
Krauss also alleges that he was denied a promotion to managing director because of his sexual orientation and for extra work he did on behalf of the company’s LGBT+ initiatives.
“It is easy to say you are not tolerant of discrimination but action, as is true with Citi, speaks louder than empty words,” said Krauss’s lawyer Daniel Kaiser in a statement Monday (3 August).
Rosa Diaz and her daughter were riding their motorcycles through rural Brawley, California, this year when they noticed a young person who appeared lost walking down the town’s main street. Diaz, who runs the only LGBTQ resource center for miles, sensed that the person might be in need of support.
She told her daughter to continue ahead, and Diaz made a U-turn.
“I asked her for her name,” and the person shared a male name, Diaz said in an interview. “I said, ‘Is there another name that you prefer?’ And that’s when she told me, ‘Well, I like Marilyn.'”
Diaz asked her whether she needed anything. “I need a new wig,” Diaz recalled Marilyn saying, gesturing to her worn clothes and hairpiece. Diaz gave her a business card, and Marilyn promised to call her after the weekend. Diaz’s team found her a wig, but the call never came.
“I didn’t know about Marilyn again until I was called regarding her death,” Diaz said.
Marilyn Cazares, 22, was found dead last month in an abandoned building in Brawley, about a half-hour north of the Mexican border. It has been a particularly deadly year for trans people — especially trans women of color. In 2019, 27 trans people died because of violence in total. In 2020, the number has already reached 25, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
In July alone, there were six violent deaths of trans and gender-nonconforming people across the U.S. — all but one of them trans Black or Latinx women — making it the deadliest month so far for this vulnerable community.
In the weeks following her encounter with Cazares in February, Diaz and her small team at the Imperial Valley LGBT Resource Centertried to reach out to Cazares. But they didn’t have her last name or any other information about her. Since her death, family and friends have spoken out about a young woman who lived her truth despite being bullied, ridiculed and violated by members of her community. Her family said they believe her death was a hate crime.
Brawley police are investigating Cazares’ death as a homicide, and Diaz said the community is hungry for answers.
Mindy Garcia, Cazares’ aunt, told NBC affiliate KYMA of Yuma, Arizona, which serves the Brawley area, that her niece was “very brave,” “very outspoken” and “very loved.”
“She was very beautiful,” Garcia added.
An openly hostile environment
Diaz, who grew up in Imperial County, where Brawley is located, came out as lesbian in her 40s. She describes the area as one that at best lacks LGBTQ resources and at worst is an environment that’s openly hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer residents.
She started a support group in 2014 after she had nowhere else to turn for a sense of community — and people began turning up in large numbers.
“People who came to this group were telling me, ‘You know, we appreciate what you’re doing, but I need counseling, I need hormone therapy, I need artificial insemination,'” she said. “I wasn’t prepared for all of that.”
But within six months, she had founded the Imperial Valley LGBT Resource Center. She said she has had to “tread lightly” for it to be viewed as a reputable community organization. It’s still the only LGBTQ center in Imperial County, which includes seven cities and about 180,000 residents.
“This is where I began to hear stories,” Diaz said of the center. “Those who were a little flamboyant and very comfortable with themselves … they were considered to be crazy, weird, even evil to some extent.”
She said she’s certain Cazares experienced that kind of treatment in her short lifetime.
“According to what I heard from the family — and because I know my community — Marilyn or anybody that could appear as if they’re one gender but identify as another gender are ridiculed,” she said. “They are seen as people with a mental illness, or, you know, people that are not right.”
She said LGBTQ people in Imperial Valley are pushed out of their families, their churches and their communities. She also said Cazares’ death marks the second high-profile homicide of a Latina trans woman from Brawley, after the murder of trans teen Gwen Araujo in 2002.
“The community is angry, of course, because we know that trans women are being killed all over,” Diaz said. “A lot of people believe that these things only happen in big cities, and here, it has hit home.”
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Diaz emphasized the need for LGBTQ education in communities like Brawley, where, she said, many residents are unaware of how their LGBTQ neighbors might struggle. Since her death, Cazares has been misgendered in the media — even by members of her family. But Diaz said her goal is to lead with education and information rather than attacks, especially for working-class people who are still learning.
“It’s a sad event,” Diaz said. “But it’s also an opportunity to really honor Marilyn and to let the family know: ‘We remember her like this, because this is who she was.'”
The Wild: Mark Titus, Director [62 minutes] Conversation with Mark Titus available
By suddenly dismantling safeguards the EPA had enacted to protect the salmon, water and people of Bristol Bay – the current political regime in the United States has unilaterally revived a mining corporation’s relentless pursuit to build North America’s largest open-pit copper mine – directly in the headwaters of the most prodigious wild sockeye salmon run in the world.
This urgent threat spurs filmmaker, Mark Titus back to the Alaskan wilderness – where the people of Bristol Bay and the world’s largest wild salmon runs face devastation if a massive copper mine is constructed. The Wild is a race against time.
Eye of the Pangolin: Bruce Young, Director [46 minutes + Filmmaker Conversation]
The search for an animal on the edge.
Due to an increasingly insatiable market in Asia, their pangolins have disappeared almost entirely. They are poached and killed for the supposed medicinal value of their scales and as a dining delicacy. Due to an increasingly insatiable market in Asia, their pangolins have disappeared almost entirely. They are poached and killed for the supposed medicinal value of their scales and as a dining delicacy.
Two award-winning South African filmmakers are on a mission to capture the African pangolin on film in the hope that if people come to know it, they will care enough to help end this horrific trade.
L’eau Est La Vie: From Standing Rock To The Swamp: Sam Vinal, Director [24 minutes]
On the banks of Louisiana, fierce Indigenous women are ready to fight—to stop the corporate blacksnake and preserve their way of life. They are risking everything to protect Mother Earth from the predatory fossil fuel companies that seek to poison it. Cherri Foytlin leads us on a no-nonsense journey of Indigenous resistance to the Bayou Bridge Pipeline (BBP) in the swamps of Louisiana.
This struggle is not over a singular pipeline. Rather, the pipeline is one piece of an ongoing legacy of colonization and slow genocide.
This collection of films from SDFF 2020 is part of our online series Docs Make House Calls.
Iowa students are turning to Instagram to call out teachers and peers for the routine homophobia, racism, misogyny and sexual harassment they experience everyday at school.
Submitting their stories anonymously via three Instagram accounts – dedicated to exposing anti-LGBT+ hate, racism and misogyny respectively – students have painted a damning picture of what it’s like to be a minority in the Iowa City community school district.
Their accounts reveal racist and homophobic slurs being used with abandon, students being shunned for their sexuality and rampant anti-LGBT+ bullying going unchecked by school authorities.
“Everyday I walk into school feeling like an outcast,” one writes. “I just wish students and at least teachers would see me as a normal human… But no, I can’t get through at least one week without being called a faggot or queer.”
“I had to deal with a lot of violent, homophobic bullying at Northwest Junior High,” says another. “When I was there none of the administration seemed to do anything about that despite witnessing it happen to me and other students.
“[The principal] is completely incompetent when it comes to protecting the kids that are the most vulnerable.”
Another writes simply: “Once, I wore my flag to school, and was told to burn it to the ground. That hurt.”
Black students reported being shown images of lynchings, hearing the N-word and having to endure classmates using Blackface. Multiple girls reported being sexualised, sexually harassed and even raped.
City High freshman Rachel Johnson started the @lgbtaticcsd account after seeing the stories of racism and sexual harassment in the school district on @blackaticcsd and @girlsaticcsd.
Since the account opened on July 22, Johnson and her friends have posted more than 100 stories from LGBT+ students across the district.
The submissions identify a variety of discrimination and bullying LGBT+ students face, but two patterns in particular stood out to her.
“One was just how many people talked about constantly hearing the F-slur and hearing ‘gay’ used as an insult,” Johnson told the Daily Iowan. “Just so many people talked about that and how it was just a normalised thing.”
The other trend she noticed was the name of particular teachers that recurred in multiple stories.
The posts have now gained so much traction they’ve caught the attention of teachers and administrators.
“It just makes your heart hurt for students that have either experienced those things or witnessed those things in our school community,” interim superintendent Matt Degner said.
“That’s definitely not what we want to be about, or the type of or the time of experience and climate we want to have for our students … As a human being and as an educator, I just feel bad and feel that we have a lot of work to do, and we have a lot of improvements to make so that students don’t have that experience in our schools.”
Three police officers in El Salvador have been sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder of a transgender woman in 2019.
“20 years in prison for three PNC (National Civil Police) officers for the murder of a member of the LGBTI community,” wrote El Salvador Attorney General Raúl Melara on his Twitter account after announcing the San Salvador court’s verdict against Carlos Rosales, Jaime Mendoza and Luis Avelar for kidnapping Camila Díaz Córdova on Jan. 31, 2019.
Díaz was found hours later with various injuries to her body. She died at Rosales National Hospital on Feb. 3, 2019.
Díaz’s friend, Virginia Flores, told the Washington Blade the U.S. deported her in 2017 after she migrated because of the danger the LGBTQ community — especially trans people — face in El Salvador.
“It is personally the least that I expected, but it is still no fair. It is half justice,” said Flores. “It was immediately clear that it was a hate crime, but I am pleased that they have sentenced these killers.”
The three police officers had their first court hearing on July 5, 2019, after they were charged with kidnapping and aggravated homicide as a hate crime. The judge did not admit the aggravating circumstance in the case.
“By not admitting the aggravating circumstance, the sentence did not reach 50 years in prison,” Mónica Linares, director of Aspidh Arcoiris Trans, a Salvadoran trans advocacy group, told the Blade. “Two previous hearings removed the aggravating circumstance because of lack of evidence.”
“It is regrettable that the reform to the criminal procedure code has yet to be applied and they do not consider hate crimes as such, since society in some way continues to validate violence against trans women,” Ambar Alfaro, founder of the Feminist Association of Trans People of El Salvador, told the Blade. “The judiciary sent a very clear message to the trans community and our struggles, but we obviously celebrate the fact that this is the first case to be prosecuted and that there is a conviction, although it was not what we believe is fair.”
Aspidh Arcoiris Trans in previous press conferences has said prosecutors have not charged anyone with a hate crime based on sexual orientation and gender identity since the provision was added to El Salvador’s Penal Code in 2015.
Aspidh Arcoiris Trans since 2017 has documented more than 20 murders of trans women between 16 and 32-years-old. Aspidh Arcoiris Trans also says a trans woman’s life expectancy in El Salvador is 33 years.
Although LGBTQ activists are partially satisfied with the results of Díaz’s case, there is still a fear these officers may appeal and their sentences will be reduced. They are also worried the officers could be released from prison early because of good behavior.
“As an institution, it is gratifying that at least they sentenced the murders of Camila Díaz Córdova, a trans woman, although it does no refer to the same prosecutor who used Camila’s name each day when referring to her,” said Linares.
The prosecutor always used Díaz’s birth name to refer to her.
“It is ugly to have a fight for the recognition of trans people’s identity, while a law doesn’t exist,” said Linares. “The authorities are those who are disrespecting (us).”
Díaz’s mother, Edith Córdova, in statements to Agencia Presentes, a Latin American press agency, said justice was done for her daughter because authorities captured those responsible and they received due process. Córdova nevertheless said the sentence will not take away the pain of her loss.
“My greatest feeling is that she will never be with me again, nobody will be able to erase that from my mind and my heart,” she said. “It is something very hard for me, it is difficult to accept.”
“Camila’s case will be the first crime against a trans woman that goes to trial and ends with a conviction,” Flores told the Blade. “This sets a precedent in El Salvador, a positive step in recognition of so many hate crimes that have gone unpunished.”
Queer Black American men suffer disproportionate levels of police discrimination, which in turn may contribute to increased risks of HIV, depression and anxiety, a study has found.
Research by Rutgers University, published in Social Science & Medicine, asked over 1,100 queer Black men to self-report any incidents of police discrimination, arrests and incarceration.
Between 2017 and 2018, some 43 per cent reported suffering discrimination at the hands of police and other law enforcement.
The results reinforced the notion that injustice is systemic and cyclical, with prior incarceration linked to later police and law enforcement discrimination, which in turn was linked to further arrest.
Lead study author Devin English, assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health, said that despite the evidence suggesting queer Black men in the US may face “some of the highest rates of policing and incarceration in the world… research examining the health impacts of the US carceral system rarely focuses on their experiences”.
“This study helps to address this gap,” he added.
Scott Greenberg, executive director of the LGBTQ Freedom Fund, was unsurprised by the research. He told PinkNews: “With Black people five times more likely to be imprisoned in the US and sexual minorities three-fold more likely to be incarcerated, Black LGBTQ people occupy a reconstitutive crossing of inequity in the criminal legal system.
“One startling demographic disparity aggravates the other, in vicious cycles of poverty and discrimination — in school, employment, policing, family, and society at large.”
Police discrimination may contribute to high levels of HIV among Black queer men.
Respondents were also quizzed on their metal health and sexual behaviour, including their willingness to take PrEP.
Researchers found that those who had suffered high levels of police discrimination were also likely to be at higher risk of HIV and psychological distress, and were more reluctant to take PrEP than their peers.
Those who had been incarcerated or recently arrested were also vulnerable to a higher HIV risk and were less willing to take PrEP.
The study’s authors suggest that police discrimination and incarceration may lead to “a conscious, and potentially adaptive, avoidance of institutions” with a history of discriminating against queer Black men.
Queer Black men are the group most at risk of acquiring HIV in the US. In 2018, they made up 26 per cent of all new HIV diagnoses and 37 per cent of new diagnoses among queer men. Black Americans make up 13 per cent of the US population.
Previous studies have suggested queer Black men are less likely to be on PrEP due to a mistrust of medical establishments, racism on the part of the prescribing physician, internalised and externalised stigma and ineffectivemessaging among other factors.
As Matthew Hodson, executive director of the UK-based Aidsmap, told PinkNews, it is these many and layered forms of discrimination that is perpetuating the epidemic of HIV among Black queer men, who are “at the intersection of two communities with high HIV rates”.
“Experience of mistreatment in healthcare services, racism, homophobia and a number of structural inequalities all intersect to deter black men who have sex with men from seeking out PrEP as a means of preventing HIV infection,” Hodson said.
“Although the US was the first country to introduce PrEP, take up among Black and Hispanic queer men has always lagged behind that of white men. A recent projection estimated that half of all US Black men who have sex with men were likely to acquire HIV in their lifetime, compared to one in four Hispanic men and nine per cent of white gay or bisexual men.”
He added: “The racial patterns of PrEP use we see in the US are also reflected in other western countries, including the UK, France, and Australia.”
Lisa Bowleg, professor of psychology at The George Washington University and co-author on the study, said the new findings “rightly directs attention to the structural intersectional discrimination that negatively affects Black sexual minority men’s health”.
“Despite experiencing a disproportionate burden of violence and discrimination at the hands of the police, and extremely high carceral rates, Black queer men are largely invisible in discourse on anti-Black policing and incarceration,” added co-author Joseph Carter, doctoral student of health psychology at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center.
“Our study provides empirical support for the intersectional health impacts of police and carceral discrimination that have been systemically perpetrated onto Black queer men.”
By Lisbet TellefsenTwo years ago, historian Amy Sueyoshi and I co-curated a special exhibition at the GLBT Historical Society Museum called “Angela Davis: OUTspoken,” documenting the journey of Black lesbian activist, scholar, political prisoner and public intellectual Angela Davis. A major success in 2018, the exhibition is being released as an online exhibitionon the society’s website on August 10.
A Moral Center At a moment when the concept of intersectionality is finally beginning to penetrate the mainstream, Angela Davis’s life is more relevant than ever. Davis was involved with Communist Party USA and the Black Power movement, and she’s still pushing the envelope around LGBTQ issues internationally, including places where it is not politically welcome. She is among the globe’s foremost philosophers on freedom and has always held the moral center. After a half-century, she has maintained the ability to communicate with remarkable clarity, even while engaging with complex issues of history and theory. Amy and I focused the exhibition around the most graphically impactful political posters of Davis from my personal archives. I came to build this collection through my longtime love of graphic poster design — the intersection of graphics, propaganda, politics and messaging remain fascinating to me. I collected posters as a child, and growing up in Berkeley, political graphics were ubiquitous. In fact, one of my earliest jobs in high school was at The Print Mint, which was “ground zero” for psychedelic posters and early alternative comics. It was there that I learned to run a printing press, and I went on to run a print shop for the next 30 years.
Repurposing Images Davis herself came to public prominence in the heyday of early reproductive graphics: after a full-page photograph of her appeared in Life magazine, artists around the world from Spain to the Soviet Union borrowed that image and repurposed it in different ways. Posters are very interesting media because while they are mass-produced, they still contain incredible original artwork. So when it came time to select posters for this exhibition, I chose those I felt were most impactful and represented significant ideas or events. The COVID-19 pandemic has, unfortunately scuttled plans for the largest exhibition of my career, which was scheduled to open at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University this year, and in 2021 would have gone to the Oakland Museum of California. In fact, these institutions scouted material that I first displayed at the GLBT Historical Society Museum. So it’s gratifying that “OUTspoken” will now get a new lease on life. Davis’s five decades of activism and the legions of scholars she has mentored add up to a legacy as deep as the ocean. She’s a voice that we need to center right now.
Lisbet Tellefesen has been an archivist, collector and event producer in the Bay Area for more than three decades.
Wednesday, August 56:00–7:30 p.m.Online programFree| $5.00 suggested donation A watershed moment in LGBTQ history that was almost forgotten, the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria riot was rediscovered by researchers in the GLBT Historical Society’s archives decades later. This event, co-presented with the Tenderloin Museum, will commemorate the riot with a screening of Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman’s 2005 documentary Screaming Queens. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring historians, activists and Compton’s veterans who will reflect on the history of this uprising in light of the ongoing problem of police violence and consider how communities can mobilize in response. The event will also include discussion of the play The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, a 2018 theater piece commissioned by the Tenderloin Museum. Register online here.
Tuesday, August 115:00–7:00 p.m.Online programFree | $5.00 suggested donation No More Silence is an ongoing project of the University of California, San Francisco’s Archives and Special Collections. The project extracts text from digitized archival materials related to HIV/AIDS — including documents from individuals, activist and community-support organizations, medical institutions and government agencies—for use in digital-humanities projects, with the aim of bridging the gap between the empirical, scientific study of the disease and the lived experience of people with AIDS. UCSF has organized a three-part workshop from August 12 to 14 that introduces participants to basic computer-programming skills to perform work in digital history (no prior experience is necessary). Participants will apply these skills to historical documents in the collections of the UCSF archives and the GLBT Historical Society.
The workshop opens on August 11 at this joint event organized by the GLBT Historical Society and the UCSF Archives that provides an overview of the No More Silence project. A panel discussion will discuss the ways that archives and digital-humanities initiatives can support community-history efforts related to gender and sexual orientation, illuminating digital tools and techniques that can further uncover hidden narratives in these histories. The event will also serve as an orientation to the workshop, which begins the following day. More information on the workshop and registration is available here. Register for the August 11 event online here.
Friday, August 216:00–8:00 p.m.Online programFree| $5.00 suggested donation This event is a screening and discussion of Arthur J. Bressan Jr.’s groundbreaking 1977 documentary Gay USA, which vibrantly captured Gay Freedom Day marches and celebrations in June 1977 across the country. The film was beautifully restored in 2018 by the University of California, Los Angeles Film and Television Archive in collaboration with Frameline and Outfest. Film historian Jenni Olson, who guided the restoration of the film, and LGBTQ historian Don Romesburg, who co-curated the GLBT Historical Society’s online exhibition about the first decade of San Francisco Pride, will lead a conversation and Q & A session after the screening. The discussion will focus on the importance of documenting the history of Pride and encourage audience members to engage in their own community-history efforts by sharing their Pride stories and helping to identify unknown individuals depicted in the film. Register online here.
Friday, August 2812:00–1:00 p.m.Online programFree The items we collect and produce over a lifetime tell a unique story about who we are, what we value and the impact we have had over the course of our lives. The first event in a two-part series offering estate-planning tools and resources, this workshop focuses on how to prepare personal papers, photographs, objects, ephemera and other materials for possible donation to archives. Archivists at the GLBT Historical Society will share recommendations on preparing and organizing your personal archival materials and provide an overview of the considerations involved in intellectual-property transfer, focusing on areas of particular concern for LGBTQ people. This event will include a Q & A session for those who register in advance. Learn more about this series and how to plan for the future here. Register online here.
Friday, September 412:00–1:00 p.m.Online programFree Careful financial planning ensures that our legacies live on by providing for our spouses, partners, children, relatives and friends. The second event in our two-part series offering estate-planning tools and resources for LGBTQ people, this workshop focuses on a range of financial-planning strategies and instruments. Attorney Alma Soongi Beck will discuss wills, living trusts, powers of attorney, marriage and domestic partnership considerations, document language for nonbinary and transgender people, property tax and co-ownership issues for unmarried couples who are not domestic partners. This event will include a Q & A session for those who register in advance. Learn more about this series and how to plan for the future here. Register online here.
Current Online Exhibitions
Performance, Protest & Politics: The Art of Gilbert BakerExamine how rainbow-flag creator Gilbert Baker blurred the lines between artist and activist, protester and performer. 50 Years of PrideThis photography exhibition documents the evolution of San Francisco Pride, the event that most powerfully represents and celebrates the Bay Area’s LGBTQ community, over the past half century. Labor of Love: The Birth of San Francisco PrideLearn how San Francisco forged the internationally renowned annual celebration that would come to be known as Pride. AIDS Treatment Activism: A Bay Area StoryExplore the rise of and growth of the treatment-activism movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s and 1990s.
LGBTQI History: A Sonoma County Timeline 1990s Next Wednesday, 8/5, 1:30 – 3pm is the last class of Summer session! We’ll be wrapping up the 1990s with a short powerpoint presentation followed by discussion. Hope you can make it! Still online via Zoom. Please contact me to enroll in this FREE class and receive a Zoom invite: [email protected]
The coronavirus pandemic has “robbed” LGBT+ youth – who already had a higher risk of mental-health problems – of support, the head of The Trevor Project has written.
Writing for the World Economic Forum, Amit Paley, the CEO of youth suicide-prevention organisation The Trevor Project, called for better data to understand the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on queer youth.
This follows a surge in the number of young LGBT+ people reaching out to The Trevor Project – the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organisation for young LGBT+ people – reaching double the usual numbers, at times.
A study by the organisation in May found that almost a third of trans and non-binary youth have attempted suicide in the past year. The pandemic will only have “exacerbated” pre-existing problems such as this, Paley wrote.
“Prior to the pandemic, LGBTQ youth have been found to be at significantly increased risk for depression, anxiety and attempting suicide,” he said.
Paley continued: “This correlates with the minority stress model, in which experiences of discrimination, rejection and violence are compounded, and can lead to negative mental health outcomes.
“Furthermore, young LGBTQ people already faced disproportionate rates of unemployment and homelessness. It is clear that the widespread anxiety, physical distancing and economic strain caused by COVID-19 have exacerbated these concerns, and created new, unique problems for many of them.”
Widespread school closures during the pandemic have affected all youth – but Paley argues that, given LGBT+ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide compared to their peers, “for many young LGBTQ people, school might be their one safe space and source of affirming community”.
“According to the Trevor Project’s research, young LGBTQ people who report having at least one accepting adult were 40 per cent less likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year. For some, that accepting person could be a teacher, coach or school counsellor.
“Another unintended consequence of physical distancing has been an increase in negative interactions. Many now find themselves confined to unsupportive home environments – which can result in increased anxiety and emotional pain, particularly among transgender and nonbinary youth, as they may need to hide their authentic selves to maintain safety.
“Among young LGBTQ people, only one-third experience parental acceptance, with an additional one-third experiencing parental rejection, and the final one-third not disclosing their LGBTQ identity until they are adults.”
Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) is leading a group of congressional lawmakers in formal comments against a proposed Trump administration rule allowing homeless shelters to refuse to accept transgender people consistent with their gender identity.
“It is absolutely shameful that in the midst of a pandemic and with a record number of Americans unemployed, when access to safe housing is more important than ever, the administration is focused on attacking the basic rights of transgender Americans,” Wexton said Thursday in a Zoom call with reporters.
Formally made public July 24 in the Federal Register, the proposed rule allows homeless shelters with single-sex facilities to place transgender people consistent with sex assigned at birth, rather than gender identity.
The proposal downplays the idea such actions would be discriminatory by setting up a referral system: Single-sex homeless shelters can send transgender people to other shelters, for these single-sex shelters to house transgender people according to sex assigned at birth.
As pointed out by Katelyn Burns at Vox, the proposed rule has detailed language to aid homeless shelters in determining whether an individual is transgender, such as making assumptions based on ‘height’, ‘facial hair’ and whether or not they have ‘an Adam’s apple.’
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) said on the conference call Carson years ago promised only delays in implementing an Obama-era rule against anti-transgender discrimination in homeless shelters, but then reversed himself by saying changes are coming, just being withheld, because members of Congress won’t like them.
“Secretary Carson’s words proved prophetic as under his and President Trump’s leadership, the administration moved to completely gut core housing discrimination protections, such as HUD’s disparate impacts and affirmative fair housing rules,” Quigley said. “That wasn’t enough. HUD has announced a new proposed rule that would enable shelters to discriminate against trans individuals based on shelter staff suspect an individual’s biological sex may be different from the way they self-identify.”
The proposed rule also disregards the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which determined anti-transgender discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, thus illegal in the workplace under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The rule has applications to all federal laws against sex discrimination, including the Fair Housing Act.
HUD justifies the legality of the proposed rule by asserting homeless shelters aren’t under the purview of the Fair Housing Act, although one legal expert said on the conference call that analysis is incorrect.
Sasha Buchert, senior attorney with Lambda Legal, said the proposed rule is “on very shaky legal ground” not just because of the Supreme Court decision, but also rulings from appellate courts, state and local measures against anti-trans discrimination and questions under the U.S. Constitution.
“If you spend five minutes going through the case law, courts apply a case-by-case analysis when deciding whether or not the Fair Housing Act applies to shelters,” Buchert said. “It’s a legal question as to whether they’re considered dwellings, and there are at least two circuit courts that have held that shelters are considered dwellings under the Fair Housing Act, and therefore subject to that, so their analysis is just wrong.”
The Trump administration has previously disregarded public comments against anti-transgender policy. HHS made final a rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act enabling health care providers and insurance companies to refuse service to transgender people despite more than 120,000 comments in opposition to the proposal.
Wexton, nonetheless, said public comments against HUD’s anti-trans rule are still important for other reasons.
“Public comment is always important because even if it’s ignored by the administration, it is something that can be pointed to in the lawsuit that will inevitably arise out of this rulemaking to not be allowed to go forward,” Wexton said. “It is important that the public be heard and make sure that people make their voices known that they object to this discriminatory rule.”
In terms of legislative actions against the proposed rule, Wexton cited legislation she sponsors called the Ensuring Equal Access to Shelter Act, which she said has passed the House Financial Services Committee, but has yet to come up for a floor vote.
Quigley said legislation that would defund the rule is also part of pending T-HUD appropriations legislation, but that hasn’t obtained a vote in the Senate, nor is it clear whether President Trump would sign it into law.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) said on the conference call the Equality Act — which has passed the House, but has been bottled up in the Senate — would also reaffirm discriminatory measures against transgender people in housing are illegal.
“Here we are, 430 days since the House passed the Equality Act, and this rule is just one more demonstration of why we need [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell to take it up and we need to push it through the Senate,” Scanlon said.
Publication of the proposed rule in the Federal Register officially started the clock for a 60-day comment period. Assuming the Trump administration sticks with the measure as proposed, it’s expected to be made final in the fall.