Koko Da Doll, one of the subjects of a forthcoming documentary on transgender women, was fatally shot in Atlanta this week, the film’s publicist said Friday. She was 35.
Cinetic Media, the publicity firm representing “Kokomo City,” which highlights the stories four Black transgender sex workers in New York City and Georgia, confirmed by email that Koko Da Doll was the transgender woman killed Tuesday in Atlanta.
Atlanta police and the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office have not publicly released the identity of the victim in Tuesday’s shooting.
The homicide is the third fatal shooting of a transgender woman in the city since the beginning of the year, the police department said in a statement Friday.
“While these individual incidents are not related, we are very aware of the epidemic-level violence that black and brown transgender women face in America,” the department said.
Tuesday’s shooting was reported at 10:42 p.m. at an address that corresponds to a shopping center, Atlanta police said. The victim was dead at the scene, police said.
Like the two other attacks this year on transgender women — one Jan. 9 that followed a dispute and one April 11 that also followed a dispute — the case was still under investigation, police said.
Police said there’s no evidence so far to suggest the victims were targeted because of their gender.
“Our investigators have not found any indication the victim was targeted for being transgender or a member of the LGBTQ+ community and these cases do not appear to be random acts of violence,” the department said.
GLAAD announced the death of Koko Da Doll, who was also known by the name Rasheeda Williams, on Friday and stated, “Williams should be alive today.”
“All transgender people deserve to live in safety and acceptance, beloved by their families, communities, and able to contribute to a world where all are more free,” the LGBTQ advocacy group said.
The documentary’s director, D. Smith, told Variety the killing was difficult for her to process.
“I created ‘Kokomo City’ because I wanted to show the fun, humanized, natural side of Black trans women,” she said. “But here we are again.”
During its January premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, “Kokomo City” received three major accolades, including the Sundance Audience Award.
Its public release date was not available.
Producer Harris Doran said in an Instagram post Thursday that he was grief stricken, especially because Koko Da Doll was advancing her life and finding some success as a rapper.
“This tragedy is just unbearable to process,” he said. “Koko was working so hard to get out. She is brilliant in the film and when you see it, you will fall in love with her just as we all have.”
Daniella Carter, one of the other subjects of the documentary, also posted a heartfelt statement on her Instagram page Thursday.
“I’m waiting here my arms wide open, tears running down my face,” she said, “Ready for you to return even if it takes forever my sister.”
City officials in Port St. Lucie, Florida, have canceled a planned Pride parade in anticipation of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signing into law a bill aimed at banning drag shows and, in the words of one state Republican, “erasing” the LGBTQ+ community. Ongoing festivities scheduled to take place this weekend will now be restricted to those who are 21 and older.
On Wednesday, Pride of the Treasure Coast, Inc., announced the move in a Facebook post, citing the current “political climate” in Florida.
Florida’s biggest LGBTQ+ organization says their state “may not be a safe place” anymore.
“After multiple meetings with city officials, it is with a heavy heart that Pride Alliance of the Treasure Coast has to announce that this weekend’s Pridefest will now be a 21 and older event,” the post read. “The city has decided that with the likelihood that the Governor will sign the latest bill into effect this evening, that we will need to be on the side of caution and has required us to make this necessary change.”
As of Friday morning, DeSantis has yet to sign the bill into law, though he is widely expected to.
“We are obviously upset and dishearten that it has come to this,” the post continued. “We also regret to announce that we will have to cancel our plans to bring back our beloved parade.”
Pride of the Treasure Coast added that they will be announcing “a family friendly Party in the Park where our youth can celebrate who they are.”
S.B. 1438, which was passed by the Florida House of Representatives in an 82–32 vote on Wednesday, prohibits government entities from issuing permits to organizations that may hold “adult live performances” in the presence of minors. The bill defines “adult live performance” as “any show, exhibition, or other presentation in front of a live audience which, in whole or in part, depicts or simulates nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or specific sexual activities… lewd conduct, or the lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts.”
While it does not specifically mention drag, Republican politicians across the country have increasingly targeted drag performances and family-friendly events like drag queen story hours, characterizing them as sexually explicit adult entertainment.
As The New Republic notes, the language of the Florida bill is so vaguely worded that Pride organizations across the state have expressed concerns that they could lose permits for their upcoming events a little over a month before the start of LGBTQ+ Pride Month in June. The American Civil Liberties Union has called the bill “an extreme governmental overreach of power.”
Friends and family are mourning Ashley Burton, a Black trans hairstylist who was murdered earlier this month.
Atlanta police reportedly found the 37-year-old’s body shortly after 4:30am on April 11 in the breezeway of her apartment complex. Investigators say she was shot inside her home before fleeing outside, where she collapsed. So far a suspect has not been named, but according to 11 Alive, police believe this was a domestic-related shooting.
One activist said she is even considering detransitioning for her own safety.
A friend told Fox 5that Burton, a South Carolina native who moved to Atlanta to pursue a career as a makeup artist and hairstylist, “was a very sweet young lady. She was very full of life really. It was always smiles and laughs with us whenever we work together.”
Burton’s mother and brother said they were unaware of any enemies she may have had and that they do not believe her gender identity had anything to do with her murder.
“Ashley was very loved all the way across the board, like from South Carolina to Atlanta,” Burton’s brother Patrick said. “The way my sibling moved in life, it was…take it or leave it. ‘This is how I am.’ You can respect it or neglect it, but Ashley put it out there and let that person know. It’s not going to be a secret.”
“I just want justice for my cousin,” she said. “I’m tired of all these incidents with transgender women just being pushed up under the rug. We are human beings.”
Burton is at least the ninth trans or nonbinary person to die by violence in the U.S. this year, according to Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents. The blog also notes that Burton was initially deadnamed and misgendered by both law enforcement and media following her death.
“I agree with Ashley’s cousin,” York said, “we are tired of the murders of trans women being pushed under the rug. They deserve justice, and their family, friends, and loved ones deserve closure. Local law enforcement must make solving the murders of trans people and protecting the community a priority. Our trans brothers and sisters deserve to live their lives without fear.”
Atlanta police are requesting that anyone with information about Burton’s murder call 404-577-8477.
North Dakota’s Republican Gov. Doug Burgum signed a bill into law that restricts transgender health care in the state, immediately making it a crime to give gender-affirming care to people younger than 18.
Gender-affirming care for minors has been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and is endorsed by major medical associations, but it has increasingly come under attack in many conservative legislatures, including North Dakota’s, where lawmakers have passed at least three bills targeting trans people this year.
The measure that Burgum signed Wednesday received veto-proof support from GOP lawmakers — though some Republicans did vote against it, alongside all Democrats.
In a statement released Thursday morning, Burgum said the law is “aimed at protecting children from the life-altering ramifications of gender reassignment surgeries” but he added that medical professionals have testified these surgeries have not been and are not being performed on minors in North Dakota.
He said the law still allows medication treatment for early onset puberty and other rare circumstances with parental consent, and minors currently receiving gender-affirming care will still be able to receive treatment.
“Going forward, thoughtful debate around these complex medical policies should demonstrate compassion and understanding for all North Dakota youth and their families,” he said.
The new law takes immediate effect and allows prosecutors to charge a health care provider with a felony — up to 10 years in prison and $20,000 in fines — for performing sex reassignment surgery on a minor.
It also enables prosecutors to charge a provider with a misdemeanor — up to 360 days in prison and $3,000 in fines — for giving gender-affirming medication, like puberty blockers or hormone therapy, to a trans child.
The American Civil Liberties Union of North Dakota denounced the new law as “a vast government overreach that undermines the fundamental rights of parents” and that violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process by singling out gender-affirming care for prohibition.
“By signing this bill into law, Gov. Burgum has put the government in charge of making vital decisions traditionally reserved for parents in North Dakota,” Cody Schuler, the group’s advocacy manager, said in a statement. “This ban won’t stop North Dakotans from being trans, but it will deny them critical support that helps struggling transgender youth grow up to become thriving transgender adults.”
Earlier this month, Burgum also signed a transgender athlete ban into law after it similarly passed the House and Senate with veto-proof majorities. In 2021, Burgum vetoed a bill that would have imposed a transgender athlete ban at that time, but House and Senate lawmakers did not have enough votes back then to override his veto.
North Dakota joins at least 13 other states that have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors.
Republican lawmakers across the country have advanced hundreds of measures aimed at nearly every facet of trans existence this year.
That includes bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors, restrictions on the types of restrooms transgender people can use, measures restricting classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, and bills that would out transgender students who want teachers to address them by the pronouns they use.
The Food and Drug Administration approved puberty blockers 30 years ago to treat children with precocious puberty — a condition that causes sexual development to begin much earlier than usual. Sex hormones — synthetic forms of estrogen and testosterone — were approved decades ago to treat hormone disorders or as birth control pills.
The FDA has not approved the medications specifically to treat gender-questioning youth, but they have been used for many years for that purpose “off label,” a common and accepted practice for many medical conditions. Doctors who treat transgender patients say those decades of use are proof the treatments are not experimental.
Research has shown that transgender youths and adults can be prone to suicidal behavior when forced to live as the sex they were assigned at birth. And critics of legislation to restrict gender-affirming care for children say it’s an attempt by conservatives to motivate their voting base.
Proponents of the measure have raised concerns about children changing their minds. Yet the evidence suggests detransitioning is not as common as opponents of transgender medical treatment for youth contend, though few studies exist and they have their weaknesses.
Missouri’s attorney general announced new restrictions Thursday on gender-affirming care for adults in addition to minors in a move that is believed to be a first nationally and has advocacy groups threatening to sue.
Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced plans to restrict health care for transgender people weeks ago, when protesters rallied at the Capitol to urge lawmakers to pass a law banning puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries for children. But the discussion was focused on minors, not adults.
Missouri Attorney General spokeswoman Madeline Sieren clarified in a statement later in the day that adults also would be covered.
“We have serious concerns about how children are being treated throughout the state, but we believe everyone is entitled to evidence-based medicine and adequate mental health care,” Sieren said.
The rule, which incudes a required 18 months of therapy before receiving gender-affirming health care, is set to take effect April 27 and expire next February.
The ACLU and Lambda Legal said in a joint statement that they would “take any necessary legal action” and urged those affected to call.
“The Attorney General’s so-called emergency rule is based on distorted, misleading, and debunked claims and ignores the overwhelming body of scientific and medical evidence supporting this care,” the statement said.
Robert Fischer, the spokesman for the LGBTQ rights groups PROMO, said he was not aware of similar restrictions elsewhere.
“He’s essentially attacking the entire trans community at this point,” Fischer said of Bailey. “It’s no longer just about children.”
The National Center for Transgender Equality called the order “deeply wrong” in a tweet, adding that “trans people of all ages across the state of Missouri deserve access to health care.”
The restrictions are in response to a former employee’s allegations of mistreatment at a transgender youth clinic in St. Louis run by Washington University. Bailey is investigating the center.
“My office is stepping up to protect children throughout the state while we investigate the allegations and how they are harming children,” Bailey said in a statement.
University spokespeople didn’t immediately respond to phone or email messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Moving forward, doctors who provide gender-affirming health care must first provide them a lengthy list of potential negative side effects and information warning against those treatments, according to a copy of the rule released Thursday.
Health care providers will need to ensure “any psychiatric symptoms from existing mental health comorbidities of the patient have been treated and resolved” before providing gender-affirming treatments under the new rule. Physicians also must screen patients for social media addiction, autism and signs of “social contagion with respect to the patient’s gender identity.”
The FDA approved puberty blockers 30 years ago to treat children with precocious puberty — a condition that causes sexual development to begin much earlier than usual. Sex hormones — synthetic forms of estrogen and testosterone — were approved decades ago to treat hormone disorders or as birth control pills.
The FDA has not approved the medications specifically to treat gender-questioning youth, but they have been used for many years for that purpose “off label,” a common and accepted practice for many medical conditions. Doctors who treat transgender patients say those decades of use are proof the treatments are not experimental.
Critics have raise concerns about children changing their minds. Yet the evidence suggests detransitioning is not as common as opponents of transgender medical treatment for youth contend, though few studies exist and they have their weaknesses.
Bailey’s rule was released the same day Missouri’s Republican-led House voted to ban access to transgender-related health care for minors.
The House voted 103-52 along mostly party lines in favor of the ban, although the bill’s passage seems uncertain in the Senate.
The House proposal is stricter than what was passed by the GOP-led Senate, where Democrats have more influence through the use of stall tactics.
Senators compromised to exempt care for minors whose treatment is already underway. The Senate bill also would expire after four years.
The House version includes no exceptions for current treatments and would remain in effect indefinitely.
Republican Senate leaders said it’s unlikely that the House version will make it through the Senate.
“We’ve already passed legislation on this issue out of the Senate,” Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden said. “We would expect the House to appreciate how hard and difficult it was and to take up our bill and pass it.”
Both the House and Senate proposals would ban inmates and prisoners from accessing gender-affirming surgeries and would end coverage of any gender-affirming treatments for Missouri patients on Medicaid, the federal health insurance program.
The Human Rights Campaign condemned the legislation in a statement, describing gender-affirming care as medically necessary.
At least 13 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah, South Dakota and West Virginia. Bills are awaiting action from governors in Kansas, Montana and North Dakota. Federal judges have blocked enforcement of laws in Alabama and Arkansas, and nearly two dozen states are considering bills this year to restrict or ban care.
House debate on the bill became emotional as some Democrats argued the ban on health care will hurt transgender children.
“You are erasing my grandchild,” said St. Louis Democratic Rep. Barbara Phifer, whose grandson is transgender.
Republican sponsor Rep. Brad Hudson, of Cape Fair, criticized Democrats for threatening to end political partnerships and friendships with Republicans over the bill.
Hudson said his bill “seeks to protect kids” and that it’s unfair that Democrats are describing it as hateful towards transgender children.
“A yes vote is a vote to protect kids from sex-change drugs and surgeries,” Hudson said.
A transgender woman in Montana received a judgement for over $66,500 in damages due to being denied gender-affirming healthcare from a government-provided insurance plan while employed by a county government. An administrative judge ruled in August 2020 that doing so violated the Montana Human Rights Act as well as the state and federal Constitutions, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and the Affordable Care Act.
Eleanor Andersen Maloney was a Senior Deputy County Attorney for the Yellowstone County Attorney’s Office beginning in February 2017, when the county explicitly recruited her. She had previously been with the state’s Attorney General’s Office. Maloney began transitioning and was subsequently diagnosed with gender dysphoria in August. When medical bills started to come in, the health plan providers began requesting their payments back for the services because they were “made in error.”
In April 2018, when she began to explore surgical gender-affirming care, she was told explicitly by the health plan that such services were to be categorically denied. Maloney notified the County and her superior of these “possibly discriminatory” practices. She even met with the County Commissioners to implore them to address the issue, but afterwards she never heard from then again.
Meanwhile, the plan providers began denying any bills related to her transition, including therapy services. So in May, she issued a resignation letter to the County.
“The only factor that led to the decision to seek employment elsewhere was the specific exclusion in the County’s health care plan as administered by [the health plan’s administrator] prohibiting coverage for ‘services or supplies related to sexual reassignment.’ It remains my position that this provision is contrary to the current status of the law, and is facially discriminatory,” she wrote. The judges would ultimately agree with her.
By leaving her job, Maloney not only lost out on a job she liked so much that she said, “absent the healthcare coverage, I’d go back in a heartbeat,” but she lost out on an expected pay increase of “the greater of 4,000.00 or 4.00% annually.” She had to move out of the city of Billings following the lost of income and the difficulty to find a job within town that didn’t explicitly reject gender-affirming healthcare — but since she had already started therapy and began receiving other care within Billings, she had to make trips that were about 480 miles round-trip on a regular basis.
According to the judgement, the hearing officer found that it was unlawful for both the health plans offered by the county to explicitly state “services or supplies related to sexual reassignment and reversal of such procedures” were to be denied.
While the sum she received is near two-thirds of $100,000, Maloney claimed that from “lost compensation and unpaid moving and medical vehicle expenses,” the discrimination cost her $131,879.96 — which doesn’t even include the moving and medical expenses she already paid, some of which she didn’t submit for as part of damages.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Montana, which represented her in the lawsuit, announced that Montana has become the latest state — in addition to “Twenty states, in addition to the District of Columbia, [that] have also issued guidance confirming that such exclusions are discriminatory and unlawful.” They also note the federal government no longer works with health plans with similar exclusions.
“Eleanor’s victory should send a message to policymakers and employers around the country that denying health care to transgender people is costly. Multiple ACLU clients who have sued over the denial of gender-affirming care have received compensation for the discrimination they faced,” said Malita Picasso, staff attorney with the ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Project — which assisted the ACLU of Montana in the case.
Picasso further stated, “No employee should have to tolerate being denied insurance coverage for their medically necessary health care solely because they are transgender. A person shouldn’t be forced to ask a court just to receive medically necessary health care, but this victory reaffirms that when trans people fight back, we win.”
Yellowstone County issued a statement saying they appreciate the ruling “clarifying” the issue for them.
Activist Zooey Zephyr, a trans woman now running for the Montana House of Representatives, said to NBC Montana, “Yes, we won this case, our community was validated and told, ‘You are protected from discrimination.’ But we need to make sure that those rights don’t get chipped away bit by bit by a legislature.”
Maloney declined further comment to media following the judgement, but said in the ACLU’s statement, “I’m grateful that the rights of LGBTQIA+ Montanans are vindicated today.”
According to the ruling, she has worked as an Assistant Public Defender at the Montana Public Defender’s Office (OPD) in Butte, Montana since March 2020.
Following a week in which three anti-LGBTQ+ bills became law in Kansas, Indiana, and Idaho, Out White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spotlighted the national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s recently launched LGBTQ+-specific service.
“I know that these political attacks can really take a toll on people’s mental health. So I want to say directly to LGBTQI+ kids – you are loved just as you are, just the way you are,” Jean-Pierre said during last Thursday’s White House press briefing. “And if you’re feeling overwhelmed, you call 988, The National Crisis Hotline and dial the number ‘3’ to talk to a counselor who has been specifically trained to support LGBTQI+ kids.”
Joe Biden’s position, she said, is that trans youth are “brave” and their medical decisions are not the government’s business.
Formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 988’s LGBTQ+-specific pilot program launched in September 2022 with an initial $7.2 million investment from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Last month, the program initiated 24/7 text and chat services, a move that Dr. Tia Dole, the chief lifeline officer at Vibrant Emotional Health, which administers the service, called “a major step forward.”
“This has been one of the worst weeks of 2023 so far in terms of anti-LGBTQ bills becoming law in states across America,” Jean-Pierre said on Thursday, noting new laws in Indiana and Idaho that ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.
“Just yesterday, the North Dakota Senate passed 10 anti-LGBT bills in just one day, a single-day record. In Kansas, the state legislature overrode Gov. Kelly’s veto to make Kansas the 20th state that has banned transgender kids from participating in school sports,” Jean-Pierre said.
“With the enactment of a new law in Indiana, 14 states have now banned gender-affirming health care, while some of these laws are currently blocked by courts. This is a dangerous, dangerous attack on the rights of parents to make the best health care decisions for their own kids.”
In March, a SAMHSA spokesperson told ABC News that between the LGBTQ+ pilot program’s launch in September and February 26, about 11% of chats and texts to 988 were for the LGBTQ+ line, while 6% calls were for the LGBTQ+-specific line.
“So far, the demand for the services provided by this pilot program have exceeded even our own expectations,” Dr. Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, head of SAMHSA, said at the time. “This response has shown us the value in providing a specialized service for LGBTQI+ young people, who we know are at higher risk for suicide.”
“Increasing access to LGBTQ-inclusive crisis care services is critical for addressing the public health crisis of youth suicide, as we know LGBTQ youth continue to face unique challenges, victimization, and barriers to care across all 50 states,” Kasey Suffredini, vice president of advocacy and government affairs for The Trevor Project, said last month. “When an LGBTQ young person reaches out for help in a moment of crisis — where every second counts — it’s vital that they are met with compassion and care from a trained counselor who understands them.”
During Thursday’s press conference, Jean-Pierre cited Human Rights Campaign statistics that more than 50% of transgender youth in the U.S. now live states where they have lost or are at risk of losing access to gender-affirming care.
“This is awful news, we need to be very clear about that,” the out press secretary said. “LGBTQI+ kids are resilient, they are fierce, they flight back, they’re not going anywhere, and we have their back. This administration has their back.”
A newly formed group launched two weeks ago seeks to help transgender Americans escape the United States. Nearly three dozen applicants have already sought assistance emigrating from the country or obtaining asylum.
In the wake of anti-LGBTQ+ laws popping up in red states nationwide, many transgender people are seeking ways to leave their homes to find a better life.
This is why TRANSport hopes to step in. It helps transgender people obtain legal documents, such as valid IDs and passports, to ultimately leave the United States.
The organization plans to transport at-risk transgender people abroad into more accepting societies, VICE reports.
About 30 young people have applied for assistance, the group’s founder, Rynn Azerial Willgohs, told the outlet.
“The demographic is typically people in their twenties, which is really surprising because they were initially the ones that were like, Oh, we need to stay and fight, we need to do this, we need to do that,’” Willgohs said.
Willgohs said that although TRANSport focuses primarily on trans people from North Dakota, Oklahoma residents have also contacted the organization. Oklahoma is currently working to ban gender-affirming care beyond those under 18.
“We’re getting a lot of traffic from Oklahoma,” Willgohs said. “So what I’ve done is I’ve created this list saying, ‘Okay, if this is what you want to do, this is what you need to do before you leave.’”
Clients are screened for ancestral links to a potential country that would make moving easier.
Clients can find assistance with changing their legal name, getting a verified medical diagnosis, and shipping medications from the U.S. to other countries.
A key focus for TRANSport is fundraising so that the organization can cover most of its clients’ costs. Willgohs says the whole process from beginning to end costs $2,000 per person.
But experts warn that seeking asylum in Europe will be challenging for transgender Americans because the rules dictate that one must be persecuted in one’s home country. Americans can move from red states to blue states or from states with draconian restrictions to those that do not.
Those states, though, tend to be more expensive and require resources that many transgender people trying to flee their homes don’t have, Willgohs told VICE.
The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking more than 450 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced throughout the country, from bills banning gender-affirming care for children and adults to laws that give teachers the authority to misgender trans students.
Republicans have associated gender-affirming care falsely with child abuse.
A federal appeals court just told a public school teacher that he does not have a constitutional right to misgender transgender students.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago, ruled that Brownsburg, Indiana orchestra teacher John Kluge could not use his religion as an excuse to violate the school’s policy on transgender students.
“School will be a more comfortable environment” without the conservative Christian teacher.
Kluge said that he was forced to resign in 2018 because he didn’t want to follow Brownsburg High School’s policy on transgender students. The policy said that trans students who submit written consent from a doctor and a parent must be referred to with their correct names and pronouns.
Kluge said that, as a Christian, he had to call those students by the names they were given at birth.
“I’m being compelled to encourage students in what I believe is something that’s a dangerous lifestyle,” he said at the time. “I’m fine to teach students with other beliefs, but the fact that teachers are being compelled to speak a certain way is the scary thing.”
Kluge said that he had an agreement with administrators to refer to all students by their last names and avoid pronouns entirely. He was supposed to say that he was trying to sound like a sports coach if anyone asked why he was using last names.
It turned out he couldn’t maintain that level of artifice in his speech and used first names anyway when he was talking to cisgender students. Trans students noticed that he avoided talking to them altogether.
According to one filing in the case, a trans student said Kluge’s behavior made him “feel alienated, upset, and dehumanized. It made me dread going to orchestra class each day.”
The principal met with Kluge and said that his behavior was “creating tension in the students and faculty.” He resigned but later changed his mind and sued the school district in 2019, claiming that his religious freedom was violated.
In 2021, a federal judge in Indianapolis ruled against him. Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson said that when he’s in the classroom he is no longer just a private citizen but a representative of his employer.
Kluge argued that he needed a reasonable accommodation to do his job, like how other employers might be required to adjust uniform rules for Jewish or Sikh employees. But for an accommodation to be reasonable, he would have to be able to adequately perform his job duties.
And Magnus-Stinson wasn’t convinced that the accommodation he requested – referring to students by their last names – was reasonable. She cited testimony from two trans students, Aidyn and Sam, who said Kluge’s behavior “made them feel targeted and uncomfortable.”
“Aidyn dreaded going to orchestra class and did not feel comfortable speaking to Mr. Kluge directly,” Magnus-Stinson wrote in her decision. “Other students and teachers complained that Mr. Kluge’s behavior was insulting or offensive and made his classroom environment unwelcoming and uncomfortable. Aidyn quit orchestra entirely.”
And now Kluge has lost his appeal.
“Kluge’s last-names-only practice stigmatized the transgender students and caused them demonstrable emotional harm,” Circuit Court Judge Ilana Rovner wrote in the court’s opinion.
One judge dissented because it was unclear whether the school tried to mitigate the negative impacts of the “last name only” policy. He also said that a jury should have decided the original case.
Kluge was represented by the anti-LGBTQ+ and Souther Poverty Law Center-designated hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). ADF lawyer Rory Gray said he’s not sure whether they will appeal.
“The Seventh Circuit’s ruling shows why the Supreme Court needs to fix the standard for accommodating religious employees,” he said.
Kluge initially tried to say that his objection to using the correct names and pronouns for trans students was that transgender people face a high suicide rate. A study at the University of Texas at Austin, though, showed that transgender youth who are able to go by their real names are less likely to have suicidal thoughts and to attempt suicide.
“He said that he doesn’t want to condone students going down a path where 20 percent of trans people try to kill themselves but I don’t think he recognizes the people like him and doing things like this are the reason that 20 percent of trans people try to kill themselves,” one of his former students, Aidyn Sucec, said.
“I know he thinks he’s doing the right thing but he’s not listening to the actual people this affects.”
Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) signed a ban on gender-affirming care into law – and the ACLU is already suing.
The law not only prohibits trans youth from both gender-affirming medication and surgery, but it also requires youth already undergoing care to detransition.
The bill’s sponsor said student-athletes physicals would be used to determine if girls are cisgender.
It wasn’t clear at first whether Holcomb would support the legislation. Earlier this week, he called the bill “clear as mud” and said he wanted to clarify some of the “vagueness” before deciding whether or not to sign
ACLU National and the ACLU of Indiana filed a lawsuit on behalf of four trans youths and a doctor who provides gender-affirming care.
The organization is arguing that the law is unconstitutional, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. It also says the law is a violation of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid Act by banning essential services that Medicaid would otherwise authorize and reimburse.
“The legislature did not ban the various treatments that are outlined,” Ken Falk, the ACLU of Indiana’s legal director, told the AP. “It only banned it for transgender persons.”
In a separate statement, Falk asserted that the law will cause “serious injuries” to trans youth.
Studies have indeed shown that gender-affirming care can significantly lower the risk of depression and suicide for trans youth. Additionally, gender-affirming care for both adolescents and adults has been endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and many other professional groups as necessary and frequently lifesaving for transgender individuals.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) also condemned Indiana’s law.
“Governor Holcomb’s decision to sign this gender-affirming care ban into law is about nothing more than prioritizing politics over the wellbeing of transgender youth in Indiana,” said HRC State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel Cathryn Oakley. “This law will deny critical, age-appropriate medical care to transgender youth, putting their health and wellbeing at risk. The transgender community is being subjected to a legislative onslaught in states across the country, and it is truly appalling that radical politicians in Indiana are joining in on this harmful campaign that will only make life more difficult for transgender youth and their loved ones.”
Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgment-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.