Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in Cameroon are all too aware of homophobic rhetoric and violent attacks against them. This has been highlighted once again in the outpouring of vitriol before a scheduled visit by Jean-Marc Berthon, the French ambassador for the Rights of LGBT+ Persons.
Berthon was due to visit Cameroon later last month for an event on gender and sexuality hosted by the French Institute in Yaoundé, the capital. Cameroon’s government officially registered its objection to the visit, and Foreign Minister Lejeune Mbella Mbella said in the media that the visit would contravene Cameroonian law, which forbids consensual same-sex relations.
The visit was then cancelled.
Since the visit was announced, many people have called for mob justice and violence against LGBT persons on social media. Some government and political officials, as well as public figures, referred to LGBT people as “against nature,” “an anomaly,” “vampire citizens,” “destructive of the family,” “destructive of the state,” or as using “satanic and demonic practices.” In addition to this online hatred, people perceived as LGBT live with constant threats of harassment and physical violence every day.
Tamu (not their real name), an LGBT activist living in Yaoundé, told me, “The situation is very tense. People are scared. Everywhere you go you hear: ‘We have to burn them all.’ … There are young [LGBT] people calling me from everywhere. They don’t know what to do.”
The foreign minister claimed that there are no LGBT people in Cameroon, which is patently false. LGBT groups exist in Cameroon and several even manage to work with the government on initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS. But Cameroon has a dismal track record on upholding the rights of LGBT people. Security forces have failed to protect LGBT people from violence and in some instances have been responsible for acts of violence, or complicit in them. The Cameroonian government should unequivocally condemn violence and incitement to violence against LGBT people, investigate such crimes against LGBT persons, and bring those responsible to justice.
When the U.S. Supreme Court revoked the national guarantee of abortion rights last year, there were warnings that the ruling would endanger other rights involving bodily autonomy. And indeed, it’s now being weaponized against gender-affirming care.
The ruling, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, isn’t the final word on the case; it simply lets the law go into force while the suit against it is heard. But it’s raising concern that other courts might buy the argument or, if federal appellate circuits disagree on the question, the issue of gender-affirming health care could be decided by the Supreme Court — where conservatives currently outnumber liberals by six to three. Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser raised this possibility in a recent article.
Representatives of LGBTQ+ organizations, however, say the jury is out, so to speak.
“There’s a high likelihood that these organization and states [behind the care bans] want to push this all the way to the Supreme Court,” Sarah Warbelow, vice president of legal at the Human Rights Campaign, tells The Advocate. Whether they’ll manage to do so, though, “is really hard to say,” she adds.
Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote the opinion placing a hold on the injunction against the Tennessee ban, and he mentioned the Dobbs ruling several times. “If a law restricting a medical procedure that applies only to women does not trigger heightened scrutiny, as in Dobbs, a law equally appliable to all minors, no matter their sex at birth, does not require such scrutiny either,” he wrote in one instance. When a court considers the constitutionality of a law, heightened scrutiny, also known as strict scrutiny, means that the government must prove it has a compelling interest behind the law and that the statute is tailored as narrowly as possible to achieve its goals.
But Judge Helene White, who dissented from Sutton’s ruling, pointed out that the Tennessee ban does treat minors differently based on their sex at birth. It bans gender-affirming procedures for minors who do not identify as the gender assigned at birth but allows them for those who do. “To illustrate, under the law, a person identified male at birth could receive testosterone therapy to conform to a male identity, but a person identified female at birth could not,” she wrote.
Until Sutton wrote his ruling, every federal court that had considered the constitutionality of these laws reached the conclusion that they discriminated based on sex, White observed. Such laws have been temporarily blocked (while cases are heard) in Alabama, Florida, Indiana, and Kentucky because federal judges believed that those who are challenging them are likely to prove such discrimination, and a judge in Arkansas has gone further by striking down that state’s law, the first ruling on such a law’s merits. In a suit in Oklahoma, the state and the challengers have agreed that the law will not be enforced while the case proceeds.
Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, says this shows the Sixth Circuit’s ruling is off base. “The states have been citing Dobbsall along, and the courts have rejected that,” Levi says.
On whether there will be a rash of such rulings or the Supreme Court will eventually get involved, she says, “I think it’s really premature to speculate at this point.” GLAD is representing clients challenging the Alabama law and the Florida one; the Alabama trial is scheduled for next spring, while there’s not a definite timetable for the Florida case.
HRC is co-counsel in the Alabama and Florida cases, plus one in Georgia that’s in a very early stage. The Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ+ legal nonprofit that has won cases at the Supreme Court, including the recent “right to discriminate” case out of Colorado, is working with Alabama officials to defend that state’s ban, and it’s pushing the use of Dobbs, Warbelow notes.
Ultraconservative Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Dobbs majority opinion, was very specific that it applied only to abortion, although that didn’t keep fellow conservatives like Justice Clarence Thomas from saying the court should use the same reasoning to strike down marriage equality and other rights. But still, in cases involving gender-affirming care, judges across the political spectrum are blocking or striking down the bans, Warbelow observes.
Ash Orr, press relations manager at the National Center for Transgender Equality, agrees that it’s “premature to form a definitive opinion” about what will happen with the gender-affirming care cases. But the situation bears watching, he says.
If the reasoning used in the Sixth Circuit decision continues to be applied, Orr says, “it could result in significant regression regarding numerous rights.” Beyond the question of whether these bans discriminate, courts must consider whether rights are “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and traditions,” he points out. Judge Sutton asserted that those challenging the Tennessee law had not demonstrated that the right to new medical treatments was deeply rooted.
As various courts rule on the constitutionality of gender-affirming care bans, “it is probable that they will eventually necessitate a comprehensive review by the Supreme Court,” Orr adds. One factor in whether the high court takes a case is whether there is a so-called circuit split — that is, appeals courts in different circuits have ruled differently on an issue.
In the meantime, there are things that not only lawyers and organizations but ordinary citizens can do, beyond supporting the organizations bringing these cases. Warbelow recommends becoming informed about what gender-affirming care for youth consists of and then sharing that information with others.
“Have that conversation with the people in your life,” she says. “We need more people who can spread the word.”
July 22 at 12:00 Noon at the Guerneville Library we will have Storytiume with the Sisters. This will be interactive fun for kids of all ages!
August 8 Give Back Tuesday 6:00 – 8:00 pm at the Rainbow Cattle Company for the Russian River Grants Program
August 13 from 2:00 – 7:00pm the Russian River Sisters will be
OUT AT THE FAIR! See you at the Sonoma County Fair!
August 22 Give Back Tuesday 6:00 – 8:00 pm at the Rainbow Cattle Company for the Cold Hands, Warm Hearts Program.
September 5 Give Back Tuesday 6:00 – 8:00 pm at the Rainbow Cattle Company for the NOTA Scholarship Program
Keep your eyes out, you never know when the Russian River Sisters will pop up!
BINGO News
The 2023 season of bingo is SOLD OUT. If you would like to get on the waitlist for any of our remaining 2023 bingo games, please go to the eventbrite.com collection page https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/2023-russian-river-sisters-bingo-1426669 Then you need to go to get tickets, then join waitlist. You must add as many times as you need tickets as the waitlist is one ticket at a time. No Guarantees.
2024 Bingo Tickets will be on sale on December 1, 2023
In June, the Japanese Diet, the national legislature of Japan, passed its first-ever law on sexual orientation and gender identity. It seeks to “promote understanding” and avoid “unfair discrimination.” The law states that “all citizens, irrespective of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, are to be respected as individuals with inherent and inviolable fundamental human rights.” While a good start, the measure falls short of the comprehensive nondiscrimination legislation called for by a number of Japanese rights groups.
The legislation obligates the national government to draw up a basic implementation plan to promote understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, and to protect them from “unfair discrimination.” It also stipulates that government entities, businesses, and schools “need to strive” to take similar action.
A first draft of the bill had to be shelved following opposition from conservative members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which included prejudiced statements and political posturing. But in early 2023, LGBT rights groups united to revive the bill, launching a new Group of Seven (G7) engagement group, Pride7, to establish a dialogue between civic groups and G7 governments about LGBT-related policies. With encouragement from peer G7 nations, the LDP submitted a revised bill to the Diet on May 18, a day before the G7 summit began in Hiroshima. But again, facing opposition from lawmakers, the bill was subject to delays and revisions.
The long journey for equality for Japan’s LGBT community is not over. This new law, while advancing the rights of LGBT people, falls well short of ensuring them equal protection from discrimination.
A transgender male wheelchair user was shot five times with a pellet gun during an anti-LGBTQ+ assault. He’s now sharing his story to highlight both the attack and the poor hospital care he allegedly received afterward. He also hopes to encourage other trans people to speak out about their own experiences.
Around midnight on Saturday, July 15, Andrew Jonathan Blake-Newton of Pontiac, Michigan rode in his power wheelchair to get groceries at a store about two blocks away from his home. During his trip, a person in a small beige 4-door car began shooting him and then drove away while laughing and calling him a “tra**y fa**ot.”
Several bones in his face were fractured in the attack.
The pellets were embedded in his right wrist, right side, right leg, and left leg, with blood leaking out from each small wound. Blake-Newton — who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair full-time — immediately contacted his husband, who called an ambulance.
But Blake-Newton said the care staff at St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital provided inadequate care.
“They got the pellets out, caused me severe pain by taking their sweet time doing X-rays while I sobbed on the metal table trapped on my back,” he stated in a public Facebook video.
He worried that the puncture wounds could become seriously infected but said the hospital staff’s wound dressings all came off in under 15 minutes after they were applied. He also said that hospital workers refused to provide “anti-infection and wound care supplies,” and he had no way to get home since the ambulance had no space to accommodate his wheelchair.
Though he notified the police, he didn’t get a plate number and couldn’t describe the assailant since he has facial blindness, so he’s doubtful that anything will be done.
The Human Rights Campaign, which tracks each year’s anti-trans murders, has said that transphobic assaults have increased over the past few years as conservatives have increasingly accused trans, queer, and allied individuals of “grooming,” “sexualizing,” and “mutilating” children. The true number of anti-trans assaults in the U.S. is difficult to quantify since some police and media reports don’t record trans survivors’ gender identities, and some trans survivors don’t report attacks for fear of police mistreatment.
Nonetheless, Blake-Newton wrote, “No trans person should have to fear leaving their home… My hope is that my story will spread and that one trans voice, one trans experience will encourage other trans voices to join until we finally become loud enough to be heard and that real change will be made.”
As a 7-year-old, Adelyn Vigil believed death was the way to be able to live as a girl.
Adelyn’s nightly prayer to God was to become a bird to be able to fly, then die and then be made into a girl.
“I was crying and I told her: ‘Oh, but mom, it’s going to take a long time, because first I have to die as a boy and then as a bird and then be a girl,” Adelyn, 14, told Noticias Telemundo about the conversation with her mother years earlier.
As a child “I knew I was in the wrong body,” Adelyn Vigil said, once telling her mom she prayed she would she would “die as a boy” so she could become a girl. Courtesy Vigil family
“The only thing I could say without crying was: ‘You know you don’t have to die,’” the trans teen’s mother, Adamalis Vigil, said in an interview, recalling the conversation. “I said, ‘If that’s what’s going to make you happy, you can do that. You don’t have to die.’”
Adelyn usually speaks with a smile, except when she starts talking about what makes her afraid: The estrogen hormone treatment she started a year ago is running out and she was left without a doctor after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed state Senate Bill14 at the beginning of June. The law bans medical professionals from prescribing drugs to block puberty, hormonal therapies and gender transition surgeries on minors under 18.
The law “is going to be the toughest battle we’re going to face,” Adelyn’s mother said. The advice of a team of specialists and specialized medical care “is what has kept my daughter alive,” she added.
Adelyn is one of nearly 30,000 people ages 13 to 17 who identify as transgender in Texas, according to data from the Williams Institute at the University of California, UCLA. It’s the largest young transgender population of the nearly 20 conservative states that have passed similar laws in recent months.
Adelyn, who wants to be an attorney like Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) in “Legally Blonde” when she grows up, wants to move to Washington, D.C., work in human rights and someday be a mom.
Trans teen Adelyn Vigil, who’s turning 15 on July 24, in the quinceañera dress she bought in Mexico and will wear at her birthday party. Guidalty Photography
“It’s crazy what these legislators are trying to do, someone has to stop them,” Adelyn said about the state bill.
At least 64 bills against trans people have been introduced in Texas and four have passed, according to a count by Trans Legislation Tracker, an advocacy group that tracks these pieces of legislation around the country.
Those who promote and support laws banning gender-affirming care for minors, including puberty blockers and hormones, believe they are too young to make these kinds of decisions about their bodies and that the care is too experimental.
Adelyn spoke to Noticias Telemundo before her 15th birthday on July 24. She was emotional when talking about her quinceañera party — a tradition in Latino families when a young woman turns 15 — and she was excited about her dress, which had crystals, sequins, a bow and a layer of tulle. She bought it in Mexico, where her family is from.
According to Adamalis, the first signs regarding her child’s gender identity came early, when Adelyn was 3 years old. One day, Adamalis was sorting clothes in her closet and Adelyn saw a fuchsia party dress with crystals and asked her mom not to donate it. “When I grow up,” Adelyn told her mom, “I’m going to be a woman and I’m going to wear it.”
Adamalis told the child, “It doesn’t work like that, when you are born and you are a boy, you grow up and become a man,” she said. “And when you are born and you are a girl, you grow up and become a woman. It doesn’t work any other way.”
Adamalis said she tried to get information to understand what was happening and after much searching, she came across articles about trans people. “I had a word for what was happening to Adelyn,” she said.
“I knew I was in the wrong body,” Adelyn said. For Adelyn, there was first a social transition: buying girl’s clothes and shoes, growing her hair, changing her name and telling her family, friends and staff at her school who she was.
“My first instinct was to take her to the doctor,” her mother said. A pediatrician “examined her physically and he was the one who told me: ‘Your first step is going to be to take her to a counselor, a psychologist and talk to the school.’”
Transgender people like Adelyn often experience “a true disconnect between their birth-assigned sex and their inner sense of who they are,” according to the Human Rights Campaign. The anxiety caused by this disconnection has been referred to by doctors as gender dysphoria, since it can cause severe pain and anguish in the lives of trans people.
Adamalis Vigil and her child, Adelyn. Adamalis Vigil
She was “very sad all the time and would come home and cry,” Adamalis said.
Medical treatments, then a law banning them
For Adelyn, puberty blockers weren’t an option until she was 13 years old; then, after intense and prolonged medical care and assessments, she started hormone therapy with estrogen for a year. The treatments allow her to maintain a finer voice and prevent her from developing masculine features such as a prominent Adam’s apple.
Adelyn said that Texas’ ban on this kind of treatment for minors is “as if the lawmakers are telling you: ‘No, you can’t be you anymore’; ‘wait, wait.’ But if I wait, I will see myself as a man — I don’t want that,” she said, adding that is one of her biggest fears.
Puberty blockers “temporarily stop this process of change and give the adolescent and their family members the opportunity to explore a little more what their options are in the future,” said Dr. Uri Belkind, associate medical director of Adolescent Medicine at the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York.
There are a series of protocols and medical criteria that must be followed before prescribing hormones and they’re not recommended for children who have not yet started puberty, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Puberty blockers, according to the Mayo Clinic, “do not cause permanent physical changes” but may affect growth, bone density and fertility, “although it depends on when the medication is started.” That is why they recommend that each case be evaluated specifically and that patients have a specialized medical team.
“We have enough evidence to say very clearly that these drugs are medically necessary, that they produce benefits, that the benefits outweigh the risks, and that, in one way or another, they improve quality of life and even save lives,” Belkind said.
That’s why the bill worries Adamalis.
“Of all the battles, I think this is the worst, because this kind of help is what has kept my daughter alive,” Adamalis said about her daughter. “When I found her [medical] team, she was happy. Her anxiety went away, her panic attacks went away,” Adamalis said.
Laws like the one in Texas, said Belkind, prevent medical professionals like him from providing patients the care they need, and by not having access, “they see their body getting further and further and further away from the idea that they have of themselves.”
This is dangerous because it generates anxiety, depression and stress. “We know that suicide rates increase in patients who don’t have access to this type of medication,” Belkind said.
Adelyn and her family would drive eight hours for appointments with the endocrinologist who was supervising her transition along with a team of experts. A few days ago, they got a letter from the endocrinologist saying that they could no longer treat her. The doctor was moving to California, the doctor confided to the family, because of the situation in Texas.
As a family, they’re considering traveling to New Mexico or Mexico to seek medical advice that is being denied at home. Adelyn doesn’t want to live in Texas but her mother said that, unfortunately, moving is currently not a possibility.
Adamalis said that the medical treatment they were able to get up to now “has given us the best years of Adelyn,” but that now she feels afraid and helpless.
She asks politicians to “educate themselves on the issue, but more than anything, to focus on what the problem really is: immigration reform, getting better health insurance, gun reform.”
Trans children and adolescents “are not the problem,” Adamalis said.
‘It has saved our entire family’
Juan is going to be 10 years old and identifies as trans. Due to his age, he’s only experienced a social transition with the support of his family, who is of Mexican origin, and a medical team that includes psychologists and counselors. The family lives in California, a state that, unlike Texas, has passed legislation to protect the legal and medical rights of LGBTQ+ people.
Juan’s transition began three years ago, although “from a very young age, from a very young age, around 2 years old — he always identified himself as a masculine,” his mother, Grisel Soriano, told Noticias Telemundo.
The process, she said, hasn’t been easy. “We went through a very complex emotional situation … because we didn’t really understand what was happening,” Soriano said.
“It’s difficult to understand a trans child when you do not have one at home,” said Grisel Soriano, with her son, Juan, who identifies as trans. Telemundo
For two years, the family tried to find alternatives, such as taking refuge in religion, but “we really started the transition out of survival,” Soriano said, adding that at the age of 6 “Juan had already had thoughts of death.”
His clothes, his hair, his name, made him suffer, Soriano said. “He didn’t like the gender that we were forcing him to live in at all.”
The family, guided by a team of medical experts, has supported Juan, although his mother feels that as parents they are judged and recriminated by a society that doesn’t understand them.
“It’s difficult to understand a trans family. It’s difficult to understand a trans child when you do not have one at home … until we hear our children say that they would be better off dead,” Soriano said.
Soriano believes that there are many myths surrounding trans children and their families. “They judge us as if one day our children decided to be trans children and we say happily, we are going to help them … We went through a difficult process and we do it from affection, from love,” she said.
Families, especially parents, go through a process similar to the stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, negotiation and acceptance, wrote Jason Rafferty, a pediatrician and psychiatrist at the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Rejecting and suppressing trans minors won’t make them change their gender identity, Rafferty wrote, but it harms the child’s emotional health and development and possibly contributes to high rates of depression, anxiety and other mental health problems.
Supporters of transgender rights protest outside a federal courthouse in Houston on June 24. Reginald Mathalone / NurPhoto via AP file
Nearly 600 anti-trans bills have been promoted across the country in 2023, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker‘s count. By contrast, only 19 bills were promoted in 2015.
Juan’s transition — he chose his name — “has been happiness for him,” his mother said. “After we started the transition, I saw him comfortable, I saw him happy, I saw him content … The transition has saved not only Juan, it has saved our entire family.”
Juan, whose favorite sport is American football, wants to be a doctor when he grows up. “I want to help children who are trans too,” he said.
He wanted to tell his story so that other children like him know that “everything will be fine.”
The Montana State Library Commission voted Tuesday to leave the American Library Association, the oldest and largest library association in the world, because the ALA’s president described herself as a “Marxist lesbian” in a social media post last year.
Emily Drabinski, who was elected president of the ALA in April 2022 and took office this month, celebrated her election in a social media post that has since been deleted.
“I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary,” Drabinksi wrote in a tweet last year. “I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity! And my mom is SO PROUD I love you mom.”
During a meeting Tuesday, Tom Burnett, a member of the Montana State Library Commission, made a motion to “immediately withdraw” the state library from the ALA and send the association a letter to explain that “our oath of office and resulting duty to the Constitution forbids association with an organization led by a Marxist,” according to the Montana Free Press.
In a statement published on its website Thursday, the ALA — a nonpartisan nonprofit founded in 1876 — outlined its mission, described how its presidents are elected and noted that ALA’s operational decisions are “made by ALA staff leadership working with a full range of committees and advisory groups.”
It also described how the Montana State Library has benefited from ALA membership, including more than $218,000 in program grants over the past two years and a 24% increase in federal funding from 2019 to 2023.
“Despite the decision in Montana this week, ALA remains committed to providing essential support, resources, and opportunities for every library and library worker in every state and territory across the nation to help them better serve their communities,” the group said.
Drabinski did not immediately return a request for comment.
After about an hour of public comment Tuesday, the commission voted 5-1-1 in favor of the motion. Commission Chair Peggy Taylor abstained, and Commissioner Brian Rossmann, the only active librarian on the commission, cast the one opposing vote.
Dana Gonzalez, who spoke in favor of withdrawing from the ALA, said the commission “ought not promote, celebrate or support what scripture condemns” and then quoted Bible scriptures that she said condemned what Drabinski wrote in her tweet, according to the Daily Montanan.
Bozeman parent Cheryl Tusken also spoke in favor of the motion.
“I think this is a really good move to send a really clear signal to our national organizations that we are not in agreement with the direction they are taking these organizations,” Tusken said, according to the Montana Free Press.
Rossmann, who works at the Montana State University Library, said the ALA presidency is “largely a ceremonial role,” the Montana Free Press reported.
Susan Gregory, the director of the Bozeman Public Library, spoke in opposition to the measure. In her 40 years of involvement with the ALA, she said, she has never seen the organization provide a program or presentation about Marxism.
“We don’t leave the United States because we don’t like or agree with whomever the sitting President of the United States is,” Gregory said in a written statement to the commission. “I hope that the Montana State Library Commission will understand the critical importance of remaining in our professional association so that we know what is happening in the world, our country and neighboring states to improve public libraries.”
Last year, the Montana State Library Commission voted down a proposed logo that used rainbow colors because some members said it didn’t clearly convey the library’s work. During debate over the logo, multiple members who ultimately voted against it said it looked too similar to the LGBTQ Pride flag, the Montana Free Press reported. The commission subsequently adopted an alternate logowith an updated color scheme.
The commission’s actions are examples of a larger trend of libraries being pulled into the national debate over what information children can access freely at school or in libraries — particularly when that information includes LGBTQ people or themes.
Conservative advocacy groups and some elected officials have painted LGBTQ books and content in schools as “grooming,” using a decades-old false moral panic about LGBTQ people.
In the last few years, parents and local conservative advocacy groups have started asking for certain books to be removed completely from schools and public libraries. In its annual book censorship report, the ALA found that there was a 75% increase in the number of challenges against books between 2021 and 2022.
Of the 13 books that made the ALA’s “Most Challenged Books” list in 2022, seven — more than half — were challenged for having LGBTQ content.
In an address to Russia’s Duma last month, Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy summed up his government’s rationale for a recent onslaught of discriminatory legislation and government action targeting the LGBTQ+ community in the country.
The occasion was the introduction of a bill to outlaw gender-affirming care and surgery and gender ID changes in the country.
“This is another step in protecting national interests,” Tolstoy told the Duma on June 14.
Referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine starting in February last year, Tolstoy said, “We are implementing this because Russia has changed since the beginning of the special military operation. And those guys who today defend our country with weapons in their hands, they must return to another country, not to the one that was before.”
For Vladimir Putin and his rubber-stamp parliament, the war in Ukraine is an effort not only to remake Russia geographically but an opportunity to transform the country into a Greater Russia free of the “moral decay” and “pure Satanism” they say has infected the country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
“We are preserving Russia for posterity, with its cultural and family values, traditional foundations, and putting up a barrier to the penetration of Western anti-family ideology,” Tolstoy said during the bill’s first reading in June.
The new law is the latest in a slew of government actions aimed at erasing LGBTQ+ identity in Russia.
In December, Putin signed legislation banning “LGBT propaganda,” which includes any public reference to “non-traditional lifestyles,” along with a crackdown on the conflated sins of “pedophilia and gender reassignment.”
Bookshops have been forced to remove LGBTQ+ content from shelves, while gaming and streaming platforms have pulled down content, including same-sex pornography. Google was fined in May for refusing to remove LGBTQ+ videos from YouTube in Russia.
The same law has been used to target consensual sex among LGBTQ+ people in the country. In May, a 40-year-old German teacher was convicted of violating the law for inviting a 25-year-old man to his hotel room for sex. In March, a same-sex couple was prosecuted for going public with their relationship on TikTok.
Earlier legislation, including a law passed in 2013 that placed a limit on LGBTQ+-affirmative content disseminated to minors, has been used to shut down Pride marches, detain activists, and lay the foundation of the culture of fear overwhelming the LGBTQ+ community in Russia today.
The latest legislation would ban gender-affirming care for trans people of any age in the country and overturn the ability of trans individuals to change gender on official documents.
Richard Volkov, a 26-year-old trans musician from Moscow, told Reuters trans men he knows in Russia are scrambling to change IDs and start hormone treatment.
“This is the worst thing my country could do,” he said from Sagarejo in Georgia, where he fled after the war began. “It seems that if I simply tell myself that I exist, I am already violating the law.”
36-year-old Elle Solomina, another trans political refugee in Georgia, calls the pending legislation a purely “fascist law.”
“I have not found any explanation for it,” she said in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, “except that in a totalitarian system, the population must live in fear.”
Russia has granted gender ID changes since 1997, four years after it decriminalized homosexuality in the wake of the Soviet Union’s breakup.
But the tide has turned since those liberalizing policies accompanied Russia’s brief opening to the West.
Now Vladimir Putin is invoking the bad old days of the Soviet Union in a call to form a new institute to study LGBTQ+ behavior at the state-run Serbsky Psychiatric Center, notorious in mid-20th century Soviet Russia for its mental and physical torture of dissidents.
Read the Press Democrat story here: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/a-santa-rosa-church-with-anti-lgbtq-stance-got-400000-from-california-to/?artslide=0
Lambda Legal, in partnership with Black and Pink National, published their Protected & Served? 2022 report in Spanish. The report reveals the alarming rates of misconduct, abuse, and discrimination LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV experience in the criminal legal system.
The report – published in English in April this year – consists of quantitative data and personal stories shared by more than 2,500 community members about their experiences with the criminal legal system including police and other law enforcement, courts, prisons, jails, schools, and other government agencies. More than 15% of participants self-identified as Latina/o or Hispanic (alone or in combination with any other race or ethnicity) and 11.2% were biracial or multiracial. Forty-three percent of all participants were people of color.
The report provides an unprecedented glimpse into the widespread harm caused to LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV in these institutions. Regarding Latinx participants, Protected & Served? 2022 revealed:
Hate Incidents: More than half (52%) of Latinx and 68% of multiracial participants reported having experienced a hate incident in the past five years.
Relationship with police: Almost a third of Latinx participants (29.1%) did not trust local police authorities at all, and 31.3% reported only “trust[ing] a little bit”, meaning around 60% have either no or minimal trust in local police.
Immigration status: Of those who had face-to-face contact with police, 26.1% of Latinx participants said police asked for proof of their immigration status. That was also the case for over half (56.6%) of Black participants. People of color were more likely than white participants to be asked for proof of their immigration status (40.8% vs. 11.4%).
Police searches and sex work: More than 21% of Latinx participants who had face-to-face contact with police reported that they were stopped or contacted by the police under suspicion of being engaged in sex work.
Crime: A majority (59%) of Latinx participants reported having experienced certain crimes, such as property crime, physical assault, intimate partner violence, and sexual assault.
Transgender identity: For transgender Latinx participants that had been in court, 34.5% reported having their transgender status inappropriately revealed in court.
“Everyone who interacts with the criminal legal system, including LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV, must be treated fairly and have legal rights that must be protected,” said Lambda Legal Senior Attorney and Protected & Served? Project Manager, Richard Saenz. “Discrimination and abuse run rampant in the criminal legal system and those problems are compounded when people hold multiple marginalized identities, such as being both queer and a person of color, but they become further compounded when there is also a language barrier,” added Saenz. “So it was important that the Protected & Served? survey and report be accessible to our community members who speak Spanish and the advocates that fight for them.”
“The Protected & Served? report is a critical tool for understanding the pervasive harms and injustices faced by incarcerated LGBTQ+ people.” Black and Pink National Executive Director, Dr. Tatyana Moaton. “We can shift the narrative and demand systemic change by amplifying the voices and experiences of those directly impacted. Our collective responsibility is to ensure that all individuals, regardless of their incarceration status or identity, are protected and served with dignity and humanity.”
The findings and recommendations in Protected & Served? 2022, will inform and support new research, advocacy, litigation, and policy efforts to address and stop the discrimination and abuse experienced by LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV in the criminal legal system and to increase accountability throughout these institutions.
The report lays out a series of recommendations for individuals, advocates and policymakers, and those working in the criminal legal system to help address these issues, including: supporting trans, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary-led movements; supporting court reform efforts; decriminalizing sex work and HIV as LGBTQ+ issues; eliminating barriers to legal recourse for people in detention; working to keep LGBTQ+ young people safe in schools; and, banning profiling and other discriminatory law enforcement practices.
This is the second version of Protected and Served?. The first, published in 2012, has been an important resource for litigators, advocacy groups, scholars, journalists, and government entities, including the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In 2022, we expanded the survey to include questions about the experiences of community members who are often ignored or made invisible, including detained people, young people, sex workers, and immigrants. The community survey asked questions about trust in institutions, experiences with crime, reporting of crime, hate incidents, intimate partner violence, and experiences in courts, detention, government systems focused on youth such as child protective services, and broader law enforcement.
Strength in Numbers Consulting Group, an LGBTQ+ led research, evaluation, and philanthropic strategy firm, facilitated the survey and co-authored the report.
We gratefully acknowledge the generous underwriting support of the Leonard-Litz LGBTQ+ Foundation for making this project possible.
Informe revela graves abusos y discriminación contra la comunidad LGBTQ+ y las personas que viven con VIH en el sistema legal penal
El informe Protected & Served? 2022, dirigido por Lambda Legal y Black and Pink National, encuestó a más de 2,500 miembros de la comunidad, incluídas personas LGBTQ+ Latinx, sobre sus experiencias con el sistema legal penal.
(NUEVA YORK, NUEVA YORK — Miércoles, 12 de julio de 2023) Hoy, Lambda Legal, en asociación con Black and Pink National, publicó su informe Protected & Served? 2022 en español. El informe revela las tasas alarmantes de mala conducta, abuso y discriminación que experimentan las personas LGBTQ+ y las personas que viven con VIH en el sistema legal penal.
El informe, publicado en inglés en abril de este año, consta de datos cuantitativos e historias personales compartidas por más de 2,500 miembros de la comunidad sobre sus experiencias con el sistema legal penal, incluida la policía y otras fuerzas del orden, tribunales, prisiones, cárceles, escuelas y otras agencias gubernamentales. Más del 15 % de los participantes se identificaron a sí mismos como latinos o hispanos (solos o en combinación con cualquier otra raza o grupo étnico) y el 11.2 % como birraciales o multirraciales. El 43 % de todos los participantes eran personas de color.
El informe provee una perspectiva sin precedentes del daño generalizado causado a las personas LGBTQ+ y las personas que viven con VIH en estas instituciones. Con respecto a los participantes Latinx, el informe reveló:
Incidentes de odio: Más de la mitad (52 %) de los latinos y el 68 % de los participantes multirraciales informaron haber experimentado un incidente de odio en los últimos cinco años.
Relación con la policía: Casi un tercio de los participantes latinxs (29.1 %) no confiaba en absoluto en las autoridades policiales locales, y el 31.3 % informó que solo “confía[ba] un poco”, lo que significa que alrededor del 60 % no tiene confianza o tiene una confianza mínima en las autoridades locales policiales.
Estatus migratorio: De aquellos que tuvieron contacto cara a cara con la policía, el 26.1% de los participantes latinxs dijeron que la policía les pidió pruebas de su estatus migratorio. Ese también fue el caso de más de la mitad (56.6 %) de los participantes negros. Las personas de color eran más propensas que los participantes blancos a que se les pidiera una prueba de su estatus migratorio (40.8 % en comparación con 11.4 %).
Registros policiales y trabajo sexual: Más del 21 % de los participantes latinxs que tuvieron contacto cara a cara con la policía informaron que la policía los detuvo o los contactó bajo sospecha de estar involucrados en el trabajo sexual.
Crimen: La mayoría (59 %) de los participantes latinxs informaron haber experimentado ciertos delitos, como delitos contra la propiedad, agresión física, violencia de pareja íntima y agresión sexual.
Identidad transgénero: Para los participantes latinxs transgénero que habían estado en la corte, el 34.5 % informó que su identidad transgénero se reveló de manera inapropiada en la corte.
“Todas las personas que interactúan con el sistema legal penal, incluidas las personas LGBTQ+ y las personas que viven con VIH, deben recibir un trato justo y tener derechos legales que deben protegerse”, dijo el abogado de Lambda Legal y manejador del proyecto Protected & Served? 2022, Richard Saenz. “La discriminación y el abuso proliferan en el sistema legal penal y esos problemas se agravan cuando las personas tienen múltiples identidades marginadas, como ser queer y una persona de color, pero se agravan aún más cuando también hay una barrera del idioma”, agregó Saenz. “Entonces, era importante que el informe y encuesta Protected & Served? 2022 fueran accesibles para los miembros de nuestra comunidad que hablan español y los defensores que luchan por ellos”.
“El informe Protected & Served? es una herramienta fundamental ya que nos ayuda a comprender las injusticias y los daños generalizados que enfrentan las personas LGBTQ+ encarceladas. Al amplificar las voces y experiencias de aquellos directamente afectados, podemos cambiar la narrativa y exigir un cambio sistémico. Tenemos la responsabilidad colectiva de garantizar que todas las personas, independientemente de su estado de encarcelamiento o identidad, sean protegidas y atendidas con dignidad y humanidad”, dijo Tatyana Moaton, PhD, Directora Ejecutiva de Black and Pink National.
Los hallazgos y recomendaciones en Protected & Served? 2022, informará y apoyará nuevos esfuerzos de investigación, defensa, litigio y políticas para abordar y detener la discriminación y el abuso que experimentan las personas LGBTQ+ y las personas que viven con el VIH en el sistema legal penal y para aumentar la responsabilidad en todas estas instituciones.
El informe establece una serie de recomendaciones para individuos, defensores y legisladores, y aquellos que trabajan en el sistema legal penal para ayudar a abordar estos problemas, que incluyen: apoyar movimientos trans, de género no conforme y dirigidos por personas no binarias; apoyar los esfuerzos de reforma judicial; despenalizar el trabajo sexual y el VIH como asuntos LGBTQ+; eliminar las barreras a los recursos legales para las personas detenidas; trabajando para mantener seguros a los jóvenes LGBTQ+ en las escuelas; y prohibir la elaboración de perfiles y otras prácticas discriminatorias de aplicación de la ley.
Esta es la segunda versión de Protected & Served?. El primero, publicado en 2012, ha sido un recurso importante para litigantes, grupos de defensa, académicos, periodistas y entidades gubernamentales, incluido el Departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos y la Comisión de Derechos Civiles de Estados Unidos. En 2022, ampliamos la encuesta para incluir preguntas sobre las experiencias de los miembros de la comunidad que a menudo son ignorados o invisibilizados, incluidos personas detenidas, los jóvenes, los trabajadores sexuales y los inmigrantes. La encuesta comunitaria hizo preguntas sobre la confianza en las instituciones, las experiencias con delitos, la denuncia de delitos, los incidentes de odio, la violencia de la pareja íntima y las experiencias en los tribunales, la detención, los sistemas gubernamentales centrados en los jóvenes, como los servicios de protección infantil y la aplicación de la ley en general.
La empresa de investigación, evaluación y estrategia filantrópica, Strength in Numbers Consulting Group, liderada por personal LGBTQ+, facilitó la encuesta y coprodujo el informe.
Agradecemos el generoso apoyo de la Fundación Leonard-Litz LGBTQ+ por hacer posible este proyecto.
Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and everyone living with HIV through impact litigation, education, and public policy work. www.lambdalegal.org
Black & Pink National is a prison abolitionist organization dedicated to abolishing the criminal punishment system and liberating LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS who are affected by that system through advocacy, support, and organizing. www.blackandpink.org
