More than 6 in 10 Americans oppose legislation that would prohibit classroom lessons about sexual orientation or gender identity in elementary school, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds. The ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 62% of Americans oppose such legislation, while 37% support it.
Support for this type of legislation increases with age, but doesn’t reach majority support in any age group.
Among those 65 and older, 43% support the ban, while it falls to about a third among those under the age of 50. Not surprisingly, respondents who identify as LGBTQ overwhelmingly oppose this type of legislation, at 87%.
A woman who fled Honduras to Texas in search of a better life has become the sixth trans person killed in the US in 2022.
Paloma Vázquez, a spirited activist who sought refuge from transphobic violence, herself became the latest victim of what experts have described as an “epidemic of violence”.
The 29-year-old with big dreams of a life without fear was shot to death in her southwest Houston Apartment on Dunlap and Clarewood street on 26 February.
According to the Houston Police Department, the door to the property was unlocked with no signs of forced entry when officers arrived at around 8pm. She was discovered by her boyfriend and appeared to have been deceased since the morning.
Vázquez had emigrated to Texas some six months ago, her friends recalled in conversations with ABC 13. She was “very excited about decorating,” one recalled, having only recently moved into her new apartment.
“As most trans women who are here from Latin America, they are here because they are scared of being killed in their own country,” the friend, Gia Pacheco, said.
“Whenever a trans person is killed, they are killed because they are trans.”
According to Sin Violencia LGBTI, a regional information network, more than 1,100 trans and non-binary people were killed in Latin America from 2014 to 2020. At least 208 LGBT+ people were slain in Honduras.
But beyond graphs and spreadsheets, the victims of such anti-LGBT+ violence are people, wrote Ana Andrea Molina, the founder of Organización Latina de Trans en Texas of which Vázquez was a member. And that must never be forgotten.
“Our hearts are mourning the loss of another fellow transgender whose light was extinguished in an aggressive and hateful way,” she said.
“Our pain and sorrow should be a call to our community to unite and find the killer.”
The Houston-based group organised a memorial event for Vázquez on 3 March outside Houston City Hall.
With Texan politicians ‘determined to attack’ trans people, homicide rates flare
In the US and less than three months into the year, at least six trans, non-binary and gender-conforming people have been violently killed, according to the Human Rights Campaign which has been monitoring the wave of brutality since 2013.
But documenting the violence is one riddled with difficulties, given that two-thirds of trans homicide cases are misgendered and deadnamed in police and press reports, the HRC found. Meaning that the HRC’s tally is likely even higher.
It comes after last year’s record-breaking death tally of at least 57, many of them Black trans women. The record continues to climb even months after the year’s end, as more victims’ deaths are discovered by grassroots activists combing through local news reports and talking to relatives.
To be trans in America, activists warn, is to juggle survival with day-to-day living.
Texas is, according to Montrose Grace Place, a non-profit that supports queer homeless people, “one of the deadliest places in America for trans women”. And in the Lone Star State, among dozens of others, trans people are also facing legislative attacks against them.
Only days before Vázquez was killed, Texas governor Greg Abbott launched an attack against trans youth, comparing gender-affirming healthcare options to “child abuse“.
“We’ve already recorded nine cases of fatal violence in Texas since last year, with the latest recorded only last month,” said Tori Cooper, who helms the HRC’s Transgender Justice Initiative, in a statement.
“With politicians in Texas determined to attack the transgender community, we must call on our allies to stand up and speak out.”
According to the Trans Formation Project, a legislative tracker, there are more than a dozen proposed laws targeting trans youth in statehouse dockets.
“They are killing us,” Molina wrote on Facebook. “Today was Paloma, maybe tomorrow it will be me.”
Malaysia’s government has launched a conversion therapy app to help LGBT+ people “return to nature” – and it’s being platformed by Google.
The app, Hijrah Diri Homoseksualiti, was released by Malaysia’s Department of Islamic Development (JAKIM), and is currently available from the GooglePlay Store.
According to its description on Google’s app store, it includes “suggestions, ideas, explanations and interpretations” to help users “overcome the problem of homosexuality”.
The app also contains an e-book by an “ex-gay” Muslim man, in which he describes how he “is confronted with some of the things that provoke him to commit this sin, and how to bear the burden of having committed same-sex sins in the past”.
The Good Play Store rating for the app is “E”, which according to Google means the app is “suitable for all ages”.
LGBT+ people in Malaysia face execution, torture and decades in prison
Even more concerning is the level of data the government app collects from users, in a country where gay sex is punishable with up to 20 years in prison and mandatory caning, according to Human Rights Watch. Vigilante executions and torture of LGBT+ people are not uncommon.
Idris Ahmad, the minister responsible for the Department of Islamic Development (JAKIM) which launched the app, announced just last year that he had set up a “task force” to strengthen laws against LGBT+ people.
“We need to strengthen existing laws, as LGBT activists and icons are promoting a toxic lifestyle openly through social media,” he said in January, 2021.
“It must be done in an effort to prevent the normalisation of LGBT from becoming a culture in our society that can lead to the collapse of the family institution.”
So, it seems far from a coincidence that the department’s conversion therapy app, according to the Google Play Store, has access to users’ identity, contacts, location, photos and media filed, camera, microphone and wifi connection information.
Announcing the app on Twitter, JAKIM said it would “help the LGBT community return to nature”.
The app has received significant backlash in its Google Play reviews, but at the time of writing remains available for download.
One reviewer asked: “Why does an e-book need to access location, storage, camera, microphone? You guys trying to track gay people?”
“This app is a government sponsored LGBT religious conversion therapy tool,” wrote another.
“I believe bigoted and hateful software such as this app has no place in the Google Play Store, or anywhere online.”
PinkNews has approached Google for comment, but has not received a response at the time of writing.
As Disney withers criticism from the left and right over a controversial Florida education bill, California’s Governor offered a solution. “Disney, the door is open to bring those jobs back to California — the state that actually represents the values of your workers,” tweeted California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The wooing comes less than a year after Disney announced it would relocate more than 2,000 jobs to a new Lake Nona campus. Over the next 18 months, the plan is to shift all Disney Parks and Walt Disney Imagineering jobs not fully dedicated to operations at Disneyland in California.
A gay Ukrainian couple went to France on holiday. Overnight, it became their new home.
Nazar and Yuriv arrived in France on 11 February for a short holiday. They were staying with a friend in Paris, when they woke up to the horrifying news that Russia had invaded Ukraine.
They knew that tensions had been on the rise, but they never thought their home country – the place where they had built a life together – would end up under siege in such a brutal, sudden fashion.
“It was like something from a horror movie,” Nazar tells PinkNews. “I see the pictures of everything that has been destroyed and I can’t believe it.”
Overnight, they lost their home and their sense of security. They found themselves separated from friends and family, who are now living in a war zone. Nazar doesn’t even know if his parents are alive.
“I haven’t contacted [my parents] for more than three days because there is no internet, no electricity, no gas where they’re staying,” he says.
As well as fearing for their safety, Nazar is also worried that his parents are being duped by Russian propaganda.
“The last time I reached them on the phone, they told me that it’s not Russians who killed the people and shoot the civilians, it’s Ukrainians,” he explains. “It was just incredible that they were under the fire of Russian military and they were still believing the Russian propaganda. It’s a tragedy for me. I cannot believe it.”
It was the last time he spoke to them. “I was very irritated… but then they just disappeared from online. I don’t know whether they are alive or not or whether they’re just in some cellar without connection.”
Nazar has also been grappling with feelings of guilt that he and Yuriv are not in Ukraine to help fight their oppressors.
“We think that we should have stayed… but all of the friends we’ve discussed this with – who are still in Ukraine – have said we shouldn’t feel guilty because we don’t have any military experience,” he says.
Nazar’s sister once threatened to shoot him if he didn’t ‘change’ his sexuality
Before the war, life in Ukraine wasn’t always easy for Nazar, 32, and Yuriv, 26. They’ve been together for six years, but in that time, they’ve faced oppressive attitudes from family because of their relationship. Nazar’s sister once threatened to shoot him unless he “changed”.
Their life in Ukraine wasn’t ideal, but they had reason to be hopeful for the future. They had considered moving to another European country to start anew, but they were heartened to see things gradually improving for LGBT+ people in Ukraine. Attitudes were becoming more progressive among younger Ukrainians and in big cities.
War has swept LGBT+ rights off the agenda in Ukraine. Nazar and Yuriv are pragmatic about this: equality is fundamental, but LGBT+ people can’t have any freedom when they’re at war – especially when the aggressor is Russia, where LGBT+ people face oppression and violence.
“War is war, and people who fight from the other side have no mercy. They do not follow any kind of rules, they can target civilians, peaceful people,” Nazar says.
The idea of a pro-Russian government in Ukraine terrifies him. He says such an eventuality won’t happen – the people of Ukraine are fighting back fiercely, and he believes they will win. Still, if the war doesn’t go well, it would mean Nazar and his boyfriend would likely never return to Ukraine.
“The slightest possibility of a pro-Russian government is so atrocious, so horrible, that I wouldn’t be staying in Ukraine if it is under a pro-Russian government. I know about the atrocities in Chechnya, I know about the attitudes toward LGBT+ people,” he says.
You should know what’s really happening in Ukraine. All of these lies can be refuted by very simple fact checking.
For now, Nazar and Yuriv will be staying in France. They’ve been “surprised” that they’ve been referred to as a couple throughout the process of applying for asylum – it’s the first time in their lives they’ve been treated the same as mixed-gender couples.
“I cannot plan for what will happen in a year or two years,” Nazar says. “For me and for my partner it’s important for us to be in a safe place while war is going on in Ukraine.”
Nazar and Yuriv are determined to help the Ukrainian cause from abroad in any way they can. Nazar is currently exploring ways he can counter Russian propaganda about the war. The most important thing people can do is to listen to Ukrainians, he says.
“Don’t be infected by this propaganda,” he says. “You should know what’s really happening in Ukraine. All of these lies can be refuted by very simple fact checking.”
The situation is devastating for Ukrainian people like Nazar and Yuriv, but they’ve been amazed to see the huge swell of support for their country.
“I’m very grateful to everybody from all over the world for the support they’re showing towards Ukraine,” Nazar says. “For me and for my country it’s very important. The solidarity shows us that people can do something good together, not just destroy countries like our neighbour decided to, but they can be friendly, they can be kind to other people, they can cherish this feeling of solidarity. I think it shows that Ukraine will win.”
Russia has faced international condemnation and sanctions since it launched its full-scale invasion in Ukraine just two weeks ago. More than two million people have fled and in excess of 400 civilian deaths have been reported.
An all-boys school in Adelaide, Australia has given its full-hearted support to a student who came out as trans, and is even designing a special uniform for her.
Headmaster of the private Prince Alfred College, Bradley Fenner, said in a letter to parents on Tuesday that the girl’s fellow students were “respectful and supportive”, The Advertiser reported.
The headmaster added that the student, named Alice, asked to remain at the all-boys’ school herself, and has received support from both students and professionals.
Fenner wrote: “This morning, a student who has been at Prince Alfred College since the Early Learning Centre has told her peers that she is transgender, identifies as a woman and henceforth will be known as Alice.
“The response from the Year 12 cohort was, as we would have hoped and expected, both respectful and supportive.
“Alice has been dealing with gender dysphoria for some time and has been well-supported in her journey by a range of professionals, both within and outside the College.”
The headteacher added that Alice has come out to her peers, which he described as “very powerful”
“She is a living embodiment of our college motto… which is: do brave deeds and endure, and that’s exactly what she’s done,” he told ABC Adelaide.
Parents told The Australian that her fellow students have been “so welcoming”, but that the school would have to figure out a few accessibility requirements, as Alice is Prince Alfred College’s first trans student.
One parent said: “I think it is great that the boys have been so welcoming and accepting, and apparently the process by which she explained her new life was very moving and they are all supporting her.
“It does raise a few logistic questions, though, around things like the use of the toilets and so on in what has only ever been a boys’ school.”
Research by LGBT+ young people’s charity Just Like Us found that 55 per cent of teachers in England have at least one pupil who has come out as transgender, and 78 per cent say they would like more resources supporting them.
“Trans young people across the country are in schools with teachers who are crying out for the right resources to support them,” said Dominic Arnall, chief executive of Just Like Us.
“With a small but vocal minority of anti-trans individuals, it’s often a tough and terrifying time for young people growing up trans.
“It’s very encouraging to see that the majority of their teachers want to support their pupils to be themselves and feel safe while learning.”
More than 60 companies, including Apple, Google and Ikea, are calling on Texas governor Greg Abbott to drop his “discriminatory” order for parents of trans kids to be investigated for child abuse.
In an advert in the Dallas Morning News, the businesses demanded Abbott “abandon efforts to write discrimination into law and policy”.
Meta, Johnson & Johnson, Ikea, PayPal, Capital One, Electronic Arts and many more firms all signed the ad, which ran in the paper on Friday (11 March).
“The recent attempt to criminalise a parent for helping their transgender child access medically necessary, age-appropriate healthcare in the state of Texas goes against the values of our companies,” the ad says.
The companies added: “It’s not just wrong, it has an impact on our employees, our customers, their families, and our work.”
Abbott’s 22 February order demands that state agencies in Texas “conduct prompt and thorough investigations” of gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth, including surgeries (which are not routinely, if ever, accessible to under-18s) and puberty blockers.
He called this healthcare “abusive” and said officials who failed to report it could face jail time. The order also requires teachers, doctors and civilians to report parents of trans children to the authorities and says the parents should incur criminal penalties for supporting their trans kids.
Abbott’s order comes in the wake of Texas attorney general Ken Paxton calling trans healthcare “monstrous and tragic” and claiming it “remains medically impossible to truly change the sex of an individual because this is determined biologically at conception” – a statement Abbott said he agrees with.
Both men’s comments about trans healthcare align with the position of “gender critical” activists in the UK, who maintain that it is not possible to change sex.
“Texas state leaders are forcing parents of transgender kids to decide between abandoning their lives, quitting their jobs, and leaving the state or fostering a safe, inclusive environment for their child,” Joni Madison, Human Rights Campaign interim president, toldAxios.
Pressure from corporations has had some success in pushing back against anti-trans political efforts in recent years, notably with getting rid of the so-called “bathroom bill” in North Carolina.
In 2016, hundreds of business leaders urged the repeal of North Carolina’s HB2, and multiple celebrities pulled out of appearances in the state, including Ringo Starr and Bruce Springsteen.
Lawmakers in Guatemala on Tuesday approved a bill that would formally ban same-sex marriage and define a family as a man and a woman who are raising children together.
The Guatemalan Congress by a 101-8 vote margin approved the “Law for the Protection of Life and the Family” under which a woman who has an abortion would face up to 10 years in prison. Media reports indicate 51 lawmakers did not attend the vote, which took place on International Women’s Day.
Visibles, a Guatemala City-based LGBTQ rights group, described the bill as “a law that promotes hate, violence, disqualification and dehumanization of those who dare to demand a more free and just world.”
“It is a regressive law that criminalizes girls, women and the LGBTIQ community through the exercise of their rights and freedoms,” said Visibles in a tweet.
“I never see marriage equality in Guatemala,” former Visibles Executive Director Daniel Villatoro told the Washington Blade on Friday.
Villatoro is currently a human rights fellow at Columbia University and the coordinator of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s LGBTQI+ and Women’s Rights Reporting Initiative in Latin America. Villatoro noted the bill would also codify the government’s official position that sexual education in the country’s schools should not promote “any sexuality that is not heterosexuality.”
“It is something broader,” Villatoro told the Blade. “It is a very heavy pathologization. It is anti-LGBT.”
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2018 issued a landmark ruling that recognizes same-sex marriage and transgender rights in the Western Hemisphere. Guatemala is among the countries in which the decision is legally binding.
Media reports indicate President Alejandro Giammattei has said he would veto the bill because it violates international treaties. Villatoro noted Giammattei plans to send the measure back to Congress for further review.
“The law from its inception is unconstitutional,” said Congressman Aldo Dávila, who is openly gay and living with HIV, on Thursday in a video he posted to social media.
CEO Bob Chapek announced that Disney was suspending its political donations in Florida due to the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and he apologized for the company’s previous silence on the issue.
In reaction to the announcement, Sonja Spoo, director of Reproductive Rights campaigns at UltraViolet, a leading gender justice organization, issued the following statement: “It is long past time that Disney paused its political contributions to radical right-wing politicians pushing a vicious anti-LGBTQ and anti-woman agenda so contrary to the company’s stated values. But simply pausing donations to all politicians instead of the ones pushing this radical agenda – embodied by the Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and 15 week abortion ban – misses the point. “Disney is the second largest funder of anti-abortion politicians in Florida, with more than $166,000 in political donations to Florida lawmakers. Company leadership is well aware of what Disney’s political contributions support, but did nothing, Disney is funding legislation that will actively harm their own employees and consumers alike. They must do more than just pause donations, they should demand money that they gave to these radical politicians be returned, and subsequently donated to people supporting women and the LGBTQ+ community. “If Disney paid attention to the political stances of who it gave to, it would have seen this coming. Abortion is a bellwether issue that often also indicates a politician’ssupport for other extreme and dangerous bills aimed at rolling back basic rights including bills that further restrict the Civil Rights for LGBTQ+ people and people of color. If you support abortion bans – you are more likely to support attacks on LGBTQ+ kids and more likely to support measures to disenfranchise Black, Indigenous, and other people of color at the ballot box. The legislation passed in Florida are more examples of how these sorts of cruel bills move together and reinforce one another—and how they are all supported by the same people. ”“Disney took an important first step today, but this should only be the beginning. Disney and other companies must evaluate their political stances of who they give to – and start to make decisions aligned with their values, and the real values of the American people.” According to a new report from UltraViolet, a leading national gender justice organization, Disney was the third largest contributor to elected officials in Florida who support the State’s 15-week abortion ban, HB 5. According to UltraViolet’s analysis, 69% of Disney’s political donations went to anti-abortion lawmakers in Florida, totalling $166,100 in contributions.
More than two-thirds of political contributions from the six highest-spending companies in Florida support politicians who oppose abortion. Among consumer-facing companies, top contributors to anti-abortion politicians are Comcast (first), Walt Disney (second), and AT&T (sixth). Since the 2019 midterm elections, Fortune 250 companies have given these same politicians $1.3 million. Companies that contributed more than $100,000 to right-wing anti-abortion candidates were Comcast, Walt Disney, and HCA Healthcare. UltraViolet’s research also reveals that some of the largest U.S. companies helped elect state legislators who went on to sponsor the wave of anti-abortion laws passed in 2021. A total of 111 Fortune 250 companies gave $5.4 million to these politicians in 16 states. Companies gave the most to sponsors of new restrictions in Texas ($3 million), followed by Ohio ($778,000), Tennessee ($351,000), and Oklahoma ($342,000). The top contributors were AT&T, Charter Communications, Berkshire Hathaway, UnitedHealth and American Electric Power (AEP).
A Texas judge on Friday issued an injunction against enforcement of the governor’s order to investigate gender-affirming care as child abuse, handing opponents of the policy a temporary victory.
District Judge Amy Clark Meachum said that in issuing the Feb. 22 directive without a new state law or rule, Gov. Greg Abbott and officials’ actions “violate separation of powers by impermissibly encroaching into the legislative domain,” The Associated Pressreported.
The state Legislature last year failed to pass a bill that would have made it a felony alongside physical and sexual abuse to provide gender-affirming care to minors.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which was among those who challenged the Feb. 22 directive, hailed Friday’s court ruling.
“The judge recognized the governor and DFPS’ actions for what they were — unauthorized and unconstitutional exercises of power that causes severe, immediate, and devastating harms to transgender youth and their families across Texas,” Chase Strangio, deputy director for Trans Justice with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.