Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has vowed to stop students from being expelled for their sexuality or gender identity by religious schools.
In an unexpected turnaround, the right-wing leader who has long been upfront about his evangelical Christian faith, promised to stop faith-based schools from discriminating against pupils, parents and guardians.
Morrison made the surprise remarks that left fellow lawmakers and religious activists stunned to Brisbane’s B105.3radio station on Thursday (3 February).
It required families to sign enrolment paperwork that said being LGBT+ is “immoral” and compared it to incest, bestiality and paedophilia.
“No, I don’t support that,” Morrison told the station. “My kids go to a Christian school here in Sydney, and I wouldn’t want my school doing that either.”
Morrison said he will introduce amendments to the Religious Discrimination Bill – which has been a thorny issue for both faith groups and LGBT+ rights campaigners – to prevent religious schools from discriminating in this way.
The bill, introduced last November, would allow faith-based organisations like churches, schools and workplaces to offset anti-discrimination laws, as long as their “statements of belief” don’t “threaten, intimidate, harass or vilify a person or group”.
“The bill we’re going to be taking through the parliament,” Morrison added, “we will have an amendment that will deal with that to ensure kids cannot be discriminated on that basis.
“I’ve been saying that for years. That’s always been my view.”
Scott Morrison (C) attends a virtual summit with Japanese premier Kishida Fumio. (AFP via Getty Images)
He added said that schools “should be able to teach kids” in a way that aligns with their faith, from Christianity to Islam.
The Religious Discrimination Bill, he said, would protect Australians “whether they have a faith or they don’t”.
Morrison’s comments signal a fallback by his government, whose hardline Liberal Party MPs have pushed the Religious Discrimination Bill in parliament.
Federal attorney general Michaelia Cash only recently claimed that scrapping the exemption from the bill was not feasible. Instead, she said, the Sex Discrimination Act would be amended to shield LGBT+ students – in 12 months, that is.
But it has faced an uncertain future, with moderate Liberals saying they will not vote for it unless the exemption allowing faith-based schools to turn away queer students is removed.
Morrison has supported better protecting queer students since 2018, but policy-makers struggled to roll out reforms at the time that wasn’t shot with loopholes that would have allowed schools to discriminate LGBT+ people in different ways instead.
Christian groups say Scott Morrison has ‘betrayed’ them
Choosing a pretty weird hill to die on, Christian groups recoiled in rage at Scott Morrison’s vow to close religious school exemptions.
“Scott Morrison has betrayed the foundation of the Religious Discrimination Bill,” said Greg Bondar, FamilyVoice NSW director, in a social media statement.
Bondar said it is a “sad day for all Australians” – certainly not for students expelled for being LGBT+, however – and that it has “put religious freedom and free speech at risk”.
Equality Australia, the nation’s top queer rights group, welcomed Morrison’s comments with cautious optimism and urged his administration to “scrap the flawed” bill altogether.
“The prime minister made a commitment in 2018 to remove the outdated carve-outs in national anti-discrimination laws which allow discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in religious schools,” said the group’s legal director Ghassan Kassisieh in a statement.
“This reform is long overdue, and better protections must apply to both teachers and students.
“But the Morrison government’s Religious Discrimination Bill will invite exactly this type of practice in employment across faith-based organisations, from schools, aged-care services, emergency accommodation and hospitals.
“The prime minister may be putting out one small fire, but his Religious Discrimination Bill will unleash a firestorm of discrimination in religious organisations against anyone that holds a different belief from their faith-based employer – even when they can faithfully do the job that is required of them.”
Students have repeatedly vandalized Pride posters at Spencer Lyst’s high school in Williamson County, Tennessee. Teachers have skipped over LGBTQ issues in class textbooks. Trans kids in his state have been legally barred from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. Parents have called on school officials to remove books about sexual orientation and gender identity from the county’s elementary curriculum. And while leading hisschool’s Pride club at a September homecoming parade, Lyst and other LGBTQ students were booed by a group of parents.
“I’m so used to it, but it shouldn’t be something I have to think about,” Lyst, 16, said of the near-constant feeling of being attacked at school because of his identity.
He even said it’s “difficult” to walk into the school bathroom for fear of what or who “might be in there.”
“Like, can I go to the bathroom or am I going to get hate for just existing?” he said.
Lyst’s school experience is a far cry from an isolated case.
Spencer LystCourtesy Spencer Lyst
Since the start of the school year, school officials in states across the country have banned books about gay and trans experiences, removed LGBTQ-affirming posters and flags and disbanded gay-straight alliance clubs. In school districts throughout the nation, students have attacked their queer classmates, while state lawmakers have filed hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills with many seeking to redefine lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students’ places in U.S. schools.
“There is no separating any of these things,” Mary Emily O’Hara, the rapid response manager at LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, said at a media briefing on Monday. “What we’re seeing here is anti-LGBTQ groups, on a national level, making schools the new battleground across the board, across various kinds of school policies and various forms of legislation. Schools are the target right now for the anti-LGBTQ movement.”
In the majority of cases, conservative school officials, lawmakers and parents say LGBTQ issues do not belong in school because they are “political” and “not age-appropriate” for students. Conversely, queer youth and their families, along with LGBTQ and ally teachers, say they feel they are being “erased” from the U.S. education system.
‘I’m not going back in the closet’
South Florida mom Jennifer Solomon, 50, has four children. Her eldest child, Nicolette, 28, is a lesbian who teaches fourth grade in Miami-Dade County. Her youngest, Cooper, 11, identifies as male, but Solomon said his “expression is female.” Cooper “never wanted to be a girl,” his mom explained, but he prefers to wear his school’s girls uniform and enjoys dressing up like a fairy-tale princess for fun.
“An easy way to describe it is that he’s the opposite of a tomboy,” she told NBC News.
Despite how hard she works to protect her children, Solomon — who leads her local chapter of PFLAG, an LGBTQ family advocacy group — said the slew of anti-LGBTQ school policies “keeps me up at night.”
Nicolette, Cooper and Jennifer Solomon.Courtesy Jennifer Solomon
On Monday, Solomon’s governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, signaledthat he would support a new piece of state legislation — titled the Parental Rights in Education bill, but dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — that would prohibit the discussion of sexuality and gender identity in schools.
Speaking at a news event in Miami, DeSantis said it is “entirely inappropriate” for teachers to be having conversations with students about gender identity, citing alleged instances of them telling children, “Don’t worry, don’t pick your gender yet,” and “hiding” classroom lessons from parents.
“Parental rights? Whose parental rights? Only parental rights if you’re raising a child according to DeSantis?” Solomon, who is a nurse manager at a health care company, said of DeSantis’ concerns. “DeSantis tries to paint this picture that every family is this 1950s mom and dad with two kids and a cat and dog. That is not what Florida looks like; that is not what the country looks like.”
“DeSantis has found a weak spot, and that weak spot is children,” she added, suggesting that DeSantis is supporting the measure for political gain.
Nicolette Solomon said she is already hesitant to mention her wife — and by default her sexuality — at school, but she said passage of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill would be “the straw that breaks the camel’s back” and vowed to quit if it becomes law.
Nicolette Solomon and her wifeCourtesy Nicolette Solomon
“If I can’t be myself, seven hours a day, five days a week, then I’m going back in the closet, and I can’t do that. It’s not good for my own mental health,” she said. “And I don’t think I can bear to see the students struggle and want to ask me about these things and then have to deny them that knowledge. That’s not who I am as a teacher.”
In less than two months since the start of the year, conservative state lawmakers have filed more than 170 anti-LGBTQ bills — already surpassing last year’s 139 total — with at least 69 of them centered on school policies, according to Freedom for All Americans. The nonprofit group, which advocates for LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections nationwide, said in an email that it didn’t track LGBTQ school policy bills last year, as it was not as much of a “sweeping trend” as it is now.
Three states — including Lyst’s home state of Tennessee — passed bills last year that allow parents to opt students out of any lessons or coursework that mention sexual orientation or gender identity, according to GLSEN, an advocacy group that aims to end LGBTQ discrimination in education. In addition to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill advancing in Florida, there are 15 bills under consideration in eight states that would silence speech about LGBTQ identities in classrooms, according to free speech nonprofit organization PEN America.
But perhaps the biggest trend in state bills targeting LGBTQ youths are those focused on transgender students.
Last year, legislators in at least 30 states weighed legislation that would bar trans students from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity, according to LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. Nine of those states enacted the bills into law. So far this year, 27 states have proposed similar bills, with South Dakota enacting its version of the legislation into law this month.
While not school related, there has also been a slew of bills that seek to prevent transgender youths from accessing gender-affirming health care. At least 20 states have proposed such measures since early 2021, with two states — Arkansas and Tennessee — enacting these bills into law. However, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Arkansas law in July after the American Civil Liberties Union challenged it in court on behalf of trans youths and their families.
Cooper Solomon said he thinks lawmakers are pushing anti-LGBTQ legislation “because they were born in another time.”
“I guess back then, a long time ago, they didn’t accept this, and they thought it was really bad,” the fifth grader said. “I would just like them to know that it’s OK to be like this, and it’s not going to hurt anyone.”
Legislation aside, the last straw for Jack Petocz, 17, was when his high school in Flagler County, Florida, removed a young adult memoir detailing the trials of being a Black queer boy: George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue.”
In November, a school board member filed a criminal complaint against school officials for allowing copies of the book— which has been challenged in at least 19 states —to remain in two of the county’s high schools. The complaint was dismissed, but the superintendent decided to keep the book off of shelves until new policies are drafted to give parents more control over the library’s collection.
“I felt that my community was under attack, that they were trying to silence LGBTQ+ experiences and voices within our community,” Petocz, who is gay and led a student protest in response to the book’s removal, said. “We’re already a minority. Why are you trying to suppress this critical information within our libraries, you know? These books are critical to providing a sense of identity.”
Books about race, sexual orientation and gender identity have historically been challenged in schools, but over the last several months, school libraries have seen a surge of opposition.
In the fall, as book bans started to take off in counties across the country, national groups — including No Left Turn in Education and Moms for Liberty — began circulating lists of school library books that they said were “indoctrinating kids to a dangerous ideology” to rally support.
The bans then became a talking point in the contentious Virginia governor’s race, where the Republican candidate, former private equity executive and political newcomer Glenn Youngkin, made education a central issue of his campaign and swept to victory.
Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin speaks at an election night party in Chantilly, Va., on Nov. 3, 2021.Andrew Harnik / AP file
Youngkin’s victory prompted other politicians to jump onto the issue, with the governors of Texas and South Carolina urging state school officials in November to ban several books, deriding them as “pornography” and “obscene” content.
School board members in Virginia’s Spotsylvania County made national headlines after calling for LGBTQ books with “sexually explicit” material to be incinerated.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom, said in November that while challenges to books with LGBTQ- and race-related content have historically been “constant,” the association has recently seen a “chilling” uptick.
“I’ve worked at ALA for two decades now, and I’ve never seen this volume of challenges come in,” she said.“The impact will fall to those students who desperately want and need books that reflect their lives, that answer questions about their identity, about their experiences that they always desperately need and often feel that they can’t talk to adults about.”
To counter LGBTQ book bans — and school bans on race-related texts — a group of more than 600 writers, including bestselling children’s author Judy Blume; publishers; bookstore owners; and advocacy groups signed a joint statement in December condemning the trend, arguing it “threatens the education of America’s children.”
Setting a ‘different tone’
While state bills and book bans have garnered the most media attention, advocates say there are a host of other troubling trends adding to the distress that many queer students are feeling: removals of Pride flags and other LGBTQ-affirming symbols from classrooms, disbandments of gay-straight alliance clubs and resignations of teachers in protest of anti-LGBTQ policies.
In the fall, for example, rainbow stickers were ordered to be scraped off classroom doors at MacArthur High School near Dallas.
“While we appreciate the sentiment of reaching out to students who may not previously always had such support, we want to set a different tone this year,” an email from a school official addressed to school staff read. NBC News obtained the email from a MacArthur High School teacher.
The sticker removals prompted a protest from the student body, but the pushback did not successfully encourage school officials to change their stance on the policy.
School board members in Newberg, Oregon, made national headlines in the fall for taking similar actions. In September, the school board banned educators from displaying Pride and Black Lives Matter flags and other symbols it considered “political” in school.
“We don’t pay our teachers to push their political views on our students. That’s not their place,” the school board member who authored the policy, Brian Shannon, said at a recorded board meeting.
The policy prompted town protests that attracted some members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group that has endorsed violence, who counterprotested the efforts. An attempt to recall Shannon and another school board member over the flag removals failed last month.
Some teachers have resigned in school districts over similar measures, like a Missouri teacher who resigned in September after his district mandated that he take down his Pride flag and not discuss human sexuality or “sexual preference” at school. In December, parents accused teachers at a middle school in Tennessee of trying to “indoctrinate” kids into being gay after helping students start a gay-straight alliance club.
In addition to parents, school officials and lawmakers, classmates are among those targeting LGBTQ students, according to advocacy groups and local news reports.
A national survey of LGBTQ students published in 2020 by GLSEN found that 69 percent of respondents reported experiencing verbal harassment at school based on their sexual orientation, 57 percent based on their gender expression or outward appearance, and 54 percent based on their gender identity.
Last year, more than a dozen local news articles —from California to Florida — reported on trans students being harassed or attacked by other students, some of them in bathrooms. However, advocates say it is unclear whether the attacks have increased or whether local outlets are reporting them at greater rates.
Impact of affirmation
Advocates have long been warning educators about the mental health risks plaguing LGBTQ youths and how anti-LGBTQ policies can exacerbate them.
A survey last year by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, found that 42 percent of the nearly 35,000 LGBTQ youths who were surveyed — and over half of trans and nonbinary youths — seriously considered suicide within the prior year. Separately, two-thirds of LGBTQ youths said debates about anti-trans legislation have impacted their mental health negatively, according to a small survey The Trevor Project conducted in the fall.
However, researchers at The Trevor Project have also found that LGBTQ youths who reported having at least one LGBTQ-affirming space — such as a school, home or workplace — were significantly less likely to attempt suicide.
With that in mind, Lizette Trujillo drives three hours a day back and forth to her 14-year-old transgender son’s school in Tucson, Arizona. From the time when he socially transitioned in 2015, Daniel’s school was open to the idea of letting him use the bathroom that corresponded with his gender identity — which Trujillo said was not a given in Arizona — and already had experience teaching trans youth.
Daniel Trujillo.Courtesy Rachel Marie Photography
Trujillo said while the commute “is not without its challenges,” sending Daniel to a school where he is “not ‘othered’” has made him happier.
“The biggest difference at my school is that I’m supported by all my teachers and the principal and staff; I have access to sports and the bathrooms,” Daniel said. “It makes learning easier.”
It also freed up space for his mother to focus on securing her son gender-affirming health care, filing for new identification documents and working through emotional hardships.
“What people don’t realize is that you’re not just worried about school when your child socially transitions,” Trujillo said. “As you start this gender journey, you start to hit walls, and you’re like, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize I needed that,’ or, ‘I didn’t realize that was going to be a problem. I didn’t realize we were going to lose family.’”
In response to the slew of challenges plaguing LGBTQ students and teachers, President Joe Biden has vowed to lend his support. Earlier this month, the White House issued a rebuke of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, while connecting the legislation to the disputes happening nationally.
“Make no mistake — this is not an isolated action. Across the country, we’re seeing Republican leaders take actions to regulate what students can or cannot read, what they can or cannot learn, and most troubling, who they can or cannot be,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News. “This is politics at its worse, cynically using our students as pawns in political warfare.”
Students ‘fighting for their basic rights’
There are a number of examples across the U.S. of students getting proactive and successfully turning around anti-LGBTQ policies.
Aaryan Rawal, 17, was one of more than 400 students in Fairfax County, Virginia, who successfully urged their school officials to reinstate two LGBTQ books in November. Rawal, who is gay, said he was relieved when school board members heeded students’ demands, but he lamented that the organizing efforts forced him to miss class and lose sleep.
“No student in any county in this country wants to go to school fighting for their basic rights,” Rawal said. “Instead of doing statistics homework or hanging out with friends, we were expected to go to school board meetings and lobby school board members for stuff that really shouldn’t be up for debate.”
Last month, a group of students in Palm Beach, Florida, met with their newly hired superintendent to describe their experience being LGBTQ in their county’s schools. They went around, one by one, and relayed stories of harassment and assault from students and bullying from teachers, according to two students who attended the meeting.
“Students have just gotten a collective consciousness that, ‘School sucks and because I’m LGBT this is to be expected,’ and that’s not normal,” Marcel Whyne, a nonbinary high school student who attended the meeting, said. “That shouldn’t be the level of standard that we have for LGBT kids. You’re entitled to be treated like your peers and go to school and, you know, just be bored at school like a normal student, not terrified that you’re going to be harassed and have photos taken of you and be embarrassed and assaulted just because you’re trying to be who you are.”
As for Spencer Lyst, in Tennessee, he set out to start his high school’s Pride club, Indy Pride, last fall with the goal of spreading awareness about the school’s LGBTQ community and providing “a place for people who may feel like they don’t have one.” While being booed by adults at his school’s homecoming was a “difficult” experience, he said he remains undeterred.
“People should know that no matter what bill they try to pass or book they try to ban or thing they try to ban teachers or students from talking about in schools, it doesn’t change who people are, and it doesn’t change who we’re going to continue to be,” Lyst said. “So trying to take a legal route to ‘protect your kids’ doesn’t work. They are who they are, and if you can’t accept that, maybe it’s you who has some work to do.”
The percent of U.S. adults who identify as something other than heterosexual has doubled over the last 10 years, from 3.5 percent in 2012 to 7.1 percent, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday.
Gallup found that the increase is due to ”high LGBT self-identification, particularly as bisexual, among Generation Z adults,” who are 18 to 25.
It asked more than 12,000 U.S. adults how they identify during telephone interviews last year. It found that younger U.S. adults are much more likely to identify as LGBTQ than older generations.
More than 1 in 5, or 21 percent, of Generation Z adults identify as LGBTQ, Gallup found. That’s almost double the proportion of millennials, who are 26 to 41, at 10.5 percent, and nearly five times the proportion of Generation X, who are 42 to 57, at 4.2 percent. Less than 3 percent of baby boomers, who are 58 to 76, identify as LGBTQ, compared to just 0.8 percent of traditionalists, who are 77 or older.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/u5fH2si?_showcaption=true&app=1
As the youngest Americans slowly outnumber and replace the oldest, Gallup predicts the number of LGBTQ-identifying adults will only increase — and likely at a much faster rate than past generations.
The poll found that the percent of Generation X, baby boomers and traditionalists who identify as queer has remained relatively the same over the years. More millennials have increasingly identified as LGBTQ, but only slightly, at 5.8 percent in 2012, 7.8 percent in 2017 and 10.5 percent now.
But the poll noted that the percentage of Generation Z adults who are queer has almost doubled since 2017 — jumping from 10.5 percent in 2017 to 20.8 percent. The rise shows that younger Gen Zers, who have turned 18 since 2017, are more likely than older Gen Zers to identify as queer.
Gallup noted that the youngest Gen Zers — who are as young as 10 — still haven’t turned 18, and they are even more likely to identify as LGBTQ.
If the trend of millennials and Generation Z increasingly identifying as LGBTQ continues, “the proportion of LGBT Americans should exceed 10 percent in the near future,” Gallup found.
Bisexuals make up 4 percent of all U.S. adults
Bisexuality is the most common identifier used among LGBTQ Americans, which is in line with a Gallup report released last year. More than half of LGBTQ Americans, at 57 percent, are bisexual.
Over one-fifth of LGBTQ respondents, or 21 percent, are gay, 14 percent are lesbian, 10 percent are transgender and 4 percent identify as something e
Overall, 4 percent of U.S. adults identify as bisexual, compared to 1 percent who identify as lesbian, 1.5 percent as gay, 0.7 percent as transgender and 0.3 percent as other. Heterosexuals comprised 86.3 percent of total respondents, and 6.6 percent did not offer an opinion.
Generation Z adults are the most likely to identify as bisexual, at 15 percent overall, compared to 6 percent of millennials and less than 2 percent of Generation X, baby boomers and traditionalists.
Increasing acceptance — in certain areas
Gallup notes that the proportion of Gen Z Americans who identify as LGBTQ is increasing at a faster pace than previous generations, and that they are growing up at a time when 70 percent of Americanssupport same-sex marriage rights, and a majority also support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people.
But that support varies when broken down further. For example, Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey found last year that 66 percent of people favor allowing openly transgender people to serve in the military, that figure is down slightly from its previous measure in 2019, when 71 percent were in favor.
At the same time, 62 percent of Americans say trans athletes should only be allowed to play on sports teams that correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth, while 34 percent say they should be able to play on teams that match their gender identity, the survey found.
At the time, Mara Keisling, former executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, attributed that contrast at least in part to the wave of legislation in states seeking to bar trans students from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity.
But she also noted that — consistent with Gallup’s data — as more Americans know trans people and more young people identify as LGBTQ, acceptance will grow. As for those pushing anti-transgender legislation, she added, “Someday, they’ll be in the dustbin of history.”
. A relatively recent newcomer to the West Coast, Rachel spent a decade in New York City working as a dance artist. Originally from Ireland, she has taught and performed in the UK, US, India, Costa Rica, and Austria. Recent work in Sonoma County includes Dancing Lessons at Cinnabar, Barely A Person (a film exploring postpartum depression) for Heroines, Harlots and Harpies at Cloverdale Performing Arts Center, Fairy Worlds for Shakespeare in the Cannery, Equus, and A Little Night Music at 6th Street. She is the founder of the expandance technique, a somatic movement practice. Learn more about Rachel’s company at expandance.com
Q. It’s been more than 50 years since HAIR was first produced, and the US and the world have seen major cultural changes. How do you think this play stands up to the test of time? What aspects of it are still relevant and how?
Much of it is still relevant, unfortunately. We’re still living in a white supremacist, capitalist culture, and there are still wars globally, so this show is important because it talks about these things and yet there’s also hope and humor there. This show reflects a time when many of these issues were coming to a greater level of consciousness in American society, and there is a resurgence of the same in the last few years. It’s interesting to see some of the ways we’ve evolved in our thinking since that time, and some of the ways we’re still struggling to.
Q. How has the Omicron surge affected your rehearsal process? What challenges have been presented and how did you manage them?
Even with stringent Covid protocols in place, (including masks, twice or thrice weekly testing, sanitizing, distancing etc) during the first couple of weeks of rehearsal back in January, I don’t think I had more than half the cast at a time in rehearsals, and I really felt for the cast. It was also definitely a challenge choreographically, as so many of the dance numbers in this show require the whole cast. But the last few weeks things have been better *knock on wood!* It’s been helpful having a strong dance captain in Peri Zoe who I can trust to get people up to speed as needed. And I think we’re all just so happy to be back working again, and that gratitude carries us through the challenges.
Q. What are the strong suits of your actors in terms of choreography?
Their willingness and work ethic. They’ve been so open at everything I’ve thrown at them, which has been great. Between them they bring some pretty diverse skills to the show, so that’s been fun to work with.
Q. What do you think are the aspects of the play that will most appeal to our audience?
The music, the dancing, the passion, the risqué bits!
Q. How has your background in choreography prepared you for your work on this play?
I’ve been choreographing for over two decades now, and for a lot of that, improvisation has been an important part of how I work; not only in the choreographic process as a tool for creation but also as an art form in itself, and as a tool within performance. One of the original tenets of my dance company, expandance, was to include moments of improv among set choreography in all our shows. And with a lot of musicals, there often isn’t the space for that – every beat has a set movement. Hair is special because it presents so many opportunities for the actors to improvise movement between the set stuff. And these parts get rehearsed as much as the set movement, to the point where it feels as organic as anything else. It gives the actors a bit more freedom to embody their characters within the structure of the dancing, and I think that reflects Hair’scall for freedom and connection.
Q. What has been the most enjoyable part of your experience rehearsing the play so far?
It’s been an honor getting to know new, awesome people. This cast has a diverse spectrum of lived experience – from BIPOC to LGBTQI communities, from theater newbies to Equity actors, from classically trained singers to yoga practitioners to circus professionals – and it’s been incredible to meet all these folks, witness their magic, and learn from each other. Cast members have brought conversations regarding race, history, consent, communication, etc. to the table. As a queer immigrant mom, I feel grateful to connect and learn from everyone in different ways throughout this process. Also, getting to meet and work with Aja has been awesome, and I hope we get to collaborate again.
Q. What project have you either just done or going to do (or both) that you’d like our audience to know about?
I’m working on codifying the expandance technique, which involves synthesizing 15 years of movement practice and somatic exercises into readable, shareable documentation. So that’s my main project at the moment, outside of teaching and parenting duties. I’m excited to get to know the theater community in the area better and potentially explore work with directors and theaters around the County.
Detention Watch Network, along with many other organizations are planning a National Day of Action March 3. Here in the Bay Area, as part of this national campaign, Rainbow Beginnings is planning DEPORTATION = DEATH, a candlelight vigil at dusk to remember LGBTQ immigrants deported and asylum seekers held in concentration camps. It will be held at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro.
We are reaching out to invite your organization to participate in this event. We hope Queer Asylum Accompaniment Team will join us as a cosponsor. To cosponsor we ask your organization to provide a speaker for 3-5 minutes on LGBTQIA immigration needs and need to reform, and help promote this event to your staff, volunteers and members. Please let us know as soon as possible if you can sponsor.
If you have any questions or want more information please contact us.
Dive into environmental issues and discover how things work with our new science databases. From hundreds of 3-D interactive models, to in depth research on scientific topics, there is a whole world of digital science to explore! These new resources are courtesy of the California State Library as part of their K-12 Online Content Project, which enables all K-12 students in California to access vital learning support through their schools and local libraries. Find out more about these exciting resources below!
Environmental Studies In Contextbrings together periodicals and multimedia, empowering learners to critically analyze and understand important topics that affect people around the world. Explore topics and events such as Earth systems, global change, pollution, populations, and more.
Science: Interactive helps students better visualize and understand concepts in biology, chemistry, earth and space science. Students and instructors can manipulate and explore 3D models paired with reference and periodical content for further understanding.
National Geographic Kids is an online database housing books, videos, magazines, and pictures produced by National Geographic for children. The content includes the complete run of National Geographic’s Kidsmagazine from 2009 to present, over 500 books from the National Geographic Kids Collections, and hundreds of downloadable images and videos.
In Case You Missed It
Looking for more science resources? Check out some of these library favorites!
ScienceFlix™ is an online resource that focuses on engaging science content for students in grades 4-10. ScienceFlix™ offers more than 20,000 science-related assets that cover six areas of study, including earth science, space science, life science, health and the human body, physical science, and technology and engineering.
SIRS® Issues Researcher is an authoritative resource for pro/con issues assignments offering background and analysis on 360+ leading issues. Editorially curated and created content including engaging Essential Questions, and viewpoint articles help build a solid foundation for understanding complex global issues.
Escolar is a Spanish-language resource for native Spanish speakers, bilingual students, and students learning Spanish. Engaging home pages at each level are entry points to thousands of articles, images, videos, maps, and tables, many of which are newly added daily.
Dive In TodayThank you for being a member of the Sonoma County Library community. Visit us online or in person at one of our branches. Be sure to check out open jobs at Sonoma County Library here. Questions? Please call your local library branch or click here to send us a message. La ciencia cobra vida con tu tarjeta de la biblioteca Sumérgete en temas ambientales y descubre cómo funcionan las cosas con nuestras nuevas bases de datos de ciencia. ¡Desde cientos de modelos interactivos en 3D hasta investigaciones en profundidad sobre temas científicos, ¡hay todo un mundo de ciencia digital para explorar! Estos nuevos recursos son cortesía de la Biblioteca Estatal de California como parte de su Proyecto de Contenido en Línea K-12, que permite a todos los estudiantes de K-12 en California acceder a apoyo vital de aprendizaje a través de sus escuelas y bibliotecas locales. ¡Más información sobre estos emocionantes recursos a continuación!
Environmental Studies In Contextreúne publicaciones periódicas y multimedia, empoderando a los estudiantes para analizar críticamente y comprender temas importantes que afectan a las personas de todo el mundo. Explore temas y eventos como los sistemas de la Tierra, el cambio global, la contaminación, las poblaciones y más.
Science: Interactive ayuda a los estudiantes a visualizar y comprender mejor los conceptos de biología, química, ciencias de la tierra y el espacio. Los estudiantes e instructores pueden manipular y explorar modelos 3D combinados con contenido de referencia y periódico para una mayor comprensión.
National Geographic Kids es una base de datos en línea que contiene libros, videos, revistas y fotografías producidas por National Geographic para niños. El contenido incluye la tirada completa de la revista National Geographic’s Kids desde 2009 hasta la actualidad, más de 500 libros de National Geographic Kids Collections y cientos de imágenes y vídeos descargables.
En caso de que lo hayas olvidado
¿Buscas más recursos sobre la ciencia? ¡Echa un vistazo a algunos de estos favoritos de la biblioteca!
ScienceFlix™ es un recurso en línea con un enfoque de ciencias para estudiantes del 4 al 10 grado escolar. Cuenta con más de 20,000 videos sobre la ciencia de la tierra, el espacio, la vida, la salud, el cuerpo humano, la física, la tecnología e ingeniería.
SIRS® Issues Researcher es un recurso fidedigno para escribir ensayos argumentativos a favor de un tema o en contra de ello. Ofrece antecedentes y análisis sobre 360 temas principales. Brinda contenido editado y creado, incluidas las Essential Questions y los artículos de diferentes puntos de vista, ayudan a crear una base sólida para comprender problemas globales complejos.
Escolar es un recurso en español para hablantes del español, para los estudiantes bilingües y para los estudiantes que están aprendiendo el español. Las páginas de inicio en cada nivel son puntos de entrada a miles de artículos, imágenes, videos, mapas y tablas, muchos de los cuales están agregados a diario.
Sumérgete hoyGracias por ser miembro de la comunidad de Bibliotecas del Condado de Sonoma. Visítenos en línea o en persona en una de nuestras sucursales. Asegúrese de consultar los trabajos disponible en la Biblioteca del Condado de Sonoma aquí. ¿Preguntas? Por favor llame a su biblioteca local o haga clic para mandar un mensaje.If you would like to manage which emails you receive from us, please click here. Si desea gestionar los correos electrónicos que recibe de nosotros, haga clic aquí.
Dive into environmental issues and discover how things work with our new science databases. From hundreds of 3-D interactive models, to in depth research on scientific topics, there is a whole world of digital science to explore!
These new resources are courtesy of the California State Library as part of their K-12 Online Content Project, which enables all K-12 students in California to access vital learning support through their schools and local libraries. Find out more about these exciting resources below! Environmental Studies In Contextbrings together periodicals and multimedia, empowering learners to critically analyze and understand important topics that affect people around the world. Explore topics and events such as Earth systems, global change, pollution, populations, and more. Science: Interactive helps students better visualize and understand concepts in biology, chemistry, earth and space science. Students and instructors can manipulate and explore 3D models paired with reference and periodical content for further understanding. National Geographic Kids is an online database housing books, videos, magazines, and pictures produced by National Geographic for children. The content includes the complete run of National Geographic’s Kidsmagazine from 2009 to present, over 500 books from the National Geographic Kids Collections, and hundreds of downloadable images and videos. In Case You Missed It Looking for more science resources? Check out some of these library favorites! ScienceFlix™ is an online resource that focuses on engaging science content for students in grades 4-10. ScienceFlix™ offers more than 20,000 science-related assets that cover six areas of study, including earth science, space science, life science, health and the human body, physical science, and technology and engineering. SIRS® Issues Researcher is an authoritative resource for pro/con issues assignments offering background and analysis on 360+ leading issues. Editorially curated and created content including engaging Essential Questions, and viewpoint articles help build a solid foundation for understanding complex global issues. Escolar is a Spanish-language resource for native Spanish speakers, bilingual students, and students learning Spanish. Engaging home pages at each level are entry points to thousands of articles, images, videos, maps, and tables, many of which are newly added daily. Dive In Today Thank you for being a member of the Sonoma County Library community. Visit us online or in person at one of our branches. Be sure to check out open jobs at Sonoma County Library here.
La ciencia cobra vida con tu tarjeta de la biblioteca
Sumérgete en temas ambientales y descubre cómo funcionan las cosas con nuestras nuevas bases de datos de ciencia. ¡Desde cientos de modelos interactivos en 3D hasta investigaciones en profundidad sobre temas científicos, ¡hay todo un mundo de ciencia digital para explorar!
Estos nuevos recursos son cortesía de la Biblioteca Estatal de California como parte de su Proyecto de Contenido en Línea K-12, que permite a todos los estudiantes de K-12 en California acceder a apoyo vital de aprendizaje a través de sus escuelas y bibliotecas locales. ¡Más información sobre estos emocionantes recursos a continuación! Environmental Studies In Contextreúne publicaciones periódicas y multimedia, empoderando a los estudiantes para analizar críticamente y comprender temas importantes que afectan a las personas de todo el mundo. Explore temas y eventos como los sistemas de la Tierra, el cambio global, la contaminación, las poblaciones y más. Science: Interactive ayuda a los estudiantes a visualizar y comprender mejor los conceptos de biología, química, ciencias de la tierra y el espacio. Los estudiantes e instructores pueden manipular y explorar modelos 3D combinados con contenido de referencia y periódico para una mayor comprensión. National Geographic Kids es una base de datos en línea que contiene libros, videos, revistas y fotografías producidas por National Geographic para niños. El contenido incluye la tirada completa de la revista National Geographic’s Kids desde 2009 hasta la actualidad, más de 500 libros de National Geographic Kids Collections y cientos de imágenes y vídeos descargables. En caso de que lo hayas olvidado ¿Buscas más recursos sobre la ciencia? ¡Echa un vistazo a algunos de estos favoritos de la biblioteca! ScienceFlix™ es un recurso en línea con un enfoque de ciencias para estudiantes del 4 al 10 grado escolar. Cuenta con más de 20,000 videos sobre la ciencia de la tierra, el espacio, la vida, la salud, el cuerpo humano, la física, la tecnología e ingeniería. SIRS® Issues Researcher es un recurso fidedigno para escribir ensayos argumentativos a favor de un tema o en contra de ello. Ofrece antecedentes y análisis sobre 360 temas principales. Brinda contenido editado y creado, incluidas las Essential Questions y los artículos de diferentes puntos de vista, ayudan a crear una base sólida para comprender problemas globales complejos. Escolar es un recurso en español para hablantes del español, para los estudiantes bilingües y para los estudiantes que están aprendiendo el español. Las páginas de inicio en cada nivel son puntos de entrada a miles de artículos, imágenes, videos, mapas y tablas, muchos de los cuales están agregados a diario. Sumérgete hoy Gracias por ser miembro de la comunidad de Bibliotecas del Condado de Sonoma. Visítenos en línea o en persona en una de nuestras sucursales. Asegúrese de consultar los trabajos disponible en la Biblioteca del Condado de Sonoma aquí.
¿Preguntas? Por favor llame a su biblioteca local o haga clic para mandar un mensaje. If you would like to manage which emails you receive from us, please click here.
Si desea gestionar los correos electrónicos que recibe de nosotros, haga clic aquí.
A study has found that COVID-19 vaccine rates in the United States are higher among gay and lesbian adults than in heterosexual adults.
The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that lesbians and gay men aged 18 and older reported higher levels of vaccine coverage (85.4 per cent) than their straight counterpoints (76.3 per cent).
It was found that bisexual (76.3 per cent) and transgender adults (75.7 per cent) had similar COVID-19 vaccine rates to heterosexual people.
The study authors explained that the data could help to “increase vaccination coverage”.
The authors said: “Understanding COVID-19 vaccination coverage and confidence among LGBT+ populations, and identifying the conditions under which disparities exist, can help tailor local efforts to increase vaccination coverage.
“Adding sexual orientation and gender identity to national data collection systems would be a major step toward monitoring disparities and developing a better-informed public health strategy to achieve health equity for the LGBT+ population.”
According to CDC researchers, people within the LGBT+ community “have higher prevalences of health conditions associated with severe COVID-19 illness compared with non-LGBT populations”, for example obesity, smoking, and asthma.
A previous study explained: “Because of their sexual orientation, sexual minority persons experience stigmatisation and discrimination that can increase vulnerabilities to illness…
“Persons who are members of both sexual minority and racial/ethnic minority groups might therefore experience a convergence of distinct social, economic, and environmental disadvantages that increase chronic disease disparities and the risk for adverse COVID-19–related outcomes.”
Sia Sehgal, a student at a private international school outside Mumbai, raised 200,000 rupees (£1,933) for the Maharashtra District AIDS Control Society (MDACS) to buy COVID-19 vaccines.
MDACS administered 120 first doses to trans people during a free vaccination drive in July last year.
Varshabhai Dhokalia, a trans woman, told the Hindustan Times after receiving the free vaccine: “We are always being mocked. While I was standing in the queue for the shot, people were staring and laughing at me. Someone even passed a comment that the vaccination was only for males and females.
“This discourages us from going to these centres for vaccination.”
Sehgal raised the money for the 120 first COVID-19 vaccine doses in two weeks, and planned to raise more funds so that the people who had their first vaccine could have their second.
Chase Joynt’s follow up to his exceptional No Ordinary Man (co-directed with Aisling Chin-Yee) about the life of jazz musician Billy Tipton, is the equally thrillingly and similarly genre-defying feature Framing Ages—expanding upon his own 2019 short—which just had its world premiere in the NEXT lineup at Sundance. It’s a fitting section of the festival for the film to play given that it not only poses questions about what is next in the evolution of the representation of trans lives on screen, but also continually challenges broader notions about storytelling and form.
Agnes is the pseudonym of a trans woman who sought gender affirming surgery in the late 1950s, taking part in research interviews conducted by sociologist Harold Garfinkel at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Garfinkel would go on to write about his conversations with her as a case study, which became widely known when it was published in 1967’s Studies in Ethnomethodology. Agnes would later admit to fabricating elements of her medical history in order to gain the health care she needed. In the process of doing his own research on Agnes in the UCLA archives in 2017, Chase discovered a rusted cabinet containing case files on numerous other gender non-conforming folks who had also been interviewed by Garfinkel.
This isn’t a biographical documentary about his work at UCLA, instead it takes the radical approach of using the framing device of a contemporary TV talk show, inspired by The Mike Wallace Interview, with Joynt taking on the role of host and interrogator (asking Garfinkel’s questions), while some of toady’s most prominent trans creatives embody the case study subjects.
Artist Zackary Drucker takes on the rather enigmatic Agnes who doesn’t have any other gender non-conforming people in her life, but has a longterm boyfriend and works as a secretary. While Angelica Ross inhabits Georgia, a religious trans woman from the South who although is happily married talks about the discrimination she faces from police and her difficulty in finding employment. Silas Howard portrays World War II vet Denny who has steady work and wife, and is invasively questioned about using shared toilet facilities. We hear Henry, embodied by Max Wolf Valerio, discuss the difficulties that having official identification that does not match his gender identity has caused him, detailing an incident where a police officer pulled him over and scratched off the paint he’d put on his driver’s license to cover the prohibitive ‘F’. Trans teenager Jimmy, as played by Stephen Ira, brings a playful humour to many of is answers and exudes a relaxed confidence in himself and his gender identity that suggests a certainty that he is right and the rest of the world is wrong. We also learn the detail that his mother accompanied him to the session, a possible sign of her acceptance. Some of the most fascinating moments in the film come while Jen Richards is playing Barbara. Whereas Agnes describes being isolated from other trans people, Barbara, as interpreted by Richards, has a sense of joy as she discusses being part of a network of trans women which she describes as being “like a club”.
Cinematographer Aubree Bernier-Clarke captures each of these talk show performances in crisp black and white. While recreations are often used to pad out or to provide a visual element in other documentaries, here they form the heart of it; compelling, nuanced and emotionally rich, they offer a glimpse into the inner lives of these subjects with the actors mining the transcripts for subtext and exploring the nuance of what’s spoken and deliberately left unsaid. Brought to life in this way, I wanted to hear these transcripts in their entirety and to know every detail about these people. The TV talk show format is effective in exploring the wrestling power dynamic of cis interviewer and trans subject, while also acknowledges the importance of the talk show, for better or worse, in the history of trans visibility.
We also see brief out of character interactions between Joynt and the actors before the interviews begin, as they discuss a line in the script or consider how the scene might play out. These are “off camera” moments in a film where the cameras are never really off, but rather the frame shifts to capture another layer of meaning and another aspect of creating the film. In an insightful parallel, each performer is interviewed as themselves by Joynt about their participation in Framing Agnes, what it means to them to embody these gender non-conforming folks from the past and, as we also saw in No Ordinary Man, how the experiences of these case study subjects relate to their own lives. Angelica Ross for instance finds connections with Georgia, while voicing her initial reluctance about taking part in the project and her frustration with the way that her own story often gets framed as “exceptional”, just as Christine Jorgensen’s and Agnes’ stories were before her. While Max Wolf Valerio reflects on the way that Henry wrote about his own post-World War II life, just as Valerio has with works such as The Testosterone Files and continues to do so with his poetry.
While what the actors bring from the own lives allows them to fully inhabit these voices from the past, the film also raises questions about what assumptions we bring with us when we encounter historical trans folks. In reading and interpreting these medical transcripts from over half a century ago what imaginative license do we use and what do we ultimately want to get from these figures to help us navigate our own lives today? The dichotomy of medical and societal categorization that both affirms existence and places people in potentially restricting boxes is also examined. These questions emerge as the film progresses and are explicitly voiced by the eloquent Jules Gill-Peterson, Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and author of Histories of the Transgender Child in an insightful and stimulating interview which is used extensively throughout the film. While the acting performances are extraordinary, and there’s so much power in even brief moments, such as an intimate exchange of glances between Angelica Ross as Georgia and Brian Michael Smith in church, these recreations are interrogated for what is being brought to them from our present day perspective.
Joynt and his collaborators begin by asking who Agnes was, her place in history, and how she should be framed now, and expand their own frame to question what we might hope to gain by looking back and how much of ourselves we might project on to those we discover, while continuing the conversation about trans visibility sparked by Disclosure. It is a declaration that it’s not enough for gender non-conforming people to tell their own stories, but new forms must be forged in which to do so. The result is an exhilarating endeavor, cerebral, but accessible and often deeply moving, that continually demands its viewer to be an active participant.
By James Kleinmann
Framing Agnes world premiered in the NEXT section at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. For details of further screenings head to Festival.Sundance.org.
The Rev. Richard Weinberg, an Episcopalian rector in Washington, D.C., was surprised to find that his diocese didn’t have a policy for paid parental leave when he began preparing to adopt a child with his partner last year.
The church allowed three months of specifically paid maternal leave, four weeks more than D.C. law mandates. But unlike some of the district’s provisions, the church’s policy didn’t address people, including LGBTQ couples, who seek to have children through adoption, surrogacy or other means.
After he and another priest petitioned the diocese for a policy that included all methods of starting a family, the church agreed to give him 12 weeks of paid parental leave once his adoption is finalized. But it took numerous discussions with senior leadership and his congregation to figure out what would work for them, as well as for him.
“Without a policy in place or any law to fall back on, the burden was on me to fight for myself and what I thought was fair and appropriate,” Weinberg said.
The Rev. Richard Mosson Weinberg.St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church
Weinberg’s experience is common in the LGBTQ community, advocacy groups and think tanks studying the issue say. According to a 2020 study by the Census Bureau, same-sex couples are more than four times as likely as opposite-sex couples to adopt children — and more than twice as likely to foster children. But the policies vary by employer and are applied inconsistently, according to studies of the issue.
Advocates have called for more inclusive and widespread parental leave policies, and came close with a provision in President Joe Biden’s $1.7 trillion social safety net bill, which would have mandated all U.S. employers provide workers with four weeks of paid parental leave. But talks on the legislation collapsed after Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, announced in December that he wouldn’t vote for the billin part over funding for new programs,denying his Democratic colleagues the 50 votes they would need to pass the legislation under special budget rules.
LGBTQ advocates hope that polls showing broad support for paid parental leave will create momentum for legislative action. Eighty-four percent of voters — including majorities of Democrats, independents and Republicans — support a paid family leave policy, according to a 2018 study from the National Partnership for Women and Families, an advocacy group focused on the issue.
While 12 weeks of leave are available to many new parents under the Family and Medical Leave Act, that time off is unpaid under the law, making it financially unviable for lower-income people. Paid leave through employers or states is available to only about a quarter of Americans, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data in 2021, and just a handful of states and Washington, D.C., have implemented policies themselves.
The programs that are available aren’t distributed equally, with 12 percent of private industry workers in the lowest income quartile receiving paid family leave and 37 percent of workers in the highest quartile having access, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Policies also don’t cover sexual orientations and gender identities equally. A 2018 survey by the Human Rights Campaign found fewer than half of LGBTQ respondents said their employers’ leave policies were LGBTQ-inclusive. Respondents also expressed concern about potentially outing themselves or encountering workplace discrimination when asking for leave, the survey found.
In addition, LGBTQ people face distinct financial considerations in starting families. The community is more likely to face economic hurdles like housing instability, unemployment and food insecurity, to begin with, indicating a greater need for social safety net programs, according to the progressive think tank the Center for American Progress. Then there are the additional expenses associated with various means of bringing children into the home.
“LGBTQ-plus parents often have additional needs for paid leave,” Julie Kruse, the director of federal policy at the advocacy group Family Equality, said. “Our families can be expensive to form — for people that require trans fertility services, for people using alternative reproductive technologies, even those going through the processes of fostering and adopting.”
A further issue is how paid leave policies affect employees’ perceived commitment to their job, said Richard Petts, a sociology professor at Ball State University. Taking leave can be stigmatized, causing employees to worry they’ll face a disadvantage at work if they take time off. When those policies are implemented inconsistently in the workplace, it only exacerbates the problem, he said.
Expanded access would help correct the issue and also be of special benefit to marginalized groups, Petts said.
“The U.S. actually has this really golden opportunity to take the lead in providing and showing what an equitable leave policy could look like,” Petts said. “Having a policy that says this is an individual entitlement really is equitable in the truest sense.”
The Covid pandemic, meanwhile, has only heightened financial concerns as it takes a toll on families across the country, Kruse said, adding that she hopes that could influence voters’ opinions and create momentum for a national policy.
“Knowing that we have paid time off without fear of losing our job is just a huge relief, and all families deserve to feel that, so I think there’s going to be a lot of pressure,” Kruse said. “There’s only so much more families can take.”
Support for legislation
For Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., the issue is personal. Craig, who co-chairs the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus and is one of two LGBTQ parents in Congress, said the complexities that same-sex couples face in becoming parents have shown the importance of a uniform paid leave policy.
Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., shows a picture of her grandson Noah on her phone as she speaks at the Capitol about proposed investments in children to reduce economic disparity on Dec. 14, 2021.Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
LGBTQ people face a wide range of barriers when starting families, Craig said. One such circumstance occurred when her wife adopted their first child — even though she was married to the primary adoptee, Craig had to file for second-parent adoption, a practice in place in many states.
Across the nation, nearly 20 states, primarily led by Republicans, have not passed protections against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexuality in adoption, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank focused on promoting equal rights.
Craig said including four weeks of leave in the Build Back Better Act was a step in the right direction, although she and many other progressives had initially called for 12 weeks. She said she plans to continue to advocate for expansive paid leave legislation.
“Paid family leave makes sense for all families,” Craig said. “We shouldn’t be putting barriers in place for LGBTQ individuals who want to have families, and that’s what we’ve done in the history of the nation.”
Before negotiations on the bill stalled, Manchin opposed including 12 weeks of paid family leave, saying he preferred standalone legislation, rather than the sweeping bill, for such a significant policy change and expressing concerns about the funding of the broader package. He also expressed concern that Americans would abuse some benefits like paid leave and the child tax credit.
“I believe in family leave, I believe people should have that opportunity,” Manchin said on MSNBC in November. “Can’t we find a better position for this and do this in a bipartisan process that works?”
Progressive lawmakers view passage of such a provision as a necessary and historic opportunity amid favorable views on the subject, including among some businesses, after previous efforts have failed.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also supports paid family leave, although it opposed the social spending legislation, according to Marc Freedman, the chamber’s vice president of employment policy.
“The chamber continues to believe there is a fiscally responsible, bipartisan approach to providing a federal paid family leave benefit,” Freedman said in a statement to NBC News. “We believe that such a deal can be forged, but this partisan reconciliation bill is certainly not the vehicle to achieve a sensible solution to making sure paid family leave is available on a nationwide basis.”
Weinberg, the D.C. rector, said national legislation would prevent others from having to go through what he experienced in preparing to adopt a child.
While thankful for the changes his diocese made, he said he hopes to see a national standard. Having a child is a significant change for any family, and the opportunity to bond is essential, he said.
“To be able to continue to earn an income without having to put your life and your financial health on hold in order to have a family is just such a basic right,” Weinberg said. “So having legislation in place and employers who are seeking to happily compensate people when they’re starting their family would be a huge benefit to Americans.”
Now, Weinberg and his partner are navigating the application process for a 10-year-old boy from Colombia they hosted for five weeks last year. They hope to have the adoption finalized by summer.
The Rev. Richard Weinberg, an Episcopalian rector in Washington, D.C., was surprised to find that his diocese didn’t have a policy for paid parental leave when he began preparing to adopt a child with his partner last year.
The church allowed three months of specifically paid maternal leave, four weeks more than D.C. law mandates. But unlike some of the district’s provisions, the church’s policy didn’t address people, including LGBTQ couples, who seek to have children through adoption, surrogacy or other means.
After he and another priest petitioned the diocese for a policy that included all methods of starting a family, the church agreed to give him 12 weeks of paid parental leave once his adoption is finalized. But it took numerous discussions with senior leadership and his congregation to figure out what would work for them, as well as for him.
“Without a policy in place or any law to fall back on, the burden was on me to fight for myself and what I thought was fair and appropriate,” Weinberg said.
The Rev. Richard Mosson Weinberg.St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church
Weinberg’s experience is common in the LGBTQ community, advocacy groups and think tanks studying the issue say. According to a 2020 study by the Census Bureau, same-sex couples are more than four times as likely as opposite-sex couples to adopt children — and more than twice as likely to foster children. But the policies vary by employer and are applied inconsistently, according to studies of the issue.
Advocates have called for more inclusive and widespread parental leave policies, and came close with a provision in President Joe Biden’s $1.7 trillion social safety net bill, which would have mandated all U.S. employers provide workers with four weeks of paid parental leave. But talks on the legislation collapsed after Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, announced in December that he wouldn’t vote for the billin part over funding for new programs,denying his Democratic colleagues the 50 votes they would need to pass the legislation under special budget rules.
LGBTQ advocates hope that polls showing broad support for paid parental leave will create momentum for legislative action. Eighty-four percent of voters — including majorities of Democrats, independents and Republicans — support a paid family leave policy, according to a 2018 study from the National Partnership for Women and Families, an advocacy group focused on the issue.
While 12 weeks of leave are available to many new parents under the Family and Medical Leave Act, that time off is unpaid under the law, making it financially unviable for lower-income people. Paid leave through employers or states is available to only about a quarter of Americans, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data in 2021, and just a handful of states and Washington, D.C., have implemented policies themselves.
The programs that are available aren’t distributed equally, with 12 percent of private industry workers in the lowest income quartile receiving paid family leave and 37 percent of workers in the highest quartile having access, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Policies also don’t cover sexual orientations and gender identities equally. A 2018 survey by the Human Rights Campaign found fewer than half of LGBTQ respondents said their employers’ leave policies were LGBTQ-inclusive. Respondents also expressed concern about potentially outing themselves or encountering workplace discrimination when asking for leave, the survey found.
In addition, LGBTQ people face distinct financial considerations in starting families. The community is more likely to face economic hurdles like housing instability, unemployment and food insecurity, to begin with, indicating a greater need for social safety net programs, according to the progressive think tank the Center for American Progress. Then there are the additional expenses associated with various means of bringing children into the home.
“LGBTQ-plus parents often have additional needs for paid leave,” Julie Kruse, the director of federal policy at the advocacy group Family Equality, said. “Our families can be expensive to form — for people that require trans fertility services, for people using alternative reproductive technologies, even those going through the processes of fostering and adopting.”
A further issue is how paid leave policies affect employees’ perceived commitment to their job, said Richard Petts, a sociology professor at Ball State University. Taking leave can be stigmatized, causing employees to worry they’ll face a disadvantage at work if they take time off. When those policies are implemented inconsistently in the workplace, it only exacerbates the problem, he said.
Expanded access would help correct the issue and also be of special benefit to marginalized groups, Petts said.
“The U.S. actually has this really golden opportunity to take the lead in providing and showing what an equitable leave policy could look like,” Petts said. “Having a policy that says this is an individual entitlement really is equitable in the truest sense.”
The Covid pandemic, meanwhile, has only heightened financial concerns as it takes a toll on families across the country, Kruse said, adding that she hopes that could influence voters’ opinions and create momentum for a national policy.
“Knowing that we have paid time off without fear of losing our job is just a huge relief, and all families deserve to feel that, so I think there’s going to be a lot of pressure,” Kruse said. “There’s only so much more families can take.”
Support for legislation
For Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., the issue is personal. Craig, who co-chairs the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus and is one of two LGBTQ parents in Congress, said the complexities that same-sex couples face in becoming parents have shown the importance of a uniform paid leave policy.
Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., shows a picture of her grandson Noah on her phone as she speaks at the Capitol about proposed investments in children to reduce economic disparity on Dec. 14, 2021.Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
LGBTQ people face a wide range of barriers when starting families, Craig said. One such circumstance occurred when her wife adopted their first child — even though she was married to the primary adoptee, Craig had to file for second-parent adoption, a practice in place in many states.
Across the nation, nearly 20 states, primarily led by Republicans, have not passed protections against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexuality in adoption, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank focused on promoting equal rights.
Craig said including four weeks of leave in the Build Back Better Act was a step in the right direction, although she and many other progressives had initially called for 12 weeks. She said she plans to continue to advocate for expansive paid leave legislation.
“Paid family leave makes sense for all families,” Craig said. “We shouldn’t be putting barriers in place for LGBTQ individuals who want to have families, and that’s what we’ve done in the history of the nation.”
Before negotiations on the bill stalled, Manchin opposed including 12 weeks of paid family leave, saying he preferred standalone legislation, rather than the sweeping bill, for such a significant policy change and expressing concerns about the funding of the broader package. He also expressed concern that Americans would abuse some benefits like paid leave and the child tax credit.
“I believe in family leave, I believe people should have that opportunity,” Manchin said on MSNBC in November. “Can’t we find a better position for this and do this in a bipartisan process that works?”
Progressive lawmakers view passage of such a provision as a necessary and historic opportunity amid favorable views on the subject, including among some businesses, after previous efforts have failed.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also supports paid family leave, although it opposed the social spending legislation, according to Marc Freedman, the chamber’s vice president of employment policy.
“The chamber continues to believe there is a fiscally responsible, bipartisan approach to providing a federal paid family leave benefit,” Freedman said in a statement to NBC News. “We believe that such a deal can be forged, but this partisan reconciliation bill is certainly not the vehicle to achieve a sensible solution to making sure paid family leave is available on a nationwide basis.”
Weinberg, the D.C. rector, said national legislation would prevent others from having to go through what he experienced in preparing to adopt a child.
While thankful for the changes his diocese made, he said he hopes to see a national standard. Having a child is a significant change for any family, and the opportunity to bond is essential, he said.
“To be able to continue to earn an income without having to put your life and your financial health on hold in order to have a family is just such a basic right,” Weinberg said. “So having legislation in place and employers who are seeking to happily compensate people when they’re starting their family would be a huge benefit to Americans.”
Now, Weinberg and his partner are navigating the application process for a 10-year-old boy from Colombia they hosted for five weeks last year. They hope to have the adoption finalized by summer.
