2020 was one of the deadliest years for trans people in Brazil since records began, according to advocacy group National Association of Travestis and Transexuals of Brazil (ANTRA). By its tally, a trans person was murdered every two days in a nation of 211 million, CenárioMT reported.×ADVERTISING
Last year, ANTRA said, saw a 29 per cent surge in violence in Brazil compared to the 124 deaths recorded in 2019. From 2017 to 2020, 641 trans people have been murdered.
The vast majority of the victims in 2020 were among the most marginalised groups in Brazilian society: Black people (78 per cent), those aged between 15 and 29 (56 per cent) and those engaged in sex work (72 per cent).
This “vulnerability”, the accompanying ANTRA report said, “exposes” them to violence.
Revellers participate in the 2019 Sao Paulo Gay Pride parade. (Cris Faga/NurPhoto via Getty)
“It is exactly within this scenario that the overwhelming majority of victims are found, having been pushed into prostitution compulsorily due to lack of opportunities, being in high social vulnerability and exposed to the highest rates of violence, to all sorts of physical and psychological aggression,” the report read.
A startling figure captured the apparent impunity felt by violent transphobes: seven out of every 10 trans deaths in Brazil occurred in a public space.
The southern state of São Paulo saw the highest amount of transphobic killings, with 29 trans people slain.
Ceará followed with 22 murders and Bahia, with 19. All three states in Brazil have for four-consecutive years tallied the highest number of murders.
This violence is unsurprising, activists say, considering the rise of Brazil’s president Jair Bolasonaro, a self-described “proud homophobe“.
And the death toll may be even higher, they warn. Many killings of trans Brazilians are mishandled by the authorities – victims misgendered and deadnames used in police records, rippling into media reports – meaning that deaths can go unreported in Brazil.
We, the undersigned, express our grave concern over reports that two Chechen men were arbitrarily detained by the police in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod and forcibly transferred to Chechnya. The Russian authorities should immediately establish their whereabouts, ensure their safety and secure their release unless they are charged with internationally recognizable criminal offence. The men are at grave risk of torture and other ill-treatment and there is a risk to their lives.
On 4 February, the Russian LGBT Network reported that Nizhny Novgorod special purpose police unit (OMON) had detained Salekh Magamadov and Ismail lsaev at their residence . The police informed a lawyer working with the LGBT Network, who was seeking to establish the two men’s whereabouts, that the men had been taken by car to the police station of Gudermes district, Republic of Chechnya.
On 6 February, police questioned the men at Gudermes district police station, without informing them about the grounds of their detention and not allowing the lawyer to talk to them. [The lawyer said that Magamadov and lsaev looked exhausted and intimidated]. The men were nominally released after the questioning but immediately re-arrested and taken to a police station in Sernovodsk district. The men were “pushed” to refuse legal aid, prompting the LGBT Network to send a new lawyer to Chechnya. At time of writing, the police have refused to disclose the grounds for Magamadov’s and lsaev’s detention or any other circumstances of the case. They have also refused to accept a petition challenging their abduction. On 7 February the aid of the head of the Chechen Republic and the minister of information and press announced that Magamadov and lsaev confessed to being complicit with a member of an illegal armed group. The current whereabouts of the men are unknown. We have grave concerns that Salekh Magamadov and Ismail lsaev signed or agreed to false statements under torture and face criminal prosecution on a fabricated case.
In April 2020, Salekh Magamadov and Ismail lsaev were arbitrary detained by the Chechen police and held at the premises of the patrol police regiment named after Akhmad Kadyrov. There, according to their account, they were tortured and otherwise ill-treated for moderating independent youth Telegram channel Osal Nakh 95″ that contained many posts critical of the Chechen authorities. They were released after a humiliating video with their “apologies” had been published on the Internet. In July 2020, the LGBT Network helped Salekh Magamadov and Ismail lsaev leave Chechnya and move to Nizhny Novgorod due to ongoing concerns over their safety.
The Chechen Republic is an enclave in Russia, where crimes under international law and serious human rights violations, including mass arbitrary detentions, torture and other ill-treatment, and extrajudicial killings are being committed on a regular basis. The Russian authorities are ultimately responsible for the violence and intimidation against critics and opponents of Chechnya’s leadership, including physical attacks, torture, kidnappings , enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings . Prominent cases last year include attacks on human rights lawyer Marina Dubrovina and investigative journalist Elena Milashina in Grozny in February, killings of exiled bloggers lmran Aliev in France and Mamikhan Umarov in Austria, an attempted murder on blogger Tumsu Abdurakhmanov in Sweden and the torture and enforced disappearance of moderator of Telegram channel lAdat Salman Tepsurkaev.
We call upon the Russian authorities to take immediate steps to ensure the safety of Salekh Magamadov and Ismail lsaev , in particular to confirm their whereabouts and secure their immediate release. If there is credible evidence to charge them with an internationally recognised criminal off ence , they should be in the custody of Russian not Chechen authorities and must be provided with full legal due process protection according to international law on the rights and protection of detainees and fair trial standards.
A child born to Bulgarian and British mothers has been denied Bulgarian citizenship and is now at risk of being stateless.
“Baby S” was born in December 2019 in Spain and although the baby’s birth certificate was issued by Spain with both mothers listed as parents, the baby cannot get Spanish citizenship because neither mother is Spanish. Citizenship cannot be acquired from the British mother of “Baby S” who is from Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory, as she acquired her British citizenship by descent.
Statelessness may hinder the child from attending school, accessing health care and other social benefits. All three governments involved are parties to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and have a duty to prevent the child being stateless.
The European Union Court of Justice (EUCJ), having been referred the case by a Bulgarian court, heard pleadings on behalf of the child “Baby S” this week and is expected to rule in several months’ time.
This is not the first time that the EU Court of Justice has been asked to adjudicate on the rights of a same-sex couple being discriminated against by a European country because of their sexual orientation.
In 2018, the court ruled the term “spouse” in a directive on the exercise of free movement under EU law is gender-neutral and therefore covers the same-sex spouse of an EU citizen. This case centered on whether a gay Romanian-American couple were entitled to the same residency rights in Romania as other married couples in the EU, even though Romania only recognizes civil partnerships rather than marriage between same-sex partners.
“Baby S” and her parents deserve to have their family relationship recognized by the Bulgarian government and the child should have equal access to education, medical care and other needed services. Hopefully the EU Court of Justice will use the opportunity to affirm the rights of same-sex parents and their children.
The Spahr Center’s first Advocacy Day, held in 2020, was a powerful gathering of LGBTQ+ and HIV-positive residents of Marin and their allies with members of the Board of Supervisors. You may remember that many of the Supervisors asked us to visit them once The Spahr Center had completed its 5 year Strategic Plan. We will be returning to the Board of Supervisors with our newly released vision for the agency’s work moving forward. We will also bring renewed vigor to ensure that Marin County is a supportive and empowering place for all of its residents! See our Strategic Plan, titled Raising the Bar for Our Future, at www.thespahrcenter.org. Advocacy Day with the Board of Supervisors will take place on February 25th from 11-2, with an orientation on February 24th from 10-11. We are in the process of scheduling meetings with other key County officials. We are grateful to everyone who has signed up thus far, and want to remind you that there is still time to get involved! Note that all meetings will take place over Zoom, and we will send out further meeting details and preparatory information to all those who sign up!
Bills in at least 20 states are targeting the transgender community in what LGBTQ advocates say is an organized assault by conservative groups.
On Thursday, the North Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban transgender student athletes from joining teams that match their gender identity. The measure, which passed 65 to 26, also calls for withholding state funds from sporting events that allow athletes to play as anything other than their sex assigned at birth. The bill now heads to the state Senate.
Supporters of the bill — including Republican state Rep. Ben Koppelman, its primary sponsor — say they want to protect opportunities for girls in sports, including access to athletic scholarships.
“Some have said this bill just doesn’t follow the science. We’ve got science going back well before the United States that backs this,” Koppelman said in a committee meeting, according to NBC affiliate KFYR-TV. “This isn’t new science. Men and women didn’t just cease to exist. They’ve existed for a long time and we’ve been able to recognize the differences.”
House Minority Leader Josh Boschee, a Democrat, countered that the bill would “codify discrimination.”
“North Dakota transgender youth, you are seen and you are loved by many,” Boschee later tweeted. “This vote is infuriating and we will continue to work to have it defeated in the Senate.”
The same day the North Dakota House passed its bill, the Mississippi state Senate passed its own athletic ban, which now goes to the state House for consideration. Georgia, Kansas, Utah and Tennessee advanced similar legislation last week, as well.
In 2020, legislators sponsored 20 bills to restrict transgender students’ participation in sports, according to the ACLU. At least as many have been introduced this year.
Bills driven by ‘centralized groups’
To date, the only trans sports bill to become law is Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Barbara Ehardt. Signed by Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, last March, it mandates that “biological sex” be the sole determining factor for inclusion on athletic teams at public schools and universities.
Ehardt worked with the Alliance Defending Freedom in crafting the measure, The Idaho Press reported. Founded in 1994 by Christian conservatives, the Arizona-based group has provided legal counsel for a variety of efforts to curtail LGBTQ rights, from defending gay-marriage bans to ensuring the right of businesses to refuse LGBTQ customers. Perhaps most notably, the ADF defended Jack Phillips, the owner of a Colorado bakery, Masterpiece Cakeshop, in his 2018 Supreme Court case over his refusal to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple.
Kate Oakley, state legislative director and attorney for the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ advocacy group, told NBC News that a bill under review in Montana restricting transgender sports participation was also written by the ADF. The Alliance Defending Freedom has been labeled an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a designation the ADF dismisses as groundless and a smear tactic.
The language in the Idaho and Montana measures is strikingly similar — and interchangeable with wording in proposed sports bans in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arizona, Kansas and elsewhere.
All, for example, include an excerpt from an April 2019 Washington Post opinion piece by tennis legend Martina Navratilova, Olympic track star and NBC Sports analyst Sanya Richards-Ross and Duke law professor Doriane Lambelet Coleman. In it, the three state that “there will always be significant numbers of boys and men who would beat the best girls and women in head-to-head competition.”
The ADF did not confirm that it wrote the Idaho bill or provided template wording for legislation to any state, but Matt Sharp, an attorney for the organization, told NBC News in an email, “As is typical practice for legal organizations, Alliance Defending Freedom is often asked by legislators to review possible legislation and offer advice.”
In February 2016, Sharp claimed “lawmakers in at least five states” had used the ADF’s model legislation to draft so-called bathroom bills, The Washington Post reported. Sharp also said the Alliance mailed template bills to “thousands” of school districts.
“These bills are intended to look constituent-led, but we know it’s driven from these centralized groups,”said Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the American Civil Liberties Union.
University of Montana cross country runner Juniper Eastwood, center, warming up with her teammates at Campbell Park in Missoula, Mont. on Aug. 15, 2019. Rachel Leathe / Bozeman Daily Chronicle via AP file
Lawyers for the ADF also filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuitagainst the Idaho bill on behalf of two female runners who lost to Juniper Eastwood, the first transgender runner to compete in NCAA Division 1 cross country. (While the case is being decided, the Idaho law is blocked from being enforced.)
And the ADF is representing three cisgender Connecticut women in a suit claiming they were forced to compete against “biological males” in high school track because the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference allows transgender students to join the teams that match their gender identity.
The complaint alleges that two transgender sprinters, Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, won 15 women’s state championship titles previously held by nine different girls and, from 2017 to 2019, “have taken more than 85 opportunities to participate in higher level competitions from female track athletes.”
“There are real physiological differences between boys and girls that affect athletic performance, such as size, muscle mass and bone density,” Sharp told NBC News. “We’ve seen the harms of allowing biological males to compete against women.”
A December study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found transgender women were faster and could do more pushups and situps for two years after starting testosterone blockers. But the study’s lead author, pediatrician Timothy Roberts, told NBC News previously that, “at the recreational level, probably one year is sufficient for most people to be able to compete.”
Bloomfield High School transgender athlete Terry Miller, second from left, wins the final of the 55-meter dash over transgender athlete Andraya Yearwood, far left, and other runners in the Connecticut girls Class S indoor track meet at Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Conn., on Feb. 7, 2019.Pat Eaton-Robb / AP file
Another voice leading the fight against transgender athletes in sports is Beth Stelzer, a Minnesota-based amateur powerlifter and founder of Save Women’s Sports. According to its website, the group is a diverse coalition looking “to preserve biology-based eligibility standards for participation in female sports.”
On Thursday, Stelzer testified before Utah’s House Education Committee in favor of a transgender sports ban in that state. She’s also given testimony in support of similar bills in Minnesota, Montana and elsewhere.
Stelzer told NBC News she works more on gathering supporters to testify than on drafting legislation. “However, I do offer advice about the language used,” she said, adding that she was sad the issue had become “partisan.”
“Males participating in female sports is not about religion or politics. It is common sense,” Stelzer said. “We have women from the left, right and center coming together to preserve female sports across the world.”
Jennifer Wagner-Assali, an orthopedic surgeon and semiprofessional track cyclist, is an ambassador for Save Women’s Sports. She claims she unfairly lost the 2018 UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championship to transgender cyclist Rachel McKinnon, now known as Veronica Ivy. Ivy took gold in the 200-meter sprint and briefly set a world record for women in the 35-39 age bracket, according to Bicycling magazine. Wagner-Assali took bronze.
“All these rules were put into place, basically by stealth,” she told host Julian Vigo this month on the Substack podcast Savage Minds. “Women were not asked their opinion. These things were changed a few years ago, and they’ve just kind of become part of the rule structure. Now they’re starting to be exploited, obviously.”
‘Uncontrolled human medical experimentation’
While athletic bans are the most common forms of legislation targeting transgender individuals this session, a number of states are also considering prohibiting transition-related medical care for minors, some including criminal penalties.
Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act would institute felony charges for health care professionals who performed procedures or prescribed medication “intended to alter the appearance of [a minor’s] gender or delay puberty, with certain exceptions.”
The bill calls puberty blockers and other transition-related treatments “dangerous and uncontrolled human medical experimentation.” It also requires teachers, principals, nurses and other school officials to tell parents if a child believes their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth.
A similar bill in Texas would redefine providing transition-related care to minors as a form of child abuse.
One of the first such bills was introduced last year by South Dakota state Rep. Fred Deutsch, a Republican. Originally, the bill would have made it a Class 4 felony to provide transition-related care to patients 16 or younger, even if they’re emancipated, but the felony charge was eventually amended to a misdemeanor. If it had passed, it would have also allowed those unhappy with their gender-affirming care to sue up until the age of 38, according to South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
In October 2019, three months before sponsoring the bill, Deutsch attended the Summit on Protecting Children From Sexualization in Washington, D.C. Panelists included representatives from the ADF, the Heritage Foundation, the Family Policy Alliance and the Kelsey Coalition, a group of parents who claim their children have been harmed by transgender health care practices. Attendees were given a gender resource guide for parents detailing how to oppose trans-affirming policies in their schools and communities, according to The Washington Post.
“In the fall of 2019, you have ADF, Heritage Foundation and these other groups start getting together and working up templates to ship out to state lawmakers,” Strangio told NBC News. “It was at the end of 2019 when we started to hear about them.”
Deutsch has also said he sent drafts of his bill to legislators in other states considering similar bans, The New York Times reported. But while a similar bill passed the South Dakota House of Representatives by a wide margin, it died in the state Senate.
Some lawmakers are opposing medical treatment for transgender youth with “conscience” bills, like a Kentucky bill that would let medical professionals in the state refuse to perform procedures that violated their religious or moral convictions.
The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Stephen Meredith, argues it will protect children from “misguided” parents who want to force them to change genders.
“You have a 12-year-old girl who’s a tomboy,” Meredith told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, according to The Lexington Herald-Leader. “And her parents, who are misguided, think that she’s really a girl trapped in a boy’s body. And they don’t want to see her go through the rest of her life miserable. So they’re going to go and transition her.”
“Does the surgeon have the right to say, ‘No, I’m not going to do this surgery’?” he asked, according to the Herald-Leader. “So this protects everybody.”
Meredith said the language in Kentucky’s bill was based on model legislation sent to him by the conservative Kentucky Family Foundation. The foundation’s executive director, Kent Ostrander, confirmed to NBC News that the group worked with Meredith on the bill in the last legislative session.“The bill is purely designed to protect the conscience rights of medical professionals as they practice their healing arts,” Ostrander said in an email.
Separate conscience bills in South Carolina, South Dakota and Arkansas all contain identical language found in model legislationwritten by Kevin Theriot and Ken Connelly of the Alliance Defending Freedom.
An attempt to ‘sow fear and hate’
Oakley, of the Human Rights Campaign, and other LGBTQ rights advocates say the failure to stop the legalization of same-sex marriage or pass so-called transgender bathroom bills has led groups like ADF to turn their focus toward trans youth. In a statement, HRC called the current raft of transgender-focused bills “simply the latest iteration of their failing fight.”
“Opponents of equality failed to claw back marriage equality and failed in their push for bathroom bills,” the group said. “These bills are not addressing any real problem, and they’re not being requested by constituents. Rather, this effort is being driven by national far-right organizations attempting to sow fear and hate.”
Strangio said proponents of these measures are being disingenuous about protecting children and women.
“They claim children can’t consent to wanting to transition, but the bills all have the same carve-out for performing surgery on intersex infants,” he said. “It’s not about protecting, it’s about normative control.”
As for girls’ sports, Strangio said no state is anywhere near Title IX compliance, “but there’s crickets from supposed champions of women’s sports in the GOP.”
“No one is introducing legislation to increase funding to women’s sports or to ensure equal pay for female coaches,” he said. “Instead, they’re fighting hypothetical problems about 14-year-old trans girls.”
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of color are significantly more likely to experience the adverse health and economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic than white non-LGBTQ people, according to a new study.
The study from the Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law, is based on a national survey of more than 12,000 U.S. adults, conducted between August and December. According to researchers, the impact of the pandemic cannot be understood without considering the intersection of race with sexual orientation and gender identity.
“People in America are experiencing the pandemic differently,” Brad Sears, interim executive director of the Williams Institute and an author of the report, told NBC News. “In many of the results, you can see a combined impact of sexual orientation and race and ethnicity.”
The disproportionate effects, the study notes, can be found “across a number of indicators.”
“LGBT people of color are more likely to have tested positive for COVID-19, to personally know someone who died of COVID-19, and to have experienced several types of economic instability as a result of the pandemic,” the study states. “They are also more likely to follow public health measures, such as getting tested for COVID-19, social distancing, and wearing masks than non-LGBT White people.”
The study comes on the heels of another from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found sexual minorities have higher rates of several underlying health conditions — such as cancer, kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes and asthma — that can increase the risk of severe illness related to Covid-19.
Previous studies from the Williams Institute have also found LGBTQ people to be at risk of serious illness resulting from Covid-19 and to face higher rates of unemployment as a result of the pandemic.
Health consequences
LGBTQ people of color were twice as likely as white respondents — regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity — to report having tested positive for Covid-19 (14.5 percent vs. just over 7 percent), according to the findings, while non-LGBTQ people of color had a positivity rate of 10.6 percent.
“Race is playing a huge role here,” Sears said, adding, “When we think about an intersectional impact, this is about as clear as we can see it in the data.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=NBCNews&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1359289988442017794&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Ffeature%2Fnbc-out%2Fnonwhite-lgbtqs-twice-likely-test-covid-positive-straight-whites-study-n1258246&siteScreenName=NBCNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=889aa01%3A1612811843556&width=550px
In terms of a personal impact, researchers found that people of color — regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity — were over than 50 percent more likely than their white counterparts to personally know someone who died of Covid-19.
Economic impact
The survey’s economic findings further underscore the intersectional impact of the pandemic, with LGBTQ people of color nearly three times more likely than non-LGBTQ whites to report being recently laid off (15 percent vs. 5.4 percent). LGBTQ whites and non-LGBTQ people of color reported similar rates (10.4 percent vs. 11.5 percent).
LGBTQ people of color were also nearly twice as likely than non-LGBTQ whites to report being concerned about their ability to pay their bills (63 percent vs. 33 percent), with rates for LGBTQ whites and non-LGBTQ people of color somewhere in between (42 percent and 55 percent, respectively).https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=NBCNews&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1359171449697804291&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Ffeature%2Fnbc-out%2Fnonwhite-lgbtqs-twice-likely-test-covid-positive-straight-whites-study-n1258246&siteScreenName=NBCNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=889aa01%3A1612811843556&width=550px
Sears speculated that several other factors in addition to race and LGBTQ status could be at play in the economic data, including age, gender and occupation.
The survey’s LGBTQ respondents were younger overall than the non-LGBTQ respondents, and he noted that “younger people were in jobs that were harder hit and have less economic stability.”
“The second thing that is important to keep in mind is that this is the first recession to hit women harder than men,” Sears said. “Women are more likely to identify as lesbian, bisexual and transgender.”
He also added that LGBTQ are overrepresented “in occupations that have been the hardest hit that include retail, food service and health care.”
Following public health guidance
LGBTQ people’s level of concern about the pandemic is higher than non-LGBTQ people, as is their propensity to follow public health guidelines, the report found.
Ninety percent of LGBTQ respondents said they were concerned about the pandemic, and 85 percent said they were worried about getting sick, compared to 82 percent and 75 percent of non-LGBTQ respondents, according to the report.
Approximately 94 percent of LGBTQ respondents said they followed public health guidelines like wearing a mask, compared to 89 percent of non-LGBTQ respondents, and 80 percent of LGBTQ respondents said they practiced social distancing, compared to 75 percent of non-LGBTQ respondents.
“You start seeing, not surprisingly, the groups most impacted are also the groups taking it most seriously and following through with precautions,” Sears said.
There was no significant difference between LGBTQ people and non-LGBTQ people in their intention to get the vaccination.
Government trust and missing data
The survey found a gap between LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people when it comes to trust in institutions, with LGBTQ people reporting less trust in both the federal government (31 percent vs. 38 percent) and pharmaceutical companies (28 percent vs. 41 percent). They did, however, report a higher level of trust in the CDC than their non-LGBTQ counterparts (76 percent vs. 70 percent).
For Sears, deficits in public trust are one more reason why the lack of LGBTQ-specific data collection from the government is a problem.
“It is important for the federal government to add questions to thePulse survey,” he said, referring to the government survey launched in October to understand how Americans have been affected by the pandemic.
“The government responded very quickly in creating that survey to measure the impact that Covid was having on the American population, but they did not include questions on sexual orientation or gender identity,” he said. “We have been working to find data to fill in this gap.”
Sears noted the pandemic is revealing inequalities that have already existed in society along the lines of race, gender and sexuality, and said it would be “extremely helpful” for the Biden administration’s efforts to control the pandemic to have sexual orientation and gender identity data.
“It was no surprise that his epidemic has disproportionately impacted people of color, and it was not a surprise that this pandemic has disproportionately impacted LGBT people,” he said.
He added that an effective vaccine alone will not end the health crisis: “Addressing these entrenched inequalities of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender is the only way to get through this pandemic and to prevent the next one.”
Jamaica should repeal its ban on gay sex immediately, a top human rights tribunal determined in a ruling dubbed “a highly significant step forward” by activists.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which monitors human rights conditions in the western hemisphere, found that the Jamaican government is responsible for violating the rights of two queer people, Gareth Henry and Simone Edwards.
The solution, the commission concluded, is a simple one: Repeal Jamaica’s colonial-era anti-LGBT+ laws immediately.
The ruling is not binding but will give hope to queer citizens of the Caribbean island nation and others like it where the homophobic views of colonialist Britain remain deeply entrenched.
“It is a highly significant step forward that must now accelerate the repeal of these stigmatising and discriminatory laws,” said Téa Braun, the director of the Human Dignity Trust who represented Henry and Edwards, according to The Guardian.
The decision was handed down in September 2019 but could not be publicly reported on until now.
The commission said Jamaican leaders should also enact anti-discrimination laws and better train law enforcement.
Gay man who fled Jamaica: ‘I finally feel I am right’
Jamaica, once described as “the most homophobic place on Earth” by Timemagazine, has long been gripped by laws banning “buggery” and “indecency”, adopted from the British constitution before independence.
Anal sex is prohibited and punishable by life imprisonment for any individual, any sexual encounter between men is illegal, and there are no protections for LGBT+ people against discrimination.
Both Henry and Edwards were driven off the island as a result of the homophobic violence they faced, the commission heard. They argued that the anti-LGBT+ laws violated their rights and legitimated the violence they faced.
Henry sought asylum in Canada after a police officer pummelled him in front of a crowd of some 200 people. Edwards was granted asylum in Europe after being gunned down outside her home by a homophobic gang in 2008 which placed her family at risk.
The ruling has brought a sense of “hope” for Henry and Edwards, that they might someday return to the island they once called home.
“All my life people have told me that who I am and who I love is wrong,” Henry said. “Now, for the first time ever, I finally feel I am right.”
Edwards explained: “It gives me hope that one day these outdated laws will be done away with and I’ll be able to return to my homeland without fear of attack.”
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., reintroduced the Equality Act in the House of Representatives on Thursday, with a vote on the sweeping LGBTQ rights bill expected next week.
The move brings the bill one step closer to potentially establishing the first federal discrimination protections for LGBTQ people. Specifically, it would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces, public funding and jury service.
The Equality Act passed the Democrat-controlled House in May 2019, but it stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. Now that Democrats have taken control of the Senate, advocates are hopeful that the bill will pass.
“In 2021, every American should be treated with respect and dignity,” Cicilline, who has introduced the bill every year since 2015, said in a statement. “Yet, in most states, LGBTQ people can be discriminated against because of who they are, or who they love. It is past time for that to change.”
Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin also announced that they would reintroduce the bill in the Senate next week when the Senate floor reopens for bill introductions.
“All of us go to work and school, go home and go shopping, and none of us should have to keep our families hidden or pretend to be someone we’re not to do those things,” Merkley, who wrote the Equality Act, said in a statement. “But in 29 states, Americans can still be evicted, be thrown out of a restaurant, or be denied a loan because of who they are or whom they love.”
Before Cicilline reintroduced the bill, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., announced in a letter to colleagues Tuesday that the House would vote on the Equality Act next week. In May 2019, it passed by a 236-173 vote, with eight Republicans voting for it. However, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., never took it up in the Senate.
In October of last year, Biden told Mark Segal, publisher of Philadelphia Gay News and a longtime LGBTQ rights activist, that passing the bill is “essential to ensuring that no future president can ever again roll back civil rights and protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.”
He added that he would also direct his Cabinet to enforce the Equality Act across federal agencies. “Too many states do not have laws that explicitly protect LGBTQ+ individuals from discrimination,” Biden said in the interview. “It’s wrong to deny people access to services or housing because of who they are or who they love.”
‘A clear, consistent nationwide statement’
The Equality Act was first introduced by Rep. Bella Abzug, D-N.Y., in 1974, but the bill was eventually killed.
Cicilline introduced the current version in 2015, just after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage constitutional nationwide. Unlike previous versions of the act, the current version includes protections from discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.
LGBTQ people across the U.S. currently have some level of protection from discrimination through state and local laws and Biden’s expansion of workplace discrimination protections through the Supreme Court’s Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, ruling last year. However, advocates say the Equality Act is needed to fill in the gaps and ensure that all Americans, regardless of where they reside, are protected.
“While President Biden’s Executive Order implementing the Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling was a crucial step in addressing discrimination against LGBTQ people, it’s still vital that Congress pass the Equality Act to codify the Bostock decision to ensure protection in key areas of life including where existing civil rights laws do not have protections on the basis of sex,” Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights group, said in a statement.
Kevin Jennings, CEO of the LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal, said the legislation will give clarity to employers and landlords, among others, about discrimination.
“In some instances, individuals lose rights and protections the moment they cross the border into a neighboring state, underscoring that the current patchwork of protections for LGBTQ people is inadequate,” Jennings said in a statement. “In addition, as evidenced by the thousands of phone calls to our Help Desk we receive each year, many employers, landlords and lenders still haven’t gotten the message that discrimination is just wrong, which is why we need the absolute clarity of the Equality Act, and we need it now.”
Mara Keisling, executive director at the National Center for Transgender Equality, said the bill is especially important for transgender people who face a disproportionate amount of violence.
“No act of Congress can end bias overnight or stop all attacks against transgender people,” Keisling said in a statement. “But the Equality Act is a clear, consistent and nationwide statement that says our country believes that all people – including those who are transgender – should be treated fairly and with respect. For transgender people, every trip to the store, every dinner out, every job interview or attempt to rent an apartment carries the risk of disrespect, discrimination and potentially violence. The Equality Act will help allow transgender people to live their lives openly and without fear.”
The Log Cabin Republicans thanked Donald Trump for “standing up for family” in a bizarre Presidents’ Day video littered with falsehoods.
The gay Republican group, which claims to represent “LGBT conservative and allies” but rarely challenges rampant homophobia within the GOP, put out an odd love letter to Donald Trump to mark Presidents’ Day.
Trump is praised for “standing up for our American ideals of family, freedom and liberty” by one participant, while others resort to gaslighting as they peddle a number of abject falsehoods.
The video claims that “one of the best things that he did was launch a global campaign to decriminalise homosexuality”, though there is no evidence to suggest any such campaign ever actually existed beyond a press release, while Trump left the position of international LGBT+ envoy sitting empty for his entire term.
The group suggests that Trump was the “the first pro-gay president when entering office”, a bizarre claim given he made no pledges on LGBT+ rights at all in 2016 or 2020 aside from his pledge to sign a proposed law to permit anti-LGBT+ discrimination on the grounds of religion.
Trump is also described as the “first Republican President in American history to enter office as a supporter of marriage equality”. In reality, ahead of the 2016 election Trump said he would “strongly consider” appointing Supreme Court justices to overturn equal marriage, before committing to picking justices from a list vetted by anti-LGBT+ groups.
Indeed, several of these points were made succinctly in 2016 by none other than the Log Cabin Republicans, when the group pointedly declined to endorse Trump’s presidential bid, citing his anti-LGBT+ policies.
Internet not impressed with the Log Cabin Republicans.
Suffice to say, the clip has not gone down well outside of the increasingly-small circle of gay Trump firebrands.
A Twitter user quipped: “Just when you think LCR can’t be any more ridiculous, they never let you down.”
Another pointed out: “Less than two hours after Trump and his virulently anti-LGBTQ activist vice president Mike Pence were sworn into office, all mentions of LGBTQ issues were removed from the official White House webpage.”
One respondent said: “To me, Log Cabin Republicans are like Women for Trump. They take pleasure in remaining second-class citizens as long as they think they’re slightly elevated above other groups who are being treated like second-class citizens.”
The Book of Anna, by Joy Ladin, explores the emotional landscape of life after the Holocaust through the eyes of fictional protagonist Anna Asher. This month, EOAGH books will release a revised & expanded edition.
We meet Holocaust survivor Anna first through detailed diary entries. These day-to-day accounts of work, home, & doctor visits deepen our connection to Anna as an individual we could easily meet next door, save for the letter-headers that remind us that we meet her in Prague in the 1950s. These diary sections ground us in Anna’s interior & double as allegory. Coupled with sections of poetry, we shift genre & scope throughout the collection.
Originally published by Sheep Meadow Press in 2007, EOAGH’s updated The Book of Anna explores grief in the aftermath of the Holocaust in a way that breaks the heart open—Ladin opens the collection with a letter from Anna after receiving a poetry rejection claiming “My muse is rage, not beauty./Was. There are no muses for me now…It is time for me to write, if I write at all, the true story of my life.” We soon meet Anna’s neighbor, Suzanne Wischnauer, in the second letter. A fellow survivor of the camps, she first appears because she “smells gas.” Anna explains “I know what she smells. It’s seeping from the story I’ve started to tell.” So often we see stories of the Holocaust through textbooks, facts, museums, in a way that creates distance from the gravity & trauma of this collective wound. Ladin breaks the objectivity of history; Ladin makes the historical personal—the impossible grief of tragedy, of surviving the unspeakable. Through Anna Asher’s eyes, we are given insight into a survivor’s psyche in a way that only poetry can create. The reader is allowed to witness the irreconcilable faith of the narrator paired with their irreconcilable grief.
From linear narrative to nonlinear poetry, Ladin reconciles the irreconcilable by cultivating our presence in the collection’s world, where the unspeakable is spoken. Through sectional arrangement & timeless lines, The Book of Anna decentralizes the common fallacy that history is to be “consumed” as a separate, distant past. Here, as the epigraph reminds us, “Nothing is harder to predict than the past.” We are never looking back, but rather looking on & looking in.
While the journal texts create a linear narrative, the fragmented lyric poems center snapshots of Anna’s day to day comings and goings. We are allowed to witness Anna’s subconscious processing—a channel from trauma to healing—a momentary look into the larger connections, both triggered & opened, by the world. There are ants in the kitchen. When Anna kills them, she immediately thinks of Hitler and Stalin. When the ants reappear, they remind her of “her girlhood.” Time becomes seamless—limitless—an act of impermanence in a senseless world. Where the journal collects, the poems scavenge. We are the digger and the dirt, the earth and what the earth can and cannot hold.
At times numb, at times overtaken, Anna Asher is constantly searching for the truth—through doctor visits, theological consultations, relationships, sex, anything and everything she can get her hands on to reckon with the living, with the present moment, with continuing. As Ladin’s poem “Golem” reminds us, “Emet or Met, Truth or Death—” speaking a theme that threads The Book of Anna, reflecting the narrator’s refusal of death & search of truth in the perpetual present.
While Anna cannot escape the past, she still chooses to write through death. And with this book, Joy Ladin has chosen to write towards truth. Powerful, unsettling, and breathtaking, The Book of Anna is a must-read for 2021.
The Book of Anna
by Joy Ladin
EOAGH Books
Paperback, 9781792307225
March 2021
