The 33rd annual Creating Change conference hosted by the National LGBTQ Task Force held its events virtually over the weekend for the first time due to the pandemic.
The country’s largest LGBTQ activist conference brought participants from across the U.S. to connect and share knowledge, skills and mutual dedication to ensuring equity for LGBTQ people and other marginalized groups. Hosted by comic Sandra Valls, the multi-day event emphasized the importance of togetherness and intersectionality.
The conference featured special guests like Adrienne Maree Brown, a Black feminist author and women’s rights activist; and American rapper Big Freedia. Dominique Jackson, who plays Elektra Abundance on the hit-TV show “Pose,” also attended.
“The past election has shown us that when we stand together as a force, we will win,” Jackson said at the event. “But you can’t just show up for (an) election and then sit back.”
Topics covered at this year’s conference include the intersections of LGBTQ people and immigration, transgender activism and recognition, aging as an LGBTQ person and fundraising tips for small and large advocacy organizations. The conference also introduced Kierra Johnson as the Task Force’s new executive director.
“As difficult as these last few years have been for us, I think they’ve also given us a map,” Johnson said in Saturday’s “State of the Movement” speech. “I think it’s undeniable how fragile our democracy is. And we’ve got work to do, right? And it is work that the task force is committed to being a part of.”
Rea Carey is set to step down on Monday after 12 years as executive director.
Johnson served as the Task Force’s deputy executive director since 2018. She served as the executive director of Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity for 10 years before working with the Task Force.
Johnson spoke on her excitement for taking on the role and the strength of the “collective power” of LGBTQ people.
“It is precisely because of this collective power that we have a conference that looks the way it looks. It is because of our collective power that we are seeing changes that we never thought possible 10, 15, 20 years ago,” she said.
New policy changes under President Biden’s administration and additional legislation the Task Force and other equal rights organizations are continuing to push forward were highlighted in a variety of webinars.
Task Force Policy Director Liz Seaton in a workshop highlighted the work the organization aims to do in 2021 that includes a focus on police reform, inclusive sex education, promoting economic justice and expanding nondiscrimination protections. Seaton also recognized the several executive orders focused on equity that Biden has signed since the inauguration.
“We are literally in a waterfall of progressive policy change right now,” said Seaton.
Awards were also given to those leading in LGBTQ rights, including Lisbeth Melendez Rivera, a self-described Puerto Rican butch dyke labor organizer, and leather leadership awardee Gayle Rubin. Mama Gloria won the SAGE Award for Leadership in Aging.
Carmen Vázquez, who passed away on Jan. 27 from coronavirus complications, won the SAGE award at last year’s conference. The Task Force this year paid tribute to Vázquez in the “in memorial” portion of the conference.
Upwards of 1,000 people attended the virtual conference.
They were able to interact with one another on the virtual platform, as well as ask questions during webinars and workshops. The Task Force also hosted inclusive caucuses for a variety of identities across religions, occupations and gender identities.
Game nights were held at night, as well as variety shows, where attendees could present their talents.
Erdoğan made his comments during an online address to members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Monday (1 February), according to Duvar.
Speaking to young people in Turkey, Erdoğan said: “We’ll carry our youth to the future, not as LGBT+ youth, but like the youth from this country’s glorious past.”
He continued: “You are not the LGBT+ youth. You are not the youth who vandalises, but you are those who mend those vandalised hearts.”
He went on to claim that he “respects” all views and identities as long as they are not linked to “terror, immorality, perversion and violence”.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan thinks LGBT+ people are ‘poisoning’ the youth
This is not the first time Erdoğan has spoken out against the LGBT+ community – the Turkish president has a long history of making offensive remarks about queer people.
In July 2020, he accused LGBT+ people in Turkey of “sneaking up on our national and spiritual values again” and said queer people have tried to “poison young people” throughout history.
“I invite all members of my nation to be careful and take a stand against those who exhibit all kinds of heresy that our Lord has forbidden, and those who support them,” Erdoğan said at the time.
He urged citizens to “come out against those who display any kind of perversion forbidden by God”.
He also took aim at queer allies. He said those who support “such marginal movements contrary to our faith and culture are partners in the same heresy in our eyes”.
“We will not let you step on human dignity,” he wrote. “We will protect nature and the mental health of our children.”
Erdoğan’s latest comments come just days after four students were detainedand called “deviants” by Turkey’s interior minister over an artwork that reportedly depicted rainbows alongside the Kaaba, a sacred building in the centre of the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
The controversy erupted after Erdoğan appointed a party loyalist to a senior position at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul.
Student-led pushback erupted earlier this month, as demonstrators, many holding LGBT+ Pride flags, argued that the presidential appointment of professor Melih Bulu as rector went against the university’s 158-year-long history of electing its own.
Half of U.S. states lack basic protections for LGBTQ people, according to a report released Wednesday by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group,
The campaign’s State Equality Index, an annual ranking of laws and policies, found that 25 states lack inclusive anti-discrimination statutes and are considered at a “high priority to achieve basic equality,” the lowest of the report’s four categories. (See a map of the states here.)
“These states are most likely to have religious refusal or other anti-LGBTQ laws,” the report said. “Advocates often further LGBTQ equality by focusing on municipal protections for LGBTQ people or opposing negative legislation that targets the LGBTQ community.”
In addition to nondiscrimination policies, the index also graded states on hate crime laws, transgender health care, anti-bullying policies, parenting and adoption laws and bans on conversion therapy, among other criteria.
The report, based on 2020 data, reflects a slight improvement from 2019, when 27 states were ranked in the lowest category. Virginia moved up two spots to the “solidifying equality” category after passing the Virginia Values Act last February, making it the first Southern state to ban anti-LGBTQ discrimination in employment, housing, credit and public accommodations. Kansas moved up one spot to the “building equality” category after the state’s Human Rights Commission began accepting anti-LGBTQ bias complaints in employment, housing and public accommodations.
The Kansas commission said its revised interpretation of the Kansas Act Against Discrimination was based on Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, last year’s landmark Supreme Court decision that determined federal civil rights law banning employment discrimination based on sex included discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia were cited in the index’s highest-rated category, “working toward innovative equality,” for their “robust LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws covering employment, housing and public accommodations.” That’s the most in the report’s seven-year history, and includes newcomers Hawaii and New Hampshire.
At the same time, at least 185 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in 35 states last year, according to HRC. Four were signed into law, including two in Idaho: HB 500, the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which prohibits transgender student athletes from joining teams that match their gender identity, and HB 509, which bars transgender residents from updating the gender marker on their birth certificates. Federal courts have blocked both laws from being enforced.
This week, the Montana House of Representatives passed House Bill 112, a transgender sports ban nearly identical to Idaho’s, and House Bill 113, which would prohibit medical professionals from providing gender-affirming care to trans minors. Both measures now head to the state Senate for consideration.
“While this year’s legislative sessions will undoubtedly be shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, we also anticipate continued attacks on transgender youth, particularly in relation to athletic participation and access to best-practice, affirming medical care, to continue across the country,” HRC said in a statement.
In the 2021 session, lawmakers in seven states — Florida, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee — have all sponsored measures restricting transgender participation in student athletics. Bills that would penalize or even criminalize providing trans youths with gender-affirming care have also been introduced in five states — Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi, Texas and Utah.
In addition to a trans athlete ban, Republicans in North Dakota also sponsored bills that would prohibit the state from recognizing sexual minorities and exclude same-sex couples from financial assistance with adoption. (The former, HB 1476, was withdrawn on Tuesday.)
“With serious issues like our state’s Covid-19 response and economic recovery, it’s disturbing that legislators are spending so much time attacking vulnerable transgender youth and the LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit community as a whole,” Dane DeKrey, advocacy director of ACLU of North Dakota, said.
Advocates say the flurry of anti-gay bills is in direct response to the election of President Joe Biden, who championed gay rights on the campaign trail and has called the pro-LGBTQ Equality Act a top legislative priority. In his first week as president, Biden has already issued an executive order expanding LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections in employment, education, housing and immigration.
“I think the volume of [anti-LGBTQ] bills is going to dramatically increase, particularly because of what is happening at the federal level,” Kasey Suffredini, CEO of Freedom for All Americans, an LBGTQ advocacy group, told NBC News previously. “For the opposition, this is the only avenue for their narrative that treating LGBT people with dignity and respect is a problem for the country.”
Should Congress pass the Equality Act — federal legislation that would add LGBTQ protections to existing civil rights laws — it will provide “critical baseline protections,” according to HRC legal director Sarah Warbelow, but state laws will still be important.
“State laws are often more robust than federal laws — a federal law may only cover business with 15 or more employees, for example, while a state law can apply to every business,” Warbelow told NBC News, adding that accessing state courts is often easier and cheaper.
“And there are limits to what the Equality Act can do in a lot of areas,” she added. “The federal government doesn’t have a lot of power when it comes to anti-bullying laws, or regulations about updating birth certificates or second-parent adoptions.”
Alabama’s policy requiring transgender people to have undergone gender-affirming surgery before they can get state IDs that accurately reflect their gender identities is unconstitutional, a federal court ruled this month.
Fewer than 10 states now require proof of surgery to update the gender marker on a driver’s license.
The Alabama case began in 2018, when three transgender people — Darcy Corbitt, Destiny Clark and an unnamed third person — sued the state after they were denied driver’s licenses that reflected their genders, opposed to their sexes assigned at birth, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The policy for driver’s licenses, which is what we challenged with this lawsuit, requires that people either submit an amended birth certificate or submit proof of having had what they call ‘complete surgery,'” which Alabama interprets to mean both “genital surgery and top surgery,” said the lawyer who litigated the case, Gabriel Arkles, senior counsel at the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. An amended birth certificate also requires proof of surgery, although this case didn’t challenge that rule.
On Jan. 15, the U.S. District Court for Middle Alabama, part of the 11th Circuit, ruled that Policy Order 63, the state’s driver’s license policy for transgender people, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because it discriminates based on sex.
“By making the content of people’s driver licenses depend on the nature of their genitalia, the policy classifies by sex; under Equal Protection Clause doctrine, it is subject to an intermediate form of heightened scrutiny,” Senior Judge Myron Thompson, who was nominated to the court by President Jimmy Carter, wrote in the opinion.
Arkles said that any time officials make a policy that treats people differently based on sex, “they have to have a very good reason for what they’re doing, and here they really did not.”
The state argued that the surgery requirement “serves the important government interests in maintaining consistency between the sex designation on an Alabama birth certificate and an Alabama driver’s license,” according to court documents. In addition, the state said Policy Order 63 provides “information related to physical identification” to law enforcement officers.
But the court ruled that those justifications didn’t allow the policy to pass intermediate scrutiny and that the “injuries” it caused were “severe,” acknowledging a number of Arkles’ arguments. The surgery the policy requires “results in permanent infertility in ‘almost all cases,'” the court wrote. Some transgender people might not want or need surgery, and even if they do, it might be inaccessible or unaffordable, as it was for the unnamed plaintiff, the court continued.
“It’s not acceptable for the government to force people to undergo a procedure like that just to get a license that they can use safely and go about their daily life,” Arkles said.
Only 25 percent of transgender and gender-nonconforming people reported having undergone some form of transition-related surgery, according to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey.
Arkles and his team also argued that Alabama’s policy violates the privacy of transgender people and puts them in danger.
“Any time a trans person shows an ID with the wrong gender marker on it, that outs us, which also puts people at real, real risk of experiencing discrimination and violence,” he said.
The court ruled on only the first argument, that the policy violates the Equal Protection Clause, but it acknowledged the danger and distress the policy poses to the plaintiffs.
“The alternative to surgery is to bear a driver license with a sex designation that does not match the plaintiffs’ identity or appearance,” the court wrote. “That too comes with pain and risk. … For these plaintiffs, being reminded that they were once identified as a different sex is so painful that they redacted their prior names from exhibits they filed with the court.”
Mike Lewis, a spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office, said the office intends to appeal and has “no further comment.”
Darcy Corbitt.Courtesy of ACLU of Alabama
Arkles said the three plaintiffs have “been through so much” because of the ID policy: Corbitt hasn’t had a license or been able to drive for the last several months, Clark “sort of shaped her life around trying to minimize situations where she would have to show ID,” and the unnamed client, after she showed her ID to a bank teller, was told that she was going to hell.
Corbitt celebrated that “finally the state of Alabama will be required to respect me and provide an accurate driver’s license.”
“Since my out-of-state license expired, I have had to rely on friends and family to help me pick up groceries, get to church and get to my job. I missed a family member’s funeral because I just had no way to get there,” she said. “But the alternative — lying about who I am to get an Alabama license that endangered and humiliated me every time I used it — was not an option. I’m relieved that I will be able to drive again. While much work remains, this decision will make Alabama a safer place for me and other transgender people.”
The state plans to comply with a court order to give the plaintiffs IDs that accurately reflect their genders, but because it plans to appeal, Arkles said, “it may be quite some time before we know what the ultimate outcome is and what will be required of trans people in Alabama.”
A ‘patchwork’ of ID laws
Only eight states and two U.S. territories now require proof of surgery to change a driver’s license gender marker, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank, and the National Center for Trans Equality.
The remaining states have a variety of policies, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which reports that four states (now including Alabama) have “unclear” policies and that 20 states have “burdensome” policies and/or require medical provider certification of gender transition, which doesn’t include surgery.
Arli Christian, a campaign strategist for the ACLU, said 20 states allow people to decide what gender markers are appropriate for them and “what will keep them safe.”
“And that is hands down the best policy for ensuring that all people have the most accurate gender marker on their ID,” Christian said.
Nineteen states also allow residents to mark M, F or X, a nonbinary gender marker, on their driver’s licenses. Christian said the ACLU is pushing for President Joe Biden to create a policy that would allow transgender people to receive federal IDs, such as passports, that accurately reflect their genders without certification from medical providers. It also wants the policy to allow people to choose the gender-neutral X.
“We have a whole patchwork of gender marker change policies across the country,” Christian said. “Many of them need to be updated and modernized so that we can make sure that everybody has access to that accurate marker to be able to go through their lives without discrimination and harassment.”
Although Arkles is preparing for Alabama’s appeal, he said the ruling is a big step forward.
“While we’re going to keep fighting and we’re going to have to keep fighting this case, it is incredibly, incredibly exciting to have a decision from a judge recognizing that this is unconstitutional and to know that our clients are going to get some relief,” he said.
Hate crime charges have been added in a grisly assault last summer that left a gay Louisiana teen in a coma for three days.
Holden White of Lafayette was just 18 when he met 19-year-old Chance Seneca on the gay dating app Grindr. After communicating for a month, the two young men decided to meet in person in late June.
White, a sophomore at Louisiana State University, Eunice, said he invited Seneca over to his new apartment, but Seneca convinced him to come to his father’s house to play video games.
After some awkward conversation, White said his next memory is of being pulled backward by a cord and being choked so severely that “all the blood vessels in my face ruptured” before he passed out.
Holden White in the hospital shortly after his attack.Courtesy Holden White
White said that when he regained consciousness, he was naked in a bathtub looking up at Seneca slicing his left wrist.
“I remember thinking, ‘Well, this is it,’” he told The Acadiana Advocate. “The last words I said to myself were just ‘stay calm.’ Over and over and over in my head I was just repeating to myself to stay calm.”
According to the local news site, Seneca called 911 and told the dispatcher that he had killed a man. He was at the house when officers responded.
White suffered stab wounds, blunt force trauma to the back of his head and cuts on his wrists that were so deep his hands were nearly severed. He spent nearly a month in the hospital and in rehabilitation.
“When I woke up, I didn’t remember anything. I didn’t remember going to his house,” White told NBC News. “The human mind, I’ve since learned, will block out traumatic experiences.”
Since then, details from the encounter have emerged even as his body continues to heal. The scars on his neck, where White said Seneca took the tip of a knife and repeatedly twisted into his throat, have already started to fade.
Holden White.Courtesy Holden White
He’s regained most of the use of his right hand, but his left hand is still numb and doesn’t have full grip strength. His left hand was damaged more severely — the artery and several tendons were severed — and may require more surgery.
He’s also suffered some short-term memory problems.
Seneca was arrested at the scene and charged with attempted second-degree murder, and remains jailed on $250,000 bond.
Police initially declined to include hate crime charges, claiming they believed the attack stemmed from an argument between the two men.
“There were several indicators that point us to the direction that it was not a hate crime,” Sgt. Wayne Griffin of the Lafayette Police Department told The Acadiana Advocate shortly after the initial charges were filed. “Just because of the sensitivity of the case, we cannot go into any more about it.”
Griffin declined to comment further this week and referred NBC News to the FBI.
Alicia Irmscher, public affairs officer with the FBI in New Orleans, said the agency is aware of the incident but would not address whether it was conducting an investigation.
White, however, said he was talking to FBI agents and the Lafayette Parish District Attorney’s Office about the case.
The hate crime charges, which carry an extra five-year prison sentence, were added by the district attorney on Jan. 20.
Despite the police’s initial misgivings, White is adamant he was targeted because he is a gay man.
“He chose to go on the app Grindr,” he told local news station KATC-TV. “He went on an app designated for gay people. He chose to choose someone who is gay and very proud of his sexuality. He said this in prison. He said he chose me because I have a smaller stature and it would be easier to kill me. He knew what he was doing.”
But he’s still frustrated by the police department’s handling of the case and by how long it took the attack to be classified as a hate crime.
“For them to shut it down as a lovers’ quarrel is just unbelievable,” he said. “Let’s say we did get into an argument, which we didn’t, who would go to that point over a dumb argument? To bash someone in the back of the skull with a hammer? To try and slice their hands off?”
He recalled being questioned by officers in his hospital room the day after he emerged from his coma. “They asked me the most brutal questions while I was still sedated,” he said. “They just bombarded me. When I think about it, it’s just sad.”
He also said he doesn’t understand why police failed to provide hospital staff with a rape kit to determine if he had been sexually assaulted. “It scares me that I don’t know and that I may never know,” he said.
He believes his sexuality may be a factor in how the department addressed the case.
“We always have homophobia in southern Louisiana, so if that was a part of it, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “I don’t want to think it, but I can’t help it. When we go to court, I’ll still thank the police for arresting that man, but that’s all I can thank them for.”
Should the case go to trial, White knows he’ll likely have to relive the worst episode of his life. But he says he’s ready for it.
“It’s not a question of me having to think about it again. I have cross shaped scars on my wrist — I’m never not thinking about it,” he said, adding that he’s eager to give his victim’s impact statement.
“I know some people cry, or get upset. I won’t. I’ll talk to him in a proper manner and tell him how I feel. I want him to know he doesn’t scare me. Once it’s done, then I’ll be ready to move past this,” he said.
Seneca’s attorney, J. Clay LeJeune, said the additional hate crime charge came “as a complete surprise.”
“I have received no information from the State supporting this position,” he told NBC News in an email. “We will be entering a not guilty plea to the original and amended charge.”
Seneca’s next pretrial hearing is scheduled for March 2.
Attacks based on sexual orientation represented 16.8 percent of all hate crimes in 2019, the last year statistics were available from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. That represents the third largest category after race and religion.
But reporting of bias incidents is not mandatory, and Lafayette is one of hundreds of cities that reported zero hate crimes for the year.
White said he’s been moved by the outpouring of support he has received, including a GoFundMe campaign for his recovery that garnered more than $100,000.“I didn’t expect to hear from people all over the world — I’ve had people from Australia text me,” he shared. “At the same time, my story was kind of swept under the rug at first. People in my home state are saying they’re just hearing about it now.”
There have also been cruel comments on social media and message threads. White said he’ll sometimes jump into a news article and respond. “They need to hear the full story. What if someone reads that comment and thinks, ‘Oh, maybe that’s the truth?’”
He urges other victims of hate crimes to advocate for themselves and not just rely on the system for justice.
“Never give up — if you stop trying, or you stop talking about your case, it can be swept away and just disappear.”
Carmen Vázquez, a longtime LGBTQ and social justice activist, died Wednesday due to Covid-19-related complications, according to the National LGBTQ Task Force.
She was 72.
“The loss of Carmen tears open a hole in the heart of the LGBTQ+, social justice, immigration, reproductive justice, and sexual freedom movements,” Rea Carey, the task force’s executive director, said in astatement. “I’m deeply sad that one of our movement’s most brilliant activists is no longer with us. Rest in power, Carmen. We will continue your work for liberation.”
Born in Puerto Rico in 1949 to a World War II veteran and a seamstress, Vázquez migrated to New York City in the early 1950s. After graduating from the City University of New York in the early ‘70s with a master’s degree in education, she moved to San Francisco, where she became a leading Bay Area activist.
Vázquez was the founding director of The Women’s Building, a women-led community space that opened in San Francisco in 1971 with the goal of advocating for gender equality and social justice. She then became the director of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the coordinator of LGBTQ services for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
When Vázquez moved back to New York in the ’90s, she continued her activism by serving as director of policy for the city’s LGBT Community Center and helped found the New York State LGBT Health & Human Services Network, a coalition that now consists of more than 70 nonprofit organizations that advocate for queer New Yorkers.
Her accomplishments were recognized last year by SAGE, a national advocacy group for LGBTQ elders, when it presented her with the SAGE Advocacy Award for Excellence on Aging Issues. Michael Adams, CEO of SAGE, reminisced about the moment in a statement this week.
“One of my proudest moments as an activist was presenting Carmen with the annual SAGE Award at Creating Change 2020, in recognition of her lifetime of courage, fierceness and struggle,” he said. “It’s unimaginable that Carmen has passed, but the spirit of someone as fierce as Carmen lives forever and continues to inspire us.”
SAGE plans to rename the award after Vázquez in honor of her decades of work for the LGBTQ community.
In her acceptance speech for the award, Vázquez had shared her hopes for future activists.
“While today or this moment is about me, change is never about one person alone,” she said. “There were countless others who paved the way for my activism and countless others who will follow me and build the bridge to the future. Equality is not enough, justice and liberation are where our hearts and minds should lead us.”
Netflix topped the list of media award nominations announced Thursday by the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD with 26, including “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” for outstanding film; “Disclosure” for outstanding documentary; and “The Umbrella Academy” for outstanding drama series.
HBO Max followed with nine nominations, and Amazon, Hulu and HBO each received four. The Hallmark Channel received its first nomination for “The Christmas House,” the network’s first holiday movie featuring a gay lead character.
GLAAD has honored filmmakers, musicians, journalists and other media creators for three decades for fair, accurate and inclusive representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people on screen. Its latest list includes 198 nominees across 28 categories, including outstanding comedy series, outstanding video game and outstanding TV journalism segment.
“During an unprecedented year of crises and isolation, the nominees for the 32nd Annual GLAAD Media Awards reached LGBTQ people with powerful stories and inspired countless others around the world with bold looks at LGBTQ people and issues,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “As GLAAD continues to lead the fight for LGBTQ acceptance, this year’s nominees remind us that even in times of political and cultural division, diverse LGBTQ representation and visibility can enlighten, entertain, and create lasting change.”
In its “Where We Are on TV” report, released this month, GLAAD found that queer visibility declined by 33 percent on cable, 13 percent on streaming services and a little over 1 percent on network television in the current TV season. The organization attributes the declines to production halts due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Chris Rudolph, an editor and a producer for Logo, ViacomCBS’ LGBTQ lifestyle and entertainment channel, said that even with the decline, the queer community appears to have an array of viewing options.
“Despite the reported dip in representation, this expanded list of nominations shows us there’s an impressive range of quality content across genres, networks and platforms for LGBTQ audiences to connect with,” Rudolph told NBC News. “I remember when queer content wasn’t so plentiful and when we didn’t see these shows or characters on mainstream television. Now, even as a queer person in media, I haven’t even seen all of these titles. The decline in visibility is evidence there’s still work to be done, but the diverse list of nominees also shows us how far we’ve come.”
For the first time, GLAAD’s report on TV representation found that LGBTQ people of color outnumbered their white counterparts. And several of this year’s GLAAD award nominees are titles created by and/or star LGBTQ people of color, including Lena Waithe’s BET series “Twenties”; Hulu’s “Love, Victor”; and Fox’s “9-1-1: Lone Star,” which made history for casting the first out Black trans man, Brian Michael Smith, in a regular series role on network television.
“It’s incredible and powerful to see a Black trans actor in the lead on Fox,” Rudolph said of Smith. “People across America get to see him on their screens, and that visibility is vital for the trans community. I love that they are being recognized for that.”
Award winners will be announced during a virtual ceremony scheduled for April. The full list of nominees can be found on GLAAD’s website.
South Dakota Republican lawmakers on Tuesday revived a proposed law that would ban people from changing the sex designation on their birth certificates, even after a House committee rejected the bill that LGBTQ advocates decried as an attack on transgender people.
Republicans in the House forced the bill to be brought to a vote by the full House through a rarely used legislative procedure known as a “smoke out.” At least one-third of the House supported the procedure.
A committee of lawmakers had earlier Tuesday dismissed the bill on a seven-to-six vote after five Republicans joined two Democrats to oppose the bill, which would stop people from changing the sex listed on birth certificates after one year from birth. The proposal will be delivered to the full chamber for consideration by Wednesday.
Law changes that affect transgender people have become a perennial topic in the South Dakota legislature, although transgender advocates say they are making progress in getting their voices heard and issues understood. A handful of advocates gathered in the pre-dawn cold outside the statehouse on Tuesday, waving rainbow and transgender flags.
“I want transgender people to know they have a home here, a family here,” said Seymour Otterman, a nonbinary transgender person who testified to lawmakers on their experience living in the state.
The legislative efforts to address transgender issues were spearheaded by Rep. Fred Deutsch, a Watertown Republican who introduced this year’s proposal. After the bill was rejected in committee, he said he had heard from fellow Republicans that they would like to debate and vote on the bill in a meeting of the full House.
Deutsch pushed a bill last year that would have banned puberty blockers and gender confirmation surgery for transgender children under 16. And in 2016, he introduced a bill that would have limited the bathrooms and locker rooms that transgender students can use.
But Deutsch’s efforts have increasingly struggled to gain traction: His 2016 bill cleared the House and Senate before being vetoed by former Gov. Dennis Daugaard, a Republican; his bill last year passed the House before being halted by a Senate committee; this year’s bill failed to clear its first hurdle in the House and had to be revived by the “smoke out” procedure.
Deutsch defended his efforts, saying he was not motivated by hate but by social importance.
He argued that the state’s judges have struggled with how to handle requests from people who want to change the sex on their birth certificates and that keeping vital records on sex is an important aspect of government business.
South Dakota courts have received 11 requests for updates to the sex listed on birth certificates since 2017, according to the court system.
Rep. Kevin Jensen, a Canton Republican who supported the bill, said he doesn’t feel it discriminates against transgender people, and that a birth certificate serves as an objective record of someone’s sex at birth.
But LGBTQ people see Deutch’s efforts as an attack intended to send a message that they are not welcome in a state dominated by conservative politics. They warned that barring people from updating their birth certificates was dangerous, exposing them to violence, hate and discrimination. They could be unwillingly exposed as transgender when they apply for jobs, housing or health care.
“It’s incredibly disrespectful that we have to address this every year. It’s infuriating,” said Rep. Erin Healy, a Democrat from Sioux Falls. “We are disrupting the lives of a vulnerable population, and I think what we are missing today is empathy and compassion.”
Opponents to the bill pointed out that similar bans, such as a 2018 law passed in Idaho, have been struck down by federal courts as unconstitutional. LGBTQ advocates have also pointed to President Joe Biden’s order reversing a Trump-era Pentagon policy largely barring transgender people from military service as a sign that the federal government is taking a stronger approach to protections for transgender people.
Otterman said Deutsch’s proposed ban did not come as a surprise, even though they are struck by increasing waves of anger and sadness each January when the bills come.
“In most places in South Dakota, it is a very lonely, isolating experience because of this sentiment,” they said.
Healy said bills that delve into transgender issues can be harmful, even if they often fail.
“It’s an emotional roller coaster,” Healy said. “To be so happy and relieved that it died, only to see it resurrected and have that threat all over again.”
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Emily Shilling came out as transgender on April 14, 2019, two days after a Trump administration policy barring trans people from serving openly in the military took effect.
The policy prevented trans people from enlisting, and it forced “non-exempt” service members like Shilling, who came out after the ban took effect, to continue serving as their assigned sex at birth.
“It was kind of like ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,'” she said. “I could be whoever I wanted to be at home. I just couldn’t do anything at work.”
Shilling was depending on the outcome of the presidential election and President Joe Biden’s executive order reversing the Trump administration’s transgender military ban to continue her 15-year career. She said she has completed 60 combat missions and more than 1,700 hours as a pilot flying high-performance jets. Now, she oversees acquisitions for a fleet.
“I was committed to the Navy,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do if the election went differently, if Biden wasn’t putting out this executive order. I would probably have to be leaving the Navy, and they’ve invested 15 years in me. They’ve invested over $40 million in flight training and flight hours,” she said.
Emily Shilling.
The Trump administration had maintained that its policy wasn’t a ban, because service members who wanted to transition and civilians who wanted to enlist were able to apply for waivers. But since the policy took effect, only one waiver has been granted, according to CNN. Shilling said that she had friends who applied for waivers but that they were jeopardizing their careers and their retirements. Many of them had served about 15 years, as she had, and to receive lifetime monthly retirement benefits, you have to serve for at least 20.
“You have to decide that you’re more important than your career, which is unfortunate, given our core values: honor, courage, commitment,” Shilling said.
Biden fulfilled a campaign promise when he issued an executive order Monday reversing the Trump administration’s policy and allowing transgender people to serve openly again.
“I now feel safe to continue my career, to give return on investment of the 15 years that I’ve already given the Navy and that they’ve given me,” Shilling said.
Serving openly will allow her to step into more senior leadership roles and be herself at work. She will be able to change her name, wear makeup if she would like and get the health care she needs. The messaging of Trump’s executive order, she said, “put us in a not worthy group,” so with the reversal, she hopes her command will support her and she’ll have more recourse if she faces harassment.
“I’ve fully transitioned outside of the Navy,” Shilling said. “Now it’s time to start the process where I don’t have to take one hat off and put a new one on to go into work.”
Advocates say people affected by the Trump administration’s policy generally fell into one of three groups. There were the “exempt” transgender service members who received diagnoses of gender dysphoria before April 12, 2019, and were therefore grandfathered in, meaning they could continue to serve openly and transition as their medical providers deemed necessary. Then there were the “non-exempt” trans service members who, like Shilling, came out or received diagnoses of gender dysphoria after the policy took effect and were therefore unable to change their names at work or get access to transition care other than therapy. Last, there were the transgender civilians who wanted to enlist in the military but couldn’t.
Now that the ban has been reversed, trans service members and civilians are figuring out what comes next. Biden directed the secretaries of defense and homeland security to update him in 60 days about their progress implementing the order, but it’s unclear just how soon a new policy will take effect.
‘Your very existence is the issue’
For exempt service members who were serving openly before the ban, the challenge was “operating under this cloud of them being a burden as the official position of the military,” said Lt. Col. Bree Fram, an astronautical engineer in the Air Force and vice president of the trans military group SPARTA.
“So despite what their units may think or despite what their commander may think, it’s a challenge just to continue to go to work and get the job done in this environment where you’re officially a challenge or a problem,” Fram said. “Your very existence is the issue.”
In June 2019, Trump cited the cost of medical care for transgender people as his reason for the ban, even though, Fram said, it makes up a tiny fraction of the Defense Department’s overall health care budget. From 2016 to 2019, the cost of treating trans troops was about $8 million, or about 0.02 percent of the Pentagon’s health care budget, according to data from the Defense Department.
Bree Fram and her family.
The idea that trans people’s care costs more singled them out “as a special class” for no reason, Fram said. Cisgender service members could get access to hormone therapy for medical reasons if necessary, but transgender service members who came out after the ban couldn’t. “It was the singling out for special treatment that really had no rationale,” Fram said.
The singling out had an effect on military culture, too, said retired Staff Sgt. Adrianna Guevarra, who worked in IT for the Army.
Guevarra, who was serving openly before the ban, said that her command was very supportive but that she experienced more hostility from some of her peers after Trump announced the ban on Twitter. She said that in 2017, while they were training in Hawaii, some other service members said it would be a “security threat” for her to use the women’s bathroom. The situation “got really bad,” she said, so her superiors designated a single bathroom at battalion headquarters just for her.
Adrianna Guevarra.
“It was all the way downstairs, and it was, like, four floors,” Guevarra said. “So every time I had to use the bathroom or I had to change” for physical training, “I would go down to the bathroom and change, come back up, and that’s just not ideal, especially if you’re in a position where you’re needed as quick as possible.”
Overall, however, transgender service members — both those who have been serving openly and those who haven’t — reported overwhelmingly positive experiences, despite the Trump administration’s claims that the presence of trans service members negatively affected “cohesion” and “readiness.”
“As for affecting cohesion, my peers, seniors, everybody are also upset that I’m not allowed to transition,” Sgt. Liam Aguirre, a physical therapy technician based at Fort Carson, Colorado, said about his unit’s sentiment before the ban was lifted.
Aguirre, like Shilling, is non-exempt. “It’s been more of a burden not allowing people to be who they are and not allowing people to actually just be the best that they can be,” Aguirre said.
Fram came out June 30, 2016, the same day the Obama administration announced that it would permit transgender people to serve openly in the military. Fram said that shortly after the announcement, she came out in a Facebook post and in an email to her colleagues.
“I was a little hesitant,” Fram said. She said that she was uncertain what the impact would be but that she hit send anyway and then headed to the Pentagon gym, where she went “faster than I ever” had before on the elliptical machine.
She said that when she returned to her desk, she was overwhelmed by the in-person and Facebook responses.
“It was nothing but love and support, but even more so, it was my colleagues who, one by one, walked over to my desk, shook my hand and said, ‘It’s an honor to serve with you,'” she said. “I was floored.”
‘The clouds parted’
Some trans civilians, like Kaycen Bradley, 22, who lives in San Bruno, California, have been waiting years to enlist. Before Trump reinstated the ban, the Obama administration policy required trans people who wanted to enlist to be stable in their gender for at least 18 months before enlistment.
Bradley had planned to enlist in the Marine Corps in August 2019, which would have been 18 months after his last medical procedure. But the ban took effect in April.
“At that point, I was just devastated, because … I only had a few more months to go,” Bradley said. “That’s all I had left, and … it definitely broke my spirits a little bit.”
Since then, he’s been working in a gym, training and keeping in touch with military recruiters. His desired branch has changed — once Biden’s reversal takes effect, he plans to enlist in the Army — but his desire to be part of the military hasn’t wavered.
“I want to try to be the first one that actually gets to go in,” Bradley said. “Just because I’ve been waiting for so long. So … this is going to be pretty big.”
Paulo Batista.Mike Blake / Reuters file
Paulo Batista, 36, who lives in San Diego and works in technical maintenance, said the day Biden issued his executive order reversing the ban, “it was just like the clouds parted.” He wants to join the Navy or Air Force and become an information technician or an aviation technician in aeronautics.
“I love to tinker with everything, and it’s just a passion,” he said. “To do it in uniform, it would just be me living my dream on a daily basis, getting to do what I like, getting to learn and work with a group of people that, you know, when you join the military, they have your back.”
Shilling wants Congress and the Biden administration to enact legislation to ensure that transgender Americans’ ability to serve their country openly doesn’t change “with the next administration or the whim of politics.”
Until then, trans service members and hopeful enlistees say they will keep fighting for their right to serve. Army Maj. Kara Corcoran said she often hears people say trans people are joining the military “just so you can transition.”
“No. I joined to serve my country, and that’s what the rest of transgender service members did, as well,” she said. “They joined to serve their country, because we love this country, and we’re willing to fight for this country. And we’re willing to fight for our right to fight for this country.”
Two organizations have entered into a partnership that seeks to improve the health and quality of life of transgender and non-binary people in Puerto Rico.
The collaboration between the South Florida-based Arianna’s Center and the Puerto Rico-based Waves Ahead seeks to strengthen and improve programs and/or services to these communities. They include free mobile HIV testing, prevention and care, case management to help with name changes, legal referrals and links to medical care and mental health services.
Both organizations will offer workshops to help trans women and non-binary people enter the workforce.
Arianna’s Center and Waves Ahead will also train trans women to become activists and help elected officials at all levels of government on issues and policies that are vital to people who are trans or non-binary.
This partnership will allow Waves Ahead to uphold its commitment to the community and expand its capacity to serve LGBTQ seniors in Puerto Rico.
Arianna’s Center CEO Arianna Lint told the Washington Blade that another one of her organization’s goals is “to empower the trans community over 50 with support groups.”
“We will have two offices: One in the San Juan metropolitan area and the other in Cabo Rojo (in southwestern Puerto Rico),” she said. “We are also developing a fundraising project for these two organizations to continue with the services. We are starting this work with very few financial resources, but with a lot of energy and the faith that we are going to move forward and that many people are going to support us.”
“Puerto Rico has become the heart of Arianna’s Center. Since 2019 we have been here supporting the trans and non-binary community with the services and advocacy that characterize our work in the United States,” added Arianna’s Center Operations Director Tony Lima in a press release. “We are proud to start 2021 by announcing Kimberly Vázquez, with vast experience and is highly recognized by her own community, is an official part of our family who will continue our trans legacy here on the island.”
Vázquez, who is in charge of coordinating Arianna’s Center work in Puerto Rico, told the Blade that joining forces with Arianna’s Center will create more opportunities for trans people who need and deserve dignified and fair treatment.
“I think it is a great alliance that, in the end, will support many more people and I know that, by receiving all their medical and support services, we will finally restore the dignity that has been taken from them for no other reason than to exclude them because they are different,” said Vázquez.
Wilfred Labiosa, executive director of Waves Ahead and SAGE Puerto Rico, said they “are extremely proud to be able to continue the work that Arianna started in 2019 in Puerto Rico.”
“Ms. Vázquez will work with our existing staff and from our centers to add more services for our Transgender and non-binary community in Puerto Rico,” said Labiosa. “New year, new beginnings.”
