Davie Police Chief Dale Engle told town officials last week that he plans to retire on Sept. 3, the South Florida SunSentinel reported. He has been on paid leave for three months and will continue to be paid until he retires.
Engle was accused of saying Broward Sheriff’s school resource officer Shannon Bennett died because of his lifestyle. On Monday night, Engle told the SunSentinel he didn’t make the remark.
“I maintain my innocence,” he said.
Engle was placed on leave shortly after the state’s Fraternal Order of Police filed a complaint against him.
He said Davie officials didn’t pressure him to retire. Engle said he is leaving on his own with no pressure from the city. His decision to retire was fueled by a toxic backlash his teenage children received on social media after the allegations surfaced, he told the newspaper.
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The California Senate unanimously passed legislation authored by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and co-sponsored by Equality California to mandate the collection and reporting of sexual orientation and gender identity data for all COVID-19 patients on Thursday. Senator Wiener and Equality California introduced SB 932 in early May in response to the state and counties’ failure to collect and report data about the crisis’s impacts on the LGBTQ+ community — depriving both the government and LGBTQ+ community leaders of invaluable information needed to protect the health of LGBTQ+ Californians.
“California’s response to this crisis has been data-driven — and rightly so,” said Equality California Executive Director Rick Chavez Zbur. “Our government has set a national example of how to use data and science to meet this moment. But if LGBTQ+ people are left out of the data, then we’ll be left out of the response. Every day that passes, we lose critical, valuable information that could save lives. We will never get that information back. We’re grateful to the Senate for passing SB 932 and hope the Assembly will work quickly to send this emergency bill to Governor Newsom and that he will sign it.”
California is already collecting data on race, age, and sex with respect to cases of COVID-19 — data that has revealed deep disparities in both infection and fatality rates among Black and Latinx Californians. SB 932 requires collection of voluntarily provided sexual orientation and gender identity data for all COVID-19 patients, which would allow public health officials and government and community leaders to understand whether similar disparities exist within the LGBTQ+ community. As with all demographic data, no one will be required to answer these demographic questions, though every patient will be asked.
“SB 932 is essential in helping us understand how the LGBTQ community is being impacted by COVID-19,” said Senator Wiener. “LGBTQ people have heightened risk factors around this virus, yet we don’t collect this health data and have missed the opportunity for months. The history of LGBTQ people is a history of attempted erasure, in our health care system and in society. This erasure must stop, and collecting data is essential to end it. I want to thank Equality California for its partnership on this important health issue.”
If LGBTQ+ people continue to be left out of COVID-19 data, then outbreaks within the community can’t be detected and government and public health officials can’t take action to prevent COVID-19-related deaths. In addition to urging the California Legislature to pass SB 932, Equality California and other LGBTQ+ advocates have asked state and local elected officials and public health leaders to take immediate administrative action to begin collecting sexual orientation and gender identity data.
Because rates of respiratory issues (from smoking), HIV/AIDS, cancer, and homelessness are higher in the LGBTQ+ community, LGBTQ+ people are likely experiencing greater health impacts from COVID-19. Additionally, LGBTQ+ people are more likely to work in the service industry and in front-line jobs. In May, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced that the Commonwealth would be the first state to begin collecting sexual orientation and gender identity data. Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced last Friday, June 19, that the County and City of Los Angeles have begun collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity for all patients who receive a COVID-19 test through their free testing program.
SB 932 will allow healthcare providers and public health officials to understand rates of COVID-19 in the LGTBQ+ community, and help LGBTQ+ people get the resources and support they need. The bill is co-authored by all members of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, as well as Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco), and co-sponsored by Equality California and the California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network.
A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general sued the Trump Administration on Monday, seeking to block next month’s implementation of a rule overturning Obama-era protections for transgender people against sex discrimination in health care.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, leading the group of 23 states, said the change affecting the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination section would give health care providers and insurance companies carte blanche to refuse treatment based on factors such as gender identity.
James also raised concerns that women could be denied access to abortion under the revision, which takes effect Aug. 18, and that non-English speakers will be deprived of information through a change to requirements that insurers print materials in a variety of languages.
“This is just the latest attempt by President Trump and his administration to unlawfully chip away at health care for Americans after failing to repeal the ACA time after time,” James told reporters in a conference call announcing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court against the Department of Health and Human Services, secretary Alex Azar and civil rights chief Roger Severino, seeks an injunction to stop the rule from taking effect. The attorneys general argue it violates the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for the department.
The Trump Administration pushed ahead with the rule change even after a Supreme Court ruling last month barring workplace sex discrimination against LGBT people, moving to show Trump’s religious and socially conservative supporters that he remains committed to their causes ahead of the November election.
Under the change, Health and Human Services said it will enforce sex discrimination protections “according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology.” That rewrites an Obama-era regulation that sought a broader understanding shaped by a person’s internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination.
The lawsuit brought by the attorneys general is part of an expected flurry of lawsuits challenging the lawsuit, including one filed last month by the LGBT civil rights organization Lambda Legal. Such groups say explicit protections are needed for people seeking sex-reassignment treatment, and even for transgender people who need care for common illnesses such as diabetes or heart problems.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, both frequent Trump foes, assisted James in crafting the lawsuit. Becerra said implementing the rule while coronavirus continues to rage across the country is especially cruel.
“This is a mean and unconstitutional rule in any context,” Becerra said. “But authorizing discrimination in our health care system at this time, when our nation is suffering through a pandemic, is unbelievably immoral.”
Anti-transgender Facebook content shared by right-wing news sources generated more engagement than content from pro-transgender or neutral sources combined, according to a Media Matters for America study of 225 viral social media posts.
That means the majority of Facebook interactions with those viral posts — over 43 million of 66 million shares, comments and reactions over the span of a year — were on items posted by anti-trans websites like LifeSiteNews, Daily Wire and Daily Caller, according to the report.
The majority of Facebook interactions with content about transgender topics were on items posted by virulently anti-trans websites.Media Matters for America
“Facebook users are getting a totally biased and factually inaccurate understanding of the multitude of issues that impact trans people,” said Brennan Suen, Media Matters’ LGBTQ program director and one of the study’s authors. Suen pointed to an October Pew poll showing that a majority of Americans get news from Facebook.
In total, seven of the top 10 sources for interactions on popular transgender Facebook content were anti-trans sites. Just three LGBTQ-oriented sources appeared in the top 10: PinkNews, Gay Star News and NBC Out.
LifeSiteNews, Daily Wire and Daily Caller dominated these interactions.Media Matters for America
Trans activist and writer Raquel Willis said she was unsurprised by the finding that Facebook interactions about transgender issues are dominated by sources that oppose transgender rights and degrade transgender individuals.
“Narratives that further our demonization, that further confusion, are still the ones that often carry the most weight in our society,” Willis said. “Blood is on the hands of the Mark Zuckerbergs and the people who don’t want to hold these platforms to a humane standard.”
“Actual lives of marginalized people are at stake,” she added.
Suen said anti-transgender content that “lies about best practice medical care for trans youth” could “enable adults to do harm to their own children and deprive trans youth of affirmation and care that can be life saving.”
“Transphobic discourse online contributes to this dangerous rejection of trans children, real world harassment of trans peopleand harmful policies — and it contributes to a social and political culture that continues to demonize and fail the trans community,” Suen added.
Facebook did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment on Media Matters’ findings.
The Media Matters for America study examined 225 articles, blog posts and videos about transgender topics that had 100,000 or more Facebook interactions and were posted from February 2019 to this February. The liberal nonprofit used the social media analytics website BuzzSumo to identify the viral transgender-related content.
Fifty-six percent of these 225 primarily English-language articles, posts and videos were published by right-leaning sources, the report found. Conservative posts comprised the top five most-interacted-with pieces of trans content and 14 of the top 20.
LifeSiteNews, Daily Wire and Daily Caller dominated these interactions. Stories about transgender participation in sports and medical care were particularly high ranking, generating about 37 percent of all interactions, the report found.
Suen said right-wing and anti-trans content flourishes on Facebook, in part, because the network has failed to fully crack down on “coordinated, inauthentic behavior,” which Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, defined as “when groups of pages or people work together to mislead others about who they are or what they are doing.”
Last October, Judd Legum, founder of the liberal news site ThinkProgress, reported in Popular Information that 14 large Facebook pages, like Conservative News (which has nearly 500,000 followers), all of which had no apparent link to the Daily Wire, would “exclusively promote content from the Daily Wire in a coordinated fashion.”
Following Legum’s investigation, Facebook pages like Conservative News, which had allegedly promoted Daily Wire’s content in a coordinated fashion, now contain a disclaimer: “Confirmed Page Owner: DAILY WIRE.”
In an op-ed published this month titled “Facebook Does Not Benefit From Hate,” the company’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, wrote, “When content falls short of being classified as hate speech — or of our other policies aimed at preventing harm or voter suppression — we err on the side of free expression because, ultimately, the best way to counter hurtful, divisive, offensive speech, is more speech.”
“Exposing it to sunlight is better than hiding it in the shadows,” added Clegg, a former deputy prime minister in the U.K.
Human rights activists in Malaysia have condemned an order by the religious affairs minister that gives “full license” for police to arrest and detain trans people.
On 10 July, minister Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri announced on social mediathat he had given the religious police (Jawi) “full licence to carry out its enforcement actions” against transgender people in Malaysia.
He elaborated that his order goes beyond arrests, but also allows police to subject trans people to “religious education” so that they will “return to the right path”.
Trans people in Malaysia are already heavily persecuted under Sharia law, but activists fear Al-Bakri’s order takes this criminalisation a step further by sanctioning enforced conversion therapy.
“This unacceptable transphobic and homophobic attack from a government official highlights the societal prejudices and the lack of legal protections against discrimination faced by transgender persons in Malaysia,” said Ambiga Sreenavasan, a prominent Malaysian lawyer from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).
“Instead of ensuring that the human rights and dignity of all persons are respected and protected, the minister, through his statement, is going the complete opposite direction by advocating state action against persons belonging to sexual orientation and gender identity minorities.
“The minister is legitimising harassment, discrimination and violence against transgender people, and increasing violations of their human rights.”
The ICJ has called on the government of Malaysia to abide by its obligations under international law and follow through with its commitment to human rights.
Their condemnation was joined by the Muslim human rights group Sisters in Islam (SIS). In a statement they urged Al-Bakri to drop his calls to “rehabilitate” trans people and remember Islamic teachings of kindness, compassion and not to discriminate, shame or act violently, regardless of people’s backgrounds, gender or identities.
“His statement will increase discrimination, violence and mistreatment of transgender women with impunity by enforcement officers of the Islamic Departments as well as members of the public.
“We are already observing questions and concerns over personal security, safety and well-being by transgender persons across the country since the release of the statement.”
The Malaysian government has not yet responded to the criticism, and seems unlikely to do so given that in recent years it has consistently ignored abuses against the country’s LGBT+ community.
Students at the University of North Texas (UNT) are trying to get a “Young Conservatives” group banned from campus due to “racism, transphobia and homophobia”.
The Young Conservatives of Texas is a state-wide organisation that has chapters in 20 universities.
Ryan Semegran, president of the university’s LGBT+ alliance organisation GLAD UNT, was one of the students who started the petition.
Semegran told PinkNews that they want the Young Conservatives chapter removed from campus due to “blatant homophobia, transphobia, and racism” towards students.
The petition links to a tweet posted by the UNT chapter of Young Conservatives in September of 2019 that said: “Pronouns in your twitter bio isn’t a personality trait”.
During the same month, the group told UNT GLAD in a since-deleted tweet that their group was based on “having HIV”.
In October of last year, the group tweeted: “It’s #NationalComingOutDay so come to the fountain mall today at 12pm to come out as a conservative – and get snacks.”
Semegran’s petition said the tweet “dismissed the countless LGBT+ individuals who bravely come out and publicly express their gender identity and sexual orientation”.
The students have also accused the group of racism over a bake sale in 2016where the price list charged people different amounts based on their gender and ethnicity.
LGBT+ students and people of colour are being made to feel ‘unsafe’ by Young Conservatives at the Texas university.
“UNT is a minority serving university that prides itself on its diversity and inclusivity but seems to turn a blind eye when those minority students feel unsafe on campus with an organisation like Young Conservatives of Texas there,” Semegran said.
“They claim we are attacking their conservative values when it isn’t that at all. We are speaking out against their blatant hateful actions that they do not take accountability for.”
Semegran said the Young Conservatives group is a hate group disguised as a conservative organisation.
“Students of colour, queer students and international students go to find refuge at universities like UNT,” they added.
“It champions freedom of speech; however under UNT’s own policy, this is not applicable to hateful speech that makes students feel unsafe or is strenuous on their health/wellbeing.”
Semegran said they have received “countless testimonies” from queer students, past and present, as well as their family members, claiming that they have been made to feel unsafe on campus by the Young Conservatives group.
LGBT+ students should feel safe to be who they are without being harassed online or on campus grounds. It’s basic human decency.
“If this is how a group thinks they can act towards the LGBT+ community and to people of colour on campus, this is probably how they are going to act once they are out of college.”
Semegran said the comments made by the UNT chapter of the Young Conservatives about the LGBT+ community and about people of colour have been “downright scary”.
“At the end of the day this is ultimately a campus safety issue,” Semegran said.
“LGBT+ students should feel safe to be who they are without being harassed online or on campus grounds. It’s basic human decency.”
PinkNews has contacted the University of North Texas, the Young Conservatives chapter at UNT and the Young Conservatives of Texas for comment.
In times like these, there is no denying that white supremacy, racism, and criminalization put Black, Brown and transgender people at severe risk of violence. The COVID-19 outbreak has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown people. Counties with higher populations of Black residents accounting for 52 percent of coronavirus diagnoses and 58 percent of coronavirus deaths nationally, according to a recent amfAR study.
And, following the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement has once again demanded an end to the systemic inequalities and senseless violence against Black people by law enforcement.
The life-or-death impact of hate and discrimination doesn’t stop there. When it comes to sex workers in the U.S. and around the globe, many of whom are Black, Brown and transgender, discrimination and criminalization of sex work have put them at a high risk of violence, contracting preventable diseases like COVID-19 and HIV, and have exposed them to police brutality. Yet the U.S. continues to weaponize life-saving global AIDS assistance programs against sex workers by demanding recipients of PEPFAR funding to officially adopt a position opposing prostitution and acquiesce to the U.S. conflation of sex work and trafficking.
The Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of the Anti-Prostitution Loyalty Oath (APLO), a provision in the 2003 United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act, that required all recipients of funding through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to “have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution.” The policy goes on to conflate consensual sex work with human trafficking, and refuses funds to non-U.S.-based organizations that do not have a policy explicitly opposing “prostitution and sex trafficking.” While a prior 2013 decision ruled that the APLO is unconstitutional as applied to U.S.-based organizations, Monday’s ruling declined to extend those protections to their foreign affiliates, a ruling that will further divide and hamper the global AIDS response.
The APLO is and always has been a bad policy. There is no evidence that the policy improves health outcomes. In fact, there is evidence that it hurts them.
Since the policy’s inception 17 years ago, the provision has done nothing to advance its stated goals of defeating HIV and AIDS and the trafficking of persons.
This is despite the consistent and vocal leadership of members like Rep. Barbara Lee, who have consistently fought the dangerous, counterproductive, and inefficient aid conditionality of the APLO.
Whereas there is no evidence that proclaiming opposition to sex work is an effective public health intervention, there is evidence that decriminalization of sex work would have an astounding impact on reducing the HIV epidemic, averting between 33-46 percent of new infections over a decade. Yet the APLO directly blocks organizations from halting the spread of HIV.
Sex workers are disproportionately impacted by HIV and AIDS globally. Halting the spread of HIV simply cannot happen without trusted engagement and leadership from sex workers. Over the past 17 years, the policy has promoted stigma and discrimination of sex workers. It oftentimes blocks sex workers from engaging in the design, development, implementation, and assessment of HIV and AIDS programs and services. HIV prevention and treatment programs are more successful when they include sex workers involvement and leadership. For some organizations around the world, working with sex workers while declaring opposition to sex work feels hypocritical. It was for these reasons that Brazil rejected $40 million in U.S. global AIDS money in 2005, noting that such restrictions undermined the very programs responsible for Brazil’s success in reducing the spread of HIV.
International health and development agencies including UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNDP, the WHO, and the World Bank have recognized the role that decriminalization of sex work plays in advancing public health outcomes while also advancing the human rights of sex workers.
In conclusion, APLO is a punitive rule that makes it difficult for sex workers to access comprehensive, accessible and affordable health care. But everyone deserves access to quality care. Social stigmas that disproportionately impact and undermine the sexual and reproductive health rights of people across the globe do not belong in our nation’s foreign aid programs, and nothing should change that.
Serra Sippel is president the Center for Health and Gender Equity.
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Topical ThursdaysJuly 23: By request, we’ll return to the subject of Black Lives Matterand other movements in culture. Following a deep, meaningful conversation about BLM on June 25, participants asked for more!
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