With Republicans threatening to reverse LGBTQ civil rights and generally undermine democratic elections, there’s a lot riding on the November midterms. But Voter ID laws across the nation could seriously impair transgender people from voting.
New research from The Williams Institute found that out of 878,300 eligible transgender voters in the U.S., as many as 203,700 could be blocked from voting because their government-issued IDs don’t reflect their gender identity — that’s nearly one-fourth of all eligible trans voters.
If a trans person arrives at a polling place with a government-issued ID containing an incorrect gender or name, they may be turned away by poll workers who think they’re trying to “impersonate” another individual.
203,700 disenfranchised trans voters is roughly the entire population of Salt Lake City, Utah; Little Rock, Arkansas; Amarillo, Texas; or Grand Rapids, Michigan, according to U.S. Census data.
Changing an ID isn’t always easy, and “transgender people of color, young adults, people with low incomes, and people with disabilities are more likely to not have accurate IDs for voting,” the Williams Institute wrote.
Trans people face numerous barriers to changing their ID gender markers. The process can take lots of time and money and require access to medical care that many trans people don’t have.
According to the Movement Advancement Project, 10 states require documentation from a medical provider in order to change a trans person’s gender marker; 8 states require proof of surgery, court order, or an amended birth certificate; and 10 states have “burdensome” or “unclear” policies on changing such gender markers.
Changing a birth certificate to get a new ID can also present problems: 12 states require trans people to undergo a gender-affirming surgery before officials will revise a birth certificate; 4 states don’t allow any changing of birth certificate gender markers whatsoever.
Name changes aren’t always easy either. Nine states require people to publicly post their name change requests online, something that can make them a target for harassment or violence.
An estimated 414,000 eligible trans voters live in the 31 states that predominantly have in-person voting and require voter ID. Nearly half of trans voters in those states don’t have an ID that accurately reflects their gender or name. Additionally, 64,800 eligible trans voters live in states that have very strict voter ID laws.
The exclusion of trans voters is particularly concerning as Republicans introduce anti-trans legislation across the country.
Republicans have ostensibly introduced voter ID laws as a way to stop the nearly nonexistent problem of voter fraud. But both the American Civil Liberties Union and The Brennan Center for Justice have called voter ID laws a form of “voter suppression” that mostly disenfranchises Democratic voters.
A Black trans woman says her housing complex discriminated against her family and refused to respect her gender identity.
Shayla Anderson and her husband have filed a lawsuit accusing the Grand Fountain apartment complex in Richmond, Texas of discrimination.
“I went to her office, and she said, ‘I’m not going to speak with you about this,’” Anderson told KPRC. “‘I’m not going to speak with you about this, sir.’”
“She took my womanhood and crushed it by calling me sir.”
From there, Anderson reached out to the company in charge of the apartment complex, SunRidge Management Group, who never got back to her.
After filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Anderson then posted a video of the property manager approaching her husband and son while they played basketball and accusing them of not living in the building.
The building then demanded Anderson remove the video before issuing their family an eviction notice, despite the fact that they hadn’t received any warnings.
Anderson said she had not been paying rent, but that her lawyers had advised her to stop due to the lawsuit.
In a statement, SunRidge denied all claims of discrimination and stated, “We adhere to the highest standards of managing the Grand Fountain community and comply with all fair housing laws.”
But Anderson is not backing down.
“Because, you’re a big corporation you can’t treat the little people wrong,” she said. “We have a voice as well.”
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, why don’t you move? Why don’t you get out of there?’ Because then I give them the power.”
A Lakota two-spirit person was found dead of gunshot wounds outside Rapid City, South Dakota in August. Acey Morrison, 30, was among at least 30 trans or gender-nonconforming people to die in violent circumstances in the U.S. in 2022.
Morrison’s murder was reported early Sunday morning, August 21, by the owner of the mobile home she occupied in the Country Village Estates RV park.
Morrison came from a large family in South Dakota and Nebraska and worked at the local Walmart and Sam’s Club.
In a tribute published in Native Sun News Today, her family wrote: “Acey was what we call our two-spirit relative. To those she held in her heart and to those who held her in their hearts, seeing her in her wholeness.
“She always had her natural ways in being there for those she loved. She used laughter as medicine and chose self-love to heal wounds. She was the one to open her home up to you, give you her lasts, then inspire you to keep going, ‘this too shall pass.’”
“We will remember her as who she was to each of us: authentic, and unapologetic.”
The Human Rights Campaign reported 50 violent fatalities among trans and gender non-conforming people in 2021, including those who identified as two-spirit. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey indicates American Indian and Alaskan Native experienced a physical attack at more than twice the rate of all U.S. respondents, 19% to 9%.
A 2021 report by the Sovereign Bodies Institute and the California Rural Indian Health Board revealed among a small population of Native LGBTQ2S+ people, 90% reported experiencing two or more forms of violence.
Morrison’s family tribute ended: “She navigated this life through her big dreamer eyes and was always headed for the brighter days. So with that, we will remember her as who she was on her brightest days. We wish her healing and that our love be with her on her journey to the other side.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) has announced his attention to hold a vote “in the coming weeks” on the “The Respect for Marriage Act,” a bill that would help enshrine same-sex marriage rights into law.
In doing so, he’d get Senate Republicans to state whether they support marriage equality before the November midterm elections. Democrats could use Republican opposition to the bill to pummel conservative candidates and convince larger numbers of Democratic voters to come to the polls.
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Democratic and Independent voters have come out against Republicans in greater numbers since the conservative-led Supreme Court overturned the right to abortions nationwide in June. Political commentators think even more voters could come out against Republicans over same-sex marriage, considering that a June Gallup poll found that 71 percent of voters support marriage equality.
“Let me be clear,” Schumer said in a Wednesday press conference, “a vote on marriage equality will happen on the Senate floor in the coming weeks, and I hope there will be 10 Republicans to support it.”
“Our two leading members on this issue, Sen. [Tammy] Baldwin and [Kyrtsten] Sinema, are working with Republicans to see if there are enough votes to pass the bill,” he added.
Thus far, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) have all said that they would vote in favor of the bill. The bill needs 10 Republican senate votes to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a guaranteed filibuster and become law.
When asked about the legislation on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “I know there’s a legislative pathway that’s being discussed currently in Congress. We’ll let leadership decide how to move forward with that.”
She added, “The President is proud is a champion of a right for people to marry. They can choose who they love, and he believes it is non-negotiable, and the Senate should act swiftly to get this to the President’s desk.”
However, several Republican senators have come out against the bill.
“Never felt this bill is necessary,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “This is just Democrats opening up a wound that doesn’t need to be opened up. And now that I’ve talked to people there are some very serious concerns on religious liberty…. I would not support it in its current state.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has also said he will oppose the bill due to concerns over “religious liberties.”
“This bill without a religious liberty protection would have massive consequences across our country, weaponizing the Biden administration to go and target universities, K-12 schools, social service organizations, churches and strip them all of their tax-exempt status,” Cruz claimed earlier this week on his podcast Verdict.
Cruz said that he and his allies are encouraging fellow Republicans to vote against the bill. He also said Republicans would push to add an amendment to the bill that would provide “a strong protection of religious liberty.”
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) has also said he’ll oppose the bill, stating, “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman.”
In mid-July, 47 Republican House lawmakers voted in favor of the bill, helping it pass the lower legislative chamber.
In late July, 83 conservative organizations wrote a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), claiming that the bill will legalize polygamy and incest.
In reality, he Respect for Marriage Act would officially repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law that forbade the federal government from legally recognizing same-sex marriages. In its place, the act would require the federal and state governments to recognize same-sex marriages as long as they occurred in states that offer them. If any state refuses to recognize such marriages, the act says, the spouses can sue.
Democrats and Collins introduced the bill after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas indicated that the nation’s highest court should consider overturning Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
In his footnote to the June Supreme Court decision overturning abortion access nationwide, Justice Thomas wrote that the court should “reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold [the case that granted the right to contraception] Lawrence [the case that struck down anti-sodomy laws], and Obergefell [the case that legalized marriage equality].”
“We have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents,” Thomas wrote.
If the court overturns Obergefell, it would essentially leave individual states to decide their own same-sex marriage laws. Nearly 30 states have same-sex marriage bans currently on their books.
The Respect for Marriage Act has the support of LGBTQ and allied national organizations including the ACLU, the Center for American Progress, the Equality Federation, Family Equality, Freedom for All Americans, GLAD, Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Lambda Legal, the National Black Justice Coalition, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Women’s Law Center, and PFLAG.
Since 2013, Russia has had a law in place that criminalizes the distribution of “homosexual propaganda” to minors. This vague and overly broad law can be used to punish anyone who speaks positively about LGBTQ relationships or displays any kind of pro-LGBTQ sentiment. As a result, Russia has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world for members of the LGBTQ community.
Recently, Russian legislators have proposed to extend the LGBTQ propaganda law, which would criminalize anyone who promotes “non-traditional” sexual relationships to minors and adults. This, critics say, will further endanger the lives of Russia’s LGBTQ population, which has already suffered increased harassment, violence, and hostility in recent years.
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Here, we take a look at the state of LGBTQ rights in Russia and what has fueled the shift towards anti-LGBTQ sentiments there.
Technically, it isn’t illegal to be LGBTQ in Russia. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1993 and declassified as a mental illness in 1999. Transgender Russians have also been able to legally change their gender and identity documents since 1997.
However, there are currently no anti-discrimination protections in the country, despite the high rate of homophobia in Russia. Owing largely to President Vladimir Putin’s plan to position himself as the “world’s leading defender of traditional values”, the Russian government has only made it harder for its LGBTQ population to live freely and openly.
In 2012, the year Putin assumed office as President, the city government of Moscow banned LGBTQ pride parades for the next hundred years.
August 2, 2018: Pride flag at a window in Russian city St Petersburg Shutterstock
LGBTQ Rights In Russia Today
So, what is life like for an LGBTQ person living in Russia today? Here is a brief primer on Russian LGBTQ rights in the time of Putin:
The “Homosexual Propaganda” Law
Putin’s government classifies LGBTQ people as a threat to the traditional family values it hopes to uphold. In 2013, Putin signed a federal law banning the “promotion of nontraditional sexual relations to minors”. Ultimately, this law makes it illegal for anyone to introduce information about LGBTQ people to minors – encompassing any information shared online, on TV, and by the press.
The law has not only had a chilling effect on LGBTQ rights but has also been used as a justification to shut down valuable websites that offer resources and services to LGBTQ youth. The law also discourages mental healthcare providers and educators from giving patients and students the information and care they need to cope with their struggles and navigate a homophobic environment.
According to LGBTQ advocates, this law is about much more than simply “protecting children” – it is a political tool to further the state’s anti-Western liberalism agenda. LGBTQ people are positioned as dissidents who wish to “finish off the traditional morality” – essentially making them out to be enemies of the state and a threat to Russian culture and values. According to the co-founder of the Russian LGBT Network, Igor Kochetkov, the 2013 law “is used in information campaigns to generate hatred, including against human rights defenders.”
“In the rhetoric of the Kremlin and state-loyal media, LGBT rights, feminism, multiculturalism, and atheism are identified not only as foreign to Russia’s values but as existential threats to the nation,” says the Boston Review.
The European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child have both condemned the law, as it is in opposition to their policies on freedom of expression and the right to assembly.
SEPTEMBER 8, 2013: No gay propaganda beyond this line. Banner against the Russian anti gay laws in front of the Russian Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic. Shutterstock
Same-Sex Marriage And LGBTQ Adoption In Russia
In April 2021, Putin signed a series of constitutional amendments that included a formal ban on same-sex marriage in the country. Previously, the Russian constitution did not explicitly define marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman – a loophole that gave LGBTQ Russians a sliver of hope that same-sex marriages could be introduced on that basis.
But with the recent amendments – which also removed term limits for the president and allowed the Russian constitution to take precedence over international law – LGBTQ Russians now have little hope for marriage equality in their country.
The amendments also ban transgender people from adopting children in Russia. Currently, only single adoptions – meaning no same-sex couples – are allowed.
Participants march during the Belgian Gay Pride parade in Brussels Belgium on May 20, 2017 Shutterstock
Illegal Detentions In Chechnya
In 2017, reports surfaced of a “gay purge” in the semiautonomous state of Chechnya. These purges, which were conducted by Chechen authorities, targeted gay and bisexual men and resulted in the detention of over 200 people. More have reportedly been beaten, tortured, and even killed.
Despite international protests and demands to end the purge from the UN and the European Court of Human Rights, the detention and torture resumed in 2019. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, men have been “kicked, beaten, and shocked with electricity” and were detained for three to 20 days. They were also stripped of their cellphones and forced to out other queer men.
According to Amnesty International, Russian authorities have “failed to provide justice” for the victims of the Chechnyan gay purges and offer effective protection to Igor Kotchetkov, who received death threats after leading the public investigation of the incident.
In the 2020 documentary Welcome to Chechnya, which follows a group of activists as they attempt to evacuate queer people from the region, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov blatantly denies the mere existence of queer people in Chechnya, stating, “We don’t have LGBT people here.”
Brussels, Belgium March 20, 2017. A woman holds a placard with an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin during protest against the detention of gay men in concentration camps in Chechnya. Shutterstock
The Bottom Line
Russia has come under fire in recent years for its treatment of the LGBTQ community. With lawmakers proposing a total ban on spreading “LGBTQ propaganda” to both minors and adults and the amendment to the Russian constitution that makes same-sex marriage in the country illegal, LGBTQ Russians face a mountain of challenges in earning the right to live openly and safely.
These policies have not only curtailed the rights of LGBTQ people in Russia but have also inspired deeper hate and homophobia in the country – particularly among its ultra-conservative population.
You can show your support by learning more about the situation in Russia and spreading awareness.
On Friday night, police were called to the scene of a stabbing outside popular Long Beach, California gay bar, the Mineshaft. Two men were attacked, and one has died.
The perpetrator is still at large.
The bar’s co-owner, Jeff Darling, said that around 11:30pm two patrons were standing outside the bar when an unidentified individual rode up on a bicycle. According to witnesses, an argument ensued. The incident escalated with the rider pulling a knife and stabbing both patrons in the chest. The attacker fled the scene.
Police arrived soon after and administered aid. The two victims were taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where one of the men, 28-year-old Christopher Finley of Long Beach, died of his injuries Saturday morning.
Finley was a “semi-frequent” regular at the bar, Darling told the Long Beach Post.
According to Darling, the man on the bicycle never entered the Mineshaft, but the “small argument” out front escalated into a stabbing when the two victims tried to get him to move along.
“After they were stabbed, they ended up in our doorway,” Darling said. “It appears to be a horrible random act.”
Just five minutes before the attack, Darling said, a customer was ejected for brandishing a taser. Police detained the man but did not arrest him.
“The investigation to determine his involvement, if any, is ongoing,” Long Beach Police spokesperson Allison Gallagher said.
According to LBPD, the motive for the stabbings remains under investigation and as such is not currently being investigated as a hate crime.
Darling called the incident a “very traumatic thing” and said he was planning a vigil for Finley and the other stabbing victim. He expressed his condolences and solidarity with the community in a post to Facebook.
“This is such a tragedy and I am deeply saddened by this senseless violence. My heart goes out to the loved ones of the person that lost his life and the family and friends of the person still hospitalized. Love will bring our neighborhood together and not let violence win. We have always wanted the Mineshaft to be a safe place in the community but this serves as a message that tragedy can strike at any time. Make sure to let those around you know that you Love them.”
A 33-year-old Black trans woman was fatally shot in Detroit last week, becoming the second trans woman in a month to be murdered there.
On August 27, Dede Ricks was pronounced dead at the scene after police found her on the ground with gunshot wounds to her chest and back, The Detroit News reported.
Thirty-one-year-old Antoine Close has been arrested for killing Ricks and charged with second-degree murder and felony firearm possession. A motive has not been revealed.
“The fact that we have seen two homicides of transgender women in just three weeks shows the danger this community faces,” Alanna Maguire, president of LGBTQ advocacy organization Fair Michigan, said in a statement.
“Rather than being supported, we often hear people vilify the transgender community which fuels this kind of violence and hate. We are proud to work with Prosecutor Worthy’s office on these cases, and we hope to bring justice to the victims and their families.”
Wayne County, Michigan Prosecutor Kym Worthy emphasized that “while some protections for transgender citizens in Michigan are finally beginning to be recognized, their lives are still very much in danger.”
“We have seen this happen before and hope that this does not become a pattern,” she said.
The statement from the prosecutor’s office also inexplicably used Ricks’s deadname and then explained what a deadname is.
At the end of July, 28-year-old Hayden Davis, another Black trans woman, was also shot and killed in Detroit. Her killer has not been found, reports Fox2Detroit. Worthy said the cases do not seem to be connected.
In the United States, at least 27 trans people have been killed by violent means so far this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign. 2021 saw a record number of murders, with 50 trans and gender nonconforming people killed.
Tim Michels, the Republican candidate running for Wisconsin governor, donated $250,000 in 2020 to groups opposing abortion and all forms of contraception, and to anti-LGBTQ churches. The donations, made along with Michels’s wife Barbara through their foundation, The Timothy and Barbara Michels Family Foundation, represent 15 percent of the candidate’s total donations in 2020, according to a report by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Along with donations totaling $175,000 to radical anti-abortion organizations in Wisconsin and New York, the Michels gave $10,000 to Miami’s Christ Fellowship, whose parishioners include former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. Christ Fellowship’s pastor, Omar Giritli, delivered an anti-transgender sermon in May, in which he attacked Caitlyn Jenner and preached that God believes transgender people are an “abomination” and a “rebellion to their creator.” A 2015 Huffington Post report detailed the church’s consistent anti-LGBTQ message.
Spring Creek Church in Pewaukee, Wisconsin also received a $50,000 donation from the couple. The church’s pastor, Chip Bernhard, has reportedly suggested that allowing transgender children to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity is “awful.”
“While the media is desperate to find lines of attack, their generosity helps support causes they believe in and funds cancer research and other Christian causes,” Michels’s campaign spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Michels, meanwhile, has tried to downplay social issues on the campaign trail. “The people who feel the Democratic party has left them for social issues, you are now going to have a governor that’s going to stand up for the hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens of Wisconsin,” he said early last month after winning the Republican primary.
Michels is running to unseat incumbent Governor Tony Evers (D).
“Tim Michels will stop at nothing to push his radical agenda in order to limit the rights of LGBTQ Wisconsinites and those seeking an abortion,” Democratic Party spokesperson Hannah Menchhoff said. “If elected, Tim Michels will implement radical policies that are out of touch with the majority of Wisconsinites.”
Anti-LGBTQ users on 4chan targeted the Trevor Projects suicide prevention services on Tuesday in an effort to prevent LGBTQ youth from getting help.
In a post on the notorious platform’s “Politically Incorrect” imageboard, an anonymous user posted a plan to bog down the nonprofit organization’s crisis hotline and online chatswith fake requests for help. The goal was to “f**k up the queue so sodomites and f*gs commit suicide,” to “demoralize the therapists,” and “waste as much of their resources as possible.”
According to The Daily Dot, the original thread appears to have been deleted, but it’s unclear whether it was removed by 4chan or the original poster. A second thread has been archived and was still visible on the site as of Tuesday evening.
Alex Kaplan, a senior researcher at progressive media watchdog org Media Matters for America, posted screenshots of the original post and responses from trolls sharing screenshots of their chats with Trevor Project councilors.
One 4chan user posted a screenshot from the Trevor Project’s online crisis chat saying that “wait times to reach a counselor are higher than usual.”
“The act of attacking a crisis services line intended to prevent suicide among young people is egregious,” the Trevor Project said in a statement. “Our crisis counselors work around the clock to be there for LGBTQ youth who feel like they have nowhere to turn, and it’s harrowing that anybody would attempt to compromise our lifeline or encourage suicide.”
“LGBTQ youth are at significantly increased risk for suicide—not because of anything inherent about their identities, but because of the stigma, bullying, violence, and discrimination that they face,” the Trevor Project said. “The incident of users on 4chan who maliciously planned to overtake our crisis lines today is exactly the kind of mistreatment and abuse that contributes to heightened suicide risk. Alarmingly, our research has found that every 45 seconds, an LGBTQ young person attempts suicide. Every second counts when you work in suicide prevention, and we strongly condemn this intent to obstruct our lines and create even more barriers for LGBTQ people who rely on our help. We are working diligently in the face of this disruption to protect our counselors and those youth who need us.”
The Trevor Project became a target of far-right trolls earlier this year when Chaya Raichik, who runs the influential anti-LGBTQ Twitter account “Libs of TikTok,” called the non-profit “a grooming organization” in a tweet that was later deleted. Other anti-LGBTQ organizations and pundits like Moms for Liberty and Lauren Chen followed suit, equating the Trevor Project’s outreach to LGBTQ teens in crisis with giving abusers access to children.
Texas has reported its first death of a person diagnosed with monkeypox.
The unnamed man lived in Harris County, the state’s largest county, containing Houston and several nearby suburbs. He was also “severely immunocompromised,” the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement issued on Tuesday. The statement provided no other identifying information about the man.
“The case is under investigation to determine what role monkeypox played in the death,” the department wrote.
In a Tuesday White House press briefing, Dr. Jennifer McQuiston with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expressed sympathy for the man’s passing, and said that the CDC will also conduct an inquiry into the conditions that contributed to the man’s death. She also warned against panicking about other possible monkeypox-related deaths.
“I think it’s important to emphasize that deaths due to monkeypox, while possible, remain very rare,” McQuiston said. “In most cases, people are experiencing infection that resolves over time. And there have been very few deaths even recorded globally. Out of over 40,000 cases around the world, only a handful of fatalities have been reported.”
In mid-August, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that there had been 12 deaths of people infected with monkeypox worldwide. Health authorities have urged men who have sex with men (MSM) to get vaccinated against the illness, to reduce sexual partners, and to get tested and quarantine if they experience any symptoms.
The briefing also confirmed that the White House is continuing its strategy of making vaccines and mobile testing facilities available to communities ahead of scheduled public events that are popular with MSM, such as Atlanta Black Pride and Southern Decadence in New Orleans, Louisiana.
“[It’s] a great opportunity to get folks ready for the event in terms of getting some vaccines on the ground early, but also, a great opportunity to reach people who won’t go to a clinic or a vaccine effort, but will feel comfortable in, frankly, less stigmatizing spaces that can occur in the events,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the White House National Monkeypox Response Deputy Coordinator, said.
On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced $11 million in funding to domestically produce the Jynneos smallpox vaccine in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The vaccine is being used to limit monkeypox’s spread.
Previously, the global supply of the vaccine came entirely from a tiny company in Denmark called Bavarian Nordic whose distribution had been hampered by a company’s lab renovation and supply chain disruptions.
President Joe Biden declared a national state of emergency for monkeypox in early August. The WHO also declared monkeypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in late July.
In late August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine to be administered intradermally in order to stretch out the supply of available vaccines. The intradermal method could stretch the nation’s vaccine supply fivefold and has been found to be effective when vaccinating against rabies and polio.
