Michael K. Lavers

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State Department to issue gender-neutral passports

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The State Department has announced it will begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday in a statement that announced the new policy said the State Department “will be taking further steps toward ensuring the fair treatment of LGBTQI+ U.S. citizens, regardless of their gender or sex, by beginning the process of updating our procedures for the issuance of U.S. Passports and Consular Reports of Birth Abroad (CRBA).”

Blinken noted the State Department will immediately update its procedures “to allow applicants to self-select their gender as ‘M’ or ‘F’ and will no longer require medical certification if an applicant’s self-selected gender does not match the gender on their other citizenship or identity documents.” The State Department, according to Blinken, has also begun the process to allow people who identify as non-binary, intersex or gender non-conforming to choose a gender-neutral gender marker for their passports and CRBAs.

Blinken did not say when the process will be completed.

“The process of adding a gender marker for non-binary, intersex and gender non-conforming persons to these documents is technologically complex and will take time for extensive systems updates,” said Blinken. “The department will also be working closely with its interagency partners to ensure as smooth a travel experience as possible for the passport holder.”

Blinken announced the new policy less than a week after Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley helped raise the Progress Pride flag at the State Department on Friday.

Dana Zzyym filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their passport application. Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who also identifies as non-binary, had sought to list their sex as “X.”

Lambda Legal represents Zzyym.

“I’ve been at this fight for so long,” said Zzyym in a press release that Lambda Legal released on Wednesday. “I am optimistic that, with the incredible support and work of Lambda Legal and the Intersex Campaign for Equality, I will soon receive an accurate passport. One that reflects who I truly am; and that will allow for me to present in person at the several international conferences to which I’ve been invited to present on issues confronting intersex people.”

Dana Alix Zzyym, gay news, Washington Blade
Dana Zzyym (Photo courtesy of Lambda Legal)

Lambda Legal Counsel Paul D. Castillo in the same press release also welcomed the State Department’s announcement.

“The update to the State Department’s policy has been a long time coming and is prompted in large part by three separate court rulings in Dana’s favor,” said Castillo. “Dana showed incredible courage and perseverance throughout, and it is rewarding now to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“With today’s announcement, countless intersex, non-binary and other gender-diverse United States passport applicants will at last get the accurate passports they need,” added Castillo. “As important, self-certification of their identity removes unnecessary barriers and makes accurate IDs accessible to more people, reducing discrimination, harassment and violence aimed at transgender people.”

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State Department criticizes latest Istanbul Pride crackdown

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The State Department on Monday expressed concerned over the latest police crackdown against participants in an Istanbul Pride march.

Reuters and other media outlets reported police in riot gear on Saturday used tear gas to disperse march participants near Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue.

Videos posted to social media show officers pushing and dragging people who were waiving Pride flags. Reuters cited local media reports that indicate a journalist was among the upwards of 20 people who were detained.

“We are concerned by the recent prevention of the exercise of freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly in Istanbul,” tweeted State Department spokesperson Ned Price on Monday. “We remain committed to promoting human rights and call on Turkish authorities to respect fundamental freedoms for all, including LGBTQI+ persons.”

Reuters reported Istanbul authorities banned the march. They have also thwarted previous Pride events.

Police in 2017 arrested nearly two dozen people who defied a ban on Pride events. They used tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse LGBTQ activists who tried to march from Taksim Square. 

Police in 2015 used tear gas and water cannons against people who were about to participate in another Istanbul Pride march.

The Washington Blade has reached out to LGBTQ activists in Istanbul for more comment.

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Leaders of 17 EU countries urge bloc to fight anti-LGBTQ discrimination

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The leaders of 17 European Union countries have signed a letter that urges the EU to fight anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

Politico reported Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš, Luxembourgish Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven signed the letter ahead of an EU summit in Brussels. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is also a signatory.

The EU heads of state signed the letter a week after Hungarian lawmakers approved a bill that would ban the promotion of homosexuality and sex-reassignment surgery to anyone under 18.

The European Commission on Wednesday said it would seek to block the measure. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described it as a “shame.”

“This bill clearly discriminates against people on the basis of their sexual orientation and it goes against all the values, the fundamental values of the European Union and this is human dignity, it is equality and is human fundamental rights, so we will not compromise on these principles,” she said.

“I will use all the powers of the European Commission to ensure that the rights of all EU citizens are guaranteed, whoever you are and wherever you live,” added von der Leyen.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán rejected the criticisms.

“The recently adopted Hungarian bill protects the rights of children, guarantees the rights of parents and does not apply to the sexual orientation rights of those over 18 years of age, so it does not contain any discriminatory elements,” his government said in a statement, as France 24 reported.

Orbán and members of his ruling Fidesz party in recent years have moved to curtail LGBTQ rights in Hungary.

Hungarian lawmakers late last year approved bills that effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage as between a man and a woman. A measure that bans transgender and intersex people from legally changing their gender passed in the Hungarian Parliament in April 2020.

Munich’s Allianz Arena sought to illuminate the stadium in rainbow colors during a Euro 2020 match between Hungary and Germany as a way to protest the latest anti-LGBTQ bill to pass in the Hungarian Parliament. The Union of European Football Associations, which is European soccer’s governing body, rejected the request.

ILGA-Europe in a statement it sent to the Washington Blade on Thursday notes both Hungary and Poland, another EU country in which lawmakers have sought to restrict LGBTQ rights in recent years.

“For quite some time now, we’ve been informing EU ministers about systematic breaches of EU law committed by Hungary and Poland, which impact on LGBTI rights and the lives of LGBTI people,” says ILGA-Europe. “This week’s developments seem to suggest that the European Commission and a number of member states finally heard that call. Time to keep up the action and follow through on its values and responsibilities as guardians of EU law, keeping the important commitments made this week.”

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Biden urged to ensure COVID-19 vaccines reach LGBTQ people abroad

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Four Democratic congressmembers have asked President Biden to ensure some of the 500 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine it bought to distribute around the world will reach LGBTQ people that the pandemic has left even more vulnerable.

“While we are pleased to see the administration’s efforts to support global public health, we would like to ensure these vaccines are equitably distributed once they are sent abroad,” wrote U.S. Reps. Dina Titus (D-Nev.), William Keating (D-Mass.), David Cicilline (D-R.I.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) in a letter they sent Biden on Tuesday.

The Washington Blade exclusively obtained the letter.

“We are particularly concerned that the LGBTQI+ community may be unjustly excluded from receiving vaccines in various countries,” it reads.

The Biden administration last week announced the U.S. will buy 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine. The African Union and 92 countries around the world will receive them through COVAX, a global initiative the World Health Organization co-founded in order to ensure equitable distribution of the vaccine.

The letter notes the pandemic “exposed inequity in health care systems around the world for many marginalized groups, especially the LGBTQI+ community.”

“Due to stigma, violence, and discrimination, LGBTQI+ people — and transgender and non-binary individuals, in particular — face additional barriers to accessing relief and health care services,” wrote the congressmembers. “In addition to non-inclusive approaches to distributing relief, unsafe distribution centers and anti-LGBTQI+ sentiments and/or rhetoric of relief workers may also prevent LGBTQI+ individuals from obtaining vaccines.”

The letter, among other things, notes transgender people in Panama faced discrimination under gender-based regulations the country’s government implemented to control the pandemic’s spread. The congressmembers also cite Ugandan authorities who charged 19 LGBTQ people with violating coronavirus-related social distancing rules after their April 2020 arrest at a shelter in the country’s capital of Kampala and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s efforts to further restrict LGBTQ rights in his country after lawmakers gave him more power under the guise of combatting the pandemic.

“These are just a sample of the countless instances where those in the LGBTQI+ community have been unjustly discriminated against because of their gender identity and expression, sexual orientation or whom they love,” reads the letter. “As the entire world focuses on trying to return to some normalcy, we must ensure those who have been marginalized are afforded the same opportunities and resources to resume their lives.”

Biden in February signed a memorandum that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ rights abroad. The congressmembers in their letter notes they “appreciate your long record of promoting LGBTQI+ rights around the world.” 

“We hope that as the United States finalizes agreements for vaccine donations to countries, your administration will ensure that governments receiving vaccine doses from the United States will equitably distribute them to their residents regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” they conclude.

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Immigrant rights groups demand ICE release transgender, HIV-positive detainees

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Immigrant rights groups demand ICE release transgender, HIV-positive detainees

Eight immigrant advocacy groups this week demanded the release of all transgender and HIV-positive people who are in immigrant detention facilities.

Immigration Equality, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Transgender Law Center, the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, the Center for Victims of Torture, Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, Mijente and the National Immigrant Justice Center made the request in a letter they sent to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tae Johnson on June 16.

“As you know, transgender and HIV-positive people are severely suffering in U.S. immigration detention facilities,” reads the letter. “Those who do not perish from mortally deficient medical negligence are regularly mistreated, isolated and sexually assaulted.”

The letter notes DHS “for years” has “attempted to create conditions of confinement that are safe for these historically disenfranchised minorities.”

“This has been a fool’s errand,” it says. “Under both Democrat and Republican leadership, DHS has wasted millions of taxpayer dollars attempting to overcome a simple and inevitable truth: It is not possible for the U.S. government to house transgender and HIV-positive asylum seekers safely. Every progressive policy, every well-meaning protocol and every specialized facility has utterly failed. This has to stop. It is in your exclusive power to put an end to this ongoing human rights atrocity.”

“What makes this situation even more intolerable, is that the vast majority of the transgender and HIV-positive people suffering in immigration detention fled to the U.S. to escape persecution and torture,” adds the letter. “To these asylum seekers, the U.S. is more than a symbol of liberty. It is one of the few places in the world where they may hope to build a safer future. And yet, by detaining trans and HIV-positive people in such inhumane and unsafe conditions, the U.S. government is subjecting them to some of the same kinds of mistreatment they sought to escape.”

The groups in their letter demand ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection “to immediately release all transgender and HIV-positive people in their custody” and “review its system for identifying transgender and HIV-positive individuals, and work with stakeholders to ensure that it is effective and safe.” The groups also seek the creation of a policy “that deems all transgender and HIV-positive individuals non-detainable.”

The letter notes the case of Roxsana Hernández, a trans asylum seeker from Honduras with HIV who died in a New Mexico hospital on May 25, 2018, while she was in ICE custody.

Hernández’s family in a lawsuit it has filed against the federal government and five private companies who were responsible for Hernández’s care allege she did not have adequate access to medical care and other basic needs from the time she asked for asylum at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego on May 9, 2018, to her arrival at the Cibola County Correctional Center, a privately-run facility in Milan, N.M., a week later.

ICE in 2017 opened a unit for trans women at the Cibola County Correctional Center. It closed last year.

A picture of Roxsana Hernández, a transgender Honduran woman with HIV who died in ICE custody in 2018, hangs on a wall inside the offices of Colectivo Unidad Color Rosa, an LGBTQ advocacy group in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

The letter also notes the case of Johana “Joa” Medina León, a trans woman with HIV from El Salvador who asked for asylum in the U.S. in 2019 after she suffered persecution in her home country because of her gender identity.

Medina was in ICE custody at the privately-run Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, N.M., until her transfer to a hospital in nearby El Paso, Texas, on May 28, 2019. ICE on the same day released Medina from their custody.

Medina died three days later.

“She became worse, worse, worse,” Medina’s mother, Patricia Medina de Barrientos, told the Washington Blade in an exclusive interview in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador that took place a few weeks after Medina’s death. “She asked for help because she was a nurse, but they refused. She was denied help. There was no medical attention.”

Johana “Joa” Medina León, a transgender woman with HIV from El Salvador, died on June 1, 2019, at a hospital in El Paso, Texas, three days after ICE released her from their custody. (Photo courtesy of Patricia Medina de Barrientos)

The letter also includes testimonials from dozens of other trans and/or HIV-positive people who say they suffered physical abuse and survived sexual assault while in ICE custody. They also allege they did not receive adequate health care — including access to hormones and antiretroviral drugs — while in detention.

“Throwing LGBTQ and HIV-positive asylum seekers into prison is cruel, expensive and dangerous. For transgender and HIV-positive people, it can even be deadly,” said Immigration Equality Policy Director Bridget Crawford in a statement. “In response to years of consistently documented abuses against the community, the government has implemented ineffective half-measures that have utterly failed. That is why we have demanded that DHS release all transgender and HIV-positive people immediately. No one should ever be locked into prison because they fled persecution based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status. Doing so during a pandemic is a human rights atrocity.”

Immigration Equality is among the groups that have previously demanded ICE release all trans people who are in their custody. Advocacy organizations have also called for the release of people with HIV in ICE custody, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

DHS, which oversees ICE, has not responded to the Blade’s request for comment on the June 16 letter.

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Harris meets with Guatemala LGBTQ, HIV/AIDS activists

Two members of Guatemalan civil society who work with the LGBTQ community and people with HIV/AIDS participated in a roundtable with Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday.

Visibles Executive Director Daniel Villatoro and Ingrid Gamboa of the Association of Garifuna Women Living with HIV/AIDS are among the 18 members of Guatemalan civil society who participated in the roundtable that took place at a Guatemala City university. Rigoberta Menchú, an indigenous human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is among those who also took part.

Villatoro is among those who attended a virtual roundtable with Harris on April 27.

“When we met last time, I was so moved to hear about the work that you have been doing, the work that has been about helping women and children, indigenous, LGBTQ, Afro-descendants, people who have long been overlooked or neglected,” said Harris before Monday’s meeting began.

Visibles in a tweet acknowledged it participated in the roundtable.

“Today we participated in a meeting with the vice president of the United States to talk about development opportunities for Guatemala and the search for inclusive justice,” tweeted Visibles. “We, as an organization, spoke about the importance of addressing discrimination and acts of violence towards LGBTIQ+ people.”

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Uganda police arrest 44 people at LGBTQ shelter

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Police in Uganda on Monday arrested 44 people at an LGBTQ shelter outside the country’s capital of Kampala.

Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a Ugandan LGBTQ advocacy group, told the Washington Blade in an email the arrests took place in Nansana, a municipality in the Wakiso District.

Mugisha in another tweet said prosecutors have charged 42 of the 44 people who were arrested with “negligent act likely to spread infection of disease.” Mugisha added authorities subjected them to so-called anal tests to determine whether they are gay.

Mugisha said a bail hearing for 39 of the 44 people who were arrested took place on Wednesday. He tweeted the court “adjourned the matter to Friday.”

Mugisha said three of those who were arrested have been released on bail.

Pan Africa ILGA is among the organizations that have urged the Ugandan government to release those who were arrested . A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday told the Washington Blade in a statement the U.S. Embassy in Kampala is “following developments in the case closely.”

“We understand the individuals are being charged with violating government of Uganda restrictions on the size of gatherings to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” said the spokesperson.

“The United States remains committed to supporting democracy, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression, and prosperity in Uganda,” they added. “No one should face arrests, violence or torture because of who they are or who they love. We continue to engage with the government of Uganda on a wide range of issues, including those related to human rights, including LGBTQI+ rights, to improve the lives of all Ugandans.”

Uganda is among the dozens of countries around the world in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized.

Lawmakers last month passed a bill that would further criminalize homosexuality in the country.   

Police in April 2020 arrested 19 LGBTQ people at a Kampala shelter and charged them with violating regulations the Ugandan government put in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Prosecutors subsequently dropped the charges against them, and a court ordered their release.

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Undocumented LGBTQ immigrants turn to Florida group for support

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The CEO of an organization that provides support to undocumented LGBTQ immigrants says the Biden administration has given many of his clients a renewed sense of hope.

“People definitely feel much more relaxed,” Survivors Pathway CEO Francesco Duberli told the Washington Blade on March 5 during an interview at his Miami office. “There’s much hope. You can tell … the conversation’s shifted.”

Duberli — a gay man from Colombia who received asylum in the U.S. because of anti-gay persecution he suffered in his homeland — founded Survivors Pathway in 2011. The Miami-based organization currently has 23 employees.

Survivors Pathway CEO Francesco Duberli at his office in Miami on March 5, 2021. (Washington Blade photo by Yariel Valdés González)

Duberli said upwards of 50 percent of Survivors Pathway’s clients are undocumented. Duberli told the Blade that many of them are survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking and victims of hate crimes based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.

“Part of the work that we have done for years is for us to become the bridge between the communities and law enforcement or the justice system in the United States,” said Duberli. “We have focused on creating a language that helps us to create this communication between the undocumented immigrant community and law enforcement, the state attorney’s office and the court.”

“The fear is not only about immigration,” he added. “There are many other factors that immigrants bring with them that became barriers in terms of wanting to or trying to access the justice system in the United States.”

Duberli spoke with the Blade roughly a week after the Biden administration began to allow into the U.S. asylum seekers who had been forced to pursue their cases in Mexico under the previous White House’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.

The administration this week began to reunite migrant children who the Trump administration separated from their parents. Title 42, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rule that closed the Southern border to most asylum seekers and migrants because of the coronavirus pandemic, remains in place.

Duberli told the Blade that Survivors Pathway advised some of their clients not to apply for asylum or seek visa renewals until after the election. Duberli conceded “the truth of the matter is that the laws haven’t changed that much” since Biden became president.

Survivors Pathway has worked with LGBTQ people in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in South Florida. American Civil Liberties Union National Political Director Ronald Newman in an April 28 letter it sent to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called for the closure of the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, the Glades County Detention Center near Lake Okeechobee and 37 other ICE detention centers across the country.

The road leading to the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami on June 7, 2020. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Survivors Pathway responded to trans woman’s murder in 2020

Survivors Pathway has created a project specifically for trans Latina women who Duberli told the Blade don’t know they can access the judicial system.

Duberli said Survivors Pathway works with local judges and police departments to ensure crime victims don’t feel “discriminated, or outed or mistreated or revictimized” because of their gender identity. Survivors Pathway also works with Marytrini, a drag queen from Cuba who is the artistic producer at Azúcar, a gay nightclub near Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.

Marytrini and Duberli are among those who responded to the case of Yunieski “Yuni” Carey Herrera, a trans woman and well-known activist and performer from Cuba who was murdered inside her downtown Miami apartment last November. Carey’s boyfriend, who had previously been charged with domestic violence, has been charged with murder.

“That was an ongoing situation,” noted Duberli. “It’s not the only case. There are lots of cases like that.”

Duberli noted a gay man in Miami Beach was killed by his partner the same week.

“There are lots of crimes that happen to our community that never gets to the news,” he said. “We got those cases here because of what we do.”

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Black transgender woman seeks to make history in La.

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 The co-founder of an organization that provides housing and other services to transgender and gender non-conforming people in New Orleans hopes to make history as the first Black trans woman elected in Louisiana.

Mariah Moore, who co-founded House of Tulip with Milan Nicole Sherry, another Black trans activist, is running to represent District D, which includes New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood.

The primary is scheduled to take place on Oct. 9. The general election will take place on Nov. 13.

“Being a Black trans woman and being someone that holds a position like that, I will honestly have the opportunity to change so many hearts and minds about the way that people see us and the stereotypes that they cast on us,” Moore told the Washington Blade on March 1 during an interview at House of Tulip’s offices in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood.

Moore is originally from New Orleans’ 7th Ward.

Her family has deep roots throughout the Crescent City and in Madisonville and Slidell on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Moore was also a foster child.

“That’s another piece of my story that a lot of people don’t know,” she said.

Moore added New Orleans “has always been that anchor for me.”

“Even though I was navigating a very broken state foster care system, I still found my way back home,” she said. “New Orleans will be some place where I will always live. I was born here and I will die here.”

Moore said more affordable housing, higher wages and better infrastructure are among the issues on which she would work if elected.

“I understand, like myself, there’s a single mother out there who has to take public transportation. There’s a single mom out there somewhere who doesn’t have health insurance. There’s a single mom out there who’s relying on $7.25 to feed her three kids and she doesn’t get food stamps because she makes too much and we know that $7.25 an hour at less than 40 hours a week is not a livable wage in New Orleans, and it’s not a livable wage anyway,” she told the Blade.

“I’m a renter, so I know how hard it is to find a quality unit at an affordable price,” added Moore. “I understand these things, but most of all I know that solutions are possible because I created one, and so I’m not just talking about what needs to happen, I’m providing the solutions for the many problems and the circumstances that people are in.”

House of Tulip helps ‘community house community’

Moore and Sherry first conceived the idea that became House of Tulip in 2020 after the pandemic largely shut down New Orleans’ hospitality and tourism industries.

A GoFundMe campaign that House of Tulip launched raised more than $400,000.

House of Tulip in January bought a 5-bedroom double in New Orleans’ Tremé neighborhood.

Moore said the home is furnished. She told the Blade that House of Tulip plans to paint a mural in the backyard and add seating, plants and a fountain to “make it a more tranquil healing space and restorative space.”

Two people are now living in the Tremé house. A 3-bedroom property in New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood that House of Tulip is renting currently has three residents.

“The idea is to help community house community,” said Moore.

Moore also pointed out that House of Tulip offers a variety of other services to trans and gender non-conforming people who don’t live in their properties. These include access to job training programs, health care and mental health services.

“We have to build a very robust program to support those things, so now that we have the properties and we’re starting to see more and more community members that we’re able to serve in the properties that we have, we’re building our programming,” said Moore.

Three Black trans women murdered in La. over last year

The U.S. Census notes New Orleans has a 23.7 percent poverty rate.

Sherry told the Blade last July during an interview at her home in New Orleans’ Garden District that this figure is even higher among the city’s Black trans residents. She and Moore both said Black trans people in New Orleans and across Louisiana are also more vulnerable to discrimination and violence because of their gender identity.

Fifty Bandz, a Black trans woman, was murdered in Baton Rouge on Jan. 28. Two other Black trans women — Draya McCarty and Shakie Peters — were killed last summer in Baton Rouge and Amite City, which is roughly 60 miles north of New Orleans, respectively.

Moore worked with Peters’ family after her murder.

“They’re wonderful people and they loved and affirmed Shakie,” said Moore. “I don’t ever want people to think that just because it is the South that nobody has family support, but Shakie did have a family that loved her, very deeply.”

Moore told the Blade that Chyna Gibson, who she described as a “dear sister of mine,” was murdered in New Orleans in 2017 as she was leaving a clothing store before a Mardi Gras ball “everyone was planning to attend.” Moore also said that “after the police conduct their investigation, all we can do is wait and hope that justice is served.”

“I’ve only experienced heartbreak continuing to try and get the police to further investigate … to bring justice to everyone that I have personally lost,” she said.

Moore told the Blade that it remains very difficult for Black trans women to obtain state-issued IDs that accurately reflect their gender identity. Moore also said most health insurance plans in Louisiana do not cover transition-related care.

Pandemic made trans New Orleanians even more vulnerable

Moore told the Blade violence in New Orleans increased last summer, in part, because people were not working. She also said people who engage in survival sex “were very vulnerable and quite frankly left out of the conversation about people who need to be prioritized and really getting aid to these folks.”

“Our undocumented community is totally left out of the conversation,” added Moore. “We often forget that because of our undocumented community, because of our Latinx community, New Orleans is back up and thriving just as it was pre-Katrina because of those wonderful folks who came and really lent their amazing craftsmanship and everything to our great city.”

“To only include these people when it’s beneficial is a disservice and a slap in the face to all their hard work and also a slap in the face to the culture that Black trans women bring to New Orleans and to the rest of world, whether they are survival sex workers, whether they are navigating sobriety,” added Moore. “No matter where they are and what they’re doing, they add such a preciousness to the city and none of it would be what it is without each and every one of us.”

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Switzerland expected to hold marriage equality referendum

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A referendum on the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples in Switzerland is likely to take place later this year.

Lawmakers in the European country last December approved the “Marriage for All” bill.

Mannschaft, a Swiss LGBTQ magazine, on Wednesday reported opponents of the law have collected more than the 50,000 signatures required to prompt a referendum on the measure.

Marriage equality opponents had until Saturday to collect the necessary signatures for a referendum. Mannschaft reports the vote is expected to take place in September or November once the Swiss Federal Chancellery certifies the signatures.

Maria von Känel, vice president of the Swiss Rainbow Families Association, told the Washington Blade after lawmakers gave their final approval to the “Marriage for All” bill that she expected a referendum on it, even though polls indicate a majority of Swiss voters support marriage rights for same-sex couples. Jean-Paul Gschwind, a member of the Swiss National Council who opposes nuptials for gays and lesbians, told Swiss media it is “important that the people have the opportunity to express their opinion on such a social decision.”

Swiss voters in February 2020 overwhelmingly approved a bill that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. Neighboring France, Germany and Austria are among the European countries that have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples.

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