When the ink dried, South Carolina became the 25th state to restrict or ban such care for minors. The governor announced the signing on social media and said he would hold a ceremonial bill signing next week.
The law bars health professionals from performing gender-transition surgeries, prescribing puberty blockers and overseeing hormone treatments for patients under 18.
School principals or vice principals would have to notify parents or guardians if a child wanted to use a name other than their legal one, or a nickname or pronouns that did not match their sex assigned at birth.
The bill was changed in the Senate to allow mental health counselors to talk about banned treatments — and even suggest a place where they are legal. Doctors can also prescribe puberty blockers for some conditions for which they are prescribed such as when a child begins what is called precocious puberty — as young as age 4.
Groups including the Campaign for Southern Equality noted that the law takes effect immediately. The group is gathering resources to help families find any help they might need outside of South Carolina and most of the Southeast, which have similar bans.
“Healthcare is a human right — and it breaks my heart to see lawmakers rip away life-affirming and often life-saving medical care from transgender youth in South Carolina. No one should be forced to leave their home state to access the care that they need and deserve,” Uplift Outreach Center Executive Director Raymond Velazquez said in a statement after lawmakers passed the ban.
Earlier this year, McMaster said he supported the proposal to “keep our young people safe and healthy.”
“If they want to make those decisions later when they’re adults, then that’s a different story, but we must protect our young people from irreversible decisions,” the governor said.
As the bill advanced in the General Assembly, doctors and parents testified before House and Senate committees that people younger than 18 do not receive gender-transition surgeries in South Carolina and that hormone treatments begin only after extensive consultation with health professionals.
They said the treatments can be lifesaving, allowing young transgender people to live more fulfilling lives. Research has shown that transgender youth and adults are prone to stress, depression and suicidal behavior when forced to live as the sex they were assigned at birth.
Supporters of the bill have cited their own unpublished evidence that puberty blockers increase self-harm and can be irreversible.
Groups that help transgender people promised to keep working even with the new law.
“To all of the young people in South Carolina and their parents who are reading this news and feeling fear for the future, please know: No law can change the fact that you are worthy of dignity, equality, joy, and respect,” said Cristina Picozzi, executive director of the Harriet Hancock Center, an LBTQ advocacy nonprofit.
Ella Anthony knew it was time to leave her native Nigeria when she escaped an abusive, forced marriage only to face angry relatives who threatened to turn her in to police because she was gay.
Since Nigeria criminalizes same-sex relationships, Anthony fled a possible prison term and headed with her partner to Libya in 2014 and then Italy, where they both won asylum. Their claim? That they had a well-founded fear of anti-LGBTQ persecution back home.
While many of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrive in Italy from Africa and the Mideast are escaping war, conflict and poverty, an increasing number are fleeing possible prison terms and death sentences in their home countries because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, advocates say.
And despite huge obstacles to win asylum on LGBTQ grounds, Anthony and her partner, Doris Ezuruike Chinonso. are proof that it can be done, even if the challenges remain significant for so-called “rainbow refugees” like them.
“Certainly life here in Italy isn’t 100% what we want. But let’s say it’s 80% better than in my country,” Chinonso, 34, said with Anthony by her side at their home in Rieti, north of Rome. In Nigeria, “if you’re lucky you end up prison. If you’re not lucky, they kill you,” she said.
“Here you can live as you like,” she said.
Anthony and Chinonso have coffee at their house in Italy.Alessandra Tarantino / AP
Most European countries don’t keep statistics on the number of migrants who claim anti-LGBTQ persecution as a reason for seeking refugee protection under international law. But non-governmental organizations that track the phenomenon say the numbers are rising as countries pass or toughen anti-homosexuality laws — a trend being highlighted on Friday’s observance of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.
To date, more than 60 countries have anti-LGBTQ laws on the books, most of them in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.
“The ultimate result is people trying to flee these countries to find safe haven elsewhere,” said Kimahli Powell, chief executive of Rainbow Railroad, which provides financial, legal and logistical support to LGBTQ+ people needing asylum assistance.
In an interview, Powell said his organization had received about 15,000 requests for assistance last year, up from some 9,500 the year before. One-tenth of those 2023 requests, or about 1,500, came from Uganda, which passed an anti-homosexuality law that year that allows the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” and up to 14 years in prison for “attempted aggravated homosexuality.”
Nigeria also criminalizes consensual same-sex relations between adults and the public display of affection between same-sex couples, as well as restricting the work of groups that advocate for gay people and their rights, according to Human Rights Watch. In regions of Nigeria where Sharia law is in force, LGBTQ+ people can face up to 14 years in prison or the death penalty.
Anthony, 37, said it was precisely the threat of prison that compelled her to leave. She said her family had sold her into marriage, but that she left the relationship because her husband repeatedly abused her. When she returned home, her brother and uncles threatened to turn her into police because she was gay. The fear and alienation drove her first to attempt suicide, and then take up a trafficker’s offer to pay for passage to Europe.
Anthony and Chinonso show photos of themselves together. Alessandra Tarantino / AP
“At a certain point, I couldn’t take all these sufferings,” Anthony said through tears. “When this man told me that I should abandon the village, I immediately accepted.”
After arriving in Libya, Anthony and Chinonso paid traffickers for the risky boat trip across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, where they both claimed asylum as a member of a group — LGBTQ+ people — who faced persecution in Nigeria. According to refugee norms, applicants for asylum can be granted international protection based on being a “member of a particular social group.”
But the process is by no means easy, straightforward or guaranteed. Privacy concerns limit the types of questions about sexual orientation that migrants can be asked during the asylum interview process. Social taboos and a reluctance to openly identify as gay or transgender mean some migrants might not volunteer the information immediately. Ignorance on the part of asylum interviewers about anti-gay laws in countries of origin can result in unsuccessful claims, according to the EU Agency for Asylum, which helps EU countries implement asylum norms.
As a result, no comprehensive data exists about how many migrants seek or win asylum in the EU on LGBTQ+ grounds. Based on estimates reported by NGOs working with would-be refugees, the numbers in individual EU countries ranged from two to three in Poland in 2016 to 500 in Finland from 2015-2017 and 80 in Italy from 2012-2017, according to a 2017 report by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.
An EU directive grants special protection for people made vulnerable due to sexual discrimination, prescribing “special procedural guarantees” in countries that receive them. However, it doesn’t specify what those guarantees involve and implementation is uneven. As a result, LGBTQ+ asylum seekers don’t always find protected environments once in the EU.
“We’re talking about people who are unfortunately victims of a double stigma: being a migrant, and being members of the LGBTQIA+ community,” said lawyer Marina De Stradis.
Even within Italy, the options vary widely from region to region, with the better-funded north offering more services than the less-developed south. In the capital Rome, there are only 10 beds specifically designated for LGBTQ+ migrants, said Antonella Ugirashebuja, an activist with the Arcigay association.
She said the lack of special protections often impacts female migrants more negatively than male, and can be especially dangerous for lesbians.
“Lesbians leaving Africa often, or more frequently, end up in prostitution and sexual exploitation networks because they lack (economic) support from their families,” she said. “The family considers them people to be pushed away, to be rejected … Especially in countries where this is punishable by law.”
Anthony and Chinonso consider themselves lucky: They live in a neat flat in Rieti with their dog Paddy, and dream of starting a family even if Italy doesn’t allow gay marriage.
Chinonso, who was studying medicine in Nigeria, is now a social and health worker. Anthony works at the deli counter in a Carrefour supermarket in Rome. She would have liked to have been able to continue working as a film editor, but is happy.
Judge Francis Ricigliano ruled that Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman didn’t have the authority to issue his February executive order, which denies park permits to any women’s and girl’s teams, leagues or organizations that allow female transgender athletes to participate.
He wrote in his 13-page decision that Blakeman’s order was aimed at preventing transgender women from participating in girls’ and women’s athletics in county parks, “despite there being no corresponding legislative enactment” providing him with such authority.
“In doing so, this Court finds the County Executive acted beyond the scope of his authority as the Chief Executive Officer of Nassau County,” Ricigliano wrote.
Amanda Urena, president of the Long Island Roller Rebels, which challenged the order, said the decision sends a “strong message” against discrimination.
“Today’s decision is a victory for those who believe that transgender people have the right to participate in sports just like everyone else,” Urena said in a statement. “County Executive Blakeman’s order tried to punish us just because we believe in inclusion and stand against transphobia. Trans people belong everywhere, including in sports, and they will not be erased.”
The New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit on behalf of the league, said the decision overturned a harmful policy that attempted to “score cheap political points by peddling harmful stereotypes about transgender women and girls.”
Blakeman dismissed the judge’s decision as one that didn’t address the merits of the case. The ruling doesn’t delve into the civil rights arguments raised by both sides, instead focusing on the limitations of the county executive’s powers.
“Unfortunately girls and women are hurt by the court,” he wrote in an emailed statement.
Blakeman had maintained the ban was meant to protect girls and women from getting injured if they are forced to compete against transgender women.
It impacted more than 100 athletic facilities in the densely populated county next to New York City, including ballfields, basketball and tennis courts, swimming pools and ice rinks.
But the roller derby league, in its suit, argued that the state’s human rights and civil rights statutes explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity.
The league’s lawsuit cited the state’s Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, or GENDA, as well as guidance from the state Division of Human Rights, which confirms that public accommodations cannot deny transgender people access to programs and activities consistent with their gender identity.
The league filed suit after it applied for a permit to host a slate of games at roller rinks in various county parks this summer that it’s used in previous years for practices and other events.
The Nassau County-based league, which was founded in 2005, said it welcomes “all transgender women, intersex women, and gender-expansive women” and has at least one league member who would be prohibited from participating under the county’s order.
A federal judge, in a separate legal case, rejected Blakeman’s bid to prevent the state attorney general’s office from taking action against the ban after it issued a cease-and-desist letter warning him that the order violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws.
LGBTQ+ advocates say bills banning trans youth from participating in sports have passed in 24 states.
United Methodist delegates on Thursday removed a 52-year-old declaration from their official social teachings that deemed “the practice of homosexuality … incompatible with Christian teaching” — part of a wider series of historic reversals of the denomination’s long-standing disapproval of LGBTQ activity.
The historic vote came as delegates also approved a new definition of marriage as a covenant between “two people of faith” while recognizing the couple may or may not involve a man and a woman. That replaces an exclusively heterosexual definition of marriage and followed a debate that exposed tensions between some U.S. and international delegates.
The 523-161 vote to approve a section of the church’s Revised Social Principles took place at the General Conference of the United Methodist Church in the penultimate day of their 11-day legislative gathering in Charlotte.
It came a day after the General Conference removed its long-standing ban on “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as ministers. Step by step, delegates have been removing anti-LGBTQ language throughout their official documents.
But the marriage definition was approved only after debate and a compromise amendment — one of the few instances of open debate during this otherwise overwhelmingly progressive conference.
“God designed marriage to be between a man and a woman,” said Nimia Peralta from the Northwest Philippines. While the conference earlier approved a regionalization plan enabling different parts of the global church to adapt rules to their local contexts, “God’s word can never be regionalized,” she said.
The Rev. Jerry Kulah of Liberia held aloft a Bible as he said: “We do not have another Bible apart from this Bible. … The Bible is very emphatic that we have marriage between a man and a woman.”
But the Rev. James Howell of Western North Carolina applauded the new language as being able to “embrace everyone.”
“Cynics and young adults will not listen to us talk about Jesus if we say we do not condone people they love and care about,” Howell said. “Friends, it’s time.”
The Rev. Kalaba Chali, based in Kansas, said the principles are general enough without forcing people in different cultural contexts “to do things the same way.”
The approval came only after an amendment offered by lay delegate Molly Mwayera of East Zimbabwe, who noted that many African countries do not allow for same-sex marriage. After extended wordsmithing, the assembly settled on an amended item that affirmed marriage as a sacred covenant bringing “two people of faith (adult man and woman of consenting age or two adult persons of consenting age) into union.”
It’s the UMC’s first legislative gathering since 2019, one that features its most progressive slate of delegates in memory due to the departure of many conservatives from the denomination. More than 7,600 mostly conservative congregations in the United States — one quarter of the denomination’s American total — disaffiliated because the UMC essentially stopped enforcing its bans on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ ordination.
Those churches left under a window that enabled American churches to leave with their properties, normally held by the denomination, under more favorable than normal terms. While the conference voted against extending that window to international churches, the liberalization measures approved by the conference could still prompt departures of some international churches through different means — particularly in Africa, where conservative sexual values prevail and where same-sex activity is criminalized in some countries.
The progressive momentum of the General Conference was evident from the vote Thursday. They voted on the last of a series of approvals of a wholesale rewrite of the denomination’s Social Principles — a non-binding but influential compendium of the denomination’s social stances on everything from war and peace to the environment and family relations.
The new version no longer includes this language from the previous one: “The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching,” while it also urged members not to condemn gays and lesbians.
The old version said sexual relations are “affirmed only with the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage.”
The new version omits this phrase and describes “human sexuality as a sacred gift” and a “healthy and natural part of life that is expressed in wonderfully diverse ways.” It doesn’t say anything about restricting sexual activity to marriage. It does say people have the right to consent to sexual activity and condemns sexual harassment and exploitation and opposes pornography and its “destructive impact.”
The new version calls for human rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity and other racial, ethnic and gender categories.
Thursday’s change is particularly significant because the statement of homosexuality being “incompatible with Christian teaching” dates back to the beginning of the 52-year-old debate on LGBTQ issues within one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations. The phrasing was adopted on the floor of the 1972 General Conference via an amendment proposed by a delegate, added to the original draft statement that had said “persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth.”
The denomination had been revising and adding to the Social Principles for decades; this amounts to the first wholesale rewrite in many years. Other sections of the rewrite were approved earlier this week.
The drafters of the revision chose more general language because the denomination spans countries and cultures around the world, said John Hill, interim general secretary at the Board of Church and Society, at a news conference earlier this week.
“We have a church whose local contexts are dramatically different,” he said. “And so our hope was that statements that could speak theologically to these matters, but not to any specific context, could then be applied across the context of the church.”
Aetna has agreed to settle a lawsuit that accused the health insurer of discriminating against LGBTQ customers in need of fertility treatment.
Under the deal announced Friday, the insurer will make coverage of artificial insemination standard for all customers nationally and work to ensure that patients have equal access to more expensive in-vitro fertilization procedures, according to the National Women’s Law Center, which represented plaintiffs in the case.
Aetna, the health insurance arm of CVS Health Corp., covers nearly 19 million people with commercial coverage, including employer-sponsored health insurance.
The insurer will set aside a $2 million fund to reimburse people who had coverage from some of its commercial insurance plans in New York and were denied reimbursement for artificial insemination, a procedure in which sperm is placed directly in a woman’s uterus.
A CVS Health spokesman said the company was pleased to resolve the case and “committed to providing quality care to all individuals regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
A federal judge still must approve the deal.
The settlement stems from a 2021 lawsuit filed in a federal court in New York. Emma Goidel said she and her spouse, Ilana Caplan, spent more than $50,000 on fertility treatments to conceive their second child after Aetna rejected several requests for coverage.
The couple had insurance through a Columbia University student health plan.
Their plan required people who cannot conceive a child naturally to first pay thousands of dollars for cycles of artificial insemination before the insurer would start covering fertility treatments.
The lawsuit noted that heterosexual couples didn’t have the same costs. They just had to attest that no pregnancy had occurred after several months of unprotected sex before they got coverage.
“You never know when you start trying to conceive and you have to do it at the doctor, how long it’s going to take and how much it’s going to cost,” Goidel said. “It was unexpected, to say the least.”
Goidel became pregnant with the couple’s second child after six cycles of artificial insemination — which each cost a few thousand dollars — and one unsuccessful, $20,000 attempt at in vitro fertilization, where an embryo is created by mixing eggs and sperm in a lab dish.
Goidel said she’s “thrilled” that Aetna changed its policy as part of the settlement, and she expects to be reimbursed.
Fertility treatment coverage has grown more common in recent years, especially among employers eager to recruit and retain workers.
The benefits consultant Mercer says 45% of employers with 500 or more workers offered IVF coverage last year. That’s up from 36% in 2021. Many place limits on the number of treatment cycles or set a lifetime maximum for the benefit.
Many insurers also cover artificial insemination as a standard benefit for all policyholders, according to Sean Tipton of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
As transgender people in Louisiana watched surrounding states in the deeply conservative South implement a slew of laws targeting nearly every facet of their lives in recent years, they counted on their ally in the governor’s office to keep their home a relative oasis.
Former Gov. John Bel Edwards, the only statewide elected Democrat at the time, was indeed able to block most of the bills.
But this year, nothing stands in the way. Edwards has been replaced by Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican backed by former President Donald Trump who has shown support for such legislation. And the GOP holds a two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature. That means previously introduced legislation hostile to transgender people now has a clear path forward, as do new proposals.
“These bills are absolutely going to become law,” said SarahJane Guidry, executive director of the LGBTQ rights group Forum for Equality. “And that is such a tragedy, but it doesn’t end there. We are going to continue to fight.”
As the only Democratic governor in the Deep South at the time, Edwards used vetoes to block anti-transgender legislation, including one broadly barring teachers from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation in schools, a type of policy critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay”; and a measure requiring public school teachers to use the pronouns and names students were assigned at birth.
In a veto message, Edwards described the bills as discriminatory, extremist and harmful to a group “comprised of the most vulnerable, fragile children” in Louisiana.
He was unable to keep the Legislature from overriding his veto of a ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. And he blocked a 2021 bill seeking to restrict transgender athletes’ access to sports, but allowed it become law the next year, knowing a veto would probably be overridden.
Now that Edwards is out of office because of term limits, the Republican-controlled Legislature is advancing the “Don’t Say Gay” and pronoun and name proposals; definitions of male and female that could effectively legally erase transgender people; and restrictions on the use of bathrooms and changing rooms in schools, domestic violence shelters and prisons. President Joe Biden’s administration has said a new federal rule could clash with such bathroom restrictions.
The situation in Louisiana mirrors a national flood of bills that have targeted transgender people, and especially youths, in recent years, a movement some observers say seeks more to motivate conservative voters than to solve real problems.
A report released Tuesday by the Williams Institute, a research center at UCLA Law, estimates that about 93% of transgender youths ages 13-17, or about 280,000, live in states that have proposed or passed laws restricting their access to health care, sports, school bathrooms and facilities, or the use of gender-affirming pronouns.
The institute estimates that in Louisiana, about 4,000 people ages 13-17, or 1.3% of that age group, identify as transgender.
Landry’s office did not respond to an email seeking comment on this year’s legislation. But he has made no secret of his support for, among other things, restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. In 2023, when he was running for governor, he posted on X: “As attorney general for 8 years I have worked hard to protect our children. I urge the full Senate to take up and pass” the law. It eventually passed and was vetoed but overridden.
Advocates in the Bayou State are organizing their fight, looking to other states that have blocked similar measures in court, educating their communities on the imminent laws, seeking sanctuary city policies, and recruiting more residents to their cause.
“We’re not going to look to the apocalypse, we’re going to look to the revolution,” Guidry said.
Advocates want the city council in liberal New Orleans to create local protections for transgender people, such as refusing to enforce state laws targeting them. Other cities like Austin, Texas, and Kansas City, Missouri, have already taken similar actions, though it’s not clear how effective the protections have been.
Last month, hundreds marched in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Transgender residents continue to testify in the Capitol. Advocates try to work with conservative lawmakers to create amendments to soften legislation. Students took to the Capitol steps in Baton Rouge last month to perform a play they wrote, based on their own experiences about how the bills would affect them.
“It’s almost like the Twilight Zone,” said William Leighton, who drove four hours to the Capitol this month with his 13-year-old transgender daughter, Arielle, who was not in the play.
“It’s not fair. I really don’t like the fact that people like me are being discriminated (against) for being different,” said Arielle, who is in eighth grade.
William Leighton had already prepared a letter to send to Arielle’s teachers, granting permission to use her name and pronouns, but he decided that was not enough and needed to get more politically active.
He was recently elected to the state’s Democratic State Central Committee. Among his priorities are to get more Democrats to vote and find candidates who, if elected to the Legislature, would work to repeal legislation targeting transgender and other LGBTQ people.
Like their counterparts in the South and elsewhere, advocates in Louisiana will also look to courts for guidance and to keep legislation from taking effect.
Five transgender youths and their families filed a lawsuit this year against the state’s ban on gender-affirming medical care, as reported by The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. The suit is pending in Orleans Parish Civil Court.
“Nothing is off the table,” Guidry said. “If we cannot protect our students, we will continue to work, and if that includes litigation, we will take those steps when we need to.”
The rights of LGBTQ students will be protected by federal law and victims of campus sexual assault will gain new safeguards under rules finalized Friday by the Biden administration.
The new provisions are part of a revised Title IX regulation issued by the Education Department, fulfilling a campaign pledge by President Joe Biden. He had promised to dismantle rules created by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who added new protections for students accused of sexual misconduct.
Notably absent from Biden’s policy, however, is any mention of transgender athletes.
The administration originally planned to include a new policy forbidding schools from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes, but that provision was put on hold. The delay is widely seen as a political maneuver during an election year in which Republicans have rallied around bans on transgender athletes in girls’ sports.
Instead, Biden is officially undoing sexual assault rules put in place by his predecessor and current election-year opponent, former President Donald Trump. The final policy drew praise from victims’ advocates, while Republicans said it erodes the rights of accused students.
The new rule makes “crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said.
“No one should face bullying or discrimination just because of who they are, who they love,” Cardona told reporters. “Sadly, this happens all too often.”
Biden’s regulation is meant to clarify schools’ obligations under Title IX, the 1972 women’s rights law that outlaws discrimination based on sex in education. It applies to colleges and elementary and high schools that receive federal money. The update is to take effect in August.
Among the biggest changes is new recognition that Title IX protects LGBTQ students — a source of deep conflict with Republicans.
The 1972 law doesn’t directly address the issue, but the new rules clarify that Title IX also forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ students who face discrimination will be entitled to a response from their school under Title IX, and those failed by their schools can seek recourse from the federal government.
Many Republicans say Congress never intended such protections under Title IX. A federal judge previously blocked Biden administration guidance to the same effect after 20 Republican-led states challenged the policy.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina and chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said the new regulation threatens decades of advancement for women and girls.
“This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats’ contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender,” Foxx said in a statement.
The revision was proposed nearly two years ago but has been slowed by a comment period that drew 240,000 responses, a record for the Education Department.
Many of the changes are meant to ensure that schools and colleges respond to complaints of sexual misconduct. In general, the rules widen the type of misconduct that institutions are required to address, and it grants more protections to students who bring accusations.
Chief among the changes is a wider definition of sexual harassment. Schools now must address any unwelcome sex-based conduct that is so “severe or pervasive” that it limits a student’s equal access to an education.
Under the DeVos rules, conduct had to be “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive,” a higher bar that pushed some types of misconduct outside the purview of Title IX.
Colleges will no longer be required to hold live hearings to allow students to cross-examine one another through representatives — a signature provision from the DeVos rules.
Live hearings are allowed under the Biden rules, but they’re optional and carry new limits. Students must be able to participate from hearings remotely, for example, and schools must bar questions that are “unclear or harassing.”
As an alternative to live hearings, college officials can interview students separately, allowing each student to suggest questions and get a recording of the responses.
Those hearings were a major point of contention with victims’ advocates, who said it forced sexual assault survivors to face their attackers and discouraged people from reporting assaults. Supporters said it gave accused students a fair process to question their accusers, arguing that universities had become too quick to rule against accused students.
Victims’ advocates applauded the changes and urged colleges to implement them quickly.
“After years of pressure from students and survivors of sexual violence, the Biden Administration’s Title IX update will make schools safer and more accessible for young people, many of whom experienced irreparable harm while they fought for protection and support,” said Emma Grasso Levine, a senior manager at the group Know Your IX.
Despite the focus on safeguards for victims, the new rules preserve certain protections for accused students.
All students must have equal access to present evidence and witnesses under the new policy, and all students must have equal access to evidence. All students will be allowed to bring an advisor to campus hearings, and colleges must have an appeals process.
In general, accused students won’t be able to be disciplined until after they’re found responsible for misconduct, although the regulation allows for “emergency” removals if it’s deemed a matter of campus safety.
The latest overhaul continues a back-and-forth political battle as presidential administrations repeatedly rewrite the rules around campus sexual misconduct.
The DeVos rules were themselves an overhaul of an Obama-era policy that was intended to force colleges to take accusations of campus sexual assault more seriously. Now, after years of nearly constant changes, some colleges have been pushing for a political middle ground to end the whiplash.
The U.S. Women’s National Team Players Association issued a statement Tuesday in support of LGBTQ rights in the wake of a controversy over midfielder Korbin Albert’s social media posts.
The USWNTPA’s statement came in the hours before Albert appeared as a substitute for the national team in the SheBelieves Cup final against Canada. It was Albert’s second match with the team since the posts came to light. The statement did not mention Albert by name.
“The women’s soccer community is one of joy, excitement, kindness and love. We have worked to ensure our community is safe, inclusive and welcoming to everyone. As allies and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, those efforts will not stop,” the statement said.
“Across the country, human rights are being stripped away. LGBTQIA+ rights are human rights. Trans rights are human rights,” the statement continued. “Today and every day the USWNT Players will stand up for those rights.”
Alex Morgan and Lindsey Horan addressed the issue last week during camp. Morgan said it was handled internally.
“We stand by maintaining a safe and respectful space, especially as allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community. This platform has given us an opportunity to highlight causes that matter to us, something that we never take for granted. We’ll keep using this platform to give attention to causes,” Morgan said.
New York state officials may continue to take legal action against a county outside New York City that has banned transgender players from women’s and girls teams, a judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Court Judge Nusrat Choudhury denied Nassau County’s request for a temporary restraining order against state Attorney General Letitia James, saying the Long Island county “falls far short of meeting the high bar for securing the extraordinary relief.”
Among other things, Choudhury said the county failed to “demonstrate irreparable harm,” which she said was a “critical prerequisite” for such an order.
The ruling, however, doesn’t address the legality of the county’s ban or James’ request that the lawsuit be dismissed. Those issues will be decided at a later date.
Last month, James, a Democrat, issued a “cease and desist” letter to the county demanding it rescind the ban because she said it violates New York’s anti-discrimination laws. The ban also faces a legal challenge from a local women’s roller derby league, which has asked a state court to invalidate it.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, responded to James’ action with a federal lawsuit asking a judge to affirm that the ban was legal and to prevent James from taking action against it.
Blakeman’s February order, which affects more than 100 public facilities in the county just east of the New York City borough of Queens, states that any female sports organization that accepts transgender women or girls will be denied permits to use county-owned parks and fields.
Echoing the arguments of officials who have taken similar actions in other Republican-led cities and states, the county says women and girls will be discriminated against and their constitutional rights to equal protection will be violated if transgender athletes are allowed to compete alongside them.
James and Blakeman’s offices did not respond to emails seeking comment Thursday.
They zip around the rink, armed with helmets, pads and mouthguards. They push, bump and occasionally crash out as they jostle for position on the hardwood floor.
But for the women of the Long Island Roller Rebels, their biggest battle is taking place outside the suburban strip-mall roller rink where they’re girding for the upcoming roller derby season.
The nearly 20-year-old amateur league is suing a county leader over an executive order meant to prevent women’s and girl’s leagues and teams with transgender players from using county-run parks and fields. The league’s legal effort, backed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has thrust it into the national discussion over the rights of transgender athletes.
Amanda Urena, the league’s vice president, said there was never any question the group would take a stand.
“The whole point of derby has been to be this thing where people feel welcome,” said the 32-year-old Long Island native, who competes as “Curly Fry” and identifies as queer, at a recent practice at United Skates of America in Seaford. “We want trans women to know that we want you to come play with us, and we’ll do our very best to keep fighting and making sure that this is a safe space for you to play.”
Amanda “Curly Fry” Urena at United Skates of America in Seaford, N.Y., on March 19, 2023. Jeenah Moon / AP
Sports leagues and teams seeking permits to play or practice in county-run parks must disclose whether they have or allow transgender women or girls. Any organization that allows them to play will be denied a permit, though men’s leagues and teams aren’t affected.
Bills restricting trans youths’ ability to participate in sports have already passed in some 24 states as part of an explosion of anti-trans legislation on many subjects in recent years. The largest school district in Manhattan is among localities also weighing a ban, following a school board vote last week.
The Roller Rebels sought a county permit this month in hopes of hosting practices and games in county-owned rinks in the upcoming season, as they have in prior years. But they expect to be denied, since the organization is open to anyone who identifies as a woman and has one transgender player already on the roster.
The ban will also make it hard for the league, which has two teams and about 25 players, to recruit and will hurt its ability to host competitions with other leagues, Urena said.
State Attorney General Letitia James has demanded the county rescind the ban, saying it violates state anti-discrimination laws, while Blakeman has asked a federal judge to uphold it.
That a roller derby league has become the face of opposition isn’t surprising: the sport has long been a haven for queer and transgender women, said Margot Atwell, who played in a women’s league in New York City and wrote “Derby Life,” a book about roller derby.
The sport, which dates at least to the 1930s and enjoyed its heyday in the 1970s, involves two teams racing around a track as their designated “jammer” attempts to score points by lapping the other skaters, who are allowed to use their hips, chests and shoulders to slow them down.
The latest revival started in the early 2000s and has been sustained by LGBTQ+ people, with leagues frequently taking part in Pride parades and holding fundraising matches, Atwell said.
“You come in here and you say, ‘I’m a trans woman. I’m a nonbinary person. I’m genderqueer.’ OK? We accept you,” said Caitlin Carroll, a Roller Rebel who competes as “Catastrophic Danger.” “The world is scary enough. You should have a safe place to be.”
Blakeman has said he wants to ensure female athletes can compete safely and fairly. He held a news conference last week with Caitlyn Jenner, who won Olympic gold in the men’s decathlon in 1976 and later underwent a gender transition. Jenner, a Republican who’s frequently at political odds with the greater transgender community, has endorsed the ban.
Blakeman, a Republican who was elected in 2021, has said constituents asked his office to act. But many critics dismiss the ban as political posturing, noting he has acknowledged there have been no local complaints involving transgender players on women’s teams.
“This is a solution in search of a problem,” said Emily Santosus, a 48-year old transgender woman on Long Island who hopes to join a women’s softball team. “We’re not bullies. We’re the ones that get bullied.”
The ones who will suffer most aren’t elite athletes, but children still trying to navigate their gender identities, added Grace McKenzie, a transgender woman who plays for the New York Rugby Club’s women’s team.
Members of the Long Island Roller Rebels during practice at United Skates of America in Seaford, N.Y., on March 19, 2023.Jeenah Moon / AP
“Cruel is the only word that I can use to describe it,” the 30-year-old Brooklyn resident said. “Kids are using sports at that age to build relationships, make friendships, develop teamwork skills, leadership skills and, frankly, just help shield them from all the hate they face as transgender kids already.”
In the larger discussion about trans women in sports, each side points to limited research to support their opinion. And bans often do not distinguish between girls and women who took puberty blockers as part of their transition — stunting the development of a male-typical physique — and those who didn’t, something one New York advocate pointed out.
The order in Nassau County puts some younger trans girls at greater risk by potentially pitting them against boys instead, said Juli Grey-Owens, leader of Gender Equality New York.
“They are not hitting puberty, so they’re not growing, they’re not getting that body strength, the endurance, the agility, the big feet, the large legs,” Grey-Owens said.
The ban could even lead to cisgender female athletes who are strong and muscular being falsely labeled transgender and disqualified, as has happened elsewhere, said Shane Diamond, a transgender man who plays recreational LGBTQ+ ice hockey in New York City.
“It creates a system where any young woman who doesn’t fit the stereotypical idea of femininity and womanhood is at risk of having her gender questioned or gender policed,” Diamond said.
A 2022 Washington Post-University of Maryland Poll found that 55% of Americans were opposed to allowing trans women and girls to compete with other women and girls in high school sports, and 58% opposed it for college and pro sports.
Two cisgender female athletes said after listening to Jenner that men are stronger than women, so it will never be fair if transgender women and girls are allowed to compete.
“There is a chance I would get hurt in those situations,” said Trinity Reed, 21, who plays lacrosse at Nassau County’s Hofstra University.
Mia Babino, 18, plays field hockey at the State University of New York at Cortland and plans to transfer to Nassau County’s Molloy University.
“We’ve worked very hard to get to where we are and to play at a college level,” she said.
But that attitude runs against everything athletic competition stands for, and it sells women and their potential short, countered Urena, of the Roller Rebels.
“If people gave up playing sports because they thought they were going to lose, we wouldn’t have a sports industry,” they said. “I love playing against people that are faster and stronger because that’s how I get better.”
