A bill advanced by Florida Republicans on Wednesday would ban teachers and other government employees from displaying a rainbow flag — even wearing one as a lapel pin for a day — but they could hang the full-size flag of any “recognized nation” as long as they want, according to the bill’s sponsor.
Flag displays that depict a “racial, sexual orientation and gender, or political ideology viewpoint” would be banned from any state or local government building, including public schools and universities, under the bill authored by GOP Rep. David Borrero.
Opponents say the bill is inspired by hate. Borrero said it protects children and it would ban even lapel pins representing the flags of the LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter movements.
“Public classrooms should not be the place where our kids go to be radicalized and evangelized into accepting these partisan, radical ideologies,” Borrero said. “It’s wholly inappropriate to be putting those types of flags in front of public school students and in government buildings.”
Asked about other flags, Borrero said those of sovereign states recognized by the U.S., such as Israel, could be displayed in a classroom. Because the U.S. doesn’t recognize Palestine as a nation, this would rule out the Palestinian flag.
The ban wouldn’t apply to students, or to government employees when they’re not at work or in public buildings, Borrero said. But it would extend to lawmakers’ offices, and at least some Democrats said they’ll break the law if the bill is ever signed by DeSantis.
“Are we in Russia? Are we in Cuba? That’s authoritarianism. That’s fascism at it’s best,” said Sen. Shevrin Jones, who is Black and gay and has a “Pride at the Capitol” poster with rainbow colors in his public lobby, along with other pride symbols.
“How I was raised, the rainbow meant hope. … I can promise you it wasn’t that that made me gay,” Jones added. “I’m not taking a damn thing down. I want everybody to see it.”
Robert Boo, CEO of the Pride Center at Equality Park, in his office in Wilton Manors, Fla., on Jan. 17, 2024. Rebecca Blackwell / AP
Florida lawmakers have already passed several anti-LGBTQ laws while Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis runs for president. DeSantis has signed bans against teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. He’s banned transgender health care for minors and created new hurdles for transgender adults, and made it easier for parents to get books with LGBTQ themes removed from schools.
This bill advanced with a party-line 9-5 vote by the House Constitutional Rights, Rule of Law & Government Operations Subcommittee faces an uncertain path, even with Republican supermajorities in the Legislature. It has one more House committee stop before being considered by the full chamber. A companion Senate bill has been referred to three committees and hasn’t been scheduled for a hearing.
DeSantis’ office didn’t respond to an email asking if he supports the legislation.
Democratic Rep. Michele Rayner, who is Black and lesbian, spoke with frustration that anti-LGBTQ bills keep coming up in the Florida Legislature, ignoring more pressing needs such as access to affordable housing and property insurance.
“Once again we’re focusing on things nobody has asked us to focus on,” said Rayner, sitting in her office near a stack of “Protect LGBTQ+ Students” flyers printed over rainbow colors. “I have a Black Voters Matter sign outside of my office. It will remain outside my office regardless of what bill they pass because there’s a thing called the First Amendment.”
Borrero’s bill would also apply to local governments such as the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Wilton Manors, a gay-friendly town of 11,000 where Pride flags fly almost everywhere, including City Hall during Pride Month. A bridge leading into town is framed by rainbow-colored barriers and a Pride flag and a trans pride flag fly year-round above a small park across the street from City Hall.
Robert Boo, CEO of the town’s Pride Center, said DeSantis and the bill’s backers hope to “erase the LGBTQ community” and throw “red meat” to their political supporters while ignoring complicated issues plaguing the state.
“Wilton Manors is the second-gayest city in the country. It is important for Wilton Manors to be able to raise the flags that represent the community’s members,” Boo said. “This may not pertain to middle Florida and they may not want to do that, but I think municipalities should have the ability and freedom to put up the flags that best represent their constituents.”
The family of a transgender volleyball player has added a South Florida school district as a defendant in a federal lawsuit that challenges a 2021 state law banning transgender girls from playing on female sports teams, claiming school officials have placed the family in danger.
Attorneys for the family filed an amended complaint Thursday that adds the Broward School Board, the school district’s superintendent and the Florida High School Athletic Association. The school officials had been named as defendants when the lawsuit was initially filed in 2021 but were dropped the next year, leaving just the Florida Department of Education and Education Commissioner Manny Diaz as defendants.
“While we can’t comment on pending litigation, Broward County Public Schools remains committed to following all state laws,” district spokesman John J. Sullivan said in a statement. “The District assures the community of its dedication to the welfare of all its students and staff.”
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, a Trump appointee, ruled in November that state officials had a right to enforce a 2021 law that bars transgender girls and women from playing on public school teams intended for student athletes identified as female at birth but allowed the family to file an amended complaint.
The law, which supporters named “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” was championed and signed in by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for president and has leaned heavily into cultural divides on race, sexual orientation and gender.
The transgender student, a Monarch High School 10th grader who played in 33 matches over the past two seasons, was removed from the team in November after the Broward County School District was notified by an anonymous tipster about her participation.
According to the lawsuit, the student has identified as female since before elementary school and has been using a girl’s name since second grade. At age 11 she began taking testosterone blockers and at 13 started taking estrogen to begin puberty as a girl. Her gender has also been changed on her birth certificate.
The girl’s removal from the volleyball team led hundreds of Monarch students to walk out of class in protest. At the same time, Broward Superintendent Peter Licata suspended or temporarily reassigned five school officials pending an investigation, including the girl’s mother, an information technician at the school.
The Associated Press is not naming the student to protect her privacy.
The initial lawsuit didn’t identify the student or her school, but the amended complaint said the family lost all privacy when the school district began its investigation. The student’s mother issued a statement at the time calling the outing of her daughter a “direct attempt to endanger” the girl.
The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ rights organization, has been supporting the family.
“The reckless indifference to the well-being of our client and her family, and all transgender students across the State, will not be ignored,” the group’s litigation strategist, Jason Starr, said in a statement last month.
Alabama can begin immediately enforcing a ban outlawing the use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat transgender people under 19, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, granting the state’s request to stay a preliminary injunction that had blocked enforcement of the 2022 law.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled that the injunction should be vacated, but the decision had been effectively on hold while families with transgender children asked the full appellate court to reconsider the decision. The Thursday order will allow the ban to take effect while the full court decides whether it will revisit the decision.
The state Attorney General Steve Marshall called the order a “significant victory for our country, for children and for common sense.”
“The physical and psychological safety of our children can now be better protected from these untested and life-altering chemical and surgical procedures through the implementation of the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act,” Marshall said.
Lawyers representing parents of transgender adolescents who challenged the ban said the decision will “hurt parents and children in the state.”
“Alabama’s transgender healthcare ban will harm thousands of transgender adolescents across the state and will put parents in the excruciating position of not being able to get the medical care their children need to thrive,” read a joint statement from GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Human Rights Campaign.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act into law in 2022, making it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison for doctors to treat people under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones to help affirm their gender identity.
At least 22 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and many of them face lawsuits or blocked enforcement. Courts have issued mixed rulings, with the nation’s first law, in Arkansas, struck down by a federal judge who said the ban violated the due process rights of young transgender people and their families.
Attorneys representing Tennessee transgender teens and their families have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors that a lower court allowed to go into effect. The court is expected to decide later this year if it will hear the case.
Four families with transgender children ranging in ages 12 to 17 challenged the Alabama law as an unconstitutional violation of equal protection and free speech rights, as well as an intrusion into family medical decisions. The U.S. Department of Justice joined their lawsuit, seeking to overturn the law.
U.S. District Judge Liles Burke, nominated to the court by then-President Donald Trump in 2017, ruled when issuing the preliminary injunction that Alabama had produced no credible evidence to show that transitioning medications are “experimental.” Alabama appealed the decision to the 11th Circuit. The challenge to the Alabama ban is scheduled to go to trial early this year.
Four days of waiting under the flickering fluorescent lights of UNC Hospitals’ emergency room left Callum Bradford desperate for an answer to one key question.
The transgender teen from Chapel Hill needed mental health care after overdosing on prescription drugs. He was about to be transferred to another hospital because the UNC system was short on beds.
With knots in his stomach, he asked, “Will I be placed in a girls’ unit?”
Yes, he would.
The answer provoked one of the worst anxiety attacks he had ever experienced. Sobbing into the hospital phone, he informed his parents, who fought for days to reverse the decision they warned would cause their already vulnerable son greater harm.
Although they initially succeeded in blocking the transfer, the family had few remaining options when a second overdose landed Callum back in UNC’s emergency room a few months later. When the 17-year-old learned he was again scheduled to be sent to an inpatient ward inconsistent with his gender identity, he told doctors his urge to hurt himself was becoming uncontrollable, according to hospital records given by the family to The Associated Press.
“I had an immense amount of regret that I had even come to that hospital, because I knew that I wasn’t going to get the treatment that I needed,” Callum said. “That moment of crisis and shock and fear, I would wish anything that that hadn’t happened, because I truly think that I took a step backwards from where I was before in terms of my mental health.”
As the political debate over health care for transgender youth has intensified across the U.S., elected officials and advocates who favor withholding gender-affirming medical procedures for minors have often said parents are not acting in their children’s best interest when they seek such treatment.
Major medical associations say the treatments are safe and warn of grave mental health consequences for children forced to wait until adulthood to access puberty-blocking drugs, hormones and, in rare cases, surgeries.
Youth and young adults ages 10–24 account for about 15% of all suicides, and research shows LGBTQ+ high school students have higher rates of attempted suicide than their peers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some transgender teens say the negative rhetoric popularized by many Republican politicians in recent years has become too much to bear. In North Carolina, legislators enacted new limits to gender-affirming care for trans youth this year while barely discussing flaws in the psychiatric care system. It’s one of at least 22 states that have passed laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Most face legal challenges.
North Carolina lacks uniform treatment standards across hospitals and runs low on money and staff with proper training to treat transgender kids in crisis. That means the last-resort measures to support patients like Callum often fail to help them, and sometimes make things worse.
Sending a transgender child to a unit that does not align with their gender identity should be out of the question, no matter a hospital’s constraints, said Dr. Jack Turban, director of the gender psychiatry program at the University of California, San Francisco, and a researcher of quality care barriers for trans youth in inpatient facilities.
“If you don’t validate the trans identity from day one, their mental health’s going to get worse,” Turban said. “Potentially, you’re sending them out at a higher suicide risk than they came in.”
When North Carolina lawmakers allocated $835 million to shore up mental health infrastructure earlier this year, none of the money was specifically allocated to the treatment needs of trans patients. Though the funding may benefit everyone, a lack of direct action has left trans youth at the mercy of a system ill-equipped to help them when they need it most.
Callum Bradford, center, and his team, carry their boat to the ramp as they get ready for a rowing club practice at Jordan Lake, in Apex, N.C., on Oct. 6, 2023. Erik Verduzco / AP
A nationwide dearth of pediatric psychiatric beds was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw an unprecedented number of people seeking emergency mental health services, according to a report by the American Psychiatric Association. Demand has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
A “dire shortage” of at least 400 inpatient psychiatric beds for North Carolina youth has left UNC with no choice but to send patients to other facilities, even those that cannot accommodate specific needs, said Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody, chair of the UNC Department of Psychiatry.
Emergency rooms are not designed for boarding, nor can they provide comprehensive mental health treatment. That creates an immediate need to place patients left waiting in the ER for days or even weeks before a bed opens up, Meltzer-Brody said.
While UNC’s own inpatient program assigns all children to individual rooms on co-ed floors, it sends overflow patients to some hospitals that don’t make such accommodations.
“We have no choice but to refer people to the next available bed,” Meltzer-Brody said of the University of North Carolina-affiliated hospital. “If you’re talking about the LGBTQ+ community and seeking trans care, you may be sent to a place that is not providing care in a way that is going to be most optimal.”
Callum exploded when he was told about plans to place him in a unit for girls, his records note. He shouted and cried hysterically until he ended up in an isolation room. Doctors later found him banging his head against the wall in a trance-like state.
“It was almost as if sort of my brain had turned off because of such a shock,” he recalled. “I had never acted on such severe self-harm without even realizing that I was doing it.”
UNC declined to comment on Callum’s case, despite the family’s willingness to waive its privacy rights. But Meltzer-Brody did broadly address barriers to gender-affirming treatment for all psychiatric patients.
The public hospital system’s policy on gender-designated facilities recommends inpatient assignments based on a patient’s “self-identified gender when feasible.” But with the ER overrun in recent years, Meltzer-Brody said meeting that goal is a challenge.
The issue extends beyond transgender youth, affecting patients with autism, addiction and acute psychiatric disorders who are sometimes sent to facilities unfit to provide specialized care.
It doesn’t help, she said, that there is no national standard for how psychiatric hospitals must cater to transgender patients.
The LGBTQ+ civil rights organization Lambda Legal has outlined best practices for hospitals treating transgender patients under the Affordable Care Act. The organization says denying someone access to a gender-affirming room assignment is identity-based discrimination, based on its interpretation of the law.
But such cases rarely end up in court, because the burden falls on families to advocate for their rights while supporting a child in crisis, said Casey Pick, law and policy director at The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on LGBTQ+ suicide prevention.
“These are circumstances that are themselves often inherently traumatic, and adding a layer of trauma on top of that in the form of discrimination based on an individual’s gender identity just compounds the issue,” Pick said. “The last thing we should have to do is then add the additional trauma of going to court.”
Dan Bradford, left, and his son Callum, at their home in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Sept. 14, 2023. Erik Verduzco / AP
Parents including Callum’s father, Dan Bradford, describe feeling helpless while their children are receiving psychiatric care involuntarily, which isn’t uncommon after attempted suicide. Callum’s involuntary commitment designation also temporarily stripped his mother and father of many parental rights to make medical decisions for their son.
A psychiatrist himself, Dan Bradford always has supported his son’s medical transition, which began with puberty-blocking drugs, followed by a low dose of testosterone that he still takes. Eventually, Callum underwent top surgery to remove his breasts. Irreversible procedures like surgery are rarely performed on minors, and only when doctors determine it’s necessary.
“In Callum’s case, the gender dysphoria was so strong that not pursuing gender-affirming medical treatments, like pretty quickly, was going to be life-threatening,” his father said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Any risk that might be associated with the treatments seemed trivial, quite frankly, because we were afraid we’re going to lose our kid if we didn’t.”
North Carolina law bars medical professionals from providing hormones, puberty blockers and gender-transition surgeries to anyone under 18. But some kids like Callum, who began treatment before an August cut-off date, can continue if their doctors deem it medically necessary.
Although he retained access to hormones, Callum said it has been brutal seeing the General Assembly block his transgender friends from receiving the treatments he credits as life-saving.
“When these public policies are discussed or passed, that sends a really strong message to these kids that their government, their society and their community either accepts them and validates them or doesn’t,” said Turban, the researcher at UC San Francisco.
His research has found that many medical providers still lack training about LGBTQ+ identities and make common mistakes, such as printing the wrong gender designation on a hospital wristband or placing a transgender patient in a single-occupancy room when everyone else has a roommate.
Fearing the plan to place his son in a girls’ ward would be deeply traumatizing, Dan Bradford secured a spot at a residential treatment center in Georgia. He pleaded with UNC to release Callum early and convinced the North Carolina hospital that was supposed to take him to reject the transfer.
The teen then spent 17 weeks in an individualized treatment program in Atlanta, recovering from the circumstances that landed him in the ER and the added trauma he endured there. He has since returned home and is taking care of his mental health by playing keyboard and rowing with his co-ed team on the calm waters of Jordan Lake. For the first time in years, Callum said he’s thinking about his future.
There are some positive developments on the horizon for North Carolina youth facing mental health crises.
The new state funding for mental health services approved in October has enabled UNC Hospitals to open a 54-bed youth behavioral health facility in Butner, 28 miles (45 kilometers) north of Raleigh. State Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley said the facility should alleviate some barriers to individualized care, including for transgender patients. And UNC has announced plans to open a freestanding children’s hospital within the next decade.
Leaders of the Butner facility, which began its phased opening this month, have promised to take a whole-family approach so parents are not shut out of their child’s treatment plan. Nearly every patient will be placed in an individual room on a co-ed floor.
The new facility and funding will allow more patients to stay in single-occupancy rooms at UNC, but overflow patients may still be sent elsewhere, Meltzer-Brody said. The hospital system has not changed its policies on transgender patient referrals, and other facilities across the state that receive those patients still lack uniform standards for treating them.
Although Callum said his experiences eroded his trust in the state’s inpatient care network, he is optimistic that the new resources could give others a more gender-affirming treatment experience, if they are paired with policy changes.
“I’m still here, and I’m happy to be here,” he said. “That’s all I want for all my trans friends.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked a Seattle hospital to hand over records regarding gender-affirming treatment potentially given to children from Texas, according to court filings that appear to show the Republican going beyond state borders to investigate transgender health care.
Seattle Children’s Hospital filed a lawsuit in Austin, Texas, this month asking a court to invalidate or narrow the requests from Paxton, a staunch conservative who has helped drive Republican efforts that target the rights of trans people. His office sent similar letters earlier this year to Texas hospitals.
Texas is among more than 20 states that have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. On Friday, court records showed there been no decision yet on the Seattle hospital’s lawsuit.
The hospital argued Paxton’s office was overstepping its jurisdiction and had no authority to request the records.
“Additionally, the Demands represent an unconstitutional attempt to investigate and chill potential interstate commerce and travel for Texas residents to another state,” the lawsuit states.
Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to a phone message and email seeking comment Friday. Lawyers and spokespersons for Seattle Children’s Hospital also did not immediately respond to a phone messages and emails seeking comment.
The Seattle hospital received the request from Texas in November. The lawsuit includes a copy of the letter from Paxton’s office, which among other requests asks the hospital to produce records identifying medication given to children who live in Texas; the number of Texas children who received treatment; and documents that identify the “standard protocol or guidance” used for treatment.
The hospital argued in cannot respond to the letter under a law signed by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee earlier this year that aims to protects minors seeking gender-affirming care in Washington.
In May, Paxton’s office sought information from Dell Children’s Hospital in Texas about its policies on puberty blockers as well as documents identifying patients it has referred for treatment or counseling. The attorney general’s office request at the time asked to examine hospital records “to determine whether any state laws have been violated or misrepresentations have been made to parents and patients.”
Those efforts began before Texas’ restrictions were signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who was the first governor to order the investigation of families of transgender minors who receive gender-affirming care.
The Texas law prevents transgender minors from accessing hormone therapies, puberty blockers and transition surgeries, even though medical experts say such surgical procedures are rarely performed on children. Children who already started the medications being banned are required to be weaned off in a “medically appropriate” manner.
Over the last six years, blood center employee Dylan Smith was often asked how frequently he gave blood himself. His answer was always the same: As a gay man, he couldn’t.
That changed this month.
Thanks to new federal guidelines finalized in May, gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships can now donate at many blood centers around the country without abstaining from sex.
Bloodworks Northwest, where Smith works as a donor services supervisor, adopted the change on Dec. 6. He and his partner gave blood for the first time the next day.
“It’s been really emotionally difficult just to explain every single time the reason why,” said Smith, 28. “To be able to finally step up and support the mission that I really have just believed in since I started here just makes my heart feel so happy.”
The new U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines are the latest step in a yearslong effort to reverse restrictions that were designed to protect the blood supply from HIV, but which were increasingly criticized as discriminatory following scientific advances that allowed better detection of the virus.
In 2015, the FDA dropped the lifetime ban on donations from men who have sex with men and replaced it with a one-year abstinence requirement. The agency shortened the abstinence period to three months in 2020 after donations plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The American Red Cross, which accounts for about 40% of blood and blood component donations in the U.S., began implementing the new guidance in August.
Posey, whose own life was saved by a transfusion when he fell down a set of stairs and broken glass sliced an artery, welcomed the new guidance, saying hospitals and patients need access to a new pool of donors. Manuel Valdes / AP
About half of the 16 independent blood bank organizations that are members of the Alliance for Community Transfusion Services have rolled out the new guidelines, with more expected next year, the organization said.
“It is going to take time,” said Benjamin Prijatel, president of Shepeard Community Blood Center in Augusta, Georgia. “Blood centers and health professionals are going to have to put forth the effort to engage and educate this community in order to overcome years of distrust. That’s the only way this rule change will translate into additional donations.”
The change puts the emphasis on sexual activity rather than on sexual orientation. All potential donors are screened with a new questionnaire evaluating their HIV risk based on sexual behavior, partners and other factors that can contribute to the spread of blood-borne infections, such as intravenous drug use or recent tattoos or piercings.
Potential donors who report having anal sex with new partners in the last three months are barred from giving until a later date, and anyone who has ever tested positive for HIV will continue to be ineligible. Those taking pills to prevent HIV through sexual contact are still barred until three months after their last dose; the medications, known as PrEP, can delay the detection of the virus, the FDA said.
Donated blood is then tested for HIV, hepatitis C, syphilis and other infectious diseases.
Bloodworks Northwest, which supplies blood to more than 90 hospitals in the region, isn’t keeping track of how many newly eligible donors are coming in, said Dr. Kirsten Alcorn, the nonprofit’s co-chief medical officer. But workers have heard plenty of stories from people excited to give.
“It feels very meaningful to many of them to now be able to contribute to somebody’s survival,” Alcorn said.
Bloodworks executive Aaron Posey, whose own life was saved by a transfusion when he fell down a set of stairs and broken glass sliced an artery, welcomed the new guidance. He said hospitals and patients need access to a new pool of donors.
“Having always witnessed a shortage in the blood supply, it has at times been very frustrating,” said Posey, who first donated blood during the pandemic when the abstinence period was cut to three months.
Smith learned of the restrictions on gay men giving blood when he was screened while trying to donate his freshman year of college in 2013. The rules blindsided him, he said. It was a long time to wait before he could finally donate with his partner and other friends.
“Just being able to see them donating next to me, smiling next to me … meant so much,” Smith said.
Opponents of Connecticut’s policy letting transgender girls compete in girls high school sports will get a second chance to challenge it in court, an appeals court ruled Friday, which revived the case without weighing in on its merits.
Both sides called it a win. The American Civil Liberties Union said it welcomes a chance to defend the rights of the two transgender high school track runners it represents. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the four cisgender athletes who brought the lawsuit, also said it looks forward to seeking a ruling on the case’s merits.
In a rare full meeting of all active judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, judges found the cisgender runners have standing to sue and have described injuries that might qualify for monetary damages. The runners also seek to alter certain athletic records, alleging they were deprived of honors and opportunities at elite track-and-field events because they say “male athletes” were permitted to compete against them.
The case had been dismissed by a Connecticut judge in 2021, and that decision was affirmed by three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit a year ago.
At least 20 states have approved a version of a blanket ban on transgender athletes playing on K-12 and collegiate sports teams statewide, but a Biden administration proposal to forbid such outright bans is set to be finalized by March after two delays and much pushback. As proposed, the rule announced in April would establish that blanket bans would violate Title IX, the landmark gender-equity legislation enacted in 1972.
Under the proposal, it would be much more difficult for schools to ban, for example, a transgender girl in elementary school from playing on a girls basketball team. But it would also leave room for schools to develop policies that prohibit trans athletes from playing on more competitive teams if those policies are designed to ensure fairness or prevent sports-related injuries.
In a statement Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU Foundation of Connecticut cast the ruling as a victory for the two runners they represent — Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller — noting that the 2nd Circuit wrote that the transgender runners have an “ongoing interest in litigating against any alteration of their public athletic records.”
Roger Brooks, a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, said the decision was a victory “not only for the women who have been deprived of medals, potential scholarships, and other athletic opportunities, but for all female athletes across the country.”
In 2020, the Alliance sued on behalf of four athletes — Selina Soule, Chelsea Mitchell, Alanna Smith, and Ashley Nicoletti — over a Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference policy that allows transgender girls to compete in girls’ athletic events.
Three of 15 judges who heard arguments earlier this year fully dissented on Friday, while five other judges dissented to portions of the majority ruling.
In a dissent to the majority ruling, Circuit Judge Denny Chin noted that three of the cisgender athletes alleged that only one track event in their high school careers were affected by the participation of transgender athletes while a fourth athlete alleged that four championship races were affected.
In a footnote, Chin wrote that all four plaintiffs currently compete on collegiate track-and-field teams, some after being awarded scholarships, while neither of the transgender athletes who intervened in the case have competed since high school.
And he pointed out that no one was able to cite any precedent in which a sports governing body retroactively stripped an athlete of accomplishments when the athlete complied with all existing rules and did not cheat or take an illegal substance.
“It is not the business of the federal courts to grant such relief,” Chin said.
Gay and bisexual men at high risk for mpox infection should get vaccinated for the virus even after the current outbreak ends, government health advisers said Wednesday.
The committee’s recommendation now goes to the director to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and — if she signs off on it — is sent out as guidance to U.S. doctors.
More than 30,000 U.S. mpox cases were reported last year. The number dropped dramatically this year, to about 800. But because the virus doesn’t naturally circulate in the U.S., any single case counts as an outbreak, according to the CDC.
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is caused by a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
The virus was not known to spread easily among people, but cases exploded in Europe and the U.S. in the spring and summer of 2022, mostly among men who have sex with men. Deaths were rare, but many people suffered painful skin lesions for weeks.
A two-dose vaccine, Jynneos, became a primary weapon in the U.S. It’s recommended primarily for men who have sex with men who have more than one sex partner, who have recently had a sexually transmitted disease, or who are at higher risk for infections through sexual contact for other reasons.
About 500,000 people in the U.S. have gotten the recommended two doses of the vaccine, about a quarter of the 2 million who are eligible, CDC officials said.
The new recommendation may serve to remind people the virus is still out there, and that people can be infected during international travel, CDC officials said.
The daily average of new U.S. cases is one to four per day, though some people likely aren’t being diagnosed, CDC officials said. Two deaths were reported in September, bringing the total to 54 in the U.S. since mpox hit last year.
San Francisco had more than 800 cases last year, but the count dropped to an average of only one per month in the first half this of year. The number of cases rose to seven in August, 20 last month and at least 10 so far this month.
“Things are much better than they were last summer,” said Dr. Stephanie Cohen, who oversees STD prevention work at San Francisco’s health department. “But there are (still) many more cases than there should be.”
Tennessee’s decades-old aggravated prostitution statute violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday after an investigation, warning that the state could face a lawsuit if officials don’t immediately cease enforcement.
Tennessee is the only state in the United States that imposes a lifetime registration as a “violent sex offender” if convicted of engaging in sex work while living with HIV, regardless of whether the person knew they could transmit the disease.
LGBTQ and civil rights advocates have long criticized the measure as discriminatory, making it almost impossible to find housing and employment due to the restrictions for violent sex offenders. Earlier this year, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Transgender Law Center filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the law in federal court.
The department’s findings on Friday are separate from the ongoing lawsuit.
The department is calling on the state to not only stop enforcing the law, but also remove those convicted under the statute from the sex offender registry and expunge their convictions. The agency also says Gov. Bill Lee should introduce legislation to repeal the law.
The ADA is the landmark 1990 federal law prevents discrimination against disabled people on everything from employment to parking to voting. HIV and AIDS are considered disabilities under the ADA because they substantially hinder life activities.
“Tennessee’s aggravated prostitution law is outdated, has no basis in science, discourages testing and further marginalizes people living with HIV,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in a statement. “People living with HIV should not be treated as violent sex offenders for the rest of their lives solely because of their HIV status.”
The department’s letter was addressed specifically to Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch and Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy.
Shelby County, which encompasses Memphis, was named because DOJ said it’s where the law has been “enforced most frequently.”
Through a spokesperson, Mulroy noted that the allegations stem from cases handled before he took office in September 2022. Mulroy said he agrees with the Justice Department’s findings and his office is fully cooperating.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee investigation bureau said officials were reviewing the letter but had no other response to DOJ’s investigation.
A spokesperson for Skrmetti did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Prostitution has long been criminalized as a misdemeanor in Tennessee. However, in 1991 — as the AIDS epidemic provoked panic and prevalent misinformation over prevention — Tennessee lawmakers enacted an aggravated prostitution statute, which was a felony and applied only to sex workers living with HIV. The law was later reclassified in 2010 as a “violent sexual offense,” requiring those convicted to face lifetime sex offender registration.
Court documents state that more than 80 people are registered for aggravated prostitution in Tennessee.
The DOJ letter details several of the struggles of those with aggravated prostitution convictions. A lifetime sex offender registration can stop people from visiting with their grandchildren, revoke job offers, and severely limit housing options. One person shared that they were barred from taking a course to get a general education diploma because children might be present in the building.
Plaintiffs who had filed a lawsuit seeking to block the aggravated prostitution law in October said the DOJ’s letter only further supports their efforts.
The lawsuit was brought by four unidentified people and OUTMemphis, a nonprofit that serves LGBTQ people.
“OUTMemphis welcomes the DOJ’s findings that, through its outdated and punitive aggravated prostitution law, Tennessee is discriminating against people living with HIV,” said Molly Quinn, executive director, OUTMemphis, in a statement. “We agree, and that’s why we are suing to get the law struck down. Whether this issue is resolved informally or in court, it is long past time to end HIV criminalization.”
Police searched venues across the Russian capital, including a nightclub, a male sauna, and a bar that hosted LGBTQ+ parties, under the pretext of a drug raid, local media reported.
Eyewitnesses told journalists that clubgoers’ documents were checked and photographed by the security services. They also said that managers had been able to warn patrons before police arrived.
The raids follow a decision by Russia’s Supreme Court to label the country’s LGBTQ+ “movement” as an extremist organization.
The ruling, which was made in response to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Ministry, is the latest step in a decadelong crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights under President Vladimir Putin, who has emphasized “traditional family values” during his 24 years in power.
Activists have noted the lawsuit was lodged against a movement that is not an official entity, and that under its broad and vague definition authorities could crack down on any individuals or groups deemed to be part of it.
Several LGBTQ+ venues have already closed following the decision, including St. Petersburg’s gay club Central Station. It wrote on social media Friday that the owner would no longer allow the bar to operate with the law in effect.
Max Olenichev, a human rights lawyer who works with the Russian LGBTQ+ community, told The Associated Press before the ruling that it effectively bans organized activity to defend the rights of LGBTQ+ people.
“In practice, it could happen that the Russian authorities, with this court ruling in hand, will enforce (the ruling) against LGBTQ+ initiatives that work in Russia, considering them a part of this civic movement,” Olenichev said.
Before the ruling, leading Russian human rights groups had filed a document with the Supreme Court that called the Justice Ministry lawsuit discriminatory and a violation of Russia’s constitution. Some LGBTQ+ activists tried to become a party in the case but were rebuffed by the court.
In 2013, the Kremlin adopted the first legislation restricting LGBTQ+ rights, known as the “gay propaganda” law, banning any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In 2020, constitutional reforms pushed through by Putin to extend his rule by two more terms also included a provision to outlaw same-sex marriage.
After sending troops into Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin ramped up a campaign against what it called the West’s “degrading” influence. Rights advocates saw it as an attempt to legitimize the war. That same year, a law was passed banning propaganda of “nontraditional sexual relations” among adults, also, effectively outlawing any public endorsement of LGBTQ+ people.
Another law passed this year prohibited gender transitioning procedures and gender-affirming care for transgender people. The legislation prohibited any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” as well as changing one’s gender in official documents and public records.
Russian authorities reject accusations of LGBTQ+ discrimination. Earlier this month, Russian media quoted Deputy Justice Minister Andrei Loginov as saying that “the rights of LGBT people in Russia are protected” legally. He was presenting a report on human rights in Russia to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, arguing that “restraining public demonstration of nontraditional sexual relationships or preferences is not a form of censure for them.”
The Supreme Court case is classified and it remains unclear how LGBTQ+ activists and symbols will be restricted.
Many people will consider leaving Russia before they become targeted, said Olga Baranova, director of the Moscow Community Center for LGBTQ+ Initiatives.
“It is clear for us that they’re once again making us out as a domestic enemy to shift the focus from all the other problems that are in abundance in Russia,” Baranova told the AP.