Trudu Ring

Roberta Kaplan, a legendary lawyer in the realm of LGBTQ+ rights and feminism, has resigned from the firm she founded “after clashing with her partners over her treatment of colleagues,” The New York Timesreports.

Kaplan, who is lesbian, represented Edie Windsor in the case that brought down the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013 and more recently represented E. Jean Carroll in her successful lawsuits against Donald Trump for defamation and sexual abuse.

She opened New York-based Kaplan Hecker & Fink in 2017 after 25 years with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, a major corporate law firm. She once said Kaplan Hecker & Fink operated “on the principle that there always must be someone to stand up to a bully,” according to the Times.

Kaplan told the Bloomberg news service she was leaving the firm because “it grew in size and complexity beyond what I had in mind, and I wanted to get back to something nimbler.” She is starting a firm called Kaplan Martin with Tim Martin, a partner in Kaplan Hecker & Fink, and two other friends, Steven M. Cohen and Mitra Hormozi, both former federal prosecutors.

But the Times story details tensions at Kaplan Hecker & Fink. “Her departure was announced after The Times informed her personal lawyers that it was preparing to publish an article about Ms. Kaplan that would shine a light on complaints about what some employees said was an unprofessional office culture that she presided over,” the paper reports. Kaplan had been removed from the firm’s management committee, according to the Times.

“Several people whom she worked with told The Times that she had insulted employees, inappropriately commented on their looks and threatened to derail people’s careers,” the article continues. Kaplan’s lawyers said this was not the case. They also told the Times, “There is nothing more unremarkable than trial lawyers using colorful language, criticizing their peers and representing diverse clients with no expectation of ideological purity.”

Kaplan herself gave a statement to the paper, saying, “The work I do is high-stakes and challenging, requiring both toughness and precision.” Because she had fought “some of the world’s biggest bullies, there are people who don’t like me, which comes with the territory, particularly when you are a woman,” she added. “I am proud of my record as a lawyer, colleague and mentor.”

She has been involved in controversies before. In 2021, she resigned as cochair of the board of Time’s Up, an organization founded to assist survivors of sexual harassment and assault, after it was revealed that she had advised then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on his response to allegations that he had sexually harassed employees. Kaplan helped found Time’s Up and its legal defense fund in 2017. Cuomo resigned as governor in 2021 after a report from New York State Attorney General Letitia James found the accusations against Cuomo credible and concluded that he and his associates had committed unlawful retaliation against one of his accusers. Both Cohen and Hormozi have “close ties” to Cuomo, Bloomberg reports.

Kaplan Hecker & Fink will be renamed Hecker Fink as of Monday. “It was Robbie’s decision to leave the firm,” partners Julie Fink and Sean Hecker said in a statement to the Times. “We wish her the very best and look forward to working with her and her new firm in the future.”

Restrictions on transgender rights and women’s rights are losing issues even among swing voters and those who support Donald Trump, according to a new poll conducted by Pathfinder Opinion Research for GLAAD.

Also, not surprisingly, the poll found that LGBTQ+ voters are highly motivated to cast their ballots and that they favor President Joe Biden for president by a wide margin. The findings were released Thursday and are based on a national survey of registered voters conducted in late January, plus interviews focusing on LGBTQ+ voters.

“A majority of all voters say they would oppose candidates who frequently speak about restricting access to health care and youth sports participation for transgender youth,” notes a GLAAD press release. “81% say health care decisions for youth should be made by parents. All voter categories surveyed — LGBTQ, registered, Trump voters and swing voters who say they vote for either party — agree that politicians ‘should stop focusing on restricting women’s rights and banning medical care for transgender youth and instead focus on addressing inflation, job creation, and health care costs.’”

Among LGBTQ+ registered voters, 83 percent said they are definitely voting in November, and 11 percent said they probably are. Nationwide, 68 percent of LGBTQ+ likely voters favored Biden to 15 percent for Trump. The divide was even wider in swing states, with 72 percent for Biden to 15 percent for Trump.

LGBTQ+ likely voters nationwide favored Democratic congressional candidates over Republicans by a margin of 77 percent to 14 percent. In key U.S. Senate races, 79 percent of these voters said they would support Democrats, with only 12 percent favoring Republicans.

LGBTQ+ voters, like voters in general, wanted to see politicians address economic issues; they ranked inflation and job creation as high priorities. Abortion and climate change were priority issues as well.

Motivating factors for LGBTQ+ voters included fears of the country going in a more conservative direction — more right-wing Supreme Court justices, more restrictions on abortion and on the parents of trans children, and renewed attempts to ban same-sex marriage.

Additionally, “LGBTQ voters highlight a significant adverse effect on their emotional well-being and sense of personal safety due to the current political environment,” according to a summary of the findings. “A majority report regularly experiencing (always, frequently, or occasionally) negative impacts on their mental health and emotional well-being (72%), strained personal relationships with friends or family members (60%), and fear for their or their family’s personal safety (57%) due to the current state of political discourse in our country. Nearly half report regularly experiencing real-world harassment or bullying (49%) or online harassment or bullying (46%) related to politics.”

All these factors have LGBTQ+ voters “ready to turn out in November and deliver support for candidates committed to safeguarding their rights, ensuring their safety, and addressing their economic well-being,” the summary concludes.

“GLAAD’s research shows that LGBTQ Americans are ready to exert their significant power to shape electoral politics, choose responsible leadership, and use their voices to advocate for equality,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in the press release. “Our new survey also shows that the majority of all voters reject harmful anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and candidates who spread it. Voters are insisting that politicians focus instead on the real issues facing our nation, including inflation, abortion rights, and climate change. Candidates, parties, strategists and reporters are on notice about the power of the LGBTQ vote and the issues that should be demanding attention, including our fundamental freedoms and everyone’s safety and well-being.”

States that pass anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion laws may be undermining their economies, according to a new study from the University of Houston.

Researchers from the university surveyed 1,061 people of varying backgrounds about whether these laws would affect their willingness to move to a given state. The survey was conducted after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022, striking down the national right to abortion and allowing states to ban or severely restrict the procedure. Efforts to restrict LGBTQ+ rights were gathering steam then as well and have greatly ramped up this year.

“The majority of people who responded to our survey, regardless of their political orientation, indicated they would be less willing to move to states with these policies or that the policies wouldn’t affect their decision to do so,” Amanda Baumle, lead author and sociology professor at UH, said in a press release.“These policies are much more of a deterrent to migration than an incentive.”

Women and their partners, gay men, lesbians, and people with LGBTQ+ family members were likely to avoid states with these laws, the study found. “The findings also suggest that those in higher-earning occupations, or those who are invested in work or education opportunities, could be discouraged from moving to states with these policies,” the press release notes.

“Migration attitudes provide an important benchmark for understanding how abortion and LGBT laws and policies influence opinions about the desirability of states as potential destinations,” Baumle said. “If the policies are deterring people from moving to a certain state, there could be negative economic and workforce impacts.”

“Our findings suggest that these restrictive laws and policies have implications for migration attitudes beyond the individuals specifically targeted,” says the study, published in Population Research and Policy Review.For most respondents in our survey, laws restricting the rights of women and sexual and gender minorities were viewed to be deterrents or irrelevant to their attitudes about migrating to a particular state. This was true for the majority of liberals, moderates, and slight conservatives. These findings indicate that states, including business owners as well as legislators, should consider potential social and economic effects of such legislation as an important component of their policy deliberations.”

Looking at 11 types of policies in all, the researchers found that highly restrictive abortion laws were the most likely to discourage migration to a given state, while laws against gender-affirming care for minors, restricting transgender young people’s sports participation, or censoring LGBTQ+ content in schools were less likely.

“I think that fits in with a lot of prior research that people perceive children as in need of being sheltered from anything that falls outside of the gender binary or heterosexuality,” study coauthor Elizabeth Gregory, professor of English and director of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at UH, said in the release. “Something that was somewhat surprising was that restrictions on participation in sports for transgender youth was viewed less negatively for migration and more as a potential draw than any of the other policies.”

Still, “only small minorities of the sample reported that any of the eleven policies would serve as a pull factor, increasing their desire to migrate to a state,” the study says.

Since the Dobbs ruling, at least 21 states have enacted restrictive abortion laws. Also, this year more than 550 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced across 43 states, with more than 80 being passed into law, more than double the number from 2022, which was previously worst year on record, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The majority have specifically targeted trans youth.