A settlement was reached Thursday in the nearly decade-old case of a Christian flower shop owner in Washington state who refused to provide a same-sex couple flowers for their wedding despite the state’s anti-discrimination laws.
The U.S. Supreme Court left intact the state court rulings against Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, in July. Shortly afterward, Stutzman petitioned for a rehearing.
Stutzman withdrew her petition Thursday and agreed to pay a settlement of $5,000 to the couple, Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed.
“We took on this case because we were worried about the harm being turned away would cause LGBTQ people. We are glad the Washington Supreme Court rulings will stay in place to ensure that same-sex couples are protected from discrimination and should be served by businesses like anyone else,” the couple said in a statement. “It was painful to be turned away and we are thankful that this long journey for us is finally over.”
The case dates to 2013, when Stutzman refused to provide flowers for the couple’s wedding. She said it would violate her Southern Baptist beliefs and her “relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Using an argument similar to that of Colorado baker Jack Phillips in the hot-button 2018 Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Stutzman argued that her floral arrangements are works of art and that having to create them for same-sex weddings would trample on her freedom of expression.
A lower court ruled in 2015 that Stutzman broke a Washington law that bars businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. The state Supreme Court ruled in favor of the couple in 2017 and then again in 2019, findingthat selling flowers for a wedding “does not inherently express a message about that wedding.”
Ingersoll and Freed will donate the $5,000 to a local chapter of PFLAG, an LGBTQ advocacy group, and they also plan to match the donation, Thursday’s statement said.
Last Saturday, Que Bell led a vigil for Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual observance to honor the memory of transgender homicide victims that began in 1999.
Bell has led these vigils before. He is the executive director of the Knights and Orchids Society, a nonprofit group based in Selma, Alabama, that supports Black transgender, queer and gender-nonconforming people, and he has been an advocate for more than a decade. But this year will be different.
“This is literally the first time that I’ll have to write down my best friend’s name for a TDOR celebration,” Bell said, using the initialism for Transgender Day of Remembrance. “It’s really going to hit differently.”
Bell’s best friend, Mel Groves, died Oct. 11 after having been shot multiple times. Groves, 25, a Black transgender man, was studying plant and soil science at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi. Just before he died, he was about to become the full-time community garden manager for the Knights and Orchids Society.
Mel Groves, a farmer from Jackson, Miss.Courtesy Mel Groves
But on Saturday, Bell will light a candle in Groves’ memory.
Groves is one of at least 47 transgender or gender-nonconforming people — and one of 28 Black trans people — to have died by violence in 2021, which has surpassed 2020 to become the deadliest year on record for trans people, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which has been tracking fatal anti-trans violence since 2013. A disproportionate number of the deaths have been in the Southeast.
State legislatures across the country this year have also considered a record number of anti-transgender bills — more than 100 — many of which target trans youths, specifically trans girls. Advocates say the rhetoric coming out of legislatures is connected to the violence, because it describes transgender girls as boys and vice versa and, in many cases, characterizes trans people as “predators”on sports teams or in bathrooms.
Transgender Day of Remembrance is also known as Transgender Day of Remembrance and Resilience — the latter part an effort to remind people that while trans people face disproportionate discrimination and violence, they are also leading grassroots efforts to make things better for their communities.
Deadnaming, misgendering and clearance rates
Bell said that he and Groves’ friends and family ultimately want the person who killed Groves brought to justice but that he doesn’t have confidence in the police investigation.
When the Jackson Police Department first reported on Groves’ death, it used his legal name and misgendered him, causing local news outlets to repeat the mistakes. Groves’ loved ones had to reach out while grieving his loss to ask news outlets to update their stories to reflect who Groves actually was. Some updated their stories; others said they couldn’t change them without confirmation from law enforcement authorities or Groves’ immediate family. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/nt4ufYW?_showcaption=true&app=1
A week after Groves died, Jackson police provided the same statement to NBC News that they first issued, which used his birth name (also known as deadnaming) and misgendered him. The police department hasn’t responded to a request for comment about whether it plans to update the statement.
Bell said police officials need to be more educated about what the trans community faces; otherwise, he said, they will be unable to solve the case. He recalled one officer’s public statement that he would investigate Groves’ death just like any other.
“That is totally avoiding the issue,” Bell said. “I want you to be knowledgeable enough to know that, when something happens to trans people, how your department should be reacting to it and how you can help, versus being so defensive about acknowledging that this happened because it was a trans issue.”
Bell said police need to understand that anti-trans violence is connected to discrimination and higher rates of homelessness, among other issues that trans people face, or “we’re never going to be able to solve the problem.”
Jaida Peterson, a transgender woman, was found dead in a hotel room in Charlotte, N.C., on April 4, 2021.AP / NBC News
Anti-trans fatal violence cases nationwide appear to have a lower average clearance rate — the percentage of cases in which someone has been arrested, charged and turned over to a court for prosecution — than fatal violence cases in general, said Brendan Lantz, an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University.
Lantz and his research team at the university’s Hate Crime Research and Policy Institute are creating the first database to track fatal violence against the transgender community. Although the Human Rights Campaign and other nonprofit groups track such deaths, the database Lantz’s team is creating, which will date to 2012, also tracks characteristics of the offenses, victims’ background information, perpetrators’ information, handling by police departments (including whether victims were misgendered or deadnamed) and whether cases have been solved, among other information.
Preliminary data, which Lantz said are subject to change, show that the nationwide clearance rate for fatal anti-trans violence is about 44 percent, which is well below the national average of 60 percent to 70 percent.
Early patterns also show that there’s “very likely a correlation between the prevalence” of deadnaming or misgendering by police and the likelihood of clearing a case, he said.
Evidence is important when police are trying to solve a homicide, he said, “and if we’re not even using the correct name, obtaining that evidence isn’t particularly easy to do, right?”
“Witnesses are less likely to come forward, and a lot of issues enter the equation,” he said.
Transgender rights groups say anti-trans sentiment, reflected in bills considered in dozens of states, affects how trans people are treated, including by police. Police initially misgendered victims and used their birth names in reporting on 30 of the 46 known deaths, an NBC News analysis found.
Since 2013, about 80 percent of trans people in deaths involving trans people with available data were initially misgendered by the media or law enforcement, according to a report released Wednesday by the Human Rights Campaign. An NBC News analysis of this year’s cases found that victims in 73 percent of investigations were misgendered or deadnamed by police, compared to 59 percent of cases in which someone was arrested and charged.
‘A sense of survival mode’
Trans advocates say some policymakers and national advocacy organizations are quick to suggest police reform as a solution.
But while many of them agree that improving police competence and investigations is important, they say the strategy addresses the issue only after the fact — when people have already died.
That leaves many in the transgender community feeling unsafe, which has led some of them to take their safety and well-being into their own hands.
“When you get tired of depending on a system to protect you that you know was not designed to protect you or to support you, you realize that you’re literally wasting time and resources putting money into a system that is not going to change,” Bell said. “So instead … we decided to start investing in the things that we could tangibly change.”
Advocates like Bell say community organizations should be given more resources and support, because they know how to best keep their people safe and help them thrive — by providing them with gender-affirming health care, as the Knights and Orchids Society does, or housing, as a number of trans-led groups across the country do.
Mariah Moore, a national trans rights activist and a co-director of the House of Tulip, a nonprofit collective creating housing solutions for trans people in Louisiana, said: “It’s so important that we support community-led initiatives, because those folks leading those initiatives are actually folks who have that lived experience and are able to speak to the needs and actually distribute those resources directly to impacted community members.”
Trans United Leading Intersectional Progress, or TULIP, is a nonprofit collective creating housing solutions for trans people in Louisiana.House of Tulip
Bell echoed that sentiment with respect to funding for nonprofit groups. He said that many people support and know of national advocacy organizations but that the groups aren’t providing emergency housing or money for trans people.
“I’m committed to this work to always keep trans folks safe,” he said, adding that he has been evicted twice in the past because he has provided a place for people experiencing homelessness to stay, some of them as young as 13.
“That comes out of a sense of survival mode,” he said. “I don’t have a lot, but what I do have I want to share with the folks who are like me who also don’t have.”
In neighboring Georgia, Toni-Michelle Williams, the executive director of the Atlanta-based Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative, a Black trans- and queer-led organization that builds community safety through organizing and leadership training, said the group has supported more than 160 people through its Taking Care of Our Own Fund, which provides funding for emergency bail, housing, health care and other needs.
The group provided the support with less than 3 percent of $15 million, Williams said, which represents this year’s budget increasefor the Atlanta Police Department.
“Just imagine what we could do for our communities — Black trans and queer folks, sex workers, formerly incarcerated people — with at least 3 percent of that funding,” she said. “I definitely just want to encourage people to continue to push and to join our side around what it means to reallocate funding from these large institutions that have so many resources. Our communities are in need of them.”
Looking ahead, Bell said he’s determined “not to lose another Mel.”
“I want to do everything I can to make sure that we don’t have any more Mel Groves — that we don’t have another person who slips through the cracks, that for whatever reason we have the resources to make sure that folks have a fighting chance,” he said.
A memorial was held for Mel Groves in Jackson, Miss., in October.Courtesy TC Caldwell/The Knights and Orchids Society.
He added that he feels as though he has done a disservice to trans people who have been killed in the past. “Because what I don’t want people to remember about Mel is that he was the 39th person murdered,” Bell said. “And that’s often what happens when we lose somebody, is that the tragedy of their death is highlighted over their legacy, their purpose and all the good things that they have contributed to the world during their time.”
He wants people to remember that Groves was a promising scientist and that his professors bragged about him and his research after his death. He loved Nat King Cole, he had a smile that made people want to talk to him, and he always offered to share food with his friends.
People living with HIV could be at long last “liberated” from a “burdensome” daily pill regimen, as a new long-lasting injectable is approved for use in Britain.
In news dubbed “brilliant” by a leading HIV activist, the NHS has been given the go-ahead to roll out injections taken every two months to manage the virus.
Currently, people living with HIV are offered antiretroviral medicines that must be taken every day to suppress the virus – usually one to four daily pills. Effective treatment reduces a person’s viral load – the amount of virus in their blood – to an undetectable level.
When the virus is undetectable, it cannot be transmitted, and a person with HIV can live a long, healthy life.
The new treatment approved by England and Wales’ National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Scottish Medicines Consortium on Thursday (18 November) is a combination of two jabs taken every two months.
Around 13,000 people will be eligible in England, NICE estimated.
HIV jabs will do away with the ’emotional burden’ of daily pills, says leading activist
Many people struggle to take the tablets they need to keep HIV at bay, Matthew Hodson, executive director of HIV outreach charity NAM aidsmap, told PinkNews. The stigma around HIV can discourage people, while others may simply forget.
“Taking daily pills becomes an emotional burden,” Hodson said, “a constant reminder that their health is at risk without medication.
“For some, who are unable to be open about their need for HIV treatment, it can create considerable obstacles to necessary adherence required for HIV medication to be effective.
“For many, a switch to injections just six times a year will be a liberation.”
HIV works by slipping into the human genome and tricking the machinery of white blood cells into making copies of HIV. As white blood cells are the body’s natural defenders, this weakens people’s immune systems.
The two injectables, cabotegravir and rilpivirine, work by suppressing how many HIV particles are in the blood, their viral load. It makes the viral load so low that the virus cannot be detected or even transmitted between people.
The jabs are just as effective as currently available oral drugs, clinical trial results have shown.
Both medicines have been licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which carries out safety checks on drugs that pass clinical trials.
Now that they have been recommended by NICE draft guidance , they can receive crucial funding from local health authorities.
“It is important that HIV treatment continues to adapt and innovate to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit,” Hodson added.
“Effective treatment means we can now enjoy the same life expectancy as those without the virus and we can no longer pass HIV on during sex; getting treatment to all people with HIV in a way that supports our circumstances holds the key to ending this epidemic.”
Hodson said he hopes such innovation can be brought to pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, the drug which when taken correctly prevents people from acquiring HIV.
“Many of the barriers to effective PrEP use are down to the need for daily pills – or the two-one-one on-demand strategy for cis men who can plan their sexual activity,” he explained.
“Injectables, implants and even very long-lasting pills are all in the pipeline, and these could have a huge impact on our ability to prevent HIV.”
A lawsuit filed Tuesday challenges North Carolina’s requirement that transgender individuals who want to update their birth certificate undergo “sex reassignment surgery.”
Lambda Legal, a leading LGBTQ civil rights group, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina on behalf of three transgender North Carolinians: Lillith Campos, a 45-year-old woman who lives in Jacksonville, and two minors — “C.B.” a 16-year-old boy from Chapel Hill, and “M.D,” a 14-year-old girl from Carrboro. (The names of the two minors have been altered in court documents to protect their privacy.)
Lillith Campos.Lambda Legal
“As someone who can’t afford surgery, it’s demoralizing and dehumanizing that my birth certificate doesn’t reflect who I am,” Campos said at an online news conference Tuesday morning. “Having incorrect documentation makes me feel like a second-class citizen.”
She added that the current policy forces trans people to out themselves, “even if they don’t feel safe doing so.”
According to the filing, a birth certificate that aligns with an individual’s gender identity “is a critical and ubiquitous identification document,” vital to accessing employment, education, housing, health care, banking, credit, travel and many government services.
For children, lawyers for the plaintiffs argue, birth certificates are often the only form of government identification they have, and are required for enrollment in school, recreational sports and summer camp.
“My daughter is a 14-year-old girl and the state’s requirement for surgery is unrealistic and creates a barrier for my child to have a normal childhood,” M.D.’s mother, Katheryn Jenifer, said at the news conference.
“Not having an accurate birth certificate has exposed my daughter to discriminatory treatment and exclusion in school, sports and other places,” she added. “No child should go through life knowing the state doesn’t recognize her as who she is.”
Jenifer said M.D. saw the case as a chance “to be the voice for kids like her that maybe don’t have support like she does.”
“She knows this could bring unwanted attention,” she Jenifer added, “but she feels it’s important enough that she wants to be a part of it.”
While the state imposes a surgical requirement, designated as “sex reassignment surgery,” the suit maintains it doesn’t provide a legal definition for the phrase.
“The decision is left to the subjective whims of each clerk,” it reads, resulting in “arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of the statute — rendering the statute unconstitutionally vague.”
Lambda Legal Senior Attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan called the surgical requirement “inconsistent with standard medical practice” and said it presented “a significant barrier — sometimes insurmountable — to many transgender people, particularly those who may not be able to afford gender confirmation surgery, or who may not want or need it.”
The litigants argue the surgical requirement violates their constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the 14th Amendment, as well as their First Amendment guarantee to freedom of speech.
Rather than financial compensation, Gonzalez-Pagan said, they’re seeking an acknowledgement that the surgical policy is unconstitutional and a requirement that the state allow trans people to update their birth certificate without surgery.
In addition to attorneys with Lambda Legal, the plaintiffs are being represented by the North Carolina firms Baker Botts LLP and Brooks Pierce McLendon Humphrey & Leonard LLP.
Mandy Cohen, the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, has been named as a defendant, along with Assistant Secretary of Public Health Mark Benton and ClarLynda Williams-DeVane, state registrar and director of the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment on the lawsuit.
According to Lambda Legal, 34 states allow individuals to update the sex designation on their birth certificate without surgical intervention.
In fact, surgery is not required to update the gender marker on a North Carolina driver’s license, just a form from a health professional affirming their client’s gender identity.
Fourteen states still have a surgical requirement to change gender markers on birth certificates.
West Virginia requires a court order to amend the gender designation on a birth certificate, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. The state’s Vital Registration office will not issue a new birth certificate, instead striking through the existing name and gender and typing the new information above.
Tennessee law specifically prohibits amending sex on a birth certificate “as a result of sex change surgery,” a policy Lambda Legal is also currently challenging. Like transgender North Carolinians, though, trans residents in Tennessee can change the listed gender on their driver’s licenses and state identification cards without surgery.
In an email to NBC News, Gonzalez-Pagan said the decision of when and where to bring a challenge “depends on multiple factors, including our assessment of the law and whether we have encountered people affected by these policies that are willing to step up and take on such a challenge.”
The goal, he added, is to eradicate each of these barriers one by one “and to have one victory build upon the other.”
North Carolina has been a nexus point for LGBTQ equality in recent years: In 2016, after Charlotte passed an ordinance expanding its existing nondiscrimination protections to include gender identity and sexual orientation — including allowing transgender people to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity — the state’s General Assembly held a special session to pass House Bill 2, nicknamed the “bathroom bill.”
That measure prevented any municipality in the state from adding sexual orientation or gender identity to nondiscrimination laws, effectively blocking Charlotte’s efforts and sparking national boycotts that were projected to cost the state billions in lost revenue.
HB 2 was eventually repealed in 2017 as part of a compromise that placed a three-year statewide moratorium on nondiscrimination ordinances. Since then, Charlotte and several other cities have updated their nondiscrimination policies to include LGBTQ people.
And just last month, the state’s lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson made national headlines and faced calls to resign after a video surfaced showing him describing the LGBTQ community as “filth.”
“There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality — any of that filth,” Robinson, the state’s highest Republican executive officeholder, said in a clip from a June speech at a Baptist church.
A group of students passionately protested after a transgender classmate reported an alleged assault – only for the police to claim no assault took place.
Students gathered outside of Berlin High School in Berlin, Wisconsin on 9 November after a 14-year-old transgender boy was allegedly cornered in the boy’s bathroom by fellow students and told to pull down his pants and lift up his shirt.
According to local news reports, the pupil also said that he’d been sexually assaulted “several times” in the same bathroom over the past couple of weeks but had been “afraid to come forward right away”. He told Action 2 News: “They were surrounding the stall door and one was recording through the peek hole, and they saw my bottom half and after that I stood in the stall crying.”
Police in the small town, which has a population of just 5,524, have since come under fire after their investigation found that the student was not assaulted.
“After multiple interviews and examining the associated evidence of the alleged assault, our investigation discovered no physical assault or attack against the alleged victim took place,” the Berlin Police Department told Action 2 News.
Unsatisfied with the police response, the trans pupil’s friends and supporters then staged a viral walkout the following day, with senior Amber Olmstead explaining to Action 2 News: “We sat there for a while and we were trying to get our questions answered, and we were kind of getting blown off and they were trying to get us inside, but we wanted this to be public, we wanted people to see us, hear us.”
Another student, Autumn Peterson, said: “There’s been a big past of assault and homophobia in our school, and it just needs to come to an end.”
The viral video in support of the transgender teen, which has over 300,000 likes on TikTok and over 8,000 comments, shows a crowd of teenagers chanting “trans lives matter” and waving placards while Donald Glover’s protest anthem “This Is America” plays in the background.
One commenter said: “F**k. That poor kid. That is still my worst fear and to face that as a child must have been devastating, I hope he’s alright.”
A second person commented on the video saying: “These stories are really tough on me having been the recipient of an assault that nearly left me dead back in the late 80s I had hope that by the time I was 60 these would be rare.
“This has to stop, but the propaganda regarding anyone that can be ‘othered’ needs to stop first.”
In a statement to Action 2 News, superintendent Carl Cartwright wrote: “The Berlin Area School District is aware of a student walkout in response to allegations of a student assault at the high school. The Berlin Area School District is committed to the success of all students in a safe learning environment and we take such allegations seriously.
“The school district is cooperating with local law enforcement who are investigating this situation. The district is also conducting its own investigation. Because of the ongoing investigations, the district is unable to provide additional details at this time.”
Berlin Police are asking anyone to call them at (920) 361-2121 if they have direct information about a recording taken in the bathroom.
Breaking with its usual practices on LGBTQ rights and issues, China launched its first medical clinic to treat transgender children and adolescents.
The Chinese state-backed media outlet The Global Times recently reported that the clinic opened at the Children’s Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, saying that it will “serve as a bridge between transgender children, parents, doctors and the various circles of society.”
The clinic’s opening and its celebratory coverage in Chinese state media comes as the country simultaneously works to limit LGBTQ activism and voices.
Homosexuality has not been illegal in China since 1997, but restrictions for LGBTQ people still remain.
Last week, a Chinese LGBTQ advocacy group that has led many of the country’s legal cases to expand LGBTQ rights announced that it would be halting its work “indefinitely.”
Chinese tech giant Tencent’s WeChat social media platform deleteddozens of LGBTQ accounts run by university students in July, saying that the accounts had broken Chinese internet rules. But critics argued that the wipeout of the accounts amounted to censoring LGBTQ activism.
And after 11 years in operation, Shanghai Pride canceled its annual LGBTQ celebration last year and said — without explanation — that it would no longer hold the event.
The Global Times reported that research by Chinese scholars linking transgender youths to higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicide attempts led doctors to believe that specialized care for trans minors was necessary.
In the United States, advocates and scholars have also been warning about the disproportionate rates of bullying, harassment and mental health issues plaguing trans youths.
A survey of over 35,000 LGBTQ youths and young adults this year by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, found that more than half of transgender and nonbinary respondents seriously considered suicide.
It’s unclear how many children in China identify as transgender, as there is little research from the country on its trans community. However, a 2021 analysis by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law found that 14 percent of over 1,000 Chinese respondents say that they have transgender acquaintances.
The YouTube channel of My Genderation, an independent trans film project, was deleted without warning on the first day of Transgender Awareness Week (13 November).
“Someone stole the My Genderation YouTube channel and now it’s been deleted,” co-founder and filmmaker Fox Fisher tweeted on 14 November. “I’ve been running that channel for 10 years.”
They added: “I’m feeling so sick about it. It’s literally the most important work of my life, created to help raise awareness of trans issues and celebrate trans lives.”
Fox added that they “don’t know if it is a targeted attack on trans supportive channels”.
My Genderation, an award-winning, trans-led non-profit organisation, was founded 10 years ago, and has made hundreds of films about trans lives, including for Channel 4, the BBC, Stonewall and trans health clinic CliniQ. A documentary about trans healthcare in the 1970s, Inverness Or Bust, is currently in the works.
The organisation’s directors include the journalist Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir and film director Jamie Fletcher. It was founded after Fisher took part in the 2011 documentary My Transsexual Summer, which they left feeling frustrated that their experience hadn’t been portrayed authentically.
It remains unclear how the My Genderation YouTube account was deleted. Fisher posted a screenshot showing the message “your account has been permanently disabled”, which they get when they try to log in to My Genderation’s YouTube account.
A similar message, reading “this page isn’t available”, is displayed when members of the public try to see the channel.
A YouTube spokesperson told PinkNews in an emailed statement: “We take account security very seriously. We are in contact with the creator, and are working to understand what has happened, so that we can resolve this issue as quickly as possible.”
The My Genderation deletion comes after Novara Media, an independent left-wing media outlet, had its YouTube channel deleted “without warning or explanation” on 26 October.
The channel was reinstated after 24 hours, with YouTube admitting it made “the wrong call”.
The U.S. Department of Labor on Monday announced a proposal that would rescind a Trump administration rule that expanded a religious exemption from anti-discrimination laws for federal contractors.
The rule, which went into effect in the last days of the administration of President Donald Trump, broadened the exemption to include employers who “hold themselves out to the public as carrying out a religious purpose.” The exemption previously applied to a more narrowly defined set of religious groups.
By rescinding the rule, the department will return to policies consistent with those in place during the administrations of President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush, Jenny Yang, director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, said in an interview.
“We are proposing a rescission of the religious exemption rule to protect workers from discrimination and safeguard principles of religious freedom,” Yang said.
The Trump administration framed the rule as a necessary step to ensure the full participation of religious organizations in the federal contractor system. But critics of the rule, including LGBTQ groups, warned that it would open the door to discrimination.
In light of pre-existing protections for religious organizations, the OFFCP found the Trump rule to be “unnecessary and problematic,” Yang said. Rescinding the rule would help ensure the exemption is applied consistently, she added.
“The proposed rescission would also promote economy and efficiency in federal procurement by preventing the exclusion of qualified and talented employees on the basis of protected characteristics,” she said. “This ensures that taxpayer funds are not used to discriminate.”
The OFCCP enforces discrimination and wage-and-hour laws against federal contractors. In 2014, the agency banned contractors from discriminating against workers on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Just days after 2021 became the deadliest year on record for anti-trans violence, yet another trans woman, Jenny De Leon, has been slain in the US.
De Leon, a 25-year-old with a “bright soul”, was murdered in Tampa, Florida, on 2 November.
With her death comes a grim realisation for activists. That 2021 is the deadliest year for fatal violence against trans folk since national record-keeping began – and with six weeks of the year left, the figure will only continue to climb, they warn.
With De Leon’s death, the death tally has leaped to 46.
Tampa Police Department officers found De Leon dead at around 6am in the 8500 block of North 9th Street in the quiet residential neighbourhood of Sulphur Springs.
Jenny De Leon, trans woman with ‘enough energy to fill any room’, dies aged 25
She was a homeless woman, the city’s force said on Facebook last week, who sought help from Tampa PFLAG, which commemorated her passing on Facebook.
“PFLAG Tampa is devastated to hear of the recent murder of Jenny De Leon,” the organisation said.
“Jenny, like many of the youth we encounter, attended our chapter meetings seeking support in the beginning of her transition, ultimately finding placement in a home through two PFLAG Tampa members.
“Jenny was an enigmatic, bright soul with enough energy to fill any room.”
Equality Florida, the state’s largest queer rights group, said on Facebook that it is “heartbroken” by the news of De Leon’s murder.
Law enforcement and the press often deadname or misgender victims, if they report on the homicide at all, making it challenging to know for sure whether a victim was trans.
This paucity of data means that advocacy groups and grassroots activists must comb through local news reports themselves and talk to family.
But regardless of whether the data is incomplete, activists know one thing – that year on year, violence against trans people, Black trans women, in particular, is surging.
For Black trans women in the exact same age group, the rate rockets to one in 2,600, an investigation by Mic found. If in 2015 all Americans had the same risk of murder as Black trans women, there would have been 120,087 slain instead of 15,696.
Tyianna Alexandra, a 28-year-old Black trans woman, was shot and killed in Chicago in the early hours of 6 January, becoming the first known violent killing of a trans person in 2021.
Using gender-neutral pronouns makes people more positive towards women and LGBT+ people and less biased towards men, scientists say.
Three experiments were carried out to determine the effects of using gender-neutral pronouns on people’s perception’s of women and LGBT+ people.
The results show that “individual use of gender-neutral pronouns reduces the mental salience of males.”
“This shift is associated with people expressing less bias in favour of traditional gender roles and categories, as manifested in more positive attitudes toward women and LGBT individuals in public affairs,” the research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), says.
Efrén Pérez, one of the authors of the study who is a political sciences professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, told The Guardian, “Let’s assume there are societies that generally agree on being more inclusive of women and LGBT individuals, and there are more than a few.”
“Our findings suggest that the words we choose to use can matter in getting us a little bit closer toward reaching that ideal.”
More than 3,000 people took part in the research, which involved being shown a cartoon of an androgynous figure walking a dog and then asked what was happening in the picture – with one group told to use only neutral pronouns, one female pronouns and one male.
Participants then completed tasks, including writing a story about a person running for political office and answering questions about their views on women and LGBT+ people.
According to the report, using gender-neutral pronouns at the beginning of the task made it more likely that the volunteers would use non-male names in their short story and would have pro-women, pro-LGBT+ views.
Sabine Sczesny, a professor of social psychology at the University of Bern who was not involved in the research, told The Guardian that the research was further evidence that gender-inclusive language could reduce gender-biases and “contribute to the promotion of gender and LGBT equality and tolerance.”
Laura Russell, director of research, policy and campaigns at Stonewall, said, “The language we use is important, especially when it comes to describing or referencing someone’s identity.
“This study adds to the evidence showing that when we use language that actively includes women and LGBT people, it makes a real difference in reducing gender stereotyping. Using gender-neutral language is a positive step towards creating a world where everyone is accepted without exception.”
