A federal judge temporarily blocked an Idaho law requiring public school students to use the restroom corresponding to their assigned sex at birth, in a lawsuit brought by the family of a transgender middle school student.
U.S. District Judge David Nye said his temporary restraining order Thursday did not weigh on the merits of the case, but said that preserving the status quo until he could fully consider it was “the most fitting approach at the current juncture.”
“The court’s ruling will be a relief for transgender students in Idaho, who are entitled to basic dignity, safety, and respect at school,” Peter Renn of Lambda Legal, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
The office of Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The student’s family, under the pseudonym Rebecca Roe, and a student association sued the state last month. They said that the state law, signed by Republican Gov. Brad Little in March, illegally discriminates on the basis of gender identity and violates students’ right to privacy.
Republican-led states have passed numerous bills targeting transgender youth in the last two years, including what are called “bathroom bills” like Idaho’s and bans on gender-affirming medical treatments for minors.
Idaho’s bathroom bill allows students to sue schools for $5,000 if they encounter a transgender student in a bathroom the law forbids. That effectively puts a “bounty” on transgender students and encourages others to search them out, the lawsuit said.
The new law says schools must provide a “reasonable accommodation” for transgender students unwilling or unable to use their assigned bathroom. The lawsuit alleges that such alternate accommodations are “often inferior to the facilities used by others, located in less accessible locations, and stigmatizing for them to use.”
Federal courts have been divided on school policies requiring transgender students to use the restroom corresponding to their birth sex, with the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finding a Virginia school’s policy illegal, and the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit upholding one in a Florida school.
LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Campaign and the Trevor Project, are asking the White House to add gender-affirming care to new rules under consideration by the Department of Health and Human Services, strengthening health privacy protections related to abortion.
The proposed changes to HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, would bar law enforcement officials from accessing information about abortion across state lines in pursuit of prosecutions in states where the procedure has been drastically limited.
Like the right to abortion, access to gender-affirming care for minors has been severely curtailed or legislated out of existence in many states under the grip of right-wing fundamentalists.
About 20 red state legislatures have enacted laws banning gender-affirming care for minors. Most are tied up in court, while in July, judges in Kentucky and Tennessee allowed bans to go into effect as objections make their way through the judicial system.
“Right now, there is such an extreme attack that’s happening on the transgender community,” Michael Ulrich, a Boston University law professor, told Bloomberg Law, referring to new laws that would subject parents and healthcare workers to prosecution for providing children with trans care.
Expanding privacy protections to gender-affirming treatment would bring it “into the fold with health care” in general, Ulrich said.
“I would like to see a rule coming out of HHS that protects the privacy of health information related to gender-affirming care,” said Casey Pick, director of law and policy at the Trevor Project.
If an “individual leaves their state to go somewhere else to receive that care, that home state should not be able to drag back health information about what care an individual received somewhere else where that care was entirely legal,” Pick said.
With or without the addition of gender-affirming care, the new rules, proposed in April, are drawing fire from conservatives seeking to protect their Supreme Court win a year ago in June.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), J.D. Vance (R-OH), and 28 other GOP lawmakers have condemned the proposed changes for attempting “to undermine enforcement of Federal and State abortion laws, simply because this administration disagrees” with Dobbs.
The Supreme Court “returned the power to regulate or prohibit abortion back to people and their elected representatives,” they wrote in a letter criticizing the proposed changes.
In June, the Human Rights Campaign added their voice to the chorus of organizations calling on President Joe Biden to add gender-affirming care to the rules, with an expansion of protections of personal health information to “transgender, gender nonconforming, and other gender minority individuals’ PHI related to gender-affirming care.”
According to estimates by the Williams Institute, over 1.6 million adults and youth in the U.S. identify as transgender.
Laurel Sakai, Planned Parenthood’s national director for public policy and government affairs, said the parallels between the far-right’s attacks on abortion and the trans community are clear and call for similar responses.
It’s “concerning to see politicians taking the same approaches” in going after people for gender-affirming care, Sakai said. They’re the same as attacks on the right to abortion and “all sexual reproductive health,” she wrote in support of the addition of gender-affirming care protections to the HIPAA rules.
Georgetown Law professor Lawrence Gostin said a Supreme Court challenge to the rules change was inevitable, with congressional authority and previous “very aggressive” Supreme Court rulings around religious freedom at play.
“This is squarely in the Supreme Court’s judicial danger zone,” he said.
Oklahoma’s Republican governor signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at limiting the rights of transgender people in the state, and trans women in particular.
Known as “The Women’s Bill of Rights” by supporters, the order requires state agencies to define the words “female” and “male” based on a person’s sex assigned at birth. Specifically, it defines a female as a “person whose biological reproductive system is designed to produce ova” and a male as a “person whose biological reproductive system is designed to fertilize the ova of a female,” the Associated Press reports. It also defines the words “man,” “boy,”
Oklahoma’s new law will force trans youth to detransition, even though every major medical association opposes it.
“Today we’re taking a stand against this out-of-control gender ideology that is eroding the very foundation of our society,” Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) said at a signing ceremony on Tuesday. “We are going to be safeguarding the very essence of what it means to be a woman.”
“Oklahomans are fed up with attempts to confuse the word ‘woman’ and turn it into some kind of ambiguous definition that harms real women,” he continued.
Stitt was joined by members of Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), a conservative, anti-trans nonprofit organization, and former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines. Gaines has become a prominent anti-trans voice advocating against trans women competing in women’s sports since tying for fifth place with University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who is transgender, in the 2022 NCAA freestyle championship.
In Tweets on Tuesday, Gaines and IWV characterized the order as protecting cisgender women’s rights and safety.
“Stitt is the first governor to take decisive action and safeguard women’s privacy, safety, and equal opportunities,” Gaines tweeted.
“Thank you @GovStitt for signing an executive order to implement the #WomensBillofRights,” IWV tweeted. “Your leadership is a recognition that sex-defintions matter and women deserve to have access to private spaces when safety and fairness require.”
Nicole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, called Stitt’s executive order a “thinly veiled attack” on the rights of transgender women. “This executive order is neither about rights, nor is it about protecting women,” McAfee said.
A federal judge has ruled on the side of trans rights after a conservative group tried to overturn an Ohio school district’s anti-bullying policy.
The national conservative group Parents Defending Education (PDE) tried to get a preliminary injunction passed on the Olentangy Local School District’s prohibition on misgendering trans students. The policy includes students, teachers, and parents and it applies to out-of-school hours and social media as well.
PDE’s lawsuit claimed the policy is unconstitutional because “they compel speech, discriminate based on content and viewpoint, and are unconstitutionally overbroad.”
U.S. District Chief Judge Algenon L. Marbley disagreed, writing in his opinion that “ultimately, transgender youth are far too often subject to harassment and bullying in public schools. They are threatened or physically injured in schools at a rate four times higher than other students. They are harassed verbally at extraordinarily high rates. More than one in five attempt suicide…. Allowing speech that creates a hostile environment for transgender students can have devastating consequences.”
Citing another case, Marbley also reminded PDE that “the fundamental right of parents to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children does not encompass a right ‘generally to direct how a public school teaches their child’ or how the school disciplines their child.”
This is seemingly a direct indictment of the right-wing’s “parent’s rights movement,” the belief that parents should have the power to control everything their children are exposed to at school. The fight for “parent’s rights” has been a thinly veiled way to advocate for banning LGBTQ+ content and lessons about race from schools.
A statement from the district lauded the judge’s decision and said that it “affirms our commitment to maintaining a safe learning environment where all feel welcome and supported. We will continue to do so and are looking forward to another great school year.”
According to local news outlet WCMH, PDE is appealing the decision.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.
The American Academy of Pediatrics reaffirmed its support for gender-affirming medical care for transgender children on Thursday, even as the treatments face a growing push for bans and restrictions from Republican lawmakers across the U.S.
The board of directors for the group, which represents 67,000 pediatricians, unanimously voted to reaffirm its 2018 position on the treatments. The board also voted to provide additional documents to support pediatricians, including clinical and technical reports, and to conduct an external review of research regarding the care.
“The additional recommendations also reflect the fact that the board is concerned about restrictions to accessing evidence-based health care for young people who need it,” Mark Del Monte, the academy’s CEO, said in a statement released by the group, calling the restrictions enacted by states “unprecedented government intrusion.”
“We therefore need to provide the best and most transparent process possible,” he said.
At least 21 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and most of those states face lawsuits. A federal judge struck down Arkansas’ ban as unconstitutional, and federal judges have temporarily blocked bans in Alabama and Indiana.
The judge who struck down Arkansas’ ban cited the position of the groups in his ruling against the ban. Arkansas has appealed the judge’s decision.
People opposed to such treatments for children argue they are too young to make such decisions about their futures.
Every major medical group, including the academy and the American Medical Association, has opposed the bans and has said the treatments are safe if administered properly.
The academy and the AMA support allowing children to seek the medical care, but they don’t offer age-specific guidance.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled in favor of three transgender students who were forbidden by their schools from using bathrooms matching their gender identities. The circuit court upheld a lower court’s preliminary injunction that said the schools have to let trans students use facilities associated with their genders.
“Students who are denied access to the appropriate facilities are caused both serious emotional and physical harm as they are denied recognition of who they are,” said ACLU of Indiana lawyer Kenneth Falk. “They will often avoid using the restroom altogether while in school. Schools should be a safe place for kids and the refusal to allow a student to use the correct facilities can be extremely damaging.”
The case involves three trans boys in Martinsville, Indiana and Terre Haute, Indiana, who need access to the boys’ room at their middle and high schools.
One of the boys, identified as A.C. in court documents, is 13 and knew he was a boy since age eight. When he started seventh grade at John R. Wooden Middle School, his stepfather asked that he be allowed to use the boys’ rooms. The school refused and said that A.C. has to use either the girls’ room or a unisex bathroom in the health clinic.
Since he wasn’t out as trans to his classmates, he didn’t want to use the girls’ room. The only accommodation he got was that he wasn’t punished for tardiness when he used the health clinic bathroom. The school suggested he go entirely to online classes just to keep him out of the boys’ restroom.
He felt “depressed, humiliated, and angry” at school and tried to avoid going to be bathroom, which became a major distraction.
The school district actually had a policy to allow some trans students to use the appropriate bathrooms at the district high school, but they told him they couldn’t accommodate him because he’s in middle school.
The other two plaintiffs are 15-year-old twins B.E. and S.E. at Terre Haute North Vigo High School, who both transitioned socially when they were 11. They both also have a colon condition that requires them to take laxatives and have regular access to bathrooms.
They started using the boys’ restrooms in 2021 and no students had a problem with them doing so, the court documents say. But school employees who knew they were trans admonished them. Their mother met with the vice principal, and she was told that the twins had to use the girls’ facilities or a bathroom in the health office.
Since they weren’t out as trans at school, they worried about upsetting the other girls by using the girls’ facilities, and the health office was often locked during parts of the day and far away. B.E. had an accident once because he couldn’t get to the health office in time.
The school’s transgender bathroom policy took numerous factors into consideration and the school’s administration said that trans students needed unspecified surgical changes before they could use the correct bathroom. Gender-affirming surgery is banned for trans people under the age of 18 in Indiana.
The court took into account the fact that Title IX bans discrimination on the basis of sex in schools that receive federal money, which is most of them. Citing the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton Co. that found that job discrimination against LGBTQ+ people necessarily takes sex into account and is therefore prohibited under Title VII, the appeals court ruled that the trans boys are likely to succeed in their case and that preventing them from using the correct bathroom while the case works its way through the court system could cause irreparable harm.
“Litigation over transgender rights is occurring all over the country, and we assume that at some point the Supreme Court will step in with more guidance than it has furnished so far,” Judge Diane Wood wrote for the court in her opinion.
A European man has been in a state of remission from HIV infection for nearly two years after receiving a stem cell transplant to treat blood cancer. If enough time passes with no signs of viable virus, he could join the rarefied club of five people who are considered either definitely or possibly cured of HIV.
All six people had HIV when they received stem cell transplants to treat blood cancers such as leukemia or lymphoma. But unlike the five other cases, this new one involves a person whose donor did not have a rare genetic abnormality that generates resistance to HIV in the immune cells that the virus targets for infection.
The man’s case will be presented next week at the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science in Brisbane, Australia. This major biennial gathering of scientists will also hear noteworthy presentations regarding post-treatment control of HIV in infant boys, circumcision’s impact on HIV risk in gay men, and the relationship between HIV and mpox (formerly known as monkeypox).
It remains unethical for a person with HIV who does not already qualify for a stem cell transplant due to cancer to undergo such a treatment in hopes of curing the virus, given such treatment’s considerable toxicity. Scientists generally expect that any success in the effort to develop a widely scalable HIV cure therapy will likely take decades.
Nevertheless, Dr. Sharon Lewin, president of the IAS and director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, Australia, called the new viral remission case “great news.” Such case reports, she said, “help in many ways in the work toward a cure.”
The ‘Geneva Patient’
The man newly in remission from HIV has been dubbed the Geneva Patient, after the Swiss city where he has received his treatment. He is in his early 50s, was diagnosed with the virus in 1990 and began taking antiretroviral treatment in 2005. In 2018, he was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer known as an extramedullary myeloid tumor. He was treated with radiation, chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.
His case has been overseen by a research team led by Asier Sáez-Cirión, head of the viral reservoirs and immune control unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.
HIV is vexingly difficult to cure. This is in large part because even when suppressed by antiretrovirals, the virus hides in nonreplicating immune cells, known collectively as the viral reservoir. Such standard HIV treatment only works on cells that are actively producing new viral copies. So the virus remains under the radar of antiretrovirals within these latently infected cells, each of which can take months or even years to return to a replicating state.
Since the first such case was announced in 2008, three people have definitely been cured and two additional people, pending more time passing without a viral rebound, have possibly been cured of HIV.
Prior to the Geneva Patient’s case, a handful of other people with HIV who developed cancer also received stem cell transplants from donors without the rare genetic mutation conferring natural resistance to the virus. But none from this group went more than 10 months after stopping antiretroviral treatment without a resurgent virus. Hopes that they had been cured were dashed.
The man in Switzerland has now spent 20 months with no viral rebound, having been taken off of antiretrovirals in November 2021. Sáez-Cirión and his colleagues have conducted a battery of ultrasensitive tests in search of HIV in his body and have only been able to detect trace amounts of defective virus. But they still cannot rule out that the man retains even a single cell infected with viable virus, one that could spring to action at any moment and repopulate the body with HIV.
“The possibility of viral rebound is indeed a concern,” Sáez-Cirión said. “The virus may persist in rare infected blood cells or anatomical sites that we have not analyzed.”
It remains unclear why the Geneva Patient’s case has been so successful, at least thus far, while others who received similar treatment were not so fortunate.
Dr. Steven Deeks, a leading HIV cure researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study of the Geneva Patient, said the details of the case “suggest that what we once assumed was impossible might in fact be possible.”
Speculating about the drivers of this man’s lengthy HIV remission, Deeks said, “Eliminating most if not all of the reservoir with chemotherapy was certainly the key intervention.” Deeks also noted the man’s repeated episodes of what is known as graft-versus-host disease, a powerful and potentially dangerous immune reaction that occurs as a consequence of a stem cell transplant. This might have also played a crucial role, Deeks said, “as the newly rebuilt immune system may have been attacking and clearing the old immune system, including any residual T cells harboring HIV.”
Sáez-Cirión said it is also possible that the immunosuppressive drugs that the Geneva Patient continues to receive to prevent graft-versus-host disease may be preventing any residual HIV from replicating.
Post-treatment control of HIV
Researchers in sub-Saharan Africa have identified a handful of boys born with HIV who did not experience viral rebound even after their antiretroviral treatment was interrupted for extended periods.
This finding comes from a study of 281 mothers in South Africa who had passed HIV to their newborns. The infants were all put on antiretrovirals immediately after birth. But the investigators eventually discovered that the caretakers of five boys had not provided them with HIV treatment for periods spanning three to 10 months, and yet each of these children maintained an undetectable or very low viral load.
Four of the boys were immediately put back on HIV treatment. However, one other has been kept off of treatment and has now passed 19 months without a viral rebound. Three of the others have been enrolled in a study in which their treatment will once again be interrupted, but under close monitoring.
Dr. Gabriela Cromhout, a research clinician and doctoral candidate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and one of the lead authors of the study, said three of the boys can be classified as so-called post-treatment controllers of HIV, because they had sustained an undetectable viral load for more than six months while off antiretrovirals.
In advance of their conference presentation, Cromhout and her colleagues did not, however, conduct any ultrasensitive tests to search for the residual presence of HIV in the children’s bodies. Such tests are ongoing.
Dr. Deborah Persaud, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the head of a major ongoing study seeking to cure HIV in infants, said, “This is an enormous advance for the field of HIV remission and cure.” However, Persaud, who was not involved in the South African study, said to back their findings, the study’s investigators would need to present data at the conference confirming that the five boys were infected and that they were indeed off antiretrovirals for the extended periods — data that Cromhout confirmed her team has on hand.
Circumcision and HIV risk
In the mid-2000s, a trio of randomized controlled trials in sub-Saharan Africa determined that circumcising men reduced the risk of female-to-male sexual transmission of HIV by about 50% to 60%.
Now, a research team in China is the first to have completed such a study of gay and bisexual men. They enrolled about 250 uncircumcised men who have sex with men who reported primarily being the insertive partner in intercourse (known as being the “top”). Half were randomly selected to be circumcised. After one year, five study participants contracted HIV, all of them in the control group. The study registered no significant differences in sexual behaviors between the two study groups that might have affected the men’s relative risk of HIV.
The difference in the HIV acquisition rate between the two study groups, the investigators calculated, was statistically significant.
On a media call Wednesday, Dr. Huachun Zou, a professor of epidemiology at the Sun Yat-sen University School of Public Health in Shenzhen, China, said larger studies may be necessary to fully establish whether circumcision reduces the risk of HIV among gay and bisexual men. But he said it is “very unlikely” that researchers will, indeed, launch such research because of the global popularity of the HIV prevention pill, known as PrEP, as a means of reducing risk of the virus among gay and bi men. He said PrEP is not, however, widely used in China, a nation that also has a low circumcision rate.
HIV and mpox hospitalization
This study looked at surveillance data from the World Health Organization regarding 82,290 mpox cases from 2022. There was information about the HIV status for 39% of these people, among whom 52% — 16,633 people, or 20% of the total — had that virus.
The study found that overall, having HIV was not associated with a greater likelihood of being hospitalized with mpox. However, being immunocompromised, including from HIV or from another factor, was tied to about two to four times the hospitalization risk, compared with being HIV-negative and having a healthy immune system.
Fifty-eight of the people with HIV died, as did four of the 15,371 people without HIV.
Recent polling shows that Americans increasingly support transphobic bathroom bills, but social science research suggests that this trend could be reversed if more Americans simply came to personally know transgender people.
In a poll released last October, approximately 52% of Americans said they support “bathroom bills” requiring trans people to use facilities matching the sex they were assigned at birth. This was 17% higher than the 35% who supported bathroom bills when the same question was asked in 2016, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) reported.
This increase is most likely due to the recent wave of transphobic legislation and rhetoric by conservatives nationwide. As of July 28, 80 anti-trans bills have been passed in state legislatures in 2023 so far, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker, a 207% increase from the 26 transphobic bills passed in 2022. Many of these laws ban trans people from accessing correct bathrooms, gender-affirming care, or having their identities respected in public schools and other institutions.
However, a June 2023 PRRI survey found that people who know trans people are less likely to agree with transphobic political views. This illustrates a phenomenon known in social science research as “intergroup contact theory.”
The theory states that interpersonal contact with people who are different from one’s self leads to more positive attitudes about those people and a decreased belief in negative stereotypes about them, PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman wrote at The Hill.
For example, in the June 2023 survey, 70% of trans respondents and respondents who are personally close to a trans person said they opposed bans on gender-affirming care for trans children. Comparatively, only 52% of cisgender respondents and those who don’t personally know trans people said that they opposed the bans.
Approximately 35% of respondents who know a trans acquaintance agreed with the conservative view that “young people are being peer pressured into being transgender.” That percentage rose to 49% among respondents who don’t know any transgender people.
Similarly, 20% of respondents who are personally close to a trans person agree that it’s never appropriate to discuss that some people are trans in public schools — a view that has been pushed by the anti-LGBTQ+ group Moms for Liberty and other so-called “parents’ rights” groups. That percentage rose to 41% among respondents who don’t know any transgender people.
In short, the increase in transphobic rhetoric and legislation has been able to thrive because most Americans don’t know actual trans people.
In fact, only 6% to 11% of all respondents in the June 2023 survey said that they have a “close personal relationship” with a trans friend or family member. Comparatively, 40% to 59% of all respondents said that they have a “close personal relationship” with a gay, lesbian, or bisexual friend or family member.
But while the trans community may benefit politically in the long run by building closer relationships with cisgender people, that still presents some challenges. Foremost, some trans people may feel afraid of outing themselves to cis family members, neighbors, and co-workers who may be unsupportive or even hostile to trans individuals.
Lambda Legal, with partners McDermott Will & Emery and Merchant Gould P.C., filed a federal lawsuit against Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County late last week challenging the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department’s (MNPD) discriminatory policies and practices that reject all job applicants living with HIV.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee on behalf of an anonymous plaintiff, John Doe, a 45-year-old Black man and decorated civil servant living with HIV who has worked as a Tennessee State Trooper and with the Memphis Police Department for several years. The plaintiff was previously offered a position in the MNPD, but his 2020 offer was later rescinded solely because of his HIV status.
“This lawsuit responds to a clear case of HIV and employment discrimination where the MNPD denied employment to a well-qualified applicant due only to his HIV status. This applicant was taking advantage of today’s medical advancements and treatments; there is absolutely no reason why his HIV status is at all relevant to his ability to perform the duties of a job in law enforcement, the military, or any other job. In this case, the discrimination is even more egregious since the plaintiff had been serving as a police officer in Tennessee for years with no issue. To the contrary, he has been recognized for his work.” said Greg Nevins, Senior Counsel and the Director of Lambda Legal’s Employment Fairness Project.
“There are many concerning aspects of this discriminatory policy but a particular one is the racial aspect. Nashville is a city where almost 60% of people living with HIV are Black, and black men, who face disproportionate access to preventative health care, are 3.1 times more likely to live with HIV than White males. Given this data, the MNPD’s discriminatory policy clearly has a disproportionate impact on Black people and people of color. Discriminating on the basis of HIV status brings up other potential intersectional issues of race, gender, sexual orientation and, of course, stigma,” said Jose Abrigo, HIV Project Director at Lambda Legal.
“McDermott Will & Emery is proud to serve as co-counsel with Lambda Legal and Merchant Gould on this important employment discrimination case,” said Lisa A. Linsky,McDermott Litigation partner, co-lead on the case and founder of McDermott’s LGBTQ+ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. Our law firm has a rich history of pro bono work supporting marginalized communities and fighting unjust laws, and we are committed to ensuring justice for all Americans.”
The Police Department’s policy rejected the plaintiff’s application during the Civil Service Medical Officer’s exam process claiming that an applicant “must meet or exceed the medical standards set forth in the United States Army Induction Standards.” MNPD uses the Pentagon’s medical exam policies for hiring purposes. Lambda Legal is fighting this same hiring policy from the Pentagon in federal court in the lawsuit Wilkins v. Austin, related to the U.S. Armed Forces’ policy barring people living with HIV from enlisting.
However, since 2022, the Pentagon is no longer either discharging military members due to HIV or considering HIV status for deployment or commissions, following a landmark ruling in April 2022 that was not appealed. A Virginia federal judge ruled that, as to servicemembers living with HIV who are asymptomatic and virally suppressed, the military could not discharge them, refuse to commission them, or categorically bar their worldwide deployment based on their HIV status. This victory came in lawsuits Harrison v. Austin and Roe and Voe v. Austin – litigation Lambda Legal brought with its partners Modern Military Association, Winston & Strawn LLP, Peter Perkowski, Esq., and Scott Schoettes.
The lawsuit filed last week, John Doe v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department argues that MNPD’s policies are unlawful and constitute a violation of federal law including, but not limited to, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
This lawsuit is the latest in Lambda Legal’s long history of fighting HIV discrimination nationwide, starting in 1983 with People v. West 12 Tenants Corp., helping to establish the illegality of discriminating against people living with HIV.
Anti-abortion advocates in the U.S. are threatening to kill one of the most successful public health programs in history over unsubstantiated facts, unwavering opposition to a woman’s right to choose, and blatant anti-LGBTQ+ bias.
Conservative rganizations, including the Heritage Foundation and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, are threatening U.S. lawmakers with the withdrawal of their support if they grant a routine reauthorization to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the hugely successful HIV prevention initiative in Africa.
The far-right Family Research Council describes the 20-year-old program as “a massive slush fund for abortion and LGBT advocacy.”
PEPFAR, initiated by President George W. Bush, is estimated to have saved over 25 million lives.
While the Biden administration maintains that the program — reauthorized every five years under Democratic and Republican presidents alike — does not fund abortions, those assertions aren’t enough for critics who are convinced that money from the initiative is flowing to abortion providers.
PEPFAR grantees are “promoting and helping to support abortions abroad,” Ryan Walker, the head of Heritage Action, told Christianity Today. “A five-year reauthorization to us is beyond the pale.”
The program’s $6 billion annual budget is dedicated to buying antiretroviral drugs and medical supplies, and paying for drug delivery and prevention programs, including funding for both condoms and abstinence education.
According to Doug Fountain, executive director of Christian Connections for International Health, assertions PEPFAR is funding anything other than HIV prevention are based on unsubstantiated “rumors” among people who are far removed from the funding’s beneficiaries.
“The way we look at it is, which is the more pro-life position: supporting a proven program that saves lives, or impeding it out of unsubstantiated fear?” Walker asked. “We actually can see a situation where HIV/AIDS will come under global control in the next decade or so. But we need to keep our eye on the ball and not stop progress based on rumors.”
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), now in his 22nd term representing central New Jersey, is leading the charge against what was, until now, a routine and bipartisan five-year reauthorization.
The 70-year-old congressman has fallen in line with so-called pro-life organizations advocating for a one-year authorization, denying the program the long lead times required to properly implement it, and leaving PEPFAR’s fate to the whims of politics.
Smith now claims his previous support for the program was a response to an “emergency,” and a necessary if temporary “tourniquet” for a “horrific problem.”
PEPFAR was already subjected to prohibitions on abortion access through longstanding restrictions like the Helms and Siljander Amendments. However, in 2018, the administration of President Donald Trump included the program in the Mexico City Policy, at Smith’s insistence. The Mexico City Policy explicitly prohibits U.S.-funded organizations from using money from any source to perform or advocate for abortions overseas.
The Biden administration stripped that provision from the amendment reauthorizing PEPFAR. Smith has staked any new funding on reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy.
Smith also pointed to a lunch meeting with the head of PEPFAR, John Nkengasong, to explain his new-found opposition.
Smith claims Nkengasong told him he works at “10,000 feet” and didn’t know what local organizations were doing on the ground. “If you tell me face-to-face over lunch that you have no idea what they’re doing at the local level, I have a problem with that,” the congressman told Christianity Today.
PEPFAR gives “a pot of money that empowers the abortion lobby in each and every one of these countries,” Smith claimed, without evidence.
For his part, Nkengasong maintains “PEPFAR has never, will not ever, use that platform in supporting abortion.”
