Karine Jean-Pierre could become the first out lesbian and first Black woman to be named White House press secretary.
The political heavyweight served as Kamala Harris’ chief of staff during the Biden-Harris campaign, and has now been tipped for a permanent role in the new administration.
NBC’s White House correspondent Geoff Bennett tweeted Wednesday (18 November) that Jean-Pierre has “emerged as a top candidate” for press secretary, citing multiple sources.
Symone Sanders, TV pundit and a senior advisor to the campaign “has also been discussed” for the role, he added.
“No final decisions have been made, officials stress, as the emerging West Wing leadership also considers how to structure the communications office in a rapidly-changing media environment,” Bennett added.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=PinkNews&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1329069612911239171&lang=en-gb&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinknews.co.uk%2F2020%2F11%2F19%2Fpolitical-trailblazer-karine-jean-pierre-tipped-to-be-first-ever-black-and-lgbt-white-house-press-secretary%2F&siteScreenName=PinkNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=500px
Were Karine Jean-Pierre to clinch the role, she would be the first Black woman in the role as well as the first out LGBT+ press secretary.
Many will recognise her from a viral video in which she jumped to protect Harris after an animal rights activist attempted to grab her microphone during a campaign event in 2019.
A seasoned campaigner, activist and strategist, she has previously worked on presidential campaigns for John Edwards, Martin O’Malley and Barack Obama.
She also served on Obama’s White House staff as a regional political director, and was hired to Harris’ team in August, becoming the first Black person to serve as a presidential candidate’s chief of staff.
She is well-known as a political pundit thanks to numerous appearances on NBC News and MSNBC, and has long been a vocal advocate for LGBT+ rights and equality.
Karine Jean-Pierre fought Trump for the sake of her daughter.
In 2011 she spoke about her experiences working in politics as an openly gay woman.
Shortly after she left her position in the Obama administration, she told The Advocate: “What’s been wonderful is that I was not the only; I was one of many.
With the current administration winding down — despite continued bluster and refusal to concede from President Trump — LGBTQ hopefuls shut out from the U.S. government for four years are eager to reemerge amid high hopes for change when President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
The process of finding those appointees is underway. Last week, the Biden team sent out interest surveys to LGBTQ people who are looking to join the Biden administration and signed up with the Presidential Appointments Project, an initiative spearheaded by the LGBTQ Victory Institute to get LGBTQ people into the federal government.
Ruben Gonzales, vice president of the LGBTQ Victory Institute, affirmed in an interview with the Washington Blade on Tuesday the Biden team sent emails to potential LGBTQ applicants.
“Victory has received over 600 resumes from LGBTQ people from across the country who are interested in serving at all levels of government,” Gonzales added. “We’ve shared a number of resumes that we are really excited about. And we know that a lot of those folks have heard back from the administration and have been asked to submit information. So really excited that they’ve been recognized as folks that can play a role in the administration.”
The Biden team will have to make a lot of appointments from the LGBTQ community if it wants to catch up to President Obama, who made a record number of more than 250 LGBTQ appointees over his eight years in the White House, according to the LGBTQ Victory Institute.
But the Victory Institute has specific requests in mind for Biden: the nomination of the first Senate-confirmed openly LGBTQ Cabinet member; the nomination an openly LGBTQ U.S. Supreme Court justice for the first time; and appoint openly lesbian ambassadors, LGBTQ ambassadors of color, and transgender ambassadors for the first time.
Gonzales said he’s hoping at least one part of those requests pertaining to LGBTQ ambassadors in the Biden administration would “happen in the first quarter of 2021” after the Cabinet officials are named.
Will Biden make it happen? The comprehensive LGBTQ plan he issued during his campaign signaled his intent to appoint LGBTQ people to the U.S. government, as does guidance from the Biden transition team on building an administration that looks like America.
One LGBTQ appointment in particular was named just this week: On Tuesday, the Biden team announced Anthony Bernal, who’s gay and served as deputy campaign manager and chief of staff to Jill Biden, would join the East Wing as senior adviser to the first lady.
An adviser to the Biden family for more than decade, Bernal was chief of staff in the Office of Dr. Biden from 2017 to 2019 and served in the Obama administration in multiple roles, including as director of scheduling and trip director for Dr. Biden, and as special assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff to Dr. Biden, according to his bio.
Gonzales said Bernal is the first LGBTQ person named as a Biden appointment and said he’d be a welcome addition to the next administration.
“We feel really good that there’s an LGBTQ person who’s been active in the community already a part of that list, and we think it’s going to continue to make history,” Gonzales said.
A number of LGBTQ appointees have also been named to the Biden landing teams to review policy at specific federal agencies, including former U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner Chai Feldblum; Jeff Marootian, director of the D.C. Department of Transportation; and Shawn Skelly, a transgender veteran who’s also an alumnus from the Obama administration.
Feldblum, who as an EEOC commissioner successfully pushed the agency to begin taking up cases of anti-LGBTQ employment discrimination as a form of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, comes to the role after the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton.
LGBTQ advocates are pushing for the Biden administration to implement that ruling, which reached the same conclusion anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, across federal agencies in implementation of all laws against sex discrimination, including laws in housing, credit, health care and education.
Skelly, who during the Obama administration was special assistant to the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics and coordinator of the Department of Defense Warfighter Senior Integration Group, comes to the position amid expectations Biden will undo Trump’s transgender military ban expeditiously.
But let’s face it: The big question is what job the Biden team will offer Pete Buttigieg. After making history as a gay candidate in the Democratic presidential primary, Buttigieg made an early exit and endorsed Biden, putting himself in a good spot for a high-level appointment. The media outlet Axios reported after the election Buttigieg was “near-certain” to win a Cabinet role in the Biden administration.
Talk has ensued in Washington circles that Buttigieg could get the nod as chief for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which would build off his experience as an Afghanistan war veteran. The nomination would also set him up to become the first Senate-confirmed openly LGBTQ Cabinet member in U.S. history.
Buttigieg, however, has also reportedly been in contention for the role of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, which would give the multilingual former presidential hopeful a boost to his foreign policy credentials in a future second attempt to win the White House.
Despite his ambitions for the role, Buttigieg lacks the foreign policy background that would normally be found in that high-level appointment. According to Politico, another potential pick as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is Wendy Sherman, who helped lead nuclear negotiations with Iran and served as the State Department’s under secretary for political affairs during the Obama administration
Gonzales said whether Buttigieg gets an appointment as secretary of Veterans Affairs or U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, he would “expect that he will have a prominent role” based on the former South Bend mayor’s work for the Biden team.
“We think very highly of Mayor Buttigieg and his experience,” Gonzales said. “I think he’d be well suited for either of those roles. I think he has served with President-elect Biden’s campaign very well as a spokesperson, really representing [not just] himself but our community very well throughout his campaign and throughout the campaign for president. So I think he’s well positioned.”
But as more Americans are growing impatient with Trump for refusing to concede the election — which is holding up the transition process allowing Biden to have access to federal health data to begin implementation of his coronavirus plan — the same holds true for potential appointees.
Asked about any meetings or talks with the transition team about LGBTQ appointments, Gonzales said that team “isn’t officially working” because the General Services Administration hasn’t been able to sign off on it.
“We’re very heartened by the number of LGBTQ people who were named to landing teams for specific agencies,” Gonzales said. “We’re also excited by the number of LGBTQ people who are working on the transition. But there has not been a federal meeting, because there’s not a formal sort of transition team.”
Asked if Trump refusing to back down has delayed the presidential appointment process, Gonzales said “it seems like it is” because Trump’s intransigence has “delayed everything.”
“That concession by the president, and the move by [General Services Administration] just kind of triggers a lot of functions to start happening,” Gonzales said. “And so, I think everyone’s waiting for that to happen. They’re doing as much as they can, obviously prioritizing a lot of positions already, but haven’t been able to sort of really dig into some of the agency pieces.”
The GSA didn’t respond Wednesday to the Washington Blade’s request to comment on when Emily Murphy, head of the agency, would begin to certify the election to allow the transition to move forward.
Does the Victory Institute want Trump to concede? Gonzales gave a veiled signal that was the case.
“We think that there’s a lot of work to be done on the transition, and the sooner that we can all get to work, the better for our country,” Gonzales said.
Despite the anti-LGBTQ record Trump built over his tenure, defenders will point out he had significant gay appointments, most prominently Richard Grenell, who before becoming the face of LGBTQ outreach for the 2020 Trump campaign was acting director of national intelligence, making him the first openly gay Cabinet member, though he was not Senate confirmed.
Grenell, also former U.S. ambassador to Germany, was one of at least five openly gay ambassadors nominated by Trump and confirmed by the Senate during his administration. Trump named Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, making him the highest-ranking openly gay federal judge.
Other notable appointments were R. Clarke Cooper, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs; John Ring, chair of the National Labor Relations Board; and Tyler Goodspeed, acting chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere touted the LGBTQ appointments under the Trump administration in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“President Trump has hired and promoted LGBT Americans to the highest levels of government, including positions at the White House, agencies, judgeships, ambassadorships and appointed the first openly gay Cabinet member in our history,” Deere said. “While an individual’s sexual identity is not a qualification, the president’s appointments of LGBT people are significant and historic.”
Gonzales didn’t dispute the importance of those LGBTQ appointments, but said the Presidential Appointments Project “had a drastic reduction” in the number of LGBTQ hopefuls who wanted a position in the U.S. government with Trump in the White House.
Although Gonzales said most LGBTQ appointees “support full equality for LGBTQ people and therefore are best informed and best positioned to advance equality for our community,” he made an exception for Grenell, who has publicly criticized the LGBTQ Victory Fund for not helping Republican LGBTQ candidates.
“Ric Grenell excludes trans people from his vision of equality and cheerleads Trump’s record on LGBTQ rights despite an administration-wide effort to erode protections for our community and especially trans people,” Gonzales said. “Not much to celebrate, unfortunately.”
Grenell didn’t respond Wednesday to a request to respond to Gonzales for this article or weigh in on LGBTQ appointees in federal government.
LGBTQ candidates once again made history in terms of the overall number elected to Congress and state legislatures across the country. However, many of them had to contend with homophobic and transphobic attack ads this election cycle.
“There is little doubt that millions of dollars in homophobic and transphobic attacks ads devastated our candidates in key swing districts during the final weeks of their campaigns,” said Annise Parker, president of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which trains and advocates for queer candidates at all levels of government. “Bigoted politicians and operatives who thrive in the politics of hate were able to peel away support from voters who don’t yet know our community.”
Bigoted ads did not spell defeat for all LGBTQ candidates they targeted, but even the candidates who overcame the attacks did have to invest resources to respond to them.
Impacts ‘hard to quantify’
When it comes to homophobic and transphobic political attacks, “it is hard to quantify the effects,” according to Gabriele Magni, an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
“When you have an incumbent president who is such a polarizing figure, it becomes harder to disentangle what is the effect the homophobic attack ad and what is the effect of having Donald Trump on the ballot,” he said.
He also explained that “voter suppression efforts that target constituents that are generally most supportive of Democratic candidates,” also hurt LGBTQ candidates, as the lion’s share of them run as Democrats (at least 90 percent, according to LGBTQ Victory Fund’s estimate).
Whether a candidate won or lost may not be indicative of the impact of the bigoted attacks either, as Magni said the bar tends to be higher for LGBTQ candidates who make it to the general election, so “the exceptional quality of some of these candidates allowed them to overcome the negative effects of some of these attacks.”
Nonincumbents and purple districts
Homophobic and transphobic attacks produced mixed impacts on congressional races, with nonincumbents and those in purple districts most likely to suffer defeat.
In New Hampshire, Democrat Chris Pappas — who in 2018 became the first openly gay man to represent the state in Congress — was able to stave off what supporters called homophobic challenges to his integrity to win re-election against Republican challenger Matt Mowers.
During a debate Oct, 21, Mowers brought up Pappas’ alleged relationship with a lobbyist and accused the candidate of impropriety. Pappas denied the claim, and in a statement after the debate, he said Mowers’ behavior was “despicable” and that he had “crossed a line.”
Mowers’ campaign manager, John Corbett, called the homophobia claims “untruthful accusations” designed to divert public attention from policy issues and obscure Pappas’ relationship with the lobbyist.
“Matt Mowers learned the hard way that his desperate homophobic dog whistle attacks cost him votes amongst Republicans and independent voters in the closing days of the campaign,” Lucas Meyer, campaign manager for Pappas, said in an email to NBC News after his election victory. “Granite Staters saw right through his baseless attacks and rejected his blatant bigotry that he made the focus of his closing message.”
While Pappas was in a purple district, which President Donald Trump carried in 2016, he had the advantage of incumbency this year. “Homophobic attacks are less effective against well-known candidates, because voters already know them,” Magni said.
Nonincumbent congressional hopefuls in purple districts had a tougher time trying to flip red to blue districts.
Two races for which LGBTQ advocates and Democrats had high hopes — Gina Ortiz Jones and John Hoadley — did not pan out.
Hoadley lost against incumbent Republican Rep. Fred Upton, who voted against the Equality Act last year and for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in 2004 and 2006.
Former U.S. Air Force Capt. Jones lost to Republican Tony Gonzales, a Navy veteran, failing to flip Texas’ 23rd Congressional District for Democrats.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spent millions of dollars on attack ads against both of these candidates.
“If you are running for congress as a nonincumbent,” Magni said, “not so many people know who they are.” This means that voters may “rely more heavily on stereotypes or homophobic tropes,” especially in the context of Covid-19 in which personal contact is even more limited.
By contrast, derogatory comments directed at Rep.-elect Ritchie Torres did not harm his chances of becoming the first Afro-Latinx LGBTQ person elected to Congress. He easily won the general election for his congressional seat against his Republican opponent in one of the most progressive districts in the country. Magni said the attacks are “less consequential” in heavily Democratic districts like New York’s 15th.
Hateful messages
Magni explained that the diverse candidate pool, with many women, people of color and transgender candidates are “especially vulnerable targets” for anti-LGBTQ messaging.
Jenna Wadsworth, an outspoken progressive, lost her bid for North Carolina’s agriculture commissioner. In October, Wadsworth became the target of online vitriol after she posted a video asking viewers if Donald Trump’s diagnosis with Covid-19 was their “favorite or most favorite October surprise.”
Wadsworth, who described animosity toward her prior to the video as “minimal,” quickly became inundated with thousands of messages on social media.
Many of the hateful messages, however, were not about Wadsworth’s controversial remarks about Trump’s health — they were about her being unfit for office because of her sexual orientation, gender identity and sex.
“That does a lot to you emotionally, psychologically. It’s very draining,” she said.
Some of the messages made Wadsworth fear for her physical safety. “I received gang rape threats after that video,” Wadsworth said. “Until election night, I was not able to stay in my own home for three weeks.”
Magni described North Carolina as a “deeply divided state when it comes to LGBTQ attitudes” and added that part of the electorate “is receptive to these kinds of attacks.”
Wadsworth, who at 31 would have been the youngest LGBTQ statewide elected official in the country’s history, lost the race and said she believes her campaign suffered due to the bigoted attacks. She said she has not decided what is next for her politically.
Unexpected boost?
Several candidates experienced an unexpected boost in support and financing as a result of homophobic and transphobic attacks.
Shevrin Jones easily won his race for Florida Legislature last Tuesday to become Florida’s first LGBTQ state senator.
In August, a blood bank rejected Jones when he sought to donate plasma after recovering from Covid-19 because he is in a same-sex relationship. A robotext, whose sponsor remains unknown, was sent to voters saying Jones was “discriminated against for recent homosexual contact,” and linked to ShevJones.com, which is not Jones’ website and does not appear to ever have had any information on it. Jones was also the subject of a homophobic flyer with a photo of himself and his partner on vacation and asked, “Is this who you want for your next state senator?”
The attacks did not stop Jones, and paradoxically may have helped in terms of support and funding.
“We raised over $1 million,” Jones said. “When those attacks were coming people just gave more.”
Brianna Titone, who won her bid for re-election to the Colorado Statehouse, experienced several transphobic attack ads.
The group Take Back Colorado released a Facebook ad this month that misgendered Titone and referred to her by her “deadname,” the name she used before her transition. The ad also claimed Titone has “always supported violence” and sexualizes children. Then Republican state Rep. Stephen Humphrey voiced a robocall paid for by the Colorado Family Values Victory Fund attacking Titone’s gender identity.
Magni said transgender candidates may be more likely to become the target of attacks because “public support for trans rights is still lower” than for lesbian and gay rights.
Titone triumphed over the attacks, which led to increases in volunteer support and campaign contributions. “The attacks I had to endure didn’t create any obstacles for me that I didn’t already have,” she told NBC News. “If anything, it helped me with raising money and it convinced some people to support me based on the ads.”
She also feels that her attackers were emboldened by the Trump administration that has “given permission to be rude.”
“I’m curious to see how my new colleagues will treat me. Will they be towing the line of those messages, or will they realize that that is not productive and move away?,” she said.
Omar Leos, who won his race for North East School District board in San Antonio, had a similar experience.
“I think it helped energize the campaign. It mobilized more people to come out to volunteer and it definitely helped me financially too,” Leos told NBC News.
“In my personal opinion, it backfired on them,” Leos said.
Texas Family Action, a political action committee affiliated with the conservative San Antonio Family Association, sent a mailer to voters in Leos’ district describing him as being “‘married’ to same-sex man” and noting he has “no children” in the school district. In contrast, the mailer described Leos’ opponent, Ione McGinty, as a “wife and mother of 6.”
While Leos still won, Magni said that such attacks can “force the campaign to redirect the resources and shift media focus,” he said. “The campaign has to respond.”
Leos did say the homophobic attacks prompted him to shift his campaign message to highlight the unwillingness of his opponent to be an advocate for LGBTQ students.
“Before on my signs was ‘Keep Omar Leos,’” he said. After the homophobic attacks he shifted his message to “A voice for all.”
“I’m a voice for all students, for all people,” Leos said.
‘Soldier on’
There is no reason to believe LGBTQ candidates have seen the last of homophobic and transphobic attacks, but Magni said a swift response by candidates and their allies is important to prevent their opponents from defining the narrative of the campaign.
LGBTQ candidates also need to remember that they are targets because they are strong candidates who have the potential to win, Magni added.
“That should encourage them to soldier on and to keep in mind the ultimate goal — that is, that they are running to serve their constituents.”
Bias attacks based on gender identity rose significantly in 2019, according to a new FBI report on hate crimes.
Released this week, the annual Uniform Crime Report indicates that, last year, 227 hate-crime incidents were motivated by gender-identity bias. That’s up 20 percent from 2018, when 189 such incidents were reported.
Drilling into the data, there were 175 victims of anti-transgender bias and 52 victims of anti-gender-nonconforming bias reported last year, compared to 160 victims of anti-trans bias and 29 victims of anti-gender-nonconforming bias the year prior.
Civil rights advocates have long criticized the report for failing to represent the full number of hate crimes in the United States, since reporting isn’t mandatory. Last year, only 2,172 law enforcement agencies out of about 15,000, or less than 15 percent, reported hate crime data, the FBI said.
Since 2018, the number of agencies submitting hate crime statistics actually decreased by 451.
More than 70 cities with populations over 100,000 either failed to report data or affirmatively reported zero hate crimes. The Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ civil rights group, said cities of that size not having a single hate crime all year “is clearly not credible.”
“The lack of mandatory reporting means that the FBI data, while helpful, paints an incomplete picture of hate crimes against the LGBTQ and other communities,” the organization said in a statement.https://dataviz.nbcnews.com/projects/20200714-trans-homicide-annual-barchart/index.html?initialWidth=560&childId=embed-20200128-coronavirus-us-count&parentTitle=Anti-transgender%20hate%20crimes%20soared%2020%20percent%20in%202019&=
In 2019, at least 27 transgender or gender-nonconforming persons died by violence, according to the group. Again, the real number is likely higher, as not all deaths are accurately reported, nor are all victims accurately identified.
In 2020, that figure has risen to 36, the most since the group began tracking these deaths in 2013, with more than a month left in the year.
“This year, we saw a tragic new record of fatal violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming people in this country, particularly against Black and Brown transgender women,” HRC President Alphonso David said in a statement. “These alarming statistics represent real trauma for individuals and families across this country who have to bear the brunt of these hate crimes.”
In a statement released prior to the election, Biden vowed to “put forward comprehensive solutions to help empower the transgender and gender-nonconforming community and prioritize the prosecution of anti-transgender violence.”
The FBI’s annual report defines hate crimes as those motivated by bias based on a person’s race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, among other categories.
In all, the bureau received 7,314 reports of hate crimes in 2019, up from 7,120 in 2018 and approaching the record 7,783 in 2008.
Reported attacks based on sexual orientation dipped slightly, from 1,445 in 2018 to 1,429 in 2019. They represented 16.8 percent of all hate crimes, the third largest category after race and religion.
Crimes involving religion-based bias rose, with attacks targeting Jewish people and institutions increasing 14 percent and those targeting Muslims increasing 16 percent. For the fourth year in a row, there was also a significant uptick in hate crimes targeting the Latino community, increasing 9 percent from last year.
Hate crimes against Black Americans dropped slightly, from 1,943 to 1,930.
Nearly 1 in 10 transgender Americans are turning to nonprescription sources for gender-affirming hormones — including friends, relatives and internet pharmacies — according to a new study.
While the Affordable Care Act has extended health care to millions, many trans people are still uninsured or are denied coverage for transition-related care, including hormones and gender-affirming surgery.
According to the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, only 24 states explicitly require private insurance companies to cover gender-affirming treatment. And nine states, according to the fund, have explicit exclusions for trans-related coverage under Medicaid.
On Thursday, two West Virginia men denied hormone replacement therapy filed suit in federal court, challenging the blanket ban on gender-affirming care in state-funded health insurance plans, including Medicaid.
“Every time I go to someone who’s not my doctor, I get misgendered, I get uncomfortable questions. So if I’m not dying, I’m not going to the doctor.”
CECILIA GENTILI
It’s uninsured and underinsured individuals who are more likely to turn to alternative avenues to get hormones, according to Dr. Daphna Stroumsa, an OB-GYN with Michigan Medicine, and the lead author of the new report in Annals of Family Medicine.
“The lack of coverage is a combination of insurance companies being discriminatory in rejecting claims, and in creating excessive layers of [red tape] for something that is very straightforward and actually cost-effective,” Stroumsa told NBC News. “We know gender-affirming hormones immensely improve mental health and lower the risk of depression.”
Among the 27,715 study respondents who said they were interested in gender-affirming hormones, Stroumsa’s team found 15 percent were uninsured, and 21 percent of those with insurance said their claims were denied.
In all, more than 9 percent of the people in the study — 992 individuals — said they were taking nonprescription hormones.
Denied access to treatment, some individuals seeking to transition will use estrogen or testosterone prescribed to a friend, according to Stroumsa. Others will take birth control pills or buy medication off legally questionable internet pharmacies.
While the trend cut across demographics, turning to illicit hormone sources was slightly more pronounced among transgender women, as well as among younger respondents and biracial or multiracial individuals. There was no difference, however, based on education or economic level.
“It actually surprises me that [the number] is so low,” said Latinx trans advocate Cecilia Gentili, principal at Transgender Equity Consulting. “I’d expect it to be much higher.”
At the gender-affirming treatment clinic Gentili launched at New York City’s Apicha Community Health Center, demand always outweighed supply. “I started with nine clients, and by the end we had 650,” she said.
Transgender Americans face systemic barriers to care, and increased rates of unemployment and homelessness. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could deny coverage for transition-related treatments by labeling transgender identity a pre-existing condition.
The Trump administration has tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and, in June, revoked health care discrimination protections for transgender Americans. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, a court injunction currently keeps those protections intact.
“Despite the administration’s best efforts, the ACA hasn’t been undermined to date,” Stroumsa said. “And more people are covered under Medicaid.”
‘If I’m not dying, I’m not going to the doctor’
Insurance isn’t always the issue. Outside of large, urban areas such as New York, Miami and Los Angeles, the odds of finding a caregiver who is culturally competent about transgender health become exceedingly low.“That’s why many of us find other ways to procure HRT,” Gentili said. “If you’re going to be misgendered, insulted or mistreated by a doctor, and you can get your meds from India or Colombia, then f— the doctor. I understand it.”
These days, Gentili works with a “terrific” primary care provider, but if she needs treatment in off-hours, she said she thinks twice about going to urgent care.
“Every time I go to someone who’s not my doctor, I get misgendered, I get uncomfortable questions,” she said. “So if I’m not dying, I’m not going to the doctor.”
Taking hormones not prescribed by a medical professional comes with a variety of risks. Not only because they may not be checked for content, quality, formulation or dosing, but because treatment isn’t likely to be monitored.
Estrogen therapy has been linked to blood clots in the lungs and legs, increasing the risk of stroke and possible long-term risk of breast cancer.
A 2018 Kaiser Permanente study found transgender women on hormone therapy were twice as likely as cisgender men or women to have the blood clot condition venous thromboembolism, which can cause shortness of breath, chest pain, lightheadedness or even fainting.
Though the risks of testosterone have been less studied, it can cause the blood to thicken, increasing chances of stroke or heart attack if too high a dose is administered or the dosage increases too quickly.
“The risks are on several levels,” Stroumsa said. “Where are you getting this from? Are you using the best regimen for you? Are we guiding you? Everyone deserves to be able to talk to their physician about their treatment.”
Gentili knows firsthand what getting hormones through less-than-official-routes can be like.
“My mom used to send me hormones from Argentina,” she recalled. “One time they made a mistake and sent me testosterone by accident. And I shot testosterone twice — it was a horrible experience.”
Still, she understands why many go outside the system.
“We have to define risk. What risk means to a white, cis[gender] man is totally different than what it means to someone like me. As a trans woman of color, I’ve been navigating risk as long as I can remember. If I can take a pill without dealing with a doctor who’s going to make me miserable — who’s going to attack my mental health, who I am — it’s worth it.”
Overlooked cardiovascular risks
Even if patients have insurance and go to medical professionals for transition-related care, the risk factors may not be fully appreciated.
A separate report presented last week at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2020 conference found many transgender patients already receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy had unaddressed risks for cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure, hypertension and high cholesterol.
“We get hyper-focused on the specific care they come for … and maybe we should spend more time looking at the larger picture of cardiovascular health,” said lead author Dr. Cecile Ferrando, director of the Cleveland Clinic Transgender Surgery and Medicine Program in Ohio. “There’s a big assessment on mental health before transition, but we’re not looking at the higher [heart-disease] risk.”
Of the 427 adults who sought care at the clinic’s Center for LGBTQ+ Care, nearly 7 percent had undiagnosed high blood pressure and more than 11 percent had undiagnosed high cholesterol. Their risk for stroke or heart attack in the next 10 years was significantly higher than that of cisgender Americans in the same age group.
Among those who had been previously diagnosed with cardiovascular conditions, many were not receiving recommended treatment. Thirty to 40 percent were smokers, another serious risk factor for heart disease.
“If you’re going to start someone on this treatment, you need to know their risks,” Ferrando said. “In general, marginalized groups that have less access to health care or who are stigmatized fall into higher risk groups.”
Unanswered questions linger
There’s been a boom in transgender health in recent years, and yet there are still many unanswered questions.
“Before trans health care was politicized, it was invisible,” Stroumsa said. “We have one or two robust studies on cardiovascular disease on trans women, but we don’t know the long-term risks, because we don’t have the data from people [on hormone replacement therapy] for 20, 30 or 40 years.” When her patients ask which is better — estrogen pills, injections or patches — Stroumsa said she has to tell them she doesn’t know.
“I can extrapolate from hormone we give cisgender women, but I owe them better answers,” she said.
Still, she added, when people get their hormones from unsanctioned sources, they miss out on a chance to interact with knowledgeable medical providers. “Access to hormones can be a doorway to better care on a range of issues, from overall wellness to HIV/STDs,” Stroumsa said.
Gentili would like to see all trans people go to licensed health care providers for their transition care, too. But, she added, it’s up to the medical community to bridge the divide.
“It’s a cycle: If you’re treated like s— by [by your doctors], you don’t go see them, and you start to treat yourself like s—,” she said. “But if you’re affirmed by your providers, you’ll not just go to the doctor you’ll follow up on referrals and tests and everything. You’ll engage with the medical community.”
John Auten-Schneider and David Auten-Schneider came out about their finances about two years after they started dating.
The conversation started while they were looking to buy land in Winter Park, Colorado, to build a weekend home. As they planned, they realized they couldn’t afford to buy land, purchase an existing home or even rent there.
Together, they had more than $50,000 in debt, even though they had more than 15 years of combined experience in financial services at the time.
“It kicked off a conversation of, ‘Why do we know so much and are doing so little?’” John said.
The couple realized that growing up gay in communities that didn’t accept them played a part.
“We were using money to make ourselves feel better from the past,” said John, adding that it was also a tool to fit in once they did find the gay community.
Once they addressed those issues and envisioned the future they wanted — a comfortable retirement, means to travel and the ability to give back — they were able to pay off their debt and work toward other goals. They also established protections for each other, such as creating a trust and having health care proxy forms, to solidify their family.
It also brought about a career change. In 2015, the couple started Debt Free Guys, a personal finance site. A year later, they also launched Queer Money, a podcast about financial issues in the LGBTQ community.
They got married in 2017, after more than 13 years together. While they’d already taken steps to be recognized legally as partners, marriage brought further benefits such as tax breaks by filing jointly, survivor rights and access to spousal Social Security benefits if one were to die.
Having a handle on finances is important for LGBTQ individuals, as many start off behind their non-LGBTQ peers. Some may not have had supportive families and incur more debt for education, can face discrimination in the workplace, may need to protect financial assets from family and may experience higher costs associated with family building.
“Putting money aside is going to give you freedoms that a lot of folks don’t have, especially LGBTQ folks,” said John. “The more money you have for your own self and security, the more money and time and energy you can give back to the community.”
Marriage brings benefits and responsibilities
LGBTQ people also face a shifting legal landscape that can add steps in financial and family planning. It was legal to fire someone for being gay or transgender in some states until this year, and LGBTQ couples were only granted the right to legally marry in 2015.
“When you’re married it’s a different set of structures for planning the major issues,” said certified planner Jennifer Hatch, president of Christopher Street Financial, which specializes in LGBTQ finance.
“By marrying someone you become their next of kin — that is very important if people have very little family or hostile family,” Hatch said.
Marriage also brings about certain responsibilities, because you’re bound to your partner legally said Hatch. If you’re not married there are things you should do to make sure you protect each other in the event of death, disability or divorce.
As unromantic as those things are, they’re important to plan for, Hatch said, especially for LGBTQ newlyweds that tend to be older than non-LGBTQ peers when they enter a marriage and bring in more assets and potentially children.
Hatch recommends couples have detailed plans for what should happen in the event of death or disability which include medical proxy forms and account access information. In the event of divorce, Hatch says that couples can draw up a pre- or post- nuptial agreement that spells out how assets should be divided and addresses spousal support.
Those documents basically say despite the law, this is how we’re going to manage the relationship, she said.
The price of parenthood is high
LGBTQ people also have a lot of planning to do around building families, which is on the rise in the community. Nearly 80 percent of LGBTQ people aged 18 to 35 are already parents or are thinking about having children, a 44 percent increase over older generations, according to a 2018 survey from Family Equality, a nonprofit organization that aims to advance the rights of LGBTQ families.
The path to parenthood can be costly and require careful planning as many LGBTQ families plan to expand through foster care, adoption and assisted reproduction technology, according to the survey.
Jess Venable-Novak and their partner, Dory, are in the middle of family planning. The couple married in a small wedding in November 2019 after starting the process of having a sibling for their 7-year-old daughter, Dottie.
“The few gifts we did get for getting married we put right into a savings account for a fertility journey,” said Venable-Novak, who is nonbinary and uses “they” pronouns. The couple has since put any extra money in the same account, such as their tax refund and Covid-19 stimulus checks. Their parents have also helped with expenses.
So far, the Venable-Novaks have spent upwards of $15,000 out of pocket and are not yet pregnant.
“We weren’t anticipating spending this much money when we started,” said Venable-Novak, family engagement manager for Family Equality.
The original plan was for Dory, who will carry the baby, to get pregnant through a process called intrauterine insemination. But after five unsuccessful procedures that cost about $7,000, the family switched to in vitro fertilization, or IVF, which is more expensive.
There are other expenses that the family is saving for at the same time. The couple is working on putting away $6,000 so Dory can take 12 weeks off work after giving birth. Her job only guarantees five weeks of family medical leave with short-term disability pay and the couple is budgeting for legal fees and paperwork for second-parent adoption.
Even though the couple lives in Vermont, where they can both be listed on the baby’s birth certificate, Jess will have to legally adopt the baby to make sure they are recognized as a parent in other states.
They’re also balancing trying to get pregnant with other financial goals, including paying off credit card bills, student loan debt and looking to move.
Deciding to expand their family forced them to take a hard look at finances and talk about their goals, said Venable-Novak. “That was a moment of re-setting and reevaluating,” they said.
The benefits of being financially prepared
There are resources available to help LGBTQ people with financial planning and building a family. Many employers offer benefits for employees looking to create families, such as help with the adoption process, coverage for some fertility treatments or surrogacy fees and paid leave for both primary and secondary parents.
Others offer financial planning help, such as access to advisors or attorneys. John and David were able to see an attorney who helped them with legal documents before they were married by accessing a workplace benefit.
Same-sex couples can also forge their own path when it comes to money and family, as they generally don’t feel pressured to adhere to typical gender roles and are able to be on more equal footing when it comes to a relationship.
“You don’t have to imitate your parents and merge everything,” said Hatch, adding that she recommends a yours, mine and ours approach to finances. For many families, this means having a system that works for them and their unique needs.
Gay Rep. Ryan Fecteau is set to become speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.
Democrats nominated Fecteau as speaker Thursday, and because they hold a majority in the House, he is “all but assured” of election to the position when the House votes in December, the Portland Press Herald reports. He will be the first out member of the LGBTQ+ community to be Maine speaker and one of about two dozen to have held such leadership positions nationwide. Also, at age 28, he will be the youngest speaker of the House in Maine history.
“The speaker controls the flow of action on the floor, sets the agenda and can have sway over which bills are brought to a vote or not,” the Press Herald notes. The person in that role is often a prominent player in budget negotiations between the legislature and the governor, the paper adds.
Fecteau, who was just elected to a fourth term in the House, was the lead sponsor of Maine’s bill barring licensed professionals from subjecting minors to so-called conversion therapy, the discredited and harmful practice aimed at turning LGBTQ+ people straight or cisgender. The legislature passed it in 2019 and Gov. Janet Mills signed it into law.
The grandson of French-Canadian immigrants and the son of a single mother, Fecteau grew up in low-income housing and became the first member of his family to graduate from college. Public education was key in shaping his life, he told fellow lawmakers Thursday.
“I’m filled with hope and determination because when Democrats lead, people who are too often forgotten or left at the margins are seen, they are valued and given a fair shot,” he said, according to the Press Herald. “Policymakers like you saw value and gave families like mine a fair shot. I’m a Democrat because we believe in families like mine who come to Maine for a better life. We believe in people who may not look like us or speak the same language or practice the same religion.”
He is finishing a stint as assistant majority leader in the House, serving with Majority Leader Matt Moonen, also a gay man, making them “the first openly gay legislative leadership duo in U.S. history,” the Press Herald reports.
As speaker, he will succeed Sara Gideon, who ran for U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Susan Collins but lost. “Working alongside him the past years allowed me to witness his natural leadership capabilities and his dedication to the people of Maine,” Gideon said regarding Fecteau. “I wish him every success as he takes on this new role.”
“Rep. Ryan Fecteau’s elevation to be Maine’s first out speaker of the House shatters a lavender ceiling in the Pine Tree State,” Elliot Imse, senior director of communications at the LGBTQ Victory Institute, told The Advocate via email. “During his past three terms, Rep. Fecteau has highlighted LGBTQ issues, leading the charge to ban conversion therapy in the state and providing a shining example of LGBTQ leadership for young people. We are excited to see what changes a qualified LGBTQ voice will make in this role and wish Speaker Fecteau the absolute best of luck during his term.”
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered an unusually inflammatory public speech Thursday night, starkly warning about the threats he contends religious believers face from advocates for gay and abortion rights, as well as public officials responding to the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to a virtual conference of conservative lawyers, the George W. Bush appointee made no direct comment on the recent election, the political crisis relating to President Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat or litigation on the issue pending at the Supreme Court.
However, Alito didn’t hold back on other controversial subjects, even suggesting that the pressure Christians face surrounding their religious beliefs is akin to the strictures the U.S. placed on Germany and Japan after World War II.
Alito abandoned any pretense of impartiality in his speech, a grievance-laden tirade against Democrats, the progressive movement, and the United States’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Alito’s targets included COVID-related restrictions, same-sex marriage, abortion, Plan B, the contraceptive mandate, LGBTQ non-discrimination laws, and five sitting Democratic senators.
Ironically, Alito began his pre-recorded address by condemning an effort by the U.S. Judicial Conference to forbid federal judges from being members of the Federalist Society. He then praised, by name, the four judges who spearheaded a successful effort to defeat the ban—or, as Alito put it, who “stood up to an attempt to hobble the debate that the Federalist Society fosters.”
Shevrin Jones feels good. In fact, he said, he feels great after easily winning election last week to become Florida’s first LGBTQ state senator.
Jones said the election of so many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people across the country this election cycle “is a direct pushback on the hatred and bigotry over the last four years,” citing the Trump administration’s rhetoric against immigrants, people of color and the LGBTQ community.
“This is a win for all of us,” said Jones, who previously served in the Florida House of Representatives.
Jones was among a record number of openly LGBTQ candidates on general election ballots last week. The LGBTQ Victory Fund, a national organization that trains, supports and advocates for queer candidates, puts that number at approximately 574, and NBC News’ review of their data, state election results and local reports found that more than 220 of these candidates have already claimed victory, with dozens of contests yet to be called.
The fund estimated that in 2018, there were approximately 432 openly LGBTQ candidates on general election ballots, with 244 winning their races. This year, they expect the total number of wins to surpass this number.
While there is power in numbers, Andrew Reynolds, a Princeton researcher who has been studying LGBTQ political representation, cautioned against putting too much emphasis on overall numbers.
“The really exciting thing about the election was not the increase — it was who is getting elected,” he said, pointing to victories by queer women, people of color and transgender candidates across the nation.
“You are seeing a different type of voice emerging,” Reynolds said.
Congressional firsts
Twenty-six openly LGBTQ candidates for U.S. Senate or House were on the November ballot — the most in U.S. history. Even with one gay incumbent’s House race yet to be called, LGBTQ representation in Congress will hit an all-time high next session.
Two nonincumbent LGBTQ victors, both progressive Democrats, easily won their races. If all incumbents win, as is expected, it will increase LGBTQ representation in the House to nine, from seven, with 11 total LGBTQ people in Congress.
Mondaire Jones, an attorney, and New York City Council member Ritchie Torres handily won their races for New York’s 17th and 15th Congressional Districts, respectively, becoming the first openly gay Black candidates elected to Congress.
“Mondaire and Ritchie have shattered a rainbow ceiling and will bring unique perspectives based on lived experiences never before represented in the U.S. Congress,” Annise Parker, president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, said in a statement. “As our nation grapples with racism, police brutality and a pandemic that disproportionately affects people of color and LGBTQ people, these are the voices that can pull us from the brink and toward a more united and fair society.”
Six of the seven LGBTQ representatives currently serving in the House, all Democrats, have already won re-election: David Cicilline of Rhode Island; Chris Pappas of New Hampshire; Mark Pocan of Wisconsin; Angie Craig of Minnesota; Mark Takano of California; and Sharice Davids of Kansas. The seventh, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, was leading his Republican opponent by nearly 3 percentagepoints as of Thursday with 78 percent of votes in.
There are two LGBTQ U.S. senators — Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both Democrats, neither of whom was up for re-election.
While an increase of two seats in the House is record-setting for LGBTQ representation in Congress, it was not the big boost advocates had hoped for. One particularly close race was the contest for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, which out lesbian Gina Ortiz Jones lost by 3 percentage points.
“It’s all about turnout,” Don Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas, said. “Given the pattern over the whole night, I’m not surprised they didn’t make the inroads they thought they would. It looks like in 2020, Republicans were able to turn out their base in ways that blunted the gains Democrats, and LGBTQ candidates, could make.”
The LGBTQ Victory fund estimates that at least 90 percent of queer candidates on this year’s general election ballots were running as Democrats.
Historical state inroads
The picture is even brighter in state legislatures across the country, where a record-breaking number of more than 240 LGBTQ candidates were on the general election ballot. As of Thursday, at least 124 of these candidates had won their races, approximately three dozen of them nonincumbents. There are still a number of state legislative races with LGBTQ candidates that still have not yet been called.
“LGBTQ candidates made historic inroads in state legislatures across the country, winning in states and chambers where we never have before,” Parker said in a statement. “Trans candidates in particular had unprecedented victories, including electing our first trans state senator and almost doubling the number of trans state legislators. These down-ballot victories reflect where America stands on the inclusion of LGBTQ people in our nation’s politics and each one represents an important step forward on the march toward equality.”
Prior to Election Day, five states — Alaska, Delaware, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — had never elected an openly LGBTQ state legislator.
Delaware leaves the list following the election wins of Sarah McBrideto the state Senate and Eric Morrison and Marie Pinkney to the state House. McBride’s win also makes her the first transgender person elected to any state Senate in the U.S.
Tennessee will also leave the list after electing its first two out state legislators — one on each side of the political aisle. Bisexual Democrat Torrey Harris and gay Republican Eddie Mannis both won seats in the state House.
Haider-Markel said Mannis’ victory is relatively unusual, as the “Republican Party has still not been that welcoming to LGBT folks.” However, Mannis will join several GOP lawmakers who won re-election last week, including Tom Hannegan of Missouri, Jason Elliot of South Carolina and Dan Zwonitzer of Wyoming, who has played a vital role in preventing the passage of anti-LGBTQ legislation in that state.
Alaska could join Delaware and Tennessee in making political history: Out lesbian Lyn Franks is in a race for a seat in the Alaska House of Representatives that is still too close to call.
“It’s really just a matter of time before you see LGBTQ representation in every state,” Haider-Markel said. “Every state has districts that are amenable to Democrats and therefore to LGBTQ candidates.”
He said LGBTQ candidates continue to win local offices and gain the political experience that allows them to run for higher office.
“The gap is really closing,” he said.
Historic wins for Black LGBTQ candidates
This year’s LGBTQ candidate pool was more racially diverse than ever. In addition to Torres and Jones in Congress in New York, many Black queer candidates had historic wins at the state level.
In Florida, along with Shevrin Jones in the Senate, Michele Rayner became the first Black queer woman elected to the Florida state House.
Parker said she hopes these wins “inspire more Black LGBTQ leaders to step up and run themselves.”
“The politics of division and hatred failed in this race and gave way to a government that is more representative of the people it serves,” she said in a statement.
In Georgia, out lesbian Kim Jackson made history when she won her race for state Senate, becoming the first LGBTQ person elected to that chamber.
Tiara Mack in Rhode Island and Marie Pinkney in Delaware also won their races, making major inroads for Black LGBTQ women across the U.S.
Jabari Brisport won his race and will become the first openly LGBTQ person of color elected to New York’s state Legislature.
Prior to Election Day, there were just 42 openly LGBTQ state legislators of color serving nationwide, only 13 of them Black.
Regarding the diversity of LGBTQ candidates, Haider-Markel said: “It’s the same pattern we are seeing with the Democratic Party writ large. Democrats are running the kinds of candidates that reflect the Democratic base, which is a very diverse base.”
In addition to McBride’s win in Delaware, Taylor Small won her race for the Vermont state House, becoming the first out transgender person ever elected to that state’s Legislature.
Stephanie Byers of Kansas won her election, becoming the first out transgender person ever elected to the Kansas state House and the first out trans person of color ever elected to a state legislature in the U.S.
Incumbent transgender state legislators Lisa Bunker and Gerri Cannon in New Hampshire and Brianna Titone in Colorado, all won their races.
These victories take transgender representation at the state level from four to seven.
Danica Roem, who became the first openly transgender legislator anywhere in the country in 2017, congratulated the winners on social media.
“Before I ran in ’17, we had no out trans state legislators. In ’21, we’ll have 7,” she tweeted.
Mauree Turner won their race for the Oklahoma state House and became the first openly nonbinary person ever elected to a state legislature in the United States.
Joshua Query, running for re-election to the New Hampshire state House, will be the first openly gender-nonconforming person elected to a state legislature. Query did not run openly as gender-nonconforming when they first won in 2018.
Local milestones
At the local level, LGBTQ candidates achieved important milestones as well. Todd Gloria won his election for Mayor of San Diego, becoming the first out LGBTQ person elected mayor of that city.
Last month in Alaska, Austin Quinn-Davidson became the first openly LGBTQ mayor in Anchorage when the incumbent resigned.
While last week’s victories for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer candidates have increased representation across the U.S., just a fraction of a percent of the country’s roughly half million elected officials are LGBTQ, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund.
On the federal level, LGBTQ representation in Congress stands higher, at about 1.7 percent, and that number is expected to increase to 2 percent in January once Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres are seated. At the state level, Reynolds of Princeton estimates the current percentage sits at 2.1 percent and will increase to 2.2 percent once all of this year’s election winners are seated — an increase he refers to not as a “rainbow wave” but as a rainbow “splash.”
With LGBTQ people making up an estimated 5 percent of the U.S. population, the Victory Fund estimates we would need to elect 22,000 more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer elected officials to achieve “equitable representation.”
“I truly believe when we all have a seat at the table and everyone is represented,” Shevrin Jones said, “it makes our nation better.”
With LGBTQ advocacy organizations eager for change in the new Biden administration, the Human Rights Campaign has laid out proposals lighting the way forward with a detailed guide on administrative actions to reverse President Trump’s anti-LGBTQ policies.
The 24-page document, titled the “Blueprint for Positive Change 2020,” lays out guidance across all federal agencies to reverse the anti-LGBTQ policies under the Trump administration and advance equality after President-elect Biden takes office.
Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, pointed out in an interview with the Washington Blade on Wednesday his organization prepares a blueprint at the start of a new administration, but this time at the end of the Trump era things are different.
“These are steps that the Biden-Harris administration can take affirmatively and administratively to protect LGBTQ people and really not only put us back in positions that we were in before the Trump administration, but advance us forward toward equality,” David said.
The Human Rights Campaign, David said, has been identifying policies for the past year under the Trump administration in anticipation of producing the blueprint and having the chance to reverse them if President Trump was voted out of office.
Key among the recommendations is implementation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, thus illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
David pointed out the Trump administration has never implemented the decision even though it was handed down in June.
“Bostock is not just simply about employment protections,” David said. “The court clearly says if federal statutes prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, that should also include sexual orientation and gender identity. So we have many federal statutes, housing, credit, other federal statutes that would provide protections to LGBTQ people, so a full implementation of Bostock would take us steps forward in terms of protecting LGBTQ rights and advancing those rights.”
Also highlighted in the blueprint is reversing the transgender military ban, establishing an interagency working group to address anti-transgender violence, appointing openly LGBTQ federal officials, and uniform standards in federal surveys for data collection on the LGBTQ community.
The Human Rights Campaign isn’t the only LGBTQ advocacy group putting out guidelines for the new administration to advance LGBTQ rights.
Other LGBTQ organizations — including the Movement Advancement Project, the Center for American Progress, the Equality Federation, GLSEN, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and the LGBTQ elder group SAGE — issued their own document with 10 priorities for the Biden administration. Much of the guidance is similar, including implementation of the Bostock decision, reversing the transgender military ban and restoring non-discrimination regulations for LGBTQ people.
David said he has been in conversations with the Biden transition team and provided a copy of the blueprint to them and the reaction was “positive.”
“They have been very hospitable, very open to receiving the blueprints, and and very accommodating in discussing any concerns or questions that may arise as we go through the process,” David said.
Some of the policy changes, David said, could be done immediately, such as implementation of the Bostock ruling, but others would take additional time because of federal law governing regulations.
As the U.S. Supreme Court determined earlier this year in its decision on DACA-protections for undocumented immigrants, the Administrative Procedure Act prohibits any administration from making policy changes too quickly or without going through an open process allowing for due consideration.
David identified the Department of Health & Human Services withdrawing an Obama-era rule interpreting Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in health care, to apply to cases of anti-trans discrimination as one Trump-era measure that would take some time to reverse.
“We certainly suspect that anti-equality forces will be attacking the Biden-Harris administration in their attempts to protect LGBTQ people,” David said. “So we want to make sure that we take all of the steps necessary to implement regulations that would be appropriate in protecting LGBTQ people, so that’s one example of where we would have to go through a process.”
Reggie Greer, the Biden-Harris campaign’s LGBTQ+ engagement director, spoke generally about Biden’s support for LGBTQ rights in response to a request to comment on the blueprint.
“President-elect Biden has dedicated his life to advancing LGBTQ+ rights and will work to usher in the most pro-equality administration in history,” Greer said.
Biden as a presidential candidate, however, trumpeted his support for LGBTQ rights and issued a detailed policy plan on the way forward on LGBTQ issues that encompass many of the same plans.
But what about the Equality Act?
The new blueprint is for administrative actions, so it doesn’t take into consideration legislative items such as the Equality Act to advance LGBTQ rights, which Biden has said would be his No. 1 legislative priority and signed within 100 days of his administration.
The failure of Democrats to capture to the U.S. Senate, however, has thrown a wrench into the anticipated majority Biden would have for his legislative agenda.
The Associated Press Wednesday morning called the Senate race in Alaska in favor of Republican Dan Sullivan. The Senate would be at most split 50-50, and that would be the case only if Democrats are successful in both races in the upcoming run-off elections in Georgia.
Despite the lack of a Democratic majority in the Senate, David said he sees opportunities to move the Equality Act.
“If we’re not able to obtain full majority in the Senate, we will expect to work both with the House of Representatives and the Biden-Harris administration to push through with the Equality Act,” David said. “You know, there are certain pieces of legislation that were passed during the Obama administration, with a Republican Senate that were progressive, pro-equality pieces of legislation, so we anticipate that we can do the same here.”
David conceded challenges would exist in moving forward with the Equality Act, but pointed out the president-elect has a record of reaching out across the aisle.
“Even if we’re not able to control the Senate, the Senate majority will need certain things from the Biden-Harris administration just in order to make sure governments function, and Joe Biden has always been someone who reaches across the aisle to make sure he can get things done,” David said. “So we anticipate working with them, and working with President Biden to make sure that we get through pro-equality legislation.”