A New Jersey appeal court has upheld a massive $3.5 million fine against a conversion therapy practice, which was shut down after former patients alleged widespread abuse.
On Tuesday (6 July), the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey upheld a previous judgement against Jewish Institute for Global Awareness (JIFGA) – formerly known as Jews Offering New Alternatives (JONAH). JONAH was a nonprofit that claimed to be able to cure patients of same-sex attractions.
Former clients and practitioners have been locked in a heated legal battle for years. The Southern Poverty Law Center, who brought the initial lawsuit on behalf of several former JONAH clients and their families, announced the conversion therapy provider had lost its latest appeal.
As such, the plaintiffs are entitled to claim millions in attorney’s fees from the original lawsuit because JONAH did not shut its doors and stop promoting conversion therapy.
Scott McCoy, SPLC’s interim deputy legal director of LGBTQ rights and special litigation, said: “This case was always about protecting vulnerable people and families against the purveyors of fraudulent, harmful and ineffective so-called gay-to-straight conversion therapy.”
He added that conversion therapy is “fraudulent” because it’s “based on the lie that LGBTQ people can and should be fixed”. McCoy then vowed SPLC and “other allies” will not stop “until we eradicate these dangerous practices in New Jersey” and across the US.
n 2015, the New Jersey Superior Court found that JONAH had violated the state’s consumer fraud law and engaged in “unconscionable commercial practices”. The court also ordered the conversion therapy provider to permanently shut down and dissolve its organisation, according to reports by The Guardian.
The Guardianreported four former clients of JONAH alleged that organisers had engaged in a range of horrific behaviours and so-called therapeutic techniques. The clients claimed that therapy participants were instructed to remove all their clothing in group sessions and beat an effigy of their mothers with a tennis racket.
They also assorted clients were called homophobic slurs during mock gym classes and other sessions, according to The Guardian.
If it did not cease operation, the court ruled JONAH would have to pay $3.5 million to the plaintiffs.
But a couple of years later, in 2019, the same court found JONAH had violated the legal ruling by continuing to operate under a new name, JIFGA. As such, the Superior Court ordered the conversion therapy provider to pay up to $3.5 million, according to NBC News.
JONAH appealed against the ruling, but the appealed court just ruled against them again.
But Michael Laffey, who represented JONAH and its owners, said the latest ruling contained “clear factual errors”, according to Law.com. He added his clients are “considering their options”.
Conversion therapy has been denounced by several leading medical groups
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) said in 2018 that it strongly opposes conversion therapy. It reaffirmed its 1998 statement that the leading professional group “opposes any psychiatric treatment” that is “based on the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder” or based on the assumption the individual “should change his or her homosexual orientation”.
LGBT+ supporters hold placards demonstration against the use of conversion therapy outside UK Cabinet office. (Photo by May James/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Earlier this year, the APA also adopted a resolution rebuking conversion therapy for trans people. It added that conversion therapy only served to promote “stigma and discrimination against transgender and gender diverse people”.
In 2020, a United Nations (UN) expert called for a global ban on conversion therapy, saying the practice is “inherently degrading and discriminatory” toward LGBT+ people. Earlier this year, the UN also urged the UK governmentto ban the discredited practice and said conversion therapy has “haunting consequences” for LGBT+ individuals.
In recent years, LGBTQ rights have made significant advancements in the United States, but there remain areas of growing legislative hurdles and challenges.
In a country that is divided on a long list of cultural and societal issues, the acceptance of gay marriage stands out as a remarkable exception. Once a divisive issue, it now has the support of 7 in 10 Americans, according to a recent poll from Gallup.
But perhaps even more impressive, gay marriage now has majority support across a long list of voter groups.
It’s probably not a big surprise that 83 percent of Democrats say they believe gay marriage should be recognized by law, but that’s also true of 73 percent of independents and, more unexpectedly, 55 percent of Republicans.
And the Gallup data shows strong support from young and old as well. More than 80 percent of those from ages 18 to 34, but also 72 percent among middle-aged Americans and 60 percent support among those 55 and older.
That last number is especially eye-catching. Older Americans tend to be more culturally conservative than the public at large and 60-percent support is a solid number.
To give a sense of just how solid support for gay marriage is today, compare it to Gallup’s numbers on some other somewhat divisive topics.
After decades of debate, the morality of abortion remains as divisive as ever — 47 percent of Americans believe it is morally acceptable.
Obamacare may be the law of the land, particularly after the Supreme Court’s June ruling on the law, but still only 56 percent of Americans believe the federal government should make sure people have health care coverage.
And, it may be close, but more Americans believe gay marriage should be legal than believe that global warming is occurring. It’s close (a statistical tie really) but gay marriage holds a slight edge in the percentages.
Those numbers give a sense of the depth of support for legal same-sex marriage and they are even more remarkable when you realize how fast opinions on the unions have changed. In 15 years, the issue has gone from culturally divisive to culturally decided.
How dramatic is that swing? Compare it to the relatively slow public acceptance of marriage between black and white Americans.
It took “interracial marriage” almost 40 years to gain acceptance in the United States — that’s comparing support the first time Gallup asked the question (1958) to when it broke 50 percent support in the 1990s. When Gallup first asked about gay marriage in 1996, only 27 percent of Americans supported legalizing the bond. In just 15 years, 2011, 53 percent of Americans supported legalizing the practice.
Court decisions on the two practices only drive the point home.
Even if one uses the Supreme Court’s 1967 Loving decision (the ruling that made laws against interracial marriage unconstitutional), as a marker for public opinion, it was still roughly 30 years before interracial marriage was accepted by the public. By the time the Supreme Court ruled that all states had to honor gay marriage as legal in 2015, 60 percent of Americans already favored that view.
In other words, the court was leading the nation on interracial marriage, but essentially following public opinion on gay marriage.
But not all issues are settled or headed in a positive direction for the LGBTQ community. Particularly on issues that concern transgender people, state legislatures are writing legislation to limit what that population can and can’t do.
Research from the group Freedom for All Americans finds that 38 different states have proposed legislation in 2021 that would limit what trans Americans can do covering areas ranging from sports to homeless shelters to medicine. Texas and Tennessee led the way with 12 pieces of legislation each, according to the group.
And Gallup polling data from this year shows there has been a slight decline in acceptance for idea of transgender people serving in the military. Support for the idea is still high, 66 percent, but down five points from where it was in 2019. That number bears watching. It could just be a blip or something more.
The real lesson in Pride Month, however, may be as much about politics and the malleability of public opinion in America today as it is LGBTQ rights.
After all, Pride Month itself is still a relatively young event. It was just over 20 years ago, only in 1999, that then-President Bill Clinton declared June “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month” for the first time. Back then, only 35 percent of Americans thought gay marriage should be recognized by law, half the number in the 2021 poll.
It’s evidence that even in a time of deep partisanship on what seems to be a contentious issue, opinions can still change — and rapidly
We never thought that a landscaper booking website would publish a study about the horniest cities in the United States, but 2021 apparently had more surprises in store for us.
LawnStarter says it ranked the libido levels of 200 U.S. cities by “nine key indicators of sexual arousal,” including proportion of single residents, Google search interest in adult content, and sales of sex toys.
To measure the thirst of each metropolis, the researchers culled data from All Swingers Clubs, Eventbrite, Google Trends, Innerbody Research, Lovehoney, U.S. Census Bureau, and Yelp.
The results? The horniest cities in America, according to the survey, are:
Paradise, Nevada
Orange, California
Hollywood, Florida
Providence, Rhode Island
Atlanta, Georgia
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Newark, New Jersey
Dayton, Ohio
Tempe, Arizona
Baltimore, Maryland
Paradise, Nevada, has more sex shops and adult entertainment venues than any other city, according to LawnStarter, while Providence, Rhode Island, sells the most sex toys out of the cities surveyed. LawnStarter also notes that California and Florida cities dominate the top 10 in all nine metrics, crediting those states’ standout sex drives to “sand, sweat, skin, and sangria.”
More than half of LGBTQ adults in America say they have experienced violent threats, according to a study from The William Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
The study examined the similarities and differences across key subgroups of the LGBTQ community.
Fifty-two percent of respondents said that someone had threatened them with violence since they were age 18.
Among this group, 61 percent of transgender women said someone threatened them, compared to 49 percent of cisgender women and 52 percent of cisgender men.
In addition, 75 percent of respondents said someone verbally insulted or abused them. Thirty-nine percent said someone had thrown an object at them.
Forty-two percent of LGBTQ respondents said they were hit, beaten, physically attacked or sexually assaulted as adults, while 41 percent said they were robbed, had properly stolen or vandalized.
The survey also found high rates of bullying during childhood among the LGBTQ community. Sixty-seven percent of LBQ cisgender women, 75 percent of GBQ cis men and 70 percent of transgender people said they had been bullied often or sometimes before age 18.
The survey also examined some health outcomes of the LGBTQ community. For example, 26 percent of transgender people said their health was fair or poor, compared to 24 percent of cisgender women and 14 percent of cisgender men.
Meanwhile, 42 percent of transgender people reported lifetime suicide attempts, compared to 32 percent of cisgender women and 22 percent of cisgender men.
The data for the study was pulled from a combination of two studies, one of which was a national probability sample of sexual minority (LGBQ) individuals who were not transgender and another of transgender adults. The study does not list a margin of sampling error.
A gay man who came out aged 90 has offered powerful words of advice to LGBT+ people who are still in the closet.
Kenneth Felts captured the hearts of queer people across the world in 2020 when he shared his story, proving that it’s never too late to come out.
Felts, who is from Colorado, knew he was gay when he was just 12 years old – but he pushed his feelings down and married a woman, not believing that living his truth was an option.
His coming out last year was ultimately a positive experience that allowed him to live his life openly and authentically.
Speaking directly to queer people who are still in the closet, Kenneth Felts told CBS New York: “You’ll be very surprised about the response.”
He continued: “The world is full of love, and you’re entitled to some of it, and people are going to give it to you if you take the chance, if you come out and say ‘here I am.’”
Kenneth Felts went on to reflect on his marriage to a woman, which he admitted “was not a good one”. He spent the entire marriage trying to appear as straight as he possibly could.
“It was just constant alertness,” Felt said. “I was being very careful and dressing very conservatively all the time because I never wanted people to know that I was gay. I didn’t want to be outed because I could lose custody of my daughter.”
It was ultimately a cancer diagnosis that spurred Felts on to start writing his memoirs, which helped Phillip swim back into focus.
He was Felts’ first love, and the pair had a vibrant, loving relationship before he left to marry a woman.
Tragically, he learned upon his coming out last year that Phillip had since died, meaning the men never got to reunite.
Despite the pain that came with that revelation, Kenneth Felts is still glad he came out when he did. Doing so has allowed him a greater freedom in his personal life.
“It was a huge experience of freedom. I wasn’t looking over my shoulder worried about who’s wondering if I’m gay or not,” he said.
Sadly, Felts decision to come out as gay during the coronavirus pandemic has meant that he can’t attend Pride marches and take a more active role in the LGBT+ community – however, he hasn’t let that stop him from celebrating his identity.
His Facebook page shows numerous images of him wearing a rainbow coloured hoodie, and he has raised funds for LGBT+ causes in the year since he came out.
Mumsnet users are encouraging teachers to out trans pupils to their parents, saying that children are being “harmed” by school staff who protect their privacy.
The Mumsnet discussion began with a 3 July post by “Libby55”, who says they work in a school: “Advice: schools socially transitioning children without parental knowledge or consent.” It’s had more than 400 responses.
In the post, Libby55 says pupils at the school they work in have changed their names and pronouns without telling their parents. Libby55 claims that teachers not telling parents this information is a “safeguarding issue” that is “harming children”.
“I’m looking for an organisation that specifically campaigns against schools harming children in this way,” Libby55 says. “I have to do something: I can see children being harmed.”
They then ask: “If any of you know of a teacher’s group that is lobbying against the practice of socially transitioning children without parents’ knowledge or consent, please let me know. I would like to get involved.”
In the hundreds of responses that follow, Mumsnet users says it is “outrageous” and “sinister” that schools would protect pupil’s privacy, and suggest “leaking” the information about trans pupils on social media.
Several suggested that Libby55 contact anti-trans groups Safe Schools Alliance (SSA) or Transgender Trend, while others commended them for “protecting children from the falsehood that they are the opposite sex”.
Confirming they would contact SSA, Libby55 thanked Mumsnet users for their help and claimed that “for the majority of children” using their chosen name and pronouns “brings about a steep downhill decline in their mental health”.
One study of young trans people found that a trans person who is regularly called their chosen name has “a 29 per cent decrease in suicidal ideation, and a 56 per cent decrease in suicidal behaviour”.
Some Mumsnet users disagreed with Libby55, and pointed out that outing trans pupils to their parents would be harmful and could put them at risk.
“Um, what does the child have to say about you doing this?” one Mumsnet user wrote. “You can’t just be giving this kind of information to their parents without their knowledge. That is the whole point of safe-guarding. You are putting this child in danger right now.”
Sabah Choudrey, joint head of youth work at national trans charity Gendered Intelligence, told PinkNews that sometimes “school is the safest place for a young person to explore who they are”.
“‘Outing’ trans youth to their parents against their will may put them at risk of harm and isolation from a supported environment and trusted people,” Choudrey said.
“There are many reasons why families wouldn’t understand in the first instance, but there is support available for families too. But not all families are supportive or understanding of young people having space to explore their identity, and a small minority will unfortunately never come to be supportive or understanding of their child’s identity or exploration.
“Schools have a duty to safeguard all youth, because every young person deserves the right to choose who they are and the right to safely express themselves.”
What is outing?
Outing is the act of disclosing an LGBT+ person’s gender identity or sexual orientation without their consent, which can breach their privacy and put them at risk of violence or abuse.
Young trans people in the UK are particularly at risk, with research from LGBT+ charity Stonewall finding that more than four in five young trans people have been called names or verbally abused, while three in five have experienced threats or intimidation and more than a third have been physically assaulted.
A person’s trans status is private, regardless of their age. According toStonewall, schools should not share information that could reveal a pupil’s trans status to others, including their parents, except when there is a safeguarding risk or when the young person has given their permission for information to be shared.
Trans students’ right to privacy
In the US, it’s illegal for a teacher to share a student’s LGBT+ identity with their parents or other school staff, because it’s a violation of the student’s privacy and “can open an LGBT+ child to hostility, rejection, and even violence from their parents”, according to civil rights group ACLU.
Trans adults with legal recognition of their gender have similar protection in the UK, where officials who disclose someone’s trans status without consent would be breaking the law in most circumstances.
While trans under 18’s do not have access to legal gender recognition, they are still protected from discrimination based on their social transition under the Equality Act 2010. This means teachers and school staff should use a pupils chosen name and pronouns – not to do so because they have changed gender could constitute direct gender reassignment discrimination, according to guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
And young trans people have a right to privacy under the Human Rights Act, just like all young people.
Justine Roberts, Mumsnet founder, told PinkNewst: “We’ve had a careful look at the discussion. It’s clear that the person who started it is mindful of their confidentiality obligations and does not intend to ‘out’ any children. They clearly state, ‘I wouldn’t recommend telling the parents. Even if we believe that the school isn’t following safeguarding procedures, we still need to go through the proper channels.’
“This is a discussion in which a teacher is asking for signposts to further information, and does not in any way advocate breaching the confidence of children under their care.”
Gendered Intelligence runs support groups for young trans people and their families. You can find more information here.
From the first U.S. Supreme Court ruling to address homosexuality to the first bisexual “Bachelorette,” here are 10 historic LGBTQ milestones from around the world.
Kathy Kozachenko
First out gay person elected to office in the U.S.
Kathy Kozachenko holds a photo of her son and her partner at her home in Pittsburgh in 2015.Chris Goodney / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Three years before Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, out lesbian Kathy Kozachenko was voted onto the Ann Arbor City Council in Michigan on April 2, 1974.
Kozachenko was just 21 and a student at the University of Michigan, a hotbed of anti-war protests and activism supporting racial justice, women’s rights and other causes.
Her sexual orientation didn’t seem to be an issue with voters, and “gay liberation was not a major issue in the campaign,” Kozachenko said in her victory speech, Bloomberg reported.
“This year we talked about rent control. We talked about the city’s budget. We talked about police priorities, and we had a record of action to run on,” she said at the time.
Kozachenko only served one two-year term and eventually moved to Pittsburgh, where she remained involved in gay activism and met her longtime partner, MaryAnn Geiger.
“I am so proud of all the activists that came after me,” Kozachenko told NBC News last year. “The people that pushed and pushed and pushed for gay marriage, the transgender people that have pushed for their rights … I’m grateful for the chance that I was able to play a small part in this.”
‘Wings’ (1927)
First male-male kiss in a Hollywood movie
Charles “Buddy” Rogers and Richard Arlen during the filming of “Wings” in 1927.Hulton Archive / Getty Images
William A. Wellman’s silent film “Wings,” the first movie to win the Academy Award for best picture, follows Jack (Charles Rogers) and David (Richard Arlen) as they enlist in the Army Air Service during World War I and bond during basic training before being shipped off to France.
While they’re ostensibly romantic rivals for “it girl” Clara Bow, neither “shows as much love for her … as they do for each other,” queer writer Kevin Sessums wrote, according to the LGBT History Project blog.
In the pre-Hays Code film’s climax, Jack accidentally shoots down David, who has commandeered a German biplane. Running to his dying friend’s side, Jack takes David in his arms and begs forgiveness. As the camera zooms in, the two stroke each other’s hair tenderly and Jack declares, “You know there is nothing in the world that means so much to me as your friendship.”
The men share a lingering closed-lip kiss before Jack takes his final breath.
“While the relationship is referred to repeatedly as a friendship, the acting and directing of the film make it obvious that the men’s feelings were romantic,” wrote culture critic and curator Francesca Seravalle. “A swell of romantic string instruments plays in the background as Jack mourns over Dave’s still body. The directing choices made by Wellman humanized both characters and allowed the audience to experience the tragedy without exploiting the perceived exoticness of a relationship between two men.”
One, Inc. v. Olesen
First U.S. Supreme Court ruling to address homosexuality
Founded in 1952, ONE, Inc. was one of the earliest gay rights organizations in the United States and the first to have its own offices.
An accompanying magazine, One Magazine, started publication in 1953 — selling through subscriptions and at Los Angeles newsstands — and is considered the first mass-produced gay publication in America.
In October 1954, L.A. Postmaster Otto K. Olesen refused to deliver the magazine, declaring it “obscene, lewd, lascivious and filthy.” ONE sued but lost the case and a subsequent appeal — a panel of federal judges declared “Sappho Remembered,” a lesbian love story that ran in one issue, “nothing more than cheap pornography calculated to promote lesbianism.”
Founding editors Dale Jennings and Don Slater appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which, surprisingly, agreed to hear their case.
On Jan. 13, 1958, without even hearing oral arguments, the justices issued a terse, one-line ruling reversing the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision and affirming that the mere subject of homosexuality was not obscene.
In a Washington Post op-ed in 2014, Brookings Institution fellow Jonathan Rauch called One, Inc. v Olesen “the seminal gay rights case in America — the one that extended First Amendment protection to gay-related speech.”
Marcia Kadish & Tanya McCloskey
First same-sex couple legally married in the United States
Marcia Kadish, left, and Tanya McCloskey after being pronounced wife and wife at Cambridge City Hall in Massachusetts on May 17, 2004.Dina Rudick / Boston Globe via Getty Images
On Nov. 18, 2003, Massachusetts became the first state to recognize same-sex marriage when, in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the state Supreme Court ruled it could not “deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry.”
“Recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of the same sex will not diminish the validity or dignity of opposite-sex marriage,” wrote Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, “any more than recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of a different race devalues the marriage of a person who marries someone of her own race.”
The first licenses were issued on May 17, 2004, and McCloskey and Kadish, who had already been together nearly 20 years at that point, picked theirs up a few minutes after midnight. With a waiver that allowed them to skip the traditional three-day waiting period, the women exchanged vows later that morning at Cambridge City Hall.
“We felt we were married already,” Kadish told NPR’s “Morning Edition” in 2019. “This was just making it legal.”
At least 78 same-sex couples married in Massachusetts that day — the same day President George W. Bush called for a congressional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
“The sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges,” Bush said in a statement. “All Americans have a right to be heard in this debate.”
It wasn’t until 2015 that McCloskey and Kadish’s union was recognized federally, when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively made same-sex marriage the law of the land in Obergefell v. Hodges.
By that time, McCloskey had been diagnosed with endometrial cancer. The disease spread quickly, and she died on Jan. 6, 2016.
“We wanted to lead by example, not that we were leaders of anything,” Kadish told NPR. “We just wanted to make sure that the world saw the most positive side of being a gay couple.”
One day before the first Christopher Street Liberation Day march in New York, the Windy City hosted the world’s first Pride march on June 27, 1970 — albeit a much smaller one than the Big Apple’s. The half-mile procession officially went from Washington Square Park to the Water Tower at the bustling intersection of Chicago and Michigan avenues, but many participants continued down to the Civic Center plaza (now Daley Plaza).
Once there, about 150 people listened to speeches at the plaza before doing a “chain dance around the Picasso statue as the marchers shouted, ‘Gay power to gay people,’” the Chicago Tribune reported.
Chicago Gay Liberation, which organized the event, chose the date because the Stonewall uprising had started on the last Saturday in June the year prior. The members also wanted to reach the biggest crowd of shoppers on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile.
Today, the Chicago Pride Parade takes place on the last Sunday of June, drawing more than 800,000 people to North Halsted Street, long known as “Boystown.”
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir
First out LGBTQ prime minister
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir speaks with the media after winning the elections on April 25, 2009 in Reykjavik. Olivier Morin / AFP via Getty Images
While gay finance minister Per-Kristian Foss was briefly in charge of Norway in 2002 when both the prime minister and foreign minister were traveling abroad, Iceland’s Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is the world’s first openly LGBTQ elected head of state.
A former flight attendant, Jóhanna was first elected to the Althingi (Iceland’s parliament) in 1978 as part of the Social Democratic Party. Throughout her career, she has also served as deputy speaker of the Althingi, vice chair of the SDP and minister of social affairs.
On Feb. 1, 2009, Jóhanna was formally sworn in as Iceland’s first female prime minister and the first out LGBTQ world leader in modern history. She served from 2009 to 2013, steering the country’s economy “back on solid footing” after the massive financial crisis, according to Britannica, with the country’s GDP growing 3 percent in both 2011 and 2012.
She and girlfriend Jónína Leósdóttir entered into a civil union in 2002. In 2010, when Iceland recognized same-sex marriage midway through Jóhanna’s tenure, the pair became one the first same-sex married couples in the country.
Society for Human Rights
First officially recognized gay rights group in the U.S.
German immigrant Henry Gerber launched the Society for Human Rights out of his Chicago home in 1924 and received an official charter from the state of Illinois, making it the first incorporated group devoted to gay rights in the U.S.
Stationed in his former homeland during World War I, Gerber witnessed Berlin’s thriving gay subculture and was influenced by the work of pioneering sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld.
Returning to the States, he took a job with the post office and founded the society out of his apartment at 1710 N. Crilly Court in Chicago’s Old Town Triangle neighborhood.
But the organization lasted less than a year, disbanding in 1925 after police raids on both a member’s home and Gerber’s apartment. Gerber was fired from the post office and eventually moved to New York, where he continued advocating for gay rights until his death in 1972.
In 2015, Gerber’s Chicago home was designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service.
Renée Richards
First transgender tennis player to compete in the U.S. Open
Dr. Renée Richards reaches for a backhanded return during a match with Australia’s Lesley Hunt in the $100,000 Women’s Professional Tennis Tournament at Walter Brown Arena.Bettmann / Bettmann Archive
Renée Richards was set to play in the 1976 U.S. Open until officials learned she was assigned male at birth and attempted to ban her from competing.
Richards had been a tennis prodigy from a young age, playing in the men’s Open several times and even making the semifinals in 1972. A successful ophthalmologist, she medically transitioned in 1975 and began living as Renée Richards (the name Renée meaning “reborn”).
She kept a fairly low profile — entering a 1976 competition as Renée Clark — but her transition was “outed” in a local news report by San Diego reporter Dick Carlson, father of Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson. Fans rooted against her, with shirts reading “Go away, Renee,” and late-night talk show hosts made crude jokes.
When Richards entered the Tennis Week Open in 1976, 25 of the 32 women in the competition withdrew.
To keep Richards off the court, the United States Tennis Association started demanding a chromosome test for all female players. She challenged that policy in a case that went before the New York Supreme Court.
Mirroring arguments made by groups seeking to ban transgender athletes today, the USTA argued it was trying to maintain “fairness” in the face of “as many as 10,000 transsexuals in the United States and many more female impersonators or imposters” who would be eager to snatch “millions of dollars of prize money.”
Billie Jean King, who had played doubles with Richards, testified that she “does not enjoy physical superiority or strength so as to have an advantage over women competitors in the sport of tennis.”
In a landmark victory, the court ruled in Richards’ favor.
“When an individual such as plaintiff, a successful physician, a husband and father, finds it necessary for [her] own mental sanity to undergo a sex reassignment, the unfounded fears and misconceptions of defendants must give way to the overwhelming medical evidence that this person is now female,” Judge Alfred Ascione wrote in the majority opinion.
Two weeks later, Richards played in the 1977 U.S. Open, where she lost to Wimbledon champ Virginia Wade in the first round. She did reach the doubles finals with Betty Ann Stuart, but the pair lost to Betty Stöve and a fiery new upstart named Martina Navratilova.
Four years later, Renée Richards retired from professional tennis at age 47. She continued her thriving ophthalmology practice and even coached Navratilova to two wins at Wimbledon.
Karl M. Baer
First person to surgically transition
Born in 1885 to a Jewish family in Arolsen, Germany, Baer was assigned female at birth, though the midwife told his father the baby’s body had “such strange” characteristics it was impossible to determine the gender.
In his 1907 autobiography, “Memoirs of a Man’s Maiden Years,” published under the pseudonym N.O. Body, Baer wrote about being ostracized at school and feeling ill at ease in his assigned sex.
While he is often referred to as transgender, today Baer would more accurately be considered intersex.
“I was born as a boy and raised as a girl,” he wrote. “One may raise a healthy boy in as womanish manner as one wishes and a female creature in as mannish; never will this cause their senses to remain forever reversed.”
In 1904, Baer moved to Hamburg to work as a social worker with the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. It was there that he began living as a man.
“I introduced myself as a man, never as a woman,” Baer wrote. “What am I really? Am I a man? Oh God, no. It would be an indescribable delight if I were. But miracles don’t happen anymore these days.”
Two years later, Baer was in a trolley accident in Berlin. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors realized his ID listed him as female despite his presenting as male. They connected him with Magnus Hirschfeld, who diagnosed him as “a man who was mistakenly identified as a woman.”
With a permit from the Prussian Interior Ministry, Baer underwent a multistage gender confirmation procedure, Haaretz reported, though the exact details of the surgery are unknown. He was released from the hospital in December 1906 with a medical certificate identifying him as male. The following year, court clerks in Arolsen issued him a new birth certificate.
Others had transitioned socially before, but Baer “was unusual in that he used medical technology and surgical means to change his gender,” transgender historian Iris Rachamimov told Haaretz.
Brooke Blurton
First bisexual “Bachelorette”
Brooke Blurton on June 19, 2019 in Perth, Australia.Faith Moran / GC Images
Since “The Bachelor” debuted on ABC in 2002, the marital-minded franchise has spawned multiple spinoff series and over 30 international editions. But it wasn’t until the upcoming season seven of “The Bachelorette Australia” that producers tapped an out member of the LGBTQ community to headline the show: 26-year-old Brooke Blurton, who is bisexual.
For the first time in the franchise’s history, the star will choose among both men and women during the rose ceremony.
“I am not too sure if Australia is ready for it,” Blurton, who previously appeared on the Down Under versions of “The Bachelor” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” told The Daily Telegraph. “I certainly am. If it makes people feel uncomfortable in any way, I really challenge them to think about why it does.”
Blurton, a Noongar Yamatji woman from Western Australia, will also be the first Indigenous woman on the show.
“We are a nation of people from so many different backgrounds, so many different cultures and so many different experiences, yet we all have one thing in common — we all want to be loved in a way that is meaningful to us,” “Bachelorette” host Osher Günsberg said in a statement. “I can’t wait to get started on helping our Bachelorette Brooke find that kind of love.”
Long before the push for marriage equality truly began, before Obergefell v Hodges, before the Defense of Marriage Act, there was Jack and Michael McConnell.
This year Jack and Michael will celebrate 51 years of happy marriage, making them longest-wed same-sex couple in the world. They were also the very first.
Thanks to a clever legal loophole they managed to do it as early as 1971, exchanging vows before a Methodist pastor and a dozen guests in a friend’s apartment.
Their journey began in 1966, at a Halloween party in Oklahoma where the pair first laid eyes on each other.
“I was looking for the three T’s: tall, thin and 23. And believe it or not, at 24, I thought that time had passed me by!” Jack laughs. “But there was Michael, and the three T’s were standing right in front of me.”
Michael wasn’t quite as enamoured at first, though.
“Well, I was a little taken aback, because Jack had been in the Air Force and he had his hair in a really short, flat top style,” he said. “At that time most people in our community were doing the long Beatles-type hair. So I looked at him and thought, ‘I don’t know about this guy.’
“But my friend Cruz said, ‘Michael, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You two are destined to be together.’ And I think Cruz was absolutely right.”
Sure enough, their love blossomed as the couple went to movies or plays or secret parties with friends, always careful to stay under the religious radar to avoid attacks. After a year together Jack came to Michael with a proposal: he wanted someone to grow old with.
The question caught Michael off guard. “OK, I will commit,” he said, “but only on one condition. If we’re going to do this, you must try to find a way for us to get legally married.”
Jack gave him a long look, then said simply: “Well, I guess I’m going to law school.”
The first rule of law school was simple – what’s not forbidden is permitted. Jack seized upon this, realising the statutes only referred to marriage between “two parties”, not man and woman, which meant he could technically apply for a marriage license.
When their first attempt in 1970 was denied they fought it in the Supreme Court, where they lost their case in a one-sentence dismissal: “The appeal is dismissed for want of a substantial federal question.”
Undeterred, the couple simply figured out another loophole.
First Michael legally adopted Jack, which gave them inheritance and other legal protections. Then Jack changed his first name to the gender-neutral “Pat Lyn”, and Michael went to apply for a license alone. And this time, it worked.
The pair were wed before officials could change their mind; unfortunately, when it was revealed that Jack and Michael were both men, those officials declared the license invalid. Jack refused to accept their decision.
“Something as simple and totally obvious to a law student was not that obvious to the rest of the world,” he said. “It was a fight. We’ve been fighting ever since.”
It was years before the homophobic rhetoric of the AIDS crisis; many people were simply curious and peppered them with questions. How exactly did their relationship work, they asked, and what did they want to accomplish?
More often than not, straight couples would shyly approach them after the event for advice about intimacy problems.
“We actually did not encounter any bullying or any harm at all,” Jack recalls.
“Because what we spoke to was love, our commitment and our relationship, almost everyone could understand that,” Michael says, finishing his husband’s thought.
We’ve jerked everybody 45 years into the future
Ultimately though, Jack and Michael McConnell were just a few decades ahead of their time.
As the 70s passed and marriage equality was no closer, Jack says they realised “we’ve jerked everybody 45 years into the future, and it’s gonna take them a while to catch up”.
The couple eventually took a step back to focus on their careers and allow a new generation of LGBT+ activists to continue the fight. But they never lost sight of their goal, and refused to accept their marriage was invalid.
And nearly five decades later, they were finally proven right. The Supreme Court referenced them by name in the momentous marriage equality battle, Obergefell v Hodges, which officially overturned the case against their marriage.
“I saw it as vindication,” Jack said. “I knew from day one we’d followed the letter of the law, and [the Supreme Court] verified that what was intuitively obvious to a second year law student in 1971 was indeed correct. It only took, what, 40 years?”
But even so, they can’t help but draw parallels between their experience and today’s struggle for trans rights.
“These right-wing crazies can’t attack gay marriage anymore, because it means attacking people like Jack and me, or their brother, their uncle, their aunt, their cousin. So now they’re going to try to find other people that they can label and lie about,” Michael said.
“And it’s not going to work. I can tell you, it’s not going to work, because it’s not natural. We’re all human beings. As long as we stand together, they’re not going to win.”
Now they’re leaving the fight to younger generations who are battling for the next round of LGBT+ rights – and it’s for these people that they’ve penned a book about their lives.
“We wanted to leave a story for them about how you can find your way and find the love you want,” Michael said.
“What I see in younger generations now is inspiring: they’re highly intelligent, they’re well connected all around the planet. And they have a vision that I agree with. It’s one that is based on love, not only for one another, wherever we come from, but for this planet that sustains us all.
“You can’t ask for more than that.”
Jack and Michael McConnell’s book, “The Wedding Heard ‘Round The World: America’s First Gay Marriage,” is out now in Paperback Original.
A former foster child adopted by two fathers after being abandoned for his sexuality has urged Congress not to stand in the way of loving LGBT+ families like his.
On Wednesday Weston Charles-Gallo, a former youth ambassador for the Human Rights Campaign, bravely testified in support of the bipartisan Every Child Deserves a Family Act (ECDF).
he bill would prohibit any federally-funded child welfare services from discriminating against prospective parents based solely on their sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status, as well as the sexuality or gender identity of the child involved.
This law is critical for young people like Weston, who entered the foster care system at 14 when his parents neglected him for coming out as gay. He experienced a year of hospitalisations, shelters and foster home placements before finally, at 15, he received the amazing news: “I was going to be adopted.”
“I have since learned that many, many LGBT+ foster youth never get that news,” he told lawmakers.
Weston was lucky: he found a loving home with two fathers and six siblings, who gave him the love and support he needed to grow into his authentic self.
“My dads showed me what it was like to witness a true marriage and live a normal life, expressing the meaning of family,” he said. “Before I lived with them I never pictured myself marrying someone or even having a family, but they proved to me that anything is possible.
“Without them in my life constantly supporting and encouraging me I don’t know where I would be, or even if I would be alive today. I finally found a home where I can live my authentic self.”
He stressed that in the conversation about same-sex couples fostering and adopting, all too often the message of giving needy children “safety, stability and love” is forgotten.
Why keep qualified parents from giving children the lives they deserve but never imagined?
“I urge committee member to focus on that mission, not on the personal beliefs of adults,” Weston said.
“If it wasn’t for my two dads taking a chance on me and helping me embrace my sexual orientation, the colour of my skin and who Weston is, I wouldn’t be here to share my story.
“When a child enters the foster care system they just want to find a family that loves them unconditionally and supports them continuously. Why keep qualified parents from giving children the lives they deserve but never imagined? Because that is exactly what my fathers did for me.”
Many states like Florida, Utah, Mississippi, Nebraska and Utah have policies that directly disadvantage LGBT+ and unmarried parents, leaving children vulnerable to the individual biases of agencies and case workers.
As well as increasing adoption rates, proponents of the ECDF bill say it would decrease risk factors for youth in foster care, yielding an annual cost savings of $3-$6 billion.
But most importantly, the legislation is about putting the needs of the child before all else.
“We should find more loving families like my dads that can be affirming of all kids in care,” Weston told members of Congress. “I want to ask all policy makers, foster care parents and social workers to take the time to put yourself in our shoes and think about what you wanted as a child.
“LGBT+ youth aren’t going anywhere, we’re here, and we’re asking to be heard and loved for who we are.”
An estimated 476,000 transgender adults in the U.S. are without any form of identification with the correct gender marker, according to a new report by the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law. Michigan has the highest percentage of transgender adults without an ID that lists the correct gender (78%), and Delaware has the lowest (31%).
Using data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS), researchers estimated the number of transgender people nationally and by state without accurate IDs and examined the relationship between state-level policies and having accurate IDs.
Findings show that transgender people in states with the fewest policy barriers to updating their gender marker are significantly more likely to have accurate birth certificates and driver’s licenses than those in states with the most barriers. States with the most burdensome requirements may require proof of gender-affirming surgical care to update a gender maker. States with less burdensome requirements may require individuals to fill out specified forms or submit an affidavit.
“Having inaccurate IDs can lead to harassment and discrimination for transgender people, which can negatively impact mental health,” said lead author Jody L. Herman, Scholar of Public Policy at the Williams Institute. “State and federal policymakers should enact policies that make gender marker changes on IDs less burdensome and more accessible for transgender people.”
KEY FINDINGS
55% of respondents to the 2015 USTS did not have any IDs with the correct gender marker.
In states with the fewest policy barriers, 47% of transgender people have corrected the gender markers on their driver’s licenses, compared to 26% of those living in states with the most policy barriers.
In states with the fewest policy barriers, 16% of transgender people have corrected the gender markers on their birth certificates, compared to 8% of those in states with the most policy barriers.
26% of transgender people with an incorrect gender marker on their driver’s license had the name or gender on their ID questioned by TSA officers, compared to 9% of those with the correct gender marker.
18% of those with an incorrect gender marker on their passport had the name or gender on their ID questioned by TSA officers, compared to 6% of those with the correct gender marker.
Currently, 20 states and the District of Columbia allow a gender marker of “X” on driver’s licenses, and 13 states allow an “X” gender marker on birth certificates.
