There were few surprises on the list of senators who voted against Pete Buttigieg’s cabinet position, as almost every single one has a history of opposing LGBT+ rights.
Pete Buttigieg – a.k.a. Mayor Pete – became America’s first openly LGBT+ cabinet member on Tuesday (2 February) when he was confirmed as secretary of transportation by a vote of 86-13.
All of the 13 lawmakers who sought to block Pete Buttigieg are Republicans, almost exclusively from the South – and almost all are overtly anti-gay.
The votes came from senators Richard Shelby and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama; Tom Cotton of Arkansas; Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida; Roger Marshall of Kansas; Bill Cassidy of Louisiana; Josh Hawley of Missouri; James Lankford of Oklahoma; Tim Scott of South Carolina; Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee.
Most of the sorry anti-Pete-Buttigieg list were scored zero on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard, which grades members of Congress on their support for LGBT+ rights, or lack thereof. Only Tuberville and Hagerty didn’t receive zero, because they have not been in elected office long enough.
Eight of the senators have explicitly opposed same-sex marriage; one of the few who hasn’t, Josh Hawley, has instead pledged to aid officials who oppose it. Almost all back religious freedom and the right to discriminate against LGBT+ people.
One senator, Florida’s Rick Scott, expressed comparatively progressive views in the wake of the Pulse massacre, but even his sincerity has been questionedby the LGBT+ community.
The most egregious anti-LGBT+ record undoubtedly belongs to Ted Cruz, who has spent most of his political career fighting against equality.
Back in 2017 Cruz joined forces with another of Buttigieg’s opponents, Marco Rubio, in calling for Trump to implement an anti-LGBT+ order to permit discrimination.
This deeply homophobic bill was also signed by James Lankford, Bill Cassidy and Tim Scott – three more names who voted against Buttigieg, a coincidence so predictable it stretches the definition of the word.
Meanwhile Marsha Blackburn co-chaired the committee that drafted the 2012 Republican platform, considered the most anti-gay in history.
And then there’s Tom Cotton, who’s previously argued that LGBT+ people can’t complain about discrimination in the US because they’d be hanged in Iran. “I think it’s important that we have a sense of perspective,” he said empathetically in 2017.
We couldn’t possibly say whether their votes against Buttigieg were motivated by anti-LGBT+ sentiment, but their political records certainly speak for themselves.
The Senate is poised to approve Pete Buttigieg to be transportation secretary, the first openly gay person ever confirmed to a Cabinet post, tasked with advancing President Joe Biden’s wide-ranging agenda of rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and fighting climate change.
Buttigieg’s nomination was set for a final vote Tuesday in the full Senate, after the 39-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Biden’s one-time rival in the Democratic presidential primaries received bipartisan praise at his confirmation hearing last week.
UPDATE: The vote was 86-13 with one vote outstanding at this writing. Voting against in the order it was announced: Cotton, Cruz, Cassidy, Marshall, Scott (FL), Tuberville, Shelby, Hawley, Blackburn, Rubio, Scott (SC), Haggerty, Lankford.
It is hard to believe that an island of only 100 x 35 miles has the highest hate crimes rate in the United States. In 2020, six of the 44 deaths that occurred on the island consisted of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. These deaths represent the majority of the murders of trans people that happened in the U.S. in 2020. Followed by Florida (4), Louisiana (4), Ohio (3), Texas (3), New York (3) and 17 other states. Puerto Rico is the U.S. jurisdiction with the most murders of trans people, according to statistics from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Puerto Rico between 2019-2020 also saw at least 12 killings of LGBTQ people, the highest rate of deaths the island has seen in a decade.
Why is this? Why is a Caribbean island with so much multicultural diversity experiencing this level of hate crimes against the trans community and cases of gender-based violence? It is difficult to understand, when you see that Puerto Rico was ranked among the 30 top LGBTQ travel destinations in the world and also when Puerto Rico has the highest overall LGBTQ policy tally among the U.S territories, according to the Movement Advancement Project. MAP is an independent, nonprofit think tank that provides rigorous research about equality in the world. Puerto Rico was placed in a “high” category of LGBTQ policies, along with 18 states and the District of Columbia. The other four territories have a “low” LGBT policy tally scores, as do the other 21 U.S. states. Gender-based violence has also become even more common in Puerto Rico with at least 5,517 female victims recorded, according to the organization Gender Equality Observatory. Also, Puerto Rico has a high level of legislation, protocols and regulations towards gender-based violence or/and domestic violence in comparison to other jurisdictions in the world. However, history has shown us in a very hard way that public policies and laws are just worthless piece of papers when you have a systematic evil in your society, like racism, homophobia and machismo.
Back when I was leading the governor’s LGBT Advisory Board in Puerto Rico (created in 2018), we launched an investigation of how public policies related to equality and LGBTQ rights were being enforced by public institutions. Unfortunately, 99 percent of the public institutions that were supposed to adopt internal protocols and regulations to enforce equality or/and LGBTQ legislations across the island had not implemented any policy. In other words, Puerto Rico had progressive legislation and public policies (e.g. Act 22-2013, to protect LGBTQ workers) but most of them were unenforced laws. Sadly, Puerto Rico is an island full of symbolic laws, which are usually ignored by law enforcement authorities and have no consequences. It’s not only because we certainly have had a history of bad public administration on the island, but because when it comes to certain subjects, the system drags its feet over enforcement. The “system” has never existed to be changed, and that’s why it takes years to do so. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and color never changed the United States’ system, the systematic racism in our culture, or even the belief of the people and the implicit bias of its citizens towards our black communities. We keep seeing today, five decades later, how the implicit racism in our society is still out there, more rampant than ever. Public policies do not do that much in societies without a real will of change from the inside, real and equal participation of the protected populations in the decision-making process, and a comprehensive and permanent educational approach to change future generations. The Civil Rights Act, as many other federal legislations related to LGBTQ rights and gender equality, became a reality after the U.S. Supreme Court decisions. It was like the system, in some way, was forced to get there without been prepared to be there yet. The Civil Rights Act was not a piece of legislation that came from “the People” (represented by Congress), but from a list of judicial SCOTUS precedents based on an economic constitutional clause, starting with Brown v. Board of Education. In other words, legislation opens the door to change the system but not to change a culture. And the same thing has happened in Puerto Rico.
The lack of interest and acknowledgment of public authorities, public officers and decision-makers towards the existence of systematic evils like homophobia and gender-based violence has resulted in the eternal postponement of concerted efforts to eradicate them on the island. It was not until more than a year of demands from feminist groups and more than 60 murders linked to gender-based violence that the government declared state of emergency over the gender-based violence crisis. But why? Why did a simple action like approving an executive order acknowledging a real crisis or emergency take three different governors to do it? It took former Gov. Ricardo Rosselló less than 48 hours to request a state of emergency in 2017 after Hurricane Maria, but more than three years for the government to admit we were losing our fight against gender-based violence? Some people would say that it’s hard for any politician to admit a failure in the administration, as a justification for the delay, but the reality is different and has nothing to do with public administration 101.
In 2015 former Gov. Alejandro García Padilla approved gender perspective curriculum in schools. In 2017, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló eliminated that directive as a political campaign promise to the religious sector of the island. In 2020 the subject (gender ideology/perspective/violence) was brought into the political arena again during the last campaign. However, it was not a subject brought by the own will of the main candidates who had more of a chance to win the elections back then. It was a controversial subject that neither of them mentioned in their political platforms or even addressed before it was brought up during a debate broadcast on national TV. If it were up to these candidates, these subjects wouldn’t have ever been brought into the public discussion. The fear towards the political power of the religious sector and the conservative vote in Puerto Rico is a very controversial one. Informal surveys were held during the political campaign about the gender perspective and ideology issue and most of the citizens in the island answered that they were against it. During the political campaign on the island, I had the chance to meet with the current governor of Puerto Rico Pedro Pierluisi, and we briefly spoke about the LGBTQ subject. His answers were vague and politically correct. Governor Pierluisi didn’t take up the decision of approving an executive order acknowledging the gender-based violence crisis on the island because it was the right thing to do or he had the will to do it, but because he was forced to do so.
The pressure of a promise made during a political campaign, the pressure made by the civil rights sector, the pressure caused by the last recent murder of a woman and the pressure of having for the first time ever a legislature that has more representation (even a minority) from the left-wing were some of the factors that forced Pierluisi to do so, acknowledging that Puerto Rico was having a crisis. There is no genuine will from the government to address issues related to gender ideology and the LGBTQ community because that will doesn’t exist in our society or in our culture either. Politicians are only a clear and direct representation of what is in the society, because they all come from it. Even when Governor Pierluisi stated during a press conference that the executive order was going to include trans women, the final document didn’t include this population. Once again, the invisibility from the government over this population will make Puerto Rico’s path towards cultural competence education and acceptance of the diversity its citizens harder. Puerto Rico is still a very conservative country with a very sexist/chauvinist culture, and in order to change that and eradicate the crisis of gender-based violence and hate crimes, we need to create a very aggressive holistic approach, both from the inside and from the outside. The involvement from protected populations (minorities, women, LGBTQ people …) within the decision-making process is essential and it will be the only effective approach to reach an actual enforce from our public institutions of anything the government approves.
The 33rd annual Creating Change conference hosted by the National LGBTQ Task Force held its events virtually over the weekend for the first time due to the pandemic.
The country’s largest LGBTQ activist conference brought participants from across the U.S. to connect and share knowledge, skills and mutual dedication to ensuring equity for LGBTQ people and other marginalized groups. Hosted by comic Sandra Valls, the multi-day event emphasized the importance of togetherness and intersectionality.
The conference featured special guests like Adrienne Maree Brown, a Black feminist author and women’s rights activist; and American rapper Big Freedia. Dominique Jackson, who plays Elektra Abundance on the hit-TV show “Pose,” also attended.
“The past election has shown us that when we stand together as a force, we will win,” Jackson said at the event. “But you can’t just show up for (an) election and then sit back.”
Topics covered at this year’s conference include the intersections of LGBTQ people and immigration, transgender activism and recognition, aging as an LGBTQ person and fundraising tips for small and large advocacy organizations. The conference also introduced Kierra Johnson as the Task Force’s new executive director.
“As difficult as these last few years have been for us, I think they’ve also given us a map,” Johnson said in Saturday’s “State of the Movement” speech. “I think it’s undeniable how fragile our democracy is. And we’ve got work to do, right? And it is work that the task force is committed to being a part of.”
Rea Carey is set to step down on Monday after 12 years as executive director.
Johnson served as the Task Force’s deputy executive director since 2018. She served as the executive director of Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity for 10 years before working with the Task Force.
Johnson spoke on her excitement for taking on the role and the strength of the “collective power” of LGBTQ people.
“It is precisely because of this collective power that we have a conference that looks the way it looks. It is because of our collective power that we are seeing changes that we never thought possible 10, 15, 20 years ago,” she said.
New policy changes under President Biden’s administration and additional legislation the Task Force and other equal rights organizations are continuing to push forward were highlighted in a variety of webinars.
Task Force Policy Director Liz Seaton in a workshop highlighted the work the organization aims to do in 2021 that includes a focus on police reform, inclusive sex education, promoting economic justice and expanding nondiscrimination protections. Seaton also recognized the several executive orders focused on equity that Biden has signed since the inauguration.
“We are literally in a waterfall of progressive policy change right now,” said Seaton.
Awards were also given to those leading in LGBTQ rights, including Lisbeth Melendez Rivera, a self-described Puerto Rican butch dyke labor organizer, and leather leadership awardee Gayle Rubin. Mama Gloria won the SAGE Award for Leadership in Aging.
Carmen Vázquez, who passed away on Jan. 27 from coronavirus complications, won the SAGE award at last year’s conference. The Task Force this year paid tribute to Vázquez in the “in memorial” portion of the conference.
Upwards of 1,000 people attended the virtual conference.
They were able to interact with one another on the virtual platform, as well as ask questions during webinars and workshops. The Task Force also hosted inclusive caucuses for a variety of identities across religions, occupations and gender identities.
Game nights were held at night, as well as variety shows, where attendees could present their talents.
Half of U.S. states lack basic protections for LGBTQ people, according to a report released Wednesday by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group,
The campaign’s State Equality Index, an annual ranking of laws and policies, found that 25 states lack inclusive anti-discrimination statutes and are considered at a “high priority to achieve basic equality,” the lowest of the report’s four categories. (See a map of the states here.)
“These states are most likely to have religious refusal or other anti-LGBTQ laws,” the report said. “Advocates often further LGBTQ equality by focusing on municipal protections for LGBTQ people or opposing negative legislation that targets the LGBTQ community.”
In addition to nondiscrimination policies, the index also graded states on hate crime laws, transgender health care, anti-bullying policies, parenting and adoption laws and bans on conversion therapy, among other criteria.
The report, based on 2020 data, reflects a slight improvement from 2019, when 27 states were ranked in the lowest category. Virginia moved up two spots to the “solidifying equality” category after passing the Virginia Values Act last February, making it the first Southern state to ban anti-LGBTQ discrimination in employment, housing, credit and public accommodations. Kansas moved up one spot to the “building equality” category after the state’s Human Rights Commission began accepting anti-LGBTQ bias complaints in employment, housing and public accommodations.
The Kansas commission said its revised interpretation of the Kansas Act Against Discrimination was based on Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, last year’s landmark Supreme Court decision that determined federal civil rights law banning employment discrimination based on sex included discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia were cited in the index’s highest-rated category, “working toward innovative equality,” for their “robust LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws covering employment, housing and public accommodations.” That’s the most in the report’s seven-year history, and includes newcomers Hawaii and New Hampshire.
At the same time, at least 185 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in 35 states last year, according to HRC. Four were signed into law, including two in Idaho: HB 500, the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which prohibits transgender student athletes from joining teams that match their gender identity, and HB 509, which bars transgender residents from updating the gender marker on their birth certificates. Federal courts have blocked both laws from being enforced.
This week, the Montana House of Representatives passed House Bill 112, a transgender sports ban nearly identical to Idaho’s, and House Bill 113, which would prohibit medical professionals from providing gender-affirming care to trans minors. Both measures now head to the state Senate for consideration.
“While this year’s legislative sessions will undoubtedly be shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, we also anticipate continued attacks on transgender youth, particularly in relation to athletic participation and access to best-practice, affirming medical care, to continue across the country,” HRC said in a statement.
In the 2021 session, lawmakers in seven states — Florida, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee — have all sponsored measures restricting transgender participation in student athletics. Bills that would penalize or even criminalize providing trans youths with gender-affirming care have also been introduced in five states — Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi, Texas and Utah.
In addition to a trans athlete ban, Republicans in North Dakota also sponsored bills that would prohibit the state from recognizing sexual minorities and exclude same-sex couples from financial assistance with adoption. (The former, HB 1476, was withdrawn on Tuesday.)
“With serious issues like our state’s Covid-19 response and economic recovery, it’s disturbing that legislators are spending so much time attacking vulnerable transgender youth and the LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit community as a whole,” Dane DeKrey, advocacy director of ACLU of North Dakota, said.
Advocates say the flurry of anti-gay bills is in direct response to the election of President Joe Biden, who championed gay rights on the campaign trail and has called the pro-LGBTQ Equality Act a top legislative priority. In his first week as president, Biden has already issued an executive order expanding LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections in employment, education, housing and immigration.
“I think the volume of [anti-LGBTQ] bills is going to dramatically increase, particularly because of what is happening at the federal level,” Kasey Suffredini, CEO of Freedom for All Americans, an LBGTQ advocacy group, told NBC News previously. “For the opposition, this is the only avenue for their narrative that treating LGBT people with dignity and respect is a problem for the country.”
Should Congress pass the Equality Act — federal legislation that would add LGBTQ protections to existing civil rights laws — it will provide “critical baseline protections,” according to HRC legal director Sarah Warbelow, but state laws will still be important.
“State laws are often more robust than federal laws — a federal law may only cover business with 15 or more employees, for example, while a state law can apply to every business,” Warbelow told NBC News, adding that accessing state courts is often easier and cheaper.
“And there are limits to what the Equality Act can do in a lot of areas,” she added. “The federal government doesn’t have a lot of power when it comes to anti-bullying laws, or regulations about updating birth certificates or second-parent adoptions.”
Hate crime charges have been added in a grisly assault last summer that left a gay Louisiana teen in a coma for three days.
Holden White of Lafayette was just 18 when he met 19-year-old Chance Seneca on the gay dating app Grindr. After communicating for a month, the two young men decided to meet in person in late June.
White, a sophomore at Louisiana State University, Eunice, said he invited Seneca over to his new apartment, but Seneca convinced him to come to his father’s house to play video games.
After some awkward conversation, White said his next memory is of being pulled backward by a cord and being choked so severely that “all the blood vessels in my face ruptured” before he passed out.
Holden White in the hospital shortly after his attack.Courtesy Holden White
White said that when he regained consciousness, he was naked in a bathtub looking up at Seneca slicing his left wrist.
“I remember thinking, ‘Well, this is it,’” he told The Acadiana Advocate. “The last words I said to myself were just ‘stay calm.’ Over and over and over in my head I was just repeating to myself to stay calm.”
According to the local news site, Seneca called 911 and told the dispatcher that he had killed a man. He was at the house when officers responded.
White suffered stab wounds, blunt force trauma to the back of his head and cuts on his wrists that were so deep his hands were nearly severed. He spent nearly a month in the hospital and in rehabilitation.
“When I woke up, I didn’t remember anything. I didn’t remember going to his house,” White told NBC News. “The human mind, I’ve since learned, will block out traumatic experiences.”
Since then, details from the encounter have emerged even as his body continues to heal. The scars on his neck, where White said Seneca took the tip of a knife and repeatedly twisted into his throat, have already started to fade.
Holden White.Courtesy Holden White
He’s regained most of the use of his right hand, but his left hand is still numb and doesn’t have full grip strength. His left hand was damaged more severely — the artery and several tendons were severed — and may require more surgery.
He’s also suffered some short-term memory problems.
Seneca was arrested at the scene and charged with attempted second-degree murder, and remains jailed on $250,000 bond.
Police initially declined to include hate crime charges, claiming they believed the attack stemmed from an argument between the two men.
“There were several indicators that point us to the direction that it was not a hate crime,” Sgt. Wayne Griffin of the Lafayette Police Department told The Acadiana Advocate shortly after the initial charges were filed. “Just because of the sensitivity of the case, we cannot go into any more about it.”
Griffin declined to comment further this week and referred NBC News to the FBI.
Alicia Irmscher, public affairs officer with the FBI in New Orleans, said the agency is aware of the incident but would not address whether it was conducting an investigation.
White, however, said he was talking to FBI agents and the Lafayette Parish District Attorney’s Office about the case.
The hate crime charges, which carry an extra five-year prison sentence, were added by the district attorney on Jan. 20.
Despite the police’s initial misgivings, White is adamant he was targeted because he is a gay man.
“He chose to go on the app Grindr,” he told local news station KATC-TV. “He went on an app designated for gay people. He chose to choose someone who is gay and very proud of his sexuality. He said this in prison. He said he chose me because I have a smaller stature and it would be easier to kill me. He knew what he was doing.”
But he’s still frustrated by the police department’s handling of the case and by how long it took the attack to be classified as a hate crime.
“For them to shut it down as a lovers’ quarrel is just unbelievable,” he said. “Let’s say we did get into an argument, which we didn’t, who would go to that point over a dumb argument? To bash someone in the back of the skull with a hammer? To try and slice their hands off?”
He recalled being questioned by officers in his hospital room the day after he emerged from his coma. “They asked me the most brutal questions while I was still sedated,” he said. “They just bombarded me. When I think about it, it’s just sad.”
He also said he doesn’t understand why police failed to provide hospital staff with a rape kit to determine if he had been sexually assaulted. “It scares me that I don’t know and that I may never know,” he said.
He believes his sexuality may be a factor in how the department addressed the case.
“We always have homophobia in southern Louisiana, so if that was a part of it, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “I don’t want to think it, but I can’t help it. When we go to court, I’ll still thank the police for arresting that man, but that’s all I can thank them for.”
Should the case go to trial, White knows he’ll likely have to relive the worst episode of his life. But he says he’s ready for it.
“It’s not a question of me having to think about it again. I have cross shaped scars on my wrist — I’m never not thinking about it,” he said, adding that he’s eager to give his victim’s impact statement.
“I know some people cry, or get upset. I won’t. I’ll talk to him in a proper manner and tell him how I feel. I want him to know he doesn’t scare me. Once it’s done, then I’ll be ready to move past this,” he said.
Seneca’s attorney, J. Clay LeJeune, said the additional hate crime charge came “as a complete surprise.”
“I have received no information from the State supporting this position,” he told NBC News in an email. “We will be entering a not guilty plea to the original and amended charge.”
Seneca’s next pretrial hearing is scheduled for March 2.
Attacks based on sexual orientation represented 16.8 percent of all hate crimes in 2019, the last year statistics were available from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. That represents the third largest category after race and religion.
But reporting of bias incidents is not mandatory, and Lafayette is one of hundreds of cities that reported zero hate crimes for the year.
White said he’s been moved by the outpouring of support he has received, including a GoFundMe campaign for his recovery that garnered more than $100,000.“I didn’t expect to hear from people all over the world — I’ve had people from Australia text me,” he shared. “At the same time, my story was kind of swept under the rug at first. People in my home state are saying they’re just hearing about it now.”
There have also been cruel comments on social media and message threads. White said he’ll sometimes jump into a news article and respond. “They need to hear the full story. What if someone reads that comment and thinks, ‘Oh, maybe that’s the truth?’”
He urges other victims of hate crimes to advocate for themselves and not just rely on the system for justice.
“Never give up — if you stop trying, or you stop talking about your case, it can be swept away and just disappear.”
Carmen Vázquez, a longtime LGBTQ and social justice activist, died Wednesday due to Covid-19-related complications, according to the National LGBTQ Task Force.
She was 72.
“The loss of Carmen tears open a hole in the heart of the LGBTQ+, social justice, immigration, reproductive justice, and sexual freedom movements,” Rea Carey, the task force’s executive director, said in astatement. “I’m deeply sad that one of our movement’s most brilliant activists is no longer with us. Rest in power, Carmen. We will continue your work for liberation.”
Born in Puerto Rico in 1949 to a World War II veteran and a seamstress, Vázquez migrated to New York City in the early 1950s. After graduating from the City University of New York in the early ‘70s with a master’s degree in education, she moved to San Francisco, where she became a leading Bay Area activist.
Vázquez was the founding director of The Women’s Building, a women-led community space that opened in San Francisco in 1971 with the goal of advocating for gender equality and social justice. She then became the director of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the coordinator of LGBTQ services for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
When Vázquez moved back to New York in the ’90s, she continued her activism by serving as director of policy for the city’s LGBT Community Center and helped found the New York State LGBT Health & Human Services Network, a coalition that now consists of more than 70 nonprofit organizations that advocate for queer New Yorkers.
Her accomplishments were recognized last year by SAGE, a national advocacy group for LGBTQ elders, when it presented her with the SAGE Advocacy Award for Excellence on Aging Issues. Michael Adams, CEO of SAGE, reminisced about the moment in a statement this week.
“One of my proudest moments as an activist was presenting Carmen with the annual SAGE Award at Creating Change 2020, in recognition of her lifetime of courage, fierceness and struggle,” he said. “It’s unimaginable that Carmen has passed, but the spirit of someone as fierce as Carmen lives forever and continues to inspire us.”
SAGE plans to rename the award after Vázquez in honor of her decades of work for the LGBTQ community.
In her acceptance speech for the award, Vázquez had shared her hopes for future activists.
“While today or this moment is about me, change is never about one person alone,” she said. “There were countless others who paved the way for my activism and countless others who will follow me and build the bridge to the future. Equality is not enough, justice and liberation are where our hearts and minds should lead us.”
South Dakota Republican lawmakers on Tuesday revived a proposed law that would ban people from changing the sex designation on their birth certificates, even after a House committee rejected the bill that LGBTQ advocates decried as an attack on transgender people.
Republicans in the House forced the bill to be brought to a vote by the full House through a rarely used legislative procedure known as a “smoke out.” At least one-third of the House supported the procedure.
A committee of lawmakers had earlier Tuesday dismissed the bill on a seven-to-six vote after five Republicans joined two Democrats to oppose the bill, which would stop people from changing the sex listed on birth certificates after one year from birth. The proposal will be delivered to the full chamber for consideration by Wednesday.
Law changes that affect transgender people have become a perennial topic in the South Dakota legislature, although transgender advocates say they are making progress in getting their voices heard and issues understood. A handful of advocates gathered in the pre-dawn cold outside the statehouse on Tuesday, waving rainbow and transgender flags.
“I want transgender people to know they have a home here, a family here,” said Seymour Otterman, a nonbinary transgender person who testified to lawmakers on their experience living in the state.
The legislative efforts to address transgender issues were spearheaded by Rep. Fred Deutsch, a Watertown Republican who introduced this year’s proposal. After the bill was rejected in committee, he said he had heard from fellow Republicans that they would like to debate and vote on the bill in a meeting of the full House.
Deutsch pushed a bill last year that would have banned puberty blockers and gender confirmation surgery for transgender children under 16. And in 2016, he introduced a bill that would have limited the bathrooms and locker rooms that transgender students can use.
But Deutsch’s efforts have increasingly struggled to gain traction: His 2016 bill cleared the House and Senate before being vetoed by former Gov. Dennis Daugaard, a Republican; his bill last year passed the House before being halted by a Senate committee; this year’s bill failed to clear its first hurdle in the House and had to be revived by the “smoke out” procedure.
Deutsch defended his efforts, saying he was not motivated by hate but by social importance.
He argued that the state’s judges have struggled with how to handle requests from people who want to change the sex on their birth certificates and that keeping vital records on sex is an important aspect of government business.
South Dakota courts have received 11 requests for updates to the sex listed on birth certificates since 2017, according to the court system.
Rep. Kevin Jensen, a Canton Republican who supported the bill, said he doesn’t feel it discriminates against transgender people, and that a birth certificate serves as an objective record of someone’s sex at birth.
But LGBTQ people see Deutch’s efforts as an attack intended to send a message that they are not welcome in a state dominated by conservative politics. They warned that barring people from updating their birth certificates was dangerous, exposing them to violence, hate and discrimination. They could be unwillingly exposed as transgender when they apply for jobs, housing or health care.
“It’s incredibly disrespectful that we have to address this every year. It’s infuriating,” said Rep. Erin Healy, a Democrat from Sioux Falls. “We are disrupting the lives of a vulnerable population, and I think what we are missing today is empathy and compassion.”
Opponents to the bill pointed out that similar bans, such as a 2018 law passed in Idaho, have been struck down by federal courts as unconstitutional. LGBTQ advocates have also pointed to President Joe Biden’s order reversing a Trump-era Pentagon policy largely barring transgender people from military service as a sign that the federal government is taking a stronger approach to protections for transgender people.
Otterman said Deutsch’s proposed ban did not come as a surprise, even though they are struck by increasing waves of anger and sadness each January when the bills come.
“In most places in South Dakota, it is a very lonely, isolating experience because of this sentiment,” they said.
Healy said bills that delve into transgender issues can be harmful, even if they often fail.
“It’s an emotional roller coaster,” Healy said. “To be so happy and relieved that it died, only to see it resurrected and have that threat all over again.”
The Washington Blade has learned Judy Shepard will testify in support of a bill that would ban the so-called LGBTQ panic defense in Virginia.
The measure — House Bill 2132 that state Del. Danica Roem (D-Manassas) introduced — will go before a House of Delegates subcommittee on Wednesday.
Shepard’s son, Matthew, died on Oct. 12, 1998, after two men brutally beat him and left him tied to a fence outside of Laramie, Wyo. One of the men convicted of murdering Matthew Shepard claimed he became after he made a sexual advance towards him.
Eleven states and D.C. currently ban the so-called LGBTQ panic defense. Lawmakers in Maryland are considering a measure that would prohibit the use of the legal strategy in the state.
Legislators in Montana advanced two bills Monday focused on transgender youth: House Bill 112 would prohibit transgender student athletes from participating on teams that correspond to their gender identities, and House Bill 113 would prohibit health care professionals from providing gender-affirming care to trans minors.
“If passed into law, HB 112 and HB 113 will cause irrevocable harm to trans youth,” Caitlin Borgmann, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, said in a statement. “If these discriminatory bills pass — we will sue, and we will win. Trying to defend laws in court that stigmatize and target trans youth doesn’t seem like a good use of taxpayer dollars to us.”
University of Montana cross country runner Juniper Eastwood, center, warming up with her teammates at Campbell Park in Missoula, Mont., on Aug. 15, 2019. The proposed ban is personal for people like Eastwood, a transgender woman and former member of the University of Montana’s track and field and cross-country running teams. She said the legislation “would make it impossible for other young Montanans like me to participate in sports as who they are.”Rachel Leathe / Bozeman Daily Chronicle via AP file
The bills working through Montana’s Legislature are among an estimated 21 anti-LGBTQ measures that have been filed or pre-filed for 2021 state legislative sessions, according to Freedom for All Americans, an organization advocating for LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections. Many of the bills, like those in Montana, focus on transgender youths.
“I think the volume of bills is going to dramatically increase, particularly because of what is happening at the federal level,” said Kasey Suffredini, CEO of Freedom for All Americans. “For the opposition, this is the only avenue for their narrative that treating LGBT people with dignity and respect is a problem for the country.”
Chase Strangio, deputy director of transgender justice for the American Civil Liberties Union, agreed.
“We often see backlash” after advancements in LGBTQ rights, he said, citing the flurry of measures targeting LGBTQ people after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which expanded the scope of federal nondiscrimination law to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
Strangio said that with fewer opportunities to roll back LGBTQ rights at the federal level under President Joe Biden — who has signed multiple pro-LGBTQ executive orders — he’s not surprised that opponents are zeroing in on the states.
Anti-LGBTQ bills
Republican legislators in over a dozen states have proposed legislation that targets LGBTQ people. The bills touch on athletics, health care and a grab bag of other issues related to queer rights and recognition.
Legislators have also introduced bills to restrict transgender participation in student athletics in Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Dakota, New Hampshire and Florida. The trend carried over from last year, when lawmakers took up the issue in several states. Idaho is the only state to have adopted such a law, and it did so just last year.
Proponents of such bills say it’s about fairness, while opponents say the measures are discriminatory.
Bills that would penalize or criminalize medical professionals for providing trans youths with gender-affirming care have been introduced in Utah, Missouri, Indiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.
“Criminal health care bans are unlike anything we have ever seen before,” Strangio said. “To cut someone off from their health care and make it a crime is pretty much unparalleled.”
In Kentucky, SB 83 would prohibit “discrimination” against any health care provider who refuses to administer care because of a religious objection.
In New Hampshire, HB 68 would expand the definition of “child abuse” to encompass parents’ provision of gender-affirming care, while bills in Alabama, Missouri and Indiana would make it a crime for physicians to give any gender-affirming care to a minor.
Research released in September in the journal Pediatrics found that transgender children who receive gender-affirming medical care earlier in their lives are less likely to experience mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
Strangio said he is alarmed by “how far-reaching these bills are becoming.” For example, a bill introduced by Mississippi state Sen. Angela Burkes Hill would criminalize access to care for young adults up to age 21.
Hill defended the bill on social media as necessary in the face of Biden’s pro-LGBTQ policies: “It should have been passed last year. Who is going to fight for your daughters not to be cheated by biological males deciding to identify as a girl?? Women shouldn’t have to change clothes in front of men either. That federal money will be the carrot. Get ready.”
Other bills that have alarmed LGBTQ advocates include Indiana’s HB 1456, which aims to prohibit transgender people’s access to bathrooms that match their gender identities; South Dakota’s HB 1076, which would require birth certificates to reflect biological sex; North Dakota’s HB 1476, which would codify discrimination against LGBTQ people; and Iowa’s Senate File 80, which would require schools to alert parents if their children are asked by school employees about their “preferred” pronouns.
Pro-LGBTQ legislation
For LGBTQ advocates, the news from legislatures isn’t all bad.
Suffredini expects several states to advance nondiscrimination protections, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan. In Michigan, advocates collected over 400,000 signatures to put a measure on the ballot to extend such protections, and the Legislature has 40 days to amend existing nondiscrimination legislation or the issue will appear on the November 2022 ballot for voters to decide.
Advocates in Arkansas — one of only three states that have no hate crimes law, along with South Carolina and Wyoming — hope an LGBTQ-inclusive hate crimes bill makes it to the governor’s desk this session. Conservatives tried to derail the bill this month because it includes protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In Indiana, the state’s first openly gay legislator, Sen. J.D. Ford, has proposed legislation that would outlaw conversion therapy for minors by licensed counselors. If the bill becomes law, Indiana would join 20 other states and 80 cities in banning the widely discredited practice.
North Carolina cities and municipalities have begun to pass nondiscrimination measures after the end of a moratorium on such local ordinances as a result of a 2017 compromise bill that repealed HB 2, the controversial “bathroom bill.”
New York Senate Democrats are advancing a bill that would strike down an anti-loitering statute, also known as the “walking while trans” law, which allows police to arrest and detain sex workers merely for being on the street. LGBTQ advocates say that the statute is used to harass transgender women of color and that its repeal is necessary to end targeted discrimination. The legislation is on track to pass next week.
Maryland legislators introduced a measure that would make it easier for transgender people to legally change their names.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, an openly gay lawmaker from California, has introduced a bill that would prohibit medically unnecessary surgical procedures on intersex children before age 6. If it passes, the law would be the first of its kind in the U.S.
An ally in the White House
Since he took office last week, Biden has taken several actions applauded by LGBTQ advocates, including issuing an executive order that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity across federal agencies and another that rescinds former President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people’s serving openly in the military.
“The Biden administration is by far the most supportive of LGBT people in U.S. history,” Suffredini said. “He took action on day one to extend protections on day one. No other president has done that. That is a first.”
With Biden in the White House and Democrats in control of Congress, Suffredini and other advocates are optimistic about passage of pro-LGBTQ federal legislation, including the Equality Act, which would grant LGBTQ people federal protections from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, education, use of public space, public funding and jury service.
“We are in the best position we have ever been to update federal civil rights law,” Suffredini said. “Our dedicated opposition knows this, and they know this moment could be coming. This is a last gasp.”
