The State Department will now grant U.S. citizenship to children born abroad through in vitro fertilization, surrogacy and other assisted reproductive technologies, the agency said Tuesday. The Trump administration had denied citizenship to children born abroad to same-sex parents in several cases.
The State Department under Trump defended a long-standing policy that categorized children born abroad via surrogate as “out of wedlock” even when a couple was married. Several same-sex couples sued the agency for their children’s citizenship, but the State Department continued to enforce the policy.
A man was stabbed with an ice pick in a shocking assault on the New York City subway.
The 28-year-old victim was riding a northbound D train, commuting home to the Bronx, when he was attacked on 5 May, the New York Post reported.
Police said he was attacked after a man boarded the train and sat next to him. The victim moved from his seat because he felt uncomfortable. This action angered the assailant, and he reportedly yelled: “You’re a f****t.”
The victim yelled back: “Suck my d**k”.
Sources told the New York Post that the attacker then stabbed the victim with an ice pick in the stomach before fleeing the train at the West 155th and Eighth Avenue station.
The victim exited the subway at the 161st Street-Yankee Stadium station in the Bronx. He was taken to the Lincoln Medical Center where he is recovering from non-life-threatening injuries.
The New York Post reported the violent attack is part of a recent rash of violence in the New York City subway system.
Another horrific attack happened on the same night – about five minutes after the stabbing – involving an off-duty Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) conductor.
Gerard Sykes, 52, was riding a northbound J train at the Crescent Street station when a man passing through train cars attacked him with a box cutter without warning, according to police.
The New York Post reported Sykes was stabbed in the left eye and ear and suffered from slashes on the forehead. He was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he was scheduled for surgery.
The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) Local 100 has called for New York governor Andrew Cuomo and US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg to step in and provide more funding for police and additional safety measures for the MTA.
The union also released a video of Sykes’ aunt, Cassandra Sykes, pleading with New York City mayor Bill de Blasio to “do something” to protect the public.
Cassandra Sykes said it is not safe for transport workers or the public to ride on public transportation, and that she is “angry as hell”.
“Something needs to be done,” she said. “We cannot keep living like this day after day, worrying about our people that [are] getting up, coming to work for you. Do something. Please. We are begging you.”
The MTA told NBC New York that the spate of violent incidents is a “stark reminder of why the city needs to surge essential mental health services and police officers ASAP”.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) said it had added more than 600 officers underground. The department also said the MTA and union had been scarring riders with overreaction.
However, governor Cuomo admitted in a news conference on 3 May that he didn’t feel safe when he rides on the subway, according to NBC New York. He said: “I am smart. I am New York tough. Don’t lie to me and don’t play meMan as a fool.
Black LGBTQ people face an increased risk of violence and harassment. A new app hopes to help change that.
David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, said Black queer and trans people have to worry about things “most people take for granted and don’t have to think about, like whether or not a barber or beautician is going to say something that might be homophobic, or you’re going to be denied access to a cake because a baker is going to hide their hate behind religion,” he said.
Knowing this, Johns said he has dreamed for years about creating a way for Black LGBTQ and same-gender-loving people to more easily find safe spaces.
That dream became Lavender Book, a web-based app launched Monday and created in collaboration with Out in Tech, a nonprofit for LGBTQ people who work in the technology sector.
Lavender Book’s key feature is a crowdsourced search engine that shows users safe and friendly establishments in different locations. Users can narrow down their search by the service they’re looking for and a list of attributes, such as gender-neutral restrooms, Black- or trans-owned, or LGBTQ-trained staff.
The app is based on the historic Green Book, which was a guide for Black road-trippers published during the Jim Crow era that mapped safe spaces for Black people.
David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition.NBJC
“We know how much uncompensated labor goes into finding safe spaces,” Johns said. “Black LGBTQIA+ folk, and then [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] folks with intersectional identities thereafter, spent a lot of time making phone calls and leveraging community networks to identify places where the likelihood of us being victims of verbal harassment, bias, discrimination or violence associated with actual or assumed sexual identity and gender orientation or expression will happen.”
Some of that, Johns said, is informed by the disproportionate rates of violence against Black LGBTQ people. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing violence against LGBTQ people, found in 2013 that people of color comprised the majority — 58 percent — of LGBTQ and HIV-affected people who reported hate violence to its member programs.
The report also found that Black LGBTQ and HIV-affected people were 1.4 times more likely to experience physical violence and two times more likely to experience threats and intimidation during incidents of hate violence.
Johns said the violence Black LGBTQ people face is nothing new. In the month of April alone, the National Black Justice Coalition reported on the deaths of at least seven trans women — all of them women of color, five of them Black. So far in May, three more trans women have been killed, all of them also women of color.
Since the start of 2021, at least 24 trans and gender nonconforming people have been killed, according to the Human Rights Campaign, putting the year on track to outpace the number of deaths in 2020, which HRC called “the most violent year on record” since the group began tracking anti-trans violence in 2013.
“For so many of us, the spaces we’re forced to move through and the world around us is not welcoming,” Johns said.
One of the beta-testers for the app and a member of NBJC’s Youth and Young Adult Action Council, Sage Grace Dolan-Sandrino, 20, said that as a Black and Latina queer and trans woman, “it is imperative to my survival that I know in what spaces I am safe.”
“Growing up in Washington, D.C., I became familiar with my safe spaces — where to eat, where to shop, and where NOT to,” she said. “Since moving to upstate New York for college, it has become incredibly aware to me that so many of the spaces are not safe. With the introduction of an app and program like this, I may have been able to avoid getting my car fixed by a Trump-supporting, white nationalist, gun-toting mechanic.”
She said that while using the app, she could “easily imagine the profound impact this could have on the safety of being queer in public.”
Peter Redmond, Out in Tech’s New York City chapter head and events producer, said the app is “for us, by us,” because it was built by a diverse team of engineers, product designers and UX designers.
He said he hopes the app grows to include not just businesses like restaurants, but also essential services like health care.
“I have found myself traveling to cities where I’m not exactly sure will I be welcomed in certain establishments, so I’ve definitely had to lean on services like this in the past,” he said. “So to have the Lavender Book now join all of these other services out there, I think it’s only going to just create a better experience for anybody that’s looking for services where they know they won’t be discriminated against.”
Teachers have begun to flee a private school in Kansas City, Missouri amid allegations that the school in question has begun to pressure faculty there to expel gay students.
At least three teachers will not return to Whitefield Academy, a self-described K-12 Christian School, next year allegedly owing to the school’s policy. Whitefield requires all faculty to sign on to a mission statement affirming “core principles.” Initial reports suggested that an amended mission statement would require all faculty to identify gay students at the school for removal.
Now Kansas City newspaper The Pitch reports that school administrators have denied the charges that Whitefield formally requires teachers to sign a statement agreeing to expel gay students. The school’s headmaster, Dr. Quentin Johnston, issued a statement to the press clarifying that the school’s mission statement all faculty must sign does not mention the removal of gay students.
“We have not asked our teachers to sign a statement or letter such as you describe,” Johnston said. “As in past years, we ask teachers and parents to understand and consent to the standards outlined in our Statement of Faith and core documents, which have not been altered in several years.”
Following news of the scandal reaching the press, Johnston also sent a similarly-worded statement home to parents of Whitefield students. In part, it read:
We firmly believe every person has been made in the image of God and should be treated with dignity, compassion and respect. In some cases, there are those who do not understand the biblical principles associated with our core beliefs. Such is the case this week when a news story made claims about our school that were neither accurate nor true.
The Board of Trustees and I want to make sure you, as parents, understand our policies and procedures. To be clear, we have not asked our teachers to sign a statement such as described in the news story. As in prior years, teachers have been asked to affirm their personal belief and agreement with our statement of faith and core documents.
We are also in the process of receiving faculty contracts for the next academic calendar year. As is normal in personnel matters, there are some faculty members who will not be returning, as well as new faculty joining our community in the fall.
Not all parents have accepted Johnston’s assurances, however. One anonymous parent told The Pitchthat while the mission statement itself may not condemn or target gay students, faculty understand they are to be singled out and removed.
“It’s been unspoken I suppose up until now, and now they’re now they’re formalizing that in a way that makes me really uncomfortable,” the parent says. “We know the suicide rates for kids that are not in affirming families. And when I think about those same kids going to school and knowing that every adult in that school has signed a piece of paper saying they are not welcome there, it just hurts my heart to think about.”
At the time of this writing, administrators at Whitefield Academy have not further commented on the school’s policy regarding LGBTQ students. The story is just the latest in a series of headlines about religious, private schools discriminating against queer students. Last year, a Christian school in Texas opted to expel a gay student under a similar onus. That discrimination also extends to secondary schools, with a number of high-profile Christian colleges and universities expelling gay students or worse, forcing them to attend conversion therapy.
The White House announced Thursday that President Joe Biden has nominated Catherine Lhamon to serve as the Assistant Secretary of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.
Lhamon currently serves as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice and Equity at the White House, where she manages the President’s equity policy portfolio. She is a former attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, (ACLU) and served as chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2017 to 2021.
She has also served as Legal Affairs Secretary to California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Her portfolio at Education, where she previously served in the same position under former President Barack Obama, will include LGBTQ rights, sexual misconduct and racial discrimination in the nation’s K-12 schools, universities and colleges. Lhamon was Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, to which President Obama nominated her and the Senate confirmed her in 2013.
“I am thrilled that President Biden is nominating Catherine Lhamon to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. Catherine has devoted her career to ensuring equity is at the core of all her work,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement released by his office Thursday.
“She has a strong record of fighting for communities of color and underserved communities, whether as the current Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council, the former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, or as a civil rights educator at Georgetown University. We are thrilled to have Catherine serving as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and know she will continue to fight for fairness, equity, and justice for all of America’s students.”
Lhamon has also litigated civil rights cases at National Center for Youth Law, Public Counsel Law Center, and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. Lhamon taught federal civil rights appeals at Georgetown University Law Center in the Appellate Litigation Program and clerked for the Honorable William A. Norris on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
“Catherine Lhamon is the right choice to lead the Department of Education’s civil rights division at such a critical time for the country and the agency. There is much work to do in order to roll back the harmful policies and legacies of Betsy DeVos, from her attacks on transgender students to her unconscionable revocation of discriminatory discipline guidance and rewrite of Title IX rules,” Adele Kimmel, Director of the Students’ Civil Rights Project at Public Justice told the Blade in an email.
“During her previous tenure in the same job, Catherine embraced equality, enforced Title IX and ensured students had an ally inside the federal government. She will do so again, and the Senate should move to quickly confirm her so she can begin the work of restoring the Department’s commitment to protecting the civil rights and dignity of students and implementing the Biden Administration’s pledge to undo the damage that DeVos has done,” Kimmel added.
Born in Virginia and raised in California, Lhamon graduated from Amherst College and Yale Law School. Lhamon and her husband and two daughters are transitioning between California and Maryland.
New York City’s annual Pride celebration, which began 51 years ago as a defiant commemoration of an anti-police uprising and has evolved into a city-sanctioned equality jamboree, will take steps to reduce the presence of law enforcement at its events.
Starting this year, police and corrections officers will also not be allowed to participate as a group in the annual Pride march until at least 2025. The ban includes the Gay Officers Action League, an organization of L.G.B.T.Q. police, which announced the news in a statement on Friday night.
The New York Police Department will also be asked to stay a block away from the edge of all in-person events, including the march. Heritage of Pride, which organizes events, will instead turn to private companies for security and safety, calling police officers in emergencies only when necessary, they said.
NYC Pride announces new policies to address the presence of law enforcement and NYPD at Pride events in New York.
NYC Pride seeks to create safer spaces for the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities at a time when violence against marginalized groups, specifically BIPOC and trans communities, has continued to escalate.
The sense of safety that law enforcement is meant to provide can instead be threatening, and at times dangerous, to those in our community who are most often targeted with excessive force and/or without reason.
NYC Pride is unwilling to contribute in any way to creating an atmosphere of fear or harm for members of the community.
The steps being taken by the organization challenge law enforcement to acknowledge their harm and to correct course moving forward, in hopes of making an impactful change.
Effective immediately, NYC Pride will ban corrections and law enforcement exhibitors at NYC Pride events until 2025.
At that time their participation will be reviewed by the Community Relations and Diversity, Accessibility, and Inclusion committees, as well as the Executive Board.
In the meantime, NYC Pride will transition to providing increased community-based security and first responders, while simultaneously taking steps to reduce NYPD presence at events.
Officials at Bucknell University, located in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, condemned a “horrific” incident in which LGBTQ students were harassed at an affinity house last week, according to a statement released by the school on Friday.
The incident took place on Thursday at Tower House: Fran’s House, an affinity house that provides LGBTQ-friendly, gender-neutral housing for Bucknell students.
The letter, signed by university President John Bravman, Provost Elisabeth Mermann-Jozwiak, and Associate Provost for Equity and Inclusive Excellence Nikki Young, explains that a group of male students approached the residence, which formerly housed Tau Kappa Epsilon, a fraternity no longer recognized by the school.
It goes on to say “these men allegedly harassed and intimidated the residents of Tower House while attempting to enter the building.”
“It is clear from multiple accounts that the students violated the physical space and, far more importantly, the residents’ sense of place and security. Further, it is equally clear that Bucknell Public Safety’s response to the incident was lacking in myriad ways,” the letter reads.
The school will not only investigate the students’ actions and submit a report to the Bucknell administration for swift and appropriate consequences, but an outside firm will investigate the school’s Public Safety department’s response to the incident and will implement “corrective and disciplinary measures as appropriate.”
The letter does not identify the students who were victims or the aggressors involved in the incident.
“Many in our community have come together to offer support to the residents of Tower House. This support includes counseling and academic support that may be necessary during finals week,” the letter reads.
In the letter, the school vowed to continue to hold conversations with Fran’s House affinity group students about the future of their housing needs.
A Miami gay bar was sent vile abuse after conservative influencer and Donald Trump fanatic Angela Stanton-King posted a foul-mouthed video criticising a drag show.
In April, Stanton-King posted a video on social media while watching a family-friendly drag show at The Palace in Miami’s South Beach.
Her video shows two young children approaching the drag queen performing to Madonna, before getting on stage and innocently dancing with her.
In the video Stanton-King said: “Why in the hell have these people got these little bitty-a*s kids at this f**king drag show?”
The Palace began receiving violent threats online.
Thomas Donall, owner of the iconic LGBT+ venue, told Local10 that one in particular stood out: “I hope y’all end up like Pulse.”
Donall said: “It’s really difficult for us and heart-wrenching… I mean it just makes me… really sick to my stomach.”
“It was all innocent fun for the girls,” he added. “I mean they were posing with a Madonna show.”
Angela Stanton-King previously spent two years in prison over federal conspiracy charges for her role in a car theft ring but was pardoned by Donald Trump in February 2020.
She also tried to challenge the late John Lewis for his seat in the Georgia House of Representatives, but failed spectacularly with less that 15 per cent of the vote.
Stanton-King, who is viciously anti-trans, has spoken publicly multiple times about her own trans daughter.
Last month, she exploded in a hate-filled tirade over an episode of Dr Phil, after she was invited onto the show to “have a chance to settle your dispute and find a resolution” with her daughter.
Although the episode has not yet aired, Stanton-King took to social media to rant: “F**k Dr Phil. F**k his motherf*****g wife.
“F**k goddamn Paramount studios. F**k all you other crazy dumba*s sons of b*****s that think a d**k is somehow magically turned into a p***y.”
The Department of Homeland Security released a new terrorism bulletin on Friday, warning that far-right extremists are likely to consider attacking protests against police brutality.
The bulletin, issued through the National Terrorism Advisory System, says that domestic violent extremists and white supremacists have been looking for “civil disorder” as an opportunity to commit violent acts “in furtherance of ideological objectives.”
That includes targeting protests about “racial justice grievances and police use of force concerns, potentially targeting protestors perceived to be ideological opponents,” the bulletin reads.
This is the second threat bulletin DHS has issued in 2021 regarding the threat from far-right extremists.
In January, after the Capitol insurrection, DHS issued a warning saying that the Jan. 6 attack had “emboldened” white supremacist extremists and that the threat of violent attacks would likely remain high throughout the year. That’s led to a sprawling DOJ investigation into the matter, as FBI agents continue to pore over video from the attack to try to identify rioters.
Since then, the Biden administration has said that it will make combatting domestic violent extremism a priority. That has thus far come in the form of DHS initiatives aimed at increasing prevention and detection of those who might be willing to commit acts of political violence.
The FBI also released a report on Friday about the threat from domestic violent extremists, saying that the bureau arrested 846 people for domestic terrorism-related crimes between 2015 and 2019.
The bureau also said that, over the same time period, it had produced more than 4,000 domestic terrorism-related intelligence products.
The DHS bulletin centers the role of the internet in motivating domestic terrorists, noting that random people online can call for violence against politicians and “perceived ideologically-opposed individuals” and find an audience receptive to those demands.
That becomes more difficult when combined with the spread of encrypted messaging apps, and with the fact that many potential terrorists are either acting alone or in very small groups of people.
“The use of encrypted messaging by lone offenders and small violent extremist cells may obscure operational indicators that provide specific warning of a pending act of violence,” the report reads.
DHS also warned about the ongoing potential for foreign countries to pour gasoline on pre-existing domestic flare-ups. The bulletin singles out anti-Asian hate crimes as one such issue, saying that foreign nations had been “amplifying calls for violence targeting persons of Asian descent.”
The COVID-19 pandemic also plays a big role in the bulletin. DHS says that the country opening up may give extremists more targets, and also states that media outlets connected to the Russian, Chinese, and Iranian governments had been boosting conspiracy theories about COVID vaccines.
Whispering Wind Bear Spirit, a non-binary Indigenous person, has been shot and killed in York, Pennsylvania.
Whispering Wind has become at least the 22nd known trans person violently killed in the US in 2021, according to HRC, though estimates by other groups are higher and all agree that any reported numbers are likely an underestimate.
According to the Advocate, Whispering Wind was shot in the torso late on Monday, 3 May, while trying to stop an attempted robbery at a home they were staying in.
They were rushed into emergency surgery but passed away in the early hours of 4 May at WellSpan York Hospital.
At least three people were involved in the attempted robbery, police said, and charges of burglary, robbery, and conspiracy to commit burglary and robbery were filed against Oscar Cook, 19, of York. The other suspects have not been named.
York City Police are currently searching for anyone with information relating to the shooting, and their death is being investigated as a homicide. The state of Pennsylvania currently has no law that addresses hate crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
According to Human Right Campaign (HRC), 41-year-old Whispering Wind described themselves as “Shawnee by birth and Potawatomi by relations”, and friends described them as a “a beautiful and kind soul.
Whispering Wind’s close friend Tammy Johnston shared on Facebook: “To anyone that knew her, Whispering Wind Bear Spirit has crossed over the rainbow bridge.
“I loved her very much and will be receiving her ashes. I’ve picked out a beautiful Native American urn with a white bear spirit on it.
“I will be creating a memorial place for her at our cabin, appropriately named the bear house by Sadie. She will finally have a permanent and peaceful home with us.”
HRC director of community engagement for the transgender justice initiative Tori Cooper said in a statement: “We continue to receive reports of transgender and non-binary people who have been killed in the last few weeks.
