To some Americans, Buttigieg may just be the man to vanquish America’s demons. In a field of more than 20 candidates—including six Senators, four Congressmen, two governors and a former Vice President—Buttigieg (pronounced Boot-edge-edge) has vaulted from near total obscurity toward the front of the Democratic pack, running ahead of or even with more established candidates and behind only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
Buttigieg is a gay Episcopalian veteran in a party torn between identity politics and heartland appeals. He’s also a fresh face in a year when millennials are poised to become the largest eligible voting bloc. Many Democrats are hungry for generational change, and the two front runners are more than twice his age. But Buttigieg’s greatest political asset may be his ear for languages. He speaks eight, including Norwegian and Arabic, but he’s particularly fluent in the dialect of the neglected industrial Midwest.
The Department of Health and Human Services issued the new rules, extending rights for religious objection against an alleged “culture of hostility to conscience concerns in health care.”
It advises healthcare professionals: “You have the right under Federal law to decline to perform, assist in the performance of, refer for, undergo, or pay for certain health care‐related treatments, research, or services (such as abortion or assisted suicide, among others) that violate your conscience, religious beliefs, or moral convictions.”
Nancy Pelosi: Trump rules are ‘bigoted, downright deadly’
In a statement, Pelosi repeated concerns from equal rights groups, who fear the provision is tantamount to a license to discriminate against LGBT+ people.
The Democratic leader said: “These bigoted rules are immoral, deeply discriminatory and downright deadly, greenlighting open discrimination in health care against LGTBQ Americans and directly threatening the well-being of millions.
“Make no mistake: this is an open license to discriminate against Americans who already face serious, systemic discrimination.
“Since Day One, this Administration has waged a cruel campaign of intolerance and discrimination targeting the civil rights of our most vulnerable communities.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill, May 2, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson/Getty)
“House Democrats fully, flatly reject these attacks on LGBTQ Americans and on the rights of all Americans to get the health care they need and will fight these hateful actions.”
Pelosi recently vowed to pass the Equality Act, a bill that would introduce federal protections outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for the first time.
Her criticism of the healthcare discrimination rules echo those of LGBT+ campaigners.
Human Rights Campaign Government Affairs Director David Stacy said: “The Trump-Pence administration’s latest attack threatens LGBTQ people by permitting medical providers to deny critical care based on personal beliefs.
“The administration’s decision puts LGBTQ people at greater risk of being denied necessary and appropriate health care solely based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Everyone deserves access to medically necessary care and should never be turned away because of who they are or who they love.”
GLAAD tweeted: “The Trump Administration essentially wants to hand people a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people.”
The ACLU added: “Trump’s HHS issued a rule today allowing for discrimination in health care when there is a ‘moral or religious objection.’
“Preventing people from accessing critical medical care may endanger people’s lives, especially trans people and those seeking reproductive care.”
Iowa Republicans have launched an eleventh-hour plot to cut off funding for transgender people’s healthcare.
Republicans in the Iowa Senate launched a surprise attack on Friday (April 26), quietly slipping in an amendment to a crucial healthcare funding bill taking aim at transgender people.
Iowa Republicans ‘slip in’ amendment to cut off transgender healthcare funding
The amendment, penned by Senator Mark Costello, carves a broad exemption into non-discrimination healthcare laws, stipulating that civil rights measures “shall not require any state or local government unit or tax-supported district to provide for sex reassignment surgery or any other cosmetic, reconstructive, or plastic surgery procedure related to transsexualism, hermaphroditism, gender identity disorder, or body dysmorphic disorder.”
LGBT+ rights campaigners say the provisions are a “deliberate and brazen attempt to quietly rollback the rights of transgender Iowans,” handing officials the power to indefinitely block transgender healthcare provisions.
The bill had already cleared the Iowa House before the amendment was slipped in, meaning the funding bill has been cleared to head to to the desk of Governor Kim Reynolds despite calls for a vote in the lower chamber on stripping the amendment.
Campaigners hit out at ‘disturbing’ attack on trans people
ACLU of Iowa executive director Mark Stringer said: “The amendment to the Health and Human Services budget bill is dangerous and harmful. It risks people’s health and lives to score political points.
“Banning Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming surgery would bring significant harm to people who rely on Medicaid and who desperately need this surgery. This is a matter of life and death.
“This cruel amendment has no basis in medicine or science. Every major medical association agrees gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition and that surgical treatment is medically necessary for some transgender people.
“That includes the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the National Association of Social Workers, and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH).
“It is a clear violation of equal protection under the Iowa Constitution because it would discriminate against people simply because they are transgender.”
The bill also seeks to block sex education funding from going to Planned Parenthood, which Stringer warns would “be extremely detrimental for our state and would likely reduce the progress that has been made in reducing the teenage pregnancy rate, among other positive gains in sex education.”
JoDee Winterhof of Human Rights Campaign added: “As a native Iowan, it’s disturbing to see lawmakers in my home state trying to roll back the clock on progress and discriminating against transgender people at the eleventh legislative hour.
“These lawmakers should be focusing on ways to improve the health and wellbeing of all Iowans, not targeting transgender people to win cheap political points.
“Now, Gov. Kim Reynolds should reject this patently discriminatory legislative language.”
Reynolds, a Republican, is yet to say whether she will sign the bill.
In a statement to KCCI, a spokesperson said: “The governor appreciates and will consider all feedback from Iowans on the various pieces of legislation that is now on her desk.
“In the coming weeks, she will review each bill with her policy team and then make a decision.”
Four transgender activists are suing the state of Tennessee over an anti-trans policy that prevents them from changing their gender on birth certificates.
A lawsuit was filed on behalf of the transgender activists last week by Lambda Legal in the US District Court in Nashville.
The lawsuit argues that refusing transgender people the right to change their gender on birth certs violates the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the constitution.
It also argues that forcing a transgender person to identify with a sex that is not who they are violates their freedom of speech under the First Amendment.SPONSORED
Transgender plaintiff: ‘I deserve to have identity documents that reflect who I am’
Lambda Legal has successfully taken similar cases against Puerto Rico and Idaho in the past, and currently has similar lawsuits pending in Ohio and Kansas.
One of the plaintiffs, Kayla Gore—who lives in Memphis—said the policy means that she has to carry incorrect identity documents.
“In times where anti-trans violence is escalating, especially against trans women of color, I deserve to have identity documents that reflect who I am and don’t put me in harm’s way—the same as anyone would want for themself and their loved ones,” Gore said.
“The State of Tennessee does not get to define who I am by incorrectly identifying me as female on my birth certificate.”
– Jason Scott, transgender plaintiff
The other plaintiffs in the case are Jason Scott and two others who are going by the initials L.G. and K.N.
Scott said that a birth certificate is “an extremely important and necessary document for every aspect of life.”
ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty
The 47-year-old who now lives in Seattle, but is from Tennessee, continued: “I have had to put up with a lot since I decided to live as the man that I am over twenty-five years ago. The State of Tennessee does not get to define who I am by incorrectly identifying me as female on my birth certificate.
“Getting a correct birth certificate in alignment with who I am would be life-changing.”
Anti-trans policy is ‘archaic and discriminatory’
Lambda Legal Senior Attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan said: “Tennessee’s birth certificate policy is archaic and discriminatory. By refusing to correct the birth certificates of transgender Tennesseans, Tennessee puts transgender people in harm’s way and violates our most fundamental constitutional rights.”
“47 states, DC, and Puerto Rico acknowledge the importance of allowing people to have access to essential government identity documents that accurately reflect their sex, consistent with their gender identity. It is time for Tennessee to join them.
“We won’t rest until we remove every governmental barrier to recognizing and respecting every transgender person’s identity in this country.”
A West Virginia assistant principal accused of harassing a transgender student won an appeal to get his job back Monday.
The Harrison County Board of Education voted to reinstate Lee Livengood after voting unanimously last month not to renew his contract at the end of a three-year probationary period, news outlets report.
County Schools Superintendent Mark Manchin said Monday’s decision was difficult and followed “a lot of discussion.”
In November, Livengood allegedly followed transgender teenager Michael Critchfield into the boys bathroom at Liberty High School and said, “You freak me out.” Critchfield said Livengood also ordered him to prove his gender by using a urinal.
The American Civil Liberties Union’s West Virginia chapter has pushed the county for diversity training to prevent similar incidents.
The ACLU said in a statement Monday that Livengood “has demonstrated he is incapable of conducting himself in a professional manner in any environment with children, and he has shown a troubling lack of remorse for his actions. We will be actively monitoring the situation to ensure Michael and the students of Harrison County are protected moving forward.”
Livengood’s attorney, Alex Shook, had argued that his client was unaware of Critchfield’s gender identity and was not told of an arrangement Critchfield had with the principal to use the boys restrooms.
According to Critchfield, the school band was preparing to take an after-school bus trip to Morgantown in November to watch a performance at West Virginia University. Critchfield said he went to the bathroom and checked to see if anyone was standing at a urinal before he went into a stall.
Livengood then opened the bathroom door and asked if any students were in the stall. Critchfield said he replied and when he left the stall, Livengood was standing in the bathroom doorway and blocked Critchfield from leaving.
Critchfield recalled Livengood repeatedly yelling, “Why are you in here? You shouldn’t be in here.”
Critchfield said he replied that it was his legal right to use that bathroom. He said Livengood used improper pronouns when referring to Critchfield and challenged him to use a urinal to prove that he was a boy.
GLAAD, the largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today released the following backgrounder to the national media highlighting the pro-LGBTQ record of former Massachusetts Governor William Weld just after he announced his 2020 presidential campaign. Weld’s announcement now marks the first credible primary challenger to President Donald Trump, the most anti-LGBTQ United States President in recent memory.
Weld’s 2020 entry now makes President Donald Trump the only elected leader from a major political party to be fully anti-LGBTQ, lightning-speed progress from just a decade ago.
“Governor William Weld represents what is needed and has been missing within the Republican Party: a campaign message about acceptance for all marginalized communities, including LGBTQ people,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. “Anti-LGBTQ activists have hijacked the Republican Party for far too long, and it’s past time that voices like Governor Weld’s enter the dialogue. Weld can help usher in a new wave of acceptance for a political party that has been dominated by politicians who have fought against hard-won progress made by the LGBTQ community.”
The Trump Administration has issued more than 100 attacks against LGBTQ Americans in policy or rhetoric since 2017. To see the entire list of attacks on Trump’s attacks on LGBTQ Americans and for more information on GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project, go to www.glaad.org/trump.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: William Weld’s Pro-LGBTQ Record
—Touted his early leadership on LGBTQ rights: “In office, in my case, even though I was then a Republican and not a Libertarian, I was way out there by myself on gay and lesbian rights, starting my first month in office, in January 1991. And for 10 years, no one followed suit. I appointed the woman who wrote the decision holding equality of marriage as constitutionally compelled, which led to the Supreme Court case holding that.”
— Said “marriage equality is dictated by the due process clause and equal protection clause.”
— Created the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.
— Has delivered homilies at multiple same-sex weddings, as early as 2004. “He could never ever understand why or how anyone could care that I was gay,” remembers [his former college roomate], who had Weld give the homily at his June 2004 wedding to Kevin Smith, a former Weld chief of staff. “And he could never understand how it was anyone else’s business but my own.”
— Signed an amicus brief calling on the Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8.
— Supported the Obama administration’s guidance on trans bathroom access: “If bathroom access for transgender people rises to the status of a right that needs protection, then why not?”
Actress Judith Light has been named the 2019 recipient of the Isabelle Stevenson Award for her decades-spanning support for the LGBT+ community.
Light was an early supporter in the fight against HIV and AIDS and worked hard to combat stigma in the early 1980s. She has been involved with numerous LGBT+ organisations over the course of her career, including GLAAD and the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights group.
The award—which is a non-competitive Tony Award and recognises members of the theatre community for their human rights and advocacy work—has previously been awarded to Rosie O’Donnell and Larry Kramer.
“To be so generously acknowledged by The American Theatre Wing, The Broadway League and the Tony Awards, and to be included with these outstanding individuals who have received this honor before me, has been one of the most extraordinary gifts I have ever received in my life,” Light said in a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter.
Judith Light spoke out against HIV/AIDS stigma in the early 1980s
Light became one of the first celebrities willing to speak out against anti-gay prejudice and stigma following the birth of the AIDS crisis. Since then, she has been involved in numerous fundraisers for LGBT+ issues and HIV/AIDS causes.
She has also served on the boards of both the Matthew Shepard Foundation—an organisation that was set up in honour of murdered gay student Matthew Shepard—and the LGBT+ scholarship organisation, the Point Foundation.
“The HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ communities are inspirations and demonstrations of how to be and live in the world; courageous, honorable and uplifting.”
– Judith Light
In addition, she played Shelly Pfefferman in Amazon’s Transparent for four seasons. The show centred around transgender woman Maura Pfefferman, who comes out later in life, and her family’s journey towards accepting her gender identity.
“The HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ communities are inspirations and demonstrations of how to be and live in the world; courageous, honorable and uplifting,” she said in the statement. “They inspire me and it is my privilege to be of service to them. I am humbled by this recognition from my theater family, whom I so respect, honor and love.”
She has been a tireless advocate for LGBT+ people
Light has been a tireless advocate for LGBT+ people for many years. In a 2015 interview with Pride Source, she said that the LGBT+ community had inspired her “to be the kind of person I wanted to be.”
Judith Light (Jemal Countess/Getty)
“I wanted to be authentic and courageous, and for so long I wasn’t,” Light said.
“When I began doing a lot of advocacy work in the early ’80s for HIV and AIDS, I saw the community and the way the community was operating against all odds, against a world and a culture and country that gave them nothing and denigrated them. … I looked at this community and said, ‘This is breathtaking. This is the kind of world and people I want to be around. These are the kind of people I want to be working with.”
The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved a bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal civil rights laws.
The Equality Act, which U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in March, passed the committee by a 22-10 vote margin with all Republican committee members voting against it. The openly gay Rhode Island Democrat in a statement after the vote said “fairness and equality are core American values.”
“This bill affirms those values and ensures members of the LGBTQ community can live their lives free from the fear of legal discrimination of any kind,” said Cicilline.
U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who chairs the committee, spoke in favor of the Equality Act at the beginning of the markup, which is the first time one has taken place for the perennial bill.
“This is long-overdue legislation that will explicitly prohibit discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender non-conforming Americans and strengthen nondiscrimination protections for women and others,” said the New York Democrat.
Equality Act supporters who spoke on a conference call with reporters on Tuesday agreed with Nadler.
“The American dream is broken when all states are not united,” said Carter Brown, founder of Black Trans Men who said he lost his job in Texas because of his gender identity. “All Americans need permanent, explicit nondiscrimination laws in place and enforced.”
The Equality Act would specifically add gender identity and sexual orientation to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act.
The bill has 240 co-sponsors in the House from both sides of the aisle. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has introduced the Equality Act in the U.S. Senate.
“It’s time for Congress to add explicit federal LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections to our nation’s civil rights laws,” said the Human Rights Campaign in a tweet.
Advocates have urged the full House to approve the Equality Act.
New York police are being called on to release body cam footage and more information about the death of Kawaski Trawick, a black bisexual dancer who was shot dead in his own home by an officer.
Trawick was killed on April 14 when a police officer fired four shots into his chest at his apartment in the Bronx, New York.
The 32-year-old was part of the local ballroom scene and had been living in Hill House, a supportive housing unit.
In the days and weeks since, calls for the New York Police Department to release more information about the circumstances of Trawick’s death have intensified.
Jason Walker, an organiser with the HIV/AIDS support group Vocal NY, said that it has “been over a week without full transparency or accountability from the NYPD.”
“Kawaski Travick was a 32-year-old black gay man who loved to vogue and dance,” he told Gay City News.
“Kawaski Travick was a 32-year-old black gay man who loved to vogue and dance.”
—Jason Walker, Vocal NY
“He came to New York City looking for opportunity and he should be with us today. Instead he is dead.”
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who acts as New York City’s ombudsman, has said that he will be requesting body cam footage “to more fully understand what transpired.”
“Transparency is a powerful tool, and it is clear to me that we need full transparency regarding this incident,” Williams told The City.
Timeline of Kawaski Trawick’s death
Trawick was killed after a night of conflicting phone calls to the emergency services.
The first people to arrive at Hill House at 11.06pm were members of the New York Fire Department.
They responded to a 911 call from Trawick, who said he had been locked out of his apartment where there was food cooking on the hob. The firefighters left after letting the dancer back into his home.
Less than 10 minutes later, police officers arrived after a separate call from Hill House’s superintendent and a security guard, who said that Trawick was banging on neighbour’s doors armed with a knife and a long wooden stick.
Kawaski Trawick before his death. (Facebook)
Two officers spoke with Trawick for less than two minutes before tasering him, The City reported.
Police told the outlet that he fell, got up and charged at them with the knife and stick, prompting one of the officers to fire his gun.
Diverging stories surround Death of Kawaski Trawick
While some neighbours have corroborated the official version of events, others have questioned whether the police story is wholly accurate.
“Reports from the local community in the Bronx and those on the scene suggest Kawaski was not a threat to anyone when police arrived at his building,” Carolyn Martinez-Class, a spokesperson for the police watchdog group Communities United for Police Reform, told Gay City News.
“Instead, he was in his room, possibly in a state of emotional distress. His death was preventable.”
She added: “In recent years, there have been far too many cases of emotionally distressed black New Yorkers and other people of colour dying at the hands of NYPD officers.”
“His death was preventable.”
— Carolyn Martinez-Class, Communities United for Police Reform
A close friend, Anthony Smallwood, told the New York Post that Trawick had been acting unlike himself in the days leading up to his death.
“Like yesterday, he was yelling and screaming. He had a knife in his hand, but he said it was for protection,” he told the Post. Another friend, Victor Jennings, told the publication that Trawick had been struggling with his mental wellbeing and had been using drugs.
Vocal NY activist Walker said, speaking to local news channel NY1: “This was an individual who was experiencing emotional distress and he needed help and not a bullet to the chest.”
So far police have not released the body cam footage or the names of the officers involved in the killing.
A white supremacist has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a black trans woman.
Brandon Michael Tyson murdered Brooklyn BreYanna Stevenson in Oklahoma City in 2017.
Tyson, a member of the white supremacist group, the Aryan Brotherhood, will serve his sentence without the possibility of parole.
Judge Amy Palumbo condemned Tyson as she sentenced him on Wednesday (24 April).
‘Your actions show that you’re a liar, a thief, and a murderer,’ Judge Amy Palumbo said. ‘You are a danger to the public. You have been given chance after chance after chance.’
The authorities did not say if they though Stevenson’s gender identity or race were motivating factors in the murder, the Advocate reports.
‘He has no justification’
Stevenson was fatally shot at an Oklahoma City motel on November 27, 2017. Tyson pled guilty to the murder of Stevenson in February.
The defendant had initially claimed that the 31-year-old trans woman had attacked him, though police officers said there was no evidence of a struggle.
Gary Higginbotham, Tyson’s defense attorney, said his client’s drug use was to blame for his actions.
‘Mr Tyson has nothing but remorse for what he’s done to the victim, the victim’s family, and his family,’ Higginbotham told The Oklahoman. ‘He has no justification. It’s just the effects of drug addiction.’
Tyson had numerous past convictions, which include burglary and illegal possession of a firearm.
‘Burying a child is nothing that a parent should have to do’
Several of Stevenson’s friends and relatives attended the sentencing hearing.
Her mother, Vivian Stevenson, described her daughter as someone who ‘lit up a room whenever she entered it’.
‘Burying a child is nothing that a parent should have to do, so with that being said, I never wanted the death penalty for you because I did not want your parents to have to go through what I am having to endure,’ the victim’s mother told Tyson.
‘I do pray that you get life without parole, though, because you have proven by your actions that you do not deserve to be free ever again,’ she added.
According to The Advocate, 27 trans individuals were murdered in the US in 2017. This was on par with 2016 for the deadliest years on record for trans people in the US.
However, the media site says the actual number is likely higher, as many of the victims’ deaths are not reported by the media, or they are misgendered by police.
