Survivors of the mass shootings at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub and a South Florida high school embraced Wednesday outside the club where 49 people were killed nearly two years ago.
“We’re all family,” said Neema Bahrami, who was an event manager at Pulse at the time of the attack.
Pulse survivors, wearing shirts that read “We Will Not Let Hate Win,” stood among Parkland survivors, whose shirts read “Kids First, Politics Second.” The Parkland group hung 49 white roses on the gate surrounding the nightclub, one for each of the victims.
The visitors from Parkland made a stop at Pulse to pay tribute to the nightclub shooting victims and show solidarity with its survivors and activists as part of their trip home from Tallahassee, where they had petitioned lawmakers to reform the state’s gun laws.
If stricter gun legislation had been enacted in response to the June 12, 2016, mass shooting at Pulse, the Parkland survivors argued, they would have been spared the shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14.
Stronger laws should have been in place even before the Pulse shooting, said both sets of survivors, including 16-year-old Annabel Claprood, who was in the first room the Parkland school gunman approached.
“This should have been changed after Sandy Hook,” Annabel said, referring to the 2012 massacre of 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. “Pulse shouldn’t have even happened.”
She testified before state lawmakers Tuesday.
“We’re gonna get it done,” a Parkland survivor said to Bahrami.
“Thank you for keeping it up. It’s exhausting,” another Parkland survivor said. Bahrami held her hands, and they vowed to keep fueling the conversation about gun-control legislation.
State lawmakers rejected an assault-style weapons ban Tuesday, despite the group’s testifying in its favor.
“They just made a huge group of activists out of us who are teaming up with other activists. This community right here,” said Shelbie Seys, who has three children going to schools in Parkland.
Orlando knows their pain and the road to healing far too well, said Mayor Buddy Dyer, who was at Pulse on Wednesday to welcome the group. Dyer said he wanted to show the same love and support that Orlando felt from around the world after Pulse.
Orlando city attorneys have been to Broward County since the massacre, helping School Board attorneys there navigate some issues that confronted Orlando immediately after the Pulse shooting, Dyer said.
Dyer said he favors gun-control legislation.
“If the shooter in the case in Parkland had not been able to purchase that weapon during the course of the last two years, he could not have carried out the act that he did,” Dyer said. “I do support a ban on assault weapons moving forward.”
The nation watched as student survivors organized rallies and delivered compelling testimony. Students got in front of state lawmakers who were in their legislative session, an opportunity Pulse survivors did not have because the shooting occurred in June.
The session begins in January and ends in March.
Construction is currently under way on a “interim” memorial at Pulse that is meant to make it easier for visitors to pay their respects while long-term plans for the site are still being determined.
On Wednesday, Pulse survivor Luis Ruiz befriended Heather Davidson, director of public policy and advocacy for United Way of Broward County. They exchanged numbers and a hug before Davidson boarded the bus.
They stood together for a photo in front of the roses.
“We’re stronger together,” Davidson said. “This needs to stop.”
A US federal court has ruled that civil rights laws protect gay workers from discrimination, after the Trump administration argued it was legal to fire people for being gay.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled in the case of Donald Zarda, a former skydiving instructor who alleges that that his old company, Altitude Express Inc, fired him because of his sexuality.
Republicans in Congress continue to block federal legislation to protect LGBT people from discrimination, but Zarda’s lawyers cited civil rights protections from the 1960s which outlaw discrimination in employment based on sex.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department, headed by anti-LGBT Attorney General Jeff Sessions, made an uninvited intervention in the case, arguing before the court that that civil rights provision, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, does not provide any protection for gay people.
But the court has today gone against the Justice Department’s argument – in a landmark decision for LGBT equality.
The judges, who considered the case en banc, wrote: “We now hold that sexual orientation discrimination constitutes a form of discrimination ‘because of sex’, in violation of Title VII.
“We therefore VACATE the district court’s judgment on the Title VII claim and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
Explaining the decision, the judges wrote: “The Supreme Court has held that Title VII prohibits not just discrimination based on sex itself, but also discrimination based on traits that are a function of sex, such as life expectancy, and non‐conformity with gender norms.
“We now conclude that sexual orientation discrimination is motivated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex discrimination. Looking first to the text of Title VII, the most natural reading of the statute’s prohibition on discrimination “because of sex’ is that it extends to sexual orientation discrimination, because sex is necessarily a factor in sexual orientation.”
The judges added:”Because one cannot fully define a person’s sexual orientation without identifying his or her sex, sexual orientation is a function of sex.
“Indeed sexual orientation is doubly delineated by sex because it is a function of both a person’s sex and the sex of those to whom he or she is attracted.
“Logically, because sexual orientation is a function of sex and sex is a protected characteristic under Title VII, it follows that sexual orientation is also protected.”
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The decision is a victory for the estate of Mr Zarda, who passed away after beginning litigation against his employer.
The judges recalled of the case: “In the summer of 2010, Donald Zarda, a gay man, worked as a sky‐diving instructor at Altitude Express.
“As part of his job, he regularly participated in tandem skydives, strapped hip‐to‐hip and shoulder‐to‐shoulder with clients.
“In an environment where close physical proximity was common, Zarda’s co‐workers routinely referenced sexual orientation or made sexual jokes around clients, and Zarda sometimes told female clients about his sexual orientation to assuage any concern they might have about being strapped to a man for a tandem skydive.
“That June, Zarda told a female client with whom he was preparing for a tandem skydive that he was gay ‘and had an ex‐husband to prove it’.”
Zarda was sacked after the woman complained about his conduct – but brought a lawsuit alleging discriminatory treatment by his employer.
The DOJ had insisted: “Discrimination based on sexual orientation does not fall within Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination because it does not involve “disparate treatment of men and women”.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hashim M. Mooppan appeared before the court this week to argue against gay rights protections, saying: “There is a commonsense, intuitive difference between sex and sexual orientation.”
“Rather than causing similarly situated ‘members of one sex [to be] exposed to disadvantageous terms or conditions of employment to which members of the other sex are not exposed’, differential treatment of gay and straight employees for men and women alike.”
The DOJ also argued somewhat circularly contended that it was clear that existing civil rights law doesn’t protect gay people, because lawmakers in Congress continue to block more explicit legislation “that would prohibit discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation”.
The issue is likely to end up before the Supreme Court.
Donald Trump’s budget plans include a massive slash to HIV funding.
The GOP billionaire has come under fire from LGBT groups following the release of his 2019 budget plans released on Monday.
The budget includes cuts to domestic HIV/AIDS programs, despite the growing needs, including elimination of Special Programs of National Significance (SPNS).
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization, issued the following statement in response to the Trump-Pence Administration’s dangerous and irresponsible FY 2019 proposed budget.
David Stacy, HRC’s Government Affairs Director, said: “Budgets reflect your values. The Trump-Pence budget released today shows a callous disregard for critical programs that impact LGBTQ Americans.
“The elimination or slashing of programs related to the Affordable Care Act, HIV/AIDS, and international humanitarian projects are a direct threat to the safety and well-being of LGBTQ people here and around the world. Congress must reject these harmful proposals.”
Asia Russell, Executive Director of the Health Global Access Project (Health GAP), said: “President Trump’s proposal to cut over a billion dollars from the U.S. global HIV response in fiscal year 2019 shows how very out of touch he is with the American people and their values.
“Americans from across the political spectrum and every part of the country support the U.S. government’s long-standing leadership in funding life-saving HIV treatment and prevention programs in sub-Saharan Africa and across the developing world.
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“If this budget passes as proposed, Donald Trump’s legacy will be millions of new and unnecessary infections and deaths – and a massive resurgence in the AIDS pandemic.
“This is not a time to back down. U.S. funding for global AIDS programs has been critical in reducing deaths and new infections to the point where defeating AIDS is within reach. But after several years of flat funding from Congress, the response is running out of gas. At the very moment we should be on the brink of ending AIDS, Trump’s deadly budget would shift the global AIDS response into reverse.
“Congress should treat this proposal the way they treated the President’s first budget – by declaring it dead on arrival. Instead, Congress should uphold American leadership in the fight against HIV by providing urgently-needed funding increases for PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in the coming fiscal year.”
The budget claims: “At the funding level requested in the Budget, the United States would provide sufficient resources to maintain all current patient levels
on HIV/AIDS treatment.
“U.S. efforts to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic are a direct reflection of U.S. leadership abroad and the goodwill, compassion, and generosity of the American people.”
All members of the council were informed of their dismissal by a letter sent via courier.
Six people had already resigned from the Council en masse in June, saying that Trump and his administration “do not care” about the cause.
The move came after the quiet closure of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, which was shuttered as part of the Presidential transition and never re-opened as Trump failed to appoint a new director.
The White House was slammed by GLAAD over its inaction.
GLAAD tweeted: “It’s time to stop being dismissive of questions about the firing of members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS. It’s time for this administration to prioritize issues related to HIV and AIDS.”
Chicago-based HIV activist Scott A Schoettes, a former member of the council, previously laid into the decision.
He tweeted: “Remaining #HIV/AIDS council members booted by @realDonaldTrump. No respect for their service. Dangerous that #Trump and Co. (Pence esp.) are eliminating few remaining people willing to push back against harmful policies, like abstinence-only sex ed.”
Mr Schoettes accused Trump of “executing a purge” by eliminating the council in combination with other policies. It was reported earlier this month that federal agencies had been banned from using the word ‘transgender’.
In an open letter, the six members of the council who had already quit explained that they had dedicated their lives to fighting HIV and AIDS, but felt that the Trump administration was preventing them from doing this successfully.
They wrote: “As advocates for people living with HIV, we have dedicated our lives to combating this disease and no longer feel we can do so effectively within the confines of an advisory body to a president who simply does not care.”
“The Trump Administration has no strategy to address the on-going HIV/AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate HIV policy, and—most concerning—pushes legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.”
(Getty)
While Democratic candidates for President Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both met with HIV advocates and proposed an action plan on the issue, Donald Trump did not.
The letter also raised objection to Trump’s healthcare policies.
The letter stated: “We know who the biggest losers will be if states are given the option of eliminating essential health benefits or allowing insurers to charge people with HIV substantially more than others.
“It will be people—many of them people of color—across the South and in rural and underserved areas across the country, the regions and communities now at the epicentre of the U.S. HIV/AIDS epidemic.
“It will be young gay and bisexual men; it will be women of colour; it will be transgender women; it will be low-income people. It will be people who become newly infected in an uncontrolled epidemic, new cases that could be prevented by appropriate care for those already living with the disease.”
The group concluded the letter by saying that the resignation was not an easy decision, but one that must be made.
“The decision to resign from government service is not one that any of us take lightly. However, we cannot ignore the many signs that the Trump Administration does not take the on-going epidemic or the needs of people living with HIV seriously.”
The bulk of the cuts are proposed to the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which was set up by former President George W Bush to tackle the AIDS crisis, and is one of the largest providers of funding for global projects battling the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Former President Bush, who is often praised for setting up PEPFAR despite his broadly regressive stances on LGBT issues, penned an op-ed for the Washington Post warning against any cuts.
He wrote: “My administration launched PEPFAR in 2003 to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic that threatened to wipe out an entire generation on the continent of Africa. Nearly 15 years later, the program has achieved remarkable results in the fight against
“Nearly 15 years later, the program has achieved remarkable results in the fight against disease. Today, because of the commitment of many foreign governments, investments by partners, the resilience of the African people and the generosity of the American people, nearly 12 million lives have been saved.
He added: “As the executive and legislative branches review the federal budget, they will have vigorous debates about how best to spend taxpayers’ money — and they should.
“Some will argue that we have enough problems at home and shouldn’t spend money overseas. I argue that we shouldn’t spend money on programs that don’t work, whether at home or abroad.
“But they should fully fund programs that have proven to be efficient, effective and results-oriented.
“Saving nearly 12 million lives is proof that PEPFAR works, and I urge our government to fully fund it. We are on the verge of an AIDS-free generation, but the people of Africa still need our help.
“The American people deserve credit for this tremendous success and should keep going until the job is done.”
An anti-LGBT+ Christian group has purchased a former gay bar – with the intent of converting it into a church.
The popular Bretz Nightclub in Toledo, Ohio, which was one of the oldest LGBT venues in the area, closed suddenly in December.
The vacated venue was purchased for $148,000 in January by the extreme evangelical group, The Greater Toledo House of Prayer.
In a statement on its website, the hateful organisation says: “In October 2017, the ministry became aware that the Adams St. building was available for sale, then toured the building and determined the space would work well for the group”.
The statement claims that the building was purchased purely because of a “lack of space” in its current offices, and denies reports that the group had anything to do with the nightclub’s closure.
(Bretz Nightclub/Facebook)
The group supports what it describes as “basic christian values” including prohibitions on “homosexuality, bisexuality, bestiality, incest, gender identity different than the birth sex chromosomal level”.
In its ‘Statement of Beliefs’ the organisation also says that “God wonderfully and immutably creates each person as male or female”, labelling any deviation from the binary as “a rejection of the image of God”.
The extreme Church is an affiliate of the Kansas-based International House of Prayer, which supports hate legislation against LGBT people, including supporting a law in Uganda calling for gay people to be put to death.
(Bretz Nightclub / Facebook)
The Greater Toledo House of Prayer also has links to another Christian group, called Agora Toledo, which had planned in 2014 to purchase a former abortion clinic in the area, and to construct a memorial to the unborn in its place.
However, the plans did not materialise, and the ex-abortion clinic is still standing.
Stakeholders in the Adams Street district, where the nightclub was based, have reacted with dismay to the news, saying they were “heartbroken” at the closure.
They added that the venue had been “a staple in our community and a home for the LGBT community for decades”.
However, representatives of the entertainment district which housed the Bretz nightclub vowed that the area will remain “a place of love, understanding, and support and celebration”.
(Village on Adams / Facebook)
A neighbourhood Facebook page, made up of business owners from the Adams Street district, declared that their support for the LGBT+ community in light of the event, writing that “Toledo. Loves. Love”.
Local LGBT+ leaders are also planning to open an LGBT community centre near the anti-gay church, where the nightclub formerly stood, which would include a food pantry, health resources and suicide prevention resources.
Photo: Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
VICE News has learned that a year-old detention center for undocumented immigrants in Dallas, Texas never opened its unit for transgender people detained by ICE. Prairieland Detention Center had plans to feature a protected, 36-bed pod exclusively for transgender detainees to keep those individuals safe from violence and abuse.
ICE spokesman Carl Ruskok confirmed to VICE News that despite reports a year ago, the wing has never been used to house transgender detainees and there are no plans to do so in the future:
“Due to an increased demand for detention bed space and other foreseen factors, the Prairieland Detention Center currently does not operate a dedicated transgender housing unit.”
The decision to set aside a special unit for trans detainees at Prairieland came under the Obama administration, as ICE policy gradually started to reflect the concerns of LGBTQ and immigrants rights groups over the detention of transgender asylum seekers. In 2015, ICE released a memo with guidelines for appropriate placement and care of trans detainees.
#QTHEVOTE, a digital voter registration platform for the LGBTQ community and their allies, launched today as its flagship website went live at www.qthevote.com. #QTHEVOTE was founded by serial entrepreneur Trevor Burgess who was the first openly gay CEO of a publicly traded bank in the United States. #QTHEVOTE leverages cutting-edge voter registration tools from vote.org and aims to register as many LGBTQIA+ Americans as possible in advance of the November 2018 elections.
“We’ve seen it time and time again, one vote can make all the difference. Our community has a duty to the next generation to make sure we are heard at the ballot box,” said #QTHEVOTE founder Trevor Burgess.
In the 2016 national election, five states were decided by less than 1.5% of the vote. #QTHEVOTE estimates that there were more unregistered gay and lesbian Americans in each of those states than was the difference between winner and loser.
State
2016
Winner
Vote
Difference
Estimated LGBT
Unregistered Voters
Michigan
Trump
13,080
87,071
New Hampshire
Clinton
2,701
14,207
Wisconsin
Trump
27,257
45,321
Pennsylvania
Trump
68,236
106,030
Florida
Trump
114,455
202,709
“It’s simple math, analyzing data from Gallup and Project Vote, if every LGBT American had voted in 2016 we would not have our fundamental rights under attack today,” said #QTHEVOTE founder Trevor Burgess adding, “we can and should be the most powerful and passionate voters in America.”
#QTHEVOTE plans to target unregistered LGBTQIA+ Americans through social media, online advertising and through partnerships with direct outreach organizations.
Q The Vote, Inc. has made application for 501(c)(3) status and is accepting donations on its website www.qthevote.com. #QTHEVOTE is nonpartisan and does not support nor endorse any particular candidate for public office.
The Leadership Conference Education Fund released “Without Justice: Trump’s Across-the-Board Assault on Civil and Human Rights,” a report on the Trump administration’s first year and its attacks on our nation’s hard-fought civil and human rights achievements. The report is the 2018 edition of The Education Fund’s annual Civil Rights Monitor and comes the day after President Trump failed to mention the words ‘civil rights’ or ‘human rights’ in his first State of the Union address.
In 1982, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (now The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, The Education Fund’s sister organization) published a report, “Without Justice,” documenting the Justice Department’s attacks on civil rights during the first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. This year’s version of “Without Justice” recalls that dark moment in our nation’s history and reminds us that civil rights progress in the United States has never been linear.
This edition of the Civil Rights Monitor examines the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on voting rights, criminal justice and policing issues, education, LGBTQ rights, economic security and workers’ rights, immigrant rights and protections, media and telecommunications, and a fair and accurate 2020 Census. It also highlights the Republican-led Congress’ rubber-stamping of Trump’s judicial nominees, its use of the Congressional Review Act to repeal critical protections, and its misguided efforts to strip health care from millions and give large tax cuts to millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations.
“Since taking office, President Trump and his administration have demonstrated a well-documented hostility to civil and human rights,” said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Education Fund. “Moreover, the Republican-led Congress has been unwilling to consider and pass desperately needed reforms on a host of issues, and has proven ineffective at advancing policies to promote and protect the civil and human rights of everyone in the United States. At the same time, the federal judiciary is being shaped in the president’s image, at a cost to fair and impartial courts. The civil and human rights community has fought back every step of the way, and we will continue to fight back to ensure that the United States lives up to its ideals.”
Click here to read this year’s Civil Rights Monitor.
The Leadership Conference also issued a timeline of the Trump administration’s rollbacks on civil and human rights. That list is available here.
Civil and LGBT rights advocacy groups reacted with disappointment at Trump’s speech criticizing heavily contested topics which were at the forefront of Trump’s speech including immigration, tax reform, and religious freedom. Trump did not mention “LGBT” or commit to safeguarding the protections and civil rights of LGBT people in his speech.
“Managing to read a pre-written speech off a teleprompter does not make one Presidential or lend a single ounce of legitimacy to Trump’s anti-LGBTQ agenda,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD. “Trump has spent the past year targeting vulnerable communities and surrounding himself with anti-black, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-women, and anti-LGBTQ activists with the goal of exacerbating discrimination and erasing LGBTQ Americans from the fabric of this nation.”
Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDE, the nation’s leading Latino legal civil rights organization said, “Amidst the torrent of undeserved self-congratulation, Donald Trump continued to sound disturbing themes of nativism last night. Repeatedly invoking words like ‘great’ and ‘beautiful’ as often as possible cannot change an ongoing pattern of demonizing – and terrifying through an unprecedented campaign of domestic rhetorical warfare – immigrants throughout this country.
“Suggesting that virtue – which is present throughout the nation, including among millions of undocumented immigrants – coincides with native-born citizenship, while strongly implying that MS-13 and violent criminal activity characterize all immigrants, Trump continued, in only slightly muted form, his verbal assault on immigrants of color in general and Latino immigrants in particular. In actual practice, this ugly pattern of scurrilous assertions continues to lead to regular deportations of peaceful immigrants unfairly labeled ‘criminal’, and his proposed immigration framework would lead to much, much more of the same.
“The fact the handlers can prepare a speech for Trump to read that is slightly more subtle in its nativism than the uncensored tweeter-in-chief’s usual blather cannot change policy fact. In the end, it’s just lipstick on a pig. The Kelly-Miller immigration framework would take us back a hundred years; it is a nativist plan with no place in 21st-century policymaking.”
Criticizing Trump on his statements about immigrants Jessica Stern, executive director of OutRight Action International said,
“OutRight is very proud to be the oldest international LGBTI rights organization in the United States. And we are very clear how we achieved 28 years of impact. Two-thirds of our staff in the US is an immigrant or child of immigrants. Our staff around the world are based in the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, the U.K., and St. Lucia. This rich combination of immigrants to the US and global talent gives OutRight the resources to be effective.
“And so, when we listened to last night’s State of the Union, we rejected the coded language and explicit attacks on immigrants or anyone not American. We heard a right-wing fantasy where manufacturing and automobiles rule, where military force makes Americans safer, and where the Constitution is frozen in time. This is Trump’s moral panic, and we reject his world view.
“As a leading American organization, we declare our love of immigrants and people who are not American. We love all workers not just veterans. We love healthcare. We love equal rights and non-discrimination, not coded “religious freedom.” We love modern interpretations of the US Constitution. We love the visa lottery. We love all families, not just the nuclear family. We call for the radical principle of love to be the new state of the union.”
A CNN/SSRS poll of Trump’s first State of the Union address showed that 48 percent of those surveyed had a “very positive” reaction to his speech last night.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) issued the following statement ahead of Donald Trump’s State of the Union (SOTU) address, following the past year of the Trump-Pence administration’s attacks on LGBTQ people:
On Tuesday evening, Donald Trump is expected to address the nation before a joint session of Congress following a year of pursuing his and Mike Pence’s agenda in attacking LGBTQ people and other marginalized communities.
Over the past year, the Trump-Pence Administration has unleashed a torrent of attacks on the LGBTQ community and undermined the rights of millions of Americans. Donald Trump and Mike Pence have systematically and meticulously eroded years of progress and protections. What’s more, Trump and Pence have appointed and nominated scores of extreme and unqualified anti-LGBTQ officials to crucial agencies and court benches — some of whom will serve lifetime appointments. Beyond these extensive, explicit attacks on LGBTQ equality, the Trump-Pence Administration has targeted many of the most marginalized within our community — from banning Muslim refugees, to undermining voting rights, to putting the lives and livelihoods of 75,000 LGBTQ Dreamers at risk. Read a report detailing the myriad of ways Trump and Pence have attacked LGBTQ people over the past year here.
“From literally day one, the Trump-Pence administration has pursued an agenda rooted in anti-LGBTQ discrimination,” said Chad Griffin, President of HRC. “Donald Trump and Mike Pence have indulged extremists and engaged in a systematic campaign to make millions of LGBTQ people second-class citizens. In 2018, HRC, our grassroots army of three million, and our allies all across the country will continue to resist at every turn while mobilizing the largest grassroots campaign in our history to pull the emergency brake on their despicable agenda in November.”
U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Patricia King, a transgender woman currently serving and Lynda Bengtsson-Davis, a transgender Marine Corps veteran, will join Representatives Joseph Kennedy and Jared Huffman as their guests at this year’s State of the Union. Donald Trump and Mike Pence are attempting to ban openly-transgender service members despite their courageous and honorable service in uniform.
Following the State of the Union and Rep. Kennedy’s response, HRC’s Sarah McBride will join other civil rights leaders, including NARAL’s Ilyse Hogue, UNITED WE DREAM’s Cris Alex Jimenez, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Vanita Gupta, Sarah Silverman, Debra Messing, and others in delivering #ThePeoplesSOTUResponse, live-streamed by @NowThisNews.
GLAAD has condemned Trump for his inaction on anti-LGBTQ state violence in Egypt, Chechnya, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Azerbaijan as he takes the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“As Trump addresses a room of global changemakers, his unconscionable inaction on the growing epidemic of anti-LGBTQ violence around the world must not be ignored,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. “GLAAD has been on the ground in Davos, calling attention to the erosion of LGBTQ acceptance under President Trump’s watch and vowing that we will not be silent while the Present stands idly by in the face of horrific human rights abuses.”
Thursday at a panel hosted by GLAAD and The Ariadne Getty Foundation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, GLAAD announced findings of its fourth annual Accelerating Acceptance report, a national survey of more than 2,100 U.S. adults conducted on GLAAD’s behalf. This report shows a drop in the number of non-LGBTQ U.S. adults who are accepting of LGBTQ people; this is the first time an erosion of LGBTQ acceptance has been tracked since the creation of the Acceleration Acceptance report.
Global Anti-LGBTQ Human Rights Abuses
· EGYPT – More than 85 LGBTQ people have been reportedly arrested in a massive crackdown on LGBTQ rights that started after several young people displayed a rainbow flag at a concert in Cario.
· CHECHNYA – Authorities in Chechnya have detained and attacked over 100 LGBTQ men because of their perceived sexual orientation and at least 27 men have reportedly been killed by Chechen government officials as of June 2017.
· BANGLADESH – On May 19, 2017, Bangladesh police arrested 28 men based on their perceived LGBTQ identity. These men were reportedly arrested in a community center in Dhaka and then paraded in front of the media where the police humiliated them, saying they were gay and accessing the men of drug procession.
· INDONESIA – In May 2017, 141 people were arrested in arrested in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta during one raid following a similar anti-LGBTQ crackdown lead by senior government figures bringing the known number of anti-LGBTQ arrests in the country to over 200 when combined with earlier raids.
· AZERBAIJAN – Police carried out mass arrests of as many as 100 LGBTQ people. This is part of a violent campaign targeting gay and bisexual+ men and transgender women who face arrest and torture.
