A Michigan school district canceled its plan for an elementary classroom mini-lesson on gender identity and pronouns after receiving backlash from community members, Dewitt Public Schools Superintendent Shanna Spickard said Friday.
The lesson was announced by the district as a voluntary activity for one first grade classoutside of the school curriculum to “promote greater understanding, compassion, and kindness regarding gender identity and the use of pronouns.” The district said it informed parents and guardians in advance of offering the lesson to allow the opportunity for families to opt out of having their children participate.
School district staff members reportedly received “inappropriate, angry, and threatening phone calls, emails, and social media messages” after the announcement, and several staff members had their personal information posted online “to harass and intimidate them,” Spickard said.
“While the vast majority of these inappropriate communications have originated outside of our community, several staff members have expressed feeling anxious, stressed, and even afraid to go to school,” she said. “This is unacceptable.”
Spickard said the district is in contact with local law enforcement, and there is an increased police and administrative presence on grounds as precautionary measures.
“The goal of the voluntary mini-lesson was to help promote Dewitt Public Schools’ vision of a safe, nurturing, and supportive learning environment where all learners can succeed,” Spickard said. “Unfortunately, it has become a major disruption and distraction to that vision in which our staff, administrators, and students feel unsafe.”
On Wednesday, two days before the cancellation, the district remindedcommunity members that the gender identity and pronoun lesson is voluntary and would only be offered for one first grade classroom.
“The mini-lesson is not designed to challenge, persuade, or alter family beliefs. Instead, it aims to promote a safe and respectful learning environment where all our students feel valued,” the district stated.
Community members had mixed reactions to the announcement.
“They don’t need to learn about anything that’s personal or sexualized or gender-specific at 5 years old,” DeWitt parent Brandi Strahan told NBC affiliate WILX, which covers the Lansing, Michigan, area.
A former DeWitt parent also told WILX: “Even if people don’t understand it, it’s all about inclusion and making every kid feel safe and welcome in any district.”
Spickard said the decision to cancel plans for the mini-lesson was not made lightly, and that the development would “please some and disappoint others in the school community.”
The rights of LGBTQ students will be protected by federal law and victims of campus sexual assault will gain new safeguards under rules finalized Friday by the Biden administration.
The new provisions are part of a revised Title IX regulation issued by the Education Department, fulfilling a campaign pledge by President Joe Biden. He had promised to dismantle rules created by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who added new protections for students accused of sexual misconduct.
Notably absent from Biden’s policy, however, is any mention of transgender athletes.
The administration originally planned to include a new policy forbidding schools from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes, but that provision was put on hold. The delay is widely seen as a political maneuver during an election year in which Republicans have rallied around bans on transgender athletes in girls’ sports.
Instead, Biden is officially undoing sexual assault rules put in place by his predecessor and current election-year opponent, former President Donald Trump. The final policy drew praise from victims’ advocates, while Republicans said it erodes the rights of accused students.
The new rule makes “crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said.
“No one should face bullying or discrimination just because of who they are, who they love,” Cardona told reporters. “Sadly, this happens all too often.”
Biden’s regulation is meant to clarify schools’ obligations under Title IX, the 1972 women’s rights law that outlaws discrimination based on sex in education. It applies to colleges and elementary and high schools that receive federal money. The update is to take effect in August.
Among the biggest changes is new recognition that Title IX protects LGBTQ students — a source of deep conflict with Republicans.
The 1972 law doesn’t directly address the issue, but the new rules clarify that Title IX also forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ students who face discrimination will be entitled to a response from their school under Title IX, and those failed by their schools can seek recourse from the federal government.
Many Republicans say Congress never intended such protections under Title IX. A federal judge previously blocked Biden administration guidance to the same effect after 20 Republican-led states challenged the policy.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina and chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said the new regulation threatens decades of advancement for women and girls.
“This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats’ contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender,” Foxx said in a statement.
The revision was proposed nearly two years ago but has been slowed by a comment period that drew 240,000 responses, a record for the Education Department.
Many of the changes are meant to ensure that schools and colleges respond to complaints of sexual misconduct. In general, the rules widen the type of misconduct that institutions are required to address, and it grants more protections to students who bring accusations.
Chief among the changes is a wider definition of sexual harassment. Schools now must address any unwelcome sex-based conduct that is so “severe or pervasive” that it limits a student’s equal access to an education.
Under the DeVos rules, conduct had to be “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive,” a higher bar that pushed some types of misconduct outside the purview of Title IX.
Colleges will no longer be required to hold live hearings to allow students to cross-examine one another through representatives — a signature provision from the DeVos rules.
Live hearings are allowed under the Biden rules, but they’re optional and carry new limits. Students must be able to participate from hearings remotely, for example, and schools must bar questions that are “unclear or harassing.”
As an alternative to live hearings, college officials can interview students separately, allowing each student to suggest questions and get a recording of the responses.
Those hearings were a major point of contention with victims’ advocates, who said it forced sexual assault survivors to face their attackers and discouraged people from reporting assaults. Supporters said it gave accused students a fair process to question their accusers, arguing that universities had become too quick to rule against accused students.
Victims’ advocates applauded the changes and urged colleges to implement them quickly.
“After years of pressure from students and survivors of sexual violence, the Biden Administration’s Title IX update will make schools safer and more accessible for young people, many of whom experienced irreparable harm while they fought for protection and support,” said Emma Grasso Levine, a senior manager at the group Know Your IX.
Despite the focus on safeguards for victims, the new rules preserve certain protections for accused students.
All students must have equal access to present evidence and witnesses under the new policy, and all students must have equal access to evidence. All students will be allowed to bring an advisor to campus hearings, and colleges must have an appeals process.
In general, accused students won’t be able to be disciplined until after they’re found responsible for misconduct, although the regulation allows for “emergency” removals if it’s deemed a matter of campus safety.
The latest overhaul continues a back-and-forth political battle as presidential administrations repeatedly rewrite the rules around campus sexual misconduct.
The DeVos rules were themselves an overhaul of an Obama-era policy that was intended to force colleges to take accusations of campus sexual assault more seriously. Now, after years of nearly constant changes, some colleges have been pushing for a political middle ground to end the whiplash.
Idaho can enforce its law making it a felony to provide gender-affirming care to transgender minors while a lawsuit against it proceeds, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday.
A federal district court had issued an injunction against the law last year, blocking it from enforcement while the suit is heard, as the court found the suit likely to succeed on its claim that the law is unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the injunction in January. But the high court said lower courts had erred in blocking the law’s application to all state residents instead of just those who brought the suit. The Supreme Court’s decision Monday allows the law to apply to all Idahoans except those who sued.
“The plaintiffs are two minors and their parents, and the injunction covers two million,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl R. Labrador wrote in his emergency appeal.
Lifting the injunction had the support of most of the court’s conservative wing. “Although orders on the emergency docket often include no reasoning, the decision included concurrences by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who was joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas, and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who was joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett,” The New York Timesreports.
“Just do a little forum shopping for a willing judge and, at the outset of the case, you can win a decree barring the enforcement of a duly enacted law against anyone,” Gorsuch wrote. “Once that happens, the affected government (state or federal) will often understandably feel bound to seek immediate relief from one court and then the next, with the finish line in this Court. After all, if the government does not act promptly, it can expect a law that the people’s elected representatives have adopted as necessary and appropriate to their present circumstances will remain ineffectual for years on end.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, and she was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a fellow liberal. Justice Elena Kagan, another liberal, dissented as well.
The law, signed by Republican Gov. Brad Little a year ago, provides for a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to $5,000 for violation. Two trans teens and their families sued to challenge the law; they are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, its Idaho affiliate, and three law firms. They “argued that this case was not the right vehicle for addressing concerns about universal injunctions,” the Times reports. They are identified in the suit only by pseudonyms, so blocking the law just for them would mean they would have to reveal their identities when receiving health care.
“While the Court’s ruling today importantly does not touch upon the constitutionality of this law, it is nonetheless an awful result for transgenderyouth and their families across the state,” said a statement from the ACLU and its Idaho branch. “Today’s ruling allows the state to shut down the care that thousands of families rely on while sowing further confusion and disruption. Nonetheless, today’s result only leaves us all the more determined to defeat this law in the courts entirely, making Idaho a safer state to raise every family.”
Four attorneys general in conservative states have abused their authority to investigate transgender patients and their health care, and hospitals must do more to protect them, a new Senate Finance Committee report argues.
The report, titled “How State Attorneys General Target Transgender Youth and Adults by Weaponizing the Medicaid Program and their Health Oversight Authority,” investigates how attorneys general in Tennessee, Missouri, Indiana and Texas have opened investigations into hospitals for alleged Medicaid fraud or violations of consumer protection laws. They opened the investigations, the report argues, “in order to further ideological and political goals,” and there has been “significant variation in hospitals’ responses to such requests and their approaches to safeguarding the privacy of one of their most vulnerable patient populations—LGBTQIA+ people.”
The investigations have been opened as hundreds of state bills have sought to roll back transgender rights over the last few years. In recent years, 24 states have passed restrictions on gender-affirming medical care for trans minors, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery.
The report specifically singles out Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which turned over transgender patients’ medical records to Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti in June as part of Skrmetti’s investigation into alleged medical billing fraud.
“Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) in Tennessee sits at one extreme: the hospital failed to object in any material manner to the Tennessee Attorney General’s sweeping request and then caused undue terror to young patients and their families by supplying the Tennessee Attorney General with some of the records requested and then, again, by erroneously notifying some patients of medical record disclosures that had not occurred,” the report says.
VUMC provided its correspondence with the attorney general’s office to the Finance Committee staff, the report says. Through the correspondence, the report found that over seven months, from December 2022 to June 2023, VUMC provided 65,000 pages of documents to Skrmetti’s office, “including the medical records of 82 transgender patients, 72 of whom are Medicaid beneficiaries.”
VUMC notified patients their records had been disclosed on June 19, the report found. “After receiving this information, many patients experienced suicidal ideation and suffered significant emotional distress, including depression and anxiety,” the report says, citing an ongoing class-action lawsuit filed against VUMC by two patients whose medical information it provided to the attorney general.
Michael Regier, the medical center’s general counsel and secretary, said that the hospital disputes the report’s findings and that it had “sent a detailed letter outlining our concerns about its proposed findings before it was released.”
“Under the current law, state and federal government authorities are permitted to seek medical records for investigations, and healthcare providers must comply. In this case, we made every effort to both protect our patients and follow the law,” Regier said in an emailed statement. “At no point did we violate privacy laws, and we strongly disagree with any suggestion that we did. VUMC remains committed to protecting patient privacy under the law, and ensuring all who come to our facilities receive world-class medical care.”
Skrmetti’s investigation into VUMC is ongoing, and it “exclusively targets health care providers, not any patients,” Amy Lannom Wilhite, Skrmetti’s spokesperson, said in an emailed statement.
“Our Civil Medicaid Fraud Unit began investigating after watching a video in which a VUMC doctor described how she manipulated billing codes to avoid insurance coverage limitations. There is no political exception to our fraud laws and we will continue to investigate as the evidence demands, regardless of a doctor’s ideology,” Wilhite wrote.
VUMC declined to comment on Skrmetti’s investigation and the video.
The Finance Committee report found that two hospitals, in contrast to VUMC, made a variety of efforts to avoid providing transgender patients’ records to state attorneys general. Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis refused to share records with Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey in February 2023 when Bailey filed a civil investigative demand citing a state consumer protection law. The university cited concerns about privacy and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects patient information, and it filed a petition in state court questioning whether Bailey had the authority to investigate.
“As a father of four, this fight is personal for me. There is no more important court battle than to ensure Missouri is the safest state in the nation for children,” Bailey said in an emailed statement.
“My team will get to the bottom of how this clandestine network of clinics has subjected children to puberty blockers and irreversible surgery, often without parental consent,” he said, mischaracterizing how transition-related care is provided to minors. State laws require physicians to obtain parental permission to provide any care to minors, and widely used standards of care also do not recommend surgery for minors except in rare circumstances.
The Finance Committee report also found that Seattle Children’s Hospital “took a hard stance” against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after he sent the hospital a subpoena in November because he suspected it was providing gender-affirming medical care to trans minors who live in Texas, where such care is prohibited for minors. The hospital filed a petition in Travis County District Court in December to dismiss the subpoena. The case is ongoing.
Paxton’s office did not reply to a request for comment.
Alongside Tuesday’s report, a group of more than 40 Democratic members of Congress, led by Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, of Oregon, also sent letters asking five hospital and health associations to urge their member hospitals “to protect American patients’ medical privacy from abusive legal demands by state attorneys general.”
“In at least four states, AGs have abused their legal powers to demand that hospitals and other healthcare facilities disclose transgender youth and adults’ complete and identifiable medical and billing records,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter addressed to Dr. Bruce Siegel, president and CEO of America’s Essential Hospitals, a hospital association with more than 300 members. “These thinly veiled political assaults come at the expense of vulnerable patients. We are concerned that hospitals are feebly complying with AGs’ requests, betraying their obligation to protect patient privacy.”
The Democratic senators sent similar letters to the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, the Children’s Hospital Association and the National Rural Health Association.
Wyden said in a statement that Vanderbilt, specifically, “failed its responsibility to protect their patients’ privacy” and cited fears about the potential widespread effect of hospitals’ giving up on such privacy, particularly after the repeal of Roe v. Wade, opening “the door to criminalizing women’s private reproductive health choices.”
“A handful of red-state attorneys general are misusing their authority to terrorize transgender teens in their states, violating patients’ privacy and causing real harm to vulnerable kids and adults in the process,” Wyden said. “It’s shameful that law-enforcement officials are choosing to persecute teens trying to live their lives, just to score points with far-right activists.”
The IGLTA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the International LGBTQ+ Travel Association, has released findings from its latest survey, “State Policy Impact on LGBTQ+ Tourism.” The report examines the impact of Florida’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislation on tourism and was created with input from IGLTA member businesses and destinations in Florida.
While the data focuses on Florida, the findings are applicable to any destination confronted with governmental policies that could negatively impact LGBTQ+ travel. The state’s recent anti-LGBTQ+ legislation serves as a stark reminder of the work needed for global LGBTQ+ inclusivity, demonstrating how such policies deter LGBTQ+ travelers.
Key Insights: ● A staggering 80% of US LGBTQ+ respondents perceive Florida as somewhat or very unwelcoming. ● The impact on meetings and business travel in Florida is considerable, with a significant portion of LGBTQ+ meeting planner respondents—49% global and 52% US—indicating hesitancy or outright refusal to book meetings due to these policies. ● Despite these challenges, two-thirds of US LGBTQ+ respondents and 59% of global respondents would consider visiting LGBTQ+ welcoming cities within states with anti-LGBTQ+ laws, highlighting community resilience and a commitment to destinations advocating for inclusivity.
“We are committed to delivering essential research to help businesses navigate the continuous evolution of LGBTQ+ tourism,” said John Tanzella (he/him), IGLTA President/CEO. “While this report arose from the negative legislative actions in Florida, the takeaways are applicable globally, to any destination facing governmental challenges that impact its ability to attract LGBTQ+ travelers. It also highlights the ways that inclusive destinations – like our engaged members and partners throughout Florida – can overcome the vitriol with authentic support.”
These findings underscore a crucial point: safety and genuine commitment to LGBTQ+ rights are paramount for LGBTQ+ travelers. They prioritize destinations with welcoming policies and avoid those with discriminatory practices. Performative gestures hold little weight; travelers value destinations that actively support LGBTQ+ rights, particularly transgender inclusion.
View the full reports here: ● US DECK: focused on US respondents, with support from Community Marketing & Insights ● GLOBAL DECK: global pool of respondents
About IGLTA & the IGLTA Foundation The International LGBTQ+ Travel Association is the global leader in advancing LGBTQ+ travel and a proud Affiliate Member of UN Tourism (formerly known as the United Nations World Tourism Organization). IGLTA’s mission is to provide information and resources for LGBTQ+ travelers and expand LGBTQ+ tourism globally by demonstrating its significant social and economic impact. IGLTA’s global network includes 13,000+ LGBTQ+ welcoming accommodations, destinations, service providers, travel agents, tour operators, events, and travel media in 80 countries. The philanthropic IGLTA Foundation empowers LGBTQ+ welcoming travel businesses globally through leadership, research, and education. For more information: iglta.org, igltaconvention.org or iglta.org/foundation and follow us on Facebook at @IGLTA, @IGLTABusiness and @IGLTAFoundation, X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn at @IGLTA and @IGLTAFoundation, and Instagram @IGLTA.
Lesbian Visibility Week (#LVW24) kicks off on Monday, April 22nd with a private event at the London Stock Exchange USA headquarters in New York City. This exclusive gathering marks the beginning of a week-long celebration filled with virtual and in-person events happening across the nation, in addition to the unveiling of the highly anticipated 2024 Curve Power List, a popular who’s who that honors the achievements of LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary trailblazers, as nominated by the public.
This year’s Lesbian Visibility Week runs through Sunday, April 28th and focuses on the theme “United, Not Uniform,” a commitment to solidarity with all LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people and designed to promote unity, uplift those who face the greatest marginalization within the community, and to celebrate the joy and strength of sisterhood by highlighting remarkable contributions across generations, disciplines, and nations worldwide.
“What began as a day of recognition in 2008 has blossomed into a full week of festivities, thanks to the visionary efforts of Linda Riley at DIVA Magazine in 2020, and bolstered by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s pronouncements in 2023. Lesbian Visibility Week is a celebration of the diversity, resilience, and beauty of the Curve community — which includes all LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people.” — Franco Stevens, founder of Curve Magazine and co-founder of The Curve Foundation
Highlights from the week include the Netflix premiere of the award-winning documentary “AHEAD OF THE CURVE.” Directed by Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow, the film chronicles Stevens’ inspiring efforts to amplify the voices of LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary individuals over the 30-year run of Curve Magazine, the most successful lesbian magazine in the world. Featuring popular cover stars such as Lea Delaria and Melissa Etheridge, AHEAD OF THE CURVE celebrates resilience, community, and the transformative power of lesbian visibility, showcasing the evolution of Curve from its humble beginnings to its profound impact on queer representation, through to today and the inception of The Curve Foundation.
Additional highlights from Lesbian Visibility Week include:
Curve Magazine releases its Lesbian Visibility Week issue
“Beyond the Rainbow” Two-Spirit Healing Water Ceremony and Panel Discussion
“Beyond the Rainbow” Queer Women of Color Leaders Panel Discussion
“Beyond the Rainbow” Archiving Our History Panel with Joan Nestle
Lighting of San Francisco Hall (San Francisco, CA)
Sapphic Saturday Music Festival (Indianapolis, IN)
The full Lesbian Visibility Week calendar is available at https://lesbianvisibilityweekusa.com. Organizations hosting their own #LVW24 events are invited to submit them for publication in the calendar and to access an activation pack of helpful materials and planning information.
ABOUT THE CURVE FOUNDATIONThe only national nonprofit championing LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people’s culture and stories, The Curve Foundation works to empower and amplify the voices of the Curve Community – lesbians, queer women, trans women, and nonbinary people of all races, ages, and abilities. In addition to Lesbian Visibility Week and the Curve Power List, the Curve Foundation’s programming includes: the Curve Award for Emerging Journalists, created to recognize emerging journalists and raise the visibility of LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people; and the Curve Archive, a permanent and searchable archive of 30 years of magazine issues. For more information about the organization, visit https://thecurvefoundation.org.
An Air Force cadet and a Navy midshipman have won their lawsuit after being denied promotions for being HIV-positive.
Former Navy midshipman Kevin Deese and former Air Force cadet John Doe (a pseudonym) filed the lawsuit against the Department of Defense in 2018 when they were denied commissions after graduating from their respective service academies simply because they are living with HIV.
The settlement, announced Monday, will see that the two are commissioned as officers “in recognition of the status and military careers they qualified for and earned years ago,” according to a Lambda Legal press release.
“Joining my brave co-plaintiff in this case was, for me, about demonstrating the very leadership that inspired me to a military career. I follow the mantra of 2004 Naval Academy graduate Travis Manion — ‘If not me, then who?’” Deese said in a statement. “Now, 10 years after my Naval Academy graduation, future midshipmen and cadets living with HIV will be able to commission with their classmates upon graduation. And I could not be more proud to finally be commissioning.”
The DoD announced policy changes in June, 2022 that rescinded some of the military’s former restrictions discriminating against service members living with HIV. Now, those who are asymptomatic with undetectable viral load “will have no restrictions applied to their deployment or to their ability to commission … solely on the basis of their HIV-positive status.”
“We are gratified that our clients, who were denied officer commissions they had earned because of the U.S. military’s discriminatory policy of withholding career advancement opportunities from HIV-positive service members, will now be able to achieve their goals,” said Kara Ingelhart, senior attorney at Lambda Legal. “Service members living with HIV, once affected by an outdated, discriminatory policy, no longer face discharge, bans on commissioning, or bans on deployment simply because they are living with HIV.”
Activists have filed a civil rights complaint with the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of five transgender and nonbinary migrants who say they were mistreated at an immigration detention center in Colorado.
They are currently detained at the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, a prison privately owned and operated by the GEO Group, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement incarcerates people who have pending or recently concluded immigration legal matters.
The complaint, filed Wednesday, says the five suffered medical neglect, inadequate access to necessary medical and mental health care, dehumanizing treatment, and more. It calls for major changes in ICE’s handling of transgenderand nonbinary migrants. The migrants are represented by the National Immigration Project, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, and American Immigration Council.
“Our clients and medical experts reveal that ICE cannot safely and humanely incarcerate people who are transgender and nonbinary (‘TNB’),” the complaint states. “Immigration detention negatively impacts their mental health, impedes timely access to gender affirming care, and triggers prior trauma. … We call for an end to the practice of detaining people who are TNB in civil immigration detention. At a minimum, ICE must both implement new policies that provide more robust safeguards to TNB people in the agency’s custody as well as exert regular oversight to ensure that protective policies are followed in practice.”
Under President Barack Obama’s administration, DHS implemented policies aimed at mitigating some of the worst outcomes faced by trans people in ICE custody, “but the policies clearly failed to improve conditions of confinement,” the complaint says.
The migrants are identified by pseudonyms in the complaint to protect their privacy. One of them, Charlotte, sought transfer to the Aurora facility from an ICE detention center in Georgia and was told that she would have better access to gender-affirming care at Aurora, according to the complaint. But in Aurora, she and other trans women she is detained with are locked in their dorm for at least 23 hours a day, she says.
“I thought they’d take care of us, give us more freedom, recognize that we have suffered the most, we are the most vulnerable,” she says in the document. “We came from our countries being horribly treated and we get here and they treat us horribly.”
Another, Victoria, “who has been detained in ICE custody for more than two years, is on hormone replacement therapy but has faced months-long waits to see doctors about her hypertension,” the complaint says. “She recalls that on one occasion her ‘blood pressure was so high, [she] thought she was going to die.’”
“The traumatic experiences detailed in this complaint make clear that ICE is incapable of safely and humanely incarcerating transgender and nonbinary people,” Ann Garcia, staff attorney at the National Immigration Project, said in a press release. “As a result, we urge DHS to put an immediate and permanent end to ICE’s practice of detaining transgender and nonbinary people. Until that happens, at a minimum, ICE must immediately implement new policies to provide safeguards to transgender and nonbinary people in their custody while also implementing regular oversight practices to guarantee adherence to these protective policies. Ultimately, however, we know the abuse and mistreatment documented in this complaint are emblematic of a detention system that is inherently inhumane and flawed beyond repair, and we will continue fighting to end this cruel and harmful system.”
Minneapolis’s LGBTQ+ community has rallied to support Minnesota’s oldest gay bar after a fire forced it to close last month.
On March 22, a garbage truck hit a utility pole near the beloved 19 Bar in the city’s Loring Park neighborhood, causing electrical wires to ignite the building’s gas supply, Minnesota Public Radio reported. While no one was hurt, damage from the blaze has caused the bar, which first opened in 1952, to close indefinitely.
The loss, which 19 Bar’s management has vowed will only be temporary, has nonetheless hit the local LGBTQ+ community hard.
“It’s just so weird not having that place to go to on the way home from work,” Bubba Thurn, the secretary of Citizens for a Loring Park Community (CLPC) and a 19 Bar regular, told CBS affiliate WCCO.
“As the years go on, we still have struggles, challenges in the community,” 19 Bar manager Craig Wilson said. “And the 19 Bar has always been a safe haven for people to come and be themselves and be okay.”
“It never changes,” Thurn told MPR of 19 Bar. “It doesn’t have the attitude of the regular clubs and gay bars. This one is more of a mix of the community — the neighborhood of Loring Park and the queer community as a whole.”
According to WCCO, the bar’s closure has left eight staff members without jobs. But the community has stepped up to help. Two GoFundMecampaigns have so far raised more than $31,000 combined to support the out-of-work staff. Another local gay bar, The Saloon, has also announced an April 7 fundraiser, with performers and bartenders donating their tips to benefit 19 Bar’s employees.
And last Thursday, the nearby Walker Arts Center hosted a free event honoring 19 Bar. One of the gallery’s current installations happens to be Oakland-based artist Sadie Barnette’s neon-soaked reimagining of San Francisco’s first Black-owned gay bar, the New Eagle Creek Saloon, which Barnette’s father owned from 1990 to 1993. With the artist’s blessing, Walker Arts Center welcomed the city’s LGBTQ+ community into the space to pay tribute to 19 Bar, as bartenders served drinks, a DJ played music, and photos submitted by patrons were projected on the gallery’s wall.
The Walker’s associate director of public relations, Rachel Joyce, said she hoped the evening would provide “a joyful moment to reminisce on good times at the 19 and a way to look toward the future.”
19 Bar manager Wilson is doing just that. “Yes, there’s some fire damage, water damage, but that’s cosmetic, that can be replaced,” he told WCCO, noting that a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which hung in the bar as a nod to the fact that it opened the same year she ascended the throne, had survived the fire.
“The bones of the bar is still standing and strong,” Wilson said, “and that just goes to show we will come back, rebuild, new and improved.”
Illinois state Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D) left Florida for Chicago when she was still a teenager, skipped college, went to work right away, had three kids in short order, and has been moving at the same lightning speed ever since.
Her first job was with the National Organization for Women, where she rose to legislative director. She joined the staff for Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, worked in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office as the director of programs and development, and was appointed to the state legislature in 2011 after playing a major role in the ouster of Speaker Mike Madigan, who was later indicted after ruling for more than 30 years as the top Democrat in the Illinois House.
Cassidy, 55, won her first term representing District 14 on Chicago’s North Side in 2012. She’s running for a fourth term in 2024.
Her staff managed to clear a spot on the rep’s always busy schedule for a conversation from her district office in Chicago. It was a mild spring morning in the usually Windy City.
LGBTQ Nation: I’ve seen different numbers for how many LGBTQ+ members there are in the Illinois General Assembly. To your knowledge, how many are there, and do you have enough to start a caucus?
State Rep. Kelly Cassidy: Actually, from our high watermark of five members a few years ago, we are down to one in the House, me, and one in the Senate, Mike Simmons. We’ve had a relatively large exodus to the city council over the years, because, unlike anywhere else in the country, it’s common to move up from the Statehouse to the Chicago City Council. So no, we don’t have enough to form a caucus — just one in each chamber, and we do both sort of have the attitude that we represent the whole state.
One of your biggest legislative achievements was pushing through a bill that legalized adult-use Cannabis in Illinois, the first state to legalize through a legislature and not a ballot measure. What’s your philosophy at the heart of that effort, and do you partake?
Yes, I do partake.
And the philosophy at the heart of the measure was undoing the harms of the War on Drugs using an equity-focused model that remains a work in progress, frankly. Centering records restoration was really the driving force behind everything we did. We ended up expunging nearly three-quarters of a million records as a result of that legislation.
You were appointed to your seat in 2011 after your predecessor moved up — by Chicago standards, as you say — to the Chicago City Council. The next year you faced off against another lesbian, Paula Basta, who, like you, is an inductee to the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. Describe the dynamic between two gay women, both activists, running for the same seat. What tipped the balance in your favor?
First of all, there were 25 people, I believe, that sought the appointment after we drove Speaker Madigan from office. There was an eight-and-a-half-hour public hearing where Paula was one of the people seeking the appointment. In Chicago, the party of the person leaving an office chooses their successor. It was narrowed down to three finalists — one of them was Paula — then they interviewed us and then interviewed us again, and I was unanimously chosen as the winner.
It was not a foregone conclusion. In the election, Paula raised a whole lot of money, showing her capacity to beat me, and I spent the first several months of the race, in spite of being the incumbent, being outraised and outspent pretty dramatically. What tipped the balance was old-fashioned retail politics. I was on the doors all day, every day. And at the end of the day, incumbency helps, obviously, because I had been doing the work for over a year before I won my first term.
It did remind me, superficially, of George Santos running against Robert Zimmerman in 2022, two gay men competing against each other, but that’s a different story.
(Laughing) That’s a different story. I would definitely not put Paula in the Santos category. But it’s not super unusual to have two gay candidates competing against each other where we live because it’s so incredibly queer here.
You chair the Restorative Justice Committee in the General Assembly, where you did a lot of work on your cannabis bill. What’s the most egregious miscarriage of justice you’ve seen in your work, and how was it resolved?
I’m a mother of many, many children. I love them all equally, so it’s difficult to choose just one. In the criminal justice arena, there are so many things that are still not quite right. But last year, I was finally able to pass a comprehensive bill that allows incarcerated survivors of gender-based violence, whose abuse was not contemplated in their original trial, to be offered an opportunity to seek resentencing.
There’s a woman who just got out this year. She was convicted of murdering her husband after months and months and months of abuse and being raped, before marital rape was a punishable offense, and that was something she couldn’t bring up at the time of her trial. She had been in prison for 35 years. She’s out now, and she’s figuring it all out. I was on a Zoom call with her, and her delight at figuring out Zoom was maybe one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. It was awesome.
You spearheaded a ban on “conversion therapy” in Illinois, helped guarantee trans individuals could access bathrooms and change their birth certificates to reflect their correct gender, and you’ve been an outspoken advocate for reproductive rights. Illinois is surrounded by states moving backward in all those areas you’ve addressed. How important is your state as a refuge for marginalized groups under attack from those and other red states?
There isn’t a superlative big enough to describe the importance of what we’re doing here. I have had folks roll into town on fumes having spent their last dollar to get here from Florida because they were afraid of what was going to happen to them. You know, we’ve helped them find a way here, set them up with healthcare benefits, making sure they’re living somewhere safe, things like that. That happens pretty regularly all over the state. I talk to people at community centers in central and southern Illinois who are seeing it a lot, as well.
One of them I was talking to, in fact, described it as “an uncountable diaspora.” Because we start in a place of not having a good solid number of how many trans folks there are and how many queer folks, generally, there are. And then we’ve got people who are fleeing to access reproductive care or to provide reproductive care. We’ve got people fleeing to teach without being censored, so it’s a lot. The impact on folks can’t be overestimated.
When I moved here from Florida 30-some years ago, we spent a solid six months planning our move. And we had lots of help and support, and our families were supportive. One of us had most of the move paid for by an employer — a normal move, if you will.
I met a person who happened to be a constituent, it turns out, at an event at the White House. And when people were sharing, they explained that until November they had been living in Virginia with their wife. They work with an advocacy group for trans veterans, their wife was pregnant with their first child, and within the same span of a very short time, they were cut off from gender-affirming care and their wife was diagnosed with a fatal fetal abnormality. And within a week or two, they were living in my neighborhood. They made their home here now because they both needed care.
So it’s critically important. It’s why I’ve proposed a tax credit for folks who are coming in, fleeing these states, to be a bit of a warm hand-off. It’s certainly not much, not enough to make up for the trauma or the expense, but it’s something. It’s something more than anybody else has done for them.
In 2018, the Illinois legislature ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, enshrining protections for women in the Illinois Constitution. How would the stars have to align to revive and pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
There are those who say they just could, there are others who say other enabling pieces of legislation need to be passed. None of that is even possible to contemplate as long as we’re dealing with the hot mess that is the House GOP caucus.
What’s the next step after the Dobbs decision to guarantee a woman’s right to choose?
We need to win back Congress. We need to retain the White House. We need to pass the Right to Bodily Autonomy law. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right? But that’s the reality.
The reality of states like Illinois, like Colorado, or New York and California, we can’t maintain the pace that we are having to in regard to patients, in particular with reproductive healthcare. In fact, it’s even harder to absorb gender-affirming care patients because there are already not enough providers for in-house folks. With abortion there was more of an infrastructure to scale. There were abortion funds. There were practical support networks. None of that exists in the gender-affirming care space. So it’s even more challenging there.
What’s the single most important thing the world can do to address the climate crisis?
Each of us needs to act, individually, to do our part in solving the climate crisis.
You have a novel feature on your website that I’ve never seen before, a “Bill Ideas” page where you solicit ideas for legislation from your constituents. What’s the smartest idea that’s been submitted, and what’s the craziest?
Actually, one idea was both, a bill to legalize human composting in Illinois, or what’s also known as natural organic reduction. It’s moving through the legislature now.
You live on the North Side of Chicago with your three sons and your wife, LGBTQ+ activist Candace Gingrich, who happens to be former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s half-sister. How and when did you meet, and who proposed to whom?
My former wife introduced us, actually, while we were still together. We both love baseball, so we became great friends over that. And we said jokingly if we were ever both available in the future maybe we should get together, and that’s how it turned out.
Your wife famously officiated on the landmark lesbian wedding episode of Friends back in the 1990s. Had you seen that episode of the show before you met, and have you watched it with her since you’ve been together — or on your own as “research”?
We actually watched it together when it first aired when we were friends. Then at our wedding, we surprised Candace when the officiant quoted her from the episode.
Have you spent any holidays with your Republican half-brother-in-law, and if so, do you leave politics at the door, or does someone have to apologize in the morning?
Our families’ schedules don’t always line up, so we don’t spend that many holidays together, but he’s very smart and charming and curious, and always interested in what I’m doing.
You offer an amazing museum pass through your office for constituents in your district that grants admission to 17 museums in Chicago and is good for two days. Has anyone ever tried to hit all 17, and would that make a good scavenger hunt for your kids, or a fun fundraiser?
Ha! That’s a great idea! Now you’ve got me thinking about doing a whole pass around that.
Here are some either/or questions about museums and other Chicago institutions:
Adler Planetarium or Shedd Aquarium?
Shedd Aquarium.
Museum of Contemporary Art or Museum of Science and Industry?
Museum of Science and Industry.
Chicago Botanic Garden or Chicago History Museum?
Botanic Garden.
Cubs or White Sox?
Cubs! Yesterday, today and tomorrow and forever and six ways to Sunday.
