Chay Brown, director of TransActual, said: “These findings are shocking but in no way unexpected. They merely put figures to a perilous situation that almost every trans person in the UK is well aware of.
“Transphobia feels unescapable, whether we’re at home, at work or when we go to the doctors.”
Transphobic discrimination in healthcare worse for trans people of colour and disabled trans people
Alongside prejudice and discrimination against trans people trying to access healthcare, problems also persist in the workplace.
In the workplace, high numbers of trans people have experienced transphobia while trying to get a job (63 per cent), or from their line manager or colleagues. Seventy-three per cent of trans men and women have experienced transphobia from their colleagues, as have 80 per cent of non-binary people.
While anti-trans discrimination affects the majority of trans people, for trans people of colour and disabled trans people the situation is even worse. Seventy-three per cent of Black people and people of colour (BPOC) have experience transphobia while seeking employment, and 88 per cent have experienced transphobia from colleagues.
In healthcare, a greater number of disabled trans people reported that healthcare services are inadequate than non-disabled trans people. Sixty per cent of disabled respondents to TransActual’s survey reported experiencing ableism when trying to access trans-specific healthcare services.
Trans people with disabilities are also more likely to experience delayed treatment, with 93 per cent having done so compared with 85 per cent of non-disabled people.
Additionally, 53 per cent of BPOC said they have experienced racism when trying to access trans-specific healthcare services.
Outside of work and healthcare, trans people face other serious issues: 27 per cent of British trans people have been homeless at some point in their lives, rising to 36 per cent of BPOC and disabled trans people.
jane fae, chair of Trans Media Watch, said of the report’s findings that the “real scandal” is “how comprehensively the media have conspired to ignore this situation, preferring, instead, to produce tens of thousands of words on the largely imagined consequences of reform to the Gender Recognition Act”.
fae added: “We are not at all surprised to find that 70% of respondents said that media transphobia has impacted their mental health. In addition, 93% reported that media transphobia had an impact on their experience of transphobia from strangers on the street, while 85% said it has impacted how their family treat them.
“The bottom line is: transphobia impacts all aspects of daily life for trans people, from relationships with our friends and families, to healthcare, and even listening to the radio. This report is essential reading for anyone working in healthcare or in the media, as well as for policy makers and employers, and we hope that it provides food for thought.
“Your actions (and inactions) have a profound impact on all of us.”
California became the first state to prohibit “stealthing,” or removing a condom without permission during intercourse, after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law Thursday.
The new measure amends the state’s civil code, adding the act to the state’s civil definition of sexual battery. That makes it clear that victims can sue perpetrators for damages, including punitive damages.
It makes it illegal to remove condoms without obtaining verbal consent.
Democratic Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia originally tried to make it a crime in 2017 after a Yale University study that year said acts of stealthing were increasing against both women and gay men.
Legislative analysts said then that it could already be considered misdemeanor sexual battery, though it is rarely prosecuted given the difficulty in proving that a perpetrator acted intentionally instead of accidently.
The Erotic Service Providers Legal Educational Research Project supported the bill, saying it could allow sex workers to sue clients who remove condoms.
Lawmakers in New York and Wisconsin previously proposed related legislation.
“This law is the first of its kind in the nation, but I urge other states to follow in California’s direction and make it clear that stealthing is not just immoral but illegal,” Garcia said.
Newsom also approved a second Garcia bill, this one treating the rape of a spouse the same as the rape of a non-spouse, removing an exemption to the rape law if the victim is married to the perpetrator.
“Rape is rape,” she said. “And a marriage license is not an excuse for committing one of society’s most violent and sadistic crimes.”
The exemption dates to an era when women were expected to obey their husbands. California had been one of 11 states to distinguish between spousal rape and other forms of sexual assault.
There is no difference in the maximum penalties, but those convicted of spousal rape currently can be eligible for probation instead of prison or jail. They must register as sex offenders under current law only if the act involved the use of force or violence and the spouse was sentenced to state prison.
On Wednesday, Newsom approved extending the statute of limitations for victims to file civil claims if they were sexually assaulted by law enforcement officers who were on duty, in uniform, or armed at the time.
Administrators this week in the Davis School District, which is Utah’s 2nd largest school district with 72,987 students, banned LGBTQ Pride and Black Lives Matter flags, saying they are ‘politically charged.’
According to the Salt Lake City Tribune, Davis Schools spokesperson Chris Williams told the paper; “No flags fly in our schools except for the flag of the United States of America.” Williams later walked that statement back adding a clarification that some of the Districts schools have flags from sports team or international countries which are considered “unrelated to politics.”
“What we’re doing is we’re following state law,” said Williams. “State law says that we have to have a classroom that’s politically neutral.”
Amanda Darrow, Director of Youth, Family, and Education at the Utah Pride Center in Salt Lake City, told multiple media outlets the school district is “politicizing the rainbow flag” which doesn’t belong on a political list.
“That flag for us is so much more,” said Darrow. “It is just telling us we’re included in the schools, we are being seen in the schools, and we belong in these schools.”
KUTV CBS2 News in Salt Lake City checked with the Utah State Board of Education. In an email, spokesman Mark Peterson said, “There is nothing in code that specifically defines a rainbow flag as a political statement so it would be up to district or charter school policies to make that determination.”
The local Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union also weighed in saying in a statement;
“Whether or not a school district has the legal ability to ban inclusive and supportive symbols from classrooms, it is bad policy for them to do so,” the advocacy organization said in a statement. “Utah schools have an obligation to ensure that all students, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identify, feel welcome inside a classroom. We urge school administrators and teachers to adopt policies that make all students feel safe and included.”
Williams insisted the policy is not meant to exclude anyone and that all students are loved and welcomed – they just want to keep politics out of school he told the Tribune and KUTV.
“We have to have a politically neutral classroom, and we’re going to educate the students in the best possible way that we can,” said Williams.
A Utah based veteran freelance journalist, writer, editor, and food photographer weighed in on Twitter highlighting the negative impact of the Davis Schools decision on its LGBTQ youth.
Thursday, October 21 6:00–7:30 p.m. PT Online program $75 suggested donation
Hosted by Sister Roma and Juanita MORE!, the GLBT Historical Society’s annual Gala, “Reunion,” will be an evening of fabulous entertainment, inspiring presentations and a heartfelt celebration of LGBTQ history-makers. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, our Gala will again be virtual this year, with a broadcast that attendees can watch from home. The show is being hosted by Sister Roma and Juanita MORE!, and entertainment will be provided by the Sean Dorsey Dance Company. The proceeds directly support our mission of preserving and sharing LGBTQ history. More information and tickets are available online here.
Friday, October 22 6:00–7:30 p.m. PT Online program Free | $5 suggested donation
Author Chloe Davis will discuss her new book The Queens’ English: The LGBTQIA+ Dictionary of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases (Clarkson Potter, 2021). Her talk will explore how language shapes culture; highlight the diverse communities and intersectional identities that make up our LGBTQ community; unpack the beautiful complexity of queer history; and foreground the importance of empowering, providing resources for, and making visible queer, gay, Black and trans identities. Tickets are available online here.
Attendees who purchase copies of The Queens’ English from the GLBT Historical Society’s Bookshop.org page will receive a personalized autographed bookplate from Davis. Please send an email with your ticket confirmation and Bookshop.org receipt to leigh@glbthistory.org, with information on how you would like yours personalized, by October 25.
Friday, October 29 6:00–7:30 p.m. PT Online program Free | $5 suggested donation
Sally Gearhart (1931–2021) was a teacher, feminist, science-fiction writer, and political activist who passed away in July. This panel discussion and celebration of Gearhart’s life brings together four women who worked closely with Gearhart. They will explore topics including Gearhart’s contributions to feminism and gay rights; her academic work; her literary and creative output, including the 1978 work The Wanderground; her interventions on the subject of religion and communications; and how her background in theater and communications shaped her activism, with an overall emphasis on capturing Gearhart’s delightfully quirky and humorous personality. Donations will be earmarked to support a documentary currently in progress about Gearhart’s life. Tickets are available online here.
Books about sex, LGBTQ issues and how to have a baby have public library employees in a deeply conservative Wyoming city facing possible prosecution after angry local residents complained to police that the material is obscene and doesn’t belong in sections for children and teenagers.
For weeks, Campbell County Public Library officials have been facing a local outcry over the books and for scheduling a transgender magician to perform for youngsters, an act canceled amid threats against the magician and library staff.
Campbell County Public Library in Wyoming.Google Maps
The books are “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson, “How Do You Make a Baby” by Anna Fiske, “Doing It” by Hannah Witton, “Sex is a Funny Word” by Corey Silverberg, and “Dating and Sex: A Guide for the 21st Century Teen Boy” by Andrew P. Smiler, according to Susan Sisti, a local pastor who has been raising concerns about those and other books in the library.
“It’s really easy to go into the library and look around a little bit and find a filthy book that should not even be in a public library,” said Sisti, pastor of Open Door Church in Gillette. “These books are absolutely appalling.”
Now, after a complaint filed with the sheriff’s office, prosecutors are reviewing the case. They will seek appointment of a special prosecutor to weigh in as well before deciding whether to pursue charges, County Attorney Mitchell Damsky announced Friday.
Investigators haven’t contacted library officials about the case, leaving them unsure which books got the library in potential legal trouble, said the library’s executive director, Terri Lesley.
Told the list provided by Sisti, Lesley said library officials had reviewed a complaint about “This Book is Gay” and determined it belonged in the library’s Teen Room. The decision was being appealed to the library board while library officials review pending complaints about the other four.
In all, the library has been working through 35 recent complaints about 18 books, she said, a situation she said appeared to be quite unusual for a public library.
“It’s unexpected,” Lesley said. “We are trying to be the force of reason, trying to work through these things using the policy we have in place — review these books and do our due diligence.”
The LGBTQ advocacy group Wyoming Equality said it’s up to parents to decide when their children should have access to such books.
“Maybe the answer is never. If it’s never, that’s fine. But do you get to make that choice for other families?” said the group’s executive director, Sara Burlingame.
The book dispute has “gotten contentious and out of hand” when it may have been resolvable by putting the books among material for adults, said Damsky, the prosecutor.
“Personally, as a parent, I find the material to be just inappropriate for children and disgusting. But as a lawyer I’m sworn to uphold the Constitution and that’s why we are dealing with it with a fine-toothed comb,” Damsky said.
Sisti has been working with Hugh and Susan Bennett, who went to the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday with concerns that the five books may have violated state child-sex laws. Sheriff’s officials reviewed the complaint and referred the case, which was first reported by the Gillette News Record, to prosecutors.
“It’s very challenging to imagine how a child who’s sexually immature, physically immature, if there’s any reasonable purpose for exposing them to sexual behavior that’s far beyond their physical and mental and emotional and intellectual abilities to understand,” Hugh Bennett said.
He called the books “hard-core pornography to children.”
“This Book is Gay,” Sisti pointed out, includes illustrations of male and female genitalia and descriptions of oral and anal sex. But child access to all kinds of material on the internet might be pertinent to the case, suggested Damsky.
“What 9-year-old kid today can’t access Pornhub or whatever they want, you know what I mean?” Damsky said.
The library already faced protests and threats last summer over plans for a performance by a transgender magician. The magician canceled the show due to the threats.
The furor over the magician and the books prompted Wyoming Equality to talk with local officials about the threats and offer support to library staff. Local leaders had left Burlingame hopeful the rancor over the library would tone down, she said.
“It seemed like there was some kind of opportunity to put the brakes on this and can we talk to each other,” Burlingame said. “It seems like the train has jumped the tracks.”
Gen Suzuki, a Japanese trans man, has filed a request with a Japanese court legally change his gender without having to undergo surgery and be sterilised.
Suzuki, 46, filed a request on Monday (4 October) with the Hamamatsu branch of the Shizuoka Family Court to alter his family registry to align with his gender identity, Mainichireported.
Currently, Japanese law requires transgender people to get sterilised before they can legally change their gender. According to Mainichi, any changes to family registers in Japan, which record information about an individual including their gender and familial relationships, require permission from family courts.
After filing the request, Suzuki held a news conference with his female partner, saying they intended to get married. He said he found it “nonsensical that transgender people cannot enjoy marriage equality in Japan” unless they switch genders in their family registers.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) previously called on the Japanese government to revise Law 111 to “bring it into accordance with international human rights standards and medical practices so that individuals’ gender marker in the family registry can be changed without having to satisfy any medical conditions”.
It said the government needed to abolish the “current conditions of sex reassignment surgery and irreversible infertility” and the “requirement that applicants have no underage children”.
He added that he cannot legally “get married to my partner” and doesn’t have “any legal ties with our children”.
“It’s okay when everything is all right,” Sugiyama told the BBC. “But if she becomes ill, or if something were to happen to our child, I might not be able to visit them in the hospital or sign a waiver.”
Japan implemented the Gender Identity Disorder (GID) special case law in 2004. Under the law, transgender people must meet five requirements before they can legally change gender. The individual must be at least 20 years old, not presently married, not have any underage children (under 20), must be sterilised and have genitalia that “closely resemble the physical form of an alternative gender”.
In 2019, the Japanese supreme court unanimously upheld the law requiring trans people seeking to legally change their gender to be sterilised. Takaito Usui, a trans man, appealed to the court to overturn Law 111, but the supreme court rejected his case, ruling the law was constitutional.
However, according to the AFP, the court acknowledged “doubts” were emerging on whether the rule reflected changing societal values in Japan.
According to Mainichi, Suzuki previously told reporters that he would be willing to appeal his case to the supreme court if it is rejected.
Rwandan authorities rounded up and arbitrarily detained over a dozen gay and transgender people, sex workers, street children, and others in the months before a planned June 2021 high-profile international conference, Human Rights Watch said.
They were held in a transit center in Gikondo neighborhood of the capital Kigali, unofficially called “Kwa Kabuga,” known for its harsh and inhuman conditions, which appear to have deteriorated further due to the increase in the number of detainees held there and the pandemic. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), first scheduled for June 2020 and rescheduled for June 2021, was eventually postponed indefinitely in May.
“Rwanda’s strategy to promote Kigali as a hub for meetings and conferences often means continued abuse of the capital’s poorest and most marginalized residents,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “As the meeting is rescheduled, Rwanda’s Commonwealth partners have a choice: either speak up for the rights of the victims or be silent as the crackdown is carried out in their name.”
Following reports on abuses at the Gikondo transit center in 2015, 2016, and 2020, this practice was condemned during Rwanda’s review by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, a Geneva-based treaty body, in February 2020. Between April and June 2021, Human Rights Watch interviewed via telephone 17 former detainees from Gikondo. Interviews with nine people who identified as transgender or homosexual, three women who were detained with their babies, four men who worked as street vendors at local markets, and a 13-year-old boy living on the streets in Kigali, confirmed that patterns of abuse that Human Rights Watch documented previously are ongoing. Due to fear of reprisals against interviewees, Human Rights Watch has withheld all identifying information.
At Gikondo, detainees are held in overcrowded rooms in conditions well below standards required by Rwandan and international law. The former detainees said they have inadequate food, water, and health care; suffer frequent beatings; and are rarely allowed to leave filthy, overcrowded rooms. People were detained there without basic due process standards. None of the former detainees interviewed were formally charged with any criminal offense and none saw a prosecutor, judge, or lawyer before or during their detention. There were no measures to protect people from Covid-19, and former detainees said they did not have access to testing, soap, masks, or basic hygiene and sanitation amenities.
People interviewed who identified as gay or transgender said that security officials accused them of “not representing Rwandan values.” They said that other detainees beat them because of their clothes and identity. Three other detainees, who were held in the “delinquents’” room at Gikondo, confirmed that fellow detainees and guards more frequently and violently beat people they knew were gay or transgender than others.
In the past, round-ups have been connected to high-profile government events, ahead of which security forces may ramp up efforts to “clear up” Kigali’s streets. Human Rights Watch documented a similar round-up in 2016 before an African Union Summit held in Kigali. Ahead of the now postponed 2021 Commonwealth meeting, several former detainees said the police told them they did not want them on the streets during the event.
A civil society activist in Kigali said: “The streets were empty before the meeting. You couldn’t see any street children in town. Even the fruit vendors were taken [to Gikondo]. But now you can see them in the streets again.” Sources in Kigali confirmed that fewer people were living or working on the streets in the month preceding the date for the meeting. Several former detainees said the conditions at Gikondo had worsened in the lead-up to the meeting due to severe overcrowding.
An 18-year-old woman, a street vendor arbitrarily detained for two weeks with her 9-month-old baby, said: “[The police] said the government wanted to clear the city because of CHOGM. They said they would detain us until CHOGM has happened without our filth on display.”
Rwanda is one of a few countries in East Africa that does not criminalize consensual same-sex relations. Vagrancy, begging, and sex work are not criminalized either. Yet the authorities continue to use Gikondo Transit Center to imprison people accused of “deviant behavior that is harmful to the public,” including street vending and homelessness.
Rwanda should urgently close the transit center in Gikondo and amend the legal framework governing the National Rehabilitation Service. The authorities should promptly investigate all reported cases of ill-treatment and beatings of detainees by police and transit center personnel – including reports of detainees dying in detention – and prosecute the suspected abusers, Human Rights Watch said.
“Based on past experience, there is every likelihood that similar patterns of abuse will occur ahead of whatever new date is set for the Commonwealth meeting,” Mudge said. “Locking up marginalized people and abusing them simply because the authorities believe they tarnish their country’s image violates human dignity, and Commonwealth leaders should not tolerate this.”
Gikondo Transit Center
Since 2017, legislation and policies under the government’s strategy to “eradicate delinquency” have sought to legitimize and regulate so-called transit centers, presenting them as part of a “rehabilitation” process aimed at supporting poor and marginalized people. The authorities acknowledge that there are 28 “transit centers” in Rwanda, including “Kwa Kabuga,” the unofficial name of Kigali’s transit center situated in the Gikondo residential suburb of Kigali.
A January 2020 Human Rights Watch report found that the 2017 legislation provides cover for the police to round up and arbitrarily detain people accused of so-called “deviant behaviors” at Gikondo in deplorable and degrading conditions, and without due process or judicial oversight. Detainees are released with very little formal procedure, reflecting the arbitrary manner in which they were initially arrested.
Based on the 2017 legal framework and statements by Rwandan authorities, the broader objective of Gikondo is to serve as a short-term screening center to allow authorities to process detainees to send on to rehabilitation centers. However, in practice, there is no judicial process to determine the length of time people spend at the center or whether they are released or transferred. Some people interviewed said they were released when the center was overcrowded. Two said they were released in June 2021, after the decision to postpone the Commonwealth meeting was announced.
The 13-year-old boy said he was held for two weeks in late April and May, in a room with over 200 other street children, and was released after the announcement: “The police told us: ‘Don’t be afraid, children. The meeting isn’t happening; you’ll be released tomorrow.’” He said that district authorities collected all children detained at Gikondo and returned them to the streets of Kigali. He was not offered support to rejoin his family or return to school.
The civil society activist confirmed that, “Children were detained, moto-taxis had to stop working, street vendors were harassed – all because of the Commonwealth meeting. Since it’s been postponed, the abuse has calmed down.”
Former detainees said police told them that they were “trash,” and that they would be detained during the meeting and released in August. “Before the [Commonwealth] meeting, they would arrest us and seize our goods,” said a 20-year-old street vendor, who was detained for two weeks in April with her 9-month-old baby. “With this meeting coming up … Gikondo [was] very overcrowded.”
Arrest and Transfer to Gikondo
Round-ups by police or officers from the District Administration Security Support Organ (DASSO), a local state security body, are often the first step toward arbitrary detention at Gikondo. The arbitrary nature of the detention is reflected in the complete absence of due process once people are taken to Gikondo. In most cases, detainees are held in various police stations or sector (local government) offices across Kigali before being transferred to Gikondo. None of the interviewees were taken before a judge or given access to a lawyer before being transferred to Gikondo.
Detention of Gay and Transgender People
The detention of transgender people at Gikondo was reported in the media in November 2020. The nine transgender or gay people interviewed by Human Rights Watch were detained at Gikondo between December 2020 and April 2021. They said they had been targeted due to their sexual orientation or gender identity and treated worse than other detainees.
Several said the police or local security officers detained them after members of the public reported seeing them with their partners and other lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, or wearing women’s clothing if they were perceived not to be female. At Gikondo, police officers or guards accused them of being homeless, thieves, or delinquents and held them in a room reserved for “delinquent” men. One 27-year-old transgender woman said:
They took me at Kabuga and said I was causing problems in Rwanda…. When I arrived, police asked why am I looking like this? Why am I looking like a girl? They asked: ‘Are you a prostitute?’ I said, ‘No, I am a Rwandan.’ They jailed me with other people who were [accused of being] thieves.
One said he was arrested in late December 2020, after leaving a bar in Nyamirambo neighborhood in Kigali: “When we were about to get on motorbikes, local patrol men came and asked us who we are and what we are doing here … they said we don’t represent Rwandan customs. My friend [a transgender woman] has long hair and was wearing a skirt.” Another former detainee was arrested by local security officials in February 2021 after kissing his same-sex partner in a bar. He said customers from the bar insulted them and called the security patrol, who took them straight to Gikondo transit center.
Transgender and gay people interviewed described being harassed, insulted, and beaten by security officials during their arrest and detention. A former detainee who was arrested by DASSO officials in December 2020 said she was taken to the Nyabugogo police station. “They asked me what I was doing … if I am a girl or a boy,” she said. “I said I am a girl and that’s when the problems started … At Kabuga, we were beaten by the leaders. They asked if we were boys or girls.”
A transgender woman detained at Gikondo in February 2021 said: “Police said we were cursed, and asked how we could behave in this way, having sex with people of the same sex as us. They said we’re delinquents and put us in that room. But in the room, we were badly beaten by other detainees and police did nothing despite our cries.” Another gay former detainee who was arrested with a group of transgender people said a policeman beat his feet and told him he should be “rehabilitated.”
Several other former detainees confirmed these patterns of abuse. An 18-year-old street vendor accused of “delinquency” was detained with about 1,000 other men, where he said “men who dressed as women” – referring to transgender people – “were beaten more than the others. We were all beaten but they were really badly beaten.” All transgender women interviewed were housed in male facilities.
Beatings
Beatings often begin as soon as people are rounded up and taken to a nearby police station or post. A 30-year-old woman with a 3-year-old child said:
I was taken to the police, where they kept us in a room with others who had been arrested. At that point we were violently beaten. I had a baby with me, but they still beat me, although they didn’t beat him. At 2 a.m. they transferred us to “Kwa Kabuga.” They told me: “Your baby is none of our business. Get in with the others.” I insulted them, so they beat me badly. They said they don’t want me to do this kind of business [on the streets].
Once detainees arrive at Gikondo, they are registered and often beaten by other detainees. Long-term detainees at Gikondo, known as “counsellors,” are often in charge of daily life in the rooms and beat other detainees. The 30-year-old street vendor said that other detainees in the women’s room beat her and her child: “An adult woman is hit twenty times, whereas her child will be beaten four times. It’s only babies under one year old that are not beaten.”
Interviewees detained in the women’s room also said they were beaten when their child defecated or cried: “We were beaten every day. We were also beaten when we asked for permission to use the toilet. If a baby cried, or urinated, its mother would pay the price,” said the 23-year-old mother of a 2-year-old child, who was detained at Gikondo for three weeks in April.
Guards or “counselors” also regularly beat detainees in the children’s room or rooms for adult men. Children are often beaten when they make noise or play together. “We were beaten a lot…. If you fight, if you make a mistake, or if you shout, they beat you with sticks,” the 13-year-old boy said. A 21-year-old street vendor held in the room for “delinquents” said that detainees are beaten for spending too long in the bathroom, for talking too loudly, or “for any fault you commit.”
Conditions at Gikondo
Conditions in Gikondo Transit Center, as Human Rights Watch has extensively documented since 2006, fall well below international standards and violate Rwandan law.
In March 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture called on governments to “reduce prison populations … wherever possible by implementing schemes of early, provisional or temporary release.” Yet Rwandan authorities continued to detain people in Gikondo transit center, without due process or judicial oversight. Overcrowding and poor hygienic and sanitary conditions at Gikondo put people at greater risk of contracting Covid-19 due to close proximity, inability to practice “social distancing,” a lack of adequate sanitation and hygiene, and lack of adequate medical care, including a lack of Covid-19 testing.
During their arrest and transfer to Gikondo, people interviewed said, they were not tested for Covid-19, were not given masks to wear, and were not given the space to maintain distances from other detainees. Many were taken to Gikondo in an overcrowded truck with windows closed. Some said that upon arrival, they washed their hands with water, but were not given soap. One former detainee said hand sanitizer was confiscated by the authorities upon arrival.
Former detainees who were held at Gikondo between 2019 and 2021 estimate that between 50 and 200 girls and boys detained together at a time in the “children’s room,” in deplorable and degrading conditions. But they described conditions in the room for male “delinquents” – which also holds teenage boys – and facilities for adult women with their infants as far worse.
In those two rooms, some children were held together with adults in severely overcrowded conditions and many detainees were forced to sleep on the concrete floor. Former detainees held in the room for “delinquents” estimated that over 1,000 people were held together. One person interviewed said it was not possible to see the floor at night when the detainees attempted to lay down to sleep on the concrete floor.
Most former detainees said they were given food once a day, in insufficient quantities and with poor nutritional value. Food is particularly insufficient for young children and babies, who regularly get sick. One woman said she was released after her baby got so ill he had blood in his stool, while another said her baby had to be transferred directly to a hospital due to malnutrition.
Detainees in the rooms for women and “delinquents” had irregular access to drinking water, sometimes only once a day. “Sometimes we go an entire day without drinking water, and then they give a tiny amount that we all have to share,” said one interviewee who was held at Gikondo for almost all of April.
Sanitation and hygiene conditions are very poor, and many interviewees reported being allowed to wash at most once a week. One former detainee said: “When it’s time to wash, they take a 20-liter basin and around 20 to 30 people wash at the same time.” Former detainees said they were rarely given soap. The mother of a 3-year-old said: “We only washed once a day with filthy water that had worms in it, mostly without soap … we didn’t change our clothes.”
Three interviewees said that during their time at Gikondo, they saw or heard of detainees who had died due to the poor conditions and lack of appropriate medical care. “In the two weeks I spent [at Gikondo] there were three nights where we couldn’t sleep because there were too many people in the room,” said a 40-year-old street vendor detained at the transit center in April. “Two people died because of this treatment and illnesses…. They were ill and had diarrhea and skin rashes. They were refused permission to see a doctor, and one morning they were found dead. I don’t know what caused their death or what their names are.”
Human Rights Watch requested information on these allegations from the Justice Ministry and the National Rehabilitation Service but received no response and was not able to independently verify them.
Lack of Government Response; Criticism by Regional and International Entities
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which reviewed Rwanda’s record on January 27 and 28, 2020, said it was concerned that the reference to “deviant behaviors” in Rwanda’s legislation was leading to “the deprivation of liberty of children in need of protection.” The committee said the abusive detention should end and that the government should change the law.
During the committee’s review, the Rwandan government denied that the detention of street children in transit centers is arbitrary. The government also claimed that children in transit centers are either placed with a family or transferred to a “rehabilitation center” within 72 hours. These claims contradict reports by the National Commission for Children and the National Commission for Human Rights, as well as Human Rights Watch findings.
In response to the Human Rights Watch January 2020 report, then-Justice Minister Johnston Busingye was quoted in KT Press saying: “These children have been redeemed…. We believe they can become useful citizens…. HRW [Human Rights Watch] can come and interview them if they wish.” During Rwanda’s review by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the gender and family promotion minister, Soline Nyirahabimana, also said that independent observers should visit the center.
On December 4, 2020, the African Court on Human and People’s Rights held that states’ laws enabling the detention of people who, often because of poverty, are forced to live on the street, violate human rights law. The opinion issued in response to a request by the Pan African Lawyers Union, upheld the rights of people deemed “vagrants” by the state. The opinion concluded that laws permitting the forcible removal or warrantless arrest of a person declared to be a “vagrant,” violate the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other human rights instruments.
On February 6, 2020, December 14, 2020, and August 23, 2021, Human Rights Watch wrote letters to then-Justice Minister Busingye following up on these statements, requesting access to Gikondo and other transit centers in Rwanda, and asking about steps taken by the Rwanda authorities to remedy the abusive legal framework governing its National Rehabilitation Service. He has not responded.
NASA is refusing to rename its James Webb Space Telescope despite claims its namesake was involved in an anti-LGBT+ government “purge”.
When it launches in December 2021, the $10 billion telescope will be the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built.
But the naming of the telescope, in honour of anti-LGBT+ former NASA administrator James Webb, has caused outrage.
Earlier this year, four astronomers launched a petition to rename the telescope because Webb, who was the administrator of NASA between 1961 and 1968, allegedly participated in a government anti-LGBT+ purge.
Lucianne Walkowicz of the JustSpace Alliance and Adler Planetarium, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein of the University of New Hampshire, Brian Nord of Fermilab and the University of Chicago, and Sarah Tuttle of the University of Washington pointed out: “Prior to serving as the NASA administrator, Webb served as the undersecretary of state during the purge of queer people from government service known as the ‘Lavender Scare’.”
After detailing Webb’s involvement in “purging” queer people from the US government, they wrote: “We, the future users of NASA’s next-generation space telescope and those who will inherit its legacy, demand that this telescope be given a name worthy of its remarkable discoveries, a name that stands for a future in which we are all free.”
After 1,250 signatories called on the space agency to reflect on Webb’s history, NASA’s acting chief historian Brian Odom announced that it would investigate the evidence against him using archival documents.
But this week, NASA administrator Bill Nelson told NPR that there was “no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope”.
With its James Webb Space Telescope, NASA will be ‘sending this incredible instrument into the sky with the name of a homophobe on it’
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, one of the astronomers who launched the petition to rename the James Webb Space Telescope, told NPR: “At best, Webb’s record is complicated.
“And at worst, we’re basically just sending this incredible instrument into the sky with the name of a homophobe on it, in my opinion.”
During the 1960s in the US, when Webb was NASA administrator, the idea that the federal government had been “infiltrated” by homosexuals, known as the “Lavender Scare“, resulted in the widespread dismissal of LGBT+ peoplefrom government service.
The astronomers alleged in their petition that Webb was responsible for the “purge” of queer people from NASA at the time.
The also wrote that Webb is specifically named in confidential memos regarding “the problem of homosexuals and sex perverts,” indicating that he was working as “a facilitator of homophobic policy discussions with members of the Senate”.
Prescod-Weinstein, a queer astronomer who was in a NASA postdoctoral programme, criticised the NASA investigation into a name change, and said she wished the space agency would be more transparent about the evidence it had reviewed.
She said: “I’m basically a NASA fan girl. And so this is particularly hard for me, to feel like I’m being gaslit by the agency that I have spent my career looking up to, and that I have committed parts of my career to.”
Pride flags, which were created to promote unity, are being called political and divisive in some schools across the country. A recent example: An Oregon school board on Tuesday banned educators from displaying the flags.
“We don’t pay our teachers to push their political views on our students. That’s not their place,” a school board member in Newberg, Brian Shannon, the policy’s author, said at a recorded board meeting.
Several other school officials and students around the country have targeted LGBTQ symbols. A teacher resigned in Missouri last month after he was told to remove a rainbow flag from his classroom and that he couldn’t discuss “sexual preference” at school. Students at a high school near Jacksonville, Florida, were accused several weeks ago of harassing classmates in a Gay Straight Alliance club and stomping on pride flags. And in August, pride symbols were targeted at a high school near Dallas, where rainbow stickers were ordered to be scraped off classroom doors.
Students, teachers and parents rallied Thursday in Newberg, Ore., to oppose an imminent vote by the school board that would prohibit Black Lives Matter and pride flags or banners in schools. John Rudoff / Sipa USA via AP
In most cases, administrators have said the LGBTQ emblems are divisive and “political.” LGBTQ students, parents and teachers affected by the bans contend that the new rules harm a vulnerable group of young people.
“Feeling safe should not be political,” said Victor Frausto, 16, a student at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, just outside Dallas.
“For me, when a teacher put up that sticker, it basically conveyed the message that ‘when you come in here, you will not be hated for who you love or what you identify as,’” said Frausto, who is gay.
The decision to ban the rainbow pride stickers sent a very different message, Frausto said.
“By seeing how those stickers were removed, you get the message that ‘I do not fit in here, I should not be here,’” he said.
Students, teachers and parents rallied Thursday in Newberg, Ore., to oppose an imminent vote by the school board that would Black Lives Matter and Pride flags or banners in schools.John Rudoff / Sipa USA via AP
Frausto, who is the president of his school’s Gay Straight Alliance, or GSA, said the rainbow stickers were removed overnight without warning.
He and other GSA members took it to the attention of their GSA sponsors, a group of teachers who had already received an email from the school district about the matter.
“While we appreciate the sentiment of reaching out to students who may not previously always had such support, we want to set a different tone this year,” read the email, which a teacher shared with NBC News.
The educators reassured the group that they would push for an explanation and fight to get the stickers back on classroom doors, Frausto said. But within the next several days, two teachers were escorted off campus, he said.
A spokesperson for the Irving School District declined to identify the teachers and, when asked about their alleged removals, told NBC News that the district “does not comment on employee-related matters.”
A student walkout at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas.Courtesy Victor Frausto
In response to the sticker removal, hundreds of students staged a class walkout last week. In a video posted Wednesday by the community-based journalism platform Smash Da Topic, students can be heard shouting, “Bring our stickers back!”
After the protest, the district defended the move in a statement as a way “to ensure that all students feel safe regardless of background or identity” by maintaining political impartiality.
Newberg administrators also cited political neutrality in defending their policy. After having come under fierce criticism for prohibiting pride and Black Lives Matter flags specifically, school board members broadened a ban last month to block educators from displaying all symbols that the board deemed “political, quasi-political or controversial.”
“Their place is to teach the approved curriculum, and that’s all this policy does, is ensure that’s happening in our schools,” Shannon, one of the seven school board members who spearheaded the policy, said at a livestreamed board meeting Tuesday night.
Students, teachers and parents rallied Thursday in Newberg, Ore., to oppose an imminent vote by the school board that would prohibit Black Lives Matter and Pride flags or banners in schools.John Rudoff / Sipa USA via AP
The Newberg City Council and the Newberg Education Association, a union representing 280 educators and staff members in the district, have denounced the policy, and the Oregon State Board of Education has asked for it to be revoked. Community members have also petitioned to recall Shannon.
“As a gay man with no children and no real desire to have children, I feel like I should never know the names of the people on the school board, let alone have to stand up against them,” said Zachary Goff of Newberg, who launched the petition, which has gotten over 1,000 signatures.
“I think I speak for a lot of people in my community, but we can’t sit here and let this happen,” Goff added. “They picked a really bad town to be the guinea pig.”
Chelsea Shotts, 29, who is bisexual and works at an elementary school as a behavioral interventionist in the school district, said her mental health has deteriorated since the district introduced the policy over the summer.
“If I only cared about myself, I would just quit — like, easily quit and leave,” Shotts said. “But the thing is I’m in Newberg and I’m in Dundee because I love these students, and they deserve everything.
“I would rather be able to stay here and keep doing the work instead of being attacked by a culture war that four board members started,” Shotts added.
Chelsea Shotts, a Newberg School District behavioral interventionist, faces off with a counterprotester at a demonstration over pride and Black Lives Matter flags last week in Newberg, Ore.Courtesy Chelsea Shotts
School administrators aren’t the only people who have gone after pride flags and LGBTQ symbols this school year.
Police in Blacksburg, Virginia, are investigating several thefts of pride flags outside a Virginia Tech religious center. In one case, the LGBTQ symbols were replaced with two Confederate flags. And in Georgia, a high schooler was charged last month with attackinganother student draped in a pride flag in a school cafeteria.
Advocates have long been warning educators about the disproportionate rates of bullying, harassment and mental health issues plaguing LGBTQ youths.
A survey this year by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, found that 42 percent of the nearly 35,000 LGBTQ youths who were surveyed seriously considered suicide within the last year. More than half of transgender and nonbinary youths who were surveyed seriously considered suicide, it also found.
A separate survey conducted by The Trevor Project last year found that LGBTQ youths who reported having at least one LGBTQ-affirming space also reported lower rates of attempting suicide.
Beth Woolsy’s children, Cai and Cael Woolsy, both 14, on their first day of school in Newberg, Ore.Courtesy Beth Woolsy
Beth Woolsy, who is bisexual and has two LGBTQ children who attend school in Newberg, said the harrowing numbers weigh on her as she sends her kids back to school every day.
“When we understand that it’s truly life and death that we’re talking about as we send our kids to school, and then they’ve taken away the safety of knowing who they can go to and who they can expect to advocate for them, it is really scary,” she said.
A gay Iranian rape survivor has explained why regressive laws – and the threat of being outed – stopped him from reporting his attacker.
Saeed, a 20-year-old based in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Khuzestan, gave a harrowing account of what it means to be gay in Iran today to the IranWire.
To be gay in Iran, Saeed said, is to exist quietly. Sexual activity between two people of the same sex is illegal and punishable by death, prison, lashings and fines – such penalties mean queer rape survivors like Saeed must remain silent, or else.
Saeed met his rapist at a café. Earlier that day, he had taken driving lessons. It was just like any other day as he struck up a conversation with the only barista.
“At first, I liked him and we enjoyed a friendly chat,” he recalled. “I saw him a few more times there. We became more intimate. We talked more and more and I told him about my sexual orientation.”
But Saeed later learned that the man only sought out a friendship with him to get closer to his female friends. Then, he got a text message from him at midnight “a few weeks ago”.
“I have regretted looking at his message and messaging back,” he said. “I wish I had never done it.
Gay rape survivor ‘didn’t know LGBT+ community was a thing’ in Iran
“He attacked me,” he added, having been made to go with the man to a friend’s house or else be outed to his friends and family. “It didn’t matter to him that I was a human being. It didn’t matter to him that I was in pain.
“He was brutal. The worst part was when he whispered in my ear, cursing me, and my mother and my sister. I couldn’t defend myself or resist.”
And capturing what it means to be gay in the west Asian country – of secrecy and difficult decisions – Saeed said he couldn’t report the rape to the police. If he did, he explained, he would be prosecuted.
Neither Monfared or Saeed are alone. A report compiled by 6rang, otherwise known as The Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network, last year found that six in 10 LGBT+ Iranians have been assaulted by family members.
“I didn’t know there was such a thing as an LGBTQ community and that my sexual orientation is a natural thing,” Saeed continued.
“I thought I was alone, and based on what I heard from religious people at school, I thought it was a disease that needed to be cured.”
It was only at aged 16 that Saeed realised he was “normal”.
“It’s my misfortune,” he explained, “that I was born in a homophobic country and am deprived of many experiences the LGBT+ community enjoys in free countries.”
