Pride flags will remain banned from U.S. military installations, even during Pride Month, the Pentagon says, upholding a policy former Defense Secretary Mark Esper established last July.
The Defense Department “will maintain the existing policy from July 2020 regarding the display or depiction of unofficial flags,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday at a news briefing, confirming that “there won’t be an exception this month for the Pride flag.”
However, Kirby noted that the choice “in no way reflects any lack of respect or admiration for people of the LGBTQ+ community, personnel in and out of uniform who serve in this department.”
“We’re proud of them,” he added. Kirby explained that the decision was made to avoid challenges that could arise from making an exception to the policy.
Kirby noted that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will participate in Pride Month festivities at the Pentagon this week.
Austin “encourages all commands to likewise find ways to recognize the service and contributions of the LGBTQ+ community in defense of this nation,” Kirby said in a statement.
The Trump administration’s flag policy was put in place to limit what flags were able to be flown at military installations and was notable for excluding the Confederate flag, NBC News previously reported.
Esper, a Trump appointee, confirmed the modification in a July 17, 2020, memo that contains guidance on what flags are allowed to be flown. Permitted flags included U.S. state and territory flags, military service flags, the prisoners of war and missing in action flag, and several others.
The Modern Military Association of America, a nonprofit supporting LGBTQ service members and veterans, shared a tweet Friday calling on the Pentagon to “reconsider its misguided policy” and authorize the use of Pride flags on military installations. The group also noted that President Joe Biden had promised to do so on the campaign trail last year.
In a tweet last July, then-candidate Biden said: “Banning the Confederate flag from military installations was long overdue. Banning the LGBTQ Pride flag — the very symbol of diversity and inclusion — is undeniably wrong. The Pentagon should ensure it is authorized, or as President, I will.”
The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
On the first day of his presidency, Biden issued an executive orderthat expanded federal laws preventing discrimination on the basis of sex to include LGBTQ individuals. Days later, the president reversed the Trump administration’s ban on transgender people from openly serving in the military.
Days before the fifth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, U.S. Senators passed a bill designating the site of the former nightclub as a national memorial. The legislation passed unanimously Wednesday afternoon after its sponsor, Sen. Rick Scott, asked that it and its companion bills be approved by unanimous consent in observance of the five years since the mass shooting.
H.R. 49, the U.S. House’s version of the bill, and Senate Resolution 265, both honoring the victims of the shooting, also passed the Senate unanimously. Sen. Marco Rubio, who co-sponsored the bill alongside Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), expressed condolences for those affected by the tragedy, calling it the “deadliest attack on American soil” since Sept. 11, 2001.
Read the full article. The anniversary is Saturday.
An increasing number of young adults identify as nonheterosexual and noncisgender, according to a new global survey from Ipsos.
The results, released Wednesday, are based on internet surveys of more than 19,000 people in 27 countries ages 16 or 18 (depending on the country) to 74. The surveys were conducted in the languages of each country.
Respondents in Generation Z, which includes people born after 1997, were nearly four times as likely than those over 40 (4 percent compared to 1 percent) to identify as transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, gender-fluid or “in another way.”
They were also the age group most likely to identify as something other than heterosexual. Overall, 9 percent of respondents identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual or asexual; for Generation Z, the figure doubles to 18 percent.
Previous surveys of young Americans have pointed to this phenomenon: In a Gallup poll last year, 5.6 percent of U.S. respondents overall identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer, while 16 percent of those in Generation Z reported being LGBTQ.
“The patterns that we see in the U.S. are definitely not unique to the U.S.,” Nicolas Boyon, senior vice president of public affairs at Ipsos, said of the higher rate of gender and sexual fluidity among Gen Z. “It’s a global phenomenon.”
Worldwide, 1.4 percent of those surveyed identified as gender minorities, with Sweden (2.9 percent), Germany (2.5 percent) and Argentina (2.3) having the highest percentages of respondents who identify as transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, gender-fluid or “in another way.” South Africa (0.3 percent) and Belgium (0.5 percent) had the lowest.https://dataviz.nbcnews.com/projects/20210608-lgbtq-survey/index.html?initialWidth=560&childId=embed-20210608-lgbtq-survey&parentTitle=Nearly%201%20in%205%20young%20adults%20say%20they%27re%20not%20straight%2C%20global%20survey%20finds&=
India (17 percent), Brazil (15 percent) and Spain (12 percent) had the highest percentages of respondents who identified as nonheterosexual. China and South Korea had the lowest.https://dataviz.nbcnews.com/projects/20210608-lgbtq-survey-orientation/index.html?initialWidth=560&childId=embed-20210608-lgbtq-survey-orientation&parentTitle=Nearly%201%20in%205%20young%20adults%20say%20they%27re%20not%20straight%2C%20global%20survey%20finds&=Exposure to sexual and gender minorities
Worldwide, 42 percent of survey respondents said they have a gay or lesbian relative, friend or colleague, while 24 percent said they know someone who is bisexual; 10 percent said they known someone who is transgender, and 9 percent said they know someone who is nonbinary, gender-nonconforming or gender-fluid. The likelihood is higher among women than among men in all four groups, and there is wide national variation. In Brazil, for example, 66 percent report having a gay or lesbian relative, friend or colleague, but in Japan and South Korea, the number is only 7 percent.
When it comes to speaking out on behalf of LGBTQ people, nearly one-third of all respondents around the world said they had done so. Consistent with the other findings, the survey found that Gen Z is much more outspoken than older generations, with 40 percent saying they have spoken out against anti-LGBTQ prejudice.
Eleven percent of respondents across all 27 countries reported having attended a same-sex wedding, from over 20 percent in Mexico and Argentina to 1 percent in Russia.
The survey asked about participation in pro-LGBTQ events, like Pride marches. Globally, 13 percent of all respondents said they had attended such an event, including 54 percent of lesbian and gay respondents and 10 percent of heterosexuals. In Australia, more than 20 percent of respondents reported having attended an event in support of LGBTQ rights, but in Russia, only 1 percent did.
“I’m not surprised that Russia stands out,” said Emil Edenborg, an associate senior lecturer at Stockholm University and an expert on Russia. Edenborg, who was not involved in the survey, said the low level of participation in Pride events in Russia is due, in part, to the country’s so-called gay propaganda law.
“Pride parades are banned in Russia since 2013, as are public expressions in favor of LGBT rights,” he said.
The law not only affects activists, Edenborg said — it also targets social media and any kind of public information, including sexual education information.
“The most harmful effect of this law is the way it impacts young people,” he said. “It really has put a harsh form of censuring on young people, especially limiting their ability to speak out about their sexuality and gender identity.”Same-sex marriage and parenting
The survey found that a global majority are in favor of same-sex marriage. In only two of the 27 countries surveyed, Russia and Malaysia, researchers found majorities in opposition.
Edenborg said same-sex marriage has become a political flashpoint in Russia.
“Same-sex marriage and parenting have been the main features of the homophobic and stigmatizing discourse of the state. Those issues have been highlighted as the biggest threats,” he said.
Worldwide, women are more likely to support same-sex marriage than men. One’s level of education did not play a role in attitudes. Since Ipsos’ last global survey of opinions on same-sex marriage, in 2013, there has not been a drop in support in any country. There was growth in support in most countries, with the U.S. having the second-highest growth, following Argentina, where support grew by 25 percent.
Latin American countries demonstrated relatively high levels of support for same-sex marriage, with 82 percent of respondents in Chile and 76 percent in Mexico in favor of same-sex marriage or some type of legal recognition of gay unions. Jordi Díez, a professor of political science at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, said it is a common misconception that Latin America is uniformly conservative.
“You have much higher levels of tolerance in Latin America than in the U.S. There is no question about that,” he said.
He also pointed to the long history of gay and lesbian activism in Latin America. “Gay and lesbian mobilization in Latin America is actually quite old. The visibility has been there, and these demands have been there for a long time,” he said.
Several Latin American countries — Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Costa Rica — have adopted same-sex marriage laws. The laws, Díez said, have a “normalizing effect,” increasing support for the policies and acceptance of homosexuality.
Support for equal parental rights is also high worldwide, with 61 percent of respondents saying same-sex couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples. In only four countries — Russia, Malaysia, Poland and Peru — were there majorities in opposition to adoption by same-sex couples.
Overall, the survey found that women are more supportive of parental rights for same-sex couples and that boomers are more likely to support adoption rights than Gen X. Canada and the Netherlands stand out as having the most support for the parental rights of same-sex couples, with 81 percent of Canadians and 83 percent of Dutch in favor of equal rights for same-sex parents.Visibility and equality
Around the world, a majority support lesbians’, gays’ and bisexuals’ being open about their sexual orientation (51 percent in favor compared to 16 percent in opposition). There is strong support for laws banning discrimination at 55 percent worldwide, but support is more muted on public affection, with 37 percent supporting and 27 percent opposing.
There is also global support for openly lesbian, gay and bisexual athletes on sports teams. In the U.S., 53 percent of respondents support athletes’ being out, similar to the global average of 50 percent.
The same level of support does not appear to exist for transgender athletes’ competing in accordance with their gender identities. On average across the 27 countries, as many respondents support as oppose the idea (32 percent compared to 32 percent).
“The U.S. is one of the countries where there is the most opposition,” said Boyon of Ipsos, with only 27 percent of U.S. respondents in support.
In the U.S., state legislators have introduced a slew of bills this year to prohibit transgender athletes from competing in school sports.Obstacles and next steps for a global survey
Boyon acknowledged that global surveys have their limitations. In particular, he cited the difficulty in crafting a survey to adequately capture the diversity of people’s gender identifications.
“In designing the questionnaires, we realized that no matter what we do, we will miss people,” Boyon said. “We are aware of the challenges of using labels.”
Another issue is translation, Boyon said. “We did not use the word ‘queer’ in the survey, because it doesn’t really translate in a lot of languages.”
Relatedly, the survey was designed in English by researchers based in the U.S. and the U.K. “This is a survey that is designed by Westerners,” Boyon said.
The survey does not claim to be nationally representative in all counties. In countries where the internet is not as accessible, for example, the survey captures the opinions of a relatively urban and digitally connected group.
Boyon said that going forward, he’d like to explore whether Generation Z retains its gender and sexual openness.
“One big question about the trends that we see among younger people is whether the patterns we see in Gen Z will stick over time,” Boyon said, “or whether it just reflects youth and as time goes by they may have more defined identities.”
Two members of Guatemalan civil society who work with the LGBTQ community and people with HIV/AIDS participated in a roundtable with Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday.
Visibles Executive Director Daniel Villatoro and Ingrid Gamboa of the Association of Garifuna Women Living with HIV/AIDS are among the 18 members of Guatemalan civil society who participated in the roundtable that took place at a Guatemala City university. Rigoberta Menchú, an indigenous human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is among those who also took part.
Villatoro is among those who attended a virtual roundtable with Harris on April 27.
“When we met last time, I was so moved to hear about the work that you have been doing, the work that has been about helping women and children, indigenous, LGBTQ, Afro-descendants, people who have long been overlooked or neglected,” said Harris before Monday’s meeting began.
Visibles in a tweet acknowledged it participated in the roundtable.
“Today we participated in a meeting with the vice president of the United States to talk about development opportunities for Guatemala and the search for inclusive justice,” tweeted Visibles. “We, as an organization, spoke about the importance of addressing discrimination and acts of violence towards LGBTIQ+ people.”
Chosen families” are an important and central concept in the LGBTQ+ community.
Our families often don’t look like the typical nuclear family. Many of our closest relationships might not be with our biological relatives, but with the friends and loved ones we’ve connected with since coming out.
These are our chosen families who help us co-parent, care for us when we’re sick and on whom we rely.
This year, as COVID-19 ravaged our communities, too many of us couldn’t afford to take time off work to care for the people in our lives who mean the most to us.
That’s why we support AB 1041, which would modernize job protected sick leave and family leave laws to include OUR families and reflect the reality of today’s family structures.
The sad truth is that far too many LGBTQ+ people still struggle with family acceptance and don’t have the support of their biological or legally-related families.
When nearly 40% of all homeless youth identify as LGBTQ+, it’s no surprise we go the extra mile to rebuild our families with the people who show up to support us each and every day — whether they’re related to us or not.
But our current leave laws make it impossible to be there for our chosen loved ones in times of crisis:
A 2020 study found that one-third of LGBTQ+ people would rely on friends or chosen family members as caretakers during a health crisis, which doesn’t fit within the outdated definition of family under current leave law.
Gary, LGBTQ+ families may not look like a “traditional” family, but they are ourfamilies nonetheless.
And this month, as we celebrate being Proud Together, it’s important we continue to advocate for laws that recognize the ways we live and allow us to support and care for our loved ones.
Will you take a minute to sign on as a citizen co-sponsor of AB 1041 and help us modernize leave laws leave to include our chosen families?
Food For Thought’s 2nd Annual Our Virtual Table This Sunday, June 13 at 7:00 p.m. (PST) Our Virtual Table is three days away and our online auction is going strong! We look forward to virtually celebrating our Food For Thought community! During the event, you’ll hear from Executive Director Ron Karp, a client and our client services team. We’ll also have breakout rooms to allow guests to mingle and socialize with each other and some exciting guest presenters. We look forward to seeing you (virtually) on Sunday at 7 p.m.! Register nowand bid on the amazing auction items below to help us raise funds to support our clients living with serious illnesses.
Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, a high school math teacher and graduate student who has lived in San Antonio since 2013, beat his former boss and incumbent in the runoff race for the San Antonio City Council. With his victory, McKee-Rodriguez became the first out gay Black man ever elected in the state of Texas.
McKee-Rodriguez once worked for his opponent, incumbent City Councilwoman Jada Andrews-Sullivan, but left her office in 2019 after facing retaliation for reporting anti-gay discrimination and harassment. Just last week, poll watchers heard two pastors who endorsed Andrews-Sullivan tell congregants voting for McKee-Rodriguez would be a “sin.”
“Jalen shattered a lavender ceiling in Texas, and it came as right-wing state legislators target LGBTQ people and people of color with bigoted policies aimed at rallying their extremist political base,” said former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, President & CEO of LGBTQ Victory Fund. “We need more people of color, young people and LGBTQ people in state and local government who will ensure politicians look to improve the lives of Texans, not further marginalize them. Jalen’s victory is a rejection of the homophobic and racist politicking so fashionable in Austin and it will inspire more LGBTQ Black leaders to run and win.”
McKee-Rodriguez graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio, (UTSA) with a BA in Communication in 2017 and will graduate with a Masters of Education in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies this year. McKee-Rodriguez married his husband Nathan, a pharmacy technician, in 2018, and the couple owns a home in the suburban San Antonio Northeast Crossing neighborhood.
New polling released by Gallup Tuesday showed that 70% of those Americans surveyed approved of same-sex marriage, a new milestone in the trend of approval since 1996 when Gallup first polled Americans on recognition of same-sex marriages, which then only registered a 27% approval.
According to the data kept by the firm, the upward trend steadily increased with a majority approval in 2011, followed by a 60% rating at the time of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015.
Gallup noted; “Since then, the issue has been less prominent in U.S. politics, and public support for same-sex marriage has continued to increase. Gallup has recorded other shifts in Americans’ ideas on marriage over time, historically, including expanded support for interracial marriage, which had 87% approval as of Gallup’s 2013 update.”
Republicans, who have consistently been the party group least in favor of same-sex marriage, show majority support in 2021 for the first time (55%). The latest increase in support among all Americans is driven largely by changes in Republicans’ views, Gallup reported.
Democrats have consistently been among the biggest supporters of legal same-sex marriage. The current 83% among Democrats is on par with the level of support Gallup has recorded over the past few years.
When Stephanie Ocasio-Gonzalez heard that the Connecticut Parentage Act passed the state Senate in a late-night session on May 20 and was headed to the governor’s desk, she congratulated her wife.
“I told Denise, ‘You’re now the owner of a 14-year-old boy,’” she said.
It was a joke shared between two people who have long struggled to have their family recognized. Despite being there for their teenage son, Jayvin, for over a decade, Denise Gonzalez is still not officially recognized as Jayvin’s parent under Connecticut law.
“She bought his first bike. She was there for the first day of kindergarten and every first day of school since,” Ocasio-Gonzalez said of her wife. “She was there for his surgery, taught him math, and so much more. She’s his mom.”
Soon the state of Connecticut will recognize her as such. On Tuesday, the first day of LGBTQ Pride Month, Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, signed a ceremonial copy of the Connecticut Parentage Act into law. The measure, which was officially signed last week and takes effect Jan. 1, will make it easier for those who don’t share a biological connection with their child, like Gonzalez, to establish parentage.
“This is such an important day — what it says for our kids, what it says for Connecticut, what it says for respecting everybody and who they are,” Lamont said at the signing ceremony.
Ocasio-Gonzalez and Gonzalez have been married since 2014, and they share a 2-year-old daughter, Destiny, in addition to their teenage son. Both women are on Destiny’s birth certificate, but even though they were married at the time of her birth, Gonzalez is still not considered Destiny’s legal parent outside of Connecticut.
Denise’s parental rights are limited because she did not go through what is often referred to as a second-parent-adoption process. As a result, routine activities like taking her children to the doctor or picking Jayvin up from school have been anxiety-provoking events that require extra paperwork and preparation.
“It just took a lot more work,” Ocasio-Gonzalez said.
But the adoption process seemed daunting, she said. In addition to the costs involved, the couple worried about interacting with Jayvin’s birth father, according to Ocasio-Gonzalez.
“I read that in some cases, even though I have full custody, I would have to get the other parent to give permission, and just thinking about having to go through that was emotionally draining,” she said. “I know he would not agree to it.”
Once in effect, the Connecticut Parentage Act will allow the family, and others like them, to avoid a potentially lengthy and costly second-parent adoption.
This means starting Jan. 1, Gonzalez can declare her de facto parentage in court and be legally recognized as Jayvin’s parent. The process to become Destiny’s legal parent outside of Connecticut is even easier.
“The really great thing this bill does for those families is that it allows them to establish parentage through a simple administrative form,” Douglas NeJaime, a professor at Yale Law School and the principal drafter of the bill, told NBC News. The new law changes the existing acknowledgement of paternity form to an acknowledgement of parentage form, making it gender-neutral. The form “has the effect of having a judgment from a court, and all other states have to treat it as valid,” NeJaime said.
So if Ocasio-Gonzalez and her family move to another state — any other state, regardless of its parentage laws — they will both be recognized as the legal parents of their two children.
The newly enacted law makes it easier to establish parentage at birth regardless of the sexual orientation, gender or marital status of the parents and adds protections for children born using assisted reproductive technologies. The new measure also removes gender-specific language from the state’s parentage law to make every path to parentage available on a gender-neutral basis. To be inclusive of transgender parents, for example, the new law makes references to the “person” who gives birth, rather than the woman who gives birth.
State Sen. Alex Kasser, one of the bill’s lead sponsors, called its passage a “historic and long overdue moment for Connecticut.”
“Finally all children will be given equal protection under the law, and all parents will be recognized when their child is born,” Kasser, a Democrat, said in a statement. “This bill confirms that there is no place for discrimination in Connecticut.”
Variation in state parentage laws
With Lamont’s signature, Connecticut will join Maine, Washington, Vermont, California and Rhode Island in passing bills that update parentage laws to recognize the realities of LGBTQ families. However, many states continue to have gaps in their legislation that make the children of same-sex couples vulnerable.
For example, many states do not recognize the parental rights of nongestational parents who are not married. Only 14 states afford rights to these parents, according to the LGBTQ think tank Movement Advancement Project. The other states, according to the group, explicitly recognize the nongestational parent only if the couple is married and lack clear guidelines for unmarried couples, leaving them in a legal gray zone.
“We have a lot of states that do not treat LGBT families as full members of the community, and that is the problem,” NeJaime said.
Connecticut’s new law is a version of the Uniform Parentage Act of 2017. The model legislation is intended to help lawmakers update laws to include LGBTQ families and those who have used assisted reproductive technology. The act, originally promulgated in 1973, was drafted by members of the Uniform Law Commission, a group of experts, academics, practicing lawyers and judges, who work on model legislation for states.
What’s next?
Advocates already have their eyes on upcoming legislation in other states, including Massachusetts. Like Connecticut’s legislation, Massachusetts’ bill is also based on the Uniform Parentage Act.
“People are not aware that some of these core protections are still not in place,” said Polly Crozier, a senior staff attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD.
The bill, currently in committee, would provide protection for children born through assisted reproductive technologies and through surrogacy.
Ocasio-Gonzalez said she hopes Massachusetts follows Connecticut’s lead so more families like hers can enjoy equal rights.
“We already know we are a family, and now with this bill passing, no one can tell us differently,” she said.
