The Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed defensive end Carl Nassib — pro football’s first openly gay, active player — bringing him back to where he delivered two of his most productive seasons, officials said Tuesday.
Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles lauded Nassib’s ability to stop the run and pressure the quarterback.
“He has a lot of versatility, he brings a lot of energy, he brings a lot of toughness,” Bowles told reporters Tuesday. “He understands the (team’s) system. He was comfortable in it, so we look forward to him coming here.”
The Raiders elected not to bring back Nassib for 2022, opting for a more cost-efficient edge rusher. He would have made $7.75 million this season had he returned to Las Vegas.
This signing by Tampa Bay could be as crucial a moment in the history of gay acceptance within sports as Nassib’s coming out last year, according to Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of Outsports.com.
For a team, especially a high-profile Super Bowl contender like Tampa, to sign an openly gay player is “huge,” Ziegler wrote.
The acquisition shows that Nassib’s on-the-field production trumps any lingering homophobia, according to Ziegler, who contended that“people claiming that men’s pro sports broadly hate gay athletes (and yes, this is still a claim) simply have no leg to stand on.”
Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court on June 24. Six conservative justices chose to remove a person’s right to an abortion. The decision uprooted much of America and caused women to feel like their bodies were an unsafe place to live in. Regulation of women’s bodies by a conservative cohort of mostly white men is wrong.
Recently, the Biden administration issued an executive order that will reverse the fateful Supreme Court decision so that women may still have access to abortion services. I hope these efforts succeed.
Despite the potential reversal, it needs to be made clear that abortion, and all reproductive rights, are an intersectional issue. Countless Instagram posts, memes, captions, and news articles are talking about how women will suffer. Women will most definitely suffer from a reversal of Roe v. Wade, but transgender men and other nonbinary people will suffer too.
Transgender men are fully capable of having pregnancies. It is imperative that people remember our right to an abortion as well. Many transgender men either forego going on testosterone therapy for a while to have a baby or choose to become pregnant before starting hormone therapy. This is fine and a perfectly normal process to opt into.
Transgender men also deserve legal and affordable access to Plan B pills, just like all women should. Much of our body still works in the same way that a biological female’s would, despite doses of testosterone.
Tangentially, trans men also partake in the medical conversation about contraceptives and other medicines that prevent STI infection. Trans men who choose to have sex with men need affordable access to condoms and birth control.
They also need safe and affordable access to PrEP, which prevents HIV transmission. Recent federal guidance will make PrEP free, or borderline free, which is a step in the right direction. Gender nonconforming patients should also ask doctors about any differences in PrEP’s effects on bodies assigned female at birth versus those assigned male at birth.
All sorts of people — women and others — are threatened by the Supreme Court right now. The conservative cohort of justices sitting in D.C. is simply ruining America’s future.
The treatment for ectopic pregnancies and septic uteruses is an abortion. People have already been dying because they can’t access these safe and legal abortions. The cruelty being inflicted on these bodies is unrivaled.
But it’s time we include all sorts of genders in the conversation on abortion.
Isaac Amend (he/him/his) is a transgender man and young professional in the D.C. area. He was featured on National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ in 2017 as a student at Yale University. Amend is also on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Find him on Instagram @isaacamend.
Will they or won’t they support marriage equality? That is the question facing Senate Republicans. Backers of the Senate version of the House’s Respect For Marriage Act think they are close to finding 10 Republican votes to make up the 60 votes needed to pass the measure and overcome a filibuster. But many Republicans have been very quiet about whether or not they support the bill. A common response is that they haven’t looked at the bill — a four-page document — yet.
The time it’s taken just to confirm that eight more members of the GOP will vote yes on the measure is very much at odds with the lightning speed at which the House introduced and passed the bill. It aims to codify marriage equality for LGBTQ and interracial couples into law and would effectively cut off expected attempts to throw the U.S. back into darker times by outlawing marriages for some based on sexual orientation or race.
The time it’s taken just to confirm that eight more members of the GOP will vote yes on the measure is very much at odds with the lightning speed at which the House introduced and passed the bill.
With 47 House Republicansvoting in favor of the bill, it seems like conservative lawmakers have figured out something very important: They can’t be the party of family values and be in favor of taking away the right to be a family for many of their constituents at the same time.
Now, we wait to see how many Senate Republicans have realized it too.
As a journalist who has covered many similar pieces of legislation, this issue is also particularly personal. For many queer people, marriage isn’t even a goal. In many communities, it’s still something seen as what boring heteronormative suburban gays do. I say this as someone who doeswant to get married someday and carries an aching heart over the fact that marriage was legalized for me just as my last serious live-in relationship ended — and might be taken away again just as I’ve moved in with a new partner and am exploring domestic bliss once again.
But regardless of whether it’s a knot you’d like to tie (or not), everyone from staunch Republican voters to anti-assimilationist queer activists agrees that it’s a right people should have. Marriage equality was never about assimilation — it was about putting an end to a separate-but-equal society in which only some people have fundamental rights, including financial security and protection and stability for children, while others are seen as lesser and undeserving of those same rights and relationship recognition.
A majority of American voters across all political parties have supported equal marriage rights for same-sex couples since 2021, when the annual Gallup Values and Beliefs poll found 55% of Republicans, 73% of independents and 83% of Democrats saying same-sex marriages should be recognized under law. This year, Gallup reported that 71% — up from last year’s 70% — of Americans support marriage rights for LGBTQ people. It’s a number that has risen every year since the Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalized it. It could explain why 47 Republican House representatives voted in favor of the Respect For Marriage Act in this era of hyper-partisanship and divisiveness over everything politics.
Decades of advocacy and activism led to this moment: LGBTQ people are more visible and accepted across mainstream society than ever before, and marriage is a fundamental part of that. We are out and proud, able to live authentically at work, school and in communities without having to hide our partners and identities out of fear of repercussion. Another Gallup poll this year found that 7.1% of the U.S. population identify themselves as LGBTQ, with numbers increasing with each younger generation to the point where 1 in 5 members of Gen Z is out as LGBTQ.
This visibility has led to increased discrimination. A 2022 report from GLAAD found that 70% of LGBTQ people reported that personal discrimination has risen over the past two years. Not to mention the dozens of discriminatory state laws proposed to shove LGBTQ youth into a closet they’ve never had to be in. But change is inevitably coming; when it comes to LGBTQ equality, the train has already left the station.
The GOP claims to be for family values. LGBTQ people have families now. Families with kids.
LGBTQ people serve at every level of government from the federal Cabinet down. Transportation Secretary and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, campaigned openly and affectionately to help millions of people see how mainstream and likable gay couples can be. Buttigieg’s unspoken campaign slogan might as well have been, “We’re boring and suburban, just like you.” We’ve come far from the 2004 resignation of former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey, who stepped down in brewing scandal and outing threats with a new phrase that quickly entered the discourse: “I am a gay American.”
But the current conservative makeup of the Supreme Court threatens to stop the progress LGBTQ communities have fought hard for. When Justice Clarence Thomas said that the court should “reconsider” its ruling in cases like Obergefell, which guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry, and Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized LGBTQ intimacy, it sent such a panic throughout LGBTQ communites across the country. How could it not? After all, the nation had just watched the court decide to eliminate the constitutional right to abortion — despite a majority of Americans disagreeing with the move.
To even “consider” overturning constitutional protections for the LGBTQ community would be out of step with not just what the majority of the American people want, including the majority of Republicans. But anything seems possible right now.
Now is the time for Republican lawmakers to act. The GOP claims to be for family values. LGBTQ people have families now. Families with kids. How would a Wanda Sykes or a Neil Patrick Harris, much less the countless other LGBTQ parents across America, explain to their kids why the Supreme Court took their parents’ marriage away and why the government didn’t do anything to stop it? When did breaking up families become a mandate for the party of family values? These questions should haunt the 157 Republicans in the House who voted against the Respect For Marriage Act, and it should give pause to the senators poised to cast their own votes. Republican voters made it clear that they support marriage equality. Now it’s up to Republican senators to listen.
Oklahoma public schools have started requiring students from kindergarten to college to complete “biological sex affidavits” if they want to compete in school sports, in accordance with a state law that took effect earlier this year.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill in March that bans transgender student athletes in public elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges from competing on the sports teams of their gender identity as opposed to their sex assigned at birth.
A photo of an affidavit required by Woodall Public Schools went viral Wednesday after Erin Matson, executive director of abortion rights group Reproaction, shared it on Twitter.
“This has nothing to do with encouraging girls to be athletes,” Matson wrote. “This is totalitarianism. It is the white nationalist agenda. The anti-LGBTQ agenda. The anti-abortion agenda. It is all the same agenda.”
The address on the affidavit matches Woodall Elementary School in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, about an hour southeast of Tulsa.
Ginger Knight, superintendent at Woodall Public Schools, confirmed via email that the district is required by state law to have students complete the form if they want to participate in athletics, but Knight had no additional comment.
After the governor signed the bill in March, Oklahoma was the 13th state nationwide to enact such a bill. Now, 18 states have enacted similar measures.
Nearly all of those states designate sports teams by sex assigned at birth as determined by the student’s birth certificate issued at or near the time of their birth.
Oklahoma is the only state so far to require an affidavit to prove a student’s assigned sex. If a student is under 18, the affidavit can be completed by a legal guardian or parent. Once a student reaches 18, they have to sign the affidavit themselves. The law requires that a new affidavit be completed ahead of every school year.
Two other states can require an affidavit or sworn statements in some cases.
In Kentucky, for example, a student’s assigned sex can be determined by their “original, unedited birth certificate” or via an affidavit “signed and sworn to by the physician, physician assistant, advanced practice registered nurse, or chiropractor under penalty of perjury.”
Under Idaho‘s law, which a judge blocked in August 2020, a student’s sex can be disputed. If that happens, the school can request that the student provide a form from their health care provider to “verify the student’s biological sex… as part of a routine sports physical examination relying only on one (1) or more of the following: the student’s reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.”
Proponents of trans athlete bans argue that they help ensure fairness for cisgender female athletes, while LGBTQ rights advocates say the measures violate the civil rights of trans people.
Some LGBTQ people on Twitter condemned Woodall Public Schools’ affidavits.
“With a notary requirement — this is not ONLY incredibly transphobic, but is going to have the impact of preventing lower socioeconomic status kids from participating,” one person wrote.
Another person wrote that requiring “notarized affidavits attesting to the genital composition of individual elementary schoolers is a disgusting invasion of privacy and is predatory and discriminatory.”
The Education Department issued guidance last year that said it will interpret Title IX, a federal law that protects students from sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools, to protect LGBTQ students from discrimination.
At the time, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona told ESPN that he understands concerns about fairness in sports, “but we do have a responsibility to protect the civil rights of students, and if we feel the civil rights are being violated, we will act.”
The Biden administration’s Title IX directive is on hold after a federal judge in Tennessee blocked it earlier this month, ruling that it would make it impossible for some states to enforce their own laws on transgender athlete participation and use of restrooms.
The tasteless, anti-LGBTQI+ comic Dave Chappelle performed five shows at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa. It is difficult to believe the LBC staff and board were unaware of Chappelle’s numerous anti-LGBTQI+ comments that are well-documented and for which he has offered no apologies. Chappelle identifies as a so-called “TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist)” joining author J. K Rawlings in such dangerous hate speech. These people refuse to accept that we are in the position to declare our gender or lack thereof.
Netflix came under fire for producing and airing two Chappelle shows that feature anti-Trans comments. LGBTQI+ Netflix employees protested – some even quit. Days before the LBC shows comenced, a Minneapolis Chappelle show switched locations as a direct result of a protest organized after Chappelle referred to Monkeypox as “a gay disease.” Chappelle mocked the members of the local LGBTQI+ Community who brought about the move. The original venue apologized to the local LGBTQI+ Community for once welcoming Chappelle and his hate. Chappelle has never backed down, apologized or even reached out to better understand the concerns of he LGBTQI+ Community. Instead, he continues to mock our Community.
The Press Democrat revealed that mere weeks before the five July shows, Live Nation approached LBC with an offer LBC appears to have found unable to refuse. The LBC staff and board claim there was considerable conversation – considerable, but certainly brief and misguided. Did they notice how few dates Live Nation had booked for Chappelle? None in San Francisco or Oakland or Los Angeles. LBC thought they could sneak this past our Community. No doubt comedy venues in big cities find Chappalle as toxic as the LBC staff and board should have.
Luther Burbank Center for the Arts found it necessary to confiscate all audience cell phones before the Chappelle shows. I have attended too many LBC concerts to count but have never had my cell phone taken away before a show. They must have done this so no footage of his anti-LGBTQI+ vitriol would find its way onto social media identifying LBC as the location. Sorry, LBC, you are now forever linked to anti-LGBTQI+ comments.
Should the North Bay’s LGBTQI+ Community allow hate speech and inflammatory comments to be staged in our backyard? Make no mistake – this is not an attack on free speech or about censorship. This is about making LBC aware that Trans people are harmed and even killed as a result of such despicable comments. 2021 saw a record number of Trans-folks murdered. So far this year 57 have been murdered in the United States alone. We once valued this venue, but it’s decision to allow Chapelle a forum for his hate is unacceptable. The LGBTQI+ Community finds Dave Chappelle comments offensive, inflammatory and even deadly.
Let’s stand up to Hate Speech and inform those in power at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts we will boycott the venue. Some shy away from boycotts. If you are amongst them, at least express your opinion by contacting the people listed below.
Let the Staff and Board of Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, its sponsors, those who share the Center’s campus, and elected officials know that such Hate results in harm to members of the LGBTQI+ Community. Email and call, as many as possible and as often as possible.
Call to Action: BOYCOTT Luther Burbank Center for the Arts for Bringing Anti-LGBTQI+ Hate to Sonoma County
The tasteless, anti-LGBTQI+ comic Dave Chappelle performed no less than five shows at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa. It is difficult to believe the LBC staff and board are unaware of Chappelle’s numerous anti-Trans comments that are well-documented and for which he has offered no apologies. Chappelle identifies as a so-called “TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist)” joining author J. K Rawlings in such dangerous hate speech. These people refuse to accept that we are in the position to declare our gender or lack thereof.
Netflix came under fire for producing and airing two recent Chappelle shows that feature anti-Trans comments. LGBTQI+ Netflix employees protested – some even quit. Recently, a Minneapolis Chappelle show switched locations as a direct result of a protest organized after Chappelle referred to Monkeypox as “a gay disease.” Chappelle mocked the members of the local LGBTQI+ Community who brought about the move. The original venue apologized to the local LGBTQWI+ Community for once welcoming Chappelle and his hate. Chappelle has never backed down, apologized or even reached out. Instead, he continues to mock our Community.
The Press Democrat revealed that mere weeks before the five shows, Live Nation approached LBC with an offer they seen unable to refuse. The LBC staff and board claim there was considerable conversation – considerable, but perhaps, but certainly misguiged. Did they notice how few dates Live Nation had booked for Chappelle. None in San Francisco or Oakland or Los Angeles. LBC thought they could sneak this past our Community. No doubt comedy venues in big cities find Chappalle as toxic as the LBC staff should have.
Imagine, Luther Burbank Center for the Arts confiscated cell phones at the Chappelle shows. I have attended too many LBC concerts to count but have never had my cell phone taken away before a show. They must have done this so no footage of his anti-LGBTQI+ vitriol would find its way onto social media identifying LBC as the location. Sorry, LBC, you are now forever linked to anti-LGBTQI+ comments. Did you think this community could be so easily duped?
Should the North Bay’s LGBTQI+ Community allow hate speech and inflammatory comments to be staged in our backyard? Make no mistake – this is not an attack on free speech or about censorship. This is about making LBC aware that Trans people are harmed and even killed as a result of such despicable comments. 2021 saw a record number of Trans-folks murdered. So far this year 57 have been murdered in the United States alone. We once valued this venue, but it’s decision to allow Chapelle a forum for his hate is unacceptable. The LGBTQI+ Community finds Dave Chappelle comments offensive, inflammatory and even deadly.
Let’s stand up to Hate Speech and inform those in power at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts we will boycott the venue. Some shy away from boycotts. If you are amongst them, at least express your opinion by contacting the people listed below.
Let the Staff and Board of Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, its sponsors, those who share the Center’s campus, and elected officials know that such Hate results in harm to members of the LGBTQI+ Community. Email and call, as many as possible and as often as possible.
The soccer governing body, FIFA, knew this in 2010, when it awarded Qatar the football tournament, one of the world’s most widely viewed sporting events. FIFA’s own governing statutes, in force at the time, ban LGBT discrimination of the kind Qatar enshrines in its national laws, and FIFA’s due diligence to enforce its own policies around the world has been ineffective.
In 2016, FIFA adopted the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which require it to “avoid infringing on the human rights of others and address adverse human rights impacts.” It requires FIFA to take adequate measures for the “prevention, mitigation, and remediation” of human rights impacts.
To meet this responsibility for the Qatar World Cup, FIFA should have introduced concrete policies and a human rights due diligence process with regular reporting. But less than five months ahead of the football tournament, and despite FIFA’s recent celebration of Pride month, it is clear that it is failing to live up to its promises.
In March, an international coalition of groups noted FIFA’s and Qatar’s lack of progress in implementing civil society recommendations on LGBT rights made to the country’s Supreme Committee, including legal reform and free expression guarantees.
But despite Qatar’s dismal human rights record, including around the rights of migrant workers, severe restrictions on free expression and peaceful assembly, state policies that discriminate and facilitate violence against women, and a repressive environment against LGBT residents and visitors, Qatar remains the tournament host and has not changed its ways.
In 2020, Qatar assured prospective visitors that the kingdom will welcome LGBT visitors and that fans will be free to fly the rainbow flag at the games. But it begged the question: what about the rights of LGBT residents of Qatar?
Suggestions that Qatar should make an exception for outsiders are implicit reminders that Qatari authorities do not believe that its LGBT residents deserve basic rights. It risks erasing the lived repressive reality of LGBT residents of Qatar.
On May 20, at a news conference in Berlin, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, responded to a question about the rights of LGBT visitors by repeating that, “We [Qatar] welcome everybody, but we also expect and want people to respect our culture.”
Qatar’s steady reference to “culture” to deny LGBT people’s rights deflects responsibility away from abusive state systems. “Culture” should not be used as a cover for discourse, practices, and legislation that have effectively excluded content related to sexual orientation and gender identity from the public sphere.
Qatari authorities censor mainstream media related to sexual orientation and gender identity. And people who have experienced government repression have told us that the government surveils and arrests LGBT people based on their online activity.
In April, Major General Abdulaziz Abdullah Al Ansari, a senior Interior Ministry official overseeing security for the football tournament, said that rainbow flags may be confiscated from prospective visitors “for their protection.” Al Ansari added: “Reserve the room together, sleep together — this is something that’s not in our concern.”
It certainly should be a concern. A recent survey by a Scandinavian media group showed that 3 of the 69 hotels on FIFA’s official list of recommended accommodations would deny entry to same-sex couples. It found that only 33 did not object to booking same-sex couples, while 20 others said that “they would accommodate same-sex couples as long as they did not publicly show that they were gay.” FIFA responded, warning that it will terminate any contracts with hotels that discriminated against same-sex couples.
Qatar’s hardening position may be connected to its improving geopolitical standing in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, especially in Europe where Qatar’s liquefied natural gas is viewed as an alternative to Russian energy.
Journalists, human rights organizations, and football associations have widely criticized allowing Qatar to host the World Cup in the first place. FIFA has a responsibility to hold host authorities accountable to an international rights-respecting standard, including on LGBT rights.
Long-term legal reform should prioritize the realities of LGBT residents of Qatar, including by introducing legislation that protects against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, online and offline. The Qatari government should repeal all laws that criminalize consensual sexual relations outside of marriage—before the World Cup begins this fall.
Lebanese authorities have unlawfully banned peaceful gatherings of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people, theCoalition to Defend Freedom of Expression in Lebanonsaid today. The ban violates LGBTI people’sconstitutional rights to equality, free expression, and free assembly and Lebanon’s obligations under international law and comes during an economic crisis and a worsening climate for the rights of LGBTI people in the country.
On June 24, 2022, Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi sent an urgentletter to the directorates of Internal Security and General Security instructing them to ban any gatherings aimed at “promoting sexual perversion.” The letter includes vague and overly broad grounds, citing no legal basis, to determine that such gatherings violate “customs and traditions” and “principles of religion.” The interior minister said this decision was in response to calls to his ministry from religious groups to “reject the spread of this phenomenon.” The letter is understood to refer to gatherings by LGBTI groups, citing a message circulated on social media that detailed plans for activities organized by LGBTI activists.
“The Interior Ministry’s unlawful decision to ban events promoting LGBTI rights alarmingly indicates the deterioration of human rights and freedoms in Lebanon,” said Tarek Zeidan, executive director of Helem. “The ban tells LGBTI people that the government is willing to throw away their fundamental rights if others want them to.”
A wave of anti-LGBTI hate speech on social media byindividuals and somereligious groups, followed the ministry’s letter, includingincitement to violence, death threats, andcalls to ban the scheduled events by force. Several parliament members also made statements condemning the “promotion of homosexuality.” Activists who had planned and publicly announced a peaceful march on June 26 against the ban said they indefinitelypostponed the protest due to threats of violent counter-protests and fears that the security forces would not protect them.
The same day the ministry sent its letter, officers from General Security, Internal Security, and the Internal Security’s information branch questioned both LGBTI and feminist activists at a cultural center about a planned private seven-person workshop, telling them to cancel the event or apply for a permit. Since then, activists said, they have received repeated calls from the Internal Security’s information branch inviting them “for a chat over coffee,” which the activists declined, and indicating that they were monitoring the activists’ social media accounts.
Activists said the security forces attempted to justify their interference by claiming that the organizers “failed to obtain prior approval from the authorities,” citing the 1911 Lebanese Law on Public Meetings. However, that law only applies to public meetings. The security forces’ reasoning contravenesinternational guidance on freedom of assembly under human rights law, which excludes notification requirements where the impact of the gathering can be expected to be minimal, which would be the case for a small workshop held in private.
The interior ministry’s decision comes at a time when more than 80 percent of the country’s residents do not have access to basic rights, including health, education, and an adequate standard of living, according to the United Nations.
Since 2017, Lebanese security forces haveregularly interfered with human rights events related to gender and sexuality. On September 29, 2018, General Security forces raided and unlawfullyattempted to shut down an annual conference that advances LGBTI rights andissued entry bans for the non-Lebanese participants. In 2021, the State Council, the highest administrative court, annulled the entry bans and stated that participation in a conference related to LGBTI rights falls under freedom of expression guaranteed by article 13 of the Lebanese Constitution.
Such disruptions are contrary to Lebanese jurisprudence on same-sex conduct as well as international human rights law. In July 2018, a Lebanese appeals courtissued a groundbreaking ruling that same-sex conduct is not unlawful, dismissing charges brought against people under article 534 of the penal code, which criminalizes “any sexual intercourse contrary to the order of nature.” The judges denounced the law’s discriminatory intrusion into people’s private lives and declared that homosexuality is not “unnatural.” The ruling followed four judgments from lower courts since 2009 declining to convict gay and transgender people under article 534.
In 2021, during its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Lebanon accepted recommendations to ensure the rights to peaceful assembly and expression for LGBTI people. Lebanon’s constitution guarantees freedom of expression “within the limits established by law.” The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Lebanon ratified in 1972, provides that everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association. The UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), which interprets the covenant, has madeclearthat it is prohibited to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity in upholding any of the rights protected by the treaty, including freedom of expression, assembly, and association.
“The interior minister should immediately annul this discriminatory and unlawful decision and instruct the security agencies to robustly protect LGBTI people from violence and abuse,” Coalition Coordinator Najah Itani said. “Instead of using the rights of LGBTI people as a scapegoat, Lebanese authorities should be directing their attention to carrying out reforms to mitigate the impact of the economic crisis.”
Members of the coalition: Act for Human Rights (ALEF) Amnesty International Alternative Media Syndicate DARAJ Media Helem Human Rights Watch Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) Legal Agenda Maharat Foundation Media Association for Peace (MAP) Samir Kassir Foundation SEEDS for Legal Initiatives Social Media Exchange (SMEX) The Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH)
As soon as I cross state lines, I mask my queerness.
I attended a school-sponsored trip to the Smoky Mountains while in middle school a few years ago, to explore Tennessee’s vast countryside and stunning views. We traveled as a cohort, and I was lucky to have close friends on the trip, with whom I felt extremely comfortable sharing my sexuality. In my hometown of Chicago, I never felt unsafe expressing myself. It wasn’t a secret— I crossed my legs every time I sat, my painted nails reflected the Southern heat, and my octet-raising voice certainly wasn’t helping.
But in Tennessee, the stares started to pile up, from the staff at the hotels, the servers at the restaurants we ate at, and even the security guards whose job it was to make us feel safe. I bought the cheapest nail polish remover at a local drugstore; I uncrossed my legs whenever I caught myself falling into old habits; I cleared my throat before speaking to ensure it came across as masculine as possible. I was afraid for my physical safety.
As soon as the plane landed back in Chicago, I breathed a sigh of relief, sat at the bedside table and despite the exhaustion from the long flight, I repainted my nails.
As queer youth, we are forced to limit who we can be queer with and where. We code-switch whenever the situation demands it. We observe which teachers respect our pronouns, which friends say slurs too liberally, whether our parents were home or not. And now, states are adding to that burden – codifying those worries into law.
Today, an unprecedented amount of anti-LGBTQ laws are flooding state legislatures across the country. One after the other, conservative states are rushing to ban trans youth from participating in sports, ban comprehensive sex education in schools, undermine longstanding & federally-backed non-discrimination policies, and prevent gender-affirming medical care. On a national scale, LGBTQ youth are now having to determine for themselves whether our authenticity is worth risking our security.
As queer youth, we desperately need the government to take action and pass the Equality Act today. Whether or not we are entitled to LGBTQ rights has become dependent upon the geographical boundaries of where our feet stand. Today, in 27 states there are no explicit laws protecting us from discrimination and in 21 states it is still legal to discriminate against LGBTQ people in many spheres of public life, including education.
The Equality Act would protect LGBTQ people from protections on a federal level so that our rights are equal no matter where in the country we choose to live. It would expand federal civil rights laws to protect us from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, jury service, and federally funded programs, such as those for health and education, as well as public places and spaces. It would allow us to live as our most authentic selves.
I watched the Equality Act first pass the House of Representatives in 2019 through my phone’s tiny screen. For the first time, I felt great pride in my country, assured we were finally heading for the right track, oblivious to the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ laws that would soon spread across the country like wildfire in the years to come. Just as Pride month began this year, President Biden issued a proclamation in which he called on Congress to pass the Equality Act, which he said, “will enshrine long overdue civil rights protections and build a better future for all LGBTQI+ Americans.”
But currently, the legislation is languishing in the Senate. Despite repeated calls from LGBTQ advocates and the endorsement of the entire federal Democratic caucus, there has now been no action on the bill since the middle of last year. Supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, the Equality Act still seems in danger of failure even as it nears the finish line in the Senate. We are on the precipice of finally ensuring LGBTQ can be themselves and live without fear of discrimination, no matter the state they reside in, but we can’t get there if our elected officials keep ignoring our rallying cries.
State lines will never define who we are. Queer people exist in every state, are here to stay, and we deserve the right to feel safe while doing so. As the list of dangerous anti-LGBTQ state legislations grows rapidly, the Senate has a responsibility to act now to swiftly pass the Equality Act for President Biden to enact into law.
Across the country, queer youth are watching closely for the day they no longer have to hide their true selves – their desire to play sports, dress how they choose, and access healthcare that affirms their gender identities. Just as flowers do not choose where they bloom, LGBTQ young people deserve the right to thrive everywhere we exist. The fight for equality must not die in committee nor across state lines.
Jorge Martinez is a Senior at Bennett Day School in Chicago, IL. Jorge is a community activist for queer voices and a youth ambassador with AMAZE.org.
The waving colors of the thousand shades inside of a rainbow,
The sparkling joy from the pride and honor of self-declaration,
The echoing sounds of the steps for solidarity in the cobblestone streets of İstanbul,
To unite for equality, for justice, for solely our right to be.
This was our goal, our expectation and our hope for Pride Turkey 2022. It has, however, been overshadowed by the government’s vicious attempts to repress the colors of the LGBTQI+ community.
First, it started with the ban of Pride speeches and panels that many district governors and other local authorities across Turkey announced. Local police officers raided the many event venues as if “illegal” activities were being conducted.
As in the last couple of years, it was already expected the government would ban the Pride marches in many cities. It was, however, the first time the government officially tried to prevent even face-to-face community gatherings of LGBTQI+ organizations. It was a type of intervention reflecting the level of fear and intolerance of the government regarding the growing connection, solidarity and public visibility of LGBTQI+ community.
Nevertheless, oppression often brings out the most creative means. As such, Pride committees have carried all the activities on digital platforms. Many activists and civil society representatives have shown support by participating in live broadcasts from event venues, and the voice of LGBTQI+ solidarity still reached a wide audience.
Subsequently, the most drastic pressure by the government has manifested itself during the Pride marches. The police violently intervened and used unproportionate force against marchers in many cities, which resulted in a radical number of unwarranted detentions.
While 530 LGBTQI+ activists were taken into custody over the last 37 days across Turkey, 373 of them were arrested during the Istanbul Pride march on June 26. This constitutes a first, since the Istanbul Pride arrests constituted the largest number of people taken into custody during a street march since the Gezi protests.
Will these enormous efforts to pressure win the day? The answer is “definitely no.” On the contrary, it sparked a backlash by triggering strong solidarity among Turkey’s queer community. The outstanding resistance of LGBTQI+ marchers gained public recognition on social media, while persistent legal support of LGBTQI+ initiatives canceled all the detentions. In the end, the exhaustive pressures of the government could not manage to fade the multicolor of LGBTQI+ identity. In fact, it helped our rainbow flag to shine even more glamorous and visible.
We, as members of the LGBTQI+ community, have once again proved through this entire experience that solidarity, togetherness and collective resistance are the most powerful facilitators in our fight to exist equally.
In honor of the unbreakable resistance of Turkey Pride 2022 supporters,
Thanks to you, the cobblestones of Istanbul and every street in Turkey echoed with the steps of LGBTQI+ solidarity.
Dilek İçten is a journalist, researcher and civil society expert with a demonstrated history of working in interdisciplinary and investigative research projects examining the socio-cultural dynamics of media, gender and migration. The focus of her work varies from freedom of expression, media censorship and journalistic independence to gender based-discrimination and hate speech against disadvantaged groups and minorities.
On Sunday, June 4, Pastor Dillon Awes stepped behind the pulpit at Steadfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas and declared, “What does God say is the answer, is the solution for the homosexual in 2022?…That they are worthy of death.” His statement was greeted by shouts of “Amen” from within his congregation. He continued preaching, saying, “they should be sentenced to death, they should be lined up against a wall and shot in the back of the head.” Again, his words were greeted by “Amens” from within his church.
This clip soon spread online, causing widespread backlash from religious and non-religious alike. But for me, an openly gay, former evangelical, Christian pastor, Pastor Awes’s words are not surprising at all. In fact, I’ve heard similar sentiments regularly. The only difference between Pastor Awes and most other conservative Christian pastors across the United States today is that Pastor Awes was willing to say the silent part out loud. After all, Pastor Awes was not wrong — the passage he was preaching on, as commonly interpreted by conservative Christians, does in fact say, “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” (Romans 1:32) If you put any evangelical pastor on the spot and asked if they believed that this verse was true and was in reference to LGBTQ+ people, they would have to answer, even if reluctantly, “yes.”
In a strange way, I am glad Pastor Awes preached what he did so clearly, because he is revealing the truth that most other evangelicals don’t want to acknowledge — that their theology related to the LGBTQ+ community is a theology of death. Despite attempts in recent years by evangelicals to seem more welcoming and inclusive, their core theological claim that the lives and love of LGBTQ+ people is sinful, broken, and abomination is a claim that has resulted in the suffering, oppression, and death of millions of queer people around the world, and it is high time that they own up and are honest about the beliefs they hold and their impact on LGBTQ+ people. Because again, Pastor Awes view is not a minority view, as hard as that might be to believe. He simply said what a majority of evangelical churches teach in a horrifyingly clear way. While most evangelicals would probably disagree with Pastor Awes graphic call for the execution of LGBTQ+ people, the would still affirm the truthfulness of Romans 1:32: “They are worthy of death.”
And even if evangelicals attempted theological gymnastics to get out of this horrifying interpretation of scripture that calls for violence toward queer people, their theology, which tells LGBTQ+ people that they must suppress their sexuality or gender identity or seek to change it to be acceptable to God and welcome in the church does, in fact, cause death. A 2015 study published by the National Institutes of Health found that LGBTQ+ people who are subjected to non-affirming religious teachings have a significantly higher rate of attempted suicide. These numbers have been reaffirmed in study after study, and are certainly true in my experience as a young gay evangelical who was forced into conversion therapy by my Christian college in my early twenties. When you’re told that a fundamental aspect of your identity is evil and realize that there is nothing you can do to change it, for many, death can seem like the only viable escape from this mental and spiritual anguish.
So how are we to respond to the truth that this dangerous theology is being preached in literally every corner of our nation? How can those of us- religious or not- who are allies to the LGBTQ+ community protect our queer friends and family from violence and harm in the face of millions of people who hold to these dangerous beliefs and are feeling more empowered than ever to say them out loud and to act on them?
First, it’s important that we do our work and are informed. The truth is that while this interpretation of the biblical texts is unfortunately common among Christians around the world, it is not an accurate understanding of the biblical texts. The six verses in the Christian scriptures that reference any sort of same-sex behavior are all condemnations of a very particular practice that was common in the ancient world — sexual exploitation related to temple prostitution. Same-sex relationships and queer gender identities were well known throughout the ancient Near East and especially within the Roman Empire — instead of speaking about these realities, every condemnation of homosexuality in scripture is tied to “idolatry,” which means worshipping something other than God, and in context is clearly a condemnation of temple prostitution, a practice where people who have sex with priests or priestesses in pagan temples as a way to honor various gods and goddesses. That is what is being condemned in Scripture; there is not a single condemnation of same-sex relationships or queer gender identity anywhere, and we must challenge these teachings the same way we challenged the church’s teachings on slavery, the equality of women, and the panoply of other backwards beliefs that have been perpetuated in the name of Christianity.
Second, we must challenge our conservative Christian friends and family members to be honest about what they believe and the harm that it causes. The reason so many Christians shy away from saying things as clearly as Pastor Awes is because they inherently know that these beliefs are dangerous and wrong. How can one follow Jesus, whose central command was to “love your neighbor as yourself” and hold on to a belief that a group of people are abominations who are worthy of death? These are wholly inconsistent, and this inconsistency should be drawn out and turned into an invitation for our friends to change their damaging and dangerous beliefs.
Third, we must continue to uplift and celebrate LGBTQ+ people and relationships in our society. The hatred spewed by Pastor Awes is a clear reminder of why Pride is still so important — Pride celebrations began to increase visibility of queer folks, decrease stigma around our lives and loves, and to use celebration and joy as a tool for resistance in the face of fear and bigotry. Despite the broad progress the LGBTQ+ rights movement has made in the U.S., our lives and rights are consistently under attack and in the post-Trump era, there has been a reinvigoration of anti-LGBTQ+ policies and rhetoric across the nation rooted in fear being perpetuated by the alt-right. Old tropes conflating queer people with pedophilia and sexual abuse have found new life, and the demonization of LGBTQ+ people as a threat to basic morality is now commonly heard on Fox News and across social media. The way we combat such dangerous rhetoric is ensuring more people see and know LGBTQ+ people and for our allies to speak out whenever anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is used or policies are proposed, signaling the broad support of queer people by the American public.
During this Pride month, it’s time for a renewed commitment to the fight for LGBTQ+ dignity and equality in the United States. It’s time for queer people to stand up and let our lights shine brighter than ever before, so that LGBTQ+ youth can see our example and know that there is space for them, in all their uniqueness, in our society.
It’s time for allies to be bold in their condemnation of bigotry wherever it occurs. It’s time for our nation’s leaders to reaffirm their commitment to fight for LGBTQ+ rights in every corner of this nation and around the world. If we remain complacent, fear-based views like those of Pastor Awes will spread and will result in more abuse and violence against LGBTQ+ people. Progress is not inevitable, and the fight has not yet been won. This Pride month, may we return again to the spirit of the earliest Pride marches, standing boldly in the face of fear and bigotry and declaring that love will win in the end.
Rev. Brandan Robertson is an author, pastor, activist, and public theologian working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal. He currently serves as the Lead Pastor of Metanoia Church, a digital progressive faith community.
