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Qatar has detained and mistreated LGBTQ people ahead of World Cup, rights group says

 Security forces in Qatar arbitrarily arrested and abused LGBTQ Qataris as recently as last month, Human Rights Watch said on Monday, in the run-up to hosting soccer’s World Cup which has put a spotlight on human rights issues in the Gulf Arab state.

Homosexuality is illegal in the conservative Muslim country, and some soccer stars have raised concerns over the rights of fans traveling for the event, especially LGBTQ individuals and women, whom rights groups say Qatari laws discriminate against.

A Qatari official said in a statement that HRW’s allegations “contain information that is categorically and unequivocally false,” without specifying.

Organizers of the World Cup, which starts on Nov. 20 and is the first held in a Middle Eastern nation, say that everyone, no matter their sexual orientation or background, is welcome, while also warning against public displays of affection.

“Freedom of expression and nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity should be guaranteed, permanently, for all residents of Qatar, not just spectators going to Qatar for the World Cup,” HRW said in a statement.

The organization said it had interviewed six LGBTQ Qataris, including four transgender women, one bisexual woman and one gay man, who reported being detained between 2019 and 2022 and subjected to verbal and physical abuse, including kicking and punching.

They were detained without charge in an underground prison in Doha, HRW said, and one individual was held for two months in solitary confinement.

“All six said that police forced them to sign pledges indicating that they would ‘cease immoral activity,’” it said, adding that transgender women detainees were mandated to attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored clinic.

Qatar does not “license or operate ‘conversion centres,’” the Qatari official said.

One of the transgender Qatari women interviewed by HRW told Reuters on condition of anonymity that she was arrested several times, most recently this summer when she was held for several weeks.

Authorities had stopped her due to her appearance or for possessing make-up, the woman said, adding that she had been beaten to the point of bleeding and had her head shaved.

The behavior center she was mandated to attend told the woman she had a gender identity disorder and accused her of being transgender in search of “sympathy from others.”

“The last thing I want is sympathy, I just want to be myself,” she said.

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Rand Paul’s new campaign ad claims trans athletes are killing the dreams of young girls

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has released an anti-trans campaign ad as part of his reelection campaign.

The ad features former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has been vocal in opposing trans swimmer Lia Thomas’s participation in women’s NCAA competitions. Gaines tied with Thomas for fifth place in the 200-meter freestyle at this year’s NCAA championships.

In the ad, Gaines claimed that “for girls across America” the dream of being a successful athlete is “being taken away by men competing in women’s sports.” At that moment, a photo of Thomas appears on the screen.

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“Sadly, few stood up for me,” Gaines said. “But Rand Paul is not afraid to fight for fairness for women and girls.”

Rand Paul then speaks to approve the message “because I’ll always fight for fairness.”

Gaines has been speaking out against trans athletes for a long time and has become a mouthpiece for anti-trans Republicans.

In 2021, she appeared in an attack ad put out by the Republican Governor’s Association against Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) after she vetoed bills banning trans girls from women’s sports.

“I was forced to share a locker room with a biological man. It was uncomfortable and it was wrong.” Gaines said in the ad.

“This has to stop,” she concluded. “If Laura Kelly can’t protect women, she shouldn’t be governor.”

Gaines also recently joined Herschel Walker, Georgia’s anti-LGBTQ Republican Senate nominee, at a rally where Walker voiced his belief that trans kids will not get into heaven.

This is also far from the first time Paul has taken a stance against the trans community.

Last year, Paul went on an anti-transgender tirade when questioning Admiral Rachel Levine, who was at the time President Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary of health. She now holds the position.

Paul decided to rant about how gender affirming health care for transgender kids should be banned instead of left up to families and doctors. He peddled lies about transgender health care and the treatments available to trans youth and peppered Levine with questions about trans identities, declaring that transitioning is a “temporary, superficial fix for a very complex identity issue.”

“You give a woman testosterone enough that she grows a beard,” he said, “you think she’s going to go back to looking like a woman when she stops the testosterone?”

In another rant around that time, Paul called trans girls “hulking six-foot-four guys”

“Are we all gonna be OK with hulking six-foot-four guys, you know, wrestling against girls doing- You know, it just makes no sense whatsoever.”

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Russian court sets Brittney Griner appeal for Oct. 25

A Russian court on Monday set Oct. 25 as the date for American basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal against her nine-year prison sentence for drug possession.

Griner, an eight-time all-star center with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was convicted Aug. 4 after police said they found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

The Moscow region court said it will hear her appeal.

Griner admitted that she had the canisters in her luggage, but testified that she had inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no criminal intent. Her defense team presented written statements that she had been prescribed cannabis to treat pain.

Court date for Brittney Griner appeal set for Oct. 25

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Her February arrest came at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington, just days before Russia sent troops into Ukraine. At the time, Griner, recognized as one of the greatest players in WNBA history, was returning to Russia, where she played during the U.S. league’s offseason.

The nine-year sentence was close to the maximum of 10 years, and Griner’s lawyers argued after the conviction that the punishment was excessive. They said in similar cases defendants have received an average sentence of about five years, with about a third of them granted parole.

Before her conviction, the U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” — a charge that Russia has sharply rejected.

Reflecting the growing pressure on the Biden administration to do more to bring Griner home, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unusual step of revealing publicly in July that Washington had made a “substantial proposal” to get Griner home, along with Paul Whelan, an American serving a 16-year sentence in Russia for espionage.

Blinken didn’t elaborate, but The Associated Press and other news organizations have reported that Washington has offered to exchange Griner and Whelan for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. and once earned the nickname the “merchant of death.”

The White House said it has not yet received a productive response from Russia to the offer.

Russian diplomats have refused to comment on the U.S. proposal and urged Washington to discuss the matter in confidential talks, avoiding public statements.

U.S. President Joe Biden met last month with Cherelle Griner, the wife of Brittney Griner, as well as the player’s agent, Lindsay Colas. Biden also sat down separately with Elizabeth Whelan, Paul Whelan’s sister.

The White House said after the meetings that the president stressed to the families his “continued commitment to working through all available avenues to bring Brittney and Paul home safely.”

The Biden administration carried out a prisoner swap in April, with Moscow releasing Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for the U.S. releasing a Russian pilot, Konstantin Yaroshenko, convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

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NBA fines player Anthony Edwards $40,000 for using an anti-gay slur on Instagram

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The NBA has fined basketball star Anthony Edwards $40,000 for using an anti-gay slur.

The player for the Minnesota Timberwolves found himself in hot water earlier this month after a video on his Instagram story depicted him mocking a group of men standing on the sidewalk. The video has since been deleted, but Edwards could reportedly be heard saying, “look at these queer a** n****rs.”

After backlash, he tweeted an apology, writing that what he said “was immature, hurtful, and disrespectful.”

“I’m incredibly sorry,” he continued. “It’s unacceptable for me or anyone to use that language in such a hurtful way, there’s no excuse for it, at all. I was raised better than that!”

NBA Communications confirmed Edwards’s fine in a statement released on social media which said he had used “offensive and derogatory language” and that “Edwards has acknowledged that his actions were inappropriate.”

Players have been fined before for using homophobic language.

In 2021, Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant was fined the largest amount permissible by the NBA for his direct messages to actor and comedian Michael Rapaport.

He used derogatory remarks — criticized as homophobic by some and acknowledged as “inappropriate” by Durant — toward Rapaport. As a result, the NBA announced a $50,000 fine levied against Durant, reportedly the most allowed under the collective bargaining agreement.

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German soccer fans rally for slain transgender hate crime victim

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A week after the death of a trans man at the hands of a 20 year-old assailant, soccer fans in Germany rallied in support and mourning for the victim at a match in Bremen.

The Bremen team superfans, or ultras, unfurled massive banners at the 60-minute match reading “Queerphobia kills!” (“Queerfeindlichkeit tötet!), “Against all transphobia!” (“Gegen jede Transfeindlichkeit!”) and “Rest in peace Malte.”

Twenty-five-year-old Malte C., identified by police only with his first name and initial in keeping with privacy rules, died a week earlier from injuries sustained at the Christopher Street Day parade in Münster, the city’s annual Pride march held the previous weekend.

According to witnesses, Malte intervened when his attacker started hurling homophobic slurs at a group of women parade-goers. He was struck twice in the face and fell to the ground, hitting his head. He never regained consciousness.

Police apprehended the suspect at Münster’s central train station based on photos and video provided by witnesses, on the same day Malte succumbed to his injuries. The suspect is being held in investigative detention on suspicion of bodily harm resulting in death.

Community leaders in the German city reacted with shock to the violent attack. Roman Catholic bishop Felix Genn called it “barbaric” and an “insane act.”

“Intolerance, exclusion, and hatred must have no place in our society,” he said in a statement.

The German government’s Commissioner for the Acceptance of Sexual and Gender Diversity, or so-called queer commissioner, Sven Lehmann, shared the bishop’s shock.

“Malte has died following a hate attack at the CSD Münster,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’m stunned and sad. My condolences and deep sympathy go to his family and friends. Violence against queer people is a threat that we must all stand up to.”

The soccer demonstration in Bremen came just days after another violent attack on a trans person, when a 57-year-old trans woman was assaulted on a tram in the same city.

Soccer ultras have been outspoken in support of LGBTQ and trans rights. In the U.S., ultra fan group The Uproar, supporters of the North Carolina Courage, rallied against re-signing Jaelene Daniels, who refused to wear the team’s rainbow jersey, while Prideraiser, a coalition of independent soccer ultras, raises money for local LGBTQ charities annually for Pride Month.

Los Verdes, ultras for Austin FC, collaborates with the team’s goalkeeper, Brad Stuver, to fundraise for organizations including Playing for Pride and the Transgender Education Network of Texas.

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Judge blocks Utah’s transgender sports ban for being discriminatory

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A state judge just issued an injunction against Utah’s new transgender sports ban, allowing transgender student-athletes to continue to participate in school sports.

Third District Judge Keith Kelly ruled on Friday that the state can’t kick transgender girls out of girls’ sports because the new law harms them by taking away educational opportunities and increasing stigma against trans kids.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit brought by the families of three transgender students this past May who argued that the sports ban was “based on unfounded stereotypes, fears, and misconceptions about girls who are transgender. It is not supported by medical or scientific evidence.”

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Judge Kelly agreed that they were likely to win their claims and said that the law is causing harm by “singling them out for unfavorable treatment as transgender girls.”

News of the injunction comes just after Utah High School Activities Association (UHSAA) representative David Spatafore said that the organization had been receiving complaints from some parents who argued that a “female athlete doesn’t look feminine enough.”

In one case, the complaints were made by the parents of the second- and third-place finishers in a sport (Spatafore didn’t state the sport or the age group to protect the students’ privacy) against the winner of the event. The UHSAA had to investigate the winner and found that she had always been identified as female in her school records so she was judged to be cisgender.

“The school went back to kindergarten and she’d always been a female,” Spatafore said.

“Quite frankly, this is new ground for us,” he said. “I’m not going to say that we have it down pat, because I have no clue. I don’t think any of us in the office have a clue if we have it down pat. What we want to do is we just want to try to do our job.”

Jenny Roe, a 16-year-old volleyball player, is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria at a young age and received puberty blockers.

She qualified to play school sports under the UHSAA’s previous guidelines but was blocked by the new law.

“My last season playing volleyball was one of the best times of my life. I loved my teammates, felt part of something bigger than myself, and finally had a way to socialize with friends after being cooped up during the pandemic,” she said in a statement. “This law devastated me. I just want to play on a team like any other kid.”

Judge Kelly’s injunction allows transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports “only when it is fair,” which will be determined by a commission created by the state legislature.

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History-making NFL player Carl Nassib signs with Tampa Bay Buccaneers

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.

Nassib, then of the Las Vegas Raiders, came out a little more than a year ago and made one of the NFL’s most memorable early season plays, sacking the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson and forcing a fumble in a dramatic Monday Night Football victory for the Silver & Black.

This will be Nassib’s seventh season in the NFL and his second stint in Tampa Bay, where he played in 2018 and 2019, recording 6.5 and 6 sacks, respectively, those years. 

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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.

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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.”

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Oklahoma schools now require ‘biological sex affidavit’ for student athletes

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 document, which is part of Woodall Public Schools’ 2022-2023 athletic policy, requires a parent or guardian to attest to their child’s sex assigned at birth and requires that it be notarized.

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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In compliance with the new state law, other Oklahoma public schools have created similar forms.

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.

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A World Cup of Shame: FIFA Fails LGBT Rights Test in Qatar

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In November the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup opens in Qatar, a country that represses the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and punishes same-sex relations with up to seven years in prison.

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.

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World swimming bans transgender athletes from women’s events

World swimming’s governing body effectively banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s events on Sunday.

FINA members at the organization’s extraordinary general congress voted 71.5% in favor of its new “gender inclusion policy” that only permits swimmers who transitioned before age 12 to compete in women’s events.

“This is not saying that people are encouraged to transition by the age of 12. It’s what the scientists are saying, that if you transition after the start of puberty, you have an advantage, which is unfair,” James Pearce, who is the spokesperson for FINA president Husain Al-Musallam, told The Associated Press.

“They’re not saying everyone should transition by age 11, that’s ridiculous. You can’t transition by that age in most countries and hopefully you wouldn’t be encouraged to. Basically, what they’re saying is that it is not feasible for people who have transitioned to compete without having an advantage.”

FINA’s new 24-page policy also includes proposals for a new “open competition” category. FINA said it was setting up “a new working group that will spend the next six months looking at the most effective ways to set up this new category.”

Pearce told the AP that the open competition would most likely mean more events but those details still need to be worked out.

“No one quite knows how this is going to work. And we need to include a lot of different people, including transgender athletes, to work out how it would work. So there are no details of how that would work. The open category is something that will start being discussed tomorrow,” Pearce said.

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The members voted after hearing presentations from three specialist groups — an athlete group, a science and medicine group and a legal and human rights group — that had been working together to form the policy following recommendations given by the International Olympic Committee last November.

The IOC urged shifting the focus from individual testosterone levels and calling for evidence to prove when a performance advantage existed.

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FINA said it recognizes “that some individuals and groups may be uncomfortable with the use of medical and scientific terminology related to sex and sex-linked traits (but) some use of sensitive terminology is needed to be precise about the sex characteristics that justify separate competition categories.”

In March, Lia Thomas made history in the United States as the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship. She won the 500-yard freestyle.

Other sports have also been examining their rules.

On Thursday, cycling’s governing body updated its eligibility rules for transgender athletes with stricter limits that will force riders to wait longer before they can compete.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) increased the transition period on low testosterone to two years, and lowered the maximum accepted level of testosterone.

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