More than 120 German Roman Catholic priests and officials have jointly come out as LGBT+ and called on the church to do better by queer Catholics.
Presenting a fresh test for the church, which has long resisted calls to modernise when it comes to LGBT+ rights, 125 former and current priests, teachers, church administrators and volunteers came out on Sunday (23 January).
In a Change.org petition, the group wrote that while some have “bravely and dared” to come out in the past, others have only “just taken the step”.
“We no longer want to remain silent,” they wrote.
Jointly, the group is demanding that church leadership bring an end to “outdated statements of church doctrine” when it comes to sexuality and gender.
“We want to be able to live and work openly as LGBTIQ+ persons in the church without fear,” the statement read.
The initiative, called Out In Church, posted Sunday evening a lengthy list of demands addressed to the Roman Catholic Church.
LGBT+ Roman Catholics must have access to “all fields of activists and occupation in the Church without discrimination”, they said.
Out In Church also took aim at Church employment rules that consider being openly queer as a “breach of loyalty or a reason for dismissal”.
“Defamatory and outdated statements of church doctrine on sexuality and gender needs to be revised on the basis of theological and human scientific findings,” the officials continued.
“This is of utmost relevance especially in view of worldwide church responsibility for the human rights of LGBTIQ+ persons.”
Among the group’s other calls is a plea for the church to give LGBT+ people of faith access to God’s blessings and sacraments, and to oppose LGBT+ discrimination in all its forms.
Above all, the group urged church leaders to shoulder accountability for the institution historic discrimination of LGBT+ people.
“In dealing with LGBTIQ+ persons, the church has caused much suffering throughout its history,” Out In Church concluded.
“We expect bishops to take responsibility for this on behalf of the church, to address the institutional history of guilt and to advocate for the changes we call for.”
It’s the latest example of Catholics challenging the Vatican’s increasingly mixed messages on LGBT+ inclusion.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith said that it does not “discriminate” but that God “cannot bless sin”.
The Vatican even objected to a proposed bill in Italy that would protect queer people from discrimination, with the unprecedented intervention sparking outrage.
Francis himself has flip-flopped on the issue of LGBT+ rights. While he once appeared to suggest support for civil unions, he has previously said that parents of queer children should “consult a professional” and referred to “gender ideology” as a “move away from nature”.
The NCAA has adopted a sport-by-sport approach for transgender athletes, bringing the organization in line with the U.S. and International Olympic Committees.
Under the new guidelines, approved by the NCAA Board of Governors on Wednesday, transgender participation for each sport will be determined by the policy for the sport’s national governing body, subject to review and recommendation by an NCAA committee to the Board of Governors.
When there is no national governing body, that sport’s international federation policy would be in place. If there is no international federation policy, previously established IOC policy criteria would take over.
“Approximately 80% of U.S. Olympians are either current or former college athletes,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a release. “This policy alignment provides consistency and further strengthens the relationship between college sports and the U.S. Olympics.”
The NCAA policy is effective immediately, beginning with the 2022 winter championships.
NCAA rules on transgender athletes returned to the forefront when University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas started smashing records this year. She was on the men’s team her first three years, but she is competing for the women this season after transitioning.
The Board of Governors is suggesting NCAA divisions allow for additional eligibility if a transgender student-athlete loses eligibility based on the policy change. That flexibility is provided they meet the NCAA’s new guidelines.
“We are steadfast in our support of transgender student-athletes and the fostering of fairness across college sports,” Georgetown President John DeGioia said in a release. “It is important that NCAA member schools, conferences and college athletes compete in an inclusive, fair, safe and respectful environment and can move forward with a clear understanding of the new policy.”
The French fashion designer Manfred Thierry Mugler has died at the age of 73. His death was due to “natural causes” according to his agent.
On his official Mugler Instagram page, a statement said, “We are devastated to announce the passing of Mr Manfred Thierry Mugler on Sunday January 23rd 2022. May his soul Rest In Peace.”
Mugler was born and raised in Strasbourg, where he trained in his teens as a ballet dancer for six years. He relocated to Paris at the age of 24 and launched his eponymous fashion line in 1973. He opened his first boutique in 1978 and his fame skyrocketed in the 80s, with his broad-shouldered, theatrical designs perfectly chiming with the power-dressing ethos of the times.
Diana Ross, David Bowie and Grace Jones were among those he dressed, and celebrities flocked to his spectacular runway shows.
In later years, besides his clothing, he became just as known for his perfumes, including Angel and Alien.
Mugler sold the rights to his name to Clarins in 1997. He retired from his label in 2002 but continued to design occasional outfits for big-name clients. This included Lady Gaga, Cardi B, Rihanna, and Kim Kardashian’s Met Ball outfit in 2019. He was creative director for Beyoncé’s I AM world tour in 2010.
Mugler was an out, gay man. After retiring from his label, stepped away from the limelight and went by his real first name, Manfred. A longtime fan of bodybuilding, he transformed his body with the help of a trainer and bulked up, becoming quite unrecognizable from his former self (although this was partly due to reconstructive facial surgery he also underwent after a bad motorbike accident).
In a 2019 interview with Fashion, Mugler said he’d never had a problem with being gay, only with the reaction of others to it.
“I didn’t have a problem with my sexuality or identity. I had a problem with my family, and I had a problem with the world. I was feeling out of place, and I was feeling very miserable. I was in the ballet for six years, and no one in my family came to see me onstage; I was the ugly duckling who left the theatre alone. I guess I was too bizarre. I would watch the skies at night and look for the blue star and know that I had to hold on.”
“He was timeless and ahead of his time,” supermodel Jerry Hall told the New York Times in 2019. “He knew all about gender fluidity and his clothes reflected the heat and sexuality of the late 70s and early 80s.”
Among those to pay tribute to the designer was Diana Ross.
Casey Cadwallader, the current creative director at the house of Mugler, wrote on Instagram, “Manfred, I am so honored to have known you and to work within your beautiful world. You changed our perception of beauty, of confidence, of representation and self empowerment. Your legacy is something I carry with me in everything I do.”
“When was the last time anybody said ‘wow!’” a friend asked me.
I couldn’t remember the last time anyone I know (including me) had any “Wow!” moments. Until I heard about trans woman and software engineering manager Amy Schneider’s 29-game winning streak on “Jeopardy.”
You wouldn’t think anything could dispel our COVID exhaustion and political divisiveness. Yet, news about a champion on “Jeopardy,” a quiz show that has been on TV since 1964, has broken through our gloom.
In our culture, there are few things that everyone loves. But, “Jeopardy” is beloved by many, from theater geeks to 80-year-old sports nuts. A progressive friend was over the moon when his brother was a “Jeopardy” contestant. A buddy, a hetero (non-Trump) Republican, is a “Jeopardy” fanatic and a gay librarian pal is a “Jeopardy” freak.
Many of us daydream about being on “Jeopardy.” But we know that we wouldn’t have a chance on this legendary quiz show with its deceptively simple format: You give the answer to the (often incredibly hard) clues in the form of a question. You have to have a strategic military commander’s and a world-class athlete’s coordination: so you can press the buzzer to answer the clue.
The game’s categories run the gamut from opera to mountain ranges. Most of us, mere mortals, would be lucky to know even one category in the first round of the game. Let alone in the “Double Jeopardy” round or the “Final Jeopardy” clue. I might jump on clues about Katharine Hepburn movies or M&Ms. But that would be it for me.
It’s exciting to watch a “Jeopardy” contestant become a long-running champion. You marvel at the player’s intelligence, endurance, and nerve. It’s thrilling when the contestant on a winning-streak is part of your community.
Many of us LGBTQ “Jeopardy” fans are thrilled by Schneider’s record-setting winning streak. As I write this, Schneider has won more than $1 million in 29 games of “Jeopardy.” She is the fifth millionaire in “Jeopardy” history, and only the fourth player to reach this milestone in the regular season. She has won more than any other female “Jeopardy” contestant.
Schneider, like so many of us, doesn’t want to be defined by her gender identity or sexuality. Schneider’s life is multi-faceted; she has many interests. Schneider lives with her girlfriend Genevieve. They have a cat named Meep.
Yet, Schneider doesn’t want to hide that she’s trans. On “Jeopardy,” Schneider brilliantly dealt with this dilemma. She didn’t make a big deal about being out. She just wore the trans Pride flag pin.
“It was something that I wanted to get out there and to show my pride in while not making it the focus of what I was doing there,” Schneider told the New York Times. “Because I was just there to answer trivia questions and win money.”
As a cisgender lesbian, I can’t speak to how Schneider’s record-setting “Jeopardy” streak feels to transgender people.
But, as a trans ally, I’m cheering for Schneider. Kudos for her bravery! At a time when many states are passing anti-trans laws, it takes guts to be out on TV and the Internet.
Few things are as mainstream as “Jeopardy.” I bet that many “Jeopardy” viewers who are frightened at the idea of trans people, will become more comfortable with transgender people after watching Schneider on the popular quiz show. Because folks on TV come into our living and bedrooms and we feel as if we know them after watching them for a while.
“Amy looks like everybody else,” my neighbor said when I told her Schneider was trans. “She doesn’t act odd. She’s not strange.”
Transgender people encounter violence and discrimination in everything from housing to health care to employment.
I know Schneider’s “Jeopardy” triumph won’t end transphobia. But her winning streak will go a long way toward jumpstarting a change in hearts and minds.
More than a year after the January 6th insurrection where a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and violently entered the Capitol Building, leading to multiple deaths and injuries. Now, prosecutors are readying themselves for the trials of a number of the alleged organizers of the events.
While some insurrectionists, like Brandon Stratka, have cut deals to provide investigators with information, others have stood their ground. Jessica Watkins, a trans woman who is one of the most prominent figures in the trials, has maintained her innocence and is set to argue her case at the end of January.
Who is Jessica Watkins?
Jessica Watkins is an Army veteran. She served in the military under her former name, serving in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2003. Later, she was a first responder as a firefighter and emergency medical technician in North Carolina. She lived in Woodstock, Ohio with her boyfriend Montana Siniff. There, she owned and operated a bar and grill with him called The Jolly Roger.
Watkins was a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers. In addition, she formed a small, local “paramilitary group” according to Buzzfeed News, called the Ohio State Regular Militia.
What did Jessica Watkins have to do with the insurrection?
According to social media evidence, records obtained by investigators, and various videos, Watkins traveled to Washington, DC to take part in the insurrection and, wearing full tactical gear, was a part of the group that entered the Capitol, getting at least as far as the rotunda. According to prosecutors, though, she not only participated in the action but helped to coordinate it: investigators showed texts to those she wanted to join her militia and other messages where she tried to get them to come to trainings. She mentioned getting the recruits “fighting fit” for inauguration.
After Watkins home was raided — she was not there — where FBI agents found numerous firearms, pool sticks cut down to baton size, and medical supplies, she turned herself into police.
What does Jessica Watkins say happened at the January 6 insurrection?
According to Watkins, she was in Washington D.C. as security for various speakers for the events leading up to the Capitol invasion. Her posts on Parler made this clear. In another Parler post, she wrote that she had been a part of the storming of the Capitol.
“Teargassed, the whole, 9,” she wrote. “Pushed our way into the Rotunda. Made it into the Senate even. The news is lying (even Fox) about the Historical Events we created today.” In interviews, she has consistently claimed that once inside she tried to stop others from vandalizing the building.
After being arrested, in court Watkins disavowed the Oath Keepers and said she had disbanded her militia. A judge ruled that she was to remain in custody until her trial though Watkins said she was being treated unfairly as she is transgender. She said that injuries she had were not treated and she was forced to remain naked in her cell for days. Officials denied this happened.
“My name is Jessica Watkins, and I am a January 6th defendant,” she wrote in a statement to The Gateway Pundit in December. ” I have been incarcerated nearly a year for crimes I did not commit, so as to serve as a pawn for ‘The Party’ to exploit. And exploit they have.” In the statement, she claimed that January 6 was a riot incited by police.
“Our charges are false, the truth manipulated, and we will one day be vindicated,” she wrote.
What are the charges against Jessica Watkins for the January 6 insurrection?
Watkins is of the most high-profile cases in the prosecution of those involved in the January 6 insurrection. According to investigators, she went beyond being a participant and was an organizer of the event, recruiting, training, and directing others. On January 13, 2022, she was one of 11 individuals indicted in federal court with seditious conspiracy. She has also been charged with conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, entering and remaining in a restricted building, and tampering with documents.
Watkins faces decades in jail. The sedition charge carries a maximum of 20 years.
Watkins first trial begins on January 31, 2022, and then she has another trial on April 19, 2022.
André Leon Talley, giant of the fashion industry, has died aged 73.
Talley, who was Vogue’s first Black creative director, and later editor-at-large, passed away on Tuesday (18 January), his literary agent confirmed.
He had been suffering from an unknown illness.
A pioneer in fashion, Talley passionately championed diversity and inclusion in an industry that for years resisted it. He was remembered by friends and fans for his glamour, grace and grit.
Talley grew up with his grandmother in the city of Durham in Jim Crow era North Carolina, and told NPR in 2018 that he first came across a copy of Vogue at his local library when he was nine or 10 years old.
He described it as a “rabbit hole” into “a world of glamour”, and added: “[Vogue] was my gateway to the world outside of Durham.
“It was the world of literature, what was happening in the world of art, what was happening in the world of entertainment.”
Talley went on to study French literature at Brown University, where he wrote his thesis on the influence of Black women in Charles Baudelaire.
He later moved to New York City, working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Andy Warhol’s Factory studio, and at Women’s Wear Daily, Interview, W, and the New York Times.
Talley finally made his way to Vogue, where he was fashion news director from 1983 to 1987, creative director from 1988 to 1995, and editor-at-large from 1998 to 2013.
The fashion icon became known for his signature kaftans and capes, and told NPR: “I went to [Morocco] and saw that the men in North Africa in Marrakech and Casablanca walked around in caftan shirts and loose-fitting clothes all day, every day… I decided: I want to be like that. I want to wear that instead of a suit because it’s comfortable. You are ventilated. You’re roomy. You’re cozy, and you can just stretch.
“I’m not a tall stick anymore! I’m a big, big guy of great girth and people think I look like maybe my clothes don’t look that important, but I have taken great time and [done] fittings for my capes and caftans made by the great designers.
“I will continue to wear these things for the rest of my life!
Talley published three books during his lifetime: A.L.T.: A Memoir in 2003, the photography book A.L.T. 365+, and in 2020, The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir, which became a New York Times best seller.
In 2010 and 2011, he had a place on the judging panel of America’s Next Top Model.
Diane von Furstenberg, the designer who was a close friend of Talley’s, wrote: “Goodbye darling André … no one saw the world in a more glamorous way than you did. No one was grander and more soulful than you were.”
Bette Midler added: “I’m sorry to say the extraordinary André Leon Talley has died.
“He was such a force and believed in the magic of fashion and its illusions with all his being. His life was a saga of great highs, great lows, the dramatic, the ridiculous, and the endless pursuit of beauty. Love and RIP.”
Slave Play writer Jeremy O’Harris tweeted: “For a little Black gay boy who reached for the stars from the south there were few people I could look up to up there amongst the stars who looked like me just more fab except for you André.
“For a generation of boys André Leon Talley was a beacon of grace and aspiration. RIP.”
Preston Mitchum, attorney and director of advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project, tweeted: “André Leon Talley made it possible for so many Black queer boys and men to express ourselves out loud. No reservations.
“A legend. An icon. May he rest in peace and power knowing that he paved the way for many people who looked up to him.”
As the beleaguered BBC faces backlash from government ministers, PinkNews takes a brief look back at the broadcaster’s track record on LGBT+ rights.
Tory culture minister Nadine Dorries fuelled alarm over the weekend after she questioned the BBC’s main source of funding, a license fee charged to all TV viewers in the nation.
On Monday evening (17 January), Dorries confirmed that the BBC budget will be frozen for the next two years, adding that the future of the public-owned broadcaster’s funding will be “up for discussion”.
It’s the latest salvos against the BBC fired by a minister in Boris Johnson’s government – one that has increasingly smeared the public broadcaster as a megaphone of the metropolitan elite that is anything but “impartial”.
Others, however, disagree. Stressing that right-wing opinions often receive more airtime than progressive ones, according to a Cardiff University study, among other concerns.
From airing the first same-sex kiss televised on a soap opera to the constant accusations of “transphobia” riddling its senior ranks, here are some of the good – and the bad – of the BBC’s history with queer lives and issues.
When the BBC aired the first televised gay kiss on Eastenders
(BBC)
In 1989, the BBC made history when it aired the first mouth-to-mouth same-sex kiss on British TV.
Kind-hearted Colin Russell, played by Michael Cashman, was the long-running show’s first gay character, a time when LGBT+ representation on prime-time TV was threadbare.
In 1987, a monumental episode of the soap opera saw Russell receive a kiss on the forehead from his on-screen boyfriend Barry Clark (Gary Hailes). Two years later, in 1989, Michael Cashman’s character made history yet again, with Russell and his boyfriend Guido (Nicholas Donovan) sharing the first mouth-to-mouth same-sex kiss on British TV.
Both landmark moments were inevitably blasted by the right-wing press – with Piers Morgan branding the latter as “a love scene between two yuppie poofs” in The Sun – and inundated with complaints from fuming viewers, but the show since been credited with helping to soften the public’s attitudes towards queer folk.
BBC’s Boy Meets Girl casts first trans actor in trans role on a British sitcom
Rebecca Root and Harry Hepple in ‘Boy Meets Girl’. (BBC)
Boy Meets Girl, a comedy-drama about two people falling in love, was the broadcaster’s first sitcom focusing on trans lives.
The show’s lead, Rebecca Root, became the first trans actor cast in a television soap opera, with both the programme and Root bagging a nomination at the British LGBT Awards in 2016.
“The BBC should be proud of its commitment to diversity and groundbreaking coverage of LGBT+ issues,” Sarah Garrett, who founded the awards, told the BBC at the time.
Strictly Come Dancing welcoming historic first same-sex pairings
John Whaite and Johannes Radebe. (BBC)
Strictly Come Dancing, a staple of many a Brit’s living room, broke ballroom ground when it finally welcomed its first same-sex dancers in 2020 and 2021.
Nicola Adams and Katya Jones and John Whaite and Johannes Radebe became the competition’s first all-female and male pairings respectively.
In the face of bigoted backlash from pearl-clutching viewers, the BBC continually refused to uphold viewer complaints and defended the simple act of two people of the same gender dancing.
A commitment to bringing LGBT+ stories to the forefront of its programming
Sheridan Smith as Sarah Sak in BBC drama, Four Lives. (BBC)
From the quietly subversive Everybody’s Talking About Jamie documentary,Drag Queen at 16, in 2011 to this year’s Four Lives, the BBC has in the last decade gone out of its way to represent LGBT+ lives beyond tired coming out plot lines.
BBC Three, the home of the network’s more off-the-wall, youth-focused shows, has been especially at the forefront of this.
The channel aired both Growing Up Gay with Olly Alexander and Transitioning Teens, which saw trans activist Charlie Craggs chat to trans teens who have waited years to be seen by the NHS.
The time BBC debated the ‘morality’ of LGBT+ lessons in schools
All of the Question Time panellists supported LGBT-inclusive education. (Screen capture via the BBC)
On Question Time, BBC One’s weekly political discussion show, panellists were posed the question of whether it is “morally right” to teach children about LGBT+ issues in 2019.
As much as the panel, made up of senior lawmakers, company bosses and journalists, agreed that LGBT-inclusive education is “morally right”, the episode drew fierce complaints online.
“The framing of this question is deeply worrying,” tweeted BBC presenter Sue Perkins. “Are we really here again, nearly two decades after Section 28 was repealed…?”
When the BBC ‘balanced’ its coverage by featuring a gay execution supporter
Elton John and David Furnish with their two sons. (Getty)
In 2010, seven million people tuned in to watch BBC’s flagship News at Sixbulletin as it reported on the birth of Elton John and David Furnish’s first child.
During the broadcast, the show interviewed a single person – Stephen Green, of right-wing group Christian Voice.
But it failed to mention that Green has previously supported the death penalty for gay men in Uganda, among other examples of small-mindedness. The BBC did so, it told PinkNews at the time, to add an “opposing viewpoint” to the subject of surrogacy.
The BBC once debated whether ‘gays should be executed’
Ugandan men hold a rainbow flag reading ‘Join hands to end LGBTI genocide’ (ISAAC KASAMANI/AFP/Getty)
As Ugandan lawmakers debated a bill that would introduce the death penalty for LGBT+ people in 2009, the BBC World Service asked: “Should homosexuals be executed?”
The backlash was swift. The radio station’s director, Peter Horrocks, apologised for the report in a statement published to the BBC Editors’ Blog.
“The original headline on our website was, in hindsight, too stark,” he said. “We apologise for any offence it caused.”
The BBC quitting a workplace Stonewall scheme over a ‘risk of perceived bias’
Stonewall is the UK – and Europe’s – largest LGBT+ charity. (Getty)
BBC bosses said that the departure was to “minimise the risk of perceived bias” when it comes to covering LGBT+ issues.
It was the upshot of a divisive culture war that had pelted the programme, with many taking aim at the scheme in what Stonewall has described as part of a “coordinated attack” against the charity.
Fran Unsworth allegedly telling LGBT+ staff to ‘get used to hearing views you don’t like’
Fran Unsworth, head of news at the BBC. (BBC)
The BBC’s director of news Fran Unsworth reportedly told the corporation’s LGBT+ network to “get used” to hearing opinions they do not agree with.
“You’ll hear things you don’t personally like and see things you don’t like – that’s what the BBC is, and you have to get used to that,” Unsworth allegedly said at the meeting.
The meeting had been called following weeks of tension within the BBC surrounding the broadcaster’s handling of LGBT+ issues, mainly trans rights.
‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women’
Trans rights protestors gather outside the BBC building. (Hollie Adams/Getty Images)
Among the laundry list of criticisms from LGBT+ people: How it relied on a survey of just 80 people, how the survey was conducted by an anti-trans group, how Lily Cade, a porn star interviewed in the article, had called for trans women to be “lynched” and “executed”.
Some former and current BBC staffers even quit the organisation, citing a “hostile” environment against LGBT+ people – with the podcast being the final straw.
“We really need to start looking internally at ourselves as the BBC,” said one staff member in a leaked document, “and ask a very simple question.
A gay cruise company has described a New York Times story which questioned whether 2,000 gays would be safe on a boat during COVID as “homophobic” and “sensationalised”.
This week a New York Times article was published which looked at the safety of an upcoming cruise by LGBT+ tour operator Atlantis Events, which will carry almost 5,000 passengers.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is carefully monitoring cruise ships as Omicron cases continue to spread.
The story interviewed various prospective gay cruise passengers, with some expressing the desire to sell their tickets for fear of catching COVID, and others looking forward to “dirty dancing, sex, drugs, raves, orgies and sweet, sweet freedom”.
The newspaper also referenced the Celebrity Millennium cruise ship, which LGBT+ cruise company VACAYA has chartered this week for a seven-night Caribbean cruise, and said that prospective Atlantis Events passengers would be “watching closely” to see how the trip panned out.
The New York Times noted that the Millennium, which carries more than 2,000 people, had been flagged by the CDC as having “met the investigation threshold for COVID-19 cases” on board.https:
VACAYA has now hit out at the newspaper, calling the article “homophobic”.
VACAYA co-founder and CEO Randle Roper told Seatrade Cruise News: “The venerated Times, whose article quoted several people not even travelling on either cruise, did not live up to the journalistic integrity we expect and was an affront to Atlantis Events, LGBT+ travel companies in general and the gay community.”
Referencing the New York Times’ slogan, he added: “This certainly wasn’t news ‘fit to print’.”
Roper continued: “As we begin to come out of the pandemic, it’s OK to ask questions about how, why and when we’ll return to normal, but the Timescompletely missed the story here.
“Their decision to focus on errant quotes taken from various social media pages to sensationalize the story was both a misfire and — let’s hope unintentionally — homophobic.
“The focus should have been on the positive steps being taken by travel companies to adapt to live in a new world of testing, screening and exposure reduction through contact tracing, upgraded onboard medical facilities and staff, and improved guest stateroom ventilation.”
Roper said that passengers were vaccinated, most had received a booster, and all were tested.
PinkNews contacted The New York Times for comment.
The administration of President Joe Biden has made slow progress protecting human rights in the United States, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2022.
“The Biden administration has made some big-picture pronouncements on key issues like racial and gender equity with little evidence so far that the words will translate into real impact for people whose rights have been systematically and historically ignored or trampled,” said Nicole Austin-Hillery, US Program executive director at Human Rights Watch. “Black people in the United States still suffer from significant economic disparities stemming from systemic racism that have impacts across generations, and border policies have shredded the right to seek asylum while officials subject migrants to violent, abusive treatment.”
In the 752-page World Report 2022, its 32nd edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in nearly 100 countries. Executive Director Kenneth Roth challenges the conventional wisdom that autocracy is ascendent. In country after country, large numbers of people have recently taken to the streets, even at the risk of being arrested or shot, showing that the appeal of democracy remains strong. Meanwhile, autocrats are finding it more difficult to manipulate elections in their favor. Still, he says, democratic leaders must do a better job of meeting national and global challenges and of making sure that democracy delivers on its promised dividends.
In addition to executive branch policies and actions to achieve racial and gender equity and protect LGBT people’s rights, the US House Judiciary Committee voted to move H.R. 40, a bill to study the provision of reparations for slavery, to the full House for a vote for the first time in 32 years. But at the end of 2021, this landmark step toward reparations for the legacy of slavery has stalled in the House.
Among the rights failures in US domestic policy linked to systemic racism, despite some reductions in incarceration rates for Black people, they remain vastly overrepresented in jails and prisons. Black people are killed by police at a per capita rate that is three times the rate of white people. Black people still make up almost 42 percent of the current death row population despite being only 12.4 percent of the US population.
Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities have been disproportionately harmed by Covid-19, which has deepened existing racial disparities in health care, housing, access to safe and affordable water, employment, education, and wealth accumulation, Human Rights Watch said. Economic inequality remains high and has slightly increased in the United States, although poverty dropped largely due to increased government benefits. The wealth gap between Black people and white people persists.
The Biden administration has also kept in place the harmful Title 42 border policy, under which it expels asylum seekers to unsafe conditions in Mexico or their home countries on specious public health grounds. In a particularly grievous example of the policy, US Border Patrol agents on horseback menaced Haitian border crossers in Del Rio, Texas in September, and the United States then summarily expelled thousands of Haitians to dangerous conditions in Haiti.
Human Rights Watch reported on other evidence of abusive treatment of asylum seekers by US border officials as described in Department of Homeland Security documents obtained after litigation. The documents catalog over 160 internal reports of physical and other abuses of asylum seekers as well as violations of their due process rights.
In its foreign policy, the administration announced its commitment to “putting human rights at the center of US foreign policy” and to multilateralism. The US sought – and won – election to the UN Human Rights Council and rejoined the Paris Climate Accord. It rescinded the harmful Global Gag rule on funding for women’s health care, reinstated funding to the UN Population Fund, and reintroduced reporting on reproductive rights in the State Department’s annual human rights report.
But significant failures to protect and promote human rights include continued arms sales to governments violating international human rights and humanitarian law including the Philippines, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and failing to publicly condemn rights abuses by perceived strategic partners.
The Biden administration should end the abusive and illegal Title 42 policy and take concrete actions and robustly report on progress aligned with its policy pronouncements on racial and gender equity. State and local governments in the US should end abusive policing of Black people and other people of color and instead invest in communities in ways that address structural racism. State policies threatening the right to access to abortion and reproductive freedom should end in order to fully protect the rights of women and girls.
“The US government needs to take bold and concrete actions to protect the human rights of all people in the United States – Black and white, citizen and noncitizen alike, as well as to promote human rights globally through its foreign policy,” Austin-Hillery said.
As we mark one year into the Biden administration, Lambda Legal reviews the progress made (or not) on ten asks from a year ago to rectify the harms done by the Trump administration and to address the ongoing inequities experienced by LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV.
The Trump administration damaged the integrity of our federal judiciary by packing it with right-wing extremists who oppose LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, and civil rights more broadly. We called on the Biden administration to make the restoration of fairness and impartiality to the courts one of its highest priorities.
What the administration accomplished
The administration has worked with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to confirm more judges in its first year than any president since Ronald Reagan; a record-tying 40 lifetime appointments to the federal bench. Of these 40 judges confirmed, 32 are women; 27 are people of color; 21 are women of color; 27 add professional diversity, including 15 former public defenders; and one is the first openly gay or lesbian circuit court judge in the country.
What more we need
The administration must nominate more openly LGBTQ+ people, and particularly LGBTQ+ people of color, for judicial vacancies, focusing on the five circuits—D.C., First, Fourth, Eighth, and Tenth—that do not have a single openly LGBTQ+ judge on the bench of either the circuit court or the district courts in its jurisdiction.
Specifically, the administration should nominate the country’s first transgender or nonbinary judge and the first openly bisexual judge. To be legitimate, the judiciary should reflect the society it serves.
With the new majority on the Supreme Court created by Trump and increasingly hostile lower court appointments, we have every reason to believe our opponents will seek to undermine marriage equality for same-sex couples. Now more than ever, we need a robust ally in the White House who will vigorously defend and fully implement marriage equality, including things like the right of LGBTQ+ widows and widowers to access Social Security survivor’s benefits. The Biden administration must ensure that marriages between same-sex couples are respected and that LGBTQ+ families are treated like all other families.
What the administration accomplished
Lambda Legal won victories that allow the surviving members of same-sex couples who were barred from marriage in the past to access a key protection of marriage: Social Security survivor’s benefits. The administration chose the right side of history in standing down from appeals of these victories, which unlock millions of dollars in benefits and give a piece of dignity to thousands.
What more we need
The vestiges of marriage discrimination still live on, and they have yet to be fully remedied. From survivor pension benefits to veterans’ benefits, there are still ongoing inequalities that persist today because same-sex couples were barred from marriage in the past. We need to see a deeper commitment and proactive engagement throughout the federal government (including agencies like the IRS) to address these lingering inequities.
At every turn, the Trump administration granted licenses to discriminate to health care providers, social service agencies, and private businesses, but we know that religious freedom does not include the freedom to harm people because of those beliefs. The Biden administration must reassert protections for LGBTQ+ people when we are at our most vulnerable; in hospitals, homeless shelters, nursing homes, and foster care, and end the effort to grant a “license to discriminate” in the name of religion.
What the administration accomplished
The administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) withdrew broad exemptions from nondiscrimination requirements in federally-funded child welfare programs granted by the Trump administration, based on the religious objections of child welfare agencies that did not want to have to work with same-sex couples. Lambda Legal is still working to undo some of the harms caused by these waivers.
What more we need
The administration must be a champion for robust nondiscrimination protections, including passing the Equality Act.
The Biden administration must begin enforcing robust nondiscrimination requirements for HHS-funded programs, which provide health and welfare services to millions of vulnerable people across the country. Lambda Legal filed suit to challenge HHS’s nonenforcement of the Obama-era rule and to stop the Trump grants rule from going into effect. Every day that HHS fails to either enforce the previous rule or establish new protections, vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth, seniors, people living with HIV, and others who rely on grant-funded programs may face denials of critical supports and services.
The Biden administration must end discrimination against LGBTQ+ prospective foster parents in federal foster care programs for immigrant children. Rather than ending this discrimination, HHS has facilitated it, authorizing the segregation of LGBTQ+ would-be foster parents and sending them to alternative providers, regardless of the harm this causes to both the adults and the refugee children, who deserve the chance to be considered for placement in all homes that would best serve their individualized needs. It is well past time for HHS to stop enabling discrimination against LGBTQ+ people by agencies receiving federal tax dollars to carry out functions on behalf of the government.
The Biden administration must eliminate the so-called “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” at HHS and issue new regulations that safeguard the ability of LGBTQ+ people and people seeking reproductive health care to access the life-saving care that they need.
The Biden administration must revisit Trump-era rules lifting basic protections put in place by the Obama administration for people receiving federally-funded social services from religious organizations. To protect the religious and other interests of people receiving services, those protections included requirements that the agencies post notices advising people receiving services that they are protected against discrimination and may request a referral to an alternate provider if they are uncomfortable receiving services in that religious setting. Lambda Legal and our partners sued the Trump administration to block those rules and the litigation is ongoing.
In the final days of the Trump administration, the Department of Labor announced it was changing the rules that limit the freedom of companies receiving federal contracts to discriminate based on religion against their employees. The new Trump rules took effect in January 2021, and allowed nearly all such contractors to claim religious rights to discriminate, even large, for-profit companies with no evident religious aspects to the goods or services they wish to sell to the federal government. This type of contracting rule, which makes equal workplace opportunity a condition of receiving taxpayer-funded contracts, has been critical to efforts to reduce many kinds of discrimination against workers, including discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. The Biden administration has proposed rescinding the Trump rules but has not yet done so.
The Trump administration repeatedly relied on a distorted, legally mistaken interpretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to justify many policies designed to facilitate special religious exemptions from rules that usually apply equally to everyone to protect others against many types of harm, including the harms of discrimination. The Biden administration should issue formal legal guidance correcting the prior opinions so that federal agencies and the general public have appropriate directions about the protections and limits of religious freedom under federal law.
The Trump administration called efforts to train medical and other personnel on the pernicious effects of systemic racism “un-American” and issued an executive order banning the use of federal funds for such training. The Biden administration must reverse and repudiate this order and the many other racist directives and policies of outgoing President Trump, such as the Muslim travel ban and other attacks on Black and brown communities.
What the administration accomplished
In September 2020, then-President Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting Federal contractors and grantees from instituting diversity training programs that discuss implicit bias or other such “divisive concepts.” Understanding that there cannot be any LGBTQ+ equality without race equity, Lambda Legal obtained the only nationwide injunction prohibiting enforcement of this racist executive order. On January 20, 2021, as one of his first acts in office, President Biden rescinded Trump’s racist executive order and replaced it with a new one, the Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.
Also, on January 20, 2021, President Biden revoked then-President Trump’s Muslim Ban Executive Order, referring to it as a “stain on our national conscience” and “inconsistent with our long history of welcoming people of all faiths and no faith at all.” Lambda Legal participated in multiple challenges to the Muslim Ban, because the LGBTQ+ community knows all too well that official government discrimination against a persecuted group contributes to irrational prejudice and violence.
On January 25, 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce.
What more we need
The Biden administration must do all it can to encourage the Senate to pass the NO BAN Act, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion in numerous immigration-related decisions.
As commander-in-chief of the military, one of the world’s largest employers, President Biden must end the ban on open service by transgender people and ensure that Pentagon leadership understands that our patriotic transgender service members have a right to serve their country openly, as who they are, and free from discrimination.
What the administration accomplished
President Biden rescinded the Trans Military Ban on January 25, 2021 with an Executive Order. This action, taken in coordination with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, ended the years-long nightmare for the thousands of brave transgender people who were already serving or who wish to serve our country.
What more we need
The Biden administration should champion legislation prohibiting discrimination in the Armed Forces that would prohibit future administrations from reimposing a ban on open service.
School is tough enough without bullying from the federal government. The Biden administration must get the Department of Education back in the business of protecting the educational opportunities of all students, and in particular, should end its relentless assault on the ability of transgender students to be their authentic selves and to have equal opportunity.
What the administration accomplished
Consistent with the Supreme Court’s ruling and analysis in Bostock v. Clayton County, the Department of Education published a notice of interpretation to clarify that Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination encompasses discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In addition, the Departments of Justice and Education issued a resource for students and families entitled “Confronting Anti-LGBTQI+ Harassment in Schools.” The notice of interpretation and fact sheet are currently the subject of ongoing litigation.
The Department of Education held public hearings regarding Title IX in June 2021 and invited students, educators, and members of the public to provide comments on steps the agency can take to address discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in educational environments.
The Department of Justice filed statements of interests or briefs in cases challenging laws or policies discriminating against trans youth in schools, including in Lambda Legal’s challenges to West Virginia’s ban on sports participation by trans youth (B.P.J. v. West Virginia) and a Florida school district’s discriminatory restroom policy.
What more we need
President Biden needs to speak out forcibly, and often, in staunch defense of trans and gender nonconforming youth. This administration should use all tools available, including the bully pulpit, to stem the tide of anti-trans laws.
The Department of Education is scheduled to issue proposed nondiscrimination Title IX rulemaking in April 2022. Proposed rules should revoke the 2020 Title IX final regulations on sexual harassment and sexual assault on college campuses and propose regulations expressly clarifying Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination protects transgender and gender nonconforming students in educational programs and activities.
Additionally, the proposed rules should add a new regulation clarifying that Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in the application of any rules of appearance; that dress and grooming codes shall not be written or enforced in a manner that disproportionately impacts LGBTQI+ students; and that dress and grooming codes shall not be written or enforced based on gender stereotypes.
With respect to school-based policing, the Department of Education should gather examples of quality, effective training for school-based police on child development, implicit bias, and reducing the disparate impact of school policing on: youth of color, youth with disabilities, LGBTQI+ and GNC children and youth, and children and youth at the intersection of those identities.
Every American needs access to affordable, quality health care. And the COVID-19 global pandemic has exposed how barriers to health care can put vulnerable communities at great risk. The Trump administration was relentless in its efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act and to restrict the ability of many—including LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV—to access care, regardless of who they are. The Biden administration’s Department of Justice should stop trying to undermine health care in our courts, and its Department of Health and Human Services should be fighting for quality health care, free from discrimination or harassment.
What the administration accomplished
The Biden administration appointed Rachel Levine, the highest-ranking and first Senate-confirmed openly transgender U.S. government official in U.S. history, to the post of Assistant Secretary for Health.
HHS announced that, consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock, it would interpret the health care nondiscrimination law, enacted as Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in health care programs that received federal funding.
The Biden administration issued proposed rules that prohibit qualified health insurance plans sold in the health exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act from discriminating based on sexual orientation or gender identity, or from adopting designs that exclude coverage of gender-affirming health care for transgender people.
President Biden issued an Executive Order on Strengthening Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which orders HHS and other federal agencies to examine policies or practices that may present unnecessary barriers to individuals and families attempting to access Medicaid or ACA coverage.
President Biden also issued an Executive Order on Ensuring an Equitable Pandemic Response and Recovery, which establishes a COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force to develop recommendations for mitigating the health inequities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and for preventing future inequities.
President Biden revoked Executive Order 13828, which created barriers for low-income people to access federal benefit assistance, including Medicaid and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).
The Biden administration’s Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in a case challenging Arkansas’s dangerous and discriminatory ban on the provision of medically necessary gender-affirming health care to transgender minors suffering from gender dysphoria.
The Biden administration supported access to abortion by suing Texas to strike down its unconstitutional abortion ban; defending the right to access abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, calling for passage of a federal law that would protect access to abortion; and removing the in-person requirement for dispensing mifepristone.
What more we need
In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration finalized a rule eliminating protections for LGBTQ+ people and people with limited English proficiency, among others, under the health care nondiscrimination law, enacted as Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Lambda Legal successfully stopped some parts of the Trump health care rule from taking effect. However, other parts remain in effect and the administration must issue new regulations reversing the Trump health care rule without delay.
And as previously stated, HHS must rescind the notice of nonenforcement of the 2016 rule prohibiting discrimination by recipients of HHS funding, and it has not replaced the 2021 rulemaking. The administration must move quickly to clarify that grant recipients are prohibited from using federal funds to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people in need of those services.
We need the federal government to eliminate all discriminatory barriers to transition-related health care in the systems that it operates, including the VA health system, the federal employee health benefits program (FEHB), and TRICARE, the military health system. For example, in June of 2021, VA Secretary McDonough announced a process to remove the bar on surgical gender-affirming care for transgender veterans. There has been no movement and advocates are pushing for action. The VA expects to move forward with rulemaking in July 2022. It is important for the VA to implement this policy as soon as possible to ensure that transgender veterans can obtain the care they are currently being denied and to create sufficient infrastructure to withstand future partisan attacks. Across all of its programs, the federal government should operate at the gold standard, and use its position as a key provider of health care and insurance coverage to raise the bar for the health care industry as a whole.
The Trump administration showed total disregard for family ties when it did not approve of the families involved—such as immigrant families and those headed by LGBTQ+ people—and used the power of the government to separate and undermine such families. The Biden administration must respect—not target and persecute—all families by immediately reuniting families separated at the border, by creating a pathway to citizenship that allows families to stay together, and by ensuring that LGBTQ+ families are treated the same in the eyes of the law as all others.
What the administration accomplished
Lambda Legal and Immigration Equality won victories declaring as unlawful the U.S. Department of State’s policy of treating the marital children born abroad to U.S. same-sex couples as “born out of wedlock” because they were not biologically related to both parents and therefore ineligible for recognition as U.S. citizens at birth. The administration ended this unlawful policy in May 2021. With the policy change, children born abroad to married parents, at least one of whom is a U.S. citizen, are citizens at birth if they have a biological relationship to any one of their parents.
The Biden administration rescinded the Trump “Zero Tolerance” policy of separating immigrant and asylum-seeking families and established a task force to reunite separated families.
What more we need
The families separated by the Trump administration’s “Zero Tolerance” policy are entitled to damages. The Department of Justice should cease arguing that the government does not owe these traumatized families compensation for the harms inflicted upon them.
President Biden must direct the Pentagon to end its discrimination against our patriotic service members living with HIV and ensure that our military’s policies are informed by science and not outdated and stigmatizing views about who can serve our country safely, with honor and distinction.
What the administration accomplished
President Biden appointed a number of strong leaders in the spaces of HIV-related medicine and policy, including Harold Philips, Director of The White House Office of National AIDS Policy, to the administration. These expert advisors to the President know that major scientific and medical advances have transformed HIV into a chronic, manageable condition that presents essentially no risk to the health or safety of other service members.
What more we need
The Biden administration needs to address, with an inclusive policy based on health metrics, the Department of Defense Instructions that prohibit the enlistment or commissioning as officers and exclude service members who are diagnosed with HIV in the course of their military careers from deployment opportunities, which, in turn, impacts eligibility to maintain a career in the military.
President Biden must rescind the discriminatory restrictions on the military service of people living with HIV by permitting them to enlist or commission in any branch of the U.S. Armed Services. Both President Biden and Vice President Harris committed to eliminating this type of discrimination within the military.
LGBTQ+ people from around the world come to the United States, sometimes literally running for their lives. But the Trump administration tarnished our reputation as a safe harbor by making it virtually impossible for people to seek refuge in the United States and enacted historically low ceilings on the number of refugees that can be admitted. The Biden administration must reestablish asylum rules to ensure those seeking safety from persecution because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status can find refuge in the United States.
What the administration accomplished
In January 2021, just before the Biden administration took office, Lambda Legal won a nationwide injunction stopping the Trump administration’s “Death-to-Asylum” rule from taking effect. The “Death-to-Asylum” rule would have made it virtually impossible for LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV fleeing persecution to secure asylum in the United States, as well as eliminated eligibility for asylum to anyone with a gender-based claim. Since then, the administration proposed a rule reversing some aspects of the rule in Fall 2021 and announced plans to issue a proposed rule addressing the remainder of the “Death-to-Asylum” rule in 2022.
What more we need
The Biden administration must issue new regulations to fully reverse the “Death-to-Asylum” rule and improve the ability of refugees, including those who are LGBTQ+ or living with HIV, to seek asylum within our borders.
The administration needs to end the “Remain in Mexico” Policy and stop deporting immigrants who are otherwise entitled to asylum or other forms of relief.
The administration must release from custody or detention people with underlying health conditions that make them susceptible to COVID-19. As the COVID-19 global pandemic continues, prisons, jails, and detention facilities are dangerous centers for the spread of the deadly virus.
There must be accountability when federal immigration officers and their agents engage in dangerous, dehumanizing, and often blatantly racist behavior, whether targeting LGBTQ immigrants in custody or Haitian refugees fleeing disaster.
YEAR TWO: A new year brings new concerns and goals. Therefore, in addition to the above, Lambda Legal calls upon the Biden administration to prioritize these five critical issues in Year Two.
Protect Voting Rights
Voter suppression tactics used in hostile states silence the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community, minimizing our political power and ability to inform conversations around policies that directly affect us. President Biden must convince Congress to pass the For the People Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Restoration Act, and the Washington, D.C. Admission Act to ensure the integrity of our democracy, restore the efficacy of the Voting Rights Act, and enfranchise D.C. citizens, ten percent (10%) of whom identify as LGBTQ+.
Protect Black Trans Women
Hate crimes continue to rise and each subsequent year is the deadliest year on record for transgender people. The vast majority of transgender victims are Black and brown transgender women. To help ensure their safety, the Biden administration needs to champion legislation that works to decriminalize sex work; push Congress to repeal SESTA and FOSTA; invest in research showing the harms inflicted on transgender women of color as a result of criminalizing sex work; appoint Department of Justice leadership who will investigate the epidemic of violence against Black trans people and take guidance and direction from local and state LGBTQ+ anti-violence groups on how to begin to address the epidemic; and implement the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act, which was included in the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, by adopting a community-based approach that is inclusive of LGBTQ+ communities.
Protect the Constitutional Rights of Trans People in Federal Custody
Being in federal custody does not mean one loses all of one’s rights. The Biden administration must reverse the Trump administration’s changes to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Policy Manual regarding the housing of incarcerated trans people. Furthermore, it should establish policies and procedures ensuring that incarcerated trans people have access to gender-affirming health care, including surgical care, and establish policies and procedures that address names and pronouns, search protocols, and housing determinations. And finally, the administration must ensure that the constitutional and statutory rights of LGBTQ+ people in federal custody are protected in re-entry programs.
Collect Data on LGBTQ+ People and People Living with HIV
Systemic inequities in our society disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV in a myriad of ways, but the government does not have enough data on sexual orientation, gender identity, HIV status, and the intersection of other identities to adequately understand and address these inequities. The administration must collect additional data, provide analysis, and release to the public findings on HIV-related disparities in stigma, discrimination, new infections, knowledge of status, and more among marginalized segments of our society. Additionally, the administration should initiate new rulemaking to reinstate the national collection of data on tribal and LGBTQ+ foster youth and foster and adoptive parents and guardians; reinstate the collection of information about trans older adults in the National Survey of Older Americans; and develop best practices and technical assistance for schools for collecting sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression-related demographic information of youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, and of youth experiencing homelessness or school arrests, and prioritize the safety and well-being of these youth, especially LGBTQ+ youth of color, in the data collection process.
Update HIV Policies to Reflect Science and Reject Stigma
Although we welcomed the FDA’s change in 2020 from a 12-month to a 3-month deferral for blood donations from men who have sex with men as a step in the right direction, the FDA can and should implement a policy that is based on a person’s actual risk behaviors instead of their sexual orientation or gender identity. For years, Lambda Legal has urged the FDA to adopt an approach that looks to actual risk factors based on a person’s sexual activity and safer sex practices rather than blanket approaches that disqualify gay men along with many trans people and others in our community who would welcome the opportunity to donate in light of our nation’s blood shortage.
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