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Arkansas Governor Vetoes Anti-Trans Bill That Would Have Limited Health Care For Minors

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said he will veto HB 1570, a harmful anti-transgender bill that would prohibit doctors from providing medically necessary treatment to trans kids.

In a media appearance Monday, Hutchinson said concern about government overreach influenced his decision.

“House Bill 1570 would put the state as the definitive oracle of medical care, overriding parents, patients and health care experts,” he said. “While in some instances the state must act to protect life, the state should not presume to jump into the middle of every medical, human and ethical issue.

“This would be, and is, a vast government overreach,” he added.

The bill would have prohibited doctors from providing minors with treatments including puberty blockers, hormone therapies or any other transition procedures. Physicians who nonetheless did so could have seen their medical licenses revoked.

Despite the governor’s action, the bill isn’t totally dead yet: Legislators could override the veto with a simple majority vote of both chambers. The Arkansas Senate voted 28-7 last week in favor of the bill, which was called the Arkansas Save Adolescents From Experimentation, or SAFE, Act. 

Hutchinson characterized the lawmakers’ efforts as “well-intended” yet nevertheless “off-course,” and he expressed concerns about how the bill would harm the mental health of transgender youth, perhaps leading to an increase in suicide, social isolation and drug abuse.

He added that while the number of people who would be affected is “an extreme minority,” they nevertheless “deserve the guiding hand of their parents and of the health care professionals that their family has chosen.”

The medical treatments that HB 1570 would have banned are reversible, as The Washington Post noted. And U.S. medical guidelines state that more permanent actions, such as gender-affirming surgeries, shouldn’t typically be performed until a patient is at least 18 years old.

HB 1570 is one of several anti-transgender bills that Republicans are pushing in at least 17 statehouses around the country. In addition to targeting access to medical care, legislation that limits transgender kids’ participation in sports that align with their gender identity has also become common.

Last week, Hutchinson signed a separate bill into law with precisely that purpose.

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VA Gov. signs HIV decriminalization bill; felony penalty remains

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Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Thursday signed a bill that decriminalizes HIV transmission, but advocates continue to call for the removal of a felony penalty left in place.

“Although we see this as a victory, we acknowledge the call of people living with HIV in Virginia to continue to fight to change the criminal penalty level of the modernized law from a felony to a misdemeanor level,” said Cedric Pulliam, co-founder of the ECHO VA Coalition, in a press release. “And we accept that fight and will continue efforts until this has been successfully accomplished.”

Senate Bill 1138, sponsored by Sens. Mamie Locke (D-Hampton) and Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond), removes HIV from a list of “infectious biological substances” under the infected sexual battery section of the state code.

Supporters say this change will reduce stigma and other challenges faced by Virginians who are HIV positive and modernizes Virginia Code in accordance with current understanding about the disease and current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As the bill advanced through the General Assembly, the Virginia Senate lowered the penalty for HIV sexual transmission from a felony to a misdemeanor. The House of Delegates, and now the governor, kept the felony punishment in place.

Equality Virginia and HIV advocacy groups ECHO-VA, Positive Women’s Network-USA, and the Sero Project on Thursday stated in a press release that they approved of Northam’s signing the decriminalization bill into law, but they were disappointed the felony penalty was not removed.

“We’re thankful for the many advocates who shared their lived experiences and pushed for changes to Virginia’s HIV laws,” said Equality Virginia Executive Director Vee Lamneck in the released statement, which included a report Northam commissioned that found Black Virginians were almost seven times as likely to be living with HIV in 2015 than white Virginians.

“This new law is an important step towards reducing stigma and breaking down barriers to HIV care and prevention,” Lamneck said. “Moving forward, Equality Virginia remains committed and determined to educate and advocate for removing the felony penalty.”

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Controversial State Department human rights commission disbanded

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced the State Department has officially disbanded a controversial human rights advisory commission that LGBTQ activists sharply criticized.

“One of the core principles of human rights is that they are universal. All people are entitled to these rights, no matter where they’re born, what they believe, whom they love, or any other characteristic. Human rights are also co-equal; there is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others,” Blinken told reporters on Tuesday as he discussed the release of the State Department’s annual human rights report.

“Past unbalanced statements that suggest such a hierarchy, including those offered by a recently disbanded State Department advisory committee, do not represent a guiding document for this administration,” he added, referring to the Commission on Unalienable Rights. “At my confirmation hearing, I promised that the Biden-Harris administration would repudiate those unbalanced views. We do so decisively today.”

Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2019 announced the commission — chaired by Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard Law School professor and former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican who is known for her opposition to marriage rights for same-sex couples — would stress “natural laws and natural rights.” The Center for Global Equality and other groups challenged the commission in federal court.

“This commission was flawed from the start, conceived with the original sin of Christian nationalism,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, in a press release. “May its siblings soon follow it into obscurity.”

President Biden in February issued a memorandum that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ rights abroad.

Blinken is among the administration officials who publicly acknowledged the Transgender Day of Visibility on Wednesday. Blinken told reporters after the State Department released its annual human rights report the pandemic “has disproportionately impacted the individuals and groups in our societies who were already subject to abuse, to discrimination, to marginalization before the pandemic, such as racial and ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, LGBTQI persons.”

“Standing up for human rights everywhere is in America’s interests,” said Blinken. “And the Biden-Harris administration will stand against human rights abuses wherever they occur, regardless of whether the perpetrators are adversaries or partners.”

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Almost all young people would support a friend who came out as transgender, heartening research finds

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Almost all young people in the UK say they would support a friend who came out to them as trans, according to new research.

The independent survey of almost 3,000 secondary school pupils found that more than half (57 per cent) already have a trans friend.

Ninety-six per cent of LGBT+ young people said they would support a friend if they came out as trans, compared with 76 per cent of non-LGBT+ young people.

Carried out for LGBT+ young people’s charity Just Like Us for Trans Day of Visibility, the survey also reveals that while 84 per cent of secondary school pupils say they would be supportive “if a close friend came out as transgender”, only 76 per cent think that the same would be true of a teacher if their pupil came out as trans.

A total of 2,934 secondary school pupils, including 1,140 LGBT+ young people, aged 11 to 18 across 375 UK schools and colleges filled in the survey in December 2020 and January 2021.

Dominic Arnall, chief executive of Just Like Us, called for schools to ensure trans young people are as welcomed at school as they are by their peers.

“We are really glad that, with this independent research, we are able to shine a light on the opinions of young people themselves and how supportive they are of their trans peers,” said Arnall. “Secondary school age young people are clearly incredibly supportive of trans people and would have no problem with a friend coming out as trans.”

He added: “We hope that this is positive motivation for parents, schools and the media at large to embrace trans and all LGBT+ young people and accept them for who they are.”

One straight pupil in Year 11 at a school in the North East said: “Being transgender isn’t really a choice. If we are close friends then we are close friends for a reason and them being trans wouldn’t change that.

“It would have no negative impact on my life so there is no reason for me to not be as supportive as possible and make them feel comfortable.”

In October, new Home Office figures showed that police investigate seven transphobic offences every single day in the UK, with the numbers having quadrupled between 2014-15 and 2019-20 – a 354 per cent increase

As anti-trans hostility increases in the UK, a report from Galop found that more than a quarter of trans people have experienced transphobia at school, college or in their place of work. As a result, 40 per cent of trans people are too afraid to go to school or work.

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Two gay men burned in Kenya refugee camp attack

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An attack at a Kenya refugee camp earlier this month that left two gay men with second-degree burns has once again drawn attention to the plight of LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers who live there.

A press release the Minnesota-based Black Immigrant Collective sent to the Washington Blade last week notes “petrol bombs were thrown into a group of LGBTQ+ refugees, allies and their children who live in” Block 13 of the Kakuma refugee camp on the morning of March 15.

“This attack not only set people on fire, but also destroyed beddings and personal belongings as many of the refugees sleep in the open air,” reads the press release.

The press release also notes the men who are described as “organizers” suffered second-degree burns throughout their bodies.

Gilbert Kagarura, a human rights activist and refugee from Uganda who lives in Block 13, on Tuesday sent the Blade a series of pictures of the two men that show burns on their arms, legs and other parts of their bodies. Shifra, an 18-year-old refugee who also lives in Block 13, on March 24 during a virtual press conference the Black Immigrant Collective and other advocacy groups and human rights activists in the U.S., Kenya and elsewhere around the world organized recalled the attack.

“I thought we were all going to die,” said Shifra. “Everyday I relive this horrible experience that I have.”

The U.N. Refugee Agency in a March 25 statement notes it “organized” the men’s transfer to a hospital in Lodwar, a town that is roughly 75 miles away from the camp. The men are now receiving treatment at a public hospital in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

“UNHCR organized their transfer to a regional hospital in Lodwar and, following expert advice from burn specialists, to a Nairobi hospital,” says UNHCR in its press release. “Both are receiving specialized treatment for their burns and progress in their recovery is being closely monitored by the local medical team and a UNHCR doctor.”

Kakuma, which is located in northwest Kenya near the country’s border with Uganda and South Sudan, is one of two refugee camps the UNHCR operates in the East African nation. The other, Dadaab, is located near Kenya’s border with Somalia.

Kagarura told the Blade that UNHCR created Block 13 within a section of the camp known as Kakuma 3 in May 2020.

The press release the Blade received from the Black Immigrant Collective notes “most of the 135 refugees at Block 13 fled Uganda for Kakuma when the anti-gay bill was introduced.”

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in 2014 signed his country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, which imposed a life sentence upon anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The law was known as the “Kill the Gays” bill because it once contained a death penalty provision.

Scott Lively, an anti-LGBTQ evangelical pastor from Massachusetts, is among those who urged Ugandan lawmakers to support the measure. Uganda’s Constitutional Court eventually struck down the Anti-Homosexuality Act on a technicality, but consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in the country.

UNHCR defends efforts to protect LGBTQ refugees

Kagarura on Tuesday noted to the Blade that LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers who live in Kakuma have endured attacks, harassment and discrimination for years. Kagarura and participants in the virtual press conference on March 24 said UNHCR has failed to protect them.

They demanded UNHCR immediately evacuate Block 13’s LGBTQ residents “and fast-track the LGBTQ+ Block 13 group for expedited resettlement as they are survivors of intensive and unending homophobic violence.” They also demanded UNHCR transfer the two men burned in the March 15 attack to a private hospital in Nairobi “with specialized, competent and humane burn care treatment” and allow their caregivers “to accompany them at all times.”

UNHCR in its statement notes it “hosts around 300 refugees and asylum seekers with an LGBTIQ+ profile” in Kakuma and has “stepped up our services on the ground.” These include investing “heavily in building capacity and ensuring more attention is paid to the specific and profound challenges that LGBTIQ+ people face.”

“Despite the challenges of life in a refugee camp, the overwhelming majority report to us that they have been able to live peacefully within the Kakuma community,” reads the UNHCR statement. “This comes in stark contrast with reports of security incidents, including on social media, by a small group of refugees with an LGBTIQ+ profile residing in Kakuma 3, who are requesting urgent resettlement out of Kenya.”

UNHCR, however, acknowledged it is “concerned by these incidents as well as by the increasing tensions between this group and other refugees, including some with an LGBTIQ+ profile.”

“Several have reported being threatened or attacked by members of this particular group for refusing to join protests or lend their voice to the call for urgent resettlement on security grounds,” reads its statement.

UNHCR says “police patrols in Kakuma 3, medical, legal and psycho-social assistance has been strengthened in the camp.” The statement also notes UNHCR, along with Kenya’s Refugee Affairs Secretariat and partner organizations “have also held meetings with community leaders in Kakuma 3 to identify solutions and reduce tensions, although the smaller group of LGBTIQ+ persons has (sic) declined to engage in these dialogues.”

The statement further indicates UNHCR in recent months has “relocated” more than 30 LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers “to other parts of the camp based on the protection concerns raised by them and following careful assessment by our teams on the ground.”

“UNHCR does not tolerate discrimination or any form of violence against refugees, including violence committed by other refugees, and works with law enforcement and other branches of government in Kenya to ensure that refugees are protected and safe,” reads the statement.

State Department in ‘close contact’ with UNHCR

UNHCR says an estimated 1,000 of the more than half a million refugees and asylum seekers who currently live in Kenya are LGBTQ. It’s statement also notes Kenya “remains the only country in the region to provide asylum to those fleeing persecution based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression,” even though consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized.

UNHCR says 48 percent of the LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers who have asked to be resettled outside of Kenya have left the country.

“We strongly condemn this senseless violence,” reads the statement, referring to the March 15 attack. “We have been advised that the ongoing investigation by Kenyan police is progressing and we hope that it will bring full clarity in respect of this incident and that those responsible will be held to account in accordance with Kenyan law.”

A State Department spokesperson on March 27 acknowledged UNHCR’s statement about LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers in Kakuma.

The spokesperson noted the U.S. in fiscal year 2020 provided $120 million in humanitarian assistance to Kenya through UNHCR and other non-government organizations with which it partners. The spokesperson also told the Blade that the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration leads the U.S. government’s work with UNHCR.

“In working with UNHCR and other international organizations, we stress the need to make extra efforts and invest additional resources to ensure that vulnerable populations at risk of violence, abuse, and exploitation, as well as at risk of receiving inadequate assistance and protection, are themselves present in, engaged in, participating in, and contributing to humanitarian responses,” said the spokesperson. “The United States works with international and non-governmental organization partners to ensure and provide equal protection and support to at-risk populations who are particularly vulnerable due to their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and/or sex characteristics.” 

“We have expressed our concern about this group of LGBTQI+ refugees in Kakuma and are in close contact with UNHCR on the situation,” added the spokesperson. 

The Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration is among the NGOs that works with LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers in Kakuma.

ORAM Executive Director Steve Roth described the situation in the camp “as complex and multilayered, and has yet to be fully understood.”

“ORAM is committed to working with partners to gather all the facts and develop a complete understanding of the challenges facing LGBTIQ refugees in Kakuma, uncovering root causes and identifying sustainable solutions,” he told the Blade. “We do know that some of the core challenges that LGBTIQ refugees face in Kakuma are economic — a lack of income and ability to pay for basic necessities, which in turn creates other insecurities.” 

Roth noted ORAM in 2019 partnered with a Kenyan NGO to support microbusinesses in the camp. One such program provides LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers in Kakuma materials that allow them to make soap and raise poultry they can sell in the camp and elsewhere.

“These programs help generate needed income for LGBTIQ refugees as well as providing skills training, a sense of purpose and the chance to improve their relationships with other camp residents by offering them products and services that they need,” said Roth. 

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As new anti-trans laws mount, legal advocates to seek relief from courts

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The unprecedented onslaught in state legislatures of measures against transgender youth, including several signed into law in recent days by governors, has left the LGBTQ community reeling and preparing new lawsuits to challenge the restrictions.

Many of the bills would essentially bar transgender girls from participating in school sports, including measures recently signed into law in Tennessee and Arkansas. Although South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem initially issued a partial veto to legislation that would ban transgender kids in sports, she signed two executive orders this week to that effect after outcry from the social conservative base.

“Only girls should play girls’ sports,” Noem said in a statement. “Given the legislature’s failure to accept my proposed revisions to HB 1217, I am immediately signing two executive orders to address this issue: One to protect fairness in K-12 athletics, and another to do so in college athletics.”

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison also signed SB289 into law on Monday, which is broad legislation that would allow medical practitioners to decline to offer a procedure if they have a religious exemption. The bill appears aimed at abortions and transition-related care, including gender reassignment surgery, although critics say it would also allow a physician to override patient’s directives on end of life care or pharmacies to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control, PrEP and other antiretrovirals.

In West Virginia, the House has passed HB 3293, a similar bill aimed at banning transgender youth from sports. (According to a 2017 study from the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, the state has the highest percentage of transgender teens in the nation. An estimated 1.04 percent of West Virginians in that age range identify as transgender, compared to the national percentage of .73 percent.)

Meanwhile in Alabama, the House has passed HB 391, which would prohibit transgender girls from participating in sports, and HB1, would prohibit medical practitioners from providing transition-related care to transgender youth. The Senate has passed SB 10, which would similarly restrict transition-related care.

Taking a more traditional route to express animus toward transgender people, the Tennessee House on Monday passed HB 1182, a bill aiming to prevent transgender people from using restrooms consistent with their gender identity. It would require businesses that allow transgender people to use the appropriate restroom to post signage indicating that policy.

Other anti-transgender bills the Tennessee Legislature is considering: another bathroom bill, a medical refusal bill, and an anti-LGBTQ parental notification bill. Yet another bill, HB 800/SB 1216, would prevent schools from using teaching materials “that promote, normalize, support, or address lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) issues or lifestyles.”

All of these measures follow the law Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed earlier this year barring transgender youth from participating in athletics and a similar anti-trans sports bill Idaho Gov. Brad Little quietly signed last year at the height of the coronavirus. A federal judge has since blocked Idaho from implementing its law, although that litigation is now pending before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Unlike recent years, when LGBTQ advocates were successful in thwarting anti-transgender legislation from becoming law or stirring up a national outcry — such as with House Bill 2 in North Carolina, which was met with economic boycott and eventual revision of the law — that hasn’t been the case with the latest wave of bills.

Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said following the same guide book would be the best strategy for transgender advocates to pursue against the latest of wave of legislation.

“These legislative efforts around the country are putting transgender young people at risk. They would deny them live-saving, appropriate health care or the ability to participate in school sports not because it’s good public policy but because politicians believe that it will bring them more power,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “While these discriminatory attacks have grown, they are not new. Politicians have been targeting transgender people and other members of the LGBTQ community for years. And those attacks are often a direct backlash to progress we’ve made in other areas. We must continue to tell our stories and refuse to allow bullies to push us away from living our lives as who we are.”

One explanation for why the latest round of anti-trans bills have met with more success than in previous years is because third parties that spoke out against them before, such as the business community and sports groups, are absent from the conversation this time. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, for example, has been silent on the anti-trans sports bills and has refused to withdraw competitions in states with the laws.

That may be a reflection of the polling. Unlike other LGBTQ issues, where a majority of the American public supports LGBTQ rights, surveys have found that isn’t the case with transgender kids in sports.

For its part, the White House has sent signals indicating President Biden’s opposition to the legislation. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki indicated to the Washington Blade anti-trans measures are an illegal form of sex discrimination and Biden issued the first-ever presidential proclamation on the Transgender Day of Visibility, which states transgender people have support in sports and schools.

Gillian Branstetter, a transgender advocate and spokesperson for the National Women’s Law Center, conceded anti-trans forces may have succeeded in getting governors to sign these measures into law, but predicted they’ll soon meet their end in court.

“The introduction of these bills alone represents a visceral harm to transgender youth, who remain among the most vulnerable children in our country today,” Branstetter said. “But a governor’s signature marks the beginning of a fight, not the end of one. Broadly speaking, these bills are poorly drafted, discriminatory, and unconstitutional — ask Gov. Brad Little how long they’ll last in court. Hateful amateurs have written these bills; transgender professionals will defeat them handily.

Although the litigation against these measures hasn’t been filed in court (with the exception of the lawsuit against the Idaho ban), transgender advocates are expecting them shortly and are prepared to file other lawsuits should governors sign the measures.

Chase Strangio, deputy director for trans justice with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said he expects courts to shut down the new anti-trans laws.

“Courts have been consistent and clear that federal law protects transgender people from discrimination in education and health care,” Strangio said. “Any bans on healthcare for young people that go into effect will be challenged immediately. We are prepping lawsuits along with partner organizations and urge states considering these bills to avoid the devastating harms they will cause and the inevitable and costly litigation they will invite.”

Strangio added one issue with litigation is “the truth is that there are very few openly trans athletes competing” who have standing to sue in court and encouraged transgender athletes who are barred from competing to contact legal advocates.

Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the organization has been prepared since last year to file with GLBTQ Advocates & Defenders and the Southern Poverty Law Center a lawsuit against the Alabama medical refusal legislation should it become law.

“We are evaluating potential challenges to sports bans, and I know the ACLU and Lambda are as well,” Minter said. “These cases take a lot of resources, but we are committed to fighting these attacks on trans kids with all the tools we have, including litigation.”

Minter, however, said traditional allies need to speak out more loudly as they have in the past and create a “grassroots campaign of LGBTQ people and allies, similar to the level of engagement we saw around marriage, to educate the public and legislators about the humanity of trans people.”

“We are in a full blown political crisis, and trans kids and their families are suffering unimaginable harms,” Minter said, “We need to hear from supportive elected officials, businesses, faith leaders, medical professionals and parents. I am more concerned about the health and well-being of trans kids than I have ever been in my 30 plus years of advocacy. These new attacks on trans kids are not simply politics as usual. These are the type of extreme measures-banning a group of children from school activities and healthcare — that historically have been used by right-wing governments and that have led to horrendous human rights abuses against politically and socially vulnerable groups.”

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U.S. Pride organizers debate in-person vs. virtual events for 2021

Like LGBTQ Pride organizations in several of the nation’s largest cities, D.C.’s Capital Pride Alliance is planning to hold several virtual Pride events during the traditional Pride month of June and is considering at least one in-person event for October — a smaller Pride parade.

Also like other cities, the traditional June Capital Pride Parade and Festival, which have attracted more than 250,000 participants and spectators in past years, have been cancelled this year following last year’s cancellation, according to Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos.

Bos said a “reimagined” parade called Paint the Town With Pride is being planned for June 12 that will consist only of asking LGBTQ residents and supporters to decorate their homes or businesses with creative outdoor displays or signs with LGBTQ Pride messages. He said the locations of the displays will be released by Capital Pride so people can visit the sites while complying with COVID safe-distancing rules.

Bos said Capital Pride will organize a possible Pride Brigade of peoples’ vehicles to travel together across the city to view the displays on June 12. He said the displays are planned to be in place through the month of June to enable people to visit the sites when convenient for them. Detailed plans for D.C.’s Pride events can be viewed at capitalpride.org.

D.C.’s two main Black Pride events — a conference and outdoor festival that have drawn more than 3,000 participants up until 2019 and that traditionally take place during Memorial Day weekend — have been cancelled this year for the second year in a row.

According to Kenya Hutton, deputy director of the D.C.-based LGBTQ organization Center for Black Equity, which coordinates Black Pride events in about 45 cities across the country, said D.C.’s Black Pride will hold several virtual events over Memorial Day weekend, with details available on its Facebook page.

He said some in-person Black Pride events have already been held and others are scheduled to take place in states that have relaxed COVID restrictions. Among them was an outdoor Pride event in St. Petersburg, Fla., that took place in January.

On the other side of the country, Christopher Street West-Los Angeles Pride, which has organized one of the nation’s largest Pride celebrations each year since the early 1970s, states on its website that it will hold this year’s celebration June 11-13. But like several other large U.S. cities, it has yet to announce what type of events it will offer.

“Stay tuned for announcements about what we’re [safely] planning,” the website statement says.

L.A. Pride spokesperson Chris Prouty, similar to officials with Pride organizations in other cities, told the Blade that L.A. Pride organizers are carefully watching the unfolding developments associated with the COVID-19 pandemic to determine what type of events might be possible in June.

“As the pandemic continues to affect the way all organizations plan for events, CSW/LA Pride is committed to producing a safe but impactful Pride 2021 for the communities we serve,” Prouty said. “We’re developing a variety of programming that will be announced soon and will continue to include input from local health officials, community-based organizations and non-profits,” he said. “We encourage other Prides across the country to do the same.”

The San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade and Celebration organization announced on March 24 that it will hold several smaller in-person events throughout the month of June. But similar to last year, its traditional Pride Parade and celebration at the city’s Civic Center, which in past years have drawn thousands of participants, were cancelled this year.

“Knowing how deeply people miss being together, we’ve worked tirelessly with our partners at City Hall, public health, and elsewhere to ensure a number of incredible, safe experiences,” said San Francisco Pride Executive Director Fred Lopez. Among the outdoor in-person events planned are two evenings of film screenings on June 11-12 at the San Francisco Giants baseball stadium.

In a break from its Pride events in past years, in which thousands of LGBTQ visitors from other cities and states attended San Francisco Pride, organizers this year have bluntly asked people from outside the Bay Area to stay away.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not yet recommend leisure travel, and the organization’s leadership respectfully asks visitors from outside the region to reconsider their attendance,” San Francisco Pride organizers said in a statement.

Heritage of Pride, the group that organizes most but not all of New York City’s LGBTQ Pride events, has announced several Pride events throughout the month of June, including a virtual Pride March on June 27 with “to be determined in-person elements.” In years prior to COVID restrictions, the New York City Pride March has drawn many thousands of participants.

The organization’s traditional Pride Rally will take place virtually on June 25 featuring prominent LGBTQ speakers, according to a statement released by Heritage of Pride. Its traditional PrideFest and Pride Island events “will also return on June 27, with further details to be revealed at a later time,” the statement says. It says at least three other events, including a Human Rights Conference, will be held virtually.

Reclaim Pride Coalition, a separate New York City organization, announced it will hold its 3rd Annual Queer Liberation March for Pride on Sunday, June 27. The in-person march will include safety precautions, mask distribution for those who don’t have a mask, and other risk reduction strategies, organizers said in a statement.

“The struggle for Queer Liberation cannot wait for the passing of the pandemic, as COVID-19 has made surviving even more difficult for far too many of our most marginalized community members,” one of the organizers said in the statement.

The Baltimore-based Pride Center of Maryland has announced the 45th Annual Baltimore Pride Festival will take place over the weekend of June 18. The announcement says the event will consist of an “innovative Pride celebration that will incorporate virtual and social-distance considerate, intimate in-person experiences to make Baltimore proud,” but no further details were given.

Annapolis Pride, Inc. announced in early March that its second annual Annapolis, Md., Pride Parade and Festival was scheduled to take place Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021. The group indicated that as of March, the two events would take place outdoors and in-person rather than virtually.

Delaware Pride, the organization that puts on that state’s main Pride events in the state capital in Dover, announced in March that it decided to reschedule its traditional June Pride event until Saturday, Oct. 2. The main Pride event has traditionally been held on the grounds of Legislative Hall at the state capital building.

David Mariner, executive director of CAMP Rehoboth, the LGBTQ community center and advocacy group in Rehoboth Beach, Del. said there were no current plans for a Pride event in Rehoboth. He said many of Rehoboth’s large number of LGBTQ residents and visitors usually attend the Delaware Pride events in Dover.

In Virginia, the Fairfax County Pride event held in past years called NOVA Pride, which has drawn crowds from the D.C. Northern Virginia area, will not take place this year due to COVID restrictions, according to Bruce Hightower, president of the Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance, who said he spoke with one of NOVA Pride’s lead organizers.

A spokesperson for the annual Virginia Pride event held in Richmond could not immediately be reached to obtain plans for the Richmond Pride.

A spokesperson for Chicago’s Pride Fest 2021 said the annual two-day street festival held in the city’s well known LGBTQ neighborhood of Boys Town had been scheduled for June 19-20 but has been postponed due to city COVID restrictions. The spokesperson, Esmeralda Bravo, said organizers are working closely with city officials to determine the best date to reschedule the event, which could be in August or September.

In Florida, statements released by organizers of Miami Beach Pride and the Stonewall Pride Parade and Street Festival in Wilton Manors, the small LGBTQ-friendly city located just outside Fort Lauderdale, say both will be in-person events. The Wilton Manors parade and festival are scheduled for June 19. Miami Beach Pride says it will hold several events from Sept. 10-19, with the largest being a festival in Lummus Park that’s expected to draw 125,000 participants.

However, organizers of the Miami Beach Pride say a “contingency hybrid event plan is also in place should the planned [festival] event be disrupted by unknowns due to COVID-19.” The contingency plan calls for a significantly reduced number of attendees for the festival and other possible restrictions required by Miami Beach officials.

Boston Pride, the organization that had hoped to host Boston’s 50th anniversary Pride events in June, announced the events in June had to be postponed due to COIVD restrictions. The group said in a statement that it was working with city officials to reschedule the Pride events, which include a parade and festival, for the fall “if all conditions are in place for such events.”

For the second year in a row, Seattle Pride has renamed itself “Virtual Pride 2021” due to COVID restriction on large gatherings, organizers said on the group’s website. It is scheduled to take place online with several events, including entertainment performances, scheduled for June 26-27.

“While we are all missing the Parade, Virtual Pride is our opportunity to commemorate the past, celebrate new wins for equality, and get encouragement for the work yet to come, and quite frankly it’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun,” organizers said on the event’s website. “Stay tuned for your link to register for this FREE event,” the organizers said.

InterPride, a coalition of LGBTQ Pride organizations in the U.S. and in other countries, is in the process of compiling a comprehensive list of virtual and in-person LGBTQ Pride events in 2021 that’s expected to be completed in a few weeks. Julian Sanjivan, the group’s co-president, said the list will be available on the website: interpride.org.

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Activist, writer John Stephen Hunt dies at 85

John Stephen Hunt, 85, writer and global human rights activist based in Chicago, died March 17, of natural causes in Chicago.

Hunt came out as a 20-year-old gay man during his U.S. Army Service. For years he was a resourceful link and activist-connector for American and emerging worldwide LGBT rights movements. He lived at The Malden Lakefront Property group, on Chicago’s north side.

He was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Aug. 20, 1935. He traveled to and lived in Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany and Dominican Republic and took special interest in post-apartheid South Africa. He was U.S. Correspondent for Out! New Zealand Magazine. In 2000 he helped champion and sponsor the early development of Our World Center in Lugansk and Kiev, Ukraine. His fist lover, Marine A. Perez-Minino and a later lover, Harry Gregory of Minneapolis, who succumbed to AIDS, each had posts in diplomacy (Dominican Republic, Turkey).

Hunt was generous with his skills and speaking time during a years-long successful recovery he made through New Town Alano Club, Chicago. He also gave contributions and media counsel to Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, He was a co-founder of Lambda Resource Center for the Blind, a program of Horizons, Chicago. Hunt frequently encouraged younger writers, reporters, and artists. He fostered four children of Hindu faith in Kancheepuram, India.

Apart from his global travel, over the course of his life, he made his home in Michigan, West Virginia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Oregon, North Carolina, Washington D.C., Colorado, New Mexico, Indiana, New York, California, and Massachusetts, settling in Chicago in spring, 1971. Hunt was an associate member of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, attended Unity in Chicago, and was a student of Religious Science under Dr. Carleton Whitehead at Water Tower Place. He was an early graduate of The Phoenix Project, a national grief-healing group process. As a senior, he benefited as a counselee of CJE, Chicago. A trained direct psychic counselor, he was recognized by American Association of Professional Psychics.

He especially identified with the spiritual teaching of ancient Egypt, the Great Tradition. Hunt once said, “I am grateful my lifetime occurred during a period in human history when the essential meanings of our spiritual and cosmic situation were even more fully unfolding on the planet.”

Hunt was educated at University High School (Ann Arbor), George Washington University, and the University of Exeter (UK), University of California/Berkeley, with a summer at Harvard University. He wrote published sonnets and read widely, encouraging others. He enjoyed gardening as an avocation and was a beekeeper. He was known and loved for his short witticisms and hoped to be remembered for his sense of humor and for being a cybernaut news-bringer and an encourager of others.

Memorial services are pending. Following cremation, he requested his ashes be scattered by friends and reconciled church members in the High Peony Garden, University of Michigan Arboretum, Ann Arbor.

He knew the Arboretum as a boy and first saw the Northern Lights there—lights that as an adult he internalized following spiritual quest, peak experiences, and enlightenment.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be given to the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, gerberhart.org. Arrangements by Cremation Society of Illinois, cremation-society.com.

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Nebraska Supreme Court allows same-sex couple to adopt

The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled that a lesbian couple can legally adopt a 3-year-old child who has lived with them since birth, overturning a lower court’s decision rejecting their petition.

In July 2020, Dixon County Judge Douglas Luebe said that he had no jurisdiction to grant an adoption to the couple — identified by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska as K.H. and M.V., who asked to keep their names anonymous — because they were listed in their petition as “wife and wife,” according to the Nebraska Supreme Court. In his order, Luebe referred to a version of Black’s Law Dictionary that defined “wife” as “a woman who has a lawful living husband.”

On Friday, the Nebraska high court rejected Luebe’s reasoning, maintaining that state adoption laws allow any married couple to adopt, provided both partners were listed on the adoption application.

Justice William B. Cassel wrote in a unanimous decision that Nebraska adoption law permits any minor child to be adopted by any adult person or persons. “The only caveat contained in the statute is that if the person had ‘a husband or wife,’ the husband or wife had to join in the petition.”

K.H. and M.V, who married in California in 2008, sought to adopt a child born to M.V.’s sister in 2017, according to court documents. The child’s biological mother had already relinquished her rights and the father never sought custody.

They filed for adoption in Dixon County Court in May 2020, but Luebe dismissed their request after calling a special hearing on legal issues raised by their petition, The Star Herald reported, during which he described himself as “old-fashioned.”

He determined the “plain, ordinary language” of Nebraska adoption law would not permit a “wife and wife” to adopt and warned that any other conclusion would transform the court into an “imagination station.”

Luebe did not respond to a request for comment but a spokesperson for the Nebraska Supreme Court told NBC News that Nebraska judges are prohibited from commenting on specific cases.

In opening arguments, the couple’s attorney, Matthew Munderloh, said K.H. and M.V had filled out all the required relinquishments and consent forms and completed a required home study and background checks.

Even if the “plain language” of the law didn’t permit them to adopt the child, Munderloh added, “the Constitution and Obergefell v. Hodges and its progeny require an interpretation that would allow the adoption to proceed.”

Sara Rips, LGBTQIA+ legal and policy counsel for the ACLU of Nebraska, joined in representing K.H. and M.V in their appeal. She was pleased the opinion came from Cassel, a textualist known to value the letter of the law.

She was also surprised at how quickly the ruling came in.

“They heard oral arguments on March 4 and issued an opinion on March 26 — which is unheard of,” Rips said. “Normally you expect two to three months.”

She added that the decision would help strengthen the understanding, both in Nebraska and nationwide, that not only is marriage equality the law of the land “but that all the rights that come with marriage apply equally.”

“They build on top of each other — when you win cases like this, you make it more clear LGBTQ rights are not a passing fad,” Rips said. “The more time that passes, the more cases that build up an institution, the more support you have that institution is not going away. You build that foundation brick by brick, case by case.”

Dixon County is a fairly rural section of northeast Nebraska, with less than 5,700 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and Rips said her clients didn’t set out to become LGBTQ activists.

“They just want to adopt this child,” she said. “They want to be helpful, but they just want to be parents to a kid. That’s the most Nebaska thing — they don’t want this to be a big deal.”

In 2017, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling striking down a state policy prohibiting “persons who identify themselves as homosexuals”from becoming foster parents or adopting wards of the state. In his opinion, Justice John Wright slammed the policy as “legally indistinguishable from a sign reading ‘Whites Only’ on the hiring-office door.”

Rips said Friday’s ruling is further proof Nebraska is moving toward being more inclusive and accepting of the LGBTQ community.

“I know I have plenty of years of work ahead of me,” she said, “but we’ll get there.”

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Country of Georgia gives trans woman legal recognition for the first time

The deeply conservative country of Georgia has legally recognised a trans woman’s gender identity for the first time ever.

On 25 March the Ministry of Justice of Georgia granted a trans woman’s request to change her legal gender status to female. Her birth certificate was also reissued by the authorities, setting a huge precedent for the country.

The historic milestone was first reported by Open Democracy and the Georgian women’s rights group WISG, which said the woman had submitted a medical certificate confirming she had undergone gender-affirming surgery.

WISG noted that, despite this groundbreaking case, Georgia still lacks adequate legislation for transgender people.

Trans people who don’t want to undergo bottom surgery or other invasive medical procedures are barred from having their gender recognised, and the huge costs of this surgery are not covered by the national health service.

In 2017, two transgender men filed a suit against the country at the European Court of Human Rights after authorities refused to change their gender status in official documents unless they underwent surgery.

The issue of legal gender recognition has been repeatedly raised in recent years amid a climate of intense homophobia and transphobia.

When the capital of Tbilisi attempted to host the country’s first Pride in 2019 the parade had to be cancelled after an anti-gay millionaire rallied homophobes to bring wooden clubs.

And last year a trans woman set herself on fire to highlight the injustices faced by her community. “I am a transgender woman, and I’m setting myself on fire because the Georgian state doesn’t care about me,” she shouted to bystanders.

Months earlier, WISG had issued a statement highlighting how trans women in Georgia are being impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

The group urged the government: “Consider women engaged in sex work, especially transgender women, as a group of special needs and help them according to their needs, for most of them lack moral and financial support from their own families.

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