Gen Suzuki, a Japanese trans man, has filed a request with a Japanese court legally change his gender without having to undergo surgery and be sterilised.
Suzuki, 46, filed a request on Monday (4 October) with the Hamamatsu branch of the Shizuoka Family Court to alter his family registry to align with his gender identity, Mainichireported.
Currently, Japanese law requires transgender people to get sterilised before they can legally change their gender. According to Mainichi, any changes to family registers in Japan, which record information about an individual including their gender and familial relationships, require permission from family courts.
After filing the request, Suzuki held a news conference with his female partner, saying they intended to get married. He said he found it “nonsensical that transgender people cannot enjoy marriage equality in Japan” unless they switch genders in their family registers.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) previously called on the Japanese government to revise Law 111 to “bring it into accordance with international human rights standards and medical practices so that individuals’ gender marker in the family registry can be changed without having to satisfy any medical conditions”.
It said the government needed to abolish the “current conditions of sex reassignment surgery and irreversible infertility” and the “requirement that applicants have no underage children”.
He added that he cannot legally “get married to my partner” and doesn’t have “any legal ties with our children”.
“It’s okay when everything is all right,” Sugiyama told the BBC. “But if she becomes ill, or if something were to happen to our child, I might not be able to visit them in the hospital or sign a waiver.”
Japan implemented the Gender Identity Disorder (GID) special case law in 2004. Under the law, transgender people must meet five requirements before they can legally change gender. The individual must be at least 20 years old, not presently married, not have any underage children (under 20), must be sterilised and have genitalia that “closely resemble the physical form of an alternative gender”.
In 2019, the Japanese supreme court unanimously upheld the law requiring trans people seeking to legally change their gender to be sterilised. Takaito Usui, a trans man, appealed to the court to overturn Law 111, but the supreme court rejected his case, ruling the law was constitutional.
However, according to the AFP, the court acknowledged “doubts” were emerging on whether the rule reflected changing societal values in Japan.
According to Mainichi, Suzuki previously told reporters that he would be willing to appeal his case to the supreme court if it is rejected.
Rwandan authorities rounded up and arbitrarily detained over a dozen gay and transgender people, sex workers, street children, and others in the months before a planned June 2021 high-profile international conference, Human Rights Watch said.
They were held in a transit center in Gikondo neighborhood of the capital Kigali, unofficially called “Kwa Kabuga,” known for its harsh and inhuman conditions, which appear to have deteriorated further due to the increase in the number of detainees held there and the pandemic. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), first scheduled for June 2020 and rescheduled for June 2021, was eventually postponed indefinitely in May.
“Rwanda’s strategy to promote Kigali as a hub for meetings and conferences often means continued abuse of the capital’s poorest and most marginalized residents,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “As the meeting is rescheduled, Rwanda’s Commonwealth partners have a choice: either speak up for the rights of the victims or be silent as the crackdown is carried out in their name.”
Following reports on abuses at the Gikondo transit center in 2015, 2016, and 2020, this practice was condemned during Rwanda’s review by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, a Geneva-based treaty body, in February 2020. Between April and June 2021, Human Rights Watch interviewed via telephone 17 former detainees from Gikondo. Interviews with nine people who identified as transgender or homosexual, three women who were detained with their babies, four men who worked as street vendors at local markets, and a 13-year-old boy living on the streets in Kigali, confirmed that patterns of abuse that Human Rights Watch documented previously are ongoing. Due to fear of reprisals against interviewees, Human Rights Watch has withheld all identifying information.
At Gikondo, detainees are held in overcrowded rooms in conditions well below standards required by Rwandan and international law. The former detainees said they have inadequate food, water, and health care; suffer frequent beatings; and are rarely allowed to leave filthy, overcrowded rooms. People were detained there without basic due process standards. None of the former detainees interviewed were formally charged with any criminal offense and none saw a prosecutor, judge, or lawyer before or during their detention. There were no measures to protect people from Covid-19, and former detainees said they did not have access to testing, soap, masks, or basic hygiene and sanitation amenities.
People interviewed who identified as gay or transgender said that security officials accused them of “not representing Rwandan values.” They said that other detainees beat them because of their clothes and identity. Three other detainees, who were held in the “delinquents’” room at Gikondo, confirmed that fellow detainees and guards more frequently and violently beat people they knew were gay or transgender than others.
In the past, round-ups have been connected to high-profile government events, ahead of which security forces may ramp up efforts to “clear up” Kigali’s streets. Human Rights Watch documented a similar round-up in 2016 before an African Union Summit held in Kigali. Ahead of the now postponed 2021 Commonwealth meeting, several former detainees said the police told them they did not want them on the streets during the event.
A civil society activist in Kigali said: “The streets were empty before the meeting. You couldn’t see any street children in town. Even the fruit vendors were taken [to Gikondo]. But now you can see them in the streets again.” Sources in Kigali confirmed that fewer people were living or working on the streets in the month preceding the date for the meeting. Several former detainees said the conditions at Gikondo had worsened in the lead-up to the meeting due to severe overcrowding.
An 18-year-old woman, a street vendor arbitrarily detained for two weeks with her 9-month-old baby, said: “[The police] said the government wanted to clear the city because of CHOGM. They said they would detain us until CHOGM has happened without our filth on display.”
Rwanda is one of a few countries in East Africa that does not criminalize consensual same-sex relations. Vagrancy, begging, and sex work are not criminalized either. Yet the authorities continue to use Gikondo Transit Center to imprison people accused of “deviant behavior that is harmful to the public,” including street vending and homelessness.
Rwanda should urgently close the transit center in Gikondo and amend the legal framework governing the National Rehabilitation Service. The authorities should promptly investigate all reported cases of ill-treatment and beatings of detainees by police and transit center personnel – including reports of detainees dying in detention – and prosecute the suspected abusers, Human Rights Watch said.
“Based on past experience, there is every likelihood that similar patterns of abuse will occur ahead of whatever new date is set for the Commonwealth meeting,” Mudge said. “Locking up marginalized people and abusing them simply because the authorities believe they tarnish their country’s image violates human dignity, and Commonwealth leaders should not tolerate this.”
Gikondo Transit Center
Since 2017, legislation and policies under the government’s strategy to “eradicate delinquency” have sought to legitimize and regulate so-called transit centers, presenting them as part of a “rehabilitation” process aimed at supporting poor and marginalized people. The authorities acknowledge that there are 28 “transit centers” in Rwanda, including “Kwa Kabuga,” the unofficial name of Kigali’s transit center situated in the Gikondo residential suburb of Kigali.
A January 2020 Human Rights Watch report found that the 2017 legislation provides cover for the police to round up and arbitrarily detain people accused of so-called “deviant behaviors” at Gikondo in deplorable and degrading conditions, and without due process or judicial oversight. Detainees are released with very little formal procedure, reflecting the arbitrary manner in which they were initially arrested.
Based on the 2017 legal framework and statements by Rwandan authorities, the broader objective of Gikondo is to serve as a short-term screening center to allow authorities to process detainees to send on to rehabilitation centers. However, in practice, there is no judicial process to determine the length of time people spend at the center or whether they are released or transferred. Some people interviewed said they were released when the center was overcrowded. Two said they were released in June 2021, after the decision to postpone the Commonwealth meeting was announced.
The 13-year-old boy said he was held for two weeks in late April and May, in a room with over 200 other street children, and was released after the announcement: “The police told us: ‘Don’t be afraid, children. The meeting isn’t happening; you’ll be released tomorrow.’” He said that district authorities collected all children detained at Gikondo and returned them to the streets of Kigali. He was not offered support to rejoin his family or return to school.
The civil society activist confirmed that, “Children were detained, moto-taxis had to stop working, street vendors were harassed – all because of the Commonwealth meeting. Since it’s been postponed, the abuse has calmed down.”
Former detainees said police told them that they were “trash,” and that they would be detained during the meeting and released in August. “Before the [Commonwealth] meeting, they would arrest us and seize our goods,” said a 20-year-old street vendor, who was detained for two weeks in April with her 9-month-old baby. “With this meeting coming up … Gikondo [was] very overcrowded.”
Arrest and Transfer to Gikondo
Round-ups by police or officers from the District Administration Security Support Organ (DASSO), a local state security body, are often the first step toward arbitrary detention at Gikondo. The arbitrary nature of the detention is reflected in the complete absence of due process once people are taken to Gikondo. In most cases, detainees are held in various police stations or sector (local government) offices across Kigali before being transferred to Gikondo. None of the interviewees were taken before a judge or given access to a lawyer before being transferred to Gikondo.
Detention of Gay and Transgender People
The detention of transgender people at Gikondo was reported in the media in November 2020. The nine transgender or gay people interviewed by Human Rights Watch were detained at Gikondo between December 2020 and April 2021. They said they had been targeted due to their sexual orientation or gender identity and treated worse than other detainees.
Several said the police or local security officers detained them after members of the public reported seeing them with their partners and other lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, or wearing women’s clothing if they were perceived not to be female. At Gikondo, police officers or guards accused them of being homeless, thieves, or delinquents and held them in a room reserved for “delinquent” men. One 27-year-old transgender woman said:
They took me at Kabuga and said I was causing problems in Rwanda…. When I arrived, police asked why am I looking like this? Why am I looking like a girl? They asked: ‘Are you a prostitute?’ I said, ‘No, I am a Rwandan.’ They jailed me with other people who were [accused of being] thieves.
One said he was arrested in late December 2020, after leaving a bar in Nyamirambo neighborhood in Kigali: “When we were about to get on motorbikes, local patrol men came and asked us who we are and what we are doing here … they said we don’t represent Rwandan customs. My friend [a transgender woman] has long hair and was wearing a skirt.” Another former detainee was arrested by local security officials in February 2021 after kissing his same-sex partner in a bar. He said customers from the bar insulted them and called the security patrol, who took them straight to Gikondo transit center.
Transgender and gay people interviewed described being harassed, insulted, and beaten by security officials during their arrest and detention. A former detainee who was arrested by DASSO officials in December 2020 said she was taken to the Nyabugogo police station. “They asked me what I was doing … if I am a girl or a boy,” she said. “I said I am a girl and that’s when the problems started … At Kabuga, we were beaten by the leaders. They asked if we were boys or girls.”
A transgender woman detained at Gikondo in February 2021 said: “Police said we were cursed, and asked how we could behave in this way, having sex with people of the same sex as us. They said we’re delinquents and put us in that room. But in the room, we were badly beaten by other detainees and police did nothing despite our cries.” Another gay former detainee who was arrested with a group of transgender people said a policeman beat his feet and told him he should be “rehabilitated.”
Several other former detainees confirmed these patterns of abuse. An 18-year-old street vendor accused of “delinquency” was detained with about 1,000 other men, where he said “men who dressed as women” – referring to transgender people – “were beaten more than the others. We were all beaten but they were really badly beaten.” All transgender women interviewed were housed in male facilities.
Beatings
Beatings often begin as soon as people are rounded up and taken to a nearby police station or post. A 30-year-old woman with a 3-year-old child said:
I was taken to the police, where they kept us in a room with others who had been arrested. At that point we were violently beaten. I had a baby with me, but they still beat me, although they didn’t beat him. At 2 a.m. they transferred us to “Kwa Kabuga.” They told me: “Your baby is none of our business. Get in with the others.” I insulted them, so they beat me badly. They said they don’t want me to do this kind of business [on the streets].
Once detainees arrive at Gikondo, they are registered and often beaten by other detainees. Long-term detainees at Gikondo, known as “counsellors,” are often in charge of daily life in the rooms and beat other detainees. The 30-year-old street vendor said that other detainees in the women’s room beat her and her child: “An adult woman is hit twenty times, whereas her child will be beaten four times. It’s only babies under one year old that are not beaten.”
Interviewees detained in the women’s room also said they were beaten when their child defecated or cried: “We were beaten every day. We were also beaten when we asked for permission to use the toilet. If a baby cried, or urinated, its mother would pay the price,” said the 23-year-old mother of a 2-year-old child, who was detained at Gikondo for three weeks in April.
Guards or “counselors” also regularly beat detainees in the children’s room or rooms for adult men. Children are often beaten when they make noise or play together. “We were beaten a lot…. If you fight, if you make a mistake, or if you shout, they beat you with sticks,” the 13-year-old boy said. A 21-year-old street vendor held in the room for “delinquents” said that detainees are beaten for spending too long in the bathroom, for talking too loudly, or “for any fault you commit.”
Conditions at Gikondo
Conditions in Gikondo Transit Center, as Human Rights Watch has extensively documented since 2006, fall well below international standards and violate Rwandan law.
In March 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture called on governments to “reduce prison populations … wherever possible by implementing schemes of early, provisional or temporary release.” Yet Rwandan authorities continued to detain people in Gikondo transit center, without due process or judicial oversight. Overcrowding and poor hygienic and sanitary conditions at Gikondo put people at greater risk of contracting Covid-19 due to close proximity, inability to practice “social distancing,” a lack of adequate sanitation and hygiene, and lack of adequate medical care, including a lack of Covid-19 testing.
During their arrest and transfer to Gikondo, people interviewed said, they were not tested for Covid-19, were not given masks to wear, and were not given the space to maintain distances from other detainees. Many were taken to Gikondo in an overcrowded truck with windows closed. Some said that upon arrival, they washed their hands with water, but were not given soap. One former detainee said hand sanitizer was confiscated by the authorities upon arrival.
Former detainees who were held at Gikondo between 2019 and 2021 estimate that between 50 and 200 girls and boys detained together at a time in the “children’s room,” in deplorable and degrading conditions. But they described conditions in the room for male “delinquents” – which also holds teenage boys – and facilities for adult women with their infants as far worse.
In those two rooms, some children were held together with adults in severely overcrowded conditions and many detainees were forced to sleep on the concrete floor. Former detainees held in the room for “delinquents” estimated that over 1,000 people were held together. One person interviewed said it was not possible to see the floor at night when the detainees attempted to lay down to sleep on the concrete floor.
Most former detainees said they were given food once a day, in insufficient quantities and with poor nutritional value. Food is particularly insufficient for young children and babies, who regularly get sick. One woman said she was released after her baby got so ill he had blood in his stool, while another said her baby had to be transferred directly to a hospital due to malnutrition.
Detainees in the rooms for women and “delinquents” had irregular access to drinking water, sometimes only once a day. “Sometimes we go an entire day without drinking water, and then they give a tiny amount that we all have to share,” said one interviewee who was held at Gikondo for almost all of April.
Sanitation and hygiene conditions are very poor, and many interviewees reported being allowed to wash at most once a week. One former detainee said: “When it’s time to wash, they take a 20-liter basin and around 20 to 30 people wash at the same time.” Former detainees said they were rarely given soap. The mother of a 3-year-old said: “We only washed once a day with filthy water that had worms in it, mostly without soap … we didn’t change our clothes.”
Three interviewees said that during their time at Gikondo, they saw or heard of detainees who had died due to the poor conditions and lack of appropriate medical care. “In the two weeks I spent [at Gikondo] there were three nights where we couldn’t sleep because there were too many people in the room,” said a 40-year-old street vendor detained at the transit center in April. “Two people died because of this treatment and illnesses…. They were ill and had diarrhea and skin rashes. They were refused permission to see a doctor, and one morning they were found dead. I don’t know what caused their death or what their names are.”
Human Rights Watch requested information on these allegations from the Justice Ministry and the National Rehabilitation Service but received no response and was not able to independently verify them.
Lack of Government Response; Criticism by Regional and International Entities
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which reviewed Rwanda’s record on January 27 and 28, 2020, said it was concerned that the reference to “deviant behaviors” in Rwanda’s legislation was leading to “the deprivation of liberty of children in need of protection.” The committee said the abusive detention should end and that the government should change the law.
During the committee’s review, the Rwandan government denied that the detention of street children in transit centers is arbitrary. The government also claimed that children in transit centers are either placed with a family or transferred to a “rehabilitation center” within 72 hours. These claims contradict reports by the National Commission for Children and the National Commission for Human Rights, as well as Human Rights Watch findings.
In response to the Human Rights Watch January 2020 report, then-Justice Minister Johnston Busingye was quoted in KT Press saying: “These children have been redeemed…. We believe they can become useful citizens…. HRW [Human Rights Watch] can come and interview them if they wish.” During Rwanda’s review by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the gender and family promotion minister, Soline Nyirahabimana, also said that independent observers should visit the center.
On December 4, 2020, the African Court on Human and People’s Rights held that states’ laws enabling the detention of people who, often because of poverty, are forced to live on the street, violate human rights law. The opinion issued in response to a request by the Pan African Lawyers Union, upheld the rights of people deemed “vagrants” by the state. The opinion concluded that laws permitting the forcible removal or warrantless arrest of a person declared to be a “vagrant,” violate the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other human rights instruments.
On February 6, 2020, December 14, 2020, and August 23, 2021, Human Rights Watch wrote letters to then-Justice Minister Busingye following up on these statements, requesting access to Gikondo and other transit centers in Rwanda, and asking about steps taken by the Rwanda authorities to remedy the abusive legal framework governing its National Rehabilitation Service. He has not responded.
A human rights tribunal in British Columbia, Canada, has ruled that refusing to use someone’s correct pronouns violates their human rights.
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled in favour of restaurant server Jessie Nelson, 32, a non‐binary, gender fluid, transgenderperson, who was fired from their job after asking the bar manager to use they/them pronouns to refer to them.
Brian Gobelle “persistently referred to Jessie Nelson with she/her pronounsand with gendered nicknames like ‘sweetheart’, ‘honey’, and ‘pinky’”, according to the ruling by Devyn Cousineau, member of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.
Despite Nelson asking Gobelle to stop, he refused, and a second conversation between them about the issue became “heated”. Four days later, Nelson was fired by Ryan Kingsberry, who runs the restaurant.
Explaining to Nelson why they were fired, Kingsberry said they had come on “too strong too fast” and were too “militant”.
Nelson later took their case to the human rights tribunal, alleging that “Gobelle’s conduct towards them, and the employer’s response, amounts to discrimination in employment based on their gender identity and expression”, in violation of the British Columbia Human Rights Code.
Cousineau agreed that Nelson’s human rights had been violated by the deliberate misgendering.
The judge ordered the Canada restaurant’s management to pay Nelson $30,000 in damages, as well as “implement a pronoun policy and mandatory training for all staff and managers about diversity, equity and inclusion”.
Jessie Nelson, a restaurant server in Canada, said the discrimination was ‘a piece of trauma in a long line of trauma for a trans person living a trans experience’
Testifying for the hearing, Jessie Nelson said they “don’t expect perfection around my pronouns; I never have”.
But the deliberate and repeated misgendering by the bar manager was a “trauma” that left them “scared and sad”.
They said that the job at the restaurant was one of their “first jobs I had where I felt confident enough to disclose who I was”.
“This was the first time I was like, ‘You know what, I’m going to be fully myself’,” Nelson said.
“I deserve that. I’m 32 years old. I’ve lived long enough pretending… I don’t believe that trans people should have to do that, but I did feel like it would be beneficial. And it was devastating.
“It’s a piece of trauma in a long line of trauma for a trans person living a trans experience.”
They added: “I was scared and sad for myself, but more than that I was really worried about future people… I am here today in bringing this forward because it is important for me, as a trans person, to have my existence respected.
“I’m a human being, with a beating heart and a desire to be seen and valued and heard in the world. And I’m also here for every other current and future trans or queer person working in a service or customer‐facing setting so that hopefully this doesn’t happen anymore.
“Because it’s a lot. It’s very draining. And we deserve to live, and have joy, and be respected for who we are.”
Scores of students took a stand for trans rights by staging a massive walkout after one of their classmates was blocked from the girls’ locker room and toilets.
The protest kicked off at Temple High School in Texas on Wednesday (30 September) in support of a 16-year-old trans girl named Kendall Tinoco after she shared her experience on Instagram.
Over the past few years I’ve been in transition, to be more specific I’ve been using the females restroom since the 7th grade. Teachers and staff has had no issue with it until now, earlier this month I was told I couldn’t use the locker room because there were ‘actual girls’ in there,” the high school junior wrote in the post.
“However today [22 September] yet again my teacher mentioned I could not use the locker room because I am trans.
“I mentioned to her that I have a form specifically saying she has no right to tell a student that let alone tell them what locker room or restroom to use,” she added.
The post quickly went viral with more than 4,000 likes, and a week later her fellow students marched out of their classes in protest.
Tinoco told local news station 6 News: “Overall, I was really proud to see all of the people come together and stand for one another. Just support after support after support. It was really amazing.
“I fought for my place to be treated equally, and people are aware of that”.
“I just wanted to help make a change, do whatever I could,” said junior student Akayla Shahan.
“We said what we had to say. We will not be silenced,” added Stevie Williams, another student.
So many people joined the protest that additional security and members of the local police force were called to campus to “help ensure the safety of staff and students”, according to Temple Independent School District spokesperson Christine Parks. She noted that protests are allowed, but skipping class is not.
Parks told 6 News that the high school administration met with the student and parent that week to review the district’s Enrollment of Transgender Students guidelines.
These guidelines require students to be identified by their “legal surname” as it appears on the student’s birth certificate or other identity document and to dress in accordance with school dress codes.
They also require that all trans students have access to a “gender-neutral” restroom, locker room and/or overnight facility, like a nurse’s office.
NASA is refusing to rename its James Webb Space Telescope despite claims its namesake was involved in an anti-LGBT+ government “purge”.
When it launches in December 2021, the $10 billion telescope will be the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built.
But the naming of the telescope, in honour of anti-LGBT+ former NASA administrator James Webb, has caused outrage.
Earlier this year, four astronomers launched a petition to rename the telescope because Webb, who was the administrator of NASA between 1961 and 1968, allegedly participated in a government anti-LGBT+ purge.
Lucianne Walkowicz of the JustSpace Alliance and Adler Planetarium, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein of the University of New Hampshire, Brian Nord of Fermilab and the University of Chicago, and Sarah Tuttle of the University of Washington pointed out: “Prior to serving as the NASA administrator, Webb served as the undersecretary of state during the purge of queer people from government service known as the ‘Lavender Scare’.”
After detailing Webb’s involvement in “purging” queer people from the US government, they wrote: “We, the future users of NASA’s next-generation space telescope and those who will inherit its legacy, demand that this telescope be given a name worthy of its remarkable discoveries, a name that stands for a future in which we are all free.”
After 1,250 signatories called on the space agency to reflect on Webb’s history, NASA’s acting chief historian Brian Odom announced that it would investigate the evidence against him using archival documents.
But this week, NASA administrator Bill Nelson told NPR that there was “no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope”.
With its James Webb Space Telescope, NASA will be ‘sending this incredible instrument into the sky with the name of a homophobe on it’
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, one of the astronomers who launched the petition to rename the James Webb Space Telescope, told NPR: “At best, Webb’s record is complicated.
“And at worst, we’re basically just sending this incredible instrument into the sky with the name of a homophobe on it, in my opinion.”
During the 1960s in the US, when Webb was NASA administrator, the idea that the federal government had been “infiltrated” by homosexuals, known as the “Lavender Scare“, resulted in the widespread dismissal of LGBT+ peoplefrom government service.
The astronomers alleged in their petition that Webb was responsible for the “purge” of queer people from NASA at the time.
The also wrote that Webb is specifically named in confidential memos regarding “the problem of homosexuals and sex perverts,” indicating that he was working as “a facilitator of homophobic policy discussions with members of the Senate”.
Prescod-Weinstein, a queer astronomer who was in a NASA postdoctoral programme, criticised the NASA investigation into a name change, and said she wished the space agency would be more transparent about the evidence it had reviewed.
She said: “I’m basically a NASA fan girl. And so this is particularly hard for me, to feel like I’m being gaslit by the agency that I have spent my career looking up to, and that I have committed parts of my career to.”
Pride flags, which were created to promote unity, are being called political and divisive in some schools across the country. A recent example: An Oregon school board on Tuesday banned educators from displaying the flags.
“We don’t pay our teachers to push their political views on our students. That’s not their place,” a school board member in Newberg, Brian Shannon, the policy’s author, said at a recorded board meeting.
Several other school officials and students around the country have targeted LGBTQ symbols. A teacher resigned in Missouri last month after he was told to remove a rainbow flag from his classroom and that he couldn’t discuss “sexual preference” at school. Students at a high school near Jacksonville, Florida, were accused several weeks ago of harassing classmates in a Gay Straight Alliance club and stomping on pride flags. And in August, pride symbols were targeted at a high school near Dallas, where rainbow stickers were ordered to be scraped off classroom doors.
Students, teachers and parents rallied Thursday in Newberg, Ore., to oppose an imminent vote by the school board that would prohibit Black Lives Matter and pride flags or banners in schools. John Rudoff / Sipa USA via AP
In most cases, administrators have said the LGBTQ emblems are divisive and “political.” LGBTQ students, parents and teachers affected by the bans contend that the new rules harm a vulnerable group of young people.
“Feeling safe should not be political,” said Victor Frausto, 16, a student at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, just outside Dallas.
“For me, when a teacher put up that sticker, it basically conveyed the message that ‘when you come in here, you will not be hated for who you love or what you identify as,’” said Frausto, who is gay.
The decision to ban the rainbow pride stickers sent a very different message, Frausto said.
“By seeing how those stickers were removed, you get the message that ‘I do not fit in here, I should not be here,’” he said.
Students, teachers and parents rallied Thursday in Newberg, Ore., to oppose an imminent vote by the school board that would Black Lives Matter and Pride flags or banners in schools.John Rudoff / Sipa USA via AP
Frausto, who is the president of his school’s Gay Straight Alliance, or GSA, said the rainbow stickers were removed overnight without warning.
He and other GSA members took it to the attention of their GSA sponsors, a group of teachers who had already received an email from the school district about the matter.
“While we appreciate the sentiment of reaching out to students who may not previously always had such support, we want to set a different tone this year,” read the email, which a teacher shared with NBC News.
The educators reassured the group that they would push for an explanation and fight to get the stickers back on classroom doors, Frausto said. But within the next several days, two teachers were escorted off campus, he said.
A spokesperson for the Irving School District declined to identify the teachers and, when asked about their alleged removals, told NBC News that the district “does not comment on employee-related matters.”
A student walkout at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas.Courtesy Victor Frausto
In response to the sticker removal, hundreds of students staged a class walkout last week. In a video posted Wednesday by the community-based journalism platform Smash Da Topic, students can be heard shouting, “Bring our stickers back!”
After the protest, the district defended the move in a statement as a way “to ensure that all students feel safe regardless of background or identity” by maintaining political impartiality.
Newberg administrators also cited political neutrality in defending their policy. After having come under fierce criticism for prohibiting pride and Black Lives Matter flags specifically, school board members broadened a ban last month to block educators from displaying all symbols that the board deemed “political, quasi-political or controversial.”
“Their place is to teach the approved curriculum, and that’s all this policy does, is ensure that’s happening in our schools,” Shannon, one of the seven school board members who spearheaded the policy, said at a livestreamed board meeting Tuesday night.
Students, teachers and parents rallied Thursday in Newberg, Ore., to oppose an imminent vote by the school board that would prohibit Black Lives Matter and Pride flags or banners in schools.John Rudoff / Sipa USA via AP
The Newberg City Council and the Newberg Education Association, a union representing 280 educators and staff members in the district, have denounced the policy, and the Oregon State Board of Education has asked for it to be revoked. Community members have also petitioned to recall Shannon.
“As a gay man with no children and no real desire to have children, I feel like I should never know the names of the people on the school board, let alone have to stand up against them,” said Zachary Goff of Newberg, who launched the petition, which has gotten over 1,000 signatures.
“I think I speak for a lot of people in my community, but we can’t sit here and let this happen,” Goff added. “They picked a really bad town to be the guinea pig.”
Chelsea Shotts, 29, who is bisexual and works at an elementary school as a behavioral interventionist in the school district, said her mental health has deteriorated since the district introduced the policy over the summer.
“If I only cared about myself, I would just quit — like, easily quit and leave,” Shotts said. “But the thing is I’m in Newberg and I’m in Dundee because I love these students, and they deserve everything.
“I would rather be able to stay here and keep doing the work instead of being attacked by a culture war that four board members started,” Shotts added.
Chelsea Shotts, a Newberg School District behavioral interventionist, faces off with a counterprotester at a demonstration over pride and Black Lives Matter flags last week in Newberg, Ore.Courtesy Chelsea Shotts
School administrators aren’t the only people who have gone after pride flags and LGBTQ symbols this school year.
Police in Blacksburg, Virginia, are investigating several thefts of pride flags outside a Virginia Tech religious center. In one case, the LGBTQ symbols were replaced with two Confederate flags. And in Georgia, a high schooler was charged last month with attackinganother student draped in a pride flag in a school cafeteria.
Advocates have long been warning educators about the disproportionate rates of bullying, harassment and mental health issues plaguing LGBTQ youths.
A survey this year by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, found that 42 percent of the nearly 35,000 LGBTQ youths who were surveyed seriously considered suicide within the last year. More than half of transgender and nonbinary youths who were surveyed seriously considered suicide, it also found.
A separate survey conducted by The Trevor Project last year found that LGBTQ youths who reported having at least one LGBTQ-affirming space also reported lower rates of attempting suicide.
Beth Woolsy’s children, Cai and Cael Woolsy, both 14, on their first day of school in Newberg, Ore.Courtesy Beth Woolsy
Beth Woolsy, who is bisexual and has two LGBTQ children who attend school in Newberg, said the harrowing numbers weigh on her as she sends her kids back to school every day.
“When we understand that it’s truly life and death that we’re talking about as we send our kids to school, and then they’ve taken away the safety of knowing who they can go to and who they can expect to advocate for them, it is really scary,” she said.
A gay Iranian rape survivor has explained why regressive laws – and the threat of being outed – stopped him from reporting his attacker.
Saeed, a 20-year-old based in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Khuzestan, gave a harrowing account of what it means to be gay in Iran today to the IranWire.
To be gay in Iran, Saeed said, is to exist quietly. Sexual activity between two people of the same sex is illegal and punishable by death, prison, lashings and fines – such penalties mean queer rape survivors like Saeed must remain silent, or else.
Saeed met his rapist at a café. Earlier that day, he had taken driving lessons. It was just like any other day as he struck up a conversation with the only barista.
“At first, I liked him and we enjoyed a friendly chat,” he recalled. “I saw him a few more times there. We became more intimate. We talked more and more and I told him about my sexual orientation.”
But Saeed later learned that the man only sought out a friendship with him to get closer to his female friends. Then, he got a text message from him at midnight “a few weeks ago”.
“I have regretted looking at his message and messaging back,” he said. “I wish I had never done it.
Gay rape survivor ‘didn’t know LGBT+ community was a thing’ in Iran
“He attacked me,” he added, having been made to go with the man to a friend’s house or else be outed to his friends and family. “It didn’t matter to him that I was a human being. It didn’t matter to him that I was in pain.
“He was brutal. The worst part was when he whispered in my ear, cursing me, and my mother and my sister. I couldn’t defend myself or resist.”
And capturing what it means to be gay in the west Asian country – of secrecy and difficult decisions – Saeed said he couldn’t report the rape to the police. If he did, he explained, he would be prosecuted.
Neither Monfared or Saeed are alone. A report compiled by 6rang, otherwise known as The Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network, last year found that six in 10 LGBT+ Iranians have been assaulted by family members.
“I didn’t know there was such a thing as an LGBTQ community and that my sexual orientation is a natural thing,” Saeed continued.
“I thought I was alone, and based on what I heard from religious people at school, I thought it was a disease that needed to be cured.”
It was only at aged 16 that Saeed realised he was “normal”.
“It’s my misfortune,” he explained, “that I was born in a homophobic country and am deprived of many experiences the LGBT+ community enjoys in free countries.”
Rwandan authorities rounded up and arbitrarily detained over a dozen gay and transgender people, sex workers, street children, and others in the months before a planned June 2021 high-profile international conference, Human Rights Watch said.
They were held in a transit center in Gikondo neighborhood of the capital Kigali, unofficially called “Kwa Kabuga,” known for its harsh and inhuman conditions, which appear to have deteriorated further due to the increase in the number of detainees held there and the pandemic. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), first scheduled for June 2020 and rescheduled for June 2021, was eventually postponed indefinitely in May.
“Rwanda’s strategy to promote Kigali as a hub for meetings and conferences often means continued abuse of the capital’s poorest and most marginalized residents,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “As the meeting is rescheduled, Rwanda’s Commonwealth partners have a choice: either speak up for the rights of the victims or be silent as the crackdown is carried out in their name.”
Following reports on abuses at the Gikondo transit center in 2015, 2016, and 2020, this practice was condemned during Rwanda’s review by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, a Geneva-based treaty body, in February 2020. Between April and June 2021, Human Rights Watch interviewed via telephone 17 former detainees from Gikondo. Interviews with nine people who identified as transgender or homosexual, three women who were detained with their babies, four men who worked as street vendors at local markets, and a 13-year-old boy living on the streets in Kigali, confirmed that patterns of abuse that Human Rights Watch documented previously are ongoing. Due to fear of reprisals against interviewees, Human Rights Watch has withheld all identifying information.
At Gikondo, detainees are held in overcrowded rooms in conditions well below standards required by Rwandan and international law. The former detainees said they have inadequate food, water, and health care; suffer frequent beatings; and are rarely allowed to leave filthy, overcrowded rooms. People were detained there without basic due process standards. None of the former detainees interviewed were formally charged with any criminal offense and none saw a prosecutor, judge, or lawyer before or during their detention. There were no measures to protect people from Covid-19, and former detainees said they did not have access to testing, soap, masks, or basic hygiene and sanitation amenities.
People interviewed who identified as gay or transgender said that security officials accused them of “not representing Rwandan values.” They said that other detainees beat them because of their clothes and identity. Three other detainees, who were held in the “delinquents’” room at Gikondo, confirmed that fellow detainees and guards more frequently and violently beat people they knew were gay or transgender than others.
In the past, round-ups have been connected to high-profile government events, ahead of which security forces may ramp up efforts to “clear up” Kigali’s streets. Human Rights Watch documented a similar round-up in 2016 before an African Union Summit held in Kigali. Ahead of the now postponed 2021 Commonwealth meeting, several former detainees said the police told them they did not want them on the streets during the event.
A civil society activist in Kigali said: “The streets were empty before the meeting. You couldn’t see any street children in town. Even the fruit vendors were taken [to Gikondo]. But now you can see them in the streets again.” Sources in Kigali confirmed that fewer people were living or working on the streets in the month preceding the date for the meeting. Several former detainees said the conditions at Gikondo had worsened in the lead-up to the meeting due to severe overcrowding.
An 18-year-old woman, a street vendor arbitrarily detained for two weeks with her 9-month-old baby, said: “[The police] said the government wanted to clear the city because of CHOGM. They said they would detain us until CHOGM has happened without our filth on display.”
Rwanda is one of a few countries in East Africa that does not criminalize consensual same-sex relations. Vagrancy, begging, and sex work are not criminalized either. Yet the authorities continue to use Gikondo Transit Center to imprison people accused of “deviant behavior that is harmful to the public,” including street vending and homelessness.
Rwanda should urgently close the transit center in Gikondo and amend the legal framework governing the National Rehabilitation Service. The authorities should promptly investigate all reported cases of ill-treatment and beatings of detainees by police and transit center personnel – including reports of detainees dying in detention – and prosecute the suspected abusers, Human Rights Watch said.
“Based on past experience, there is every likelihood that similar patterns of abuse will occur ahead of whatever new date is set for the Commonwealth meeting,” Mudge said. “Locking up marginalized people and abusing them simply because the authorities believe they tarnish their country’s image violates human dignity, and Commonwealth leaders should not tolerate this.”
Gikondo Transit Center
Since 2017, legislation and policies under the government’s strategy to “eradicate delinquency” have sought to legitimize and regulate so-called transit centers, presenting them as part of a “rehabilitation” process aimed at supporting poor and marginalized people. The authorities acknowledge that there are 28 “transit centers” in Rwanda, including “Kwa Kabuga,” the unofficial name of Kigali’s transit center situated in the Gikondo residential suburb of Kigali.
A January 2020 Human Rights Watch report found that the 2017 legislation provides cover for the police to round up and arbitrarily detain people accused of so-called “deviant behaviors” at Gikondo in deplorable and degrading conditions, and without due process or judicial oversight. Detainees are released with very little formal procedure, reflecting the arbitrary manner in which they were initially arrested.
Based on the 2017 legal framework and statements by Rwandan authorities, the broader objective of Gikondo is to serve as a short-term screening center to allow authorities to process detainees to send on to rehabilitation centers. However, in practice, there is no judicial process to determine the length of time people spend at the center or whether they are released or transferred. Some people interviewed said they were released when the center was overcrowded. Two said they were released in June 2021, after the decision to postpone the Commonwealth meeting was announced.
The 13-year-old boy said he was held for two weeks in late April and May, in a room with over 200 other street children, and was released after the announcement: “The police told us: ‘Don’t be afraid, children. The meeting isn’t happening; you’ll be released tomorrow.’” He said that district authorities collected all children detained at Gikondo and returned them to the streets of Kigali. He was not offered support to rejoin his family or return to school.
The civil society activist confirmed that, “Children were detained, moto-taxis had to stop working, street vendors were harassed – all because of the Commonwealth meeting. Since it’s been postponed, the abuse has calmed down.”
Former detainees said police told them that they were “trash,” and that they would be detained during the meeting and released in August. “Before the [Commonwealth] meeting, they would arrest us and seize our goods,” said a 20-year-old street vendor, who was detained for two weeks in April with her 9-month-old baby. “With this meeting coming up … Gikondo [was] very overcrowded.”
Arrest and Transfer to Gikondo
Round-ups by police or officers from the District Administration Security Support Organ (DASSO), a local state security body, are often the first step toward arbitrary detention at Gikondo. The arbitrary nature of the detention is reflected in the complete absence of due process once people are taken to Gikondo. In most cases, detainees are held in various police stations or sector (local government) offices across Kigali before being transferred to Gikondo. None of the interviewees were taken before a judge or given access to a lawyer before being transferred to Gikondo.
Detention of Gay and Transgender People
The detention of transgender people at Gikondo was reported in the media in November 2020. The nine transgender or gay people interviewed by Human Rights Watch were detained at Gikondo between December 2020 and April 2021. They said they had been targeted due to their sexual orientation or gender identity and treated worse than other detainees.
Several said the police or local security officers detained them after members of the public reported seeing them with their partners and other lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, or wearing women’s clothing if they were perceived not to be female. At Gikondo, police officers or guards accused them of being homeless, thieves, or delinquents and held them in a room reserved for “delinquent” men. One 27-year-old transgender woman said:
They took me at Kabuga and said I was causing problems in Rwanda…. When I arrived, police asked why am I looking like this? Why am I looking like a girl? They asked: ‘Are you a prostitute?’ I said, ‘No, I am a Rwandan.’ They jailed me with other people who were [accused of being] thieves.
One said he was arrested in late December 2020, after leaving a bar in Nyamirambo neighborhood in Kigali: “When we were about to get on motorbikes, local patrol men came and asked us who we are and what we are doing here … they said we don’t represent Rwandan customs. My friend [a transgender woman] has long hair and was wearing a skirt.” Another former detainee was arrested by local security officials in February 2021 after kissing his same-sex partner in a bar. He said customers from the bar insulted them and called the security patrol, who took them straight to Gikondo transit center.
Transgender and gay people interviewed described being harassed, insulted, and beaten by security officials during their arrest and detention. A former detainee who was arrested by DASSO officials in December 2020 said she was taken to the Nyabugogo police station. “They asked me what I was doing … if I am a girl or a boy,” she said. “I said I am a girl and that’s when the problems started … At Kabuga, we were beaten by the leaders. They asked if we were boys or girls.”
A transgender woman detained at Gikondo in February 2021 said: “Police said we were cursed, and asked how we could behave in this way, having sex with people of the same sex as us. They said we’re delinquents and put us in that room. But in the room, we were badly beaten by other detainees and police did nothing despite our cries.” Another gay former detainee who was arrested with a group of transgender people said a policeman beat his feet and told him he should be “rehabilitated.”
Several other former detainees confirmed these patterns of abuse. An 18-year-old street vendor accused of “delinquency” was detained with about 1,000 other men, where he said “men who dressed as women” – referring to transgender people – “were beaten more than the others. We were all beaten but they were really badly beaten.” All transgender women interviewed were housed in male facilities.
Beatings
Beatings often begin as soon as people are rounded up and taken to a nearby police station or post. A 30-year-old woman with a 3-year-old child said:
I was taken to the police, where they kept us in a room with others who had been arrested. At that point we were violently beaten. I had a baby with me, but they still beat me, although they didn’t beat him. At 2 a.m. they transferred us to “Kwa Kabuga.” They told me: “Your baby is none of our business. Get in with the others.” I insulted them, so they beat me badly. They said they don’t want me to do this kind of business [on the streets].
Once detainees arrive at Gikondo, they are registered and often beaten by other detainees. Long-term detainees at Gikondo, known as “counsellors,” are often in charge of daily life in the rooms and beat other detainees. The 30-year-old street vendor said that other detainees in the women’s room beat her and her child: “An adult woman is hit twenty times, whereas her child will be beaten four times. It’s only babies under one year old that are not beaten.”
Interviewees detained in the women’s room also said they were beaten when their child defecated or cried: “We were beaten every day. We were also beaten when we asked for permission to use the toilet. If a baby cried, or urinated, its mother would pay the price,” said the 23-year-old mother of a 2-year-old child, who was detained at Gikondo for three weeks in April.
Guards or “counselors” also regularly beat detainees in the children’s room or rooms for adult men. Children are often beaten when they make noise or play together. “We were beaten a lot…. If you fight, if you make a mistake, or if you shout, they beat you with sticks,” the 13-year-old boy said. A 21-year-old street vendor held in the room for “delinquents” said that detainees are beaten for spending too long in the bathroom, for talking too loudly, or “for any fault you commit.”
Conditions at Gikondo
Conditions in Gikondo Transit Center, as Human Rights Watch has extensively documented since 2006, fall well below international standards and violate Rwandan law.
In March 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture called on governments to “reduce prison populations … wherever possible by implementing schemes of early, provisional or temporary release.” Yet Rwandan authorities continued to detain people in Gikondo transit center, without due process or judicial oversight. Overcrowding and poor hygienic and sanitary conditions at Gikondo put people at greater risk of contracting Covid-19 due to close proximity, inability to practice “social distancing,” a lack of adequate sanitation and hygiene, and lack of adequate medical care, including a lack of Covid-19 testing.
During their arrest and transfer to Gikondo, people interviewed said, they were not tested for Covid-19, were not given masks to wear, and were not given the space to maintain distances from other detainees. Many were taken to Gikondo in an overcrowded truck with windows closed. Some said that upon arrival, they washed their hands with water, but were not given soap. One former detainee said hand sanitizer was confiscated by the authorities upon arrival.
Former detainees who were held at Gikondo between 2019 and 2021 estimate that between 50 and 200 girls and boys detained together at a time in the “children’s room,” in deplorable and degrading conditions. But they described conditions in the room for male “delinquents” – which also holds teenage boys – and facilities for adult women with their infants as far worse.
In those two rooms, some children were held together with adults in severely overcrowded conditions and many detainees were forced to sleep on the concrete floor. Former detainees held in the room for “delinquents” estimated that over 1,000 people were held together. One person interviewed said it was not possible to see the floor at night when the detainees attempted to lay down to sleep on the concrete floor.
Most former detainees said they were given food once a day, in insufficient quantities and with poor nutritional value. Food is particularly insufficient for young children and babies, who regularly get sick. One woman said she was released after her baby got so ill he had blood in his stool, while another said her baby had to be transferred directly to a hospital due to malnutrition.
Detainees in the rooms for women and “delinquents” had irregular access to drinking water, sometimes only once a day. “Sometimes we go an entire day without drinking water, and then they give a tiny amount that we all have to share,” said one interviewee who was held at Gikondo for almost all of April.
Sanitation and hygiene conditions are very poor, and many interviewees reported being allowed to wash at most once a week. One former detainee said: “When it’s time to wash, they take a 20-liter basin and around 20 to 30 people wash at the same time.” Former detainees said they were rarely given soap. The mother of a 3-year-old said: “We only washed once a day with filthy water that had worms in it, mostly without soap … we didn’t change our clothes.”
Three interviewees said that during their time at Gikondo, they saw or heard of detainees who had died due to the poor conditions and lack of appropriate medical care. “In the two weeks I spent [at Gikondo] there were three nights where we couldn’t sleep because there were too many people in the room,” said a 40-year-old street vendor detained at the transit center in April. “Two people died because of this treatment and illnesses…. They were ill and had diarrhea and skin rashes. They were refused permission to see a doctor, and one morning they were found dead. I don’t know what caused their death or what their names are.”
Human Rights Watch requested information on these allegations from the Justice Ministry and the National Rehabilitation Service but received no response and was not able to independently verify them.
Lack of Government Response; Criticism by Regional and International Entities
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which reviewed Rwanda’s record on January 27 and 28, 2020, said it was concerned that the reference to “deviant behaviors” in Rwanda’s legislation was leading to “the deprivation of liberty of children in need of protection.” The committee said the abusive detention should end and that the government should change the law.
During the committee’s review, the Rwandan government denied that the detention of street children in transit centers is arbitrary. The government also claimed that children in transit centers are either placed with a family or transferred to a “rehabilitation center” within 72 hours. These claims contradict reports by the National Commission for Children and the National Commission for Human Rights, as well as Human Rights Watch findings.
In response to the Human Rights Watch January 2020 report, then-Justice Minister Johnston Busingye was quoted in KT Press saying: “These children have been redeemed…. We believe they can become useful citizens…. HRW [Human Rights Watch] can come and interview them if they wish.” During Rwanda’s review by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the gender and family promotion minister, Soline Nyirahabimana, also said that independent observers should visit the center.
On December 4, 2020, the African Court on Human and People’s Rights held that states’ laws enabling the detention of people who, often because of poverty, are forced to live on the street, violate human rights law. The opinion issued in response to a request by the Pan African Lawyers Union, upheld the rights of people deemed “vagrants” by the state. The opinion concluded that laws permitting the forcible removal or warrantless arrest of a person declared to be a “vagrant,” violate the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other human rights instruments.
On February 6, 2020, December 14, 2020, and August 23, 2021, Human Rights Watch wrote letters to then-Justice Minister Busingye following up on these statements, requesting access to Gikondo and other transit centers in Rwanda, and asking about steps taken by the Rwanda authorities to remedy the abusive legal framework governing its National Rehabilitation Service. He has not responded.
South Africa’s LGBT+ community are demanding justice for a lesbian whose alleged murderer gloated about removing a “curse” from her family.
Sisanda Gumede, 28, was stabbed in the Umbumbulu area, south of Durban, on Sunday evening (26 September). She was rushed to a hospital but tragically died en route.
Police spokesperson colonel Thembeka Mbele said the killer’s motivation is still unknown. According to Nonhlanhla Khoza, a politician serving in the Department of Social Development, the suspect is thought to be one of the young lesbian woman’s own relatives.
“Although the information regarding the incident violently is still sketchy, it appears that the deceased and [the suspect] had an altercation while at home,” she said in a statement reported by The South African.
“Gumede’s murder is understood to be motivated by homophobia, as [the suspect] allegedly gloated after the incident that he had removed the curse from the family.
“Police should spare no time while the alleged perpetrator is not arrested. We must ensure he is arrested to answer for his sin, as he attacked a defenceless woman.”
Khoza sent her condolences to Gumede’s loved ones and said such murders go against the ethos of the country’s constitution.
“We are deeply ashamed that, in our nation, we still have people facing discrimination based on their sexual orientation,” she said. “This is a gross violation of basic human rights and we should unite to end such crimes.”
She urged communities in the province not to tolerate homophobic hate crimes and to work with the police to expose those involved.
“It must sink in the minds of all those involved in such crimes that no one has a right to take a life and abuse someone else because of their sexuality. Our government has made giant strides towards safeguarding LGBTQ+ rights. However, incidents similar to this one water down all efforts that have been made.
“We have committed ourselves to fighting for justice and we want our society to work together to end these crimes. We warn communities to work together to end hate crimes, homophobia and other forms of unfair discrimination against LGBTQI + communities.”
It was a typical day for Juniper Simonis. The freelance ecologist decided to break from work for lunch at about 3 p.m. to take their service dog, Wallace, to the local dog park and grab a bite to eat.
But a planned peaceful afternoon quickly turned ugly. Simonis says they survived a gang assault of about 30 perpetrators in Gresham, Ore., a suburb outside of Portland. The Oregon resident encountered the group for only minutes but suffered a concussion, sprained jaw, extensive car damage and verbal assaults, they said.
“They nearly killed me,” they said.
Simonis said they turned into a parking lot to pick up lunch in Gresham, Ore., and stumbled upon a rally that included several members of the Proud Boys — a far-right, ultra-nationalist organization known for its anti-LGBTQ, anti-feminism and neo-fascist ideologies.
There was a “Flag Ride” right-wing rally in a parking lot earlier that day. Simonis was under the impression the event had ended after checking reports on Twitter. After pulling into the lot, originally to look for lunch options, Simonis saw a large gathering still in the lot.
Simonis decided to take pictures of what was happening to post online to warn others and was intentional in keeping their distance, they said. As Simonis was preparing to leave the area, they yelled from inside the car, “Fuck you, fascists, go home.”
“I did not expect this to escalate into violence,” they said.
The attack itself only lasted about three minutes, Simonis said. Simonis was quickly surrounded by several people and physically blocked from leaving the lot. People stepped in front of the parking lot exit, then a car was moved to barricade Simonis. People began to shout homophobic slurs at Simonis, they said.
“I’m in serious trouble now and I know it,” they said.
Simonis was then punched while inside their vehicle and was briefly knocked out. They regained consciousness a few seconds later, and a cinder block was thrown at the car and shattered the back window of their car inches away from their service dog, Wallace.
Simonis got out of the car to assess the damage and make sure their service dog was safe. They quickly got back in their car and was able to leave the lot by maneuvering around the blocked exit, Simonis said.
Looking back at the photos and videos Simonis took before the assault, Simonis said they saw people looking into the camera and acknowledging them taking photos.
“I honestly don’t know if I hadn’t said anything, that … things would have gone any different,” they said.
Last year, Simonis was targeted and arrested by federal police in Portland during the tumultuous Black Lives Matter protests in the city. They were denied medical attention, misgendered, jumped and aggressively handcuffed while taken into custody.
Simonis is still working through legal proceedings in a multi-plaintiff lawsuit.
A witness to the event called the Gresham Police Department, which was only a few blocks away from the incident. But the call went to voicemail and the witness did not leave a message, Simonis said.
Another witness called 911, Simonis said, which led to an officer calling Simonis about 45 minutes after the accident to take a report.
In the police report obtained by the Blade, Simonis is consistently misgendered. Simonis’ sex is also listed as “unknown” in the report. The incident was labeled as vehicle vandalism.
Simonis said the conversation with the officer was filled with victim-blaming and the officer wrote in the report that Simonis should avoid “approaching groups of this nature.”
“At no point in this conversation does he treat me as an actual victim of a crime,” Simonis said.
The Gresham Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Weeks after the assault, Simonis is struggling mentally and physically, they said.
The concussion makes working on a computer virtually impossible because of light sensitivity and trouble focusing, Simonis said. The pain caused by the sprained jaw makes it difficult to focus, as well.
Simonis is not able to begin physical therapy for their jaw until November because of long medical wait times, they said. The cost to repair the car damages will be about $8,000, as well, they said.
The times where Simonis is able to focus are usually taken up by piecing together what happened that day, they said.
“The part of my brain that I use for work has been hijacked functionally by the part of the brain that needed to know what happened to me,” they said. “There is such a painful need to understand what happened to me.”
Because of past traumatic events, like the experience of being in federal custody last year, Simonis said processing and living with the trauma is a bit easier to handle. But their ability to work will be forever changed yet again, they said.
“I’m not able to work at the pace that I used to work at before I was assaulted by DHS. I’ll never be,” they said. “And this is just a further knockdown.”
The trauma of the event has increased Simonis’ hyper-vigilance, as well.
“Every time I hear a car go by, I’m double-checking,” they said.
Even though Simonis has the tools to process and live with the immense trauma, they will never be the same person, they said.
“They fucking changed my life forever. Point blank,” they said. “Not just mentally, but physically and physiologically. I can’t go back to where I was before. I’m lucky that I survived.”
Simonis has reported the attack to the FBI and is pursuing legal action with two specific goals in mind: to heal and to prevent similar crimes from happening.
“I am somebody who believes in abolishing the carceral system and the justice system as it exists and policing,” Simonis said. “But also a 37-year-old trans and disabled person who somehow managed to survive this long. And so naturally has become pragmatic about the world.”
Because of the reaction of the Gresham Police Department, Simonis did not want to work with local officers and instead went to the federal level. But because of the alleged assault by agents in Portland last year, this decision wasn’t easy for them.
Perpetrators in the assault threatened to call the police on Simonis, even though Simonis did not commit a crime. Reporting the crime to the federal level is also a layer of protection, they said.
“All of this is forcing my hand,” they said. There is no easy decision in the situation, they added.
“We all know that crimes are underreported. We hear about it all the time,” they said. And there are reasons why people don’t report crimes and they’re totally understandable. A lot of victims are very concerned about what will happen if they break anonymity. In my situation, I’ve already broken anonymity.”
With recent arrests and crackdowns on the Proud Boys and other hate groups in the United States, Simonis is bracing for a long process.
“This isn’t just going to go on a shelf,” they said.
