Two organizations have entered into a partnership that seeks to improve the health and quality of life of transgender and non-binary people in Puerto Rico.
The collaboration between the South Florida-based Arianna’s Center and the Puerto Rico-based Waves Ahead seeks to strengthen and improve programs and/or services to these communities. They include free mobile HIV testing, prevention and care, case management to help with name changes, legal referrals and links to medical care and mental health services.
Both organizations will offer workshops to help trans women and non-binary people enter the workforce.
Arianna’s Center and Waves Ahead will also train trans women to become activists and help elected officials at all levels of government on issues and policies that are vital to people who are trans or non-binary.
This partnership will allow Waves Ahead to uphold its commitment to the community and expand its capacity to serve LGBTQ seniors in Puerto Rico.
Arianna’s Center CEO Arianna Lint told the Washington Blade that another one of her organization’s goals is “to empower the trans community over 50 with support groups.”
“We will have two offices: One in the San Juan metropolitan area and the other in Cabo Rojo (in southwestern Puerto Rico),” she said. “We are also developing a fundraising project for these two organizations to continue with the services. We are starting this work with very few financial resources, but with a lot of energy and the faith that we are going to move forward and that many people are going to support us.”
“Puerto Rico has become the heart of Arianna’s Center. Since 2019 we have been here supporting the trans and non-binary community with the services and advocacy that characterize our work in the United States,” added Arianna’s Center Operations Director Tony Lima in a press release. “We are proud to start 2021 by announcing Kimberly Vázquez, with vast experience and is highly recognized by her own community, is an official part of our family who will continue our trans legacy here on the island.”
Vázquez, who is in charge of coordinating Arianna’s Center work in Puerto Rico, told the Blade that joining forces with Arianna’s Center will create more opportunities for trans people who need and deserve dignified and fair treatment.
“I think it is a great alliance that, in the end, will support many more people and I know that, by receiving all their medical and support services, we will finally restore the dignity that has been taken from them for no other reason than to exclude them because they are different,” said Vázquez.
Wilfred Labiosa, executive director of Waves Ahead and SAGE Puerto Rico, said they “are extremely proud to be able to continue the work that Arianna started in 2019 in Puerto Rico.”
“Ms. Vázquez will work with our existing staff and from our centers to add more services for our Transgender and non-binary community in Puerto Rico,” said Labiosa. “New year, new beginnings.”
As the world marks Holocaust Memorial Day, PinkNews remembers all those in the LGBT+ community that were persecuted by the Nazis — and how the pink triangle, used to identify gay or bisexual men in concentration camps, became a symbol for gay rights.
When Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party seized power in Germany in July 1933, the dictatorship moved to persecute and murder minority groups, including Jews, LGBT+ people, the Romani people, and political prisoners.
Beginning in 1933, the Nazis built a network of concentration camps throughout Germany, where “undesirable” groups were detained, including Jewish people and gay men.
This persecution continued following the outbreak of World War II in 1939 and, between 1941 and 1945, the Nazi Party systematically murdered six million European Jews — as part of a plan known as “The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem” — in extermination camps and mass shootings. This genocide is referred to as the Holocaust, or the Shoah in Hebrew.
In total, up to 17 million people, including thousands of gay and bisexual men, were systematically killed at the hands of the Nazis.
Holocaust Memorial Day is held on January 27 annually — marking the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp — and remembers the millions of people killed by the Nazis and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
Holocaust Memorial Day: Nazi persecution of gay men and the LGBT+ community
Under Nazi rule, the persecution of homosexual men intensified, although gay sex between men had already been illegal since 1871.
It’s estimated that the Nazis imprisoned more than 50,000 gay men, including an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 men who were sent to concentration camps, according to research by historian Rüdiger Lautmann.
The classification system used for the uniforms of inmates—including the pink triangle for homosexuals—in Dachau concentration camp in Upper Bavaria, southern Germany. (HMDT/USHMM)
Although sex between women was not officially illegal in Nazi Germany, lesbians were also persecuted. Benno Gammerl, a lecturer in Queer History at Goldsmiths, University of London, tells PinkNews that the persecution of lesbians is “much harder to trace” because they weren’t included in the penal code and there was no specific categorisation of gay women in concentration camps (although some were made to wear a black triangle badge used to denote “asocial” prisoners).
Trans people, too, are known to have been persecuted under the Nazis, including being sent to concentration camps. According to Transgender Day of Remembrance, in 1938 the Institute of Forensic Medicine recommended that the “phenomena of transvestism” be “exterminated from public life.”
Again, Gammerl acknowledges that there have been demands for further research on the plight of trans people under the Nazis, saying: “At the moment, we simply [do] not know enough yet.”
Holocaust Memorial Day: The pink triangle in Nazi concentration camps.
In Nazi concentration camps, a pink triangle was used to identify some gay men. Gammerl, who describes the pink triangle as a “Nazi invention,” says it is “not quite clear” why the Nazis used the colour pink for this purpose.
In concentration camps, LGBT+ inmates were subjected to starvation and forced labour, as well as facing discrimination from both SS guards and fellow inmates.
Pierre Seel, a gay survivor from the Schirmeck-Vorbrück concentration camp near Strasbourg, who passed away in 2005, recalled one traumatising incident in his memoir. Seel wrote that a group of SS guards stripped his 18-year-old lover naked before releasing a pack of German Shepherd dogs which mauled him to death.
“There was no solidarity for the homosexual prisoners; they belonged to the lowest caste,” Seel wrote in his 1995 book I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror.
“Other prisoners, even when between themselves, used to target them.”
Gay men were also subjected to torture — including forced sodomy using wood — and human experimentation at the hands of the Nazis. There are records of gay men being forced to sleep with female sex slaves, and lesbians being made to perform sex acts on males, as a form of gay conversion therapy.
There was no solidarity for the homosexual prisoners; they belonged to the lowest caste.
Still, Gammerl argues that, although “there is evidence that homosexuals received worse treatment,” the available records make it hard to claim with certainty that gay people were consistently treated worse than other inmates.
“It is difficult to make definite claims about homosexuals being at the very ‘bottom’ of the camp hierarchy,” he says.
“All inmates were living under the permanent threat of being beaten or raped or killed by guards and there was also violence happening between inmates, some of that was certainly also homophobic.
“So, I would say, all inmates lived horrendous lives far beyond what I can imagine.”
He stresses that, given that Jewish people predominately populated the concentration camps, “one certainly cannot say that homosexuals were treated worse than they were.”
All inmates were living under the permanent threat of being beaten or raped or killed by guards and there was also violence happening between inmates, some of that was certainly also homophobic.
Thousands of LGBT+ people are believed to have been murdered by the Nazis. However, the Nazis’ poor documentation of LGBT+ people means that historians have been unable to calculate an exact estimate. Lautmann has argued that the death rate for gay men could be as high as 60 percent of those detained in concentration camps.
Gammerl also stresses that some Jewish and Romani people killed by the Nazis may also have identified as a sexual or gender minority.
“When talking about numbers, it is important to bear in mind that part of the people who were persecuted as Jews, Communists, Sinti and Romanies, or as members of other groups the Nazis sent to concentration camps, that a certain number of these people may also have been LGBT+,” he adds.
Gay men after WWII and how the pink triangle was reclaimed as a gay rights symbol.
After the end of World War II, the persecution of gay and bisexual men continued. Same-sex sexual activity between men remained illegal in East and West Germany until 1968 and 1969 respectively.
Gammerl notes that, while authorities in East Germany were “more lenient” towards gay men after Word War II, the persecution of gay men in West Germany was “rather intense” in the decades afterwards with “large waves” of arrests in cities like Frankfurt.
“Same-sex desiring men and women had to make sure that they lived their lives not too publicly and for men there was the permanent fear of being sent to prison,” he explains.
Pink Triangle Park in San Francisco, where the pink triangle has been used to remember LGBT+ victims of the Holocaust.
There are also accounts of gay men being re-imprisoned using evidence obtained by the Nazis. For decades after the Second World War, the Nazis’ treatment of LGBT+ people went unacknowledged in many countries.
It took until 2002 before the German government apologised to the gay community and annulled the convictions of gay and bisexual men under the Nazi regime. In 2005, the European Parliament passed a resolution including homosexuals as part of those persecuted during the Holocaust.
Poignantly, as the gay rights movement gained momentum in West Germany in the 1970s, the pink triangle started to be used as as a symbol for marking the history of anti-gay violence.
In an act of defiance, the pink triangle was reclaimed — and often inverted, with the tip pointing upwards — as a sign of gay activism. It became known on an international scale during the 1980s, when a six-person collective, called the Silence=Death Project, used an inverted version of the triangle on posters that the group plastered around New York to raise awareness of the AIDS crisis.
The upwards pointing pink triangle was later used by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in its campaigns during the AIDS epidemic. It was also used in memorials to remember LGBT+ victims of the Holocaust in San Francisco, Amsterdam and Sydney.
The Washington Blade has learned Judy Shepard will testify in support of a bill that would ban the so-called LGBTQ panic defense in Virginia.
The measure — House Bill 2132 that state Del. Danica Roem (D-Manassas) introduced — will go before a House of Delegates subcommittee on Wednesday.
Shepard’s son, Matthew, died on Oct. 12, 1998, after two men brutally beat him and left him tied to a fence outside of Laramie, Wyo. One of the men convicted of murdering Matthew Shepard claimed he became after he made a sexual advance towards him.
Eleven states and D.C. currently ban the so-called LGBTQ panic defense. Lawmakers in Maryland are considering a measure that would prohibit the use of the legal strategy in the state.
Grindr has been fined £8.5 million for illegally selling user data, including tracking codes and precise locations, in a serious violation of European privacy law.
The Norwegian Data Protection Authority revealed on Monday (25 January) that the global hook-up app had shared users’ private details with at least five advertisers, including Twitter’s own advertising platform, which may in turn share data with more than 100 partners.
The app had illegally transmitted users’ IP address, advertising ID, GPS location, age and gender, essentially tagging individuals as LGBT+ without obtaining their explicit consent.
The fine of 100 million Norwegian kroner (£8.5m or $11.7m US) is the highest ever issued by the authority and amounts to around 10 per cent of Grindr’s estimated global annual revenue, reflecting the “very severe” nature of the breach.
The agency notes that, as the world’s most popular gay dating app, Grindr is active in nearly every country in the world; the privacy violation could have put users at serious risk in countries like Qatar and Pakistan, where homosexuality is criminalised.
“If someone finds out that they are gay and knows their movements, they may be harmed,” said Tobias Judin, head of the Norwegian Data Protection Authority’s international department.
“We’re trying to make these apps and services understand that this approach – not informing users, not gaining a valid consent to share their data – is completely unacceptable.”
In a statement to the New York Times, a spokesperson for Grindr said the company had obtained “valid legal consent from all” of its users in Europe on multiple occasions and was confident that its “approach to user privacy is first in class” among social apps.
“We continually enhance our privacy practices in consideration of evolving privacy laws and regulations, and look forward to entering into a productive dialogue with the Norwegian Data Protection Authority,” they added.
Grindr has until 15 February to officially respond to the ruling, after which the Data Protection Authority will make its final decision in the case.
Legislators in Montana advanced two bills Monday focused on transgender youth: House Bill 112 would prohibit transgender student athletes from participating on teams that correspond to their gender identities, and House Bill 113 would prohibit health care professionals from providing gender-affirming care to trans minors.
“If passed into law, HB 112 and HB 113 will cause irrevocable harm to trans youth,” Caitlin Borgmann, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, said in a statement. “If these discriminatory bills pass — we will sue, and we will win. Trying to defend laws in court that stigmatize and target trans youth doesn’t seem like a good use of taxpayer dollars to us.”
University of Montana cross country runner Juniper Eastwood, center, warming up with her teammates at Campbell Park in Missoula, Mont., on Aug. 15, 2019. The proposed ban is personal for people like Eastwood, a transgender woman and former member of the University of Montana’s track and field and cross-country running teams. She said the legislation “would make it impossible for other young Montanans like me to participate in sports as who they are.”Rachel Leathe / Bozeman Daily Chronicle via AP file
The bills working through Montana’s Legislature are among an estimated 21 anti-LGBTQ measures that have been filed or pre-filed for 2021 state legislative sessions, according to Freedom for All Americans, an organization advocating for LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections. Many of the bills, like those in Montana, focus on transgender youths.
“I think the volume of bills is going to dramatically increase, particularly because of what is happening at the federal level,” said Kasey Suffredini, CEO of Freedom for All Americans. “For the opposition, this is the only avenue for their narrative that treating LGBT people with dignity and respect is a problem for the country.”
Chase Strangio, deputy director of transgender justice for the American Civil Liberties Union, agreed.
“We often see backlash” after advancements in LGBTQ rights, he said, citing the flurry of measures targeting LGBTQ people after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which expanded the scope of federal nondiscrimination law to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
Strangio said that with fewer opportunities to roll back LGBTQ rights at the federal level under President Joe Biden — who has signed multiple pro-LGBTQ executive orders — he’s not surprised that opponents are zeroing in on the states.
Anti-LGBTQ bills
Republican legislators in over a dozen states have proposed legislation that targets LGBTQ people. The bills touch on athletics, health care and a grab bag of other issues related to queer rights and recognition.
Legislators have also introduced bills to restrict transgender participation in student athletics in Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Dakota, New Hampshire and Florida. The trend carried over from last year, when lawmakers took up the issue in several states. Idaho is the only state to have adopted such a law, and it did so just last year.
Proponents of such bills say it’s about fairness, while opponents say the measures are discriminatory.
Bills that would penalize or criminalize medical professionals for providing trans youths with gender-affirming care have been introduced in Utah, Missouri, Indiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.
“Criminal health care bans are unlike anything we have ever seen before,” Strangio said. “To cut someone off from their health care and make it a crime is pretty much unparalleled.”
In Kentucky, SB 83 would prohibit “discrimination” against any health care provider who refuses to administer care because of a religious objection.
In New Hampshire, HB 68 would expand the definition of “child abuse” to encompass parents’ provision of gender-affirming care, while bills in Alabama, Missouri and Indiana would make it a crime for physicians to give any gender-affirming care to a minor.
Research released in September in the journal Pediatrics found that transgender children who receive gender-affirming medical care earlier in their lives are less likely to experience mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
Strangio said he is alarmed by “how far-reaching these bills are becoming.” For example, a bill introduced by Mississippi state Sen. Angela Burkes Hill would criminalize access to care for young adults up to age 21.
Hill defended the bill on social media as necessary in the face of Biden’s pro-LGBTQ policies: “It should have been passed last year. Who is going to fight for your daughters not to be cheated by biological males deciding to identify as a girl?? Women shouldn’t have to change clothes in front of men either. That federal money will be the carrot. Get ready.”
Other bills that have alarmed LGBTQ advocates include Indiana’s HB 1456, which aims to prohibit transgender people’s access to bathrooms that match their gender identities; South Dakota’s HB 1076, which would require birth certificates to reflect biological sex; North Dakota’s HB 1476, which would codify discrimination against LGBTQ people; and Iowa’s Senate File 80, which would require schools to alert parents if their children are asked by school employees about their “preferred” pronouns.
Pro-LGBTQ legislation
For LGBTQ advocates, the news from legislatures isn’t all bad.
Suffredini expects several states to advance nondiscrimination protections, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan. In Michigan, advocates collected over 400,000 signatures to put a measure on the ballot to extend such protections, and the Legislature has 40 days to amend existing nondiscrimination legislation or the issue will appear on the November 2022 ballot for voters to decide.
Advocates in Arkansas — one of only three states that have no hate crimes law, along with South Carolina and Wyoming — hope an LGBTQ-inclusive hate crimes bill makes it to the governor’s desk this session. Conservatives tried to derail the bill this month because it includes protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In Indiana, the state’s first openly gay legislator, Sen. J.D. Ford, has proposed legislation that would outlaw conversion therapy for minors by licensed counselors. If the bill becomes law, Indiana would join 20 other states and 80 cities in banning the widely discredited practice.
North Carolina cities and municipalities have begun to pass nondiscrimination measures after the end of a moratorium on such local ordinances as a result of a 2017 compromise bill that repealed HB 2, the controversial “bathroom bill.”
New York Senate Democrats are advancing a bill that would strike down an anti-loitering statute, also known as the “walking while trans” law, which allows police to arrest and detain sex workers merely for being on the street. LGBTQ advocates say that the statute is used to harass transgender women of color and that its repeal is necessary to end targeted discrimination. The legislation is on track to pass next week.
Maryland legislators introduced a measure that would make it easier for transgender people to legally change their names.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, an openly gay lawmaker from California, has introduced a bill that would prohibit medically unnecessary surgical procedures on intersex children before age 6. If it passes, the law would be the first of its kind in the U.S.
An ally in the White House
Since he took office last week, Biden has taken several actions applauded by LGBTQ advocates, including issuing an executive order that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity across federal agencies and another that rescinds former President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people’s serving openly in the military.
“The Biden administration is by far the most supportive of LGBT people in U.S. history,” Suffredini said. “He took action on day one to extend protections on day one. No other president has done that. That is a first.”
With Biden in the White House and Democrats in control of Congress, Suffredini and other advocates are optimistic about passage of pro-LGBTQ federal legislation, including the Equality Act, which would grant LGBTQ people federal protections from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, education, use of public space, public funding and jury service.
“We are in the best position we have ever been to update federal civil rights law,” Suffredini said. “Our dedicated opposition knows this, and they know this moment could be coming. This is a last gasp.”
Declaring “God is on your side,” a Roman Catholic cardinal, an archbishop and six other U.S. bishops issued a statement Monday expressing support for LGBTQ youth and denouncing the bullying often directed at them.
“All people of goodwill should help, support and defend LGBT youth,” said the statement released by the Tyler Clementi Foundation, named for the Rutgers University student who took his own life in 2010 after being recorded on a webcam kissing another man.
Among those signing the statement were Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, and Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
According to Catholic teaching, gays and lesbians should be respected, loved and not discriminated against, but homosexual activity is considered “intrinsically disordered.” The church leadership in the U.S. vigorously opposes same-sex marriage and has not supported efforts to boost acceptance of transgender people.
The bishops’ statement said LGBTQ youth attempt suicide at much higher rates, are often homeless because of families who reject them and “are the target of violent acts at alarming rates.”
“We take this opportunity to say to our LGBT friends, especially young people, that we stand with you and oppose any form of violence, bullying or harassment directed at you,” it read. “Most of all, know that God created you, God loves you and God is on your side.
Along with Tobin and Wester, the statement was signed by Bishops John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky; Robert McElroy of San Diego; Steven Biegler of Cheyenne, Wyoming; and Edward Weisenberger of Tucson, Arizona, as well as two retired auxiliary bishops, Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit and Dennis Madden of Baltimore.
After the statement was issued, another auxiliary bishop, John Dolan of San Diego, also endorsed it.
The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest whose book “Building a Bridge” advocates for greater LGBTQ inclusion in the Catholic church, hailed the statement as “an historic step forward.”
“It’s a reminder that Jesus always stood on the side of the persecuted,” Martin said, expressing hope that more of the country’s over 400 active and retired bishops would endorse the statement.
Stowe and Wester had been scheduled to attend a conference last June, organized by Martin, to address LGBTQ inclusion in the church, but it was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Among those welcoming the bishops’ declaration was Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage.
″I am appreciative of this reaffirmation of the Church’s care for those who are struggling with sexual identity issues, especially when they are targets of bullying and suffer rejection even from the very ones who should love and support them,” he said via email. “The Church stands in solidarity with them, and all of her children, to help them live a life of virtue.”
The country of late has seen mixed messages, for transgender youth in particular, in terms of acceptance.
President Joe Biden on Monday signed an executive order rescinding former President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people joining the military.
In more than a dozen Republican-governed states, meanwhile, lawmakers have proposed bills that would bar young transgender people from playing on school sports teams that reflect their gender identity or from obtaining certain types of gender-related medical treatments.
A lesbian who was forced to flee Zimbabwe after facing death threats from her own family has been denied refugee status in Ireland.
In April 2019, an International Protection Officer (IPO) recommended that the woman – who has not been named – be denied asylum, arguing that her claim lacked credibility.×
The woman said she forced into two separate marriages as a child in Zimbabwe at the ages of nine and 13. She claimed she was forced to flee her home country after her family found out that she was a lesbian, leading to threats of violence.
The woman subsequently brought judicial review proceedings in an effort to have the 2019 IPO recommendation overturned – however, Justice Tara Burns denied her request on Friday (22 January), The Irish Timesreports.
In her appeal, the woman argued that her sexuality was a “core element” of her asylum claim and that the IPO had failed to determine her sexuality when it recommended that she be denied asylum.
Before making a recommendation on her asylum claim, the IPO asked her questions about her sexuality and found that she was not aware of any LGBT+ support groups in either Ireland or Zimbabwe.
The IPO used her responses to questions about her sexuality, and other information about the woman, in reaching a recommendation that she should be denied asylum in Ireland.
In her ruling, Justice Burns said the IPO had reached a determination on the question of her sexuality. Her appeal to have the IPO recommendation overturned was denied.
She can now appeal the matter at the International Protection Appeals Tribunal, the judge said.
The case comes just months after a bisexual healthcare worker who fled anti-LGBT+ discrimination in Zimbabwe had her application for asylum in Ireland rejected because she doesn’t “seem bisexual”.
That ruling sparked international backlash, with the healthcare worker and another queer Zimbabwean woman speaking on condition of anonymity to CNN about their experiences seeking asylum in Ireland.
The Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI) told PinkNews that it is “appalled” by recent decisions for LGBT+ refugees.
“The Irish state assumes to have the authority to validate or invalidate a person’s sexual orientation in order to deny them protection,” said spokesperson Bulelani Mfaco. “Nowhere in Irish law or practice would the Irish state treat its own citizens in such a manner.”
Mfaco said the Irish government “ignores the difficult and life-threatening conditions LGBTQ+ asylum seekers escape in their home country”. He said queer people in some countries could face prison or death if they were to join an LGBT+ organisation.
“The Irish government doesn’t have the authority to validate a person’s sexual orientation,” Mfaco added.
Bernie Sanders’ iconic inauguration mittens, immortalised in countless memes, were handmade by a lesbian teacher.
Some of the United States’ most powerful political figures turned out on Wednesday (20 January) to watch Joe Biden and Kamala Harris be sworn in as the new president and vice-president of the United States.
But Sanders ultimately stole the show with his cosy, casual look, expertly tied together with a pair of woolly mittens. Social media went into overdrive, and it wasn’t long before the Vermont senator found himself supplanted into every meme going.
Now, the creator of those mittens has come forward to claim some much-deserved glory for her gorgeous creation.
Jen Ellis, 42, told Jewish Insiderthat she is a longtime admirer of Bernie Sanders, and decided to gift him with the mittens in 2016 after he lost his bid to become the Democratic nominee for the presidency to Hillary Clinton.
The lesbian second grade teacher, who lives in Essex Junction outside Burlington, where Sanders served as mayor in the 1980s, revealed that she saw a unique opportunity to gift the Vermont senator in 2016.
At that time, Ellis’ daughter was attending a pre-school where Sanders’ daughter-in-law worked as a director. Ellis was making some of her special homemade mittens – which she calls “swittens” as she makes them from old sweaters – for staff, and decided to make a pair for Sanders too.
“I was making mittens for holiday gifts for the preschool teachers, and I made an extra pair for Bernie,” she said, explaining that she gave them to Sanders’ daughter-in-law to pass on to him.
Ellis – who has never met Sanders in person but agrees with his politics – added: “He must really like them if he chose to wear them.”
She said that she is a “fan” of Sanders, adding: “I’ve always voted for him. I agree with his politics. As a teacher, I work with people from all walks of life, and I can see how a lot of people need more help and support.
“Some of the things that Bernie talks about, like forgiving student loans and free education and just a lot of his humanitarian ideas and things, really align with what I see as a need in our country every day.”
The lesbian teacher said she hopes to one day meet Bernie Sanders, adding: “I want him to keep doing what he’s doing and fighting the good fight.”
Sadly for fans of Ellis’ “swittens”, it won’t be possible to get a pair anytime soon. She has received more than 6,000 emails from people wanting to buy a pair of her handmade creations, but she doesn’t have the time or inclination to mass-produce them.
“I’m not going to quit my day job. I am a second grade teacher, and I’m a mom, and all that keeps me really busy.”
President Joe Biden on Monday signed an executive order repealing the ban on transgender people serving openly in the military, a ban that former President Donald Trump had put in effect, the White House said.
In a statement, the White House said Biden’s order “sets the policy that all Americans who are qualified to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States should be able to serve.”
“President Biden believes that gender identity should not be a bar to military service, and that America’s strength is found in its diversity,” the White House said.
Biden’s order “immediately prohibits involuntary separations, discharges, and denials of reenlistment or continuation of service on the basis of gender identity or under circumstances relating to gender identity,” the White House said
The order also directs the immediate “correction of” military records for any who had been affected by Trump’s ban.
Biden’s action to reverse the ban had been widely expected. He had vowed to reverse the Trump administration’s transgender military policy “on Day One” of his administration, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Inauguration Day that the move was imminent.
Psaki said last Wednesday that the action would be among the “additional executive actions” that will be taken “in the coming days and weeks.”
During his Senate confirmation hearing last week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he supports reversing the ban. “If you’re fit and you’re qualified to serve and you can maintain the standards, you should be allowed to serve, and you can expect that I will support that throughout,” he said.
Human rights groups immediately lauded the move by Biden.
“Today, those who believe in fact-based public policy and a strong, smart national defense have reason to be proud. The Biden administration has made good on its pledge to put military readiness above political expediency by restoring inclusive policy for transgender troops,” said Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a nonpartisan organization that studies LGBTQ military issues. “The ban will now be replaced with a single standard for everyone that, as in the successful previous policy, will apply equally to all service members.”
“President Biden’s reversal of the Transgender Military Ban is a huge step towards full equality for the LGBTQ community and serves to make us stronger as a nation,” said Erin Uritus, the CEO of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, a LGBTQ workplace equality advocacy organization.
Trump, in a series of unexpected tweets in July 2017, announced transgender people would be barred from serving in the military “in any capacity,” reversing a policy decision announced by the Obama administration in June 2016.
While the Trump administration maintained its policy was not a “ban,” it did prevent transgender people who plan to pursue gender-affirming hormones or surgery from enlisting. Transgender individuals who were already serving openly were grandfathered in, meaning they could continue to serve. But those service members who came out as trans after the policy could not pursue transition and were required to serve as their assigned sex at birth.
Thousands of transgender people already serve in the military. A 2016 Department of Defense survey estimated that 1 percent, or 8,980, active duty troops were transgender. Using the same data, the Palm Center, which studies LGBTQ people in the military, estimated that an additional 5,727 transgender people were in the Selected Reserve, bringing the total estimated number of transgender troops serving in 2016 to 14,707.
Devyn Box, 36, a social worker in Dallas, avoids going places in Texas where IDs have to be shown, because Box’s lists their sex assigned at birth rather than their nonbinary gender.
Nineteen states across the U.S. allow nonbinary residents to use an “X” mark for gender on state IDs, like driver’s licenses, though Texas is not one of them. Box, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said a federal policy that would allow them and other individuals who identify as neither exclusively male nor female to receive an accurate ID would make a huge difference in their daily quality of life.
“On my mortgage, I had to put the wrong gender, because they wouldn’t let me select my actual gender,” Box told NBC News. “I’ve had situations where people are going on what’s on my ID, and so then I have to basically out myself to them if I want for them to speak to me respectfully, which can be unsafe, and it’s also just uncomfortable and exhausting having to continuously educate and advocate for myself.”
Devyn Box.Courtesy Devyn Box
In Joe Biden’s plan to “advance LGBTQ+ equality in America and around the world,” which is on his campaign website, the president-elect said he “believes every transgender or non-binary person should have the option of changing their gender marker to ‘M,’ ‘F,’ or ‘X’ on government identifications, passports, and other documentation.” As a result, he vowed to support state and federal efforts that permit trans people to have IDs that accurately reflect their gender identity.
Box said they hope the Biden administration will push for a federal rule in its first 100 days, because they don’t plan to move out of Texas anytime soon, and they don’t expect the state to pass its own legislation. Until then, Box said they will continue to feel unsafe and experience hostility from people while explaining their identity.
“I don’t want to make it a big deal, like I just want to exist and not have to give this any thought,” Box said. “I just feel like if I had an ID that matched who I am, that I could possibly cut down on the number of times that I have to experience that. But it’s just kind of unavoidable everywhere I go.”
Last March, during the Democratic presidential primary race, Biden released an ambitious plan to advance LGBTQ rights, but at the time it was unclear what he would realistically be able to accomplish if elected with a Republican-controlled Senate. But now that Democrats will narrowly control Congress and the White House for the first time since 2011, many of Biden’s LGBTQ proposals appear much more achievable.
LGBTQ people and advocates are gearing up to hold Biden to his promises in the first 100 days of his presidency. Some, like Box, want to see federal ID legislation, which the American Civil Liberties Union is pushing for Biden to institute via an executive order. Others want him to immediately undo the ban on transgender people serving in the military and a variety of other Trump administration policies that rolled back protections for LGBTQ people. Advocates would also like to see Biden pass federal discrimination protections, among other legislation.
The Equality Act
In May 2019, the Democrat-controlled House passed the Equality Act, a sweeping bill that would grant LGBTQ people federal protections from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, education, public space, public funding and jury service. The legislation, however, was never given a vote in the Republican-led Senate.
“With Mitch McConnell in charge of the Senate, there was no chance we would ever get a vote on any of our stuff,” Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Trans Equality, said of pro-LGBTQ legislation.
With McConnell, R-Ky., in a minority leader role, the bill faces fewer barriers.
“The opportunity that we have to pass the Equality Act is better now than it’s ever been before,” said Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group. “This should be a part of our civil rights laws.”
Addressing a four-year ‘onslaught of attacks’
Advocates also expect Biden to deliver on his promises of immediately undoing Trump policies that targeted LGBTQ people with executive orders or new guidelines.
Neither of those policies are currently in effect. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is scheduled to issue the final version of the policy for homeless shelters in April. Last August, a federal judge blocked the Department of Health and Human Services from removing nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people in health care. The administration finalized another rule on Jan. 12 that would allow social service providers to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and it’s scheduled to take effect Feb. 11.
“I think we will see a reversal of the illegal and incompetent and dangerous trans military ban,” Keisling said. “I bet you that turns out to be one of the first things we see.”
Just a week before Biden’s inauguration, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule allowing taxpayer-funded social services organizations, like adoption agencies, to discriminate based on LGBTQ status.
Heather McNama-Nyman, left, and Nancy Nyman.Courtesy Nancy Nyman
Nancy Nyman, who is a foster parent with her wife in Los Angeles, said she hopes Biden will act immediately to “recognize the importance of same-sex couples and families in the foster care system.”
“There is definitely always a need for more families in foster care, and to enable organizations to discriminate against same sex couples or LGBTQ couples in the foster care system just seems outrageous to us,” she said. “This kind of discrimination, it cuts deep, because it cuts parents who are very well equipped to help, and to help solve a really big problem in our country.”
Some of the “attacks” on LGBTQ people over the last four years have been more subtle, according to David. For instance, the Trump administration removed references to LGBTQ people from federal agency websites.
“All of these steps that have been taken by the Trump administration were really focused on effectively erasing LGBTQ people, trying to suggest that LGBTQ people don’t exist,” David said.
The administration has also rolled out policies that disproportionately affect LGBTQ people of color, like the travel restriction focused on Muslim-majority countries, among other immigration policies, according to Kamal Fizazi, 47, a lawyer who lives in New York City. Fizazi said immigration and criminal justice are two issues that matter most to them as a queer Muslim.
Kamal Fizazi.Thomas Johnson
“There are some people who live in Muslim-majority countries that need to get out of those societies because they’re facing some persecution, and the U.S. used to be a safe harbor,” Fizazi said. “At the same time, the idea that the U.S. is a safe harbor is increasingly open to question. It feels increasingly unsafe here for some people.”
There are currently around 70 countries around the world that criminalize homosexuality and at least nine that have laws criminalizing certain types of gender expression, which are aimed at transgender and gender-nonconforming people, according to Human Rights Watch. Most of them are in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Fizazi also said they would like to see Biden enforce and expand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program for undocumented young people who came to the United States as children, and expand access to affordable health care.
“Health care is an LGBTQ issue, given that we have higher rates of mental health illness and addiction,” Fizazi said.
Many of the Trump administration policies that LGBTQ advocates would like to see reversed by the incoming Biden administration could be undone without congressional action in the first 100 days, although rules issued by the Department of Health and Human Services will take longer to address as they have to follow a longer administrative process that includes a public comment period.
Sending a new message
While LGBTQ advocates want Biden to move swiftly to reverse a number of Trump-era policies, they would want his administration to implement proactive, pro-LGBTQ policy. In addition to federal ID legislation, a number of advocates would like to see the Biden team issue guidance to federal agencies regarding implementation of the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which granted LGBTQ people protections from employment discrimination.
While the Bostock ruling specifically addressed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which deals with workplace discrimination, David advocated for the decision’s central finding — that sex discrimination includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity — to be applied to other federal discrimination protections.
“We have many federal statutes not only in the area of employment, where LGBTQ people could be protected but have not been because the administration has not implemented the Bostock decision,” David said.
Much of what the administration can do immediately, Keisling said, is send LGBTQ people a different message than the one they’ve received over the last four years. She said that after the Trump administration rescinded Obama-era guidance meant to protect trans students in schools, calls to the Trans Lifeline, a crisis hotline run by and for trans people, increased.
“What it does to trans kids to know that the president of the United States is coming after them over and over again, what it does to our service members, who one month they’re told, ‘We welcome you if you’re qualified, you can serve,’ and in the next month, the commander in chief is just whimsically tweeting that they can’t serve anymore — there’s big psychic damage to that,” Keisling said. “People are going to feel better not being attacked.”
