Davie Police Chief Dale Engle told town officials last week that he plans to retire on Sept. 3, the South Florida SunSentinel reported. He has been on paid leave for three months and will continue to be paid until he retires.
Engle was accused of saying Broward Sheriff’s school resource officer Shannon Bennett died because of his lifestyle. On Monday night, Engle told the SunSentinel he didn’t make the remark.
“I maintain my innocence,” he said.
Engle was placed on leave shortly after the state’s Fraternal Order of Police filed a complaint against him.
He said Davie officials didn’t pressure him to retire. Engle said he is leaving on his own with no pressure from the city. His decision to retire was fueled by a toxic backlash his teenage children received on social media after the allegations surfaced, he told the newspaper.
A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general sued the Trump Administration on Monday, seeking to block next month’s implementation of a rule overturning Obama-era protections for transgender people against sex discrimination in health care.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, leading the group of 23 states, said the change affecting the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination section would give health care providers and insurance companies carte blanche to refuse treatment based on factors such as gender identity.
James also raised concerns that women could be denied access to abortion under the revision, which takes effect Aug. 18, and that non-English speakers will be deprived of information through a change to requirements that insurers print materials in a variety of languages.
“This is just the latest attempt by President Trump and his administration to unlawfully chip away at health care for Americans after failing to repeal the ACA time after time,” James told reporters in a conference call announcing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court against the Department of Health and Human Services, secretary Alex Azar and civil rights chief Roger Severino, seeks an injunction to stop the rule from taking effect. The attorneys general argue it violates the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for the department.
The Trump Administration pushed ahead with the rule change even after a Supreme Court ruling last month barring workplace sex discrimination against LGBT people, moving to show Trump’s religious and socially conservative supporters that he remains committed to their causes ahead of the November election.
Under the change, Health and Human Services said it will enforce sex discrimination protections “according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology.” That rewrites an Obama-era regulation that sought a broader understanding shaped by a person’s internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination.
The lawsuit brought by the attorneys general is part of an expected flurry of lawsuits challenging the lawsuit, including one filed last month by the LGBT civil rights organization Lambda Legal. Such groups say explicit protections are needed for people seeking sex-reassignment treatment, and even for transgender people who need care for common illnesses such as diabetes or heart problems.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, both frequent Trump foes, assisted James in crafting the lawsuit. Becerra said implementing the rule while coronavirus continues to rage across the country is especially cruel.
“This is a mean and unconstitutional rule in any context,” Becerra said. “But authorizing discrimination in our health care system at this time, when our nation is suffering through a pandemic, is unbelievably immoral.”
Anti-transgender Facebook content shared by right-wing news sources generated more engagement than content from pro-transgender or neutral sources combined, according to a Media Matters for America study of 225 viral social media posts.
That means the majority of Facebook interactions with those viral posts — over 43 million of 66 million shares, comments and reactions over the span of a year — were on items posted by anti-trans websites like LifeSiteNews, Daily Wire and Daily Caller, according to the report.
The majority of Facebook interactions with content about transgender topics were on items posted by virulently anti-trans websites.Media Matters for America
“Facebook users are getting a totally biased and factually inaccurate understanding of the multitude of issues that impact trans people,” said Brennan Suen, Media Matters’ LGBTQ program director and one of the study’s authors. Suen pointed to an October Pew poll showing that a majority of Americans get news from Facebook.
In total, seven of the top 10 sources for interactions on popular transgender Facebook content were anti-trans sites. Just three LGBTQ-oriented sources appeared in the top 10: PinkNews, Gay Star News and NBC Out.
LifeSiteNews, Daily Wire and Daily Caller dominated these interactions.Media Matters for America
Trans activist and writer Raquel Willis said she was unsurprised by the finding that Facebook interactions about transgender issues are dominated by sources that oppose transgender rights and degrade transgender individuals.
“Narratives that further our demonization, that further confusion, are still the ones that often carry the most weight in our society,” Willis said. “Blood is on the hands of the Mark Zuckerbergs and the people who don’t want to hold these platforms to a humane standard.”
“Actual lives of marginalized people are at stake,” she added.
Suen said anti-transgender content that “lies about best practice medical care for trans youth” could “enable adults to do harm to their own children and deprive trans youth of affirmation and care that can be life saving.”
“Transphobic discourse online contributes to this dangerous rejection of trans children, real world harassment of trans peopleand harmful policies — and it contributes to a social and political culture that continues to demonize and fail the trans community,” Suen added.
Facebook did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment on Media Matters’ findings.
The Media Matters for America study examined 225 articles, blog posts and videos about transgender topics that had 100,000 or more Facebook interactions and were posted from February 2019 to this February. The liberal nonprofit used the social media analytics website BuzzSumo to identify the viral transgender-related content.
Fifty-six percent of these 225 primarily English-language articles, posts and videos were published by right-leaning sources, the report found. Conservative posts comprised the top five most-interacted-with pieces of trans content and 14 of the top 20.
LifeSiteNews, Daily Wire and Daily Caller dominated these interactions. Stories about transgender participation in sports and medical care were particularly high ranking, generating about 37 percent of all interactions, the report found.
Suen said right-wing and anti-trans content flourishes on Facebook, in part, because the network has failed to fully crack down on “coordinated, inauthentic behavior,” which Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, defined as “when groups of pages or people work together to mislead others about who they are or what they are doing.”
Last October, Judd Legum, founder of the liberal news site ThinkProgress, reported in Popular Information that 14 large Facebook pages, like Conservative News (which has nearly 500,000 followers), all of which had no apparent link to the Daily Wire, would “exclusively promote content from the Daily Wire in a coordinated fashion.”
Following Legum’s investigation, Facebook pages like Conservative News, which had allegedly promoted Daily Wire’s content in a coordinated fashion, now contain a disclaimer: “Confirmed Page Owner: DAILY WIRE.”
In an op-ed published this month titled “Facebook Does Not Benefit From Hate,” the company’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, wrote, “When content falls short of being classified as hate speech — or of our other policies aimed at preventing harm or voter suppression — we err on the side of free expression because, ultimately, the best way to counter hurtful, divisive, offensive speech, is more speech.”
“Exposing it to sunlight is better than hiding it in the shadows,” added Clegg, a former deputy prime minister in the U.K.
Human rights activists in Malaysia have condemned an order by the religious affairs minister that gives “full license” for police to arrest and detain trans people.
On 10 July, minister Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri announced on social mediathat he had given the religious police (Jawi) “full licence to carry out its enforcement actions” against transgender people in Malaysia.
He elaborated that his order goes beyond arrests, but also allows police to subject trans people to “religious education” so that they will “return to the right path”.
Trans people in Malaysia are already heavily persecuted under Sharia law, but activists fear Al-Bakri’s order takes this criminalisation a step further by sanctioning enforced conversion therapy.
“This unacceptable transphobic and homophobic attack from a government official highlights the societal prejudices and the lack of legal protections against discrimination faced by transgender persons in Malaysia,” said Ambiga Sreenavasan, a prominent Malaysian lawyer from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).
“Instead of ensuring that the human rights and dignity of all persons are respected and protected, the minister, through his statement, is going the complete opposite direction by advocating state action against persons belonging to sexual orientation and gender identity minorities.
“The minister is legitimising harassment, discrimination and violence against transgender people, and increasing violations of their human rights.”
The ICJ has called on the government of Malaysia to abide by its obligations under international law and follow through with its commitment to human rights.
Their condemnation was joined by the Muslim human rights group Sisters in Islam (SIS). In a statement they urged Al-Bakri to drop his calls to “rehabilitate” trans people and remember Islamic teachings of kindness, compassion and not to discriminate, shame or act violently, regardless of people’s backgrounds, gender or identities.
“His statement will increase discrimination, violence and mistreatment of transgender women with impunity by enforcement officers of the Islamic Departments as well as members of the public.
“We are already observing questions and concerns over personal security, safety and well-being by transgender persons across the country since the release of the statement.”
The Malaysian government has not yet responded to the criticism, and seems unlikely to do so given that in recent years it has consistently ignored abuses against the country’s LGBT+ community.
Students at the University of North Texas (UNT) are trying to get a “Young Conservatives” group banned from campus due to “racism, transphobia and homophobia”.
The Young Conservatives of Texas is a state-wide organisation that has chapters in 20 universities.
Ryan Semegran, president of the university’s LGBT+ alliance organisation GLAD UNT, was one of the students who started the petition.
Semegran told PinkNews that they want the Young Conservatives chapter removed from campus due to “blatant homophobia, transphobia, and racism” towards students.
The petition links to a tweet posted by the UNT chapter of Young Conservatives in September of 2019 that said: “Pronouns in your twitter bio isn’t a personality trait”.
During the same month, the group told UNT GLAD in a since-deleted tweet that their group was based on “having HIV”.
In October of last year, the group tweeted: “It’s #NationalComingOutDay so come to the fountain mall today at 12pm to come out as a conservative – and get snacks.”
Semegran’s petition said the tweet “dismissed the countless LGBT+ individuals who bravely come out and publicly express their gender identity and sexual orientation”.
The students have also accused the group of racism over a bake sale in 2016where the price list charged people different amounts based on their gender and ethnicity.
LGBT+ students and people of colour are being made to feel ‘unsafe’ by Young Conservatives at the Texas university.
“UNT is a minority serving university that prides itself on its diversity and inclusivity but seems to turn a blind eye when those minority students feel unsafe on campus with an organisation like Young Conservatives of Texas there,” Semegran said.
“They claim we are attacking their conservative values when it isn’t that at all. We are speaking out against their blatant hateful actions that they do not take accountability for.”
Semegran said the Young Conservatives group is a hate group disguised as a conservative organisation.
“Students of colour, queer students and international students go to find refuge at universities like UNT,” they added.
“It champions freedom of speech; however under UNT’s own policy, this is not applicable to hateful speech that makes students feel unsafe or is strenuous on their health/wellbeing.”
Semegran said they have received “countless testimonies” from queer students, past and present, as well as their family members, claiming that they have been made to feel unsafe on campus by the Young Conservatives group.
LGBT+ students should feel safe to be who they are without being harassed online or on campus grounds. It’s basic human decency.
“If this is how a group thinks they can act towards the LGBT+ community and to people of colour on campus, this is probably how they are going to act once they are out of college.”
Semegran said the comments made by the UNT chapter of the Young Conservatives about the LGBT+ community and about people of colour have been “downright scary”.
“At the end of the day this is ultimately a campus safety issue,” Semegran said.
“LGBT+ students should feel safe to be who they are without being harassed online or on campus grounds. It’s basic human decency.”
PinkNews has contacted the University of North Texas, the Young Conservatives chapter at UNT and the Young Conservatives of Texas for comment.
In times like these, there is no denying that white supremacy, racism, and criminalization put Black, Brown and transgender people at severe risk of violence. The COVID-19 outbreak has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown people. Counties with higher populations of Black residents accounting for 52 percent of coronavirus diagnoses and 58 percent of coronavirus deaths nationally, according to a recent amfAR study.
And, following the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement has once again demanded an end to the systemic inequalities and senseless violence against Black people by law enforcement.
The life-or-death impact of hate and discrimination doesn’t stop there. When it comes to sex workers in the U.S. and around the globe, many of whom are Black, Brown and transgender, discrimination and criminalization of sex work have put them at a high risk of violence, contracting preventable diseases like COVID-19 and HIV, and have exposed them to police brutality. Yet the U.S. continues to weaponize life-saving global AIDS assistance programs against sex workers by demanding recipients of PEPFAR funding to officially adopt a position opposing prostitution and acquiesce to the U.S. conflation of sex work and trafficking.
The Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of the Anti-Prostitution Loyalty Oath (APLO), a provision in the 2003 United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act, that required all recipients of funding through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to “have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution.” The policy goes on to conflate consensual sex work with human trafficking, and refuses funds to non-U.S.-based organizations that do not have a policy explicitly opposing “prostitution and sex trafficking.” While a prior 2013 decision ruled that the APLO is unconstitutional as applied to U.S.-based organizations, Monday’s ruling declined to extend those protections to their foreign affiliates, a ruling that will further divide and hamper the global AIDS response.
The APLO is and always has been a bad policy. There is no evidence that the policy improves health outcomes. In fact, there is evidence that it hurts them.
Since the policy’s inception 17 years ago, the provision has done nothing to advance its stated goals of defeating HIV and AIDS and the trafficking of persons.
This is despite the consistent and vocal leadership of members like Rep. Barbara Lee, who have consistently fought the dangerous, counterproductive, and inefficient aid conditionality of the APLO.
Whereas there is no evidence that proclaiming opposition to sex work is an effective public health intervention, there is evidence that decriminalization of sex work would have an astounding impact on reducing the HIV epidemic, averting between 33-46 percent of new infections over a decade. Yet the APLO directly blocks organizations from halting the spread of HIV.
Sex workers are disproportionately impacted by HIV and AIDS globally. Halting the spread of HIV simply cannot happen without trusted engagement and leadership from sex workers. Over the past 17 years, the policy has promoted stigma and discrimination of sex workers. It oftentimes blocks sex workers from engaging in the design, development, implementation, and assessment of HIV and AIDS programs and services. HIV prevention and treatment programs are more successful when they include sex workers involvement and leadership. For some organizations around the world, working with sex workers while declaring opposition to sex work feels hypocritical. It was for these reasons that Brazil rejected $40 million in U.S. global AIDS money in 2005, noting that such restrictions undermined the very programs responsible for Brazil’s success in reducing the spread of HIV.
International health and development agencies including UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNDP, the WHO, and the World Bank have recognized the role that decriminalization of sex work plays in advancing public health outcomes while also advancing the human rights of sex workers.
In conclusion, APLO is a punitive rule that makes it difficult for sex workers to access comprehensive, accessible and affordable health care. But everyone deserves access to quality care. Social stigmas that disproportionately impact and undermine the sexual and reproductive health rights of people across the globe do not belong in our nation’s foreign aid programs, and nothing should change that.
Serra Sippel is president the Center for Health and Gender Equity.
A Tunisian court sentenced two men accused of sodomy to two years in prison on June 6, 2020, Human Rights Watch said today. The decision violates their rights to privacy and nondiscrimination under international law and Tunisia’s 2014 constitution. The police also attempted to subject the defendants to an anal exam, apparently to use as evidence in the case.
Police arrested the two men, both 26, on suspicion of same-sex conduct on June 3 in Le Kef, a city 175 kilometers southwest of Tunis, after one of them filed an unrelated complaint against the other. The prosecutor of the Kef First Instance Tribunal charged the men with sodomy under article 230 of the penal code, which punishes consensual same-sex conduct with up to three years in prison. Hassina Darraji, the lawyer who took on the men’s defense for the upcoming appeal, told Human Rights Watch the defendants told her they had refused the police’s demands that they undergo an anal exam.
“Tunisia’s record of actively prosecuting people for consensual same-sex conduct is deeply worrying and a blatant invasion of their private life,” said Rasha Younes, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “While states and international bodies have commended Tunisia for its progress on human rights, the criminalization and prosecution of homosexual conduct signals otherwise.”
Damj Association, a Tunis-based LGBT rights organization, told Human Rights Watch that one of the men had filed a complaint against the other regarding an outstanding loan. The police then attempted to persuade them to “confess that they are gay” by bullying, insulting, and threatening to imprison them, Darraji said.
Damj and Darraji said that after they were sentenced, the authorities transferred the men, whose names are being withheld for their privacy, to a prison in Ben Arous, near Tunis, when a prisoner in el-Kef prison contracted Covid-19. The men are now being quarantined in the Ben Arous prison. The two-year sentence, Damj said, is longer than most handed down for sodomy in recent years. The appeals hearing is scheduled for July 8.
During Tunisia’s 2017 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) hearing at the UN Human Rights Council, in response to the recommendation from several countries, Tunisia formally accepted the recommendation to end forced anal examsas a method of “proving” homosexuality. However, Tunisia’s delegation stated: “Medical examinations will be conducted based on the consent of the person and in the presence of a medical expert.”
This approach fails to recognize that consent is seriously compromised because trial courts can infer guilt from a refusal to undergo the exam, Human Rights Watch said. Furthermore, the tests are of no scientific or evidentiary value in proving homosexuality. Indeed, such examinations, when forcible, are intrusive, invasive, and amount to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that violates international law. State-sponsored forcible anal exams violate medical ethics and have been recognized as torture by the UN Committee Against Torture.
Tunisian authorities should immediately quash the two men’s conviction and release them, Human Rights Watch said. Tunisia’s parliament should repeal penal code article 230, and the Justice Ministry should direct public prosecutors to abandon prosecutions under article 230 and issue a directive ordering prosecutors to stop sending detainees for anal examinations as part of police investigative procedures to determine suspects’ sexual behavior. Tunisia’s health minister should also direct all forensic doctors under the ministry’s authority to cease all anal examinations for these purposes and to respect people’s right to physical dignity and integrity.
Prosecutions for consensual sex in private between adults violate the rights to privacy and nondiscrimination guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Tunisia is a party. The UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with the covenant, has made clear on several occasions that sexual orientation is a status protected against discrimination under these provisions. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found that arrests for same-sex conduct between consenting adults are, by definition, arbitrary.
This conviction appears to contradict the right to privacy and nondiscrimination reflected in Tunisia’s 2014 constitution. Article 24 obligates the government to protect the rights to privacy and the inviolability of the home. Article 21 provides that “All citizens, male and female, have equal rights and duties, and are equal before the law without any discrimination.”
In 2018, the Commission on Individual Freedoms and Equality, appointed by President Beji Caid Essebsi, proposed, among other actions, to decriminalize homosexuality and to end anal testing in criminal investigations into homosexuality. On October 11, 2018, 13 members of the Tunisian Parliament introduced draft legislation for a code on individual freedoms. It incorporated several proposals from the presidential commission including abolition of article 230.
“Tunisia has an opportunity to uphold individual freedoms and everyone’s right to nondiscrimination and bodily integrity by leading the way in decriminalizing same-sex conduct,” Younes said. “It should start by immediately releasing these two young men and halting arrests based on sexual orientation under archaic sodomy laws.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued Thursday for a more limited U.S. view of global human rights advocacy based on the principals laid out by America’s Founding Fathers, a suggestion critics assumed meant stepping away from more modern concepts such as support for women and the LGBTQ communities around the world.
Pompeo, speaking in Philadelphia, singled out property rights and religious freedom as “foremost” principals in a speech that elsewhere complained about the “proliferation” of protections in international agreements related to human rights.
“As was clear from the start, Secretary Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights was designed to challenge the international consensus with a narrow view of human rights, that among other things would leave LGBTQ people even more vulnerable to violence and discrimination.”
DAVID STACY, HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN
“We are forced to grapple with tough choices about which rights to promote and how to think about this,” he said. “Americans have not only unalienable rights, but also positive rights granted by governments, courts and multilateral bodies. Many are worth defending in light of our founding; others aren’t.”
Pompeo on Thursday released a report produced by the Commission on Unalienable Rights, which he tasked last year with conducting a broad review of U.S. human rights policy, arguing at the time that it had “lost its bearings.”
Before its release, many human rights groups were skeptical of the commission, whose chairwoman was conservative legal scholar Mary Ann Glendon, a former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See.
Pompeo noted that the report emphasizes property rights and religious liberty. “No one can enjoy the pursuit of happiness if you cannot own the fruits of your own labor. And no society can retain its legitimacy or a virtuous character without religious freedom,” he said.
The report did not produce any specific recommendations and steered clear of endorsing policy proposals. But experts who parsed it for direction noted, for example, that it referred to abortion and same-sex marriage not as rights but “divisive social and political controversies.”
Critics such as Sen. Bob Menendez, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the report would damage the United States’ reputation as a champion of human rights around the world by narrowing the scope of who deserves protection.
“As feared, Secretary Pompeo used his speech to insinuate a hierarchy of rights where property rights and religious liberty are ‘foremost’ rights and some rights are not ‘worth defending,’” said the New Jersey Democrat.
Critics also faulted the makeup of the commission, saying it was weighted with conservatives, and the public did not have sufficient opportunity to weigh in on its findings before the report’s release.
“As was clear from the start, Secretary Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights was designed to challenge the international consensus with a narrow view of human rights, that among other things would leave LGBTQ people even more vulnerable to violence and discrimination,” said David Stacy, government affairs director of Human Rights Campaign.
Pompeo also took aim in his speech at demonstrators “pulling down statues” and “desecrating monuments,” in echoes of President Donald Trump’s recent speech at Mount Rushmore. The secretary of state said it was an attack on the people who fought for the rights laid out in the Declaration of Independence.
He also criticized The New York Times for its 1619 Project, an award-winning explanation of the persistent legacy of slavery in the United States.
“America is fundamentally good and has much to offer the world because our founders recognized the existence of God-given unalienable rights and designed a durable system to protect them,” he said. “But these days I must say even saying America is fundamentally good has become controversial.”
In a report published this week, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recommends that eligibility regulations for women athletes like those enforced by World Athletics, track and field’s global governing body, be revoked immediately.
The regulations target women athletes with some variations in their sex characteristics that cause their natural testosterone levels to be higher than typical. The regulations deny these women the right to participate as women for running events between 400 meters and 1 mile unless they submit to invasive testing and medically unnecessary procedures. There is no clear scientific consensus that women with naturally occurring higher-than-typical testosterone have a performance advantage in athletics. There are no similar regulations for men.
These regulations rose to prominence as a result of the decade-long controversy surrounding South African runner Caster Semenya, who lost her appeal for equal treatment in the Court of Arbitration for Sport last year. Semenya’s case came in the wake of another groundbreaking fight against gender discrimination in sports by courageous Indian sprinter, Dutee Chand. Runners in Kenya, Burundi, and Uganda have also been negatively affected by the regulations.
The UN’s report roundly criticizes the regulations, saying they “create the risk of unethical medical practice” by blurring the line between informed consent and coercion and encouraging medically unnecessary procedures (a critique the World Medical Association issued previously). The report also points to the power imbalances between the doctors affiliated with sporting bodies and athletes, saying: “in sport, such power imbalances are compounded by athletes’ dependency on the sports federations requiring such medical interventions and the frequent absence of adequate and holistic support during the decision-making process.”
These regulations are stigmatizing, stereotyping, and discriminatory, and have no place in sport or society. They amount to a policing of women’s bodies on the basis of arbitrary definitions of femininity and racial stereotypes.
The report authors call on sporting bodies such as World Athletics and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to carry out “in conjunction with athletes, public education campaigns to counter gender-stereotyped and racist attitudes to address negative and stereotypical portrayals of women and girl athletes in the media, including attitudes about appropriate norms of femininity.”
Indeed, as the convener of global sport, the IOC should lead in upholding human rights.
At least 843 LGBTQ people currently serve in elected offices across the United States, constituting a 21 percent increase since June 2019, according to the LGBTQ Victory Institute’s “Out for America 2020” census of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer elected officials.
Particularly pronounced increases were seen in the number of LGBTQ mayors, with a 35 percent year-over-year jump; the number of bisexual and queer-identified people, with increases of 53 percent and 71 percent, respectively; and the number of transgender women serving in elected office, with a 40 percent year-over-year rise.
“In a world where our civil rights are under attack, and many are questioning their place in the world, the affirming power of such representation cannot be overstated,” said Mondaire Jones, who recently won the Democratic nomination in New York’s 17th Congressional District and, if elected in November, could be the first openly gay Black man elected to Congress.
Much of this increase was driven by what Victory called a “rainbow wave” — a surge in LGBTQ wins in the 2018 and 2019 elections. Victory hopes that 2020 will usher even more LGBTQ people into elected office.
“While LGBTQ people are running for office in historic numbers, we remain severely underrepresented at every level of government — and that must change,” Annise Parker, president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Institute, said in a statement.
According to UCLA’s Williams Institute, roughly 5 percent of U.S. adults say they are LGBTQ. According to the Victory Institute, just 0.17 percent of roughly a half million elected officials are known to be LGBTQ. The Victory Institute says that in order for LGBTQ people to achieve “equitable representation,” there would need to be 22,544 more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in elected office.
But LGBTQ political gains are not evenly distributed. In some types of political office, LGBTQ people are near equity, which Victory defines as having the percentage of elected positions held by openly LGBTQ elected officials equal to the percentage of LGBTQ people in the U.S. adult population (currently 4.5 percent). At the governor level, there would need to be one more LGBTQ person elected to reach that goal (total of 3 governors). In the U.S. Senate, three more LGBTQ elected officials would achieve equity (5 senators total).
State legislatures, on the other hand, lag behind: One-hundred-and-seventy-three LGBTQ people would need to be elected in order to achieve equity, according to Victory’s tally.
The majority of the 843 LGBTQ officials — 54 percent — are gay men, followed by 30 percent lesbians, 6 percent bisexuals and 5 percent queer officials.
The vast majority of all LGBTQ officials are cisgender — 94 percent. Roughly 2 percent are trans women and a half of 1 percent are trans men. Less than 1 percent of elected officials identify as intersex, two-spirit, gender-nonconforming or nonbinary.
America’s LGBTQ elected officials are mostly white — 77 percent — followed by 10 percent Hispanic, 6 percent Black, 2 percent multiracial, 2 percent Asian or Pacific Islander and less than 1 percent each for indigenous and Middle Eastern.
“One of the most energizing features of this campaign is the sheer volume of messages I have received from members of the LGBTQ community, young and old, saying that my candidacy as an openly gay, Black person has inspired them to accept their own identities and live authentic lives,” Jones said in a text message to NBC News.
“I’m so humbled to be in a position to provide representation that I never had growing up,” Jones said.
The other openly gay Black man running for Congress is Ritchie Torres, currently the youngest member of the New York City Council, who has a strong lead in vote returns for the Democratic nomination in New York’s 15th Congressional District, which is also overwhelmingly Democratic. (The New York City Board of Elections began counting absentee ballots in the second week of July, and NBC News has not yet officially called the NY-15 election.)
While both Jones and Torres would be the House’s first openly gay Black members, they apparently would not be the body’s first gay Black members.
That honor is thought to belong to Barbara Jordan of Texas, who in 1972 became the first Black woman to represent the South in Congress, and in 1976 became the first Black woman to be a keynote speaker at a Democratic National Convention. It was only after her death in 1996 that her lesbian identity, hidden out of fear of political ramifications, was finally revealed.
