A transgender woman is suing the state of Maryland, saying she was sexually assaulted, denied medical treatment, and otherwise abused while incarcerated.
Chelsea Gilliam filed the suit Tuesday in federal court, The Baltimore Sun reports. The suit alleges that while in jails run by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, she was “housed with men, left unprotected from assault, harassed, held in solitary confinement, and denied necessary medical treatment.”
“I don’t want what happened to me to happen to any other trans woman in the state of Maryland,” Gilliam said at a news conference Wednesday, according to the Sun. “I want the state of Maryland to be held accountable for what happened and what occurred and the things that they let go on, day after day.”
Gilliam was housed at the Baltimore City Correctional Center and then the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center between December 17, 2021, and May 13, 2022. She had been arrested on an assault charge, for which she is now on probation after agreeing to a plea deal.
The suit says that while in the Baltimore facility, Gilliam was sexually assaulted by another inmate, and she knows of no action taken by corrections officials to address the matter. It also says she was forced to live and shower with male inmates, which goes against the corrections department’s policy and put her at risk of assault. Some guards did not allow her to shower alone even after she received official permission to do so, and she was denied hormone treatment there as well, she alleges.
At the other jail, she was placed in solitary confinement no reason, the suit says. She was allowed to leave her cell for only five hours a week, according to the filing.
“The lawsuit alleges cruel and unusual punishment under the 14th Amendment, gross negligence and violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, naming gender dysphoria as a protected disability,” the Sun reports. Gilliam seeks punitive and compensatory damages and wants the corrections department to change its policies to assure respectful treatment of trans inmates.
Defendants in the suit are Carolyn Scruggs, secretary of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, as well as others in the department, including both jails’ wardens.
A bill has been introduced in the Maryland legislature that would require prisoners to be housed according to their gender identity, but it has not advanced beyond committee, the Sunreports. Maryland currently assigns placement of trans inmates on a case-by-case basis.
Corrections department spokesman Mark Vernarelli, contacted by the Sun, declined to comment on Gilliam’s suit because it’s pending litigation. He said, however, that the department cares about “the protection of every single incarcerated person’s dignity and safety.”
“The department has met with advocacy groups and has tirelessly worked on the complex issues related to the transgender incarcerated population and is committed to updating its policies as necessary based on correctional and medical professionals’ recommendations to ensure the safety of everyone in our facilities,” Vernarelli added.
On March 31, Kentucky became the 38th state to legalize medical cannabis. The same week, the state’s legislature overrode the governor’s veto to enact what the ACLU has called the “worst anti-trans bill in the country.” Kentucky is not an aberration. At the same time, the United States celebrates tremendous progress in the movement to decriminalize cannabis, more than 400 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation have been introduced in statehouses around the country.
The progression of the LGBTQ movement and the cannabis justice movement are intricately intertwined, as activists in both movements have fought together for years. However, if we are to truly build an equitable and inclusive industry, the cannabis community must be vocal in its opposition to these acts of hate. This can’t be accomplished without the cannabis community taking an intersectional approach to the issue of cannabis justice.
Consider this. Mainstream cannabis justice research, rhetoric, and culture all too often exclude the voices and experiences of LGBTQ communities. It bears repeating that queer and trans people have been overrepresented in incarceration and arrest rates. When we take a closer look at the women most impacted by carceral systems of policing and punishment we see that queer and non-binary women are disproportionately impacted, making sexuality and gender identity factors that must be considered when trying to understand and solve criminal justice problems.
Last Prisoner Project’s Just Cannabis podcast, hosted by the organization’s Director of Impact, Mikelina Belaineh, creates a space for a discussion of these intersectional experiences. This way we can better understand how systems of policing and punishment distinctively and differently impact individuals who are LGBTQ.
In order to survive, LGBTQ individuals are often pushed toward criminalized behaviors such as selling and using cannabis, which increases their risk of arrest and confinement.
A Prison Policy Initiative analysis of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reveals, “that in 2019, gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals (with an arrest rate of 3,620 per 100,000) were 2.25 times as likely to be arrested in the past twelve months than straight individuals (with an arrest rate of 1,610 per 100,000).”
In trans populations, one in five (21%) trans women have experienced incarceration at some point in their lives. These statistics worsen when you account for race as nearly half (47%) of all Black trans people have been incarcerated.
And to be clear, these statistics likely undersell the disproportionate impact cannabis criminalization has on LGBTQ communities, as there is a shameful lack of data on the issue.
Given stigma and discrimination against LGBTQ individuals continues to run rampant in today’s cannabis community, it is important to acknowledge the power of solidarity when these two communities unite. This was evident in the recent push from public officials, cannabis leaders, and members of the LGBTQ community when they advocated for the release of basketball superstar Brittney Griner.
There is much work still to be done to make progress in both the cannabis justice movement and LGBTQ civil rights movement. My hope is that our collaboration makes that work a little easier.
Stephen Post is a Senior Communications Associate at Last Prisoner Project, a national, nonpartisan non-profit dedicated to cannabis criminal justice reform. We aim to release every last person incarcerated for cannabis, as well as to repair the harms of cannabis criminalization. We accomplish this through legal intervention, direct constituent support, advocacy campaigns, and policy change.
The U.S. Navy’s top admiral has defended a nonbinary service member against criticism from Republican politicians, and his remarks have been captured in a now-viral TikTok video.
At a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting Tuesday, Republican U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama took issue with statements made by Lt. JG Audrey Knutson. In an Instagram video shared by the Navy last week, Knutson, who is nonbinary, said the highlight of their deployment last fall on the USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier, was reading a poem to all their shipmates at an LGBTQ+ spoken word night.
“Does it surprise you that a junior officer says the highlight of her deployment, her first and the ship’s first, was about herself and her own achievement?” Tuberville asked Adm. Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, according to video shared by Vice News.
Gilday defended Knutson. “I’ll tell you why I’m particularly proud of this sailor,” Gilday said. “So, her grandfather served during World War II, and he was gay and he was ostracized in the very institution that she not only joined and is proud to be a part of, but she volunteered to deploy on Ford, and she’ll likely deploy again next month when Ford goes back to sea.”
“We ask people from all over the country, from all walks of life, from all different backgrounds to join us,” he continued, “and then it’s the job of a commanding officer to build a cohesive warfighting team that’s going to follow the law, and the law requires that we be able to conduct prompt, sustained operations at sea. That level of trust that a commanding officer develops across that unit has to be able to be grounded on dignity and respect, and so … if that officer can lawfully join the United States Navy, is willing to serve and willing to take the same oath that you and I took to put their life on the line, then I’m proud to serve beside them.”
Although both Tuberville and Gilday used female pronouns for Knutson, the officer’s chosen pronouns are nonbinary, Navy officials told CNN.
Knutson had also been criticized by another Republican senator, Marco Rubio of Florida, who last week tweeted a clip from Knutson’s Instagram video with the comment “While China prepares for war this is what they have our @USNavy focused on.” Rubio received several negative responses, such as “Denigrating an active duty American? Really gross stuff little Marco.”
Meanwhile, the video of Gilday’s defense of Knutson, shared by Vice News, has received more than 90,000 likes.
A restaurant, bar, and art gallery in Charlotte, N.C., has been hosting drag brunches since the early days of the pandemic. What first started out as a way to make some cash and help keep some drag performers employees now has become a community event collecting tens of thousands of dollars for local charities.
“It’s always been our mission to be more than just a restaurant and bar. We wanted to find a way to give back to the community, and these drag brunches are just such a fun, positive way to do something good,” Christa Csoka, owner and chef, told the Charlotte Observer.
The restaurant was closed for several months at the start of the pandemic but ended up redoing its outside seating area so people could safely go to the establishment and gather.
However, the club next door, Chasers, which had employed drag artists, couldn’t reopen as early as Artisan’s Palate could.
Csoka told the paper that she came up with the idea for the monthly drag brunch. During the initial brunches, the money went to the club and the queens, but after the pandemic became less severe, Csoka began looking for local nonprofit groups to donate to.
“Every month we pick a new charity to support, particularly those that help women, the arts, and the LGBTQ+ community,” Csoka explained. She said that the mission of her restaurant is inclusivity.
“There’s a lot of hate going on in this world, which I just don’t understand,” Csoka said. “But here, it’s just a fun time. The queens make funny jokes throughout the shows. It’s entertaining and energetic, and it’s putting positivity out into the world. The queens really love that they’re doing something for good.”
The donations and a monthly theme make it unique for the drag brunch scene in the city.
For April, the theme is April Showers, and the drag queen performances will definitely be including “It’s Raining Men.” The brunch — which only admits those 18 and older — is scheduled for April 29.
“We make it very personal and go all out to decorate the space for the theme,” Csoka said told the Observer, adding that patrons can expect a lot of umbrellas around the restaurant.
Csoka adds, “Sometimes customers come dressed up for the theme … People want to have a good time, especially given the last year. These shows are just always entertaining with a cool vibe and cool energy.”
Out Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) could face an uphill battle if she runs for reelection in 2024.
A new Public Policy Polling poll found that a mere 27% of voters in the state of Arizona view Sinema favorably and want her to run for reelection. 50% of voters in the state view her unfavorably and 54% say she shouldn’t run again.
She began her career as a member of the Green Party. Now the party doesn’t matter. It’s just all about the green.
Sinema announced in December that she was leaving the Democratic Party after spending years as a moderate foil to major Democratic initiatives. Her departure opened up the question of whether she would run again in 2024, with many wondering whether she could win as an independent against possibly both Democratic and Republican challengers or if she would serve as a spoiler, splitting Democratic votes in the purple state and helping a Republican candidate win.
The poll found that she would have very little chance of winning.
When people were asked who they would vote for – Sinema; Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), the likely Democratic nominee; or a Republican candidate – she did not do very well. For example, the poll asked about the scenario where failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is the GOP nominee in a three-way election against Gallego and Sinema, and only 14% of people said they would vote for Sinema (35% said Lake and 42% said Gallego). The results were about the same when other possible Republican nominees – like financier Jim Lamon and Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb – were substituted for Lake.
Sinema’s opposition to Democratic legislation, her unwillingness to consider filibuster reform – which doomed the pro-LGBTQ+ Equality Act – and her lack of support for downticket Democrats made her very unpopular among her party in Arizona, leading many to speculate that she went independent since she probably would have lost the Democratic primary for her Senate seat in 2024.
An AARP poll last September found that 37% of likely Arizona voters had a favorable view of her, showing a 10-point drop in the last seven months, which includes her announcement of going independent.
For decades, legacy outlets like The New York Times have shaped public opinion and driven social change, often after being dragged there themselves. The Times’ difficult history covering the LGBTQ community and the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis has echoed in its current struggles to accurately report on transgender people.
Prominent frontpage coverage has frequently missed the big picture of the trans community, choosing instead to hyper-scrutinize essential and mainstream medical care, undermining its support among readers who know next to nothing about this care, while laundering extremist talking points as legitimate concern. The Times’ coverage has elevated critics without alerting readers to their anti-LGBTQ, anti-trans histories and their coordination and connections to longtime anti-LGBTQ groups like Alliance Defending Freedom.
In its most prominent and inaccurate, biased coverage of transgender people and our essential healthcare, The New York Times has empowered the already powerful to do even more harm. The Times continues to refuse to acknowledge its responsibility in encouraging this harm, including in two pieces last week describing the growing number of states banning healthcare for trans youth and even adults.
The Times is reporting on a wildfire without acknowledging how its biased coverage is an accelerant in the spread.
The Times’ reporting is being weaponized against the trans community, and is therefore actively contributing to an ongoing climate of discrimination and violence. Just last week, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey cited this flawed New York Times article by Emily Bazelon to justify an “emergency” order banning healthcare for transgender people of all ages in the state.
Anti-trans legislators and opponents of trans equality are now openly trumpeting the newspaper’s coverage as they push agendas against trans people and families. This care is safe, essential and supported by every major medical association, yet the Times’ coverage repeatedly and inaccurately treats the widely-held consensus in the medical and science communities as a “side” to be debated with anti-LGBTQ politicians like Bailey.
This false and inaccurate framing was spelled out to Times leadership in an open letter in February addressed to Philip B. Corbett, Associate Managing Editor for Standards, signed by more than 1,000 Times contributors. The Times contributors cited “serious concerns about editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people,” including “publishing reporting on trans children that omits relevant information about its sources.” The contributors note prominent articles that failed to report sources’ connections to longtime anti-trans groups: “Grace Lidinksy-Smith, was identified as an individual person speaking about a personal choice to detransition, rather than the President of GCCAN, an activist organization that pushes junk science and partners with explicitly anti-trans hate groups,” the contributors accurately flagged to the Times’ editor of Standards, also about Bazelon’s inaccurate piece.
(The contributors’ letter is wholly separate from a letter delivered the same day from more than 100 LGBTQ groups including GLAAD and notable names, also calling for the Times to address its biased reporting, meet with trans leaders, and hire more trans staff, calls which have gone unanswered.)
The contributors accurately noted how opponents of transgender people have seized on the Times’ biased coverage in court documents and legislative hearings.
“The natural destination of poor editorial judgment is the court of law,” the Times’ own contributors wrote. Here is what that looks like:
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s baseless emergency order cites Emily Bazelon’s piece to justify extreme waiting periods for essential healthcare.
Texas lawmakers quoted Bazelon’s report to target families of trans youth over their private, evidence-based healthcare decisions.
The Times’ front page piece on puberty blockers was cited in a lawsuit to require schools to out LGBTQ students.
The Times’ reporting on trans youth and its reputation as the “paper of record” was used to justify a bill pending in the Nebraska legislature to criminalize healthcare for trans youth. The legislature has advanced the bill banning this essential care, over the objections and real life experience of its own out LGBTQ colleagues.
“I can’t stop thinking about the parents,” State Sen. John Fredrickson tearfully said, reading a letter from a constituent who said her son would have taken his own life if he did not have access to affirming care when he was a teen. Sen. Fredrickson is the first out gay man elected to the Nebraska legislature.
The Times did not cover the testimony or acknowledge its reporting had been cited by anti-trans activists in the state to push bans on essential healthcare.
15 state attorneys general filed an amicus brief in defense of Alabama’s discriminatory, harmful and misnamed bill which would make providing essential healthcare to trans youth a felony, including puberty blockers, which have been prescribed safely for years to cisgender patients. The brief cited three New York Times articles to validate its support of the law and included the Times articles’ “just asking questions” and “both sides” language.
The brief, posted by disinformation spreader Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has a documented history of advocating against transgender and all LGBTQ people with lies and falsehoods, repeats the Times’ inaccurate and harmful framing:
“Most recently the New York Times Magazine published an article titled, “The Battle Over Gender Therapy,” which recognized that “[m]ore teenagers than ever are seeking transitions, but the medical community that treats them is deeply divided about why—and what to do to help them.” Factcheck: The medical community is not “deeply divided” – every major medical association and world health authority supports transgender medical care, statements here.
Paxton and fellow extremist attorneys general also cited the Times’ Azeen Ghorayshi and her piece and inaccurate claim about “a fraught debate” over hormone therapy. Factcheck: research shows demonstrable benefits of hormone therapy and “fraught” is a term most frequently used by cisgender writers the Times has hired and who repeat fearmongering and lies about transgender people.
The brief cites the Times’ frequent LGBTQ equality critic Ross Douthat and his baseless claim that there is “increasingly vigorous debate around adolescent medical interventions.” Factcheck, again, every major medical association has issued statements of support for transgender health care, at least 29 associations and counting.
In February, ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, who fought and won the first case for transgender equality before the U.S. Supreme Court, described the Times’ coverage of transgender healthcare as “incredibly harmful.”
“Just because something can be debated doesn’t mean it should be,” Strangio wrote. “And when something as essential to survival as whether health care for a group of people is legitimate becomes the subject of widespread debate, those so-called debates have very significant material consequences.”
How has the Times responded to its contributors’ critiques, such as its reporting failures cozily quoted in briefs promoted by anti-LGBTQ extremists like Attorneys General Bailey and Paxton?
The Times has yet to respond to its own colleagues’ specific critiques and justifiable alarm about the storytelling failures and the harms it is clearly causing. The Times has yet to acknowledge how its reporting has been weaponized by anti-trans activists. Times leadership did falsely charge that colleagues were in cahoots with LGBTQ organizations, conflating both the contributors’ and the coalition letters as “activism” it can apparently ignore. Factcheck, there were two letters to the Times critiquing its coverage, and the only coordination was the letters were delivered on the same day, separately and to different Times leaders.
The Times is seemingly ok with anti-trans activists quoting its stories to codify harm against trans people. The Times has not acknowledged that its problematic stories omit the anti-trans history and anti-trans groups’ connections to key sources, creating massively misleading narratives. But colleagues critiquing the same stories were called into meetings and threatened with “letters in their files.” The Times appears far more vigorous in pushing both sides baloney storytelling and crushing internal dissent than about honest criticism, or the pursuit of accurate, curious, compassionate reporting on a community that direly needs media to try to understand.
Recently, The Washington Post published a series of stories that every reporter, editor and leader of the New York Times should read, and learn from.
The Post’s reporting reflects what trans leaders and writers have been calling on the Times to do: focus more on the lives of trans people, highlighting their unique perspectives and barriers. Hear from this little-known group in their own words, rather than 15,000 words questioning and undermining nuanced and private healthcare with falsehoods from anti-trans politicians, while hiding the documented animus of other sources. At The Washington Post, trans voices and experiences are elevated instead, in stories about their lives.
The Post’s accurate storytelling counteracts harmful stereotypes perpetuated by extremist politicians and pundits, and contributes to a greater understanding of the full diversity of the trans community. The Post’s reporting on its joint survey of 515 transgender people, notes how the overwhelming majority of trans people are happier having transitioned, how many knew they were trans from an early age, and how older trans Americans have been living, surviving and thriving, literally for decades, with the healthcare that so many states are now so hellbent on banning, even for transgender adults.
Journalists have a responsibility to report on issues that affect marginalized communities, and to do so in a way that is accurate to the facts and to the preponderance of research and consensus, and above all, reflective of the community’s expressed realities.
Moreover, it is important for us as a society to recognize the harm perpetrated by extremist lawmakers and media that let them get away with it. The Times’ misinformed coverage highlights the need for greater education about the trans community and basic storytelling practices that demand clarity when sources have agendas. There is a deep need for a more nuanced and compassionate public discourse around gender.
The New York Times can learn from its competitors and from trans leaders to more accurately shine a light on the struggles and triumphs of marginalized communities, rather than contributing to a climate of discrimination and violence. They can start by owning responsibility for its failures and listening to the community they harmed. It is up to all of us to create a society that is more inclusive and accepting for everyone.
Gay Ugandans are fleeing the country as the government’s Anti-Homosexuality Act moves closer to becoming law.
“The government and the people of Uganda are against our existence,” said Mbajjwe Nimiro Wilson, a 24-year-old refugee now living in a shelter in neighboring Kenya.
Safehouses are expected to be closed with passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
Before escaping with just a backpack of belongings, Wilson was cornered by a hostile crowd on the street as he tried to buy groceries.
“They kept saying, ‘We will hunt you. You gays should be killed. We will slaughter you,’” he told The New York Times. “There was no option but to leave.”
Uganda’s latest Kill the Gays law is having its intended effect.
“It is good that you rejected the pressure from the imperials,” Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Thursday, as he sent the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act back to Parliament for additional consideration before he signs it.
The Biden administration calls the latest “Kill the Gays” bill “one of the most extreme” anti-LGBTQ+ measures anywhere in the world. The proposal mandates life in prison for anyone convicted of engaging in homosexual sex, among other draconian provisions.
Museveni congratulated lawmakers who stood up to “international pressure and shielded Uganda’s moral fabric during the passing of the bill.”
The president had in mind liberal Western influences whom he and others in the East African nation have accused of promoting homosexuality in the country and throughout Africa.
But while anti-LGBTQ+ allies have rejected pressure from the U.S., the European Parliament, and those condemning their latest attempt to erase homosexuality from the country, they have welcomed it from another Western power center.
Since 2009, conservative evangelical groups from the U.S. have been instrumental in promoting an anti-LGBTQ+ agenda in Uganda and other African nations, which have been the targets of religious indoctrination since the colonial era.
In a region where harsh penalties for homosexuality have been on the books since the British imposed them in the 19th century, conservative Christian and Muslim populations have been ripe for anti-LGBTQ+ proselytizing.
Family Watch International is an Arizona-based organization committed to spreading anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion ideology around the world, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group was instrumental in crafting the original “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda in 2009.
After the Uganda Supreme Court overturned that law on a technicality in 2013, Family Watch returned to help write revised legislation that would withstand judicial scrutiny, with willing partners publicly denouncing liberal Western influences, despite accepting close to a billion dollars annually in development aid from the U.S alone.
Last month, following passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act through Uganda’s unicameral Parliament, Family Watch sponsored a conference in the country that drew lawmakers from more than a dozen African nations, all committed to passing or introducing copycat legislation to combat “the sin of homosexuality.”
One Family Watch partner is Kenya, where the country’s Supreme Court sparked controversy recently when it allowed gay rights groups to legally register.
Kenya’s president and other anti-LGBTQ politicians have condemned the ruling, including Parliament member George Peter Kaluma, who introduced a bill to criminalize homosexuality in the country, ban Kenyans from identifying as LGBTQ+, and grant citizens the power to arrest anyone they suspect of being gay.
“These people are perverts and I promise I will legislate to take every right they think they have,” Kaluma told the Times.
His bill would also return gay refugees like Wilson, still sheltering in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, to their home countries.
Laws like his, predicted Kaluma, will soon cover the continent.
At just 54 years old, Rue Landau is already a living, breathing piece of LGBTQ+ history.
As a member of ACT UP during the height of the AIDS epidemic, she fought on the frontlines for better access to health care for people with HIV and AIDS. In 2014, while serving as executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, Landau and her wife, Kerry, became the first same-sex couple in Pennsylvania to get a marriage license.
The leaders did not acknowledge why Sims wasn’t their top choice.
Now, Landau could further embed herself in the fabric of Pennsylvania’s LGBTQ+ history as she seeks to become the first out LGBTQ+ person elected to the Philadelphia City Council.
“I’ve been working my whole career, fighting for social justice and equity,” Landau, a Democrat, told LGBTQ Nation. “All of the work I’ve done has naturally led up to this point. We’re facing tremendous challenges here in the city of Philadelphia, and I believe that I have the vision, the track record, and the relationships to get things done.”
Landau began her career as a civil rights attorney at Community Legal Services, where she defended low-income renters against evictions. She then spent 12 years directing Philadelphia’s Commission on Human Relations as well as the Fair Housing Commission, where she focused on advancing the city’s civil rights laws.
During her tenure, she helped create laws to advance wage equity, create reasonable accommodations for pregnant people, and strengthen anti-discrimination protections, including specifically for LGBTQ+ people.
Landau said her experiences working for the city taught her the importance of having an LGBTQ+ leader who is also trusted by other communities.
“It enabled me to be able to build coalitions across communities that did not happen before… To me, creating coalitions with our LGBTQ community and other communities throughout Philadelphia is going to make us all stronger and safer and make for a stronger city, and that is how we will build Philadelphia back post-pandemic and create the brighter better Philadelphia that we need.”
If elected to City Council, Landau’s priorities would be public safety (namely, tackling the gun violence epidemic), neighborhood investment, and affordable housing.
“I believe with more investments in our neighborhoods, in our schools, our rec centers, our libraries, our people, our cleaning and greening spaces, that’s the first start to helping with issues of public safety,” she said.
“And I want to increase community policing, increase de-escalation tactics, get far more mobile health crisis units on the street and active, and connected to all of that is the fact that we are the poorest large city in America. We must tackle our poverty crisis in order for people to feel hope and to thrive. For me, one of the big measures there is affordable housing.”
Landau certainly has her work cut out for her in the race. More than 20 candidates are running in the May 16 Democratic primary for the council’s seven available at-large seats.
Landau said it would be “incredible” to be the council’s first out member, but she also acknowledged the closeted leaders – like the late John C. Anderson – who have served before her.
“I stand on the shoulders of their greatness,” she said, adding that her victory “would mean that we finally had a seat at the table.”
“It would mean that our community didn’t just have advisory roles for legislation and policy, but that we really had a hand in crafting it with a seat at the table. It would also mean that I was a role model to other people. And as a parent, I can tell you that our young people need role models.”
Landau said Philadelphia is more or less a safe space for LGBTQ+ people, but that areas near the city – like Bucks County – have become caught up in the right-wing’s relentless vendetta against LGBTQ+ people.
Last year, the ACLU issued a 72-page complaint accusing Bucks County’s Central Bucks School District – one of the state’s largest – of creating a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ students. The complaint alleged that the district had propagated the removal of Pride flags, instructed teachers not to honor a student’s pronouns, and advocated for censorship of books with LGBTQ+ themes.
If elected, Landau vowed to reach across city lines to speak up for the surrounding LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s wonderful if we can maintain our safe borders here in Philadelphia,” Landau said. “But I think that we need to be the strongest voice in the state. We often are, but [we need to be] now more than ever… And we need to reach over to our counties and across the state and help them lift up all of their LGBTQ communities as well, to reach out to their elected officials, and to make sure that those areas remain safe for our communities as well.”
Above all else, Landau wants voters to see her as a coalition builder.
“I’ve been a fighter for social justice and equity my entire career… I bring people together. I have resolved conflicts. I’m a coalition builder, and I am working to make stronger communities and a stronger Philadelphia.”
LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV experience alarming rates of abuse in the criminal legal system, says a new report from Lambda Legal in partnership with Black and Pink National.
The report, “Protected and Served? 2022,” is based on a survey of more than 2,500 people who had interacted with police, courts, jails, prisons, and other governmental institutions, and it includes quantitative data as well.
It “provides an unprecedented glimpse into the widespread harm caused to LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV through their interactions with these institutions,” says a Lambda Legal press release.
The report is a follow-up to one released in 2012. The new one includes, for the first time, input from community members who were detained in jails and prisons across the U.S. People in detention accounted for 16.5 percent of participants. An additional report, “Spotlight Report: Detained Participants,” goes into more detail about their experiences.
Among the findings of “Protected and Served? 2022”:
• About 18 percent of survey participants said they had “exchanged sex or sexual performance for money or other things of value” in the past five years, and half experienced some form of police misconduct when engaging in sex work. This misconduct included police confiscating their money or demanding sex in exchange for not arresting them.
• Abuse in detention is the norm, not the exception. An overwhelming majority (94.3 percent) of detained participants reported experiencing abuse in prisons and jails, including verbal assault, physical assault, sexual harassment, sexual assault, other sexual contact, being referred to by the wrong name or pronoun, and being accused of an offense they did not commit.
• Nearly two-thirds of those in detention experienced a two-week or longer interruption of their medication routine, including hormone replacement therapy, antiretrovirals, heart medications, and psychotropic medications.
• In the courts, transgender participants of color were more likely to have their transgender status inappropriately revealed than white trans participants — 38 percent versus 22 percent.
• Participants who had face-to-face encounters with police in the past five years (57 percent) were less likely to trust the police than those who did not.
The report offers recommendations to help address these issues, such as supporting trans, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary-led movements; supporting court reform efforts; decriminalizing sex work and HIV; eliminating barriers to legal recourse for people in detention; working to keep LGBTQ+ young people safe in schools; and banning profiling and other discriminatory law enforcement practices.
“Everyone who interacts with the criminal legal system, including LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV, must be treated fairly and have legal rights that must be protected,” Richard Saenz, Lambda Legal senior attorney and “Protected and Served?” project manager, said in the press release. “It is urgent and imperative that we address the root causes and devastating consequences of the obscene levels of abuse, discrimination, and misconduct reported throughout the criminal legal system – and hold those responsible accountable. We hope this report is an additional resource for community members, policy makers, and advocates.”
“The ‘Protected and Served?’ report is a critical tool for understanding the pervasive harms and injustices faced by incarcerated LGBTQ+ people,” added Black and Pink National Executive Director Dr. Tatyana Moaton. “We can shift the narrative and demand systemic change by amplifying the voices and experiences of those directly impacted. Our collective responsibility is to ensure that all individuals, regardless of their incarceration status or identity, are protected and served with dignity and humanity.”
Strength in Numbers Consulting Group, an LGBTQ-led research, evaluation, and philanthropic strategy firm, facilitated the survey and coauthored the report.
Montana became the latest state to ban or restrict gender-affirming medical care for transgender kids Friday when its Republican governor signed legislation that exiled transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr told fellow lawmakers would leave “blood” on their hands.
Montana is one of at least 15 states with laws to ban such care despite protests from the families of transgender youth that the care is essential.
Debate over Montana’s bill drew national attention after Republicans punished Zephyr for her remarks, saying her words were personally offensive. House Speaker Matt Regier refused to let Zephyr speak on the House floor until she apologized. She has not.
Zephyr decried the bill’s signing, saying “it is unconscionable to deprive Montanans of the care that we need.”
“I know that this is an unconstitutional bill. It is as cruel as it is unconstitutional. And it will go down in the courts,” Zephyr said. To trans youth she added: “There’s an understandable inclination towards despair in these moments, but know that we are going to win and until then, lean on community, because we will have one another’s backs.”
On Monday, Zephyr had stood defiantly on the House floor with her microphone raised as protesters shouted “Let her speak,” disrupting House proceedings for at least 30 minutes. Zephyr was then banned from the House and its gallery and voted on bills from a bench in the hallway outside the House on Thursday and Friday.
Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Montana have said they would file a court challenge against the ban, which is set to take effect on Oct. 1, starting a five-month clock in which Montana youth can try to find a way to work around the ban or to transition off of hormone treatment.
“This bill is an overly broad blanket ban that takes decisions that should be made by families and physicians and puts them in the hands of politicians,” the Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics has said.
Gov. Greg Gianforte signaled his willingness to sign the bill on April 17 when he offered some amendments to make it clear that public funds could not be used to pay for hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgical procedures.
The bill “protects Montana children from permanent, life-altering medical procedures until they are adults, mature enough to make such serious decisions,” Gianforte wrote in his letter accompanying the amendments.
Debate over the amendments led Zephyr to admonish supporters the following day. House Majority Leader Sue Vinton said Zephyr’s language was “entirely inappropriate, disrespectful and uncalled for.”
The Montana Freedom Caucus deliberately misgendered Zephyr, using male pronouns in a letter saying she should be censured. After Monday’s protest, the caucus said she should be further disciplined.
Under the new law, health professionals who provide care banned by the measure could have their medical licenses suspended for at least a year. They could also be sued in the 25 years following a banned procedure if a patient suffers physical, psychological, emotional or physiological harm. Physicians could not hold malpractice insurance against such lawsuits. The law also prohibits public property and employees from being involved in gender-affirming treatment.
During hours of emotional committee hearings, opponents testified that hormone treatments, and in some cases, surgery, are evidence-based care, supported by numerous medical associations and can be life-saving for someone with gender dysphoria — the clinically significant distress or impairment caused by feeling that one’s gender identity does not match one’s biological sex.
Parents of transgender children testified that the bill infringed on their parental rights to seek medical care for their children.
Opponents also noted that treatments such as puberty-blockers and breast-reduction surgery would still be legal for minors who are not suffering from gender dysphoria, a difference they argue is unconstitutional.
In the letter to legislative leaders accompanying his proposed amendments, Gianforte said he met with transgender residents, understands that their struggles are real and said Montanans who struggle with gender identity deserve love, compassion and respect.
“That’s not what trans Montanans need from you,” Zephyr said as the House considered his amendments. “We need access to the medical care that saves our lives.”
This was the second legislative session in which Sen. John Fuller brought the bill to ban gender-affirming care for transgender children. In 2021, when he was a member of the House, he brought a bill to ban surgical and hormone treatments for transgender children, which was voted down. He brought a second bill to ban surgical treatments which was also rejected. He was successful in 2021 in passing a bill to ban transgender females from participating in girls and women’s sports. The part of the bill that applied to colleges was ruled unconstitutional.