Advocate: Arkansas Bans Gender-Affirming
Care for Trans Minors
LGBTQ Nation: Arkansas Lawmakers Ban
Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth
Arkansas Teachers Fear
for Their Trans Students
Record Number of Anti-Trans Bills
Introduced in States This Year
29 States File Bills to
Ban Trans Athletes in Sports
Police Officer Defends
Trans Daughter Against Anti-Trans Legislation
New Poll: 73 Percent of
People Support Trans Kids in Sports
Mother Testifies Against
Anti-Trans Legislation in Texas
Father of Trans Daughter
Testifies Against Trans Youth Athlete Ban
Attack After Attack:
Trans Youth Speak Out on Health and
Sports Bills Aimed at Them
Meanwhile: In North
Carolina
No God-Given Right to Discriminate Against LGBTQ People
Senate Republicans are standing in the way of Congress
acting according to the will of the majority of
Americans. Protecting people from discrimination should
not be a partisan issue.
The good news is that, for the American public, it’s
not. A recent PRRI poll found that 83 percent of
Americans (which includes strong majorities of
Republicans, Democrats, and independents) support
nondiscrimination laws that protect gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgender people from discrimination.
Still, there is an obstacle standing in the way of
Congress acting according to the will of the majority of
Americans and passing a federal law that does just that:
the claim by some Republicans and religious groups that
LGBTQ rights stand in conflict with religious rights.
US Senator Mitt Romney of Utah is among the Republicans
voicing opposition to the House-passed Equality Act,
which would extend the current federal law barring
discrimination on the basis of race, religion, and other
protected categories to also cover sexual orientation
and gender identity. Romney cited the lack of “strong
religious liberty protections” in the bill’s language as
reason for his opposition.
Religious-based groups such as the Southern Baptist
Convention raise more hyperbolic alarms, calling the
legislation “the most significant threat to religious
liberty ever considered in the United States Congress.”
The truth is that few rights in America have more robust
protections under the Constitution, as well as federal,
state, and local laws, than the right to believe,
worship, and express religious views as one wishes.
Protecting sincerely held religious beliefs is a pillar
of American law, as it should be. Nothing about a law
shielding people from bigoted policies and practices
stands in the way of that.
In fact, the Equality Act would leave in place an
exemption for religious entities that would allow them
to, for example, give preference to people of their
faith in employment and housing decisions. But it won’t
allow religion to be used as a sword to infringe on the
protected rights of others — especially when such
claims, like the false assertion that the Bible’s story
of the curse of Ham justified slavery and racial
bigotry, are unfounded.
And that is why the Equality Act’s provision barring the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act from being used as a
defense for discriminatory conduct (the very provision
drawing the ire of Republicans) is so crucial. That
statute, passed by Congress and signed into law in 1993
by President Bill Clinton, was meant to protect
religious liberties (particularly the rights of
religious minorities) and enjoyed broad support at the
time of its passage.
But in the nearly two decades since, the law has been
stretched far beyond its intended purpose, serving as a
basis for actions such as private companies denying
spousal benefits to same-sex couples or adoption
agencies refusing to consider gay or transgender people
as potential parents. With the Equality Act, Congress
can make clear it never intended to allow organizations
or individuals to claim a God-given right to
discriminate. “The government has a compelling interest
in enforcing nondiscrimination law, and it’s not
over-broad to say you can’t discriminate if
discrimination is the problem the law is addressing,”
said Jennifer C. Pizer, senior counsel and director of
law and policy at the nonprofit advocacy organization
Lambda Legal.
Even Justice Neil Gorsuch (one of the Supreme Court’s
most conservative jurists) noted that there is ample
room for LGBTQ protections and religious rights to
coexist, in a 6-3 decision last year extending federal
employment discrimination protections to including
sexual orientation and gender identity. “We are also
deeply concerned with preserving the promise of the free
exercise of religion enshrined in our Constitution; that
guarantee lies at the heart of our pluralistic society,”
Gorsuch wrote for the majority. “But worries about how
Title VII may intersect with religious liberties are
nothing new.” Gorsuch underscored that the existing
federal law religious rights exclusion and the First
Amendment already provide religious protections.
Laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination are
already in place in 23 states and the District of
Columbia. But that still leaves an estimated nearly 4
million people in America legally unprotected from
biased treatment because of their sexual orientation or
gender identity. Pizer said a Lambda Legal report
released this week detailing more than 4,000 claims of
discriminatory conduct based on sexual orientation or
gender identity received last year by the organization’s
help line makes clear that the need for protections is
real. “It reflects the real problems people are having,”
Pizer said, from discrimination in the workplace and
difficulty obtaining identification documents to being
targets of harassment and violence.
But Americans are already on board with granting them
protections that they need. As a person of faith, I can
only pray that members of the Senate vote to do right by
them.
[Source:
Kimberly Atkins, Boston Globe, March 2021]
Boston Globe: No God-Given Right to Discriminate Against
LGBTQ People
ACLU: End the Use of Religion to Discriminate
Lambda Legal: The Notion of Religious Exemption
Wedding Photographer Loses Case Against
NY's Antidiscrimination Laws
HRW: Religious Exemption and Discrimination Against
LGBTQ People
Natl LGBTQ Task Force: LGBTQ Discrimination Masquerading
as Religious Freedom
LGBTQ Rights in the United States
Out
Right International
LGBTQ Nation: Supreme Court Rules in Favor of LGBTQ
Rights in Landmark Decision
Outlawed: Anti-LGBTQ Laws Around the World
SPLC: LGBTQ Rights for Students at School
LGBTQ Rights: 50 Years After Stonewall
Info:
Career
and Workplace Issues
Advocate: Supreme Court Rules LGBTQ Discrimination is
Illegal
Widespread Discrimination Continues for LGBTQ Community
Mapping LGBTQ Equality in America
Washington Post: State Efforts to Limit LGBTQ Rights
Info: LGBTQ Discrimination
Supreme Court Rules
in Favor of LGBTQ Employment Rights
On June 15, 2020, the US Supreme Court issued a landmark
decision, penned by Neil Gorsuch, a conservative justice
appointed by President Trump, deciding that “An employer
who fires an individual merely for being gay or
transgender violates Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act.” And Justice Neil Gorsuch went on to say, “An
individual’s homosexuality or transgender status is not
relevant to employment decisions. That’s because it is
impossible to discriminate against a person for being
homosexual or transgender without discriminating against
that individual based on sex.”
Everyone from Barack Obama and Pete Buttigieg to Black
Lives Matter and the NCAA celebrated the momentous
Supreme Court decision on LGBTQ workplace
discrimination. And Americans across the nation
celebrated this historic ruling. Kamala Harris
said, "This is a major victory for LGBTQ rights. No one
should be discriminated against because of who they are
or who they love." Jared Polis said, "No matter who you
are or who you love your work is valued in the United
States. Thank you to the Supreme Court for making the
right decision for equality, inclusivity." Janet Mock
said, "A victory hard won in the courts and on the
streets. Grateful to the lawyers, organizers and
activists but most grateful to those who had to live
stealth or closeted, who lost jobs for living their
truth, who left parts of themselves at their employers'
door." And Gerald Bostock said, "Today, we can go
to work without the fear of being fired for who we are
and who we love."
“Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire
someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The
answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for
being homosexual or transgender fires that person for
traits or actions it would not have questioned in
members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and
indistinguishable role in the decision, exactly what
Title VII forbids,” the decision reads. “An employer who
fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender
violates Title VII.”
“Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have
anticipated their work would lead to this particular
result. Likely, they weren’t thinking about many of the
Act’s consequences that have become apparent over the
years, including its prohibition against discrimination
on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual
harassment of male employees.”
“But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no
reason to ignore the law’s demands,” Gorsuch continued.
“When the express terms of a statute give us one answer
and extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no
contest. Only the written word is the law, and all
persons are entitled to its benefit.” The ruling was
decided by a 6-4 vote. Gorsuch was joined
by Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Chief Justice John
Roberts.
Some who
responded reminded us that this was just another step in
the long road to full equality. Pete Buttigieg said,
"As of sunup this morning, many parts of America did not
fully protect queer Americans from workplace
discrimination, despite the Civil Rights Act. This is a
major step. Make no mistake—a federal Equality Act is
still urgently needed. The struggle for equality did not
end with marriage, nor did it end today. Conversion
therapy persists. Black trans women are at grave risk
daily. The administration is rolling back protections at
every turn." And Senator Tammy Baldwin said, "The SCOTUS
6-3 decision is a huge step forward for LGBTQ equality
in America. But we must keep marching for full equality
for every LGBTQ American across our country and work to
pass the Equality Act in the Senate."
[Source: LGBTQ
Nation, June 2020]
Supreme Court Landmark Decision: Illegal to Discriminate
Based on Sexual Orientation
LGBTQ Nation: Supreme Court Rules in Favor of LGBTQ
Rights in Landmark Decision
Advocate: Supreme Court Rules LGBTQ Discrimination is
Illegal
LGBTQ Bar: The
Gay Panic Defense
ABC News: Historic Ruling
on LGBTQ Employment Discrimination
America's Reaction:
Supreme Court Ruling in Favor of LGBTQ Worker's Rights
NBC News: In Landmark Case, Supreme Court Rules in Favor
of LGBTQ Worker Protection
Huff Post: Supreme Court Says Firing Someone for Being
Gay is Wrong
CBS News: Supreme Court
Ruling Protects LGBTQ Workers
SCOTUS Pro-LGBTQ Ruling:
Activists, Politicians, Celebs Rejoice
It Seems Almost Unreal:
LGBTQ People Respond to Supreme Court Ruling
NPR: Supremes Court
Delivers Major Victory to LGBTQ Employees
Advocate: The Gay and
Trans People Who Took Their Cases to the Supreme Court
LA Times: Supreme Court
Ruling Protects LGBTQ Rights
ABC News: Supreme Court
Bans LGBTQ Employment Discrimination
Reuters: Supreme Court Endorses LGBTQ Worker Protections
CBS News: Existing Federal Civil Rights Laws Protect
LGBTQ Workers
In Gay We Trust: Queer Liberation is Far From Over
Legal Challenges for LGBTQ People
For many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer
people, the massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in
Orlando were a painful reminder that, despite successes
like the Pentagon’s lifting the ban on military service
by transgender people and the Supreme Court’s
legalization of same-sex marriage, obstacles to
acceptance and equality remain.
We asked LGBTQ leaders to reflect on the challenges the
community still faces. Here is what they said:
Discrimination
“One of the main things we are doing is fighting against
the post-marriage backlash,” said Mara Keisling, the
executive director of the National Center for
Transgender Equality.
That has happened mainly at the state level, where more
than 200 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced so far
this year, said Russell Roybal, the deputy executive
director of the National LGBTQ Task Force.
Many state officials have used a religious freedom
argument to support denying services to LGBTQ people.
The legalization of same-sex marriage heightened the
daily risk of discrimination faced by many people, Mr.
Roybal said.
“In a lot of places, you can go to your county clerk and
get a marriage license and get married and then get
fired the next week because now you are openly gay,” he
added.
Twenty nine states lack anti-discrimination laws that
include sexual orientation or gender identity, and there
is no federal law protecting access to employment,
housing and public accommodation, like hotels or
restaurants, for LGBTQ people, he said.
In fact, some of the new state bills explicitly restrict
public accommodation, particularly those who are
transgender.
A North Carolina law passed in March made it illegal for
transgender people to use public restrooms that match
their gender identity. The law drew condemnation from
many artists, who boycotted the state, and from some
companies, which canceled plans to do business there.
Mississippi also drew swift criticism for a law allowing
business owners to refuse service to gay men, lesbians
and others based on the owners’ religious beliefs.
Rainbow Law
Immigration Equality
National Center for Lesbian Rights
Human
Rights Watch: LGBTQ Rights
Amnesty International: LGBTQ
Rights
American Civil Liberties Union: LGBTQ Rights
Violence
“Violence in our community is a big problem,” said
Beverly Tillery, the executive director of the New York
City Anti-Violence Project, which studies anti-LGBTQ
violence and aids survivors.
“Ultimately there is still the feeling for some people
that LGBTQ people are less than and don’t matter, and
that it is OK to commit acts of violence against
them.”
There were 24 reported bias-motivated killings of LGBTQ
people in 2015, a 20 percent rise from the year before,
she said. Most of the victims were transgender and
gender nonconforming minorities.
That figure is likely to jump this year because of the
killings at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The shootings
put gun control on the agenda of many LGBTQ advocacy
groups, Mr. Roybal said.
“Every LGBTQ person knows that our safety is not
guaranteed,” he said. “Although we don’t live in fear
and continue to be out and proud, it is still something
that kicks around at the back of our head when we touch
our partner’s hand in public, when we lean in for a
kiss, when we are out at a club being ourselves.”
Transgender Rights
Visibility has increased in recent years, but so have
attacks against transgender people, making for a
“traumatic” time, Ms. Keisling said.
“The murder rate is way up, and in general, the rate of
violence against trans people is way up,” she said.
Transgender people are more likely
to experience poverty, discrimination and violence than
gay men, lesbians or bisexuals, who themselves face
higher poverty rates than the general population,
activists said.
Transgender people have been explicitly targeted by 54
state bills similar to North Carolina’s bathroom law.
Two of the state legislations were signed into law.
Dozens of religiously affiliated colleges and
universities in the past 12 months have obtained waivers
from federal civil rights laws that protect transgender
people.
Southern Poverty Law Center
Lavender Law
Human Rights Campaign
National LGBT Bar Association
Lambda Legal
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders
American Civil Liberties Union
Immigration Equality
Health Care
A trip to the doctor can be perilous for transgender
people, who often face hostility or a general lack of
understanding from health care providers, Ms. Keisling
said.
A study by her group found that 64 people (or 1 percent
of respondents) had experienced physical violence in a
doctor’s office or hospital, she said.
More generally, LGBTQ people are “significantly more
likely” to be uninsured than the population at large,
said Kellan Baker, who studies LGBTQ health issues at
the Center for American Progress.
Advocacy groups have encouraged enrollment in insurance
offered under the Affordable Care Act, which was the
first federal law to prohibit anti-LGBTQ discrimination
in the health care system, said Mr. Baker.
They have also encouraged people to go on pre-exposure
prophylaxis, or PrEP, a prescription drug that provides
high levels of immunity from HIV, Mr. Roybal said
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 57
percent of all Americans living with HIV at the end of
2011 were gay or bisexual men. They accounted for 65
percent of all new infections in 2013. African-Americans
made up 40 percent of those new diagnoses, while whites
accounted for 32 percent, and Latinos for 23 percent.
Mr. Baker said that transgender women also have an
“extremely high prevalence” of HIV infection. Worldwide,
they are 49 times more likely than non-transgender women
to be HIV positive, he said.
US Supreme Court Protects LGBTQ Workers Rights
Gay High
Schooler Suspended for Wearing Nail Polish
LGBTQ Rights by Country or Territory
In Gay We Trust: Queer Liberation is Far From Over
Wedding Photographer Loses Case Against
NY's Antidiscrimination Laws
Timeline: American Gay Rights Movement
CBS News: Supreme Court
Ruling Protects LGBTQ Workers
SCOTUS Pro-LGBTQ Ruling:
Activists, Politicians, Celebs Rejoice
The Atlantic: Gay Rights and the Legal Mess Left Behind
Immigration Equality: LGBTQ Immigration Rights
Info: Money
and Financial Matters
LGBTQ Bar: The
Gay Panic Defense
It Seems Almost Unreal:
LGBTQ People Respond to Supreme Court Ruling
NPR: Supremes Court
Delivers Major Victory to LGBTQ Employees
LGBTQ Rights in the United States
Out
Right International
SPLC: LGBTQ Rights for Students at School
Info: Business
and the Marketplace
Advocate: The Gay and
Trans People Who Took Their Cases to the Supreme Court
LA Times: Supreme Court
Ruling Protects LGBTQ Rights
ABC News: Supreme Court
Bans LGBTQ Employment Discrimination
How
Discrimination Affects the LGBTQ Population
Mapping LGBTQ Equality in America
Washington Post: State Efforts to Limit LGBTQ Rights
Immigration and Criminal Justice Reform
Undocumented LGBTQ immigrants face an increased risk of
violence and harassment in immigration detention centers
and have sometimes not been provided with appropriate
medical care, such as hormone treatments or HIV
medications, especially when they are transgender.
A 2013 study by the University of California at Los
Angeles’s School of Law estimated there were 900,000
LGBTQ immigrants in the United States, with about
267,000 of them undocumented.
Ms. Keisling said that Immigration and Customs
Enforcement “has never figured out how to safely house
transgender people, especially trans women.”
“For the longest time what they did was just put
everybody in solitary confinement” out of fear that
transgender detainees would either be the victims or
perpetrators of violence, she said.
That practice has decreased but not ended. Immigration
authorities have started using designated LGBTQ units,
but they are often far from a detainee’s family or
lawyer, Ms. Keisling said
Mr. Roybal said LGBTQ prison inmates face many of the
same challenges as LGBTQ people held in immigration
detention centers: an elevated risk of violence,
harassment and solitary confinement.
“It isn’t really protecting them, it is isolating them,”
he said of solitary confinement. “It’s basically the
system not wanting to do anything to change its
policies.”
[Source: Liam Stack, New
York Times, June 2016]
Explanation: Gay/Trans Panic Defense
American Bar Association: The Gay/Trans Panic Defense
LGBTQ Bar: The
Gay Panic Defense
The
Gay/Trans Panic Defense
The LGBTQ
"panic" defense (gay panic defense, gay/trans panic
defense, homosexual panic defense) is a legal strategy
in which a defendant claims they acted in a state of
violent, temporary insanity, committing assault or
murder, because of unwanted same-sex sexual advances. A
defendant may allege to have found the same-sex sexual
advances so offensive or frightening that they were
provoked into reacting, were acting in self-defense,
were of diminished capacity, or were temporarily insane,
and that this circumstance is exculpatory or mitigating.
The LGBTQ
“panic” defense has also been explained as a legal
tactic that asks a jury to find that a victim’s sexual
orientation or gender identity/expression is to blame
for a defendant’s violent reaction, including murder. It
is not a free-standing defense to criminal liability,
but rather a legal tactic used to bolster other
defenses. When a perpetrator uses an LGBTQ “panic”
defense, they are claiming that a victim’s sexual
orientation or gender identity not only explains (but
excuses) a loss of self-control and the subsequent
assault. By fully or partially acquitting the
perpetrators of crimes against LGBTQ victims, this
defense implies that LGBTQ lives are worth less than
others.
One of the most recognized cases that employed the LGBTQ
“panic” defense was that of Matthew Shepard. In 1998,
Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old college student, was
beaten to death by two men. The men attempted to use the
LGBTQ “panic” defense to excuse their actions. Despite
widespread public protest, the defense is still being
used today.
Traditionally, the LGBTQ “panic” defense has been used
in three ways to mitigate a case of murder to
manslaughter or justified homicide.
Defense of insanity
or diminished capacity
The
defendant alleges that a sexual proposition by the
victim – due to their sexual orientation or gender
identity – triggered a nervous breakdown in the
defendant, causing an LGBTQ “panic.” This defense is
based on an outdated psychological term, “gay panic
disorder”, which was debunked by the American
Psychiatric Association and removed from the DSM in
1973. Sadly, while the medical field has evolved with
our increasingly just society, the legal field has yet
to catch up.
Defense of provocation
The
defense of provocation allows a defendant to argue that
the victim’s proposition, sometimes termed a
“non-violent sexual advance,” was sufficiently
“provocative” to induce the defendant to kill the
victim. Defendants claiming a “provocative” advance
stigmatize behavior which, on its own, is not illegal or
harmful, but is only considered “provocative” when it
comes from an LGBTQ individual.
Defense of self-defense
Defendants
claim they believed that the victim, because of their
sexual orientation or gender identity/expression, was
about to cause the defendant serious bodily harm. This
defense is offensive and harmful because it argues that
a person’s gender or sexual identity makes them more of
a threat to safety. In addition, LGBTQ “panic” is often
employed to justify violence when the victim’s behavior
falls short of the serious bodily harm standard, or the
defendant used a greater amount of force than reasonably
necessary to avoid danger, such as using weapons when
their attacker was unarmed.
Some courts and legislatures have begun to curb the use
of the LGBTQ “panic” defense, but many states are
lagging behind. In order to ensure that the LGBTQ
“panic” defense is not seen as a valid excuse, courts
should instruct juries to make decisions without bias or
prejudice. Jury instructions, however, are often not
enough to ensure that people are not swayed by
discriminatory appeals. Legislatures should specify that
neither non-violent sexual advances nor the discovery of
a person’s gender identity can be used as an adequate
provocation for murder. Finally, local governments need
to educate courts, prosecutors, defense counsel, and the
public about the devastating individual and legal
consequences of the LGBTQ “panic” defense.
Following the ABA’s resolution in 2013, The LGBTQ Bar is
continuing to work with concerned lawmakers at the state
level to help ban the use of this tactic in courtrooms
across the country.
The LGBTQ
“panic” defense has been banned in...
California, 2014
Illinois, 2017
Rhode Island, 2018
Nevada, 2019
Connecticut, 2019
Maine, 2019 |
Hawaii, 2019
New York, 2019
New Jersey, 2020
Washington, 2020
Colorado, 2020
District of Columbia, 2020 |
Legislation against the
LGBTQ “panic” defense has been introduced, but not yet
passed, in...
Minnesota, 2018
Pennsylvania, 2019 and 2020
Texas, 2019
Massachusetts, 2019
Wisconsin, 2019
Iowa, 2020 |
Virginia, 2021
Maryland, 2021
Nebraska, 2021
Florida, 2021
Oregon, 2021
New Mexico, 2021 |
[Source: LGBTQ Bar]
Boston Globe: No God-Given Right to Discriminate Against
LGBTQ People
ACLU: End the Use of Religion to Discriminate
Wedding Photographer Loses Case Against
NY's Antidiscrimination Laws
Lambda Legal: The Notion of Religious Exemption
HRW: Religious Exemption and Discrimination Against
LGBTQ People
Natl LGBTQ Task Force: LGBTQ Discrimination Masquerading
as Religious Freedom
LGBTQ Rights in the United States
Out
Right International
LGBTQ Nation: Supreme Court Rules in Favor of LGBTQ
Rights in Landmark Decision
Outlawed: Anti-LGBTQ Laws Around the World
SPLC: LGBTQ Rights for Students at School
LGBTQ Rights: 50 Years After Stonewall
Info:
Career
and Workplace Issues
Advocate: Supreme Court Rules LGBTQ Discrimination is
Illegal
Widespread Discrimination Continues for LGBTQ Community
Mapping LGBTQ Equality in America
Washington Post: State Efforts to Limit LGBTQ Rights
Info: LGBTQ Discrimination
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