National
Suicides draw attention to anti-bullying bills
Experts say laws can reduce harassment in schools
The widely reported suicides of four gay male teenagers in September that have been linked to school bullying or harassment has heightened interest in two separate bills in Congress aimed at curtailing anti-LGBT bullying and discrimination in the nationās public schools.
A third bill expected to be introduced next month by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) would require colleges and universities to develop campus anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies that cover LGBT students.
āFor those of us who work in education policy our focus is making the education case for these bills,ā said Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, known as GLSEN.
āAnd unfortunately weāre doing that now in a context where recent tragedies have made the cost of not acting absolutely clear to everyone,ā Byard said.
She was referring to the September suicides of four gay youths ranging in age from 11 to 18 that authorities and family members said followed unrelenting bullying and harassment of three of the teens by their middle school or high school classmates.
The fourth youth, 18-year-old Tyler Clementi of New Jersey, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge.
Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University, apparently became distraught when his roommate planted a video camera in his dorm room without his knowledge that captured him in a sexual encounter with another male. The roommate broadcast the encounter live over the Internet.
The Safe Schools Improvement Act, which was introduced in the House in May 2009 and in the Senate in August of this year, would require school districts receiving federal funds to adopt policies prohibiting bullying and harassment. The policies must apply to bullying and harassment targeting people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity as well as other categories such as race, religion, gender and ethnicity.
Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) introduced the bill in the House, where 125 members signed on as co-sponsors. Six of the 125 are Republicans. Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) introduced the bill in the Senate, where 12 senators ā 11 Democrats and one independent ā signed on as co-sponsors.
In January of this year, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), who is gay, introduced into the House the Student Non-Discrimination Act. The bill would prohibit sexual orientation or gender identity related discrimination against students in public schools that receive federal funding.
āFor the purpose of this act, discrimination includes, but is not limited to, harassment of a student on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity of such student or of a person with whom the student associates or has associated,ā the bill states.
The bill also allows an āaggrieved individualā to take legal action in a judicial proceeding to seek enforcement of the billās provisions barring sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination. It says the party taking legal action could be awarded compensatory damages and reimbursement of court costs for filing such an action.
In May, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) introduced an identical version of the bill in the Senate. Twenty-five senators, 24 Democrats and one independent, signed on as co-sponsors. The House version of the bill pulled in 125 co-sponsors, 123 Democrats and two Republicans.
Both the Safe Schools Improvement Act and the Student Non-Discrimination Act have been referred to the House and Senate education committees.
Lara Cottingham, a spokesperson for Polis, said the congressman was hopeful that a legislative hearing on the Student Non-Discrimination Act would be held next year. She said no date has been set.
āEvery day, students who are, or are perceived to be, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) are subjected to pervasive discrimination, including harassment, bullying, intimidation and violence, which is harmful to both students and our education system,ā Polis said in a statement at the time he introduced the bill.
āWhile civil rights protections expressly address discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, disability or national origin, they do not explicitly include sexual orientation or gender identityĀ and, as a result, LGBT students and parents have often had limited legal recourse for this kind of discrimination,ā he said.
āThe Student Non-Discrimination Act establishes a comprehensive federal prohibition of discrimination in public schools based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity and provides victims with meaningful and effective remedies, modeled after Title IX,ā he said.
Lautenberg announced last week that he plans to introduce an anti-bullying bill covering colleges and universities when Congress returns from its recess in November. He made the announcement on the Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick, N.J., during a forum called to discuss issues surrounding the suicide of Clementi.
He said his bill would require colleges and universities receiving federal funds to adopt a code of conduct that prohibits harassment and bullying. He said the bill would also call on colleges and universities to put in place procedures for addressing complaints about harassment and bullying and would provide federal grants to fund college programs aimed at preventing harassment and bullying.
Byard of GLSEN said studies show that LGBT students enrolled in schools that have adopted anti-bully and harassment policies are less likely to encounter bullying.
āLGBT students in a school with such a policy in place are less likely to be victimized themselves, are more likely to report that faculty actually intervened when things happen, and are themselves more likely to be in a better place in terms of their own well being and their future educational aspirations,ā she said.
Most, but not all, D.C. area senators and House members have signed on as co-sponsors for the Student Non-Discrimination Act. Co-sponsors include Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.), Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), and Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.).
Reps. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and Frank Wolf (D-Va.), and Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.) have not signed on as co-sponsors of the bill.
Cardin, Moran and Norton are the only D.C. area members of Congress that became co-sponsors of the Safe Schools Improvement Act.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the House Majority Leader, doesnāt co-sponsor bills according to a longstanding practice of House members who hold the posts of Majority Leader and Speaker of the House.
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court declines to hear case over drag show at Texas university
Students argue First Amendment protects performance
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a First Amendment case over a public university president’s refusal to allow an LGBTQ student group to host a drag show on campus.
The group’s application was denied without the justices providing their reasoning or issuing dissenting opinions, as is custom for such requests for emergency review.
When plaintiffs sought to organize the drag performance to raise money for suicide prevention in March 2023, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler cancelled the event, citing the Bible and other religious texts.
The students sued, arguing the move constituted prior restraint and viewpoint-based discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment. Wendler had called drag shows āderisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny,” adding that “a harmless drag show” was “not possible.”
The notoriously conservative Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who former President Donald Trump appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, ruled against the plaintiffs in September, writing that āit is not clearly established that all drag shows are inherently expressive.”
Kacsmaryk further argued that the High Court’s precedent-setting opinions protecting stage performances and establishing that “speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend” was inconsistent with constitutional interpretation based on ātext, history and tradition.”
Plaintiffs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is by far the most conservative of the nation’s 12 appellate circuit courts. They sought emergency review by the Supreme Court because the 5th Circuit refused to fast-track their case, so arguments were scheduled to begin after the date of their drag show.
Federal Government
EXCLUSIVE: USAID LGBTQ coordinator visits Uganda
Jay Gilliam met with activists, community members from Feb. 19-27
U.S. Agency for International Development Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam last month traveled to Uganda.
Gilliam was in the country from Feb. 19-27. He visited Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and the nearby city of Jinja.
Gilliam met with LGBTQ activists who discussed the impact of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, a law with a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality” that President Yoweri Museveni signed last May. Gilliam also sat down with USAID staffers.
Gilliam on Wednesday during an exclusive interview with the Washington Blade did not identify the specific activists and organizations with whom he met “out of protection.”
“I really wanted to meet with community members and understand the impacts on them,” he said.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations in Uganda were already criminalized before Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act. Gilliam told the Blade he spoke with a person who said authorities arrested them at a community meeting for mental health and psychosocial support “under false pretenses of engaging in same-sex relations and caught in a video that purportedly showed him.”
The person, according to Gilliam, said authorities outed them and drove them around the town in which they were arrested in order to humiliate them. Gilliam told the Blade that prisoners and guards beat them, subjected them to so-called anal exams and denied them access to antiretroviral drugs.
“They were told that you are not even a human being. From here on you are no longer living, just dead,” recalled Gilliam.
“I just can’t imagine how difficult it is for someone to be able to live through something like that and being released and having ongoing needs for personal security, having to be relocated and getting support for that and lots of other personal issues and trauma,” added Gilliam.
Gilliam said activists shared stories of landlords and hotel owners evicting LGBTQ people and advocacy groups from their properties. Gilliam told the Blade they “purport that they don’t want to run afoul of” the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
“These evictions really exacerbate the needs from the community in terms of relocation and temporary shelter and just the trauma of being kicked out of your home, being kicked out of your village and having to find a place to stay at a moment’s notice, knowing that you’re also trying to escape harm and harassment from neighbors and community members,” he said.
Gilliam also noted the Anti-Homosexuality Act has impacted community members in different ways.
Reported cases of violence and eviction, for example, are higher among gay men and transgender women. Gilliam noted lesbian, bisexual and queer women and trans men face intimate partner violence, are forced into marriages, endure corrective rape and lose custody of their children when they are outed. He said these community members are also unable to inherit land, cannot control their own finances and face employment discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.Ā Ā
US sanctioned Ugandan officials over Anti-Homosexuality Act
The U.SĀ imposed visa restrictionsĀ on Ugandan officials shortly after Museveni signed the law. The World Bank Group later announcedĀ the suspension of new loansĀ to Uganda.
The Biden-Harris administration last October issued a business advisory that said the Anti-Homosexuality Act āfurther increases restrictions on human rights, to include restrictions on freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly and exacerbates issues regarding the respect for leases and employment contracts.ā The White House has also removed Uganda from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free with the U.S. and has issued a business advisory for the country over the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 4, 2023, announced sanctions against current and former Ugandan officials who committed human rights abuses against LGBTQ people and other groups. Media reports this week indicate the U.S. denied MP Sarah Achieng Opendi a visa that would have allowed her to travel to New York in order to attend the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.
Museveni, for his part, has criticized the U.S. and other Western countries’ response to the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Gilliam noted authorities have arrested and charged Ugandans under the law.Ā
Two men on motorcycles on Jan. 3 stabbed Steven Kabuye, co-executive director of Coloured Voice Truth to LGBTQ Uganda, outside his home while he was going to work. The incident took place months after Museveni attended Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast at which U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) spoke and defended the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
The State Department condemned the attack that Kabuye blamed on politicians and religious leaders who are stoking anti-LGBTQ sentiments in Uganda. Gilliam did not meet with Ugandan government officials while he was in the country.
“We in the U.S. government have already made it clear our stance with government officials on how we feel about the AHA, as well as broader human rights concerns in country,” said Gilliam. “That’s been communicated from the very highest levels.”
The Uganda’s Constitutional Court last Dec. 18 heard arguments in a lawsuit that challenges the Anti-Homosexuality Act. It is unclear when a ruling in the case will take place, but Gilliam said LGBTQ Ugandans with whom he met described the law “as just one moment.”
“Obviously there is lots of work that has been done, that continues to be done to respond to this moment,” he told the Blade. “They know that there’s going to be a lot of work that needs to continue to really address a lot of the root causes and to really back humanity to the community.”
Gilliam further noted it will “take some years to recover from the damage of 2023 and the AHA (Anti-Homosexuality Act) there.” He added activists are “already laying down the groundwork for what that work looks like” in terms of finding MPs, religious leaders, human rights activists and family members who may become allies.
“Those types of allyships are going to be key to building back the community and to continue the resiliency of the movement,” said Gilliam.
Texas
Pornhub blocks Texas accessing site over age verification law
Court battle forced statute to take effect
Aylo (formerly MindGeek) the largest global adult online entertainment conglomerate, owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners, has restricted access to its platforms including its flagship Pornhub in Texas after a court battle forces the state’s age verification law to take effect.
Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton had appealed a U.S. District Court decision that enjoined him from enforcing House Bill 1181. Paxton and others argued that purveyors of obscene materials online needed to institute reasonable age-verification measures to safeguard children from pornography.Ā
A week ago the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially vacated the original injunction, ruling that the age verification requirements are constitutional.Ā
āApplying rational-basis review, the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the governmentās legitimate interest in preventing minorsā access to pornography,ā the three judge panel of the 5th Circuit explained. āTherefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment.ā
While the court vacated the injunction against the age-verification requirement of the statute, it upheld the lower courtās injunction against a separate section of the law that would require pornography websites to display a health warning on their landing page and all advertisements.
The Houston Chronicle reported people who go to the site are now greeted with a long message from the company railing against the legal change as āineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.ā The company calls for age verification by the makers of devices that let people on the internet, instead of individual websites.
Age verification legislation was enacted in several states in 2023 in addition to Texas, including North Carolina, Montana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah and Virginia.
The new laws require users to provide digital confirmation via a certified approved third party vendor like London-based digital identity company Yoti. The other possibility would be a state approved digital ID such as the California DMVās Wallet app, which contains a mobile driverās license.
Users accessing Pornhub from within Louisiana are presented with a different webpage that directs them to verify their age with the stateās digital ID system, known as LA Wallet. The law passed in 2022 subjects adult websites to damage lawsuits and state civil penalties as high as $5,000 a day if they fail to verify that users are at least 18 years old by requiring the use of digitized, state-issued driverās licenses or other methods.
The Associated Press reported this past October that an adult entertainment groupās lawsuit against a Louisiana law requiring sexually explicit websites to verify the ages of their viewers was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan in New Orleans.
Potential or existing Pornhub users in North Carolina and Montana are directed to a video that features adult film star Cherie DeVille, who recites a message also written under the video.
āAs you may know, your elected officials in your state are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.ā
āMandating age verification without proper enforcement gives platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply,ā the statement continues. āAs weāve seen in other states, this just drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place.ā
āUntil a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in [the aforementioned locales]ā the message ends with.
The company previously blocked Utah on May 7, 2023. CNN reported at the time:
Affected users are shown a message expressing opposition toĀ Senate Bill 287, the Utah law signed by Gov. Spencer Cox in March that creates liability for porn sites that make their content available to people below the age of 18.
āAs you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,ā the message said. āWhile safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.ā
Courthouse News reportedĀ that after Virginiaās bill was passed in June, state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a Democrat, criticized the state for not creating a system for age verification, and instead leaving it up to websites to manage the process, citing security risks.Ā Ā
āWe passed a bill during this session to protect children from online porn. However the executive branch had an obligation to create a system for age verification,āĀ Lucas saidĀ on X, formerly Twitter. āWe will continue our work to keep pornography out of the hands of minors ā¦ but we will also work to ensure that this Governorās error does not put the privacy of Virginians at further risk.ā
Beyond the U.S. in the European Union, Pornhub and two more of the worldās biggest porn websites face new requirements in the European Union that include verifying the ages of users, under the EUās Digital Services Act.
According to a December 20 report from the Associated Press, Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat have now been classed as āvery large online platformsā subject to more stringent controls under the Digital Services Act because they each have 45 million average monthly users, according to the European Commission, the EUās executive branch.
They are the first porn sites to be targeted by the sweeping Digital Services Act, which imposes tough obligations to keep users safe from illegal content and dodgy products, the Associated Press reported last month.
In addition to the adult entertainment websites, any violations are punishable by fines of up to 6% of global revenue or even a ban on operating in the EU. Some 19 online platforms and search engines have already been identified for stricter scrutiny under the DSA, including TikTok, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Google and more.