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Obama signs LGBT-inclusive domestic violence bill

VAWA has non-discrimination rules, provides grants to LGBT programs

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12 years ago

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President Obama signed into law an LGBT-inclusive reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

President Obama signed into law an LGBT-inclusive reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Flanked by lawmakers and women’s rights advocates, President Obama on Thursday afternoon signed into law LGBT-inclusive legislation aimed at combating domestic violence and helping its victims.

Obama signed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act during a ceremony in the auditorium of the Department of the Interior, concluding the signing by saying, “There you go, everybody!”

The law reauthorizes the 1994 anti-domestic violence measure written by Vice President Biden, which provides funding for the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes crimes against women as well as funding for victims assistance services.

Additionally, the reauthorization institutes new provisions to help more victims of domestic violence, such as those in the LGBT community and individuals in Native American tribes.

In remarks before the signing the bill, Obama emphasized the importance of VAWA reauthorization as a means to continue the protections put in place by the 1994 version of the law while making an oblique reference to the LGBT community.

“Because of this bill, we’ll keep in place all the protections and services that Joe described, and, as he said, we’ll expand them to cover even more women,” Obama said. “Because this is a country where everybody should be able to pursue their own measure of happiness and live their lives free from fear, no matter who you are, no matter who you love.”

At one point as Obama was offering his remarks someone in audience shouted, “We love you, Mr. President!” Obama replied, “I love you back!”

Among those joining Obama on stage was Sharon Stapel, executive director of the New York-based National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

The president thanked her for her work on domestic violence issue as he noted the LGBT protections in the bill.

“Today is about all the Americans who face discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity when they seek help,” Obama said. “So I want to thank Sharon Stapel… for the work she’s doing–the great work she’s doing with the Anti-Violence Project. But Sharon and all the other advocates who are focused on this community, they can’t do it alone. And then now they won’t have to. That’s what today is all about.”

In a statement, Stapel said the VAWA reauthorization includes the LGBT community “in truly historic, unprecedented ways.”

“For the first time in history, federal law includes LGBT anti-discrimination provisions, a huge victory for the LGBT communities and a great step forward for LGBT inclusion in our nation’s laws,” she said. “By including LGBT people in VAWA, we can say to all survivors of violence: you matter and there is support for you.”

Also on stage with Obama was U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as well as lawmakers like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.,) Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho,) Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), sponsors of the reauthorization measure, were onstage, as well as 1994 co-author Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.)

Also standing behind Obama was Biden, who offered his own thoughts on the importance of the legislation.

“Those of you who have been around a while with me know that I quote my father all the time who literally would say, the greatest sin that could be committed, the cardinal sin of all sins was the abuse of power, and the ultimate abuse of power is for someone physically stronger and bigger to raise their hand and strike and beat someone else,” Biden said. “In most cases that tends to be a man striking a woman, or a man or woman striking a child. That’s the fundamental premise and the overarching reason why John Conyers and I and others started so many years ago to draft the legislation called the Violence Against Women Act.”

The VAWA reauthorization helps protect the LGBT community against domestic violence and supports it victims in three ways:

• First, the law requires all programs that receive funding under VAWA to provide services regardless of a person’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

• Second, the law explicitly includes the LGBT community in the largest VAWA grant program, the “STOP Grant Program,” which provides funding to providers who collaborate with prosecution and law enforcement officials to address domestic violence.

• Lastly, the bill sets up a grant program specifically aimed at providing services and outreach to underserved populations, including programs that provide care specifically for LGBT people.

The LGBT community continues to face issues with domestic violence along the same level as straight people. A 2012 report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found 3,930 incidents of domestic violence in the LGBT and HIV/AIDS community in that year. Additionally, the report found that 61.6 percent of LGBT domestic violence victims were denied access to shelters — nearly a 20-point increase from the 44.6 percent in the previous year.

VAWA reauthorization is the second-ever piece of legislation signed into law with explicit pro-LGBT protections. The first legislation with both a reference to sexual orientation and gender identity was the hate crimes protections legislation Obama signed into law in 2009. The Hate Crimes Statistics Act, which collects data on hate crimes, was the first to mention sexual orientation, not gender identity.

The repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” lifted the ban on openly gay servicemembers from the books, but didn’t institute any pro-LGBT protections in its place.

A number of LGBT advocates were present in the auditorium and hailed the enactment of the legislation as yet another milestone for the advancement of LGBT rights.

David Stacey, deputy legislative director for the Human Rights Campaign, lauded VAWA reauthorization for its historical inclusion and its practical impact on LGBT people.

“From a movement perspective, this is a really an important step forward,” he said. “Then, of course, the substantive fact that more and more victims of domestic violence and sexual assault that are LGBT will have access to services when they need them when they are in crisis.”

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said VAWA will be particularly important for the transgender community, which faces high levels of domestic violence as it does with other kinds of violence.

“It really does some really important things for victims of violence and trans people tend to overrepresented in that as victims of that,” she said. “It’s a really important bill on its own, but politically it’s also the second bill to become a law with LGBT people in it, and there was relatively little problem with the LGBT components.”

VAWA reauthorization is also significant because it marks the first time the House under Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) allowed a bill with pro-LGBT language to pass.

However, House Republicans only allowed the bill to pass after a version without LGBT language failed on the House floor. Then, they took up the LGBT-inclusive bill already passed by the Senate.

Julie Kruse, policy director of Immigration Equality, said she’s “thrilled” with the LGBT-inclusion in VAWA reauthorization and hopes that passage in the House bodes well for passage of immigration reform legislation for bi-national same-sex couples.

“We’re thrilled at how much support the president gave to LGBT inclusion, and this is where we are,” she said. “We think it’s a very awesome precedent for the comprehensive immigration reform that’s coming up.”

But Stacey cautioned against giving House Republicans credit for passage of the domestic violence legislation.

“There still was very significant Republican opposition in the House, however, the fact that at the end of the day, they let a bill go that had every Democrat voting for it and a large number of Republicans is a good step forward,” he said. “I think the really significant side is the Senate, where we had a majority of the Republican conference voting for this bill with the sexual orientation and gender identity provisions in it.”

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California

DOJ launches investigation into Calif. trans student-athlete policy

State AG vows to defend Golden State laws

Published

19 hours ago

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May 30, 2025

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Justice Department (Bigstock photo)

One day after President Donald Trump threatened to strip California of “large scale federal funding” over its policy on transgender student-athletes, his Justice Department announced it is investigating the state for potentially violating Title IX.

“The investigation is to determine whether California, its senior legal, educational, and athletic organizations, and the school district are engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination on the basis of sex,” the DOJ said in a statement. 

The DOJ said it notified State Attorney General Rob Bonta, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, the Jurupa Unified School District, and the California Interscholastic Federation of its investigation. 

AB Hernandez, 16, is an out trans female student-athlete at Jurupa Valley High School who qualified for this weekend’s state track and field championship. As the Washington Blade reported earlier this week, the CIF announced a change in the rules at the finals to accommodate girls who were displaced by Hernandez, including giving medals to cisgender competitors who earn a podium spot should Hernandez place ahead of them.

“We remain committed to defending and upholding California laws and all additional laws which ensure the rights of students, including transgender students, to be free from discrimination and harassment,” said Bonta in a statement. “We will continue to closely monitor the Trump administration’s actions in this space.”

As KTLA reported, California is one of 22 states that allow trans student-athletes to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed that policy into law in 2013.

The DOJ announced it is also now supporting a federal lawsuit targeting Bonta and the state Department of Education, claiming that California law and CIF policy discriminate against cisgender girls by allowing trans female athletes to compete according to their gender identity. 

The lawsuit was filed by a conservative law group, Advocates for Faith and Freedom, representing the families of two girls at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside. Their suit claims the school’s cross-country team dropped one athlete from her varsity spot in favor of a trans athlete and that school administrators compared their “Save Girls Sports” T-shirts to swastikas.

Officials in Washington also weighed-in, referring to trans girls and women as “males.” 

“Title IX exists to protect women and girls in education,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon. “It is perverse to allow males to compete against girls, invade their private spaces, and take their trophies.”

“The law is clear: Discrimination on the basis of sex is illegal and immoral,” said U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. “My office and the rest of the Department of Justice will work tirelessly to protect girls’ sports and stop anyone — public officials included — from violating women’s civil rights.”

According to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, out of the 5.8 million students in California’s K-12 public school system, the number of active trans student-athletes is estimated to be in the single digits.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Immigration judge dismisses Andry Hernández Romero’s asylum case

Gay makeup artist from Venezuela ‘forcibly removed’ to El Salvador in March

Published

2 days ago

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May 29, 2025

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Andry Hernández Romero (Photo courtesy of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center)

An immigration judge on Tuesday dismissed the asylum case of a gay makeup artist from Venezuela who the U.S. “forcibly removed” to El Salvador.

The Immigrant Defenders Law Center represents Andry Hernández Romero.

The Los Angeles-based organization in a press release notes Immigration Judge Paula Dixon in San Diego granted the Department of Homeland Security’s motion to dismiss Hernández’s case. A hearing had been scheduled to take place on Wednesday.

Hernández asked for asylum because of persecution he said he suffered in Venezuela because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs. NBC News reported Hernández pursued his case while at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.

The Trump-Vance administration in March “forcibly removed” Hernández and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.

The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.”

President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.” Hernández is one of the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit that seeks to force the U.S. to return those sent to El Salvador under the 18th century law.

The Immigrant Defenders Law Center says officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection claimed Hernández is a Tren de Aragua member because of his tattoos. Hernández and hundreds of other Venezuelans who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly removed” from the U.S. remain at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this month told gay U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing that Hernández “is in El Salvador” and questions about his well-being “would be best made to the president and to the government of El Salvador.” Garcia, along with U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), were unable to meet with Hernández last month when they traveled to the Central American country.

“DHS is doing everything it can to erase the fact that Andry came to the United States seeking asylum and he was denied due process as required by our Constitution,” said Immigrant Defenders Law Center President Lindsay Toczylowski on Thursday in the press release her organization released. “We should all be incredibly alarmed at what has happened in Andry’s case. The idea that the government can disappear you because of your tattoos, and never even give you a day in court, should send a chill down the spine of every American. If this can happen to Andry, it can happen to any one of us.”

Toczylowski said the Immigrant Defenders Law Center will appeal Dixon’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department oversees.

The Immigrant Defenders Law Center, the Human Rights Campaign, and other groups on June 6 plan to hold a rally for Hernández outside the U.S. Supreme Court. Protesters in Venezuela have also called for his release.

“Having tattoos does not make you a delinquent,” reads one of the banners that protesters held.

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California

Calif. governor ‘encouraged’ by new state guidelines for trans student-athletes

Gavin Newsom responded to California Interscholastic Federation announcement

Published

3 days ago

on

May 28, 2025

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Governor Gavin Newsom is “encouraged” by a new policy announced Tuesday by the California Interscholastic Federation which critics say basically erases the concept that finishing first matters. 

The CIF’s “pilot entry process” will give high school girls who lost to a transgender student-athlete at last weekend’s qualifying meet an invitation to compete at the state championship next weekend.

“CIF’s proposed pilot is a reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex issue without compromising competitive fairness,” said Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon in a statement. “The governor is encouraged by this thoughtful approach.”

The change came hours after President Donald Trump threatened to pull “large scale federal funding” from the state if officials allowed trans athletes to compete according to their gender identity. 

The CIF statement did not address Trump’s comments or whether the pilot entry process was in response to his social media post. 

KCRA quoted a source as saying the policy had been in the works for weeks. The station also reported judges will score trans athletes separately from cisgender competitors, so there will ultimately be three winners: a cisgender male winner, a cisgender female winner, and a trans student-athlete winner. 

“The CIF believes this pilot entry process achieves the participation opportunities we seek to afford our student-athletes,” the statement by CIF said.

CIF did not clarify if this pilot entry process will continue beyond this year’s championship, or how judges will determine whether an athlete is trans. A spokesperson for CIF did not immediately respond to these questions by the news media.

The trans athlete in question, AB Hernandez, 16, qualified to advance to the May 30-31 finals in Clovis, Calif., by winning regional competitions in long jump and triple jump on May 15. Now, she also will be competing against those same cisgender student-athletes she already beat. 

In an interview with the California news outlet Capital & Main earlier this month, Hernandez refuted claims that she has an unfair advantage because she was presumed to be male at birth. She finished eighth in the high jump and third in the long jump at a recent meet. 

“All I thought was, I don’t think you understand that this puts your idiotic claims to trash,” Hernandez told the paper. Of her critics, who booed so loudly at a recent meet they caused a false start at one event, Hernandez said, she said she pays them no mind. 

“There’s nothing I can do about people’s actions, just focus on my own,” Hernandez told Capital & Main. “I’m still a child, you’re an adult, and for you to act like a child shows how you are as a person.”

The paper reported two of her most stringent opponents confronted the teen’s mother at a recent meet. “What a coward of a woman you are, allowing that,” said local superintendent candidate Sonja Shaw to Nereyda Hernandez. “How embarrassing!”

Shaw was at a meet with Jessica Tapia, an ex-gym teacher who was fired by Hernandez’s high school for refusing to respect trans and nonbinary students’ pronouns. They are part of the Save Girls Sports association that opposes inclusion of transgender female students in girls’ and women’s sports.

As of press time, Trump has not responded on social media to CIF’s announcement. 

Podcaster and anti-trans inclusion activist Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer who tied for fifth place with a trans athlete in a 2022 national championship meet, denounced the CIF’s new policy, claiming “boys would still be competing against girls.”

For his part, Newsom has already gone on the record against trans female athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports, calling it an “issue of fairness.” That statement drew the ire of advocacy organizations, including Human Rights Campaign. Although Trump said he planned to speak to the governor, Newsom’s office did not say whether Newsom and the president had spoken.

As Politico reported, Republican lawmakers across California denounced the CIF’s new policy, some claiming it did not go far enough to “safeguard the interests of all female athletes.” 

A spokesperson for the Jurupa Unified School District, where the trans student attends school, noted that the athlete is competing fairly and in accordance with the law.

“Both state law and CIF policy currently require that students be permitted to participate in athletic teams and competitions consistent with their gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records,” said spokesperson Jacquie Paul. 

“We remain committed to following the law as written and ensuring that all students are granted the rights afforded to them in a safe and welcoming environment.”

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