National
Meet the new faces of LGBT juvenile corrections
DOJ, municipalities and former inmates are working to save gay youth
Lorie Brisbin, a program specialist with the Department of Justice, said many LGBT juveniles in custody are there for survival crimes. (Photo courtesy of DOJ)
By THOM SENZEE
LGBT youth have enough trouble adjusting to life in what is still, for lack of a better term, “a straight man’s world.” But for LGBT youth in custody, the world is often a supremely frightening place.
“There is a significant portion of LGBTI juveniles in custody who are there for what we can call survival crimes,” explains Lorie Brisbin, a program specialist with the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
“In many cases, these are kids who have been kicked out of their homes by their families simply because of their particular orientation, be that lesbian, gay or what have you.”
Made homeless by their parents as adolescents or as teenagers, and forced to face a tough world on their own with no basic tools for living—such as work experience or identification cards—some LGBT youth turn to petty crimes in order to survive. Survival crimes range from stealing food from grocery stores to prostitution and burglary.
In fact, merely being a homeless minor after 10 p.m. amounts to a violation of curfew laws, not to mention truancy if they cannot stay in school after becoming homeless.
Of course, some homeless youth turn to more serious crimes. Regardless of how they end up in custody, LGBT juveniles find themselves in a system that is only now beginning to recognize that there is a difference in needs compared to their heterosexual counterparts that corrections officials must know in order to keep them safe and well.
“Corrections is a very closed system,” Brisbin said. “There is a lot of education that needs to go on in helping staff feel comfortable with certain issues.”
Two specific issues that could be considered the meat and potatoes of the over-arching problem of how to safely and healthfully manage LGBT juvenile inmates are isolation and gender-appropriate placement.
Getting those two issues right, according to experts, builds a foundation where both juveniles in custody and corrections staff are safer than they would be otherwise.
“For instance, if you have a gay male who is not willing to hide who he is—and most are more than willing to hide—the way it used to work, staff were traditionally going to isolate you for your own protection,” explained Laura Garnette, deputy chief probation officer at Santa Clara County, Calif. Juvenile Detention Division.
“But the courts have said that’s unconstitutional. And actually I say to them, corrections staff, that’s your job. It’s not the juvenile’s job to keep himself safe; that’s what you’re getting paid to do. You’re making them do your job by putting them in isolation.”
According to OJJDP’s Brisbin, Garnette’s employer is a model of safety, efficacy and ethical management of LGBT and intersex juveniles in custody.
“Santa Clara County is phenomenal,” Brisbin told the Washington Blade. “It starts with their perspective, looking at their policies and making their environment safer and more welcoming.”
“More welcoming” might sound like an odd phrase to use when talking about incarceration. But it is important to remember, according to Brisbin, as well as Deputy Chief Probation Officer Garnette and other corrections professionals the Blade spoke to in researching this story; juvenile detention is mandated to rehabilitate rather than simply punish, as is often the case in adult corrections systems.
“Santa Clara probation has worked hard to redefine juvenile corrections,” said Brisbin, speaking by phone from her office at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. “Now, when a youthful offender who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex comes in, they are processed much differently, providing the best possible outcome for the general population and the staff.”
But it is not necessarily easy to bring change to the corrections establishment.
“You want to watch something entertaining, just tell a group of unenlightened corrections workers that they need to put a male-to-female transgender offender into housing with girls,” Santa Clara County’s Garnette said. “You’d think you had just told them the most hilarious or outlandish thing anyone ever said.”
Nowadays all youthful offenders in Santa Clara County are processed into and counseled within custody in a manner that is both neutral in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity.
“For instance, I might ask a male inmate if he has a girlfriend or if he has a boyfriend,” explains Garnette. “He might respond, ‘why would you ask me if I have a boyfriend; what do you think I am a fucking faggot?’”
“And then, of course, I respond, ‘well, why wouldn’t I ask? You could have either. How would I know which? There are plenty of gay young men who don’t fit stereotypes.’”
According to Garnette, that response safely opens the door for an honest answer if the youth is gay, while also planting a seed of tolerance if he is straight.
Santa Clara County neither isolates LGBT juvenile inmates individually, nor places them together in separate groups. Instead, officials and detention staff work with vigilance by observing and counseling all inmates to prevent physical altercations and eliminate bullying in real time—on the floors of housing units in its detention centers, 24/7.
“Isolation is not the solution,” Garnette said. “It’s our job to keep these kids safe by using our words, our eyes and our ears. Yes, it’s hard work, but simply isolating them is lazy and injurious. If you can’t do the job of keeping gay kids safe in the general population, then I’m sorry; get a different job.”
According to OJJDP’s Brisbin, a new vigor arrived in the juvenile corrections profession when, in 2012, the Justice Department issued national standards for ensuring that detention facilities conform to the 2003, “Prison Rape Elimination Act” (PREA) for the first time.
Among a litany of guidelines announced by Attorney General Eric Holder was a mandate to “incorporate unique vulnerabilities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and gender nonconforming inmates into training and screening protocols.”
Brisbin organizes workshops for corrections officials and juvenile detention facilities workers around the nation. Her training sessions are designed to introduce technical tools to help realize the promise of PREA, which is an end to rape and sexual abuse behind bars.
“For example PREA calls for changes in language that has been used in facilities in the past,” Brisbin said. “We talk about respectful communications—how do you do it and still get the kind of behavior you need for conformity in a locked-down situation.”
According to her, the words once used recklessly by officials at juvenile lockdowns can actually incite abuse.
“But words can also help prevent violence,” she said. “If you have a verbally disrespectful environment, that can be very, very unsafe. Don’t use terms that are inherently offensive. For instance, it used to be respectful to use the term hermaphrodite; that’s no longer seen as acceptable to use.”
Transgender and intersex youth in custody face particularly tough circumstances finding their places in detention settings. However well intentioned, detention-facility staff with varying levels of education can find the task of helping transgender, questioning and intersex youth safely fit in at “juvie” quite daunting.
Consider the latter of those three categories of youth: The Intersex Society of North America says the complexity of intersexuality makes it a subjective issue—albeit with real biological (i.e., chromosomal and genitalia-related) aspects.
“[Intersexuality] is a socially constructed category that reflects real biological variation,” reads the introductory statement on the group’s homepage. “To better explain this, we can liken the sex spectrum to the color spectrum. There’s no question that in nature there are different wavelengths that translate into colors most of us see as red, blue, orange, yellow. But the decision to distinguish, say, between orange and red-orange is made only when we need it—like when we’re asking for a particular paint color…”
When even experts and advocates admit that making gender distinctions among intersex persons can be similar to knowing the difference between burnt-orange and maroon-rust, how is a juvenile hall counselor working the graveyard shift in a Midwest suburb supposed to know how to refer to an intersex juvenile inmate?
The answer, according both Brisbin and Garnette, is surprisingly simple—let the individual inmate decide. They say the same rule applies to transgender youth in custody.
“The very worst thing you can do is call a transgender girl ‘he’ or ‘him,’” she said. “Not only can that lead to violence from other inmates, which puts the staff in danger as well as the kids in the facility, but it’s emotionally violent. It does real harm.”
Garnette, who is a lesbian, entered the corrections field at the end of the 1980s.
“It was about as different then compared to today as you can imagine,” she said. “This is an exciting time to be working in this field. In the past 10 years we have seen a change to evidence-based policies and procedures that wasn’t there before.”
According to Garnette, there was a time in her early career when she had bosses whose approaches to juvenile corrections were strictly tough for sake of toughness, or more permissive simply for the sake of permissiveness.
“Either way, it wasn’t about using research for evidence-based outcomes,” she said. “Now it’s exactly the opposite; that’s just what we do.”
Ten years ago it might have been impossible for Mark Seymour, a former inmate who served time in prison for a drug offense, to work with leading practitioners and researchers in the juvenile corrections field.
“When I got out of prison in 2010, I knew I wanted to do something to make it better for LGBT youth in custody because I know first-hand how bad things like being put in isolation—just because you happen to be gay—can be,” Seymour told the Blade. “It took everything I had within me to not lose my mind in isolation.”
Seymour is the first fellow at the National Center for Youth in Custody. He is currently helping implement a pilot program to disseminate the fast-growing body of evidence-based knowledge about how to better meet the stated missions of juvenile corrections facilities: rehabilitating youthful offenders.
“The exciting thing is that a big part of this new push to bring scholarship, research and practical knowledge about what works is a focus on LGBTI kids,” explains Seymour. “The youth of our community, for the first time, are part of the conversation.”
Federal Government
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Federal courts begin to deliver end-of-year responses to lawsuits involving federal transgender healthcare policy.
While many Americans took the week of Christmas to rest and relax, LGBTQ politics in the U.S. continued to shift. This week’s short recap of federal updates highlights two major blows to the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.
19 states sue RFK Jr. to end gender-affirming care ban
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Tuesday that the NYAG’s office, along with 18 other states (and the District of Columbia), filed a lawsuit to stop U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from restricting gender-affirming care for minors.
In the press release, Attorney General James stressed that the push by the Trump-Vance administration’s crusade against the transgender community — specifically transgender youth — is a “clear overreach by the federal government” and relies on conservative and medically unvalidated practices to “punish providers who adhere to well-established, evidence-based care” that support gender-affirming care.
“At the core of this so-called declaration are real people: young people who need care, parents trying to support their children, and doctors who are simply following the best medical evidence available,” said Attorney General James. “Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices. My office will always stand up for New Yorkers’ health, dignity, and right to make medical decisions free from intimidation.”
The lawsuit is a direct response to HHS’ Dec. 18 announcement that it will pursue regulatory changes that would make gender-affirming health care for transgender children more difficult, if not impossible, to access. It would also restrict federal funding for any hospital that does not comply with the directive. KFF, an independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, found that in 2023 federal funding covered nearly 45% of total spending on hospital care in the U.S.
The HHS directive stems directly from President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 Executive Order, Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, which formally establishes U.S. opposition to gender-affirming care and pledges to end federal funding for such treatments.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest and most influential physician organization, has repeatedly opposed measures like the one pushed by President Trump’s administration that restrict access to trans health care.
“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” a statement on the AMA’s website reads. “Improving access to gender-affirming care is an important means of improving health outcomes for the transgender population.”
The lawsuit also names Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin as having joined New York in the push against restricting gender-affirming care.
At the HHS news conference last Thursday, Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of the department, asserted, “Men are men. Men can never become women. Women are women. Women can never become men.”
DOJ stopped from gaining health care records of trans youth
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon blocked an attempt by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to gain “personally identifiable information about those minor transgender patients” from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), saying the DOJ’s efforts “fly in the face of the Supreme Court.”
Journalist Chris Geidner originally reported the news on Dec. 25, highlighting that the Western District of Pennsylvania judge’s decision is a major blow to the Trump-Vance administration’s agenda to curtail transgender rights.
“[T]his Court joins the others in finding that the government’s demand for deeply private and personal patient information carries more than a whiff of ill intent,” Bissoon wrote in her ruling. “This is apparent from its rhetoric.”
Bissoon cited the DOJ’s “incendiary characterization” of trans youth care on the DOJ website as proof, which calls the practice politically motivated rather than medically sound and seeks to “…mutilate children in the service of a warped ideology.” This is despite the fact that a majority of gender-affirming care has nothing to do with surgery.
In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court ruled along party lines that states — namely Tennessee — have the right to pass legislation that can prohibit certain medical treatments for transgender minors, saying the law is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it does not involve suspect categories like race, national origin, alienage, and religion, which would require the government to show the law serves a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored, sending decision-making power back to the states.
“The government cannot pick and choose the aspects of Skrmetti to honor, and which to ignore,” Judge Bissoon added.
The government argued unsuccessfully that the parents of the children whose records would have been made available to the DOJ “lacked standing” because the subpoena was directed at UPMC and that they did not respond in a timely manner. Bissoon rejected the timeliness argument in particular as “disingenuous.”
Bissoon, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Obama, is at least the fourth judge to reject the DOJ’s attempted intrusion into the health care of trans youth according to Geidner.
A Wider Bridge on Friday announced it will shut down at the end of the month.
The group that “mobilizes the LGBTQ community to fight antisemitism and support Israel and its LGBTQ community” in a letter to supporters said financial challenges prompted the decision.
“After 15 years of building bridges between LGBTQ communities in North America and Israel, A Wider Bridge has made the difficult decision to wind down operations as of Dec. 31, 2025,” it reads.
“This decision comes after challenging financial realities despite our best efforts to secure sustainable funding. We deeply appreciate our supporters and partners who made this work possible.”
Arthur Slepian founded A Wider Bridge in 2010.
The organization in 2016 organized a reception at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference in Chicago that was to have featured to Israeli activists. More than 200 people who protested against A Wider Bridge forced the event’s cancellation.
A Wider Bridge in 2024 urged the Capital Pride Alliance and other Pride organizers to ensure Jewish people can safely participate in their events in response to an increase in antisemitic attacks after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported authorities in Vermont late last year charged Ethan Felson, who was A Wider Bridge’s then-executive director, with lewd and lascivious conduct after alleged sexual misconduct against a museum employee. Rabbi Denise Eger succeeded Felson as A Wider Bridge’s interim executive director.
A Wider Bridge in June honored U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) at its Pride event that took place at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. The event took place 15 days after a gunman killed two Israeli Embassy employees — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — as they were leaving an event at the museum.
“Though we are winding down, this is not a time to back down. We recognize the deep importance of our mission and work amid attacks on Jewish people and LGBTQ people – and LGBTQ Jews at the intersection,” said A Wider Bridge in its letter. “Our board members remain committed to showing up in their individual capacities to represent queer Jews across diverse spaces — and we know our partners and supporters will continue to do the same.”
Editor’s note: Washington Blade International News Editor Michael K. Lavers traveled to Israel and Palestine with A Wider Bridge in 2016.
The White House
‘Trump Rx’ plan includes sharp cuts to HIV drug prices
President made announcement on Friday
President Donald Trump met with leaders from some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies at the White House on Friday to announce his new “Trump Rx” plan and outline efforts to reduce medication costs for Americans.
During the roughly 47-minute meeting in the Roosevelt Room, Trump detailed his administration’s efforts to cut prescription drug prices and make medications more affordable for U.S. patients.
“Starting next year, American drug prices will come down fast, furious, and will soon be among the lowest in the developed world,” Trump said during the meeting. “For decades, Americans have been forced to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs by far … We will get the lowest price of anyone in the world.”
Trump signed an executive order in May directing his administration “to do everything in its power to slash prescription drug prices for Americans while getting other countries to pay more.”
“This represents the greatest victory for patient affordability in the history of American health care, by far, and every single American will benefit,” he added.
Several pharmaceutical executives stood behind the president during the announcement, including Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan, Genentech CEO Ashley Magargee, Boehringer Ingelheim (USA) CEO Jean-Michel Boers, Gilead Sciences CEO Dan O’Day, Bristol Myers Squibb General Counsel Cari Gallman, GSK CEO Emma Walmsley, Merck CEO Robert Davis, and Amgen Executive Vice President Peter Griffith.
Also in attendance were Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary.
Under the Trump Rx plan, the administration outlined a series of proposed drug price changes across multiple companies and therapeutic areas. Among them were reductions for Amgen’s cholesterol-lowering drug repatha from $573 to $239; Bristol Myers Squibb’s HIV medication reyataz from $1,449 to $217; Boehringer Ingelheim’s type 2 diabetes medication jentadueto from $525 to $55; Genentech’s flu medication xofluza from $168 to $50; and Gilead Sciences’ hepatitis C medication epclusa from $24,920 to $2,425.
Additional reductions included several GSK inhalers — such as the asthma inhaler advair diskus 500/50, from $265 to $89 — Merck’s diabetes medication januvia from $330 to $100, Novartis’ multiple sclerosis medication mayzent from $9,987 to $1,137, and Sanofi’s blood thinner plavix from $756 to $16. Sanofi insulin products would also be capped at $35 per month’s supply.
These prices, however, would only be available to patients who purchase medications directly through TrumpRx. According to the program’s website, TrumpRx “connects patients directly with the best prices, increasing transparency, and cutting out costly third-party markups.”
Kennedy spoke after Trump, thanking the president for efforts to lower pharmaceutical costs in the U.S., where evidence has shown that drug prices — including both brand-name and generic medications — are nearly 2.78 times higher than prices in comparable countries. According to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, roughly half of every dollar spent on brand-name drugs goes to entities that play no role in their research, development, or manufacturing.
“This is affordability in action,” Kennedy said. “We are reversing that trend and making sure that Americans can afford to get the life-saving solutions.”
Gilead CEO Dan O’Day also spoke about how the restructuring of drug costs under TrumpRx, combined with emerging technologies, could help reduce HIV transmission — a virus that, if untreated, can progress to AIDS. The LGBTQ community remains disproportionately affected by HIV.
“Thank you, Mr. President — you and the administration,” O’Day said. “I think this objective of achieving the commitment to affordability and future innovation is extraordinary … We just recently launched a new medicine that’s only given twice a year to prevent HIV, and we’re working with Secretary Kennedy and his entire team, as well as the State Department, as a part of your strategy to support ending the epidemic during your term.
“I’ve never been more optimistic about the innovation that exists across these companies and the impact this could have on America’s health and economy,” he added.
Trump interjected, asking, “And that’s working well with HIV?”
“Yes,” O’Day replied.
“It’s a big event,” Trump said.
“It literally prevents HIV almost 100 percent given twice a year,” O’Day responded.
A similar anti-HIV medication is currently prescribed more than injectable form mentioned by O’Day. PrEP, is a medication regimen proven to significantly reduce HIV infection rates for people at high risk. Without insurance, brand-name Truvada can cost roughly $2,000 per month, while a generic version costs about $60 per month.
Even when medication prices are reduced, PrEP access carries additional costs, including clinic and laboratory fees, office visits, required HIV and sexually transmitted infection testing, adherence services and counseling, and outreach to potentially eligible patients and providers.
According to a 2022 study, the annual total cost per person for PrEP — including medication and required clinical and laboratory monitoring — is approximately $12,000 to $13,000 per year.
The TrumpRx federal platform website is now live at TrumpRx.gov, but the program is not slated to begin offering reduced drug prices until January.
Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
This gay author sees dead people
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Your guide to D.C.’s queer New Year’s Eve parties
Long-awaited ‘Pillion’ surpasses the sexy buzz
Reasons to be optimistic about 2026
Long-awaited ‘Pillion’ surpasses the sexy buzz
Trump’s ‘American people derangement syndrome’
Using movement to boost your mental health during holidays
