National
2011: A year of milestones, tragedies, courtroom fights
From N.Y. marriage to Frank’s retirement, another year to remember in LGBT news
The story of the year was the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Here are our picks for the rest of 2011’s top LGBT news stories.
#2 N.Y. approves marriage
New Yorkers celebrated same-sex marriage during June Pride. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
The Empire State became the sixth and most populous state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage in June when the legislature passed and Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed into law a bill legalizing marriage rights for gay couples.
Upon passage of the legislation, Cuomo said New York has “finally torn down the barrier that has prevented same-sex couples from exercising the freedom to marry and from receiving the fundamental protections that so many couples and families take for granted.”
The achievement marks the first time that a Republican-controlled legislative chamber — in this case, the New York State Senate — passed legislation in this country legalizing same-sex marriage.
The law went into effect in the state on July 24. Kitty Lambert and Cheryle Rudd, a lesbian couple from Buffalo, N.Y., wed in Niagara Falls at midnight and became the first couple in the state to benefit from the law.
#3 Rep. Barney Frank retires
Rep. Barney Frank announced in November that he wouldn’t seek a 17th term in the House. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
The longest-serving openly gay member of Congress announced in November that he wouldn’t seek a 17th term in the U.S. House.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), 71, was first elected to Congress in 1980. The lawmaker made his sexual orientation known in 1987 — becoming the second to do so after Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.).
Frank said redistricting in Massachusetts and his desire to retire before reaching age 75 prompted his decision not to run.
“I have enjoyed — indeed been enormously honored — by the chance to represent others in Congress and the State Legislature, but there are other things I hope to do before my career ends,” Frank said.
The lawmaker is credited with helping shepherd through the passage of hate crimes protections legislation and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal in the 111th Congress. But Frank was criticized by transgender activists in 2007 for dropping gender identity protections from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The gay-only bill ultimately died in the Senate.
His most enduring legacy will likely be the passage of Wall Street reform legislation commonly known as Dodd-Frank, which he pushed through as chair of the House Financial Services Committee.
#4 Obama won’t defend DOMA; Boehner hires counsel
House Speaker John Boehner announced that he would hire counsel to defend DOMA in court after the Obama administration said it would no longer do so. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The Obama administration made a significant reversal in policy in February when it announced it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.
In a Feb. 22 letter, the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder notified Congress that laws related to sexual orientation, such as DOMA, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage, should be subjected to heightened scrutiny.
“The president has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional,” Holder said.
Obama’s decision riled House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who accused the president of abandoning his constitutional duties. In March, Boehner convened the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, which on a 3-2 party-line basis voted to defend the law in court in the administration’s stead.
To assist the House general counsel in defending the law, Boehner hired private attorney Paul Clement, a U.S. solicitor general under former President George W. Bush. The cost of the private attorney was initially announced at a blended rate of $520 an hour and total cost cap of $150,000, but Boehner later bumped up the cost cap to $1.5 million.
#5 Giffords shot; gay intern hailed as hero
Gay intern Daniel Hernandez was credited with helping to save the life of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords after she was shot. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
The nation recoiled in horror in January after pro-LGBT Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) became one of 20 people shot people by a gunman during a town hall event in her district.
Daniel Hernandez Jr., a gay 20-year-old who had worked as an intern for Giffords for just five days at the time of the shooting, was credited with providing the first aid that saved her life.
“The attitude that I had,” Hernandez said, “was trying to make sure that those who had been injured were going to be OK, so to try to provide whatever first aid I could until someone else could come in and take over.”
Medics arrived on the scene to take Giffords and others to the University Medical Center in Arizona. Giffords slowly recovered and made her first appearance on the House floor in August to vote in favor of the agreement to raise the debt ceiling limit.
At a memorial service, President Obama called Hernandez a “hero” during his eulogy. The White House invited Hernandez — along with his father, Danny Hernandez Sr., — to sit alongside first lady Michelle Obama during the State of the Union address in January.
#6. Clinton, Obama endorse int’l LGBT rights
Hillary Clinton delivered a sweeping pro-LGBT speech in December calling for other nations to respect gay rights as human rights. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December gave a high-profile speech in Geneva, Switzerland in which she spoke out against human rights abuses committed against LGBT people overseas.
During the speech, Clinton reiterated her previously held belief that human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights and said LGBT people overseas “have an ally in the United States of America.”
“It is a violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave,” Clinton said.
Clinton gave the speech on Dec. 6 in observance of Human Rights Day, which recognizes the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948 by the U.N. General Assembly. More than 1,000 diplomats and experts were in attendance.
On the same day, President Obama issued a memorandum to government agencies urging them to step up efforts against anti-LGBT human rights abuses abroad. Among other things, the memo calls on agencies to work against the criminalization of homosexual acts overseas and directs the State Department to lead a “standing group” to respond swiftly to serious incidents threatening LGBT human rights abroad.
#7 Jamey Rodemeyer commits suicide
Year In Review: 2011
A 14-year-old from Williamsville, N.Y. took his own life in September after his parents said he was subjected to bullying in school over his sexual orientation.
Jamey Rodemeyer, who attended Williamsville North High School, took his life in an apparent hanging. Prior to his death, he sent his last message in the form of a tweet to Lady Gaga, which read, “Bye Mother Monster. Thank you for all you have done. Paws up forever.”
Rodemeyer made a video for the “It Gets Better” project, a website dedicated to preventing teen suicide, in which he identified as bisexual and described the harassment he endured from other students.
“I just want to tell you that it does get better [be]cause when I came out for being bi I got so much support from my friends and it made me feel so secure,” Rodemeyer says in the video.
Rodemeyer’s death inspired outrage across the nation. Lady Gaga told her fans via Twitter she spent the days after his suicide “reflecting, crying and yelling.” She later met with President Obama over the issue of bullying.
#8 GOP hopefuls tout anti-gay views
Former Sen. Rick Santorum said he would resinstate ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ if elected president. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Presidential election season officially kicked off this year as Republican candidates seeking to oust President Obama from the White House touted their anti-gay views.
Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum likely took the prize for emphasizing anti-gay positions most often in his campaign. In addition to pledging to reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Santorum said, “our country will fail” as a result of same-sex marriage. He also raised eyebrows in August when he said same-sex marriage is like “saying this glass of water is a glass of beer.”
Activists with Truth Wins Out revealed the therapy clinic that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) co-owns with her husband, Marcus Bachmann, engages in widely discredited “ex-gay” conversion therapy aimed at turning gay people straight. The candidate has refused to answer questions about the clinic.
A total of five contenders — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Santorum, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Bachmann — each penned their name to an anti-gay pledge from the National Organization for Marriage. Signing the document commits them to backing a U.S. constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage and to defending the Defense of Marriage of Act in court.
#9 Prop 8 fight continues in California
Litigation seeking to overturn Proposition 8 progressed through the courts this year amid questions over whether proponents have standing to defend the law and whether the sexual orientation of the judge who ruled against the marriage ban should have disqualified him.
In the case of Perry v. Brown, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in January sent the question of whether Prop 8 proponents had standing to defend the amendment in court to the California Supreme Court. The question emerged after state officials declined to litigate on behalf of the same-sex marriage ban.
In November, the California high court issued a unanimous decision that Protect Marriage and other groups who worked to pass the anti-gay initiative in 2008 indeed could continue the case.
Another challenge to U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision emerged in April after the retired magistrate told reporters he’s gay and has been living with a same-sex partner for 10 years. Proponents of Prop 8 said Walker should have recused himself from the case.
But in June, U.S. District Judge James Ware ruled that Walker’s sexual orientation wasn’t a factor in the judge’s decision to rule against Prop 8 and upheld the previous decision. The anti-gay activists appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit.
The Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments on whether Walker’s sexual orientation should have disqualified him as well as whether the tapes of the trial should be made public. The appellate court has yet to make a decision on any of these issues.
#10 Solmonese steps down from HRC
HRC President Joe Solmonese announced in August that he would step down after six years at the helm of the nation’s leading LGBT advocacy group. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The head of the Human Rights Campaign announced in August that after six years he would be stepping down as president of the nation’s largest LGBT organization.
The co-chairs of the board of directors of HRC and its sister organization, the HRC Foundation, said Joe Solmonese will remain as head of both organizations until the completion of his contract in March to ensure a smooth leadership transition.
Solmonese oversaw the defeat of the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 as well as passage of hate crimes protections legislation and repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” But he alienated many transgender activists in 2007 when he declined to oppose a decision by House Democratic leaders to remove protections for transgender people from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
The search committee seeking Solmonese’s replacement is being co-chaired by board members Joni Madison of North Carolina and Dana Perlman of Los Angeles. The replacement has yet to be announced.
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court begins fall term with major gender affirming care case on the docket
Justices rule against Biden admin over emergency abortion question
The U.S. Supreme Court’s fall term began on Monday with major cases on the docket including U.S. v Skrmetti, which could decide the fate of 24 state laws banning the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors.
First, however, the justices dealt another blow to the Biden-Harris administration and reproductive rights advocates by leaving in place a lower court order that blocked efforts by the federal government to allow hospitals to terminate pregnancies in medical emergencies.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had issued a guidance instructing healthcare providers to offer abortions in such circumstances, per the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which kicked off litigation over whether the law overrides state abortion restrictions.
The U.S. Court of appeals for the 5th Circuit had upheld a decision blocking the federal government from enforcing the law via the HHS guidance, and the U.S. Department of Justice subsequently asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
The justices also declined to hear a free speech case in which parents challenged a DOJ memo instructing officials to look into threats against public school officials, which sparked false claims that parents were being labeled “domestic terrorists” for raising objections at school board meetings over, especially, COVID policies and curricula and educational materials addressing matters of race, sexuality, and gender.
Looking to the cases ahead, U.S. v. Skrmetti is “obviously the blockbuster case of the term,” a Supreme Court practitioner and lecturer at the Harvard law school litigation clinic told NPR.
The attorney, Deepak Gupta, said the litigation “presents fundamental questions about the scope of state power to regulate medical care for minors, and the rights of parents to make medical decisions for your children.”
The ACLU, which represents parties in the case, argues that Tennessee’s gender affirming care ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by allowing puberty blockers and hormone treatments for cisgender patients younger than 18 while prohibiting these interventions for their transgender counterparts.
The organization notes that “leading medical experts and organizations — such as the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics — oppose these restrictions, which have already forced thousands of families across the country to travel to maintain access to medical care or watch their child suffer without it.”
When passing their bans on gender affirming care, conservative states have cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), which overturned constitutional protections for abortion that were in place since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
The ACLU notes “U.S. v. Skrmetti will be a major test of how far the court is willing to stretch Dobbs to allow states to ban other health care” including other types of reproductive care like IVF and birth control.
Also on the docket in the months ahead are cases that will decide core questions about the government’s ability to regulate “ghost guns,” firearms that are made with build-it-yourself kits available online, and the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring age verification to access pornography.
The latter case drew opposition from liberal and conservative groups that argue it will have a chilling effect on adults who, as NPR wrote, “would realistically fear extortion, identity theft and even tracking of their habits by the government and others.”
National
Lesbian software developer seeks to preserve lost LGBTQ history
Up until the early 2010s, if you searched “Babe Ruth” in the Baseball Hall of Fame, nothing would pop up. To find information on the greatest baseball player of all time, you would have to search “Ruth, George Herman.”
That is the way online archival systems were set up and there was a clear problem with it. Kristen Gwinn-Becker was uniquely able to solve it. “I’m a super tech geek, history geek,” she says, “I love any opportunity to create this aha moment with people through history.”
Gwinn-Becker is the founder and CEO of HistoryIT, a company that helps organizations create digital archives that are genuinely accessible. “I believe history is incredibly important, but I also think it’s in danger,” she says. “Less than 2% of our historical materials are digital and even less of that is truly accessible.”
Gwinn-Becker’s love for history is personal. As a lesbian, growing up, she sought out evidence of herself across time. “I was interested in stories, interested in people whose lives mirrored mine to help me understand who I was.”
“[My identity] influences my love of history and my strong belief in history is important,” she says.
Despite always loving history, Gwinn-Becker found herself living and working in San Francisco during the early dot com boom and bust in the ‘90s. “It was an exciting time,” she recounts, “if you were intellectually curious, you could just jump right in.”
Being there was almost happenstance, Gwinn-Becker explained: “I was 20 years old and wanted to live in San Francisco.” Quickly, she fell in love with “all of the incredible new tools.” She was working with non-profits that encouraged her to take classes and apply the new skills. “I was really into software, web, and database development.”
But history eventually pulled her back. “Tech was fun, but I didn’t want to be a developer,” she says. Something was missing. When the opportunity to get a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University presented itself, “I got to work on the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, who I was and remain quite passionate about.”
Gwinn-Becker’s research on Eleanor Roosevelt planted the seeds of digital preservation. “Eleanor Roosevelt doesn’t have a single archive. FDR has lots but the first ladies don’t,” she says. Gwinn-Becker wondered what else was missing from the archive — and what would be missing from the archive if we didn’t start preserving it now.
Those questions eventually led Gwinn-Becker to found HistoryIT in 2011. Since then, the company has created digital archives for organizations ranging from museums and universities to sororities, fraternities, and community organizations.
This process is not easy. “Digital preservation is more than scanning,” says Gwinn-Becker. “Most commercial scanners’ intent is to create a digital copy, not an exact replica.”
To digitally preserve something, Gwinn-Becker’s team must take a photo with overhead cameras. “There is an international standard,” she says, “you create an archival TIFF.”
“It’s the biggest possible file we can create now. That’s how you future-proof.”
Despite the common belief that the internet is forever, JPEGs saved to social media or websites are a poor archive. “It’s more expensive for us to do projects in the 2000 to 2016 period than to do 19th-century projects,” explains Gwinn-Becker, since finding adequate files for preservation can be tricky. “The images themselves are deteriorated because they’re compressed so much,” she says.
Her clients are finding that having a strong digital archive is useful outside of the noble goal of protecting history. “It’s a unique trove of content,” says Gwinn-Becker. One client saw a 790% increase in donations after incorporating the digital archive into fundraising efforts. “It’s important to have content quickly and easily,” says Gwinn-Becker, whose team also works with clients on digital strategy for their archive.
One of Gwinn-Becker’s favorite parts of her job is finding what she calls “hidden histories.”
“We [LGBTQ people] are represented everywhere. We’re represented in sports, in religious history, in every kind of movement, not only our movement. I’m passionate about bringing those stories out.”
Sometimes queer stories are found in unexpected places, says Gwinn-Becker. “We work with sororities and fraternities. There are a hell of a lot of our stories there.”
Part of digital preservation is also making sure that history being created in the moment is not lost to future generations. HistoryIT works with NFL teams, for example. One of their clients is the Panthers, who hired Justine Lindsay, the first transgender cheerleader in the NFL. Gwinn-Becker was excited to be able to preserve information about Lindsay in the digital record. “It’s making history in the process of preserving it,” says Gwinn-Becker.
Preserving queer history, either through “hidden histories” or LGBTQ-specific archives, is vital says Gwinn-Becker. “Think about whose history gets marginalized, whose history gets moved to the sidelines, whose history gets just erased,” she prompts. “In a time of fake news, we need to point to evidence in the past. Queer people have existed since there were humans, but their stories are hidden,” Gwinn-Becker says.
Meanwhile, Gwinn-Becker accidentally finds herself as part of queer history too. Listed as one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 250 Female Founders of 2024, she is surrounded by names like Christina Aguilera, Selena Gomez, and Natalie Portman.
One name stuck out. “Never in my life did I think I’d be on the same list – other than the obvious one – with Billie Jean King. That’s pretty exciting,” she said.
But she can’t focus on the win for too long. “When I go to sleep at night, I think ‘there’s so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,’” she says, “We have a very small period in which to do that in a meaningful way.”
(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)
National
Biden’s acknowledgment of LGBTQ History Month ‘consequential’
Equality Forum honors 31 new ‘icons’ as annual commemoration kicks off
President Joe Biden signed a letter acknowledging Equality Forum’s LGBTQ History Month launch event held on Sunday, writing that, “by celebrating stories of bravery, resilience and joy, your example inspires hope in all people seeking a life true to who they are.”
Malcolm Lazin, Equality Forum executive director, said Biden’s letter is “consequential.” He noted that one year before the White House delivered a proclamation for Black History Month, it issued a letter signed by the president.
“It’s our hope that next year, our nation’s 47th president will issue that proclamation for LGBT History Month,” Lazin said.
Equality Forum is an LGBTQ civil rights organization with an educational focus based in Philadelphia. The group’s work includes coordinating LGBTQ History Month, producing documentary films and overseeing the application for and installation of government-approved queer historic markers.
When spearheading LGBTQ History Month for the first time back in 2006, Lazin said many pushed back against the idea. Some media outlets claimed it was trying to turn straight people gay or promote pedophilia.
But Lazin said the homophobic reactions died down when people were educated on topics that typically weren’t taught in a widespread way.
“We were demonized, marginalized, and vilified,” Lazin said. “One of the certain principal ways you’re going to make headway is if you humanize who we are, and also educate people about the important contributions we make to our common society.”
Education has always been Equality Forum’s solution to societal backlash or controversy since its inception, Lazin said.
The organization got its start in 1993 under the name PrideFest Philadelphia. Lazin, who was the founder, said it was created during a time when Pride parades were the main focus of the LGBTQ community.
In an effort to shift focus onto civil rights issues, PrideFest hosted its first LGBTQ summit that eventually transformed into an event featuring national and international organizations. Lazin said it was an effort to educate people on LGBTQ history as well as inform the community on queer rights around the world.
Though that event was terminated in 2020, Lazin is still focused on educating both queer and straight people on LGBTQ civil rights. Equality Forum honors 31 “LGBTQ icons” each year for every day in October.
This initiative began when Equality Forum started coordinating LGBTQ History Month back in 2006, but Lazin didn’t notice their efforts taking off until about five years in.
“In year one, people thought, ‘Oh yeah, those are like all the important names of the gay community,’” he said. “People paid a little bit more attention the following years, and all of a sudden they’re recognizing, ‘Oh, in a certain sense I was clueless about the role models that the gay community has.’”
This year’s icons being recognized include names like singers George Michael, Luther Vandross, and Sam Smith; pioneering drag queen William Dorsey Swann; “The Bachelor” star Colton Underwood; Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan; and longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff.
Pocan received the International Role Model Award during Sunday’s LGBTQ History Month launch event. It’s the longest-standing LGBTQ award in the nation, and has been presented to prominent figures like former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
He said accepting the award allowed him to reflect on the progress that’s been made in a relatively short time.
“I was preparing to make some remarks for the event, and I realized that I’ve been kind of in the front row of a lot of the history making in the country, because more of our history is in the last several decades,” Pocan told the Washington Blade. “There are significant moments in the past, but where the real improvements have happened have been more recent.”
In 1995, former President Bill Clinton invited Pocan, who is gay, and other LGBTQ elected officials to The White House for the first time. When they arrived and were going through security, Pocan said they noticed everyone was wearing blue gloves.
Initially assuming it was due to enhanced security following the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Pocan said they later discovered the Secret Service agents thought they could contract AIDS from out elected officials.
He said the Secret Service issued an apology letter and the Clinton administration made it clear that wasn’t their policy. Even more memorable for Pocan was when then-Vice President Al Gore made it a point to shake everyone’s hands at the event.
Comparing that memory to Biden’s recent letter puts the advancements of LGBTQ rights into perspective for Pocan. He said that’s the reason recognizing and remembering queer history is vital.
“If you don’t know the history, it’s too easy to repeat it,” he said.
The fight to recognize the global work done toward advancing LGBTQ civil rights, however, isn’t over, Lazin said.
Many states are working to restrict LGBTQ topics from being taught in schools. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1069 last year, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics, to prohibit lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The New College of Florida faced backlash when photos of hundreds of library books, many containing LGBTQ topics, overflowing a dumpster were shared online. A New College spokesperson said the books were “taken after discovering that the library did not follow all of the state administrative requirements while conducting the routine disposition of materials.”
Despite what the future may hold for LGBTQ content in schools, Lazin said the resources Equality Forum promotes, including the website featuring 31 queer icons in October, are always available.
“At least on this site, students, teachers, and guidance counselors have resources,” he said. “So if you’re an English teacher and you want to be celebrating LGBT History Month, click on poets, or click on authors. You’ve got a whole rich range of people to be able to bring into your curriculum.”
The reality of what LGBTQ History Month has become today is more than the work of one organization; Lazin said it’s the combined effort of local communities that are curious about their own history.
“While we could not possibly take on doing the history of all the cities around the country or in North America or around the world, it really has helped to encourage people to appreciate that history and to make sure that it is well documented,” Lazin said.
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