National
Carey: Voter suppression could ‘derail’ LGBT progress
Task Force head delivers 2012 State of the Movement address
National Gay & Lesbian Task Force chief Rea Carey (Blade photo by Michael Key)
BALTIMORE — The head of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force on Friday identified efforts to keep minorities from going to the polls on Election Day as the latest tool in the arsenal of anti-gay forces to stop LGBT progress.
Rea Carey, the Task Force’s executive director, said during her 2012 “State of the Movement” address that “the very ability to cast a vote” has been under attack and called on LGBT rights supporters to fight those efforts and bring voters to the polls.
“They could derail our progress for years by focusing on something that our movement could easily mistake as not ‘our’ issue,” Carey said. “Believe me, it is our issue when we or our allies find ourselves without easy access to the polls.”
Carey said executive orders in 14 states and 20 new laws have made it harder for five million people to vote this year. According to Carey, these initiatives are a “systematic effort” to take the vote away from people of color, students, the working poor and unemployed and other groups.
Her views are supported by a report published in December by the Voting Rights Institute, which says new Republican-initiated laws have cut early voting, challenged the citizenship of eligible voters and mandated that voters produce photo ID at the polls.
One such law is Florida’s HB 1355, an omnibus elections overhaul passed after the Tea Party came into power in the state in 2010. In addition to early voting cuts, the law imposes restrictions on non-governmental entities conducting voter registration.
Carey said these efforts — which she called “one of the last desperate ploys by those who can no longer compete with the power of their ideas” — particularly affect LGBT people because they have “a devastating effect on the ability of transgender people to vote” and impact states where marriage equality could be on the ballot in 2012.
“If we do not protect the right to vote, we will not win on immigration, we will not win on non-discrimination, we will not protect affirmative action and we will not win on marriage,” Carey said.
The Task Force chief called on the audience to register voters that anti-gay forces don’t want at the polls and urged voters who are turned away to cast a provisional ballot, post their story on Facebook and Twitter and contact the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.
Carey made the remarks during the 24th annual Creating Change conference at the Hilton Baltimore, where an estimated 3,000 attendees came to discuss LGBT rights. Conference participants ranged from government officials in suits, female activists wearing combat boots and bloggers in graphic tees. The hotel bathrooms were modified as “gender neutral restroom” to accommodate attendees.
During her speech, Carey offered a litany of accomplishments that the LGBT community has achieved in the past year, including the passage of statewide transgender non-discrimination laws in four states, defeating an anti-trans bill in Maine and the lifting of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Carey also said the Task Force and LGBT advocates had a hand in issues facing a broader range of people, such as beating an anti-choice “personhood” ballot measure in Mississippi and a measure in Maine that would end same-day voter registration.
Carey noted the heavy emphasis that marriage receives in the LGBT rights movement.
“The LGBT movement is not a movement for marriage only,” Carey said. “It is a movement for the full dignity of our lives, for a transformed society.”
“Marriage has motivated our allies and captured the attention of people who weren’t paying attention before,” Carey said. “But someday, when we succeed in nationwide recognition of our marriages, and even along the way, we will likely see that the engagement in our movement will drop off. Severely.”
Carey said in states where marriage equality has been achieved, advocacy groups find they have less attention, engagement — and fewer donations. She said these groups in some cases have had to lay off workers “even while struggling to get attention for other very pressing issues.”
“We have learned that with a win, we usually have to turn right around and defend that win,” Carey said. “We also know that people who aren’t included in that win remain vulnerable to discrimination.”
New York is an example of a state that could be in such a situation. The state legalized same-sex marriage last year, but workplace non-discrimination protections for transgender people haven’t yet been enacted.
“At the Task Force, we say we want more than marriage — there is no singular solution to the many ways we experience discrimination, violence and bigotry,” Carey said. “At the Task Force we insist that immigration, housing, health care, fair wages, Social Security and ending systemic racism and sexism are all LGBT issues.”
Carey referred to the opening song “Defying Gravity” in the musical “Wicked” and compared the struggles faced by the character Elphaba, or the Wicked Witch of the West, to the struggles faced by LGBT people.
“LGBT people have been called a repulsion, a harm to society,” Carey said. “We have been called wicked. The fact that we have made it this far, surviving childhood taunts, the neglect of churches and schools, the laws and policies of a country that have treated us as criminals — this is already a testament to our ability to defy gravity.”
Carey’s speech was well-received by those in audience, and her remarks that marriage shouldn’t be the singular focus of the LGBT rights movement were met with significant applause.
Katherine Acey, a former executive director for the New York City-based Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, said Carey’s speech was “expansive and visionary” and useful because it “laid out everything we’ve accomplished.”
“Her looking at the big picture and looking at how we must stand with all of the members of our community — also allies who are part of our world community — I thought that was striking, the way she delivered that,” Acey said.
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
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