News
Mexican same-sex couples seek marriage rights
Country’s Supreme Court last December struck down Oaxaca gay nuptials ban
The movement for marriage rights for same-sex couples in Mexico continues to gain momentum as more gays and lesbians across the country seek the ability to exchange vows.
A gay couple in the city of Mérida in the state of Yucatán on Aug. 8 tied the knot after a federal judge in July said the two men could marry. A judge in the state of Chihuahua in which Ciudad Juarez is located on Aug. 19 ruled in favor of five same-sex couples who had sought legal recourse — known as an “amparo” in the Mexican judicial system — that would allow them to marry.
A judge in the state of México, which is outside Mexico City, the country’s capital, in June ruled in support of four same-sex couples who had sought marriage rights. Local authorities appealed the decision.
Gays and lesbians in the states of Colima; Baja California; Guanajuato; Morales and Jalisco, in which Guadalajara and the resort city of Puerto Vallarta are located, have also petitioned local authorities to extend marriage rights to them.
These developments are taking place nearly a year after the Mexican Supreme Court found a Oaxacan law that bans same-sex marriage unconstitutional.
Three couples tried to apply for marriage licenses in the state, but local authorities denied their applications. Lawyer Alex Alí Méndez Díaz filed lawsuits on behalf of two of the couples in August 2011 and a third in January 2012.
The justices unveiled their decision in February.
One of the Oaxacan couples that sought the right to marry tied the knot in March in what Méndez told the Washington Blade is the first same-sex marriage to take place in Mexico under a court order. He said a second couple will exchange vows in December, but the third couple will not marry in what Méndez described as a “symbol of solidarity with the local LGBT movement” over “legislative indifference to make the necessary reforms” to avoid bringing the issue to the Mexican federal courts.
Fourteen countries, along with 13 states and D.C. allow gays and lesbians to legally marry.
Mexico City in 2010 extended marriage rights to same-sex couples. The Mexican Supreme Court has ruled other states must recognize gay marriages legally performed in the Mexican capital.
Gays and lesbians have also exchanged vows in the state of Quintana Roo on the Yucatán Peninsula in which Cancún is located. The state of Coahuila offers property and inheritance rights and other limited legal protections to same-sex couples.
Opposition to marriage rights for same-sex couples in Mexico remains in spite of recent advances on the issue.
Congresswoman Ana María Jiménez Ortiz, who represents the conservative political party PAN in the state of Puebla outside Mexico City, last month sparked controversy when she suggested officials should allow marriage only for “people that can look at each other in the eye while having sexual intercourse.”
“[That is] something that does not happen in homosexual couples,” she said.
Catholic groups in the month after the Mexican Supreme Court released its Oaxaca ruling submitted to the country’s Congress a petition against marriage rights for same-sex couples with 23,000 signatures.
“One can say that the rulings announced last December with respect to the Oaxacan cases mean the possibility that marriage equality is possible throughout Mexico through the judicial process,” Méndez told the Blade. “Unfortunately established moral and religious prejudices in the same state institutions have impeded any rapid movement on the issue.”
Virginia
Norfolk transgender resource center vandalized
Anti-trans graffiti spraypainted onto Southeastern Transgender Resource Center’s windows
The Norfolk Police Department is investigating the vandalism of a transgender resource center’s building.
Tarena Williams, founder of the Southeastern Transgender Resource Center, told WAVY that someone spraypainted anti-trans graffiti on the windows of her organization’s offices on Sunday or Monday morning. Williams told the Hampton Roads television station that seeing the messages was like “walking into hell.”
“I opened up STRC, even the Lamina House,” she told WAVY. “I opened up that to get away from those types of words. This is a place you can come to get away from that, but to see that sprayed over the window. It’s kind of like you are walking into hell. … To be honest, I was like in shock.”
Authorities are investigating the vandalism.
The U.S. has granted asylum to a Guatemalan LGBTQ activist who fled his country in 2019.
Estuardo Cifuentes and his partner ran a digital marketing and advertising business in Guatemala City.
He previously told the Washington Blade that gang members extorted from them. Cifuentes said they closed their business after they attacked them.
Cifuentes told the Blade that Guatemalan police officers attacked him in front of their home when he tried to kiss his partner. Cifuentes said the officers tried to kidnap him and one of them shot at him. He told the Blade that authorities placed him under surveillance after the incident and private cars drove past his home.
Cifuentes arrived in Matamoros, a Mexican border city that is across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, in June 2019. He asked for asylum in the U.S. based on the persecution he suffered in Guatemala because of his sexual orientation.
The Trump administration forced Cifuentes to pursue his asylum case from Mexico under its Migrant Protection Protocols program that became known as the “remain in Mexico” policy.
Cifuentes while in Matamoros ran Rainbow Bridge Asylum Seekers, a program for LGBTQ asylum seekers and migrants that the Resource Center Matamoros, a group that provides assistance to asylum seekers and migrants in the Mexican border city, helped create.
The Biden-Harris administration in January 2021 suspended enrollment in MPP. Cifuentes entered the U.S. on March 3, 2021.
“We are profoundly relieved and grateful that my husband and I have been officially recognized as asylees in the United States,” Cifuentes told the Blade on Monday in an email. “This result marks the end of a long and painful fight against the persecution that we faced in Guatemala because of our sexual orientation.”
Vice President Kamala Harris is among those who have said discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation are among the root causes of migration from Guatemala and other countries in Central America.
Cifuentes is now the client services manager for Lawyers for Good Government’s Project Corazón, a campaign that works “hard to reunite and defend the rights of families impacted by inhumane immigration policies.” He told the Blade he will continue to help LGBTQ asylum seekers and migrants.
“In this new chapter of our lives, we pledge to work hard to support others in similar situations and to contribute to the broader fight for the rights and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ migrant community,” said Cifuentes. “We are hopeful that our story will serve as a call to action to confront and end persecution based on gender identity and sexual orientation.”
West Virginia
Appeals court strikes down W.Va. transgender athlete ban
Ruling finds law violates students’ constitutional rights, Title IX
BY LORI KERSEY | The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down West Virginia’s ban on transgender athletes, finding the law violates trans students’ rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the constitution and Title IX, a federal civil rights law prohibiting discrimination based on sex in education programs.
The case, B.P.J. vs. the West Virginia Board of Education, was filed in May 2021 on behalf of Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 13-year-old trans middle school student and track athlete who would be barred from participating if the ban is upheld. Pepper-Jackson is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia and Lambda Legal.
In April 2021, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice signed into law a bill prohibiting trans women and girls in the state from participating in sports that align with their gender identity. The U.S. Court of Appeals in February 2023 blocked the state from removing Pepper-Jackson from her school’s track and field team as legal advocates appealed a lower court’s ruling upholding the ban.
In Tuesday’s ruling, Judge Toby Heytens wrote that offering Pepper-Jackson the “choice” between not participating in sports and participating only on boys teams is not a real choice.
“The defendants cannot expect that B.P.J. will countermand her social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers and coaches for nearly half her life by introducing herself to teammates, coaches and even opponents as a boy,” the judge wrote.
“By participating on boys teams, B.P.J. would be sharing the field with boys who are larger, stronger, and faster than her because of the elevated levels of circulating testosterone she lacks,” he wrote. “The Act thus exposes B.P.J. to the very harms Title IX is meant to prevent by effectively ‘exclud[ing]’ her from ‘participation in’ all non-coed sports entirely.”
In a statement Tuesday, Joshua Block, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, called the court’s ruling “a tremendous victory for our client, transgender West Virginians and the freedom of all youth to play as who they are.”
“It also continues a string of federal courts ruling against bans on the participation of transgender athletes and in favor of their equal participation as the gender they know themselves to be,” Block wrote. “This case is fundamentally about the equality of transgender youth in our schools and our communities and we’re thankful the 4th Circuit agreed.”
“We hope today’s ruling sends a message of hope to the trans youth of West Virginia,” Aubrey Sparks, legal director of the ACLU of West Virginia, said in the statement. “And a message of warning to politicians who continue to dehumanize this vulnerable population.”
West Virginia is one of 21 states that have banned trans student-athletes over the last three years, according to the ACLU.
In a statement Tuesday, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey vowed to defend the ban and said he is “deeply disappointed” in the decision.
“The Save Women’s Sports Act is ‘constitutionally permissible’ and the law complies with Title IX,” Morrisey said. “I will keep fighting to safeguard Title IX. We must keep working to protect women’s sports so that women’s safety is secured and girls have a truly fair playing field. We know the law is correct and will use every available tool to defend it.”
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Lori Kersey is a reporter with a decade of experience reporting in West Virginia. She covers state government for West Virginia Watch.
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The preceding article was previously published by the West Virginia Watch and is republished with permission.
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West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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