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.”

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Israel through Oct. 9. Meta also removed this article from Lavers’s Facebook pages shortly after he published it.

Two LGBTQ Palestinians who spoke with the Washington Blade last week condemned Hamas’s surprise attack against southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They also expressed condemnation of the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli government’s policies towards the Palestinians.

Zaheer Subeaux is a queer Palestinian producer, DJ, emcee, and community organizer who lives in California. He is originally from Deir Dibwan, a small city on the West Bank that is a couple miles east of Ramallah, the Palestinian capital.

“Nothing justifies Oct. 7,” Subeaux told the Blade during a Sept. 30 telephone interview. He added the “international community, I think specifically the United States, has this perception that Oct. 7 is this new thing.”

“There’s a very short-lived memory for the American public, and there’s this concept that Palestinians are just creating more trouble,” said Subeaux.

He told the Blade that Jewish settlers before Oct. 7 shot his nephew “just for being on (their) land.” Subeaux said the situation on the West Bank “have been getting worse and worse and worse, and have continued to get worse and worse and worse up until this point, up until October of last year.”

“For a lot of Palestinians who have family back home, this seemed like a proportionate response to an oppressed people,” he said. “For everyone else who’s not paying attention, who allow their tax dollars to continue fund this genocide, for them it’s like, oh, shocking, oh, wow, right out of the blue, because they’re not paying attention to what’s happening.” 

“For the rest of us who actually are, this seemed like a completely reasonable thing for a people to feel during a time like this,” added Subeaux. “I don’t think a lot of people have the context for that.”

Hannah Moushabeck is a queer, second-generation Palestinian American who lives in Massachusetts.

Her family is from West Jerusalem. Moushabeck has relatives in Ramallah and in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, and has friends in Gaza with whom she has “been in daily communication.”

“My immediate reactions on Oct. 7 were obviously horror and fear of what’s to come and the violence that happened that day,” she told the Blade on Sept. 30 during a telephone interview.

Moushabeck said it is “not unusual for Palestinians in the diaspora to experience some of this violence happening in our homeland.”

“This is honestly something that’s been going on since well before I was born,” she said. “So, growing up, whenever my parents seemed upset or, Palestinians were being shown in the news, I knew it was likely because they were being killed or involved with some kind of intense violence.” 

Moushabeck said “a lot of Palestinians kind of had an instinct to go through the motions when Oct. 7 happened.”

“We also recognized that it was really unprecedented, and that the reaction and the revenge that the Israeli government took out on Palestinians would be like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” she added. 

Monday marks a year since Oct. 7.

The Israeli government says militants on that day killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival near Re’im, a kibbutz that is a couple miles from the Gaza border. The Israeli government says the militants also kidnapped more than 200 people on Oct. 7.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed more than 41,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7.

Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for an Oct. 1 attack at a Tel Aviv light rail station that left seven people dead and more than a dozen others injured. A Bedouin man on Sunday killed an Israel Border Police officer and injured 10 others when he attacked a bus station in Beersheva in southern Israel on Sunday.

Reuters on Friday reported the Lebanese Health Ministry said Israeli airstrikes in Beirut and elsewhere in the country over the last two weeks have killed more than 2,000 people. Iran last Tuesday launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in response to an Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese capital on Sept. 27 that killed Hassan Nasrallah, the long-time leader of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group. 

An Israeli airstrike in the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Oct. 3 killed 18 people in a Palestinian refugee camp. 

The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet, the country’s security agency, said the airstrike killed Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, a senior Hamas commander, and 11 other Hamas operatives. The Associated Press reported the airstrike also killed a family of four, including two young children.

The AP cites Palestinian officials who say an Israeli airstrike on a mosque in Deir al-Balah, a town in central Gaza, killed at least 19 people.

The International Criminal Court in May announced it plans to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh. 

Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said the five men have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel. (A suspected Israeli airstrike on July 31 killed Haniyah while he was in the Iranian capital of Tehran to attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration.)

The Montreal-based Queering the Map — a “community generated counter-mapping platform for digitally archiving LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space” — is an “interface to collaboratively record the cartography of queer life.” Several people who have used Queering the Map are from Gaza.

A person who placed their post near Netzarim Junction in central Gaza notes it was the place where they fell in love with someone in 2021, “the last major Israeli bombardment on Gaza.” The person notes their beloved is a student who has left the enclave.

“Israeli occupation bombs may take everyone and everything you ever loved away: Your mom, your home, your memories,” they wrote in on Queering the Map. “I am so sorry the world failed you, that your mom, sister, best friends, everything is lost in this genocide.”

Another person who used Queering the Map posted their message near Beit Hanoun, a city in the northeast corner of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli city of Sderot less than four miles away.

“IDK how long I will live so I just want this to be my memory here before I die,” reads the post. “I am not going to leave my home, come what may.” 

“My biggest regret is not kissing this one guy. He died two days back. We had told (sic) how much we like each other, and I was too shy to kiss last time. He died in the bombing. I think a big part of me died too. And soon I will be dead. To Younus, I will kiss you in heaven.”

The posts do not indicate when their authors wrote them. The Blade on Saturday heard Israeli airstrikes in Gaza while at the Nova Music Festival memorial and in Yad Mordechai, a kibbutz that is roughly three miles north of the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza.

Moushabeck told the Blade she helped raise funds that allowed her friend, his wife, and two children to leave Gaza and relocate to Cairo. Moushabeck also said she receives photos from other friends who remain inside the enclave.

“Seeing things happen in the news, and then getting personal video, not a video, but a personal video from my friend who’s watching the same things unfold; that was really horrifying,” she said. 

“I’m safe, and I have a lot of privileges living in the diaspora, and so I felt it was my responsibility to bear witness to these,” added Moushabeck.

Tarek Zeidan, the former executive director of Helem, a Lebanese LGBTQ rights group, has launched a fundraiser for a group of transgender women who Israeli airstrikes have made homeless. The campaign has raised more than $19,000.

“While it is contradictory to be focusing on any specific community, vulnerable or otherwise, at a time when entire populations in Lebanon and Gaza are being indiscriminately eliminated, the bitter reality is that humanitarian aid and services will not be available to the majority of queer people in need, especially trans* and non-conforming members of our community,” wrote Zeidan in his appeal. 

“Many humanitarian organizations are not capable or even willing to help, and are now even less likely to given that it is a crisis response,” he added. “We learned this hard lesson during the pandemic and in the aftermath of the 2020 Beirut port explosion and since then little has changed.”

Outright International, National LGBTQ Task Force have called for Gaza ceasefire

Outright International and the National LGBTQ Task Force are two of the many LGBTQ organizations in the U.S. and around the world that have called for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

Upwards of 200 people in February marched from Dupont Circle to the Human Rights Campaign and called upon it and other LGBTQ rights groups to “demand an end to the genocide and occupation of Palestine.” No Pride in Genocide, which describes itself as a “coalition of queer and trans Palestinians, Arab, and SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) people, Jews, and allies,” organized the event.

“As a queer Palestinian, my identity has sort of been weaponized against us for what is ostensibly a propaganda campaign by the State of Israel,” Moushabeck told the Blade. “We refer to it as ‘pinkwashing.’ They have pumped millions of dollars into what they call Brand Israel in order to project this idea of a queer utopia, queer haven, which, you know, a lot of Israelis say is not accurate.” 

“Certainly, Palestinians are not being asked their sexuality is before their homes are bombed or their families are killed,” she added.

Moushabeck also criticized HRC.

“We have organizational leaders like the Human Rights Campaign who are taking money from war profiteers like weapons manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, giving social capital to those profiting off of this violence,” she said.

Subeaux echoed Moushabeck.

“Our narrative of survival in the United States and in the West for queer rights is being co-opted to fear monger,” said Subeaux. “I don’t want that to be done on my behalf. I don’t want a genocide to be done on my behalf. I don’t want a genocide to be done on queer people’s behalf.”

CAMBODIA

Cambodia’s first ever LGBTQ community space, Cocoon, opened in the capital of Phnom Penh last month, with an event featuring art, dance, and drag performances.

Cocoon aspires to be a safe queer space for everyone and has planned a series of events including community brunches, movie nights, speed dating, and an introduction to queer ballroom culture. The space will also host a queer artist residency program beginning next year.

“To queer Phnom Penh people who do not have a safe space, this is your Cocoon,” says Cocoon founder Ian Goh. “To queer people visiting Phnom Penh, you now have a place to love and be loved unconditionally.”

While the general human rights situation in Cambodia has faced steady criticism from international observers, there has been progress in recent years on encouraging acceptance of the country’s LGBTQ community. The government has promoted LGBTQ-inclusive schools since 2017, and the nation’s monarch has publicly supported same-sex marriage, although it remains illegal in the southeast Asian nation.

EUROPEAN UNION

The European Court of Justice delivered a pair of rulings important for LGBTQ people this week, requiring all European Union member states to recognize legal gender changes carried out in other member states, and ordering Facebook’s parent company Meta to restrict how it collects data about users’ sexual orientations.

ECJ rulings are binding on all 27 EU member states.

The gender change ruling stemmed from a case where a Romanian transgender man, Arian Mirzarafie-Ahi, obtained a legal gender change after moving to the UK, and wanted his legal gender and name recognized when he later returned to Romania in 2021. 

Romania does not have a clear or simple process for its citizens to change their legal gender and refused to recognize Mirzarafie-Ahi’s UK gender change. Mirzarafie-Ahi filed a claim in Romanian court to have his gender and name change registered, and the national courts referred the matter to the ECJ.

In a preliminary ruling issued on Oct 4, the ECJ found that Romania’s refusal to recognize Mirzarafie-Ahi’s legal gender change was a violation of his mobility rights under the EU treaty.

The court found that EU states must recognize legal gender and name changes that have occurred in another EU member state, and they must issue updated identity documents without requiring any additional legal or medical process. The court found that the fact that the UK is no longer a member of the EU is irrelevant in this case, as Mirzarafie-Ahi had begun her gender change process while the UK was still a member.

The ruling stems from the fundamental right of all EU citizens to reside in any EU member state. The court found that refusing to recognize the legal gender and name of an EU citizen imperils that right, because it could prevent a trans person from residing in a country that does not recognize their identity.

“Today’s verdict has shown us that trans people are equal citizens of the European Union. When you have rebuilt a life in another part of the European Union because you are not welcome in your own country, it is normal to ask to be treated with dignity when interacting with the authorities in your home country,” says Mirzarafe-Ahi’s legal counsel Iustina Ionescu.  

In a similar ruling six years ago, the ECJ ruled that EU members must grant residency rights to the same-sex partners of EU citizens in another case that came out of Romania. However, Romania has yet to implement the ruling and continues to refuse to issue residency permits to same-sex spouses, including to the original complainant.

The ECJ also issued another ruling on Oct 4 restricting the way Facebook’s parent company collects data on users’ sexual orientation.

Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems filed a complaint after he received personalized ads on Facebook directed at gay men. Although Schrems had commented on his sexuality publicly, he objected to Facebook using his information for targeted ads.

The court found that the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation prohibits social media organizations from collection of personal data, including about a person’s sexual orientation, from outside their platforms for use in targeted ads.

GEORGIA

The government’s sweeping anti-LGBTQ bill was signed into law this week by the speaker of parliament, after the president refused to give it her signature.

The draconian law, which has drawn criticism from the opposition and Western allies, imposes some of the strictest restrictions on LGBTQ people in Europe. The law bans recognition of any same-sex relationship, bans LGBTQ people from adopting, bans trans people from marriage, bans all legal or medical gender change, forbids public gatherings and demonstrations for LGBTQ rights, bans positive portrayals of LGBTQ people in schools and the media, and rebrands the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia on May 17 as a holiday for the sanctity of the family.

The law mimics “LGBT propaganda” laws passed in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Hungary, and Bulgaria, and which have been taken up by far-right parties with close ties to Russia across Europe.

It’s the latest anti-democratic and anti-human rights legislation passed by the ruling Georgian Dream Party, which has strained relations with Georgia’s Western allies. Earlier this year, the EU froze accession talks with Georgia after it passed a law curbing opposition activities.

Georgia heads to the polls on Oct. 26.

HONG KONG

Hong Kong’s top court heard the government’s final appeal of a lower court ruling ordering the city to give same-sex couples equal access to public housing last week.

In Hong Kong, families and married couples are given priority access to social housing, and current policy does not recognize same-sex couples, who are barred from living together in the subsidized apartments.

The Court of Final Appeal’s judges did not seem sympathetic to the government’s arguments on Friday, according to the South China Morning Post. After the hearing, the court reserved judgment.

The CFA ruled last year that Hong Kong must provide a legal framework for recognizing same sex couples and gave the city two years to implement it. So far, the city government has not yet proposed a way to implement the ruling.

Hong Kong is formally part of China, but governs itself semi-autonomously, with a separate court and legal system inherited from the British colonial administration that ended in 1997.

CANADA

A provincial government minister facing reelection in New Brunswick is facing calls to resign after she used the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to compare trans-inclusive education policies to the genocide of Canada’s Indigenous People.

September 30 was established as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation by the Canadian government in 2021. The focus of the day has largely been on the abuse First Nations children suffered in the residential school system, a nationwide network of schools, often run by churches, where First Nations children who had been taken from their families were forcibly assimilated into European Canadian culture. 

Many children suffered loss of culture and language, physical beatings, sexual abuse, starvation, denial of medical care, and thousands of children died in the care of schools, with many being buried in unmarked graves.

Conservative politicians across Canada, who have taken a sharp anti-trans turn over the past few years, used the opportunity to compare trans-inclusionary policies in education to the genocide of First Nations.

Sherry Wilson, New Brunswick’s minister for women’s equality, wrote in a lengthy, since-deleted post on Facebook that her province’s previous policies that allowed trans children to use different names or pronouns at school without parental notification or consent were comparable to the residential schools. Earlier this year, New Brunswick put in place a policy requiring parental notification and consent if a student wants to use a different name or gender.

“The government of the day actually tried to make the case that parents were harmful to their children, and that government schools needed to change their culture and lifestyle,” Wilson’s post read. “The horrible tragedy is a stain on Canadian history, but it was only allowed to happen because children enrolled in school were isolated from their parents’ oversight, input and influence … This must never be allowed to happen again in Canada! We must never put our teachers in a position where they have to hide important parts of a child’s development from their own parents!”

New Brunswick goes to the polls on Oct 21, and the incumbent Progressive Conservatives are in a tight race. Wilson has faced calls to drop out of her reelection bid, but she has remained in the race.

“That she would try to draw this dog-whistle comparison on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation should make every New Brunswicker ashamed that she was recently a minister for this province,” the six chiefs of the Wolastoqey Nation also said in a statement.

Using residential schools as a talking point against trans-inclusive school policies and sex education generally has become a recurring talking point for Canada’s conservatives. 

Another New Brunswick PC candidate, Faytene Grasseschi, made similar statements to CBC last year.

British Columbia Conservative Party leader John Rustad compared residential schools to the province’s LGBTQ-inclusive sex ed curriculum last year. His party is running neck-and-neck with the incumbent New Democrats in BC’s provincial election on Oct 19.