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.”
The White House
Report: Grenell wants Russian ambassadorship
Country’s anti-LGBTQ record a reported barrier
Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for “special missions,” is making it known that he is interested in the Russian ambassadorship.
According to reporting by the Daily Mail, Grenell has “floated” his interest in the role to coworkers, but issues surrounding the former German ambassador’s sexuality have made securing the position more difficult.
“He had an interest in the job — or at least he floated the idea to select colleagues. But Putin’s regime is extremely anti–LGBTQ, so I’m sure they didn’t take that thought too seriously,” one source close to Grenell told the Daily Mail. “That would never happen anyway.”
Grenell has long been one of Trump’s closest allies and was the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet-level position. He was ousted last month as acting director of the Kennedy Center, a position he had held since Trump reestablished the board to be composed of his political supporters in 2025.
In addition to leading the nation’s cultural arts center, Grenell previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020, and as the special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations from 2019 to 2021. He was also a State Department spokesperson to the U.N. under the George W. Bush administration and a Fox News contributor.
Russia has a longstanding history of being anti-LGBTQ.
In 2013, the country passed a law banning any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In December 2022, Putin signed legislation expanding the ban, making it illegal to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal” for people of any age, widening censorship across media and public life.
The Russian courts have also supported the restriction of LGBTQ identity in the country. In November 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court granted a request from the Justice Ministry to outlaw the “international LGBT movement” as “extremist,” allowing authorities to criminalize advocacy and potentially prosecute individuals for expressions of LGBTQ+ identity or support.
In addition to LGBTQ rights issues, the war between Russia and Ukraine has become a global concern. Ukraine, which was part of the former Soviet Union, includes the territory known as Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. The annexation remains a major point of international dispute over sovereignty. Since 2022, Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine has escalated the conflict, drawing global attention and sanctions while straining U.S.-Russia relations.
The U.S. has spent $188 billion in total related to the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Russian ambassadorship seems to be a difficult role to fill, according to additional information presented by the Daily Mail. With Trump already being seen as relatively positive by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and with close ties to members of his Cabinet and family — like son-in-law Jared Kushner — the ambassadorship is complicated and viewed as less critical than in previous administrations.
“There is no rush to fill that role because it has now been deemed unnecessary,” another source told the U.K.-based publication.
Bob Foresman, a seasoned businessman with decades-long ties to the Kremlin, was reportedly once the frontrunner, according to the Daily Mail. Foresman served as vice chair of UBS Investment Bank and Deputy Chairman of Renaissance Capital between 2006 and 2009, and earlier led investment banking for Russia at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein from 1997 to 2000.
“This is a pattern, especially in the Trump administration — special envoys big–footing the ambassadors,” a source told the Daily Mail. “It is shocking that we are already in April and we don’t have an ambassador to one of the most important countries in the world.”
Tennessee
Tenn. lawmakers pass transgender “watch list” bill
State Senate to consider measure on Wednesday
The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill last week to create a transgender “watch list” that also pushes detransition medical treatment. The state Senate will consider it on Wednesday.
House Bill 754/State Bill 676 has been deemed “ugly” by LGBTQ advocates and criticized by healthcare information litigators as a major privacy concern.
The bill would require “gender clinics accepting funds from this state to perform gender transition procedures to also perform detransition procedures; requires insurance entities providing coverage of gender transition procedures to also cover detransition procedures; requires certain gender clinics and insurance entities to report information regarding detransition procedures to the department of health.”
It would require that any gender-affirming care-providing clinics share the date, age, and sex of patients; any drugs prescribed (dosage, frequency, duration, and method administered); the state and county; the name, contact information, and medical specialty of the healthcare professional who prescribed the treatment; and any past medical history related to “neurological, behavioral, or mental health conditions.” It would also mandate additional information if surgical intervention is prescribed, including details on which healthcare professional made a referral and when.
HB 0754 would also require the state to produce a “comprehensive annual statistical report,” with all collected data shared with the heads of the legislature and the legislative librarian, and eventually published online for public access.
The bill also reframes detransitioning as a major focus of gender-affirming healthcare — despite studies showing that the number of trans people who detransition is statistically quite low, around 13 percent, and is often the result of external pressures (such as discrimination or family) rather than an issue with their gender identity.
This legislation stands in sharp contrast to federal protections restricting what healthcare information can be shared. In 1996, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, requiring protections for all “individually identifiable health information,” including medical records, conversations, billing information, and other patient data.
Margaret Riley, professor of law, public health sciences, and public policy at the University of Virginia, has written about similar efforts at the federal level, noting the Trump-Vance administration’s push to subpoena multiple hospitals’ records of gender-affirming care for trans patients despite no claims — or proof — that a crime was committed.
It has “sown fear and concern, both among people whose information is sought and among the doctors and other providers who offer such care. Some health providers have reportedly decided to no longer provide gender-affirming care to minors as a result of the inquiries, even in states where that care is legal.” She wrote in an article on the Conversation, where she goes further, pointing out that the push, mostly from conservative members of the government, are pushing extracting this private information “while giving no inkling of any alleged crimes that may have been committed.”
State Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby), the bill’s sponsor, said in a press conference two weeks ago that he has met dozens of individuals who sought to transition genders and ultimately detransitioned. In committee, an individual testified in support of the bill, claiming that while insurance paid for gender-affirming care, detransition care was not covered.
“I believe that we as a society are going to look back on this time that really burst out in 2014 and think, ‘Dear God, What were we thinking? This was as dumb as frontal lobotomies,’” Faison said of gender-affirming care. “I think we’re going to look back on society one day and think that.”
Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law’s senior director of Transgender and Queer Rights, shared with PBS last year that legislation like this changes the entire concept of HIPAA rights for trans Americans in ways that are invasive and unnecessary.
“It turns doctor-patient confidentiality into government surveillance,” Levi said, later emphasizing this will cause fewer people to seek out the care that they need. “It’s chilling.”
The Washington Blade reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which shared this statement from Executive Director Miriam Nemeth:
“HB 754/SB 676 continues the ugly legacy of Tennessee legislators’ attacks on the lives of transgender Tennesseans. Most Tennesseans, regardless of political views, oppose government databases tracking medical decisions made between patients and their doctors. The same should be true here. The state does not threaten to end the livelihood of doctors and fine them $150,000 for safeguarding the sensitive information of people with diabetes, depression, cancer, or other conditions. Trans people and intersex people deserve the same safety, privacy, and equal treatment under the law as everyone else.”
Iran
LGBTQ groups condemn Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization
Ceasefire announced less than two hours before Tuesday deadline
The Council for Global Equality is among the groups that condemned President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his latest threats against Iran.
Trump in a Truth Social post said “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran did not reach an agreement with the U.S. by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes.
Trump less than 90 minutes before his deadline announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran that Pakistan helped broker.
“We the undersigned human rights, humanitarian, civil liberties, faith-based and environmental organizations, think tanks and experts are deeply alarmed by President Trump’s threat regarding Iran that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ if his demands are not met. Such language describes a grave atrocity if carried out,” reads the statement that the Council for Global Equality more than 200 other organizations and human rights experts signed. “A threat to wipe out ‘a whole civilization’ may amount to a threat of genocide. Genocide is a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as committing one or more of several acts ‘with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, racial or religious groups as such.'”
The statement states “the law is clear that civilians must not be targeted, and they must also be protected from indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.”
“Strikes on civilian infrastructure — such as the recent attack on a bridge and the attacks President Trump is repeatedly threatening to carry out to destroy power plants — have devastating consequences for the civilian population and environment,” it reads.
“We urge all parties to respect international law,” adds the statement. “Those responsible for atrocities, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, can and must be held accountable.”
The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, MADRE, and the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center are among the other groups that signed the letter.
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