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.”
Federal Government
Inside the LGBTQ records of Todd Blanche and Markwayne Mullin
Two men are acting attorney general, DHS secretary
President Donald Trump became famous for his use of the phrase “You’re fired!” while hosting the reality TV show “The Apprentice” in the early 2000s. However, during his time in the Oval Office, he has attempted to distance himself from that image.
Despite those efforts, the phrase once again comes to mind as Trump has fired two high-level female Cabinet members within the past month: Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem.
Their replacements — Todd Blanche at the Justice Department and Markwayne Mullin at the Department of Homeland Security — bring records that, while different in depth, both reflect limited support for LGBTQ protections and, in some cases, direct opposition.
Todd Blanche
Acting attorney general
Little has been found regarding Todd Blanche’s LGBTQ history prior to his role as acting head of the Department of Justice. Unlike those who have worked within the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division or served as state attorneys general, he has not developed a public-facing legal ideology on LGBTQ issues.
Blanche attended American University for his undergraduate studies — like fellow Trump attorney Michael Cohen — where he met his future wife, Kristin, who was studying at nearby Catholic University in D.C.
He began his legal career as an intern at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which eventually became a full-time position. He later worked as a paralegal in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York while attending Brooklyn Law School at night. Blanche graduated cum laude in 2003. He and his wife later married and had two children.
Blanche left the U.S. attorney’s office in 2014, taking a job in the Manhattan office of the law firm WilmerHale. In September 2017, he moved to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he was a partner in the White Collar Defense and Investigations practice.
In his personal capacity, he represented several figures associated with Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, including Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, businessman Igor Fruman, and attorney Boris Epshteyn.
In 2024, Blanche switched from Democrat to Republican, aligning himself with Trump’s political orbit. He later served as Trump’s personal defense attorney in the New York State case that led to Trump’s 2024 conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to bisexual adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Now the highest-ranking official at the Justice Department, Blanche has played a central role in overseeing the department and has been involved in leadership decisions tied to several controversial actions affecting LGBTQ people.
In a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James, Blanche declared that the Justice Department “will not sit idly by while you attempt to use your office to force harmful procedures on our most vulnerable population,” if legal action were taken against NYU Langone. The hospital had “permanently” ended a program earlier that month after the Trump-Vance administration threatened to pull all federal funding if it continued prescribing puberty blockers and hormones to minors.
Blanche wrote that “the Justice Department believes the law is clear, and anti-discrimination laws cannot be used to force NYU Langone to perform sex-rejecting procedures on children.”
“As just one example, your office’s position would require a hospital to prescribe certain medications for certain diagnoses, regardless of the hospital’s or its doctors’ independent medical determination about the propriety of such treatment,” he said.
Blanche also echoed his predecessor’s public stance on limiting LGBTQ-related protections at the federal level, aligning with Bondi’s sentiments in June 2025 regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision that restricted LGBTQ history lessions in schools and limits lower federal courts from issuing nationwide injunctions — rulings that have often blocked Trump administration policies.
Calling it “another great decision that came down today,” Blanche argued that the ruling “restores parents’ rights to decide their child’s education,” adding: “It seems like a basic idea, but it took the Supreme Court to set the record straight, and we thank them for that. And now that ruling allows parents to opt out of dangerous trans ideology and make the decisions for their children that they believe is correct.”
In December 2025, a Justice Department memo stated that, “effective immediately,” prisons and jails would no longer be held responsible for violations of standards meant to protect LGBTQ people from harassment, abuse, and rape under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The law, passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, requires that incarcerated people be screened for their risk of sexual assault, including consideration of LGBTQ status, and applies to all correctional facilities.
Additionally, when the Justice Department, under Blanche’s deputy leadership and at Trump’s behest, attempted to force Children’s National Hospital in D.C. to turn over medical records related to gender-affirming care, U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin ruled that the effort “appears to have no purpose other than to intimidate and harass.”
Blanche is also described as having a “strong belief in executive authority.”
Markwayne Mullin
Secretary of Homeland Security
While Blanche’s record is defined more by recent actions than a long paper trail, Markwayne Mullin brings a more established history on LGBTQ issues from his time in Congress.
The head of the Department of Homeland Security has served in Congress since 2013, in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. He has been actively engaged in shaping restrictions and aligns with broader cultural rhetoric that frames anti-LGBTQ speech as protected expression.
In May 2016, Mullin criticized the Department of Education and the Justice Department’s “Dear Colleague” letter on transgender students, arguing that trans girls should not use girls’ restrooms in public schools.
By January 2021, Mullin and then-Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard had introduced a bill to prevent trans women from participating in women’s sports.
Mullin was not recorded as voting on the final passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriage.
In 2023, Mullin received a rating of just 6 percent from the Human Rights Campaign.
While serving in the Senate and as a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Mullin has been a vocal critic of policies aimed at expanding LGBTQ inclusion in federal programs. He has participated in broader Republican efforts questioning equity-based implementation of the Older Americans Act, including guidance related to sexual orientation and gender identity in aging services, arguing such policies could have unintended consequences.
Mullin also makes history as the first Native American — and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation — to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
He was among the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results despite no evidence of widespread fraud, and was present in the House on Jan. 6.
Noticias en Español
La X vuelve al tribunal
Primer Circuito examina caso del reconocimiento de personas no binarias en Puerto Rico
Hace ocho meses escribí sobre este tema cuando todavía no había llegado al nivel judicial en el que se encuentra hoy. En ese momento, la discusión se movía entre decisiones administrativas, debates públicos y resistencias políticas. No era un asunto cerrado, pero tampoco había alcanzado el punto actual.
Hoy el escenario es distinto.
La organización Lambda Legal compareció ante el Tribunal de Apelaciones del Primer Circuito en Boston para solicitar que se confirme una decisión que obliga al gobierno de Puerto Rico a emitir certificados de nacimiento que reflejen la identidad de las personas no binarias. La apelación se produce luego de que un tribunal de distrito concluyera que negar esa posibilidad constituye una violación a la Constitución de Estados Unidos.
Este elemento marca la diferencia. Ya no se trata de una discusión conceptual. Existe una determinación judicial que identificó un trato desigual.
El planteamiento de la parte demandante se sostiene en el propio marco legal vigente en Puerto Rico. Los certificados de nacimiento de identidad no son registros históricos inmutables. Son documentos utilizados para fines actuales y esenciales. Permiten acceder a empleo, educación y servicios, y son requeridos en múltiples gestiones ante el Estado. Su función es operativa.
En ese contexto, la exclusión de las personas no binarias no responde a una limitación jurídica. Puerto Rico permite la corrección de marcadores de género en certificados de nacimiento para personas trans binarias desde el caso Arroyo González v. Rosselló Nevares. Además, el Código Civil reconoce la existencia de certificados que reflejan la identidad de la persona más allá del registro original.
La diferencia radica en la aplicación.
El reconocimiento se concede dentro de categorías específicas, mientras que se excluye a quienes no se identifican dentro de ese esquema. Esa exclusión es el eje de la controversia actual.
El argumento presentado por Lambda Legal es preciso. Obligar a una persona a utilizar documentos que no reflejan su identidad implica someterla a una representación incorrecta en procesos fundamentales de la vida cotidiana. Esto puede generar dificultades prácticas, exposición innecesaria y situaciones de vulnerabilidad.
Las personas demandantes, nacidas en Puerto Rico, han planteado que el acceso a documentos precisos no es una cuestión simbólica, sino una necesidad básica para poder desenvolverse sin contradicciones impuestas por el propio Estado.
El hecho de que este caso se encuentre en el sistema federal introduce una dimensión adicional. No se trata de un proyecto legislativo ni de una política pública en discusión. Es una controversia constitucional. El análisis gira en torno a derechos y a la aplicación equitativa de las leyes.
Este proceso tampoco ocurre en aislamiento.
Se desarrolla en un contexto donde los debates sobre identidad y derechos han estado marcados por una mayor presencia de posturas conservadoras en la esfera pública, tanto en Estados Unidos como en Puerto Rico. En el ámbito local, esa influencia ha sido visible en discusiones legislativas recientes, donde argumentos de carácter religioso han comenzado a formar parte del debate sobre política pública. Esa intersección introduce tensiones en torno a la separación entre iglesia y Estado y tiene efectos concretos en el acceso a derechos.
Señalar este contexto no implica cuestionar la fe ni la práctica religiosa. Implica reconocer que, cuando determinados argumentos se trasladan al ejercicio del poder público, pueden incidir en decisiones que afectan a sectores específicos de la población.
Desde Puerto Rico, esta situación no se observa a distancia. Se experimenta en la práctica diaria. En la necesidad de presentar documentos que no corresponden con la identidad de quien los porta. En las implicaciones que esto tiene en espacios laborales, educativos y administrativos.
El avance de este caso abre una posibilidad de cambio en el marco legal aplicable. No porque resuelva de inmediato todas las tensiones en torno al tema, sino porque establece un punto de análisis jurídico sobre una práctica que hasta ahora ha operado bajo criterios restrictivos.
A diferencia de hace ocho meses, el escenario actual incluye una determinación judicial que ya identificó una violación de derechos. Lo que corresponde ahora es evaluar si esa determinación se sostiene en una instancia superior.
Ese proceso no define un resultado inmediato, pero sí establece un nuevo punto de referencia.
El debate ya no es teórico.
Ahora es judicial.
New York
Court orders Pride flag to return to Stonewall
Lambda Legal, Washington Litigation Group filed federal lawsuit
The Pride flag will once again fly over the Stonewall National Monument in New York following a court order requiring the National Park Service to raise it over the site.
The decision follows a lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal and the Washington Litigation Group in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which challenged the removal as unconstitutional under the Administrative Procedure Act and argued that the government unlawfully targeted the LGBTQ community.
In February, the NPS removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument, the first national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history in the U.S. The move followed a Jan. 21 memorandum issued by President Donald Trump-appointed NPS Director Jessica Bowron restricting which flags may be flown at national parks. The directive limited displays to official government flags, with narrow exceptions for those deemed to serve an “official purpose.”
Plaintiffs successfully argued that the Pride flag meets that standard, given Stonewall’s status as the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. They also contended that the policy violated the APA by bypassing required public input and improperly applying agency rules.
The lawsuit named Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Bowron, and Amy Sebring, superintendent of Manhattan sites for the NPS, as defendants. Plaintiffs included the Gilbert Baker Foundation, Village Preservation, Equality New York, and several individuals.
The court found that the memorandum — while allowing limited exceptions for historical context purposes — was applied unlawfully in this case. As part of the settlement, the NPS is required to rehang the Pride flag on the monument’s official flagpole within seven days, where it will remain permanently.
“The sudden, arbitrary, and capricious removal of the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument was yet another act by this administration to erase the LGBTQ+ community,” said Karen Loewy, co-counsel for plaintiffs and Lambda Legal’s Senior Counsel and Director of Constitutional Law Practice. “Today, the government has pledged to restore this important symbol back to where it belongs.”
“This is a complete victory for our clients and for the LGBTQ+ community,” said Alexander Kristofcak, lead counsel for plaintiffs and a lawyer with Washington Litigation Group. “The government has acknowledged what we argued from day one: the Pride flag belongs at Stonewall. The flag will be restored and it will fly officially and permanently. And we will remain vigilant to ensure that the government sticks to the deal.”
“Gilbert Baker created the Rainbow Pride flag as a symbol of hope and liberation,” said Charles Beal, president of the Gilbert Baker Foundation. “Today, that symbol is restored to the place where it belongs, standing watch over the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.”
“The government tried to erase an important symbol of the LGBTQ+ community, and the community said no,” said Amanda Babine, executive director of Equality New York. “Today’s accomplishment proves that when we stand together and fight back, we win.”
“The removal of the Pride flag from Stonewall was an attempt to erase LGBTQ+ history and undermine the rule of law,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation. “This settlement restores both.”
With Loewy on the complaint are Douglas F. Curtis, Camilla B. Taylor, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Kenneth D. Upton Jr., Jennifer C. Pizer, and Nephetari Smith from Lambda Legal. With Kristofcak on the complaint are Mary L. Dohrmann, Sydney Foster, Kyle Freeny, James I. Pearce, and Nathaniel Zelinsky from Washington Litigation Group.
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