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Obama nominates black lesbian to serve on federal judiciary

Yandle a known supporter of greater diversity in legal profession

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Citizens Metal, Barack Obama, gay news, Washington Blade
President Obama nominated a black lesbian on Thursday to the federal judiciary. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key).

President Obama nominated a black lesbian on Thursday to the federal judiciary. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

President Obama added to his list of openly gay judicial appointments on Thursday by naming a black lesbian to serve on the federal court.

Obama nominated Staci Michelle Yandle for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois on Thursday as part of a group of four nominees.

ā€œI am pleased to nominate these distinguished individuals to serve on the United States District Court bench,ā€ Obama said in a statement. ā€œI am confident they will serve the American people with integrity and a steadfast commitment to justice.ā€

Yandle, who was recommended by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), will need confirmation from the U.S. Senate before she’s seated on the bench.

In a statement, Durbin called Yandle an “excellent candidate” to serve on the federal judiciary in Illinois.

ā€œShe will bring a wealth of knowledge and litigation experience to the position,” Durbin said. “I am pleased that President Obama has nominated her today. I will be working with Senator Kirk to see her nomination approved by the Senate.ā€

The U.S. Senate has already confirmed a total of eight openly gay judges to the federal bench, and Obama named seven of the them. If confirmed, Yandle would be the first openly gay person to serve Illinois on the federal judiciary.

In an interview with Trial Associate in July, Yandle said she thinks the plaintiff bar can be more diverse “whether you are talking about ethnic, gender, or sexual orientation diversity” ā€” a rule she said could apply to any profession.

“The plaintiff bar needs to be more embracing of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community,” Yandle said. “When I first started practicing, for a while I did not feel comfortable acknowledging my sexual orientation because I didnā€™t want it to cost me my job. I wanted to be judged on my merit and my merit alone. Many members of the LGBT community still have that fear. We are a traditional profession that is conservative in many ways.”

According to a bio provided by the White House, Yandle has served as a solo practitioner in southern Illinois since 2007, where she focused her practice on civil litigation in federal and state court. She received her law degree in 1987 from the Vanderbilt University and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois in 1983.

Yandle has also engaged in public service, serving by appointment on the Illinois Gaming Board from 1999 to 2001 and on the Illinois Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in the 1990s.

LGBT advocates praised the Yandle nomination for its potential to add diversity to the federal judiciary.

Michael Cole-Schwartz, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, was among those praising Obama for his choice.

ā€œThe nomination of Staci Michelle Yandle is further evidence that the administration is committed to building a judiciary that reflects the diversity of our country,” Cole-Schwartz said. “She is a highly qualified nominee who will serve with distinction.”

Denis Dison, spokesperson for the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, said the confirmation of Yandle to the federal judiciary would enhance the diversity of the courts.

“Our government, including the judiciary, works best when it benefits from the perspectives and experiences of all Americans, so we applaud the president’s effort to increase diversity on the federal bench,” Dison said. “Staci Yandle’s nomination is also a reminder of the enormous talent, professionalism and diversity that exists within the American LGBT community, and we congratulate her on this achievement.”

But Yandle wasn’t the only openly LGBT nominee that Obama named on Thursday. Shamina Singh, executive director for the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth, was nominated for a seat on the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National & Community Service

Yandle wouldn’t be the first openly lesbian African American to serve on the federal judiciary. That distinction belongs to Deborah Batts, whom the Senate confirmed during the Clinton administration in 1994 for a seat on the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York.

It’s also not the first time that Obama has nominated an openly LGBT black person to serve on the federal judiciary. In November 2012, Obama nominated William Thomas for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

However, after initially recommending the nominee, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) objected to Thomas and held up the nomination. After no action was taken on the nomination over more than a year, Obama didn’t renew his recommendation of Thomas at the start of the year.

In related news, another openly LGBT judicial nominee advanced in the Senate on the same day that Obama named Yandle for a seat on the federal courts.

The Senate Judiciary Committee reported out Judith Levy, whom Obama nominated in July for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, by voice vote as part of a group of 32 nominees. She currently serves as an assistant U.S. attorney in Michigan.

Dā€™Arcy Kemnitz, executive director of the LGBT Bar Association, praised the committee for moving forward with the Levy nomination and urged the full Senate to confirm her.

“Just as women, African Americans, Latinos and others have made our judicial system stronger through their expertise and experiences, openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender judges and attorneys also ensure our courts reflect our country,” Kemnitz said. “We now call on the full Senate to vote on Levyā€™s nomination without delay.ā€

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The White House

Trump bars trans women and girls from sports

The administration reversed course on the Biden-Harris policy on Title IX

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President Donald Trump (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued another executive order taking aim at the transgender community, this time focusing on eligibility for sports participation.

In a signing ceremony for ā€œKeeping Men Out of Womenā€™s Sports” in the East Room of the White House, the president proclaimed “With this executive order, the war on womenā€™s sports is over.”

Despite the insistence by Trump and Republicans that trans women and girls have a biological advantage in sports over cisgender women and girls, the research has been inconclusive, at best.

A study in the peer reviewed Sports Medicine journal found ā€œno direct or consistent researchā€ pointing to this conclusion. A different review in 2023 found that post-pubertal differences are ā€œreduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy.ā€

Other critics of efforts to exclude trans student athletes have pointed to the small number of people who are impacted. Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, testified last year that fewer than 10 of the NCAA’s 522,000+ student athletes identify as trans.

The Trump-Vance administration has reversed course from the Biden-Harris administration’s policy on Title IX rules barring sex-based discrimination.

ā€œIf youā€™re going to have womenā€™s sports, if youā€™re going to provide opportunities for women, then they have to be equally safe, equally fair, and equally private opportunities, and so that means that youā€™re going to preserve womenā€™s sports for women,” a White House official said prior to the issuance of the order.

Former President Joe Biden’s Title IX rules, which went into effect last year, clarified that pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), sex-based discrimination includes that which is based on the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The White House official indicated that the administration will consider additional guidance, regulations, and interpretations of Title IX, as well as exploring options to handle noncompliance by threatening federal funding for schools and education programs.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump ā€œdoes expect the Olympic Committee and the NCAA to no longer allow men to compete in womenā€™s sports.ā€

One of the first legislative moves by the new Congress last month was House Republicans’ passage of the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which would ban trans women and girls from participating in competitive athletics.

The bill is now before the U.S. Senate, where Republicans have a three-seat majority but would need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster.

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Congress

House Dems urge OPM not to implement anti-trans executive order

Authors were Dem. U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (Calif.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), and Gerald Connolly (Va.)

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Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Three House Democrats including Congressional Equality Caucus Chair Mark Takano (Calif.) issued a letter on Wednesday urging the Office of Personnel Management to not implement President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”

Also signing the letter were U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Rep. Gerald Connolly (Va.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.

The lawmakers wrote the order “unlawfully attacks the civil rights of transgender Americans” while the White House’s corresponding memo and guidance “implements unlawful discrimination by the federal government against transgender people in the civil service and the provision of federal services.”

Specifically, they call unconstitutional the directive for agencies to “end all programs, contracts, grants, positions, documents, directives, orders, regulations, materials, forms,
communications, statements, plans, and training that ‘inculcate’ or ‘promote’ ‘gender
ideology’ā€”which the Executive Order defines broadly to encompass acknowledging the simple
existence of transgender people and gender identity.”

ā€œWe are deeply alarmed by these and other actions the Trump Administration has taken in its first few weeks to eliminate all government support for the transgender community, including efforts designed to enforcing the rights and support the health of transgender individuals,” the congressmen wrote.

They added, “We are also appalled by the Administrationā€™s attempts to weaponize federal agencies to target the transgender community for discrimination and exclusion. These actions contradict federal law, Supreme Court precedent, and most importantly the Constitutionā€™s guarantee of equal protection under the law.ā€

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Africa

Suspension of US aid forces PEPFAR-funded programs in Africa to close down

Funding freeze is ‘matter of life and death’

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(Bigstock photo)

The suspension of nearly all U.S. foreign aid has forced a number of programs that the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funds in Africa to shut down.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24Ā directedĀ State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response toĀ an executive orderĀ that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other ā€œlife-saving humanitarian assistanceā€ programs to continue operating after bowing to pressure.

A message on the U.S. Agency for International Development’s website notes “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership, and specially designated programs.” The announcement is scheduled to take place on Friday at 11:59 p.m. ET.

One of the PEPFAR-funded healthcare programs in Kenya still impacted by the funding freeze, despite Rubio’s waiver, is the Fahari ya Jamii (“joy of the community” in Swahili) initiative that began in 2022. The University of Nairobi was jointly implementing the project.

The Sh4.2 billion ($32,558,139.52) project sought to coordinate and manage high quality, cost-effective, and accessible HIV services in Nairobi, neighboring Kajiado County, and other parts of Kenya. Fahari ya Jamii was scheduled to end in May 2026, but it has closed indefinitely because of a lack of U.S. funding.

More than 700 staff, mostly healthcare workers, on Jan. 31 were placed on unpaid leave for three months, or until Washington decides whether to unfreeze funding. More than 150 Fahari ya Jamii clinics that offer HIV treatment to at least 72,000 people on antiretroviral drugs have also shut down.

The initiativeā€™s target groups include children, adolescents, and adults living with HIV; young people, men, and women at risk of HIV; and key populations that include men who have sex with men and female sex workers.  Fahari ya Jamii since 2022 has offered HIV tests to more than 257,500 people, connected 94 percent of those who tested positive to treatment, distributed condoms and lubricants, and disseminated safter sex messages to their target groups.

Faith Ndungā€™u, advocacy manager for Kenya’s Health NGOs’ Network (HENNET) said the Trump-Vance administration should have used a humane approach to engage with countries that benefit from U.S. funding, instead of abruptly suspending it.

ā€œWe are feeling the magnitude of the suspension in the health sector because these are lives; these are people,” said Ndung’u. “When such an abrupt decision is made, we are talking about more than one million people living with HIV being affected.ā€

HENNET is an umbrella group with 112 members from local and international NGOs, faith-based organizations, and research institutions that focus on health-related issues inĀ Kenyaā€™s 47 local governments.

ā€œThis is now a wakeup call for Kenya and Africa to invest in the health sector by funding it more not to be in a similar crisis when a donor pulls out or forfeits his commitment,ā€ Ndungā€™u said.  

Local governments that also rely on USAID to run PEPFAR programs have suspended their U.S.-funded activities and phased out the stand-alone comprehensive HIV care centers by integrating treatment and care into general health care services. This move has forced hundreds of health care workers to go onto unpaid leave and wait for further guidance.

Pema Kenya, a Mombasa-based queer lobby group, said the decision to suspend funding means “uncertain times” for the LGBTQ community and Kenyans at large who depend upon U.S.-funded groups for their health care.

ā€œMany queer organizations rely heavily on USAID funding for vital services such as HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, mental health support, and legal aid,ā€ Pema Kenya stated.

Pema Kenya noted the suspension of U.S. aid could severely cripple queer organizations and leave vulnerable people with limited access to crucial resources.

ā€œThis would be a significant setback in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other health crises disproportionately affecting the LGBTQ+ community,ā€ Pema Kenya stated.   

GALCK, a coalition of 16 Kenyan LGBTQ rights groups, was even more blunt.

“This isn’t just a policy decision; it’s a matter of life and death,” it said in a statement.

OUT and Engage Man’s Health ā€” two South African organizations that provide HIV services to MSM, transgender people, sex workers, and other vulnerable groups through PEPFAR ā€” have also been impacted by the U.S. funding freeze.

OUT and Engage Manā€™s Health, which provides HIV services to MSM, announced on Jan. 27 that it will stop offering services ā€œuntil further noticeā€ due to a lack of funding. The organization asked its clients to seek services from the nearest public health facilities.

ā€œWe deeply value our clients and remain committed to safeguarding your health,” said the announcement. “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and disruption this may cause. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide further details at this time.ā€

Kenya and most other African countries have said a permanent suspension of U.S. aid will adversely impact progress made in the health sector, particularly the fight against HIV/AIDS. Botswana and some other nations on the continent that use their national budgets to purchase antiretroviral drugs, have assured their citizens the supply of these medications will not be interrupted.

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