News

DOJ slammed for ducking on trans exclusion in ADA

Obama administration says resolution to case based on Title VII the right approach

Published

11 years ago

July 27, 2015

scales of justice, gay news, Washington Blade

The Justice Department ducked on whether the trans exclusion in ADA is unconstitutional. (Photo by Mbiama via Wikimedia Commons)

As civil rights advocates celebrate the 25th anniversary enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, one New England-based LGBT group is criticizing the Obama administration for ducking on the issue of whether the transgender exclusion in the law is unconstitutional.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders took the Justice Department to task in a statement last week for declining to weigh in on the explicit transgender exclusion written into the 1990 law.

The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, public accommodations and other areas, but the law explicitly states it doesn’t include “transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism [and] gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments or other sexual behavior disorders.”

Jennifer Levi, director of GLAD’s trans rights project, said the Justice Department’s decision to avoid the trans exclusion in a statement of interest filed on July 21 is “surprising and disappointing.”

“Given the rank animus behind it, the exclusion serves to marginalize and stigmatize a minority group that the DOJ has recognized needs and deserves legal protections,” Levi said.

Kate Lynn Blatt, a transgender employee at the hunter gear Cabela’s Retail, filed a discrimination claim against her employer under both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, on the grounds the store discriminated against her based on her sex; and the ADA, on the basis the store refused to reasonably accommodate her by denying her use of a restroom consistent with her gender identity and the ability to wear a nametag with her correct name. Blair also endured harassment from supervisors and co-workers and was abruptly terminated in 2007.

In a four-page statement of interest signed by trial attorney Emily Nestler, the Justice Department asks the court to hold off on determining the constitutionality of ADA’s trans exclusion until the challenge on the basis of Title VII is resolved.

“The United States respectfully requests that the Court defer ruling upon Plaintiff’s constitutional challenge to the GID Exclusion until after the Title VII claims are resolved, as disposition of Plaintiff’s Title VII claims could resolve this case without the need to reach the constitutionality of the GID Exclusion,” the filing says. “Should the Court later determine that the constitutional issue cannot be avoided, the United States respectfully reserves the right to intervene or file a supplemental statement of interest at that time.”

In 2012, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined in the case of Macy v. Holder the gender provision under Title VII applies to workplace discrimination against people for being transgender. In a statement in December, the Justice Department followed suit, saying the U.S. government would no longer deny the law covers gender-identity discrimination.

Levi added the filing has two silver linings: the reassertion that Title VII prohibits workplace discrimination against transgender people and language that enables the Justice Department to revisit the trans exclusion at a later time.

“While we acknowledge these bright spots, the problem created by the ADA exclusion remains,” Levi said. “Congress excluded transgender people from the protections of the ADA because of the stigma associated with gender dysphoria. As long as the transgender exclusion remains within the law, the ADA fails in its promise to create a level playing field in employment for all people capable of doing the job.”

The U.S. Justice Department deferred to its filing in the case in response to the Washington Blade’s request to comment on GLAD’s criticism.

Representing Blatt is Sidney Gold, Neelima Vanguri and Brian Farrell of the Philadelphia-based Sidney L. Gold & Associates. Along with Law Professor Kevin Barry of Quinnipiac University, GLAD and other trans rights groups filed a friend-of-the-court brief in January arguing by maintaining the trans exclusion, the ADA perpetrates the kind of discrimination it seeks to dismantle.

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District of Columbia

Trans activists arrested outside HHS headquarters in D.C.

Protesters demonstrated directive against gender-affirming care

Published

2 hours ago

February 20, 2026

Joe Reberkenny

(Photo by Alexa B. Wilkinson)

Authorities on Tuesday arrested 24 activists outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services headquarters in D.C.

The Gender Liberation Movement, a national organization that uses direct action, media engagement, and policy advocacy to defend bodily autonomy and self-determination, organized the protest in which more than 50 activists participated. Organizers said the action was a response to changes in federal policy mandated by Executive Order 14187, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.”

The order directs federal agencies and programs to work toward “significantly limiting youth access to gender-affirming care nationwide,” according to KFF, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that provides independent, fact-based information on national health issues. The executive order also includes claims about gender-affirming care and transgender youth that critics have described as misinformation.

Members of ACT UP NY and ACT UP Pittsburgh also participated in the demonstration, which took place on the final day of the public comment period for proposed federal rules that would restrict access to gender-affirming care.

Demonstrators blocked the building’s main entrance, holding a banner reading “HANDS OFF OUR ‘MONES,” while chanting, “HHS—RFK—TRANS YOUTH ARE NO DEBATE” and “NO HATE—NO FEAR—TRANS YOUTH ARE WELCOME HERE.”

“We want trans youth and their loving families to know that we see them, we cherish them, and we won’t let these attacks go on without a fight,” said GLM co-founder Raquel Willis. “We also want all Americans to understand that Trump, RFK, and their HHS won’t stop at trying to block care for trans youth — they’re coming for trans adults, for those who need treatment from insulin to SSRIs, and all those already failed by a broken health insurance system.”

“It is shameful and intentional that this administration is pitting communities against one another by weaponizing Medicaid funding to strip care from trans youth. This has nothing to do with protecting health and everything to do with political distraction,” added GLM co-founder Eliel Cruz. “They are targeting young people to deflect from their failure to deliver for working families across the country. Instead of restricting care, we should be expanding it. Healthcare is a human right, and it must be accessible to every person — without cost or exception.”

Despite HHS’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming care for trans youth, major medical associations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Endocrine Society — continue to regard such care as evidence-based treatment. Gender-affirming care can include psychotherapy, social support, and, when clinically appropriate, puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

The protest comes amid broader shifts in access to care nationwide.

NYU Langone Health recently announced it will stop providing transition-related medical care to minors and will no longer accept new patients into its Transgender Youth Health Program following President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order targeting trans healthcare.

Ecuador

Justicia reconoce delito de odio en caso de bullying en Instituto Nacional Mejía de Ecuador

Johana B se suicidó el 11 de abril de 2023

Published

24 hours ago

February 19, 2026

Edición Cientonce

(Imagen de cortesía)

Edición Cientonce es el socio mediático del Washington Blade en Ecuador. Esta nota salió en su sitio web el 9 de febrero.

A casi tres años del suicidio de Johana B., quien estudió en el Instituto Nacional Mejía, colegio emblemático de Quito, el Tribunal de la Corte Nacional de Justicia ratificó la condena para el alumno responsable del acoso escolar que la llevó a quitarse la vida.

Según información de la Fiscalía, el fallo de última instancia deja en firme la condena de cuatro años de internamiento en un centro para adolescentes infractores, en una audiencia de casación pedida por la defensa del agresor, tres meses antes de que prescriba el caso.

Con la sentencia, este caso es uno de los primeros en el país en reconocer actos de odio por violencia de género, delito tipificado en el artículo 177 del Código Orgánico Penal Integral (COIP).

El suicidio de Johana B. ocurrió el 11 abril de 2023 y fue consecuencia del acoso escolar por estereotipos de género que enfrentó la estudiante por parte de su agresor, quien constantemente la insultaba y agredía por su forma de vestir, llevar el cabello corto o practicar actividades que hace años se consideraban exclusivamente para hombres, como ser mando de la Banda de Paz en el Instituto Nacional Mejía.

Desde la muerte de Johana, su familia buscaba justicia. Su padre, José, en una entrevista concedida a edición cientonce para la investigación periodística Los suicidios que quedan en el clóset a causa de la omisión estatal afirmó que su hija era acosada por su compañero y otres estudiantes con apodos como “marimacha”, lo que también fue corroborado en los testimonios recogidos por la Unidad de Justicia Juvenil No. 4 de la Fiscalía.

Los resultados de la autopsia psicológica y del examen antropológico realizados tras la muerte de Johana confirmaron las versiones de sus compañeras y docentes: que su agresor la acosó de manera sistemática durante dos años. Los empujones, jalones de cabello o burlas, incluso por su situación económica, eran constantes en el aula de clase.

La violencia que recibió Johana escaló cuando su compañero le dio un codazo en la espalda ocasionándole una lesión que le imposibilitó caminar y asistir a clases.

Días después del hecho, la adolescente se quitó la vida en su casa, tras escuchar que la madre del agresor se negó a pagar la mitad del valor de una tomografía para determinar la lesión en su espalda, tal como lo había acordado previamente con sus padres y frente al personal del DECE (Departamento de Consejería Estudiantil del colegio), según versiones de su familia y la Fiscalía.

#AFONDO | Johana se suicidó el 11 de abril de 2023, tras ser víctima de acoso escolar por no cumplir con estereotipos femeninos 😢.

Dos semanas antes, uno de sus compañeros le dio un codazo en la espalda, ocasionándole una lesión que le imposibilitó caminar 🧵 pic.twitter.com/bXKUs9YYOm

— EdicionCientonce (@EdCientonce) September 3, 2025

“Era una chica linda, fuerte, alegre. Siempre nos llevamos muy bien, hemos compartido todo. Nos dejó muchos recuerdos y todos nos sentimos tristes; siempre estamos pensando en ella. Es un vacío tan grande aquí, en este lugar”, expresó José a Edición Cientonce el año pasado.

Para la fiscal del caso y de la Unidad de Justicia Juvenil de la Fiscalía, Martha Reino, el suicidio de la adolescente fue un agravante que se contempló durante la audiencia de juzgamiento de marzo de 2024, según explicó a este medio el año pasado. Desde entonces, la familia del agresor presentó un recurso de casación en la Corte Nacional de Justicia, que provocó la dilatación del proceso.

En el fallo de última instancia, el Tribunal también dispuso que el agresor pague $3.000 a la familia de Johana B. como reparación integral. Además, el adolescente deberá recibir medidas socioeducativas, de acuerdo al artículo 385 del Código Orgánico de la Niñez y Adolescencia, señala la Fiscalía.

El caso de Johana también destapó las omisiones y negligencias del personal del DECE y docentes del Instituto Nacional Mejía. En la etapa de instrucción fiscal se comprobó que no se aplicaron los protocolos respectivos para proteger a la víctima.

De hecho, la Fiscalía conoció el caso a raíz de la denuncia que presentó su padre, José, y no por el DECE, aseguró la fiscal el año pasado a Edición Cientonce.

Pese a estas omisiones presentadas en el proceso, el fallo de última instancia sólo ratificó la condena para el estudiante.

U.S. Military/Pentagon

4th Circuit rules against discharged service members with HIV

Judges overturned lower court ruling

Published

2 days ago

February 18, 2026

Joe Reberkenny

The Pentagon (Photo by icholakov/Bigstock)

A federal appeals court on Wednesday reversed a lower court ruling that struck down the Pentagon’s ban on people with HIV enlisting in the military.

The conservative three-judge panel on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2024 ruling that had declared the Defense Department and Army policies barring all people living with HIV from military service unconstitutional.

The 4th Circuit, which covers Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, held that the military has a “rational basis” for maintaining medical standards that categorically exclude people living with HIV from enlisting, even those with undetectable viral loads — meaning their viral levels are so low that they cannot transmit the virus and can perform all duties without health limitations.

This decision could have implications for other federal circuits dealing with HIV discrimination cases, as well as for nationwide military policy.

The case, Wilkins v. Hegseth, was filed in November 2022 by Lambda Legal and other HIV advocacy groups on behalf of three individual plaintiffs who could not enlist or re-enlist based on their HIV status, as well as the organizational plaintiff Minority Veterans of America.

The plaintiffs include a transgender woman who was honorably discharged from the Army for being HIV-positive, a gay man who was in the Georgia National Guard but cannot join the Army, and a cisgender woman who cannot enlist in the Army because she has HIV, along with the advocacy organization Minority Veterans of America.

Isaiah Wilkins, the gay man, was separated from the Army Reserves and disenrolled from the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School after testing positive for HIV. His legal counsel argued that the military’s policy violates his equal protection rights under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

In August 2024, a U.S. District Court sided with Wilkins, forcing the military to remove the policy barring all people living with HIV from joining the U.S. Armed Services. The court cited that this policy — and ones like it that discriminate based on HIV status — are “irrational, arbitrary, and capricious” and “contribute to the ongoing stigma surrounding HIV-positive individuals while actively hampering the military’s own recruitment goals.”

The Pentagon appealed the decision, seeking to reinstate the ban, and succeeded with Wednesday’s court ruling.

Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, one of the three-judge panel nominated to the 4th Circuit by President George H. W. Bush, wrote in his judicial opinion that the military is “a specialized society separate from civilian society,” and that the military’s “professional judgments in this case [are] reasonably related to its military mission,” and thus “we conclude that the plaintiffs’ claims fail as a matter of law.”

“We are deeply disappointed that the 4th Circuit has chosen to uphold discrimination over medical reality,” said Gregory Nevins, senior counsel and employment fairness project director for Lambda Legal. “Modern science has unequivocally shown that HIV is a chronic, treatable condition. People with undetectable viral loads can deploy anywhere, perform all duties without limitation, and pose no transmission risk to others. This ruling ignores decades of medical advancement and the proven ability of people living with HIV to serve with distinction.”

“As both the 4th Circuit and the district court previously held, deference to the military does not extend to irrational decision-making,” said Scott Schoettes, who argued the case on appeal. “Today, servicemembers living with HIV are performing all kinds of roles in the military and are fully deployable into combat. Denying others the opportunity to join their ranks is just as irrational as the military’s former policy.”