Local
D.C. Fire & EMS issues trans ‘general order’
Honoring ‘all types of diversity’
‘I think as an agency we have a responsibility … in trying to make sure we honor all types of diversity here within the agency,” said Fire and EMS Chief Gregory M. Dean. (Photo courtesy Twitter)
The D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department on June 1 issued a five-page General Order on Gender Identity and Expression that updates the department’s policy for dealing with transgender patients and employees.
Among other things, the order says Fire and EMS Department members are required to treat transgender patients and citizens with respect and without bias, including the way they address them by name.
“The Department shall ensure that all employees respect and use a transgender individual’s preferred names and pronouns, as repeated failure to do so can be considered harassment under the District of Columbia Human Rights Act and a violation of Department policy,” the order states.
“The gender identity expressed or presented by the individual shall be accepted and honored,” the order says, adding, “Transgender individuals shall not be subject to a more invasive medical exam or procedure than any non-transgender individual solely on the basis of their transgender identity.”
It says that if a transgender person’s legal name or birth gender is needed for legal or medical reasons, it must be kept confidential.
“The members shall provide to the relevant hospital staff information that is medically necessary regarding the transgender individual, so they may treat the person respectfully, while maintaining confidentiality of the information from non-relevant hospital staff,” the order says.
Concerning transgender employees at the Fire and EMS Department, the order says the department, when requested, “shall make reasonable accommodation, including medical leave, for transgender related and other health needs,” including but not limited to medical or counseling appointments, surgery, recovery from surgery, “and any other related procedures.”
Fire and EMS Chief Gregory M. Dean and the department’s Diversity Program Manager Kim McDaniel told the Blade last week that although the release of the general order at the start of LGBT Pride Month was a coincidence the department would be reaching out to the LGBT community this weekend.
Dean noted that department employees and officials, along with a fire truck, will be participating in the Capital Pride Parade on June 10. He said along the parade route paramedics would offer on-the-spot CPR chest compression training to parade bystanders as well as participants.
“I think as an agency we have a responsibility – and since Kim joined us we have been very diligent – in trying to make sure we honor all types of diversity here within the agency,” Dean said.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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