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In seesaw experience, LGBTQ fed’l workers enjoy new openness under Biden

Pride Month celebrated after neglect in Trump years

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Anthony Musa, chair of Pride in Federal Service, said the change for LGBTQ federal workers is dramatic.

With Pride month underway and the coronavirus pandemic getting under control, LGBTQ federal workers are expressing a new sense of ebullience about being able to celebrate openly this season after a more muted experience during the Trump administration.

The new excitement about the openness is the latest chapter for LGBTQ federal employees, who have a unique seesaw experience of having alternating periods of support mixed with periods when the leadership is disengaged or even hostile.

Anthony Musa, chair of Pride in Federal Service for LGBTQ federal employees, said the change in feeling to “a sense of acceptance” is in no small part the result of outreach from the top in the Biden administration.

“There is a strong push by the White House, especially lately in the past couple of weeks to really reach out directly to LGBTQ+ federal employees and ensure that Pride month is celebrated and that employees are supported by both the administration and the political appointees within the individual departments and agencies,” Musa said.

One example of the Biden administration reaching out, Musa said, is the White House Office of Public Engagement coming to affinity groups for LGBTQ federal workers and offering assistance for promotion and coordination of Pride celebrations.

It’s not just Pride events. Musa said the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has been conducting periodic calls about the Federal Health Benefits Program to highlight opportunities for LGBTQ families and health care for transgender and non-binary people.

The Biden administration’s outreach to LGBTQ employees is visible in other ways. For the first time, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm last week raised the Progress Pride flag outside of her department’s headquarters in D.C. in an event recognizing Pride month.

The sense of jubilation outside the Department of Energy was palpable among its LGBTQ employees, who were able to openly celebrate Pride at an official event with a top Biden administration official.

Helping Granholm raise the flag was Tarak Shah, chief of staff for the energy secretary and the first openly gay person to occupy that role.

Shah said via email to the Washington Blade he considers the experience of raising the Pride flag at the Department of Energy “a moment that is incredibly personally meaningful – and one I don’t take for granted.”

“For much of our nation’s history, our institutions have held LGBTQ+ people back,” Shah said. “But, when we raised the flag over DOE this month, we symbolically lifted up our people up, and set an example for the energy and scientific communities around the world. I am proud to be part of an administration that says clearly ‘we have your back’ and for an energy secretary who is a champion for LGBTQ people everywhere.”

The State Department is experiencing a similar change. After the Trump administration in its final years prohibited U.S. embassies from flying the Pride flag on the official pole, the State Department reversed the policy, allowing the rainbow flag to be flown alongside the U.S. flag.

A gay civil service officer at the State Department, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak with the media, said the new policy at U.S. embassies as well as Pride proclamations from Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken are having a positive impact.

“One thing I’ve been noticing is within the GLIFAA group on Facebook, people sharing photos of our embassies and consulates around the world with the [Pride] flag flying on the same pole with the U.S. flag,” the officer said. “Those kinds of signals alone I think are making people feel like it’s just a completely different world instead of months ago for us. You know where we were.”

The new flag policy, the officer said, is consistent with a broader change at the State Department of leadership making diversity writ large a priority, which includes having a diversity and equity official in place who reports directly to the secretary of state.

In contrast, the Trump administration’s approach to LGBTQ employees was largely hands-off — if not a climate of hostility. LGBTQ people who continued to work in the federal government didn’t have the same engagement from the top down and contended with policies frustrating plans for Pride activities.

One example of the Trump administration being counterproductive was the executive order former President Trump signed prohibiting critical race theory in diversity training for federal employees. Because the directive required review of all diversity engagement — even if it didn’t include critical race theory — the executive order hampered organization among LGBTQ employees.

In fact, last year Pride in Federal Service was forced to cancel a summit for LGBTQ federal employees because Trump’s executive order on critical race theory made things too complicated.

Musa said the Trump administration offered “absolutely no outreach or support” for engagement with federal government employees.

“We were offering some training with OPM on diversity and inclusion that we had to suspend because it fit within those guidelines of what was restricted,” Musa said. “So it was difficult to say the least.”

But the change in atmosphere isn’t the result of the change in administration alone. LGBTQ workers are also feeling a sense of renewal with the coronavirus in the rear-window as domestic vaccinations continue to increase and events cancelled in the past year are happening again.

One event in honor of Pride month cancelled last year due to coronavirus, but now happening again, is a celebration at the Pentagon for LGBTQ service members and civilian employees. Although the events at the Defense Department had taken place annually since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal was certified in 2011, coronavirus broke the annual streak of that new tradition.

Rudy Coots, president of the LGBTQ employee group DOD Pride, said LGBTQ federal employees are able to reconnect in ways that haven’t been possible for a long time thanks to the lifting of coronavirus restrictions.

“I would say that we’re excited to be able to celebrate Pride month this year in person since COVID-19 prevented us from having an event last year,” Coots said. “So we’re very excited about that, and we’re certainly in the department very excited that the secretary of defense will honor us with remarks as our keynote speaker.”

Also in contrast to the previous administration at the Pentagon event for Pride month is the presence at the event of a Cabinet-level official. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is set to deliver the keynote address, a stark contrast to the Trump years when Pride events within federal agencies were more limited and didn’t include Cabinet-level officials.

With such a distinction between one administration and the next, LGBTQ workers in the federal government acknowledge they face a unique seesaw effect — and the on-and-off experience takes a toll.

In recent years, the neglect and outright hostility during the George W. Bush administration changed when former President Obama took office, but the pendulum swung the other way during the Trump years, and now the situation for LGBTQ federal workers has changed once again with Biden in office.

Musa said the back-and-forth isn’t necessarily as difficult for workers who live in D.C., which has robust legal protections against anti-LGBTQ discrimination, but the situation is different for federal employees in other areas.

“We are a small minority of federal employees; the majority of federal employees work outside the D.C. region,” Musa said. “And I think that really having that back and forth seesaw type thing where things are either really good depending on what administration’s in charge or really bad, is particularly aggravating.”

Musa added the stress of the back-and-forth would be alleviated if a federal law expanding the prohibitions on anti-LGBTQ discrimination, such as the Equality Act, were in place. The bill, however, continues to languish in Congress and is all but dead.

Despite the on-and-off track record, LGBTQ federal workers continue to hold out hope of greater stability in the near future and say as time passes the changes made for a welcoming work environment have become more and more durable.

The gay civil service officer at the State Department said the momentum is toward greater LGBTQ inclusion within the federal workforce and “over time, it will be harder and harder to walk back these changes,” pointing to a few bright spots in the Trump administration.

“They yanked the flag and some other stuff, but they were still fighting to get same-sex spouses accredited and countries that don’t allow you to accredit your spouse,” the officer said. “And so a lot of the things that had changed actually under the Obama administration did remain in place.”

The officer conceded, however, LGBTQ public advocacy in the State Department on behalf of the community, both abroad and within its workforce “really fell away, and then obviously there were specific cases of political attacks against LGBTQ staff that are well documented.”

Musa predicted the situation with LGBTQ employees would evolve to a place of continued support regardless of the administration in power, which he said would stem from civil service leadership’s more consistent support as opposed to political appointees.

“That’s sort of my hope,” Musa concluded. “Worst case scenario we end up back in the same way we were in late 2020, but hopefully we don’t go back to that.”

CORRECTION: An initial version of this article misspelled the name of Rudy Coots. The Blade regrets the error.

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U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court declines to hear case over drag show at Texas university

Students argue First Amendment protects performance

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The U.S. Supreme Court justices on June 30, 2022. ((Photo by Fred Schilling of the U.S. Supreme Court)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a First Amendment case over a public university president’s refusal to allow an LGBTQ student group to host a drag show on campus.

The group’s application was denied without the justices providing their reasoning or issuing dissenting opinions, as is custom for such requests for emergency review.

When plaintiffs sought to organize the drag performance to raise money for suicide prevention in March 2023, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler cancelled the event, citing the Bible and other religious texts.

The students sued, arguing the move constituted prior restraint and viewpoint-based discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment. Wendler had called drag shows “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny,” adding that “a harmless drag show” was “not possible.”

The notoriously conservative Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who former President Donald Trump appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, ruled against the plaintiffs in September, writing that “it is not clearly established that all drag shows are inherently expressive.”

Kacsmaryk further argued that the High Court’s precedent-setting opinions protecting stage performances and establishing that “speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend” was inconsistent with constitutional interpretation based on “text, history and tradition.”

Plaintiffs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is by far the most conservative of the nation’s 12 appellate circuit courts. They sought emergency review by the Supreme Court because the 5th Circuit refused to fast-track their case, so arguments were scheduled to begin after the date of their drag show.

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Federal Government

EXCLUSIVE: USAID LGBTQ coordinator visits Uganda

Jay Gilliam met with activists, community members from Feb. 19-27

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U.S. Agency for International Development Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam (Photo courtesy of USAID)

U.S. Agency for International Development Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam last month traveled to Uganda.

Gilliam was in the country from Feb. 19-27. He visited Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and the nearby city of Jinja.

Gilliam met with LGBTQ activists who discussed the impact of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, a law with a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality” that President Yoweri Museveni signed last May. Gilliam also sat down with USAID staffers.

Gilliam on Wednesday during an exclusive interview with the Washington Blade did not identify the specific activists and organizations with whom he met “out of protection.” 

“I really wanted to meet with community members and understand the impacts on them,” he said.

Consensual same-sex sexual relations in Uganda were already criminalized before Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act. Gilliam told the Blade he spoke with a person who said authorities arrested them at a community meeting for mental health and psychosocial support “under false pretenses of engaging in same-sex relations and caught in a video that purportedly showed him.” 

The person, according to Gilliam, said authorities outed them and drove them around the town in which they were arrested in order to humiliate them. Gilliam told the Blade that prisoners and guards beat them, subjected them to so-called anal exams and denied them access to antiretroviral drugs.

“They were told that you are not even a human being. From here on you are no longer living, just dead,” recalled Gilliam.

“I just can’t imagine how difficult it is for someone to be able to live through something like that and being released and having ongoing needs for personal security, having to be relocated and getting support for that and lots of other personal issues and trauma,” added Gilliam.

Gilliam said activists shared stories of landlords and hotel owners evicting LGBTQ people and advocacy groups from their properties. Gilliam told the Blade they “purport that they don’t want to run afoul of” the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

“These evictions really exacerbate the needs from the community in terms of relocation and temporary shelter and just the trauma of being kicked out of your home, being kicked out of your village and having to find a place to stay at a moment’s notice, knowing that you’re also trying to escape harm and harassment from neighbors and community members,” he said.

Gilliam also noted the Anti-Homosexuality Act has impacted community members in different ways.

Reported cases of violence and eviction, for example, are higher among gay men and transgender women. Gilliam noted lesbian, bisexual and queer women and trans men face intimate partner violence, are forced into marriages, endure corrective rape and lose custody of their children when they are outed. He said these community members are also unable to inherit land, cannot control their own finances and face employment discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  

US sanctioned Ugandan officials over Anti-Homosexuality Act

The U.S imposed visa restrictions on Ugandan officials shortly after Museveni signed the law. The World Bank Group later announced the suspension of new loans to Uganda.

The Biden-Harris administration last October issued a business advisory that said the Anti-Homosexuality Act “further increases restrictions on human rights, to include restrictions on freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly and exacerbates issues regarding the respect for leases and employment contracts.” The White House has also removed Uganda from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free with the U.S. and has issued a business advisory for the country over the Anti-Homosexuality Act. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 4, 2023, announced sanctions against current and former Ugandan officials who committed human rights abuses against LGBTQ people and other groups. Media reports this week indicate the U.S. denied MP Sarah Achieng Opendi a visa that would have allowed her to travel to New York in order to attend the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

Museveni, for his part, has criticized the U.S. and other Western countries’ response to the Anti-Homosexuality Act. 

Gilliam noted authorities have arrested and charged Ugandans under the law. 

Two men on motorcycles on Jan. 3 stabbed Steven Kabuye, co-executive director of Coloured Voice Truth to LGBTQ Uganda, outside his home while he was going to work. The incident took place months after Museveni attended Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast at which U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) spoke and defended the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The State Department condemned the attack that Kabuye blamed on politicians and religious leaders who are stoking anti-LGBTQ sentiments in Uganda. Gilliam did not meet with Ugandan government officials while he was in the country.

“We in the U.S. government have already made it clear our stance with government officials on how we feel about the AHA, as well as broader human rights concerns in country,” said Gilliam. “That’s been communicated from the very highest levels.”

The Uganda’s Constitutional Court last Dec. 18 heard arguments in a lawsuit that challenges the Anti-Homosexuality Act. It is unclear when a ruling in the case will take place, but Gilliam said LGBTQ Ugandans with whom he met described the law “as just one moment.” 

“Obviously there is lots of work that has been done, that continues to be done to respond to this moment,” he told the Blade. “They know that there’s going to be a lot of work that needs to continue to really address a lot of the root causes and to really back humanity to the community.” 

Gilliam further noted it will “take some years to recover from the damage of 2023 and the AHA (Anti-Homosexuality Act) there.” He added activists are “already laying down the groundwork for what that work looks like” in terms of finding MPs, religious leaders, human rights activists and family members who may become allies.

“Those types of allyships are going to be key to building back the community and to continue the resiliency of the movement,” said Gilliam.

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Texas

Pornhub blocks Texas accessing site over age verification law

Court battle forced statute to take effect

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Washingtonporn Blade graphic

Aylo (formerly MindGeek) the largest global adult online entertainment conglomerate, owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners, has restricted access to its platforms including its flagship Pornhub in Texas after a court battle forces the state’s age verification law to take effect.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton had appealed a U.S. District Court decision that enjoined him from enforcing House Bill 1181. Paxton and others argued that purveyors of obscene materials online needed to institute reasonable age-verification measures to safeguard children from pornography. 

A week ago the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially vacated the original injunction, ruling that the age verification requirements are constitutional. 

“Applying rational-basis review, the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in preventing minors’ access to pornography,” the three judge panel of the 5th Circuit explained. “Therefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment.”

While the court vacated the injunction against the age-verification requirement of the statute, it upheld the lower court’s injunction against a separate section of the law that would require pornography websites to display a health warning on their landing page and all advertisements. 

Texas users are greeted with this notice.

The Houston Chronicle reported people who go to the site are now greeted with a long message from the company railing against the legal change as “ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.” The company calls for age verification by the makers of devices that let people on the internet, instead of individual websites.

Age verification legislation was enacted in several states in 2023 in addition to Texas, including North Carolina, Montana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah and Virginia.

The new laws require users to provide digital confirmation via a certified approved third party vendor like London-based digital identity company Yoti. The other possibility would be a state approved digital ID such as the California DMV’s Wallet app, which contains a mobile driver’s license.

Users accessing Pornhub from within Louisiana are presented with a different webpage that directs them to verify their age with the state’s digital ID system, known as LA Wallet. The law passed in 2022 subjects adult websites to damage lawsuits and state civil penalties as high as $5,000 a day if they fail to verify that users are at least 18 years old by requiring the use of digitized, state-issued driver’s licenses or other methods.

The Associated Press reported this past October that an adult entertainment group’s lawsuit against a Louisiana law requiring sexually explicit websites to verify the ages of their viewers was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan in New Orleans.

Texas users are greeted with this notice.

Potential or existing Pornhub users in North Carolina and Montana are directed to a video that features adult film star Cherie DeVille, who recites a message also written under the video.

“As you may know, your elected officials in your state are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”

“Mandating age verification without proper enforcement gives platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply,” the statement continues. “As we’ve seen in other states, this just drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place.”

“Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in [the aforementioned locales]” the message ends with.

The company previously blocked Utah on May 7, 2023. CNN reported at the time:

Affected users are shown a message expressing opposition to Senate Bill 287, the Utah law signed by Gov. Spencer Cox in March that creates liability for porn sites that make their content available to people below the age of 18.

“As you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” the message said. “While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”

Courthouse News reported that after Virginia’s bill was passed in June, state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a Democrat, criticized the state for not creating a system for age verification, and instead leaving it up to websites to manage the process, citing security risks.  

“We passed a bill during this session to protect children from online porn. However the executive branch had an obligation to create a system for age verification,” Lucas said on X, formerly Twitter. “We will continue our work to keep pornography out of the hands of minors … but we will also work to ensure that this Governor’s error does not put the privacy of Virginians at further risk.”

Beyond the U.S. in the European Union, Pornhub and two more of the world’s biggest porn websites face new requirements in the European Union that include verifying the ages of users, under the EU’s Digital Services Act.

According to a December 20 report from the Associated Press, Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat have now been classed as “very large online platforms” subject to more stringent controls under the Digital Services Act because they each have 45 million average monthly users, according to the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch.

They are the first porn sites to be targeted by the sweeping Digital Services Act, which imposes tough obligations to keep users safe from illegal content and dodgy products, the Associated Press reported last month.

In addition to the adult entertainment websites, any violations are punishable by fines of up to 6% of global revenue or even a ban on operating in the EU. Some 19 online platforms and search engines have already been identified for stricter scrutiny under the DSA, including TikTok, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Google and more.

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