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Department of Education investigating BYU LGBTQ+ discipline policy

“They’ve wronged marginalized communities at BYU and they need to be held accountable for it” ~ former gay student at BYU

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Bradley Talbot, a former gay student at BYU (Photo courtesy of Bradley Talbot)

PROVO, Ut. – The U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation into policies at Brigham Young University (BYU) that discipline LGBTQ students, aiming to determine whether or not the private religious school, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), is violating their civil rights. 

The Education Department is investigating a complaint that came after BYU removed rules banning “homosexual activity” from its honor code in 2020, only to clarify weeks later that same-sex partnerships were still prohibited.

The probe, which opened in October of last year, will focus on Title IX, a law prohibiting universities from discriminating against students and others based on gender. 

Last year, President Joe Biden signed an executive order mandating every federal agency, including the Education Department, clarify that civil rights laws protect LGBTQ people from discrimination. However, religious schools have Title IX exemptions, making federal scrutiny rare.  

“It’s really significant that investigators are stepping in now,” Michael Austin, a BYU alumnus and vice president at the University of Evansville, told the Salt Lake Tribune. “It means there’s some reason to think the university has gone beyond the religious exemptions it has and is discriminating even beyond those.”

The investigation, headed by the Office of Civil Rights within the department, seems to be about whether faith-based exemptions apply even if the behavior is not directly related to education or expressly written in the honor code. BYU also bans alcohol, beards and piercings, among other things. 

BYU did not respond to the Blade’s request for comment. But a spokesperson told the Associated Press that the school does not anticipate any further action because “BYU is exempt from application of Title IX rules that conflict with the religious tenets” of the LDS.

Though the LDS has softened some of its rules around LGBTQ issues, the church remains opposed to same-sex marriage and sex outside of marriage. 

In a November 2021 letter to the Education Department, Kevin Worthen, president of BYU, argued that religious exemptions do apply to the school. The letter adds that all BYU students, faculty, administrators and staff “‘voluntarily commit to conduct their lives in accordance with the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.’”

The Department of Education responded to the letter, affirming that the university has some religious exemptions, but the department had to investigate if the complaint falls under those exemptions. 

An Education Department spokesperson confirmed the investigation to the Blade but declined further comment. 

Queer students at BYU celebrated the school’s removal of the anti-LGBTQ language in the honor code. Yet, the university announced weeks later that there was “some miscommunication” as to what the changes meant, clarifying that “the principles of the Honor Code remain the same.”

Bradley Talbot, a former gay student at BYU, was on campus during the apparent reversal, saying it “instilled a lot of fear and a lot of students.” 

“There are still a lot of feelings of betrayal and apprehension around it,” he told the Blade.

At BYU, students who hold hands or kiss someone of the same sex can face punishment, including expulsion. LGBTQ+ students face harsher discipline than heterosexual couples at the school. 

Talbot said he knew of “quite a few people” who lost their degrees and were kicked out during his time at BYU because of the gay dating ban. “People were turned in by roommates. Some people were turned in by their own parents,” he added. 

Courtesy of Bradley Talbot

The university’s clarification frustrated LGBTQ students, according to Talbot. In response, he organized a demonstration in March of 2021, lighting the “Y” that sits above BYU’s campus – one of the school’s oldest traditions – in rainbow Pride colors on the one year anniversary of the university’s letter sent to students that clarified the LGBTQ dating policy. 

“We did it to reclaim that traumatic day and spin in a positive light of support, love and unity to create more visibility and awareness,” said Talbot. “And also to take a stand that we weren’t going to put up with just being tossed around by BYU. We deserve to be a part of the BYU community and a part of the LGBTQ community.”

The school has since updated its policies, banning protests and other demonstrations on Y Mountain, where Talbot staged his demonstration, in December of last year. 

“Demonstrations should be consistent with BYU’s faith-based mission, intellectual environment and requirements described in the policy,” a statement added. 

Still, Talbot, who is now graduated, has hope that the Education Department’s investigation will “finally change” things at BYU. “This has been something that’s been going on for decades,” he said. “They’ve wronged marginalized communities at BYU and they need to be held accountable for it.”

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Federal Government

National Security Council meets with Ugandan LGBTQ activist

Frank Mugisha met with the NSC on Monday

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Frank Mugisha, Gay News, Washington Blade
Sexual Minorities Uganda Executive Director Frank Mugisha (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

The U.S. National Security Council met with Ugandan LGBTQ rights activist Frank Mugisha on Monday, according to a spokesperson who reaffirmed America’s opposition to civil rights abuses against LGBTQ people in the East African country.

Last year, Uganda passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, a law that criminalizes, with prison sentences, identifying as gay or lesbian and imposes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.”

The Biden-Harris administration has repeatedly denounced the legislation and called for its repeal.

“There have been increased reports of evictions, vigilante attacks, and police harassment, abuse, and detainment of individuals who are or are perceived to be LGBTQI+, including reports of the Ugandan police subjecting individuals to forced anal examinations – an abusive, degrading practice that serves no investigative or public health purpose,” the White House wrote in a December 2023 fact sheet.

In a post on X about the meeting with Mugisha, Adrienne Watson, special assistant to the president and National Security Council senior director for press and spokesperson, wrote that the “United States continues to have zero tolerance for any form of discrimination or harmful activities.”

Mugisha, who is gay, is one of the most prominent LGBTQ advocates in Uganda, winning the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize for his work in 2011. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

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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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Federal Government

VA expands IVF to cover same-sex couples, single veterans

DoD also broadens IVF access for active-duty troops

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U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough (Screen capture/YouTube)

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will cover in-vitro fertilization treatments for same-sex couples and single veterans, the agency announced on Monday — a move that comes after lawsuits last year claiming that its policy of only treating legally married partners who could produce their own eggs and sperm was discriminatory.

The department said the change is expected to take effect in coming weeks, with Secretary Denis McDonough pledging to implement the new policy as soon as possible.

“Raising a family is a wonderful thing, and I’m proud that VA will soon help more veterans have that opportunity,” he said. “This expansion of care has long been a priority for us, and we are working urgently to make sure that eligible unmarried veterans, veterans in same-sex marriages and veterans who need donors will have access to IVF in every part of the country as soon as possible.”

Out in National Security, a nonprofit dedicated to serving and empowering queer national security professionals, celebrated the VA’s announcement in a press release proclaiming that “five years of ONS efforts have delivered.”

The group noted that about 2 million LGBTQ veterans are served by the VA, a number that is expected to “substantially increase in this decade.”

Also on Monday, the Defense Department announced its expansion of IVF eligibility requirements, which will now cover assisted reproductive technology for active-duty troops and their spouses, partners, or surrogates.

DoD will allow these service members to “use donor gametes (sperm, egg, or both) and embryos when procured at their own expense.”   

“We continue to identify ways to lean forward as much as we can in support of equity of access to reproductive health care for our service members,” said Kimberly Lahm, a program director in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs for Health Services Policy and Oversight.

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