News
In first, Biden meets with openly gay lawmakers in LGBTQ Equality Caucus
Equality Caucus, gay blood ban discussed
In a first for a U.S. president, President Biden met with lawmakers with the congressional LGBTQ Equality Caucus, which includes each of the openly gay and lesbian members in the U.S. House and serves as the face of the LGBTQ movement in Congress.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), chair of the LGBTQ Equality Caucus, announced the meeting had taken place in a statement after it happened on Friday amid the passage of the anti-trans legislation in state legislatures, including measures restricting access by transgender youth to transition-related care and school sports.
“I am grateful to President Biden for inviting Equality Caucus leadership to meet with him at the White House today. President Biden has been the most vocal ally to the LGBTQ+ community we have ever had in the White House, and I thanked him for his unwavering support,” Ciccilline said in a statement. “We had a productive conversation about the pressing need for the Equality Act and other legislative and administrative actions to protect vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community in the face of the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ attacks happening in state legislatures across the country.”
A White House official confirmed the meeting took place and was part of efforts by Biden to reach out to diversity caucuses in Congress.
Among the lawmakers present at the meeting were Cicilline as well as Reps. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), each of whom are openly gay, according to the LGBTQ Equality Caucus statement.
The meeting, the statement says, consisted of discussion on a variety of topics with Biden and senior administration officials, including the possible U.S. Senate action Equality Act, which would expand the prohibition on anti-LGBTQ discrimination under federal law. Despite the inclusion of the Equality Act, the bill is all but dead in the Senate and lacks even unanimous support within the Democratic caucus thanks to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) refusing to support the bill.
A spokesperson for Torres, who along with Jones is one of the two openly gay Black members of Congress, said he brought up the Food & Drug Administration’s ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men. Although the policy was relaxed in 2020, regulations still prohibited men from donating blood if they’ve had sex with another man in the past three months.
Although the LGBTQ Equality Caucus was formed in 2008, it had until this time never met with a U.S. president. Former President Obama never met with the caucus.
In a surprise first, the LGBTQ Equality Caucus was granted a meeting with former House Speaker John Boehner in 2013, when he essentially told members efforts to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to advance LGBTQ workplace protections would be unsuccessful.
Hungary
New Hungarian government to scrap anti-LGBTQ adoption law
Prime Minister Peter Maygar ousted Viktor Orbán in April
Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Maygar has said his government will amend a law that essentially bans same-sex couples from adopting children.
Lawmakers approved the effective adoption ban in 2020, when then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government was in power. Maygar announced plans to amend the law on Saturday when he was speaking to supporters in Budapest, the Hungarian capital.
Orbán and his government faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown that also included laws banning Pride events.
Maygar in April ousted Orbán in Hungary’s elections.
Baltimore
Transgender woman killed in Barclay community mourned by friends, advocates
Sophie Lee shot to death on Friday morning
By DARREONNA DAVIS | Denise Johnson imagined spending Sunday with her daughter, Sophie Lee, eating crabs at the park. Instead, she stood on a Barclay street corner Sunday evening surrounded by nearly 100 people who came to remember her daughter, a transgender woman who was fatally shot there Friday.
The 27-year-old woman was found in the 2400 block of North Calvert Street around 1:15 a.m. Friday, Baltimore Police said in a news release.
Lindsey Eldridge, a police department spokesperson, said it’s unclear if her identity had anything to do with her death and the investigation is ongoing.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Turkey
Dozens detained after Turkish authorities raid LGBTQ groups, businesses
Raids targeted gay bars, activists’ homes
Authorities in Turkey over the weekend detained dozens of people during raids they carried out against gay bars and LGBTQ activists’ homes across the country.
The BBC reported the raids were part of the government’s “My Family is Safe” campaign.
A statement from a group of Turkish advocacy groups the Washington Blade received on Sunday noted Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said the operation included “162 individuals, nine associations, and 13 businesses across 15 provinces.” Prosecutors in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Aydın, and Mersin are coordinating the campaign.
Kaos GL, one of the country’s largest advocacy groups, was among the targets.
“The authorities have referred to allegations including ‘obscenity,’ ‘facilitating prostitution or providing premises for prostitution,’ exposure of children to allegedly obscene content, drug-related offenses, and other morality-related offenses,” reads the press release the Blade received. “Information from the field indicates that additional allegations, including forming a criminal organization, may appear in some investigation files.”
“The reported inclusion of the offense of “establishing an organization for the purpose of committing crimes” under Article 220 of the Turkish Criminal Code is particularly alarming and, if confirmed, would mark a significant escalation in the criminalization of LGBTI+ human rights activism,” it added. “While LGBTI+ activists and organizations have recently faced and continue to face investigations and prosecutions on grounds such as ‘obscenity’ and alleged violations of the Law on Associations, the use of an organized-crime allegation represents a qualitatively more serious threshold, both in terms of the gravity of the accusation and the potential penalties involved.”
Turkish authorities under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government over the last decade have cracked down on LGBTQ and intersex activists in the country.
Police in 2015 used tear gas and water cannons against people who were about to participate in an Istanbul Pride march. Authorities in 2017 arrested nearly two dozen people who defied a ban on Pride events in the city.
Police in Ankara, the Turkish capital, in 2019, arrested 18 students and an academic who participated in a Pride march at the Middle East Technical University. They faced up to three years in prison, but a court in 2021 acquitted them. Police in 2022 violently broke up a Pride parade at the same Ankara university.
Turkish authorities in July refused to allow a gay cruise ship — the Scarlet Lady, a Virgin Voyage vessel that Atlantis Events chartered — to dock in Kusadasi, a resort town on the Aegean Sea.
Kusadasi is in Aydın Province, one of the provinces in which authorities conducted the raids. Turkish officials also refused to allow the Scarlet Lady to dock in Istanbul.
A Turkish source on Sunday told the Blade the “My Family is Safe” operation began on the 46th anniversary of a military coup that toppled the country’s government in 1980.
“The fact that this operation began on the night of Sept. 12 — the 46th anniversary of the 1980 coup — is highly significant in terms of the foundations of the prohibitive and repressive mindset directed at the LGBTI+ community,” they said. “Moreover, many LGBTI+ organizations had been subject to official inspections last week.”
“Conducting this operation on a Saturday night shortly thereafter also serves the purpose of heightening fear and anxiety within the community,” added the source.
The source asked the Blade not to reveal their identity.
ILGA-Europe in a statement described the raids as “the systematic dismantling of LGBTI civil society.” Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire is among the European officials who have publicly condemned them.
The Blade will update this story with additional details as they become available.
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