Connect with us

National

Groups lobby for political mapmakers to take LGBTQ community into account

More than 70 challenges against district maps have been filed across the country

Published

on

Missoula Pride participants in Missoula, Mont., in 2022. Montana is among the states that LGBTQ activists are targeting in 2024. (Photo courtesy of Lo Hunter Photography)

Redistricting and updated political maps are at the heart of American democracy. 

Every 10 years, the U.S. Census Bureau tells lawmakers the demographics of their constituents, and likely, how they’ll vote. Lawmakers then redraw districts, in many cases, along partisan lines to give advantage to a specific party. This process, called gerrymandering, is at the heart of state legislatures across the country, and poses a significant challenge to LGBTQ rights in many states.

Gerrymandering has been at the heart of multiple court challenges since the 2020 election. As of July, 74 cases have been filed challenging district maps in 27 states as racially discriminatory or partisan gerrymanders.

While the conversation around gerrymandering often focuses on race or political affiliation, the LGBTQ community is often left out, despite having massive voting power.

The LGBTQ community has utilized its voting power for a long time, and famously elected Harvey Milk, the U.S.’s first openly gay person to hold public office, to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Since then, the number of openly-LGBTQ politicians is growing, with a record number expected to run in 2024.

Redistricting played a powerful role in Milk’s election. Despite the LGBTQ population making up one fifth of San Francisco’s voters at the time, the city’s at-large electoral system — where council members were elected by the whole city — put LGBTQ neighborhoods at a disadvantage. 

Milk and other activists led the fight to change the city’s electoral system to district contests, and in 1977, Milk won his seat on the council.

The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund launched a first-of-its-kind campaign to lobby for redistricting that considers LGBTQ populations in map-drawing. The “We Belong Together” campaign, launched following the 2020 election, has two main focuses: Encourage LGBTQ organizations to lobby to keep LGBTQ areas intact and to gather data showing where LGBTQ communities are located within legislative districts.

“[We worked on] basically how to identify large groupings of LGBTQ people, and then advocate to the decision makers who are doing a lot to say, ‘Hey, this is a community of interest, and you need to make sure that they stick together,’” Victory Fund Vice President of Political Programs Sean Meloy said.

Communities of interest are communities of people that are grouped by a common factor — often race and class — that’s taken into account when redistricting happens. LGBTQ people aren’t classified as a community of interest in many states due to sexual orientation not being part of the census. 

“A lot of other demographics are accounted for in the census,” Meloy said. “[The Census Bureau] did a pulse survey recently that asked about LGBTQ people. And that’s a great step in a great direction because every community and demographic has unique vulnerabilities, unique issues that government should understand so that they can help address them because they’re all people that they’re supposed to be working on behalf of.”

The Household Pulse Survey was launched in 2020 and tracks a wide variety of household data including, but not limited to, employment, housing security and access to health care. The survey also tracks sexual orientation and gender identity. According to the Census Bureau’s website, the survey tracks how “emergent issues are impacting households across the country from a social and economic perspective.”

Meloy said that this data collected by the Bureau allows for groups like the Victory Fund to draw maps of “centralized areas where there are same sex married couples.” Using the maps, groups can lobby mapmakers to not “draw a line right through” these communities, dividing up their voting power.

Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan and Montana are all states where maps are drawn by nonpartisan commissions — as opposed to lawmakers drawing the maps — and are the top targets of LGBTQ outreach going into the 2024 election cycle.

“They have fairer districts, and a lot of those states have districts that actually do respect LGBTQ people as communities of interest, and so you know, we had more LGBTQ led legislators elected in California and in Arizona and in Colorado,” Meloy said.

Other areas, such as New York, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta and Boise, Idaho, could all see an increase in LGBTQ public officials if LGBTQ voters were taken into account in redistricting, according to Victory Fund.

“We know that once we elect some LGBTQ people, there is a domino effect that people feel they can come out, they can be in office, it breaks that barrier,” Meloy said. “And we’ve seen that in a lot of other places over the last 30 years, but we still have a lot of places that we need to continue breaking down those little barriers.”

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Federal Government

RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth

‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD

Published

on

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.

The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.

“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”

While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.

The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”

Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.

“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”

GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”

Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.

“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.

“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.

“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”

“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”

“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.” 

Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.

“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”




Continue Reading

The White House

Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador

Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor

Published

on

U.N. headquarters in New York (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Mike Waltz to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

Waltz, a former Florida congressman, had been the national security advisor.

Trump announced the nomination amid reports that Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were going to leave the administration after Waltz in March added a journalist to a Signal chat in which he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other officials discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations,” said Trump in a Truth Social post that announced Waltz’s nomination. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role.”

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor, “while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”

“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America, and the world, safe again,” said Trump.

Trump shortly after his election nominated U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Trump in March withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Continue Reading

U.S. Federal Courts

Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy

Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.

Published

on

Lambda Legal on April 25 filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people who are challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s passport policy.

The lawsuit, which Lambda Legal filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, alleges the policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers “has caused and is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people like plaintiffs, in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection.”

Two of the seven plaintiffs — Jill Tran and Peter Poe — live in Maryland. The State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the federal government are defendants.

“The discriminatory passport policy exposes transgender U.S. citizens to harassment, abuse, and discrimination, in some cases endangering them abroad or preventing them from traveling, by forcing them to use identification documents that share private information against their wishes,” said Lambda Legal in a press release.

Zander Schlacter, a New York-based textile artist and designer, is the lead plaintiff.

The lawsuit notes he legally changed his name and gender in New York.

Schlacter less than a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration “sent an expedited application to update his legal name on his passport, using form DS-5504.”

Trump once he took office signed an executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. The lawsuit notes Schlacter received his new passport in February.

“The passport has his correct legal name, but now has an incorrect sex marker of ‘F’ or ‘female,'” notes the lawsuit. “Mr. Schlacter also received a letter from the State Department notifying him that ‘the date of birth, place of birth, name, or sex was corrected on your passport application,’ with ‘sex’ circled in red. The stated reason was ‘to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.'”

“I, like many transgender people, experience fear of harassment or violence when moving through public spaces, especially where a photo ID is required,” said Schlacter in the press release that announced the lawsuit. “My safety is further at risk because of my inaccurate passport. I am unwilling to subject myself and my family to the threat of harassment and discrimination at the hands of border officials or anyone who views my passport.”

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.

Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.

Lambda Legal represented Zzyym.

The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.

Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January. Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.

A federal judge in Boston earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction against the executive order.  The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.

Continue Reading

Popular