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Despite some progress, trans workers still struggle to find acceptance

McKinsey study finds more than half of trans employees not able to be out

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Beatrice Shumway says she has experienced discrimination in the workplace. (Photo courtesy Shumway)

At one of her first jobs after coming out as transgender, Beatrice Shumway remembers one thing: Her bosses rarely looked her in the eyes. 

In her job interview, she’d disclosed that she identifies as trans and uses she/they pronouns. However, being up front about her identity didn’t dissuade her bosses from dismissing the conversation whenever she brought it up. Shumway was dead named and misgendered throughout her time at that job. And although she had her pronouns emblazoned on pins and her hat, this stressful experience persisted. 

ā€œI was told not to make a big deal out of it,ā€ said Shumway, 27. ā€œI was told that it was weirding customers out.ā€

A 2021 McKinsey study found that more than half of transgender employees are not comfortable being out at work. 

ā€œPeople who identify as transgender feel far less supported in the workplace than their cisgender colleagues do,ā€ said the study. ā€œThey report that it’s more difficult to understand workplace culture and benefits, and harder to get promoted. They also feel less supported by their managers.ā€ 

This lack of support resulted in Shumway ā€œalwaysā€ being on the job hunt. She’d rank job opportunities based on their online presence and whether they had positive messaging during Pride month. Because of financial constraints, however, she’d often find herself working for companies with bigoted bosses. 

It wasn’t until she scored a job at a Lens Crafters that she found respect and her rights protected. There, whenever customers were nasty to her, her boss protected her. 

ā€œWhen [things] would happen, my boss would say, ā€˜Go into the back right now, I’m not having you deal with this guy,ā€™ā€ she recalled. 

Andrew McCaskill, a career expert at LinkedIn, describes the jobs that trans workers take until they find a more inclusive place as ā€œvehicles not destinations.ā€

ā€œEveryone doesn’t have the luxury of passing up a job opportunity because of an unsafe environment,ā€ he said. 

However, job seekers can find better options when using LinkedIn’s ā€œvalues matching toolā€ that shows information about a company’s family formation benefits, queer-inclusive parental leave, gender transition guidelines, queer resource groups and where company executives have taken stances on certain topics. 

On the part of employers, McCaskill recommended that they provide empathy-based training sessions that make inclusion a personal incentive for both workers and employers. He added that sessions should also focus on the impact and consequences of bigotry in the workplace.

ā€œIt’s not about recruiting diverse talent,ā€ he said. ā€œIt’s about exiting bad actors.ā€

What about legislation?

Despite the Supreme Court of the United States in 2020 affirming that the Civil Rights Act protects the LGBTQ community, and President Biden signing an executive order on his first day in office that protects LGBTQ federal workers from discrimination, efforts still persist to curtail LGBTQ workers’ rights.

In June, the Washington Blade reported that a federal judge had struck down a law signed by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that would have banned transgender residents from using Medicaid for gender affirming care. 

ā€œIt’s very hard to legislate acceptance,ā€ said McCaskill.

For many, taking legal action in the face of discrimination isn’t an option either. Shumway said that she was discouraged by her negative interactions with human resource departments.

ā€œI just don’t see a chance of winning,ā€ she said.

However, she has a message for all employers.

ā€œThe trans agenda is not real. We don’t want any special treatment,ā€ she said. ā€œI’m not a trans woman. I’m a fucking human.ā€ 

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Federal Government

QAnon follower pleads guilty to threatening member of Congress

Conspiracy movement claims Satan-worshipping pedophiles secretly rule the world

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QAnon banner at a pro-gun rally in Richmond, Va., in 2020. (YouTube screenshot from Anthony Crider)

A New Mexico man has entered a plea deal after being charged with a federal criminal complaint of making threats through interstate communications directed at a member of Congress.

Federal prosecutors charged Michael David Fox, a resident of DoƱa Ana County, for calling the Houston district office of an unnamed member of Congress on or about May 18, 2023, and uttering threats that included knowingly threatening to kill an active member of Congress.

The plea agreementĀ was brought before U.S. Magistrate Judge Damian L. Martinez of U.S. District Court in New MexicoĀ in the Las Cruces by Fox’s attorney from the Federal Public Defender’s Office in August.

According to the criminal complaint as outlined by a Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal investigator for the Albuquerque Field Office, Las Cruces Resident Agency, on May 18 at approximately 9:04 p.m. Fox called the office of a congresswoman for the District of Texas, U.S. House of Representatives (Victim One/”V1″), who is from Houston. The call was received by V1’s office.

In the phone call Fox stated ā€œHey [Vl], you’re a man. It’s official. You’re literally a tranny and a pedophile, and I’m going to put a bullet in your fucking face. You mother fucking satanic cock smoking son of a whore. You understand me you fucker?ā€ 

Law enforcement was able to trace the call back to Las Cruces, N.M., and it was believed that Fox was the user of cell phone account used to make the call. According to the FBI agents who interviewed Fox, he admitted to making the call.

Fox acknowledged that the threat was direct but claimed that he did not own any guns. Fox
claimed to be a member of the Q2 Truth Movement, the Q Movement. Fox explained these
movements believe all over the world there were transgender individuals running
governments, kingdoms and corporations. 

Fox told the FBI that there is a plan called ā€œQ the Plan to Save the Worldā€ which he learned about from an online video. Fox claimed that he believed Q was going to engage in the ā€œeradicationā€ of the people who were causing all the world’s misery. He believed that part of the eradication had already happened.

Fox explained that he had run Vl’s skull features through forensic analysis and determined
that Vl was born male and is now trans. Fox discussed his military service with the
U.S. Air Force, “Q the Plan to Save the World,” and how God communicates using
numbers. 

Fox continued to reiterate several different types of conspiracy theories indicating
extreme far right ideologies as his explanation for why he conducted the phone call to
threaten V1.

According to the FBI, Fox rescinded his threat against Vl and apologized. Fox claimed he was not intoxicated or under the influence of drugs when he made the call. Fox stated he understood how Vl would feel threatened by his phone call, and he acknowledged that anyone he knew or cared about would also be concerned with such a threat.

The charge of interstate threatening communications carries a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison.

QAnon began in 2017, when a mysterious figure named ā€œQā€ started posting on the online message board 4chan, claiming to have inside access to government secrets. Since then, QAnon has grown into a conspiracy movement that claims Satan-worshipping pedophiles secretly rule the world. It is claimed by QAnon adherents that former President Donald Trump is the only person who can defeat them. 

Brooklyn, N.Y.-based journalist Ana Valens, a reporter specializing in queer internet culture, online censorship and sex workers’ rights noted that Fox appears to be a ā€œtransvestigator.ā€ Valens noted that the transvestigation conspiracy theory is a fringe movement within QAnon that claims the world is primarily run by trans people. Phrenological analysis is common among transvestigators, with a prominent focus on analyzing celebrities for proof that they are trans.

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Acclaimed gay doctor to be honored at LGBT History Month event

Pediatric cardiologist moved from Louisiana to N.Y. in protest over anti-LGBTQ bills

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Dr. Jake Kleinmahon, his husband Tom, and their kids.

Dr. Jake Kleinmahon, a gay pediatric cardiologist and pediatric heart transplant specialist, is scheduled to be honored Oct. 1 by the Equality Forum at its annual LGBT History Month Kickoff and Awards Celebration in Philadelphia.

He has been named a recipient of the Equality Forum’s 28th annual International Role Model Award. 

Kleinmahon became the subject of national news media coverage in early August when he announced he was leaving the state of Louisiana with his husband and two children and ending his highly acclaimed medical practice in New Orleans after the state legislature passed bills targeting the LGBTQ community.

He had been working since 2018 as the medical director of pediatric heart transplant, heart failure, and ventricular assist device programs at Ochsner Hospital for Children in New Orleans.

Kleinmahon told the Washington Blade his and his family’s decision to leave New Orleans was a difficult one to make. He said it came after the Republican-controlled Louisiana Legislature passed three anti-LGBTQ bills, including a so-called ā€œDon’t Say Gayā€ bill targeting public schools and a bill banning transition-related medical care for transgender youth.

The state’s Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, vetoed all three bills. But the legislature overturned his veto of the bill banning transition-related medical care for trans minors beginning Jan. 1, 2024.

Kleinmahon said he and his family moved at the end of August to Long Island, N.Y., after he accepted a new job as director of pediatric heart transplant, heart failure and ventricular assist devices at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in the town of New Hyde Park, which is located along the border of the Borough of Queens in New York City and Nassau County, Long Island.

ā€œThe decision to leave is not one that we took lightly at all,ā€ Kleinmahon told the Blade. ā€œAnd it was not one because I got a better job or other factors,ā€ he said. ā€œThe main driver for it was that as we realized where things were going, we were raising our children in a state that was actively trying to make laws against your family,ā€ he said in a phone interview. ā€œAnd that’s not the type of environment that we want to raise our kids in.ā€

Kleinmahon said he and his husband Thomas timed their move to Long Island at the end of August so their daughter, who’s seven, could begin school at the start of the school year and their son, who’s four, could begin pre-kindergarten sessions.

ā€œWe have been open with our children about why we’re moving because we think it’s important that they carry on this message as well,ā€ said Kleinmahon, who noted that his daughter expressed support for the move.

ā€œWe were at the dinner table one night and we were explaining what happened,ā€ Kleinmahon said. ā€œAnd she goes, you know daddy, we do have a choice, but there is only one good one. And she agreed with our moving to New York.ā€  

Kleinmahon acknowledges that some in New Orleans, which is considered an LGBTQ supportive city in general, questioned his decision to leave on grounds that the two bills that would directly impact him and his family did not become law because the governor’s veto of the two bills were upheld.

ā€œOne of the things I’ve heard is that none of these really directly affect a family because the ā€˜Don’t Say Gay’ bill didn’t go into effect, and my children are not transgender, and I don’t work in a transgender clinic,ā€ he told the Blade.

ā€œBut that’s really not the point,ā€ he continued. ā€œThe way we think about it as a family, the people who are elected officials that are supposed to take care of the people in their state are casting votes against our families,ā€ he points out. ā€œSo, sure, while the laws may not be in effect this year, certainly there’s a push to get them passed. And why would we want to remain in a state that is trying to push forward hateful laws?ā€

He said he will begin his new job at Cohen Children’s Medical Center on Long Island on Nov. 1.

ā€œThey have been incredibly supportive,ā€ Kleinmahon said. ā€œThey have actually encouraged me to be open with why we left Louisiana,ā€ he said. ā€œAnd they have a Pride resource group that’s reached out to me to lend their support,ā€ he said, adding that the hospital and its parent company have been ā€œexceptional in helping us make this transition.ā€

During his medical practice at Ochsner Hospital for Children in New Orleans, Kleinmahon has been credited with helping to save the lives of many children suffering from heart-related ailments. He said his decision to leave behind his colleagues and patients was difficult.

ā€œUnfortunately, it had ramifications for the kids in Louisiana, which was the hardest part for me,ā€ he said. ā€œAnd the reason for that is I was one of three pediatric heart transplant cardiologists, and I was the director of the only pediatric heart transplant program in Louisiana.ā€

He added, ā€œWhile there are two other fantastic heart transplant cardiologists in Louisiana, the ability to keep a program running that serves an entire state needs a full army of people. And me leaving took 33 percent of that army away.ā€

He said he was also one of just two pediatric pulmonary hypertension providers in the state, and he just learned that the other provider had also left Louisiana recently. Pulmonary hypertension doctors provide treatment for people with the condition of high blood pressure in their lungs.

Regarding his extensive experience in treating and caring for children with heart disease, Kleinmahon, in response to a question from the Blade, said about 400 children receive heart transplants in the U.S. each year.

While heart transplants for kids are not as frequent as those for adults, he said kids needing a heart transplant and their families ā€œdeal with a tremendous amount of stress and medical appointments that really change their life,ā€ including the need to take medication to prevent the body from rejecting a new heart for the rest of the children’s lives.

ā€œMy hope as a transplant doctor is that I can get these kids to live as normal a life as possible,ā€ he said.

In addition to presenting its International Role Model Award to Kleinmahon, the Equality Forum was scheduled on Oct. 1 at its LGBT History Month event to present its Frank Kameny Award to Rue Landau, the first LGBTQ Philadelphia City Councilperson. It was also scheduled to present a Special Memorial Tribute to the late Lilli Vincenz, the longtime D.C.-area lesbian activist and filmmaker credited with being a pioneering LGBTQ rights activist beginning in the early 1960s.

ā€œI am beyond humble to receive this award that is really not an award for me but is an award for my family and for families like ours and for people that are going to continue to fight discriminatory policies,ā€ Kleinmahon said.

Blade editor Kevin Naff will present Kleinmahon with the award on Oct. 1 in Philadelphia.

ā€œDr. Kleinmahon and his family took a brave stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community and they deserve our gratitude,ā€ Naff said. ā€œI’m excited and honored to present him with the International Role Model Award.ā€

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Attorney details the harms of waiving anti-discrimination rules for religious universities

Incentives aligned for continuation of anti-LGBTQ discrimination

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The Lyndon Baines Johnson Building, Washington D.C., headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education (Photo Credit: GSA/U.S. Dept. of Education)

Democratic lawmakers re-introduced the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act on Friday, which marked the 13th anniversary of the 18-year-old New Jersey college student’s death by suicide after he was targeted with homophobic harassment by his peers.

The bill, which establishes cyberbullying as a form of harassment, directing colleges and universities to share anti-harassment policies to current and prospective students and employees, was introduced by U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) and Patty Murray (Wash.), along with U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (Wis.), Chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

Advocacy groups including the Tyler Clementi Foundation, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and The Trevor Project have endorsed the legislation, which comes as issues concerning anti-LGBTQ harassment in institutions of higher education have earned renewed scrutiny on Capitol Hill and beyond.

Earlier this month, the Washington Blade connected with an expert to discuss these and other subjects: Paul Southwick, a Portland, Oregon-based litigation attorney who leads a legal advocacy group focused on religious institutions of higher education and their treatment of LGBTQ and other marginalized communities.

On Tuesday, he shared a statement responding to Friday’s reintroduction of the Tyler Clementi bill, stressing the need for equal enforcement of its provisions in light of efforts by conservative Christian schools to avoid oversight and legal liability for certain federal civil rights regulations:

ā€œWe are still evaluating the bill regarding how the bill would interact with the religious exemption in Title IX,ā€ Southwick said. ā€œWe fully support the expansion of anti-harassment protections for students and corresponding requirements for educational institutions.ā€

He added, ā€œWe also believe that such protections and requirements should extend to students at taxpayer funded, religiously affiliated educational institutions, regardless of whether those institutions claim, or receive, an assurance of religious exemption from Title IX regulations” through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Baylor University’s unprecedented Title IX exemption

In response to a request from Baylor University, a conservative Baptist college located in Waco, Texas, the Education Department in July granted a first of its kind religious-based exemption from federal regulations governing harassment, a form of sex-based discrimination proscribed under Title IX.

Southwick explained that during the Obama administration, the federal government began to understand and recognize discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as forms of sex-based discrimination covered by the statute. The Biden-Harris administration issued a directive for the Education Department to formalize the LGBTQ inclusive definitions under Title IX, with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that is now underway at the agency.

Beginning with the Department’s 2010 ā€œdear colleagueā€ letter clarifying the administration’s view that discrimination against LGBTQ people constitutes sex-based discrimination under the law, Southwick said the pushback from religious schools was immediate. In the years since, many have successfully petitioned the Education Department for ā€œexemptions so they can discriminate against queer, trans and non-binary people,ā€ but these carveouts were limited ā€œto things like admissions, housing, athletics.ā€

No one had argued that ā€œfederally funded educational institutions [should] have no regulation by the federal government as to whether they’re protecting their students from harassment,ā€ he remarked – at least not until the Baylor case.

Addressing the unprecedented move in a letter to the Department on September 5, U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), and Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) urged the agency to ā€œclarify the narrow scope of this exemption and assure students at religious institutions that they continue to have protections against sex-based harassment.ā€

Southwick told the Blade other members of Congress have expressed an interest in the matter, as have some progressive nonprofit groups.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the Department confirmed receipt of the lawmakers’ letter and said the agency will respond to the members.

The Department’s issuance of the exemption to Baylor came despite an open investigation into the university by its Office of Civil Rights over a Title IX complaint brought in 2021 by Southwick’s organization, the Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP), on behalf of a queer student who claimed she was subjected to homophobic abuse from other students while university officials to whom she reported the harassment failed to intervene.

It is not yet clear whether the agency will close its investigation as a result of its decision to exempt Baylor from Title IX’s harassment rules.

Veronica Bonifacio Penales, the student behind the complaint against Baylor, is also a plaintiff in REAP’s separate class action lawsuit challenging the Education Department’s practice of waving Title IX rules for faith-based colleges and universities – which, the plaintiffs argue, facilitates anti-LGBTQ discrimination in violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

The case, Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education, is on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Other religious schools are likely to follow Baylor’s lead

Southwick said the agency’s decision in the Baylor case ā€œputs students at risk of harassment without a civil remedy against their school’s failures to properly address harassment,ā€ adding, ā€œTaxpayer funded educational institutions, whether religious or secular, should never be permitted to escape oversight from OCR in how they handle anti-harassment claims from LGBTQIA+ or other students protected by federal non-discrimination law.ā€

Buoyed by Baylor’s successful effort, requesting exemptions to Title IX rules for purposes of allowing the harassment of LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff is likely to become routine practice for many of America’s conservative institutions of higher education, Southwick said.

The nonprofit group Campus Pride maintains a list of America’s ā€œabsolute worst, most unsafe campuses for LGBTQ youth,ā€ schools that ā€œreceived and/or applied for a Title IX exemption to discriminate against LGBTQ youth, and/or demonstrated past history and track record of anti-LGBTQ actions, programs and practices.ā€

193 colleges and universities have met the criteria.

Many of the thousands of LGBTQ students enrolled in these institutions often have insufficient support, Southwick said, in part because ā€œa lot of the larger civil rights organizations and queer rights organizations are very occupied, and rightly so, with pushing back against anti-trans legislation in the public sphere.ā€

Regardless, even in America’s most conservative schools like Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, Southwick noted that pro-equality students, faculty, and staff have pushed for change.

He added that while there are, no doubt, young people who harbor anti-LGBTQ views, ā€œthey often become much more progressive the longer they’re in school, because there’s just queer people coming out everywhere, you know, and it’s hard to hate people who are your friends.ā€

The powerful influence and role of financial incentives Ā 

Southwick said meaningful reform at the institutional level is made more difficult by the reality that ā€œfinancial incentives from the government and from the market are aligned to favor the continuation of discrimination.ā€

ā€œOnce the money stops flowing, they will almost all instantly change their policies and start protecting queer students,ā€ he said, but added that colleges and universities have little reason to change without the risk that discriminatory policies and practices will incur meaningful consequences, like the loss of government funding and accreditation.

Another challenge, Southwick said, is the tendency of institutions of higher education to often prioritize the wishes and interests of moneyed alumni networks, boards of trustees, and donors, groups that generally skew older and tend to be more conservative.

Southwick said when he and his colleagues at REAP discuss proposed pro-LGBTQ reforms with contacts at conservative religious universities, they are warned ā€œover and over again,ā€ that ā€œdonors will be angry.ā€

Following the establishment of nationwide prohibitions against segregation and other forms of racial discrimination with passage of the federal 1964 Civil Rights Act and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which applied to public schools, and Runyon v. McCrary (1976), which covered private schools, Southwick noted that ā€œA lot of Christian schools and college colleges continued to deny admission to black students.ā€

One by one, however, the so-called ā€œsegregation academiesā€ would permanently close their doors or agree to racial integration, Southwick said – buckling under pressure from the U.S. government’s categorical denial of federal funding to these institutions, coupled with other factors like the decision of many professional associations to deny membership to their professors and academics.

Another important distinction, Southwick added: unlike Title IX, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ā€œdoes not have a religious exemption.ā€

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