News
Gavin Grimm testifies on civil rights after 100 days of Trump
Panel witness decry review of consent decrees, voter ID laws
Gavin Grimm testifies before Congress on April 6, 2017. (Screen capture courtesy Washington Blade Facebook)
Transgender student Gavin Grimm testified before Congress Thursday on the experience of his Virginia high school denying him access to the bathroom consistent with the gender identity as well as harms the Trump administration’s withdrawal of pro-trans guidance has caused for transgender people.
Gavin made the remarks during a congressional forum hosted by U.S. House Democrats on the state of civil rights after the first 100 days of the Trump administration. Witnesseses sharply criticized the Trump administration — in particular the U.S. Justice Department under U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions — for failing to live up to equal protection under the law.
Currently suing his school for bathroom access in a lawsuit the U.S. Supreme Court was once poised to consider, but later rejected, Gavin recalled the pain he felt during hearings in which the Gloucester County School Board decided to refuse to treat him consistent with his gender identity.
“World had spread throughout the community, and people turned up in droves,” Gavin said. “After each frenzied remark, clapping and hollering reverberated throughout the room. I sat while people called me a freak. I sat while my community got together to banish a child from public life for the crime of harming no one. I sat while my school board voted to banish me to retrofitted broom closets or the nurse’s room.”
As Gavin narrated his story, the microphone system for the room in the Rayburm House Office Building cut out, prompting one forum participant to quip, “The Democrats do not control this room.” Invited by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), who was chairing the forum, to speak closer to the dais from a podium, Gavin continued his story.
Recalling the pledge from the White House that President Trump would be “respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights,” Gavin said the administration’s decision to nix Obama-era guidance assuring transgender kids bathroom access in accordance with their gender identity “could not have been more damaging for trans youth.”
“The guidance had a very simple message: Treat trans students with dignity and respect them for who they are,” Gavin said. “Treating trans students with dignity and respect should not be controversial. The decision to withdraw the guidance sent a terrible message to some of the most vulnerable people that President Trump – the leader of our country – and his administration do not care about protecting you from discrimination.”
After Gavin completed his testimony, attendees at the forum clapped for a lengthy amount of time. Conyers commended him, saying he’s a “courageous young man and you deserve our support and applause.”
Catherine Lhamon, chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and former assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department under the Obama administration, made the transgender guidance rollback a major point of concern during testimony in which she said civil rights under the Trump administration has been “horrendous.”
“It will not surprise this body that that withdrawal offended me because I signed that guidance when I was assistant secretary of civil rights,” Lhamon said.
Lhamon called Trump administration claims the guidance was withdrawn because of improper procedure and incorrect interpretation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 “categorically untrue,” citing “the many years that all the relevant agencies” spent investigating the facts and speaking the school administrators.
“To think more that whether a federal law that Congress wrote that says explicitly that no person in the United States shall be subject to sex discrimination in school applies to transgender students questions the very humanity of transgender students,” Lhamon said.
Lhamon also took issue with the appointment of Roger Severino, a former researcher for the anti-LGBT Heritage Foundation, to the role of assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Health & Human Services. Once in the position of being critical of the Obama administration’s efforts to ensure transgender people have access to transition-related care, Severino will now be charged with protecting transgender people in health care.
“I will never forget how I heard from former HHS civil rights director about a case in which emergency medical professionals refused to treat a transgender women because she is transgender,” Lhamon said. “She later died, although she had a better than 35 percent of survival had she received appropriate and timely medical care. It should go without saying that the director of HHS civil rights should be committed to ensure the fair medical treatment for all persons, regardless of identity status.”
The issue of transgender rights was but one issue before the forum that sought to address the multitude of challenges the civil rights community after 100 days of the Trump administration.
Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, expressed a dismal view of the current state of civil rights as he chaired the forum, referencing a “documented loss in the overall climate of equality” and rise in hate violence since the 2016 election.
“Minority communities have been justifiably concerned about the continued role of the federal government in protecting civil rights,” Conyers said. “The Trump presidential campaign promised meaningful changes that would benefit minorities in the area of crime, equal justice and economic equality, his political allies and surrogates to the media have sent a different message that served to heighten national divisions and anxiety.”
DOJ criticized for consent decree review
A central issue was the decision this week of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to review the consent decrees the U.S. Justice Department had arranged with police departments after patterns of unconstitutional racial discrimination and excessive force, including the shootings of black men.
Chiraag Bains, senior fellow at Harvard Law School Criminal Justice Policy Program and former senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights under President Obama, cited the review as evidence the Justice Department has been “predictably disastrous” on civil rights.
“This administration insists that policing is a purely local matter into which the federal government should not intrude,” Bains said. “But we’re not talking about a federal takeover of these departments. We’re talking about the enforcement and protection of constitutional rights. There is no federalism problem.”
Ron Davis, former director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services at the Justice Department, invoked the words of 19th Century British statesman Robert Peel to describe the appropriate relationship between the police and communities as defined under the consent decrees.
“People comply with the law not because of they are afraid of the police, they comply with the law because they believes the law is fair, just and will be enforced appropriately and without bias,” David said. “People should be afraid of police. They should not have to run from them because they’re going to be deported or think that every infraction will result in arrest.”
But Sessions’ order to review the consent decrees was but one issue to witnesses pointed as evidence the Trump administration was failing to live up to responsibilities on civil rights.
Joe Rich, co-director of the Fair Housing & Community Development Project, raised as a civil rights issue the rollback of voter access to the polls, including early voting cutbacks and the imposition of state voter ID laws.
Although defenders of those laws say they’re intended to prevent voter fraud, Rich said that’s “very rare,” citing a recent study that found the incident rate of voter fraud ranges between .003 percent and .0025 percent.
“Given this tiny incident rate for voter impersonation, the report concluded that is more likely that an American will be struck by lightning than he will impersonate voter at the poll,” Rich said.
Rich said the Justice Department had “vigorously prosecuted” against the voter ID law in Texas for three years, but the U.S. government has “reversed course” with Sessions at the helm in “an action of great concern for all of us doing voting rights work.”
Roy Austin, former director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs, Justice & Opportunity under the Obama administration, took particular issue with the travel ban Trump signed barring immigration into the United States from six Muslim countries, calling it an attempt to “legalize discrimination against an entire faith.”
Although the administration billed the measure as an means to keep potential terrorists from the United States, Auston said “state-endorsed discrimination diminishes public safety.”
“In my humble opinion, this greatest current threat to civil rights in this great nation is this current administration,” Austin said. “In record time, the current administration has already shown not simply a willingness to not defend civil rights, but a shown an intent to violate civil rights, and, at a minimum, with an intent to make it easier for others to violate civil rights.”
Chief Hassan Aden, a member of the steering committee for Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration and former chief of police of the Greenville Police Department, took issue with greater authority of U.S. Customs & Border Protection to detain travelers entering the United States.
“What’s happening now is there’s sort of this second-class of American citizen being built out, and it involves names and religious preferences, and it’s something that we all need to resist and work against,” Aden said.
Aden recalled his own experienced this year being detained by CBP at JFK International Airport upon re-entry into the United States, which attributed to his Muslim-sounding name. Aden said this incident stands out because he travelled internationally in years past, including five times last year, without issue.
“My name being Hassan Aden, I think, set off a flag,” Aden said. “I utilized my platform and my reach to highlight this issue and give it a voice. There are so many people that this happens to. My detention was 90 minutes. There are people whose detention is significantly longer.”
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) held nothing back in her assessment of Trump on civil rights in the wake of the Justice Department reviewing consent decrees with police departments.
“This may be the Armageddon,” Lee said. “We may be seeing the most dangerous Department of Justice that we have seen in decades. I don’t think it is hyperbole; I don’t think it’s hysteria.”
Referencing the plight Gavin continues to face by being denied bathroom access in his school, Lee assured him, “You are not alone. We know the decision of the Supreme Court, but we’re not finished with bringing you relief.”
Other lawmakers present at the hearing were Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), top Democrat for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce; Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus; and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas).
At the end of the hearing, Lee asked Gavin for his thoughts on the impact of the Justice Department taking an ideological position against transgender rights, which Gavin would only be harmful.
“We see a very real and immediate negative impact on those communities,” Gavin said. “The transgender community is uniquely vulnerable already in that we have less legal protection, we have a higher rate of hate crimes, mental illness, homelessness, unemployment, and then to have a complete and total lack of administrative support, and, in fact, a presence of a administrative intimidation or disregard, the effects of such a negative message across the board would be absolutely devastating.”
The White House
Hundreds protest ICE killing of Renee Nicole Good in D.C.
Married queer woman shot in Minneapolis on Wednesday
Hundreds of people took to the streets of D. C. on Thursday night to protest the killing of a U.S. citizen by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
Protests began at the busy — and increasingly queer — intersection of 14th and U Streets, N.W. There, hundreds of people held signs, shouted, and made their way to the White House to voice their dissent over the Trump-Vance administration’s choice to increase law enforcement presence across the country.
The protest, which also occurred simultaneously in cities large and small across the country, comes in the wake of the death of Minneapolis resident Renne Nicole Good at the hands of ICE Agent Jonathan Ross. Good left behind two children and a wife, Rebecca Good.
Records obtained by the Associated Press found that Ross was an Iraq War veteran and nearly two decades into his career with U.S. Border Patrol and ICE.
Good was gunned down just blocks away from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020, sparking weeks of national protests. Minnesota officials say the FBI has blocked their access to an investigation into the fatal shooting, according to a BBC story published on Friday.
In the nation’s capital, protesters marched from the intersection of 14th and U Street to Lafayette Square, right outside the White House. Multiple D.C. organizations led the protest, most notably Free DC, a nonprofit that works to ensure the right of “self-determination” for District residents, as many local laws can be reviewed, modified, or overturned by Congress. Free DC had organized multiple protests since the Trump-Vance administration was elected.
The Washington Blade spoke to multiple protesters towards the tail end of the protest about why they came out.
Franco Molinari, from Woodbridge, Va., crossed the Potomac to partake in his first-ever protest.
“I don’t appreciate ICE and the use of federal agents being pretty much militarized against America,” Molinari said while holding a “Justice for Renee” sign. “The video of Renee being executed cartel style in her car was enough for me to want to come out, to at least do something.”
Molinari, like many others the Blade spoke with, found out about the protest on Instagram.
“It was my friend there, Sarah … had sent a link regarding the protest to a group chat. I saw it in the morning, and I thought, ‘You know what, after work, I’m head out.’”
He also shared why protesting at the White House was important.
“I already saw the response that the president gave towards the murder of Renee, and it was largely very antagonizing,” Molinari said.
President Donald Trump, along with federal leaders under him, claimed that Good “violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer.” The president’s claims have been widely discredited through multiple videos of the incident, which show Good was attempting to leave the scene rather than attacking the officer.
“I hope that anybody would be able to see that and see the response and see for themselves that it just is not correct,” Molinari said.
The Blade also spoke with leftist influencer Dave the Viking, who has more than 52,000 followers on TikTok, where he posts anti-fascist and anti-Trump videos.
“We’re out here to make sure that this regime can’t rewrite history in real time, because we all know what we saw … we’re not going to allow them to run with this narrative that they [ICE agents] were stuck in the snow and that that poor woman tried to weaponize her car, because we all saw video footage that proves otherwise,” he told the Blade. “We’re not going to let this regime, the media, or right-wing influencers try to rewrite history in real time and try to convince us we didn’t all see what we know we saw.”
Dave the Viking continued, saying he believes the perceived power of ICE and other law enforcement to act — oftentimes in deadly and unjustifiable ways — is a product of the Trump-Vance administration.
“There’s a line between fascism and anti-fascism. These motherfuckers have been pushing that envelope, trying to label an idea a terrorist organization, to the point of yesterday, crossing that line hardcore. You face the point of looking at history and saying there was this 1989, 2003 America, where we’re just going in, raiding resources. Where is this fucking 1930s Germany, where we’re going in and we’re about to just start clearing shit and pulling knots? Yeah, nope. We proved that shit yesterday.”
Two people were injured in another shooting involving federal agents, this time Border Patrol in Portland, Ore., on Thursday afternoon.
KC Lynch, who lives near American University, also spoke about her choice to protest with a group.
“I came out today because everything that ICE has done is absolutely unacceptable, not only killing this one woman, but also the fact that they’ve been imprisoning people in places that are literally, that have been literally on record by international organizations shown to be human rights violating. It’s unbelievably evil.”
Lynch also echoed Dave’s opinion about parallels between the Trump-Vance administration and the rise of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany.
“It’s literally what happened before the Holocaust. We should all be scared. We should all be angry. I’m so angry about it … even talking about it — I’m sorry,” she said before getting choked up.
Lynch emphasized that despite the circumstances in which people were protesting together, the sense of community was strong and powerful.
“I feel like it’s important for people to know that we’re angry, even if no policy changes come out of it, and it’s just nice to yell and be angry about it, because I feel like we’ve probably all been feeling this way, and it’s nice to be around people that are like minded and to like have a sense of community.”
Venezuela
AHF client in Venezuela welcomes Maduro’s ouster
‘This is truly something we’ve been waiting for’ for decades
An AIDS Healthcare Foundation client who lives in Venezuela told the Washington Blade he welcomes the ouster of his country’s former president.
The client, who asked the Blade to remain anonymous, on Thursday said he felt “joy” when he heard the news that American forces seized Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation on Jan. 3.
“This is truly something we’ve been waiting for for 26 or 27 years,” the AHF client told the Blade.
Hugo Chávez became Venezuela’s president in 1999. Maduro succeeded him in 2013 after he died.
“I’ve always been in opposition,” said the AHF client, who stressed he was speaking to the Blade in his personal capacity and not as an AHF representative. “I’ve never agreed with the government. When I heard the news, well, you can imagine.”
He added he has “high hopes that this country will truly change, which is what it needed.”
“This means getting rid of this regime, so that American and foreign companies can invest here and Venezuela can become what it used to be, the Venezuela of the past,” he said.
The AHF client lives near the Colombia-Venezuela border. He is among the hundreds of Venezuelans who receive care at AHF’s clinic in Cúcuta, a Colombian city near the Táchira River that marks the border between the two countries.
The Simón Bolívar Bridge on the Colombia-Venezuela border on May 14, 2019. (Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The AHF client praised U.S. President Donald Trump and reiterated his support for the Jan. 3 operation.
“It was the only way that they could go,” he said.
The Venezuelan National Assembly on Jan. 4 swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president. The AHF client with whom the Blade spoke said he is “very optimistic” about Venezuela’s future, even though the regime remains in power.
“With Maduro leaving, the regime has a certain air about it,” he said. “I think this will be a huge improvement for everyone.”
“We’re watching,” he added. “The actions that the United States government is going to implement regarding Venezuela give us hope that things will change.”
Minnesota
Reports say woman killed by ICE was part of LGBTQ community
Renee Nicole Good shot in Minneapolis on Wednesday
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis as she attempted to drive away from law enforcement during a protest on Wednesday.
The Star Tribune newspaper identified the victim as Renee Nicole Good, 37, a Minneapolis resident who lived blocks from where she was shot in the Central neighborhood, according to reports. Donna Ganger, Good’s mother, told the Star Tribune that her daughter lived in the Twin Cities with her wife.
Multiple videos of the shooting have gone viral on social media, showing various angles of the fatal incident — including footage that shows Good getting into her car and attempting to drive away from law enforcement officers, who had their weapons drawn.
In the videos, ICE agents can be heard telling Good to “get out of the fucking car” as they attempted to arrest her. Good, who press reports say was married to a woman, ended up crashing her car into an electric pole and other vehicles. She was later transported from the scene of the shooting and died at the hospital.
President Donald Trump defended the ICE agent on Truth Social, saying the officer was “viciously” run over — a claim that coincides with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s assessment of the situation. Noem, a South Dakota Republican, insisted the officer “fired defensive shots” at Good after she attempted to run over law enforcement agents “in an attempt to kill them — an act of domestic terrorism.”
Multiple state and local officials disputed claims that the shooting was carried out in self-defense at the same time Noem was making those assertions.
An Instagram account that appears to belong to Good describes her as a “poet and writer and wife and mom and shitty guitar strummer from Colorado; experiencing Minneapolis, MN,” accompanied by a rainbow flag emoji.
A video posted to X after the shooting shows a woman, reportedly her wife, sitting on the ground, crying and saying, “They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ve dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis,” Mayor Jacob Frey said during a Wednesday press conference. “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly that [the DHS’s claim of self-defense] is bullshit. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”
“I have a message for ICE. To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis,” Frey continued. “We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite. People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart. Long-term Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy are being terrorized, and now somebody is dead. That’s on you, and it’s also on you to leave.”
Across the Capitol, members of the House and the Senate condemned the actions of the officer.
“There’s no indication she’s a protester, there’s nothing that at least you can see on the video, and therefore nothing that the officers on the ground could see that identify her as someone who’s set out to try to do harm to an ICE officer,” U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Wednesday night on MS NOW’s “The Weeknight.”
“There is no evidence that has been presented to justify this killing,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement on his website. “The masked ICE agent who pulled the trigger should be criminally investigated to the full extent of the law for acting with depraved indifference to human life.”
“ICE just killed someone in Minneapolis,” U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, posted on X. “This administration’s violence against communities across our country is horrific and dangerous. Oversight Democrats are demanding answers on what happened today. We need an investigation immediately.”
In a statement to the Advocate, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson wrote, “Today, a woman was senselessly killed in Minneapolis during an ICE action — a brutal reminder that this agency and the Trump regime put every community at risk, spreading fear instead of safety. Reports that she may have been part of the LGBTQ+ community underscore how often the most vulnerable pay the highest price.”
National LGBTQ Task Force President Kierra Johnson also responded to Good’s death.
“We recognize and mourn the loss of Renee Nicole Good and extend our condolences to her family, loved ones, and community,” said Johnson in a statement. “This loss of life was preventable and reprehensible, particularly coming at the hands of federal agents.”
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