National
Obama: Don’t boo gay soldiers
POTUS highlights LGBT achievements at HRC dinner
President Barack Obama (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
President Obama denounced GOP presidential candidates on Saturday for not speaking out against the booing of a gay soldier who asked a question on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” during a recent debate.
Obama made the remarks during his keynote address at the Human Rights Campaign’s 15th annual dinner at the Washington Convention Center in D.C. before an estimated audience of 3,000 people.
In one notable portion of the speech, Obama took aim at Republican presidential hopefuls for not speaking out during a Sept. 22 debate against the booing of a gay soldier who asked a question about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” via video from Iraq.
“We don’t believe in the kind of smallness that says it’s OK for a stage full of political leaders — one of whom could end up being the President of the United States — being silent when an American soldier is booed,” Obama said. “You want to be commander-in-chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States — even when it’s not politically convenient.”
Christian Berle, deputy executive director of the National Log Cabin Republicans, took exception after the speech to Obama’s criticism of Republican presidential candidates.
“President Obama’s focus on the booing at the latest GOP debate underscored his focus on politics over policy in his speech,” Berle said. “Such actions were quickly rebuked by Governors Huntsman and Johnson, after the debate, which was appropriate. His speech last night, much like his tenure as President, was more cheap shots and politics than substance on policy.”
The speech before HRC supporters could arguably be seen as a stump speech before the LGBT community as the Obama gears up his 2012 re-election campaign.
Obama enumerated five accomplishments he achieved for LGBT people in the first two-and-a-half years of his administration: passage of hate crimes protections legislation; issuing an order assuring hospital visitation rights for gay couples; lifting the HIV travel ban; repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”; and declaring that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.
Obama gave particular emphasis during his address to the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which was lifted from the books on Sept. 20 as the result of repeal legislation he signed in December.
“Many questioned whether we’d succeed in repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and, yes, it took two years to get the repeal through Congress.,” Obama said. “We had to hold a coalition together. We had to keep up the pressure. We took some flak along the way. But with the help of HRC, we got it done. And ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is history.”
Obama continued, “All around the world, you’ve got gays and lesbians who are serving, and the only difference is now they can put up a family photo. No one has to live a lie to serve the country they love.”
The audience warmly greeted Obama with cheers and applause. Attendees gave the president a standing ovation at least three times, including during his mention of bringing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to an end.
At one point, an audience member shouted to Obama, “Fired up!” The president immediately replied, “I’m fired up, too,” and continued his address.
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, had particular praise for Obama while introducing the president and said his organization has accomplished “more in the last two years” than the previous seven.
“We must stand with those who have a history of standing with us and that includes Barack Obama,” Solmonese said. “No president has done more to improve the lives of LGBT people than Barack Obama.”
Some advocates were hoping that Obama would take the opportunity of speaking before an LGBT audience to endorse marriage equality.
Since last year, Obama has suggested he evolve to support same-sex marriage, although he hasn’t yet endorsed marriage rights for gay couples. The president offered no such support during his address.
John Aravosis, the gay editor of AMERICAblog, said Obama gave “the speech we expected, not the speech we deserved.”
“It was a safe speech, an election speech really,” Aravosis said. “He rightfully listed a number of excellent accomplishments, with the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal at the lead. But his term isn’t over, so what’s next? Marriage? An executive order on ENDA? … The president gave a good speech, but it could have been great.”
Obama also faced calls to publicly come out against anti-gay marriage initiatives that will be on the ballot next year in Minnesota and North Carolina. During his speech, the president didn’t explicitly mention these measures, but spoke out against efforts to enshrine discrimination in state laws and constitutions.
“There are those who don’t want to just stand in our way but want to turn the clock back; who want to return to the days when gay people couldn’t serve their country openly; who reject the progress that we’ve made; who, as we speak, are looking to enshrine discrimination into state laws and constitutions — efforts that we’ve got to work hard to oppose, because that’s not what America should be about,” Obama said.
Among the explicit plans of action that Obama stated during his speech were outstanding promises from his 2008 campaign that he pledged to accomplish, including legislative repeal of DOMA and passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
“I need your help to fight for equality, to pass a repeal of DOMA, to pass an inclusive employment non-discrimination bill so that being gay is never again a fireable offense in America,” Obama said.
Attendees at the HRC dinner hailed Obama and said the lack of announced support for marriage equality during his address isn’t as significant as other aspects of his speech or his accomplishments for LGBT people.
Gay D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At-Large) said Obama described LGBT issues during his address with an authenticity that “really is breathtaking.”
“He is singularly the most important president we’ve ever had when it comes to the advancement of rights for the LGBT community,” Catania said. “And his remarks here are so authentic. I believe who we saw is the real Barack Obama — someone who knows the importance of equality.”
On Obama’s lack of support for marriage equality, Catania said, “I hope that as we go forward, he find it in his next term in his capacity to openly support marriage equality — not just drop the defense of DOMA. But this is not the time to be diminishing his remarks. What he has done is nothing short of breathtaking.”
Mike Manning, a bisexual cast member of MTV’s “Real World D.C.” in 2009, said he heard exactly what he wanted to hear from Obama and had an exchange with the president after the speech.
Mike Manning (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
“I don’t get star-struck with celebrities, but with Obama, of course, I did,” Manning said. “The only thing I could think to say to Obama was ‘Hey Obama, you’re awesome. He said, ‘Thank you. You’re awesome.’ So now I can die happy. The President of the United States said that I was awesome.”
On Obama’s position on marriage, Manning said, “I like the way that he’s letting the nation evolve with him on his views. My opinion is that Obama has always been supportive of same-sex marriage, but the fact that he is letting the nation evolve with him is very smart.”
Manning continued, “The way Obama handles things, he has a process for everything, and he’s very smart at planning things out. Like for his repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ he didn’t just sign an executive order, he actually took the time to get people on his side, and I think that’s what he’s doing right now with marriage equality.”
Bil Browning, the gay founder and editor-in-chief of the Bilerico Project, was less impressed with the president and wanted to hear more during his remarks.
“It effectively listed all of his accomplishments, but I found it a little lackluster and was hoping for less of a campaign speech and more for a celebration or an acknowledgment of how far he’d exactly come on our issues,” Browning said.
Browning said he’d like to see Obama publicly support marriage equality, but acknowledged he doesn’t know “if coming to a constituent dinner is the proper place to announce a big change policy, that he’s changed his position on marriage.”
Other notable attendees at the HRC dinner were D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and former second lady Tipper Gore. Gay administration officials John Berry, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director, and Fred Hocherg, head of the U.S. Export-Import Bank were also there. Lesbian Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who recently launched a campaign for a U.S. Senate in Wisconsin, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made separate addresses during the dinner.
No protesters were seen outside the Washington Convention Center prior to the HRC dinner. Demonstrators often protest Obama at the LGBT events in which he participates for his lack of support of marriage equality and HRC for allegedly being an elitist organization.
Heather Cronk, managing director of GetEQUAL, said protesting the HRC dinner “wasn’t a priority and didn’t seem strategic.”
“We’re focused on building a grassroots movement that can demand full federal equality for LGBT Americans — and with limited resources, we have to be discerning about how to direct the energy of GetEQUAL’s organizers,” Cronk said. “Since we decided that protesting at the event wouldn’t actually help us build that uncompromising and unrelenting movement, we’re staying focused on where we can have an impact.”
UPDATE: This post has been edited.
Federal Government
4th Circuit rules gender identity is a protected characteristic
Ruling a response to N.C., W.Va. legal challenges
BY ERIN REED | The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that transgender people are a protected class and that Medicaid bans on trans care are unconstitutional.
Furthermore, the court ruled that discriminating based on a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is discrimination based on gender identity and sex. The ruling is in response to lower court challenges against state laws and policies in North Carolina and West Virginia that prevent trans people on state plans or Medicaid from obtaining coverage for gender-affirming care; those lower courts found such exclusions unconstitutional.
In issuing the final ruling, the 4th Circuit declared that trans exclusions were “obviously discriminatory” and were “in violation of the equal protection clause” of the Constitution, upholding lower court rulings that barred the discriminatory exclusions.
The 4th Circuit ruling focused on two cases in states within its jurisdiction: North Carolina and West Virginia. In North Carolina, trans state employees who rely on the State Health Plan were unable to use it to obtain gender-affirming care for gender dysphoria diagnoses.
In West Virginia, a similar exclusion applied to those on the state’s Medicaid plan for surgeries related to a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Both exclusions were overturned by lower courts, and both states appealed to the 4th Circuit.
Attorneys for the states had argued that the policies were not discriminatory because the exclusions for gender affirming care “apply to everyone, not just transgender people.” The majority of the court, however, struck down such a claim, pointing to several other cases where such arguments break down, such as same-sex marriage bans “applying to straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual people equally,” even though straight people would be entirely unaffected by such bans.
Other cases cited included literacy tests, a tax on wearing kippot for Jewish people, and interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia.
See this portion of the court analysis here:
Of particular note in the majority opinion was a section on Geduldig v. Aiello that seemed laser-targeted toward an eventual U.S. Supreme Court decision on discriminatory policies targeting trans people. Geduldig v. Aiello, a 1974 ruling, determined that pregnancy discrimination is not inherently sex discrimination because it does not “classify on sex,” but rather, on pregnancy status.
Using similar arguments, the states claimed that gender affirming care exclusions did not classify or discriminate based on trans status or sex, but rather, on a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and treatments to alleviate that dysphoria.
The majority was unconvinced, ruling, “gender dysphoria is so intimately related to transgender status as to be virtually indistinguishable from it. The excluded treatments aim at addressing incongruity between sex assigned at birth and gender identity, the very heart of transgender status.” In doing so, the majority cited several cases, many from after Geduldig was decided.
Notably, Geduldig was cited in both the 6th and 11th Circuit decisions upholding gender affirming care bans in a handful of states.
The court also pointed to the potentially ridiculous conclusions that strict readings of what counts as proxy discrimination could lead to, such as if legislators attempted to use “XX chromosomes” and “XY chromosomes” to get around sex discrimination policies:
Importantly, the court also rebutted recent arguments that Bostock applies only to “limited Title VII claims involving employers who fired” LGBTQ employees, and not to Title IX, which the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination mandate references. The majority stated that this is not the case, and that there is “nothing in Bostock to suggest the holding was that narrow.”
Ultimately, the court ruled that the exclusions on trans care violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The court also ruled that the West Virginia Medicaid Program violates the Medicaid Act and the anti-discrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
Additionally, the court upheld the dismissal of anti-trans expert testimony for lacking relevant expertise. West Virginia and North Carolina must end trans care exclusions in line with earlier district court decisions.
The decision will likely have nationwide impacts on court cases in other districts. The case had become a major battleground for trans rights, with dozens of states filing amicus briefs in favor or against the protection of the equal process rights of trans people. Twenty-one Republican states filed an amicus brief in favor of denying trans people anti-discrimination protections in healthcare, and 17 Democratic states joined an amicus brief in support of the healthcare rights of trans individuals.
Many Republican states are defending anti-trans laws that discriminate against trans people by banning or limiting gender-affirming care. These laws could come under threat if the legal rationale used in this decision is adopted by other circuits. In the 4th Circuit’s jurisdiction, West Virginia and North Carolina already have gender-affirming care bans for trans youth in place, and South Carolina may consider a similar bill this week.
The decision could potentially be used as precedent to challenge all of those laws in the near future and to deter South Carolina’s bill from passing into law.
The decision is the latest in a web of legal battles concerning trans people. Earlier this month, the 4th Circuit also reversed a sports ban in West Virginia, ruling that Title IX protects trans student athletes. However, the Supreme Court recently narrowed a victory for trans healthcare from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and allowed Idaho to continue enforcing its ban on gender-affirming care for everyone except the two plaintiffs in the case.
Importantly, that decision was not about the constitutionality of gender-affirming care, but the limits of temporary injunctions in the early stages of a constitutional challenge to discriminatory state laws. It is likely that the Supreme Court will ultimately hear cases on this topic in the near future.
Celebrating the victory, Lambda Legal Counsel and Health Care Strategist Omar Gonzalez-Pagan said in a posted statement, “The court’s decision sends a clear message that gender-affirming care is critical medical care for transgender people and that denying it is harmful and unlawful … We hope this decision makes it clear to policy makers across the country that health care decisions belong to patients, their families, and their doctors, not to politicians.”
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Erin Reed is a transgender woman (she/her pronouns) and researcher who tracks anti-LGBTQ+ legislation around the world and helps people become better advocates for their queer family, friends, colleagues, and community. Reed also is a social media consultant and public speaker.
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The preceding article was first published at Erin In The Morning and is republished with permission.
National
GLSEN hosts Respect Awards with Billy Porter, Peppermint
Annual event aims to ‘inspire a lot of people to get active’
GLSEN will host its annual Respect Awards April 29 in New York, with guests including Miss Peppermint and Billy Porter.
Respect Awards director Michael Chavez said that the event will be moving.
“It will inspire a lot of people to get active and take action in their own communities and see how much more work there is to do, especially with all of the harmful things happening,” he said.
At the event, they will recognize the Student Advocate of the Year, Sophia T. Annually, GLSEN recognizes a student from around the country who is impacting their community.
“Sophia is doing incredible work advocating for inclusive sex education that is LGBTQ+ affirming, working with Johns Hopkins University to implement curriculum.” Chavez said.
Chavez calls the students that attend the Respect Awards the “biggest celebrities” of the evening.
“It is really important for the adults, both the allies and the queer folks, to hear directly from these queer youth about what it’s like to be in school today as a queer person,” he said.
GLSEN is a queer youth advocacy organization that has been working for more than 30 years to protect LGBTQ youth.
“GLSEN is all hands on deck right now, because our kids are under direct attack and have been for years now,” said actor Wilson Cruz.
Cruz is the chair of GLSEN’s National Board, which works to fundraise and strategize for the organization.
“I think we are fundamental to the education of LGBTQ students in school,” he said. “We advocate for more comprehensive support at the local, national, and federal levels so our students are supported.”
Chavez is one of the students that was impacted by this work. He led his school’s GSA organization and worked with GLSEN throughout his youth.
Cruz said Chavez is doing what he hopes today’s GLSEN students do in the future, which is pay the work forward.
“There’s nothing more powerful than people who have experienced the work that GLSEN does and then coming back and allowing us to expand on that work with each generation that comes forward,” he said.
Florida
Homeless transgender woman murdered in Miami Beach
Andrea Doria Dos Passos attacked while she slept
Gregory Fitzgerald Gibert, 53, who was out on probation, is charged with the second-degree murder of 37-year-old Andrea Doria Dos Passos, a transgender Latina woman who was found deceased in front of the Miami Ballet company facility by a security guard this past week.
According to a Miami Beach Police spokesperson the security guard thought Dos Passos was sleeping in the entranceway around 6:45 a.m. on April 23 and when he went to wake her he discovered the blood and her injuries and alerted 911.
She was deceased from massive trauma to her face and head. According to Miami Beach police when video surveillance footage was reviewed, it showed Dos Passos lying down in the entranceway apparently asleep. WFOR reported: In the early morning hours, a man arrived, looked around, and spotted her. Police said the man was dressed in a black shirt, red shorts, and red shoes.
At one point, he walked away, picked up a metal pipe from the ground, and then returned. After looking around, he sat on a bench near Dos Passos. After a while, he got up and repeatedly hit her in the head and face while she was sleeping, according to police.
“The male is then seen standing over her, striking her, and then manipulating her body. The male then walks away and places the pipe inside a nearby trash can (the pipe was found and recovered in the same trash can),” according to the arrest report.
Police noted that in addition to trauma on her face and head, two wooden sticks were lodged in her nostrils and there was a puncture wound in her chest.
Victor Van Gilst, Dos Passos’s stepfather confirmed she was trans and experiencing homelessness.
“She had no chance to defend herself whatsoever. I don’t know if this was a hate crime since she was transgender or if she had some sort of interaction with this person because he might have been homeless as well. The detective could not say if she was attacked because she was transgender,” said Van Gilst.
“She has been struggling with mental health issues for a long time, going back to when she was in her early 20s. We did everything we could to help her. My wife is devastated. For her, this is like a nightmare that turned into reality. Andrea moved around a lot and even lived in California for a while. She was sadly homeless. I feel the system let her down. She was a good person,” he added.
The Miami Police Department arrested Gibert, collected his clothing, noting the red shorts were the same type in the video and had blood on them. Blood was also found on his shoes, according to police. He was taken into custody and charged.
“The suspect has an extensive criminal record and reportedly was recently released from custody on probation for prior criminal charges. Police apprehended the suspect in the city of Miami and the investigation is currently ongoing. This case is further evidence that individuals need to be held accountable for prior violent crimes for the protection of the public. We offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends of the victim,” Miami Beach Mayor Steve Meiner said in a statement.
Joe Saunders, senior political director with LGBTQ rights group Equality Florida, told the Miami Herald that “whenever a transgender person is murdered, especially when it is with such brutality, the question should be asked about whether or not this was a hate-motivated crime.”
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