National
Mullen honored at NYC “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal celebration
The repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” became official on Sept. 20, 2011
Former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum (Photo by TJ Sengel)
NEW YORK — More than 1,000 people gathered at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan on Tuesday to commemorate the first anniversary of the repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay and lesbian servicemembers.
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, OutServe and the Interbank Roundtable Committee honored former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen for the role he played in the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ Advocates note that his testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee in Feb. 2010 in support of openly gay and lesbian servicemembers was a pivotal moment in the fight against the Clinton-era law.
President Obama signed the repeal bill into law later that year after it passed with bi-partisan support.
“One of the things I pass on and I know you know this is it’s actually pretty easy to stand up for what you believe in,” said Mullen, who attended the event with his wife Deborah. “It’s pretty easy to stand up and represent the values you have held close for your entire life and be fortunate enough to be in a leadership position where that value actually crosses over in a time and a place and in a way where you as a leader can really make a difference. So I feel blessed to [have been] there and blessed to [have represented] all of us in the United States military at a time that made such a difference in so many lives.”
Mullen, who retired from the U.S. Navy last September, further noted that 70,000 servicemembers remain in Afghanistan nearly 11 years after the war began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“Keep them in our thoughts and our prayers,” he said. “They’re courageous young people who have made such a difference as you have, so this celebration tonight is one of great gratitude.”
ABC newswoman Barbara Walters, who emceed the event, described Mullen as her “hero” before she applauded gay servicemembers and those who fought to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“You have fought for something that is right — the end of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, so tonight is about history. Tonight is also honoring each and every one of you who has served our nation,” she said. “Tonight for the first time in American history, you have the chance to stand before this leader, an admiral, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the man who helped you on this journey and we all simply say, thank you sir.”
“In how’s effected the military, it’s only been positive,” retired U.S. Army Brigadier Gen. John Adams told the Blade before Mullen spoke. “The military works, the services work, there’s been zero effect on combat cohesion as some people said there would be. In fact if nothing else what it’s meant is tens of thousands of gays and lesbians who were already serving now can serve without being afraid of somebody looking over their shoulder and finding out who they’re spending their off-duty time with and asking them to deny who they are. That’s ridiculous. That’s history. Thank goodness.”
Josh Seefried, co-director of OutServe, agreed.
“People can go to work and feel like they don’t have to look over their shoulder anymore,” he said when asked how things have changed since the Pentagon allowed gays and lesbians to serve openly. “It’s a lot easier to go to work and not have to worry bout losing their career they love and being fired.”
Will “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” once again become law?
Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, who chairs the Republican Study Committee, said last week that he supports the reinstatement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has previously indicated that he would not seek to reinstate the policy as president.
‘There’s just no turning back the clock,” said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, told the Blade. An Army Reserve officer, Cooper attended the Intrepid event in uniform. “Open service has not been an issue, in fact if anything it’s been beneficial for recruitment and retention. People can be honest and open about who they are. They don’t have to hide from themselves or their command. And it’s been a good thing.”
Former Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Murphy, who helped spearhead “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal efforts on Capitol Hill, took a more partisan approach.
“It’s absolutely going to happen if they win the White House and get control of the Senate because they [the Republicans] already have control of the House,” he told the Blade. “It’s in their platform. It’s going to happen if we let it happen, but hopefully we all continue the march to full equality in America. It was a proud moment to pass ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal and then to see seven states pass marriage equality, but there’s still over 40 states that we have to make sure every American has full equality in our country in 2012.”
Seefried echoed Murphy, Cooper and others who described the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is one step towards full equality for LGBT servicemembers and Americans.
“There’s still a lot more work to do,” he said. “A lot more people don’t have harder support right now. We have the Defense of Marriage Act and there’s a lot of things that the Pentagon can do right now that they just haven’t done. And we also have transgender service to achieve, so I think we have a lot of work to do and we have to realize that.”
Lesbian New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, gay MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts, former Human Rights Campaign President Elizabeth Birch, Fox Morning Extra co-host Tom Murro and Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell of “The Fabulous Beekman Boys” were among those who attended the event.
Tammy Majors of Arizona said she was discharged from the U.S. Air Force under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” when a woman she had dated told her commanding officer about their relationship. She became emotional as she waited to greet Mullen after he spoke.
“I think this is a great honor and I never thought I would see this happen, ever. I’m just really happy. I’m excited,” she told the Blade about the ability of gays and lesbians to serve openly. “I just wanted to celebrate with everyone else.”
The event also doubled as a fundraiser that raised more than $700,000. Mullen said this money will benefit wounded veterans and other related causes.
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.”
Federal Government
HHS reverses Trump-era anti-LGBTQ rule
Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act now protects LGBTQ people
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights has issued a final rule on Friday under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act advancing protections against discrimination in health care prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics), in covered health programs or activities.
The updated rule does not force medical professionals to provide certain types of health care, but rather ensures nondiscrimination protections so that providers cannot turn away patients based on individual characteristics such as being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, or pregnant.
“This rule ensures that people nationwide can access health care free from discrimination,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “Standing with communities in need is critical, particularly given increased attacks on women, trans youth, and health care providers. Health care should be a right not dependent on looks, location, love, language, or the type of care someone needs.”
The new rule restores and clarifies important regulatory protections for LGBTQ people and other vulnerable populations under Section 1557, also known as the health care nondiscrimination law, that were previously rescinded by the Trump administration.
“Healthcare is a fundamental human right. The rule released today restores critical regulatory nondiscrimination protections for those who need them most and ensures a legally proper reading of the Affordable Care Act’s healthcare nondiscrimination law,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, counsel and health care strategist for Lambda Legal.
“The Biden administration today reversed the harmful, discriminatory, and unlawful effort by the previous administration to eliminate critical regulatory protections for LGBTQ+ people and other vulnerable populations, such as people with limited English proficiency, by carving them out from the rule and limiting the scope of entities to which the rule applied,” Gonzalez-Pagan added. “The rule released today has reinstated many of these important protections, as well as clarifying the broad, intended scope of the rule to cover all health programs and activities and health insurers receiving federal funds. While we evaluate the new rule in detail, it is important to highlight that this rule will help members of the LGBTQ+ community — especially transgender people, non-English speakers, immigrants, people of color, and people living with disabilities — to access the care they need and deserve, saving lives and making sure healthcare professionals serve patients with essential care no matter who they are.”
In addition to rescinding critical regulatory protections for LGBTQ people, the Trump administration’s rule also limited the remedies available to people who face health disparities, limited access to health care for people with Limited English Proficiency, and dramatically reduced the number of healthcare entities and health plans subject to the rule.
Lambda Legal, along with a broad coalition of LGBTQ advocacy groups, filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration rule, Whitman-Walker Clinic v. HHS, and secured a preliminary injunction preventing key aspects of the Trump rule from taking effect.
These included the elimination of regulatory protections for LGBTQ people and the unlawful expansion of religious exemptions, which the new rule corrects. The preliminary injunction in Whitman-Walker Clinic v. HHS remains in place. Any next steps in the case will be determined at a later time, after a fulsome review of the new rule.
GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis released the following statement in response to the news:
“The Biden administration’s updates to rules regarding Section 1557 of the ACA will ensure that no one who is LGBTQI or pregnant can face discrimination in accessing essential health care. This reversal of Trump-era discriminatory rules that sought to single out Americans based on who they are and make it difficult or impossible for them to access necessary medical care will have a direct, positive impact on the day to day lives of millions of people. Today’s move marks the 334th action from the Biden-Harris White House in support of LGBTQ people. Health care is a human right that should be accessible to all Americans equally without unfair and discriminatory restrictions. LGBTQ Americans are grateful for this step forward to combat discrimination in health care so no one is barred from lifesaving treatment.”
Weekend brings two shootings in U Street, Dupont Circle areas
GLSEN hosts Respect Awards with Billy Porter, Peppermint
Homeless transgender woman murdered in Miami Beach
HHS reverses Trump-era anti-LGBTQ rule
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