Maryland
Md. House committee kills bill to ban transgender kids from sports teams
FreeState Justice said measure ‘specifically’ targeted trans girls
A Maryland House of Delegates committee has struck down a bill that sought to bar transgender children from joining school sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
The House Ways and Means Committee on Feb. 24 killed the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which would have required interscholastic or intramural athletic teams or sports sponsored by a public or private school to expressly designate based on biological sex.
“This bill specifically targets transgender girls because of a false presumption that they have an unfair advantage,” said Jamie Grace Alexander, policy coordinator at FreeState Justice.
FreeState Justice is a statewide advocacy organization that coalesces direct legal services and policy advocacy to serve the needs of LGBTQ communities in Maryland.
The bill also suggested that governmental entities, licensing organizations and athletic organizations be barred from “[accepting] a complaint, [investigating], or [taking] any adverse action against a school or county board for maintaining separate [sports] for students of the female sex,” according to the fiscal and policy note.
Now that it has been voted down, Alexander said that they and other LGBTQ activists can “focus on actual trans-affirming legislation we’ve been working on.”
“These things — [the bill] — are distractions that take energy away from the work we do year round,” they said.
This recent legislative proposal follows a national trend wherein legal action is being taken to infringe upon the rights of trans children.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last week instructed state agencies to investigate families who provide gender-affirming treatments to their children following his opinion that such treatments are a form of “child abuse.”
“Since the beginning of the 2021 legislative session, anti-LGBTQ+ politicians … have sought to turn Texans against their LGBTQ+ neighbors through an onslaught of harmful legislation, inflammatory rhetoric and discredited legal opinions,” Equality Texas CEO Ricardo Martinez told the Washington Blade last week in a statement.
“They have found it politically advantageous to spread lies about and villainize LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender people, grossly mischaracterizing our lives to paint us as scary caricatures that need to be feared, all in service of securing their re-elections,” said Martinez.
Looking to the future, Alexander said that they and other LGBTQ activists are watching closely for the emergence of any anti-trans legislation.
“The senators who proposed [the Save Women’s Sports Act] are not senators we have relationships with,” they said. “So, we have to be proactive and put protections for trans people ahead of any anti-trans legislation.”
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on Tuesday signed a bill that decriminalizes HIV in the state.
State Dels. Kris Fair (D-Frederick County) and Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City) are among the lawmakers who sponsored House Bill 39 or the Carlton R. Smith Act, which is named after the long-time activist known as the “mayor” of Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood who died in May 2024.
Smith was a member of the Coalition to Decriminalize HIV in Maryland that advocated for the bill. FreeState Justice, a statewide LGBTQ rights group, was also part of the coalition.
“At FreeState Justice, we are proud to stand with advocates, health experts, and lawmakers who worked diligently to advance this bill. The bipartisan support for the Carlton R. Smith Act is a testament to the power of education, research, and courageous leadership,” said FreeState Justice Executive Director Phillip Westry in a statement. “It sends a clear message: Maryland is committed to evidence-based policymaking and to ending the criminalization of people living with HIV. We honor the memory of Carlton R. Smith by continuing the work of building a more just, inclusive, and informed society.”
Maryland is the fifth state to decriminalize HIV.
North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong, a Republican, in March signed a bill that decriminalized HIV in his state.
Maryland
A Baltimore theater educator lost jobs at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Center
Tavish Forsyth concluded they could not work for Trump
BY WESLEY CASE | Tavish Forsyth had come to a conclusion: They could not work for President Donald Trump.
So the 32-year-old Baltimore resident stripped down, turned on their camera, and lit their career on fire.
“F—— Donald Trump and f—— the Kennedy Center,” a naked Forsyth, an associate artistic lead at the Washington National Opera’s Opera Institute, which is run by the Kennedy Center, said in a video that went viral. The board of the nation’s leading cultural institution had elected Trump just weeks prior as its chairman after he gutted the board of members appointed by his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Maryland
Md. schools plan to comply with federal DEI demands
Superintendents opt for cooperation over confrontation
By LIZ BOWIE | Deciding not to pick a fight with the Trump administration, Maryland school leaders plan to sign a letter to the U.S. Department of Education that says their school districts are complying with all civil rights laws.
The two-paragraph letter could deflect a confrontation over whether the state’s public schools run diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that the Trump administration has called illegal. The Baltimore Banner reviewed the letter, which was shared by a school administrator who declined to be identified because the letter has not yet been sent.
Maryland school leaders are taking a more conciliatory approach than those in some other states. Education leaders in Minnesota, New York, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, and Wisconsin said they will not comply with the federal education department’s order, the demands of which, they say, are based on a warped interpretation of civil rights law.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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