Congress forms new Transgender Equality Task Force
The Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus has announced the creation of the new Transgender Equality Task Force, to be chaired by Rep. Mike Honda (D-Silicon Valley).
The Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus has announced the creation of the new Transgender Equality Task Force, to be chaired by Rep. Mike Honda (D-Silicon Valley).
Friday, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation and the Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC) released a comprehensive report on the epidemic of violence against transgender people – particularly transgender women of color. The report comes ahead of the first-ever Congressional forum set for next Tuesday on the scourge of violence against transgender people.
The joint report, Addressing Anti-Transgender Violence: Exploring Realities, Challenges and Solutions for Policymakers and Community Advocates, comes in a year when at least 21 transgender people have been killed — the most reported since 2006 when advocates began working to track reported homicides of transgender people across the United States.
“There are now more transgender homicide victims in 2015 than in any other year that advocates have recorded. At least 21 people––nearly all of them transgender women of color––have lost their lives to violence,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “This kind of violence is often motivated by anti-transgender bias; but that is rarely the only factor. At a time when transgender people are finally gaining visibility and activists are forcing our country to confront systemic violence against people of color, transgender women of color are facing an epidemic of violence that occurs at the intersections of racism, sexism and transphobia––issues that advocates can no longer afford to address separately.”
“The LGBT community has long counted on our non-LGBT allies to stand beside us in the fight for equality; and right now, the transgender community needs allies more than ever as we fight for our very survival,” said Kylar W. Broadus of TPOCC. “We are proud to partner with HRC on this work, and we ask all of our cisgender lesbian, gay, bisexual and straight friends, loved ones and supporters to stand up against the continuing stigma and discrimination that is killing transgender people of color at alarming rates.”
This new HRC & TPOCC report expands on an issue brief that the HRC Foundation released in partnership with TPOCC in January; it tells the stories of victims, and highlights key data, challenges, and case studies of cities working to address violence against transgender people. Stopping violence against transgender people will require action on a number of fronts. Key recommendations made in the report include:
Passing The Equality Act
The Equality Act, which was introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative David Cicilline (D-RI), establishes explicit, permanent protections against discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity in matters of employment, housing, access to public services and places, federally funded programs, credit, education and jury service. In addition, it would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in federal funding and access to public services and places.
The Equality Act would give transgender people recourse against discrimination that can lead them to experience homelessness or be refused services from shelters or healthcare providers, which can leave them vulnerable to fatal violence.
Supporting Emergency Housing Initiatives
Federal agencies like the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Justice should enforce existing rules that prohibit discrimination against transgender people for all direct service providers, drop-in centers and shelters they fund. These rules must be paired with a broad training program on transgender cultural competency for direct service providers, drop-in centers and shelters.
Foundations, state and municipal governments, corporations and leading philanthropists should support local LGBT community centers, drop-in centers and shelters that are already providing critical direct service to the transgender community, such a Casa Ruby in Washington, DC, or Time Out Youth in Charlotte, NC.
The Department of Justice should ensure that programs and services that receive federal funding under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) are equally available to individuals regardless of gender identity. In exceptional cases where a sex-segregated program or sex-segregated facility is essential to the operation of the program, the Department should provide meaningful notice to grantees to ensure that they know that they are required to provide comparable services. These rules should be paired with a broad training program on transgender cultural competency for direct service providers, drop-in centers and shelters.
Expanding Healthcare Coverage for Transgender People
States should prohibit transgender-related exclusions in insurance and Medicaid and ensure that public employees can receive transgender-inclusive healthcare.
The country’s leading insurance companies should build on the progress of corporate America by ending all exclusions on medically necessary transition-related care. They should also ensure that their medical provider networks are sufficiently broad and have the medical expertise and cultural competency to care for transgender clients.
Physicians and other healthcare providers must increase their cultural competency and ability to provide welcoming and sensitive care for transgender patients through trainings and continuing education.
Academic medical centers should implement the Association of American Medical Colleges’ (AAMC) curricular and climate change recommendations to address healthcare disparities facing transgender people.
Addressing Unemployment through Public-Private Partnerships and Non-Discrimination Protections
Municipalities and corporations should create public-private job training programs specifically aimed at facilitating stable employment opportunities for transgender people. Workplaces should market directly to prospective transgender employees with outreach at conferences and events across the nation.
State and municipal governments must pass non-discrimination protections in employment that include both sexual orientation and gender identity.
Improving Educational Environments for Transgender Students
The Department of Education should release explicit non-discrimination guidance that Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination in education based on sex, protects transgender and gender-nonconforming students.
School district leaders, educators and other youth-serving professionals should create welcoming classrooms for transgender and gender-expansive students and to implement training programs that give teachers the tools they need to do so.
Improving Law Enforcement Training, Response, and Hate Crime Reporting
Law enforcement agencies should adopt policies that govern interactions with transgender and gender non-conforming individuals, similar to the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department’s General Order on Handling Interactions with Transgender Individuals. Law enforcement agencies can also work with advocates through programs like the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service to institute trainings to ensure compliance.
Law enforcement agencies should also educate their police officers on the importance of correctly identifying a bias-motivated crime as one based either on sexual orientation or gender identity, or ones that contain overlapping bias motivations.
State attorneys general should ensure the full and swift investigation of all open cases of homicides against transgender victims.
The FBI has taken important steps toward improving data collection for bias-motivated crimes based on gender identity and expression, but the most recent data reported (2013) suggests that local jurisdictions fail to report many of these crimes, including homicides, as bias-motivated. Of the 19 murders of transgender people in 2013, not a single one was reported as a hate crime, even though several clearly fall within the federal government’s parameters. Local law enforcement agencies can train officers to thoroughly and consistently report bias-motivated crimes through the FBI’s UCR system. City and county residents can call on local elected officials to ensure that law enforcement prioritizes reporting. Data that better reflects the true scope of anti-transgender violence will help make the case for funding and expanding programs that can prevent violence against transgender people.
Law enforcement agencies should redouble their efforts to ensure that all crimes where there is evidence of prejudice are reported to the FBI.
Becoming Allies to Transgender People
Advocates, organizations and individual members of the LGBT community can educate themselves about the violence and discrimination that transgender people face and commit to becoming better allies to transgender people in addressing these issues.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and non-LGBT people can use that self-education to call out transphobia when they see it both within and outside of the LGBT community, support transgender leadership and create spaces for transgender voices to be heard and followed.
Read the full report here: http://hrc.org/trans-violence
Today, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) responded to the latest attack on the LGBT community by leading GOP candidate for president Ben Carson. In an interview today with Fusion’s Jorge Ramos, Carson suggested creating transgender bathrooms.
Questioned about Houston voters’ rejection of a law banning LGBT discrimination this week, Carson said: “How about we have a transgender bathroom?”
“It is not fair for them to make everybody else uncomfortable,” Carson said of transgender people. “It’s one of the things that I don’t particularly like about the [LGBT] movement. I think everybody has equal rights, but I’m not sure that anybody should have extra rights – extra rights when it comes to redefining everything for everybody else and imposing your view on everybody else.”
Condemning he comments HRC President Chad Griffin said, “Ben Carson’s hateful comments are out of touch and all candidates should immediately make clear that they disavow his dangerously transphobic views. Ben Carson can’t go a week without invoking reckless and irresponsible stereotypes about the LGBT community, and his suggestion that transgender people be required to use segregated bathrooms echoes an ugly past our country should never revisit.”
In that same interview, Carson again showed a fundamental misunderstanding of existing non-discrimination laws, saying he opposed “extra rights” for LGBT people. In reality, there are no explicit federal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people, and a majority of states also lack non-discrimination protections. HRC’s polling this year found that 63 percent of LGBT people have experienced discrimination. The Equality Act would guarantee explicit federal discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Carson has a long history of anti-LGBT rhetoric. Earlier this year Carson suggested that “prison” proves that being LGBT is a choice. He walked those comments back after HRC demanded he apologize. After that, Carson said he would “no longer” talk about LGBT issues because he was being taken out of context.
Since his self-imposed ban on LGBT issues, Carson has suggested that LGBT families are not of “equal value” and that same-sex marriage would lead to “polygamy.”
Salt Lake City voters elected Jackie Biskupski as Utah’s first openly gay mayor and only the second female top executive in the capital city, according to the unofficial election-night count.
Those vote tallies had Biskupski with 52.19 percent to two-term Mayor Ralph Becker’s 47.81 percent — less than a 5 percentage-point spread. No additional results will be released until the Nov. 17 canvass.
Becker did not concede Tuesday night but did compliment Biskupski on a hard-fought campaign.
“I commend her, and really I’ve felt this way, she’s run a very, very strong campaign. And the votes that have been counted so far show her in the lead, and it’s a reflection of the campaign she’s run, and I commend her for that,” the mayor said. “Beyond that, I think we’re going to have to wait and see what the final votes are.”
As of Tuesday evening, the Salt Lake County Clerk’s office had received mail-in ballots from 48.4 percent of registered Salt Lake City voters. That record most likely will go higher, said County Clerk Sherrie Swensen, when all ballots are collected.
“I feel great,” Biskupski said. “We maintained that lead we had, and we’re going to finish strong, I know it.”
Biskupski expects to be victorious, she said, even though the results are preliminary.
“It’s about all these people in this room. Look at the people in this room,” Biskupski said of the crowd of about 200 people gathered at Kimi’s Chop House restaurant in Sugar House. “This is a diverse group of people from all over the city. This is about having a voice again.”
Utah Sen. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City, also an openly gay politician, said the election was history in the making.
“Generations of LGBT people could’ve only dreamed of this,” he said. “Jackie is now an iconic gay leader. This is a great moment for Salt Lake City — we’re not the stereotype people across the country think we are.”
But Becker’s camp was holding out hope, according to campaign manager Matt Lyon.
“Look, we came from a primary that was really far behind. We’re now within 1,500 votes,” he said, noting that more ballots remain to be counted. “We think it’s going to be a close election.”
Biskupski, a former state legislator, was apparently able to hold on to a lead in the fall campaign despite a vigorous effort by the two-term mayor, who spent more than $863,000 and garnered a passel of endorsements from top Democrats — and Republicans, such as former Gov. Mike Leavitt and former Sen. Bob Bennett — as well as five Salt Lake City Council members. He also used his incumbency to call news conferences celebrating events related to community gardens, the 28th anniversary of the redevelopment agency in Sugar House and other things.
But Biskupski’s grass-roots campaign focused on change at City Hall and kept its momentum by painting her as the people’s candidate who would listen to constituents. In the Aug. 11 primary, Biskupski captured 46 percent to Becker’s 31 percent. Three other candidates garnered a total of 19 percent.
She spent more than $536,000 and had help from a political action committee affiliated with Reagan Outdoor Advertising that put up more than a dozen billboards supporting her candidacy.
Reagan donated its billboards outside campaign contribution caps through a political action committee, and billboards became one of the few issues where Becker got traction against his opponent.
Biskupski, who for the past eight years has been a top adviser for Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder, got the backing of organized labor, including the Salt Lake Police Association.
The most noteworthy event in the campaign came in June, when Becker forced the resignation of popular police Chief Chris Burbank. That action came after three female officers filed notice of claim with Salt Lake City, signaling their intent to sue over sexual harassment from former Deputy Chief Rick Findlay. The allegations were substantiated by January 2014. Burbank put Findlay on administrative leave, and the former deputy chief was allowed to retire with full benefits in June 2014.
This Sunday, ahead of the anti-LGBT World Congress of Families (WCF) conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, HRC will place a two-page ad in The Salt Lake Tribune, standing in support of all families and against hate, writes Hayley Miller on the HRC Blog.
“As the harmful and divisive World Congress of Families descends upon Salt Lake City, we stand in support of all families,” the ad reads. “ Hate is not an American value, it has no place in Salt Lake City. We fundamentally reject the World Congress of Families and its destructive agenda.”
The ad features the name of 14,000 Americans who added their names to HRC’s action to stand up for all families and against WCF.
Active across five continents, WCF has organized large international “pro-family” conferences that bring together a wide range of vehemently anti-LGBT activists. WCF’s activities range from holding conferences in Nigeria focused on denying rights to LGBT people to working to silence the Russian LGBT community.
In addition to the ad, HRC is sponsoring an Inclusive Families Conference just days before the WCF’s conference begins.
“The best way to combat the hateful messages of rabidly anti-equality groups like the World Congress of Families and their affiliates is to simply let their track record speak for itself,” said HRC President Chad Griffin said earlier this year. “Try as they may to mask their views in sunshine and rainbows, their positions and support for policies that target and marginalize LGBT people and incite animus around the world are undeniable. As many Utahns have come to agree, LGBT people are their friends, family and neighbors and they deserve to be treated with love and respect. As we stand with these Utahns in support of families, the definition of family for WCF and other American extremists is divisive and dangerous, as it actively excludes.”
A transgender woman in New Jersey has filed suit accusing a Walmart store and one of its managers of firing her due to anti-trans bias, after instances of harassment that saw her called “he/she” and “that fucking tranny.”
The woman, Samantha Azzarano, began working at a Walmart in Deptford, N.J., in September 2012, ThinkProgress reports. The following January, she told a manager that she is transgender, and later that year she began presenting in her female identity at work, and had the name on her ID badge changed to Samantha, replacing her birth name.
According to her suit, filed October 2 in Camden County Superior Court, there were no problems with Azzarano’s job performance, and no coworkers complained about her until manager Sheena Wyckoff joined Azzarano’s team in January 2014. Wyckoff, the suit says, referred to Azzarano as “Samantha, Robert … he/she … whatever” and “that fucking tranny.”
Wyckoff also began unjustly reprimanding Azzarano, yelling at her, and accusing her of undermining Wyckoff’s authority, according to the suit. In a meeting with a team leader, Wyckoff told Azzarano, “We are always walking on eggshells for you,” the filing states.
Wyckoff obviously “had a problem with Samantha being Samantha,” Azzarano’s lawyer, Kevin M. Costello, told ThinkProgress. He noted that the use of the term “tranny” was particularly objectionable. “It’s as unacceptable as a racial epithet to describe a black person,” he said.
Azzarano says she complained to a higher manager, who failed to inform the human resources department about the problems. Azzarano then went to human resources herself, after which Wyckoff warned her not to go to higher management again. In December 2014, Azzarano was fired, “ostensibly, for conduct that she had been performing since July of 2013,” although such conduct was “allowed, and encouraged” in other departments, according to the suit.
“Any proffered reason by the defendants for the termination would be pretext,” the suit says. “The plaintiff was terminated for her transgender status,” in violation of New Jersey’s antidiscrimination law. The suit accuses Walmart of violating this law and Wyckoff of aiding and abetting in the discrimination, and Azzarano seeks “compensatory and punitive damages, interest, attorneys’ fees, enhanced attorneys’ fees, equitable back pay, equitable front pay and equitable reinstatement,” reports legal news website Law360.
At least two other major discrimination suits have been filed against Walmart recently. One alleges denial of benefits to same-sex spouses of employees, while the other claims racial and age-related discrimination.
New York City will host WorldPride in 2019, it has been confirmed – 50 years on from the Stonewall riots.
The city has been chosen as the latest host of the international LGBT Pride event, which celebrates equality in cities around the world.
However, the organisers revealed this week that WorldPride will be heading back to the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement in New York, to mark 50 years since the Stonewall Riots.
The Stonewall riots took place in 1969 to protest police brutality and crackdowns on LGBT people – with some of the first Pride marches beginning on the anniversary in 1970.
David Schneider of NYC Pride said: “The Stonewall Uprising is considered the most significant event that ignited the modern LGBT rights movement, so it makes perfect sense to bring WorldPride to the birthplace of Pride in 2019.
“We are so grateful that our fellow Pride organizers from across the globe have chosen New York City for this momentous occasion.”
U.S. Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) and others, including Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), in their letter to TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger urge the agency to “complete a thorough review of its current procedures,” including the use of full-body scanners based on whether officers conclude a passenger is male or female.
The lawmakers also call upon TSA to publish “detailed guidelines” on its website about “security screening expectations” to ensure “transgender passengers are fully informed about” them.
They urge the agency to make its helpline and other resources more prominent on its website to ensure “those with additional questions have a clear and accessible way to gather information on remaining concerns.” The lawmakers also call upon TSA to ensure all personnel “are adequately trained to serve the transgender community.”
“We ask that such trainings should be required for all TSOs that work with the public, that they be held live and in-person (as opposed to the simple distribution of written materials) and that these trainings specifically cover the particular sensitivities and vulnerabilities of transgender travelers,” reads the letter.
The lawmakers wrote Neffenger in response to Shadi Petosky’s allegations that TSA officers detained her at Orlando International Airport in Florida on Sept. 21 due to a “misunderstanding about her gender identity as a trans woman.”
“Unfortunately, Ms. Petosky’s experience is just the latest of a string of reports from travelers across the country,” reads their letter. “In the days since Ms. Petosky’s story became public, we have heard from numerous members of the transgender community describing harassing and humiliating experiences while going through airport security. While we understand the importance of vigilant airport security, we cannot countenance a security protocol that subjects transgender travelers to this level of indignity.”
The TSA has launched an investigation into Petosky’s allegations.
“Ensuring that all travelers are treated with dignity and respect is a top priority for the Transportation Security Administration,” TSA spokesperson Mike England told the Washington Blade on Friday in a statement. “That some transgendered travelers feel that they’re receiving improper treatment by TSA personnel is of great concern to us. We will work with Congress to address the concerns raised in their letter and continue our dialogue with the transgender community about the screening process.”
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, told the Blade that her organization shares “the deep concerns expressed in this letter.”
“Airport security today is invasive and questionably effective — and anyone who appears to be different is bound to bear the brunt of this problem,” she said.
Keisling added Petosky’s experience “appears to be a common one,” noting TSA officers have described the bodies of National Center for Transgender Equality staffers as “anomalies.”
“While changing officer procedures and training are important, it’s clear that TSA’s technology and screening methods themselves are the problem,” said Keisling. “Body scanners and pat downs should not be first line of screening. Where scanners are used, they should be able to tell the difference between a bomb and a body part.”
The National Center for Transgender Equality is among the organizations that filed a federal lawsuit against TSA in July over regulations governing the use of body-scanners and pat-downs.
– See more at: http://www.washingtonblade.com/2015/10/09/tsa-urged-to-reform-screening-procedures-for-trans-passengers/#sthash.VVM83ruO.dpuf
The United States territory of Puerto Rico will join the US in allowing same-sex marriage.
After the Supreme Court decision that brought same-sex marriage to all 50 states, Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla has said the territory will follow suit.
He acknowledged that was opposition to the move in the largely Catholic island, but said: “I ask all of those who are people of faith like me to understand that no one is allowed to impose their religious beliefs on others.”
The Caribbean island joins Guam – another US territory – which announced it was to allow same-sex marriage in April.
The first same-sex couple married in Guam earlier this month.
Puerto Rico announced that it was to stop defending its ban on same-sex marriage back in March, with the Governor saying: “The commonwealth cannot responsibly advance before this court any interest sufficiently important or compelling to justify the differentiated treatment afforded so far to plaintiffs.”
This was only a few months after voting to uphold the ban.
Justice Secretary Cesar Miranda said that the Supreme Court judgement was “a huge step in the quest for equal rights,” according to AP.
He went on: “You cannot deny people the right to love.”
Jose Rodriguez of the group Heterosexuals in Favor of Equality said: “It’s time to truly make Puerto Rico into a more fair and equal society, and not depend on decisions from the outside to achieve this.”
When the court announced in January that it would be hearing the cases out of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, it set a schedule requiring the couples or, in one case, widower, to file their briefs with the court by Friday.
The first brief whose filing was announced on Friday was in a pair of cases out of Ohio, both of which deal with recognition of marriages previously granted to same-sex couples in other states. The brief’s filing was announced at 10 a.m.
Shortly thereafter, the couples in Tennessee — also seeking recognition of their marriages granted elsewhere — filed their brief, as did couples in Kentucky seeking the right to marry and the right to have marriages granted elsewhere recognized.
A bit before 11:30 a.m., the final brief came in from the Michigan couple seeking to marry in that state.
The states’ briefs defending the bans will be due in a month, by March 27.