Humans often want to fix things about ourselves that aren’t broken. From foot-binding to plain old circumcision, our species has historically been obsessed with altering our bodies — which I can’t help but think about today as it’s Intersex Awareness Day. The observance commemorates the first protest by intersex people — those of us born with atypical sex characteristics — against the practice of subjecting intersex infants and minors to cosmetic, sex trait-altering medical procedures, on October 26, 1996.
The impetus for fixing is so prevalent regarding the intersex population that it’s often come to define us, via statements such as “Intersex? You mean those people who are operated on as babies?” that I’ve heard countless times as a longtime advocate for the intersex community. While I’m thrilled that awareness about these nonconsensual medical procedures is growing, it’s notable that we don’t define other populations this way. For example, although circumcision is the most common surgery performed on males, imagine how weird it would sound to hear males defined as “people whose penises are operated on in infancy.”
Humans often want to fix things about ourselves that aren’t broken. From foot-binding to plain old circumcision, our species has historically been obsessed with altering our bodies — which I can’t help but think about today as it’s Intersex Awareness Day. The observance commemorates the first protest by intersex people — those of us born with atypical sex characteristics — against the practice of subjecting intersex infants and minors to cosmetic, sex trait-altering medical procedures, on October 26, 1996.
The impetus for fixing is so prevalent regarding the intersex population that it’s often come to define us, via statements such as “Intersex? You mean those people who are operated on as babies?” that I’ve heard countless times as a longtime advocate for the intersex community. While I’m thrilled that awareness about these nonconsensual medical procedures is growing, it’s notable that we don’t define other populations this way. For example, although circumcision is the most common surgery performed on males, imagine how weird it would sound to hear males defined as “people whose penises are operated on in infancy.”
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Given said weirdness, today I’d like to highlight the fact that intersex people are much more than just the medical procedures that we are often subjected to — and that we’ve been around way before they even existed. Take, for example, Gen. Casimir Pulaski, born in Poland in 1745 and known as the “Father of the American Cavalry.” As the Smithsonian documentary The General Was Female? details, when the monument marking Pulaski’s grave was temporarily removed, his remains were discovered to have certain female characteristics. After years spent analyzing his skeleton and DNA, a team of researchers concluded that Pulaski was probably born intersex, with XX chromosomes.
Despite his XX chromosomes, Pulaski appeared male at birth because of his intersex variation, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), which often masculinizes genitalia, Pulaski was able to serve in the military, becoming an American Revolutionary War hero after relocating from Europe. He is believed to have saved George Washington’s life in the Battle of Brandywine and is one of only eight people to be awarded honorary American citizenship, along with notables such as Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa.
Pulaski’s story illustrates that intersex people have been thriving for centuries before the surgeries used to change us existed, and it’s also a stark reminder of the harms and limitations of our current “fix it” approach. For today, in situations like Pulaski’s — where an individual has XX chromosomes and a variation known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia — medical experts routinely recommend surgical reduction of the phallic structure and estrogen hormone therapy to feminize the child’s body and assign them female. The assumption is that, due to their XX chromosomes, these individuals are “really” girls and should thus be made to look it. Yet there’s Pulaski, a man more successful than most of his counterparts.
We can only speculate about the countless other intersex people throughout history because, as with other LGBTQI+ folks, most of our history has been lost due to the fact that we’ve only recently been able to live openly as who we are. For example, when the news broke that Hollywood film legend Rock Hudson was gay, my mother, like many, had a hard time believing it. Had it not been verified after Hudson became the first major celebrity to die of AIDS-related causes, in 1985, he would have lived and died being misperceived as heterosexual. Similarly, had Pulaski’s remains not been uncovered, we would have never known that the prominent military hero was intersex.
Today, the vast majority of intersex people are still living this way — with their intersex status publicly unknown. It’s easy for me to understand why because until I was 28 I’d been living the same way. Although I’d been “out” as a lesbian for a decade, since college, everyone but my lovers and a handful of friends believed I was a non-intersex female. I knew I was different because my physical differences are very visible, but coming out as intersex in a world that only acknowledged males and females just didn’t seem like an option in the 1980s and early 1990s.
I came out precisely when and because I was asked, in 1996, to do so by a survivor of childhood surgeries, sometimes referred to as intersex genital mutilation. She had learned that I like my intersex body and feel blessed that I wasn’t subjected to IGM, and she thought it would be useful for people to hear this perspective. Having learned about the lifelong physical and psychological harms that often result from IGM — which can involve involuntary sterilization or the loss of sexual sensation, I agreed. I wanted the world to know that doctors’ claims that intersex children need to be altered in order to be happy are, in my experience, false.
Those who’ve watched me explore my intersex-ness since my 20s have, like me, viewed it as a positive aspect of who I am — one friend just recently called it my “superpower.” While I reminded her that millions of intersex people have not been afforded these experiences due to IGM and that even for me it wasn’t always easy due to societal ignorance about intersex people, the irony of her statement wasn’t lost. For me, being intersex has been a beautiful adventure, full of unexpected sexual pleasure and a rich understanding of both male and female experiences that I feel privileged to have known — which is essentially the opposite of what doctors who promote IGM predict intersex people will experience.
Incidentally, proponents of IGM like to dismiss my experience as an exception. Perhaps I just want to be different, some speculate, which makes me laugh out loud. As the queer child of Latinx immigrants in a white neighborhood and school and having a name so unusual I grew up hearing, “Hida, what’s that?” I often longed to blend in. Or, some speculate, perhaps I’m just unusually self-confident, in a way that we can’t expect normal people to be. Far from it! As those close to me know, I suffer insecurities as much as everyone else.
The true reason I like being intersex is simple: When you don’t raise a child to believe they’re defective, they’re more likely to end up feeling good about who and what they are — and it’s my hope that all future generations of intersex people are given the chance to experience this. On that note, a growing number of medical associations have begun to listen to intersex people. They are honoring their oath to “first do no harm” by recommending that no cosmetic surgeries be performed unless intersex people seek them out for themselves, as other adults sometimes do, and we couldn’t be more grateful.
Hida Viloria is the author of Born Both: An Intersex Life and is a long-term intersex advocate.
Views expressed in The Advocate’s opinion articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, Equal Pride.
While public sentiment toward transgender people in the U.S. continues to warm, anti-transgender campaigners are exploiting the public’s uncertainty about trans youth to promote Florida-style bans on gender-affirming care.
And the stakes couldn’t be higher. Boston Children’s Hospital has been on the receiving end of at least three bomb threats this year due to misinformation about health care for transgender youth being provided there.
The piece hinges on what the authors describe as “emerging evidence of potential harm” related to the use of puberty-suppressing medications for transgender youth. But transgender health experts say that the data referenced in the Times‘ reporting comes to a different conclusion. The Times’ analysis of this data is so misleading that some advocates are questioning the motives behind the piece.
I talked with three experts – a trans advocate and educator, a psychology researcher, and a gender-affirming healthcare provider – to better understand what the Times got wrong and why it matters. Their criticisms touched on a range of issues including the data, the sources, and the framing of the issues. Many of these concerns are echoed by transgender people and care providers across the country.
“Basically, any way you slice it, this is not investigative journalism,” said Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore,
Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore, a psychology researcher familiar with the studies on gender-affirming care, criticized The Times’ interpretation of the data about puberty blockers. Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore
who has a Ph.D. in Psychology and conducts research at the University of Missouri at Columbia. “This is storytelling and editorializing from science they – at best – don’t understand because they don’t apply a logical lens to it.”
Critics of the Times piece said the reporters did get a few things right: More research on transgender health topics is needed. The reticence of drug companies to conduct research with transgender people creates barriers for FDA approval. Bone scans are beneficial for youth before and during treatment with puberty blockers.
And the most concerning is the fear that research findings could be exploited in the current political climate.
The Times article is itself a clear example of this exploitation in action and is arguably more dangerous than the transparently transphobic content published by opponents of trans rights. By echoing their claims in an ostensibly objective news outlet with a large, mainstream audience, the authors lend legitimacy to hateful extremists.
Many of the false claims promoted by those who believe gender-affirming care is tantamount to child abuse are presented to readers as if they’re objective fact. While this would be dangerous enough in an opinion piece, the Times framed this reporting as a well-vetted public service piece:
As growing numbers of adolescents who identify as transgender are prescribed drugs to block puberty, the treatment is becoming a source of confusion and controversy.
We spent months scouring the scientific evidence, interviewing doctors around the world and speaking to patients and families.
Here’s a closer look at what we found.
The celebratory response from far-right pundits is revealing. The Daily Wire‘s Matt Walsh, whose film What is a Woman? manipulates the documentary format in an attempt to legitimize harmful transphobic myths, took credit for “[forcing] the NYT to admit that puberty blockers are dangerous.”
Jenn Burleton, director of the TransActive Gender Project at Lewis and Clark’s College of Education and Counseling, has watched media narratives about transgender people evolve over 35 years of advocacy work. She’s seen the damage anti-transgender rhetoric can do. As part of the college’s first-of-its-kind certificate program in Gender Diversity in Children and Youth, Burleton lectures on the origins and impacts of anti-transgender bias.
Jenn Burleton, program director for the TransActive Gender Project, was interviewed for The New York Times piece but said the reporter’s coverage missed the mark.
She was one of the experts interviewed for the Times article. But Burleton told LGBTQ Nation she was disappointed that the reporter declined to include any discussion of the forces behind the current campaign against gender-affirming care.
“I primarily discussed the immense amount of disinformation being spread about trans-affirming healthcare, specifically as it impacts adolescents and teens,” Burleton recalled. “[Megan Twohey] seemed very interested in looking into that, and I believed the story was going to have content that exposed the false claims being made in white nationalist media and in some state legislatures.”
Instead of delving into the well-documented rise in trans antagonism promoted by far-right religious and political groups, the brief mention of Burleton portrays her as a pushy activist, prodding healthcare providers and advocating for “early and easy access” to puberty-suppressing medication.
Dr. AJ Ecker, a nonbinary trans doctor, provides gender-affirming care at Connecticut’s Anchor Health.
Dr. AJ Eckert, who directs the gender-affirming care program for Anchor Health in Connecticut and teaches at Quinnipiac University’s school of medicine, described the report as “another hit piece against trans people.” He also expressed frustration about the timing of the story, which was published on the first day of Transgender Awareness Week.
“I don’t understand how a journalist in good faith can publish something like this,” Eckert told LGBTQ Nation. “Trans youth are a vulnerable target and this is just so extremely sh**ty.”
Far from clarifying confusion about the safety and efficacy of “puberty blockers” in easing gender dysphoria, the reporting fuels an increasingly vitriolic debate over the existential rights of transgender people. The most vocal opponents of prescribing medications like Lupron to temporarily suspend exogenous puberty – or puberty a person would go through absent puberty blockers – are not calling for a more cautious approach. Rather, they advocate for the eradication of transgender identities altogether.
As trans Harvard Law instructor Alejandra Caraballo pointed out on Twitter, “The anti-trans side doesn’t want research, they want us eliminated.”
But no amount of research will make a difference if media outlets like the Times are unable or unwilling to accurately translate its findings and their significance.
“The entire article is based on the premise that puberty blockers are horrible for bone health,” Dr. Eckert explained. Through cherry-picked anecdotes and quotes, the story paints a picture of children being pushed into taking a dangerous and untested drug that might give them osteoporosis and which locks them into a medical transition process.
The Times describes one teen’s experiences:
During treatment, the teen’s bone density plummeted — as much as 15 percent in some bones — from average levels to the range of osteoporosis, a condition of weakened bones more common in older adults.
The anecdote elicits an emotional response, but there is no data to support the claim that puberty blockers are giving teenagers osteoporosis. Unfortunately, the average reader won’t dig into the cited research studies to fact-check these claims – they will simply trust that the Times’ interpretation of that data is accurate and presented without bias.
What Does the Data Say?
“Simply put, there’s no evidence in their review that puberty blockers lower adolescents’ bone mineral density at all. And here’s how I know this: [the studies] say so,” Dr. McLamore explained.
They explained that the difference in bone density between trans youth on blockers and their cisgender peers is attributable to the difference in exposure to sex hormones. Also, trans youth are more likely to have lower bone density before starting puberty blockers, due to a dysphoria-related lack of exercise and nutritional deficiencies.
“Puberty causes an increase in bone density. Blocking puberty will then halt this increase; therefore, bone density will decrease in these trans youth compared to cis youth, an expected result,” Dr. Eckert explained. “Trans youth treated with puberty blockers in early puberty have changes in bone health comparable to those of cis youth of their experienced gender.”
Also unfounded is the claim that gender-affirming care reinforces trans identity, as if healthcare providers are encouraging a bad habit by indulging a patient’s desire for medically-appropriate care.
“According to the gender-critical crowd, affirming a youth’s gender identity, whether socially and/or medically with blockers, causes a youth to double down on that identity. It’s an oft-cited argument to dissuade parents and school environments from affirming youths’ true identities,” Eckert explained. “There is precisely zero evidence that blockers ‘lock in’ a trans identity. Yes, many trans youth start gender-affirming hormones. Trans adolescents know who they are. Those youth who started on blockers and moved on to gender-affirming hormones do so because they are trans.”
To force youth to delay transition in the hopes that puberty will reaffirm their sex assigned at birth is cruel and potentially deadly. Heightened gender dysphoria is associated with an increased risk of suicidality.
“Puberty does not ‘help clarify gender,’” Eckert said. “For many of us, puberty can be highly traumatic and irreversible; waiting to see if gender dysphoria resolves is not a neutral response.”
On the contrary, puberty blockers can prevent the need for future surgeries by preventing the development of noncongruent sex characteristics like breasts or facial hair.
What’s the Harm?
As many transgender folks have observed, the study authors and named sources include a cast of familiar antagonists. And while the Times mentions in passing that some of these sources have testified in favor of state-level bans on gender-affirming care, their names are not cited in connection with the article’s dubious claims, leaving readers to take them at face value.
Of the 50-plus sources the authors say they interviewed, only about a dozen are named in the article. According to the Times, this is because several sources requested to not be named and more than a dozen declined the interview. Instead, they are cited under the syntactical cover of “some experts,” significant enough to matter but not specific enough to be held accountable.
Why do these concerns matter? Because they have a real-world impact. A well-functioning press has the power to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” But a reckless reporter’s pen can be just as harmful as a drunk surgeon’s scalpel.
The article repeatedly and uncritically leans into the talking points of anti-transgender extremists, parroting their narratives without examining their sources. As a result, advocates of gender-affirming care are finding themselves in a never-ending game of Whack-a-Myth.
“I’m tired of repeatedly refuting the same points,” Eckert said, noting that they have been so busy responding to the false claims that they have gotten little sleep since Monday. “But I have to keep doing it until mainstream media starts platforming trans voices alongside these biased and transphobic editorials.”
Though public trust in media is on the decline, the Times has managed to maintain a reputation as a trustworthy news source, particularly among the sort of well-educated, left-leaning readers who are most likely to support transgender rights.
The credibility of this story is also bolstered by its byline. Lead author Megan Twohey is best known for helping break the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault story. A film about her journalistic accomplishments, She Said, hits theaters this week. Co-author Christina Jewett is an award-winning journalist who focuses on issues including drug safety. Readers can’t be blamed for seeing them as trustworthy.
“The harm done by this article is not that it reveals disagreement about treatment methodologies among a relatively small group of providers and researchers. Disagreement and unbiased, ethical discussion about healthcare is imperative to delivering improved healthcare,” TransActive’s Burleton explained. “The harm done by this article is that it implies that trans-affirming providers and advocates oppose asking questions that will improve trans-affirming healthcare. The article ignores the [denial] that anti-trans zealots – including some care providers/’experts’ – have about the very existence or authenticity of gender expansive identity.”
Whether the author’s missteps are due to malice or ignorance is up for debate. But it is worth noting that neither of the reporters has much experience covering transgender issues. That much is clear from the language they use to describe the experience of being transgender. The authors conflate gender dysphoria and trans identity with “the discomfort of puberty” and cite an interest in wearing dresses as evidence that a child must not have a masculine gender identity. At one point, they go so far as to describe supporters of gender-affirming care as “enthusiasts.”
The Times owes transgender people an apology – and some serious soul-searching – after platforming anti-trans extremism under the guise of investigative journalism. While Monday’s front-page story purports to be a thorough analysis of the scientific research, it traffics in a dangerous misrepresentation of the data. It’s not the first problematic piece from the Times, but it is the most high profile. And while other media outlets are guilty of similar missteps, reporters like Twohey and Jewett (and their editors) should be capable of better. And if they aren’t, perhaps the Times should consider assigning these stories to transgender journalists.
As Americans, we encounter diversity daily. While we continue to see some signs of progress, the 2021 LGBTQ Youth Mental Health Study by the Trevor Project noted that at least once in their lifetime, 75% of LGBTQ youth reported experiencing discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. No matter how much progress we make, discrimination in any form hurts and can have a grave impact on one’s mental health.
As the Director of Health Care International’s (HCAI) Youth & Family program, I have the good fortune of being able to speak to teachers, parents, school administrators and kids about how the power of kindness and acceptance can save lives.
We will always encounter diversity, in some form throughout our lives, and inclusivity is not guaranteed. But the fact is that in the LGBTQ community, if a person has just one individual to support and include them, it can make a lifesaving difference.
According to the Trevor Project study, lower suicide rates were reported for LGBTQ youth who had access to spaces that affirmed their gender identity and sexual orientation. The statistics are even more significant in the transgender and non-binary community where youth suicide rates were cut in half when pronouns were respected by the people they lived with compared to individuals whose pronouns were not respected by anyone with whom they lived.
I know this to be true because I am often that one person for many of these kids. Through my work with HCAI, I am often called upon when a child is in a dire situation. There have been many instances when I am meeting with a child in a psychiatric hospital after an attempted suicide. Most times, these kids are there because of the anxiety and depression they experience due to feeling a lack of love or acceptance.
The foundation of HCAI’s Youth & Family Program is empathy, kindness and acceptance. Most of all, these kids and families need to know they aren’t being judged and that they are in a safe environment to speak and feel freely. When they come to us or when we are called in to help, the first thing we do is listen.
It’s human nature to tell someone “Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay.” But, in most cases, the kids that I encounter do not feel okay. In fact, they are very close to committing self-harm or even worse, committing suicide. The key is to empathize and listen and connect them with the right assistance. The first thing we say is “We are sorry you are suffering; how can we help?”
During one of our recent school trainings, a transgender student asked to meet with me prior to the workshop. He shocked me when he said, “You helped me when I was in the hospital two years ago.” It was a total surprise to see a transformed teenager who was previously nonverbal and refused to communicate with me at that time.
I realized I had previously worked with him while he was at a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt – nearly two years prior. At the time, he had no support system and was nonverbal simply because he felt like his voice was not heard. I knew at that moment that we needed to help him. We started by assuring him that he could be his authentic self and that we believed him.
HCAI provided him with a binder – a compression undergarment to flatten the chest – and today he is continuing his journey to transition. It only takes one person or organization’s unconditional support to significantly reduce the suicide risk.
Sometimes the only support that kids will experience is outside their home – at school and with friends. Therefore, it is important for schools to set the tone of acceptance. When we meet with schools, we ask administrators and teachers, “Do your students walk into your building and see themselves represented every day?” Kids cannot be what they do not see. If they see themselves in the curriculum, in the library, in the Pride flag that is flown year-round, their path to acceptance and reduced mental health crises increases.
In fact, the Trevor Project study noted that LGBTQ youth had lower rates of attempting suicide when they found their school to be LGBTQ-affirming.
How can we expect a student to give 100% when they can’t be 100% of who they are? Imagine students that must worry about getting beaten up, teased or even which bathroom they need to use simply if they try to live their truth. If gender identity and sexual orientation is all they can think about because they aren’t being accepted and living freely, it is not only preventing them from moving forward but also from being their best selves both physically and mentally.
The indisputable reality is that the LGBTQ community – and transgender and non-binary individuals even more so – are facing mental health concerns at an alarming rate. The benefits of something as simple as a sense of belonging is lifesaving. In HCAI’s Youth and Family Program workshops and trainings, we ask parents, caregivers and educators to lead with empathy, kindness and acceptance. Diversity happens. Inclusion is a choice that can save a life.
It is critically important for LGBTQ youth to have access to resources, services and support that enables them to feel accepted and included. Even more, the support of one family member, friend, mentor, coach, or teacher could be the relationship that saves a life. In their 2019 Youth Mental Health Study, The Trevor Project found that LGBTQ youth who reported having at least one accepting adult were 40% less likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year.
HCAI can be a resource to connect LGBTQ youth with the people and services they may need. If you know someone who is struggling with their mental health, be the person who makes a difference and act today.
As director of HCAI’s Youth and Families program, Tony Ferraiolo helps to provide a safe, supportive place for LGBTQ youth and their families. Tony joined the HCAI family in 2021. The program aims to build bridges within communities so every child can be their authentic self and walk a path of happiness filled with love and kindness. After years of struggling with his own gender identity, Tony transitioned in 2005. Realizing that he went through this difficult time not knowing any other transgender person, he made it his life purpose to support LGBTQ youth and their families. Tony is also a certified life coach, published author, and holds a teaching certification in mindfulness. He is co-founder of the Jim Collins Foundation, a nonprofit providing financial assistance for gender-confirming surgeries. Tony was the subject of the award-winning documentary A Self-Made Man. To learn more about Health Care Advocates International visit https://www.hcaillc.com/.
Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
The trial over Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for trans children recently began. As vulnerable children await to hear if their bodily autonomy will be stripped away, we should remember that cisgender children seek gender-affirming care with relatively little social stigma attached.
Twenty years ago, in rural Maine, I was one of them.
As a teen boy who identified as a boy — randomly sprouting breasts really, really sucked. I hated my body, wore a shirt in the pool, dreaded the school locker room, dressed in layers and walked hunched over to hide my shape.
When I was going through puberty, my body’s hormones were firing in every direction, and I started developing breast tissue similar to a girl’s. The technical term for this condition is gynecomastia, but most of us know it as the dreaded “man-boobs.” Up to 60% of teen boys have asymptomatic gynecomastia, according to the National Institutes of Health. Adolescent symptomatic cases, like mine, are less prevalent, but it affects about 65% of adult men.
As a teen boy who identified as a boy — randomly sprouting breasts really, really sucked. I hated my body, wore a shirt in the pool, dreaded the school locker room, dressed in layers and walked hunched over to hide my shape. I lived in constant fear of nipple-grabbers at school (teen boys are weird) and being outed as a “boob-haver.” I was uncomfortable and embarrassed 24/7 and had about zero percent confidence in myself, all because of the misalignment between how I felt I should look and how I actually looked.
When I confided in my conservative dad about what was happening, I was about 15. He saw how much this was holding me back, and we immediately went to a plastic surgeon for a consultation. A quick procedure and a few weeks of wearing an ace bandage later, I was flat-chested and finally had a body that looked like mine.
Trans children deserve the same consideration.
The next year was the best year of my life up to that point. I felt great. I felt confident. I made a ton of new friends, decided to get in shape, played a sport, put gel in my hair, started dating, partied — all the good stuff. For the first time, I felt and acted like an average teen instead of just barely participating out of aggressive discomfort and fear. I went from a guy who hated being seen to the most seen guy at school in no time.
Over the years, I’ve had medical procedures that saved my body, but my breast reduction saved my mind. Receiving care that affirmed my perceptions of my gender drastically changed my life for the better. I can attest that having mind-body alignment feels like a superpower.
The care that I received is just one small example of the gender-affirming care that cisgender folks receive regularly. We just call it “health care.” I got breast-tissue reduction surgery, but breast augmentation for cisgender women to conform to a perception of womanhood is even more common. Cisgender people alter their eyes, noses, lips, faces, hairlines, facial hair, body hair, height and even the nether regions to more closely align with our culture’s ideals of “the perfect man” or “the perfect woman.”
We frequently change or “enhance” our bodies hormonally, too. Kids have been dosed with human growth hormone since the ‘60s to make them taller, and men looking to achieve a cartoonish level of “manliness” get testosterone pumped into their veins. Hormone replacement therapy is commonplace for cis-women and menlooking to maintain or enhance their vitality in ways that align with their gender identities and gender ideals.
The care that I received is just one small example of the gender-affirming care that cisgender folks receive regularly. We just call it “health care.”
But I don’t see the care that affirms cisgender norms, expectations and functions, including for children, being questioned to the same extent as transgender care. By contrast, even the most basic of trans care — respecting gender identity and expression, puberty blockers and hormone therapy — is scrutinized endlessly and demonized to the point of being life-threatening for patients and doctors alike.
The double standard is glaring. And a recent viral interview between Jon Stewart and Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge about her state’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth points to a large part of the problem. Without being able to name a credible source, Rutledge claimed that 98% of youth with gender dysphoria would grow out of it. To which Stewart replied, “Wow, that’s an incredibly made-up figure.”
This idea of elected officials stripping away the autonomy of parents and children to make the kinds of medical decisions that would be best for them is appalling. As Stewart pointed out to Rutledge, the state is not even allowing parents to weigh their options based on the guidelines of the country’s top medical organizations.
We should think more deeply and compassionately about those seeking health care in the trans community as they suffer mind-body misalignment that many of us can’t even imagine. Having a little empathy is a good thing, and for those of us who get to bathe in the privilege of doing whatever the hell we want to our bodies, it’s probably even our responsibility.
Some folks may disagree that the care I received was gender-affirming, and I’ll admit I’m not an expert on health care — cis, trans or otherwise — but I am an expert on me, what I did and why I did it. For me, it was straightforward: I’m a dude, I was born a dude, I want to be a dude, and having breasts didn’t align with that for me. They needed to go for me to live a fuller life.
Some may also argue that societal pressures and expectations influenced my choices, and to that, I don’t necessarily disagree. Who knows, if breasts on a guy were the pinnacle of manliness in 2002, I might have rocked it, but surgery is a lot faster than turning the Titanic of culture, and I would have missed some of the best years of my life waiting.
Here’s what I know for sure, had I been trans and seeking the same surgery, there’s a good chance it wouldn’t have been as easy as it was for me — 20 years ago in rural Maine or today.
As the famous TV commercial went from the ‘70s – “it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” Mother Nature has a way of exacting her revenge.
The immediate task at hand is to educate gay and bisexual men how to avoid monkeypox and to get vaccinated. But it isn’t too early to assess what brought us to this point. In the last 10 years there has been a wholesale abandonment of safer sex promotion in favor of PrEP brought to you by Gilead. The result has been the destruction of the condom culture, which was so carefully built in the 1980s in the face of the raging AIDS epidemic; a tsunami of STDs; and sustained high HIV infection rates across the U.S.
The battle lines in the gay male community over condoms and partner reduction is nothing new. It was well documented in Randy Shilts’s book “And the Band Played On” and in Larry Kramer’s play “The Normal Heart.” There has been a long-standing split between sexual freedom and prevention among gay men. There has always been a sex radical group that has defined gay liberation as absolute sexual freedom. They have denied that condoms are the primary tool in prevention or that the more partners you have the greater the risk. This reminds me of people who believe that we can continue to foul the planet because we will magically invent technical solutions that will save us. How’s that working for us?
There has been a widespread attitude that syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, etc. are no big deal – take a pill or get a shot. If we have learned anything in the last few years, it should be that diseases are not static. Rather they morph into more debilitating or deadly forms. Syphilis is serious. Gonorrhea is on its way to being completely drug resistant. And now we have monkeypox that jumped from animal to human and now human-to-human. It found its perfect petri dish in condomless sex parties and porn shoots.
I can already hear the shouts of slut shaming. If you love gay men, your first priority must be to keep them safe and healthy. It is not shaming to tell them the facts.
The facts are really simple. PrEP doesn’t protect you from damaging STDs. STDs have health consequences that should not be ignored. The more sex partners you have, particularly if you don’t use condoms, the more likely you are to get an STD. The tighter the circle of partners you have – such as Grindr and other hook-up apps – the greater your odds of getting an infection.
Are condoms really such a sacrifice to protect your health? Is it possible to have great sex with a condom? Do you ever get sick of getting STDs?
Gilead, the greediest of all drug companies, is pounding our community with ads promoting PrEP and is buying favor through millions in community grants. PrEP is needed for people who won’t use condoms. But the CDC and local government have abandoned safer sex promotion in favor of biomedical options. Shows such as the popular Netflix show “Uncoupled” tell us that condoms are so 1990s.
U = U which means that Undetectable (virus) = Untransmitable (infection) is a great message if it is intended for sero-discordant couples but if it is another way of saying condoms are unnecessary then it is a problem.
Now we have monkeypox. At this point it is irrefutable that monkeypox is an STD. If you want to protect your penis or your rectum from excruciating sores a condom will help. The good news is that gay men are taking their foot off the gas. Polls show that sexual hookups are down. But monkeypox will subside and chances are we will go right back to the free-for-all of the last 10 years.
Prevention is not sexy or popular. You are stigmatized as a prude or a self-hating gay or an old fuddy duddy if you promote it. But someone has to name the elephant in the room. So many of these STD surges happen among gay men because we have more partners and we are not taking precautions. For me I would rather be the one sounding the alarm then apologizing for not having warned.
Michael Weinstein is president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
After standing with Donald Trump throughout his morally reprehensible actions and policy directives, conservative Evangelical Christians – along with other anti-choice, anti-contraceptive, and anti-LGBTQ zealots – were downright giddy over the possibility of finally receiving some of the promised dividends for selling their souls to the Devil.
This group has sacrificed all of their “deeply held religious beliefs.” They have stood with him from his destructive and epithet-laden tweets, to his promise of constructing a wall on our southern border, to the Access Hollywood tape, to revelations of his payoffs to quiet a porn star, to separating babies and young children from their parents and putting them in cages, to his planning an insurrection on the Capitol, to his squirreling top-secret documents at his Florida resort.
Throughout Trump’s bully-in-an-America-shop candidacy to his plowing into the White House, his expectant base of supporters ran ahead like the excited sprinters in the annual Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, all with the hoped-for remuneration of Trump packing the judicial branch with decidedly right-wing judges and justices.
The wall with Mexico was merely one of the many structures Trump promised to build. When he asserted during the campaign that he wanted to punish women who have abortions, as well as the doctors who perform them, he was also walling-off women from their reproductive rights.
By committing to stack the Supreme Court with an ultra-conservative majority and promising to reverse both marriage equality and Roe v. Wade (resulting in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organizationcase), he gave conservatives the vision of a gigantic concrete structure separating women and LGBTQ people from their bodies and their civil rights, and certainly from their humanity.
Unfortunately, Trump has fulfilled some of these promises.
In yet another jaw-dropping, bigoted, hateful, and life-threatening court ruling, a federal judge recently ruled that employers are not compelled to cover HIV and pregnancy prevention drugs without any cost-sharing, as is required by the Affordable Care Act’s preventive services clause. The judge, however, declared that clause unconstitutional.
The case was brought by two Texas businesses and several Texas residents. The judge, Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas, found that the requirement for employers to cover HIV prevention drug preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and birth control violated employers’ “religious freedom” as outlined in the Religious Rights Restoration Act.
The judge did not agree with the Biden administration’s argument that PrEP poses a “compelling government interest” in asking private insurance plans to cover the drugs at no cost-sharing or without any religious exemptions.
The ACA’s preventive services requirement stipulates that insurers must fully cover 100 preventive services without cost-sharing to plan members.
O’Connor’s ruling could be used to deny coverage of life-saving vaccines and other vital drugs if employers claim these therapies violate their “deeply held religious beliefs.”
U.S. Congress passed the so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which “ensures that interests in religious freedom are protected.”
In response to these and other related cases, twenty-one states have passed State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts that apply to state governments and local municipalities.
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 2014
“The owners of the businesses have religious objections to abortion, and according to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients.”
We can add “Justice” Samuel Alito, “Justice” Anthony Kennedy, “Justice” John Roberts, “Justice” Clarence Thomas, and last, but certainly not least, “Justice” Antonin Scalia to an oxymoronic list since this Supreme Court decision amounted to anything but justice.
The five men voting in the majority denied the rights of women, particularly working-class women employees at “closely-held” (family owned with a limited number of shareholders) for-profit corporations, which includes most U.S. corporations.
The case involved the families who owned the national chain of craft stores, Hobby Lobby, plus a Christian bookstore chain, and Conestoga, a Mennonite family-owned woodworking company. The parties claimed that the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and in particular, a few specific contraceptive devices covered by health insurance companies, violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The act stated that “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion….”
The decision follows former 2012 presidential candidate Willard Mitt Romney’s assertionthat “Corporations are people my friend,” and clearly shows that million- and billion-dollar corporate families have more rights than workers.
When patriarchal Christian nationalist white supremacist social and economic systems attempt to keep women pregnant and taking care of children, they can restrict their entry into the workplace and ensure their dependence on men both economically and emotionally.
As people have produced more and more children, expanding numbers of little consumers emerge to contribute to the capitalist system’s ever increasing profits for owners of business and industry. The patriarchal Christian nationalist white supremacist imperative to control women’s and LGBTQ people’s bodies amounts to imperatives to control their minds and life choices.
And when patriarchal white supremacist social and family structures converge with Christian nationalist religious systems, the oppression of women and LGBTQ people became inevitable.
Since the United States is majority Christian in all its many sects and denominations, and the conservative Supreme Court majority follows some form of Christianity, any claim of a supposed “separation of Church and state” is nothing more than a fraudulent platitude in the service of Christian nationalism.
As the GOP lurches toward authoritarianism, one of its key tactics is to suppress free thinking. What better place to start that effort than in the schools (and by extension school libraries)? It’s no surprise that schools have emerged as one of the key battlegrounds in the culture war.
But what’s less noticed is that in branding itself the education party, the GOP is actually the ignorance party. Republicans’ constant attacks on bogus controversies like critical race theory are just an excuse to dumb down the school curriculum. That’s because Republicans believe that schools are where children should be taught how to become Republicans if they are taught anything at all.
Two things are happening as Republicans go after schools. One is to focus on public schools and make sure that students learn a right-wing version of history. That involves eliminating groups that the right doesn’t like, like LGBTQ people. Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill is an obvious example of erasing the visibility of non-approved groups from schools.
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Then there are the bills that protect the tender emotions of white students. These so-called “divisive concepts” laws prohibit any discussion of race in the classroom that could cause students to feel “anguish, guilt or any other form of discomfort or stress.” In short, the bills are meant to denature history so that the ongoing quest for civil rights in the U.S. effectively ends with the Civil War.
Not content to remove current events and history from schools, Republicans have gone after other subjects as well. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) called for the removal of 54 math books because he claimed that they somehow slipped critical race theory into the multiplication tables.
Absent from any of this discussion is anything about academic standards or, you know, actually making students smarter. There’s a good reason for that. What Republicans are interested in isn’t making students smarter, it’s making them more Republican. Apparently, the way to do that is to keep them as ignorant as possible.
That’s where the second part of the plan comes in. Republicans have been pushing hard for “school choice,” which would use taxpayer money to fund private schools. This effort got a big boost from–you guessed it–the Supreme Court, which ruled in its last session that two anti-LGBTQ Christian schools in Maine were entitled to receive state funding.
As those schools proved, the curricula are not designed to educate but to indoctrinate. School choice options, like religious schools and, worse still, home schools, can be as political as they want. Indeed, a leading figure on the right–Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA–has started a chain of “anti-woke” academies based on “bedrock principles” that sound a lot like Trumpism.
Did you read about the group of staid U.S. historians who just met privately with President Biden to warn him that U.S. democracy is teetering? They told him we’re closer to civil war and authoritarian rule than at any point in history since the 1860s.
Guess who knew that already? Queer people. Black people. Immigrants. Women. Politicians on the right are using us as punching bags, and violence is breaking out everywhere.
It’s not in our imaginations, and I’ll show you the data in just a minute to back that up. Then I’ll explain what that has to do with the breakdown of democracy.
But first, let’s meet some canaries.
Chuck Johnson and J.P. Singh recently told the Washington Blade a group of young men spotted them holding hands steps away from their D.C. home. As the couple was returning from an evening out, the group shouted that they were “faggots” and punched them both. The couple ran, but the men chased them down. They knocked Chuck to the ground, punching and kicking him.
Responding to J.P.’s 911 call, EMS rushed Chuck to the hospital where he was treated for a broken thumb and underwent surgery for a jaw broken in two places.
According to the Blade, another gay couple was attacked in D.C. under similar unprovoked circumstances on Aug. 7, chased down by random strangers who objected to them holding hands, then called them “monkeypox faggots,” knocking them to the ground, brutally punching and kicking them.
Jacob and Christian are also canaries.
They’re a gay couple who were attacked while standing at the end of Christian’s driveway in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah in July. A group of young men in a car spotted them hugging. They jumped out, yelling, “We don’t like gay people in our street.”
Christian tried to defend Jacob from violence by stepping in front of him. He ended up on the ground, beaten so badly he landed in the hospital diagnosed with brain swelling.
I interviewed Christian and his family earlier this month and learned that he often puts up with anti-gay slurs shouted at him in the street by random strangers.
Over the past week, nurses and doctors in Boston have received a barrage of hateful phone calls and text messages, including at least one bomb threat, inspired by anti-LGBTQ extremist Chaya Raichik of Brooklyn who tweets as Libs of Tiktok. Raichik objects to parents choosing gender-affirming care for transgender teens, and she objects to medical providers delivering that care. She used Twitter to unleash an army of Proud Boys and other haters.
Slate reporter and Harvard Law instructor Alejandra Caraballo tweeted this: “In the last 5 days, Libs of Tiktok has tweeted and retweeted 14 posts about Boston Children’s Hospital. As a result, BCH providers are being inundated in death threats and harassing calls and emails. It’s now affecting their services. This is stochastic terrorism, full stop.”
When I saw the tweet, I called a friend of mine who practices internal medicine at a different Boston hospital. As I asked him for a comment, he reminded me that we watched the 2016 election returns together at a bar in Detroit.
“I won’t say I told you so,” he said. “But I told you so.”
I remembered how fearful he became the night Donald Trump was elected. “I’m from Lebanon,” he reminded me, “and my last name broadcasts ‘Arab’ loud and clear. Trump is going to make my life hell, and since you’re a gay man, you’d better be as worried as I am.”
Libs of Tiktok is the tip of the iceberg on Twitter, where attacks against LGBTQ people are constant background noise, and where community standards meant to prohibit slurs and attacks are rarely enforced. Caraballo asks in her tweet thread, “When will Twitter do something about [Libs of TikTok] and their ability to rile up massive harassment campaigns against their targets? Last time it was Nazis at pride and drag events. This time it’s threatening pediatricians.”
According to a new study released on Aug. 10 by the Human Rights Campaign and the Center for Countering Digital Hate, “discriminatory and inflammatory “grooming” content surge by over 400% across social media platforms” in response to Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law.
According to Christopher Kane writing in the Los Angeles Blade, major social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter are doing almost nothing to counter growing waves of anti-LGBTQ hate speech on their platforms. Both platforms claim their rules prohibit users from calling LGBTQ people pedophiles or groomers, but neither platform routinely removes such slurs, not even when users report the slurs.
According to Alexandra Martinez writing in Prism, anti-LGBTQ arson and frequent street attacks in New York City have left queer people this summer living with a gnawing feeling of unease.
It’s not just New York City. She notes that 2021 was the deadliest year on record for LGBTQ people in the U.S., and that violence rates are surging higher in 2022.
Remember Ricky Shiffer who was shot and killed after he tried to shoot up an Ohio FBI office? He was outraged that the FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. He urged people to arm themselves and join him.
Did you know hatred of LGBTQ people is one of the reasons he supported Trump? Read this tweet, in an account deleted after his attack:
“We need to be ready for war against the communists who chemically nueter [sic] prebuscent [sic] children and call it gender transitioning, not bellyache about the arguments of 30 years ago. Save ammunition.”
Large majorities of Americans say they support LGBTQ equality. Large majorities of Americans say they believe our nation should stand for freedom and liberty for all, including for marginalized people. Large majorities of Americans support women’s reproductive freedom, support taking steps to lift up Black people, and support immigrant rights.
Large majorities of Americans want to live in a diverse, pluralistic society where everyone is free to pursue happiness and live in peace.
I wrote this column from the perspective of a queer person, but my Lebanese-American doctor friend could have written something similar from his immigrant perspective. My writer friend Allison Gaines could have written from the perspective of a Black woman.
We share a common fear: that politically and religiously conservative white men are working as hard as they can to sow fear of the Other for personal power and privilege. Men like Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and many more are plying the demagogue’s trade.
Leaders are spouting hate, seeking to establish or maintain minority rule, and historians are warning President Biden that they may very well succeed.
Chuck Johnson, J.P. Singh, Chad Sanford, Jacob Metcalf, Christian Peacock, and a score of nurses and doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital already know. They’ve been the targets of extreme violence in the past few weeks, directed by people using hatred of the Other to prop up their own privilege and power.
I opened this article by writing about the historians who told President Biden that we’re at a place we haven’t been since the 1860s. In the same meeting, they made a more frightening comparison.
They warned the president we’re at a very similar place to where Germany found itself in the 1930s when a demagogue took power by demonizing the Jews. They say a war like the one that destroyed Europe could repeat itself soon, only with the U.S. in the driver’s seat.
We worry the rest of you don’t see and hear the hatred directed against us. We worry that you’re too complacent. We don’t think you appreciate the gravity of the crisis facing our nation. We fear apathy will let the the Republican Party seize Congress and state governments this November, unleashing a process that could cement minority rule for generations.
Extremists in the Republican Party are already quietly taking over state election offices, something the Washington Post warned about last November.
Will Democratic voter turnout this November be overwhelming? Will it be enough to stop the assault on our teetering Democracy?
Only you can help make that happen. Will you?
(The preceding article was previously published by Prism & Pen– Amplifying LGBTQ voices through the art of storytelling and is republished by permission.)
James Finn is a columnist for the Los Angeles Blade, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, and alumnus of Queer Nation and ACT UP. Reach him at jamesfinnwrites@gmail.com.
In communities across the United States, LGBTQ+ people and their families are facing a growing number of significant barriers to equal rights and protections. In 2022 alone, at least 30 states have introduced anti-LGBTQ+ bills, with a majority targeting transgender and non-binary youth, on top of continued anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and bias in various states across the country. Despite progress toward equity and inclusion, the LGBTQ+ community is increasingly struggling for equality and basic human rights.
I’m truly concerned for members of my community, given the impact these actions are having on our mental health and wellbeing. Several of my LGBTQ+ colleagues and colleagues with LGBTQ+ family members have expressed fear for themselves and their children. Some are scared their transgender child will be taken from them and placed in foster care. Others feel they might be personally prosecuted for seeking gender affirming care for their child. Many are worried they’ll need to move to a different state just so they can continue accessing essential forms of health care.
I feel lucky to work for a company that opposes discriminatory actions that could harm our employees, customers, and the communities where we do business, and has equally advanced policies, practices, and benefits to support our LGBTQ+ workforce. It comforts me to know my employer supports a society that serves all Americans, including the LGBTQ+ community. But not everyone has the same assurance when they go to work.
Now more than ever, LGBTQ+ equity and inclusion must be a business imperative. Business leaders must use their voice to condemn the hate, bias, transphobia and homophobia that sadly exist in our communities. We also need businesses to take meaningful and measurable action in promoting and advancing inclusion for the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride month. While it starts with inclusive benefits, policies and networks of support, this commitment requires businesses to lead with the values of acceptance and belonging in every decision they make. It’s only then that your LGBTQ+ employees, customers and communities will truly feel included and equal.
Since the first LGBTQ+ Business Resource Group at JPMorgan Chase was created in the 1990s, many, like me, have worked hard to make our company a place where LGBTQ+ employees feel they can be their authentic selves when they come to work. Last year, we strengthened this commitment by creating the Office of LGBT+ Affairs, a full-time, dedicated team focused on advancing equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees, customers, clients, and communities. It’s my sincere hope that we don’t see our efforts slowed down by attempts to threaten the rights of people for who they are, whom they love or how they identify.
Will they or won’t they support marriage equality? That is the question facing Senate Republicans. Backers of the Senate version of the House’s Respect For Marriage Act think they are close to finding 10 Republican votes to make up the 60 votes needed to pass the measure and overcome a filibuster. But many Republicans have been very quiet about whether or not they support the bill. A common response is that they haven’t looked at the bill — a four-page document — yet.
The time it’s taken just to confirm that eight more members of the GOP will vote yes on the measure is very much at odds with the lightning speed at which the House introduced and passed the bill. It aims to codify marriage equality for LGBTQ and interracial couples into law and would effectively cut off expected attempts to throw the U.S. back into darker times by outlawing marriages for some based on sexual orientation or race.
The time it’s taken just to confirm that eight more members of the GOP will vote yes on the measure is very much at odds with the lightning speed at which the House introduced and passed the bill.
With 47 House Republicansvoting in favor of the bill, it seems like conservative lawmakers have figured out something very important: They can’t be the party of family values and be in favor of taking away the right to be a family for many of their constituents at the same time.
Now, we wait to see how many Senate Republicans have realized it too.
As a journalist who has covered many similar pieces of legislation, this issue is also particularly personal. For many queer people, marriage isn’t even a goal. In many communities, it’s still something seen as what boring heteronormative suburban gays do. I say this as someone who doeswant to get married someday and carries an aching heart over the fact that marriage was legalized for me just as my last serious live-in relationship ended — and might be taken away again just as I’ve moved in with a new partner and am exploring domestic bliss once again.
But regardless of whether it’s a knot you’d like to tie (or not), everyone from staunch Republican voters to anti-assimilationist queer activists agrees that it’s a right people should have. Marriage equality was never about assimilation — it was about putting an end to a separate-but-equal society in which only some people have fundamental rights, including financial security and protection and stability for children, while others are seen as lesser and undeserving of those same rights and relationship recognition.
A majority of American voters across all political parties have supported equal marriage rights for same-sex couples since 2021, when the annual Gallup Values and Beliefs poll found 55% of Republicans, 73% of independents and 83% of Democrats saying same-sex marriages should be recognized under law. This year, Gallup reported that 71% — up from last year’s 70% — of Americans support marriage rights for LGBTQ people. It’s a number that has risen every year since the Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalized it. It could explain why 47 Republican House representatives voted in favor of the Respect For Marriage Act in this era of hyper-partisanship and divisiveness over everything politics.
Decades of advocacy and activism led to this moment: LGBTQ people are more visible and accepted across mainstream society than ever before, and marriage is a fundamental part of that. We are out and proud, able to live authentically at work, school and in communities without having to hide our partners and identities out of fear of repercussion. Another Gallup poll this year found that 7.1% of the U.S. population identify themselves as LGBTQ, with numbers increasing with each younger generation to the point where 1 in 5 members of Gen Z is out as LGBTQ.
This visibility has led to increased discrimination. A 2022 report from GLAAD found that 70% of LGBTQ people reported that personal discrimination has risen over the past two years. Not to mention the dozens of discriminatory state laws proposed to shove LGBTQ youth into a closet they’ve never had to be in. But change is inevitably coming; when it comes to LGBTQ equality, the train has already left the station.
The GOP claims to be for family values. LGBTQ people have families now. Families with kids.
LGBTQ people serve at every level of government from the federal Cabinet down. Transportation Secretary and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, campaigned openly and affectionately to help millions of people see how mainstream and likable gay couples can be. Buttigieg’s unspoken campaign slogan might as well have been, “We’re boring and suburban, just like you.” We’ve come far from the 2004 resignation of former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey, who stepped down in brewing scandal and outing threats with a new phrase that quickly entered the discourse: “I am a gay American.”
But the current conservative makeup of the Supreme Court threatens to stop the progress LGBTQ communities have fought hard for. When Justice Clarence Thomas said that the court should “reconsider” its ruling in cases like Obergefell, which guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry, and Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized LGBTQ intimacy, it sent such a panic throughout LGBTQ communites across the country. How could it not? After all, the nation had just watched the court decide to eliminate the constitutional right to abortion — despite a majority of Americans disagreeing with the move.
To even “consider” overturning constitutional protections for the LGBTQ community would be out of step with not just what the majority of the American people want, including the majority of Republicans. But anything seems possible right now.
Now is the time for Republican lawmakers to act. The GOP claims to be for family values. LGBTQ people have families now. Families with kids. How would a Wanda Sykes or a Neil Patrick Harris, much less the countless other LGBTQ parents across America, explain to their kids why the Supreme Court took their parents’ marriage away and why the government didn’t do anything to stop it? When did breaking up families become a mandate for the party of family values? These questions should haunt the 157 Republicans in the House who voted against the Respect For Marriage Act, and it should give pause to the senators poised to cast their own votes. Republican voters made it clear that they support marriage equality. Now it’s up to Republican senators to listen.
