USA: Federal lawsuit filed in Connecticut to block transgender athletes competing in girls track

https://www.jurist.org/news/2020/02/federal-lawsuit-filed-in-connecticut-to-block-transgender-athletes-competing-in-girls-track/

The Third Section of the European Court of Human Rights, sitting as a Committee comprised of three judges, has issued its judgment in Alekseyev and Others v Russia.

Paul Johnson on”Russia again in violation of ECHR for treatment of LGBT people”

Mauritania: Prison Terms for Men Celebrating Birthday Prosecutor Accused Them of “Imitating Women”

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/07/mauritania-prison-terms-men-celebrating-birthday

Germany: Remembrance of Lawyer Dr Kurt Gudell persecuted by nazis takes time

Kurt Gudell faced difficulties to obtain satisfaction from Germany; a request for compensation from Switzerland (for having expelled him back to his native Germany in 1944) in 1950 was also rejected. He polublished an account under the title “Ich ohrfeigte Hitler und wurde zum Opfer einer Schweizer Affäre Dreyfuss?” (Vienna, 1949)

Tempelhof-Schöneberg 11.02.2020

https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/publikationen/geschlecht-gesellschaft-sexualitat/ns-opfer-unter-vorbehalt/

https://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home/services-and-publications/parliamentary-interventions/archiv-pv.html/content/eda/de/meta/pv/zweiter-weltkrieg/1945-1949/kurt-gudell-entschaedigungsforderung

UK – England: Judgment by St Albans Magistrates Court in favour of trans woman who was called a “racist” and a “pig in a wig” during a campaign of online abuse

Vladimir Putin vows Russia will never have same-sex marriage for as long as he’s president in furious rant

USA: Late metal drummer wanted to donate his organs after his death. The government says he can’t, because he’s gay

According to a document from the US Health and Human Services Department, there are restrictions in place on sexually active gay and bisexual men donating organs. The document claims that men who have had sex with men (MSM) in the 12 months preceding their death are considered to have an “increased risk” of HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/02/12/cynic-heavy-metal-drummer-sean-reinert-organ-donation-sexuality-gay-prejudice/

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit heard oral arguments on Tuesday in a case filed by gay conversion therapists who argue that the practice should be protected by the First Amendment.

The Florida city of Boca Raton and Palm Beach County outlawed conversion therapy in 2017, part of a growing national and international trend. Opponents of the practice characterize it, as did Boca Raton’s attorney in court on Tuesday, as a “dangerous and ineffective medical procedure.”

The therapists’ complaint, however, argued that gay conversion regulations “storm the office doors of mental health professionals, thrust themselves into the therapeutic alliance, violate the sacred trust between client and counselor, and run roughshod over the fundamental right of client self-determination and the counselors’ cherished First Amendment liberties.” The plaintiffs in the Florida case contend that such rules “discriminate against [their] speech on the basis of the content of the message they offer.”

The district court denied their motion to enjoin the laws from taking effect. It was willing to see the bans as narrowly focused on a medical practice rather than a broad variety of speech. The governments “do ban efforts, through a medical intervention, by a licensed provider, to therapeutically change a minor’s sexual orientation,” the court wrote. But they “did not identify any problem with therapists providing coping strategies and support to children; they have identified problems with therapists providing” gay conversion treatment.

The therapists appealed the decision. Before the Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday, the plaintiffs’ attorney likened gay conversion therapy to a car’s GPS system, saying it was the patient, like the driver in a car, who asked for the therapist’s direction in overcoming homosexual attraction, not the therapist’s coercion controlling the patient. Asking the attorney to help delineate what aspects of the ban were at issue, one judge noted that it is the court’s job to determine “what is conduct and what is content” in terms of free speech in the medical sphere. The governments, she noted, had made efforts to narrow the scope of their rules to harmful conduct, such as by focusing on minor children only. In response, the therapists’ attorney characterized the bans as overly broad, prohibiting conversations essential to counseling in many situations with a transgender patient, for example.

Boca Raton’s counsel, in response, said that “there is not a single phrase or word that the ordinance prohibits these psychologists or anyone else from uttering.” Instead, he argued, it is a regulation of conduct by medical professionals, rather than speech. Under the ban, he said Psychologists can speak about and even recommend conversion therapy elsewhere, but if they are licensed and practicing in Boca Raton, they cannot themselves carry out the practice the city has extensive evidence is harmful. Their ability to cause harm as “trained professionals that learn methods and methodologies” capable of affecting their patients’ behavior, he said, renders them subject to regulation, unlike religious leaders or any person with “a soapbox on a street corner.”

The case is one of many lawsuits over gay conversion therapy currently occupying the courts, and many expect a high-profile example to reach the Supreme Court in the near future.

The post Federal appeals court hears gay conversion ban case appeared first on JURIST – News – Legal News & Commentary.

USA: Federal appeals court upholds school’s policy allowing students to use bathroom matching gender identity

https://www.jurist.org/news/2020/02/federal-appeals-court-upholds-schools-policy-allowing-students-to-use-bathroom-matching-gender-identity/

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday in favor of an Oregon school district’s policy allowing transgender students to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. A group of parents and students had sued to challenge the policy, arguing that it violated their constitutional rights to privacy and that the policy was itself discriminatory.

“It is clear that this case touches on deeply personal issues about which many have strong feelings and beliefs,” the panel wrote. “We agree with the district court and hold that there is no Fourteenth Amendment fundamental privacy right to avoid all risk of intimate exposure to or by a transgender person who was assigned the opposite biological sex at birth. We also hold that a policy that treats all students equally does not discriminate based on sex.”

The plaintiffs in the case had likened the school’s policy to past cases in which the government had intruded on people’s bodily privacy. High school students, they argued, have “the right to be free from State-compelled risk of intimate exposure of oneself to the opposite sex,” a right “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” But the district court that heard the case disagreed; the cases the plaintiffs cited involved more egregious government intrusions such as arbitrary strip searches. “The potential threat that a high school student might see or be seen by someone of the opposite biological sex while either are undressing or performing bodily functions in a restroom, shower, or locker room does not give rise to a constitutional violation,” the district court wrote.

The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday agreed. Additionally, the panel said, “the Fourteenth Amendment does not provide a fundamental parental right to determine the bathroom policies of the public schools to which parents may send their children.” In dismissing the plaintiffs’ overly broad characterization of privacy rights, the court added, “this conclusion is supported by the fact that the Student Safety Plan provides alternative options and privacy protections to those who do not want to share facilities with a transgender student.” The plaintiff students had argued that the alternatives were inconvenient and less desirable, but the court noted judicial precedent holding that when the government seeks to accommodate competing interests, like a transgender student’s well-being and that of the offended students, inconvenience and discomfort do not establish privacy violations.

The post Federal appeals court upholds school’s policy allowing students to use bathroom matching gender identity appeared first on JURIST – News – Legal News & Commentary.

Jeudi 2 avril 2020
18h – 19h30
Hôtel de Ville, Place de la Palud, Lausanne

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