UK: Christian social worker refused job due to [homophobic] views says he will appeal judgment

An employment tribunal has produced a mixed ruling after Felix Ngole claimed he was discriminated against by a health charity.

Dave Higgens 1 July 2024

A Christian social worker who was rejected for a job after a health charity discovered his views on homosexuality has vowed to appeal after an employment tribunal upheld part of his claim but ruled he was not discriminated against by the failure to employ him.

Felix Ngole, 46, told a hearing in Leeds in April that Touchstone Leeds discriminated against him because of his religious beliefs when they refused him the job as a hospital discharge mental health support worker, based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in 2022.

More: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/felix-ngole-christian-sheffield-university-leeds-court-of-appeal-b2571961.html

Guatemala Constitutional Court imposes restrictions on LGBTQ+ Pride Parade

Guatemala Constitutional Court issued a ruling Friday requiring public security authorities to supervise the LGBTQ+ Pride Parade to ensure it conforms to “good customs.” This decision came in response to a legal challenge filed by lawyer Roberto Cano, who claimed the parade contains “immoral, sexual, and depraved scenes contrary to the moral and integral development of children.”

The Court’s ruling, announced in a statement on Friday, granted Cano’s request for a provisional injunction. It directed President Bernardo Arévalo, the Minister of Interior, and public security authorities to implement appropriate surveillance measures.

In line with this decision, the Court exhorted parade organizers and participants to exercise their rights peacefully and in accordance with “good customs,” specifically mentioning concern about the best interests of children. The Human Rights Ombudsman was also instructed to oversee compliance with these measures.

The Parade Organizing Committee swiftly responded to the Court’s ruling, issuing a statement that confirmed the parade would proceed as planned. They denounced the decision as “an attack on the rights of freedom of expression, demonstration, and association of all people, based on hate speech, prejudice, intolerance, and ignorance.” The Committee also expressed concern over the Guatemalan state’s apparent lack of a clear stance in favor of human rights for all individuals, including LGBTIQ+ people, and indicated they were considering legal action against the Court’s decision.

There is tension between the Court’s ruling and international human rights standards. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, in its General Comment No. 37 (2020) on the right of peaceful assembly, stated that restrictions on peaceful assemblies for the protection of “morals” should be rare. The Committee emphasized that such justifications should not be based on conceptions of morality derived exclusively from a single social, philosophical, or religious tradition, and cannot be imposed in opposition to expressions of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The controversy surrounding the Pride Parade occurs against the backdrop of Guatemala’s complex political and social landscape. President Bernardo Arévalo, who took office earlier this year, had promised the LGBTIQ+ community protection from discriminatory acts and pledged to combat hate speech. However, Guatemala continues to grapple with anti-LGBTIQ+ discourse and a hostile environment for this community. This is evidenced by the increase in hate crimes, with the Observatory for Violent Deaths of Lambda reporting at least 34 such crimes in 2023, a 15% increase from previous years.

The post Guatemala Constitutional Court imposes restrictions on LGBTQ+ Pride Parade appeared first on JURIST – News.

LGBTQ+ at Work – Unveiling the European Parliament’s Archives and Commitments

This new online exhibit explores documents from the European Parliament (EP) between 1987 and 2003 relevant to LGBTQ+ rights. It provides fascinating insights into some of the inner workings of the Parliament, and illustrates the mechanisms citizens have used to make their voices heard at the European level.

More: https://archives.eui.eu/en/audio_visual/exhibitions/28/exhibition_pages/49

Romania: The guidelines for interaction with transgender persons inthe electoral context

More: https://www.equalitylaw.eu/downloads/6086-romania-the-guidelines-for-interaction-with-transgender-persons-in-the-electoral-context

Canada: An Indigenous Trans Woman in Ontario Won a Six-Year Legal Battle Against a Waxing Salon

The anonymous woman was awarded more than CAD $35,000 in damages.

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has awarded an Indigenous transgender woman more than CAD $35,000 (about $25,500) in damages, following her six-year legal battle against a waxing salon owner who discriminated against and publicly humiliated her, as the court determined.

The anonymous complainant, known as A.B. during the proceedings, filed her case in 2018 after she attempted to book a leg waxing service from the salon Mad Wax in Windsor, Ontario, owned by Jason Carruthers. After speaking with an employee who later testified that she did not know what the word “transgender” meant, A.B. received a call back from Carruthers, who assumed that A.B. wanted a Brazilian wax and told her that nobody would offer that service to “someone like you” — referring to her status as a trans woman, per court documents.

More: https://www.them.us/story/canada-waxing-salon-indigenous-trans-woman-lawsuit

US president pardons LGBTQI+ military veterans’ convictions of now-repealed discriminatory laws

The US President Biden on Wednesday pardoned American veterans who were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity under a military code for more than 60 years. Biden’s proclamation grants direct clemency to people who had been given court marshal convictions between 1951 and 2013 because of their status in the LQBTQI+ community.

The pardon applies to service members convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s former Article 125.  The presidential proclamation specifies that it is meant to pardon only offenses based on consensual, private conduct between same-sex individuals. Those covered by the pardon can apply to have their convictions erased, upgrade their military discharges, and recover lost pay and benefits. At least 32,837 LGBTQI+ service members between 1980 and 2011 were forced out of the military under the prior “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” laws, according to the US Defense Department. Civil rights advocates say it could be upward of 100 thousand service members who had been affected by discriminatory government practices from 1951-2013. 

President Biden announced in his White House statement, “As Commander in Chief, I am committed to maintaining the finest fighting force in the world. That means making sure that every member of our military is safe and respected. So they can focus on their mission.” The Biden Administration emphasized that this decision is about establishing federal rights, not based on a Supreme Court decision and that it is meant to protect the “dignity, decency, and culture” of the American Armed Forces, which reflects the “values that make us an exceptional nation.”

The Modern Military Association is a civil rights group that defends LGBTQI+ veterans.  In a press release that responded to the announcement, the advocacy organization called for individual departments of the armed services [to] streamline the process and provide the much-needed relief as soon as possible by filing requests for all similarly harmed individuals and exercise their capacity to approve the pardons and their discharge upgrades en masse. 

The Military Departments (Army, Navy, or Air Force), or in the case of the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Department of Justice, have provided information about application procedures for certificates of pardon. The US Department of Defense has established a resource page and states that it will additionally offer outreach to veterans who may be eligible. 

Internationally, the UK and Germany have passed similar policies in the past two years. This declaration coincides with the end of Pride month in the US.

The post US president pardons LGBTQI+ military veterans’ convictions of now-repealed discriminatory laws appeared first on JURIST – News.

US Supreme Court to rule on legality of gender-affirming care bans for transgender youth

The US Supreme Court announced Monday it will review the legality of state efforts to ban gender-affirming medical care for minors — a contentious issue in a nation deeply divided over transgender rights and the role of medical intervention in youth gender identity.

The case, US v. Skrmetti, centers on a Tennessee law enacted in March 2023 that bans healthcare providers from performing medical procedures on minors or administering treatments intended to help minors identify with a gender different from their sex as assigned at birth. The law also curtailed then-ongoing gender-affirming care for minor patients.

In the immediate aftermath of the law’s passage, the families of three transgender teenagers sued Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, the state’s health department, its medical board, and several other officials. The plaintiffs argued that the law violated their Equal Protection rights, as enshrined in the 14^th Amendment of the US Constitution, and sought to enjoin the law from taking effect. They argued the law “discriminates on the basis of sex and transgender status by prohibiting certain medical treatments only for transgender patients and only when those treatments are performed ‘for the purpose of . . . [e]nabling a minor to identify with, or live as,’ a gender identity other than the sex designated at birth.”

In June 2023, the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee sided with the plaintiffs, granting a preliminary injunction. But the following month, the injunction was overturned by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal. In November, the plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court.

The US then intervened on the plaintiffs’ side, arguing that the Supreme Court’s opinion was imperative given that the Tennessee law is part of a broader wave of gender-affirming care bans that had resulted in multiple circuit-level conflicts, asserting:

Those laws, and the conflicting court decisions about their validity, are creating profound uncertainty for transgender adolescents and their families around the Nation—and inflicting particularly acute harms in Tennessee and other States where the laws have been allowed to take effect.

At present, half the states in the nation have passed laws barring transgender youth from obtaining gender-affirming care — with state policies diverging on the expansiveness of the definition of such treatments. A handful of states — Alabama, Florida, Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, according to the advocacy group MAP — make it a felony to provide gender-affirming care to youths.

According to a report released earlier this year by the UCLA School of Law, 93 percent of transgender teens (aged 13-17) in the US live in states that have either passed or proposed legislation aiming to block such treatments. The number of states that have banned gender-affirming care for minors has surged in the past two years, from four in 2022 to 25 as of the time of writing. This period has seen a widening rift between Conservative and Progressive values across the US, which has had an impact on state and federal policies ranging from reproductive rights to border security.

The post US Supreme Court to rule on legality of gender-affirming care bans for transgender youth appeared first on JURIST – News.

US Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Challenge to Law Banning Transition Care for Minors

The court will decide whether the Tennessee law violates the Constitution. It’s the first time they will weigh in on the issue of medical care for transgender youth.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/us/politics/supreme-court-transgender-care-tennessee.htm

Japan top court declares transgender woman as father of daughter conceived after legal gender change

The Supreme Court of Japan declared a transgender woman as the father of her daughter, who was conceived after the woman’s legal gender change, for the first time on Friday.

In Friday’s ruling, which overturned a 2022 Tokyo High Court decision, the court held that Japan’s Civil Code and other laws do not prevent a woman from establishing a legal paternity claim and that the Civil Code recognizes biological parent-child relationships. The court stated that a father-child relationship can be established regardless of the father’s legal gender, and failing to recognize a transgender individual as the parent of a child is detrimental to the child’s interests as the child would be deprived of receiving support as a dependent. The court also stated that impacts on family relationships should be considered when deciding whether a father-child relationship should be recognized.

The overturned Tokyo High Court ruling previously held that the transgender woman could not be recognized as the parent of her daughter as her daughter was born after her legal gender change. In contrast, the transgender woman’s older daughter, who was born before her legal gender change, was legally recognized as her daughter. DNA tests confirmed that both daughters are the biological children of the transgender woman.

Japan’s judiciary and legislature have both made moves to widen LGBTQ rights in recent years. On March 14, Japan’s Sapporo High Court held that the country’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional because it violated both Article 14 and Article 24 of Japan’s Constitution. This was the first time a High Court in Japan declared the ban explicitly unconstitutional.

This decision followed two legislative moves in Japan addressing LGBTQ rights. In 2022, Tokyo’s metro government began to acknowledge same-sex partnerships, and in 2023, the federal government passed a law to better protect the rights of LGBTQIA+ people.

In addition, on February 7, a Japanese court allowed a gender change to be legally recognized without the need for sterilization for the first time in the country’s history. Japan’s Okayama Family Court Tsuyama Branch ruled in favor of Tacaquito Usui, allowing him to legally change his gender to male without having to undergo sterilization surgery, a controversial requirement struck down in 2023 as unconstitutional by Japan’s Supreme Court.

The post Japan top court declares transgender woman as father of daughter conceived after legal gender change appeared first on JURIST – News.