USA: Federal judge blocks Trump administration rule allowing healthcare providers to discriminate against transgender individuals

A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York has blocked a new rule by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that would allow healthcare providers to discriminate against transgender individuals. The ruling was issued on Monday, one day before the rule was set to take effect.

In 2015, HHS proposed a new set of rules that defined discrimination “on the basis of sex” in Title IX to include discrimination “on the basis of pregnancy, false pregnancy, termination of pregnancy, or recovery therefrom, childbirth or related medical conditions, sex stereotyping, or gender identity.” These rules took effect on July 18, 2016.

In 2019, HHS proposed a new set of rules that repealed the 2016 definition of discrimination “on the basis of sex,” determining that “[t]he plain meaning of ‘sex’ under Title IX encompasses neither sexual orientation nor gender identity.” The new rules were to take effect on Tuesday.

On June 26, two transgender women filed suit, both of whom experienced discrimination because of their transgender status. They asked for the court to stay the rules’ effective date and to preliminarily enjoin HHS from enforcing them.

On Monday, Judge Frederic Block concluded that the rules were contrary to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia. In the Bostock opinion, the Supreme Court held that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” The district court also found that the HHS acted arbitrarily and capriciously.

The plaintiffs established that they were likely to suffer irreparable harm because monetary damages “could hardly compensate plaintiffs for the detrimental effect of discrimination on their health and, perhaps, their lives.” When balancing equities and public interest, Block reached a similar conclusion.

The judge also found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits. HHS acted because of a “fundamental disagreement” with the 2016 rules, and its position was “effectively rejected” by the Supreme Court through the Bostock ruling. The HHS had an opportunity to reevaluate its proposed rule after the case was decided. Because of this, the court found that it was likely that the plaintiffs will succeed on their claim.

Block granted a stay and a preliminary injunction to preclude the rules from becoming operative.

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USA: Judge finally blocks Donald Trump from rolling back transgender healthcare protections at the 11th hour

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Donald Trump administration’s plans to roll back existing healthcare protections for trans patients

Read: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/08/18/donald-trump-trans-transgender-healthcare-plan-blocked-judge-frederic-block/

USA: Federal judge temporarily blocks Idaho law targeting transgender athletes

Chief Judge David Nye of the US District Court District of Idaho on Monday temporarily blocked the first state law passed to ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Idaho in April on behalf of Lindsay Hecox and three other students who are challenging the constitutionality of HB 500, which excludes transgender athletes from competing in school sports and places requirements on schools to “verify the student’s biological sex” in the event any athlete’s gender is “disputed.” The new law was one of a pair of transgender restrictions recently passed in Idaho. The other, HB 509, sought to prohibit transgender individuals from changing their biological sex on their birth certificates. Both laws are currently facing legal challenges and have been blocked by preliminary injunctions.

Nye granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, after recognizing the decision to be controversial among many citizens in Idaho, stated “the Constitution must always prevail.”

Additionally, in considering whether Hecox is likely to prevail, a critical component of the legal standard for issuing an injunction, Nye considered the recent Supreme Court decision in Bostock, which held that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being … transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”

In June, 60 prominent civil rights organizations and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations called for the complete ban of all NCAA sponsored sporting events in Idaho in response to Idaho’s “dangerous anti-transgender legislation” because the law is contrary to the NCAA inclusion policies for transgender student-athletes.

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USA: Trump-Appointed Judge Rules Photographer Can Reject Gay Couples Despite Ban on LGBT Discrimination

Read: https://www.towleroad.com/2020/08/trump-appointed-judge-rules-photographer-can-reject-gay-couples-despite-ban-on-lgbt-discrimination/

How you can help persecuted Russian LGBT+ activist, Yulia Tsvetkova

This is Yulia Tsvetkova from Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Russia’s Far East. Yulia is a feminist, an LGBT+ activist, an artist, and a founder of a theatre studio for teenagers.

“I am a scary woman,” she says.

Wondering why? Read on and judge for yourself.

Yulia began 2019 having achieved a lot and with big plans in store. To mark the first day of that year, and to take stock of the past 12 months, she posted this online:

“2018 became a year of a major shift for me. It happens sometimes that important things arrive all at once. This year, I opened my own theatre, a community centre and an online feminist group. Towards the end of the year, I launched a project that I had dreamed about for many years – sex-ed for teenagers. If somebody had told me a year ago that it would have turned out like this, I’d have laughed wholeheartedly…

Many of these things would not have happened without the examples of the amazing people who came into my life and showed me that dreaming about a better world is both possible and necessary, and that we all are able to change what’s around us.”

Fast-forward to the first day of 2020 – and Yulia celebrated New Year under house arrest, with a tracking bracelet on her ankle. 

What happened in-between?

During 2019, Yulia carried on with her freshly-launched activist and theatre initiatives. She hosted events at the LGBT-friendly community centre. She contributed lots of content to her online awareness-raising projects: Vagina Monologues on destigmatising women’s bodies; Komsomolka on feminism; and Dandelion field on sex-ed for teenagers. Together with the young members of her theatre group, Merak, she had a youth theatre festival in the making with four plays to present that coming March.

Then, just two months into 2019, anonymous complaints, threats, and calls from the police began creeping into Yulia’s life. She was forced to cancel the theatre festival, due to pressure from the local authorities. Visits to the police station for questioning quickly became a routine and constant part of her days. 

On one of her visits to the police, she learned that her drawings promoting body positivity were deemed “pornography” by law enforcement agents. Concerns were raised about her “A woman is not a doll” series, in which schematic depictions of women are accompanied by affirmations like: “Living women have body fat, and that’s normal;” “Living women get wrinkles and grey hairs, and that’s normal;” and “Living women have muscles, and that’s normal”. A couple of teenagers from Yulia’s theatre group and some followers of her online communities were called in for questioning too.

The “Vagina Monologues” online community that Yulia led drew the attention of the police as well. It community featured abstract depictions of female sexual organs and educational drawings of women’s bodies.

Invitations from the local police for ‘informal questioning’ stopped later in the fall of 2019.

But Yulia’s story was about to take a darker turn.

Informal questioning soon gave way to formal interrogations. On 20 November 2019, Yulia Tsvetkova was arrested and put under investigation for “distribution of pornography”. 

Yulia was under house arrest for almost four months, from 23 November 2019 until 16 March 2020.

She went through dozens of interrogations and was ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination.

She was fined for “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” twice: in December 2019 and in July 2020. In both cases “propaganda” was found in her online content: first in the feminist and LGBT+ communities that she ran, then – in a drawing featuring LGBT+ families and a slogan “Family is where love is. Support LGBT+ families!”

Currently Yulia is appealing these two decisions and a third charge of “propaganda” based on an online post with illustrations in support of LGBT+ families in Russia. 

She continues to regularly receive death threats, and her formal complaints to the police are met with complete indifference and inaction. 

She is still under gag order and cannot leave her town while she awaits her trial in the “pornography” case, which might result in up to six years in prison.

Yet, Yulia will not give up her fight, and here’s how you can help her.

Today, Yulia needs as many eyes as possible on her case and as many messengers as possible for her story. Your attention and your action matter.

• Write, talk, tweet, draw about Yulia’s story, and invite your friends and social media community to join.
• Browse the FreeTsvet website, launched in Yulia’s support by activists in Russia, for complete details and solidarity action ideas.
• Get creative with your own solidarity action.
• Use the hashtags #заЮлю, #ямыЮлияЦветкова, #свободуюлецветковой, #свободуцветковой  on your social media platforms.

Photo and illustrations: Yulia Tsvetkova / FreeTsvet.net

Tags: RussiaLGBTI youthYulia Tsvetkova

How you can help persecuted Russian LGBT+activist, Yulia Tsvetkova

More information here: https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030437633 A preliminary version can be read for free here: https://serval.unil.ch/en/notice/serval:BIB_8FDB5B3C0490

Happy to have published a book chapter entitled “The European Union as a Protector and Promoter of Equality: Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” (ed. #ThomasGiegerich) — Andreas R. Ziegler

Human Rights Watch urged Tunisia to end the use of anal testing, used as “proof” to prosecute same-sex relations

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday called on Tunisia to release two men jailed for sodomy and to end the “cruel, inhuman and degrading” use of anal testing.

The two men, both aged 26, were jailed in June for homosexual intercourse, but their two-year sentence was later halved on appeal. The two men denied all charges, but their refusal to undergo an anal test was used as “proof” to infer guilt.

https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2020/8/5/tunisia-should-end-gay-proof-anal-tests-hrw

USA: Trans student forced to use wrong school bathroom wins landmark case guaranteeing others won’t share his ‘humiliation’

Read: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/08/10/drew-adams-trans-man-wins-florida-students-right-correct-bathrooms-three-year-legal-battle/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PNnewsletter

USA: Federal court blocks Idaho ban on changing transgender birth certificate sex

A federal court blocked Idaho’s ban on transgender individuals changing their sex on their birth certificates Friday.

The court reasoned that the ban violated a previous court order that prohibited any policy that prevents transgender individuals from changing their birth certificate sex. The court’s original order pertained to an executive agency rule that prohibited such birth certificate changes. The original order overruled this agency rule:

[Idaho Health and Welfare (IDHW)] Defendants and their officers, employees, and agents must begin
accepting applications made by transgender people to change the sex listed on their birth certificates on or before April 6, 2018; such applications must be reviewed and considered through a constitutionally-sound approval process; upon approval, any reissued birth certificate must not include record of amendment to the listed sex; and where a concurrent application for a name change is submitted by a transgender individual, any reissued birth certificate must not include record of the name change.

After this ruling, on March 30, 2020, Idaho Governor Brad Little signed a bill into law that prohibited individuals from changing the sex listed their birth certificate. The bill provided an exception within one year of birth to change sex on a birth certificate that “…incorrectly represents a material fact at the time of birth” or after a year of birth for a certificate with erroneous sex listed “only on the basis of fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact.”

The court ruled that the previous injunction applied to the new bill:

[T]he Injunction prohibits IDHW from categorically denying applications from transgender people to change the sex listed on their birth certificates and requires IDHW to review and consider such applications through a meaningful and constitutionally-sound approval process irrespective of any policy, rule, or statute. The Injunction is permanent and applies to IDHW’s processing of applications to amend birth certificates both now and in the future.

The state of Idaho has not yet to appeal the order.

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The globalisation of gay rights – As more gay people come out, tolerance will spread

Though in some countries to be open is still to risk death

Aug 8th 2020, The Economist: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/08/08/as-more-gay-people-come-out-tolerance-will-spread

PHILIP LARKIN was only half-wrong. Sex didn’t begin in 1963, as the poet joked; for a hefty minority of Britons it was four years later—legally, at least—when Parliament nixed the law prohibiting gay sex. In this age of rainbow flags and pride parades, it is easy to forget how few lesbians and gays could be open about their sexuality until relatively recently. One who was, the journalist Peter Wildeblood, was “no more proud of my condition than I would be of having a glass eye or a hare lip”. Two years after decriminalisation in England and Wales, the Stonewall riots in New York popularised a term for this: coming out.

Since then, the closet has burst open. Actors and the characters they play are openly gay. Leo Varadkar, prime minister of Ireland until June, has a male partner; Serbia’s prime minister is a lesbian, as are the mayors of Chicago and Bogotá, the Colombian capital. Yet coming out remains a pivotal moment of self-recognition for gay teenagers. Thanks to the internet, they are finding the means and the confidence to do so in more places than ever before, and at a younger age than in previous generations (see article).

Yet there are plenty of places where being gay remains taboo. Even in liberal countries, gay members of some religious and ethnic minorities have a tough time. Gay sex is still illegal in 68 countries, and punishable by death in a dozen. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) folk are subject to extra-judicial violence in many places, from beatings in bars to the gang-rape of lesbians by men who imagine that this might, as they see it, “cure” their sinful orientation. It would be reckless to encourage people to come out where to do so is to court injury or death. In all but the most repressive places, though, people are opening up. The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, a lobby group, has members in 164 countries. Pride parades march in China, Paraguay and the Faroe Islands.

Urbanisation helps. In big cities, every tribe has its place. You can play bingo with drag queens in Moscow, dance in gay bars in Nairobi (where gay sex is still illegal) and use gay hook-up apps in Beijing (where until 1997 gay people were jailed for “hooliganism”). Even in remote places, smartphones help teenagers discover that they are not alone. And that knowledge gives more of them the courage to come out. In 1985 barely a fifth of Americans had an openly gay relative, friend or colleague. Now 87% say they know someone gay or lesbian.

LGBT people coming out brings the extra advantage of spreading tolerance. Not always, of course. But sceptics and bigots are likeliest to change their minds when they realise that someone they know is gay. Familiarity reveals that homosexuals are just as human—and humdrum—as heterosexuals. It is easy to demonise the imaginary gay people depicted in a brimstone sermon; but much harder to fear the lesbian actuaries next door, or the gay dads cheering their daughter’s softball team. Pride parades, with their loud floats and copious flesh, are lots of fun. But learning that a sober-suited colleague happens to be gay is more likely to win over a conservative. One of the founders of Stonewall, a British gay-rights charity, said the name initially helped secure meetings with government ministers. To gays, it meant a riot; to the uninformed, it sounded like a firm of architects.

In 2002 about half of Americans said they tolerated homosexuality; now nearly three-quarters do. One study found that support for same-sex marriage increased rapidly in 2006-10 among Americans with a gay or lesbian friend, but fell among those with none. Even in countries where a majority remains hostile, change is coming. The proportion of Indians who said that gay people should be accepted rose from 15% in 2013 to 37% last year. Though an attempt to overturn Kenya’s gay-sex ban failed last year, the publicity it generated persuaded more locals to come out. That helps explain why over the same period the share of Kenyans who tolerate homosexuality nearly doubled, to 14%. In most places the young are more gay-friendly than the old, so discrimination will surely dwindle as the prejudiced pass away.

From Iran to Uganda, autocrats often caricature homosexuality as a foreign vice. Some even claim that there are no gay people in their country. In such places the most effective campaigners are, therefore, local gay people. The best thing liberals elsewhere can do is to provide financial and legal support to gay-rights groups and grant asylum to those who flee persecution.

Got to let it show

Mr Wildeblood’s motivation for writing a book in 1955 in which he baldly stated “I am a homosexual” was, he said, “to turn on more lights, revealing, in place of the blurred and shadowy figure of the newspaper photographs, a man differing from other men only in one respect.” The rest of those lights are coming on, one by one. ■