Celebrating 43 Years! Issue 9 Volume 45
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Seattle Gay News SEATTLE’S LGBT NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
City joins lawsuit for “Decline to Sign” Transgender student I-1552, Tacoma rally says rights
Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes – Photo courtesy of fedgeno.com
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and City Attorney Pete Holmes announced on March 2 that the City would sign on to an amicus
brief supporting the rights of Transgender high school student Gavin Grimm to use school restrooms that correspond to his gender identity. see CITY JOINS page 3
Bishop Richard Jaech – Photo courtesy of mastmedia.plu.edu
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Hundreds of Trans people and allies gathered at the University of Washington in Tacoma on February 25 to kick off the
Decline to Sign I-1552 campaign. The initiative would reverse a ten-year-old civil rights law and bar Transgender Washingtonians from restrooms that match their gensee TACOMA RALLY page 4
Federal judge rules Croatian Nazis for Trans students pledge allegiance in bathroom case to Trump
Drazen Keleminec – Photo by HINA / mm
US District Judge Mark Hornak – Photo courtesy of education.pitt.edu
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer A federal judge in Pittsburgh ruled on February 27 that three Transgender students have a constitutional right to use restrooms that correspond to their gender identity.
US District Judge Mark Hornak issued a preliminary injunction ordering the PineRichland School District to allow the three Trans plaintiffs to use gender-appropriate facilities, because he believed they were see FEDERAL TRANS page 4
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Several dozen neo-Nazis flew US flags and swore allegiance to Donald Trump at a February 26 rally in Zagreb, Croatia. Clad all in black, the demonstrators
were members of the small Indigenous Croatian Party of Rights (A-HSP), a farright political group that is too small to be represented in Croatia’s parliament. Party leader Drazen Keleminec see CROATIAN NAZIS page 11
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March 3, 2017
Celebrating 41 Years!
CITY JOINS
continued from cover Grimm’s suit against the Gloucester County, Virginia, school board will be heard by the US Supreme Court on March 28, with a decision expected by the end of the high court’s term in June. Grimm is challenging a high school restroom access policy that forces Transgender students to use a segregated single-stall restroom instead of one consistent with the student’s gender identity. “President Trump’s recent attack on transgender people’s equality is part of an ongoing and dangerous assault on civil rights across the country,” Mayor Murray said in a statement. “Forcing transgender students to use separate restrooms or locker rooms is discriminatory and creates a ‘separate but equal’ status for students who simply want to be treated like any other student. Trans people are unfortunately more likely to be victims of violence for who they are – forcing a student to use separate facilities puts them in danger by outing them to other students and by teaching their peers [that] transgender people are not equal. I am proud the City of Seattle is a leader in creating protections and safer accommodations for transgender people, and we are ready to join the case at the Supreme Court to fight for policies that protect people, not outdated fears.” The amicus brief in Grimm’s lawsuit is signed by 31 city and county governments, including King County and the City of Tacoma, as well as Seattle. The signers argue that Title IX – a federal law forbidding discrimination in schools on the basis of sex – protects Transgender students from discrimination. The brief also notes that more than 200 jurisdictions, including Seattle, have adopted and enforced local laws prohibiting discrimination against Transgender people. Allowing Trans students to access facilities consistent with their gender identity would not compromise the privacy interests of other students or threaten public
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Gavin Grimm – Photo courtesy of Associated Press
Congressional brief Washington’s senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, also signed an amicus brief in the case, along with 193 other members of Congress. “Title IX was enacted to protect vulnerable students from discrimination on the basis of sex and guarantee that these at-risk students receive equal educational opportunities,” the brief states. “Title IX’s prohibition on discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ encompasses discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex stereotypes.” In addition, the brief quotes statements from leading LGBT rights activists: • ACLU LGBT Project Director James Esseks: “This brief is a powerful statement of support for Gavin and transgender students across the country. As the brief makes clear, discrimination against trans students is prohibited under federal law. While the Trump administration has shamefully turned its back on these students, we thank the many members of Congress who are committed – as the ACLU is – to safeguarding the dignity and rights of
trans students.” • National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling: “With transgender students and their families across the country feeling under attack, the voices of leaders like these members of Congress are needed more than ever. As they clearly explain, federal law protects transgender students, and schools have a legal and moral duty to support them.” • Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Legal Director Sarah Warbelow: “The Trump administration was wrong to repeal the transgender education guidance, but the Supreme Court has the final word. Hundreds of thousands of transgender students around the country are looking to the Supreme Court to ensure they are treated with the dignity and respect that all students deserve. As these members of Congress make clear in their brief, federal law protects these students. We thank these members for standing up for trans kids.” Another brief supporting Grimm was filed by HRC on behalf of 53 leading business organizations, many of them in the tech sector.
March 3, 2017
Seattle Gay News 3
safety, the brief maintains.
Sen. Patty Murray invites Trans activists to attend Trump speech Rep. Jayapal invites Muslim leader by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer US Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Pramila Jayapal used the occasion of Donald Trump’s first speech to Congress to make visible statements of opposition to his policies. As her guests at the event, Murray invited Seattle Transgender activists Marci Owens and Danni Askini. Jayapal brought local Muslim leader Aneelah Afzali. Although only 18, Owens is a veteran health care activist. At 7, before her transition, she testified at Congressional hearings on the Affordable Care Act and stood next to President Obama as he signed the measure into law. “She is one of the many people in Washington state and across the country who are being targeted and hurt by President Trump’s divisive and harmful agenda,” Murray said in a statement, “and she is someone I am proud to fight for and make sure has a voice here in Washington, DC. She, and millions of others across the country, are standing up, speaking out, and fighting back – and I am proud to have her by my side.” Murray also invited Danni Askini, one of the founders and the current executive director of Gender Justice League and Trans Pride Seattle, to at-
TACOMA RALLY continued from cover
der identities. At the rally, openly Gay Tacoma City Councilmember Ryan Mello recalled that in 2002 Tacoma became one of the first cities in the country where voters approved an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting Transgender residents. He urged the crowd to ensure that I-1552 “never makes it on the ballot.” Seth Kirby, chairman of the Washington Won’t Discriminate campaign opposing I-1552, said his organization has gotten endorsements from law enforcement, business, and faith leaders. One of those faith leaders is Bishop Richard Jaech of the Southwestern Washington Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
FEDERAL TRANS continued from cover
likely to win the case on its merits when it comes to trial. The judge’s decision comes less than a week after the Trump administration reversed President Obama’s guidelines protecting Trans students. Significantly, Hornak’s ruling does not depend on Title IX, the federal law Obama used to order schools to accommodate Trans students, but instead it relies on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. This reasoning is important because it means that Trans students have a positive right to gender-appropriate restrooms regardless of how the Trump administration reads Title IX. Ironically, the Pine-Richland School District had not discriminated against Trans students until the passage of a local school board measure, Resolution 2, last September. “[T]he Plaintiffs have shown a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of
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From left: Marci Owens, Senator Patty Murray and Danni Askini – Photo courtesy of Senator Patty Murray’s office
our country, cause chaos and dysfunction across our government and in our communities, and help millionaires and billionaires like himself,” Murray said in a postspeech statement. “The speech President Trump gave tonight was a clear indication that he plans to continue making empty promises while doubling down on policies and a budget that would hurt families, students, the economy, and our national security.” Jayapal added that “the president’s rhetoric did not match reality. He said things that sounded good, but they were the opposite of his actions and rhetoric of the past. “He repeated falsehoods about immigrants to justify the logic behind his inhumane and barbaric executive orders that have thrown our immigration system into complete and utter chaos. Instead of offering specifics and a plan to expand health care for all, President Trump, once again, called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, leaving millions without health insurance. He talked about tax relief for the middle class, but the Trump tax plan is nothing more than a big tax break for the rich. He mentioned reducing poverty, but in fact his budget blueprint would decimate the very social safety net programs that help people climb out of poverty.”
tend Trump’s address. Aneelah Afzali is executive director of the American Muslim Empowerment Network (AMEN), an initiative of the Redmond-based Muslim Association of Puget Sound (MAPS). “Aneelah’s story is the American story,” Jayapal said. “A Muslim-American woman of color, Aneelah has devoted her life to fighting for justice and equality. The presi-
dent’s policies marginalize entire communities and target people like Aneelah for their race and religious beliefs.” After Trump’s speech, both Murray and Jayapal reacted with anger. “President Trump has been in office for just over a month, and he has already broken the promises he’s made to put workers and the middle class first while doing exactly what he said he would do to divide
Jaech said parishioners in his diocese, which includes 90 congregations in southwest Washington, have varying theological positions on Trans rights, but his own study of the Bible convinced him that God loves every person. He quoted the biblical book of Genesis, saying that God created every person to be “a person of value and of beauty and of dignity.” Lydia Valentine also spoke, along with her Transgender son Matt. “I’m here because I’m Trans and I want to stand up for what’s right,” Matt Valentine said. “To me, the worst thing about I-1552 is that it says that I and the people I love don’t deserve the privacy, respect, and safety that everyone should have.” “I want people to realize that moral apathy is endangering our children,” Lydia Valentine added. “The root of it is not about bathrooms,
in the same way that it was never about water fountains,” in a previous era that segregated public accommodations by race. “It’s about discrimination.” Backers of I-1552 – essentially the same group that promoted I-1515 last year – have until July 7 to gather 330,000 signatures in order to qualify for the November ballot. Last year the effort to roll back Trans rights fell short, but this year anti-Trans forces started their signature-gathering earlier. A 2006 state law protects transgender people from discrimination in public accommodations. A follow-up law, passed in 2010 to prohibit discrimination in the state’s public schools, includes protection for gender expression or identity. I-1552, on the other hand, would: • require schools to maintain separate restrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities for use by boys only and girls only – with gender defined by the one the student
was assigned at birth, • require schools to provide segregated accommodations for Transgender students, if a separate facility is available, and • allow students who encounter Trans schoolmates in their restrooms to sue the school for violation of privacy. Like last year’s I-1515 campaign, I-1552 is run by Joseph Backholm, of the Family Policy Institute of Washington. Backholm declined to comment on the Decline to Sign rally when asked by the Tacoma News Tribune. “We are happy to engage in debates and public forums with activist organizations who hold a different view, but we do not provide them with quotes or statements to be used at their discretion,” Backholm emailed the newspaper. “We view the Tacoma News Tribune as an activist organization, so our only participation would be in a format that allows us to speak unedited.”
their claim that the District’s enforcement of Resolution 2 as to their use of common school restrooms does not afford them equal protection of the law as guaranteed to them by the Fourteenth Amendment,” Judge Hornak wrote in his decision. The judge brusquely dismissed the school board’s contention that Trans students had to be excluded from restrooms to protect cisgender students. “The Plaintiffs appear to the Court to be young people seeking to do what young people try to do every day – go to school, obtain an education, and interact as equals with their peers… “Other than perhaps one report received by the high school principal in October 2015 from a student that ‘there was a boy’ in the girls’ bathroom ... followed by a parent inquiry along the same lines in early 2016, there have been no reports of ‘incidents’ where the use of a common restroom by any one of the plaintiffs has caused any sort of alarm to any other student,” the judge wrote. There also is no evidence any of the three has done anything to invade anyone’s “physical or visual privacy” at the school,
Hornak added. School board members claimed they were concerned that a student “would in essence masquerade as being transgender,” using a restroom inconsistent with their assigned sex, but Hornak also dismissed this issue. “This would all occur in an effort to visually examine the sex organs of other restroom users or to engage in some other blatant and malicious invasion of bodily privacy of those simply using the restrooms for their intended purposes,” the judge wrote. He said both the girls’ and boys’ bathrooms at the school have locking, enclosed stalls, and the boys’ bathroom also has urinals with privacy screens, making it unlikely that restroom users could spy on each other. “This is wonderful news and a tremendous relief that we can now use the bathroom without feeling isolated and humiliated,” plaintiff Elissa Ridenour said in a statement after the discriminatory restroom ban was suspended. “The past months have been incredibly stressful, and this was all so unnecessary. There was no problem before, and we are
confident there will be no problem now.” In addition to Ridenour, plaintiffs included Juliet Evancho – sister of Jackie Evancho, who sang at Trump’s inauguration – and a boy identified only as A.S., because he is still a minor. Lambda Legal staff attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan called the decision “a huge win for Juliet, Elissa, and A.S.” “Notwithstanding the Trump administration’s misguided and cruel actions last week, the court today found that the school’s policy barring transgender students from the restroom that matches who they are violates the equal protection clause of the US Constitution,” Gonzalez-Pagan said. “Every student must be respected for who they are and be afforded equal educational opportunity. The court recognized that policies that seek to erase a transgender student’s identity do not address any real problems but rather only serve to discriminate and harm our youth. Such policies are not only wrong, they are illegal. The rescission of guidance by the Trump administration cannot change that.”
March 3, 2017
Celebrating 41 Years!
Point of Pride offers support to Transgender individuals
(l) Armaan Singh and Caden Williams – Photos courtesy of pointofpride.org
Hello to the Editor of Seattle Gay News: I hope this message finds you well and enjoying your weekend. My name is Jeff and I am the Board Secretary for Point of Pride, a non-profit organization that works to support trans people in need around the world. One of our programs is an Annual Transgender Surgery Fund, which provides financial assistance to folks who would not be able to afford or obtain their gender-affirming surgeries. We recently awarded $9,000 in direct support to two recipients. One of our recipients, Armaan Singh, lives in Washington state. I thought this story might be of interest for you and your readership as a local piece. Some more information on Armaan’s story can also be found here: http://pointofpride.org/meetarmaan-2017-annual-transgender-surgeryfund-recipient/ With pride, Jeff Point of Pride is a Eugene, Oregonbased non-profit organization dedicated to serving the transgender community. www. pointofpride.org; http://pointofpride.org/ meet-armaan-2017-annual-transgendersurgery-fund-recipient/ Point of Pride awards two Trans recipients $9,000 in financial assistance for gender-affirming surgeries Armaan Singh and Caden Williams are named as the 2017 Point of Pride Annual Transgender Surgery Fund recipients • Armaan Singh from Washington state will receive $6,000 towards his genderaffirming surgery later this year. As part of his application process, Armaan shared with us his struggle to identify as a deeply religious Punjabi person as well as a transgender man; how LGBTQ issues are simply not accepted or discussed in his culture; his journey surviving conversion therapy; and his current financial need as a dedicated student who also works multiple jobs. • Caden Williams from Oregon will receive $3,000 towards his gender-affirming surgery later this year. Caden’s story was equally touching. He shared with us his financial need as an involved student and his work with multiple LGBTQ groups on campus; his lack of a support system; deal-
ing with the loss of his father; and navigating the world aware of the intersectionality of being a black trans man. In November 2016, Point of Pride received 477 applications for support from trans people around the world. In January, five finalists were selected for one-on-one support and the opportunity to receive funding. In an effort to help the other three finalists also receive their gender-affirming surgeries, Point of Pride will continue to work one-on-one with them for the next 12 months. Support will include helping them obtain trans inclusive health coverage or fighting with their current providers for coverage, connecting them with health care providers and surgeons, and researching other funding opportunities on their behalf. Donations are collected year-round for this life-changing program. You can support Point of Pride’s mission by visiting www.pointofpride.org. About Point of Pride Point of Pride is a non-profit organization based in Eugene, Oregon that works to benefit transgender people in need around the world. Point of Pride has donated over $15,000 through the Annual Transgender Surgery Fund. www.pointofpride.org MEET ARMAAN SINGH: Point of Pride 2017 Annual Transgender Surgery Fund Recipient! Armaan’s Story: “My financial need is largely because of my coming out crisis with my family. I came out to them two years ago, and told them about my $3,000 savings for surgery, which I needed and wanted so devotedly… From there, my situation lost control. I was rejected by my family and forced to attend conversion therapy out of state… I was forced to use my savings to take care of my needs and my education. Since getting out of conversion therapy, I now attend college where I have tremendous support. I have restarted my savings from square one. Currently, I am a full-time college student attending University of Washington Bothell and work on campus as a Social Justice Organizer to focus on creating a diverse and safe environment. To boost my savings, I also took off campus jobs, and despite my increasing expenses, I managed to again save around $2,000 for my surgery. I still work hard, juggle multiple jobs while going to school
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only because my body needs this more than anything. The money I lost while going through my family crisis changed my life, and despite my savings as a student working full time, I need assistance very intensely to make ends meet. I am a Punjabi Indian trans man of color. My community is deeply conservative and lacks space for men like me. I do not know a single queer or trans person, which often times leaves me heartbroken. It is one of the most soul-crushing feelings in the world, especially now that my family seems so distant to my reality… So, I will continue my work to build communities for folks in an effort to protect them from what I have to feel. Currently, I give back to my community through my activism on campus. I primarily focus on creating events on campus that provide a safe space for dialogue on queer and trans issues, and help these folks find a community on campus. Just recently I organized a Dine and Dialogue entitled “Say Hi to Bi – Understanding Bisexuality 101” that intended to break stereotypes around bisexuality. I know my body like no one else and I cannot emphasize enough how badly my soul is yearning to be set free. To go back home, to work out in the day, to spend more time outside and not in my room trying to hide my body. It is not that I hate my body – in my culture, we see bodies as temples where you find peace, but in 21 years my temple hasn’t felt that. I am craving that feeling.” MEET CADEN WILLIAMS: Point of Pride 2017 Annual Transgender Surgery Fund Recipient! Caden’s Story: “I am an out-of-state student. I was born in Michigan and lived there my entire life until I moved to Oregon to go to the University of Oregon in 2014. I came here by myself without much financial support. My tuition with room and board is about $50,000 a year. I only can pay for about half of that amount with scholarships and personal loans, and I struggle to find the rest of the money every term. I have worked an office job through my University over the past two years, but due to that money going directly into my tuition I was never really able to save any of it. I am a Resident Assistant this year, which lowers the amount of money I have to pay for tuition to about $25,000, but I am now only allowed to work 5 hours a week at my office job, which leaves little room for saving for both surgery and a place to live next year (so as to
March 3, 2017
not be homeless). When I came to the University of Oregon I became very active in the community. I joined the UO OUTreach program, where we connect with high school GSAs [GayStraight Alliances] to be mentors and support them. We also host a GSA Visit Day where students visit the University of Oregon and participate in group activities and panels. Students are able to connect with peers from other schools and feel comfortable with being themselves around other individuals with shared identities. I went on an alternative student break to San Francisco during my first winter break to do service at the AIDS Memorial Grove, San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, and GLIDE, while learning about LGBTQ history such as the Stonewall Riots and Harvey Milk. Our trip focused on food and housing equity, violence, and the elderly in the community… I have also aided in the Queer Ally Coalition, which is a workshop program done at the University to improve allyship and educate students, employees of the University, and student workers. I aided in setting up the workshop, and have sat on a panel to talk about my experiences and answer questions. In 2015, I received the John R. Moore Award due to my achievements and strides working within the community. I thought I would have to wait ten years after I graduated to be able to have the opportunity to have surgery. I have learned that the surgeon I want is within network for the University insurance, which means I could have surgery before I graduate. For me, as a black, queer transgender man, this is extremely important. This will help me feel not only comfortable but safe, too. With the recent political occurrences I am terrified for my life on a daily basis. Having surgery will mean that I can change the gender marker on my birth certificate. It will mean not having ribcage pain that makes it hard to breathe. I can go out into my career unafraid that I will be turned down due to my identity. Without this fund, I am unsure that I would be able to get surgery any time in the near future.”
Courtesy of Point of Pride
Seattle Gay News 5
Trump speech flops at the box office by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Although Donald Trump’s first speech to a joint session of Congress got “great reviews” from pundits – at least according to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer – it flopped according the Nielsen ratings. The TV ratings service, which measures the percentage of the viewing audience captured by a particular show, released figures for Trump’s February 28 speech the next day.
According to Nielsen, Trump got 27.8% of the viewing audience, with seven networks carrying his speech live: ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. By contrast, Barack Obama’s first address to Congress in 2009 captured a 33.4% share. That translates into an audience of more than 52 million viewers. George W. Bush’s first speech to Congress got about 40 million viewers. TV ratings aren’t the only area where Trump is a flop. According to New York City marketing
officials, the number of foreign visitors to the city is expected to drop by more than 300,000 this year – a decline they attribute to Trump’s anti-foreigner rhetoric. Fred Dixon, the chief executive of the New York marketing firm NYC & Company, said Trump’s bellicose statements had changed foreign perceptions about the hospitality of the United States just as prospective tourists are making vacation plans for 2017. “The Europeans start coming to New York around Easter and continue through
summer,” Dixon said in an interview with the New York Times. “That’s when you’ll see the rhetoric out of Washington really having an impact on travel.” Tourism promoters were “just sort of holding our breath,” awaiting revision of Trump’s Muslim travel ban, Dixon added. “Regardless of the specifics, it’s pretty clear the message is going to be unwelcoming,” he said. The decline in visitors will cost New York City $600 million in sales, Dixon’s agency estimates.
Pants on fire: Jeff Sessions lied to Senate committee He should resign, Nancy Pelosi says by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer US Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings, the Washington Post revealed on March 1. In response to a question from Democratic Sen. Al Franken, Sessions denied any knowledge of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and specifically denied that he, himself, had any conversations with Russian officials. “I’m not aware of any of those activities,” Sessions replied, when asked during the hearing whether he knew about contacts between Russia and Trump’s associates. “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I did not have communications with the Russians,” Sessions added. According to the Washington Post, however, Sessions had two conversations with the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergei Kislyak, once in July 2016, and again in September. Sessions and Kislyak spoke as Russia was ramping up its hacking campaign against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates. Even Republicans reacted with shock to the news. “Misleading the Senate in sworn testimony about one’s own contacts with the Russians is a good way to go to jail,” Richard Painter, chief White House ethics law-
Jeff Sessions – Photo courtesy of palmerreport.com
yer for President George W. Bush, said in a March 1 tweet soon after the Washington Post story broke. Top Democrats called on Sessions to resign as attorney general. “It is inconceivable that even after Michael Flynn was fired for concealing his conversations with the Russians that Attorney General Sessions would keep his own conversations secret for several more weeks,” Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said in a March 1 statement. “Attorney General Sessions should re-
sign immediately, and there is no longer any question that we need a truly independent commission to investigate this issue.” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi also issued a blistering call for Sessions’ resignation. “Jeff Sessions lied under oath during his confirmation hearing before the Senate,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Under penalty of perjury, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee, ‘I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I did not have communications with the Russians.’ We now know that
statement is false. “Attorney General Sessions has never had the credibility to oversee the FBI investigation of senior Trump officials’ ties to the Russians. That is why Democrats have consistently called for Sessions to recuse himself from any oversight of the investigation. “Now, after lying under oath to Congress about his own communications with the Russians, the attorney general must resign. Sessions is not fit to serve as the top law enforcement officer of our country and must resign. There must be an independent, bipartisan, outside commission to investigate the Trump political, personal, and financial connections to the Russians.” Even Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a personal friend of Sessions’, called for the attorney general to recuse himself from supervising the investigation into Russian hacking during the 2016 presidential campaign. Graham told CNN that “for sure you need a special prosecutor” to head the investigation if Sessions indeed spoke with the Russian ambassador. Sessions spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores said, “there was absolutely nothing misleading about his answer,” claiming that Sessions’ conversations with Kislyak were in his capacity “as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee,” and not as a Trump campaign operative.
Trump anti-LGBT order is on the way, Family Research Council says by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer The potential Trump executive order on “religious freedom” that would cancel LGBT rights is on the way, according to a Trump transition team insider who is also high up in the Family Research Council (FRC). Ken Blackwell, former Ohio secretary of state and senior fellow at the FRC, told Gay journalist Michelangelo Signorile that the executive order “is very much on the way, even though White House officials had played it down,” in Signorile’s words. He also confirmed that the former director of the FRC’s Center for Religious Liberty, Ken Klukowski, had “actually structured” the draft order as a legal advisor to Trump’s transition team. Klukowski, who is now a senior attorney at the Liberty First Institute and a Breitbart contributor, is one of the lawyers “in the process of redrafting it” to withstand possible legal challenges, Blackwell said. The four-page draft order, leaked to the
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press last month, defines religious organizations so broadly that it covers “any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations” and protects so-called “religious freedom” in every area. It would allow discrimination against LGBT people “when providing social services, education, or health care; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with federal, state, or local governments,” providing that the person or organization discriminating claims a religious reason for doing so. At the time of the leak, Trump administration officials claimed the draft was among hundreds of draft orders circulating within the administration. “We do not have plans to sign anything at this time but will let you know when we have any updates,” Trump spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC News. But Blackwell told Signorile that the order is far from dead. In fact, under Kluk-
March 3, 2017
lowski’s leadership, it is being prepared for Trump to sign it. “In the final analysis, what we want is an executive order that will meet the scrutiny of the judicial process,” Blackwell explained. “If there is no executive order, that will disappoint [social conservatives]. But a good executive order will not. So we’re still in the process.” Blackwell envisions the “anchor concept” of the order as one that will allow people with devoutly religious beliefs to turn away LGBT people in the course of everyday business. “I think small-business owners who hold a religious belief that believes that traditional marriage is between one man and one woman should not have their religious liberty trampled upon,” he explained. “I would imagine that that will be, strongly and clearly, the anchor concept [of the order].” Klukowski told Signorile that there are several routes to securing what he called “religious liberty,” including the “single
most important thing,” which is appointing constitutional “originalists” to federal court positions. Trump, promised to do that during the campaign and he “is keeping that promise” with the nomination of Neil Gorsuch, Klukowski added. In terms of “administrative actions” – an executive order, for example – Klukowski said there are “various types of actions” that Trump could take, and he referred to “federal law and federal programs” that the president could affect. “And I’m confident,” he continued, “that the president is showing – much to the shock of many establishment people who said ‘there’s no way this’ll happen’ – that he keeps his promises, even when they’re things that an establishment player would never do. And I’m confident that he’s going to keep his promise when it comes to protection of religious liberty as well.” The FRC has been listed as an antiLGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Celebrating 41 Years!
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March 3, 2017
Seattle Gay News 7
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March 3, 2017
Celebrating 41 Years!
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March 3, 2017
Seattle Gay News 9
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March 3, 2017
Celebrating 41 Years!
Another year of global progress on LGBTI rights Criminalisation in 38% of countries but gains being won We salute brave, inspiring & successful activists in the global south by Peter Tatchell Peter Tatchell Foundation The following article first appeared in The Guardian – London, UK – 20 February 2017 “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice,” said Martin Luther King, Jr. In the last year, this arc has often bended globally in favour of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) human rights. Nauru and Belize decriminalised homosexuality and the Seychelles parliament passed a bill ending the ban on same-sex relations. In India, the Supreme Court said it will review its 2013 judgment that upheld the colonial-era law criminalising “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” More reasons to be cheerful: Greece, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina enacted new statutes to protect sexual and gender minorities from discrimination. Same-sex marriage was legalised in Columbia, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Guernsey and the British Antarctic Territory. Italy became the 27th country in Europe to officially recognise same-sex couples, approving the law on civil unions. Similar civil unions were agreed by lawmakers in the Caribbean island of Aruba. Meanwhile, a cross-party coalition of Guatemalan politicians began pushing for marriage equality and Taiwan’s legislature passed the first draft of a bill for same-sex marriage. Voices have also been raised for equal marriage in Cuba, Nepal and Vietnam. There was more progress at the United Nations, with Thai law professor Vitit Muntarbhorn being appointed as the UN’s first LGBTI expert, with a mandate to examine violence and discrimination against sexual and gender minorities. He survived an attempt to block his appointment – with 77 votes against him and 84 in favour. The anti-LGBTI move was spearheaded by African and Muslim-majority countries with the support of Russia and China. There remain 75 countries and dependent territories that still criminalise same-sex relations – with nearly half of these jurisdictions outlawing both male and female homosexuality. The total increased by one in 2016 when the Chad parliament voted to illegalise same-sex acts for the first time in its history, albeit as a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and suspended prison sentence. Both in countries that do and don’t criminalise same-sex behavior, hundreds of millions of LGBTI people are at risk of “honour” killing by family members, mob violence and discrimination in housing,
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employment, health care, education and the provision of goods and services – much of it orchestrated by religious zealots and opportunistic politicians, as we’ve seen in Russia and Nigeria. On-going anti-LGBTI backlashes continue in about 20 of the 193 UN member nations, where state repression and public hostility is increasing, including Ethiopia and Indonesia. But these are minority setbacks. Overall, LGBTI rights are mostly powering ahead. During 2016, notable advances were won for trans and, to a lesser extent, intersex people. The Chilean Ministry of Health instructed health providers to stop “normalising” medical interventions on intersex infants and children. This is the first time that any health ministry in the world has taken such a step without being required to do so by legislation or legal action. Coinciding with Intersex Awareness Day on 26 October, a group of UN and international human rights experts called for an urgent end to human rights violations against intersex people, including unwarranted surgical interventions and the nonrecognition of a person’s intersex status. Last year was the year of the biggest global wins for trans communities. Courts in Lebanon and Malaysia ruled in favour of trans people who wanted their identity documents to reflect their gender identity. A Chinese court in Guizhou province backed a trans man who sued his employer for unlawful dismissal.
Geraldine Roman became the first elected transgender congresswoman in Philippine history. Vietnam and Bolivia amended their laws to allow trans people the right to change gender in legal documents. The Lahore High Court in Pakistan decreed that it is a violation of human rights to exclude trans people from the national census. Last May, Denmark officially declared that being transgender is not a mental illness – the first country to do so. In Sweden, the government announced an initiative to pay compensation to trans victims of forced sterilisation. On the wider LGBTI front: In response to lobbying by activists, the Cambodian Ministry of Information unveiled plans to launch a regular radio program to discuss LGBTI issues, with the aim of making society more accepting. Malta approved bills to ban gay conversion therapy and the pathologisation of trans identities. The World Psychiatric Association declared against gay “cure” programmes, stating: “There is no sound scientific evidence that innate sexual orientation can be changed.” Some of the gains in 2016 were in unlikely countries, where LGBTI activists and their straight allies are risking their liberty and lives to push for acceptance and equality. Despite the threats from anti-gay Islamists, the Tunisian LGBTI advocacy group Shams won a legal challenge against a government order that forced it to suspend
operations. The government of Botswana was ordered by the country’s court of appeal to allow the official registration of the LGBTI organisation LeGaBiBo. In Iraq, the Kurdish human rights group Rasan Organisation painted murals at high schools as part of an education campaign to draw attention to LGBTI rights, gender equality and domestic violence. For the first time, LGBT issues made it onto the official agenda of the World Economic Forum in Davos [Switzerland] and a Core Group on the Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Persons was set up by the Organisation of American States. Peru’s Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations approved a resolution to support LGBTI persons as part of the national programme against family and sexual violence. Despite this progress in 2016, there is still much work to do. Homosexuality remains criminalised in 36 out of the 52 Commonwealth member states (down from 46 a decade ago). Most of these antigay laws were imposed by Britain during the colonial era. They are not authentic national statutes. This legal persecution is happening despite the Commonwealth Charter pledging human rights for all Commonwealth citizens. For six decades, successive Commonwealth summits have refused to even discuss – let alone support – equality and nondiscrimination for LGBTI people in the member states. My Peter Tatchell Foundation is supporting a coalition – The Commonwealth Equality Network, coordinated by Kaleidoscope Trust – which is lobbying to get LGBTI rights on the agenda of the 2018 Commonwealth summit. At the very minimum, consistent with the Commonwealth Charter, member states should: decriminalise homosexuality; prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; enforce existing laws against threats and violence, to protect LGBTI people from hate crimes; and consult with LGBTI communities. I am not sure we’ll get the Commonwealth summit to discuss these issues, but we’re determined to try – again – for the tenth time! One thing is for sure: no injustice lasts forever. LGBTI freedom has been long delayed but it cannot and will not be denied. Peter Tatchell is Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation: www.PeterTatchellFoundation.org
Alongside the US flag, the group also The US Embassy in Zagreb told the killed during World War II.” CROATIAN NAZIS carried the Croatian flag and the flag of the AP that it “rejects, in the strongest terms, Croatia isn’t the only Balkan country
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marched the group into Ban Jelacic Square in the center of Zagreb, accompanied by a brass band. At one point, the A-HSP members lined up and, according to Croatian newspaper 24sata, took an “oath of allegiance” to Trump.
Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschland (NDP), a party that German states have tried to ban for its similarity to the actual Nazi Party. According to the Associated Press, the group also chanted slogans in support of the World War II-era Ustasha regime, a Nazi puppet government that “killed tens of thousands Jews, Serbs, Gypsies, and antiNazi Croats in concentration camps.”
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neo-Nazi and pro-Ustasha views expressed during the demonstration of a few people in Zagreb on Sunday.” “We condemn any attempt to link the United States to this hateful ideology,” the statement continued. “Such a suggestion is an affront to the memories of the 186,000 US soldiers who died in Europe fighting Nazi Germany and the many millions of innocent victims
where far-right parties are backing Trump. Last year, Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, who was previously accused of committing war crimes in the 1990s, led a rally to praise then-candidate Trump.
March 3, 2017
Seattle Gay News 11
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March 3, 2017
Celebrating 41 Years!
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March 3, 2017
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March 3, 2017
Celebrating 41 Years!
Visit us online www.sgn.org
March 3, 2017
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