#Sarah Warbelow
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Arizona’s newly elected Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) signed an executive order extending employment protections to state employees and contractors who are LGBTQ+.
As the Human Rights Campaign reports, the executive order, signed on Hobbs’s first day in office Tuesday, directs the state’s Department of Administration to update hiring, promotion, and compensation policies for all state agencies to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and include provisions in all new state contracts to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The executive order goes beyond what is already required under state and federal laws banning employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, pregnancy, and veteran status, to include factors such as sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, culture, creed, social origin, and political affiliation.
KAWC notes that sexual orientation is already covered under a 2003 executive order issued by former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D). But as press aide Murphy Herbert explained, “The order from 2003 arguably allowed the state to consider sexual orientation in hiring so long as it wasn’t the only reason for a hiring decision.”
Hobbs’s executive order, Herbert said, “clarifies that discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited in all state hiring decisions.”
“Gov. Hobbs has been all over the state and she’s been hearing from communities who say that they want a state that reflects the values and a state where they feel seen and safe,” Herbert told KAWC. “This executive order is one step she’s taking to ensure that everyone in Arizona knows that she is the Governor for everyone and that these communities can and will be safe.”
Human Rights Campaign Arizona State Director Bridget Sharpe said that the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization “was proud to work alongside countless other LGBTQ+ organizations and allies to help Katie Hobbs become Arizona’s Governor. She ran on the promise that she would immediately act to stop the attacks on Arizona’s LGBTQ+ individuals and families and use the full extent of her power to protect our community. On her first day in office, she took an important step towards fulfilling that commitment by signing an Executive Order providing non-discrimination for LGBTQ+ state employees and state contractors. This is what it looks like to have a champion for equality in office. We can’t wait to work with the Hobbs administration to move our state forward.”
But Cathi Herrod, president of the conservative lobbying group Center for Arizona Policy, claimed that Hobbs’s executive order may violate the constitutional rights of faith-based agencies.
Last year, former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) approved S.B. 1399, which created religious exemptions for faith-based adoption and foster care agencies. “That law should take precedence over any executive order,” said Herrod. “The question is, does the state want to continue to have faith-based agencies providing such critical foster care and adoption services? I think we do.”
Sarah Warbelow, legal counsel for the Human Rights Coalition, conceded that S.B. 1399 trumps the new executive order. However, she explained, Hobbs’s order covers other things that organizations and agencies that contract with the state’s government can and cannot do.
“For example, if the YMCA wanted to contract with the state to broaden summer camps, that new executive order doesn’t say anything about discriminating against the kids who go to those camps,” Warbelow explained. “It does say when you’re hiring those camp counselors, you can’t discriminate on the basis of race or sex, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
Herrod disagreed. “You can’t discriminate and not award those contracts on that basis,” she told KAWC. “Because if they didn’t award the contract because of the religious entity’s beliefs, then they’re violating their constitutional and statutory rights.”
#us politics#news#lgbtq nation#2023#arizona#gov. kate hobbs#lgbtqia+ rights#lgbtqia+#lgbtqia+ representation#Human Rights Campaign#Department of Administration#KAWC#Janet Napolitano#Murphy Herbert#Bridget Sharpe#Center for Arizona Policy#Cathi Herrod#doug ducey#S.B. 1399#Sarah Warbelow#executive order#discrimination
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Reposting this washpo article about the new Florida bills, anti trans and otherwise, cause people need to read them without a paywall:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/05/florida-bills-would-ban-gender-studies-transgender-pronouns-tenure-perks/
Florida legislators have proposed a spate of new laws that would reshape K-12 and higher education in the state, from requiring teachers to use pronouns matching children’s sex as assigned at birth to establishing a universal school choice voucher program.
The half-dozen bills, filed by a cast of GOP state representatives and senators, come shortly before the launch of Florida’s legislative session Tuesday. Other proposals in the mix include eliminating college majors in gender studies, nixing diversity efforts at universities and job protections for tenured faculty, strengthening parents’ ability to veto K-12 class materials and extending a ban on teaching about gender and sexuality — from third grade up to eighth grade.
The legislation has already drawn protest from Democratic politicians, education associations, free speech groups and LGBTQ advocates, who say the bills will restrict educators’ ability to instruct children honestly, harm transgender and nonbinary students and strip funding from public schools
“It really is further and further isolating LGBTQ students,” said Sarah Warbelow, legal director for LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. “It’s making it hard for them to receive the full support that schools should be giving every child.”
Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, warned that the legislation — especially the bill that would prevent students from majoring in certain topics — threatens to undermine academic freedom.
“The state telling you what you can and cannot learn, that is inconsistent with democracy,” Mulvey said. “It silences debate, stifles ideas and limits the autonomy of educational institutions which … made American higher education the envy of the world.
Sen. Clay Yarborough (R), who introduced one of the 2023 education bills — Senate Bill 1320, which forbids requiring school staff and students to use “pronouns that do not correspond with [a] person’s sex” and delays education on sexual orientation and gender identity until after eighth grade — said in a statement that his law would enshrine the “God-given” responsibility of parents to raise their children.
“The decision about when and if certain topics should be introduced to young children belongs to parents,” Yarborough said in the statement. “The bill also protects students and teachers from being forced to use language that would violate their personal convictions.”
The proposed laws have a high likelihood of passing in the State House, where GOP legislators make up a supermajority. Even before the landslide victory by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in November, very few Republicans pushed back against his policy proposals, instead crafting and passing bills that align with the governor’s mission to remake education in Florida from kindergarten through college
This year’s crop of proposed education bills accelerates those efforts, expanding on controversial ideas from the past two years and adding a few more. Tina Descovich, co-founder of the conservative group Moms for Liberty and a Florida resident, said her group backs the DeSantis education agenda “100 percent” — and that she thinks his policies are catching on outside the state.
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“You see governors picking up education as a top issue, and you even see presidential candidates now putting education as a top issue,” she said. “I think Gov. DeSantis has set the path for that.”

Students at New College of Florida stage a walkout to protest far-reaching legislation that would ban gender studies majors and diversity programs at Florida universities. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)
Rick Hess, director of education policy studies for the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, predicted the education laws will play well with voters both in Florida and nationwide, boosting DeSantis’s chances at the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“The direction of this policy is sensible policy,” Hess said, referring especially to laws limiting young children’s learning on sex and gender. “It is both attractive to the DeSantis base but also has been shown to poll quite well with the center right, the center and even with parts of the center left.”
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A May 2022 Fox News poll found that 55 percent of parents favor state laws that bar teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity with students before fourth grade. An October 2022 University of Southern California survey, meanwhile, found a partisan split: More than 80 percent of Democrats said high school students should learn about sexual orientation and gender identity, compared to roughly a third of Republicans. Just 7 percent of adults in both political camps supported assigning reading that depicts sex between people of the same sex to elementary-schoolers, per the survey.
The bills in Florida come as at least 25 states have passed 64 laws in the last three academic years reshaping what children can learn and do at school, according to a Washington Post tally. Many of these laws circumscribe education on race, gender and sexual identity, boost parental oversight of school libraries and curriculums or restrict the rights of transgender children in classrooms and on the playing field.
Florida already passed several such laws, including the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which prohibits certain ways of teaching about race. (A judge blocked some aspects of the law in November.) Another is the “Parental Rights in Education” law, dubbed “don’t say gay” by critics, which forbids teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation during grades K-3 and requires that education on those subjects be age-appropriate in older grades.
Story continues below advertisement
One of the bills put forward in the 2023 legislative session builds directly on the parental rights law: House Bill 1223 would expand the ban on gender and sexuality education to extend through eighth grade. That bill also says school staffers, contractors and students cannot be required to use pronouns that do not match the sex a person was assigned at birth.
“It shall be the policy of every public K-12 educational institution,” the bill states, “that a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.”
Jon Harris Maurer, public policy director for LGBTQ rights group Equality Florida, said the bill will compound damage already wrought by the “Parental Rights in Education” act.
Story continues below advertisement
“That resulted in book banning, eroding supportive guidelines and led teachers to leave the profession,” Maurer said. “This doubles down.”
House Rep. Adam Anderson (R-District 57), who sponsored the bill, did not respond to a request for comment.
Florida legislators have introduced two other pieces of similar legislation: the near-identical Senate bill filed by Yarborough and House Bill 1069, brought by Rep. Stan McClain (R-District 27). The latter bill requires that students in grades 6-12 be taught that “sex is determined by biology and reproductive function at birth.” It also grants parents greater power to read over and object to school instructional materials, as well as limit their child’s ability to explore the school library.
Story continues below advertisement
McClain did respond to a request for comment.
Another bill on the table is House Bill 999, targeted to higher education and introduced by Rep. Alex Andrade (R-District 2), who did not respond to a request for comment. The bill outlaws spending on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, says a professor’s tenure can come under review at any time and gives boards of trustees — typically appointed by the governor or Board of Governors — control of faculty hiring and curriculum review.
It also eliminates college majors and minors in “Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, or Intersectionality.” It says colleges should offer general education courses that “promote the philosophical underpinnings of Western civilization and include studies of this nation’s historical documents” including the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.
Story continues below advertisement
The bill has a companion in the Senate, proposed by Sen. Erin Grall (R), who did not respond to a request for comment. Andrade previously told the Tampa Bay Times that his bill would ensure that institutions of higher education remain focused on legitimate fields of inquiry rather than disciplines “not based in fact.”
“It’s a complete takeover of higher education,” said Kenneth Nunn, who stepped down earlier this year from his role as professor of law at the University of Florida — in part because of the politics in the state. The “attacks” on higher education “reduce the reputation and perhaps the accreditation of the state institutions,” Nunn said.
Organizations focused on civil liberties are also objecting. PEN America, which advocates for free speech, said the bill would impose “perhaps the most draconian and censorious restrictions on public colleges and universities in the country.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said the bill is “laden with unconstitutional provisions hostile to freedom of expression and academic freedom.”
Adam Kissel, a visiting fellow for higher education reform at the Heritage Foundation, said there are a few easily fixed constitutional problems with the wording but praised the bill for holding “universities accountable in a few ways to the will of the people.” He added that post-tenure review is important because someone who earns that laurel at 28 may “become a dead weight” 30 years later. He said an ideological review would be inappropriate, but that if a professor has turned from intellectual pursuits to activism and is no longer producing scholarship, then that faculty member — regardless of viewpoint — merits scrutiny.
Andrade’s bill mirrors steps already taken by the DeSantis administration. In early January, the governor’s budget office mandated that all universities report the amount of money they are expending on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Later that month, DeSantis announced a slate of reforms to higher education, including prohibitions on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
A sixth education-related bill, House Bill 1, introduced by Reps. Kaylee Tuck (R-District 83) and Susan Plasencia (R-District 37), renders all parents eligible to receive state funds to send their children to private school, stripping away a previous low-income requirement, although low-income families would still be prioritized. It comes as the school choice movement is surging nationally, with Republican-led states passing laws that grant state funds to parents who can spend the money on religious and private schools. Tuck and Plasencia did not respond to requests for comment.
Pat Barber, president of the Manatee Education Association, said this bill is the one that hurts most.
“We’re not very well funded in public education in Florida to start with,” she said. “And their answer to that is to funnel money away from public education?”
The laws are moving through committee as DeSantis continues an ongoing feud with the College Board over a new AP African American studies course, which Florida has rejected as being too “woke.” DeSantis recently said the legislature “is going to look to reevaluate” whether the state should offer any AP courses at all, or the SAT exam.
Battles over state education have also spilled into other arenas. A dispute over the Parental Rights bill lasts year ended with DeSantis pushing for a state takeover of a half-century-old special taxing district for Walt Disney World. DeSantis began excoriating Disney after the company’s former CEO criticized the “Parental Rights in Education” law.
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Florida bills would ban gender studies, transgender pronouns, tenure perks
Florida legislators have proposed a spate of new laws that would reshape K-12 and higher education in the state, from requiring teachers to use pronouns matching children’s sex as assigned at birth to establishing a universal school choice voucher program.
The half-dozen bills, filed by a cast of GOP state representatives and senators, come shortly before the launch of Florida’s legislative session Tuesday. Other proposals in the mix include eliminating college majors in gender studies, nixing diversity efforts at universities and job protections for tenured faculty, strengthening parents’ ability to veto K-12 class materials and extending a ban on teaching about gender and sexuality — from third grade up to eighth grade.
The legislation has already drawn protest from Democratic politicians, education associations, free speech groups and LGBTQ advocates, who say the bills will restrict educators’ ability to instruct children honestly, harm transgender and nonbinary students and strip funding from public schools.
“It really is further and further isolating LGBTQ students,” said Sarah Warbelow, legal director for LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. “It’s making it hard for them to receive the full support that schools should be giving every child.”
Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, warned that the legislation — especially the bill that would prevent students from majoring in certain topics — threatens to undermine academic freedom.
“The state telling you what you can and cannot learn, that is inconsistent with democracy,” Mulvey said. “It silences debate, stifles ideas and limits the autonomy of educational institutions which … made American higher education the envy of the world.”
Sen. Clay Yarborough (R), who introduced one of the 2023 education bills — Senate Bill 1320, which forbids requiring school staff and students to use “pronouns that do not correspond with [a] person’s sex” and delays education on sexual orientation and gender identity until after eighth grade — said in a statement that his law would enshrine the “God-given” responsibility of parents to raise their children.
“The decision about when and if certain topics should be introduced to young children belongs to parents,” Yarborough said in the statement. “The bill also protects students and teachers from being forced to use language that would violate their personal convictions.”
The proposed laws have a high likelihood of passing in the State House, where GOP legislators make up a supermajority. Even before Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) landslide victory in November, very few Republicans pushed back against his policy proposals, instead crafting and passing bills that align with the governor’s mission to remake education in Florida from kindergarten through college.
This year’s crop of proposed education bills accelerates those efforts, expanding on controversial ideas from the past two years and adding a few more. Tina Descovich, co-founder of the conservative group Moms for Liberty and a Florida resident, said her group backs the DeSantis education agenda “100 percent” — and that she thinks his policies are catching on outside the state.
“You see governors picking up education as a top issue, and you even see presidential candidates now putting education as a top issue,” she said. “I think Gov. DeSantis has set the path for that.”
Rick Hess, director of education policy studies for the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, predicted the education laws will play well with voters both in Florida and nationwide, boosting DeSantis’s chances at the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“The direction of this policy is sensible policy,” Hess said, referring especially to laws limiting young children’s learning on sex and gender. “It is both attractive to the DeSantis base but also has been shown to poll quite well with the center right, the center and even with parts of the center left.”
A May 2022 Fox News poll found that 55 percent of parents favor state laws that bar teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity with students before fourth grade. An October 2022 University of Southern California survey, meanwhile, found a partisan split: More than 80 percent of Democrats said high school students should learn about sexual orientation and gender identity, compared to roughly a third of Republicans. Just 7 percent of adults in both political camps supported assigning reading that depicts sex between people of the same sex to elementary-schoolers, per the survey.
The bills in Florida come as at least 25 states have passed 64 laws in the last three academic years reshaping what children can learn and do at school, according to a Washington Post tally. Many of these laws circumscribe education on race, gender and sexual identity, boost parental oversight of school libraries and curriculums or restrict the rights of transgender children in classrooms and on the playing field.
Florida already passed several such laws, including the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which prohibits certain ways of teaching about race. (A judge blocked some aspects of the law in November.) Another is the “Parental Rights in Education” law, dubbed “don’t say gay” by critics, which forbids teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation during grades K-3 and requires that education on those subjects be age-appropriate in older grades.
One of the bills put forward in the 2023 legislative session builds directly on the parental rights law: House Bill 1223 would expand the ban on gender and sexuality education to extend through eighth grade. That bill also says school staffers, contractors and students cannot be required to use pronouns that do not match the sex a person was assigned at birth.
“It shall be the policy of every public K-12 educational institution,” the bill states, “that a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.”
Jon Harris Maurer, public policy director for LGBTQ rights group Equality Florida, said the bill will compound damage already wrought by the “Parental Rights in Education” act.
“That resulted in book banning, eroding supportive guidelines and led teachers to leave the profession,” Maurer said. “This doubles down.”
House Rep. Adam Anderson (R-District 57), who sponsored the bill, did not respond to a request for comment.
Florida legislators have introduced two other pieces of similar legislation: the near-identical Senate bill filed by Yarborough and House Bill 1069, brought by Rep. Stan McClain (R-District 27). The latter bill requires that students in grades 6-12 be taught that “sex is determined by biology and reproductive function at birth.” It also grants parents greater power to read over and object to school instructional materials, as well as limit their child’s ability to explore the school library.
McClain did respond to a request for comment.
Another bill on the table is House Bill 999, targeted to higher education and introduced by Rep. Alex Andrade (R-District 2), who did not respond to a request for comment. The bill outlaws spending on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, says a professor’s tenure can come under review at any time and gives boards of trustees — typically appointed by the governor or Board of Governors — control of faculty hiring and curriculum review.
It also eliminates college majors and minors in “Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, or Intersectionality.” It says colleges should offer general education courses that “promote the philosophical underpinnings of Western civilization and include studies of this nation’s historical documents” including the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.
The bill has a companion in the Senate, proposed by Sen. Erin Grall (R), who did not respond to a request for comment. Andrade previously told the Tampa Bay Times that his bill would ensure that institutions of higher education remain focused on legitimate fields of inquiry rather than disciplines “not based in fact.”
“It’s a complete takeover of higher education,” said Kenneth Nunn, who stepped down earlier this year from his role as professor of law at the University of Florida — in part because of the politics in the state. The “attacks” on higher education “reduce the reputation and perhaps the accreditation of the state institutions,” Nunn said.
Organizations focused on civil liberties are also objecting. PEN America, which advocates for free speech, said the bill would impose “perhaps the most draconian and censorious restrictions on public colleges and universities in the country.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said the bill is “laden with unconstitutional provisions hostile to freedom of expression and academic freedom.”
Adam Kissel, a visiting fellow for higher education reform at the Heritage Foundation, said there are a few easily fixed constitutional problems with the wording but praised the bill for holding “universities accountable in a few ways to the will of the people.” He added that post-tenure review is important because someone who earns that laurel at 28 may “become a dead weight” 30 years later. He said an ideological review would be inappropriate, but that if a professor has turned from intellectual pursuits to activism and is no longer producing scholarship, then that faculty member — regardless of viewpoint — merits scrutiny.
Andrade’s bill mirrors steps already taken by the DeSantis administration. In early January, the governor’s budget office mandated that all universities report the amount of money they are expending on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Later that month, DeSantis announced a slate of reforms to higher education, including prohibitions on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
A sixth education-related bill, House Bill 1, renders all parents eligible to receive state funds to send their children to private school, stripping away a previous low-income requirement, although low-income families would still be prioritized. It comes as the school choice movement is surging nationally, with Republican-led states passing laws that grant state funds to parents who can spend the money on religious and private schools.
Pat Barber, president of the Manatee Education Association, said this bill is the one that hurts most.
“We’re not very well funded in public education in Florida to start with,” she said. “And their answer to that is to funnel money away from public education?”
The laws are moving through committee as DeSantis continues an ongoing feud with the College Board over a new AP African American studies course, which Florida has rejected as being too “woke.” DeSantis recently said the legislature “is going to look to reevaluate” whether the state should offer any AP courses at all, or the SAT exam.
Battles over state education have also spilled into other arenas. A dispute over the Parental Rights bill lasts year ended with DeSantis pushing for a state takeover of a half-century-old special taxing district for Walt Disney World. DeSantis began excoriating Disney after the company’s former CEO criticized the “Parental Rights in Education” law.
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April 22, 2019
Human Rights Campaign
The Supreme Court to Hear Three Major LGBTQ Civil Rights Cases
HRC responded to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant review in three cases that could decide whether federal nondiscrimination laws apply to LGBTQ people. Today, the court announced it will take up the cases of R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC and Aimee Stephens and Bostock v. Clayton County, consolidated with Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda.
Several federal courts have ruled that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination that violates federal law. These courts have found that discrimination against LGBTQ people violates laws including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The Trump-Pence administration, however, has recently threatened to redefine federal sex discrimination through regulations attempting to erase protections for transgender people, and has asked the Supreme Court to reverse course and bar LGBTQ people from receiving federal nondiscrimination protections. The Supreme Court’s decision in these cases could effectively decide whether to solidify or take away non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people under federal civil rights laws — which prohibit sex discrimination in contexts ranging from employment to housing, healthcare, and education.
“No one should be denied a job or fired simply because of who they are or who they love, including LGBTQ people,” said Sarah Warbelow, HRC Legal Director. “The growing legal consensus is that our nation’s civil rights laws do protect LGBTQ people against discrimination under sex nondiscrimination laws. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to clarify this area of law to ensure protections for LGBTQ people in many important areas of life. The impact of this decision will have very real consequences for millions of LGBTQ people across the country. Regardless of the eventual outcome, it’s critical that Congress pass the Equality Act to address the significant gaps in federal civil rights laws and improve protections for everyone.”
In R.G. & G.R. HARRIS FUNERAL HOMES v. EEOC and AIMEE STEPHENS, Aimee Stephens worked as a funeral director at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes. When she informed the funeral home’s owner that she is transgender and planned to come to work as the woman she is, the business owner fired her, saying it would be “unacceptable” for her to appear and behave as a woman. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in March 2018 that when the funeral home fired her for being transgender and departing from sex stereotypes, it violated Title VII, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in employment.
In ALTITUDE EXPRESS INC. v. ZARDA, Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor, was fired from his job because of his sexual orientation. A federal trial court rejected his discrimination claim, saying that the Civil Rights Act does not protect him from losing his job for being a gay man. In February 2018, the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a form of discrimination based on sex that is prohibited under Title VII. The court recognized that when a lesbian, gay, or bisexual person is treated differently because of discomfort or disapproval that they are attracted to people of the same sex, that’s discrimination based on sex.
In BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY, Gerald Lynn Bostock was fired from his job as a county child welfare services coordinator when his employer learned he is gay. In May 2018, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reconsider a 1979 decision wrongly excluding sexual orientation discrimination from coverage under Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination, and denied his appeal.
While the Supreme Court prepares to hear these cases, Congress could act immediately to pass the Equality Act – which would provide clear, comprehensive protections for LGBTQ people across key areas of life, including employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces and services, federally-funded programs and jury service. Reintroduced in Congress in March, the bipartisan legislation has growing, unprecedented support, including from nearly 70 percent of Americans, hundreds of members of Congress, more than 190 major businesses and more than 350 social justice, religious, medical and child welfare organizations. House Leadership has made it a priority to pass the Equality Act this spring.
Recent polling finds that a growing majority of Americans support the federal non-discrimination protections contained in the Equality Act. A recent survey by PRRI found that nearly seven in 10 Americans support laws like the Equality Act, including majorities in every single state and majorities of Republicans, Independents and Democrats alike.
#workplace discrimination#this article has been copied in its entirety to protect against deletion & paywalls. please double check the source for updates & due wages#tw cissexism#transphobia#lgbtqia+ rights#scotus#signal boost
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.
A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.
Now the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.
The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.
“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
The new definition would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.
“This takes a position that what the medical community understands about their patients — what people understand about themselves — is irrelevant because the government disagrees,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in the Obama administration and helped write transgender guidance that is being undone.
The move would be the most significant of a series of maneuvers, large and small, to exclude the population from civil rights protections and roll back the Obama administration’s more fluid recognition of gender identity. The Trump administration has sought to bar transgender people from serving in the military and has legally challenged civil rights protections for the group embedded in the nation’s health care law.
Several agencies have withdrawn Obama-era policies that recognized gender identity in schools, prisons and homeless shelters. The administration even tried to remove questions about gender identity from a 2020 census survey and a national survey of elderly citizens.
For the last year, health and human services has privately argued that the term “sex” was never meant to include gender identity or even homosexuality, and that the lack of clarity allowed the Obama administration to wrongfully extend civil rights protections to people who should not have them.
Roger Severino, the director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, declined to answer detailed questions about the memo or his role in interagency discussions about how to revise the definition of sex under Title IX.
But officials at the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that their push to limit the definition of sex for the purpose of federal civil rights laws resulted from their own reading of the laws and from a court decision.
Mr. Severino, while serving as the head of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, was among the conservatives who blanched at the Obama administration’s expansion of sex to include gender identity, which he called “radical gender ideology.”
In one commentary piece, he called the policies a “culmination of a series of unilateral, and frequently lawless, administration attempts to impose a new definition of what it means to be a man or a woman on the entire nation.”
“Transgender people are frightened,” said Sarah Warbelow, the legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, which presses for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. “At every step where the administration has had the choice, they’ve opted to turn their back on transgender people.”
The Department of Health and Human Services has called on the “Big Four” agencies that enforce some part of Title IX — the Departments of Education, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Labor — to adopt its definition in regulations that will establish uniformity in the government and increase the likelihood that courts will accept it.
The definition is integral to two proposed rules currently under review at the White House: One from the Education Department deals with complaints of sex discrimination at schools and colleges receiving federal financial assistance; the other, from health and human services, deals with health programs and activities that receive federal funds or subsidies. Both regulations are expected to be released this fall, and would then be open for public comment, typically for 60 days. The agencies would consider the comments before issuing final rules with the force of law — both of which could include the new gender definition.
Civil rights groups have been meeting with federal officials in recent weeks to argue against the proposed definition, which has divided career and political appointees across the administration. Some officials hope that health and human services will at least rein in the most extreme parts, such as the call for genetic testing to determine sex.
After more than a year of discussions, health and human services is preparing to formally present the new definition to the Justice Department before the end of the year, Trump administration officials say. If the Justice Department decides that the change is legal, the new definition can be approved and enforced in Title IX statutes, and across government agencies.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the draft health and human services proposal. The Justice Department has not yet been asked to render a formal legal opinion, according to an official there who was not authorized to speak about the process.
But Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s previous decisions on transgender protections have given civil rights advocates little hope that the department will prevent the new definition from being enforced. The proposal appears consistent with the position he took in an October 2017 memo sent to agencies clarifying that the civil rights law that prohibits job discrimination does not cover “gender identity, per se.”
Harper Jean Tobin, the policy director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, an advocacy group, called the maneuvering “an extremely aggressive legal position that is inconsistent with dozens of federal court decisions.”
Health and human services officials said they were only abiding by court orders, referring to the rulings of Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth, Tex., a George W. Bush appointee who has held that “Congress did not understand ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity.’”
A 2016 ruling by Judge O’Connor concerned a rule that was adopted to carry out a civil rights statute embedded in the Affordable Care Act. The provision prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in “any health program or activity” that receives federal financial assistance.
But in recent discussions with the administration, civil rights groups, including Lambda Legal, have pointed to other court cases. In a legal memo presented to the administration, a coalition of civil rights groups wrote, “The overwhelming majority of courts to address the question since the most relevant Supreme Court precedent in 1998 have held that antitransgender bias constitutes sex discrimination under federal laws like Title IX.”
Indeed, the health and human services proposal was prompted, in part, by pro-transgender court decisions in the last year that upheld the Obama administration’s position.
In their memo, health and human services officials wrote that “courts and plaintiffs are racing to get decisions” ahead of any rule-making, because of the lack of a stand-alone definition.
“Courts and the previous administration took advantage of this circumstance to include gender identity and sexual orientation in a multitude of agencies, and under a multitude of laws,” the memo states. Doing so “led to confusion and negative policy consequences in health care, education and other federal contexts.”
The narrower definition would be acutely felt in schools and their most visible battlegrounds: locker rooms and bathrooms.
One of the Trump administration’s first decisive policy acts was the rescission by the Education and Justice Departments of Obama-era guidelines that protected transgender students who wanted to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.
Since the guidance was rescinded, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has halted and dismissed discrimination cases filed by transgender students over access to school facilities. A restrictive governmentwide definition would cement the Education Department’s current approach.
But it would also raise new questions.
The department would have to decide what documentation schools would be required to collect to determine or codify gender. Title IX applies to a number of educational experiences, such as sports and single-sex classes or programs where gender identity has come into play. The department has said it will continue to open cases where transgender students face discrimination, bullying and harassment, and investigate gender-based harassment as “unwelcome conduct based on a student’s sex” or “harassing conduct based on a student’s failure to conform to sex stereotypes.”
The Education Department did not respond to an inquiry about the health and human services proposal.
Ms. Lhamon of the Obama Education Department said the proposed definition “quite simply negates the humanity of people.”
Phroyd
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‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration
The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a government wide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.
A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.
Now the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.
The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.
“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
The new definition would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.
“This takes a position that what the medical community understands about their patients — what people understand about themselves — is irrelevant because the government disagrees,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in the Obama administration and helped write transgender guidance that is being undone.
The move would be the most significant of a series of maneuvers, large and small, to exclude the population from civil rights protections and roll back the Obama administration’s more fluid recognition of gender identity. The Trump administration has sought to bar transgender people from serving in the military and has legally challenged civil rights protections for the group embedded in the nation’s health care law.
Several agencies have withdrawn Obama-era policies that recognized gender identity in schools, prisons and homeless shelters. The administration even tried to remove questions about gender identity from a 2020 census survey and a national survey of elderly citizens.
For the last year, the Department of Health and Human Services has privately argued that the term “sex” was never meant to include gender identity or even homosexuality, and that the lack of clarity allowed the Obama administration to wrongfully extend civil rights protections to people who should not have them.
Roger Severino, the director of the Office for Civil Rights at the department, declined to answer detailed questions about the memo or his role in interagency discussions about how to revise the definition of sex under Title IX.
But officials at the department confirmed that their push to limit the definition of sex for the purpose of federal civil rights laws resulted from their own reading of the laws and from a court decision.
Mr. Severino, while serving as the head of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, was among the conservatives who blanched at the Obama administration’s expansion of sex to include gender identity, which he called “radical gender ideology.”
In one commentary piece, he called the policies a “culmination of a series of unilateral, and frequently lawless, administration attempts to impose a new definition of what it means to be a man or a woman on the entire nation.”
“Transgender people are frightened,” said Sarah Warbelow, the legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, which presses for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. “At every step where the administration has had the choice, they’ve opted to turn their back on transgender people.” After this article was published online, transgender people took to social media to post photographs of themselves with the hashtag #WontBeErased.
The Department of Health and Human Services has called on the “Big Four” agencies that enforce some part of Title IX — the Departments of Education, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Labor — to adopt its definition in regulations that will establish uniformity in the government and increase the likelihood that courts will accept it.
The definition is integral to two proposed rules currently under review at the White House: One from the Education Department deals with complaints of sex discrimination at schools and colleges receiving federal financial assistance; the other, from health and human services, deals with health programs and activities that receive federal funds or subsidies. Both regulations are expected to be released this fall, and would then be open for public comment, typically for 60 days. The agencies would consider the comments before issuing final rules with the force of law — both of which could include the new gender definition.
Civil rights groups have been meeting with federal officials in recent weeks to argue against the proposed definition, which has divided career and political appointees across the administration. Some officials hope that health and human services will at least rein in the most extreme parts, such as the call for genetic testing to determine sex.
After more than a year of discussions, health and human services is preparing to formally present the new definition to the Justice Department before the end of the year, Trump administration officials say. If the Justice Department decides that the change is legal, the new definition can be approved and enforced in Title IX statutes, and across government agencies.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the draft health and human services proposal. The Justice Department has not yet been asked to render a formal legal opinion, according to an official there who was not authorized to speak about the process.
But Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s previous decisions on transgender protections have given civil rights advocates little hope that the department will prevent the new definition from being enforced. The proposal appears consistent with the position he took in an October 2017 memo sent to agencies clarifying that the civil rights law that prohibits job discrimination does not cover “gender identity, per se.”
Health and human services officials said they were only abiding by court orders, referring to the rulings of Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth, Tex., a George W. Bush appointee who has held that “Congress did not understand ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity.’”
A 2016 ruling by Judge O’Connor concerned a rule that was adopted to carry out a civil rights statute embedded in the Affordable Care Act. The provision prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in “any health program or activity” that receives federal financial assistance.
But in recent discussions with the administration, civil rights groups, including Lambda Legal, have pointed to other court cases. In a legal memo presented to the administration, a coalition of civil rights groups wrote, “The overwhelming majority of courts to address the question since the most relevant Supreme Court precedent in 1998 have held that antitransgender bias constitutes sex discrimination under federal laws like Title IX.”
Indeed, the health and human services proposal was prompted, in part, by pro-transgender court decisions in the last year that upheld the Obama administration’s position.
In their memo, health and human services officials wrote that “courts and plaintiffs are racing to get decisions” ahead of any rule-making, because of the lack of a stand-alone definition.
“Courts and the previous administration took advantage of this circumstance to include gender identity and sexual orientation in a multitude of agencies, and under a multitude of laws,” the memo states. Doing so “led to confusion and negative policy consequences in health care, education and other federal contexts.”
One of the Trump administration’s first decisive policy acts was the rescission by the Education and Justice Departments of Obama-era guidelines that protected transgender students who wanted to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.
Since the guidance was rescinded, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has halted and dismissed discrimination cases filed by transgender students over access to school facilities. A restrictive government wide definition would cement the Education Department’s current approach.
But it would also raise new questions.
The department would have to decide what documentation schools would be required to collect to determine or codify gender. Title IX applies to a number of educational experiences, like sports and single-sex classes or programs where gender identity has come into play. The department has said it will continue to open cases where transgender students face discrimination, bullying and harassment, and investigate gender-based harassment as “unwelcome conduct based on a student’s sex” or “harassing conduct based on a student’s failure to conform to sex stereotypes.”
The Education Department did not respond to an inquiry about the health and human services proposal.
Ms. Lhamon of the Obama Education Department said the proposed definition “quite simply negates the humanity of people.”
A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 21, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump May Limit How Government Defines One’s Sex. New York Times.
#gender#transgender#gender transformation#gender bender#sex reassignment surgery#transformation#trans#Social structure#mtf hrt#tf#mtf#ftm hrt#ftm#lgbtq community#LGBTQA#lgbtq#lgbt#nonconforming#gender nonconforming#nonbinary#non-conforming#law#transgender law#trump#donald trump#president
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Un nouvel article a été publié sur https://www.rollingstone.fr/trump-transgenres-modification/
L'administration Trump pourrait modifier la définition des genres - au détriment des personnes transgenres
Le Département de la Santé et des Services à la personne prévoirait de revenir sur un amendement fondamental
L’administration du Président américain Donald Trump serait en train de restreindre l’identité sexuelle d’un individu à son sexe de naissance, d’après un article du New York Times paru dimanche dernier.
Sur les notes que s’est procuré le journal américain, le Département de la Santé et des Services à la personne chercherait à faire passer la définition d’une identité de genre au sein du Title IX, une loi protégeant des discriminations dans le cadre des institutions éducatives.
Un rétropédalage sur la définition donnée par la précédente administration d’Obama, qui envisageait le genre comme un choix personnel, octroyant plus de droits aux personnes transgenres. Un procédé qui avait permis à près d’un million quatre cents mille personnes de s’identifier différemment du genre attribué à leur naissance.
Les notes recommandent à l’actuel gouvernement de définir le genre « sur des bases biologiques claires, fondées sur la science, objectives et immuables. » Si ces directives étaient appliquées, mâle et femelle seraient les deux seules options de genre, rendant impossible tout changement. L’identification pourrait éventuellement changer en s’appuyant sur un test génétique, si nécessaire.
« Le sexe se définit mâle ou femelle d’après des traits biologiques immuables identifiés avant ou lors de la naissance, » décrivent les notes. « Le sexe décrit sur le certificat de naissance original doit constituer la preuve définitive du sexe d’une personne, sauf en cas de preuves génétiques réfutant ce statut. »
Ce n’est pas la première fois que l’administration Trump cherche à restreindre les droits transgenres : comme le rappellent nos confrères américains, elle a déjà essayé de bannir les personnes transgenres du service militaire, ou de modifier la nomenclature du Département d’État afin d’empêcher les personnes non-binaires de s’identifier correctement sur leur passeport (en transformant « genre » en « sexe » dans les champs à remplir, notamment).
Des militants des droits civiques contestent d’ores et déjà ce changement. « Les personnes transgenres sont terrifiées, » a déclaré Sarah Warbelow, directrice juridique de la Human Rights Campaign, au Times. « À chaque fois que cette administration a eu la main sur ces questions, elle a tourné le dos aux personnes transgenres.«
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Trump’s recent nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court is a direct threat to the constitutional rights of everyday Americans and for the LGBTQ community in particular. Kavanaugh has a troublingly lengthy, far-right pedigree, and he was hand-picked by anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice groups in an explicit effort to undermine equality. This nomination threatens to erode our nation’s civil rights laws, block transgender troops from bravely serving this nation, and issue a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people in every aspect of American life. If confirmed, Kavanaugh will undoubtedly bring a dangerous brand of ideological partisanship that has no place on the Court.
Sarah Warbelow. quoted in an article by Charlotte Clymer at HRC Blog. HRC Report Details Threat Brett Kavanaugh Poses to Millions of LGBTQ Americans
Brett M. Kavanaugh: Wrong For LGNTQ People. Wrong For The Supreme Court (PDF)
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Franklin Graham aplaude el último movimiento de Trump
WASHINGTON - La Administración Trump ha anunciado una nueva propuesta que permite a los grupos religiosos que reciben contratos a través del Departamento de Trabajo contratar y despedir en función de sus creencias religiosas.
El Departamento de Trabajo dice que esta medida tiene como objetivo "garantizar que la conciencia y la libertad religiosa reciban la protección más amplia permitida por la ley". Para hacer eso, la medida retrocede las políticas de no discriminación del presidente Obama.
"La norma propuesta hoy ayuda a garantizar la protección de los derechos civiles de los empleadores religiosos", dijo el Secretario de Trabajo de los Estados Unidos, Patrick Pizzella. "Como las personas de fe con creencias religiosas profundamente arraigadas están tomando decisiones sobre si participar en contratos federales, merecen una comprensión clara de sus obligaciones y protecciones bajo la ley".
El reverendo Franklin Graham dijo: "Estoy agradecido con el presidente Trump y su administración por proponer una norma para proteger las decisiones de empleo de las organizaciones religiosas, específicamente aquellas que pueden contratar con el gobierno".
Las organizaciones cristianas no deberían verse obligadas a contratar personas cuyas creencias no est��n alineadas con las de ellos. No funcionaria. Necesitamos orar por nuestros líderes en Washington y agradecer a Dios por quienes defienden nuestras libertades religiosas en este país. Dijo Graham
"Sin estas protecciones de conciencia, las organizaciones religiosas corren el riesgo de sufrir discriminación por tomar decisiones de empleo que sean consistentes con sus creencias", dijo Mike Berry, jefe de personal del Instituto First Liberty.
"Estamos agradecidos con la administración Trump por trabajar una vez más para proteger la libertad religiosa de todos los estadounidenses". Los opositores a la medida, como Sarah Warbelow, directora legal de la Campaña de Derechos Humanos, la calificaron como "una licencia para discriminar".
El Departamento de Trabajo agregó que las organizaciones religiosas aún estarán sujetas a las leyes estatales y aún deben adherirse a las protecciones para los trabajadores basadas en raza, sexo y origen nacional.
Fuente: CBN News
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The news cycle was packed on the last Monday in March. Reporters from coast to coast spent the day feverishly working on stories about the Oscars slap heard ‘round the world, President Joe Biden calling for regime change in Russia, Republican politicians dabbling in cocaine and group sex, and the confirmation process for the first Black female United States Supreme Court Justice.
Things hummed in similar fashion at right-wing outlets, which added their takes to the online cacophony. But at the end of the day, one story assignment popped into the inboxes of a large, yet highly select set of conservative media: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signing the Parental Rights in Education Act.
DeSantis and his friends in conservative media claim the law, which critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, is a measure to protect kids from being groomed and prematurely introduced to sexual subject matter at school. It was passed in response to growing outrage, particularly online, a moral panic over teachers supposedly sexualizing their classrooms.
Although educators, LGBTQ people, and their allies have fiercely resisted the law, it’s been widely touted in right-wing circles, part of an effective media campaign by the administration to shunt criticism and tout its importance.
Emails obtained by the Daily Dot reveal the DeSantis administration’s talking points on the Don’t Say Gay bill, a blend of fact and fiction sent to a slew of reporters, producers, editors, and far-right influencers, who in turn covered it in lockstep with the Governor’s views.
This report is based on nearly 900 pages of documents received from a public records request and dozens of articles and tweets by the more than 50 members of the media who received the same email from DeSantis’ press secretary the day he signed the "Don’t Say Gay" bill. These documents, articles, and tweets further underscore how the prominent homophobic and transphobic Twitter account Libs of TikTok factored in as Florida proposed, then passed, the controversial "Don’t Say Gay" law.
The Daily Dot received these records from a request for emails and correspondence from or by DeSantis, his press office, and then-Press Secretary Christina Pushaw that mentioned Libs of TikTok or its account holder Chaya Raichik.
Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok has been described as “an anti-LGBTQ+ hate machine” whose posts incite attacks on teachers, children’s hospitals, and Pride events. (Raichik insists she merely amplifies content and is blameless for the bomb and death threats, violence, and trolling.)
Her account exploded after she created it in late 2020; by the following October, she had 370,000 Twitter followers. But few outside the right-wing Twitter bubble had heard of Libs of TikTok.
One influential and active Twitter user was very familiar with Raichik: DeSantis’ Press Secretary, Christina Pushaw. (Pushaw is now the director of rapid response for his reelection campaign.) In April, Media Matters reported that Pushaw and Raichik had interacted on Twitter over 100 times since June 2021. The previous month, Pushaw said Libs of TikTok “truly opened my eyes” on LGBTQ curriculum in schools.
Records the Daily Dot received show that Raichik communicated with DeSantis’ team.
On Oct. 28, 2021, Raichik DMed to confirm that DeSantis had banned mask mandates in schools. “Have a recording from OCPS board meeting where a board member asks for a 6 week mask mandate for k-12,” she wrote.
Although the account on the other end is not identified, it appears to be Pushaw. It replied in the affirmative and added that the state was withholding funds from schools, including the district Raichik referenced, for disobeying DeSantis’ anti-mask decree.
“We have a legislative session in a couple of weeks to make new laws that strengthen protections for the parents of public school kids, so we can better enforce this law,” she added.
The "Don’t Say Gay" bill was also introduced that session.
The correspondence between Raichik and DeSantis’ team picked back up months later, per records the Daily Dot obtained.
Neither DeSantis’ office nor his campaign, where Pushaw now works, responded to an emailed request for comment on Tuesday.
On March 8, the day the Florida legislature passed the "Don’t Say Gay" bill, Raichik attempted to tell on KinderCare, a privately-held, national provider of childcare and education, for supposedly offering “LGBTQ curriculum.”
“This is illegal in Florida,” she wrote.
The account replied that the Governor hadn’t signed the bill yet, hence the “LGBTQ curriculum”—where kids were asked to switch the caps of markers—wasn’t illegal yet.
However, it reassured Raichik that she’d sent her concerns to the deputy chief of staff in charge of education. “I think if anyone can think of a way to put a stop to this it’s him,” the account wrote. “And he always talks to the gov.”
While Raichik would send tweets to inform on teachers, the account sent Pushaw’s tweets to Libs of TikTok to be amplified.
DeSantis’ press office’s communications about the "Don’t Say Gay" bill and the ensuing coverage of it in right-wing media provide a vivid illustration of just how effective the Florida Governor’s efforts to control the press on the topic were.
On March 28, the day DeSantis signed the bill, his office posted a public release describing the legislation as a “historic” effort to “protect parental rights in education.”
Behind the scenes, his press team worked 50 people in the conservative press. An email from Pushaw went to reporters, producers, and editors at a broad spectrum of outlets ranging from the biggest names in right-wing and social media to obscure blogs and local publications. More than a dozen Fox News employees were on the list, as were people at intensely partisan outlets like the Epoch Times, Post Millennial, and Breitbart News; right-wing political figure Dan Bongino; and influencers Ian Miles Cheong and Brandon Straka.
By analyzing online archives and social media records, the Daily Dot found that each of the two dozen outlets Pushaw contacted covered Don’t Say Gay bill’s signing: Fox News, Epoch Times, Daily Wire, Rebel News, Breitbart News, The Federalist, Daily Caller, Florida’s Conservative Voice, two ABC affiliates, The Capitolist, Washington Examiner, National Review, The Blaze, Telemundo, The Post Millennial, One America News Network (OAN), PJ Media, The Free Press, Newsmax, Newsweek, Town Hall, Alachua Chronicle, and El American.
Many outlets that didn’t receive this email also covered DeSantis signing the bill, and the ones she emailed may have already planned to do so. Some on her list also appear to have attended the bill’s signing.
The content of Pushaw’s email is reflected in the tone and tenor of the recipients’ coverage of the "Don’t Say Gay" bill.
Articles by outlets on Pushaw’s list accused Democrats of “misleadingly attack[ing] … ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill” (Fox News), called it the “parental notification bill” (Daily Wire), and praised the governor for “prevent[ing] the sexualization of children” (El American) by signing the “anti-grooming bill” (The Post Millennial and Rebel News).
Pushaw’s email includes a “myth vs fact” attachment that “debunks common false narratives.”
In its first fact, it says the bill doesn’t ban the word “gay.”
The media echoed this point. “The bill does not ban the word ‘gay’ in school settings,” Fox News wrote.
The document also claims that the bill is about parental rights and implies that schools give kids prescription medication without parental consent. “Schools should never give students medical treatments (for example, cross sex hormones for students who identify as transgender) behind their parents’ backs,” it states.
The Epoch Times noted the bill “reinforces the fundamental rights of parents to make decisions” and ensures parents will be notified and allowed to opt out of any medical care schools might provide their children.
As PolitiFact reported in 2011, Florida already requires schools to obtain written consent before providing any medication, even over-the-counter medications like aspirin. There are no documented cases of Florida schools giving children hormone replacement therapy or puberty blockers, which require a prescription.
While the right-wing press regurgitated the Governor’s claim that the law is necessary to stop schools from sexualizing kids, the email Pushaw sent acknowledged that Florida’s educational standards don’t actually include “inappropriate sexual content or gender ideology.”
Not many of the ideologically affiliated outlets noted the bill was passed to prevent something that Florida was openly admitting wasn’t happening. That’s perhaps because Pushaw insisted schools were teaching those matters nevertheless.
Yet, nearly all her examples of supposed inappropriate instruction kids receive in school occurred outside Florida.
Pushaw also found a way to work Libs of TikTok into her section on what wouldn’t be allowed under Florida’s bill, highlighting a video from the account that happened in Illinois.
The bill also shared a number of examples from other conservative channels like The Post Millennial and The Federalist, the same ones receiving the release Pushaw sent to hype the bill, part of a recursive right-wing loop that’s helped stoke this current panic.
Right-wing coverage of the bill was in lockstep.
Some outlets—particularly the larger, national ones—did address criticisms of the bill and analyze it to varying degrees.
Most on Pushaw’s list glossed over or entirely omitted the fact that "Don’t Say Gay" regulates classroom discussion in all the grades, focusing instead on its prohibition of instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. Even the stories that do quote the bill’s language include lines like this one in the National Review, “Rather than a bigoted effort to ostracize LGBTQ students and faculty, the bill is explicit that it is designed to keep curriculum about sexuality out of kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.”
One of Pushaw’s key points, which proponents often repeat, is that the bill doesn’t ban the word “gay” in schools.
“Throughout the bill’s travels through committees as well as the state House and Senate, it has been criticized by some as being anti-LGBTQ and dubbed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, although the word ‘gay’ doesn’t appear in the verbiage of the legislation,” the Epoch Times noted.
The bill may not include the word “gay,” but it does say “sexual orientation”—twice. Human Rights Campaign Legal Director Sarah Warbelow further pointed out that, while it may not include that specific word, all the content and conduct its supporters claim violates the law concerns LGBTQ people and issues.
“We know that this isn’t going to cause school districts to stop having students read Shakespeare, for example, Romeo & Juliet,” Warbelow said.
The document also claims that it’s a “myth” that the bill requires schools to out LGBTQ kids to their parents, which can be harmful and dangerous—even deadly. Warbelow, an attorney, says this is an inaccurate interpretation, as the law requires schools to get parental consent before providing students with mental health counseling.
The Washington Examiner wrote, “Provisions in the new law bar school officials from ‘[discouraging] or [prohibiting] parental notification of and involvement in critical decisions affecting a student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.’”
The outlet did not note that this could require schools to effectively reveal their child’s sexual orientation to a parent or guardian.
“Not only is that the only logical way to read that provision, based on leaked documents within numerous counties within Florida, that is how their general counsels are interpreting that provision,” Warbelow told the Daily Dot in a phone conversation on Thursday.
Many of its critics point out that "Don’t Say Gay" is aimed at the LGBTQ community broadly, but most especially at transgender and nonbinary people. Each of the four things Pushaw points to as an example of unacceptable, i.e. illegal, things “found in Florida” schools deal with gender identity. Those items include one children’s and one young adult book apiece that feature transgender protagonists, and two graphics designed to help younger children understand the concept of gender identity and sexual orientation.
Told of how DeSantis’ team influenced coverage, Eli Erlick, who founded the Trans Student Educational Resources, opined that they’re polluting the information ecosystem to obscure the bill’s true meaning.
“By withholding these statements from less biased news sources and news sources that will propagate their agenda, they’re creating this circle of discourse about what the Don’t Say Gay bill really is.”
DeSantis can be downright hostile when the media asks him hard questions or refutes his assertions. Pushaw, his former press secretary and current director of rapid response for his campaign, embodies the same mannerisms. She doesn’t hesitate to attack reporters whose coverage or questions rub her the wrong way.
In August 2021, Twitter temporarily suspended Pushaw for directing her followers to “drag” the Associated Press and its reporter over a story that one of DeSantis’ donors was linked to a hedge fund that invested in Regeneron, the COVID-19 treatment that DeSantis was bellowing about all over the media.
Yet she can be helpful when the press is on her side. When a college student contacted her for help writing a response to their school newspaper’s article criticizing "Don’t Say Gay" last April, Pushaw responded just 30 minutes later. Her lengthy email included all the talking points she’d sent right-wing media the day DeSantis signed the bill and some additional thoughts of her own about the “baseless partisan smear” the school newspaper published.
“Please let me know if you have any questions! Kind regards,” Pushaw wrote in closing.
She took a similarly friendly tone when outlets contacted her for comment about the Washington Post’s plans to reveal Chaya Raichik was behind Libs of TikTok that month.
Pushaw provided these outlets with her entire correspondence with the Post reporter, including several of Raichik’s tweets. “She does a great job exposing degeneracy by showcasing liberals in their own words. It’s a shame that any journalist would want to ruin her life,” she wrote.
“This is why you’re the best in the biz,” a Daily Caller reporter responded to Pushaw.
Politicians commonly curate lists of friendly media and tailor their communications accordingly.
“It’s not unusual for government offices or elected officials to send press releases to media outlets they believe will give them favorable coverage. But professional journalists should verify information and challenge any statements that are misleading or raise other concerns,” Rod Hicks, ethics and diversity director of the Society of Professional Journalists told the Daily Dot in an emailed statement that did not address the specifics of DeSantis’ office’s communications with the press.
“One of the most important roles of a journalist is to serve as a watchdog over government affairs for the public.”
#us politics#news#the daily dot#florida#gov. ron desantis#2022#don't say gay bill#parental rights in education#republican homophobia#homophobia#transphobia#Libs of TikTok#Christina Pushaw#Chaya Raichik#gop#Republicans#conservatives#tweet#twitter#Sarah Warbelow#Human Rights Campaign#Eli Erlick#Trans Student Educational Resources#Rod Hicks#Society of Professional Journalists
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Supreme Court docket to listen to LGBT office discrimination instances
The US Supreme Court docket has agreed to listen to three instances that ask if current US job discrimination legal guidelines ought to prolong to sexual orientation and gender id.
Two of the instances contain alleged discrimination of homosexual males by their employers, and the third examines the discrimination of a transgender particular person.
The instances will sign the path of LGBT rights within the US, 4 years after homosexual marriage was legalised nationwide.
The 5-Four conservative-majority court docket is about to look at the instances this fall.
The primary two instances have been consolidated as each handle the purported discrimination of homosexual workers.
Donald Zarda, a skydiving teacher from New York, and Gerald Bostock, a former county little one welfare companies coordinator from Georgia, each alleged they have been fired due to their sexual orientation.
The highest court docket may also study the Michigan case of funeral dwelling worker Aimee Stephens, who claims she was fired as a result of she is transgender.
In its itemizing of the instances, the Supreme Court docket cites Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the part that prohibits employers from discriminating on the idea of race, color, faith, intercourse and nationwide origin.
However it doesn't explicitly reference sexual orientation or gender id, and decrease courts have been divided lately on whether or not the protections ought to apply to both class.
The US Justice Division underneath President Donald Trump has supported the employers in every case, arguing that current federal civil rights protections don't prolong to sexual orientation or gender id.
This marks a change in course from the Obama administration, which supported treating LGBT discrimination as intercourse discrimination.
Some advocates for LGBT equality celebrated the chance for office protections to be cemented in regulation.
"The Supreme Court has an opportunity to clarify this area of law to ensure protections for LGBTQ people in many important areas of life", mentioned Sarah Warbelow, Human Rights Marketing campaign authorized director, in a press release.
"The growing legal consensus is that our nation's civil rights laws do protect LGBTQ people against discrimination under sex nondiscrimination laws."
In her assertion Ms Warbelow urged Congress to move protections for LGBT workers, "regardless" of the court docket's choice.
In 2017, the Supreme Court docket selected not study a case involving a lesbian working as a hospital safety officer in Georgia, leaving a decrease court docket ruling in place which sided with the girl's employer.
The present bench, a 5-Four conservative majority, consists of Trump appointees Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
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Four Lesbian Couples Sue Tennessee Over Law That Could Harm LGBT Parents, Trans People, and Women
Last week, Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee enacted a new law that says that laws should be interpreted in a “natural and ordinary” way. What exactly does “natural and ordinary” mean? “Without forced or subtle construction that would limit or extend the meaning of the language” says the bill. Well, this interpretation could cause a lot of problems for many people in Tennessee.
First, it could undermine same-sex couples in any law that includes the words “husband, wife, mother, or father,” and therefore puts LGBT parents at risk of having their parental rights or marriage rights taken away. It could prevent same-sex couples from having both of their names on a child’s birth certificate.
Such a law could undermine a transgender person’s true identity, as well as strip protections from women or gender non-conforming identities when laws refer to all people as “men.”
Four lesbian couples are not going to stand by and find out if their parental rights will be taken away. Attorney Julie Tate-Keith filed a lawsuit against Tennessee last week on behalf of married couples Charitey and Heather Mackenzie, Crystal Dawn and Terra Mears, Elizabeth and Heather Broadaway, and Emilie and Kathrine Guthrie, all of whom are expecting babies in the fall.
Governor Haslam has assured his constituents that the law will not harm LGBT people:
“While I understand the concerns raised about this bill, the Obergefell decision is the law of the land, and this legislation does not change a principle relied upon by the courts for more than a century, mitigating the substantive impact of this legislation,” the Governor said in a statement.
Conservative Christian groups, however, have praised it for its ability to allow judges to do the exact opposite of what Haslam has said, and not redefine “husband and wife” as “spouses.”
HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow said the legislation was “opening a Pandora’s box of harmful consequences that could impact more than just the LGBTQ community.”
Vice president of programs for GLAAD, Zeke Stokes, added, “By the stroke of a pen, Gov. Haslam has now placed the future of the state’s economy and the well-being of the LGBTQ community in jeopardy.”
“(The law) has the potential to undermine marriages between LGBTQ couples, nullify a transgender person’s true identity under law, and put LGBTQ families at risk,” they added.
More articles like this, click here.
#lgbt#lgbt rights#gay rights#parental rights#lgbt parents#same sex parents#tennessee#same sex couples#transgender rights#trans rights#women's rights#family#families#laws#discrimination
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"Governor Bevin’s shameful decision to sign this discriminatory bill into law jeopardizes non-discrimination policies at public high schools, colleges, and universities,” said HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow. “No student should fear being excluded from a school club or participating in a school activity because they are LGBTQ. While of course private groups should have the freedom to express religious viewpoints, they should not be able to unfairly discriminate with taxpayer funds.” - http://www.hrc.org/blog/kentucky-governor-signs-sb-17-into-law - This is disgraceful.
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Anti-discrimination law and the future of adoption
I’ve posted before about our July Cato conference on adoption, pluralism, and children’s interests. Now Cato’s bimonthly Policy Report has published highlights of the panel on anti-discrimination law and religious agencies, with speakers including Stephanie Barclay of BYU, Sarah Warbelow of the Human Rights Campaign, Robin Fretwell Wilson of the University of Illinois, and me.
One of my comments about pluralism and freedom in the system: “When I began reading about adoption, I realized for about the umpteenth time how glad I was to live in America.” Not that the system isn’t full of problems: on the grueling 26-year litigation in the New York City foster care case, Wilder v. Bernstein, see this 2011 piece of mine.
Filed under: adoption, live in person, religious discrimination, religious liberty, sexual orientation
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