LGBTQ+ rights

Subterms

    More stories

    • 200 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Arts groups for people of color steel themselves after Trump’s NEA cuts: ‘They poked the bear’

      by

      Summertime at the Upijata Scissor-Tail Swallow Arts Company, an artistic program located on Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, is usually bustling. The arts community center, created to help combat high youth suicide rates on the reservation, would normally offer twice-a-week classes to enrolled students. Traditional artists – quilters or beadworkers – would be paid to teach interested participants. It was all a part of Upijata’s mission to emotionally and economically support the vulnerable community, the poorest reservation in the US.But this year Upijata will have to significantly reduce its programming. Classes will now only be held monthly. Instead of hosting 20 students for workshops, Upijata will only be able to accommodate six. The cuts at Upijata come after a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was rescinded last week. The funding, the first time Upijata has received an NEA award since being founded in 2019, made up about half of the company’s budget.Upijata is one of hundreds of groups facing severe budget deficits after the Trump administration swiftly cut millions of dollars in NEA grants. Now, arts organizations nationwide, such as Portland Center Stage and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, are scrambling to cover the shortfall. Groups specifically catering to marginalized communities are also caught in the fallout.“We’re [building] a community where we’re creating a sense of belonging to combat the suicide rates,” said Upijata’s executive director, Shannon Beshears. “If we cannot be that sense of belonging, because we don’t have the consistency, the ability to impact our participants’ lives in a positive way decreases dramatically.”An email sent out to grant recipients on 2 May said that the NEA would “focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President”, several outlets reported. Recipients of rescinded grants were given only seven days to appeal the decision. Several top officials at the NEA have since resigned from the agency following the grant terminations. The NEA did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.Projects being prioritized by the Trump administration instead include initiatives that “elevate the Nation’s HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, [and] empower houses of worship to serve communities”, among others.Grant terminations have affected artistic programming in every corner of the US, and organization administrators have taken to social media to share their shock and outrage. Many of the funded projects are already underway. In the interim, institutions have launched emergency funding campaigns, urging community members to donate. Others say they are appealing to other streams of donation, including private philanthropists. Many have filed appeals with the NEA to have their grants restored. Several of the funded programs are also the signature projects for impacted organizations, such as the annual Uptown Shakespeare in the Park initiative for the Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH) in New York City.CTH, known for its contemporary takes on Shakespeare classics and Greek tragedies, was only a month out from rehearsals for their production of Memon, a new play about an Ethiopian king who fought with the city of Troy, when they received news that their $60,000 grant had been cancelled. “They sort of signaled that they were going to do something like this a couple of months ago,” said CTH’s producing artistic director, Ty Jones. “Did I think they would follow through? No, I didn’t.”The production is a part of the theatre’s annual Uptown Shakespeare in the Park festival, which sees about 2,000 attendees a performance. The event generates foot traffic for local businesses. Representatives from New York City’s department of health and mental hygiene also provide community members with onsite services, including blood pressure checks and social service references.In Philadelphia, the advocacy group Asian Americans United (AAU) lost a $25,000 grant meant to support their annual mid-Autumn festival ahead of the event’s 30-year anniversary in October. The event was first founded by local youth who couldn’t be with their families for the mid-Autumn celebration, said AAU’s executive director, Vivian Chang. The festival has since grown substantially, exposing upwards of 8,000 attendees annually to more than 100 local performers.“For a lot of people, it’s a very accessible way to reach a new audience. These aren’t groups that will be on a super mainstream stage, or maybe they’re performing an art form that’s undervalued,” said Chang. “Where do they get to celebrate this? Where do they get to display? The festival is one of the few places for that.”For many organizations catering to disenfranchised groups, the alleged reprioritization is especially frustrating and contradictory. Upijata, for example, works with tribal groups and theoretically should be considered eligible under the NEA’s newly outlined goals, which include projects that “support Tribal communities”. “They said supporting tribal communities [in their new priorities], but in their effort to prioritize supporting tribal communities, they are directly taking funding from them,” said Beshears. “It feels like there is so much back and forth, so much dishonesty.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMany affected organizations were not surprised to see the Trump administration’s attack on funding. Prior to last week’s cuts, the NEA was ordered to require grant applicants not to promote “gender ideology”, as a part of a broader executive order.The National Queer Theater (NQT), a non-profit theater based in Brooklyn, New York, had a $20,000 grant rescinded for its Criminal Queerness Festival, a showcase featuring work by queer artists from countries where queerness is criminalized or censored. The group joined a lawsuit in March with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to sue the NEA over its anti-LGBTQ+ policy. As for the latest NEA cuts, NQT’s artistic director, Adam Odsess-Rubin, said he and staff members are “upset by the NEA cuts, but I can’t say we’re surprised”.“These cuts are part of the larger story of how Elon Musk and Doge have tried to gut the federal government and really focused on eliminating any programs they see as potentially counter to this administration’s priorities,” said Odsess-Rubin. “That includes any programming related to LGBTQ+ issues, any programming focused on Black and brown communities, as well as programming around climate change or healthcare”.Many groups are hopeful that they’ll be able to close the gaps in funding, especially given outcry from the community. But questions of how to handle attacks on the arts in a long-term capacity remain.CTH ultimately decided not to request an appeal, instead opting to focus on future actions against NEA attacks. The theatre hopes to work with the other organizations who have also seen their funds stopped, possibly through legal means.In the meantime, CTH is moving ahead with their Memon production and is confident their community will help them raise $60,000 by June. “I’m one of these crazy people that believes that the power of people is stronger than the people in power,” said Jones. “I don’t fear these people. If anything, they poked the bear. It’s a spark that’s put a flame in motion.” More

    • 100 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Unearthed comments from new pope alarm LGBTQ+ Catholics

      by

      After years of sympathetic and inclusive comments from Pope Francis, LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed concern on Thursday about hostile remarks made more than a decade ago by Father Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV, in which he condemned what he called the “homosexual lifestyle” and “the redefinition of marriage” as “at odds with the Gospel”.In a 2012 address to the world synod of bishops, the man who now leads the church said that “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel – for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia”.In the remarks, of which he also read portions for a video produced by the Catholic News Service, a news agency owned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the cleric blamed mass media for fostering so much “sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyles choices” that “when people hear the Christian message it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel”.“Catholic pastors who preach against the legalization of abortion or the redefinition of marriage are portrayed as being ideologically driven, severe and uncaring,” Prevost added.He went on to complain that “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children are so benignly and sympathetically portrayed in television programs and cinema today”.The video illustrated his criticism of the “homosexual lifestyle” and “same-sex partners and their adopted children” with clips from two US sitcoms featuring same-sex couples, The New Normal and Modern Family.The cleric also called for a “new evangelization to counter these mass media-produced distortions of religious and ethical reality”.After some of the comments were reported by the New York Times, American LGBTQ+ Catholic groups expressed alarm but also cautious optimism that the papacy of Francis had moved the whole church forward.“We pray that in the 13 years that have passed, 12 of which were under the papacy of Pope Francis, that his heart and mind have developed more progressively on LGBTQ+ issues, and we will take a wait-and-see attitude to see if that has happened,” said Francis DeBernardo, the executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ+ Catholic group, in a statement. “We pray that as our church transitions from 12 years of an historic papacy, Pope Leo XIV will continue the welcome and outreach to LGBTQ+ people which Pope Francis inaugurated.”DignityUSA, a group that represents LGBTQ+ Catholics, also expressed “concern” with the pope’s previous comments but wrote in an online post: “We note that this statement was made during the papacy of Benedict XVI, when doctrinal adherence appeared to be expected. In addition, the voices of LGBTQ+ people were rarely heard at that level of church leadership. We pray that Pope Leo XIV will demonstrate a willingness to listen and grow as he begins his new role as the leader of the global church.”Perhaps the best-known of the sympathetic statements made about LGBTQ+ Catholics by Pope Francis was a comment he made to reporters in 2013, when he was asked about his observation that there was a “gay lobby” inside the Vatican hierarchy.“I have yet to find someone who introduces himself at the Vatican with an identity card marked ‘gay’,” the pope joked. “But we must distinguish the fact that a person is gay from the fact of lobbying, because no lobbies are good.”“If a person is gay,” he added, “and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?”DeBernardo, the New Ways Ministry director, referenced those remarks on Thursday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The healing that began with ‘Who am I to judge?’ needs to continue and grow to ‘Who am I, if not a friend to LGBTQ+ people?’” DeBernardo said.“Pope Francis opened the door to a new approach to LGBTQ+ people; Pope Leo must now guide the church through that door,” he added. “Many Catholics, including bishops and other leaders, remain ignorant about the reality of LGBTQ+ lives, including the marginalization, discrimination, and violence that many still face, even in Catholic institutions. We hope that he will further educate himself by meeting with and listening to LGBTQ+ Catholics and their supporters.”Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of DignityUSA, told the Washington Blade in a text message from St Peter’s Square shortly after Leo XIV’s election that the new pope “hasn’t said a lot since early 2010s” on the subject, adding “hope he has evolved”.Father James Martin, an American Jesuit and the founder of Outreach, an LGBTQ+ Catholic resource, sounded a note of optimism in a video message from Rome, calling the new pope a “down-to-earth, kind, modest” man and “a great choice”.In 2023, Martin was able to bless a same-sex couple for the first time, after Pope Francis said he would allow such blessings.In 2020, Pope Francis said that he supported civil-union laws for same-sex couples. “Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it,” he said.“Pope Francis did more for LGBTQ people than all his predecessors combined,” Martin wrote last month. “He wrote letters of welcome to Outreach conferences for LGBTQ Catholics. He approved the publication of ‘Fiducia Supplicans, a Vatican document that permitted priests to bless same-sex marriages under certain circumstances – and weathered intense blowback from some parts of the church. And, perhaps most surprisingly and least well known, he met regularly with transgender Catholics and spoke to them with warmth and welcome.” More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      US to begin immediate removal of up to 1,000 trans military members

      by

      The Pentagon is removing the 1,000 members of the military who openly identify as trans, and giving those who have yet to openly-identify as transgender 30 days to remove themselves, according to a new directive issued Thursday.The memo is fueled by Tuesday’s supreme court decision allowing the Trump administration to enforce a ban on trans military members. The defense department has said it will follow up by going through medical records to identify others who haven’t come forward.Officials have said that as of 9 December 2024, there were 4,240 troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria in active duty, national guard and reserve service, representing a tiny fraction – of the 2 million people in service, although they acknowledge the number may be higher.The memo released on Thursday mirrors one sent out in February, but any action was stalled at that point by several lawsuits. When the initial Pentagon directive came out earlier this year, it gave service members 30 days to self-identify. Since then, about 1,000 have done so.In a statement, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the 1,000 troops who already self-identified “will begin the voluntary separation process” from the military.Rae Timberlake, a spokesperson for Sparta Pride, is one of the 1,000 who chose to self-identify. Timberlake has served in the Navy for 17 years and said that trans service members who don’t take the current buyout offer could lose out on benefits that took years of service to build.“There’s no guarantee to access to your pension or severance or an honorable discharge,” Timberlake said.Despite Timberlake’s decision to leave, they said many trans troops would continue serving if allowed to.“This is not voluntary. This is a decision that folks are coming to under duress,” Timberlake said. “These are 1,000 transgender troops that would be serving if the conditions were not created to force them into making a decision for their own wellbeing, or the wellbeing of their family long-term.”The move is the latest by the Trump administration taking aim at trans members of the military and trans veterans. After Trump took office and issued a flurry of gender-focused executive orders, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) started cracking down on healthcare for LGBTQ+ veterans, starting with the rescinding of VA directive 1341, thereby phasing out treatments for gender dysphoria.The expulsion of trans service members comes in tandem with the secretary of defense Pete Hegseth’s past views that women are not suited for combat roles, at a time when military recruitment is profoundly struggling and veterans have voiced concerns that potential VA cuts could further hinder young Americans from enlisting.Announcing the removals on Thursday, Hegseth doubled down on his hardline approach. “We are leaving WOKENESS AND WEAKNESS behind. No more pronouns,” Hegseth wrote in a post on X on Thursday. “We are done with that sh*t.” More

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Woman says Boston hotel guard told her to leave bathroom because she ‘was a man’

      by

      A couple visiting Boston says they were left confused and appalled after being forced out of the Liberty Hotel during a Kentucky Derby party on Saturday, following what they describe as being confronted and wrongfully accused in the women’s restroom.Ansley Baker and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, both cisgender women, said a hotel security guard entered the women’s bathroom and demanded Baker leave the stall she was using, claiming she didn’t belong there.“All of a sudden there was banging on the door,” Baker recalled to CBS News.“I pulled my shorts up. I hadn’t even tied them. One of the security guards was there telling me to get out of the bathroom, that I was a man in the women’s bathroom. I said: ‘I’m a woman.’”Victor, waiting by the sinks, heard the commotion and saw the security guard confronting Baker.“I looked down and I saw her shoes and that’s when I was like: ‘What is going on?’” she told the network.The couple said that once Baker was being escorted out, other women in line hurled insults, calling her “a creep” and demanding she be removed. Security staff then allegedly asked both women to show their IDs to confirm their gender. After a heated exchange, they were told to leave the hotel.View image in fullscreenIn a statement shared with CBS, the Liberty Hotel accuse the two women of sharing one stall: “An incident occurred at the Liberty Hotel on Saturday, May 3 where several women alerted security of two adults sharing a bathroom stall. The bathroom was cleared out as two adults in one stall are not permitted. After leaving the bathroom, a member of the couple from the stall put their hands on our security team and it was then that they were removed from the premises.“The Liberty Hotel has a zero-tolerance policy for any physical altercations on our property. The safety of our guests and staff is our priority, and this event is under investigation. The Liberty Hotel is and always will be an ally of the LGBTQ+ community and a place where everyone is welcome and celebrated.”Later on Tuesday, the Liberty Hotel said it had now “concluded the investigation into the situation that occurred on May 3rd”, in a fresh statement shared with the Guardian that appeared to take a different stance on the incident.The security officer involved in the incident was being “suspended from their position immediately” following the hotel’s investigation.The statement also added that the general manager was reaching out to the individuals involved, and that the hotel was conducting “mandatory retraining for all staff on inclusive practices and guest interaction protocols, with a particular focus on creating a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQ+ individuals”.The statement went on: “In a reaffirmation of our values, the hotel is making a donation to a local LGBTQ+ organization that we have partnered with in the past, on International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), on May 17.”It then repeated a point made in the earlier statement: “The Liberty Hotel is and always will be an ally of the LGBTQ+ community and a place where everyone is welcome and celebrated.”Baker and Victor had insisted in interviews with local media that they were never in the same stall and disputed the hotel’s initial account of events.“Once the stall door opened, and I’m the only one in there, it escalated further,” Baker told Boston News 25. “I don’t think that aligns with what they’re saying.”The couple said they have made sure that Boston mayor Michelle Wu’s office was aware of their experience in hopes that they can stop a similar situation from happening to anyone else.They also hope their experience can spark awareness and change.“We know we’re not the only ones that face this kind of thing,” Baker said to CBS. Victor added: “It was a very scary situation, but trans women experience this every single day in the US and across the world.”The Guardian has not been able to reach the couple for comment.The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between the administration and the LGBTQ+ community. Some of Donald Trump’s earliest moves in office were to sign executive orders directing the prohibition of gender transitions for people under the age of 19 and banning trans athletes from competing in women’s sports.On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”, instructing the federal government to remove “all radical gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms”.Trump has also limited access and funding for LGBTQ+ arts, with orders that instruct arts organizations not to fund projects that promote “gender ideology” as well as appointing himself chair of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.The incident also echoed an ongoing Republican talking point centered on bathrooms and gender identity. In November 2024, the South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace introduced a bill to ban the representative Sarah McBride from using the bathroom that corresponds with her gender identity. Speaker Mike Johnson has supported and subsequently enforced that ban. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      US supreme court allows Trump trans military ban to take effect

      by

      The Trump administration can begin to enforce a ban on transgender troops serving in the military while a challenge to the policy plays out in the courts, the supreme court ruled on Tuesday, a significant decision that could lead to the discharge of thousands of military members.The court’s order was unsigned and gave no explanation for its reasoning, which is typical of decisions the justices reach on an emergency basis. The court’s three liberal members – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – all noted their dissent from the decision.Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which represented challengers in the case, called the decision “a devastating blow to transgender servicemembers”.“By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our challenge continues, the Court has temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice,” the groups said in a statement. “Transgender individuals meet the same standards and demonstrate the same values as all who serve. We remain steadfast in our belief that this ban violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be struck down.”Immediately after coming into office, Donald Trump rescinded an executive order from the Biden administration that allowed transgender people to serve openly in the military. On 27 January, the president issued a second executive order that said transgender people couldn’t serve in the military.“It is the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity,” the order said. “This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.” The defense department began implementing the ban at the end of February.A defense department estimate from earlier this year said there were 4,240 people in the military with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria – roughly 0.2 % of the 2 million people currently serving.Seven transgender servicemembers and one transgender person who would like to join the military challenged the ban. Lawyers for the lead platiniff, navy pilot Emily Shilling, said the military had spent $20m on her training, according to SCOTUSBlog.Several lower courts had halted the ban. The case before the supreme court involved a ruling from US district court judge Benjamin Settle, who blocked the ban in March.“The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record,” Settle, an appointee of George W Bush, wrote at the time. “The government’s unrelenting reliance on deference to military judgment is unjustified in the absence of any evidence supporting ‘the military’s’ new judgment reflected in the Military Ban.”Another judge, Ana Reyes, of the US district court in Washington DC, also blocked the ban, saying it was “soaked with animus and dripping with pretext”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump administration asked the supreme court to intervene last month. “The district court issued a universal injunction usurping the Executive Branch’s authority to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces,” John Sauer, the US solicitor general, wrote in a brief to the court.Trump’s ban is broader than a similar policy enacted during his first term. The previous policy allowed those who had come out before the ban to continue to serve in the military. The more recent policy affects nearly all active serving transgender members.Pausing the order, Shilling’s lawyers said, would “upend the status quo by allowing the government to immediately begin discharging thousands of transgender servicemembers … thereby ending distinguished careers and gouging holes in military units”.A majority of Americans support allowing transgender people to serve in the military, according to a February Gallup poll. However, there is a sharp partisan split. While 84% of Democrats favor such a policy, only 23% of Republicans do. More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump ally pushes DoJ unit to shift civil rights focus, new messages show

      by

      The justice department’s civil rights division is shifting its focus away from its longstanding work protecting the rights of marginalized groups and will instead pivot towards Donald Trump’s priorities including hunting for noncitizen voters and protecting white people from discrimination, according to new internal mission statements seen by the Guardian.The new priorities were sent to several sections of the civil rights division this week by Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump ally who was confirmed a little more than two weeks ago to lead the division. Several of them only give glancing mention to the statutes and kinds of discrimination that have long been the focus of the division, which dates back to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Several of the mission statements point to Trump’s executive orders as priorities for the section.The mission statement for the voting section, for example, barely mentions the Voting Rights Act and instead says the section will focus on preventing voter fraud – which is exceedingly rare – and helping states find for noncitizens on their voter rolls (non-citizen voting is also exceedingly rare). The guidance for the Housing and Civil Enforcement section does not make a single mention of the Fair Housing Act, the landmark 1968 civil rights law that has long been a central part of the department’s work.“It’s absolutely astonishing,” said Sasha Samberg-Champion, a former appellate lawyer in the justice department’s civil rights division. “This reflects the complete abdication of the core responsibilities of each of these sections.”The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The decision to send new mission statements to the sections is itself unusual. While the priorities of the sections often change from administration to administration, the core work often remains the same and the department’s career attorneys are expected to be apolitical. Trump has moved to end the independence of the justice department and use it as a tool to further his political goals and punish rivals.“To me, these new mission statements signal a significant change in the priorities that each of these sections will be expected to pursue,” said Jocelyn Samuels, who led the civil rights division from 2013 to 2014. “Some of this is explicit – where, for example, the new statements specifically call out enforcement of some of the president’s executive orders as the guide for the section’s work. Some of it is a matter of omission.“I suspect that the descriptions don’t themselves dictate what the sections will do, but they certainly manifest the expectations that leadership of the division will impose,” added Samuels, who is currently suing the Trump administration for firing her from her position on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.The justice department has already begun to pull back on its civil rights cases. It has withdrawn from several of the voting cases filed under Joe Biden’s administration, terminated an environmental justice settlement on behalf of Black residents in Alabama, and dropped a pay discrimination lawsuit on behalf of a Black lawyer against the Mississippi senate.The primary focus of the department’s voting section has long been ensuring that voting laws and practices aren’t tainted with discrimination. The new guidance this week shifts that focus and echoes Trump’s rhetoric around fraud.“The mission of the Voting Rights Section of the DOJ Civil Rights Division is to ensure free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion,” the new mission statement says. “The Section will work to ensure that only American citizens vote in US federal elections and do so securely. Other section priorities include preventing illegal voting, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error. All attorneys within the Voting Section will advocate with zeal on behalf of the United States of America in furtherance of all objectives as tasked.”It also says the voting section will work with the Department of Homeland Security to help states access citizenship data so that they can remove noncitizens from their voter rolls. The section will also “vigorously enforce the statutes, orders, and priorities” in a recent Trump executive order that requires states to require proof of citizenship to vote and to decertify voting machines. Several civil rights groups are already challenging that order in court and say it is illegal.“What’s missing from here is the idea that we’re going to protect the right to vote on a nondiscriminatory basis,” Samberg-Champion said. “Silly me, I always thought was the core purpose of the voting section and the core purpose of the Voting Rights Act.”Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School and a top official in the civil rights division during the Obama administration, noted that federal law puts certain restrictions in place “before anybody in the federal government, civil rights division included, can lawfully touch state database information”.Noting that much of the language in the mission statement was broad, Levitt said he would be watching to see how it was implemented.“Read through the lens of all of the rest that the administration is doing, this is a further example of how off-course the administration is. This isn’t the statement that any administration in the last 68 years would have written,” he said in an email. “But the way this gets cashed out is far more important.”The new mission statement for the Housing and Civil Enforcement section says the section will focus on protecting the rights of members of the military and enforcing the Religious Land Use And Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which prevents zoning discrimination. “The aggressive and even-handed deployment of RLUIPA to restore religious liberty will be a top priority,” the document says.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe guidance also says the section will “focus on challenges to racially discriminatory lending programs”. Samberg-Champion said that was a “code red”.“They’re going to look for opportunities to challenge special purpose credit programs and other lending programs that are meant to enhance credit opportunities for people who have been starved of credit historically,” said Samberg-Champion, who served as deputy general counsel for enforcement and fair housing during the Biden administration. “It’s just astonishing that what they’re trying to do is actually diminish the availability of credit for people and go after banks, go after lenders who presumably are trying to make their credit availability fairer.”Guidance for the educational opportunities section focuses on preventing discrimination against white applicants and cites the supreme court’s 2023 ruling saying that affirmative action programs are unconstitutional. It also says the department will focus on anti-transgender issues.“This mandate includes protecting the rights of women and girls to unfettered access to programs, facilities, extracurricular activities, and sports or athletic opportunities that exclude males from presence or participation,” the statement reads. “The mandate also includes preventing racial discrimination in school admissions policies and preventing antisemitism in education wherever it is found.”The new mission statement for the disability rights section appears to have nothing to do with disability. “The zealous and faithful pursuit of this section’s mission requires dedication of the section’s resources, actions, attention, and energy to the priorities and objectives of the President,” the guidance says. It then goes on to list a series of executive orders that target transgender Americans.Eve Hill, who served as a top lawyer in the civil rights division under the Obama administration, said she wasn’t “overly alarmed” by the message to the disability rights section.“It’s hard to tell what effect it will have other than preventing [the disability rights section] from working for people with the disability of gender dysphoria. Which is important, but they hadn’t done much work in that space anyway,” she said.Several of the mission statements include a similar line that says attorneys are expected to enforce the law “faithfully and zealously”.That language is significant, Samberg-Champion said.“They’re anticipating – and I think correctly – that they’re going to get considerable pushback from the career staff as to what they’re being asked to do,” he said. “This reflects their understanding that they are radically changing what each of these sections historically has understood its mission to be. And that this is not going to go over well with the people who have made it their life’s work to enforce these important laws.” More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      White House may seek legally binding control over Columbia through consent decree – report

      by

      The Trump administration is considering placing Columbia University under a consent decree, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, a dramatic escalation in the federal government’s crackdown on the Ivy League institution.The university has already accepted a series of changes demanded by the administration as a pre-condition for restoring $400m in federal grants and contracts that the government suspended last month over allegations that the school failed to protect students from antisemitism on campus.A consent decree – a binding agreement approved by a federal judge – would be an extraordinary move by the Trump administration, which has threatened government funding as a way to force colleges and universities to comply with Donald Trump’s political objectives on a range of issues from campus protests to transgender women in sports and diversity and inclusion initiatives.As a party to the consent decree, Columbia would have to agree to enter it – and the Journal report states that it is unclear whether such a plan has been discussed by the university board.In a statement to the Guardian, the university did not directly address the report. “The University remains in active dialogue with the Federal Government to restore its critical research funding,” a spokesperson said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAccording to the Journal, the proposal comes from the administration’s antisemitism taskforce, composed in part of justice department lawyers, who have reportedly expressed skepticism that Columbia was acting in “good faith”. If Columbia resists, the justice department would need to present its case for the agreement in court, a process that could drag on for years with the university risking its federal funding in the interim.Republicans and the Trump administration have sought to make an example of Columbia University, which was at the center of a student protest movement over Israel’s war in Gaza that broke out on campuses across the country. Last month, federal immigration authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate and prominent Palestinian activist who participated in campus protests. He remains in detention.During a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Trump pressed his education secretary, Linda McMahon, to elaborate on the department’s efforts to withhold federal funds from universities that were “not behaving”.“You’re holding back from $400 Columbia?” he asked McMahon. She nodded and named other schools, noting that the administration had frozen nearly $1bn in funding from Cornell.“We’re getting calls from the presidents of universities who really do want to come in and sit down and come in and sit down and have discussions,” she said. “We’re investigating them but in the meantime we’re holding back the grant fund money.” More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Trans soldiers served their country. Now the US is rolling back their healthcare

      by

      When Savannah Blake joined the air force at 22 years old, she was looking for stable employment and a way out of poverty. For the last few years of her service, she worked as a cyberdefense operator in the intelligence squadron. But the work, which involved overseeing computers operating drone surveillance, eventually took a toll on her mental health.“If I had to watch any more of this, I was going to not be alive anymore,” Blake said, who says she experienced suicidal ideations. “I just felt like the bad guy. I felt evil.”View image in fullscreenAfter seven years of service, Blake, who is trans, left the air force with PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder and chronic depression. But she also left with the hope she could finally live as herself without fear of harassment from fellow service members. Last year, she began receiving estrogen through the Department of Veterans Affairs. Now she fears for the future of that care.“Every day, I wake up and I don’t know what the rules are anymore in the country I live in,” said Blake. “It’s becoming increasingly hard to see a future where we’re OK.”Blake is one of about 134,000 transgender veterans living in the US. It’s an alarming time to be someone like her. On his first day in office, Donald Trump issued an executive order recognizing only two sexes, stamping out gender identity in federal documents and public spaces. A series of other orders have attempted to restrict trans rights, including participation in sports, access to gender-affirming care for youth, educational materials in schools and military service.The crackdown has sent shock waves through the VA, which functions as one of the US’s largest healthcare providers, offering free or low-cost care to more than 9 million veterans. After Trump’s inauguration, some VA health centers began removing LGBTQ+ affiliated objects, including pride flags, rainbow magnets, stickers and posters.When Mary Brinkmeyer’s medical center ordered the removal of LGBTQ+ patient flyers and other affirming material days after Trump’s executive orders, she refused, and ultimately resigned. For nearly three years, she had worked as a psychologist and LGBTQ+ veteran care coordinator at the VA facility in Hampton, Virginia. Hospital leadership ordered her to stop LGBTQ+ outreach, advocacy and gender-affirming training to departments because it could be considered “gender ideology”.View image in fullscreen“We all have ethics codes in our professions that say that you’re supposed to do no harm, and that if you’re caught between institutional pressure and the ethics code, you’re supposed to resolve it in a way that’s consistent with the ethics code,” Brinkmeyer said.Brinkmeyer fears for the mental health of trans veterans, whom she saw experience “really intense suicidal crises” after Trump announced a ban on trans people enlisting in the military in 2017. After the election last November, some of her patients requested the removal of trans identifiers in medical records, and others withdrew from coverage over fears of being targeted and losing access to care. For many, those fears have become a reality.Rollbacks became official in March when the VA rescinded directive 1341, a policy that ensured “the respectful delivery of health care to transgender and intersex Veterans”, and announced the phasing out of gender-affirming medical care. The agency had been providing gender-affirming treatment including hormone therapy, prosthetics, hair removal, voice coaching and pre-surgical evaluation including letters of support for more than a decade. While cisgender veterans will still be able to access these treatments, veterans diagnosed with gender dysphoria are now excluded. Mental health services for trans patients and existing VA and military coverage for hormone therapy won’t be affected, according to the memo, which also formalizes banning trans patients from using facilities that align with their gender identity.View image in fullscreen“I am scared for the huge amount of people that are about to be forcibly separated, because the VA is not there to actually catch these people,” Blake said, referring to an influx of trans service members who could be forced out of the military under Trump’s transgender military ban. “I hate that the ladder was pulled up behind me.”‘A death sentence’The changes have put trans veterans seeking gender-affirming care in limbo. It has also created a climate of fear for the trans veterans already receiving hormone therapy, who worry it could be pulled at any time.View image in fullscreenThat’s the reality for Kaydi Rogers. While at the moment her hormone therapy will not be disrupted, she is terrified of losing access to estrogen if the VA continues its crackdown.Rogers spent about five decades acquiring estrogen pills through pharmacies in Mexico or friends with prescriptions.“I was desperate,” Rogers said. “I didn’t know any way of doing anything about what was going on with me. It was not a common thing back in the 70s and 80s to come out trans.”She finally switched to VA coverage because of the potential health risks of taking unregulated pills. But Rogers said if the VA ever stopped prescribing her estrogen, the desperation would return and she would again rely on self-medication for survival.Beyond her concerns about continued access to care, Rogers feels the loss of welcoming and safe spaces inside VA clinics. She says she tries to avoid drawing attention to herself during appointments, fearful of being harassed or attacked.“Before last year, every time I went to the VA, I went dressed as Kaydi and no one seemed to bother me or care,” Rogers said. “Now, not so much.”Other veterans share these safety concerns, including Lindsay Church, the executive director and co-founder of Minority Veterans of America. Church, who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, has experienced harassment and discrimination inside VA clinics in the past, and began carrying a printed copy of directive 1341 to prove they were entitled to treatment that respected their gender identity. With that directive rescinded and no guarantee of protection, they’ve canceled VA appointments and sought care elsewhere.View image in fullscreenThe veterans affairs secretary, Doug Collins, stated that trans veterans “will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law”. In response to questions about the new policy, the VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, directed the Guardian to the press release from 17 March.Church said the discriminatory climate is having a chilling effect on trans veterans, regardless of whether their care plans have been discontinued under the VA’s new policy. “If I can’t use [my healthcare plan] because I’m scared of being harassed and intimidated, and experiencing physical violence in a bathroom, I can’t use the system,” they said.They called the policy reversal a “death sentence”.View image in fullscreen‘We tell them we will take care of you, and that’s a lie’Trans veterans face higher rates of homelessness, unemployment, PTSD and military sexual trauma compared with cisgender veterans. They are also twice as likely to die by suicide compared with cisgender veterans, and almost six times more likely than the general US population. Advocates and providers say these psychiatric and socioeconomic risk factors, when combined with the loss of an affirming medical environment, places an already vulnerable population even more at risk.One VA clinical social worker, who requested anonymity, said his LGBTQ+ patients don’t feel safe and are experiencing more suicidal ideations than before Trump took office.“I have seen an increase in suicide risk evaluations,” he said. “I’ve done more of those in the last two months than I’ve done the last two years.”View image in fullscreenAnother LGBTQ+ veteran care coordinator said a trans patient attempted suicide at her facility after Trump’s inauguration, and she fears there could be more people who attempt the same. She said notifying trans patients of the policy change has been heartbreaking.“I’ve worked for the past two and a half years to gain people’s trust, and now all of a sudden, I’m pulling out the rug from under them,” she said. “It feels terrible.”She had to tell one patient wanting to start hormone therapy that the VA could no longer help them, and is preparing the same message for trans patients on a months-long waitlist to begin treatment. While she has been looking for ways to provide alternatives, many of her trans patients live in rural areas where accessing gender-affirming care is difficult.Other VA employees see cutting trans healthcare as a betrayal of the benefits promised to service members when they enlist.“We’re asking these 17-year-olds to give their entire bodies to the US government,” said one VA nurse, who requested anonymity over fear of losing her job. “And they’re given one promise, which is that we will care for them. And this is part of care, whether you like it or not.”Gender-affirming medical care has been endorsed by every major medical association in the US, and medical providers say that politicians shouldn’t be allowed to decide how they care for their patients.“You’re giving so much to the military. You give your whole life, you have no say over where you live,” the nurse said. “Then we tell them we will take care of you, and that’s a lie. We’re lying to people – and not just trans veterans, all veterans.” More