#legal docket
A new report highlights the many ways that LGBT people and those living with HIV/AIDS are treated throughout the criminal justice system. One policy — using condoms as evidence that people, especially transgender people of color, are engaging in sex work — strikes many as particularly wrong-headed, yet remains surprisingly common, most notably in the NYPD.
“One time I was standing on the street [in NYC] talking with some friends [on a Saturday night] and an officer approached me. She asked for my ID. … The dispatcher told her that my record was clear, but instead of letting me go, she said she wanted to see in my purse….
When she looked inside, she saw two condoms. She called the precinct back and asked for a police car to come. I asked her, ‘Why are you locking me up? I can’t carry condoms?’ She replied, 'You are getting locked up for prostitution.’
When police take our condoms or lock us up for carrying condoms, they are putting our lives at risk. How am I supposed to protect myself from HIV and STDs when I am scared to leave my house with condoms in my purse?”
—Trina, a youth leader with the NYC group Streetwise & Safe, quoted in “A Roadmap for Change, Federal Policy Solutions for Addressing the Criminalization of LGBT People and People with HIV”
New York state lawmakers are considering a bill to end the practice. More on that here. Meanwhile, the NYPD told the Associated Press that it is reviewing the legislation, as well as its condom policy.
UPDATED 5/12: associatedpress
“The NYPD will no longer confiscate unused condoms from suspected sex workers to be used as evidence of prostitution, ending a longstanding practice that had been criticized by civil rights groups for undermining efforts to combat AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. Under the new policy announced Monday, officers may continue to seize condoms as evidence in sex-trafficking and promotion of prostitution cases, but they will not use them in support of prostitution cases….
"A policy that inhibits people from safe sex is a mistake and dangerous,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
(Buttons by Streetwise & Safe, photos by K. Lundie)
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A must-read think-progresspiece looks at Alliance Defending Freedom, the Arizona-based legal group described as “the 800-pound gorilla of the Christian Right.” According to author Josh Israel, the 20-year-old organization has been using its significant resources
to advance a conservative evangelical Christian legal agenda, fighting against what it calls the “concocted” “constitutional ‘right’ to abortion,” laws that promote “social approval of homosexual behavior,” and the “myth of the so-called ‘separation of church and state.’”
ADF has played a role in some of the most prominent legal fights of the past two decades, including battles over Arizona’s SB 1062 (the religious freedom bill that would have permitted discrimination against gays and others), Citizens United, and the Hobby Lobby/Conestoga Wood contraception cases now before the Supreme Court. (ADF represents Conestoga and, according to Salon, Hobby Lobby’s religious owners are major donors to ADF, at least indirectly.) More recently, ADF has offered free legal help to anyone losing his or her job because of past support for California’s Prop. 8, a la Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich.
In comments to Israel, ADF spokesman Greg Scott touted the group’s victories on issues including birth control, school choice, and academic freedom. Arguing that the “suppression of Christian belief and practice is a primary target of freedom’s opponents,” Scott said ADF’s mission is to
“[uphold] the idea that no one should be either suppressed or coerced by the government when it comes to the expression of views or the free and peaceful exercise of one’s deepest convictions.”
Still, as Israel notes, ADF embraces a worldview that harkens back to the 3rd century — literally.
On the website for its legal fellowship program, the organization explains that it “seeks to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries.”
“This is catholic, universal orthodoxy and it is desperately crucial for cultural renewal,” the explanation goes on. “Christians must strive to build glorious cultural cathedrals, rather than shanty tin sheds.”
Meanwhile, the organization has become a fundraising behemoth, bringing in much more money a year than any other similar group.
Find Israel’s full story (complete w/ charts) here.
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Trans and LGBT groups are celebrating new U.S. Department of Education guidelines, which state for the first time that Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination at schools and colleges that receive federal funds, applies to transgender people.
From the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights:
A school should investigate and resolve allegations of sexual violence regarding LGBT students using the same procedures and standards that it uses in all complaints involving sexual violence. The fact that incidents of sexual violence may be accompanied by anti-gay comments or be partly based on a student’s actual or perceived sexual orientation does not relieve a school of its obligation under Title IX to investigate and remedy those instances of sexual violence.
The Bilerico Project has the story here. Here’s reaction from the Transgender Law Center, the Human Rights Campaign, and the National Center for Transgender Equality.
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Screenshots from the website of the Buffalo Jills, the official cheerleading squad of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, which has been hit with a class-action lawsuit alleging numerous wage violations under NY state law.
According to the suit brought by five Jills, not only were the cheerleaders required to provide more than 800 hours of uncompensated labor every year (at games, practices, and special appearances including private parties, The Jills Annual Golf Tournament and something called “The Man Show” at a Niagara Falls casino), but they paid for their own uniforms, makeup and gas money and weren’t even allowed to keep tips. At the same time, the women allegedly had to obey a long list of rules on everything from manicure type (french or clear polish only) to the amount of “jiggle” on their bodies (none) to “how to properly wash ‘intimate’ areas and how often to change tampons” (yes, the suit really says that).
Bills team officials declined comment, citing the pending litigation. Meanwhile, the Jills’ management company announced it was suspending activities indefinitely; otherwise, it told USA Today, it had comment.
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The Associated Press has a good piece looking at Barack Obama's unprecedented — and surprisingly wholehearted — support of transgender rights. As reporter Lisa Leff points out, Obama is the first president to:
- say “transgender” in a speech
- name transgender political appointees
- prohibit job bias against transgender government workers
- invite transgender children to participate in the annual Easter egg roll at the White House
The Obama administration has made it easier for transgender people to:
- seek access to public school restrooms and sports programs (under Title IX, the 1972 law that bans gender discrimination in education)
- obtain health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (by applying the non-discrimination provision of the ACA to investigate federally funded health plans and care providers discriminate on the basis of gender and gender identity).
- receive treatment at Veteran’s Administration facilities
- obtain sex-reassignment surgery under federal government–contracted health plans and Medicare
- update their passports
Meanwhile, in his first term, Obama signed the first federal civil rights protections for transgender people in U.S. history (in the form of the Matthew Shepard Act, a bill banning hate crimes).
“[Obama] has been the best president for transgender rights, and nobody else is in second place,” Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Even more remarkable is how little fanfare (and push back) these advances have drawn. In some cases — for example, Obama’s recently announced plans to sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity — policies haven’t been singled out as trans-friendly because they benefit the entire LGBT community. But as Leff notes, the muted roll-outs also reflect a concerted strategy.
[T]ransgender rights groups and the administration have agreed on a low-key approach, both to skirt resistance and to send the message that changes are not a big deal, said Barbra Siperstein, who in 2009 became the first transgender person elected to the Democratic National Committee.
“It’s quiet by design, because the louder you are in Washington, the more the drama,” said Siperstein, who helped organize the first meeting between White House aides and transgender rights advocates without the participation of gay rights leaders.
Meanwhile, religious conservatives have been powerless to stop the changes because they result from executive orders rather than legislation. But the Traditional Values Coalition’s Andrea Lafferty suggests that opponents of transgender rights will make their voices heard in the midterm elections.
“There are other people who are concerned about these things, definitely. I think America is just overwhelmed right now…. Everybody is going to have to take a step back, and that step back is going to be this November.”
(Image via ABC News)
