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Alabama Is Moving Closer to Forcing Teachers to Out Trans Kids to Their Parents

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The bill that will do this, known in a masterpiece of doublespeak as the “Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act,” will also make providing gender-affirming medical care to trans youth a felony.

Imagine you’re a high school freshman English teacher and your best student from last year confides in you their biggest secret: they are transgender, and no one, not even their parents, know. If you’re a teacher in Alabama, you would be legally required to tell that child’s parents if a bill that’s already passed the Senate becomes law.

SB184 is expected to be taken up in the House this week. The bill passed the Senate by a very strong 24-6 margin. Republican Governor Kay Ivey would likely sign it into law. GLAAD says the bill “is considered one of the most aggressive anti-trans bills in the country, according to Chase Strangio, a staff attorney for ACLU and transgender rights activist.”

The primary focus of the “Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act” is to “make gender-affirming treatment for transgender adolescents up to age 19 a felony,” according to The Advocate. Anyone convicted under this legislation could be jailed for up to 10 years and forced to pay a $15,000 fine. It is sponsored by Republican Senators Shay Shelnutt and Gerald Allen.

The text of the bill is identical in many parts to one that failed to pass in North Carolina last year.

Here’s the language from the Alabama bill that forces teachers to out trans students:

“No nurse, counselor, teacher, principal, or other administrative official at a public or private school attended by a minor shall…[w]ithhold from a minor’s parent or legal guardian information related to a minor’s perception that his or her gender or sex is inconsistent with his or her sex.”

The bill also makes it illegal for teachers or other school officials to encourage a trans student to withhold that information from their parents.

There is no language in the bill that offers these vulnerable children any protection from parents who might kick them out of the house if they are outed as transgender, or put them in harm’s way.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Photo: Alabama state Senator Gerald Allen, via NCRM.

Judge Rules Abbott’s Anti-Trans Order Unconstitutional; Questions of Corruption Remain

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“Investigate them without exception” is what administrators of Texas’s Department of Family and Protective Services were told about reports describing the providing of gender-affirming care for transgender youth as “child abuse” — even if they thought the complaints were without merit.

Texas District Court Judge Amy Clark Meachum Friday evening declared unconstitutional Governor Greg Abbott’s executive order manding state agencies investigate anyone involved in or facilitating medically-necessary gender-affirming care, including parents, for “child abuse,” and criminally charge those people if possible.

Judge Meachum issued a temporary injunction, declaring the order, The New York Times reports, “had been improperly adopted and violated the State Constitution.” She scheduled a trial date for July.

But in a stunning development, the Times adds that child abuse investigators “have been told to prioritize cases involving the parents of transgender children and to investigate them without exception, after the state’s governor ordered certain medical care to be treated as abuse, an investigations supervisor said during the hearing.”

That news comes after a report earlier this month in Forbes that found Governor Abbott’s “campaign defended the governor’s directive calling for child abuse investigations into parents of transgender children who have received gender-affirming care … with campaign officials calling the issue a ‘winner’ for the governor’s campaign … in spite of widespread controversy and opposition from medical experts.”

The supervisor, Randa Mulanax of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, The Times adds, “testified in an Austin courtroom that the agency was not given the freedom to determine that a given report involving a transgender child was quite likely not in fact a case of child abuse — known as ‘priority none’ status — and that investigators were not able to close the cases.”

“I’ve been told about that directly,” said Ms. Mulanax, who has submitted her resignation to the department. “You cannot priority-none these cases.”

Mulanax “said she and others were told not to put information about the cases in email or text messages — instructions that she said were highly unusual in her years of experience at the agency.” She called the order “unethical.”

And just hours ago, a reporter for The 19th, an independent nonprofit newsroom, revealed that medical staff at a top Texas hospital for transgender youth “expected suicides” based on political pressure from Abbott’s office and lawmakers.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Photo via NCRM.

NC Bill Orders Any School Employee to ‘Immediately’ Notify Parents if a Child ‘Exhibits Gender Nonconformity’

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Proposed by Republican Ralph Hise and currently on its way through the North Carolina General Assembly, the so-called “Youth Health Protection Act” would forbid all trans-related health care for those under 21 within North Carolina.

A North Carolina bill attacking the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and especially transgender and queer or questioning youth and young adults violates their right to privacy and places tremendous power in the hands of any person – regardless of training or expertise – who is employed by, contracted by, or is even a volunteer to any school district, court, or child placement agency.

Senate Bill 514 makes it illegal for any teacher, school administrator, contractor, and even volunteers, among other “government agents,” to not “immediately” inform, in writing, the parents or legal guardians of any child or young adult – up to the age of 21 – if that “minor under its care or supervision has exhibited symptoms of gender dysphoria, gender nonconformity, or otherwise demonstrates a desire to be treated in a manner incongruent with the minor’s sex.”

“The notice shall describe all of the relevant circumstances with reasonable specificity,” the legislation adds.

In other words, the bill’s author, Republican state Senator Ralph Hise (photo), a Trump acolyte, is deputizing every government “agent, employee, volunteer, or contractor of a public child services agency, private child placing agency, court, or school district” to not only determine what constitutes symptoms of gender dysphoria (a medical diagnosis) or gender nonconformity, an entirely subjective belief.

The legislation also “would prevent doctors from performing gender confirmation surgery for transgender people younger than 21,” the Associated Press reports.

“Medical professionals who facilitate a transgender person’s desire to present themselves or appear in a way that is inconsistent with their biological sex could have their license revoked and face civil fines of up to $1,000 per occurrence. The measure bars doctors from providing gender confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery.”

The mis-named legislation, the Youth Health Protection Act, pushes the age of majority from 18 to 21 for the purposes of banning gender confirmation treatment of any kind, and for reporting to parents the possibility their children may be transgender. It literally puts some LGBTQ children at risk of physical and emotional abuse and homelessness, and sends the message statewide to be on the lookout for LGBTQ children and young adults, and that their behavior should be subject to extraordinary action.

“Transgender youth have the best chance to thrive when they are supported and affirmed, not singled out and denied critical care that is backed by virtually every leading health authority,” Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, said in a statement to the AP, adding that “a person’s gender identity shouldn’t limit their ability to access health care or be treated with dignity and respect.”

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via Facebook

Arkansas Governor Signs Pro-Religious Discrimination Bill Allowing Doctors to Refuse to Treat LGBTQ Patients

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Late last week, Arkansas’s Governor signed into law the “Medical Ethics & Diversity Act,” which — in classic Republican doublespeak fashion — actually legalizes discrimination against LGBTQ patients for reason of “conscience.”

Arkansas Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson Friday afternoon signed into law a bill designed to give medical professionals, hospitals, insurance companies, and other medical providers – including students – legal protections to discriminate against LGBTQ patients while claiming they have a religious or moral right of “conscience” to do so. SB 289, the “Medical Ethics and Diversity Act,” is a sweeping law that could have devastating implications on the health and well-being of every LGBTQ person in the state.

SB 289 is sponsored by Republican state Senator Kim Hammer, a Missionary Baptist preacher and hospice pastor who earlier this year declared war on Democrats after then-President Donald Trump had been impeached.

As NCRM reported earlier, when Hutchinson’s “Medical Ethics and Diversity Act” goes into effect this summer a physician could refuse to treat a transgender person, a mental health professional could end treatment with a young teenager who just revealed to them he is gay, a pharmacist could refuse to dispense contraceptive medication even if prescribed for non-pregnancy-related illnesses, and a student nurse could refuse to assist with an abortion, even if it were medically necessary to save the life of a woman.

But that’s not all. The new law is so broad that it allows hospitals and even insurance companies to refuse service for – including refusing to pay for – anything their polices claim violates their conscience. Catholic hospitals for decades have been refusing to allow abortions to be performed, but now an insurance company could refuse to pay for HIV medications, or even PrEP. They could refuse to pay for gender confirmation surgery.

Gov. Hutchinson signed the possibly unconstitutional legislation less than a day after signing another anti-LGBTQ bill into law, one that bans transgender girls and women from playing women’s sports.

Hutchinson, who is possibly considering a 2024 presidential run, is term limited and will be out of office after the 2022 election.

Last week the governor signed into law an anti-abortion bill he fully admits was designed to go to the Supreme Court in a far right wing effort to kill Roe v. Wade. Hutchinson back in 2015 signed into law an anti-LGBTQ “religious freedom” law he himself had called “divisive,” after having a small portion of the language changed. That same year Gov. Hutchinson allowed a bill prohibiting towns from enacting non-discrimination ordinances to become law.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via NCRM.

Bob Good’s Path To Congress: Inciting Fear of Transgender People

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Bob Good, who successfully wrested the Republican nomination for Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District seat away from incumbent Denver Riggleman, is using fears of “a man dressed as a woman” in his campaign literature.

We haven’t checked in on the Republican Party of Virginia’s 5th Congressional District since last year, when the coalition that had sent Denver Riggleman to Congress in 2018 was, only a year later, publicly tearing itself apart in heated fashion due to the fact that Riggleman had officiated a same-sex wedding between two of his former campaign staffers. Since then, things have only gotten more heated and dramatic, culminating earlier this summer with a party convention that chose to nominate Campbell County Board of Supervisors member Bob Good to run on the Republican ticket in November instead of Riggleman.

Riggleman has recovered well — he’s remained active in Congress despite suddenly finding himself a lame-duck Representative, and is now apparently mulling a third-party run for Governor in 2021. Meanwhile, Virginia’s Fifth District has found itself with a choice on its hands that is far different from the one it faced in 2018. And with Bob Good on the Republican ticket, it’s a significantly more controversial one as well.

You see, until January of this year, Bob Good was Director of Athletics at Liberty University. And now that you know that, it may not surprise you very much to learn that Good has an extremely negative attitude toward the LGBTQ community. Even before he’d announced his intention to run against Riggleman for the Republican nomination in the Fifth District, he condemned Riggleman’s having officiated a gay wedding on his Facebook page. In one comment, he said that “supporting gay rights” meant that “Denver Riggleman does not represent the values of conservative Republicans in the 5th District.” In another, he said, “You can’t flaunt your apparently progressive/liberal values in front of the conservative Republican base in the district and expect to not catch any flack for it.”

Riggleman officiating the wedding of two of his campaign staffers. (photo by Christine Riggleman)

After Good officially declared his campaign for Riggleman’s Congressional seat, he said at a February campaign event, “I have a biblical view of marriage, very different from the congressman’s view on that.” Meanwhile, on Good’s website, he republished a letter from 11 Fifth District voters, originally sent to the Bedford Bulletin, in which they characterize homosexuality as a mental illness. “Homosexuality is a very complex subject that medical science has confirmed is psychological moreso than genetic,” they write, in the midst of arguing in favor of voting Good into Congress.

Now, with a recent campaign mailing inviting clergy members to meet with Good about the importance of “religious freedom” — a loaded phrase, to say the least, where LGBTQ rights are concerned — Good has used the existence of transgender people, and specifically trans women, as an opportunity for fear-mongering.

“What happens when a male member of your congregation goes on vacation and returns four weeks later as a female?” the invitation read. “What do your church bylaws state regarding a man dressed as a woman who attends a church function and expects to use the women’s restroom?” Though the email using this language wasn’t signed by Good, it was sent by the Good campaign’s “Faith Coalition leader,” Travis Witt. The subject line read in part, “When a man becomes a woman.”

The invitation also used the spectre of the Virginia Values Act, passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Ralph Northam earlier this year, as a bugbear. In the mailer, Good’s campaign claims that the Virginia Values Act — which prohibits discrimination in housing, employment, and public accomodation to anyone on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity — infringes upon… yup, you guessed it: religious freedom.

“Bob Good, candidate for Congress, is interested in preserving religious liberties as defined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” Witt’s invitation to Fifth District clergy read. “He is extremely concerned about the recent changes that now affect both large and small churches.”

Bob Good meets with clergy in Madison County (Photo via Bob Good for Congress/Facebook)

This move from a relatively moderate Republican who supported LGBTQ rights to a candidate who’s centered his campaign on attacking our rights has, in the minds of many Democrats, put the Fifth District into play in November. From being a state that went Republican in presidential elections for over 40 years straight, Virginia has transformed significantly in recent years. As of now, only four of Virginia’s 13 legislators in Congress are Republican. On the state level, Democrats hold both the governor’s mansion and both houses of the General Assembly — something that, at the time of the 2019 election, hadn’t been true in over two decades. For Democrats to take one of those four remaining Republican Congressional districts would be a huge coup. And it’s one Fifth District Democrats hope to achieve with their current candidate, Cameron Webb.

Webb, a doctor who teaches at the University of Virginia, would become the first Black physician to serve in Congress if elected in November. Political experts still see the district as leaning Republican, but polling shows Webb as close as two points away from Good, and between the possibility that Webb will draw a higher Black turnout in the election and Good’s choice to focus on opposition to LGBTQ rights, Democrats hope they can close that gap completely.

“We’re in the middle of a pandemic that has infected over 100,000 Virginians and a recession that has put millions across the country out of work, but all Bob Good wants to focus on is same-sex marriages,” Grant Fox, a Virginia Democratic Party spokesman, told the New York Times. “Virginians need help, and Bob Good is spending his time convening church officials to figure out how to best discriminate against the LGBTQ community.”

The Human Rights Campaign has also rallied around Webb, and condemned Good’s discriminatory positions. “The 1.3 million Equality Voters across Virginia have no patience for this type of divisiveness and hate,” said HRC president Alphonso David in a statement. “Bob Good might have been able to win a low-turnout party caucus by attacking LGBTQ people, but Virginia voters showed in 2018 and 2019 that attacking LGBTQ people is no winning strategy. Transphobia and anti-LGBTQ attacks are unacceptable. We need leaders like Dr. Cameron Webb in Congress who will bring us together and expand opportunity and rights for everyone, not amplify hate and division.”

Dr. Cameron Webb (Photo via Facebook)

Will the Fifth District’s Republican Party allow far-right intractability over LGBTQ rights to derail their ability to maintain representation in a county that ostensibly leans Republican? Or is this going to be one of those times that we find out we share a state with people whose intolerance runs deeper than we ever expected? We’ll learn in less than three months; in the meantime, Cameron Webb’s campaign could sure use your help.

Top Photo via BobGoodForCongress.com

Clocking For Beginners

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In a rather over-the-top display of transphobia, the Trump administration has released a memo telling homeless shelters how to spot transgender women in order to more easily discriminate against them.

Nearly four years into his presidency, Donald Trump’s administration continues to come up with new ways to harm transgender Americans by rolling back their civil rights. Their latest move sees the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), under notoriously transphobic director Ben Carson, release a plan to rescind the Obama-era Equal Access Rul in favor of a policy that allows single-sex shelters to refuse accomodation to transgender people.

Sadly, this is really nothing new — we first learned of HUD’s push in this direction over a year ago. However, what is a new wrinkle to the whole thing is the text within the rule that attempts to explain to organizations how they might possibly spot a trans woman attempting to find sanctuary within their shelter.

According to the post-Congressional review version of the rule, which was obtained by Vox Friday, shelter staff “may determine an individual’s sex based on a good faith belief that an individual seeking access to the temporary, emergency shelters is not of the sex, as defined in the single-sex facility’s policy, which the facility accommodates.” What’s more, the rule goes on to enumerate physical qualities of the individual that might indicate transgender-ness. It mentions “factors such as height, the presence (but not the absence) of facial hair, the presence of an Adam’s apple, and other physical characteristics which, when considered together, are indicative of a person’s biological sex.”

So what we have here, encoded within a government document, is a guide to clocking a trans person — and, to be specific, a trans woman, because all of these are factors that would indicate a woman who was assigned male at birth, rather than a man who was assigned female at birth. Men-only shelters exist in this world, to be sure, but it doesn’t seem as if HUD is too concerned about keeping trans men out of those.

Based on a brief evaluation of physical characteristics, a shelter employee is then empowered by the new rule to ask for proof of a person’s sex before allowing them admission to the shelter. Of course, what sort of evidence they would require is a bit difficult to determine; the rule states that “Evidence requested must not be unduly intrusive of privacy, such as private physical anatomical evidence. Evidence requested could include government identification, but lack of government identification alone cannot be the sole basis for denying admittance on the basis of sex.”

What’s funny about that is that the gender markers on most government documents can be changed pretty easily these days, depending on what state you’re in. For example, my Virginia Driver’s License lists me as female, despite the fact that I was assigned male at birth. And as of July 1, Virginia allows transgender people to have the gender markers on their birth certificates changed without undergoing a medical procedure — which would then make it possible to change the gender markers on your passport without undergoing a medical procedure. Meanwhile, the new HUD rule states that lack of government ID alone isn’t reason enough for denial of admittance.

So how is this rule going to work in practice? Well, let’s be real — people will probably be admitted or denied based mainly on the whims of shelter operators. Organizations run by progressive people and organizations will continue to allow homeless trans women to shelter there, while those who had to be forced by the Obama-era rule to allow equal access will stop doing so as soon as they’ve been given leeway to.

Photo by Ev on Unsplash

The 2015 US Transgender Survey by the National Center For Trans Equality (NCTE) stated that 30 percent of respondents had experienced homelessness at some point in their lifetimes, while 70 percent of respondents who had stayed in homeless shelters reported harassment, physical or sexual assault, or being kicked out as a consequence of their transgender status. The new HUD rule is exactly the sort of rule that will create future situations in which more trans women suffer these negative experiences — or choose to sleep on the streets instead of risking such things.

It still remains possible that this rule won’t become finalized into law. Virginia Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton joined with California Congresswoman Maxine Waters on June 29 to send a letter to Carson indicating that the June 15 Supreme Court ruling should change the legality of the new HUD rule. “The release of a potentially applicable Supreme Court decision during the period of our regulatory review is unique and raises concerns about the applicability and implementation of the proposed rule,” Wexton and Waters wrote.

However, Carson rejected this idea out of hand in a letter of his own dated July 13. “[A]n individual’s sex is relevant in the specific category of cases covered by the Department’s proposed rule, which is concerned with single-sex temporary or emergency shelters,” Carson wrote, according to Vox. “These facilities, by virtue of their temporary nature, are not deemed ‘housing’, do not fall within the purview of the Fair Housing Act. Therefore they may lawfully elect to serve only one sex. We note that the Bostock decision assumed that ‘sex’ referred ‘only to biological distinctions between male and female.’”

And of course, Carson couldn’t conclude his remarks without at least one further transphobic comment, in this case alluding to the transphobic myth that trans women are predatory toward cisgender women. The Obama-era rule, he wrote, “permits any man, simply by asserting that his gender is female, to obtain access to women’s shelters.”

We can’t be surprised to hear this kind of thing from Ben Carson, a man who notoriously called transgender women “big, hairy men” and complained to staffers at a San Francisco HUD office that he missed the days when there were “just women and just men.” Still, it’s just a further example of the harm that has come to the LGBTQ community in America under Donald Trump’s presidency. Let’s all hope, pray, and actively work toward ending that presidency as soon as possible.

Top Photo via Twitter