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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

‘Propaganda Machine’ Kayleigh McEnany Blasted for False Claim Trump Has ‘Great Record’ on LGBTQ Issues

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Trump’s press secretary attempted to deflect a question about the ongoing ban on transgender troops by attempting to inflate the president’s extremely thin record on LGBTQ issues. The move didn’t fool anyone.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is under fire for claiming President Donald Trump has a “great record” on LGBTQ issues.

Trump, who is the most anti-LGBTQ president in modern history, has been rolling back hard-won protections for LGBTQ people in all areas of government, since taking office three and a half years ago.

McEnany was asked about Trump’s ban on transgender service members, which he announced via Twitter on July 26, 2017, as the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson reminded her Monday. She did not have much to say and appeared to respond by reading from prepared notes on a list of items.

“I haven’t talked to him about that specific policy, but this president is proud that in 2019 we launched a global initiative to end the criminalization of homosexuality throughout the world,” McEnany told Johnson in response to his question about the ban on transgender service members.

“He has a great record when it comes to the LGBT community. The Trump administration eased a ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men and he launched a plan to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030, so we’re very proud of our achievements.”

That “global initiative to end the criminalization of homosexuality throughout the world” is non-existent and has not resulted in any actions or changes in policy or law in any other country. When Trump was first asked about it he said he did not know anything about it.

The easing of the antiquated blood ban was only in response to the coronavirus pandemic. And the “plan to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030” is just a plan. 18 months after it was announced there’s little evidence it was put into action.

Meanwhile, just last month Trump announced he was “surprised” the Supreme Court ruled against his administration when it found anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination is illegal, because the court “was supposed to be in our favor.”

Also last month Trump’s HHS finalized a move to roll back healthcare protections for transgender people, calling them “unnecessary.”

Just weeks ago Trump’s Dept. of Housing and Urban Development moved to allow taxpayer-funded shelter providers to ban transgender people experiencing homelessness, citing religious rights.

Last year the Trump administration rolled back an Obama-era rule banning adoption agencies from discriminating against LGBTQ people, then bragged about it.

The list goes on and on.

The Trump campaign promoted McEnany’s false claim on social media.

Many have expressed outrage, especially since so many of the Trump administration’s attacks against LGBTQ people are often major life issues.

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

Does Ricky Gervais Hate Trans People Or Not?

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A recent dust-up over tweets the British comedian made about transgender people has mainly left us confused.

Last month, Ricky Gervais tweeted about trans people a whole bunch, and by the end of it all, he’d contradicted himself multiple times, frustrating both the UK’s ascendant TERF movement and LGBTQ people everywhere. Can we make heads or tails of it all? We’ll certainly give it a shot.

This whole thing started with the controversy over JK Rowling’s tweet in support of Maya Forstater. We’ve covered this in detail elsewhere, but the basic upshot is that the Harry Potter author took to twitter to defend a British feminist who lost her research-foundation job over the fact that she insisted on making a point, Ben Shapiro-style, of misgendering trans people. Rowling tweeted support for Forstater by using anti-trans phrasing like “sex is real.” It really bummed a lot of LGBTQ Harry Potter fans out.

Ricky Gervais didn’t get involved until a satirical twitter account known as “Jarvis Dupont” tweeted out an article he had written about the JK Rowling incident, with the caption, “J.K. Rowling is a TERF! Speaking as a trans woman, the thought that I will no longer be welcome in a fictional school for wizards has destroyed me.”

Now, before we go on, Jarvis Dupont requires a bit of unpacking as well. This account is an attempt to mock the type of people referred to as “SJWs” in right-wing discourse; Gervais described Dupont in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter as “a spoof Twitter account, and the joke is that he’s so woke that he’s actually gone full circle and does terrible things.” This isn’t exactly it, but it’s close.

The article Dupont was promoting in the tweet Gervais responded to was published by The Spectator, a conservative British magazine, and is the sort of ham-fisted satire that wouldn’t fool anyone (The Onion, this ain’t), but demonstrates through the very on-the-nose-ness of its satire (“I don’t want to live in an intolerant world where men cannot legally force women to change their views on biological reality in the name of intersectional feminism”) that it is written by someone who, underneath all the “jokes,” sincerely holds some really TERF-y views.

In response to Dupont’s tweet of this article, Gervais decided to get in on the fun by responding with a tweet written in imitation of Dupont’s satirical tone. “Those awful biological women can never understand what it must be like for you becoming a lovely lady so late in life,” Gervais tweeted. “They take their girly privileges for granted. Winning at female sports and having their own toilets. Well, enough is enough.”

The problem he immediately ran into was that the very clumsiness of Dupont’s satirical approach, when Gervais himself attempted it, was read as sincerity. And it didn’t help when Gervais responded to another twitter user saying, “Kindness is magic. Try to remember that,” which seems to have been a very gentle chide against Gervais saying something that would hurt people, with the reply: “Exactly. We need to protect the rights of women. Not erode them because some men have found a new cunning way to dominate and demonise an entire sex.”

And if that first tweet was hard to read as a joke, this one seems all but impossible to read as such. Instead, it seems like Gervais jumping on the same TERF bandwagon that has been running roughshod over dialogue around transgender issues throughout the UK. However — plot twist! Gervais then immediately responded to someone asking, “Can you clarify if you think the trans women are men or that there is another group of people that are men and up to no good?” by saying, “I think trans women are women. I wasn’t talking about trans people.”

Gervais went on to say things like, “No, I’m not telling you I don’t believe people can be trans. Or that trans people shouldn’t be respected etc.” All of which, in addition to getting him a whole lot of grief from actual TERFs (who tweeted things like “Sellout” and “Bigger back flip in history dude! Sad Ricky. Very sad”), left him with a series of confusing and contradictory tweets that were impossible to reconcile without knowing what sort of tone he intended them to have.

Gervais tried to clarify in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. When asked, “How do you respond when people keep bringing up comments that you’ve made and implying that you are transphobic?” He responded, “I just say I’m not. And there’s nothing else you can say, you know? Yeah, I’m not.”

Gervais then fell back on the old “it’s better to let people say terrible things than to abridge free speech in even the slightest way” chestnut — a favorite of conservatives and alt-right types — saying, “I think offense is the collateral damage of free speech, and it’s no reason not to have free speech. That’s what I’d say — it’s the lesser of two evils. Having free speech and some people getting upset by it is the lesser of two evils because not having free speech is horrendous.”

But of course, his clarification also made it difficult to understand his original tweets. That first one was clearly a joke, regardless of how badly constructed or easy to misinterpret it was. The second one, which included the line “We need to protect the rights of women. Not erode them because some men have found a new cunning way to dominate and demonise an entire sex,” is a bit harder to interpret. And later on, when he was clearly trying to explain himself in all seriousness, he said, “I wasn’t talking about trans people.”

So then we must ask: who was Gervais talking about? Was he saying that transgender women are perfectly valid and cool by him, but there was some OTHER menace to the rights of women? And that that menace involved men, actual men, using transgender identities as a means to disenfranchise women? Presumably both cis and trans women, since he claims to regard trans women as women?

This is an awfully fine line to parse, and frankly, it seems like bullshit. A 2018 study from the Williams Institute found no correlation between allowing transgender people to use the bathrooms corresponding with their gender and reports of attacks and other crimes in public bathrooms. Trans people aren’t doing anything in public bathrooms other than what cis people do in public bathrooms, and there’s no evidence to suggest that nefarious cis men are attempting to enter women’s bathrooms at all.

That hasn’t stopped a lot of anti-trans forces, including many UK-based TERFs, from claiming that giving trans people legal rights creates an imminent threat of exactly this. And if there’s any coherent way to understand Gervais’ latest tweets about transgender people, it’s that he believes both sides. He simultaneously believes that trans women are women, that their identities are valid, and that allowing them legal rights will inspire many nefarious men posing as trans women for evil purposes to attack and harm women.

While I suppose that makes Gervais less of an enemy to trans people than JK Rowling, it ultimately doesn’t make much difference if the end result is a position along the lines of, “I respect and believe in you and your identity, but giving you legal rights would just be too dangerous for society as a whole.” At that point, you may as well be a full-on TERF — it amounts to the same thing.

In the end, the best we can probably hope for is that this whole kerfuffle will be enough to keep Gervais from mentioning trans people at all for a while. God knows we don’t need his input.

Top Photo: Gervais holding 2019 Golden Globes, via YouTube