National
Ram Dass, important gay New Age guru, dies at 88
Portrait of Ram Dass taken by the late Mark Thompson
Baba Ram Dass, aka Richard Alpert, the gay author of the important New Age bible “Be Here Now,” died on Sunday at his home on Maui, Hawaii. He was 88, the New York Times reported.
Alpert, a Ph.D teacher at Stanford, is perhaps best known for his association with Timothy Leary, whom he met teaching psychology and education at Harvard. Leary had researched the mind-altering psilocybin in some mushrooms at the University of California and continued his research at Harvard. Psychiatrists were clinically interested in psychedelic drugs such as LSD as aids for mental illnesses such as schizophrenia while the Pentagon was interested in weaponizing the hallucinogen to incapacitate the enemy.
Leary was interested in mind-expansion and, The Times reported, “invited some friends — including Mr. Alpert and the poet Allen Ginsberg — to his house in Newton, Mass., on March 5, 1961, a Saturday. In his kitchen, he distributed 10-milligram doses of psilocybin. After taking his, Mr. Alpert recalled, he felt supreme calm, then panic, then exaltation. He believed he had met his own soul. He said he realized then that ‘it was O.K. to be me.’”
Two years later, in May 1963, Leary and Alpert were fired — Alpert for giving drugs to an undergraduate and Leary for abandoning his classes, per The Times. The two subsequently moved into a 64-room mansion on a 2,500-acre, provided by Gulf Oil heiress Peggy Mellon Hitchcock, a volunteer LSD research subject, which became a psychedelic commune.
But tensions surface between Leary and Alpert over the latter’s expressed bisexuality.
From the New York Times:
“Mr. Leary accused Mr. Alpert of trying to seduce his 15-year-old son, Jack, whom Mr. Alpert often took care of while Mr. Leary, a single parent, traveled.
“Uncle Dick is evil,” Mr. Leary told Jack, according to [Don Lattin’s book “The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America.”]
“Oh, come on, Dad,” Jack replied. “Uncle Dick may be a jerk, but he’s not evil.””
In 1967, Alpert left for India where he met Neem Karoli Baba, known as Maharajji to his followers. A spiritual encounter resulted in Alpert taking Maharajji as his guru and Maharajji dubbing Alpert “Ram Dass,” which means servant of God. Dass also was gifted with the prefix “Baba,” which respectfully means “father.”
Maharajji sent Ram Dass home in 1968, where he subsequently moved into a cabin on a New Hampshire estate owned by his father. Hundreds of people showed up to follow him and he soon went on tour, espousing wisdom such as: “Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.” he said in one talk.
In 1971, Ram Dass published “Be Here Now,” a reflection on his own personal journey and a “how-to” on how to create a spiritual life: “Cookbook for a Sacred Life: A Manual for Conscious Being.” It was the must-read book for the countercultural movement and New Age aspirants. The rest of his life was devoted to helping people, especially shifting the fear of dying into a spiritual journey.
Ram Dass also continued to evolve, shaving his guru beard in the 1980s, and conceding that his “400 LSD trips had not been nearly as enlightening as his drugless spiritual epiphanies,” The Times reported, though he took a drug trip or two once a year “for old time’s sake.”
Ram Dass officially came out the 1990s. Here’s an excerpt from his interview (hat tip to The Bach Book) with the late Mark Thompson, former editor at The Advocate and author of several books, including the 1995 anthology Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit and Nature.Thompson also photographed a portrait of Ram Dass, which he took on tour with other notable souls.
From Mark Thompson:
“If eyes are the windows to one’s soul, then Ram Dass’ are shatterproof. At first, they are all you notice, suspended in space, lambent and unflinching, a world unto themselves, until slowly the surrounding features assemble. It’s like watching a portrait by a sidewalk artist take shape: first the eyes, and then, in a few deft strokes, the rest of the face is drawn.
The face itself is generous and kind, inset with permanent lines of amusement. But it’s the liquescent, penetrating gaze of the man that so clearly impresses, momentarily jolting me out of superficial pleasantry. We finish our handshake, and I renew my introduction. Ram Dass nods jovially. I try to feel reassured despite my nervousness.
It’s this quality of being stripped so clean, so zero to the bone—a vast but potent emptiness that Ram Dass reveals with one effortless look—that leaves me unnerved. I’ve come to his front door armed with questions and theories, a lifetime of assumptions left intact. With uncanny ability, he absorbs my projections and hands them back to me. The interviewer, in the end, must answer to himself.
I’ve long considered Ram Dass a wise gay elder, a conferral that comes as a surprise not only to Ram Dass but to others as well. While the author, speaker, and spiritual activist has made no attempt to hide his homosexual past — it is discussed at random, usually in passing, among the pages of his seven books — the fact that he is gay is not commonly known. And while he counts among his followers many who are gay, he has left little imprint on the gay community itself.
“Gay sexual autobiography,” he quietly muses to himself after we’ve settled down to talk. We’re sitting in a high-ceilinged room that has one wall covered with shelves holding hundreds of tapes of his lectures. A bowl of figs and other fruit sits on a small table between us. He continues to reflect while fingering his mala beads; the raucous laughter of children in a nearby schoolyard fills the silence. It’s almost as if he’s flipping through the various tapes in his head containing past life experience. Finally, he looks up smiling. “It’s interesting,” says Ram Dass. “I’ve never been interviewed about this topic, so this is fun for me.”
I’m surprised to hear this but, of course, allow its truth. After all, much of Ram Dass’ life for the past thirty years has been about unloading the weight of personal history, chucking away and burning in the bright, pure flame of spiritual enlightenment all that is not needed. Sexual identity has undoubtedly been part of that consumed baggage. Judging from the spartan, business-like trappings of his home Ram Dass seems to need or want very little these days other than the opportunity to perform compassionate service in the world.
When asked anything about his personal life, he casually mentions a longtime male relationship: “We’ve had a very close and dear friendship for fifteen years,” he says. “We don ’t define it, and its extremely satisfying to me as a fellow human being.
….
The human fate of suffering — on both the physical and spiritual planes – is the one universal condition that Ram Dass seems most apt to address. Suffering is “grist for the mill” (to borrow the title of his classic 1977 work), the propellant of conscious awakening if one only employs it as such. Sexual needs of whatever persuasion and material wants, such as fame and fortune, are fueled by the personality-possessed “me” part of our minds. Desire creates suffering and keeps our innermost selves from finding life’s ultimate fulfillment: the state of being at one with God. Given this quintessential Eastern view of life, I can understand Ram Dass’ objections to labeling people based on their sexual predilections. Gay or straight—what’s the difference if we are meant to transcend attachment?
Still, as appealing as this philosophy may sound, we live in a Western world deeply entrenched in its prejudices and roles, a you-are-what-you-own attitude. Modern gay identity has been spun out of those elements, but some of us cling to the belief that there remains an inexplicable mystery about our being that exists far beneath the constructed surfaces. According to Ram Dass, the answer lies in examining the clinging itself.
….
In Compassion in Action you freely relate past homosexual experiences, something you have not often done. Have you been uncomfortable in talking about being gay? When did you first know?
I had a late latency, and not until I was fifteen years old did I start to really become sexually awakened. Up until then I hadn’t differentiated, I had no labels; I was just so floored by sex. By the time I was seventeen, I started to have relations with boys and realized I enjoyed that. But it was still within the category of teenage folly. You see, I grew up at a time when homosexuality was far deeper in the closet than it is now. I became engaged to be married when I was in college in Boston, but then I started to go out cruising. I’d picked up people or get into sexual encounters with men in parks and bathrooms. So I was confused. Later, when I moved to California to do postgraduate work at Stanford, I started to get more involved in gay life in San Francisco. I’ve only roughly estimated, sometimes to just blow people’s minds, but I’m sure I’ve had thousands of sexual encounters. It was often two a night. Then I returned east to be a professor at Harvard and continued to have this incredible sexual activity. But I always had a woman as a front to go to faculty dinners and things like that.
As many did, and continue to do, you were leading a double life.
My life was completely duplicitous for thirty years. I had an apartment and would have guys in overnight, but I didn’t live with anybody and didn’t make any real liaisons. I gained a reputation at the health service for how sensitive I was to people with gay problems. The psychiatrists kept referring all the homosexual cases to me, but they had no conception of who I really was. This was 1958 until 1963, the year I got thrown out of Harvard.
That’s a famous incident. What really happened?
Tim Leary and I and a lot of friends had one of these big community houses. We got into a situation where Harvard started to get so freaked about the drugs we were using that they asked us to stop doing our research using any undergraduates. We could use graduate students, or outside populace, but we couldn’t use undergraduates because it was too risky. But I had all these relationships with young men whom I really wanted to turn on with. And it had nothing to do with our research; it was my personal life, so I went ahead. It turned out there was another student who was very jealous of this, an editor of the campus newspaper, and he created a huge expose.
So it was gay eros and not LSD that got you thrown out of Harvard.
It was a combination of all those things. In a way, LSD had given me the license to be what I am. It looked at me inside and out and said what you are is okay. And that gave me a license to start to say I didn’t want to hide anymore. The American Association of University Professors wanted to defend me, but I realized that that would just be such a mess–the hell with it! I wasn’t interested in going back to Harvard anyway; I was too far on the drugs. I wanted to go on that trip much, much more.
Most gay men, particularly of that time, have had to deal with overwhelming emotions of guilt and shame. How did you cope with your feelings of internalized homophobia?
The guilt was toward all sex in life. There was no differentiation because nobody even thought about homosexuality in my upbringing. So after that, I didn’t feel called upon to define myself in any way at all. I mean, why define myself? I can fill many roles in life. So I didn’t join “being gay,” I didn’t become a clubbie within the gay community–I just wasn’t drawn to it. Instead, I became very involved in consciousness and spiritual work.
There was a moment when there were four of us making this pilgrimage around southern India in a Volkswagen microbus. One of the fellows in the car was an extremely attractive young man, and one night he and I ended up having a sexual affair together. The next day we sat down in front of my guru, whom I knew knew everything, even though I’d never discussed this kind of thing with him. He looked at me and he looked at this guy, and then he said to me, “You’re giving him your best teaching,” I thought, OK, if you say so. I’ll buy that. But then he said we shouldn’t have any more sex and we didn’t.
There was a long period which I really saw my homosexuality as deeply pathological. I was growing up in the zeitgeist of Western psychology. I had been trained as a Freudian therapist in the analytical institute—and that’s the way it looked. Men and women were made to go together; and everything else seemed like something had gotten fucked up somewhere along the way. I saw my mother as a prime contender of that because she had taken my power. She was such a deep love for me. The reason my puberty was so late was because I kept trying to stay a child to stay in intimate relationship with her. It was clear that if I became a man, she’d reject me. And so I got fatter and fatter, eating everything. she gave me as my form of intimacy with her. At one point in prep school, where I was horny all the time, I hugged her and got an erection. She pushed me away and said there’s milk and cookies downstairs.
This is a more common dynamic between gay men and their moms than would be supposed.
Oh, I understand! So, I ended up having a hard time in my relations with women, in getting my own pleasure. The women that I ended up having sex with were women who were quite aggressive, who really demanded it of me. I mean, they were just scratchers and yellers. I got to the point where I would take huge amounts of acid and look at these slide pictures of women to try to see where my fear was because I saw that there was a block where I just turned off women.
As you were growing up, what was your relationship with your father like?
I was sort of an appreciator of him. He was a very successful and upwardly mobile person, so he didn’t have too much time for the family. He was a somewhat remote figure. When he was around, we did a lot of things together but I never felt he heard me.
In Compassion in Action you state: “As the result of being a Jew, I felt that I had been imbued with three things: first, the sense that behind and within the multiplicity of forms there is One, seamless and radiant, and that loving that One, with all my being, is a path. Second, a love and respect for knowledge as a path to wisdom. And the third great gift I felt I had received was an awareness of suffering and the compassion that arises with that awareness.” I’d like to know how being gay has also shaped your spiritual journey. What gifts have been endowed to you from that?
As a result of being caught with another fellow in prep school, I was completely ostracized – nobody would speak to me for about a year. I’d walk into a room and all the kids would stop speaking. I couldn’t tell my parents, so it cast me way back inside myself; it drove me inward.
That deepened, first of all, the quality of my compassion toward other human beings who are ostracized. But I also think it served me in good stead later on when I started experimenting with psychedelics. I have always felt like I was an outsider.
The added burden was that I had small genitals, and in this society that is a major crime. I was ostracized a lot for that, too. I was laughed at, and I’m sure it affected my behavior a great deal because it was the double whammy of not only being gay but having this feeling of deficiency. But–after I had done a lot of deep work with psychedelics, genital sexuality wasn’t a dominant issue. The areas of my gratification had shifted. It didn’t matter to me that much.
….
Rather than discuss ideas and theories let’s talk about something that is very real in the lives of gay men–the issue of being wounded. I have talked with hundreds of gay men over the years, and not one has escaped being ostracized, or being called a “sissy” or a “faggot, ” or having some other kind of deeply wounding experience.
I would say that’s true. But being “wounded” refers to the personality–not to the soul. I’d say I’ve been deeply wounded in my personality. Absolutely, deeply wounded. And I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over it. I still feel wounded by it. I still feel unwelcome in this culture. Because I live among so many straight populations, I’ve started to talk more about being bisexual, being involved with men as well as women. Most of the audiences with whom I do that are people who already love me so much they couldn’t care if I turned into a frog. Allen Ginsberg, who’s an old friend, goes and confronts people with his gayness. I don’t see any reason to do that—it’s not my trip. I never deny it, but I don’t push it because it’s not part of my active identity.
You’ve been more open in recent years. Why the candor now?
I trust myself more. Before, the candor would have been a bid to try to seduce people, to get young men to come near me. Like as an initiation or something like that—come up and see my holy pictures! I don’t think I trusted myself because I think my desires were so strong.
….
Like many gay men, I’ve been caught up in thinking about death alot these days because of AIDS. But that aside, it seems to me there’s still an enormous amount of suffering around being gay in such an intensely homophobic culture.
I think there is, too. But for gay men, the work is to work on their own minds. They may be doing social protest, or be part of the Radical Faeries, or whatever, but let them do it from a place where they understand that it’s all work on themselves. Because as long as their minds are the way they are, they’re going to keep suffering. Ostracism and the judgment of the culture feed on very deep inadequacies in the individual that they’re still clinging to in the mind, and these judgments play upon them. They resonate with those thoughts that are not quite excoriated, extirpated, expiated.
Do you think gay men have a special role to play in society today, a role that would encompass special aptitudes for compassion, empathy, and insight? And, if you do, then what is your advice for actualizing that potential in the world?
When you read the obituaries, you become aware that an extraordinarily disproportionate amount of beauty brought into the culture was created by gay people. But how to interpret that? I would be hard-pressed to say that those qualities aren’t available in everybody, but the cultural roles everybody found themselves in made it easier for gay men to express themselves in this way. It’s like, the Jews became moneylenders because they weren’t allowed to do anything else. People who have identified either androgynously or in a way not as male in the cultural sense of maleness have accessible to them qualities of creativity and sensitivity and appreciation that they would be well to capitalize upon and use. You’ve got to stand back far enough to see the stages of transformation in a culture. If you watch the women’s movement, for instance, you see it go through many stages: from a kind of militant, male identification in which women want what the man has, to then finding themselves having lost something that they wanted because they were so busy getting something else, until finally you start to see women who are not imitating outward strength but are really developing inner strength as beings. At that point, they’re more willing to accept differences and celebrate them rather than to deny them.
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There are many spiritual seekers to be found within the gay community, of course.
Oh, many. The predicament is that the deeper your spiritual practice, the more you are aware that everybody is androgynous. That’s why when you say “gay soul” there’s something in me that grabs, since I don’t think of souls as either male or female. I think souls have karma that determines the way they manifest, gay or straight, female or male. But I don’t think souls themselves have any sexual identity at all.
I agree that AIDS has opened a lot of hearts and minds. Still, gay men have built a culture based largely on desire–the commercialization of sex and physical attractiveness. The gay sensibility is very Dionysian. So how do we learn to strike a new balance Is pursuit of sexual fulfillment really antithetical to spiritual enlightenment? Can both exist harmoniously?
There’s a sequence: You grow up very invested in the physical and the psychological. Then you feel the finiteness of those things. And then you awaken through some process only to realize you’ve been trapped. After that, there’s a tendency to go into a kind of renunciative fervor to get into the place where you feel at one with the universe and spirit. That often creates what are called horny celibates—it’s a certain kind of rejection of the physical/psychological plane.
But in a still later stage you realize that the aversion is keeping you from being free—and you want to be free, not just high. So you start to come back into who you are, passionate and nonattached. You are fully in life, joyfully participating — sex is a celebration. It’s all wonderful, and at the same moment, it’s all empty. That’s a very evolved stage of spiritual maturation. I don’t find the gay community as a group very spiritually ripe or eager to go beyond. I think they’re too caught up enjoying the power and the desire systems. In some ways it feels like a certain kind of hell realm to me because it’s not going to be enough.
How do we move out of that? How can being gay be used as “grist for the mill” of inner development?
Only when you have gone through your rebellion against the culture for cutting you out of the juice, then getting the juice, having what you want, and seeing that that is just another state. Once you get a partner, a bed without hiding, and freedom to walk down the street holding hands, then what are you going to do? But you can’t shortcut the process. If somebody wants a Cadillac, you can’t say, “Don’t have it,” because they’ll be busy not having the Cadillac, and they’re not gonna get free. They’ll be somebody without a Cadillac.
One of the deepest issues plaguing gay men is inner-directed hate. People can go out and march in gay pride parades all they want, but that still doesn’t mean they’ve dealt with low self-esteem or their own internalized homophobia.
There are corrupting psychological correlates to being gay in our society—I’m not necessarily saying of being gay, but of being gay in our society. There’s tremendous frustration, self-hatred, and fear that’s rooted in power issues—a good coating of masochism. Those things color the way a movement proceeds. You can make those things into icons to be worshipped. I mean, there’s a lot of masochism expressed in the gay community. There are clubs for it.
….
In your own life, what fears and areas of resistance are you particularly aware of right now?
Gee, that’s tricky. There are some bizarre ones, like trying to be at peace with the emptiness of it all. I would say trying to continually let go of models about existence into the richness of the moment. I still cling to somebody doing something, going somewhere. But I don’t cling very much to it. I can see this correlated with gayness at some level. I have a tremendous perfectionistic streak in me about myself. And because I don’t live up to it, I have a tremendous judgment of others as being not perfect enough. I find that a very unappealing quality, and I have to work with it. I’m horrified by my imperfections because I so want to be free. But I think that’s a cop-out. I’m very fierce, at times, and the fierceness isn’t coming necessarily out of love; it’s coming out of judgment, out of my own pain.
How does your perfectionism correlate with your being gay?
That perfectionistic quality is very deep in many gay people I know. I think it comes from unworthiness and inadequacy, a sense of wanting to be perfect so that you can be loved enough. If I do something perfectly, I can love myself. I get the gold star. And that’s hard when you’re a human: you just can’t do things perfectly enough.
You know, this conversation has brought to the surface in me a lot of uncooked stuff that I haven’t fully integrated into my being—things I’ve just put into little compartments in my head.
Like what, for instance?
Different stages of life, different attitudes toward the gay community. Talking about these issues with someone who has given them as much thought as you gives me something to work on. I mean, what have I got to learn here? What have I got to learn about my own prejudices? I just took a course last year on hidden racism from a Latino man who was showing me my own oppression, my own subtle racism. I’m probably imprinted so deeply from my generation that I don’t know if I will ever get out of thinking that gayness is a pathology. Even though I’m delighted that other people don’t, and I would like not to, it’s so deep in me.
I experience being gay as a wonderful blessing, an opportunity—anything but a pathology. But I’ve come of age during a different time than you. I’m making my assumptions with a different set of cultural references in hand. People who have defined themselves as gay are at a point in their collective journey where they don’t need to throw the definition away, but rather keep evolving it.
I would say that if gay people who read this are willing to really sit down and examine their own minds in a systematic way, they may experience the freedom to take more delight in life and in their gay expression of it. And they will see that who they are isn’t gay, and it’s not not-gay, and it’s not anything—it’s just awareness. I really challenge them to make that exploration on their own before they write the script of their lives in stone too much. Because if they have picked up a book that’s called Gay Soul, they’re asking for it. And if they’re asking for it, they should be able to get it. Somebody should say, “Look, don’t get trapped in that. Get on with it.” There’s no need to label yourself at all.”
Congress
Senate braces for anti-LGBTQ+ attacks with incoming Republican majority
Republicans to regain control of chamber in January
Particularly since Republicans took the U.S. House of Representatives in 2023, legislative attacks against the LGBTQ+ community, at least at the federal level, have been blunted by U.S. Senate Democrats exercising their narrow majority in the upper chamber, along with President Joe Biden’s promise to veto any discriminatory bill that should reach his desk.
Next month, however, Republicans will take control of both chambers of Congress as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House, marking the first time since 2018 that the GOP has governed with a trifecta in Washington.
“We expect the Trump administration and House and Senate Republicans to continue their anti-LGBTQ+ attacks on all aspects of life, especially against trans kids,” Josh Sorbe, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Whip and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), told the Washington Blade.
Durbin is among the Democratic senators who spoke out this week against a policy rider added to the National Defense Authorization Act by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.), which would prohibit the military’s health provider Tricare from covering transgender medical treatments for the children of U.S. service members.
“In his first term, Donald Trump enabled LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination, banned trans service members, and vilified trans kids,” Sorbe said, while “The Biden-Harris administration and Democrats codified same-sex marriage, declared mpox a national emergency, and built up the LGBTQ+ movement.”
He added, “Democrats will continue to hold the line against misguided, anti-freedom legislation that we anticipate will be introduced.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee, one of the most powerful in Congress, exercises broad legislative jurisdiction and is responsible for oversight of the Executive Branch as well as the initial stages of confirming the president’s nominees for vacancies on the federal bench, including those picked to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the 117th Congress, control of the Senate was a 50-50 split, with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes. Democrats won another Senate seat in the 2022 midterms and for the past two years Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has led a 51-49 majority.
Despite the party’s narrow margin of control and starting with less than half the number of vacancies than were available for Trump to fill when he took office in 2017, Sorbe noted Senate Democrats are expected to confirm Biden’s 234th and 235th judicial nominees — surpassing, by one, the number of confirmations under the previous administration and also, by one, the record setting number of LGBTQ+ jurists appointed by President Obama over two terms.
These “highly qualified, diverse candidates” will “help ensure the fair and impartial administration of the American justice system,” Sorbe said. Many will decide legal questions with broad implications for LGBTQ+ communities, including challenges brought against anti-LGBTQ+ legislation at the local, state, and federal level, or anti-LGBTQ+ policies enacted by the Trump-Vance administration.
Sorbe highlighted some of the other work Durbin has done to “protect civil rights for all Americans” over the past four years in the majority, pointing to the Judiciary Committee’s 2021 hearing on the Equality Act, legislation that would codify LGBTQ+-inclusive nondiscrimination protections; a 2023 hearing that celebrated “the historic progress made in protecting the right of LGBTQ+ Americans”; the first hearing since 1984 about the Equal Rights Amendment that would “enshrine gender equality into the Constitution”; floor speeches in which the majority whip denounced “the harmful anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being introduced across the country”; and the senator’s co-sponsorship of the Respect for Marriage Act, which solidified the legal rights of interracial and same-sex married couples.
White House
Biden establishes national monument for first female Cabinet secretary
Frances Perkins may have been the first lesbian Cabinet pick
President Joe Biden on Monday signed a proclamation to establish a national monument in Newcastle, Maine, that will honor Frances Perkins, who became the first woman named to a Cabinet-level position when she was chosen by FDR to serve as secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor.
The move highlights the Biden-Harris administration’s record of advancing women’s rights and strengthening the labor movement while also commemorating Perkins’s achievements, including the establishment of pensions, unemployment, and workers’ compensation, the minimum wage and overtime pay, the 40-hour workweek, and child labor laws.
Perkins is also credited with helping to lay the blueprint for legislation like the Social Security Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the National Labor Relations Act.
Research suggests she may have been a lesbian, perhaps even the first LGBTQ+ Cabinet secretary.
According to the National Park Service, “Perkins’ relationship with one roommate, Mary Harriman Rumsey,” who was a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, “was very intimate,” though an entry for the late labor secretary on the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project quotes her biographer Kirsten Downey’s assertion that “it is probably impossible to know whether Frances’s relationship with Mary was also sexual or romantic.”
White House
Trump appoints Richard Grenell to his administration
Former US ambassador to Germany will be special missions envoy
President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday named former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell to his administration.
Grenell will serve as special missions envoy.
“Ric will work in some of the hottest spots around the world, including Venezuela and North Korea,” Trump said on Truth Social, according to the Associated Press.
Grenell, 58, was U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2018-2020.
The Trump-Pence administration later named him acting director of national intelligence, which at the time made him the highest-ranking openly gay presidential appointee in American history. Grenell was also the previous White House’s special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations.
The Trump-Pence administration in 2019 tapped Grenell to lead an initiative that encouraged countries to decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations. Grenell and then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Kelly Knight Craft later that year organized an event on the sidelines of a U.N. Security Council meeting that focused on decriminalization efforts.
Many activists around the world with whom the Washington Blade has previously spoken questioned whether this effort had any tangible results. Grenell also faced sharp criticism when he told Breitbart News shortly after he arrived in Berlin that he wanted to “empower” the European right.
Grenell was among those who the president-elect reportedly considered to nominate to become the next secretary of state. Trump instead tapped U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
“Working on behalf of the American people for (Trump) is an honor of a lifetime,” said Grenell on X on Saturday. “President Trump is a problem solver who keeps Americans safe and prosperous.”
Working on behalf of the American people for @realDonaldTrump is an honor of a lifetime.
President Trump is a problem solver who keeps Americans safe and prosperous.
We have so much to do.
Let’s get to work. https://t.co/xGpTLr1QHy— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) December 15, 2024
Log Cabin Republicans President Charles Moran and Amir Ohana, the openly gay speaker of the Israeli Knesset, are among those who congratulated Grenell.
National
Colleagues, politicos mourn death of Los Angeles Blade publisher
‘A trailblazing journalist, publisher, and tireless advocate’
Troy Masters, publisher of the Los Angeles Blade, died on Wednesday Dec. 11, according to a family member. He was 63. The LA County Coroner said the cause of death was suicide.
Masters was a well-respected and award-winning journalist and publisher with decades of experience, mostly in LGBTQ media. In 2017, he became the founding publisher of the Los Angeles Blade, a sister publication of the Washington Blade.
Praise for Masters’s work and dedication to LGBTQ equality and journalism poured in throughout the day.
Equality California released the following statement from Executive Director Tony Hoang: “We at Equality California are heartbroken by the unexpected passing of Troy Masters, a trailblazing journalist, publisher, and tireless advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. Troy’s remarkable career spanned decades, during which he used his voice and platform to amplify the stories of our community and champion the fight for equality.
“His passion for storytelling and relentless pursuit of social justice left an indelible mark on the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Over many years, Equality California and the Los Angeles Blade have worked hand in hand to ensure LGBTQ+ stories are accurately represented and shared within the Los Angeles community and throughout California.
“Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and the Los Angeles Blade and Washington Blade teams during this difficult time. We stand in solidarity with them as we honor Troy’s life, legacy, and unwavering dedication to our community. His passing is a profound loss, and he will be deeply missed.
“Rest in power, Troy. Your work will forever live on in the hearts and lives of those you fought so fiercely for.”
California state Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement: “I am terribly saddened to hear of the passing of Troy Masters, a pillar in the LGBTQ+ community. In his many roles, he has covered life in our community and the challenges of our fight for civil rights and social justice.”
L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, in a statement on X, said she would miss Masters’s humor, wit and huge heart and praised his journalistic pursuits and dedication to uplifting the LGBTQ+ community.
Journalist and Blade contributor Jasmyne Cannick also praised Masters, describing him as a mentor.
“Through the years, he was supportive of my work, giving me space and a voice as a columnist and reporter for the Blade newspapers when it mattered most,” she said in on X. “Troy understood the importance of covering the Black LGBTQ+ community and made it a point to ask me what stories they needed to be telling.”
Michael Yamashita, publisher of the Bay Area Reporter, in a statement said, “I have known Troy as a fellow publisher and friend for over 20 years. He was smart and accomplished. More than a few times, he started gay publications — in New York City and Los Angeles. I will miss working with him.”
Dana Piccoli, managing director of News Is Out, a queer media collaborative, wrote: “Troy was a fierce advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and pioneer in queer media. We were lucky to work with him as a member of News Is Out and will forever be grateful for the barriers he broke down for the queer community. Our hearts are with our colleagues at the Los Angeles Blade and the Washington Blade.”
“It has been a tough day for all of us at the Blade,” said Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff. “Troy’s love of queer media and the city of Los Angeles is well known and he will be missed by so many. In his spirit, we will carry on with our mission and we are planning a celebration of his life in the coming months.”
Montana
Montana Supreme Court blocks ban on healthcare for trans youth
‘Today’s ruling permits our clients to breathe a sigh of relief’
The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that SB 99, a 2023 Montana law that bans life-saving gender-affirming care for transgender youth, is unconstitutional under the Montana Constitution’s privacy clause, which prohibits government intrusion into private medical decisions. This ruling will allow Montana communities and families to continue accessing medical treatments for transgender minors with gender dysphoria, the ACLU announced in a statement.
“I will never understand why my representatives are working to strip me of my rights and the rights of other transgender kids,” Phoebe Cross, a 17-year-old transgender boy told the ACLU. “Just living as a trans teenager is difficult enough, the last thing me and my peers need is to have our rights taken away.”
“Fortunately, the Montana Supreme Court understands the danger of the state interfering with critical healthcare,” said Lambda Legal Counsel Kell Olson. “Because Montana’s constitutional protections are even stronger than their federal counterparts, transgender youth in Montana can sleep easier tonight knowing that they can continue to thrive for now, without this looming threat hanging over their heads.”
“We are so thankful for this opportunity to protect trans youth, their families, and their medical providers from this baseless and dangerous law,” said Malita Picasso, Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “Every day that transgender Montanans are able to access this care is a critical and life-saving victory. We will never stop fighting until every transgender person has the care and support they need to thrive.”
“Today’s ruling permits our clients to breathe a sigh of relief,” said Akilah Deernose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Montana. “But the fight for trans rights is far from over. We will continue to push for the right of all Montanans, including those who are transgender, to be themselves and live their lives free of intrusive government interference.”
The Court found that the Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their privacy claim, holding: “The Legislature did not make gender-affirming care unlawful. Nor did it make the treatments unlawful for all minors. Instead, it restricted a broad swath of medical treatments only when sought for a particular purpose. The record indicates that Provider Plaintiffs, or other medical professionals providing gender-affirming care, are recognized as competent in the medical community to provide that care.[T]he law puts governmental regulation in the mix of an individual’s fundamental right ‘to make medical judgments affecting her or his bodily integrity and health in partnership with a chosen health care provider.’
Two justices filed a concurrence arguing that the Court should also clarify that discrimination on the basis of transgender status is a form of sex discrimination prohibited by Montana’s Equal Protection Clause, the ACLU reported.
Congress
Protests against anti-trans bathroom policy lead to more than a dozen arrests
Demonstrations were staged outside House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) office
About 15 protestors affiliated with the Gender Liberation Movement were arrested on Thursday for protesting the anti-trans bathroom policy that was introduced by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and enacted last month by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Whistleblower Chelsea Manning and social justice advocates Raquel Willis and Renee Bracey Sherman were among those who were arrested in the women’s bathroom and the hallway outside Johnson’s office in the Cannon House Office Building.
Demonstrators held banners reading “FLUSH BATHROOM BIGOTRY” and “CONGRESS: STOP PISSING ON OUR RIGHTS!” They chanted, “SPEAKER JOHNSON, NANCY MACE, OUR GENDERS ARE NO DEBATE!” and “WHEN TRANS FOLKS ARE UNDER ATTACK WHAT DO WE DO? ACT UP, FIGHT BACK!”
Protests began around 12:10 p.m. ET. Within 30 minutes, Capitol Police arrived on the scene, began making arrests, and cleared the area. A spokesperson told Axios the demonstration was an illegal violation of the D.C. code against crowding, obstructing or incommoding.
Mace and her flame-throwing House GOP allies have said the bathroom policy was meant to target Sarah McBride, the Delaware state senator who will become the first transgender member of Congress after she is seated in January.
LGBTQ groups, elected Democrats, and others have denounced the move as a bigoted effort to bully and intimidate a new colleague, with many asking how the policy’s proponents would enforce the measure.
Outside her office in the Longworth House Office Building, the Washington Blade requested comment from Mace about the protests and arrests.
“Yeah, I went to the Capitol Police station where they were being processed, so I’ll be posting what I said shortly,” the congresswoman said.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) (Washington Blade photo by Christopher Kane)
Using an anti-trans slur, Mace posted a video to her X account in which she says, “alright, so some tranny protestors showed up at the Capitol today to protest my bathroom bill, but they got arrested — poor things.”
“So I have a message for the protestors who got arrested,” the congresswoman continued, and then spoke into a megaphone as she read the Miranda warning. “If you cannot afford an attorney — I doubt many of you can — one will be provided to you at the government’s expense,” she said.
“Everyone deserves to use the restroom without fear of discrimination or violence. Trans folks are no different. We deserve dignity and respect and we will fight until we get it,” Gender Liberation Movement co-founder Raquel Willis said in a press release.
“In the 2024 election, trans folks were left to fend for ourselves after nearly $200 million of attack ads were disseminated across the United States,” she said. “Now, as Republican politicians, try to remove us from public life, Democratic leaders are silent as hell.”
Willis continued, “But we can’t transform bigotry and hate with inaction. We must confront it head on. Democrats must rise up, filibuster, and block this bill.”
State Department
State Department honors Ghanaian LGBTQ+ activist
Ebenezer Peegan among Secretary of State’s Human Rights Defender Award recipients
The State Department on Tuesday honored a Ghanaian LGBTQ+ activist and seven other human rights advocates from around the world.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented Rightify Ghana Executive Director Ebenezer Peegah with the Secretary of State’s Human Rights Defender Award during a ceremony at the State Department.
“He’s been a prominent figure advocating for equality and justice,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Enrique Roig told the Washington Blade on Tuesday during an interview.
The other human rights activists who received the award include:
• Mary Ann Abunda, a migrant workers advocate in Kuwait
• Permanent Human Rights Assembly of Bolivia President Amparo Carvajal
• Aida Dzhumanazarova, country director for the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law in Kyrgyzstan
• Mang Hre Lian, founder of the Chin Media Network in Myanmar
• Juana Ruiz of Asociación Asvidas, an organization that advocates for survivors of gender-based violence in Colombia
• Rufat Sararov, a former prosecutor who runs Defense Line in Azerbaijan
The State Department posthumously honored Thulani Maseko, a prominent human rights activist from Eswatini who was killed in 2023. His wife, Tanele Maseko, accepted the award on his behalf.
The ceremony took place on International Human Rights Day, which commemorates the U.N. General Assembly’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948. Sararov did not attend because Azeri authorities arrested him before he could obtain a visa that would have allowed him to travel to the U.S.
Ghanaian Supreme Court to rule on anti-LGBTQ+ law on Dec. 18
Ghanaian lawmakers on Feb. 28 approved the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill that would, among other things, criminalize allyship. President Nana Akufo-Addo has said he will not sign the bill until the Supreme Court rules on whether it is constitutional or not.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the law on Dec. 18. John Dramani Mahama, the country’s president-elect, will take office on Jan. 7.
Ruig applauded Peegah’s efforts to highlight the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill.
“For us in the U.S. government, the work that he’s done on this issue has also been instrumental in our own discussions with the current government as well as the incoming administration around the concerns that we’ve expressed with regards to this legislation,” Roig told the Washington Blade “He’s been an important partner in all this as well.”
Peegah on Aug. 14 met with Pope Francis at the Vatican.
U.S. Supreme Court
Trans rights supporters, opponents rally outside Supreme Court as justices consider Tenn. law
Oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti case took place Wednesday
At least 1,000 people rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices considered whether a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth is unconstitutional.
Dueling rallies began early in the morning, with protesters supporting trans rights and protesters supporting Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care each stationed with podiums on opposite sides.
Trans rights protesters, who significantly outnumbered the other group, held signs reading “Keep hate out of healthcare,” and “Respect family medical decisions.” On the other side, protesters carried signs with messages like “Sex change is fantasy,” and “Stop transing gay kids.”
Ari, a trans person who grew up in Nashville and now lives in D.C., spoke to the Washington Blade about the negative effects of the Tennessee law on the well-being of trans youth.
“I grew up with kids who died because of a lack of trans healthcare, and I am scared of that getting worse,” they said. “All that this bill brings is more dead kids.”
The Tennessee law that is being challenged in U.S. v Skrmetti took effect in 2023 and bans medical providers from prescribing medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapies to trans youth.
A number of Democratic lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) addressed the crowd in support of trans rights.
In his speech, Merkley said Americans deserved freedom in accessing gender affirming care and criticized the law as political intervention in private medical decisions.
“Americans should have the freedom to make medical decisions in the privacy of their doctor’s office without politicians trying to dictate to them,” he said.
Robert Garofalo, a chief doctor in the division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at a Chicago children’s hospital, emphasized the importance of trans youth having access to gender affirming care.
“We [providers] are seeing patients and families every day, present with crippling fears, added stress and anxiety as they desperately try to locate care where it remains legal to do so,” Garofalo, who is also a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, told the crowd. “Transgender children and adolescents deserve health care that is grounded in compassion, science and principles of public health and human rights. They must not be denied life saving medical care — their lives depend on it.”
Major U.S. medical associations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, support gender affirming care.
Research has found gender affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents. Those who are denied access to gender affirming care are at increased risk for significant mental health challenges.
An unlikely coalition came out to support Tennessee’s ban on gender affirming care. Far-right figures, such as U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Matt Walsh — both of whom have a history of making homophobic statements — were joined by groups such as the LGBT Courage Coalition and Gays Against Groomers.
The groups questioned the quality of the research finding gender-affirming care to have a positive effect on the well-being of trans and gender nonconforming youth and argued that minors cannot consent to medical treatment. Ben Appel, a co-founder of the LGBT Courage Coalition, which he notes was “co-founded by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans adults who oppose pediatric gender medicine, which we know to be non-evidence-based and harmful to young gay people,” said gender nonconformity is often part of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual experience and should not be “medicalized.”
“I care about the adult gay detransitioners who have been harmed … by these homophobic practice,” he said “They should have just been told they’re gay.”
Claire, a Maryland resident who attended the rally in favor of the Tennessee law and claims to have detransitioned, described being prescribed testosterone and having a mastectomy at 14, medical treatments she says she was unable to consent to at that age. She doesn’t oppose gender affirming care for adults but is opposed to “medical experimentation on children.”
“I think that adults should be allowed to do whatever they want with their bodies. I think that it is if someone is happy with the decision that they made that’s great,” she said. “I was not able to make that decision. I was a child.”
But trans activists fear that a ruling in favor of Tennessee could pave the way for states to restrict access to gender-affirming care for adults.
“There’s also broader implications for civil rights and trans rights, more broadly, for adults in the future. There are some states that have tried to ban some healthcare for adults — they haven’t yet — but I think that’s something we might also see if the Supreme Court rules that way,” Ethan Rice, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal, one of the legal organizations representing the plaintiffs in U.S. v Skrmetti, said.
In the case, three Tennessee families and a physician are challenging the Tennessee law on the grounds that it violates the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment by drawing lines based on sex and discriminating against trans people. The statute bans medications for trans children while allowing the same medications to be used when treating minors suffering from other conditions, such as early-onset puberty.
A 2020 Supreme Court decision determined sex-based discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. The key question in U.S. v. Skrmetti is whether this interpretation applies under the Equal Protection Clause.
“We really hope that the Supreme Court recognizes their own precedent on sex discrimination cases and comes out the right way, saying this is sex discrimination by the state of Tennessee and thus is unconstitutional,” Rice said.
Twenty-six states currently have laws or policies restricting minors’ access to gender-affirming care. If the court rules against Tennessee, similar bans in other states would also be unconstitutional, granting trans youth greater access to gender affirming care nationwide.
Edith Guffey, the board chair at PFLAG, expressed doubt the court will strike down the law, citing its sharp ideological turn to the right in recent years. But she said she remains hopeful.
“I hope that the court will … step outside agendas and look at the needs of people and who has the right to say what’s good for their children,” she said.
Chase Strangio, an ACLU attorney representing the families, on Wednesday became the first openly trans lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court. He addressed the trans rights protesters after the hearing.
“Whatever happens, we are the defiance,” Strangio said. “We are collectively a refutation of everything they say about us. And our fight for justice did not begin today, it will not end in June — whatever the court decides.”
National
LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, migrants brace for second Trump administration
Incoming president has promised ‘mass deportations’
Advocacy groups in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s election fear his administration’s proposed immigration policies will place LGBTQ+ migrants and asylum seekers at increased risk.
“What we are expecting again is that the new administration will continue weaponizing the immigration system to keep igniting resentment,” Abdiel Echevarría-Cabán, an immigration lawyer who is based in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, told the Washington Blade.
Trump during the campaign pledged a “mass deportation” of undocumented immigrants.
The president-elect in 2019 implemented the Migrant Protection Protocols program — known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy — that forced asylum seekers to pursue their cases in Mexico.
Advocates sharply criticized MPP, in part, because it made LGBTQ+ asylum seekers who were forced to live in Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, Matamoros, and other Mexican border cities even more vulnerable to violence and persecution based on their gender identity and sexual orientation.
The State Department currently advises American citizens not to travel to Tamaulipas state in which Matamoros is located because of “crime and kidnapping.” The State Department also urges American citizens to “reconsider travel” to Baja California and Chihuahua states in which Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez are located respectively because of “crime and kidnapping.”
The Biden-Harris administration ended MPP in 2021.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in March 2020 implemented Title 42, which closed the Southern border to most asylum seekers and migrants because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The policy ended in May 2023.
Robert Contreras, president of Bienestar Human Services, a Los Angeles-based organization that works with Latino and LGBTQ+ communities, in a statement to the Blade noted Project 2025, which “outlines the incoming administration’s agenda, proposes extensive rollbacks of rights and protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.”
“This includes dismantling anti-discrimination protections, restricting access to gender-affirming healthcare, and increasing immigration enforcement,” said Contreras.
Trans woman in Tijuana nervously awaits response to asylum application
A Biden-Harris administration policy that took place in May 2023 says “noncitizens who cross the Southwest land border or adjacent coastal borders without authorization after traveling through another country, and without having (1) availed themselves of an existing lawful process, (2) presented at a port of entry at a pre-scheduled time using the CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) One app, or (3) been denied asylum in a third country through which they traveled, are presumed ineligible for asylum unless they meet certain limited exceptions.” The exceptions under the regulation include:
- They were provided authorization to travel to the United States pursuant to a DHS-approved parole process;
- They used the CBP One app to schedule a time and place to present at a port of entry, or they presented at a port of entry without using the CBP One app and established that it was not possible to access or use the CBP One app due to a language barrier, illiteracy, significant technical failure, or other ongoing and serious obstacle; or
- They applied for and were denied asylum in a third country en route to the United States.
Biden in June issued an executive order that prohibits migrants from asking for asylum in the U.S. if they “unlawfully” cross the Southern border.
The Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration works with LGBTQ+ migrants and asylum seekers in Tijuana, Mexicali and other Mexican border cities.
ORAM Executive Director Steve Roth is among those who criticized Biden’s executive order. Roth told the Blade the incoming administration’s proposed policies would “leave vulnerable transgender people, gay men, lesbians, and others fleeing life-threatening violence and persecution with little to no opportunity to seek asylum in the U.S. stripped of safe pathways.”
“Many will find themselves stranded in dangerous regions like the Mexico-U.S. border and transit countries around the world where their safety and well-being will be further jeopardized by violence, exploitation, and a lack of support,” he said.
Jennicet Gutiérrez, co-executive director of Familia: TQLM, an organization that advocates on behalf of transgender and gender non-conforming immigrants, noted to the Blade a trans woman who has asked for asylum in the U.S. “has been patiently waiting in Tijuana” for more than six months “for her CBP One application response.”
“Now she feels uncertain if she will ever get the chance to cross to the United States,” said Gutiérrez.
She added Trump’s election “is going to be devastating for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers.”
“Transgender migrants are concerned about the future of their cases,” said Gutiérrez. “The upcoming administration is not going to prioritize or protect our communities. Instead, they will prioritize mass deportations and incarceration.”
TransLatin@ Coalition President Bamby Salcedo echoed Gutiérrez.
“Trans people who are immigrants are getting the double whammy with the new administration,” Salcedo told the Blade. “As it is, trans people have been political targets throughout this election. Now, with the specific target against immigrants, trans immigrants will be greatly impacted.”
‘We’re ready to keep fighting’
Trans Queer Pueblo is a Phoenix-based organization that provides health care and other services to undocumented LGBTQ+ immigrants and migrants of color. The group, among other things, also advocates on behalf of those who are in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers.
“We refuse to wait for politicians to change systems that were designed to hurt us,” Trans Queer Pueblo told the Blade in a statement. “The elections saw both political parties using our trans and migrant identities as political pawns.”
Trans Queer Pueblo acknowledged concerns over the incoming administration’s immigration policies. It added, however, Arizona’s Proposition 314 is “our biggest battle.”
Arizona voters last month approved Proposition 314, which is also known as the Secure the Border Act.
Trans Queer Pueblo notes it “makes it a crime for undocumented people to exist anywhere, with arrests possible anywhere, including schools and hospitals.” The group pointed out Proposition 314 also applies to asylum seekers.
“We are building a future where LGBTQ+ migrants of color can live free, healthy, and secure, deciding our own destiny without fear,” Trans Queer Pueblo told the Blade. “This new administration will not change our mission — we’re ready to keep fighting.”
Contreras stressed Bienestar “remains committed to advocate for the rights and safety of all migrants and asylum seekers.” Gutiérrez added it is “crucial for LGBTQ+ migrants to know that they are not alone.”
“We will continue to organize and mobilize,” she said. “We must resist unjust treatments and laws.”
National
Biden, other administration officials mark Transgender Day of Remembrance
‘Epidemic of violence towards transgender people’
Democratic officials marked Transgender Day of Remembrance, which took place on Wednesday, honoring the lives lost to anti-trans violence and calling out rising anti-trans rhetoric and discrimination.
President Joe Biden in a statement said “we mourn the transgender Americans whose lives were taken this year in horrific acts of violence.”
“There should be no place for hate in America — and yet too many transgender Americans, including young people, are cruelly targeted and face harassment simply for being themselves. It’s wrong,” he said. “Every American deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, and to live free from discrimination. Today, we recommit ourselves to building a country where everyone is afforded that promise.”
U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), and Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), as well as U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), all members of the Congressional Equality Caucus, introduced a bicameral resolution commemorating the Transgender Day of Remembrance and “recognizing the epidemic of violence toward transgender people and memorializing the lives lost this year.”
“As anti-transgender rhetoric and legislation has increased in the United States over recent years, unfortunately so has anti-transgender violence,” Jayapal said in a statement announcing the resolution. “On Transgender Day of Remembrance, this resolution stands as a symbol of the strength and resilience of the trans community and honors the lives of the trans people we have lost to horrific violence.”
Jacobs also addressed President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-trans rhetoric.
“Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans agenda will likely fuel this anxiety and violence against queer communities,” Jacobs said. “That makes this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance even more important. Our bicameral resolution is a powerful reminder that anti-trans rhetoric can cost lives.”
A report by the Human Rights Campaign documenting anti-trans violence found at least 36 trans and gender-expansive people in the U.S. lost their lives to violence since last year.
Transgender Day of Remembrance was founded in 1999 by trans activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith to commemorate the one year anniversary of the murder of Rita Hester, a trans woman who was killed in Boston. The day has since grown into a national and international event.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement honored Transgender Day of Remembrance.
“Transgender individuals exist in every country, every culture, and every faith tradition,” he said. “ The United States recognizes Transgender Day of Remembrance to affirm the dignity and human rights of transgender persons globally.”
In a post on X, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) wrote, “On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, we honor the trans and nonbinary lives lost to violence simply for being who they are. Every American deserves to live their truth and feel safe doing so. Hate has no place here.”
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield noted the Biden-Harris administration’s advocacy for the trans community, which has included issuing a policy that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation under the Title IX federal civil rights law this year.
“On Transgender Day of Remembrance, we reaffirm there is no place for hate in America. The Biden-Harris Administration is proud to advocate for the safety of transgender and all LGBTQI+ Americans, including at the UN,” she said in a post on X.
Victor Madrigal-Borloz, a former independent UN expert on LGBTQ+ and intersex rights, also on X, said trans people’s human rights are questioned “for reasons that have nothing to do with them and a lot with bigotry.”
“Support them actively,” he urged.
Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, seemingly mixed up the day that was being observed, releasing a statement mistakenly commemorating Transgender Day of Visibility, which takes place on March 31.
“We fight so that trans Americans can go to the doctor and receive the same treatment as any other patient … so that they feel welcomed at school and in their community for who they are,” Becerra said.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, issued a proclamation recognizing Transgender Day of Remembrance, continuing the precedent he set last year as the first Maryland governor to issue such a proclamation.
Moore in May signed into law a bill that added gender-affirming care to Maryland’s definition of legally protected health care, affirming its status as a sanctuary state for trans people and their healthcare providers.
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