National
Meet Imani Rupert-Gordon, NCLR’s new leader
Laughter. Full-throated, hesitancy-clearing, energetic laughter. Thirty seconds into Imani Rupert-Gordon’s inaugural phone interview with the Los Angeles Blade, the new executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights poofs away old ideas of protocol and power differentials and launches into a conversation between two humans living in a shared space.
Kate Kendell, the LGBTQ icon Rupert-Gordon is replacing at the helm of NCLR after Kendell’s 22 years of service, had a similar experience.
“Apart from her substantial resume, experience and gravitas, the thing I most remember when I first met Imani in San Jose was a smile that had a wattage unlike most I had ever seen and an open heartedness that made me feel like we had been friends for years, rather than this being our first meeting,” Kendell tells the Los Angeles Blade. “You cannot teach that kind of openness and generosity of spirit. It is something one either possesses or never gets. And she had it and that quality is one of those intangibles that marks a leader for the ages.”
Rupert-Gordon’s humor and humility are evident immediately, disarming in a context where leadership generally implies an air of assumed arrogance. But her way of being reflects an apparent larger trend in new leadership at other national LGBTQ organizations, where the character derived from lived experience is as important as a resume packed with prestigious degrees and power-punch relationships.
“Do they know that I’m a social worker?” Rupert-Gordon asked when told NCLR’s head-hunters wanted to meet her. “I went into this thinking OK, obviously they’re looking for something different and I said, so I’m just going to talk about where I think the movement is, where I think the movement should go next, and NCLR’s place in that,” she tells the Los Angeles Blade.
“I think what really stood out to them was my understanding of intersectional issues and the way that I look at the movement. I think it probably provided a unique perspective, as well as someone that’s not a lawyer. Something that I’ve been telling people over and over again — they have a lot of lawyers at NCLR and they are at the top of their fields. Perhaps they don’t need another lawyer. I think that they really saw and appreciated my vision. I’ve always been very impressed by the work at NCLR. NCLR was created to be intersectional. That’s something I really value in the movement, and so, I feel really good about moving to this organization.”
Imani Rupert-Gordon with sister Maya Rupert (Photo from Maya Rupert’s Facebook page, Jan. 19, 2017)
In fact, NCLR is kind of a family thing. Rupert-Gordon’s straight sister Maya Rupert, a 2006 graduate of Berkley Law School, joined NCLR in 2010 as federal policy director because of her sister.
“My work for the LGBT community came from my sister and wanting to do something that would be meaningful and impact a number of lives, hers included,” Rupert told Hello Beautiful. “The question that NCLR always asks is who’s being left out of the conversation, so this is an organization that’s specifically being active about being proactive for people who are a part of marginalized communities and so many other issues that we talk about and think about.”
Rupert took that fight against discrimination through an intersectional lens to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development where she became a Senior Policy Advisor to HUD Sec. Julian Castro. She pointed out, for instance, that while the seemingly neutral Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion and other categories, it does not include protection for people with a personal criminal background.
Rupert – a widely honored writer with such essays as “Imagining a Black Wonder Woman,” “This ‘cool black girl’ is gone,” and “Nothing defensible about DOMA” –subsequently became Castro’s campaign manager when he announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
When Rupert-Gordon settles into her new San Francisco-based job next March, she will be leaving Chicago and coming home to California. Born in Bedford Heights, Ohio 40 years ago last April 17, Rupert-Gordon grew up in Yucca Valley.
“My experience was very much in the Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley County where I grew up, went to elementary school and high school,” she says. Upon graduation, she went to school near San Diego until her sister went to UC Santa Barbara. “I transferred to UC Santa Barbara with her by the winter. My sister and I are very, very close,” she says.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, Rupert-Gordon went to the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she worked in residential life for almost eight years, lectured, and cofounded the Social Fiction Conference, which uses science fiction as a lens through which to view bias and injustice.
Though happy there, she started thinking about going to graduate school. “When I was thinking about what it is that I loved, I really enjoyed working with folks as they’re sort of working through things themselves,” something she experienced as a student navigating life without a cohesive bridge between her academic and non-academic worlds.
Rupert-Gordon intended to get her master’s degree in social work through an online program but her then-girlfriend, now wife Derah (38) encouraged her to go to graduate school and have a great experience as she had. Derah promised to move with her to a big city where advertising jobs were more readily available than in Santa Cruz.
Imani Rupert-Gordon with wife Derah Rupert-Gordon (Photo courtesy Rupert-Gordon)
“When there’s this person you want to spend your life with who just wants more for you than you do with yourself in that moment — and that’s how I really thought of that — we went to Chicago,” where she earned her master’s degree from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.
But upon graduation, Rupert-Gordon found it hard to find a job. She landed at Broadway Youth Center providing therapy to LGBTQ youth. But she grew restless. “I felt like I still had things to give, but I didn’t feel like the things that I had to give were as unique in such a way that no one else could do that,” she says.
Fortuitously, the executive director of Affinity Community Services — the nation’s oldest Black LGBTQ social justice organization — was leaving and encouraged her to take the job. She’s been there for four years.
Now Rupert-Gordon thinks she has something to give the national movement.
“I think that as we’re working to do more inclusive and more intersectional work, that I have something to provide here,” she says. “I’m really excited about working specifically at a law firm where we’re going to be integrating litigation and legislation and policies and public education. I think working to create an integrative approach is something that social workers do often. So, I’m excited to bring that perspective to NCLR.”
That includes frank discussions about social justice issues.
“I’ve experienced overt racism before,” though that experience is not always as relevant to the way she approaches race politics, Rupert-Gordon says. “Overt racism is sometimes easier to confront because most people understand overt racism as racism. For instance, if someone says ‘the N-word,’ most people recognize that as racism.
“What I experienced growing up,” she continues, “is people explaining that ‘You’re not like other Black people, you’re cool,’ or saying something like, ‘You don’t sound Black.’ I knew that these people were trying to compliment me, but it didn’t feel like a compliment. What they were saying hurt and I didn’t always have the language to explain why it hurt.
“Systemic and institutional oppression often requires a more thoughtful and nuanced analysis because not everyone recognizes it as oppression,” Rupert-Gordon says. “I’m interested in the systems in place that support oppression. For example, the G.I. Bill made it possible for folks to really buy homes for the first time, but loans from the FHA were given to people based on race and subsequently the equity in those homes were then attached to race—and that is just one example of how generational economic mobility is attached to race in this country.
“So when people talk about people with low incomes being ‘lazy,’ I’m frustrated because there is something systemic being ignored —and that is not a little thing. That’s a big thing. And that narrative is untrue, and dangerous,” she says. “So when I think of racism, or any oppression, I don’t necessarily think about individual events that happened to me but systematic ways that people experience oppression based on identity. I’m not saying that racism is the exact same as heterosexism or sexism. I’m saying that we are missing something if we don’t think about the institutional, systemic dynamic.”
And, says Rupert-Gordon, “if we don’t consider institutional oppression within the LGBTQ movement, then folks that experience multiple jeopardy or oppression because of multiple parts of our identity, will not be able to fully benefit from the wins of the LGBTQ movement. Our movement has to be intersectional if we are going to achieve equality.”
Rupert-Gordon had to use her own critical thinking to grasp the concept of “intersectionality.”
“It’s an experience I had growing up [in Yucca Valley] that I didn’t have a word for. When I think about my first understanding of intersectionality,” she says, “it was when we were talking about the Constitution,” and the different times Black people and women were given the right to vote. “They had this conversation as if there were no Black people that were women, and I was the only one, and I think that’s how my teacher at the time was just talking about that.
“I remember being incredibly confused — when does that mean that I would be able to vote?” Rupert-Gordon continues. “I just realized that I didn’t know how to ask the question, and I was the only one that would’ve asked the question. I knew that I was the only one that was having this experience.”
Later, she learned the term “intersectional,” a term developed in 1989, that became “really everywhere for me,” and still is.
People under-represented identities are talked about “as if we can segment the parts of our identity and we can talk about it, just one thing,” Rupert-Gordon says. “The thing is — I can’t talk about being a queer person without my experience being a Black woman. All of those things happen together. And so, when the expectation is for me to separate it, that’s not something I can do.” She wants to talk about “how someone can bring their entire self, their entire experience and be represented in this movement.”
But, Rupert-Gordon adds, “representation is important, but representation doesn’t shift cultures. It doesn’t change institutions. It doesn’t shift the power dynamic. And so, it would mean putting the education in schools [and] changing the culture fundamentally,” realizing, for instance, that while history is a mandatory course, Black history is an elective.
“I’m a Black, queer woman. There was definitely a time in the feminist movement that I wasn’t included in that. When we looked back on the first and second waves of feminism, many of us are ashamed that it looked the way that it did, and when we think about being inclusive about what our feminism looks like, we have an opportunity to mention that are learning from the past, and we are including more,” says Rupert-Gordon. “I’m sympathetic when folks explain that they feel like they’re going to be left out of the movement because, the thing is — many of us have been left out of a movement, and we are sometimes just terrified that that will happen again, that we would be ignored in the movement.
Rupert-Gordon is blunt. “There is enough equality to go around, and that’s what I want to make sure that we are paying attention to — that we’re all going to be better when we’re all better,” she says. “Once upon a time, my Blackness made someone question how much of a woman I could be. Any time you’re in a situation where you’re having people question your gender or if you belong somewhere, then that hurts all of us. Our feminism and our movement has to be thoughtful around that.”
The “future core for our movement,” she says, “absolutely has to become a racial justice movement. It has to become an economic justice movement. It has to become a gender justice movement. It doesn’t help when we are working to fight for protection and to provide support and liberation for all LGBTQ folks if people aren’t able to fully access them because they experience racism or they don’t have the economic power to utilize or appreciate what’s happening. We have to work with folks that are at the margins, people that are experiencing discrimination at multiple levels. Because when we start working with folks that are experiencing the most amount of discrimination, if we start from those folks, everyone will benefit from what we do.”
Rupert-Gordon says she doesn’t have all the answers but she knows it starts with working in coalition, with everyone working to achieve the same goal. But it’s more, going beyond inclusion.
“Inclusion is getting everyone to the table,” she says. “It’s providing perspective. But it doesn’t get that power shift. That is what’s going to need to happen. We’re going to need to shift power” to create a movement that’s more economically just, more gender inclusive and picks leaders who “can actually lift up our entire movement.”
Rupert-Gordon says she’s already having discussions about this transformation, including with NCLR’s renowned legal director, Shannon Minter.
“Shannon is also an icon, so I definitely have had conversations with Shannon about this — about sort of what’s next and being really thoughtful, really strategic in finding new ways to be successful in supporting this community,” especially since President Donald Trump has remade the judiciary to be more conservative and anti-LGBTQ.
“When we think about being more inclusive, we’re looking at a variety of things that keep folks in places of oppression,” she says. “We’re thinking about issues that people don’t necessarily think about being LGBTQ issues — things like voter suppression and criminalization of sex work. When we think about prison systems in juvenile justice and folks in foster care systems, there are many things that are keeping folks from being free.”
Kendell is “over the moon” about Rupert-Gordon leading NCLR into the future.
“What she brings is a lived experience of what we popularly call ‘intersectionality.’ It’s not an experience that is intellectual, although it might have pieces of that. It’s not an experience that is scholarly, although it likely has that. It’s not an experience that is born of empathy, although certainly there will be some of that, too,” Kendell tells the Los Angeles Blade, as if rhetorically handing off the mantle.
“It is an experience as a Black lesbian, of understanding that the world every LGBTQ person deserves is a world where every piece of themselves is integrated, seen, valued and acknowledged and appreciated,” says Kendell. “And it is a unique life experience that queer people of color possess and that is so much about where the movement is headed next that will make Imani exactly the kind of leader to keep NCLR current and relevant and to assure that the movement is a movement for the entire queer community, not just certain segments.”
Rupert-Gordon is not cavalier about the work ahead. “Trust is not something I take for granted. It’s something you have to work for,” she says. “I have a commitment to radical transparency. I want to be part of transforming our movement so that it includes more of us.”
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.
National
Reports of hate-filled messages under investigation
Racist, homophobic, messages reported across the U.S. following presidential election
On Friday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation stated they are now investigating a series of racist and offensive messages sent to LGBTQ+ communities and communities of color around the country. At first, text messages were targeted at Black Americans and African Americans, then the wave of hateful digital rhetoric spread to target the LGBTQ+ and Latin American communities.
Earlier this month, the initial text messages were sent out to Black American and African American people regarding a fake work assignment that suggested they were going to be working as slaves in a plantation. College students, high school students, professionals and even children, reported receiving the mass texts from unrecognized phone numbers following the presidential election.
Since then, at least 30 states throughout the nation have reported cases of similar messages containing hate-filled speech, according to CNN.
According to the report issued by the FBI, the texts and emails that target the LGBTQ+ and Latin American communities stated that the receivers of these messages were selected for deportation or to report to re-education camps.
The Federal Communications Commission’s enforcement bureau is investigating the text messages. Chair Jessica Rosenworcel issued a statement regarding the texts.
“These messages are unacceptable,” said Rosenworcel. “That’s why our Enforcement Bureau is already investigating and looking into them alongside federal and state law enforcement. We take this type of targeting very seriously.”
The FBI reports that though they have not received reports of violence related to the messages, they are working with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, to evaluate all reported incidents across the U.S.
Last year, the Leadership Conference Education Fund launched a report stating that hate crimes increase during elections, pointing to white supremacists being particularly active during the past four presidential election cycles.
A portion of the report reads: “The Trump candidacy empowered white nationalists and provided them with a platform — one they had been seeking with renewed intensity since the historic election of America’s first Black president in 2008. Since 2015, communities across the country have experienced some of the most violent and deadliest years for hate in modern history.”
If you have received a similar text or email, you can report it here.
Federal Government
House races could decide Department of Education’s future
Second Trump administration could target transgender students
The Associated Press reports that more than a dozen races for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, including 10 for congressional districts in California, remain too close to call as of Tuesday — a full week after voters cast their ballots on Nov. 5.
Democrats hope that if they can flip the lower chamber, which is now governed by a narrow Republican majority, it might function as a bulwark against President-elect Donald Trump, his incoming administration, and the 53-47 majority in the U.S. Senate that his party secured last week.
If, on the other hand, the GOP retains control of the House, the Republican victory would clear a major roadblock that could otherwise have stymied a major plank of Trump’s education agenda: Plans to permanently shutter the U.S. Department of Education.
Congress ultimately scuttled the former president’s effort to do so during his first administration — though, technically, the proposal then was to merge the agency with the U.S. Department of Labor.
The Wall Street Journal notes that some Republicans, at the time and in the years since, have come out against plans to abolish the 44-year-old agency, in some cases even objecting to major funding cuts proposed by Trump that they understood were likely be unpopular.
However, if the second term plans for DOE as delineated in the Trump campaign’s Agenda47 and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 governing blueprint become a major policy priority once the incoming administration takes over in January, reluctant Republican lawmakers will face tremendous pressure to get out of Trump’s way.
Federal government will remain in schools to advance anti-trans, anti-woke agenda
Among other responsibilities, DOE disburses and manages student loans, enforces the civil rights laws in public schools, and provides funding for students with disabilities. The agency’s programs, such as Title I, offer assistance for low-achieving or high-poverty K-12 schools, while Pell Grants help undergraduates who otherwise would not be able to pay for college.
It is unclear whether or how those functions will continue if the DOE is disbanded.
Trump’s aim, at least in large part, is to give states — rather than the federal government — the ultimate say over how their schools are run. At the same time, perhaps paradoxically, the other cornerstone of his education policy agenda is to issue proscriptive rules governing the content, curricula, and classroom discussion that will be permitted in the country’s public schools.
Specifically, this means “critical race theory, gender ideology or other inappropriate racial, sexual or political” topics or materials are forbidden. Reasonable people are likely to disagree about what is and is not “inappropriate,” and they may well have different, even disparate, definitions for terms like “gender ideology.”
When Florida and other states enacted similar anti-LGBTQ content and curricular restrictions in their public schools, critics warned the ambiguous language in the statute and the resulting confusion would lead to censorship, or perhaps self-censorship, especially for students and staff who, by virtue of their skin color or sexual orientation or gender identity, are more likely to be targeted with targeted or overzealous enforcement in the first place.
DOE plays major role investigating alleged civil rights violations in schools
According to the National Education Association, “federal civil rights laws prohibit school boards and other employers from discriminating against or harassing staff or students based on their sexual orientation or gender identity,” which “means, for example, that a school district may not prohibit only LGBTQ+ educators from answering students’ questions about their families, may not prohibit recognition and discussion in class only of LGBTQ+ families, and may not require that only LGBTQ+ students hide their sexual orientation or gender identity at school.”
However, the NEA warns, “some school districts, administrators, and the Florida Department of Education may nonetheless choose to do so until a court orders otherwise.”
If officials at a public high school allow heterosexual teachers to display family photos in their classrooms but warn the openly gay teacher that he must put his away or be terminated for violating restrictions on in-school discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, the manner in which the policy was enforced against him would presumably run afoul of the federal civil rights laws, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The teacher could assume the expense of hiring an attorney to pursue legal remedies, shouldering the burden and the risk that litigation that could drag on for months and conclude with a judgment in favor of his employer. Alternatively, until or unless Trump dissolves the agency, he could file a complaint with DOE’s Office of Civil Rights.
Alternatively, until or unless Trump dissolves the agency, the teacher could file a complaint with DOE. The agency’s Office of Civil Rights would evaluate the information he shared to determine whether there were sufficient grounds to open an investigation and, if so, would deploy “a variety of fact-finding techniques” that can include a review of documentary evidence submitted by both parties, interviews with key witnesses, and site visits.
After the investigation is complete, if a “preponderance of the evidence supports a conclusion that the recipient failed to comply with the law,” OCR will attempt to negotiate a resolution agreement. If the recipient refuses to resolve the matter in this manner, OCR can “suspend, terminate, or refuse to grant or continue federal financial assistance to the recipient, or may refer the case to the Department of Justice.”
According to the DOE’s website, the agency has 11,782 investigations that were open as of Tuesday, with complaints against institutions of all kinds operating in all 50 states, from rural elementary schools in the Deep South to prestigious medical schools, community colleges, and charter schools for students with developmental disabilities. Likewise, the six civil rights laws over which OCR has jurisdiction cover a wide range of conduct, from sexual harassment to discrimination, retaliation, and single-sex athletics scholarships.
Should Trump succeed in abolishing the department, it is not yet clear how those active investigations will be handled, nor how complaints about violations of civil rights law by educational institutions would be reported and investigated moving forward in the agency’s absence.
During his first administration, Trump passed proposed changes to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which retooled the process for reporting sexual assault on college campuses in ways that were widely seen as imbalanced in favor of the accused.
President Joe Biden in April issued new guidelines that featured “significant shifts in how institutions address sexual harassment, and assault allegations while expanding protections for LGBTQ+ and pregnant students,” the American Council on Education wrote. Specifically, the administration provided a “new definition of sexual harassment, extending jurisdiction to off-campus, and international incidents,” while “clarifying protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, and parenting status.”
The regulations sidestepped thornier questions, however, about how schools should approach issues at the intersection of gender identity and competitive sports, specifying only that they should avoid bans that would categorically prohibit transgender athletes from participating.
Shortly after the Biden administration’s guidelines were introduced, Trump vowed they would be “terminated” on his first day in office. He also pledged to enact anti-trans policies that appear to have been modeled after some of the most extreme of the roughly 1,600 anti-trans bills that conservative statehouses have proposed from 2021-2024.
Among other promises Trump made during the campaign were plans to enact a nationwide ban on trans student athletes competing in accordance with their gender identity, a federal law that would recognize only two genders, and the prosecution of health care providers who administer gender affirming care to patients younger than 18.
National
Trump refers to Anderson Cooper as ‘Allison’
Crude insults continue in effort to attract male voters
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump referred repeatedly over the weekend to CNN’s Anderson Cooper as “Allison Cooper.”
Cooper, one of the nation’s most prominent openly gay television anchors, moderated a town hall last week with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump last Friday called Anderson “Allison” in a social media post, then used the moniker again at a Michigan rally.
“If you watched her being interviewed by Allison Cooper the other night, he’s a nice person. You know Allison Cooper? CNN fake news,” Trump said, before adding, “Oh, she said no, his name is Anderson. Oh, no.”
Trump repeated the name during another Michigan rally on Saturday, according to the Associated Pres, then followed it up during a reference in Pennsylvania. “They had a town hall,” Trump said in Michigan. “Even Allison Cooper was embarrassed by it. He was embarrassed by it.”
Describing Anderson Cooper as female plays into offensive and stereotypical depictions of gay men as effeminate as Trump continues to pursue the so-called “bro vote,” amping up crude and vulgar displays in an effort to appeal to male voters.
National
HRC rallies LGBTQ voters in 12 states ahead of Election Day
10 Days of Action campaign targets pro-equality candidate
The Human Rights Campaign said it filled 1,426 new volunteer shifts and held 174 events across key swing states between Oct. 10-20 as part of its 10 Days of Action campaign.
The LGBTQ civil rights advocacy group is working to mobilize and turn out voters in support of pro-equality and LGBTQ candidates, including the Harris-Walz ticket, on Election Day.
HRC reported exceeding its recruitment goals, noting the strong response across the 12 states as a “clear and resounding message” that LGBTQ and allied voters are energized to back the Harris-Walz ticket.
To kick off the 10 Days of Action, Gwen Walz, the spouse of Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, spoke at a Philadelphia event that HRC and the Out for Harris-Walz coalition hosted on Oct. 10.
Walz highlighted her husband’s long-standing support for LGBTQ issues, such as his role in fighting to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in Congress and banning so-called conversion therapy as governor, according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
Other events launched canvassing efforts for Senate candidates, such as U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), along with House candidates, such as Will Rollins and Mondaire Jones in California and New York respectively.
A virtual organizing call on Oct. 11 that the Out for Harris-Walz coalition hosted featured prominent figures, including actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Andy Cohen, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), and Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride, who is running for Congress.
To close out the 10 Days of Action, HRC President Kelley Robinson canvassed with LGBTQ organizers in Phoenix on Oct. 20.
In a statement, Robinson said the campaign’s work is “far from over.”
“We plan to spend every day until the election making sure everyone we know is registered to vote and has a plan to vote because no one is going to give us the future we deserve — we have to fight for it and show America that when we show up, equality wins,” she said. “Together, we will elect pro-equality leaders like Vice President Harris and Governor Walz who value our communities and are ready to lead us forward with more freedom and opportunity.”
A September HRC poll found that LGBTQ voters favor Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the presidential race by a nearly 67-point margin.
National
73 percent of LGBTQ community centers face harassment: Report
Findings show threats triggered by ‘anti-LGBTQ politics or rhetoric’
The biennial 2024 LGBTQ Community Center Survey Report, which was released Oct. 16, shows that 73 percent of 199 U.S.-based LGBTQ community centers that participated in the survey reported they had experienced anti-LGBTQ threats or harassment during the past two years.
The survey, which included LGBTQ centers in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, is prepared by the Fort Lauderdale-based CenterLink, which provides services and support for LGBTQ community centers; and the Boulder, Colo.-based Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a research organization that focuses on social justice issues impacting the LGBTQ community.
“The biennial survey series started in 2008 and highlights the crucial role these centers play in the broader LGBTQ movement, offering an invaluable link between LGBTQ people and local, state, and national efforts to advance LGBTQ equality,” a statement released by the two organizations says.
The statement and the findings in the report point out that most of the LGBTQ centers that faced anti-LGBTQ threats or harassment said they were triggered by “anti-LGBTQ politics and rhetoric” that has surfaced across the country in the past several years.
“As attacks on LGBTQ people escalate year after year, we applaud these centers’ ongoing dedication to serving on the front lines – meeting both the immediate and long-term needs of LGBTQ people, their families, and their communities across the country,” Tessa Juste, a Movement Advancement Project official, said in the statement.
“This report illustrates the vital difference these centers make in people’s everyday lives, while also highlighting the urgent need for continued funding and support of these centers and the lifelines they provide,” Juste said.
“A majority of centers said they had experienced these threats or harassment offline (63 percent of centers) as well as online (68 percent),” the report states. “Almost half of centers (47 percent) said they had experienced both online and offline harassment in the past two years,” the report says.
“Numerous centers mentioned in open-ended comments that these threats or harassment were specifically in response to anti-LGBTQ politics or rhetoric (77 percent), transgender-related events or programs (50 percent), and youth-related programming (42 percent), again reflecting the current political environment and its targeted attacks on LGBTQ and specifically transgender youth,” according to the report.
Although the report lists in its appendix the names of each of the 199 LGBTQ community centers that participated in the survey, it does not disclose the names and locations of the LGBTQ centers that reported receiving threats or harassment.
Dana Juniel, director of communications for the Movement Advancement Project, told the Washington Blade in a statement that the two organizations that conducted the survey have a policy of not disclosing the centers’ responses to specific questions in the survey.
“Not identifying the specific centers has been our policy since the inception of this report and it is a typical policy for this type of report,” Juniel said. “It’s important to understand that the goal of the survey is to better understand the landscape and capacity of the movement as a whole, not to identify gaps or challenges for specific organizations,” she said.
The report shows that among the LGBTQ community centers that participated in the 2023-2024 survey were the D.C. Center for the LGBTQ Community; the D.C. LGBTQ youth advocacy group SMYAL, which the report lists as an LGBTQ center; the Delmarva Pride Center in Easton, Md.; the Frederick Center in Frederick, Md.; the CAMP Rehoboth LGBTQ center in Rehoboth Beach, Del.; the Sussex Pride center also in Delaware; and LGBTQ centers in Virginia based in the cities of Richmond, Norfolk, Winchester, Oakton, and Staunton.
Spokespersons for the D.C. Center and CAMP Rehoboth did not immediately respond to a Blade inquiry on whether they were among the centers that experienced threats or harassment. Sussex Pride Executive Director David Mariner told the Blade that his center was among those that had not received anti-LGBTQ threats or harassment in the past two years.
The Blade reported in August of this year that D.C. police were investigating threats made against SMYAL following the publication of an article criticizing SMYAL’s programs supporting LGBTQ youth in the conservative online publication Townhall.com. A D.C. police report said the threats were reported by SMYAL Executive Director Erin Whelan.
The statement released by CenterLink and Movement Advancement Project also points out that the LGBTQ center survey shows LGBTQ community centers in the U.S. serve more than 58,700 people each week, or three million people each year, “with many centers primarily serving people and communities that are historically under-resourced and under-served, including low-income, people of color, transgender people, and those under the age of 18.”
Denise Spivak, CEO of CenterLink, says in the joint statement that the report “is a crucial guidepost for us to see the positive impact of LGBTQ centers across the U.S. as well as what areas need additional resources.” She added, “As we celebrate our 30th anniversary, this report makes clear the importance of LGBTQ centers in our communities.”
Among other things, the report includes these findings:
• 66 percent of LGBTQ community centers directly provide physical health, mental health, and/or anti-violence services or programs
• Half of the centers (50 percent) offer computer resources or services to the public, providing needed tools for job searching, career development, social services, and schoolwork.
• Nearly all centers (92 percent) engage in advocacy, public policy, or civic engagement activities across a wide range of issues and areas.
• While nearly half of all centers remain thinly staffed, 84 percent of responding centers employ paid staff, providing jobs to 3,100 people.
• In 2023, roughly 11,600 people volunteered more than 421,000 hours at responding community centers, helping centers with and without paid staff to significantly expand their reach and impact.
The 2024 LGBTQ Community Center Survey Report can be accessed here.
Federal Government
Pentagon gives honorable discharges to 800+ LGBTQ+ veterans
Administration has committed to remedying harms of anti-LGBTQ military policies
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday announced the Pentagon has upgraded the paperwork of more than 800 veterans who were discharged other than honorably before discriminatory policies like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” were repealed.
“More than 96 percent of the individuals who were administratively separated under DADT and who served for long enough to receive a merit-based characterization of service now have an honorable characterization of service,” said Christa Specht, director of legal policy at the department’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.
The change will allow veterans to access benefits they had been denied, in areas from health care and college tuition assistance to VA loan programs and some jobs.
Separately, this summer President Joe Biden issued pardons to service members who had been convicted for sodomy before military laws criminalizing same-sex intimacy were lifted.
More than a decade after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the administration has made a priority of helping LGBTQ+ veterans who are eligible to upgrade their discharge papers, directing the department to help them overcome bureaucratic barriers and difficult-to-navigate processes.
However, as noted by CBS News, which documented the challenges faced by these former service members in a comprehensive investigation published last year, these efforts are ongoing.
The department is continuing to review cases beyond the 800+ included in Tuesday’s announcement, with an official telling CBS, “We encourage all veterans who believe they have suffered an error or injustice to request a correction to their military records.”
National
Detroit teen arrested in fatal stabbing of gay man
Prosecutor says defendant targeted victim from online dating app
A 17-year-old Detroit man has been charged with first-degree murder for the Sept. 24 stabbing death of a 64-year-old gay man that prosecutors say he met through an online dating app.
A statement released by the Wayne County, Mich., Prosecutor’s Office says Ahmed Al-Alikhan allegedly fatally stabbed Howard Brisendine inside Brisendine’s home in Detroit before he allegedly took the victim’s car keys and stole the car.
The statement says police arrived on the scene about 4:04 p.m. on Sept. 29 after receiving a call about a deceased person found in their home. Upon arrival police found Brisentine deceased in his living room suffering from multiple stab wounds, the statement says.
“It is alleged that the defendant targeted the victim on an online dating app because he was a member of the LGBTQ community,” according to the prosecutor’s statement.
“It is further alleged that on Sept. 24, 2024, at the victim’s residence in the 6000 block of Minock Street in Detroit, the defendant stabbed the victim multiple times, fatally injuring him, before taking the victim’s car keys and fleeing the scene in his vehicle,” it says.
It further states that Al-Alikhan was first taken into custody by police in Dearborn, Mich., and later turned over to the Detroit police on Oct. 1. The statement doesn’t say how police learned that Al-Alikhan was the suspected perpetrator.
In addition to first-degree murder, Al-Alikhan has been charged with felony murder and unlawful driving away in an automobile.
“It is hard to fathom a more planned series of events in this case,” prosecutor Kym Worthy said in the statement. “Unfortunately, the set of alleged facts are far too common in the LGBTQ community,” Worthy said. “We will bring justice to Mr. Brisendine. The defendant is 17 years and 11 months old – mere weeks away from being an adult offender under the law.”
She added, “As a result of that and the heinous nature of this crime, we will seek to try him as an adult.”
A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said the office has not designated the incident as a hate crime, but said regardless of that designation, a conviction of first-degree murder could result in a sentence of life in prison. The spokesperson, Maria Lewis, said the prosecutor’s office was not initially disclosing the name of the dating app through which the two men met, but said that would be disclosed in court as the case proceeds.
The NBC affiliate station in Detroit, WDIV TV, reported that Brisendine was found deceased by Luis Mandujano, who lives near where Brisendine lived and who owns the Detroit gay bar Gigi’s, where Brisendine worked as a doorman. The NBC station report says Mandujano said he went to Brisendine’s house on Sept. 29 after Brisendine did not show up for work and his car was not at his house.
Mandujano, who is organizing a GoFundMe fundraising effort for Brisendine, states in his message on the GoFundMe site that Brisendine worked as a beloved doorman at Gigi’s bar.
“We will do what we can to honor Howard’s life as we put him to rest,” Mandujano states in his GoFundMe message. “He left the material world in a volatile manner at the hand of a monster that took his life for being gay. Let’s not allow hate to win!”
In response to a Facebook message from the Washington Blade, a spokesperson for Gigi’s said the money raised from the GoFundMe effort will be used for Brisendine’s funeral expenses and his “remaining bills.” The spokesperson, who didn’t disclose their name, added, “Any leftover money will be donated to local LGBTQ nonprofit groups to combat hate.”
The GoFundMe site can be accessed here.
Congress
Baldwin attacked over LGBTQ rights support as race narrows
Wis. Democrat facing off against Republican Eric Hovde
As her race against Republican challenger Eric Hovde tightens, with Cook Political Report projecting a toss-up in November, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) is fielding attacks over her support for LGBTQ rights.
Two recent ads run by the Senate Leadership Fund, a superPAC that works to elect Republicans to the chamber, take aim at her support for gender affirming care and an LGBTQ center in Wisconsin. Baldwin was the first openly LGBTQ candidate elected to the Senate.
The first ad concerns her statement of support for Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’s veto of a Republican-led bill to ban medically necessary healthcare interventions for transgender youth in the state.
Treatments require parental consent for patients younger than 18, and genital surgeries are not performed on minors in Wisconsin.
The second ad concerns funding that Baldwin had earmarked for Briarpatch Youth Services, an organization that provides crucial services for at-risk and homeless young people, with some programming for LGBTQ youth.
Baldwin’s victory is seen as key for Democrats to retain control of the Senate, a tall order that would require them to defend a handful of vulnerable incumbents. U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, an Independent who usually votes with the Democrats, is retiring after this term and his replacement is expected to be the state’s Republican Gov. Jim Justice.
National
Supreme Court begins fall term with major gender affirming care case on the docket
Justices rule against Biden admin over emergency abortion question
The U.S. Supreme Court’s fall term began on Monday with major cases on the docket including U.S. v Skrmetti, which could decide the fate of 24 state laws banning the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors.
First, however, the justices dealt another blow to the Biden-Harris administration and reproductive rights advocates by leaving in place a lower court order that blocked efforts by the federal government to allow hospitals to terminate pregnancies in medical emergencies.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had issued a guidance instructing healthcare providers to offer abortions in such circumstances, per the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which kicked off litigation over whether the law overrides state abortion restrictions.
The U.S. Court of appeals for the 5th Circuit had upheld a decision blocking the federal government from enforcing the law via the HHS guidance, and the U.S. Department of Justice subsequently asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
The justices also declined to hear a free speech case in which parents challenged a DOJ memo instructing officials to look into threats against public school officials, which sparked false claims that parents were being labeled “domestic terrorists” for raising objections at school board meetings over, especially, COVID policies and curricula and educational materials addressing matters of race, sexuality, and gender.
Looking to the cases ahead, U.S. v. Skrmetti is “obviously the blockbuster case of the term,” a Supreme Court practitioner and lecturer at the Harvard law school litigation clinic told NPR.
The attorney, Deepak Gupta, said the litigation “presents fundamental questions about the scope of state power to regulate medical care for minors, and the rights of parents to make medical decisions for your children.”
The ACLU, which represents parties in the case, argues that Tennessee’s gender affirming care ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by allowing puberty blockers and hormone treatments for cisgender patients younger than 18 while prohibiting these interventions for their transgender counterparts.
The organization notes that “leading medical experts and organizations — such as the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics — oppose these restrictions, which have already forced thousands of families across the country to travel to maintain access to medical care or watch their child suffer without it.”
When passing their bans on gender affirming care, conservative states have cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), which overturned constitutional protections for abortion that were in place since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
The ACLU notes “U.S. v. Skrmetti will be a major test of how far the court is willing to stretch Dobbs to allow states to ban other health care” including other types of reproductive care like IVF and birth control.
Also on the docket in the months ahead are cases that will decide core questions about the government’s ability to regulate “ghost guns,” firearms that are made with build-it-yourself kits available online, and the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring age verification to access pornography.
The latter case drew opposition from liberal and conservative groups that argue it will have a chilling effect on adults who, as NPR wrote, “would realistically fear extortion, identity theft and even tracking of their habits by the government and others.”
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