National
Welcome to the U.S.
LGBTQ asylum seekers closer to a new life but challenges remain
MATAMOROS, Mexico — Natasha is a transgender woman from Honduras’ Olancho department.
She arrived in Matamoros, a Mexican border city that is across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, on Oct. 12, 2019. Natasha, who fled persecution because of her gender identity, asked for asylum in the U.S., but the Trump administration forced her to pursue her case in Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols program it implemented in June 2019.
Natasha lived in a migrant camp near the Gateway International Bridge over the Rio Grande that connects Matamoros and Brownsville for 11 months until last November when she moved into a shelter run by Rainbow Bridge Asylum Seekers, a program for LGBTQ asylum seekers and migrants that Resource Center Matamoros, a group that provides assistance to asylum seekers and migrants in the Mexican border city, helped create.
“We can’t live in our countries,” Natasha told the Blade on Feb. 27 during an interview at the Rainbow Bridge shelter, which is less than a mile from the Gateway International Bridge. “That’s why we entered the United States, to ask for refuge, and they sent us here to Mexico.”
Natasha entered the U.S. on March 10. She is now in North Carolina.
The Biden administration in January suspended enrollment in MPP.
The first asylum seekers with active MPP cases arrived at ports of entry in Brownsville and El Paso, Texas, and San Ysidro, Calif. on Feb. 25.
Estuardo Cifuentes, a gay asylum seeker from Guatemala who ran the Rainbow Bridge shelter, lived in Matamoros for 19 months under MPP until he entered the U.S. on March 3. Two other asylum seekers who lived at the shelter — including Janeth, a trans woman from Cuba who arrived in Matamoros on May 27, 2019 — are now in the country. Janeth is now living with relatives in Miami.
“Discrimination, transphobia, homophobia, police abuse, police persecution and all these aggressions that are directed toward my community are the reasons that force us to leave,” Janeth told the Blade at the Rainbow Bridge shelter, referring to what prompted her to leave Cuba. “They almost expel us.”
The Biden administration allowed asylum seekers with MPP cases who lived in the Matamoros camp to enter the U.S. at the Brownsville port of entry first.
The process to enter the U.S. begins when an asylum seeker signs up online via a U.N. Refugee Agency website. A UNHCR representative then calls them to verify their personal information and provides them with a time to present themselves at the Gateway International Bridge.
The International Organization for Migration tests asylum seekers for the coronavirus, and they must test negative before they enter the U.S. They then board a bus that brings them to the Brownsville port of entry on the other side of the bridge. U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel process them before they are brought to Brownsville’s main bus station, which is a couple of blocks away from the CBP station.
Gaby Zavala, a bisexual woman who founded Resource Center Matamoros, and other local activists who include Cindy Candia of Angry Tias and Abuelas, a group that assists migrants and asylum seekers in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, offer the asylum seekers legal advice and help them buy bus tickets once they arrive at the bus station. Michael Benavides, a gay man who co-founded Team Brownsville, and Felicia RangelSamporano, founder of the Sidewalk School for Children Asylum Seekers, which taught children who lived in the Matamoros camp, have also helped the asylum seekers once they entered the U.S.
“It’s surreal to think that it’s actually happening,” Zavala told the Blade on Feb. 26 during an interview at a Mexican restaurant near the Brownsville bus station. “[It is] something that we hoped for.”
Zavala noted the border “is still closed to new immigration,” even though MPP has been suspended and the Biden administration has begun to allow asylum seekers with active cases under the Trump-era program into the U.S. Zavala on Wednesday acknowledged asylum seekers and migrants will continue to travel to the border, regardless of the policies the U.S. puts in place.
“The border between Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Tamaulipas, has always been a major route for immigrants in search of asylum in the United States of America,” she said. “The service of NGOs, those that sponsor projects like Resource Center Matamoros, is detrimental for asylum seekers as they arrive to the border because we are constantly conforming to ever-changing US immigration policies.”
The Associated Press on Tuesday reported more than 4,000 migrant children are currently in U.S. Border Control custody, as the number of migrants at the Southern border continues to grow.
The Department of Health and Human Services has announced it plans to open shelters in Texas and California in the coming days to allow migrant children to leave ill-equipped Border Patrol stations. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was born in Cuba, on Tuesday in a statement acknowledged the Biden administration continues to “expel” most single adults and families “apprehended at the southwest border” under Title 42, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rule that closed the border to most asylum seekers and migrants because of the pandemic.
“We are expelling most single adults and families,” said Mayorkas. “We are not expelling unaccompanied children.”
“We are securing our border, executing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) public health authority to safeguard the American public and the migrants themselves, and protecting the children,” he added. “We have more work to do.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and 12 other House Republicans on Monday traveled to El Paso, which is across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The delegation did not include U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who represents El Paso.
McCarthy and other Republicans have sharply criticized President Biden for beginning the process to reverse the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies. Activists who work with LGBTQ asylum seekers and migrants told the Blade on Tuesday the situation on the Southern border remains complex.
“Republicans want this to be scary Brown people about to invade, which it’s not,” said Emem Maurus, a supervising attorney for the Transgender Law Center, told the Blade during a telephone interview from the Mexican border city of Tijuana where he works with LGBTQ asylum seekers. “But you got to figure that Trump effectively blocked migration for upwards of three years and Title 42 has been incredibly successfully in really stopping people, so you have a huge number of people.”
“If there’s a crisis, it was very meticulously created by Stephen Miller,” he added. “It was very intentionally created.”
Maurus told the Blade that two of his gay clients in Tijuana with active MPP cases have been “able to get out, but we’ve got a couple others who really need to and haven’t been called yet.”
“The two that I’m waiting on have just gone through hell,” said Maurus. “They should have been first.”
Maurus highlighted the case of 17 LGBTQ Jamaican asylum seekers in Tijuana whose request to enter the U.S. on humanitarian parole has been denied. Maurus told the Blade that each of them has a sponsor, lawyer and a place to live once they arrive in the country.
“I can bring all of them in with a COVID test,” he said. “All of them are represented. There is no reason they couldn’t be let in tomorrow.”
Abdiel Echevarría-Cabán, a South Texas-based immigration attorney who is also a human rights law and policy expert, on Tuesday said he welcomes “the end of MPP by the Biden administration.” Echevarría-Cabán nevertheless added “the process has been hectic and there is a lot of confusion among refugees that lost their cases while in MPP who didn’t have access to an attorney or couldn’t gather the evidence they needed to prove their cases living under severe danger and inhumane conditions.”
Echevarría-Cabán said one of his clients, a gay Cuban man, entered the U.S. on the same day the Biden administration announced it had suspended MPP.
Drug cartels, according to Echevarría-Cabán, threatened to kill his client if he didn’t pay them extortion money. Echevarría-Cabán told the Blade that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained his client for three weeks until they released him under supervision.
“The process of letting them cross after two years has been disorganized and there has been poor communication and coordination between UNHCR, immigrants and attorneys,” he said. “Many refugees that crossed the border out of fear ended in detention and ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is releasing them under an order of supervision.”
Steve Roth, executive director of the Organization of Refuge, Asylum and Migration, a Minnesota-based organization that works with LGBTQ refugees and migrants around the world, told the Blade the situation on the Southern border is “complicated” and “a bit of a mess.”
“Some of these policies were designed to prevent legitimate asylum seekers from making their claims,” he said, referring to the Trump administration.
“We recognize that it’s going to take some time to undo that,” added Roth. “But at the same time, it’s really important that the process reopens for asylum seekers to be able to present their case at the border.”
Valery, a trans woman from the Honduran city of Comayagua who arrived in Matamoros last March, and other asylum seekers continue to wait for their chance to enter the U.S.
“I am very happy that people are leaving, but what about us,” she told the Blade at the Rainbow Bridge shelter in Matamoros. “Where do we go? Where?”
Joaquin Castro: MPP dangerous for LGBTQ people
Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro last week said the situation for asylum seekers on the U.S.-Mexico border remains perilous, even though President Biden has begun to reverse some of the previous administration’s hardline immigration policies.
“There is a real humanitarian need among the people who are seeking asylum at the southern border,” Castro told the Blade during a telephone interview. “And unfortunately, over the past few years Donald Trump created a bubble of very desperate people who were unable to have their asylum claims processed and now are anxious to have their day in court, to have their asylum cases heard.”
Biden in January suspended enrollments in the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols program.
“MPP is dangerous for many folks … and that includes LGBTQ and trans folks,” said Castro. “These folks have sometimes become targets on the other side of the border.”
The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 that Democrats introduced in Congress last month would, among other things, create a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who are in the country.
The Biden administration shortly after it took office directed ICE, CBP and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to stop the deportation of “certain” undocumented immigrants for 100 days, but a federal judge in Texas last month blocked the moratorium. The White House earlier this week announced it would request $4 billion in aid to mitigate the causes of migration from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
“MPP of course was lifted by the Biden administration, but you still have a lot of people who are in and around the border cities in Mexico,” said Castro. “And for all folks what we are seeking to do is put people on a path to citizenship.”
Castro acknowledged Congress has debated immigration reform for years, but he said, “we finally have an opportunity with this president and this Congress to get it done.” “It’s still going to be tough because of the numbers in the Senate, but I think there is a greater window here now than there has been in a very long time,” he said.
White House
President of anti-LGBTQ+ Catholic group nominated to become next Vatican ambassador
Brian Burch criticized Francis’s decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated the president of an anti-LGBTQ+ Catholic group to become the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
The incoming president on Dec. 20 announced he had nominated Brian Burch, president and co-founder of CatholicVote, for the ambassadorship.
“Brian loves the church and the United States,” said Trump on Truth Social. “He will make us all proud.”
Burch on X said he is “deeply honored and humbled to have been nominated by President Trump to serve as the United States Ambassador to the Holy See.”
“The role of ambassador is to represent the government of the United States in its relations with the Holy See,” said Burch. “The Catholic Church is the largest and most important religious institution in the world, and its relationship to the United States is of vital importance.”
“I am committed to working with leaders inside the Vatican and the new administration to promote the dignity of all people and the common good,” he added. “I look forward to the confirmation process and the opportunity to continue to serve my country and the church. To God be the glory.”
Burch in his post also thanked his wife, Sara, and their nine children for their support.
I am deeply honored and humbled to have been nominated by President Trump to serve as the United States Ambassador to the Holy See. Words cannot express my gratitude to all those that have helped me achieve this nomination, most especially my wife Sara…
— Brian Burch (@BrianBurchCV) December 20, 2024
The National Catholic Reporter reported Burch last year sharply criticized Pope Francis’s decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples.
CatholicVote’s website repeatedly refers to transgender people in quotes.
A Dec. 5 post on the U.S. v. Skrmetti case notes the justices heard oral arguments on “whether Tennessee can protect children from puberty blockers, which chemically sterilize, and sexual surgeries that mutilate and castrate.” A second CatholicVotes post notes the justices grilled the Justice Department “on challenge to Tennessee protections for children against ‘transgender’ mutilations and sterilizations.”
The Vatican’s tone towards LGBTQ+ and intersex issues has softened since Pope Francis assumed the papacy in 2013.
Francis, among other things, has described laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust.”
He met with two African LGBTQ+ activists — Clare Byarugaba of Chapter Four Uganda and Rightify Ghana Director Ebenezer Peegah — at the Vatican on Aug. 14. Sister Jeannine Gramick, one of the co-founders of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ+ Catholic organization, organized a meeting between Francis and a group of trans and intersex Catholics and LGBTQ+ allies that took place at the pontiff’s official residence on Oct. 12.
Francis during a 2023 interview with an Argentine newspaper described gender ideology as “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” in the world because “it blurs differences and the value of men and women.” A declaration the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released in March with Francis’s approval condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.”
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.”
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