National
Amy Siskind is keeping a list of Trump’s anti-LGBTQ moves
Tracking Trump’s lies goes viral
Amy Siskind’s work is the kind of genius historians will refer to in the next decade as the definitive chronicler of what went wrong and how.
“Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember,” she likes to say.
Each day brings a bombshell that in ordinary times would dominate the news cycle for months with sweeping investigations. Trump takes to Twitter over the slightest perceived slight, promoting the fakest narrative he can spell out in 140 characters about news he wants his followers to ignore.
But that, like so much else, is just a charade that masks a whole spate of other alleged crimes and misdemeanors now under multiple investigations. While we are hyperventilating about a Tweet, something else much darker is happening.
And that’s where Siskind comes in. For the past seven months she has taken note and documented every instance of the abnormal or bizarre, spending 15-20 hours a week and talking to thousands of people to synthesize events as they happen.
She publishes her work (dubbed the “Weekly List”) chronicling the bad deeds of the Trump administration on social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Medium, attracting hundreds of thousands of weekly readers. Her work has been highlighted by The Washington Post and The Independent and Siskind is considered a rising star. A NYU journalism professor called her work “thoroughly journalistic and much needed.”
Siskind said her work on Trump originated from her post-election reading about how authoritarian governments take hold — behavior that seems shocking at first quickly becomes normal.
And on LGBT rights, she has a particularly urgent message, especially if you continue to believe that Trump hasn’t really gone after the LGBTQ community.
The Blade spoke with Siskind by phone from her home in Westchester County, N.Y.
BLADE: What’s the motivating force behind your work tracking Trump’s lies and the administration’s bizarre behavior? You told The Washington Post that it developed when you read about the process of normalization, that we come to accept things that are abnormal because we get lost in this slow drift of bizarreness. So I guess my question is, what strikes you so far as the most bizarre thing that’s happened?
AMY SISKIND: Though there are too many to mention, I think what strikes me most is that we are living in a constant state of chaos. There are so many items each and every day that are, in and of themselves, shocking. In normal times these things would be individual stories that would be covered by our media for weeks or months. But, because there are so many of them, we’ve lost track of accountability for these items or being able to even remember them. As a result, we’ve in a way normalized things that in any other time in our country or in our lifetimes would be shocking and deserving of outrage around the country. We’re bombarded with so many of these each and every day we’ve become desensitized.
That’s led to a sort of acceptance because we are sort of plowed over by all that’s not normal.
BLADE: Even journalists are plowed over. There’s tacit endorsement when they do not properly challenge him.
SISKIND: The bar was set pretty low by our media. I have myself been a critic of the media early on about some journalists complimenting him for reading off a teleprompter or covering him like you would a normal candidate, talking about things like infrastructure when it was pretty obvious even before he took office that he was not going to be normal.
Even though it started out that way, I am grateful to see a shift.
I think the media has realized they are under siege now and being silenced. I see mainstream journalists beginning to form a community and protecting one another. Journalists from the right are still amplifying authoritarian messages and giving credence to “news” that’s not true news. I am starting to see change.
What The List does that our media is not able to do — because they need to cover every story as if it were a traditional administration (or in Trump’s case it’s a regime) — is give some perspective week by week about what’s happening.
What mainstream journalists are reporting is very in the moment but it doesn’t, with the exception of a few like maybe Rachel Maddow, trace back the story.
For example, The List can follow the Deutsche Bank story over weeks or months whereas most of the reporting is just “here we are in this moment and today.” So what I really hope to accomplish with The List is to access all the stories about Deutsche Bank that have happened over the last several months since I’ve been doing The List. It’s a journalistic way of tying things together that our media is not doing.
Typically, I spend 15 to 20 hours a week on each list because so many of the things I put in it are not widely seen, but to me are really important.
I spend a lot of time covering treatment of different subsets of people because that’s part of authoritarianism; I mean how you treat one then how do you treat the LGBTQ community how you treat people of different religions and people of color so I make sure to highlight things that are really not normal.
I cover the way citizens are acting but also the way the administration is acting.
BLADE: What do you make of gay Republicans and Trump supporters who say he hasn’t really done anything specifically bad to LGBTQ people?
SISKIND: That’s an uninformed argument. I think the LGBT community is in grave danger with Trump and the overriding thing is that we are invisible to the Trump administration.
And I’ll give specific examples of ways that he is hurting our community, but the overall theme is we’re invisible that’s never good for any community.
Let’s start with the fact that there’s no recognition of LGBTQ Pride month. When we are made invisible you take away our identity. Trump is doing that by not recognizing Pride: he’s doing that by not including LGBTQ people in the Census.
That’s a really big deal and I have it in my weekly list 32 that just came out; NPR did a Freedom of Information Act request on work that was done by HUD and they said Census data was essential for the inclusion of the LGBT community to be part of the Census. Trump’s response is that they don’t think it’s appropriate to ask questions of sexual orientation and gender identity topics, which is an argument that makes us invisible.
BLADE: That Census information is used throughout government to implement civil rights protections and to ensure representation and equality.
SISKIND: Point is that if you’re invisible you don’t need protections or rights. So, you can see the path down which he is taking the nation.
Also in Week 32, his Secretary of Education DeVos said she won’t go after schools that discriminate against transgender students amongst other things. They are not going to push on the civil rights issues. That was just one week!
Not protecting transgender people is an issue. They’ve also already taken away – in certain government departments – worker protections on the basis of sexual orientation.
So when you make people invisible, you don’t need to protect them against discrimination in housing and workplace discrimination. So, in many parts of the Trump administration it’s legally acceptable to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
And that’s that headline worthy!!! That should scream out with three exclamation points at the end.
People who don’t think he hasn’t done anything against LGBT people are missing the point — he’s slowly eroding our protections and making it legal to discriminate against us because of our sexual orientation and gender identity.
BLADE: It’s very much like what you said about authoritarianism — a slow erosion of normalcy.
SISKIND: Exactly! And end of rights for different subsets of people. You can see the different subsets of people that are under attack. It’s pretty much everyone that’s not white, straight, Christian and male. We can have the same conversation about ways women are being attacked or Muslim Americans or Jewish Americans or Latinos or immigrants or Black Americans or something for everybody.
BLADE: Those, of course, include LGBT people…
SISKIND: Yes, we are under assault in so many ways. Let’s talk about Gorsuch. Just this week his Supreme Court appointee argued against gay adoption. And the scariest part of that to me is that it’s not based on fact. There’s study after study showing gay and lesbian parents are actually superior parents to heterosexual parents! So, it’s not based on any factual study, it’s based on his own bias.
These are the people that Trump is bringing into power and into authority. If that doesn’t scare you! There’s now, I think eight states, since he took power that are making it illegal for gay couples to adopt.
I know California now has banned official government business travel to those eight states.
But there’s eight states — since he took power — that are making it illegal in their state for gay people to adopt. Between workplace discrimination, gay adoption, and what happened to transgender people, transgender students being excluded from protection under the Civil Rights Act and in college too. I mean, this is something that impacts the LGBTQ community.
BLADE: They have taken away the right to sue for those things.
SISKIND: Yes! They won’t pursue that under DeVos and our Department of Justice. And we’re just at the start of things!
I’m looking here at week 20. ‘Trump signed an executive order which legalizes discrimination against LGBT federal employees.’ Yes, that’s one of the two items that week. And then the Census.
But that’s really a huge thing I mean it and then in a later week you have (Commerce Secretary) Wilbur Ross removing sexual orientation and gender identification from its anti-discrimination policies. That another really big item to include in week 30.
BLADE: So much for the idea that Trump has done nothing to hurt LGBT people.
SISKIND: Yes, we are under assault and I think the community’s in great danger; he’s not going to stand up on stage and say “I am a bigot.” He’s going to slowly erode our rights and make us invisible. That’s what he is doing.
BLADE: What happens if Pence replaces Trump?
SISKIND: What’s going to happen, in either scenario, is that we’re going to be in chaos. I mean Trump isn’t getting anything done legislatively. And if he faces impeachment hearings or if he faces other criminal proceedings, nothing’s going to get done legislatively. But he still can slowly erode things.
Will Pence be any better or worse? We don’t know. We don’t know if Pence himself will be ensnared by what’s going on — I find it hard to believe he won’t be.
Regardless, I think it has to be a goal for everybody, every American. Any normal Republican is a better alternative than losing our democracy, which is what’s happening.
The basic rights that were afforded, including our voting rights and fair elections are, under Trump, under siege.
When people ask me that question you don’t know exactly how anything’s going to play out; you know it’s going to be chaos. Would I rather have Pence?
I’ll deal with that option when it comes to it, but I can tell you right now we’re in danger and I don’t think there’s anything that could be any worse than what we’re currently living in.
BLADE: With the Supreme Court decision to take on the wedding cake case on the same day it basically erased the line between church and state, it’s really hard to imagine we aren’t about to face a significant setback. It looks like the threat to LGBTQ people is spreading throughout government.
SISKIND: Well, if he’s able to appoint another Supreme Court judge — we just have to pray for our Ruth Bader Ginsburg that she can stay on the bench until the 2020 election.
I worry about all of it. But I think we get sort of distracted if we just focus on what’s happening in the judicial branch because Trump is doing so much damage in the executive branch already, that people are just kind of numb to…that, I think, is the biggest purpose with what I’m doing with The List and the conversation you and I are having.
We need to raise awareness that already we are becoming invisible and that our rights are being eroded.
It’s hard to imagine exactly what will happen with the Supreme Court cases. You know, we’ve lost Scalia and gained somebody who’s maybe even further right than him.
I think probably the only issue that is NOT currently on the table is gay marriage, and that’s only because generations are so decidedly pro-gay marriage.
Everything else, though — you can be married and have every other right taken away from you, including the ability to have people make your wedding cake, host your wedding, or be discriminated against and beat up on the way back from your wedding.
I think our community has become so obsessed about the success of this one issue that we’ve forgotten about all the other issues that impact our daily living.
BLADE: This slipperiness is all playing out in the background of the Russia investigation. This is what is happening while we are all hyperventilating about Russia.
SISKIND: And that’s why every week in The List you can find all the events that are playing out.
If you put in LGBTQ it will show you all the items that have already changed. If you put in Muslim, you’ll see all the assaults on Muslim people. If you put in Black or African American, you’ll see the items about the nooses in D.C. or the gorilla mask in Tennessee this week. I’m really trying to keep a focus on every week’s list of what’s happening.
The fabric of our country is changing. We are legitimizing hate and it’s hate against everybody that’s not white, straight, Christian and male and I think there needs to be a much greater awareness within our community of the danger we’re in, what you normalize, what happened to that 17-year-old Muslim girl walking back to her mosque after having a meal at McDonald’s before starting Ramadan.
That could have been a trans student or a gay man or a woman walking down the street. It can be any of us that aren’t the same.
BLADE: Just as Trump eliminated Pride at the White House, he also eliminated Muslim celebrations.
SISKIND: He didn’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo either.
BLADE: He’s an equal opportunity eraser.
SISKIND: For anybody who’s not white, straight and male. But anybody in our community who is complacent is missing the boat, because you still have to be able to walk down the street each day, you have to be able to get a job, you have to be able to get housing and right now he’s making it legal to discriminate on all those things.
We can’t underestimate the danger that we are in as a community. Gay marriage is just a little piece of icing on the cake but we have to raise our children, we have to be able to work and live and be safe and all those things are under siege.
BLADE: Marriage is not safe. It they can create a system of laws that make it legal to deny you services, we are not equal.
SISKIND: Right, so it’s sort of like a tin victory! You can get married but we won’t make you your cake, we won’t host your reception.
BLADE: We won’t protect your right to your own children.
SISKIND: Right. Our community gets too hyper focused on marriage and has dropped the ball on everything else. People feel like “oh, we crossed that bridge and now it’s done,” kind of like women with abortion rights. It was 1973 and here we are in 2017 and talking about taking away Planned Parenthood.
Nothing is guaranteed. One victory on a single issue doesn’t mean everything else isn’t in danger of being rolled back. We have to remember also how far as a community we came and how quickly. I mean, this is been endemic in the women’s movement; big victories and then everyone’s like “Oh, good now everything’s done and we’re equal.”
No. It happens in every community. We have this huge victory and we like stopped agitating and stopped organizing and stopped worrying. And that’s a false hope.
We are in danger under this regime.
BLADE: How did you feel about the Resist marches across the country?
SISKIND: I marched in New York. As much as you can do in person…it’s sort of like fuel and it reinvigorates you. Our organization does a big event each year called National Girlfriends’ Networking day and so many of the young woman said to me ‘I needed this because I feel so disempowered.’
I think whatever you can do in person really is helpful.
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.”
National
Lesbian software developer seeks to preserve lost LGBTQ history
HistoryIT helps create digital archives that are genuinely accessible
Up until the early 2010s, if you searched “Babe Ruth” in the Baseball Hall of Fame, nothing would pop up. To find information on the greatest baseball player of all time, you would have to search “Ruth, George Herman.”
That is the way online archival systems were set up and there was a clear problem with it. Kristen Gwinn-Becker was uniquely able to solve it. “I’m a super tech geek, history geek,” she says, “I love any opportunity to create this aha moment with people through history.”
Gwinn-Becker is the founder and CEO of HistoryIT, a company that helps organizations create digital archives that are genuinely accessible. “I believe history is incredibly important, but I also think it’s in danger,” she says. “Less than 2% of our historical materials are digital and even less of that is truly accessible.”
Gwinn-Becker’s love for history is personal. As a lesbian, growing up, she sought out evidence of herself across time. “I was interested in stories, interested in people whose lives mirrored mine to help me understand who I was.”
“[My identity] influences my love of history and my strong belief in history is important,” she says.
Despite always loving history, Gwinn-Becker found herself living and working in San Francisco during the early dot com boom and bust in the ‘90s. “It was an exciting time,” she recounts, “if you were intellectually curious, you could just jump right in.”
Being there was almost happenstance, Gwinn-Becker explained: “I was 20 years old and wanted to live in San Francisco.” Quickly, she fell in love with “all of the incredible new tools.” She was working with non-profits that encouraged her to take classes and apply the new skills. “I was really into software, web, and database development.”
But history eventually pulled her back. “Tech was fun, but I didn’t want to be a developer,” she says. Something was missing. When the opportunity to get a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University presented itself, “I got to work on the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, who I was and remain quite passionate about.”
Gwinn-Becker’s research on Eleanor Roosevelt planted the seeds of digital preservation. “Eleanor Roosevelt doesn’t have a single archive. FDR has lots but the first ladies don’t,” she says. Gwinn-Becker wondered what else was missing from the archive — and what would be missing from the archive if we didn’t start preserving it now.
Those questions eventually led Gwinn-Becker to found HistoryIT in 2011. Since then, the company has created digital archives for organizations ranging from museums and universities to sororities, fraternities, and community organizations.
This process is not easy. “Digital preservation is more than scanning,” says Gwinn-Becker. “Most commercial scanners’ intent is to create a digital copy, not an exact replica.”
To digitally preserve something, Gwinn-Becker’s team must take a photo with overhead cameras. “There is an international standard,” she says, “you create an archival TIFF.”
“It’s the biggest possible file we can create now. That’s how you future-proof.”
Despite the common belief that the internet is forever, JPEGs saved to social media or websites are a poor archive. “It’s more expensive for us to do projects in the 2000 to 2016 period than to do 19th-century projects,” explains Gwinn-Becker, since finding adequate files for preservation can be tricky. “The images themselves are deteriorated because they’re compressed so much,” she says.
Her clients are finding that having a strong digital archive is useful outside of the noble goal of protecting history. “It’s a unique trove of content,” says Gwinn-Becker. One client saw a 790% increase in donations after incorporating the digital archive into fundraising efforts. “It’s important to have content quickly and easily,” says Gwinn-Becker, whose team also works with clients on digital strategy for their archive.
One of Gwinn-Becker’s favorite parts of her job is finding what she calls “hidden histories.”
“We [LGBTQ people] are represented everywhere. We’re represented in sports, in religious history, in every kind of movement, not only our movement. I’m passionate about bringing those stories out.”
Sometimes queer stories are found in unexpected places, says Gwinn-Becker. “We work with sororities and fraternities. There are a hell of a lot of our stories there.”
Part of digital preservation is also making sure that history being created in the moment is not lost to future generations. HistoryIT works with NFL teams, for example. One of their clients is the Panthers, who hired Justine Lindsay, the first transgender cheerleader in the NFL. Gwinn-Becker was excited to be able to preserve information about Lindsay in the digital record. “It’s making history in the process of preserving it,” says Gwinn-Becker.
Preserving queer history, either through “hidden histories” or LGBTQ-specific archives, is vital says Gwinn-Becker. “Think about whose history gets marginalized, whose history gets moved to the sidelines, whose history gets just erased,” she prompts. “In a time of fake news, we need to point to evidence in the past. Queer people have existed since there were humans, but their stories are hidden,” Gwinn-Becker says.
Meanwhile, Gwinn-Becker accidentally finds herself as part of queer history too. Listed as one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 250 Female Founders of 2024, she is surrounded by names like Christina Aguilera, Selena Gomez, and Natalie Portman.
One name stuck out. “Never in my life did I think I’d be on the same list – other than the obvious one – with Billie Jean King. That’s pretty exciting,” she said.
But she can’t focus on the win for too long. “When I go to sleep at night, I think ‘there’s so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,’” she says, “We have a very small period in which to do that in a meaningful way.”
(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)
District of Columbia
Trans employee awarded $930,000 in lawsuit against D.C. McDonald’s
Jury finds franchise failed to stop harassment, retaliation by staff
A D.C. Superior Court jury on Aug. 15 ordered a company that owned and operated a McDonald’s restaurant franchise in Northwest Washington to pay $930,000 in damages to a transgender employee who charged in a lawsuit that she was subjected to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation because of her gender identity in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.
The lawsuit, which was filed in January 2021 by attorneys representing Diana Portillo Medrano, says Medrano was first hired to work at the McDonald’s at 5948 Georgia Ave., N.W. in 2011 as a customer service representative and was recognized and promoted for good work until she began to transition as a trans woman two years later.
It says she was fired in 2016 after she filed a discrimination complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights on grounds that she did not have legal authorization to work in the U.S. as an immigrant from El Salvador. One of her attorneys, Jonathan Puth, said the jury agreed with the lawsuit’s allegation that the reason given for the firing was a “pretext” and the real reason was retaliation for her discrimination complaint.
Puth said evidence was presented during the eight-day civil trial that the McDonald’s had knowingly hired other immigrant employees who did not have legal authorization to work and never held that against them.
“Despite a successful five-year career with McDonald’s marked by raises, promotions, and awards and absence of discipline, Plaintiff Diana Medrano’s supervisors and co-workers subjected her to a barrage of taunts, laughter, ridicule, and harassment because she is a transgender woman,” the lawsuit states.
“Managers and supervisors routinely referred to her as male despite her expressed request that they respect her gender identity as female, encouraging co-workers to harass her relentlessly in like fashion,” it says. “When she complained to her managers, they claimed Ithat the harassment was justified because she hadn’t legally changed her name,” the lawsuit’s complaint continues.
“After she formalized and elevated her complaints, Defendants fired her on pretextual grounds. Defendants discriminated against Ms. Medrano because of her gender identity and retaliated against her in violation of the District of Columbia Human Rights Act,” the lawsuit complaint states.
The lawsuit names as defendants International Golden Foods LLC and MCI Golden Foods LLC, two companies based in Burke, Va. that it says were owned and operated by Luis Gavignano, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. The lawsuit says the two companies held the franchise rights to own and operate the McDonald’s where Medrano worked.
The Washington Blade’s attempts to reach a spokesperson for the two companies and for Gavignano as well as two of the attorneys that represented them in contesting the lawsuit through email and phone messages were unsuccessful.
In a nine-page written answer to the lawsuit filed Feb. 12, 2021, on behalf of International Golden Foods, which is referred to as IGF, attorneys Amy M. Heerink and Kelvin Newsome dispute the allegations that Medrano was targeted for discrimination and harassment because of her gender identity.
The written answer to the complaint highlights the company’s claim that Medrano was fired because she didn’t have legal authority to work in the U.S. It refers to the company’s personnel official, Carla Vega, who informed Medrano that she could no longer work for the McDonald’s outlet.
“IGF admits that Ms. Vega informed Plaintiff that her employment had to be terminated due to Plaintiff’s voluntary and unprompted statement during the investigation that she was not authorized to work in the United States,” the written answer to the lawsuit states. “IGF admits that Plaintiff’s employment was terminated based on her ineligibility to work in the United States,” it says.
“The jury clearly found that IGF continually used unauthorized employees, hired and employed unauthorized workers knowingly,” Puth, Madrano’s attorney, told the Blade. “And they never fired anyone for that reason at any of their stores except for Diana,” Puth said.
“And so, the jury found that the reason given was a pretext for retaliation,” he said. “That was what was motivating them. They were motivated to retaliate against her because she kept complaining about discrimination.”
Puth noted that Medrano initially filed her complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights and was represented at that time by an attorney with Whitman-Walker Health’s legal clinic. He said Whitman-Walker later referred her to his law firm, Correia & Puth, after determining the case could not be resolved at the Office of Human Rights.
The jury’s verdict of $930,000 in damages included $700,000 in punitive damages and $230,000 in damages for the emotional distress Medrano suffered due to the discrimination and harassment to which she was subjected.
A statement released by the law firm representing her says the action by the jury is believed to be the first jury verdict in a transgender employment discrimination case under the D.C. Human Rights Act.
Attorney Puth and his law firm partner, attorney Andrew Adelman, were the attorneys of record representing Medrano in her lawsuit.
“When you are sure of what you have experienced, no matter how much time passes, the truth will come to light,” Medrano said in the statement released by her attorneys. “Our truth is our best weapon to achieve justice,” she said. “It is truth, justice, and faith in God that have helped me get here.”
In his law firm’s statement, Puth called the jury’s verdict a vindication of Medrano’s 11-year battle for her legal rights.
“Diana is our hero,” he said. “She stood up for her rights in the face of terrible harassment and kept fighting even after she was fired for doing so. This verdict puts other employers on notice that tolerating harassment of transgender employees is both unlawful and costly.”
Puth said earlier this year Medrano was approved for U.S. political asylum based on discrimination and harassment she faced in El Salvador. He said she is currently working full-time as a counselor for Empoderate, an LGBTQ health organization providing services for the Latina/Latino community that is affiliated with the D.C.-based La Clinica del Pueblo.
National
LGBTQ groups mark National Hispanic Heritage Month
GLAAD screened ‘Dímelo’ at Sept. 20 event in Los Angeles
Advocacy groups across the country are marking National Hispanic Heritage Month.
The Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles on Sept. 20 hosted a comedy night that featured Danielle Perez, Gabe González, Lorena Russ, and Roz Hernandez. The event, which GLAAD organized, also included a screening of “Dímelo,” a digital series the organization produced with LatiNation that features interviews with Latino comedians.
A press release notes Damian Terriquez, Mimi Davila, Salina EsTitties, and Tony Rodriguez attended the event. GLAAD in a post on its website on Sept. 25 highlighted Essa Noche and other Latino drag queens.
“The art of drag has always been a vibrant expression of resistance, creativity, and identity, particularly within marginalized communities,” reads the post. “Latine drag artists not only embody the resilience and power of their heritage but also elevate queer voices in spaces where their visibility is often limited.”
EsTitties on Sept. 29 hosted Queerceañera, “an inclusive take on the coming-of-age quinceañera tradition throughout Latin America and the United States” the Los Angeles LGBT Center organized.
Celebrate Orgullo, which describes itself as the “first Hispanic and Indigenous LGBTQ+ festival in Greater Miami and Miami Beach,” will take place from Oct. 4-14. Unity Coalition|Coalición Unida, is organizing the events.
“The festival invites you to experience a warm and welcoming ‘wave’ of pride that celebrates what makes us unique while uniting us in a shared spirit of inclusion,” reads a press release.
GLSEN has posted to its website a list of resources for undocumented students.
“Especially in this political climate, it’s important not only to affirm LGBTQ Latinx identities with positive representation but also to ensure that students know how they’re protected, especially those who are among the most marginalized,” says GLSEN.
National Hispanic Heritage Month is from Sept. 15-Oct. 15.
Fenway Health in Boston on its website notes National Hispanic Heritage Month “honors and celebrates the vibrant histories, cultures, languages, traditions, values, and contributions of people whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.”
Hispanic Heritage Week began in 1968. It became National Hispanic Heritage Month in 1988.
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua mark their respective Independence Days on Sept. 15. Mexico’s Independence Day is on Sept. 16, and Chile’s Independence Day is on Sept. 18. Día de la Raza is Oct. 12.
“Here at Fenway Health, we are grateful every day for the many Latino/a/é staff members, clients, patients, volunteers, and supporters that are part of our community,” said Fenway Health. Their contributions and perspectives help drive Fenway’s mission: To advocate for and deliver innovative, equitable, accessible health care, supportive services, and transformative research and education and to center LGBTQIA+ people, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color) individuals, and other underserved communities to enable our local, national, and global neighbors to flourish.”
President Joe Biden in his National Hispanic Heritage Month proclamation made a similar point.
“In our country, Latino leaders are striving for the American Dream and helping those around them reach it too,” he said. “From those who have been here for generations to those who have recently arrived, Latinos have pushed our great American experiment forward.”
The proclamation also acknowledges Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Guzman, and other Latino members of his administration.
“I am proud to work with incredible Latino leaders, who are dedicated to bettering our nation every day,” said Biden.
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