A 23-year veteran of the Air Force and Marine Corps and his 21-year-old adult daughter today filed a challenge to a 1976 federal statute that prohibits the Military Health System, administered by an entity within the Department of Defense called TRICARE, from providing coverage for medically necessary surgical treatments for gender dysphoria for dependents of servicemembers. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine.
The plaintiff John Doe receives healthcare coverage for himself and his family through the military health system, just as other current and former servicemembers do. John’s daughter, Jane, is a 21-year-old transgender woman who, as a college student, remains on her father’s health plan.
At the recommendation of her doctors, Jane, who suffers from gender dysphoria, began treatment for gender transition, as a young adult. While TRICARE covers the cost of medications Jane needs, it does not cover essential surgical care.
“I just want what others who have served their country want – the ability to take care of my family,” said John Doe. “My family has served right alongside me. My wife and I want our daughter to be healthy and happy, like any parents would. My daughter shouldn’t be denied the healthcare she needs just because she’s transgender.”
Healthcare experts and professional health organizations including the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association recognize gender affirming surgeries as safe, effective and medically necessary treatments for gender dysphoria.
“People who have sacrificed to serve our country should not be denied the ability to care for their families,” said GLAD Attorney Ben Klein. “The U.S. military is taking steps to ensure transgender servicemembers are treated fairly and with the respect they deserve. There is no justification for TRICARE to deny coverage for service members’ loved ones, just because they are transgender.”
“The military has made serious progress in treating transgender service members more fairly,” said GLAD Attorney Jennifer Levi, who also brought a legal challenge that blocked the former ban on military service by transgender Americans. “And now it’s time to end this outdated and archaic denial of healthcare for transgender members of military families.”
“As a former servicemember myself, I know firsthand how many sacrifices military spouses and families make,” said Orrick’s Shane McCammon, who served for over 12 years as an active-duty Air Force JAG and a leading member of the firm’s pro bono effort in this case. “These unsung heroes are entitled to get their medically necessary healthcare, and in this instance needed care free from discrimination. The Supreme Court has already recognized that discrimination against individuals based on their gender identity is unlawful, and the medical community has vastly expanded its understanding of gender dysphoria and transgender health care. It’s time to finally remove this relic from the books and bring the law into the 21st century.”
The plaintiffs are represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) attorneys Ben Klein and Jennifer Levi, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP attorneys Shane McCammon, Matthew Moses, Seth Harrington, Brittany Roehrs, and Ethan Dowling. They are challenging the statutory exclusion of coverage for transgender dependents’ medically necessary care as a violation of their constitutional rights to Equal Protection and Due Process, and as a violation of the federal Rehabilitation Act.
“I just want what others who have served their country want – the ability to take care of my family…My daughter shouldn’t be denied the health care she needs just because she’s transgender.”
–John Doe, plaintiff in Doe v. Austin
تحديث: Victory! On November 1, a federal district court judge issued a ruling in our plaintiffs’ favor, saying that the exclusion of this essential health care is unconstitutional as applied to transgender people experiencing gender dysphoria.
A 23-year veteran of the Air Force and Marine Corps and his 21-year-old adult daughter are challenging a 1976 federal statute that prohibits the Military Health System, administered by an entity within the Department of Defense called TRICARE, from providing coverage for medically necessary surgical treatments for gender dysphoria for dependents of servicemembers.
The plaintiff John Doe receives health care coverage for himself and his family through the military health system, just as other current and former servicemembers do. John’s daughter, Jane, is a 21-year-old transgender woman who, as a college student, remains on her father’s health plan.
At the recommendation of her doctors, Jane, who suffers from gender dysphoria, began treatment for gender transition, as a young adult. While TRICARE covers the cost of medications Jane needs, it does not cover essential surgical care.
Healthcare experts and professional health organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, recognize transgender care surgeries as safe, effective, and medically necessary treatments for gender dysphoria.
John Doe and his daughter are represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) attorneys Ben Klein and Jennifer Levi, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP attorneys Shane McCammon, Matthew Moses, Seth Harrington, Brittany Roehrs, and Ethan Dowling. They are challenging the statutory exclusion of coverage for transgender dependents’ medically necessary care as a violation of their constitutional rights to Equal Protection and Due Process, and as a violation of the federal Rehabilitation Act.
With Some on the Supreme Court Questioning Individual Rights, Our Work Continues to Ensure Recognition and Protection for Our Families
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this summer overturning قضية رو ضد وايد is already having devastating consequences for millions across the country who need access to abortion care. The impacts of restricting or altogether banning abortion, as some states are doing, will fall hardest on people and families of color and those without the financial resources to travel out of state or seek alternative routes to care.
The LGBTQ+ and reproductive justice movements are fundamentally connected, and GLAD is working with our partners in the reproductive equity movement to fight for access to abortion for all who need it. This summer in Massachusetts, under the legislative leadership of LGBTQ+ caucus members such as Sen. Joanne Comerford, Sen. Julian Cyr, and Rep. Kate Hogan, we helped secure the passage of a new law to increase protections for access to both abortion and gender-affirming care. We are consulting with other New England states on similar measures.
The impact of the Dobbs ruling extended beyond harmful restrictions on abortion. Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in a concurring opinion that critical decisions impacting LGBTQ+ people’s relationships, family-building, and the freedom to marry – including لورانس (affirming the right to consensual same-gender intimacy) and أوبيرجيفيل (affirming the freedom to marry) – should also be reconsidered.
To be clear: لورانس و أوبيرجيفيل remain the law of the land – and GLAD will defend those decisions against any challenges as both good for our country and rightly decided. And we are confident we will win because constitutional guarantees of both liberty and equal protection underpin those rulings. Millions of Americans count on their own ability, or that of family members, to be able to marry the person they love and build a family. No possible government interest would justify destabilizing families by dismantling marriage equality.
The federal Respect for Marriage Act
Congress also has a rightful role to play in ensuring continued recognition of marriages and assuring families that it will protect their most important relationships. GLAD is a leader in the effort to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, long overdue federal legislation that will officially repeal the entire Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). GLAD led the first multi-plaintiff legal challenges to Section 3 of DOMA (recognition of marriages across the US) and coordinated an amicus effort in the وندسور Supreme Court case. The decision in وندسور resulted in Section 3 being declared unconstitutional. The Respect for Marriage Act will ensure federal و state governments continue to recognize and respect all marriages without discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, or race – no matter what.
The bipartisan bill passed the House this summer, and we must all call on the Senate to pass it as soon as they return to session in November. Take action now to protect marriage equality.
Advancing state-level protections for families
Protecting our children and our families, however they are formed, has been a pillar of GLAD’s LGBTQ+ justice work for over four decades. Parentage – the legal relationship between a child and their parent or parents – is fundamental to children’s security and well-being. For several years, GLAD has led efforts to update state laws determining who is recognized as a legal parent. GLAD has worked in numerous states, including Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Colorado, to increase family protections through parentage reform legislation.
The ongoing work to fully secure our LGBTQ+ families is even more urgent now, in the wake of the Dobbs ruling.
In recent months, we’ve seen a trial court in Maine strip a child of her LGBTQ+ married mother because of a lack of biological relationship. We’ve seen the Idaho Supreme Court refuse to recognize an LGBTQ+ married parent as a parent because she had no genetic relationship with her child. In New Hampshire, the state child support agency recently tried establishing a known gamete donor as a legal parent and demanding financial support from him. GLAD represented the donor and coordinated with the mother’s counsel to spell out that she is the child’s sole legal parent and that it is critical for parents, children, donors, and the state to have clarity about who is a parent.
And in Massachusetts, almost 20 years after GLAD’s جودريدج victory made it possible for same-gender couples to marry legally, LGBTQ+ families still face harm because state laws have not been updated to reflect how families are formed today.
GLAD leads, along with Resolve New England, a coalition of families, attorneys, and partner organizations dedicated to passing the قانون الأبوة في ماساتشوستس (MPA). The MPA will update state law to clarify who can be a parent and how to establish parentage and add important protections for children born to unmarried parents and through assisted reproduction and surrogacy. It will also enable LGBTQ+ parents to establish parentage the same way other families do, including through a voluntary acknowledgment of parentage.
Without the MPA, the current state of family law in Massachusetts renders LGBTQ+ families and their children second-class. Parents – married and unmarried – may still have to undergo the expensive, time-intensive, and disrespectful process of adopting their own children to fully secure their families. Without clear inclusion in our state parentage laws, parents and children face separation by the child welfare system. There are no protections for children born through surrogacy, meaning some children wait years to establish their parentage. And بحكم الأمر الواقع parents, a status available through Massachusetts courts since 1999, have no access to full legal parentage, leaving them unable to provide health care to their children or make decisions for them.
De facto parentage prioritizes children by protecting their relationship to a person who has functioned as their parent, often when another parent is unable to care for the child. It protects children – particularly those from families facing economic insecurity – and keeps children out of the child welfare system. But currently in Massachusetts, de facto parentage allows only visitation, a second-class status that perpetuates harm to children and families. Only legal parentage allows access to the building blocks of stability and well-being – decision-making, child support, access to benefits, and more.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has called on the legislature to update parentage laws to provide more clarity for family courts. The MPA will provide a clear standard for courts to resolve competing claims of parentage. It also creates a much more rigorous standard for establishing de facto parentage than exists under current law – including a standing requirement, seven factors that must each be proven by clear and convincing evidence, as well as explicit protections for survivors of domestic violence.
GLAD has worked on updating parentage laws in every other New England state. We must enact laws to protect children in Massachusetts and across the country. We will never stop working for the equality, safety, and dignity of our LGBTQ+ families – to defend our right to marry whom we choose, expand reproductive freedom, and protect parental relationships of all types. We aspire to a future where everyone can build and protect their family with the recognition and respect we all deserve.
When MPA Coalition member J. Shia was 19, her girlfriend at the time got pregnant. Their relationship moved from romantic to friendship, but when Audai was born and his mother began to struggle with a number of issues, J stepped up to take care of him and has acted as his parent ever since.
J. shares a heartbreaking story of how Audai was placed in foster care because the state refused to recognize J’s parental status, even though she has raised Audai since birth. While obtaining legal guardianship enabled her son to return to her care, people still question their family relationship regularly.
“Every day I carry a notarized copy of my son’s guardianship form in my wallet. I need to present this for schools, his doctors’ and dentist appointments,” J. says. “I’m constantly being questioned. For someone who’s been Audai’s primary parent since the day he was born, this situation is wildly degrading. I am his parent, not just his guardian.”
J. has to get permission before traveling with Audai out of state, and she has to reapply for his health insurance every year. Beyond the day-to-day practical difficulties, J. lives knowing that, at any moment, her guardianship could be revoked. The MPA would allow parents like J to seek de facto parent status that is equal, legal parentage, with all the rights and responsibilities of parentage. And this status would not require terminating Audai’s birth mother’s rights or excluding her from his life. Massachusetts has fallen behind other states in protecting children of de facto parents, and the MPA will remedy this vulnerability.
التعليمات: steps to protect your LGBTQ+ family in the wake of Dobbs
ال Dobbs decision landing at a time when LGBTQ+ people are already facing staggering legislative attacks around the country has rocked our community. GLAD worked with COLAGE, Family Equality, and NCLR to publish an FAQ to provide information on steps LGBTQ+ people can take now to protect their spousal and parenting relationships. We also encourage anyone to اتصل بـ GLAD Answers with specific questions.
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing several cases this term with important implications for nondiscrimination protections, voting rights, and civil rights.
Among these are two cases, argued on October 31, that address whether colleges and universities can continue to consider race as one factor among many in admissions to ensure a diverse student body and learning environment. GLAD joined a brief supporting the universities’ admissions practices with the National Women’s Law Center, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and more than 30 other organizations. اقرأ الموجز في Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard و Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.
Merrill v. Milligan, argued in early October by NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Solicitor General, and private counsel, is a case brought by Black Alabama voters who state that the state’s 2021 redistricting map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. While Black people represent 27% of the state population, Alabama has only one majority Black district out of 7, giving rise to the claim that the map illegally dilutes the voting power of the Black community.
A Colorado website company that wants to enter the wedding business without serving same-sex couples is the plaintiff in 303 Creative v. Elenis. This case brings the question of whether our nation’s public accommodation laws will continue to prohibit businesses from refusing service to people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, their religion, their sex, or their race.
[If] you run a business, no matter what you make or how you think or feel about it, once you open your doors to the public, you serve everyone.
The company is aided by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the legal organization advancing many religion-based challenges to nondiscrimination laws. Their team seeks to use the First Amendment’s protection of free speech to turn away same-sex couples they would rather not serve. ADF and the business claim that abiding by Colorado’s nondiscrimination law would compel them to convey a message with which they disagree, i.e., support for same-sex couples’ weddings.
Sellers and service providers are free to express their beliefs, religious and otherwise, like every other individual — that is a fundamental liberty protected by the constitution. But as a nation, we also agreed a long time ago that if you run a business, no matter what you make or how you think or feel about it, once you open your doors to the public, you serve everyone.
GLAD submitted a friend-of-the-court brief co-authored with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and a team of lawyers at White & Case LLP chronicling the development of nondiscrimination laws in public accommodations, that is, public-facing businesses. These federal and state laws, from the 1964 Civil Rights Act to the Colorado law at issue in this case, have been enacted and enforced to realize our nation’s aspirations of full citizenship and equal participation in a free marketplace for everyone.
“Our public accommodation laws are a unifying force that respects the rights of every person to obtain the goods and services they need to live their lives.”
Historically, the Supreme Court has flatly rejected 1st Amendment challenges to nondiscrimination laws. In the 1968 case Newman v. Piggie Park, a barbecue restaurant argued it should not have to serve Black customers equally because doing so would mean conveying a message of support for integration, which was against the owner’s “sincerely held religious beliefs.” The Court said such a claim was “frivolous” and made clear that what the restaurant owner tried to cast as “speech” was the exact type of conduct that public accommodation laws were enacted to prohibit — the act of discrimination in turning someone away because of who they are.
That understanding of our nondiscrimination laws has held for over half a century and should also hold today. To grant the far-reaching and unprecedented exemption sought by 303 Creative risks turning us back towards a time when commercial businesses could blatantly deny access to not only LGBTQ+ people but also Black, Irish, Jewish, Catholic, or Asian Americans, as well as women, people with disabilities, and people of many faiths.
“Our public accommodation laws are a unifying force that respects the rights of every person to obtain the goods and services they need to live their lives,” says Mary Bonauto, GLAD Senior Director of Civil Rights and Legal Strategies. “The change sought here would take us backward to a time when sellers regularly turned people away because of who they were. But we agreed long ago that that is not the country we want to live in.” GLAD is watching this case closely and urging the Court not to make a drastic change in the law that will lead to more discrimination, polarization, group-based animosity, and people struggling to get the goods and services they need.
“People shouldn’t have to call ahead to find out whether a business will serve people of their faith or their race or if they will be denied service because they are LGBTQ+,” Bonauto adds. “Exclusion and segregation in the public market harm us all.”
This year, for Native American Heritage Month, we spotlight organizations that are led by or serve Native American individuals and communities. Throughout the country, groups like the ones featured below are building support structures for LGBTQ+ and 2-Spirit tribal members and other Indigenous folks.
Southwest Indigenous Women’s Coalition
Southwest Indigenous Women’s Coalition (SWIWC) works to create safe indigenous communities by supporting tribes to increase their capacity to address and respond to violence through education, training, technical assistance, policy advocacy, and culturally sensitive supportive services. SWIWC serves all 22 tribes in Arizona. SWIWC also has a Native LGBTQ/2S Advisory Council to advise the SWIWC staff and Governing board on the best ways to educate, support, and empower Native communities to increase awareness, safety, healing, justice, and resources for the LGBTQ/2S+ community. The LGBTQ/2S Advisory Council offers guidance on training and technical assistance (T/TA) approaches, data inclusion, resource development/funding opportunities, policy development, and tribal and on-site trainings with activities that come directly from the voices and presence of the LGBTQ/2S+ community.
ال Indigenous Peoples Task Force was founded to develop and implement culturally-appropriate HIV education and direct services to the Native community in Minnesota. The Indigenous Peoples Task force works to strengthen the wellness of communities and restore relationships between individuals and the relationship people have with the earth. Through their HIV Program, the Indigenous Peoples Task Force supports all people living on Reservations and in Greater Minnesota to navigate housing and medical care through services that are rooted in indigenous ways of knowing and healing.
Navajo Nation Pride/Diné Pride is the largest indigenous LGBTQ/2S+ pride. Navajo Nation Pride/Diné Pride honors and celebrates the LGBTQ/2S+ community while reaffirming the sacredness of their identities. Diné Pride reintroduces the traditional knowledge and teachings that kept LGBTQ/2S+ individuals safe and revered at one point in history.
National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center
ال National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC) provides national leadership to end violence against American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian women by supporting culturally grounded, grassroots advocacy. NIWRC develops resources and training opportunities to support Tribes, grassroots advocates, and survivors in prioritizing the safety of Native women and their children and requiring accountability of offenders and communities. The Montana-based organization offers LGBTQ/2S+ focused toolkits and webinars.
Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS) is a community-based volunteer organization that exists to restore and recover the role of Two-Spirit people within the American Indian/First Nations community. BAAITS creates a safe environment for Two-Spirit people to socialize and explore their heritage through culturally relevant activities for LGBTQ/2S+ individuals of Native American ancestry, including an annual powwow.
Native Movement
Alaska-based Native Movement supports grassroots-led projects that dismantle oppressive systems for all and ensure social justice, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and the rights of Mother Earth. Native Movement is committed to supporting community initiatives toward personal and communal healing, including gender justice. Native Movement demands justice for the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2-Spirit people and works to support healing by acknowledging the correlation between violence against the earth and gender-based violence.
Donor-Conceived People in LGBTQ Families: Experiences & Legal Landscape
This LGBTQ+ community webinar will highlight stories from people who were born into LGBTQ+ families through donor conception. As policy recommendations about donor conception are in the news, it’s important that the experiences of donor-conceived people in LGBTQ+ families are uplifted and understood. This free online event will also include an overview of current and proposed practices and laws impacting donor-conceived people, LGBTQ+ parents, and gamete donors.
Celebrating Historic LGBTQ+ Representation in the 2022 Elections
While we don’t know the full results from Tuesday’s midterm elections yet, we know there are many things to celebrate, including the historic representation of LGBTQ+ elected officials. We are celebrating:
Maura Healey was elected the first out lesbian governor in the country, as well as the first woman governor in Massachusetts.
Oregon’s Tina Kotek was voted in as the nation’s second openly lesbian governor.
Andrea Campbell won a historic victory as the first Black woman Attorney General in Massachusetts.
Vermont has elected its first LGBTQ+ legislator – and first woman – to Congress in Representative-Elect Becca Balint.
California Representative-Elect Robert Garcia became the first openly gay immigrant elected to Congress. He is the third openly gay representative elected to Congress from California.
Montana and Minnesota elected their first transgender state representatives: Zooey Zephyr in Montana and Leigh Finke in Minnesota.
New Hampshire Representative-Elect James Roesener became the first transgender man ever elected to a state legislature.
Minnesota elected Alicia Kozlowski, the first nonbinary member in the state legislature.
Along with so many firsts, voters supported a number of positive ballot measures:
Five states voted to protect access to abortion: California, Michigan, Vermont, Kentucky, and Montana.
Vermont, along with Alabama, Oregon, and Tennessee, passed constitutional amendments banning slavery and involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime.
In a crucial win for voting rights, Michigan and Connecticut expanded early voting.
In Massachusetts, voters upheld a law that protects access to driver’s licenses for all people who live in the Commonwealth, regardless of immigration status.
Celebrating our victories fuels our hope, and our hope will sustain us in our work for justice.
The path to protecting democracy and truly fulfilling the promise of freedom, equality, and justice for all is long. It extends beyond any one election cycle. This election held some good news and some setbacks, but we must all stay engaged every day for the long term. With you by our side, GLAD will be here to keep fighting every day and every step of the way.
Thank you to everyone who made our 23rd Annual Spirit of Justice Award Dinner such a success!
GLAD’s biggest event of the year brought together supporters of LGBTQ+ equality for an opportunity to unite in resistance, look toward a future of true justice, and support GLAD’s life-changing mission.
This year, we were thrilled to honor Nadine Smith with the Spirit of Justice Award. Nadine is the Executive Director of Equality Florida and a lifelong advocate for human rights and LGBTQ+ equality.
Nadine called for us all to carry on through this moment – not by out-hating or out-destroying, but with community:
“The way you stand up to terror is not to be terrorized. Love, hope, and joy…is the thing that has gotten us through over and over and over again… Love makes you brave. Joy makes you clever. And hope makes you strong… In this moment, it is the antidote to what they are coming at us with. It is the antidote to fear. And so, let us continue, as we always have, to be resilient, to sing in our grief, to laugh in our pain, to look out for one another, and to hold on to love, hope, and joy.”
The event was an incredible night of advocacy, connection, and hope.
It was also an opportunity for GLAD to announce a new strategic agenda – one that recognizes the profound challenges our community and our country are facing.
Read more about GLAD’s commitment to meeting these challenges and sustaining our fight for justice for all.
Thanks to supporters like you, we were able to raise over a quarter of a million dollars at the Spirit of Justice to support our work to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ people and pursue the promise of freedom and justice for all.
Across the country, communities are facing escalating attempts to censor lessons on American history and race, silence classroom discussions of LGBTQ+ people and families, and ban LGBTQ+ books from school and public libraries. These efforts make it more difficult for teachers to educate and deprive students of essential support, information, and skills.
Watch this powerful conversation about the impacts these dangerous laws are already having on students and schools, and strategies for challenging these laws and advancing supportive policies. Together, we can protect public education’s important purpose: to provide all students with the skills, knowledge, and supportive environment they need to thrive in school.
Panelists include:
Nadine Smith, Executive Director at Equality Florida
Chris Erchull, Staff Attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)
Nikole Parker, Director of Transgender Equality at Equality Florida
Tina Philibotte, Chief Equity Officer for the Manchester School District
Andres Mejia, Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice for the Exeter Region Cooperative School District
Alberto Cairo, journalist and parent of a transgender child in Florida public school
Moderated by Michael Johnson, Chief Legal Strategist at GLAD.
Tina Philibotte and Andres Mejia are also plaintiffs in GLAD’s lawsuit challenging New Hampshire’s school censorship law.
This event will be held in-person at Georgetown Law School in Washington, DC, and streaming virtually.
LGBTQ+ people are overrepresented in U.S. jails and prisons and often face brutal treatment, experience a lack of appropriate resources or are denied necessary medical care when incarcerated. Experiences of discrimination and untreated trauma increase the likelihood of interactions with the criminal justice system. LGBTQ+ people are often then subject to further trauma in prison facilities, with few to no treatment options available.
Hosted by Dee Deidre Farmer, the first transgender plaintiff to bring a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Her precedent-setting case, Farmer v. Brennan (1994), set the standard that prison officials can be held liable under the Eighth Amendment for deliberate disregard for the health and safety of incarcerated people. Dee currently leads the Fight4Justice Project and consults with legal organizations like NCLR and GLAD.
This roundtable conversation will present evidence about trauma experienced by LGBTQ+ people prior to and during incarceration and will make the case for prioritizing treatment in the community before and as an alternative to imprisonment.
يضم:
Michael Cox, Executive Director, Black and Pink Massachusetts
Jennifer Levi, Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights, GLAD
Cynthia Totten, Deputy Executive Director, Just Detention International
Taylar Nuevelle, Founder, Who Speaks For Me
Hosted by Dee Deidre Farmer, Founder and Executive Director of the Fight4Justice Project, and Shannon Minter, Legal Director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
PLEASE NOTE: Proof of COVID vaccine or proof of medical or religious exemption are required. Here’s what you need to do.
RSVP TODAY:
From Georgetown University:
COVID Safety Instructions for Visiting Campus
To help protect the health and safety of the Georgetown community, including our guests, all visitors ages 12 and older to University-owned or operated buildings must be up to date on COVID-19 vaccination (i.e., primary series and, when eligible, an additional dose), or attest to having a medical or religious exemption from being vaccinated.
Please follow the steps below that are required before your visit.
Step #1: Anytime between now and the day before your visit, please submit documentation showing you are up to date on COVID-19 vaccination with a vaccine authorized for emergency use or granted approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the World Health Organization (WHO). Acceptable proof of vaccination includes, but is not limited to:
CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Card
WHO Vaccine Booklet
Documentation provided by a healthcare organization or country
Note: If you are not up to date on COVID-19 vaccination but attest to having an appropriate medical or religious reason for not being vaccinated, you will be able to indicate this as part of Step #1 and proceed with the process required to visit our campus. You will be required to submit to the University proof of a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours prior to your arrival time on our campus when you submit your health attestation on the day of the event.
Step #2: Assuming successful completion of Step 1, you will receive a short health attestation form via email on the morning of the event date. Please complete this form, attesting that you are symptom-free before coming to campus. If you indicate any symptoms consistent with COVID-19, you will not be permitted to visit a Georgetown-owned or managed campus or building until you are symptom-free.
Your Georgetown University host will be able to monitor your progress on Step #1 above, and they may contact you if they see that you have not yet completed this step ahead of your scheduled time on campus. While event hosts are not provided information about your COVID-19 vaccination or your religious or medical exemption from vaccination, they are notified of the outcome of any COVID-19 test required by the University in connection with a claimed exemption and whether you have reported having COVID-19 symptoms or being in close contact with anyone who has tested positive.
Questions about the event? Contact Ivory King at iking@glad.org.
أثارت قرارات المحكمة العليا الأخيرة تساؤلاتٍ ملحة حول مجتمع الميم والمصابين بفيروس نقص المناعة البشرية. خط المساعدة القانونية لدينا، GLAD Law Answers، قادر على مساعدتك. تواصل معنا اليوم.
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