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Every day we hear about LGBT people who are not treated equally on the job. We agree with the President that workers should be judged only by their ability to get the job done, but know that is not always the reality.

We applaud today’s executive order, which demonstrates a concrete commitment to nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It’s a step that will make the workplace better and fairer for LGBT employees, including the tens of thousands of federal employees in the New England states.

We are proud that New England has been a leader in establishing protections on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation and that, in the absence of broad federal protections, this executive order extends important protections for LGBT employees who work for federal contractors.

LGBT employees of the federal government or of federal contractors can contact GLADAnswers for information about their rights in the workplace, and to access information and resources: www.GLADAnswers.org.

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The following national organizations have signed onto the below statement: American Civil Liberties Union; Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders; Lambda Legal; National Center for Lesbian Rights; and Transgender Law Center.

Joint Statement on Withdrawal of Support for ENDA and Call for Equal Workplace Protections for LGBT People

The provision in the current version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that allows religious organizations to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity has long been a source of significant concern to us. Given the types of workplace discrimination we see increasingly against LGBT people, together with the calls for greater permission to discriminate on religious grounds that followed immediately upon the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, it has become clear that the inclusion of this provision is no longer tenable. It would prevent ENDA from providing protections that LGBT people desperately need and would make very bad law with potential further negative effects. Therefore, we are announcing our withdrawal of support for the current version of ENDA.

For decades, our organizations have challenged anti-LGBT workplace discrimination in the courts and worked for the passage of inclusive non-discrimination laws at the local, state, and federal level. We do this work because of the devastating toll workplace discrimination has had, and continues to have, on the lives of LGBT people. It is unacceptable that in the year 2014, men and women are forced to hide who they are or whom they love when they go to work.

The current patchwork of legal protections at the state and local level has left LGBT people vulnerable to discrimination. For this reason, we have supported federal legislation to explicitly protect LGBT people from discrimination in the workplace, and have urged President Obama to sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

ENDA’s discriminatory provision, unprecedented in federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination, could provide religiously affiliated organizations – including hospitals, nursing homes and universities – a blank check to engage in workplace discrimination against LGBT people. The provision essentially says that anti-LGBT discrimination is different – more acceptable and legitimate – than discrimination against individuals based on their race or sex. If ENDA were to pass and be signed into law with this provision, the most important federal law for the LGBT community in American history would leave too many jobs, and too many LGBT workers, without protection. Moreover, it actually might lessen non-discrimination protections now provided for LGBT people by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and very likely would generate confusion rather than clarity in federal law. Finally, such a discrimination provision in federal law likely would invite states and municipalities to follow the unequal federal lead. All of this is unacceptable.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby has made it all the more important that we not accept this inappropriate provision. Because opponents of LGBT equality are already misreading that decision as having broadly endorsed rights to discriminate against others, we cannot accept a bill that sanctions discrimination and declares that discrimination against LGBT people is more acceptable than other kinds of discrimination.

Our ask is a simple one: Do not give religiously affiliated employers a license to discriminate against LGBT people when they have no such right to discriminate based on race, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information. Religiously affiliated organizations are allowed to make hiring decisions based on their religion, but nothing in federal law authorizes discrimination by those organizations based on any other protected characteristic, and the rule should be the same for sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. Religious organizations are free to choose their ministers or faith leaders, and adding protections for sexual orientation and gender identity or expression will not change that.

These concerns are not hypothetical. Increasingly, this is what employment discrimination against LGBT people looks like. Take the example of Matthew Barrett. In July 2013, Matthew was offered a job as food services director at Fontbonne Academy, a college prep high school in Milton, Massachusetts that is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston. Fontbonne Academy has employees and admits students of various faiths. Yet, two days after Matthew listed his husband as his emergency contact on the standard employment paperwork, and despite twenty years of work in the food services industry, his job offer was rescinded. Although nothing about the food services job involved religious rituals or teaching, Matthew was told by an administrator that the school was unable to hire him because “the Catholic religion doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage.” The current version of ENDA would authorize this sexual orientation discrimination.

As the national outcry against SB 1062 in Arizona (and similar proposals in numerous other states) demonstrates, the American people oppose efforts to misuse religious liberty as an excuse to discriminate against LGBT people. It is time for ENDA (and the LGBT non-discrimination executive order for federal contractors) to reflect this reality. Until the discriminatory exemption is removed so that anti-LGBT discrimination is treated the same as race, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information under federal workplace laws, we think ENDA should not move forward in Congress. In addition, we will oppose any similar provisions at the state and local level. We are hopeful that the many members of Congress who support this historic, critically important legislation will agree that singling out LGBT people for an unequal and unfair exemption from basic workplace protection falls unacceptably short of the civil rights standards that have served our nation well against other types of discrimination for fifty years. We stand ready and eager to work with them to achieve the long-sought goal of explicit, effective federal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people.

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Joint Statement on Withdrawal of Support for ENDA and Call for Equal Workplace Protections for LGBT People

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Today’s Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. can only be seen as bad news for women’s health. There can be no sugar-coating that. We extend our support to all women, including women in our LGBT community who may be affected by potential restricted access to reproductive healthcare, and to our allied organizations who work so hard to protect that access.

Anticipating the ruling, LGBT people feared that a broad decision could open the door to outright discrimination and firings as the expression of religious belief. The majority opinion avows a much narrower reach of its decision. It notes that the government has a compelling interest in creating equal opportunity in the workplace while prohibitions on discrimination are precisely tailored to achieve that “critical goal.” In such circumstances, exemptions from the law are not allowed. In addition, Justice Kennedy’s concurrence – representing the fifth vote needed by the majority – was clear that religious exercise may not “unduly restrict other persons, such as employees, in protecting their own interests, interests the law deems compelling.”

While the decision today makes clear that there is no opening for demands to be exempt from non-discrimination laws, we are very aware of the need to be vigilant. Attempts to discriminate against LGBT people are increasingly being articulated as religious expression, as in the case of GLAD’s client Matt Barrett. His offer of employment was withdrawn by Fontbonne Academy, a religiously-affiliated school, when he noted on a form that his spouse was a man. We have sued on Matt’s behalf, and we will continue to fight for him and against any and all attempts to justify discrimination against LGBT people.

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On June 20, 2014, the Social Security Administration (SSA) issued extensive guidance on eligibility for spouse-based retirement and survivor benefits, Medicare and SSI benefits, which greatly expands the number of same-sex couples who are eligible for those benefits. GLAD, together with other LGBT organizations, has been advocating with SSA to interpret its rules in a way that maximizes the number of same-sex couples who can qualify for these benefits. If you feel that you are eligible for any of these benefits, you should apply as soon as possible because the benefit is effective the date of the application.

With the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the discriminatory federal limitation on marriage in the “Defense of Marriage Act” in the Windsor decision last June, it was clear that married same-sex couples living in a place that recognizes their marriage are eligible for the full range of Social Security and Medicare spouse-based benefits as long as they meet the other requirements for the benefit. The new guidance primarily speaks to how SSA will treat the marriages of married couples and surviving spouses who live in states that do not recognize those marriages, and how SSA will treat other legal statuses like civil unions and domestic partnerships.

The answers provided by SSA require careful attention to detail. First, SSA and the Department of Justice concluded that SSA is bound by existing law to look to the law of the state where the applicant lives or where the deceased spouse died. This means that instead of using the “Place of Celebration” rule like many other federal programs (which means that as long as you legally married, it doesn’t matter where you currently live), SSA believes it is required to use the “Place of Residence” rule. This rule requires SSA to look to the laws of the place where the couple resides (or where the deceased died if it is a survivor benefits claim, or where the applicant moved to while the application is pending) to determine whether their marriage is respected for SSA purposes.

The federal laws governing eligibility for SSA benefits also provide alternate means for a person to be recognized as a spouse, and SSA has embraced this reading of the law to provide spousal benefits to many people joined in civil union or registered domestic partnership. Under the SSA’s laws, a person is considered a spouse when he or she can inherit personal property from the other without a will as would a husband or a wife (this is referred to as intestate rights). SSA has identified states whose laws (statutes) provide spousal inheritance rights to non-marriage relationships, so that people joined in those statuses and living in those states should be considered spouses for some SSA benefits (see https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0200210004).

The ability to obtain premium-free Medicare Part A based on the work record of your spouse, uses the same rule as described above for Social Security spouse-based retirement and survivor benefits.

However, the rule for SSI eligibility is different from spousal-based retirement and survivor benefits. SSI only recognizes marriages (so couples with civil unions and domestic partnerships will be considered single when determining SSI eligibility) and looks to the laws of the state where the couple resides or where the applicant moves to while the application is pending to determine whether the marriage will be recognized.

GLAD continues to encourage people to apply for benefits if they think they may qualify. In terms of the six New England states, at a minimum, SSA’s Guidance should mean that the following relationships are respected:

Connecticut—marriage, civil union
Maine—marriage, Maine registered domestic partnership
New Hampshire—marriage, civil union
Rhode Island—marriage, civil union
Vermont—marriage, civil union

GLAD believes that based on state statute or case law that there are arguments to be made for additional relationships being eligible for benefits. If you believe that your relationship grants you intestate rights under the laws of your state of residence, and that you meet the other requirements for the benefit, then you should apply. There is no penalty for applying for a benefit and being denied, but since the date of application determines when the benefit begins, you can lose part of the benefit if you do not apply as soon as you are eligible.

If you have questions or are denied a benefit, please contact GLAD Answers by email or live chat at www.GLADAnswers.org or by phone 800-455-GLAD (4523).

For more detailed information, see http://www.ssa.gov/news/press/releases.html#!/print/6-2014-1, https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0200210000 epi https://www.gladlaw.org/doma/topics/c/social-security-spousal-and-family-protections.

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GLAD today applauded new transgender-supportive birth certificate policies adopted by the American Medical Association (AMA).

Yesterday, the AMA’s governing House of Delegates adopted a report recommending that states eliminate any requirement that individuals undergo gender affirmation surgery in order to change their sex designation on birth certificates. In doing so, it recognized the medical consensus that a person should not have to “undergo surgery or accept sterilization as a condition of obtaining an accurate birth certificate.” The same report supported modernizing state vital statistics statutes to ensure accurate gender markers on birth certificates for transgender people, noting that many current state statutes are based on old science and outmoded understandings of transgender people. The report can be read here on GLAD’s website.

“In our society, birth certificates are not just a record of one’s existence, but a gateway to employment, identity documents, school enrollment, and myriad government programs,” said Gary Buseck, Interim Executive Director of GLAD. “The everyday lives of transgender people are made easier or much, much harder depending on whether they have accurate birth certificates. We applaud the AMA for putting its considerable weight behind these recommendations.”

The report further affirms gender dysphoria as a “serious medical condition” and the medical necessity and effectiveness of mental health care, social transition, hormone therapy, and surgery as forms of therapeutic treatment for many people diagnosed with gender dysphoria. In addition, the report states, “The only effective treatment of [gender dysphoria] is medical care to support the person’s ability to live fully consistent with one’s gender identity. Efforts to change a person’s gender identity are futile and, like sexual orientation change efforts, can have a disastrously negative impact on the patient.”

Buseck noted that the AMA’s support will be critical in ongoing local efforts to make it easier for transgender people to access accurate documents, and to change state laws governing those documents. Currently in New England, only Vermont has explicitly removed its surgical requirement for birth certificate amendments.

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On June 20, 2014, Attorney General Eric Holder sent a memorandum to President Obama detailing the progress that has been made in implementing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Windsor decision of June 26, 2013. That decision struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which prevented same-sex married couples from being able to access the 1,138 federal laws that pertain to marriage. During the past year, GLAD and other LGBT organizations have been working closely with the Department of Justice and the various federal agencies advocating that the decision be implemented in a way that maximizes the number of same-sex married couples who are eligible for these federal benefits. The LGBT organizations have advocated that a “place of celebration” rule be used to determine eligibility for these benefits, which means that as long as a couple legally married they would be eligible for federal benefits regardless of where they reside. With a few important exceptions, this has largely been achieved.

As Attorney General Holder states in his memo:

The impact of the Windsor decision, and the government-wide implementation efforts, cannot be overstated. The Internal Revenue Service permits same-sex couples to file joint tax returns. The Department of Defense permits same-sex spouses of military service members to receive the same benefits as opposite-sex spouses. Our immigration system permits citizens and lawful permanent residents to sponsor same-sex spouses for immigration benefits. Same-sex spouses of federal employees are eligible for health insurance and other benefits. And the Department of Justice will recognize the validity of same-sex marriages in courtrooms and proceedings in which its lawyers appear to the greatest extent permitted under the law.

However, two agencies—the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—are prohibited by federal statute from adopting a “place of celebration” rule for certain programs of critical importance to millions of Americans. GLAD and other LGBT organizations continue to work with the federal government and Congress to try to change the policies that prevent some married same-sex couples from having access to these important federal protections.

Even though it is now over a year since the Windsor decision, we are still waiting for guidance from some federal programs. GLAD will continue to work with the federal government until all these issues are addressed.

To see Attorney General Holder’s complete memorandum to President Obama click isit la.

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When it comes to the laws that govern us all, there are religious exemptions that most Americans agree are reasonable. During Prohibition, Congress decided to allow the use of wine in religious ceremonies; decades later, the Supreme Court determined that religious observers whose Sabbath falls on Saturday could not be penalized for not working on that day. And as GLAD Legal Director Gary Buseck says, “Who would disagree with that?”

But in recent times, there has been an aggressive push to widen the circle of exemptions – often as justification for negative treatment of LGBT people.

Religious exemptions have been written into state marriage equality laws. The as-yet-to-be-passed federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act includes an exemption that extends well beyond those in other federal non-discrimination laws. Most recently, there have been a number of high profile attempts to pass state laws with the clear goal of allowing businesses to deny service to gay people based on the owner’s religious beliefs. As we go to press, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide a related question in the Hobby Lobby case. There, the owners of that very large craft store chain seek to establish a religiously-based right not to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s mandates for contraceptive care.

GLAD has decided that it’s time to draw the line and stop the expansion of justifiable discrimination.

GLAD and other LGBT legal organizations have historically sought to mediate the tension between non-discrimination and religious liberty when possible. “Religion has a very special place in American Constitutional history,” says Senior Staff Attorney Jennifer Levi. “And homosexuality has a very special place in religion.” .

Mediating that tension has not always been possible. In the 2006 case involving Sarah Blanchette, an employee of St. Anselm College, a Catholic-affiliated institution in New Hampshire, GLAD argued that federal employment law did not permit the college to fire a transgender employee regardless of its religious justification. When Sarah informed her supervisors that she would be transitioning on the job, they summarily dismissed her – and put it in writing. GLAD secured a settlement on Sarah’s behalf.

And sometimes the tension between religion and non-discrimination has erupted in the political sphere. Also in 2006, Catholic Charities of Boston decided that rather than continue complying with the state’s non-discrimination law by making its adoption services available to same-sex couples, it would get out of the adoption business.

Recently, however, as Levi says, “The calculus has changed, informed by two huge shifts we have seen. The first is that protections for gay and lesbian people – while not uniform across the board – are more robust than ever before. And the other is the change in public opinion in support of L, G, and B people.” She adds that the legal picture and religious overlay is substantially different for transgender people.

In just the past year, GLAD has heard, via Repons GLAD, from numbers of gay and lesbian people who are facing exclusions and discrimination based on asserted religious beliefs. One such intake became GLAD’s recently filed case Barrett kont Akademi Fontbonne. Matt Barrett (pictured above with his husband, Ed Suplee) was offered the position of food services manager, for which he was eminently qualified, at Fontbonne, a Catholic-affiliated college prep school in Massachusetts. But when Matt filled out required paperwork and named his husband Ed Suplee as his emergency contact, the job offer was withdrawn. Matt was told that his marriage was something “we don’t believe in.”

In firing Matt from a job having nothing to do with religion, GLAD asserts that Fontbonne is in violation of the Commonwealth’s non-discrimination law. Senior Staff Attorney Ben Klein, who is representing Matt, says, “This is a case that asks the question, where is the line between religious liberty and equal opportunity?”

That is a question on which it is time for our voices to be heard.

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In recent years, the LGBTI community in Uganda has been under escalating political attack, culminating in the 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act, which was signed into law on February 24. That same day, half-way across the world, John Abdallah Wambere’s phone started buzzing relentlessly. Wambere was in the U.S. speaking and raising awareness about the situation in Uganda. The calls were from friends telling him the bad news.

“I was in shock. I was heartbroken,” says John. He and his fellow activists had worked hard to prevent the enactment of the bill, and had held out hope that it would not be signed. Faced with the new prospect of arrest and life imprisonment should he return to Uganda, John made the difficult decision to seek asylum in the U.S.

John’s legal team for his asylum claim includes GLAD attorneys Allison Wright and Janson Wu, as well as private immigration attorney Hema Sarang-Sieminski.

Wambere has been an LGBTI activist for fourteen years. He is the co-founder of Spectrum Uganda Initiatives, a nonprofit organization in Uganda that works to ensure the safety of the LGBTI community, reduce stigma, assist LGBTI Ugandans under arrest, and educate about HIV.

“This has been a very, very difficult decision for me,” says Wambere. “I have devoted my life to working for LGBTI people in Uganda, and it gives me great pain not to be with my community, allies, and friends while they are under increasing attack. But in my heart, I know it is my only option, and that I would be of no use to my community in jail.”

The Anti-Homosexuality Act imposes harsher penalties for same-sex relationships, including life imprisonment. It also imposes new penalties for any activities that are viewed as “aiding and abetting homosexuality” and “promoting homosexuality.” The law is broad in its reach and criminalizes activism and public health education work related to LGBTI individuals, including those living with HIV.

“It is simply not safe for John to return to Uganda,” says Wu. “Even before the bill was signed, John was outed as gay by newspapers, harassed by strangers, received death threats from anonymous phone calls, evicted from his home, and beaten up. Now he also faces life imprisonment should he return.”

Following the signing of the bill, 30,000 Ugandans gathered in a stadium for a rally to thank the president for signing the law. They listened to speakers who called LGBTI people “criminals,” “animals” and “devils.” Since the bill’s signing, LGBTI people in Uganda have been arrested, some have gone underground, and others have fled the country. An HIV organization was infiltrated and shut down by police, and two gay men are currently on trial.

Anti-gay sentiment in Uganda has been promoted by American evangelicals, who travelled to the country to preach and promote what was at the time called the “Kill the Gays” bill because it included the death penalty, which was removed.

“The United States can do two very important things,” says Allison Wright, GLAD Staff Attorney. “We can provide a safer harbor where brave Ugandan LGBTI individuals can continue to speak out and work for change; and we can work to stop the export of prejudice, denouncing the efforts of Americans to spread homophobia in other countries.”

How can we in the U.S. help LGBTI people in Uganda?

La Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Rights, a coalition of Ugandan organizations dedicated to fighting this act, recently published guidelines for international partners on how best to support the work in Uganda. We encourage you to support the work of the Coalition, as well as other Uganda human rights coalitions and organizations, such as Spectrum Uganda Initiatives epi Sexual Minorities Uganda.

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WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Departmental Appeals Board ruled today that Medicare’s categorical exclusion of coverage for sex-reassignment surgery, regardless of a person’s individual medical conditions and needs, is not consistent with contemporary science and medical standards of care.

The ACLU, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) have issued the following statement about the Board’s decision:

“This decision removes a threshold barrier to coverage for medical care for transgender people under Medicare. It is consistent with the consensus of the medical and scientific community that access to gender transition-related care is medically necessary for many people with gender dysphoria. The removal of the exclusion of coverage for surgical care for Medicare recipients means that individuals will not automatically have claims of coverage for gender transition-related surgeries denied. They should either get coverage or, at a minimum, receive an individualized review of the medical need for the specific procedure they seek, just like anyone seeking coverage for any other medical treatment.”

The HHS Departmental Appeals Board is an independent board within HHS staffed by career civil servants. The Board’s decisions constitute the final decision of HHS and are not subject to further review by political appointees.

The ACLU, GLAD, NCLR, and civil rights attorney Mary Lou Boelcke filed an administrative challenge last year on behalf of Denee Mallon, a transgender woman whose doctors have recommended surgery to alleviate her severe gender dysphoria.

Mallon joined the U.S. Army when she was 17-years-old and worked as a forensics investigator for a city police department after she was honorably discharged from the Army. She was later diagnosed with gender identity disorder (now known as gender dysphoria), a serious medical condition that is characterized by intense and persistent discomfort with one’s birth sex.