LD 320, An Act To Provide the Right to Counsel for Juveniles and Improve Due Process for Juveniles, will provide youth with both the right to counsel and improved due process rights. These rights, guaranteed to adults, help protect our youth and lower recidivism and crime.
This bill is designed to guarantee young people the protection of an attorney in their corner. With LGBTQ youth overrepresented in juvenile detention facilities, their unique mental and physical health struggles can go overlooked. While many youth in the state of Maine today have no real representation, this bill would ensure that young people are not overcharged and overbooked. Length of stay remains an issue, as does simply processing through the cases.
Prison is simply not a productive environment for young people and has measurable detrimental consequences. It is in everyone’s interest not to overlook our youth, and to make sure they are getting the support they need. GLAD is happy to join numerous other organizations to endorse the passage of this bill.
Transgender girls deserve to have full access to all educational opportunities, including playing on girls’ sports teams.
LD 926 would ban transgender girls from participating in school sports. When we tell transgender girls that they can’t play girls’ sports, it sends the harmful message that they don’t belong.
Learn more about why it’s so essential to protect access to the lessons and benefits of all areas of education for all youth, including transgender youth by reading our statement.
Contacts:
Gia Drew, EqualityMaine, 207-423-0580, gdrew@equalitymaine.org
Quinn Gormley, Maine TransNet, 207-832-1719, quinn@mainetransnet.org
March 8, 2021 (AUGUSTA) – Maine civil rights and community organizations which advocate for the wellbeing of LGBTQ youth in the state are speaking out against proposed legislation targeting transgender girls. LD 926, introduced by Representative Beth O’Connor, seeks to limit transgender girls’ and young women’s fair educational access by barring them from participation in elementary, secondary and post-secondary school sports. The bill would also require an invasive and demeaning medical examination for any girl or young woman who is wrongly excluded from participation on a girls’ or women’s team.
“As Mainers we all want fairness in school sports but this bill isn’t fair, it’s harmful to young people. Not only would the bill exclude some girls and young women from important developmental opportunities because of who they are, it would subject any girl who wants to challenge that exclusion to a prying and privacy-invading medical exam.”
said Gia Drew, Program Director at EqualityMaine.
“Transgender girls want the opportunity to play sports for the same reasons as all girls – to be part of a team and feel like they belong. Sports help young people develop important qualities like leadership, self-respect, and teamwork. When we tell transgender girls that they can’t play girls’ sports they miss out on this important childhood experience.”
said Quinn Gormley , Executive Director, MaineTransNet.
“This bill is misguided and harmful. Efforts to ban trans girls from participating in girls’ sports jeopardize their mental health, physical well-being and ability to access education opportunities similar to other students. All children, including trans children, belong in Maine.”
said Meagan Sway, Policy Director, ACLU of Maine
“We can have both fairness for girls and inclusion of all girls in sports. Allowing young people to develop and grow as people through participating in sports is good for them and for their, and all our, futures. That’s the track record we’ve built in Maine.”
said Mary L. Bonauto, Civil Rights Project Director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders
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Equality Maine works to secure full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in Maine through political action, community organizing, education, and collaboration.www.equalitymaine.org
MaineTransNet supports and empowers transgender people to create a world where they can thrive.www.mainetrans.net
ACLU of Maine is the state’s guardian of liberty. It is active in the courts, the legislature and the public sphere to defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and to extend their promises to all Mainers. www.aclumaine.org
Through strategic litigation, public policy advocacy, and education, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders works in New England and nationally to create a just society free of discrimination based on gender identity and expression, HIV status, and sexual orientation.
Update: On March 30, 2021, The Maine legislature voted LD 396 Ought Not to Pass. We continue our advocacy for children in low-income families so they are connected to resources instead of being separated from their parents.
On March 2, 2021, Civil Rights Project Director Mary L. Bonauto submitted testimony supporting LD 396, “An Act To Require the Department of Health and Human Services To Provide Assistance with Applications for Basic Necessities To Prevent Children Being Removed from Parental Custody.”
This legislation addresses the inequity of a system that removes children from their families due to lower income levels instead of providing support. Current policy disproportionately affects Black and Brown families in Maine due to poverty rates being higher among African American, followed by Latinx, Asian American, and Indigenous residents. This bill would help families access existing programs to improve stability, stay together, and prevent needless trauma caused by separation.
Our commitment to LGBTQ youth means we work with youth from all walks of life, as individuals and in families, and in the state and local “systems” of education, child welfare, and juvenile justice. Civil Rights Project Director Mary Bonauto served on the Maine Juvenile Justice Re-investment Task Force in 2019-20. The Task Force’s Final Report showed the strong connections between incarceration and previous school suspensions (or “push out”) and past child welfare findings about children experiencing harm. Young people in the juvenile criminal system are disproportionately youth of color and LGBTQ.
Further, the biennial health survey of Maine youth shows that LGBTQ youth are still more likely to feel unsupported at home, to be bullied at school, to contemplate suicide, and to use drugs and alcohol than their non-LGBTQ peers. Even though young people are resilient, rejection from families and system involvement disrupt childhood, impede development, and create higher risk of mental and behavioral health challenges, homelessness, and adult incarceration.
In the past six months, we have been on the ground in the Maine legislature and in policy settings, working with young people and many adult allies to bring basic reforms to the juvenile system to encourage diversion, end incarceration for the purpose of “supervision” of a youth who has nowhere to go, to shorten sentences, and bring more due process into the system by assigning youth lawyers who can petition for less restrictive alternatives. We are also supporting both legislative and COVID-19-driven collaborative efforts to remove young people from Maine’s youth prison and into the community with the safety and supports everyone needs.
Among many other initiatives, we also continue our Maine work addressing school policing and advocacy for restorative justice, supporting the youth led-campaign to close the Long Creek juvenile detention center, advocating for LGBTQ-competent policy changes to state agencies and on data collection, and service on the Justice for Children Task Force, convened by the State Supreme Judicial Court. The city of Portland made a landmark decision in June to remove school resource officers, thus removing police officers from public school campuses. You can read Mary Bonauto’s testimony supporting this important development here.
Click here to learn more and read the entire Summer 2020 issue of GLAD Briefs.
GLAD heralds streamlined process for amending gender designation on Maine birth certificates
Today a new Maine Department of Health and Human Services rule went into effect that removes unnecessary barriers to amending gender markers on birth certificates, and makes available the option of choosing an X marker.
The new rule allows individuals over 18 and emancipated minors to obtain an updated birth record with their appropriate gender marker via a notarized attestation, without the requirement of a medical affidavit or court order. The rule also provides for the option of an X marker, allowing for more accurate records for individuals who do not identify as exclusively female or male, including those who may identify as nonbinary or intersex. Parents or legal guardians of minor children can request an updated birth record for their child by submitting a notarized attestation combined with certification from a licensed medical or mental health care provider.
“This is an important development for people across Maine who simply want to live their lives as who they are and avoid the barriers created legally and socially from inaccurate gender markers on official identification,” said Mary L. Bonauto, Civil Rights Project Director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). “Birth records are a critically important means for personal identification. The change to a simpler administrative process for amending gender markers and the inclusion of an X marker to recognize a range of gender identities are both in line with the approach taken in a growing number of states, as well as other Maine agencies including the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. These changes also reflect the recommendations of authoritative medical and other professionals, including the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, who understand that diverse gender identities and expressions are normal and positive variations of human experience.”
The roll out of the finalized rule follows a process that included a public hearing in March and a public comment period this spring, in which GLAD participated, and will apply to amending gender markers on other important records including marriage and death certificates.
Individuals seeking additional information or assistance in amending gender markers on identification documents are encouraged to reach out to the ID Project, operated by GLAD, Ropes & Gray and Goodwin. The ID Project pairs transgender individuals across New England with attorneys offering free and confidential assistance with gender marker and name changes.
2/27/2020: GLAD Civil Rights Project Director Mary L Bonauto submitted testimony in support of LR 3255, An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Juvenile Justice System Advisory Assessment and Reinvestment Task Force. This bill would require several measures to safeguard the health and welfare of young people in Maine’s Juvenile justice system, including:
Ending the practice of detaining young people “because there is no parent or other suitable person willing and able to supervise and care for the juvenile” by repealing 15 MRSA §3203, §4 (C)(2).
Reducing the number of detained and committed youth in the juvenile justice system according to specified benchmarks
Requiring participation with the Maine Juvenile Justice Systems Advisory Assessment & Reinvestment Taskforce in efforts to redirect youth into community-based justice services instead of detention and incarceration
Providing annual reporting by the Department of Corrections through 2024 on specific efforts, successes and challenges, numbers and outcomes and other metrics
Mary Bonauto said in her testimony, “As a member of the Maine Juvenile Justice Systems Advisory Assessment & Reinvestment Taskforce, I am pleased to see this bill take steps forward on some of the priorities identified in the Maine Juvenile Justice System Assessment (2020) that came from that process.”
February 3, 2020: GLAD Civil Rights Project Director Mary L. Bonauto submitted testimony in opposition of LD 1791, An Act to Allow Certain Retired Law Enforcement Officers and Trained Law Enforcement Officers To Serve As School Security Officer.
This bill would allow a school administrator to employ a trained law enforcement officer as the school’s “school security officer.”
EqualityMaine, Maine Transgender Network, GLAD and Maine Women’s Lobby Announce Health Coverage for Transgender Individuals under MaineCare
Portland, MAINE – EqualityMaine and Maine Transgender Network, in coalition with GLAD-GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and Maine Women’s Lobby, announced today that MaineCare, Maine’s Medicaid health program, will provide coverage for medically necessary care for transgender Mainers.
The historic announcement marks a significant change in MaineCare policy, removing an outdated and discriminatory exclusion of transition-related care from the regulations and adding vital standards of care that reflect current medical practices recognizing the healthcare needs of transgender individuals. These changes bring MaineCare policy into alignment with the professional medical community and into compliance with both state and federal law, including the Affordable Care Act.
The Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), following last year’s leadership changes and with input from LGBTQ advocacy organizations and community members, began to make necessary changes this spring to reflect medical standards regarding comprehensive healthcare coverage for transgender individuals. In June, DHHS adopted an emergency rule eliminating transgender procedures from the list of non-covered services. This policy change is now in compliance with LD 1, passed earlier this year by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Mills, which enshrined the language of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its adjoining regulations into state law, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, or disability in health plans in Maine. On September 16, the new DHHS rule took effect.
Under the new rule, medical providers will be reimbursed for providing MaineCare covered services to treat patients with gender dysphoria, a clinical diagnosis. Coverage for medically necessary surgical services related to gender dysphoria will require prior authorization. Gender dysphoria is a conflict between a person’s gender identity and the sex assigned to that person at birth. The American Psychiatric Association says it is often accompanied by extreme distress, which can interfere with the ability to function in everyday life. Criteria for determining medically necessary care will be based on consensus professional medical standards, such as the Standards of Care (SOC) of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
“Trans people, like myself, need access to affordable healthcare to stay healthy and when we become ill or injured. Some in our community may need additional care as part of our transition, but because trans health is so widely misunderstood it’s often a huge barrier to get the care we need to live a full, healthy, and productive life. Access to medically necessary healthcare is literally life-saving, especially for trans people, and it’s remarkable that thousands of Mainers will now have this coverage available to them” said EqualityMaine’s program director, Gia Drew.
According to the 2015 US Trans Survey Maine Report, 23% of trans people in Maine experienced a problem with their insurance related to being transgender in the prior year, such as being denied coverage for care related to gender transition or being denied coverage for routine care because they were transgender.
“Trans people face significant economic barriers to accessing care, and more than 1 in 3 trans people have declined to access care of any kind because they could not afford it. Making MaineCare specifically trans inclusive is a vital step towards eliminating these barriers. Of the more than 1200 resource and referral requests MaineTransNet received in 2018, more than a quarter of them were about MaineCare coverage of transition care. This is an urgent need, and meeting it will save and improve lives,” says Quinn Gormley (She/hers), Executive Director, MaineTransNet
Maine proudly joins 22 other states, including the rest of New England, to explicitly cover transition and gender affirming care in our state medicaid program.
Mainers are eligible for insurance through MaineCare if their annual income is less than $17,232 for a single person or $29,436 for a family of three. For more information about getting MaineCare, connect with Consumers for Affordable Health Care or Maine Equal Justice. Mainers with incomes above the MaineCare threshold but less than $49,960 for a single person or than $85,320 for a family of three may be eligible for lower monthly premiums through the health insurance marketplace at HealthCare.gov; open enrollment runs from November 1, 2019 – December 15, 2019. For those already enrolled in MaineCare, these benefits should be available effective immediately, though billing codes and prior authorizations may be delayed.
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Founded in 1984, EqualityMaine is dedicated to creating a fair and just society for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Mainers. We envision the day when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons and their families have full equality in the hearts and minds of Maine people and in all areas of the law.
MaineTransNet is Maine’s only organization specifically dedicated to supporting and empowering transgender people through community and health access and advocacy. With more than 30 peer based support groups from Kittery to Presque Isle, and more than a thousand support requests answered annually, MaineTransNet is the largest statewide transgender support organization in the United States.
Through strategic litigation, public policy advocacy, and education, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders works in New England and nationally to create a just society free of discrimination based on gender identity and expression, HIV status, and sexual orientation.
The Maine Women’s Lobby was founded in 1978 and is dedicated to legislative action on behalf of Maine’s women and girls. The Maine Women’s Lobby believes women and girls should have economic security, access to health care, and freedom from violence and discrimination
GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Welcomes New Board Members
(Boston, MA) GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) is thrilled to announce the appointment of three new board members: Jessyca Feliciano, Matthew McGuirk, and Spencer Icasiano. These individuals have served the LGBTQ community for many years and bring robust experience in the areas of corporate diversity, financial development, and technology user experience.
“With their commitment to GLAD’s mission and work, Jessyca, Matthew, and Spencer’s diverse talents will add to the Board’s strength, making us even more ready to face the challenges ahead. We are excited to welcome three people with such varied professional backgrounds and passion for LGBTQ equality,” said Executive Director Janson Wu.
Jessyca Feliciano is a Vice President of Employee Relations at State Street Corporation, helping manage the relationships between the organization and its employees. Prior to joining State Street, Jessyca held positions of increasing responsibility in corporate and non-profit organizations, most recently with Mass Mutual as a Human Resources Business Partner supporting the Data Science and Digital Design corporate groups and their leaders. In addition to her primary responsibilities, Jessyca also served as a diversity and inclusion liaison, holding the business accountable for implementing diversity best practices and strategies. She started her career in social work working with at risk youth in underprivileged communities, always focusing on creating opportunities of inclusion, which is still something very close to her heart. Jessyca earned a Master of Education with a focus on Organizational Development and Leadership from Cambridge College’s Graduate School of Education, and a Bachelor’s in Social Work from Roberts Wesleyan College.
Matthew McGuirk is a Financial Advisor with Morgan Stanley. He has worked in asset & wealth management for over 20 years, currently focusing his practice on serving the LGBTQ community. In his public service life, he serves on several boards & committees that support this community and is honored to begin work on the Development Committee of GLAD’s Board. Matt particularly looks forward to building bridges between organizations with which he has ties, such as the MA LGBT Chamber of Commerce where he is a founding partner, and other non-profits such as Community Research Initiative where he is a member of the Board; Fenway Health where he is a member of the Board of Visitors; and the Human Rights Campaign, where he is a member of the New England Steering Committee and Co-Chair of the Federal Club for New England. Outside of his advocacy work, Matt also enjoys theater, and serves on the Board of Directors of New Repertory Theater. While he is committed to all areas of GLAD’s work, he has a particular interest in protecting children and the elderly and has been involved with organizations such as the LGBT Community Center and SAGE. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, and holds an Executive Certificate in Financial Planning from Georgetown University and a Master of Science in Financial Planning from Bentley University.
Spencer Icasiano is a product designer at HubSpot, and a user experience specialist who has held previous positions at Care.com and Wayfair. Spencer has consulted on and designed tech platforms that create seamless experiences for clients and customers. In addition to their day job, they work as a contributing writer for 90.9 WBUR, covering primarily QTPOC (queer and trans people of color) artists and activists whose cultural impacts are directly shaping the future of Boston. The beginning of Spencer’s connection to GLAD was as a resource – GLAD provided support to Spencer through a violent and transphobic landlord situation, as well as gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment instances in their career. Spencer’s natural inquisitiveness and pursuit of justice has spilled over into other areas of their life and thanks in part to GLAD’s impact they’ve been able to successfully advocate for employee environment and policy improvements and consulted on inclusive hiring practices at public tech companies. Spencer’s public speaking skills have been cultivated at professional conferences, engineering bootcamps, and local institutions—from world-class universities to Fortune 100 corporations—where they lead talks and workshops on topics of cultural competency and organizational change. Spencer earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Writing from Emerson College.
Jessyca, Matthew and Spencer join current board members Joyce Kauffman (President), Darian Butcher (Vice President), Marlene Seltzer (Treasurer), Leila Bailey-Stewart, Edward Byrne, Francisco Cabas, Martha Holt Castle, Fred Csibi-Levin, Liz Doherty, Shane Dunn, Joseph Garland, George Hastie, David Hayter, Dianne Phillips, Lee Swislow, and Richard Yurko.
Through strategic litigation, public policy advocacy, and education, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders works in New England and nationally to create a just society free of discrimination based on gender identity and expression, HIV status, and sexual orientation.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on health care for transgender youth is devastating. If you have questions about your rights, our legal infoline can help. Contact GLAD Law Answers today.
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