Roe v. US Dept of Defense

Roe v. US Dept of Defense is a federal lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal and Modern Military Association of America challenging the Pentagon’s discriminatory policies, which prevent service members living with HIV from deploying to most locations outside the United States.

GLAD served as counsel along with Kevin J. Minnick and Adam K. Lloyd on a friend-of-the-court brief submitted by AIDS United, The American Public Health Association, Duke Law Health Justice Clinic, Southern AIDS Coalition, The National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors, and NMAC, that details the persistence of HIV-related stigma and how the military’s policy is unscientific, unjust and undermines both military strength and public health.

From the introduction:

“HIV-related stigma and discrimination are fueled by deeply ingrained prejudice against the groups disproportionately affected by the epidemic, including gay men, people who inject drugs, and people of color, as well as widespread ignorance about the nature and risk of HIV transmission.”

“[M]edical advances have transformed HIV into a chronic, controlled health condition that no longer leads to debilitation. HIV-related stigma persists nonetheless.”

"O amici submit this brief to bring the Court’s attention to the history and manifestations of HIV-related stigma and the stigmatizing impact of the military’s HIV policies, which are not limited to the lives and careers of qualified and patriotic servicemembers. The military’s HIV policies—including the irrational “deployability” argument advanced here—reflect and perpetuate stigma based on outdated perceptions of prognosis and transmission risks.”

"O amici urge this Court to affirm the district court’s preliminary injunction to ensure fair treatment and to prevent enforcement of an unscientific policy that undermines public health.”

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With the constant stream of hostile rhetoric coming from the President’s personal twitter account and press statements, it can be hard to know what to respond to and what not to grant the dignity of our attention.

But when the President of the United States uses racist comments to attack individual Americans, we have to speak out. Trump’s comments that four U.S. Congresswomen, all women of color, should “go back where they came from” draws on racist tropes that have been used to target communities of color throughout our history.

That includes my own family’s experience. My parents came to this country in the early 70s, speaking “broken” English with thick accents. I grew up watching them treated as second class, including being refused service or ignored in public because the other person couldn’t understand what my parents were saying. Like almost all Asian-Americans I know, I grew up being asked, and am still asked regularly, “Where are you from?” I still answer “Minnesota,” my birth state, even though I know that’s not the answer they are looking for. The idea of who is truly American, and who is from America, continues to have deep roots in racism and white supremacy.

That is why we still must call out the President’s language as racist and unacceptable, every single time. We cannot let it represent who we are as a country, but in order to do that, we must also change who we have been as a country, and our ideas about who is truly American.

We also cannot turn away from the fact that the attitudes behind that language don’t start or end with a tweet. While Trump doubles down on the insinuation that only certain people can truly be American, his administration’s immigration policies are causing daily harm to living, breathing people – children being pulled away from parents and individuals being caged in deplorable conditions at our border; threatened raids intended to terrify communities of color into invisibility; and cutting off pathways to asylum to vulnerable populations, in violation of U.S. and international law.

Immigrant rights are LGBTQ rights, and elevating racism and white supremacy damages us all. There are attacks on all of our communities coming from this administration, and our communities contain all of us. As we fight our own critical battles on multiple fronts, let us lift up one another and remember that it is inclusion, not exclusion, that makes us strong. One justice movement, embracing our differences, is how we will fight and how we will win.

Organizações pela igualdade pedem à Suprema Corte que não invente uma exclusão de trabalhadores LGBTQ das proteções do Título VII contra a discriminação sexual

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Em um memorando de amigo do tribunal, GLAD, NCLR e outras organizações de igualdade LGBTQ argumentam que reverter o entendimento de que a discriminação contra trabalhadores LGBTQ é discriminação "por causa do sexo" criaria uma regra impraticável para tribunais, empregadores e empregados:

Criar uma exclusão onde não há nenhuma no estatuto não é uma maneira adequada de interpretar o Título VII — e é uma maneira que este Tribunal já repudiou ao trazer consistência à aplicação do Título VII.

Resumo de amici curiae GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Et Al

(Washington DC, 3 de julho de 2019) – GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) e o National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), em parceria com Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale e Dorr LLP, entraram com uma ação memorando de amigo do tribunal apoiando funcionários em três casos perante a Suprema Corte dos EUA sobre a aplicação da proibição do Título VII sobre discriminação sexual a trabalhadores lésbicas, gays, bissexuais e transgêneros.

Apresentado em nome de diversas organizações de igualdade LGBTQ, o memorando destaca o entendimento de senso comum de que a discriminação por status LGBTQ é discriminação por causa do sexo e detalha como os tribunais enfrentaram dificuldades no passado quando forçados a buscar distinções entre evidências de discriminação relacionadas à orientação sexual e evidências relacionadas ao sexo. O único resultado lógico e viável, argumenta o memorando, é que o Tribunal afirme que:

O Título VII proíbe toda discriminação baseada no sexo, incluindo a discriminação baseada na atração ou interesse romântico de uma pessoa por pessoas do mesmo sexo, ou nas expectativas de um empregador sobre como homens e mulheres devem se parecer e se comportar."

e que fazer o contrário seria:

“sujeitar alegações factualmente semelhantes a resultados arbitrariamente inconsistentes e… excluir demandantes lésbicas, gays e bissexuais da proteção com base em fatos que seriam passíveis de ação judicial… se movidas por demandantes heterossexuais.”

“Simplesmente não há uma maneira lógica de entender a discriminação contra um funcionário gay, lésbica ou bissexual que não esteja relacionada ao sexo dessa pessoa”, disse Mary L. Bonauto, Diretora do Projeto de Direitos Civis do GLAD. “Uma leitura direta do Título VII, juntamente com os precedentes existentes da Suprema Corte que afirmam proibições contra estereótipos sexuais e assédio entre pessoas do mesmo sexo no local de trabalho, apontam apenas em uma direção: que trabalhadores lésbicas, gays e bissexuais são protegidos pelo Título VII.”

No caso de funcionários transgêneros, por duas décadas os tribunais reconheceram, quase por unanimidade, a impossibilidade de entender a discriminação contra indivíduos transgêneros como distinta da discriminação baseada no sexo, e o resumo insta o tribunal a não descartar a lógica direta dessas decisões anteriores, tentando traçar uma linha arbitrária agora que só criaria confusão onde ela não existe:

O valor de evitar tal delimitação arbitrária é facilmente aparente nas reivindicações do Título VII apresentadas por demandantes transgêneros, as quais, como os tribunais inferiores geralmente entenderam, não podem ser coerentemente dissociadas da discriminação por causa do sexo.

“O direito de ganhar a vida para sustentar a si próprio e à sua família é essencial, e ninguém deve ter medo de ser despedido por ser quem é”, disse Christopher F. Stoll, Advogado Sênior da NCLR. “Tribunais e agências federais deixaram claro há décadas que a discriminação contra funcionários transgêneros é ilegal. Revogar essa decisão não apenas subverteria o entendimento consensual do Título VII, como também deixaria uma população já vulnerável em risco de maior discriminação.”

O resumo foi apresentado em três casos que a Suprema Corte considerará em conjunto em 8 de outubro de 2019: Altitude Express v. Zarda, Clayton County GA v., e Harris Funeral Homes v. Stephens.

Além do GLAD e do NCLR, as organizações representadas no resumo incluem Advocates for Youth, Disciples LGBTQ+ Alliance, Equality Arizona, Equality California, Equality Federation, Equality North Carolina, Equality Ohio, Equality Utah, FORGE, Inc., Freedom for All Americans, Mazzoni Center, Movement Advancement Project, National Equality Action Team, National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals, Inc., One Colorado, Out & Equal Workplace Advocates e Silver State Equality.

Todos os memoriais de amicus curiae apresentados em apoio aos funcionários estarão disponíveis aqui.

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At the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, on the site where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, stands a 13×26 foot sculpture, “Movement to Overcome.” Michael Pavlovsky’s work depicts a steep rock wall, with hundreds of human bodies scaling its sides. Some have their arms around the shoulder of another to keep them from falling, some are reaching for the next hold, and some are pointing the way forward. Almost every person is supporting someone else on their shoulders.

For me, there is no better representation of what movements look like.

That monument comes to mind as I reflect on the 50^º anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Like the figures in Pavlovsky’s sculpture, LGBTQ people today stand on the shoulders of those who fought back with bricks and heels on Christopher Street.

Looking around GLAD today, I see Stonewall’s legacy reflected in the gains for LGBTQ rights we and others have won. I see it fiercely resonating in the vision and actions of the people continuing the fight.

For many, Stonewall is embodied by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, who with fellow freedom fighters – many who were trans women of color, drag queens, and others rejected by the rest of the community – refused to apologize for living their lives out and proud. GLAD’s Public Information Manager, J.D. Melendez, knew Sylvia when she supported a group of queer kids fighting for some space of their own in New York just before she died. He says of Sylvia and Marsha: “They not only showed us who we could be, but also, who we deve be.”

Like the hundreds of figures in “Movement to Overcome,” we will never know the names of the vast majority of those on whose shoulders we stand. Pavlovsky designed his sculpture to represent, in his words, “the anonymous individuals that we know nothing about now that lived the civil rights struggle and participated in it.”

For five nights in June 1969, fed up with being mistreated, hundreds came to Christopher Street to fight and take care of each other. Those revolutionaries stood on the shoulders of pioneers who came before them. Across the nation, people inspired by Stonewall organized in their communities. That legacy grew into our modern LGBTQ movement.

Among many striving to carry on that legacy, I am grateful to be guided by the wisdom of those whose shoulders I stand on. When GLAD’s board president Joyce Kauffman came out in 1975, Stonewall was fresh. In her words: “It was scary to be out. It was brave to go into the streets and announce you were gay. To even say lesbian was revolutionary. It was a radical existence.” In that revolutionary spirit, Joyce became an attorney dedicated to helping LGBTQ people imagine, create and protect families of our own.

Like Pavlovsky’s figures pointing the way up, Stonewall is a symbol of hope in the U.S. and across the globe. GLAD’s Community Engagement Manager Qwin Mbabazi is an asylee and organizer from Uganda, “For many African LGBTQ movements,” Qwin says, “Stonewall is the epitome of HOPE. It’s like that small glimpse of light when all is going dark…[you] know that they won the great fight, and we can too.

We may be worlds apart from the time of Stonewall – and the incredible hope and resilience especially of LGBTQ youth won’t let the clock be turned back. Yet, too many Stonewall revolutionaries never saw the progress they propelled. And too many of the challenges we faced in 1969 remain. Police violence, youth homelessness, institutionalized discrimination still impact the most vulnerable among us.

I am reminded of Dr. King’s declaration of the Civil Right Movement’s moral imperative to address homelessness, joblessness, and poverty in the Black community. Our struggles to end racial injustice and to achieve LGBTQ equality are intertwined; our struggle doesn’t end until everyone in our community is free. Like the figures on that great rock wall, we must climb until we achieve true justice.

This Pride season, 50 years since Stonewall, should be one of both celebration and protest. As Sylvia said to J.D. just a week before she passed, “Keep fighting, my babies.”

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Today, I am an out and proud lesbian, and I am prouder still to be the President of the GLAD Board. At the time of the Stonewall Riots 50 years ago, however, I had not yet come out. I was working alongside many others in the anti-racism and anti-war movements – but honestly, I was unaware of my own sexual orientation and I probably wouldn’t have believed you had you told me about my future self.

Then, in 1975, I came out, met my first girlfriend, and joined what was then called the Gay Liberation Movement.

Marching at Pride in 1977. That’s me in front of the banner.

It was scary to be out and it was an act of incredible bravery to go into the streets and announce you were queer. Being LGBTQ was to live a radical existence on the fringes of society. And participating in Pride was a revolutionary act.

Back then there were no protections for LGBTQ people. In fact, in many places, being LGBTQ was still criminalized. Which is exactly why, in the decade after Stonewall, GLAD was founded: to fight for the rights of LGBTQ people and ensure a better future.

GLAD has been on the forefront of the movement for LGBTQ rights ever since.

1970s and 1980s: Our first lawsuit was a response to a sting operation against gay men at the Boston Public Library. We challenged state sodomy laws around the country, sued to allow gay and lesbian couples to be foster parents, secured one of the first honorable discharges for a US servicemember targeted for being gay, and won the right of high school students everywhere to take a date of any gender to prom.
1990s: We won a lawsuit on behalf of members of Queer Nation who had staged a ‘Kiss In’ and were thrown out of a Boston bar. We won a groundbreaking second parent adoption case for a same-sex couple, and a censorship battle over a photo exhibit about gay and lesbian families entitled “Love Makes a Family.” We went all the way to the Supreme Court to ensure that people living with HIV and AIDS would be protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
2000s: We won the right of a transgender girl to wear girls’ clothing in school, and led the fight for marriage equality with court victories in Massachusetts and Connecticut. We won compensation from the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund for a woman who lost her partner on American Airlines flight 11, and filed the first multi-plaintiff legal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
2010s: In just the past few years, we won the national Supreme Court case allowing same-sex couples to marry, and charged Walmart with a first-of-its-kind class action lawsuit challenging anti-gay discrimination. We successfully fought for a transgender woman to be rightfully transferred to a women’s prison from the men’s facility where she faced daily abuse – the first time that has happened as the result of a court order. And we are suing the Trump Administration for its discriminatory transgender military ban.

That’s just a small sampling of the fights we’ve taken on. And there is so much more to do.

We have spent 40 years transforming the law in order to transform LGBTQ lives. We’re not backing down now. And we need your help to keep moving forward.

It’s up to all of us to keep fighting. No matter what. No matter the opposition. 50 years after Stonewall, we must move forward with clear heads and open hearts.

That’s how GLAD has created a set of protections for LGBTQ people that was once unheard of. As the legal arm of a broad liberation movement, we’ve helped create the possibility for LGBTQ people to live the lives we deserve.

Along with the rest of the GLAD family, I am going to keep fighting. Keep resisting. Keep the flame of the LGBTQ revolution burning bright.

I hope you’ll join me.

In solidarity,

Joyce Kauffman
GLAD Board President

NCLR and GLAD Respond to Pres. Trump’s Statements on Trans Military Ban

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NCLR and GLAD Respond to President Trump’s Statements about the Transgender Military Ban

Organizations leading the legal fight against the Trump administration’s ban on transgender military service issued the following statement in response to President Trump’s false claims that allowing transgender people to serve in the military would be overly costly:

Statement by Jennifer Levi, Director of the Transgender Rights Project at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD):

“The President could not be more wrong about the costs of the ban. From a purely financial perspective, banning transgender troops is far more costly than continuing to permit transgender individuals who can meet the same standards as others to serve – just as the military does for all other groups.”

Statement by Shannon Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR):

“There is a reason the public overwhelmingly opposes this ban. Discharging highly trained troops is costly for American taxpayers and weakens our national security.

“The cost of barring transgender people from military service is high, weakens the military, and undermines our national security. As explained by military experts in a 2018 report, banning transgender troops ‘drains financial resources due to the cost of replacing transgender personnel’ and excludes otherwise qualified recruits, which requires the military to spend more money on recruitment at a time when every branch is already struggling to meet its enlistment goals. According to a 2017 estimate by the Palm Center, the cost of replacing transgender troops could be as high as $960 million.”

NCLR e GLAD estão no centro da luta legal que desafia a proibição militar de transgêneros de Trump e Pence desde o registro Doe v. Trump, o primeiro de quatro processos movidos contra a proibição, em 9 de agosto de 2017.

Para obter mais informações sobre o cronograma legal e os desenvolvimentos em andamento nos processos judiciais que contestam a proibição, visite notransmilitaryban.org.

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Por meio de litígios estratégicos, defesa de políticas públicas e educação, Advogados e defensores jurídicos GLBTQ trabalha na Nova Inglaterra e nacionalmente para criar uma sociedade justa e livre de discriminação com base na identidade e expressão de gênero, status de HIV e orientação sexual. www.GLAD.org

Centro Nacional para os Direitos Lésbicos é uma organização jurídica nacional comprometida em promover os direitos humanos e civis da comunidade lésbica, gay, bissexual e transgênero por meio de litígios, defesa de políticas públicas e educação pública. www.NCLRights.org

Notícias

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GLAD stands in solidarity with the friends and family of Muhlaysia Booker, with her community in Texas, and with our entire transgender community, who are reeling from the news of yet another life taken by violence. Ms. Booker is the fourth identified Black transgender woman to be murdered in the U.S. already in 2019.

We have made progress toward transgender equality in recent years in many arenas, but attacks on the rights of transgender people are also escalating. And transgender people, and particularly transgender women of color, continue to be vulnerable to an epidemic of anti-transgender violence in this country.

We join together with all those who say we will not tolerate this continued devaluing of human life. We must work on every level, from the legal, to the political to the personal, to ensure these attacks are taken seriously by those tasked to address and prevent them, and to create a climate where respect, dignity, and safety are truly accessible to all, including and especially those most vulnerable in our communities.

GLAD Hails Historic Vote in the House of Representatives for Passage of the Federal Equality Act

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The U.S. House today voted to pass the Equality Act, legislation that would enshrine explicit, comprehensive protections for all LGBTQ people, including in employment, housing, and public accommodations, in federal law.

Gary Buseck, Legal Director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, issued the following statement:

Today’s vote marks another historic moment in our nation’s continuing journey toward ensuring equality and fair treatment for all Americans. Individuals, businesses, and political leaders across this country have come to understand that no one should be at risk for being denied a home, fired from a job, or excluded from access to fundamental services because of who they are or who they love.

It should be the highest aspiration of our nation to eliminate inequality, and ensure the fullest level of inclusion in public, civil and economic life for all Americans. The Equality Act, in conjunction with our other vital civil rights laws, furthers this project by providing clear and consistent protection from discrimination for LGBTQ Americans.

We especially thank lead House sponsor Representative David Cicilline (D-RI) and all the legislators who have joined as co-sponsors of the Equality Act, shepherded the bill through committee, and voted for its passage today. We urge the Senate to take up this important legislation to ensure our nation’s commitment to ending discrimination.

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The leaders and activists of decades past bulldozed for us a path toward equality. Now, we need to fight for their absolute right to be treated with respect and dignity.

National Honor Our LGBT Elders Day is a day to celebrate the trailblazers in our movement. But it’s also a day to call attention to some of the challenges still facing our community as we age, and to shine a light on the vulnerable position LGBT seniors sometimes find themselves in when they require care.

Those who provide care for the aging are, as a whole, among the most compassionate and generous people, but often they lack the resources and education to provide appropriate and sensitive care to LGBT elders. But we are making progress toward that goal.

Programs such as the LGBT Aging Project at Fenway Health in Massachusetts, Getting it Right at Connecticut Community Care, and the nationwide SAGECare program have been on the ground providing cultural competency training to ensure that LGBT elders have access to safe and respectful care. In fact, it is now mandatory in Massachusetts for all state-funded or state-licensed elder service providers to be trained in LGBT cultural competency.

But we must remain vigilant. We continue to see situations where older LGBT adults relying on others for care must make an unconscionable choice between going back into the closet or suffering from discrimination and harassment.

GLAD recently helped resolve a case of discrimination in a long-term residential facility. A man was not being allowed to take his partner out for walks because they are a gay couple. The facility changed their discriminatory policy, but only after being threatened with litigation.

In another recent example of discrimination, a judge in Missouri incorrectly decided that federal anti-discrimination laws do not protect a married lesbian couple who were denied the protection of the Fair Housing Act when a senior housing community refused to allow them to move into their new home because of their sexual orientation. Our friends at the Centro Nacional para os Direitos Lésbicos are appealing the decision.

We are hopeful that our federal lawmakers will soon pass the Equality Act to ensure that LGBT elders, along with everyone in our community, will have explicit protections from discrimination across the country. Meanwhile, we will continue to utilize the tools of litigation and legislation to fight for equality.

We are here to fight for LGBT elders. If you or someone you love is experiencing exclusion, harassment, or abuse because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, please contact Respostas GLAD at 800-455-GLAD.

Chris Erchull is Staff Attorney at GLAD.

GLAD and NCLR Applaud States Supporting Transgender Servicemembers

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New Jersey Governor Murphy joins the governors of California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington in opposing Trump’s transgender military ban

Governor Phil Murphy announced today he will exercise every option available to allow transgender servicemembers to continue serving in the New Jersey Army National Guard. New Jersey joins California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington as the sixth state to date to officially oppose the Trump Administration’s ban on transgender military service.

Attorneys at GLAD and NCLR, the organizations leading the legal fight to end the ban, issued the following statements:

“Governors have a responsibility to safeguard the strength and efficacy of their National Guard, and to ensure residents in their state are not subject to discrimination,” said Jennifer Levi, Transgender Rights Project Director at GLAD. “In opposing the Trump administration’s shameful policy, Governor Murphy along with the leaders of five other states to date are recognizing that excluding qualified transgender servicemembers weakens their state Guards and violates our nation’s bedrock principles of fairness and equal protection.”

“These courageous state leaders have seen this ban for what it is –baseless and cruel policy that serves no purpose other than to weaken our nation’s military and harm dedicated service members,” said Shannon Minter, Legal Director at NCLR. “Governor Murphy and others have said loud and clear that they refuse to discriminate against qualified individuals who seek only to serve their state and their country.”

A Recent Quinnipiac poll found that 70% of Americans concordam que indivíduos transgêneros que atendem aos padrões militares devem poder servir abertamente.

NCLR and GLAD have been at the center of the legal challenge to the Trump administration’s transgender military ban since filing Doe v. Trump, on August 9, 2017, and securing the first of four preliminary injunctions that blocked the ban from taking effect for nearly two years. In both Corça and a second case, Stockman x Trump, NCLR and GLAD continue to fight the discriminatory policy in the courts, pursuing a final ruling striking the ban.

For more information, go to NCLR and GLAD’s website outlining the history and status of the Trump-Pence transgender military ban https://notransmilitaryban.org/.

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Centro Nacional para os Direitos Lésbicos (NCLR) was the first national LGBTQ legal organization founded by women and brings a fierce, longstanding commitment to racial and economic justice and our community’s most vulnerable. Since 1977, NCLR has been at the forefront of advancing the civil and human rights of LGBTQ people and their families through impact litigation, public policy, and public education. Decades ago, NCLR launched the first LGBTQ Immigration Project, Transgender Rights Project, Youth Project, Elder Law Project, and began working to end conversion therapy through what is now the Born Perfect campaign. www.nclrights.org