Connecticut Know Your Rights - Page 8 of 12 - GLAD Law
跳過標題到內容
GLAD Logo 跳過主導航到內容

GLAD Responds to DOJ Attack on Transgender Student Athletes

The Department of Justice has filed a statement of interest in Soule v. Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, a case challenging the state’s longstanding policy ensuring equal inclusion of transgender girls in K-12 sports. The statement from Attorney General William Barr sides with anti-transgender activist groups, including the Alliance Defending Freedom which brought the case, in arguing that the protections of Title IX do not extend to transgender girls.

Jennifer Levi, Transgender Rights Project Director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), issued the following statement in response: 

For nearly 50 years, Title IX has served as a bedrock for establishing fair and equal educational opportunities for all students. With its recent filing in Soule v. CT Interscholastic Athletic Conference, the Department of Justice erodes the significance of this landmark civil rights law by arguing that transgender girls do not enjoy its protections.

Participation in sports is a critical component of healthy physical and social development, and for transgender students it can be lifesaving. Title IX is designed to ensure equal opportunities for girls – meaning all girls. The Department of Justice’s position distorts the text and the history of federal law.

The current administration has been attacking vulnerable transgender youth since President Trump first took office, and it’s no surprise that they are doing so again. What is surprising is the decision to prioritize this attack during a national public health emergency, when young people across the country are already struggling to cope with school shutdowns as well as cancellations of recreational activities, sports seasons, after-school jobs, graduation ceremonies, and more. During this moment of tremendous stress and anxiety, young people across the country, as well as school communities, are looking for support and guidance from our government, not polarizing and legally unfounded attacks on vulnerable kids and their families.

Challenging Insurance Exclusions for Gender Affirming Medical Care

Update April 23, 2020: Victory! The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities issued a milestone ruling prohibiting all employers and insurers from denying coverage for any treatments related to gender transition. This ruling follows a national trend of striking down discriminatory exclusions for gender affirming medical care.

“We applaud the Commission for recognizing the critical healthcare needs of transgender people and calling out the discrimination inherent in health plans that deny care,” said Ben Klein, Senior Attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. “Exclusions that categorize doctor-prescribed procedures as “elective” or “cosmetic” contradict a robust body of scientific evidence and can only be explained by stereotypes and bias towards transgender people. This ruling will ensure that critical healthcare decisions can be made as they should be, between patients and their doctors, and will allow Connecticut residents access to life-saving care.”

GLAD 提交了一份 簡短的 in conjunction with Professor Kevin Barry of Quinnipiac University School of Law on behalf of Connecticut resident Rylie Robillard, the Connecticut Women’s Education & Legal Fund, and the National Center for Transgender Equality. The brief was supported by expert testimony from Randi Ettner, PH.D, one of the nation’s preeminent experts on gender affirming medical care.

February 20, 2020: GLAD filed a petition in the State of Connecticut’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunity, challenging health plans that categorically exclude facial feminization surgery and other procedures for people with gender dysphoria. The filing comes after Rylie Robillard, a transgender woman, was told her medical provider-recommended facial feminization surgery is considered cosmetic, and her procedure was denied. The brief argues that the categorical denial of this medical care discriminates on the basis of gender identity and expression, sex, and disability.

These coverage exclusions contradict a robust body of scientific evidence that can only be explained by stereotypes and bias towards transgender people. We are working to ensure that health insurers provide all medically-necessary gender affirming surgeries, so that critical health care decisions can be made between patients and doctors.

From the filing:

“Gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition that requires treatment. People with gender dysphoria, however, continue to be subjected to pernicious discrimination in access to vital healthcare. Many insurance and employer-sponsored health benefit plans, for example, continue to deny coverage for medically necessary and recognized treatments, most notably facial feminization surgeries, breast augmentation, and other treatments that bring the body into congruence with a person’s affirmed gender to eliminate gender dysphoria.

“The categorical exclusion of these procedures as per se cosmetic, and therefore never medically necessary, is wholly out-of-step with authoritative medical standards of care and the significant and well-designed body of research establishing their efficacy in alleviating or eliminating gender dysphoria.”

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.

馬修·麥奎克 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.

 

透過策略性訴訟、公共政策倡議和教育,GLBTQ 法律倡導者和辯護人致力於在新英格蘭和全國範圍內創建一個沒有基於性別認同和表達、愛滋病毒狀況和性取向的歧視的公正社會。

部落格

Imagine being at the hospital as your child is born and worrying they might not be able to go home with you if something were to happen to your partner who had given birth. Imagine not being able to pick your child up from daycare, or take them to see a doctor. Imagine something happening to your partner and child services seeking to take custody because your child has no other legal parent. These are all real concerns that new parents have when they are not legally recognized—and new parents have enough on their plate as it is in the best of circumstances.

“I was not his birth parent and I wasn’t able to put my name on his birth certificate before we left the hospital. A birth certificate is the first and sometimes only legal link that a parent has with his/her child. It is a very, very big deal. My partner and I took the exact same steps as our “straight” infertile friends in conceiving, but we were denied the ability to put both of our names on the birth certificate just on the basis of our sex alone.”

Access to legal parentage shouldn’t depend on a family’s economic means, on whether the parents are of the same gender or different genders, or on how that family is formed. But our state laws haven’t kept up with the different ways that we form our families, including using assisted reproductive technology or having children before or without getting married. Even in New England, where we benefit from robust anti-discrimination laws, there remain significant gaps in parentage laws that force parents to undergo time-consuming, expensive and invasive processes in order to protect their relationship with their children. Many of these laws haven’t been updated since the 1970s.

Using the Uniform Parentage Act of 2017 (UPA) as model legislation, GLAD Senior Staff Attorney Patience Crozier has been collaborating with other advocates to advance parentage law reform in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire. The UPA and the state-specific bills modeled on it update the laws’ understanding of family to reflect present-day reality and to ensure accessible and nondiscriminatory paths to establishing parentage. This includes ensuring that LGBTQ families using assisted reproduction have access to parentage through the Voluntary Acknowledgement of Parentage process, which enables parents to secure their legal relationships to their children immediately at birth and without going to court. These reforms resonate with so many in the LGBTQ community and beyond who simply seek equal and fair means to secure their parent-child relationships.

The Rhode Island Parentage Act (RIPA) had substantial momentum and support in the 2019 legislative session. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and had considerable support in the House where it was also poised to pass until the Chief Judge of the Family Court intervened unexpectedly. Despite having been consulted for his input prior to the bill’s filing, the Chief Judge engaged only at the last minute to request further study. The House created a study commission that will convene this fall to review the RIPA and move these critically important reforms forward. As a community, Rhode Island is galvanized to move this legislation forward and to ensure all children and families have equal access to parentage. GLAD will participate on the study commission, and remains committed to this legislative effort, and to sharing the stories of families who have experienced the difficult and painful impact of outdated parentage laws.

Parents Sara and Anna experienced the effects of Rhode Island’s outdated law firsthand when they started their family. Their son, Eli, was conceived using assisted reproduction. Because they were unmarried, Sara, as the non-birth parent, had no presumed legal parental connection to Eli at birth, and no route to establish her parentage.

“I was not his birth parent and I wasn’t able to put my name on his birth certificate before we left the hospital, which I know, sounds like a formality but it is not. A birth certificate is the first and sometimes only legal link that a parent has with his/her child. It is a very, very big deal. My partner and I took the exact same steps as our “straight” infertile friends in conceiving, but we were denied the ability to put both of our names on the birth certificate just on the basis of our sex alone.”

It took 8 months for Sara to adopt her own son – an excruciatingly long time to be in legal limbo, particularly when it comes to your child. What’s more, during all those months, Sara and Anna were subjected to the lengthy, invasive, and at times arbitrary steps of the adoption process, including putting an ad in the paper to notify the anonymous sperm donor of the pending adoption, in case he wanted to challenge the termination of his “parental rights.”

Rhode Island LGBTQ parents aren’t alone in seeking legislation to protect their families. Maine and Vermont both have passed comprehensive parentage reform, but the rest of New England has a ways to go.

Though Massachusetts now allows same-gender parents to sign a VAP, there are still barriers to establishing legal parentage within the Commonwealth. The MA Parentage Act is a sensible update to MA law that ensures all children and families have equal access to establishing parentage, and corrects discrimination that exists in the current state law. A public hearing on the MPA took place in early September.

In Connecticut, a coalition is working on draft legislation to update the state’s parentage laws, and we are hopeful that legislation will be filed in 2020. Similar efforts are also underway in New Hampshire, where statutes do exist to protect children born through ART and surrogacy, but where gaps in the law still still exist.

Love makes families, but we all agree the law needs to protect them. Continuing to operate with outdated, decades-old statutes leaves some children and families unprotected. GLAD is committed to ensuring that all children and families have access to the fundamental protection of legal parentage.

Hartford Pride 2019

Come out and see us at Hartford Pride!

Visit their website 這裡.

訊息

On May 24, the Trump Administration announced a new proposed rule that would change the interpretation of the Affordable Care Act’s nondiscrimination provision to no longer include LGBTQ people.

It is alarming that the Trump administration is leveling yet another attack on the rights of LGBTQ people.

But, there are a couple of important things to note:

First, this is only the announcement of a proposed rule change. Nothing is changing right now.

The next step is a required period for public comment, which means we can all weigh in with our concerns about this proposal, and we encourage you to do so. We won’t know for sure what the final rule will look like until that public comment period is over.

If you’d like to take action, visit www.protecttranshealth.org to add your comment on why you oppose this proposed rule.

Second, no matter what the final rule says, the Trump administration cannot change the law on a whim.

Federal law has been interpreted by multiple federal courts to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ people, in cases that apply in the health care context. Those decisions are controlling; the meaning and scope of federal protections ultimately turns on federal court interpretation, not that of the administration.

We also have strong state laws and regulations across New England that protect you from discrimination and protect your right to access health care. The proposed federal rule change does not alter those state laws. Contact us at www.GLADAnswers.org if you need more information.

The bottom line is that nothing is changing right now, and you still have rights to nondiscriminatory health care – but the Trump administration is working to make it harder for you to enforce those rights.

GLAD will be closely monitoring developments, and if you think you are being treated differently, or are experiencing discrimination, please 聯絡我們 right away.

康乃狄克州青少年獲得愛滋病毒預防服務

Victory! In July 2019, Governor Ned Lamont signed the bill into law.

GLAD strongly supports House Bill 6540, which would ensure that populations at risk for HIV have direct access to HIV PrEP and can avoid the currently incurable and life-altering consequences of HIV infection.

Young people are at especially high risk for HIV, and particularly gay and bisexual men of color.

Physicians must have the tools they need to help reduce the unacceptable racial disparities in PrEP utilization. Ensuring that physicians can prescribe PrEP when a youth is at risk for HIV, regardless of parental consent, will facilitate this critical public health goal.

We now have remarkably successful tools to keep youth safe, but doctors have been hampered from using this ground-breaking technology when minors do not have parental consent. We support the passage of House Bill 6540 to protect Connecticut’s youth.

Click here for a fact sheet about H.B. 6540: An Act Concerning the Prevention of HIV

Click here for a list of members of the Connecticut General Assembly’s Public Health Committee.

Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave S.B. 1 AND H.B. 5003 – 2019

GLAD supports partners Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund, Planned Parenthood Connecticut, CT Working Families, and others in advocating for paid family and medical leave in Connecticut.

S.B. 1: An Act Concerning Paid Family and Medical Leave and H.B. 5003: An Act Implementing a Paid Family and Medical Leave Program would create and implement a comprehensive, statewide system of paid family and medical leave for workers who need time to care for themselves or a loved one or to welcome a child.

This legislation would promote the economic security and stability of all workers in Connecticut, including LGBTQ individuals and their loved ones.

GLAD Attorney Patience Crozier 提交的證詞 February 14, 2019, on GLAD’s support for the bills, their importance to the LGBTQ community, and the need to have an inclusive definition of family in Paid Family Leave programs.

On March 11, 2019, GLAD Senior Staff Attorney Patience Crozier 提交的證詞 regarding the Governor’s S.B. No. 881, An Act Establishing a Paid Family and Medical Leave Program, to urge the Labor and Public Employees Committee to ensure that there is an inclusive definition of family member as provided in S.B. 1 and H.B. 5003. Although GLAD supports action on this important economic justice issue, GLAD cannot support S.B. No. 881 unless it includes a fair and inclusive definition of family member which is not currently in this bill.

Celebrate 10 Years of CT Marriage Equality!

couple cheering in NYT headline saying "Gay Marriages Begin in Connecticut" by Lisa Foderaro, November 12, 2006, juxtaposed with LOVE MAKES A FAMILY sign with hands and hearts

Join us for a celebration of the 10th anniversary of marriage equality in Connecticut! Thanks to the hard work of thousands and thousands of people across our state that combined Love Makes a Family’s grassroots public advocacy and GLAD’s precedent-setting state supreme court victory in Kerrigan v. DPH, Connecticut was one of the earliest states to win the freedom to marry, and the first to say civil unions weren’t equality. Come and toast that victory, see old friends, and hear about new efforts that are underway to continue the campaign for legal and lived equality for the LGBTQ+ community.

Event is free and open to all! RSVP here.

訊息

Response to New York Times Report of Trump Administration’s Latest Move Against Transgender People

Statement of GLAD Transgender Rights Project Director Jennifer Levi

Today’s 《紐約時報》 report that the Trump Administration is considering a proposal to define the word “sex” for legal purposes in a way that deliberately excludes transgender people is one more example of this administration’s disregard of human rights and its heartless political strategy of attacking the most vulnerable among us.

The reactionary policies of this administration have caused and will cause too many to suffer. But staying focused on the changes that our community, friends, and allies have so bravely brought about through our advocacy, our words, and our deeds, sustains me.  It informs my firm belief that the callousness of this administration is an aberration. We will persist, justice will win out, and this challenging moment will not define our country’s future.

This reported move is in conflict with the approach of both federal and state courts and government agencies in interpreting laws prohibiting sex discrimination. Even though the administration is working hard to delegitimize the federal judiciary upon which so many civil rights advancements have depended, we know that justice means justice for all.  GLAD will never back down from pursuing protections and challenging unconstitutional laws and policies in the courts. 

But just as importantly, the ideology being pushed by this administration is contrary to the beliefs and vision of countless leaders in education, business, medical and scientific communities, and among political leaders who have been willing to work across the aisle when rights and safety have been at stake.  It also stands in stark contrast with the lives and experience of transgender people, our families, friends, neighbors and coworkers, all across this great nation.

The bottom line is that this administration has a transparent, callous, political agenda – and it is willing to undermine our most fundamental institutions to pursue it. We have seen this at work everywhere from the military – where Trump continues to pursue his ban on transgender troops despite its proven negative impact on military readiness and vocal opposition from military leaders – to the arenas of education, employment, and healthcare. It is a toxic agenda, dangerous to us all.

This administration continues to act rashly and in mean-spirited ways. But we have the power to counter it. We are strong and resilient. We will not back down and cannot be erased. We will continue telling the truth about our lives, treating one another with compassion, and fighting for justice. It is imperative that we act now, 和 our collective power, to stand up for what is right. We have an opportunity on November 6 to voice our values, to support candidates who believe in fairness, and reject those who use human beings as political pawns.

In Massachusetts, we face a critical vote – one that offers the chance to affirm the dignity and humanity of transgender people and to uphold the value of treating one another with respect. How Massachusetts votes on Question 3 will impact the direction 的 our nation. I am hopeful that the people in my home state will vote Yes on 3 到 preserve the transgender civil rights law which we fought so long and so hard to pass. I am optimistic that we will demonstrate, once again, that the cruel agenda of a few does not reflect the will of We, the People.

The reactionary policies of this administration have caused and will cause too many to suffer. But staying focused on the changes that our community, friends, and allies have so bravely brought about through our advocacy, our words, and our deeds, sustains me.  It informs my firm belief that the callousness of this administration is an aberration. We will persist, justice will win out, and this challenging moment will not define our country’s future.

zh_HK香港中文
隱私概述

本網站使用 Cookie,以便我們為您提供最佳的使用者體驗。 Cookie 資訊儲存在您的瀏覽器中,並執行諸如在您返回我們的網站時識別您的身份,以及幫助我們的團隊了解您認為網站中哪些部分最有趣和最實用等功能。