The smell of popcorn is wafting through the Red Room at Hal and Mal’s in downtown Jackson, Mississippi. Moviegoers creep through the door, some tentative, others confidently waving at friends and familiar faces. The crowd is small — about 40 people. I recognize a local beloved priest, he himself “in the closet” about supporting an ACLU of Mississippi event. I won’t tell the reporter I saw him inside.
The Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition (MSSC), of which the ACLU of Mississippi is a founding partner, has decided to screen Groundspark’s new film Straightlaced: How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up. We thought it would be an excellent way to raise awareness about gender identity and gender roles, educate the public about the MSSC, and raise some funds for our annual conference and other coalition expenses.
Our coalition, started in the fall of 2008, is almost entirely youth-led (if your definition of youth is 25 and under) and a unique model of LGBTQ organizing in the South. The beautiful thing about Straightlaced is that the documentary is told entirely by youth in their voice. Many viewers remarked that they haven’t seen a movie quite like Straightlaced with such diverse youth telling their experiences so candidly. Groundspark is partnering with community organizations around the country to screen Straightlaced and we were proud to host the first and only screening in Mississippi.
In Mississippi, being out and open about being LGBTQ-identified is in itself revolutionary. Likewise, an ally can face similar consequences of verbal or physical harassment. But it doesn’t stop individuals coming out, speaking out, and learning about their Constitutional rights in schools and communities.
My priest friend came up after the movie and gave me a big hug. “Sarah, that movie was phenomenal! I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” he said with a smile. He might not be fully open about being here tonight, but at least he came out. It might happen more slowly in Mississippi, but it is definitely happening.
We have learned that the Department of Justice will not be seeking an appeal in transgender veteran Diane Schroer’s victory against the Library of Congress. This is, of course, great news. It means that our case against the Library of Congress is final and that the groundbreaking federal court decision ruling that transgender people are protected by Title VII will stand. It shows that the Obama administration had decided to put some muscle behind its promises to help end discrimination against transgender peoples. And it means that Diane won’t have to wait through a lengthy appeal process before getting the $491,190 that is due her from the government for the discrimination she faced by the Library of Congress.
 For those who haven’t been following Diane’s case, it’s a perfect example of incredible harm caused by discrimination. After a distinguished 25-year career as an Army Special Forces Officer, Diane retired from the military and applied for a job as a senior terrorism research analyst. As someone who had been hand picked to lead a classified national security operation and had even briefed Vice President Dick Cheney, Diane was especially well qualified for the job. The Library of Congress agreed and offered her the job. Before starting work, Diane asked her future boss out to lunch to explain that she was about to begin transitioning from male to female and would like to start work as a woman. The next day, Diane received a call from her future boss rescinding the offer, telling her she wasn’t a “good fit” for the Library of Congress.
The ACLU brought a lawsuit against the Library of Congress charging sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. After a trial last September, a federal court agreed, issuing a groundbreaking ruling that discriminating against someone who transitions from living as one gender to another is discrimination under federal law. In reaching this decision, the court compared the discrimination faced by Schroer to religious-based discrimination, saying, “Imagine that an employee is fired because she converts from Christianity to Judaism. Imagine too that her employer testified that he harbors no bias toward either Christians or Jews but only ‘converts.’ That would be a clear case of discrimination ‘because of religion.’ No court would take seriously the notion that ‘converts’ are not covered by the statute.” The court also ruled that the library was guilty of sex stereotyping against Schroer because of its view that she failed to live up to traditional notions of what is male or female.
Later the court ruled that Diane is entitled to the maximum damages of $491,190 for back pay, other financial losses and emotional pain and suffering after finding the Library illegally discriminated against Schroer because of her sex. The decision outlining why Diane is entitled to the maximum compensation, the court quotes an affidavit from Schroer:
I am not certain if I can adequately characterize how depressing, demoralizing and temporarily debilitating it is to lose hope. Especially when that hope is founded on something that, in my mind, was completely reasonable, doable, and logical. Doing a meaningful job and putting my qualifications and experience to work, completing my transition and just going on with life — all of these things seemed to me to be reasonable and achievable. When the Library took all that away, my life changed dramatically, because there were no other positive options.
The Department of Justice under the Bush administration vigorously defended the lawsuit, claiming that transgender people are not are not protected by any existing federal laws. Fortunately that era is over and the Obama administration rightly realized that it was time to put an end this litigation. A representative from DOJ has said in the press that its decision not to appeal was based on its assessment of the strength of the factual findings and the legal rulings made in this case, and not whether it would be a good move politically. That is a fine compliment to the ACLU lawyers who litigated the case, especially Sharon McGowan who has championed this case since her first conversation with Diane. But it also shows that the Obama administration really does recognize that discrimination based on gender identity shouldn’t be tolerated.
As far as lawsuits go, this one came out just about as good as we could have hoped. But no amount of money could ever compensate for the harm that is caused by discrimination. And I’m not just talking about the harm to Diane. I’m talking about the harm to all of us. As a man, Diane was considered the best person to help congress help our country fight terrorism. But the qualifications that convinced the Library of Congress to offer Diane the job were tossed aside as soon as it learned she is transgender. Our safety is a pretty hefty price to pay for the government’s discrimination.
Watch a clip about Diane’s life and the discrimination she faced at the Library of Congress.
This coming weekend will mark a historic anniversary for LGBT Americans. It will have been 40 years since an early summer evening in New York City’s Greenwich Village saw the birth of the modern gay rights movement. June 28, 1969 was the day when LGBT people fought back against government and police persecution in the form of raids and arrests at bars where people could socialize and meet others like themselves. The Stonewall Inn was the location where LGBT people refused to go quietly, humiliated, into the night.
In standing up for their rights, that small group of people laid the groundwork, at a time when being gay was still considered a mental disorder no less, for what would become a full-scale movement for equality for LGBT Americans. When you think about it, the progress that we have achieved in such a short amount of time is simply amazing, even with occasional setbacks and loses that are an inevitable aspect of any effort to expand civil rights.
Today, after years of little more than faint hope, Congress stands on the cusp of passing critical and long overdue employment protections for LGBT people. Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), one of just a handful of openly gay and lesbian Members of Congress, has just introduced the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 (H.R. 3017). This legislation, commonly referred to as ENDA, would prohibit discrimination in employment based on an individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. It already has a bipartisan group of 117 co-sponsors, including the Chairmen of the powerful House Judiciary and Education and Labor Committees.
As a sign of the progress that the LGBT community has achieved over the past 40 years, nearly 90% of Fortune 500 companies have implemented non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation. Additionally, 20 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Twelve states include those protections for people who are transgender.
While these facts are certainly encouraging, there is an obvious gap in our civil rights laws that leave many LGBT people vulnerable to employment discrimination based purely on who they are. In 2007, the ACLU released a report entitled Working in the Shadows: Ending Employment Discrimination for LGBT Americans, which highlighted the stories of those who have been discriminated against in their jobs because they happen to be gay or transgender. Anyone who thinks this isn’t a serious problem or that Congress does not need to act should read the stories highlighted in this report.
This April, the ACLU won an important legal victory for a transgender veteran who was denied a job with the Library of Congress after she informed them of her intention to transition from male to female. And just yesterday, there was a story in The New York Timesabout how lawyers in the Obama administration are finalizing first-of-their-kind guidelines that will bar workplace discrimination against transgender federal employees.
Passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) will help to ensure that LGBT Americans will no longer need to live in fear at their jobs that they may be “outted” and lose their only means of survival or won’t even be given a chance because they are transgender. These are such basic protections that most people take them for granted. ACLU members and activists should contact their Members of Congress and urge them to finally pass this legislation.
As those of us who happen to be part of the LGBT community remember the historic 40th anniversary of Stonewall, I can think of no better way for Congress to show its commitment to equality and fairness for all Americans than by passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009.
It is estimated that 265 military members have been dismissed since the beginning of the Obama administration under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Since the law was passed in 1993, over 13,000 have been discharged due to their sexual orientation. It is unconscionable that as two wars are being fought, we are losing some of our most talented men and women — linguists, doctors, intelligence analysts and soldiers — to this discriminatory policy. It hurts military readiness, it hurts unit cohesion, and it is antithetical to American values.
The ACLU has joined the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network to sponsor a march on the White House on Saturday, June 27 to let the President, Congress and the American public know that enough is enough. Two-hundred sixty-five discharges are 265 too many. We need to change this policy now. If you’re in the D.C. area this Saturday, please join us at Farragut Square (17th and K Sts. NW) in Washington, D.C., at 2 p.m. We will then march to the White House and show our support for the many thousands of gay and lesbian soldiers that are serving our country. You can also send Congress an e-mail and urge them to take action and repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
In honor of National Flag Day this Sunday, I took a few minutes to interview Gilbert Baker, the creator of a flag that is very important to the LGBT community — the rainbow pride flag.
Hoping to create a hopeful symbol to celebrate the diversity and pride of the gay community, Mr. Baker designed the flag in 1978, hand dyeing and sewing the original flag in his San Francisco home. In the wake of Harvey Milk’s assassination, the San Francisco pride parade committee decided to use the rainbow flag to decorate the parade route, launching its recognition as a universal symbol for pride.
The video below includes selected clips from our interview.
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Yesterday morning, a sixth grader in California gave a report in one of her classes. That might not sound like terribly exciting news, except that the report was about Harvey Milk, and the student only got to give her report after the ACLU threatened her school with a lawsuit for censoring it.
Natalie Jones, a sixth grader at Mt. Woodson Elementary School in Ramona, California, had been given a class assignment to write a report on any subject she wanted. Natalie got a score of 49 out of a possible 50 points on her report about the gay civil rights icon. Students were then told to make PowerPoint presentations about their reports, which they would show to other students in the class. Natalie put together a 12-page presentation on Milk that you can view here.
But the day before Natalie was to give her presentation she was called into the principal’s office and told she couldn’t do so. Then the school sent letters to parents of students in the class, explaining that Natalie’s presentation was being rescheduled for a lunch recess and that students could only attend if they had parental permission due to the allegedly “sensitive” nature of the topic. School officials tried to justify all of this by claiming Natalie’s presentation triggered the school’s sex education policy.
After the ACLU threatened to sue them for violating the First Amendment as well as the California Education Code, school officials finally backed down. Natalie has received a written apology, and school officials sent a letter about that apology to all the parents who got the original “warning” about the presentation. The school also agreed to bring its sex education policy into compliance with state law, and acknowledged that the mere mention of a person’s sexual orientation isn’t enough to invoke sex education policy. And perhaps most important of all, Natalie gave her presentation
to the entire class Thursday morning.
Natalie’s mom Bonnie tells us it went really well. She’s terribly proud of Natalie, and we are too. But I suspect Harvey, if he were around today, might be proudest of all.
CORRECTION: The title has been amended to better clarify the subject of the this blog post.
We’re very excited about a victory for free speech and equality in Tennessee. Two weeks after we sued two Tennessee school districts for blocking student access to online information about LGBT issues, the Knox Country school district — and possibly all others in that state — have restored access to important educational sites.
Previously, as many as 107 Tennessee school districts using software from the Education Networks of America (ENA) were blocking students from accessing a category of Web sites designated “LGBT.” The designation covers a variety of educational and political LGBT sites, such as those of well-known advocacy groups like GLSEN, PFLAG and HRC.
However, the filter did not block access to sites that urge LGBT persons to change their sexual orientation or gender identity through so-called “reparative therapy” or “ex-gay” ministries — a practice denounced as dangerous and harmful to young people by such groups as the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association.
We sued on May 19, charging that blocking only one side of the issue constituted illegal viewpoint discrimination.
Last night, Knox County Schools Superintendent Jim McIntyre announced that “technical adjustments” have now been made to allow access to the LGBT sites and bring the filtering into compliance with school board policy. According to McIntyre, efforts had been underway to fix the problem long before our lawsuit. That doesn’t explain why they couldn’t satisfactorily answer our original demand letter, which we sent before filing suit, but regardless — this is a positive sign that Tennessee schools are finally living up to their legal obligation to allow the free and open exchange of ideas and information.
Stay tuned — the case isn’t over yet. Says Tricia Herzfeld, staff attorney with the ACLU of Tennessee:
We aren’t dropping the lawsuit right away, but we certainly look forward to getting assurances from both school boards in this case that they will respect students’ rights and refrain from this sort of censorship in the future.
Today’s USA Today includes a personal essay by the ACLU’s Joel Engardio. Marriage equality is in the courts, the legislature, and the media more than ever before, but “Beyond ‘gay marriage’” reminds us:
At its heart, though, it’s often just about two people trying to get the world — indeed, even their families — to recognize and understand their love.
Read the essay here.
New Yorkers know that it puts all families at risk when the government gets in the business of saying that some families matter and deserve protection and some families don’t.
Marriage is a basic civil rights issue. Family is a basic civil rights issue. The right to take care of our children is a basic civil rights issue. That’s why the New York State Assembly – Democrats and Republicans alike – voted to overwhelmingly pass the marriage bill. And that’s why the governor has pledged to sign that bill.
Now, with just a few weeks left in the legislative session, we need New York’s senators to take a stand and say yes to marriage for all New Yorkers. Please visit www.MarriageNY.com today and take a stand for all of New York’s families. Do it for kids like Vincent, a former foster child who was adopted Richard and Matt of Astoria, Queens:
“I think my dads should get married because they make my life happy. As long as they are happy, I’m happy.â€
(Originally posted on Get Busy.)
I was in San Francisco last week when the California Supreme Court announced its decision upholding Prop 8 and I took the opportunity to interview some of my friends in the LGBT community about their thoughts on the efforts to organize for marriage.
Going into this project, I wasn’t sure what I’d hear. I knew from previous conversations that many in my community of young, queer activists had questioned whether LGBT organizations should continue to prioritize marriage recognition at the cost of other LGBT advocacy efforts.
While some folks were still questioning our community’s attention to marriage, I heard from other folks that their opinions on the significance of marriage had changed after they’d witnessed the nationwide mobilizations in the wake of Prop 8. One definite effect of the mobilizations and the prominence of marriage in the public discourse was that my friends seemed to have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how they felt about marriage both personally and politically. As Jon, a grad student in public health at Berkley, said, marriage became something he “had to take more of an opinion on.”
I found the diversity of perspectives offered in these conversations insightful and so I thought I’d take the opportunity to share a few clips in the following video.
(Originally posted to Get Busy 6/2/2009.)
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