ReportWire

Tag: sexual orientation

  • Is conversion therapy free speech?

    [ad_1]

    Imagine a conservative state bans therapists from talking to gay or transgender minors in a way that affirms their sexual orientation or gender identity. That would cross a line, right? Whatever conservative lawmakers personally think about homosexuality or gender dysphoria, preventing LGBTQ-affirming counseling is an affront to the First Amendment.

    For this same reason, Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy should be opposed.

    It’s one thing to personally oppose counseling practices aimed at suppressing same-sex attraction or someone’s questioning of their gender identity. But it’s quite another to use government power to stop anyone from engaging in this sort of talk therapy—and the latter is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.

    That’s the crux of Kaley Chiles’ case before the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

    And oral arguments in the case yesterday made clear that more than just Colorado’s conversion therapy ban is at stake here. If allowed to stand, it could pave the way for talk therapy restrictions based on conservative views of sexuality and gender, too.

    Is Therapy Speech or Conduct?

    In Chiles v. Salazar, the Court is being asked to consider whether Colorado’s conversion therapy ban violates the First Amendment. The state bans licensed therapists and counselors from engaging in “any practice or treatment” that “attempts or purports to change” a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity or any “behaviors or gender expressions” associated with it. It also bans treatments aimed at “eliminat[ing] or reduc[ing] sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

    Chiles, a licensed counselor, sued over the law, alleging that it is a form of “viewpoint-based censorship.” Chiles is “a practicing Christian who views her career as an outgrowth of her faith,” her lawyers wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court. “Many of Chiles’s clients are also Christian and specifically seek her help because of their shared faith-based convictions and biblical worldview.”

    Chiles doesn’t seek to impose her beliefs on unsympathetic patients, but “after discussing a client’s objectives, desires, and religious or spiritual values,” she will sometimes engage with them in counseling designed to suppress same-sex attraction or gender discontent, said her lawyer.

    Colorado argued that the conversion therapy law bans conduct, not speech, and this is permitted by the First Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit agreed with Colorado. 

    Because other federal appeals courts have held that counseling conversations are speech, not therapy, the case was prime fodder for Supreme Court review.

    Justices Seem Skeptical of Colorado Claims

    During oral arguments yesterday, Chiles’ lawyer argued that if there were medical conduct involved—things “like administering drugs, performing procedures, conducting examinations”—then “that would take it outside of the arguments we’re making.” But because Chiles’ work only involves speech and yet would fall into the purview of the ban, that makes the ban an unconstitutional viewpoint-based restriction on speech and subject to a standard of review known as strict scrutiny.

    But “a healthcare provider cannot be free to violate the standard of care just because they are using words,” lawyer Shannon W. Stevenson argued on behalf of the state of Colorado. Stevenson also noted that the law only banned conversion therapy by state-licensed professionals, not by unlicensed church counselors or life coaches. 

    Stevenson also argued, somewhat nonsensically, that counseling a teen who wanted to reduce his feelings of attraction for another male would only be banned “if the therapist told him, or he asked, ‘Can you help me become straight?’” But “if it was, ‘Can you help me cope with my feelings as to how I am and how I want to live my life?’ that’s permitted.” That seems like something of an unworkable legal distinction, and also at odds with the plain text of Colorado’s statute, which also bans attempts to change “behaviors” associated with sexual orientation. 

    In any event, several Supreme Court justices seemed skeptical of Colorado’s claim that the regulation doesn’t illegally censor speech. And it wasn’t just conservative justices who appeared unconvinced that the conversion therapy ban was legal.

    “If a doctor says, ‘I know you identify as gay, and I’m going to help you accept that,’ and another doctor says, ‘I know you identify is gay, and I’m going to help you to change that,’ and one of those is permissible, and the other is not, that seems like viewpoint discrimination in the way we would normally understand viewpoint discrimination,” liberal Justice Elena Kagan said.

    “Can a State Pick a Side?”

    Taking on the state’s argument that the ban was OK because it was consistent with prevailing standards of care, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch asked if a state “could forbid a regulated licensed professional from affirming homosexuality if that were consistent with the then-prevailing standard of care?” Or, if current prevailing standards of care were to change, “then a state could pass a mirror image statute to Colorado’s that prohibits any attempt to affirm changes of gender identity or sexual orientation?”

    As this and multiple other lines of questioning from the justices made clear, Colorado’s arguments could open the door to states banning talk therapy that doesn’t uphold a conservative viewpoint. And this seems like an important consideration at a time when Republicans—from local school board officers up to the president—have been increasingly aggressive about the idea that “gender ideology” is harmful to children.

    “It’s pretty important that we think about how this would apply to cases down the road,” suggested conservative Justice Amy Comey Barrett. “So let me describe medical uncertainty as competing medical views, and let’s say that you have some medical experts that think gender-affirming care should be—is dangerous to children and some that say that this kind of conversion talk therapy is dangerous. Can a state pick a side?”

    Under Colorado’s line of argument, it would seem that they could.

    Or, as Chiles’ lawyer put it in court yesterday, Colorado’s rationale “would allow states to silence all kinds of speech in the counseling room, such as disfavored views on divorce or abortion.”

    Regulations like Colorado’s also make it difficult for the sort of broad and nuanced discussions that are crucial to therapy to take place. After all, not everyone who seeks counseling for issues related to gender will wind up identifying as transgender or nonbinary or anything of the sort. Some will just be uncomfortable with gender roles and norms placed upon them; others will be exploring their identities. A broad but also somewhat vague ban like Colorado’s, makes it hard for counselors to really explore the root causes of discomfort. And that’s not helpful.

    Missouri Attempts to Mislead Voters About Abortion Amendment

    In 2024, Missourians passed Amendment 3, a constitutional amendment protecting abortion access. It specified that “the Government shall not deny or infringe upon a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which is the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions.”

    Now, Missouri Republicans are trying to reverse this with a new ballot measure—also called Amendment 3—that would repeal the previous amendment and also enshrine in the state’s constitution a ban on “sex-change procedures for children.”

    But they’re also obscuring the true nature of the amendment in voter information about the measure. An initial ballot summary “was so blatantly biased that a judge has already forced Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to rewrite it—twice,” write Jessica Valenti and Kylie Cheung. “The third version finally passed legal muster, but that doesn’t mean it’s anywhere close to unbiased.”

    Here’s what the summary language now approved by a judge says the new Amendment 3 would do:

    • Guarantee women’s medical care for emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, and
    miscarriages.
    • Ensure women’s safety during abortions.
    • Ensure parental consent for minors.
    • Repeal Article I, section 36, approved in 2024; allow abortions for medical
    emergencies, fetal anomalies, rape, and incest.
    • Prohibit sex-change procedures for children.

    This summary “doesn’t explicitly state that the amendment, if passed by voters, would again ban most abortions in Missouri,” notes St. Louis public radio. It also gives the (false) impression that the amendment would newly allow abortions for medical emergencies and so on.

    “The ACLU of Missouri said in a statement it intends to appeal not only the ballot summary and fair ballot language, but also for a violation of the state’s single subject clause,” St Louis public radio reports.

    “Despite three attempts, the state’s ballot summary still fails to give voters a clear and honest understanding that Amendment 3 would end Missourians’ fundamental right to reproductive freedom, a right we approved just last November,” Tori Schafer, director of policy and campaigns for the ACLU of Missouri, said.

    More Sex & Tech News

    IDs compromised on Discord: As age verification laws proliferate, we’re seeing more and more examples of the kinds of security breaches that I and many other opponents of these laws have warned about. The latest comes from Discord, where some users may have had their driver’s license or passport images compromised. “Recently, we discovered an incident where an unauthorized party compromised one of Discord’s third-party customer service providers,” the company revealed on October 3. Breached data may have included Discord usernames, real names, email addresses, IP addresses, and some “government‑ID images (e.g., driver’s license, passport) from users who had appealed an age determination.”

    Rich schools more likely to have cell phone bans: A new study looks at cell phone policies in U.S. public schools. In the representative sample studied, almost all—96.68 percent—had some sort of official cell phone policy. But these policies varied widely. Overall, “bans were less strict in high schools,” note the study authors. “Bans were also less strict in low-poverty and medium-poverty neighborhoods compared with high-poverty neighborhoods; the reasons for this pattern warrant further investigation.”

    A robot tax? Senate Democrats are pushing a “robot tax” that would fine companies for using artificial intelligence to “expand automation.” Such a tax “would hobble American innovation,” Kevin Frazier writes.

    Today’s Image

    Virginia Beach | 2019 (ENB/Reason)

    [ad_2]

    Elizabeth Nolan Brown

    Source link

  • Supreme Court hears arguments on whether states can ban conversion therapy for LBGTQ+ kids

    [ad_1]

    The Supreme Court will hear arguments in its latest LGBTQ+ rights case Tuesday, weighing the constitutionality of bans passed by nearly half of U.S. states on the practice known as conversion therapy for children.The justices are hearing a lawsuit from a Christian counselor challenging a Colorado law that prohibits therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. Kaley Chiles, with support from President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, argues the law violates her freedom of speech by barring her from offering voluntary, faith-based therapy for kids.Colorado, on the other hand, says the measure simply regulates licensed therapists by barring a practice that’s been scientifically discredited and linked to serious harm.The arguments come months after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority found states can ban transition-related health care for transgender youths, a setback for LGBTQ rights. The justices are also expected to hear a case about sports participation by transgender players this term.State says therapy is health care and subject to regulationColorado has not sanctioned anyone under the 2019 law, which exempts religious ministries. State attorneys say it still allows any therapist to have wide-ranging, faith-based conversations with young patients about gender and sexuality.“The only thing that the law prohibits therapists from doing is performing a treatment that seeks the predetermined outcome of changing a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity because that treatment is unsafe and ineffective,” Colorado state attorneys wrote.Therapy isn’t just speech, they said — it’s health care that governments have a responsibility to regulate. Violating the law carries potential fines of $5,000 and license suspension or even revocation.Linda Robertson is a Christian mom of four from Washington state whose son Ryan underwent therapy that promised to change his sexual orientation after he came out to her at age 12. The techniques led him to blame himself when it didn’t work, leaving him ashamed and depressed. He died in 2009, after multiple suicide attempts and a drug overdose at age 20.“What happened in conversion therapy, it devastated Ryan’s bond with me and my husband,” she said. “And it absolutely destroyed his confidence he could ever be loved or accepted by God.”Chiles contends her approach is different from the kind of conversion therapy once associated with practices like shock therapy decades ago. She said she believes “people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” and she argues evidence of harm from her approach is lacking.Chiles says Colorado is discriminating because it allows counselors to affirm minors coming out as gay or identifying as transgender but bans counseling like hers for young patients who may want to change their behavior or feelings. “We’re not saying this counseling should be mandatory, but if someone wants the counseling they should be able to get it,” said one of her attorneys, Jonathan Scruggs.The Trump administration said there are First Amendment issues with Colorado’s law that should make the law subject to a higher legal standard that few measures pass.Similar laws also face court challengesChiles is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that has appeared frequently at the court in recent years. The group also represented a Christian website designer who doesn’t want to work with same-sex couples and successfully challenged a Colorado anti-discrimination law in 2023.The group’s argument in the conversion therapy case also builds on another victory from 2018: A Supreme Court decision found California could not force state-licensed anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to provide information about abortion. Chiles should also be free from that kind of state regulation, the group argued.Still, the Supreme Court has also found that regulations that only “incidentally” burden speech are permissible, and the state argues that striking down its law against conversion therapy would undercut states’ ability to regulate discredited health care of all kinds.The high court agreed to hear the case after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the law. Another appeals court, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, has struck down similar bans in Florida.Legal wrangling has continued elsewhere as well. In Wisconsin, the state’s highest court recently cleared the way for the state to enforce its ban. Virginia officials, by contrast, have agreed to scale back the enforcement of its law as part of an agreement with a faith-based conservative group that sued.

    WASHINGTON —

    The Supreme Court will hear arguments in its latest LGBTQ+ rights case Tuesday, weighing the constitutionality of bans passed by nearly half of U.S. states on the practice known as conversion therapy for children.

    The justices are hearing a lawsuit from a Christian counselor challenging a Colorado law that prohibits therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. Kaley Chiles, with support from President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, argues the law violates her freedom of speech by barring her from offering voluntary, faith-based therapy for kids.

    Colorado, on the other hand, says the measure simply regulates licensed therapists by barring a practice that’s been scientifically discredited and linked to serious harm.

    The arguments come months after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority found states can ban transition-related health care for transgender youths, a setback for LGBTQ rights. The justices are also expected to hear a case about sports participation by transgender players this term.

    State says therapy is health care and subject to regulation

    Colorado has not sanctioned anyone under the 2019 law, which exempts religious ministries. State attorneys say it still allows any therapist to have wide-ranging, faith-based conversations with young patients about gender and sexuality.

    “The only thing that the law prohibits therapists from doing is performing a treatment that seeks the predetermined outcome of changing a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity because that treatment is unsafe and ineffective,” Colorado state attorneys wrote.

    Therapy isn’t just speech, they said — it’s health care that governments have a responsibility to regulate. Violating the law carries potential fines of $5,000 and license suspension or even revocation.

    Linda Robertson is a Christian mom of four from Washington state whose son Ryan underwent therapy that promised to change his sexual orientation after he came out to her at age 12. The techniques led him to blame himself when it didn’t work, leaving him ashamed and depressed. He died in 2009, after multiple suicide attempts and a drug overdose at age 20.

    “What happened in conversion therapy, it devastated Ryan’s bond with me and my husband,” she said. “And it absolutely destroyed his confidence he could ever be loved or accepted by God.”

    Chiles contends her approach is different from the kind of conversion therapy once associated with practices like shock therapy decades ago. She said she believes “people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” and she argues evidence of harm from her approach is lacking.

    Chiles says Colorado is discriminating because it allows counselors to affirm minors coming out as gay or identifying as transgender but bans counseling like hers for young patients who may want to change their behavior or feelings. “We’re not saying this counseling should be mandatory, but if someone wants the counseling they should be able to get it,” said one of her attorneys, Jonathan Scruggs.

    The Trump administration said there are First Amendment issues with Colorado’s law that should make the law subject to a higher legal standard that few measures pass.

    Similar laws also face court challenges

    Chiles is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that has appeared frequently at the court in recent years. The group also represented a Christian website designer who doesn’t want to work with same-sex couples and successfully challenged a Colorado anti-discrimination law in 2023.

    The group’s argument in the conversion therapy case also builds on another victory from 2018: A Supreme Court decision found California could not force state-licensed anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to provide information about abortion. Chiles should also be free from that kind of state regulation, the group argued.

    Still, the Supreme Court has also found that regulations that only “incidentally” burden speech are permissible, and the state argues that striking down its law against conversion therapy would undercut states’ ability to regulate discredited health care of all kinds.

    The high court agreed to hear the case after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the law. Another appeals court, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, has struck down similar bans in Florida.

    Legal wrangling has continued elsewhere as well. In Wisconsin, the state’s highest court recently cleared the way for the state to enforce its ban. Virginia officials, by contrast, have agreed to scale back the enforcement of its law as part of an agreement with a faith-based conservative group that sued.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • ACLU, other groups sue to block Texas’ DEI ban on K-12 public schools

    [ad_1]

    The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and a group of LGBTQ+ and student rights organizations are suing to block a new state law that would ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in K-12 public schools.

    In a lawsuit filed last month in federal court, attorneys from the ACLU of Texas and Transgender Law Center argued that Senate Bill 12 violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments as well as the Equal Access Act. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the legislation last June, and it will go into effect Sept. 1 alongside an array of other transformative laws for public education in Texas.

    “Senate Bill 12 is a blatant attempt to erase students’ identities and silence the stories that make Texas strong,” said Brian Klosterboer, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “Every student — no matter their race, gender, or background — deserves to feel seen, safe, and supported in school.”

    [Texas’ DEI bans: What to know about the term and the debate]

    Supporters of SB 12 say DEI programs use class time and public funds to promote political agendas, while opponents believe banning those initiatives will disproportionately harm marginalized students by removing spaces where they can find support.

    Here’s what you need to know about the effort to block the law.

    What the ban would do: Authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, SB 12 prohibits public school districts from considering race, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation in hiring decisions. The ban also bars schools from offering DEI training and programs, such as policies designed to reduce discrimination based on race or gender identity, except for when required by federal law.

    The law requires families to give written permission before their children can join any school club, and prohibits school groups created to support LGBTQIA+ students. Parents will be able to file complaints if they believe their schools are not complying with the DEI ban, and the law requires school districts to discipline employees who knowingly take part in DEI-related activities.

    Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, said SB 12 builds on a 2021 state law barring public schools from teaching critical race theory, an academic discipline that explores how race and racism have influenced the country’s legal and institutional systems. While critical race theory is not taught in Texas public schools, the term has become a shorthand used by conservatives who believe the way some schools teach children about race is politically biased.

    DEI advocates say initiatives that promote diversity provide support for marginalized communities in workforce development and higher education, while critics say DEI practices give preference to people based on their race and ethnicity rather than on merit.

    What the lawsuit says: Attorneys from the ACLU and the Transgender Law Center are suing Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath and three school districts on behalf of a teacher, a student and her parent. They’re also representing the Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, two organizations that say they would be harmed by the ban. The ACLU amended the complaint in September, adding as plaintiffs the Texas American Federation of Teachers, another student and his parent.

    The suit calls SB 12 an “overzealous” attempt to ban DEI in public schools and argues that it censors constitutionally protected speech and restricts students’ freedom of association. It’s also vague and overly broad, the suit says.

    “S.B. 12 seeks to erase students’ identities and make it impossible for teachers, parents, and volunteers to tell the truth about the history and diversity of our state,” said Cameron Samuels, executive director at Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. “The law also guts vital support systems for Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, and LGBTQIA+ students and educators.”

    As part of the lawsuit, the Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network claims SB 12 singles out the organization by explicitly restricting student clubs based on “sexual orientation or gender identity,” language the group uses to describe the student organizations it sponsors at schools. That restriction harms the freedom of speech of the group and its members, the suit says. The Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network has chapters in Texas at more than a dozen school districts, according to the filing.

    Lawsuits against similar laws have had mixed results in the past.

    Because of SB 12’s ban on discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms, opponents have compared it to Florida’s “don’t say gay” law, which attracted widespread media attention in 2022 due to its far-reaching impacts in public schools. Civil rights lawyers sued to block it, saying the law violated free speech and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. But a federal judge dismissed the case and said the plaintiffs had no legal standing and had failed to prove harm from the law. The attorneys ultimately agreed to a settlement with Florida education officials that clarified the law to allow discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms only if it’s not part of instruction.

    The Texas Education Agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The broader push against DEI: The DEI ban on K-12 schools comes two years after the Texas Legislature passed a similar ban for the state’s higher education institutions. Senate Bill 17 requires public universities to close their diversity offices, ban DEI training and restrict hiring departments from asking for diversity statements, or essays in which a job candidate expresses their commitment to promoting diversity in the workplace.

    [Texas’ DEI debate centers on a disagreement about whether programs perpetuate or prevent discrimination]

    Creighton, who also authored that bill, has warned higher education leaders that they could lose millions of dollars in state funding if they fail to comply with the law. Earlier this year, Abbott threatened Texas A&M University President Mark Welsh III’s job after claims spread online that Texas A&M was sending students and staffers to a conference that limited participation to people who are Black, Hispanic or Native American.

    At the national level, President Donald Trump has ordered all federal agencies to end “equity-related” practices and asked contractors to certify they do not promote DEI efforts. Trump also told schools and universities they would lose federal money if they do not eliminate diversity practices.

    Over the last five years, Texas and other Republican-led states have also taken other steps to abolish and ban DEI efforts in public education and the workforce. Similar to Trump, Abbott issued an executive order in January mandating that Texas agencies end all forms of DEI practices.

    “We must always reject race-based favoritism or discrimination and allow people to advance based on talent and merit,” Abbott said.

    Disclosure: ACLU Texas and Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

    More all-star speakers confirmed for The Texas Tribune Festival, Nov. 13–15! This year’s lineup just got even more exciting with the addition of State Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo; former United States Attorney General Eric Holder; Abby Phillip, anchor of “CNN NewsNight”; Aaron Reitz, 2026 Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General; and State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin. Get your tickets today!

    TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • I’m Gay’: I Opened Up About My Sexuality On Stage at a Work Event — And My Company Reacted In The Most Perfect Way. | Entrepreneur

    I’m Gay’: I Opened Up About My Sexuality On Stage at a Work Event — And My Company Reacted In The Most Perfect Way. | Entrepreneur

    [ad_1]

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In the spirit of Pride Month and as conversations around the evolving landscape of diversity in the workplace continue, I find it crucial to utilize this moment as an opportunity to explore how workplaces can better support LGBTQ+ individuals. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, I’ve experienced firsthand the challenges faced in a workplace environment. I can’t help but reflect on the countless comments that I’ve heard throughout my career – some well-intentioned, others simply insensible – that led me to think it would be easier, and perhaps better for my career, if I kept this part of my identity private. However, joining Xero changed my perception of this entirely.

    As I reflect on my coming out experience, it’s safe to say it was truly one of a kind and a monumental moment in my personal and professional journey. To set the scene, picture a 26-year-old man presenting on-stage at a company-wide event, organically slipping a quote from Beyoncé into my discussion. Well, this exact scenario is what led to me spontaneously deciding to disclose to the full room about my sexuality. This light-hearted inclusion went something along the lines of, “And if you didn’t already know, I’m gay.”

    Since that day, the support from my colleagues has been nothing short of incredible. This experience also taught me a valuable lesson about the impact organizations and their leaders can have in fostering environments that not only encourage authenticity and differences but actually celebrate them. At Xero, I’ve found myself in a unique position, one that allows me to embrace my sexuality and bring my full, authentic self to work. I was able to achieve this level of comfort due to the uplifting workplace environment and supportive individuals at our organization – a standard that all companies must try and achieve.

    Having gone through this experience firsthand, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it takes to cultivate a truly inclusive workplace environment, one where employees don’t keep any part of their identity private and feel comfortable bringing their true selves to work.

    Celebrate and embrace diversity year-round

    Throughout the year, various occasions lead to heightened recognition of diverse groups — February is Black History Month, March is Women’s History Month and June is Pride Month, among others. Being part of an organization that values these moments as opportunities to celebrate progress, honor history and acknowledge the diverse individuals within an organization is extremely heartwarming.

    Every year during Pride Month, I’m reminded of the significance of being part of an organization that proudly supports both my community and me. Many organizations focus solely on symbolic changes like updating social media logos, which hold importance, but efforts shouldn’t stop there. Significance for me is about recognizing the progress we’ve made, reflecting on areas of growth and opportunity and using symbolic efforts, like updating social media logos, to celebrate our achievements.

    This feeling of joy and acceptance during Pride Month has led me to ponder: What more can organizations do to extend these important discussions and celebrations beyond just one month a year? Truly inclusive workplaces recognize the value of creating work environments that regularly track and celebrate diversity goals and achievements. While designated months provide great opportunities for additional engagement and recognition, leaders should strive to create a workplace culture that regularly values, acknowledges and celebrates differences.

    As a leader, one of the primary ways I try to model this behavior is by broadening conversations beyond work-related topics whenever possible (and appropriate). If we want to encourage individuals to bring their authentic selves to work, we must create space for personal conversations. This includes being vulnerable and open to hearing about your colleague’s personal joys, such as wedding anniversary plans or dreams for the future, in addition to providing opportunities in team meetings or informal gatherings to share and celebrate these occasions. I vividly remember a moment when I shared details about my husband and my wedding anniversary at work and thought to myself, this feels so normal and uplifting to share such an important milestone with my colleagues. This further reaffirmed my thinking about the importance of celebrating these personal aspects of our lives to strengthen connections in the workplace.

    Related: How Language Could Be Sabotaging Your Diversity and Inclusion Efforts

    Addressing workplace microaggressions

    As we’ve seen over the past few years, diversity and inclusion have been hot workplace priorities, with many companies increasing attention to these initiatives. While this heightened focus is a great step towards fostering more inclusive workplaces, the journey can’t stop there.

    Despite progress made, workplace microaggressions are still a big problem, with nearly one-third of LGBTQ+ employees reporting such experiences. Recognizing the impact of microaggressions, particularly on marginalized communities, is essential both from a personal and professional perspective; in fact, a recent study indicated that 50% of affected individuals would consider leaving their jobs. As leaders, it’s crucial to refrain from treating diversity and inclusion initiatives as checkboxes or objectives with end goals – but rather understand that this landscape will require consistent education and growth to reach true inclusivity.

    Effectively addressing microaggressions requires proactive leadership and accountability. Organizations must provide education and awareness initiatives, such as training and workshops, to showcase to employees how to understand and prevent microaggressions. Kroger is an example of an organization that stands out for its commitment to its employees, in part demonstrated through its rigorous diversity and inclusion training programs. Recently, the company published a framework outlining its goals and focus areas for diversity and inclusion, which included diversity training for all employees and tailored programs based on organizational roles. This initiative fostered meaningful changes and helped to promote inclusivity throughout its workforce.

    Organizational leaders must lead by example by actively listening and, when appropriate, intervening during uncomfortable situations to educate others. Additionally, it’s important to seek opportunities for personal education and take the time to learn from colleagues about how certain situations or statements make them feel. By doing so, leaders will have greater insights into how to be more empathetic and can better model appropriate and inclusive behavior.

    While it may not always be possible (or comfortable) to directly address colleagues who use microaggressions, consider advocating for policies or reporting mechanisms that enable employees to address and report such incidents. Employee resource groups (ERGs), which are employee-led programs within organizations aimed to promote belonging and acceptance within the workforce, are also a great tool to educate and inform others; 91% of organizations with ERGs in place say they have helped to boost company culture. Consider advocating for or offering to lead such groups if they don’t already exist, as they serve as platforms for mutual support and learning.

    Related: Inclusivity Begins During the Hiring Process. Here’s How to Do It.

    Incorporate inclusivity into hiring practices

    When assessing candidates for new positions, it’s easy to get stuck in familiar hiring patterns that primarily focus on educational degrees, professional experience and tangible skill sets. But, this should not, and cannot, be the only consideration.

    Inclusive hiring extends beyond just hiring people from different backgrounds to meet DEI goals. The process involves reducing biases that have no direct impact on job performance to ensure candidates are all evaluated fairly. In order to do so effectively, organizations should consider taking steps such as removing names and backgrounds from the application process to focus on screening for skills or diversifying who participates in the interview process to avoid having homogenous panels. These steps not only allow for a fairer interview process but also can help companies achieve and maintain DEI goals.

    Embracing diversity can help to foster innovation and creativity, while also attracting and retaining top talent. Having a diverse workforce helps to build connection and loyalty, both internally and externally. When you’re in a meeting and take the time to look around, it’s comforting to be around individuals from similar backgrounds or who’ve gone through similar experiences or challenges as you have. Whether it’s someone who grew up in your native country or from the same non-traditional background as you are, having a wide range of diverse individuals who make up the workforce can help employees feel a stronger sense of belonging.

    While organizations have undoubtedly made notable strides in strengthening diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and initiatives in recent years, the journey is far from over. There is certainly still room for growth and improvement in creating workplaces that aren’t just welcoming but truly empowering for LGBTQ+ individuals — and it starts with leadership.

    [ad_2]

    Ben Richmond

    Source link

  • The Book-Bans Debate Has Finally Reached a Turning Point

    The Book-Bans Debate Has Finally Reached a Turning Point

    [ad_1]

    Across multiple fronts, Democrats and their allies are stiffening their resistance to a surge of Republican-led book bans.

    President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the past month have conspicuously escalated their denunciations of the book bans proliferating in schools across the country, explicitly linking them to restrictions on abortion and voting rights to make the case that “MAGA extremists” are threatening Americans’ “personal freedom,” as Biden said in the recent video announcing his campaign for a second term.

    Last week, Illinois became the first Democratic-controlled state to pass legislation designed to discourage local school districts from banning books. And a prominent grassroots progressive group today will announce a new national campaign to organize mothers against the conservative drive to remove books and censor curriculum under the banner of protecting “parents’ rights.”

    “We are not going to let the mantle of parents’ rights be hijacked by such an extreme minority,” Katie Paris, the founder of the group, Red Wine and Blue, told me.

    These efforts are emerging as red states have passed a wave of new laws restricting how classroom teachers can talk about race, gender, and sexual orientation, as well as measures making it easier for critics to pressure schools to remove books from classrooms and libraries. Partly in response to those new statutes, the number of banned books has jumped by about 30 percent in the first half of the current school year as compared with last, according to a recent compilation by PEN America, a free-speech group founded by notable authors.

    To the frustration of some local activists opposing these measures in state legislatures or school boards, the Biden administration has largely kept its distance from these fights. Nor did Democrats, while they controlled Congress, mount any sustained resistance to the educational constraints spreading across the red states.

    But the events of the past few weeks suggest that this debate has clearly reached a turning point. From grassroots organizers like Paris to political advisers for Biden, more Democrats see book bans as the weak link in the GOP’s claim that it is upholding “parents’ rights” through measures such as restrictions on curriculum or legislation targeting transgender minors. A national CBS poll released on Monday found overwhelming opposition among Americans to banning books that discuss race or criticize U.S. history. “There is something about this idea of book banning that really makes people stop and say, ‘I may be uncomfortable with some of this transitional treatment kids are getting, and I don’t know how I feel about pronouns, but I do not want them banning books,’” says Guy Molyneux, a Democratic pollster.

    The conservative call to uphold parents’ rights in education has intensified since Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin in 2021 unexpectedly won the governorship in blue-leaning Virginia partly behind that theme. In the aftermath of long COVID-related shutdowns across many school districts, Youngkin’s victory showed that “Republicans really did tap into an energy there” by talking about ways of “giving parents more of a choice in education,” Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center who specializes in family issues, told me.

    But as the parents’-rights crusade moved through Republican-controlled states, it quickly expanded well beyond academic concerns to encompass long-standing conservative complaints that liberal teachers were allegedly indoctrinating kids through “woke” lessons.

    Read: How Democrats avoided a red wave

    New red-state laws passed in response to those arguments have moved the fight over book banning from a retail to a wholesale level. Previously, most book bans were initiated by lone parents, even if they were working with national conservative groups such as Moms for Liberty, who objected to administrators or school boards in individual districts. But the new statutes have “supercharged” the book-banning process, in PEN’s phrase, by empowering critics to simultaneously demand the removal of more books in more places. Five red states—Florida, Texas, Missouri, South Carolina, and Utah—have now become the epicenter of book-banning efforts, the study concluded.

    Biden and his administration were not entirely silent as these policies proliferated. He was clear and consistent in denouncing the initial “Don’t Say Gay” law that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis passed to bar discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. But that was the exception. Even during the 2022 campaign, when Biden regularly framed Republicans as a threat to voting and abortion rights, he did not highlight red-state book bans and curriculum censorship. Apart from abortion and voting, his inclination has been to focus his public communications less on culture-war disputes than on delivering kitchen-table benefits to working families. Nor had Education Secretary Miguel Cardona done much to elevate these issues either. “We have not seen a lot of visibility” from the Education Department, says Nadine Farid Johnson, PEN’s managing director for Washington.

    The administration’s relative disengagement from the classroom wars, and the limited attention from national progressive groups, left many grassroots activists feeling “isolated,” Paris said. Revida Rahman, a co-founder of One WillCo, an organization that advocates for students of color in affluent and predominantly white Williamson County, south of Nashville, told me that the group has often felt at a disadvantage trying to respond to conservative parents working with national right-leaning groups to demand changes in curriculum or bans on books with racial or LGBTQ themes. “What we are fighting is a well-funded and well-oiled machine,” she told me, “and we don’t have the same capacity.”

    Pushback from Democrats and their allies, though, is now coalescing. Earlier this month, the Freedom to Learn initiative, a coalition organized mostly by Black educators, held a series of events, many on college campuses, protesting restrictions on curriculum and books. The Red Wine and Blue group is looking to organize a systematic grassroots response. Founded in 2019, the organization has about 500,000 mostly suburban mothers in its network and paid organizers in five states. The group has already provided training for local activists to oppose curriculum censorship and book bans, and today it is launching the Freedom to Parent 21st Century Kids project, a more sweeping counter to conservative parents’-rights groups. The project will include virtual training sessions for activists, programs in which participants can talk with transgender kids and their parents, and efforts to highlight banned books. “We want to equip parents to talk about this stuff,” Paris told me. “It’s moms learning from moms who already faced this in their community.”

    Illinois opened another front in this debate with its first-in-the-nation bill to discourage book banning. The legislation will withhold state grants from school districts unless they adopt explicit policies to prohibit banning books in response to partisan or ideological pressure. Democratic Governor J. B. Pritzker has indicated that he will sign the bill.

    Read: The contradictions of Ron DeSantis

    Potentially the most consequential shift has come from the Biden administration. The president signaled a new approach in his late-April announcement video, when he cited book bans as evidence for his accusation that Republicans in the Donald Trump era are targeting Americans’ “personal freedom.” That was, “by far, the most we have seen on” book bans from Biden, Farid Johnson told me.

    One senior adviser close to Biden told me that the connection of book bans to those more frequent presidential targets of abortion and democracy was no accident. “There is a basic American pushback when people are told what they can and cannot do,” said the adviser, who asked for anonymity while discussing campaign strategy. “Voters,” the adviser said, “don’t like to be told, ‘You can’t make a decision about your own life when it comes to your health care; you can’t make a decision about what book to read.’ I think book bans fit in that broader context.”

    Biden may sharpen that attack as soon as Saturday, when he delivers the commencement address at Howard University. Meanwhile, Vice President Harris has already previewed how the administration may flesh out this argument. In her own speech at Howard last month, she cited book bans and curriculum censorship as components of a red-state social regime that the GOP will try to impose nationwide if it wins the White House in 2024. In passing these laws, Republicans are not just “impacting the people” of Florida or Texas, she said. “What we are witnessing—and be clear about this—is there is a national agenda that’s at play … Don’t think it’s not a national agenda when they start banning books.”

    The Education Department has also edged into the fray. When the recent release of national test scores showed a decline in students’ performance on history, Cardona, the education secretary, issued a statement declaring that “banning history books and censoring educators … does our students a disservice and will move America in the wrong direction.”

    His statement came months after the department’s Office of Civil Rights launched an investigation that could shape the next stages of this struggle. The office is probing whether a Texas school district that sweepingly removed LGBTQ-themed books from its shelves has violated federal civil-rights laws. The department has not revealed anything about the investigation’s status, but PEN’s Farid Johnson said if it concludes that the removals violated federal law, other districts might be deterred from banning books.

    The politics of the parents’-rights debate are complex. Republicans are confident that their interconnected initiatives related to education and young people can win back suburban voters, especially mothers, who have rejected the party in the Trump era. Polling, including surveys done by Democratic pollsters last year for the American Federation of Teachers, has consistently found majority national support for some individual planks in the GOP agenda, including the prohibitions on discussing sexual orientation in early grades.

    Brown said he believes that at the national level, the battle over book bans is likely to end in a “stalemate.” That’s not only, he argued, because each side can point to examples of extreme behavior by the other in defending or removing individual books, but also because views on what’s acceptable for kids vary so much from place to place. “We shouldn’t expect a national consensus on what book is appropriate for a 13-year-old to be reading, because that’s going to be different among different parents in different communities,” Brown told me.

    Yet as the awakening Democratic resistance suggests, many in the party are confident that voters will find the whole of the GOP agenda less attractive than the sum of its parts. In that 2022 polling for the teachers’ union, a significant majority of adults said they worry less that kids are being taught values their parents don’t like than that culture-war fights are diverting schools from their real mission of educating students. Paris said the most common complaint she hears from women drawn to her group is that the conservative activists proclaiming parents’ rights are curtailing the freedoms of other parents by trying to dictate what materials all students can access. “What you’ll have women in our communities say all the time is ‘If you don’t want your kid to read a book, that’s fine, but you don’t get to decide for me and my family,’” she told me.

    The White House, the senior official told me, believes that after the Supreme Court last year rescinded the right to abortion, many voters are uncertain and uneasy about what rights or liberties Republicans may target next. “There is a fear about Where does it stop?,” the official said, and book bans powerfully crystallize that concern. Trump and DeSantis, who’s expected to join the GOP race, have both indicated that they intend to aggressively advance the conservative parents’-rights agenda of attacks on instruction they deem “woke” and books they consider indecent. Biden and other Democrats, after months of hesitation, are stepping onto the field against them. The library looms as the next big confrontation in the culture war.

    [ad_2]

    Ronald Brownstein

    Source link

  • LGBTQ+ Support Groups in Schools Boost Students’ Mental Health

    LGBTQ+ Support Groups in Schools Boost Students’ Mental Health

    [ad_1]

    By Alan Mozes 

    HealthDay Reporter

    TUESDAY, Feb. 21, 2023 (HealthDay News) — About 44% of U.S. middle and high schools have student-run clubs that shine a light on issues that touch the lives of LGBTQ+ students.

    And new research suggests that depression risk among LGBTQ+ students is considerably lower in those schools where such Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs), similar to Gay-Straight Alliances, are present and relatively active.

    “Depression is one of the foremost health concerns among LGBTQ+ youth,” said lead author V. Paul Poteat, a professor in the department of counseling, developmental and educational psychology at Boston College.

    “While risk of depression has tended to range from 8% to 17% in the general adolescent population, it has ranged from 18% to 23% among LGBQ+ youth,” he noted.

    GSAs are school clubs that provide a welcoming space for LGBTQ+ teens and their heterosexual cisgender peers to socialize, support one another and learn about LGBTQ+ issues.

    Typically meeting once a week or every-other-week for up to an hour — either during or after school — GSAs sometimes also advocate for protective and inclusive policies for LGBTQ+ youth, Poteat explained, promoting inclusion and visibility along with socializing and event-planning.

    He said his team wanted to see whether advocacy work could reduce depressive symptoms by helping lower the risk for loneliness, fearfulness or hopelessness among LGBTQ+ teens.

    Nearly 1,400 boys and girls in 23 Massachusetts middle and high schools (grades 6 through 12) participated in the study.

    Nobody in this pool of teens was enrolled in a GSA. In all, 89% identified as straight, and 11% as LGBQT+. Roughly 7 in 10 were white.

    Over two academic years — between 2016 and 2018 — researchers gathered information on each participant’s age, grade, sexual orientation, self-declared gender identity, race/ethnicity, and their parents’ country of origin.

    Symptoms of depression were assessed at the start and end of a school year.

    The researchers also focused on a second pool of 245 students, all of whom were current members of a GSA. They were asked to indicate how strenuously they had engaged in, organized or promoted advocacy activities during the school year.

    Compared with their straight classmates, LGBTQ+ teens had higher levels of depression both at the start and finish of the school year, the researchers observed.

    But stacking depression symptoms up against GSA activity levels showed something significant.

    “We found that depression disparities between LGBQ+ students and heterosexual students were smaller at the end of the school year for students in schools whose GSAs had engaged in more advocacy over the school year,” Poteat said.

    The investigators acknowledged that they did not account for the presence of school-based anti-bullying policies, or the lack thereof. Nor did they factor in what other types of non-GSA-related exposure the students may have had throughout the year.

    Still, Poteat said, GSAs likely have a positive impact on LGBTQ+ youth given their focus on raising the visibility of students who experience marginalization or isolation.

    “Our findings, along with those of many other researchers, show the danger of efforts that attempt to silence students’ voices and suppress visibility of LGBTQ+ young people, their lives and experiences at school,” he said.

    That thought was seconded by Caitlin Ryan, director of the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University.

    “These findings are especially important during a resurgence of efforts to restrict school support for LGBQ and transgender students that help to increase well-being,” Ryan said.

    In the first six months of last year, for example, more than 111 bills aiming to limit classroom discussions about race and gender were passed or introduced in state legislatures, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU is currently tracking 321 anti-LGBTQ bills in the United States.

    Ryan noted that research has consistently found higher rates of depression among LGBQT+ youth compared with their heterosexual peers.

    “And GSAs have been associated with positive outcomes for LGBQ students,” she said, adding that the new study “deepens our understanding of how GSAs contribute to better mental health for LGBQ students, through the empowering role of advocacy.”

    The findings were published Feb. 21 in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.

    More information

    There’s more about LGBTQ+ youth at the Family Acceptance Project.

     

    SOURCES: V. Paul Poteat, PhD, professor, department of counseling, developmental and educational psychology, Boston College; Caitlin Ryan, PhD, director, Family Acceptance Project, San Francisco State University; Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Feb. 21, 2023

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • The FDA’s New ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Policy for Blood Donation

    The FDA’s New ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Policy for Blood Donation

    [ad_1]

    For decades now, gay men have been barred from giving blood. In 2015, what had been a lifetime ban was loosened, such that gay men could be donors if they’d abstained from sex for at least a year. This was later shortened to three months. Last week, the FDA put out a new and more inclusive plan: Sexually active gay and bisexual people would be permitted to donate so long as they have not recently engaged in anal sex with new or multiple partners. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, the first Senate-confirmed transgender official in the U.S., issued a statement commending the proposal for “advancing equity.” It “treats everyone the same,” she said, “regardless of gender and sexual orientation.”

    As a member of the small but honorable league of gay pathologists, I’m affected by these proposed policy changes more than most Americans. I’m subject to restrictions on giving blood, and I’ve also been responsible for monitoring the complications that can arise from transfusions of infected blood. I am quite concerned about HIV, given that men who have sex with men are at much greater risk of contracting the virus than members of other groups. But it’s not the blood-borne illness that I, as a doctor, fear most. Common bacteria lead to far more transfusion-transmitted infections in the U.S. than any virus does, and most of those produce severe or fatal illness. The risk from viruses is extraordinarily low—there hasn’t been a single reported case of transfusion-associated HIV in the U.S. since 2008—because laboratories now use highly accurate tests to screen all donors and ensure the safety of our blood supply. This testing is so accurate that preventing anyone from donating based on their sexual behavior is no longer logical. Meanwhile, new dictates about anal sex, like older ones explicitly targeting men who have sex with men, still discriminate against the queer community—the FDA is simply struggling to find the most socially acceptable way to pursue a policy that it should have abandoned long ago.

    Strict precautions made more sense 30 years ago, when screening didn’t work nearly as well as it does today. Patients with hemophilia, many of whom rely on blood products to live, were prominent, early victims of our inability to keep HIV out of the blood supply. One patient who’d acquired the virus through a transfusion lamented to The New York Times in 1993 that he had already watched an uncle and a cousin die of AIDS. Those days of “shock and denial,” as the Times described it, are thankfully behind us. But for older patients, memories of the crisis in the ’80s and early ’90s linger, and cause significant anxiety. Even people unaware of this historical context may consider the receipt of someone else’s blood disturbing, threatening, or sinful.

    As a doctor, I’ve found that patients tend to be more hesitant about getting a blood transfusion than they are about taking a pill. I’ve had them ask for a detailed medical history of the donor, or say they’re willing to take blood only from a close relative. (Typically, neither of these requests can be fulfilled for reasons of privacy and practicality.) Yet the same patients may accept—without question—drugs that carry a risk of serious complication that is thousands of times higher than the risk of receiving infected blood. Even when it comes to blood-borne infections, patients seem to worry less about the greatest danger—bacterial contamination—than they do about the transfer of viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C. I can’t fault anyone for being sick and scared, but the risk of contracting HIV from a blood transfusion is not just low—it’s essentially nonexistent.

    Read: Blood plasma, sweat, and tears

    Donors’ feelings matter, too, and the FDA’s policies toward gay and bisexual men who wish to give blood have been unfair for many years. While officials speak in the supposedly objective language of risk and safety, their selective deployment of concern suggests a deeper homophobia. As one scholar put it in The American Journal of Bioethics more than a decade ago, “Discrimination resides not in the risk itself but in the FDA response to the risk.” Many demographic groups are at elevated risk of contracting HIV, yet the agency isn’t continually refining its exclusion criteria for young people or urban dwellers or Black and Hispanic people. Federal policy did prohibit Haitians from donating blood from 1983 to 1991, but activists successfully lobbied for the reversal of this ban with the powerful slogan “The H in HIV stands for human, not Haitian.” Nearly everyone today would find the idea of rejecting blood from one racial group to be morally repugnant. Under its new proposal, which purports to target anal sex instead of homosexuality itself, the FDA effectively persists in rejecting blood from sexual minorities.

    The planned update would certainly be an improvement. It comes out of years of advocacy by LGBTQ-rights organizations, and its details are apparently supported by newly conducted government research. Peter Marks, the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA, cited an unpublished study showing that “a significant fraction” of men who have sex with men would now be able to donate. But the plan is still likely to exclude a large portion of them—even those who wear condoms or regularly test for sexually transmitted infections. An FDA spokesperson told me via email that “additional data are needed to determine what proportion of [men who have sex with men] would be able to donate under the proposed change.”

    Research done in France, Canada, and the U.K., where similar policies have since been adopted over the past two years, demonstrates the risk. A French blood-donation study, for instance, estimated that 70 percent of men who have sex with men had more than one recent partner; and when Canadian researchers surveyed queer communities in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, they found that up to 63 percent would not be eligible to donate because they’d recently had anal sex with new or multiple partners. Just 1 percent of previously eligible donors would have been rejected by similar criteria. The U.K. assumed in its calculations that 35 to 50 percent of men who have sex with men would be ineligible under a policy much like the FDA’s, while only 1.4 percent of previous donors would be newly deferred. If the new rule’s net effect is that gay and bisexual men are turned away from blood centers at many times the rate of heterosexual individuals, what else can you call it but discrimination? The U.S. guidance is supposed to ban a lifestyle choice rather than an identity, but the implication is that too many queer men have chosen wrong. The FDA spokesperson told me, “Anal sex with more than one sexual partner has a significantly greater risk of HIV infection when compared to other sexual exposures, including oral sex or penile-vaginal sex.”

    If the FDA wants to pry into my sex life, it should have a good reason for doing so. The increasing granularity and intimacy of these policies—specifying numbers of partners, kinds of sex—gives the impression that the stakes are very high: If we don’t keep out the most dangerous donors, the blood supply could be ruined. But donor-screening questions are a crude tool for picking needles from a haystack. The only HIV infections that are likely to get missed by modern testing are those contracted within the previous week or two. This suggests that, at most, a couple thousand individuals—gay and straight—across the entire country are at risk of slipping past our testing defenses at any given time. Of course, very few of them will happen to donate blood right then. No voluntary questionnaire can ever totally exclude this possibility, but patients and doctors already accept other life-threatening transfusion risks that occur at much greater rates than HIV transmission ever could. When I would be on call for monitoring transfusion reactions at a single hospital, the phone would ring a few times every night. Yet blood has been given out tens of millions of times across the country since the last known instance of a transfusion resulting in a case of HIV.

    Read: How blood-plasma companies target the poorest Americans

    Early data suggest that the overall risk-benefit calculus of receiving blood isn’t likely to change. When eligibility criteria were first relaxed in the U.S. a few years ago, the already tiny rate of HIV-positive donations remained minuscule. Real-world results from other countries that have recently adopted sexual-orientation-neutral policies will become available in the coming years. But modeling studies already support removing any screening question that explicitly or implicitly targets queer men. A 2022 Canadian analysis suggested that removing all questions about men who have sex with men would not result in a significantly higher risk to patients. “Extra behavioral risk questions may not be necessary,” the researchers concluded. If there must be a restriction in place, then one narrowly tailored to the slim risk window of seven to 10 days before donation should be good enough. (The FDA says that its proposed policy “would be expected to reduce the likelihood of donations by individuals with new or recent HIV infection who may be in the window period.”)

    As a gay man, I realize that, brief periods of crisis during the coronavirus pandemic aside, no one needs my blood. Only 6.8 percent of men in the U.S. identify as gay or bisexual, so our potential benefit to the overall supply is inherently modest. If we went back to being banned completely, patients would not be harmed. But reversing that ban, both in letter and in spirit, would send a vital message: Our government and health-care system view sexual minorities as more than a disease vector. A policy that uses anal sex as a stand-in for men who have sex with men only further stigmatizes this population by impugning one of its main sources of sexual pleasure. There is no question that nonmonogamous queer men have a greater chance of contracting HIV. But a policy that truly treats everyone the same would accept a tiny amount of risk as the price of working with human beings.

    [ad_2]

    Benjamin Mazer

    Source link

  • FDA Moves To Ease Blood Donation Rules For Gay And Bisexual Men

    FDA Moves To Ease Blood Donation Rules For Gay And Bisexual Men

    [ad_1]

    The Food and Drug Administration has proposed easing blood donation guidelines for gay and bisexual men, doing away with the current three-month abstinence requirement for donations from men who have sex with men. What do you think?

    “But what if a life-saving transfusion from a gay man forces me to examine my prejudices?”

    Brent Hamlin, Grain Inspector

    “I guess they got all the homophobia out of their system with the Monkeypox coverage.”

    Damien Cicchelli, Freelance Agitator

    “I’m glad we’re doing away with the last remaining shred of anti-gay prejudice in our society.”

    Audrey Davila, Insult Cataloguer

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • How a GOP Congress Could Roll Back Nationwide Freedoms

    How a GOP Congress Could Roll Back Nationwide Freedoms

    [ad_1]

    If Republicans win control of one or both congressional chambers this week, they will likely begin a project that could reshape the nation’s political and legal landscape: imposing on blue states the rollback of civil rights and liberties that has rapidly advanced through red states since 2021.

    Over the past two years, the 23 states where Republicans hold unified control of the governorship and state legislature have approved the most aggressive wave of socially conservative legislation in modern times. In highly polarizing battles across the country, GOP-controlled states have passed laws imposing new restrictions on voting, banning or limiting access to abortion, retrenching LGBTQ rights, removing licensing and training requirements for concealed carry of firearms, and censoring how public-school teachers (and in some cases university professors and even private employers) can talk about race, gender, and sexual orientation.

    With much less attention, Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate have introduced legislation to write each of these red-state initiatives into federal law. The practical effect of these proposals would be to require blue states to live under the restrictive social policies that have burned through red states since President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. “I think the days of fealty [to states’ rights] are nearing an end, and we are going to see the national Republicans in Congress adopting maximalist policy approaches,” Peter Ambler, the executive director of Giffords, a group that advocates for stricter gun control, told me.

    Read: The double-negative election

    None of the proposals to nationalize the red-state social agenda could become law any time soon. Even if Republicans were to win both congressional chambers, they would not have the votes to overcome the inevitable Biden vetoes. Nor would Republicans, even if they controlled both chambers, have any incentive to consider repealing the Senate filibuster to pass this agenda until they know they have a president who would sign the resulting bills into law—something they can’t achieve before the 2024 election.

    But if Republicans triumph this week, the next two years could nonetheless become a crucial period in formulating a strategy to nationalize the red-state social-policy revolution. Particularly if Republicans win the House, they seem certain to explore which of these ideas can attract enough support in their caucus to clear the chamber. And the 2024 Republican presidential candidates are also likely to test GOP primary voters’ appetite for writing conservative social priorities into national law. Embracing such initiatives “may prove irresistible for a lot of folks trying to capture” the party’s socially conservative wing, Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, told me.

    It starts with abortion. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in September introduced a bill that would ban the procedure nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In the House, 167 Republicans have co-sponsored the “Life Begins at Conception Act,” which many legal analysts say would effectively ban all abortions nationwide.

    In elections, Senator Rick Scott of Florida has proposed legislation that would impose for federal elections nationwide many of the voting restrictions that have rapidly diffused across red states, including tougher voter-identification requirements, a ban on both unmonitored drop boxes and the counting of any mail ballots received after Election Day, and a prohibition on same-day and automatic voter registration.

    In education, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has proposed to federalize restrictions on how teachers can talk about race by barring any K–12 school that receives federal money from using “critical race theory” in instruction. Several Republicans (including Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri) have introduced a “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which would mandate parental access to school curriculum and library materials nationwide—a step toward building pressure for the kind of book bans spreading through conservative states and school districts. Nadine Farid Johnson, the Washington director for PEN America, a free-speech advocacy group, predicts that these GOP proposals “chipping away” at free speech are likely to expand beyond school settings into other areas affecting the general population, such as public libraries or private companies’ training policies. “This is not something that is likely to stop at the current arena, but to go much more broadly,” she told me.

    Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, along with several dozen co-sponsors, recently introduced a federal version of the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation that Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida pushed into law. Johnson’s bill is especially sweeping in its scope. It bars discussion of “sexually-oriented material,” including sexual orientation, with children 10 and younger, not only in educational settings, but in any program funded by the federal government, including through public libraries, hospitals, and national parks. The language is so comprehensive that it might even prevent “any federal law enforcement talking to a kid about a sexual assault or sexual abuse,” David Stacy, the government-affairs director at the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, told me.

    Read: Want to understand the red-state onslaught? Look at Florida.

    Johnson’s bill is only one of several Republican proposals to nationalize red-state actions on LGBTQ issues. During budget debates in both 2021 and 2022, Republican senators offered  amendments to establish a nationwide ban on transgender girls participating in school sports. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has introduced a bill (the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act”) that would set felony penalties for doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors. Cotton, in a variation on the theme, has proposed to allow any minor who receives gender-affirming surgery to sue the doctor for physical or emotional damages for the next 30 years.

    Meanwhile, Senator Steve Daines and Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina have introduced legislation requiring every state to accept a concealed-carry gun permit issued in any state—a mechanism for overriding blue-state limits on these permits. When Republicans controlled the House, they passed such a bill in 2017, but the implications of this idea have grown even more stark since then because so many red states have passed laws allowing residents to obtain concealed-carry permits without any background checks or training requirements.

    Ambler told me he expects that the NRA and congressional Republicans will eventually seek not only to preempt blue states and city limits on who can carry guns, but also to invalidate their restrictions on where they can do so, such as the New York State law, now facing legal challenge, barring guns from the subway.

    Brown, of the conservative EPPC, said it’s difficult to predict which of these proposals will gather the most momentum if Republicans win back one or both chambers. Some congressional Republicans, he said, may still be constrained by traditional GOP arguments favoring federalism. The strongest case for contravening that principle, he said, is in those instances that involve protecting what he calls “fundamental rights.” Graham’s national 15-week abortion ban can be justified on those grounds because “we are talking about, from my perspective, the life of an unborn baby, so having a federal ceiling on when states can’t encroach on protecting that fetus in the womb in the later stage of pregnancy makes a lot of sense to me.”

    In practice, though, Brown thinks that congressional Republicans may hesitate about passing a nationwide abortion ban, particularly with no hope of Biden signing it into law. He believes they are more likely to coalesce first around proposals to bar transgender girls from participating in sports and to prohibit gender-affirming surgery for minors, in part because those issues have proved “so galvanizing” for cultural conservatives in red states.

    Conor Friedersdorf: The constitutional case against a federal abortion ban

    Stacy, from the Human Rights Campaign, said that although Senate Republicans may be less enthusiastic about pursuing legislation restricting transgender rights, he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a GOP-controlled Congress advancing those ideas. “It’s hard to know how far a Republican majority in either chamber would go on these issues,” he told me. “But what we’ve seen again and again in the states is that when they can, they have moved in these directions. Even when you take a look at more moderate states, when they have the power to do these things, they move these things forward.” That precedent eventually may apply not just to LGBTQ issues, but to all the red-state initiatives some Republicans want to inscribe into national law.

    These approaching federal debates reframe the battle raging across the red states during the past few years as just the first act of what’s likely to become an extended struggle.

    This first act has played out largely within the framework of restoring states’ rights and local prerogatives. As I’ve written, the red-state moves on social issues amount to a systematic effort to reverse the “rights revolution” of the past six decades. Over that long period, the Supreme Court, Congress, and a succession of presidents nationalized more rights and reduced states’ leeway to abridge those rights, on issues including civil rights, contraception, abortion, and same-sex marriage.

    Now the red states have moved to reverse that long trajectory toward a stronger national floor of rights by setting their own rules on abortion, voting, LGBTQ issues, classroom censorship, and book bans, among other issues. In that cause, they have been crucially abetted by the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority, which has struck down or weakened previously nationally guaranteed rights (including abortion and voting access).

    But the proliferation of these congressional-Republican proposals to write the red-state rules into federal law suggests that this reassertion of states’ rights was just a way station toward restoring common national standards of civil rights and liberties—only in a much more restrictive and conservative direction. “All of these things have been building for years,” Alvin Tillery, the director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University, told me. “It’s just that Mr. Trump gave them the idea they can succeed being more [aggressive] in the advocacy of these policies.”

    Like many students of the red-state social-policy eruption, Tillery believes that Republicans and social conservatives feel enormous urgency to write their cultural priorities into law before liberal-leaning Millennials and Generation Z become the electorate’s dominant force later this decade. “The future ain’t bright for them looking at young people, so they are acting in a much more muscular and authoritarian way now,” he said.

    With Republicans likely to win control of the House, and possibly the Senate, the next two years may become the off-Broadway stage of testing different strategies for imposing the red-state social regime on blue America. The curtain on the main event will rise the next time Republicans hold unified control of the White House and Congress—a day that may seem less a distant possibility if the GOP makes gains as big as those that now seem possible this week.

    [ad_2]

    Ronald Brownstein

    Source link