Employment Non-Discrimination Act Gets Hearing in the Senate

Nikki Ditto, WLP Intern

On June 12^th, the U.S Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing to debate the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Currently no federal law exists barring discrimination of individuals based on sexual orientation or gender identity. ENDA would provide an equal standard of workplace protection for LGBT Americans. It was last discussed in 2009, and has been stalled in Congress for the past three years. Activists hope the Senate hearing will be the first step to getting the bill moving in Congress once again.

To gain bipartisan support within the committee, and, it is hoped, within the full senate, a broad exception for religious organizations is included in the bill. The exception is more extensive than in previous discrimination bills, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, on which ENDA is based. The Civil Rights Act lays out protections for individuals based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Religious organizations are allowed to take an individual’s religion into account, but that is the only exemption they are given. For example, a Catholic school can require that all staff and faculty is Catholic, but they cannot fire someone for being a woman or being African American.

The religious exception in ENDA goes one step further, and allows religious organizations to continue to discriminate against members of the LGBT community. Religious organizations will not be held accountable for firing employees whom they learn to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. While this weakens the force of the bill, lawmakers believe it is the only way to ensure the bill is passed.

Pennsylvania is one of 29 states that does not have a law banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. While 24 local governments in Pennsylvania have ordinances that prohibit “discrimination against LGBT people, approximately 70% of the state’s population remains unprotected,” according to the ACLU of Pennsylvania.  Both the Pennsylvania Senate and House debated employment discrimination bills in 2011, but neither came to a vote and there has been little talk for the last year of granting these protections.

This hearing also marks the first time that an individual who is openly transgender has testified in the Senate. Kylar Broadus is the founder of the Trans People of Color Coalition of Columbia, Missouri. He started the organization after he was fired from his job for coming out as transgender and beginning to transition. He had no way to fight his employer because there was no law that made firing him illegal.

There is widespread support for passing ENDA within the American public, even among Republicans and those usually unsympathetic to LGBT rights. A poll found that 73% of Americans believe Congress should pass ENDA, and many think that federal workplace protection already exists for LGBT individuals.  Proponents of ENDA are hopeful that the bill will come to a vote sometime this year.

Illinois Gay Marriage Ban Challenged

Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Wingfield, Former WLP Intern

On May 30^th, two dozen same-sex couples filed two separate law suits challenging the Illinois law that defines marriage as between a man and woman, which prohibits same-sex couples from marrying. Last year, Illinois legalized civil unions for same-sex couples which offer them the same legal protections as opposite-sex couples enjoy in marriage. However, Theresa Volpe and Mercedes Santos, one of the couples who filed a lawsuit against the Cook County Clerk’s office, argue that it is unconstitutional that they are not allowed to be married. In an article in the Huffington Post, Santos is quoted as saying, “Marriage means never having to explain that you are just like everyone else. My kids have to explain our relationship all the time and they shouldn’t have to.”

The lawsuits are led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois and Lambda Legal, respectively. The Post reported that

John King, the director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Project of the ACLU of Illinois, said he thinks that the timing for the lawsuits is right — given rapidly shifting public sentiment and the support of powerful elected officials — and that the impact of a successful suit in Illinois could be powerful. “Wins in big, important states like Illinois are huge for this country,” King said.

The lawsuits come less than a month after President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage and, according to the New York Times, “recent public opinion surveys indicate support for same-sex marriage is rising nationwide.”

While there is currently a bill which would legalize same-sex marriage pending in Illinois legislature, advocates are fighting for equality in multiple venues to try and ensure that marriage law in Illinois does not continue to discriminate against same-sex couples. Indeed, according to the Times, John Knight, director of the ACLU’s gay-related litigation in the Midwest said that the group intended to “fight the battle in both [the legislative and judiciary] venues.”

We will keep you updated about this issue.

AIDS Infection Risk for Women Lowered by Gel

Researchers found that after a woman has used a microbiocide gel containing 1% tenofovir 12 hours before sexual intercourse and up to 12 hours after sexual intercourse for a year, her risk of contracting HIV was half that of a woman who used a placebo gel. After two and half years of use,  the gel seems to become slightly less effective, with a woman who uses it being only 39% less likely than a woman using a placebo to contract HIV. However, the drop off in effectiveness is thought to be due to some women in the study “tending to use it inconsistently as time went on, not knowing whether it was in fact having any effect.”

The gel’s potential to decrease the rate of women who contract HIV could be a major breakthrough in slowing the spread of AIDS. Women are disproportionally affected by HIV/AIDS; 60% of new HIV/AIDS infections in Africa are among women. If the gel became widely available, women would have more control in avoiding contracting HIV/AIDS.

“Picture a young woman in a rural community in South Africa who walks through my clinic doors asking me what I have to protect her from getting infected,” said Dr Quarraisha Abdool Karim, one of the authors of the paper. “Her partner is a migrant worker and refuses to wear a condom and she is not sure of his faithfulness in this relationship. From being able to tell her for years that I have nothing, I can now offer her 1% tenofovir gel, which offers her 39% protection and, if she is highly attuned to this gel [uses it consistently], it offers her 54% protection.” 

Researchers found that the gel had very few side effects, “which is extremely important because it will be used by women who are healthy.” Additionally, in a previous study involving a gel that proved unsuccessful in lowering the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, women cited increased sexual pleasure as a positive effect of gel use. Wits professor Helen Rees, of the university’s reproductive health and HIV institute said that the majority of feedback from participants citing increased sexual pleasure with gel use came from women in menopause. If the gel continues to prove successful, the “sexual pleasure factor could be a potential marketing option.”

While preliminary research showing tenofovir gel to be successful in reducing the contraction of HIV/AIDS in women is exciting, there is still work to be done before it can become widely available. The results must be confirmed by the Follow-on African Consortium for Tenofovir Studies (Facts) study whose results are not expected to be released until 2013 and then the gel must go through a licensing process before it could be manufactured and marketed.

If further research confirms the success of the gel, then Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) has committed WHO to use its resources to distribute the gel to women as quickly as possible. To find more detailed information on the preliminary study showing tenofovir gel to be effective, click here.

Critical Trans Politics and Transformative Social Change

Seattle University Assistant Professor of Law Dean Spade was interviewed in this month’s issue of Guernica.  Spade is the first openly transgendered tenure-track law professor in the U.S.  and the founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit agency which provides free legal services to low-income transgender and gender non-conforming people and advocates for policy reform to eliminate gender expression-based discrimination and violence.

The average life span of a transgendered person is 23 years, a shocking demographic that should make every LGBT advocate sit up and pay attention. Trans individuals face daily discrimination, threats of violence, homelessness, and poverty, and are disproportionately incarcerated.  They face anti-trans discrimination at school and in the workplace.

While law reform may be a method to bring social awareness to an issue, Spade argues that it is merely a “tool to address certain needs for certain communities,” but is not the answer to solving all social issues.  He believes that changing the law does not always change  people’s lives because anti-discrimination laws are often not enforced or implemented and vulnerable populations may not see change. Sometimes vulnerable people may actually be marginalized further through law reform.  He provides an example:

Law reforms declaring race and disability discrimination illegal haven’t solved concentrated joblessness, poverty, homelessness, or criminalization of people with disabilities and people of color.

Spade goes on to discuss what he calls critical trans-politics.  He argues that while non-trans gay and lesbian individuals face marginalization and discrimination, there are specific issues that are unique to transgendered individuals.  For example, he says

Trans people have a huge set of legal issues around how various government agencies and other entities see our gender, and lots of gay and lesbian people haven’t experienced not having a gender that the government recognizes.

Critical trans-politics moves away from gay and lesbian politics and focuses on racial and economic justice analysis in conjunction with gender identity.  It calls for broad social movements led by people directly impacted by the issues, rather than legal reform for social change.  The movements, Spade argues, must focus on changing people’s lives by advocating for “good housing, healthcare, education, and all those things that you actually need to live well and thrive.”

His work does not merely focus on transgender rights but includes a collective approach geared towards economic, racial, and gender issues.  Spade’s interview focused on a lack of equality within the U.S. and the need for social transformation.

Help end this kind of discrimination by educating yourself and your community about racism, ableism, transphobia, and sexism. Learn more here about non-discrimination laws that include gender identity and expression.

Men who have Sex with Men Still Prohibited from Donating Blood

On June 11^th the Federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability refused to recommend a change in restrictions that would allow men who have sex with men (MSM) to donate blood. The review began after Senator John Kerry and seventeen of his colleagues sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asking them to change their outdated policy. This is the third time since 2000 that the FDA has reviewed and retained the ban on donations from MSM.

Currently, if a man has had sex with another man even once since 1977 he is banned from donating blood for his entire lifetime. The only other people who are never allowed to donate are people who have sex for money, intravenous drug users, and people who have tested positive for HIV. People who have had heterosexual sex with someone they know to be HIV-positive or someone who has had sex with a commercial sex worker are prohibited from donating blood for one year.

The committee admitted that the current system is flawed “because it permits ‘some potentially high-risk donations while preventing some potentially low-risk donations.’” The committee recommended that health authorities create a system that accounts for individual behavior as opposed to generalizations about large groups of people. The committee’s recommendations, while encouraging, are not binding.

Both the American Red Cross and the American Association of Blood Banks report that the current FDA ban on MSM blood donation ‘is medically and scientifically unwarranted (PDF). HIV-positive individuals are already excluded from donating by a pre-donation questionnaire. The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimated that if the ban on MSM blood donation were lifted, new donors “could increase the total annual US blood supply by 0.6% to 1.4%.While these increases in the blood supply may seem modest, they would occur in an environment where blood supply shortages are common.”

The current FDA ban on MSM donating blood is not only discriminatory and rife with outdated myths about most gay men’s HIV status, it prevents healthy blood from entering the system to boot. We will keep you updated about any future reviews or changes to this outdated policy.

Georgia Legislators Think Queer Theory Too Racy to Fit in Budget

Legislators in Georgia are mounting attacks against professors and educators at Georgia State University for offering courses that deal with issues such as queer theory and oral sex. State Representatives Charlice Byrd and Calvin Hill, both Republicans, are teaming with the Christian Coalition to put pressure on fellow lawmakers and the Board of Regents (which oversees the state’s colleges and universities) to eliminate such courses and dismiss the professors who specialize in these topics.

A report by CNN highlights the particular attack on a professor who specializes in the historical significance of oral sex and a graduate level course on Queer Theory. The conservative legislators base their argument on their disapproval of spending state dollars on such controversial topics, particularly because the state’s coffers are currently short $2.2 billion.

Faculty members at Georgia State University whose expertise includes oral sex and male prostitution were called to testify at hearings held by the Georgia House Higher Education Committee to consider the ban; little acknowledgement was paid to their cutting edge research and wide range of expertise. The importance of a well-rounded education that reflects a worldly and extensive knowledge base is at risk for the sake of conservative claims that such programs of study should be cut in light of the economic downturn. Read more about the controversy in Athens, Georgia’s local newspaper.

What Do Women Want?

The New York Times Magazine recently published a story outlining different approaches to understanding the different experiences of women and men in sex. The article emphasizes the recent surge in research in the field of female sexuality, which was at least partly caused by the release of Viagra in the late 1990s. Since then, research has stressed the deterministic role of biology in sex, prompting researchers to focus on the differences between men and women. Throughout the article, various prominent sexologists are interviewed, each outlining their own specific theories and understanding of arousal, sexuality, and desire.

Truly understanding what lies behind female sexuality is not necessarily a question that can be answered in the near future. The research being done by female sexologists, however, is emphasizing the importance of understanding the differences between men and women in sex and coming closer to knowing what women really want.  To read more about the studies being conducted and the expanding field of female sexuality research, read the article here.