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HRC Foundation Report Highlights Trump & Pence’s Stealth Attacks on Democracy & the LGBTQ Community

October 7, 2017 Allison Turner Human Rights Campaign, Social & Civil Issues

Today, HRC Foundation released a new report, Trump’s Administrative Abuse and the LGBTQ Community, highlighting the Trump-Pence administration’s highly unusual and abusive efforts to quietly roll back critical protections, programs and services for the LGBTQ community by bypassing longstanding administrative policies and customs for instituting such changes.

“Under the Trump-Pence administration, federal agencies have ignored long-standing guidelines for engaging the public in policy changes specifically targeting the LGBTQ community and in some instances have failed to report changes all together,” said HRC Associate Legal Director Robin Maril. “This stealth effort by Trump-Pence to disregard the legal safeguards in place to promote consistency and public accountability is undermining public trust and fostering an atmosphere of anxiety and skepticism.”

The new HRC Foundation report details the Trump-Pence administration’s concerted effort to ignore longstanding policy and customs — including those calling for 30- to 90-day public comment periods for most rulemaking. The administration has released a series of complex, high-impact rules with appallingly brief public comment periods — some allowing just days for interested and affected parties to weigh in.

In March, for example, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Community Living (ALC) failed to announce it had removed a crucial question about sexual orientation from the National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants (NSOAAP), an annual national survey of recipients of select services under the Older Americans Act (OAA). Following an outcry from advocates including HRC, HHS finally issued an announcement correction — but refused to extend the public comment period.

Additionally, the Trump administration has been pushing major and controversial regulation changes affecting LGBTQ people though interim final rules (IFRs), which allow changes to become effective immediately, without public comment. Before Trump was elected, this process was reserved for urgent changes and was rarely used for complex or controversial regulations except in emergencies. In May, Trump proposed an IFR that could strip millions of women and LGBTQ people of access to critical contraceptive care previously guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Vox reported on a leaked draft of the proposal that would allow employers — including for-profit companies — to refuse to provide insurance coverage of birth control on the basis of religious or moral objections.

Also detailed in the HRC Foundation report is Trump’s reliance on social media platforms like Twitter to announce presidential intent, reflecting not only disrespect for the process and the people affected by his pronouncements, but also a dangerous misunderstanding of the limits of his own power. Trump’s unconscionable tweets asserting his intention to bar qualified transgender people from serving their country in the U.S. Military are a prime example of this undemocratic power grab.

Tweets can’t make policy. They don’t carry the force of law, and, as we have seen by Trump’s recent actions, they do not provide federal agencies and their staff with the vision and guidance required to implement policy. Unfortunately, what tweets can do is incite anxiety, undermine the real and valuable daily work of the federal government, and contribute to a corrosive and divisive political atmosphere.

Read the full report, Trump’s Administrative Abuse and the LGBTQ Community, here.

Welcoming Schools at Gender Odyssey Seattle

September 29, 2017 Johanna Eager Human Rights Campaign, Social & Civil Issues

It was my pleasure and privilege to both attend and present at Gender Odyssey Seattle August 23-27 to bring Welcoming Schools materials and resources to more families and youth-serving professionals to create supportive learning environments for all students. My Welcoming Schools colleagues and I were delighted to participate in thought-provoking workshops and discussion groups on gender diversity while also introducing our national program for safe and inclusive schools.

The Gender Odyssey Conference, an international conference focused on the needs and interests of transgender and gender diverse people, their loved ones and professionals who serve them, is in its 16th year. Gender Odyssey offers two programs with a different target audience: the family program for families raising gender-diverse and/or transgender children and the professional program for those seeking to enhance their understanding of those they serve.

Aidan Key, the founder of the conference, leads the largest network of support groups in the nation for families raising transgender and gender-nonconforming children at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He also happens to be one of our newest Welcoming Schools Facilitators, having attended our National Facilitator Certification Training in June.

I presented a session entitled “Welcoming Schools: Talking to Elementary Students about Gender” during day one of the professional program. We explored developmentally appropriate ways to respond to questions about gender and looked at lesson plans and books that can help educators to create gender-inclusive classrooms. Welcoming Schools Certified Facilitator Tracy Flynn presented the same workshop during the family program. On day two, I joined Key and Asaf Orr, an attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, for a robust question and answer session called “Gender Google for Schools.”

Every year I attend, Gender Odyssey is an invigorating time of learning and sharing, and the most powerful experience is always listening to transgender and non-binary youth speak their truths. I attended an incredible youth panel and listened as dynamic youth shared their experiences, aspirations and ideas for change. As the young people shared their personal stories and vision for a culture that no longer embraces the gender binary, one member of the audience asked a panelist how they fight against stereotypical notions of gender and received a confident, one word response, “Feminism.” The confidence and drive that the panelists displayed as they discussed their experiences with toxic masculinity in schools, their desires to be the changemakers that they already are, and gracefully offered suggestions for the adults in the room. only increased my drive to work with schools and districts to continually improve learning environments and outcomes for transgender and non-binary youth.

Gender Odyssey is an outstanding, informative conference, and I highly encourage interested educators, youth-serving professionals, and families to attend in the future. We at Welcoming Schools certainly plan to be back.

HRC’s Welcoming Schools is the nation’s premier program dedicated to creating respectful and supportive elementary schools by embracing family diversity, creating LGBTQ- and gender-inclusive schools, preventing bias-based bullying, a supporting transgender and non-binary students.

Hundreds of Christian Leaders Denounce the Nashville Statement in an Open Letter

September 21, 2017 Michael Toumayan Human Rights Campaign, Social & Civil Issues

Hundreds of Christian leaders, pastors, theologians and advocates have denounced the vicious, anti-LGBTQ manifesto “Nashville Statement” with a powerful statement affirming the inclusion of LGBTQ and intersex people within faith communities and broader society. The 10-point treatise, titled Christians United, holds “that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God and that the great diversity expressed in humanity through our wide spectrum of unique sexualities and gender identities is a perfect reflection of the magnitude of God’s creative work.”

In the first 24 hours of its release, the Christians United statement was signed by over 1,000 Christians from around the world, including top theologians and leaders of some of the world’s most influential Christian denominations.

Prominent faith leaders who signed the letter include the Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ; Jayne Ozanne, General Synod member in the Church of England; the Rev. Rachelle Brown; Moderator of the Metropolitan Community Churches; Bishop Yvette Flunder, Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries; Dr. Jeffrey Kuan, President of Claremont School of Theology; the Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins, Senior Vice President of Union Theological Seminary; and the Rev. Vanna Fox, Senior Vice President of Wild Goose Festival.

The international theological declaration came in response to the so-called “Nashville Statement,” released on Tuesday by a coalition of roughly 150 conservative Evangelical Christian leaders, including prominent members of the Trump-Pence administration’s Evangelical Advisory Board. The statement attacked LGBTQ people, asserting opposition to marriage equality and denying the dignity of transgender people.

The swift response by both faith leaders and the broader public to the Nashville Statement reflects the breadth of support among people of faith for LGBTQ inclusion and equality. Another open letter, spearheaded by The Liturgists, garnered more than 3,500 signatories.

According to Pew Research Research, almost all U.S. Christian groups are more accepting of LGBTQ people. Roughly half (51%) of evangelical millennials agree with the statement, “homosexuality should be accepted by society.”

Read the Christians United statement here: http://www.christiansunitedstatement.org/

Evangelical Leaders Aligned with Trump-Pence Launch Vicious Attack on LGBTQ People

September 19, 2017 Michael Toumayan Human Rights Campaign, Social & Civil Issues

More than 150 conservative Evangelical Christian leaders, including prominent members of the Trump-Pence administration’s Evangelical Advisory Board, released a vicious, anti-LGBTQ manifesto Tuesday attacking LGBTQ people as immoral and sinful, asserting their opposition to marriage equality and denying the dignity of transgender people.

The ugly three-page document they called “The Nashville Statement,” was released as hundreds of thousands of people in Texas and beyond continued to grapple with the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey, and while the attention of most of the nation’s religious leaders was focused on helping victims of the historic disaster.

That the so-called “Christian manifesto” was issued during a national crisis and in the wake of the Trump-Pence administration’s recent action seeking to ban transgender people from serving in the military enforces its message of intolerance.

Concocted in Nashville last week during the national conference of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the statement elicited widespread condemnation from scores of national religious and political leaders. In fact, the statement runs contrary to beliefs of a majorities of Evangelical millennials and people of faith who support affirming LGBTQ people. The release also sparked swift outrage on social media.

“While the theology espoused in the Nashville Statement is not new, the recommitment to anti-LGBT theology continues these Evangelical leaders’ violence against LGBT people,” said Eliel Cruz, HRC Foundation’s Religion Council member and creator of FaithfullyLGBT. “Christians and non-Christians alike must unequivocally condemn this statement. We cannot stand for this demonization of LGBT people to go unchallenged.”

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry was among those expressing disgust over the statement, tweeting that the “so-called ‘Nashville statement’ is poorly named and does not represent the inclusive values of the city & people of Nashville.”

Among the document’s signatories are members of President Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board, including Tony Perkins, President of Family Research Council, a designated hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center; James Dobson, Founder of Focus on the Family; Ronnie Floyd, Senior Pastor of Cross Church; Richard Land, President of Southern Evangelical Seminary; James MacDonald, Founder and Senior Pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel; and James Robison, Founder & President of LIFE Outreach International.

“A predominantly white male coalition of Southern Baptists and Evangelicals have defined human sexuality in the binary that secures their power, with a selective tortured reading of the Bible texts on human sexuality from a time when a woman was her husband’s property,” said Bishop Yvette Flunder, HRC Foundation’s Religion Council member and Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship.

“This is the same group that advocated for the ban on transgender people from the military.”

The New York Times has previously reported that Perkins, a signatory and president of the Family Research Council, had for months lobbied Donald Trump and Mike Pence to ban transgender people from the military.

“‘The Southern Baptist Convention is the same denomination that once used the Bible to condemn inter-racial relationships and to defend the “Godliness” of chattel slavery, and had to repent. They will need to repent again,” Bishop Flunder said.

In 1987, the same group denounced “secular” feminism and equality in marriages in a manifesto it called “The Danvers Statement.”

HRC Arizona Donates Emergency Aid to LGBTQ Center Burned Down in Phoenix

September 17, 2017 Guest contributor Human Rights Campaign, Social & Civil Issues

Post submitted by Brandie Reiner, Co-Chair and Board of Governors, Arizona Human Rights Campaign

HRC Arizona was saddened to hear of the devastating fire at one•n•ten, an LGBTQ youth center, on July 12. We are pleased to donate $10,000 in emergency aid to assist with building costs for their new youth facility. With recent rallies, protests and counter protests influenced by the Trump Administration’s attacks on full diversity in our community, HRC Arizona is committed to advancing our work with youth and empowering them to advocate for LGBTQ equality statewide.

The funds will assist one•n•ten in providing emergency operating costs to recreate a home for the youth and young adults ages 14-24 years old who utilized the center. One•n•ten is a Phoenix-based non-profit that works to enhance the lives of LGBTQ youth by providing empowering programs focused on promoting self-expression, self-acceptance, leadership development and healthy life choices. Additionally, they provide essential services and resources to homeless LGBTQ youth.

“As a One•n•ten youth leader and HRC youth Ambassador, I’m always so thrilled when organizations can work together to make a change,” said Justin Jones (pictured above, front row, first on the right). “After the fire, [at one•n•ten] I was devastated. I felt that I lost my home and my place of comfort. But we are strong and resilient. We have a new center opening soon thanks to organizations like HRC, we can continue to help LGBTQ youth with the services they need to thrive.”

Many of the youth that utilize resources from one•n•ten have been kicked out of their homes because they’re LGBTQ. In far too many areas across the country, LGBTQ youth lack access to food, shelter, health services that are imperative to their sexual health and well-being.

It is important, now more than ever, that we take a stand to combat these continued attacks on our most basic fundamental values. HRC launched HRC Rising, the largest grassroots expansion in its history that will include significant investments in Arizona ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Join the movement at hrc.org/resist and ensure your voice is heard.