Social & Civil Issues – Page 36 – Enviroshop

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.