Recent industry studies and the personal testimonies of out queer employees reveal a disturbing trend of employers backtracking on their support for ensuring welcoming workplaces. The statistics became reality for Dr. Khôra Martel when the University of Tennessee let her go from the religious studies department after she came out as trans. (Part 1 of 2 produced by David Hunt.)
And in NewsWrap: a Dutch citizen and a local trans woman lose their challenges to Malawi’s criminalization of same-gender relationships, Aruba and Curaçao must immediately allow same-gender couples to marry by order of the Dutch Supreme Court, British LGBTQ activists are “cautiously optimistic” about their prospects under the newly-elected Labour government, French voters hand the burgeoning far-right and anti-queer National Rally Party a humiliating defeat in national elections, the Hiroshima High Court allows a trans woman to change her legal gender without having to undergo gender-reassignment surgery for the first time in Japan, a Missouri judge rejects “blind obedience to the attorney general’s civil investigative demands” when the state seeks unredacted medical records of trans children, and more international LGBTQ news reported this week by Marcos Najera and Wendy Natividad (produced by Brian DeShazor with technical assistance by Daniel Huecias).
All this on the July 15, 2024 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of July 15, 2024
Working While Queer (Part 1)
NewsWrap (full transcript below): Malawi’s Constitutional Court refuses to repeal the Southeast African nation’s anti-queer sex laws; the Dutch Supreme Court gets tired of waiting for their lawmakers to act and orders civil marriage to be opened to same-gender couples in the country’s Caribbean territories of Aruba and Curaçao; Labour overwhelmingly ends the 14-year reign of the Conservative Party in British national elections, but its policies on trans rights may not be an improvement on the Tory’s harsh limitations on pediatric, and even adult, gender-affirming healthcare; in an unprecedented action, the French left and center unite in the second round of voting to push the far-right anti-queer National Rally Party, which had shockingly led in the first round, to a third place finish in parliamentary elections; the Hiroshima High Court makes a trans woman in her late 40’s the first in Japan to be able to change legal gender without undergoing currently-required gender-reassignment surgery; and St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Joseph Whyte blocks the privacy-invading efforts by Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey to get the unredacted healthcare records of transgender young people (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR with production assistance by DANIEL HUECIAS, reported this week by MARCOS NAJERA and WENDY NATIVIDAD).
Feature: Is work working for LGBTQ people in the U.S.? Disturbing trends are evident in recent industry studies, and in the personal testimonies of queer employees who come out and stay out on the job. This Way Out’s DAVID HUNT has been looking into how employers are apparently backtracking on their support for ensuring welcoming workplaces. His two-part feature explores the pitfalls of “Working While Queer” (with comments by Dr. Khôra Martel and music by HOTHAM, JOZEQUE, JOSH FUHRMEISTER and AVES).
[GoFundMe for Khôra Martel: gofund.me/14cbd3be
EduBirdie workplace discrimination study:
Culture Amp workplace DEI report:
Feature: Updated This Way Out Library of Congress Preservation Project Promo (reported by BRIAN DeSHAZOR).
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
global LGBTQ communities
for the week ending July 13th, 2024
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by Marcos Najera and Wendy Natividad,
produced by Brian DeShazor with technical assistance by Daniel Huecias
A Malawi Constitutional Court is upholding the criminalization of same-gender relationships. Gay Dutch citizen Jan Willem Akster and transgender Malawian Jana Gonani lost their challenges to those laws in a June 28th decision.
Akster and Gonani are being charged in separate cases. Akster faces nine counts of violating the anti-queer sexual abuse and sodomy laws. Gonani is legally viewed as a homosexual man, and is charged with so-called “unnatural offenses.”
Both plaintiffs argued that the laws punishing “carnal knowledge against the order of nature and gross indecency” violate their rights to privacy and dignity under the country’s Constitution and international human rights laws. It took the three-judge panel six hours of deliberation to conclude that the “carnal knowledge” prohibitions do not specifically discriminate against homosexual individuals. The Court said that the plaintiffs could seek relief in Parliament by asking lawmakers to amend the country’s anti-queer sex laws.
Meanwhile, the criminal prosecutions against Akster and Gonani can continue. Violations of the law carry a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
National and international human rights groups roundly condemned the ruling. In the words of Amnesty International’s Khanyo Farise, “The court’s decision to keep these discriminatory laws on the books is a bitter setback for human rights in Malawi. The ruling manifestly flies in the face of Malawi’s constitution, the African Charter and international human rights law, which all clearly prohibit discrimination.” Farise says the ruling makes Malawi an outlier among Southern African nations, where same-sex sexual conduct has largely been decriminalized.
Aruba and Curaçao must immediately allow same-gender couples to marry – this by order of the Dutch Supreme Court. The Caribbean islands are two of three constituent countries of The Netherlands, where the first legal queer weddings in the world were held on April 1st, 2001. Courts with jurisdiction over the islands ruled for marriage equality in 2022, but lawmakers have refused to follow through. Aruba’s Parliament actually voted down a marriage equality bill in June.
Out gay Dutch Senator Boris Dittrich celebrated the July 12th ruling, saying, “The Supreme Court took into consideration that politicians had been debating this issue for a long time but without results.”
In addition to Aruba and Curaçao, Sint Maarten is also a Caribbean constituent country within The Netherlands. It may also be covered by the ruling, although it was not part of the court case that decided it. The Dutch overseas municipalities Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius have enjoyed marriage equality since 2012.
Gay Aruban Senator Miguel Mansur calls it “an amazing victory.” He told The Washington Blade, “Aruba progresses into a society with less discrimination, more tolerance, and acceptance.”
Britain’s Labour Party swept to victory in national elections on July 4th, ending the Conservative Party’s 14-year grip on government rule. While progressives around the world in general breathed a sigh of relief, “cautiously optimistic” might be overstating LGBTQ activists’ view of what’s to come under the new government.
Incoming Prime Minister Keir Starmer campaigned on a promise to improve the rights and safety of LGBTQ people by banning conversion therapy and expanding hate crime laws. At the same time, Labour seems to be bent on targeting trans people, just like the outgoing Tory government.
Starmer himself has backtracked on his previous affirmation that transgender women are women. He now believes that trans people should use sex-segregated public bathrooms and changing rooms based only on their birth certificate gender.
Starmer’s new Health Secretary will be MP Wes Streeting, who is a former Stonewall activist. However in line with Starmer’s position, he has said trans women should be barred from single-sex hospital wards. Streeting not only supports the Tory government’s temporary ban on reversible puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans people under the age of 18, he wants to make the ban permanent.
French voters handed the burgeoning far-right and blatantly anti-queer National Rally Party a humiliating defeat in national elections on July 5th. Pundits were confounded after the stunning wins their candidates posted in the first round of voting. However that drove center and leftist parties to form an amazing coalition in only two weeks. In the second round of voting the National Rally Party came in third. The left-wing parties control the most seats in Parliament, and President Emmanuel Macron’s second-place centrist Renaissance Party continues to hold the balance of power. Macron had called the snap elections in June after the National Rally Party shockingly won the most seats in the European Parliament elections.
LGBTQ issues were rarely raised during the campaign. When they did, Macron spoke out against some rights for transgender people. The National Rally Party vowed to restrict access to IVF and surrogacy services for same-gender couples – they would even consider repealing marriage equality.
A transgender woman in Japan will be allowed to change her legal gender without having to undergo gender-reassignment surgery – and it’s a first. The anonymous woman in her late 40’s says that having to undergo the surgery would present major financial burdens, and that certain health conditions that would make surgery risky for her. Lower courts still denied her request.
The Hiroshima High Court overturned the lower court decisions on July 10th. It found that twenty-year-old laws in Japan making surgery a pre-requisite for legal gender change may be an unconstitutional infringement of equal protection guarantees. The court determined that the hormone therapy the trans woman plaintiff has undergone sufficiently “feminized” her body.
Japan’s Supreme Court decided in October of last year to remove the additional requirement that the surgery include sterilization.
The Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation praised the ruling. Its statement said in part, “it can open the door for transgender females to be able to legally change their gender without undergoing surgery.”
However, the organization remains concerned because the decision does not affect trans people whose medical condition might prevent them from taking hormones.
Finally, a Missouri judge says there’s no reason for “blind obedience to the attorney general’s civil investigative demands” when the privacy rights of transgender young people and their families are at stake. Judge Joseph Whyte of the St. Louis Circuit Court rebuffed efforts by Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey to fully access the medical records of children from the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and three similar facilities.
Bailey launched a so-called “investigation” of potential “child abuse” in pediatric gender-affirming healthcare in March of 2023. The facilities challenged Bailey’s order while providing his office with redacted information. Bailey then demanded unredacted versions under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. According to Judge Whyte’s July 12th ruling, the A.G. simply has no right to private information beyond the redacted versions. He noted that the Act specifically exempts privileged material.
Bailey says he’ll appeal Whyte’s decision.
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