U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris chooses Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, whose pro-LGBTQ+ track record includes early support for marriage equality and the repeal of “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell,” and making his state a sanctuary for transgender people.
And in NewsWrap: Sofia’s streets fill with protesters when Bulgaria’s Parliament passes a “no promo homo” law, Argentina’s far-right President Javier Milei closes the sexual orientation and gender identity bias fighting National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, Utah is the first U.S. state to require the removal of specific books from school library shelves, 23 Republican U.S. senators demand that the NCAA ban all trans women and girls from female school sports, Major League Baseball gay Ambassador for Inclusion Billy Bean dies at the age of 60, and more international LGBTQ news reported this week by Ava Davis and David Hunt (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the August 12, 2024 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of August 12, 2024
Ally Gov. Walz As U.S. V.P. Nominee
NewsWrap (full transcript below): Bulgaria lawmakers pass a Russia-like “no promo homo” law that “disappears” LGBTQ issues from schools … Argentina’s new rightwing President Javier Milei shuts down the government agency that fought discrimination of all kinds, including anti-queer bias … Utah becomes the first U.S. state to issue a specific list of books that are banned from school library shelves … 23 Republican U.S. Senators — most from states that have banned trans girls and women from competitive school sports — write to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to demand that the governing body of college sports does the same … leukemia claims the life of Major League Baseball’s gay Ambassador for Inclusion Billy Bean at the age of 60 [GayUSA’s ANN NORTHROP and ANDY HUMM review his career, tagged by Bean’s vintage TWO ID] (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, reported this week by AVA DAVIS and DAVID HUNT).
Feature: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen her Democratic Party presidential campaign running mate — and her pick is a long-time, outspoken ally of the LGBTQ community. Harris highlighted the resume of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz at their first joint appearance together on August 6th during a raucous rally in Philadelphia. Walz credits his students with inspiring him to run for Congress in 2006. He beat an anti-LGBTQ Republican in a Republican-leaning district with a platform that included support for marriage equality. Walz went on to fight for the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on the floor of the U.S. House in 2011. After 12 years in Washington, Walz has twice been elected Governor of Minnesota. Last year he ridiculed the anti-queer response to the rainbow-themed Pride collection at Target Stores. The giant retail chain is headquartered in his home state of Minnesota: From his debut speech as a vice presidential nominee, Gov. Tim Walz is showing himself as an engaging presence, imbued with the warmth and happiness the Harris campaign is making its trademark. Walz’s record drove the Republican campaign to near distraction in their first attack ad against him.
Our friends at GayUSATV.org, Ann Northrop and Andy Humm, looked at Harris’ choice of Tim Walz this week and how it changed the presidential campaign. With less than three months before the November 5th elections, it remains to be seen if the current level of enthusiasm for the Harris-Walz ticket can sustain, and how it may affect critical down ballot races for the U.S. House and Senate, as well as state and local elections.
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
global LGBTQ communities
for the week ending August 10th, 2024
Written this week by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by Ava Davis and David Hunt,
produced by Brian DeShazor
Chants of “Shame on you!” filled the streets of Sofia, Bulgaria for two days following Parliament’s passage of a “no promo homo” law. An amendment to the 2020 Pre-school and School Education Act outlaws what it calls “propaganda, promotion or incitement in any way, directly or indirectly in the education system [of LGBTQ] views and ideas.” Under the legislation, “non-traditional sexual orientation” is defined as “different from the generally accepted and established notions in the Bulgarian legal tradition of emotional, romantic, sexual or sensual attraction between persons of opposite sexes.” Sponsored by the rightwing pro-Russian Revival Party, the overwhelming August 7th vote was 159 to 22 with 12 abstentions.
Pro-European Union parties in Parliament unexpectedly backed the measure, although an EU Commission spokesperson told Politico that it “remains steadfast in its commitment to tackling discrimination, inequalities and challenges faced by LGBTIQ individuals.”
The Bulgarian queer rights group Deystvie’s name means Action, and it was one of the groups behind the protest action outside the Parliament building this week. Deystvie lawyer Denitsa Lyubenova warned that the Russian-style “no promo homo” bill “implicitly foreshadows a witch-hunt and sanctions any educational efforts related to LGBTQ people in school.”
The feminist organization LevFem called the legislation a “hate law.” Its statement charged that the MPs who voted for it “normalized violence against LGBT+ people and denied LGBT+ youth access to information and life-saving support during the most difficult time of their lives.”
In addition to Russia, similar “no promo homo” laws have also been enacted in Bosnia, Hungary, Moldova and Turkey.
It’s “a direct assault on the fundamental human rights of LGBTIQ+ individuals, particularly children,” according to the Belgium-based EU-wide queer advocacy group Forbidden Colours. Protestors in Sofia this week were shouting “Bulgaria is no Russia” and “Silence means death.”
Argentina’s far-right President Javier Milei is closing down the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism. He had called it “The Thought Police” during his campaign, but officially the August 8th move is part of the new administration’s effort to cut public spending.
Since its creation in 1995, the Institute has led the fight against various forms of discrimination, including bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It was originally part of the Ministry of the Interior and was moved in 2005 to the Ministry of Justice.
The decree is the final nail in the agency’s coffin. Milei’s government has been slowly strangling it for months, but recent reforms cleared the way for it to be dismantled completely. Staff will supposedly be relocated to other government ministries, or be laid off if positions are not found after six months. Temporary or informal independent contractors will be terminated immediately.
Milei’s defenders claim that discrimination protections in Argentina’s Constitution make the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism unnecessary.
Gay Congressman Esteban Paulуn and queer Socialist Workers’ Party member Santiaga D’Ambrosio disagree, and expressed their concerns to the Washington Blade. In Paulyn’s words, “It is extremely serious … not only because of the local context, but also the global context of a growth, an increase in anti-Semitism, racism, violence, xenophobia, [and] LGBTphobia.” To D’Ambrosio the agency’s closure “endorses discrimination, not only towards sexual diversity, but also towards so many other oppressed, violated or persecuted sectors, such as workers in struggle, migrants, [and] people with disabilities.”
Utah says its students should be protected from the story of three teenagers navigating pregnancy, a gay romance and HIV infection. Ellen Hopkins’ Tilt is one of 13 books the state officially banned this week – the first U.S. state to require the removal of specific books from school library shelves. Several fantasies by Sarah J. Maas are on the list, as is Blankets by Craig Thompson, a graphic novel about a boy moving away from Christianity. Margaret Atwood’s dystopian Oryx and Crake and Judy Blume’s sexually charged coming of age Forever are out, and missing from the poetry section is Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey, a collection about “violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.” If it includes sexual activity, including masturbation, it’s banned.
Reading choices are generally made by local area schoolteachers, administrators and librarians. Thanks to a law signed by Republican Governor Spencer Cox, this Utah State Board of Education directive now rules. It dictates that any book banned by three local school districts, or by two school districts and five charter schools, must be removed from all schools.
Kasey Meehan is Director of the Freedom to Read program of the writers’ rights group PEN America. She called it “a dark day for the freedom to read in Utah.” PEN warns that similar actions are being considered by Republican majorities in Idaho, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Twenty-three Republican U.S. Senators are demanding that the NCAA ban all trans women and girls from female school sports. Their August 6th letter to National Collegiate Athletic Association President Charlie Baker tells the governing body “to update your student-athlete participation policy to require that only biologically female students participate in women’s sports.”
The issue of trans participation in competitive athletics has continued for the past several years to roil the governing bodies of several collegiate sports organizations.
Opposition to female trans participation in particular is based on the notion that they have physical advantages over cis-gender females because they were born male. Several studies dispute that assertion.
In a statement to The Hill the NCAA would only say that it “will continue to promote Title IX – the federal ban on bias in education based on “sex” – make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition for all student-athletes in all NCAA championships.”
The Human Rights Campaign’s response is representative of the queer and human rights group push-back against the Senators’ demand: “Anti-trans sports bans risk further marginalizing young people who already face tremendous challenges in school. Proponents of these bans suggest that trans athletes are pretending to be trans in order to do well at sports — ignoring entirely the incredible stigma trans youth face.”
Finally, acute myeloid leukemia took the life this week of Major League Baseball’s gay Ambassador for Inclusion, Billy Bean. He was just 60 years old. Ann Northrup and Andy Humm of GayUSA TV remember his career.
Northrup: He was a major league baseball player for the Detroit Tigers, the LA Dodgers, the San Diego Padres for about six years or so. He came out after he retired, and in fact, he did not go to his lover’s funeral – he played a game instead because he was so scared of being outed.
Humm: He came out in 1999, three years after he left his playing days, and he was at his death the only out current or former player who was gay. I mean, before that you had Glenn Burke, who died in 1995 and came out in 198m2 …
Northrup: Shamefully treated!
Humm: So he joins the office of the Commissioner Bud Selig in 2014, he became baseball’s first-ever “Ambassador for Inclusion,” focusing on player education, LGBTQ inclusion and social justice … promoted to vice president in 2017, adding anti-bullying efforts to his plate, then became the Senior Vice President of DEI.
Northrup: Well, he would go around to teams and hold talks in locker rooms, as we would do in schools.
Humm: He is survived, by the way, by his husband, Greg Baker.
[MUSIC: Take Me Out to the Ball Game]
Bean: Hi! My name is Billy Bean and I was a major league baseball player from 1986 to 1995. I am gay. And you’re listening to a show that hits it out of the park every week – This Way Out Radio Magazine.
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