WASHINGTON – Democratic lawmakers re-introduced the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act on Friday, which marked the 13^th anniversary of the 18-year-old New Jersey college student’s death by suicide after he was targeted with homophobic harassment by his peers.

The bill, which establishes cyberbullying as a form of harassment, directing colleges and universities to share anti-harassment policies to current and prospective students and employees, was introduced by U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) and Patty Murray (Wash.), along with U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (Wis.), Chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

Advocacy groups including the Tyler Clementi Foundation, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and The Trevor Project have endorsed the legislation, which comes as issues concerning anti-LGBTQ+ harassment in institutions of higher education have earned renewed scrutiny on Capitol Hill and beyond.

Earlier this month, the Washington Blade connected with an expert to discuss these and other subjects: Paul Southwick, a Portland, Oregon-based litigation attorney who leads a legal advocacy group focused on religious institutions of higher education and their treatment of LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities.

On Tuesday, he shared a statement responding to Friday’s reintroduction of the Tyler Clementi bill, stressing the need for equal enforcement of its provisions in light of efforts by conservative Christian schools to avoid oversight and legal liability for certain federal civil rights regulations:

“We are still evaluating the bill regarding how the bill would interact with the religious exemption in Title IX,” Southwick said. “We fully support the expansion of anti-harassment protections for students and corresponding requirements for educational institutions.”

He added, “We also believe that such protections and requirements should extend to students at taxpayer funded, religiously affiliated educational institutions, regardless of whether those institutions claim, or receive, an assurance of religious exemption from Title IX regulations” through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Baylor University’s unprecedented Title IX exemption

In response to a request from Baylor University, a conservative Baptist college located in Waco, Texas, the Education Department in July granted a first of its kind religious-based exemption from federal regulations governing harassment, a form of sex-based discrimination proscribed under Title IX.

Southwick explained that during the Obama administration, the federal government began to understand and recognize discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as forms of sex-based discrimination covered by the statute. The Biden-Harris administration issued a directive for the Education Department to formalize the LGBTQ+ inclusive definitions under Title IX, with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that is now underway at the agency.

Beginning with the Department’s 2010 “dear colleague” letter clarifying the administration’s view that discrimination against LGBTQ+ people constitutes sex-based discrimination under the law, Southwick said the pushback from religious schools was immediate. In the years since, many have successfully petitioned the Education Department for “exemptions so they can discriminate against queer, trans and non-binary people,” but these carveouts were limited “to things like admissions, housing, athletics.”

No one had argued that “federally funded educational institutions [should] have no regulation by the federal government as to whether they’re protecting their students from harassment,” he remarked – at least not until the Baylor case.

Addressing the unprecedented move in a letter to the Department on September 5, U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), and Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) urged the agency to “clarify the narrow scope of this exemption and assure students at religious institutions that they continue to have protections against sex-based harassment.”

Southwick told the Blade other members of Congress have expressed an interest in the matter, as have some progressive nonprofit groups.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the Department confirmed receipt of the lawmakers’ letter and said the agency will respond to the members.

The Department’s issuance of the exemption to Baylor came despite an open investigation into the university by its Office of Civil Rights over a Title IX complaint brought in 2021 by Southwick’s organization, the Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP), on behalf of a queer student who claimed she was subjected to homophobic abuse from other students while university officials to whom she reported the harassment failed to intervene.

It is not yet clear whether the agency will close its investigation as a result of its decision to exempt Baylor from Title IX’s harassment rules.

Veronica Bonifacio Penales, the student behind the complaint against Baylor, is also a plaintiff in REAP’s separate class action lawsuit challenging the Education Department’s practice of waving Title IX rules for faith-based colleges and universities – which, the plaintiffs argue, facilitates anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in violation of the 14^th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

The case, Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education, is on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit.

Other religious schools are likely to follow Baylor’s lead

Southwick said the agency’s decision in the Baylor case “puts students at risk of harassment without a civil remedy against their school’s failures to properly address harassment,” adding, “Taxpayer funded educational institutions, whether religious or secular, should never be permitted to escape oversight from OCR in how they handle anti-harassment claims from LGBTQIA+ or other students protected by federal non-discrimination law.”

Buoyed by Baylor’s successful effort, requesting exemptions to Title IX rules for purposes of allowing the harassment of LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff is likely to become routine practice for many of America’s conservative institutions of higher education, Southwick said.

The nonprofit group Campus Pride maintains a list of America’s “absolute worst, most unsafe campuses for LGBTQ+ youth,” schools that “received and/or applied for a Title IX exemption to discriminate against LGBTQ+ youth, and/or demonstrated past history and track record of anti-LGBTQ+ actions, programs and practices.”

193 colleges and universities have met the criteria.

Many of the thousands of LGBTQ+ students enrolled in these institutions often have insufficient support, Southwick said, in part because “a lot of the larger civil rights organizations and queer rights organizations are very occupied, and rightly so, with pushing back against anti-trans legislation in the public sphere.”

Regardless, even in America’s most conservative schools like Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, Southwick noted that pro-equality students, faculty, and staff have pushed for change.

He added that while there are, no doubt, young people who harbor anti-LGBTQ+ views, “they often become much more progressive the longer they’re in school, because there’s just queer people coming out everywhere, you know, and it’s hard to hate people who are your friends.”

The powerful influence and role of financial incentives  

Southwick said meaningful reform at the institutional level is made more difficult by the reality that “financial incentives from the government and from the market are aligned to favor the continuation of discrimination.”

“Once the money stops flowing, they will almost all instantly change their policies and start protecting queer students,” he said, but added that colleges and universities have little reason to change without the risk that discriminatory policies and practices will incur meaningful consequences, like the loss of government funding and accreditation.

Another challenge, Southwick said, is the tendency of institutions of higher education to often prioritize the wishes and interests of moneyed alumni networks, boards of trustees, and donors, groups that generally skew older and tend to be more conservative.

Southwick said when he and his colleagues at REAP discuss proposed pro-LGBTQ+ reforms with contacts at conservative religious universities, they are warned “over and over again,” that “donors will be angry.”

Following the establishment of nationwide prohibitions against segregation and other forms of racial discrimination with passage of the federal 1964 Civil Rights Act and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which applied to public schools, and Runyon v. McCrary (1976), which covered private schools, Southwick noted that “A lot of Christian schools and college colleges continued to deny admission to black students.”

One by one, however, the so-called “segregation academies” would permanently close their doors or agree to racial integration, Southwick said – buckling under pressure from the U.S. government’s categorical denial of federal funding to these institutions, coupled with other factors like the decision of many professional associations to deny membership to their professors and academics.

Another important distinction, Southwick added: unlike Title IX, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “does not have a religious exemption.”

WASHINGTON — California Congresswoman Barbara Lee on Sept. 22 said the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is “more in peril” now than at any point since its launch two decades ago.

“This program is reauthorized every five years, but it’s always on a bipartisan basis,” said Lee during a panel at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference that took place at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in D.C. “As we approach the benchmark of an AIDS-free generation by 2023, it is unfortunately more in peril now than ever before.”

Then-President George W. Bush in 2003 signed legislation that created PEPFAR.

Lee noted PEPFAR as of 2020 has provided nearly $100 billion in “cumulative funding for HIV and AIDS treatment, prevention and research.” She said PEPFAR is the largest global funding program for a single disease outside of COVID-19.

New PEPFAR strategy includes ‘targeted programming’ for marginalized groups

The panel took place amid the continued push for Congress to reauthorize PEPFAR for another five years. The federal government will shut down on Oct. 1 if Congress does not pass an appropriations bill.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken last December at a World AIDS Day event in D.C. acknowledged HIV/AIDS continues to disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ and intersex people and other marginalized groups. A new PEPFAR strategy the Biden-Harris administration announced that seeks to “fill those gaps” over the next five years includes the following points:

• Targeted programming to help reduce inequalities among LGBTQ+ and intersex people, women and girls and other marginalized groups

• Partnerships with local organizations to help reach “hard-to-reach” communities.

• Economic development and increased access to financial markets to allow countries to manufacture their own antiretroviral drugs, tests and personal protective gear to give them “the capacity to meet their own challenges so that they’re not dependent on anyone else.”

The Family Research Council Action in an email to supporters urged them to tell Congress to “stop Biden from hijacking PEPFAR to promote its radical social policies overseas.” Family Watch International has said PEPFAR “has been hijacked to advance a radical sexual agenda.”

“Please sign the petition to tell the U.S. Congress to ensure that no U.S. funds go to organizations that promote abortion, LGBT ideology, or ‘comprehensive sexuality education,'” said the group in an email to its supporters. 

A group of lawmakers and religious leaders from Kenya and other African countries in a letter they wrote to members of Congress in June said PEPFAR, in their view, no longer serves its original purposes of fighting HIV/AIDS because it champions homosexuality and abortion.

“We wrote that letter to the U.S. Congress not to stop PEPFAR funding to Kenya, but to demand the initiative to revert to its original mission without conditioning it to also supporting LGBTQ as human rights,” it reads.

Biden in 2021 signed a memo that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ+ and intersex rights abroad as part of his administration’s overall foreign policy.

American officials earlier this year postponed a meeting on PEPFAR’s work in Uganda in order to assess the potential impact the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act will have on it. The law, which Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed on May 29, contains a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality.”

Biden in his U.N. General Assembly speech last week noted LGBTQ+ and intersex rights and highlighted PEPFAR. Family Watch International in its email to supporters included a link to the letter from the African lawmakers and religious leaders.  

The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated both the FRC and Family Watch International as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups.

“[PEPFAR is] not about abortions,” said Lee.

U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power during the panel referenced Bush’s recent op-ed in the Washington Post that urged lawmakers to reauthorize PEPFAR.

“The way he put it is no program is more pro-life [than] one that has saved more than 25 million lives,” said Power.

Power referenced the “manufactured controversy that is making it difficult to get this reauthorization.” U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Dr. John Knengasong said a failure to reauthorize PEPFAR would weaken “our own foreign policy and diplomacy.”

“Once again the United States will be missing in action,” stressed Lee.

Assistant Health and Human Services Secretary for Legislation Melanie Egorin and Kenny Kamson, a Nigerian HIV/AIDS activist, also spoke on the panel that MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart moderated. 

SUITLAND, Md. – The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday asked the Biden administration to sign off on plans to test questions on sexual orientation and gender identity for respondents aged 15 and older on the agency’s annual American Community Survey.

Data on these metrics will help inform civil rights and equal employment enforcement, the Census Bureau said in a notice published on the Federal Register.

Testing will help the agency determine wording, response categories and placement of the questions on the survey — its most comprehensive, covering 3.5 million households each year.

A key unknown will be how answers will be provided by proxies such as parents, spouses or others in a household who isn’t the person about whom the question is asked.

“Younger LGBT people might not yet be out to their parents or others who are answering these questions as a proxy reporter, so the quality of the data might not be as good for younger people,” M. V. Lee Badgett, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told PBS News.

Currently, the Census Bureau and its annual American Community Survey only ask questions about same-sex couples who are married or cohabitating.

“We anticipate having much more info about the LGBT people than is currently available — including about the demographic and socioeconomic status of LGBT people who aren’t in same-sex couple households, including occupational status, industry and wages, and about LGBT people who were born outside the U.S. and LGBT people with disabilities, and their families,” Kerith Conron, research director of the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, told the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has introduced a bill that would abolish the U.S. Agency for International Development because it promotes LGBTQ+ and intersex rights around the world.

The bill, among other things, notes USAID “operates several ‘capacity building’ programs abroad and uses these programs to spread perverse ideology that is antithetical to (a) functioning, well-ordered society” and “aims to identify and address ‘restrictive gender norms and inequalities … to foster the sustainability of results.”

U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) have co-sponsored the bill that Gaetz introduced on Aug. 1. It has been referred to the House Foreign Affairs and Appropriations Committees.

President Joe Biden in February 2021 signed a memo that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ+ and intersex rights abroad as part of his administration’s overall foreign policy. USAID earlier this month released its first-ever policy for LGBTQ+ and intersex-inclusive development that has the following four pillars.

         • Supporting locally-led programmatic approaches that advance USAID’s commitment to localization

         • Using USAID’s global development diplomacy to drive progress on LGBTQI+ inclusive development both within and beyond the agency’s programming

         • Prioritizing evidence-based LGBTQI+ programming and approaches and strengthening responses through data

         • Improving USAID’s response to crises that impact LGBTQI+ persons and communities

U.S. Reps. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) are among the lawmakers who have introduced bills in this Congress that would require the U.S. to promote LGBTQ+ and intersex rights abroad. Embattled U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) — an openly gay Republican who federal prosecutors in May indicted on 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to the U.S. House of Representatives — has put forth a measure that would ban the U.S. from providing aid to countries with laws that criminalize LGBTQ+ people and women.

“For more than six decades, USAID and Congress have worked closely together to create a more stable, prosperous world,” a USAID spokesperson told the Washington Blade on Tuesday in a statement. “We value the strong bipartisan support for USAID’s work, which has helped accelerate tremendous progress in reducing extreme poverty around the world, fighting disease, addressing hunger, helping millions of children access quality education and supporting emerging democracies.” 

“The United States is committed to supporting human rights, social inclusion and fundamental freedoms, including for members of historically marginalized populations,” added the spokesperson. “As part of this commitment, USAID works with our partners on the ground to advance LGBTQI+-inclusive development and the rights of LGBTQI+ people. Through our work and partnerships over many decades and in countries around the world, we know that advancing respect for human rights and individual dignity makes societies stronger, healthier, more prosperous and more capable of peacefully resolving differences.” 

NASHVILLE — Vanderbilt University Medical Center is cooperating with an investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Civil Rights, a spokesperson for the hospital confirmed on Thursday.

News of the probe comes just weeks after transgender patients sued VUMC for failing to redact personally identifying information from their health records when they were shared with the office of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti late last year.

When the hospital disclosed its compliance with the records request, which according to the AG’s office was made in connection with its investigation into the hospital’s billing practices, transgender patients and their families raised alarm over how their information might be used.

The patients’ complaint argues these concerns are amplified following the passage of bans on gender affirming health care for minors, along with other efforts by the state’s Republican officials to restrict the rights of trans Tennesseans.

“Our clients are encouraged that the federal government is looking into what happened here,” an attorney for the plaintiffs told The Tennesseean.

A spokesperson for HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether its civil rights investigation is linked to Vanderbilt’s disclosure of health records to Skrmetti’s office.

In July, Skrmetti joined a group of 18 conservative attorneys general who are resisting a federal rule that would establish parameters limiting the collection of records of patients who have sought abortions or gender affirming care out-of-state because of restrictions on these services in the places where they live.

The move renewed skepticism over the AG office’s claim that its demand for Vanderbilt to turn over health records for hundreds of patients was made in connection with a “run of the mill” probe into potential billing fraud.

The VUMC spokesperson declined to share details beyond affirming the hospital’s compliance with HHS’s investigation. A spokesperson for the AG’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

By William Melhado | WASHINGTON – The U.S Department of Education exempted Baylor University from sexual harassment claims regulated under Title IX last month after the Christian university asked the agency to dismiss discrimination complaints made by students, arguing that the claims were inconsistent with the university’s religious tenets.

After LGBTQ+ students filed several Title IX discrimination complaints against the Waco-based university — in one case for failing to address homophobic harassment by a former student’s peers — Baylor wrote to the agency’s Office for Civil Rights, arguing that the federal government previously recognized that the university is exempt from certain aspects of civil rights laws.

Lori Fogleman, the university’s assistant vice president of media and public relations, lamented that Baylor’s religious exemption was being mischaracterized as a “broad-based exception to sexual harassment.”

Instead, she said in a statement that “Baylor is responding to current considerations by the U.S. Department of Education to move to an expanded definition of sexual harassment, which could infringe on Baylor’s rights under the U.S. Constitution, as well as Title IX, to conduct its affairs in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs.”

Title IX, the federal civil rights law that protects against sex-based discrimination in educational programs and activities, has expanded in recent years. In 2021, President Joe Biden said those protections should also include LGBTQ+ students.

The expansion has exposed rifts between faith-based or conservative-led public schools and universities and LGBTQ+ people seeking protection.

In May, Baylor President Linda Livingstone sent a letter to the federal education agency requesting that its civil rights office dismiss several complaints made by LGBTQ+ students, citing the university’s stance against same-sex relationships and sexual conduct.

Livingstone wrote that because Baylor believes marriage is between a man and a woman and “affirms the biblical understanding of sexuality as a gift from God,” the university should be exempt from Title IX requirements that contradict those Baptist doctrines.

The agency responded in July with a list of Title IX provisions that Baylor was exempt from on the grounds “that they are inconsistent with the University’s religious tenets.” Included in that list were regulations prohibiting sexual harassment.

Baylor’s request for a religious exemption to Title IX can be traced to several discrimination complaints LGBTQ+ students filed as long as two years ago.

While she was a student at Baylor, Veronica Bonifacio Penales found sticky notes with homophobic slurs on her dorm room door. She said she received similar comments from peers on social media. Claiming Baylor did nothing to address the harassment, Penales filed a discrimination complaint against the university in March 2021.

Penales also claimed the university’s policies on gay and lesbian relationships forced her to hide her sexual orientation as a queer woman, despite Baylor saying it values diversity and inclusion.

She took issue with the school’s civil rights policy, which states that as a religiously controlled university, Baylor is exempt from complying with certain aspects of civil rights laws.

“This statement tells me that Baylor cares more about its right to discriminate against queer and other students than it does about the health and safety of its queer and other students,” Penales wrote in her declaration for the discrimination complaint.

More than two years after Penales filed her complaint, Baylor received notice from the federal agency that its religious exemption to Title IX includes sexual harassment prohibitions.

The education department’s letter doesn’t mean Penales’ complaint is immediately closed, but that’s a likely outcome, said Paul Carlos Southwick, director of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, an advocacy group that filed a complaint on behalf of Penales. The civil rights office still needs to determine if Penales’ Title IX complaint should be dismissed, Southwick said.

Southwick said in the history of Title IX, no other university has requested such an exemption.

“It doesn’t appear to meet a wholesale exemption from sexual harassment regulations, but the language is really vague in general,” Southwick said.

Elizabeth Reiner Platt, the director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia Law School, said in a statement to The Texas Tribune that this exemption was disappointing coming from a governmental agency tasked with protecting civil rights.

“This decision is the latest example of religious exemptions being expanded in ways that undermine equality rights and, ultimately, harm religious communities,” she said.

Baylor has a rocky history with Title IX compliance. In 2016, the education department investigated the university over allegations that it failed to address numerous sexual violence claims, many of which were made against football players.

Both head football coach Art Briles and university President Ken Starr were ousted after a damning report found that administrators failed to notify authorities of allegations against football players, even after speaking with victims.

Disclosure: Baylor University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished by permission.

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WASHINGTON – Doctor Jeanne Marrazzo has been named director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, becoming the first openly LGBTQ person to serve in the role when her tenure begins this fall.

Marrazzo currently leads the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, where her research interests included HIV and STIs.

The university, in a press release announcing her appointment to the agency, called her “a trusted advisor and friend who gave us the insights, guidance and confidence that allowed our institution to thrive in spite of immense challenges” amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“As NIAID director, Jeanne will oversee NIAID’s budget of $6.3 billion supporting research to advance the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of infectious, immunologic and allergic diseases,” said UAB in the press release.

“The NIAID research response to outbreaks of infectious diseases, from HIV to Ebola to COVID-19, has led to new therapies, vaccines, diagnostic tests and other technologies,” UAB noted.

“Dr. Marrazzo brings a wealth of leadership experience from leading international clinical trials and translational research, managing a complex organizational budget that includes research funding and mentoring trainees in all stages of professional development,” NIH Acting Director Lawrence A. Tabak said in a press release Wednesday.

Tabak thanked Hugh Auchincloss, Jr. for serving as Acting NIAID director after the longtime director Dr. Anthony Fauci stepped down in November 2022.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Agency for International Development on Wednesday released its first-ever policy for LGBTQ+ and intersex-inclusive development.

A USAID press release notes the policy has four pillars.

         • Supporting locally-led programmatic approaches that advance USAID’s commitment to localization

         • Using USAID’s global development diplomacy to drive progress on LGBTQI+ inclusive development both within and beyond the agency’s programming

         • Prioritizing evidence-based LGBTQI+ programming and approaches and strengthening responses through data

         • Improving USAID’s response to crises that impact LGBTQI+ persons and communities

“The policy is a blueprint for USAID’s staff and partners around the world to champion LGBTQI+ inclusive development and the human rights of LGBTQI+ people through our work,” said USAID Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam in a video his agency released. “Inclusive development means that every individual and community of all diverse identities and experiences is instrumental in the transformation of their own societies. inclusion matters because it leads to better development outcomes.”

Gilliam in the video highlighted the policy’s four goals.

         • Lead through development diplomacy

         • Drive evidence-based policies and approaches

         • Accelerate locally-led programming

         • Ensure USAID’s crisis response is inclusive

USAID Administrator Samantha Power, USAID Lesotho Country Director Smita Kumar, USAID Guatemala HIV Project Management Specialist Giovanni Melendez and Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice Executive Director Joy Chia also appear in the video.

“USAID is incredibly proud to stand for nondiscrimination, to stand for empathy and to stand for inclusion,” said Power after she and other USAID staffers raised the Progress Pride flag outside USAID’s downtown D.C. headquarters in June. “We dedicate ourselves to those values during Pride month and every day of the year.” 

President Joe Biden in February 2021 signed a memo that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ+ and intersex rights abroad as part of his administration’s overall foreign policy.

USAID and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief have delivered millions of doses to antiretroviral drugs for Ukrainians with HIV/AIDS since Russia launched its war against the country in February 2022.

Power earlier this year met with LGBTQ+ and intersex activists in the Hungarian capital of Budapest. A USAID spokesperson recently noted to the Washington Blade their organization has partnered with SOMOS CDC, a Honduran LGBTQ+ and intersex rights group, “to increase (the) LGBTQI+ community’s electoral participation.”

“As a result, LGBTQI+ political leaders received training at the Technological University of Central America and LGBTQI+ voters were better informed about the different candidates’ proposals,” said the spokesperson.

Gilliam and USAID LGBTQI+ Inclusive Development Advisor Ryan Kaminski are currently attending the Pan Africa ILGA 6th Regional Conference in Mauritius. It is taking place amid growing calls for the U.S. and the World Bank Group to cut aid to Uganda after the country’s president signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which contains a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality.”

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration approved the first-ever non-prescription birth control pill Thursday, a contraceptive called Opill whose manufacturer says “can be taken by most women and people who can get pregnant.” 

The FDA announced the approval with a statement that noted this progestin-only oral contraceptive pill, known as norgestrel, provides an option for consumers to purchase oral contraceptive medicine without a prescription at drug stores, convenience stores and grocery stores, as well as online. 

“Today’s approval marks the first time a nonprescription daily oral contraceptive will be an available option for millions of people in the United States,” said Patrizia Cavazzoni, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a statement. “When used as directed, daily oral contraception is safe and is expected to be more effective than currently available nonprescription contraceptive methods in preventing unintended pregnancy.”

When used as directed, Cavazzoni said, daily oral contraception such as Opill “is safe and is expected to be more effective than currently available nonprescription contraceptive methods in preventing unintended pregnancy.”

Norgestrel is made with “a synthetic version of the hormone progesterone to prevent pregnancy,” NPR reported, noting that most birth control pills also contain estrogen.

Perrigo, which is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, also makes Omeprazole, Ibuprofen and allergy relief medication. It recently acquired the medication from Laboratoire HRA Pharma. 

The big question is when will the pills — which will be sold in boxes containing a 28-day supply — be available to purchase? The FDA says that’s up to Perrigo. The company says the pills will be available in stores and online early next year, in the first quarter of 2024. The price also hasn’t been announced. 

That was a concern expressed by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in his tweet Thursday: 

Access to contraception is essential reproductive health care.

Glad to see @US_FDA is following the science & making birth control available over-the-counter. Now we must make sure this medication is fully covered by insurance & available with no out-of-pocket costs. https://t.co/Pkewzi9QxC

— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) July 13, 2023

The nation’s top Democrat in Congress also hailed the announcement, with Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer tweeting, “reproductive care is health care.”

But what will congressional Republicans, state lawmakers and governors say, and do? 

Get ready for the GOP Backlash.

FDA approves first over-the-counter birth control pill in the U.S. https://t.co/ie7enjuwDI

— Cajun Rogue🌊🌊⚜️⚜️🇺🇦🐝🐝🚫DMs (@janrobinjackson) July 13, 2023

As Barbara Rodriguez reported in The 19^th in April, a growing rift is emerging in the GOP between those opposed to both birth control and abortion, and those who support access to birth control and Plan B pills, which are emergency contraceptives that are different from daily contraceptive medication. 

Trying to protect reproductive rights in Iowa is the statewide reproductive health group Family Planning Council of Iowa, which for the last six months has been giving away free health kits at events and clinics containing two emergency contraception pills, condoms, lubrication and educational pamphlets.

They’re also now mailing them out in discrete packages to those who request them in an effort to legally increase access to emergency contraceptives, interim executive director Allison Smith told Axios. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and the Emma Goldman Clinic filed a lawsuit against the state Wednesday to block an anti-abortion bill passed Tuesday by the Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature. It bans most abortions around six weeks of gestation, with exceptions for the life of the pregnant person or for rape and incest, provided they are reported to law enforcement within a specific time span.

The groups also asked a judge to temporarily block the law while the courts decide if it violates the Constitution.

Gov. Kim Reynolds is expected to sign that bill Friday at an anti-abortion summit featuring presidential hopefuls including Republican candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who has similarly signed a six-week abortion ban into law. 

Click here for more information about Opill. Planned Parenthood also has guidance for anyone who has questions about birth control, available by clicking here.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Tuesday for a new regulation that clarifies nondiscrimination rules on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

“The Department is doing all that it can to protect access to health and human services,” Melanie Fontes Rainer, director of HHS’s Office of Civil Rights, told the Washington Blade by phone on Tuesday.

“This proposed rule is a step in that effort,” she said.

Health programs administered by the agency are covered by the nondiscrimination rules in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, Fontes Rainer said, so, “This rule is meant to get to that other slice of the pie that encompasses really important work at the Department of Human Services.”

Nondiscrimination, here, is a priority, “specifically nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,” she said.

If finalized pursuant to the 60-day public comment period, HHS’s rule will apply to such programs as those administered by the “Administration for Children and Families, SAMHSA, and some other organizations within HHS that have grants,” Fontes Rainer said.

Examples include Head Start, which provides educational, health, nutritional and other services to low income children and their families.

The agency’s legal authority to enforce inclusive nondiscrimination rules was statutorily ordained by Congress, but clarified with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which “made clear that sexual orientation and gender identity were part of this protected sex based discrimination class,” Fontes Rainer said.

The decision helped to accelerate the Biden-Harris administration’s coordination of efforts across the federal government to shore up protections for LGBTQ Americans, she noted, beginning with the Justice Department and then the U.S. Department of Education and HHS.

Those agencies and federal courts have since made clear the law applies not just in the Title VII context — which covers nondiscrimination in employment, the legal question at issue in Bostock — but also “to other federal programs like Title IX,” Fontes Rainer said.

HHS is coordinating efforts with the White House, which last month unveiled a series of new actions to better protect LGBTQ Americans, including through programs administered by HHS, such as those targeting queer youth and their families.

Last June, Fontes Rainer noted, the administration announced that the department’s Administration for Children and Families would pursue a new rule making to “clarify that state child welfare agencies must ensure LGBTQI youth are treated in a safe and appropriate manner.”

The agency’s rule “is inclusive of some grants and services that are inclusive of homelessness services for LGBTQI youth,” Fontes Rainer said. “That’s certainly a part of it. And this grants rule is certainly a part of that effort in the Human Services context.”

“It’s really important right now to have the federal government be strong in the LGBTQI space, whether it’s healthcare, human services or some other service that the federal government provides and [also to] be very clear about what non discrimination means,” she said. “Because, you know, there there is a tsunami of these [anti-trans] healthcare bans across the country.”

According to the Human Rights Campaign, almost 30 percent of transgender youth in the U.S. live in places that have passed bans on gender affirming care, criminalizing healthcare interventions that are backed by every mainstream scientific and medical society.

“We’re seeing a shift right now, where there are a lot of healthcare bans,” Fontes Rainer said. “And, I think, ultimately, these are decisions that are going to be taken into litigation in various contexts, which we’re already seeing across the country.”

Meanwhile, on the federal level, Congressional Republicans are moving to add riders restricting access to healthcare for trans youth into must-pass appropriations bills. Asked to respond to these efforts, Fontes Rainer was quick to note that, “my job is not on the legislative front, here.”

At the same time, she said, when it comes to HHS’s proposed regulation, for “every single program and service we’ve identified, these [nondiscrimination] protections already exist in the law,” so the agency is therefore confident that “we are on good authority and legal footing here.”

While the regulation and its implementation would be new, Fontes Rainer said, HHS is acting under its statutory authority as established long ago by the legislature.

Policy carries real impact on people, families

Last month, HHS hosted a Pride Summit, where officials at the agency from Fontes Rainer to Assistant Secretary Adm. Rachel Levine and Secretary Xavier Becerra, along with other high ranking members of the Biden-Harris administration like White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, spoke about the government’s work advancing rights and protections for the LGBTQ community.

At the event, Becerra dedicated a portion of his remarks to recounting discussions he had with LGBTQ families about how his agency can better serve their needs across the various health and human services programs that comprise its book of business.

Fontes Rainer told the Blade she has participated in many of these conversations, with and without the secretary. “I have made a point to visit with providers, advocates, parents and kids, in many of the states that either have passed or are seeking to pass bans on healthcare for trans youth,” she said.

“Every time I have these conversations, I feel emotional afterwards,” she said. “For a lot of these kids and families, you know, they’re not asking for much. They’re asking to go to the doctor. They’re asking to be treated with respect. They’re asking to have the appropriate pronouns used — things that are very basic.”

The circumstances vary, Fontes Rainer said. Some families have the resources to travel or even relocate to states that are committed to protecting their transgender residents’ access to healthcare.

Others, however, do not. Parents, she said, often “don’t know what they’re gonna do as their child is [forcibly] tapered off of medication, mid treatment” and many are unsure how to respond to the resulting impacts on their child’s mental health.

Fontes Rainer said she has also seen the impacts of legislative restrictions on the healthcare system. “I’ve talked to providers who tell me that they provide gender affirming care in a state where it’s not banned and it’s impossible to get appointments now, because they have so many people traveling there,” she said.

“These efforts by the Biden administration, while they don’t solve everything, they’re really important — both in being strong on the policy and what the law means, but also in being very clear to parents and families and doctors that we have your back,” Fontes Rainer said.

“I’ve been in rooms with the secretary where people, providers, you know, hug him and cry,” she said, “because they feel like it’s really important to have somebody that understands the law in this moment, and they feel like it’s important that, you know, from the secretary on up to the president of the United States, they have support from the Biden administration.”

Fontes Rainer told the Blade she is proud of HHS’s legacy of leadership on LGBTQ rights. With a ceremony last year, the agency became the first to raise the Progress Pride flag, which includes colors to represent Black and brown LGBTQ communities and incorporates the stripes of the transgender Pride flag.

“Now, this year, almost every single agency did that,” she said, adding that last month, “my husband and I put up a Pride Unity flag in our yard” too.

“Right now is not the time to be shy,” Fontes Rainer said. “Now is not the time to like go hide in a hole. Now is the time to be loud and vocal and use your power for good.”