Justice for Gavin!
It's been nearly four years since he first filed his lawsuit.
Trump has left for a 10-day vacation, during which “his attention will be focused on golf, cable news, and Twitter,” so who knows what might pop up while he’s gone. At any rate, we may be approaching a more traditional slow-news August, so don’t be surprised if this newsletter is a bit shorter too.
But we still have a couple LGBTQ stories to round out the week!
Gavin Grimm wins!
Gavin Grimm has been fighting for justice for a long time, but a federal district court just handed him a fresh and decisive victory.
To catch you up, Grimm first sued his school in Gloucester County, Virginia back in 2015 when he was a junior, challenging its policies that discriminated against him as a transgender student. The case wound its way up to the Supreme Court, which was poised to hear it in early 2017 as Grimm was approaching graduation. But then the Trump administration reversed the Obama-era guidance protecting transgender students (see yesterday’s newsletter) — and because the lower court’s decisions were based on that guidance, they became moot, so SCOTUS tossed it back down.
Grimm’s graduation that year did not moot his case, because he continued to fight to ensure that his school records reflected his gender identity. And today, a district judge agreed unequivocally that even without that old guidance, the law still protects him.
You can read the full decision here. Judge Arenda Wright Allen, an Obama appointee, concluded that the school board’s policies clearly discriminate against trans students. “Transgender students are singled out, subjected to discriminatory treatment, and excluded from spaces where similarly situated students are permitted to go,” she wrote.
It’s important to note that she found that Grimm was protected not only under Title IX, but also under the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. This means that even if Title IX’s sex protections are later interpreted not to apply to transgender students, they would still be legally protected from unequal treatment under the law.
In her conclusion, Allen didn’t hold back in noting how dangerous such discrimination can be for students:
However well-intentioned some external challenges may have been and however sincere worries were about possible unknown consequences arising from a new school restroom protocol, the perpetuation of harm to a child stemming from unconstitutional conduct cannot be allowed to stand. These acknowledgements are made in the hopes of making a positive difference to Mr. Grimm and to the everyday lives of our children who rely upon us to protect them compassionately and in ways that more perfectly respect the dignity of every person.
The school could still choose to appeal, which means Grimm’s fight might not yet be over.
Methodists apologize for Methodists
Earlier this year, the United Methodist Church once again rejected proposals to update its archaic rules prohibiting openly LGBTQ clergy and same-sex weddings. Activists within the UMC are not giving up the fight, including the North Alabama Conference, which has issued an apology letter to LGBTQ+ Siblings.
“We grieve our denomination’s failure to uphold our own Methodist standards of doing no harm and honoring the sacred, God-given worth of every individual, without qualification,” they write. “It is not enough to blame the stubbornness of our denomination and slowness of our movement for change on the complexity of being a global body.”
So far, about 600 have signed the letter.
Homophobic ≠ Gay
My queer media compatriot Jeff Taylor took a break from his dogged reporting to offer up a commentary on how harmful it is to joke about homophobes all being closet cases. Such an accusation, he notes, “carries with it the implication that that which you are accusing them of is something to be ashamed of in the first place. You are, in a sense, co-signing their homophobia, even if you’re not aware that’s what you’re doing.” Read the whole thing.
The lasting impact of homophobia
A new study out of Scotland has found that homophobia from decades ago is still impacting whether older gay men get tested for HIV. Dr. Jamie Frankis from Glasgow Caledonian University explains:
For older men, it looks like the barriers seem to come up in terms of your own management of sexual identity within the wider culture that you are living in. That would speak to the homophobia that was highly present in the 80s at the onset of HIV when gay men, who now are over 45, would have been young and they would have experienced massive homophobia, anti-gay and anti-HIV stigma.
It is possible that older men are still troubled by the mass homophobia of the 80s and that is affecting their own testing behavior. They could still be harboring fears around HIV as a heavily stigmatized infection rather than the HIV of today, which is a highly manageable condition.
It’s an important reminder that stigma is a form of trauma that people carry with them, even if the world may improve around them.
A gay presidential candidate… in Tunisia
Mounir Baatour, an openly gay lawyer, has announced he is running to be president of Tunisia, what France24 calls “a first for the Arab world.” Baatour was jailed back in 2013 for charges of “sodomy” with a 17-year-old that he has always denied. Some groups are concerned that his candidacy could result in a backlash for the community.
Australian prime minister objects to trans cricket policy
Cricket Australia wants to make the league trans inclusive, but for the country’s prime minister, the decision is “mystifying.” PM Scott Morrison said in an interview today that he thinks it’s “heavy-handed,” describing the new policy as a “sledgehammer.” This is likely because of myths that conservatives are now spreading that random parents running cricket clubs across the country will be prosecuted for discrimination.
Mini Billie Jean King
Lesbian tennis legend Billie Jean King can now grace your desk in action figure form. Proceeds from the sales support her non-profit that advocates “for equality and inclusion globally.”
Saying the quiet part out loud
Here’s one of the organizers of the Modesto Straight Pride openly admitting his organization is racist.
Yeah. Everyone in the room thought it was hilarious too.
Peer pressure works on Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift told Vogue that the reason she wanted to speak out more about LGBTQ issues because her buddy Todrick Hall asked her, “What would you do if your son was gay?” She was shocked that he had to ask and realized that she had not been “clear enough or loud enough” in her support.
So find at least one person in your life this weekend to ask that question; let’s see if we can get some more allies to speak out and/or try to incorporate allyship into their branding!
Until next time, stay platinum!
(Gavin Grimm photo credit: Flickr/Geoff Livingston.)