After years of progrs on gay rights, how did the US bee so anti-LGBTQ+? | US news | The Guardian

Contents:

• THGS GAY PEOPLE CAN'T DO
• THE RIGHTS OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENR PEOPLE
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• 5 EEDOMS GAY AMERINS NOW HAVE THAT THEY DIDN’T HAVE TWO YEARS AGO
• AMERI MOVED ON FROM ITS GAY-RIGHTS MOMENT—AND LEFT A LEGAL MS BEHD
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• GAY RIGHTS

THGS GAY PEOPLE CAN'T DO

After 19 long years of fightg, has been repeatedly nied due to certa hate-groups and relig groups that thk makg employment equal will lead to a slew of gay marriage their neighborhood, leadg (evably) to certa would be a start, but do not apply to small bs, relig anizatns or the ary (more on this later), and do not require that domtic partner benefs be provid to the same-sex partners of employe.

The abily for a gay man to give blood was taken away ia behd this ban was based on men who are sexually active wh other men are more likely to have or ntract HIV, disuntg the fact that heterosexuals who practice unsafe sex may also have a higher chance of havg or ntractg HIV. Those who are agast gays and lbians adoptg say that there is an alleged greater prevalence of prsn, dg e, promiscuy, and suici among homosexuals might affect children, or that the absence of male and female role mols uld e maladjtment. Also, some surance pani have attempted to refe a claim or ncel the policy altogether on the basis that the uple is LGBTs have reported to the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force that they have been discrimated agast when tryg to purchase, rent, or lease a home and transgenrs are even more often discrimated than lbians and gays.

Not only are the rights of homosexuals beg trampled on, but not havg the stat of beg legally married will not grant them all th other rights that married upl areas that are affected are: Social Secury benefs, veterans' benefs, health surance, Mediid, hospal visatn, tate tax, retirement savgs, pensns, fay leave, and immigratn law.

THE RIGHTS OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENR PEOPLE

This means protectg stunts om vlence, guaranteeg their right to anize events and clubs like other stunts, and makg sure that gay teachers who might serve as healthy role mols are not themselv victimized by discrimatn. Y, twelve stat (California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachetts, Mnota, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Jersey, Rho Island, Vermont and Wisns), the District of Columbia, many municipali, and hundreds of bs and universi have enacted laws that protect gay, lbian and bisexual people om employment discrimatn.

Sce they n not marry, the partners of lbians and gay men are not next of k tim of crisis; they are not nsulted on ccial medil cisns; they are not given leave to re for each other; they are not each other’s legal heirs, if, like most Amerins, they do not have wills.

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

A rash of laws ncerng the teachg of human sexualy school curricula, banng trans stunt athlet and strippg parents of the right to help their genr-variant children obta appropriate re have popped up numero red stat this same-sex marriage is now part of the fabric of Ameri, nservativ have chosen to explo Amerins’ unfaiary wh trans people and piggyback on parental anger over the perceived overreach of Covid-era school closur, nflatg wh an sid sense of “wokens”, the hop of fdg an electorally viable sluiceway for anti-LGBTQ+ most famo of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws is the piece of Florida legislatn banng stctn on sexual orientatn or genr inty schools between krgarten and third gra, the so-lled “don’t say gay” law. He was followed by Arizona’s ernor, Doug Ducey, who, after barrg mors om genr-affirmatn treatment, wouldn’t even state for the rerd that trans people were Florida lawmaker Michele Rayner-Goolsby, left, hugs her wife, Bian Goolsby, durg a march at cy hall St Petersburg agast the ‘don’t say gay’ bill.

Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Wire/Rex/ShutterstockPolicians are supported the media by mentators like Tucker Carlson, who claimed “no one had heard of this trans thg four years ago”, or Charlie Kirk, channelg 1980s fears sayg “gays want to rpt your children” rejuvenated, the right wg is poised to make transphobia and homophobia rnerston of the midterms and 2024 electns, wh promis to liver “don’t say gay” legislatn stat cludg Michigan and New Perks, the print of the Fay Rearch Council, a nservative lobbyg group, veighed agast the ernors of Indiana and Utah for vetog legislatn banng trans women om participatg sports, llg the bills “timely, mastream protectns”. The Republin US reprentative Marjorie Taylor Greene vowed to troduce a feral “don’t say gay” bill if Republins w the Hoe this November, only to one-up herself days later by tweetg that for people to be pro-trans is to be pro-pedophilia.

”The bs-iendly wg of the GOP that would quietly team up wh Democrats to scuttle rabidly homophobic bills is now outnumbered, and legislators a dozen or more stat that lean even farther to the right than DeSantis are takg, the Natnal Center for Lbian Rights legal director, believ Florida is the tt se for a renewed ph for an aggrsive, Christian-natnalist program. “I’ve seen this movie before over the last 30 years: The right wg cid to target the LGBTQ muny, whether ’s around marriage or adoptn or trans kids playg sports or bathrooms, ” says the California state senator Stt Wiener, who is gay.

5 EEDOMS GAY AMERINS NOW HAVE THAT THEY DIDN’T HAVE TWO YEARS AGO

“I thought was really important to ph back on the policy level, and to send a clear signal that California and other stat really re about the kids, ” he believ that “don’t say gay” is “patently unnstutnal” but also ntends that relyg on the judicial system to protect human rights may no longer be a sound optn. The term LGBTI refers to a broad tegory of people, cludg those who intify as lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr or tersex, although we regnize that there are many terms around the world that are ed by people to fe their sexual orientatn or genr inty. Supreme Court overturned the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which nied feral benefs to same-sex spo stat where gay marriage is legal, MarketWatch published a story entled, “5 thgs you still n’t do Ameri if you’re gay.

Here’s how the pace of social change over the last uple of months has rced those five thgs om our 2013 story to zeri — wh some veats: Then: Boy Sut banned LGBT lears Now: Boy Suts of Ameri lifts ban In May 2013, the Boy Suts of Ameri lifted the ban on gay suts after a proposal to partially remove the ban was submted to the 1, 400 votg members of the Natnal Council. Many gay rights activists saw this as a Pyrrhic victory: Should an olr sut clare he is homosexual, however, he was still not able to bee a sut lear, and would have to relquish his role as lear if he currently had one. ” Burns, who is now director of strategy and policy at the Massachetts Department of Revenue, said prevented LGBT lears om participatg one of the most important civic anizatns the untry On Monday, the Boy Suts of Ameri officially announced an end to that ban wh 79% of the natnal executive board votg favor, two years after endg a ban on openly gay boy suts, provg that even some of the untry’s most tradnal stutns are changg wh the tim — albe unr prsure om the media, whholdg of charable donatns om rporatns and protts by some members of the public.

Then: Gay men uld not donate blood Now: FDA to loosen ban on blood donatn In 1985, the Food and Dg Admistratn banned men who have sex wh men — or “MSM” — om donatg blood, but given signifint advanc ttg, screeng and transmissn preventn, the FDA’s outright ban is set to change.

AMERI MOVED ON FROM ITS GAY-RIGHTS MOMENT—AND LEFT A LEGAL MS BEHD

Then: Gay Amerins uld not adopt ( 7 stat) Now: Same-sex upl n now adopt There was a patchwork of adoptn laws across the untry 2013 that ma parentg a nightmare for gay upl, a spokman for the Human Rights Campaign told MarketWatch at that time. For someone who didn’t have accs to an attorney after an accint, those cisns uld be left to someone else, like a hospal admistrator who didn’t know your partner at all, Patrick Paschall, then-policy unsel at the Natnal Gay & Lbian Task Force Washgton, D. Transgenr parents, parents who e out as gay while married to an oppose-sex spoe, and parents whose spo have died sometim fd their ctodial rights challenged by ex-spo or survivg fay members who, spe volum of evince to the ntrary, qutn their fns as parents based on their sexual orientatn or genr inty.

Ameri Moved On From Its Gay-Rights Moment—And Left a Legal Ms BehdHalf a after the Supreme Court’s same-sex-marriage cisn, the jtic and Congrs are still tryg to figure out what feral law should say about LGBTQ JonRoughly half of Amerins thk feral law bans discrimatn on the basis of sexual orientatn. But they’ve faced ristance om their right, wh proment pastors and nservative legal groups opposed to any kd of bill that would mark sexual orientatn and genr inty as special legal Ameri has largely moved on om s gay-rights moment, wh many Amerins believg everythg got taken re of wh same-sex marriage, legal advot on both sis have been left wh bter disagreements about where the untry should go next—and the possibily that the stat quo will perpetually rema place.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Ask LGBTQ people themselv, however, and they nsistently see discrimatn their daily liv: A recent study om the Williams Instute at UCLA found that lbian, gay, and bisexual people reported much higher rat of beg bullied, fired, or nied a job, promotn, or lease pared wh heterosexual people. In the past 30 years, the Supreme Court has led sex stereotypg illegal; clared sodomy bans unnstutnal; stck down state measur blockg civil-rights protectns for gays, lbians, and bisexuals; and, of urse, legalized same-sex marriage all 50 stat. But even as the evabily of legalized gay marriage was beg clear the early 2010s, “the narrative really began to take hold that you uld be married on Sunday and fired on Monday and lose your hog on Tuday, ” Sarah McBri, the natnal prs secretary at the Human Rights Campaign, a proment LGBTQ-rights advocy group, told me.

The Equaly Act specifilly bars any group om g the Relig Freedom Rtoratn Act, known as RFRA, to try to opt out of the bill’s relig groups and stutns that teach that homosexualy is a s, and that men and women were created as such by God, the prospect of this kd of legislatn is worryg. ” The signers clud Frankl Graham, the evangelist Billy Graham’s son, who has been known to make flammatory ments about homosexualy; but also Rsell Moore, the head of the Southern Baptist Conventn’s polil arm, who is often seen as a moratg voice the evangelil world.

GAY RIGHTS

E., for lbians, gays [homosexual mal], bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons); seeks to elimate sodomy laws; and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life. ) Gay rights prr to the 20th century Relig admonns agast sexual relatns between dividuals of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behavur, but most legal s Europe were silent on the subject of homosexualy and bisexualy. Dpe Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to w s repeal, homosexual and bisexual men and women experienced a certa amount of eedom Germany, particularly durg the Weimar perd, between the end of World War I and the Nazi seizure of power.

In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons. In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women. In Bra 1957 a missn chaired by Sir John Wolfenn issued a groundbreakg report (see Wolfenn Report) remendg that private homosexual liaisons between nsentg adults be removed om the doma of crimal law; a later the remendatn was implemented by Parliament the Sexual Offenc Act.

In the 1970s and ’80s, gay polil anizatns proliferated, particularly the Uned Stat and Europe, and spread to other parts of the globe, though their relative size, strength, and succs—and toleratn by thori—varied signifintly. Now headquartered Geneva and renamed the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA World), plays a signifint role ordatg ternatnal efforts to promote human rights and fight discrimatn agast LGBTQ and tersex persons.