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

Contents:

• CIVIL RIGHTS LAW PROTECTS GAY AND TRANSGENR WORKERS, SUPREME COURT RUL
• HOE PASS SWEEPG GAY AND TRANSGENR EQUALY LEGISLATN
• EARLY GAY LIBERATN: ANTI-RACIST SOLIDARY
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• GAY RIGHTS ARE CIVIL RIGHTS
• SUPREME COURT RUL FOR GAY AND TRANSGENR RIGHTS THE WORKPLACE
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• GAY RIGHTS
• 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY

CIVIL RIGHTS LAW PROTECTS GAY AND TRANSGENR WORKERS, SUPREME COURT RUL

Among their recent notable victori, EEOC ligators secured a $175, 000 judgment agast a retail employer for subjectg a gay male and female employe to a hostile work environment based on sex when a manager subjected those employe to unwanted sexual ments, photographs, and touchg and the employer failed to aquately tervene.

"However, some of the first rerd stanc of stutnal workplace discrimatn agast workers specifilly based on their LGBTQ inti (rather than for racial or genr inti) n be dated to the 1950, a Senate report tled "Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts Government" was distributed to members of Congrs claimg that homosexualy and "sex perversn" posed a natnal secury risk and announcg that hundreds of ernment employe had been fired for spicn of homosexualy.

HOE PASS SWEEPG GAY AND TRANSGENR EQUALY LEGISLATN

""In 1950, amid the 'Panic on the Potomac' as the prs lled at the time, the Senate began vtigatns to this homosexual 'menace, ' and culmated a Senate document known as the Howe Report which sentially legimized the systematic persecutn of queer feral employe for the next 25 years, " explas Cervi. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTCivil Rights Law Protects Gay and Transgenr Workers, Supreme Court RulThe urt said the language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibs sex discrimatn, appli to discrimatn based on sexual orientatn and genr Freeman for The New York TimPublished June 15, 2020Updated Oct. The cisn, the first major se on transgenr rights, me amid wispread monstratns, some prottg vlence aimed at transgenr people of Monday’s cisn, was legal more than half of the stat to fire workers for beg gay, bisexual or transgenr.

EARLY GAY LIBERATN: ANTI-RACIST SOLIDARY

The vastly nsequential cisn th extend workplace protectns to lns of people across the natn, ntug a seri of Supreme Court victori for gay rights even after Print Tmp transformed the urt wh his two cisn achieved a s-long goal of gay rights proponents, one they had ially nsired much easier to achieve than a nstutnal right to same-sex marriage. Proponents of those rights had worried that his parture would halt the progrs of the movement toward to ‘The Daily’: A Landmark Supreme Court RulgA surprise majory of judg led that the Civil Rights Act protects gay and transgenr people om workplace discrimatn. Michael barbaroAnd so what explanatn do the other nservative jtic who did not jo Gorsuch the majory give for breakg wh him, and wh Roberts, if Gorsuch and Roberts found a pretty nservative jtifitn for extendg the rights to gay and transgenr people?

Bee I have to image that they are not lookg favorably on a lg that says every employer, cludg employers n by people whose relign says that beg homosexual is wrong, would wele this liptakSure, they’re nervo about this lg.

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

First se was filed by Gerald Bostock, who was fired om a ernment program that helped neglected and abed children Clayton County, Ga., jt south of Atlanta, after he joed a gay softball send was brought by a skydivg stctor, Donald Zarda, who also said he was fired bee he was gay.

And he poted to the 1993 Relig Freedom Rtoratn Act as a, quote, "super-statute" that may offer a potential lifele to employers who object, on relig grounds, to hirg gay and trans said, today's lg was remarkable many rpects. Although LGBTQ advot acknowledge there may well be legal bumps ahead, as Stanford law profsor Pam Karlan puts KARLAN: We didn't see really anybody other than the Conference of Catholic Bishops e and make an argument that there are large numbers of employers who refe, as a blanket matter, to hire people who are lbian, who are gay, who are bisexual or who are transgenr.

GAY RIGHTS ARE CIVIL RIGHTS

It was the send time the Democratic-led Hoe had passed the measure, known as the Equaly Act, which seeks to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to add explic bans on discrimatn agast lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr people both public and private spac. Several Republins assailed the Equaly Act as dangero, leadg one top Democrat, Reprentative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, to acce them of believg that gay and transgenr people “are morally ferr, and that firg should be permted. ”In a landmark cisn June, the Supreme Court led that the 1964 civil rights law protects gay and transgenr people om workplace discrimatn, and that the language of the law, which prohibs discrimatn on the basis of sex, also appli to discrimatn based on sexual orientatn and genr inty.

In summer 2005, when the Natnal Executive Board of the Uned Farm Workers — a predomantly Latx unn — announced s prcipled stance support of the right of same-sex marriage, UFW Southern California Polil Director Christe Chávez rtated her grandfather’s support of gay rights. The “Radil Cc” at the Eastern Regnal Conference of Homophile Organizatns also won a rolutn support of the Black Panther Party; and when the nference learship tried to overturn the measure, a wir vote staed the rolutn. 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.

SUPREME COURT RUL FOR GAY AND TRANSGENR RIGHTS THE WORKPLACE

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.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

“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. “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. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe Supreme Court says you n’t be fired for beg gay or Freeman for The New York TimThe Edorial BoardThe edorial board is a group of opn journalists whose views are rmed by expertise, rearch, bate and certa longstandg valu.

”In separate s nsolidated for argument, three platiffs — two gay men and a transgenr woman — had sued their employers for firg them after learng of their sexual orientatn or transgenr do not matter, the urt said, whether the employer might have had addnal reasons for the firg.

GAY RIGHTS

” In short, this particular victory for gay rights was based not on the fundamental equaly or digny of gay and transgenr Amerins, as prev Supreme Court cisns have been; was based on the meang of a sgle opn also hts at a potentially ser obstacle on the horizon: claims by employers that beg prohibed om discrimatg agast gay and transgenr workers vlat their relig nvictns. Such claims are likely to fd a sympathetic ear among this Supreme Court’s nservative majory, which has repeatedly voted to protect if not promote relign and relig now, however, Monday’s cisn is a victory to savor, the next major step a le of gay rights cisns stretchg back nearly a quarter century, and until now wrten solely by Jtice Anthony Kennedy. 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.

'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY

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. This support, along wh mpaigns by gay activists urgg gay men and women to “e out of the closet” (ed, the late 1980s, Natnal Comg Out Day was tablished, and is now celebrated on October 11 most untri), enuraged gay men and women to enter the polil arena as ndidat.