LGBTQ news and entertainment
My final post of 2021. Here’s wishing everyone a happy and safe New Year’s celebration. I’ll be home on my couch with wonder pups Scarlett and Brody and a glass of champagne hours before midnight. Continue reading “News Round-Up: December 31, 2021”
Some news items you may have missed: • Pink News: ABC News producer Tony Morrison (above) publicly shared his HIV status in a powerful, poignant essay written on the eight-year anniversary of his diagnosis. “Society told me to feel humiliation.” Continue reading “News Round-Up: August 27, 2021”
The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by a Virginia school board that hoped to reinstate its transgender bathroom ban. That decision leaves in place lower court rulings that found the policy unconstitutional. From the New York Times:
An appeals court had ruled that the policy violated the Constitution and a federal law by prohibiting the student, Gavin Grimm, from using the same bathrooms as other boys. The school said Mr. Grimm could use a private bathroom.
The Supreme Court had agreed to hear an earlier appeal in the case but dismissed it in 2017 after the Trump administration changed the federal government’s position on transgender rights. The Biden administration has since adopted policies protecting transgender students.
What this means: there is now strong precedent that schools in the 4th Circuit (Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia) cannot prohibit students from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.
Last year, the Supreme Court for the first time ruled in favor of transgender rights, saying that a federal employment discrimination law applied to LGBTQ workers.
In Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., the Supreme Court refuses to take up a Virginia school board’s request to reinstate a policy prohibiting transgender students from using school bathrooms that reflect their gender identity.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 28, 2021
The Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving a transgender student’s right to use school bathrooms matching his gender identity.
This refusal to review Gavin Grimm’s case allows lower court rulings that say treating trans students differently violates federal law to stand pic.twitter.com/MQF7stH3Jb
— AJ+ (@ajplus) June 28, 2021
Snoopy doing his best turned-in Fosse leg
Last month, Gavin Grimm, a transgender man who graduated from Gloucester High School in Virginia two years ago, won his long legal battle with his former high school over the right for trans students to use the public bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.
But this week, the Gloucester County School Board decided to appeal the federal court ruling in Grimm’s favor.
And so, Gavin Grimm will have to fight his trans ‘bathroom case’ yet again.
Yes, he’s graduated and moved on, but the pro-trans ruling is so important to trans people that you can bet the 20-year-old activist will continue the good fight.
His case dates all the way back to 2014, when he began to transition in his sophomore year of high school.
Grimm began using a men’s restroom and told school administrators what was going on in his life.
But in December of that year, the school board instituted a policy that prohibited Grimm from using the boys’ room.
Grimm filed his initial law suit in 2015 with the aid of the ACLU. Since that time, he has been locked in this never-ending legal.
He finally took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago, but the high court sent the case back to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals after the Trump administration reversed Obama-era protections for transgender students in American public schools under Title IX.
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| Gavin Grimm |
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has ruled in favor of transgender student Gavin Grimm, reaffirming that both the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protect transgender students from discrimination.
In 2014, the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia voted 6-1 in favor of a discriminatory bathroom policy that would force transgender students to use a single-stall restroom. Grimm had previously been allowed to use the boy’s restroom.
In 2015, Grimm sued the Gloucester County, Virginia school board.
Initially, Grimm won his case but there were multiple appeals by the school board.
In 2017, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, but the justices refused to hear the case. Instead, they vacated Grimm’s courtroom victory and sent it back to the lower courts.
Today, U.S. District Court Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen ordered the school board to settle with Grimm, who has since graduated.
Grimm issued this statement:
“I feel an incredible sense of relief. After fighting this policy since I was 15 years old, I finally have a court decision saying that what the Gloucester County School Board did to me was wrong and it was against the law. I was determined not to give up because I didn’t want any other student to have to suffer the same experience that I had to go through.”
Today’s ruling also requires the school district to update Grimm’s transcripts to reflect his gender.
The Human Rights Campaign responded as well.
“Every student should feel safe at school, regardless of gender identity. Transgender students are covered by Title IX and the United States Constitution and are entitled to the same rights and protections as every other student,” said Cathryn Oakley, State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel.
“With the Trump-Pence administration’s barrage of attacks on LGBTQ people in this country, including against students, we are pleased that yet another federal court decision has reaffirmed legal rights and dignity of transgender people,” continued Oakley. “Congratulations to Gavin Grimm and the American Civil Liberties Union on this milestone victory.”
Many federal courts, including the court today, have affirmed that Title IX and other federal nondiscrimination laws prohibit discrimination against transgender people, including with respect to restroom access.
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| Blake McGrath |
Some news items you might have missed:
• Canadian dancer and choreographer Blake McGrath looking chill in Miami Beach (above). Check out his Instagram for videos of his ah-mahz-ing choreography.
• Netflix’s series 13 Reasons Why has come under fire for a controversial, graphic male rape scene.
• A Boy Scout and his dad were kicked out of a hardware store because the store employee doesn’t “support homos.”
• One of the gay men Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis refused to issue a marriage license to in 2015, David Ermold, lost his bid to challenge Davis for her office.
• A federal judge in Virginia has sided with transgender student Gavin Grimm over the rights of trans students to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.
• The NFL has announced a new policy that will fine teams an undetermined amount if players on the field fail to stand during the national anthem played before the start of the game. Players who wish to protest will be allowed to remain in the locker room.
• Check out Jess Glynne’s new single, “I’ll Be There.” Glynne is the first-ever British female to earn six #1 UK singles. I’ve previously featured her collaboration “Real Love” with Clean Bandit on The Randy Report. Hit play below.
Some news items you may have missed:
• Jerry Herman’s classic Broadway musical Hello, Dolly! returns to the Great White Way tonight at the Shubert Theatre in a brand new revival starring a reportedly delicious Bette Midler. I made my Broadway debut in the last revival back in 1995 (I’m on the far left above) when Carol Channing made a spectacular return to the role of “Dolly Levi.” Wishing this new cast all the best for a fantastic run!
• TIME Magazine names Gavin Grimm, Sarah Paulson and RuPaul to this year’s “100 Most Influential People” list.
• Adam Medrano, the council member who chairs City Hall’s LGBT Task Force, has made LGBT youth homelessness a top priority. His leadership has led to the creation of Outlast Youth, a collaborative effort intent on finding beds, counseling, health care and job training for homeless LGBT youth.
• On the other end of the spectrum in Texas news, Governor Abbott says he wants to sign a transgender “bathroom bill.”
• Turning this year’s Pride Parade in Los Angeles into an anti-Trump march is making it tough to attract the event’s usual sponsors.
• CNN spoke to to two men who describe being detained, beaten and tortured in Chechnya as part of the country’s violent crackdown on homosexuality. Watch below:
Transgender high school student Gavin Grimm pens an incredibly mature and clear-eyed essay for the New York Times chronicling his two year struggle to be accepted, and the “crazy, stressful, busy, breathtaking, rewarding, beautiful, fantastic” road he’s traveled since challenging the discrimination perpetrated by his school board.
Grimm sums up the journey thusly:
This case will not be resolved until after I graduate. But this fight is bigger than me. I came to realize that very early on, and it is truer now than it ever has been. This fight is for other trans youth in my high school. It is for other trans youth in Virginia. It is for all trans youth who are in school or one day will be. It is for the friends and loved ones of these youth, who want these children to be happy and healthy, rather than at risk and in danger as so many trans people are.
I am often asked if I regret my actions, or if I would do anything differently if I had the chance. When people ask that, I immediately think about the hundreds of parents who have reached out to thank me on behalf of their children. I think of the hundreds of young people who have thanked me themselves. I think of the countless #StandWithGavin messages on social media, and the countless hugs and handshakes at school and on the sidewalks of my town. I think of people I’ve gotten to meet and grown to love. I think of how honored I am to carry the voice, in some way, of a community so rich and so colorful and so important. I think of how I’ve grown from that 15-year-old child, sitting in fear as he waits to hear what his future will be, into the young man who stands hand in hand with a huge community as we all prepare to take the next step in this fight. I think of my parents, unwavering and strong as pillars in my success and growth. And I say, “Absolutely not.”
This week, the Supreme Court of the United States announced it will not hear Gavin’s case this term, sending the case back to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in the wake of the Trump Administration’s revocation of school guidance ensuring the protection and dignity of transgender students.
#NotTheEnd
Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to vacate the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on trans high school student Gavin Grimm’s case, and then kick it back for reconsideration at the 4th, actress/trans activist Laverne Cox shared a powerful essay with InStyle about her views on the current state of the rights of transgender folks.
Just a bit from the personal essay:
Over 30 percent of trans people report not eating or drinking so they can avoid going to public bathrooms. Sixty-percent of us have avoided using a public restroom out of fear of being harassed or assaulted. Even when I’m in liberal cities like LA or New York, I would rather not use public bathrooms. But if you leave your house, you have no choice.
But don’t be fooled: These bathroom laws aren’t really about bathrooms. When the current administration rescinded the guidelines for how transgender students should be treated in schools, they made it all about bathrooms. But the Obama-era guidelines also included pronoun and name preferences for these young people as well. These are important components of how trans kids should be treated in school, but all that is lost when we sensationalize this issue. It’s not about bathrooms. It’s about the humanity of trans people, about us having the right to exist in a public space.
There’s more at the link, and I really encourage you to read it.
Today needs to be just a speed bump, not a stop sign.