LGBTQ Breaking News Service

House sends bill to Gov. Brown 10 months after a transgender woman is stabbed to death in Portland.

A suspect could not assert so-called “gay panic” as a legal defense against second-degree murder in Oregon under a bill that is headed to Gov. Kate Brown.

The Oregon House passed Senate Bill 704 without amendment on a 54-0 vote Thursday, May 13.

The bill would bar the discovery of a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity as a reasonable explanation for someone undergoing an extreme emotional disturbance as an affirmative defense to second-degree murder. A person would not be justified in using physical force against another person upon discovery of the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Oregon would join 13 other states, plus Washington, D.C., with similar laws. The Senate passed it, 29-1, on April 14; Republican Dallas Heard of Roseburg was the lone opponent.

Though Senate Bill 704 does not bear anyone’s name unlike bills in other states, its passage comes less than a year after the stabbing death of Aja Raquell Rhone-Stevens, a 32-year-old transgender woman, in July 2020 in Northeast Portland. She was attending a vigil for another homicide victim. No one has been arrested in connection with the case.

She was one of a record 44 deaths tallied in 2020 by the Human Rights Campaign, a national advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) people. Many of the victims are transgender people of color. The organization has tallied 23 deaths so far this year.

“When we finally see justice for Aja’s murder, we can ensure that, when we show up to the courtroom, her memory won’t be insulted by someone trying to use the panic defense to justify her death,” Dana Spears, her sister, said in a statement after the House vote. “I’m thankful to everyone in the community who used their voice for Aja, and saw this bill passed.”

It was one of the priorities of Basic Rights Oregon, the state’s leading LGBTQ advocacy group.

“This legislation states, unequivocally, in Oregon, there is never an excuse for violence against transgender people,” Mikki Gillette said on behalf of the group.

Under current state law, a suspect can assert an affirmative defense to second-degree murder if the extreme emotional disturbance is not the result of the person’s own intentional, knowing, reckless or criminally negligent act and if there is a reasonable explanation for the disturbance.

“These cases often involve incredible and brutal acts of violence,” Rep. Karin Power, D-Milwaukie, the bill’s floor manager, said during House debate. “Defendants use these defenses to avoid full accountability on the grounds that actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity is reasonable in and of itself to be considered adequate provocation.

“Passage of this bill would send a strong and proactive message that the perpetrator of a second-degree murder will not be able to excuse the crime simply based on who the victim is.”

Power, a lesbian, is one of four House chief sponsors of the bill.

So is Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland, who has identified himself as gay for 30 years. He said he considered himself lucky that he was unable to think of a negative long-term consequence to himself or his husband for being gay.

“But I know that is not true for every LGBT person in our state and country,” he said.

Nosse described the 2020 death of Rhone-Stevens.

“When we finally see justice for her murder, we want to ensure that we can show up to the courtroom and her memory is not insulted by someone trying to use the panic defense for her death,” he said.

Also a chief sponsor is Rep. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, who said transgender women of color are more likely to be the targets of violence.

“Many of these attacks are motivated by nothing other than the victim’s gender or orientation,” she said. “I have heard from constituents, friends and family on how important the passage of this bill is to them,” including a nephew who sent her a text message.

“I was proud to say to him that I do know,” she said.

Rep. Anna Williams is a Democrat from Hood River whose district includes Sandy, where a gay pride rally drew a counterprotest barely two months ago.

“A law that excuses criminal behavior against certain groups of people is essentially a law that diminishes the humanity of that group,” Williams said. “The existence of the LGBTQ panic defense means that as a state, we sanction violence against members of this community.”

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The Hanoi LGBTI rights and gender equality activist and director of the Institute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment (iSEE) has nominated himself for the elections to the National Assembly and Hanoi People’s Council on May 23.

“With knowlegde of law and experience in social works, I want to contribute (to the development of the country) and share my opinions as a representative of the people…, the young and the minority,” Huy told VnExpress International.

The 33-year-old, an openly gay man, began LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons) advocacy work in 2008 and was on Forbes Vietnam‘s ‘30 Under 30’ list of the most inspiring young people in 2016.

After getting a master of law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a specialization in law and sexuality, he returned to Vietnam and took over as director of iSEE, which “works for the rights of minority groups in Vietnam to envision a more equal, tolerant and free society in which everyone’s human rights are respected and individuality valued.”

Luong The Huy, director of the Institute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment (iSEE). Photo by VnExpress/Vo Hai.

That an openly gay man is running for National Assembly and People’s Council seats has inspired the LGBTI community, which hopes the public will take a fairer view of it.

“I am thrilled to see an openly gay man run for politics in Vietnam, because people normally think LGBTI are ‘bad guys’ and more people like Huy will make them change their view about us,” Nguyen Hoang, a gay man in Hanoi, said.

An online survey of gay men by iSEE found that only 13.5 percent work in art and entertainment, well behind customer service (18 percent) and only slightly more than in research, science, and technology (11.4 percent).

LGBTI people are also often stereotyped as seeking relationships in unsafe places associated with unwholesome lifestyles such as bars, nightclubs, public parks, and streets, having multiple partners at the same time or constantly changing partners, and committing crimes and antisocial acts.

“In Vietnam, we do not have representatives of LGBTI community in spheres like security, the military and politics,” Khuat Thu Hong, director of the Institute for Social Development Studies, said.

She said a gay man like Huy contesting elections shows the positive evolution of the LGBTI community, society and domestic politics, which are open enough for a gay person to run for the NA.

Saigon-based LGBTI activist Huynh Minh Thao said Huy has brought pride to the LGBTI community and should make all Vietnamese proud that their society has given minority groups the confidence and trust to raise their voices.

“We should be proud because eventually we now have an openly LGBTI person who is qualified and an open society that gives people like Huy the confidence to seek to become leaders.”

Huy himself does not hide his ambitions to represent young people and members of minority and diverse communities.

“Basically, my strength is understanding policies, notably on gender equality,” he said, but hastened to add he also cares about other public problems.

As one of the youngest people to nominate themselves for a seat in the National Assembly, Huy is also a beacon of hope for young people.

After he confirmed he was running for a seat in the national and Hanoi legislatures, a Facebook group called “Hanoi bau Luong The Huy?” (Hanoi votes for Luong The Huy?) was set up and has attracted nearly 1,000 members, mostly youngsters, to discuss Huy’s profile and agenda and the coming elections.

Analysts hailed the fact that more and more young people care about politics and the country is a positive sign.

“Discussions related to Huy helps young people become more open,” Thao said.

Hong was also optimistic, saying politics is not only about running for elections but also about doing business, being creative, protecting the environment, helping the community, etc.

“I see many young faces rising, and we should encourage young people by listening to them and giving them a helping hand.”

Moving forward

But the road to winning the elections will surely not be smooth.

“I do not hate gay people, I just do not feel comfortable with a gay man being in our National Assembly,” one person said on Facebook.

Thao said Huy, as a gay man, has both advantages and disadvantages in the elections.

“He brings diversity to the list of candidates, which will improve the image of Vietnam. But many people do not have a fair view about the LGBTI community, and it can affect the way they vote.”

In Vietnam, which by Asian standards is quite progressive on LGBTI issues, marriage and family laws stop short of recognizing same-sex marriages and attendant rights such as adopting children.

According to the iSEE survey, the media also often tries to find the “causes” of homosexuality, identifying it either as an unfortunate innate biological illness or as a contagious, lifestyle-induced social problem.

“In fact, there is still discrimination and denial targeted at LGBTI people,” Hong said.

Huy’s action should be a motivation for the country to move forward toward equality, she said.

On May 23, voters across the country will choose 500 deputies to the 15th National Assembly from 868 candidates.

Of the candidates, 203 have been nominated by central agencies and 656 by localities. The remaining nine are self-nominated.

“If I am trusted, my choice and duty is to represent the younger generations and focus on their issues,” Huy said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made being LGBT in Pakistan significantly more difficult, in a country where the community already faces numerous challenges including systemic oppression and social stigma, and a legal ban on homosexual acts.

The colonial British government criminalized homosexual activities in India in 1860, establishing it as a crime which can result in life imprisonment or even death by stoning. While these laws are seldom enforced by officials, as gay and queer activities remain largely clandestine, those identifying as LGBT rarely come out to their families.

When family members do come out or are found out to be gay, they face threats of violence and disownment. This is why some LGBT Pakistanis often move out of their family homes to pursue more freedom to explore their identity and sexuality. However, during COVID-19, exploration and independence has become increasingly precarious for some.

Usman, 32, who works for a multinational company in Abbottabad, a city slightly north of the capital Islamabad, told DW that during the pandemic, he has only managed to meet his long-distance boyfriend once every three months.

“My boyfriend is 25 and living with his family in Gujranwala, so he doesn’t have the same freedom to leave his house. With the lockdowns and travel restrictions in place, our meetups have become more difficult,” he said.

Hook-up culture and online apps

While Usman prefers monogamous relationships, he and his partner have an agreement that they are free to explore physical relationships with other men, due to the nature of their long-distance relationship.

Such meetings are largely facilitated by social media, online groups and dating applications. Due to the pandemic, however, Usman said that usage of dating apps and the possibility of actual meetups have been considerably reduced.

“In the beginning of COVID, people were definitely more scared than they are now. I had a few people actually asking me for proof of negative tests on dating apps. I didn’t have one at the time, so I moved on from them,” he said.

During the fasting month of Ramadan, Usman noted that many men were also abstaining from casual sex and hook-ups, as many gay men negatively internalize their sexuality as something shameful or wrong.

“Families don’t even acknowledge or dream that their son could be gay. If you are always with a man, he is just considered a friend,” he said.

While Usman has future plans to forge a life in Europe with his partner, other gay men in Pakistan face more challenges in finding love and feel that they have to settle for casual sex and dating.

Saad, 30, told DW that as a single man, he found meeting like-minded people and partners to be increasingly difficult, especially during the pandemic.

“Many people moved to their hometowns, and there were less meetings because so many locations were closed or heavily policed. So the risk of getting caught is so much greater too,” he said.

Online dating has also suffered a few setbacks, as Prime Minister Imran Khan banned the use of dating apps such as Tinder and Grindr earlier last year in order to curb “un-Islamic behavior.” However, said Saad, there are still lesser known apps and VPNs through which users can still meet each other.

Dating app users have also found ways around the pandemic by offering more transparency about their health. Saad said that some users update their online status to “COVID recovered” or “vaccinated” in order to engage more potential mates in a safe and stress-free way.

“I just got vaccinated, so I too look forward to changing my status now,” said Saad.

Domestic violence on the rise

Activists are concerned that the increased alienation and barriers to meeting new people is negatively affecting mental health in the LGBT community.

Mani, a 36-year-old human rights defender, identifies as a transgender man. His organization called HOPE has carried out several studies on the impact of COVID on his community. He shared that more cases of domestic violence among gay and transgender partners were reported during the lockdowns, as the financial and emotional stress led to more clashes, especially for transgender women.

“Some trans women enjoy having a masculine boyfriend because he can make her feel more feminine and loved, but during COVID, we saw that many women reported more domestic violence,” Mani told DW.

The LGBT community in Pakistan sees some of the highest rates of suicide in the country, as well as reports of self-harm and mental health problems.

Mani added that the community has stigmatized itself in some ways by reinforcing sexual identity as an act of defiance.

“Sex is a natural need, and because our community is so marginalized, we talk about sex more openly among ourselves, which has stereotyped LGBT people as being more sexual,” he said, stressing that this stereotype of being hypersexual can also create barries to finding stable romantic partnerships.

Pakistan has recorded over 873,000 cases and more than 19,000 deaths due to the coronavirus so far. On May 8, the government imposed a 10-day nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the virus ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

A FORMER school chaplain referred by an independent school to the police under the Prevent counter-extremism programme is suing for discrimination, harassment, victimisation, and unfair dismissal.

The Revd Dr Bernard Randall, a former chaplain of Christ’s College, Cambridge, was chaplain at Trent College, Nottingham, a school with an Anglican foundation, from 2015 until last December, when he was made redundant. An account of events provided by Christian Concern, whose Christian Legal Centre is supporting Dr Randall, states that his dismissal followed a sermon in the school’s chapel in which he told pupils: “you do not have to accept the ideas and ideologies of LGBT activists.”

The sermon was delivered in June 2019, after the school began working with the charity Educate and Celebrate, which provides LGBTI+ inclusion training for schools, offering to “embed gender, gender identity and sexual orientation into the fabric of your organisation”. Dr Randall says that he was excluded from discussions about the implementation of the charity’s programme after raising concerns about it.

In his sermon, he told pupils: “Since Trent exists ‘to educate boys and girls according to the Protestant and Evangelical principles of the Church of England’, anyone who tells you that you must accept contrary principles is jeopardising the school’s charitable status, and therefore its very existence.”

It was “perfectly legitimate to think that marriage should only properly be understood as being a lifelong exclusive union of a man and a woman”, he said, and pupils were “entitled to think, if it makes more sense to you, that human beings are indeed male and female, that your sex can’t be changed, that although the two sexes have most things in common, there are some real, biologically based, differences between them overall”.

Christian Concern reports that the next week he was suspended and that the school subsequently reported him to police under the Prevent programme. On Tuesday, Derbyshire Police confirmed that a referral was received from Trent College in July 2019, but that it did not meet the threshold for a Prevent referral and no further action was taken.

In August 2019, Christian Concern reports, Dr Randall was told that the headmaster had concluded that his actions amounted to gross misconduct and that he would be dismissed. This decision was overturned by the school’s governors, but he was given a list of conditions regarding any future sermons, including prior sight by the school’s leadership and the prohibition of broaching “any topic or express[ing] any opinion (in Chapel or more generally around School) that is likely to cause offence or distress to members of the school body”.

The conditions also stated: “You will not publicly express personal beliefs in ways which exploit our pupils’ vulnerability.”

When lockdown was implemented in March last year, Dr Randall was furloughed. He was then told that his full-time hours would be reduced to seven hours per week; at the end of the year, he was made redundant.

A spokeswoman for Trent College said that it would not be appropriate for the school to provide any further comment at this time, in light of ongoing employment tribunal proceedings, scheduled for 14 June.

A FORMER school chaplain referred by an independent school to the police under the Prevent counter-extremism programme is suing for discrimination, harassment, victimisation, and unfair dismissal.

The Revd Dr Bernard Randall, a former chaplain of Christ’s College, Cambridge, was chaplain at Trent College, Nottingham, a school with an Anglican foundation, from 2015 until last December, when he was made redundant. An account of events provided by Christian Concern, whose Christian Legal Centre is supporting Dr Randall, states that his dismissal followed a sermon in the school’s chapel in which he told pupils: “you do not have to accept the ideas and ideologies of LGBT activists.”

The sermon was delivered in June 2019, after the school began working with the charity Educate and Celebrate, which provides LGBTI+ inclusion training for schools, offering to “embed gender, gender identity and sexual orientation into the fabric of your organisation”. Dr Randall says that he was excluded from discussions about the implementation of the charity’s programme after raising concerns about it.

In his sermon, he told pupils: “Since Trent exists ‘to educate boys and girls according to the Protestant and Evangelical principles of the Church of England’, anyone who tells you that you must accept contrary principles is jeopardising the school’s charitable status, and therefore its very existence.”

It was “perfectly legitimate to think that marriage should only properly be understood as being a lifelong exclusive union of a man and a woman”, he said, and pupils were “entitled to think, if it makes more sense to you, that human beings are indeed male and female, that your sex can’t be changed, that although the two sexes have most things in common, there are some real, biologically based, differences between them overall”.

Christian Concern reports that the next week he was suspended and that the school subsequently reported him to police under the Prevent programme. On Tuesday, Derbyshire Police confirmed that a referral was received from Trent College in July 2019, but that it did not meet the threshold for a Prevent referral and no further action was taken.

In August 2019, Christian Concern reports, Dr Randall was told that the headmaster had concluded that his actions amounted to gross misconduct and that he would be dismissed. This decision was overturned by the school’s governors, but he was given a list of conditions regarding any future sermons, including prior sight by the school’s leadership and the prohibition of broaching “any topic or express[ing] any opinion (in Chapel or more generally around School) that is likely to cause offence or distress to members of the school body”.

The conditions also stated: “You will not publicly express personal beliefs in ways which exploit our pupils’ vulnerability.”

When lockdown was implemented in March last year, Dr Randall was furloughed. He was then told that his full-time hours would be reduced to seven hours per week; at the end of the year, he was made redundant.

A spokeswoman for Trent College said that it would not be appropriate for the school to provide any further comment at this time, in light of ongoing employment tribunal proceedings, scheduled for 14 June.

The Oregon House of Representatives on Thursday passed Senate Bill 704, which bans the LGBTQ+ panic defense. The bill now goes to Gov. Kate Brown to sign into law.

The bill states that the “discovery of a victim’s actual or perceived gender, gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation does not constitute reasonable explanation for extreme emotional disturbance for purposes of affirmative defense to murder in the second degree.”

Oregon will be the 14th state to prohibit the “gay panic” defense, which typically argues for diminished capacity because of a defendant’s supposed fear of or disgust over a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

“No one should be able to use a person’s identity to justify or excuse acts of violence against them,” Sen. Kate Lieber, a Democrat from Beaverton, said last month as the legislation was working its way through the legislature. Lieber was one of 10 sponsors of the bill in the House and Senate.

The advocacy group Basic Rights Oregon, which championed the legislation, has stated that the new law “will make it clear in statute — and across Oregon — that violent acts are not justified because of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”

“The importance of this legislation can’t be overstated,” Basic Rights Oregon fundraiser Mikki Gillette said in a statement Thursday from the group.

The American Psychological Association removed “gay panic disorder” from its list of legitimate mental disorders nearly 50 years ago, the American Bar Association pointed out in a 2020 editorial calling for panic-defense bans across the country.

“It is harrowing,” the editorial stated, “that, currently, one’s sexual orientation or gender identity can still provide even an inkling of a legal defense in their murder trial.”

— Douglas Perry

dperry@oregonian.com

@douglasmperry