LGBTQ Breaking News Service

The Biden administration has continued to show strong support for the LGBTQ+ community. The president and his administration continue to use executive orders along with guidance and regulations to show that supporting and protecting the LGBTQ+ community remains a top priority. While the federal government continues this trend since President Biden’s election, some states have taken a different direction. The following is a summary of President Biden’s actions since Jan. 28, 2021 impacting the LGBTQ+ community.

• On Jan. 28, 2021, The Biden-Harris Administration signed an executive order to strengthen Americans’ access to quality, affordable healthcare. One of the actions initiated under this executive order is to protect women’s health at home and abroad. Specifically, the executive order seeks to “protect and expand access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare” for individuals who have historically been denied access to reproductive health, i.e. “women, Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and those with low incomes.”[1]
• On Feb. 4, 2021, President Biden issued a Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Persons Around the World. This memorandum reaffirmed and supplemented the principles established in the initial Dec. 6, 2011 Presidential Memorandum, signed by President Obama, which directed “all agencies engaged abroad to ensure that U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons.”[2] The memorandum directs “agencies engaged abroad to ensure that United States Diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons.” Additionally, it directs agencies to do the following: (i) combat the criminalization of LGBTQI+ status or conduct abroad; (ii) protect vulnerable LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers who are seeking refuge from violence and persecution; (iii) provide funding for foreign assistance programs with the goal to promote respect for the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons and to combat LGBTQI+ discrimination; (iv) provide swift and meaningful response to human rights abuses of LGBTQI+ persons abroad; (v) build coalitions of like-minded nations and engage international organizations in the fight against LGBTQI+ discrimination; and (vi) rescind inconsistent policies and report progress of the LGBTQI+ human right initiatives around the world.[3]
• On March 8, 2021, the Gender Policy Counsel within the Executive Office of the President was established by executive order. The Gender Policy Counsel is noted as “an essential part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s plan to ensure we build a more equal and just society – by aggressively protecting the rights and unique needs of those who experience multiple intersecting forms of discrimination, including individuals who are Black, Latina, Native, Asian American and Pacific Islander, people with disabilities, and LGBTQI+.”[4]
• On March 17, 2021, President Biden “applaud[ed] the House of Representatives for passing the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (“VAWRA”) with bipartisan support …” He recognized that as many as one in every three women are subjected to violence at some point in their lives and that women of color, Native American women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community suffer at even higher rates. He urged the Senate to pass the VAWRA so that he could sign the legislation quickly.[5]
• On March 29, 2021, Kalisha Dessources Figures and Catherine E. Lhamon, published Approaching Policy with Equity in Mind. Figures is Special Assistant to the President for Gender Policy, and Lhamon is Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice and Equity. The publication addresses the Administration’s equity-focused approach to policy, including its consideration of barriers for the safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ students. The article acknowledges that LGBTQ+ students, especially transgender students, are more likely than their “non-LGBTQ+ peers to receive detention, suspensions, and expulsions from school, often as a result of discrimination and harassment.” A key step that the Administration has taken to create a more equitable LGBTQ+ policy was President Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to include sexual orientation and gender identity when implementing any federal laws that prevent discrimination on the basis of sex.[6]
• On March 31, 2021, Transgender Day of Visibility, President Biden released a proclamation “honor[ing] and celebrat[ing] the achievements and resiliency of transgender individuals and communities.” President Biden and Vice President Harris affirmed that “transgender Americans make our Nation more prosperous, vibrant, and strong.” He emphasized the need to pass the Equality Act to provide legal protections for the LGBTQ+ Americans in “housing, education, public services, and lending systems.”[7] Biden is the first sitting president to formally mark International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31.[8]
• On April 20, 2021, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it was “withdrawing a Trump-era policy that would have allowed taxpayer-funded homeless shelters to deny access to transgender people.” HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge stated that “[a]ccess to safe, stable housing – and shelter – is a basic necessity” and emphasized that transgender and gender non-conforming individuals suffer higher rates of homelessness than cisgender individuals.[9]
• On April 20, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a brief in a case against the Georgia Department of Corrections. The underlying case involved a transgender woman who was housed in the men’s facility where prison officials “failed to protect her from repeated sexual assaults . . . and failed to provide her with adequate medical treatment . . .” Although DOJ did not weigh in on the merits of the case, it stated that “the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires prison officials to conduct individualized assessments that lead to reasonably safe conditions of confinement and adequate medical care for all prisoners.”[10]
• As of April 29, 2021, of the approximately 1,500 agency appointees hired by President Biden, so far 14% identify as LGBTQI+.[11]
• On April 29, 2021, President Biden announced the American Families Plan, which seeks to advance equity and racial justice by “investing in teachers and students, empowering workers and their families, and reimagining a tax code that rewards work over wealth.” Relevantly, this plan will “[c]reate a national comprehensive paid family and medical leave program.” The plan provides for an “inclusive definition of family, ensuring workers can care for and be cared by a loved one who is not related by blood, which will greatly impact LGBTQ individuals and people with disabilities.” “The program will provide workers up to $4,000 a month, with a minimum of two-thirds of average weekly wages replaced, rising to 80% for the lowest wage workers” and cost approximately $225 billion over a decade.[12]
• On April 30, 2021, in President Biden’s Proclamation on National Mental Health Awareness Month, 2021, he recognized that “[s]uicide rates are disproportionately high among Black youth, and LGBTQI+ persons . . . .” He emphasized his administration’s commitment to “advancing suicide prevention best practices and improving non-punitive crisis response.”[13]
• On May 10, 2021, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed its stance that federal laws forbid discrimination based on sex and that sex includes members of the LGBTQ+ community.[14] “[I]t is the position of the Department of Health and Human Services that everyone – including LGBTQ people – should be able to access healthcare, free from discrimination or interference, period,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. The announcement of this policy marks the end of the Trump administration’s narrow reading of the definition of “sex.”

While the president and his administration have made many strides to protect the LGBTQ+ community, the same has not been done on the state level. Many state legislatures have either enacted or introduced bills aimed at restricting members of the LGBTQ+ community and, more specifically, at violating the rights of transgender individuals. The bills include legislation in the areas of healthcare coverage, restriction on identification documents, and religious exemption bills, with the bulk of bills targeting middle and high school sports. Some states have gone as far as to include college sports of the institutions that are within the state borders. Of the many laws passed since the beginning of 2021, there are even more in committee or waiting final vote.[15] Below are summaries of various bills that have been recently enacted that violate the rights of transgender individuals:

Insurance

• On April 14, 2021 the Arkansas General Assembly enacted HB1570 entitled the “Arkansas Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act” (“SAFE”) by overriding the Governor’s Executive Veto. [16] SAFE prohibits physicians and other healthcare professionals from (i) providing gender transition procedures to anyone under the age of 18 and (ii) referring any individual under 18 to another healthcare professional for gender transition procedures. (20-9-1502). SAFE further prohibits any public funds from being “directly or indirectly used . . . to any entity, organization, or individual that provides gender transition procedures to an individual under 18 years of age.” Insurance companies are also prohibited from allowing reimbursements for anyone under the age of 18 that has undergone gender transition procedures in the state and gives the insurance company the option not to provide coverage for any gender transition procedure, even if the individual is over the age of 18.[17]

School Sports

• On March 11, 2021 the governor of Mississippi signed into law Senate Bill No. 2536. [18] This bill requires athletic teams in the State of Mississippi to affix the same designations as Arkansas Act 953.[19] Unlike Arkansas Act 953 (discussed below), Mississippi prohibits any “government entity, any licensing or accrediting organization, or any athletic association or organization”[20] from entertaining any complaint or opening investigations against any educational institution, including colleges, for maintaining separate teams or sports for female or male students.”
• On April 29, 2021, the governor of Arkansas signed into law Act 953 entitled the “Gender Integrity Reinforcement Legislation for Sports (GIRLS) Act.”[21] GIRLS defines sex as “a person’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth”.[22] GIRLS places a requirement on all athletic teams to designate the team as either (1) Male, (2) Female, or (3) Coed. [23] Once the team has been designated by one of the approved designations, individuals of the opposite sex of that designation are prohibited from participating on that team. [24]

“You got ’em,” Popovich told Becky Hammon.

Those three words changed everything for Hammon, and also changed nothing at all.

With them, Hammon made history as the first female to serve as an acting head coach in an NBA game.

That did not alter the nature of her job, or her approach to it.

“I try not to look at the huge picture of it, because that can get overwhelming,” Hammon said at the time. “It’s my job to go in there and be focused for those guys and make sure I’m doing all the things that will help us win.”

Hammon has been a history-maker since August of 2014, when Popovich tabbed her as the first full-time female assistant in the NBA.

She has a chance to make more of it. This week, Hammon is set to interview for head coaching vacancies in Portland and Orlando.

It is not the first time the 43-year-old Hammon has been up for a head coaching position.

In 2018, she scored an interview in Milwaukee for a post that eventually went to another former Spurs assistant, Mike Budenholzer.

Where this summer’s coaching carousel finishes remains to be seen. There is no guarantee, for instance, that the 73-year-old Popovich returns to San Antonio.

Still, there is a feeling around the league that Hammon could be closer than ever from taking a pickax to another glass ceiling.

The job in Portland came open earlier this month, as the Trail Blazers opted not to bring back longtime coach Terry Stotts for a 10th season with the club.

The competition for the job will be fierce. Other viable candidates include Los Angeles Clippers assistant Chauncey Billups and former Phoenix, New York and Houston coach Mike D’Antoni.

Hammon is not the only current Spurs employee up for the job, with front-office executive Brent Barry reportedly on the Blazers’ short list as well.

Neither is Hammon the only woman on Portland’s radar. South Carolina women’s coach Dawn Staley — like Hammon a former WNBA All-Star — has also seen her name surface.

The position in Orlando became available with the departure of Steve Clifford after three seasons with the Magic.

Other names that have emerged for the opening in Orlando include former Brooklyn coach Kenny Atkinson, who is now an assistant with the Clippers.

Fellow Clippers assistant Ime Udoka — another expatriate Spurs staffer — and Milwaukee assistant Darvin Ham are also reportedly on Orlando’s radar.

It is no sure thing Hammon gets either job.

Teams hire all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons. There will be scores of deserving candidates who are not awarded a head coaching position this summer.

What is clear: In seven years on the Spurs’ bench, Hammon has forged a reputation league-wide as a coach on the rise.

If some team does name her its head coach, it will be anything but a token hire.

Hammon commands respect in the Spurs’ locker room and huddle, a point that was driven home the night of Dec. 30.

After Popovich was tossed, Hammon took over and nearly guided the Spurs to a comeback victory. They eventually lost to the defending NBA champions 121-107, but kept playing under Hammon’s charge.

“It was just Becky doing Becky,” veteran forward Rudy Gay said after the game. “That’s the best part about her. She’s a coach. We don’t think of gender when we think of Becky.”

Another Spurs veteran concurred.

“Any player who knows the history of women’s basketball knows what she meant to the sport,” DeMar DeRozan said. “You don’t think twice about it. She’s one of us. When she speaks, we’re all ears.”

Whether Hammon’s time with the Spurs might propel her to the next step in her coaching career is a question to be answered in the days and weeks to come.

No matter what happens with the coaching searches in Portland and Orlando and possibly elsewhere, several in San Antonio will be rooting for Hammon to make history — again.

“The future is bright for her,” point guard Dejounte Murray said during the season. “I hope she sticks to it. One day it may happen, or it may not happen. But she is definitely on the right road.”