This report is in two parts:
Part One –Attacking LGBT People
This part is focused on the general anti-gay/lesbian/trans actions and intentions of Trump and Pence. It ends with a section on what you can do to fightback.
Part Two –Timeline of Horribles
This continuously updated Timeline lists specific laws and regulations exposes the Trump administration’s grand plan to destroy civil liberties. These laws also create pain and suffering, and a whole lot of legal suits to counter the laws, which can drain us emotionally and financially.
Latest update to this article: July 14, 2020
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PART ONE – ATTACKING LGBT PEOPLE
The Trump/Pence administration has supplied unwavering support for laws, directives and technical maneuverings that excise, and disenfranchise, gay men, lesbians, trans people, as well a women. These actions are designed especially to prevent LGBT persons from getting and keeping jobs, health care, education, and most importantly, to destroy their access to full civil rights, including legal marriage. For women, their main success has been to prevent women from controlling their own health and reproductive rights.
Of course, the president and his vice aren’t the only malevolent forces, our country has a long history of using legal restrictions to maintain power over minorities, such as various races (black, Asians), religions (Catholic, Jewish, Muslim), and nationalities (Irish, Japanese, Chinese, Arab). It also maintains an ongoing denial of recognition, treaties, compensation for lands stolen from Native Americans.
Full marriage equality, like all the other fairness issues, requires judicial implementation. Because the installation of many right-wing extremist judges, many for life, has already been accomplished – by the president and most of the Republican House and Senate – anti-gay forces are now peppered throughout the courtroom landscape.
Many of these judges will be required to interpret civil rights law, and likely make judgments eviscerating equality for the next four decades.
Nominations Based on Ideology, rather than Experience or Skill
One of the most potent right-wing extremist groups includes the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). This group, founded 24 years ago, falsely claims that “the homosexual agenda threatens religious freedom.”
There’s no such thing as a “homosexual agenda.” There’s only the desire to be treated the same as any other human being.
According to reporter Sarah Posner:
“ADF now rivals some of the nation’s top private law firms in Supreme Court activity. It has trained thousands of lawyers, many of whom have gone on to government service at the federal, state, and local levels. The organization has helped shape ‘religious freedom’ legislation; provides grants to other Christian-right [wing]organizations.”
[See: “The Christian Legal Army Behind Masterpiece Cakeshop:
A special investigation into the rise of Alliance Defending Freedom.”
by Sarah Posner, November 28, 2017
Sarah Posner is a Reporting Fellow with the Investigative Fund, and expert
on the intersection of religion and politics.]
Reporter Posner further states that:
“ADF now exerts far more influence than other legal organizations that litigate religious-freedom cases, such as the American Center for Law and Justice, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and the Liberty Counsel.”
Sarah Posner reports that the Alliance Defending Freedom has ties to the following:
= Noel Francisco, Trump’s solicitor general, is an ADF-allied attorney.
= Attorney General Jeff Sessions consulted with ADF when drafting Department of Justice guidance on religious-freedom issues.
= At least 18 ADF-affiliated lawyers now work in 10 attorneys-general offices.
= Trump has nominated at least six federal judges who have ties to ADF, including:
Amy Coney Barrett, Seventh Circuit
Kyle Duncan, Fifth Circuit
Michael Joseph Juneau
According to Slate reporter Mark Joseph Stern:
In July 2017, Senate Republicans pushed through judicial candidate John K. Bush, an anti-gay blogger and conspiracy theorist, who used the word “faggot” in a speech. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have also approved Damien M. Schiff, a lawyer who declared in 2009 that the real purpose of a California law prohibiting bullying was to teach “that the homosexual lifestyle is a good, and that homosexual families are the moral equivalent of traditional heterosexual families.”
Stern reported that CNN revealed that the Trump district court nominee, Jeff Mateer, called transgender schoolchildren part of “Satan’s plan” and described same-sex marriage as “disgusting” and “debauchery,” comparing it to “people marrying their pets.”He endorses conversion therapy, a discredited practice that attempts to turn gay people straight, often using gruesome psycho-sexual torture.
[See: “Obergefell Is Already Under Attack” by Mark Joseph Stern, September 20, 2017]
In September 2017, Trump also nominated Matthew J. Kacsmaryk to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. His vision of the law appears to be based on false premises, clearly based upon animus. In his 2015 article “The Inequality Act: Weaponizing Same-Sex Marriage,” Kacsmaryk gives a bitter and distorted view of the decades-long movement to end legal restrictions on divorce, abortion rights, and LGBT equality.
Mateer and Kacsmaryk are colleagues at First Liberty Institute, a conservative legal advocacy group that opposes LGBT equality.
Another nominee, Stephen S. Schwartz, has devoted much of his career to defending anti-trans measures in court. Trump wants to place him on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Trump consults with the Federalist Society, and the Heritage Foundation, conservative, anti-LGBT Washington think tanks, for judicial selections. Virtually all of Trump’s judicial nominees subscribe to an ideology hostile to LGBT rights. His candidate for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch ruled against gay parents’ rights within his first months on the bench.
One ADF donor is the family of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s secretary of education. The Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, which lists DeVos as vice president, has donated more than $1 million to ADF since 2002.
Another ADF donor is Representative Greg Gianforte’s family granting foundation. This Montana Republican was elected despite having assaulted a reporter on the eve of the vote.
These days, the court argument most often used is that equal treatment for gay men and lesbians, same-sex couples, and transgender people is a direct curtailment of “religious freedom.” This isn’t a valid legal argument, but rather one of emotional import.
In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the Alliance Defending Freedom an “Anti-LGBT Hate Group.”
[See: “Alliance Defending Freedom” by the Southern Poverty Law Center]
Marriage for Same-sex Couples Finally Legalized
On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court declared – in Obergefell v. Hodges –that denying same-sex couples the freedom to marry violated the U.S. Constitution. The finding stated that same-sex couples deserved the right to marry due to both the “Due Process Clause” and the “Equal Protection Clause” of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
This ruling meant that, not just some of the states would offer legal marriages for same-sex couples, but all 50 states must lawfully perform, as well as recognize same-sex marriages from other states, on the same terms and conditions, as the marriages of opposite-sex couples, with all the accompanying rights and responsibilities.
This decision ended a 47-year battle – begun by individual same-sex, life partners – to extend the freedom to marry to same-sex couples nationwide.
[See: “Rulings Leading to Supreme Court Finding for Legal Marriage Equality”
by Demian, Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples]
This ruling was followed by several states breaking the law, continuing to deny legal marriage for same-sex couples, as well as numerous legislative attempts that were designed to damage the lives of LGBT same-sex couples.
Since 2013 — two years before the right to marry was obtained — knowing that denying legal marriage was unconstitutional, and that there could be a ruling in favor of legal marriage, there was a record-breaking introduction of 254 anti-gay bills in many U.S. states. Of those bills, 20 were signed into law.
Since June 2015, 69 bills have been introduced that target transgender civil rights; most of which involve restricting bathroom usage to gender assigned at birth. As of July 1, 2016, there were still 48 active bills.
At this point, the leaders in our country, who are required to up hold the constitution, have set in motion the foundation for destroying marriage rights, and indeed, all aspects of civil rights for gay men, lesbians, and transsexuals.
Marriage is Good
It’s this simple.
Marriage equality is about love. Choice of a life-partner is a fundamental right, and marriage must continue to be available to all adults.
Several surveys have shown that 60 percent of American gay men and lesbians are in a relationship. The majority of our community consider themselves to be partnered.
For our community to not only survive, we also need to thrive with the legal support that is given as a right to all non-sames-sex couples.
Legally supported couples are better able to provide care for each other, and their children. Supported couples are better able to contribute to the community.
[See: “Legal Marriage Primer —
Read This If You Don’t Read Another Thing About Legal Marriage”
by Demian, Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples, May 21, 2009]
No Way to Determine Male or Female
Anti-gay discrimination is usually based on appearances, not on actually being being male, female, or on sexual affection, orientation or identity.
This is because, in part, there’s no truly accurate way to determine a person’s biological sex; even using chromosome assessment, or body inspection. No one has ever been able to make a clear cut, repeatable test to determine gender.
Not even the International Olympic Committee has a definitive way to determine a person’s sex, based on anatomy, reproductive system, secondary sex characteristics, or genetics.
[See: “Olympic Games and the tricky science of telling men from women”
by Jon Bardin, Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2012]
Before the Supreme Court Obergefellv. Hodges Ruling
There is a long, horrid culture of civil rights denials in America’s history. Blacks, Asians, and Native Americans were denied legal marriage during America’s early years.
Married women were not allowed to make legal contracts in 12 American states until 1940.
By 1958, 24 states still prohibited interracial marriage. Twelve states prohibited them until 1967, when it was finally ruled unconstitutional (Loving v. Virginia).
Same-sex marriage had always been banned in the U.S., until Massachusetts became the first state to offer legal marriage equality in 2004.
By 2015, 37 American states had legalized marriage equality for same-sex couples.
Other countries offering legal marriage by 2017:
Netherlands (2001), Belgium (2003), Canada (2005), Spain (2005), South Africa (2005),
Norway (2009), Sweden (2009), Iceland (2010), Argentina (2010), Portugal (2010),
Denmark (2012), France (2013), New Zealand (2013), Brazil (2013), Uruguay (2013),
New Zealand (2013), United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland) (2013),
Luxembourg (2014), Finland (2014), Ireland (2015), United States (2015),
Colombia (2016), Germany (2017), Malta (2017), Australia (2017), Taiwan (2019).
[Global Historical Information: “Marriage Traditions in Various Times and Cultures”
by Demian, from Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples, 2011]
“DOMA” Never Defended Anything
The first U.S. Federal anti-marriage law ever made was erroneously called the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA). Enacted in 1996, it extended federal power to define legal marriage, a power it never had before. Previously, the federal system only made laws that were triggered by legal marriage.
The legal requirements to be married were always determined by individual states, the same way that states regulate age of consent, closeness of kin, driver licenses, and so on.
“DOMA” prevented the federal system from recognizing any status “between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage.” This includes any domestic partnership, co-membership, or contracts that offer marriage-like recognition.
Second, it defined the words “marriage” as “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” The word “spouse” was defined as “a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”
This law allowed states to refuse recognition of legal same-sex marriages from other states or nations.
Not only did DOMA attempt to surgically remove same-sex couples from being recognized by Federal law, it created and codified a second class status.
Denying recognition of legal marriages between same-sex partners trashed the Constitution’s “Full Faith and Credit” guarantee.
Most scholars agreed that DOMA is not constitutional because it violates the state’s right to define legal marriage.
One part of the “Defense of Marriage Act” was ruled unconstitutional on June 26, 2013. However, the federal anti-gay law continued to be used as a state legislative model to restrict legal marriage in more than 40 states.
[See: “Defense of Marriage Act - The Destruction of Certain Families Act”
by Demian, Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples, May 28, 2015]
After Obergefell v. Hodges– or – Revenge of the Extremists
Immediately following the Supreme Court ruling, counties in three states broke the law, denying legal marriage for same-sex couples.
On June 26, 2017, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its 2015 decision and ruled, in Pavanv. Smith, that states may not treat married same-sex couples differently from others in issuing birth certificates.
Since 2013 — two years before the right to marry was obtained — there has been a record-breaking introduction of at least 348 anti-gay bills in many U.S. states. These include:
134 based on “religious” exemptions,
70 in order to segregate transgender peoples,
81 in order to refuse marriage to same-sex couples, and
63 miscellaneous anti-gay laws.
Of those bills, 23 were signed into law. As of June 29, 2017, there were still 48 active bills.
[See: “The Dramatic Rise in State Efforts to Limit LGBT Rights”
by Everdeen Mason, Aaron Williams, Kennedy Elliott, Washington Post, July 1, 2016]
What State Anti-Marriage Laws Really Accomplish
They don’t protect even one marriage, or family.
They divide people.
They are used as legal rationale to deny other benefits, such as health insurance and custody.
Couples married in one state, or country, become legal strangers in others, creating a legal chaos.
They consolidates power by right-wing extremists.
Anti-gay crusades are a prime money maker for those who don’t follow Jesus’ injunction to “Love thy neighbor, as thy self.”
Presidential Animus
U.S. president Donald Trump has taken many hateful actions against LGBT people: He nominated Federal judges who lack qualifications, and the temperament, to serve fairly and without bias.
He appoints judges who are hand-picked by the ultra-conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, Heritage Foundation, and Federalist Society; many of candidates want to halt same-sex marriage. Republicans approve these retrograde, ideological candidates.
He has denied immigration to legally married partners in bi-national same-sex marriages.
He has attempted to remove gay men and lesbians from the National Census, which affects funding and laws.
The Trump administration attempted to ban Transgender personnel from military service.
He had HUD remove Anti-Discrimination Language from its Mission Statement.
He instigated creation of the “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” within the Health and Human Service’s Office of Civil Rights, which allows refusal of medically necessary health care in the name of religion. Consequences range from life endangerment, to harassment, and also potential damage to public health.
His Department of Education no longer investigates civil rights complaints from transgender students, often about access to bathroom facilities.
In February 2018, president Trump and the federal Departments of Education and Justice rescinded guidance that clarified federal legal protections for transgender students.
In June 2018, the Trump Administration withdrew the United States from the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. This meant a retreat from the commitment to human rights, multilateralism, and a rules-based international order.
Vice-Presidential Animus
As a representative, the now vice president Mike Pence gave a speech on the House floor in 2006, in which he urged support for the anti-gay “Marriage Protection Act,” warning that same-sex marriage would lead to the “deterioration of the family” and, ultimately, complete and utter “societal collapse.”
According to an article in the Rolling Stone, Pence had “dragged his feet during an HIV epidemic and … signed an anti-gay-rights bill that nearly cost Indiana millions of dollars.” “He became a board member of the Indiana Family Institute, an anti-abortion, anti-gay organization that pronounced the protest movement that formed after the brutal 1998 murder of gay teen Matthew Shepard to be homosexual-activist ‘propaganda.’ ”
Rolling Stone also reported that, in 2000, Pence stated, “Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexuals as a ‘discreet and insular minority’ entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws.”
Further, while Indiana’s governor, in 2013, Pence announced his support for the anti-same-sex marriage amendment.
[See: “The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence”
by Stephen Rodrick, The Rolling Stone, January 17, 2017]
Pence has spoken out against giving LGBT people federal protections in hate crimes legislation, and literally called enhanced penalties for, and increased investigations of, hate-based crimes against gay men and lesbians “a radical social agenda.”
Pence stated on his 2000 campaign Web site that Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexuals as a “discreet and insular minority” entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities.
In 2016, as Indiana governor, Pence signed a “religious liberty” bill into law that created exemptions for hiring, or serving, LGBT people in businesses, based on the employers’ or business owners’ religious beliefs.
[See: “Mike Pence’s Beliefs Are Clear: Same-Sex Marriage Leads To ‘Societal Collapse’ ”
by Michelangelo Signorile, Huffington Post, February 16, 2018]
What You Can Do to Help
The struggle to maintain legal marriage for same-sex couples is not over.
Talk about these issues with friends, relatives, and co-workers; tell them how important legal marriage is to you and the health of the nation.
Write about these issues to your elected representatives, other leaders, and the media; especially whenever your legislature mounts a bill to curtail the right to marry.
Narrate, in person, this document to your school, social, and spiritual groups.
Celebrate your family anniversaries publicly.
Celebrate Your Family
Send notices to your local paper or blog when you marry, have an anniversary, or a child.
The word “Family” means two or more people who share their lives, bound together by love.
“Family” is shaped by how we treat each other.
Same-sex couples are already families. A legal marriage brings legal support.
Family Values
Same-sex marriage demonstrates and fulfills all the ideals of conservative family values: long-term social stability, loving families, protecting children, legal status for children, economic growth through establishing a home, as well as expanding the sanctity, and wholesomeness of the institution of marriage.
When loving same-sex families are protected by marriage law, during times of crisis, they, and our communities, are stabilized.
“Family Values” means “All Families Have Value.”
============= Resources =============
American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU)
212-549-2500 — LGBT Relationships: aclu.org/lgbt-rights
Fights for privacy, legal same-sex marriage, and against rights violations.
Immigration Equality
212-714-2904 x 25 — legal@immigrationequality.org — immigrationequality.org
Fights for equal immigration rights, as well as assisting LGBT and HIV+refugees.
Lambda Legal
212-809-8585 — Help Desk: lambdalegal.org/help/form — lambdalegal.org
Assistance with legal matters of sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV.
National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR)
415-392-6257 — info@nclrights.org — nclrights.org
Committed to advancing civil and human rights for lesbian, gay, bi, transpeople
and their families via litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education.
National LGBT Task Force
202-393-5177; TTY 202-393-2284
thetaskforce@thetaskforce.org — thetaskforce.org
Educates, advocates and organizes for full societal recognition of lesbian and gay
relationships, and for the protection of lesbian and gay families.
Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples
206-935-1206 — demian@buddybuddy.com — buddybuddy.com
Partners is an international resource for same-sex couples, supporting the
diverse community of committed gay and lesbian partners
through a variety of media since 1986.
The constantly updated Web site contains more than 450 essays, surveys,
legal articles and resources on legal marriage, ceremonies, domestic
partner benefits, relationship tips, parenting, and immigration.
The Web site is frequently accessed by couples, counselors, clergy, personnel staff,
reporters, researchers, students and government officials.
Demian, Ed.D., director
______________________________________________________________________________
PART TWO – TIMELINE OF HORRIBLES
Corrosive, dangerous and potentially lethal actions perpetrated by D. Trump, the president, which directly attack the civil rights and legal protections of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.
============= 2017 =============
2017-01-20
Minutes after Donald Trump was sworn into office, all references to the LGBT community was deleted from White House, Department of State, and Department of Labor websites.
2017-01-27
President Donald Trump issued an executive order to indefinitely ban Syrian refugees from entering the United States. This ban includes LGBT refugees fleeing that nation’s discrimination.
2017-02-02
ABC News reports that after previously committing to protecting LGBT Americans from discrimination, President Trump and his administration drafted a “License to Discriminate” executive order which ushers in broad discrimination against the LGBT community.
2017-02-22
With help of Attorney General Sessions, President Trump rescinded Title IX protections for transgender students in our nation’s schools.
2017-03-02
The State Department refused to acknowledge the citizenship of children whose parents are same-sex married couples. This policy is illegal, as well as unconstitutional.
[See: Fight for Families!- from Immigration Equality, updated February 22, 2019]
2017-03-20
Trump Administration erases the LGBT community from The National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants and the Annual Program Performance Report for Centers for Independent Living, key surveys that are used to help provide care to American seniors – including disability, transportation, and caregiver support needs.
2017-03-24
President Trump appointed anti-LGBT activist and former Heritage Foundation employee, Roger Severino, to lead the Health and Human Services Civil Rights Office, putting the LGBT community at risk of losing access to critical and affordable health care.
2017-03-28
The Trump Administration cancels plans to add the LGBT community to its upcoming 2020 U.S. Census, a survey conducted every decade by the federal government to help collect data about all living Americans.
2017-03-28
Under his proposed budget for the U.S. Congress, The Trump Administration made cuts to HIV and AIDS research funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
2017-04-10
A Pro Publica investigation revealed the Trump Administration appointed James Renne to a senior role at the Department of Agriculture. Renne was a key staffer involved in the Bush-era anti-LGBT purge of gay government employees.
2017-04-14
The Trump Administration files to dismiss a lawsuit accusing North Carolina of discriminating against the LGBT community.
2017-05-04
President Trump signs a “religious liberty” executive order. Although this executive order does not specify LGBT Americans, it’s the first step in a broader permission to discriminate against the LGBT community.
2017-05-08
Department of Agriculture issues new so-called “religious freedom” policy statement, a move praised by the anti-LGBT Family Research Council.
2017-05-22
The Trump Administration grants White House press credentials to a “reporter” from Info wars, a conspiracy-based propaganda and Website that regularly publishes dangerous, offensive, anti-LGBT content.
2017-05-23
The Trump Administration reveals their budget which includes proposed slashes to programs and departments critical to the LGBT community, including Medicaid, Planned Parenthood, and the Center for Disease Control’s HIV and AIDS programs. Actually critical to everyone.
2017-06-01
President Trump declines to issue a presidential proclamation designating June as LGBT Pride Month, breaking with an eight-year precedent set by President Barack Obama to honor and support LGBT Americans during Pride Month.
2017-06-07
President Trump nominates Stephen S. Schwartz, who worked with North Carolina legislators in support of the anti-trans legislation HB2, to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
2017-06-15
The Department of Commerce removes sexual orientation, and gender identity, from the agency’s Equal Employment Policy, LGBT protections had been included since 2010. Only after fierce opposition did Department of Commerce Secretary Ross change it back.
2017-06-15
The Department of Education invites Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, two anti-LGBT organizations, to be speakers for a day-long conference on engaging fathers in their children’s education and welfare.
2017-06-15
The Department of Education diminishes the Office for Civil Rights’ expansive approach to investigating civil rights complaints that protect LGBT students, and other marginalized communities, from discrimination at school.
2017-06-16
An obtained internal memo from the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights revealed guidelines to dismiss complaints about bathroom access filed by transgender students.
2017-06-17
Six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS resigned saying that President Trump “simply does not care” about combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
2017-06-21
Reports revealed that President Trump hired a lawyer who openly supported Russian President Vladimir Putin’s anti-LGBT law banning so-called “gay propaganda” from Russia; a law that Europe’s top human rights court found to be illegal. And that most ethical people consider to be inhumane.
2017-06-27
The Trump Administration failed to mention the LGBT community in their National HIV Testing Day statement.
2017-06-28
The Department of Justice removed reporters covering a DOJ Pride event hosted by LGBT affinity groups for federal workers.
2017-06-29
Reporters revealed President Trump hired anti-transgender activist, Bethany Kozma, to the Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Rights at the US Agency for International Development.
2017-07-10
In a closed-door and unannounced opportunity, President Trump poses for a photograph with notorious anti-LGBT activists who wish to promote so-called “religious” exemptions that would harm all LGBT Americans.
2017-07-12
President Trump grants a one-on-one interview with Pat Robertson, a longtime anti-LGBT activist and Televangelist.
2017-07-13
President Trump nominated Mark Norris, who supported legislation that allowed mental health counselors to discriminate against LGBT clients, when he was a Tennessee State senator, to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.
2017-07-25
Reporting reveals Vice President Mike Pence secretly advocated for removal of healthcare benefits for transgender service members with in the U.S. military.
2017-07-26
An official White House Web site directed readers to an article published by the anti-LGBT Heritage Foundation that incorrectly calls being transgender a “psychological disorder.”
2017-07-26
President Trump bans transgender service members from serving in any capacity in the U.S. military, and threatened to fire 15,000 currently serving troops over Twitter.
2017-07-26
The Justice Department files a brief opposing workplace nondiscrimination protections for the LGBT community, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in Zardav. Altitude Express.
2017-08-03
President Trump nominates L. Steven Grasz to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Grasz has close ties to the anti-LGBT group Focus on the Family.
2017-08-12
President Trump refused to condemn white supremacists who chanted violently racist and anti-LGBT slogans during a rally in Charlottesville, VA.
2017-08-25
President Trump pardons former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a criminal known for terrorizing the Latinx community using inmate abuses, unjustified arrests, and racial profiling.
2017-08-27
Reporters reveal the CIA consulted with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBT hate group.
2017-09-05
President Trump ends the DACA program, which protected an estimated 800,000 young undocumented immigrants, including 36,000 LGBT DREAMers, from detention and deportation.
2017-09-07
President Trump nominates Gregory Katsas to the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the Circuit of D.C. Katsas worked to promote the implementation of the trans military ban, and revoke federal guidelines that protect transgender students from discrimination.
2017-09-07
President Trump nominates Jeff Mateer to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Mateer has an extensive anti-LGBT record, including calling trans children part of “Satan’s plan.”
2017-09-07
The Education Department announces they will roll back Obama Administration-era Title IX guidelines, which protected sexual assault survivors on college and university campuses.
2017-09-07
The Justice Department files an amicus brief in support files an amicus brief in support of so-called “religious” exemptions to discriminate against LGBT Americans.
2017-09-08
Reports reveal the CIA canceled a planned speech about diversity and LGBT rights set to be given by Judy and Dennis Shepard, founders of the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
2017-09-22
The Education Department rescinds the Obama Administration-era Title IX guidance on investigating campus sexual harassment and assault which LGBT students experience at disproportionately high rates.
2017-10-03
The Department of Health and Human Services deletes all mention of the LGBT community, and their health needs, in its strategic plan for the fiscal year 2018-2022.
2017-10-05
In a Department of Justice memo, the Trump Administration reverses a policy that provided non-discrimination protections for transgender people in the workplace under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
2017-10-06
The Department of Health and Human Services rolls back the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit, allowing the use of “religious” exemptions to deny health care to women, trans men, and gender non-conforming people, who rely on the no-copay contraception benefit.
2017-10-11
The Trump Administration’s National Park Services withdrew its sponsorship of New York City’s first permanent Pride Flag, located outside of the historic Stonewall Inn, and dropped out of its pre-scheduled participation in the flag dedication ceremony.
2017-10-13
President Trump becomes the first sitting president to speak at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit, a meeting of fringe, hate groups united around discrimination against LGBT people.
2017-10-16
In a profile on Vice President Mike Pence that ran in the “New Yorker,” President Trump reportedly joked of Pence when asked about LGBT rights: “Don’t ask that guy — he wants to hang them all!”
2017-10-17
President Trump delivers the keynote address at the anti-LGBT Heritage Foundation President’s Club annual meeting.
2017-10–06
The Department of Justice issues a sweeping “religious” exemptions guidance which invites taxpayer-funded federal agencies, government employees, and government contractors to legally discriminate against LGBT employees as long as they cite a “religious” belief as the reason for doing it.
2017-12-01
President Trump doesn’t mention the LGBT community, and people of color, out of his World AIDS Day Proclamation.
2017-12-04
President Trump endorses Roy Moore in the Alabama special Senate Election. Moore has a violently anti-LGBT record, with multiple, well-documented accusations of sexual assault, abuse, and assessment.
2017-12-05
The Department of Justice argues in support of baker who denied service to a gay couple during the Supreme Court oral arguments for the case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
2017-12-05
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tells reporters that President Trump backs the position that businesses owners should be able to put up signs saying they won’t serve gays.
2017-12-15
Staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at were instructed not to use the “transgender,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,”and “science-based” in official budget documents.
2017-12-22
President Trump signs the GOP tax bill, which punishes low-income and LGBT communities.
2017-12-29
President Trump fires the entire White House Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
============= 2018 =============
Primary source for 2018: Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
2018-01-16
President Trump promotes anti-LGBT “religious” exemptions in his Religious Freedom Day proclamation.
2018-01-18
The Department of Health and Human Services created a new department that shields healthcare workers who refuse to treat LGBT patients, or those living with HIV, by claiming moral or religious objections.
2018-01-19
Reporting reveals that Trump administration appointee Carl Higbiehad made extreme racist, sexist, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT comments on the radio. Higbie was removed from his White House position, and then hired by “America First Policies,” a nonprofit created by six of Trump’s top campaign aides to back the White House agenda.
2018-02-12
The Department of Education officially confirms they will not investigate, or take action on, any complaints filed by transgender students who are banned from restrooms that match their gender identity.
2018-02-22
It was reported, on February 22, 2018, that the State Department had secretly vacated the position of U.S. Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons. This job was made to fight anti-LGBT legislation around the world. The position had been created by President Obama.
2018-02-28
Trump praised the work of Franklin Graham who has used the legacy of his father, Billy, to advance extreme anti-LGBT messaging, including attacking LGBT families, and insanely claiming that Satan is behind LGBT advocacy.
2018-03-05
The Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary moved to change its official mission statement by removing promises of inclusive and discrimination-free communities.
2018-03-08
President Trump hosts Brent Bozell at a White House round table. Bozellis the anti-LGBT founder of the fringe, right-wing group Media Resource Center,
2018-03-13
President Trump fires Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and announces plans to nominate anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim politician Mike Pompeo as his replacement.
2018-03-20
The Department of Education again states that it is the Trump Administration’s position to refuse to protect transgender students denied access to bathrooms and lockers, based on their gender identity, even when faced with court rulings reaffirming that transgender students are protected under Title IX.
2018-03-20
The Department of Housing and Urban Development defends the Trump Administration’s decision to remove guidelines from its Website, intended to prevent anti-LGBT discrimination in homeless shelters, by arguing that transgender women accessing shelters make people “not comfortable.”
2018-03-23
President Trump announces a reworked attempt to ban all transgender people from serving in the military, in response to the implementation of his original policy being frozen by four different federal courts, which declared it likely to be unconstitutional.
2018-03-23
Slate reporter reveal that the Trump Administration worked closely with Tony Perkins, head of the anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council, to draft their latest policy implementing Trump’s transgender soldiers ban.
2018-04-10
Reporters reveal that the White House is seeking to roll back vital data collection on LGBT youth by raising the minimum age that LGBT people can be asked questions about their sexual orientation and gender identity, in the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey.
2018-04-18
Reporters reveal that President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, on Sept.18, 2017, gave a sizable grant to the anti-LGBT group Focus on the Family Africa.
2018-05-03
President Trump signs an executive order to create a new “White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative that will be tasked with working on so-called “religious liberty” issues across federal agencies.
2018-05-11
The Trump Administration rolls back protections for incarcerated transgender people that were intended to mitigate their exposure to sexual assault and abuse. It allowed the Bureau of Prisons to “use biological sex as the initial determination for designation” when placing trans people for housing, screening, and programs and services.
2018-07-09
President Trump nominates Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court seat made vacant by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh has an extremely conservative record, and is supported by the anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council.
2018-07-30
President Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces his new “Religious Liberty” Task Force at the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Summit. As stated by Sessions, the group’s purpose is to ensure that the Justice Department upholds the administration’s guidance for “religious” exemptions, which he released in October.
2018-10-01
The Trump Administration’s State Department announces a new policy that the same-sex, unmarried partners of United Nations employees will not be granted visas to stay in the U.S., effective immediately. In doing so, diplomats in same-sex partnerships who come from countries where same-sex marriage is illegal will either be forced to marry in the U.S. and risk repercussions, including threats, harassment, and even incarceration back home, quit their jobs, or separate for the sake of one partner’s career.
2018-10-21
The Department of Health and Human Services proposes in a new memo to change the legal definition of sex under Title IX, requiring individuals to identify according to their gender assigned at birth. This change in legal definition would remove nondiscrimination protections for transgender, non-binary, and intersex individuals.
2018-10-24
The Department of Justice writes in a brief to the Supreme Court that it is legal to discriminate against transgender employees based on their gender identity, saying that banning sex discrimination under Title VII in the workplace does not extend to transgender workers.
2018-10-25
In an ongoing effort on the part of the Trump Administration to replace “gender” with a strictly biological definition of “sex,” U.S. officials at the United Nations are seeking to replace mentions of “gender,” e.g. “gender-based violence,” with alternative terminology, like “violence against women,” erasing all references to gender identity and the issues relating to trans and gender non-conforming people.
2018-11-23
The Trump Administration asks the United States Supreme Court to circumvent federal appeals courts, and issue a ruling on transgender Americans’ right to serve in the military.
2018-11-30
The Trump Administration signs a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that makes it clear the United States doesn’t have to proactively combat anti-LGBT discrimination in order to adhere to the agreement.
2018-12-09
The Trump Administration secretly shuts down an HIV research facility in Montana, after the administration objected to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its scientists using fetal tissue, as a part of its research to find a cure for HIV and AIDS.
2018-12-19
The Trump Administration discharges two service members in the Air Force after disclosing their HIV-positive status to the Department of Defense.
2018-12-20
The Trump Administration tightens its regulations on access to food stamps, affecting about the 1-in-4 LGBT adults who apply for the SNAP program.
2018-12-21
The Department of Justice issued a “Statement of Interest” on a pending case involving the University of Iowa and an anti-LGBT student organization. The DOJ sided with the student group that indirectly bars an LGBT person from joining their organization. This indirect discrimination is known as a “disparate impact” form of discrimination.
============= 2019 =============
2019-01-01
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine invites Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, to visit the United States. Rogozin, is vehemently anti-LGBT, comparing the gay community to ISIS.
2019-01-03
In a leaked Justice Department memo, the Trump Administration was considering dissolving the “disparate impact” regulation, which grants marginalized communities (including LGBT Americans) legal protections from unintended discrimination in housing, education, and other ways of life.
2019-01-18
The Department of Health and Human Services,Office for Civil Rights (OCR), announced the creation of the “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division.” This demonstrated the administration’s commitment to laws that license discrimination against women, LGBT people, and others.
The following is from the OCR press release:
OCR director Severino said, “Laws protecting religious freedom and conscience rights are just empty words on paper if they aren’t enforced. No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one’s deepest moral or religious convictions, and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice. For too long, governments big and small have treated conscience claims with hostility instead of protection, but change is coming and it begins here and now.”
The Washington Post, in their article “HHS is targeting health workers’ religious objections,” had this:
Some critics also fear that the language used on the office’s website could be interpreted broadly to include services more than abortions or sterilizations. The Secular Coalition for America denounced the decision, saying in a statement that the new office threatens to undermine trust between doctors and patients.
“This move by the Trump administration does not protect conscience but instead weaponizes it, turning religious belief into yet another barrier between vulnerable patients and the health care they need,” said Larry T. Decker, executive director of the Secular Coalition. “The right to conscience does not include the right to impose your conscience on others.”
2019-01-23
The Trump Administration approved a waiver request by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, which could give faith-based adoption agencies the ability to deny LGBT couples adoption rights, based on so-called “religious” exemptions; using government tax dollars.
2019-01-28
President Trump meets with Ginni Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and anti-LGBT group Groundswell at the White House. According to news reports, Ms. Thomas led a meeting with President Trump at the White House where participants denounced transgender Americans, and claimed the historic, nationwide marriage equality ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court was “harming the fabric of the United States.”
2019-02-07
At the annual National Prayer Breakfast, President Trump praised Second Lady Karen Pence for teaching at an anti-LGBT school, and defended a Michigan adoption agency for refusing to serve an LGBT family, based on “religious” exemptions.
2019-02-08
One day after defending a Michigan adoption agency during the National Prayer Breakfast, the Trump Administration confirms they intended to grant faith-based adoption agencies federal funds in its upcoming 2020 White House Budget. These faith-based adoption agencies actively use “religious” exemptions as an excuse to deny LGBT families the ability to adopt a child.
2019-02-27
During a House Armed Services Subcommittee hearing on the administration’s ban on transgender services members from serving openly in the armed forces, Trump Administration officials used derogatory phrases such as “a transgender.” They also called gender-confirmation surgery a “disqualifying surgery,”comparing it to cancer, heart, or diabetes operations.
2019-03-11
In its Fiscal Year Budget for 2020, the Trump Administration announced new plans to cut $250 million from the Global Fund, slash$1.5 billion from PEPFAR, and “limit future spending” on Medicaid; three components in the ongoing fight against HIV and AIDS.
2019-03-12
In a late night decision, the Trump Administration announces plans to implement its ban on transgender service members from openly serving in the country’s armed forces according to their gender identity, impacting more than 13,000 service members currently who are enlisted.
2019-03-12
The Trump administration twisted another longstanding citizenship policy, at least since February of 2019, to have the State Department claim that, when parents legally adopt a child, born through surrogacy, in a foreign country, they’re not legally married, that the child is “born out of wedlock,” (even if their parents are legally married.) and therefore cannot automatically become a U.S. citizen.
Married in 2013, Roee and Adiel Kiviti are both US citizens, as is their nearly three-year-old son Lev. However, their six-month-old daughter Kessem was not granted birthright citizenship, even though both men are genetically the fathers. This policy appears to only target same-sex couples. The couple sued in September 2019.
According to Immigration Equality, there are four more similar suits filed against the State Department. A federal judge ruled, in February, in favor of another same-sex couple who faced a similar State Department’s surrogacy policy hurdle. The judge remarked that the State Department statute does not contain language “requiring a ‘blood relationship between the person and the father’ in order for citizenship to be acquired at birth.” The State Department appealed that ruling.
[“Same-sex couple sues State Department over denial of daughter's citizenship”
by Jennifer Hansler, CNN, September 12, 2019]
[“Kids Aren’t Citizens: Children of U.S. citizens are falling victim to a policy that
de-recognizes their parents’ marriage, and strips them of their birthright
citizenship.” by Scott Bixby, National Reporter, Daily Beast, May 17, 2019]
[“Same-Sex Maryland Couple Sues U.S. State Department for Treating Their
Six-Month-Old Daughter as Born out of Wedlock” - from Lambda Legal]
[ Also see 2019-04-01 notes below.]
2019-03-25
Trump Administration officials within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) were accused of performing abuse, including harassment, and denying health care services, to more than 12 immigrants who identify as LGBT.
2019-03-27
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos refused to say on the record whether or not she opposed discrimination against LGBT people at schools, during a House subcommittee hearing on education appropriations.
2019-04-01
Derek Mize and Jonathan Gregg met in 2014, and were married in May 2015. Their daughter, Simone, was born via surrogacy, in England, in July of 2018. In April 2019, the U.S. State Department illegally refused to recognize Simone’s citizenship. He was born to an American mother and British father in the U.K. The U.S. government refuses to recognize Derek and Jonathan as a married couple, and treats their daughter as if she was “born out of wedlock.” The law clearly states that because Derek and Jonathan are married U.S. citizens, their daughter has been a U.S. citizen since birth. However, the State Department’s cruel and unconstitutional policy treats Jonathan as if he were a single parent.
The government now requires the men to demonstrate a biological relationship to their child, and to have resided in the U.S. for five years prior to the birth of their child. Jonathan does not meet the five-year residency, however, as a married U.S. citizen, he’s not subject to that requirement. In July of 2019, Immigration Equality and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department on behalf of the family.
[“Meet the Mize-Gregg Family” - from Immigration Equality]
[ Also see 2019-03-01 notes above.]
2019-04-04
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson refused to reinstate housing protection guidelines that would prevent LGBT Americans from experiencing discrimination, while obtaining a home, including access to homeless shelters.
2019-04-05
President Trump congratulates election of Brian Hagedorn, an anti-LGBT activist who wants to ban LGBT children from schools.
2019-04-10
During a House Education Committee hearing, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos acknowledged that the administration’s choice to rescind the Obama-era bathroom guidance, which added protections for transgender students, exposed trans students to additional harassment and discrimination in American schools.
2019-04-12
President Trump and his administration implement its ban barring transgender Americans from openly serving in the country’s armed services.
2019-04-17
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the agency would no longer be collecting data on LGBT youth in foster care programs.
2019-05-02
The Trump Administration finalized a health care regulation proposed in early 2018 that will “protect” the “statutory conscience rights” of health care providers. The rule grants federal nondiscrimination protection to health care providers who deny services to people who violate the providers’ sincerely held religious beliefs.
2019-05-22
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a proposal today to roll back protections for transgender people experiencing homelessness, allowing taxpayer-funded shelters to turn away transgender people experiencing homelessness based on a number of factors, including the shelter provider’s religious views.
2019-05-24
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a change to the Health Care Rights Law, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which will roll back non-discrimination protections for transgender and non-binary people, as well as all women, and other communities historically marginalized in healthcare.
If the Trump-Pence administration gets its way, a same-sex couple seeking out fertility options to grow their family could be denied care because of their relationship. A woman may be refused contraception if her doctor has a religious objection. A hospital could block a physician from performing a medically-necessary hysterectomy for a transgender man because the institution denies his identity.
2019-06-01
The State Department did not issue a statement honoring Gay Pride Month, as it had done in the past. The department also did not issues cables detailing options for celebrating Gay Pride Month.
2019-06-07
On June 7, 2019, it was reported that the State Department rejected requests from four embassies to fly a rainbow flag on embassy flagpoles, in commemoration of Pride month.
On June 14, Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, read a letter with 17 Senate colleagues opposing the State Department’s decision; noting this year’s State Department Human Rights Report which states: “LGBTI violence and discrimination remained widespread around the world in 2018.” The Senators made clear any decision to limit official support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) rights would give the impression that the U.S. is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority.
[Senator Markey’s letter:
markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/StateDepartment Pride Flag Letter.pdf]
The letter also asks, when will the State Department fill the vacant position of U.S. Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons, known to be vacant since February 22, 2018.
2019-06-14
On June 14, 2019, the Trump Administration officially released a proposed rule that would reverse the nondiscrimination 2016 final rule implementing Section 1557, of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Section 1557 explicitly prohibits gender identity discrimination, including discrimination against intersex and non-binary people, in health care facilities and programs receiving federal funding.
The rule also prohibits some forms of sexual orientation discrimination related to sex stereotyping. In addition to reversing the 2016 ACA nondiscrimination rule, the Trump Administration proposed removal of explicit sexual orientation, and gender identity nondiscrimination language from half a dozen other federal health care regulations governing private health insurance, Medicaid, and elder health care and services.
This proposal reverses a decade of progress in health care policy, and undermines efforts to increase access to care. It’s all clearly meant to remove gay people from inclusion within all government-related health care systems. It should rightly be considered an intentional act of genocide.
[“New rule proposes removal of LGBT nondiscrimination
provisions from Section 1557 and other health care regulations”
- Fenway Institute, July 2019
2019-08-15
A new rule from the Department of Labor uses the guise of religious beliefs to allow discrimination. All they need to do is state that an employee violates their religious beliefs, and they can not hire, and fire due to a potential hire being gay, lesbian, bi, or trans persons, as well as pregnant women who are not married, people from minority faith groups, all women, people of color, immigrants and others.
The new rule makes it easy for virtually any employer to deny women coverage, and it eliminates some of the hoops those employers have had to jump through to do so. Employers are now able to opt out of birth control coverage. The new rule is effective immediately.
2019-09-29
The Trump/Pence administration is responsible for hideous abuse, and lethal mistreatment, of gay and lesbian people attempting to immigrate.
More than a dozen groups have called for the immediate release of LGBT people, and people living with HIV, from federal immigration detention, including those in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection custody. These groups have officially complained that many detainees have been denied access to adequate medical and mental health care, resulting in “irreparable harm,” and, in some instances, death.
According to the Transgender Law Center, ICE has jailed a record number of transgender people, “by the department’s own count, 300 individuals ... since October of 2018 alone,” and in prisons “privately operated by either Core Civic, the GEO Group, or La Salle Corrections.”
“Each individual who shared their experience in immigration prison for this complaint described horrifying abuse that was entirely preventable,” Lynly Egyes of the Transgender Law Center told The Washington Post. “The experiences of these individuals are not the exception, they are the norm for LGBTQ migrants, and people living with HIV, in immigration prisons. Because of that, we call for the immediate release of all LGBTQ migrants and people living with HIV.”
[“Over a dozen groups call for release of LGBTQ people and people with HIV
from immigration detention”] by Gabe Ortiz, Daily Kos Staff, September 26, 2019
2019-11-01
Trump proposes to eliminate existing regulations that prohibit discrimination in Health and Human Services grant-funded programs, based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or religion. This new rule invites discrimination against recipients of critical services. Here are just a few of the rules affected:
Meals on Wheels, and other HHS-funded community meal programs
designed to support older adults, could refuse to deliver food to older
Americans who are Jewish, Muslim, or LGBT.
Federally funded foster care agencies could refuse to place children with families
because of their faith or sexual orientation, regardless of the children’s needs.
Head Start grant recipients and other federally funded child care facilities could
refuse to serve children with married same-sex parents or whose parents are of
a minority faith. They could also refuse to provide services to transgender youth.
The Trump administration is proposing a sweeping change that will allow discrimination in a wide variety of federal programs that play a critical, life-saving roles in the lives of millions of Americans.
============= 2020 =============
2020-06-01
In early June 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) proposed a new rule that would effectively destroy the asylum process in the United States. The revised procedures are for immigration judges who decide “credible and reasonable” fear claims.
This rule would make it almost impossible for survivors of gender-based violence including women, and LGBT+people, especially those lacking legal representation, to obtain asylum in the United States.
Instead, countless people will be forcibly returned to countries where they face abuse, physical and psychological violence, torture, and possible death for standing up for their rights.
Specifically, this regulation would:
= Change the definition of “persecution” so that even an LGBT person unlawfully detained by police for their gender identity, or sexual orientation, might not qualify.
= Change the definition of “political opinion”to deny many asylum claims based on violence experienced for advocating for LGBT rights.
= Impose irrelevant disqualifying factors for asylum so that, for example, a person could be denied asylum because they traveled through more than 2 countries before reaching the United States.
= Excludes those who have been undocumented in the U.S. for more than a year before seeking asylum, even in light of extenuating circumstances such as having PTSD.
= Require more blanket exclusions instead of allowing asylum officers to make case-by-case decisions.
= Allowing DHS officials and immigration judges to summarily dismiss claims made by entire groups of people; raising the standard of proof for asylum seekers,and dismissing asylum proceedings, before even hearing in-person court testimony from refugees.
This rule is designed to be so restrictive that almost nobody could be granted asylum.
[ ”New DHS Rules on Persecuted Asylum Seekers Could 'Gut'
Immigration Law, Experts Say” — by Daniel Villarreal, Newsweek, June 12, 2020 ]
______________________________________________________________________________
============= About the Author =============
Demian is a movie maker, photographer, theater and radio producer, and author. In 1971, he created Sweet Corn Productions, which is devoted to highly entertaining presentations that affirm self-esteem and social equality. In 1986, he co-created and now heads Partners Task force for Gay & Lesbian Couples. Demian is the author of “Swamp Emperor,” a horror graphic novella, and resource book, as well as “The Ballad of Moscow Mitch.”