Joseph Arminio apologized after misgendering Sarah McBride at a September 17 candidate debate in Delaware. Then the Republican running against her for the U.S. House did it again, and moderator Ken Grant told him to leave. Delaware Public Media reported the exchange.
McBride had asked to continue without removing him. That was her choice about how to handle the moment. The organizers still had a responsibility for what they allowed onstage.
I’m glad the trans woman in the room did not have to carry that responsibility alone. Respect should not depend on whether the person being insulted is willing to stop everything and ask for it.
The debate
Republican Senate candidate Mike Katz apologized and later called on Arminio to withdraw from the race.
McBride’s composure should not become the standard every trans person has to meet before someone else will step in. She was entitled to handle the insult her way. Thankfully, Grant did his job.
There is a serious argument for McBride’s preference: an ejection can give an opponent attention and consume the discussion she came to have. But ignoring another violation would have a cost too. Arminio had already shown that his apology was meaningless.
The full edition examines McBride’s choice, Grant’s decision, and the religious exceptions limiting protections for queer people.
The exceptions
The federal government is doing what it does best by generating a steady stream of talking points about trans issues, although the American Principles Project recently warned it “may not be sufficient” to win the midterms.
Our EEOC post followed a settlement protecting qualifying Christian Employers Alliance members from agency enforcement over pronouns, dress codes, facilities, and related policies affecting trans workers. Coverage depends on membership and religious-certification conditions. The employer’s faith now helps determine whether the agency will pursue those complaints.
In Colorado’s preschool case, Catholic schools want to participate in the publicly funded program while retaining admission rules that can exclude LGBTQ families. Colorado requires participating providers to treat those families equally. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument November 3. Catholic advocates including New Ways Ministry have filed in support of the state.
In Southlake, Texas, the City Council denied Pride Kel-So’s permit unanimously on September 15 without explaining why. The October 3 event at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church had already received a planning commission recommendation for approval. Organizer April Dreyson said Pride would happen in another format.
Those Catholic advocates and that Episcopal congregation have religious convictions too. Excluding queer people is a choice, not the inevitable expression of faith.
A parent’s marriage should not prevent their child from attending a publicly funded preschool. Colorado already permits religious teaching. The schools are asking to exclude LGBTQ families while accepting public money.
The Sisters
JD Vance attacked the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence while criticizing a Kansas church’s Pride sponsorship. He called them an “anti-Christian hate group.” The order began in San Francisco in 1979 and supports community service and grants. Sister Roma defended the Sisters’ vocation.
The care
As we mentioned last week, Colorado families won in court. They still cannot get care. The Children’s Hospital Colorado contempt hearing began September 10. Families asked for a $50,000 daily fine for failing to comply with the June injunction while doctors continued declining to prescribe gender-affirming care amid federal pressure.
A Ninth Circuit panel ruled on September 16 that Oregon could continue housing trans women in men’s prisons, vacating an injunction that required placement according to gender identity after a safety assessment. Oregon’s attorney general welcomed the result while rejecting the opinion’s language about trans people.
The bathrooms
At the Kansas State Fair, manager Bryan Schulz said cis women used men’s bathrooms to avoid long lines. The fair posted signs requiring use according to sex assigned at birth. Kansas’s individual enforcement scheme begins with a notice, escalates to a $1,000 second-violation penalty, and makes a third or subsequent violation a Class B misdemeanor.
The raids
Human Rights Watch’s September 18 update to the Turkey crackdown reported at least 112 arrests in raids on September 12 through 14, with 82 people still detained under court order. Police targeted LGBTQ organizations and groups supporting people living with HIV. More than 100 courthouse protesters were also detained for over 24 hours before being released.
The rest of the news
We covered an ethics complaint against Lauren Boebert alleging sexual relationships with three aides, including a woman. Aide Clarice Navarro denied the allegations. House rules prohibit such relationships except between spouses.
Virginia’s November 3 marriage amendment would remove the state constitution’s unenforceable same-sex marriage ban and affirm adult marriage regardless of sex, gender, or race.
Sophie and Asia
We remembered Sophie Lee and Asia Williams. Baltimore Safe Haven held a vigil last Sunday for Sophie, who was 27 when she was shot and killed in Baltimore, Maryland, two days earlier. Asia, also a Black trans woman, had been killed in Baltimore less than three months before.
The words we call ourselves
Our terminology history included Karl Maria Kertbeny’s 1868 letter to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, in which he used the terms that became homosexual and heterosexual.
Historian Avery Dame traced a documented 1994 use of cisgender by Dana Leland Defosse in an online discussion.
Two-Spirit was adopted at a 1990 Indigenous gathering near Winnipeg, Manitoba, after Myra Laramee shared it. It is an Indigenous umbrella term, not a replacement for every nation’s traditions or a label for non-Indigenous people to borrow.
In the inaugural Winter 1991 issue of Anything That Moves, Karla Rossi wrote, “We bisexuals do not have to prove anything to anybody.” Her editorial demanded substantive inclusion and resources.
Rossi demanded funding for AIDS prevention programs and challenged the exclusion of bisexual speakers from conferences.
In 1990, Roy Aarons coordinated a survey of gay and lesbian journalists, came out publicly, and helped establish NLGJA.
The full edition includes more of Rossi’s editorial and the organizing behind these histories. Continue with the full history and analysis.
The history
When opponents in Queens, New York City, fought a curriculum for including gay and lesbian lives, the Lesbian Avengers organized their first action in September 1992. They arrived with a marching band and lavender balloons inviting people to “Ask About Lesbian Lives.”
Ann Bannon published her five Beebo Brinker Chronicles novels between 1957 and 1962. Walt Whitman lost his Interior Department clerkship in 1865; his friend William Douglas O’Connor attributed the dismissal to Leaves of Grass.
Rachel Tudor won a 2021 appellate ruling directing reinstatement after employment discrimination litigation. A court ordered Margaret Witt’s reinstatement after her dismissal under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Our Zackie Achmat post followed the South African treatment fight in which the Treatment Action Campaign won expanded access to nevirapine in 2002.
Cracker Barrel’s firing of Cheryl Summerville in 1991 led to protests and shareholder pressure. The company added sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy in 2002. Peter Staley and ACT UP brought AZT pricing to the New York Stock Exchange in September 1989; a 20 percent price cut followed amid the broader campaign.
Future Old News
On our new page, Philip Reid’s story followed the enslaved worker who helped cast the Statue of Freedom and became free before its installation in 1863.
Macklemore’s exclusion from Gillette Stadium widened into a dispute involving other supporting acts’ withdrawals. Three Mile Island revisits Constellation’s 2024 agreement with Microsoft to restart Unit 1, separate from the reactor involved in the 1979 accident.
As tensions with Russia ramp up and faulty AI-based intelligence almost led the U.S. to board a Chinese ship, we looked back at a nuclear near miss in 1983 that would have ended the world as we know it, if not for the quick thinking and good judgement of Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov.
Take action
Support Baltimore Safe Haven. Contribute to its housing, health, and community work.
Back Pride Kel-So. Follow the organizers’ plans after the permit denial.
Support the Sisters. Give to their community work and share what they do.
Queer power
On July 5, 2002, South Africa’s Constitutional Court ordered the government to expand access to nevirapine beyond pilot sites to reduce HIV transmission around childbirth.
The case was brought by the Treatment Action Campaign, co-founded by Zackie Achmat, a gay activist diagnosed with HIV in 1990. Achmat also co-founded the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality, the organization that won the constitutional challenge striking down South Africa’s sodomy laws in 1998.
In 1999, Achmat publicly refused to take the antiretroviral drugs he could afford until ordinary South Africans could get them through the public health system. His health declined for four years. Nelson Mandela visited and asked him to stop. Achmat refused.
President Thabo Mbeki’s government withheld nevirapine from public hospitals beyond a handful of pilot sites. TAC sued, and the Constitutional Court ruled that the government had to act.
Achmat agreed to begin treatment in August 2003. That November, the cabinet approved a national antiretroviral rollout. South Africa now runs the largest public antiretroviral program in the world.
See you next Sunday.
The Right vilified us, harassed us, targeted us and for what? Has anyone's life improved since the rollback of our rights? No. Transgender people are being physically, sexually, and mentally abused now more than ever. In the last year 40% of transgender teens said they have contemplated suicide due to political rhetoric. FOURTY PERCENT OF TEENS!