Trans Man Killed by Police, Trump Admin. Rolls Back on LGBTQ Protections
38-year-old Tony McDade was shot and killed by police in Tallahassee, Florida. On May 27, officers were called after a stabbing occurred involving Malik Johnson, who died from his injuries. McDade, the suspect in the stabbing, was seen running away from the scene, and police contended that he was armed with a gun.
McDade was reportedly shot five times after waving and pointing a gun at police. However, eyewitnesses contend that the officers involved in the shooting did not warn McDade before firing.
“As soon as he pulled up, I seen him jump out of the car, swing the door open, and start shooting,” witness Clifford Butler told a local NPR affiliate. “I never heard ‘get down, freeze, I’m an officer.’ I never heard nothing. I just heard gunshots.”
Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell claims that the officer called out, ‘Shots fired,’ before shooting. The officer who shot McDade was not injured and has been placed on administrative leave.
“Adequate words do not exist to describe the weight of the pain that accompanies drafting statements to honor Black people who have been murdered as a result of who they are when they show up in the world,” David J. Johns, the executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, said in a statement following McDade’s death. “It especially pains me to acknowledge when police officers who do not have a license to kill are implicated in the murder … We don’t know a lot of the details around Tony’s death, or how police became involved. We do know that Tony should not have been killed.”
Attorneys from the Trump administration, including U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, signed a brief in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a lawsuit filed by Catholic
Max Elram/Shutterstock.com President Donald Trump is shown at a campaign rally during the House of Representatives impeachment vote Dec. 18 in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Social Services (CSS) after the city told them they could no longer refuse LGBTQ parents.
After finding out that the agency discriminated against LGBTQ people in 2018, the city of Philadelphia suspended its contract with them, citing an ordinance banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The city said that it would reinstate the contract if the agency stopped discriminating. CSS responded with the lawsuit, saying the ordinance violated their religious freedom.
After a federal judge and the Third US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against CSS, the case is now moving to the Supreme Court, and the Trump administration is siding with CSS.
“Governmental action tainted by hostility to religion fails strict scrutiny almost by definition,” the Trump administration’s brief argues. “Adoption of a law in reaction to particular religious conduct may suggest that the government is impermissibly targeting religious exercise, rather than simply targeting a given type of conduct without regard to its religious motivation.”
Leslie Cooper, deputy director with the American Civil Liberties Union LGBT & HIV Project, said in a statement if the Trump administration gets its way, the decision would impact more than LGBTQ families.
“While this case involves rejecting LGBTQ families, if the court accepts the claims made in this case, not only will this hurt children in foster care by reducing the number of families to care for them, but anyone who depends on a wide range of government services will be at risk of discrimination based on their sexual orientation, religion or any other characteristic that fails a provider’s religious litmus test,” Cooper said.
The ACLU signaled it will respond to the government’s brief in a filing due before the Supreme Court on Aug. 13.
After more than a year of working towards rolling back Obama-era health care protections, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has finalized a rule that would remove these nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people seeking health care and insurance.
“HHS respects the dignity of every human being, and as we have shown in our response to the pandemic, we vigorously protect and enforce the civil rights of all to the fullest extent permitted by our laws as passed by Congress,” said Roger Severino, who directs the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, in written statement announcing that the HHS rule had become final. The rule is set to go into effect by mid-August.
The rule allows healthcare providers and insurance companies to deny coverage or care to transgender patients, as well as women who have had abortions, on the grounds of religious freedom. It’s a rollback on an Obamacare provision prohibiting patients from being turned away because of their gender identity or sex. Under the new rule, an insurance company could “charge higher premiums or other fees for those who are LGBTQ [or] cancel or deny coverage,” according to Lindsey Dawson, the associate director of HIV Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.