Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf – Photo: Office of the Governor.
The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission has finished seeking public input on proposed guidance that sets forth legal protections for people who are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Currently, Pennsylvania law does not provide protections for LGBTQ people under either the state’s Human Relations Act or the Pennsylvania Fair Educational Opportunities Act. The Republican-controlled legislature has resisted several attempts to prohibit discrimination against the LGBTQ community in employment, housing, education, or public accommodations.
With the legislature unwilling to act, the Human Relations Commission has looked at how provisions prohibiting sex discrimination can be interpreted to encompass discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. As it is required to do before adopting new regulations, the commission has just closed a period for public comment on their recommendations with respect to sex discrimination and LGBTQ protections.
One of those organizations that submitted comments to the commission is Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ legal organization. In its response to the guidance, Lambda Legal urges the commission to adopt rules and regulations explicitly prohibiting anti-LGBT discrimination, include all of the rationales for why sexual orientation and gender identity should be covered under prohibitions on sex discrimination, and expand the definition of “sex” to include actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or the failure to comply to traditional sex stereotypes.
“The Commission’s proposed guidance clarifying how discrimination against LGBTQ people is prohibited under Pennsylvania law is a welcome and long-overdue step to combat the high rates of discrimination, harassment and stigma faced by LGBTQ Pennsylvanians,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, staff attorney for Lambda Legal, said in a statement. “However, the proposed guidance can be further improved by spelling out the multiple ways in which sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination are forms of sex discrimination.”
Of course, LGBTQ allies are not the only ones realizing how groundbreaking the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity protections would be. Social conservatives have urged their ranks to comment on the guidance, raising the specter of transgender women sharing bathrooms with children and cisgender women as a scare tactic.
Writing for The Signal, a publication of the conservative Heritage Foundation, Michael Geer, the president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, has compared the commission’s proposed guidance to former President Barack Obama’s executive actions and guidance provided by federal agencies under the Obama administration that extended rights or protections to LGBTQ people.
Geer particularly aims his vitriol at Gov. Tom Wolf, who last year installed a new chairman on the Human Relations Commission to “further his agenda.” Geer also accuses the commission of usurping the power that should be left in the hands of Republican legislators in Harrisburg.
“Now in the face of a legislative stalemate, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is making an end run around the Legislature to impose a freedom-robbing policy through a bureaucratic agency that was founded to guard our civil liberties,” he writes.
Randall Wenger, the chief counsel of the conservative Independence Law Center, previously urged social conservatives to flood the commission’s inbox with emails opposing the proposed guidance, which he calls “devastating to personal privacy and religious liberty.”
The period for public comment closed on May 26, but it is unknown how much impact Wenger and other social conservatives may have had in trying to sway the commission’s members to reject the proposed guidance.
“Pennsylvania has long had a commitment to eliminating discrimination and assuring its people equal access and opportunity to all within its borders,” says Lambda Legal’s Gonzalez-Pagan. “We urge the Commission to adopt rules and regulations, in accordance with our recommendations, that guarantee LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming Pennsylvanians an equal opportunity to enjoy a full and productive life within the commonwealth.”
The Pentagon will start forcibly discharging transgender service members within 60 days unless an individual can obtain a special waiver to allow them to continue serving.
On Wednesday, February 26, the Pentagon issued a policy memo outlining how the U.S. Department of Defense is complying with an executive order by President Trump to prohibit transgender individuals from serving openly in the U.S. military.
Trump's executive order claims that allowing transgender people to serve in the Armed Forces threatens military readiness and undermines unit cohesion.
It contradicts a 2016 RAND Corporation study, commissioned by the Pentagon, that found allowing transgender members to serve openly had no negative impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness.
A page touting Golden Girls actress Bea Arthur's military service during World War II was reportedly scrubbed from the U.S. Department of Defense website as part of the Trump administration's overzealous efforts to purge anything related to diversity or LGBTQ identity.
Last week, X user @swiftillery noted that the article on Arthur -- first published in October 2021 -- had been removed from the Defense Department website.
According to The Advocate, the Internet Archive documented a "404 -- Page Not Found" message at the URL where the article had been housed.
Defying an executive order from President Donald Trump, a federal judge blocked the U.S. Department of Justice from transferring 12 transgender female inmates to male prisons.
The Bureau of Prisons was slated to relocate the inmates to comply with a Trump executive order stating that the U.S. government will only recognize two sexes, male and female, as valid.
That executive order also pledged to ban people assigned male at birth from accessing female-designated spaces, including single-sex accommodations in prisons.
The executive order also prohibits federal funds from being used for any medical treatment, procedure, or drug that would assist an inmate in transitioning or changing their outward appearance in a way that would not align with their assigned sex at birth.
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The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission has finished seeking public input on proposed guidance that sets forth legal protections for people who are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Currently, Pennsylvania law does not provide protections for LGBTQ people under either the state’s Human Relations Act or the Pennsylvania Fair Educational Opportunities Act. The Republican-controlled legislature has resisted several attempts to prohibit discrimination against the LGBTQ community in employment, housing, education, or public accommodations.
With the legislature unwilling to act, the Human Relations Commission has looked at how provisions prohibiting sex discrimination can be interpreted to encompass discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. As it is required to do before adopting new regulations, the commission has just closed a period for public comment on their recommendations with respect to sex discrimination and LGBTQ protections.
One of those organizations that submitted comments to the commission is Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ legal organization. In its response to the guidance, Lambda Legal urges the commission to adopt rules and regulations explicitly prohibiting anti-LGBT discrimination, include all of the rationales for why sexual orientation and gender identity should be covered under prohibitions on sex discrimination, and expand the definition of “sex” to include actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or the failure to comply to traditional sex stereotypes.
“The Commission’s proposed guidance clarifying how discrimination against LGBTQ people is prohibited under Pennsylvania law is a welcome and long-overdue step to combat the high rates of discrimination, harassment and stigma faced by LGBTQ Pennsylvanians,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, staff attorney for Lambda Legal, said in a statement. “However, the proposed guidance can be further improved by spelling out the multiple ways in which sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination are forms of sex discrimination.”
Of course, LGBTQ allies are not the only ones realizing how groundbreaking the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity protections would be. Social conservatives have urged their ranks to comment on the guidance, raising the specter of transgender women sharing bathrooms with children and cisgender women as a scare tactic.
Writing for The Signal, a publication of the conservative Heritage Foundation, Michael Geer, the president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, has compared the commission’s proposed guidance to former President Barack Obama’s executive actions and guidance provided by federal agencies under the Obama administration that extended rights or protections to LGBTQ people.
Geer particularly aims his vitriol at Gov. Tom Wolf, who last year installed a new chairman on the Human Relations Commission to “further his agenda.” Geer also accuses the commission of usurping the power that should be left in the hands of Republican legislators in Harrisburg.
“Now in the face of a legislative stalemate, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is making an end run around the Legislature to impose a freedom-robbing policy through a bureaucratic agency that was founded to guard our civil liberties,” he writes.
Randall Wenger, the chief counsel of the conservative Independence Law Center, previously urged social conservatives to flood the commission’s inbox with emails opposing the proposed guidance, which he calls “devastating to personal privacy and religious liberty.”
The period for public comment closed on May 26, but it is unknown how much impact Wenger and other social conservatives may have had in trying to sway the commission’s members to reject the proposed guidance.
“Pennsylvania has long had a commitment to eliminating discrimination and assuring its people equal access and opportunity to all within its borders,” says Lambda Legal’s Gonzalez-Pagan. “We urge the Commission to adopt rules and regulations, in accordance with our recommendations, that guarantee LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming Pennsylvanians an equal opportunity to enjoy a full and productive life within the commonwealth.”
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