National
Obama urged to ban Russians behind LGBT crackdown from U.S.
18 officials’ assets frozen, denied visas under 2012 law
Activists continue to urge the Obama administration to add Russians directly behind their country’s LGBT rights crackdown to the 2012 Magnitsky Act. (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)
A growing number of Kremlin critics are urging the Obama administration to use a 2012 law that freezes the assets of Russian citizens and officials directly responsible for human rights violations and bans them from entering the U.S. to punish those behind the country’s ongoing anti-gay crackdown.
Gay journalist Jamie Kirchick and András Simonyi, the former Hungarian Ambassador to the U.S. who is the managing director of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Transatlantic Relations in D.C., on Dec. 4 urged the White House to use the Magnitsky Act named in honor of the eponymous Russian lawyer who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after authorities arrested him following his investigation into a $230 million tax fraud scheme. The two men specifically called for the Obama administration to add Yelena Mizulina, the Russian lawmaker who sponsored a bill that bans gay propaganda to minors that President Vladimir Putin signed into law in June, to the list of 18 Russian nationals and officials against whom the Magnitsky Act is already applied.
Kirchick and Simonyi also urged the White House to add Vitaly Milonov, sponsor of St. Petersburg’s 2012 gay propaganda ban, Alexei Trifonov of the Center for Combating Extremism in Nizhny Novgorod and Maxim Martsinkevich of the “Occupy Pedophilia” vigilante group to the list of those banned from entering the United States under the 2012 law.
The deadline to submit the four additional names to the administration was Dec. 14. The White House is expected to announce shortly whether it would add them to the Magnitsky Act.
“Activists in the West have been right to raise alarm bells about the Russian government’s inhumane policies, yet their response to the problem has thus far been scattershot and ineffective,” wrote Kirchick and Simonyi in their Dec. 4 brief. “For those hoping to put a swift end to this ignominious crusade targeting a vulnerable minority, the Magnitsky Act shows a way forward.”
Kirchick and Simonyi further discussed expanding the Magnitsky Act during a panel on Russia’s LGBT rights record that took place at Johns Hopkins University in Northwest Washington on Dec. 6.
Kirchick, who challenged Russia’s LGBT rights record during an interview on the pro-Kremlin television station RT in August before producers took him off the air, discussed calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February. He questioned those who called for a boycott of Stoli and other Russian vodka brands over the summer.
“There have been very well-intentioned, but in my opinion totally ineffective protests,” said Kirchick. “There already exists a law on the books that is very effective that we can use.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who sponsored the Magnitsky Act, backs efforts to expand the list to include Russian officials and individuals directly responsible for the country’s ongoing LGBT rights crackdown.
“The Magnitsky Act can be used against those who violate the human rights of LGBT Russians or anyone else for that matter,” Cardin told the Washington Blade on Tuesday. “The law was written to be inclusive and not limited. We continue to seek ways that it can be broadened further.”
Larry Poltavtsev of Spectrum Human Rights, an organization that promotes global LGBT rights, also supports adding Milonov and others to the Magnitsky Act list. A petition his group launched on Change.org earlier this year in support of the move has more than 12,000 signatures.
“The Magnitsky Law must be applied more liberally to all human rights violators, including LGBT rights violators,” Poltavtsev told the Blade on Tuesday. “It’s the only instrument that we have if we really want to change the situation in Russia.”
Lesbian Russian journalist Masha Gessen noted during Human Rights First’s annual summit in D.C. on Dec. 5 that the Kremlin banned U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children less than a week after Obama signed the Magnitsky Act into law.
“It had a huge psychological and symbolic impact on people in Russia, including LGBT organizations,” she said.
Gessen added Russian LGBT advocacy organizations are “probably not going to speak out in support” of any effort to add additional officials to the Magnitsky Act list. She nevertheless said she supports the proposed travel ban and asset freeze of those behind Russia’s ongoing gay crackdown.
“It needs to be done,” said Gessen. “It also needs to be done because it’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to do to send a message to these Russian officials.”
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge blocks Trump passport executive order
State Department can no longer issue travel documents with ‘X’ gender markers
A federal judge on Friday ruled in favor of a group of transgender and nonbinary people who have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
The Associated Press notes U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston issued a preliminary injunction against the directive. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the plaintiffs, in a press release notes Kobick concluded Trump’s executive order “is likely unconstitutional and in violation of the law.”
“The preliminary injunction requires the State Department to allow six transgender and nonbinary people to obtain passports with sex designations consistent with their gender identity while the lawsuit proceeds,” notes the ACLU. “Though today’s court order applies only to six of the plaintiffs in the case, the plaintiffs plan to quickly file a motion asking the court to certify a class of people affected by the State Department policy and to extend the preliminary injunction to that entire class.”
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022. Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January.
Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.
“This ruling affirms the inherent dignity of our clients, acknowledging the immediate and profound negative impact that the Trump administration’s passport policy would have on their ability to travel for work, school, and family,” said ACLU of Massachusetts Legal Director Jessie Rossman after Kobick issued her ruling.
“By forcing people to carry documents that directly contradict their identities, the Trump administration is attacking the very foundations of our right to privacy and the freedom to be ourselves,” added Rossman. “We will continue to fight to rescind this unlawful policy for everyone so that no one is placed in this untenable and unsafe position.”
State Department
HIV/AIDS activists protest at State Department, demand full PEPFAR funding restoration
Black coffins placed in front of Harry S. Truman Building
Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday gathered in front of the State Department and demanded the Trump-Vance administration fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.
Housing Works CEO Charles King, Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell, Human Rights Campaign Senior Public Policy Advocate Matthew Rose, and others placed 206 black Styrofoam coffins in front of the State Department before the protest began.
King said more than an estimated 100,000 people with HIV/AIDS will die this year if PEPFAR funding is not fully restored.
“If we continue to not provide the PEPFAR funding to people living in low-income countries who are living with HIV or at risk, we are going to see millions and millions of deaths as well as millions of new infections,” added King.
Then-President George W. Bush in 2003 signed legislation that created PEPFAR.
The Trump-Vance administration in January froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later issued a waiver that allows the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. Two South African organizations — OUT LGBT Well-being and Access Chapter 2 — that received PEPFAR funding through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in recent weeks closed down HIV-prevention programs and other services to men who have sex with men.
Rubio last month said 83 percent of USAID contracts have been cancelled. He noted the State Department will administer those that remain in place “more effectively.”
“PEPFAR represents the best of us, the dignity of our country, of our people, of our shared humanity,” said Rose.
Russell described Rubio as “ignorant and incompetent” and said “he should be fired.”
“What secretary of state in 90 days could dismantle what the brilliance of AIDS activism created side-by-side with George W. Bush? What kind of fool could do that? I’ll tell you who, the boss who sits in the Harry S. Truman Building, Marco Rubio,” said Russell.
U.S. Military/Pentagon
Pentagon urged to reverse Naval Academy book ban
Hundreds of titles discussing race, gender, and sexuality pulled from library shelves
Lambda Legal and the Legal Defense Fund issued a letter on Tuesday urging U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to reverse course on a policy that led to the removal of 381 books from the Nimitz Library of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Pursuant to President Donald Trump’s executive order 14190, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” the institution screened 900 titles to identify works promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” removing those that concerned or touched upon “topics pertaining to the experiences of people of color, especially Black people, and/or LGBTQ people,” according to a press release from the civil rights organizations.
These included “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, “Stone Fruit” by Lee Lai, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” by James W. Loewen, “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, and “Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul” by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
The groups further noted that “the collection retained other books with messages and themes that privilege certain races and religions over others, including ‘The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan’ by Thomas Dixon, Jr., ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolf Hitler, and ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad.
In their letter, Lambda Legal and LDF argued the books must be returned to circulation to preserve the “constitutional rights” of cadets at the institution, warning of the “danger” that comes with “censoring materials based on viewpoints disfavored by the current administration.”
“Such censorship is especially dangerous in an educational setting, where critical inquiry, intellectual diversity, and exposure to a wide array of perspectives are necessary to educate future citizen-leaders,” Lambda Legal Chief Legal Officer Jennifer C. Pizer and LDF Director of Strategic Initiatives Jin Hee Lee said in the press release.
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