Dear trans and gender non-conforming youth in Louisiana,

On June 6, our bigoted state government hit us hard when Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards allowed the anti-trans sports ban to become law. He tried to “play both sides” by criticizing the bill, but still refusing to veto. This decision was cowardly, and it stabbed us in the back. Democrats in the legislature deserted us, with 20 of them either abstaining or voting for the ban. Like last year, Democrats even co-authored the bill – Senators Gregory Tarver, Francis Thompson, and Malinda White.

We share your pain and sadness right now. Young people like you are already often confused, frustrated, and overwhelmed trying to find yourselves in general, even without counting how to understand your gender identity. This attack can feel like the straw that might break the camel’s back. You deserve all the time you need to heal and process.

The billionaire, corporate-backed Republican Party scapegoats the trans community, its young in particular, to score political points and shore up what they call “traditional family values.” Their conservative idea of a family is a straight household, with patriarchal gender roles, that consistently reproduces the labor force. They erase any family that might be supportive of its transgender and non-binary children. They deny that trans people, young and old, create our own families. They tremble at how our families flourish despite attacks against them.

Just because we can’t rely on the ruling political parties doesn’t mean that we have no one. Remember that governors and legislators don’t make history, the people do. You’re a target of the evangelical right before you can even vote– but you’ve taken political action anyway. You’ve walked out of schools, testified in front of legislative committees, and blocked city streets to let the whole state know you won’t roll over. The legislature dealt us a loss, but we’ve made our own wins. More students, teachers, social workers, parents, and LGBTQ community members came out to defend our democratic rights than ever in recent memory. And remember: we stopped Don’t Say Gay and the Trans Youth Medical Ban in their tracks.

By organizing, we’ve steeled ourselves to keep fighting. We’re in position to stop this law from causing more harm. We’re ready to fight for accessible name and gender marker changes. We have the forces to take on future anti-LGBTQ laws. We can defend against the bigoted violence that’s claimed too many Black trans lives.

Last year, through marches, phone calls, emails, rallies, lobbying, and civil disobedience, we delayed the sports ban’s passage. The year before that, we used mass action to cut the Orleans Parish name change fee by $256, and this year established the LA Trans Name Change Fund and Peer Support program for people over 18. More victories are coming, and they’ll keep coming as long as we stay in the struggle.

Love and Solidarity,

Organizers in Real Name Campaign NOLA

#Louisiana #LA #PeoplesStruggles #RealNameCampaign

Baton Rouge, LA – On May 3, the Louisiana House of Representatives Education Committee struck down this state’s version of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by a seven to four vote. This decision came after a mass upsurge of students, parents, teachers, social workers and LGBTQ+ community members demanding to shut the bill down.

HB 837, the “Don’t Say Gay” or “Classroom censorship” bill, attempted to prohibit all discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation in K-8 classrooms. On top of this, it was an effort to ban teachers from disclosing their gender identities or sexual orientations to students.

Once a legislator introduces a bill in either chamber of the legislature (House or Senate), it must meet the approval of a legislative committee before going for a full floor vote. The committee hearing is the first chance that opponents of the bill have to kill it.

At the hearing, after five or six conservative leaders testified in favor of the bill, dozens of LGBT+ activists and their allies went on to denounce it.

Students put up a tremendous fight. Quest Riggs of Real Name Campaign read aloud a letter that over 60 middle school students put together: “Students feel safe talking to social workers at school, especially when they can't talk to someone at home. This bill could lead to students not having a safe space at school.”

The Reverend Cheramie of the Metropolitan Community Church of New Orleans made the point, “We are dangerously close to the 1970s effort to prevent homosexuals from being teachers.” Sam King, a school social worker, underscored how “exclusionary and discriminatory legislation such as HB387 put marginalized youth at greater risk for mental health issues and suicide. The supporters of this bill say that they are advocating to protect children when in fact they are putting LGBTQ+ children directly in harm's way.”

Dodie Horton, the politician who introduced the bill, could hardly answer questions about her own legislation. When the committee representatives asked her what the bill’s implications would be for a teacher introducing themselves as “Mr.” or “Ms.” (which indicate gender identity), Horton responded: “No, that’s not gender identity, gender identity is, you know, if I say I’m a man one day and then the next day I’m a woman.” Many critics have accused the Don’t Say Gay bill of using “gender identity” as a dog-whistle for anti-LGBT+ bigotry, but Horton openly admitted that this was the case.

“She can’t defend her bill because she didn’t even write it,” one online observer noted. HB 837 was a copycat of Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill, which itself came from the boardrooms of billionaire-backed far-right organizations.

Tuesday’s showing of overwhelming opposition came out of weeks of mass mobilizing. Students walked out of several schools, and hundreds of people blocked busy downtown intersections during a protest for Trans Day of Visibility. Two critical swing votes on the committee, Representatives Freiberg and Hilferty, saw their voicemails and inboxes flooded with hundreds of messages. The week before the hearing, protesters showed up at both of their offices to leave signs and a letter condemning HB 837. Both voted no.

Organizations coming out against the bill included United Teachers of New Orleans, the Louisiana Association of Social Workers, Real Name Campaign, Forum for Equality, the Louisiana Coalition for Reproductive Freedoms, the Crescent Care Transgender Advisory Committee, Women With a Vision, the Louisiana Transgender Advocates, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization, among others.

#BatonRougeLA #PeoplesStruggles #Louisiana #DontSayGayBill

New Orleans, LA – Around 250 community members gathered at New Orleans City Hall, March 25, to forcefully voice their opposition to a string of legislation introduced by Louisiana Republicans in recent weeks. This includes bills that would restrict trans minors’ access to healthcare, their ability to participate in school sports, and could criminalize LGBTQ+ students and educators for being “out” in Louisiana schools.

The demonstration was attended mostly by students from three New Orleans high schools who have taken the initiative in organizing bold actions both on and off their campuses. Earlier in the day students at Benjamin Franklin High School held a walkout where hundreds of their classmates marched to the front of the school chanting “We say gay!”

Other students came to the event after another rally organized at a nearby high school. Christie Holliday from Queer Students and Allies of Louisiana said, “We will travel to Baton Rouge to confront the old white men who want to control our lives. We will fight back against our oppressors.”

Community members of all ages and from all walks of life proudly stood alongside the students. They acknowledged that the right-wing push to repress LGBTQ+ youth opens the door to other reactionary attacks like erasing reproductive rights.

Speakers from two immigrant rights organizations emphasized their solidarity with LGBTQ+ people. Mohamed of New Orleans Immigrants’ Rights Action said, “If anyone knows what it’s like to face a nationally coordinated Republican attack, it’s immigrants. So we will fight alongside you until all of us are free.”

Across the South, educators are pointing out that so-called “Don’t say gay” bills will have a terrible impact on students and teachers alike. Lauren Jewett spoke at the rally for United Teachers of New Orleans. She stated LGBTQ+ students could face further social alienation and repression from school administration and parents, and LGBTQ+ teachers could face reprisals for even mentioning their spouses or partners.

These bills could exacerbate the nationwide plague of teen suicides in the LGBTQ+ population, which is already four times more likely to attempt suicide than its peers. Additionally, all students would suffer from an already gutted sex education curriculum becoming even more narrow and anti-science.

After the energetic rally, the protesters carried their outrage to the streets. Under clear skies, they marched through busy downtown rush-hour traffic to show their collective strength. Serena Sojic-Borne of the Real Name Campaign said, “We won’t hesitate to disrupt business-as-usual to defend trans youth from these attacks. If shutting down rush-hour traffic seems like an inconvenience, imagine the inconvenience we face when our democratic rights are used as a punching bag by politicians who don’t care about our lives.”

The Real Name Campaign announced a call to action at the end of the march. They encouraged the demonstrators to flood the phone lines of Democrat Governor John Bel Edwards, to demand he promise that he will veto any bigoted legislation that ends up on his desk. Organizers emphasized that this is only the beginning of their struggle and that everyone must stay involved to ensure all three bills are defeated.

#NewOrleansLA #PeoplesStruggles #LGBTQRights #Louisiana #antiLGBTQLegislation

Fight Back! News Service is circulating the following statement by Real Name Campaign NOLA.

Thanks to the work of Louisiana organizers, and every Louisianian who pressured their lawmakers to vote against transphobia, the governor’s veto of the trans sports ban (Senate Bill 156) has been sustained during this unprecedented special legislative session. The evangelical right failed to push its national anti-trans culture war in Louisiana. The people’s movement made this victory happen. Many Democratic legislators wanted this bill to pass at first, but voted against it only after seeing enormous community opposition.

An organizer with the Real Name Campaign, Mar Ehrlich (they/them), reflects that “we began fighting against the four anti-trans bills back in March, alongside trans advocates around the state. After 5 months of hard, collaborative work we have seen every one of these egregious bills fail, and we have witnessed trans rights become a major topic across Louisiana. But it was very close with SB 156, and the protest yesterday and the groundswell of public support around our demand to protect trans kids was the final and very necessary dose of pressure on legislators to do the right thing – to keep the government’s hands off trans kids.”

Real Name Campaign hopes this victory assures all trans and gender nonconforming youth that we were never a problem that needed to be fixed, and that we are important, loved, and belong in every aspect of education and public life.

The Capitol still needs accountability. Yesterday, Capitol security treated members of Real Name Campaign NOLA with unnecessary, unprecedented brutality. Seconds after we began protesting against SB 156 on the balcony of the Louisiana House floor, officers cruelly and viciously assaulted not only protestors, but our police liaison and media support, without any verbal warning of arrest or otherwise, and even after we expressed our willingness to cooperate. This violence was a reflection of the violence against all trans and gender nonconforming people being carried out on the house and senate floor below.

We support the ACLU’s demand for a full investigation of Louisiana Capitol security.

As of now, House Sergeant at Arms Clarence Russ has declined to comment on the incident. His office can be reached at 225-342-1228 or russc@legis.la.gov

We further demand that legislators cease authoring or supporting any anti-trans bills, amendments, policies, and practices. We also demand that legislators consult with us and other transgender and gender non-conforming community leaders on all future bills that would impact our rights.

About Real Name Campaign NOLA: Real Name Campaign is comprised of trans and gender non-conforming residents of the Greater New Orleans community. We organize for the rights and equitable treatment of trans and gender non-conforming people in the city and state. We are actively fighting for accessible name and gender marker changes, including the abolishment of all fees and restrictions to accessing correct IDs.

#Louisiana #RealNameCampaign #HouseSergeantAtArmsClarenceRuss #transSportsBanSenateBill156

Baton Rouge, LA – On July 20 at 11:30 a.m., a group of protesters interrupted the Louisiana legislature’s veto override session to denounce the proposed transgender sports ban.

Members of Real Name Campaign NOLA, a trans community organization, dropped a banner reading “Protect trans youth” from the balcony of the House floor. They chanted “Senate Bill 156 has got to go!” and “Trans kids are here to stay!”

Capitol police groped, shoved and choked protesters to push them out.

Eden Abraham, an organizer with Real Name Campaign, said, “Security immediately grabbed us and violently dragged us down the stairs.” He added, “Even after we said we’re calmly going down the stairs, we’re not resisting, we’re not resisting, they continued to snub us, pushing us into marble and concrete, our heads, our limbs.”

Protesters went on to hold a rally on the capitol steps. They condemned Senate Bill 156, which threatens to prohibit transgender athletes from playing from kindergarten through college. It would also green-light violations of kids to inspect their presumed genders. State Senator Beth Mizell authored the bill.

Mar Ehrlich of the Campaign stated, “We are here today to declare that trans kids are not the problem and will never be a problem.”

Abraham stated, “This is the same sports ban that has been introduced in 30 states in just the past year. SB 156 is part of a nationally conservative plan orchestrated by conservative lawmakers.” He also noted, “They’re more interested in fighting a cultural war that they’re losing than serving the actual needs of their constituents.”

The legislature’s special veto override session is unprecedented in modern Louisiana history. Republican Party leaders Page Cortez and Clay Schexnayder specifically called for the session to push the sports ban.

Governor Edwards vetoed the ban in June, calling it “a solution in search of a problem.” He stated that there were no trans athletes in Louisiana to be concerned about.

Toni Jones of Real Name Campaign and Freedom Road Socialist Organization responded, “SB 156 is worse than a solution looking for a problem, because trans kids are not a problem and do not need to be solved.”

She also raised attention to the Olympics recently banning several Black women for being “too masculine.” SB 156 has clear racist implications as well.

The Senate has voted 26-12 in favor of the ban, just the amount of votes they needed for a veto-proof majority. The House has yet to vote. The Senate vote proves the trans movement’s strength, since reactionaries had more votes in favor of the ban during the regular legislative session.

The movement remains ready to fight. Real Name Campaign commits to resisting all the state’s anti-trans attacks.

#BatonRouge #RealNameCampaignNOLA #Louisiana #transgenderSportsBan #PageCortez #ClaySchexnayder

New Orleans, LA – Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) will host a Martin Luther King Day Virtual Rally this Monday, January 18. In support of a call from the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, New Orleans FRSO demands a mass release from prisons during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. The rally will also demand justice for Jacob Blake and an end to police crimes everywhere. The gathering will take place over Zoom, as the city recently transitioned to stricter COVID safety measures.

After a long holiday season, this will be an opportunity for the community to regroup. “I’m just excited to get things going again,” says Antonia Mar, who will read excerpts from MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. “This winter has been isolating, but Zoom events at least give us a chance to see some familiar faces, talk, and strategize about what’s going on!”

Even during COVID challenges, the people continue to be creative and resourceful with what resources we have. The MLK Day Virtual Rally aims to relate the struggle of the Civil Rights movement with the political energy of today. History is vital to the fight against racism and police repression. Speakers will reflect on resistance to police crimes in the city, including the work of college students fighting police presence on school campuses. Other topics will include the history of the Black liberation movement and calls to action, giving special attention to the words and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.

As he said in his Letter from Birmingham Jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Register to participate in the MLK Day Virtual Rally.

#NewOrleansLA #PeoplesStruggles #MLK #Antiracism #Louisiana #MLKDay