KYLP Statement regarding
Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky
[LEXINGTON] – The Board of Directors of the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. sadly expresses our concern about the news that Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky (BCTK) has lost its nonprofit status through what appears to be significant mismanagement and improper legislative activity. This damages the entire LGBTQIA+ community, and KYLP does not condone such activity.
BCTK’s lobbyist, in particular, has caused many of us to raise questions about BCTK’s direction and its ability to be a strong voice for LGBTQIA+ children and young people.
As its name suggests, BCTK was founded seven years ago to advocate for a ban on the harmful practice of conversion, or reparative, therapies on anyone under age 18. Conversion therapy is a failed social science experiment that falsely claims that a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity is a choice and is changeable. Conversion therapy attempts to cause a non-heterosexual person to become heterosexual by using psychoanalysis, behavior modification, spiritual counseling, and other methods like aversion therapy. Some practitioners of conversion therapy are licensed mental health providers who exploit their credentials to take advantage of vulnerable families and youth. Others are affiliated with religious organizations and may frame their abusive practices as “pastoral care” rather than psychology. These organizations often target parents and LGBTQIA+ people on social media. This practice can cause serious emotional and psychological harm and has been widely condemned by all major medical, psychiatric, and psychological organizations. Yet the Kentucky legislature has failed for the past six years to pass a bill that would protect these young people and their families from being exploited.
As reported in Queer Kentucky, a diverse LGBTQ+ run non-profit working to bolster and enhance Queer culture, health and wellness through storytelling, education and action, BCTK Lobbyist Michael Frazier and BCTK Executive Director Rebecca Blankenship actively supported Senate Bill 6 and House Bill 9 in the 2024 General Assembly, both of which were intended to undermine, defund, and cripple efforts to address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in Kentucky schools and universities. Frazier and Blankenship claim to have opposed these bills before they supported them.
The ACLU of Kentucky and the Fairness Campaign have both publicly denounced these bills because they violate free speech and students’ rights. However, Frazier testified in support of SB 6 before the Senate Education Committee and the organization filed a report with the Kentucky Legislative Ethic Commission claiming BCTK’s lobbying efforts on House Bill 9, which report Blankenship now claims was in error. Senate Bill 6 passed the Senate by a vote of 26-7 with a committee substitute, sent to the House Education Committee, where it passed 68-18 with a different committee Substitute, but it stalled in the Senate Rules Committee and was not sent to the Governor.
“DEI has been crucial to efforts to protect minority students – including LGBTQIA+ students – from discrimination, harassment, and abuse in Kentucky schools,” KYLP Board Chair John Martin said. “It is supported by virtually all social service organizations representing or advocating for minority populations, and many of us view BCTK’s support for these anti-DEI bills a betrayal of the community BCTK was created to serve.”
KYLP founder and legal director Keith Elston noted that KYLP was the original fiscal sponsor for BCTK and worked closely with them to advance legislation protecting Kentucky’s youth from conversion therapy practitioners. KYLP parted ways with BCTK in 2020.
“In these difficult times, it is imperative that all nonprofit organizations scrupulously follow the laws, rules and regulations. Organizations that fail to do this risk losing their credibility and support within our community. And organizations that continue to collect donor funds after they have been declared ineligible for tax-exempt status are misleading their supporters,” Elston said.
According to the Kentucky Secretary of State, BCTK has not filed annual reports since 2021, and they were administratively dissolved by the Secretary of State in October 2022.
“The needs of Kentucky’s LGBTQIA+ children and youth are too vital for any organization to risk undermining their credibility and effectiveness in the way BCTK has,” said Elston.
KYLP calls on both Blankenship and Frazier to resign from BCTK immediately and allow the organization to rebuild with more responsible leadership.
BCTK’s lobbyist, in particular, has caused many of us to raise questions about BCTK’s direction and its ability to be a strong voice for LGBTQIA+ children and young people.
As its name suggests, BCTK was founded seven years ago to advocate for a ban on the harmful practice of conversion, or reparative, therapies on anyone under age 18. Conversion therapy is a failed social science experiment that falsely claims that a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity is a choice and is changeable. Conversion therapy attempts to cause a non-heterosexual person to become heterosexual by using psychoanalysis, behavior modification, spiritual counseling, and other methods like aversion therapy. Some practitioners of conversion therapy are licensed mental health providers who exploit their credentials to take advantage of vulnerable families and youth. Others are affiliated with religious organizations and may frame their abusive practices as “pastoral care” rather than psychology. These organizations often target parents and LGBTQIA+ people on social media. This practice can cause serious emotional and psychological harm and has been widely condemned by all major medical, psychiatric, and psychological organizations. Yet the Kentucky legislature has failed for the past six years to pass a bill that would protect these young people and their families from being exploited.
As reported in Queer Kentucky, a diverse LGBTQ+ run non-profit working to bolster and enhance Queer culture, health and wellness through storytelling, education and action, BCTK Lobbyist Michael Frazier and BCTK Executive Director Rebecca Blankenship actively supported Senate Bill 6 and House Bill 9 in the 2024 General Assembly, both of which were intended to undermine, defund, and cripple efforts to address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in Kentucky schools and universities. Frazier and Blankenship claim to have opposed these bills before they supported them.
The ACLU of Kentucky and the Fairness Campaign have both publicly denounced these bills because they violate free speech and students’ rights. However, Frazier testified in support of SB 6 before the Senate Education Committee and the organization filed a report with the Kentucky Legislative Ethic Commission claiming BCTK’s lobbying efforts on House Bill 9, which report Blankenship now claims was in error. Senate Bill 6 passed the Senate by a vote of 26-7 with a committee substitute, sent to the House Education Committee, where it passed 68-18 with a different committee Substitute, but it stalled in the Senate Rules Committee and was not sent to the Governor.
“DEI has been crucial to efforts to protect minority students – including LGBTQIA+ students – from discrimination, harassment, and abuse in Kentucky schools,” KYLP Board Chair John Martin said. “It is supported by virtually all social service organizations representing or advocating for minority populations, and many of us view BCTK’s support for these anti-DEI bills a betrayal of the community BCTK was created to serve.”
KYLP founder and legal director Keith Elston noted that KYLP was the original fiscal sponsor for BCTK and worked closely with them to advance legislation protecting Kentucky’s youth from conversion therapy practitioners. KYLP parted ways with BCTK in 2020.
“In these difficult times, it is imperative that all nonprofit organizations scrupulously follow the laws, rules and regulations. Organizations that fail to do this risk losing their credibility and support within our community. And organizations that continue to collect donor funds after they have been declared ineligible for tax-exempt status are misleading their supporters,” Elston said.
According to the Kentucky Secretary of State, BCTK has not filed annual reports since 2021, and they were administratively dissolved by the Secretary of State in October 2022.
“The needs of Kentucky’s LGBTQIA+ children and youth are too vital for any organization to risk undermining their credibility and effectiveness in the way BCTK has,” said Elston.
KYLP calls on both Blankenship and Frazier to resign from BCTK immediately and allow the organization to rebuild with more responsible leadership.
KYLP Legal Director named 2023 Leading Family Law Practitioner
by National LGBTQ+ Bar Association
KYLP Archive
Senate Bill 150 Endangers LGBTQI+ Students’
Safety and Well-Being
KYLP Legal Director Keith D. Elston, above, accepts the 2023 Leading Family Law Practitioner from the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association at their annual Lavender Law Conference, held this year in Chicago.
National LGBTQ+ Bar announces
2023 Leading Family Law Practitioner Award
The National LGBTQ+ Bar Leading Family Law Practitioner Award recognizes lawyers whose work supports LGBTQ+ families, in all of their configurations. Family law involves more than family creation and relationship dissolution. LGBTQ+ family law may also include allied practices in immigration, tax, military, benefits, children’s rights and welfare, disability rights, employment, bankruptcy, landlord-tenant, health care, decision-making and managing costs.
The Award is given each year to one individual who is in the private practice of law, and has improved the lives of members of LGBTQ+ families, parents or children through outstanding legal work, demonstrated by a longstanding commitment to providing legal services of a high quality to the LGBTQ+ community; by commitment to significant pro bono work for LGBTQ+ families, parents or children; or by leadership in significant impact litigation or advocacy affecting or in support of LGBTQ+ families, parents, or children while engaged in the private practice of law.
Please join the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association as we honor the
2023 Leading Family Law Practitioner Award Winner
Keith D. Elston
Keith Doniphan Elston has been a practicing attorney since 2006. He was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, is a graduate of University of Kentucky, with a degree in Political Science, and received his Juris Doctor from Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa.
In the early 1990s, he was hired by the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union to establish an office in the Dakotas, and several years later, he was hired by the ACLU of New Mexico as their executive director. In 2000, he and his husband, Mark Schmidt, moved to Vermont so that he could lead a nonprofit advocacy group for LGBTQ+ children and youth, Outright Vermont. This was at a time when the Vermont legislature enacted civil unions, and because he led one of the most visible LGBT organizations in Vermont, the backlash from the religious right was severe. “I had people calling in death threats to my staff,” Mr. Elston said, “and picketers outside our office building. It was a rather difficult time.”
In 2002, he was accepted to law school at Drake University. He became involved in the Outlaws, a student-led group for LGBT law students, and the Drake chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. He also served on the law school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee for a year and a half. After graduating in 2005, he and Mark moved back to his home state of Kentucky, and he opened a solo family law and estate planning practice in Lexington.
In 2014, Mr. Elston attended a regional meeting of the LGBT Family Law Institute (a joint venture of the National LGBTQ+ Bar and the National Center for Lesbian Rights) in Atlanta, where he participated in a group discussion of the challenges for LGBTQ+ youth to have access to the legal system. Following the meeting, Mr. Elston decided to form a committee to explore how he could provide legal services for Kentucky’s LGBTQ+ children and youth. From that committee came the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc., a nonprofit legal services corporation whose mission is to protect the legal rights and entitlements of LGBTQ+ children and youth through pro-bono legal representation, education, and public policy advocacy.
Mr. Elston is the past Chair (2020-2022) of the Kentucky Bar Association’s LGBT Law Section, and the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, an affiliate of the American Bar Association. He is also a member of the KBA’s Committee on Child Protection and Domestic Violence, the National Bar Association - John Rowe Chapter, and the National Association of Counsel for Children.
He and Mark have been together for 26 years, married in 2015, and live with one of their three children, Nick, and their dog, Marley. Their son, Allen, lives in Louisville and their daughter, Kelly, lives in Bowling Green.
The Award is given each year to one individual who is in the private practice of law, and has improved the lives of members of LGBTQ+ families, parents or children through outstanding legal work, demonstrated by a longstanding commitment to providing legal services of a high quality to the LGBTQ+ community; by commitment to significant pro bono work for LGBTQ+ families, parents or children; or by leadership in significant impact litigation or advocacy affecting or in support of LGBTQ+ families, parents, or children while engaged in the private practice of law.
Please join the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association as we honor the
2023 Leading Family Law Practitioner Award Winner
Keith D. Elston
Keith Doniphan Elston has been a practicing attorney since 2006. He was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, is a graduate of University of Kentucky, with a degree in Political Science, and received his Juris Doctor from Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa.
In the early 1990s, he was hired by the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union to establish an office in the Dakotas, and several years later, he was hired by the ACLU of New Mexico as their executive director. In 2000, he and his husband, Mark Schmidt, moved to Vermont so that he could lead a nonprofit advocacy group for LGBTQ+ children and youth, Outright Vermont. This was at a time when the Vermont legislature enacted civil unions, and because he led one of the most visible LGBT organizations in Vermont, the backlash from the religious right was severe. “I had people calling in death threats to my staff,” Mr. Elston said, “and picketers outside our office building. It was a rather difficult time.”
In 2002, he was accepted to law school at Drake University. He became involved in the Outlaws, a student-led group for LGBT law students, and the Drake chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. He also served on the law school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee for a year and a half. After graduating in 2005, he and Mark moved back to his home state of Kentucky, and he opened a solo family law and estate planning practice in Lexington.
In 2014, Mr. Elston attended a regional meeting of the LGBT Family Law Institute (a joint venture of the National LGBTQ+ Bar and the National Center for Lesbian Rights) in Atlanta, where he participated in a group discussion of the challenges for LGBTQ+ youth to have access to the legal system. Following the meeting, Mr. Elston decided to form a committee to explore how he could provide legal services for Kentucky’s LGBTQ+ children and youth. From that committee came the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc., a nonprofit legal services corporation whose mission is to protect the legal rights and entitlements of LGBTQ+ children and youth through pro-bono legal representation, education, and public policy advocacy.
Mr. Elston is the past Chair (2020-2022) of the Kentucky Bar Association’s LGBT Law Section, and the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, an affiliate of the American Bar Association. He is also a member of the KBA’s Committee on Child Protection and Domestic Violence, the National Bar Association - John Rowe Chapter, and the National Association of Counsel for Children.
He and Mark have been together for 26 years, married in 2015, and live with one of their three children, Nick, and their dog, Marley. Their son, Allen, lives in Louisville and their daughter, Kelly, lives in Bowling Green.
Senate Bill 150 Endangers LGBTQI+ Students’
Safety and Well-Being
The Kentucky Youth Law Project opposes Senate Bill 150 and other “Parents’ Rights” bills currently before the General Assembly. We believe that these bills endanger LGBTQI+ youth. Supporters of these bills claim they want to improve informational transparency from schools to parents and give parents a right to object to instructional materials. But a closer examination makes it is clear that SB 150, and others introduced this year, will have a profound and dangerous effect on the safety and mental health of LGBTQI+ students.
Many transgender youth have been diagnosed by their experienced doctors as having gender dysphoria, defined as “intense discomfort or distress resulting from a difference between a person’s gender identity and the person’s assigned sex, including the associated gender role and gender-specific body characteristics.” This condition has been exhaustively researched for over fifty years. Youth experiencing gender dysphoria become depressed and anxious because their bodies are not congruent with their gender identity. This can, and often does, lead to serious risk-taking and self-harm, including suicide.
As the Trevor Project notes, “LGBTQ youth are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society.”
According to the 2021 National School Climate Survey, school climates are toxic and harmful to students’ mental health and getting worse. More than 83% of these LGBTQI+ students during the 2021-2022 school year experienced harassment or assault based on personal characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender expression.
A hostile school climate affects students’ academic success and mental health. LGBTQI+ students who have experienced victimization and discrimination have worse educational outcomes and poorer psychological well-being.
As a result of these disproportionately high levels of bullying, harassment, and discrimination from fellow students and school personnel, more LGBTQI+ kids are skipping school, fewer are making plans for higher education, and negative mental health outcomes like depression and suicidal thoughts are high. Black students and other students of color who identify as LGBTQI+ report significantly more bullying and abuse in their schools. Poor mental health outcomes track closely with rates of bullying and abuse, so students with more than one marginalized identity report especially poor outcomes.
And yet, despite clear data showing that “parents’ support of sexual orientation and gender expression was related to higher levels of self-esteem, less depression, and fewer reports of suicidal ideation or suicide attempts,” many LGBTQI+ youth don’t have the support of their families in this regard. Research consistently shows that coming out to family puts youth at greater risk for verbal and physical abuse, homelessness, depression, anxiety, self-harming behaviors, and suicidal ideation.
Put simply, allowing parents unfettered information regarding a child’s sexual orientation and disregarding the student’s fears that involuntary “outing” to their family risks their safety and well-being is a danger that we ignore to our children’s’ peril.
It would make sense for the legislature to find better ways to protect these children. Instead, this legislature seems only interested in efforts that will callously paint targets on the backs of these children, increase the likelihood that they will experience victimization, even by their own families, and deprive them of equal access to education that embraces all children and is essential to every Kentuckian’s prosperity.
As of February 19, the bill has been voted on and passed by the Kentucky Senate on a straight party-line vote. This illustrates the danger of having one party in complete control of the legislature. KYLP asks that everyone contact their representative in the Kentucky House and tell them that SB 150 and other parents' rights bills introduced this year are deadly to our transgender youth; demand that they vote "No" this dangerous bill; and that you will remember and hold them accountable for their vote on this issue. The toll-free number to call is 1-800-372-7181. It is crucial that we keep the pressure on them, so don't delay, call today!
Many transgender youth have been diagnosed by their experienced doctors as having gender dysphoria, defined as “intense discomfort or distress resulting from a difference between a person’s gender identity and the person’s assigned sex, including the associated gender role and gender-specific body characteristics.” This condition has been exhaustively researched for over fifty years. Youth experiencing gender dysphoria become depressed and anxious because their bodies are not congruent with their gender identity. This can, and often does, lead to serious risk-taking and self-harm, including suicide.
As the Trevor Project notes, “LGBTQ youth are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society.”
- Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10 to 24 and LGBTQ youth are at significantly increased risk.
- LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
- The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ youth aged 13-24 seriously consider suicide each year in the U.S., and at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds.
- Most LGBTQ youth reported experiencing anxiety (74%) and depression (58%).
According to the 2021 National School Climate Survey, school climates are toxic and harmful to students’ mental health and getting worse. More than 83% of these LGBTQI+ students during the 2021-2022 school year experienced harassment or assault based on personal characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender expression.
A hostile school climate affects students’ academic success and mental health. LGBTQI+ students who have experienced victimization and discrimination have worse educational outcomes and poorer psychological well-being.
As a result of these disproportionately high levels of bullying, harassment, and discrimination from fellow students and school personnel, more LGBTQI+ kids are skipping school, fewer are making plans for higher education, and negative mental health outcomes like depression and suicidal thoughts are high. Black students and other students of color who identify as LGBTQI+ report significantly more bullying and abuse in their schools. Poor mental health outcomes track closely with rates of bullying and abuse, so students with more than one marginalized identity report especially poor outcomes.
And yet, despite clear data showing that “parents’ support of sexual orientation and gender expression was related to higher levels of self-esteem, less depression, and fewer reports of suicidal ideation or suicide attempts,” many LGBTQI+ youth don’t have the support of their families in this regard. Research consistently shows that coming out to family puts youth at greater risk for verbal and physical abuse, homelessness, depression, anxiety, self-harming behaviors, and suicidal ideation.
Put simply, allowing parents unfettered information regarding a child’s sexual orientation and disregarding the student’s fears that involuntary “outing” to their family risks their safety and well-being is a danger that we ignore to our children’s’ peril.
It would make sense for the legislature to find better ways to protect these children. Instead, this legislature seems only interested in efforts that will callously paint targets on the backs of these children, increase the likelihood that they will experience victimization, even by their own families, and deprive them of equal access to education that embraces all children and is essential to every Kentuckian’s prosperity.
As of February 19, the bill has been voted on and passed by the Kentucky Senate on a straight party-line vote. This illustrates the danger of having one party in complete control of the legislature. KYLP asks that everyone contact their representative in the Kentucky House and tell them that SB 150 and other parents' rights bills introduced this year are deadly to our transgender youth; demand that they vote "No" this dangerous bill; and that you will remember and hold them accountable for their vote on this issue. The toll-free number to call is 1-800-372-7181. It is crucial that we keep the pressure on them, so don't delay, call today!
Start: Thursday, March 02, 2023•12:00 PM
Location: Kentucky State Capitol Rotunda•700 Capital Ave, Frankfort, KY 40601 US
Kentucky's kids are under attack. From education to healthcare to personal privacy, legislators have made it their mission to try to strip LGBT kids of their rights and dignity. LGBT kids are NOT going away. And we are not going to stand silent while horrific laws come down that only exist to shame and humiliate children. Join us at the Kentucky Capitol Rotunda to help us #ProtectKYKids by stopping terrible bills like H.B. 173, 177, and S.B. 150 and 470.
This event is accessible
SPONSORED BY
BAN CONVERSION THERAPY KENTUCKY
Berea, KY
Location: Kentucky State Capitol Rotunda•700 Capital Ave, Frankfort, KY 40601 US
Kentucky's kids are under attack. From education to healthcare to personal privacy, legislators have made it their mission to try to strip LGBT kids of their rights and dignity. LGBT kids are NOT going away. And we are not going to stand silent while horrific laws come down that only exist to shame and humiliate children. Join us at the Kentucky Capitol Rotunda to help us #ProtectKYKids by stopping terrible bills like H.B. 173, 177, and S.B. 150 and 470.
This event is accessible
SPONSORED BY
BAN CONVERSION THERAPY KENTUCKY
Berea, KY
- LGBT students reported most commonly avoiding school bathrooms and locker rooms because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable.
- One third of LGBT students avoid physical education (P.E.) classes
- An overwhelming majority -- 92.3% -- reported being verbally harassed in the past year.
- Only one third of students who reported incidents of victimization to school personnel said that staff effectively addressed the problem. In fact, when asked to describe how staff responded to reported incidents of victimization, students most commonly said that staff did nothing. Of those who did not report incidents of victimization, 28.7% cited "fear of making the situation worse" as their reason.
- LGBT students who experience high levels of in-school victimization based on sexual orientation or gender identity have lower grade point averages; are less likely than other students to plan or pursue any post-secondary education; are about three times more likely to have missed school in the past month for safety concerns; are less likely to feel a sense of belonging in their school community; and have lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of depression.
- LGBT students who were out to their peers and school staff reported higher levels of victimization based on their sexual orientation and gender expression, but also higher levels of belonging and self-esteem.
- Many LGBT students in Kentucky do not have access to important school resources like Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) or similar student clubs.
- Only 18% of Kentucky's LGBT students attend a school with a GSA.
- Less than 1 in 10 Kentucky LGBT students are taught positive representations of LGBT people, history or events.
- Many Kentucky LGBT students are not protected by comprehensive anti-bullying/harassment school policies, and only 3% of Kentucky LGBT students attended a school with a comprehensive anti-bullying policy that included specific protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
- Many Kentucky LGBT students hear biased language from school staff: 36% report regularly hearing staff make homophobic remarks, and 28% regularly heard school staff make negative remarks about someone's gender expression.
- Most LGBT students in Kentucky had been victimized in school. Most of these incidents were not reported to adult authorities. The majority experienced verbal harassment; 9 out of 10 for their sexual orientation and 6 out of 10 for their gender expression.
- Many experience physical harassment and assault: 6 out of 10 for their sexual orientation and 3 out of 10 for their gender expression.
- Half of students harassed or assaulted in school NEVER reported it to school staff and 57% NEVER told a family member about the incident.
- Seventy-one percent (71%) experienced cyber-bullying.
- Nearly all Kentucky LGBT students can identify at least one LGBT supportive school staff member, but only 41% can identify 6 or more supportive school staff members.
- Nationally, nearly one third of students missed classes or entire days of school in the past month because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable.
- Fewer than 20% of guidance counselors have received any training on serving gay and lesbian students.
According to a 2011 National School Climate Survey from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educators Network (GLSEN), Kentucky's schools are currently NOT safe for most LGBTQ secondary school students (middle school and high school students).
“Kids are looking for hopefulness, and there’s no limit to what we can do if we’re hopeful. Injustice prevails where hopelessness persists.”
-- Human Rights Attorney Bryan Stevenson, addressing a Juvenile Justice Conference in Columbus, OH
Kentucky's School Climate
KYLP NEWS ARCHIVE
KENTUCKY'S SCHOOL CLIMATE
You may wonder why the quote from human rights attorney Bryan Stevenson (above) speaks of hopefulness when the statistics below indicate that there are so many issues that still need to be addressed in the public schools. The Kentucky Youth Law Project believes that there is reason to be hopeful that our public schools, on the whole, are striving to make the school experience better for LGBTQ students in Kentucky. Consider the wonderful example of Atherton High School in Louisville: their decision-making council recently implemented new non-discrimination policies that protect the rights of transgender students, as well as all other students in the school. We believe that could serve as a model for all of Kentucky's schools, and that's only one reason we are hopeful.
Still, there is significant injustice in the public schools in Kentucky, and LGBTQ youth are among the groups of students who are most likely to experience that injustice. One of our goals, at KYLP, is to work to turn the hopelessness some students have felt into hopefulness that they can make a difference. We hope to empower them, through Gay Straight Alliances, community activism and public policy advocacy to work in their schools for the changes they need to be successful -- in school, and in life.
You may wonder why the quote from human rights attorney Bryan Stevenson (above) speaks of hopefulness when the statistics below indicate that there are so many issues that still need to be addressed in the public schools. The Kentucky Youth Law Project believes that there is reason to be hopeful that our public schools, on the whole, are striving to make the school experience better for LGBTQ students in Kentucky. Consider the wonderful example of Atherton High School in Louisville: their decision-making council recently implemented new non-discrimination policies that protect the rights of transgender students, as well as all other students in the school. We believe that could serve as a model for all of Kentucky's schools, and that's only one reason we are hopeful.
Still, there is significant injustice in the public schools in Kentucky, and LGBTQ youth are among the groups of students who are most likely to experience that injustice. One of our goals, at KYLP, is to work to turn the hopelessness some students have felt into hopefulness that they can make a difference. We hope to empower them, through Gay Straight Alliances, community activism and public policy advocacy to work in their schools for the changes they need to be successful -- in school, and in life.
May 16, 2019:
KYLP congratulates Alexander Grayson Parsley on the occasion of his name change! Alex is a student at Lafayette High School in Lexington. Check out his awesome tie!!
Attorneys and Judges usually have to deal with much heavier issues in the courtroom. A notable exception to that is when a young transgender person asks the court to change their name to be consistent with their gender identity. This seems like a small thing, but it is so huge in the lives of transgender youth. Using their chosen (and court ordered) name, they can get their driver's license; apply to colleges, trade schools and universities; have their chosen name on their high school and college diplomas; have their school transcripts reflect their new name; and speak with authority, backed up by a court order, when they insist that people call them by their lawful name, rather than their dead name. It also is a powerful statement about the love and commitment of their supportive parent(s).
Thanks to Alex and his mom, Shannon Parsley, for letting KYLP assist them in attaining this milestone.
KYLP is happy to consult with LGBTQI+ youth to age 25 about their desired name and/or gender marker change. If resources and volunteer attorneys are available, a KYLP attorney may be assigned to represent persons under age 18 and those to age 25 who can show financial need. Although there will be no attorney fees, the applicant is expected to pay court costs and administrative expenses.
From New York Times:
Obama to Call for End to ‘Conversion’ Therapies for Gay and Transgender Youth
by MICHAEL D. SHEAR
APRIL 8, 2015
WASHINGTON — A 17-year-old transgender youth, Leelah Alcorn, stunned her friends and a vast Internet audience in December when she threw herself in front of a tractor-trailer after writing in an online suicide note that religious therapists had tried to convert her back to being a boy.
In response, President Obama is calling for an end to such therapies aimed at “repairing” gay, lesbian and transgender youth. His decision on the issue is the latest example of his continuing embrace of gay rights.
In a statement that was posted on Wednesday evening alongside a WhiteHouse.gov petition begun in honor of Ms. Alcorn, Mr. Obama condemned the practice, sometimes called “conversion” or “reparative” therapy, which is supported by some socially conservative organizations and religious doctors.
The petition has received more than 120,000 signatures in three months.
“We share your concern about its potentially devastating effects on the lives of transgender as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer youth,” the statement, written by Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, says. “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.”
In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Jarrett said Mr. Obama had been moved by the story of Ms. Alcorn’s suicide. But she said the problem went far beyond Ms. Alcorn.
“It was tragic, but I will tell you, unfortunately, she has a lot of company,” Ms. Jarrett said. “It’s not the story of one young person. It is the story of countless young people who have been subjected to this.”
Mr. Obama will not explicitly call for a federal law banning therapists from using such therapies on their patients, but he is open to conversations with lawmakers in both parties, White House officials said on Wednesday. Instead, he will throw his support behind the efforts to ban the practice at the state level.
Mr. Obama began his political life opposed to gay marriage and accepting of limits on gays’ serving in the military. But he now supports same-sex marriage and has sought greater equality of treatment for gay men and lesbians in the government and the private work force. In his first term, he pushed the Pentagon to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that had kept gay service members from serving openly.
On Wednesday, Mr. Obama’s top aides also heralded new protections for gay federal workers that went into effect this week. Last summer, Mr. Obama issued executive orders to ban discrimination on the basis of gender by federal contractors.
Officials also announced the creation of an “all-gender restroom” in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where many of the White House staff members work, to provide an additional option for transgender individuals who are not comfortable using either the men’s or women’s restrooms.
Therapists who advocate the use of the gender identity therapies promote them as a way of helping gay people change their sexual orientation. Those therapists reject claims that sexual orientation or identity is unchangeable and argue that gay or transgender identities should be reversed so that people can embrace their “authentic” heterosexual selves.
The NARTH Institute, an organization that advocates the therapies, says on its website that “numerous examples exist of people who have successfully modified their sexual behavior, identity, and arousal or fantasies.”
The fight against such therapies has become more urgent in recent years as gay rights organizations have sought to discredit the practice. California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia have banned therapists from offering the treatment to minors. Similar legislation was introduced in 18 states this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group that tracks legislation on the issue.
Challenges to the laws in New Jersey and California were rejected by federal appeals court judges in 2013 and 2014, officials at the Human Rights Campaign said.
“So-called ‘conversion therapy’ is a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression,” the group said in a statement.
In Ms. Jarrett’s letter, which was posted on WhiteHouse.gov, the White House says that stopping the gender identity therapies will help make the United States a more welcoming place for gay people.
“Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let’s say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he’s held as long as he can remember,” the statement says. “Soon, perhaps, he will decide it’s time to let that secret out. What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us — on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build.”
David Pickup, a licensed family therapist in California and Texas, said in an interview on Wednesday that the president and gay rights advocates were purposely misconstruing the work that he and others do. He said that minors should never be forced into therapy, but he insisted that being gay was often brought about by serious emotional problems or sexual abuse.
“We believe that change is still possible. People go to therapy because they can change, because it really does work,” Mr. Pickup said. “We help people grow into their authentic selves.”
Mr. Pickup said he and others were actively lobbying against the proposed state bans, and he urged Mr. Obama to “wake up and understand the rights of people who he doesn’t know anything about and need his help and need his compassion.”
[A version of this article appears in print on April 9, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Obama Calls for ‘Repairing’ of Gays to End.]
Obama to Call for End to ‘Conversion’ Therapies for Gay and Transgender Youth
by MICHAEL D. SHEAR
APRIL 8, 2015
WASHINGTON — A 17-year-old transgender youth, Leelah Alcorn, stunned her friends and a vast Internet audience in December when she threw herself in front of a tractor-trailer after writing in an online suicide note that religious therapists had tried to convert her back to being a boy.
In response, President Obama is calling for an end to such therapies aimed at “repairing” gay, lesbian and transgender youth. His decision on the issue is the latest example of his continuing embrace of gay rights.
In a statement that was posted on Wednesday evening alongside a WhiteHouse.gov petition begun in honor of Ms. Alcorn, Mr. Obama condemned the practice, sometimes called “conversion” or “reparative” therapy, which is supported by some socially conservative organizations and religious doctors.
The petition has received more than 120,000 signatures in three months.
“We share your concern about its potentially devastating effects on the lives of transgender as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer youth,” the statement, written by Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, says. “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.”
In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Jarrett said Mr. Obama had been moved by the story of Ms. Alcorn’s suicide. But she said the problem went far beyond Ms. Alcorn.
“It was tragic, but I will tell you, unfortunately, she has a lot of company,” Ms. Jarrett said. “It’s not the story of one young person. It is the story of countless young people who have been subjected to this.”
Mr. Obama will not explicitly call for a federal law banning therapists from using such therapies on their patients, but he is open to conversations with lawmakers in both parties, White House officials said on Wednesday. Instead, he will throw his support behind the efforts to ban the practice at the state level.
Mr. Obama began his political life opposed to gay marriage and accepting of limits on gays’ serving in the military. But he now supports same-sex marriage and has sought greater equality of treatment for gay men and lesbians in the government and the private work force. In his first term, he pushed the Pentagon to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that had kept gay service members from serving openly.
On Wednesday, Mr. Obama’s top aides also heralded new protections for gay federal workers that went into effect this week. Last summer, Mr. Obama issued executive orders to ban discrimination on the basis of gender by federal contractors.
Officials also announced the creation of an “all-gender restroom” in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where many of the White House staff members work, to provide an additional option for transgender individuals who are not comfortable using either the men’s or women’s restrooms.
Therapists who advocate the use of the gender identity therapies promote them as a way of helping gay people change their sexual orientation. Those therapists reject claims that sexual orientation or identity is unchangeable and argue that gay or transgender identities should be reversed so that people can embrace their “authentic” heterosexual selves.
The NARTH Institute, an organization that advocates the therapies, says on its website that “numerous examples exist of people who have successfully modified their sexual behavior, identity, and arousal or fantasies.”
The fight against such therapies has become more urgent in recent years as gay rights organizations have sought to discredit the practice. California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia have banned therapists from offering the treatment to minors. Similar legislation was introduced in 18 states this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group that tracks legislation on the issue.
Challenges to the laws in New Jersey and California were rejected by federal appeals court judges in 2013 and 2014, officials at the Human Rights Campaign said.
“So-called ‘conversion therapy’ is a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression,” the group said in a statement.
In Ms. Jarrett’s letter, which was posted on WhiteHouse.gov, the White House says that stopping the gender identity therapies will help make the United States a more welcoming place for gay people.
“Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let’s say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he’s held as long as he can remember,” the statement says. “Soon, perhaps, he will decide it’s time to let that secret out. What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us — on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build.”
David Pickup, a licensed family therapist in California and Texas, said in an interview on Wednesday that the president and gay rights advocates were purposely misconstruing the work that he and others do. He said that minors should never be forced into therapy, but he insisted that being gay was often brought about by serious emotional problems or sexual abuse.
“We believe that change is still possible. People go to therapy because they can change, because it really does work,” Mr. Pickup said. “We help people grow into their authentic selves.”
Mr. Pickup said he and others were actively lobbying against the proposed state bans, and he urged Mr. Obama to “wake up and understand the rights of people who he doesn’t know anything about and need his help and need his compassion.”
[A version of this article appears in print on April 9, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Obama Calls for ‘Repairing’ of Gays to End.]
From www.outsports.com:
Gay Kentucky basketball player comes out at a game, gets chased by opposing team
By Cyd Zeigler @CydZeigler
April 1, 2015
Dalton Maldonado found freedom when he came out to his Kentucky high school basketball team this season. - Mandy Stumbo
Kentucky high school basketball player Dalton Maldonado came out at a game after being called a gay slur. When the opposing team chased him in a car, his team rallied to his defense. Now he wants to help other young athletes in Indiana, Kentucky and the world.
"Hey No. 3, I hear you're a faggot."
It was the last thing Dalton Maldonado expected to hear as he and his team lined up to shake hands at a Kentucky high school basketball tournament last December. His Betsy Layne High School team had just gotten thrashed by an opposing team by 32 points. The opposing team was a staple of the state's top 25 this year; Maldonado and his team just couldn't hang with them that game. The Betsy Layne starters - including Maldonado - had sat most of the fourth quarter, given the blowout. When the game clock hit zero, tempers were low.
As Maldonado turned to see which of the opposing players called him out, he noticed several people staring at him awaiting a response to the slur. Some of them had suspected Maldonado was gay. Others had heard rumors. Only two teammates had ever heard it from his mouth.
Maldonado shot back with all the wit he could muster.
"Yeah baby, can I have your number?"
It was the perfect response - smart and biting. Maldonado had defused the moment, taking the power out of the player's slur. "Put up a strong front," he told himself. "Don't let them know they hurt you."
Inside, he was devastated.
Moments later in the locker room, Maldonado broke down. He had struggled with his sexual orientation for years, confiding in just a small group of people including one of his best friends and teammate McKenzie Akers. He had just that week told his parents that he was gay. While they weren't sure how to take it, they said they still loved him no matter what.
Away from the court with only his team in the locker room, Maldonado slammed his fist against a locker, fell onto a bench and cried.
"I sat back down and realized that I had just came out, and it was definitely not the way I wanted to. Reflecting back to this moment I realize that there was nothing I could do about it. My coach came back in and said, 'one of our players is in pain, you all need to be there for him.'
"My teammates asked what was wrong, and what he had said to me. McKenzie told them to stop questioning me, but they kept asking and asking. It just built up this pressure in me.
"I finally stood up and said, ‘I'm gay, I'm gay, okay?'"
Maldonado hadn't wanted to come out while he played sports at all, a byproduct of years of subtle messages about gay men not being capable athletes. Moments after feeling the crush of the gay slur, Maldonado had - in a fit of emotion - come out to his entire team.
"If you weren't there, it's hard to describe how emotional Dalton was," Akers said. "He was crying so hard he was shaking. Like, physically shaking. I felt awful."
It was about to get worse.
After collecting their clothes and bags the team headed to the bus, where some of the opposing team had assembled. They were yelling at the "faggot," ordering him to stay out of the bus and face them. When Maldonado boarded, the opposing team proceeded to pound the nearest window of the bus with their fists as they yelled more gay slurs. When a couple opposing players tried to board the bus to get to him, Maldonado's teammates and coaches forced them back. Once the Betsy Lane team was inside, the bus pulled away.
The opposing team wasn't done. Several of the players got in their cars and pursued the bus. Whether they actually wanted to assault Maldonado or not, they certainly wanted to scare the hell out of him.
"They were making gestures like they were trying to shoot at the bus," Akers said. "And they kept yelling bad things at Dalton. It was scary."
Maldonado's team called the police and school administrators. They were, unbelievably, in a car chase with another basketball team pursuing them because one of their players was gay. As the bus was chased down the streets of Lexington, the opposing coach stepped in and calmed his team as the police met the Betsy Layne team at their hotel and defused the situation.
The team and Maldonado were safe but shaken.
Yet the problems weren't over. They were in the middle of a four-day Christmas tournament, and they had games left on the schedule. The hotel was put on "lock down," with only the Betsy Layne team allowed access to a particular floor. Tournament organizers and school athletic directors were called. The team leaders had known or suspected Maldonado was gay, and they were shaken by the gay slur and ensuing chase that so clearly had an effect on their starting point guard. They still had a couple games left in the tournament, so the question was whether to stay and play the rest of the games or go home.
They would leave it entirely up to Maldonado.
* * *
The story sounds unbelievable, something out of a movie. Yelling gay slurs and trying to attack a player because he's gay? Getting into your car and chasing down a school bus?
When Maldonado contacted Outsports to share his story we were a bit skeptical. There had to be some embellishment. In 2015 it seemed at least 20 years past the point when something like this was possible.
"It's all true," Betsy Layne assistant boys basketball coach Brandon Kidd assured us. Kidd has known Maldonado for many years and played at Betsy Lane a decade ago. Maldonado also sent us photographs of the incident.
"They kept yelling that word," Akers said, wary of saying "faggot" out loud. "They wanted to get to Dalton. It was intense."
The name of the opposing school has been left out of the story because the school is on spring break and administrators were not able to answer emails and phone calls to the principal and athletic director.
While it was a soul-shaking experience for the entire team, in the end it was deeply affirming for them. Kentucky is one of the increasingly shrinking number of states where same-sex marriage is illegal. Only a third of the people in Kentucky support marriage equality.
Yet even in rural Kentucky, the Betsy Layne team rallying around Maldonado is becoming more the norm than the actions of a handful of athletes from the Lexington-area opposing high school. The people of Vicco, a Kentucky city of only a few hundred, recently voted an openly gay man as their mayor and passed a non-discrimination ordinance. Morehead, a town of a few thousand, has adopted the same.
"To this day I haven't lost a friend over coming out," Maldonado said. "I've actually become closer to them. In fact, the one person in my school and on my team I was scared to tell sung the song ‘Same Love' to me as he told me he would always be here for me and was proud of me.
"It was then that I realized how truly blessed I was."
While we at Outsports were shocked by the anti-gay behavior of one team, many may be surprised by the support of another. High school is a trying time for many, and acceptance of kids who are "different" can be a struggle. Those outside of Kentucky assume the locale makes it twice as bad. While Maldonado is Puerto Rican, he said he has not experienced any harassment about his ethnicity since he entered high school. Since he's come out, it's been all roses.
Despite the public perception of sports as a deeply homophobic institution, sports have long been the ultimate equalizer. Yes, there are still big problems in sports. LGBT people like Michael Sam face powerful discrimination. What we at Outsports have found for years - even in 1999 when we started the Web site - is that when athletes come out to their teams, teammates and coaches rally around them far more often than they reject them. Even in Kentucky.
"He's one of my players," Kidd said. "And we treated him just as good as anybody else on the team. I didn't look at him being a gay player, he was just my starting point guard."
* * *
After an hour of slurs, car chases and physical threats, Maldonado chose to finish the tournament.
"If we would've went home it would've looked like I was ashamed of who I am, and I'm not ashamed of who I am. I can stand up for myself, and I had my teammates and coaches by my side. I knew we would be okay. God wouldn't let anything happen to us. We had come three hours to a tournament and we were finally playing as a team and coming together."
While some of the younger players - the school is so small that eighth graders play varsity - did choose to go home, the core group of veterans stayed. With one of their teammates under fire, they wanted to make a statement.
For the rest of the tournament, the team had police escorts to and from their hotel and the basketball court. The opposing team was kept well away from Betsy Layne High School. When opposing players tried to do a shoot-around at halftime of a Betsy Layne game, they were quickly removed.
Maldonado's team, which was ranked as high as No. 17 in the state at one point last season, came together over the episode. They rallied around their gay teammate who had been the victim of the worst explicit hate most of these young student-athletes had ever seen. Instead of rejecting their teammate, finally knowing he was gay bonded the team like never before.
"The other starting four even asked me to move into their room on the trip after this," Maldonado said. "This brought us closer together, and after this trip I felt more close to them than I felt in my whole life."
The shift in the team dynamics after the incident was palpable. While Maldonado was the target of the attack, it was the entire team that absorbed the blows.
"After that incident our team really came together," Kidd said. "Dalton had often hung out with the younger players. After that happened the senior boys really took to him and they accepted him for who he was. It was one of those stories, where they all bonded together. They didn't look at him as gay or straight, they just looked at him as their brother."
One particularly meaningful moment came a few games later. Unbeknownst to most of the players, Betsy Layne was playing against another team that happened to feature Maldonado's ex-boyfriend. During a rough play, Akers knocked the opposing player to the ground. When he helped the player off the floor, Maldonado shot him a dirty look. At the next timeout, Akers asked him about it.
"I don't want you helping him up," Maldonado said. Their relationship had not ended well and there was animosity on both sides. "Would you like it if I helped your ex-girlfriend?"
The team got a chuckle out of that. Maldonado loved that they could laugh about it. On top of it all, Maldonado's team beat his ex-boyfriend in the game.
"That felt amazing."
Word of the gay basketball player spread like teen gossip so often does. Other schools quickly got wind of the news. During one game in particular, Maldonado heard the opposing band chanting "fag-got fag-got."
The word simply didn't affect him like it had weeks before. With his team by his side, he had renewed confidence.
"I felt like I didn't have anything to hide anymore, and the fact that they accepted me made it all better!"
All of the support has not come without some internal struggle for various players. Growing up in rural Kentucky, in a town of about 7,000 people, two hours from the nearest city of Lexington, the rule of the Bible can be as powerful as the rule of law. Gay people are few and far between, and local doctrine demands a lack of acceptance of homosexuality.
"It's been hard sometimes," Akers admits. "But Dalton is my friend. I've known him since we were kids. He's always been there for me when I needed him. Now it's my turn to be there for him."
Maldonado has likely played his last game of organized scholastic basketball. He will probably attend Div. 1 Eastern Kentucky University in the autumn. Maldonado, who played varsity basketball in eighth grade and started his final two seasons, is a good player but he's not that good.
While his basketball shoes will stick to pick-up games, he wanted to share his story now because of what he's learned. If he knew his coaches and teammates would have his back the way they did, he would have come out years ago.
"It was so much easier playing my senior year because I didn't have to worry about my parents or teammates finding out because I had already told them. I feel like this can help other young athletes, help them come out. My freshman year I didn't think I would ever come out.
"Now here I am telling the world. "
You can follow Dalton Maldonado on Twitter @d_maldy23 or on Instgram @dmaldy23. You can also email him at [email protected].
All photos courtesy of Mandy Stumbo.
If you're an LGBT athlete and would like to connect with other young athletes like yourself, visit GO! Athletes.
Gay Kentucky basketball player comes out at a game, gets chased by opposing team
By Cyd Zeigler @CydZeigler
April 1, 2015
Dalton Maldonado found freedom when he came out to his Kentucky high school basketball team this season. - Mandy Stumbo
Kentucky high school basketball player Dalton Maldonado came out at a game after being called a gay slur. When the opposing team chased him in a car, his team rallied to his defense. Now he wants to help other young athletes in Indiana, Kentucky and the world.
"Hey No. 3, I hear you're a faggot."
It was the last thing Dalton Maldonado expected to hear as he and his team lined up to shake hands at a Kentucky high school basketball tournament last December. His Betsy Layne High School team had just gotten thrashed by an opposing team by 32 points. The opposing team was a staple of the state's top 25 this year; Maldonado and his team just couldn't hang with them that game. The Betsy Layne starters - including Maldonado - had sat most of the fourth quarter, given the blowout. When the game clock hit zero, tempers were low.
As Maldonado turned to see which of the opposing players called him out, he noticed several people staring at him awaiting a response to the slur. Some of them had suspected Maldonado was gay. Others had heard rumors. Only two teammates had ever heard it from his mouth.
Maldonado shot back with all the wit he could muster.
"Yeah baby, can I have your number?"
It was the perfect response - smart and biting. Maldonado had defused the moment, taking the power out of the player's slur. "Put up a strong front," he told himself. "Don't let them know they hurt you."
Inside, he was devastated.
Moments later in the locker room, Maldonado broke down. He had struggled with his sexual orientation for years, confiding in just a small group of people including one of his best friends and teammate McKenzie Akers. He had just that week told his parents that he was gay. While they weren't sure how to take it, they said they still loved him no matter what.
Away from the court with only his team in the locker room, Maldonado slammed his fist against a locker, fell onto a bench and cried.
"I sat back down and realized that I had just came out, and it was definitely not the way I wanted to. Reflecting back to this moment I realize that there was nothing I could do about it. My coach came back in and said, 'one of our players is in pain, you all need to be there for him.'
"My teammates asked what was wrong, and what he had said to me. McKenzie told them to stop questioning me, but they kept asking and asking. It just built up this pressure in me.
"I finally stood up and said, ‘I'm gay, I'm gay, okay?'"
Maldonado hadn't wanted to come out while he played sports at all, a byproduct of years of subtle messages about gay men not being capable athletes. Moments after feeling the crush of the gay slur, Maldonado had - in a fit of emotion - come out to his entire team.
"If you weren't there, it's hard to describe how emotional Dalton was," Akers said. "He was crying so hard he was shaking. Like, physically shaking. I felt awful."
It was about to get worse.
After collecting their clothes and bags the team headed to the bus, where some of the opposing team had assembled. They were yelling at the "faggot," ordering him to stay out of the bus and face them. When Maldonado boarded, the opposing team proceeded to pound the nearest window of the bus with their fists as they yelled more gay slurs. When a couple opposing players tried to board the bus to get to him, Maldonado's teammates and coaches forced them back. Once the Betsy Lane team was inside, the bus pulled away.
The opposing team wasn't done. Several of the players got in their cars and pursued the bus. Whether they actually wanted to assault Maldonado or not, they certainly wanted to scare the hell out of him.
"They were making gestures like they were trying to shoot at the bus," Akers said. "And they kept yelling bad things at Dalton. It was scary."
Maldonado's team called the police and school administrators. They were, unbelievably, in a car chase with another basketball team pursuing them because one of their players was gay. As the bus was chased down the streets of Lexington, the opposing coach stepped in and calmed his team as the police met the Betsy Layne team at their hotel and defused the situation.
The team and Maldonado were safe but shaken.
Yet the problems weren't over. They were in the middle of a four-day Christmas tournament, and they had games left on the schedule. The hotel was put on "lock down," with only the Betsy Layne team allowed access to a particular floor. Tournament organizers and school athletic directors were called. The team leaders had known or suspected Maldonado was gay, and they were shaken by the gay slur and ensuing chase that so clearly had an effect on their starting point guard. They still had a couple games left in the tournament, so the question was whether to stay and play the rest of the games or go home.
They would leave it entirely up to Maldonado.
* * *
The story sounds unbelievable, something out of a movie. Yelling gay slurs and trying to attack a player because he's gay? Getting into your car and chasing down a school bus?
When Maldonado contacted Outsports to share his story we were a bit skeptical. There had to be some embellishment. In 2015 it seemed at least 20 years past the point when something like this was possible.
"It's all true," Betsy Layne assistant boys basketball coach Brandon Kidd assured us. Kidd has known Maldonado for many years and played at Betsy Lane a decade ago. Maldonado also sent us photographs of the incident.
"They kept yelling that word," Akers said, wary of saying "faggot" out loud. "They wanted to get to Dalton. It was intense."
The name of the opposing school has been left out of the story because the school is on spring break and administrators were not able to answer emails and phone calls to the principal and athletic director.
While it was a soul-shaking experience for the entire team, in the end it was deeply affirming for them. Kentucky is one of the increasingly shrinking number of states where same-sex marriage is illegal. Only a third of the people in Kentucky support marriage equality.
Yet even in rural Kentucky, the Betsy Layne team rallying around Maldonado is becoming more the norm than the actions of a handful of athletes from the Lexington-area opposing high school. The people of Vicco, a Kentucky city of only a few hundred, recently voted an openly gay man as their mayor and passed a non-discrimination ordinance. Morehead, a town of a few thousand, has adopted the same.
"To this day I haven't lost a friend over coming out," Maldonado said. "I've actually become closer to them. In fact, the one person in my school and on my team I was scared to tell sung the song ‘Same Love' to me as he told me he would always be here for me and was proud of me.
"It was then that I realized how truly blessed I was."
While we at Outsports were shocked by the anti-gay behavior of one team, many may be surprised by the support of another. High school is a trying time for many, and acceptance of kids who are "different" can be a struggle. Those outside of Kentucky assume the locale makes it twice as bad. While Maldonado is Puerto Rican, he said he has not experienced any harassment about his ethnicity since he entered high school. Since he's come out, it's been all roses.
Despite the public perception of sports as a deeply homophobic institution, sports have long been the ultimate equalizer. Yes, there are still big problems in sports. LGBT people like Michael Sam face powerful discrimination. What we at Outsports have found for years - even in 1999 when we started the Web site - is that when athletes come out to their teams, teammates and coaches rally around them far more often than they reject them. Even in Kentucky.
"He's one of my players," Kidd said. "And we treated him just as good as anybody else on the team. I didn't look at him being a gay player, he was just my starting point guard."
* * *
After an hour of slurs, car chases and physical threats, Maldonado chose to finish the tournament.
"If we would've went home it would've looked like I was ashamed of who I am, and I'm not ashamed of who I am. I can stand up for myself, and I had my teammates and coaches by my side. I knew we would be okay. God wouldn't let anything happen to us. We had come three hours to a tournament and we were finally playing as a team and coming together."
While some of the younger players - the school is so small that eighth graders play varsity - did choose to go home, the core group of veterans stayed. With one of their teammates under fire, they wanted to make a statement.
For the rest of the tournament, the team had police escorts to and from their hotel and the basketball court. The opposing team was kept well away from Betsy Layne High School. When opposing players tried to do a shoot-around at halftime of a Betsy Layne game, they were quickly removed.
Maldonado's team, which was ranked as high as No. 17 in the state at one point last season, came together over the episode. They rallied around their gay teammate who had been the victim of the worst explicit hate most of these young student-athletes had ever seen. Instead of rejecting their teammate, finally knowing he was gay bonded the team like never before.
"The other starting four even asked me to move into their room on the trip after this," Maldonado said. "This brought us closer together, and after this trip I felt more close to them than I felt in my whole life."
The shift in the team dynamics after the incident was palpable. While Maldonado was the target of the attack, it was the entire team that absorbed the blows.
"After that incident our team really came together," Kidd said. "Dalton had often hung out with the younger players. After that happened the senior boys really took to him and they accepted him for who he was. It was one of those stories, where they all bonded together. They didn't look at him as gay or straight, they just looked at him as their brother."
One particularly meaningful moment came a few games later. Unbeknownst to most of the players, Betsy Layne was playing against another team that happened to feature Maldonado's ex-boyfriend. During a rough play, Akers knocked the opposing player to the ground. When he helped the player off the floor, Maldonado shot him a dirty look. At the next timeout, Akers asked him about it.
"I don't want you helping him up," Maldonado said. Their relationship had not ended well and there was animosity on both sides. "Would you like it if I helped your ex-girlfriend?"
The team got a chuckle out of that. Maldonado loved that they could laugh about it. On top of it all, Maldonado's team beat his ex-boyfriend in the game.
"That felt amazing."
Word of the gay basketball player spread like teen gossip so often does. Other schools quickly got wind of the news. During one game in particular, Maldonado heard the opposing band chanting "fag-got fag-got."
The word simply didn't affect him like it had weeks before. With his team by his side, he had renewed confidence.
"I felt like I didn't have anything to hide anymore, and the fact that they accepted me made it all better!"
All of the support has not come without some internal struggle for various players. Growing up in rural Kentucky, in a town of about 7,000 people, two hours from the nearest city of Lexington, the rule of the Bible can be as powerful as the rule of law. Gay people are few and far between, and local doctrine demands a lack of acceptance of homosexuality.
"It's been hard sometimes," Akers admits. "But Dalton is my friend. I've known him since we were kids. He's always been there for me when I needed him. Now it's my turn to be there for him."
Maldonado has likely played his last game of organized scholastic basketball. He will probably attend Div. 1 Eastern Kentucky University in the autumn. Maldonado, who played varsity basketball in eighth grade and started his final two seasons, is a good player but he's not that good.
While his basketball shoes will stick to pick-up games, he wanted to share his story now because of what he's learned. If he knew his coaches and teammates would have his back the way they did, he would have come out years ago.
"It was so much easier playing my senior year because I didn't have to worry about my parents or teammates finding out because I had already told them. I feel like this can help other young athletes, help them come out. My freshman year I didn't think I would ever come out.
"Now here I am telling the world. "
You can follow Dalton Maldonado on Twitter @d_maldy23 or on Instgram @dmaldy23. You can also email him at [email protected].
All photos courtesy of Mandy Stumbo.
If you're an LGBT athlete and would like to connect with other young athletes like yourself, visit GO! Athletes.
April 2, 2015
KENTUCKY YOUTH LAW PROJECT JOINS WITH TRUE COLORS FUND FOR THUNDERCLAP TO END LGBT YOUTH HOMELESSNESS, APRIL 29
Approximately 40% of youth experiencing homelessness identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT), yet LGBT young people make up less than 7% of the general youth population. While there are many factors that contribute to LGBT youth homelessness, identity-based family rejection is the most commonly cited reason. Our goal is to ultimately reduce the disproportionate percentage from 40% to none. In order to do that, we need to understand the issue and the ways in which we can all play a role in ending it!
Youth consistently report severe family conflict as the primary reason for their homelessness. LGBTQ youth report double the rates of sexual abuse before age 12. According to a 2006 National Gay and Lesbian Task Force report, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trangender Youth: An Epidemic of Homelessness, twenty-six percent (26%) of gay teens were kicked out of their homes after coming out to their parents.
When these children and youth are rejected by their families, they lose all the supports they have come to rely on. As homeless youth with little or no marketable job skills, and in order to have a roof over their heads, a warm, dry place to sleep, and food in their bellies, they are forced to engage in survival sex, prostitution, drug running, and other criminal activities. This exposes them to a great risk of physical danger. To cope with the stresses of homelessness, they frequently turn to drugs and alcohol. They are unlikely to continue their education, unlikely to develop healthy long-term relationships, unlikely to live long and healthy lives.
LGBT youth homelessness is often referred to as an “invisible issue” – because no one is talking about it. In order to make a difference, we need everyone to know it exists. Click on the "Join this Thunderclap" in the right column and help us spread the word!
KENTUCKY YOUTH LAW PROJECT JOINS WITH TRUE COLORS FUND FOR THUNDERCLAP TO END LGBT YOUTH HOMELESSNESS, APRIL 29
Approximately 40% of youth experiencing homelessness identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT), yet LGBT young people make up less than 7% of the general youth population. While there are many factors that contribute to LGBT youth homelessness, identity-based family rejection is the most commonly cited reason. Our goal is to ultimately reduce the disproportionate percentage from 40% to none. In order to do that, we need to understand the issue and the ways in which we can all play a role in ending it!
Youth consistently report severe family conflict as the primary reason for their homelessness. LGBTQ youth report double the rates of sexual abuse before age 12. According to a 2006 National Gay and Lesbian Task Force report, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trangender Youth: An Epidemic of Homelessness, twenty-six percent (26%) of gay teens were kicked out of their homes after coming out to their parents.
When these children and youth are rejected by their families, they lose all the supports they have come to rely on. As homeless youth with little or no marketable job skills, and in order to have a roof over their heads, a warm, dry place to sleep, and food in their bellies, they are forced to engage in survival sex, prostitution, drug running, and other criminal activities. This exposes them to a great risk of physical danger. To cope with the stresses of homelessness, they frequently turn to drugs and alcohol. They are unlikely to continue their education, unlikely to develop healthy long-term relationships, unlikely to live long and healthy lives.
LGBT youth homelessness is often referred to as an “invisible issue” – because no one is talking about it. In order to make a difference, we need everyone to know it exists. Click on the "Join this Thunderclap" in the right column and help us spread the word!
KYLP Legal Director Keith Elston and his son, Nick, tabling at Capital Pride 2019 in Frankfort, Kentucky on Saturday, Oct. 12.
Celebrate KYLP's 8th Birthday and
Enjoy Some Tasty L.G.B.T. 'Que!!
Eat barbeque and support the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc.—giving back never tasted so good!
DATE OF FUNDRAISER: 3/30/2022
LOCATION: City Barbeque Harrodsburg Rd., 2187 Harrodsburg Road
On 3/30/2022 at City Barbeque Harrodsburg Rd, we’ll get 20% of the proceeds from every order we bring in!
Ordering in person? Show this message to the cashier at checkout (either a printout or just on your phone).
Ordering online? Use code FundA at checkout at https://order.citybbq.com/menu/harrodsburg-rd; https://order.citybbq.com/menu/richmond-rd for pick up or delivery on 3/30/2022
Ordering over the phone? Ask to apply code FundA when you provide your payment information.
Want to increase your impact? Place a group order online: a bigger order for you means a bigger donation for us! Start a group order at https://order.citybbq.com/menu/harrodsburg-rd, send the link around the office, and be a hero (to both us and your coworkers). Just remember to use code FundA at checkout!
Remember: all orders have to be picked up or delivered on 3/30/2022 from City Barbeque Harrodsburg Rd for it to count toward our fundraiser.
Thanks for your support!
Cashier: Fundraiser A
DATE OF FUNDRAISER: 3/30/2022
LOCATION: City Barbeque Harrodsburg Rd., 2187 Harrodsburg Road
On 3/30/2022 at City Barbeque Harrodsburg Rd, we’ll get 20% of the proceeds from every order we bring in!
Ordering in person? Show this message to the cashier at checkout (either a printout or just on your phone).
Ordering online? Use code FundA at checkout at https://order.citybbq.com/menu/harrodsburg-rd; https://order.citybbq.com/menu/richmond-rd for pick up or delivery on 3/30/2022
Ordering over the phone? Ask to apply code FundA when you provide your payment information.
Want to increase your impact? Place a group order online: a bigger order for you means a bigger donation for us! Start a group order at https://order.citybbq.com/menu/harrodsburg-rd, send the link around the office, and be a hero (to both us and your coworkers). Just remember to use code FundA at checkout!
Remember: all orders have to be picked up or delivered on 3/30/2022 from City Barbeque Harrodsburg Rd for it to count toward our fundraiser.
Thanks for your support!
Cashier: Fundraiser A
KYLP, Born Perfect File Complaint with the Kentucky Board of
Social Work against Kentucky Therapist for Subjecting Minor to
So-Called Conversion Therapy
FRANKFORT, KY -- The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. (KYLP) and Born Perfect, a project of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), filed a complaint with the Kentucky Board of Social Work on behalf of our client, Curtis Galloway, against Joseph A. Williams, a licensed clinical social worker based in Mayfield, Kentucky. The complaint alleges that Williams subjected Galloway to the unethical and discredited practice of conversion therapy when Galloway was a minor, causing Galloway to experience serious and lasting harm.
The complaint also alleges that Williams falsely informed Galloway's parents that being gay is a disorder and can be changed through counseling services, which Williams offered and subsequently provided.
By engaging in this practice, the complaint asserts, Williams violated numerous professional and ethical standards and should be investigated and disciplined by the Kentucky Board of Social Work.
"Born Perfect is proud to file this complaint in support of Curtis Galloway so that his former therapist will no longer be able to prey on vulnerable youth and their families," said Born Perfect co-founder Mathew Shurka. "Conversion therapy is reckless and harmful and licensed clinicians who engage in it must be held accountable for the damage they cause."
"I am filing this complaint to hold Mr. Williams accountable and to ensure that no other person experiences the guild and shame that people like him inflict on their patients," said Curtis Galloway.
The notion that being gay or lesbian is a mental illness or disorder that may be treated or cured through psychotherapy has no scientific support and has been soundly rejected by the medical and mental health community. Subjecting patients to conversion therapy is extremely dangerous and puts them at risk of serious harms, including depression, loss of self-esteem, and dramatically increased rates of suicidality.
"LGBTQ+ kids should be supported by the adults in their lives -- not pathologized and subjected to dangerous, fake therapy. KYLP stands with Curtis and with all conversion therapy survivors," said Keith D. Elston, Kentucky Youth Law Project Legal Director.
Medical science now uniformly agrees that same-sex sexual orientation is part of the normal spectrum of human diversity, and in no way constitutes a mental defect or pathology. In its landmark marriage equality ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that "psychiatrists and others [have] recognized that sexual orientation is both a normal expression of human sexuality, and immutable."
The complaint asks the KBSW to investigate Mr. Williams for subjecting his patients to conversion therapy and impose appropriate sanctions to prevent Williams from subjecting other patients to this dangerous practice either now or in the future.
Social Work against Kentucky Therapist for Subjecting Minor to
So-Called Conversion Therapy
FRANKFORT, KY -- The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. (KYLP) and Born Perfect, a project of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), filed a complaint with the Kentucky Board of Social Work on behalf of our client, Curtis Galloway, against Joseph A. Williams, a licensed clinical social worker based in Mayfield, Kentucky. The complaint alleges that Williams subjected Galloway to the unethical and discredited practice of conversion therapy when Galloway was a minor, causing Galloway to experience serious and lasting harm.
The complaint also alleges that Williams falsely informed Galloway's parents that being gay is a disorder and can be changed through counseling services, which Williams offered and subsequently provided.
By engaging in this practice, the complaint asserts, Williams violated numerous professional and ethical standards and should be investigated and disciplined by the Kentucky Board of Social Work.
"Born Perfect is proud to file this complaint in support of Curtis Galloway so that his former therapist will no longer be able to prey on vulnerable youth and their families," said Born Perfect co-founder Mathew Shurka. "Conversion therapy is reckless and harmful and licensed clinicians who engage in it must be held accountable for the damage they cause."
"I am filing this complaint to hold Mr. Williams accountable and to ensure that no other person experiences the guild and shame that people like him inflict on their patients," said Curtis Galloway.
The notion that being gay or lesbian is a mental illness or disorder that may be treated or cured through psychotherapy has no scientific support and has been soundly rejected by the medical and mental health community. Subjecting patients to conversion therapy is extremely dangerous and puts them at risk of serious harms, including depression, loss of self-esteem, and dramatically increased rates of suicidality.
"LGBTQ+ kids should be supported by the adults in their lives -- not pathologized and subjected to dangerous, fake therapy. KYLP stands with Curtis and with all conversion therapy survivors," said Keith D. Elston, Kentucky Youth Law Project Legal Director.
Medical science now uniformly agrees that same-sex sexual orientation is part of the normal spectrum of human diversity, and in no way constitutes a mental defect or pathology. In its landmark marriage equality ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that "psychiatrists and others [have] recognized that sexual orientation is both a normal expression of human sexuality, and immutable."
The complaint asks the KBSW to investigate Mr. Williams for subjecting his patients to conversion therapy and impose appropriate sanctions to prevent Williams from subjecting other patients to this dangerous practice either now or in the future.
KYLP Legal Director Addresses
"Legal Advocacy for Transgender Children and Youth"
In Fayette County Bar Association Program
Advocating for the legal rights of transgender children and youth is a challenge. LGBTQ+ children and youth often face families, schools and communities that are not accepting of their gender identity or sexual orientation, and some end up running away from—or are being thrown out by—their birth families. For the attorney who is representing a transgender child or adolescent, having a solid understanding of the experiences our clients have had—with discrimination, harassment, bullying, teasing, family and community rejection—is essential to a zealous advocacy for our clients.
In this 53-minute presentation, I will talk about some of the terminology that you should know, how cisgender privilege impacts our relationships with trans people, what happens during transition, the dangers of gender dysphoria, and how we, as attorneys can best represent our transgender youth clients.
In this 53-minute presentation, I will talk about some of the terminology that you should know, how cisgender privilege impacts our relationships with trans people, what happens during transition, the dangers of gender dysphoria, and how we, as attorneys can best represent our transgender youth clients.
Together, we can be the allies LGBTQ+ kids need
Governor Andy Beshear has asked all of us to stay in our homes to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our communities. However, during this time of social isolation, the work to protect LGBTQ+ youth goes on. There are still young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, gender-queer, gender non-conforming, two-spirit, and nonbinary who are experiencing homelessness. Some are estranged from their families. Some are still risking exposure to the coronavirus, and while they are not generally considered in the high-risk groups, we don't yet know all the ways the virus may manifest itself in young people.
Here are some recent examples of the work we are doing to protect LGBTQ+ kids:
You can be an ally too. Your gift of $25, $50, $100 or more will help KYLP fulfill our pledge to fight for LGBTQ+ youth throughout Kentucky. Please consider becoming a KYLP Sustainer by making your gift recurring weekly, monthly, or semiannually.
Remember what Gov. Andy says: We will get through this; we will get through this TOGETHER!
Thank you for your generous support of the Kentucky Youth Law Project!
Sincerely,
Keith D. Elston
KYLP Founder and Legal Director
Governor Andy Beshear has asked all of us to stay in our homes to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our communities. However, during this time of social isolation, the work to protect LGBTQ+ youth goes on. There are still young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, gender-queer, gender non-conforming, two-spirit, and nonbinary who are experiencing homelessness. Some are estranged from their families. Some are still risking exposure to the coronavirus, and while they are not generally considered in the high-risk groups, we don't yet know all the ways the virus may manifest itself in young people.
Here are some recent examples of the work we are doing to protect LGBTQ+ kids:
- The COVID-19 crisis has overwhelmed the child welfare system and many young people who have experienced foster care are losing employment and housing, we know that 1 in 5 children and youth in foster care identify as LGBTQ+. So KYLP is stepping up our efforts to educate Kentucky child welfare workers about the unique needs of these kids and the importance of getting the best placements for them.
- We are representing nearly a dozen youths who are currently in Kentucky's foster care system. One of them, a sweet and funny 13-year-old African American kid, came into the system last year when his mother died of cancer. By age 9, he was caring for his five younger siblings, acting as a surrogate parent to them, and acting as a home health aide for his mother, who was too ill to parent any of them. When he and his siblings were placed in foster care after their mother's death, he was just beginning to come out as a gay kid. This made it much harder to find a placement for him. Thankfully, we were able to find a same-sex couple in Central Kentucky who opened their home and their hearts to him. Now, he is moving rapidly toward adoption and because he lives in Central Kentucky with his soon-to-be adoptive family, he is able to stay in touch with his younger siblings and have a forever family that understands him, will fight for him, and will give him a loving and safe home.
- In 2020, KYLP launched a new Facebook page, @KYLPyouth, specifically for LGBTQ+ youth under age 25 and the rapid increase in membership to that page has been astounding. Just in the past two weeks we have welcomed 140+ new members and reached nearly 5,000 Kentucky youth from all over the state. All of them are under age 25 and are seeking information and support regarding their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Additionally, we have launched a private discussion group where young people can ask questions about their legal rights and share their concerns and fears.
- For more than a year, KYLP and our partners in Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky have been at the forefront of the fight to enact legislation that will prevent licensed mental health professionals from using harmful and universally denounced practices known as "conversion therapy." In the 2020 Kentucky General Assembly, a bill that we drafted was introduced in both the House of Representatives and Senate. We are proud that there was a true bipartisan effort to get this legislation passed.
- Over the past few months, I have answered a number of questions from KYLP Youth members, mostly wanting to know what their legal rights were related to hate crimes, conversion therapy, and discrimination in their schools and communities. They are thirsty for knowledge about their civil and legal rights, and this affirms our belief that LGBTQ+ youth recognize that they are treated differently and have some pretty big obstacles in their path. They need to know they have an ally who will fight for them.
You can be an ally too. Your gift of $25, $50, $100 or more will help KYLP fulfill our pledge to fight for LGBTQ+ youth throughout Kentucky. Please consider becoming a KYLP Sustainer by making your gift recurring weekly, monthly, or semiannually.
Remember what Gov. Andy says: We will get through this; we will get through this TOGETHER!
Thank you for your generous support of the Kentucky Youth Law Project!
Sincerely,
Keith D. Elston
KYLP Founder and Legal Director
KYLP ARCHIVES
2021
KYLP to Partner With UK School of Nursing
to Provide Health Care Advocacy to
KYLP Clients in Juvenile and Family Courts
LEXINGTON -- The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. is partnering with the University of Kentucky School of Nursing to address and support the medical needs of LGBTQ+ children and youth who are in foster or residential treatment placements and whose cases are before the Dependency, Neglect and Abuse (DNA) Courts, which are part of the county Juvenile and Family Court system, during the 2021 Spring Semester.
Legal Director Keith Elston made the announcement today in Lexington in an email to Family Court Judges, court personnel, and Guardians ad Litem. "We are so excited to begin this important collaboration with the UK School of Nursing," Elston said. "Too often, LGBTQ+ children and youth in out of home care are taken to primary care providers who are not familiar with their unique medical concerns. This program will provide a new layer of advocacy for our clients, inform the courts about the health needs of those clients who are before the courts, and assist our clients in finding competent and experienced health care providers to meet their needs.
KYLP has been assigned two Nursing Interns who will, primarily through telehealth, meet with our clients, discuss and assess their immediate and long-term health needs, provide written recommendations to be submitted to the Court, and assist our clients in finding health care providers who are sensitive and have experience treating LGBTQ+ youth, and help them establish a doctor/patient relationship with that provider.
Currently, finding experienced health care providers can be a daunting challenge, especially for LGBTQ+ youth in more rural areas of the state of Kentucky. "We are looking forward to adding value to our representation of our DNA clients, Elston said.
KYLP, NCLR File Complaint Against Kentucky Therapist for
Subjecting Minor to So-Called Conversion Therapy;
Seeks Revocation of Therapist's Social Work License
May 13, 2021
LEXINGTON -- This week, in what appears to be the first attempt to have a Licensed Clinical Social Worker disciplined for engaging in the discredited and dangerous practice of so-called "Conversion Therapy," the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. (KYLP), and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), on behalf of our client, C.G., filed a complaint against Joseph A. Williams, LCSW, of Mayfield, Kentucky, doing business as Williams Christian Counseling. The complaint, filed with the Kentucky Board of Social Work (KBSW), alleges that Williams subjected C.G. to unethical and discredited conversion therapy when C.G. was a minor, and falsely informed his parents that being gay was pathological and could be changed through counseling services, which Williams offered and subsequently provided.
KYLP believes that Williams continues to subject his patients to this harmful practice or will in the future if requested to do so. By engaging in this practice, KYLP asserts, Williams violates various professional and ethical rules and should be subject to discipline by the Kentucky Board of Social Work.
The notion that being gay or lesbian is a mental illness or disorder that may be treated or cured through attempts to change the patient's sexual orientation is a notion that has been soundly rejected by the medical and mental health community because it is scientifically unsupported and can lead to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Medical science now uniformly agrees that same-sex sexual orientation is part of the normal spectrum of human diversity, and in no way constitutes a mental defect or pathology. In their landmark marriage equality ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that "psychiatrists and others [have] recognized that sexual orientation is both a normal expression of human sexuality and immutable."
The complaint asks the KBSW to investigate Mr. Williams for subjecting his patients to conversion therapy and impose appropriate sanctions related to his licensure to prevent Williams from subjecting other patients to the harmful and discredited practice of conversion therapy now and in the future.
KYLP believes that Williams continues to subject his patients to this harmful practice or will in the future if requested to do so. By engaging in this practice, KYLP asserts, Williams violates various professional and ethical rules and should be subject to discipline by the Kentucky Board of Social Work.
The notion that being gay or lesbian is a mental illness or disorder that may be treated or cured through attempts to change the patient's sexual orientation is a notion that has been soundly rejected by the medical and mental health community because it is scientifically unsupported and can lead to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Medical science now uniformly agrees that same-sex sexual orientation is part of the normal spectrum of human diversity, and in no way constitutes a mental defect or pathology. In their landmark marriage equality ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that "psychiatrists and others [have] recognized that sexual orientation is both a normal expression of human sexuality and immutable."
The complaint asks the KBSW to investigate Mr. Williams for subjecting his patients to conversion therapy and impose appropriate sanctions related to his licensure to prevent Williams from subjecting other patients to the harmful and discredited practice of conversion therapy now and in the future.
2019
ANTI-TRANS "BATHROOM BILL" PRE-FILED FOR KENTUCKY GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2020
KYLP Opposes this bill
December 1, 2019
Representative. David Hale (R-Menifee, Montgomery, & Powell Counties) pre-filed B.R. 1020, the Kentucky Student Privacy Act, which would require students to use the school restrooms and locker rooms of the gender they were assigned at birth, rather than the facilities consistent with their gender identity, and provides for a private cause of action against any school district that fails to prevent transgender students from using the facilities associated with their gender identity.
The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. OPPOSES this harmful legislation for the following reasons:
a. This anti-transgender "bathroom bill" would effectively deny transgender students the use of public school bathrooms, locker rooms, or changing rooms that match their gender identity;
b. This bill denies equal protection of the law under federal and state constitutions;
c. Title IX of the Civil Rights Act rejects the argument promoted by the bill's sponsor that anti-transgender "bathroom bills" prevent sexual violence. Further, the federal law requires public schools to treat all students equally with regard to their sex or gender. Arguments of this kind are not based in reality;
d. A recent study found that since 2003, there have only been 20 instances of alleged bathroom sex crimes involving either a transgender person, a cisgender man intentionally taking advantage of a law protecting transgender bathroom access, or cisgender men disguising themselves as women to gain access to women's bathrooms;
e. By comparison, the same study found 154 cases in the U.S. since 2004 of cisgender men who allegedly committed bathroom sex crimes and did not attempt to disguise themselves as women or claim to be protected by laws expanding transgender bathroom access;
f. The real danger of assault is faced by transgender students who, every single day, have to weigh whether to use the bathroom in their school and potentially be attacked, either verbally or physically, by other students, or avoid using public facilities, which leads to a number of health risks to the transgender student, including a higher rate of urinary tract infections, heightened anxiety and depression, and suicidality; and
g. Arguments that this bill is about protecting students' right to privacy is another smokescreen argument, which is promoted by lawmakers who take advantage of people's insecurity surrounding bathroom usage and their fear of others who are different to propagate myths about the power of these anti-transgender laws to stop attacks in bathrooms and to protect student privacy.
Anti-transgender legislation focuses on bathroom use because the proponents of this legislation have found that in other states, like North Carolina, they could use these bills as a means of discrediting and preventing the passage of legitimate anti-discrimination laws that would protect LGBTQ+ people without adversely affecting the rights and privileges of non-LGBTQ+ people.
If Rep. Hale and the Kentucky legislature is concerned about student privacy, a better solution would be for the legislature to provide funding to schools so that they can modify their facilities to create more privacy for all students, such as by installing locking doors on toilet stalls, building floor-to-ceiling dividers between stalls, and creating more single-use restrooms, rather than communal restrooms.
And providing a private cause of action will only create a stronger financial incentive for schools to discriminate against transgender students and faculty and drain our schools of funding that could better be used to pay for new textbooks, school supplies, and educational resources. That pits transgender students against their fellow students and their community, and singles them out for bad treatment.
The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. vows to fight B.R. 1020 and educate legislators about better ways that they can protect every Kentucky student without creating pariahs out of a small group of students who just want to be able to go pee in peace.
KYLP Opposes this bill
December 1, 2019
Representative. David Hale (R-Menifee, Montgomery, & Powell Counties) pre-filed B.R. 1020, the Kentucky Student Privacy Act, which would require students to use the school restrooms and locker rooms of the gender they were assigned at birth, rather than the facilities consistent with their gender identity, and provides for a private cause of action against any school district that fails to prevent transgender students from using the facilities associated with their gender identity.
The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. OPPOSES this harmful legislation for the following reasons:
a. This anti-transgender "bathroom bill" would effectively deny transgender students the use of public school bathrooms, locker rooms, or changing rooms that match their gender identity;
b. This bill denies equal protection of the law under federal and state constitutions;
c. Title IX of the Civil Rights Act rejects the argument promoted by the bill's sponsor that anti-transgender "bathroom bills" prevent sexual violence. Further, the federal law requires public schools to treat all students equally with regard to their sex or gender. Arguments of this kind are not based in reality;
d. A recent study found that since 2003, there have only been 20 instances of alleged bathroom sex crimes involving either a transgender person, a cisgender man intentionally taking advantage of a law protecting transgender bathroom access, or cisgender men disguising themselves as women to gain access to women's bathrooms;
e. By comparison, the same study found 154 cases in the U.S. since 2004 of cisgender men who allegedly committed bathroom sex crimes and did not attempt to disguise themselves as women or claim to be protected by laws expanding transgender bathroom access;
f. The real danger of assault is faced by transgender students who, every single day, have to weigh whether to use the bathroom in their school and potentially be attacked, either verbally or physically, by other students, or avoid using public facilities, which leads to a number of health risks to the transgender student, including a higher rate of urinary tract infections, heightened anxiety and depression, and suicidality; and
g. Arguments that this bill is about protecting students' right to privacy is another smokescreen argument, which is promoted by lawmakers who take advantage of people's insecurity surrounding bathroom usage and their fear of others who are different to propagate myths about the power of these anti-transgender laws to stop attacks in bathrooms and to protect student privacy.
Anti-transgender legislation focuses on bathroom use because the proponents of this legislation have found that in other states, like North Carolina, they could use these bills as a means of discrediting and preventing the passage of legitimate anti-discrimination laws that would protect LGBTQ+ people without adversely affecting the rights and privileges of non-LGBTQ+ people.
If Rep. Hale and the Kentucky legislature is concerned about student privacy, a better solution would be for the legislature to provide funding to schools so that they can modify their facilities to create more privacy for all students, such as by installing locking doors on toilet stalls, building floor-to-ceiling dividers between stalls, and creating more single-use restrooms, rather than communal restrooms.
And providing a private cause of action will only create a stronger financial incentive for schools to discriminate against transgender students and faculty and drain our schools of funding that could better be used to pay for new textbooks, school supplies, and educational resources. That pits transgender students against their fellow students and their community, and singles them out for bad treatment.
The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. vows to fight B.R. 1020 and educate legislators about better ways that they can protect every Kentucky student without creating pariahs out of a small group of students who just want to be able to go pee in peace.
BAN CONVERSION THERAPY KENTUCKY
TO BECOME SPONSORED PROJECT OF
KENTUCKY YOUTH LAW PROJECT, INC.
June 3, 2019 -- The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. has agreed to become the fiscal sponsor of Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky as of June 1, 2019. A fiscal sponsorship is a formal arrangement in which a 501(c)(3) public charity, like KYLP, sponsors a project that may lack exempt status. This arrangement will allow BCTK to take advantage of KYLP’s tax exempt status to seek grants and raise funds for its work in seeking to prevent licensed mental health providers from using the abusive practice of sexual orientation change efforts, or “SOCE,” known more commonly as “conversion therapy” or “reparative therapy.” Under a Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement signed by KYLP Legal Director, Keith D. Elston, and BCTK Executive Director, Tanner Mobley, BCTK will become a project of the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. in order for KYLP to administer donor gifts, grant awards, and oversee the activities of BCTK to ensure compliance with federal and state laws regarding political activities by a charitable organization.
“This joint agreement between our two organizations unites us in an important aspect of the work of the Kentucky Youth Law Project,” KYLP Legal Director, Keith D. Elston said. KYLP was one of the original signatories on the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Born Perfect: The Campaign to End Conversion Therapy by passing laws across the country to protect LGBT children and young people, fighting in courtrooms to ensure their safety, and raising awareness about the serious harms caused by these dangerous practices.
“Having KYLP as our fiscal sponsor is a crucial step in raising awareness on the dangers of so-called ‘conversion therapy’,” said BCTK Executive Director Tanner A. Mobley, “and will make it possible for us to ban these dangerous and discredited practices once and for all.” BCTK works closely with the Trevor Project’s “50 Bills, 50 States” Campaign to protect LGBTQ youth from these discredited and abusive practices across the United States.
The mission of the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. is to enhance and protect the legal rights and entitlements of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, gender fluid, and gender non-conforming youth through no-fee legal representation, education, and public policy advocacy. Because up to 40% of all youth who experience homelessness self-identify as LGBTQI+, the organization’s goal is to reduce homelessness and promote equal treatment for LGBTQI+ youth in social welfare agencies, government services, the courts, and public schools throughout Kentucky.
Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky is a loose affiliation of individuals and organizations who desire to advocate for public policy and legislation that forbids the use of so-called “conversion therapy” practices to youth under age 18.
TO BECOME SPONSORED PROJECT OF
KENTUCKY YOUTH LAW PROJECT, INC.
June 3, 2019 -- The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. has agreed to become the fiscal sponsor of Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky as of June 1, 2019. A fiscal sponsorship is a formal arrangement in which a 501(c)(3) public charity, like KYLP, sponsors a project that may lack exempt status. This arrangement will allow BCTK to take advantage of KYLP’s tax exempt status to seek grants and raise funds for its work in seeking to prevent licensed mental health providers from using the abusive practice of sexual orientation change efforts, or “SOCE,” known more commonly as “conversion therapy” or “reparative therapy.” Under a Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement signed by KYLP Legal Director, Keith D. Elston, and BCTK Executive Director, Tanner Mobley, BCTK will become a project of the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. in order for KYLP to administer donor gifts, grant awards, and oversee the activities of BCTK to ensure compliance with federal and state laws regarding political activities by a charitable organization.
“This joint agreement between our two organizations unites us in an important aspect of the work of the Kentucky Youth Law Project,” KYLP Legal Director, Keith D. Elston said. KYLP was one of the original signatories on the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Born Perfect: The Campaign to End Conversion Therapy by passing laws across the country to protect LGBT children and young people, fighting in courtrooms to ensure their safety, and raising awareness about the serious harms caused by these dangerous practices.
“Having KYLP as our fiscal sponsor is a crucial step in raising awareness on the dangers of so-called ‘conversion therapy’,” said BCTK Executive Director Tanner A. Mobley, “and will make it possible for us to ban these dangerous and discredited practices once and for all.” BCTK works closely with the Trevor Project’s “50 Bills, 50 States” Campaign to protect LGBTQ youth from these discredited and abusive practices across the United States.
The mission of the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. is to enhance and protect the legal rights and entitlements of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, gender fluid, and gender non-conforming youth through no-fee legal representation, education, and public policy advocacy. Because up to 40% of all youth who experience homelessness self-identify as LGBTQI+, the organization’s goal is to reduce homelessness and promote equal treatment for LGBTQI+ youth in social welfare agencies, government services, the courts, and public schools throughout Kentucky.
Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky is a loose affiliation of individuals and organizations who desire to advocate for public policy and legislation that forbids the use of so-called “conversion therapy” practices to youth under age 18.
Azkabash, hosted by Potterheads with a Purpose,
to benefit Kentucky Youth Law Project
December 1, 2019
Calling all witches & wizards to an unforgettable night of magic and mystery - AZKABASH! Be enchanted as you sit front row at our Harry Potter Drag Show full of sorcery and sass. Experience common rooms for every Hogwarts house, tarot card readings, hand-crafted cocktails and more. Costumes encouraged!
Our one-of-a-kind evening of spells and spirits will also raise money for a great cause - the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc., advocating for LGBTQI+ young people and supporting them with no-fee legal assistance. Bring the most magical version of yourself and prepare to party with 300 Potterheads who value excitement, mystery, diversity, fun, and standing up for a better world.
Hosted by Odeon Louisville at 1335 Story Ave. General Admission for $30. VIP, including a wand pairing ceremony with complimentary hand-crafted wand and 1 drink ticket, for $50.
to benefit Kentucky Youth Law Project
December 1, 2019
Calling all witches & wizards to an unforgettable night of magic and mystery - AZKABASH! Be enchanted as you sit front row at our Harry Potter Drag Show full of sorcery and sass. Experience common rooms for every Hogwarts house, tarot card readings, hand-crafted cocktails and more. Costumes encouraged!
Our one-of-a-kind evening of spells and spirits will also raise money for a great cause - the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc., advocating for LGBTQI+ young people and supporting them with no-fee legal assistance. Bring the most magical version of yourself and prepare to party with 300 Potterheads who value excitement, mystery, diversity, fun, and standing up for a better world.
Hosted by Odeon Louisville at 1335 Story Ave. General Admission for $30. VIP, including a wand pairing ceremony with complimentary hand-crafted wand and 1 drink ticket, for $50.
We want to welcome Drug Rehab Connections, which provides unbiased information reviewed by medical experts so their readers, and ours, can make an informed decision on the next steps in their, or a loved one’s, drug rehabilitation journey.
For more details: Click Here
For more details: Click Here
WHAT'S NEW?
We are happy to announce that we will, from time to time, be publishing articles on Mental Health topics related to LGBTQI+ Youth on our new MENTAL HEALTH page. Our first contributor is Molly Anderson from recoveryhope.org. Please take a moment or two to check out our MENTAL HEALTH page!
We are happy to announce that we will, from time to time, be publishing articles on Mental Health topics related to LGBTQI+ Youth on our new MENTAL HEALTH page. Our first contributor is Molly Anderson from recoveryhope.org. Please take a moment or two to check out our MENTAL HEALTH page!
2018
BREAKING NEWS:
KYLP JOINS TREVOR PROJECT
IN CALLING ON KENTUCKY
LAWMAKERS TO
PROTECT LGBTQ YOUTH
FROM DANGEROUS
"CONVERSION THERAPY"
The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. announced today that it has joined with the Trevor Project in a new effort to protect LGBTQ youth from the dangerous and discredited practice of so-called "conversion therapy," and supporting the passage of House Bill 258 in the Kentucky General Assembly.
Conversion therapists falsely claim to be able to change LGBTQ youth into straight and cisgender youth. Prominent professional health associations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, among numerous others, oppose the use of conversion therapy on youth, call the practice harmful and ineffective. If successful, Kentucky would be the 10th state to pass legislation limiting the practice though another 40 states still allow this terrible crisis to continue.
House Bill 258, if enacted, would prohibit practitioners from engaging in conversion therapy with anyone under age 18; require violations to be subject to board discipline and false claims laws; and prohibit public funds from being used for conversion therapy. Because the practice of conversion therapy is an on-going threat to the health and welfare of LGBTQ youth, the bill seeks to be declared an emergency.
"Conversion therapy" is defined, for purposes of this bill, as any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender. The term does not include counseling that provides assistance to a person undergoing gender transition, or counseling that provides acceptance, support, and understanding of a person or facilitates a person's coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, including sexual-orientation-neutral interventions to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices, as long as such counseling does not seek to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity.
The bill would apply to physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychological practitioners, psychologists with autonomous functioning, or psychological associates, social workers, clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, marriage and family therapist associates, professional counselors, professional clinical counselors, professional counselor associates, and pastoral counselors licensed or certified to practice under Kentucky law.
"The bill's sponsors, Rep. Jim Wayne, Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, Rep. Kelly Flood, Rep. Ruth Ann Palumbo, and Rep. Attica Scott are to be applauded for championing this bill," said Keith D. Elston, legal director for the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. "We strongly encourage our supporters to contact House Leaders and their own Representatives to urge passage of HB 258," Elston added. The legislature switchboard can be reached at 1-800-372-7181.
The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc., based in Lexington, is Kentucky's only legal services organization dedicated to protecting the legal rights and entitlements of LGBTQ youth through direct legal assistance, education, and public policy advocacy.
The Trevor Project is the leading and only accredited national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ people under the age of 25.
Media Contact:
Keith D. Elston, Legal Director, (859) 225-2348
KYLP JOINS TREVOR PROJECT
IN CALLING ON KENTUCKY
LAWMAKERS TO
PROTECT LGBTQ YOUTH
FROM DANGEROUS
"CONVERSION THERAPY"
The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. announced today that it has joined with the Trevor Project in a new effort to protect LGBTQ youth from the dangerous and discredited practice of so-called "conversion therapy," and supporting the passage of House Bill 258 in the Kentucky General Assembly.
Conversion therapists falsely claim to be able to change LGBTQ youth into straight and cisgender youth. Prominent professional health associations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, among numerous others, oppose the use of conversion therapy on youth, call the practice harmful and ineffective. If successful, Kentucky would be the 10th state to pass legislation limiting the practice though another 40 states still allow this terrible crisis to continue.
House Bill 258, if enacted, would prohibit practitioners from engaging in conversion therapy with anyone under age 18; require violations to be subject to board discipline and false claims laws; and prohibit public funds from being used for conversion therapy. Because the practice of conversion therapy is an on-going threat to the health and welfare of LGBTQ youth, the bill seeks to be declared an emergency.
"Conversion therapy" is defined, for purposes of this bill, as any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender. The term does not include counseling that provides assistance to a person undergoing gender transition, or counseling that provides acceptance, support, and understanding of a person or facilitates a person's coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, including sexual-orientation-neutral interventions to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices, as long as such counseling does not seek to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity.
The bill would apply to physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychological practitioners, psychologists with autonomous functioning, or psychological associates, social workers, clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, marriage and family therapist associates, professional counselors, professional clinical counselors, professional counselor associates, and pastoral counselors licensed or certified to practice under Kentucky law.
"The bill's sponsors, Rep. Jim Wayne, Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, Rep. Kelly Flood, Rep. Ruth Ann Palumbo, and Rep. Attica Scott are to be applauded for championing this bill," said Keith D. Elston, legal director for the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc. "We strongly encourage our supporters to contact House Leaders and their own Representatives to urge passage of HB 258," Elston added. The legislature switchboard can be reached at 1-800-372-7181.
The Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc., based in Lexington, is Kentucky's only legal services organization dedicated to protecting the legal rights and entitlements of LGBTQ youth through direct legal assistance, education, and public policy advocacy.
The Trevor Project is the leading and only accredited national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ people under the age of 25.
Media Contact:
Keith D. Elston, Legal Director, (859) 225-2348
A SHOUT OUT TO OUR RUSSIAN FRIENDS
In the past month, this website has received 48 views from Russia, all from the city of Moscow. In the spirit of international brotherhood, we want to say to our Russian friends,
Добро пожаловать в наши друзья из Москвы! Мы надеемся, что вы найдете что-то полезное здесь. Мы находимся в знак солидарности с лесбиянок, гомосексуалистов, бисексуалов и транссексуалов и допроса молодежи России!
(Translated, that means: "Welcome to our friends from Moscow! We hope you find something helpful here. We stand in solidarity with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth of Russia!") (1/18/2015)
In the past month, this website has received 48 views from Russia, all from the city of Moscow. In the spirit of international brotherhood, we want to say to our Russian friends,
Добро пожаловать в наши друзья из Москвы! Мы надеемся, что вы найдете что-то полезное здесь. Мы находимся в знак солидарности с лесбиянок, гомосексуалистов, бисексуалов и транссексуалов и допроса молодежи России!
(Translated, that means: "Welcome to our friends from Moscow! We hope you find something helpful here. We stand in solidarity with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth of Russia!") (1/18/2015)
2015
February 27, 2015
Kentucky Senate votes 27-9 to send Trans-discriminatory bill to House
FRANKFORT -- The Republican-controlled Kentucky Senate voted today in favor of Senate Bill 76, the so-called "Bathroom Bully Bill," by a vote of 27 - 9. The bill, supported by Senator C. B. Embry, and pushed by the Kentucky Family Foundation, proposes to restrict the use of school restrooms and other facilities in which students may be in a state of undress to the gender they were assigned at birth. "This bill completely disregards a person's gender identity, which is a better indicator of a person's gender than their genitalia," said Keith D. Elston, Legal Director of the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc., a nonprofit legal services organization advocating on behalf of LGBTQ youth in Kentucky. "It clearly violates both the letter and the spirit of the federal Equal Protection Clause and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and therefore, if it were to become law in Kentucky, it would require school districts to discriminate against transgender and gender non-conforming students on the basis of sex."
Elston said he remains hopeful that the bill will be stopped in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, but it is certainly possible, if it does become law, that his organization will file suit to have the law declared invalid. "Surely the school districts have better ways of spending their funds than to have to use those funds to pay potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and attorney fees," said Elston.
On February 19, the Kentucky Senate Education Committee scheduled a hearing on SB 76 in the middle of a statewide snow emergency. Both supporters and opponents of the bill turned out, despite the weather, to testify. When a vote was called, however, the bill failed to get the required seven votes, and thus it died in committee. Then, on February 20, Committee Chairman Mike Wilson announced that he was calling a special meeting of the committee for Monday afternoon, February 23. No notice was given concerning what bills were to be considered, and even as late as late afternoon on the 23rd, the Legislative Research Commission's Bill Watch site did not list any agenda for the called meeting. And yet that evening, Wilson called the committee into session to reconsider SB 76, and only allowed two supporters of the bill to speak to the committee. Shortly after those supporters addressed the committee, the committee voted again, 9 - 1 (with two previous opponents of the bill absent) to favorably report the bill out of committee for consideration by the full Senate.
"This was a shameful abuse of the democratic process," said Elston. But he called on KYLP supporters to contact the senators who voted "No" today, to thank them for their vote and their support. Those senators were: Jared Carpenter, Julian Carroll, Perry Clark, Denise Harper-Angel, Morgan McGarvey, Gerald Neal, Julie Raque Adams, John Schickel, and Reginald Thomas. The switchboard number is 1-800-372-7181.
The bill goes to the Kentucky House of Representatives now.
###
Kentucky Lawmaker Wants To Pay Students $2,500 If They See A Transgender Person In The ‘Wrong’ Bathroom
BY ZACK FORD POSTED ON JANUARY 15, 2015 AT 9:14 AM UPDATED: JANUARY 15, 2015 AT 10:34 AM
CREDIT: ThinkProgress.org.
Last year, Atherton High School in Louisville approved a policy ensuring that transgender students can access all spaces and activities in accordance with their gender identity, but now a Kentucky state senator wants to ban all transgender students from safely using the bathroom.
Sen. C.B. Embry Jr. (R) has introduced what he calls the Kentucky Student Privacy Act (SB 76), which would force all students to be identified by their “biological sex” as determined by their chromosomes and what was assigned to them according to their anatomy at birth, essentially erasing transgender students. The bill requires that bathrooms and locker rooms must be divided according to “biological sex,” and schools are forbidden from accommodating transgender students by allowing them access to any facility “designated for use by students of the opposite biological sex while students of the opposite biological sex are present or could be present.”
Instead, transgender students requiring accommodation must settle for “access to single-stall restrooms, access to unisex bathrooms, or controlled use of faculty bathrooms, locker rooms, or shower rooms.” This means that if the only such facility is in the nurse’s office, for example, a student would be required to schlep as far as that office is to use the restroom — or not go at all.
Moreover, Embry wants to actually punish schools (like Atherton) that respect trans students’ identities. The bill provides that any student who encounters “a person of the opposite biological sex” in a bathroom or locker room shall have a legal cause of action if it’s because the school gave the trans student permission or didn’t explicitly prohibit the trans student from using that facility. The “aggrieved” student would be entitled to $2,500 from the offending school “for each instance” he or she encountered a trans student in a sex-divided facility in addition to monetary damages “for all psychological, emotional, and physical harm suffered” and attorney fees.
Embry claims in the bill that allowing trans students to use the bathrooms they identify with “will create a significant potential for disruption of school activities and unsafe conditions” and “will create potential embarrassment, shame, and psychological injury to students.” He also identified the legislation as an “emergency” bill because “situations currently exist in which the privacy rights of students are violated.”
There is no evidence that respecting trans identities will create unsafe environments in schools. So far, California’s statewide law protecting trans students has generated no such problems. This is no surprise, as many of the state’s schools already had such protections in place for many years without incident. That hasn’t stopped conservatives from trying to place transphobic parents in the spotlight, who claim that their daughters are unsafe simply because they saw a trans student in the bathroom — fully clothed.
Other states like Utah have proposed similar anti-transgender bills, but so far they have not advanced.
Despite Embry’s urgent concern for cisgender students who might happen to see a transgender student in the bathroom, he isn’t worried at all about what challenges LGBT students might be facing. In 2013, then-Rep. Embry opposed a comprehensive anti-bullying bill that would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s protected classes. He claimed that the state already had sufficient laws against bullying. “We have a death penalty against rape and murder but they still happen,” he said at the time.
Some parents tried to challenge Atherton’s policy, but the Jefferson County Public School appeals board stood by it. Atherton Principal Thomas Aberli said that after several months, there were no problems with the policy. “Our decisions were founded on facts and on the proper way to treat people,” he explained.
Kentucky Senate votes 27-9 to send Trans-discriminatory bill to House
FRANKFORT -- The Republican-controlled Kentucky Senate voted today in favor of Senate Bill 76, the so-called "Bathroom Bully Bill," by a vote of 27 - 9. The bill, supported by Senator C. B. Embry, and pushed by the Kentucky Family Foundation, proposes to restrict the use of school restrooms and other facilities in which students may be in a state of undress to the gender they were assigned at birth. "This bill completely disregards a person's gender identity, which is a better indicator of a person's gender than their genitalia," said Keith D. Elston, Legal Director of the Kentucky Youth Law Project, Inc., a nonprofit legal services organization advocating on behalf of LGBTQ youth in Kentucky. "It clearly violates both the letter and the spirit of the federal Equal Protection Clause and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and therefore, if it were to become law in Kentucky, it would require school districts to discriminate against transgender and gender non-conforming students on the basis of sex."
Elston said he remains hopeful that the bill will be stopped in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, but it is certainly possible, if it does become law, that his organization will file suit to have the law declared invalid. "Surely the school districts have better ways of spending their funds than to have to use those funds to pay potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and attorney fees," said Elston.
On February 19, the Kentucky Senate Education Committee scheduled a hearing on SB 76 in the middle of a statewide snow emergency. Both supporters and opponents of the bill turned out, despite the weather, to testify. When a vote was called, however, the bill failed to get the required seven votes, and thus it died in committee. Then, on February 20, Committee Chairman Mike Wilson announced that he was calling a special meeting of the committee for Monday afternoon, February 23. No notice was given concerning what bills were to be considered, and even as late as late afternoon on the 23rd, the Legislative Research Commission's Bill Watch site did not list any agenda for the called meeting. And yet that evening, Wilson called the committee into session to reconsider SB 76, and only allowed two supporters of the bill to speak to the committee. Shortly after those supporters addressed the committee, the committee voted again, 9 - 1 (with two previous opponents of the bill absent) to favorably report the bill out of committee for consideration by the full Senate.
"This was a shameful abuse of the democratic process," said Elston. But he called on KYLP supporters to contact the senators who voted "No" today, to thank them for their vote and their support. Those senators were: Jared Carpenter, Julian Carroll, Perry Clark, Denise Harper-Angel, Morgan McGarvey, Gerald Neal, Julie Raque Adams, John Schickel, and Reginald Thomas. The switchboard number is 1-800-372-7181.
The bill goes to the Kentucky House of Representatives now.
###
Kentucky Lawmaker Wants To Pay Students $2,500 If They See A Transgender Person In The ‘Wrong’ Bathroom
BY ZACK FORD POSTED ON JANUARY 15, 2015 AT 9:14 AM UPDATED: JANUARY 15, 2015 AT 10:34 AM
CREDIT: ThinkProgress.org.
Last year, Atherton High School in Louisville approved a policy ensuring that transgender students can access all spaces and activities in accordance with their gender identity, but now a Kentucky state senator wants to ban all transgender students from safely using the bathroom.
Sen. C.B. Embry Jr. (R) has introduced what he calls the Kentucky Student Privacy Act (SB 76), which would force all students to be identified by their “biological sex” as determined by their chromosomes and what was assigned to them according to their anatomy at birth, essentially erasing transgender students. The bill requires that bathrooms and locker rooms must be divided according to “biological sex,” and schools are forbidden from accommodating transgender students by allowing them access to any facility “designated for use by students of the opposite biological sex while students of the opposite biological sex are present or could be present.”
Instead, transgender students requiring accommodation must settle for “access to single-stall restrooms, access to unisex bathrooms, or controlled use of faculty bathrooms, locker rooms, or shower rooms.” This means that if the only such facility is in the nurse’s office, for example, a student would be required to schlep as far as that office is to use the restroom — or not go at all.
Moreover, Embry wants to actually punish schools (like Atherton) that respect trans students’ identities. The bill provides that any student who encounters “a person of the opposite biological sex” in a bathroom or locker room shall have a legal cause of action if it’s because the school gave the trans student permission or didn’t explicitly prohibit the trans student from using that facility. The “aggrieved” student would be entitled to $2,500 from the offending school “for each instance” he or she encountered a trans student in a sex-divided facility in addition to monetary damages “for all psychological, emotional, and physical harm suffered” and attorney fees.
Embry claims in the bill that allowing trans students to use the bathrooms they identify with “will create a significant potential for disruption of school activities and unsafe conditions” and “will create potential embarrassment, shame, and psychological injury to students.” He also identified the legislation as an “emergency” bill because “situations currently exist in which the privacy rights of students are violated.”
There is no evidence that respecting trans identities will create unsafe environments in schools. So far, California’s statewide law protecting trans students has generated no such problems. This is no surprise, as many of the state’s schools already had such protections in place for many years without incident. That hasn’t stopped conservatives from trying to place transphobic parents in the spotlight, who claim that their daughters are unsafe simply because they saw a trans student in the bathroom — fully clothed.
Other states like Utah have proposed similar anti-transgender bills, but so far they have not advanced.
Despite Embry’s urgent concern for cisgender students who might happen to see a transgender student in the bathroom, he isn’t worried at all about what challenges LGBT students might be facing. In 2013, then-Rep. Embry opposed a comprehensive anti-bullying bill that would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s protected classes. He claimed that the state already had sufficient laws against bullying. “We have a death penalty against rape and murder but they still happen,” he said at the time.
Some parents tried to challenge Atherton’s policy, but the Jefferson County Public School appeals board stood by it. Atherton Principal Thomas Aberli said that after several months, there were no problems with the policy. “Our decisions were founded on facts and on the proper way to treat people,” he explained.
2014
KYLP TAX EXEMPT STATUS APPROVED
On December 23, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service approved the Kentucky Youth Law Project's application for tax exempt status under IRC 501(c)(3). We are classified as a Public Charity under IRC 509(a)(2). Therefore, contributions to KYLP are fully deductible on your income taxes. Because our application was approved within 24 months of the date we became an organization, our tax exempt status is back-dated to March 24, 2014, the date on which KYLP became a registered corporation under Kentucky law. Therefore, any contributions made between March 24, 2014 through December 31, 2014 are deductible on your 2014 taxes!
KYLP took advantage of a new program offered by the Internal Revenue Service to fast-track our approval. Under the old system, organizations applying for tax exempt status were required to complete a 26-page application and attach quite a bit of documentation. The application fee was $800; and the approval process took up to two years and was very arduous, often requiring multiple corrections, addenda, and substantiation. However, on July 1, 2014, the IRS issued a new guideline permitting small nonprofit organizations to file a simplified application, called the 1023-EZ. Under these new guidelines, the application is a mere three pages in length, little additional documentation is required, the application fee is only $400, and if you qualifiy under this new program, approval is immediate and retroactive to the start of your organization. In order to qualify for the 1023-EZ application, your organization has to reasonably expect that it will not receive more than $50,000 in income in any of the first three years of its existence, nor will it have more than $250,000 in assets in any of the first three years of its existence.
The KYLP Board made the determination that these requirements actually assist us in growing our organization thoughtfully and deliberately over the next three years. A nonprofit organization is nothing if it doesn't have the trust and confidence of its donors and supporters. The KYLP Board of Directors is committed to exercising good stewardship and oversight of our donor's funds. Therefore, now that we have planted the seeds of this organization, we are dedicated to nurturing them, building a good solid root system, and making our organization grow strong and healthy so we can be here to help Kentucky's LGBTQ youth well into the future. (1/13/2015)
On December 23, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service approved the Kentucky Youth Law Project's application for tax exempt status under IRC 501(c)(3). We are classified as a Public Charity under IRC 509(a)(2). Therefore, contributions to KYLP are fully deductible on your income taxes. Because our application was approved within 24 months of the date we became an organization, our tax exempt status is back-dated to March 24, 2014, the date on which KYLP became a registered corporation under Kentucky law. Therefore, any contributions made between March 24, 2014 through December 31, 2014 are deductible on your 2014 taxes!
KYLP took advantage of a new program offered by the Internal Revenue Service to fast-track our approval. Under the old system, organizations applying for tax exempt status were required to complete a 26-page application and attach quite a bit of documentation. The application fee was $800; and the approval process took up to two years and was very arduous, often requiring multiple corrections, addenda, and substantiation. However, on July 1, 2014, the IRS issued a new guideline permitting small nonprofit organizations to file a simplified application, called the 1023-EZ. Under these new guidelines, the application is a mere three pages in length, little additional documentation is required, the application fee is only $400, and if you qualifiy under this new program, approval is immediate and retroactive to the start of your organization. In order to qualify for the 1023-EZ application, your organization has to reasonably expect that it will not receive more than $50,000 in income in any of the first three years of its existence, nor will it have more than $250,000 in assets in any of the first three years of its existence.
The KYLP Board made the determination that these requirements actually assist us in growing our organization thoughtfully and deliberately over the next three years. A nonprofit organization is nothing if it doesn't have the trust and confidence of its donors and supporters. The KYLP Board of Directors is committed to exercising good stewardship and oversight of our donor's funds. Therefore, now that we have planted the seeds of this organization, we are dedicated to nurturing them, building a good solid root system, and making our organization grow strong and healthy so we can be here to help Kentucky's LGBTQ youth well into the future. (1/13/2015)
KYLP Joins Other Youth Advocacy Groups in Calling for an End to Harmful "Reparative Therapy"
LEXINGTON -- The Kentucky Youth Law Project has joined with youth advocacy groups from across the nation to call for an end to the harmful practice of so-called conversion, or reparative, "therapy" for minors under the age of 18. In June, KYLP signed on to a letter produced by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, as part of their national project, #BornPerfect: The Campaign to End Conversion Therapy.
The campaign, which rolled out in late June, has brought together a wide variety of mental health organizations, youth advocacy groups, faith leaders, LGBT organizations, and reproductive justice advocates from around the country.
Two states, California and New Jersey, have enacted laws protecting minors from conversion therapy, and several others have legislation pending. These laws prevent licensed mental health professionals from using these practices with minors because of the lack of proven effectiveness and the high risk for long-term emotional and psychological damage that such "therapies" can produce. The laws do not address reparative therapy in adults, nor do they prevent religious groups from engaging in these practices.
"Primarily, these laws are designed to protect young people, who can be forced to participate by otherwise well-meaning parents and guardians, from the damaging influences of conversion therapy," said Keith D. Elston, Legal Director of the Kentucky Youth Law Project. "Kentucky's youth need such a law, and the legislature should act swiftly to protect these young people."
See our blog for additional details.
LEXINGTON -- The Kentucky Youth Law Project has joined with youth advocacy groups from across the nation to call for an end to the harmful practice of so-called conversion, or reparative, "therapy" for minors under the age of 18. In June, KYLP signed on to a letter produced by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, as part of their national project, #BornPerfect: The Campaign to End Conversion Therapy.
The campaign, which rolled out in late June, has brought together a wide variety of mental health organizations, youth advocacy groups, faith leaders, LGBT organizations, and reproductive justice advocates from around the country.
Two states, California and New Jersey, have enacted laws protecting minors from conversion therapy, and several others have legislation pending. These laws prevent licensed mental health professionals from using these practices with minors because of the lack of proven effectiveness and the high risk for long-term emotional and psychological damage that such "therapies" can produce. The laws do not address reparative therapy in adults, nor do they prevent religious groups from engaging in these practices.
"Primarily, these laws are designed to protect young people, who can be forced to participate by otherwise well-meaning parents and guardians, from the damaging influences of conversion therapy," said Keith D. Elston, Legal Director of the Kentucky Youth Law Project. "Kentucky's youth need such a law, and the legislature should act swiftly to protect these young people."
See our blog for additional details.
LGBTQ Youth in Foster Care.
According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, there are approximately 175,000 youth ages 10-18 in foster care in the United States. Of these youth, an estimated 5-10 percent, and likely even more, are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ).
LGBTQ youth face challenges in foster care that their non-LGBTQ counterparts simply don't face, including homophobia or transphobia, and the need to evaluate the safety of their communities, schools, social networks, and homes so that they can decide whether to disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity/gender expression, and if so, who they will disclose to, when they will disclose, and how they will disclose. They rarely have any support from the adults in their live to assist them in making these decisions, and worse, sometimes the adults in their lives, foster parents, social workers, teachers, guardians ad litem and other lawyers, and judges either intentionally or inadvertently take even that choice away from them and out them in ways that can actually make their lives more difficult, or even more dangerous.
The primary factor determining whether a young LGBTQ person becomes homeless or is removed from their home and placed in out of home care is whether they have a supportive family structure. A large majority of homeless LGBTQ youth report that they were homeless principally because their families rejected them, or made their lives so miserable that they felt forced to leave their homes.
Many LGBTQ youth report that their families attempted to get them to undergo so-called "conversion therapy," sometimes referred to as "reparative therapy," "ex-gay therapy," or "sexual orientation change efforts," and which include a range of dangerous and discredited practices aimed at changing a person's sexual orientation, including efforts to change gender identity or expression. While we cannot know precisely how many Kentucky youth have been subjected to these practices, experts believe that up to one-third of LGBT youth experience attempts to change their identity. These harmful practices are based on the false claim that being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender is a mental illness that should be "cured." In fact, this view has been rejected as scientifically invalid by the American Psychiatric Association and every major mental health group. Unfortunately, young LGBT people may be coerced and subject to these harmful practices, which put them at risk for serious harms such as depression, substance abuse, and suicide.
We know that 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBT, compared to only 7 % of the general LGBT youth population. Homeless LGBT youth attempt suicide at much high rates (62%) than homeless non-LGBT youth (29%).
Yet when LGBTQ youth find themselves in foster care or residential/transitional/independent living placements, they are once again subjected to the same rejecting and coercive behaviors by their caregivers, who often come from conservative religious backgrounds where they have absorbed much misinformation about the nature of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. So much so, that many of these youth say they would prefer living on the streets.
I frequently speak of the downward spiral these young people face, and a primary objective of KYLP is to disrupt this downward spiral. Our preference, naturally, is to reunify these young people with their families, if their families are willing to receive training so that they can commit to providing a safe and stable home environment that respects these young people's sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression. Short of that, we would like to provide training to Kentucky's foster families in order to improve the quality of care they are providing these young people, even if they have not self-identified to the resource families.
If you think this work has value, please consider sending a contribution to KYLP, P.O. Box 21964, Lexington, Kentucky 40522-1964. We would appreciate your generous support.
According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, there are approximately 175,000 youth ages 10-18 in foster care in the United States. Of these youth, an estimated 5-10 percent, and likely even more, are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ).
LGBTQ youth face challenges in foster care that their non-LGBTQ counterparts simply don't face, including homophobia or transphobia, and the need to evaluate the safety of their communities, schools, social networks, and homes so that they can decide whether to disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity/gender expression, and if so, who they will disclose to, when they will disclose, and how they will disclose. They rarely have any support from the adults in their live to assist them in making these decisions, and worse, sometimes the adults in their lives, foster parents, social workers, teachers, guardians ad litem and other lawyers, and judges either intentionally or inadvertently take even that choice away from them and out them in ways that can actually make their lives more difficult, or even more dangerous.
The primary factor determining whether a young LGBTQ person becomes homeless or is removed from their home and placed in out of home care is whether they have a supportive family structure. A large majority of homeless LGBTQ youth report that they were homeless principally because their families rejected them, or made their lives so miserable that they felt forced to leave their homes.
Many LGBTQ youth report that their families attempted to get them to undergo so-called "conversion therapy," sometimes referred to as "reparative therapy," "ex-gay therapy," or "sexual orientation change efforts," and which include a range of dangerous and discredited practices aimed at changing a person's sexual orientation, including efforts to change gender identity or expression. While we cannot know precisely how many Kentucky youth have been subjected to these practices, experts believe that up to one-third of LGBT youth experience attempts to change their identity. These harmful practices are based on the false claim that being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender is a mental illness that should be "cured." In fact, this view has been rejected as scientifically invalid by the American Psychiatric Association and every major mental health group. Unfortunately, young LGBT people may be coerced and subject to these harmful practices, which put them at risk for serious harms such as depression, substance abuse, and suicide.
We know that 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBT, compared to only 7 % of the general LGBT youth population. Homeless LGBT youth attempt suicide at much high rates (62%) than homeless non-LGBT youth (29%).
Yet when LGBTQ youth find themselves in foster care or residential/transitional/independent living placements, they are once again subjected to the same rejecting and coercive behaviors by their caregivers, who often come from conservative religious backgrounds where they have absorbed much misinformation about the nature of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. So much so, that many of these youth say they would prefer living on the streets.
I frequently speak of the downward spiral these young people face, and a primary objective of KYLP is to disrupt this downward spiral. Our preference, naturally, is to reunify these young people with their families, if their families are willing to receive training so that they can commit to providing a safe and stable home environment that respects these young people's sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression. Short of that, we would like to provide training to Kentucky's foster families in order to improve the quality of care they are providing these young people, even if they have not self-identified to the resource families.
If you think this work has value, please consider sending a contribution to KYLP, P.O. Box 21964, Lexington, Kentucky 40522-1964. We would appreciate your generous support.