Immigration, intimate partner violence, and the Violence Against Women Act

This blog is part of the #HERVotes blog carnival to support VAWA reauthorization.

In 1994, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed Congress with bipartisan support, providing funding for studies of intimate partner violence (IPV), the creation of necessary trainings and other materials responding to the issue, and the development of resources that help individuals exit dangerous and abusive situations. VAWA has been reauthorized twice—in 2000 and 2005—and is currently up for reauthorization again. This time, though, the bill faces challenges in getting through Congress, and proposed adjustments the Act’s funding threaten VAWA’s integrity. Ensuring that VAWA passes should be on everyone’s minds, since IPV occurs in all of our communities. But immigrant communities—especially immigrant women—may be particularly affected by any changes to VAWA.

IPV is a wide-reaching issue, with over two million injuries from IPV per year. But while male-on-female violence in heterosexual relationships is the stereotypical image of an abusive relationship, it is important to recognize that IPV also occurs in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community and that men and women alike may be subject to IPV.

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Calling for an investigation of sexual abuse in immigration detention

It’s hard to ignore the numerous ways in which our system of immigration incarceration harms our communities: on a daily basis, tens of thousands of people are warehoused in jails, many of them far from their families, separated from children and other loved ones, and unable to access legal assistance. To our horror, immigration detention produces story after story of even more extreme abuse, including denial of adequate healthcare, refusal of appropriate housing facilities, and unpunished sexual abuse of immigration detainees. We hope that shedding more light on the reality of abuse in immigration detention will help improve the transparency of the system; force recognition of its over-expansion, under-regulation, and general inefficacy for addressing immigration infractions; and, ultimately, bring about the end of our reliance on incarcerating immigrants.

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Cervical health for transgender, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming people

The National Center for Transgender Equality has put up a blog for Cervical Health month, recognizing the importance of this issue for trans, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming people:

Anyone with a cervix can contract cervical cancer, so this means that lots of trans men and genderqueer/gender nonconforming people are at risk. But because trans people face widespread discrimination from health care providers and insurance plans, they often avoid seeking or cannot access preventive care.

The post lists ways to prevent cervical cancer among trans men and gender non-conforming people, including tips to keep your own cervix healthy and advocacy items to ensure access to care. Check it out!

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Why cervical cancer is a LGBT issue

When talking about bringing the number of cervical cancer deaths to zero, it is crucial not to forget about LGBTQ people’s distinct experiences accessing health care. We know cervical cancer is completely preventable, and that regular pap smears are designed to catch any changes in the cervix that may lead to cancer later on. Just as with many other Latinas, however, preventing cervical cancer for LGBTQ Latin@s becomes a matter of access – to affordable exams, to providers who are culturally competent, and to providers who are trained to deal with LGBTQ patients. Unfortunately, for many LGBTQ Latin@s, affordable preventive care with properly trained clinicians is simply not accessible.

One of the most pressing issues for LGBTQ access to care is discrimination and bias. Homophobia at the doctor’s office is unfortunately common, and a great detractor to queer women seeking care. This then affects access to preventive care – women who have sex with women are at risk for cervical cancer, and research suggests that queer women who report positive attitudes about their providers are more likely to have had a recent pap. Transphobia is also a concern, and especially for highly gendered health services such as Pap smears, a huge barrier to access. In fact, in a recent survey about the experiences of transgender people with discrimination, nearly a quarter of trans Latin@s reported having been denied medical services due to their gender identity, and 36% reported delaying needed medicals services for fear of bias.

Discrimination at the doctor’s office is only part of the problem, however. While person-to-person discrimination is an issue, the systematic oppression and marginalization of LGBTQ communities plays a role in LGBTQ Latin@s’ ability to afford care, research and knowledge about LGBTQ health, and clinicians’ training on treating LGBTQ patients. Existing research suggests that LGBTQ communities are disproportionately poor, and the Latin@ respondents of the Transgender Discrimination Survey reported high rates of both unemployment and harassment at work due to gender identity. This means that health care is often out of reach for these communities, especially non-emergency and preventive care such as Pap smears. But even if LGBTQ people are able to afford care, most physicians are woefully unprepared to treat LGBTQ patients due to a lack of training on relevant issues.

We are seeing progress, however. Reproductive justice activism is incorporating the needs of LGBTQ communities, and the LGBTQ advocates are beginning to consider reproductive rights issues as ones that are relevant to their base. Every day we are seeing research on LGBTQ health grow. And last November, in a historic move, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement urging their members to be prepared to treat transgender patients. It’s a long road ahead, but as long as we don’t forget our LGBTQ herman@s in the fight to bring down cervical cancer deaths to zero, we are moving forward.

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Why the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) would bring a dose of dignity to immigration detention

If you’ve ever read or seen a TV program about our penal incarceration system, you know that what goes on in jails and prisons is the stuff of nightmares. And it is increasingly coming to light that what goes on in immigration detention is not so different. In a sense, this revelation may not be very shocking considering that in 2009, about half of immigration detainees were held in detention centers operated by private entities—typically those that focus on criminal corrections “solutions”—while the other half was actually housed in jails or prisons. But despite the increasingly clear similarities between our criminal and immigration detention systems, including an awareness that sexual abuse in immigration detention is a widespread phenomenon that continues to occur, largely with impunity, there is resistance from various quarters to applying the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) to immigration detainees. Women and LGBTQ detainees, in particular, will continue to pay with their dignity so long as PREA’s application to immigration detention is not ensured.

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New Report Offers Closer Look at Discrimination Among Transgender Latin@s

The National Center for Transgender Equality has partnered with the League of United Latin American Citizens to bring us a closer look at the Latin@ respondents of their critical and groundbreaking National Transgender Discrimination Survey, and the findings show some pretty sobering truths about the reality of being Latin@ and Trans. Trans Latin@s were among the most vulnerable of the survey’s respondents to harassment, abuse, and violence; often live in extreme poverty; and were affected by HIV in devastating numbers.

The vast majority of Latin@ respondents with experience being transgender students reported harassment in school, and many reported physical and/or sexual assault in school. In fact, 21% reported harassment so severe that it led to leaving school altogether. The data also show that respondents who were harassed and abused by teachers in K-12 show worse health outcomes than those who did not report such abuse.

Perhaps the  most devastating piece of information garnered from this new analysis is that 47% – nearly half of all respondents – reported having attempted suicide. We have got to do better. The combined forces of racism, xenophobia and transphobia are devastating to the health and lives of trans folks in our communities, and we must work to eliminate these structural barriers. This is reproductive justice – we must work towards salud, dignidad y justicia for everyone in our communities.

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OB/Gyns Issue Statement on Treating Transgender Patients

Photo credit: http://blog.outtakeonline.com/2010/09/congresswoman-reboots-lgbt-health-care.html

Last week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement telling their members that they should be prepared to treat transgender patients or refer them to physicians who might be able to do so.

“Transgender patients have many of the same health care needs as the rest of our patients,” said Eliza Buyers, MD, former member of The College’s Committee on Health Care for Underserved Women who helped develop the new recommendations. Health outcomes for the transgender community are very poor due to their lack of access to health care, noted Dr. Buyers. “It would be wonderful if all transgender patients had the resources to be seen in a specialized clinic, but the reality is that many forgo care because they don’t. By increasing the number of ob-gyns providing care to transgender patients we can help improve the overall health of the transgender community.”

This is great news, and hopefully represents a general shift in the way providers serve LGBTQ patients. As we have said in the past, LGBTQ Latin@s do have specific reproductive health needs, and it is important that provider organizations are helping to prepare their members to attend to the needs of this population. Of course, much more is needed for providers to be fully trained on LGBTQ health – LGBTQ health needs to appear in medical school curricula, providers need to be culturally competent to the multiple communities that LGBTQ  folks are a part of – but this represents a great start.

via Feministing

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Notes from the field: We do not live single-issue lives

As a reproductive justice organization working in the Latin@ community, people often ask us what we do to get people to understand such complex and intertwined issues such as abortion, immigration, and LGBTQ liberation. It is true that these issues are complicated. The way we talk about them is nuanced, they ways in which they connect are varied and intricate. But the reason we advocate for our issues in this way is not to overly complicate, but rather because this is the way we live our lives. As renown freedom-fighter Audre Lorde once said, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

Our communities understand the complex nature of these issues because it’s the way our lives play out – we are a sum of identities and realities that make us who we are. In fact, it’s the fact that we speaking about many different issues in the context of each other that facilitates our community’s connection to our work.

We want to share this video of Felipe Matos after the pilot of our training on LGBTQ liberation and reproductive justice this summer as an example of those connections, and the natural ways they play out in the lives of Latin@s in the United States. Thank you so much, Felipe, for spending a beautiful Friday evening in Miami with us, and for your dedication to our movements for justice.

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Another step towards the end of the Defense of Marriage Act

Anti-immigrant rhetoric frequently dehumanizes immigrants, erroneously reducing them to individuals who only take from our society without giving and ignoring the valuable contributions immigrants make as workers, spouses, parents, and friends. Proponents of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) often cite family values as a rationale for denying same-sex couples legal recognition, human dignity, and equal rights. Yet denying individuals the right to have a family just because of who they love—and denying children homes just because of who their parents love—is truly at odds with family values.

We applaud efforts like that of Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who, along with 132 members of the House of Representatives, recently filed an amicus brief in the pending court case challenging DOMA’s constitutionality. Although the Obama administration and Attorney General Holder announced earlier this year their conclusion that DOMA is unconstitutional, and the Department of Justice has abandoned its defense of the legislation in several court cases, others in government have deemed state non-recognition of same-sex couples and their children a priority. But attention is not the only resource diverted to this debate: in these times of economic austerity and deep cuts to cutting social safety programs, the original salary cap for legal counsel defending the constitutionality of DOMA have been tripled to a maximum of $1.5 million. On November 10, the Senate Judiciary Committee will take another step in this important fight against DOMA as committee members begin debate and mark-up on S. 598—a bill that would repeal Section 3 of DOMA and incorporate language that provides for some same-sex relationship recognition under federal law. Bringing down DOMA is integral to recognizing the invaluable contributions that immigrants and LGBTQ—and their families—make in the United States.

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New NLIRH Issue Brief on LGBTQ Latin@s and Reproductive Jusice!

This Pride month, NLIRH is excited to present to you our brand new issue brief: LGBTQ Latin@s and Reproductive Justice, in English and in Spanish!

LGBTQ people have been a part of movements for reproductive health and justice for as long as these movements have existed, and we are proud to honor that work and highlight the issues that LGBTQ Latin@s face when it comes to reproductive health and justice.

Though some might say that reproductive health issues aren’t queer issues at all, we believe that this could not be further from the truth. The heavily gendered nature of reproductive health services, employment discrimination, and family recognition are all issues that affect LGBTQ people’s health and their access to quality care, and it’s time for reproductive health, rights and justice organizations to recognize and fight against these barriers. Immigration, too, places a set of barriers specific to LGBTQ communities, such as access to health care, safety in detention centers for transgender and gender-nonconforming people, and family reunification policies that do not recognize LGBTQ families.

At the same time, it is important to acknowledge the resilience of LGBT Latin@s and communities of color, who are resisting exclusionary systems and recognizing reproductive justice as a critical issue in their communities.

Our new issue brief highlights research and provides analysis on these and other issues affecting LGBTQ Latin@ communities – take a look!

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