The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has released new findings today from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey about the intersections of race, gender identity, and socio-economic status for people who are black and transgender. Here are the key data points:

- 34 percent of black transgender people report a household income of less than $10,000/year, profoundly higher than for transgender people of all races (15 percent), the general black population (9 percent), and the general U.S. population (4 percent).

- 20 percent of black transgender people are HIV-positive and an additional 10 percent don’t know their status, compared to only 2.64 percent of trans people of all races, 2.4 percent of the general black population, and 0.60 percent of the general U.S. population.

- Nearly half of all black transgender people have attempted suicide.

- Black transgender people who were out to their families found acceptance at a higher rate than other transgender respondents.

Read the full report for more details about the experience of black transgender people in education, employment, housing, health care, and public safety.

The ADAP Advocacy Association has launched a Twitter campaign calling on President Obama to end waiting lists for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), a national initiative funded by the federal and state governments and run by the states that provides prescription drug coverage for low-income people with HIV/AIDS.

“The ‘Arab Spring’ brought about change in the Middle East using social media, and now it is our time to start the ‘ADAP Fall’, which will bring change to the beleaguered AIDS Drug Assistance Programs,” the group’s chief executive Brandon Macsata said in a press release. Some Tweets:

– @AIDSHealthcare: Obama when u took office 43 AIDS patients were on wait lists for meds now nearly 10,000 AIDS patients waiting @whitehouse #ObamaADAP #RT

– @RiseUpToHIV: Pls live up to your commitments set forth in the re-authorization of the RW Care Act and re-double these efforts! #ObamaADAP @whitehouse

– @MacsataKornegay: How can 9000+ Americans living with HIV/AIDS be waiting for meds under Democratic President in 2011? @whitehouse #ObamaADAP

As of Sept. 1, at least 9,000 people in 11 states were on a waiting list to receive life-saving medication, while the Obama administration has taken some steps to address the problem. Last month, the administration issued a clarification allowing states to receive at least as much as they received last year in emergency funding for the program.

Still, states have been tightening their budgets over the last year and HIV/AIDS patients are paying the highest price. At least 18 states have taken such steps as capping enrollment, reducing the drug formulary, implementing medical criteria, and lowering the income ceiling for eligibility. ADAP Advocacy is asking users to send hourly tweets to @WhiteHouse under the #ObamaADAP hashtag.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has long advocated for greater transparency in the House, calling in 2009 for a “new era of openness and transparency in our government.” Now, he has rejected a proposal to allow cameras in the courtroom when House lawyers defend the Defense of Marriage Act:

BIPARTISAN LEGAL ADVISORY GROUP: Intervenor-Defendant the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives respectfully advises that it prefers not to participate in this district’s pilot project permitting video recording of courtroom proceedings. Accordingly Intervenor-Defendant declines to consent.

Given Boehner’s constant cries for more public access to government proceedings (including cameras for the House Rules committee), why is he suddenly trying to hide the House’s DOMA defense in the closet? After all, he is utilizing $500,000 of taxpayer money to defend discrimination — shouldn’t that be subject to the same public scrutiny?

But as Equality Matters pointed out yesterday, the clear motivator is shame, just as it has been for the proponents of Prop 8. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s (D-CA) office has pointed out that Boehner’s “defense of the indefensible ‘Defense of Marriage’ Act does not have the facts or the law on its side.” In fact, the defense’s briefs have been riddled with anti-gay lies, including distortions of plaintiffs’ experts’ testimony to suggest that homosexuality is a choice. Boehner seems to apply a double standard: transparency is good when it makes Republicans look good, but not when they are fighting to deny rights and benefits to the American people.

Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly stepped up her criticism of Dr. Keith Ablow’s attacks against Chaz Bono, Cher’s transgender son who will compete on the 13th season of ABC’s Dancing With The Stars. During an appearance on Bill O’Reilly yesterday, Kelly characterized Ablow’s claims that children will develop gender confusion after watching him on national television as “irresponsible and dangerous and could result in some real problems.” Kelly had challenged Ablow on her daytime show on Wednesday.

“There is no scientific evidence to back that up and in fact…the experts in this field say Ablow is way off base,” Kelly claimed and suggested that Ablow’s words will lead to the persecution of transgender people:

KELLY: Listen, this group of people already undergoes enough discrimination and isolation…

O’REILLY: We have this this slippery slope argument…

KELLY: No, don’t talk over it Bill.

O’REILLY: I’m not talking over it, I got to get to another…

KELLY: This group of people is persecuted already and now you have Dr. Ablow telling people that if your kid sees one in a manner that is something akin to a celebration, your kid may wind up being one of them. Now there are people int his country that will react to a transgender person when they see one at the McDonald’s or at some event and that’s irresponsible.

O’REILLY: You don’t know that they’re transgendered people. Alright.

Watch:

O’Reilly, meanwhile, seemed more concerned about questioning Ablow’s character than the safety of transgender people. After all, in 2010 he compared transgender people to Ewoks, saying, “If you’re a man, you can’t dress like a woman, and vice versa. You can’t scare the customers. If your name is Fred, you can’t look like Dolly Parton.”

Edie Windsor, who is challenging the constitutionality of the the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and seeking a refund of the federal estate tax paid by the estate of her late wife, filed an affidavit yesterday responding to House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) claim that her homosexuality was a “choice.” Lawyers for Boehner’s Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives (“BLAG”) levied the charge in a brief filed on Aug. 1, writing, “a significant percentage of gays and lesbians believe they exercised some or a great deal of choice in determining their sexuality.”

Windsor argued that her short marriage to a man demonstrated the opposite. “I understand that BLAG argues in its papers that my first, brief marriage to Saul Weiner in 1951 demonstrates that I had a ‘choice’ about my sexual orientation. As I explain below, that is certainly not the case,” she said. “What my marriage to Saul Weiner shows is that although I tried to make a ‘choice’ about my sexual orientation by getting married to a man, I was simply unable to do so.”

From Boehner’s August brief:

Plaintiff’s own evidence indicates more than 12% of self-identified gay men and nearly one out of three lesbians reported that they experienced some or much choice about their sexual orientation. This contrasts with actual suspect classes, which involve“immutable characteristic[s]” determinable at birth and “determined solely by the accident of birth.” Moreover, according to multiple studies, a high number of persons who experience sexual attraction to members of the same sex early in their adult lives later cease to experience such attraction. Lisa M. Diamond &Ritch C. Savin-Williams,
Explaining Diversity in the Development of Same-Sex Sexuality Among Young Women, 56 J. of Soc. Issues 301 (2000)

All major medical professional organizations agree that sexual orientation is not a choice and cannot be changed, from gay to straight or otherwise. The American Psychological Association, the world’s largest association of psychological professionals, describes sexual orientation as “a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors.” There is considerable evidence to suggest that biology, “including genetic or inborn hormonal factors,” plays a significant role in a person’s sexuality.

Professor Lisa Diamond — whose work Boehner’s lawyers cite to substantiate their claims — has charged BLAG of distorting her writings. “Neither this article nor any of my other published work supports BLAG’s claim that ‘a high number of persons who experience sexual attraction to members of the same sex early in their adult lives later cease to experience such attraction,” she claimed in an affidavit. (HT: AmericaBlog Gay)