This blog post is second in a series written by our summer LGBT Project legal interns. The other posts are "LGBT Human Rights Gone Global" "Calling It 'Marriage' Isn’t the End of the Story", and "Changing the Culture of Bullying".

As James Gilliam blogged last month, Tehachapi middle schooler Seth Walsh was the subject of severe bullying from the time he came out as gay in the sixth grade until his suicide two years later. The Departments of Justice and Education launched an investigation into the circumstances that led to Seth’s suicide, and part of my work as a summer law clerk at the ACLU/SC has been to analyze the results of that investigation.The DoJ and DoE found that his bullies targeted Seth due to his nonconformity to male gender stereotypes. Seth's bullies, who were predominately if not exclusively male, made fun of his female friendships and stereotypically feminine mannerisms, speech, and clothing. They routinely called him a "girl" and a "sissy." They would ask Seth, "do you sit down" to use the restroom, suggested that Seth should "get surgery" to become female, and referred to him as the "girlfriend" of other students. Significantly, Title IX of the Education Amendments of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination or harassment on the basis of sex or gender in public school programs and activities. Because his tormentors specifically used gendered slurs, Seth Walsh’s case fell under the purview of Title IX. The report concludes that,

"the Student suffered sexual and gender-based harassment by his peers, including harassment based on his nonconformity with gender stereotypes; that the harassment was sufficiently severe, pervasive, and persistent to interfere with his educational opportunities; and that despite having notice of the harassment, the District did not adequately investigate or otherwise respond to it."

If not for the gendered nature of insults like ‘girl’, ‘sissy’, ‘girlfriend’, the Departments of Justice and Education would not have been able to invoke Title IX. As Seth’s tormentors demonstrated, homophobia is frequently rooted in sexism. Homophobia and sexism both stem from the rigid gender hierarchy that exists in our culture. Society not only defines how males and females should behave, it also tells us that masculinity is better than femininity. Individuals who have an especially rigid adherence to gender roles frequently see LGBT folks as transgressors violating the tacit rules of the gender hierarchy. Prejudice against gay men reflects the fact that homophobia is often motivated by societal denigration of femininity. When bullies use terms such as "girl" or "sissy" to bully or harass another person, they are attempting to put the victim in their place as feminine and, therefore, lesser. To Seth’s tormentors, Seth’s adoption of stereotypically feminine behaviors was seen as a kind of betrayal, an upending of the idea that to be at the top of the hierarchy, one must be male, masculine, and heterosexual. Understanding and deconstructing the gender hierarchy is crucial to ending the type of verbal and physical bullying that Seth was forced to endure. Through Seth's heartbreaking experiences that we can begin to see the destructive effects of a gender hierarchy on gay people, women, and also on those individuals who feel so invested in the gender hierarchy that they must turn to harassment and violence to maintain order.

Jasmine Wetherell is a rising 3L at UCLA School of Law and a summer legal intern at the LGBT project of the ACLU of Southern California. This fall, Jasmine will serve as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Women’s Law Journal and Chief Articles Editor of the Journal of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law. Last summer, Jasmine worked as a legal intern at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The ACLU of California supports the striking prisoners’ demands to end cruel and inhumane conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison. These conditions include prolonged, solitary confinement in small, windowless concrete boxes with little to no human interaction and other severe physical deprivations.

Not only are such conditions inhumane and harmful, but they also jeopardize public safety. Solitary confinement causes and exacerbates mental illness, and prisoners who are subjected to such extreme isolation cannot properly reintegrate into society, resulting in higher recidivism rates.

An alarming number of prisoners are released directly from secure housing units into the community. The CDCR must implement policies that enhance safety both within prisons and within our communities. Current practices do not achieve these equally important goals.

The ACLU calls on the State to re-double its efforts to engage in meaningful negotiations with the strikers to bring the hunger strike to a swift and peaceful conclusion. In addition, the ACLU calls on Governor Brown and CDCR Secretary, Matthew Cate, to significantly curtail the use of the SHU at Pelican Bay and other California prisons and to provide all prisoners confined to the SHU items, services, and programs necessary for psychological and physical well-being including warm clothing, out-of-cell time, and participation in rehabilitative programs.

This blog post is first in a series written by our summer LGBT Project legal interns.  The other posts are "The Roots of Homophobia", "Calling It 'Marriage' Isn’t the End of the Story", and "Changing the Culture of Bullying".

Although I had traveled 6,000 miles to attend the conference, I was informed of the conference venue’s address just three days before it started. The organizers of “Justice In The Balkans: Equality For Sexual Minorities (.pdf)” were so concerned with the safety of those attending that they kept the conference location secret until the last minute. The disconnect between public and private was reinforced even in our conference swag. We were provided with two different canvas bags: The bag meant for use in public had conference sponsors printed discreetly in black. The other bag, emblazoned in purple with “Equality For Sexual Minorities”, was to be used only within the confines of the conference space.

While laws of several Balkan countries, including Serbia, prohibit sexual-orientation and gender-identity-based discrimination, the laws are not enforced. Pride parades are disrupted and obstructed, LGBT civic spaces are nonexistent, and LGBT individuals remain closeted. Although laws provide protections for LGBT individuals in many countries, activists play a vital role in changing people’s attitudes. The conference provided a space for activists with a variety of backgrounds to share ideas and experiences about effecting legal and attitudinal change in favor of LGBT individuals in the region. Of course, homophobia is not limited to Serbia. One of my assignments as a summer law clerk at the ACLU of Southern California has been to research the dismal LGBT legal protections in Guyana. Cross-dressing and sodomy are crimes, while harassment, sexual assault, employment discrimination, and police discrimination of LGBT individuals are pervasive. As in Serbia, LGBT rights in Guyana are pushed into the “private” canvas bag. Despite that depressing state of affairs, LGBT rights are increasingly recognized on an international scale. The United Nations Human Rights Council recently passed a resolution endorsing human rights for LGBT individuals. Another historic moment occurred in 2006, when a group of international human rights law experts authored the Yogyakarta Principles, “a universal guide to [LGBT] human rights,” and the supplemental Activist’s Guide to the Yogyakarta Principles.

Organizers ended the conference early because violently homophobic Serbian nationalists were demonstrating against General Mladić’s arrest near the venue. So the other participants and I took our canvas bags and returned to our hotel. But that experience, as well as more recent experiences at the ACLU, affirmed several lessons for me.

First, to effect social change, a variety of tactics (such as a combination of community education, coalition building, political lobbying, and litigation) is essential. Second, sometimes it takes only one person, one passionate individual, to raise a voice – in any language – in protest of injustice and pursuit of fairness support a movement. Finally, we in the U.S. must be mutually supportive of LGBT rights advocates in other countries and internationally by sharing our information, resources, and love.

David Perkiss is a rising 3L at UCLA Law School and a summer legal intern at the LGBT Project of the ACLU of Southern California. This fall, David will serve as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law, and served as Co-chair of OUTLaw, the LGBT law student organization at UCLA, and as Southwest Regional Chairperson for the National LGBT Bar Association Law Student Congress. Last summer, David worked as a judicial extern in the chambers of The Honorable Suzanne H. Segal in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.