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.

The ACLU of California is strongly urging the state agency that regulates mental health counselors to immediately remove the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) from its list of approved organizations from which California counselors can obtain continuing education credits (CEUs). The agency, the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (CBBS), requires licensed educational psychologists, marriage and family therapists and licensed clinical social workers to take CEUs in order to renew their licenses.  

NARTH espouses reparative therapy and contends that homosexuality is an illness that can be treated and is a reversible choice that individuals make. Its methods have  been discredited by the American Psychological Association (APA).

“For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure,” the APA said in 2006.  “The APA’s concern about the positions espoused by NARTH and so-called conversion therapy is that they are not supported by the science.  There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that positions espoused by NARTH can create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.” 

According to a publication issued by the APA and used by principals, educators and school personnel, the potential risks of reparative therapy are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior because it may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient.  The publication further says that many patients who have undergone reparative therapy relate that they were inaccurately told that homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction.

“California schools are in desperate need of well trained counselors who are informed by sites and organizations that are based on science and facts and can carefully and gently guide a student who is LGBT or is questioning,” said James Gilliam, director of the ACLU of Southern California’s Seth Walsh Project, a project committed to stopping bullying in schools.  “To allow California’s precious few school counselors to obtain CEUs from NARTH will further harm California schoolchildren.  Counselors who receive training from NARTH will not know how to help these students, and, rather will receive training that promotes providing harmful advice to the many California students who are being bullied because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.”

In a letter to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the ACLU of Southern California and Public Counsel strongly urge the board to vote in favor of the Los Angeles County Probation Department’s Strategic Plan for the implementation of AB 109, also known as the Public Safety Realignment bill.  Under this bill Los Angeles County is slated to receive a higher percentage of parolees than any other county in California.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has mandated that the state prison population be reduced, sending thousands of prisoners to local jurisdictions.  The Supervisors must decide if these released prisoners will fall under the purview of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, already saddled with overcrowding and poor conditions or the Los Angeles County Probation Department.  The choice is clear cut. The Probation Department follows a community supervision model and will result in lower caseloads than the Sheriff’s Department Proposal.  Sheriff’s deputies’ primary duties include patrol and custody, but not parole supervision.  Their plan comprised calls for law enforcement agents to assume the task of coordinating services and supervision for parolees. 

“As research demonstrates, it would be entirely inappropriate for the law enforcement agents to assume the role that the Sheriff’s Plan proposes,” the letter states.  “Potential harms to supervised individuals under this plan could include increased recidivism, relapse and mental deterioration.  The harm would be felt not only by the probationers, but also the taxpayer in the form of enormous costs of incarcerating violated probationers in County jails.” 

“The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has no experience in monitoring parolees,” said Clarissa Woo, director of policy advocacy for the ACLU/SC.  “Sheriff’s deputies are trained to run jails and to provide law enforcement.  They’ve had no training in the issues faced by returning parolees.  If the Sheriff’s Department is handed that responsibility, Los Angeles County would be the first in the United States to assign the job of supervising probationers or parolees to a sheriff or police department.” 

 The Board of Supervisors must decide and submit the County’s plan by August 1.