20.3 —- Sl0l‘lBS_ IIIV mama Illlll lllfl wt 1 llllllfl :_. WILB HQ75 ~.097l VOLUME XIV, NUMBER 04 Court Extends Privacy Rights to Transsexual Prisoners WITH FILES FROM LAURA MILLER A federal court has ruled that transsexual inmates have a con- stitutional right not to have their transexuality casually disclosed. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit — whose law is binding on Vermont, Connecticut, and New York — held that prison officials were wrong to reveal the gender iden- tity and HIV status of Dana Kimberly Devilla, a post-op MTF transsexual. Devilla had sued prison offi- cials for harassmentshe alleged- ly suffered at Albion’ Correctional Facility in New York. Following her death in 1995, her executor was substitut- ed as plaintiff. In the court’s opinion in Powell v. Schriver, Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote that “the gratuitous disclosure of an inmate’s confi- dential medical information as humor or gossip — the apparent circumstance of the disclosure in this case — is not reasonably related to a legitimate penologi- cal interest, and it therefore vio- lates the inmate’s constitutional right to privacy.” Devilla, who underwent sex- change operations in 1974, was convicted in 1991 of cashing bad checks. Shortly after she was incarcerated, a corrections offi- cer at Albion told other inmates and staff members that she was both transsexual and HIV-posi- tive. This disclosure, Devilla claimed, made her a target of constant harassment by guards and prisoners. Judge Jacobs was joined in the groundbreaking opinion by the other members of the panel that heard the case, Judges Ralph K. Winter and James L. Oakes. Oakes, who has long been lauded as a champion of individual rights, has been involved in Vermont law and politics since 1950. After having served as both a state senator and Attorney General for the state of Vermont, he was appointed to the Second Circuit in 1971 by President Nixon. He currently resides in Brattleboro.V ‘-5: MAY 1999 _ women who warned us .. about women like us IIEIEIE 13 UAIN WWW.VTPRlDE.ORG Mass Mailing from-0uts,ide-Vermont Causes Outcry I Obuchowski and Racine Speak Out in Support of Same- Gender Marriage BY BARBARA DOZETOS — wo high-ranking elected I Vermont officials came out in public support of same-gender marriage‘ last month. . The pronouncements from Lieutenant Governor Doug Racine and Michael Obuchow- ski, Speaker of the. Vermont House of Representatives, came on the heels of a bulk-mail cam- paign from Citizens Community Values. The . Ohio organization paid for a flyer to be sent from Hawaii . x for » to every household in Vermont at an estimated cost of $40,000. The message, which outlines supposed dangers inherent in allowing same-gender marriage, was signed by Mike Gabbard,'a' high-profile Hawaii anti-gay activist. _ In addition to Gabbard’s, the names of 10 Hawaiian state legis- lators appear on the flyer, giving the impression that it was endorsed by a broad spectrum of people. But sources in Hawaii say that at least one of those senators was misled into having his name added to the missive. Senator Jonathon Chun thought he wgg adding his name to a letter being sent to Vermont legislators urging them “not to use hate and hyper- bole when discussing gay-related issues.”-' ' E: *: I UVM Pride Celebration 9 Turns into ‘Invisibility Week’ BY MAXWELL STROUD he University of Vermont ', GLBTA student group’s recent public awareness campaign was marred by acts of >. Tage Lilia of Outright Vermont addressed the crowd at Speak Out dur- ing UVM’s Visibility Week. holo Max Stroud I theft and vandalism‘. During the week of April 1.1- 17, a rainbow flag, officially sanctioned chalking, and posters advertising events. of the group Free to Be: GLBTA wefe all removed from various locations around cam- » pus. ’ Although GLBTA students have interpret- ed these actions as bias incidents, the university police cannot classify them as such until they , can be certainof the intentions of the van- dals. To mark the begin- ning of visibility week at UVM, the student group hung a rainbow flag outside the Billings Student Center on cam- _pus. The flag was stolen, and the fiber- glass poles supporting it were found, as one stu- dent put it, “hacked to the ground.” _ Gary Margolis, Director of Police Services at the University of Verrnont, issued a statement to the GLBTA community Among other things, the letter '1 warns about large amounts of out-of—state money gay rights activists might drop on Vermont in order to support the freedom- to-marry movement. He told reporters that the letter “will make people more aware of this issue, and hopefully spark some interest with a grassroots effort. That’s how we won in Hawaii.” « at ='@. la. The letter neglects to mention the seven-figure sum of contribu- tions from national religious and fundamentalist groups that lig- ured significantly in the Hawaii decision. V For more reactions and infor- mation about Gabbard and his activities, see pages 6 and 7 of this issue. holo Max Stroud UVM first-year student, Sierra Sumpf performed at the Speak Out on the steps of Bailey Howe Library during Visibility Week about viewing removal of the flag as a bias incident. It said that “we are bound by the laws of the State of Vermont and as such, with the information we ~ currently have, this theft cannot be called a bias crime no matter how ‘clear’ to us the suspects motives may be — while one can make an emotional argument for or -against the knowledge/moti- vation of the thief, there is noth- mg to support a legal argument either way.” Students viewed removal of -’l':t'he flag and vandalism of the flagpoles as an effort to silence them, an example of the lack of safety they feel. on the UVM campus and a call to action to continued activism on the cam- pus. Jackie Weinstock, faculty advisor for Free to Be: GLBTA, asserted that “there is no dis- counting the damage done by this act of vandalism; it has clearly been experienced by the GLBT students, on_ campus, whether proven or_not, as a bias incident.” For the second year in a row, Free to Be: GLBTA also found their “chalking” of the campus with visibility and pride state- ments removed — even though they correctly had filled out all necessary paperwork for per- mission. At a meeting with the students, members of the facili- ties department characterized the erasure as accidental. As a final frustration, stu- dents found that every poster advertising queer visibility week on the redstone campus was torn down almost immedi- ately after going up. One UVM student stated that “the queer posters were the only ones ever to come down.” V N - xe