Pride Month 2022: What Are LGBTQ+ Protections In Wisconsin Like?

MILWAUKEE, WI — June officially kicks off Pride Month in Wisconsin, an important milestone amid a recent wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across the United States.

PrideFest, a massive event at Milwaukee's Henry Maier Festival Park, kicks off Thursday at 4 p.m. Entertainment includes musicians, DJs, drag performers, comedy shows and more.

The Milwaukee Pride Parade starts at S. 2nd. Street and W. Greenfield Avenue at 2 p.m. on Sunday. The parade, which was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has run for more than 15 years.

Pride History, Wave Of Anti-LGBTQ Legislation In 2021

Pride Month, observed June 1-30 nationwide, honors the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. The five days of riots after police raided the Stonewall Inn became a watershed moment for gay rights. "Homosexual acts" were illegal in every state but Illinois at the time, and bars and restaurants could be shut down if they had gay employees or served gay patrons.

The uneasiness hanging over this year’s celebration stems from a wave of recent legislation, ranging from “don’t say gay” laws prohibiting public schools from addressing gender identity or sexual orientation to laws banning trans athlete from sports. "Don't say gay" laws, usually framed in terms of "parental rights," have been introduced in 20 states and are now the law in Florida and Alabama, while 15 states have enacted trans athlete sports bans.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, legislation targeting transgender and nonbinary people also bars or criminalizes health care for transgender youth; prohibits transgender persons from using facilities, such as restrooms, corresponding with their gender identity; allows religiously motivated discrimination against transgender people; and makes it more difficult to get identification documents with their name and gender.

Wisconsin's Protection Rating

A slew of anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in the Wisconsin Legislature in 2022, but none of them made it far.

• A Wisconsin bill would have prohibited health care providers from giving gender transition procedures to people under 18. The bill failed to pass on March 15, one of the final days of Legislature's 2022 session.
• Several bills in the State Assembly and State Senate would have barred transgender athletes from picking sports teams of their choice if they didn't match the sex determined on their birth certificate. The bills failed to pass on March 15.
• Two bills would have prevented local government from passing nondiscrimination protections more expansive than state's, including protections for LGBTQ+ people, according to the ACLU. The bills failed to pass on March 15.

The Badger State got a "Fair" rating from the Movement Advancement Project, or MAP, an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches equality legislation. While Wisconsin had a "Medium" rating for sexual orientation policy, policy for gender identity fell to "Low."

That analysis looks at laws and policies that help drive equality for LGBTQ people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five populated U.S. territories. The major areas represented in the policy tally covered relationship and parental recognition, nondiscrimination, religious exemptions, LGBTQ+ youth, health care, criminal justice and identity documents.

The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, rebuked the Legislature for passing a bill that would allow lawsuits against school districts and school officials over the use of students' chosen names or pronouns, the organization said. Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill in March.

Same-Sex Marriage And The U.S. Supreme Court

LGBTQ advocates’ concerns stem not only from statehouses, but also from the U.S. Supreme Court, where a conservative majority could return the issue of same-sex marriage to states. The court’s majority is expected to issue a similar ruling on abortion rights, according to a leaked Supreme Court opinion draft of the decision, expected later this month or next.

Legal experts are divided on whether the Supreme Court’s watershed ruling legalizing same-sex marriage is in jeopardy considering the expected ruling striking down the constitutional right to an abortion.

University of Texas law professor Elizabeth Sepper, an expert on health care law and religion, told Reuters that Americans are right to worry.

“The low-hanging fruit is contraception, probably starting with emergency contraception, and same-sex marriage is also low-hanging fruit in that it was recently recognized by the Supreme Court,” Sepper said.

In his dissent to Obergefell v. Hodges, the case at the center of the 2015 same-sex marriage ruling, Justice Samuel Alito used language similar to that in the leaked abortion draft.

In his same-sex marriage dissent and the leaked opinion, Alito mentioned that neither right is guaranteed in the Constitution and said both should be left to states to decide, Jordan Woods, faculty director of the LGBTQ Law & Policy Program at the University of Arkansas, told The Washington Post.

Opponents of same-sex marriage could use Alito’s logic in attempts to overturn Obergefell, Woods said, noting that judges dissenting against a 2003 opinion striking down the Texas sodomy ban relied on similar reasoning.

“Ultimately, what the court will do, nobody knows,” Woods said. But Alito’s “draft absolutely provides a blueprint for the court essentially eroding or even overturning important constitutional precedents that are in this area of privacy that clearly this draft opinion is hostile towards.”

Katie Eyer, a professor specializing in anti-discrimination law at Rutgers University, told The Post she doubts there’s much appetite even in conservative states to begin the appeal process. Although divisions exist, about 61 percent of Americans strongly favor same-sex marriage, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center poll.

For his part, Alito tempered those concerns, asserting in the draft majority opinion on abortion leaked to Politico that his reasoning was not intended to apply to any right beyond abortion.

“We emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right,” wrote Alito, who was appointed to the court by President George W. Bush. “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

Yale Law School professor Douglas NeJaime, an expert in sexuality and constitutional law, told The Post that the precedents in Roe v. Wade — the 1973 case that affirmed the right to an abortion — the Obergefell decision and the Texas sodomy ban are “fundamentally different.”

“I think the draft opinion is actually trying to say Obergefell is not a target,” NeJaime said. “And I don’t know that that’s true, but it’s at least saying that.”