Bill Text: IL HR0582 | 2023-2024 | 103rd General Assembly | Introduced


Bill Title: Urges the Illinois Supreme Court and relevant authorities to require, as a consistent part of continuing education, LGBTQ+ and HIV cultural competency education for all attorneys, judges, and courtroom staff in the State of Illinois.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 19-0)

Status: (Passed) 2024-04-30 - Resolution Adopted 074-036-000 [HR0582 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2023-HR0582-Introduced.html

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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION
2 WHEREAS, The Illinois Supreme Court administers the
3State's legal system, regulates the legal profession, and
4seeks to foster a diverse and inclusive legal system; and
5 WHEREAS, Despite more and more LGBTQ+ people and people
6living with HIV who are living as their authentic selves, the
7Illinois Supreme Court does not have a formal education
8requirement for attorneys, judges, and courtroom staff to be
9aware of and meet the social and cultural needs of LGBTQ+
10communities and people living with HIV; and
11 WHEREAS, In 2023, more than 600 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were
12introduced in statehouses across the country, including
13initiatives to criminalize healthcare for trans individuals,
14to create licenses to discriminate against LGBTQ+ families,
15and to deny LGBTQ+ students the opportunity to experience the
16stories of people like themselves, and such anti-LGBTQ+ bills
17are contrary to the values of the State of Illinois; and
18 WHEREAS, As LGBTQ+ people and families visit Illinois to
19access reproductive healthcare and gender-affirming care or
20move to Illinois in order to escape the oppression of cruel and
21harsh anti-LGBTQ+ regimes in other states, attorneys, judges,
22and courtroom staff in Illinois will more frequently come into

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1contact with and represent LGBTQ+ people who need legal
2services to defend their rights, freedom, and bodily autonomy;
3and
4 WHEREAS, The Movement Advancement Project's August 2016
5report, entitled Unjust: How the Broken Criminal Justice
6System Fails LGBT People of Color, wrote that "Discrimination
7against LGBT people, particularly LGBT people of color, is
8pervasive, and it infiltrates the halls of justice", and that
9"Judges, prosecutors, and even defense attorneys tasked with
10representing LGBT people often rely on misinformation,
11stereotypes, and inflammatory language when interacting with
12LGBT people"; for instance, "LGBT immigrants frequently
13encounter judges who are unfamiliar with the challenges facing
14LGBT people in other countries or who use incorrect language
15to refer to transgender immigrants"; and
16 WHEREAS, Lambda Legal's Protected and Served? 2022 report
17includes data from a national survey about the experiences of
18LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV when in courts and
19courthouses; and
20 WHEREAS, Of survey participants who had appeared in court,
2122.2% of those who identified as LGBTQ+, women, or individuals
22living with HIV indicated that someone in the legal
23profession, including judges, public defenders, prosecutors,

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1court clerks, court security, or other court employees, made
2negative comments to or about them relating to sexual
3orientation, gender identity or expression, or HIV status; and
4 WHEREAS, In that same report, 30.1% of transgender
5participants had their gender identity inappropriately
6revealed in court; in particular, transgender participants of
7color were more likely to have their gender identity revealed
8in court than were those who were white; specifically, 42.9%
9of Indigenous trans people, 42.3% of Black trans people, 34.5%
10of Latinx trans people, and 23.3% of white trans people
11reported having their gender identity inappropriately revealed
12in court; and
13 WHEREAS, The report additionally revealed that 25.0% of
14people living with HIV said that their HIV status, which is
15private health information, was inappropriately revealed in
16court; and
17 WHEREAS, According to the 2015 US Trans Survey, 13% of
18respondents reported negative experiences in a court or
19courthouse because of being transgender; additionally, 6% of
20respondents reported negative experiences when accessing legal
21services from an attorney, a clinic, or a legal professional
22because of being transgender; negative experiences include
23being denied equal treatment or service, verbally harassed, or

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1physically attacked because of being transgender; and
2 WHEREAS, Reports by the Movement Advancement Project and
3Lambda Legal and the US Trans Survey highlight the pervasive
4harassment, discrimination, and exclusion that LGBTQ+ people
5and people living with HIV experience in law offices, legal
6clinics, courts, and courthouses; this harassment,
7discrimination, and exclusion contribute to the distrust of
8the legal system by LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV;
9in fact, according to Lambda Legal's survey, 32.2% of LGBTQ+
10people do not trust the court system at all while only 8.5%
11completely trust the court system; and
12 WHEREAS, The Illinois Supreme Court and relevant
13authorities have the authority to require that attorneys,
14judges, and courtroom staff be trained in LGBTQ+ and HIV
15cultural competency as part of continuing education; having
16such a requirement will increase the ability of attorneys,
17judges, and courtroom staff to meet the social and cultural
18needs of a diversifying state; therefore, be it
19 RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
20HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
21we urge the Illinois Supreme Court and relevant authorities to
22require, as a consistent part of continuing education, LGBTQ+
23and HIV cultural competency education for all attorneys,

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1judges, and courtroom staff in the State of Illinois; and be it
2further
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