The Illinois Supreme Court building is pictured in Springfield. (Jerry Nowicki / Capitol News Illinois)

Illinois advocates for LBGTQ+ rights are pushing for the state’s high court to mandate that all lawyers, judges and other court personnel, such as clerks and security staff, be trained on the legal needs of LBGTQ+ people.

Critics, however, say the call for inclusivity training is exclusionary.

A letter to Illinois’ Supreme Court justices sent in late August by a couple dozen organizations says that mandatory cultural competency instruction is “imperative, especially at this time when we’re experiencing a fierce onslaught of anti-equality and anti-healthcare legislation and laws being advanced and passed across the country.”

The campaign aligns with resolutions adopted this spring by the Illinois House and Senate that call on the Illinois Supreme Court and the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission to require LBGTQ+ and HIV cultural sensitivity training.

“Having such a requirement will increase the ability of attorneys, judges and courtroom staff to meet the social and cultural needs of a diversifying state,” the resolutions read. “As LBGTQ+ people and families visit Illinois to access reproductive healthcare and gender-affirming care or move to Illinois in order to escape the oppression of cruel and harsh anti-LBGTQ+ regimes in other states, attorneys, judges, and courtroom staff in Illinois will more frequently come into contact with and represent LBGTQ+ people who need legal services to defend their rights, freedom and bodily autonomy.”

The resolutions cite reports, such as one by Lambda Legal, that found 20-30% of surveyed LBGTQ+ individuals who’d interacted with the judicial system had their gender wrongly identified in court or were the subject of negative comments, and that a quarter of those living with HIV inappropriately had that private health status revealed during judicial proceedings.

Those experiences breed distrust of the court system, said Equality Illinois deputy director Mony Ruiz-Velasco. She said the goal is for judges and other court stewards to be equipped with tools to better serve LBGTQ+ people.

“Because if you don’t have access to the court system, then you don’t have access to justice through the court system,” Ruiz-Velasco said. “And so it’s important that these folks feel seen and represented and that their needs are being served by those system.”

State Rep. John Cabello (R-Rockford) said he opposed the resolution on the basis that it’s focused on “just one segment of the population.”

“Why are we just continuing to do stuff for one group when there’s a lot of other groups that need it as well,” Cabello questioned. “Right now our Jewish community is under attack, and I would think that we would need to have that for them, or include them. … I don’t understand why we continue to do things for one segment of the population when our job is to include everyone, not exclude people. I don’t have a problem with it as long as we stop excluding everybody.”

Licensed attorneys are required to take Continuing Legal Education, or CLE, courses. The Illinois State Bar Association offers diversity and inclusion on-demand classes, and other online offerings are focused on awareness of sex and gender issues.

Illinois’ 2Civility Commission has a charge “to promote among the lawyers and judges of Illinois principles of integrity, professionalism, and civility; to foster commitment to the elimination of bias and divisiveness within the legal and judicial systems,” and has a set of guidelines for providers of diversity and inclusion CLE classes to follow.

But there’s no state mandate that attorneys take CLEs centered on LBGTQ+ issues — something the Illinois Supreme Court, through its administrative capacity, could require.

Illinois Supreme Court spokesman Chris Bonjean did not directly respond to a question about whether justices are considering such a mandate for state-licensed lawyers.

But Bonjean in a statement said Illinois judges recently participated in relevant inclusivity training.

“All Illinois judges recently attended the mandatory Education Conference where several courses were offered, including LGBTQ+ People & Your Courtroom and Transgender Issues in Family Law. All new judges are required to attend LGBTQ+ People & Your Courtroom at the annual New Judge Orientation,” he said.

Bonjean also pointed out that judges must participate in a D&I course as part of their mandatory continuing education.

“There is a requirement under the Illinois Judicial College’s Comprehensive Education Plan that all judges complete 3 hours of course content every two years addressing diversity, inclusion, and procedural fairness (DIPF) topics, of which these courses would qualify,” Bonjean said.

Elective courses offered to judges include “LBGTQ+ People & Your Courtroom,” “Transgender Issues in Family Law” and “LBGTQ+ Youth and Families in the Juvenile Court System.”

In July, the court refocused and renamed a committee on equality first formed in 2015. Now known as the “Committee on Equal Justice,” the group of judges and attorneys is called on by the Illinois Supreme Court to “strengthen and advance the ideals of fairness, equity, and diversity in the entire Illinois legal system; identify and work to dismantle inequalities, disparities, and biases in the Illinois legal system; foster and develop a high level of public confidence; and extend respect and dignity to all.”

One of the six subcommittees is assigned to come up with ideas and suggestions about “pronoun and preferred name usage.”

Other subcommittees deal with the “disparate impact of court rules,” education, and diversity on the judicial bench and on juries.

But organizations like Equality Illinois, AIDS Foundation Chicago, Brave Space Alliance and Howard Brown Health want more — mandatory training specific to LBGTQ+ and HIV issues, for all Illinois lawyers, judges and other court staff.

Ruiz-Velasco said trainings could cover topics like teaching the importance of not using someone’s dead name, the term for the no-longer-in-use birth name of a transgender person, and how to avoid misgendering.

“That is something that causes a lot of harm, that makes people distrustful of the system,” Ruiz-Velasco said.

She also said there’s a practical problem if someone who identifies by a particular name or gender, including on a legal ID, is referenced differently in court.

That leads to insufficient records, she said.

“We just want to make sure attorneys are not making assumptions about who is married to whom, or the gender of someone’s children, those kinds of things,” Ruiz-Velasco said. “One of the main things that you have to do as an attorney is build trust with your clients, and that they can trust you to be their advocate and their representative. And if you are not asking the right questions — you know, misgendering them — that is not going to build trust.”

Legislative resolutions do not carry the same force of weight as laws. Lawmakers use them as to make public declarations, to put the heft of the General Assembly’s voice behind advancing an issue.

There’s no record of how state senators voted on Senate Resolution 733, but state representatives voted 74-36 on House Resolution 582, with most Democrats voting in favor and Republicans voting no.

One lawmaker said his no vote was due to a conviction in the separation of powers doctrine — that it’s not the role of the legislature to tell the judicial branch what to do.

Contact Amanda Vinicky: @AmandaVinicky | [email protected]