WASHINGTON (AP) – The Justice Department has sent a federal hate crimes lawyer to Iowa to help prosecute a man charged with killing a transgender teenager last year, an unusual decision by Attorney General Jeff Sessions even as he takes other steps to erode the rights of transgender people broadly.
The case involves Jorge Sanders-Galvez, 23, who is charged with killing 16-year-old Kedarie Johnson in Burlington, Iowa, in March 2016. Authorities have not disclosed a motive, but Johnson’s relatives say he may have been targeted because he identified as both male and female.
The rare decision to involve a federal prosecutor in a local murder case, first reported Sunday by The New York Times, follows pledges by Sessions to aggressively prosecute acts of violence against transgender people. Those pledges have been met with skepticism from LGBT advocates, who point to his actions rolling back legal protections.
This month alone, Sessions said the Justice Department no longer considers transgender people shielded from workplace discrimination under federal law, and he issued sweeping guidance on protecting religious freedom that undercuts protections for LGBT people. During his first month in office, he rescinded an Obama administration directive advising schools to let transgender students use the bathroom of their choice.
As a Republican senator, Sessions opposed expanding the federal hate crimes statute to protect people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. But as attorney general, he has promised to uphold that law and has made fighting hate crimes a priority.