LGBT rights in Wisconsin

Milwaukee Pride parade in 2017

Milwaukee Pride parade in 2017. The Allen-Bradley Clock Tower can be seen in the background.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, there were no known legal or social punishments for engaging in homosexual activity. Several Native American tribes recognized individuals who would act, behave and live as the opposite biological sex, nowadays also called "two-spirit". The Potawatomi refer to male-bodied individuals who act as female as m'netokwe. They are ikwekaazo (literally "men who chose to function as women") among the Ojibwe. Likewise, female-bodied individuals who act and live as male are ininiikaazo (literally "women who choose to function as men").

Wisconsin was part of the Michigan Territory in 1836, when it adopted a prohibition on sodomy that applied to both heterosexual and homosexual sexual activities, excluding cunnilingus. The criminal prohibition was retained when Wisconsin became a state in 1848. The law applied to private consensual activity as well.[3] The definition was expanded to include fellatio in 1897 as well as the new crime of "taking improper liberties" with a minor.[4] In the 1950s, following a series of high-profile sex crimes, Wisconsin criminalized cunnilingus and increased the penalties for "sexual perversion" to five years' imprisonment. In 1959, the state barred persons convicted of "sexual perversion" from using an automobile or any vehicle requiring a license.[3]

In 1913, the Wisconsin Legislature passed a law providing for the possible sterilization of criminals in state institutions, including those convicted under the sodomy statute. Through the end of 1934, 645 Wisconsinites had been sterilized under the law, all of them "insane or mentally retarded". The extent of the law's application on gay men and lesbians is unknown. The statute was repealed in 1978.[3]

In 1966, the Wisconsin Young Democrats approved a resolution urging "the abolition of all legal restriction on sexual relations between consenting adults which do not violate the rights of others", one of the first major political organizations in the United States to do so. Republican Governor Warren P. Knowles referred to supporters of the resolution as "homocrats" and some Democrats of various ages distanced themselves from the language.[5]

In the 1970s, court challenges to the sodomy law on privacy grounds failed, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the law should not apply to private and consensual acts between a husband and wife. In 1976, the state repealed its ban on newspapers' covering sodomy trials. In 1977, the state reclassified consensual sodomy as a misdemeanor, punishable with nine months in jail and/or a fine of 10,000 U.S. dollars.[6]

In 1983, Wisconsin legalized private, non-commercial acts of sodomy between consenting adults.[7] In order to obtain sufficient votes among legislators, the bill stated that Wisconsin did not approve of "any sexual conduct outside of the institution of marriage."[8]

Wisconsin's domestic partner registry did not grant parental rights, but same-sex couples could obtain limited rights through a co-parenting agreement, which may not have always been enforced, or another legal arrangement granted by state courts.[20]

Residents in Wisconsin may adopt as individuals without respect to sexual orientation. Married same-sex couples are permitted to adopt.[20] Adoption agencies in Wisconsin will ensure that once a spouse in a same-sex relationship attains parental rights the other spouse receives comparable parental rights or full guardianship.[20][21]

Additionally, lesbian couples can access in vitro fertilization (IVF) and artificial insemination treatment. State law recognizes the non-genetic, non-gestational mother as a legal parent to a child born via donor inseminmnation, but only if the parents are married.[22]

In September 2016, a federal judge ruled that the state must record the names of both same-sex parents on the birth certificates of their children. The ruling came as a result of a lesbian couple who sued the Wisconsin Department of Health Services in 2015 after it refused to register both their names on the birth certificate of their son.[23]

Map of Wisconsin counties and cities that have sexual orientation and/or gender identity anti–employment discrimination ordinances

  Sexual orientation and gender identity with anti–employment discrimination ordinance

  Sexual orientation with anti–employment discrimination ordinance and gender identity solely in state employment

In 1982, Wisconsin was the first state to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, education, credit and all public accommodations. When Republican Governor Lee S. Dreyfus signed the law, he said that "It is a fundamental tenet of the Republican Party that government ought not intrude in the private lives of individuals where no state purpose is served, and there is nothing more private or intimate than who you live with and who you love."[24]

There are no state-level laws against discrimination based on gender identity.[25][26] However in January 2019, Governor Tony Evers issued an executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity in government employment.[1]

In addition, the counties of Dane,[27] and Milwaukee,[28] along with the cities of Appleton,[29] Cudahy,[29] De Pere,[30] Janesville,[31] Madison,[27] Milwaukee,[27] and Racine ban discrimination based on gender identity.[32][33] The cities of Oshkosh and Stevens Point have policies banning discrimination against transgender city employees only.[34][35]

Wisconsin allows a person born in the state who has completed sex reassignment surgery to amend their birth certificate once documentation of the surgery and of a change of name is provided.[40]

A 2005 Wisconsin statute denying hormone therapy to prisoners undergoing sex reassignment surgery, the Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act, was ruled unconstitutional in a unanimous opinion in the case of Fields v. Smith by a three-judge panel of United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on August 5, 2011.[41] The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the state's appeal of that decision on March 26, 2012.[42]

Since January 2019, sex reassignment surgery has to be explicitly included within Wisconsin Medicaid programs for government employees.[43] In May 2019, a federal judge ordered the program to be immediately extended to non-government employees as well, under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.[44]

In March 2018, Milwaukee became the first city in Wisconsin to approve a conversion therapy ban on minors. The ordinance was signed into law by Mayor Tom Barrett on April 4, and it went into effect 10 days later.[45] In July 2018, Madison, the state capital, similarly approved a conversion therapy ban.[46][47] The city of Eau Claire followed suit in October 2018.[48]

In September 2018, the Eau Claire School Board became the first school district in Wisconsin, and in the United States, to ban school-based health center agreements with health clinics and/or providers that "endorse or engage in the practice of conversion therapy."[49]

In January 2019, Cudahy became the fourth city in Wisconsin to legally ban conversion therapy on LGBT minors.[50][51] Shorewood and Racine followed suit in June and July 2019,[52] and Glendale,[53] Sheboygan and Superior passed similar ordinances in August 2019.[54][55]

In June 2020, the Wisconsin GOP party blocked a regulation to ban conversion therapy on minors state-wide.[56]

In September 2020, West Allis by a vote of 6-3 passed an ordinance banning conversion therapy on minors.[57]

In October 2020, by a vote of 14-1 Kenosha passed an ordinance that banned conversion therapy on minors or children. Violators can be fined a maximum of $1,000, plus the cost of courts, prosecution, assessments, among other fees and 90 days maximum in the Kenosha County Jail. The court may also suspend driving privileges for up to five years until costs are paid - a legal first for the United States to do this.[58]

A 2017 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) opinion poll found that 66% of Wisconsin residents supported same-sex marriage, while 26% opposed it and 8% were unsure. Additionally, 73% supported an anti-discrimination law covering sexual orientation and gender identity. 20% were opposed.[2]

• Equality Wisconsin