OutServe/SLDN Executive Director Allyson Robinson was fired after a board coup, according to a Bilerico Project item. Robinson, who headed the military group for only nine months, was the only transgender leader of a major LGBT organization that is not specifically trans-related. In reaction to the firing, the organization's entire senior staff resigned. Robinson subsequently posted a statement on a website for OutServe Magazine saying she'll stay on with the group,but has decided on her "own accord" at a later time to step down, according to the Washington Blade.
In Louisiana, a historic event took place as each member of the New Orleans City Council backed a first-ever resolution June 20 providing local recognition for LGBT Pride Month, according to the Crescent City News. District B Councilmember LaToya Cantrell, who sponsored the resolution, praised the city's LGBT communities for their commitment and dedication to preserving the "spiritual, cultural and political economies" of the region and vowed to build a more equitable New Orleans. Councilmember Kristin Gisleson Palmer co-sponsored the resolution, and thanked gay and lesbian residents for revitalizing neighborhoods such as the Marigny and Bywater.
U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) proposed the Restore Honor to Service Members Act, which would ensure gay and lesbian service members who were discharged for their sexual orientation have their records upgraded to reflect their honorable service, according to a press release. The measure also removes any indication of a service member's sexual orientation from the record, so they are not automatically "outed" to those accessing their record and protects against future discrimination. Since World War II to the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" in 2011, approximately 114,000 service members were discharged because of their sexual orientation.
Mexican authorities arrested former University of Southern California professor Walter Lee Williams in the resort city of Playa del Carmen on charges of sexual exploitation of children and traveling abroad for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts with children, according to the Huffington Post. The indictment alleges Williams, 64, traveled from Los Angeles to the Philippines in January 2011 to engage in sex acts with two 14-year-old boys he met online in 2010. Frontiers L.A. reported that the FBI had announced an award of $100,000 for the capture of Williams, a prominent member of the LGBT community.
Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has endorsed same-sex marriage, according to an Advocate.com item. In an op-ed on her website, Murkowski recounts how an Alaskan same-sex couple, a military family with four adopted children, factored into her decision to support marriage equality. Murkowski concluded her statement with a clear endorsement of marriage equality, coupled with a call for federal government to get "out of the way" of its progress.
In New York City, Elliot Morales, the accused killer of Mark Carson, made multiple statements to police following the May 18 fatal shooting in which he admitted to killing the 32-year-old gay man, Gay City News reported. "He thought he was tough and I shot him," Elliot Morales told police moments after he shot Carson at Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street in the West Village. "It's the last thing he'll remember." Morales' has been charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, five counts of criminal possession of a weapon, menacing a police officer, and (general) menacing. Morales has pled not guilty, according to Advocate.com .
Rutgers University—Camden psychology professor Charlotte Markey and her husband, Patrick Markey of Villanova University, have found that—consistent with their previous research on heterosexual couples—there was a significant link between lesbians' and their partners' weight status and concerns, according to Rutgers News Service. (The researchers surveyed 144 women in monogamous, romantic relationships.) Markey and her husband are currently working with Rutgers—Camden psychology professors Chris Nave and Kristin August to expand the research to focus on male same-sex couples.
A national directory of LGBT resources has achieved a significant milestone, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, with Gayellow Pages 35th annual print edition released this past March, Press Pass Q reported. The Gayellow Pages print edition is $25, a CD version is $10 and the online version—which is updated monthly and can be read online but downloading is recommended—is free. See www.Gayellowpages.com .
Krave Massive has opened at a former movie theater in downtown Las Vegas, according to OutTraveler.com . The club, a new incarnation of the former Krave that lived on the Strip, is reportedly the largest gay nightclub in the world. Among other things, the space sports a movie theater, comedy club and rooms with themes such as hip-hop, country, Latin, dance and EDM, according to the venue's website.
Exodus International, a Christian ministry dealing with faith and homosexuality, announced June 19 that it is closing its doors after 37 years, according to a press release. "We're not negating the ways God used Exodus to positively affect thousands of people, but a new generation of Christians is looking for change—and they want to be heard," said Tony Moore, board member of Exodus. The message came less than a day after Exodus released a statement apologizing ( www.exodusinternational.org/apology&; to the gay community for years of judgment from the organization and the Christian Church as a whole.
Five months after the mass removal of the LGBT newspaper the Washington Blade from distribution boxes around the District of Columbia, there has still been no arrest made, according to Press Pass Q. The Blade is proposing that the D.C. City Council pass legislation making it illegal to take more than just a few newspapers from a free distribution box.
The gay-rights group Equality Florida announced its new "Get Engaged" campaign, a statewide effort to secure the right to marry for all Floridians, according to TampaBay.com . Although education will play a central role in the campaign, Executive Director Nadine Smith said, the specifics will largely depend on the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on marriage. Smith added it remains too soon to know if the organization will push for the repeal of the state's gay-marriage ban on the 2014 ballot, but she implied it was unlikely.
A recent article in the American Journal of Public Health analyzed nationally representative survey results and found that LGBT adults smoke cigarettes at rates that are nearly 70 percent higher than the general population, according to a news release. A new study from Legacy, a national public health nonprofit located in Washington, D.C., shows that LGB young adults ages 18-34 are also smoking at disproportionately high rates compared with their heterosexual counterparts. The study is at http://ntr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/05/16/ntr.ntt062.short?rss=1.
The American Medical Association voted to oppose a ban by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that prohibits gay men from donating blood, ABC News reported. The FDA ban originated in 1983 in response to the AIDS outbreak, and some experts now say the policy is outdated. According to the FDA's website, approximately 1 in 2 million blood transfusions results in an HIV infection—but that gay men represent 61 percent of all new HIV infections in the United States.
New York Assemblywoman Deborah Glick and State Senator Brad Hoylman—who are backers of lesbian City Council Speaker Christine Quinn—are accusing former Congressman Anthony Weiner of displaying a "lack of moral courage" in the face of what they slammed as a "homophobic, misogynistic slur" a voter made, according to Politicker.com . An elderly woman reportedly told Weiner, "I'm not voting for uh, what's her name? The dyke," to which he said, "You really shouldn't talk that way about people" after noticing a reporter's reaction. After the woman apologized, Weiner said, "It's okay. It's not your fault."
In what has been hailed as a groundbreaking decision, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights announced it intends to begin asking questions this fall about anti-LGB bullying as part of its Office of Civil Rights Data collection, which covers a wide range of school experiences, according to a press release. After a comment and review process, the Civil Rights Data Collection questionnaire will be updated to ask about incidents of bullying and harassment related to actual or perceived sexual orientation. The survey already asks about bullying and harassment based on race and gender, including questions about gender stereotyping and gender nonconformity.
In New York City, a lesbian was allegedly raped at knifepoint because of her sexuality June 16, according to The Brooklyn Paper. "I'm doing this to you because you're gay," the man reportedly told her in the middle of the act. The woman was taken to Woodhull Hospital in stable condition. Police are searching for the rapist. Women in the area will not be able to rely on the Bushwick Bike Patrol members to escort them home, as the organization folded after founder and head coordinator Jay Ruiz suffered a pair of heart attacks.
Transgender people in Delaware are now a protected class under the state's anti-discrimination laws, the Washington Post noted. The Senate voted 11 to 9 to give final legislative approval to a measure adding gender identity to the list of protected nondiscrimination categories, which include race, age, religion and sexual orientation. The legislation also allows for enhanced penalties under Delaware's hate crimes law for targeting someone based on his or her gender identity.
Los Angeles police have arrested one suspect in the beating of a transgender woman in Hollywood May 31, according to Advocate.com . Los Angeles resident Nicol Shakhnazaryan, 21, was arrested on a charge of felony battery in the attack on Vivian Diego, who was beaten and kicked by four men as she walked to a subway station after ending her shift as a barista at Beso restaurant. Police are seeking the additional suspects with help from the FBI and are investigating the attack as a hate crime.
Air Force Undersecretary Eric Fanning became acting secretary of the branch with the retirement of Michael Donley—making Fanning the highest-ranking LGBT person in the Department of Defense, according to Advocate.com . The interim assignment makes Fanning the civilian head of the Air Force. Before his Air Force undersecretary post, he had been deputy undersecretary and deputy chief management officer for the Navy since 2009.
Washington, D.C., police have reportedly arrested a male suspect for allegedly stabbing a 29-year-old transgender woman as many as 40 times in an abandoned house, according to the Washington Blade. A police report, which lists the incident as an assault with intent to kill, says the stabbing took place at 3038 Stanton Road, S.E. It also says the victim, Bree Wallace, managed to run several blocks to the apartment building where she lives before collapsing on the street. In a phone interview, Wallace said she didn't know why the man attacked her.
Addressing the North Carolina Bar Association in Asheville, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia said that judges are making mistakes when they find rights to "homosexual conduct" or abortion in the Constitution, according to Advocate.com . In his speech, titled "Mullahs of the West: Judges as Moral Arbiters," the ultraconservative Scalia said he believes in interpreting the Constitution as it would have been when it was adopted. That would include seeing abortion, assisted suicide and same-sex acts as "criminal throughout the United States and remain[ing] so for several centuries."
The National LGBT Cancer Network released a new report that uses the direct experiences of cancer survivors to show the effect of discrimination on LGBT health, according to a press release. The free, downloadable booklet, "LGBT Patient Centered Outcomes," uses the findings to suggest practical recommendations for improving health care for LGBT people. See www.cancer-network.org .
The Colorado Civil Rights Division has ruled in favor of 6-year-old Coy Mathis, whose school had barred her from using the girls' bathroom at her elementary school because she is transgender, according to the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF). This is the first ruling in the nation holding that transgender students must be allowed to use bathrooms that match who they are. It is also the most comprehensive ruling ever supporting the rights of transgender people to access bathrooms without harassment or discrimination.
Transgender Law Center issued a statement praising the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERs) for voting to ensure that transgender CalPERS members have equal access to health insurance benefits. The vote removes exclusionary language in health care policies that both the California Department of Insurance and the California Department of Managed Health Care have deemed discriminatory. Masen Davis, executive director at Transgender Law Center, said, "Today CalPERS joins a growing list of public and private sector entities that have decided the time has come to end exclusionary policies."
A study by Jody L. Herman, Williams Institute manager of transgender research, says that transgender and gender non-conforming people report being denied access to gendered restrooms, and experience verbal harassment and physical assault in these spaces at alarming rates, according to a press release. Herman's Washington, D.C.-based survey, conducted with the DC Trans Coalition, found that 70 percent of transgender and gender-nonconforming respondents had ever experienced one or more of these problems in gendered facilities in D.C. The report is at williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/transgender-issues/herman-jpmss-june-2013/ .
Items once owned or gifted by Monica Lewinsky, including a black negligee and a letter signed by President Bill Clinton, are being auctioned online, according to NBC News. The 32-item collection was submitted by Lewinsky's one-time lover Andy Bleiler to special prosecutor Kenneth Starr during his investigation of the former White House intern's sexual relationship with Clinton. Lewinsky's infamous "blue dress" is not among the items listed for sale, which concludes June 27.
W Hotels Worldwide announced a strategic partnership with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), according to a press release. As an HRC Gold National Partner, the W brand will offer exclusive packages and incentives that benefit the campaign. Among other things, the W brand marked Pride by inviting travelers to try an "HRC Pride 365" package available at W Hotels & Retreats across the United States and Canada.
On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of five to four, struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—the map that determines which states must get federal permission before they change their voting laws, according to NBC News. Under the law, nine mostly Southern states (as well as 12 cities and 57 counties elsewhere) must get permission from the Justice Department or a special panel of three federal judges before they make changes. LGBT organizations—including a coalition of groups that included Human Rights Campaign, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal and others—were among those criticizing the court's ruling.
A bill that opponents said would basically ban abortion in Texas failed to pass after lawmakers missed a deadline by just minutes, according to NBC News. There were chaotic scenes June 25 after a filibuster attempt fell just short and protesters cheered, clapped and shouted from 11:45 p.m. to midnight and beyond as legislators tried to hold the vote before the session ended at midnight. The measure would have banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and would have required all clinics to be graded as surgical centers.
A committee of the American Bar Association (ABA) has passed a resolution that would make it harder for defense lawyers to use sexual orientation or gender identity of their client's accuser against them in court, HRC.org noted. The the National LGBT Bar Association, which wrote the resolution, hopes the development will mark the beginning of the end of the so-called gay and transgender panic defenses. To become official ABA policy, the organization's House of Delegates will have to approve it at their yearly meeting in August.
In Wausau, Wis., a gay-rights march went off without a problem after a separate march was cancelled, according to JSOnline.com . About 300 people walked to downtown Wausau to demonstrate their support of equal treatment for LGBT people. The head of the other event canceled it after Wausau City Council member David Nutting said people should boycott the parade or, if they went, turn their backs on "deviant-behaving individuals."
With June being LGBT Pride Month, Grey Poupon posted a photo of two men holding hands stretched out of the windows of separate cars with the slogan "Spread Good Taste," according to Gay Star News. The mustard brand stated that "'June is National Pride month. Though the festivities technically only last a month, we recommend celebrating all year—because Pride and good taste never go out of season." The photo received thousands of "likes" on its Facebook page and more than 1,000 comments, both highly positive and extremely negative.
In Yonkers, N.Y., boys basketball coach Anthony Nicodemo came out of the closet to his team, according to FoxSports.com . Nicodemo, 35, is chairman of his region's coaches association and is a representative in the Basketball Colleges Association of New York. Before revealing his sexual identity to his team, Nicodemo went to his school's administration and to his assistant coaches and friends. He invited the players' parents to attend his coming-out meeting with his team.
