Mel Wymore is a candidate for New York City Council—and, if he wins, would be the first openly transgender officeholder in the nation's biggest city, Yahoo! News reported. Wymore, a Democrat, faces several opponents who also have long records of community involvement on Manhattan's upscale, liberal Upper West Side. "I want to create the inclusive community, and it goes beyond my personal identity," said Wymore, 51. "But it actually lends a lot to my story and my credibility as a candidate. I'm honest, I'm brave, I'm forthright, and I'm willing to stand up for change."
Republican U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake's high school—aged son, Tanner, has been using a slew of anti-gay and racist tweets, according to BuzzFeed.com . Tanner threatened the "faggot" who stole his bike that he "will find you, and … will beat the crap out of you," joked about an acquaintance stealing one-liners because he's Jewish, and went by the name "n1ggerkiller" in an online game. Sen. Flake responded, "I'm very disappointed in my teenage son's words, and I sincerely apologize for the insensitivity. This language is unacceptable, anywhere."
A northern Kentucky man told an Ohio-based media outlet that he was attacked outside of a Columbus, Ohio, bar on June 6 because he is gay, according to the Huffington Post. Chris Ashcraft said he was beaten unconscious by several men after he responded to one man's request for help with his car. In addition, two other men were reportedly the subjects of anti-gay attacks June 9-10.
A petition has launched on Change.org on behalf of Danielle Powell, an undergraduate student who was expelled from Grace University in Omaha, Neb., one semester shy of graduation because she is lesbian, according to a press release. The school also revoked Powell's scholarships and is now forcing her to repay $6,000 in tuition for the final semester that she was not allowed to complete. Powell's wife, Michelle Rogers, says she started the Change.org petition after the school refused to transfer Danielle's transcripts to another university until she pays the outstanding tuition.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy is trying again on immigration and gay rights, according to Politico.com . Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, filed an amendment to the Gang of Eight immigration bill that would allow gay U.S. citizens to petition their foreign spouses to become permanent residents. He had withdrawn the measure after an emotional debate after several Democrats said they would vote against his amendment in order to preserve the overall bill.
On a related note, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has reiterated that he won't support an immigration reform bill that includes rights for same-sex couples, adding such a provision will kill the measure, according to Advocate.com . The Florida Republican told conservative radio host Andrea Tantaros, "I'm gone, I'm off it, and I've said that repeatedly. And I don't think that's going to happen, and it shouldn't happen. This is already a difficult enough issue as it is."
The California Senate Education Committee passed AB 1266, the School Success and Opportunity Act—a bill that provides crucial support for transgender students—by a vote of five to two, according to a press release from the ACLU. The bill will ensure that California public schools will allow transgender students to fully participate in all school activities, programs and facilities. Assemblymember Tom Ammiano authored the measure, and Sen. Mark Leno, Sen. Ricardo Lara and Assemblymember Toni Atkins co-authored it.
In California, the UC Davis Health System will become the first academic health system in the country to incorporate sexual orientation and gender identity as standard demographic elements within the electronic health records for its patients, according to a press release. The health system is emailing a questionnaire to about 76,000 patients who use UC Davis' secure, online communications system to access their medical information, schedule appointments and interact with their physicians. The questionnaire invites patients to share their sexual orientation (attraction to one's own gender or a different gender) and gender identity (the gender an individual identifies with) with their providers.
Over the objections of a conservative family group's threat to sue, the New Jersey Assembly Women and Children's Committee unanimously approved a bill that would ban licensed therapists from providing conversion therapy to children, according to NJ.com . Testimony from dueling mental health professionals and activists dominated the two-and-a-half-hour hearing; proponents contended the treatment has been discredited as ineffective and harmful to kids, while opponents said the bill tramples parental rights. Before the hearing ended, John Tomicki of the League of American Families called the bill unconstitutional, adding, "If we have to, we will bring a legal challenge."
Writer Michael Troy and Bluewater Productions are using Indiegogo to get the public to fund new historical comic book project to commemorate The Stonewall Riots of June 1969. The Riots are largely considered to be the catalyst that launched the modern gay-rights movement. The campaign to raise $9,000 ends July 2; see www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-stonewall-riots-the-comic-book.
At Washington, D.C.'s, Capital Pride festival June 9, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) set up a booth and handed out a recruitment brochure aimed at the LGBT community (entitled "You Have Something Unique to Offer: Sexual Orientation and the CIA—Answers to Common Questions"), according to the Washington Blade. CIA employees staffing the booth said they were members of the Agency Network of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Employees (ANGLE), an officially recognized CIA employee group. The brochure says applicants for a CIA job aren't required to disclose their sexual orientation but information about someone's sexual orientation could surface during a routine background check.
Caterpillar Inc. is no longer giving money to the Boy Scouts because the organization discriminates against gay people, according to the Huffington Post. The company's move wasn't directly tied to the recent Boy Scouts decision to continue to bar gay adults from the organization while allowing openly gay children to be scouts. Instead, the company decided to cut off funding while reviewing a request for $25,000 that came in last year from a local group in Illinois.
A Pew Research Center survey show that vast majority of LGBT Americans feel that society has become more accepting of them in the last decade, although many still feel stigmatized, according to a Huffington Post item. In the online survey conducted among 1,197 self-identified LGBT adults, 92 percent of respondents said they feel society has become more accepting in the past decade. However, only 19 percent of LGBT adults said they experience "a lot" of social acceptance, and 53 percent said there continues to be "a lot" of discrimination against LGBT people.
San Francisco Pride announced that it has made major progress towards financial stability, retiring a three-year debt burden while simultaneously achieving record-breaking increases in key sponsorship contributions, according to a press release. As of May 31, the non-profit organization that sponsors and produces the annual SF LGBT Pride Parade and Celebration completed a two-year strategic plan that allowed it to retire nearly $300,000 of outstanding loan and debt, which included a loan of $65,000 from the Dorian Fund.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced a revision to its policy around changing one's gender marker on a Social Security card—a move transgender-rights groups see as a victory, according to Advocate.com . The SSA removed its requirement that transgender people wanting to amend their gender on a Social Security card provide proof of gender reassignment surgery. Instead, it has opted for more inclusive language mandating that a transgender person provide a passport or birth certificate reflecting the accurate gender, or a certification from a physician confirming that the individual has had appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition.
Maine's highest court recently heard arguments over whether transgender students can use the bathrooms of their choice, according to an ABC News item. Nicole Maines, a 15-year-old student at the heart of the case, Maines, now 15, watched lawyers argue over whether her rights were violated when the Orono school district required her to use a staff bathroom after there was a complaint about her using the girls' bathroom. Maines said she hoped the state's Supreme Judicial Court would recognize the right of children to attend school without peers or administrators bullying them.
Bob Tur—a Los Angeles helicopter reporter who covered the 1992 L.A. race riots and the 1994 O.J. Simpson chase—has come out as transgender, according to MediaBistro.com . Tur started the Los Angeles News Service, which was the first news service to use a helicopter in a major city for coverage of live breaking news. Tur, who will change her first name to Zoey, said she is undergoing hormone-replacement therapy to fully become female. She added her kids "were in a state of shock."
The Senate Armed Services Committee has adopted the National Defense Authorization Act, which included a provision sponsored by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) that would repeal the prohibition on some expressions of private, consensual intimacy by military personnel—regardless of whether they are an opposite-sex or same-sex couple—defined in Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as "unnatural carnal copulation," according to an ACLU press release. Ian Thompson, American Civil Liberties Union legislative representative, said, "Thankfully, the Senate Armed Services Committee has taken this key step toward moving military criminal law in line with both Supreme Court and military court precedent recognizing constitutional guarantees of liberty and privacy."
Portland State University's School of Community Health has found that the growing number of same-sex marriage laws in the United States has had no effect on the marriage rate among heterosexual couples, according to a press release. Alexis Dinno, assistant professor of Community Health and the lead researcher for the project, said, "Concerns about potential harm to the rate of opposite-sex marriage resulting from same-sex marriage laws are not borne out by this research." Dinno and fellow researcher Chelsea Whitney examined heterosexual marriage rates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 1989 through 2009.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) approved a resolution condemning the Boy Scouts of America's (BSA) decision to allow openly gay Scouts, and called for the removal of all pro-equality BSA executives and board leaders, according to a Human Rights Campaign (HRC) press release. HRC President Chad Griffin, who was raised Southern Baptist, called out the SBC resolution as affirming and promoting intolerance, and added it was counter the Biblical teachings of the Golden Rule.
LGBT youth who identify as Latino face more rejection from their communities and schools than their non-LGBT Latino counterparts, according to a new report on LGBT Latino youth the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) released in partnership with The League of United Latin American Citizens, according to a press release. Among key findings is that the most difficult problems facing LGBT Latino youth are related to negative responses to their LGBT identity. Concern about family acceptance is the top problem identified, and having their families accept and support them is a key change they wish for in their lives. The report is available at www.hrc.org/latinoyouth.
In Minnesota, just four days after it offered a gay police officer $21,000 to settle his bias complaint, the City of Duluth ordered decorated cop Bobby Johnson back to work, reprimanded him and accused him of inappropriate sexy talk, according to Project Q Atlanta. Johnson said the moves by City Manager Tim Shearer are nothing more than retribution for the complaint Johnson's filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Johnson rejected the city's offer of $21,000 to settle the case June 10.
OutServe-SLDN announced that the co-chair of its board of directors, Air Force Officer Josh Seefried—who co-founded the OutServe network in 2010—will join actively serving gay and lesbian service members for an historic closing bell ceremony on Wall Street on Friday, June 28, according to a press release. The afternoon will begin with a panel discussion before the group rings the closing bell to end the New York Stock Exchange's trading day. The Wall Street events will be followed by a Happy Hour to kick off New York City Pride Weekend.
On June 14, 5-year-old Jayden Sink held her first "Pink Lemonade for Peace" event on the front lawn of the famed Equality House—a rainbow-colored home located directly across the street from the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church headquarters in Topeka, Kan., according to Yahoo! News. When the child learned that the compound belonged to people who were spreading hate, she came up with the idea to stage her own peaceful protest in the form of a pink lemonade stand. On that day, Sink raised hundreds of dollars, and has started a complimentary online fundraiser that has garnered more than $5,000.
The LGBT-activist group All Out delivered a petition with 150,000 signatures to Google to protest the Setting Captive Free app, which claims to "cure" homosexuality, a press release stated. All Out Executive Director Andre Banks also read a statement that said, in part, "Google has a long and impressive track record of advancing equality, but they have yet to remove an app from their store which claims to release people from the 'bondage of homosexuality.' ... Google needs to join All Out and Apple by saying no to this false belief. By doing so, Google will help build a more just and equal world."
The group that runs high school sports in Nebraska has established a policy allowing transgender athletes to compete on sports teams, according to Outsports.com . The Nebraska School Activities Association established the policy to get ahead of the issue, since there have been no requests as yet from transgender athletes. Nebraska is one of more than half a dozen states with a policy covering participation by trans high school athletes; six other states are considering legislation.
In Los Angeles, authorities are investigating an anti-gay hate crime, according to KTLA.com . A 28-year-old man found his vehicle vandalized with the word "gay" etched on its sides and roof; in addition, the vehicle's windows were smashed out and the tires were flattened.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released the nation's first-ever national study examining housing discrimination against same-sex couples in the private rental market, according to a press release. The study, An Estimate of Housing Discrimination Against Same-Sex Couples, measures the treatment same-sex couples receive from rental agents when inquiring about apartments advertised online, as compared to how otherwise similar heterosexual couples are treated. According to HUD's study, same-sex couples experience unequal treatment more often than heterosexual couples. The report is at www.huduser.org/portal/publications/fairhsg/discrim_samesex.html .
Dallas City Council member Vonciel Jones Hill is objecting to a billboard promoting public education about HIV, according to Advocate.com . In a letter to a local Fox reporter, Hill raised concerns that the ad, which features a visual of two black men embracing along with information on how to locate HIV testing facilities, sends the message that "African American men who engage in homosexual conduct [are] presented as acceptable." Hill has previously cited religion as past justification for her anti-LGBT stances.
In New York, a Long Island City college is grappling with the issue of having a gay-pride banner hang with scores of national banners in the school's Hall of Flags, according to the New York Daily News. Supporters at CUNY LaGuardia Community College said hoisting the rainbow flag would show support for the school's LGBT community. However, opponents say the pride flag represents a lifestyle, not a nation.
In Florida, the attorney for 18-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt—charged with a felony for having sexual contact with her 14-year-old girlfriend—has filed a motion asking the judge to recuse himself from the case, according to the Huffington Post. Attorney Julia Graves alleges that Circuit Judge Robert Pegg moved the case ahead of 200 other pending criminal cases because he is biased against Hunt, who is lesbian. A similar case Pegg handled involving a male defendant and female victim reportedly took 19 months to conclude.
