“In state legislatures across the nation, in fact, 2016 is shaping up to be a very difficult year for LGBT rights groups.”
“Less than eight months after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, LGBT advocates are on the defensive, playing whack-a-mole with a massive number of bills in state legislatures they say are meant to peel back LGBT rights.”
“Five and a half weeks into most state legislative sessions, the Human Rights Campaign, the leading LGBT rights lobbying group, is tracking some 150 bills it classifies as “unfriendly” to LGBT people. In the entire 2015 legislative session, it tracked 110.”
“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Saturday announced new executive orders aimed at banning the controversial practice of so-called conversion therapy, which seeks to change people’s gender identity and sexual orientation.”
“The measures announced by Cuomo include bans on public and private health care insurers from providing reimbursement for conversion therapy for people under 18. Additionally, no mental health facility licensed, funded, or operated by the state will be allowed to provide such therapy to minors.”
“’Conversion therapy is a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice that is counter to everything this state stands for,’ Cuomo said in a statement. ‘We will not allow the misguided and the intolerant to punish LGBT young people for simply being who they are.’”
“A bill aimed at offering protections against discrimination to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people has been filed in the Kentucky Senate.”
“Supporters say it is the first time that a bipartisan group of senators has sponsored a bill to add the protections to the Kentucky Civil Rights Act. Senate Bill 176 is called the Kentucky Competitive Workforce Act.”
“The measures are backed by nearly 200 Kentucky employers in the Kentucky Competitive Workforce Coalition, a collaborative launched at Brown-Forman Corp. in November. The coalition includes some of Kentucky’s largest employers, as well as numerous small, locally owned companies. The members have pledged to practice nondiscriminatory policies.”
“State Sen. Greg Kirk, R-Americus, would be the first person to tell you his Senate Bill 284, the so-called “First Amendment Defense Act” that’s working its way through the Georgia General Assembly, does not allow discrimination against LGBT people. He’s wrong.”
“In fact, the bill, now combined with the Pastor Protection Act, does allow discrimination against LGBT people. It also allows discrimination against anyone who has sex outside of marriage (single mothers and anyone else’s who’s even a little bit sexually active without a ring), anyone who disagrees that same-sex marriage should be OK, and, in a stunningly shallow attempt to hold everyone to the same standards, anyone who is against same-sex marriage. Kirk really thinks that allowing anyone to discriminate against anyone makes the bill fair. Apparently he hasn’t thought that maybe he should just not endorse discrimination, which would be far easier.”
“First-time queer candidate Park Cannon easily beat a former lawmaker on Tuesday and will soon become the third openly gay member of the Georgia House.”
“Cannon, 24, raised the most cash in the special election for the District 58 seat and topped two other candidates in the Jan. 19 race. But her margin of victory wasn’t large enough to avoid a runoff.”
“That came Tuesday and Cannon soundly defeated Ralph Long, 59 percent to 41 percent. Little more than 1,100 votes were cast in the runoff for the seat, which stretches from Midtown to Turner Field to East Point.”
“Cannon, a women’s health advocate who describes herself as queer, will fill the remaining months of state Rep. Simone Bell’s term. Bell, the first African-American lesbian elected to a state legislature, resigned in November.”
“By a vote of 56 to 41, the Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill that prevents any state agency from punishing discrimination against people in same-sex marriages, transgender individuals, or people who have sex outside of marriage.””The Government Nondiscrimination Act essentially legalizes those forms of discrimination so long as they are a ‘sincerely held religious belief.'”
“Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe has vowed to veto the bill should it make it to his desk.”
“Seven Republicans voted against the bill and two abstained, showing that the socially conservative issue doesn’t have unanimous support from within the GOP.”
“Jacksonville City Councilman Tommy Hazouri said Saturday he will suspend his push to adopt local discrimination protections for the LGBT community, injecting new uncertainty into a high-profile debate that has loomed large over city politics for much of the year.””After numerous meetings with colleagues and public forums it’s now clear “the City Council and many citizens of Jacksonville still have sincere questions and are not ready to move forward on this issue,” Hazouri said in a written statement. As a result, he plans to ask the council to withdraw his legislation that would expand the city’s anti-discrimination law — called the human-rights ordinance — to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”
“’Be assured, this bill and this issue is coming back,’ he said.”
“Hazouri’s decision means the divisive issue will effectively be tabled, leaving Jacksonville one of the largest major cities that lacks legal discrimination protection for the LGBT community.”
“As Nicole Brown searched for companies to provide the cake, flowers and other items for her wedding, she felt a sense of trepidation with every new business she approached. She worried about how they would respond when they found out that her partner, Sara, is a woman.”
“’It’s supposed to be this time where everything is perfect,’ Brown said. “I respect other people’s beliefs, and I didn’t want to step on any toes.” After she learned that the House of Delegates had passed the West Virginia Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a bill that opponents fear could allow businesses to refuse service to LGBT customers, Brown decided she didn’t want other same-sex couples to experience that anxiety.”
“The fourth-grade teacher created a design that reads “All Are Welcome Here” for LGBT friendly businesses to post to let customers know they don’t approve of discrimination.”
“The Charlotte City Council is expected next week to adopt a series of changes to the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance that have driven people in this town full-goose nuts for about a year. The changes would simply add marital and familial status, sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression to the characteristics already protected from discrimination in city contracting, public facilities, and taxis: race, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity, and age.”
“But the debate here, as it’s been in other states and cities that have adopted similar changes, has centered on the nightmare prospect of a transgender woman using a public ladies’ room, thereby endangering or discomforting women and children. (There’d seem to be an equivalent threat of a transgender man using the men’s, but that’s for some reason perceived to be less of an issue.)”
“It remains unclear how, short of not adopting the changes, council members could negotiate away people’s discomfort when they’re committed to it. Plenty of people were, and remain, uncomfortable with having to interact with members of a different ethnic group, but that’s hardly an excuse to make racial discrimination legal. That’s the whole point of civil rights laws. They exist because otherwise citizens would use their discomfort as license to discriminate.”
“In late 2011, as Chelsea Manning awaited trial at the military corrections complex at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, she received a book from an anonymous sender called “Captive Genders,” an anthology of writings about the impact of the prison system on queer and trans people.Two years later, on August 22, 2013—the day after she was found guilty of multiple charges related to her leaking of classified government documents, and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison—Manning publicly came out as a trans woman.”
“For prisoners in the United States, many of whom live in solitary confinement or without consistent access to the Internet, hard copies of books, newsletters, and zines are the only reliable way to access contemporary political discourse. It is up to friends, activists, and organizers on the outside to deliver content to those living within prison walls. For Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith, the activist-academics who edited “Captive Genders”,maximum accessibility for people on the inside was one of the project’s core goals. According to Stanley, since the collection’s initial publication, in 2011, approximately five hundred copies have reached L.G.B.T.Q. prisoners on the inside.”
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with every new business she approached. She worried about how they would respond when they found out that her partner, Sara, is a woman.”
