The Campaign for Southern Equality has launched a new online LGBT Rights Toolkit (www.lgbtrightstoolkit.org) in order to address the urgent legal needs of LGBT Southerners. This online toolkit is designed to help LGBT Southerners – especially those in small towns and rural areas – understand and protect their rights.
The full report is available at: http://bit.ly/1zaDQxt.
The South is home to ⅓ of the national LGBT population and every LGBT person in the South lives as a second-class citizen in the most basic spheres of life and has unmet legal needs from employment to health care rights. This need is exacerbated by the reality that Southern states receive less than five percent of national funding from LGBT organizations.
“LGBT people in the South live with great dignity and courage and are often savvy navigators of the legals system, but the reality of discrimination persists and must be addressed,” says Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality.
The hostile legal climate in the South means LGBT individuals and families must take extra steps to access the few basic legal protections available. This online toolkit is designed to help LGBT Southerners – especially those in the rural South – understand and protect their rights. The toolkit consists of Health Care Power of Attorney forms for every Southern state, LGBT-friendly attorney and physician lists, links to legal and mental health resources, and Name and Gender Change Guides. It also provides current information about changes in state and federal law against the backdrop of a rapidly-changing legal landscape.
“Properly executed legal documents, and access to accurate legal information are often the difference between being treated with dignity or disrespect. As an attorney working in the South to advance and protect the rights of LGBT people, I can’t stress how important it is to have these legal documents in place as early as possible, and to update them as often as necessary,” says Beth Littrell, Senior Attorney with Lambda Legal.
Despite this dire need for access to legal information and resources for a region where 35 percent of LGBT people in the U.S. lives, funding from national LGBT organizations to the South amounts to less than 5 cents of every dollars spent nationally. This disparity is even greater in the rural South, which receives almost no funding for legal services.
According to Funders for LGBTQ Issues, “In 2011-12 national LGBTQ domestic funding averaged $5.78 per LGBT adult. While the northeast received an average of $10.18 per LGBT adult.” Mississippi’s per capita spending for an LGBT adult was just 71 cents.
The new online toolkit complements CSE’s ongoing series of free Community Law Workshops which provide legal education and legal services. Since launching in 2011, the Campaign for Southern Equality has reached thousands of LGBT Southerners with these free services through Community Law Workshops on topics such as name changes, health care power of attorney forms and family rights. During 2014 alone CSE ran 13 Community Law Workshops across Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. Free legal education was provided to 830 people and 526 individuals completed a Health Care Power of Attorney form on site.
