Camille is a twentysomething working in the LGBT nonprofit industry. She runs an LGBT news blog at gaywrites.org.
In Franklin County, Tennessee, a Gay-Straight Alliance club has been fighting tooth and nail for months to be recognized at their high school. Most recently, the school board passed a measure specifically targeting the GSA in which students need parental permission before joining any school club. But even more disturbing is how national hate groups — generally led by adults — are targeting the students in these clubs. Read more
If there were any doubts left about same-sex couples making great parents, a new study will shatter them. Plenty of studies have found that children of same-sex couples fare just as well as those of different-sex couples; a few highly-cited but methodologically flawed studies claim that they don’t. Recently, a new study from the Williams Institute at UCLA used the same methodology as infamous anti-LGBT family studies but corrected the flaws in the data collection. The results are unsurprising: Once again, kids with two moms or two dads prove just as happy and healthy as kids with a mom and a dad. Read more
A father in Los Angeles has been charged with a hate crime in the shooting death of his son, 29-year-old Amir Issa. Shehada Issa, 69, had previously threatened to kill his son for being gay. The elder Issa told the police he had found his wife’s body in their home and shot his son in self-defense, but he’s been formally charged with a hate crime. Read more
Yet another state is using the excuse of “religious freedom” to try to justify heinous discrimination against LGBT people, and advocates say this one might be the worst of them all. Mississippi’s House Bill 1523 would protect people and businesses who choose to discriminate against LGBT people on the basis of their own religious beliefs. But unlike bills that have come before, the extent to which it defends anti-LGBT bigotry makes it especially problematic. Read more
Lawmakers in Illinois are advancing a bill that will make it easier for transgender people to live as their true selves. Naturally, conservatives are flipping out. Reps. Greg Harris and Kelly Cassidy introduced HB 6073, a bill that will ease the process for trans people to change the gender marker on their birth certificate. Previously, changing a birth certificate required surgery, which is costly and not necessarily something every trans person wants; now, the change only requires confirmation from a medical professional that a trans person is undergoing appropriate treatment, which can differ from person to person. The bill also changes a reference from “sex change” to “change of sex designation.” Laurie Higgins, an infamous anti-LGBT-rights conservative with the Illinois Family Institute, wrote a blog post in which she expresses outrage over the bill, primarily that last part about language: Read more
