Camille is a twentysomething working in the LGBT nonprofit industry. She runs an LGBT news blog at gaywrites.org.
Kentucky’s anti-transgender SB76, or the Kentucky Student Privacy Act, failed by a single vote in a Senate committee hearing Thursday. And ironically, the failure of a bill with “privacy” in its name will actually do more to protect Kentucky students’ privacy than if it had passed. SB76 was the brainchild of Republican Senator C.B. Embry Jr. (below), who introduced the measure back in January. Under the guise of “privacy,” the bill would have banned transgender students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. So a student who was assigned male at birth but lived and presented as a girl would have to use the boys’ restroom (or a “separate-but-equal” unisex bathroom, if one existed), and vice versa for a trans boy assigned female at birth. Read more
I am so tired of writing to extremist Christians who believe they know transgender people better than transgender people know themselves. You’re probably tired of reading them. But a recent post from Patheos Catholic’s Thomas J. McDonald has made it clear that the epidemic of shaming, delegitimizing, and dehumanizing trans people by the Catholic Church has no end in sight, and I can’t let that slide. Over at Patheos Atheist’s Rational Doubt, Mary Johnson (below), a nun-turned-atheist who used to work with Mother Teresa’s order, gave an interview about the process of doubting, then leaving, her faith. It’s brief but insightful, yet it has McDonald up in arms. Here’s the segment McDonald takes issue with: Read more
Students at a San Francisco Catholic high school have had enough of their administration telling them that being gay is a “grave evil” — and they’re standing up for teachers who they fear could lose their jobs. Earlier in February, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone sent a letter to teachers in the Archdiocesan Catholic High Schools “clarifying” the church’s view on morality. One of the affected schools is Archbishop Riordan High School. Read more
The Arkansas House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill that will block cities and counties from enacting their own policies to protect LGBT people from discrimination — or, for that matter, creating any civil rights ordinances outside those put in place by the state. SB202 bars cities and counties in the state of Arkansas from ensuring civil rights protections for any group not already specified in the state law. Currently, the Arkansas Civil Rights Act of 1993 protects against discrimination based on the following characteristics: Read more
For the first time ever, a United States judge has affirmed what the American Psychiatric Association has been saying since 1973: Homosexuality is not a mental illness. Judge Peter F. Barsio Jr. of the New Jersey Superior Court ruled last week against the conversion therapy provider Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH). Here’s the official ruling, short and sweet: Read more
