Maura Healey Becomes the First Openly Gay Attorney General in the Nation
 

Maura Healey was elected Massachusetts attorney general Tuesday night.

Democrat Maura Healey was elected attorney general in Massachusetts on Tuesday, becoming the first openly gay attorney general in the country.

Healey won a competitive primary against former state Sen. Warren Tolman (D) earlier this year. She easily defeated Republican John Miller on Tuesday by a vote of 62 percent to 38 percent, according to an ABC affiliate in Boston.

EMILY's List, a progressive PAC that supports pro-choice Democratic women, helped Healey win her primary against Tolman and celebrated her historic win Tuesday night.

“Tonight, voters in Massachusetts decisively chose to elect progressive champion Maura Healey Attorney General,” said the group's president, Stephanie Schriock. “Maura has spent years fighting to expand rights and freedoms for women and families in Massachusetts. And now with the help of the EMILY’s List community – three million members strong – she can take that leadership to the next level."

"Maura Healey is one of the staunchest advocates for equality we have in this country, and we join her in celebrating her historic victory tonight," added Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin. "As the nation's first openly gay attorney general, she is an inspirational trailblazer and will fight to guarantee civil rights and legal equality for all people of Massachusetts."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/1...n_6104314.html

Edith Lake Wilkinson
 

PACKED IN A TRUNK uncovers the story of lesbian artist Edith Lake Wilkinson, committed to an asylum in 1924 and never heard from again. We follow the journey of Edith’s great-niece as she pieces together the mystery of Edith’s life and returns her work to Provincetown.

Packed In A Trunk - Documentary

Edith Lake Wilkinson

“The Revolutionary Lesbians of the 1970s,” to be held at the annual conference in Milwaukee, WI on November 12-15, 2015.
 

"The Lesbian Caucus of the National Women’s Studies Association invites submissions for a sponsored session on “The Revolutionary Lesbians of the 1970s,” to be held at the annual conference in Milwaukee, WI on November 12-15, 2015.

Panel Title: The Revolutionary Lesbian 1970s
Conference Sub-Theme: Precarity, Distortion/Dispossession

The 1970s is well known as a particularly intense time for radical lesbian activism and new experimental lesbian sexualities, lifestyles, cultural production and living arrangements.

The “Lesbian 70s” is now the object of a growing scholarship which has generated panels at professional meetings as well as some conferences on their own.

However, until now, specifically revolutionary lesbian-positioned analyses, activisms and practices of the 1970s, by lesbians of color and lesbians of all colors, have received less attention. And yet, to remember them and the solidarities they created could be very fruitful for our times.

This panel engages with 1970s revolutionary lesbian analyses of how multiple relations of power such as gender, sexuality, capitalism, colonialism and neo-colonialism, genocide, racism, religion, ethnicity and specism, operate together, inseparably.

It also addresses the revolutionary activisms and transnational solidarities in the 1970s of lesbians – as individuals and in lesbian groups- within and allied with people's liberation and anti-colonial movements in the U.S. and across the globe.

Some keyword topics might include:

*Historical erasures of revolutionary lesbians of color, and of all colors, of the 1970s
*race, class, colonial and sexual politics of (non)citational violence
*production of knowledge, concept-terms and re-languaging by revolutionary lesbians of the 1970s *revolutionary lesbian 1970s modalities of transformative resistance
* 1970s revolutionary lesbians within, out of and allied with people's movements for liberation in the U.S. and transnationally
*1970s revolutionary lesbians' analytics of oppression, repression and the inseparability of multiple relations of power (gender, race, class, capitalism, imperialism, sexuality, colonialism, specism, etc) *coalitions, collaborations, alliances, assemblages
*politics of alter-modalities of inter-subjectivity and community
*politics of 1970s revolutionary lesbians living together
*lesbian issues and actions of revolutionary lesbian 1970s
*1970s revolutionary lesbian re-inventions of sexualities and the erotic
*illegibilities of 1970s revolutionary lesbians today
*new epistemologies and methods for understanding 1970s revolutionary lesbians
*prior and current precarities of revolutionary lesbian theorists and activists of the 1970s
*1970s revolutionary lesbians and the State (State repressions, prison, exile, as well as lesbian analytical and activist responses) *why remember the revolutionary 1970s today?
*the revolutionary lesbian 1970s and feminist, lesbian, queer and transgender inter-generational community and politics

To submit, please send a proposed title and an abstract of no more than 150 words, along with a current CV to the session organizer, Paola Bacchetta at pbacchetta@berkeley.edu and the Lesbian Caucus chair, Jaime Cantrell at jaimec@olemiss.edu no later than 5pm on February 18th, 2015.

Shaye wanted to change the world. Instead she had to change her oral

Sunday, February 08, 2015 by: Carol Martin
Shaye, who is a grade 4 student at Tarentorus Public School, is so passionate about feminism that she decided to do her oral on that topic.

“She first said she wanted to it on something from history,” says her mom, Linsay Ambeault. “So I started telling her about the suffrage movement.”

That captivated Shaye's interest and she poured her energy into writing what she thought would be the best oral she'd ever written, maybe an oral that would take her to the gym – possibly even the city finals.

But, when her teacher, Mike Chudoba, gave it back to her with his notes, Shaye was disappointed to learn she would have to remove a paragraph that talked about rape statistics and Ontario's proposed sex education curriculum from it before she could present it to her class.

The paragraph Mr. Chudoba said had to go follows:

One out of five women and girls will be raped or assaulted by a man, and less than 1% of rapists are held accountable by a court of law. It was not until this year, 2015, that Ontario's curriculum began teaching kids like me the concept of consent, which is the right to say no.

The issue of teaching children about consent is being discussed in Ontario's parliament after Premier Kathleen Wynne directed it to be included in the planned update of the province's sexual education curriculum, so what Shaye was talking about in her second sentence hasn't happened yet.

But she and her mom believe it's important that kids her age understand they have a right to say 'no' to adults and other kids, and that their bodies are their own.

Premier Wynne would probably agree.

"With cases of sexual harassment and sexual violence in the spotlight, Wynne directed the Ministry of Education to include things such as healthy relationships and consent in the new learning documents, which will be used in schools across the province this fall," says a Toronto Star article original published January 7. "Wynne has asked Education Minister Liz Sandals 'to finalize a new health and physical education curriculum that gets at some of the root causes of gender inequality, and starts at the very earliest stages to develop an understanding of healthy relationships and consent.'"

Shaye's mom is proud of her daughter's obvious passion about feminism and about protecting kids from sexual predators.

“She asked me if anyone had ever changed the world with a speech,” said Ambeault.

But, not all parents want their children to know about rape or sex in primary school.

"The updated version [of the curriculum] was first released in 2010, but shelved after complaints from a few religious groups about children learning about homosexuality in Grade 3, discussions of puberty in Grade 6 and, in Grade 7, talk of preventing sexually transmitted diseases and possible discussion about oral or anal sex," says the Star.

When Shaye asked her teacher why she had to remove the paragraph from her oral he sent her to the principal's office to get her answer.

Tarentorus principal, Brent Vallee, told her the subject of rape and the word vagina were not age-appropriate for her classmates.

“He told me it's the first time he's ever had to deal with a student writing an oral on a subject too advanced for them,” said Shaye.

We'd love to tell you first-hand what Mr. Vallee said about it, but he was pretty adamant about not having any comments on it.

Shaye said Mr. Vallee also told her the oral might have been fine as it was in a different school.

“Why can't he make Tarentorus the different school,” she said. “Some children might have been and they shouldn't be afraid to say they were raped.”

She believes her oral would help raise that topic and let kids have a chance to talk to someone about what happened to them but, if they aren't even allowed to say the word they're probably going to feel some shame about it.

Ambeault said she is disappointed in how things went, even though she empathizes with Mr. Vallee's position between parents who might not want their nine-year-old children coming home and asking them what rape is.

Shaye has been kind enough to let us share her oral with our readers.

“More people are going to hear about this through here than would even if I went to zone finals with it,” she said.

Unfortunately, Shaye didn't make it to the gym with her oral this year but she hopes it will make a difference to her classmates who heard it.

“It could be like that pond thing, you know, with the ripples going out,” she said.

The full and unedited text from her oral follows.

*************************DZCZ.
Feminism
By: Shaye Brianna Moran

I am here to talk about the F word. The other F word, Feminism. In order to be considered a feminist you only need to be on board with one idea; that all humans, male and female, should have equal rights under the law. Feminism itself, is the radical idea that women are people.

First-wave feminism originated with the suffrage movement, which recognized that women were voiceless. They could not vote, nor own property. By risking imprisonment and their own lives suffragists gained the right to vote less than 100 years ago in North America, though in some countries women still can't vote in elections.

Women made huge advances during the 20th century. During World War II women proved how strong they were, by filling roles left unoccupied by men who had gone to war. My great-grandmother worked as a brick layer at Algoma Steel during the war. These women were symbolized by the iconic image of Rosie the Riveter. Though society now knew how powerful women were, women still did not have the same rights as men. For example, my grandmother was not allowed to wear pants to school or work and female teachers were barred from teaching while pregnant.

In the early 1960's, the second-wave of feminism or women's liberation movement began. Women were no longer expected to quit their jobs in favour of raising children and staying in the kitchen. Today, women are no longer the property of men, but we still have a long way to go.

Did you know that 603 million women still live in countries where hitting your wife is not considered a crime? In Saudi Arabia, women are still not allowed to have a driver's license. In some countries, women can't go out in public without their face being covered.

{One out of five women and girls will be raped or assaulted by a man, and less than 1% of rapists are held accountable by a court of law. It was not until this year, 2015, that Ontario's curriculum began teaching kids like me the concept of consent, which is the right to say no.}

Did you know that less than a quarter of the world's countries have ever had a female head of state? Only 21% of managers are women and there are currently only 20 women serving in the US senate compared to 80 men. Women get paid 23% less than men, and women who received straight A's in college are paid the same as men who received C's.

Feminists are not aiming to make women stronger, we already know we're strong, we just want society to see that too. Being a feminist doesn't mean that you think women deserve special rights, but that you know we deserve equal ones.

In my lifetime, women are not expected to receive equal pay until 2058, when I am 53 years old and nearing retirement. I put it to you, that is not soon enough! Women, our time is now. As Elsa from Frozen sang, “It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits and break through, no right, no wrong, no rules for me, I'm free!”

************************http://www.sootoday.com/content/news...ls.asp?c=86346

Sorry, I meant to post this in feminism, not the lesbian zone. She's in 4th grade.

I should not post on no sleep and with acute asthma....

When Being a Lesbian Makes You a Target

By Trish Bendix on February 9, 2015

In 1988, 28-year old Rebecca Wight and her girlfriend, Claudia Brenner, planned to hike the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania when they encountered a man who would end Rebecca’s life. Stephen Roy Carr watched the women at their campsite, and followed them on their trip, as they set up their tent, kissed and mistakenly thought they were alone. Stephen was 82 feet away with a .22 caliber rifle, and he shot at them eight times, injuring Claudia and killing Rebecca.

Eight years later, in 1996, 24-year-old Julianne Williams and 26-year-old Lollie Winans took their Golden Retriever, Taj, up to Virginia’s Skyline Drive on the Appalachian Trail. The women were found bound and gagged with their throats slit, the case unsolved for years—until Darrell David Rice was indicted in 2002, initially saying he targeted the couple because they were gay, and they “deserved to die because they were lesbian.” Darrell was proved innocent, though, and the murders are still unsolved.

In 2009, Teresa Butz and Jennifer Hopper were sleeping in their Seattle home when Isaiah Kalebu broke inside and brutally raped and stabbed them until Teresa died and Jennifer managed to escape. In court, Isaiah said he’d watched the women for days, and “I was there and I was told by my God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to attack my enemies, and I did so.”

These are only three stories of women in same-sex relationships being targeted by men in the last four decades, and now we have another fatal incident to add to the growing list of violent tragedies. Last Thursday, Coast Guard Petty Officer Lisa Trubnikova was shot and killed after her ex-coworker, Coast Guardsman Adrian Loya, walked into Lisa’s Massachusetts home with her wife, Anna Trubnikova, and opened fire. Anna is alive, but hospitalized with serious injuries.

According to Lisa’s family members, Adrian had been “fixated” on her since they worked together in Alaska. He knew the two women were together, as a couple, and purposefully checked into a nearby motel just prior to the shooting. While this has yet to be considered a hate crime, it is very clear that Adrian’s motive was similar to those of the aforementioned murderers: These lesbians deserve to die.

These and two of the most recent fatal attacks on lesbian couples in Texas (Kristene Chapa and Mollie Olgin in 2012, Britney Cosby and Crystal Jackson in 2013) have been not deemed hate crimes. Claudia Brenner, who survived her attack, has turned her tragedy into activism and spoken out since about violence against gay women, which she certainly considers a hate crime.

I always believed that it was a matter of harassment, not life and death, that it was something that happened to gay men, late at night, outside of seedy bars. I always thought that life-endangering oppression happened to people different than me. To heal, I had to acknowledge the world as a place that includes the possibility of getting shot and killed at any moment.

It wasn’t until 2009 that the United States passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which included sexual orientation in the protections of the federal hate crime law. And sadly, for good reason, as sexual orientation is second to race as perceived motivation listed by the FBI. Considering hate crimes are often under-reported, the number is likely even larger than the 20.2 percent that were victimized in 2013. While hate crimes can vary from hurled slurs from strangers to someone tagging “DYKE” on a lesbian-owned business, it does seem that the highly-violent situations involving deaths of gay women are usually not perceived as such. Despite often being referred to as “hate crimes,” the perpetrators are rarely charged with such. Isiah Kalebu is in prison for life, convicted of aggravated murder. Stephen Roy Carr also received a life sentence for first-degree murder. This past June, David M. Strickland was charged with capital murder, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated assault in the case of Kristene and Mollie, but police decided there was “no evidence that the attack was motivated by their sexual orientation.”

That begs the question, what kind of evidence is necessary to charge and convict someone of a hate crime? In each of these case’s, it would seem their relationships had direct effects on why they were targeted, although surely police or lawyers might argue otherwise: Crimes of jealousy, crimes of passion, crimes against defenseless, easy targets like two women. But hate? Apparently that’s harder to prove, and prosecutors are reluctant because so much bias still exists. For example, it might be easier to have a jury side with your defendant if she’s facing someone who tried to kill her because she’s a woman he wanted to be with, not because she’s a lesbian. That lesbian stuff just really screws things up if you have any conservative gay haters in the town you’re picking your jury members from. In Claudia’s case, she didn’t tell even the cops she and Rebecca were a couple in fear they wouldn’t help her.

Lisa told Adrian several times she was not interested in him, yet he persisted. Lisa wanted to handle the situation herself, and did not go to the Coast Guard during her time spent there being harassed. We now live in a time where Lisa could not be fired for being gay in the Coast Guard, but could still face harassment or other negative repercussions from reporting a male co-worker. We live in a time, still, where going hiking with your girlfriend could mean you have a target on your back if you cross paths with a particularly hateful man. A time when even if you are at home with your partner, sleeping, you might be being stalked by a mad man across the street. A time when that man could be your homophobic father, who would rather see you dead than gay.

As a community, we have made so much progress in the last 27 years since Rebecca and Claudia were shot. We have rights some of us never dreamt of having, ones that Lisa and Anna all-too-briefly enjoyed. But we’re still facing a persistent evil that demands more attention, and our speaking up about it when it happens to us or women we know. No one should have to suffer through the things that start out creepy because we’re conditioned to it. We’re so used to dealing with sexual innuendo and unwanted advances from men that make us uncomfortable, and they continue because we so often roll our eyes and drop it, fearing for our safety if we fight back. We deserve protection and because of survivors like Claudia Brenner and Jennifer Hopper, who so bravely tell their stories and want women like themselves—like us—to use our voices and speak out against these things that happen to us: Verbal abuse, sexual violence and things that you know, in your heart, are wrong. As Jennifer wrote in her Seattle Stranger piece “I Would Like You to Know My Name:”

All I can say is that I think there is tremendous power in testifying, in saying, “This happened to me.” And if you can, showing that you have a name, a voice, and—hey, I know, this is one of the hardest parts because it’s more than I’m ready to do right now—a face.

…sometimes crazy stuff happens and we’re called on to be brave, and I don’t think I’ve done anything different than anyone else would do. Anyway, bravery isn’t always a solitary thing. All these people in my life have helped. You, by listening to my story, have helped.

Look our for yourselves, and each other.

HATE CRIMES TERESA BUTZ

http://www.afterellen.com/people/414...n-makes-target

February 10, 2015 at 6:03 AM
Slurs written on woman’s body in Tacoma hate crime attack
Posted by Lisa Cowan
The Associated Press

TACOMA — A woman was choked and stabbed and had homophobic slurs written on her body with a marker in an attack early Sunday in Tacoma.

Police are looking for the man responsible for the hate crime.

The 45-year-old woman was attacked while looking for her dog that had slipped out of her house about 3 a.m. She was followed into an alley by the man who made homophobic slurs during the assault.

Police spokeswoman Loretta Cool says the woman is recovering from stab wounds to her arm, chest and thigh.

The incident will be the subject of a forum Saturday at the Rainbow Center, a support center for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Tacoma

Maybe it's kind of sad but part of me is actually happy to hear that it's even on track to happen at all. (Also, the timing actually makes me optimistic for this young woman's future, due to the generational nature of many forms of social change, particularly the wage gap.)

...
 

He was caught and is in pierce county jail.

Thanks so much for the update.

Leslie Gore
 

Lesley Gore, a pop singer who first entered the AM airwaves and the American consciousness in 1963, died of cancer Monday morning at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, PEOPLE has confirmed. She was 68.

At 17, the Brooklyn-born, Tenafly, New Jersey-raised former Lesley Sue Goldstein wailed in a hit single produced by Quincy Jones that "It's My Party" and she would cry if she wanted, whining of a rival, "She's a Fool," and declaiming, "You Don't Own Me."

The catchy beat and voice led to four Top 5 singles in 1963 – and a 1965 smash by a then-brand-new composer enjoying his first hit: "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows," by Marvin Hamlisch.

Besides her brother and mother, Gore is survived by her partner of more than three decades, Lois Sasson.

http://www.people.com/article/lesley...s-topheadlines

Pediatrician waits to tell two lesbian moms, she won't treat their 6-day old baby because moms are lesbians
 

By Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press 11:23 p.m. EST February 18, 2015

Sitting in the pediatrician's office with their 6-day-old daughter, the two moms couldn't wait to meet the doctor they had picked out months before.

The Roseville pediatrician — one of many they had interviewed — seemed the perfect fit: She took a holistic approach to treating children. She used natural oils and probiotics. And she knew they were lesbians.

But as Jami and Krista Contreras sat in the exam room, waiting to be seen for their newborn's first checkup, another pediatrician entered the room and delivered a major blow: The doctor they were hoping for had a change of heart. After "much prayer," she decided that she couldn't treat their baby because they are lesbians

"I was completely dumbfounded," recalled Krista Contreras, the baby's biological mother. "We just looked at each other and said, 'Did we hear that correctly?' .... When we tell people about it, they don't believe us. They say, '(Doctors) can't do that. That's not legal.' And we say, 'Yes it is.'"

The Contrerases of Oak Park are going public with their story to raise awareness about the discrimination that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community continues to face. There is no federal or Michigan law that explicitly prohibits discrimination against LGBT individuals.

For months, the couple kept quiet about what happened to them and their baby — Bay Windsor Contreras — at Eastlake Pediatrics last October.

But the pain and frustration wouldn't go away. So they broke their silence.

"We want people to know that this is happening to families. This is really happening," said Jami Contreras, 30, who was blindsided that fall day in the doctor's office. "It was embarrassing. It was humiliating ... It's just wrong."

Doctor apologizes

The pediatrician at issue is Vesna Roi, 49, who has been practicing pediatric medicine for 19 years.

Roi said that she could not comment on the case, citing the federal HIPPA law, which requires medical providers to protect the privacy of patients. But she did defend her commitment to pediatric medicine and helping children.

"My life is taking care of the babies," Roi told the Free Press on Tuesday. "I love my families, my patients. I love my kids. And I have become very close with all my patients."

Roi, meanwhile, has apologized to Jami and Krista Contreras in a handwritten letter, which was obtained by the Free Press. It states:

"Dear Jami & Krista, I am writing this letter of apology as I feel that it is important and necessary. I never meant to hurt either of you. After much prayer following your prenatal (visit), I felt that I would not be able to develop the personal patient doctor relationship that I normally do with my patients."

The letter, dated Feb. 9, did not explain why Roi felt that way, nor did it mention anything about the two women being lesbians. It did, however, state that the Contrerases were "always welcome in our office" and that they could still get care from another pediatrician who was on staff.

Roi also apologized for not telling the Contrerases about her decision in person.

"I felt that it was an exciting time for the two of you and I felt that if I came in and shared my decision, it would take away much of the excitement. That was my mistake," the letter stated. "I should have spoken with you that day."

The letter concluded:

"Please know that I believe that God gives us free choice and I would never judge anyone based on what they do with that free choice. Again, I am very sorry for the hurt and angry feelings that were created by this. I hope that you can accept my apology."

Decision not illegal

Krista and Jami Contreras are not suing Roi. They concede that Roi did nothing illegal — which is precisely what they have a problem with: There are few laws on the books that protect the LGBT community from discrimination.

"There's no law that prohibits it," Wayne State University Constitutional Law Professor Robert Sedler said of Roi's actions. "It's the same as a florist refusing to sell flowers for a same-sex wedding."

Currently, 22 states have laws that prohibit doctors from discriminating against someone based on their sexual orientation. Michigan is not one of these states.

Michigan does have its own anti-discrimination law known as the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. But it doesn't cover LGBT individuals. Neither do federal employment laws included in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibit hiring or employment discrimination on the basis of a person's"race, color, religion, sex, or national origin," not sexual orientation.

For Jami and Krista Contreras, the medical policies are comforting, but they're not enough. It's time, they said, for the laws to change so that no LGBT person experiences what they did that fall day in the pediatrician's office. Roi, they said, gave no signs that she was opposed to their lifestyle when they met her. She told them to schedule an appointment when the baby was born, they said. And they did just that.

Then came the blow.

"You're discriminating against a baby?" Jami Contreras said. "It's just wrong."

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...irth/23640315/

Grace Mann - lesbian feminist college student murdered
 

On April 17th Grace Mann, an outspoken lesbian feminist at Mary Williams University in Virginia, was killed in her own home. The man accused of her murder is a fellow student and one of her housemates.

The student allegedly killed by her roommate had an altercation with him before her death and received numerous calls and text messages from him, according to a search warrant. He is charged with the murder and abduction. The Medical Examiner's office ruled her death asphyxia due to strangulation.

Grace Rebecca Mann, 20, of McLean, was also threatened with rape by an anonymous poster on the social networking app Yik Yak and she feared for her safety in the month before her slaying, according to a friend who saw the message.

The revelations came Thursday as Mann’s feminist group at Mary Washington announced it was filing a federal complaint accusing the school of doing little to combat a flood of violent and sexual threats against members on Yik Yak this year. School officials denied the charges.

Members said they felt afraid on campus, resorted to carrying rape whistles, walked in groups and one sought counseling. The messages came after Feminists United members came out in opposition to bringing Greek life to campus and commented on a lewd chant at a party by members of the rugby team.

One poster wrote “Gonna tie these feminists to the radiator” and rape them. Another promised to kill “a [expletive] . . . or two” and a third called for euthanizing members, according to the complaint. There were more than 700 messages.

Members said the messages were especially chilling because Yik Yak functions as a virtual community bulletin board, aggregating comments from its anonymous users within a 1.5-mile radius.

“I was terrified,” said Julia Michels, president of Feminists United. “I didn’t know if the person sitting next to me in class was going to rape me.”

Michels said group members met multiple times with top university officials to express their concerns about the messages, including once a little over a week before Mann was slain on April 17. Steven Vander Briel, 30, is accused of killing Mann in the off-campus home they shared with two other students.

Authorities have not revealed a motive, and Feminists United members said they had no evidence connecting Mann’s killing to the Yik Yak threats or her activism on campus. The family said the two did not have a personal relationship and Vander Briel was simply renting a room in the house.

In a statement, university officials said they had been engaging with Feminists United and other students throughout the year to address issues of safety and campus culture. They said they take allegations of gender-based violence very seriously and would cooperate with any investigation that follows the complaint.

“Creating a safe learning and living environment is our first and foremost concern,” said Richard V. Hurley, president of the school.

another statistic in the war on women

Ronnie Gilbert 1926 - 2015
 

MILL VALLEY, Calif. (AP) - Singer Ronnie Gilbert, a member of the influential 1950s folk quartet the Weavers, has died. She was 88.

Gilbert died of natural causes Saturday at a retirement community in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Mill Valley, said her longtime partner, Donna Korones.

With the Weavers, whose other members were Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman, Gilbert helped spark a national folk revival by churning out hit recordings of "Goodnight Irene," ''Tzena Tzena Tzena," ''On Top of Old Smokey," ''If I Had A Hammer," ''Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" and "Wimoweh."

The group was hugely popular before its left-wing activities were targeted by anti-Communists during the McCarthy era. They were blacklisted, unable to record, appear on television or radio and perform in many concert venues, and eventually disbanded.

Gilbert went on to pursue a solo career as a singer, as a stage actor and psychologist.

Gilbert's memoir, "Ronnie Gilbert: A Radical Life in Song," which is the same title of a one-woman show she performed for years, will be published in the fall.

She is survived by her daughter, Lisa, and Korones, her partner of 30 years.

“Fun Home” Makes History With Tony Awards Best Musical Win
 

"Fun Home,” Broadway's first musical with a lesbian protagonist, made history at Sunday's 69th Annual Tony Awards, winning 5 awards including the night’s top prize, best musical, and an award for leading actor Michael Cerveris.

Its composer, Jeanine Tesori, and book writer/lyricist Lisa Kron also made history as the first female writing team to win a Tony for score and book.

Fun Home is a musical adapted by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori from Alison Bechdel's 2006 graphic memoir of the same name.

Fun Home opens in the present day, narrated by the middle-aged writer Alison Bechdel as she recalls the events of her life and tries to write her memoir. The show covers three time periods, which overlap on stage in a non-linear fashion.

The first is Alison Bechdel's childhood ("Small Alison"), when she struggles against her father Bruce's obsessive demands in the ornate Victorian home he has restored, and begins to identify her inchoate sexuality.

The second is her first year in college ("Medium Alison"), when she "leapt out of the closet", identifying herself as a lesbian and beginning her first relationship; shortly after coming out to her parents, she learns that her father has had relationships with men, and four months later he commits suicide.

The third ("Alison"), when Alison is a successful cartoonist and the same age that Bruce was when he died, shows her attempt to understand her relationship with her father, and the meaning of his life and death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fun_Home_%28musical%29

'The State Of Marriage': How Vermont Paved The Way For LGBT Equality
 

The freedom to marry feels inevitable in 2015. Nearly 72 percent of Americans live in a state that views same-sex relationships as equal to opposite-sex ones. But how did we get here? For many, including small town Vermont lawyers Beth Robinson and Susan Murray, with Boston-based attorney Mary L. Bonauto, the journey began in the 1980s.

"The State of Marriage," a new documentary, recounts the challenges in gripping detail as the story of Vermont's historic establishment of same-sex marriage unfolds. Not without setbacks, the freedom to marry has since radiated throughout the world. In the film, the pioneering efforts of the men and women who sought to eradicate cultural and legal barriers for same-sex couples come into focus.

"Without the strategic exclamation point on it, I think Vermont was essential to keeping this movement alive," said Bonauto. "The film captures that exciting story."

The film's timely premiere on June 18 at the Provincetown International Film Festival arrives as the United States Supreme Court prepares to rule on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. "The film is a bookend," said Murray. "[The Supreme Court's ruling] will hopefully, finally put this issue to rest."

In the early '90s, the LGBT community was "under siege," says Freedom to Marry founder Evan Wolfson. Without any legal recognition for same-sex couples in the U.S., people were losing their kids in custody cases, getting fired from their jobs for being gay and discriminated against even after years of military service. The movement for LGBT equality was waiting for an opening and someone to take charge.

As a young law clerk in 1989, Robinson admired Murray's work for lesbian and gay families. Murray described Robinson as a "small, incredible bundle of energy" with an "exquisite legal mind" fueled by Pixy Stix. It was the beginning decadeslong personal and professional relationship. Years before the legal battles began, they engaged in a grassroots movement, traveling to state fairs in Vermont to tell stories of real same-sex couples.

In 1994, Bonauto, the Civil Rights Project director at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), pulled together a group of New England attorneys to discuss marriage equality. Skeptics thought it was "folly" or even "reckless," she recalls, but "Beth and Susan clearly said there's a path forward in Vermont." After a series of hard-won victories, including the override of a gubernatorial veto, Vermont became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage through the legislature.

Working tirelessly, Robinson and Murray fought for the rights they knew their fellow Vermonters deserved. "[Murray and Robinson] are not self promoters. They did it because it was the right thing to do," said "The State of Marriage" co-producer Marcia Ross. "They deserve national recognition for the contribution."

"Both Beth and I were in private practice and not getting paid for this, and it took away from time that we would have spent building up our careers," explained Murray. "We could not have done it but for the support of our law partners who were also willing to sacrifice in so many ways."

Though opponents in the film speak virulently about the "consequences" of legalizing same-sex marriage, those in favor cite the changing tide of public opinion as evidence that equality encourages acceptance.

"The law plays a leading role in helping people understand what's acceptable and what's not," Murray told The Huffington Post. "If the law throughout the land is that gay people are allowed to marry, that in turn is going to help a broader acceptance of gay lives. I've seen that in person in Vermont. It's changed the societal message."

"In the Civil Rights Movement, I saw with my own eyes that it cannot have equality for some and not equality for all. Everyone must be included. Everyone must have a palce at the table," says Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who emerged as a civil rights leader in the 1960s. "What Susan and Beth did was in keeping with what Rosa Parks and others did."

Bonauto has since stepped onto the national stage to argue a pivotal same-sex marriage case that could bring marriage equality to all 50 states. In her opening arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in April, representing more than a dozen gay and lesbian couples in Obergefell v. Hodges, she asked the justices to wipe out the "stain of unworthiness" that marriage bans produce.

"I hope that if we are fortunate enough to have a win in the Supreme Court -- and I am not one of those people who sits around counting on anything, but should we win? In my view, yes -- I'd like to think we'll have the fourth decision in a row that says stop treating gay people differently because they are," Bonauto told The Huffington Post. "And I'd like to think that that would have an effect on things like non-discrimination laws. We have so much work to do from my perspective, like ensuring basic non-discrimination so that young LGBT people can grow up in a world where they are safe and respected. We face an epidemic of homelessness. There are so many systemic issues that haven't received the attention they deserve."

A sense of inevitability worries director Jeff Kaufman as well. "One of the things that we encountered while making the film is that there's a lot of complacency these days," he said. "People don't realize that political gains often slip back."

"I don't think you can totally understand what they had to go through until you understand what they were up against," added Ross. "If we don't have a sense of our past, it gets lost and distorted. So much of the movement started with such humble resources, and it not only took over the country, but the world. When they started this process, people thought they were nuts. It's important to have a sense of that vision to spark further change and inspiration for the future."

Knowing the outcome in Vermont doesn't diminish the power of "The State of Marriage." Instead, with the procedural tedium of momentous legal cases made digestible, the film presents itself as a legal thriller. Audiences will cheer. They'll be reminded of how far we've come, and how far is left to go.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...ss&ir=Business

Thank you Mary Bonauto
 

Tt was the early 1980s, and Mary Bonauto was a college student in upstate New York, struggling to come out as gay. She turned to a priest for help but left convinced her church would not accept her. Unsure where to turn, she felt her life might “be over.”

“The law was one way of making sure my life wouldn’t be over,” she recently recalled. “I could either just suffer from the system or change the system. I decided to opt on the change-the-system side.”

Over the last 25 years, the diminutive, soft-spoken lawyer with a self-described “underdog mentality” has changed the system, more quickly and dramatically than she could have imagined.

As the lawyer for seven gay and lesbian couples in 2003, she persuaded Massachusetts’ highest court to make the state the first in the nation to allow same-sex couples to wed. Now, 37 states recognize gay marriage, and polls show nearly two out of three Americans support the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry.

Bonauto led the final fight in the battle she began in Massachusetts a dozen years ago, when she delivered oral arguments before the US Supreme Court in a highly charged case that would make gay marriage legal in all 50 states. She tackled the core issue before the court: whether state bans on same-sex marriage violate the US Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

It was her first time arguing before the nation’s highest court.

In addition to winning the landmark Massachusetts case, she was part of the legal team that made Vermont the first state to legalize civil unions in 1999 and helped win the first federal court rulings against the Defense of Marriage Act, in 2010 and 2012, before the Supreme Court struck down the law in 2013.

“Mary Bonauto’s contributions to the gay rights movement are analogous to those of Thurgood Marshall to the civil rights movement and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the women’s rights movement,” Michael Klarman, a Harvard Law School professor, said in an e-mail.

Evan Wolfson, the president of Freedom to Marry, said Bonauto was chosen from among more than a dozen lawyers to argue the case because of her knowledge and history and because she represents the very issue the court is considering. The mother of 13-year-old twins, Bonauto married Jennifer Wriggins, a University of Maine law professor, in Massachusetts, after she won the case that secured the right for gays and lesbians. “She can not only answer the questions but embody the answer,” said Wolfson, who has known Bonauto since the 1980s. “She represents the movement because she’s lived it.”

Bonauto, 53, who lives in Portland, Maine, grew up in Newburgh, N.Y., and graduated from Hamilton College and Northeastern University Law School. In 1990, she joined Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in Boston. She represented clients who had been harassed or fired and helped the city of Cambridge draft its domestic partnership ordinance — the first in Massachusetts — in 1992.

In 2003, she gained national attention, when the Supreme Judicial Court agreed with her and ruled that same-sex couples have a right to marry under the Massachusetts Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. At the time, nearly two out of three Americans opposed gay marriage, and only a handful of countries worldwide recognized such unions.

“People forget that the argument before the SJC was, in many ways, entirely novel,” said Margaret H. Marshall, the former chief justice of the court, who wrote the gay-marriage decision. “The justices hadn’t confronted anything like this before. It would have been very, very difficult to prepare for it, and she was outstanding.”

Despite Bonauto’s legal victories, friends describe her as the antithesis of the showboating trial attorney. She rarely flashes emotion and is more apt to cite case law, or her clients’ struggles, than her own experiences as a gay woman.

“She is a pretty private person,” said Gary Buseck, legal director at GLAD. “She is not particularly comfortable with herself in the spotlight.”

In a briefing with reporters last week, Bonauto credited others with ushering marriage rights for gays and lesbians to the cusp of national recognition. “There are so many people who have been part of bringing this day forward, people who we will never know their names but have worked in their state legislatures, on ballot measures, in court cases, plaintiffs, and so on,” she said. “I’m just so grateful that we’re at a point now where we’re going to get a full and, I expect, fair hearing.”

Bonauto will argue the case with two attorneys with more Supreme Court experience: Doug Hallward-Driemeier, a Washington lawyer who has argued 15 cases before the court, and the US solicitor general, Donald Verrilli Jr.

Still, the pressures will be greater than any she has faced professionally.

Even veteran Supreme Court lawyers said they struggle to control their nerves when they step to the lectern in the center of the courtroom and see the nine justices staring down at them from their mahogany bench. Perhaps her toughest challenge will be to convince the justices that they should wade into the gay-marriage debate when public opinion on the issue is shifting so swiftly.

While Justices Anthony Kennedy, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, and Ginsburg may privately support same-sex marriage, “it is conceivable — just barely, I think — that not all five of them believe judicial intervention is needed to accomplish it, because the country is so clearly getting there on its own,” Klarman said.

Social conservatives said they respect Bonauto, even as they vigorously oppose her cause. “I’ve always held Mary in very high esteem,” said Kris Mineau, former president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which opposes same-sex marriage. “She’s very capable and very talented.”

Bonauto said she believes the fight she is waging in the Supreme Court does have its roots in Massachusetts and the victory she won at the state’s high court more than a decade ago.

“There is one thing for certain that is exactly the same, which is that we’re dealing with real people, who truly have committed to one another . . . and yet they’re foreclosed from making that commitment simply because of who they are,” she said last week. “It’s a profound problem for people, and it’s why we’re at the court now.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...a3K/story.html

Lesbian-Led U.S Women Win The World Cup!
 

Honey Lee Cottrell Dies
 

Jeanne Cordova, Lesbian Pioneer, Says Goodbye
 

A Letter About Dying, to My LGBT Communities

by Jeanne Cordova, September 23, 2015

This letter is meant as a notification and thank you to the thousands of members of the national lesbian community whose activism, lives, and Ioves have touched my own. Especially those dykes who have become family and siblings of choice over the last 40 years. Yes, the rumors are true, I have metastasized to-the-brain cancer. I am dying from it in my cerebellum.

I have had cancer since 2008. Colon cancer. For the first four years I brushed it off, as I’ve done many times with physical illness or difficulties. I continued my activism with the Lesbian Exploratory project and I finished my third book, When We Were Outlaws. The cancer came back in 2013. Metastasized first to my lungs and then to my cerebellum. Yes, my head. With brain and back-of-the-neck cancer it has been a downhill experience the last three years, with multiple operations, radiation and Chemo. This February I had Chemotherapy. Among a host of side-effects, it’s given me “chemo brain,” which amounts, basically, to “getting stupid.” Just saying. This month’s so-called side effect is peripheral neuropathy. That’s from Chemo, they say, and it makes your feet, fingers and hands feel tingling and numb like when you fall asleep on your leg or hands. Only, it doesn’t go away. I can’t stand up without holding onto a wall or background support. I can’t feel where my feet are. Yeek! I freak myself out talkin’ about it! How about you?

A guru once told me, “We die in increments, one piece at a time.” She meant one part of our body suddenly ceases to work, an elbow or a tongue. Seemingly for no reason, like a worn out knee. This came as a surprise. I thought we get old or die…suddenly, and all at once. Not so!

Many of us have gotten cancer and died. I write publicly to the women who have defined my life because I want to share this last journey, as I have shared so much of my activist life with you. You gave me a life’s cause. It is wonderful to have had a life’s cause: freedom and dignity for lesbians. I believe that’s what lesbian feminism is really about, sharing. We built a movement by telling each other our lives and thoughts about the way life should be. We cut against the grain and re-thought almost everything. With just enough left undone for our daughters to re-invent themselves. Death should be a part of life. Not hidden, not a secret, something we never said out loud.

Being an organizer and journalist in the lesbian, gay, feminist, and women of color communities—and loving it–has been the focal point, of my life. It has been a wild joyous ride. I feel more than adequately thanked by the many awards I have received from all the queer communities, and through all the descriptions and quotes in history books that have documented my role as an organizer, publisher, speaker, and author. Thanks to all of you who have given me a place in our history.

From the age of 18 to 21, I painfully looked everywhere for Lesbian Nation. On October 3, 1970, a day I celebrate as my political birthday, I found Her in a small DOB (Daughters of Bilitis) meeting. That’s when my life’s work became clear. Shortly thereafter I became a core organizer for two national lesbian conferences, one of which re-directed my path to create The Lesbian Tide newsmagazine, a national paper of record, as the historians say, for the lesbian feminist generation. And on it went for multiple decades of marches and later online organizing–this time intersectionally, to include all of me and my Latina identity.

Somewhere in the middle of all that I, somewhat accidentally, invented the Gay & Lesbian Community Yellow Pages, a first for our by-then national tribe. This Los Angeles 400-page guide that helped us still-half-hidden people to connect, politically I thought initially, with businesses and professionals that spoke to us within our own identities. That it did, but this directory and lucky timing in life-long real estate, also enabled me to fulfill an early personal vow to give back half of my estate to our movement. I do this with Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice (out of New York City) and other organizations. I believe it so critical to our transforming movements to leave our estates to our LBGTQ charities, not some errant heterosexual relation we hardly know! More on this political news and views to follow. (*1)

I believe that cancer or any terminal disease is the luck of the draw. As my mother used to say of my Aunt who was also a nun of 90 years, “At that age, you got to die of something.” I have read the obituaries in Lesbian Connection (*2) these last years as they chronicle the passage of my 2nd wave generation. The one message that rings out clearly is that so many, many in these pages were activists who articulated social justice in their local or regional spaces. Many dykes making change. So many of you or loved ones have gone through death rituals these last years. It makes me feel like one-of-the gang … again!

I really don’t know when or if I can write again. Mental competency and all that. The choice appears to be living with chemo forever off and on, or dying. I will make that choice soon enough. In the meantime, please write or speak your own truth in living with dying (*3) to your lesbian newspaper or my blog below(*4).

I want to say THANK YOU to all of you who have loved another woman-identified-woman, who have loved me, or have loved Lesbian Nation. I wish I could still write about this kind of love more eloquently. Lesbians do have a special love for one another. I have felt it many times when women are with each other. I am happy and content to have participated in it for most of my very full and happy life. Least you be too sad, know that I have this kind of love not only with my family of choice, but with a straight arrow spouse with whom I have journeyed these last 26 years.

https://www.frontiersmedia.com/front...dbye-photos/3/

Thank you Kobi for posting this:

"A Letter About Dying, to My LGBT Communities

by Jeanne Cordova, September 23, 2015"

As someone that came out in the late 70's and also has read all of her books; I feel as though I know her.

This makes me profoundly sad.

The "old timers" are dying out and the younger lesbians will never know the early days of marches, protests and sisterhood in the same way.

I recently found an old picture of my first women's festival in the early 80's. There were so many bare-breasted women surounding a drumming circle- I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Jeanne was one of many women that preceded me and made it easier for me to come out as a lesbian. I have never regretted doing so.

If you have not read her third book, "When we were Outlaws", you will love it.

Bye to Jeanne,

from another resident of Lesbian Nation.

Supreme Court sides with lesbian over parental rights
 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned an Alabama judicial ruling that had refused to recognize a gay woman's parental rights over three children she adopted with her lesbian partner and raised from birth.

The court took the relatively unusual step of reversing the Alabama Supreme Court without hearing oral arguments in the case. Cases are decided in that fashion when a lower court ruling is considered to be particularly counter to Supreme Court precedents. None of the eight justices dissented.

The adoptive mother, identified in court papers as V.L, said she was overjoyed with the ruling.

"When the Alabama court said my adoption was invalid and I wasn't their mother, I didn't think I could go on. The Supreme Court has done what's right for my family," she said in a statement.

The court said in an unsigned opinion that the Alabama court was required to recognize the woman's parental rights because they had been legally endorsed by a court in Georgia.

The ruling said the Alabama court's interpretation of the law was "not consistent" with prior Supreme Court decisions. Under the U.S. Constitution, state courts are required to recognize judgments issued by courts in other states.

The Alabama Supreme Court, led by outspoken conservative Chief Justice Roy Moore, has a history of hostility to gay rights. For example, it dragged its feet in implementing the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling last June legalizing gay marriage nationwide.

The Supreme Court had already intervened in the case once before. In December, the court ordered that the Alabama ruling be put on hold while the woman filed a formal appeal of Alabama Supreme Court's September ruling.

Lawyers for the woman say the Alabama ruling had "effectively stripped V.L. of parental rights over the children she had raised since they were born."

V.L. was formerly in a relationship with a woman identified as E.L., who is the birth mother of the three children, a 13-year-old and 11-year-old twins.

In 2007, a court in Georgia granted V.L.'s petition to adopt the children in a move that E.L. agreed to at the time. The couple split in 2011 and disagreed over custody arrangements.

V.L. filed papers in Alabama seeking joint custody. Lower courts ruled in her favor before the state's high court ruled in favor of her former partner.

The state appeals court said it did not have to endorse the Georgia court's adoption order. But the Alabama Supreme Court said that the Georgia court did not have jurisdiction to issue the adoption order.

The two women were not married.

story

Lesbians Suing New Jersey Over Law Requiring Heterosexual Sex Before Insurance Covers Medical Procedure

August 12, 2016 By Allen Clifton

A great way to see how utterly ignorant parts of our nation have been (and continue to be) is to look at some older state and local laws – many of which are still, technically, in practice today. Such as a law in New Jersey concerning insurance companies and the legal requirements for covering fertility treatments for couples.

As reported by NJ.com: State law requires large insurance providers to cover costly fertility treatments for patients medically unable to have children. The couples take issue with how the law defines infertility, which includes the inability to become pregnant after one or two years of unprotected sex, depending on a woman’s age.

Basically the law requires any female who wants her health insurance to cover fertility treatments to have sex with a male for one to two years before they will approve paying for the procedure. Which poses a slight problem when you’re a lesbian.

Because for a lesbian to abide by this law means that they would be required to have sex with a gender to which they aren’t sexually attracted. Well, at least if they wanted their health insurance to cover fertility treatments — which is a completely and totally ridiculous requirement.

Well, two lesbian couples are challenging the New Jersey law as unconstitutional for essentially preventing same-sex couples from receiving fertility treatments based on sexual orientation. While the law doesn’t specifically ban health insurance companies from providing fertility treatments to lesbian women, being that lesbians aren’t attracted to men, it sets a “rule” that’s clearly discriminatory toward the LGBT community.

To its credit, Horton Blue Cross Blue Shield released a statement that seemed to be trying to one-up the idiocy of the 2001 New Jersey law: Horizon covers infertility services equally regardless of sexual orientation. We interpret the 2001 New Jersey law defining infertility in a gender and orientation neutral manner and our coverage standard complies with federal non-discrimination requirements.

Members unable to conceive due to medical or biological reasons are covered for the specific infertility benefits included in their policy. Horizon is committed to equality, values our LGBTQ members, and is sensitive to their unique healthcare challenges and needs. We regularly review our standards and procedures to ensure parity and fairness for all of our members. So, the health insurance company is claiming that it is “committed to equality” and “values” its LGBT members — yet doesn’t seem to think that requiring lesbians to have sex with men for one to two years prior to approving fertility treatments is pathetically wrong and a gross violation of their rights.

At what point in any other situation — anywhere — would requiring anyone to have sex with someone they’re not sexually attracted to and/or don’t want to have sex with be an acceptable requirement for approving a medical procedure? What I would like to see is Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield answer is this: If they’re not discriminating against same-sex couples, and they care about equality, then how, exactly, would a lesbian couple be approved for fertility treatments since they don’t have sex with males?

I get that their argument is that they’re simply “interpreting the law,” but by ignoring the reality that lesbians don’t have sex with men, you choose to ignore the fact that this law is highly discriminatory. Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield has the ability to do the right thing here, but they’re simply choosing not to, using this antiquated law as their excuse to discriminate.

This entire situation is simply asinine. In a normal world where reality mattered, New Jersey lawmakers would quickly move to repeal this outdated law which would pave the way for same-sex couples to be treated equally, or Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield would do the right thing by using common sense in these matters. Instead, we’re looking at a state where Governor Chris Christie certainly won’t allow this law to be repealed and the insurance company is hiding behind this law because they simply don’t want to pay for something they don’t have to — even if that means outright discriminating against homosexuals.

This is a great reminder that, even though it’s 2016, we still have a long way to go in the fight for true equality for the LGBT community.



Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/l...ual-sex-video/

Kristen Stewart, currently promoting her Woody Allen flick Cafe Society and the sci-fi movie Equals opposite Nicholas Hoult, finally spoke about her private life. She is very much in love with her girlfriend and former personal assistant, Alicia Cargile.

~
 

I wonder if they got married if she would be Kristen Cargile < too sweater'ish lol Alicia Stewart would be better on a mailbox. lol

Then I would think of Kitty every time I heard that name..lol

Federal court rules against Georgia lesbian fired for being gay

By Patrick Saunders

March 10, 2017 6:53 pm Atlanta, Georgia, Today in Gay Atlanta

The U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday afternoon affirmed a lower district court’s ruling dismissing the lawsuit of Jameka Evans, a Savannah security guard who was forced to leave her job because she is a lesbian. Attorneys from Lambda Legal, who are representing Evans in the case, say they will now seek a rehearing by the full panel of 11 judges of the Eleventh Circuit.

The case, Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital, is the latest Title VII case, in which LGBT and progressive legal groups argue that discrimination based on their client’s sexual orientation should be ruled a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which includes a provision that prohibits discrimination based on the sex of an individual. The Eleventh Circuit agreed with Lambda Legal’s argument in 2011 that the Georgia General Assembly violated Title VII when Vandy Beth Glenn was fired for being transgender.

Evans filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District Court of Georgia in April 2015, arguing that Georgia Regional Hospital violated Title VII by discriminating against her because of her sexual orientation and her nonconformity with gender norms of appearance and demeanor. The district court dismissed Evans’ complaint, arguing that Title VII doesn’t protect employees from such discrimination. Lambda Legal filed an appeal with the Eleventh Circuit last January and then argued their case at a hearing before a three-judge panel last December.

Judge William Pryor, concurring with Friday’s majority opinion and disagreeing with the 2011 opinion he joined in the Glenn case, said, “Because a claim of gender nonconformity is a behavior-based claim, not a status-based claim, a plaintiff still ‘must show that the employer actually relied on her gender in making its decision.’”

Judge Robin S. Rosenbaum argued in the dissent, agreeing with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and several district courts that discrimination against a lesbian by an employer because she fails to meet their view of what a woman should look or act like is sex discrimination, and therefore a Title VII violation.

“I also note that logic is on my side,” Judge Rosenbaum said. “Of course, the concurrence is free to ignore my analysis rather than respond to it, but that doesn’t make it go away.”

Lambda Legal said this case is not over yet.

“This is not the end of the road for us and certainly not for Jameka,” said Greg Nevins, employment fairness project director for Lambda Legal in a statement. “Keeping your job shouldn’t depend on whether or not you pass for straight.

There is no way to draw a line between sexual orientation discrimination and discrimination based on gender nonconformity because not being straight is gender-nonconforming, period. 90 percent of Americans believe that LGBT people should be treated equally in the workplace. The public is on the right side of history, and it’s time for the Eleventh Circuit to join us.”

https://thegavoice.com/federal-court...ian-fired-gay/

Lea Delaria announced the breakup of her engagement to girlfriend Chelsea Fairless by posting on Instagram.

Lea wrote that "...our split is amicable. Please exclude us from the tragic and basic celebrity breakup narrative. We were happy together for four years and will remain in each other's lives. In fact, we look forward to finding new ways to torture each other".

BTW, OITNB is back for a new season on Netflix on June 17th.

Thanks to Lesbian Connection, May/June, 2017 edition.

I remember the days when you didn't have to go on social media and announce a breakup..you both simply went your own way and that was that!

He still talks about this, over a year later
 

https://i.redd.it/muw6oakm2auy.jpg





http://www.advocate.com/sites/advoca...ugh-x750_0.jpg


Rush Limbaugh on the Attack of the Lesbian Farmers

The far-right radio host thinks the Agriculture Department's outreach to rural LGBT people is a conspiracy to destroy conservative communities.

BY TRUDY RING

http://www.advocate.com/media/2016/8...esbian-farmers

Methodist Court Ruling a Blow for First Openly Lesbian Bishop
 

https://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newsc...ux-600-480.jpg

The first openly lesbian bishop in the United Methodist Church can stay on the job for now, but she is subject to a disciplinary review that could lead to her removal, the top church court ruled Friday.

Bishop Karen Oliveto's civil marriage to another woman violates church law that bars clergy who are "self-avowed practicing homosexuals," the Judicial Council said. However, a decision over whether she can remain in the position must come from a separate disciplinary process, the court ruled.

Oliveto was elected last year to lead a Denver-area church region that is part of the Methodist Western Jurisdiction, which has rejected the denomination's position that "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." Within minutes of her election, a challenge was filed by the Oklahoma-based South Central Jurisdiction, leading to Friday's ruling.

The case is the latest chapter in an intensifying fight over LGBTQ recognition that is fracturing the 12.8 million-member denomination — the third-largest faith group in the U.S. Earlier this week, bishops announced a special 2019 meeting of its top legislative body, or General Conference, expressly to address church law on sexuality and find ways the denomination can avoid schism.

LGBTQ advocates in the church have stepped up pressure to lift prohibitions on gay clergy. Bishops have conducted same-sex weddings in defiance of church policy and dozens of LGBTQ clergy have come out, risking being defrocked. Evangelical Methodists, who have gained strength in the denomination in part through growth of Methodist churches overseas, have responded by pushing to enforce church policies. The court said Friday that bishops who consecrate an openly gay bishop were considered in violation of Methodist law and also subject to church discipline.

The Methodist policy making body has upheld the church's stand on same-sex relationships since 1972, even as other mainline Protestant groups, including the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), have approved same-sex marriage.

The ruling Friday was made on a 6-3 vote. Oliveto said she felt "grateful" for the chance to remain as bishop as she and other church leaders study what the decision means for her future. Bruce Ough, president of the Methodist Council of Bishops, said the decision would not ease "the disagreements, impatience and anxiety" in the church, but he appealed to church members to stay unified.

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-o...m_npd_nn_fb_ma

In Florida, no less! Some happy news (and they are butch and femme)!
 

Leon high-schoolers crowned a gay couple prom king and queen last month, a first in the school’s 185-year-old history.

To the two girls — Lindsey Creel and Brie Grimes, seniors who have been dating for three years — winning prom king and queen was not about the titles, but about helping others and raising awareness about LGBTQ issues.

“It feels good to know some of the things we’ve been a part of can help others going through tough experiences, in a positive way,” Brie said. “I needed someone in my life to show me that it would work out — when I was first going through this years ago. But I didn’t have that.”

“I hope that people will look at this and more will begin to think that it’s okay to be supportive of the LBTQ community,” Lindsey added. “Leon often talks about change… This is a good example for younger students there.”

http://www.tallahassee.com/story/new...ueen/83799032/


https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/f91...62-Couple2.JPG

LGBT
The Story Behind This "Long Live The Lesbians" Brick That's All Over The Internet

"You never really know the impact that your life has on the world until you hear about things like this."

Posted on May 19, 2017, at 10:16 a.m.

Sarah Karlan

BuzzFeed News Reporter
At Russell Sage College, a women's college in Troy, New York, students often have the opportunity to purchase and engrave a brick which will become a physical part of the campus for years to come.

According to the school's website, bricks can showcase "names, memorable dates, class years, small graphics and more."

Thanks to the internet, one brick in particular has taken on a life of its own. Its message is simple and direct: "Long live the lesbians!"

"I go to a women’s college," the caption of the photo reads. The image was taken and posted to Tumblr by a former student.

"We have a walkway where bricks can be purchased by alumnae. Most just say names or class years/mascots. But this one. This one is special. It speaks to me."

Clearly, the brick spoke to a lot of people. The original photo has now been shared over 300,000 times and has been re-shared in various forms since the first photo of it was posted three years ago.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-st...90030861-4.png

Thanks to the internet (and alumni Facebook pages) the original bricklayer herself, a Russell Sage '00 alum named Rebecca Borello, came forward.

Kate McKinnon will be in Elle's July issue. Awesome!
 

Meet Crystal Griner, one of the Capitol police officers who stopped the gunman yesterday.


5 facts about Crystal:

1. The 2 Capitol Officers Are Being Hailed as Heroes by President Trump & Others for Stopping the Gunman.

2. Griner Graduated From Hood College, Where She Was a ‘Ferocious Athlete.'

3. Griner Was a National Honor Society Member in High School & a Biology Major in College.

4. The President & First Lady Visited Griner & Griner’s Wife in the Hospital & Brought a Bouquet of Flowers.

5. Griner & Bailey Reacted Rapidly, Confronting the Shooter & Likely Saving Countless Lives.


Here she is in her basketball days. She was doing her job of protecting men who see her as second class, maybe even a third class.

https://heavyeditorial.files.wordpre...=780&strip=all

Niners assistant coach Katie Sowers publicly comes out to become NFL’s first openly LGBT coach
 

Niners assistant coach Katie Sowers publicly came out Tuesday, making her the first openly LGBT coach not only in the NFL but all of men's professional sports.

The 31-year-old is also just the second woman to become a full-time coach in the league, after Kathryn Smith was on the Bills' staff last season.

“No matter what you do in life, one of the most important things is to be true to who you are,” Sowers, a lesbian, told Outsports. “There are so many people who identify as LGBT in the NFL, as in any business, that do not feel comfortable being public about their sexual orientation.

“The more we can create an environment that welcomes all types of people, no matter their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, the more we can help ease the pain and burden that many carry every day.”

Sowers, who played in the Women's Football Alliance, started as a scouting intern for the Falcons in 2016 and built a rapport with then-offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan. When Shanahan was hired to become San Francisco's head coach this season, he added Sowers as an intern over the summer and then brought her on full time.

"She did a really good job for us in Atlanta,” Shanahan told the San Jose Mercury News earlier this month. “She’s done a real good job here. She helps [wide receivers coach/passing game specialist] Mike LaFleur out just with some rotations. She helps our quality controls with all the stuff they have to do. She’s a hard worker. You don’t even notice her because she just goes to work and does what’s asked and because of that she’s someone we would like to keep around.”

Sowers also thanked Falcons assistant GM and mentor Scott Pioli on Facebook for giving her a chance last season, for his "passion for equal opportunity" and "opening doors and for breaking down walls in the NFL."

She said she will serve as an offensive assistant this season.

"The most fulfilling aspect is having the ability to impact the lives of these young men chasing their dream of playing in the NFL, as well as serve as a role model for young girls who might happen to see me following my passion," she wrote in an e-mail to Outsports. "I am a strong believer that the more we can expose children to a variety of different opportunities in life, the better chance they have of finding their true calling."

Separation of church and state in the USA? Simply a fantasy concept!
 

Lesbian mother who lost custody of her three children because of sexuality wins them back after long legal battle

Meka Beresford 6th September 2017, 2:06 PM

A mother who lost her children after coming out as a lesbian has been granted full custody after a lengthy legal battle.

Chavie Weisberger was formerly part of a strict Hasidic community. After she came out and divorced her husband in 2009 she lost custody of her three children.

Weisberger from Brooklyn, New York, was at first given partial custody. However, she lost any custody of her children after her ex-partner, Naftali Weisberger sued her.

The judge ruled that her sexuality meant that she was not complying with a formerly agreed religious upbringing clause.

The two became embroiled in a lengthy legal battle as Naftali accused Chavie of “radically” changing her lifestyle.

The judge said the couple’s divorce agreement made it so he had to “consider the children’s religious upbringing as a paramount factor in any custody agreement”.

The ruling meant that Chavie was only allowed to have supervised visits with her children and she had to keep her sexuality hidden from the two youngest children.

Chavie appealed the ruling last month and the appeals court said the judges original ruling lacked “sound substantial basis”.

She has now been granted full custody but must still practice full religious observance.

Michael Stutma, a top divorce lawyer, said that the complex case “really shines a light on the tensions that exist between the secular world an insular religious community”.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/09/06...-legal-battle/

Lesbian veteran, 90, expelled from Air Force in '55, finally gets her 'honorable discharge'

“I’m still trying to process it,” military veteran Helen Grace James said upon receiving the long-awaited news.

by John Paul Brammer / Jan.18.2018 / 9:57 AM ET

https://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newsc...0.fit-324w.jpg


A FedEx delivery arrived at Helen Grace James' door on Wednesday. It was a message from the U.S. Air Force. She called two of her closest friends to come be with her before she opened it, and they arrived 20 minutes later.

Once she opened it, she received the good news: The military had upgraded her discharge status to "honorable." James had been waiting for this for more than six decades.

"I'm still trying to process it," she told NBC News. "It was both joy and shock. It was really true. It was really going to be an 'honorable discharge.'"

A FedEx delivery arrived at Helen Grace James' door on Wednesday. It was a message from the U.S. Air Force. She called two of her closest friends to come be with her before she opened it, and they arrived 20 minutes later.

Once she opened it, she received the good news: The military had upgraded her discharge status to "honorable." James had been waiting for this for more than six decades.

"I'm still trying to process it," she told NBC News. "It was both joy and shock. It was really true. It was really going to be an 'honorable discharge.'"

For James, now 90, it has been a long journey to this moment of vindication. "It's hard to take in," she said. "I'm wondering if I'm in a dream or a wish."

On a cold winter night in 1955, light from a flashlight flooded into James’ car just as she was reaching in the backseat for her sandwich. Investigators had followed her vehicle to the wooded area near Hempstead Harbor in New York, where she was eating with a friend.

James, then in the Air Force, had suspected she was being followed that night. She had been subjected to intense scrutiny for weeks by the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which was investigating service members suspected of being gay. They had even followed her into a lesbian dance club once.

“It was a place called Bagatelles,” James told NBC News. “People were screened as they went in, but the OSI somehow were able to get in and harass me there. They followed me into the latrine. It was scary. It was intense.”

James, who hails from rural Pennsylvania, enlisted in the Air Force in 1952. Her record during her three years of service was impeccable. She’d received positive performance evaluations and had no disciplinary problems. She’d been promoted from radio operator to crew chief and achieved the rank of Airman Second Class.

But while stationed in Roslyn Air Force Base in New York, she came under investigation by the OSI. A few days after that night near Hempstead Harbor, she was arrested in her barracks and interrogated for hours.

She said the OSI threatened to out her to her family if she didn’t sign a document. So she did, without reading it, effectively ending her military career then and there. She was discharged as “undesirable” with no severance pay, insurance or other benefits.

She found herself having to make her own way in life. She hadn’t spoken to her family, who lived in Pennsylvania on the dairy farm where she'd grown up. “I couldn’t face them,” she said. She couldn’t access the benefits of the GI Bill to help her through school. She moved to California, where she resides today, and worked and borrowed money to pay for her education.

James was just one victim of what has come to be known as the “Lavender Scare,” a period of time contemporaneous with the “Red Scare” of the 1950s, when suspected communists were purged from the U.S. government.

Anti-gay sentiment commingled with the panic. During the fever pitch of McCarthyism, homosexuality was associated with communism: a scheme to undermine the American family and American values, an immoral act that left who those participated in it susceptible to blackmail.

In the 1960s, James was able to successfully upgrade her status from “undesirable” to “general discharge under honorable conditions.” She said she tried to move on with her life from there but was still met with obstacles due to her status.

“I tried to get USAA coverage for insurance, and they said 'No, you can’t be a member, because you don’t have an honorable discharge,'” she recalled. “I [couldn't] be buried in a national cemetery either."

James said her less-than-honorable discharge status was always on her mind. "It’s never out of your scope of thought," she said.

That's why on Jan 3, at the age of 90, James decided to sue the Air Force to have her discharge status upgraded to "honorable." Prior to finding out the Air Force had granted her upgrade, James said an "honorable discharge" would hold both tangible and symbolic value for her.

“It will make me feel like I’ve done all I can to prove I am a good person,” she told NBC News on Tuesday, “and that I deserve to be a whole civilian in this country I love.”

Elizabeth Kristen, a senior staff attorney at Legal Aid at Work and the director of its Gender Equity & LGBT Rights Program, represents James. She said getting a veteran's status upgraded can typically be "a pretty lengthy process."

“When 'don’t ask, don’t tell' was repealed, the right thing to do would have been to automatically upgrade the discharge," Kristen explained. But that didn't happen.

Kristen said thousands of LGBTQ people discharged due to their sexual orientation still struggle with the hurdles James has encountered. “There are hundreds of benefits provided to our veterans, but depending on your discharge status, you can be locked out of them,” she said.

These benefits include access to the GI Bill, veteran home loans, health care from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and a burial in a national cemetery.

Matt Thorn, president and CEO of OutServe-SLDN, an advocacy organization for the LGBTQ military community, said the process for having one's discharge status upgraded could certainly be improved, adding "the burden of providing information falls heavily on the veterans themselves."

Over the last three years, Thorn has worked with Lambda Legal to fight President Donald Trump's transgender military ban and with Congressman Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin, on the Restore Honor to Service Members Act, which would essentially wipe the slate clean for anyone who was discharged from the military due to their sexual orientation.

Thorn said the military is reluctant to embrace this legislation, because there could be people “for whom their sexual orientation was just one thing of a series of things that that qualified them for discharge.”

“They don’t want to wipe the slate clean, because there might be some people who were rightfully discharged,” he said. “That’s why they have the individualized process. But could it be improved upon? Absolutely.”

In a statement provided to NBC News, Air Force spokesperson Kathleen Atanasoff said each case requires the Air Force to convene a group of subject matter experts to conduct a complete historical review of the member's case file, which requires time.

"The volume of applications has increased substantially over the past five years, which can make the 10-18-month administrative timeline challenging," Atanasoff wrote in an email. "The Board of Military Corrections is dedicated to tackling this through increasing efficiencies in their process and finding ways to expedite the process as much as possible."

Following Wednesday's message from the Air Force, James is now awaiting her official discharge paperwork. Kristen said once the paperwork is completed, the likely scenario is that an agreement will be reached between James and the Air Force to dismiss her recently filed lawsuit.

Until then, James plans to savor the good news for which she waited more than six decades.

"The Air Force recognizes me as a full person in the military," she said, having done "my job helping to take care of the country I love."

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-...y-gets-n838516

How fantastic! Thanks for posting!