Lesbians In The News

[A. Spectre]

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.

[Kobi]

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."

[*Anya*]

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/

[*Anya*]

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




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

[DapperButch]

How fantastic! Thanks for posting!

Originally Posted by *Anya*

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




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

[*Anya*]

Elderly lesbian told she would ‘burn in hell’ by fellow care home resident Jimmy McCloskey

Tuesday 6 Feb 2018 2:09 pm




Marsha Wetzel said she has been slapped and taunted since moving to the Glen St. Andrews Living Community in Niles, Il, with staff ignoring her pleas for help.

The widow, who moved there when her partner Judy Kahn died of colon cancer three years ago, has now launched a ground-breaking lawsuit against the home for failing to protect her.

In a YouTube video, Martha spoke of her fear after coming out when she showed a fellow resident a photo of the son she adopted with Judy. She said: ‘It got out and I thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again’ Gay hate.

Marsha Wetzel says she has been abused by fellow residents at her care home – and that staff have ignored her pleas for help ‘There were a handful of residents, I could tell were really going to give me trouble. ‘I tried to avoid them but they would seek me out to taunt me. ‘I’ve heard every negative homosexual term, I’ve been hit more than once. ‘You can get so scared, you can’t sleep, you can’t eat. ‘You don’t want to take a shower, you don’t want to get dressed. You don’t want to go in the hall.’

Marsha has now launched a groundbreaking federal lawsuit against the home for failing to protect her from abuse. Marsha, who was evicted from the home she shared with Judy by her partner’s homphobic relatives, expects to be abused until her death.

She said: ‘I’d look out the window, I’ve got a cemetery out there. ‘That’s when I’ll stop being made fun of because I’m gay. ‘(The) staff don't protect me, I don't feel any safety of going to them. ‘I want to stick with this and get justice, and I want people to know, stop pushing us around.’

The 7th U.S. Court of Appeals will begin hearing oral arguments in Marsha’s case Wednesday. If she wins, it could help establish that Fair Housing Act protections extend to LGBTQ tenants.

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2018/02/06/elderl...8/?ito=cbshare

[Esme nha Maire]

That's apalling! How on earth could any commercial organisation think that it is OK to allow someone in their care to be assaulted, no matter what the excuse for doing so was? That's a failure of care in anyone's book. And as for it needing a court case to get protection 'extended' to LGBTQ folk - doesn't the US constuitition guarantee equality in law for everyone?