Toni Atkins is the Democratic State Assemblymember representing the 76th Assembly District. In February, she submitted the Gender Nondiscrimination Act (AB 887), which is sponsored by Equality California and the Transgender Law Center. According to the Transgender Law Center and Equality California, AB 887 seeks to strengthen employment, housing and other civil rights protections for…
On Friday, March 18, 12 of the 13 activists who joined together for a direct action on the White House fence met for a court date in Washington D.C. The 13 of us who had handcuffed ourselves to the White House fence on Nov. 13, 2010, were a group of LGBT community military service veterans…
Last week, I gave away one of my two transgender flags. I’ve had one particular flag since the spring of 2005. It was the first transgender flag I’d ever purchased. Many don’t even know there is such a thing as a transgender flag, or what the flag looks like. Well, the transgender flag’s official name…
Just recently, March 4, I was up at Stanford University with the Stanford Students for Queer Liberation. I protested along with the group against an ROTC program returning to Stanford. There are arguments for and against ROTC’s returning to colleges and universities that have cited that the military’s policy, mandated by federal legislation passed by…
There seems to be conflicting statements coming from Rep. Barney Frank and his Legislative Assistant Diego Sanchez regarding why the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) didn’t make it out of the House Education and Labor Committee in the 111th Congress. In a January, 2010 article for The Advocate Rep. Frank stated, “There continues to be concerns…
It seems that whenever a civil rights movement has fought in the United States, the battles have included public restrooms. From the segregated restrooms of the Jim Crow south, to the “unisex bathroom” arguments used in the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), to even the repeal legislation for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT),…
When conservative Christians and other social conservatives talk about the “homosexual agenda,” it seems they often come up with outlandish ideas of what it would be. You know, stuff like trying to recruit teenagers into “the homosexual lifestyle,” lesson plans on “homosexual sex” in kindergartner classrooms and scary “men in dresses” invading public female restrooms…
On Thursday Feb. 3, 2011, San Diego News 10 did a story regarding transgender veterans’ goal of having transgender people eventually being able to serve openly in the military. The video story was pretty favorable in the sense that it presented transgender views on open military service for transgender people and the barriers to them…
Maybe it was too much to hope for. To hope that President Obama would say the word “transgender” in his latest State Of The Union address. I’m very aware that the visible part of the transgender sub-community of the LGBT community is pretty small, and my sub-community’s concerns are easily lost in broader pictures. But…
Sometimes, it’s the right people, at the right place, at the right time that creates positive change. My friend Allyson Robinson, who is the Associate Director of Diversity at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), is one such person. Sharon Skipper, the CEO of the for-profit firm LGBT Career Assistance, and the CEO of the non-profit…
