South Dakota lawmakers advance two more extreme measures targeting LGBT Americans

Today, South Dakota lawmakers moved forward with two more pieces of discriminatory legislation targeting LGBT South Dakotans – HB 1112 and HB 1107. Both passed through the House State Affairs committee today by a vote of 10 to 3. HB 1112 could ban transgender students from participating in athletic activities consistent with their gender identity and HB…

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HRC highlights California’s LGBT protections, laws and legislative proposals in new national report

WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in partnership with the Equality Federation, today released its second annual national report assessing the status of state legislation affecting LGBT equality across America, including in California. The State Equality Index (SEI) reveals that, even with historic progress on marriage equality, there are extraordinary state-to-state disparities in LGBT…

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APLA Health & Wellness open new Long Beach Health Center

LONG BEACH, Calif.—APLA Health & Wellness have announced the opening of their Long Beach Health Center, located at 1043 Elm Ave. on the St. Mary Medical Center campus. The new health center currently provides services for free or on a low-cost, sliding-fee scale, including: Primary medical care Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) counseling and management HIV testing…

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Release of internal documents show greed driving Shkreli’s push for Turing’s massive price increase for Daraprim

Today the House Oversight Committee released a series of astonishing internal documents revealing the greed behind former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli’s decision to increase by 5,000 percent the cost of the life-saving drug Daraprim. Daraprim is a crucial treatment for many pregnant women and people living with HIV. Last fall, then-Turing CEO Martin Shkreli…

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New report connects religious exemptions from LGBT equality to historic efforts to deny civil rights

ATLANTA – Today, The Leadership Conference Education Fund will release its report, Striking a Balance: Advancing Civil and Human Rights While Preserving Religious Liberty, documenting how the religious arguments commonly used today against LGBT equality have been used to oppose the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage and equality, racial integration, inter-racial marriage, immigration, the Americans…

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Defense Department proposes rule change to provide medical benefits for transgender troops and military dependents

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has proposed a new rule change that will lift the “regulatory prohibition that categorically excludes all treatment of gender dysphoria,” thereby extending crucially needed medical care to transgender service members, veterans, and military family members covered under Tricare. The proposed change would not include surgical care which remains prohibited…

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