PASADENA, Calif. (CNN) – When President Barack Obama formally ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” in July 2011, ending a 17-year ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military, Tracey Cooper-Harris felt liberated about her future as a veteran. As a sergeant in the U.S. Army, she received more than two dozen medals and commendations…
(CNN) – Shortly after the clock struck midnight, two Seattle women legitimized their 35-year love affair early Thursday by becoming the first same-sex couple to receive a marriage license in King County, Washington. The two women met on a blind date in 1977, when homosexuality was highly taboo and gay people socialized privately in homes,…
Last week, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) and OutServe, the association of actively serving LGBT military personnel, announced the selection of transgender Army veteran Allyson Robinson to lead the newly combined organization. In her first interview since her appointment Robinson spoke to San Diego LGBT Weekly columnist Autumn Sandeen about her new role and what…
Transprogressive BY AUTUMN SANDEEN In a recent San Diego LGBT Weekly column, “What good is improved VA gender policy if it’s inaccessible?” I wrote about how I was pretty much the only transgender military veteran in the United States who was unable to take advantage of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA‘s) new policy for…
http://youtu.be/9I4Ny1RrXSk WASHINGTON – Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) and OutServe, the association of actively serving LGBT military personnel, today announced the selection of transgender Army veteran Allyson Robinson to lead the newly combined organization. The organizations will formally merge this weekend. A graduate of West Point, Robinson commanded Patriot missile units in Europe and the…
For more than a decade, the U.S. Dept. of Defense’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy claimed the careers, livelihoods and in some cases, the lives of American servicemembers whose only crime was volunteering to serve our nation and being gay, bi or lesbian at the same time. The contention among repeal advocates was that…
LOS ANGELES – The first academic study of the effects of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) has found that the new policy of open service has had no overall negative impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, recruitment, retention or morale. The University Of California Los Angeles Palm Center released the study, the first academic…
WASHINGTON – The fight against gays and lesbians in the military and against same-sex marriage continues apace for two Republican senators. Last Tuesday Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) introduced the Military Religious Freedom Act. The bill is intended to prevent military chaplains from being forced to perform a marriage ceremony, if the…
Gen. Juan Miguel Fuente-Alba has apologized for directing army recruiters to beware of homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and others, as they were not worthy recruits for the Chilean army. However, rights groups are still demanding a forced retirement from the Gen. Fuente-Alba. In a positive sign of the times indicating continued progress on the LGBT civil…
Since it was first launched under President George W. Bush, the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP) has increased its focus of groups of special concern, with the latest revision zeroing in on the LGBT population. Citing “minority stress” as the likely causal factor of why LGBT people are at greater risk than for suicide…
