11/28/2007

"How did Flor Bermudez, once a middle-class teenager from an educated family in Mexico City, trade in her desire to be a doctor and become a seasoned advocate for the underdog?

"The answer is she immigrated to the United States and, for the first time, experienced discrimination and the difficulties that arise when you are on the outside looking in. 'It has been difficult,' she says. But there is no turning back.

10/24/2007

"To the sound of thunderous applause the Ithaca City School District's board of education unanimously voted late Tuesday to rescind a challenge of the state's human rights law.

"The vote clears the way for a hearing to be held in the claim of Amelia Kearney, who alleges the district failed to promptly and effectively protect her daughter from racial harassment by other students during the 2005-06 school year.

10/23/2007

"Dexter Colston landed in the foster care system when he was about 13 after his mother rejected him because he is gay.

"He bounced through a couple dozen foster care facilities where adults couldn't relate to him and other children could be brutal.

"...Many gay foster teenagers never find a good home.

"...During the past five years, gay rights and child welfare groups have researched the experience of gay foster youth. What they found was horrific.

10/17/2007

"October was supposed to be a triumph for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, thanks to the recent passage of a comprehensive hate crimes bill in both houses of Congress and what was expected to be a historic vote on HR 2015, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, in the House.

"But instead, a debate over whether rights for transgenders should be included in ENDA is opening the possibility for a profound shift in the gay movement.

10/19/2007

10/15/2007

"...Ed Swaya and Greg Hampel, who went through a wedding ceremony in 1999, filled out the paperwork to get the document but received a certificate back from the Health Department that listed Hampel as the father, but left off Swaya's name, he said.

"'It said they couldn't establish maternity for Mr. Swaya, so they left my name off the birth certificate," Swaya said. "They didn't want to put two men's names on the birth certificate.'

10/11/2007

"LGBT organizations and community activists continued to rally after last week's bruising intra-community battle over whether to seek a vote on a version of ENDA that includes only sexual orientation protection or insist that the legislation retain its protection for people based on gender identity.

10/04/2007

"For the past week, a passionate and emotional debate has been raging in the gay and lesbian blogosphere and on LGBT gay leadership list-servs about the decision by the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives to remove protection for the transgendered from ENDA, the proposed federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

9/27/2007

"When the New Jersey legislature passed a civil union bill instead of giving same-sex couples the right to marry after Lambda Legal's groundbreaking court victory last year, we knew immediately that civil unions would not be enough. Today, the facts are more clear than ever.

9/26/2007

"'The ball is already rolling, but now it's about keeping it moving in the right direction.'

"That's what Cole Thaler, an attorney for Lambda Legal, says lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students and their allies at Auburn University need to do to get gender identity and gender expression included in the university's discrimination policy.