Equality Federation won’t stop until all LGBTQ+ people are fully empowered and represented in their communities, experiencing full equality in their lives.
I’m so proud of my dad today, and well, every day really. He’s an honorable man who works hard and owns a business in our hometown, Oklahoma City. Like any family, it was a journey with ups and downs when I came out, but he has always supported me.
As an adopted LGBTQ Oklahoman I find SB 1140, Oklahoma’s anti-LGBTQ adoption bill, to be a direct attack on myself and the hundreds of prospective adoptive families across our state.
Equality Federation staff will hold parties featuring live goats on both coasts this spring, and anyone who contributes to the organization’s Give OUT Day efforts will be added to the guest lists. Give OUT Day, held on April 19th, is a national day of giving for LGBTQ organizations raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the movement.
Equality Federation celebrates the defeat of anti-transgender Proposition 1 in Anchorage, Alaska and congratulates our member organization Alaskans Together for Equality and Fair Anchorage for this hard-fought victory.
Popular culture images of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people suggest that most LGBT people live in cities or on the coasts. Yet an estimated 2.9 – 3.8 million LGBT people call rural America home. Today, the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) released a new report, Where We Call Home: LGBT People in Rural America, which examines the structural differences in rural life and their unique impact on LGBT people in rural areas, who are both more vulnerable to discrimination and less able to respond to its harmful effects.
HIV is still very much an LGBTQ issue. Yet, for the past two decades, HIV has not been a high priority for many LGBTQ advocacy organizations; it’s past time for that to change. HIV organizations and advocates living with HIV are doing important and successful work but there are significant gaps in HIV advocacy capacity in many states.
Equality Federation Institute’s annual Summer Meeting is the premier gathering of state-based and national LGBT movement leaders. More than 150 advocates from across the country gather to connect and forge relationships, collaborate for future success and build momentum toward even greater wins in the communities we call home.
In a country that incarcerates more of its people than any other in the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are more likely to end up behind bars, and even more likely to face abuse while there. To address the issues and harms faced by LGBT prisoners, and to give activists and allies tools for working to improve jail and prison conditions for these individuals, the National Center for Transgender Equality has released an excellent new resource: Standing with LGBT Prisoners: An Advocate’s Guide to Ending Abuse and Combating Imprisonment.
With 17 states and Washington, D.C. allowing same-sex couples to share in the freedom to marry, a major shift in attitudes within the Republican party is increasingly emerging. In a recent memo from Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry, they cite a surge in support coming from Republicans of all ages, as conservatives across generations are changing the way they think about marriage for same-sex couples.
Just this past week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) took the latest step in implementing the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) with its announcement that same-sex spouses will be recognized in administering several aspects of the Medicare program, regardless of where the couple lives. Now that Medicare is no longer prevented by DOMA from recognizing same-sex marriages for determining entitlement to, or eligibility for, Medicare, CMS is working with the Social Security Administration to conduct eligibility determinations and to enroll seniors and individuals with certain disabilities in the program.
Summer Meeting 2014 is coming together, and it's going to be the best one yet -- especially with the newest addition to the program.This year, the Equality Federation Institute is proud to offer a special opportunity for member organizations -- a free fast-paced crash course in the basics of effective management.
It took years of organizing and lobbying and coalition building and storytelling. But soon, the Fairness for All Marylanders Act of 2014 will become law.
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With your support, we'll be able to continue our work to build the leaders of today and tomorrow, strengthen state-based LGBTQ+ organizations, and make critical progress on the issues that matter most—like protecting transgender people, ending HIV criminalization and ensuring access to care, and banning conversion therapy across the country.
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