Equality Federation won’t stop until all LGBTQ+ people are fully empowered and represented in their communities, experiencing full equality in their lives.
Our BIG LGBTQ MIXER event has become a San Francisco institution! Hundreds of locals, from tech gurus to artists, come out to have a good time for a good cause.
Equality California has filed a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s Aug. 25 directive prohibiting transgender people from joining the military and banning military healthcare plans from providing vital services to transgender servicemembers. Equality California is an organizational plaintiff in the lawsuit, together with seven transgender individuals impacted by the ban.
Right now, all across the country, there are dozens of outdated laws based on old stereotypes, not science, that treat people living with HIV differently. California is now leading the nation in changing course with the passage of SB 239. Federation member Equality California prioritized this legislation for 2017.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions just issued guidance granting an anti-LGBTQ “license to discriminate.” Federal government staff and contractors will now be able to claim a broad religious exemption from federal laws, rules and regulations meant to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Sept 26, 2017) — After a public hearing and over five years of groundwork, the Birmingham City Council has passed a fully inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance, and Mayor William Bell has committed to signing the ordinance into law immediately.
Equality California’s #TakeIt:I’m PrEP’ed program is a statewide educational campaign to educate the LGBTQ community and healthcare providers on the availability and benefits of PrEP, the daily pill to prevent HIV, as well as other forms of HIV treatment and prevention. More broadly, this program falls under our broader efforts to end the HIV epidemic in California by “Getting to Zero” – zero new HIV transmissions, zero HIV-related deaths and zero HIV stigma.
The Federation is proud to welcome Anne Stanback to our team, as Director of State and National Partnerships. Many of you already know Anne as she's spent nearly 30 years in our movement -- including spending the past year working as a consultant with us. We're thrilled that Anne will continue the work she started as a consultant -- now as a full-time staff member based in Connecticut.
Many Federation members across the country are committed to a broad social justice agenda, working in their communities to end all forms of oppression.Over the past few years, Basic Rights Education Fund, the 501(c)(3) arm of Basic Rights Oregon, has become a national leader for their racial justice work within LGBT movements. Knowing that for decades, the LGBT movement left out the voices, experiences, and hopes of LGBT people of color -- Basic Rights Education Fund understood the need for real change and put racial justice at the top of their agenda.
State-based organizations across the country are making change in the communities we call home -- where the work is hard, but the impact is great. Nearly every week, we hear about another victory that provides LGBT people the protection, respect, and dignity they need and deserve. These wins build critical momentum in the fight for full and lasting equality -- but we don’t often hear about them. Far too often, they go unnoticed and uncelebrated by the broader LGBT movement.
Anne Stanback is the Director of Strategic Partnerships for the Equality Federation, the movement builder and strategic partner to state-based organizations winning equality in the communities we call home. Anne’s primary focus is working with states to develop plans, strategies and resources to pass laws to protect LGBT people from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations.
Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruled that same-sex couples, legally married in jurisdictions that recognize their marriages, will be treated as married for federal tax purposes. The ruling applies regardless of whether the couple lives in a jurisdiction that recognizes same-sex marriage or a jurisdiction that does not recognize same-sex marriage.
Executive Director Betsy Smith has been leading EqualityMaine for fourteen years. After securing many incredible wins for LGBT Mainers, she has announced that she will soon step down from her position. Before Betsy officially leaves the Federation family (though we'll always count her as one of our own), we wanted to learn everything we could from her work and experience. So we caught up with her to talk about her successful tenure at EqualityMaine.
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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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