Equality Federation won’t stop until all LGBTQ+ people are fully empowered and represented in their communities, experiencing full equality in their lives.
President Obama and his Administration have shown great leadership in the midst of national, often nasty and negative, attention and attacks on transgender people and their families. Recent public statements made by the president and the Department of Education send an especially inspiring message to our youth; that the most powerful leaders in our nation have their back.
“My answer is that we should deal with this issue the same way we’d want it dealt with if it was our child,” Obama said. “And that is to try to create an environment of some dignity and kindness for these kids. And that’s sort of the bottom line.” – President Obama
Equality Federation congratulates Massachusetts on the passage of a proactive, transgender-specific public accommodations bill. This bill updates Massachusetts state law to ensure explicit protections for transgender people from discrimination in public places, including restaurants, hospitals, parks, and public restrooms. We celebrate this powerful victory, which comes after over a decade of public education and dialogue in the state.
This week more than a dozen organizers working to secure non-discrimination protections for LGBT Americans nationwide came together in Atlanta, Georgia, launching a new project dedicated to developing conversations about the importance of comprehensive non-discrimination protections.
Officials in eleven states – Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin – have filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its directive to allow transgender students to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.
Equality Federation joined the chorus of LGBTQ advocates and health care professionals in praising the Obama Administration for finalizing a rule in the Affordable Care Act that bans discrimination in health insurance and health care.
For years, our members have requested assistance and guidance in the area of communications. And although we have always been able to connect state groups with resources and provide some useful advice, we simply weren’t equipped to offer comprehensive communications support.
Our final FEDtalk given at the Summer Meeting 2013 is from John Smallwood, Advocacy & Organizing Director at Fair Wisconsin.
Our ninth FEDtalk given at the Summer Meeting 2013 is from Shannon McCann, Intern at Equality Utah.
The State Equality Fund (SEF) has announced its new guidelines for 2014 and issued an invitation for letters of inquiry (LOI).For the past eight years, Federation members have used support from SEF to make huge policy advances that improve the lives of LGBT people in their state. And at the Federation, we're eager to help even more of our state groups take advantage of this critical funding stream.
It's one of the most common questions we're asked: How do state groups grow the number of LGBT people financially supporting our work?And now, we have some real answers. Or, at least, the beginning of some real answers.
Aaron Welo is an at-large director and the Treasurer for the Equality Federation. He is currently an associate with Thompson Coburn LLP in St. Louis, where he practices in the firm's business litigation group on a variety of class and complex litigation matters.
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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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