Equality Federation won’t stop until all LGBTQ+ people are fully empowered and represented in their communities, experiencing full equality in their lives.
Last week we held a webinar for Equality Federation members about how your organization can engage in Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) advocacy in your states and municipalities by adding an optional question on gender expansive youth.
This week, the Juneau Assembly passed an ordinance that makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. In passing this ordinance, Juneau became the second Alaskan city to pass an inclusive non‐discrimination ordinance that extends protections in employment, housing, and public accommodations based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or national origin, race, color, age, religion, sex, familial status, and disability.
Equality Federation joins Federation member Equality North Carolina in hailing a decision by a federal judge to suspend the enforcement of the discriminatory provisions of North Carolina’s anti-LGBTQ law, HB2 until plaintiffs have their opportunity to make their case in court.
On Sunday August 22nd, in Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. District Court Judge Reed Charles O’Connor issued a preliminary order in Texas v. United States, a case in which public officials in Texas and 10 other states are challenging nondiscrimination protections for transgender students and employees.
Two years ago, Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri, a city where less than two years before, we worked with the Ferguson City Council to pass the first inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance in North County.
When even the anchors at notoriously anti-LGBTQ/biased Fox News think your law is discriminatory and unnecessary, it might be time to rethink things. Watch as host Megyn Kelly rakes Gov. McCrory over the coals for his flawed defense of HB2.
Equality Federation congratulates South Carolina Equality and all of the hardworking South Carolinians who helped ensure the defeat of S.1203, an anti-transgender bill that would have enshrined discrimination into state law by forcing transgender people to use the bathroom consistent with their biological sex, not their gender identity that they live every day, in all publicly-owned facilities including schools.
Federation member PROMO Missouri is celebrating victory as anti-LGBTQ, religious exemption legislation, SJR 39, has failed to make it out of committee rendering it dead.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has signed discriminatory legislation that allows counselors and therapists to refuse treatment based on their religious objections or personal beliefs. The American Counseling Association has called the legislation an “unprecedented attack” on the counseling profession.
On Thursday, April 28th, the House Armed Services Committee voted to pass a discriminatory amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act introduced by Representative Steve Russell (R-OK). The amendment applies the private employer religious exemptions of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act to religious organizations receiving any federal contract or grant – which could include universities and hospitals employing thousands of people.
President Obama called for the repeal of Anti-LGBTQ bills in North Carolina and Mississippi at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister, David Cameron. The British Government recently issued a travel warning to LGBTQ tourists visiting those states.
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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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