Equality Federation won’t stop until all LGBTQ+ people are fully empowered and represented in their communities, experiencing full equality in their lives.
Equality Federation’s Legislative Action Center (LAC) is a proactive state legislative tracking and assistance program that will serve Federation partners, coalition members, and movement leadership and staff.
This week, we wrapped up the second convening of Fair Share for Equality, our annual forum of California state and local elected officials, LGBT and civil rights leaders and social service agencies, aimed at addressing the daunting disparities in health and wellbeing LGBT people still face compared to the general population. In her address to the audience, California Controller Betty Yee said that “the agenda for California and the rest of the country is quite vast.”
As efforts to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people from discrimination intensify, LGBT social justice organizations’ revenues experienced a decline in revenue for the first time since the Great Recession of 2007-2008. According to a new report (below) by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), despite the decrease in revenue, leading LGBT social justice organizations are projecting combined 2015 expense budgets totaling $189.6 million, a 12% increase from 2014 expenses.
Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance honoring the transgender people we’ve lost, often due to violence. This year, at least 23 transgender women were murdered in the United States and 81 worldwide.
In early November, over 30 leaders representing Equality Illinois, OutFront Minnesota, Equality New Mexico, Equality Ohio, PROMO (Missouri), Equality Pennsylvania, and Equality Utah gathered in Chicago for Equality Federation’s West by Midwest Leadership Summit.
Equality Federation is concerned Indiana’s Senate Bill 100, introduced by Senate Republicans, would not cover many Hoosiers from discrimination. While the authors are framing the bill as nondiscrimination legislation, it includes broad exemptions allowing discrimination by a host of organizations and businesses.
Over 3,000 children are awaiting adoption in Michigan, yet on Thursday, June 11, Governor Rick Snyder signed a law permitting faith-based adoption agencies that receive public funding to discriminate against potential parents - including same-sex or unmarried couples - if doing so would violate the agencies' religious beliefs, leaving the needs of children on the sidelines.
Equality Federation denounced today the enactment of North Carolina Senate Bill 2, an anti-LGBT law that allows magistrates and other public officials to opt out of performing marriage services for couples if they have religious objections to certain marriages. The law had been vetoed by Governor Pat McCory, but today the House of Representatives voted 69-41 to override his decision, which means SB 2 will become law.
Despite these laws and guidance, Media Matters for America found that various conservative media outlets have promoted myths that policies protecting transgender students "create confusion, violate students' privacy rights, and can be exploited by students who will pretend to be transgender in order to sneak into the restrooms for the opposite sex."
Want to be even more connected to the LGBT movement at this critical time?Follow these simple steps.
You won't want to miss this! Garden State Equality's executive director Andrea Majanik Bowen was interviewed in Slate's fun series Ask A Homo about how to talk with trans people with respect. Garden State Equality is a member of the Equality Federation.
On Monday, the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released a best practices guide that will ensure transgender employees has access to the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity. The 4-page "Guide to Restroom Access for Transgender Workers" provides guidance to employers on best practices regarding restroom access for transgender workers, with the goal of assuring that employers provide a safe and healthy working environment for all employees.
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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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