GLAAD announced that it will join One Iowa, The Gazette, and The Advocate as national partners for the upcoming LGBTQ Presidential Forum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Sept. 20, a press release noted. The Forum will take place at Coe College's Sinclair Auditorium in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and will be livestreamed through GLAAD's partnership across social and digital channels to a national and international audience. Currently, confirmed attendees include former Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, former Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and author Marianne Williamson.
New Quinnipiac polling shows the top five candidates would all defeat Donald Trump in the general election, LGBTQ Nation noted. That includes out South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigiegthe first gay Democratic candidate in a presidential campaign. Others projected to beat Trump include former Vice President Joe Biden as well as U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.
Presidential hopeful Amy Klobuchar ( D-Minnesota ) sat down with Mara Keisling, the head of the National Center for Transgender Equality, to talk about her commitment to transgender issues, LGBTQ Nation noted. Klobuchar is from Minnesota, which, she proudly notes, was, "the first state, in the early 1990s, that actually had an anti-discrimination law that included trans people." The senator also pledged to reverse course on the administration's stance that Title IX civil-rights protections don't protect transgender students, noting that "you don't need an act of Congress to do it."
Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke is selling a new T-shirt on his campaign website that has a profane message about gun violenceechoing O'Rourke's own response to the recent mass shooting in West Texas, CBS News reported. It repeats "This is f*cked up" six times and concludes with a call to action that reads, "End gun violence now," with "Beto for America" printed at the bottom. The campaign says on its website that all of the proceeds will be "shared equally between Mom's Demand Action and March for Our Lives," two gun control groups.
"Art after Stonewall, 1969-1989" is leaving New York to headline Art Basel season in Miami at Florida International University's Frost Art Museum ( Sept. 14-Jan. 5 ), a press release noted. This unprecedented survey of LGBT artmaking from the first two decades following the Stonewall Riots features 200 works, including art by Andy Warhol, Diane Arbus, Judy Chicago, Martin Wong, David Hockney, Marlon T. Riggs, Greer Lankton, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe and many more. The show was curated by the artist and art historian Jonathan Weinberg, with Daniel Marcus and Drew Sawyer.
Following a five-year battle with cancer, Alan Fleishmana political organizer and Democrat who was central to building the LGBTQ community's political power in New York Citypassed away Aug. 27 at age 62, GayCityNews.com reported. Born and raised in Brooklyn's Canarsie neighborhood, Fleishman was a DJ for many years before he became involved in politics and eventually went to work in the city comptroller's office, where he served from 1990 until he retired in 2013.
Outdone by numbers and noise from thousands of protesters in Boston, a few hundred marchers in a controversial Straight Pride Parade were jeered and heckled during a mile-long procession from Copley Square to City Hall Plaza, The Boston Globe reported. "Shame on you!" many of the protesters yelled as the parade participants, flanked by hundreds of police officers, passed normally busy downtown streets that had been closed for the event. Police moved into the crowd, and officers grappled with protesters; officers used pepper spray against the crowd, several protesters said. About 600 protesters outnumbered an estimated 200 marchers after the parade reached City Hall Plaza.
Phillip Todd Wilsona Kentucky principal who first came to fame in 2009 for banning books with "homosexual content" from his high schoolwas arrested on charges of possession and distribution of child pornography, Newsweek reported. Troopers said Wilson had about 15 images of child pornography, which resulted in 15 counts of distribution of matter portraying sexual performance by a minor, and another 15 counts of possessing matter portraying sexual performance by a minor. Wilson was held in the Clark County Detention Center on $25,000 bail.
A federal appeals court has ruled that the state of Idaho must pay for transgender inmate Adree Edmo's gender-reassignment surgerybut Idaho Gov. Brad Little said he will appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, CBS News reported. Edmo, 31, was diagnosed with gender dysmorphia in 2012, and attorney Debroah Ferguson argued that the state's refusal to provide the surgery was unconstitutional. Earlier this year, the state of Idaho was put on a court-ordered deadline to pay for the surgery by mid-June; the state, however appealed that decisiona process it says has already cost more than $325,000.
Sexual orientation cannot be predicted by a single "gay gene," new research indicates, according to a CNN.com item that cites Science Magazine. Instead, a host of genetic and environmental factors play a role, according to a study. Same-sex attraction appears to run in families, and identical twins are more likely to be aligned in their sexuality than either fraternal twins or other siblings, noted the researchers. Both these factors suggest genetic influences are involved.
A bipartisan trio of female lawmakers announced their intention to make 2020 the year that comprehensive LGBTQ-rights protections pass the Florida Legislature, an Equality Florida press release noted. Republican Rep. Jackie Toledo ( Tampa ) will lead as primary sponsor of the Florida Competitive Workforce Act. Rep. Jennifer Webb ( D-St. Petersburg ), Florida's first out lesbian lawmaker, will serve as lead co-sponsor, with support from Holly Raschein ( R-Key West ), chair of the Agriculture and Natural Resource Appropriations Subcommittee.
Brooklyn authorities have charged Emmanuel Dash with attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed a man in the neck with a suspected homophobic motive, Gay Times reported. On June 22, Dash is alleged to have approached a man and his gender non-conforming partner at their apartment. He reportedly told them: "I'm glad I know where you live, because I don't like gay people." The victim suffered a six-inch wound, which partially severed the vertebral artery.
A new statewide civil-rights advocacy organization in Nevada has been launched to promote full, lived equality for the state's LGBTQ community, a press release announced. Silver State Equality is a Nevada-based organization affiliated with and supported by Equality California and Equality California Institute, the nation's largest statewide LGBTQ rights organization. Silver State is led by State Director André C. Wade, who previously was executive director of the LGBTQ Community Center of Southern Nevada. Silver State Equality will close t its inaugural year with the 2019 Nevada Equality Awards on Nov. 6 at Jimmy Kimmel's Comedy Club at The LINQ Promenade in Las Vegas.
Students in Bakersfield, California, were attending the first meeting of Frontier High School's Gay-Straight Alliance when students members of the Future Farmers of America club ( FFA ) confronted them holding "MAGA flags," LGBTQ Nation reported. Some male and female FFA members held hands and yelled, "This is what's right." The Kern High School District said in a statement, "The reported incident that occurred on Wednesday afternoon at Frontier High School is currently being investigated. Once the investigation is complete, appropriate follow-up measures will be taken."
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's Twitter account was "compromised" Aug. 30, the social-media network stated after a stream of offensive tweets was posted, USA Today reported. The racist and vulgar tweetsup for about 30 minutes before being taken downincluded messages such as "Hitler is innocent" and, using a vulgarity, asked "bald skeleton head tramp," apparently referring to Dorsey, to un-suspend certain accounts.
The 2019 Gay Days at Disneyland are set to take place Friday-Sunday, Oct. 4-6, a press release noted. For its 22nd year, the event is expected to attract more than 30,000 LGBT attendees from California and all over the country. Headliners are slated to include RuPaul's Drag Race alumni Nina West, Miz Cracker and A'Keria C. Davenport; events include Tom Lenk ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer ) bringing the play Tilda Swinton Answers an ad on Craigslist. See GayDaysAnaheim.com .
In a profile on WLRN.org, new University of Miami School of Law Dean Tony Varona talked about being Cuban and openly gay. Varona discussed what he called the "'challenging task" of coming out as gay as a working-class Cuban immigrant in Newark, New Jersey. "I, fortunately, had a supportive and loving family to embrace me, who loves me and loves my husband of many, many years," he said. "Not everyone has that great fortune. Early on, I thought that part of what I needed to do as a lawyer and as an activist was to devote a lot of my time to the LGBTQ cause."
A former NFL player went on a homophobic tirade on Twitter, accusing the NFL and the NBA of an "effeminate agenda," LGBTQ Nation noted. Larry Johnson tweeted that there is an "effeminate agenda" in the NFL and NBA, which is led by the Free Masons, to indoctrinate straight people, for the benefit of LGBTQ people. He called out gay ex-player Michael Sam and even the color pinkbut added he doesn't hate gay people, saying, "My understanding goes far beyond flesh."
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she's on her way to being well, CNBC reported. "I am on my way to being very well," Ginsburg said during an interview with NPR's Nina Totenberg at the 2019 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Ginsburg underwent a three-week course of radiation for a tumor on her pancreas, the Supreme Court said in an Aug. 23 release.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said survivors of a 2015 mass shooting at a South Carolina church can sue the U.S. government over its alleged negligence in allowing Dylann Roof to buy the gun he used to kill nine African-Americans, Reuters reported. The court said the government was not immune from liability under either the Federal Tort Claims Act or the Brady Act to prevent handgun violence.
A Missouri law that calls for one of the nation's most restrictive abortion regulations was halted from taking effect after a federal judge said Aug. 27 it cannot be enforced "pending further litigation or further order of the court," NBC News reported. U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs issued the order temporarily blocking the law until its legality is resolved in court.
Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony pushed back against President Trump after the politician called the island territory "one of the most corrupt places on earth," The Hill noted. "Coming from a gruesome individual like YOU it makes perfect sense. Filled with corruption and incapable of managing a fully staffed HOUSE," Anthony tweeted. Trump took sharp criticism for the federal government's response to the damage done to Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria in 2017.