LGBTQ Rights

Tallahassee Community Pushes For LGBTQ Sanctuary City

July 17, 2023 Fight Back News. Create! Florida, LGBTQ Rights, Sanctuary City, Tallahassee

Tallahassee, FL - On July 13 Tallahassee community organizers and experts gave presentations at the Mayor's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council at City Hall. The presentation's focus was the demand to transform Tallahassee into an LGBTQ sanctuary city. The Tallahassee Community Action Committee (TCAC), represented by its president, Delilah Pierre, and communications director, Regina Joseph, led the program. The presentation was created in response to the anti-LGBTQ policies enacted under Governor Ron DeSantis' administration. These laws include the anti-trans law that forces people to use the bathroom associated with their assigned sex at birth and the ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Workers At The Trevor Project Unionize

July 14, 2023 Sara Van Horn, In These Times. Organize! LGBTQ Rights, Non Profit, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

A majority of workers at The Trevor Project, a widely-praised nonprofit dedicated to preventing suicide among LGBTQ youth, decided to come together this spring and unionize as Friends of Trevor United. About a month later, they celebrated when management at the nonprofit agreed to voluntarily recognize their union. The Trevor Project has grown exponentially over the past few years, leading to what one union organizer describes as difficult workloads for crisis counselors dealing with increasing numbers of distress calls. Amy Solar-Greco, an organizer with Communications Workers of America — the union representing Friends of Trevor United — says Trevor’s rapid growth was “unsustainable and burdensome” for employees who are tasked with “performing intense, highly stressful and lifesaving work.”

Students Sue Idaho Officials To Protect Transgender Youth

July 9, 2023 Mia Maldonado, Idaho State Journal. Resist! Education, Idaho, LGBTQ Rights, Transgender Rights, Youth Activism

Students in the Boise School District have filed a federal lawsuit against Idaho school officials to keep them from enforcing a new law meant to prevent transgender students from using school restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. Signed into law by Idaho Gov. Brad Little on March 22, Senate Bill 1100 requires that public schools maintain two separate multi-occupancy restrooms, showers, changing facilities and overnight accommodations for students based on their sex assigned at birth. The law took effect July 1. According to the law, “no person shall enter a multi-occupancy restroom or changing facility that is designated for one sex unless such a person is a member of that sex.”

How The Labor Movement Is Showing Up For LGBTQ+ Rights

June 28, 2023 Sam Carliner, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! Labor Movement, LGBTQ Rights, Solidarity, Starbucks, Unions

At any march for rights there’s no shortage of creative chants. This year in New York City at the annual Queer Liberation March, a new one debuted. Playing on the lyrics to RuPaul’s “Cover Girl,” queer rights activists chanted “Socialists, put that bass in your walk! Unionize, let the whole workplace drop!” This was one of several labor-themed chants from a Left and Labor contingent which formed to amplify a labor movement that increasingly represents the LGBTQ+ community and is organizing for LGBTQ+ rights. Left Voice, an all-volunteer socialist publication, initiated the contingent. Around two dozen unions and politically left organizations joined the initiative, endorsing it, bringing out their members and publicizing the march.

Thousands Strike Over Starbucks Anti-LGBTQ+ Policies

June 28, 2023 Arjae Red, Workers World. Resist! Human Rights, LGBTQ Rights, Starbucks, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In addition to firings, Starbucks has leveraged its own benefits against LGBTQ+ workers. Starbucks has offered various types of coverage for gender-affirming health care procedures, which were then held hostage against workers after the launch of the union campaign. Many LGBTQ+ workers were told that if they voted for the union, they might lose their coverage — the implication being “vote no, or we take it away.” Many of these procedures can be lifesaving, and for Starbucks to hold them over trans workers’ heads is violent and coercive.

Moranda Smith, Food And Tobacco Workers Fight To Expand Democracy

June 24, 2023 Jonathan Kissam, Labor Notes. Organize! Democracy, Labor Unions, LGBTQ Rights, Worker Rights and Jobs

June is Pride Month, which celebrates and commemorates the struggles of LGBTQ+ people for freedom. It is held in June to commemorate the Stonewall Riots, several days of protests that began on June 28, 1969, and launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights. This June also marks the 80th anniversary of a remarkable strike at the giant R.J. Reynolds tobacco plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which established Local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA). One of those strikers, a sharecropper’s daughter named Moranda Smith, would be elected to the national union’s executive committee three and a half years later, making her the first Black woman in the national leadership of a U.S. union.

‘These Bills Will Make Children Less Safe, Not More Safe’

June 14, 2023 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Congress, Kids Online Safety Act, LGBTQ Rights, Media, Tik Tok

Louisiana just banned abortion at six weeks, before many people even know they’re pregnant, while also saying 16-year-old girls are mature enough to marry. Arkansas says there’s no need for employers to check the age of workers they hire. As one state legislator put it, “There’s no reason why anyone should get the government’s permission to get a job.” And Wisconsin says 14-year-olds, sure, can serve alcohol. Iowa says they can shift loads in freezers and meat coolers. Simultaneously and in the same country, we have a raft of legislation saying that young people should not be in charge of what they look at online. Bone saws: cool. TikTok: bad.

Lessons From Transgender Stonewall Icon Miss Major

June 14, 2023 Caitlin Wood, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Book Review, LGBTQ Rights, Stonewall Riot, Transgender Rights

The violent anti-trans political landscape we’re currently experiencing is devastating. Cruelty weaponized by lawmakers, lack of health care access for trans people, fear mongering op-eds in mainstream newspapers and brutal assaults and homicides targeting trans people — especially Black trans women — are just some of the daily hazards of being trans. With the relentless persecution of the trans community and the bleak reality that trans people face staggering amounts of violence, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and despairing. How do activists committed to liberation maintain focus and dedication when threats are everywhere?

This Pride Month, There Is Hope In Fighting Back

June 6, 2023 Ezra Brain, Left Voice. Resist! History, Legislation, LGBTQ, LGBTQ Rights, Pride Month, Structural Violence

This Pride Month comes amid a rising wave of anti-trans policies across the country. Over 500 anti-trans bills have been proposed in the past year, state after state is banning gender affirming care for trans minors, and many are beginning to also severely limit it for trans adults. With the recent presidential announcement of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, it’s clear that these anti-trans politics aren’t going anywhere soon. Right-wingers are harassing and attacking queer people, corporations are abandoning even the most self-serving attempts at inclusion, and the response from the Biden Administration has been limited to paying the most insultingly insufficient lip service.

Drag Performers Resist Anti-Trans Legislation

June 6, 2023 Henry Hicks IV, In These Times. Resist! Drag Queens, Illinois, LGBTQ Rights, Tennessee

More than a thousand Chicagoans of all ages, genders and sexualities packed tightly into the Metro for its sold-out “Chicago Loves Drag!” show on April 14. The balconies overflowed with people dressed in exuberant color, eagerly peering over one another to get a view of the night’s 41 performers. Drag kings and queens made the room their own, claiming the audience’s full attention with lip syncs, comedy acts and dance routines, a radiant variety show highlighting the broad — and liberatory — entertainment that drag offers. Proceeds benefited the work of LGBTQ organizations in Chicago and Tennessee.

More Than 530 Anti-LGBTQ Bills Have Been Proposed Across The Country

June 3, 2023 Chris Walker, Truthout. Educate! Human Rights, LGBTQ Rights, Pride Month, State legislature

Several different legislative trackers have noted that, in the first five months of this year leading up to Pride Month, which began on June 1, hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills have been proposed in statehouses across the country, with dozens of them passing. A tracker managed by Erin Reed, a transgender journalist and activist who provides daily updates on LGBTQ-focused legislation (both negative and positive bills), found that more than 530 anti-LGBTQ bills have been drafted and proposed in state legislatures and in Congress. Of those bills, which were submitted between January 1 and May 31, 68 have been enacted into law, with only 122 officially failing so far.

300 March For LGBTQ Youth At Louisiana Capitol

May 30, 2023 Fight Back News!. Resist! Baton Rouge, Human Rights, LGBTQ Rights, State legislature

Baton Rouge, Louisiana - On May 27, almost 300 people gathered at the Louisiana State Capitol to protest the attacks on LGBTQ rights. The demonstrators then marched to Governor John Bel Edwards’ mansion and listened to several speakers. Protests like this are sweeping the nation as states move to pass anti-LGBTQ legislation. Many of the attendees and speakers were students and young people, who these reactionary bills directly attack. Protesters demanded that Edwards, a Democrat, veto all anti-LBGTQ legislation. They condemned bills such as “Don’t Say Gay” (HB 466), which would ban teachers from discussing gender identity and sexuality.

How El Paso Is Fighting Back Against Book Bans In Texas

May 28, 2023 Christian Betancourt, Next City. Resist! Book ban, Education, El Paso, LGBTQ Rights, Texas

When El Paso teen Alex Reyes read the “Magnus Chase” fantasy trilogy while in the seventh grade, they immediately identified with one of the main characters Alex Fierro. It wasn’t just because of their shared first name, but because of their shared experience as gender fluid teenagers. “It was the first time I had read a book where I saw something that I kind of felt similar to, relate to,” Reyes said. “It’s stuck with me for so long. They have so much more going on, and the sexuality is just a part of it. … It’s not all that I am, but it’s a part of me.” Rick Riordan’s “Magnus Chase” series, like many of the books Reyes reads, is being targeted by Texas legislators and school boards nationwide.

Trans, Queer Activists To Marriott: Keep ‘Moms For Liberty’ Out

May 24, 2023 Betsey Piette, Workers World. Resist! Bigotry, LGBTQ Rights, Moms for Liberty, Philadelphia

Trans- and queer-led groups are protesting the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown for agreeing to host the Moms for Liberty (M4L) national conference scheduled for June 29 to July 2. Members of ACT UP Philadelphia, Galaei Philly, Stop Moms for Liberty and other activists rallied outside the hotel May 12, calling on the Marriott to refuse to host the racist and transphobic group. Organizers are urging people to call the Marriott and demand that it “stop hosting hate.” Galaei, a nonprofit organization serving queer and trans Black, Indigenous and other people of color, suggests people tell the Marriott it will lose business if it does not cancel the M4L summit.

Stop The War On LGBTQ Teachers

April 28, 2023 Peter Certo, OtherWords. Educate! Education, Florida, LGBTQ Rights, State legislature

Messages keep coming in to me from LGBTQ teachers throughout the South who have been fired or threatened with firing. These teachers have years of experience and exemplary records. Many have advanced degrees. LGBTQ teachers are increasingly fearful. The Stonewall National Education Project, which educates teachers about inclusive classroom practices, reports that its annual symposium was sparsely attended due to fear of repercussions. One teacher who did attend wore a mask and asked not to be photographed. This trepidation is not new, but it’s been heightened by the current climate.

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