Posts Tagged Queer Issues

Housing Department introduces new LGBT protections

On Saturday, at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s 24th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a new HUD policy to fight discrimination against LGBT people in federally supported housing programs.

Under the new guidelines, any program that receives funding or insurance through HUD will be prohibited from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. This includes Section 8 housing, emergency shelters, and other social services, as well as mortgage lending through the Federal Housing Administration. Importantly, all of these programs will now be required to recognize same-sex and otherwise LGBT families — regardless of their marital status or the adoption status of their children — to ensure they ...

On Saturday, at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s 24th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a new HUD policy to fight discrimination against LGBT people ...

Anti-gay teachers and the limits of the First Amendment

In Union, New Jersey a teacher Viki Knox, disgusted with her school’s involvement in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender History Month took to her Facebook page to say the following:

Homosexuality is a perverted spirit that has existed from the beginning of creation. The word of God refers to it often. That’s if you believe the Word to be truly God’s intended blueprint for his people. I have friends and loved ones who are practicing/living as homosexuals. Yes I love can care about them. We hug and exchange gifts. We have family dinners. But how they live and their actions, behaviors -CHOICES are against the nature and character of God! Do I tell me so? Yes, of course. ...

In Union, New Jersey a teacher Viki Knox, disgusted with her school’s involvement in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender History Month took to her Facebook page to say the following:

Homosexuality is a perverted spirit that ...

The official end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

At 12:01 am this morning, the horrible policy that was Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ended. The U.S. Department of Defense will formally repeal the inequitable policy that has been law since 1993. The repeal which was voted on by Congress during the lame duck session will now officially take effect.

Approximately 14,000 gay service members have been discharged under the policy including those who never “told” any colleagues about their sexual orientation. Our brave men and women would live in fear of being outed under the policy with email hacking being a common occurrence to find out information about a soldier’s personal life.

The repeal isn’t a one size fits all solution. As we’ve discussed ...

At 12:01 am this morning, the horrible policy that was Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ended. The U.S. Department of Defense will formally repeal the inequitable policy that has been law since 1993. ...

The Feministing Five: Justin Vivian Bond

Justin Vivian Bond is a cabaret artist and author who has performed all over the world. Bond’s new album is called “Dendrophile,” and v is currently on tour performing songs from it on the East Coast. Bond’s first book, Tango, which will be published later this year through the Feminist Press, chronicles the experience of growing up queer in suburban America in the 1970s.

In the short memoir, Bond, who is trans and uses the prefix “Mx” (pronounced “mix”),writes about the sexual relationship Bond had with a neighbor, a boy v hated but was attracted to all the same. The story begins with the news that the boy, now a man, has been arrested under the code name “Tango” ...

Justin Vivian Bond is a cabaret artist and author who has performed all over the world. Bond’s new album is called “Dendrophile,” and v is currently on tour performing songs from it on the East Coast. ...

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme

Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme is a new anthology edited by Ivan E. Coyote (who you might know from this great femme appreciation piece) and Zena Sharman that explores butch and femme identities from a variety of viewpoints. The book is dominated by lesbian writers talking about the butch-femme dynamic in their own communities, but there are also a number of pieces exploring deliberate performance of masculinity and femininity by folks with a range of identities and experiences.

A number of essays stood out to me for offering new, exciting perspectives. Feministing’s own Miriam Zoila Pérez deftly combines personal experience with gender theory (I might be biased). B. Cole’s essay about people of color who don’t see themselves ...

Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme is a new anthology edited by Ivan E. Coyote (who you might know from this great femme appreciation piece) and Zena Sharman that explores butch and femme identities from ...

Tennessee Senate passes “Don’t Say Gay” Bill

Not an Onion headline, people.

Via Unicorn Booty, we find that a proposed bill that would make it illegal to use the word “gay” or “homosexuality” or discuss topics about being gay in Tennessee schools passed the Senate yesterday. Via Think Progress:

The bill would prohibit teachers from discussing of any sexuality except heterosexuality in grades K-8,” even with students who may be gay or have gay family,” according to Ben Byers of the Tennessee Equality Council (TEP). The committee amended the bill to require the Board of Education to study whether homosexuality is actually being taught in schools, but it will still institute a ban in February of next year. ...

Not an Onion headline, people.

Via Unicorn Booty, we find that a proposed bill that would make it illegal to use the word “gay” or “homosexuality” or discuss topics about being gay in ...

On violence, hate and gender non-conformity

*Trigger warning*

The first time I was the target of anti-transgender violence I didn’t know I was transgender.

I heard the three guys coming up behind me, talking, even laughing a little. I know they chose me specifically to jump, and I know it was about how I was perceived. My clothes, the way I walked, even the shape of my body at the time, in the throes of an eating disorder, expressed a failure to fit into my prescribed gender box. If asked I imagine the three guys would have said I was a fag, but what they were seeing had nothing in actuality to do with who I was or wasn’t fucking and everything to do with my gender performance.

Anti-queer ...

*Trigger warning*

The first time I was the target of anti-transgender violence I didn’t know I was transgender.

I heard the three guys coming up behind me, talking, even laughing a little. I know they chose me specifically to ...

What We Missed


More Weiner, Less Boehner.

The Amazingly Queer Race for Economic Justice is as amazing as it sounds.

On the Community site, an extremely moving (albeit upsetting) story told by an incredibly brave young person about his recent experience as the subject of a hate crime.

Dillard’s department store is holding a fundraiser for the media company that is responsible for creating the racist anti-choice billboards across the country — sign the petition to get them to cancel the event.

Registration is open for Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richard’s Feminist Summer Camp!

A lot of readers have been asking me lately about the role feminism can play in environmental justice — ...


More Weiner, Less Boehner.

The Amazingly Queer Race for Economic Justice is as amazing as it sounds.

On the Community site, an extremely moving (albeit upsetting) story told by ...

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