Category: GLBT News

By John Mack Freeman Earlier this week, 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn left her suburban Cincinnati home and committed suicide. A few hours later, her Tumblr account automatically posted her suicide note. In the note, Alcorn discusses coming out to her mother, having her concerns ignored, being shoved into religious-based counseling, and a spiral of depression that […]

By John Mack Freeman Sometimes, a court battle can take forever, but a win is nonetheless gratifying. In 2004, two Rhode Island firefighters, Theodore Fabrizio and Stephen Dennino, drove a firetruck in the Providence Pride Parade as part of their official duties working for the Providence Fire Department. The two sued the department, stating that […]

By John Mack Freeman The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has denied a request from gay businessman Scott Sietz’s Dotgay LLC to manage the newly approved .gay top-level domain. While Sietz had said that he would use the domain to maintain the community-focused nature of the .gay domain, ICANN’s scoring felt that […]

By John Mack Freeman One of the major stories this week is that same sex marriage will officially get underway in Florida this week due to a ruling that invalidated the state’s ban on same sex marriage. However, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi had appealed the ruling to the US Supreme Court asking for a […]

By John Mack Freeman During the 2012 Pride parade in Austin, Texas Lambert Borgardt attacked  Andrew Oppleman and Nick Soret. Oppelman lost five teeth and Soret’s nose was fractured. Last week, Lambert Borgardt was found guilty of two counts of aggravated assault and was sentenced to 10 years probation and 200 hours of community service. The grand […]

Via press release RICHMOND, Va. – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Virginia filed an administrative complaint with the Department of Justice and Department of Education against Gloucester County Public Schools (GCPS) for adopting a bathroom policy that segregates transgender students from using the same restrooms and locker rooms as their peers. […]

By John Mack Freeman On December 18th, Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice now recognizes that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bans discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Via a Department of Justice release: Attorney General Holder informed all Department of Justice component heads and United States Attorneys in a […]

By John Mack Freeman The Salt Lake City Tribune has named the plaintiffs in the Utah court case that struck down that state’s same sex marriage ban as the “Utahns of the Year.” From the Tribune: While Utahns were stunned — many happily so, others the polar opposite — there were six people, three couples, who perhaps […]

By John Mack Freeman A Chinese court has ruled that homosexuals do not need to be “cured.” Further, it has ordered that a clinic that attempted to cure Yang Teng of his homosexuality via hypnotherapy and electroshock must pay restitution to the victim. This is another sign of progress in China, a country that has […]

By John Mack Freeman (thanks to Ann Symons for the tip!) Check out this video on the New York Times website about Mariela Castro and her views and work on LGBT rights: The full article about Cuba’s evolving fight on LGBT rights can be found here, and it is well worth the read.