Official News Outlet for the Rainbow Round Table of the American Library Association
By Ilyse Kramer On Monday, October 6, The Supreme Court refused to consider the appeals attempting to ban same-sex marriage in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. This decision left same-sex marriage legal in these five states. On Tuesday, October 7,a three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco voted unanimously to […]
By John Mack Freeman The Williams Institute at UCLA released a new report in September 2014 entitled “Best Practices for Asking Questions to Identify Transgender and Other Gender Minority Respondents on Population-Based Surveys.” This resource has been added to our Resources page. Read the full report here.
By John Mack Freeman Here are some headlines from around the LGBT world this week: US government sues employers for illegal sacking of trans employees (PinkNews) UN Human Rights Council votes for LGBT Rights (Bilerico) Serbia: Authorities allow first Pride march since 2010 (PinkNews) New law gives trans Californians respect after death (Advocate.com) Azerbaijan: Local […]
By John Mack Freeman Willow Canyon High School in Arizona has said that they will not count ballots that listed two girls as nominees for that schools Homecoming couple. They are saying that the Homecoming couple has traditionally been one male and one female, and that joint nominations have never been accepted. All ballots that […]
By John Mack Freeman Louisiana State University will join an expanding list of academic institutions offering programs in LGBT studies with a new 18-hour LGBT minor that will premier this fall. Associate professor Elaine Maccio designed the program. Via The Advocate: Classes for the LGBT minor include Introduction to LGBTQ Studies, Social Work With Lesbian, […]
By John Mack Freeman In a turn of events this week, Facebook has abandoned a policy that blocked users from using names other than their own as the primary name on their Facebook profiles. Over the last few weeks, numerous drag performers had been forced to change their name from their drag persona to their […]
Via John Mack Freeman (Thanks to Nel Ward for the tip!) Two new studies have been released from the Center for American Progress that focus on identifying the specific needs of the LGBT community. From their press release: The needs and characteristics of LGBT populations are less understood in part because government surveys do not […]
By John Mack Freeman The International Queer Culture Festival that was being held in St. Petersburg this week was attacked by a gang of homphobic thugs. The event was attended by over 160 people. After dealing with a last minute venue change, the new location was raided by attackers. Via PinkNews: Organiser Polina Andrianova told […]
By John Mack Freeman A report by the Williams Institute of the University of California has found that lifting the blanket ban on gay men giving blood could save over a million lives a year. The ban was introduced during the worst years of the AIDS crisis to stop any potential contamination of the blood […]
By John Mack Freeman In the past, the United States Census has always counted same sex couples marriages as “unmarried partners” for statistical purposes. However, starting with this year’s American Community Survey, legally married same sex couples will be counted as “families.” While the Census has been tracking same sex households since 1990, this change […]