More than 100 LGBTQ or LGBTQ supportive organizations on March 11 released a joint open letter to health care providers and media outlets urging them to be aware that LGBTQ people may be at greater risk for the Coronavirus than the general public. D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health is part of a coalition of six organizations that(…)
U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) on Jan. 28 introduced a bill calling for strengthening the enforcement of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 by clarifying the law’s language related to the motive of people charged with a hate crime. The newly introduced bill, the(…)
Organizers of the Gay Games, the quadrennial international LGBT sports event, announced in a statement released Monday night that they remain committed to holding the 2022 Gay Games in Hong Kong despite ongoing pro-democracy protest demonstrations that have rocked the city since June and have become increasingly violent. The joint statement by the Federation of(…)
The Atlanta-based Names Project Foundation, which has served as the custodian of the massive AIDS Memorial Quilt since 1987, is turning over that task to the San Francisco-based National AIDS Memorial, officials with both organizations announced at a Washington ceremony on Wednesday. The officials, who were joined by U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi,(…)
The National Institutes of Health announced on Oct. 23 it is launching a $100 million initiative over the next four years to fund research to develop gene-based cures for HIV and sickle cell disease. The NIH announcement says the initiative will work in collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which will also invest(…)
Organizers and observers said between 1,500 and 3,000 people turned out on Saturday for the first ever National Transgender Visibility March on Washington in which scores of participants held signs proudly declaring their status as transgender or gender nonconforming Americans. The march kicked off at 11:35 a.m. on Sept. 28 from Freedom Plaza in downtown(…)
Rev. Elder Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Churches, the first Christian denomination with a primary ministry to the LGBT community, is donating a collection of artifacts from the church’s 51-year history to the Smithsonian Institution. An announcement released by the church says Perry and other church officials will present a 12-item collection of(…)
The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association announced it will induct LGBT rights movement pioneer and journalist Lilli Vincenz of Arlington, Va., into its LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame. “Vincenz is a path-breaking journalist and pioneer of the gay right movement beginning in the early 1960s,” NLGJA said in an Aug. 14 statement announcing Vincenz(…)
Kyle Murphy, the communications director for the national AIDS advocacy group AIDS United, released to a listserv of AIDS activists a letter informing AIDS United’s president and CEO and other officials and staff members that he was resigning from his job because the group accepts large sums of money from pharmaceutical companies. Murphy states in(…)
D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At-Large) and lesbian rights advocates Kate Kendall of San Francisco and Nadine Smith of Florida expressed support for the nationwide effort to decriminalize sex work among consenting adults at the 10th annual Sexual Freedom Summit held Aug. 15-18 at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center Hotel in Alexandria, Va. Organizers said(…)