Isabela Espadas Barros Leal

The National Park Service will allow employees to participate in celebratory parades and events in uniform, a departure from earlier memos to staff membersweeks before the start of LGBTQ Pride Month that effectively banned such uniformed employees from marching in public events. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland clarified the policy for Special Emphasis Programs — which includes programming about the LGBTQ community — in a memo to staff members Friday. She did not directly address Pride Month, which begins Saturday.  “I am directing Bureau leaders or their designated officials to determine how and when bureaus should participate in these externally organized events. This could […]

Schools, colleges and universities were the third most common location for a hate crime to be committed in the United States from  2018 to 2022, new FBI data shows, with more than 4,300 reported offenses, or 7.7% of total offenses over those five years, taking place in an educational setting.  The number of reported hate crime offenses across all categories increased from 8,492 in 2018 to 13,346 in 2022, according to a report released Monday by the FBI. The most common location for a hate crime was in home or residential settings, followed by those occurring on highways, roads and alleys.  […]

The Pentagon is stepping up its efforts to help gay and lesbian veterans who were discharged from the U.S. military under the now-defunct “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy update their records.  New initiatives announced Wednesday, the 12th anniversary of the policy’s 2011 repeal, include a proactive review process of the records of dismissed veterans and the launch of a new webpageaggregating resources for LGBTQ people who served in the armed forces. The Defense Department will independently identify veterans who were discharged from active duty between 1994 and 2011 — when the policy was in effect — because of their sexual orientation […]

“Polysexual,” “amalgagender” and “gay marry” are among the new words and phrases added to Dictionary.com this year, in a revision that also included the removal of gendered pronouns from hundreds of definitions, the company announced Wednesday.  The online dictionary added 566 new words, many of which relate to identity and relationships, pop culture and artificial intelligence. Several new words describing identity and relationships involve the LGBTQ community.   “Gender and identity have been particularly dynamic, and productive areas of language change in the past 15 years or so,” John Kelly, vice president of editorial at Dictionary.com, told NBC News. “Whether it be socially […]