Janelle Griffith

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Michigan Student with Lesbian Parents Stopped by Teacher from Writing about Gay Marriage

A Michigan high school teacher would not allow a student with two mothers to write about same-sex marriage for a class assignment. Destiney McDermitt, 16, a junior at Hill McCloy High School in Montrose, about 70 miles northwest of Detroit, was instructed by an English teacher on Feb. 7 to pick a topic she felt strongly about and argue either for or against it as part of an assignment titled “Taking a Stand,” she and her mother Angela McDermitt-Jackson told NBC News on Tuesday. McDermitt-Jackson said the teacher told her daughter that she could not write about same-sex marriage because […]

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She Was Taunted by Co-workers as a ‘Man in a Dress,’ Trans Woman Claims in Suit against Circle K

An African American transgender woman in the Chicago area is suing national convenience store chain Circle K, alleging she was fired from one of its stores and retaliated against after reporting co-workers’ use of racial and transphobic slurs against her. Judi Brown claims in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that a manager and other Circle K employees at the store in Bolingbrook, Illinois, harassed her based on her race and being transgender. Brown, 26, said she was fired after she complained about the alleged discrimination. “The discrimination and harassment were traumatizing […]

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Ohio Lawmaker Blames Mass Shootings on Open Borders, Homosexuality

After mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that together killed at least 30 people over the weekend, a lawmaker in Ohio blamed the massacres on “homosexual marriage,” “drag queen advocates” and “snowflakes, who can’t accept a duly-elected President,” among other things. Candice Keller is a Republican state representative from Middletown, a small city 30 miles south of Dayton, where a gunman killed at least nine people and wounded 27 others early Sunday. In a now-deleted Facebook post, she wrote: “After every mass shooting, the liberals start the blame game. Why not place the blame where it belongs?” The post listed reasons […]

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Gay Guidance Counselor Sues Indianapolis Archdiocese after being Fired

A gay guidance counselor is suing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis for discrimination, alleging it fired her from a job at a high school because she’s in a same-sex marriage. Lynn Starkey, one of two gay guidance counselors who have accused the archdiocese of discrimination, names the church and Roncalli High School — the Catholic school where she worked for nearly 40 years until she was fired in May — in the lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Starkey alleges that the archdiocese and school discriminated against her on the basis of […]

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‘We Are Concerned’: Dallas Police Chief Says of Second Transgender Woman’s Death in a Month

The body of a black transgender woman pulled from White Rock Lake in northeast Dallas on Saturday evening “showed obvious signs of homicidal violence,” the Dallas police chief said. The victim, identified as Chynal Lindsey, 26, is the second black transgender woman to be found dead in Dallas in less than a month. “We are concerned,” Dallas Police Chief U. Reneé Hall told reporters at a news conference Monday. “We are actively and aggressively investigating this case and we have reached out to our federal partners to assist us in these efforts.” Police released photos of Lindsey, who was also known […]