News

/ /

Anti-gay hate crimes fell slightly in 2020, while anti-trans crimes rose, FBI says

Hate crimes based on sexual orientation dipped slightly last year, but crimes based on bias against trans and gender-nonconforming people continued to increase, new FBI data suggest.  The Uniform Crime Reporting Program’s Hate Crime Statistics 2020 report found that 7,759 hate crime incidents were reported last year, up by 6 percent from 7,314 incidents in 2019.  Although reports of hate crime incidents based on anti-LGBTQ bias were down overall, from 1,393 in 2019 to 1,287 in 2020, reports of incidents motivated by gender-identity bias jumped by nearly 20 percent for the second year in a row.  Law enforcement agencies reported 1,051 hate crime […]

/ /

‘A virtual death sentence’: Gay Afghans brace for uncertain future under Taliban

N, a 20-year-old student living in Afghanistan, is in hiding as she hopes for news that she and her family can leave the country. As a lesbian, she believes she will be targeted by the Taliban government.  “They will kill us without sympathy,” she said, requesting that her full name and exact location not be published to protect her safety.   Faraz, who asked to be identified by only one name, is a 25-year-old gay man who said he fears for himself and his three sons. He fears he and his family will be kidnapped and killed if they remain in […]

/ /

Half of LGBTQ people behind on rent fear eviction in next two months, report says

Some LGBTQ renters report not being caught up on rent and fear losing their homes in the next few months, according to a new report published just after the the Supreme Court struck down an extended eviction moratorium last week. Nearly one-fifth (19 percent) of LGBTQ renters report not being caught up on rent, compared to 14 percent of non-LGBTQ renters, according to the report by the Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law.  Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer renters who are behind on rent are slightly more likely than non-LGBTQ renters who are behind on payments to […]

/ /

Va. school district to pay $1.3 million in legal fees to resolve Gavin Grimm case

A Virginia school district will pay more than $1.3 million in legal fees to resolve the case of Gavin Grimm, former high school student who challenged its bathroom policy. The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday announced in a press release the Gloucester County School Board in a court filing said it would not challenge Grimm’s request to pay the fees and other costs associated with his case. Grimm was a sophomore at Gloucester County High School in 2015 when he filed a federal lawsuit against the Gloucester County School District’s policy that prohibited students from using bathrooms and locker […]

/ /

‘We live in fear’: Over 6,000 migrants in Mexico have been violently attacked

,

Yorje Pérez Moreno traveled thousands of miles from Venezuela to reach Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, leaving his family, friends and studies, as he fled the violence of state security forces who allegedly persecuted him for participating in anti-government protests. “My dream was to finish college, but they wouldn’t let me. They beat me, chased me and threatened to imprison me, that’s why I had to leave,” Pérez Moreno, 23, said.  He said that in early August, when he was finally a few miles from the U.S. border, he took a taxi with a friend who accompanied him to request asylum at the […]

/ /

Moscow man abducted to Chechnya and interrogated about LGBT+ activists

,

A Moscow man was abducted and taken to Chechnya where he was interrogated for information on LGBT+ activists, the Russian LGBT Network reports. On Wednesday (25 August), the group said that a Dagestan native named Ibragim Selimkhanov was approached by four Chechen-speaking men near a subway station in the city’s Novogireyevo District on 15 May. The men, who were wearing civilian clothes, forced him into a car and took his passport, phone and apartment keys. He was driven to the airport and ordered onto a plane which took him to the Chechen capital of Grozny. On arrival he was handed […]

/ /

LGBTQ Americans taking bigger economic hit amid pandemic, census data finds

As the nation battles new variants of the Covid-19 virus, LGBTQ Americans have felt the economic brunt of the pandemic harder than the general public, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. Released Wednesday, the latest version of the agency’s Household Pulse Survey is the first to include gender identity and sexual orientation.  It found 19.8 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults lived in a household where there was a loss of income in the past month, compared to 16.8 percent of non-LGBTQ adults.  Economic disparities between LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people existed long before the pandemic, says […]

/ /

Harris meets with LGBTQ activists in Vietnam

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday met with two LGBTQ rights activists in Vietnam. Harris’ office said Chu Thanh Hà Ngoc, a transgender activist, and Đoàn Thanh Tùng, an LGBTQ advocate, participated in a “roundtable discussion with the vice president and Vietnamese social advocacy organizations” that took place at the U.S. Chief of Mission’s home in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital. “It is critical that if we are to take on the challenges we face that we do it in a way that is collaborative, that we must empower leaders in every sector, including of course government but community leaders, business […]

/ /

Biden administration sends trans students a back-to-school message

As young people across America prepare to return to class — some in person, some remotely — the Biden administration issued a message for transgender students. In a joint video Thursday, Suzanne Goldberg, the acting assistant secretary of education for civil rights; Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke; and Dr. Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health and human services for health, outlined the federal government’s support for transgender students even as their community is under siege on the state level, where more than 130 anti-trans bills in 36 states have been introduced this year alone, according to the Human Rights Campaign.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/UjuZokP […]

/

New Leadership at The Spahr LGBTQI Center in Marin

Dana Van Gorder joined the agency as its Interim Executive Director in February of 2019. In June of the same year, the Board of Directors appointed him our permanent Executive Director. On December 31 of 2021, after 2 years and 10 months of strong stewardship of the agency, Dana will retire at 65 years of age. Under Dana’s leadership, The Spahr Center has grown its HIV, LGBTQ+ youth and senior and advocacy programs; doubled its annual budget; increased its visibility and community support; strengthened its relationship with public policy makers; and created a visionary Strategic Plan to guide its work for […]

«‹ 293 294 295 296›»