Perspectives

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Key Rights at Stake in US Supreme Court Pick

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18, 2020 leaves a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court and enormous uncertainty over the court’s future role in the protection of fundamental human rights. A nominee for Justice Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court should be evaluated in terms of their likely impact on access to justice for critical human rights guarantees, including the rights to life, due process, free expression, privacy, health, freedom from arbitrary detention, and freedom from discrimination. The following areas of Supreme Court decision-making–voting rights, the right to health, the right to reproductive freedom, and […]

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Federal Funding Threatened over Transgender Athlete Policy

The U.S. Department of Education is threatening to withhold some federal funding from Connecticut school districts if they follow a state policy that allows transgender girls to compete as girls in high school sports. In response to a complaint filed last year by several cisgender female track athletes who argued that two transgender female runners had an unfair physical advantage, the federal agency’s office for civil rights determined in May that Connecticut’s policy violates the civil rights of athletes who are not transgender. School districts including New Haven, as well as the Capitol Region Education Council, were asked around the […]

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LGBTQ: The Letters Republicans Didn’t Utter

Call it the convention that dared not speak our name. LGBTQ people earned not a single mention during Republicans’ pageant in red, through four nights of televised speeches last month.  This refusal to acknowledge the existence of more than 15 million LGBTQ people, 5 percent of the populace and residents of every ZIP code in America, shows a paralyzing hypocrisy. The Republican Party depends on anti-gay intolerance to rev up its base at election time but has to feign tolerance when the broader public is watching, knowing bigotry turns off a key slice of getable voters.  The GOP platform, held […]

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Tokyo Highlights LGBTQ Rights before Olympics with Pride House

Tokyo will open Pride House, Japan’s first permanent such center, next month to raise awareness of LGBTQ rights before and during the rearranged Olympic Games in 2021. Although there have been similar initiatives before previous Games, organizers said Pride House Tokyo, which will open its doors on International Coming Out Day on October 11, is the first to get official International Olympic Committee backing. “Pride House Tokyo aims to educate the world and also Japan of the difficulties the LGBTQ community has playing and enjoying sports … while helping create a safe space for the community too,” Pride House Tokyo […]

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Anti-gay Abuse, Racism in Soccer Doubles in the Space of a Year

There has been a huge spike in homophobic and racist abuse in football over the last year, according to new figures figures released Thursday (September 3). Kick It Out, an organisation that monitors discrimination in football, found that there was a significant rise in discriminatory abuse at both football matches and in discussions about football online. There was a 42 per cent increase in reports of discrimination in professional football, up from 313 last year to 446 in the 2019/20 football season. Alarmingly, there were 117 reports of discrimination based on sexual orientation, almost double the 60 incidents recorded last year (up 95 per cent). […]

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RNC Prove to be Racists, Anti-LGBTQ and Sleazy Charlatans

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While 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton deemed Donald Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables” during the campaign, the list of Republican National Convention speakers this week may be taking the term to a whole new level. Trump’s reelection convention will feature an extensive lineup of racists, anti-LGBTQ activists, and con men. And that doesn’t count Trump himself. Related: Budweiser trolls Donald Trump and the deplorables in new Super Bowl ad Anti-LGBTQ activist Franklin Graham will speak. He recently made news when the field hospital he operated during the height of New York’s COVID crisis refused to accept any volunteers who wouldn’t […]

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Queer Communities Need COVID Relief Now

For those of us in the communities hardest hit, in the industries hardest hit, in the states hardest hit by COVID-19, relief cannot come fast enough.   I live in the Rio Grande Valley, an area in South Texas that has been hit the hardest in the country by the COVID-19 virus. In the state, there is a record of more than 100,000 new cases per day, up 55% in July alone. Now, people in our region are dealing with recovering from a tropical storm.  This pandemic caused me to lose my job. I am a queer- and trans-inclusive sex educator and have spent years […]

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Gay Republicans a Disgrace to an Otherwise United Community

How to explain the unlikely, perverse phenomenon of a gay Republican in 2020?  Delusion? Denial? Blinded by privilege? Daddy issues rendering them subservient to Master Trump?  Whatever the underlying issue, it’s truly sad to watch the once respected Log Cabin Republicans sink into further irrelevance. From Rich Tafel and Patrick Guerriero to R. Clarke Cooper and Patrick Sammon, Log Cabin has been led over the years by smart, committed advocates working to change the Republican Party from within. Whatever your views on the GOP, it’s important to fight from the inside, whether it’s inside political parties, organized religions, or sports […]

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Reds Broadcaster Thom Brennaman Suspended over Anti-gay Slur on Hot Mic

A longtime broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds was suspended Wednesday after using an anti-gay slur on a hot mic during a game against the Kansas City Royals. Thom Brennaman, a broadcaster and play-by-play announcer for Fox Sports Ohio, used the slur while preparing to introduce the team’s pregame show. During the fifth inning, Brennaman apologized for the comment and said he was “deeply ashamed of it.” “If I have hurt anyone out there I can’t tell you how much I say from the bottom of my heart I am so very, very sorry,” he said. Brennaman also acknowledged the uncertain fate of […]

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‘Silence = Death, VOTE’

Deep in a Smithsonian vault rests an iconic election poster from the 1980s stored in an archival drawer. It reads: “Silence = Death, VOTE.” It can still shock with its imagery and blunt words. “Your vote is a weapon….we are at war,” the poster states in an historic political call to action for LGBTQ Americans to engage in the most important election of their lives in the midst of a raging epidemic. It was an election as primally important then as the one all Americans face, today.  Despite President Trump’s suggestion that it be postponed, we are have that election, […]

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