The Movement: March 2010
Happy Transgender Day Of Visibility
Filed by Monica Roberts | March 31, 2010 6:00 PM |Today is the first celebration of what founder Rachel Crandall hopes will be an annual event, the International Transgender Day of Visibility. One of the problems I've long complained about that has had serious repercussion with trans people's levels of...Read More
Fundamentals: Privilege
Filed by Antonia D'orsay | March 31, 2010 10:30 AM |This is the second in the fundamentals series of articles I'm writing. In this one, I'm going to look at something that people have a very hard time with. It is something that everyone has to at least some degree...Read More
Ricky Martin's Coming Out. "Congratulations!" Or, "What Took So Long?"
Filed by David Badash | March 30, 2010 7:00 PM |Yesterday on my own blog, I wrote, "Ricky Martin Comes Out: 'I Am Homosexual.' In Other News, The Earth Is Round." The title itself got a lot of guffaws on Twitter and Facebook. But at the end of the piece...Read More
Join The Club, Lt. Choi
Filed by Monica Roberts | March 30, 2010 6:00 PM |DADT repeal activist and founder of the West Point GLBT group Knights Out Lt . Dan Choi was recently quoted in a Newsweek interview as saying he felt "so betrayed" by HRC. I have great respect for her (Kathy Griffin)...Read More
Fundamentals: Stigma
Filed by Antonia D'orsay | March 30, 2010 2:00 PM |Fundamentals, in this case, are critical things to know in our movement. The are what give us the ability to counter some of our opponents' arguments, and they enable us to understand a great deal more about the things we...Read More
WWII era Anti-VD Propaganda
Filed by Gloria Brame, Ph.D. | March 27, 2010 4:00 PM |Collected a wide-range of anti-VD images for another project, many of them from the WPA's poster projects, and readily available on the Net. (If you'd like to see some, let me know and I'll pick a couple to share.) These...Read More
Against Equality Launches Book Project!
Filed by Yasmin Nair | March 26, 2010 2:00 PM |As some of you know, Ryan Conrad and I are part of the editorial collective of Against Equality, a web-based archive of material that interrogates the mainstream gay movement and explores queer possibilities for a radical new future. While the...Read More
Queer Superheroes En Route to the Pacific Northwest
Filed by Jessica Hoffmann | March 26, 2010 11:00 AM |On the heels of meeting Bil and Jerame in person yesterday in LA, I'm about to meet up with a bunch of queer/feminist/otherwise rad artists and activists for some shows in Portland, Olympia, and Seattle. We'll be offering live performances...Read More
You Say You Want a Revolution?
Filed by Rebecca Juro | March 25, 2010 7:00 PM |Looks like the movement for LGBT equality is finally getting interesting again. Last Thursday, we saw two gay soldiers chain themselves to the White House fence to protest DADT, dual sit-ins staged at both the DC and San Francisco offices...Read More
Marching for America and Equality
Filed by Guest Blogger | March 25, 2010 3:00 PM |Editors' note: Ben De Guzman is the co- director of The National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance. On March 21 thousands of people converged on Washington, DC to March for America bringing diverse perspectives, and divergent viewpoints about comprehensive immigration...Read More
DADT enforcement changes announced
Filed by Alex Blaze | March 25, 2010 2:00 PM |Sec. of Defense Robert Gates announced a few changes in DADT enforcement that would make discharging someone from the military for being LGB harder. While some LGBT bloggers are scoffing at the changes, any attempt to reduce the number of...Read More
Surprise! Poll Shows Different Strategies Needed to Win LGBT Equality
Filed by Waymon Hudson | March 24, 2010 6:00 PM |The strategy debate in our movement is one of the most heated you can have. Mention an idea of how to move our goals forward (or try to set a goal) and you'll get push-back from every side. From backroom...Read More
On Email Gay Bashing, Or, ENDA's Already Getting Ugly
Filed by Don Davis | March 24, 2010 3:00 PM |It wasn't but a couple of days ago that we had a conversation about The Fear and the emails that are used to spread it, and I figured we had dealt with the topic, and that we'd move on to...Read More
Same-sex couples and the Census: Are they asking how we think of our relationships?
Filed by Nancy Polikoff | March 23, 2010 7:30 PM |If thinking of yourself as married to your partner turned you into husband and husband or wife and wife, then we wouldn't need a marriage equality movement, right? So imagine my puzzlement to find gay organizations instructing us to fill...Read More
Can We Keep Our Gay Eyes on the Prize?
Filed by Michael Crawford | March 23, 2010 11:30 AM |To those claiming that nothing but a "storm the barricades" approach to LGBT activism will work, take note of these actions generated by Organizing for America in just the last ten days of the push for health care reform: Made...Read More
Does the Democratic party hate us?
Filed by Joe Mirabella | March 20, 2010 2:00 PM |Lost in the shuffle during Thursday's courageous acts by GetEqual members, was this update on the Health Care bill gagging itself through Congress: Today, the House Rules Committee released the reconciliation bill through which it will vote on the measure...Read More
Rock for Equality: Social Security discrimination
Filed by Guest Blogger | March 20, 2010 12:00 PM |Editors' Note: Guest blogger Tanner Effinger is a new activist from in the wake of Proposition 8 in California. He founded the Postcards to the President Campaign, was on the Executive Committee for the National Equality March, is on the...Read More
The birth of a movement: LGBTQ rights become civil rights
Filed by Phil Reese | March 20, 2010 10:00 AM |Thursday was a crazy day for me. I woke up late. I had a ton of homework to finish. I had a coming out panel. I had a work meeting and my regular work hours. I hadn't scheduled in a...Read More
A New Queer Order?
Filed by Michael Crawford | March 19, 2010 10:30 AM |With yesterday's explosion of activist energy, the LGBT movement may finally be shaking off its slumber and upping its game to win full LGBT equality. People in the community are mad as gay hell and not going to take it...Read More
Sit-in in SF for ENDA; Dan Choi arrested protesting DADT
Filed by Alex Blaze | March 18, 2010 5:00 PM |This is breaking - GetEqual (Kip Williams who helped organize the National Equality March) is staging a sit-in in Nancy Pelosi's office to get the ENDA moving forward. This is part of the big blog swarm that Jillian Weiss set...Read More
Out, Proud & in Elected Office One Year Later: What a Difference an Activist in Office Makes
Filed by Waymon Hudson | March 17, 2010 1:00 PM |Bilerico Contributor, Out Elected official, and my husband Anthony Niedwiecki gets sworn in as Vice-Mayor Of Oakland Park, FL this evening. He was elected in a landslide victory last year, all the while running as an out and proud LGBT...Read More
LGBT New Yorkers Fight Back and Win
Filed by Michael Crawford | March 17, 2010 10:30 AM |In what should become a model for how LGBT activists deal with elected officials who vote against equal rights, Fight Back New York's campaign to defeat former State Senator Hiram Monserratte paid off big. Monserratte was defeated easily by Jose...Read More
Making Trouble: Final Questions
Filed by Antonia D'orsay | March 17, 2010 9:30 AM |Over a series of columns that have upset people on multiple levels, I've been asking questions. They are questions intended to create thought, to make people think in ways outside their norms. They are questions that I am asking because...Read More
Meet Will Phillips, new spokesman for Get Equal
Filed by Joe Mirabella | March 16, 2010 9:30 AM |Will Philips won a GLAAD Media award for taking a stand by sitting down. He refused to say the pledge of allegiance at his school, until all Americans are treated equally under the law. He was featured in this award...Read More
Making Trouble: Trust, part one
Filed by Antonia D'orsay | March 15, 2010 12:00 PM |This is part of the Making Trouble series, although it takes a different tack as I get ready to end it this week. This time, I talk about differences between now and several months ago. Trust. It's been just shy...Read More
In the Stupak pits
Filed by Kate Clinton | March 14, 2010 12:00 PM |The Oscars made me sick. Not because my George Clooney did not win and attended with that faux galpal arm-candy instead of me. Not because Kathryn Bigelow the first woman to win best director was so ditzily girly in such...Read More
Housing anti-discrimination bill introduced in House
Filed by Alex Blaze | March 12, 2010 11:30 AM |Good news is that this is being introduced. Let's see if, unlike ENDA, DADT repeal, and the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, this one actually gets a vote in the House: Two House Democrats are backing a bill that...Read More
The most important issues, as I see it
Filed by Antonia D'orsay | March 11, 2010 3:00 PM |Normally I get up on my little national biscuit company antique store box with the cracked 130 year old glass pane that once rested in Ouray, Colordao. And from that point I talk about meta concepts in the whole of...Read More
Homophobic Smears Continue in Gainesville, FL Mayor's Race
Filed by Waymon Hudson | March 10, 2010 3:00 PM |A few weeks ago, I covered the transphobic and homophobic scare tactics being used in the Gainesville, Florida Mayor's race. Craig Lowe was Chair of the successful campaign to stop the repeal of the Gainesville Human Rights Ordinance, which included...Read More
Following DC: What the Freedom to Marry in Our Capital Means Nationwide
Filed by Guest Blogger | March 09, 2010 9:30 AM |Editors' note: Evan Wolfson is founder and Executive Director of Freedom to Marry. In 2004 TIME magazine named Evan one of the "100 most influential people in the world." Today, surrounded by friends and family, the first same-sex couples in...Read More
The "Trans Mafia" stifles allies
Filed by Austen Crowder | March 08, 2010 4:00 PM |Bil made an excellent comment regarding trans allies on one of Antonia's recent posts. I want to repost it it here because I think its an important sentiment in the LGBT community: Even in a previous post from this week...Read More
Spill-Over Love: Building a Just and Multi-Racial LGBT Movement
Filed by Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz | March 05, 2010 9:30 AM |Are we building a movement that is about JUST US or JUSTICE? Thank you, Mandy Carter, for asking us this important question. For the past forty years, she has challenged us to intentionally commit to justice while doing the hard...Read More
Spill-Over Love: Building a Just and Multi-Racial LGBT Movement
Filed by Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz | March 05, 2010 9:30 AM |Are we building a movement that is about JUST US or JUSTICE? Thank you, Mandy Carter, for asking us this important question. For the past forty years, she has challenged us to intentionally commit to justice while doing the hard...Read More
Making Trouble: Follow Ups - 2
Filed by Antonia D'orsay | March 04, 2010 3:00 PM |And even more trouble! I'm learning a lot though. In two earlier columns, I asked 10 simple questions. I laid down some basic rules, and while some folks chose not to follow those basic rules, I got some answers, and...Read More
Virtual Lobby Day: Tell Congress to Repeal DADT NOW
Filed by Michael Crawford | March 04, 2010 10:00 AM |Today hundreds of volunteers with the Human Rights Campaign are on Capitol Hill meeting with members of Congress on an array of LGBT issues including ENDA and repeal of DADT. You can join the action no matter where you're located...Read More
DC Gay Couples Celebrate First Marriages
Filed by Michael Crawford | March 03, 2010 6:00 PM |Today was quite a big day in D.C. This morning, more than 100 same-sex couples went to the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse for the first day gay couples could apply for a marriage license in the city. Among those couples...Read More
The Painful, Irritating, Absolutely Essential Census
Filed by Diane Silver | March 03, 2010 4:00 PM |This month you and I and all of our friends will receive census forms in the mail. Even though the forms, and the census itself, will pretend that large portions of the LGBT population don't exist, the 2010 census still...Read More
Making Trouble: Follow Ups - 1
Filed by Antonia D'orsay | March 03, 2010 12:00 PM |Of what use is making trouble if you don't keep at it? In an earlier column, I asked 10 simple questions. I laid down some basic rules, and while some folks chose not to follow those basic rules, I got...Read More
This Is Not Sexy: Research (or lack there of) on LGBT People
Filed by Michelle Marzullo | March 02, 2010 5:00 PM |Knowledge is power. True, yet collecting accurate knowledge on our LGBT communities is often a struggle. This is not because we cannot collect such information but usually because those shaping surveys and marshaling clip-boards are either not interested in learning...Read More
The Immigration Closet: A Perfect (Unwanted) Storm for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops
Filed by Guest Blogger | March 02, 2010 2:00 PM |Editors' Note: Guest blogger J. Todd (Tif) Fernandez is a volunteer activist with a Masters of Law in Human Rights from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and a JD and BA from Boston University. With a past career in...Read More
Kudos: Joe Solmonese and Criticism of HRC
Filed by Bil Browning | March 01, 2010 5:30 PM |Pam Spaulding brought us news that HRC President Joe Solmonese is promising that Don't Ask, Don't Tell will be repealed this year (among other priorities). He also gave a hat tip to bloggers and grassroots activists. And Solmonese acknowledged that...Read More
Man hurt in Rainbow Lounge bar raid charged with "assaulting a state agent"
Filed by Alex Blaze | March 01, 2010 12:00 PM |Sorry, comments were down for a while for no reason I can find on this post. They're back up. Also, updated after the jump. This is fairly ridiculous: City prosecutors in Fort Worth, Texas, announced on February 24 that they...Read More
