LGBT News

HIV Plus Magazine reports: Speaking via a pre-recorded video to attendees of the HIV is Not a Crime Training Academy, Hilary Clinton says if she wins the Presidential election, she will work to reform outdated, stigmatizing HIV criminalization laws. Clinton thanked attendees for their work, saying that efforts like HIV is Not a Crime “lift us all up.” Saying we …

Reuters reports: A group of 51 Muslim states has blocked 11 gay and transgender organizations from attending a high-level meeting at the United Nations next month on ending AIDS, sparking a protest by the United States, Canada and the European Union. Egypt wrote to the president of the 193-member General Assembly on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to …

Via press release: Today, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization, announced that Theodore B. Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP will author an amicus brief on behalf of leading businesses in support of the Department of Justice’s lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s hateful HB2 law. “HB2 discriminates against fellow citizens because of who they are,” …

Finally. Via the Associated Press: In another historical moment for the Obama administration, the Senate on Tuesday evening confirmed the long-stalled nomination of Eric Fanning to be Army secretary. Fanning thus becomes the first openly gay leader of any U.S. military service. The voice vote came after Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., dropped his opposition in a dispute over Obama administration …

From the Raleigh News & Observer: Itzhak Perlman is the latest artist to cancel a North Carolina performance over the state’s controversial House Bill 2. One of the world’s greatest concert violinists, the 70-year-old Perlman was scheduled to play Raleigh’s Meymandi Concert Hall Wednesday night with the NC Symphony. But he called off the show on Tuesday, releasing the statement …

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto today unleashed a flurry of tweets that recognize today’s International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia and call for immediate marriage equality nationwide. Same-sex marriage is recognized in all 31 Mexican states, but currently only eight states have enacted laws that allow gay couples to marry locally without going to court. From the Associated Press: Speaking …

Entertainment Weekly recaps: “It’s not easy having a good time.” These are some of the first words we hear from Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the trailer for Fox’s remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Indeed, judging by Janet (Victoria Justice)’s timid giggle and the short clip we hear of “The Time Warp,” the cast has been hard …

The CBC reports: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in Montreal federal legislation about to be tabled*, which will guarantee legal and human rights protection to transgender people across Canada. “We have worked too hard for us to stop here,” Trudeau said. “Too hard to stop with the progress we have made because I sincerely believe that in Canada we can …

Via press release: Following the introduction of over two dozen bills to curb LGBT rights at the state and federal level, and in observation of International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT), the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus released a video campaign, led by Co-Chair Representative Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18), to show support for the LGBT community. Featuring over 25 members …

Via USA Today: Barbra Streisand is going on tour this summer. The singer, 74, will perform in nine cities in August and after the tour, she will release a new album: Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway. No release date was identified. Her summer concerts will include songs from each decade of her hit-making career as well as numbers from the …

This is a major setback for supporters of North Carolina’s hate law: The Supreme Court announced Monday, over the dissent of one conservative justice, that it will not review a legal precedent key to an appeals court ruling last month requiring public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity. The justices declined to take …

Via press release: The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina, and Lambda Legal today asked a federal court to order an immediate halt to enforcement of a North Carolina law that targets transgender people for discrimination in single-sex facilities. The three organizations and the law firm of Jenner and Block are challenging the law, House Bill 2, …

The Texas Observer reports: A Texas GOP committee rejected an effort Wednesday to remove support for so-called ex-gay therapy from the party’s platform, according to Jeff Davis, president of the LGBT group Log Cabin Republicans of Texas. Instead, the panel tweaked some language in the plank but left it mostly intact. At the party’s state convention in Dallas, Davis told …

From the Washington Blade: The daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro on Saturday led in a march in Havana that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. Mariela Castro, director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education that is known by the Spanish acronym CENESEX, joined transgender actress Candis Cayne and hundreds of others who marched from the oceanfront …

From the Associated Press: Police in Bangladesh said Sunday that they have arrested a suspected Muslim militant for his alleged involvement in the killing last month of a gay rights activist and his friend in the capital. Police identified the suspect as Shariful Islam Shihab, a former member of the banned Islamic group Harkatul Jihad. They said he joined another …

Ukraine’s Jamala won Eurovision 2016 tonight after the final result in the controversial new voting system failed to put Russia over the top. Ukraine’s win is arguably the most politically-charged result in Eurovision history. From the BBC: Jamala is the first ever Crimean Tatar to perform at the contest and caused controversy ahead of the show over her political song, …

Ben Winslow reports for Salt Lake City’s Fox affiliate: Mayor Jackie Biskupski put up the first street sign that renames a part of 900 South as “Harvey Milk Boulevard.” The Salt Lake City Council recently voted unanimously to rename 900 South after Milk, who was one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials until his assassination in 1978. “I …

“Look, this isn’t easy for me, either. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but it just feels right,” says to young man to his stern-faced father, who responds, “We didn’t raise you this way.” “You must have known I was a little different,” the son pleads. “Not this different,” grunts the father. That difference, as most viewers likely suspect …

From the European Union: The recently adopted laws including in the states of Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee, which discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons in the United States contravene the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the US is a State party, and which states that the law shall prohibit any discrimination and …

The office of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) just wrote to say that earlier today he become the first member of Congress to use the term “cisgender” in a House speech. Grayson stood next to a large portrait of transgender pioneer Christine Jorgensen as he delivered a 13-minute denouncement of the GOP and of North Carolina’s anti-LGBT hate law. Grayson is …