LGBT News

This weekend I’ll be in Las Vegas for the 2015 InterPride World Conference where gay pride organizations from around the globe will meet to strategize and share event planning information. (There’s a LOT that goes into putting on a parade that can draw more than a million people.) I’ll be representing Pride Life Magazine, which has been the official publication …

Over the objections of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, last week a Travis County judge ruled that a lesbian and her late partner were in a common law marriage prior to the Obergfell ruling. The Austin American-Statesman reports: Travis County Probate Judge Guy Herman signed a judgment acknowledging that Stella Powell and Sonemaly Phrasavath met the legal requirements to be …

Over the weekend hundreds of activists rallied in Philadelphia to mark the murder of a local trans woman. Today there’s a break in the case. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: A man has been arrested in the fatal shooting of a transgender woman in Philadelphia’s Logan section. Pedro Redding, 24, has been taken into custody in the Oct. 6 killing of …

Also marking National Coming Out Day yesterday was Google, which gave a nod to their famed LGBT employees group.

We haven’t seen an It Gets Better video in awhile but yesterday the FDNY published their clip to mark National Coming Out Day. They write: In the FDNY-produced video, twelve active FDNY Firefighters, Paramedics, EMTs discuss the challenges they faced throughout their lives and the success they have found both as adults, as members of New York’s Bravest. “As Firefighters, …

Yesterday Coca-Cola marked National Coming Out Day with the above tweet. Stand by for an avalanche of outrage.

Hillary Clinton today marked National Coming Out Day with the above tweet which includes a video of last week’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign.

NBC News reports: A large crowd gathered in Center City to call for justice and equality for transgender men and women in the wake of a brutal murder. The 5th Annual Philly Trans March took place Saturday afternoon at Thomas Paine Plaza, less than a week after Kiesha Jenkins, a 22-year-old transgender woman, was killed by a group of men …

Pioneering researcher Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, who shared the Nobel prize for identifying the virus that causes AIDS, is retiring. She says she regrets not having found a cure, but believes a complete remission from HIV infection is within reach. Via Reuters: “I am personally convinced that remission…is achievable. When? I don’t know. But it is feasible,” she told Reuters at her …

Longtime JMG reader Luis sends us the above photo from the grand opening of an LGBT center in Imperial County, California. If Imperial County rings a bell for you, that’s because it was once at the center of the Prop 8 battle that eventually ended up before the US Supreme Court. Anti-gay groups turned to deeply conservative Imperial County because …

The 27th annual National Coming Out Day is Sunday. The date was chosen in 1988 as the anniversary of the previous year’s historic March On Washington, when an estimated 500,000 gathered on the National Mall to demand increased funding for HIV/AIDS research, the repeal of anti-sodomy laws, and the legal recognition of LGBT relationships. Many of those 27 year-old dreams …

NOTE: An important correction is below. The US Marine whose welcome home kiss from his boyfriend rocketed around the world in 2012 has gotten married. Gay Star News reports: The couple whose photo quickly became a symbol of the post-Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell era in the US got married last weekend in Honeoye Falls, New York. Back in February 2012, …

Researchers at the UCLA School of Medicine today issued a press release in which they claim to be able to predict sexual orientation about 70% of the time using an “algorithm using epigenetic information from just nine regions of the human genome.” From the press release: “To our knowledge, this is the first example of a predictive model for sexual …

New York City’s Ali Forney Center will hold its annual fundraising gala for homeless LGBT youth on Friday, October 23rd in downtown Manhattan at Capitale. Tickets are still available! Comedian and Orange Is The New Black star Lea DeLaria will be the evening’s host and there’s an always terrific after-party following the main event. The following night, Saturday the 24th, …

Spencer Stone, the US Airman who recently won international accolades for thwarting a shooting on a Paris train, has been critically stabbed after he and a group of friends left Badlands, a popular gay disco in the Sacramento neighborhood known as Lavender Heights. The Sacramento Bee reports: Officers were called at 12:46 a.m. Thursday to the 2100 block of K …

California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill which bans the state from doing business with companies that fail to offer equal benefits to transgender employees. The National Center for Lesbian Rights applauds: “In signing SB 703, Governor Brown has made California the first state in the nation to refuse to contract with businesses and other entities that discriminate against …

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Gingsburg has revealed a tidbit about the day after the Obergefell ruling came out. Via Reuters: On the evening after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld same-sex marriage, liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was entertained by her conservative colleague Antonin Scalia singing a Bob Dylan song. The song, Ginsburg told Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung, was …

NCAA basketball now has its first openly gay coach. USA Today has the story: Chris Burns stands before his players in Bryant University’s men’s basketball locker room. He is shaking, yet resolute. He’s rehearsed this conversation in his head dozens of times. But that’s just practice. This is game time. “There are parts of this business that lead me to …

Next week Britain’s Channel 4 will air the documentary Girls To Men. The Independent recaps the fascinating trailer: A British student has documented his transition from a woman to a man with a selfie every day for the past three years. Jamie Ross, 21, was 18 when he started taking testosterone (T). He decided to document his transition, ending up …

Under a bill introduced by GOP Wisconsin state Rep. Jesse Kremer, parents would be able to sue a public school if a transgender student were to use the “wrong” restroom.  The Wisconsin State Journal reports: “This bill reinforces the societal norm in our schools that students born biologically male must not be allowed to enter facilities designated for biological females …