A transgender man who challenged his Virginia school district’s bathroom policy has been elected to the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) board of directors.
Gavin Grimm on Jan. 3 in a tweet said he has been elected to the board for a one year term.
CHICAGO (AP) | Illinois prisons must undergo wide reforms in the treatment of transgender inmates, including training for employees and avoiding cross-gender strip searches, under a court order earlier this month.
The order stems from a 2018 lawsuit filed on behalf of five transgender women who said they weren’t provided with appropriate treatment while in custody.
ABOVE: Palana Belken (center) with supporters. (Photo from Belken’s Facebook)
ROCHESTER, N.H. (AP) | An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) representative has made history as the first openly transgender person to be elected to a city council in New Hampshire.
Seacoastonline.com reports 30-year-old Palana Belken was elected Nov. 5 in Rochester. She defeated longtime incumbent city councilor and Democratic state rep. Sandra Keans. The vote was 342-300. She was one of three LGBTQ residents elected to the 12-seat City Council.
A briefing on the plight of LGBTQ asylum seekers took place on Oct. 23 at the Russell Senate Office Building.
Two asylum seekers — a transgender woman from El Salvador and a gay man from Nigeria — spoke at the briefing that Sharita Gruberg of the Center for American Progress moderated. Jennifer Quigley of Human Rights First and Richard Kelly of Center Global also participated. The Human Rights Campaign, the Council for Global Equality, the American Civil Liberties Union, Immigration Equality and the Transgender Law Center are among the groups that co-sponsored the briefing.
The U.S. Supreme Court is set Tuesday to hear a trio of cases that will determine not just whether firing workers for being LGBT is legal under federal law, but will also have ramifications for LGBT people in education, health care and housing.
At issue is whether anti-LGBT discrimination is a form of sex discrimination and therefore prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex, but says nothing explicitly about sexual orientation or gender identity.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) | Four transgender people challenging an Ohio rule preventing people from changing the gender listings on their birth certificates have won their day in court.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson denied the state’s request that the lawsuit filed by the ACLU, Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Ohio be dismissed.
The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled the City of Phoenix cannot apply its LGBT-inclusive Human Rights Ordinance to penalize a local business for refusing to make custom-made invitations for a same-sex wedding, delivering a victory for groups seeking to justify anti-LGBT discrimination in the name of “religious freedom.”
In a 4-3 decision written by Justice Andrew Gould, the court determines the guarantee of freedom of religion and speech under the Arizona state constitution permits Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studios, LC, to deny services to same-sex couples.
Bee Love Slater was found burned in a vehicle in Clewiston, Florida the morning of Sept. 4, just a week shy of her 24th birthday.
The Hendry County Sheriff’s Office is investigating her death as a homicide. While they are still trying to establish a motive, Slater’s best friend Kenard Wade and many others believe that this was a targeted attack that had to do with her being transgender.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) | A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of a West Virginia transgender male who said an assistant principal harassed him when he tried to use the boys’ bathroom, the latest in a string of court challenges to school policies for transgender students nationwide.
The lawsuit filed in state court accuses the Harrison County Board of Education of failing to create a safe school environment for teenager Michael Critchfield, the American Civil Liberties Union announced in a news release Aug. 28.
LGBTQ people, especially transgender people, could be subjected to discrimination, harassment and identity theft if careful government controls are not placed on rapidly developing and widely used facial recognition technology, according to the group LGBT Tech.
The Staunton, Virginia-based group has joined six other LGBTQ organizations in signing on to a June 3 letter written by the ACLU calling on Congress to place a moratorium on the use of facial recognition technology for law enforcement and immigration enforcement purposes until privacy related restrictions can be developed for the technology.
The U.S. Supreme Court has designated Oct. 8 as the date when it will hear arguments on whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to cases of anti-LGBT discrimination, setting up a showdown for when LGBT rights in all areas of life will hang in the balance.
On Monday, the Supreme Court’s website modified the docket entries for each of three Title VII cases to indicate arguments will take place Oct. 8. During the proceedings, justices will consider whether anti-LGBT discrimination in a form of sex discrimination, and thus prohibited under Title VII, which bars discrimination on the sex in the workforce.
The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it won’t hear a case challenging a Pennsylvania school district’s pro-trans bathroom policy, averting a decision that could have had implications on protections for transgender students nationwide.
In an order list Tuesday, the Supreme Court indicated it has denied certiorari in the case of Doe v. Boyertown. That means the petition of certiorari—which has been pending before the Supreme Court since November 2018 — obtained fewer than the four votes needed from justices for review.
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