LGBTQIA+2S Movements & the Law

Tucson Gay + Museum|Tucson Phoenix Arizona Gay Lesbian LGBTQIA+ Museum Historical Archives|Tucson Observer Archives|Yuma Flagstaff LGBTQ Gay Lesbian History Archives Collection| Arizona Phoenix Tucson Bisexual Transgendered Queer LGBTQIA+ Museum Archives

Secrecy and ignorance fuel the discrimination intersex people face throughout the world. This explainer provides answers to some common questions—and information about the movement to secure intersex people’s rights.

June is Pride Month and all of this month we have been highlighting resources to learn more about the history behind Pride Month and LGBTQ+ issues. Below we recap those resources. About Pride Month Pride Month is commemorated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City.

In Part 2 of our interview, ACLU attorney Chase Strangio describes in detail the state-level attacks on trans youth, and the intensifying international push to eradicate trans lives.

We speak with Chase Strangio of the ACLU about recent anti-LGBTQ legislation in Florida, Texas, and Idaho, and pending bills in other states. Florida's "Don't Say Gay" education bill aims to ban the mere discussion of sexuality and gender identity in schools. A bill in Idaho criminalizes gender-affirming healthcare for transgender children and teens. Meanwhile, welfare officials in Texas have begun to carry out Republican Governor Greg Abbott's directive to launch child abuse investigations against parents who seek gender-affirming care for their transgender children. "What we're seeing is a national, well-funded effort to attack and eradicate trans youth and trans lives specifically," says Strangio, who is also an attorney in the ACLU’s lawsuit against Abbott. #DemocracyNow Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: https://democracynow.org Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today: https://democracynow.org/donate FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE: YouTube: http://youtube.com/democracynow Facebook: http://facebook.com/democracynow Twitter: https://twitter.com/democracynow Instagram: http://instagram.com/democracynow SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/democracynow iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/democracy-now!-audio/id73802554 Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

"A renowned legal scholar tells the definitive story of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the trial that will stand as the most potent argument for marriage equality. In 2008, California voters passed Proposition 8, rescinding the right of same-sex couples to marry in the state. Advocates for marriage equality were outraged. Still, major gay-rights groups opposed a federal challenge to the law, warning that it would be dangerously premature. A loss could set the movement back for decades. A small group of activists, however, refused to wait. They turned to corporate lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies--best known for arguing opposite sides of Bush v. Gore--who filed a groundbreaking federal suit against the law. A distinguished constitutional law scholar, Kenji Yoshino was also a newly married gay man who at first felt ambivalent about the suit. Nonetheless, he recognized that Chief Judge Vaughn Walker's decision to hold a trial in the case was momentous. Boies and Olson rose to the occasion, deftly deploying arguments that LGBT advocates had honed through years of litigation and debate. Reading the 3,000-page transcript, Yoshino discovered a shining civil rights document--the most rigorous and compelling exploration he had seen of the nature of marriage, the political status of gays and lesbians, the ideal circumstances for raising children, and the inability of direct democracy to protect fundamental rights. After that tense twelve-day trial, Walker issued a resounding and historic ruling: California's exclusion of same-sex couples from civil marriage violated the U.S. Constitution. In June 2013, the United States Supreme Court denied the final appeal in Hollingsworth v. Perry, leaving same-sex couples in California free to marry. Drawing on interviews with lawyers and witnesses on both sides of the case, Yoshino takes us deep inside the trial. He brings the legal arguments to life, not only through his account of the case, but also by sharing his own story of finding love, marrying, and having children. Vivid, compassionate, and beautifully written, Speak Now is both a nuanced and authoritative account of a landmark trial, and a testament to how the clash of proofs in our judicial process can force debates to the ultimate level of clarity"--

"We've been together in sickness and in health, through the death of his mother, through the adoption of our children, through four long years of this legal battle," Jason Morgan told reporters of himself and his partner, Chuck Swaggerty. "And if being together through all of that isn't love and commitment or isn't family or isn't marriage, then I don't know what is." Just minutes earlier on that day, April 3, 2009, the justices of the Iowa Supreme Court had agreed. The court's decision in Varnum v. Brien made Iowa only the third state in the nation to permit same-sex couples to wed--moderate, midwestern Iowa, years before such left-leaning coastal states as California and New York. And unlike the earlier decisions in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Varnum v. Brien was unanimous and unequivocal. It catalyzed the unprecedented and rapid shift in law and public opinion that continues today. Equal Before the Law tells the stories behind this critical battle in the fight for marriage equality and traces the decision's impact. The struggle began in 1998 with the easy passage of Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act and took a turn, surprising to many, in 2005, when six ordinary Iowa couples signed on to Lambda Legal's suit against the law. Their triumph in 2009 sparked a conservative backlash against the supreme court justices, three of whom faced tough retention elections that fall. Longtime, award-winning reporters Tom Witosky and Marc Hansen talked with and researched dozens of key figures, including opponent Bob Vander Plaats, proponents Janelle Rettig and Sharon Malheiro, attorneys Roger Kuhle, Dennis Johnson, and Camilla Taylor, and politicians Matt McCoy, Mary Lundby, and Tom Vilsack, who had to weigh their careers against their convictions. Justice Mark Cady, who wrote the decision, explains why the court had to rule in favor of the plaintiffs. At the center of the story are the six couples who sacrificed their privacy to demand public respect for their families. Through these voices, Witosky and Hansen show that no one should have been surprised by the 2009 decision. Iowans have a long history of leadership on civil rights. Just a year after Iowa became a state, its citizens adopted as their motto the phrase, "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain." And they still do today.

NCSL tracks the latest state legislative activity relating to bathroom bills.This page has information on all states that have introduced bathroom bill legislation, as well as an overview of recent federal action, including: the May 2016 "Dear Colleague Letter from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

An Arkansas attorney’s contract with the state was terminated because he emailed a legislator and criticized her support of a measure banning gender confirming treatments for transgender youth, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas filed the lawsuit on behalf of Casey Copeland, whose contract with the Administrative Office of the Courts was terminated after he emailed the sponsor of the ban enacted earlier this year.

A Tennessee Senate panel has advanced legislation requiring school districts to alert parents of any instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity, allowing them to opt their student out of such instruction.

This article is the first entry in a symposium previewing Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. In the past five years, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage and that federal employment discrimination laws protect LGBTQ employees. On Nov. 4, the justi

The Biden Administration spoke out Tuesday against a Florida bill that would limit discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools on the same day the bill passed its first Florida Senate committee.

Arizona politicians passed a vote on a bill that would allow businesses to ban transgendered people from using bathrooms that don't match the gender they were born as.

Florida governor’s action comes at the start of ‘Pride Month’ in the US, officially a time to celebrate LGBTQ rights.

A showdown may be coming on the meaning of religious freedom, and LGBT advocates fear anti-discrimination protections could be weakened as a result.

A federal appeals court ruled North Carolina can be sued over prohibitions on coverage for gender-affirming care in its employee health plan.

Two governors -- one a Republican, one a Democrat -- have stood up to the harmful measures.

Rights groups argue the attorney general’s opinions, which have no legal bearing, will spread fear and misinformation

State lawmakers will unveil updated legislation to try to stop discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community.

A Virginia school board whose heated meeting in June gained national attention has voted to expand the rights of its transgender and gender-expansive students.

LGBTQ advocates say the "sweeping" ruling could be used to attack “bathroom bills” and trans sports bans across the country.

Idaho passed a law banning trans girls from competing on women's sports teams last year, and more than 20 states have considered such proposals this year.

In Tarrant County College District v. Sims, No. 05-20-00351 (March 10, 2021), the Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas held that "claim[s] of discrimination based on sexual orientation...

In the short term, supporters of the Equality Act have momentum. However, the Supreme Court justices’ comments in Monday’s landmark gay rights decision left some Fairness for All advocates feeling hopeful.

State adopts new rule that allows people to put an ‘X’ on state IDs and driver’s licenses instead of the traditional ‘M’ for male or ‘F’ for female

A case in which the Court found that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment.

A case in which the Court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's conduct in evaluating a cake shop owner's reasons for declining to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple violated the Free Exercise Clause.

A case in which the Court found that a Texas statute banning consenting homosexual adults from engaging in sexual acts violated the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection.