How can LGBTQ families best protect themselves after the Dobbs decision? Polly Crozier, senior staff attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), and Julie Gonen, federal policy director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), shared their thoughts with me.
A mass shooting that left six dead and two dozen injured. An unarmed Black man shot 60 times by police. Dozens of other shootings, many deadly. The loss of body autonomy for more than half our population. A white supremacist march in Boston. What can we do?
Many of us may hear “America the Beautiful” played this July 4th. But did you know that its author, Katharine Lee Bates, was also a scholar, suffragist, and social activist, and lived for 25 years in a loving relationship with fellow professor Katharine Coman?
Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law (which really impacts the entire LGBTQ community) goes into effect today—but it has already had a chilling impact on LGBTQ students, families, and on supportive teachers in the state.
Drag queen storytimes are under attack from politicians and white supremacists. Drag queen and children’s book author Lil Miss Hot Mess has been a target, but also a leading voice opposing this onslaught. She thinks kids and drag have a natural rapport.
For many LGBTQ people, getting pregnant is done with planning worthy of chess masters. Yet LGBTQ people who have been pregnant are also more likely to have had unwanted or mistimed pregnancies and to need abortion services than cisgender heterosexual women—meaning the end of Roe v. Wade will have an immediate negative impact on LGBTQ people, whether or not it leads to the erosion of additional rights.
The Supreme Court has ruled there is no federal right to an abortion—casting doubt upon a host of other rights. Here are some resources for queer parents and prospective parents wondering what to do next both to protect their families and to fight back.
Never underestimate the power of protest. After public outrage and an imminent investigation by the state Division of Human Rights, a Long Island library board reversed its decision to remove Pride displays from its children’s sections. Displays will now stay up through at least July 15.
A public library board in New York has voted “to remove all Pride Displays, in addition to removing all books of the same subject on display, from all Children’s sections.” The president of the board, a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, opposed the action.
Attorney Stuart Delery, currently deputy counsel to the president, will become White House counsel next month, President Biden announced. Delery joins several other queer parents with leading roles in the administration.
