federal protection vs. state rights
The World Needs Bisexual Awareness Week September 16-23
Bisexuals make up the largest portion of the LGBTQ+ community (40% of America), according to data from the Pew Research Center. However, society tries to erase them. How? The Bisexual Resource Center (BRC), America’s oldest national bisexual organization in Boston, reports that this community experiences significantly higher rates of physical, sexual, mental and social health. …
Who is Marsha P. Johnson and Why It Matters
After high school in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Marsha P. Johnson, born Malcolm Michaels, Jr. in 1945, moved to New York City with $15 in his pocket. He couldn’t wait to leave New Jersey. Wearing dresses at age six, he was ridiculed. He identified as gay, but back then in 1951, “gay” was not a common…
Moving Towards Equality For The Trans Community
According to cnn.com at least twenty-two people, mostly black trans people, have been killed in 2019. Believe or not, these numbers may be low as no U.S. jurisdiction or agency routinely collects information about a person’s gender identity when they die. The Williams Institute, a think tank focusing on LGBT policy at UCLA School of…
Long Before Edie Windsor, Civil Rights Icon John Lewis Fought For Gay Rights
Edith Windsor’s same-sex marriage fight led to an important Landmark Ruling, in 2013, although it was limited to thirteen states and District of Columbia. It declared the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional and was signed by President Clinton. The bill defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. In essence, Windsor,…
Don’t Think They Have To Choose!
Male Bisexuality is Real According to Multiple Studies At Four Universities The Advocate.com came to this conclusion after reviewing data from eight studies conducted between 2000 and 2019 at Northwestern, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The…
Parents and Schools Failing Sex Education
Yesterday, I listened to sex researcher Megan Maas’s TEDXTalk “How the Evolution of Porn Changed Adolescence.” Dr. Maas is an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State. In her work, she collects surveys and focus group data from adolescents on their media and sexuality experiences. According to Dr. Maas, the young…
Out At College, Closeted While Quarantined At Home
You finally found your niche at college where you have like-minded friends who are gay. No longer are you bullied as you were in high school because you can express your self, your identity and your sexual orientation. You feel free because you’re out! But with college classes cancelled, you’re right back where you…
How Do You Interpret Sex? Trump vs. Obama & Section 1557 of The Affordable Care Act
History of Affordable Care Act When the ACA law passed in 2010, doctors and hospitals were prohibited to discriminate based on race, color, age, disability or sex. The Office for Civil Rights at Health and Human Services Program issued a rule, a few years later, that when it refers to sex, it includes a broader…
I Can’t Imagine Larry Kramer Ever Resting In Peace!
The LGBT community is indebted to activist and author Larry Kramer. “The fire in his belly” led him in the 1980’s to wake up the complacency of this country into dealing with with AIDS as a public-health emergency. A founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first service organization for HIV-positive people, Kramer discovered that his…
What to Expect From a PFLAG Meeting
In the book When Your Child Is Gay: What You Need To Know, co-author Jonathan L. Tobkes, M.D., writes that “in my practice, I have noticed that parents feel better when they realize that they are not alone and that there are people like them who are experiencing similar thoughts, feelings, and reactions to having…
May Is Mental Health Awareness Month. Are Your Kids Mentally Healthy?
Life is not easy for the LGBTQI community. Youth.gov reports that lesbian, gay and bisexual youth have: much higher levels of suicidal ideation, i.e. 15.1% to 34.3% of lesbian and gay high school students have attempted suicide at least once as opposed to Heterosexual students who account for 3.8% to 9.6% of attempted suicides. More…
GLSEN’S Day of Silence to Speak Volumes
Every April, GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network), a U.S.-based education organization whose mission is to end LGBTQ+ discrimination in K-12 schools, holds its DAY OF SILENCE. This year, the DOS will be held on its twenty-fifth anniversary, Friday, April 24, 2020. A Day of Silence may seem like the antithesis of what schools need…
What Did The Gay Community Inherit?
I was lucky to see “The Inheritance” before Broadway theatres shuttered its doors on Thursday, March 12, 2020, the next day. Playwright Matthew Lopez’s play, an import from London where it received an Oliver Award, is a “dramady” (part comedy, part drama) about gay culture now and in the time of AIDS. It was an…
School Is Out, But The Cyberbullies Can Taunt Your LGBT Child
God only knows when schools and college will discontinue shuttering their doors. Just because your LGBTQ child isn’t face-to-face with the school bully doesn’t mean he isn’t being harassed online, 24/7. We’ve all heard about cyberbullying resulting in suicides for those who are being abused on-line. GLSEN that studies the climate for LGBTQ students…
What Traditional Couples Can Learn From Gay Marriage
Almost four years ago, when gay marriage was legal, a reporter named Christopher Katis from an LGBT publication QSALTLake,” interviewed me about whether kids of gay parents fared better than those raised by heterosexual parents. His curiosity was stoked by a study by the University of Melbourne that had released the first official results from…