Letter-Writing Campaign in Texas Takes Aim at SB 6

HRC co-hosted a letter-writing campaign in College Station, Texas, this week to demonstrate the strong constituent opposition to SB 6 across the state of Texas.

Residents sent nearly 100 letters to Texas lawmakers at the event, which was organized in partnership with the Pride Community Center. Letters were sent to four Texas officials, specifically: Reps. Kyle Kacal and John Raney and Sens. Charles Schwertner and Lois Kolkhorst, the author of SB 6.

The event’s attendees also shared selfies on social media to draw attention to the cause and promised to call their state representatives and Gov. Greg Abbott to urge them to oppose SB 6.

SB 6 — dishonestly titled the “Privacy Protection Act” — is a bill expressly intended to discriminate against and block facility access for transgender Texans. The bill would overturn non-discrimination ordinances currently providing critical protections in several major Texas cities; further, it would force state agencies, municipalities, public schools and public universities to discriminate against transgender people. By making it illegal for transgender people in Texas to be afforded access to facilities consistent with their identity, it opens them up to increased discrimination and harassment as they simply live their everyday lives. It also exposes Texas to tremendous risk of the kind of financial, legal, and political blowback that North Carolina has continued to reckon with after the passage of HB2.

HRC is currently tracking seven anti-LGBTQ bills in Texas, including SB 6.

HRC field organizers in Texas have hit the ground running. Organizers in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio are organizing to fight back against anti-LGBTQ legislation in Texas. Field organizers are bringing personal, individual stories from the front lines in Texas. Together with HRC members and supporters, they are mobilizing citizens to contact their legislators about the dangerous SB 6 and other anti-LGBTQ legislation.

Volunteer now to join others across the Lone Star State to fight back against anti-LGBTQ legislation

www.hrc.org/blog/letter-writing-campaign-in-texas-takes-aim-at-sb-6?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Frameline releases “Resistance & Resilience” educational series

www.glaad.org/blog/frameline-releases-resistance-resilience-educational-series

Watch What Happened When Trump's Ambassador to Israel Nominee Testified (Video)

Hecklers took aim at David Friedman, the nominee for ambassador to Israel, during a hearing at which he apologized for comparing liberal American Jews to Jews who aided the Nazis in the Holocaust.

www.advocate.com/politics/2017/2/16/watch-what-happened-when-trumps-nominee-ambassador-israel-testified-video

Time’s new cover is going to royally piss off Donald Trump

When Donald Trump was named Time Magazine’s ‘person of the year’, he used it as an opportunity to gloat. The irony, of course, was that being ‘person of the year’ is not necessarily a compliment, and upon further inspection, even the cover photo held clues that Trump’s impending presidency was doomed.

Still, that didn’t stop him from counting it among his many successes in life.

A Politico journalist even caught him with a stack of his ‘person of the year’ magazines on his desk, suggesting then President-elect Trump was handing them out as victory calling cards

Sigh:

Trump literally has an entire stack of Time Person of the Year Trump magazines on his desk (h/t to @ShaneGoldmacher for noticing). pic.twitter.com/LbdQd1C14T

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) January 13, 2017

Well there’s no way President Trump can spin Time’s latest cover as anything except what it is: a mirror held up to his disastrous first month as leader of the country.

Here’s what will hit news stands on Feb. 27:

Somehow we doubt he’ll be keeping a stack of this issue on his desk in the Oval Office.

“Painting this cover was like imagining a movie,” Tim O’Brien, the cover artist, said. “I see it all in my head, the swirling rain, the wind blowing papers across the desk, the splats of the heavy raindrops on the desk. The e-mail from [TIME Creative Director] D.W. Pine asked if I could paint Trump in a storm. As soon as he asked I saw the image. A cartoonist might get the subject to react, to animate, hold on and grimace in the face of the wind. I saw it more as a dead pan look at us. In paintings, it is the contrast that creates the interest, in this case, the calm and the chaos.”

Expect a Tweet from Donald about the “failing” Time Magazine any day now, and watch their subscription numbers spike.

www.queerty.com/times-new-cover-going-royally-piss-off-donald-trump-20170216?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Pro-LGBTQ Hashtag Trends in Saudi Arabia, Worldwide

PinkNews reported earlier this month that a pro-LGBTQ hashtag in Arabic has been trending in Saudi Arabia, a conservative Muslim theocracy and one of the most inhospitable places in the world for LGBTQ people.

The hashtag, translated as “I love gays and I am not one of them,” was the number one trending Twitter hashtag in Saudi Arabia earlier this month. It was also the fourth highest trending hashtag in the world in the same period.

Many Twitter users expressed solidarity with LGBTQ people in response to the hashtag.

The unlikely popularity of the pro-LGBTQ hashtag in Saudi Arabia is remarkable given the country’s oppressive social mores and laws that criminalize LGBTQ people. Adult men convicted of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual activity face a variety of harsh punishments such as flogging, whipping, torture, castration and fines. If convicted twice, they may be executed.

A recent report from Freedom House classified Saudi Arabia as “Not Free” and gave the country the lowest possible score on both civil liberties and political freedoms.

In April 2016, a bipartisan group of 33 U.S. legislators sent a letter to the Saudi Ambassador to the United States expressing concern about reports of abuses against LGBTQ people. HRC Director of Government Affairs David Stacy responded to the letter: “LGBTQ people in the Middle East continue to face enormous challenges, from social stigma to persecution and violence….with the rise of ISIL and other jihadist groups in the region, the pressure has gotten worse, and it is crucial that we stand up for the human rights of Saudi LGBT people.”

HRC is committed to advocating for the rights of LGBTQ people in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and around the globe. HRC Global advocates for LGBTQ equality around the world through fellowships, partnerships and research. Read more about our work here.

www.hrc.org/blog/pro-lgbtq-hashtag-trends-in-saudi-arabia-worldwide?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Calling Donald Trump mentally ill is an insult to the mentally ill, psychiatrist says

A group of 33 psychiatrists recently wrote a letter to the New York Times saying Donald Trump demonstrates “grave emotional instability” that “makes him incapable of serving safely as president.”

“Mr. Trump’s speech and actions demonstrate an inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions,” the letter stated. “His words and behavior suggest a profound inability to empathize. Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them (journalists, scientists).”

Related: 10 shockingly awful quotes from Donald Trump’s Black History Month speech

Now, another leading psychiatrist is pushing back. But he’s not defending Easy D or criticizing the doctors for breaking the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 Goldwater Rule, which states that it is unethical for mental health professionals to give an opinion about public figures they have not examined in person and obtained consent from to discuss their mental health.

He’s standing up for the mentally ill.

Dr. Allen Frances is a professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical College and used to serve chairman of the task force that wrote the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV.

“Most amateur diagnosticians have mislabeled President Trump with the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder,” he writes in a letter to the editors at the New York Times. “I wrote the criteria that define this disorder, and Mr. Trump doesn’t meet them. He may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t make him mentally ill, because he does not suffer from the distress and impairment required to diagnose mental disorder.”

Related: These memes perfectly capture Justin Trudeau recoiling from Donald Trump’s hand

He continues: “Mr. Trump causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy. It is a stigmatizing insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr. Trump (who is neither).”

Allen adds that mere bad behavior and/or rudeness/crassness/assholery “is rarely a sign of mental illness.” In fact, he says, “the mentally ill behave badly only rarely.”

He concludes his letter by asking people to stop referring to Tiny Hands as mentally-ill or using psychiatric name-calling as a “way of countering Mr. Trump’s attack on democracy.”

“He can, and should, be appropriately denounced for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of dictatorial powers,” Allen says. “His psychological motivations are too obvious to be interesting, and analyzing them will not halt his headlong power grab.”

“The antidote to a dystopic Trumpean dark age is political, not psychological.”

You got that, folks? Stop calling Donald Trump “crazy” and instead stick to calling him an ignorant, incompetent, impulsive, wannabe dictator.

Related: CNN captures Donald Trump watching a blaring television on Air Force One instead of doing his job

www.queerty.com/calling-donald-easy-d-trump-mentally-ill-insult-mentally-ill-psychiatrist-says-20170216?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Watch LIVE: Donald Trump Holds White House Press Conference

Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a press conference at 12:30 pm ET in the East Room of the White House where he’ll reportedly announce his new pick for Labor Secretary following the withdrawal of Andrew Puzder.

It’s unclear whether Trump will be taking questions or if there will be any other topics addressed, such as his administration’s potentially treasonous relationship with Russia.

Video will be posted here when stream becomes available. Refresh for updates.

Click here to open this post in a separate tab.

The post Watch LIVE: Donald Trump Holds White House Press Conference appeared first on Towleroad.

Watch LIVE: Donald Trump Holds White House Press Conference

Washington State Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Gay Couple Denied Service by Floral Business

Today, HRC hailed a decision by the Washington State Supreme Court upholding state law prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ people by businesses providing services to the public.

In the case of Ingersoll v Arlene’s Flowers filed by the ACLU on behalf of Curt Freed and Robert Ingersoll, the court found that Arlene’s Flowers clearly violated the state’s non-discrimination law when refusing to provide floral arrangements to a gay couple because of the owner’s personal religious beliefs.

“Freedom of religion is fundamental to American society, that’s why it is firmly protected by the U.S. Constitution. People should also never use their personal religious beliefs as a free pass to violate the law or the basic civil rights of others,” said HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow. “Businesses who are open to the public should be open to everyone on the same terms. We congratulate the ACLU on their important victory in this case upholding fairness and equality under the law.”

Washington is one of 19 states that provide protections against discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity.  Nobody should be turned away from a business open to the public just because of who they are.

www.hrc.org/blog/washington-state-supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-gay-couple-denied-service?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Mick Mulvaney's confirmation could scale back vital LGBTQ government programs

www.glaad.org/blog/mick-mulvaneys-confirmation-could-scale-back-vital-lgbtq-government-programs