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Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey Vigorously Denies She Is Gay
The governor had attacked the “agenda” and “values” of an LGBT nonprofit before she became the subject of the story.
www.advocate.com/politics/2018/5/16/alabama-gov-kay-ivey-vigorously-denies-she-gay
HRC Mourns Nino Fortson, Transgender Man Fatally Shot in Atlanta
HRC is saddened to learn of the death of Nino Fortson, 36, a transgender man fatally shot multiple times during an argument early Sunday in Atlanta.
Atlanta police were nearby executing a traffic stop and rushed to the scene, but Forston later died at the hospital, said transgender advocate Monica Roberts. Police are still searching for a suspect, according to CBS46, which sadly misgendered Forston.
Community members and allies took to social media to mourn the loss of Fortson death and used the hashtag #JusticeForNino to call out local news for misgendering him.
“His name is #Nino,” wrote Emily Nero Madhu on Twitter. “He deserves better than this crappy, misspelled blurb that refuses to acknowledge his beautiful truth. #JusticeForNino #DoBetter”
An unidentified transgender person was also found dead this weekend in Dallas. Few details are known about the circumstances of the victim’s death; the Dallas Police Department is investigating.
The unidentified Dallas victim and Nino Fortson are the tenth and eleventh known homicides of a transgender person this year. Forston’s death is the first known homicide of a transgender man in 2018.
Since 2013, HRC has tracked 116 incidents of fatal violence against transgender and non-binary people. Of these, 65 have been victims of gun violence. In 2017, 16 out of the 28 deaths were the result of gun violence.
HRC Foundation and the Trans People of Color Coalition released a report documenting the senseless acts of violence that made 2017 the deadliest year on record for transgender people, particularly for trans women of color.
To learn more about HRC’s transgender justice work, visit hrc.org/Transgender.
#AM_Equality Tipsheet: May 16, 2018
VICTORY! MARYLAND ENACTS LEGISLATION PROTECTING LGBTQ YOUTH FROM “CONVERSION THERAPY”: Maryland has officially joined the growing number of states and municipalities adopting critical protections for LGBTQ youth. “No child should ever be subjected to the abusive practice of so-called ‘conversion therapy,’” said HRC President Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin). “This dangerous and inhumane form of child abuse has no basis in science and is uniformly rejected by every major mental health and child welfare organization. Today, Maryland is a better place for countless young people thanks to the many advocates, allies, parents, and survivors who spoke out against this practice and urged their elected officials — Republicans and Democrats alike — to adopt these crucial protections.” Read more from HRC.
VICTORY: @HRC @FreeStateLGBTQ @WISE_SP commends Maryland for enacting #SB1028 — critical legislation protecting #LGBTQ youth from the dangerous practice of “conversion therapy.” #MDLeg t.co/kfPbWNMyOW pic.twitter.com/QPwQxeVczh
— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) May 15, 2018
TODAY IN DETROIT: Following yesterday’s release of HRC’s 2018 LGBTQ Youth Report, issued in partnership with the University of Connecticut, HRC President Chad Griffin will join community leaders today at the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit for an event underscoring the urgency of supporting LGBTQ youth and the unique challenges facing LGBTQ youth of color — who reported the highest levels of rejection and isolation in HRC’s report. Read more from Metro Weekly.
Media interested in attending should RSVP to [email protected].
SPEAKING OF CHALLENGES FACED BY LGBTQ YOUTH — THE DAILY BEAST TRACKS THE TROUBLING TREND OF ANTI-LGBTQ SENTIMENT IN SCHOOLS: Samantha Allen (@SLAwrites) reports on LGBTQ teachers who have been fired recently, the pushback in Illinois to including LGBTQ history in school textbooks, and actions in Canada that could out students involved in LGBTQ extracurriculars. “LGBT teachers and lawmakers who advocate for LGBT history in schools are not trying to mass produce a generation of queer kids. … What they want is for fewer of those kids to hurt themselves or feel invisible to the point of hopelessness.” Read the full piece here.
.@HRC @UConn released the largest-of-its-kind survey of more than 12,000 #LGBTQ teens across the nation. The findings underscore the urgency of supporting LGBTQ youth in their daily lives—especially at home, in school & their communities. #LGBTQYouthReport t.co/RYBWfO7QuY pic.twitter.com/isoD9Yc0nh
— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) May 15, 2018
HRC MOURNS DEATH OF TRANSGENDER PERSON IN DALLAS:
This is tragic news. Our hearts go out to to the Dallas trans community. t.co/TLK6QPkUTx
— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) May 16, 2018
WHAT WE’RE READING WEDNESDAY: In a new interview with SWERV Magazine, HRC President Chad Griffin spoke about HRC’s efforts to strengthen representation and inclusion of LGBTQ people of color at the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization and how the movements for LGBTQ equality and racial equity and justice are inextricably linked. Griffin discussed HRC’s expanding work in communities of color in the South, HIV and AIDS advocacy and groundbreaking HBCU Program fostering the next generation of Black LGBTQ advocates and changemakers. “We know that we cannot achieve LGBTQ equality while members of our community continue to be oppressed because of their race. It’s our responsibility to make sure we are doing everything we can to include and effectively advocate for those within our community who are doubly marginalized and shut out by systems and institutions because they are both people of color and LGBTQ,” Griffin says. Read the full interview here.
HRC CELEBRATES PRO-EQUALITY CHAMPIONS IN PENNSYLVANIA PRIMARY: HRC released the following statement on victories of pro-equality candidates Senator Bob Casey, Representatives Brendan Boyle (PA-2), Dwight Evans (PA-3), Matt Cartwright (PA-8), and Michael Doyle (PA-18), and Chrissy Houlahan. “HRC was proud to mobilize our members and supporters across the Keystone State to turn out for these pro-equality champions, and we look forward to carrying this momentum to the general election in November,” said HRC Pennsylvania State Manager Allison VanKuiken. “As Donald Trump and Mike Pence ramp up their attacks on the LGBTQ community, it’s more important than ever to elect candidates who will pull the emergency brake on a harmful administration, and reject anti-equality politicians like Lou Barletta, who will only double down on their discriminatory agenda.” Read more from HRC.
UNITED METHODIST CHURCH FACES INTERNAL BATTLE OVER MAKING THE DENOMINATION MORE INCLUSIVE: LGBTQ advocates are squaring off with anti-equality activists. Find out more via Religion News.
LGBTQ ASYLUM SEEKERS FACE DANGER AT THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER: “They fear for their lives. They are hunted, and their rights are not respected.” More via Teen Vogue.
WE HAVE GOOD NEWS TO SHARE!
Congrats to @HRC #HIV360 fellow Francisco Cortes, just named @GalaeiPhilly Interim Executive Director.
Way to go, Francisco! pic.twitter.com/Fmb3bEJLIG— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) May 15, 2018
GLOBAL EQUALITY NEWS
LEBANON’S LGBTQ PRIDE WEEK HALTED AFTER CRACKDOWN: The AP is also reporting that the organizer of Lebanon’s gay pride week was detained by authorities. More here.
COSTA RICA COURT RULES TRANS PEOPLE CAN CHANGE OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS : The Central American country’s supreme electoral court has ruled transgender people can change their official documents to match their gender identity. More from NewNowNext.
CANADA TO ADD THIRD GENDER OPTION IN GOVERNMENT SURVEYS: Transgender advocates are celebrating a move to make Canada’s 2021 census more inclusive. More from The Guardian.
NEWLY APPOINTED CHURCH OF ENGLAND BISHOP SPEAKS OUT IN SUPPORT OF LGBTQ INCLUSION: Read more from Pink News.
READING RAINBOW – Bookmark now to read on your lunch break!
North Carolina Public Radio shares the journey of transgender advocate Candis Cox (@candis_cox) and how N.C.’s HB2 led to her ongoing fight for equality; Pink News profiles four LGBTQ activists working to end the stigma surrounding mental health;
Have news? Send us your news and tips at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to #AM_Equality and follow @HRC for all the latest news. Thanks for reading!
www.hrc.org/blog/am-equality-tipsheet-may-16-2018?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey Denies ‘Disgusting Lie’ That She’s Gay After Out Lawmaker Says She’s Closeted
Out Representative Patricia Todd (above, left) ignited a firestorm in Alabama politics last night after posting to Facebook and Twitter that Governor Kay Ivey is gay.
Todd, the first openly gay elected official in Alabama’s history, announced in March that she would not be seeking reelection and is apparently no longer giving any Fs.
Tweeted Todd: “Will someone out her for God’s sake….I have heard for years that she is gay and moved her girlfriend out of her house when she became Gov. I am sick of closeted elected officials.”
Will someone out her for God’s sake….I have heard for years that she is gay and moved her girlfriend out of her house when she became Gov. I am sick of closeted elected officials. t.co/0WP5J734sd
— Patricia Todd (@reptodd) May 16, 2018
And on both social media channels, she linked to an AL.com story in which Birmingham evangelist Scott Dawson raised questions about grants being given to an Alabama LGBTQ non-profit organization.
The assertions by Todd, a Democrat, are stunning developments just three weeks before the Republican gubernatorial primary on June 5. Ivey, who became governor on April 10, 2017, after Robert Bentley resigned, is seeking a full term in office and she has three opponents for the GOP nomination.
“I certainly don’t agree with the agenda or the values of that organization,” Ivey said earlier Tuesday when speaking with reporters in Tuscaloosa about the LGBTQ group Dawson brought to attention.
Ivey, 73, is single and has been divorced twice. She has no children.
In 2015, Todd pledged to out closeted politicians she said were involved in extramarital affairs and said she received death threats for the pledge.
Ivey’s spokesperson rushed out a response following Todd’s Tweet: “This is a disgusting lie being pushed by a paid liberal political hack. There is absolutely no truth to it.”
The spokesperson, Debbee Hancock, called Todd “a professional paid left-wing political activist.”
The post Alabama Governor Kay Ivey Denies ‘Disgusting Lie’ That She’s Gay After Out Lawmaker Says She’s Closeted appeared first on Towleroad.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders Finally Gets Honest in Press Briefing with Seth Meyers: WATCH
Seth Meyers joined the White House press corps briefly last night to finally get to the bottom of a few issues with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Meyers asked Huckabee Sanders how she thinks history books will remember the Trump presidency, why Trump keeps attacking Robert Mueller on Twitter, what she thinks is the biggest weakness of the Trump administration, what Don Jr.’s primary role in the White House is, what the future of the U.S. looks like, why there’s a deep sadness in her eyes, and what she calls the rules outlining when Eric can come out of the basement.
Huckabee Sanders also reveaed her favorite type of pencil, the name of Michael Cohen’s band in college, and what she thinks Trump’s nude pics look like.
Truth.
Meyers went on to ask where the North Korean summit will be held and if she believes his nephew’s claim that when he wet his bed at a sleepover it was because his friends put his hands in cold water.
An unusually receptive Huckabee Sanders also answered if aliens exist, how Trump gets in and out of the bathtub, and how come some fortune cookies are just words of wisdom and not actual fortunes.
Finally, Meyers asked about Trump’s favorite part of the movie Marley and Me, what Yoda says when you ask him a question, and if Trump is through with porn stars.
Watch:
The post Sarah Huckabee Sanders Finally Gets Honest in Press Briefing with Seth Meyers: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders Finally Gets Honest in Press Briefing with Seth Meyers: WATCH
Tuc Watkins Is the Bisexual in ‘Boys in the Band’
The out father of twins returns for the 50th anniversary of The Boys in the Band, bringing wisdom and knowledge to a universal struggle.
www.advocate.com/current-issue/2018/5/16/tuc-watkins-bisexual-boys-band
HRC Celebrates Pro-Equality Champions in Pennsylvania Primary
Tonight, HRC released the following statement celebrating the victories of pro-equality candidates Senator Bob Casey, Representatives Brendan Boyle (PA-2), Dwight Evans (PA-3), Matt Cartwright (PA-8), and Michael Doyle (PA-18), and Chrissy Houlahan.
“HRC was proud to mobilize our members and supporters across the Keystone State to turn out for these pro-equality champions, and we look forward to carrying this momentum to the general election in November,” said HRC Pennsylvania State Manager Allison VanKuiken. “As Donald Trump and Mike Pence ramp up their attacks on the LGBTQ community, it’s more important than ever to elect candidates who will pull the emergency brake on a harmful administration, and reject anti-equality politicians like Lou Barletta, who will only double down on their discriminatory agenda.”
In the U.S Senate race, HRC has endorsed incumbent Senator Bob Casey, who will be facing Rep. Lou Barletta in the general election. Senator Casey has long been a strong supporter of LGBTQ equality. He is the lead sponsor of the Safe Schools Improvement Act, which would require school districts to adopt codes of conduct prohibiting bullying and harassment, including on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and religion. Casey is also a co-sponsor of the Equality Act, crucial federal legislation that would finally guarantee comprehensive protections for LGBTQ people under our nation’s civil rights laws. A long time opponent of equality, Rep. Lou Barletta has earned a zero on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard each Congress since he was elected. His record includes opposing marriage equality, supporting a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and a lack of support for the Equality Act.
Following tonight’s primary, HRC will be examining races up and down the ballot to determine additional endorsements for the 2018 general election. In Pennsylvania, HRC has identified more than 2,005,000 “Equality Voters” — voters who support LGBTQ-inclusive policies including marriage equality, equitable family law, and laws that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. HRC has prioritized investments and organizing in Pennsylvania in the 2018 cycle, and has already put staff and resources on the ground in the state. Last year, HRC announced a coast-to-coast campaign called HRC Rising, which represents the largest grassroots expansion in the organization’s 38-year history.
| Paid for by Human Rights Campaign PAC (www.hrc.org) and not authorized by any candidate or committee. |
Police Are Mislabeling Anti-LGBTQ and Other Crimes as Anti-Heterosexual
Columbus Ohio Police by Raymond Wambscans (CC BY-S.A. 2.0)
Rob heard a loud knock at his door late one night in August 2014. His landlord had been calling him about maintenance issues in his Columbus, Ohio, apartment, but that night she came with a male companion and began to scream at him. According to a police report, the man jumped into the argument and threatened Rob — who asked that we not use his full name — with a homophobic slur. Fearing an escalation, he called the police.
“A thing that I’ve dealt with my entire life as a gay man is extreme prejudice, from threats to constant harassment,” Rob said, noting that his landlord had previously told his neighbors that he was a “filthy queer.”
Columbus police acknowledged Rob’s concern that the incident may have been motivated by bias, but they got a key detail wrong in their incident report: They mistakenly marked it as a case of anti-heterosexual harassment.
Since 2010, Columbus police have reported six incidents that list bias against heterosexuals as the purported motivation. That’s more than any other local law enforcement agency in the nation reported during that period. Columbus Police Department Sgt. Dean Worthington acknowledges it’s likely that the officers who filed the reports marked the wrong box.
“Given the fact that our officers are human, we are prone to make the occasional mistake,” said Worthington. “I can assure you these mistakes were not intentional.”
Each officer has a supervisor whose duty is to check such reports, but it’s possible the errors still got through, Worthington added.
Those reports made their way from Columbus to Washington, D.C., where they were compiled with thousands of others into what the FBI calls the Uniform Crime Report. Every year a small number of anti-heterosexual hate crime reports end up in the UCR. From 2010 to 2016, the FBI reported that local law enforcement agencies noted a total of 142 of them.
ProPublica reviewed dozens of these reports, however, and found few, if any, actual hate crimes targeting people for being heterosexual.
We sent Freedom of Information Act requests to every law enforcement agency that reported a heterosexual bias crime in 2016 — the most recent year for which FBI data was available. We also sent requests to every agency that had reported two or more such crimes since 2010, as well as to any agency available in an online service used to send public-records requests called Muckrock.
In total, we were able to locate records for 58 cases.
None described hate crimes spurred by anti-heterosexual bias. As with the case in Columbus, about half were actually anti-gay or anti-bisexual crimes that were miscategorized. Seven cases appeared to reflect other types of bias, with victims targeted because they were Jewish or black or women. Some 18 cases don’t seem to have been hate crimes at all, containing no discernible bias element.
The findings reflect a larger problem: Many local law enforcement agencies do a poor job tracking hate crimes. It’s a problem that can endanger public safety and leave policy makers blind when grappling with the growing problem of hate crimes and bias incidents in America.
Rob says he was discouraged from pressing charges against his landlord due to a lack of witnesses present. The police filled out an incident report but he decided not to pursue it further, in part because he feared reprisal from his landlord. When he found out from ProPublica that the police had marked the report wrong, he said it felt like yet another slight.
“It’s just sad to hear because I know she was targeting me for being a gay man,” he said.
As ProPublica reported last year, when asked for hate crimes data, many police departments said they hadn’t investigated any hate incidents, had no records on file, or that their records were poorly kept. Some police departments don’t mark bias-motivated crimes as such, or officers aren’t sure of how to mark hate crimes within their record systems.
ProPublica found that many of the anti-LGBTQ crimes mismarked as anti-heterosexual were vandalism and involved the use of a common anti-gay slur. Even Palm Springs, California — which has one of the highest proportion of same-sex couples in the country, according to a census analysis by UCLA’s Williams Institute — misreported an anti-gay hate crime as anti-heterosexual.
In a few cases, victims were straight but were targeted by suspects who believed them to be gay. Even in cases of mistaken identity, the FBI instructs police to mark the perceived bias of the aggressor — in these cases, as anti-LGBTQ. In Columbus, Ohio, a straight man was called a “faggot” before he was assaulted. The report, however, indicated that the attack was motivated by anti-heterosexual bias. In Gainesville, Florida, a straight woman and her female roommate were targeted, police correctly marked it as an anti-lesbian hate crime on the incident report, but it was reflected in the FBI’s data as an anti-heterosexual incident. Officials weren’t sure why.
In the FBI’s bias codes system, 44 is the code for an anti-heterosexual crime, while 41 is the code for an anti-gay male hate crime, making such a mistake a matter of a single digit. Several police departments pointed to drop-down menus and online tracking systems as the reason behind mislabeling.
For example, San Leandro, California, reported three anti-heterosexual hate crimes to the FBI between 2014 and 2016. Judy Park, the department’s records supervisor, acknowledged that all three were in fact anti-gay hate crimes. She said the cases had been added to the department’s internal system correctly, but the computer software had extracted the bias code number wrong — showing a 44 (anti-heterosexual) instead of a 41 (anti-gay male) on the incident reports. Park said she would work with the software vendor to fix the problem and try to correct the mistake with the FBI. “Thank you for bringing it to our attention, because we never would have known,” she added.
Officials from five other police departments — Tehachapi, California; Evesham and Princeton, New Jersey; Columbus, Ohio; and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville — also said they would work to correct such errors with state or federal agencies.
In some cases, police reports obtained by ProPublica showed no indication of a bias motivation in the description of the crime.
A number of these cases involved thefts, robberies and credit card fraud. In Benton, Kentucky, a few days before Christmas 2016, a suspect walked out of a Walmart with a shopping cart full of stolen merchandise, including drones, a scooter and a video game controller, according to Benton Police Chief Jeremy Hicks. He acknowledged the case was mistakenly mislabeled as an anti-heterosexual hate crime.
The erroneous reports suggest that the FBI is undercounting anti-LGBTQ hate crimes, which represent a significant portion of U.S. bias crimes. The FBI’s 2016 hate crimes report showed that sexual orientation-based bias crimes were the third most common hate crimes. The vast majority of those targeted victims for being gay, lesbian or bisexual. According to a National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs report, 2016 was “the deadliest year on record” for the LGBTQ community.
A statement from the FBI was unavailable at press time. We will update this story once we receive it.
To be sure, hate crimes against heterosexual people are possible. Federal law lists “sexual orientation” as a category of hate crimes, and a crime perpetrated against somebody for being straight would be a hate crime under federal law. But if there have been any of these crimes investigated or charged, it’s tough to find them in public records.
The difficulty of finding bona fide anti-heterosexual bias crimes or incidents is reflected by the lack of tips gathered by ProPublica’s Documenting Hate project. We’ve collected more than 500 tips from people who say they or someone they know was targeted because of their sexual orientation — but no tips at all from people who say they were targeted based on being heterosexual.
Anti-heterosexual hate crimes are so rare that experts working on hate crimes for years struggled to recall them, citing two cases of straight men getting assaulted at gay bars and a few attacks on religious institutions by gay activists in the 1990s.
ProPublica identified a handful of anti-heterosexual cases that fell into a gray area.
In Canton, Ohio, a yard sign opposing gay marriage was knocked over, damaging the steel posts holding it up. In Louisburg, North Carolina, signs encouraging people to vote for a state amendment to ban same-sex marriage were stolen multiple times in front of a Baptist church.
Police officials from Stark County, Ohio, and Franklin County, North Carolina, told ProPublica they weren’t sure why the incidents were reported to the FBI as prompted by anti-heterosexual bias. Experts weren’t sure how to classify these crimes, saying they could potentially reflect political or ideological bias.
Jeannine Bell, a law professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law who has studied hate crimes for more than two decades, says poor data collection indicates law enforcement agencies don’t take hate crimes seriously.
“It means that police fundamentally are not investigating hate crimes,” she said. “Hate crime needs to be more than checking a box.”
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The post Police Are Mislabeling Anti-LGBTQ and Other Crimes as Anti-Heterosexual appeared first on Towleroad.
Police Are Mislabeling Anti-LGBTQ and Other Crimes as Anti-Heterosexual
‘Deadpool 2’ features groundbreaking LGBTQ superhero storyline [SPOILERS]
GLAAD President responds: “storyline is a milestone in a genre that too often renders LGBTQ people invisible.”
GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today applauded 20th Century Fox for including two new LGBTQ superheroes in Deadpool 2 which is scheduled to be released nationwide on Thursday night, May 17. In the film, Negasonic Teenage Warhead (played by Brianna Hildebrand) meets a girlfriend in her fellow X-Men teammate, Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna). During the film, the two clearly state they are girlfriends, a first-of-its-kind moment in a wide release superhero film.
“20th Century Fox and Marvel have finally given countless moviegoers around the world what they’ve longed to see- LGBTQ superheroes in a relationship who protect the world together,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD President and CEO. “Negasonic and Yukio’s storyline is a milestone in a genre that too often renders LGBTQ people invisible, and should send a message to other studios to follow this example of inclusive and smart storytelling.”
GLAAD tracks LGBTQ inclusion in film through the annual Studio Responsibility Index, which measures the quantity, quality and diversity of LGBTQ people in films released by the seven major motion picture studios (www.glaad.org/sri/2017). The sixth annual Studio Responsibility Index is scheduled to be released next week.
While comic books and superhero shows have seen a welcome increase in LGBTQ characters, those characters – or their LGBTQ identities – have often not yet made it to the big screen. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has included seconds-long cameos of out news anchor Thomas Roberts appearing as himself in The Avengers and Iron Man 3. DC’s Extended Universe has done the same with Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which included cameos by out commentators.
Universal’s Kick-Ass 2 (2013) included Insect Man as one of the everyday superheroes inspired by Kickass’ antics. He introduces himself by saying that a lifetime of being bullied for being gay inspired him to stand up for the defenseless, adding that he doesn’t wear a mask because it’s too much like being back in the closet.
DC’s Suicide Squad ignored Harley Quinn’s (Margot Robbie) bisexual identity. Last year’s Wonder Woman broke box office records, but did not include Diana’s (Gal Gadot) bisexuality – a story that played out in the recent Greg Rucka run of comics and which moviegoers hope to see included in the upcoming sequel.
Thor: Ragnarok included two characters who are bisexual and gay respectively in the source material, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and Korg (Taika Waititi). However, this film did not include any references to their identities or love interests, and as such, audiences would have no clue they were seeing queer characters unless they had read outside press or the source material stories. The likely Black Panther sequel should include the romantic relationship between Dora Milaje members Ayo and Aneka. Their story was explored in the GLAAD Media Award-winning spin off Black Panther: World of Wakanda and the two – alongside Dora Milaje leader Okoye – are set for a summer three-issue miniseries.
GLAAD’s 2017 Studio Responsibility Index found that only 23 of the 125 (18.4%) releases from the seven major studios in 2016 included LGBTQ characters. The majority of those characters were minor in both substance and screen time, 10 of the 23 inclusive films (43%) included less than one minute of screen time for their LGBTQ characters. Queer men far outnumbered women by two to one (47 to 22), and there was one character counted as non-binary (All, Paramount’s Zoolander 2) who existed only to serve as a punchline. Racial diversity took a huge drop, down to only 20% of all LGBTQ characters being people of color. GLAAD’s 2018 Studio Responsibility Index, examining the 2017 releases of the seven major studios and four subsidiaries, will be unveiled next Tuesday, May 22 at a special panel event at global entertainment agency WME, hosted by the agency and Endeavor Content.
www.glaad.org/blog/deadpool-2-features-groundbreaking-lgbtq-superhero-storyline-spoilers
Sen. Mitch McConnell appoints violently anti-LGBTQ activist Tony Perkins to United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
Family Resource Council President Tony Perkins espouses extreme anti-LGBTQ views
NEW YORK – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today condemned the appointment of anti-LGBTQ hate group leader Tony Perkins to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Perkins was appointed on the recommendation of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to an announcement the Congressional Record.
Perkins, who serves as the president of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council, has an extensive anti-LGBTQ that GLAAD has compiled below. Notably, Perkins has called for Justice Kennedy to be impeached following his marriage equality ruling, promotes the dangerous and scientifically discredited practice of so-called conversion therapy, and has compared LGBTQ advocates to terrorists.
“Tony Perkins is the most recognizable anti-LGBTQ activist in America. He has espoused the most extreme views of LGBTQ people and other vulnerable communities including vocally supporting foreign laws that punish LGBTQ identity with death,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. “The idea that Perkins would be making policy recommendations to an administration that is already anti-LGBTQ is dangerous and puts LGBTQ people directly in harm’s way.”
The role of the USCIRF’s is to review the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and makes policy recommendations to the President, U.S. Secretary of State, and U.S. Congress. Tony Perkins is unqualified to hold this position, given his anti-LGBTQ record, detailed below.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Tony Perkins Extensive Anti-LGBTQ Record
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