Tag: Human Rights Campaign (HRC)

A transgender activist wrote an amazing Twitter thread about self-love after a picture of her was found circulating alt-right forums. Charlotte Clymer is the press secretary at HRC and “TERFS and trolls” were sending her a picture of herself with another woman that she said was being distributed on 4chan and other “awful parts of the web.” One 4chan user posted the image with a transphobic tirade where they misgendered Clymer and said that her “massive skull” and other features were...

The Secretary of State of Alabama said in a speech that people today are “too interested in homosexual activities,” and that’s why there isn’t any good TV anymore. John Merrill, who is in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate, was speaking at the Dekalb County Republican Breakfast Club’s meeting this past Saturday. “That’s what we’ve allowed to happen,” he said, according to the local publication Yellowhammer News, responding to a question about how American pop culture has changed. He complained that...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a new commission that he said will decide which human rights are more important to U.S. foreign policy. The new Commission on Unalienable Rights will answer questions like “What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right?” and “How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be...

The Human Rights Campaign has announced that Alphonso David will be the first person of color to lead the veteran LGBTQ organization. Born in the U.S., David was raised in Liberia, where his uncle was President. When David was 10, his father was jailed in a military coup and his uncle was assassinated. The family sought asylum in the U.S., which was granted because David was a U.S. citizen. After graduating from law school, David worked at a law firm in...

A plurality of Americans believe that federal law already bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 45% of people believe that the federal government has already passed a law banning discrimination against LGB people, something that never actually happened. 23% correctly stated that there is no such federal law and 31% said they didn’t know. When it came to gender identity, 31% of respondents said that there is already a federal law banning discrimination against...

The scandal-ridden former Representative Aaron Schock (R-IL) appears to be preparing to run for office again. Schock served as a U.S. Representative from Illinois from 2009 to 2015, when he resigned in disgrace after being accused of misusing campaign and public funds. He was the subject of a congressional ethics investigation and was indicted by a federal grand jury. Federal prosecutors dropped charges earlier this year in exchange for paying $110,000 in restitution and taxes. He has also been photographed making out...

Lawyers for Starbucks are arguing that repeatedly and intentionally misgendering a transgender employee don’t constitute actionable harassment under the law. Starbucks has a reputation for being LGBTQ-friendly. The coffee corporation has earned a perfect score of 100 on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index for years. It even has a policy on transgender workers that says, “A refusal to respect a partner’s request to be identified by the pronouns of choice is considered disrespectful (e.g., intentionally referring to a partner by a pronoun...

A black transgender woman was killed this past weekend in Philadelphia. Michelle Washington, who sometimes went by Michelle Simone on social media, was found with gunshot wounds to the head, body, and buttocks early Sunday morning, according to police. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Police have not made arrests in the ongoing homicide investigation, although Philadelphia Police Captain Sekou Kinebrew told Philadelphia Gay News that it “doesn’t appear” that Washington’s gender identity was the reason for...

A conservative LGBTQ organization just held a fundraiser for several anti-LGBTQ politicians last week. The $250 per person fundraising event, hosted by the leadership of the American Unity Fund (AUF), was held last week at the D.C. office of Hogan Lovells, a law firm. AUF is an organization “dedicated to advancing the cause of freedom for LGBTQ Americans by making the conservative case that freedom truly means freedom for everyone,” according to their website. Three U.S. Representatives and three U.S. Senators were...