Tag: Pennsylvania

Both Washington and Pennsylvania have recently given its citizens the option to add a non-binary gender marker to their driver’s licenses and state ID cards, making them the 16th and 17th U.S. states to offer such an option. The states will now allow an “X” to be entered on ID cards instead of the usual binary “M” and “F” options. This will not only help non-binary folks but also Native American two-spirit and intersex individuals who are born with any...

Thirteen police officers in Philadelphia will be fired after they were found posting racist, homophobic, and transphobic messages on social media. The social media posts were found by the Plain View Project, which tracks hate speech by law enforcement officials. Police Commissioner Richard Ross said yesterday that 328 police officers were included in the database and that the 13 who were fired were the worst offenders with the most violent posts. Four additional officers were suspended for 30 days and must undergo...

Reading’s LGBTQ citizens started an impromptu Pride march after the mayor canceled their flag-raising just moments before the event. / Scrrenshot via YouTube @Berks Weekly Reading, Pennsylvania citizens are complaining about their mayor after he halted the raising of a Pride flag in town. This past Monday, citizens were preparing for the raising of a pride flag over City Hall for the first time in town history, but Mayor Wally Scott then suddenly changed his mind. On the day of the flag’s...

A Pennsylvania mayor has come under fire for calling the rainbow flag a political symbol. Wally Scott is the mayor of Reading, a city of around 90,000. On Monday, the rainbow flag was supposed to be raised in front of Reading’s City Hall to start the city’s week-long Pride festivities. But, at the last minute, Scott called City Council president Jeffrey Waltman to ban the flag from flying in front of City Hall. Waltman tried to convince him to reconsider, but...

Another day, another Republican caught behaving badly. Or at least behaving in a way unbecoming of someone who claims to be a proponent of “family values.” Val DiGiorgio, the chairman of the Pennsylvania’s Republican Party, abruptly resigned yesterday just hours after sexually explicit text messages between him and a woman other than his wife surfaced online. 51-year-old DiGiorgio, a Trump ally and frequent critic of out gay Pennsylvania lawmaker and LGBTQ activist Rep. Brian Sims, engaged in a months-long string of...

A group of Pennsylvania-based transgender women have filed a lawsuit over a statute that forces them to use their birth names. The Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund filed the suit earlier this week on behalf of Alonda Talley, Chauntey Mo’Nique Porter and Priscylla Renee Von Noake. All three women identify as transgender, though because they were convicted of felonies in the past, the state forces them to use their birth names on legal documents. “Pennsylvanians with felony convictions who seek...

Aidan DeStefano talks to The Today Show (screen capture)In a win for transgender students, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review Doe v. Boyertown School District which leaves in place a policy of allowing trans students to use the bathroom facilities that align with their gender identity. The policy has been in effect since 2016. The school district also provides private restrooms with lockers for any student, trans or otherwise, who may feel uncomfortable with the arrangement. ...

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...

In what can only be described as a gross violation of the code of conduct befitting a member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, new member Brian Sims (D-Philadelphia) openly harassed an elderly pro-life woman praying outside a Planned Parenthood in his district. Not only did Sims, the first openly (and rabidly) gay representative behave like a threatening bully, but he may have committed a crime. According to the Pennsylvania code, criminal harassment is defined thus: A person commits the crime...

Pennsylvania's Clarks Summit University, a Christian school, has denied a student from finishing the last six hours of his bachelors’s degree because he is gay. To be clear, the university kicked him to the curb not for having a boyfriend or engaging in a gay “sexual relationship” as the school’s student handbook prohibits. No, after accepting Gary Campbell’s money to take two classes, the school contacted him after learning he is gay and informed him he’s not welcome as a student...

A Pennsylvania pastor is trying to dodge lewdness charges and accusations after being caught with a man tied up in his car. 61-year-old George Nelson Gregory was caught in the backseat of his car by police around 11:30 pm in Homestead. That’s all well and good until you mention the fact that Gregory was with a naked man who was bound by nylon rope. As the police report says, Gregory told police they “were just playing” and the man confirmed this...

The news is so terrible these days it’s almost unbearable. So here’s something nice for you to watch. Ellen surprised a gay college student named Trent Bauer with a big check this week. Bauer was brought to Ellen’s attention by his best friend Stephanie in a letter she wrote praising his work for gay rights. Bauer serves as LGBT Student Coordinator at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania – a position he saw the need for and pushed administrators to create. Said Ellen: “We...

'She and I just had a very disappointing chat about you. We’ll talk soon…' One troll has learned when you write homophobic racist language online, you’re going to be exposed as an idiot. Pennsylvania state representative Brian Sims, who is gay, decided to give a troll a lesson he’ll never ever forget. Earlier this week, the bigot posted ‘n*gger f*aggot* on the politician’s Facebook. Instead of ignoring the message, Sims decided to look through the troll’s Facebook page and found something hilarious. ‘David, I...