Why Use The Term “Alleged” When Reporting on Crimes Against LGBTQ People

I’ve had a few questions about the use of the term “alleged murder” to refer to the deaths of Betty Janet Skinner and Brittany-Nicole Kidd-Stergis in Cleveland last week. I can only imagine the degree of hurt, anger and outrage – perhaps fear? – in the community and it is fair to say that the […]

Pittsburgh: Not So Equal After All

Marriage equality Peduto pittsburgh equality

Pittsburgh received 72 out of 100 possible points on a recent national survey of municipal equality released by the Human Rights Campaign.  The city was not ranked in 2012.  The index was divided into 6 categories: non-discrimination laws, relationship recognition, municipality as an employer, municipal services, law enforcement, and relationship with the LGBT community. Pittsburgh […]

Upated: Two Transwomen Murdered in Cleveland

Cleveland, Transgender, Brittany-Nicole, Kidd-Stergis, Betty Skinner, Hate Crime

Sad news from Cleveland. 52 year old Betty Janet Skinner was found murdered in her apartment Thursday morning. Cleveland Police say Skinner was physically disabled, required assisted living and received regular home health care.   She was last seen alive by her home health care worker when she left the Devonshire Road apartment of our fallen […]

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Wednesday, November 20 is the Transgender Day of Remembrance.   The Transgender Day of Remembrance is held in November each year to memorializ   e those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgender, each was a victim of violence based […]

Another Fail by the Post-Gazette on Coverage of Trans Issues

Richland School District will not allow Kasey Caron to run for Homecoming King because Kasey was identified as biologicaly female at birth. School board solicitor Timothy Leventry says Pennsylvania law requires a person born female to have a physician certify a sex change operation and have her birth certificate changed to legally be considered male. […]

LGBT-rex (From Facebook)

Update from Cleveland – Rally for Cemia Acoff

I am simply horrified to report that the Cleveland Plains Dealer has yet to eliminate the transphobic and hateful content in their reporting on the murder of 20 year old Cemia Acoff (also known as Ce Ce Dove.)  It is simply unbelievable, but it is important to take note of this degree of institutionalized hate. […]

The Week in LGBTQA – March 17, 2013

St. Patrick’s Day edition. First, let me wish my younger brother Jim a happy birthday. He’s 41 – 17 months younger than me. In my head he’s still 8. LOL.  One of most significant stories this past week involved a conversation about how we prevent rape. Gun proponents argue that women need guns to shoot […]

*Trans*lation

(This is a modified edition of a blog post originally published at Huffington Post GayVoices.) “What exactly does it mean to be transgender?” “Why do they want to change their sex?” “Why can’t they just be gay or lesbian?” These are some of the questions I so ignorantly used to think about transgender people. I […]

CBS “Mike & Molly” Uses Trans Slur on Most Recent Episode

The good news is that CBS is meeting with GLAAD to discuss the latest in their ongoing #fail when it comes to depicting LGBTQ characters on their network shows. The bad news is that its February 2013 and they are still working on this. That latest offense was a trans slur used during Monday’s Valentine’s […]