VIDEO: Logo to air GLAAD Media Awards on April 4th

www.glaad.org/blog/video-logo-air-glaad-media-awards-april-4th

No, Nothing Pat McCrory Says In Defense Of North Carolina’s Anti-LGBT Law Is True

North Carolina’s governor has bent over backwards to misrepresent the state’s new anti-LGBT law.

The post No, Nothing Pat McCrory Says In Defense Of North Carolina’s Anti-LGBT Law Is True appeared first on ThinkProgress.

thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/03/29/3764264/pat-mccrory-dishonest-defense-north-carolina-anti-lgbt/

BREAKING: More than 80 Major CEOs, Business Leaders Demand North Carolina Repeal Discriminatory Law

Today, HRC and Equality NC, the state organization working to secure equal rights and justice for LGBT North Carolinians, released a letter from more than 80 leading CEOs and business leaders calling on Governor Pat McCrory and the North Carolina General Assembly to repeal the radical provisions in the deeply discriminatory House Bill 2 that was rammed through the legislature last week.

The letter — signed by dozens of CEOs from across the nation — comes only a day after Georgia Governor Nathan Deal announced he would veto anti-LGBT legislation in Georgia after facing a sustained outcry from a broad chorus of advocates and companies. On Thursday morning, HRC President Chad Griffin and Equality NC Executive Director Chris Sgro will deliver the letter personally to Governor McCrory’s office. Griffin and Sgro have also requested a meeting with the governor on Thursday in order to discuss the very real impact this new law will have on LGBT North Carolinians. A copy of the letter and its signatories can be found here and below.

“Discrimination is bad for North Carolina, bad for America, and bad for business,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “These business leaders are speaking out because they know this attack on lesbian, gay, bisexual and especially transgender North Carolinians isn’t just morally wrong — it also puts their employees, customers and North Carolina’s economy at risk. For the sake of all North Carolinians, Governor McCrory and the General Assembly must act now to repeal this heinous attack on fairness and equality.”

“North Carolina’s place as a business leader in the South is based on fairness, inclusion, and diversity,” said Equality NC Executive Director Chris Sgro. “HB 2 does not represent North Carolina values, and it weakens our competitive edge. We are glad to see our business community in the Old North State standing up against discriminatory measures like this. Governor McCrory made a mess of our state last week, and our businesses are leading the charge to repair our state to a place of fairness.”

H.B. 2 has eliminated existing municipal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people and prevents such protections from being passed by cities in the future. The legislation also forces transgender students in public schools to use restrooms and other facilities inconsistent with their gender identity, putting 4.5 billion dollars in federal funding under Title IX at risk. It also compels the same type of discrimination against transgender people to take place in state buildings, including in public universities.  Lawmakers passed the legislation in a hurried, single-day session last Wednesday, and Governor McCrory quickly signed it into law in the dead of night.

North Carolina has the unfortunate distinction of becoming the first state in the country to enact a law attacking transgender students, even after similar proposals were rejected across the country this year — including a high-profile veto by the Republican Governor Dennis Daugaard of South Dakota. North Carolina school districts that comply with the law will now be in direct violation of Title IX, subjecting the school districts to massive liability and putting an estimated $4.5 billion of federal funding from the U.S. Department of Education, as well as funding received by schools from other federal agencies, at risk. This section of House Bill 2 offers costly supposed solutions to non-existent problems, and it forces schools to choose between complying with federal law — plus doing the right thing for their students — or complying with a state law that violates students’ civil rights. Read more about how this bill puts federal funding at risk here.

The state becomes the third in the nation to prohibit cities from passing non-discrimination laws that protect LGBT people.

The full letter to Governor McCrory and list of signatories is below:

Dear Governor McCrory,

We write with concerns about legislation you signed into law last week, HB 2, which has overturned protections for LGBT people and sanctioned discrimination across North Carolina. Put simply, HB 2 is not a bill that reflects the values of our companies, of our country, or even the overwhelming majority of North Carolinians.

We are disappointed in your decision to sign this discriminatory legislation into law. The business community, by and large, has consistently communicated to lawmakers at every level that such laws are bad for our employees and bad for business. This is not a direction in which states move when they are seeking to provide successful, thriving hubs for business and economic development. We believe that HB 2 will make it far more challenging for businesses across the state to recruit and retain the nation’s best and brightest workers and attract the most talented students from across the nation. It will also diminish the state’s draw as a destination for tourism, new businesses, and economic activity.

Discrimination is wrong and we believe it has no place in North Carolina or anywhere in our country. As companies that pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming to all, we strongly urge you and the leadership of North Carolina’s legislature to repeal this law in the upcoming legislative session.

Sincerely,

Karen Appleton, Senior Vice President, Box

Brandee Barker, Cofounder, The Pramana Collective

Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce

Chip Bergh, President and CEO, Levi Strauss & Co.

Michael Birch, Founder, Blab

Ed Black, President and CEO, Computer & Communications Industry Association

Nathan Blecharczyk, Cofounder and CTO, Airbnb

Steven R. Boal, CEO, Quotient Technology Inc.

Lorna Borenstein, CEO, Grokker

Brad Brinegar, Chairman and CEO, McKinney

Lloyd Carney, CEO, Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.

Brian Chesky, CEO, Airbnb

Ron Conway, Founder and Co-Managing Partner, SV Angel

Tim Cook, CEO, Apple

Dean Debnam, Chairman and CEO, Workplace Options

Jack Dorsey, CEO, Square and Twitter

David Ebersman, Cofounder and CEO, Lyra Health

Jared Fliesler, General Partner, Matrix Partners

Joe Gebbia, Cofounder and Chief Product Officer, Airbnb

Jason Goldberg, CEO, Pepo

Alan King, President and COO, Workplace Options

Kristen Koh Goldstein, CEO, BackOps

Mitchell Gold, co-founder and chair-man, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams

John H. Graham IV, President and CEO, American Society of Association Executives

Logan Green, CEO, Lyft

Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator

David Hassell, CEO, 15Five

Charles H. Hill III, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Human Resources, Pfizer Inc.

Reid Hoffman, Chairman, LinkedIn

Robert Hohman, Cofounder & CEO, Glassdoor

Drew Houston, CEO, Dropbox

Chad Hurley, Cofounder, YouTube

Dave Imre, Partner and CEO, IMRE

Dev Ittycheria, President & CEO, MongoDB

Laurene Powell Jobs, President, Emerson Collective

Cecily Joseph, VP Corporate Responsibility and Chief Diversity Officer, Symantec Corporation

David Karp, Founder and CEO, Tumblr

Travis Katz, Founder and CEO, Gogobot

Brian Krzanich, CEO, Intel                 

Joshua Kushner, Managing Partner, Thrive Capital

Max Levchin, CEO, Affirm

Dion Lim, CEO, NextLesson

Shan-lyn Ma, CEO, Zola

Marissa Mayer, President and CEO, Yahoo

Melody McCloskey, CEO, StyleSeat

Douglas Merrill, CEO, Zestfinance

Dyke Messinger, President and CEO, Power Curbers Inc.

Hari Nair, Vice President and General Manager, Orbitz.com & CheapTickets.com

Michael Natenshon, CEO, Marine Layer

Alexi G. Nazem, Cofounder and CEO, Nomad Health

Laurie J. Olson, EVP, Strategy, Portfolio and Commercial Operations, Pfizer Inc.

Bob Page, Founder and CEO, Replacements, Ltd.

Michelle Peluso, Strategic Advisor and former CEO, Gilt

Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google

Mark Pincus, Founder and Executive Chairman, Zynga

Hosain Rahman, CEO, Jawbone

Bill Ready, CEO, Braintree

Evan Reece, CEO, Liftopia

Stan Reiss, General Partner, Matrix Partners

John Replogle, CEO, Seventh Generation

Virginia M. Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO, IBM Corporation

Dan Rosensweig, CEO, Chegg

Kevin P. Ryan, Founder and Chairman, Alleycorp

Bijan Sabet, General Partner, Spark Capital

Julie Samuels, President, Engine

George A. Scangos, PhD, CEO, Biogen

Dan Schulman, President and CEO, PayPal

Adam Shankman, Director and Producer

Gary Shapiro, President and CEO, Consumer Technology Association

David A. Shaywitz, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer, DNAnexus

Ben Silbermann, CEO, Pinterest

Brad Smith, President and Chief Legal Officer, Microsoft

Arne Sorenson, President and CEO, Marriott International

David Spector, Cofounder, ThirdLove

Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO, Yelp

Bret Taylor, CEO, Quip

Todd Thibodeaux, CEO, CompTIA

David Tisch, Managing Partner, BoxGroup

Nirav Tolia, Cofounder and CEO, Nextdoor

Kevin A. Trapani, President and CEO, The Redwood Groups

Ken Wasch, President, Software & Information Industry Association

Bob & Harvey Weinstein, Co-Founders and Co-Chairmen, The Weinstein Company

Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman and CEO, Facebook

www.hrc.org/blog/breaking-more-than-80-major-ceos-business-leaders-demand-north-carolina-rep?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Watch: Gov. McCrory to Transgender North Carolinians: “We All Have to Make Adjustments in Life”

Yesterday, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory was forced to defend his appalling new law that eliminates existing municipal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people and some veterans; prevents such provisions from being passed by cities in the future; and forces transgender people in public schools to use restrooms and other facilities inconsistent with their gender identity.

Spoiler: It didn’t go so well.

First McCrory tried to suggest that his bill did not take away any rights that were on the books — a blatant falsehood given that the LGBT community in Charlotte lost protections, along with veterans in some places, to name two just examples.

The News & Observer reports (watch here):

“When a reporter told McCrory that the law appears to revoke a fair housing ordinance in Greensboro and a policy governing municipal contracts in Raleigh, he said he didn’t know whether the policies would be eliminated. ‘You’re blindsiding me with a question,’ McCrory said. ‘I’ve been traveling all day, so you’re telling me something I’m not aware of.’”

If Gov. McCrory feels “blindsided” by what’s in his own bill, imagine how transgender people must feel after a bill forcing them to use restrooms inconsistent with their gender identity passes in less than a day?

Later, McCrory was interviewed by NBC, who asked him how he would respond to a transgender North Carolinian (watch here):

“Joaquin Carcano, 27, who was born female but identifies as male — he sported light facial stubble on Monday — told NBC News he uses men’s bathrooms but under the new law will have to use women’s rooms. He said he worried about the reaction. Asked about Carcano’s situation, McCrory responded: ‘You know, we all have to make adjustments in life. And we’ve had the proper etiquette situation for decades in our country, and all of a sudden through political correctness we’re throwing away basic etiquette.’”

If Gov. McCrory can’t be honest about what his bill actually does, then he should repeal the discriminatory provisions that are in it when the legislature comes back in April. It’s now becoming clear that Gov. McCrory signed this bill in the dead of night after less than a day of debate because he knows he can’t defend it based on the facts.

While Gov. McCrory bizarrely goes around the state to argue that no one lost any protections, the reality is that he took away Charlotte’s protections for the LGBT community that were just days away from taking effect and he moved North Carolina backwards and forced transgender people — including students — across the state to use restrooms inconsistent with their gender identity. In addition, he took away protections against discrimination for veterans in places like Greensboro and Orange County.

www.hrc.org/blog/watch-gov.-mccrory-to-transgender-north-carolinians-we-all-have-to-make-adj?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Grieving family seeks help after Chastity Matthews, 28 year-old bi advocate, passes away

www.glaad.org/blog/grieving-family-seeks-help-after-chastity-matthews-28-year-old-bi-advocate-passes-away

Women’s History Month: Fun Home Makes History for Lesbians on Broadway

In June, playwright Lisa Kron took home two Tony Awards, including one for best book and another for best original score, with composer Jeanine Tesori, for the Broadway show Fun Home. It received five Tony Awards, including one for best new musical.

Fun Home is based on lesbian artist, author and activist Alison Bechdel’s searing memoir about self-discovery, her family and her father, who was secretly attracted to men. It’s the first Broadway show to feature a lesbian protagonist and it’s a box office success.

“Theater is about being in a room with people who are different from you — both in terms of what’s on the stage and who’s in the audience.” Kron, who married her partner Madeleine George last year, told HRC. “And there’s certainly no theatrical art form that is more humanizing than a protagonist in a musical. And to have that be a butch lesbian? One of the previously most invisible creatures in the cultural world?”

Bechdel, who came out at age 19, has become an icon in the LGBT and feminist community, not only for her famous comic strip but also for the Bechdel test, which measures gender bias on the big screen.  

“I came out by reading books, not by having actual experiences with other people, she told NPR. “I’ve been all about being out and open about being a lesbian since I came out in 1980, and it has been my career.” 

Through this hit show, the pair have elevated the experiences LGBTQ youth, the trials of coming out as a youth as an adult and the impact of living openly and proudly.  As the show prepares to tour the country, Bechdel’s story will now be shared with new and diverse audiences, allowing this thought-provoking show to change more hearts and minds than ever before. 

www.hrc.org/blog/womens-history-month-fun-home-makes-history-for-lesbians-on-broadway?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed