Bernie Sanders Wins Indiana Democratic Primary
Sanders bests Hillary Clinton in a close race.
www.advocate.com/election/2016/5/03/bernie-sanders-wins-indiana-democratic-primary
Daily Archives: May 3, 2016
Bernie Sanders is the Projected Winner of the Indiana Primary Though Delegate Math is Little Changed
Bernie Sanders is the Projected Winner of the Indiana Primary Though Delegate Math is Little Changed
Bernie Sanders is the projected winner of the Indiana primary.
With 69 percent of the vote in, Sanders has 53 percent of the vote and Hillary Clinton hass 47 percent.
However, delegates are awarded proportionally in the Indiana Democratic primary so the delegate math remains virtually unchanged.
RELATED: Rachel Maddow Says Bernie Doesn’t Have a Chance, Asks for Hate Mail from Sanders Supporters: WATCH
The post Bernie Sanders is the Projected Winner of the Indiana Primary Though Delegate Math is Little Changed appeared first on Towleroad.
Voters Reject Ted Cruz’s False Scare Tactics Against Trans Americans, Campaign Gets End it Deserves
Voters Reject Ted Cruz’s False Scare Tactics Against Trans Americans, Campaign Gets End it Deserves
Today, HRC released the following statement after Senator Ted Cruz suspended his campaign for President — days after launching a series of false attacks against transgender people.
“Ted Cruz has waged an ugly, bigoted campaign against LGBT equality for months. Cruz will be remembered for spending the last days of his presidential campaign shamefully trying to stoke a dangerous brand of hate against transgender people like me to score political points,” said HRC Communications Director Jay Brown. “Ted Cruz’s false attack ads and repeated smears against us in the closing days of his campaign were clearly rejected by voters. There’s a lesson here — Americans of all parties believe LGBT people should be protected from discrimination and politicians who don’t take note risk being rejected at the ballot box.”
Fact checkers have found that, contrary to the anti-transgender garbage that Cruz has been peddling, “there’s no evidence of dangerous predators pretending to be transgender in American bathrooms…” Politifact rated Ted Cruz’s ad attacking Donald Trump for supporting the right of transgender people to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity as “mostly false,” saying “the overall message is highly distorted to scare voters.”
Cruz has made anti-transgender rhetoric a staple on the campaign trail. He recently suggested transgender people should “only use restrooms at home and avoid public facilities.” In addition to his recent ad smearing transgender people, his campaign threw a transgender teenager out of a campaign event. At prior campaign events, he launched a bigoted rant against the Obama Administration’s decision to support a transgender student, falsely accusing officials of forcing the school to “let a little boy take showers with junior high girls.”
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Cruz has decried efforts to lift the ban prohibiting transgender Americans from serving openly in the military, even though the American Medical Association approved a resolution last year that said there is “no medically valid reason to exclude transgender individuals from service in the U.S. military.”
For more on Cruz’s anti-LGBT record, click here.
| Paid for by Human Rights Campaign PAC. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. |
Donald Trump Takes Indiana Primary
Donald Trump Takes Indiana Primary
Trump wins the Hoosier State easily.
www.advocate.com/election/2016/5/03/donald-trump-takes-indiana-primary
Obama To Designate Stonewall Inn As First National Gay Rights Monument
Obama To Designate Stonewall Inn As First National Gay Rights Monument
Transphobic ‘Bathroom Cop’ Follows Dallas Woman Into The Restroom
Transphobic ‘Bathroom Cop’ Follows Dallas Woman Into The Restroom
Apparently, creepy self-appointed “bathroom cops” are what women have to deal with in the wake of HB2.
From The Dallas Observer comes the extremely unsettling story and video of a woman trailed into a restroom by a complete stranger because she didn’t look “woman” enough for him. Seriously.
Jessica Rush was born female and is not transitioning, but committed the crime of not fitting into rigid gender norms, which a strange man felt the need to address.
Read on and share our fury:
Case in point: the man who, um, heroically barged into a women’s restroom at Baylor Medical Center in Frisco on Thursday to make sure that Jessica Rush, who manages a local health-food takeout place, was peeing in the proper place.
She was, for the record, and her situation isn’t particularly complicated. Rush was born and identifies as female and has no plans to change that. “I look very much like a girl,” she says. “I’m not trying to transition, nothing like that.”
But Rush wears her hair in a bleached blond fauxhawk and dresses androgynously. On Thursday, she was wearing a T-shirt from her alma mater, Texas Tech, with basketball shorts.
Being accosted by the man led to this awkward conversation:
“When I saw you enter I thought you was…” the man says.
“A boy?” Rush offers.
“Yeah, it was kind of confusing.” Certainly she can see why. “You dress like a man,” he says several times as he walks away.
Watch the awkward encounter below, and join us in thinking wistfully back to the days when this wasn’t a thing.
Glitter and Glue, ‘No Fats, No Femmes’, Wendell Smallwood, Troye Sivan, Target: NEWS
Glitter and Glue, ‘No Fats, No Femmes’, Wendell Smallwood, Troye Sivan, Target: NEWS
JUST BECAUSE. A hot guy gets covered in glitter and glue, then peels it off.
CRIME. Atlanta man strangles his boyfriend to death in hotel room: “Williams killed Robinson on Jan. 30, 2015 and left his body on the floor of the hotel room they shared before inviting a friend over and telling him “not to worry about it,” according to court documents. The friend later came forward to Atlanta police and gave them a photo of Williams, who fled the next day after wrapping Robinson’s body in a blanket. Hotel staff discovered the body about noon on January 31 just moments after Williams left.”
FILM. New documentary No Fats, No Femmes fights back against fat and femme shaming in gay culture: “The documentary will feature interviews with five black people: a disabled person in South Africa; a queer New York rapper; a PhD student and blogger in Missouri; an agender writer of work on body positivity and a trans woman. Using archival research and performance art, Lewis’ goal is to discuss the many ways individual desires are rooted in problematic conceptions of varying identities.”
SPORTS. NFL draft pick Wendell Smallwood apologizes for homophobic tweets: “‘The stuff on Twitter — I was young,’ said Smallwood, according to Pennlive.com. ‘It’s real embarrassing. I don’t believe anything I said. I’ve definitely grown since that stuff was sent out. I’ve learned from it.’”
TROYE SIVAN. The pop star and YouTuber opens up about coming out and his battle with internalized homophobia.
MICHIGAN. Man who made signs saying local churches support same-sex marriage is being sued: “Attorneys for Jenison Bible Church claim that Daniel Vanderley did not have permission to put the church’s name on a sign that was used at a June 2015 demonstration outside an event featuring the anti-gay owner of the Dieseltec auto body shop. In the context of the pro-gay demonstration outside the event, the sign intentionally distorted the church’s belief about same-sex marriage, according to a lawsuit filed Monday, May 2, in Kent County Circuit Court.”
TARGET. Protesters opposed and in favor of Target’s trans-inclusive bathroom policy face off.
UTAH. Woman being honored by University of Utah with honorary degree resigns from anti-LGBT organization after public outcry: “Lynette Nielsen Gay will resign from the World Congress of Families amid backlash to her being selected to receive an honorary degree from the University of Utah. Gay serves on the board of directors for World Congress of Families, a traditional family advocacy organization listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its efforts to restrict the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. In a prepared statement on Monday, Gay described herself and her husband as ‘staunch’ supporters of personal freedom and rights for all individuals.”
TONYS. Jennifer Hudson throws some shade on Twitter over Tony Award nomination snub.
RED CARPET. Recap the 10 sharpest dressed men from last night’s Met Gala.
HOMOPHOBE. Bobby Jindal says he will support Donald Trump if he’s the Republican nominee: “If it comes down to a binary choice between Donald Trump, I’m supporting the party’s nominee. I’m not happy about it. I don’t think he’s the best qualified, I don’t think he’s the one most likely to be successful, but I would vote for him over Hillary Clinton.”
REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTION. White House Press Secretary calls a potential blocking of openly gay Army Secretary nominee Eric Fanning “unconscionable”: “…our national security would be enhanced by the Senate confirming the Secretary of the Army, particularly when it’s someone as distinguished as Mr. Fanning.”
TELEVISION. Gwen Stefani will be the next guest on James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke.
INSTASTUD. Mew C.
The post Glitter and Glue, ‘No Fats, No Femmes’, Wendell Smallwood, Troye Sivan, Target: NEWS appeared first on Towleroad.
Four Ways Donald Trump Would Roll Back LGBT Equality as President
Four Ways Donald Trump Would Roll Back LGBT Equality as President
With his win in Indiana tonight, Donald Trump steps even closer to becoming the presumptive nominee of the Republican party in November. And with that, it’s important for pro-equality voters in November. Despite his malleable rhetoric — which shifts depending on who he is standing in front of at any given moment — he has made clear that he will be no friend to the LGBT community in the White House.
Donald Trump is nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing when it comes to LGBT equality. Here are four ways Donald Trump has already pledged to roll back LGBT equality if he succeeds in his quest to become president.
1) Trump Has Promised to Roll Back Nationwide Marriage Equality
Donald Trump has long opposed nationwide marriage equality, calling himself a “traditional” guy, even waffling on whether he supports civil unions. Heading into the South Carolina Primary, Trump tripled down on his opposition to nationwide marriage equality.
In late January, Trump told Fox News Sunday he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court who would reverse nationwide marriage equality and when asked to clarify by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos a week later, Trump again doubled down.
Trump also told CBN’s David Brody that evangelical voters can “trust me” to oppose marriage equality, saying:
“I think they can trust me. They can trust me on traditional marriage. I was very much in favor of having the court rule that it goes to states and let the states decide. And that was a shocking decision for you and for me and for a lot of other people. But I was very much in favor of letting the states decide….”
2) Trump to Sign a Law Sanctioning Kim Davis-Style Discrimination
Donald Trump supports the so-called “First Amendment Defense Act,” (FADA), a bill to enable Kim Davis-style discrimination against LGBT people nationwide. FADA would undermine the rule of law and promote taxpayer-funded discrimination against same-sex couples. In a letter to the far-right organization the American Principles Project, Trump wrote in December, “If Congress considers the First Amendment Defense Act a priority, then I will do all I can to make sure it comes to my desk for signatures and enactment.”
FADA would allow organizations and businesses contracting with the federal government to circumvent critical federal protections designed to protect same-sex couples and their families from harmful discrimination. It would also enable federal employees to refuse to fully perform their duties if they believe they conflict with their objection to same-sex marriage. For example, an employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs could refuse to process a claim for survivor benefits for the same-sex spouse of a servicemember.
This is not the first time that Donald Trump has vowed to support sham religious refusal bills designed to enable discrimination against LGBT people. In a March debate, Trump said he agreed with Cruz’s answer on religious liberty and agreed that when it comes to opposing nationwide marriage equality and the right of same-sex couples to adopt,“I would certainly have rather left it to the states.”
And last fall at the Iowa Faith and Family Coalition, Trump said he would make the passage of legislation creating such broad loopholes to discriminate a priority. According to Breitbart, referencing Christians and religious liberty Trump told the audience, he would support such laws because “…We’re not being protected.” Breitbart reported, “He said his first priority if elected President of the United States would be to ‘preserve and protect our religious liberty.’ ‘We’ll be fighting as part [of a] common core, and we’re going to protect totally the First Amendment.’ ”
3) Trump Opposes HB2 in Theory; but Would Let it Continue in Practice. #NotLeadership.
In one spectacular display of Trump’s brazen efforts to ‘have it both ways,’ he made nearly simultaneous statements speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Almost immediately after Trump appeared on NBC and pledged his opposition to HB2, noting how unnecessary and damaging it has been to the state of North Carolina — he went on FOX later the very same day to assure conservatives he would do nothing to address it as president.
In an interview with the Today Show in April, Donald Trump opposed North Carolina’s HB 2 — saying:
“North Carolina, what they’re going through, with all of the business that’s leaving and all of the strife — and that’s on both sides — you leave it the way it is. There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble. And the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic, I mean, the economic punishment that they’re taking. So I would say that’s probably the best way.
Later that day, Trump told Sean Hannity on FOX News that ‘he would leave it up to states’ and do nothing to intervene as president. Essentially, he’s suggesting that if a state wants to go through with a law that harms the state, he would allow it, an attempt to have it both ways.
One federal court has already ruled that a school district policy similar to HB 2 is not constitutional. Just this week, Secretary of Education John, B. King called for the repeal of HB 2 saying that gender identity should be protected from discrimination. As far as Trump is concerned, however, states should be free to violate federal laws — such as Title IX — and deny basic rights to their people.
4) Trump Would Repeal President Obama’s Executive Orders
Trump says he looks forward to repealing President Obama’s executive orders, meaning the executive order protecting LGBT employees working for federal contractors is at risk. That means under a Trump White House, a company doing business with the government and receiving taxpayer dollars could say “you’re fired” to LGBT employees just because of who they are. And if there’s any doubt as to urgency with which Trump would approach this, the Washington Post reports, “If he’s elected president, Trump said that within an hour of taking the oath of office — but possibly within two minutes — he would undo many of Obama’s executive orders.”
The loss of these protections is not just a hypothetical danger. Just last week the House Armed Services Committee added an amendment to the defense authorization that would undermine President Obama’s executive order banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity for federal contractors — an executive order that covers 20 percent of the workforce. And Trump has made clear he’s not going to fight these types of efforts.
In sum: Trump has vowed time and again to oppose LGBT equality and roll back our progress. His policy positions are extreme and dangerous — and he has attempted to obfuscate his views because he knows they are out of step with the vast majority of voters who’ll go to the polls in November.
In fact, support for LGBT equality has hit a record high in the last year. Nearly 80 percent of Americans support federal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people and a 55 percent majority say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate opposed to marriage equality. No matter how you look at it, Trump remains dangerously out of step with the majority of fair-minded Americans who believe that LGBT people should be treated equally under the law.
Chicago Public Schools Meet Needs of Transgender Students (Video)
Chicago Public Schools Meet Needs of Transgender Students (Video)
www.advocate.com/transgender/2016/5/03/chicago-public-schools-meet-needs-transgender-students-video
High School Footballer Arrested For Exposing Himself In Yearbook Already Has An Offer From Playgirl
High School Footballer Arrested For Exposing Himself In Yearbook Already Has An Offer From Playgirl
A high school senior who got his whole school laughing for months after he exposed himself in a varsity football yearbook photo isn’t laughing now that police have charged him with 69 counts of indecent exposure and one count of furnishing harmful items to minors. Or perhaps he is since Playgirl has stepped in to make an offer.
OK, but really — 69? It couldn’t have been 68 or 70?
19-year-old Hunter Osborn of Red Mountain High School in Mesa, Arizona, says a teammate dared him to flash the camera on picture day. His goal post was circulated for months in football game programs and the yearbook before the school realized what happened.
The school was understandably upset they’d been duped, but Osborn surely never thought the prank would land wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet under house arrest.
Students at the school were also surprised at the harsh reaction from law enforcement.
“When people told me about it I thought it was a big thing, but when I looked at it like you cant really tell, it’s kinda hard to see,” said student Zach Anthony.
Related: PHOTOS: 19-Year-Old UK Footballer Has Secretly Been Showing Off His Goal Post On Tumblr
At first, it was kind of like a joke, but then once we found out the consequences he has to face for this, we all feel really bad for him, and we don’t think it’s very fair,” said Brooke Bodrero, another student.
Osborn told Mesa police he is “disgusted by what he has done,” but we’re more disgusted by the immense overreaction to the — shock! — tiny bit of pixelated nudity.
Even as part of the school’s official statement admonishing the prank, they admit, “the small size of the photograph as published makes the details difficult to discern.” It’s not like there was a crotch closeup giving parents heart attacks.
The local Fox station that reported the story previews their post by warning readers in bold red letters: [WARNING: Graphic content]. A blurred-out photo of nothing is graphic? We’d hate to see the warning they’d give the Statue of David.
At least one organization is taking the incident in stride — Playgirl. The blog Naughty Gossip is reporting the magazine has already put in an offer to Osborn.
“We’re trying to reach this kid to get him in Playgirl. We want to support him as this was a hilarious prank, and people are too tightly wound. Playgirl.com would like to have him pose naked and pay his legal bills,” a spokesperson said.
Osborn’s preliminary hearing is set for May 20.
