Justice Department Files Brief Arguing That Businesses Can Fire Workers Because They are Transgender

The Trump administration on Wednesday filed a brief arguing that businesses have the right to fire transgender workers

Bloomberg reports: “Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the high court that a civil rights law banning sex discrimination on the job doesn’t cover transgender bias. That approach already has created a rift within the Trump administration, contradicting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s view of the law it’s tasked with enforcing. A Michigan funeral home wants the high court to overturn a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decision finding that the company violated federal workplace discrimination law when it fired Aimee Stephens, a transgender worker. The EEOC successfully sued on behalf of Stephens in that case, but the Justice Department has the sole authority to represent the government before the Supreme Court. Francisco told the high court that the Sixth Circuit got the case wrong.”

#BREAKING: The @realDonaldTrump admin has doubled down (again) on its attempt to de-legitimize the existence of #transgender people. @TheJusticeDept just filed a brief arguing that trans employment discrimination is lawful. Read it here: t.co/KOs7Q0htYL #WontBeErased pic.twitter.com/prK4rG24qW

— Lambda Legal (@LambdaLegal) October 24, 2018

The New York Times published a report on Sunday that his administration plans to define transgender people out of existence by defining gender by genitalia at birth.

Trump commented on the report Monday evening: “We’re looking at it. We have a lot of different concepts right now. They have a lot of different things happening with respect to transgender right now. You know that as well as I do, and we’re looking at it very seriously. I’m protecting everybody. You know what I’m doing? I’m protecting everybody. I want to protect our country.”

The plans are the latest, and most draconian, of a series of efforts the Trump administration has been making to remove and restrict the rights of transgender individuals, including military service, federal prison rights, health care, schools, the CDC, the judiciary, and more.

According to the memo seen by the NYT, the HHS proposes that “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth. The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

READ THIS: Trump Plans to Legally Abolish Transgender People, Define Gender by Genitalia at Birth: Memo

Right Wing Watch reports: ‘The effort is being led by Roger Severino, who has taken the anti-LGBT agenda of his former employer, the Heritage Foundation, into the Trump administration as director of the civil rights division at HHS. When he was named to that position, a dozen U.S. senators objected, citing Severino’s “long history of making bigoted statements toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and attacking women’s access to health care services and reproductive rights.” One of Severino’s former colleagues at the Heritage Foundation, Ryan Anderson, is at the forefront of the Religious Right’s anti-trans crusade. Anderson’s latest book is “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.” Anderson argues that gender cannot be severed from biological sex, and that “taking our sexual embodiment seriously in public policy is not discriminatory.”’

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Justice Department Files Brief Arguing That Businesses Can Fire Workers Because They are Transgender

Human Rights Campaign Announces Hires of Meghan Kissell and Denise Donnell

HRC announced the hires of Meghan Kissell as the new director of Project One America and Denise Donnell as the state director for the Human Rights Campaign’s office in Arkansas.

“As a native-born Arkansan, HRC’s work to expand LGBTQ equality in the South is personal, and I couldn’t be happier to have Meghan leading this work as the director of Project One America. We’re also pleased to welcome Denise Donnell back to HRC as our new state director in Arkansas,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “When HRC opened offices in these three states in 2014, we knew this would be a long-term investment in tangibly improving the lives of LGBTQ Southerners. Now, after HRC has worked to pass several non-discrimination ordinances in Mississippi and Alabama, to improve healthcare conditions for LGBTQ Southerners and to elect pro-equality candidates up and down the ballot, we are excited to have Meghan and Denise help lead this work and build on our hard-fought progress.”

Prior to joining HRC, Meghan worked for the Conservation Lands Foundation to help lead local and national campaigns resulting in the successful protection of more than 5 million acres of public land. She worked in support of the original passage of the Affordable Care Act while at the American Diabetes Association and advocated for reproductive rights and legislation combating violence against women.

As the Field Director for the American Association of University Women, she supported volunteer around the country work on GOTV efforts. Meghan also provided strategic council and trained non-profit organizations on developing targeted social impact strategies designed to engage elected officials and the media. Meghan has a Master’s degree in Social Work with a focus on community organizing from Howard University in Washington, D.C. and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.

Mississippi-native Rev. Dr. Denise Donnell is an ordained elder in the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church. She previously worked as an organizer with the Human Rights Campaign in both Mississippi and Arkansas. Having taken a year off to serve as the Chief Officer of Programs for Just Communities of Arkansas, Denise returns to HRC ready to continue building momentum for LGBTQ equality in Arkansas.

In 2014, HRC launched Project One America, an initiative geared towards advancing social, institutional and legal equality in Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi. Project One America continues to work to advance equality for many LGBTQ Southerners who have no state level protections in housing, workplace, or public accommodations. Through Project One America, we are working toward a future of fairness every day — changing hearts, minds and laws toward achieving full equality.

www.hrc.org/blog/human-rights-campaign-announces-hires-of-meghan-kissell-and-denise-donnell?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Radio host leaves co-worker speechless after revealing just how many dudes he’s slept with
Brooklyn Ross is a news presenter on Kyle and Jackie O, one of the highest-rated radio shows in Australia.

www.queerty.com/radio-host-leaves-co-worker-speechless-revealing-just-many-dudes-hes-slept-20181024?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Tove Lo, John Mayer, RyanAir, Seth Meyers, Len Lye, Brian Kemp. Jamie Lee Curtis, Pod Saves America: HOT LINKS

PRESSER OF THE DAY. Seth Meyers has a Late Night White House press conference with Trump.

BARCELONA. City Council to report RyanAir racist tirade as possible hate crime. “Essex police said they had identified both parties in the incident and passed the information to Spanish authorities, who were investigating. Barcelona’s deputy mayor, Jaume Asens, said the matter would be reported to the public prosecutor to see whether a hate crime had been committed.” The hideous incident HERE.

JOHN MAYER. I’ve slept with a “soft 500” people.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS. I was addicted to opioids for 10 years.

BRIAN KEMP. Georgia Secretary of State and the Republican nominee for Georgia governor expresses concern about people exercising their right to vote: ‘Not long after Kemp began his remarks, the candidate expressed worry about early voting and “the literally tens of millions of dollars that they [the Abrams camp] are putting behind the get-out-the-vote effort to their base.” Kemp then asserted that much of that Abrams effort is focused on absentee ballot requests. “They have just an unprecedented number of that,” he said, “which is something that continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote — which they absolutely can — and mail those ballots in, we gotta have heavy turnout to offset that.”’

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI. Trump’s not really a nationalist, he just wants to piss people off.

Pres. Trump called himself a nationalist.@JohnBerman: “Anthony @Scaramucci, are you a nationalist?”

Scaramucci: “No, I’m not a nationalist. He’s not a nationalist. He’s saying he’s a nationalist because he wants you to be upset about it, but he’s really not a nationalist.” pic.twitter.com/qCziUyeUru

— New Day (@NewDay) October 24, 2018

FOX & FRIENDS’ BRIAN KILMEADE. I accidentally donated $600 to Trump: “I had no idea that this would be considered a donation. I’m looking for something cool and unique for Christmas for adults after this historic election. [The ornaments were] a little expensive in retrospect, but that was it,” he added. “I had no idea that would go to a campaign contribution.”

NED ROREM. Done composing, but not done living: “Mr. Rorem — elder statesman of American art song, prolific prose writer, pioneer of gay liberation — was exaggerating. Now 95 years old (as of Tuesday), he is more forgetful than he used to be. But he actually remembers quite a lot. Give him the right prompt, and he can dish at length on nearly every cultural luminary of the past century — he’s known almost all personally — and reminisce about Picasso’s Paris or the New York City of $25 rents. He’s a walking archive and anachronism.”

MICHELLE BACHMANN. 80 percent of migrant caravan are MS-13 gang members. “The people who are part of this current invasion, over 80 percent are gang-aged males, military-aged males. Many of them are from the extremely dangerous gang called MS-13.”

JIM ACOSTA. Trump rally-goer made throat-slitting motion at me: “If you want to ask what makes me the most depressed about my job, it’s covering the rallies. At rally, after rally, after rally, having the President of the United States whip people into a frenzy and attack the press, to me, is the most depressing thing I’ve ever witnessed as a journalist.”

POD SAVES AMERICA. Podcasters Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor sat down with Stephen Colbert to talk about how tight the midterms are and what changes if Democrats witn.

HAND HOLDERS OF THE DAY. Queer Eye‘s Bobby Berk and Antoni Porowski at a screening of Boy Erased.

ILLINOIS. Attorney General Lisa Madigan files lawsuit against B&B for refusing to pay damages to gay couple it denied service: “Madigan filed the complaint in Ford County Circuit Court against Walder Vacuflo Inc., doing business as the TimberCreek Bed & Breakfast. Madigan’s complaint alleges Walder Vacuflo has failed to comply with an order issued by the IHRC directing the company to pay damages to a gay couple after refusing to host their civil-union ceremony.”

DOUCHE OF THE DAY. Loser snaps Len Lye sculpture worth $300,000. “A man couldn’t resist the urge to climb Len Lye’s “Water Whirler” sculpture in Wellington, New Zealand earlier this month. To his surprise, the artwork snapped. In a final act of resistentialism, the sculpture fell on the man while he was in the water, and he was sent to the hospital.”

MACRO VIDEO OF THE DAY.  Treehopper.

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE DAY. Major Lazer featuring Tove Lo “Blow That Smoke”.

HUMP DAY HOTTIE. Silverio Lopes.

The post Tove Lo, John Mayer, RyanAir, Seth Meyers, Len Lye, Brian Kemp. Jamie Lee Curtis, Pod Saves America: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Tove Lo, John Mayer, RyanAir, Seth Meyers, Len Lye, Brian Kemp, Jamie Lee Curtis, Pod Saves America: HOT LINKS

Award-winning documentary, Transmilitary, slated to premiere November 15, 2018 on LOGO

www.glaad.org/blog/award-winning-documentary-transmilitary-slated-premiere-november-15-2018-logo

Multiple gay bars targeted with threatening pro-Trump flyers and pictures of assault rifles
Anonymous senders have sent pro-Trump flyers to gay establishments just ahead of the mid-term elections.

www.queerty.com/multiple-gay-bars-targeted-threatening-pro-trump-flyers-pictures-assault-rifles-20181024?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Insufferable Gay Instagram ‘Influencer’ Dumped by His Sugar Daddy, Must Fend for Himself: WATCH

“James, a sexy, youthful sought-after Instagram star in high-society, and self-proclaimed ‘Trophy,’ is dumped by his wealthy live-in benefactor,” explain the filmmakers about what you’ll see in the short film Trophy Boy. “Now he must learn that the real world is not the facade he’s built for himself on social media.”

Trophy Boy has been making the rounds on the festival circuit but is now available to view (wk-unfriendly) below.

Said filmmaker Emrhys Cooper on why he made the film: “Social media has created a generation of self-obsessed narcissists obsessed with self-obsessed narcissists. My goal for ‘Trophy Boy’ is to say look up from your phone, breathe, observe, and think about what really matters; honesty, integrity and deep sense of responsibility. Enjoying the people you love and doing meaningful work. When we do this, we put ourselves on a path toward achieving the dream of living a truly satisfying life. Our #authenticlife, as it were. Zero ‘Likes’ given. Or needed.”

Watch:

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www.towleroad.com/2018/10/gay-instagram/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+towleroad%2Ffeed+%28Towleroad+Gay+News+%29