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HRC Announces Fellowship to Energize Young Voters Ahead of Nevada Caucus

HRC Announces Fellowship to Energize Young Voters Ahead of Nevada Caucus

HRC is proud to announce our 2019 Nevada Fall Fellows as a part of our initiative to energize young voters and activists in the battleground state ahead of the Nevada Caucus. HRC’s Fall Fellows will play a critical role in advancing pro-LGBTQ policies at all levels of government, promoting LGBTQ-inclusive programs, holding elected officials accountable for their votes and actions and electing LGBTQ champions to office. 

This fall, they will join HRC in Nevada to: 

  • Mobilize voters to turn out in the Nevada Caucus.
  • Increase scores on HRC’s Municipal Equality Index, which rates cities based on their LGBTQ-inclusive laws, policies and services. 
  • Build off our electoral victories in 2018 to reelect pro-LGBTQ leaders in 2020. 
  • Train and mobilize people to phone bank, canvass and lobby for equality.

Our team in the Silver State includes Nevada State Director Briana Escamillia, Reno Regional Organizer Stephan Page and Las Vegas Regional Organizer Alyssa Cortes. Joining them is a diverse group of fellows to help meet HRC’s bold new initiative to better serve LGBTQ people and their families.

Meet our 2019 Nevada Fall Fellows

Beatriz Amparán-Ochoa is based in Las Vegas and is a self-employed entrepreneur born in Northern Mexico. She served as a life coach, mentoring aspiring business owners to live a life with impact, purpose and financial success. 

Amparán-Ochoa’s time as an HRC Fall Fellow will focus on educating and encouraging LGBTQ youth in immigrant communities of Southern Nevada to take action in local politics and immigrants’ rights initiatives.

Manny Ayala is based in Las Vegas and has been organizing on different campaigns and political groups since 2015. Ayala studies political science at the College of Southern Nevada. As a queer working-class Latino, Ayala persevered through a toxic, anti-LGBTQ environment to reach unimaginable heights. He attributes his success to the power of affirming friends within the LGBTQ community. 

As a fellow for HRC, he will work within the community to help other LGBTQ people break past systemic oppression and bigotry to live thriving lives.

Deja Wargo-Cole is based with HRC in Las Vegas and is a full-time organizer and student at Nevada State College. Wargo-Cole’s passion for helping her city and community has manifested through social justice activism and is at the heart of everything she does. 

Wargo-Cole is excited to work as an HRC Fall Fellow to ensure pro-equality legislative officials are elected to office. She will build off HRC’s success from the midterms and the 2019 Nevada Legislative Session to ensure that our leaders defend our newly-gained protections.   

Tania González Contreras joined HRC’s team in Reno and is an alum of the University of Nevada, Reno. Contreras received a Bachelor of Science in human development and family studies along with a Bachelor of Arts in criminal justice, with law and justice specialization. 

Contreras will join HRC in the fight to ensure every LGBTQ person and their family have equal justice under the law. 

 

             Sudhiti Naskar is based in Reno and is a journalist and graduate student at University of Nevada, Reno. Naskar will support HRC’s communication strategies and facilitate relationships with our key partners and activists. 

         Chris Castagnetti is based in Reno and is a recent graduate of the University of Nevada, Reno. As an advocate for environmental and social justice, Castagnetti will work with our team to mobilize the Reno community to take action and move equality forward throughout the city.    

Follow the impact our new HRC Fall Fellows are making by following HRC Nevada on Twitter and Facebook, or by volunteering as we resist the politics of prejudice and hate to improve the lives of LGBTQ people.

www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-announces-fellowship-to-energize-young-voters-ahead-of-nevada-caucus?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

NEWS

HRC Responds to New FBI Report Showing Spike in Reported Hate Crimes Targeting LGBTQ People

HRC Responds to New FBI Report Showing Spike in Reported Hate Crimes Targeting LGBTQ People

Today, HRC responded to troubling federal data showing unacceptably high levels of hate crimes — and an increase in those targeting LGBTQ people — as reported by the FBI today.

“Bias-motivated crimes are a real, frightening problem in the United States, and LGBTQ people continue to be targeted because of who they are,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “In 2018, we know that at least 28 transgender people were violently killed. So far in 2019, 22 transgender or gender non-conforming individuals have been killed. These numbers represent real people — people with friends, families and lives. The epidemic of violence against LGBTQ people and specifically against transgender women of color is staggering, and it is something we must address head-on. For that to happen, we need mandatory hate crimes reporting across the country, better training for law enforcement officers to recognize bias-motivated crime and greater inclusion and equity in our communities. This data is harrowing, but it is also helpful in understanding just how much work we all have to do, together.”

In 2018, which is the most recent FBI data released, 7,120 hate crime incidents were reported — slightly less than in 2017, when 7,175 hate crime incidents were reported. Hate crimes directed at LGBTQ individuals, however, increased by almost six percent, including a significant 42% increase in crimes directed against transgender individuals — up from 119 in 2017 to 168 in 2018.

It’s not only LGBTQ people who are affected by this epidemic of violence. Bias-motivated crimes based on race, religion, disability and gender remain at troublingly high levels. Racially-motivated crime remains the most common hate crime, with nearly half of race-based hate crimes targeting Black people. For the third year in a row, there was a significant uptick in hate crimes targeting the Latinx community, increasing 14% from last year. While overall numbers of crimes involving religion-based bias decreased, nearly 60% of such crimes targeted Jewish people and Jewish institutions — including the tragic murders of 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue building in Pittsburgh. 

Because reporting hate crimes to the FBI is not mandatory, these alarming statistics likely represent only a fraction of such violence. The number of law enforcement agencies reporting hate crimes data decreased by 110 from 2017 to 2018, and at least 85 cities with populations exceeding 100,000 either did not report data to the FBI, or reported zero hate crimes. The lack of mandatory reporting means that the FBI data, while helpful, paints an incomplete picture of hate crimes against the LGBTQ and other communities. In addition, this report reveals that Alabama and Wyoming — which had a combined population of nearly 5.5 million in 2018 — were the only states reporting zero hate crimes for 2018.

That is why since the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) in 2009, HRC has worked with the FBI to update the agency’s crime reporting, from providing training materials to sharing details on hate crimes when they occur. HRC continues to press for improved reporting, passage of state laws that protect LGBTQ individuals from hate crimes and expanded education and training initiatives.

www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-responds-to-new-fbi-report-showing-spike-in-reported-hate-crimes-target?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

NEWS

HRC to Trump and Pence: Stop Attacking LGBTQ Youth and Families

HRC to Trump and Pence: Stop Attacking LGBTQ Youth and Families

HRC responded to Vice President Mike Pence’s address commemorating National Adoption Month with a reminder of the Trump-Pence White House’s track record of attacking LGBTQ children and adults in the adoption and foster care systems.

“Trump and Pence relentlessly marginalize LGBTQ people and attempt to erase our existence,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “Their disturbing worldview extends into the adoption and foster care systems, where they support giving federally-funded foster and adoption agencies a license to discriminate against LGBTQ children and prospective parents, religious minorities and other vulnerable groups. LGBTQ youth are tragically overrepresented in foster care, and this White House continues to exacerbate the marginalization, harassment and discrimination that LGBTQ youth in foster care and families face.”

This month, Trump and Pence proposed a federal regulation that would strip away nondiscrimination requirements and permit all HHS grant recipients, notably adoption and foster care agencies, to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and in many circumstances religious minorities and women, and still receive federal funding.

In April, HHS announced a proposed federal rule that would abandon data collection on the sexual orientation of youth in foster care and foster and adoptive parents and guardians in the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS).

In January of this year, Trump-Pence’s HHS granted a waiver from federal non-discrimination requirements to South Carolina’s Foster Care Program, which has contracted with a child welfare provider who seeks permission to refuse to serve prospective parents who do not share their religious beliefs, but who want to continue to receive federal funding to provide those services. South Carolina requested the waiver to allow federal funds to go to a child welfare agency that refused to work with Jewish and Catholic people who were otherwise eligible to support children in need.

In May of 2017, the Trump-Pence White House put out an executive order mandating the Department of Justice to work agency by agency to regulatory create broad exemptions allowing faith-based organizations to discriminate against those who do not agree with their personal beliefs.

In 2017, HRC released a report, titled Disregarding the Best Interest of the Child: License to Discriminate In Child Welfare Services, detailing the harms of efforts to write anti-LGBTQ discrimination by child welfare agencies into law. Statistics suggest that an estimated two million LGBTQ adults in the U.S. are interested in adoption, but the LGBTQ community often remains an untapped resource when it comes to finding families for children and youth in foster care. The report debunks the myth that having more providers is the key to higher rates of placement in homes; the bottleneck is not the number of providers, but the number of prospective parents. Where providers have ceased to provide services rather than comply with nondiscrimination laws, placement rates did not decrease significantly as a result.

Further, research consistently shows that LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the foster care system, as many have been rejected by their families of origin because of their LGBTQ status, and are especially vulnerable to discrimination and mistreatment while in foster care. This regulation would only exacerbate these challenges faced by LGBTQ young people.

www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-to-trump-and-pence-stop-attacking-lgbtq-youth-and-families?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

NEWS

Grindr users face new scam…and this one is a doozie

Grindr users face new scam…and this one is a doozie

The LGID website

Queer men in Ireland have reported becoming victims of a new scam perpetrated using Grindr.

Several Irish men have reported someone initiating a new chat on the dating app, which asks for an “LGID.” The scam artist then shows a picture of a battered face, explaining he got attacked and wants to protect himself. He then explains that an LGID is a special kind of registry for LGBTQ people to find out if someone has a history of physical assault, and sends a link to his victim.

Related: Ireland’s first openly gay strongman attends his first Pride in Belfast

When the victim clicks the link, it redirects him to a professional-looking website that will screen out potential offenders. The catch: in order to be declared “clean,” a patron must provide vital information, as well as a 50-Euro payment via credit card. The website also attempts to allay fears by noting “50% of all payments will be donated to LGBT harassment victims.”

Of course, there’s no such thing as an LGID, and the website merely scams users out of money. It also collects personal details that could be used for blackmail or other forms of harassment in the future. A number of cybersecurity firms, including ESET Ireland, have declared the entire website “a scam” and caution users not to fall for its carefully orchestrated scheme.

The scheme is just the latest in an ongoing series of scams and crimes perpetrated using Grindr. Of late, the company which owns the popular networking app has come under fire for not doing enough to protect user data, and for being owned by a homophobic Chinese company.

www.queerty.com/grindr-users-face-new-scam-one-doozie-20191111?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

NEWS

This Oscar-nominee has been cast to play Tammy Faye Bakker in new biopic

This Oscar-nominee has been cast to play Tammy Faye Bakker in new biopic

Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker

Crazy news out of Hollywood: filmmaking icons Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey have announced their next project, a biopic of inspirational speaker and queer icon Tammy Faye Bakker entitled The Eyes of Tammy Faye. They’ve also found their cast.

For Barbato and Bailey, The Eyes of Tammy Faye marks a homecoming of sorts. The pair rose to infamy with a documentary of the same title in 2000. Now the duo hopes to bring the story of Bakker’s rise and fall to an even larger audience.

Oscar-nominee Jessica Chastain will don the false eyelashes to play Tammy Faye, while fellow Oscar-nominated actor Andrew Garfield will play Jim Bakker. Vincent D’Onofrio joins the cast as Bakker’s scheming associate (and staunch hater of LGBTQ people) Jerry Fallwell, while Gabriel Olds (of Surrogates) will play another Bakker-Fallwell associate, Pat Robertson.

Related: Did Tammy Faye Plan Her Death?

In the 1980s, Tammy Faye Bakker had an infamous rise of her own as a televangelist. Alongside then-husband Jim Bakker, the pair developed a multimedia faith-based empire which included a television network and Heritage USA, a theme park based on the stories of the Bible. A sex scandal later disgraced Jim Bakker and sent Tammy Faye into a tailspin. The revelation of financial improprieties in the development of Heritage USA further sullied the image of the pair, whose marriage dissolved around the same time. Jim Bakker’s close associates Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell took over control of the Bakker media empire (unscrupulously, according to Tammy Faye), while Jim Bakker landed in prison. Tammy Faye later remarried and continued her career as a speaker and activist, working for the acceptance of LGBTQ people within Christianity and American society.

Production has already begun on The Eyes of Tammy Faye, though no release date has been set.

www.queerty.com/oscar-nominee-cast-play-tammy-faye-bakker-new-biopic-20191108?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

NEWS

#AM_Equality Tipsheet: November 8, 2019

#AM_Equality Tipsheet: November 8, 2019

JEFF SESSIONS IS A DANGEROUS OPPONENT OF EQUALITY: Sessions yesterday announced a bid for the U.S. Senate. “At every point in his career, Jeff Sessions has used his power to discriminate against LGBTQ people, people of color and anyone who doesn’t look or think like him,” said HRC President Alphonso David (@AlphonsoDavid). “From his time as Alabama Attorney General to the Senate to his horrific leadership at the Department of Justice, Sessions has systematically worked the levers of government to deny the rights of others.” More from HRC.

HRC URGES U.S. SENATE TO REJECT ANTI-LGBTQ EXTREMIST STEVEN MENASHI: The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12 to 10 to advance Menashi, a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. “Steven Menashi has made a career of  promoting anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and has used whatever platform he’s handed — from his college newspaper, to legal publications, to a seat at the table at the White House — to undermine our community’s fight for equality,” said HRC President Alphonso David. More from HRC.

HRC PRESIDENT ALPHONSO DAVID ON THE LATEST ANTI-LGBTQ ATTACK BY TRUMP-PENCE — “THIS IS A BLANKET LICENSE TO DISCRIMINATE”: More from The Hill TV.

FEEL-GOOD FRIDAY — CAPT. AMERICA SUPPORTS EQUALITY! During an appearance on the The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Chris Evans and his gay brother, Scott, shared childhood memories and little-known facts about each other. More from Pink News.

PA MOM OF TRANS SON URGES SCOTUS TO PROVIDE CLARITY THAT DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SEX IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL: “I’ve been moved to tears by the support that a growing majority of Americans have shown for Aidan and other transgender young people in recent years,” writes Melissa DeStefano of Boyertown, Pennsylvania. “Understanding and affirmation is growing for LGBTQ protections, and that’s a critical piece in ensuring that everyone feels welcome and respected in our country.” More from The Morning Call.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC. ENDORSES USE OF SINGULAR PRONOUN “THEY”: The APA joins AP Style, Merriam-Webster and a host of other style guides and dictionaries that support using a person’s pronouns and respecting a person’s gender identity. More from Out.

RESEARCHERS PUSHING TO MAKE STUDIES MORE DETAILED WHEN IT COMES TO GENDER IDENTITY: The move underscores the importance of disaggregating data on trans populations. More from STAT.

IOWA MAN CONVICTED OF HATE CRIME FOR TEARING DOWN, BURNING CHURCH’S LGBTQ PRIDE BANNER: Adolfo Martinez admitted to a local TV station that he targeted the Ames United Church of Christ because of its LGBTQ acceptance. More from Ames Tribune.

PALANA BELKEN BECOMES FIRST OPENLY TRANS PERSON ELECTED TO A CITY COUNCIL IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: More from Fosters. 

DECEMBER 2 — NATIONAL CATHEDRAL TO DEDICATE PLAQUE TO MATTHEW SHEPARD: Shepard, brutally murdered in a hate crime in 1998, was interred at the Cathedral last year. More from Washingtonian.

 GET CULTURED – Entertainment, arts and sports news!

THE BALLROOM SCENE IN PHOTOS — HOW DANCE, ART AND FASHION COMBINES TO CREATE COMMUNITY FOR LGBTQ PEOPLE OF COLOR: More from The Atlantic.

Via @TheAtlPhoto: In the Kiki Ballroom Scene, Queer Kids of Color Can Be Themselves t.co/wlmhBtvU01

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) November 7, 2019

 GLOBAL EQUALITY NEWS

MALAYSIA COURT SENTENCES FIVE MEN TO JAIL, CANING BECAUSE THEY ARE LGBTQ: More from Reuters.

ANTI-LGBTQ ACTIVISTS ARE ATTEMPTING TO BLOCK THE PREMIERE OF A GEORGIAN FILM: The film centers on the love story of Merab and Irakli, two men in a Georgian ballet company. More from Reuters.

 READING RAINBOW – Bookmark now to read on your lunch break!

NPR talks to gay Black writer and author of the memoir How We Fight for our Lives Saeed Jones (@theferocity); Boston.com interviews Mimi Lemay (@mimislemay), a member of HRC’s Parents for Transgender Equality Council, about her new memoir; Culture Map Dallas reports on the local Black Tie Gala, which benefited the Human Rights Campaign Foundation; The Good Men Project sits down with Adrian Miller, a gay man from Jamacia who received asylum in the U.S.

Have news? Send us your news and tips at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to #AM_Equality and follow @HRC for all the latest news. Thanks for reading!

www.hrc.org/blog/am-equality-tipsheet-november-8-2019?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

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