Today, the National Center for Lesbian Rights joins more than 50 other LGBTQ organizations calling for unity and an end to hate and discrimination following the June 12, 2016 shooting at an Orlando, Florida LGBTQ bar that left 49 people dead and more than 50 seriously injured. Joint Statement We the undersigned organizations working on the front lines of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) movement share in the profound grief for those who were killed and many more who...
Our Voices
This week, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released new regulations expanding the number of workers who qualify for overtime pay. Starting this December, under the new overtime rules, salaried workers are eligible for overtime pay if they are paid $47,476 a year or less. The new rules also require the salary threshold to be automatically updated every three years, beginning January 1, 2020. Under the previous overtime rules, the salary threshold was $23,660 annually—essentially poverty...
The National Center for Lesbian Rights, as we do every year, is working hard to pass legislation to advance LGBTQ rights and protect LGBTQ individuals in California. This year we are co-sponsoring, along with Equality California, two first of their kind in the nation bills. One would prohibit taxpayer funds from being used for travel to states that pass affirmative laws allowing discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. The second would prohibit state funded Cal Grants for colleges and...
The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued new rules today confirming that LGBTQ people are protected against healthcare discrimination under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. These new rules confirm that healthcare services and coverage cannot be denied based on an individual’s sex, including their gender identity, nonconformity with sex stereotypes (including the stereotype that all people are, or should be, heterosexual), or the sex of the person with...
“So, you’re a lawyer, right?” The question came from my hairdresser, Tony, as I sat down for a haircut. “Do you know anything about immigration?” I knew a little bit about Tony’s story. His parents brought him to the U.S. illegally when he was a young child so that he and his siblings could have a better life. As a teenager, Tony identified as gay and won political asylum when an immigration court found that his life would be in danger if he returned to Mexico as a gay man. Now in his...
Last month, North Carolina enacted HB2, one of the most viciously anti-civil rights laws in the country. In addition to repealing local minimum wage laws and local protections for LGBTQ people, HB2 stripped women, people of color, and other protected groups of the ability to bring discrimination cases in state courts. HB2 also openly attacked transgender people. HB2’s supporters demonized transgender people as deviants who must be excluded from shared bathrooms and locker rooms to “protect”...
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) has joined a coalition of more than 300 civil rights, immigration, labor, and social service groups in an amicus brief in U.S. v. Texas urging the U.S. Supreme Court to allow President Obama’s executive actions on immigration to move forward. The filing of the amicus brief comes four months after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction put in place by a Texas federal district court that blocked...
Monday, in a ruling that will protect LGBTQ parents across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court sharply rebuked the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to recognize a Georgia adoption by a lesbian mother, our client. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in our case was unusual in three ways. First, it reversed the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision “summarily”—that is, without any briefing or oral argument, relying solely on the initial petition asking the Court to hear the case. Second, the decision...
NCLR is proud to collaborate with Family Builders and the Center for the Study of Social Policy on getR.E.A.L. California–an initiative aimed at promoting the healthy sexual and identity development of all children involved with the California child welfare system. The initiative partners have produced a new issue brief aimed at helping child welfare professionals support and affirm transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) children in foster care. As numerous other state legislatures...
On February 29, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Doe v. Christie, a case challenging New Jersey’s law prohibiting state-licensed therapists from engaging in the discredited practice of conversion therapy with patients under 18 years of age. The Supreme Court’s order allows the law to remain in full effect and marks the final chapter in a nearly three-year-long series of challenges filed by Liberty Counsel, an anti-LGBTQ legal group. NCLR was proud to join Garden State Equality...
