By Jaan Williams This year has been one of the most violent in recent history for the transgender community. Washington, D.C., where I live, in particular has witnessed the murders of two transgender women and violent attacks against at least six more since July. The severity of these attacks, including two incidents where off-duty D.C. police officers assaulted transgender women, has finally prompted widespread media coverage of violence against the transgender community. This coverage, and...
Our Voices
They had planned a family together. A baby. Maybe two. They’d spend hours talking about their future, often getting so lost in conversation at night they’d forget about the time until the sun was about to rise the next morning. Sarah “Ellyn” Farley used to say she was “courting” Jennifer Tobits—not just dating her, as she knew their connection would lead them down the aisle. A year into their relationship, Ellyn asked Jennifer to be her wife. The two soon traveled from their home in Chicago to...
I was in Portland, Oregon on Friday when I got the news. Paula Ettelbrick had died. It is odd how something can not be a surprise and yet still be a shock. Many knew that Paula’s ovarian cancer, a particularly vile and aggressive type, was back. Just 13 days before her death, Paula sent a message to a list of friends who asked to be kept updated on how she was doing, telling us news that had me bursting into tears at the breakfast table—she was ending all treatment and beginning hospice...
Tomorrow, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the discriminatory nearly two-decade old policy that bars lesbian, gay, and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, will officially be repealed tomorrow. Watch this video for my take on this historic day. Then, read the blog entry by Huong Nguyen, who last year chronicled her personal story about how “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” changed the course of her life. And you don’t want to miss NCLR Federal Policy Director Maya...
By Huong T. Nguyen NCLR Guest Columnist At the beginning of this school year, Rowan, my 6-year-old son, held court in his first-grade class about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). The unprompted conversation with his classmates went something like this: Rowan: My mom was in the military. Classmates: Really? Rowan: Yeah, but she was kicked out because she was gay. (His peers gathered around to hear his tale.) One classmate: No, I don’t believe you! Rowan: No, really, I saw her uniform! In the...
This morning, the California Supreme Court heard arguments on an important issue of California law that may affect whether the sponsors of Proposition 8 can continue to pursue their federal court appeal in Perry v. Brown, the case challenging Prop 8. The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing the appeal from federal District Judge Vaughn R. Walker’s August 2010 ruling striking down Prop 8. This January, the Ninth Circuit asked the California Supreme Court to answer a specific...
On August 29, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge James Ware will hear arguments about whether to unseal the video recordings of the historic trial in Perry v. Brown, the federal court challenge to Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that stripped the freedom to marry from same-sex couples in California. After a three-week trial in January 2010, now-retired Chief District Judge Vaughan Walker issued a decision in August 2010, holding that Prop 8 was based on anti-gay animus and blatantly...
I cannot imagine the searing pain of losing a partner. I hope, of course, that I live my whole life never knowing such loss. In our work at NCLR, we have represented a number of men and women living through that almost unbearable tragedy, and in every case, their loss is compounded and the injury magnified by the fact that others or the government treat the couple as legal strangers. In our 2001 case on behalf of Sharon Smith, the horror was unmatched. Sharon’s partner of seven years, Diane...
History will be made in the State of New York tomorrow, Sunday, July 24, 2011, when it becomes the seventh and largest jurisdiction in the country in which same-sex couples can legally marry. A huge, heartfelt thank you and congratulations to all of our New York colleagues, who worked so hard to win marriage equality. I am definitely in a New York state of mind, as you can see in my video below In solidarity,
My birthday is April 15. No one ever forgets my birthday, which is great of course, but it is also a sometimes bittersweet date since April 15 is always—until this year’s anomaly—tax day. Every year, I, like most other Americans, have dutifully filed my taxes by April 15. I’ve signed my tax return without giving it much thought, until this year. This year, Sandy and I signed our tax return together. And we filed our federal return as married. Why? Well, because we ARE married. After 15 years...
