Being a teenager in the juvenile justice system is challenging for any young person, but as Cyryna can attest, being transgender adds an additional layer of fear. Cyryna, a transgender girl, experienced the dark reality that most people don’t talk about while being housed in a juvenile correction facility for boys, where she was the victim of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse by many of the boys she was housed with. Some of her abuse was witnessed by, and sometimes encouraged by, the...
Our Voices
The Family Acceptance Project of San Francisco State University collaborated with Proyecto Poderoso, a joint project of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and California Rural Legal Assistance, and Radio Bilingüe to develop a Spanish-language radio soap opera to reach the Latino community with stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender acceptance. The three-part series—called “Bienvenidos a Casa” or “Welcome Home”—is airing through March 31, 2011 on Radio Bilingüe Stations across...
It started when we were at Sundance last year. Sandy and I heard the buzz about “The Kids Are All Right” and were happy to hear that the very talented Lisa Cholodenko had made a new film with three of our favorite actors—Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo. It had all the makings of a mainstream hit, which we were thrilled about. Then we heard a bit more of the premise of the film mainly revolving around the tired cliché of a lesbian sleeping with a guy (who saw that...
Today brings momentous news from President Barack Obama and the federal Department of Justice about the discriminatory and offensive so-called “Defense of Marriage Act,” or DOMA. This morning, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that, at the urging of the President, as well as based upon Mr. Holder’s own assessment, the Department of Justice will no longer defend Section 3 of DOMA—the section that prohibits the federal government from recognizing legal marriages between same-sex couples....
Sitting in the White House last night for a truly “once in a lifetime moment”—a movie screening of “Thurgood” with President Barack Obama—I was moved by how far justice and equality has really come in our nation, and how much further we have to go to finish the promise of “equality and justice for all.” Just a few feet from me, President Obama sat in one of the plush, red seats in the White House’s movie theater to watch the biopic about Thurgood Marshall, the lead attorney and key architect...
Today in the federal court challenge to California’s Proposition 8, the California Supreme Court agreed to accept a question sent to it last month by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and provided a timeline for the briefing and argument on that question. The question posed to the California Supreme Court by the Ninth Circuit panel is whether California law gives ballot initiative sponsors the extraordinary power to override the decisions of elected state officials about how to litigate court...
By Dan Torres, Esq. Proyecto Poderoso Project Manager The discussion about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender acceptance often begins with conversations with those closest to us—our families. But in some households, cultural barriers create obstacles that can seem too big to overcome, making it nearly impossible for some LGBTQ people to share with their families who they truly are and the daily struggles they face as members of the LGBTQ community. In many Latino households, cultural...
Desiree Shelton is an out lesbian and a senior at Champlin Park High School, in Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District. She and her girlfriend, Sarah Lindstrom, were elected to the school’s Snow Days royalty court for the winter formal dance. They sued their school district—with the help of lawyers from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Faegre & Benson LLP—after school officials said they couldn’t walk together in the traditional couples’...
Desiree “Dez” and Sarah are high school seniors at Champlin Park High School (CPHS), which is in Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District. They’re also a couple, and both are out at school as lesbians, which takes a lot of courage given the conservative climate in their school district (this is Michele Bachmann’s district). There have been reports of serious anti-gay bullying, and a number of LGBTQ students in the area have committed suicide in the past year and a half. Every...
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the horrific death of Diane Alexis Whipple. For those of you who may not know or remember what happened to Diane, it was an unimaginable nightmare. On the late afternoon of January 26, 2001, Diane was mauled to death by two enormous dogs in the hallway of her San Francisco apartment building as she was bringing home groceries to make dinner that evening for herself and her partner of seven years, Sharon Smith. The brutality and terror of the attack were...
