The New ‘Lavender Scare’ Is an Attack on the Working Class
A new wave of attacks on queer and trans rights is here. The Working People podcast asks veteran LGBTQ+ labor organizers how workers can fight back.
LGBTQ
‘We Took Care of Each Other’: A Maritime Union’s Hidden History of Gay-Straight and Interracial Solidarity
Decades before the modern LGBTQ+ movement, a small but militant union of maritime workers on the West Coast with openly gay members and leaders coined a slogan linking discrimination against gay men, racial discrimination, and red-baiting. For the better part of two decades, the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union fought discrimination on the ships where …
The Supreme Court Case Testing the Limits of Gorsuch’s Textualism
In three cases argued last week—Bostock v. Clayton County, Altitude Express v. Zarda, and Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC—the Supreme Court confronted this question: Does Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination “because of [an] individual’s … sex” forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity? Several lower …
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The Corporate Media Failed to Warn Us About the Trump Admin’s Attack on LGBTQ Workers
“Sex,” Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia University, told the New York Times, “is a confounding term in our culture, in our language and certainly in the law.” As the Supreme Court opens a new session, its justices are set to tackle the conundrum of defining “sex.” At issue is whether Title VII of the landmark Civil Rights Act …
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Pride Month Profiles: Jeanne Laberge and Ruth Jacobsen
For Pride Month, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various LGBTQ Americans who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights. Our next profile is Jeanne Laberge and Ruth Jacobsen. In the early 1970s, Steve D’Inzillo was the business agent for New York City’s Motion Picture Projectionists Local 306, an affiliate …
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Supreme Court will decide if it is legal to fire someone for being LGBTQ
When Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he would leave the Supreme Court last June, he gave a giant middle finger to millions of gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans who saw the Court slowly begin to respect their humanity. Though Kennedy was very conservative on most issues, he was relatively moderate on gay rights questions, and often joined …
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These are the stories of LGBTQ people who need the Equality Act’s protections
Congressional Democrats reintroduced a sweeping nondiscrimination bill last week to bolster protections for LGBTQ Americans. If passed into law, the bill would clarify existing protections and fill the gaps in federal nondiscrimination laws. The bill would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ban discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation …
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‘Religious freedom’ arguments kill Nebraska’s LGBTQ employment protections bill
Nebraska is one of more than two dozen states that have no LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections at the state level. That’s not changing anytime soon, as a bill to create employment protections came to an abrupt end this week. State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks (D) introduced LB 627 in January this year. The legislation would have …
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Supreme Court poised to drastically reverse LGBTQ equality
There are now six different cases implicating LGBTQ rights sitting before the Supreme Court. While the conservative-majority Court has not yet agreed to hear any of them, a circuit split between two of the cases and the fact that President Trump’s transgender military ban is at the heart of another strongly suggest at least one …
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Transgender guidance disappears from Office of Personnel Management website
Under President Obama, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which oversees all federal employees, issued detailed guidance protecting transgender people in the workforce. As of Friday, that guidance has disappeared and been replaced by generic language with no content specific to transgender people. The previous “Gender Identity Guidance” page, which was still live as of earlier this week, …
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