Equality
Revived push for Equal Rights Amendment blocked by U.S. Senate Republicans
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate failed to advance a symbolic measure to enshrine in the Constitution equal protection on the basis of sex, a century after the idea began circulating among lawmakers. Senators on Thursday voted 51-47 to go forward with a bill that would lift Congress’ self-imposed 1982 deadline for three-fourths of states to […]
Durham school board resolution pushes back against GOP education culture war agenda
The Durham County Board of Education on Thursday unanimously approved a resolution urging the General Assembly to vote ‘No’ on a controversial bill to restrict what educators can teacher about American history comes before lawmakers. Filed by Republicans last month, House Bill 187 would prevent educators from promoting Critical Race Theory (CRT) and what many […]
“Don’t say gay” legislation: A threat to the embodied classroom
I am a Black lesbian woman with 20 years teaching experience. However, when I began my teaching career at a predominantly Haitian high school, I was not out to my students. I wasn’t closeted either. As a 22-year-old novice instructor, I believed sharing my private life to my 17- and 18-year-old students would disrupt the […]
Monday numbers: North Carolina and the national wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation
Last week, Policy Watch delved into the stories of LGBTQ youth as new bills legislating their education, healthcare and identities work their way through the North Carolina General Assembly. The bills are part of a continuing wave of hundreds of new anti-LGBTQ measures filed across the country in the new year, many targeting transgender young people.
We don’t have to choose between supporting trans kids and respecting their parents
Republicans in the Iowa General Assembly and Gov. Kim Reynolds are determined to earn their culture war medals this winter with multiple bills attacking the phantom menace of transgender indoctrination. But perhaps the thorniest and most dangerous of these mean-spirited proposals is House File 180 (formerly House File 9). This would, among other things, require schools to obtain a parent’s permission before “facilitating any accommodation that is intended to affirm a student’s gender identity” if that identity is different from the one on the student’s birth certificate. [Click here to read North Carolina Senate Bill 49.]
LGBTQ kids need protection from bullies and violence, not adults targeting and bullying them too
I grew up in a struggling, post-industrial Ohio town in the 1990s where ignorance and intolerance often reigned. I stood up to bullies my whole life, and when put under physical threat, I fought them. No bully can intimidate me, and so even though I was definitely a weird kid, I was also funnier, smarter, […]
On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, no one should settle for ‘a piece of freedom’
Some historians mark the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder as the end of the civil rights movement. Over an arc of 14 years — from the 1954 Brown Decision to King’s death in 1968 — the nation attempted to address its racial caste system. The same nation that launched a war on hunger and […]
New Durham Public Schools policy to support LGBTQ students wins accolades
Queer author and former DPS student says such a policy "would have made a world of difference in my childhood" As a Durham middle school student in the late 1990s, Maximillian Matthews struggled to find his sexual identity. Matthews, who identifies as queer, was bullied and taunted. He felt unseen and unsupported by teachers, counselors and school administrators.
Monday numbers: A closer look at fast-evolving public attitudes toward marriage equality
In 2012 North Carolina was the last U.S. state to ban same-sex marriage through a statewide referendum. In 2015, more than a decade after Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to legalize it, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges established marriage equality for same-sex couples as a constitutional right. Today […]
GOP support for same-sex marriage protections builds in U.S. Senate
NC’s Burr says he’s still undecided WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate appears on track to send President Joe Biden a bill in the coming weeks that would guarantee same-sex and interracial couples can marry, even if the Supreme Court overturns the landmark cases that enshrined those rights. “I think we’re very close,” Maine Republican Sen. […]
‘Queerolina’ exhibit explores LGBTQ history at UNC-Chapel Hill
As LGBTQ Pride month came to a close this past week, queer people in North Carolina are more visible than they’ve been in generations -- holding parades and celebrations in the state’s largest cities and its smaller towns, embraced by major corporations, and celebrated in government proclamations. June was also a tumultuous month for LGBTQ North Carolinians, however.