Alex Sanchez is a Mexican American author of award-winning novels for teens and adults. His first novel, Rainbow Boys (2001), was selected by the American Library Association (ALA), as a Best Book for Young Adults. Subsequent books have won additional awards, including the Lambda Literary Award. Although Sanchez's novels are widely accepted in thousands of school and public libraries in America, they have faced a handful of challenges and efforts to ban them. In Webster, New York, removal of Rainbow Boys from the 2006 summer reading list was met by a counter-protest from students, parents, librarians, and community members resulting in the book being placed on the 2007 summer reading list.
PFLAG is the United States' largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people and those who love them. PFLAG National is the national organization, which provides support to the PFLAG network of local chapters. PFLAG has nearly 400 chapters across the United States, with more than 350,000 members and supporters.
A gay–straight alliance, gender-sexuality alliance (GSA) or queer–straight alliance (QSA) is a student-led or community-based organization, found in middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. These are primarily in the United States and Canada. Gay–straight alliance is intended to provide a safe and supportive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all LGBTQ+ individuals, children, teenagers, and youth as well as their cisgender heterosexual allies. The first GSAs were established in the 1980s. Scientific studies show that GSAs have positive academic, health, and social impacts on schoolchildren of a minority sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Numerous judicial decisions in United States federal and state court jurisdictions have upheld the establishment of GSAs in schools, and the right to use that name for them.
A straight ally, heterosexual ally, or cis ally is a heterosexual and cisgender person who supports equal civil rights, gender equality, and LGBTQ+ social movements. Individuals may meet this designation through their actions without actively identifying as an ally.
LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.
The origin of the LGBT student movement can be linked to other activist movements from the mid-20th century in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement and Second-wave feminist movement were working towards equal rights for other minority groups in the United States. Though the student movement began a few years before the Stonewall riots, the riots helped to spur the student movement to take more action in the US. Despite this, the overall view of these gay liberation student organizations received minimal attention from contemporary LGBT historians. This oversight stems from the idea that the organizations were founded with haste as a result of the riots. Others historians argue that this group gives too much credit to groups that disagree with some of the basic principles of activist LGBT organizations.
COLAGE is an organization created in 1990 by the children of several lesbian and gay parents and guardians who felt a need for support.
How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity is an anthology of LGBTQ short stories for young adults edited by American author Michael Cart. It was first published in 2009. The anthology contains an introduction by Cart, 11 short stories, and one novella by acclaimed lesbian and gay authors.
Tyler Clementi was an American student at Rutgers University–New Brunswick who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson River on September 22, 2010, at the age of 18. On September 19, 2010, without Clementi's knowledge, his roommate, Dharun Ravi, used a webcam on his dorm room computer and his hallmate Molly Wei's computer to view Clementi kissing another man. Clementi found out after Ravi posted about the webcam incident on Twitter. Two days later, Ravi urged friends and Twitter followers to watch a second encounter between Clementi and his companion, though the viewing never occurred.
GRIN Campaign, Global Respect in Education, is a transatlantic non-profit organisation and advocacy group which campaigns primarily for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) people's social and political equality in education. It seeks to end discrimination, harassment, and bullying based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression in all educational institutes with an underlying message that "being different was 'cool'". It is one of the first campaigns of its kind to originate outside the United States, be run by students and intentionally international.
Hoshen is an Israeli non-profit LGBT organization which is listed by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association as the largest such organization in Israel. Hoshen is the Hebrew acronym for Education and Change.
Chennai has LGBTQIA cultures that are diverse concerning- socio-economic class, gender, and degree of visibility and politicisation. They have historically existed in the margins and surfaced primarily in contexts such as transgender activism and HIV prevention initiatives for men having sex with men (MSM) and trans women (TG).
Fierté Simcoe Pride is an annual festival held in Simcoe County, Ontario, during the end of July and beginning of August each year. It is a celebration of the diversity of the LGBT community in Simcoe County. It is one of the larger regional gay pride festivals in Canada, featuring flag raisings and proclamations from across the county, educational events, artistic and cultural events, and a large closing event. Since forming, the organisation has expanded gradually, involving more year-round events. In 2016, the organisation celebrated its fifth anniversary Pride.
The Montrose Center is an LGBTQ community center located in Houston, Texas, in the United States. The organization provides an array of programs and services for the LGBTQ community, including mental and behavioral health, anti-violence services, support groups, specialized services for youth, seniors, and those living with HIV, community meeting space, and it now operates the nation's largest LGBTQ-affirming, affordable, senior living center in the nation, the Law Harrington Senior Living Center. It is a member of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. It is in Neartown (Montrose).
In the United States, LGBT youth of colour are marginalized adolescents in the LGBT community. Social issues include homelessness; cyberbullying; physical, verbal and sexual abuse; suicide; drug addiction; street violence; immigration surveillance; engagement in high-risk sexual activity; self-harm, and depression. The rights of LGBT youth of colour are reportedly not addressed in discussions of sexuality and race in the larger context of LGBT rights.
The following list is a partially completed compilation of events considered to have a profound effect on the welfare or image of Tamil sexual minorities. The use of bold typeface indicates that the event is widely considered to be landmark:
We Are The Youth is a project attempting to capture stories of LGBT youth in America through photography. This project was started by Diana Scholl and Laurel Golio in 2010, when they photographed a PFLAG Gay Prom. Photos from We Are The Youth are available as an online archive of LGBT youth on their website as well as in book form in We Are the Youth: Sharing the Stories of LGBTQ Youth in the United States, which received a top ten spot on the American Library Association's Rainbow List in 2015. Work from the project has also been displayed at the Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh in 2014 and at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York in 2012.
Joe Rose was a Canadian LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS activist whose homophobic murder was a pivotal moment for the LGBT rights movement in Quebec.
The Gay and Lesbian Teachers and Students Association (GaLTaS) was an Australian LGBT organisation active from 1991 to 1998 that was established during a wave of gay gang murders to publicise widespread problems of anti-gay bullying and violence in Australian schools, as well as to offer support and a path to redress for its victims. It was founded by two Committee members of the New South Wales Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby: gay activist Derek Williams, a New Zealand born teacher at Randwick Boys High School and Jennifer Glass, an 18-year-old lesbian New South Wales high school student. Williams was subsequently six times re-elected its male co-convenor, and after the resignation of Jennifer Glass, teacher Jacqui Griffin became female co-convenor for the major part of GaLTaS' significant activism. Her GaLTaS SchoolWatch Report, and the association’s landmark legal cases representing LGBT+ students and teachers led to changes in government policy that had far-reaching and longlasting impact. Integral to GaLTaS' success was the activism of its student members, and its dialogue with unions, politicians, police, parents, and parent organisations PFLAG and Parents and Citizens (P&C).
