The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGBTQ individuals, including advocating for same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination and hate crimes legislation, and HIV/AIDS advocacy. The organization has a number of legislative initiatives as well as supporting resources for LGBTQ individuals.
The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) is an organization affiliated with the Republican Party which advocates for equal rights for LGBT+ Americans, by educating the LGBT+ community and Republicans about each other.
Elizabeth Millen Birch is an American attorney and former corporate executive who chaired the board of directors of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force from 1992 to 1994. She served as the executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT organization, from January 1995 until January 2004.
Liberty Counsel is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt religious liberty organization that engages in litigation related to evangelical Christian values. Liberty Counsel was founded in 1989 by its chairman Mathew Staver and its president Anita L. Staver, who are attorneys and married to each other. The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed Liberty Counsel as an anti-LGBT hate group, a designation the group has disputed. The group is a Christian ministry.
Proposed bans of LGBTQ-themed books in the United States.
And Tango Makes Three is a children's book written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson and illustrated by Henry Cole which was published in 2005. The book tells the story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who create a family together. With the help of the zookeeper, Mr. Gramsay, Roy and Silo are given an egg which they help hatch. The female chick, that completes their family, is consequently named "Tango" by the zookeepers. The book was based on the true story of Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins who formed a pair bond in New York's Central Park Zoo.
Jamison "James" Green is a prominent transgender rights activist, author, and educator focused on policy work.
Marjorie Heins is a First Amendment lawyer, writer and founder of the Free Expression Policy Project.
LGBT movements in the United States comprise an interwoven history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allied social movements in the United States of America, beginning in the early 20th century. A commonly stated goal among these movements is social equality for LGBT people. Some have also focused on building LGBT communities or worked towards liberation for the broader society from biphobia, homophobia, and transphobia. LGBT movements organized today are made up of a wide range of political activism and cultural activity, including lobbying, street marches, social groups, media, art, and research. Sociologist Mary Bernstein writes: "For the lesbian and gay movement, then, cultural goals include challenging dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity, homophobia, and the primacy of the gendered heterosexual nuclear family (heteronormativity). Political goals include changing laws and policies in order to gain new rights, benefits, and protections from harm." Bernstein emphasizes that activists seek both types of goals in both the civil and political spheres.
Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World is an English anthology edited by Robyn Ochs and Sarah E. Rowley. It is an important book in the history of the modern bisexual rights movement and appears on numerous bisexual and general LGBT reading lists.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the U.S. state of Maine have the same legal rights as non-LGBT people. Same-sex marriage has been recognized in Maine since December 2012, following a referendum in which a majority of voters approved an initiative to legalize same-sex marriage. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited in the areas of employment, housing, credit and public accommodations. In addition, the use of conversion therapy on minors has been outlawed since 2019, and joint adoption is permitted for same-sex couples.
Book censorship is the removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary, artistic, or educational material on the grounds that it is morally or otherwise objectionable according to the standards applied by the censor. The first instance of book censorship in what is now known as the United States, took place in 1637 in modern-day Quincy, Massachusetts. While specific titles caused bouts of book censorship, with Uncle Tom’s Cabin frequently cited as the first book subject to a national ban, censorship of reading materials and their distribution remained sporadic in the United States until the Comstock Laws in 1873. It was in the early 20th century that book censorship became a more common practice and source of public debate. Throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries there have been waves of attempts at widespread book censorship in the US. Since 2022, the country has seen a dramatic increase of attempted and successful censorship, with a 63% rise in reported cases between 2022 and 2023, including a substantial rise in challenges filed to hundreds of books at a time. In recent years, about three-fourths of books subject to censorship in the US are for children, pre-teenagers, and teenagers.
Book censorship is the act of some authority taking measures to suppress ideas and information within a book. Censorship is "the regulation of free speech and other forms of entrenched authority". Censors typically identify as either a concerned parent, community members who react to a text without reading, or local or national organizations. Books have been censored by authoritarian dictatorships to silence dissent, such as the People's Republic of China, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Books are most often censored for age appropriateness, offensive language, sexual content, amongst other reasons. Similarly, religions may issue lists of banned books, such as the historical example of the Roman Catholic Church's Index Librorum Prohibitorum and bans of such books as Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses by Ayatollah Khomeini, which do not always carry legal force. Censorship can be enacted at the national or subnational level as well, and can carry legal penalties. In many cases, the authors of these books could face harsh sentences, exile from the country, or even execution.
Victor Basile is an author and American LGBT rights activist who was the first executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, serving in that position from June 1983 to June 1989.
Jazz Jennings is an American YouTube personality, spokesmodel, television personality, and LGBT rights activist. Jennings is one of the youngest publicly documented people to be identified as transgender. Jennings received national attention in 2007 when an interview with Barbara Walters aired on 20/20, which led to other high-profile interviews and appearances. Christine Connelly, a member of the board of directors for the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth, stated, "She was the first young person who picked up the national spotlight, went on TV and was able to articulate her perspective and point of view with such innocence." Her parents noted that Jennings was clear on being female as soon as she could speak.
The Equality Act was a bill in the United States Congress, that, if passed, would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, federally funded programs, credit, and jury service. The Supreme Court's June 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County protects gay and transgender people in matters of employment, but not in other respects. The Bostock ruling also covered the Altitude Express and Harris Funeral Homes cases.
Transgender and non-binary people in New Zealand face discrimination in several aspects of their lives. The law is unclear on the legal status of discrimination based on gender identity, and also for intersex people.
The following is a timeline of transgender history. Transgender history dates back to the first recorded instances of transgender individuals in ancient civilizations. However, the word transgenderism did not exist until 1965 when coined by psychiatrist John F. Oliven of Columbia University in his 1965 reference work Sexual Hygiene and Pathology; the timeline includes events and personalities that may be viewed as transgender in the broadest sense, including third gender and other gender-variant behavior, including ancient or modern precursors from the historical record.
Ingersoll Gender Center is an American non-profit organization based in Seattle that provides peer-led support groups, advocacy and community organization for transgender and gender non-conforming people in the Puget Sound region. It is one of the oldest organizations serving said community in the United States.
Moms for Liberty is an American conservative political organization that advocates against school curricula that mention LGBT rights, race and ethnicity, critical race theory, and discrimination. Multiple chapters have also campaigned to ban books that address gender and sexuality from school libraries. Founded in January 2021, the group began by campaigning against COVID-19 responses in schools such as mask and vaccine mandates. Moms for Liberty is influential within the Republican Party.
