Brooklyn Dems to Examine District Leader Gender Regs Without Non-...

The Brooklyn Democratic Party boss has launched a task force that could recommend striking down rules that limit the amount of women and exclude non-binary candidates from serving in lo... Show more

party posts, but that task force, though it has strong queer representation, lacks transgender or non-binary members. Party chair Rodneyse Bichotte, a state assemblymember who represents Flatbush, East Flatbush, and Midwood, on August 6 unveiled the task force, which includes Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn president Jared Arader, Lisa Fane, a former LID board member, as well as four local Democratic district leaders elected as out queer candidates — Josue Pierre, Julio Peña III, Jesse Pierce, and Samy Nemir-Olivares. Other members of the task force are former State Assemblymember Annette M. Robinson, who continues to serve as a district leader, City Council candidate Darma Diaz, and district leaders Nancy Tong, Edu Hermelyn, Josh Skaller, and Douglas M. Schneider. Party chair appoints task force with queer reps, but fails to contact plaintiffs who challenged existing policy The task force was created a little more than three months after a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge tossed a lawsuit lodged by six local candidates who targeted the Brooklyn Democratic Party for maintaining binary gender rules that call for the election of one man and one woman to serve on the county committee as Assembly district leaders. Those rules prevent non-binary candidates from participating — unless they are willing to designate a gender identity at odds with their true identity — and limits the amount of women who c...

Employees Trying to Organize Rip “Union-Busting” at Housing Works...

Housing Works employees and the union seeking to represent them are expressing anger over the ongoing resistance of the non-profit’s out gay CEO, Charles King, a man who they say has dr... Show more

ed from his radical activism to become a union-busting boss. The rift comes as the agency is in its fifth month of contending with the coronavirus pandemic, a stretch that has witnessed significant staffing changes there. The union proponents’ latest beef is with King’s appeal to the Washington headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), where employees believe their efforts are viewed less favorably by Donald Trump appointees than they are in the federal agency’s Brooklyn district office. The Housing Works organizing group, represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), has spent months trying to advance their effort at unionizing, complaining of shoddy health insurance plans, high caseloads, a meager paid time-off policy, and more. RWDSU and some Housing Works employees say the battle represents an ironic twist at a non-profit that has spent decades preaching progressive causes while serving clients with HIV/ AIDS experiencing homelessness. Workers stormed off the job last October and held a rally at Brooklyn’s Borough Hall, where folks heard testimonials from employees like Siobhán Fuller, a transgender woman who explained that her agency health insurance plan included a high deductible that forced her to shell out hundreds of dollars for necessary hormones as well as a $100 bill for every doctor appointment. Earlier this year, King argued that such complaints...

Cuomo OKs School Reopenings, WIth Caveats

Governor Andrew Cuomo gave his blessing Friday to the reopening of schools across the Empire State — provided the state approves reopening plans developed by each school district, inclu... Show more

ncluding New York City. During a Friday conference call with reporters, Cuomo said that the state finds itself in “the best situation in the country right now” in terms of COVID-19 infection rates. Just one percent of the 70,170 people tested for COVID-19 on August 6 came back positive for the virus. With low infections holding in every region of New York state, the governor said schools should reopen under plans with plenty of precautions to keep students, teachers and staff safe — from mandatory wearing of masks to social distancing and testing protocols. De Blasio says if infections stay below three percent, doors will open, despite protests by teachers union “They are all authorized to open,” Cuomo said. “Again, we’re going to watch the infection rate between now and the day schools open. If there’s a spike in the infection rate, if there’s a matter of concern with the infection rate, then we can revisit it. But for planning purposes, they can reopen.” Mayor Bill de Blasio c autioned on Twitter that the city, while on track to reopening its schools, would engage in a very cautious strategy. “We’re committed to getting this right. We will reopen safely,” he wrote. “If COVID-19 positvity [sic] rate goes above 3%, we will not open. The health of our kids, teachers and staff comes first.” Cuomo acknowledged the high concern among parents and teachers statewide who are nonetheless anxious about hundreds ...

Trump’s DOJ Mum on Supreme Court Title VII Ruling

More than seven weeks after the United States Supreme Court ruled that the sex discrimination provisions in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited employment discrimination b... Show more

d on sexual orientation or gender identity, Attorney General William Barr’s Department of Justice has offered no comment on how the Trump administration will carry out the historic decision. The DOJ typically responds to a high court ruling of this type by offering other Executive Branch agencies guidance on how to adjust their policies to fall in line with its requirements. The department’s silence was first noted in an August 5 story that USA Today published in tandem with The 19th, a nonprofit news organization focused on gender, policy, and politics. During the three and a half years that Donald Trump has been president, his administration and the DOJ in particular have weighed in on the question that the Supreme Court has now settled on numerous occasions — always coming out on the other side. Busy man that he is, AG William Barr hasn’t gotten around to anti-LGBTQ employment discrimination In February 2017, on his second day as attorney general, Jeff Sessions notified the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the US government was no longer interested in pursuing a scheduled hearing to challenge a federal district court’s nationwide injunction on a Department of Education (DOE) guidance requiring public schools to allow trans students access to bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. Days later, the DOE and the DOJ, in a joint Dear Colleague letter brokered by Sessions and Education Secretar...

Gays Against Guns Hails AG’s Move Against NRA

Gays Against Guns (GAG) responded with exuberant enthusiasm to New York State Attorney General Letitia James’ announcement that she has filed suit to dissolve the National Rifle Associa... Show more

n (NRA). “Gay Against Guns is thrilled by the action the NY Attorney General Tish James has taken!,” GAG said in an emailed response provided by Jay W. Walker. “For too long the NRA has abused its bogus ‘non-profit’ status putting the interests of weapons manufacturers above American lives. Tish James has never just talked the talk. She has always walked the walk on behalf of all New Yorkers. She has been a strong warrior in the Gun Violence Prevention movement since before GAG formed in 2016, after the Pulse massacre in Orlando. Since then, she has been a valued supporter of our work: attending early meetings and making herself available for our direct actions. As we say in GAG, Tish James is one Fierce Kween. Thank you, Madam Attorney General!” GAG, a New York activist group formed in the immediate aftermath of the June 2016 Orlando, Florida, mass murder by a lone gunman, has staged dozens of vivid protests aimed at the NRA, gun and ammunition manufacturers, major investors in those companies, and elected officials — in New York State, Washington, and elsewhere — who take money from the gun group. New York activists praise Letitia James for suing to dissolve the mammoth gun “charity” Attorney General James on August 6 announcing the NRA lawsuit.Donna Aceto In her suit, announced August 6, James alleged that the NRA, a nonprofit charitable organization registered in New York State in 1871, and key lead...

Black Transgender Woman Fatally Stabbed at Portland Vigil

A Black transgender woman was attending a vigil for a shooting victim in Portland when she was stabbed to death on July 28. Aja Raquell Rhone-Spears, a 32-year-old who also went by the ... Show more

e Rocky Rhone, was one of two individuals stabbed after a fight broke out during the vigil for Tyrell Penney at a residence on Northeast 92nd Place in Portland, according to the Oregonian. Between 20 and 30 individuals were at the vigil for Penney, a 27-year-old Sacramento, California, man shot to death on July 25 while visiting Portland. Rhone-Spears died at the scene after emergency responders were unable to save her, and an investigation into the crime is ongoing. Specific details about who else was involved in the fight or how the dispute started were not available. Police do not appear to have any leads in the case and the Oregonian reported that the investigation is ongoing “Black transgender women are being violently killed in our streets,” the Human Rights Campaign’s director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, Tori Cooper, said in a written statement. “The current rates of violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people are unlike any the Human Rights Campaign has tracked in the past seven years. I, alongside HRC and so many others, am mourning the loss of Aja Raquell Rhone-Spears — who was not even able to attend a vigil to mourn without risk of death.” Rhone became the 26th known transgender, gender non-conforming, or non-binary individual to die a violent death this year, which is the highest death toll seen in the community at this point in the year...