The LGBTQ News Briefs by The Rainbow Times’ Intern, Nicole Collins
Trans Boston Marathon participants are allowed to participate as their identified gender
Boston Marathon officials ruled in early April that qualified transgender participants in the April 16 race could compete as their identified gender. The Boston Athletic Association (BAA) has never had a strict policy about transgender runners.
Some, however, are concerned that higher testosterone levels in transgender women might disqualify other, cisgender women from the race.
LGBTQ history to be included in Ill. public schools, according to State Senate plan
Illinois state senators in Springfield, the state’s capital, made important steps last week on a bill that would add LGBTQ history to public schools’ history curricula. It was endorsed by an 8–2 vote by the Senate Education committee. Illinois would be the second state after California to include LGBTQ history in their public schools.
Texas GOP leaders bar Log Cabin Republicans from running booth at state convention
Leaders of the Republican Party in Texas have barred the Log Cabin Republicans—an organization “dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives and allies”—from operating a booth at this year’s state Republican Convention. The GOP’s actions demonstrate a growing rift between the younger and older—the more and less conservative—factions of the party.
Bisexual member of Md. General Assembly speaks out against state-sponsored conversion
Meagan Simonaire, a bisexual Delegate in the Maryland General Assembly, has begun to speak out about how her father (Bryan W. Simonaire, a Senator for the Maryland State Senate) and mother recommended conversion therapy for her when she came out to them as a child.
Simonaire opened up before a Senate vote to prohibit conversion therapy in the state. The Senate eventually voted 95–27 in favor of banning it.
While the bill is still yet to pass, Simonaire has been lauded by many for her bravery in sharing her story.
Asexual community of Boulder, Colo. fights against state-sponsored discrimination
Stereotypes and misconceptions seem to surround the asexual identity.
Amid these, members of the asexual community in Boulder, Colorado are fighting state-sponsored housing discrimination as they are denied their residence at the Rad-ish Collective co-op at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Though these individuals are “a found family to each other,” the co-op deems it illegal for them to room together if they aren’t related—and makes the process and application to room together much more difficult than if they were.
This discrimination, to many, exemplifies misunderstanding of the asexual identity and community.
