Some are misinterpreting last week’s Supreme Court’s decision in the Masterpiece Cake case, as providing a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people. This is patently false. The Court’s ruling in favor of the cake shop was based on very narrow and specific circumstances regarding respecting religious freedom while enforcing antidiscrimination laws.
It’s BTL's silver anniversary, and for 25 years we have been dedicated to providing news for Michigan’s LGBTQ community. So now, as we celebrate this incredible milestone in not only our history, but that of our readership, we invite you to look back with us. Over the next 12 months BTL will revisit Southeast Michigan's historical milestones, traveling back in time to reexamine those events that have changed the face of our community. We’ll be releasing regular historical graphics that take a look at some of the LGBTQ community's greatest triumphs as well as some of the biggest bumps we’ve encountered on the road to equality. The first of these graphics can be found on page 8.
Finding housing is complex and terrifying. With rent skyrocketing while quality plunges, even middle-class families are struggling to find something that works for them and is also affordable, especially if they have children, pets, and/or special needs. Initial payments are financially overwhelming, comprising of rent for the first month, plus a security deposit, plus any additional fees. If a person cannot find accessible housing, the generosity of friends and family is the only thing protecting them from homelessness. Those who are marginalized - people of color, disabled people, and those within the LGBTQ+ community - face even greater challenges.
Pride season is here, and so are two new picture books that tell the story of the rainbow flag and the individuals who both inspired and created it.
As June gets closer and LGBTQ people start marking their summer calendars for over a dozen pride celebrations across Michigan — a huge achievement on its own — it's a great time to take stock of the unprecedented positive political action that has been achieved over the past year — seemingly despite all odds.
There is a certain popular culture view of transgender people that cannot be easily shaken: transgender people are born as men or women, and choose to become women or men.
In March, Rachael and I took her 9-year-old daughter Sophie to see Pink perform in her Beautiful Trauma world tour in Grand Rapids. We bought the tickets way back before Christmas and had been counting [...]
Trans people - and I am using the term in its broadest sense, inclusive of gender fluidity and nonbinary identities - tend to have a pretty short list of wants. Really, I can boil it down to one simple statement: we just want to live our lives.
I am a Michigan State University alum. Currently, I am a faculty member at Central Michigan University, where I and my colleagues are entrusted with thousands of young adults beginning to negotiate the world on their own. I am a former female college athlete, I am a social worker whose clients who include young victims of sexual abuse and women who have experienced violence at the hands of men, I am personally connected to many young adults who have experienced sexual assault and, finally, I am the adoptive mom to four kids — including a daughter — who all went to college. From these many perspectives, I keep trying to untangle the MSU/Nassar scandal.
Being transgender in the late 2010s means you talk about restrooms. Indeed, it's a topic you end up having to revisit over and over again, with what has been years now of attacks on public [...]
Members of the LGBTQ community face many unique health care challenges. They suffer from higher rates of smoking, depression, anxiety, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Compounding these challenges is the fact that LGBTQ individuals are more likely than others to experience difficulty accessing health care, due to a long history of anti-LGBTQ bias.
Is Vice President Mike Pence a closeted, deep-in-self-hate raging homo? Is that self-hate so intolerable for him that he’s become the commander in chief at the White House in pushing the most homophobic agenda since [...]
To be transgender in 2018 is to deal with challenging, difficult times. We face attacks from all sides, and the specter of death itself lays heavy upon our community. As a result, I find I often have to spend a lot of time ringing the alarm bells, and warning of dire times.
The Trump Administration has once again attempted to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. This time out, the ban was secretly drafted by Vice President Mike Pence, with assistance from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC) and Ryan T. Anderson of the Heritage Foundation.
Once I encountered a goat on an airplane. I had one short flight left to reach my destination from Nigeria to Ghana, and the old workhorse plane was overstuffed with luggage, squawking chickens and smelly, [...]
A landmark legal decision for transgender rights was issued last week. A unanimous three-judge panel of the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals — covering Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee — ruled that Michigan RG & GR Harris Funeral Homes violated federal civil rights laws when they fired Aimee Stephens for a being a transgender woman.
By Anurima Bhargava and Adele Kimmel The Trump Administration’s attacks on the transgender community come with real consequences. Earlier this year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Department of Justice no longer considers it problematic [...]
The role of the Michigan Attorney General is a powerful, important position in the state. The office represents the people of Michigan in criminal and civil actions. They are supposed to be the hero that [...]
Five days a week I pass a building whose facade is marred by a bullet hole. The reality of gun violence in our community sends chills down my spine. The fact that this bullet hole came from a gun aimed at someone I know haunts me.
We Know HIV Doesn’t Discriminate — So Why Are Women Still Being Left Out of the Conversation Around HIV? Having recently become single again after being in a monogamous relationship for over a decade, and [...]
BY JOSH ROBBINS LOVE. It’s a word I’ve been tossing around my entire life. I’ve said it to my parents, mostly to my mom. I’ve used it to describe my feeling towards a music artist. [...]
How Josephine Baker Gave Pinups, Burlesquers, and Rockabilly Women of Color a Sense of Independence What things her gaze conceals yet gives acknowledgement to. What horrors yet what joys. Josephine Baker I whisper to myself [...]
With all the racism spewing forth from the White House on a regular basis, it’s almost easy not to notice that President Trump is not living up to candidate Trump’s campaign pledges not to roll [...]
It's been more than two and half years since the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges held that our Constitution guarantees us both the fundamental right to marry and the ancillary benefits associated with [...]
Criminals make up excuses for their crimes. We've heard so many bad excuses for crime, that many such stories have become the things of legend, like the infamous "Twinkie defense" of Dan White for the [...]
Radio host Michelle Brown of "Collections by Michelle Brown" told Women's March attendees in Ann Arbor last Saturday, to "grab them by the midterms and take our power to the polls." Below is her full [...]
By the time this column reaches you, the confetti will be swept out of Times Square and the Rose Bowl parade floats will exist as only a memory. Nevertheless, we shall still be feeling the [...]
BY JACQULYN HIPPE The lack of moral decency in this administration and their supporters has reenergized social activists and advocates here to maintain those rights. Social justice leaders working for people who have been stripped [...]
Michelle Brown In these worst of times, I keep looking for the best of times, the best in people, the best in possible outcomes, but it's hard. Most days, it feels that common [...]
The 21st of December is the Winter Solstice: that's the longest night of the year when light is at its scarcest. It is at this time of maximum axial tilt that those of us living [...]
Eve Kucharski Even with the decision to repeal net neutrality on Dec. 14, you probably haven't seen anything happen to your internet speeds. And you won't for now. The new rules must be [...]
Immigration Equality Advocates on Behalf of Both LGBT Immigrants and All Immigrants Living with HIV Aaron C. Morris By Oriol R. Gutierrez Jr. Aaron C. Morris is executive director of Immigration Equality, a [...]
By Jay Kaplan The U.S. Supreme Court finished hearing arguments this week in the case of a Colorado business owner who refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. How the Court rules [...]
A week or two ago, a headline passed my eyes: "The transgender zealots are destroying truth itself," it seemed to scream, on an article by Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail. Hitchens' point seems to [...]
By Jeff Berry "My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style." --Maya Angelou I remember as a [...]
by Gwendolyn Ann Smith The 7th of November was the 40th anniversary of Harvey Milk's historic victory in San Francisco, becoming the first out, gay elected official in the United States. It felt as if [...]
BY GWENDOLYN ANN SMITH The 20th of November is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. This year will be the 18th observance. It was my work with the Remembering Our Dead project that helped create the [...]
BY RENEE MCCOY When the movie "The Color Purple" came out in 1985, I had a disturbing conversation with my mother. She had neither read Alice Walker's book nor known about Stephen Spielberg's ability to [...]
BY ERIC RADER As we near the end of 2017, our sights turn to 2018 and the many challenges and opportunities that await in the new year. Few of us will be sad to see [...]
BY ANGIE PERONE Local media recently reported that nearly a quarter of Michigan's nursing homes have been cited for serious health and safety violations. This coverage garnered attention from Congresswoman Debbie Dingell who expressed outrage [...]
BY DANA RUDOLPH Halloween is almost here, which for many of us means trips to the store to purchase overpriced costumes or hours spent sewing and hot-glueing homemade versions, both for our kids and for [...]
By Glenn Magpantay Congressional lawmaking is often likened to making sausage - stuffing casing with a mix of the real thing and mystery meat. Horse-trading and unrelated riders onerous to those who would support a [...]
BY GWENDOLYN ANN SMITH Prior to the 2016 Election, I recall writing about how the election of a President is not simply the election of one person, but a whole administration -- and how the [...]
BY SHARRON FINCHER The more I become involved in the community the more I notice something is missing. Not totally missing, but the representation of MoC lesbians is lacking. Masculine of Center (MoC) is a [...]
BY TIM RETZLOFF I knew criminal court cases could be a gold mine for researching LGBTQ history. I did not know such records were so vulnerable. As I recounted in an earlier blog post, my [...]
BY JEREMY MOSS If you launch a campaign for State Representative, you can raise money from individual donors into a candidate committee. If you want to support other candidates and political causes that align with [...]
BY ERIC RADER Elections have consequences. If the last eight months have not proven this adage to be true, nothing ever could. The United States is witnessing an incompetent and ultra-conservative administration, led by a [...]
BY JAY KAPLAN The Trump Administration's Justice Department, headed by Jeff Sessions keeps batting a thousand when it comes to LGBT rights. After rescinding federal guidelines protecting transgender students from discrimination regarding bathroom use at [...]
BY BRIAN STONE One of the greatest hallmarks of the Democratic Party is our embrace of diversity. As the Democratic field of candidates widen for Michigan Attorney General, it's important that we ensure Democratic leaders [...]
BY JAY KAPLAN On Monday morning, Aug. 28, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in the federal district court of Maryland challenging the constitutionality of the Trump Administration's transgender service member ban. The 39-page lawsuit states [...]
