People gather at the Equality March for Unity and Pride in Washington, D.C., on June 11, 2017. D.C. is set to become the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to offer licenses reading “X.” Photo by Dayana Morales Gomez

Washington, D.C., this week will become the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to offer a driver’s license reading “X,” instead of “M” or “F.”

The D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles worked with the National Center for Transgender Equality to implement the new option. It follows a wave of court orders in the past year that have designated at least 20 people legally non-binary, challenging the available options for gender on identification documents.

“Washington, DC has long been a leader in LGBTQ rights and gender issues, and this change is the most recent example of our city’s commitment to inclusivity,” D.C. Mayor Bowser said in a statement Friday. “The safety and well-being of all Washingtonians is my top priority, and whenever we are presented with an opportunity to improve the lives of residents and better align our policies with DC values, I will take it. I hope to see other jurisdictions follow in our footsteps.”

The DMV is closed on Monday, so the first available opportunity to get an ID reading “X” is Tuesday.

READ NEXT: Judge rules in favor of intersex veteran who was denied passport

Advocates say the new option will be helpful for non-binary and trans people for whom neither “M” nor “F” are accurate options. Elizabeth Ehret, an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow working at Whitman-Walker Health, became involved with the change after a client came to the health clinic in February and asked if they could get a non-binary marker on their ID.

“I talked with them and I said, ‘Look, this is not something that’s currently available in D.C. but we can see what we can do,’” Ehret said.

Since then, the client has been part of the DMV discussions, Ehret said. Representatives from Whitman-Walker Health and National Center for Transgender Equality also worked with the DMV to implement a self-attestation form, which will allow residents to self-attest to their gender while changing the sex marker on an ID. Until recently, D.C. residents had to receive a signature from a health provider before they could do so.

Ehret said the new option will be important for D.C. residents who currently use an ID that is incompatible with their appearance or identity. Doing so, she said, can put trans and non-binary people at risk for harassment or violence. “People are going to have access to a gender marker that actually matches their gender identity,” she said.

Advocates also say that allowing residents to self-attest to their gender will remove barriers for people who want to change their IDs, but previously lacked access to a health care provider who could sign off on the change.

On June 20, Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau introduced a bill that would enable people applying for driver’s licenses, permits and other identification cards to list their gender as “nonbinary.”

The bill is “complementary” to the DMV’s efforts and would ensure that the change would not be undone by a future administration, said Tom Fazzini, Nadeau’s deputy chief of staff and communications director.

D.C. is set to begin issuing “X” licenses about a month before Oregon begins making the same change. In June 2016, Portland resident Jamie Shupe became the first legally non-binary person in the U.S., spurring a year-long process by the state’s DMV to create a non-binary option for licenses. Shupe was followed by others in Oregon and California who obtained similar court orders to become legally non-binary.

The Oregon DMV met with other state agencies and non-binary residents before its transportation commission unanimously voted this month to approve the new option. State lawmakers in the California Assembly are also considering a bill that would add a non-binary option on driver’s licenses, which passed the state Senate last month.

Shupe, who grew up in Maryland and served in the military before moving to Oregon in 2014, applauded the change in an email.

“I literally fled to Oregon, because I felt not only unsafe, but I also felt just flat out unwelcome on the East Coast as a non-binary transgender person,” Shupe wrote. “D.C., the place of my birth, has given me tears of joy by their actions.”

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Napoleon Sarony took this photo of Oscar Wilde in 1882 after arriving in the U.S. for a lecture tour. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

The Brooklyn Academy of Music revealed its newly-digitized archive this week, a collection of thousands of images, clippings and performances dating back to the 1860s.

The archive, which was four years in the making and funded by the Leon Levy Foundation, drew on BAM’s long history as a performance hub in downtown Brooklyn, New York. Containing 70,000 items and released during a month of LGBTQ pride celebrations, it also holds traces of important moments in LGBTQ history, when writers and performers brought their singular experiences to Brooklyn audiences.

We asked Sharon Lehner, director of archives at BAM, to highlight several of those moments.

Robert Petkoff, Charlotte Parry and Lynn Redgrave in the dress rehearsal of “The Importance of Being Earnest” during BAM Spring Series, 2006. Photo courtesy of BAM

1. America, meet Oscar Wilde

At the start of 1882, a 27-year-old Oscar Wilde disembarked from a voyage across the Atlantic, ready to begin a whirlwind speaking tour across the U.S. and Canada. He arrived with a provocative, newspaper-ready take: “I was very much disappointed in the Atlantic Ocean. It was very tame,” he reportedly told the New York Sun, spurring bemused headlines across the country, according to an archive by writer John Cooper.

From the week he arrived in the U.S., the New York press heavily featured Wilde in its coverage of society parties, and the writer — still obscure to many Americans at the time — quickly gained notoriety. His first lecture in New York on Jan. 9 was sold out to more than 1,000 people. That month, Wilde also visited then-62-year-old Walt Whitman in New Jersey, where the two spent an afternoon discussing literature, fame and poetry and drinking elderberry wine. “I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips,” he would later boast, wrote Wilde biographer Neil McKenna.

Several weeks later, Wilde arrived at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for a lecture on the English Renaissance. In a review that detailed Wilde’s flamboyant style — “dress coat, low white vest, knee-breeches, black silk stockings, and pumps” — The New York Times called the lecture “incomprehensible” and noted that a group in the audience grew mocking, beginning to “applaud when there was no occasion for applause.”

The review was one among many mixed reactions to Wilde, who drew praise from papers like The Cincinnati Enquirer and derision from other quarters. “We doubt if there are any persons in America who take Mr. Oscar Wilde’s present venture seriously,” wrote The Saint Paul Globe of Saint Paul, Minnesota, two days after Wilde’s lecture at BAM.

On Nov. 7, 1889, Amelia Edwards held a lecture at BAM on Egyptian antiquities. Image courtesy of BAM

2. Amelia Edwards, groundbreaking Egyptologist, tours the country

Born in 1831, Amelia Edwards was a British writer and a pioneering scholar of Egyptology. When Edwards traveled to Egypt in 1873, she was an accomplished novelist, having produced books such as “Barbara’s History” (1864) and “Lord Brackenbury” (1880). She was also a prolific travel writer, often journeying alongside her partner Ellen Drew Braysher. But her trip up the Nile spurred a passion for Egyptian history that would last the rest of her life, leading her to advocate for the preservation of Egyptian landmarks and co-found the Egypt Exploration Fund.

In her book “A Thousand Miles Up the Nile,” which chronicled that voyage, Edwards wrote of seeing the Great Pyramid of Giza:

More impressive by far than the weightiest array of figures of the most striking comparisons, was the shadow cast by the Great Pyramid as the sun went down. That mighty Shadow, sharp and distinct, stretched across the stony platform of the desert and over full three-quarters of a mile of the green plain below. It divided the sunlight where it fell, just as its great original divided the sunlight in the upper air ; and it darkened the space it covered, like an eclipse.

Edwards’ lecture at BAM in 1889 was one of many she gave that year and the next, in a tour that was hailed by newspaper critics. Last year, her grave in Bristol, England, was listed at Grade II to recognize it as a site of British LGBT history. She is buried alongside Braysher.

3. Brooklyn bullfighter Sidney Franklin catapults to fame

Sidney Franklin held a lecture on bullfighting at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on April 8, 1931. Photo by Carl Van Vechten courtesy of BAM

Sidney Frumkin was born in 1903 in Brooklyn to Russian Jewish immigrants. In 1923, at the age of 19, he left home and traveled to Mexico City, where he entered his first bullfight at the Chapultepec Arena in Mexico City. His appearance there “was the whim of a native promoter who thought the spectacle of a ‘gringo’ pursued around the ring by a fighting bull would provide patrons with laughs,” wrote The New York Times in 1976.

But his courage in the ring impressed the crowd, and Frumkin — who had changed his name to Franklin — continued to fight. He met Ernest Hemingway in 1929 and the two struck up a friendship, with Hemingway praising Franklin in his book “Death In the Afternoon.” He wrote:

“Franklin is brave with a cold, serene and intelligent valour but instead of being awkward and ignorant he is one of the most skilful, graceful and slow manipulators of a cape fighting today. … You will find no Spaniard who ever saw him fight who will deny his artistry and excellence with the cape.”

Throughout the 1930s, Franklin tried to acquaint his hometown with bullfighting, lecturing at BAM in 1931 and holding exhibitions on bull-dodging at the World’s Fair in Queens, New York, in 1939.

Franklin biographer Bart Paul told the Los Angeles Times in 2010 that Franklin was “never outwardly gay, as we would think of being out today. As Barnaby Conrad said, if they had known, it would have killed him as a bullfighter in Spain. Not that there weren’t bullfighters who were gay. It was just a culture of machismo.”

Bill T. Jones appears in the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company production of “Still/Here” during BAM Next Wave Festival in 1994. Photo by Dan Rest courtesy of BAM

4. Amid AIDS crisis, Bill T. Jones shares stories of survival

In the early 1990s, Bill T. Jones was already famous as a performer and choreographer of boldly political work. Jones has long been “firmly rooted in the values of the 60s, in his commitment to racial and sexual inclusivity,” John O’Mahony of the Guardian wrote in 2004. But “Still/Here” — a piece about survival and illness that premiered in 1994 — would be a new landmark achievement for him.

For nearly 20 years, Jones worked with Arnie Zane, his partner and creative collaborator who died in 1988 of complications from AIDS. The Advocate, an LGBTQ magazine, printed that Jones was HIV-positive in 1990, an experience that he chronicled in his memoir. “Most of us, with or without HIV, are burdened with the perception, justified or not, that being HIV-positive equals death. Once again, I found myself an outsider. This I refused to accept,” he wrote.

To develop “Still/Here,” Jones created workshops in 10 cities around the country where volunteers discussed their experience with illness. He incorporated their stories into the piece, which blended spoken recordings, music and images of people in those workshops, presenting illness as a universal experience — a counterpoint to the public image of AIDS as uniquely terminal. It debuted at BAM in November 1994, about two months before AIDS would be declared the leading cause of death for 25-to-44-year-old Americans at the time.

The piece was meant to “evoke the spirit of survival,” Jones told Bill Moyers in 1997. “For me as a person who has to deal with his own possible early death, I was looking for people who were dealing with the same thing,” Jones said.

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People gather at the Equality March for Unity and Pride in Washington, D.C., on June 11, 2017. Photo by Dayana Morales Gomez

Oregon officials voted Thursday to add a gender-neutral option on state IDs, making it the first state in the country to recognize non-binary people on their driver’s licenses.

The unanimous decision by the Oregon Transportation Commission is the final step in a year-long process that began in June 2016, when Portland resident Jamie Shupe became the first legally non-binary person — identifying as neither male nor female — in the country.

The option, which will be available starting July 3, will make a difference for non-binary and transgender people for whom using an ID marked “M” or “F” is inaccurate or even dangerous, advocates say.

“I think this will make a real difference in people’s lives, and I think it is a great step for removing even more barriers,” said Amy Herzfeld-Copple, co-director of LGBTQ advocacy group Basic Rights Oregon.

While transgender and non-binary issues have gained greater prominence around the country, only several states have addressed the issue of identification. In May, California state senators approved SB 179, which would add a non-binary option on state driver’s licenses, with a 26-12 vote. It is currently under consideration in the state’s House of Representatives.

Herzfeld-Copple said she hopes Oregon’s decision can serve as an example for other states. “Often, really important policy changes don’t happen as the result of legislation, but as a result of working directly with agencies to remove barriers,” she said. “This will be helpful in writing a playbook for other states.”

Jamie Shupe appears at at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon, on March 31, 2016, Transgender Day of Visibility. Photo courtesy of Jamie Shupe

Shupe, who uses the pronoun “they,” was born in Maryland in 1963 and grew up there before joining the military at age 19. Having struggled with gender dysphoria for years during their military service, Shupe found community in a genderqueer support group after moving to Oregon in November 2014.

In April 2016, Shupe petitioned the Multnomah County court for a sex change, a routine step in states that require a court order in order to change a license. But unlike other requests, Shupe asked to identify as “non-binary,” a gender that is neither male nor female.

Shupe’s request was granted through a court order by Judge Amy Holmes Hehn. Walking out of the courtroom that day, Shupe was elated but terrified that “that this whole thing might die with me.”

It was “a really lonely and scary feeling to be the only person … that was in possession of the court order that just broke the gender binary in this nation,” they said in an email.

After the Oregon DMV received the court order, it began researching how to add a new option on driver’s licenses for people like Shupe. This process included creating an advisory committee with representatives from the Oregon state police, advocacy group Basic Rights Oregon, the Oregon Department of Justice and non-binary or genderqueer individuals, among others. The department decided to offer “X” as an alternative choice to “M” or “F.”

From April 1 to May 12, the DMV held a public comment period and two hearings in Eugene and Portland. During that process, the DMV collected 83 written and oral comments, 71 of which favored making the change. DMV spokesman David House told the NewsHour in May that public feedback was “overwhelmingly positive.”

People who supported the change told the DMV in public comments that adding the “X” option is an important step for people whose appearance does not match the marker on their ID, which can leave them vulnerable to harassment, discrimination or violence.

“This small, significant change is about affording me and others like me the same basic dignity as those who see an “M” or an “F” on their driver’s license and feel accurately represented; to be who we are without being subjected to suspicion or ridicule,” read one comment.

READ MORE: The complications of ID for non-binary people — and how it could change soon

At least one comment against the change raised the concern that an ID reading “X” would make it harder for police or others to identify people. But, LGBTQ law organization Lambda Legal noted in a public comment that “there is no evidence to support arguments that making nonbinary gender markers available will negatively affect public safety.”

Non-binary advocates have also raised the concern that IDs marked “X” could be incompatible with health care systems, housing programs and other institutions.

Internationally, the “X” option is acceptable under United Nations aviation standards, and at least eight countries allow a third gender option on either passports or national ID cards, including Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Bangladesh and Pakistan, according to Lambda Legal. Ontario, Canada, began issuing licenses marked “X” in March. And the change will be consistent with the REAL ID Act, which requires that driver’s licenses list a sex designation but leave definitions up to states.

Meanwhile, a small group of people in California have followed Shupe’s lead by obtaining court orders that legally identify them as non-binary. Sara Kelly Keenan became the first person in California — and the second person in the country — to do so in September. Today, about 20 people in the U.S. are legally non-binary, said Douglas Lorenz, communications director for the Intersex and Genderqueer Recognition Project, which has advised about 20 people making this change.

READ MORE: Nation’s first known ‘intersex’ birth certificate issued in New York City

LGBTQ advocates say this decision supports the case of Dana Zzyym, an intersex veteran who sued the State Department after they were denied a passport. Instead of selecting “male” or “female,” Zzyym wrote “intersex” on the passport application.

A federal judge ruled in Zzyym’s favor in November, directing the State Department to reconsider its policy on passport options. The State Department has not announced any changes since then.

“This decision should provide even more support for the arguments we are making in federal court … that allowing accurate gender markers is necessary and required constitutionally, and just by common sense,” said Hayley Gorenberg, the deputy legal director and general counsel for Lambda Legal. “I certainly hope that this decision by the state of Oregon to do the right thing and give people accurate ID documents will influence the case for Dana and other people in their position.”

Shupe said via email that they were thankful for the people “who not only believed in me, but also in what I wanted to accomplish on behalf of all of the various communities that are stakeholders in this historic human rights victory for sex and gender.”

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UPDATE 12:06 p.m.: The gunman in Wednesday’s attack at a congressional baseball practice has died of his injuries, President Donald Trump said in a statement.
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Police say a suspect is in custody after Wednesday’s shooting at a men’s congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia.

The shooting came the day before the annual Congressional Baseball Game, a charity event run by Senate and House members of both parties. The game takes place at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C.

READ MORE: House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and others shot at congressional baseball practice

Alexandria Police Chief Michael L. Brown said units responded to a 911 call at 7:09 a.m. and were at the field, near a local YMCA, within three minutes. The officers received fire from a suspect and returned fire.

Five people were transported to local hospitals, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who is in stable condition and underwent surgery, according to his office.

Brown said the scene was stable.

“I want to reassure the community here in Alexandria that this city is indeed safe,” he said.

Because a member of Congress was involved, the FBI will be taking over the investigation, according to officials.

FBI Special Agent Timothy Slater said the FBI became involved around 9:30 a.m. and that it was too early to tell what had motivated the shooting.

“We’re exploring all angles,” he said.

Law enforcement officers who were shot are now in good condition, Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa said.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said that gun violence affects people in the U.S. every day. “It’s not just about politicians. we worry about this every day for all our citizens,” he said.

He also commended Capitol police for quick action. “They saved a lot of lives today,” he said.

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Firefighters direct jets of water onto a tower block severely damaged by a serious fire in north Kensington, West London on June 14. Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters

Twelve people have died and dozens more were hospitalized after a fire engulfed a high-rise apartment building in London early Wednesday morning, Metropolitan Police confirmed and Reuters reported.

The fire began at about 1 a.m. in Grenfell Tower, a 24-story building in the North Kensington neighborhood and part of Lancaster West Estate, a larger residential complex. About 200 people live in the tower.

Forty fire trucks and more than 20 ambulances responded to the fire, while witnesses described hearing screams for help as it continued to burn for hours, starting at the second floor and spreading to the top of the building.

“It just kept burning and burning for hours and for hours there were still people at the top of the building screaming for help,” Alison Evans, who lives nearby, told The New York Times. “It was hell to watch. We were watching people dying. I can’t imagine how many people must have died in there.”

Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement she was “deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life in the Grenfell Tower.” She called for a meeting at 4 p.m. local time to “coordinate the response and ensure the government is ready to assist emergency services and local authorities as necessary,” according to the statement.

It was not immediately clear how the fire started, and the Metropolitan Police said the number of people killed will likely rise.

Firefighters, police officers and forensic experts congregate near an apartment tower severely damaged by fire in London on June 14. Photo by Neil Hall/Reuters

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Investigators gather near the scene of an opened fire June 14, 2017 in Alexandria, Virginia. Multiple injuries were reported from the instance, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-LA. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

A men’s congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia was attacked by a gunman Wednesday morning and several people were shot, including Majority Whip Steve Scalise and law enforcement officers, according to the Associated Press. A suspect in the shooting has died from injuries, President Donald Trump said Wednesday in a statement from the White House.

Scalise was transported to MedStar Washington Hospital Center and is in critical condition, according to this Tweet.

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Rep. Roger Williams confirmed on Twitter that Zack Barth, a staffer in Williams’ office, was also among those shot.

Alexandria Police Chief Michael L. Brown said that police received a call of an active shooter at 7:09 a.m. and that officers responded to the scene, just south of Washington, D.C., in three minutes. Two officers engaged in gunfire, and five people were transported to local hospitals.

Brown said it was “a stable situation at this point. … We consider this incident to be a closed incident under investigation.”

A government official identified the suspect as James T. Hodgkinson of Illinois, AP reported. Sen. Berne Sanders said in a statement that he was told the suspect “apparently volunteered on my presidential campaign.”

“I am sickened by this despicable act,” the statement said. “Let me be as clear as I can be. Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms. Real change can only come about through nonviolent action, and anything else runs against our most deeply held American values.”

Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) told reporters that he believes he may have spoken to the man who opened fire, based on images of the man on TV. Duncan said he was leaving practice early when the man approached him and asked: “Excuse me, sir, who’s practicing today? Democrats or Republicans?'”

Witnesses told the NewsHour’s Lisa Desjardins that they heard a loud boom, followed by many more. Members of the baseball team ran, dropping gloves and equipment and jumping over fences to get away from the shooter.

According to witnesses, law enforcement yelled “Put down the gun!”

Sen. Rand Paul told CNN the shooter fired at least 50 times and that “nobody would have survived without Capitol Hill police. They saved everybody’s life.”

The shooter was active for at least 10 minutes, Sen. Jeff Flake told CBS News.

Flake also told reporters that Rep. Joe Barton’s son, who is 10, had been at practice at the time of the shooting. “We got him in the dugout and put him under the bench,” he said.

House Democrats prayed following reports that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and one of his aides were shot at a GOP congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, on June 14.
“Me and my House Democrats colleagues saying a prayer for our House Republicans and Senate GOP baseball colleagues after hearing about this morning’s horrific shooting at their practice field,” said Rep Ruben Kihuen (D-NV), who posted the image. Photo by Ruben Kihuen/via Storyful

Several players described the incident via Twitter. “The gun continued to fire,” Rep. Mo Brooks told CNN.

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Brooks said Scalise was wounded in the hip, according to AP reports.

Joseph Miscavige, director of analytics for PBS Kids, tweeted from the YMCA next door on that the incident was “terrifying” but he is “sheltered in place & under lockdown.”

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Just after 8:30 a.m. ET, President Donald Trump released the following statement:

“The Vice President and I are aware of the shooting incident in Virginia and are monitoring developments closely. We are deeply saddened by this tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the members of Congress, their staffs, Capitol Police, first responders, and all others affected.”

The president also sent out this statement via Twitter:

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Vice President Mike Pence also responded on Twitter.

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Alexandria Mayor Allison Silberberg said in a statement, “There has been an unthinkable shooting in our city this morning. Our thoughts and prayers are with Congressman Steve Scalise and other shooting victims, who were simply enjoying a baseball practice early this morning.”

The Congressional Baseball Game for Charity is scheduled for Thursday at Nationals Park. This video by Storyful shows a Medevac chopper arriving at Wednesday’s practice.

Scalise had recently told Roll Call he was excited for the upcoming game on Thursday.

All House votes have been canceled today, according to Scalise’s office. That includes a vote on the Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act, or SHARE Act, which would ease restrictions for purchasing gun silencers.

Rep. Ryan Costello, who has played in the charity game for two years, said in a statement he had missed his ride to practice “by 2 minutes” on Wednesday.

“We now know a gunman fired shots at practice this morning. While I am fine, I am praying for my colleagues, Majority Whip Scalise, police, and staff,” the statement said.

The Congressional Women’s Softball Game tweeted a statement.

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A woman places a photograph of one of the victims in the shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub, on a memorial during an Interfaith Service at First United Methodist Church in Orlando, Florida, June 14, 2016. Photo by Jim Young/Reuters

Christopher Cuevas knew what he wanted to say as he approached the First United Methodist Church of Orlando on June 6, nearly a year after a horrific shooting at the popular gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando.

Cuevas planned to speak at the meeting of ministers, LGBTQ people and other residents gathered at the church to remember the victims of the shooting. He was nervous as he prepared to tell the crowd about grappling with his Catholic upbringing as a young queer person.

But when he told his story, he said he felt “warmly received” by the mix of people who had come together to heal in the year afterward, in what LGBTQ advocates and faith leaders alike call a shift in their relationships. Now they say the last year has brought new dialogue between them, just one of the ways the community has changed in the wake of the tragedy.

“I was very honest and raw about my experience,” Cuevas said of his speech at the event. “I think for many of the people in attendance, it was an eye-opening experience to them. They may not have ever really seen it from the perspective of a queer trans person.”

Christopher Cuevas, far left, and other members of QLatinx appear at AIDS Walk Orlando on April 15, 2017. Photo courtesy of Christopher Cuevas

Pulse ‘forced us to think as a spiritual community’

It has been a year since that night, when a lone gunman began firing on a mass of party-goers at Pulse during a Latin-themed event.

For the next three hours, Omar Mateen, armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a pistol, kept the authorities at bay, spreading bloodshed throughout an establishment that many LGBTQ people of color described as a safe haven, a place to turn for comfort and support. At about 5:14 a.m., police barreled through a wall of a bathroom in the club, fatally shooting Mateen in an eruption of gunfire. The attack was the largest mass shooting in American history.

In the following days, the community rallied to support the survivors and victims: raising millions of dollars on GoFundMe, mobilizing to improve access to mental health services in Florida and making a strong push to stop bullying against LGBTQ kids in school.

Meanwhile, Christian faith leaders in the area wrestled with their own relationships with the LGBTQ community. Bishop Robert Lynch of the Catholic diocese in St. Petersburg, Florida, said in a blog post after the shooting that religious rhetoric can marginalize LGBTQ people.

“Sadly, it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people,” Lynch wrote, according to Reuters.

Some faith leaders say the shooting galvanized them to form closer connections with LGBTQ people. After the shooting, “We [saw] a lot of churches and communities of faith take action to learn about the LGBTQ community,” said Hannah Willard, the public policy director for advocacy group Equality Florida.

Pastor James Coffin, the executive director of the Interfaith Council of Central Florida, helped coordinate religious counselors in the days following the shooting. Three days after it happened, the council held an interfaith prayer service that included a broad cross-section of beliefs.

The massacre “really forced us to think as a spiritual community in ways that many hadn’t thought before. There was a more deliberate and specific reaching out to the LGBTQ community,” he said.

Rocks are printed with words of encouragement outside the Pulse night club following the shootings earlier this year in Orlando, Florida, U.S., September 17, 2016. Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters

Rev. Dr. Joel Hunter of Northland Church in Orlando said he had not reached out to LGBTQ people prior to the shooting. “[I] wouldn’t have done it to this day, had it not been for Pulse,” he said.

The shooting completely changed his awareness of LGBTQ issues, he said. “I personally went on this quest to build relationships and get to know more about that community. I didn’t realize how vulnerable they were,” he said.

On May 18, Hunter’s church hosted a forum with The Reformation Project, which advocates for the inclusion of LGBTQ people in Christian organizations. About 800 people attended the discussion. After that event, “I wanted to search my heart to see if I had, in any way, been complicit in that kind of prejudice, even violence,” he said.

Hunter said he has received pushback from critics who accused him of “heresy” for engaging in dialogue with LGBTQ groups. But the point of the event was not to argue church doctrine, it was to build relationships, he said.

Florida Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith said engagement from faith-based groups has not been limited to Christians in Orlando. In the hours after the shooting by Mateen, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, Muslim organizations from across the country condemned the attack and called on Muslims to respond with support and prayer.

Linda Sarsour, a leading activist for Muslim equality and former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, wrote on Facebook that Muslims and LGBTQ people have both faced discrimination and have worked together to oppose it.

“We will not be divided. We have worked too hard for too long together. Both of our communities value civil rights, compassion, respect & dignity for all people,” she wrote.

Smith said those bonds also exist in Orlando. “On June 12, when many of us stood together in solidarity — and I’m talking about LGBTQ leaders and local Islamic leaders — it wasn’t the first time that we met each other,” Smith said. “And a year later, they [are] continuing to do things to support the healing in the Orlando community because we know that that’s a true reflection of the values of Islam.”

Coffin, of the Interfaith Council, said not all religious leaders in the area have sought closer ties with the LGBTQ community, and that the recent shift “doesn’t mean all problems are past. That doesn’t mean there is no prejudice and that everyone is accepting and compassionate,” he said. “But it has turned a corner, I think.”

READ NEXT: Orlando shooting sheds light on mental health disparities in Florida’s Latino community

‘Every day is a different kind of struggle’

As those conversations continue, survivors are still contending with what they saw on June 12 last year. Patience Carter, a New York University student, was on vacation in Florida when she went to Pulse with two of her friends, Tiara Parker and Akyra Murray.

After a night of dancing, as they were preparing to leave the club, Mateen opened fire, and the the three friends ended up trapped in a bathroom with the shooter for the next several hours.

“He walks in, you could hear his footsteps, and then he starts shooting into our bathroom,” Carter told the NewsHour Weekend. “He started shooting nonstop, like honestly nonstop. It was at a point where we were squirming and scrambling on the floor, begging him to stop shooting, because honestly people are getting shot at this point, and you can just feel wall fragments bouncing against your leg.”

By the end of the night all three had been shot. Murray, 18, who was waiting to start college on a basketball scholarship, became the youngest victim of the rampage.

Carter, who was shot in both legs, spent months recovering from her physical injuries.

“I remember just having the hardest time just balancing on crutches to move myself a few steps, and now I’m speed walking down New York streets again,” she said in an interview with the NewsHour last week. “And emotionally … every day is a different kind of struggle.”

Barbara Poma, the owner of Pulse, told the NewsHour last week that she is working with the LGBTQ community, victims’ families, and survivors to turn the now-shuttered club into a museum through the newly created onePulse Foundation.

“For me it was a matter of being respectful of our 49 families and making sure that the people whose lives were taken would be memorialized in a way that would never be forgotten,” she said. “We need to make sure, not only us, but the whole country and the world remembers that moment.”

Poma said she will spend much of June 12 outside of Pulse, where thousands are expected to attend a vigil.

READ NEXT: Latinos reveal struggles of being LGBTQ in wake of Orlando shooting

And just as before — as survivors continue to recover and friends and families mourn — members of the LGBTQ Latino community have turned to each other for support.

After the shooting, Cuevas helped to form QLatinx, a support group for queer and trans people of color affected by the shooting. As QLatinx grew from a few people to several dozen, “It became particularly important that we create space for our community to be together with the loss of this space and the devastating impact this had on the fabric of our community,” Cuevas said.

Though they began as a space to share personal experiences, Cuevas said that QLatinx meetings have focused lately on broader issues of racial and gender equity.

Beyond the one-year anniversary, discussing those issues and ways to take action are important to help the community heal, he said. “Healing is not just about healing emotional trauma,” he said. “It’s also about healing from systemic trauma.”

The post After Pulse shooting, Orlando’s faith and LGBTQ groups opened dialogue appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Crystal Cheatham is the founder of Our Bible app, a progressive app for Christians. Photo courtesy of Crystal Cheatham

Crystal Cheatham was 23 years old when she was told she couldn’t be gay and Christian.

Cheatham, who had grown up attending and singing at a Seventh-day Adventist church, was about to graduate from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Hearing that her identities as a lesbian and a Christian could be in conflict, she said, was heartbreaking.

“When I came out, I was told by ministers so far above me that I couldn’t be an out lesbian and also be on the stage as a leader, and it crushed me. It crushed me so hard,” she said. “I felt like I was at an impasse at the road in my life and I had to decide between this love for my God and my personal identity.”

Now an activist and writer, Cheatham has set out to create a digital space for LGBTQ people to explore their own spiritual practice without having to surrender any part of their identity. She is leading the effort to create Our Bible, an app set to release this fall that plans to offer at least 20 Bibles and more than 300 devotional readings, meditation exercises, articles and podcasts for LGBTQ Christians and others who feel marginalized by mainstream Christianity.

Christianity may be the most-practiced religion by lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the U.S. A 2014 Religious Landscape Study by the Pew Research Center surveyed more than 35,000 people who identified as LGB and found that 48 percent of them identified as Christian, with the largest portions of that group identifying as Protestant (29 percent) and Catholic (17 percent).

Our Bible app. Image courtesy of Crystal Cheatham

But their identities are often controversial among Christian faith leaders who point to Biblical passages that they say condemn homosexuality — interpretations that are disputed by other members of their community. And while different denominations of Christianity have varying stances, major Christian groups, including the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, along with numerous evangelical groups, continue to condemn same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights.

As a result, LGBTQ people tend to see major religions in the U.S. as “unfriendly” toward their communities. Another Pew Research Center survey of about 1,200 LGBT adults in 2013 found that 79 percent of respondents said the Catholic Church was unfriendly to them, and 73 percent called evangelical churches unfriendly, while 29 percent said they have felt unwelcome in religious institutions.

Meanwhile, the largest-ever survey of transgender people by the National Center for Transgender Equality in 2015 showed that 39 percent of nearly 28,000 respondents who had been part of a religious group had left the community “due to fear of being rejected because they were transgender.” People of color were especially likely to do so.

Cheatham has seen several reasons for that up close. In 2012, she went on tour with Soulforce, a progressive Christian organization that works for racial justice and LGBTQ acceptance within Christian institutions. The group traveled to religious universities whose policies allowed them to discipline or expel LGBTQ students. They would hold Bible study and educate students on LGBTQ identity, encountering frequent resistance from school authorities, some of whom forced them off campus or called the police.

When Christian schools and other institutions exclude LGBTQ people, it leaves LGBTQ Christians with a difficult choice between hiding their identity in religious spaces or giving up the social support of those groups, Cheatham said. And existing devotional apps tend to offer conservative readings and interpretations of the Bible, reflecting a dearth of acceptance for LGBTQ people in Christian institutions.

“A lot of times religious spaces and spiritual resources exclude us from the narrative and exclude us in their content, or their content is actively hostile,” said Eliel Cruz, a bisexual Christian activist, writer and the director of communications for Our Bible.

But research shows that more and more Christians have grown to embrace LGBTQ people. Between 2014 and 2016, the Religious Landscape Study found an increase of 10 percentage points among Christians who believe that LGBTQ people should be accepted. This shift is largely attributable to younger Christians who came of age in a period of growing visibility for LGBTQ people and as political movements for LGBTQ rights garnered greater support.

“There are so many Christians out there that want to be accepting of LGBT people but don’t know how because they haven’t received the resources,” Cheatham said.

Meanwhile, LGBTQ Christians have found community in online forums and conversations, like through #FaithfullyLGBT, a hashtag Cruz created. Our Bible will also have a social component, with users able to add friends who use the app and message them. “We’re using these online spaces for community right now,” Cruz said.

The Our Bible app plans to offer Bible readings and devotional texts for LGBTQ Christians and others who feel marginalized by mainstream Christianity. Logo courtesy of Crystal Cheatham

Rodney McKenzie, a minister who is curating the readings offered on the app, grew up in a Holiness church that hosted testimony service every day, where churchgoers could speak to the rest of the congregation about the role of God in their lives.

“When I stood up at church and came out as gay, I expected people to clap and celebrate, and people did not clap. People did not celebrate. People were horrified,” he said. “This is why this means so much to me. Every Sunday, young LGBTQ people are going to services and they’re hearing messages not of their perfection, not of how good they are, but that there’s something wrong with them. Those messages are antithetical to the Biblical text.”

To counter that messaging, McKenzie has helped find readings for the app that incorporate multiple elements of a daily practice, including devotionals and inspirational readings. He said he wants the readings to connect people “to the love and the truth that is everpresent wherever they are.”

Last year, Cheatham held several fundraisers for Our Bible and raised thousands of dollars through online donations. On June 30, the app will be released in beta to a small number of people, including those who have donated $10 before then, with a wider release planned for September.

Cheatham said she had received a “very small” amount of negative messages about the app. But mostly, “what I’m feeling right now is a pregnant silence, and I’m waiting to figure out the truth of how people are reacting to this,” she said.

The post ‘Our Bible’ app aims to support LGBTQ Christians who feel excluded appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

This image shows Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). New, beautiful images from the spacecraft, released by NASA last week, are challenging what we’ve believed about the planet. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles

Last week, our attention turned abroad, as President Donald Trump wrapped up a nine-day trip overseas — his first as president.

Trump visited the Western Wall, the first such trip made by a sitting president, set the Internet afire with theories about a glowing orb at the opening of an anti-extremist center in Riyadh and spent time at the Vatican with one-time foe Pope Francis, who asked the first lady “What do you give him to eat? Potica?” (Melania Trump laughed at the nod to her native Slovenian strudel).

At a NATO meeting and a G7 summit, Trump shared tense moments with European leaders over trade and the Paris climate accord, prompting German Chancellor Angela Merkel to tell a packed beer hall that Europe “really must take our fate into our own hands.”

Meanwhile, at home, a new special counsel took over the federal Russia investigation, amid new allegations that Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner was trying to open secret back channels with the Kremlin.

Take your news feed into your own hands again with these five stories that were overlooked in last week’s news frenzy.

1. Three federal agencies are investigating America’s biggest psychiatric hospital chain

Alan Miller, chief executive officer of Universal Health Services Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview in March in New York. Photographer: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The country’s largest psychiatric hospital chain may systematically hold patients longer than necessary to cash in on insurance payments, according to an investigation by BuzzFeed News.

At least three federal agencies — the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI and the Department of Defense — have launched civil and criminal investigations into Universal Health Services, which treated 446,000 patients at more than 350 facilities in 2016, according to its annual report.

The allegations were first raised in a yearlong Buzzfeed investigation into UHS published in December, including interviews with employees who “said they were under pressure to fill beds by almost any method — which sometimes meant exaggerating people’s symptoms or twisting their words to make them seem suicidal — and to hold them until their insurance payments ran out.”

The company is also under investigation for Medicare fraud. In 2015, the company brought in $7.5 billion in revenue from inpatient care; more than 30 percent of that revenue is paid by Medicare or Medicaid, Buzzfeed found.

UHS denied the claims made in the December report. It has not commented publicly about the most recent round of allegations, which were raised at a shareholders meeting that drew protests last week.

The hospital chain paid out just under $7 million in 2012 to settle similar allegations about a Virginia youth psychiatric care facility, Ars Technica reports.

Why it’s important

“Because psychiatric hospitals are reimbursed for each day that a patient stays, extending patients’ stays can drive up a hospital’s revenue. But billing for treatment that is not medically necessary can constitute fraud. And for patients themselves, who are needlessly held in locked facilities, the experience can be devastating,” Buzzfeed’s Rosalind Adams writes.

It’s a similar debate to the one surrounding for-profit prisons, which the Department of Justice tried to phase out last year; President Donald Trump’s administration is looking to bring them back. Critics of both systems argue that institutions whose directors seek ever-increasing revenues put profit above patient and inmate care, which makes filling beds more important than treatment and rehabilitation.

After Buzzfeed’s December investigation, lawmakers called for more scrutiny. The most recent developments suggest the government is delivering.

UHS stock dropped about 5 percent after Buzzfeed’s most recent report, MarketWatch reports. And earlier this month, the Oregon Health Authority blocked the company’s plans to build a psychiatric hospital. It’s not clear when the government’s investigations will conclude.

2. Students in Oklahoma are going to school fewer days than their peers

Students and teachers sit and eat together in this file photo at the Washington Elementary School cafeteria in Washington, Okla. Photo by Michael S.Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images.

In Oklahoma, state budget cuts mean that many schools have transitioned to a four-day academic week, the Washington Post reports. State schools are also facing larger class sizes, fewer art and foreign language classes and in some cases, for those who can’t afford them, no textbooks.

This comes, the Post reports, “as lawmakers have cut taxes, slicing away hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue in what some Oklahomans consider a cautionary tale about the real-life consequences of the small-government approach favored by Republican majorities in Washington and statehouses nationwide.”

Why it’s important

A Newcastle Public Schools bus is seen parked in Newcastle, Oklahoma April 6, 2016. The Newcastle schools are planning to reduce the school week to four days next year as a result of a nearly $1 million budget cut. REUTERS/Luc Cohen – RTSEOHN

Oklahoma ranks 49 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia for public school teacher salary and 44th on expenditures per K-12 student, according to a recent report by the National Education Association.

Nearly one-fifth of the state’s 513 school districts have switched to a four-day school week. It’s a strategy other states have also turned to in budget crises, Paul Hill, a professor at the University of Washington Bothell, told the Post. The long term academic implications of such a shift are unknown, he said.

Some students welcome the extra day off. But it usually means more stress for working families who must struggle to find — and pay for — extra child care, and for poor children who get most of their meals from school. (The “overwhelming majority of students” in Oklahoma schools with four-day weeks qualify for subsidized meals, the Post says.)

State education funding will remain at current levels next year, which means the four-day school week will likely continue. Lawmakers say the federal budget proposed by President Donald Trump could also put more pressure on local funding.

3. Hospitals across the country are running out of a crucial medication

Hospitals are running out of Bicarbonate solution, one of hospitals’ most versatile antidotes. Photo by: Godong/UIG via Getty Images.

Two of the country’s largest drug suppliers have run out of sodium bicarbonate, one of hospitals’ most versatile antidotes. And it could be months before doctors get access to it again, the New York Times reports.

The simple solution, made from the same baking soda you stock in your kitchen for muffins and cookies, helps patients whose blood has become too acidic. It’s used for everything from chemotherapy treatments to failing organs and skin pinched by stitches.

Few alternatives are available, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists says. And those that are can be hard to find.

Why it’s important

A nurse holds a bag of saline — which suppliers have also run out of in recent years — at Intermountain Healthcare’s Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, Utah. Photo by REUTERS/George Frey.

“The shortage of sodium bicarbonate solution is only the latest example of an inexpensive hospital staple supply dwindling to a critical level,” the Times’ Katie Thomas writes. “ In recent years, hundreds of generic injectable drugs have become scarce, vexing hospital administrators and government officials, who have called on the manufacturers to give better notice when they are about to run short.”

There are 50 drugs on the FDA’s shortages list. But advocacy groups and nonprofits say that number, in reality, can creep over 100. A report from Medill News Service last year showed that hospitals were also running low on common drugs like vitamin E, morphine, sodium chloride (salt water), dextrose (sugar) and electrolyte fluids.

Why?

Doctors interviewed by Medill blame the shortage on Group Purchasing Organizations, which buy drugs in bulk for hospital groups.

Others interviewed by the Times pointed to problems with source ingredients and sparse investment in the manufacturing processes that produce these drugs.

Whatever the cause, doctors are having to make hard choices.

“Does the immediate need of a patient outweigh the expected need of a patient?” one doctor told the Times. “It’s a medical and ethical question that goes beyond anything I’ve had to experience before.”

The FDA doesn’t require drug companies to have a backup plan or stock emergency supplies when it runs out of a certain medication. But some doctors say it should.

4.Taiwan’s top court clears way for same-sex marriage

Supporters hug each other during a rally after Taiwan’s constitutional court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to legally marry, the first such ruling in Asia, in Taipei, Taiwan May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY – RTX37CD8

Taiwan’s highest court on Wednesday cleared a path for the country to make history as the first Asian nation to allow same-sex partnerships.

The Constitutional Court in Taipei ruled on Article 972 of the country’s civil code, which specifies that marriage is between a man and a woman. It found the article violated the constitution’s guarantee of equal rights and freedom of marriage.

The exclusion of same-sex couples was a “gross legislative flaw” that is “incompatible with the spirit and meaning of the freedom of marriage as protected by Article 22 of the Constitution,” according to a press release the court issued Wednesday.

Now, the country’s government has two years to legalize same-sex marriage through legislation. If it does not, same-sex couples will still be able to marry beginning in 2019.

Why it’s important

A protester shouts slogans during a rally to urge Taiwan’s parliament to pass a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. Photo by REUTERS/Pichi Chuang.

Twenty-two countries currently allow same-sex couples to wed, though none are in Asia, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.

In China, being gay was illegal until 1997 and considered a psychiatric disorder under guidelines from the Chinese Psychiatric Association until 2001.

Taiwan has long been considered a progressive leader when it comes to LGBTQ issues. It outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment and education, and since 2011, school textbooks have included information on LGBTQ issues. In 2014, Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior removed a requirement for transgender people to undergo surgery and psychiatric assessments before changing their identification documents. And Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen expressed support for same-sex marriage during the presidential campaign.

Now, LGBTQ activists hope the decision will prompt lawmakers to include same-sex couples in all existing laws around marriage — but some worry the government will create a special status granting only partial rights to those couples.

The court’s decision also resonated far beyond Taiwan’s borders with Asian families in the U.S., who said it could encourage others to seek same-sex marriage rights in their home countries.

5. New images from NASA’s Jupiter mission showcase the planet’s marvel and mystique

This image shows Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles

When NASA’s Juno mission made its way toward Jupiter last July, scientists thought they knew what to expect.

But new results are now challenging what researchers originally believed about the planet.

“What we’re finding is anything but that is the truth. It’s very different, very complex,” Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute, told The New Scientist.

The new findings include the discovery of massive cyclones hovering over Jupiter’s poles, storms that prove to be much more turbulent than scientists originally predicted. NASA’s spacecraft captured evidence of the weather located at the top and bottom of Jupiter last year, The New Scientist reported. The results were published in the journal Science and Geophysical Research Letters; NASA announced the new findings during a news conference Thursday.

Bolton, Juno’s chief scientist, told CNN the astounding images showcase the plant’s unpredictable nature.

“We’re puzzled as to how they could be formed, how stable the configuration is and why Jupiter’s north pole doesn’t look like the south pole,” Bolton said. “We’re questioning whether this is a dynamic system, and are we seeing just one stage, and over the next year, we’re going to watch it disappear, or is this a stable configuration and these storms are circulating around one another?”

Juno also revealed the planet’s magnetic field is 10 times stronger than Earth’s strongest magnetic field.

Why it’s important

Juno’s next big data dump is expected in July, when it passes by the Great Red Spot, a zone of consistent high pressure that produces gigantic storms.

It’s one of the many more pieces of data Juno still has to collect. Which means we’ll learn much more about the planet, including information that could settle a debate about what exactly is in Jupiter’s core.

The post 5 important stories that were overlooked in last week’s news frenzy appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Jamie Shupe is the first person in the U.S. to be legally designated as non-binary. Photo courtesy of Jamie Shupe

Last June, a Multnomah County Court judge in Oregon made Jamie Shupe the first legally non-binary person in the U.S., identifying with a gender that is neither male nor female.

The case set into motion a chain reaction among other people who sought similar court orders and agencies, like the Department of Motor Vehicles, that record and store data on gender. Now, the Oregon DMV is close to offering a new option for people who have long been forced to identify as either “male” or “female” when requesting a state identification — one that could become available this summer.

“This isn’t a small fringe sub-population within the community, it’s a sizeable part of the community,” Dr. Alex Keuroghlian, director of The National LGBT Health Education Center at Fenway Health, said.

The term “non-binary” is sometimes used by people whose experience of gender is not accurately described as “male” or “female.” Some non-binary people are also transgender, and there are about 1.4 million transgender people in the U.S., including about 20,000 people in Oregon, according to the Williams Institute at the University of California, at Los Angeles School of Law. While there is little data on the non-binary community, about one-third of nearly 28,000 respondents to the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey said they were non-binary.

A ‘ripple effect’ from non-binary activists

Shupe took the judge’s order to Oregon’s DMV and requested a new ID, a series of events that felt like it “came out of the blue,” DMV spokesman David House told the NewsHour Weekend last August.

The agency began researching, studying state laws and figuring out how to update its electronic record-keeping system, which dates to the 1960s. It also consulted with local law enforcement, insurance companies and other agencies that share data on sex and gender.

With support from LGBTQ advocacy group Basic Rights Oregon, the agency decided its third option would be “X,” which already exists on driver’s licenses in Ontario, Canada, along with passports issued by New Zealand and Australia. The “X” option for passports is permitted by the International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency of the United Nations.

Shupe’s court order encouraged other people to seek legal non-binary status, including Sara Kelly Keenan of Santa Cruz, California, who became the second legally non-binary person last September. The Intersex and Genderqueer Recognition Project, who represented Keenan, helped secure court orders for more than 20 others, many of them in California and Oregon. And in March, the Multnomah County Court in Oregon — the same court that granted Shupe’s change — also granted a Portland resident a legal change to agender, another first for the U.S.

READ NEXT: In California, non-binary activists pushing for ID options reach new frontier

The DMV held several public hearings to gather input, where residents have given “overwhelmingly positive” feedback, House said. The Oregon Transportation Commission is expected to vote to approve the change on June 15, the final step in the process.

A group from the Intersex and Genderqueer Recognition Project visits the California State Capitol in Sacramento, California, on Tuesday, April 4, 2017.

If they do, the “X” option could be available in Oregon as soon as July 3, House said.

This would make Oregon the first state to offer it, while activists continue to push for other state and national precedents to expand definitions of gender.

In 2015, Army veteran Dana Zzyym — who, like all other non-binary people quoted in this piece, uses the pronoun “they” — sued the State Department after being denied a passport that would reflect that they are non-binary and intersex. A federal judge ruled in Zzyym’s favor in November, requiring the State Department to re-examine its policy.

In a hearing for that case last July, attorney Ryan Parker, representing the U.S. Department of Justice, noted that there was no existing precedent in the U.S. but said that if a state made one, it “may be grounds upon which the State Department may want to reconsider its policy.”

Since then, state lawmakers in California have also introduced SB 179, which would add an additional category for non-binary residents on driver’s licenses.

Douglas Lorenz, media director at the Intersex and Genderqueer Recognition Project, said he anticipated a “ripple effect” following Oregon’s change. “The second state to do this will have the benefit of Oregon’s work to make this happen,” he wrote in an email to the NewsHour Weekend.

Lambda Legal, who represented Zzyym in the national suit, is currently waiting for further updates from the State Department, which declined to comment.

Worries about health care, housing and safety

This new legal status is significant for activists pushing for recognition of a range of gender identities. But it has also raised questions for people, non-binary and otherwise, who are unsure of how hospital systems, housing and other institutions will react to an ID that reads “X.”

Julia McKenna, a housing advocate based in Salem, Oregon, submitted a 13-page public comment to the DMV on May 10, requesting that the agency further research how the “X” option would interact with housing, educational institutions, employers, law enforcement and health care.

“Unfortunately, the systems that overlap are not up-to-date in being able to serve non-binary people or ensure equal access to services,” McKenna, who is non-binary, wrote. “This becomes an alarming legal issue if non-binary people are further marginalized and unable to access systems and services that they are entitled to under civil rights laws covering non-discrimination in government services.”

To give people the “X” option before doing this research, McKenna said, “would be unconscionable, lazy, and sloppy.”

McKenna added to the NewsHour Weekend, “You’re essentially asking non-binary people, who are already experiencing disproportionate amounts of discrimination and violence, you’re asking them to be your guinea pig.”

McKenna said they worry that a person with an “X” on their ID could be denied access at a men’s or a women’s shelter. Other housing, such as re-entry housing and housing for drug and alcohol treatment, is sometimes segregated by gender.

READ NEXT: The complications of ID for non-binary people — and how it could change soon

Allan Lazo, executive director of the Fair Housing Council of Oregon, said the council is planning to reach out to shelters to educate them on the change if it becomes reality. “System-wide, this is such an evolving area. Folks really need to pay attention to what their policies and practices are,” Lazo said.

Meanwhile, health providers may not be set up to accommodate this change, said Amy Penkin, Transgender Health Program supervisor at Oregon Health & Science University.

An increasing number of hospitals around the country have added options for gender in the electronic systems where they track patient data, including Oregon Health & Science University, but not all of them.

And some insurance providers might not be set up to accommodate “X” IDs, which “could generate mismatches” between hospital and insurance data and potentially delay coverage, she said.

Keuroghlian of Fenway Health said that state employees and health workers who will be encountering these IDs will need training on non-binary gender identities. “This approach is only going to be as effective as the cultural competence of the staff that’s implementing it,” Keuroghlian said.

Nina Nolen, a 25-year-old non-binary Portland resident, received their first driver’s license this month. Nolen said it felt “weird” to choose between M and F and that they would be interested in the “X” option.

The third option could be more accurate for non-binary or some trans people, but could also draw unwelcome attention to their identity in potentially unsafe situations, Nolen said. “All of this is based on the idea that people would feel safe enough in their community marking the ‘X’, essentially coming out to the DMV employee, and coming out to every cop every time if they get stopped for whatever reason,” Nolen said.

These concerns are outside of the purview of what the DMV set out to do, which was provide a third option with public input, said House.

NEXT: Nation’s first known ‘intersex’ birth certificate issued in New York City

And Heather Betz, the supervising attorney for the LGBT Law Project at the New York Legal Assistance Group, pointed out that trans and non-binary people have always faced challenges in health care and housing. Without dismissing issues that have been raised, she said having a more accurate ID is a good first step toward equality.

“People have always existed outside of gender norms and outside of the binary but we have rendered them invisible for so long,” Betz said. “Now, people are standing up and saying, ‘This doesn’t represent me.’”

The post Oregon may become the first state to offer non-binary option on IDs appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders addressed President Donald Trump’s dismissal of former FBI director James Comey in a news briefing Wednesday afternoon.

In that briefing, she said Trump had “lost confidence” in Comey and acted on the advice of the deputy attorney general and others when he decided to fire him on Tuesday.

Sanders said, “I think it’s been an erosion of confidence” and that there were a lot of “missteps and mistakes” leading up to the decision to let Comey go.

She also said Trump had considered firing Comey “since the day he was elected president.”

Watch that briefing in the player above.

On Tuesday, the White House said the firing was due to Comey’s handling of an investigation into former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email use. But it came as Comey was also overseeing an investigation into whether Trump campaign associates had ties with Russia, and whether the country influenced the 2016 presidential election, raising criticism from lawmakers who question how the dismissal will affect that investigation.

READ NEXT: What does Comey’s firing mean for the FBI’s Russia probe?

Comey’s top deputy Andrew McCabe is now the acting director of the FBI.

On Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted that Comey “will be replaced by someone who will do a far better job, bringing back the spirit and prestige of the FBI.” He added that Comey had “lost the confidence of almost everyone in Washington.”

PBS NewsHour will update this story as it develops.

The post WATCH: White House addresses Comey firing in news briefing appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Pierre Francillon stands in front of the first mural in the PLG ABC project, which aims to paint the letters of the alphabet around Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, on May 4, 2017. Graffiti artist Damien Mitchell created the “A” mural in early April. Photo by Corinne Segal

When he saw his classmates struggling to read in elementary school, Pierre Francillon started drawing letters.

It was the 1970s in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, and Francillon was a budding artist enrolled in the neighborhood’s Public School 92. “When I would tutor my classmates, it was always through art,” he said, adding that he would illustrate certain words to help his classmates retain their meaning. “I was like, why don’t they just paint a flashcard on the wall?”

Four decades later, that concept has become “PLG ABC,” a public art project spearheaded by Francillon and graffiti artist Damien Mitchell to paint the letters of the alphabet around Prospect Lefferts Gardens, a small neighborhood adjacent to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park that has long been home to a largely middle-class, racially diverse community. And as the area confronts an influx of new residents, Francillon sees the project as one way to connect members of the community, both old and new, to their surroundings.

The idea for the project came up this year in a conversation between Mitchell and Francillon, who in 2014 worked as a curator for bottled water company Wat-aah’s campaign that encouraged kids to drink more water. The plan for PLG ABC: work with different artists from the neighborhood and surrounding Brooklyn to paint 26 murals, each one a letter of the alphabet, that could engage neighborhood kids and encourage them to read.

The letter “H” is painted on a storefront on Flatbush Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, on May 4, 2017. Photo by Corinne Segal

Francillon said he asks permission from store-owners and building owners to paint on public-facing walls and business gates, and that the majority have been very supportive of the project. When he posted a photo of the first mural, the letter “A,” in a Facebook group for neighborhood residents, it received a warm response, with hundreds of reactions, praise and offers from local residents to help. One woman commented, “My son will love this!!! We should do a scavenger hunt for the kids when more letters are up.”

Francillon grew up in the neighborhood and described his own education in the local public schools as “capital-S superb,” also pointing out that the first secondary school in New York — Erasmus Hall Academy — was established nearby. As a child, he visited New York City museums on school trips and befriended artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Haitian and Puerto Rican painter whose work both challenged and left an indelible impression on the white-dominated contemporary art world.

Francillon also curated this mural, painted by Fumero, outside Errol’s Caribbean Bakery on Flatbush Avenue. Photo by Corinne Segal

In recent years, the neighborhood where Francillon “saw Afropunks riding their chopper bicycles” as a child has been declared “the last affordable Brooklyn neighborhood with park views” and named one of New York City’s “hottest” neighborhoods as new development plans move forward in the area and rent prices increase. One development, a 24-story tower that looms over the rest of the neighborhood, drew a lawsuit in 2013 from residents who said it would block views and cast shade on their gardens — but that lawsuit was ultimately unsuccessful, and the building opened last year.

Local media outlets and developers alike have repeatedly called the area “one of Brooklyn’s best-kept secrets.” But the area’s amenities — a district of historic homes, cultural diversity and proximity to Prospect Park and Manhattan, among others — are no secret to longtime residents who fear that recent developments and a new flood of young transplants could profoundly change the character of the neighborhood.

Francillon said he hopes that the murals, and public art in general, can inspire discussion among residents while also sparking interest from kids. Mitchell said parents or teachers could use the project as a scavenger hunt by “encourag[ing] kids to go out and find that spelling list,” adding that he hopes to work with local schools on educational initiatives related to the murals.

This mural is the first in the PLG ABC series. Photo by Corinne Segal

Five letters are up so far, and Francillon aims for the project to be complete in the next several months. Mitchell said he used his own materials for the “A,” and Francillon is paying for other materials himself, but said he plans to start an online funding campaign in the coming weeks.

Rina Kleege, co-president of local arts organization PLG Arts, called new construction in the neighborhood and other recent changes “a little frightening.”

The murals, she said, send a message of support for children in the neighborhood and their education, even as the neighborhood evolves. “I think it’s great to involve kids and to show them that the community is interested in them,” she said. “That’s what I think the A to Z [project] shows — that the community wants kids to learn, and they’ll do everything they can to see that that happens.”

This post has been updated to reflect that Erasmus Hall Academy was the first secondary school in New York.

The post In a changing corner of Brooklyn, public art teaches kids ABCs appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Knox Pridefest takes place in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2012. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Wyoming_Jackrabbit

LGBTQ groups fear a bill in Tennessee, passed by the state legislature, could bring discrimination and weaken same-sex marriage or other civil rights — but legal experts say it is unlikely to effectively do so.

House Bill 1111 (also known as SB 1085) addresses how courts should interpret state law by determining that “undefined words shall be given their natural and ordinary meaning.” The law is seen by LGBTQ groups as a pathway to discrimination if those words are gender-specific, like “husband,” “wife,” “mother” and “father.”

A previously-filed bill, SB 30, stated that those words are, “based on the biological distinctions between men and women” — a distinction that excludes intersex or transgender people.

While HB 1111 was introduced right after SB 30 and is nearly identical, it omits references to any specific words.

Sen. John Stevens, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said during Senate debate that one aim of the bill was to “compel courts to side with late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his dissent,” USA Today reported.

But experts say the biggest legal consequence of HB 1111 is that it is redundant, confusing and riddled with conflicts.

Still, LGBTQ groups are urging Gov. Bill Haslam to veto it on the basis that it could perpetuate the mistreatment and civil rights abuses of LGBTQ people.

Haslam’s office told the NewsHour Weekend that he “deferred to the will of the legislature,” signaling that he intends to sign the bill.

What HB 1111 says

• In state law, “undefined words shall be given their natural and ordinary meaning.” The bill also specifies that interpreting state laws should not involve “forced or subtle construction that would limit or extend the meaning of the language, except when a contrary intention is clearly manifest.”
• SB 30 was introduced first. It was sponsored by Republican state Sen. Janice Bowling and written by David Fowler, President of the Family Action Council of Tennessee. SB 30 specified that the words “husband,” “wife,” “mother” and “father” should be “given their natural and ordinary meaning.” The meaning of those words, the bill said, should be “based on the biological distinctions between men and women.”

  Neither Farmer nor Stevens responded to requests for comment. Fowler, whose organization opposes same-sex marriage and rights for transgender people, told the NewsHour Weekend in an email that he wrote SB 30 to address the changing ways that judges interpret language, especially around civil rights issues. “Judges increasingly look for ways to infuse new meaning into words to suit their policy preferences,” Fowler wrote.

You can see it below:

Tennessee’s HB 1111 by PBS NewsHour on Scribd

Why are LGBTQ groups worried?

• They say the bill could enable discrimination. The bill does not specify what “undefined words” should be given their ordinary meaning — but LGBTQ advocates worry that Tennessee laws that use gender-specific words like “husband” and “wife” could be interpreted in ways that invalidate same-sex marriage, which was legalized by the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.

  Tennessee Equality Project spokesperson Chris Sanders said he fears that the bill could also encourage courts to interpret laws around divorce and adoption in ways that exclude LGBTQ people. “Would those couples eventually prevail in court? Of course they would. But in the meantime, their adoption is held up. Or their divorce is held up,” he said.

  Jennifer C. Pizer, law and policy director at Lambda Legal, called the bill “unnecessary” and “confusing.” She said advocates fear that, “if Gov. Haslam signs the bill into law, it will create significant confusion and will be taken (improperly) by some people as legitimizing discrimination, thereby increasing the mistreatment of LGBT people in Tennessee, and same-sex couples in particular, in a state without public accommodations, housing or private sector employment nondiscrimination protections in state law.”

• They argue it echoes anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. By specifying that words should be interpreted by their “natural” meaning, the bill evokes rhetoric used by people who oppose same-sex marriage that being LGBTQ is “unnatural,” Sanders said.

What legal experts say

• The bill reiterates a common legal rule. Specifically, all courts abide by the “plain meaning” or “ordinary meaning” rule, which obliges them to interpret words based on their usual meaning. That rule, “has been long and consistently applied by courts” in Tennessee, the state’s attorney general Herbert H. Slatery III pointed out in an April 13 opinion on the proposed legislation.
• The bill could conflict with Obergefell v. Hodges, but would likely be overruled, Slatery added, “if gender-specific words in [state laws] were construed according to the proposed legislation.” In other words, a family law that specifies “husband” and “wife” could lead a judge to deny the existence of same-sex marriage. But if that conflict brought such a case to court, the Supreme Court’s ruling would prevail, Katherine Franke, a professor and director for the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, told the NewsHour Weekend.

  “State laws cannot be read to conflict with the Tennessee or the U.S. Constitution,” she said. “The state of Tennessee cannot get around the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges … by defining the terms ‘husband,’ ‘wife,’ or ‘spouse’ in such a way that ignores the Supreme Court’s ruling and the rights contained in the U.S. or Tennessee constitutions.”

  Tennessee law already says that “[w]ords importing the masculine gender include the feminine and neuter,” leading courts to interpret gender-specific language in a gender-neutral way, Slatery pointed out in his opinion. In the case of a conflict between existing state law and the proposed legislation, he wrote, the gender-inclusive state law would prevail.

• It could discourage judges from interpreting the law in ways that advance civil rights. “I think [the bill] can’t be used to undue rights that are already secured under the U.S. Constitution, like same-sex marriage, but it could signal to judges that they shouldn’t interpret the law in innovative ways,” Franke said.

  Valorie Vojdik, a professor at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville College of Law, called the bill “deeply misguided” and said it could complicate cases related to gender identity and transgender rights. “It raises questions and concerns over how the law could be applied to cut off transgender rights,” she said.

• But it’s not likely it will make a legal difference. “I really don’t think that [HB 1111] itself has that much power or impact,” Carrie Russell, director of undergraduate studies at Vanderbilt University, said.

  Others said that the bill’s conflicts with existing state law and the Supreme Court mean that it’s not likely to be effective in curtailing LGBTQ rights. “Senate Bill 1085/House Bill 1111 technically does nothing to change the meaning of terms such as ‘husband,’ ‘wife,’ ‘spouse,’ ‘father,’ ‘mother,’ ‘male,’ or ‘female’ as interpreted by Tennessee courts,” Franke wrote in an email.

The post LGBTQ groups fear Tennessee bill would roll back civil rights appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

]]>

LGBTQ groups fear a bill in Tennessee, passed by the state legislature, could bring discrimination and weaken same-sex marriage or other civil rights — but legal experts say it is unlikely to effectively do so.

House Bill 1111 (also known as SB 1085) addresses how courts should interpret state law by determining that “undefined words shall be given their natural and ordinary meaning.” The law is seen by LGBTQ groups as a pathway to discrimination if those words are gender-specific, like “husband,” “wife,” “mother” and “father.”

A previously-filed bill, SB 30, stated that those words are, “based on the biological distinctions between men and women” — a distinction that excludes intersex or transgender people.

While HB 1111 was introduced right after SB 30 and is nearly identical, it omits references to any specific words.

Sen. John Stevens, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said during Senate debate that one aim of the bill was to “compel courts to side with late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his dissent,” USA Today reported.

But experts say the biggest legal consequence of HB 1111 is that it is redundant, confusing and riddled with conflicts.

Still, LGBTQ groups are urging Gov. Bill Haslam to veto it on the basis that it could perpetuate the mistreatment and civil rights abuses of LGBTQ people.

Haslam’s office told the NewsHour Weekend that he “deferred to the will of the legislature,” signaling that he intends to sign the bill.

What HB 1111 says

• In state law, “undefined words shall be given their natural and ordinary meaning.” The bill also specifies that interpreting state laws should not involve “forced or subtle construction that would limit or extend the meaning of the language, except when a contrary intention is clearly manifest.”
• SB 30 was introduced first. It was sponsored by Republican state Sen. Janice Bowling and written by David Fowler, President of the Family Action Council of Tennessee. SB 30 specified that the words “husband,” “wife,” “mother” and “father” should be “given their natural and ordinary meaning.” The meaning of those words, the bill said, should be “based on the biological distinctions between men and women.”

  Neither Farmer nor Stevens responded to requests for comment. Fowler, whose organization opposes same-sex marriage and rights for transgender people, told the NewsHour Weekend in an email that he wrote SB 30 to address the changing ways that judges interpret language, especially around civil rights issues. “Judges increasingly look for ways to infuse new meaning into words to suit their policy preferences,” Fowler wrote.

You can see it below:

Tennessee’s HB 1111 by PBS NewsHour on Scribd

Why are LGBTQ groups worried?

• They say the bill could enable discrimination. The bill does not specify what “undefined words” should be given their ordinary meaning — but LGBTQ advocates worry that Tennessee laws that use gender-specific words like “husband” and “wife” could be interpreted in ways that invalidate same-sex marriage, which was legalized by the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.

  Tennessee Equality Project spokesperson Chris Sanders said he fears that the bill could also encourage courts to interpret laws around divorce and adoption in ways that exclude LGBTQ people. “Would those couples eventually prevail in court? Of course they would. But in the meantime, their adoption is held up. Or their divorce is held up,” he said.

  Jennifer C. Pizer, law and policy director at Lambda Legal, called the bill “unnecessary” and “confusing.” She said advocates fear that, “if Gov. Haslam signs the bill into law, it will create significant confusion and will be taken (improperly) by some people as legitimizing discrimination, thereby increasing the mistreatment of LGBT people in Tennessee, and same-sex couples in particular, in a state without public accommodations, housing or private sector employment nondiscrimination protections in state law.”

• They argue it echoes anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. By specifying that words should be interpreted by their “natural” meaning, the bill evokes rhetoric used by people who oppose same-sex marriage that being LGBTQ is “unnatural,” Sanders said.

What legal experts say

• The bill reiterates a common legal rule. Specifically, all courts abide by the “plain meaning” or “ordinary meaning” rule, which obliges them to interpret words based on their usual meaning. That rule, “has been long and consistently applied by courts” in Tennessee, the state’s attorney general Herbert H. Slatery III pointed out in an April 13 opinion on the proposed legislation.
• The bill could conflict with Obergefell v. Hodges, but would likely be overruled, Slatery added, “if gender-specific words in [state laws] were construed according to the proposed legislation.” In other words, a family law that specifies “husband” and “wife” could lead a judge to deny the existence of same-sex marriage. But if that conflict brought such a case to court, the Supreme Court’s ruling would prevail, Katherine Franke, a professor and director for the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, told the NewsHour Weekend.

  “State laws cannot be read to conflict with the Tennessee or the U.S. Constitution,” she said. “The state of Tennessee cannot get around the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges … by defining the terms ‘husband,’ ‘wife,’ or ‘spouse’ in such a way that ignores the Supreme Court’s ruling and the rights contained in the U.S. or Tennessee constitutions.”

  Tennessee law already says that “[w]ords importing the masculine gender include the feminine and neuter,” leading courts to interpret gender-specific language in a gender-neutral way, Slatery pointed out in his opinion. In the case of a conflict between existing state law and the proposed legislation, he wrote, the gender-inclusive state law would prevail.

• It could discourage judges from interpreting the law in ways that advance civil rights. “I think [the bill] can’t be used to undue rights that are already secured under the U.S. Constitution, like same-sex marriage, but it could signal to judges that they shouldn’t interpret the law in innovative ways,” Franke said.

  Valorie Vojdik, a professor at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville College of Law, called the bill “deeply misguided” and said it could complicate cases related to gender identity and transgender rights. “It raises questions and concerns over how the law could be applied to cut off transgender rights,” she said.

• But it’s not likely it will make a legal difference. “I really don’t think that [HB 1111] itself has that much power or impact,” Carrie Russell, director of undergraduate studies at Vanderbilt University, said.

  Others said that the bill’s conflicts with existing state law and the Supreme Court mean that it’s not likely to be effective in curtailing LGBTQ rights. “Senate Bill 1085/House Bill 1111 technically does nothing to change the meaning of terms such as ‘husband,’ ‘wife,’ ‘spouse,’ ‘father,’ ‘mother,’ ‘male,’ or ‘female’ as interpreted by Tennessee courts,” Franke wrote in an email.

The post LGBTQ groups fear Tennessee bill would roll back civil rights appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/lgbtq-groups-fear-tennessee-law-will-roll-back-civil-rights/feed/ 0 LGBTQ groups fear a bill in Tennessee, passed by the state legislature, could bring discrimination and weaken same-sex marriage or other civil rights -- but legal experts say it is unlikely to effectively do so.