Snapshots of our work: SCOTUS rulings, Pride, immigration, and more!

Wonder what we’re up to at GLAAD?

Be sure to check out GLAAD's Blog each week for updates about our latest work to build support for LGBT equality through news, entertainment and online media.

GLAAD was all over the Supreme Court ruling that struck down DOMA and Prop 8. GLAAD spokesperson Omar Sharif Jr. talked about the decisions and their impact on CBC News. Sharif discussed the plaintiff's reactions to the news and what the future could look like for LGBT rights in America.

Following the Supreme Court decision on two cases critical to marriage equality, GLAAD released an infographic showing the rise in LGBT characters on television over the past ten years along with marriage equality approval ratings from national polling results. In a 2008 poll conducted by Harris Interactive in conjunction with GLAAD, 34% of respondents who reported more favorable opinions of the LGBT community over the previous year cited seeing gay or lesbian characters on TV as the reason for their growing support. For more than 25 years GLAAD has been working with Hollywood to ensure LGBT-inclusive storylines in order to build such support.

Ross Murray, Director of News and Faith Initiatives at GLAAD, appeared on Arise Entertainment 360 to discuss the SCOTUS rulings, marriage equality, the Voter Rights Act, and LGBT Pride Month. Murray also spoke with WPIX 11 News in New York about the DOMA and Prop 8 rulings and their effect on the LGBT community.

The day the Supreme Court struck down DOMA and Prop 8, the bells of the National Cathedral in Washington DC rang out for marriage equality. GLAAD worked with the Cathedral to create a press conference and prayer service in support of marriage equality.

GLAAD assisted spokesperson Aisha Moodie-Mills with her appearance on The Contrary, PBS's all-female news analysis series, to discuss the future of Marriage Equality.
 
 
 
GLAAD Spokeswoman The Rev. Jacqueline J. Lewis, Ph.D., wrote an op-ed piece for The Huffington Post discussing religion and faith's relationship to the marriage equality rulings by the Supreme Court. She highlights the unique, perspective-changing strength of personal stories in the progress toward equality for all.
 
 
Following the SCOTUS rulings on DOMA and Prop 8, GLAAD was on the gorund at a rally at The Stonewall Inn, which it helped to organize. GLAAD assisted the media is covering the rally at the rulings and organized for different couples and spokespeople to spend time with different media outlets, including NBC – who spoke to GLAAD spokesperson Omar Sharif Jr. Edie Windsor, plaintiff in the United States v. Windsor case which historically overturned Section 3 of DOMA, gave appeared at the rally to celebrate and give a speech.
 
 
GLAAD raised the voice of Rev. Michael Schuenemeyer on CBS for its piece discussing reaction from the medical community on the effects of the SCOTUS rulings on marriage equality. Schuenemeyer discussed the possiblities the Obama administration is considering for its reaction to the historic rulings.

GLAAD's Spanish-Language Media Team was busy this week working with so many media outlets on coverage of the historic Supreme Court rulings. We media trained and pitched and placed many couples and leaders who, by telling their stories, made real the importance of these historic decisions. We also helped placed Latino LGBT people in couples in English-language media, including on Los Angeles radio, on KCRW's "Why Way LA."

GLAAD's Spanish-Language Media director appeared on Directo USA on CNN Latino, on "Sin Limites Con Elizabeth Espinosa," also on CNN Latino and did several print interviews. Strategist Brian Pacheco was interviewed on "El Show de Erazno y la Chokolata," a radio show heard nationally on over 15 stations in California, Texas, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada; as well as on "Noticias 22," MundoFox's local newscast for the Los Angeles area.

Last week, GLAAD's Spanish-Language Media Strategist media trained over 50 members of the Connect to Protect Los Angeles (C2PLA) coalition, whose mission is to mobilize the community and create structural change to reduce HIV/AIDS among young gay and bisexual men of color. He also recently facilitated a workshop on barriers that low-income LGBT youth face at the California Youth Court Summit.
 
 
As a result of GLAAD's meeting in April with the Los Angeles Times regarding a problematic story about the murder of a local transgender woman, GLAAD was invited by the Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists to participate in a panel discussion about transgender representations in journalism.  Nick Adams, GLAAD's Associate Director of Communications and one of GLAAD's transgender staffers, was joined by Diane Anderson-Minshall, editor at large of The Advocate, Drian Juarez of the LA Gay & Lesbian Center, and Ezak Perez from Gender Justice LA. Over 50 people attended the event, including a dozen reporters from the Los Angeles Times.  Going beyond simple issues of terminology, the topics ranged from the poverty and discrimination faced by transgender people, (especially transgender people of color), to how to cover crimes with transgender victims, to proactively pitching story ideas about the vibrant transgender community in Los Angeles.
 
 

Dave Montez, acting GLAAD President, wrote an op-ed piece on immigration reform for The Hill. Montez took time to indict the politicians of the US for their failure to legislate the public's will and their work to further push LGBT families into a second class tier. He discussed how politicians on both sides of the aisle have disappointed all LGBT people at their allies with their disregard for the best interests of American citizens and those who wish to be become Americans.

 
GLAAD staff and volunteers, while wearing American Apparel's LGBT Pride Month t-shirts (fifteen percent of the net sales of which are donated to GLAAD's work), were joined by LGBT supporter Jenni 'JWOWW' Farley and LGBT advocates Shane Bitney Crone, Fallon Fox, and Jacob Rudolph for the 44th Annual NYC LGBT Pride March.
 

GLAAD took to the streets! GLAAD staff was on the ground, marching in the 9th Annual Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice in NYC. The event was a call to action, organized by The Audre Lorde Project and TransJustice, to bring attention to the disproportionate rates of violence facing the trans and gender non-conforming people of color communities, and to call for social and economic justice.

GLAAD was the official media sponsor for Trans Pride L.A. 2013. The event was presented by the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center and co-sponsored by Gender Justice LA, the Los Angeles Transgender Film Festival, and the Transgender Law Center. The event was kicked off by GLAAD Media Award winner Laverne Cox.

GLAAD interviewed Captain Dennis Starr (formerly known as Lieutenant Dennis Croft) following the season finale of Small Town Security. This season Starr continued to tell the story of his transition and the impact it had on those around him. Viewers watched as Starr received his legal court-ordered name change and underwent chest reconstruction surgery. In the interview, Starr, one of the few transgender men currently on television, shared his hopes about what viewers might learn about trans people by watching the show.

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