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Invisible Majority: The Disparities Facing Bisexual People and How to Remedy Them

September 1, 2016

During the past decade, the United States has witnessed growing understanding and acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and increased legal protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Rarely, however, have the experiences and lives of bisexual people, who comprise more than half of the entire LGBT community, been explicitly considered in the social or legal narrative. Rather, bisexual people are frequently swept into the greater lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) community, their specific disparities made invisible within data about the LGB community as a whole.Invisible Majority: The Disparities Facing Bisexual People and How to Remedy Them focuses on the "invisible majority" of the LGBT community, the nearly five million adults in the U.S. who identify as bisexual and the millions more who have sexual or romantic attraction to or contact with people of more than one gender. The report provides an overview of current research so we can better understand those who comprise the largest share of the LGB population. It also examines how bias, stigma, discrimination, and invisibility combine to create serious negative outcomes for bisexual people, and it provides concrete recommendations for change. Finally, sidebars throughout the report highlight the lived experiences of bisexual people—and the pervasive discrimination and key disparities they face.

Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: Attitudes on LGBT Nondiscrimination Laws and Religious Exemptions - Finding from the 2015 American Values Atlas

February 18, 2016

Across 2015, the year that saw same-sex marriage become legal in all 50 states following the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in June, public opinion on same-sex marriage remained remarkably stable. Based on interviews with more than 42,000 Americans conducted between May and December 2015, PRRI finds that 53% of Americans support allowing gay and lesbian people to legally marry, while 37% are opposed.In surveys conducted during May 2015, the month before the Supreme Court decision, 53% of the public on average supported same-sex marriage. Weekly tracking polls showed no significant shift in opinion as a result of the court decision, with the June average showing 55% support and the July average showing 53% support.

The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey

January 4, 2016

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS) is the largest survey examining the experiences of transgender people in the United States, with 27,715 respondents from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and U.S. military bases overseas. Conducted in the summer of 2015 by the National Center for Transgender Equality, the USTS was an anonymous, online survey for transgender adults (18 and older) in the United States, available in English and Spanish. The USTS serves as a follow-up to the groundbreaking 2008–09 National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), which helped to shift how the public and policymakers view the lives of transgender people and the challenges they face. The report of the 2015 USTS provides a detailed look at the experiences of transgender people across a wide range of categories, such as education, employment, family life, health, housing, and interactions with the criminal justice system. The findings reveal disturbing patterns of mistreatment and discrimination and startling disparities between transgender people in the survey and the U.S. population when it comes to the most basic elements of life, such as finding a job, having a place to live, accessing medical care, and enjoying the support of family and community. Survey respondents also experienced harassment and violence at alarmingly high rates. Several themes emerge from the thousands of data points presented in the full survey report.

Coming Out for Racial Justice: An Anti-Facist Organizational Development Toolkit for LGBTQ Groups and Activits, Second Edition

October 1, 2015

This toolkit was originally created based on the experience of our work as a primarily white LGBTQ organization working in a primarily white state and region. After several years of intentional, internal organizational development and reflection, we came to recognize that racial justice is an important, broad and complex issue that cannot be ignored, and that racism impacts the LGBTQ community in deep and far reaching ways.There are many approaches to making our organizations more racially just, so our aim in the original toolkit and now with the revised second edition is to share best practices, identify potential challenges and provide tools and resources to support others on this journey.

Understanding Issues Facing Transgender Americans

February 16, 2015

This report is an introduction to the many issues facing transgender Americans. From high rates of poverty, harassment, violence, poor health, limited job opportunities, and isolation from their larger communities, transgender people, especially transgender women and transgender people of color, are among the most vulnerable communities in the country. The guide includes policy recommendations to address these harmful disparities and to improve the lives of transgender Americans.

Out In The South: LGBTQ Community Assets In The U.S. South, Part Two

September 29, 2014

This report is the second in a series of reports entitled Out in the South. This second report, Part Two: LGBTQ Community Assets in the U.S. South, identifies more than 750 LGBTQ community assets in the U.S. South and spotlights several funding strategies with potential for high impact. The report assesses the state of the LGBTQ movement in the U.S. South based on a comprehensive scan of the region's LGBTQ community assets, a survey of more than 200 organizers and service providers working in the South, and in-depth interviews with 30 LGBTQ leaders.Out in the South, Part Two, builds on the previous report Out in the South, Part One: Foundation Funding for LGBTQ Issues in the U.S. South. Both reports are a part of the LGBT Southern Funding Project at Funders for LGBTQ Issues. The goal of the LGBT Southern Funding Project is to expand the scale and impact of funding for LGBTQ communities in the U.S. South.

Overview: Gender Norms, School Bullying & Homophobic Harassment

November 1, 2012

More than a decade of research has established the strongest possible links between middle school violence and gender norms. Learning to enact masculinity and femininity and being publicly acknowledged as a young man or woman is a major rite of passage for nearly every adolescent or teen. This can be especially true during the "gender intensification" years of ages 9-13, when interest in traditional gender norms intensifies, and belief in them solidifies. Yet the language of school violence often obscures the importance of gender norms. "Bullying" sounds like a problem of individual acts by singular malefactors. "Sexual harassment" sounds like sexual coercion or pressure being applied, yet adolescent bullying is almost never about sex per se. "Homophobic harassment" addresses straight-on-gay attacks, and references common taunts like "That's so gay" and "You're a fag." Although straight harassment of LGBTQ students is serious and pervasive, most middle schooling harassment of this type is straight males victimizing peers. And not only because only a small minority of middle school students are (or are perceived to be) gay. Gendered Harassment -- Indeed, middle school bullying might be more accurately termed "gendered harassment"--which seeks to promote masculinity in boys and femininity in girls, keep girls in subordinate positions, regulate girls' bodies, and punish unmanliness in boys. Despite this, prominent school violence programs and policies largely ignore the role of gender norms. This overview report covers the basics of gender norms, and the links to school bullying, sexual and online harassment, and homophobic epithets.

Improving the Lives of LGBT Older Adults

March 1, 2010

Although largely invisible until recently, LGBT older adults make up a significant (and growing) part of both the overall LGBT population and the larger 65+ population. While confronted with the same challenges that face all people as they age, LGBT elders also face an array of unique barriers and inequalities that can stand in the way of a healthy and rewarding later life. This report examines these additional challenges and how they make it harder for LGBT elders to achieve three key elements of successful aging: financial security, good health and health care, and social support and community engagement. The report also offers detailed recommendations for improving the lives, and life chances, of LGBT older Americans.

Adoption and Foster Care by Gay and Lesbian Parents in the United States

March 27, 2007

Discussion and debate about adoption and foster care by gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) parents occurs frequently among child welfare policymakers, social service agencies, and social workers. They all need better information about GLB adoptive and foster parents and their children as they make individual and policy-level decisions about placement of children with GLB parents. This report provides new information on GLB adoption and foster care from the U.S. Census 2000, the National Survey of Family Growth (2002), and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (2004).

Family, Unvalued: Discrimination, Denial, and the Fate of Binational Same-Sex Couples under U.S. Law

May 1, 2006

"Family, Unvalued" documents the crippling barriers same-sex binational couples face in pursuing a goal enshrined in America's founding document -- happiness. One fact sets them apart from other binational families. A heterosexual couple where one partner is foreign, one a U.S. citizen, can claim the right to enter the U.S. with a few strokes of a pen. But a lesbian or gay couple's relationship -- even if they have lived together for decades, even if their commitment is incontrovertible--is irrelevant. Instead they face a long limbo of legal indifference, harassment, and fear. Delays, bureaucracy, inconsistency, and injustice make the U.S. immigration system a nightmare for millions. Debate over that system is intensifying. Family, Unvalued shows how its failures affect, and sometimes destroy, families which prejudice has deprived of any legal protection. This report reveals how today's discrimination grows from a long history of anti-immigrant campaigns. Most of all, Family, Unvalued lets the reader hear the sometimes horrifying, always enlightening testimony of lesbian and gay families: people simply seeking to build a better future ... together.