ProPublica on Sex & Gender

Nina Martin of ProPublica reports on American systems and institutions that fail or mistreat people on the basis of their gender or sexuality, including the LGBT community.

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Just how difficult is it to be a working parent in the U.S. these days? huffingtonpost has this sobering chart.

The U.S. lags significantly behind other developed countries in key areas such as paid maternity or paternity leave (it's one of just three countries with no such provision— the other two are Oman and Papau New Guinea), paid family and sick leave, and affordable early childhood education. As a result, notes reporter Laura Bassett, the percentage of women participating in the workforce is relatively low:

In 1990, the U.S. had the sixth-highest female labor participation rate among 22 of the world's wealthiest countries. Today, the U.S. ranks 17th.

Meanwhile, the White House Council of Economic Advisors has this new report on working families, part of the Obama administration's ongoing campaign to explore ways of using federal workplace policy to improve the lives (and incomes) of parents and children. Yesterday, the White House hosted a daylong summit on working families, where President Obama told the audience,

“Family leave, child care, workplace flexibility, a decent wage — these are not frills, they are basic needs. They shouldn’t be bonuses. They should be part of our bottom line as a society. ”

Find video of that conference here.

(Infographic by Alissa Scheller for The Huffington Post.)

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via theatlantic — read Rebecca Rosen’s full piece here

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LEGAL DOCKET: Obama's Stunning Record on Transgender Rights

The Associated Press has a good piece looking at Barack Obama's  unprecedented — and surprisingly wholehearted — support of transgender rights. As reporter Lisa Leff points out, Obama is the first president to:

say "transgender" in a speech

name transgender political appointees

prohibit job bias against transgender government workers

invite transgender children to participate in the annual Easter egg roll at the White House

The Obama administration has made it easier for transgender people to:

seek access to public school restrooms and sports programs (under Title IX, the 1972 law that bans gender discrimination in education)

obtain health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (by applying the non-discrimination provision of the ACA to investigate federally funded health plans and care providers discriminate on the basis of gender and gender identity).

receive treatment at Veteran's Administration facilities

obtain sex-reassignment surgery under federal government–contracted health plans and Medicare

update their passports

Meanwhile, in his first term, Obama signed the first federal civil rights protections for transgender people in U.S. history (in the form of the Matthew Shepard Act, a bill banning hate crimes).

"[Obama] has been the best president for transgender rights, and nobody else is in second place," Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Even more remarkable is how little fanfare (and push back) these advances have drawn. In some cases — for example, Obama's recently announced plans to sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity — policies haven't been singled out as trans-friendly because they benefit the entire LGBT community. But as Leff notes, the muted roll-outs also reflect a concerted strategy.

[T]ransgender rights groups and the administration have agreed on a low-key approach, both to skirt resistance and to send the message that changes are not a big deal, said Barbra Siperstein, who in 2009 became the first transgender person elected to the Democratic National Committee.

"It's quiet by design, because the louder you are in Washington, the more the drama," said Siperstein, who helped organize the first meeting between White House aides and transgender rights advocates without the participation of gay rights leaders.

Meanwhile, religious conservatives have been powerless to stop the changes because they result from executive orders rather than legislation. But the Traditional Values Coalition's Andrea Lafferty suggests that opponents of transgender rights will make their voices heard in the midterm elections.

"There are other people who are concerned about these things, definitely. I think America is just overwhelmed right now.... Everybody is going to have to take a step back, and that step back is going to be this November."

(Image via ABC News)

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Vox​ reminds us that despite all the recent progress the transgender community has made — on health care, Medicare, and discrimination in education and the federal workplace — the military has not been so accommodating. The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell didn't end the ban on transgender soldiers, who can be ejected from the military without a medical review, regardless of their ability to serve. Transgender soldiers also can't access the military health system to get the care they need. For more on their plight, see this recent report from the Palm Center think tank at San Francisco State University.

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The late Mildred Loving in 2007, remembering her marriage to Richard Loving and the landmark legal case that struck down state laws banning interracial marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Loving v. Virginia was issued on June 12, 1967.

In her later years, Loving became a strong proponent of same-sex marriage.

freedomtomarry has the full text of Loving's comments here. Image via LovingFilm.com

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For much of India’s history, the lower castes, especially the Dalits (once known as untouchables), have been routinely raped by the landowning upper castes.... 90 percent of rape victims in 2007 were Dalit women. While attacks against Western tourists and women in urban centers have attracted a great deal of attention, rapes of lower-caste women routinely fail to provoke an outcry.... We will never be able to address India’s rape crisis if we remain blind to the machinations of caste discrimination."

From "India's Feudal Rapists," by Amana Fontanella-Khan, in nytimesheadline

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For all the LGBT community's remarkable momentum over the past year, it's worth noting: A surprising number of Americans (30%) still think homosexuality (not same-sex marriage, homosexuality) should be illegal. vox has the rundown here.

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When [my son] Noah asks me one day, 'What happened? What was it like when I was born?' I could have answered, 'Well, Stephen Strasburg hung me a breaking ball that day, son. I slammed it into the right field corner.' [But instead, I can say,] I am the one who cut his umbilical cord."

Daniel Murphy, the Mets second baseman ridiculed by some sports commentators for missing the first two games of the season to attend his son's birth in April, at the White House Working Families Summit, via Slate

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h/t "Does Feminism Have a Class Problem?" at thenationmagazine's new blog, The Curve

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If you want to understand why the new Lego female scientist kits are such a big step forward, compare them to earlier Lego efforts to capture the little-girls-who-like-to-build-things demographic. The absence of princess-y pastels and pixie preciousness (not to mention boobs, as in the “rock star” Lego figure above) is awesome.

For more on how the “Research Institute” line came to be, mentalfloss has the scoop here.

(All images via Lego)

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A new report by the advocacy group Stop Street Harassment looks at how often women and GBT men are sexually harassed when they're out and about, minding their own business. (Hint: a lot.) 

Slate has the rundown:

Among women, street harassment most commonly took the form of sexualized commentary like whistles, “pssssst” sounds, animal noises, and statements like “mmm, sexy”—51 percent of women reported these incidents, compared to 6 percent of men. But harassment against men often took on a different sexual element. The most frequent type of harassment reported by men came in the form of homophobic or transphobic slurs (which had been experienced by 9 percent of men in the survey).

Gay, bisexual, and trans men were much more likely than straight men to report experiencing harassment, and to experience it frequently. (Meanwhile, heterosexual men were the most likely of any group to say they had been harassed just once in their lives.)

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I have no patience with modesty. Modesty is a learned adaptation. It’s stuck on like decals. As soon as life slams a modest person against the wall, that modesty will fall off faster than a G-string will fall off a stripper.... You don’t want modesty, you want humility. Humility comes from inside out. It says someone was here before me and I’m here because I’ve been paid for. I have something to do and I will do that because I’m paying for someone else who has yet to come.”

the late, great Maya Angelou, from a 2008 interview with writer Dawn Reiss, as recounted in theatlantic

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Two chilling videos from motherjones's "Spitting, Stalking, Rape Threats: How Gun Extremists Target Women," by Mark Follman:

Top, Open Carry Texas members blast a semi-nude female mannequin for target practice; bottom, a Florida gun instructor wishes gun control activists "Happy Mother's Day" (note the bullet holes in the exclamation point).

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wonkblog:

Women feel much safer at night in their own communities than they did 40 years ago — but they still feel much less safe than men.

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Big news:  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has ruled that Medicare can cover sex-reassignment surgery for transgender people.

The program has had a blanket ban on gender transition–related surgical procedures for more than 30 years. But in a ruling last week, HHS's Departmental Appeals Board threw out the ban, saying it is unreasonable and contrary to current science and medical standards of care, think-progress reports. As Kellan Baker explains,

The lifting of the coverage exclusion means that transgender Medicare beneficiaries will now be able to seek individualized review of the medical necessity of the specific procedure they need, just like anyone seeking coverage for any other medical treatment.

Medicare provides health insurance coverage for 48 million seniors and people with disabilities. The ruling is the result of a challenge by groups including the ACLU, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. It follows similar decisions by five states and the District of Columbia, all of which have held that across-the-board exclusions for transition-related care by private health plans are discriminatory and unlawful, the Transgender Law Center notes.

More reaction here.

(Image via Think Progress)

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motherjones:

Silicon Valley's 10 biggest companies are even whiter and maler than the biggest tech companies were 15 years ago.

The companies in MoJo's 2012 dataset: Apple, HP, Intel, Google, Cisco, Oracle, eBay, Facebook, Gilead Sciences, and VMware.