Category: Sexual Equality

Cleveland Restaurant Owner Allegedly Faced Losing Liquor License Over Gender Neutral Restrooms

~ mcequality

A Cleveland restaurant owner claims that a patio inspection turned into a fight over where people are allowed to pee because of an Ohio law that says bar bathrooms must be labeled for men or women.

According to Eater, Good Company’s bathrooms are labeled based on whether they have a toilet or a toilet and a urinal rather than with stick figures either wearing or not wearing dresses, which allegedly caused problems during the inspection

via Cleveland Restaurant Owner Allegedly Faced Losing Liquor License Over Gender Neutral Restrooms

YouTube removes advertising from account accused of homophobic abuse | Technology | The Guardian

~ mcequality

Carlos Maza, a video journalist for the US news site Vox, went public last week with a complaint that the rightwing YouTube personality Steven Crowder was engaged in a long-term homophobic harassment campaign. In a compilation video Maza created of some of his mentions on Crowder’s show, the host attacks Maza as a “gay Mexican”, a “lispy queer” and a “token Vox gay atheist sprite”.

via YouTube removes advertising from account accused of homophobic abuse | Technology | The Guardian

The 5 Most Useful Things Men Can Do to Support Abortion Rights – MEL Magazine

~ mcequality

By now, you’re no doubt aware of the war conservative politicians are waging on reproductive freedom in the U.S. So-called “heartbeat bills” are being passed with increasing frequency, access to abortion is eroding, punishments for doctors who provide the medical procedure are draconian and Roe v. Wade is in the crosshairs.
The onslaught is overwhelming, and it can be difficult to know what to do to help stop it — especially as abortion rights are often framed as a “women’s issue” that men need not trouble themselves with. But reproductive rights are human rights, not a fringe issue for men to ignore. As such, here are the five most useful things you can do right now to support the pro-choice movement…

via The 5 Most Useful Things Men Can Do to Support Abortion Rights – MEL Magazine

Indya Moore Speaks Out About Being Sex Trafficked: ‘I Was Just a Kid’

~ mcequality

Indya Moore, star of FX’s Pose, recently gave a candid account to Elle about the horrors of being sex trafficked as a young, vulnerable trans person in the foster care system.

Moore left her parents’ home at the age of 14 after being “overdisciplined” for what her parents saw as refusal to perform traditional masculinity. In foster care, she (the Elle story uses female pronouns, which Moore agreed to for the piece) was placed with a trans woman, who, for a time, shared her hormone replacement therapy treatments.

via Indya Moore Speaks Out About Being Sex Trafficked: ‘I Was Just a Kid’

Ohio's Abortion Bans Have Real Consequences

~ mcequality

Now, some Republicans in Ohio’s statehouse are going one step further, by pushing a new bill that would prohibit private insurance plans from covering abortions, a move that reproductive rights advocates believe would also prevent insurance companies from paying for many forms of birth control, like the pill and IUDs.

“The bill states that any birth control that could act to stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus is considered an abortion,” Jaime Miracle, the deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, told the Statehouse News Bureau.

Republican John Becker, the bill’s sponsor, said that the legislation isn’t meant to target birth control.

via Ohio's Abortion Bans Have Real Consequences

Missouri State Senate Passes a Near-Total Abortion Ban

~ mcequality

Now that Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has signed a near-total ban on abortion into law, Missouri is the latest state to follow suit.

The state’s Republican Governor Mike Parson called for a vote on a bill that would ban abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy, potentially making Missouri “one of the strongest pro-life states in the country.” After negotiations that continued into the night, the state’s Republican-led legislature passed the bill early Thursday, adding Missouri to the roster of states, including Alabama, Ohio, and Georgia that have enacted punitive abortion rules. As in Alabama, the measure includes exceptions only for “medical emergencies,” not rape or incest.

via Missouri State Senate Passes a Near-Total Abortion Ban

TripAdvisor Is Launching New Tools to Spot Sexual Assault and Misconduct Allegations

~ mcequality

Two years ago, an expose revealed that TripAdvisor had removed reviews detailing robbery, sexual assault, and rape because they were either flagged as “inappropriate by the TripAdvisor community,” “off-topic” by staff, or were not considered “family friendly.” The site has since admitted it was deleting posts of that nature, rolled out badges on hotel pages with reports of safety issues, grossly mishandled allegations on its platform again, and now, is launching more safety features in an attempt to illustrate that it does take these concerns seriously.

TripAdvisor’s core experience president Lindsay Nelson published a post on Tuesday detailing two new features on the travel site that serve to help users more easily identify safety-related reviews. The first one is a safety filter that surfaces reviews from the last year detailing incidents of sexual assault and sexual misconduct by hotel employees. It also pulls up any new reviews detailing these incidents as well as death, drugging, sex trafficking, armed robbery, and physical assault.

via TripAdvisor Is Launching New Tools to Spot Sexual Assault and Misconduct Allegations

Halsey Tweets About Supporting Sex Workers

~ mcequality

Over the weekend, Halsey posted on her Instagram stories with the #supportsexworkers hashtag. This is controversial. This is controversial! THIS IS CONTROVERSIAL. Clearly, because soon after, she wrote in a tweet that has since disappeared, “getting a lot of shit because I posted #supportsexworkers on my story last night.” She followed up: “Just to be clear. I DO support sex workers. I support consenting humans in the field. My statement obviously excludes people forced into sex work. It all comes back to autonomy and choice.” It is not so obvious to many people.

This is so often how the “debate” over sex work goes: Even the use of a supportive hashtag is swiftly strong-armed into a discussion of the evils of sex trafficking.

via Halsey Tweets About Supporting Sex Workers

What the Equality Act Means for LGBTQ and Women's Rights

~ mcequality

Currently, there are no explicit federal laws protecting LGBTQ individuals from discrimination. In roughly 26 states, you can still be fired for being LGBTQ, for example (though on the state or city level, there may be local laws that protect LGBTQ individuals). There is also no explicit federal law barring discrimination of women in public businesses.

via What the Equality Act Means for LGBTQ and Women's Rights

What McDonald's Workers Need to Fight Sexual Harassment is a Union

~ mcequality

“And then it happened to me,” Fairley said on Tuesday during a press call. About two months after last year’s walkout, one of the men Fairley worked with began making sexually explicit comments to her, telling her she had a “fat ass” and “I’ll take you on a ride.” The harassment didn’t end there—he also would touch her without her consent, pinching her butt and rubbing his hand in her crotch. But when she reported his behavior, her coworker was simply transferred to another store, and Fairley’s hours were cut from an average of 25 hours per week to about seven hours, a move she believes was clearly made in retaliation. When she asked to be transferred to a different location in March of this year, she was told that she could only be transferred to the McDonald’s where her harasser worked.

via What McDonald's Workers Need to Fight Sexual Harassment is a Union