Week of July 8
The New York City Council designated $3 million dollors for the Ali Forney Center to be combined with an additional $300,000 designated from the Manhattan Borough President to help the Center open a new shelter for homeless LGBTQ young people in the East Villiage.
“The future Bea Arthur Residence for Homeless LGBT Youth will be an approximately 18-bed residential supportive housing facility for homeless LGBT youth, to be named in honor of the late actress, Bea Arthur who was an advocate and supporter of the Ali Forney Center and its mission.”
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This week Facebook is introducing a new interface that allows users to report inappropriate or unwelcome content in a way that better connects with their emotional reactions to the content.
Quoting from Think Progress: “For example, teenagers will be able to click “This post is a problem” and proceed through some simple prompts to process how exactly the content makes them feel. Facebook then encourages them to take action; for example, someone more annoyed than fearful might send a pre-written message to the person who posted the negative content. Someone who feels more threatened would be prompted to get help from a trusted friend or adult, and resources will also be offered for individuals feeling suicidal. The goal of the new system is to help Facebook users take charge of their issues and actually communicate with others about conflicts.”
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On Saturday Google announced their new “Legalize Love” campaing to advocate for LGBT rights around the world.
Later in the week Google shared more details of the campaign on a new page called “Legalise Love: LGBT Rights Are Human Rights”:
“We’re always looking for ways to educate the broader community about LGBT rights and inclusion, through seminars, trainings and conferences hosted at Google. As part of the World Pride celebration in London this year, we brought 100 guests from LGBT advocacy groups, employee networks and diversity organisations to our office in London for the first ever Google Legalise Love Conference. Our goal was to start a debate about creating an inclusive workplace for LGBT employees around the world. Our guest speakers included Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty Human Rights, Peter Tatchell of The Peter Tatchell Foundation, and a panel of campaigners representing Europe, India, Africa and Asia.”
In addition to the Google Legalise Love Conference:
- In our Warsaw office, we hosted politician and LGBT activist Krystian Legierski for an office-wide talk and discussion lunch on the importance of civil partnership laws.
- We sponsored the production of Stonewall’s latest Workplace Guide Global Working: Supporting LGB Staff Overseas and hosted a seminar at our London office for Stonewall diversity champions, exploring how organisations use their global influence to promote better workplaces for lesbian, gay and bisexual staff around the world.
- At Google London, the Kaleidoscope Trust held a gathering of LGBT activists from over 40 countries to discuss a roadmap to achieve an inclusive British Commonwealth.
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A new Williams Institute study confirms that roughly 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBT.
The study also showed that the leading cause of homelessness among LGBT youth is family rejection.
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The Chilean president signed that country’s new hate crimes legislation into law this week, the law includes protections for LGBT people.
This action comes after the murder of Daniel Zamudio in March by a group of Neo-Nazis.
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