We need to hear from many of you as we repeat our virtual meeting again
next Tuesday eveningfor those who have a ZOOM account and are interested.
Whether you choose to speak, or just want to listen in, we hope you will consider participating in our virtual gathering.
In order to maintain the security and confidentiality of our online sessions, we need to know of your interest. ZOOM security now brings all participants into a "waiting room," and are admitted by the host. It's simple, just email us: [email protected], giving us your FIRST NAME, your email address and how you found out about this meeting. We will then send a notification of how to access the meeting. (If you were in our previous meetings you don't need to repeat this notification)
ZOOM is free. Search zoom.com for details and a simple signup process.
Not sure you can make ZOOM work for you? Perhaps we can offer some help.
We are sharing a unique research opportunity that has come to PFLAG Alamance for a special group of people . . .
Are you a person with a LGBT or related identity who has ever served in the US Armed Forces?
You are invited to participate in a study focusing on your health behaviors and life experiences as a Veteran with a LGBT or related identity.
The goal of the Health for Every Veteran Study is to better understand the experiences of Veterans from all backgrounds and promote their health and well-being, including those with LGBT or related identities. We are especially interested in hearing the diverse voices within our communities. Participants will be helping advance LGBT research, without leaving their homes!
The study is being conducted by researchers at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. It consists of completing a confidential, web-based questionnaire every 9 months for approximately 2 years (for a total of 4 questionnaires). All research activities are completed online, with no in-person visits required. For more information, for more information,
click here
Equality North Carolina Condemns Trump Administration's Attack On Housing Insecure Transgender Americans
July 2, 2020
James Michael Nichols | Equality NC
While America continues to see the highest unemployment numbers in decades, the Trump Administration is enabling homeless shelters to turn away housing insecure transgender and gender-nonconforming people.
The new rule would permit HUD-funded shelter programs to deny transgender and GNC individuals entry to single-sex homeless shelters based on the sex they were assigned at birth. This proposed rule would roll back protections from earlier HUD rules in 2012 that protected transgender people seeking emergency housing in homeless and domestic violence shelters.More
Note: In many of our PFLAG meetings over the years we have listened to stories of ways in which LGBTQ people have been hurt by the attitudes and actions of religious institutions. Consider reading the article below from the New York Times related to the recent action of the US Supreme Court extending employment-discrimination protections to L.G.B.T. Americans. It is a thoughtful, hopeful column worth your time.
New York Times
June 22, 2020
We Can Find Common Ground on Gay Rights and Religious Liberty
Mr. Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and Mr. Wehner
is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Last week's Supreme Court ruling extending employment-discrimination protections to L.G.B.T. Americans - in a 6-to-3 decision, with a conservative justice writing the majority opinion and another conservative, the chief justice, joining it - was a milestone. Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia overjoyed many progressives and L.G.B.T. advocates, who will redouble their push for the Equality Act, a bill that passed the house in May 2019 that would ban anti-L. G.B. T. discrimination more broadly. The decision horrified many social and especially religious conservatives, who see a net of cultural and legal intolerance tightening around them.
"It is hard to overstate the magnitude of this decision, and the size of the loss to religious and social conservatives," the Christian blogger Rod Dreher wrote. "There is no safe place to hide from what's coming."
Now might seem like a particularly unsuitable moment to suggest that the two sides make a deal. But we believe an opportunity beckons. In an era when Americans are deeply polarized and angry at one another, convinced that those on the other side politically are wicked and unreasonable, there is a better way forward on the fraught issue of gay rights and religious liberty - a path that could build on the protections the Supreme Court has provided L.G.B.T. Americans, while affording important new safeguards to those who believe the Court's decision will pressure religious institutions to abandon their views on sexual ethics. It holds out the prospect of a positive-sum resolution for both sides, with each side getting something it considers essential and neither side getting everything it wants.
#YouAreMyPride: In partnership with Wear Your Voice and PFLAG National
#YOUAREMYPRIDE is a campaign that highlights the stories of LGBTQ+ Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) for Pride. Watch the video, then share it with #YouAreMyPride - and be sure to tag the person who makes you most proud!
