A transgender California state prison inmate serving a 50-years-to-life sentence for murder has lost her appeal of a ruling denying her request for sex reassignment surgery and transfer to a women's prison.  The California 1st District Court of Appeal denied Lyralisa Stevens' appeal in a brief order on September 21, 2011, that gave no reasons for the decision, apart from commenting that she was receiving adequate security at the all-male California Medical Facility in Vacaville, where … <Read More>

On September 19, 2011, Anchorage District Superior Court Judge Frank A. Pfiffner released a ruling that the state of Alaska and municipality of Anchorage were violating the equal protection requirements of the Alaska Constitution by maintaining a senior real property tax exemption program that discriminates against same-sex couples.  The decision in Schmidt v. State of Alaska, Case No. 3AN-10-9519 CI (3rd Judicial Dist.), was heavily based on the Alaska Supreme Court's 2005 decision in American Civil … <Read More>

The Court of Appeals of Arkansas has affirmed a decision by Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Vann Smith to award primary custody of a teenage boy and girl to their lesbian mother over the objections of their heterosexual dad, who gets visitation rights, but in a burst of unequal "equality," the court also upheld Judge Smith's requirement that both parents are "ordered to refrain from having any romantic partner to whom they were not married … <Read More>

More than a year after now-retired U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F.Supp.2d 921 (N.D.Cal., Aug. 4, 2010), that California's Proposition 8 violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the trial judge to whom the case was reassigned after Walker's retirement, James Ware, granted a motion by the plaintiffs to unseal the digital recording of the trial that Judge Walker ordered to be made for his own use after … <Read More>

Rejecting in part a motion to dismiss by the State of Louisiana, U.S. District Judge Martin L.C. Feldman found that a group of individuals who are required to maintain registration as sex offenders upon their conviction under Louisiana's Crime Against Nature by Solicitation Act can sue for a violation of their rights to Equal Protection of the Laws under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  The ruling in Doe v. Jindal, 2011 Westlaw 2935042 … <Read More>

The Nebraska Supreme Court has joined the growing list of state courts that have adapted the common law doctrine of "in loco parentis," which has been used to consider parental rights of stepparents and grandparents, to provide a basis for allowing same-sex co-parents to seek to preserve their relationships with children after the end of a relationship with a biological or adoptive parent.  Ruling in  Latham v. Schwerdtfeger, 282 Neb. 121, 2011 Westlaw 3763776 (August … <Read More>

A unanimous decision by a panel of the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, issued on August 24, gave new hope to Jair Izquierdo, a gay Peruvian who was deported and separated from his civil union partner last year after the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) upheld an Immigration Judge's decision to deny asylum and a different panel of the 3rd Circuit denied his petition for review. 

Izquierdo and his partner of … <Read More>

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote ruled on August 1 that a transgender inmate could proceed with her constitutional and statutory discrimination claims against an in-patient substance abuse treatment center that denied her the opportunity to participate in the support group of her preferred gender.  The opinion, published in the August 19 edition of the New York Law Journal is particularly interesting in holding that the NY state human rights law's ban on housing discrimination … <Read More>

Circuit Judge John Schmidt of the Seventh Illinois Judicial Circuit Court in Springfield (Sangamon County), ruled yesterday that the state of Illinois was not obligated to renew its contracts with Catholic Charities to continue providing foster care and adoption placement services in the state.  Granting summary judgment to the state and denying it to Catholic Charities, Judge Schmidt ended up applying a simple principle of government contract law:  no individual has a right to contract … <Read More>

An important part of the federal-level gay rights agenda has been attempting to find a way around the failure of federal law to acknowledge the reality of bi-national same-sex couple families for purposes of immigration law.  Nobody knows exactly how many people are affected by this, but there are enough bi-national same-sex couples for this to have emerged as a real issue.  A foreign national comes to the U.S. on a student visa, temporary work … <Read More>