Take a seat, SeattleBlues, and grab your smelling salts:
The Associated Press is reporting that the Pentagon is finalizing plans to lift the ban on transgender people from serving in the military. The Obama administration has remained relatively quiet on the issue, but reports from earlier this year suggested that the military was open to reviewing their policy on transgender servicemembers. As Zach Ford wrote at ThinkProgress in December, the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” allowed gay and lesbian people to serve openly in the military, but the branches each retained their own policies specifically banning transgender people.
The Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) executive committee voted unanimously on Friday to lift the organization’s long-standing ban on gay and bisexual adults. If ratified by the full national executive board at its July 27 meeting, the prohibition will be immediately lifted and each individual troop or unit will be free to determine its own policy regarding the eligibility of openly gay or bisexual adult leaders. The resolution, announced Monday, will prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in council employment decisions and allow those adults previously kicked out based on their sexual orientation to reapply.
As part of the White House Conference on Aging today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued guidance to better serve and help avoid discrimination to LGBT Americans seeking HUD-assisted or HUD-insured housing. The guidance will help clarify the Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Regardless of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity Rule (Equal Access Rule), which was originally published in 2012. The Equal Access Rule ensures that housing across HUD programs is open to all eligible individuals regardless of actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status, including Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly.