Rainbow Dialogues

March 24 The Anthony Mascioli Rainbow Community Dialogues   Anne Tischer & Bess Watts presented a breakout session on “Marriage Equality: What it Takes To Create Change” at the Rochester Public Library downtown.  We’re excited to learn that some our our signs will be in the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution thanks to Franklin A. Robinson, Archives Specialist who was the Facilitator of our program. 

   

The Anthony Mascioli Rainbow Dialogues is a series of community building conversations demonstrating how LGBTQ history and archival documents from the past are relevant for people today. The Dialogues will reference and contextualize LGBTQ life in Rochester against the backdrop of local and national social justice issues.   

A big thank you to Evelyn Bailey for organizing this wonderful program.

Working People's Day of Action Rally in Buffalo

Members of Pride at Work stood up for freedom and solidarity at the Working People's Day of Action rally in Buffalo.   This was a national day of action with rallies being held throughout the country.  #unrigthesystem #itsaboutfreedom

Pride at Work Meeting

We are having a meeting on February 1st at 5:30 at the Out Alliance on 100 College Avenue, Rochester 14607.  Please join us!

New HHS Division Promotes LGBTQ Discrimination

For Immediate Release January 18, 2018 Contact: Jerame Davis - jdavis@prideatwork.org New HHS Division Promotes LGBTQ Discrimination WASHINGTON - Today, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the creation of a new and dangerous division of the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) intended to enforce federal laws that allow healthcare providers to deny care based on their religious objection. Pride at Work Executive Director, Jerame Davis, issued the following reaction: "President Trump’s Health and Human Services Department is playing with people’s lives in their latest attempt to upend LGBTQ rights. This new rule and division create a license to discriminate that will allow healthcare workers and HHS to deny life-saving services to LGBTQ people and certain women who are pregnant. "This brand of so-called 'religious freedom' is a mockery of the fundamental religious protections provided by our Constitution. It is not 'freedom' of religion to use your faith as a weapon to harm others. The denial of life-saving care is, without question, harmful to LGBTQ people. "We’ve already seen this sort of weaponized religion in action. It impacts LGBTQ individuals and their families alike. In Detroit, a child was denied care by her pediatrician because her parents are LGBTQ. Nationwide, 29% of transgender people report being refused service due to their actual or perceived gender identity. Furthering this madness is the fact that the HHS OCR was established to prevent these sort of discriminatory practices. "This Administration is abominable in their treatment of minority and marginalized populations. Pride at Work denounces this new direction for the HHS Office of Civil Rights and calls for the immediate reversal of this destructive policy change.” ## Pride At Work builds power for LGBTQ working people to further social and economic justice. We seek full equality for LGBTQ Workers in our workplaces and unions and we organize in the spirit of the union movement’s historic motto, “An Injury to One is An Injury to All.” Learn more at www.prideatwork.org

Rally

The Out Alliance sponsored a rally against the list of banned words in a memo to the CDC. Apparently if the CDC wants to continue getting Federal funding for their projects words such as diversity, transgender science-based, etc., are too liberal for this administration. While it was well below freezing hardy souls stood up and spoke against censorship. The Federal Building security would not allow the words to be displayed on the Federal Building, so we displayed the words across the street.

Out Alliance Supports Demonstration Against CDC Censorship

Out Alliance supports demonstration against CDC censorship

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT: ROWAN COLLINS, COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

585-244-8640

(Rochester, N.Y., December 19, 2017) – Late last week, Centers for Disease Control staff were advised to avoid the use of 7 words: transgender, science-based, evidence-based, diversity, vulnerable, fetus, and entitlement in forthcoming budget documents.

A demonstration is planned in response for Thursday, December 21, 2017 in front of the Federal Building – 100 State Street – from 8:00-9:30pm. All are welcome and encouraged to join in solidarity.

 “To ignore the diversity of the U.S. population is to put countless communities at risk,” said Colleen Raimond, Out Alliance Board Chair. “The LGBTQ+ community exists and continues to have a unique set of public health needs. When a silence has driven federal public health policy in the past, it has been deadly.”

Notably, federal response to the 1980s HIV/AIDS epidemic paints a picture of the potential effects of the CDC’s actions today. People died from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses every day while government agencies refused to even say the words “gay” or “AIDS.”

The United States only made progress on the HIV/AIDS epidemic by breaking that silence, acknowledging that the epidemic was happening, and naming the population it disproportionately affected.

The stark lesson of that time is that public health threats must be named and described clearly to be addressed — and that the consequences of not doing so are fatal.

Since then, the CDC has done important science- and evidence-based work to overcome the effects of that silence. Acknowledging LGBTQ+, specifically transgender, people and health needs has allowed the CDC to conduct research that informs public policy decisions, improves health outcomes for LGBTQ+ people, and ultimately saves lives.

“The silence of the CDC will not only harm our community but have far-reaching effects on the rest of our country. The curtailment of evidence-based health science is dangerous and unconscionable. If the CDC cannot name health disparities in specific communities, they cannot protect people from health threats, as their mission states,” says Out Alliance Executive Director, Scott Fearing. “The CDC works to improve health – to hamper that work can cost lives.”

The Out Alliance was founded on the campus of the University of Rochester as a student organization in 1971, in 1973 it incorporated as a 501c3 not-for-profit and became a community organization. The Out Alliance mission is to be Champions for LGBTQ Life and Culture, and they envision a future where LGBTQ people of all ages are free to be fully participating citizens, living lives in which they are safe, stable and fully respected.

NY Pride at Work Chapters Coming Out Against the Constitutional Convention

A JOINT LETTER FROM THE NEW YORK STATE PRIDE AT WORK CHAPTERS

National Coming Out Day, 2017

On November 7, 2017, a simple question will be asked of the citizens of New York State: “Shall there be a convention to revise the constitution and amend same?”

The answer we, as LGBTQ people and our allies, give to this 12-word question will have a huge impact on every person living in the Empire State and generations of citizens to come.

Those in favor cite the need for ethics reform and limits on gerrymandering while those against question the wisdom of opening the constitution up to alteration by the same corrupt big money players that currently hold the public good hostage in Albany.  Well-financed pro-convention groups are trying to dominate the discussion and mislead voters with false advertising claims that this will be a “people’s convention”.

There is currently a process in place to change the NYS Constitution that has been used over 200 times since 1984. The state legislature creates referendum questions for the ballot during general elections and citizens decide.  A number of ballot questions were voted on in 2013 including the constitutional change needed to allow casino gambling in our State. When a process to change the constitution currently exists why risk giving entrenched politicians and big money influencers access to alter constitutional protections for workers, the environment, women, minorities, and schools?

The Adirondacks Mountains are protected by a ‘forever wild’ clause in the constitution. Lobbyists say that those protections are ‘unlikely’ to be altered. Frankly, ‘unlikely’ is not good enough when we see federal parklands being sold off, mined and privatized.   The constitution also protects public education and the right for working people to organize and collectively bargain. 

Women & LGBTQ people should be concerned about the introduction of “Religious Freedom” clauses and the use of tax funds for religious schools. Gun control, women’s reproductive rights, and protective tax limits for the wealthiest would be on the table.     

Would you, as a taxpayer, vote to allow the state’s debt limit to be increased? If you vote for a constitutional convention, you could be doing just that.

A constitutional convention is ripe for abuse. It’s a financial boondoggle enabling system-savvy politicians to make up to an extra $80,000 annually on top of the salaries they already receive, as well as being able to “double-dip” on their pension.  There is no timeline to complete delegate work or limitations on who they can pay to “assist” them. Taxpayers will get stuck with the tab.  The money spent on a Constitutional Convention would be better spent investing in our schools, our crumbling infrastructure, and vital public services.

Survey data has shown that when voters are presented with the facts regarding a constitutional convention, they overwhelmingly oppose it.  We hope you will too, Vote NO on November 7^th.

Rochester/Finger Lakes Pride at Work

New York City/Long Island Pride at Work

Eastern New York Pride at Work

Joint Statement in PDF Format