Category: Memphis Gaydar

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Memphis Gaydar News

City Council Committee Approves Extending MLGW Pension Benefits to Same-Sex Spouses

CREDIT: MLGW

The Memphis City Council’s Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) committee voted Tuesday morning to extend the utility’s spousal pension benefits to same-sex spouses of employees.

The change to MLGW’s pension plan is required under federal law following last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage across the country.

The measure passed without much question, but new District 2 councilmember Frank Colvett actually said, “So same-sex couples can’t marry in Tennessee though.” To which an MLGW representative responded, “Absolutely they can.” To that, Colvett followed with “You mean if a couple marries in Alaska, we have to recognize it in Tennessee.” Sounds like Colvett is apparently clueless about the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage.

The resolution to amend MLGW’s pension plan to include updated language and remove “man and woman” from their definition of marriage will go to the full council meeting this evening. Since MLGW is required by federal law to make this change, it will likely pass.

MLGW

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FedEx’s Attempt to Throw Out Lawsuit Over Widow’s Pension Benefits Denied

Memphis-based FedEx is being sued by a widow of a long-time employee, after she was denied pension benefits because the two were in a same-sex marriage, and on Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton denied the company’s attempt to have that lawsuit thrown out.

California woman Stacey Schuett, the widow of 26-year FedEx employee Lesly Taboada-Hall, filed the lawsuit against the company last January after it refused to provide her with federally required spousal pension benefits. Taboada-Hall had been the family breadwinner and supported Schuett and their two children, but she passed away in June 2013 after a battle with uterine cancer.

FedEx’s pension plan was designed when the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was still the law of the land, but DOMA was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Windsor on June 26, 2013.

The federal court on Monday ruled that “following Windsor … ERISA plans, by definition, must treat couples in same-sex marriages as married for purposes of spousal benefits prescribed under ERISA, such as survivor benefits.”

FedEx scored an 85 out of 100 on the 2015 Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index. It failed to reach 100 due to its lack of transgender healthcare benefits.

“It is shocking to me that a company that pays lip service to diversity and the importance of its employees refuses to recognize our family,” said Schuett in a press release from the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “My wife earned her benefits during her decades of service to the company. No employer should be permitted to ignore our families and refuse to provide the hard-earned benefits of dedicated and skilled employees like Lesly.”

Said NCLR Senior Staff Attorney Amy Whelan: “Companies that claim to support diversity, as FedEx does, should be celebrating the downfall of DOMA, not trying to resurrect it for widows of FedEx employees who are fighting to receive the basic benefits their spouses earned during decades of service to the company.”

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Memphis Gaydar News

New Year’s Burlesque Show

The monthly Cherry party — “a lezzie shindig,” as it’s billed — will host a post-New Year’s burlesque party on Saturday, January 2nd at the 5 Spot on South Main.

The show features performances by Kitty Wompas, Fatima Fox, Will Ryder, and Spyke Styletto, and it’s hosted by comedian Julie Wheeler. DJ Leslie will provide tunes in between and after the shows. Doors open at 8:30 p.m., and the burlesque shows start at 9:30 and 11 p.m. 

Admission is $10 for general admission or $20 for VIP, which includes a saved seat and a signed Cherry poster.

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Memphis Gaydar News

LGBT Center Announces Plan To House Homeless Gay Youth

A glimpse at MGLCC’s plans for the Metamorphosis Project

The Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC) announced Friday morning their 2016 plan to house the city’s gay, homeless youth. The Metamorphosis Project will employ refurbished shipping containers as transitional housing, and it will be the first housing project for LGBT young adults in the city.

“We’re going alter the containers by adding windows and doors and making them into individual living spaces with a bedroom and a bathroom,” said MGLCC Youth Services Manager Stephanie Reyes. “And we’ll have an administration building there with a classroom, where we’ll teach classes on writing a resume, nutrition, and life skills.”

Greg Utterback, who lives out of state and has only visited MGLCC one time, gave the center the funds to purchase property in Orange Mound from the Shelby County Land Bank. The shipping containers will be set up on that land, but MGLCC is still looking for donors to fund the program.

The plan was conceived by Reyes, who just last month spearheaded a youth homeless count to identify LGBT young adults in need of temporary housing. The MGLCC already operates a food pantry for those in need, and they briefly ran a youth foster program in 2010. 

Nationally, it’s estimated that 40 percent of homeless teens and young adults identify as LGBT. Many of them are rejected by their families, and they’re either kicked out or choose to leave their uncomfortable living situations.

In planning for the project, Reyes has combed through city and county zoning codes, researched other cities where shipping containers were used as low-cost housing, and studied youth homeless programs across the country.

Reyes said they have a goal of raising enough money for eight shipping containers, but they’d eventually like to raise enough money for more. The center will hold a fund-raiser in February, but she said the date hasn’t been set yet. 

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World AIDS Day Wish Lantern Lighting

Friends For Life will observe World AIDS Day this year by releasing hundreds of airborne wish lanterns over the Mississippi River.

On Tuesday, December 1st at 5 p.m., supporters, staff, and volunteers for the nonprofit HIV/AIDS service organization will gather at Beale Street Plaza and River View Island, just a block north of Beale Street Landing.

Hundreds of paper lanterns will be lit and released into the air to honor those who have passed away from complications of HIV/AIDS and to celebrate the lives of those living with HIV/AIDS.

If it rains, the celebration will be moved underneath the breezeway at Beale Street Landing, and luminaries will be lit instead of wish lanterns.

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Transgender Day of Remembrance

The annual Transgender Day of Remembrance will honor trans victims of violence on Friday, November 20th at Neshoba Unitarian Universalist Church (7350 Raleigh Lagrange Rd.).

The most recent transgender homicide victim in Memphis was Alejandra Leos, who was murdered in a domestic violence incident last year. Other Memphis victims to be honored include Marcal Tye (2011), Ebony Whitaker (2008), Duanna Johnson (2008), and Tiffany Berry (2006). Victims from all over the country will be honored as well.

According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, trans people report high rates of violence and harassment in all parts of their lives, including in school settings, at workplaces, in interactions with law enforcement, at non-profit or government agencies, in jails and prisons, and even at home with family members and relationship partners.

The Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center will be on-hand with information about resources for the Memphis trans community.

The vigil will last from 7 to 9 p.m.

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Memphis Gaydar News

Memphis Law Firm Gets Perfect Score in Equality Index, AutoZone Scores Low

A Memphis law firm, FedEx, and First Horizon scored well in this year’s Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Corporate Equality Index, while International Paper and AutoZone fell toward the bottom of the list.

Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz PC scored a perfect 100, making it one of only two major corporations and/or law firms in Tennessee with a perfect score. The other was Nissan North America Inc. in Franklin.

That means the company prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, has vendor/contractor standards that don’t discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity, offers partner health insurance, has other “soft” benefits for partners, offers transgender-inclusive health coverage, has organizational competency programs, has a firm-wide diversity council or LGBT employee group, and positively engages the external LGBT community.

FedEx scored high with an 85 percent. The main thing that kept FedEx from scoring higher was its lack of transgender-inclusive healthcare coverage. First Horizon Corp. also scored an 85 percent. 

International Paper scored a 25 percent, and AutoZone scored a 10 percent. The only LGBT-friendly policy at AutoZone is one prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

In total, 851 companies across the country were officially rated in the 2016 index, up from 781 in the 2015 report. The average score for companies and law firms based in Tennessee is 69 percent. Of the 12 Tennessee companies ranked, two earned 100 percent, and four earned 80 percent or above.

“Corporate America has long been a leader on LGBT equality, from advocating for marriage equality to expanding essential benefits to transgender employees,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “But this year, many leading U.S. companies have broken new ground by expanding explicit non-discrimination protections to their LGBT workers around the globe. They’ve shown the world that LGBT equality isn’t an issue that stops at our own borders, but extends internationally.”

To see the full index, go here.

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Memphis Gaydar News

Lakeland Commissioner Makes Anti-Gay Remarks on Facebook

Clark Plunk

Lakeland City Commissioner Clark Plunk made a number of anti-gay remarks in a Facebook thread about a gay student from Christian Brothers High School who wasn’t allowed to take his male date to last weekend’s homecoming dance.

Plunk’s comments, which included a statement calling gays “vicious spiteful people,” were made in response to a post about Lance Sanderson, the CBHS senior who asked if he could bring his date to the dance. CBHS changed their policy after Sanderson’s request was turned down by an administrator. The homecoming dance policy stated “CBHS students may attend the dance by themselves, with other CBHS students, or with a girl from another school. For logistical reasons, boys from other schools may not attend.”

That dance was Saturday, and Sanderson did not attend. On Monday, when he came to class, he was asked to leave for the week. An administrator told him “had 890 other students to worry about and could not deal with me,” Sanderson told the Flyer on Monday afternoon.

Here are screenshots of Plunk’s comments.

The Tennessee Equality Project issued a statement responding to Plunk’s comments: “Elected officials are meant to serve all their constituents. These kind of disparaging remarks are improper for an office-holder, especially for an official totally removed from the reach of this controversy.”

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CBHS Sends Student Home After He Spoke Out Against Anti-Gay Policy

Lance Sanderson

Lance Sanderson, the Christian Brothers High School (CBHS) senior who wasn’t allowed to bring his male date to last Saturday’s homecoming dance, was sent home from school on Monday morning. Sanderson said he was told by an administrator that the school staff “had 890 other students to worry about and could not deal with me.”

Sanderson sent the Memphis Flyer a copy of a letter he wrote to the CBHS administration. Here is the letter:

Dear CBHS Administration,
Today I arrived at school around 6:30am. I sat down to complete my assignments for the classes I planned on attending today. At 7:30am, I was speaking to a teacher when an administrator walked into the room and told me to gather my books and come to the office. When I arrived at the office I was told that the administration “had 890 other students to worry about” and could not deal with me. I was told to go home for the week. I said goodbye to a few teachers and students, then drove home.

I am hurt by this exclusion. It goes against the Lasallian value of brotherhood that the school is supposed to stand for. You won’t let me dance with my date and you won’t let me go to class now either. I had hoped that today would be one for positive conversation going forward. Instead, I was sent home. I haven’t done anything wrong and haven’t hurt anybody. I want to be welcomed back to the school building today and I want this mean-spirited semi-suspension ended, so that I can do my classwork like anybody else.

As Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote from a Birmingham jail cell: “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of…prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”

Sincerely,
Lance Sanderson

Sanderson said the school isn’t calling it a suspension, but they told him he was being sent home because the school was getting bad press. That press started last week after it was revealed that CBHS instituted a policy to prevent students at the all-male private Catholic school from bringing boys from other schools to the homecoming dance. CBHS declined to comment for this story.

After Sanderson asked to bring a boy from another school, CBHS “issued a policy on its website stating that ‘CBHS students may attend the dance by themselves, with other CBHS students, or with a girl from another school. For logistical reasons, boys from other schools may not attend.'”

Sanderson launched a Change.org petition, and the Flyer posted a story about the situation last Wednesday. Within a day, the story had gone viral on national news and LGBT sites, including Towle Road, Wonkette, and Teen Vogue. This weekend, the CBHS Alumni Association held posters supporting Sanderson at the city’s annual Mid-South Pride parade and festival.

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Scenes From Mid-South Pride

Photographer Frank Chin caught all the action at the 12th annual Mid-South Pride festival in Robert Church Park and parade down Beale on Saturday.

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