Catch-Up Minutes!

11/16

• Transgender Day of Remembrance on Tuesday
• body outlines in blue tape representing the number of people who were killed in the last year due to hate crimes against trans* people
• over the weekend: plan to flyer and finish body outlines
• Angelica is doing a Trans101 workshop in the Aviation Room
• It's been a year since DADT was repealed, so now academies have a lot of LGBT students
• The talk on being genderqueer and Jewish talk tonight

11/30

• We answered questions for a project that analyzed the way religion (specifically Christianity) and LGBT issues coincided at the 5Cs
• some questions asked:
• Is religion necessary?
• Has anyone felt oppression from religious groups?

12/7

• Supreme Court has agreed to take up 2 gay marriage cases from NY and Cali (Prop 8)
• United States vs. Edith Windsor (from 1996)
• trying to repeal DOMA
• federal government will not withhold gay marriage (currently up to each state)
• if DOMA fails, then no state can have anti gay marriage laws
• Decisions will come out in June 2013
• CA has passed a law to ban conversion therapy (an attempt to "cure" homosexuality) for minors 
• main argument against law is that it violates therapists' free speech
• most find this "therapy" invalid since homosexuality was removed from the DSM in the 70s
• Queer Burlesque - talk about how it went

12/14

• What events should we throw next semester? Still lots of money!
• big welcome back event?
• Univ. of Iowa added a question on its application about being LGBT
• specifically: "Do you identify with the LGBTQ community?" 
• does this include allies?
• Elmhurst College had this on their application at one point too
• use it for giving students information about campus groups/housing
• when will Mudd start asking this as well?
• we should start reporting statistics in our literature and brochures
• always say we are very queer friendly, but don't advertise it
• will it be used to fulfill a diversity quota?
• Affirmative action? Thoughts?
• necessary. not the best solution but best we have
• need small community at a school to attract others from that community
• LGBTQ will be treated similarly soon?
• Iowa recently passed gay marriage
• Boeing, which has offices in a state that just passed gay marriage (Seattle, WA?), refuses to extend benefits to same sex couples :(