transgender people

August 24, 2020 - As a voting rights activist in Georgia, I understand the sacred importance of the hard-won ballot. But as a young Black man in America, I recognize that elections alone cannot save Black lives.

July 16, 2020 - In 1988, Southern Exposure, the print forerunner of Facing South, published a speech by Segrest, a North Carolina anti-racist organizer and lesbian activist, for an issue on lesbians and gays in the South. Segrest went on to write several books, including "Memoir of a Race Traitor," and to teach college in Connecticut. Back in North Carolina again, Segrest recently talked with Facing South about the urgency of broad-based organizing in this historic moment.

January 6, 2017 - Passed last March, North Carolina's discriminatory HB2 "bathroom bill" has inflicted major economic damage on the state, costing it more than half a billion dollars as businesses, athletics organizations, film companies and conferences have canceled expansions and events in protest. Here's the latest tally of that lost revenue.

October 7, 2016 - Across the United States, hundreds of thousands of transgender citizens lack updated identification. Consequently, tens of thousands of those living in states with strict voter ID laws — most of them in the South — are at risk of disenfranchisement, according to a new report from The Williams Institute.

May 13, 2016 - Announcing the U.S. Justice Department would sue North Carolina over its anti-transgender "bathroom bill," Attorney General Loretta Lynch noted there's historically been backlash to equality gains. What's been happening in Southern legislatures since the Supreme Court struck down marriage discrimination last year bears that out.

March 24, 2016 - North Carolina landed in the national spotlight this week when the legislature convened a special session to overturn a Charlotte LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance and threw in a ban on local minimum-wage rules. The controversial move is part of a broader trend of state pre-emption of progressive local policies.

June 11, 2015 - The high-profile coming out of Olympic champion Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner, as a trans woman has put transgender issues in the spotlight. Transgender people -- especially trans women of color -- face shockingly high levels of violence, and a disproportionate number of recent killings of transgender people took place in the South. But a new initiative is working for change.