Paper Addict

gaywrites:

The Association of Transgender Professionals is a newly established group to support acceptance and inclusion of transgender people in the workplace. 

In a recent survey, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 90% of trans people have felt somehow harassed at work. This group will work to educate people about the issues their trans coworkers might face and provide resources so trans professionals can succeed in their fields.

“ATP’s vision is to create inclusion for gender expression for all employees,” the association’s founding director, Denise Norris, said in a statement released on the organization’s Facebook page. “Our belief is that in the setting of the workplace it should not matter why or how an employee expresses their gender. What ultimately matters is that the employee can fulfill the duties of the job for which they were hired.”

The new association will focus on three main goals: acceptance, talent, and placement, or A.T.P. It will help promote the inclusion of gender-expression diversity in the workplace to increase awareness and equality, provide professional development and networking opportunities for transgender individuals, and help develop better recruitment methods so employers can tap the talent of this community.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Why wasn’t this already a thing?! 

gaywrites:

Claude Binaud, the 77-year-old mayor of a town in southwestern France, is pushing back against the country’s new marriage equality law by refusing to marry two men — though he says he might consider marrying a lesbian couple.

“There’s no doubt, I will not marry them, not two boys,” Binaud told local daily paper Sud-Ouest. “I don’t find [gay marriage] normal. We’re touching on something central to society here — the family.”

But that concern for family is apparently what led the mayor to speculate that he might marry two women, if he were forced to do so. 

“Two girls, I might have said yes, if my back was against the wall,” continued Binaud. “But that’s totally different — they can have children.”

Tough luck for him; France’s interior minister recently declared that mayors who violate the marriage equality law could be subject to up to three years in prison and a fine of 45,000 Euros. Boom.