LGBTQ

My name is Gabrielle Davis. I am the owner and counselor for Equitable Counseling and Consulting based in Boise.

When I came here, I was looking for a way to serve my community. So I started to volunteer at ALPHA Idaho, which is a clinic, then I also volunteer at Youth Alliance for Diversity, which is a local LGBT youth social support group here in Boise.

My name is Crispin Gravatt. I am from Boise, Idaho, and I also go by the stage name Penelope Windsor.

Jyoni Tetsurō Shuler and Blake Hunter are collecting stories about LGBTQIA+ individuals in Idaho. It’s a project for the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights, partially inspired in response to anti-trans bills signed into law this year in Idaho.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court made two historic decisions: First, they ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. Then, the court blocked the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle an Obama-era program that has protected 700,000 “DREAMers” from deportation.

This week's Supreme Court ruling shielding LGBTQ employees from discrimination effectively evens out a patchwork of protections in the Mountain West.

A report published last week graded 506 cities around the U.S. on how inclusive their towns are to the LGBTQ community, and cities in the Mountain West are all over the map.

Idaho Education News reported Monday that only 21% of Idaho School Districts protect both sexual orientation and gender identity through their policies. Slightly larger percentages protect sexual orientation or gender identity individually.

In 1990, an activist group called Your Family, Friends and Neighbors held a parade — it was more of a march — to help pull homosexuality from the margins of Boise life. About 175 people came to watch to group march from the Idaho Capitol to Julia Davis Park.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints announced on Thursday it is reversing a controversial 2015 policy that labeled church members in same sex marriages as "apostates" and barred children of same sex couples from receiving blessings and baptisms. The church's president, Dallin Oaks, reiterated that the church still considers same sex marriages within the church "a serious transgression." On Friday's Idaho Matters, we speak with Sunny Smart, an inactive member of the LDS Church and an advocate with Affirmation, a nonprofit support group for LGBTQ/SSA Mormons and their families.

A bill looking to add language to Idaho’s anti-discrimination laws that would safeguard the rights of LGBTQ individuals won’t advance this year. However, one state lawmaker says progress is being made.

Boise City Council has signed off on turning one of the city’s few gay bars into a new police substation.

The Mountain West is one of the fastest-growing regions in the country with a lot of that growth thanks to the tech industry. But Wyoming is bucking the trend, in part because young, hip techies don’t want to move to the cowboy state. It has an image problem--specifically, a gay image problem. But some locals are trying to change that.

This year's Idaho Republican Convention stuck pretty much to script until 26-year-old Dom Gelsomino took the floor and introduced himself as a "Christian, a fellow conservative and Idaho's first openly gay Republican to run for office." 

Boise’s Pridefest gets underway today. The event has grown from a potluck-style get together in a park to a two-day takeover of the city’s downtown. Attendance is expected to be high, and a range of new sponsors have signed up to back the event.