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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Report Finds Transgender People at Greater Risk

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Monday, February 6, 2017   

NEW YORK – Despite advances in recognizing and protecting the rights of LGBT Americans, a new report finds that transgender people face serious risks in most states.

The report looks at laws and policies in every state and Washington, D.C., affecting LGBT people in five areas, including discrimination, health and safety, and adoption.

Naomi Goldberg, policy and research director at the Movement Advancement Project, says the results show legal protections based on gender identity lag far behind protections based on sexual orientation.

"In most places, transgender people lack even the most basic protections – in employment, in housing, in accessing an identity document, to being protected at school,” she points out. “The list goes on."

In all, 23 states have negative ratings and eight have low ratings for gender-identity protections. Ratings for sexual orientation protections were low in 22 states and negative in none.

New York is one of 12 states receiving a high rating for transgender equality, but Goldberg notes that no state is perfect – so there's always room for improvement.

"Currently, New York state does not have an explicit protection for transgender people who are looking to adopt, and there are no explicit protections for gender identity in credit and lending," she states.

California has the highest rating of all states for equality protections, and Georgia has the lowest.

But even rights already secured could be in jeopardy. A draft executive order circulated by the Trump administration last week would create a so-called "religious freedom" exemption from LGBT anti-discrimination laws, giving service providers what Goldberg calls "a license to discriminate."

"This could mean that providers of those services could discriminate based on their view of what marriage should be, and their view of sort of the immutability of sex and gender," she points out.

Goldberg says if adopted as written, that executive order would open the door to a wide range of harms to the entire LGBT community.




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