American Civil Liberties Union

Yesterday the Department of Justice (DOJ) released the long-awaited National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape. These standards – the first of their kind—create an historic opportunity to put an end to the epidemic of sexual abuse in prison, which disproportionately affects prisoners who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or have intersex conditions (LGBTI).

As Transgender Awareness Week 2012 (November 12-19) concludes, today we feature three of our heroic clients who’ve made our work to end discrimination against transgender people possible. Not only have our clients been willing to stand up against discrimination, but they’ve also taken on the challenge of teaching others – legislators, judges and the general public – what it means to be transgender and the challenges transgender people face. The following people have helped make our transgender rights work possible in the areas of employment discrimination and identification documents. The LGBT community has seen astounding progress, but a great deal of work still needs to be done to secure greater understanding and acceptance along with basic legal protections for transgender Americans for whom discrimination is still commonplace.

This Thursday, September 20, marks one year since the discriminatory policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) finally came to an end, opening the door to service in the Armed Forces to individuals regardless of their sexual orientation.

In 1998, Congress created the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to draw attention to violations of religious freedom in other countries. The commissioners vote annually to list countries that are of particular concern or place others on a watch list of countries that should be monitored closely for religious freedom violations.

But, since its inception, the commission's been beset by controversy. People who watch the commission closely say it was created to satisfy special interests, which has led to bias in the commission's work. Past commissioners and staff have reported that the commission is "rife, behind-the-scenes, with ideology and tribalism." They've said that commissioners focus "on pet projects that are often based on their own religious background." In particular, past commissioners and staff reported "an anti-Muslim bias runs through the Commission's work."