Parents who decide to sue teachers for lessons they perceive as violating their parental rights wouldn’t have to pay up if their lawsuit fails under a Republican-backed proposal that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Read more»

Arizona legislators are beginning to file bill proposals for the upcoming legislative session and one of the first seeks to restrict the use of students’ preferred pronouns in schools.  Read more»

LGBTQ voters in Arizona outpace the national average and are projected to continue growing in strength as a key electorate through the next two decades, signaling an increasingly pro-equality outlook in a Republican-controlled state that just enacted several new anti-LGBTQ laws. Read more»

In at least seven states—Arizona, South Dakota, Georgia, Indiana, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Virginia—Republican lawmakers have filed legislation that would prohibit transgender girls from participating on sports teams for girls and women in high school and college. Read more»

The city of Tucson earned top marks from the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, in an assessment of equality in city policies, laws and services released Thursday. Read more»

There are currently 23 statehouses where the GOP hold the governorship and both houses in the legislature, a “trifecta,” and these are where most of the conservative social issue legislation, including abortion, transgender and critical race theory laws, have been written this year. Read more»

The House voted Thursday to expand civil rights protections to include sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy, a move supporters said will grant those groups “the full equality under the law they deserve,” and a measure critics say will trample on religious freedom and individual rights. Read more»

As millions of children head back to school, a federal judge in Fort Worth has temporarily blocked Obama administration guidelines directing the nation’s public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and other facilities that align with their gender identity. Read more»

Transgender people are still fighting for access to crucial health services despite the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that insurance companies not deny coverage based on gender or health history. The issue stems from the fact that enrollees must check a single gender box when they sign up for a plan sold on the individual or small group markets. Read more» 1

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062 on Wednesday, saying it would "create more problems than it purports to solve... Religious liberty is a core American and Arizona value, so is non-discrimination ... I have not heard of one example in Arizona where a business owner’s religious liberty has been violated." Read more» 4

The Justice Department was ordered Monday to start treating legal same-sex marriages the same as any other marriage, regardless of whether the couple lives in a state – such as Arizona – that does not recognize such unions. Read more»

After adding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and disabled residents to the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance in February, Phoenix earned a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index. Read more» 1

House Speaker John Boehner announced his opposition to a bill that would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity with a statement from his spokesman saying the bill “will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs.” But the facts suggest there’s not as much to these claims as Boehner lets on. Read more»

Groups supporting same-sex marriage launched a campaign Tuesday aiming to help the public see why marriage matters to gays and lesbians. Read more»

Saying members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community deserve equal treatment under Arizona law, a Democratic lawmaker has introduced four bills addressing employment, adoption and marriage. Read more» 1