After stalling out more than once, we’ve got some new momentum going to finally, finally, FINALLY reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. You can thank House Republicans for putting the kibosh on VAWA and leaving it to expire for the first time in its history. Now there are 60 Senators signed on to a renewed…
Today marks the start of 77th (regular) session of the Nevada Legislature! Can you feel the excitement? For the next 120 days of the (regular) session, people across the state will be watching (and hopefully participating in great events like Grass Roots Lobby Days) as our representatives tackle the business of the Silver State. And…
Anti-choice advocates have a friend in feticide laws. Akin to personhood laws, as far as I can tell, there is no upside to feticide laws. The supposed intent of such laws is to add a charge of murder to anyone who kills a fetus through violence. However, these laws are often really about criminalizing the…
Blame it on the red tape: City officials for Steubenville, Ohio have started a blog to “disseminate the most accurate information” regarding the (alleged) gang rape of a 16-year-old girl by the city’s high school football team. I suppose this is one of those the-best-defense-is-a-good-offense approaches after they’ve been publicly shamed by the hacker collective…
Even in the last moments of 2012, there’s never a dull moment. NYE resolutions: My Fem2.0 colleague Erin Belitskus offers a great wish list for good tidings for women and children in 2013. (Hint: It starts with reauthorizing VAWA.) Thanks SCOTUS! The Supreme Court decided to deny a temporary hold on the contraceptives coverage in…
Since being signed into law in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act has been a landmark piece of legislation. Thousands have been helped — even saved — by programs funded by VAWA. Likewise, the cultural consciousness about the issue of domestic violence has shifted to such an extent that we don’t talk about wife-beating in…
Free to be you and me: Starting Dec. 1 the DSM-5 — the official guide-book in the psychiatry community — has stopped listing transgender as a mental illness! This, coupled with the UN Secretary General’s speech imploring the global community to stand with the LGBT community, will be marked in history as no less significant…
Violence of silence: The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is in jeopardy of not being passed before the end of this session of Congress. Let’s do something about that! Merry-fucking-Xmas: Uganda is not for lovers. Or, at least not homosexual lovers. Recently, a member of Uganda parliament promised to get a bill to “kill the…
Passing this along from our friends at the UNLV Women’s Center:
I was going to write a post about my predictions about what you won’t hear President Barrack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney talk about during Wednesday’s debate. But then I realized it’s my birthday (really) and I don’t want to work that hard. Besides, all these folks already have (okay, a couple of these are…
The Sin City Siren 