Today…
is the start of Sexual Health Month and Suicide Prevention Month.
is the birthday of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards (1993-2006).
is the start of National Italian Cheese Month! As must be clear to you by now, I’m a woman obsessed with cheese. Every holiday centerpiece dish I grew up with is a celebration of ricotta and mozzarella. (Turkey is fine; where’s the lasagna?) I’ve put in time over the years behind cheese counters at a deli in Columbus and a Whole Foods in Pittsburgh. I carry a scar from cracking a wheel of Parm. My favorites are the pecorinos, and if we’re playing “what kind of cheese are you” my go-to is a Pecorino Toscano because it’s a little salty, semi-firm and good for grating. Like me.
Abortion
Fact Check: Trump Rejects UN Criticism of Using COVID-19 to Violate Reproductive Rights-Despite Evidence
Ms. Magazine
The UN called out U.S. state-level anti-abortion policymakers’ manipulation of the COVID-19 crisis to restrict abortion access in a number of states.
Indiana
Attorney general asks Supreme Court to allow Indiana to intervene in abortion case
Taylor Wooten | TheStateHouseFile.com
Attorney General Curtis Hill has joined colleagues in nine states in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse lower court rulings that had cleared the way for women to gain access to an abortion pill without a visit to a doctor.
Michigan
Anti-Abortion Clinic Blockade in Michigan Receives Sympathy from Local Police
Abby Lawlor | Ms. Magazine
While anti-abortion protests have not let up since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this particular infringement upon the rights of clinic patients stands out due to the sheet number of people involved—and the way that local police handled the situation.
Tennessee
Lawsuit seeks to block Tennessee abortion reversal law
Kimberlee Kruesi | AP
Abortion rights groups on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging a newly enacted Tennessee law that would require women undergoing drug-induced abortions be informed the procedure can be reversed. The complaint is the second legal battle targeting a sweeping anti-abortion measure Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed off on earlier this year.
The Tennessean | New lawsuit targets Tennessee's abortion reversal requirement as 'false and misleading'
LGBTQ
Judge orders Trump administration to recognize citizenship of gay couple's child
Casey Quinlan | The American Independent
A federal judge ruled last week that the State Department has to recognize the U.S. citizenship of a child of a married same-sex couple.
The Advocate | Trump's Press Secretary Repeats Lie That He's Pro-LGBTQ+
The New Civil Rights Movement | Trump Trying to Ban Citizenship of Same-Sex Couples' Kids Has 'Nothing to Do' With Sexual Orientation
495 healthcare facilities earn leader in LGBTQ healthcare equality designation
Anuja Vaidya | Becker's Hospital Review
The HRC Foundation has recognized 495 healthcare facilities as LGBTQ healthcare equality leaders. The foundation recently released its 13th annual healthcare equality index, which scores healthcare facilities on policies and practices focused on the equitable treatment and inclusion of LGBTQ patients, visitors and employees.
National LGBT Chamber of Commerce endorses Biden
Tim Fitzsimons | NBC News
The LGBTQ business interest group said that Joe Biden’s embrace of the Equality Act would help lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer business owners.
More from The Advocate, LGBTQ Nation
California
California bill would end policy forcing transgender women to be housed in men's prisons
John Riley | Metro Weekly
California lawmakers have approved a bill requiring that transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals in the custody of the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation be classified according to their gender identity and housed based on their individual health or safety needs.
California bill eliminating sex offender list inequity toward LGBTQ people passes
Alexei Koseff | San Francisco Chronicle
California would eliminate a disparity in its statutory rape laws that critics say is a discriminatory vestige of the historic criminalization of gay sex, under a bill sent Monday to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Illinois
Appeals panel: Churches should be able to be sued under discrimination laws for 'hostile work environments'
Jonathan Bilyk | Cook County Record
A gay Catholic church music director, who was fired for marrying another man, should be able to sidestep the Chicago Archdiocese’s religious freedom protections and sue the Archdiocese under federal civil rights laws for allegedly allowing the priest at the suburban parish at which he worked to allegedly create a hostile work environment, a split federal appeals panel has ruled.
Washington
Washington Bid to Block Trump LGBTQ Bias Rule Suffers Setback
Mary Anne Pazanowski | Bloomberg Law News
Washington failed to show it will be harmed by an HHS rule that allegedly threatens to wipe out Obamacare’s anti-bias protections for transgender people, a federal court in the state said.
Pregnancy & Parenting
The U.S. education system is in crisis. Now’s the time to reinvent it
Julia Herbst, Katharine Schwab | Fast Company
Amid a deadly pandemic and historic recession, we have an opportunity to reinvent the way we think about education, working parents, and what we want society to look like.
Child care has always been essential to our economy - let's start treating it that way
Suzanne Clark | The Hill
The COVID-19 pandemic’s economic and societal disruptions have highlighted an important truth: child care is essential to our return to work and our nation’s recovery.
Parents who pass on kids' in-person learning options can't use FFCRA leave, DOL says
Katie Clarey | HR Dive
If a school offers both in-person and online learning options and a parent chooses the latter, the parent may not take paid leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) said in guidance released Aug. 27.
Communities Are Trying To Help Working Parents Who Face A Child Care Gap
Anya Kamentz, Aubri Juhasz | NPR
With many schools opening up either part-time or remotely, working parents face a childcare gap. Districts and nonprofits are partnering to provide accessible childcare and remote learning options.
Reproductive Health & Justice
From the Precinct to the Courtroom, Black Women Deserve Protection
DeAndrea Byrd | POPSUGAR
From the precinct to the courtrooms, Black women are failed. By allowing implicit racial biases to decide who, how, and when justice is served, the justice system fails us continuously. As a lawyer dedicated to advocating for our bodies, their suffering, and my grandmother's, motivates me to fight racial injustice to attain reproductive justice for all Black women.
New Mexico
Reproductive health care poll finds support among Native Americans in state
Susan Dunlap | NM Political Report
A poll taken earlier this year showed that 81% of Native Americans around the state believe that women deserve to make their own decisions about reproductive health care without government interference.
Work & Money
What Women Give Up to Be a ‘Culture Fit’ at Work
Alicia Menendez | Forge @ Medium
The pursuit of likeability at the expense of authenticity is arguably the biggest and the most all-encompassing pitfall for women who aspire to lead.To be a leader we must be authentic, but others either see our authentic selves as not-leaderly, or they see our authentic selves as leaderly but unlikeable.
We need to talk about unpaid labor on Labor Day
Heather Marcoux | Motherly
Labor Day began in the 1800s because factory workers were tired of working 70 hours a week. Here we are 200 years later and surveys still show that mothers report working nearly 100 hours a week, and don't get days off. And it's just getting worse.
Novak Djokovic and other men's tennis players start players' association without women
Anagha Srikanth | The Hill
As tennis players prepare to play in the U.S. Open in silence (read: no fans, there’s a global pandemic), the world’s No. 1 men’s player and other top male players have formed a new association — and no women are allowed, at least yet.
How the pandemic is squeezing women out of their jobs - maybe for good
Catharine Richert, Kelly Gordon | MPR News
In most recessions, it’s the men who lose jobs. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment is highest among women, and it could take decades to make up what was lost.
It's official: Women are better leaders in a pandemic
Orla Barry | Public Radio International
A new analysis of 194 countries found that women-led nations have a better handle on the coronavirus pandemic. Not only were infection rates generally lower; fatality rates were also noticeably lower, too.
California
Millions of Californians would be eligible for job-protected leave under plan approved by lawmakers
Melody Gutierrez | Los Angeles Times
California lawmakers voted Monday to remove a key hurdle that new parents and employees caring for sick family members say keeps them from using the state’s paid leave program by offering job protections to those workers.
California lawmaker brings newborn to Assembly floor after being denied proxy vote
Mackenzie Mays | POLITICO
While remote voting was allowed in the California State Senate on Monday, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, who gave birth in late July, said Assembly leadership denied her request to vote by proxy despite Covid-19 concerns.
More, More, More
How Far Have Women Come?
Hillary Rodham Clinton | The Atlantic
On the 25th anniversary of my speech in Beijing, a reflection on the unfinished business of gender equality.
UN chief: Virus reversed fragile progress on gender equality
Edith Lederer | AP
The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened inequality between men and women and reversed “decades of limited and fragile progress on gender equality and women’s rights,” the United Nations chief said Monday.
Could religious exemptions trump a COVID-19 vaccine mandate? Well, that depends
Ross Silverman | The Conversation
Stopping the virus’s spread will only happen if enough people choose – or are required – to get vaccinated. But while some people may see it as their “patriotic duty” to get vaccinated, others won’t.