ExxonMobil shareholders will meet Wednesday to discuss adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the company’s employment nondiscrimination policy.

Some activists are planning to protest outside the hall where the shareholders will be voting. Because Obama hasn’t signed an executive order mandating that companies that do business with the federal government protect their LGBT employees, individual policies are still needed in many cases.

“ExxonMobil’s failure to include sexual orientation and gender identity in its written equal employment policy has made the company an outlier among its peers,” New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli told Dallas Voice in an email.

“From a shareholder’s perspective, this policy means that ExxonMobil isn’t able to attract and retain the best talent to come work for the company and puts its reputation in harm’s way. Until it addresses this issue of discrimination, we don’t feel that ExxonMobil will be getting the best performance to benefit our holdings in the company.”

There is no excuse for any company to ever treat its employees differently based on something like sexual orientation or gender identity. I hope the people in charge here do the right thing. 

I promise.

Just in time for Pride month, President Obama launched his official LGBT outreach efforts last week. 

His LGBT campaign will be hosted on barackobama.com/lgbt, a section of his campaign site dedicated to LGBT issues, endorsements and activism efforts. He’ll have voter registration drives at Pride events nationwide as well as phone banks and house parties in a number of different states.

Joe Solmonese, outgoing president of HRC, told reporters on a conference call that Obama is clearly the candidate for the LGBT community:

While the president signed into law an LGBT hate crimes law and repealed the military’s anti-gay ban known as “Don’t Ask, Don’ Tell,” Solmonese noted that Romney has said he would not have repealed DADT and is in favor of seeing an amendment banning same-sex marriage be added to the U.S. Constitution.

“The choice we are facing could not be clearer. We can re-elect a leader working with our community. Or we can sit back and watch Mitt Romney take us back to where we started,” said Solmonese.

On May 22, the city of San Diego unveiled the country’s first Harvey Milk Street, named, of course, for the famous gay rights pioneer whose career in public office centered in San Francisco.

The Huffington Post blog above tells us why that’s important. The piece highlights different people’s reactions to the street naming and different perspectives on the significance of Milk’s contributions, including a quote from his nephew, Stuart Milk.

In a speech, longtime LGBT-rights activist and city commissioner Nicole Murray-Ramirez said:

This day has been a long time in the making. For over eight years community leaders have tried to name a street in honor of Harvey Milk. We have had many roadblocks over the years in trying to honor his legacy. When Mr. Milk stood for up equality, he did so for all people, not just the LGBT community, and he did this at a time when the government or family members could have a person committed to a mental hospital just because they were gay or lesbian. Now look how far we have come, when the two Christian churches on this block do not agree with the LGBT lifestyle, yet neither opposed changing the name of the street. For that we should give them a round of applause.

It’s a spectrum, and it should be treated like one. 

The government of Nepal has announced that citizens will now have the option of designating “other” as their gender on an official ID, rather than stating “male” or “female.” The change will take effect in a few weeks.

From Advocate.com:

LGBT activists in the nation welcomed the decision, which implements a ruling made by Nepal’s Supreme Court in 2007, reports wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur. It will help transgender people as well as others who suffer discrimination because their appearance does not match the gender listed on their citizenship cards, they said.

“Our community feels we are finally being granted an identity by the state, and my friends have told me they feel proud about it,” said Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal’s first openly gay legislator.

 Little steps like these are helping us break outside binaries. Good for Nepal. 

A transgender lecturer at the University of Arkansas won the right to use the women’s restrooms on campus after the Department of Justice got involved.

Jennifer Braly, 38, was a guest lecturer at UA as well as a student. She was told she could only use unisex/gender-neutral bathrooms at the school, essentially banned from using bathrooms designated female (or male, for that matter). 

She challenged the school’s position and was banned from lecturing for doing so. Eventually, the Justice Department’s Office of Civil Rights sent a letter to the school outlining Braly’s rights and their expectations. Braly is now permitted to use female-designated restrooms.

Can’t believe we still have to fight for these kinds of things, but every battle won makes a difference.