Latest news with #equality
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Chicago kicks off Pride Month with powerful brunch event
CHICAGO — Pride Month in Chicago kicked off Sunday with a brunch hosted by Equality Illinois. The event celebrated the LGBTQ+ community and advocated for equality. 'At a very critical moment in our world's history, it's good to know that the fight for justice, the fight for our humanity, still lives on in the soul of this city,' Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said. Mayor Brandon Johnson was one of several friends and allies who filled Venue West for the 2025 Pride Kick-Off Brunch, sharing words of resilience and support. 'Let it be known, in the City of Chicago, we will never flinch or coward or buckle,' Mayor Brandon Johnson said. 'In fact, we will come back even stronger on the other side and our democracy will continue to evolve and Pride Month will always be here.' Mayor Brandon Johnson also mentioned how Chicago has joined a multi-city lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's anti-identity conditions in order to get grants. 'We have been through ups as a community like marriage equality. We have been through downs like the aid's crisis,' Brian Johnson, Equality Illinois' CEO, said. 'It's just a reminder that no matter what is thrown at the queer community, we will be there for each other.' Brian Johnson has led the civil rights organization for the past decade but announced that at the end of the month, he will be stepping down. 'There is no plateau in civil rights. There is no inertia in democracy. We have to constantly be working to maintain your rights and maintain your wins. And I know the organization will continue to do that going forward,' Brian Johnson said. It was announced that Channyn Lynne Parker will serve as interim CEO while the search for a permanent replacement takes place. Kristen Kaza of Slo'Mo and businessman Mark Lieberson were honored for their community work and shown as examples of the continued effort in the fight to maintain wins and defend rights. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was among the attendees. 'You see this room: people celebrating, not afraid, living their authentic life and really that's what pride is all about,' Lightfoot said. This event kicked off a number of celebrations that run through the month of June, including staples like the city's pride parade, art shows, neighborhood festivals and more. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CBS News
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
2025 Philly Pride March and Festival takes over city streets: "I see nothing but love"
Thousands of people came together to fill city streets to show off their pride at the 2025 Philadelphia Pride March and Festival. "I see nothing but love, it's crazy out here, but we're all having a great time," Daron Summiel said. "It feels like equality, it feels like it's what life should be," Dennis Cannady said. The day started with the Pride March up Walnut Street as participants carried a 600-foot rainbow flag. "It's really emotional to see everyone come together because sometimes we feel so divided," Angelique Kopacz said. The streets around 11th and Locust then swelled for the Pride Festival featuring food, music, merchandise and more. David Weisburg is the chief development officer for the Mazzoni Center, a nonprofit serving the LGBTQ+ community. He said showing up now is more important than ever before. "After so much progress that's been made over so long, it's scary to think that there are rights that are being threatened," Weisberg said. Gabrielle Caplan-Mayer came to support her son. "I think, like many parents of trans kids, we want them just to have the acceptance and dignity of any young person, of any human being," she said. This year's Pride fest is even bigger than ever, expanding all the way down to Walnut Street, and with picture-perfect skies, organizers are expecting this to be a record turnout. "I think we have over 200 vendors, over 45 food trucks, 6 or 7, 8 stages, I don't even know anymore, there's so many things going on," Philly Pride 365 producer Jeremy Williams said. For Williams, these crowds prove pride is here to stay in a very big way. "Everybody just wants us to be proud. We're all here together to be proud, and the community is growing, it's not shrinking," Williams said.
CTV News
19 hours ago
- General
- CTV News
London police raise pride flag at headquarters
London police raised the pride flag at headquarters on June 1, 2025 (Source: London Police Service) Members of the London police service raised the pride flag in front of London police headquarters on Dundas Street on Sunday morning, June 1, marking the start of pride month. Police say that the flag raising took place alongside community partners, and posted photos on X stating, "Let's all come together to celebrate love, equality, and acceptance this month and every month!" 060125_pride flag london police London police raised the pride flag at headquarters on June 1, 2025 (Source: London Police Service)
BBC News
a day ago
- General
- BBC News
South Korea elections: They helped oust a president. Now women say they are invisible again
An Byunghui was in the middle of a video game on the night of 3 December when she learned that the South Korean president had declared martial couldn't quite believe it - until the internet blew up with the evidence. The shock announcement from then-president Yoon Suk Yeol, the now-famous shots of soldiers breaking down the windows of the National Assembly and MPs scaling the walls to force their way into the building so they could vote the motion hours, thousands had spurred into protest, especially young women. And Byunghui joined them, travelling hundreds of miles from Daegu in the south-east to the capital turned up not just because Yoon's decision had alarmed and angered them, but to protest against a president who insisted South Korea was free of sexism - despite the deep discrimination and flashes of violence that said returned week after week as the investigation into Yoon's abuse of power went on - and they rejoiced when he was impeached after four dramatic yet, with the country set to elect a new president on 3 June, those very women say they feel invisible two main candidates have been largely silent about equality for women. A polarising subject, it had helped Yoon into power in 2022 as he vowed to defend men who felt sidelined in a world that they saw as too feminist. And a third candidate, who is popular among young men for his anti-feminist stance, has been making many young South Korean women, this new name on the ballot symbolises a new fight."So many of us felt like we were trying to make the world a better place by attending the [anti-Yoon] rallies," the 24-year-old college student says."But now, I wonder if anything has really improved… I can't shake the feeling that they're trying to erase women's voices." The women who turned up against Yoon When Byunghui arrived at the protests, she was struck by the bitter December cold didn't stop tens of thousands of women from gathering. Huddling inside hooded jackets or under umbrellas, waving lightsticks and banners, singing hopeful K-pop numbers, they demanded Yoon's ouster."Most of those around me were young women, we were singing 'Into the World' by Girls' Generation," Byunghui says. Into the World, a hit from 2007 by one of K-pop's biggest acts, became an anthem of sorts in the anti-Yoon rallies. Women had marched to the same song nearly a decade ago in anti-corruption protests that ended another president's career."The lyrics - about not giving up on this world and dreaming of a new world," Byunghui says, "just overwhelmed me. I felt so close to everyone".There are no official estimates of how many of the protesters were young women. Approximately one in three were in their 20s or 30s, according to research by local news outlet Chosun Daily. An analysis by BBC Korean found that women in their 20s were the largest demographic at one rally in December, where there were 200,000 of them - almost 18% of those in attendance. In comparison, there were just over 3% of men in their 20s at that protests galvanised women in a country where discrimination, sexual harassment and even violence against them has long been pervasive, and the gender pay gap - at 31% - is the widest among rich nations. Like in so many other places, plummeting birth rates in South Korea too have upped the pressure on young women to marry and have children, with politicians often encouraging them to play their part in a patriarchal society."I felt like all the frustration that has built up inside me just burst forth," says 23-year-old Kim Saeyeon . "I believe that's why so many young women turned up. They wanted to express all that dissatisfaction."For 26-year-old Lee Jinha, it was the desire to see Yoon go: "I tried to go every week. It wasn't easy. It was incredibly cold, super crowded, my legs hurt and I had a lot of work to do… but it was truly out of a sense of responsibility." That is not surprising, according to Go Min-hee, associate professor of political science at Ewha Women's University, who says Yoon had the reputation of being "anti-feminist" and had "made it clear he was not going to support policies for young women".There were protests on the other side too, backing Yoon and his martial law order. Throughout, many young South Korean men have supported Yoon, who positioned himself as a champion of theirs, mirroring their grievances in his presidential campaign in men consider themselves victims of "reverse discrimination", saying they feel marginalised by policies that favour young women. One that is often cited is the mandatory 18 months they must spend in the military, which they believe puts them at a severe disadvantage compared to label as "man haters" those women who call themselves feminists. And they have been at the heart of a fierce online backlash against calls for greater gender equality. These groups have long existed, mostly out of the public eye. But over the years they moved closer to the mainstream as their traction online grew, especially under was them that Yoon appealed to in his campaign pledges, vowing to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, saying it focused too much on women's rights. And he consistently denied systemic gender inequality existed in South Korea, which ranks near the bottom on the issue among developed his message hit home. A survey by a local newspaper the year before he was elected had found that 79% of young men in their 20s felt "seriously discriminated against" because of their gender. "In the last presidential election, gender conflict was mobilised by Yoon's party," says Kim Eun-ju, director of the Center for Korean Women and Politics. "They actively strengthened the anti-feminist tendencies of some young men in their 20s."During Yoon's term, she says, government departments or publicly-funded organisations with the word "women" in their title largely disappeared or dropped the reference impact has been polarising. It alienated young women who saw this as a rollback of hard-won rights, even as it fuelled the backlash against saw this up-close back home in Daegu. She says anti-Yoon protests were overwhelmingly female. The few men who came were usually men, she adds, even secondary school students, would often drive past the protests she attended cursing and swearing at them. She says some men even threatened to drive into the crowd."I wondered if they would have acted this way had the protest been led by young men?" The battle to be heard With Yoon gone, his People Power Party (PPP) is in disarray and still reeling from his this is the first time in 18 years that there is no woman among the seven candidates runnning for president. "It's shocking," Jinha says, "that there's no-one". In the last election, there were two women among 14 presidential PPP's Kim Moon-soo is trailing frontrunner Lee Jae-myung, from the main opposition Democratic Party (DP). But young women tell the BBC they have been disappointed by 61-year-old Lee."It's only after criticism that that there were no policies targeting women that the DP began adding a few," Saeyeon says. "I wish they could have drawn a blueprint for improving structural discrimination." When he was asked at the start of his campaign about policies targeting gender inequality, Lee responded: "Why do you keep dividing men and women? They are all Koreans."After drawing critcism, the DP acknowledged that women still "faced structural discrimination in many areas". And it pledged to tackle inequality for women with more resources at every his presidential bid in 2022, Lee was more vocal about the prejudice South Korean women encounter, seeking their votes in the wake of high-profile sexual harassment scandals in his party. He had promised to put women in top positions in the government and appointed a woman as co-chair of the DP's emergency committee."It's evident that the DP is focusing significantly less on young women than they did in the [2022] presidential election," Ms Kim Go believes it's because Lee "lost by a very narrow margin" back then. So this time, he is "casting the widest net possible" for votes. "And embracing feminist issues is not a good strategy for that."That stings for young women like Saeyeon, especially after the role they played in the protests calling for Yoon's impeachment: "Our voices don't seem to be reflected in the [campaign] pledges at all. I feel a bit abandoned." The ruling party's Kim Moon-soo, who served in Yoon's cabinet as labour minister, has emphasised raising birth rates by offering more financial support to parents. But many women say rising costs are not the only obstacle. And that most politicians don't address the deeper inequalities - which make it hard to balance a career and family - that are making so many women reconsider the usual Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which Yoon had wanted to shut down, has also re-emerged as a sticking has vowed to strengthen the ministry, while Kim says he will replace it with a Ministry of Future Youth and ministry already focuses on family services, education and welfare for children. Just under 7% of its total funding, which is about 0.2% of the government's annual budget, goes towards improving equality for women. But Prof Go says the ministry was "politicised by Yoon and has since been weaponised"."The ministry itself is not huge but it's symbolic… abolishing it would show that gender equality is unimportant." It's also the target of a third candidate, 40-year-old Lee Jun-seok, a former leader of Yoon's party, who has since launched his own Reform trailing Kim in polls, Lee Jun-seok has been especially popular with many young men for his anti-feminist this week, he drew swift outrage after a presidential debate in which he said: "If someone says they want to stick chopsticks in women's genitals or some place like that, is that misogyny?"He said the "someone" was frontunner Lee Jae-myung's son, who he claimed made the comment online, an allegation which the Lee camp has sidestepped, apologising for other controversial watching Lee Jun-seok say that on live TV "was genuinely terrifying," Byunghui says. "I had the scary thought that this might boost incel communities."Saeyeon describes "anger and even despair" sinking the "hopes I had for politics, which weren't that great to begin with".She believes his popularity "among certain sections of young men is one of the "significant repercussions" of South Korea "long neglecting structural discrimination" against women. The only candidate to address the issue, 61-year-old Kwon Young-gook, didn't fare well in early polling."I'm still deliberating whether to vote for Lee Jae-myung or Kwon Young-gook," Saeyeon Kwon represents her concerns, she says it's smart to shore up the votes for Lee because she is "much more afraid of the next election, and the one after that".She is thinking about Lee Jun-seok, who some analysts believe could eat into the votes of a beleagured PPP, while appealing to Yoon's base: "He is in the spotlight and as the youngest candidate, he could have a long career ahead."That is all the more reason to keep speaking out, Byunghui says. "It's like there is dust on the wall. If you don't know it's there, you can walk by, but once you see it, it sticks with you."It's the same for Jinha who says things can "never go back to how they were before Yoon declared martial law". That was a time when poliitics felt inaccessible, but now, Jinha adds, it "feels like something that affects me and is important to my life".She says she won't give up because she wants to be free of "things like discrimination at work… and live my life in peace"."People see young women as weak and immature but we will grow up - and then the world will change again."
New York Times
2 days ago
- General
- New York Times
What We Know About the Conflict Over a Trans Athlete in a California Track Meet
A transgender girl in California qualified for this week's state high school track and field meet, and her inclusion in the two-day event has angered people who do not believe that trans girls should compete in girls' events. They believe that trans girls hold a physical advantage and say that allowing them to take part is unfair. Her participation has fueled a political debate that has reached the White House: President Trump has threatened to pull federal funding from the state if it lets the trans girl, AB Hernandez, compete at the meet. Civil rights advocates have denounced the threat as bullying behavior. Now the eyes of the president, the governor, conservative activists and transgender rights groups will be on the meet, which began Friday in Clovis, near Fresno. It's arguably the most competitive high school track and field meet in the nation. Here's what to know: What events is the trans girl competing in? Hernandez qualified for the meet in three events: the high jump, the long jump and the triple jump. On Friday, she finished as the top qualifier in all three events and advanced to Saturday's finals. There, medals typically go to the top nine athletes. She is one of the favorites in the long jump and the triple jump. What is the gist of the debate? People who are against trans girls' competing in girls' events believe that those athletes hold unfair advantages over other competitors. Athletes who were born male, they say, have a physiological edge — including muscle mass and bone length — that they retain even after their transition. They think that physical edge makes it harder for all girls to have an equal chance at making teams, qualifying for meets and winning. In California, trans girls have had the right to compete in girls' events since 2013, when a law was passed that said students could participate in school sports in the category that matched their gender identity. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
