Governor Deval Patrick signed into law today An Act Relative To Gender Identity, “historic legislation to legally protect transgender individuals from discrimination in housing, education, employment and credit. The new law, signed at the State House today, also provides additional civil rights and protections from hate crimes.”

A Trans-Walmart Moment has come without much notice, but the moment should be considered significant: Walmart has recently changed their corporate nondiscrimination policy to add gender identity.

U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) has been dodging questions about his stance on the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA, S811). ENDA would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. He also mistakenly thinks Massachusetts already took care of this.

To date, more than 13,500 LGBTQ servicemembers have been discharged under DADT. I would like to say that with the repeal of DADT the number of our servicemembers being discharged will stop. But it won’t. Our transgender servicemembers were not included.

If you’re a heterosexual man or woman, and/or if your appearance is one where you’re perceived as not violating western society’s sex and gender norms, your life is more valuable than mine. That’s because I’m transgender.

At least, that’s what the hung jury in Brandon McInerney’s murder trial for the killing of Larry King tells me. The hung jury in the case tells me gay panic and trans panic defenses — “blame the victim” defenses — are still alive and well in my home state of California.

The collective here at Firedoglake has carved out quite a niche on LGBT issues from the gavel to gavel liveblog coverage of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Brown) Proposition 8 trial in the Northern District of California, to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell DADT) case brought by the Log Cabin Republicans in the Central District of California, to the recent change in policy by the Obama Administration regarding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to the broad based and excellent issue coverage of LGBT matters generally by Teddy Partridge. But that coverage has been centered on somewhat antiseptic and theoretical policy issues and statutory/Constitutional interpretation. There is another, darker, and more brooding area of LGBT law that is every bit as important, and quite arguably more directly important, to the relevant community.

TownHall’s ever-frustrated, sexuality-and-civil-rights-confused Dennis Prager is fighting for the right to keep his penis. Or something.

Chaz Bono, whose mother and father Cher and Sonny Bono made sixties television fun for so many of us, explains to Chris Cuomo on Good Morning America the transition from being Chastity Bono. This is as good an explanation I have ever seen in the mass media of the process, thinking, and feelings of this extraordinary journey — from the viewpoint of the person.