In our organization, we must continue to be strategic in our pursuit for human rights.  Our new strategy will detail a new name for our organization.  We are currently in the process of changing our name.  We anticipate that our Tax-ID number will remain the same.  We anticipate announcing our new name on May 1st, and we have filed appropriate paperwork with the State of Michigan to do so.  We anticipate having our new tax-exempt determination letter reflecting our new name by July 1st.  These dates are subject to change based on processing times of our paperwork.

We are thankful to our past and present supporters for supporting our organization over the past 3 years.  We have had some amazing events to bring about environments of diversity and inclusion.  We must think more strategic, broader, and more encompassing.  We must look at the larger picture.  It is our intent to become a national organization and human rights authority, and we are not shying away from that.  We are becoming more strategic to make that a reality.

I want to thank each and every single one of you on behalf of the Board of Directors for helping us advance our mission on human rights.

I look forward to further updates as these become available.

Thank You,

Christopher R. Surfus
Founder/President

Here is the video of the Gay Day incident at Cherry Park in Grand Rapids, MI on August 4, 2012:

4 Bands, 6 Fierce Drag Queens, and a DJ come together to support TEAMwork on anti-bullying, nondiscrimination, and diversity/inclusion in pursuit of a 21st century human rights agenda for “TEAMwork 2.0! Another Night of Dance and Drag for Human Rights.”

TEAMwork 2.0! Another Night of Dance and Drag for Human Rights is taking place at The Pyramid Scheme on May 17, 2012 from 7:30pm to 2:00am. This event is 18 and older, and it’s only $8 admission for the show.  The Pyramid Scheme is located at 68 Commerce Ave. SW Grand Rapids, MI 49503.

TEAMwork 2.0! will feature headliner JESSE FICK, who is #6 on the ReverbNation pop charts in Grand Rapids and is known for his hits “West Michigan Girls,” “GPS,” and other songs! In addition, he has been featured on 104.5 WSNX and other stations.

In addition, we are bringing back “THE DIVAS OF THE PYRAMID SCHEME” DRAG SHOW! This will feature Britney Storm, your hostess, along with Miss Rumors Professional Dalylah Desmond, Miss Rumors Amateur Kylee Starr, Mr. Michigan Grand Diva Tango Delmont, Ariez Iman, and Karina Passion.

We have one returning band: BANGCRUSH, an electronica band known for its digital, video game-like sounds.

We have BERMUDAS, a garage/rock type of band joining us as our opening performers of the evening.

In addition, we will have dance/electronica newcomer SENG, who will be bringing his backup dancers to get you moving!

There will be plenty of time to dance to the sounds of DJ DIGIMARK, who is Metro Nightclub’s (Kalamazoo, MI) Resident DJ, DJ at Mixx Nightclub (Saginaw, MI), and known for his DanceMixUSA show! Also, DJ DIGIMARK’s work has been featured on Perez Hilton’s website!!!

TEAMwork 2.0 will have a Photo Booth provided by NOAH PARIS, Owner and Lead Photographer of FiercePhoto.com.  Noah specializes in sports and nightlife event photography and will take your photo during the event at the FiercePhoto booth!

HERE IS THE SCHEDULE FOR THE EVENING:

7:30PM- DOORS OPEN

8PM- BERMUDAS

9PM- SENG

9:30PM- DJ DIGIMARK

10PM- BANGCRUSH

11PM- JESSE FICK

12AM- DRAG SHOW

1:15AM- DJ DIGIMARK

Facebook Event Invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/341756409219005/

Also featured on The Rapidian: http://therapidian.org/teamwork-20-another-night-dance-and-drag-human-rights

Lawrence County Judge John Hodge found the now-14-year-old Jordan Brown delinquent, the juvenile court equivalent of a guilty verdict, in the deaths of 26-year-old Kenzie Houk and her unborn child. The judge closed the trial, held about 45 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, to the media and all but close family members because of the boy’s age during the killings.

The boy’s lawyer, Stephen Colafella, said it was too early to say if he’d appeal the judge’s ruling on the first-degree murder and criminal homicide charges.

Deputy Attorney General Anthony Krastek said the guilty verdict was important because it would allow the boy to receive counseling and other treatment that had been denied because he and his family had refused to acknowledge his guilt.

“It’s sad that it’s coming so late,” Krastek said, referring to the fact that Brown has been in a juvenile facility about 80 miles from his home for most of the three years since he was charged. “We offered this same result two years ago and it was stubbornly refused.”

“I read in the newspaper the other day that his father said he was the biggest victim in this whole thing,” Krastek said. “That’s the mindset we’ve been dealing with. Finally the child’s best interest can be attended to right now.”

Colafella said Christopher Brown, the boy’s father, wouldn’t be commenting but was “extremely disappointed” by the verdict. Brown had gone on ABC’s “Good Morning America” two years ago to proclaim his son’s innocence and repeated that for local reporters after closing arguments in the trial Thursday.

“He now has to wrestle with two issues: One is the impact of the verdict and his belief in his son’s innocence,” Colafella said. “And, at the same time, he must shift his focus to the treatment aspect of the verdict.”

County probation officials will devise a treatment plan for the boy, who remains in a juvenile lockup where his status will be reviewed every six months, according to Charles Marker, a retired Westmoreland County judge with nearly 30 years of experience in juvenile court.

“”They do that because it could be the youngster’s turned around his life, and you want to address that if it happens,” said Marker, who wasn’t involved in the case.

Jack Houk said his daughter’s murder has tempered the family’s gratitude for the verdict. “We’re not `happy’ happy, but we’re pleased,” Houk said.

Houk said Hodge told both families “there’s no winners here” and urged them both to accept his verdict and move on accordingly.

Brown could conceivably be released on probation if juvenile court officials ever feel that he’s progressed enough to warrant that. But his custody will end at age 21 no matter what because he was convicted in juvenile court. Brown faced life in prison without parole if convicted of the same charges in Common Pleas, or adult court. That’s where state officials initially filed the charges because that’s required in Pennsylvania homicide cases regardless of a defendant’s age.

“I hope he gets the treatment he needs in the time period that he’s got, short as it is,” Houk said.

The case grabbed headlines as much due to the chilling nature of the crimes as the ill-fitting Pennsylvania laws governing juvenile homicide suspects, which prompted two Superior Court appeals. The first resulted in the case being moved to juvenile court and the second was an unsuccessful attempt by three western Pennsylvania newspapers to open the trial to the public even though Hodge had the discretion to close the case because Brown was under 12 when the killings occurred.

Another Lawrence County judge, Dominick Motto, initially refused to move the case to juvenile court because he found no evidence connecting anyone else to the killings on Feb. 20, 2009, and agreed with prosecutors that Brown’s refusal to admit guilt made his chance of rehabilitation in juvenile custody remote.

Houk, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, was shot in the back of the head with Brown’s .20-gauge youth model shotgun while lying in bed. The shooting occurred after the boy’s father left for work, with only Jordan Brown and Houk’s two daughters, ages 7 and 4, also in the house.

State police investigators found a spent shotgun shell dropped along a path that Brown walked with Houk’s older daughter to catch a bus to school minutes after the shooting. “The offense was an execution-style killing of a defenseless pregnant young mother,” Motto wrote.

Brown’s attorneys argued that the boy was being forced to incriminate himself in order to avoid being tried as an adult and the appeals court agreed.

Months later, Motto reconsidered, after he was ordered by the court to give more weight to a defense expert who thought Jordan would do well in rehabilitation, and moved the case to juvenile court.

Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc  Entire Article taken from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/13/jordan-brown-guilty-11-year-old-murder_n_1424877.html?1334357237&icid=maing-grid7%7Caim%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D152045

“I have never had any issue using any [women-only] bathroom or changing facility,” Lombardi says. “I can’t see myself using the men’s room.”

Now she might have to.

On March 20, a university official informed Pitt’s Anti-Discriminatory Policies Committee that transgender students and faculty must use bathroom facilities that match the gender on their birth certificate rather than the gender with which they identify. Since news of the controversial policy broke in the Pitt Newsstudent newspaper, critics have condemned it as a potentially harmful move that violates the university’s anti-discrimination policy, which prohibits discrimination “on the basis of … gender identity and expression.”

“A lot of people were really shocked that they had taken such a harsh position,” says Jane Feuer, who chairs the ADPC, which advises the University Senate on issues regarding discrimination. “It was just dropped on us like a bomb.”

Before the announcement, Feuer says, the university never had a formal bathroom policy. Instead, she says, Pitt officials dealt with concerns about the use of restrooms on a case-by-case basis.

That’s what happened late last year at the Pitt-Johnstown branch campus, where a transgender student who identifies as male was expelled for using the men’s locker room.

The ADPC unanimously passed a resolution in February charging that the expulsion violated Pitt’s anti-discrimination policy. The committee also stated that students should be allowed to use bathrooms that match the gender with which they identify, and asked for a specific policy regarding bathroom usage for transgender people.

It got that policy during a March 20 ADPC meeting, when a university official representing Pitt’s HR and legal departments informed the committee of it. Transgender people, the official said, are prohibited from using bathroom facilities of the gender they identify with, unless they furnish a birth certificate matching that sex.

University officials have not been eager to discuss the policy. Even the official who disclosed it to the ADPC, for example, has not been identified; ADPC members say the person requested to remain anonymous. Robert Hill, Pitt’s vice chancellor of public affairs, declined to directly respond to an emailed list of questions about the policy. Instead, he emailed a statement that Pitt’s non-discrimination policy, as applied to restrooms, means that a student or faculty member can use the bathroom of “his or her declared gender identity after he or she has obtained a birth certificate designating the declared gender.”

“This does not represent a change in policy,” the email continues. “Rather, it is an articulation of a longstanding University practice.”

Rayden Sorock, a local advocate for transgender rights, says the policy is problematic for several reasons. For starters, changing the gender on a birth certificate requires sex-reassignment surgery, which is very costly and not always desired by transgendered people.

“[The policy] assumes that people want to change their bodies, and that they can afford to,” says Sorock.

Feuer says the University Senate is forming a committee to look into Pitt’s bathroom policy. In the meantime, she says, the ADPC is still trying to discuss the matter with university officials.

As for Lombardi, she has no plans of using the men’s bathroom.

“For my own safety,” she says, “I have to continue to use the same facilities.”

© 2012 Pittsburgh City Paper Entire Article Retrieved From: http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/pittsburgh/pitt-bathroom-policy-surprises-outrages-transgender-faculty-students/Content?oid=1509064

The ruling Tuesday involves 38-year-old federal court law clerk Christopher Nathan and 39-year-old Thomas Alexander, who were married in 2008 when same-sex marriages were legal in California. Voters later approved Proposition 8, overturning the state Supreme Court ruling that had legalized same-sex marriages.

Nathan was turned down when he tried last year to enroll Alexander in the federal government’s health insurance plan. A 1996 law bars federal recognition of same-sex unions.

(C) 2012 Huffington Post.  Entire article retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/05/same-sex-insurance-benefits_n_1405579.html

I am announcing a Board position vacancy, available immediately.  We need to have this position filled no later than June 1.  Please review the attached PDF file with position description: Treasurer Position Description

Thank You,

Christopher R. Surfus

President

TEAM

It is my pleasure to release our annual report for 2011.  Please check out the 2011 TEAM Annual Report!

The 2011 Annual Report includes our financial information to be reported on our annual 990 filing, due May 15, 2012.  This will be our first 990 filing as a 501(c)(3) federally tax-exempt nonprofit corporation.  In addition to financial information, the 2011 Annual Report provides information on the work we’ve done and where we’re heading in 2012.  There are some pictures of events we have done in 2011.

If you have any questions regarding financial information, please contact Treasurer Rey Garza by clicking his name (or email address- rey.garza@teamwmi.org).  If you have general questions, please contact Secretary Brianna Schmidt (brianna.schmidt@teamwmi.org).

I look forward to the GREAT THINGS we can accomplish in 2012, and we look forward to having you all there with us!

Thank Y0u,

Christopher R. Surfus

Founder/President

The Tolerance, Equality, and Awareness Movement (TEAM)

PO Box 68572 Grand Rapids, MI 49516-8572

http://www.TEAMwmi.org

chris.surfus@TEAMwmi.org

616-528-TEAM

In the appeal case of Perry v. Shwarzenegger, the Ninth Circuit has held Judge Vaughn Walker’s previous decision and maintains that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional and in violation of California’s due process and equal protection rights! Details follow.

The decision came down to a 2-1 vote in favor of Judge Walker’s decision.

What this means?

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has found that Judge Walker’s recusal from the Prop 8 trial was not necessary and that supporters of the discriminatory referendum did have the right to appeal his decision. The two decisions together helped the Court rule in favor of Judge Walker’s previous decision and agree that Prop 8 is in fact a violation of California law.

What happens now?

The court’s ruling will not take effect immediately as opportunities for further appeals will be made.

Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner explains the opportunities for both sides on the Prop 8 battle following today’s ruling.

Any party dissatisfied with the ruling could seek en banc review, which would require all the active Ninth Circuit judges to vote whether en banc consideration will be given. If a majority supports en banc consideration, then the chief judge of the circuit, Judge Alex Kozinski, and 10 randomly selected appellate judges from the circuit will hear theen banc appeal.

Then further review by the full Ninth Circuit—referred to as “super en banc” consideration—or a request to the Supreme Court to hear the case could follow.

As we told you on Monday, a rally and march will be held in West Hollywood this evening in light of the landmark ruling. Head here for the event’s Facebook page.