KPBS Midday Edition

New Year Brings New Laws Affecting Gays & Lesbians

By Alison St John / Reporter, Patty Lane / Producer

Published January 2, 2012 at 8:30 AM PST

This story was published more than 12 years ago.

2012-New laws affecting gays and lesbians.

GUESTWilliam Eadie, Professor, Journalism and Communications SDSU Colin Pearce, Co-Chair, San Diego chapter of Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network

2012 New Laws

New laws going into effect this year from Californiality.com

Hundreds of new laws go into affect this week in California, including several that protect the rights of the gay, lesbian and transgender community. All of them were sponsored by Equality California and they include:

California Gay Bullying Law or "Seth's Law," named after 13-year-old Seth Walsh, from central California, who killed himself in 2010 after years of bullying. The law forces schools to address bullying through mandatory policies.

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The "Gay Divorce Law," which allows a gay couple married in California, but living in a state that won't grant them a divorce, the right to divorce in California.

The LGBT Equality and Equal Access to Higher Education Law, which is an anti-harassment law that applies to state universities and colleges.

The Transgender Non-Discrimination Law was authored by San Diego Assemblywoman Toni Atkins. It protects transgender Californians from discrimination with regard to employment, education and housing.

However, among the most controversial is the The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act, sometimes called the "Gay History Law." This law requires schools to teach factual lessons about the history of people with disabilities, people of color and LGBT people in social studies class. State Senator Christine Kehoe, representing San Diego's 38th district, co-authored this bill.

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.