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SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

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The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

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Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Poverty Risk Higher for LGBT Women in NM, Nation, report finds

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Monday, March 23, 2015   

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A new report finds lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender women in New Mexico and across the U.S. are among those most at risk of living in poverty. The findings were released by a broad coalition of organizations, including the National Women's Law Center.

Fatima Goss Graves, vice president for education and employment with the National Women's Law Center, says the report highlights how the challenges most women face particularly undermine the economic security of LGBT women.

"Getting adequate wages, having the supports necessary to both work and care for families, having access to health care," says Goss Graves. "Those are concerns LGBT women are facing and in some cases facing more acutely."

Goss Graves says those concerns are further magnified for LGBT women of color, immigrant women, women raising children and transgender women. According to the report, almost 30 percent of bisexual women and 23 percent of lesbian women live in poverty, compared to 20 percent of heterosexual women.

There are more than five million women in the U.S. who identify as LGBT and Goss Graves says discriminatory laws, along with inequitable and outdated policies compromise their economic security. She adds some LGBT women are unable to access job-protected leave to care for a sick partner and others struggle to obtain official identity documents that match the gender they live.

"Transgender women in particular have the problem of it being difficult to access appropriate ID," she says. "When ID is so crucial in our society to access jobs, to access things like healthcare."

Goss Graves says policies at the state and federal level should be improved to allow LGBT families the same protections and benefits available to others, such as health insurance, family leave and child care assistance.


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