North Dakota
The North Dakota Senate passed a bill that would bar discrimination based on sexual orientation and egnder identity, the Bismarck Tribune reports:

Senate Bill 2279 passed by a 25-22 vote despite receiving a do-not-pass recommendation in committee. SB2279 bans discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace, housing and government services. Current state law prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, physical or mental disability and marital status.

Valley News Live interviewed students on the campus of Minnesota State University-Moorhead about North Dakota’s proposed non-discrimination act:

The mistreating of people based on sexual orientation, a topic of conversation for on many campuses including MSUM.
“Any piece of our identity, no matter what it is, I feel like it deserves to be expressed,” says Sophomore Todd Richter, “If you discriminate based on gender and sexually for example, you are going to lose out on a lot of amazing people, and their personal experience.”
He says he’s been judged himself, “I’m not heterosexual for one, and I think there are so many other things people get discriminated on their identity. And, I feel like that shouldn’t happen, and i think we should be able to be who we are and openly express that without fear of what society thinks.”
“Being on a diverse campus like you see interactions and people being judged and comments, and that obviously translates into the real world. So, like your jobs or when you are getting an apartment or anything like that,” says Chandler Esslinger, another MSUM Student.

The Bismarck Tribune notes that LGBT advocates have brought in speakers at local colleges to explain the importance of being an ally:

Speaking in front of a group of students and employees at Bismarck State College, Cory Schneider asked each audience member to go up to someone they don’t know, make an introduction and identify themselves in some way.
The auditorium filled with voices a few seconds later. Many participants shook hands and finished by saying, “I am an ally.”
Schneider prompted them with the term “ally” to indicate their support for people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning.
Kids who experience bullying because of their sexual orientation do not always know a safe person to turn to, he said.
“That’s why it’s important, if you are in a leadership role, to tell everyone that you’re an ally,” he said.
He recommended that step Thursday as one way to help youth who are bullied based upon their sexual orientation. Schneider, an LGBTQ educational consultant and psychotherapist from Los Angeles, is talking this week at BSC and United Tribes Technical College.

Iowa

Iowa lawmakers are considering license revocation for therapists who use conversion therapy to change people’s sexual orientation or gender identity, WHO reports:

Licensed medical professionals could soon be banned from administering a type of therapy designed to change a child’s sexual orientation.
“It would be like if you took a left handed child and every time they went to use their left hand, not only did you put it behind their back, you twisted it and told them how horrible they were,” said Donna Red Wing, executive director of One Iowa, a local LGBT organization.
Senate File 31 would ban licensed psychologists and therapists from practicing “conversion therapy” to gay or transgendered youth.
The bill was introduced by Iowa’s only openly gay lawmaker, State Senator Matt McCoy.

The University of Iowa’s Daily Iowan called on lawmakers to pass the ban on conversion therapy:

Technically speaking, homosexuality is not an illness or a mental disorder. It was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in 1973 as being classified as a disorder.
Since homosexuality is not listed in the manual, it doesn’t have any guidelines to address it from a medical standpoint. There is no mainstream psychological treatment, thus no professional standards exist for therapists who attempt conversion therapy.
This is especially dangerous, given that the means to treat gay people have often included extreme and unconventional measures. Examples of treatments include estrogen treatments pills for men and electrical shocks being imposed on subjects to cause a seizure.
Passing a bill to outlaw conversion therapy isn’t an ideological issue, it’s a public-health issue.
Those who oppose homosexuality as it applies to their religion and beliefs are free to do so.

But one religious right group says it opposes the bill, according to KCAU-TV:

The Family Leader is a conservative organization that is opposed to the new bill.
They released a statement that says in part, “The Family Leader stands in opposition to senate file 31 passed out of a senate sub-committee yesterday. Parents should be free to pursue professional counseling for their minor children as they see fit and without interference from the arbitrary and political hand of government.”

A film class assignment turned into a tool to fight homophobia, the Sioux City Journal reports:

“Man up.” “You throw like a girl.” “That’s so gay.”
All these phrases carry a negative connotation in everyday conversation. That’s why a local filmmaker decided to take one of them and turn it on its head, joining a number of others in an effort to rethink the things we say.
Jason Lees, an adjunct instructor at Western Iowa Tech Community College, wrote and directed a three-minute movie, called “That’s So Gay.” Five high school students stepped in as the cast and crew to ace their final for an introduction to filmmaking course, offered through the Sioux City Community School District’s growing Career Academy program.
To assess their skills, Lees gave them a five-page script. They quickly learned their lines. Then, each took a turn operating the camera, lights and sound to demonstrate what they learned throughout the semester.
Now, their class assignment is set for the silver screen. It was selected as one of 33 films to show at the 11th Annual Siouxland Film Festival, which received more than 80 entries from nine countries.