South Dakota
South Dakota’s governor promised to veto anti-transgender legislation that lands on his desk, the Associated Press reports:

South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard says he would veto legislation restricting which locker rooms transgender students can use.
The Republican said Thursday he’d veto the bill if it gets to his desk. He says any concerns about privacy can be met at the local level.
The bill introduced this week would require public school students to use the locker rooms, shower rooms and changing facilities matching their sex at birth. Schools would be allowed under special circumstances to provide other accommodations, like single-occupancy restrooms.

The bill will be heard Tuesday, according to a statement from the ACLU:

Despite the governor’s veto last year of a similar bill, South Dakota lawmakers introduced an anti-transgender bill (Senate Bill 115) this week. The bill would prohibit schools from allowing transgender students to use locker rooms, changing rooms or other shared facilities that match the gender they live every day. Instead, students would be forced to use the facilities that match their anatomy at birth, as shown on their original birth certificate. This bill would further isolate and stigmatize vulnerable young people.

The bill will be heard by the Senate Education Committee at 7:45 a.m. CT on Tuesday, January 31.

North Dakota
A campaign has launched in North Dakota to add job protections for LGBTQ people, WDAZ reports:

Across the state, North Dakotans are coming together to fight for job protection in the LGBT community.
Fighting for the rights of everyone in the state of North Dakota.
A crowded room all for the same cause, over 60 people were at the Red Raven this afternoon.
“We stand up for people – the homeless, the refugees, LGBT community because someone needs to do that,” said Pastor Joe Larson, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church.
For the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition’s “I Am 1386” Campaign.
“We need to support people who are living here, working here, and contributing to society and giving them the basic protections we should all enjoy,” said Pastor Joe Larson.
A call to action to fight for “House Bill 13-86” introduced into the North Dakota Legislature this session.
North Dakota law doesn’t allow discrimination based on race, religion, sex, age, or marital status and this bill would legally add “sexual orientation” and gender identity to the list protecting a person’s employment and housing.
“I can’t even imagine the people who don’t want to report a case because the state legislature says ‘we don’t care'” said Ken Story, ND Human Rights Coalition.

Iowa
A report in Iowa notes that a disproportionate number of children in the foster care system are LGBTQ, KCRG reports:

Are some children ending up in the foster care system because they and their families are struggling with the child’s sexual identity? The group, Iowa Kids Net, says yes.

It’s not just happening in Iowa. Iowa Kids Net says across the nation, 20 percent of kids in foster care identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual or Transgender.
Iowa Kids Net says there are a disproportionate number of LGBT teens in foster care. Less than 10 percent of the American population identifies as Lesbian, Gay, bi-sexual or transgender. But 20 percent of teens who are in foster care say they’re LGBT.
Iowa Kids Net says it’s something that’s happening in homes throughout Iowa.
“Typically if it’s a situation where the parent is saying, “I don’t agree with this”, then you’re going to have behaviors out of the child because of that conflict. Then at that point something erupts to require DHS involvement,” said Iowa Kids Net’s Christa Hefel.
That’s when the LGBT child ends up in the foster care system.
Randy is a teen from eastern Iowa who says he came out as gay to his father. He says his father didn’t accept him, so Randy lashed out and coped by abusing illegal drugs. That’s how he ended up in foster care.
“I was placed into a foster home with an amazing married lesbian couple,” said Randy.

Manitoba

A Manitoba woman says she was assaulted because she is transgender, the CBC reports:

While ringing in the new year on a northern Manitoba reserve, a woman says she was brutally attacked for being transgender.
Aalayna Spence, 22, said she was at a house party in Nelson House, Man., when transphobic slurs turned into physical violence.
“I never thought this type of violence would ever happen to me,” she said.
Spence, who lives in Calgary, was excited to head home for the holidays. She’d enjoyed time with family and spent her New Year’s Eve with friends at a party. At around 2 a.m. a man she didn’t know approached her and started making transphobic slurs.
“He started making fun of [a] friend for hanging out with me, saying, ‘Oh I didn’t know you were gay, I didn’t know you were a fag’,” she said.
As an activist for the LGBT community, Spence spoke up for herself and the man she was talking with.
Spence says it escalated quickly and the man punched her in the face. So, Spence says she punched him back and suddenly other people descended on her.
“One thing led to another and I was on the ground and the three of them were kicking me in the face,” she said.
“They were saying things like, ‘Faggot, tranny, bitch.’ Really, really mean things, like misogynistic things.”
While she was being attacked, Spence said she wasn’t sure she was going to make it out alive. While the beating felt like forever, her friends later told her it lasted about three minutes.

A LGBTQ center in Winnipeg is asking for assistance from the public after seeing a spike in Syrian refugees, the CBC reports:

A Winnipeg drop-in centre for LGBT people is putting a call out for help after a spike in the number of refugees coming for support.
The Rainbow Resource Centre calls the increase over the last two weeks “dramatic,” and says its counsellors are becoming overwhelmed with calls from refugees, their lawyers and settlement workers.
“We’ve done a call out to the community to ask for help in providing additional hours to our counsellors,” said Mike Tutthill, the centre’s executive director.
He added staff are hoping to get more government funding and donations to pay for the increased demand in counselling.
Frostbitten refugee will lose fingers after trek to cross U.S.-Canada border
Gay Syrian finds refuge in Winnipeg
The story of LGBT refugees coming to Winnipeg in search of a better life hit the spotlight this month after two Ghanaian men fled to Canada on Christmas Eve in the bitter cold.
The journey left both men severely injured with serious frostbite requiring amputation. Just a few weeks prior, a gay man from Syria arrived in Winnipeg, ending a five-year search for refuge that some of his friend didn’t survive.
Tutthill said the centre has been receiving as many as 10 calls per week over the last two weeks from asylum-seekers.
He said the increase in calls started in November.