ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A transgender podiatrist was removed from a director position at the hospital where she works because of her she is transgender, a gender discrimination complaint alleges.

Gwen Greenberg, 53, who had served for 13 years as director of the podiatric surgical residency program at St. Luke’s Hospital-Allentown, last week filed the complaint with the Allentown Human Relations Commission.

Greenberg, formerly known as Gary Greenberg, received therapy and hormone treatments before changing her name and persona to that of a female four months ago. She said she had long suffered from dysphoria, a condition characterized by intense feelings of being the wrong gender.

The complaint alleges that Greenberg notified John Bruno, the vice president of medical affairs, in May that she would be living as a woman beginning July 1.

According to the complaint, Bruno told Greenberg two weeks later that the hospital was anxious about the reaction to her gender change and that her contract as director was being terminated.

Greenberg has continued to teach podiatry in the program.

St. Luke’s Vice President Susan Schantz declined to comment on the complaint, but said, “Dr. Greenberg is a regular part of our podiatry teaching program at the Allentown campus.”

The city’s first gender discrimination complaint names administrators including Elaine Thompson, president of St. Luke’s Allentown, and Richard Anderson, president and chief executive of St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network, which oversees the Allentown campus and several other hospitals.

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Members of the gay community are unsure how many couples will register with the city when Tucson’s domestic partner registry begins soon.

Kent Burbank is the director of Wingspan, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community center here.

Burbank said there is significant interest in the new program, but is not sure how the community will respond.

“My sense is that there will be a fair number of people who want to get in right at ground level, but there will be a significant number who will wait and see,” Burbank said.

The domestic partner registry was created on Sept. 15 by Tucson’s city council. It begins on Dec. 1 and allows any unmarried domestic partners to register their relationship with the city.

The registry gives unmarried partners visitation rights in city hospitals and allows couples to qualify for family rates to city-run facilities and programs.

Wingspan recently held a question and answer forum about the registry.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Gay rights advocates have launched a $1 million advertising campaign to highlight what they argue are the hardships and lack of legal protections faced by same sex couples denied the right to marry.

The campaign is sponsored by the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian advocacy organization, and features five print ads that will run in newspapers and magazines across the country.

Each ad tells the story of a real-life gay or lesbian couple denied the same legal and financial benefits as married couples, such as Social Security survivor’s benefits, inheritance rights and hospital visitation rights.

The ads also warn that a U.S. constitutional amendment now being considered in Congress to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman could strip away the same-sex benefits that some states and localities have provided.

“Every time there’s a presidential election, you’ll hear this topic come up,” said Elizabeth Birch, the group’s executive director. “Suddenly, it becomes more important than the economy, jobs, Iraq and a number of other topics the country is confronting at this time.”

Responding to news of the ad campaign, the head of the conservative Family Research Council argued that gays and lesbians only want marriage rights to gain social approval for their lifestyle.

“It’ll take much more than $1 million to convince the American public that deconstructing marriage is a good idea,” council president Tony Perkins said in a statement.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Nebraska’s ban on same-sex marriages.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon refused a request by the state to dismiss the lawsuit filed in April by the American Civil Liberties Union and others.

The lawsuit says the ban, which was approved by voters in 2000 and added to the Nebraska Constitution the next year, violates the rights of gay and lesbian couples.

Thirty-four states have so-called “Defense of Marriage” laws, but Nebraska’s ban is the only one that prohibits same-sex couples from enjoying many of the legal protections that heterosexual couples enjoy.

Among other things, the constitutional amendment prevents gays who work for the state or the University of Nebraska system from sharing health insurance and other benefits with their partners.

Lawyers for the state said the ACLU and the other groups did not have standing to challenge the lawsuit, since they could not show they were injured by it.

But Bataillion said the law would prevent such advocacy groups and gay and lesbian couples from lobbying to get the same benefits as other people.

Attorney General Jon Bruning did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Claude Allen’s recent sworn to the Senate Judiciary Committee is not consistent with what Allen said 19 years ago about his use of the term “queers” while a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

Allen’s nomination by President Bush to a lifetime seat on the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., may come to a vote. The 4th Circuit hears federal appeals from Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

During Helms’ 1984 race for Senate in North Carolina, Allen criticized the Democratic opponent, Gov. Jim Hunt, for his connections “with the queers.”

Allen, a Republican, told the Judiciary Committee under oath two weeks ago that the remark had referred to unusual people and was not meant to put down gays and lesbians — whom Helms and Allen had criticized throughout that campaign.

“I used the word ‘queer,’ in my mind, I think at the time — in the dictionary, it was described as ‘odd, out of the ordinary, unusual,’” Allen said during his confirmation hearing. “I did not use the word as a pejorative. I did not use the word to denigrate any individual or any group.”

In written testimony to the Judiciary Committee this week, Allen said, “I had no specific individuals or groups in mind” when making the remark.

In 1984 Allen conceded to several North Carolina newspapers that “queers” was a slang term for gay people, called the remark “an indiscretion” and stood by his criticism of gays’ support of Hunt.

Allen said then that gays and lesbians supporting Hunt’s campaign were “a special-interest group” made up of people “deviating from that which is normal.”

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) — The former executive director of Brattleboro Community Television is suing the non-profit station, alleging that she was fired because she is a lesbian.

Robin Chaia Mide, who left the station in July, accuses the station of wrongful termination, breach of good faith and fair dealing, intentional and reckless infliction of emotional distress, discrimination based on sexual orientation and retaliatory discharge from employment.

BCTV, represented by lawyer John Mabie of Brattleboro, has denied any wrongdoing in Mide’s firing in documents filed at Windham Superior Court.

Mabie said in the documents that Mide failed to perform her duties as executive director and mismanaged more than $8,500 in funds. BCTV seeks a jury trial and the dismissal of Mide’s complaints, along with the recovery of damages and attorney’s fees.

The station hired Mide in September 1999. When she left in July, Hebert said her contract was not renewed because of “irreconcilable differences.”

Her contract had expired in June. According to court documents, she had a verbal agreement with the BCTV board that a new contract would be drafted.

Mide said in her suit she was also “subjected to insulting, harassing, embarrassing, intimidating and humiliating treatment.” She said she was the victim of “homophobic sentiments.” The court documents state that one representative of BCTV referred to a heterosexual female as “a real woman.”

“My sense is that the overall problem was my client’s sexual orientation and all the other problems came from that,” said Mide’s attorney, Norman Watts.

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — A Ten Commandments monument which suddenly became the focus of threatened lawsuits has been moved to storage after 38 years in a public park.

The city council voted last month to eventually include the monument in a plaza featuring monuments to other historical documents.

After a dispute that eventually led to the removal of a Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Supreme Court building, the Rev. Fred Phelps, of Topeka, Kan., threatened to sue the city if it did not allow a monument saying slain University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard went to hell because he was gay.

Meanwhile, the Freedom From Religion Foundation threatened to sue the city if the Ten Commandments monument was not removed.

A six-man crew from the Highland Cemetery and the Casper Public Utilities Department dug out the base of the 2,000-3,000-pound monument and used a crane to lift it.

Cemetery supervisor Mark Patceg said the crew would take the monument to the Casper Service Center, where crews would remove the uneven concrete foundation from the base in preparation for its eventual placement at the plaza.