US women's rights lawyer Gloria Allred was in Toronto on May 19 for the Miss Universe Canada competition. She was here to support her client Jenna Talackova, the first openly transgender contestant in the pageant.

"These cases have come to me, and I have felt from the beginning that this was a minority who was stigmatized, who was stereotyped, who was being excluded," Allred says. 

Xtra asked Allred about the John Travolta cases and US President Barack Obama's recent support of the US gay-marriage movement.




For more on Talackova, watch Xtra's video interview here.