African leaders target gays as cause of continent's ills
BY LAURIE GOERING
Chicago Tribune


WINDHOEK, Namibia - (KRT) - As a boy, Telwin Owoseb wanted to wear lime green. His mother told him blue was for boys and pushed him out the door to play ball, over his protests.

At the end of high school, he told his family he was gay. While his mother accepted the news, his brothers and family friends were horrified.

"A man should be a man and marry and have kids," he remembers them saying.

Since then he has been called a "moffie" - an Afrikaans slur for homosexuals - on the streets of Namibia's capital, and he has faced trouble finding work and a partner in this nation where being gay is considered unnatural, un-Christian and un-African.


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Gender correction for Saudi girls
Sebastian Usher
BBC world's media reporter
Five sisters in Saudi Arabia are having operations to become men.

The doctor carrying out the surgery stresses that he is performing what he calls "gender correction" rather than sex change operations.

As a conservative Islamic state, Saudi Arabia does not allow surgery for transsexuals, but permits operations on people with an intersex condition.

Three of the five sisters have already been operated on. The remaining two are to have surgery next week.

The sisters' ages range from 19 to 38.


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First gay radio program to air next month
Jerome Tabar

Hawaii's first gay radio program on Kauai has plans to expand across the state as gay businesses snapped up sponsorship and advertising on the show before news of its launch reached the media.


Lambda Aloha, a lesbian-gay-bisexual-transsexual education, advocacy and research organization announced Tuesday the launch of "The Gay Agenda" on KQNG AM 570 on July 2. .


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Senate sets mid-July vote on marriage
By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Senate Republican leaders have scheduled the Senate vote on a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman for the week of July 12, just two weeks before Democrats convene in Boston for their presidential nominating convention.
  
  "There's always an argument you should wait for just one more court decision — at some point you've just got to move forward," said Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican.

    "They want to get it done, and it's the last chance to get it done," said one Senate Republican aide involved in the process, who said setting the vote for that week should leave Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry without any excuses for missing the vote.
   
 "They were probably trying to make it convenient for a certain senator to get back and vote," the aide said.


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Counseling can help patients' transition
Richmond Times-Dispatch


Clinical psychologist Jeffrey C. Fracher has spent more than 25 years working with people who feel like their anatomy and internal sense of gender do not match.

He works with clients who want to undergo gender-reassignment surgery. Accepted medical protocols require that those clients first go through a year of counseling during which time they live and dress as the gender they want to become.

"Virtually everyone I have worked with who has turned out to be legitimately transgender will tell you from the earliest memory they felt like they were in the wrong body," said Fracher, who is in private practice in Charlottesville and who is also a clinical assistant professor at the University of Virginia.

"You hear enough of that, and it can be pretty compelling."


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Antigay acts on the rise, experts say
As the controversy around same-sex marriage grows, they say, so does violence against gay people.
By Linda K. Harris
Inquirer Staff Writer


What began as a controversy over same-sex marriage in Canada has spread like a hurricane across the United States from Massachusetts to California and catalyzed a surge in antigay sentiment not seen since Ellen DeGeneres came out on national TV in 1997.

Experts say that when gay-oriented issues land on the public agenda, incidents of verbal and physical harassment spike.

The level of gay-bashing is "unprecedented in our movement's history," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the Washington-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Across the nation, communities are dealing with the issue, and on Tuesday the U.S. Senate voted to give gays and lesbians protection under the federal hate-crimes law.



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Phila. looking to stop bias against gays
By Linda K. Harris
Inquirer Staff Writer


What began as a controversy over same-sex marriage in Canada has spread like a hurricane across the United States and catalyzed a surge in antigay sentiment not seen since Ellen DeGeneres came out on national TV in 1997.

Experts say that when gay-oriented issues land on the public agenda, incidents of verbal and physical harassment spike.

The level of gay-bashing is "unprecedented in our movement's history," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the Washington-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Across the nation, communities are dealing with the issue, and on Tuesday the U.S. Senate voted to give gays and lesbians protection under the federal hate-crimes law.



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Area gays plan march to beat of changing times
By Mark Pothier, Globe Staff


Deborah Rudolf says she refused to become "invisible" when she moved from Boston to Plymouth nine years ago.

She found herself drawn to the flourishing town's open space and geared-down pace. But as a "very out" lesbian, Rudolf said, she also felt disconnected.

Gays and lesbians "are isolated on the South Shore," she said. "The population density is higher in the city and to the degree that [gay] people can find each other more easily, there's a certain safety in numbers. It's changing here, but some people still feel they need to be careful."

That caution may be giving way to a sense of confidence. Since same-sex marriage was ruled legal in Massachusetts, the South Shore's "burgeoning gay community" has started to become more of a presence, Rudolf said. On Sunday, it will take what she called a "huge step." A parade sponsored by South Shore Pride, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender group, will bring marchers past the granite slab that marks where the Pilgrims came ashore almost four centuries ago.


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City Council adds protection for 'gender identity' to policy
Transgender people receive protection from discrimination
By Rotimi Agbabiaka


Members of Austin's transgender community can count the city as an ally following an Austin City Council decision last week to pass an ordinance adding "gender identity" to the classifications protected against discrimination in housing, public accommodation and employment.

"It's one of the biggest issues in the transgendered community nationwide," said Lisa Scheps, chair of Transgender Advocates of Central Texas, a group formed about a year-and-a-half ago with the objective of helping push through this ordinance.

Scheps said the lack of protection really hit hard due to the inability of transgender people to hide their status.

"You can't really stay in the closet," she said. "Before this, you could lose your job or your housing based on your status as a transgender person."


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Gay unions celebrated on campus
Wedding reception start of statewide campaign
by Manuelita Beck
Daily Lobo


It was pretty easy for guests to catch a bouquet at the wedding reception held for the 64 same-sex couples married in Sandoval County.

The Coalition for Equality in New Mexico used the event in the SUB ballroom as an opening for its Protect Our Families campaign, a series of events designed to promote same-sex marriage rights in New Mexico.

"For not only must we win the right to marry in the courts of New Mexico, we'd like to win the hearts of those New Mexicans," said Jonathan Kennedy, a Coalition for Equality in New Mexico board member.

Dair Obenshain, who married her partner Mary Ramos on Feb. 20, said events such as the reception bring more attention to the issue of same-sex marriage. She says educating people is key.


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Araujo jury can't reach verdict
Jurors ask to hear testimony, see videotaped interviews, get judge's instructions again
By Ivan Delventhal, STAFF WRITER


HAYWARD -- Members of the jury in the trial of three men charged with killing a transgender Newark teenager told a judge Wednesday that they are having trouble reaching a verdict.

Jurors filed into the courtroom of Judge Harry Sheppard at the Hayward Hall of Justice on Wednesday afternoon after sending him a note earlier in the day indicating their difficulties.

The jury foreman, under questioning by the judge, said the panel potentially could be helped along in its deliberations by listening again to testimony given at trial, by taking a second look at several videotaped police interviews and by receiving further guidance from the court.

Michael Magidson of Fremont and his friends Jose Merel and Jason Cazares, both of Newark, are charged with murder and a hate-crime enhancement in the killing of the teen -- born Eddie Araujo but living as a young woman named Gwen at the time of the slaying.