Beyond trans ‘acceptance’
HRC’s decision to support ENDA only if trans protections are included is a step forward but took way too long.


THIS HAS BEEN a big year for large, paradigm-shifting events on transgender issues. It’s a time to celebrate these changes — and to look for the next steps.

After a decade or so of vigorous work on the part of transgender people and our allies, the Human Rights Campaign has finally taken a stance that they will only support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, if it includes language protecting transgender people.

In federal politics, we’ve seen the Democratic National Convention host its first contingent of transgender delegates, showing a growing political clout for transgender people in the realm of politics.

And the Summer Olympics in Athens are the first to allow transsexuals to openly compete in the games.


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Transgendered face health crisis
By Mike Lavers


Chloe Dzubilo, 43, of Manhattan, was diagnosed with HIV in 1987. Six years later she began her transition from a man into a woman.

The Connecticut native, who has suffered a number of serious illnesses and injuries requiring hospitalization over the last several years including the debilitating bone-degeneration disease avascular necrosis, said she and many other transgender people face difficulty accessing even the most basic of medical care.

“Basically when you’re transgender there’s a lot of pathologizing,” Dzubilo said as she described the way she said many of her doctors reacted when they learned she is a transgendered woman. “People put you in a category or think you are nuts.”

Dzubilo was one of nearly 30 people who attended a town hall meeting on Thursday, Aug. 19, at the Center on West 13th Street.


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Young Nigerian transvestite (sic) caught out
Aminu Abubakar | Kano, Nigeria


A teenage Nigerian transvestite and seller of love potions who lived undetected for seven years among the married women of his conservative Islamic community has been caught and now faces jail.

Abubakar Hamza said this week that he disguised himself as a girl and ran away from his home in a remote farming village of Ajingi aged only 12, after his parents divorced and he came to hate his stepmother's scolding.

Now 19, he has lived ever since among married women in purdah -- the practice of screening women from men or strangers by means of a curtain or all-enveloping clothes.

He even attracted unsuspecting suitors among the young men of the city of Kano, all the while struggling to conceal the attraction he felt towards his female hosts


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Victim in plea after attack by youths
By Sarah Bell


A VICTIM of a homophobic attack has spoken out about his ordeal, to urge others who are suffering from hate crime to report it to the police.

The 46-year-old, who does not want to be named, says he has received 'absolutely brilliant' support from Richmond police since the attack.

The victim was set upon by a group of youths armed with large sticks as he walked on Ham Common on July 21. He was left bleeding heavily from a wound on the head and received treatment at West Middlesex Hospital.

"It was a very frightening experience, there were a lot of them. I still sometimes think that I should have had a go back, but there were too many. It was pretty awful," he recalled


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Gay Marriage Groups Seeks to Remove Justice From Amendment Case 
by The Associated Press


(New Orleans, Louisiana)  Lawyers trying to block a Sept. 18 vote on a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages and civil unions in Louisiana want state Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Victory removed from any hearings on the matter.

Randy Evans, an attorney for Forum for Equality, said Thursday that the group filed papers with the high court to have Victory removed because the justice, who faces re-election this fall, took a strong position in favor of the amendment.


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High court grants requests for quick hearing in gay marriage challenge

 
     The Arkansas Supreme Court will give a quick hearing to a challenge of a proposed amendment banning same-sex marriage.

     The Arkansas A-C-L-U filed the challenge yesterday, and asked the high court for an expedited hearing. 

     The high court today told both sides to submit written arguments September 15th, and that the sides will have to provide their replies to the arguments by September 20th.


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ACLU Expected To Challenge Marriage Amendment
Civil Liberties Group To File Challenge With State Supreme Court


OKLAHOMA CITY -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma is expected to file a challenge Friday to a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages in the state.

ACLU leaders said they will file the pre-election challenge in the state Supreme Court.

The proposed amendment authored by state Sen. James Williamson, R-Tulsa, would define marriage as only between one man and one woman. It also prohibits Oklahoma from recognizing same-sex marriages from other states.


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Marriage amendment draws legal challenge
By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau


LITTLE ROCK - A legal challenge was filed Thursday to a proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage in Arkansas.

The Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union complaint asks the state Supreme Court to remove the proposal from the Nov. 2 general election ballot.

The measure was certified for the ballot last month.

"This proposed constitutional amendment, supposedly concerning marriage, concerns much more than that," ACLU executive director Rita Sklar said during a news conference to announce the challenge.


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Act now!

Emergency Relief for State Medicaid

Last month, two bills were introduced that would provide badly needed fiscal relief to state Medicaid programs. The Senate version, S. 2671 , was authored by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) and Gordon Smith (R-Oregon). If passed, the bill would give state Medicaid programs $4.8 billion over 15 months.

Medicaid is the single largest source of federal funding for HIV/AIDS. Somewhere between 55 and 60 percent of people in the U.S. living with AIDS get their care, treatment, and medications through Medicaid. Last year, legislation passed by Congress sent $10 billion to states for temporary Medicaid relief, allowing many states to avoid drastic cuts and program changes. But that funding ended on July 1st and no further funding has been made available.

You can help secure additional funding for your state Medicaid program by asking your senators to co-sponsor S. 2671. Just click on the link below to send them a letter online. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’ll help us get $4.8 billion into Medicaid!



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Indonesia "must accept gays" to halt HIV spread
Ben Townley, Gay.com UK


Religious leaders and government officials in Indonesia must modernise their attitudes towards gay people if they are to halt the spread of HIV in the country, according to health workers.

Speaking to the AFP news agency, the country's National Committee on AIDS Control said that religious intolerance of homosexuality was a stumbling block in the strategy to stop the spread of HIV.

"We will also try to address the openness absent in the government and also in religious groups in this matter," committee member Suharto told the agency, adding that a meeting next month would be held to address the problem.

Indonesia is a mainly Muslim country in which lesbian and gay people are often discounted or thought not to exist.


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Judge strikes down portions of Louisiana sodomy law
The Associated Press


GRETNA, La. -- A judge has ruled that portions of Louisiana law criminalizing consensual oral and anal sex between adults are unconstitutional and has permanently barred prosecutors in Jefferson Parish from enforcing it.

The Louisiana Electorate for Gays and Lesbians sued the Jefferson Parish district attorney's office in 1996, after the office was dismissed from a case in Orleans Parish that resulted in a statewide ban on enforcing the "crimes against nature" law.


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Huntsman seeks to protect legal benefits for gays
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OGDEN -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. supports the proposed state constitutional amendment against gay unions, but says if he is elected, he would seek to protect couples' legal benefits.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said the amendment would prohibit Huntsman from doing that.


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Anti-gay protester convicted
Woman shoved cleric before same-sex marriage ceremony
Appeal court rules that attack in church more than a trifle


TRACEY TYLER
LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER


Bursting into a predominantly gay church to denounce homosexuality and physically push the preacher is no trifling matter, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled yesterday, convicting a Cambridge, Ont., woman of assaulting a well-known Toronto minister.

Erika Kubassek was charged with assaulting Rev. Brent Hawkes during a Sunday morning service at the Metropolitan Community Church on Jan. 14, 2001, just hours before a historic same-sex marriage ceremony for two couples.

Hawkes fell backwards and almost tripped over a pew when Kubassek shoved him with her right hand.


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N.M. clerk loses bid to resume issuing marriage licenses


A judge has rejected an effort by Sandoval County, N.M., clerk Victoria Dunlap to resume issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. State district judge Louis McDonald refused Wednesday to toss out state attorney general Patricia Madrid's request for a permanent injunction to prevent Dunlap from issuing the licenses.

Dunlap issued 66 same-sex licenses to gay and lesbian couples on February 20 but stopped late in the day after an advisory letter from Madrid declared such licenses illegal. Paul Livingston, Dunlap's attorney, had filed two motions on July 28 to dismiss the case.


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GOP platform to oppose legal recognition of all same-sex unions



Republicans endorsed an uncompromising position against gay unions Wednesday in a manifesto that contrasts with Vice President Dick Cheney's supportive comments about gay rights and the moderate face the party will show at next week's national convention.


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Calif. Leg. Passes 3 Gay Bills & 2 Resolutions In One Week
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff


(Sacramento, California)  The California legislature approved five pieces of LGBT pro LGBT measures this week, believed to be a record for any state body in the country.

The legislation approved ranges in subject from insurance equality to hate crimes and support for same-sex relationships

Equality California, the state's largest gay rights group, said it is optimistic that Governor Schwarzenegger will sign the three bills. The two resolutions do not need the governor's signature.