Youths charged with beating trans women in SW
D.C. attorney general calls case a hate crime
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.


A group of six or seven teenagers attacked two transgender women on Sept. 27 near the corner of Delaware Avenue and M Street in Southwest D.C., causing one of the women to suffer two broken ribs, a fractured skull, and a facial wound requiring 40 stitches to close, according to accounts by the women and D.C. police.

“I curled up like a ball on the ground while they punched and kicked me,” said Kerri Kellerman, 31, a resident of Alexandria. “I didn’t know if I was going to live or die.”

She said the youths called her and her friend, Jaimie Fischer, 25, “faggot” and “bitch” as they assaulted the two, saying the women “don’t belong here.”

Police arrested a 17-year-old male in connection with the incident. A spokesperson for the D.C. Attorney General’s office, which prosecutes crimes against juveniles, said authorities listed the incident as a hate crime and charged the youth with two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of simple assault, and one count of felony threats.



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Transsexual MP Beyer posts gender identity bill


Transsexual MP Georgina Beyer has drafted legislation she hopes will stop discrimination on the grounds of the gender a person identifies with.

Her bill provides for "gender identity" to be included as one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination in section 21 of the Human Rights Act 1993.

Under the Act, people are not allowed to discriminate on grounds such as race or sex.

"Transgendered people are not referred to in section 21 and thus appear not to be protected by the anti-discrimination provisions of the Human Rights Act 1993," notes to Ms Beyer's bill said.


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Human rights group alleges continuing anti-gay acts by Serbian right-wingers


LONDON — An anti-gay and lesbian poster campaign across Serbia, launched in July, is the latest in a string of homophobic activities by the right-wing group Obraz, according to a news release from Amnesty International. The Obraz posters featured the slogan “Better prevention than cure — better safe than sorry,” illustrated with mock road signs suggesting that same-sex couples should be prohibited, the group stated. Eight gay rights groups in Serbia sent government officials an open letter following the publication of the posters, demanding that the government speak out against homophobia, Amnesty International reported. “We, the undersigned, believe this to be a violation of the basic human right to freedom of choice of a sexual partner and to be symptomatic of severe abuse of the public space,’” the gay rights advocates wrote, according to Amnesty International. The Serbian government, thus far, remains silent on the issue, the group stated.