Transsexual gene link identified

For those that look to a science to explain phenomenon like male to female transsexuals, there argument has gotten stronger. The BBC is reporting a new break through in genetic science concerning out transgender brothers and sisters:

Australian researchers have identified a significant link between a gene involved in testosterone action and male-to-female transsexualism.

DNA analysis from 112 male-to-female transsexual volunteers showed they were more likely to have a longer version of the androgen receptor gene.

The genetic difference may cause weaker testosterone signals, the team reported in Biological Psychiatry.

However, other genes are also likely to play a part, they stressed.

Increasingly, biological factors are being implicated in gender identity.

One study has shown that certain brain structures in male-to-female transsexual people are more "female like".

In the latest study, researchers looked for potential differences in three genes known to be involved in sex development - coding for the androgen receptor, the oestrogen receptor and an enzyme which converts testosterone to oestrogen.

Comparison of the DNA from the male to female transsexual participants with 258 controls showed a significant link with a long version of the androgen receptor gene and transsexualism.

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Gay priest is true to his faith, at odds with his church

Steve Lopez of the LA Times writes about Father Geoffery Farrow, a Catholic priest that came out as gay and in opposition to Proposition 8 (the discriminatory Calif. ballot measure that would strip marriage rights from gay couples).

So who is this Catholic priest from Fresno who stood up and spoke out against Proposition 8, putting his career on the line? As a gay man who finds the church's views on homosexuality so objectionable, why has he been a priest for more than 20 years and subjected himself to such moral conflict?

After reading my colleague Duke Helfand's story about Father Geoffrey Farrow and his recent career-suicide from the pulpit, I was curious.

Farrow agreed to meet me for lunch in the middle of a schedule that's gotten very busy since he became persona non grata to his employer. He's been asked to appear all over the state for rallies against Prop. 8, which would amend the California Constitution to say marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

Father Farrow, who was suspended by his bishop two weeks ago, strolled into the lobby of the Kyoto Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles wearing the collar.

"I'm still a priest," he said over lunch, though he fully expected to be disciplined for speaking to his congregation about Prop. 8 and wouldn't be surprised if he's ultimately fired.

For the moment, he's staying with friends in Los Angeles. Farrow, 50, doesn't know what he'll do after the election. He was suspended without pay and said his medical benefits run out at the end of the month.

Find the complete article after the jump...

FBI Reports Six Percent Increase in Hate Crimes Based on Sexual Orientation in 2007

WASHINGTON—The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, responded today to the Federal Bureau of Investigation report which showed the incidence of bias-motivated crimes based on sexual orientation increased by 6 percent in 2007. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation remain the third most common type of hate crimes, behind race and religion. This increase comes as the Hate Crimes Statistics, 2007, also reported that the overall incidence of bias-motivated crimes decreased in 2007.

“The FBI’s 2007 hate crimes report shows once again that hate crimes protections for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community are long overdue,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “We are hopeful that after next week’s election we will finally have a President and a Congress that will enact federal hate crimes legislation into law.”

The FBI report shows the continuing crisis of hate violence in America. This month marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard from hate violence. In those ten years, the FBI has documented over ten thousand hate crimes based on sexual orientation alone. A decade after Matthew’s death, federal hate crimes legislation protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens has yet to be signed into law.

Last year, Congress passed federal hate crimes legislation in both the U.S. House and the Senate in a bipartisan vote. Unfortunately, President Bush’s veto threat blocked enactment of the legislation.

Federal legislation is crucial to ensuring local law enforcement is given the tools they need to combat hate violence in our communities. If signed into law, the Act would give the federal government expanded jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute violent crimes based on a person’s race, color, religion or national origin as well as their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender, and disability. It also provides assistance to local law enforcement to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated violence. Existing federal hate crimes law covers only certain hate crimes that are based on a victim’s race, color, religion and national origin.



BACKGROUND:

Historical Pervasiveness of Bias-Motivated Violence

Each year the FBI releases statistics of bias-motivated crime in the United States. While thousands of crimes are reported by hundreds of jurisdictions each year, the Human Rights Campaign believes this is only a fraction of the actual number of bias-motivated crime that occur in any given year. Reporting by state and local authorities to the FBI is voluntary and many jurisdictions lack the time and training to effectively report each incident of bias-motivated violence that occurs in a year.

While the FBI statistics provide a glimpse of the pervasiveness of bias-motivated violence in the United States, these statistics should be used as a starting point, not a comprehensive number. The Human Rights Campaign compiles media reports of hate crimes throughout the United States, in 2007 alone the media reported dozens of incidents of violent, bias-motivated crime that were clearly not reflected in the FBI report. While not authoritative, the Human Rights Campaign was able to match up several jurisdictions that reported zero incidents and non-reporting jurisdictions with media reports of bias motivated violent crime towards the LGBT community.

FBI statistics show that since 1991 over 100,000 hate crime offenses have been reported, with a slight decrease in the number of hate crimes reported in 2007. In 2007, 2,025 law enforcement agencies reported 7,624 hate crime incidents involving 9,006 offenses. This is a decrease from the 2006 report in which 2,105 law enforcement agencies reported 7,722 incidents involving 9,080 offenses.

Violent crimes based on race-related bias were by far the most common, representing 51 percent of all offenses for 2007. Violent crimes based on religion represented 18 percent and ethnicity/national origin, 13 percent. Violent crimes based on sexual orientation constituted 16.6 percent of all hate crimes in 2007, with 1,265 reported for the year. This is an increase from the 2006 report where hate crimes based on sexual orientation totaled 15.5% of incidents reported (1,195). The FBI does not report hate crimes based on gender identity.

In contrast, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), a non-profit organization that tracks bias incidents against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people,1 reported 1,833 incidents for 2007 from only 14 regions, compared to the 2,025 agencies reporting to the FBI in 2007.

The historical trend regarding hate crimes based on sexual orientation is unclear. While violent hate crimes based on sexual orientation declined from 2004 to 2005 according to both FBI statistics and the NCAVP, the NCAVP records show that one-year decline merely dropped the levels back to the pre-2003 levels.

Police Candidate Sues for HIV Discrimination

Don't let anyone tell you the stigma around HIV/AIDS is dead. An Atlanta man is suing the police department for job discrimination because of his status, the Advocate reports:

A man who applied to be police officer in Atlanta is suing the department after higher-ups claimed he could not be admitted because he is HIV-positive. Suing under the pseudonym Richard Roe, the applicant said the department violated his privacy and that it has a history of not accepting officers who have HIV, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday.

City officials say the department did not turn Roe away because of his HIV status, but city documents sent to the the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission show that Atlanta disqualifies potential officers with blood-borne diseases, such as HIV. "Diseases passed through the blood present a hazardous condition and as such are disqualifying conditions," the city wrote to the EEOC about Roe's case.

Atlanta Human Resource Department director Alfred Elder said that Roe disqualified himself because he did not return phone calls from a police recruiter.

The Americans With Disabilities Act prohibits employers from firing or denying employment to those with HIV.

Roe was working another job within the department when he applied to become an officer in 2006, according to court documents. He claims he was told that the routine blood test was strictly for drug use. The department says Roe was notified that he was also being tested for HIV. The doctor administering the test told Roe he was HIV-positive and that the police department does not hire people with the virus. (Michelle Garcia, The Advocate)

You can find the original article after the jump...

Fresh Face on Cable, Sharp Rise in Ratings

The NYT's is published a story today about out lesbian and successful political pundit, Rachel Maddow. Here's what they're saying:

Rachel Maddow, a woman who does not own a television set, has done something that is virtually unheard of: she has doubled the audience for a cable news channel’s 9 p.m. hour in a matter of days.

More important for her bosses at MSNBC is that “The Rachel Maddow Show,” her left-leaning news and commentary program, has averaged a higher rating among 25- to 54-year-olds than “Larry King Live” on CNN for 13 of the 25 nights she has been host. While the average total audience of her program remains slightly smaller than that of Mr. King’s, Ms. Maddow, 35, has made MSNBC competitive in that time slot for the first time in a decade. The channel at that hour has an average viewership of 1.7 million since she started on Sept. 8, compared with 800,000 before.

Given that advertising dollars — and the reputations of networks — rise and fall on prime-time ratings, Ms. Maddow’s rise has been closely watched by media executives.

“I’m pinching myself,” said Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, who used to caution that it “takes two or three years for a show to find its audience.” That was certainly true for Keith Olbermann, whose five-year-old “Countdown” program at 8 p.m. (which leads into Ms. Maddow’s program) now beats CNN in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic segment every evening.

You can find the entire NYT's article after the jump...

The Full Spectrum of acceptance

Members of the gay-straight alliance group Spectrum at UNLV are on a mission. They want to raise awareness for their one-of-a-kind organization, which is also known as the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender-questioning-queer-and-straight alliance group, or GLBTQQSA for short. Try saying that five times.

By: Anela Saday for The Rebel Yell

UNLV has had a diversity awareness group on campus for more than 15 years. This was the predecessor of what would later become Spectrum, UNLV's only current gay-straight alliance group. The name was adopted six years ago. Spectrum encompasses all the different groups of the GLBTQQSA, said Lillian Nadeau, vice president of Spectrum.

"We welcome everyone who wants to be a part of something great," she said.

Spectrum is for anyone who is against discrimination. You do not have to be gay to join.

Spectrum's constitution explains their purpose: "Since it is our belief that all forms of oppression are related, and because gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people come from all walks of life, Spectrum at UNLV will cooperate with other organizations which combat racism, sexism, ableism and other forms of oppression."

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Soulforce Activists Arrested at Christian College in Alabama

Three gay rights activists were arrested for trespassing at a Christian university on Friday after attempting to deliver letters advocating for the acceptance of LGBT students. The activists, all women, are affiliated with Soulforce's Equality Ride, which is touring university campuses across the South this fall to promote religious tolerance of gay students.

The Equality Riders met with one student during their stop at Heritage Christian University in Florence, Ala., who described the atmosphere on campus as a "homophobic panic." Faculty and students had been warned by school administrators not to communicate with the Riders.

The three arrested were Caitlin MacIntyre, 19; Katie Higgins, 26; and Taueret Manu, 21. Equality Ride codirector Jarrett Lucas said in a statement that the university is clearly unwelcoming of LGBT people. "The school’s choice to arrest us shows just how far they will go to suppress the message we bring," Lucas said. "HCU trains missionaries to go beyond the walls of their school to spread the inclusive gospel of Christ, but today they chose not to uphold the principles they preach."

HCU is the sixth school on the tour, which ends in November. The Riders are also planning to visit Mississippi College, the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Simmons College of Kentucky. (Michelle Garcia, The Advocate)

State lawmakers move to dismiss lawsuit by transgender employee

By MATT SCHAFER, Southern Voice | Oct 17, 6:11 PM

Three state lawmakers have asked a federal judge to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit filed against them by a former employee who alleges she was fired after announcing her gender transition.

Vandiver Elizabeth Glenn claims she was fired from her job as a legislative editor last year because of her transition from male to female. A lawsuit filed this summer named Speaker of the House Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram), Senate President Pro-Tempore Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, lawyer Sewell Brumby and Robyn Underwood, the state’s legislative financial officer.

Cole Thaler serves as transgender rights attorney for Lambda Legal, which is representing Glenn. Thaler said he was aware of the motion to dismiss but had not reviewed the motion with enough detail to comment.

The motion, filed by the lawmakers' attorney on Oct. 16, contested Glenn’s ability to sue and said she did not state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

“Asking this Court to determine if (Glenn) is similarly situated to other employees requires the Court to second guess the subjective, individualized assessments that are a part of any employment decision. It would make every decision by a government employer a constitutional matter,” the lawmakers' attorney argued in the motion.

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Gay teens face hard times in Tri-Cities

By Sara Schilling, Herald staff writer

Gay and lesbian teens in the Tri-Cities say they've been targeted in the community and at school because of their sexual orientation.

They've been whispered about, laughed at and called names such as "faggot" when they're on the street and in school hallways, they say.

"I've had people try to fight me because I'm gay. I've had people try to fight me because I hang out with people who are gay and stand up for them," said Alex, 17, who goes to high school in the Tri-Cities.

The Herald agreed not to fully identify students to protect them from harassment.

Their experiences are backed up by a national survey released this month. It found that 86 percent of students who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered -- abbreviated as LGBT -- had been verbally harassed at school in the past year.

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Donnie McClurkin Goes International

Our good, good judy, Donnie McClurkin took his ex-gay ministry on the road this past week. McClurkin spoke in Barbados where he suggested that gay men are the product of abuse and compares them to drug dealers and prostitutes.

For more on McClurkin's spreading of the good news, check out Rod 2.0...

Surrogates for GOP, Dem. campaigns rally Ga. voters

By MATT SCHAFER
OCT. 17, 2008


As polls show a tightening presidential race in Georgia, high-ranking openly gay supporters of candidates Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made their way to Atlanta last week to shore up support and get a look at conditions on the ground.

Patrick Sammon, chair of the national Log Cabin Republicans, and Tobias Wolff, chair of Obama’s LGBT Policy Committee, both made visits to Atlanta to speak with the party faithful about the Nov. 4 election.

Wolff’s visit was higher profile, incorporating public stumps at an “Out for Obama” event at Bazzaar and the Human Rights Campaign’s “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” fundraiser. Sammon’s visit was more informal, but he met with several Log Cabin Republicans at Einstein’s on his swing through Atlanta.

Both men said their presidential candidate is the most open on gay issues ever nominated by their party.

McCain “is not perfect on our issues, but certainly has an inclusive record,” Sammon said. “He’s promised he would be a president for everyone.”

Wolff, no relation to the author of the same name, said he originally tried to keep a count of how many times Obama mentioned gay rights in public.

“I have tried to keep track of the number of states and number of times he has mentioned gay issues in his stump speeches, and I’ve long since given up on trying to keep a tally,” Wolff said. “That’s very important. I don’t think presidential politics will ever step back from that.”

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BLAGOSAH's Back: Howard University student group revives for 8th anniversary at HRC Hype '08 launch

Check out this article in the Metroweekly on the amazing event we had in conjunction with the GLBT student leaders at Howard University:


There was a full agenda in one particular room of Howard University, Monday night, Oct. 6. Outside, the quad offered a peaceful, moonlit, academic oasis. Inside a theater of the Blackburn Center, however, peace made way for progress, as the Human Rights Campaign launched ''Hype '08,'' and the Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay Organization of Students at Howard (BLAGOSAH) stirred back to life after a sort of hiatus, marking the group's 8th birthday that very evening.

Hype '08 is HRC's new, nationwide program partnering with about a dozen historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to discuss issues such as hate crimes, HIV/AIDS and discrimination in the context of HBCU student issues.

For this launch, four speakers tackled these sorts of topics with about 60 people in attendance. The speakers were Jasper Hendricks, who directs field operations and political programs for the D.C.-based National Black Justice Coalition; Chris Scalise, president of the D.C. chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans; Courtney Snowden, recent president of D.C. Black Pride; Jeff Marootian, vice president for political affairs of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club here in D.C.; Chris Scalise, president of the D.C. chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans; and Courtney Snowden, president of D.C. Black Pride from August 2007 to August 2008.

While much of the evening was spent discussing the presidential election, the room -- both panelists and the audience -- was largely behind Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama, though Scalise was able to spend some time discussing his club's support the GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain. Opinion from the audience also brought Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney into the mix.

The dialogue was most intense when discussing hate crimes, with Joey Gaskins of HRC and the evening's moderator, sharing that some students may be carrying mace and box cutters to protect themselves in the Shaw neighborhood that abuts the campus, scene of a recent attack that left one gay man, Tony R. Hunter, dead.

''Carrying a gun is not the way to go,'' insisted Hendricks. ''Carrying a knife is not the way to go. You're not kids. You're young men and women.''

From her seat in the audience, Roberta McLeod, BLAGOSAH's faculty advisor, reminded students, ''You're still black in America,'' and that carrying weapons may make them more suspect than people of other races.

Clarence Fluker, of the Mayor's Office of GLBT Affairs, also in attendance, offered that representatives of the Metropolitan Police Department's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit would be available for come to campus and speak to BLAGOSAH members if requested. He added that the office would likely be releasing a report soon to underscore that, statistically, bias crimes against GLBT people in the District are declining, compared to this time last year.

Along with Fluker, other notable attendees included Donna Payne, HRC's associate director of diversity; Phil Attey of Obama Pride Metro-DC; and Falls Church City Councilmember Lawrence Webb, the first openly gay, African American elected to office in Virginia.

Sterling Washington, an original founder of BLAGOSAH closed out the evening, along with the group's current president, Amari Ice. Washington challenged the revived BLAGOSAH to win to the student group of the year award, as the group did when he was leading, for which he received a standing ovation.

Find the original article after the jump...

Separate is not Equal

This New York Times editorial draws on one of the tenants of the 1950's and 60's civil rights movment:

With a 4-to-3 ruling on Friday that granted gay and lesbian couples the right to marry, the Connecticut Supreme Court ended a serious injustice within its own borders, and the national debate over the issue was catapulted forward. The ruling made Connecticut the third state to legalize same-sex marriage, following Massachusetts in 2004 and California in May.

Connecticut’s Supreme Court was considering a ruling by a lower court that found that there was no denial of equal protection in excluding gay people from the institution of marriage. The lower court cited supposedly comparable protections and benefits afforded by the state’s civil-unions law. The Supreme Court’s decision correctly rejects that standard, which is the same as the excuse of separate but equal once used to rationalize racial segregation.

Justice Richard Palmer wrote in the majority opinion that segregating heterosexual and homosexual couples into different institutions constitutes a “cognizable harm” in light of “the history of pernicious discrimination faced by gay men and lesbians, and because the institution of marriage carries with it a status and significance that the newly created classification of civil unions does not embody.”

Because of that history of discrimination, the decision properly treats sexual orientation as a “suspect classification” entitled to the sort of heightened legal scrutiny applied to distinctions based on race or sex.

The new ruling is especially timely. Californians are about to vote on a ballot initiative that in effect overturns the May ruling that gave gay people the right to marry. Its message about the unfairness of treating the relationships of same-sex couples as somehow inferior needs to be taken to heart.

Find the original article after the jump...

Longtime friends say Obama would benefit gays

Want to know what kind of president Barack Obama would be for gay Americans? Just listen to his longtime gay friends.

That was the thinking of the Human Rights Campaign PAC, the political arm of the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender group.

So after endorsing Obama, HRC sent a camera crew to Chicago to interview gay folks like activist Gail Morse who knew him way before the rest of us.

“We’re going to have a partner in the White House. We’re not going to have an enemy,” Morse says in the “Friends” video. “He sees us as people with issues that government can address.”

On the night Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, HRC e-mailed the “Friends” video to nearly 900,000 of its friends and urged them to forward it.

The video is part of HRC’s all-out effort to persuade gay Americans that by helping Obama win they’ll get a real friend in the White House, who could help Uncle Sam catch up with changes in the states.

Find more after the jump...

86% of LGBT teens face harassment in US schools

By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk

The most comprehensive study ever undertaken into the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students in the United States has found they face widespread abuse.

GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, released the 2007 National School Climate Survey yesterday.

6,209 middle and high school students took part.

GLSEN said nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students (86.2%) experienced harassment at school in the past year, three-fifths (60.8%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and a third (32.7%) skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe.

“The 2007 National School Climate Survey reveals that, on a whole, the situation is still dire for many LGBT youth when it comes to school safety,” GLSEN Executive Director Kevin Jennings said.

Find more after the jump...

State of emergency: Black gays, Fenty, Lanier must all be more visible in D.C.’s hate crimes fight.

Local activist, Brian Watson, writes into the Metroweekly about important community partners being missing from the fight against hate-crimes in DC:

RECENTLY, I WAS asked to attend the second meeting of Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), as a leader in the African-American gay community.

I became involved in the community’s hate crime dialogue when several friends of Tony Hunter asked me to help organize a candlelight vigil to draw attention to the attack. (This occurred prior to Hunter’s death.) I was eager to hear what GLOV organizers, other community leaders and the GLLU had planned to combat the recent rash of suspected hate crimes in the District.

While the meeting was well attended, I couldn’t help but notice that there were very few people in the audience from my own community, even though Hunter was African American. At the candlelight vigil held this past Sunday in remembrance of Hunter, I noticed the same thing. While there were more African Americans in attendance at the vigil than that meeting, there was definitely not the support from the black community that there should have been after such a horrible crime.

I personally sent e-mails to many friends and local and national activists I knew, and spoke with print media and TV reporters. I wondered where the other African-American LGBT community members were and what was so important that they couldn’t take time to honor a life that was lost and make a statement to city leaders that this type of violence would not be tolerated. I also wondered where Mayor Fenty and Chief Lanier were and why they had not attended the GLOV meeting or the vigil.

Find more from Brian after the jump...

Gay man injured in new D.C. bias attack

By JOSHUA LYNSEN | Oct 3, 5:47 PM

D.C. police arrested two men today after a gay man was attacked in Georgetown.

Acting police Lt. Brett Parson said the “aggravated assault” occurred near the neighborhood’s canal area around 3 a.m. Parson declined to discuss the circumstances surrounding the attack, but noted it was being handled as a hate crime.

Parson said that police arrested two men soon after the attack. Prosecution was being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which confirmed that both men were in custody today and would be arraigned Saturday.

Parson said the gay man who was injured in the attack was treated and released from a local hospital.

A source familiar with the case told the Blade that the injured man, a 23-year-old Georgetown medical student, was walking along the canal path with a 22-year-old man when two men approached them.

The source said the men, who he described as Muslim and being of “Middle Eastern descent,” asked the other men if they were gay. When one of the men answered yes, the source noted that the man and his companion began using “profane language.”

At one point, the source said, the two men told the gay men, “If you were to do this type of behavior back in our country, you’d be stoned,” and that “a man’s asshole is for shitting not fucking, you fucking faggots.”

Find more after the jump...