“Transgender women tend to get the brunt of the discrimination in the transgender community, says Jake Finney, the anti-violence project manager at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.”

…

“McKenzie lost her job, along with many friends. Family members just didn’t understand.

As for society, “I was humiliated. I lost, like, my dignity,” she says. “It’s like you’re an alien; it’s like you’re not even real. People stare at you, and they don’t realize that they’re staring at you. But you take it all in. You take the whole world in.”

Changsha LGBT Pride Takes Place, Organizer Detained 长沙5•17活动成功举行，组织者被拘 (by qafbeijing)

“On May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia (IDAHO), over a hundred LGBT people and allies from Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangdong, Chongqing, Hubei and Zhejiang gathered at the scenic river belt near Hexi University to fight for their rights and against discrimination. The event was held by the local LGBT rights organization “Hunan With Love”, and was named “2013 China Mainland (Changsha) Anti-Discrimination Summer Event”.

That night, event organizer Xiang Xiaohan and 3 others were taken away by the local Changsha police. The next day, 3 of them were released, but Xiang Xiaohan was administratively detained for 12 days.

While we need to think on how to do better next time, we also have to celebrate the courage of Xiaohan and his team and congratulate them on a very successful event.

5月17日”国际不再恐同日”，由来自北京、香港、广东、重庆、湖北、浙江等地的百余

­名LGBT人士及其支持者，齐聚长沙河西大学城沿江风光带，争取权益反歧视。这是由湖­南本地同性恋权益组织同爱网络主办的”2013年夏季大陆长沙同志反歧视活动”。当夜­，本次活动的组织者向小寒等4人被长沙当地警方带走。第二天，其余3人被放出。而向小­寒被行政拘留12天。

我们要讨论以后怎样可以做的更好，但同时也需要庆祝小寒和他的团队的勇敢，因为这个活­动非常的成功。

A Saskatoon woman who identifies herself as transgender says a bridal shop in the city refused to let her try on dresses as she planned her wedding.

Rohit Singh says she was looking at outfits in Jenny’s Bridal Boutique but when she asked to try one on, she was refused.

Singh said she plans to file a formal complaint about her treatment with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission.

“It might happen to some other transgender that might come to the store and she will hurt the same,” Singh said. “It so embarrassed me and my husband.”

“Discrimination,” Singh said of the experience. “I’m damn sure it’s discrimination.”

The shop owner thought Singh was a man and felt other people in the store were uncomfortable with Singh trying on dresses.

“She said, sorry we don’t allow men to wear dresses here,” Singh recalled. “I said I’m not a man, I’m transgender.”

Singh says she has started the process for a sex change.

When contacted Thursday by CBC News, the bridal shop owner, who declined to provide her surname, said she stands by her decision.

“To me it doesn’t matter,” the owner said. “He looked like a man. There was quite a few brides in the store. If you see a man trying on dresses, you’re going to feel uncomfortable.”

Singh later found a red gown at My Lynh Bridal, on Idylwyld Drive North, where she described the service as excellent. Singh’s marriage took place on Monday.

A public order court in Khartoum, Sudan has begun deliberating a case of nine men who were arrested and beaten for being gay.

According to LGBT rights activists in Sudan, a private gathering of gay friends at a well-known singer’s flat was raided. Those attending were arrested and beaten by Sudanese police, leaving them badly bruised.

In the first court hearing police stated that a flat in Al-Safia neighborhood, in Khartoum, was raided after neighbors spotted and were ‘angered’ by the attire of the men.

The police said after a warrant was issued, the flat was raided by the head of Al-Safia police station along with officers and detectives.

A police officer alleged in court the singer was wearing women’s clothing and two other suspects were in their underwear.

He also said police found in the suspects’ possessions women’s dilka (body scrub), henna, face creams, coffee making utensils and a shisha pipe

Police charged the men with committing indecent acts, a charge denied by the suspects.

Judge Khalid Hamza postponed the court proceedings on Wednesday (20 February) and adjourned the session for this coming week.

The defense lawyer protested in court saying Sudanese media have been drumming up the case by printing inaccurate information and sensationally describing the private meeting as a ‘gay wedding’.

He said this has led the men to suffer further abuse in public and at the mosques, and urged the media to act responsibly and accurately report the facts.

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Javed Jaghi is the first person to challenge Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law from within the country. (Photo courtesy of Maurice Tomlinson)

A Jamaican gay rights activist last week filed the Caribbean island’s first domestic challenge to its anti-sodomy law.

AIDS-Free World on Feb. 7 filed the complaint with the Jamaica Supreme Court on behalf of Javed Jaghai, who said his landlord kicked him out of his home because of his sexual orientation. The Dartmouth College graduate talked about his case in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

“It is a reminder that there is much more work to be done to achieve equality for gay Jamaicans,” Jaghai wrote. “We can sit patiently while our humanity is denied and wait for the paradigm to shift in a generation or two, or we can aggressively agitate for change now. I choose to do the latter.”

Those convicted under Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law, which dates back to 1864, face up to 10 years in prison with hard labor. Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and St. Kitts and Nevis are among the 11 English-speaking Caribbean countries that continue to criminalize homosexual acts.

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WESTMINSTER, Calif. — A group of gay Vietnamese Americans and their supporters in Southern California’s Orange County are asking to be allowed to participate in this weekend’s Tet parade in celebration of the Vietnamese New Year.

Holding signs that proclaimed “Gay rights are human rights,” the group demonstrated Monday afternoon outside the law office of Vietnamese-American community leader attorney Neil Nguyen — one of the organizers of the Tet parade — to protest being excluded from the annual parade.

Members of the local Vietnamese LGBT community march in the 2010 parade.

Natalie Newton, who spearheaded Monday’s demonstration, told the Orange County Register that members of the local Vietnamese LGBT community and their attorneys met with parade organizers earlier in the day, and it was suggested that they host their own parade, rather than be part of the larger event.

“We have to weigh the interests of the community with the interests of the group,” said Ha Son Tran, vice president of the Vietnamese American Federation of Southern California. “We respect their choice, but we want to promote our Vietnamese traditions.”

“They said that if we participate, other groups will pull out,” said Tuan Trong Le, a Rowland Heights resident and co-founder of the Gay Vietnamese Alliance. “They deny our human rights, which they’ve been fighting for all these years. What about us? We’re not humans?” Le said.

The annual parade has been hosted by the city of Westminster, but this year, due to a lack of funding, the city turned over the responsibility of the parade to a community coalition, which includes the Vietnamese Interfaith Council in America.

That council has boycotted the parade for the past three years because of the gay groups’ previous participation.

Attorneys for the LGBT groups said they hope to resolve the issue without going to court, but if necessary, they will file suit.

“In this day and age, there’s no reason to exclude this group, other than sheer discrimination,” said Joe Shaw, an openly gay city councilman from neighboring Huntington Beach. “They deserve to have a seat at the table.”

This is ridiculous. Screening should be based on behaviour, not orientation.

Q.

Canada looks set to end its lifetime ban on men-who-have-sex-with-men giving blood after a Canadian Blood Services recommendation that the ban be reduced to five years.

In September 2011 the Canadian Blood Services board of directors passed a motion committing the organization to re-examine its policy and in December it recommended to Health Canada that men-who-have-sex-with-men who have not been sexually active for five or more years should be considered acceptable donors.

Health Canada is expected to make an official decision on the recommendation within the next three months, meaning some gay men could be donating by the middle of 2013.

A statement by the Canadian Blood Services indicated that it could be open to a further reduction of the ban in years to come.

‘We see this change as a first and prudent step in incremental change on this policy,’ the Canadian Blood Services statement read.

‘It will be reviewed in the near future as additional data emerge and new technologies are implemented.’

Reacting to the news, AIDS Calgary Awareness Association executive director Susan Cress told CBC News Calgary that her organization would like to see the ban on HIV negative men-who-have-sex-with-men and who practice safe sex removed completely.

‘The emotion of this topic needs to go away and the politics of the topic needs to go away,’ Cress said.

‘We just need to see an evidence-based decision … We have the science that backs that a ban is not something that’s going to secure our blood system, so just remove the ban.

In May of 2012 an Australian Red Cross review recommended that Australia’s ban on gay men giving blood be reduced from twelve to six months, while Mexico became the first country in North America to screen donors based on sexual behavior rather than orientation in December of last year.

Ryan Andresen will not receive the Eagle Scout badge because he does not adhere to a required ‘duty of God’

Gay teenager, Ryan Andresen, has been denied the highest Boy Scouts honour, the Eagle Scout badge, by the national Boy Scouts of America organisation, despite a recommendation for approval from a review board at his local council, and a 460,000 strong petition in his favour.

PinkNews reported on Tuesday that the Mount Diablo-Silverado council had forwarded his application on to the Boy Scouts, with a recommendation to approve his application, however it has now emerged that the council staff executive will not forward on the application.

The national organisation of the Boy Scouts of America has said it still had not approved his application. BSA spokesperson, Deron Smith, said:

“The Eagle application was forwarded, by a volunteer, to the local council but it was not approved because this young man proactively stated that he does not agree to Scouting’s principle of ‘duty of God’ and does not meet Scouting’s membership requirements,” said a prepared statement from Smith. “Therefore, he is not eligible to receive the rank of Eagle.”

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So, while fighting for freedom and democracy, it is OK to be bigoted and theocratic? No wonder the US has such a hard time winning the hearts and minds of those they invade.

Q.

Rep. Adam Smith (right) and Sen. Carl Levin (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The final version of major Pentagon budget legislation includes watered-down “conscience” language similar to the anti-gay provision found in the House version of the bill, according to a top House Democrat on defense issues.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, affirmed during a Capitol Hill news conference Tuesday language along the lines of Section 536 of the House bill made its way into the conference report for the fiscal year 2013 defense authorization bill, although the scope of the language is more limited.

Other language found under Section 537 of the House bill prohibiting same-sex marriages from taking place on military bases, Smith said, was removed from the final version of the bill. Smith made the remarks in response to a question from the Washington Blade.

“We struck the second provision,” Smith said. “There is modified conscience clause language still in the bill … Basically, you can believe what you believe and not be punished for it, but if your actions based on those beliefs are counter to the Uniform Code of Military Justice or counter to what’s necessary, that can be held against you. But you can’t be punished solely for your beliefs. We modified that first language, struck the second language.”

Asked whether the language applies to only chaplains or all service members, Smith replied, “Anybody.”

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More hopeful news from the Caribbean! Baby steps, but at least they are in the right direction.

Q.

Cabinet. Minister in the Ministry of Gender, Child and Youth Development Ramona Ramdial

Homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals in T&T will no longer be discriminated against if the national gender policy is approved by Cabinet. Minister in the Ministry of Gender, Child and Youth Development Ramona Ramdial says there is a proposal in the policy that  a person should not be discriminated against because of his or her sexual orientation. Asked if that was promoting gay rights, Ramdial said: “Whether we say it or not, it is already an informal part of our society.

 “It is phrased differently (in the policy). It’s more of a human-rights thing, and according to international standards. “The gender policy has been drafted from a human-rights perspective, and is more about equal opportunities.” She noted that the gay groups with whom discussions were held were more interested in equal opportunity in the workplace rather than same-sex marriage.

“They felt they were being discriminated against in the workplace. They were not thinking so far ahead as same-sex marriages.” Colin Robinson, of the group Caiso (Coalition Advocating for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation), was delighted at the news.

“I am thrilled,” he told the T&T Guardian yesterday evening. “We believe the gay, lesbian and bisexual community in T&T should have the same protection against discrimination that every other citizen enjoys. We are in the 21st century.” Robinson said the group had never advocated for “gay rights,” but about not being discriminated against in the areas of housing, employment and the provision of goods and services.

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Two out of every three Americans admit that anti-gay discrimination is a “serious problem” in this country, and nine out of ten LGBT adults agree. A new Gallup/USA Today poll also finds that almost half of all Americans believe it is difficult for LGBT people to live openly in their community, while almost the same number of LGBT adults agree. A related Gallup poll yesterday found three out of four Americans under 30 — or a huge 73 percent — support same-sex marriage equality, as do approximately 50 percent of those between the ages of 30 and 64. Overall, Gallup found 53 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage.

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