LGBTI History Month: CeCe McDonald

CeCe McDonald – October 25

“I felt like they wanted me to hate myself as a trans woman.”

CeCe McDonald is a transgender prison-reform activist. While on her way to the grocery store with friends, she encountered a drunken group outside of a bar. Seeing McDonald and her friends, the group began taunting them with racial, homophobic and transphobic slurs. After taking a stance that their hate speech would not be tolerated, McDonald was assaulted with a shattered drinking glass across the face. The attack perforated her cheek and lacerated her salivary gland. (more)

Irene Monroe: Confronting echoes of the AIDS hysteria as we battle Ebola

Rev. Irene Monroe | San Diego Gay & Lesbian NewS | October25, 2014

Exactly a decade ago this month I received an email flagged as urgent from Monrovia, Liberia. It was from Lee Johnson, then coordinator of “Liberian Youths Against HIV/AIDS.” “Presently, the HIV/AIDS scourge is deeply eating into the fabric of our society and there is little being done to bring this to a halt.

Therefore, some of us youths have come together to be able to bring awareness to our fellow youths on the danger of HIV/AIDS and other STD’s. But, at present, we are not receiving much from the locals and that is why we have decided to get in contact with you,” Johnson wrote.

More Photos Johnson wanted to know if the U.S. knew how the HIV/AIDS epidemic was ravaging his city and countryside; and if the U.S. knew how possibly could his distant cousins of the Diaspora African-Americans and his queer allies – LGBTQ Americans – simply be silent and not act.

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Bill Shorten tells Christian Lobby he supports same-sex marriage

Lisa Cox | The Age | October 25, 2014

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten: a supporter of gay marriage. Photo: Andrew Meares

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has become the first Australian political leader to confront the Australian Christian Lobby on same-sex marriage, telling them he is a Christian who believes in marriage equality.

“I believe in God and I believe in marriage equality,” he told the ACL national conference in Canberra.

“I’m a Christian and a supporter of marriage equality under the law.”

“I believe in God and I believe in marriage equality”: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten addresses the Australian Christian Lobby. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Religion should never be used as an instrument of division or exclusion, he said.

 

“I believe our current law does exclude some individuals it says to them that your relationship is not equally valued by the state, that your love is less equal under the law.

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4 Illegal Drugs that Could Safely Treat Depression

The Guardian /|David Derbyshire | AlterNet | October 25, 2014

 Next year, if all goes to plan, a dozen patients with clinical  depression will be invited to a UK laboratory and given psilocybin – the psychedelic ingredient found in magic mushrooms. Over the next four or five hours, many of these volunteers will experience dream-like euphoria as colours, smells and sounds become more intense, perception of time distorts and their sense of self dissolves. Some may feel a surge of electricity through their bodies, sudden clarity of thought or hilarity. Others may experience anxiety, confusion or paranoia. These hallucinogenic effects will be short-lived, but the impact of the drug on the volunteers could be long-lasting.

There is tentative evidence that psilocybin, along with other psychedelic drugs, can “reset” abnormal functioning of the brain if given in a safe, controlled way as part of therapy. For those raised on the post-1960s dogma that magic mushrooms and LSD unleash mental illness, trigger flashbacks and cause personality changes, the idea that they could actually cure disorders of the brain is mind-blowing.

The pilot study will involve patients who have failed to respond to conventional treatment and is the idea of Professor David Nutt and Dr Robin Carhart-Harris at Imperial College’s Neuropsychopharmacology Centre in London. They argue that psychedelic drugs could prove beneficial to millions of people and that it is time to end the 50-year stigma surrounding their therapeutic use. Nutt and Carhart-Harris have already used MRI scanners to study changes in the brain while 15 volunteers took psilocybin. A similar study on 20 volunteers given LSD has just finished.

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Jimmy Carter: Let States Decide Marriage Equality

Carlos Santoscoy | On Top Magazine | October 25, 2014

Former President Jimmy Carter has said the states, not the federal government, should decide whether to allow gay couples to marry.

“I’m kind of inclined to let the states decide individually,” Carter said during a wide-ranging interview with ABC affiliate WFAA’s Inside Texas Politics to be broadcast Sunday morning.

“As you see, more and more states are deciding on gay marriage every year. If Texas doesn’t want to have gay marriage, then I think that’s a right for Texas people to decided,” said Carter, 90.

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Protesters Call for Justice for Transgender Filipina Allegedly Killed by Marine

Adam Hudson | The Post News Group | Truthout | October 25, 2014

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Image: Candlelight vigil via Shutterstock)

On the evening of Wednesday, October 15, around 100 people gathered in San Francisco’s Union Square to hold a candlelight vigil for Jennifer Laude, a 26-year-old transgender Filipina woman who was allegedly murdered by a U.S. Marine in the Philippines last Saturday night.

The event was spearheaded by BAYAN-USA and GABRIELA-SF and supported by local Filipino, people of color, women’s rights, and LGBT activists. Gatherers expressed sadness and anger at Gaude’s murder at the hands of U.S. Marine Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton.

Late last Saturday night, Jennifer Laude apparently checked into a hotel in Olongapo City, northwest of the capital Manila, with Pemberton, a white male U.S. Marine she met at Ambyanz Disco bar.

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Leyonhjelm urges government to confront marriage reform

Lisa Cox | the Age | October 25, 2014

Seeking equality: Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm. Photo: Andrew Meares

Crossbench senator David Leyonhjelm has lambasted the Abbott government for a lack of political courage to confront marriage reform.

The Liberal Democratic Party senator says anxiety among Coalition MPs about their pre-selections for the 2016 election is affecting the timing of a marriage equality debate in Parliament.

Senator Leyonhjelm has been pressuring Prime Minister Tony Abbott to grant his MPs a free vote on marriage reform.

“I believe in God and I believe in marriage equality”: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten addresses the Australian Christian Lobby. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

But he recently delayed plans to introduce a private member’s bill to change the marriage act and is still deciding whether to proceed this year or hold off for several months.

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It comes after Opposition Leader Bill Shorten used a keynote address to the Australian Christian Lobby on Saturday to confront the conservative lobby’s agenda and declare that his support for same-sex marriage was consistent with his Christian values.

“I believe in God and I believe in marriage equality,” Mr Shorten said.

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Ugandan Government Lip Service on Repressive Legislation Report

Melanie Nathan | Oblogdeeoblogda | October 24, 2014.

On October 16, we reported that Amnesty International concluded a report on repressive and discriminatory legislation enacted over the last 18 months in Uganda that has led to increasing state repression, violence, homophobic and gender-based discrimination. The following day Amnesty International hand delivered the report to the new Ugandan Prime Minister, Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda.  Prime Minister Rugunda assured Amnesty International, a global human rights watchdog group, that the government will review issues that the organization raised in this report.

“Issues will be looked into, the government will examine the Report,” Dr Rugunda told Amnesty’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, Sarah Jackson. The meeting was at his office on Friday, during which she gave him copies of the latest Report.

The report was launched at Serena Hotel in Kampala on the previous day. During the meeting with Prime Minister Rugunda, Jackson called for a review of the Public Order Management Act, the Anti-Pornography Act and the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

According to Jackson, the laws should be reviewed to prevent what she called violation of freedoms of assembly and of expression, accusing the legal framework of failure to recognize the basic inalienable rights of individuals.

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Dolly Parton Says Gay Fans Relate To The Personal Struggles She’s Gone Through

Jeremy Kinser  | Queerty | October 25, 2014

They know that I completely love and accept them, as I do all people. I’ve struggled enough in my life to be appreciated and understood. I’ve had to go against all kinds of people through the years just to be myself. I think everybody should be allowed to be who they are, and to love who they love. I don’t think we should be judgmental. Lord, I’ve got enough problems of my own to pass judgment on somebody else.”

 

— Dolly Parton speaking to Billboard and explaining (for what must be the hundredth time) why she has such an enormous LGBT following 

Wind and Solar Create More Jobs When They’re Locally Owned, Report Finds

Kayla Schultz | YES! Magazine | Reader Supported News | October 25, 2014

t last month’s People’s Climate March, among the most popular signs were ones supporting renewable energy like wind and solar as the best way to avoid a climate catastrophe. And because of the urgency of the situation, it’s easy to think that we should be building up renewables as much as we can.

But, from an economic point of view, it turns out that not all renewable energy is created equal.

One main difference is between energy generators that are locally owned and ones owned by some faraway entity, and a new report from the Institute of Self-Reliance presents the details. The report, written by Senior Researcher John Farrell, makes two main points: Locally owned renewable energy projects create more economic benefits than absentee-owned projects, and they are less likely to encounter community opposition. By enacting policies to support local renewables, Farrell argues, states and counties stand to gain thousands of jobs and millions of dollars.

Farrell’s report presents striking data from an earlier study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which showed that wind power projects often provide twice as many jobs when they are locally owned. Farrell provides this example:

A 20-megawatt wind energy project built in Minnesota but owned by Spanish firm Iberdrola would add $20 million to the state’s economy and create about 10 long-term jobs. But if that same project were owned by Minnesota farmers or Kandiyohi Power Cooperative, it would create 20 long-term jobs and generate as much as $68 million in economic activity for the state.

The benefit to a local economy depends on various aspects of a project, such as its size, location, and the amount of local labor and materials used.

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