“California governor signs gay conversion therapy ban”

Taken from: http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/01/us/california-gay-therapy-ban/index.html

October 1, 2012

California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill banning therapy aimed at turning gay kids straight, saying such efforts “will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.” ”This bill bans non-scientific ‘therapies’ that have driven young people to depression and suicide,” Brown tweeted.

The California Senate passed the bill in May. It will kick in on January 1.

The bill prohibits efforts to change the sexual orientation of patients under age 18. But it’s facing a legal challenge from a group seeking an injunction against it. The Pacific Justice Institute told CNN it was filing a lawsuit Monday.

The American Psychiatric Association says the potential risk of so-called “reparative therapy” is great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior. Therapists’ alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce the self-hatred already felt by patients, the association says. ”The longstanding consensus of the behavioral and social sciences and the health and mental health professions is that homosexuality per se is a normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation,” the association says.

After the bill passed the state Senate, Equality California spokeswoman Rebekah Orr praised the “right first step in making sure that young people are protected from these unscrupulous therapists who are really engaging in therapeutic deception that is based on junk science.” Equality California describes itself as the largest statewide advocacy group in California working for “full equality” for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

But the president of an organization that promotes reparative therapy, the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, called the bill “another triumph of political activism over objective science.” ”In NARTH’s view, a truly scientific response would call for more and better research to answer these questions, not a legislative ban that runs roughshod over professional judgment and parental choice,” said Christopher Rosik, a psychologist. In a statement on NARTH’s website, the group says the law will seriously jeopardize the livelihoods of “licensed therapists in California who would otherwise be willing to assist minor clients in modifying their unwanted same-sex attractions and behaviors.” It also will “supplant the rights of parents,” the group says. The Pacific Justice Institute, which describes itself as a network of more than 1,000 attorneys “defending religious, parental, and other constitutional rights,” argues that the law violates the First Amendment. ”Of all the freedom-killing bills we have seen in our legislature the last several years, this is among the worst,” said Brad Dacus, the group’s president and founder, in a written statement.

But Equality California said, “This law will ensure that state-licensed therapists can no longer abuse their power to harm LGBT youth and propagate the dangerous and deadly lie that sexual orientation is an illness or disorder that can be ‘cured.’”

If a legal battle follows, it could center around the questions of whether such therapy constitutes child abuse and whether a ban is unconstitutional.

Peter Drake, who once participated in reparative therapy, said the bill protects youths from “a very, very dangerous therapy that doesn’t work and leaves a lot of people feeling despair and hopelessness.”

Ryan Kendall, who went through this type of therapy when he was 13, told CNN it began after his mother read his diary and discovered he was gay. In the therapy, he was consistently told his sexuality was a choice and could “be fixed,” he said. ”I never believed that. I know I’m gay just like I know I’m short and I’m half Hispanic. I’ve never thought that those facts would change. It’s part of my core fundamental identity. So the parallel would be sending me to tall camp and saying, ‘If you try very hard, one day you can be 6-foot-1.’” Kendall said psychologist Joseph Nicolosi treated him. His parents provided CNN with copies of bills from Nicolosi’s office, but Nicolosi said he did not remember treating someone by that name. He told CNN he views the therapy he provides as “trying to bring out the heterosexuality” in someone. The therapy is not harmful, and he treats only people who want to change, Nicolosi said.

A leading psychologist in the field of reparative therapy, George Rekers, treated a boy named Kirk Murphy, whose story was told in a 2011 CNN report. Rekers considered Kirk a success story, writing that ‘his feminine behavior was gone,’ — proof, Rekers said, that homosexuality can be prevented. But Murphy’s family said he never stopped being gay. He hanged himself at the age of 38. Despite allegations by the family that Rekers’ therapy ultimately led to the suicide decades later, Rekers told CNN that scientifically, it “would be inaccurate to assume that it was the therapy,” and that he grieves for the parents. ”Two independent psychologists with me had evaluated him and said he was better adjusted after treatment,” Rekers said. ”I only meant to help, do the best I could with the parents,” he added. Rekers’ days as a prominent anti-gay champion came to an end after he hired a male escort to accompany him on a trip to Europe. He denied any sexual contact or awareness at the time that the escort offered sexual favors.

Earlier this year, psychiatrist Robert L. Spitzer apologized for his 2003 study of reparative therapy, which suggested that it could help gays and lesbians become straight. He said it was deeply flawed. ”I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy,” Spitzer said in a letter to the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. “I also apologize to any gay person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative therapy works with some ‘highly motivated’ individuals.”

Kendall said the therapy he underwent “led me to periods of homelessness, to drug abuse, to spending a decade of my life wanting to kill myself. It led to so much pain and struggle. And I want them to know that what they do hurts people. It hurts children. It has no basis in fact. And they need to stop.

“Hong Kong billionaire’s daughter Gigi Chao bombarded with marriage offers and nude photos”

Taken from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/hongkong/9571102/Hong-Kong-billionaires-daughter-Gigi-Chao-bombarded-with-marriage-offers-and-nude-photos.html

September 27, 2012

Gigi Chao, daughter of property tycoon Cecil Chao, entered a civil partnership with her girlfriend of seven years in a ceremony in Paris five months ago.

But Mr Chao, 76, has told the South China Morning Post that reports of his daughter’s civil ceremony were “false”. He announced the HK$500 million dowry earlier this week. It has sparked a deluge of offers. Speaking on Thursday Ms Chao, 33, said she had received about 200 proposals and that the number of people following her on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook had jumped by 1,500 since her father’s announcement. ”People are contacting me on Facebook, by email, on Twitter. It’s ridiculous. I can’t sort out the serious proposals from the half-hearted ones. I can’t make head or tail of it,” she told The Daily Telegraph.

Ms Chao, an executive director of her father’s company, Cheuk Nang, said that in addition to receiving enquiries from gentlemen who say they are looking for love and ask her out on a date, she has received some introductions that are less conventional. Some hopefuls have attached nude photos of themselves or provided information about their financial situations. She has received proposals from all over the world, including Oklahoma, Nigeria, India, Turkey and Bulgaria. Numerous bankers have contacted her. ”Some of them had obviously done their research, you know, gone on my Facebook and looked at my background,” she said. “Some of them are quite poetic.”

But far from getting angry at her father, she said she was “touched”. ”At first I was entertained by it, and then that entertainment turned into the realisation and conviction that I am a really lucky girl to have such a loving daddy, because it’s really sweet of him to do something like this as an expression of his fatherly love,” she said.

While Ms Chao knew that her father would go public denying the union, she did not know he would offer the reward. “I think the HK$500 million really came as an afterthought.”

Even though Mr Chao has not accepted the union, Ms Chao said she loved her father and that they had a good relationship. “It’s not that he can’t accept me,” she said. “It’s that he can’t accept how society would view me and the status that it would incur. Marriage is still a form of social status. I do understand him. I understand why he’s doing this.” She added: “But I don’t appreciate getting 1,500 emails.”

Ms Chao, who also runs Haut Monde Talent, a model management and PR firm, met her partner, Sean Yeung, who also goes by Sean Eav, while they were working together. Ms Chao she was drawn to Ms Yeung because she was straightforward, not manipulative, honest, had strong family values and cared about her friends deeply. “I’m very happy when I’m with her,” she said. Ms Chao, who has dated men and women, said she has always been open and honest about her relationships to her family. However her mother has not accepted her sexuality. Ms Chao recalled that when she told her mother about a relationship with a girl when she was 16 years old, her mother “banged her head against the wall, literally”.

Although they have become more visible in recent years, members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in Hong Kong are still largely not accepted by the vast majority of the population. Ms Chao believes gay rights are picking up, but said work was still needed on the social mentality. Mr Chao is not so conventional himself. He made headlines in 2003 when his Rolls-Royce caught fire while he and his girlfriend were inside. The tycoon has never married and once claimed to have had “intimate relations” with about 10,000 women.

“Chick-Fil-A Agrees To Cease Funding To Anti-Gay Organizations, Chicago LGBT Group Claims”

Taken from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/19/chick-fil-a-anti-gay-organizations-funding-ceased_n_1896580.html

September 19, 2012

Could Chick-fil-A be turning over a new leaf?

A Chicago-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocacy group reports that the restaurant chain – which was at the epicenter of a media firestorm this summer after its president confirmed his company’s anti-gay stance — has agreed to cease donations to right-wing groups that oppose same-sex marriage.

In a press release, the Civil Rights Agenda (TCRA) cites Alderman Moreno as confirming that Chick-fil-A officials declared in an internal document that the company ”will treat every person equally, regardless of sexual orientation.” TCRA reportedly served as an advisor to Alderman as he negotiated these concessions with Chick-fil-A executives, though details of exactly what those negotiations entailed remain unclear.

“We are very pleased with this outcome and thank Alderman Moreno for his work on this issue,” Anthony Martinez, executive director of TCRA, said in the statement. “I think the most substantive part of this outcome is that Chick-fil-A has ceased donating to organizations that promote discrimination, specifically against LGBT civil rights. It has taken months of discussion, both with our organization and with the Alderman, for Chick-fil-A to come forward with these concessions and we feel this is a strong step forward for Chick-fil-A and the LGBT community, although it is only a step.”

Said to be titled “Chick-fil-A: Who We Are,” the fast food chain’s “internal memo” reportedly states that they will “treat every person with honor, dignity and respect-regardless of their beliefs, race, creed, sexual orientation and gender.”

Among those to praise the document was Rick Garcia, policy advisor for TCRA, though he noted his organization still hoped the company would adopt an anti-discrimination policy at the corporate level. “As we have heard from gay employees that work for Chick-fil-A, there is a culture of discrimination within the company and we would like to ensure that employees can speak out and call attention to those practices without fear of reprisal,” Garcia noted. “It takes time to change the culture of any institution and steps like a corporate policy ensure that progress is made.”

TCRA’s statement appears to confirm earlier reports which indicated that Chick-fil-A might be reconsidering their LGBT stance. Last month, reliable sources who did not wish to be identified told the HuffPost Gay Voices team that Dan Cathy, the fast food chain’s president, “welcomed campus leaders to a private luncheon in Atlanta…to discuss diversity, hospitality and the opportunity to find common ground,” though no further information regarding exactly which college groups were present was provided.

The recent backlash against the Atlanta-based fast food chain was sparked by Cathy’s remarks in a July 16 interview with the Baptist Press. When writer K. Allan Blume asked Cathy, the son of company founder S. Truett Cathy, about the restaurant group’s “support of the traditional family,” the president glibly responded, “Well, guilty as charged.”

Cathy went on to note, “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that…we know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”

Yet even before the national controversy, students at colleges and universities have been among the most vocal critics of Chick-fil-A’s well-reported donations to groups like Exodus International, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. In February, New York University student Hillary Dworkoski launched a petition against the fast food chain, calling for NYU to close its Chick-fil-A franchise, reportedly the only one in Manhattan.

“Finally, Mother’s Day Cards That Actually Make Sense”

Happy Mother’s Day! :) 

Taken from: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/05/mamas_day_e-cards.html

May 10, 2012

A group of activists and mothers in Oakland, Calif. have started an annual Mother’s Day tradition that would probably put Hallmark to shame. Fed up with the mainstream image of mothers as domestic, middle class, and white, they’ve made a real effort over the past two years to celebrate who they call “mamas on the margins”: all those single, queer, immigrant, and young mothers whose stories are often glossed over by corporate card makers.

“I can’t find a Mother’s Day card that looks at our identities in a way that is sentimental for me and my mom,” says Shanelle Matthews, communications coordinator at Forward Together, an Oakland-based organization that’s leading the e-Card drive through its Strong Families initiative. Matthews grew up as one of three kids in a single-parent black household, and wants to celebrate her mother’s hard work. “This campaign is personally close to be because I can finally say something to my mom on Mother’s Day that’s actually of cultural relevance and value.”

Matthews says that the group is aiming to “shift the narrative of “how people think about family. We wanted to create a line of greeting cards that spoke to the marginalized moms in our communities whose faces we never see on the front of those cards.”

Last year, the group released a series of video tributes to young mothers. This time around, they decided to strip the concept down even further by offering up a series of beautifully designed e-Cards that supporters can personalize and send on Mother’s Day. All of the cards feature brown-skinned, non-traditional families and suggest that the act of love is often selfless and, yes, political.

The process of sending a card is pretty simple. Viewers have their choice of 18 cards that they can then customize with a personal message and send to whomever they please. Once the card is sent, supporters can also take a look at one of two online petitions to end funding for abstinence-only education or help support recently incarcerated parents. At present, the cards are only available online, but Matthews says that plans are in the works to create cards that can be distributed in person. “We know it’s not always in the best interests of greeting card companies to highlight the needs of moms on the margins,” says Matthews. “If they did then that would be recognizing that there’s something askew.”

And there’s been plenty askew in the American political climate. The Mamas Day project is in many ways a breath of fresh air in year that’s been resoundingly hard on women, especially those who are poor and of color. While Republicans continue to deny their hand in launching a “War on Women”, the country’s political climate has put women’s bodies and choices on center stage. Gender reporter Akiba Solomon has written about how GOP attacks on Planned Parenthood, a vital source of reproductive care for thousands of women, have continued unabated. Not too long ago, Colorlines.com writer Miriam Zoila Perez retraced the long and troubling history of the anti-abortion movement. (Perez also helms the blog Radical Doula and is a consultant with the Strong Families initiative.)

The group has also kept a running dialogue on motherhood up as part of its Mamas Day Our Way blog series. It’s a candid look at mamahood from varying perspectives: the ambivalent, could-be mom; the mom battling against environmental racism to help fight her kids’ asthma; the ecstatic, new LGBT family.

The group reached out to eight artists to design the cards, including Melanie Cervantes and Nikki McClure. And they say that the experience has been overwhelmingly positive.

Artist Joy Liu said she loved making the cards. “Designing a card specifically for a mother who has experienced loss, and a card celebrating an immigrant mom, was very thought provoking for me as an artist,” said Liu. “I think the bigger vision of motherhood that these cards are promoting is powerful, and I loved the process of depicting it visually.”

“Police unable to prevent rising violence against gays, Emo youths in Iraq”

Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/police-unable-prevent-rising-violence-against-gays-emo-201307745.html

March 11, 2012

Young people who identify themselves as so-called Emos are being brutally killed at an alarming rate in Iraq, where militias have distributed hit lists of victims and security forces say they are unable to stop crimes against the subculture that is widely perceived in Iraq as being gay.

Officials and human rights groups estimated as many as 58 Iraqis who are either gay or believed to be gay have been killed in the last six weeks alone — forecasting what experts fear is a return to the rampant hate crimes against homosexuals in 2009. This year, eyewitnesses and human rights groups say some of the victims have been bludgeoned to death by militiamen smashing in their skulls with heavy cement blocks.

A recent list distributed by militants in Baghdad’s Shiite Sadr City neighbourhood gives the names or nicknames of 33 people and their home addresses. At the top of the paper are a drawing of two handguns flanking a Quranic greeting that extolls God as merciful and compassionate.

Then follows a chilling warning. ”We warn in the strongest terms to every male and female debauchee,” the Shiite militia hit list says. “If you do not stop this dirty act within four days, then the punishment of God will fall on you at the hands of Mujahideen.” All but one of the targets are men.

It’s not clear why the killings have stepped up in recent months. Many Iraqis are religiously conservative and have struggled against the western influence that has infiltrated their once-closed society in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Like many places in the Muslim world, homosexuality is extremely taboo in Iraq. Anyone perceived to be gay is considered a fair target, and the perpetrators of the violence often go free. The militants likely behind the violence intimidate the local police and residents so there is even less incentive to investigate the crimes.

Emo is short for “emotional” and in the West generally identifies teens or young adults who listen to alternative music, dress in black, and have radical hairstyles. Emos are not necessarily gay, but they are sometimes stereotyped as such.

To Iraqis, “Emo” is widely synonymous with “gay.” John Drake, an Iraq specialist for the British-based AKE security consulting firm, said Iraqi Emos are getting their hair cut so they aren’t immediately identified, and therefore targeted, in the wake of the new threats.

In the southern Baghdad neighbourhood of Dora, a mostly-Sunni area, 35-year-old Hassan is afraid to leave his home. He plans on cutting his shoulder-length hair soon, but fears that his hormone-injected breast enhancements will be detected if he is stopped and patted down at one of the ubiquitous security checkpoints across the city. ”Today I went out of my house with a friend but we were severely harassed — some people told us that we need the double blocks,” said Hassan, referring to the cement blocks that attackers use to beat people. “I was scared so we returned home to hide.”

Hassan’s friend, a man who identified himself as 26-year-old Mustafa, called the recent hate crimes “the strongest and deadliest campaign against us.”

Hassan said he is gay but does not consider himself an Emo. He and Mustafa agreed to talk on condition that only their first names be used for fear they would be attacked if identified. One of Hassan’s friends, Saif Raad Asmar Abboudi, was beaten to death with concrete blocks in mid-February in a case that terrified gay Iraqis and panicked human rights watchdogs. “I feel very sorry for him,” Hassan said.

A Feb. 18 police report all but closes the case on Saif’s killing. It shows an initial investigation was completed and “the reason for the incident is unknown at the moment because the criminal is unknown.”

An Interior Ministry official said 58 young people have been killed across Iraq in recent weeks by unidentified gangs who accused them of being, as he described it, Emo. Sixteen were killed in Sadr City alone, security and political officials there said. Nine of the men were killed by bludgeoning, and seven were shot. No arrests have been made.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity, as did many of the people interviewed for this article, in fear of violent reprisals.

The Qur’an specifically forbids homosexuality, and Islamic militias in Iraq long have targeted gays in what they term “honour killings” to preserve the religious idea that families should be led by a husband and a wife. Those who do not abide by this belief are issued death sentences by the militias, according to the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, a human rights watchdog group. The same militias target women who have extramarital affairs.

“There is a strong wave of campaigns by clerics against homosexuals now,” said Ali al-Hilli, chairman of Iraqi LGBT, a human rights group based in London that provides two safe houses in Iraq for gays. “The police do not provide protection for them.” He said an estimated 750 gay Iraqis have been killed because of their sexual orientation since 2006.

Iraqi lawmaker Khalid Shwani, a Kurd, said targeting Emos because of their alternative lifestyles reflects an a growing intolerance of Iraqis’ civil rights. ”Those people are free to choose what they wear, or to believe in, or how they choose their clothes or the way they think,” Shwani said. He called on parliament to address the issue. ”The Emo of today could be any person tomorrow who tries to follow a specific way of living,” he said.

The killings have drawn so much attention that even hardline Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr weighed in Saturday, calling Emos “crazy fools” and a “lesion on the Muslim community” in a statement on his website. However, al-Sadr did not condone the violence, telling his followers “to end the scourge of Emo within the law.”

Iraq’s government has been wary about the Emo allure among its youth for months.

An August 2011 letter from the Education Ministry urges schools to crack down on what it considered abhorrent behaviour, including allowing camera phones in school “because students would use it for dirty movies,” says the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. Similarly, it prohibited students from leaving their classes during school hours “for any reason, because they might gather in the nearby cafes or coffee shops to practice dirty activities.” The letter attributed the social atrocities to “Emo, which is an infiltrated phenomenon in our society began to appear in some of our schools.”

Iraqi police squads who are specifically assigned to protect social minorities say they are almost powerless to stop the threats against gays and Emos. One officer assigned to the so-called social abuse squads said police are meeting with clerics to ask for help in urging the public against killing what he described as “the Emo or the vampires or Satan worshippers.”

The police official said he had no statistics to show how prevalent the violence is. ”It is true that there have been killings in Sadr City targeting these young men,” he said. “It is not right to end their lives in this manner.”

“‘Glee’s’ Max Adler on Karofsky’s ‘Incredibly Brave’ Story (Q&A)”

There are only a handful of Glee episodes that really stand out to me, one of them being last week’s “On My Way.” Addressing not only the issue of bullying, cyber-bullying, and suicide, the episode also ends with a brief look into texting while driving. Below is an interview with Max Adler, the actor who plays Dave Karofsky in this week’s cliffhanger winter finale. 

Taken from: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/glee-karofsky-max-adler-interview-293359

February 21, 2012

Max Adler‘s Dave Karofsky came full circle on Tuesday’s Glee when his character attempted suicide after being outed and bullied by a football teammate at school.

For the character, it culminates a story line that dates back to Season 2 when the jock would harass and bully the openly gay Kurt (Chris Colfer) to the point of threatening his life, forcing him to transfer out of McKinley to escape the torment. Later, Dave forced a kiss with Kurt who realized that his tormenter is gay and struggling to come to terms with his sexual orientation.

For his part, Adler has used his recurring status with the Fox musical dramedy to speak out against bullying as part of the nonprofit organization City Hearts, and has joined the Trevor Project’s It Gets Better campaign to encourage other LGBT that they’re not alone. (Tuesday’s episode also featured a PSA for Trevor.)

The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Adler to discuss what went into the powerful episode, which also shines a light on the dangers of cyber bullying, as well as what he hopes viewers take away from the hour.

The Hollywood Reporter: What kind of responsibility to the LGBT community do you feel playing this role?
Max Adler: I’ve talked to many people that have said how real that character is for them and how they see themselves as a Karofsky or they know a Karofsky or they knew a Karofsky. There is a responsibility to play that role and it’s just an incredible honor. For this storyline, I’m thrilled that the writers went there.

On Glee, I think people will be a little, “How can you do this in a comedy show?” But to me, it’s the paradox that you’re showing high schoolers with their wide-open future and optimism and hope and they can do anything, but you can’t show that without showing the struggles, fears and anxieties that one has about not knowing the next step or not knowing who you are or what to do. It’s necessary to go there and to show that on TV so that you can appreciate the other side of things.

THR: How much of Karofsky’s storyline were you aware when you got the call to return?
Adler: There was never a discussion about the storyline. It’s incredibly brave on their part to push the envelope and treat this character with the integrity and the honesty that he deserves and to show the struggle and then the outcome of hope when you see his life 10 years into the future with somebody who loves him for who he is. That’s the important message to see: there will be somebody out there who will accept and love you for your true self and to not worry about society’s limitations and what people expect of you; it’s OK to be who you are and you can be happy with that.

Beyond relating to people who are bullied or are contemplating suicide, it was also important to show how teachers, peers and coaches all saw these warning signs but because of society’s limitations and the fear of talking about things openly and freely, no one really stepped up. Even in the locker room, everyone teams up against him and if just one or two of those guys would have had Dave’s back, it would have been a completely different outcome. We’re all in this world together; let’s drown out the negative voices and be positive and teach people that it is OK to be your true self.

THR: Considering your involvement with City Hearts and Trevor Project’s It Gets Better campaigns, what was your first reaction when you read the script?
Adler: It was a complete rainbow of emotions when I read it. There’s excitement of being able to send a message like this into the world when people really need it and need to be spoken to honestly. It comes with the fear of representing it honestly and accurately. There was a lot of work, prep, research and discussions with director Brad Buecker about the best and most honest way to tell this story. Before we shot the bedroom scene, it was a closed set; it was just me, the director and a few crewmembers and we sat down in the bedroom and looked at everything and talked about what this means and what this kid’s going through and his mindset.

THR: Why was it important for Glee to acknowledge cyber bullying?
Adler: He sees his worst fears are realized in that [his sexuality is] out there now. In doing my work with City Hearts and It Gets Better, I’m finding that it’s more harmful than face-to-face bullying. People behind a computer can be meaner with what they’re saying because they’re not seeing the repercussions face-to-face and they don’t have to deal with seeing someone heartbroken and crushed. It’s really scary and that’s why they wrote it into the script: cyber bullying has become an epidemic.

THR: What was filming the bedroom scene like? How did your discussions with Buecker — and the people you’ve met through your anti-bullying charitable work — influence how you played it?
Adler: You go to a very dark place. Brad set up a few cameras outside of the room and watched Karofsky in his room for six or seven minutes. I don’t want to say I was possessed, but there’s this incredible feeling that comes over you and you start thinking about everything that you’ve gone through and how Karofsky can’t express himself. For Karofsky, one door after another was slammed; he couldn’t be his bully, bravado, macho self at McKinley. He tried the gay bar thing and that door was slammed in his face — it was Sebastian in this episode. He tried the soft Valentine’s Day gorilla-grams approach with Kurt and that door got slammed in his face. Then you see the Facebook messages and it’s just you’re trapped within yourself. There are no questions to ask anymore; there’s no one to reach out to. If he wants to be sensitive, it’s portrayed as a sign of weakness from society. To me, he’s truly what Glee represents — the underdog and someone who’s very awkward with himself and he’s not your typical jock.

I’ve heard this from fans, but there’s a lot of times that gay people are portrayed on TV and movies as a very specific kind of way that you don’t really see a burly dude usually represented as being soft and sensitive. He’s very unsure of who he is, how he’s supposed to act, what he’s supposed to say and how he’s supposed to look. So when you start thinking about all that, you get to a really interesting place in your mind and the tears kind of come out of you because it’s heartbreaking. The line in the hospital scene with Kurt where he explains what led to his decision and how his mom told him he had a disease and that maybe he could be cured — I read that and I was crying. It’s your own parent not accepting you and telling you you have a disease. It’s so gut wrenching and heartbreaking that it was hard not to live with that in that bedroom.

THR: Which gives Karofsky and Santana (Naya Rivera) that much more in common. Will Karofsky return after the hiatus?
Adler: There’s been nothing said yet. This episode does leave you with a nice optimistic view and a hope for Karofsky’s future that he sees there’s happiness ahead. It will be a long and arduous journey, but at least he’s on that journey now to realize that he can be happy and there are people that are there for him. So it could go either way.

THR: Karofsky inspires the Warblers and New Directions to put their differences aside and move forward. How will Karofsky’s suicide attempt fundamentally change some of the other characters on the show?
Adler: This will open everyone’s minds up and realize that we need to talk to each other. There’s been a lack of communication that’s happened over the last few years and everyone’s kind of afraid to speak up and talk about things without getting fired or getting reamed by the principal or the school district. If one of those kids in the locker room had stood up for Karofsky and said, “Leave this kid alone. What does it matter?” but they can’t because then they’re afraid of being picked on. There are warning signs all along and if someone had just reached out to this kid and talked to him, there could have been a completely different outcome. That’s the message of how everyone will be affected: seeing how serious this can be and how people do cry out for help. If we all stand up for one another and speak out against the negativity, it’s a much stronger bond that we’ll all find ourselves in in the world.

THR: The show as a whole has now told three coming out stories, all in varying degrees and all slightly involving bullying. What do you hope people take away from this storyline?
Adler: The message is that people will start talking about it now and seeing and watching someone experience what it really means to be brutally picked on and have society tell you that who you are is wrong. It shows that there is no wrong. That’s the message of Glee:acceptance and equality. It’s a dual message where victims of bullying can see that society is wrong, not them. They are completely OK with being who they are; there will be people who love them for who they are is the message. On the flipside, to everyone who antagonizes anyone they perceive as minorities that it’s completely uncalled for. I feel like if they see what they’re doing to people, it might make them think twice. If we can save lives with this hour of television or change people’s ways of thinking, which I think we can, then mission accomplished.

“Court overturns Prop. 8 in California, says state can’t ban gay marriage”

Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/court-overturns-prop-8-california-says-state-t-181451250.html

February 7, 2012

The 9th Circuit Court in California struck down the state’s voter-passed ban on gay marriage, ruling 2-1 that it violates the rights of gay Californians.

“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples,” Judge Reinhardt wrote in the decision. The Court concludes that the law violates the 14th Amendment rights of gay couples to equal protection under the law. Gay marriage will still not be allowed in the state, leaving time for Prop 8 defenders to challenge the decision.

The Circuit Court backed up District Judge Judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled in August of 2010 that the state of California has no “rational basis” to single out gay men and women as ineligible for marriage. The group fighting for Proposition 8, which passed in 2008 after thousands of gay couples had already married, appealed Walker’s decision arguing that it should be vacated because Walker is gay and has a long-time same-sex partner. The 9th Circuit Court judges denied this motion.

Walker’s sweeping 2010 decision was called a ”grand slam” by gay rights advocates, who hoped it would convince the Supreme Court to decide that states cannot outlaw gay marriage. But Reinhardt was explicit in his decision that his court’s decision is “narrow” and only relates to California, not to the entire nation. In California, gay people had the right to marry for several months before it was taken away from them by a majority of voters. This amounts to a violation of equal protection because a right was specifically taken away from a minority group, Reinhardt writes. But this argument would not apply to gay people in other states. “It’s a strong decision but it is not the ringing endorsement of broader marriage equality that some might have hoped for,” Hunter College professor and gay rights advocate Kenneth Sherrill said.

The pro-Prop. 8 camp has said it will appeal the decision. The group can now ask that all 11 members of the 9th Circuit hear their case, instead of just the panel of three who decided against them on Tuesday. “Today’s ruling finally clears the field for an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, where we are confident we will be victorious,” the Save Prop 8 campaign said in a statement.

“Over 2,000 march in Hong Kong’s gay pride parade”

Taken from: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hYOorR-D_yky6uVGwv3i5cytLlkA?docId=CNG.cbc3ed79698bb9cab8ad6a92169ceb0c.151

November 12, 2011

HONG KONG — More than 2,000 people marched in Hong Kong’s gay pride parade Saturday, as campaigners called for the enactment of laws to ban discrimination against homosexuals. The crowd, mainly from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community (LGBT), as well as their supporters and sex workers, paraded through the city centre in a carnival-like atmosphere during the hour-long procession.

Armed with rainbow-coloured gay pride flags, penis-shaped soft toys andbanners that proclaimed “Queer is my power”, the group also chanted slogans including “We love gays”. Some activists handed out “finger condoms” to the marchers. The event’s dress code was “sexy and act out” but most were dressed more modestly, with only a handful of marchers clad in colourful outfits. The theme of the parade was “For queer, for love, for equality”.

“We are here today because we want the society to know who we are and we hope they don’t discriminate against the LGBT community,” said Mic Au, a 21-year-old student, wearing a rainbow-coloured wig and face paint. ”I hope the government will enact laws that ban discrimination against homosexuals, at workplace or at schools,” she said, against the backdrop of pop diva Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”, which has become an anthem for LGBT rights.

A large number of gay rights activists from Taiwan and mainland China were also present, as well as campaigners from the non-LGBT community. ”Hong Kong is much more progressive than the rest of Asia, the LGBT groups are getting more prominence here,” said Goki Muthusamy, a Singaporean who moved to Hong Kong three months ago and a first-timer at a pride parade. ”It’s all about visibility of the community. People should support them, just like supporting any women’s groups or philanthropy events,” said the bank official, who attended despite not being a member of the LGBT community.

Despite its reputation as an international financial hub, critics say Hong Kong remains a conservative city when it comes to gay rights, lacking protection for the sexual minority group despite having decriminalised homosexuality in 1991. Gay rights activists were outraged after the government in June hired a psychiatrist who claims homosexuals can be “cured” to train government counsellors, criticising the bid as an “international joke”.

“None of the Above”

Taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/your-money/for-children-of-same-sex-couples-a-student-aid-maze.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

October 14, 2011

It took five attempts for one prospective college student and her mother to fill out the 106-question federal form that would determine whether she would be eligible for financial aid. And that was not just because the form was frustratingly complicated. What tripped them up was the fact that the student had two legal mothers — and the form had room for only one. Further confusing matters, her mothers had since split and married other women; they have six children among them. “It was so stressful and so frustrating to try to fit our family into those forms when so clearly it wasn’t going to fit,” said the student, who is now a senior at a university in Illinois and wanted to remain anonymous to keep her family’s financial affairs private. “You feel like you are lying no matter what you do.”

The aid form, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is the single most important document in determining how much and what type of financial aid students receive. But the form, informally called Fafsa, has not kept up with the changing composition of families, in large part because the federal agency that issues it has to abide by the Defense of Marriage Act, which recognizes only heterosexual marriage. Because these students cannot fully portray their family’s finances, the amount of aid they receive may not fairly reflect their needs. “In some cases, they are robbed of aid they would have otherwise received, and in other instances they benefit from it,” said Crosby Burns, special assistant for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress, a research organization that recently published a report about these issues in the financial aid process.

This is not solely an issue for children of same-sex parents. Any children with unusual family circumstances — whether their parent is in jail, involved in a messy divorce or simply refuses to provide support — can have trouble filling out the form. No numbers are available on the number of students from gay and lesbian families who are affected, though Gary Gates, a demographer with the Williams Institute, which studies sexual orientation law and policy issues, has calculated that about 220,000 children under age 18 are being raised by same-sex parents.

Though it is not immediately clear from the actual form, officials from the Department of Education, which issues it, said that applicants with two married mothers or fathers must fill out the Fafsa as if the couple were divorced. They must choose the legal parent who provides more support, which means that the other parent’s income and assets are often ignored. That can give the impression that the student requires more aid — or less — than one from an identical family headed by heterosexual parents.

Applicants with same-sex partners, meanwhile, may not be able to include their spouses or other dependents on the form. Other gay students, who are now out on their own because their families have cut off support on learning about their sexual orientation, have difficulty establishing themselves as financially independent. (In some instances, however, colleges could choose to include more information provided by the student and include it in their calculations.) “Since most other financial aid depends on the application for federal aid, these distortions will trickle down throughout the entire financial aid application process, even outside the federal government’s support,” Mr. Burns said.

The section of the financial aid form that asks for parental information has two lines: one for the applicant’s father/stepfather and another for mother/stepmother. The form also asks for the parents’ marital status, as well as the applicant’s marital status, using the federal definition. “There is the stigma and indignity of having to list them as divorced, when they are, in fact, not,” said Emily Hecht-McGowan, director of public policy at the Family Equality Council, “It creates confusion and this extra step that children raised by L.G.B.T. parents have to go through,” she added referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.

An undergraduate at Harvard, meanwhile, said his challenge was trying to figure out how to get financial aid while excluding his parents. He said that when he was home during winter break in his sophomore year, he told his parents he could not change his sexual orientation. His parents promptly decided to cut off their financial contribution to his studies, he said, and asked him to leave the family home. (The student wanted to remain anonymous to protect his parents’ identities.) He scraped together the last of his savings to get a plane ticket back to Harvard, and his resident dean helped him find a place to stay for the remainder of the break.

But figuring out how to pay tuition was a bigger hurdle. Students under the age of 24 generally must have their parents fill out the Fafsa, unless they can persuade their institution to grant them independent status, which colleges have the power to do. But the Harvard student said that he was told that the university typically required students to take two years off to be deemed independent. “When I first heard this, I was mildly panicking,” he said. “I had no idea what I could do for two years or where I could do it.”

Ultimately, the university agreed to grant him independent status, as long as he took out about $10,000 in total loans, kept a part-time job, and visited a counselor (which made him uncomfortable, since his only experience with therapists was with those who tried to convince him that he could change his sexuality). He was also required to get a letter from his parents explaining why they cut off financial support — something he knew he could not possibly do.

Eventually, Harvard relented and told him it would not require him to get the letter and allowed him to continue his studies. But college officials did urge him to take a short break to clear his head. “It was a pretty intense series of steps to get into this independent status,” he said. He is taking the current semester off, and will start his senior year in January. “I know if I had been at any other university, I would have had to drop out,” he said, since he had a support system that included his dean. Even so, “It was a pretty excruciating experience.”

Vincent Garcia, director of the scholar relations and selections program at the Point Foundation, which provides scholarships to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students, said he gets calls a couple of times a month from gay and lesbian campus directors, financial aid directors or students who were in similar situations. “The federal government has given the colleges the ability to declare the student independent, but they don’t want to tell them that from the outset because they don’t want to commit the financial aid dollars to someone who suddenly has so much financial need.”

Part of the problem, he said, is that many colleges do not have a protocol for dealing with these students, whether they are abandoned by their families or are from families like the Illinois student with two mothers. In his report, Mr. Burns suggested that the Department of Education investigate whether it could revise its policies to recognize families headed by same-sex couples without violating the Defense of Marriage Act. At the very least, he said, the department could issue guidelines and training materials to financial aid administrators to help the families.

Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of the FinAid and Fastweb Web sites, agreed that “the Fafsa does not provide a lot of guidance for students in such situations.” And if they qualify for less aid, this may make it more difficult for such students to enroll in and graduate from college. He added, “This is especially problematic for children of same-sex parents, since they are discriminated against through no fault of their own.”

“Dealing with gay students, bullying in very different ways”

Taken from: http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/12/us/minneapolis-bullying-schools/index.html

October 12, 2011

Minneapolis (CNN) – Jared Pettingill’s parents wanted a safe place for their son to attend school where he wouldn’t be harassed for being gay. They found that place in the Minneapolis Public School district. ”It’s just been really accepting in my experience,” says Jared, a high school junior. He says he’s “never really dealt with bullying issues” in middle school or high school. ”The amount of positive reaction to LGBT issues is really amazing.”

Minneapolis Public School administrators admit that by no means has bullying been eradicated from their schools. However, they firmly believe that they are leading the way in creating a safe environment for all students. In January, the school board unanimously passed a unique resolution instructing administrators to track bullying incidents related to the harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. The measure also requires all staff to be trained on LGBT issues. It injects LGBT topics into the curriculum, which includes adding an LGBT component to sex ed. They will eventually add an elective high school course on LGBT history.

Just a few miles away, another Minneapolis-area school district has attracted national attention for its policy that deals with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students much differently.

Neutral or not?

The Anoka-Hennepin School District, just outside the Twin Cities, made headlines in recent years after seven students committed suicide in 2009 and 2010. Parents and friends say four of those students were either gay, perceived to be gay or questioning their sexuality. They say, at least two of them were bullied because of their sexuality. The school district says there is no evidence that the suicides were linked to bullying.

Nevertheless, it stirred public debate over the school’s sexual orientation curriculum policy. The district’s curriculum policy, adopted in 2009, bars teachers from taking a position on homosexuality in the classroom and says such matters are best addressed outside of school. It’s become known as the neutrality policy. Anoka-Hennepin, which encompasses the Twin Cities’ northwestern suburbs and is the state’s largest school district, is the only Minnesota school district known to have such a policy.

In July, gay rights advocates filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a group of students challenging the neutrality policy. The Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights told CNN that the lawsuit is currently in mediation. While the school district refrained from commenting on specifics in the lawsuit, it issued a statement in July noting that “Anoka-Hennepin has been recognized as a pro-active leader in the state of Minneosta on bullying prevention.” The school district is also in the middle of a federal investigation into “allegations of harassment and discrimination in the Anoka-Hennepin School District based on sex, including peer-on-peer harassment based on not conforming to gender stereotypes,” according to a district memo.

Superintendent Dennis Carlson says the neutrality policy — which has attracted just as many local supporters as it has critics to heated school board meetings — is a reasonable response to a divided community. ”It’s a diverse community,” Carlson told CNN earlier this year, “and what we’re trying to do, what I’m trying to do as a superintendent, is walk down the middle of the road.” The school district has a separate, comprehensive bullying prohibition policy, and Carlson said there is no link between the suicides and bullying. ”We have no evidence that bullying or harassment took place in any of those cases,” the superintendent said. Carlson emphasized students need to report bullying, and he acknowledged “gay students in our district struggle with bullying and harassment on a daily basis.”

Damon Fietek, 16, knows that all too well. He says he was a target for bullies because his father, a middle school teacher in the Anoka-Hennepin school district, is gay.

Damon’s story

Jefferson Fietek had adopted Damon just before he started high school. The bullying began immediately. Damon Fietek, pictured with his father Jefferson, says he’s been a target for bullies because his dad is gay. ”It upsets me a great deal,” says Fietek, a middle school theater teacher. “For him, being a kid from the foster system … I was just really upset that he wasn’t being allowed to celebrate the fact that he had a family now.”

Damon said the harassment went on for a full year before he even told his dad. ”Students would say stuff to me…like ‘Hey, did your dad rape you last night?’ You know, just make those kinds of jokes at me,” Damon said. The bullying wasn’t just directed at him. He says it was a general hostility toward people who are — or are perceived to be — LGBT or who come from homes where a family member may be LGBT. ”I pulled him out of [that school],” Fietek said.

Damon now attends another school in the Anoka-Hennepin district with smaller class sizes. He says he hasn’t had any problems. Fietek, an adviser to his school’s Gay Straight Alliance, says when he first started working at the school, several teachers suggested he keep his sexuality to himself for his own job security. He decided it didn’t make sense to keep quiet. Risking his job is a gamble he says he has to take because the issue is too important. ”I just compare it to what these kids’ personal stories are, and they’ve got stories far worse than anything that’s happening to me,” Fietek said.

In his adviser role, Fietek says he receives phone calls, texts and Facebook messages several times a week from students who feel like they are at a dead end because of bullying or uncertainty regarding their sexuality. Fietek believes the school district’s neutrality policy has indirectly taken the side of the bullies by not supporting these kids. ”Some of the things we’ve put in place [have] just created a scary environment,” Fietek said.

Making it better

James C. Burroughs II used to bully kids when he was in school, calling other boys “gay” for no particular reason. Jared Pettingill says he hasn’t experienced any bullying at his Minneapolis high school ”If you did something on the athletic field that wasn’t masculine or manly, you’d use the term ‘that’s gay’ or the ‘f’ word — the other ‘f’ word,” Burroughs recalled.

Today, Burroughs is the director of Minneapolis School District’s Office of Equity and Diversity, which seeks to “integrate equity, diversity, and inclusion into all aspects” of the school district. Burroughs says his past is why he believes so passionately in putting an end to bullying, particularly of students who are perceived to be gay. ”What’s important for me is acknowledging that that happened and making it better for another generation of students,” Burroughs said.

The Minneapolis School District has taken many steps to address the issue of bullying LGBT students, including training its staff on tracking bullying of these students, injecting LGBT topics into the curriculum, hosting an “Out4Good” LGBT support program, and implementing a bullying prevention curriculum called Second Step. ”It’s very special,” Burroughs said. “I think we’re a national leader when it comes to making sure that students and families in the school system K-12 are being treated and valued equally amongst all students.” Anti-bullying curriculum is woven into subjects like math, history and literature throughout each day, and staff from the teachers to the bus drivers are trained on how to create role play scenarios, says coordinator Julie Young-Burns. Ultimately it comes down to how each teacher feels they’re best able to infuse the lessons into their already planned lessons on other topics, she says.

High school junior Jared Pettingill says he notices bits and pieces of an LGBT inclusive curriculum on a regular basis. ”In my English class right now, at the end of the year we’re gonna be reading a book called ‘Giovanni’s Room,’ which is all about a bisexual character living in Paris, and it hinges on a lot of his relationships,” he said. ” And there are a couple of other books like that that deal with lesbianism.”

His parents support the school’s proactive stance in teaching tolerance and offering support of LGBT students like their son. However, they say any policy is ultimately “a piece of paper” that won’t work unless the message is embraced by everyone.”It is our public officials, it’s our media, it is each of us individually saying it’s not OK to be hurtful to somebody else,” said Marie Pettingill.”Whether its LGBT or other issues kids experience, they should be able to be safe, and we shouldn’t have to even think that we have to talk about that. Kids should be safe.”

“Lesbian Unified teacher alleges discrimination”

Taken from: http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/article_645ad68a-f332-11e0-8129-001cc4c002e0.html

October 10, 2011

RACINE — A Racine Unified teacher has filed discrimination complaints against the district alleging mistreatment because she is a lesbian.

A state investigator found probable cause the discrimination occurred and Unified tried to reach a settlement with teacher Halli Stewart that included increasing the district’s sexual orientation-based anti-discrimination training and having Stewart sign a letter forbidding her from making any references about her sexual orientation to students. “That (request) is discriminatory in itself because they would never ask a straight person that,” Stewart said. She believed the letter represented more discrimination. She refused to sign it and no settlement agreement happened.

Treated differently

A student in Stewart’s class allegedly threatened to kill her in spring 2010. Stewart, a remedial reading teacher at Mitchell Middle School, had asked the student to pull up his pants; he responded with a threat on her life, she said. Stewart felt unsafe and asked the student be removed from her class. He wasn’t. But when a heterosexual teacher complained about the student, action was taken, Stewart said. It wasn’t the first time Stewart said she felt treated differently because of her sexual orientation. She noticed a pattern and filed a discrimination complaint against Racine Unified.

“In 2011 people should not be treated like this,” said Stewart, 34, a Racine native now of Brookfield.

Stewart claims Leslie Jensen, formerly a principal and assistant principal at Mitchell, 2701 Drexel Ave., knew she was a lesbian and because of that treated her differently than heterosexual staff. Besides not removing the threatening student from Stewart’s class, Jensen also allegedly took issue with Stewart using family medical leave for her domestic partner and punished Stewart for tardiness while late heterosexual teachers saw no consequences, according to Stewart’s complaint, filed Aug. 24, 2010, with the state Department of Workforce Development’s Equal Rights Division.

Jensen, now principal of Red Apple Elementary School, 914 St. Patrick St., did not return calls for comment but said through Unified spokeswoman Stacy Tapp that she feels she’s never discriminated against a staff member. In an Oct. 15, 2010, complaint response, Unified wrote Jensen did not know about Stewart’s sexual orientation during some of the alleged discrimination. Unified also said Jensen did not know the reason for Stewart’s medical leave and through student interviews determined the alleged student threat on Jensen’s life did not occur, among other points.

But a state equal rights officer determined there was “probable cause” that Unified violated state fair employment law by discriminating against Stewart because of her sexual orientation, a Feb. 9, 2011, state determination document shows. “It appears the Complainant’s internal complaints only trigger investigations of the Complainant, rather than attempts to eliminate anti-gay sentiment within the Respondent’s school,” the officer wrote.

Waiting for resolution

Stewart and Unified attempted to reach a settlement agreement with the help of a state mediator.

Settlement terms preliminarily agreed upon included Jensen attending anti-discrimination training and being ordered to refrain from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, according to settlement documents provided by Stewart.

Terms not agreed upon included possible monetary compensation for Stewart between $5,000 and $20,000, and Stewart signing a district-provided letter requiring she “refrain from making any references to your personal sexual orientation to students,” according to the settlement documents.

That language “was suggested to address a specific matter,” according to Unified’s Tapp. She would not disclose what the matter was but said “the district does not permit any staff to discuss their sexual conduct with students.”

Stewart said she would never discuss her “sexual conduct” with students but needs the freedom to discuss her sexual orientation when students inquire. “I had kids that came out and were kicked out of their houses and they needed to know that, one, somebody related and, two, that somebody wasn’t going to be judgmental and they were just going to help them find a safe place,” Stewart said. “I also had quite a few kids that struggled with suicide issues and depression and family acceptance.”

Stewart never signed the letter and no settlement has been reached. The next step is a hearing but one has not been scheduled yet. “People keep saying you could get money out of this. That’s not the problem. The problem is if anybody else is treated like this again,” Stewart said. “I can’t in good conscience walk away from this.”

Rea Carey

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force executive director Rea Carey says a tragic death 16 years ago continues to fuel her fight to ensure the “T” in LGBT is silent no more.

Taken from: http://www.advocate.com/News/News_Features/Injustice_at_Every_Turn/

When I was a young person living in Washington, D.C., in 1995, a well-known local hairstylist was driving home one night and her car hit a tree. Paramedics rushed to the scene and cut off her clothes in an attempt to provide lifesaving medical care.  When they saw that Tyra Hunter was transgender, the medic swore at Ms. Hunter and stopped all medical treatment.

Stopped all medical treatment.

Tyra Hunter died later that night, and today, the discrimination and abuse that caused Tyra Hunter’s entirely preventable death are still firmly in place. I could not help but think of Tyra when I read the following comments that are part of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality’s just-released report, “Injustice at Every Turn.”

“The fear of being the victim of a hate crime has also meant that I haven’t lived completely freely; I know that if people on the street knew that I was born female, I’d be at risk of violence or harassment.”

“People are suffering in my school. There are so many trans kids that just can’t come out because they are afraid.”

“I have been harassed and physically assaulted on the street. One time, I didn’t go to the hospital until I went home, changed [out of feminine] clothes, and then went to the emergency room in male mode. I had a broken collarbone as a result of that attack.”

These are the words of transgender and gender-nonconforming Americans, and sadly, their experiences are not uncommon. The hunger to be visible, to share experiences of harm and resiliency is notable, as this became the largest ever study of its kind. A total of 6,500 transgender and gender-nonconforming people from all 50 states and several territories shared with us their experiences of discrimination.

The data we collected was shocking. I know firsthand, from my friends and my work at the Task Force, that discrimination remains a tragic fact of life for far too many in our community. I know that if we do not act in stereotypical “male” or “female” ways, many take this nonconformity as an open invitation to harass or act violently toward us. Even with all I have seen over the years, the picture coming out of our study is deeply disturbing. Transgender individuals live in poverty at nearly four times the national rate. They are twice as likely to be unemployed. Over 25% reported that they had lost a job due to their transgender identity. They are twice as likely to be homeless, four times more likely to be HIV-positive, and perhaps most appallingly, 41% have attempted suicide, more than 26 times the rate (1.6%) of the general population. These are not problems that any of us who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or civil rights-minded, progressive, or feminist can afford to ignore.

People of color consistently experienced the greatest degree of discrimination, especially African-Americans. They had four times the unemployment rate of the nation, and had over 40 times the general population rate of HIV infection. This must stop. Let us all make this the moment that the civil rights, progressive, feminist, and LGBT rights movements wake up and change the way we do our work. No longer can the needs of transgender and gender-variant people in our society, in our organizations, and in our communities be pushed to the side. It is literally killing people and we must work together to stop it.

While great strides have been made for equality in the last several decades, most recently with the powerful repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the last letter in “LGBT” has simply not seen the same progress. Indeed, the successful repeal of DADT will still not allow out transgender people to serve in the military. Sadly, even some members of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community turn our backs on transgender people. And yet our struggle is one that is shared. Each of us has a gender identity and gender expression. and those of us who diverge from the norm are subject to the same discrimination. Feminine gay men and masculine or androgynous lesbians are far more likely to be discriminated against than gay men and lesbians whose behavior and appearance conforms more to societal norms about how men and women “should” act. Simply by being gay, lesbian, or bisexual, we are breaking society’s rules about what it means to be a man or woman.

Transgender people face this same prejudice, yet taken to the life-threatening extreme. This is about all of us. For those who do not think so, I hope this information will be a wake-up call and an opportunity to examine their feelings and yes, biases, that prevent our community from uniting in the ways we must to achieve equal treatment for all of us.

This report is a clarion call to all of us, and its findings cannot be ignored. We must stand against all forms of discrimination and end injustice for all LGBT people, wherever it exists. Together, we can eliminate this prejudice and work toward a society where we are all truly free to be who we are. There is a role for each of us in reckoning with the pervasive inhumanity we’ve documented in this report. Transgender people are discriminated against because they don’t act or look in a way that fits with conventional ideas about gender. All men, women and children – regardless of how they identify – are hurt by these rigid gender codes. They suppress authentic expression throughout our society and negatively impact relationships across gender, as family, friends, coworkers and spouses “police” acceptable gender expression.

If there was a ray of light in our study findings, it is in the resilience of transgender people and their families. Contrary to popular mythology, transgender people often maintain ties with their families of origin and their spouses, partners and children. We found that family acceptance had a protective affect against suicide, HIV, homelessness and other negative consequences of discrimination for study participants. This finding affirms what we know as advocates working on the front lines: families are enormously burdened by the hostile environments their transgender children, spouses and parents are living in, but they press on. They often strain to find a way out of no way.

Over 1,000 people came to Tyra Hunter’s funeral in DC. Her high school shop teacher, her parents, her clients, and her big, extended family. But no medic was ever disciplined or fired because of what happened that night. This report is written to draw a line in the sand against this pervasive inhumanity in our midst. We all need to use this opportunity to change the way we work and live to create a world that affirms the humanity of and empowers transgender people to fully participate in our society. We must all work strenuously and continuously for justice.