http://loversintransition.tumblr.com/

School Won't Read Transgender Student's Name at Graduation

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:30:27 -0500

School Won't Read Transgender Student's Name at Graduation:

Issak Wolfe’s battle to have his name read at graduation ends on a technicality.

Hold SiriusXM & Clear Channel Accountable For Anti-Trans* Hate

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:01:16 -0500

Hold SiriusXM & Clear Channel Accountable For Anti-Trans* Hate:

Both companies have demonstrated, first through corporate policy, and now through silence, that in their eyes the lives of trans* people simply don’t matter.

Red Lion Area School District Chooses the Low Road

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:30:33 -0500

Red Lion Area School District Chooses the Low Road:

cunnilinguista:

Issak Wolfe, a transgender student at Red Lion School District, graduates today. Graduation day is one of life’s big milestones and cause for celebration. Unfortunately, Issak’s big day will be marred by the fact that the school district has refused to respect his gender identity, and wi…

Today a trans* guy in my county graduates from a high school whose administration has done nothing but harass and humiliate him all year. I’m glad the student body has been supportive but very very sad that a principal’s cissexist ‘discomfort’ is worth more than his humanity.

The UK government's plan for dealing with hate crime

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:01:26 -0500

The UK government's plan for dealing with hate crime:

ace-muslim:

From the article quoted in my last post, I learned that this document from the UK government lists asexuality among four sexual orientations (i.e., heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality). Who knew!

Tales of a Homoromantic Ace

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:30:47 -0500

Tales of a Homoromantic Ace:

queerascake:

An informal, if honest, vlog about a young woman’s experiences as an asexual.

I just found this (I don’t remember how) and by “just found this” I mean I stayed up until 3am watching these so I’m putting it on the queue.

Asexuality Needs to Be Included When We Discuss Sex and Sexuality

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:03:10 -0500

Asexuality Needs to Be Included When We Discuss Sex and Sexuality:

barefootinadress:

Do we leave space for asexuality when we talk to our children and teenagers about sexuality? This could be crucial for a young person trying to come to terms with their asexuality at an age when they would be expected to raging with hormones.

This article includes an AMAZING discussion of why it’s important to talk about asexuality and ace visibility, as well as a bit about how prevalent acephobia is. Excellent read, and if you do identify on the ace spectrum and would be willing to share your story, I’d encourage you to email the researchers! I am! :D

thepoliticalfreakshow: Strange Priorities: This Homophobic...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:31:23 -0500

thepoliticalfreakshow:

Strange Priorities: This Homophobic Bakery Will Cater For Dog Weddings But Not Gay Civil Unions [TW: Anti-Gay Bigotry, Anti-Gay Discrimination, Homophobia]

On May 1, Colorado took a step toward civil-rights progress when it began recognizing same-sex civil unions. There was joy. There was acceptance. And it was a big move for a state that’s had a contentious history with gay rights and that, just seven years ago, saw its voters approve a ban on gay marriage in the state’s constitution. And in 1992, Coloradans approved Amendment 2, a law that would have prohibited gays and lesbians from being a protected class — until it was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1996.

The civil unions have also helped businesses, as the Colorado Springs Gazette reports. But there remain some small-business owners like Christian baker Jack Phillips (above at right), owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in the town of Lakewood, who took one big step backward. Phillips refuses to make wedding cakes for gay weddings, and he’s now the subject of a formal complaint sitting at the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. You can find the formal complaint (courtesy of the ACLU) right here, but here’s the key part:

The law cited in the complaint says that business owners can’t just refuse to serve someone based on who the person is. The law has a specific discrimination clause:

It is a discriminatory practice and unlawful for a person, directly or indirectly, to refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry, the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation …

Note that the law applies to “a person.” Phillips, the baker, makes cakes for dog weddings, just not gay-person weddings. Stephanie Schmalz and her partner, Jeanine, wanted to get some cupcakes to celebrate their commitment ceremony, the ACLU reports, and like several gay couples before them, they were refused. So Schmalz called up Phillips, telling him she was planning a wedding for her dog: “She told him that the dog wedding cake would need to feed 20 people and should be decorated with the names ‘Roscoe’ and ‘Buffy,’” the ACLU writes. “Without hesitation, Phillips quoted her a price and asked how soon she needed it.”

The policy at Masterpiece Cakeshop isn’t new, or reacting to the new Colorado legislation per se. Phillips has actually been telling people since last July that he wouldn’t be supplying baked goods for same-sex celebrations. “Phillips said he isn’t a homophobe, and that he would gladly serve any other baked good to a gay couple — just not a wedding cake,” Fox Denver reported at the time. ”I’m a follower of Jesus Christ, so you could say this is a religious belief,” Phillips told them. We’re assuming the dog wedding of Roscoe and Buffy was a heterosexual wedding, and thus approved — doggy-sex be damned.

Phillips’s hearing won’t arrive until September, but it hasn’t taken long for the fallout to reach the social-media sphere. Though Phillips said business was booming ever since he announced that he wasn’t serving gay wedding cakes, Yelp says otherwise:

And only some of those negative reviews are due to his anti-gay cake policy.

knowhomo: LGBTQ* Pride Flags You Should Know #1: LGBTQ* Pride...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:30:27 -0500

Gay/Lesbian Pride Flag

Bisexual Pride Flag

Pansexual Pride Flag

Asexual Pride Flag

Genderqueer Pride Flag

Intersex Pride Flag

Trans* Pride Flag

Lipstick Lesbian Pride Flag

Bear Pride Flag

Leather Pride Flag

knowhomo:

LGBTQ* Pride Flags You Should Know

#1: LGBTQ* Pride (**first flag in 1978 with 8 colors represented Lesbian/Gay culture)

#2: Bisexual Pride

#3: Pansexual Pride

#4: Asexual/Ace Pride

#5: Genderqueer Pride (click HERE for more information)

#6: Intersex Pride

#7: Trans* Pride

#8: Lipstick Lesbian Pride

#9: Bear Pride (click HERE for more information)

#10: Leather Pride

Putin backs banning adoption by foreign same-sex couples

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:01:31 -0500

Putin backs banning adoption by foreign same-sex couples:

YEKATERINBURG, Russia (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin will back a ban on same-sex couples from abroad adopting Russian children, he said on Tuesday, dismissing Western criticism of the way homosexuality is treated in Russia.

freedomtomarry: If seven decades of commitment isn’t marriage,...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:30:49 -0500

freedomtomarry:

If seven decades of commitment isn’t marriage, I don’t know what is. William Campbell and John Hilton were together in the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, and the 2010s.

Watch this story of their life together.

Gay Teen Left Brain Dead After Attack By Skinheads In Paris

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:02:16 -0500

Gay Teen Left Brain Dead After Attack By Skinheads In Paris

Ellen Talks About The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Her, Which Coincidentally Was Also The Worst

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:30:40 -0500

Ellen Talks About The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Her, Which Coincidentally Was Also The Worst:

Comedians are supposed to tell the truth. When she did it, she changed the world.

fionajdawson: “Like” if you support ALL our troops! #military...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:03:18 -0500

fionajdawson:

“Like” if you support ALL our troops!
#military #LGBT #LGBTAlly #Pride #Pride2013 #NYC @OutServeSLDN
PARTY: www.outserve-SLDN.org/pride2013 (at Rockbar, 185 Christopher Street, NYC)

Not All Trans People Feel "Trapped In The Wrong Body"

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:30:45 -0500

Not All Trans People Feel "Trapped In The Wrong Body":

The guys from Channel 4s hit reality show My Transsexual Summer talk about My Genderation and challenging the media’s obsession with one kind of trans narrative.

Arizona Bathroom Bill Flushed Away – For Now

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:30:25 -0500

Arizona Bathroom Bill Flushed Away – For Now:

transqueery:

An Arizona bill that targeted transgender people wanting to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity has been flushed away in the state legislature – at least for this Legislative session.

Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, whose initial proposal for a so-called “bathroom bill” caused a national uproar in March, told news media on Wednesday that due concerns over the proposal definitions among his caucus, the bill would be shelved for this year.

In Kavanagh’s original proposal, merely using a bathroom would have become a crime if the person using it didn’t have a birth certificate that matched their gender identity – a fairly difficult challenge for transgender people whose home states do not allow updating birth certificates after gender reassignment.

After a national outcry from transgender and LGBT rights organizations, Kavanagh amended the measure so that businesses would have been shielded from civil or criminal liability if they banned transgender people from restrooms that didn’t match the gender they were assigned at birth.

Military benefits for same-sex couples to begin Sept. 1

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 21:01:11 -0500

Military benefits for same-sex couples to begin Sept. 1:

The Pentagon plans to begin issuing identification cards to the same-sex partners of service members beginning Sept. 1, according to an internal personnel Web posting on Thursday.

Same-sex marriage to boost business in Minn. | kare11.com

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 19:30:30 -0500

Same-sex marriage to boost business in Minn. | kare11.com:

gayrailfan:

Illinois is missing out (thanks Madigan!)…but on the other hand, perhaps this is a sign that I should move back to Minnesota and start a marriage-related business?

Photo

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:01:24 -0500

everyoneisgay: Dear friend, I’m writing to tell you, among...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:34:40 -0500

everyoneisgay:

Dear friend,

I’m writing to tell you, among other things, that I am super gay. This may or may not come as a surprise to you. If it does: Surprise! If it does not: You were right all along! Either way: Hooray!

I didn’t want to come out. I don’t want coming out to be a thing that anyone has to do.

A short list of things I’d rather be doing than “thinking about being gay” includes (but is not limited to) writing a song, reading a book, climbing a tree, dancing a jig, and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the zillionth time. Don’t get me wrong - I think it is in the best interest of everyone to strive for a greater understanding of the self. I just wish that being gay (or transgender, or asexual, or fill-in-the-blank here) was as unremarkable to the masses as being left-handed or blonde.

In a perfect world, nobody would have to experience any of the negative side-effects of figuring out that you’re gay, which can include feeling confused, shameful, afraid, lost, or alone. In a perfect world, everyone could just like who they like, and get on with it.

Spoiler alert: We do not live in a perfect world.

I began to realize that I was interested in girls in junior high. At first, it made me uncomfortable. I grew up in a fairly rural, conservative town. I knew exactly one kid who was out at school, and he was harassed on a daily basis. I had always sort of liked feeling different from most of the kids at school – you know, poetry over football and whatnot. But I didn’t want to be THAT different.

My feelings were further complicated by my religious upbringing. My family attended a born-again style church which taught (as many churches do) that homosexuality is a sin. The price of that sin, should you find yourself unable to turn away from it, was to burn in a pit of fiery torment for all eternity. I was an impressionable kid, and hell was advertised to me as very real - and very likely, if I didn’t watch my step. I internalized these ideas as a child and as I grew, they grew with me.

But other growth was happening simultaneously. Over time I got more comfortable with myself, lost a few friends, and made some new ones.When I began my journey as a musician, I decided that I didn’t want to publicly address my sexuality. I didn’t think it was a big deal, or relevant to my job in any way. I also worried that the first word people would associate with me was going to be “gay” instead of “musician.” I didn’t want a non-musical part of myself overshadowing the musical part. Plus I figured it wasn’t anybody’s business.

I still maintain that it is not anybody’s business. I don’t think anyone should have to feel an obligation to come out. I don’t think that outing people is cool. I think every person has the right to privacy, and should be able to share themselves with their friends, their family, and the world at their own pace, in their own time. However, I’ve come to realize in recent months that a big part of my desire to hide this aspect of myself was rooted in those dusty old feelings: that there is something wrong, something bad, something less-than about being gay.

It brings me no pleasure to admit to you that I have felt these feelings. I want to appear strong, because I feel strong now. But at the same time I know it is important - perhaps even the whole point of writing this thing - to make myself vulnerable. Because I know that there are human beings out in the world who understand these feelings but cannot give them a name. I want to tell you that it’s okay to feel messed up. Feeling messed up is a part of life, but it is not the only part. And the only way out of that feeling is through.

This summer I am going to marry my fiancé. Her name is Kristin Russo and she is one half of the team behind EveryoneIsGay.com. Having a firsthand view of the work that she and Dannielle do has been inspiring, and has also made me think more critically about my decision. What kind of a message does it send to a teenager when I avoid a question about my sexuality? Whatever the answer, I’m confident that it is no longer a message I am comfortable sending.

I think it is damaging and isolating for young people to look out into the world and not see a representation of their experience. To encounter others who are like you is to know that you are not alone. Even if you never meet them in real life, these representatives help to contextualize you – they are proof that you are part of something.

You are not an anomaly. You are not a mistake.

I am thankful that in recent years, it has become a bit more common for people from all walks of life to step forward and identify themselves as human beings who also happen to be gay. I am proud to offer my voice to that expanding chorus.

Love,

Jenny

Photo

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:18:07 -0500