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Daily Archives: October 16, 2015
Open Question: What are some good pro lgbt religions? I have a friend in a pro church, another in a queer dharma group and another in wicca. Anything else?
Open Question: What are some good pro lgbt religions? I have a friend in a pro church, another in a queer dharma group and another in wicca. Anything else?
The Tragic Loss of Zella Ziona
The Tragic Loss of Zella Ziona
Following initial reports misgendering the victim, homicide detectives reported the murder today of Zella Ziona, a 21-year-old transgender woman murdered Oct. 15 in Montgomery County, Maryland.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/the-tragic-loss-of-zella-ziona?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Writer Dared Suggest That Meth And Condomless Sex Is Creating A Gay Culture of Death. Here’s The Response He Got.
Writer Dared Suggest That Meth And Condomless Sex Is Creating A Gay Culture of Death. Here’s The Response He Got.
Charles Kaiser
In the inaugural issue of the Los Angeles newspaper The Pride, award-winning journalist Charles Kaiser takes on the troubling rise of meth among gay men along with the the abandonment of the condom code in “Will the GreaTesT MomenT in LGBT HisTory Go Down in a Blaze of Meth?”
Kaiser writes:
We live in an extraordinary era, the product of fifty years of astonishing progress. None of us who were sentient in 1970 ever imagined that we could get this far so fast. Now we are Congressmen and Senators, doctors and lawyers, movie directors and psychiatrists, pediatricians, a Secretary of the Army (designate) and a thousand other things that no openly gay person could realistically aspire to back then. As recently as 2001, homosexual acts were still criminal in most American states. In 1989, at the height of the AIDS crisis, Time magazine ran a story wondering if there would be any gay community left in the United States by the time the epidemic was over…
And yet, despite all this progress, a remarkable self destructiveness still afflicts hundreds of thousands of the best and the brightest among us. Once upon a time, we could plausibly blame this kind of behavior on the oppression of the rest of society. Now, not so much. How is it possible that meth is the one thing in the world that straight people are so much smarter about than gay men? How did it become a symbol of glamor and youth for some of us, and a badge of stupidity and poverty for all of them, which is exactly what it should be. How did a scourge that’s already flattened whole stretches of rural Appalachia and countless small towns in working class America, become so desirable for such supposedly sophisticated gay men in smart urban neighborhoods across the country?
Unsurprisingly, the reaction to the article was explosive. So we asked Kaiser, the author of The Gay Metropolis among many books, to come up with a list of what he learned from reader comments and social media, both from ordinary gay people and experts from the HIV-prevention and drug-treatment community.
Here are eight things he learned:
1. Disagreeing with any part of the prevailing dogma produces the same reaction you used to be able to get by ruffling a Trotskyite cell.
2. One must never tell a gay brother that what he is doing to himself can, or probably will, kill him. You will only increase his sense of isolation by doing so. No young gay man wants any advice, so it’s a mortal sin to offer any. All young gay men feel this way, without exception. Everybody knows this! (NOT!)
3. I have a “straight corporate hang up” because I think that some forms of sex — those that include the use of condoms and do not include the use of meth, for example — are actually better than the ones that put one or both partners at risk of permanent addiction, or a very grave disease. Anyone making such a distinction must be “sex negative,” even if he bows to no one in his affection for a culture of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
4. It never occurs to any of these people that some condom-phobia may actually be learned, rather than intrinsic.
5. Anyone who thinks it’s more sensible to use a condom rather than spending $30,000 a year on a pill to prevent HIV infection is hopelessly out of step — not only with the Zeitgeist of the gay community, but with a fundamental American value: taking a pill is always the best solution for every problem. Anyone who prefers a condom to a pill is stigmatizing those who do not — and going way off the script provided by Big Pharma.
6. There is no important distinction to be made between smoking meth and drinking beer.
7. No one living in this bubble ever imagines that anyone could reasonably disagree with anything they believe, mostly because they’ve shouted down their opponents so long ago.
8. If you are among the legions who are certain that a naked penis during anal intercourse is more important than everything else you can do during the act of love, I have a news flash for you: you are a dull and unimaginative lover.
9. My motto remains, as ever:
“What does it matter to be laughed at? The big public, in any case, usually doesn’t see the joke, and if you state your principles clearly and stick to them, it’s wonderful how people come around to you in the end.” — George Orwell
Chris Bull
Victim Number 21: Trans Woman Murdered in Maryland
Victim Number 21: Trans Woman Murdered in Maryland
Police in suburban Washington, D.C. are investigating the murder of 21-year-old Zella Ziona, a transgender woman who was found fatally wounded in an alley near a parking lot between two Montgomery County, Md., shopping centers. She is the 21st trans person murdered in the U.S. in 2015.
A witness who wished to remain anonymous told Washington, D.C. TV station WJLA he saw the gunfire around 5:50 p.m. Thursday.
“I only saw one gun. It just happened so fast, and kind of scary,” said the witness, who claimed to have seen Ziona surrounded by four or five teenagers.
In the midst of an argument, he says one of the teens pulled out a gun and shot Ziona in the head. He said he heard the gunman fire four or five rounds.
”They argued and things happened so fast. I don’t know what they argued for,” the witness told WJLA.
Ziona died at an area hospital around 8:12 p.m. Thursday, said police, who at first identified her as a male and by her birth name, but corrected that report after speaking to her friends and family.
“This is a horrific crime and a tragedy for those who knew Zella,” Gaithersburg police Chief J. Thomas Manger said. “As with all homicides in Montgomery County, we have detectives working around the clock to thoroughly and completely investigate this murder.”
“Detectives do not believe this was a random shooting,” said Montgomery County Police Officer Rick Goodale to WJLA. Detectives are reviewing surveillance video from a nearby laundromat.
Friends of Ziona have been posting online tributes ever since news broke of the shooting.
Live On Forever Zella Ziona ,, Can’t believe it tho pic.twitter.com/BszQF6JVeJ
— StoneyyKash (@_StoneyyT) October 16, 2015
I just cant believe that you are gone @zella_ziona. I love you so much, we was just talking you the other day. I miss already. You helped me become the person that I am today. You encouraged me to be myself when it came to being the that I wanted to become. You helped me know the dos and donts of cross dressing and now you gone. Like forreal tho, you out of all people but its ok because the people that killed you will get theres. I just want to let you know that even though we had our ups and downs. I love you sis and I will never forget what you done for me. #RIPZellaZiona #TheBaddestTranny #KnowThat
A photo posted by ❤Curly-Blondé❤ Love (@ckasuperstar) on
Ziona becomes the 21st transgender woman confirmed murdered in the U.S. in 2015, highlighing why trans advocates continue to decry an “epidemic” of transphobic violence.
A 22-year-old trans woman known as Kiesha Jenkins was murdered on October 6. Ziona, Jenkins and the vast majority of the women killed this year have been transgender women of color. By comparison, 12 transgender women were murdered in all of 2014.
Click here to read more about the 21 transgender women murdered in 2015.
Watch the report on Zella Ziona’s murder from WJLA, below.
Dawn Ennis
www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/10/16/victim-number-21-trans-woman-murdered-maryland
Open Question: List of trolls in LGBT section ?
Open Question: List of trolls in LGBT section ?
Jessica
Clones Don’t Have 400k Pts
Who else ?
HRC Youth Ambassador Jazz Jennings: “I’m One of the Lucky Ones”
HRC Youth Ambassador Jazz Jennings: “I’m One of the Lucky Ones”
You may not know me, but Chad Griffin asked me to share my story with you. Here it goes.
HRC.org
Vatican Priest Fired For Being Gay Calls Coming Out “An Act Of Desperation”
Vatican Priest Fired For Being Gay Calls Coming Out “An Act Of Desperation”
Monsignore Krzysztof Charamsa, the Polish priest who was recently fired from his job on the heels of coming out, claims that his decision to publicly admit his sexuality was “an act of desperation,” reports BBC.
Earlier this month, Monsignore Charamsa came out — and chose the lead-up to a synod (being held in Rome to discuss, among other things, homosexuality) to do it.
“We must think about all families,” he opined, “not only families like my (heterosexual) parents.”
The Vatican described his actions as “very serious and irresponsible” but insisted his dismissal had nothing to do with his homosexuality but was due to the timing of his announcement.
Listen to the segment, which was originally broadcast on 5 Live Breakfast, below:
Jeremy Kinser
Hillary Clinton: ‘Personal Relationships’ Changed My Views on Same-Sex Marriage – WATCH
Hillary Clinton: ‘Personal Relationships’ Changed My Views on Same-Sex Marriage – WATCH
At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Friday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the “evolution” of her views on same-sex marriage, attributing the change to her “personal relationships.”
Clinton made the remarks during a town hall at Keene State College in New Hampshire when responding to an attendee who identified himself as bisexual student and asked her to compare her change in position to others who remained firm in their views.
“Yes my views did evolve, and I think most people my age would say the same thing — there might be some exceptions,” Clinton said. “But largely because of my strong opposition to discrimination of any sort and my personal relationships with a lot of people over the years, I certainly concluded that marriage equality should be the law of the land, and I was thrilled when the Supreme Court made it the law of the land.”
Clinton also used the subject of same-sex marriage to reiterate her support for the Equality Act, calling it her “highest priority”:
“A lot of states now, because of the constitutional decision, you can get married on Saturday and get fired on Monday because we still permit discrimination in employment and in public accommodations…Marriage isn’t the end of the debate, it’s along the path to true equality, and you will be able to count on me to fight for you.”
Clinton came out in favor of marriage equality in 2013, though as The Blade points out, she did not do so during her time as first lady, a U.S. senator from New York or as Secretary of State.
Watch video of Clinton’s remarks, below:
The post Hillary Clinton: ‘Personal Relationships’ Changed My Views on Same-Sex Marriage – WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.
Sean Mandell
Hillary Clinton: ‘Personal Relationships’ Changed My Views on Same-Sex Marriage – WATCH
CandyGirls 118-36
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