US Southern Baptist Convention passes motion condemning transgender people

The largest Protestant church in the United States has passed a transphobic motion condemning people who undergo procedures to become the gender they feel is correct for them as it elects an anti-gay author its new president

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andrewp

www.gaystarnews.com/article/us-southern-baptist-convention-passes-motion-condemning-transgender-people130614

Sharing the Stories of LGBT Youth: Starfire, 18, From Las Vegas (PHOTO)
We Are the Youth is a photographic journalism project chronicling the individual stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth in the United States. Through photographic portraits and “as told to” interviews in the participants’ own voices, We Are the Youth captures the incredible diversity and uniqueness among the LGBTQ youth population.

Below is the story of Starfire, which is featured in the upcoming book We Are the Youth.

* * * * *

By Starfire, as told to Diana Scholl

I see love in so many different kinds of ways. I would date anyone who catches my interest, anyone who can keep up in a conversation. I’ve dated lots of people. You’ve got to go out and experience the world. I don’t see a reason not to if it’s not going to interfere with my actual life, like getting schoolwork done and getting my future together.

My partner and I have been together a year and three months. He identifies as straight, and it doesn’t bother him that I identify as queer, genderqueer, and polyamorous.

My preferred pronouns are “ze,” “zem,” and “zer.” It’s not so much that I’m gender-neutral. I mix up how I dress all the time. I just put together clothes. I don’t want to put myself in a box, like I have to wear boys’ clothes or I have to wear girls’ clothes. I’m also super-fabulous.

My family knows I like a lot of different people. I live with them, but they’re not in that part of my life. It makes it easier. I’d have to explain it to them, then I’d have to explain it and explain it and explain it again.

I have two older brothers, three stepsisters, and a stepbrother. I had a younger brother who passed away. That happened in 2008. He was 12, and I was 13. It came out of nowhere and hit a lot of people really hard. It was one of those things that made me who I am. I used to be really antisocial. That’s when I started going out and making friends and raving and wanting to be away from my family.

I was raving for two or three years. It was something to do in Vegas. It’s a 24-hour town, and there’s not a lot to do if you’re under 21. Raving was something to do, and people to be around. I stopped mostly because it got filled with little kids and so many drugs, so I didn’t want to be there.

Now I mostly read and hang out with my friends. Sometimes I walk down the Strip or hang out at the LGBT Center. I actually started going there my freshman year of high school. You meet so many different kinds of people that are all together. I’ve made some really great friends there. It’s cool to have people you can talk to. A lot of my friends are in the LGBTQ community. It’s nice to know other people around you know what it’s like to be outside the social binary.

I’m only here a few more months before I go off to college. I’m going to Dixie State College in Utah and will major in psychology. School’s one of those things I’ve always been good at. It’s other things in my life that have led to problems.

Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Las Vegas, Nevada, 2013.

www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-scholl/sharing-the-stories-of-lg_4_b_5485953.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Dominican Republic reiterates ban on gay cops and soldiers

The Dominican Republic’s national chief of police and defense minister have reiterated this week that the country will not allow gays and lesbians to serve in its police force or armed forces

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andrewp

www.gaystarnews.com/article/dominican-republic-reiterates-ban-gay-cops-and-soldiers130614

Ugandan foreign minister elected president of U.N. General Assembly

Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa continues to face questions and criticism from LGBT rights advocates and their supporters after his unanimous election as president of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.

The Associated Press reported that Kutesa has close ties to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who signed the so-called Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law in February that imposes a life sentence upon anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The news agency notes that Kutesa’s daughter is married to the Ugandan president’s son.

Kutesa has also faced corruption and bribery allegations, as the AP reported.

Marianne Møllmann, director of programs for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told the Washington Blade that Kutesa’s role as president of the U.N. General Assembly once he officially takes office in September is to “shepherd the assembly through a year of priorities, with respect for the U.N. Charter and the guiding principles of the organization.” She noted 2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Women’s Conference that focused on the expansion of rights to women around the world.

“Sam Kutesa will not be able to help the General Assembly do its job without dealing with the damaging gender stereotypes that fuel homophobia and transphobia,” Møllman told the Blade. “We wish him the best of luck, and certainly will be most willing to support him in that endeavor.”

New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand both criticized Kutesa’s election. The Human Rights Campaign urged Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss Uganda’s LGBT rights record with Kutesa during their meeting earlier on Thursday.

The State Department did not immediately tell the Blade whether Kerry raised the issue during his meeting with Kutesa. Spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters during her daily press briefing on Thursday that it “would certainly be a disappointing step” if Uganda pursued its “public anti-gay agenda” at the U.N.

“We have been clear about our views on Uganda’s anti-homosexuality act,” said Psaki. “We believe it undermines human rights and human dignity for all persons in Uganda, and certainly if that were to be taken to a larger scale that would be greatly concerning.”

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power also specifically highlighted LGBT rights rights in her statement responding to Kutesa’s election.

“The U.N. Charter places respect for human rights and dignity at its core, and it is the job of the General Assembly — and its president — to uphold these principles,” said Power. “At a time when girls are attacked by radical extremists for asserting their right to an education; representatives of civil society are harassed and even imprisoned for their work; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are endangered for who they are, including by discriminatory laws, the work of the United Nations to advance equality, justice, and dignity for all could not be more urgent. In the face of these challenges, all of us working in and at the United Nations should recommit to vigorously defending these core principles.”

Uganda receives nearly $300 million each year through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to fight the epidemic in the East African country. Kampala in 2013 received more than $485 million in aid from the U.S.

The U.S. and a number of European countries cut aid to Uganda in response to Museveni’s decision to sign the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The World Bank initially delayed a $90 million loan to the Ugandan government that had been earmarked to bolster the East African country’s health care system, but Kampala eventually received the funds.

LGBT rights advocates and HIV/AIDS service providers have come under increased pressure from Ugandan authorities since the Anti-Homosexuality Bill became law.

Police in April raided a U.S.-funded HIV/AIDS service organization in Kampala it said recruited teenage boys and young men “into homosexual practices.” Nikki Mawanda, a trans Ugandan advocate, told the Blade during an interview a few weeks later that anti-LGBT discrimination and violence has increased since Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

“It looks like the community-at-large has taken on the role of doing vigilante [justice,]” he said. “Since the law was signed on the 24th of February, people felt that they should implement the law even before it was gazetted.”

Museveni has repeatedly criticized the U.S. and other donor countries over their decision to cut aid.

A Ugandan government spokesperson did not return the Blade’s request for comment on the controversy surrounding Kutesa’s election as president of the U.N. General Assembly.

“I’m not homophobic,” Kutesa told reporters after his election as the AP reported. “I believe that I’m (the right) person to lead this organization for the next session.”

The U.N. in 2011 adopted a resolution in support of LGBT rights.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over the last year has repeatedly spoken out against anti-LGBT discrimination and violence — including in a speech he gave during an International Olympic Committee meeting in Sochi, Russia, that took place a day before the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova and Brooklyn Nets center Jason Collins are among those who took part in a panel on homophobia and transphobia sports that took place at the U.N. last December on the 65th anniversary of the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The U.N. last July launched a global LGBT rights campaign that features Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin, Bollywood actress Celina Jaitly and other celebrities.

Michael K. Lavers

Ugandan foreign minister elected president of U.N. General Assembly

WATCH: Science Geeks Come Out

The hosts of the popular YouTube series AsapSCIENCE come out as both gay and a couple.

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Brian Andersen

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/people/2014/06/12/watch-science-geeks-come-out

Going From Boys to Men With Our Fathers
As Father’s Day approaches, I think about my father. As boys, our first relationship with a man is with our fathers. This is especially important for gay males, since our adult love relationships will be with other men.

I wrote a chapter on our relationships with our fathers and how they affect our sense of masculinity and our relationships with other men in my book 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Find Real Love.

The day comes when we must go from boy to man with our fathers. When I became a man with my own father, he could not bear it. Sadly, it ended our relationship, but I have never regretted doing it.

My Relationship With My Own Father

The work I urge on my clients began as a result of my own work with my father. I was raised in a female-dominated family where the adults were always trying to make a “man” out of me. They were concerned that all the women might “feminize” me and make me gay, so they would place me with other males, such as my uncles, and encourage me in sports, neither of which I liked. All I wanted was my own father — and I never got him.

Most of the time during my growing-up years, my father was absent from my life. When he was around, what affected me negatively was mostly what didn’t happen and what wasn’t said. As a child and teenager, I was a very verbal and emotional, open about my feelings and thoughts. But early on I perceived that my father wasn’t OK with that aspect of me, so to receive his love and approval, I unconsciously decided to be quiet and go with what I thought was his program.

I sat up at night crying, wondering what it was about me that he didn’t like, as I did not feel loved by him. I thought that perhaps I was unwanted or was just a reminder that his first marriage to my mother had gone bad. I believed he really didn’t love me, and that the reason he never told me was that it would be wrong for a father to say this to his son.

But after I became a therapist and learned more about my father’s formative years, I came to understand that it probably wasn’t personal. Most likely, he gave to me all that he could; perhaps that was all he himself had received as a child. My father is the last of 10 children, so I can imagine the neglect he must have suffered in such a big family. Yet I had to deal with the marginal relationship with him that did impact my forming a male and relational identity.

When I was 3 and my sister was 1, our parents divorced. One year later my father remarried and later had a son with his new wife. As a divorced part-time dad, he was an adequate provider, taking my sister and me for visits each weekend. I remember spending most of my time with his wife while he watched sports on television. To this day I cringe inside when I hear a sporting event on television, especially on weekends.

As I grew older I could no longer hold in the feelings and emotions I felt toward my father, so I tried to tell him. But I did not experience him as receptive; he’d change the subject or tell me he did not want to hear it, saying he felt chastised and attacked. And as a young teenager, I was admittedly aggressive and hurtful at first. I lacked the skills to talk to him, but hurting him was the last thing I meant. Instead, I wanted him to hold me and tell me my hurt feelings and perceptions were justified, even if he felt differently.

Once, when I tried to talk to my father, he walked away from me physically. Another time he packed up my sister and me and took us home. Still another time I was driving him to lunch when I began trying to talk about our relationship. I remember him ordering me to turn the car around and go back home, which I did. Each time he stopped the conversation, I would avoid him until things seemed better between us and it was like nothing had happened.

I wasn’t physically afraid of my father, but I never wanted to make him angry or have him upset with me. I avoided these types of discussions with him, yet I wanted to have my truth out between us. I had so many questions about how he felt with my mother, about leaving me at age 3 and making a new family.

One line in Eminem’s song “Cleaning Out My Closet” refers to his father, who left him at a young age: “I wonder if he even kissed me goodbye.”

I wondered the same thing.

Those were the kinds of conversations I wanted to have with my father. Even if they weren’t things I wanted to hear, I wanted to hear them anyway, because they still stood in my way of having a good and connected relationship with him. I wanted to talk them out because they were negatively impacting my relationship with him. I felt that I was holding on to things he had done and said and needed to get them off my chest, because I knew they were impacting my relationships with other men, both straight and gay, and particularly my ability to find a partner.

At age 37 I began to realize I was carrying part of my father’s baggage, which he’d unintentionally passed onto me as a boy. I needed to give it back. So with the help of the men in a group to which I belonged, I worked on approaching my dad for a heart-to-heart talk.

I met him for lunch, but once he realized this was one of those occasions where I’d talk on a deeper level about my feelings and our relationship, he said, “Joe, I cannot do this.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“The past is over and done with. Can’t you get over it? Can’t we move on?”

“Dad, that’s what I am trying to do. I just need to express my feelings, not just about the past but about the present as well.”

My father shook his head in disappointment and began to rise from his chair. “I’m sorry, son,” he said. “I cannot do this.”

It was then that I went from boy to man. Afraid and yet not afraid at the same time, I stood up and said firmly, “Sit down!”

He looked at me in disbelief. “What did you say?”

I wasn’t going to cower to his disapproval this time. I felt myself coming into my mature masculinity and wanted to talk man-to-man with my father.

“I said, ‘Sit down,’ Dad!”

Silence. The restaurant around us vanished, and mentally I was my 25-year-old self who had turned the car around when he’d demanded that I do so, with my teenage and preteen selves standing beside me. This time my masculine, 37-year-old self wasn’t going to back down. Once more I said, “I am asking you nicely to sit down!” And to my total disbelief, he did.

Shocked, I calmly sat down and firmly began telling my father of my pain, my sorrow, my desire for more from him and with him. Many times as I was talking to him, I thought to myself that even if he wasn’t listening, I had to do this for me. I had to give him back all the baggage he’d passed on to me so that I no longer carried it for him. Secretly I hoped that he was listening, that somehow my pain and my feelings would open up his, to let him connect with me as I’d always dreamed of.

He sat there and listened. He wept, and so did I.

In fact, I realized that so much of what I was saying to him was the exact complaints I had with my partner Mike. I had begun to realize that many of the issues I had with Mike were the result of the unfinished business I had with my father. I listened to myself tell my father things I’d said to Mike over the years. Now I saw that these things were clearly between my father and me, and that I’d projected them onto Mike. I found it comforting that I could go to Mike after this and begin removing these negatives that came from my fathering and exorcise them from our relationship.

After an hour I was finished. My father had hardly said a word. I knew that for him, this had not gone well. He wouldn’t and couldn’t go where I needed him to go with me. But that was OK, because I went by myself. I didn’t attack or blame him, call him names, or humiliate or belittle him. I stayed with the data that existed between us: my feelings and judgments. I had done a “clearing” with him, as I describe in Chapter Six, the chapter on communication. I had purged longstanding issues that had prevented me from maturing from a boy, not only with him but in other areas of my life. I firmly believe that on that day I became a man. I blessed myself.

A strained relationship with your father growing up doesn’t make you gay, as some today still believe. It doesn’t even make you more or less masculine. However, it can interfere with your relationships with other men. And as gay men who want relationships with other men, this is significant. Our fathers were our first encounters with masculinity. We men need their blessings to become men and go out into the world to find male relationships. Lacking their blessing, we can become lost.

Find a way to go from little gay boy to adult gay man for yourself. You will never regret it!

www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-kort-phd/going-from-boys-to-men-with-our-fathers_b_5480610.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Wisconsin attorney general believes clerks could face charges for issuing marriage licenses to gay couples

‘You do have many people in Wisconsin basically taking the law into their own hands and there can be legal repercussions for that’

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Jamesw

www.gaystarnews.com/article/wisconsin-attorney-general-believes-clerks-could-face-charges-issuing-marriage-licenses-gay-

Towletech v.113: Jurassic World, Turing Test, Magic Schoolbus, World's Largest TV

Kyler Geoffroy

www.towleroad.com/2014/06/towletech-v113.html