21-year old trans woman shot to death in LA while banging on stranger’s door for help

The final moments of Deshawnda Bradley’s life were spent frantically banging on the door of a stranger’s Los Angeles home.

Before anyone could help the 21 year old, someone shot the trans woman to death in LA’s Chesterfield Square neighborhood.

No arrests have been made in the early Wednesday (3 December) morning murder which has left the victim’s family large devastated and the LGBTI community outraged.

From the Advocate:

Sanchez’s death is the latest among what the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs has called an “alarming, fatal epidemic of violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming women, specifically transgender women of color, in the United States.” Sanchez’s case is the third murder, in addition to those of Zoraida Reyes and Aniya Parker, of a trans woman of color in Southern California this year, notes the Los Angeles Times. Around the world, reports of trans women being murdered surface every one or two days. The National LGBTQ Task Force notes that Sanchez’s death marks the 12th reported trans woman of color murdered in the U.S. this year.

Community activists and allies are holding a vigil and rally at 6 p.m. Friday in memory of Sanchez, and have organized a Facebook page to share information about the rally. Participants are asked to gather at Chesterfield Square, 1800 W. Slauson Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90047.

Anyone with information related to Sanchez’s death should call the Los Angeles Police Department’s Criminal Gang Homicide Division at (213) 485-4341.

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 This next story would make me laugh, if only so I don’t cry.

Putin: ‘Russia is not anti-gay, everyone just thinks we are’ 

President Vladimir Putin has claimed Russia is not homophobic, saying the rest of the world has merely branded the country that way.

Oh, so the stories of violence against LGBT people and the anti-gay legislation were what…? Figments of the collective imagination of humanity?

The Russian leader has claimed other countries, such as the US, is actually far more homophobic.

“You do it too” is the response of a child, not a world leader.  That the United States has a problem with anti-gay bigotry (and boy does it), does not therefore mean your country is a shining example of LGBT acceptance.  At the very least the government is actively anti-LGBT (and certainly some of the citizenry are as well).

He was forced to defend his anti-gay laws, the ‘gay propaganda’ law and the ban on people from countries with same-sex marriage adopting Russian children. Putin was speaking with representatives of the Human Rights Council and the Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia today (5 December).

‘Russia is not intending to breach the rights of gays though the priority of the country is a traditional family,’ he claimed.

Intent.

Is.

Not.

Magic.

Whether you intended to or not (and you’re not fooling me for a fucking minute), the end result of your policies is discrimination and oppression of LGBT people.

‘The problem with the rights of gays in Russia is a label put on Russia by other states.’

The president claimed the United States, which technically still has 14 states that ban gay sex (although they are all invalidated under a 2003 Supreme Court ruling), was far more homophobic as ‘[Russia] has no criminal liability’.

‘We have this label that we persecute people with a different sexual orientation, but we do not do so under criminal law,’ he added.

Putin said the country’s legislation is aimed only at protecting children from being influenced and traumatised by propaganda from the LGBTI community.

‘A society that cannot protect its children has no future.’

Who is he kidding? There is no evidence that exposure to LGBT people in any way harms children, the protestations of bigots notwithstanding. Putin is a bigot trying to dress his bigotry up in “think of the children” rhetoric.  Newsflash, fuckface, LGBT people present no harm to children and you’ve produced no evidence in support of such an assertion.  You’re using your hatred…your bigotry…to oppress a marginalized people.  You’re in so deep that you don’t even realize that gay adults were once children too.  And there are many gay children in Russia too.  How do you fight for their rights while simultaneously discriminating against them?

Fucking shitspigot.

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Oh, lovely. More anti-LGBT bigotry.

This time from a Pastor in Michigan:

This week a pastor spoke before the Michigan House in opposition to a proposed non-discrimination bill. His bombastic speech discounted LGBT people’s experiences of discrimination and victimization, and their attempts to gain equality.

Saying it “offended,” him, Pastor Stacy Swimp railed against the very notion of an LGBT civil rights movement, suggesting it is an affront to the African American civil rights movement, as if civil rights are only for Black people.

So the struggle to be recognized as human beings deserving of dignity and equality, as well as the full set of human rights that all other humans have is nothing like the struggles of African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement?  ::Eyeroll::

Pastor Swimp, a long-time anti-gay activist who has claimed same-sex marriage will “destroy the backbone of our society,” on Wednesday preached his message of inequality to lawmakers, suggesting all experiences of inequality must themselves be equal.

These bigots never readjust their beliefs in the face of new evidence.  Marriage Equality exists in more than half the states in the U.S. and some, like Mass. have had it for years.  There’s been NO destruction of society anywhere.  Countries outside the U.S. have marriage equality and they haven’t been destroyed either.

“I ask, has anyone from the LGBT community ever had to stand up or step off of the sidewalk whenever a straight person walked by? Lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, and transgender Americans have never been denied their voting rights, nor have they been denied the right to assemble. No one from the LGBT community has ever had fire hoses turned on them by the police department, they have never had to drink out of an LGBT water fountain. There is no record of LGBT — homosexuals, lesbians being forced to sit at the back of the bus in an LGBT section.”

This “argument” doesn’t even make sense.  LGBT people have to go through the exact same bigotry as Black Americans to count as discrimination?  We’ve been denied housing. We’ve been kicked out of hour homes. We’ve been denied jobs. We’ve been bullied. We’ve been harassed. We’ve been brutally beaten. We’ve been killled.  We’ve experienced multiple forms of bigotry, but because we haven’t had fire hoses turned on us, it doesn’t count?  Thanks for denying the devastating experiences of thousands upon thousands of people.  Nothing says “Jesus” like promoting discrimination and hatred.

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Perform same-sex weddings, get death threats!

The First Metropolitan Community Church in Wichita, Kansas does what churches are supposed to do. They minister to their community. They have a food bank. They perform weddings.

But because the church specifically supports the LGBT community, Reverend Jackie Carter is now the target of anonymous death threats. Daily.

The Wichita Eagle reports, “Some callers tell her ‘to repent so I don’t have to suffer inhumane death at the hands of Satan.’ Others have threatened specific acts of violence. Before the group wedding ceremony last month, two callers threatened to chop off her head and put it on a stake.”

That group wedding Carter mentions was on November 17. Over a dozen same-sex couples married on the courthouse steps, and Carter was an officiant. But that joyous occasion was also marred by hate. A protestor, who can be seen in the video above, screamed, “God says no,” repeatedly.

Carter described another threatening incident, just this week.

“The phone rang and I went to answer the phone and it was just somebody heavy breathing on it. Then somebody rang the door bell and then somebody started throwing rocks at the windows.”

“Honestly, I’m beginning to get more scared every day that this goes on,” Carter says. “I’ve kind of talked myself into trying to be more calm about it and realizing that there are more people out there that are supporting us than threatening harm to us.”

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Gay Music Director Fired for Engagement Files Discrimination Claim

Colin Collette, who said he’d been out within the congregation where he worked for nearly two decades, said this summer that he’d been fired from the church after getting engaged to his partner, Will Nifong.

An August meeting about the matter drew a crowd of 700 people, many of whom stood to applaud Collette when he entered the church. The Holy Family pastor said in a church bulletin that Collette couldn’t be retained as an employee because he’d “publicly endorsed a position in conflict with Church teachings.”

On Thursday, Collette spoke at a press conference about the discrimination complaint.

“It is with deep regret that I have had to pursue this course of action. I have chosen to enter into a marriage, as is my right under Illinois law, and perhaps I can open the door to other men and women who the church has chosen to exclude from the community,” Collette said, the Chicago Tribune reports.

He filed the complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Cook County Commission on Human Rights.

According to the Tribune, the success of Collette’s claim may depend on the interpretation of his former job and whether it is considered a religious/ministerial role, in which case an exemption to antidiscrimination laws could be invoked.

I’m sick of the preferential treatment given religion and religious organizations. They can actively discriminate against people, but because they’re a private religious organization, they’re immune to anti-discrimination laws?  Why should they get that privilege? How do the fucking churches–who believe in nonsense like talking snakes, men who turn water into wine, a 6,000 year old Earth, have a host of bigoted beliefs (to be fair, not all churches do), and generally promote a way of understanding the world that is utterly nonsensical (Hi there FAITH–believing in things for which there is no evidence; believing in god is as much nonsense as believing in unicorns)–benefit society in such a way that they should be immune to anti-discrimination laws?

I wish Collette success, but I don’t have much confidence that he’ll win his lawsuit.